by A. M. Howell
“You need to get into that locked room in the cottage today. Maybe there are other things hidden in there, besides the letters your mother is writing to you,” Will said urgently. “Things like the stolen fruit.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” whispered Clara doubtfully. Her thoughts were hazy and slow, as if she was swimming underwater. Why was Will so insistent that Mrs Gilbert was responsible for the thefts? His fingers tapped against his trouser legs as they walked back through the woods, his eyes flitting to the gaps between the trees, almost as if he was looking for someone. The encounter with Mrs Gilbert and the soldier had clearly unsettled him. Instead of finding answers by following Mrs Gilbert, Clara had more questions than ever before.
Mr Gilbert was in the kitchen pouring a mug of tea when Clara returned. “Morning,” he called down the hall. “Nice to see you up and about so early. Mrs Gilbert was out at dawn too. Did you see her?”
“No,” Clara called back, stifling a yawn. She folded her arms to hide the worst of the muddy stains on her apron.
Mr Gilbert walked into the hall, cradling his mug. A fleeting frown crossed his face. “What happened to your dress, Clara?”
In her eagerness to conceal the apron, she had forgotten about her ripped sleeve. Clara felt a warm flush stealing onto her tired face. “Oh, I…caught it on a bramble. I will mend it myself.”
“Lizzy will do it for you,” Mr Gilbert said with a smile. “She’s always had a talent for sewing, knitting and suchlike.”
Clara remembered the tapestry lying forlornly in the Gilberts’ dresser upstairs. Mrs Gilbert might have a talent, but Clara certainly wasn’t going to give her any cause for further crossness because of a small thing like a ripped sleeve.
“You can help with the apple harvest this afternoon,” Mr Gilbert said. “Robert will be taking a cartload to the Red Cross hospital in town tomorrow. You can accompany him if you like? Must be a little boring for you, stuck out here in the countryside.”
Clara gave him a limp smile. If only he knew that, right now, she had never been less bored in her entire life.
“Right-ho. Best get to it. Those under-gardeners are probably still in their beds. Good mind to throw a bucket of water over the lazy whatsits.” Mr Gilbert smiled. It crimped his weary eyes and made Clara smile properly in return. “You look as tired as I feel, lass,” Mr Gilbert said, walking to the door. “I hope Robert isn’t working you too hard.”
“Oh, not at all. I like being busy,” Clara said. “Less time to…think.”
Mr Gilbert paused, his hand on the doorknob. He turned to face her. “Yes. I see that.” He took a slurp of his tea, sighed heavily. “Things will right themselves soon enough.” His look was kind. A sudden urge bustled through Clara – to throw her arms around him, feel the bristles on his chin on top of her head, smell the reassuring scent of soil, apples and vegetables. But then he was gone, closing the door quietly behind him, and Clara was left with an image of Father in her head as she trod wearily up the stairs towards her bed for a secret daytime sleep.
The early-morning mist had burned away, exposing a weak sun and lengthening shadows. It was late, well after lunch, and Clara was surprised to find she had slept all morning. She glanced in the mirror at the pillow crease on her right cheek and the plum-coloured bruises under her eyes.
Wasting no more time, she went to retrieve the hidden key from the Gilberts’ bedroom. The metal felt cool against her hot palm. Back out on the landing, she quickly pushed it into the keyhole of the mysterious room and turned it with a click. Twisting the doorknob, she opened the door and stepped inside, her stockinged feet as soft and silent as Neptune the cat’s. She locked the door from the inside, dropping the key into her apron pocket.
The temptation to rush to the bureau and the small pile of letters made Clara’s fingers tingle, but there were things she needed to do first. “Hello, bed,” she said. She ran her fingertips over the cream-painted metal bed frame. She picked up the crocheted blanket and stroked the burnt-yellow and forest-green wool. This blanket had been made with love and care. There were no dropped stiches and ragged edges like the one on her bed. She refolded it and walked to the bureau, then looked through the window beyond it. “Hello, window.” The view was similar to the view from the Gilberts’ room: the silvery lake, the ploughed fields, the trees beyond erupting in volcanic yellows, oranges and russet-reds.
“Hello, bureau,” Clara said finally. The wood was cool and shiny, and smelled of polish. She wiggled open the largest of the drawers. Piles of envelopes sat in neat rows. There were too many here to all be from her mother. A jolt of cold wormed its way down Clara’s spine. She wiped her damp palms on her apron and picked one up. It was not addressed to her or Mrs Gilbert. It was not addressed to anyone at all. Clara frowned. She flicked through the other envelopes. They were all blank, and all sealed.
Clara shut the drawer and opened the one beneath. She held her breath, half-expecting Will’s theory about Mrs Gilbert to be right – that she would discover a clutch of peaches and some pineapples. But there was no fruit, just more sealed envelopes.
Clara picked up the top envelope from the stack on the bureau. It, too, was blank. The ones beneath it collapsed like a fan. She turned the envelope over. This one had not been sealed. She put it down. Picked it up again. She thought about the letter from the War Office nestling in her own pocket. Guilt prickled across the backs of her arms, making the hairs stand on end. Slipping her fingers into the envelope, she pulled out a single sheet of folded paper and began to read.
October 1916
My Dearest,
Autumn has finally arrived on the estate. The trees are bursting with apples and pears and plums. There is so much fruit that the Earl has ordered we send some to the military hospital in town. The young under-gardener, Robert, loads the crates into the cart and hitches up Kitty the horse. Remember how you love Kitty? You press your nose into her flank and breathe in her warmth. I thought I glimpsed you in the woods again this evening, heard your laugh. It was not you, but I sorely wish it had been. I long for us to picnic together in the hothouses, spread out the blanket and sit among the sweet-smelling fruits as you amuse me with your stories of home. Your fondest, Lizzy
“It’s just so odd. Who is Mrs Gilbert writing to? And where were the letters from my mother?” Clara whispered to Will in the pineapple house that night.
Will bent over one of the plants, stroking its leaves tenderly. “It’s strange, alright.”
Clara recognized the look on Will’s face. It was the same as the one that had bunched his eyebrows together when he came up with the idea that Mrs Gilbert was stealing the fruit. “What is it?”
“She’s writing letters to someone with no name…she’s secretly meeting a soldier in the woods…”
Clara folded her arms. “We don’t know they are meeting in secret.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Really?”
A quiver of irritation stiffened Clara’s jaw. Will had been quick to decide her aunt was up to no good. But were those letters intended for Thomas? Clara thought not. The tone of Mrs Gilbert’s writing was tender, but in the way you might talk to a good friend. It was true that Mrs Gilbert had been quick to comfort the crying soldier, but there had been an awkwardness to their encounter that led Clara to firmly believe the letters were not meant for him. And besides, if she was writing to the soldier, why not simply give him the letters in person?
“We mustn’t let your aunt get her hands on this Scarlet Brazilian,” said Will firmly. His eyes glinted in the darkness. “Three years it’s taken to grow this big. That’s why these plants are so tremendous. They put so much time into ripening. It’s not like an apple or a plum that takes a few months and then it’s ready to be eaten.”
Clara went to stand beside him. “But we’ve been watching for two nights now. Maybe the thief has given up.”
“You mean maybe Mrs Gilbert has given up.” Will’s mouth was set in a hard line. “We’ll just keep wa
tching,” he said, darting a glance at the door. “She’s bound to take some more fruit soon.”
Clara gave Will a doubtful look. She walked the length of the planting bench, examining each pineapple in turn. It was just so very hard to believe that her own aunt was responsible for taking the fruits. What would Father say? What would Mr Gilbert say if Will was right?
“I’d love to eat a home-grown pineapple one day,” Will said, following Clara along the bench, “and see if it’s as sweet as people say. We would sit in the Earl’s summer house and have people wait on us with silver trays and fine china.”
Clara smiled, the muscles in her jaw relaxing. “People would curtsey and bow in our company.”
“And I would have clean nails and a fancy suit,” Will whispered with a grin.
“Clean nails?” snorted Clara softly. “Chance would be a fine thing.”
Will nudged her in the side with his elbow.
She did the same in return. Warmth spread through her. Contentment arrived in the strangest of guises – in a hothouse at night with a boy she barely knew, while trying to work out exactly what her aunt was up to.
Clara was shaken awake by Mrs Gilbert. Her eyes sprang open. Mrs Gilbert patted her hair (perhaps remembering the hair she had lost the last time she had been in Clara’s room), then took a step backwards. Why had Mrs Gilbert woken her? For one horrible second she thought Mrs Gilbert had come to tell her she knew Clara had been into the locked room and read her secret letters. For another horrible second Clara wondered what her punishment would be. The door to her attic room had a keyhole. Did Mrs Gilbert have the key to hand, ready to lock Clara in? The thought squashed the breath from her lungs.
“In the nine days you have been here, I have never known a girl sleep so much,” Mrs Gilbert said with a sniff. She walked to the window, opened the curtains and tutted loudly. “You will catch a cold, Clara, leaving this window open all night. I have brought you another blanket.” Mrs Gilbert’s offering was folded on the end of the bed.
Clara sat up and pulled the blanket towards her as she readjusted her thoughts. “Thank you,” she said.
Mrs Gilbert gave her a small nod as she banged the window shut. The spiders above Clara’s head shuddered in their webs.
“Father says fresh air is good for the soul,” Clara said, holding the blanket to her cheek.
“Does he now?” Mrs Gilbert gazed out of the windows to the gardens as she smoothed the curtains. “He could be right,” she murmured. Her voice was gentle, more how Clara remembered it sounding. “Mr Gilbert told me you are helping Robert take the vegetables to the hospital today,” she said, letting the curtains fall from her fingers.
Clara held her breath for a second or two. Was Mrs Gilbert going to say she could not go?
“Just…stay with Robert. Don’t go wandering off on your own,” her aunt said. “Robert’s a good lad. He’s got a lot of enthusiasm for sorting out vegetables for the hospital deliveries. I imagine it makes him feel useful, after his disappointment at not being able to enlist.”
Clara’s mouth began to tickle into a smile. She stopped it in the nick of time, pressing a hand to her cheek to remind herself of Mrs Gilbert’s slap. Her aunt was like a hot-water bottle, switching from cold to hot and then back again. When her face and voice thawed, Clara could almost see the woman she remembered and the sister her father talked fondly about. The kind of girl who liked climbing trees and making dens and staying up late into the night chatting with her brother. What had happened to turn that girl into the woman who wrote secret letters and might possibly be stealing fruit from the Earl? Clara wished she could find out. And maybe, by solving the other mysteries that dwelled in these gardens, she would.
Mr Gilbert had seen Clara and Robert off in the horse and cart, and told Robert not to let Clara out of his sight.
“There’s no need for Clara to come. I can take the vegetables to the hospital on my own,” Robert had said, glancing at Clara, who was stroking the knots from Kitty’s mane.
Mr Gilbert had shaken his head. “Two people will get the job done more quickly. I need you back here in the gardens as soon as possible, Robert.”
“It’s heavy work, lifting those crates,” Robert had said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirtsleeve.
“Clara will manage,” Mr Gilbert said, throwing a glance in her direction. “She’s a strong lass.”
Robert had shrugged, but he had not given Clara his usual cheery smile. Maybe he thought she was too weak, too small and girlish to help take the crates of vegetables and fruit into the hospital. Clara had pressed her lips together. She would just have to prove him wrong.
The cart jolted them from side to side as they headed down the long driveway and out of the estate. Clara glanced behind her at the tightly packed crates of vegetables covered with canvas sacks. Mr Gilbert had said it was the Earl’s largest donation yet to the Red Cross auxiliary hospital in town. She shifted in her seat, slipping her hands into her apron pockets for warmth, but also to check that the three things she had brought with her were still there:
The envelope from the War Office (which, despite Will’s encouragement, she was no closer to opening).
The tapestry, taken from the drawer in the Gilberts’ dresser and carefully separated from its board. (Even if Mrs Gilbert was sour, Clara had a strong sense she needed to mend what she had broken, for Mr Gilbert’s sake if nothing else.)
Her coin purse (which hopefully contained enough of her parents’ emergency money to buy a new tapestry frame, and which was also hiding the small piece of paper she had found behind the tapestry that said Maestro).
The cartwheels jolted over the cattle grid and they passed through a pair of huge iron gates. On each gatepost balanced an elegant, carved stone pineapple. These fruits! Clara had lived a whole life not thinking about them, and now she could not escape them.
Robert was quiet as they drove down the country lanes, his feet jiggling on the wooden boards. He held the reins tight as Kitty clip-clopped her way down the hill and into the small market town. They trundled past red-brick cottages, and a forge where two women wearing blue headscarves were shoeing horses. Kitty trotted past more women, chatting and laughing while they tended to a field of hulking pink-and-black pigs. The smell from the field was pungent, and Clara held her nose.
Robert glanced at her and smiled.
Occasionally they were overtaken by stuttering motorcars driven by smartly dressed men in hats, women in elegant coats perched beside them. Why were these men not at war? What were they doing to help the war effort, for surely everyone must want to do their bit?
As the streets narrowed and they entered the town, they passed a church with stained-glass windows that winked in the sunlight. Robert slowed Kitty to make way for a military funeral. Clara could not help staring at the glass funeral carriage and the lonely coffin inside, wrapped up like a parcel in the Union flag. The jet-black horses attached to the carriage stamped their feet as if in sympathy. Six officers with bowed heads lined up outside the church ready to receive the coffin.
“The Battle of the Somme could be this country’s downfall,” one officer said to another in a high-pitched voice as the cart passed them.
The officer standing beside him laid a hand on his arm. “Shush, we are not allowed to talk of these things, Harold,” he said anxiously. He looked up and caught Clara’s eye. She glanced away and squeezed her hands together in her lap. Being in this town, surrounded by signs that the country was at war, reminded her of her home town in Kent. While there were still signs of war on the Earl’s estate, at least she could escape to the hothouses and give her tired brain a rest from it all.
Robert flicked Kitty’s reins hard and she trotted on, faster than before, away from the funeral and past a huge stone archway. “There is the Abbeygate,” said Robert, following Clara’s gaze through the archway to the formal gardens beyond, where people were walking, huddled up against the gusty wind. On the opposite side of the
road a woman was half-running behind two small boys in tweed caps. One had his legs twisted around a hobby horse which had a red handkerchief tied around its neck, while the other was chasing him with a toy rifle. “Bang, bang,” the boy with the gun yelled to the horse-riding boy. “You’re killed.” They were giggling as they ran along a cobbled street stretching up a hill. Clara stared at the street sign. Abbeygate Street. The location of the framemakers’ shop. She brushed the tips of her fingers against the tapestry in her pocket, wondering how she was going to escape from Robert to visit it. She glanced at him. Robert was watching the small boys. The little brothers.
Clara curled her nails into her palms. “Where does your family live, Robert?”
Robert’s fingers tightened on the reins. “I don’t have any family,” he said, his eyes sliding away from the little boys and towards Clara. His face was stony.
“Oh,” said Clara. “I’m sorry…I thought…”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” said Robert sharply. “My parents are dead.”
“So…you don’t have any brothers or sisters?” A muscle in the side of Robert’s face twitched. Clara held her breath.
“No,” Robert said. He pushed his spectacles onto his nose and sniffed. “Sorry, Clara. I find it hard to speak of these things.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” Clara said. Robert was doing his best to protect Will, but the worry of looking after his younger brother must be eating away at him.
The silence between them stretched until she thought it might snap. Robert’s hands gripped the reins so tightly his knuckles reminded her of snow-capped mountains. Kitty rounded a corner, narrowly missing a man crossing the road with his yapping terrier.
“Hey, watch out!” the man shouted.