But for Diana this was more than getting her youth out of her way – she was falling in love.
Douglas would meet her on his bike, around the bend from Moongate, and hand her his own helmet. He had painted a beautiful letter D on the back in black over the bright, fire-engine-red paint.
Diana would run down and meet him, her lies to her parents becoming less creative and embellished with details. She was off to see Helen, she said. She was having lunch with Christina from Mowden Hall. There was an exhibition she wanted to see at the Laing Art Gallery, or a new dress at Fenwicks she needed to try on.
Her father didn’t take much interest in Diana’s life before so she wasn’t expecting him to care now, especially when he was so focused on developing a new line for the shipping company, but this time with aeroplanes.
Diana was free to come and go as she pleased as long as she didn’t bring any shame upon the Graybrook-Moore name.
Douglas had postponed his trip twice now and she was madly hoping he would postpone it forever, she had told Helen when they had a discussion over coffee before Diana met Douglas for a picnic at Plessey Woods.
‘You think he’s going to stay?’ Helen scoffed.
‘Why wouldn’t he?’ asked Diana.
‘Because there’s no future for him here with your parents. They can barely stand that you’re best friends with the gardener’s daughter let alone seeing an unemployed Scottish boy on a motorbike.’
‘He’s going to come back and study when he’s finished his adventure,’ said Diana, which wasn’t strictly true but he might, one day, he had said to her.
But Diana had no idea what he wanted to do if he did study. She had suggested business because in her fantasy he would marry her and then run the business with her father and everyone would be happy.
Douglas had laughed and said he would be no good at business and instead he might do something with his hands like become a mechanic or something.
Helen wasn’t convinced about Douglas while Diana was head over heels for him.
‘If you sleep with him, use a condom,’ said Helen, pushing an envelope towards her across the table.
Diana gasped. ‘Helen,’ she said, but picked it and shoved it in her handbag nonetheless.
‘You know you don’t want anything unexpected,’ Helen reminded her.
Diana was blushing as she took a large sip of her coffee and started to cough.
She and Douglas had made out, a lot. Heavy sessions where she could feel how much he wanted her and he could feel her desire. But he was staying in a room above a pub in Newcastle and she hadn’t imagined losing her virginity to the sound of music from downstairs and the smell of stale beer.
Helen went back to work after her break and Diana met Douglas outside, where he was sitting on his bike, her helmet in his hand, wearing jeans and boots and a large peacoat as the weather was getting cooler in the August days.
‘Ready?’ he asked, patting the rucksack tied to the back of the motorbike.
She smiled as she took the helmet and jumped on the back, her trousers making it easier for her to ride it than in her dresses, where she had to tuck the fabric under her legs so she didn’t show off more than she wanted on the roads of Newcastle.
She put her arms around Douglas and he took off in the directions of the woods.
This would be the day, she decided. The feeling of making such an adult decision was freeing and for the first time she wondered if she might leave Moongate Manor and go on an adventure with Douglas. Once she lost her virginity she could do as she pleased – there was no holding back in her life now.
She squeezed Douglas tighter and she felt the bike pick up speed as they passed the hedges and trees. She was about to be a modern, independent woman, and nothing her mother or father said could change that fact.
12
Amanda
Amanda had spent two days reading the history of the garden at Moongate Manor in the slim volume that Simon had shown her, as well as researching the plants mentioned inside. While she wasn’t familiar with the gardening terms and some of the more specific soil-testing procedures and how to store bulbs, the vision for the garden at Moongate was all there. Diana’s work and the knowledge of her and her co-writer, Peter Buckland, were evident in every page.
But Amanda had to wonder why Diana had let the garden go completely to ruin when she had so clearly loved it beyond measure.
The garden was not formal or contained in strict structures or manicured hedges. It was an ode to nature with wild plantings and a mix of plants that were not usually paired together at the time the garden was designed.
As Amanda read the book, she took notes of the types of plants mentioned, and she made a list to look up in the flower books she had found in the library.
