‘Oh well, okay then . . . silly idea. Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s a nice idea.’

He looked up at her then, his face brightening. ‘Really?’

‘Meet me at the back door by the dining room?’

‘Ah yes, good. Perfect, in fact. Ermm . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ll see you there, then.’

Whatever was she doing, agreeing to meet this strange, awkward fellow? Why on earth would a brainy boffin be the slightest bit interested in a kitchen girl? Although it was hard to tell, he must be at least five years older than her, but so diffident that he often struggled to string a sentence together. Besides, she had no interest in flowers: she could barely tell a dandelion from a daisy. How on earth would they be able to hold a conversation about gardens?

She had already decided to make some excuse about having to get home after all when, at five minutes to five, she caught a glimpse of him pacing the lawn outside the dining-room windows, and didn’t have the heart to turn him down.

Two hours later, as she clambered on to the ferry once more and turned to wave goodbye, she smiled to herself. What a curious couple of hours it had turned out to be; so much more interesting than she’d ever imagined.

It was uncomfortable at first, rather as she’d expected. He was even more tongue-tied than before, and she couldn’t think of anything to fill the silences. For a while they’d just walked together without saying anything. He led her through a dark tunnel that emerged into an extraordinary space, a deep, perfectly round dip in the landscape, its sloping sides brilliant with bright yellow daffodils (she knew that much) dazzling in the evening sunshine.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s quite a sight.’

‘You know the Martello towers?’

She nodded. She’d always known, somehow, that those strange, windowless round towers dotted along the coastline had been built a century before as defences against Napoleon but had never been put to the test. Now they were neglected and slowly disintegrating, shrubs and grass growing out of roofs and walls.

‘There used to be one here too, but they demolished it and built this garden in the foundations.’

The space where the great tower used to stand made a perfect sunken garden, protected from the wind. The paths and flowerbeds were weed-ridden and untidy now, but somehow all the more interesting for that. She remembered, in her childhood, reading a book about children who went through a door and discovered a long-neglected garden which they helped back to life. This place had something of that magic, she felt, as they walked the circular path around the base. She could almost feel her fingers itching to get to work: it would take so little to clear the grass strangling that rose bush, or to pull the weeds out of the gravel beneath her feet.