The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery by Ann Ripley

fountain or waterfall, can do that. Its sound is contentment itself, and on the quietest day, the noise of water falling can mask the clamor of passing autos and make us think we’re in a place far removed from urban life. Both the height of the fall, its volume, and what it strikes—stone, wood, or water—will affect its pitch and resonance. Even the smallest homeowner-created fountain, however, will supply a pleasant cacophony.
    Circulating fountains can be built rather simply and housed in a traditionalfountain, in a large rock that has been drilled out to hold the fountain-head, or in a custom- or home-built backyard waterfall/pool. For about five hundred dollars, the gardener can buy a motor, PVC to line the pool, and enough rock to fashion a six-foot-long water pool with small recirculating falls at the end. Ideally, this and any other water feature should be incorporated in the original garden design, but life is not always programmed so neatly. It is quite easy to add fountains and small waterfalls and have them seem to have been there forever. It involves the art of joinery, in which we either integrate the different garden materials, or contrast them. To integrate a natural little waterfall, for instance, a small berm could be constructed near the existing garden; the waterfall would emerge out of the side of this small hill. Graceful cascades of ornamental grass are excellent for naturalizing the area around a water feature.
    Though some people construct larger fountains and waterfalls, this size would overpower the average yard. A small one is enough. With it, we can enter a sounding garden whose watery clatter shuts out the noises of the everyday world.

Chapter 5

    “I T NEVER HURTS FOR A PLACE LIKE THIS to serve good food,” said Chris, shoving his tall, rangy frame back from the table on the veranda.
    “That’s the understatement of the week,” snapped Jeffrey Freeling. “This food is four stars according to
The New York Times
.”
    Bill, ever the peacemaker, said, “I didn’t know that, but I’d gladly have I thrown my two cents’ worth of commendations in, if the kitchen hadn’t already heard them from the critics.”
    The professor, having escorted Noraon a two-hour journey up and down the hills of the property, had joined their party for dinner, making it six. He was an aloof man, distracted and almost crabby. Louise could see her husband was doing his best to extricate what civility he could from the noted academic.
    But the atmosphere was certainly propitious: Newly arrived clouds were flying picturesquely over a bright moon in the New England sky, giving a sense of electric movement in the firmament. Down on the veranda, handsome hurricane lamps cast romantic shadows on baskets overflowing with blooms in mauve and purple, dramatically accented with blue-leaved, scarlet-flowered “Queen of the Nile” nasturtiums. In the background, Chopin preludes could be heard.
    It was definitely the people who were the problem. There were three tables of six, plus a dozen or so smaller tables for outside dinner guests. By virtue of their late arrival, Mark and Sandy Post, Rod and Dorothy Gasparra, and Bebe Hollowell were forced to sit together at a larger table. The third table was occupied with Barbara Seymour’s relatives and their friends: the Cooleys, Storms, and Landrys.
    Though all was peaceful on the surface, Louise noticed that each group seemed edgy. Bebe Hollowell, like all the women, was dressed up, wearing an attractive sleeveless white dress to emphasize her dark tan. Unfortunately, from the moment she sat down, she overwhelmed the conversation at her table, talking primarily about her deceased husband, Ernie. The tension of the Posts and the Gasparras was evident. Bebe appeared to be everyone’s cross to bear this weekend—both her excessive talking and her cigarettes.
    Jim Cooley had a stern look on his face which seemed to dampen conversation at his table, Louise noted. But while