The Making of May

by Gwyneth Rees

‘I don’t know,’ Alex said. ‘She knows no one’s allowed in the tower room. Maybe she’s afraid we’ll tell Dad.’

  ‘But what do you think she was doing up there?’ I was looking at the tray that he had just put down next to the sink. It held a flowery tea plate with crumbs on it, a dirty cup and saucer, a small teapot and an empty milk jug. ‘What if the floor isn’t rotten at all in the tower room?’ I suggested. ‘What if Mrs Daniels just told your father that to stop anyone from going up there?’

  ‘Why would she do that?’ Alex asked.

  ‘What if she’s got someone hidden up there?’ I was thinking about a film I had watched on TV one Sunday afternoon with Louise. It was called Jane Eyre and in that story the housekeeper was helping to keep a mad person hidden away at the top of the house.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Alex replied. ‘She’ll just have been up there fetching something, I expect.’

  ‘Maybe . . . or maybe she’s got some mad relative we don’t know about and that’s who she’s keeping up there.’ I was starting to feel quite excited.

  ‘You’re the one who’s mad!’ Alex said, looking at me in disbelief. ‘Look, let’s just ask her what she was doing in the tower room, OK?’

  ‘No way!’ I gasped, horrified.

  ‘Why not?’ he demanded.

  ‘Because if Mrs Daniels finds out we saw her, you don’t know what she might do to stop us giving away her secret,’ I answered. I was thinking of the sinister housekeeper in Rebecca, who becomes totally murderous by the end of the film.

  Alex looked amused. ‘You like secrets a lot, don’t you, Mary?’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He shook his head, grinning. ‘Nothing.’

  The kitchen door opened before I could say anything else. As Mrs Daniels entered, I noticed she was carrying a big bunch of keys – one of which must be the key to the tower room.

  ‘Now,’ she said briskly, looking at Alex, ‘what was it you wanted?’

  ‘The key to the walled garden,’ Alex answered quickly. ‘Do you know where it is?’

  She shook her head. ‘The sun garden has never been locked. I don’t think there is a key.’

  ‘The sun garden?’ Alex queried. I hadn’t told him about Mrs Daniels calling it that, I realized now.

  ‘That’s what my husband always called the walled garden, because of the sundial in the middle. And because he planted nothing but yellow flowers there.’

  ‘I wondered why all the flowers were yellow,’ I said, forgetting about everything but the garden for a moment. ‘What a lovely idea – to make a completely yellow garden!’

  She looked at me then. ‘He and I used to sit there in the summer evenings sometimes, enjoying all the scents, and Geoffrey used to say that his roses were glowing in the sun. Those flower beds were a mass of yellow then.’ She paused. ‘Of course, they’ll need a lot of work to get them back into any kind of shape again. I hope your brother’s going to see to that.’

  ‘Mary and I are going to do it,’ Alex said. ‘But we need to find the key first. We’ve already looked in the cupboard across from the laundry room and it’s not there.’

  ‘There’s never been a key to that garden in all the time I’ve been here,’ Mrs Daniels said impatiently. ‘What do you want to lock the garden for, anyway? And what do you mean – Mary and you are going to do it?’

  ‘Dad says the two of us can have it as our very own gardening project,’ Alex explained, ‘but Mary wants to make it a secret garden, don’t you, Mary? Except if there isn’t a key, I suppose we can’t do that.’

  I wasn’t giving in that easily though. I felt a stubborn Mary Lennox look spreading across my face as I hissed, ‘There is a key! I know there is! We’ll just have to keep looking for it. There must be lots of places in the house where it could be.’

  ‘Never you mind turning this house upside down, young lady,’ Mrs Daniels told me swiftly. ‘There are parts of this house that are too dangerous for children to go poking about in.’

  ‘You mean, like the tower room?’ I retorted just as swiftly.

  Mrs Daniels gave me a cool look. ‘That’s right. The floor in the tower room certainly isn’t safe.’ She paused for a few moments before adding, ‘And neither are the cellars. A nosy child could easily get shut in those cellars and nobody would ever know. That’s why I always keep the door locked – to prevent mishaps like that.’

  And from the way she was looking at me, I got the feeling that if I accidently got locked in the cellars, it was highly likely that she wouldn’t be able to find that key either.

  ‘Dad, can Mary email her sister?’ Alex asked.

  Mr Rutherford was showing Ben some piece of machinery in one of the outhouses and they both turned round as Alex and I appeared at the door.

  ‘May, we’ll do that at the local library or an Internet cafe or something,’ Ben said quickly. ‘You don’t need to bother Mr Rutherford.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find many Internet cafes in Lower Thornton,’ Mr Rutherford replied before I could. ‘And I really don’t mind Mary using our computer.’

  Ben was shaking his head. ‘Thanks, but it’s OK.’ He turned back to me. ‘I need to email Lou too. We’ll go and find a public library later.’

  ‘When later?’ I demanded. Because now that I had got myself all psyched up to email my sister, I wanted to do it immediately.

  ‘You can use our computer too, Ben,’ Mr Rutherford said. ‘In fact, why don’t you go and do it now? We’ve finished here and it’s time you had a break.’

  ‘You need to give us your password for us to log on, Dad,’ Alex reminded him.

  ‘I’ll come and put it in for you,’ his father replied. He didn’t even wait for Ben to agree, but ushered him briskly out of the outhouse before leading us all through the side entrance into the house.

  He stopped on his way past the kitchen to tell Mrs Daniels what we were doing. He probably thought that if he didn’t, she’d find Ben and me in the library on our own and accuse us of trespassing or something. She came out to tell Ben to take off his gardening boots before going any further – which he did – and she made Alex and me show her the soles of our shoes to check they weren’t muddy. She looked at Mr Rutherford’s shoes as if she’d like to check those too only she didn’t quite dare to ask. Ben was in his socks as we carried on through to the library and he looked a bit embarrassed, which I guessed was because one of his socks had a big hole in it.

  Mr Rutherford set us up on the computer, then suggested to Alex, ‘Why don’t you give your mum a ring while Mary and Ben email their sister? You haven’t spoken to her all week.’

  So Alex went off to use the other phone line in the family living room, leaving Ben and me alone. Ben was so busy looking round the room admiring all the books that I reckon he’d momentarily forgotten why we were there.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be great to actually own a place like this?’ he murmured.

  ‘What? This house, you mean?’

  ‘This library!’ His eyes were all lit up in a way I hadn’t seen since he’d entered a competition in a magazine last year and nearly won the prize. You’d had to write an article on ancient Greece or something, and the prize had been to have your article published and to go on a trip to visit some ruins in Athens. It wasn’t my idea of a fun holiday, but Ben had been ecstatic when he’d got the letter telling him he’d been shortlisted. In the end he’d only been a runner-up and he’d been so disappointed when he found out that he’d actually cried. Like I already said, Ben never cries in front of us – and he only did it then for about five seconds before rushing off to his bedroom and slamming the door.

  ‘Let’s see if Lou’s sent us anything first,’ Ben said now, coming over to help me access my in-box.

  Lou had sent me an email and I shooed Ben away from the computer so I could read it in private.

  Hi, May-flower

  (Lou hadn’t called me that since I was little.)

  I
am having the most amazing time here, but I’m really missing you. Greg and I both have the runs now but we’re doing loads of fantastic things when we’re not on the loo!!! There are some beautiful temples here and I wish you could see them too! (She described the temple she had visited the day before and went on to tell me a funny story about one of the other backpackers they had met there.) I must stop now and write an email to Ben as well. Write back soon and tell me what you’ve been doing. What is the cottage like? Have you found any secret gardens yet?!

  She put her name after that, and about twenty kisses.

  ‘I know she hasn’t even been gone two weeks,’ I said gloomily, after I’d finished reading it, ‘but it feels like much longer than that to me.’

  ‘Well . . . a lot’s happened since she left,’ Ben replied.

  ‘I wonder what it’s going to feel like when we haven’t seen her for a whole year,’ I went on. ‘Like we haven’t seen her for a hundred years, probably.’

  ‘Or maybe it won’t feel any worse than it feels now,’ Ben suggested. ‘Maybe once you know you’re not going to see someone again for a whole year, you just start missing them as much as you’re going to, straight away.’

  ‘Do you think?’ I asked hopefully. It was a comforting thought that I might not be going to feel any worse than I already did about Lou being gone. But I knew Ben might just be saying that to make me feel better.

  ‘I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?’ he said.

  ‘Can I write my reply now, or do you want to read the email she’s written to you first?’ I asked him.

  ‘You go ahead. I’ll read mine when you’re done. I’m going to have a nose at some of these books.’ Ben crooked his head to one side so that he could read along the book spines while I settled down to compose my message back to Louise.

  The first thing I told her about was the walled garden – and how it was going to be a secret garden if we could only find the key. Next I told her about Alex and his dad. Then, because I knew how much she’d liked the film of Rebecca, I told her that Mrs Daniels was seeming more and more like Mrs Danvers every day. I told her that, despite what the gossipy ladies in the tea room had told us, nothing mysterious had happened in our cottage since we’d moved in and we hadn’t seen any mice yet either, thank goodness! Lastly – because I liked saving the best bit till last – I told her about the tower room that was locked up and how Alex and I had caught Mrs Daniels coming down from it with a tray. I haven’t told Ben though! It’s TOP SECRET!!! The only people who know about it are Alex, me and you! I liked the idea of my sister sharing our secret even though she was in India.

  As I was signing off – adding even more kisses than she had sent me – the door opened and Mr Rutherford walked in. ‘Alex has a kite that we’re going to try to fly. He wants to know if you want to come too, Mary.’

  ‘Oh yes, please!’ I said, clicking the SEND button on the email. ‘I can, can’t I, Ben?’

  Ben had taken a book from the shelf and was sitting at the table with it. ‘Sure,’ he said. Mr Rutherford was walking over to see what Ben was reading and my brother quickly shut the book, looking embarrassed. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I was just having a look at this while—’

  ‘Don’t apologize,’ Mr Rutherford interrupted him. ‘I’m glad to see you’re still interested in history. You’re welcome to borrow the book if you want.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Let me know what you think about it afterwards.’ He looked at me. ‘Now . . . if you’re ready, Mary . . .’

  ‘Is it all right if I stay here for another ten minutes and write a quick email to my sister?’ Ben asked. ‘Then I’ll get straight back to work.’

  Mr Rutherford nodded. ‘That’s fine. Oh, and Mrs Daniels wants a word with you when you get a minute.’

  Ben instantly looked wary. ‘What about?’

  ‘I think she’s worried about the rose garden.’

  ‘I haven’t touched the rose garden!’ Ben answered indignantly.

  Mr Rutherford looked amused. ‘I know. But I think she wants to give you some advice about it before you do.’

  I had a really good time that afternoon. We took a packed lunch with us, which we ate on top of the hill where Alex’s father had taken us to fly the kite. It was a bit like having a proper brother to hang out with, I thought, as I ran after Alex across the grass. Because even though I wasn’t technically an only child, the age difference between Ben and Louise and me made me feel like I sort of was.

  ‘This kite was a birthday present from Dad too,’ Alex told me as we flopped down on the grass together to have a rest. Mr Rutherford was lying on the bank with his eyes closed a short distance away, safely out of earshot. ‘It’s pretty cool actually, though it wasn’t what I really wanted for my birthday.’

  ‘What did you really want?’ I asked him.

  ‘A TV set.’

  ‘A portable one for your bedroom, you mean?’

  ‘I mean, any kind of one, anywhere in Dad’s house! Dad doesn’t have one at all. Even my great-aunt – and she was a real old misery guts – even she had a TV when Thornton Hall belonged to her. But as soon as Dad moved in he got rid of it and made this really huge thing of declaring the house a TV-free zone.’

  ‘But why?’ I was puzzled. I’d never known anyone who objected to living in the same house as a television before.

  ‘He just really disapproves of TV! He says it stunts the imagination and makes people physically and mentally lazy. If you get him on the subject he’ll go on for ever. Christopher says it’s not worth arguing with him, seeing as how we only ever have to spend the holidays here, but that’s all right for him because all he wants to do is paint and Dad buys him all this expensive painting stuff.’

  ‘I watch TV and I’m not lazy,’ I said, frowning. ‘And Lou says I’ve got a really active imagination.’ (Too active an imagination was what Lou had said when I’d been outlining, in gruesome detail, all the Indiana Jones-style catastrophes that might befall her if she went off travelling with Greg.)

  ‘Who’s Lou?’ Alex asked.

  ‘My big sister. The one who’s in India with her boyfriend.’ And I proceeded to describe Greg in less than flattering terms. (Unfortunately, my ability to feel understanding about Lou going away seemed to be diminishing in proportion to the length of time she’d been gone.)

  ‘Dad says you’ve always lived with your big brother and sister,’ Alex said, plucking at the grass as he spoke. ‘Haven’t you got a mum or a dad then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How come?’ He sounded curious.

  ‘My mum’s dead and I’ve never had a dad.’

  He looked thoughtful as he twisted a long blade of grass round his finger. ‘Well, I’ve got a mum and a dad, so I suppose I’m lucky compared to you – even if they do both prefer my big brother to me.’

  ‘How come?’ I was the one who was curious now.

  ‘Oh, just because he’s so clever and handsome and talented – everything I’m not.’

  ‘He sounds like a pain!’

  Alex laughed. ‘He’s not though. That’s the thing – he’s dead cool. Even I really like him! He has this way of making everything OK when he’s around – like if Dad and me are arguing, he’ll always say something that makes us both laugh so that we stop.’ He lowered his voice, glancing across to check his father was still snoozing. ‘Dad and me really don’t seem to be getting on with each other now that Chris isn’t here. I mean, I sometimes think Dad really dislikes me for being here when Chris isn’t.’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ I protested.

  He frowned. ‘But it’s as if he’s really focusing on me now that Chris isn’t here and noticing all the stuff he doesn’t like about me or something.’

  ‘But he went to loads of trouble to get you that birthday cake,’ I reminded him. ‘Surely he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t like you?’ I remembered how protective Mr Rutherford had been of that cake on the train and how grateful he had b
een to me for saving it.

  ‘My birthday was before I came to stay with him for the whole summer,’ Alex pointed out. ‘He makes this big effort if he’s only seeing me for the weekend, but we fall out pretty quickly if we have to spend any longer together than that. This summer I didn’t feel like making any effort at all right from the start, because I was in such a bad mood about the television.’ He frowned again. ‘I just really miss it when I come to stay with him, you know? There are all these programmes I always watch and they’re like . . . like . . .’

  ‘Like your friends?’ I suggested.

  ‘Exactly!’ He nodded as if he was really relieved that I understood. ‘And now I’m missing them all!’

  ‘Can’t your mum tape them for you?’

  He shook his head. ‘She says there’s too much to tape.’

  ‘Well, have you told your dad how you feel about it?’ I asked, because Lou is always saying that when you’re upset with someone it usually helps to voice it rather than bottle it up. (Ben is always saying that he wouldn’t mind if Lou did bottle things up a bit more, but still . . .)

  ‘I’ve told him, but he won’t listen. He says most of what’s on TV is rubbish anyway and that I’d be much better off reading a good book. And the other day he said that one of the reasons there are so many overweight children these days is because they watch too much TV and aren’t getting enough exercise.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ I said immediately. ‘If you sit reading a book all day, you’re not getting any exercise either, are you?’

  Alex nodded. ‘Try telling Dad that! He’s got an answer for everything. He’d probably say that at least if you were reading a book you’d be exercising your brain cells.’

  I looked at Alex, thinking that he was pretty plump, but I really didn’t see how anyone could blame the television for that. After all, I watched plenty of TV and I’m really skinny. I reckoned that, in Alex’s case, being plump probably had more to do with eating large quantities of chocolate. ‘Maybe your dad only goes on at you about exercise because he’s worried about your arteries or something,’ I said. ‘If you eat a lot of fat and don’t do enough exercise, they get all clogged up. I saw this programme on TV that showed how people get fat in their blood vessels and how it leads to heart disease.’