Welcome, Dear Readers
Here you are, in The Garden and the Gate, the essay series in which we explore the botanical history, traditions, adoption themes, Estate lore, and a glimpse of the Celtic traditions that have found their way into the stories, and selected excerpts from Book Two,
Please wander back to Behind the Hedge for excerpts from Book One, the characters, craft, and more.
Through the Iron Gate: The Rosemere Records
The Garden remembers. The quadrants’ herb rows are well-groomed, but Elizabeth’s private cottage, Rosemere, sealed after her death, has been left to the rough New England winters. The front garden, presses wildly against the locked, century-old shutters. Charles and Cedra have dutifully continued to prune the rare roses in the walled cottage garden, all except the black roses, rampant on the copper downspouts. They seem to linger as if waiting for Elizabeth to return.
When the Silverton Foundation divests two residential cottages on the Estate grounds, Rosemere and the Guest Cottage, Sarah and Helen Caldwell buy Rosemere. Inside, the sallow autumn evening light does not overturn Book One. It deepens it into the darker territory of institutional secrecy.
The Iron Gate has always been there, at the edge of what the Estate shows willingly and what it keeps to itself. In Book Two it is an entrance to a history that was never meant to surface. The records are real. The questions remain: Who was assisted, who was not, and why?
The Rosemere Records were designed to both conceal and reveal.
Much more ahead. See you around the Estate.
Mel and Islay
