Return to the Secret Garden

by Holly Webb

  It seemed strange to mind so much, to sit in lessons and hope that she would turn up, but Emmie found that she thought about the cat more than she thought of anything else. She had never had a pet, or known any sort of animal. The Craven Home only had the occasional mouse, and then only in the kitchens, where the children weren’t really supposed to go. There wasn’t any chance of taming a mouse with crumbs, even if Emmie had wanted to. Knowing that the cat came to see her, or her sandwiches, tugged at something inside Emmie. The cat wanted her, even if it was only for food. It needed her – and she needed it too.

  In the third week, the cat climbed into Emmie’s lap when she wasn’t fast enough unwrapping another fish-paste sandwich, and Emmie named her Lucy.

  “Emmie! Emmie!” Someone pulled at her hand, and Emmie realized Ruby was talking to her.

  “Don’t you want a sandwich?” Ruby pushed one into her hand, and Emmie stared down at it, trying not to gag. It was fish paste.

  “No!” she said sharply, and shoved it back at Ruby. Then she caught Miss Rose’s eye, and added, “No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”

  “There’s plain bread and butter, Emmie.” Miss Rose passed her another paper packet. “You need to eat something; it’ll be hours more yet. It’s a long way,” she went on gently.

  Emmie nodded. She was too miserable even to ask again where they were going, in case she started to cry.

  “Missing that scrawny cat?” Joey leaned over, speaking through a mouthful of sandwich, and Emmie pressed herself back against the seat disgustedly. If only they hadn’t all seen. She had kept Lucy a secret for weeks, but the little cat grew tamer and a tiny bit plumper, and she was clever enough to work out that Emmie – and more food – were inside the house.

  Miss Dearlove shooed her out, but Miss Rose seemed to like cats. When she saw Lucy sitting on a windowsill, or sneaking along the passage by the schoolroom, she smiled faintly and looked the other way instead of chasing the little cat outside again. And the cook liked her – Lucy had the sense to catch a mouse and drop it in front of Mrs Evans’s feet. After that, Emmie would occasionally see a saucer of milk in the yard at the bottom of the fire escape – a saucer where there had once been milk, anyway.

  How could they have made her leave Lucy behind, if what everyone said was true, and London was going to be flattened by bombs? And the gas. Emmie had heard Miss Rose and the cook saying that all the post boxes were being painted with special gas-detecting paint, so they’d glow yellow instead of red if there was gas floating in the streets. It sounded as though it was going to happen any day now. What would happen to Lucy, if that was real?

  She shivered, and closed her eyes for a second. She could see Lucy lying on the little iron landing of the fire escape, basking in the sun. The little cat liked to stretch out on her side, showing off her rusty reddish-black underneath – sometimes she even lay on her back, with her paws in the air. She’d wave them, as if she was inviting Emmie to rub the fluff of her belly – and then if Emmie dared, half the time Lucy would pounce on her, and worry her wrist. But Emmie didn’t mind the scratches.

  The other children had petted Lucy, and even fed her scraps, but she seemed to remember that Emmie had been her first protector – and she always came back to the fire escape.

  Emmie had found a basket the night before, while they were packing. It was in that same cupboard of odds and ends that stood in front of their window. There must have been a cat once before – or perhaps it was meant for picnics in the park, although Emmie wasn’t sure anyone at the Home had ever done something so lovely. She hadn’t asked Miss Dearlove or Miss Rose if they could take the cat – she hadn’t even thought about it. It had been so clear to her that Lucy could not be left behind. She’d simply been grateful that she wouldn’t have to carry Lucy in her arms, or tie a string around her neck. She didn’t think the cat would like being on a train.

  But before breakfast wasn’t Lucy’s time to appear slinking through the kitchen, or creeping up to the top of the iron staircase. Emmie had lain awake half the night, worrying about it. She’d have to go out into the yard and call the cat, she decided. If Lucy thought there was extra food in it for her, she’d come. Perhaps she could nick something from the kitchen to tempt her with.

  Emmie flung on her clothes as soon as the bell rang. She grabbed the basket from under her bed, and hurried through the press of twenty excited, bewildered children, dropping paper parcels and gas masks and winter coats that smelled of mothballs – because even though it was a sweltering September day, who knew how long they’d be away for?

  The cook was trying to get breakfast, and pack up sandwiches, and tidy the kitchen all at once. It was simple enough to sneak past her into the larder, and snatch the dripping jar. That would smell good, Emmie thought, dripping, since she couldn’t find any fish. She stood under the fire escape, cooing and clucking to call Lucy in, waving the jar.

  Miss Dearlove raced about, spooning porridge into the little ones, sewing back on buttons, and in between, dashing back into the kitchen to screech at Mrs Evans the cook about twenty sets of sandwiches.

  In the passage outside the kitchen, she came on Emmie, with a fingerful of beef dripping, trying to persuade Lucy into the lidded basket. The little cat had her front paws in, and Emmie was wondering if she should just take a chance and shove the rest of her in too.

  “Emmie! For pity’s sake, why haven’t you got your coat on? We’re about to leave! What’s in that basket – you’ve not put your clothes in there, have you? You should have them in a parcel, like the others.”

  Emmie glanced round at her, and Miss Dearlove sucked in her cheeks.

  Lucy saw that Emmie was distracted, and took her chance to launch out of the basket.

  “No!” Emmie squeaked. “Oh, Miss, catch her!” And she flung herself full length, grabbing the thin black cat – who to Miss Dearlove looked just as scruffy and ugly as the little girl. Emmie was sallow-skinned, and thinner than ever, since she’d been hiding away half her food to feed the cat. Her hair had wisped its way out of her thin plaits already, and her arms were all scratched.

  “That disgusting stray! I might have known…” Then the matron stopped, and stared at the basket. “Emmie Hatton, did you think you were taking that creature with you?”

  Emmie crawled clumsily on to her knees, and stood up slowly, gripping the squirming cat in her arms. She stood there, wincing as Lucy flailed her claws and pulled several more threads out of her cardigan. The cat didn’t care that she was being saved; she was hungry, and she had not liked the basket at all.

  “We have to,” she whispered, her greenish eyes widening as she stared back at Miss Dearlove. It wasn’t one of her purposeful stares – she wasn’t trying to make Miss Dearlove angry. This was a round-eyed look of panic and disbelief. They couldn’t leave the cat behind – it would be too cruel. “The bombs…” she faltered.

  “We are not taking a cat, certainly not a dirty stray like that. Why, even proper pets are…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Get on, Emmie, we’ve a train to catch, halfway across the country! You’re making us late. Now come along.” Miss Dearlove went to seize Lucy from Emmie’s arms, but Emmie screamed, and darted back, and Lucy hissed, not even sure who to be angry with. She fought and bit and scratched, and at last Emmie let go of her, with a despairing cry as the cat streaked away through the kitchen and the scullery, and out.

  “At last! Now get out to the hallway and find your coat, we should have left by now. Mrs Evans, are you ready? The children are lining up,” Miss Dearlove added to the cook, who was standing in the kitchen doorway watching,

  But Emmie crouched to pick up the basket, gazing into it as if she almost couldn’t believe it was empty.

  “Put that down!” snapped Miss Dearlove, taking the handle.

  Emmie jerked away, snatching it back. “No! I have to go and get her. We have to bring her with us!”
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br />   The matron grabbed the basket, and with the other hand she slapped Emmie across the cheek. Emmie dropped the cat basket, and leaned against the wall, tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t crying because Miss Dearlove had hit her, even though it hurt, but because she’d realized that it was true – they meant it. They really were leaving Lucy behind.

  “I couldn’t help it,” she heard Miss Dearlove murmur to the cook. “Dratted child, she does it on purpose. Bring her, will you, Mrs Evans? I need to go and lock up.”

  Emmie felt Mrs Evans’s arm slide round her shoulders, and the cook’s dry fingers stroked her scarlet cheek. She could hear the old woman tutting gently, but her voice seemed to come from a long way away.

  “Come along, sweetheart. You come on now. Don’t you worry about that little cat; she’ll be next door, stealing a kipper for her breakfast, I expect. Time we were on our way.”

  Emmie climbed wearily out of the train, her gas mask bumping against her hip, and the tiresome brown paper parcel clutched in her arms. They had been shut away in the stuffy compartments for hours, and even though they had changed trains at York, they hadn’t had time for anything except a rush to the cloakrooms. Her legs felt stiff, almost like pins and needles, and her dress was clammy, sticking across her back.

  The children and the three women stood rather helplessly gazing about the platform, until Miss Dearlove shook herself, and straightened her shoulders. “There’ll be someone to meet us. Into line, come along.” She crouched down and picked up Ruby, who was worn out and swaying on her feet, the bear dangling perilously from her hand.

  The train suddenly spluttered, and creaked away with a great heave, leaving them alone at the tiny station. It was unbelievably quiet as the noise of the train faded, even quieter than the backstreet they were used to, where there was always a faint rumble of traffic. Here there was silence – except for a soft jingling of harness, from beyond the tiny station building. The late afternoon sun hung low, and there were bees murmuring over the grassy bank on the other side of the line.

  A porter came hurrying up the platform with a trolley, from where he’d been unloading some wooden crates from the baggage car at the head of the train.

  “Miss Dearlove? Th’ car’s outside for thee.”

  The children gaped at him, confused by his broad Yorkshire accent. Miss Dearlove smiled gratefully, and followed him through the little ticket office, and out to the yard beyond, where a strange mixture of vehicles stood waiting.

  A man in a smart, dark uniform with a peaked cap nodded to Miss Dearlove, and then gently wrestled Ruby from her arms, propping her against his shoulder. Ruby was so exhausted, she simply eyed him for a moment, and then thumped her head into his jacket. The man looked at the children thoughtfully. “I reckon we can fit them all in th’ cars, Miss. We brought the cart, for th’ baggage.” He inspected the children’s parcels, then glanced back at the horse-drawn wagon, shook his head and smiled. “Bags won’t fill it, will they?”

  Miss Dearlove looked round at the weary line of children behind her, and sighed. “We couldn’t bring very much with us – Miss Sowerby said in the telegram that bedding and such would be provided.”

  “Reckon there’ll be enough.” He snorted, and the man standing by the next car laughed. “I dunno. Sleeping nose to tail, tha’ll be.” The same strong accent made his words sound strange, but he was smiling.

  The children stared at him, not understanding. Did he mean they’d have to share beds? The man beckoned to Emmie, and pointed into the second car, an enormous cream and black Austin. “Squash up in there, lass. Reckon there’s room for seven or eight of you small ones in th’ back.”

  Emmie clambered into the car, and the men lifted the others in after her, piling the little ones on the older children’s laps. Emmie cringed as Tommy, one of the smallest boys, was pushed on to her knee – he was damp, and he smelled. She wasn’t surprised – they’d been on the train all day, after all. She just tugged his coat further round his bottom, and wrinkled her nose.

  Emmie peered out of the window round Tommy’s knitted hood as they rolled away, the motion of the car smooth and quick, nothing like the jolting train. The station – Thwaite, it had said on the sign – seemed to be part of a tiny village. The car sped through, and it seemed hardly more than a church, and a few white-painted cottages. But every little house had a garden, bursting out over the fences. It was like nothing Emmie had ever seen before, and for a moment, a tiny, surprising, treacherous moment, she liked it.

  The car wound along a narrow tree-lined road, gradually climbing, until the tall hedges opened out into a vast field of brownish-green. Emmie stared, and Tommy let out a squeak of surprise. It was like the park near the Home, but a thousand times over, a great, endless space of low bushes, grey and brown and faintly purple. “What is it?” Tommy whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Emmie admitted. “A field? There’s sheep, over there.”

  Tommy pressed his nose and his plump little hands against the window. “They’re not fluffy…”

  Emmie nodded. She’d never seen a real sheep, but there was a painting on the wall in the sitting room at the Home, and the sheep in it were whiter, and softer-looking. “Perhaps they’re goats then. I don’t know, do I?”

  The colours deepened as the sun went down, and Emmie shivered. There was so much space. Sky everywhere. No streets. Even when they went to the park – which was only once a week or so – there were still buildings all around. This openness was frightening, it felt wrong, and it went on and on, without an end that she could see. Where were they going? What sort of place would be in the middle of the emptiness? Emmie gulped as they passed over a tiny stream rushing over rocks. Tommy laughed excitedly, pointing at the water, but Emmie flinched as the car bumped over the little humped bridge.

  “Not far now,” the man called back through the glass panel that divided the front and the back seats. “We’re passing over the moor, and there’s the drive up to th’ house. See the trees?”

  The dim golden light flickered and turned greenish as they rushed into a tunnel of great trees, looming over the road. Emmie leaned forward to see out at the front. “Here, look. This is where you’re staying.” The car broke out of the tree-lined tunnel, and pulled up in a stone courtyard at the front of a great grey house, shadowy and dim in the evening light.

  The children bundled out, and stood huddled by the cars, even the smallest ones gazing silently at the house.

  “It’s a palace,” muttered Arthur, and for once, Emmie didn’t sneer at him. She thought maybe he was right. The grey stone walls surrounded the courtyard on three sides. The house wasn’t very tall, and there were no turrets, or towers, but it looked old. The great blocks of dark stone were softened at the edges, and the windows were small and patched into tiny squares – and there were too many of them to count. The low evening sun glittered in the little panes, shining out under spidery trails of creeper.

  The cars drew away, moving slowly off around one side, and leaving the children and the three women watching, as a huge wooden door opened in front of them. The light was bright, and for a moment the figure in the doorway showed only black, and Tommy stepped back into Emmie, clutching at her coat. But then the woman hurried down the steps, smiling, and holding out her hands.

  “You’re here, at last! Oh, you poor things, you must be exhausted. Welcome to Misselthwaite Manor.”

  Emmie lay in the high, carved wooden bed, watching the night light burning in its saucer of water, and peering at the room. The night light hardly gave enough light to see by, so it was half-looking, half-remembering, in a strange jumble of the day.

  She was tired, but she’d slept in the train, and now she felt oddly restless. Ruby was fast asleep across the room, snuffling into her bear – and that was odd, for a start. Emmie was used to one huge room, with eight girls in it. Although this room would be about the s
ize of the dormitory, if they took all the furniture out.

  The candle flame jumped a little, and a creature glimmered in the light for a second: a horse with a thin, arched neck, and a jewelled bridle. The walls were covered in them, pictures made out of fabric, all castles and horses and dogs. Emmie had never seen anything like them before. She had never seen anything like this house. They had been hurried inside, the woman who had welcomed them explaining worriedly that they’d been told they mustn’t show lights because of the new blackout regulations, but she’d thought they might trip over the furniture if she didn’t turn the light on. A maid in uniform shut the door behind them with a slam, and the friendly woman shook Miss Dearlove’s hand, and beamed at Miss Rose and Mrs Evans and the children.

  “Mrs Craven?” Miss Dearlove asked, rather uncertainly.

  “Oh! Yes, I’m so sorry. I’m Mrs Craven. I wish my husband could be here to welcome you too, but he went to London this morning. You probably passed his train going the other way.” She gave a little laugh, but it sounded odd, as though she didn’t think her joke was that funny. “He’d retired from the Navy when his father died, you see, but now that war is about to be declared, he’s re-enlisting.”

  “Craven,” Emmie whispered to Joey, who happened to be standing next to her. He was staring open-mouthed at a suit of armour that was standing up against the stone wall. If the hall hadn’t been full of armour and weapons, it would have looked like a church, it was big enough. “The same name as the Home? Is that why we’re here, you reckon?”

  Joey dragged himself away from the armour, and the spears crossed over each other on the wall, and looked down at her in disgust. He was only a year older than she was, but he was a lot taller. “Course it is, stupid. This is the place, isn’t it? Didn’t you ever read that sign on the front of the Home? Founded by Mr Archibald Craven of Misselthwaite Manor, in gratitude for the recovery of his son, Colin? Misselthwaite, that’s what she just said. Besides, I’ve seen her before.” He nodded at the smiling woman, who was now talking to Miss Dearlove and Miss Rose, and pointing at the stairs. They were working out where to put all the children, Emmie thought. The man driving the car must have been teasing them, saying they’d have to sleep nose to tail. Surely a house like this would have enough beds?