Fiona's Garden Gate
The first time Fiona Murray noticed a gold ribbon tied to her garden gate she had been at Moira Ogilvy’s house for their weekly Tea Day. The biscuits being especially tasty and the sun shining especially bright at her arrival back home, she was put in a delightful mood and instead of rushing into the house to check on her orchids, lingered at the garden gate admiring how well the honeysuckle seemed to be doing this year. When suddenly a beam of light caught her eye, only to discover the source a small, quite lovely, piece of ribbon tied to a board of the crisply painted gate.
“I dare say,” she said aloud and to no one in particular. “Whomever put you here?” and with a girlish giggle, terribly unlike her, she in her 60s and not given to girlish giggles, untied the ribbon and took it with her inside to check on the orchids.
And so, it began, that each week a new ribbon appeared, exactly the same color and tied exactly the same way (which Fiona found quite endearing, predictability being something she very much admired), without fail for nearly one year. At first, the lack of a note or any indication at all was a delight, but over the weeks the mysterious appearances befuddled her. It befuddled the village as well, in part, because she discussed the puzzle with everyone with whom she had business asking if it befuddled them as well and did they have any notion as to whom it could be; Mr. Graham the butcher, Brighid the grocer, Father Duncan, always Moira; even Mr. MacGregor the postman, whom she had only spoken niceties to before and found rather reasonable, another trait she admired in people.
Until one day, while visiting with Moira at her garden gate, discussing this very thing, Mr. MacGregor the postman, came offering,
“Perhaps it’s time to catch the wee beastie in the act.” Fiona, surprising herself with another girlish giggle, noticed that Mr. MacGregor was actually not at all an unpleasant looking man and she quite liked that he called the individual a “wee beastie”, which was as surprising to her that she liked it as was the girlish giggle. “Why don’t you hens hide here in the garden on your Tea Day and see who comes by?” And then without waiting for agreement, tipped his hat and went on his way. Fiona found she liked his confidence as well, and so, on the very next Tea Day, one year to the day when she discovered that first ribbon, she and Moira hid as if a couple of schoolgirls in the Rhododendrons, awaiting Fiona’s mystery caller.
Not able to see with leaves and branches obscuring her view, and Moira taking up considerably more space than was good manners, Moira whispered,
“Do ye think it’s someone ye ken?”
“Well of course, it would have to be, wouldn’t it,” she mused never having considered this thought before, when shockingly Fiona knew precisely who she hoped it would be.
At that very moment, hearing someone at the garden entrance and pushing Rhododendron leaves aside, she found Mr. MacGregor standing at the garden gate, holding a bouquet of Forget-Me-Nots, tied with the very same gold ribbon.
And this time, Fiona didn’t at all mind her girlish giggle.