by A. M. Howell
“But how sad that the Earl doesn’t come and see his own plants. To have someone collect and grow them for you, but not to visit them,” Clara said.
Robert smiled, then his expression became dreamy and faraway. “I would like to visit where these pineapples are grown. Sometimes I come in here and imagine beaches with silky sand, azure-blue seas that are as warm as a bath, filled with rainbow-coloured fishes and coral.” He sighed heavily, like a weight was attached to his shoulders. “Not much chance of that with a war on though.”
Robert sounded like her father. She wished he would carry on talking, but he was silent now, his head bowed as he sieved the soil through his fingers.
“Is your father at war?” Robert asked suddenly.
Clara’s shoulders stiffened. “He was,” she replied. A soldier in uniform. Marching. She stamped on the thoughts before they took control of her lungs and made it difficult to breathe.
The warm air was thick with silence.
Robert’s fingers stilled. He looked up. “He came back then?”
Clara nodded.
“I’m mostly blind in my left eye – I was born like it. I wouldn’t pass the medical exam if I tried to enlist in the army,” he said. His head was bowed again but Clara thought his cheeks were a little redder than before. “Five of Mr Gilbert’s gardeners have been conscripted. Means lots more work for the rest of us. There’s even talk of women from the village coming to help, as there are so few men.” Robert patted the soil around the base of one of the pineapple plants. “But I’m doing my bit. Today I took a cart of vegetables and fruit from the garden to the military hospital. We’ll be sending four carts a week from now on. The Earl says we must help the war effort.”
An idea was bubbling at the edges of Clara’s brain. Make yourself useful, Mrs Gilbert had said when she arrived. “Could I…help?” Clara asked quietly.
“Help?” said Robert.
“In the gardens. I could…pick apples, or pull vegetables, or something. For the hospital.”
Robert smiled. “Know much about gardening, do you?”
Clara felt the flush in her already hot cheeks deepen. “I could learn.”
Robert’s good eye was thoughtful. “We are short of gardeners.” He tapped a finger on his chin. “Let me talk to your uncle.”
Clara smiled her thanks and turned to leave. “Oh, the boy who works in the gardens. Who is he?”
Robert stood up, brushed the dirt from his palms. “A boy?” A frown puckered his forehead. He took a step towards her. “The only boy who works here is Red the hall boy.”
“Hall boy?”
“You really don’t know how this place works, do you?” said Robert in an amused voice. “Red stokes the boilers, polishes shoes, does the jobs no one else wants to do and earns a pittance for it too.”
“And he’s called Red?” Clara said, scrunching her nose.
“On account of his hair,” Robert said with a grin.
The boy Clara had seen in the gardens at night had not got red hair, she was sure of it.
“What did this boy look like?” asked Robert, his head tilted.
“It must have been my eyes playing tricks. Sometimes I get…nightmares,” she said lightly, hoping that Robert didn’t pick up the waver in her voice.
“Hmm,” said Robert, pushing his hands into his pockets.
At the door, Clara turned. “Please don’t tell Mrs Gilbert I was in here. She asked me…to keep away from the hothouses.”
A flash of something crossed Robert’s face. It was too lightning-quick for Clara to decipher what it meant. “Your secret is safe with me,” he said.
Throwing him a quick smile, Clara pushed through the door, ran up the stone steps and out into the breezy sunshine.
“Oh, and Clara.”
Clara turned.
Robert was standing in the doorway. He pushed his spectacles further up his nose again. “If you do happen across this boy another time, and he turns out not to be one of your nightmares, be sure to let me know.”
Clara stared at him for a second, then gave him a brief nod. Robert did not believe the boy was a figment of her imagination, that much was clear. But something told Clara that she needed to keep this boy a secret from Robert – and everyone else – until she found out exactly who he was and what he was doing in the Earl’s gardens.
How is it possible for time to pass so slowly? mused Clara as she lay on her back in the midst of a swathe of thigh-high wild flowers near the east wall of the gardens. She pulled out a blade of long grass and tried to whistle with it. A low-level screech was all she managed. She sighed and let the grass fall from her fingers.
She had been with the Gilberts for five days (which at that point felt more like five months). There was no school or lessons to keep up with. There was no daily drill in the yard with Mrs Philpott, who back at St Michael’s School would make the girls march endlessly on the spot (while the boys had a much more interesting time being taught how to box). There was no catching up with friends over school lunches (although Clara had to admit she far preferred the Gilberts’ freshly baked loaves, game pies and tongue-tingling pickles to the school’s stodgy bread-and-dripping). As a consequence, her days had already lost their structure and stretched endlessly onwards. It was as if someone had stolen all of her purpose and hidden it just out of sight over the horizon.
She had spent the last few days searching the gardens for the boy she had seen from the attic window. She roamed the centre of the gardens, peeping through the steamy hothouse windows when no one else was around. She had wound her way through the sweet-smelling apple and pear trees, which grew in neat lines along the south-facing walls. She explored the unkept area of the gardens along the eastern wall, a combination of volcano-like compost heaps, the odd pile of rubble and sprouting wild flowers and nettles. But the boy was nowhere. Maybe he had been a vision in one of her nightmares?
She had seen Robert a few times in the gardens. She watched him and the other under-gardeners from a distance, plucking apples from the trees or pushing barrow-loads of vegetable peelings from the Big House down to the compost heaps. The work did not look difficult, but it looked busy, and busy was what she was desperate for.
Once or twice Robert had given her a friendly wave and shouted hello, but he had not come over to chat – or to tell her that Mr Gilbert had agreed to Clara helping in the gardens. The endless free time allowed thoughts of missing home and Mother and Father to creep into her head. She pulled out the envelope from her apron pocket and held it to the sky until it covered the sun. No. This will not do at all. The thoughts of what it might say were horrid and must not be allowed to take hold.
“You rotter! Give me back my net, Constance,” called a chirpy voice.
Clara sat up in a rush, pushing the envelope back into her pocket. Two small girls, maybe seven or eight – both in green dresses with dandelion-yellow sashes, which Clara very much admired – were running across the gardens towards her. The smaller of the two girls was waving two butterfly nets in the air and giggling.
Clara picked up her straw boater (which Mrs Gilbert insisted she carry everywhere with her) and jammed it onto her head.
“Greta, please take control of the girls. It will not do, having them running around on such a warm day and spoiling their dresses. Take them to the summer house for refreshments,” called a slim lady carrying a lace-edged parasol.
Clara saw that another lady was following the first. She was wearing a beige dress with a brown sash. A funny round hat, a little like a biscuit, sat on her severely pulled-back hair. She had seen ladies in similar uniforms pushing prams with sleeping (or sometimes crying) babies in the park at home. She must be the girls’ nanny.
“Look, Mother. A girl hiding in the weeds,” said the girl carrying the nets. The ladies stopped and stared in Clara’s direction.
Clara felt warmth spread up her neck and spill onto her cheeks. She was not hiding, she was just…well, not doing much of anything really
.
The slim lady whispered to the nanny, who was giving Clara a hard and disapproving stare.
Oh dear, thought Clara. What should she do? Should she stand up and tell them she was the Gilberts’ niece. She did not want them to think she was trespassing. But then again, if they were from the Big House, would they even know who the Gilberts were? The other day Mrs Gilbert had said (with a haughty sniff) that she prided herself on being able to undertake her job as housekeeper without being seen or heard by the Earl and his family.
Clara smoothed the wrinkles from her apron and was about to stand up and present herself (deciding it would be ruder not to) when, with a swing of her lacy parasol, the lady turned on her heel and walked away. The nanny quickly gathered up the two gawking girls, like a mother duck rounding up its ducklings, and hurried them off in the direction of the summer house.
Clara lowered herself down to the ground, her boater slipping off her head. She brought her hands to her warm cheeks and breathed in the scent of flowers and soil and fresh air, which soothed away some of her embarrassment. The Earl’s family had more structure to their days than she had – even if it was centred on looking after their dresses and catching poor unsuspecting butterflies. Something had to change soon, or else she felt she might go ever so slightly mad. Perhaps solving the mystery of the elusive boy once and for all would keep her mind occupied until she was sent back home.
After a tea of fresh bread, crumbly cheddar cheese and an assortment of ochre and russet-red pickles (Mr Gilbert telling Clara with a seed of pride in his voice that pickling the garden’s produce was a small way they could ensure the vegetables stretched as far as possible in a time of war), the Gilberts went to sit in the small parlour which had a view of the Earl’s lake.
Clara dried the last of the dishes, wiped her hands on the tea towel and followed them. She hovered at the door. Mrs Gilbert’s fingers were busy knitting with a ball of inky-blue wool. The days might be warm, but the evenings were threaded with an autumn chill and Mr Gilbert had lit a small fire before tea. He sat in front of it, scribbling in a small notebook.
Clara pushed her hands into her apron pockets. “I just wondered…if any letters from Mother have arrived for me?” she asked. Her mother had said she would write often to update Clara on Father’s health. To Clara that meant every day. Yet each day when she asked Mrs Gilbert if any letters had arrived, there were none. Surely Mother would have found time by now to put her thoughts on paper, and locate an envelope and a pillar-red postbox to slip them in? She imagined Mother and Father taking evening strolls along a blustery seafront, seagulls wheeling in the air, Father clutching a newspaper cone of fat chips heavily coated in salt. A wave of homesickness sat on her shoulders like a heavy black cloak as she waited for Mrs Gilbert’s answer.
“No,” said Mrs Gilbert. Her fingers expertly twisted the knitting needles; in and out and around and up and down went the dark wool.
The pockets of Clara’s homesickness cloak filled with rocks.
Mr Gilbert looked up. “Come and sit a while, child,” he said, giving her a warm smile.
Clara’s breath hitched in her throat. She entered the room gingerly, as if she was treading on glass.
There were only two high-backed wooden chairs in the room, and they were both taken. She had not been in the parlour before, except to clean the floors. Every evening after tea she returned to her attic room to read about Mowgli and Baloo’s adventures in The Jungle Book, or to stare out of the window, hoping for another sight of the mysterious boy who she hadn’t seen for the past three days. Where should she sit? On the rug in front of the fire? Clara thought of Neptune, the way he would curl up on Clara’s lap like smoke and purr into the flames. He was being looked after by a neighbour, and must be wondering what had happened to his family, who had all disappeared, one after the other.
The fire crackled and the smell of woodsmoke tickled Clara’s throat as she lowered herself to the rug, hugging her knees to her chest.
Mr Gilbert coughed a ragged cough.
Click-click went Mrs Gilbert’s knitting needles.
The noises and smells should have been soothing, but Clara found them stifling.
“However, I did receive news from your mother yesterday,” Mrs Gilbert said. She placed her knitting on her lap and pulled at the lace collar of her blouse, as if it was too tight around her neck. “You will be here longer than we first thought.”
Clara forced her mouth to stay closed, when all it wanted to do was drop open.
Mr Gilbert’s pencil paused.
Mrs Gilbert picked up the needles again and continued twisting them through the wool.
Clara clasped her own hands together to stop them from shaking. “Is it because of Father? Can I read Mother’s letter? Please?” she asked under her breath.
Mrs Gilbert seemed not to have heard her. Her fingers wound the wool this way and that, having a conversation all of their own.
Mr Gilbert glanced at Mrs Gilbert, then looked away at the fire.
“But what about school?” said Clara anxiously. “If I stay here longer I will fall behind and—”
“You will catch up soon enough when you return home,” Mrs Gilbert interrupted. “I must say that I feel school is rather a luxury in these difficult times.” She reached up to touch her gold necklace with its delicate cross that nestled at the base of her throat. She gave Mr Gilbert a quick glance, but he was not looking at his wife. His eyes were focused on the words in his notebook that were too far away for Clara to read.
Words rose inside Clara’s head like lava in a volcano. I don’t want to get behind at school. Why won’t you let me read my mother’s letter? What are you hiding from me? Is Father getting sicker? Her lips quivered with the effort of keeping the words inside.
Mrs Gilbert cleared her throat. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” Clara found herself saying breathlessly. Her lips seemed to be disconnected from her brain, moving by themselves. “I met Robert a few days ago, one of the under-gardeners. He said he would ask…if I could help gather fruit and vegetables for the military hospital. If I’m not to be at school, then it’s important I do my bit, isn’t it?”
Mr Gilbert looked at Mrs Gilbert.
Mrs Gilbert looked at her knitting needles.
Clara held her breath.
“No,” Mrs Gilbert said curtly.
Mr Gilbert was chewing on the end of his pencil and staring into the fire again.
“But…” said Clara, her voice wavering. Was there to be no explanation, no reason for this decision?
“I said no,” Mrs Gilbert said in a low voice. “Make yourself useful indoors. You can clean the windows tomorrow.”
“Now, Lizzy…” said Mr Gilbert in a soft voice, laying down his pencil and leaning forwards in his chair. “Clara could be a help. Cook’s sent down an extra-long list of produce she needs for meals at the Big House. And there is much to pick and collect for the hospital deliveries. We are so short of men…”
“I said no,” Mrs Gilbert said again, staring at her lap.
Clara didn’t remember how she got into the hall. She did not know whether it was Mr or Mrs Gilbert who shut the parlour door behind her.
Hushed voices came from within.
“Tell her…” (Mr Gilbert.)
“How will telling her possibly help matters?” (Mrs Gilbert.)
“It may help her understand…” (Mr Gilbert.)
Clara heard Mrs Gilbert’s needles and fingers whispering over the wool, like they were trying to twist their secrets into its folds. Numbness climbed Clara’s spine. She opened the door to the gardens and half-fell out onto the step. She pulled in a breath of cool night air, and another and another, until her skin was less tight.
Things were piling up on Clara, like in a game of cards. She turned them over one by one. A boy only seen at night. Mr and Mrs Gilbert’s whispered conversations. Mrs Gilbert’s permanent crossness and her refusal to let Clara read her mother’s letter
. She thought of the jigsaws Father and Mother would buy at Christmas, the family arguments over which they should choose – steam trains or aeroplanes or idyllic wintry village scenes of children building carrot-nosed and coal-eyed snowmen. What would they make of this puzzle?
Clara pressed her lips together. Mother and Father weren’t there. They were in Devon and she knew she mustn’t bother them with things like strange boys and conversations not meant for her ears. But all the same, things were happening which needed answers.
At that moment, there was a scuffle in the gardens, just out of sight beyond the edge of the light spilling from the door. A fox, or something else? Someone else? Clara took a deep breath and stepped into the dark, her heart thumping hard against her ribs. It was time to start putting the pieces of this puzzle together.
Clara had never thought of herself as particularly brave. When she was ten, her friend Elsa had fallen into a well. They had been throwing in pebbles, and in her usual overenthusiastic way, Elsa had thrown herself over the low wall along with a particularly large stone. Clara had frozen as she heard the plop of the stone, followed by a larger and meatier splash as her friend hit the icy water head-first. The thoughts that went through Clara’s head were precisely these:
I must be brave.
I must rescue her.
These thoughts went through Clara’s head several times, but to her extreme annoyance her body refused to translate the thoughts into actions, and all her fingers did was clench and unclench. Clench and unclench. Clara’s body was still frozen when, having heard Elsa’s high-pitched wails, Phillip King arrived with a large stick and pulled Elsa out like an overwrought fish, arms flailing and goosebumped skin dripping. Clara had taken off her jumper and wrapped it around Elsa, soothed her, told her everything would be fine and hurried her home to her anxious mother and a warm bath.
Clara’s fingers had still been clenching and unclenching when her father came to say goodnight that evening. He had placed his hands over hers. His grip was firm and steadying.
