by A. M. Howell
Every window in the house rattled in agreement as the door to the gardens banged shut behind him. Clara stared after him, then placed the bucket and rags down and brushed off her apron.
Fruit had been lost as well as found. Could the stolen pineapples and the found mandarins be connected? She made a decision. As soon as she’d finished cleaning windows, she was going to explore the gardens and see what else she could find out before she visited Will that night. Will seemed to have a keen affection for the plants grown in the hothouses and was likely to be interested (and also upset) to hear about the stolen fruit.
The morning sun bounced from the windows of the hothouses, making Clara squint. The day was as crisp and golden as the apples on the trees. She chewed on a fingernail as she walked past the houses and down a slope to the Earl’s summer house. It was partially built into the garden’s inner walls, which sectioned off the different planting areas, its three huge windows facing the lake. The brick walls continued either side of the summer house, then turned at right angles towards the lake, enclosing a large lawn where Clara could imagine grand summer picnics and moonlit parties taking place. As she stood on the edge of the lawn near the water, she saw a sparkling chandelier hanging from the corniced ceiling of the summer house. Perfect mandarin trees, oranges hanging from them like Christmas baubles, lined the back wall. White wicker chairs were scattered with silky cloudlike cushions. Sunlight reflected off the condensation on the inside of the glass.
A man was sitting on one of the chairs. His head was dipped towards a newspaper spread across his lap. A pipe was resting on the table next to him, small puffs of smoke reaching for the ceiling. There was no sign of the small girls with their nanny or the lady with the parasol who had chivvied them towards the summer house when Clara saw them yesterday. Perhaps the girls were having lessons with a governess in the Big House, learning about exciting things. Clara thought of Elsa and her other friends at school, and a pinch of sadness tightened her throat.
She bowed her head and secured the ribbons on her straw boater, remembering Mrs Gilbert’s instructions about not making eye contact with the Earl. If she was to be staying with Mr and Mrs Gilbert a while longer, then she needed a friend. And she was hopeful she may have found one in Will. And if he was a friend, then maybe he would help her piece together the mystery of the fruit thief.
She remembered him saying that the boiler room was behind the summer house, underground, so she turned back towards the kitchen gardens, heading along the wall on the other side of the summer house lawn until she thought she might be in the right place. Her eyes skirted over a lone wasp dipping and dancing over two barrows of peelings to a low red-brick wall. The gardens here were in sharp contrast to the neatly manicured lawns in front of the summer house. Bales of straw were bursting from the strings tied around their middles and an assortment of rusting gardening tools were scattered across the rough ground. This must be a part of the gardens that the Earl and his family never visited.
Clara walked to the wall and ran her fingers over the bricks. It was then that she saw the steps, hidden from view behind two straw bales. At the foot of the steps was a blue wooden door, the paint cracked and peeling. She stood and gazed down at it. Will had to be in there. Was he sleeping? Maybe drawing in his notebook? Did he know anything about the stolen fruit? Maybe he had heard something while he was roaming the gardens at night? A horrible thought wormed its way into her gut…but before she had time to properly acknowledge it, she heard a voice.
“Alright, Miss?”
Clara swivelled around. A man and his small brown-and-white spaniel were standing there looking at her. The dog’s head was tilted as if it wanted to ask Clara a question too, its pink tongue lolling. The man was chewing noisily on an apple, which was almost down to the core. He spat a pip onto the grass. The dog sniffed at it. “I’m George. One of the gamekeepers,” the man said. “I’ve seen you about. I’m guessing you’re Alfred’s niece?”
Clara nodded, her fingers fizzing. Was George wondering what she was doing there? Did he know about Will?
“I’m just back from the woods. It’s the start of the pheasant season,” George said. “Although I reckon all that rifle fire in the nights is scaring them off. Didn’t catch a thing this morning.”
“Oh,” replied Clara, staring at the gun he was carrying over his left shoulder. “You shoot…just birds?”
“Birds and deer – sometimes rabbits too. The Earl does like a slice of Cook’s rabbit-and-rosemary pie. But we can’t be choosy now, what with the war and so many men gone. Only ten men working on the estate now – used to be six times that.” George sighed heavily, reached down and tickled between his spaniel’s ears.
All those people to look after one Earl and his family, Clara thought. What would it be like to have people hunting, gardening, cooking and cleaning for you each and every day?
George looked over Clara’s shoulder down the steps. “You were looking at the boiler house?” His dog scampered down the steps and began scrabbling at the door. Click-click-click went the dog’s nails against the wood. It whined and click-clicked some more. George frowned. “Tiger, come back here,” he said, giving the dog a whistle. But Tiger (who definitely did not live up to his name in looks) continued to ignore him.
“Tiger,” called Clara. “Come on, boy.” Maybe it could smell Will or hear him coughing? If George followed Tiger and started to investigate…
“It’s a girl dog,” George said tartly.
Boy, girl, did it matter? That dog needed to leave the door alone.
Clara ran down the steps and scooped Tiger up into her arms. The dog protested and wriggled like a furry eel.
“Careful, she bites,” called George.
Clara held Tiger at arm’s length, while the dog’s jaws gnashed and nipped at Clara without success. “If only it had been you in my nightmare, maybe I wouldn’t have been so scared, and Mrs Gilbert would not have lost her hair,” Clara murmured. The dog quietened and regarded her steadily. Then it yawned, its body going limp. Clara held the dog closer to her chest; it turned its head and licked her hand. Its tongue was rough and wet and made Clara giggle.
“She likes you,” George said, tilting his head. At the top of the steps he took the dog from Clara and fondled its ears. “Nothing but trouble, this one,” he said softly. “Quite useless as a hunter, but can’t bear to get rid of the wee thing.” His eyes flicked to the steps again. “What are you doing down this part of the gardens, anyway?”
Clara’s brain whirred. She walked to one of the barrows of peelings, swatted away two more wasps which had come to join their friend, and lifted the handles. “I was about to take this to the compost,” she said. The muscles in her arms groaned as she lifted the handles. She pushed it forward and it wobbled to the side, spilling peelings onto the grass. The metal handles dug into her fingers, which were already red-raw and cracked from washing windows all morning.
“What’s going on?” Robert had appeared and set down the bale of straw he had been carrying on his shoulders.
“She’s taking it to the compost,” George said, throwing his apple core into the barrow.
Clara grunted as she tried to steer the barrow along the grass path towards the east wall where she’d seen the compost heaps on her wanderings, Tiger dancing and yapping around her feet.
“Clara?” Mr Gilbert came striding towards her, his face rosy.
“She’s taking it to the compost,” said George and Robert at the exact same time.
Clara could feel her cheeks flushing. She dropped the barrow with a whump and wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m just trying to be…useful,” she said.
“Here, let me,” Robert said, taking the handles from her.
“No, I can do it,” Clara said. The barrow shook and swayed along the grass as Clara gritted her teeth, the three men following behind, picking up fallen peelings and throwing them back in the barrow as she heaved and pushed.
At last the compost heap was i
n sight. Robert stepped forward to help Clara tip the barrow. “No, let me,” Clara said breathlessly. The barrow tipped, the contents splurging onto the pile of decaying, sweet-smelling mulch.
From the corner of her eye she saw Mr Gilbert’s lips were quirked into the smallest of smiles. “You’ll find a wicker basket beyond the orchard against the back wall. Only pick the ripest of apples. A gentle tug and they should come loose. Tell Robert when you are done, he can load them onto the cart for the hospital.” Giving Clara a quick nod, he strode back down the hill.
Robert grinned. “Looks like you’ll be helping in the gardens then,” he said. “I’m glad. You’re a hard worker. I think we will get along well enough.”
Clara grinned, bent down and stroked Tiger, who was still sniffing around her feet. George tipped his cap, whistled his dog and walked on.
Clara’s shoulders ached. Her head was hot under her hat. Her thumb had a blister from clenching the handles of the barrow. Still, it felt good to be outside with everyone else – actually doing something to help the war effort.
But then that horrible wormlike thought that had been burrowing into her since she’d stood outside the boiler house returned. Will had asked Clara to keep his presence a secret. And what if there was more than one reason he was so keen to stay hidden? Could he have something to do with the missing fruit?
That evening Clara curled up on her bed, thinking about Will. She had stumbled across him in a hothouse. He kept leaves from exotic plants in his notebook. He was alone in the gardens at night, which gave him the perfect opportunity to steal some of the fruit. But then again, he had seemed as upset as she was at the limes knocked off the little tree. And why on earth would he want to steal anything, especially if that might give him away? Her mouth was paper-dry from all the thinking. She drained the last of the water in her tin mug and glanced at the watch Father had given her for her last birthday. 10 p.m. Her aunt and uncle were early risers and so were normally in bed by now. Clara crept downstairs, pausing on the landing to listen for their snores.
Mr Gilbert’s nasal warble curled under the door. Mrs Gilbert’s didn’t. A blade of light was spilling out from under the next door along, that of the locked woodland room. Clara silently placed the mug down, kneeled in front of the keyhole and peeped inside. Mrs Gilbert was sitting at the bureau in her white nightdress, her hair twisted over one shoulder, her hand busy writing. She stopped, tipped her face to the ceiling and massaged the back of her neck. Her fingers pulled and stretched the skin, as if she was kneading a lump of dough. “What am I to do? This can’t go on,” she murmured.
Clara pressed herself closer to the keyhole, the metal hard and cool against her face.
Mrs Gilbert folded the piece of paper and slipped it into an envelope. It was a letter. Was she writing back to Clara’s mother? Could the heap of other envelopes on the bureau be six days’ worth of letters from her mother?
An itchy scratch tickled the back of Clara’s throat. An odd feeling was building behind her nose, like bubbles. The feeling grew bigger and bigger until Clara knew there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her knees dropped to the floor with a bump. She pinched her nose hard. Her sneeze was a cross between a hiccup and the sort of noise she imagined a hippopotamus might make if its nose was tickled.
The scrape of a chair being pushed back. Bare feet padding over wood.
Clara stood up in a rush and banged her elbow on the doorknob, which gave an insistent judder. Oh dear, she thought, rubbing her funny bone.
The door swung open. Mrs Gilbert’s eyes were narrowed. She stared at Clara, at the mug on the floor. “Whatever are you doing?”
Clara picked up her mug. “I was thirsty,” she whispered, glancing at the bedroom door, behind which Mr Gilbert’s snores were still rising and falling. Thankfully the noise hadn’t woken him.
“The kitchen is downstairs,” said Mrs Gilbert.
“I was…just on my way there,” said Clara quietly, holding the mug to her chest. She dipped her head and began to walk down the landing.
“Clara?”
Clara paused, turned. Mrs Gilbert was twisting the simple gold chain she wore around her neck. She had a sudden flash of memory of her aunt showing her the necklace when she last came to visit. She and Clara had been sitting on a patch of sun-bleached grass in the small back garden. “Alfred gave this to me for my birthday,” Mrs Gilbert had said with a shy smile, when Clara had commented on how pretty the necklace was. “The day I went to work for the Earl and met my Alfred was the luckiest day of my life. I have truly never been so happy.”
Clara stared at Mrs Gilbert for a second, trying to reconcile her dim but fond memories of her aunt with the formidable woman standing in front of her now.
“There are some things…you do not need to concern yourself with.” Mrs Gilbert’s voice wasn’t cross exactly, more exasperated, like she had a problem which needed an answer.
“Goodnight, then,” Clara said, wishing she had the courage to question Mrs Gilbert further, but knowing that if she did it would bring an ill-tempered glint to her aunt’s eyes.
“Goodnight,” Mrs Gilbert replied.
Clara smoothed her hand over the wooden banister and began to walk downstairs. She heard Mrs Gilbert lock the door of the woodland room and return to her own bedroom.
By now, Clara knew full well that when an adult said there was nothing to be concerned about, the mere act of saying those words often meant that there was. Clara’s mother had insisted she should not worry about her father when he went to war and look how that had ended up. He left in 1915 shortly after Clara’s eleventh birthday, just as the spring lambs had begun to dance in the fields. In early 1916 he had returned home, as a blizzarding storm bit at their cheeks. Clara had barely recognized him; his cheeks sallow, his lungs crackling and bubbling, a look of utter despair in his eyes. She pushed that particular thought away and clenched her jaw. If Mrs Gilbert was writing and receiving letters from her mother, she had an absolute right to know what they said. And clearly there was only one way to do that – she had to get inside the locked room.
Clara rapped her knuckles on the blue door of the boiler house as loudly as she dared. The night sky was peppered with clouds and stars, the wind curling her hair around her cheeks.
A smothered cough came from inside. “Clara?”
“Yes, it’s me,” Clara whispered.
There was the scrape of a key turning in a lock, followed by the creak of the door opening. Will stood in the shadows. “Come on, quickly,” he whispered.
Clara stepped into the darkness and Will shut and locked the door behind her. As her eyes adjusted, she saw light at the end of a short corridor. There was the sharp strike and fizz of a match and then she was blinking in the glow of an oil lamp swinging in Will’s hand. The walls were rough and blackened, the air even warmer here than inside the hothouses. The sound of the nightly rifle fire was muffled underground – the opposite of in her attic room, where it bounced off the walls and felt like it was being absorbed into every surface (including her own self).
“This way,” said Will. His feet were light on the brick floor, barely making a sound. Five steps down the corridor, they passed through another door which, again, Will shut behind them. Clara glanced at him as he turned the key. Her stomach was twisted into a knot, her mouth as dry as sand. Mountain climbers. Hot-air balloonists. Surgeons. Be brave, Clara. She slipped her hand into her pocket and gave the mandarin a squeeze. The size and weight of the fruit was comforting and yet also a reminder of her concerns. What if Will did have something to do with the fruit going missing from the hothouses? She was locked in an underground room in the middle of the night and nobody knew where she was. She was trying her best to be brave, but at that moment it seemed there was a high chance she had been spectacularly foolish in agreeing to come here.
The ceiling was almost low enough to touch. Pipes – thick ones and thin ones – criss-crossed it like roads. Every few seconds they let out a soft hi
ss and vibrated, almost as if they were singing to one another. A gentle rumble and an occasional thump came from the black furnace squatting against the far wall, like a monster stirring in its sleep. Every surface was coated in a thin layer of coal dust – the small wooden table and chair in one corner, the heap of blankets on the floor. Clara could feel the dust settling onto her clothes and hair and skin. She remembered Will shaking out the blankets before he lay down to sleep under the blue moon. Now she knew why.
Will coughed again; a great, rasping cough which brought tears to his eyes. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped them, then pulled on a thick glove and opened the door to the furnace. Red-hot embers glowed inside. He picked up a spade and shovelled in coal. The fiery embers spat in response. “I’m glad you came, Clara,” he called over his shoulder. “Being down here day and night stoking this boiler can be…lonely.”
“I suppose it must be,” said Clara, a lurch of sympathy tightening her throat. “Are you paid for your work?”
Will shook his head. “My friend is doing me favour enough by letting me stay here. I don’t need money, just food and a place to sleep.”
Then something caught Clara’s eye on top of the pile of blankets. Will’s notebook was open, the pages wafting in the warm air. Next to the book lay some leaves. She recognized the lime leaves, but there were other ones too – exotic and unfamiliar. Some were deep green and as large as a person’s hand, some were smaller with serrated edges. They could only have come from the hothouses. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the mandarin. With a trembling hand, she lay it next to Will’s notebook and the pile of leaves.
Will’s shadow fell across her. “Oh. Why did you bring that?” he asked, staring at the fruit.
Clara planted her feet firmly on the brick floor, but her insides felt like the raspberry trifle her mother would make on a Sunday afternoon for tea. If she told Will that she suspected him of taking the fruit, she could say goodbye to the bud of friendship she felt blooming between them. She chewed on her bottom lip.
