The Secrets of the Lake

by Liz Trenow

  Throughout all this – moving out of London to stay with Auntie Mary in Buckinghamshire, moving back once the Blitz was over, the loss of our house to a V-1 rocket, and having to live in temporary accommodation with another family – I never felt adrift with Mum by my side. Scared of the bombs, yes, and desperately worried about Pa’s safety. But even when I’d had to move school twice in one year, or when bomb damage made it impossible to get there, Mum insisted on continuing my lessons at home, and I never once imagined that everything would not work out fine, in the end.

  Jimmy was five when the war ended, and I was ten. Even though he had no physical scars, Pa was like a stranger when he came home. Loud noises made him jumpy, and he snapped at Jimmy when he cried. Mum was worried about him, I could tell. He smiled and joked sometimes just as before, but often looked as though he was only partly with us and would wander off for long, unexplained walks, sometimes into the night, or to the church to pray. At least that’s what he claimed, although I couldn’t imagine anyone being able to kneel for so many hours at a time.

  Then came the terrible day when Mum eventually admitted that she was really feeling quite poorly. ‘It’s a bit more than the flu this time, my darlings,’ she said, in a mastery of understatement. After several weeks in hospital she returned as thin and white as a ghost, with all the usual sense of energy and fun knocked out of her. Throughout those gruellingly painful last months, Pa came to rely on me more and more. Slowly, over that time, he began to confide in me and, although I hated the reasons why, at last it felt as though I was doing something useful.

  ‘It’s you and me against the world now, darling,’ he would say when he kissed me goodnight. Somehow, through all the fear and sadness, I’d felt sure we would survive.

  Those first few months in the village, Pa was so caught up with trying to make a good impression in his first proper parish that I’m sure he never noticed how lonely I was.

  Although school was going well and I’d made several friends in my class, we all lived too far from each other to meet up at weekends and during holidays. I’d seen no sign of Kit or Robert since Christmas. Most of the children who lived in the village itself were pre-school or junior-school age, so the Timpson twins – Jane and Juliet – were my only friends in Wormley, and when my fifteenth birthday came around Mrs D suggested I invite them to the vicarage for tea. She made delicious fish-paste sandwiches and a carrot cake with real sugar frosting, and Pa joined us too. They gave me a book about butterflies so it was not a bad birthday, after all.

  I met the twins each day on the school bus and we sang together in the church choir on Sundays, with a rehearsal every Thursday evening. But they were such a self-contained unit; they didn’t need anyone else. Watching the way they understood each other without speaking and finished each other’s sentences, the way they sometimes held hands walking down the lane, I found myself aching with envy.

  Filled with adolescent turmoil, thinking of myself as nearly adult, but actually feeling as lost and confused as a child, I devoured the paperback romances from cover to cover. Although we’d only met once, briefly, Kit always appeared as the hero and I as the love-struck heroine who ‘softly rested her cheek against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of his warm skin’.

  Lately, in an attempt to cheer myself up, I’d been listing the good things about living in the countryside. At the moment the good list wasn’t winning:

  Good

  Not good

  Pa happier

  Miles from anywhere

  School fine

  Bus only every two hours

  Mrs D nice

  Having to look after Jimmy

  Twins friendly

  Missing my London friends

  Kit Waddington

  Nothing to do

  interesting

  Missing Mum more. Not sure why.

  Weather miserable

  House freezing

  What I struggled with most was the way people in the village looked at my brother: as if he was some kind of non-person – like a creature in a zoo. When we went to the little shop and post office I would encourage Jimmy to do the asking, and the paying. It was part of educating him towards independence, which was what Ma had always been keen to promote. But the lady in the shop never answered him, and always looked at me instead, so that he got sidelined and ignored, which I know he found frustrating, although Jimmy would never have been able to express it like that.

  I suppose we’d become so used to him that we never saw his difference. Pa told me that when Jimmy was born, the hospital authorities suggested that he should be put into a special home, because children like him would never learn the skills for everyday life. But Ma had absolutely refused to let them take him away, and she’d been proved so right: he could walk and talk (sort of) and feed and dress himself reasonably well. He loved company, and his family, and his friends at school.

  In London, where everyone is so varied, it didn’t seem to matter so much. But in Wormley they’d never seen anyone like Jimmy before, and although people were polite – how could they be otherwise, when he was the vicar’s son? – and no one said anything overtly, you could tell by the sideways glances that they were suspicious, even perhaps afraid. I felt like shouting at them, ‘For heaven’s sake, be friendly. He’s just a little boy with feelings like everyone else.’ But, of course, I never did.

  So when he came rushing back from the churchyard one afternoon, buzzing with enthusiasm and an air of someone about to impart thrilling news, I couldn’t help getting a little bit excited.

  ‘There’s a . . . a . . .’

  ‘Spit it out,’ I said impatiently.

  ‘Drag . . . dragger. Dragon,’ he finished, with a triumphant grin.

  A dragon. Just some silly little-boy thing. My excitement evaporated in an instant.

  ‘Where’s the dragon, Jim?’ Pa asked kindly.

  ‘In the M . . . m . . . Mere.’

  ‘What’s a mere?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a marsh, or a lake,’ Pa said.

  ‘The Waddingtons’ lake, do you think?’ I said, perking up. The idea of the lake with the islands had fired my imagination. And if there was any chance I might see Kit again . . .

  ‘Down the . . . lay . . . lane.’

  ‘Have you seen it?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Then how do you know it’s a dragon?’

  ‘Old man said.’

  ‘Which old man, Jimmy?’

  ‘In the graveyard.’

  ‘Ah, that’ll be Eli.’

  ‘He’s a bit of a mystery, isn’t he?’ I asked. ‘He comes to all the services, but he always sits at the back and disappears before the rest of us come out.’

  ‘We pay him to dig the graves and tend the churchyard, but I don’t know much more than that,’ Pa said. ‘He was a Chapel man, he told me, till they closed it down. He was the last one left in the congregation. They say he lives in a shepherd’s hut somewhere in the woods, though I’ve never been there. But dragons, Jimmy? I’d take that with a very large pinch of salt, if you ask me.’

  I didn’t care about the old man or the dragon, except that they provided the perfect excuse to discover for ourselves where this lake was, and perhaps get a glimpse of Wormley Hall. And even Kit.

  The following day dawned bright and crisp, for a change. ‘Where are you two off to?’ Mrs Diamond said, as we were pulling on our boots.

  ‘Going for a walk,’ I said cheerfully.

  ‘Find dragon,’ Jimmy added.

  She frowned. ‘You’ve not been talking to old Eli, have you?’

  Jimmy nodded, his cheeks reddening. I put my arm round him, trying to reassure him that there was no shame in what he’d said.

  ‘Well, don’t you go bothering that old boy. He’s not all there, if you get my meaning,’ she said, tapping the side of her head. ‘And he can have a fearsome temper on him.’ She clanged the empty soup tureen into the butler’s sink so roughly that it made us both jump
. ‘You wouldn’t want people to think the vicar’s children believe in a load of heathen nonsense, would you? It’s a touchy topic around these parts.’

  Whatever did she mean by ‘heathen nonsense’? Of course we didn’t actually believe in dragons.

  ‘We’re only going to the woods,’ I said.

  ‘Then mind you’re back for lunch. Twelve sharp. I’ve made soup.’

  Whoever suggested that the Suffolk landscape is flat had never been to this valley. The path through the woods led steeply downwards until at last we could begin to see glimpses of sunlit fields and the red-brick chimneys of Wormley Hall.

  The slope flattened out now, and between the trees we could just about make out water shimmering in the sunlight: we were getting close. The footpath swerved and we were stopped in our tracks by a high wire fence decorated every few yards with notices declaring ‘PRIVATE, NO TRESPASSING’.

  But the path continued to our right, and five minutes further on we came to a point where the bushes thinned out to give our first unhindered view of the lake. It was so much larger than I’d imagined: a wide, clear expanse of water, uninterrupted save for two or three small grassy islands planted with willow trees. Wormley Hall was out of sight, hidden behind trees to the left.

  In most places the banks were overhung with brambles, but quite close to us was a gentle sloped shoreline populated with bulrushes and luxuriant, almost exotic-looking growths of brilliant yellow flowers, like giant buttercups.

  The lake glittered invitingly, ripples reflecting the sky like a scatter of diamonds. How wonderful it would be to sit on that bank, I thought, splashing your face or even soaking your feet in the cool, clear water. The fence here looked neglected: posts had fallen or wire netting had rusted into holes. It was so tempting: it would be quite possible to get through.

  A moorhen came into view, swimming in its jerky manner and making loud ticks of alarm. We soon saw why. A skein of at least thirty geese appeared in the sky, squawking to each other as they circled twice, before plunging downwards and landing on the water with their pink webbed feet held out as brakes. They regrouped, shaking their wings, extending their necks and honking comically, as though congratulating themselves on a successful flight.

  Jimmy laughed, pointing.

  ‘They’re geese. Like we used to see in Hyde Park, remember? Noisy, aren’t they?’

  The birds swam to the bank and hauled themselves out, settling down to preen themselves or idly crop the short grass, and all was peaceful again.

  Soon after that the sun went behind a cloud, the breeze dropped and the surface of the water stilled and darkened. Without sunshine, the lake was transformed into a shadowy, mysterious place, full of potential danger. A chill went down my spine. It was easy to imagine how people had come to believe that fearsome creatures might be hiding in its bottomless depths.

  ‘Where dragon?’ he said, pouting.

  ‘Perhaps they’re all hiding today, Jim-boy.’ I put an arm round his shoulder, as much to reassure myself as him. ‘We’ll come back another time, shall we?’

  It was that very afternoon, returning home from the lake, that we saw Pa wandering at the far corner of the cemetery. Jim was about to run across to him, but something odd about Pa’s behaviour made me hold him back.

  He was pacing back and forth between the ancient gravestones with his head down and muttering to himself, although we were too far away to hear what he was saying. From time to time he would stop and look up to the sky with wide eyes, like a wolf howling at the moon. For the second time that morning I was filled with an indefinable sense of dread.

  Jimmy shifted uneasily by my side. ‘Wass he doing, Moll?’

  ‘I don’t know, my darling.’ I took his hand and pulled him away. ‘We’d better go, though. We’re late for lunch.’

  Pa didn’t turn up for the meal. Mrs D said she’d kept a plate for him in the larder, because he’d had to rush out for an urgent meeting with Mr Blackman.

  As Blackman was the church treasurer, I assumed it must have been about money. Pa had already talked about the multiple problems the church faced: the wobbly flagstones along the aisle that threatened to trip worshippers every Sunday; the hole in the vestry roof that let in the rain; and the slit in the leather bellows that had now grown so large that the organ could no longer be played. Without accompaniment it became harder for the choir to pull the congregation along with them, so that our hymns were often slow and ragged, and painfully out of tune.

  ‘What about?’ I asked.

  ‘Not my place to know,’ was all Mrs D would say. ‘Now, get on with your food and stop asking silly questions.’

  6

  As Easter approached, a change came over the countryside and, although I kept a sharp eye out, we saw no repeat of Pa behaving strangely, so I began to feel a little more cheerful.

  After weeks of rain and wind the weather settled and warmed. A gentle breeze carried the scent of blossom everywhere, bringing with it a new sense of optimism. It was difficult to worry or be miserable when every bird in the hedgerows seemed determined to out-sing its neighbours, and the churchyard was filled first with snowdrops and brilliant yellow aconites, followed by creamy primroses, cowslips and the white flowers of wild garlic that Mrs D brought in to flavour soups.

  A few weeks later, the bluebells arrived.

  Jimmy and I took the footpath into the woods and had walked only a couple of hundred yards when we topped a rise and found ourselves looking down into a wide glade on a south-facing slope. Both of us gaped: the woodland floor was a carpet of vivid, almost dazzling blue, striped with rays of sunshine, transforming it into an enchanted grove. The sound of birdsong was almost deafening.

  ‘Wha . . . what? Look,’ Jimmy stuttered, pointing.

  ‘Bluebells.’ I’d no idea they could look like this. ‘Can you smell them too?’

  He rushed forward and began to pick the blooms. I pulled him back. ‘They don’t last if you pick them. Better to enjoy the sight of them growing in the ground. Let’s go on.’

  The path led downwards through the sea of blue. Jimmy skipped ahead, and seeing him so happy lifted my heart. My eye was caught by a robin waiting on a low branch, probably hoping that our footsteps would turn up a juicy worm.

  Its red breast glinted in a ray of sunshine. I was entranced. The only birds I’d ever been this close to before were the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, which were always so greedy and aggressive. This little fellow looked as though he was actually welcoming me to this beautiful wood, his home territory. It tilted its head and observed me with a single black eye, as though about to engage me in conversation.

  ‘Hello, my friend,’ I said quietly, but my voice alarmed him and he flew off. When I looked up, Jimmy was already far ahead, way down the slope. As I quickened my step he turned a corner and went out of sight.

  ‘C’mon, Jimmy, we’re not playing hide-and-seek today,’ I called, but there was no response. ‘I know you’re not far away, so stop being a clot. Come back.’

  It was darker here, and cooler; tall pines blocked out the sun and their shadows felt unfriendly. I realised that we had never penetrated so deep into the woodland before. It was unfamiliar, even slightly sinister. I shouted Jimmy’s name over and over again but my voice just echoed back, as though the trees were mocking me.

  ‘Jimmy, please. Where are you? Come back, for heaven’s sake. You’re frightening me.’

  Minutes passed. I began to run. At another fork in the path I stopped and listened until my ears ached. My brother was rarely quiet, often panting or muttering to himself, and so clumsy that surely I’d be able to hear the thud of his footsteps or the crack of twigs under his feet? But there was nothing – only the creaking of the trees and the song of distant birds.

  How could he have disappeared so completely in just a few minutes? My heart was thudding as I tried desperately to decide what to do. Go forward, or back to where I’d last seen him? Surely he couldn’t have got lost in such a short time?<
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  In London there were always people to help. Mum had bought Jimmy an identity tag, which he used to wear on a leather lace round his neck, just in case. Now, I cursed myself for not being able to remember whether he was still using it, realising with a rising sense of panic that we had never got round to updating the address.

  Would he be able to find his way home? How far did these woods stretch? Where did they end? I had absolutely no idea what dangers the countryside might hold.

  And then I heard it: so soft as to be almost inaudible, but unmistakeably a man’s deep voice. ‘Hello, laddie. What’re you doing down here?’

  I began to run in the direction of the voice, barely noticing how the branches scratched my arms and brambles tore at my bare legs. I stopped and listened some more, then called, ‘Jimmy, Jimmy?’

  The man’s voice again: ‘Over ’ere, dearie.’

  At last I emerged into a clearing and there, in front of a dilapidated wooden hut, was Jimmy. As he turned round and smiled, I almost cried with relief.

  The hut was set high off the ground on iron wheels, with a stable door and an arched roof that projected forward over a raised porch reached by wooden steps, at the top of which stood Eli, with a beaming smile. Beside him, a camel-coloured mongrel with rough, scraggy fur snarled and bared a mouthful of sharp teeth, as though it might cheerfully tear me from limb from limb, given half a chance.