Return to the Secret Garden

by Holly Webb

  “I hate you,” Emmie snarled. She clenched her fists. If she scratched her nails down his face, as she longed to, she’d be in such trouble… “It isn’t your garden.”

  “It’s all mine.” He waved a lordly hand around at the tree, and the roses. “All of it. You’re not to come in here again.”

  “It isn’t yours,” Emmie said again, trying to sound sure. “Mr Sowerby said I could be here. You ask him!”

  “He is a servant,” Jack pronounced grandly. “It’s not up to him to say.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Emmie shook her head. Jack’s mother hadn’t spoken about the sullen, lonely gardener in that way at all. “What were you doing, anyway?” Emmie demanded, feeling braver. “Why were you hiding?”

  “I wasn’t hiding, you just didn’t see me.” But Jack had gone red, and Emmie knew he was lying. She guessed that he had been in the garden to try and avoid Joey and Arthur. They were bigger than he was, and he hadn’t made himself very popular, sniggering in lessons whenever they got the answers wrong.

  Jack caught the little smirk on her face, and the red faded out of his cheeks, leaving them pale with fury. “Get out!” he hissed. “Go away! All of you, leave me alone! This is my house!” Then he plunged past, shoving her sideways, and ran out through the green door and on to the path.

  Emmie gazed after him, feeling oddly guilty. Jack had spied on her, and tried to tell her she couldn’t be in the garden. Then he’d shouted at her, and knocked her into the rose arch. She had a great long scratch down her leg to prove it. So why did she wish that she’d been nicer?

  3rd February 1910

  I have told my secret. I never thought I would, but Martha’s brother Dickon is more like a wild moor animal than a boy. He promises that he will never tell, and I believe him. He’s used to keeping all the nests and burrows that he finds out on the moor secret from the other boys. He says they might steal the birds’ eggs if he told. So I can trust him.

  I went out through the gate from the laurel walk into the wood. I heard whistling and I thought it might be another sort of bird, but it was a boy, playing on a wooden pipe. He made me remember the snake charmers in India, but he was playing to two rabbits instead, and a bird that’s called a pheasant, and a little red squirrel in the tree above his head. They went so close, the rabbits were sitting by his feet.

  He had brought the seeds and the garden tools that Martha asked him to buy with the money my uncle gave me. He was explaining how I should plant them, but then he said it would be better to show me, and where was my garden? I didn’t know what to say. But I liked him, he smiled so. Perhaps he had charmed me with his pipe-playing too. I took him into the garden. I wanted someone to tell me if the roses were still alive, and they are! A few are brown and grey all through but most of them are wick – this is the word that means they are green and alive inside. We are going to make the garden wake up properly – it needs the weeds digging up and all the dead wood cutting away from the rose trees. Dickon says that when they all flower in the summer there will be fountains of roses. I cannot wait to see.

  4th February 1910

  Yesterday was the strangest day. I have spent so many weeks at Misselthwaite, hardly seeing anyone. Then in one day I meet Dickon, and I am summoned to see my uncle, and in the night of the same day, I find out who it is who has been crying.

  There is a boy here, and no one ever told me. They have been keeping it a secret, because he made them. He doesn’t like anyone to see him, or know about him. He has been very ill, and he says that he is going to die before he grows up. He is certainly very pale and ill-looking. Martha knew about him all the time and never told me! It’s no wonder that she was so panicked when I said I had heard another child cry. She tried to tell me that it was the scullery maid crying because her tooth hurt, but I knew that wasn’t the truth. I am not angry with Martha, though. All the servants thought that they would be sent away if they ever spoke about him.

  I told him about the garden – not that I have really found it, just that it might be there. I didn’t mean to tell, but it’s so much in my mind that I let the secret out without thinking. He said that he would make the gardeners tell him where it was, and I thought I had ruined everything. But he liked the thought of a secret garden, where only we could go. I said that perhaps, perhaps, we might find the door.

  I went back to Colin’s room this afternoon; he made Martha bring me. We talked and talked and I told him about Dickon. In the middle of us talking and laughing together, the housekeeper, Mrs Medlock, and the doctor came in. They were so surprised to see Colin sitting up and cheerful that I almost laughed out loud. The doctor stopped like a statue and nearly tripped Mrs Medlock over. I was worried that Mrs Medlock would be angry with me again, like she was when I came too close to Colin’s rooms before. I understand now why she dragged me away. But Colin told them both that I was his cousin, and that he liked me. He likes me! He is very bad-tempered and ill, but then I am bad-tempered too, I suppose.

  Martha, Ben Weatherstaff, Dickon, Colin and the robin. Five friends.

  “Emmie. Emmie.”

  Emmie turned over, murmuring in her sleep, and then shivered. She had two jumpers on over her nightdress, and a pair of huge woolly socks, but she was still cold. It had been almost too cold to read Mary’s diary the evening before; she had managed only a few pages before her fingers froze.

  “What is it?” she asked Ruby, peering grumpily at the little girl from under her nest of blankets. For the last few days, Emmie had only felt warm when she was asleep.

  “I’m cold,” Ruby said pleadingly. “Can I get in with you?”

  Emmie eyed her for a second. Ruby’s face looked pinched with cold in the candlelight, and she was shivering. “Why haven’t you got your blankets round you? Don’t stand there like that, the floor’s freezing. Fetch your blankets, come on. And get in fast!”

  Ruby scurried obediently to strip her bed, and appeared back at Emmie’s bedside looking wider than she was tall, wound in at least three blankets. She scrambled in next to the older girl, and Emmie stretched the extra covers over the two of them like a tent. She could hardly breathe, but it was better than being cold.

  There was frost on the inside of the windows again, she expected. And the snow was piled up around the window frames so they could hardly see out. The garden had been smoothed out into a strange landscape of lumps and hills, with paths cut through by the few gardeners who were left.

  At first Emmie had thought that winters in Yorkshire must always be like this, but Miss Sowerby promised them it wasn’t so. This was the coldest winter there had been in years. There were five-foot drifts out on the moor, and most of the estate workers had temporarily moved into the Manor. It was easier to keep everyone warm in one place.

  “Tell me again about the fish,” Ruby whispered, snuggling up to Emmie.

  Emmie shuddered as Ruby’s icy nose pressed against her cheek. “Again?”

  “Please, Emmie…”

  Emmie gave a sleepy groan, and wrapped her arm around Ruby. The littler girl was like a hot water bottle.

  Ruby was supposed to stay close to the house with Miss Rose and the other younger children when they went outside, but the five-year-old was good at slipping away. She loved the huge pond, and she spent hours watching the fish – even though she’d been told she mustn’t play by the water. Miss Rose was terrified that she’d fall in.

  A few weeks after they’d arrived at Misselthwaite, Emmie had gone to admire the fish, and found Ruby there too. She was crouched at the very edge of the pool, peering down into the water. Beside her on the stone slabs was a pile of breadcrumbs.

  Emmie was about to march over and tell the little girl to get back to her own place, but then she realized that if she came up behind Ruby and surprised her, she’d probably fall into the pond, and Emmie would be the one blamed for it.

  So she sat do
wn next to her instead, and threw one of Ruby’s crumbs into the water. A glowing orange fish surged up to snatch it, and Ruby looked round.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here,” Emmie pointed out.

  “I like feeding the fish. They’re funny.”

  “Miss Rose is probably looking for you.”

  Ruby shrugged, and her mouth straightened into a sulky line. “Not a baby,” she muttered. “Sam the gardener saw me feeding the fish, and he said it saved him a job. There’s some special fish food; he said he’d show me where it is, if I promised I’d be careful. He’s really busy. I’m helping.” Her bottom lip wobbled, and Emmie nodded quickly.

  “All right then! Don’t start that.” Ruby probably was helping – they all were, now. Arthur and Joey had picked the fruit in the orchard. Emmie helped Mr Sowerby in the secret garden, and in the kitchen gardens too. He’d asked her – and he’d even dug out an ancient pair of Wellington boots that almost fit, so she could dig without caking her sandals in mud. Miss Rose and Miss Dearlove took turns helping with the cooking. Emmie expected that before long they’d all be eating in the servants’ hall, to save work. Four of the gardeners had already gone to join the army and several of the maids had left to work in factories building weapons. Even the smaller children helped with sweeping the floors, and Mrs Craven was talking about shutting up some of the rooms, covering everything in dust sheets, until… No one was really sure until what.

  “Please, Emmie. Tell me what the fish are doing?” Ruby whispered, breathing warm, damp breath into Emmie’s ear.

  Emmie started, blinking back from her vague half-dream of that day by the water. She’d almost fallen back to sleep, and she gave a regretful little groan as she realized all over again how cold it was.

  “All right.” She yawned, and tried to remember the story that had comforted Ruby the week before, when she’d run down to the pool, and seen that the patchy covering of ice was solid – so thick that this time it didn’t break when she tapped it. She had been distraught, certain that the fish would all freeze to death. The panicked look on her face had made Emmie think of Lucy, tearing open the old memories all over again. “The fish are down at the bottom of the pool, sleeping,” she murmured, and she felt Ruby snuggle up against her side. “It’s cold and dark, but the fish don’t mind. They’re sleeping, dreaming of the sunshine. Every so often they flicker their fins, just a little, to keep themselves warm.”

  “Tell about the gold sparkling,” Ruby whispered.

  Emmie smiled to herself, proud that Ruby had remembered her story. “Even though it’s so dark under the ice, the fish can see each other’s golden scales glittering, and that reminds them that the sun will come back and melt the ice in the springtime.”

  She yawned, and added, “And tomorrow we’ll go and sweep the snow off the top of the pool, and take that old football out of the ice, to let the air in. And deep down at the bottom of the pool the fish will all sniff, and say, Smells like snow again. And they’ll just flip their tails once, and go back to sleep.”

  Ruby chuckled, wriggling delightedly at the thought of the little squeaky fishy voices.

  “Now go to sleep,” Emmie mumbled. “S’late.”

  “I found them! I found them!” Emmie raced through the kitchen garden, yelling with delight, skidding and sliding on the icy brick paths until she almost crashed into Mr Sowerby raking a patch of earth.

  He straightened up clumsily, staring down at her and grinning. “What did tha’ find?”

  Emmie panted. It was a good day, she could tell. He was smiling, and he hadn’t his crutch. She no longer looked at his scars, they were just as much a part of him as his heavy boots, and velveteen waistcoat, but there were days when she could tell from the set of his shoulders that it was best to run on by.

  Emmie put her hand on his arm and looked up at him pleadingly. “Come and see? Please? It’s a good thing, you’ll be happy.”

  He shook his head at her. “Another one as wants me to be happy. Tha’ and Mrs Craven. Tha’ would have me dancing.” But he propped the rake against the wall and limped after her, while she skipped backwards in front of him, beckoning and giggling to herself.

  “I’ve been looking for so long,” Emmie explained. “I almost didn’t believe you.” She ran ahead of him along the path to the secret garden, and then came back to grab his hand and hurry him after her. She hadn’t listened to Jack telling her not to go in there. The gardens belonged to the gardener, more than to one spoiled boy, Emmie thought. Mr Sowerby needed her to help, anyway, now that most of the gardeners had gone to fight, and it was only him and a couple of elderly men drafted in from the village to look after the huge expanse of gardens around Misselthwaite Manor. There was a chance that the lawns might have to be dug up and planted with vegetables, but Emmie wasn’t sure if the gardeners would be able to manage any more.

  “Look!” she dragged Mr Sowerby across the snowy grass to the white bench under the rose arbour, and crouched down, pointing at a clump of white spears, edged in green and just nudging out of the snow. “Look at them! Are these snowdrops, like you said? They don’t look like that drawing in the plant catalogue, but they’re new. I walked round looking yesterday, and they weren’t here then.”

  “Ah… Th’ first ones – it’s sheltered here.” Mr Sowerby reached down, and cupped the flowers in one of his great hands. Emmie watched, holding her breath. “They won’t be all th’ way out for a couple more days. These are th’ buds. They’s late, this year. With the snow like it is.” He straightened up and looked around the white garden, sighing with pleasure. The sigh eased out of him, like a long-held breath. Then he shook his head, and clapped the snow from his gloves. “Crocuses soon. Primroses out in th’ lanes, and then daffodils. Ah, it’ll be a sight, lass. Daffies as far as tha’ can see, there’ll be.”

  Emmie stared at the snowy hummocks where the roses had been, and sighed. Mary had talked about all those in her diary, thousands and thousands of green spears, pointing to the sky. She and Dickon had dug all around them, clearing away the choking grass. But the snow was so thick, she couldn’t imagine the garden fragrant and green again. “I can’t see it. I don’t think the snow’s ever going away. It’s been weeks. And you said we’d have the snowdrops in January!”

  The gardener snorted. “Can’t always be right, lass. Worst winter for forty year, they do say. Them poor snowdrops is doing their best. They can’t show through a foot of snow, can they?”

  “S’pose not.” Emmie sighed. The snow had been fun, at first – Jack had a sledge, and he had even made a temporary peace with Joey and Arthur, as it was more fun if there was someone to push. Emmie had a few goes, but she and Jack were still pretending that the other one didn’t exist, which made it hard to go shrieking down a snow slope with him. Emmie had slipped away after a while. She helped Ruby and the other little ones skid around on two old metal tea trays from the kitchen instead, squealing and tumbling and tipping each other over.

  But now the snow just meant that every time they went outside they came back wet, and everyone had chilblains, itching and burning on their fingers and toes. The whole house, huge as it was, seemed to smell of damp wool. Clothes horses were spread in front of every fire, sucking up the warmth before it got into the rooms. There was a lot less snow than there had been – the road from Thwaite was clear again – but the gardens were still wrapped in a white stillness. Even the robin seemed quieter than usual – whenever Emmie saw him he was fluffed out and grumpy-looking, as though the cold was getting to him too.

  “Emmie! Emmie! Where are you? You have to come! Emmie!”

  “That’s Arthur yelling…” Emmie turned to look anxiously at the wall that bordered the path. The garden wasn’t a complete secret, like it had been for Mary that spring and summer so many years before, but the door was still hidden. It was her refuge still. She didn’t want to show Arthur the door under the ivy.

/>   “Let him go by,” Mr Sowerby murmured. “He’ll be in th’ laurel walk in a moment. Then tha’ can dart out and run after him.”

  Emmie nodded, and crunched quietly over the snow to the green door, leaning against it and listening. Then she eased the door open, and slipped out on to the path, with a quick wave to the gardener. Mr Sowerby stood there, tucking his hands under his arms for warmth, and smiling after her. Then he began to limp slowly in her footsteps to the door.

  “What is it?” Emmie called, running after Arthur, hissing as her rubber boots skidded on the ice.

  Arthur was hanging over the gate to the wood, staring out as if he thought she might have gone that way.

  “I’m not that stupid,” Emmie said sharply. “There’s still drifts out there that could half-bury us.”

  “The road’s clear!” Arthur seized her hand. “You’ve got to come back to the house. Mr Craven’s come home on leave. Lieutenant Craven, he is now.”

  “So?” Emmie frowned, and then looked hopeful. Now that butter and sugar had been rationed, even the plainest cake was a treat. She couldn’t see any other reason she should be interested in Lieutenant Craven’s movements. Except that she was a little curious to see Jack’s father. “Does that mean there’s cake?”

  “No, stupid. He wants to see you. Come on. I said I’d fetch you, he’s waiting.”

  He tugged at her hand, and began to run back along the path through the shrubbery. Emmie followed, still protesting.

  “But why? He doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “He does,” Arthur called back over his shoulder. “I saw him; I saw the car and I wanted to know who he was. I was in the hall, watching. He said, did I know where Emmie was, and could I fetch you. Straight off. He knew your name all right.”

  They reached the side door, stopping to knock the snow off their boots, and then peeled off their layers of coats and scarves.