61 pages • 2 hours read
Julia KellyThe Last Garden in England
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Preserving Family History
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses child loss and abuse.
Emma Lovell is tasked with the project of restoring the garden rooms at Highbury House to their former glory, but, in the process, she uncovers connections to the past that reach beyond the horticultural. Emma and the others in the present day, including Sydney Wilcox and Henry Jones, discover that the historical value of the gardens corresponds to their potential for bringing people together, sometimes even creating new iterations of family. The act of restoration, honoring the original work of a gardening pioneer, not only acknowledges the importance of preserving cultural history but also the significance of recovering family chronicles.
Emma eagerly accepts the challenge of renovating the overgrown, and somewhat mysterious, garden rooms. She “loved nothing more than sinking her spade into a restoration” (8), rather than creating a garden specifically for misguided clients—who, more often than not, make requests that cannot be honored (seeding tropical plants in a Scottish climate, for example). Indeed, she thinks of her role at Highbury House in even loftier terms: “She could rewind the clock. Make things right again” (8). Emma will not merely renovate these beautiful gardens, but she will act as their savior, righting the wrongs of history. Later, when her assistant, Charlie, somewhat facetiously suggests that they use a blowtorch to open the locked gate of the winter garden, Emma, of course, refuses: “The owners are very much on the side of restoring history, not destroying it” (44). Each element of the garden rooms provides a clue to its original plans and remains a part of its cultural and—as becomes clear—personal significance.
The gardens connect the various characters throughout the generations even when they are not related by blood. When Emma holds the blueprints in her hands, she is shocked by recognition: “That is Venetia Smith’s handwriting” (65). These plans represent the physical evidence that the past survives into the present, that Emma’s task is not merely to restore the gardens but to revivify Venetia Smith’s memory. Further, the gardens reverberate throughout Highbury’s history: Beth Pedley “ended up becoming an artist of some acclaim in the sixties” (69), and it is her sketches of the garden rooms that also help to guide Emma’s reclamation. Not coincidentally, Beth is the grandmother of Henry Jones, who owns the neighboring farm and becomes Emma’s love interest. Just as Beth falls in love with Captain Hastings in the garden rooms, and Venetia becomes entangled with Matthew over his roses and her designs, so too does Emma restore her sense of romance through her work on the gardens.
When Emma asks Sydney Wilcox, the current owner of Highbury House, why she is so invested in the restoration, her answer is telling: “It deserves to be filled with people and love and laughter again. And the garden, too” (107). This restoration is as much about repairing lives and families as it is about renovating the garden rooms. This reverberates with the story of Sydney’s great-grandmother, Diana Symonds, who nearly lost control over the house and gardens due to grief. However, she knows the importance of inheritance—"This will be his home one day,” she says of her son (123)—which requires the respect and preservation not only of history but also of family. Ironically, however, the son to whom Highbury House is bequeathed is Bobby, not Robin, whom Diana adopts when Robin tragically dies. Sydney’s grandfather is Bobby, and she discovers that she is not biologically related to the Symonds. Nevertheless, Highbury House has become hers, and she inherits this extraordinary family chronicle along with the manor and its gardens. Families, like gardens, are organic units, and they need nurture, and sometimes a bit of renovation, to thrive.
Finally, in the act of restoring the gardens, Emma herself begins to repair her fractured sense of self. Instead of maintaining her isolation, she begins to understand the importance of continuity and rootedness: “Home. The word seemed to fill her chest. She didn’t know why, but she fit in Highbury” (290). Like Beth, Emma begins to build a life—and, implicitly, a family—in the village. When it comes time finally to open the winter garden, Sydney gives the honor to Emma. When Emma protests that the garden is Sydney’s, “Sydney [shakes] her head. ‘You’re the one bringing it back to life’” (339). Indeed, the long history of the house, its gardens, and the many families whose lives intersected there has been rediscovered and reclaimed.
Privilege and Class Mobility
The novel is notable for its preoccupation with class: The moment a character speaks, their socioeconomic status is readily identifiable. Though class often determines the opportunities afforded the characters, the events develop that destabilize conventional roles. Romance blossoms between characters of different class backgrounds; though obstacles abound, their union survives. Characters whose aspirations should be limited by class are routinely given chances to advance, even though there is a cost. Class even informs unexpected interactions between characters: “Chance” implies a fortuitous accident, and breaking those barriers requires good fortune as much as hard work.
The garden rooms at Highbury House owe their existence to privilege. Substantial resources are required to maintain and run a manor house and its gardens. Emma is aware that her employers are wealthy, with the social cachet that this bestows. Sydney’s “voice” is “reminiscent of good schools, lessons at the local riding club, and Saturday cricket on the village green” (6). The distance between them, socially and financially speaking, is vast. Emma comes from ordinary middle-class circumstances, skipping university in favor of establishing her business, while “the Wilcoxes exuded polish, education, class” (7). It is for them that she labors, working with her hands in the soil. Still, as the novel develops, a friendship also forms, particularly between Sydney and Emma, and a mutual respect is engendered. Emma respects Sydney for her commitment to the preservation of the garden’s history, while Sydney respects Emma’s commitment to honoring that singular vision.
When Venetia originally designs the gardens, she promises the Melcourts not to eliminate the older trees on the grounds: “You have mature beech, birch, and hawthorn trees that will lend the property a sense of history,” she tells them (21). This is important to the Melcourts, as they have come by their fortune recently; they need to keep up with the social classes that have inherited money for generations. The older the money, the more respectable the family in this era. History is a way of signaling status and elevating the family name. Venetia assures them that “[t]he garden will tell a story that your guests will be able to enjoy over and over again” (25). The garden will effectively become their avatar, representing their class and privilege, and reflecting the values of those around them.
Even though Venetia is born the daughter of a gentleman, her decision to take on a profession effectively exiles her from that privilege. Therefore, she is careful to reassure her clients that her creation will reflect well on them. Because of this, Mrs. Melcourt considers her an inappropriate match for Matthew. When Venetia asks if Matthew has considered making his gardening hobby into a business, Mrs. Melcourt answers: “My brother is a gentleman, Miss Smith. He has no interest in trade” (72). At the time, professional work was considered vulgar to the upper classes, as leisure was their greatest privilege.
During the war years, when Diana Symonds is in charge of Highbury House, these attitudes change somewhat. Her husband, Murray, worked as a doctor before he is killed on the frontlines. Diana’s role, however, is indicative of how gender intersects with class: Women are still relegated to the home, especially in the upper classes; their only work should be domestic or charitable. Still, she is granted privileges afforded by wealth, as well. Even though rationing is still underway, fresh milk (and eggs and butter) are delivered to Highbury House, honoring the gentleman’s agreement between the manor house and the local farm. As Stella tells Beth—both members of the lower classes—the fresh food is considered “a gift.” Neither is surprised that Highbury House claims such advantages.
Venetia, too, experiences the unequal privileges afforded to men of a certain class status. Women are required to remain unblemished by sexual entanglements, while men are allowed their indiscretions. She notes that “I had overstepped the boundaries of propriety the moment I walked in the gardens at night with a man to whom I was not affianced” (198). That she goes even further than this is indicative not only of her boldness but also of her recklessness. She knows that “[i]t was easier for Matthew. Even with the hint of eccentricity that hung about him like perfume from one of his roses, he had options” (199). On the contrary, her reputation will certainly be ruined if knowledge of the affair is circulated.
Still, as with Emma’s unlikely friendship with Sydney, or Diana’s interest in and eventual adoption of Stella’s nephew, the barriers between classes are eventually broken down. Though Venetia and Matthew must elope in voluntary exile, their bond remains indissoluble despite the risks. Ultimately, the novel suggests that love—whether platonic, romantic, or filial—crosses the seemingly insurmountable chasm between classes.
The Garden as Memory
While the title of the novel is an exaggeration, it signals the central importance of the garden and the generations of work that have gone into its creation and maintenance. There, romances and friendships blossom, tragedy strikes, and deaths are mourned. Each life-altering event that occurs creates a core memory associated with the garden, which comes to embody that memory for the characters.
Especially during World War II, the gardens symbolize sanctuary. Diana visits her garden to escape the weight of her grief, as well as to exorcise the anger she endures over the co-opting of her home: “Diana loved the garden because it was fully her own” (61). She enjoys a sense of ownership there that she does not ever feel quite entitled to with regard to the house (at least until the final chapters). She flees to the garden after her sister-in-law interferes with her household and criticizes her manner of mourning: “Diana set about mastering the clematis once again, but as she did, she found that a little bit of the fury that had driven her out into the garden had passed” (63). She prunes her way to peace, as it were. The soldiers who are sent to Highbury House to heal also find a safe haven in the garden; this usage actually saves the garden from government requisition. Beth, too, discovers the healing powers of its rooms: “In these garden rooms, one could find something close to peace in a time when none was to be had" (89). The idyllic gardens stand in opposition to the hellish experience of war.
In addition, the garden rooms themselves are as varied as the plants that grow there. As Emma first explores the rooms, she takes note of “the lovers’ garden”; “the children’s garden”; “[t]he sculpture garden”; and a “water garden” (11). Each room serves a separate purpose, and as Venetia later admits to Matthew, the garden as a whole symbolizes the phases of a woman’s life: “The tea garden is where polite company comes to meet,” while “[t]he lovers’ garden speaks for itself,” as does the logical next room, the children’s garden (149). The sculpture garden displays images of goddesses, which represent qualities significant to a woman’s life, such as Aphrodite (love), Athena (wisdom), and Hera (marriage). It is a tragic coincidence (or literary license) that Venetia’s pregnancy loss takes place in the children’s garden.
The winter garden, which blooms when the other rooms are dormant, represents the death of the symbolic woman, and it is in that room where memories are kept. At first, it is a source of mystery as Emma begins her restoration; the room is locked, and the key is missing. Emma wonders “[W]hy had it been locked for so long” (43). The mystery deepens when she studies the blueprints of Venetia’s original plans: Some notes have been “rubbed out” and, in another hand, “Celeste’s garden” has been written in (67). This constitutes an erasure of one history that is replaced by another. Over time, it becomes clear that, though the winter garden signifies death, it also stands in memoriam to those who have passed, including Venetia’s daughter and Diana’s son.
In the spirit of the renovation, however, Sydney declares the garden to have a new purpose: “It’s already been a garden for the lost,” she tells the group. “Now I want it to be a place where we can make new, happy memories” (340). Ultimately, the garden rooms at Highbury House will signify an era of new beginnings and fresh hope, as their own regeneration suggests. The personal stories, and larger histories, of all the characters and their extended families come together in this grand garden. As Emma wonders, “What if the celestial connection is this garden?” (341). Indeed, the “celestial connection” represented by the garden rooms at Highbury House pulls all of these wandering bodies into its irresistible orbit. Old memories will be honored as new celebrations are introduced.
