"I know." She turned the hoop back and selected another length of thread. "I wanted to. I like having something to do with my hands in the evenings."
He watched her thread the needle, a process which required a brief, fierce squinting effort that made the corner of his mouth turn up. She caught him looking and laughed, a soft sound.
"I know," she said. "It's not dignified."
"I did not say anything."
"You were thinking it loudly."
He was not, in fact, thinking it. He was thinking that her laugh was one of the finest sounds he had heard in a very long time, and that he had grown quietly dependent on it. On the particular quality of her presence in the evenings, the way she talked to him like a person who expected to be spoken to honestly in return. He had not known he was lonely until she arrived. He had not permitted himself to know it.
"Tell me about the garden," she said. She had returned to her embroidery, her voice easy and unhurried. "You mentioned yesterday you had been speaking with Mr. Dobson about the south beds."
"He thinks I am mad."
"Mr. Dobson thinks everyone who does not share his personal vision for the grounds is mad. He's been here longer than the oak trees, and he has strong opinions. What do you want to do?"
Thomas leaned back, watching the fire.
"Clear them. The south beds are half-dead anyway; there is nothing worth saving. I would like to take the whole section back to bare earth and start again. Formal planting closest to the house and then something wilder further out, where it meets the old orchard wall. Your parents had something similar, no?"
She looked up again, genuinely pleased.
"You remembered that."
"It has been the only part of your parents’ home that I have ever heard you speak of in our entire marriage.”
She was quiet for a moment, needle suspended. The fire shifted and resettled.
"Yes," she said at last, softly. "I always felt like I belonged in that garden.”
"I want to build something like that. Something that feels—" He stopped. He was not a man much given to describing feelings. "Something that earns staying in," he finished.
The smile she gave him then was different from her usual ones. Quieter, more considered, as though she were turning something over behind it.
"Then you should build it," she said. "And you should tell Mr. Dobson that his opinion has been noted and you will be proceeding regardless, which I suspect is what you will need to do."
"I suspect you are right." He paused. "Will you help me choose what to plant?"
She looked at him steadily. Something passed across her face that he could not name, and that was gone before he could reach for it.
"I would like that very much," she said.
He nodded, and she returned to her work, and the fire burned between them, and the house was very quiet. He should have gone back to the ledgers. He did not move.
"What would you put in it?" he asked, after a while. "If it were entirely your decision."
She did not look up immediately. Her needle moved twice, three times.
"Roses, obviously. Old ones, not the stiff modern varieties. Something that looks as though it seeded itself there a hundred years ago and simply stayed." She paused. "Lavender along the south-facing wall, where it would get the most sun. Sweet peas, if there is anything to train them up. And I would want something unexpected in the center. Not a fountain, that's too obvious. Maybe a single old apple tree, if there is one to be had. Something with age to it."
"An apple tree in a formal garden."
"An apple tree in the middle, yes. With a bench beneath it." She glanced up briefly. "Do you object?"
"No," he said. "I think I like it."
"Good. Because Mr. Dobson is certainly going to hate it, and it will be useful to have established in advance that it was not my idea."