by Cathy Gohlke
The boy, near Gaston’s size, shrugged the hand from his shoulder and pushed in front of Peter. “I am Josef, eight years old, and I do not need anyone to speak for me, danke. This, on the other hand, is Franz, Ingrid and Marlene’s cousin, and he is . . . awkward with girls.”
“I am not awkward,” Franz hissed. “I am, perhaps, not confident of meeting so many at once. I am seven.”
“He’s shy,” Elise interpreted, smiling. “I’m Elise, and I don’t bite.”
Jeanine poked her sister in the side, whispering, “Don’t be so familiar.” She hesitated, blushing. “I’m Jeanine. Elise is my younger sister, and this is Aimee, the smallest among us.”
Aimee ducked behind her curls, and Franz nodded, barely looking up from the floor. Josef’s glare softened.
A sturdy young girl with two thick, dark braids down her back stepped forward. “Ingrid, ten.”
“And I’m Marlene, twelve,” a tall but quiet girl spoke softly. “Ingrid and I are sisters, and yes, Franz is our cousin.”
Miranda thought Bertram’s eyes lit up when Marlene flipped her long brown braid over her shoulder and couldn’t help but notice the defensive lift of Jeanine’s chin.
“Bertram, thirteen,” Bertram offered, standing straight.
“I am Gaston.” Gaston spread his feet and crossed his arms with the scowl of a young Napoleon.
Miranda did her best to ignore the overtones, nodding to Mrs. Newsome to ring for tea—a tea that proved the quietest and most orderly of any they’d taken in the house for four months as the competing nations scowled or flirted with one another.
The peace was such a reprieve from all she’d anticipated in combining the children that Miranda smiled and began to think they just might make it through the war . . . until the boys destroyed four goose-down pillows and an eiderdown in a blistering dormitory pillow fight that night.
Chapter Ten
DESPITE THE CONSTANT DIGS of the boys against opposing nationalities—primarily Josef and Gaston—Claire began to find a rhythm to her days. Mornings were spent tutoring the French children through homework, Aimee seated at her side drawing or coloring pictures, while Claire worked with Gaston and Elise. Bertram and Jeanine appeared competent in their studies as well as their English, so needed very little help.
Aunt Miranda tutored the new children in English, brushing up on her rusty German as she did so, much to Claire’s relief, for she spoke no German. The German children already understood a good deal of English, and most spoke well.
Josef, though young, was an especially quick learner. It wouldn’t be long, Claire thought, until he might join the village evacuee classes. Even now he made noble efforts to communicate with her in full English during teatime.
Bertram seemed energized by the daily routine of school and the challenge of studies in English, tackling each of his subjects with a will.
Jeanine took a different view of Bertram’s enthusiasm. “I believe he is more excited about a certain English girl from the village than he is about King Henry VIII.”
Claire noticed that Jeanine emphasized Bertram’s interest in English girls in front of Marlene and wondered if she might be a little jealous of the German girl. The thought made her both smile and pity Jeanine. Why is it boys don’t notice when we like them? It was a problem Claire had experienced time and again growing up.
Elise thrived on Claire’s personal attention, especially when they worked on reading together. She’d not seen Elise smile so much or respond so happily before, and the young girl’s blossoming pleased Claire. Elise had stopped wetting the bed at night, a fact that pleased not only Mrs. Newsome, but especially Nancy, the housemaid.
“This is my new primer, mademoiselle.” Elise proudly showed Claire. “Teacher say I have progressed to a new reading level.”
“Teacher said,” Claire corrected.
“Oui—yes—Teacher said,” Elise repeated, smiling.
“That’s wonderful, Elise. I’m so very proud of you.”
“See my picture, Mademoiselle Claire?” Aimee interrupted, pushing her coloring between Elise’s book and Claire’s face, giving Claire an inadvertent bump across the bridge of her nose in the process. “It is of the trees near the orchard now, all red and gold!”
“Aimee! Please! That’s very nice—” Claire rubbed her nose—“but I’m working with Elise now. You must wait your turn.”
“Oui, mademoiselle.” She turned away and whispered, “But when is my turn?”
Aimee’s pitiful plea was not new to Claire. She felt sorry for the child who wanted only to join in the activities and attention of the older children, but Claire was one person and there was only so much of her to go around. The little girl would simply have to wait, or amuse herself.
“Mrs. Newsome will help you this afternoon, Aimee, when she’s done her morning’s work. You know that. Now sit and color or go play by yourself until luncheon.”
Claire tried not to notice the child’s trembling lip.
The afternoon hours Aunt Miranda had planned for Claire to write, to journal for the Mass Observation Project, had completely vanished. By the time the German children’s afternoon lessons ended, the French children were out of school and it was time for a group tea, which had replaced the evening meal. Then chaos reigned in three languages until bedtime.
Claire counted herself lucky to find twenty minutes for a short walk through the grounds after lunch to clear her head and ten minutes to scribble a few lines of her would-be novel before falling asleep at night, pen in hand, ink staining her coverlet. The lack of solitude and focused time, and the lack of sleep, made her grumpy. She knew she shouldn’t take it out on the children, least of all little Aimee, and that made her grumpier still, especially when Mrs. Newsome clucked her tongue.
“Come, Aimee,” the housekeeper said. “You may help me haggle with the greengrocer. Mrs. Creedle can handle the puddings. We’ll collect your pictures and make a nice book of them, shall we? This afternoon we might take a stroll over to Auld Mother Heelis’s farm. My niece Ruby works there as housemaid. Perhaps Mrs. Heelis will take a look at your drawings, if she’s not out traipsing the fells, checking on her sheep. In any case, you can see some of her pictures. She likes to draw bunnies and lambs, just as you do. You’ll enjoy her sheep, and there’s always ducks about the place.”
Aimee brightened. “Vraiment?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Newsome. I appreciate it.” Claire felt both the burden and the guilt leave her shoulders.
“It’s a trip you’d enjoy, I’m quite certain, Miss Claire, if you find the time. You’re welcome to join us.”
Claire bristled. Mrs. Newsome knew perfectly well Claire’s schedule.
“’Twas just a thought,” the older woman said, taking Aimee by the hand.
The afternoon trip seemed to have done Aimee a great deal of good, much to Mrs. Newsome’s apparent delight and Claire’s relief.
“Mrs. Heelis said that Aimee shows great promise as an artist!” Mrs. Newsome crowed over tea that evening.
“Did she?” Aunt Miranda seemed pleased beyond Claire’s comprehension.
“Oh, madame! She showed me pictures of her bunnies, and the naughtiest squirrel I ever saw!” Aimee all but squealed, unable to stay in her seat.
Aunt Miranda’s smile widened. “You’re a very lucky little girl to have visited Mrs. Heelis. She doesn’t often take time for children—or adults, for that matter.”
“Oui, madame!” Aimee beamed. “She said the bunny was created for a boy long ago—he is now a man all grown and an air-raid warden in a bombed London parish; and the squirrel, he lived on the shore of Der—Der—”
“Derwentwater,” Mrs. Newsome helped, grinning all the while.
“Merci! Derwentwater, the lake near Keswick.”
“My goodness,” Claire said. “What an imagination your Mrs. Heelis has.”
“Mademoiselle Ruby, the niece of Madame Newsome, said there are others straight from Sawrey—the talking duck,
and the frog with a waistcoat, and . . .”
“Talking animals?” Claire smiled indulgently. That was more imagination than she had summoned since childhood.
“Ah, oui, mademoiselle! And there is a fairy caravan where the Girl Guides used to camp high up in the hills—but of course now they cannot go there because of the war and the bombing—and some other sort of camp and something about a footpath, but I cannot remember what.” Aimee’s forehead scrunched, but she was wound like a spring and barely stopped for air. “I think perhaps it is hidden in those blue and green hills above her farm—Troutbeck, I think she said . . . or some sort of poisson.”
“I think you’d best calm down now and eat your soup. You’ve had quite a day, what with talking ducks and fairy caravans and towns named after fish.”
“Oh, and the bunny chased by a garden rake!” Aimee clapped and laughed, her voice rising like the tide.
Claire shook her head. “That’s enough, Aimee.”
“Oui, mademoiselle.” Aimee stopped, crestfallen, and ducked her head. Still, she whispered, “I should very much like to see the fairy caravan.”
Aunt Miranda smiled at Aimee but gave Claire a disapproving raised eyebrow. Claire lifted her chin, turning her attention to her meal. She couldn’t say why she found Aimee’s prattle annoying. She knew she should be glad that the little girl had enjoyed her day. Something about it made her a little envious, including Aimee’s strengthening bond with Mrs. Newsome, who always seemed to have time for her, no matter how busy she was.
I can’t be all things to all people. Why do I care what she does as long as she’s busy and happy?
“Claire? Claire, did you hear me?” It took Claire a moment to realize her aunt was speaking to her.
“I’m sorry; what did you say, Aunt Miranda?” Claire wiped her mouth with her napkin.
“I have a ten o’clock appointment here tomorrow morning, and I must ask you to work with all the children for a couple of hours. In the drawing room would be best. My meeting is in the library.”
“All? A couple of hours?” Claire thought she might burst a blood vessel.
Aunt Miranda must have seen Claire’s panic. “I’ll take your afternoon group while the other children are in school, if you wish. That will give you a few hours of free time. Would you like that?”
Would I? “Thank you, Aunt Miranda. That will be wonderful.” Claire nearly swooned at the thought. That more than makes up for throwing us all together for the morning. Three hours—at least—to escape! If only it won’t rain!
Claire could barely keep her mind on the children that night. Marlene, the oldest of the German evacuee girls, had become a right hand at tucking the young ones into bed, including her younger sister and cousin, ten-year-old Ingrid and seven-year-old Franz. Of course, Peter, at nearly fourteen and having celebrated his bar mitzvah before leaving Germany, was too old for tucking in. He and Bertram had become fast friends, if competitive at games and debates.
It was eight-year-old Josef who tried Claire’s patience, who stated flatly that he was too old for tucking in and clearly despised Gaston for claiming such a baby’s attention from Claire. The boy adored her, she could see, but the antics he performed to capture her attention left Gaston’s pranks in the dust. Which is probably quite the point, Claire conceded.
Morning lessons dragged for Claire. Verb conjugations and points of English grammar for the German children swam in her head along with the mix of times tables and reigns of British monarchs for the French children. By luncheon she was ready to explode and convinced her aunt and Mrs. Creedle that she would prefer a picnic lunch and a long walk.
Aunt Miranda looked a little perturbed to lose her additional table referee, but Claire no longer cared. She’d kept her end of the bargain. Mrs. Newsome could assist through lunch and in getting the schoolchildren out the door and on the road in good time.
Claire changed her shoes into her aunt’s loaned Wellingtons and belted her trench coat. Once outdoors, she pushed her pen and paper deep into her pocket, tucked her lunch and tea thermos beneath her arm, and left the maze path. She’d explored little of the orchards or other gardens and, in fact, had told the children never to stray beyond the front lawn and maze.
Mrs. Newsome had suggested that her ladyship might not like the children traipsing willy-nilly through all the woodland paths, though her aunt had said no such thing. Claire had asked her why not, but Mrs. Newsome had simply said that “some things are not meant to be shared.”
Claire never knew what the children were up to when turned loose out of doors. Would I have obeyed a “keep away” mandate at their age? Would I obey one now? She shook her head in recognition of the truth. Can I expect more of them?
The afternoon air sprang glorious after the early-morning rain. A cobalt-blue sky rode high, and the sun’s brilliant rays shone through the leaves of brown beeches, emerald yews, rusting larch, and ancient oaks that Claire believed must have towered even in King Arthur’s time. Lime trees dripped gold and green, their fallen leaves forming a thick carpet over the lawn she walked. Trees and shrubbery—brilliant, but different from any Claire had known in New Jersey—burned in shades of crimson and orange. Claire spent her first hour trekking the perimeter of the lawns and musing over the overgrown topiaries before turning to the woods.
Her aunt had told her that most of the trails wound through the gardens and the forest, coming back on themselves in meandering paths, creating the illusion of two, perhaps three miles of special haunts—that it was easy to become confused. Claire knew it must have taken years—decades—to create such splendor. What a shame, she thought, that now there were not enough men left to tend this treasure.
Wooden doors and arbors leading to individual gardens and new vistas beckoned each way she turned: kitchen gardens, flower beds, herb gardens, orchards, berry thickets . . . Her favorite was the garden she’d discovered the first month she was quarantined at Bluebell Wood, the one dubbed the Secret Garden by an old, lopsided sign, a board nailed awkwardly with the letters scrawled in a childish hand. Of course the sign made it secret no longer.
The curious thing was, the lock had been cemented. It was nothing more than a tease. She imagined the frustration of the children upon finding they were not admitted to the “secret garden” no matter what they did. Of course, they could try climbing over the wall if one lifted the other, but it was high, and such a feat seemed unlikely, even for Gaston.
She was about to turn away when it occurred to her that there might be another entrance for such a large walled area.
Remembering a similar story from childhood, Claire, with new energy, walked the perimeter of the walled garden, pulling back vines every few yards. Nothing. She’d nearly made it to the back wall of the garden when she found a slight indentation in the stonework. Pulling back the thick vines covering the space, she found built into the wall, a foot or so above ground level, a heavy wooden door painted to look exactly like the stone.
Claire’s heart tripped, then picked up a beat. There was a lock in the door, but no key. She ran her fingers round the heavy sill. At the top, she grasped the cold iron of a heavy, old-fashioned key—just the sort she might have imagined for such a place.
Claire swallowed, glanced furtively around as if she might be caught, and inserted the key.
Everything about stepping through the door reminded her of the book she’d loved as a child, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. From the moment she crossed the threshold, Claire knew she’d traversed worlds—time and space.
Inside was a fully functioning but riotously overgrown Victorian garden, summer-spent and needing to be tidied for winter. Rose hips, full and red, burst beneath late-season blooms opened to shades of pink, coral, and butter yellow. Thick wisteria vines, their blooms long past, wound tentacles up and round aged tree trunks. A winding trail through an untrained wooded patch created magic beyond anything Claire had seen or explored. The garden appeared even bigger on the inside than she
’d imagined from her trek outside the wall.
Round one curve she found a swing large enough for two—built from a sanded board hung with thick and twisted ropes. She tested the weathered ropes. The swing could certainly hold her, and made the perfect perch to eat her lunch and drink her tea. Back and forth, back and forth she pumped her knees. Claire had forgotten how she loved to swing, how she loved to chant aloud the rhyme of Robert Louis Stevenson:
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do! . . .
A canopy of honeysuckle and wisteria vines grown wild covered a section of treetops—so thick and sturdy a child might climb them and pretend he’d hoisted the sails of a great ship. She imagined Gaston, and perhaps Elise or Franz—if they could be coaxed—climbing and swinging across the tops of those vines for hours. Josef would need no coaxing.
Claire knew she should work her way back toward the house soon. The children would be home for tea in an hour or so, and she dared not desert Aunt Miranda again.
But a little brown bird Claire didn’t recognize chirped, hopping from branch to branch—probably, she thought, desperate to lure her from its perch for the evening. She knew she should ignore the bird and hurry back, but something drew her deeper into the garden. Claire still believed, or wanted to believe, in magic and the charm of thin veils between worlds. What better place to find such a veil?
She took a deep breath and followed the bird, just as Mary Lennox had followed the robin to find the key to her secret garden. She walked slowly at first, then tripped over tree roots in her speed and eagerness to keep pace with the flighty creature. Apparently having lured her sufficiently away, the bird chirped ferociously, beating the air with its wings, then took to the sky, flying back the way they’d come.