The Last Garden in England

“Each new garden is like an unread book, its pages brimming with possibility.”

Venetia uses an apt metaphor here to describe her artistic process, reflecting the perspective of the reader. This creates an intimacy between the character—in particular, Venetia, whose story is the only one told in the first person—and the reader. Venetia approaches the gardens as the readers approach the book, as an unread story waiting to be discovered.

“Murray’s grandfather, Arthur Melcourt, had brought in a woman named Venetia Smith to do the design. Even decades later, the effect was breathtaking any month of the year, and Diana was determined to be an excellent caretaker of the grounds. However, after four years at war, she was beginning to admit that bare competence was more realistic.”

Diana inherited the gardens along with the house after her husband’s death. The beauty of her gardens is remarkable in 1944, but the pressures of war disrupt her entire world, which is represented in the garden. Its tranquility proves crucial to its survival: While practicality demands the space be used for food cultivation, the calming atmosphere becomes a site of healing for the wounded soldiers.

“Emma nodded, even though proper preservation should have been her first priority. To be one of the few people in the world to know about a new set of Venetia Smith drawings was extraordinary.”

Emma feels a connection with Venetia, a master gardener to whom Emma looks for inspiration and guidance. Emma wants to preserve the integrity of Venetia’s vision and the memory of her groundbreaking achievements, as much as she wishes to restore the Highbury House garden rooms. When Sydney finds the blueprints, that connection becomes even stronger, as Emma holds the physical evidence of Venetia’s intentions in her hands. This represents the theme of The Garden as Memory.

“‘Still, I think there’s something beautiful about a garden in winter,’ he said.

‘Everything is stripped back and exposed. You can see the structure of the garden,’ I said.

‘Precisely. Although that also means there’s little to hide a garden’s flaws.”

Upon their first meeting, Matthew and Venetia have common views on gardening. This foreshadows Venetia’s designs, wherein the winter garden becomes one of the most detailed and deliberate rooms. This also stands in for the future lovers themselves, who will become vulnerable and exposed in their affair.

“A child in a cook’s care did not harm the heir of the house. She should’ve reminded Bobby of that, but Stella hadn’t thought it was necessary. The separation between people like Bobby and people like Robin was so great, the rules felt self-evident.”

After the fight at school between Bobby and Robin, Stella fears that she and Bobby are at a disadvantage because of their lower-class status. This highlights the theme of Privilege and Class Mobility. She is surprised by Mrs. Symonds’s decision to spare the children physical punishment and employ them in gardens instead. Diana treats the boys as equals, foreshadowing her embracing of Bobby after Robin’s tragic death.

“Beth’s heart sank at the idea of all that beauty sacrificed to the war effort. Each time she made her deliveries for Mr. Penworthy, she risked a little peek at the garden. She didn’t dare go as far as the lake because of the risk of being spotted by the hospital or household staff, but she loved the garden rooms with their surprising little nooks and crannies.”

Except for Stella, all of the women are drawn to the beauty and tranquility of the garden rooms. This emphasizes the Privilege and Class Mobility of those who have access to such gardens—and by extension, to peace and beauty during wartime. Beth is a land girl working a nearby farm, which represents the roles ordinary people take up during the war.

“You strike me as the sort of woman who does whatever she’s set her mind to without waiting for anyone else’s opinion.”

Matthew takes account of Venetia’s personality. When she protests about this assessment, he reminds her that he has witnessed her ability to convince her employers, the Melcourts, to acquiesce to her designs. She “indulges their pretensions” (149), as Matthew puts it, in order to otherwise honor her own artistic intentions. This echoes with Emma more than 100 years later.

“Inside the winter garden’s walls, things seemed quieter, as though the dial of the volume of the entire world had been turned down. A copse of bloodred trees that lined the north wall of the circular garden were covered in pale green new leaves. Everything was still, including the pool of water in the center.”

Both Emma and Beth remark upon the winter garden’s solemn silence, fitting to its purpose as a memorial. The colors invoked here—“bloodred” and “pale green”—ironically but intentionally signify life. This highlights the theme of The Garden as Memory.

“Kissing him feels like turning my face up to the spring sun and luxuriating in the warmth spreading over my skin after months of winter.”

Venetia employs a simile to describe her passion for Matthew. Appropriately, she enlists seasonal weather as a comparison: After the cold winter months, she is warmed by the coming of spring. Just as her love blossoms, so too does the land, highlighting the symbolic nature of the seasons in the novel.

“She stared at him, reservations creeping in. To Graeme, everything was all settled. Yet his proposal had thrown her life into chaos.”

As Diana has already indicated to Beth, marriage often requires sacrifices—most often for women. Diana gives up her music career, as well as evenings out and personal freedom. Eventually, she makes the ultimate sacrifice, losing her husband to war. Beth faces similar potential sacrifices; however, notably, Beth prevails: Graeme survives the war, and Beth will have her home in Highbury. The patterns of history can be disrupted.

“She’d spent so much time closing doors behind her, making sure no one had a key. Yet the chaplain seemed determined to pick open each of those locks and let the sunlight stream in again.”

Like the winter garden, Diana’s heart is kept locked. Here, Father Devlin reminds Diana that she must rediscover her purpose in order to survive. Eventually, Diana allows her heart to thaw in the warmth of Bobby’s love and desperate need for her.

“She knew she should feel something—and she did feel things. She missed her sister. She was furious at the bomb that had fallen on Joan’s flat. She was angry that Joan had died and scampered out of yet another responsibility. But mostly she felt an absence of love for the little boy.”

Stella realizes that she does not have the emotional capacity to care for Bobby as a parent. Her aspirations go far beyond Highbury, and she sees Bobby as an obstacle to her freedom. She also resents her sister, first for escaping Highbury, and then for leaving her with Bobby. Eventually, she acquiesces to do what is best for Bobby, leaving him in Diana’s care.

“Still, she was glad to be in the wilds of the winter garden today. It was peaceful here, which certainly had its appeal, but it was more than that. Different garden rooms had different feelings. The children’s garden was playful with its wildflowers and delicately blossomed cherry trees. The tea garden felt formal and proper.”

Emma finds peace in the winter garden, just as others do. Notably, Venetia’s intentions for the garden rooms persist even after years of neglect: The design and the plants reflect the intentions of each room, from children playing to adults conversing. The garden is not merely a place of beauty, but it is also a place of emotional expression. As Matthew understands, each room represents a phase of a woman’s life.

“She finished the piece, making a note to herself to oil the pedals, and then switched to a Schubert piece she’d once loved. Halfway through, she stopped to shake out her aching hands. Her fingers were moving at half the speed they had when she’d last played years ago.

When an hour later she covered her instrument and let herself out of the music room, she knew she didn’t want to wait that long again.”

Diana returns to her harp after many years. As she plays, she returns to her own vibrancy. She realizes that rediscovering herself is key to returning to life after grief. This gives her agency and the ability to make new connections.

“She could be happy at Highbury—she was convinced of it—and she wasn’t going to let that go on the vague promise of a life uprooting and resettling at army bases across the country. She refused to feel orphaned again.”

Beth determines to convince Captain Hastings to stay in Highbury: She will not experience the dislocation of her youth again. Her use of the term “uprooting” echoes Emma’s later experience of Highbury, where she, too, will put down roots—both literally and figuratively. To foreshadow this, Emma buys plants to place in her backyard.

“She read the letter again, lingering on the passage from Adam Smith to his beloved. Celeste. The heavenly one.”

Adam, Venetia’s brother, recounts the story that his father used to call his mother Celeste, “because being married to her was heaven itself” (255). Emma, reading the letter, does not know that Venetia also named her daughter Celeste. Either way, the winter garden’s name is a fitting memorial, highlighting The Garden as Memory.

“She inclined her head, acknowledging her mother’s snobbery. Truthfully, the Eddings family had made its money in the Napoleonic Wars, and the Symondses had only acquired their wealth when Murray and Cynthia’s mother had married into the family, bringing the Melcourt soap fortune and Highbury House.”

This reveals not only the class stratification that remains prominent in British society—Diana’s family comes from old money, rendering her clan more respectable than her husband’s—but also the complexities of inheritance, highlighting the themes of Privilege and Class Mobility and Preserving Family History. Diana inherits Highbury House even though it was the childhood home of her husband and sister-in-law, while Bobby/Robert will inherit the house from Diana, even though he is not biologically related. Family is fluid, growing organically like the gardens outside.

“My husband had so little regard for my opinion that he went off to fight and then got himself killed. And now my son is dead, and you think I’m being selfish because I’m taking time to grieve? How dare you.”

Diana notes again the sacrifices she endured for the sake of her marriage. Her husband joined the army without even consulting Diana, and now she must manage the household and raise her son on her own. After Robin’s death, Diana feels even more lost; she has sacrificed herself for her family. Now she must rediscover who she is without them.

“This was her first time out of doors since Robin’s death, and the garden was in the midst of its autumnal transformation. Roses were going to hips, and tall grasses were beginning to throw up their willowy buds. The air was crisp, layered with the damp scent of rotting leaves. In a matter of weeks, the trees would begin to change and all of Highbury would begin to go to sleep except the winter garden.”

The transition to autumn is both somber and hopeful: The slow death of the plants and the shedding of the leaves also promise a rebirth in the spring. In contrast, the winter garden continues to bloom throughout the long, cold season, symbolizing that its memories will never be forgotten.

“There it was, her plan held out on a silver platter for her, funded by this woman she’d worked for, for so long. She could go to London. She could work her way into a job that, one day, might let her see those places she’d planned to go for so long. But it would mean turning her back on the one responsibility she should hold most dear.”

Diana’s class privilege affords her the ability to care for Bobby in a way that Stella cannot. Stella remains ambivalent only in her sense of duty to the child. However, it becomes increasingly clear that her resentments outweigh her affection for the boy. The novel makes it clear that she is right to choose her own path since a capable caregiver is present. It highlights the unpopular idea at the time that it is okay for women to choose career over family.

“‘I won’t until I can plant these and see what grows, but I’m fairly confident.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I had been saving them for a wedding present. I had thought to name the new breed ‘Beautiful Venetia,’ after you. Now I wonder how you might feel calling them ‘Beautiful Celeste.’”

Matthew decides to name the cultivar he and Venetia created after their lost daughter. It will stand as a memorial to their child and their union. Fittingly, the pink rose grows all over the garden rooms, in a profusion of love.

“Think about it, Miss Adderton. I can do for him things that you’ll never be able to do. You could never afford to send him to the right schools or give him the right clothes. When he’s older, I can introduce him to the best path in life. I can teach him what he needs to know to succeed. One day, Highbury House will be his. I can make his life extraordinary.”

Even though class barriers are crossed—Bobby will become Robert, elevated from lower to upper class—it is clear that privilege remains firmly in the hands of the landed gentry. Even if Stella becomes a secretary in London with the financial means to travel, she cannot access the pathways of the privileged because of her lower-class status. Class is not merely about money but also legacy.

“A professor who helps me sometimes found this letter from Spencer Smith to Venetia in 1912. ‘Sometimes when you are away I think back to the celestial connection that forever binds me to you. The joy that slipped through our fingers led us to where we are now. I hope you do not hate me for having no regrets, because now I have you.’ Someone wrote on the final garden plans ‘Celeste’s garden’ under the name for this space. What if the celestial connection is this garden?”

Though Emma never truly solves the mystery of Celeste’s garden, her guess is as close as possible. There is a heavenly connection between the tragic losses of Venetia’s daughter and Diana’s son, not to mention the seeds of love that were planted there between Venetia and Matthew and between Beth and Graeme. Emma, too, will find home, security, and potential love, here.