by A. M. Howell
“What is it, Clara?” Will asked, taking a step towards her.
Clara looked at her boots. If she didn’t ask him about the thieving, the unsaid thought would hang between them like a festering weed. She dragged in a deep breath of dusty air and looked up. “Fruit is going missing from the hothouses. Pineapples, and other things too.”
Will’s eyes widened. “Missing?”
“Yes, stolen,” said Clara. She swallowed. “Was it you?”
A laugh burst from Will’s lips. “Me? You think I would steal the Earl’s fruit?”
“Well?” Clara said. Be brave. Be brave. If she said it often enough, pretended hard enough, maybe it would become true.
“Look,” Will said, picking up his notebook and thrusting it at her.
“At what?”
“This,” said Will, pointing at a page.
Clara tentatively took the book from him. His finger was jabbing at a perfect pencil drawing of a mandarin attached to a willowy branch, its waxy leaves shaded so precisely they seemed to leap off the paper.
“It’s lovely but—”
“Turn the page,” Will said in a firm voice.
Clara looked at him. His eyes were fiery and bright.
She flipped the page with her forefinger to an exquisitely drawn map of the kitchen gardens, showing the winding brick wall, the planting beds laid out with miniature cabbages and leeks and carrots, the cottage Clara was living in – even the window of her room (which was open). If she squinted she could even see the candleholder on her window sill, a miniature drip of wax stealing down its side.
She turned to the next page, to a drawing of a hothouse. Below it was a cross section of miniature pineapples standing in rows. They were all different in shape – some conelike, some like pyramids – and each one was labelled.
“Black Antigua. This one is juicy and flavoursome – or so I hear. This Green Java is supposed to melt in the mouth. The Scarlet Brazilian – what a name, Clara! These fruits are magnificent, but I would never steal what’s not mine to take. I hope to work in these gardens one day,” Will said, waving his arms around. “I will have my own room with a view of the hothouses. I will look after the pineapples, see these queens of fruits grow from tiny plants.”
Will’s enthusiasm tugged a smile to Clara’s lips. He didn’t speak like someone intent on stealing the Earl’s fruit. “How do you know so much about pineapples?” she asked.
Will’s face dropped. He rubbed his nose and sniffed. “My mother and father. They had a smallholding – half a field where they grew fruit and vegetables to sell at the local market. But they were interested in fruit from faraway places too. Father wanted to take us to these places, show us how the fruits grew, maybe settle there one day. But then the war started.”
“Oh.” Clara closed the notebook and handed it back to Will. The boiler ticked and grumbled; the oil lamp flickered on the table, casting wobbling shadows around the room. “I’m sorry,” Clara said. “I didn’t mean to accuse you…”
Will shook his head. “I understand why you did. What with me hiding down here.” He picked up the mandarin, cupping it in his palm. “You should eat this, before it goes bad.”
Clara stared at Will and the mandarin. She had intended to eat it. But after hearing about the stolen fruit, something had held her back. “Do you think the thief could have dropped it by accident?” she asked quietly.
“On a tree stump?” said Will, his nose crinkling. “And the one I found by the lake? It would have been a bit careless.”
Clara shrugged. “It’s just…an odd puzzle. To find fruit, but also to know that it’s being taken.”
“How did you find out fruit is going missing?” Will asked, frowning.
“I overheard Robert talking to Mr Gilbert.”
Will’s eyes dropped to the floor. He passed Clara the mandarin.
“Whatever is the matter?” asked Clara.
“Nothing,” said Will.
Clara stared at him as he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead using his jacket sleeve. “Really?”
Will pressed his hands to his ears. What had caused him to change? One minute he was discussing the mystery with her and the next…
The boiler hissed and ticked and waited with Clara for Will to speak. They waited for a few minutes. But that did not matter. Clara’s father was always very patient with her when she did not know what to say, or rather knew what to say but did not know how to say it.
Will eventually opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“You can tell me, Will. I told you before, I am good at keeping secrets.” Clara pressed a hand into her pocket and felt the tip of her envelope.
Will took a deep breath. “He made me swear not to tell.”
“Who did?” asked Clara.
Will walked to the pile of blankets in the corner, slumped down onto them and crossed his legs, resting his chin in his hands. “Robert. You see…he’s my brother.”
Clara blinked. Her eyes felt gritty from the coal dust, from discovering this new truth about Will. “But…you said a friend was helping you.”
“I know,” Will said quietly. “I lied.”
Clara let the truth sink under her skin. She liked Robert, his talk of his hopes and dreams for the future, the fact he had helped persuade Mr Gilbert to let her work in the gardens. And he had kept a secret for her, by not telling Mrs Gilbert about her venturing into the hothouses. But Robert had a secret of his own – one which was locked up in the boiler house during the day.
“When Father died, we lost our cottage. It was tied to the smallholding my parents ran. Robert said he would find me a job here. He’s always looked out for me, made sure I had enough to eat and a roof over my head.”
“But, this isn’t your job, is it?” said Clara. “Robert told me it was the hall boy’s job to stoke the boilers.”
“Robert is slipping coins to Red, the hall boy,” Will said. “If anyone asks, Red will say he is still stoking the furnace. He is helping us.”
“But I have not seen this hall boy in the gardens even once,” Clara said.
Will shrugged. “I imagine people are too busy to notice. The War is a big distraction.”
“I suppose,” said Clara.
“Robert said if anyone finds out about me, he could lose his job and then we would both be homeless. He said it’s just for a short while, until he finds us somewhere to live.”
Clara slumped down beside Will, glancing at a tin plate bearing a nibbled chunk of bread and a half-eaten apple, sitting on the little wooden table nearby. “He brings you enough to eat?”
Will nodded. “I don’t go short. Sometimes I go foraging at night. I only take things which have fallen, or are growing wild though,” he said, giving Clara an anxious glance.
Clara’s jaw clenched. She had not given Will’s circumstances much thought. It had been exciting to meet someone new, someone hiding in the gardens. But the reality of hearing about his hardships was making her regret eating that second slice of plum tart at tea. She should have saved it for Will. Next time she would.
Will coughed. It racked his chest and brought tears to his eyes again. Clara’s own chest contracted. It reminded her of nights lying awake at home, listening to Father hacking away – the aching helplessness that there was nothing she could do to make him better. “Well, you can’t stay down here. It’s not good for your lungs,” Clara said firmly.
“I sleep outside when I can,” said Will, blowing his nose.
“But winter is on the way. What about when it rains, or when the gardens are thick with snow?”
Will shrugged, coughed again. “There are always the hothouses.”
“But now that the fruit is being stolen, people will be keeping watch – Robert will be keeping watch,” said Clara.
“I doubt that. Robert loves his sleep and his bed at The Bothy.” Will fiddled with the cuffs on his jacket. “Please don’t tell my brother that you know about me. He told me to keep hidden in the bo
iler house and not to speak with anyone. He’ll be hopping mad if he finds out I’ve met you – especially as you’re related to the head gardener and all.”
“I promise I’ll keep you a secret, Will,” said Clara. “You can trust me.”
Will flashed her a thankful smile.
An idea spun through Clara’s mind. She grabbed at the threads of it. “So…if Robert isn’t watching the hothouses, then you can sleep in the gardens. And if you are in the gardens…what if you watch for the thief?”
Will stared at her.
Clara sprang to her feet, clasping her hands together. “If you catch the thief, Mr Gilbert may be so pleased that he might give you proper work in the gardens. You might be able to live in The Bothy with your brother and get out of this dusty boiler house.”
Will scrunched up his nose. His fingers were tapping on his knees, his eyes thoughtful.
A jolt of uncertainty wobbled Clara’s legs. If Will got caught, then he and Robert would both be in tremendous trouble. But then again, if he was successful, he might gain a permanent job and a proper bed to sleep in at night.
“Alright,” Will said, in such a small voice that she wondered if she might have dreamed it. His face was lighter than it was before. “We’ll try and catch this thief. We can’t have them taking the Earl’s pineapples.”
“We?” Clara said, wide-eyed.
“Of course. It was your plan,” said Will with a grin.
Clara felt a grin creasing her own cheeks. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the mandarin and handed it to Will. “Take it,” she said. “I have plenty to eat.”
“Thanks,” Will said, placing it next to his notebook.
Clara let her mind roam beyond the boiler house and back towards the cottage, remembering all the little puzzles she had chanced on since coming to stay with the Gilberts: not just the missing fruit, but the found mandarins, the locked room in the cottage and its piles of letters on the bureau (which could well be from her mother). Thank goodness that Will was quickly becoming a friend and an ally. Perhaps he could help her solve the other mysteries of the gardens too.
Clara had one foot trapped in a swampy bog deep in a jungle. The harder she tried to yank her leg out, the deeper she sank into the vile-smelling mulch. My boot will be ruined, she thought. Mrs Gilbert would not be at all pleased. Voices sounded, muffled by the thick green foliage. “Help!” Clara called. “I am sinking.” The swamp had risen up to her ankle; brown muddy water was seeping into her stocking. Clara’s bottom lip trembled. She remembered what Father had told her, about pretending to be brave. “Hello, jungle. Hello, green leaves. Hello…swamp,” she said in a wobbly voice. “Hello…hello…help!”
Clara woke with a jump, her heart jittering in her chest. She sat up in bed. Early morning light was spilling around the edges of the curtains, which were being sucked in and out of the open window in the breeze. Like her father, no matter how cool the weather she preferred to always sleep with her window open. That particular morning, the breeze came from the east. It was in a helpful mood and carried voices across the gardens and straight into Clara’s bedroom.
“Don’t meddle, Lizzy. Please leave things be,” said Mr Gilbert.
The curtains whooshed backwards and forwards. Clara watched a spider repairing the edges of its web above her head, while trying to steady her breathing.
“I need to try, Alfred. It wouldn’t be right to let things carry on as they are.” Mrs Gilbert’s voice was gentle, more how Clara remembered it from her visit years before.
“It’s done. Nothing will change it,” Mr Gilbert said in a voice that seemed as heavy as a sack of potatoes.
The breeze sang in Clara’s ears – or was it a lengthy sigh coming from Mrs Gilbert’s lips? She slipped out of bed and peeped around the edge of the curtain, shivering in the chill of the early morning. Her aunt and uncle were standing by the nearest hothouse – the one where the peach trees and limes and lemons grew.
Mr Gilbert took a step forward, clasping his wife’s hands in his. His eyes seemed to be pleading with her.
Clara stiffened and held her breath.
Mrs Gilbert pulled her hands away. “I am so sorry… I must try.”
They stood looking at each other for a few seconds, then Mrs Gilbert turned on her heel and headed up the slope towards the Big House.
Mr Gilbert pushed his hands into his pockets, watching his wife as she walked away. Once she was out of sight, he headed back towards the cottage.
Clara let the wind lift the curtain from her fingers.
Mrs Gilbert was keeping secrets too, Clara was sure of it. And today was as a good a day as any to try and find out what they were.
The cottage was still and resting after the early-morning bustle of washing, eating breakfast and clearing up. Mr Gilbert had eaten little of his slice of still-warm bread blanketed with a thin layer of strawberry preserve before leaving for the gardens. His eyes had been far away and lost in thought. What had Mrs Gilbert meant when she had told him things couldn’t carry on as they were? Could it be something to do with the letters from Clara’s mother?
Clara hovered outside the locked room and glanced up and down the landing. No one was there, but what she was about to do felt stealthy and underhand. Then again, it would also be underhand of Mrs Gilbert if she was keeping Clara’s mother’s letters from her. She lay a hand on the doorknob, bent down and peered through the keyhole. Was it her imagination or had the stack of envelopes on the wooden bureau grown? Had more letters from her mother arrived? She had been at the Gilberts’ cottage for seven long days. Her mother must have written to her more than once in that time.
Clara’s skin prickled. She didn’t want to think badly of Mrs Gilbert – they were related after all – but she was making it extremely hard for Clara to find things to like about her. “I’m sorry that I do not like her,” Clara whispered to the ceiling, the walls, the floor. The gloomy woodland wallpaper did not reply.
“You haven’t seen your aunt in a few years, but you will get on with her well enough,” her father had said confidently before she left. “I just wish the Earl would let her and Alfred have a little more time off from their work, so they could visit us more often. She has a lovely sense of humour. When I was a boy she could make me laugh so hard, sometimes I wet my trousers.”
“Really, Gerald,” Clara’s mother had exclaimed in mock-horror, while Clara had giggled.
Clara scrunched her eyes up now, trying to imagine Mrs Gilbert’s sour lips flipping into a sunny smile. She clearly did not have a very good imagination for such things, for the image would not arrive in her head. She rubbed her eyes. She was getting distracted. With the Gilberts out of the house until teatime, it was the perfect opportunity to search their bedroom for the key to the locked room.
Clara had already searched the rest of the cottage. Just like the crooked door which led into the gardens, many of the cottage’s walls stood at slight angles, which, alongside the ill-matched chairs, cushions, rugs and tables, made Clara feel a little unbalanced, like a tree breaking free from its roots. It was all quite the opposite of her small angular terraced home with its straight walls and ordered furniture. She had looked through the unevenly arranged key hooks near the back door (one bronze key had looked quite hopeful, but when she had fed it into the lock it had jammed, and it had taken her an age to wiggle it out), the woodwormy drawers in the kitchen (filled with ancient silverware in need of a good polish), and even the dusty outhouse stacked with logs. Yet it was all to no avail. There was no key to be found.
Clara pushed open the door of the Gilberts’ bedroom. A path of sunlight gleamed on the floorboards, beckoning her forward. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside. Laying both hands on the gnarly wooden dresser, she wondered for the hundredth time where Mrs Gilbert had hidden the key. She clearly did not want it to be found, so it would be somewhere private, somewhere no one would think to look.
Clara wiggled open each dresser-drawer in turn, revealing M
r Gilbert’s faded cotton nightshirts and socks, followed by Mrs Gilbert’s sensible (and rather big) underwear. She picked up a brassiere and gingerly felt inside. A flush stole onto her cheeks. If her mother knew she was rifling through her aunt’s personal items, her opinion of Clara would surely sink to the bottom of the ocean. Clara set her jaw firm. Mrs Gilbert did not behave like an aunt or speak like an aunt – she did not dispense warm goodnight hugs and tender glances – so Clara would not behave like a niece. Instead, she would be an explorer of sorts, uncovering the secrets she was certain the Gilberts were keeping from her.
She carefully folded the brassiere and placed it back where she had found it. There were no hidden keys to locked doors here. Clara pressed her disappointment into the floor with the soles of her boots. Where else should she look?
She kneeled down and peered under the bed. Balls of dust gathered around its sturdy wooden legs, but that was all. Clara sat back on her heels and studied each corner of the room. There was no other furniture. The locked room next door had more furniture than the Gilberts’ bedroom. Clara turned her gaze to the walls. Twisted vines snaked up the wallpaper, interspersed with bunches of faded purple grapes. The effect was gloomy and oppressive, just like the landing, just like the room next door.
Clara sighed, stood up and walked to the south-facing window which overlooked the lake. Father said if you had a difficult problem to solve, taking in a different view could sometimes help. Slow ripples crossed the water, as if someone had dropped a large pebble from up high. Clouds bubbled across the blue autumn sky, while a pair of swans swam, their beaks dipping and scooping. The window framed the scene, reminding Clara of the paintings she had been taken to see in the town museum back home.
Paintings. Pictures. Clara swivelled around. There were two pictures hanging on the wall. One above the dresser – a country scene of men forking bales of hay while swallows swooped in the blue sky. She reached up and lifted the picture away from the wall, ran a finger around the dusty frame. Nothing.
