61 pages • 2 hours read
The Last Garden in England
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Symbols & Motifs
Highbury House
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses child loss and abuse.
Highbury House represents a bygone era or land ownership by the aristocracy in which a village arranged itself around a large manor home, or castle. This feudal system, where the serfs served the manor lord, eventually gave way to democratic forms of government, but the manor house, or country home, still exists as the hub of many small villages throughout England. While the landed gentry no longer exclusively control local resources or employ the majority of the village residents, their houses function as a central symbol of administrative unity and local esteem.
In this novel, Highbury House also functions as a symbol of personal achievement and self-actualization. For example, when Venetia first arrives to design the garden rooms, she thinks about what this project means to her: “Every garden—every hard-fought commission—feels like a triumph, and I am determined that Highbury House shall be my greatest effort yet” (18). Through her work at Highbury House, Venetia will prove her worth as an artist—moreover, as a female artist ahead of her time.
Later, after her affair with Matthew and subsequent pregnancy loss, Highbury House seems very different: “So much had changed since I’d come to Highbury House. I’d changed” (281). This pattern repeats with all of the characters: Emma, Beth, Stella, and Diana are also changed, in various ways, by Highbury House—and all emerge stronger and more confident in their agency and abilities. Highbury House, and its surrounding village, offers an opportunity for a reinvention of self and a restoration of spirit.
Seasons
Seasonal cycles of birth, death, and rebirth are endemic not only to gardens but also to human existence, making the garden symbolic of nature’s life cycle. This motif runs throughout the novel, from the symbolic titles of each section to the weather reports that head every chapter narrated by Venetia.
While these are genuine accounts of the day’s weather, they also reflect her emotions and moods. For example, as her affair with Matthew develops, she reports on the summer weather: “Hot, dry. This summer will never end” (220). This both indicates her desire—she hopes the affair will never end—and foreshadows its inevitable conclusion. Summer will end, and so will the affair. Later, after Venetia discovers she is pregnant, she gives the same weather report but with a distinctly different tone: “Hot and dry. Will rain ever come again?” (233). She is uncomfortable and distressed over the loss of Matthew; the rain symbolizes potential relief. Once the two are reconciled, the weather appears “Crisp and sunny” (320): A hopeful future awaits.
The events of Parts 1 through 4 symbolically reflect the mood and life cycle stage of the section’s title. For example, “Winter” suggests a time of barrenness, when the land sleeps; this is when Emma first encounters the overgrown gardens due for restoration, and when Venetia is first hired to design the garden rooms. All is frozen, awaiting a thaw. In “Spring,” the flowers and plants begin to bloom, just as the stirrings of new love blossom for the characters. In the “Summer” that follows, passions grow ever more heated—the affair between Venetia and Matthew, the marriage between Beth and Captain Hastings—until tragedy strikes with the accidental death of Robin, Diana’s son. The “Autumn” that follows yields more tragedy and begins with the somberness of mourning, as the die-off continues. Yet, the “Autumn” at the conclusion of the book also represents the resilience of the characters: Just as nature will reemerge after the dormant season, so too will the characters come back from their despair.
Roses
Roses are classically associated with romance, and in the novel, they represent the romance between Venetia and Matthew. It is no coincidence that Matthew’s roses become part of Venetia’s garden project. When the two first discuss roses, she immediately thinks of “the lovers’ garden,” where she “wanted to shock a visitor walking from the calming, feminine plantings [of the tea garden] into a room almost obscene with color” (73). This description evokes sensuality and creates a welcoming atmosphere for the sexual innuendo that follows.
Roses become a euphemism for sex: As the affair develops, Venetia thinks, “I needed yet more roses” (197), and insists on planting different varieties, “lest we ever forget that love is like a red, red rose” (198). Love is organic, like the roses, and bright with passion—sometimes pain, as represented by their thorns. Even as Venetia falls more deeply in love with Matthew, she worries about the consequences.
The names of the roses often reflect gender, and Matthew anthropomorphizes his specimens: “She’s a favorite of mine,” he tells Venetia, speaking of the “Gloire des Mousseux” (76). The couple then works together to create a male-female cultivar, crossing two roses to engender a new one, certainly a prescient metaphor for Venetia’s eventual pregnancy—though it ends in heartbreak. Eventually, the reader learns that the rose will be called “Beautiful Celeste” after their lost daughter. Emma is not privy to the details of Venetia’s pregnancy loss or the rose created by the couple, but she notices that “the pale pink rose […] seemed to pop in places she wouldn’t have expected, never labelled” (251). The memory of Celeste, and the tribute to the love between Venetia and Matthew, shows up everywhere in the garden.
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