A letter from the journal of Lady Alexandra Margaret Quinn, Head Gardener here in the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India, to her friend who was in Constantinople as of this letter. Alex, as she was known, copied her personal correspondence into her Journal. She noted in her will that her letters were to be part of the Estate Library upon her death. She would live to well over one hundred, even longer than her Queen would! She is buried on the Estate beneath her beloved oaks.
Dearest Tessa,
Thank you for your wonderful gift of spices and herbs for the kitchen here! Blackie said that they would certainly be well used. I, for one, am looking forward to cardamom-infused coffee with cream as your description of it sounds wonderful.
I have shipped the botanical society bulletins you requested this past week. The Royal Post said the ship should reach you within the month if the weather holds. I’ve also included professional correspondence from your fellow botanists, as they had far too many questions and requests for me to list here. I think they’re just envious of your receiving sponsorship for your travels and I had to fend off questions about how you got such backing. My, they’re like cats looking at another cat with a new toy!
Speaking of cats, the orange tabby you named Gefjun has lived up to her name as she gave birth this past month to four terribly cute kittens, all of which had very short stump tails. Their colour was quite odd too — a black so deep it looked as though they were made out of the midnight sky at lunar eclipse — with intense green eyes. No idea who their father was as no male cat about here looks like that. And all of the kittens are males, which is very strange.
They’re being raised near to the furnace in the sub-cellar, which is warm enough. More than one of the Several Annies has been derelict in their duties as they’re spending a lot of time down there, but Isabella has been understanding. I’ve put in a claim on one of them, as has Isabella.
Isabella was delighted by The One Thousand and One Nights that you found in the Grand Bazaar and sent her. Fortunately, you knew that she read Turkish, so she’s being pestered by almost all of the Several Annies to read tales to them, which she is delighted to do.
Oh, you’ll be delighted to know that the grape vine stock from Bordeaux is doing well. I think we may be able to do a reasonable champagne within a few years. You were indeed right about the climate being good enough to grow them here. We’ll need help with the pressing and casking, as neither of us knows enough to do it properly!
Lastly Isabella’s futile quest to discover to the identity of Our Patron showed how badly the Journals needed annotating and indexing. Even my beloved Estate Garden Journals need this!
Still missing you, Alex
