Shelley and Miss Winstead wandered over to where Jane was sitting, and the housekeeper provided them with pillows as well. Her bobbing presence was daunting, but once the two chairs and bench were filled with sitters, she backed away and disappeared into the house. A moment later, she reappeared with an armload of fragile- looking folding chairs for the rest of the guests.
Joe was following Dr. Eastman and Stefan Eckert as they approached the tall, dense pines. Eastman pulled down a branch and was apparently telling Eckert something about it. Ursula was on her own, bending over to smell every clump of flowers. She was the only one with the nerve or insensitivity to actually touch any of the plants or ornaments. Arnold Waring was also on his own. Jane hadn't realized how barrel-chested the older man was until she saw him moving about. He carefully studied each area of the yard, as if mapping it in his mind.
When he got near Ursula, she all but grabbed him by the lapels to pontificate about something. He nodded several times and eased himself away from her, but she pursued him, still talking. Finally, in desperation, he simply turned his back on her and walked away.
Geneva Jackson, who hadn't been in the class this morning, had joined the group now, and she and the cardboard-stiff Charles Jones were chatting over a Hindu-type sitting stone figure.
“Julie Jackson must be getting better,' Shelley said, 'or Geneva wouldn't be here. I'll have a word with her.”
Left alone with Miss Winstead, Jane asked, 'How long have you known Dr. Eastman?'
“Since a year before he married my cousin Edwina.'
“Oh, you're related then.'
“Barely, I'm glad to say.”
Jane was fascinated by these mysterious hints. 'Miss Winstead, Shelley and I were talking about going to a late lunch together after the tour. Would you like to join us?'
“That would be lovely. You two young women seem to be old friends.'
“We've lived next door to each other for twenty years.
“That surprises me. Someone told me you grew up in a diplomat's family. I thought you'd be used to moving from place to place.”
She and Jane chatted a bit about Jane's childhood, and Miss Winstead contributed that her family had traveled to some of the same cities when she was young. By the time they'd exhausted the subject, the rest of the group had finished their tour of the yard and were moving toward the side yard where they'd entered.
Ursula was approaching Jane, who feared she was coming to help her or ask how she'd enjoyed her dinner last night. Jane fairly sprang to her feet and said to Miss Winstead that they'd better get a move on.
“Certainly,' Miss Winstead said, with a know' ing sparkle in her eyes.
Ten
ursula's
As they pulled up to Ursula's house, Jane was once again surprised. The front lawn was ratty, with some almost bare spots, but Jane's own front yard was nearly as bad. Her son Mike claimed it was because she'd overwatered and caused a fungus. He was bringing something home from the nursery to treat it. Maybe she'd share that information with Ursula. Or maybe she'd be better off keeping quiet. Ursula would probably see another dangerous conspiracy in chemical treatments of lawns.
The house itself wasn't too bad either, a single story that sprawled a bit. The greenhouse at the west end, which looked distinctly homemade with 'found' materials, was something of a blight. But the house itself was painted a pale green with navy trim around the windows and doors and a deep magenta front door. A fairly popular color combination lately. The windowpanes themselves were dirty and streaked, the front door had a small hole in the screen, and the door itself showed dog scratches. But all in all, it wasn't the tumbledown hovel Jane had expected.
They arrived even before Ursula and waited in the minivan for the other car pools to arrive. 'I've invited Miss Winstead to join us for lunch,' Jane said to Shelley.
“I know, so did I,' Shelley responded. 'Where shall we go?”
By the time they'd settled on a restaurant, the rest of the group had pulled up and were getting out of their cars. Ursula was really excited and not even bothering to pick up the items that were falling out of her bags. Shelley picked up a handheld calculator and gave it back to her as they went around the side of the house. Miss Winstead rescued an invitation to some sort of community meeting and likewise returned it.
There was a big wooden door to the backyard that was a little crooked on its hinges, which Ursula had to struggle to open. 'I don't usually come around this way. Sorry,' she said. The door finally creaked back and she made a grand entry gesture that dislodged a butterfly hairpin, which Arnold Waring picked up, grunting with the effort of finding it under an overgrown spirea bush.
When they got to the backyard, there was a cacophony of barking from inside the house. Ursula opened the back door and shouted,
The 'garden' was much like Jane imagined it would be. Completely wild and disorderly. Someflat rocks that looked suspiciously like tombstones lay about, forming rough paths. Somewhere genealogists were wondering where their great-great-aunt Mildred's final memorial had gone.
There was no grass at all, just a jumble of plants and trees and bushes. Mostly too dry. There were holes in the ground where apparently useless plants had been yanked out. And there was an overpowering smell of decay.
“That's the compost pile you smell,' Ursula said proudly. 'I'm surprised I didn't see one in your yard, Dr. Eastman. It's the heart of garden- ing.”
just couldn't smell it,' he said. 'It's hidden behind the pines. And compost piles should never have an odor like this unless you're putting pet waste in it.
Jane wasn't going to risk breaking her other foot taking the full tour, and looked around for a place to sit down. There were two iron benches near the house, but they were white with bird droppings. There must have been about fourteen bird feeders hanging from the eaves. Most of them were empty or had an inch or two residue of mildewed seeds. Only the hummingbird feeder looked fresh, but it didn't have any customers. Jane propped her armpits on the crutches and looked around. She noticed that here and there, dusty electrical wires emerged from the ground and led into one of the areas. Probably some sort of lighting Ursula could turn on at night.
There were a few neat things in the garden when you studied it. A peculiar iron sculpture about four feet high that looked like a bunch of rusted airplane propellers gone awry caught her eye and whimsy.
A statue of a woman, nearly life-sized and graceful, was gently turning from copper to green. Morning glories had climbed her and wreathed her upturned head. Jane wondered if this was coincidental or a product of training them that way.
A stand of bachelor buttons in a deep, eye-watering blue stood solid and proud among a sprinkling of towering bright yellow cosmos with lovely ferny foliage. A tilted, broken wheelbarrow spilled out masses of pink geraniums.
It was, if nothing else, a messy garden with a lot of blighted areas among spots of true beauty.
She heard a little cough behind her and turned to see Charles Jones watching her. 'Aren't you going to walk around and look?' she asked.
He shook his head. 'I don't want to go home with ticks just to see a bunch of rubble.'
“But sometimes rubble is good — in small doses. Look at that big piece of egg-and-dart molding among the pink petunias. That's a good combination,' Jane persisted.
“It's okay, I guess. If you like that sort of clutter,' he said, dismissing Jane's view.
Of course he would hate a garden like this, Jane thought. He was so tidy and crisp and somehow disgustingly clean. She assumed he was a bachelor who would consider sex to be messy and disorganized.
“Is it,' she said, 'that you dislike the garden, or Ursula, or both?'
“Both,' he said without hesitation. 'If I lived next door to this… mess, I'd complain to the city, put up a solid fence, or just move away. Gardens should be things of beauty and precision. Like Dr. Eastman's. Though I don't believe he is really the gardener there.'
“Not high on the chaos theory, are you?' Jane said, trying to make it sound like a joke.
He just stared at her with confusion.
Shelley returned from her tour picking burrs off her slacks. 'Interesting place,' she said to Charles and Jane. 'Can you see the waterfall from here?' She turned and peered back out into the yard. 'No, I guess you can't. It's…
