The Secret of Nightingale Wood

by Lucy Strange

  The secretary raised her eyebrows and went off to find Mr Pickersgill. I heard the low murmur of their voices. When she came back she said, ‘He’s in the old archive. End of the corridor, down the stairs. Mind yourself, Miss Abbott – it’s a bit of a squeeze . . .’

  It was a sort of cellar, and it was filled – absolutely jam-packed – from floor to ceiling with books, ledgers and files. They were stacked in great dusty towers on the floor and I had to thread carefully through them, as if I were deep underground, exploring a cave full of stalagmites.

  Mr Pickersgill was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the far corner of the room, reading an old ledger by candlelight.

  ‘Take a seat, Miss Abbott,’ he said. ‘If you can find one, that is.’

  I carefully removed a pile of books from a wooden chair and placed them beside my feet. They weren’t legal books at all, they were Sherlock Holmes stories. This wasn’t just an archive, it seemed to be Mr Pickersgill’s private library too. Suddenly I liked him an awful lot.

  ‘Well, how can I help, Miss Abbott?’ he said, twinkling at me through his glasses.

  I couldn’t very well talk about the weather this time. I straightened my skirt over my lap and took a deep breath. ‘I need to talk to you about Mrs Young,’ I said. ‘I mean, Mrs Young of Hope House.’

  The atmosphere in the cellar changed immediately. ‘What exactly do you . . .?’ Mr Pickersgill’s question trailed off as his smile faded.

  ‘You knew them, didn’t you – the Young family?’

  ‘Yes. My firm handled the sale of Hope House when Mr and Mrs Young first moved to Little Birdham – when their son Alfred was just a small boy.’

  ‘What can you tell me about them?’

  ‘Well, let me see . . . Mr Young was a wealthy man – family money, I think, but there was a problem with his lungs and he died not long after they arrived here. His wife had trained as a nurse and she looked after him all through his illness. That was nearly twenty years ago now. Mrs Young lived there at Hope House with her boy until the war. A wonderful woman.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, unable to contain my excitement any longer. ‘I’ve seen her!’

  Mr Pickersgill’s mouth was open, as if he was about to say something but didn’t know where to begin. He stared at me, his brow furrowed with doubt. I had seen that expression too often recently, from Nanny Jane, and Doctor Hardy too . . .

  ‘I’m quite sure she’s Mrs Young. She’s –’ I struggled to describe her – ‘she’s beautiful, and quite strange, and she’s very kind. She lives in a caravan in Nightingale Wood – the wood at Hope House.’

  Mr Pickersgill’s face had changed again and I found it hard to read his expression as he interrupted me. His eyes sparkled dangerously. ‘No, Miss Abbott, she doesn’t.’

  ‘She does,’ I said. ‘It’s definitely her—’

  He interrupted me again. ‘Miss Abbott, I’m sorry . . .’ He rubbed at his face, then he took a deep breath. ‘Mrs Young died three years ago,’ he said. ‘She – took her own life.’

  ‘What?’ I didn’t understand. The dark, dusty room started to spin before my eyes . . .

  ‘She left a note saying that she couldn’t go on,’ he said in a low, steady voice. ‘Then she rowed a boat out to sea in a storm, and drowned. Mrs Young is dead.’

  Moth was Mrs Young. But Mrs Young was dead. It seemed that Doctor Hardy and Nanny Jane were right. I was losing my mind.

  I tried not to notice Mr Pickersgill’s expression as I apologized for wasting his time. What I saw in his face – and, I thought, in the face of his secretary as I left the office – was not impatience, anger or even confusion: it was pity. Were we the subject of local gossip, I wondered? The crazy Abbott family – the mad mother, the mad daughter, the dead son and the father who ran away . . .

  Won’t be long till she’s for the loony bin too, the whispers seemed to say, as I hurried back past the post office, over the bridge and home to Hope House.

  I wanted to run deep into the woods, to find Moth and curl up beside her fire in a nest of blankets. But I was scared that she wouldn’t be there. And I was scared that she would.

  When I got home I lied to Nanny Jane about where I’d been. I stood with the front door firmly behind my back, my heart banging like a battle drum. I resolved to put all thoughts of Moth and Mrs Young out of my mind. I thought about what Nanny Jane had said to me a few days ago when we had argued: It’s very common to have imaginary friends when the real world is so difficult. Perhaps she had been right and Moth had indeed been part of all that too . . . I felt in my heart that Moth was real, but I knew now that she couldn’t be – Mrs Young was dead. I tried not to think about the bizarre imaginary world that had almost swallowed me up like a great biblical whale. I wondered if all those strange goings on at Hope House really had been down to me after all . . .

  That night I exhausted myself trying to sort what was real from what wasn’t, but it was like untangling cobwebs. Perhaps that exhaustion was why I slept so soundly. My head felt clearer the next day. I woke up aware only of the empty nursery next to my bedroom and the locked door at the end of the landing. I needed to stop wallowing in worries and daydreams and stories.

  I needed to get Piglet back. I needed to help Mama.

  I was using my secret key to open Mama’s door when I heard a floorboard creak heavily behind me. I froze. Nanny Jane? This would make things a thousand times worse . . .

  ‘It’s all right, Miss Henrietta.’ I almost collapsed with relief – it was Mrs Berry. ‘It’s all right,’ she said again. ‘Jane’s nipped down to the village. Just you go along in and see the poor soul.’ She smiled a firm smile. ‘Don’t seem right to keep you from each other. Just be sure not to tell that doctor . . . Well, go on, then – I’ve got to see to her bedpan and whatnot.’

  I sat on the bed, next to Mama. She was sleeping deeply.

  ‘They’re going to send her to Helldon,’ I whispered to Mrs Berry. ‘Doctor Hardy wants to put her in the asylum.’

  ‘I know,’ Mrs Berry said quietly. Then, after a second or two: ‘My Archie was in there for a while.’

  I remembered the conversation Mr Berry and I had had in the trap the evening I had got lost in the woods. ‘He said he was there for treatment during the war.’

  ‘That’s right. He was home for a while recovering from his shrapnel injuries. They were making arrangements to send him back to the front line when he started showing signs of what they’re calling shell shock – shaking, panicking, that sort of thing. It’s when his stutter started. Well, they put him in Helldon, patched him up God-knows-how, and sent him back. How he got through the rest of it I don’t know. My husband was not a well man when he came home last year, Miss Henrietta, but he came home alive, and that’s more than a lot of poor souls can say.’

  ‘Yes,’ I murmured. I wanted to hug her.

  ‘There’s a few boys still in Helldon,’ she said. ‘Being treated for shell shock. There’s a doctor there . . .’

  ‘Doctor Chilvers?’

  ‘That’s him, Chilvers. Fancies he’s after the Nobel Prize or something. He gets up to all sorts in there. New treatments – scalding hot baths, surgery, giving folks tropical diseases.’

  ‘Tropical diseases?’

  She nodded. ‘They inject you with a fever. Makes the body burning hot so’s it does something to your brain. That’s what it said in the paper. Chilvers thinks it can be used to cure all sorts of mental problems. Hardy worships Chilvers – wants to ride to glory on his coat-tails if you ask me.’

  I was so shocked and frightened I could hardly get my words out. ‘Do you think they’ll be doing that to Mama – giving her a tropical disease?’

  ‘Oh! Goodness – I shouldn’t have thought so, Miss, no,’ Mrs Berry said. Then she suddenly seemed to realize the implications of everything she had just said. ‘Oh, Miss! Now, then – I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s probably all just rumours anyway. I’m sure your mother will be fine.’

>   But I had heard those conversations between Doctor Hardy and Nanny Jane. I knew his plans . . .

  ‘Here,’ Mrs Berry said then. She unlocked a drawer and passed me a full bottle of Mama’s pills. ‘Be sure your mother takes two of these, and don’t forget to lock the door again when you go. I’ve got to whip downstairs and rescue tomorrow’s loaf from the oven.’ And she left the room.

  I couldn’t believe it. A whole bottle of the dreaded pills had been placed straight into my hands. This was my chance. Without the sedatives, Mama would be able to wake up properly at last. Perhaps I could get up very early and take her to the caravan in the woods, so Moth could look after her and protect her from Doctor Hardy . . . I held the heavy bottle of pills in my hands.

  There was a bang from downstairs. The front door. Nanny Jane was home.

  ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ I said, kissing her quickly and saying goodbye. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  Then I tucked the bottle of pills under my cardigan and left the room, my heart thudding.

  At midnight, I crept out to the garden and burrowed into the rose bed with my bare hands, scooping out a deep, dry grave. I dropped the bottle of pills into the hole and covered it up again, patting the earth down firmly and sweeping a deceitful layer of soil crumbs over the surface. Something danced madly inside me. It felt like dark magic, like a pagan ritual. I felt as if I should say something – a spell or a prayer.

  ‘Wake up, Mama,’ I whispered. ‘Wake up and be well again.’

  ‘I want to help!’ I had insisted. ‘I want to help find her.’

  I spoke firmly but inside I was a mess of terror. This was my fault.

  Mama had gone missing in the night, and it was now nearly lunchtime. Doctor Hardy had organized a search party from Little Birdham. He had notified the police.

  Nanny Jane told me to wait at home, but I refused. I got dressed quickly, pulling on an old, stained pinafore, and ran down the stairs.

  I had woken Mama up with my spell. I had taken the sedatives away and I had forgotten to lock her door when I left. If I had given her the pills as I was told to, she would still be safely asleep in her bed. Then another thought occurred to me: perhaps Mama had heard the conversation I had had with Mrs Berry – perhaps she had not been asleep at all – and now she had run away, to avoid being sent to Helldon. For a moment I thought this was a good thing – Mama was free. But then I realized that I might never see her again, that Piglet might never see her again. I pictured her lost and frightened somewhere, wearing only her nightgown, her bare feet cut and bleeding.

  We need to find her.

  ‘We’ll start with the woods and fields nearby,’ said a young, pink-faced policeman.

  There was a crowd gathered in the driveway of Hope House. Mr Pickersgill was there and a few other people I recognized from the village. Some, I suspected, were there for the excitement of it all. One man had brought his two dogs. They strained on their leads, eager to begin the hunt.

  ‘Any volunteers to check the river?’ asked the policeman.

  The river? I felt sick. I had a horrid vision of Mama lying limp and open-eyed amongst the waterweeds . . .

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Come along, little ’un.’ It was Mr Berry. ‘D’you want to come and search with me?’

  Bert, the brown pony, trotted through villages and farmland. The steady clip-clop of his hooves helped to steady my frantic heartbeat. I kept glimpsing white shapes moving at the edges of fields, in the cottage gardens. I would turn my head sharply, only to see the swish of a horse’s tail or the fluttering of a sheet on a washing line.

  ‘Where d’you reckon, then?’ Mr Berry said. ‘Where d’you think she’d go?’

  For the hundredth time that morning, I racked my brains. We had checked the house from top to bottom. We had covered every inch of the overgrown garden. I felt that she might have gone into the woods, or to the meadow beyond, in which case the search party might well find her, but she had been missing for so long . . . She could be miles away by now; she could have walked all the way to the sea . . .

  ‘Mr Berry, if you were to walk in a straight line from Hope House to the sea, where might you end up?’

  ‘Pretty near that place I took you a while ago with your nanny, I should think,’ he said. ‘Or a bit further down the coast maybe – near the estuary – by the old lighthouse.’

  The old lighthouse. I thought of the quivering path of light Mama had seen from the attic’s cartwheel window. I thought of the way she had gazed at that light, rigid with emotion, her fingers spread like starfish . . . They went there together, I thought suddenly. They stayed in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage when Robert was a baby . . .

  ‘Can we try there, please?’ I asked. ‘The old lighthouse?’

  ‘If you like, Miss. It’s as g-good a place as any, I suppose.’

  When Mr Berry turned the cart on to the narrow track that led to the lighthouse, I saw her immediately. She was standing near the edge of the cliff, looking out to sea.

  An elderly man – the lighthouse keeper, maybe – shuffled about nervously a few paces behind her. He was holding a grey blanket in the same way that a bullfighter might hold a red cape.

  The sea breeze had turned Mama’s nightdress into a white wind-whipped gown. Her hair streamed out behind her, wild and magnificent, her eyes were shining. She looked like the figurehead of a ship, a mighty sea goddess – she looked free.

  Mr Berry stopped the cart and I leapt out.

  She is safe, she is safe. I started running towards Mama but there was the roar of an engine behind me, the screech of tyres. A car door opened and slammed.

  ‘Get back, Henrietta!’

  Doctor Hardy. Doctor Hardy was here.

  And then another motor car appeared – a great black car – and two men got out. ‘Get the child out of the way, for God’s sake!’ Doctor Hardy shouted. One of the men ran towards me. Before I could get any closer to Mama, a huge pair of hands had seized me, fleshy fingers digging cruelly into my arms. ‘Put her in my car!’ Hardy called to the man.

  I fought with all my strength. My feet slid and skidded on the loose stones of the clifftop, my fingers tried to prise the hands from my arms. I heard a door open behind me and I was flung onto the back seat of Hardy’s car. The door slammed shut with a clang. I was trapped. ‘Keep her in there!’ the doctor’s voice yelled. The man did exactly as he was told, standing guard, imprisoning me inside the motor car.

  ‘Mama!’ I peered through the window, trying to see past my captor. Doctor Hardy was cantering heavily towards the edge of the cliff. I banged on the glass to warn her. ‘MAMA!’

  Hardy slowed when he was just a few feet away. He held something in his hands. A white coat? A leather belt? It was a straitjacket.

  My wild breathing was steaming up the glass now and I had to wipe it with my hand so I could see. Doctor Hardy was creeping up behind Mama, the white jacket held open. I could see his lips moving but I couldn’t hear what he was saying to her. It was as if I were watching a moving picture – there was nothing I could do to affect the events on the screen in front of me . . . I couldn’t bear it.

  ‘MAMA!’ I shouted again, louder this time.

  She must have heard me. She turned around and, at exactly the same moment, the doctor lunged forward. Mama’s mouth opened in a silent scream as she saw him, and her foot slipped backwards towards the cliff edge.

  ‘MAMA!’

  Doctor Hardy flung himself down on the grass and grabbed hold of her. I saw a flash of terror on his face – his patient, he couldn’t lose his precious patient . . . There were other people helping too now – the lighthouse keeper and the other man who had come in the black car. They all pulled Mama safely away from the cliff edge. The strange man put her into the white jacket that Doctor Hardy had been holding. I could see Mama struggling. I managed to open the door a little and shouted again. She saw me and tried to come towards me, but Doctor Hardy steered her away. My captor shoved me ba
ck inside the car and slammed the door shut again. Mama tried to reach out towards me but the straitjacket held her arms down; she was sobbing and I was sobbing too, my hands flat against the car window – ‘Mama!’

  ‘Calm down, Henrietta!’ Doctor Hardy shouted. ‘You are really not helping anyone with this behaviour! Get in the trap with Mr Berry, please. We will see you back at the house . . .’

  The man who had kept me prisoner opened the door at last. I watched helplessly as they put Mama in the back of the big black motor car, and drove away.

  ‘Are you all right, Henry? How was your drive back with Mr Berry?’ Nanny Jane asked, smiling at the air above my head. Something was strange about her. Her anxiety about Mama had been replaced with a brittle brightness.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, still shaken by the frightening events on the clifftop. ‘I want to see if Mama is all right.’ And I set off determinedly towards the stairs.

  Nanny Jane took a step in front of me, blocking my way, and her face started to blotch with pink. Something was wrong.

  ‘What?’ I said. I tried to say it in a calm, grown-up way, despite the fact that my heart was beginning to bang painfully in my chest. ‘What is it?’ Then I said it again, almost shouting: ‘What is it?’

  Nanny Jane reached towards me with both hands and I saw that she was shaking. She opened her mouth to say something but no words came out.

  I pushed past her and ran up the stairs.

  ‘Where IS she?’ I shouted.

  Mama’s room was empty, the windows open, the bed stripped of sheets. Doctor Hardy sat at the writing desk in her room, signing some sort of certificate.

  ‘Now then, young lady,’ he started, turning around slowly and removing his spectacles.

  He was a blur. My whole body convulsed with each gasping breath. My throat was burning. I could barely speak. Is she dead? Is she dead? I heard Nanny Jane behind me in the corridor. I clung to the door frame.