JACK OF DIAMONDS, REDUX

CHAPTER 15 edits complete

Photo by Juan Camilo Guarin P on Unsplash

The Gardens of Marlborough Estates were a full acre in size. Broken and discarded paving stones had been used over the years to make the Estate’s endless walking paths. Small benches and cozy alcoves were added later—for reading, talking, perhaps an evening tryst during one of the many Balls—while benches lined the footpaths under the cover of a dozen willow trees. Built nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, it had been neglected for the last fifty. Time had helped establish the natural wonders of the Gardens more readily than any landscaper, or gardener, employed by the Estate could have ever hoped to accomplish.

It had originally been constructed because a small ditch had been dug out of the soft landscape for use as a latrine by workers erecting the estate two hundred years ago. A stream had been diverted from a larger tributary feeding into the Chumley, but had not been properly refilled after the completion of the project. Over time, the area became a large swampy mire.

The Gardens had been built of necessity.

The pond now served as a wading pool for toddlers in the summer, and a skating pond in the winter.

The tiny channel carved into the smooth rolling landscape had eventually formed a pond one hundred feet across. It was eventually re-enforced with brick and mortar, built up, and re-shaped. The ground was gradually pulled away from beneath it, so that now it formed a low laying pool a dozen feet high. The water gathering in the pool above spilling over the edge, cascading onto the rocks of a second pool below. Here, a second stream had been created, with a graded slope of ten feet over the course of one hundred yards. The water pooled around a small, child sized village made up of a dozen of toys buildings—doll houses, and shops, that opened up to reveal hand-made furnishings inside. The houses and buildings sat on top of masonry bricks slick with the moss and lichen of a hundred years. A working water-wheel at the bottom of the stream showered droplets that captured the afternoon sun. 

There were days the pond would see a regalia of paper boats, complete with ceremonies and celebrations. And later—as both the children and the centuries grew—more experimental boats were built in an effort to meet the future demands of the Industrial Revolution. The small sailboats floating down the stream had children laughing behind them, screaming in delight on the banks of the small, narrow stream, eagerly following the boats through the pool to the very edge, where a dozen feet below lay the imaginary city built to entertain the generations.

Chernetsov stepped out of the library, looking up at the clear sky as he strolled across the garden. He looked at the colours of the distant trees dotting the distant landscape. He could see a lark, or something like it—a bird at least, he could see that—soaring silent and solitary, watching for prey.

Perhaps a raptor of some sort, he thought?

He looked across the endless acre of landscape.

My landscape, he reminded himself; all of it’s mine.

It was always nice at this time of the year to remind himself why he liked the Spring instead. He’d had a small, American designed, and locally made, glass encased gazebo erected on a low rise over-looking the Children’s Village. The side panels were made of etched glass, and had recently been set in place in an effort to prepare for the up-coming party—the last party of the season, which always culminated with a drinking party and bragging rights as to who would possess Cromwell’s skull.

Oh God, the party.

He’d forgotten.