by Gwyneth Rees
‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know about that, since I’m not allowed to watch TV,’ he replied drily.
I laughed. ‘Tell you what – you can come and watch our telly if you like.’
‘Can I?’ He instantly looked more cheerful. ‘That’d be great – but we’d need to keep it a secret from Dad.’
I nodded happily. ‘I’m good with secrets,’ I said.
Mr Rutherford stood up at that point, brushing the grass off his clothes as he came over to join us. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess we should go. This has been fun, though, hasn’t it? Good exercise too!’
Alex gave me a look that said, See what I mean?
‘We should do this again, Alex. What do you think?’ his father added.
‘Sure,’ Alex replied. ‘If Mary can come too.’
‘Of course she can.’ Mr Rutherford looked pleased and I suddenly knew that whatever all this stuff with the television was about, he definitely didn’t dislike his son. Because if he disliked Alex, he wouldn’t care so much about what he did or didn’t do.
That evening, as I told Ben about my afternoon out, he looked pleased too. ‘This move has been a good thing for you, hasn’t it?’ he said.
I nodded. ‘What about you?’ I asked, because he had seemed totally wrecked when he’d got back to the cottage late this afternoon after his first day at work here. And he’d spent so long soaking his tired muscles in the bath that I’d ended up banging on the door, demanding to know if he’d accidently fallen asleep and drowned.
‘I like it too – apart from the gardening!’ I knew he was joking, but at the same time I knew it was the sort of joke you make when you’re trying to make light of how much you genuinely dislike something. Ben had already started reading the history book that Mr Rutherford had lent him, and I could tell that he was far more interested in learning about medieval England than he was in learning any new gardening skills.
‘What did Mrs Daniels say to you about the roses?’ I asked him.
He pulled a face. ‘Apparently the rose garden was Geoffrey’s pride and joy. And guess what? Nobody prunes roses like her Geoffrey pruned them!’
I giggled. ‘That figures.’
‘She wanted to know what my own pruning technique was.’
‘Really? What did you say?’
‘The only thing I could remember from all those books I read. I told her my technique was just the same as everyone else’s – the weaker the plant, the harder I pruned it. Then I looked at her as if I could give her a lecture on the subject but I didn’t have time to.’
‘So she didn’t guess you were bluffing?’
‘She didn’t seem to.’
‘Did you get all of the lawn cut?’
‘Most of it. The grounds here are huge. I’ve got to trim all the edges tomorrow.’ He sighed. ‘I’d rather not think about that right now.’ He got up and went through to the kitchen to start preparing our tea.
‘It was nice of Mr Rutherford to let us use his computer, wasn’t it?’ I said, following him. ‘And to lend you that book.’
He nodded, reaching into the cupboard for a jar of pasta sauce. ‘He’s an OK guy behind all that sternness, I reckon.’
‘Alex doesn’t think so, though,’ I said, taking the jar from him to check the contents. ‘Yuck! This has got mushrooms in it!’
‘Has it really?’ Ben said coolly, taking the jar back to open it. (He won’t negotiate with me any more when it comes to pasta sauces, because he says I’d kick up a fuss no matter what kind he chose.) ‘What does Alex say about his dad then?’ he asked, sounding interested. But before I could answer he continued, ‘I reckon he’d be all right as a dad. I mean, he’d take a bit of an interest at least. You know . . .’ He stopped what he was doing and said, ‘. . . like that man and his son who were sitting behind me on the bus that time – was it Lou I was telling before or you . . . ?’
‘Not me,’ I said, because this was the first I’d heard of him meeting a father and son on a bus.
‘I think it was Lou . . . Anyway, this man and his teenage son were sitting behind me on the bus one day. It was a few weeks before we moved here. I was on my own and I couldn’t help listening to them. The son was telling the father about some book he’d read, and the father was asking him what he’d liked most about it. And the son was kind of struggling to answer but he didn’t sound worried that he wasn’t saying anything all that clever, because it was his dad and he obviously knew he wasn’t getting marked on his answer or anything. And that his dad just really wanted to know what his son thought about stuff, you know . . . Well, I reckon that’s the type of dad Mr Rutherford would be.’
‘Huh?’ I just stared at him, wondering what on earth this had to do with what we’d been discussing.
‘To Alex, I mean,’ he added swiftly, flushing bright red as if he suddenly felt self-conscious.
‘Yeah . . . well . . . Alex doesn’t want to get asked questions about books,’ I answered impatiently. ‘And he’s fed up with how Mr Rutherford keeps trying to get him to do stuff he hates, like making model aero-planes and playing board games and doing outdoorsy things. And he won’t buy a television for Alex to watch here. Alex reckons his dad doesn’t like him the way he is and that he disapproves of him because he’s too fat.’
‘He is too fat,’ Ben snapped, still looking flustered as he pulled out a saucepan for the pasta, ‘and you’re too skinny . . . but that doesn’t mean I disapprove of you,’ he added quickly. ‘Though I do disapprove of the way you eat when you’re left on your own.’ He tipped some pasta into the pan and sighed. ‘Look, I’m sure Alex’s dad doesn’t disapprove of him either. He’s probably just worried about him. Which reminds me . . .’ He seemed to suddenly get all bossy with me, which he does intermittently for no apparent reason. ‘I thought we agreed that you were going to drink two glasses of milk every day and finish all your meals from now on.’
‘I don’t like milk,’ I said defensively. ‘Anyway, I saw a TV programme that said cow’s milk is really difficult to digest unless you’re a cow.’
‘There’s no way you’re allergic to milk, May!’ he retorted. I often tried to tell Ben I was allergic to stuff if I didn’t want to eat it, and Ben always argued that I couldn’t be, since I wasn’t getting a rash or going all puffy round the eyes or anything.
‘Not allergic,’ I pointed out. ‘Intolerant.’ Food intolerances gave you abdominal bloating according to this TV programme I’d seen, and I didn’t see how Ben could prove that I didn’t have that. ‘I reckon I’m intolerant to quite a few things besides milk,’ I added.
‘Let me guess . . .’ Ben sounded really sarcastic now. ‘. . . brown bread . . . green vegetables . . . all meat apart from chicken nuggets . . . all fish apart from fish fingers . . . oh, and all forms of potato except chips. Right?’
I didn’t like him making fun of me so I stomped out of the kitchen in a huff. Ben reckons I’m a fussy eater, but so what if I am? I mean, it’s my stomach so I don’t see why I shouldn’t be choosy about what I put in it.
That night I had to get up to use the loo – which I blamed on the bedtime glass of milk Ben had forced me to drink – and when I got back to my room I went over to the window to look out. A girl I knew at school, whose mother had also died when she was little (but who wasn’t a true orphan because she still had her dad), had told me that she sometimes picked out a particular star late at night and talked to it because that way she felt like she was talking to her mum. So sometimes I checked out the stars too, though I’d never yet felt the urge to talk to any of them.
As I drew back my curtains, I saw a light in the distance that was definitely coming from Thornton Hall. The only part of the main house that was visible from our cottage was the tower room, so the light must be coming from there. But why was there a light in the tower room when nobody was meant to be up there? Unless Mrs Daniels had gone up there again . . . But why would she go up there at this time of night?
My bedside clock told me i
t was almost one o’clock in the morning. I stood at the window staring at the light until I began to feel sleepy again. Mrs Daniels did have a secret, I thought, as I climbed back into bed. And sooner or later, with or without Alex’s help, I was going to find out what it was.
That night after I’d fallen back to sleep I had a really strange dream. I dreamt I was in Thornton Hall, in the walk-in cupboard where all the keys were kept, and that I found a secret passageway there. I followed it and it turned into a long flight of steps that led to a big attic room full of dusty old things. There were old-fashioned children’s toys and a doll I’d had when I was little, and then it turned out that Louise was there. I asked her why she wasn’t in India and she told me that this was India. But before I could ask her any more questions, a floorboard underneath me gave way and I remembered that the floor in the tower room was rotten. I screamed as I started to fall.
I thought about my dream some more as I washed up the breakfast dishes after Ben had left for work. I thought about the cupboard in Thornton Hall where all the keys were kept. And suddenly I remembered something else. Alex and I had seen a key labelled ‘Attic’ when we’d been searching for the key to the garden. What if that was the tower-room key? After all, I hadn’t seen any other attic rooms in the house.
As soon as I’d finished washing up I left the cottage and raced along the path and up the driveway to the big house, where I rang the front doorbell and waited impatiently to be let in. Mrs Daniels came to the door, dressed in a dark green skirt and black blouse. The blouse had a very high collar with a cameo brooch pinned at the throat. You’d think the brooch pin was sticking in her throat from the way she was glowering as she opened the door to me. Maybe she expected me to burst out laughing at her again – only that was the last thing I felt like doing as I found myself standing in the hall alone with her. What if she knew that I had seen the light in the tower room last night? What would she do to stop me from telling anyone about it? Because I was absolutely sure she would want to stop me from telling.
Fortunately, Alex came down the stairs at that point and propelled me into the kitchen with him. He had only just got up and he said he was starving, which was clearly true, judging by the huge bowl of cereal he poured out for himself, which was about four times the size of the one I’d just eaten at home. I was dying to tell him my thoughts about the attic key, but I couldn’t right then because Mr Rutherford was sitting at the table in the breakfast room off the kitchen, reading the paper as he ate, and I didn’t want him to overhear.
As Alex stood in the middle of the kitchen, spooning in large mouthfuls of cereal and chatting to me at the same time, his dad called out to him to come and sit down. ‘That’s why we’ve got a dining table, believe it or not – so we can sit down to eat our meals. I’m sure you sit down to eat in your mother’s house, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Alex admitted as we went to join him. ‘Mum reckons it’s bad manners to eat standing up.’
‘Exactly,’ his father said.
‘But she also reckons it’s bad manners to read at the table,’ Alex added.
Mr Rutherford had a glint in his eye as he put down his newspaper. ‘Your mother’s right – it’s very rude to read at the table. I guess terrible manners must run in this family!’
‘On your side, not hers,’ Alex quipped.
His father smiled. ‘Naturally . . .’
Alex turned to me and added, ‘According to Mum, Dad’s side of the family has a lot to answer for.’ He giggled as he looked at his father again. ‘Like receding hairlines, Dad! Chris reckons he’s getting one already and Mum says all the men in her family have hairlines that are exactly where they should be.’
Mr Rutherford laughed and I instantly saw how much that pleased Alex.
Mrs Daniels came into the room then, holding the post. There was a letter in a cream envelope and a postcard, both of which she handed to Mr Rutherford.
‘Is the card from Chris?’ Alex asked.
His father nodded, laughing again as he read it. He passed it to us and I saw that instead of writing a proper message on the back, Alex’s brother had drawn a miniature plate of spaghetti and a glass of wine. Scrawled beside it were the words Eating, drinking and painting well!
‘That’s really cool!’ I blurted out.
Mr Rutherford nodded again, saying, ‘It’s marvellous, isn’t it? I don’t know where he gets all that talent from. Nobody else in the family is the least bit artistic. Not even on your mother’s side, eh, Alex?’
It was clearly meant in a good-humoured way, but to my surprise Alex tossed the card back on to the table so carelessly that it landed on Mr Rutherford’s empty plate, which was full of crumbs and smearings of jam.
‘Careful!’ Alex’s father said lightly, lifting up the card and shaking off the crumbs. ‘This might be a very valuable postcard if your brother becomes a famous artist one of these days.’
‘Yeah . . . well . . . he might not,’ Alex grunted, pushing away his bowl of cereal, even though it was still half full.
‘Take your bowl through to the kitchen if you’re finished with it,’ his father told him.
‘Why?’ Alex demanded stroppily. ‘Mrs Daniels’ll do it. That’s what she’s paid for, isn’t it?’ He looked challengingly at his dad.
As Mr Rutherford frowned and started to tell Alex not to be so rude, I noticed Mrs Daniels herself standing silently in the archway that led through to the kitchen, listening grimly. And I really wished Alex hadn’t said what he’d said because, in my opinion, Mrs Daniels wasn’t somebody you wanted to make an enemy of if you could possibly help it.
Fortunately the letter Mr Rutherford had received soon distracted both of them from arguing. It was an invitation from Mr Rutherford’s sister, reminding him that it was going to be her seventieth birthday at the beginning of August and requesting his company – and Alex’s – at a small lunch party she was planning to have that day.
‘Seventieth birthday?’ I repeated, unable to hide my surprise that Mr Rutherford had a sister who was that old.
‘Charlotte is quite a few years older than me,’ Alex’s father explained. ‘She was more like a mother to me than a sister when I was growing up.’
‘Dad’s mother died when he was five,’ Alex put in, starting to eat his cereal again, ‘so Aunt Charlotte had to look after him. She didn’t get married herself until she was forty and everyone was really surprised because they all thought she was going to be an old maid, didn’t they, Dad?’
‘I don’t know about that!’
‘Well, that’s what Mum says,’ Alex insisted.
‘Oh, well, your mother would know, of course.’ It was said wryly, but he continued, ‘Though it’s certainly true that Charlotte gave up a lot of opportunities when she was younger so that she could take care of me.’ He looked at me as he added, ‘My father never really recovered from losing my mother, so she had to do everything.’
I was staring at Mr Rutherford, thinking that the story I was hearing about how he had grown up was very like my story. For a moment he and I held each other’s gaze and that’s when I realized that he was already well aware of the similarity in our childhoods.
Alex, who was clearly oblivious to the connection I had just made with his dad, picked up the invitation to read it for himself. ‘But that’s the same weekend as the garden open day,’ he pointed out. ‘We can’t go to Aunt Charlotte’s then.’
‘Is it?’ His father took the invitation from him to read it again. He was looking thoughtful. ‘I wonder if Charlotte would like to celebrate her birthday here instead. She could come for the weekend and invite her friends here. We could have a garden party if the weather’s good.’
Alex was nodding. ‘I reckon she’d think that was cool.’
His father said, ‘I’ll give her a ring and see. Now . . . are you two going to start work in your garden today? I’ve got to work on my book, so I’m going to be shut up in my study all day. You’ll have to ask Mrs Daniels if you
need anything.’
‘We’re going to have another look for the key first,’ I said, before Alex could reply. I was thinking that our search for the garden key would act as a useful cover for our investigation into the mystery of the tower room. ‘It might have got left . . .’ I paused, glancing in the direction of the kitchen, where I could no longer hear Mrs Daniels moving about. ‘. . . up in the attic rooms or somewhere like that.’
‘There aren’t any attic rooms here,’ Mr Rutherford said. ‘The servants must have slept in the back rooms in the old days, I suppose.’
‘There’s the tower room,’ I pointed out. ‘Maybe they called that the attic and that’s where the servants slept. Maybe we should look in there first. I know the floor’s rotten, but we’ll be really careful not to tread on the bad bits, won’t we, Alex?’
Just then Mrs Daniels entered noiselessly from the kitchen, carrying the same tray she had been holding when she’d emerged so mysteriously from the tower room the day before. ‘I’ve found you a lock for your garden,’ she told us briskly as she started to pile the dirty breakfast dishes on to the tray. ‘I’ve asked a locksmith to come here this morning to fix a new one on the door for you.’ She looked enquiringly at Mr Rutherford. ‘I’m presuming that’s all right with you. They seemed so keen to have their secret garden that I didn’t like to disappoint them. It won’t cost much. I got a very reasonable quote from him.’
‘You didn’t need to go to all that trouble, Mrs Daniels,’ Alex’s father replied, sounding surprised. ‘Though it was very thoughtful of you.’ He looked at Alex and me pointedly. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah . . . thanks, Mrs Daniels,’ Alex said, glancing across at me as if he expected me to be the one who was most pleased, since I was the one who had most wanted our garden to be a secret.
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, trying to hide the fact that I wasn’t really grateful at all. Mrs Daniels had done this for one reason only, I was sure – to stop us from having an excuse to nose around the house.
