Return to the Secret Garden

by Holly Webb

  “And so’ve you if you weren’t so dim,” Joey poked her in the ribs. “She comes to visit. She’s one of the Board.” The Board came twice a year, and their visits meant shoe-polishing, and even more frantic hair-brushing than usual, and Miss Rose panicking in case someone had made a mistake in their exercise books.

  “You might have said,” Emmie muttered, but Joey only rolled his eyes. She hadn’t recognized Mrs Craven at all, but now she decided it might be because she had only seen her in a tailored suit and a smart hat, not an old tweed skirt and a cardigan. Miss Dearlove obviously hadn’t known her straight off, either.

  It was very strange, Emmie thought sleepily, to have no idea what would happen tomorrow. She was used to things being always the same. She lay staring towards the wall, hoping to see the horse leap again.

  All they had been told was that they were to stay mostly in this part of the house – not that Emmie thought she would ever be able to find her way out of it anyway. After they’d had supper, they had been led back through the huge hall, up a polished wooden staircase, and in and out of corridors, down a few steps here and round a corner. The house was like a rabbit warren: all passages. Emmie had wondered wearily if they might lose Ruby, or one of the other little ones tagging along at the end of the line.

  The red-cheeked woman who had shown them to their rooms had smiled at Emmie, and told her that the country air would be good for her, that she was far too thin.

  “All bones,” she added, patting her cheek. Emmie scowled. She knew she was too thin. Everyone always said so. She was even more thin because she’d been saving up her food for Lucy. Thinking of the little cat waiting for her on the fire escape only made Emmie scowl harder.

  “Take that look off your face, Emmeline,” Miss Dearlove snapped. “Say you’re sorry to Miss Sowerby.”

  “Emmeline, there’s a pretty name.” Miss Sowerby seemed to be one of those people it was hard to offend. She just went on smiling, even when Emmie growled her apology. “You’ll have this room, dear.” She looked around it thoughtfully as she drew the curtains closed. “These curtains are good an’ thick; we should be safe for this dratted blackout. Mr Craven went marching round the house last night, trying to see if there was a chink of light showing anywhere, but how do we keep a hundred rooms all covered up? Not that we use all the rooms, o’ course. Most of the second floor is under dust sheets. Now, we’ve put another bed over here for one of th’ smaller ones.” She glanced down at Emmie again, still beaming. “We’ve had no little girls at Misselthwaite for many a year. Mr and Mrs Craven have two boys, I expect you’ll meet Jack tomorrow. He must be about the same age as you.”

  Emmie nodded, and didn’t say that she thought she had met him already. She wasn’t sure, of course. But there had been a face peering down at them from a little flight of stairs, as they followed Miss Sowerby through yet another passage. A thin, angry face, with a scowl that Emmie didn’t realize looked a great deal like her own.

  The boy had seen Emmie watching, and stuck out his tongue. Everyone else had been so friendly, so sweetly concerned, that his furious face almost made Emmie feel better. She didn’t care if the boy was rude – she could be just as rude back. She glanced round to check for Miss Dearlove, and put her own tongue out, waggling it at him gleefully.

  Emmie smiled in the darkness, thinking of the surprise on the boy’s face. Obviously, he hated them being here. Well, she hated being here too, and she didn’t care who knew it.

  Emmie had hoped that with the upheaval of the move, lessons might be forgotten for a while, especially as not all the staff had come with them to Misselthwaite. Miss Rose and Miss Dearlove were managing on their own without the two younger nursery nurses, who had gone together to train in one of the great London hospitals. But Miss Rose had thought to send a trunk full of books ahead of them, and a room further along the passage had been set out as a schoolroom, with a strange assortment of heavy wooden tables, and unmatched chairs.

  Emmie stared grimly down at her Historical Reader. Couldn’t they have forgotten this one? She didn’t mind the stories so much, but she knew them practically off by heart. Along with all the doodles and scratches and bent corners. She had drawn a moustache and a silly hat on Elizabeth I, and now every time she turned that page, it made her feel guilty.

  She wasn’t even sure that Miss Rose would notice if she slipped out. The teacher was too busy trying to cheer up Tommy, who’d wet his bed as he was too scared to get up in the dark, and was sure he was going to be sent back to the Home. He was too small to understand that there was no one to be sent back to.

  Emmie propped her chin on her hand, and stared vaguely down at the page, letting the words sway between the lines and float into each other. The sun streamed through the deep-set windows, and made bars of light on the wooden table. She could see tiny specks of dust floating in the air. There were birds outside, she could hear them – different ones. Back in London it was mostly pigeons, and she had no idea what these were. Perhaps they could persuade Miss Rose to go on a nature walk, Emmie wondered sleepily. She had taken them to count the wildflowers in the park once.

  Or they could explore the house – wouldn’t looking at all the paintings and the suits of armour tell them about history, anyway? It would be better than reading about King Alfred burning the cakes all over again. Emmie wasn’t sure when Misselthwaite had been built, but it must be hundreds of years old. Miss Sowerby might tell them. Or even Mrs Craven. She’d asked Miss Dearlove to tell her anything she could do to help; Emmie had heard her.

  “Have you finished, Emmie?”

  Emmie’s elbow slipped as she jumped, and she banged her wrist against the edge of the table. She didn’t look up at Arthur and Joey on the other side of the table – she knew they’d be smirking. Being eleven instead of ten made them think they were so clever. “No, Miss,” she muttered, cupping her hand over the bruise, and sucking her lips over her teeth. She’d hit it right on the bone.

  “Stop dreaming and get on, then, please.”

  Emmie turned away from the sun patches on the wood, and gazed at the pages again, her eyes blurred and stinging.

  “We can go out?” Emmie repeated, eyeing Miss Sowerby suspiciously. She was sure that this couldn’t be right. “On our own? Anywhere in the gardens?”

  “Anywhere.” Miss Sowerby nodded, and then laughed at Arthur and Joey, who were suddenly gobbling down the last of their soup. “Use th’ stairs at th’ end of this passage, and they’ll take you down to th’ side door. These are your rooms, on this passage, you see. You’re not to go to running about all over the house. But the gardens, you can explore. Mind you listen out for th’ gardeners – if they tell thee to keep off, you keep off.”

  “And be back by two,” Miss Dearlove added. “For afternoon lessons.” She sounded suddenly anxious, as though she thought she might lose them. “We’re trusting you three older ones; the littler children will stay closer to the house, with Miss Rose and me.”

  “How are we to know when it’s two o’clock?” Joey asked suddenly, and Arthur elbowed him in the side. Emmie scowled. None of them had wristwatches, of course. She looked crossly at Miss Rose and Miss Dearlove. Now they wouldn’t be allowed to go.

  “There’s a clock in the little tower over the courtyard,” Miss Sowerby told them calmly. “Go by that. You’ll hear it chime the hours, and the quarters.” She gave Arthur a sharp glance. “Don’t you ask me where th’ courtyard be, boy. Use some gumption, go an’ find it!”

  Arthur and Joey raced away. Emmie could hear them clattering down the wooden staircase. She wanted to bolt the rest of her food and run after them, but she held herself back, spooning up the last of the soup. She was almost sure that she would be stopped, somehow. If she rushed, and looked excited, someone was sure to call her and make her stay in after all. Even as she walked down the stairs, and heaved at the heavy door, she was still waiting for Miss Dearlove t
o yank her back.

  But no one did. Emmie stood hesitating in the doorway, staring out at the garden. It seemed strange for the sun to be so bright. With war being declared, and all the whispers about London being bombed, everything had felt grey – even the view from the train windows. The moor had been tinted grey and violet in the evening sun, faded with shadows, and her misery over leaving Lucy.

  Now she stood blinking at the whiteness of the gravel walk that led between the clipped yew trees. The yews were almost black in the sunlight, and the creeper growing up the stone wall of the old house blazed a wild green. Emmie put out her hand, and rubbed one of the leaves, running it through her shaking fingers. She’d thought it would be rough, but instead it felt soft, almost soapy.

  This was like another world, fresh, and brilliantly alive – and then she remembered that it was hers only for an hour.

  Emmie pulled the door shut behind her with a bang. She could hear the boys, shouting and whooping somewhere in the distance, and she deliberately turned away from the noise. She wanted to explore by herself. The path seemed made to run down, leading to a thick, dark hedge, trimmed into an archway. Beyond, Emmie could see more of the tempting green. She slipped through, catching her breath as the closed walk opened up into a stretch of perfect lawn. The grass looked like a carpet, clipped short, and she crouched down, running her hands over it and smiling to herself.

  Then she turned, glancing back at the house. Could anyone see her? She could just imagine Miss Dearlove, rolling her eyes at that Emmie, stroking the grass… But the small diamond-paned windows glittered in the sun, and she couldn’t see anyone looking out. Wasn’t she away from their part of the house now, anyway? She frowned – the place was so big, it was hard to tell. But the gardens were huge too – she could see that now. There were walls and hedges and terraces, so the great space was divided up, almost like rooms in a house. But on this higher bit of ground, she could see how far they spread out – for miles, it looked like. Even if someone did glance out of a window, Emmie was almost sure they wouldn’t see her. She felt deliciously small, and secret. There was no one in sight, no one at all.

  She stood up, and stretched out her arms, feeling the sun on her hands and wrists – her cardigan was on the small side, and the sleeves rode up. She went a few steps further, enough to look down the slope at the end of the lawn. There were stone steps set into the side of the bank, a crumbly grey stone that was golden in the sun. They led down to a pool, darkly gleaming, and scattered with white, waxen-looking flowers.

  Emmie hurried down the steps to crouch at the edge of the water. There were little golden fish hovering below the surface, and as her shadow fell across the pond, they swam lazily towards her. Perhaps they hoped she’d come to feed them, Emmie thought, and she sat down heavily on the stone paving, suddenly reminded of Lucy. How long had Lucy waited on the fire escape, the day before? Had she found enough to eat, scavenging from someone else?

  Emmie stared into the water, wishing that there was a little black cat sitting here too, watching those fish. Or stretched out basking on the sun-warmed stone. Her fingers twitched, wanting dark fur to stroke.

  She sprang up angrily, scattering the golden fish, and stalked away past the pool, and the glittering fountain. The sun and the scents of the flowers and the spicy smell of the yew hedges had made her forget how lost she felt. But she didn’t belong here. She didn’t belong anywhere. Emmie sped up, running along the edge of the pool. She swiped blindly at the flowers in the long bed down the side of the water garden, raising a gust of sharp lemon scent, and a hum of bees. The garden was bordered with another dark hedge, and she darted through an archway at the corner, fists clenched, furious with the perfection, the trimmed prettiness of it all. She would rather be hiding away from everyone else on a broken old iron fire escape. She didn’t care how beautiful the place was.

  Someone laughed, and Emmie heard running footsteps close by. She turned away sharply, not wanting the boys to find her. She was on a brick path now, less grand than the stone terraces around the fountain. One side was bordered by the hedge, and the other by a long brick wall, trailing gleaming curtains of leaves. The creeper was flowering in clouds of tufted yellow balls, and bees droned in and out of it. Emmie had no idea what the dark leaves were, but she liked the gleam of them, and she slowed a little to watch the bees, sharply buzzing little ones, and great fat sleepy furry things that lurched from flower to flower.

  She was about to hurry on, realizing that the boys must have been heading back to the house, when a sharp trilling song sounded above her head, and she stepped back, staring up in surprise. At first Emmie thought Arthur or Joey had somehow climbed on top of the wall, but there was no one there – only a tiny red-breasted bird, peering curiously at her out of the ivy.

  “A robin!” Emmie stared at him. She didn’t think she’d ever seen one for real before. She had seen Christmas cards, and Miss Rose had shown them how to draw a Christmas robin, but for some reason Emmie had assumed that robins were part of the same storybook Christmas as parties and crackers and stockings and camels.

  The little bird leaned further out to look at her, with his head on one side. He was brownish, and soft-looking, and the breeze ruffled the red fluff of his breast-feathers. He trilled again, staring at her with bright black bead eyes.

  “You know I’m new,” Emmie whispered. “New and different. There hasn’t been a little girl here for years and years, Miss Sowerby said.” She took a step closer, and watched as the robin’s beak shimmered and trembled with the bright notes. It was magical. Then he stopped, and looked at her sideways, proud and shy at the same time, and Emmie screwed up her face and whistled back to him.

  “I have to go,” she murmured. “They said we had to be on time for lessons, and I might be late already. It isn’t that I want to go,” she assured him, and then stopped herself. What was she talking to a bird for? But his eyes were so bright, and knowing. She was almost sure he understood. He fluttered up a few branches, perched on top of the wall, and then darted away with a flick of his tail.

  Emmie turned and ran, back along the path, through the hedge and along the terrace past the fountain, racing back up the stairs to fling herself pink-cheeked and breathless into the schoolroom.

  “Goodness!” Miss Rose stared at her, and Arthur and Joey smirked angelically.

  “I got lost,” Emmie said quickly. “I couldn’t find the right door.”

  The boy standing next to Miss Rose gave a tiny snort, and Miss Rose seemed to remember that he was there. “Yes. Jack, this is Emmie – she’s ten, like you.”

  Emmie suppressed a sigh. She had always hated it that there was no one her own age at the Craven Home, but she wasn’t going to be friendly with this boy – the boy who’d been making faces round the banisters – just because he was ten. Especially not if everybody wanted her to…

  “Emmie, this is Jack – Mrs Craven’s son. He was at boarding school, but he’s had measles, so he’s staying at home for now.”

  “I’m going back,” the boy snapped. “Any day.”

  “Of course.” Miss Rose smiled. “But for the moment, Jack will be doing some lessons with us.”

  The boy rolled his eyes, and Joey, Arthur and Emmie watched him suspiciously – united for once in their dislike of this stranger. A stranger who actually belonged in this house.

  “Boarding school?” Arthur muttered to Joey, as Jack slid into a seat across the table. “This lot are weird.”

  Jack glared at Arthur, but he didn’t say anything. He was silent for the whole morning, working swiftly through the maths questions that Miss Rose set for them, and shoving them in front of her when she came back from the table where the smaller ones were copying their letters. Miss Rose looked taken aback, as if she hadn’t expected him to polish the work off so quickly. Emmie and the other boys stared at him in disgust. Posh and clever, then.

  Jack looked d
own his nose, and as soon as Miss Rose announced, in a relieved voice, that it was half-past three, he slipped out of his seat and disappeared.

  “Stuck-up little so-and-so,” Joey growled under his breath, and Emmie nodded, which surprised them both.

  There had been no church that morning – only hymns, and Miss Dearlove reading from the book of Bible stories, and looking twitchily at the little clock on the mantelpiece and falling over her words. Then at eleven they had trooped downstairs to the servants’ hall, squeezing in among the maids and gardeners. The cook and Mrs Evans had made tea, but hardly anyone was drinking it. Instead they perched uncomfortably on the chairs gathered round the polished wooden radio. The whole house must be there, Emmie thought, trying to count the servants without letting anyone see that she was staring. Miss Dearlove had explained to them at breakfast that the prime minister was going to speak; it was very important. The matron hadn’t said quite how, but she was jumpy and nervous, and even friendly Miss Sowerby looked anxious.

  As the words, “This is London…” echoed through the sunny room, Emmie saw that Mrs Craven and Jack had slipped in too, and one of the gardeners had swiftly given up his chair. Mrs Craven smiled at the boy, and patted his arm. Jack leaned against her shoulder, darting cold glances at the other children. Arthur and Joey were rolling a marble along the crack between the flagstones, and Tommy was whining to Miss Rose that he was hungry.