Dawn's Promise

by A. W. Exley

  While at the village, Dawn had bought a brand new notebook to record her efforts in restoring the estate. One day she would add her battered and worn volume to the other histories of the estate.

  As she pushed one book into place, the movement dislodged a tiny one that fell down the back of the shelf and landed on the quilt. She was about to replace it among its larger companions when idle curiosity made her flick it open. Tight script covered the pages, and as she peered closer she found it wasn’t a gardener’s journal, but a personal diary.

  … Each day the sickness creeps closer to the Ravensblood tree and soon will reach its exposed roots. She has banned me from the maze and says I cannot enter anymore, no doubt so I cannot see when it claims the tree and its leaves begin to turn black. When it withers and dies, what will become of the estate? Each day she spreads her poison deeper into the soil. Already neglect is taking hold, and only the constant efforts of the gardeners keep it at bay.

  The earl is obsessed with her and blind to the damage she inflicts. I fear that already it is too late. I have been given notice, my services are no longer required…

  Dawn turned back the pages, looking for a date or anything that identified the unknown narrator. February 13, 1840. Forty years ago. Had the tree even survived if sickness reached for it so long ago? More interesting, who was the she that the earl was obsessed with? It could be a mistress or a wife, or even the mother of Jasper, Julian, and Letitia.

  Dawn considered what the author of the diary meant by saying she was poisoning the garden. It could be literal as in someone had salted the earth, or figurative and merely a dispute between lady and gardener. However, salt would render entire areas barren and even the vine wouldn’t survive, so it must be something else.

  There was no point starting this novel in the middle of the story, or at the very end since that particular gardener was dismissed. Dawn opened the diminutive book at page 1, dated September 1830, and began a journey with the unknown gardener who cared so deeply for his charge. The entries were sporadic, sometimes one a week or just one a month, which was why so slim a volume held a decade of experience. Dawn followed the gardener from the day he arrived to take on his role to the day the earl gave him notice ten years later.

  Dawn laboured over the tiny scrawl for as long as she could before the flickering light gave her a headache. Then she tucked the journal under her pillow, not wanting to leave it exposed least it disappear during the night.

  In just a couple of days, life fell into a regular routine, and Dawn’s days were so full it was only alone at night that she remembered a different time in her parents’ town house in Whetstone. The ache in her chest remained, but grief no longer overwhelmed her mind. Each night, Dawn held the photograph of her parents and tears clouded her vision as she told her mother events of the day. Would the pain of their loss ever ease, or would she carry it with her until she saw her parents again?

  Her sleep was again interrupted by the banshee screams and howls, and she worried for poor Lady Letitia. What fuelled her night time horrors? Then, exhausted from the long hours of physical exertion, Dawn fell back to sleep.

  Dawn awoke as colour spread over the horizon and lit her cosy bedroom. Breakfast was waiting on the doorstep when she let Mouse out for his morning snuffle around the garden. She looked up at the raven, in his usual spot on the wall that ran along the other side of the path.

  Dawn waggled a finger at him. “Are you spying on me?”

  And reporting to a stone master? Her mother’s stories whispered through her mind.

  After breakfast, she washed in the kitchen sink and dressed. Considering the big day ahead, she took a mouthful of tonic and quietly warned her heart not to cause any problems. It had been rather obliging so far. As she prepared to face the day, Dawn grabbed a large straw hat to keep the building heat from her head and shoulders. By the time she walked down to the large courtyard between stables and house, she found ten men waiting for their orders.

  “Good morning,” she said in a quiet voice, not used to so much male company or the position of having to give them orders. Mouse sat at her side, and she touched his head for comfort.

  Ten heads turned in her direction and twenty eyes fixed on her.

  Hector took off his cap and bowed. “Morning, Miss Uxbridge. Your workforce is here and eager to start.”

  The men all muttered Good morning, Miss Uxbridge as though she were a new teacher in the classroom.

  She tried not to fluster under their stares and clasped her hands in front of her. She called to mind what she had written in her notebook, in case she forgot what to say. “If you could split into two groups of five please, gentlemen. One group will tackle the entrance to the maze, but please be very careful. The old vine blocking the way has large and nasty thorns. You will need gloves and machetes to clear it away. The other group will work on the potager. The vegetable beds need weeding and digging over, and the fruit trees are in desperate need of a prune. If you follow Hector, he will equip you with all you need.”

  Hector waved to the men to follow his tall and lean form down the path, toward the shed that contained all the gardening implements. As the men left, Dawn glanced up at the house. High up in the west wing tower, a pale figure watched events unfold in the courtyard.

  Lettie had opened the casement and leaned out on the edge. Would the woman jump and dash her life over the cobbles? But she seemed calmer today and leaned her elbows on the window. She didn’t scream or pull at her hair, just regarded the activity far below, her chin resting in her palms.

  Dawn took a chance and waved. Nothing happened for one beat of her heart, and then she was rewarded with a small wave in return. Perhaps they could make amends after their unpleasant start. Dr Day said to give her a little time to become accustomed to seeing her. If that was what it took, Dawn would treat Lettie like the abandoned kitten she once found under a shrub. She would be patient, continue with her daily tasks, and let Lettie reach out to her rather than rushing an acquaintance between them.

  The women appeared to be of similar ages, even though they came from different stations in life. Or perhaps Dawn was soft in the head to think they might become confidants. Could Lady Letitia ever recover from what harmed her young mind? They both shared the grief of losing someone they loved, so perhaps Dawn could use that as common ground.

  Dawn waved again and then followed the sound of laughter that rose from the group of men. She pushed through the ancient oak door in the red brick wall. The shed nestled in the corner, supported on two sides by the garden wall. It contained all sorts of equipment, from scythes and clippers to rotating blades that turned when pushed along and that mowed the lawn.

  Outside, by the barn slider that Hector pulled open, sat a much larger mower. The dark green piece of machinery was made by the Shanks company and was designed to be pulled by a pony while the operator walked behind. It seemed much neglected and rusty. Perhaps with a scrub down and some oil it could be used on the sweep of lawn out the front of the estate, instead of relying on sheep to keep the grass down. Dawn pulled her notebook free of the apron pocket and added another task to her list.

  Men lined up and were handed equipment at the door. As though they were knights heading out to wage war on a dragon, Hector dispensed armour and weapons to those heading over to the maze. The next group would tackle the overgrown walled garden, a more genteel enemy. Hoes, rakes, and spades were handed to the remaining five.

  “I’ll supervise at the maze, Miss Uxbridge, if you’re happy to take the lot in here?” Hector asked as he swapped his cloth cap for a more sheltering straw boater.

  She smiled in gratitude to Hector for taking subtle control and doing the talking for her. “A fine plan, Hector. Shall we regroup at lunch and discuss progress?”

  He nodded and gestured for his group to follow. Dawn pulled on her pair of soft leather gardening gloves and surveyed the long-neglected vegetable beds and fruit trees. “Right, lads, let’s make a start over here.”


  11

  A lad who admitted some knowledge of fruit trees was handed a pruning saw and told to go gently. Dawn didn’t want to lose the trees to shock if too many branches were hacked off. He nodded and disappeared among the foliage, tasked with opening up the dense mass of branches so sun could touch the fruit and prevent rubbing. Three men tackled the beds, pulling weeds and turning the soil. One man in Dawn’s workforce was occupied full-time carting away wheelbarrows full of weeds. The plants were dropped into the large compost bins behind the walled area, where heat would kill the seeds and it would be mixed with manure and kitchen waste to create rich compost to feed the hungry beds.

  Dawn tried to work just as hard as the men, but the simple fact was she was neither as healthy nor as strong. The flutter in her chest warned her to go slower. The sun rose higher in the sky and beat down on her head, even though she protected herself with a wide-brimmed straw hat. She finally admitted that hoeing the beds was too arduous for her and handed the implement over to a lad called Edward, or Teddy to his friends.

  She dipped a tin cup into a barrel that collected rainwater from the implement shed and took a long drink. Her body itched with sweat, and she longed for a bath to wash herself clean and to soak her aching body. If only the kitchen sink were large enough to allow her to clamber in and at least sit in a few inches of water. She shouldn’t even consider it. How embarrassing if she tried and became wedged and unable to get out. It would be a wash with a cloth, again.

  There was one job that called her with their glass tops and brick sides – resurrecting the pineapple pits. They ran along half of one wall, with the glass angled to face south and catch all the available sunlight. In front of them ran a trench covered by boards. The trench would be filled with manure from the stables, and heat from the decomposing manure would leech through holes and heat the interior.

  It was a frivolous thing to clean them out, but pineapples for the table could be a special thing to share with the villagers. She had already scanned what books and catalogues she found in the cottage, looking for somewhere to order the plants once they cleared away the weeds inside the pits. She expected the catalogues to be decades out of date, but someone had supplied her with a pile only a few years old.

  “The lads are stopping for luncheon now, Miss Uxbridge,” Teddy called out as the men headed toward the main house.

  “Very well. You go along, I just want to examine the pits.” She pulled off her gardening gloves and laid them on a pane.

  First she lifted a plank and peered into the old trench. The manure had broken down and long ago sunk into the ground. Oats had sprung up and completed their life cycle, all in the confined, dark space. Dawn dropped the plank back into place. It would be an easy task to scrape the trench clean for a new layer of manure.

  Next she pulled the pin holding the end frame closed and dropped it to the ground. The hinge gave a protesting groan as she levered it up. A stick came in handy to prop open the glass panel. The glass was coated in years of grime, but it was nothing hot water and soap couldn’t remove. The bed underneath was dry and hard, with dead weeds covering the surface. Weeds were opportunistic, and the seed had probably blown in small cracks or even seeped through from the manure trench.

  A scuffling caught her attention, followed by a vague snort. She peered into the long bright tunnel. Something moved in the brown grasses down one end. A hedgehog, perhaps? Caught and unable to find its way out? If a hedgehog found its way in, it could mean a hole in the brickwork that would let heat out. She could leave the creature, but it might expire if it couldn’t find its way back to the hole where it snuck in. Even without manure in the channel, it was still stiflingly hot and stuffy inside with the low walls and full exposure to the sun.

  Dawn moved down the pits trying to lift frames as she went, but none of the other panes would budge. They seemed either rusted or weathered shut. She could either leave the animal and assume it would find its own way out, or climb in through the one frame that opened and ferret it out.

  She couldn’t risk it being stuck. Hedgehogs were a garden’s friend and ate slugs and snails that damaged young plants. She pulled her gloves back on in case she needed to grab a grumpy critter, and picked up her skirts to climb into the pineapple pit.

  Dawn had to drop to hands and knees in the low tunnel. The baked earth gave off a sharp odour that speared up through her nostrils. She wrinkled her nose as she crawled along the length to where she heard the snuffling. Once she cleared away a few handfuls of long-dead cocksfoot, she found a baby hedgehog. Its foot was caught in a tangle of dead weeds that acted like a snare. If she had walked away, it would have perished.

  “I have you now, little one,” she murmured.

  She used her teeth to pull one glove off and spat it out. Then she was able to gently work the grass stems loose that were twisted around its appendage. With her remaining gloved hand, Dawn held the hedgehog to stop it from damaging its leg trying to wiggle free.

  The last stem snapped. “There. I shall place you outside in a shady spot so you can find your family.”

  Once picked up, it curled up in her hand, making a small prickly ball. Dawn tried to turn around in the awkward space without squashing the baby hedgehog in her grasp. A flash of white brushed past outside, like a sheet that had come loose from the washing line or the billowing of a nightgown. Then a slam reverberated along the frame as the open section fell shut.

  “Blast! A gust of wind has knocked out the stick.” With hedgehog held in front, Dawn crawled back to the end. Her bare palm scraped on the stone-like earth. At the end of the pit, she pushed on the glass with her shoulder but it didn’t budge. She frowned. This section had opened to admit her, and it should give as she pressed against it. She tried again, using the larger area of her back to press against the glass, but it refused to shift.

  Dawn crouched down and banged on the glass, but then remembered the lads had all gone to lunch. She hunched over the baby hedgehog in the low space as she considered her options. She had to get out. Already her breath came in short, hot gasps. With the lid shut, there didn’t seem to be any fresh air within the pit. An overwhelming earthy odour worked its way up her nostrils and down her throat. One dry cough was soon followed by another.

  Dawn banged on the lid again. “Hello! Is anyone out there? The lid is stuck.”

  A muffled woof came in response.

  Could Mouse be useful? “Mouse, I’m stuck! You need to fetch help.”

  Each time she coughed, it seemed harder to draw an inward breath. Seconds ticked into minutes in the hot and cramped space. Soon she was gasping. Sweat ran down between her shoulder blades and pooled under her armpits. Her bangs on the pane weakened. She felt around, looking for a stone in the soil or something sharp to smash the pane.

  She had taken off the leather belt that held her secateurs and left it on the grass, or she could have used their metal points. Her attention caught on the hedgehog still curled up in her palm. No, she couldn’t use the creature to hammer at the glass. Her fingers scrabbled in the dead weeds but came up empty. Perhaps there might be a loose brick? She pulled at the side, searching for any chink in the mortar. Every time a gasp caught in her chest, she tapped on the glass.

  “Hello. I’m in here.” Moisture was sucked from her throat by the unrelenting sun outside that beat down on the glass roof of her prison, and the words struggled to rasp over her tongue. She whispered the last syllable.

  She closed her eyes as her heart beat erratically in her chest. The press of hot, stagnant air was too much. One hand went to her breastbone, trying to reassure her frantic body they would be all right. Mouse would do something. If he failed, the men would come back from lunch and find her. Or would they if she collapsed? They might presume she had gone for a walk because there was no external clue that she was trapped in the pit.

  Her employer would not be impressed. Again. Assuming she survived, the earl would fire her. What use was a gardener who couldn’t get
out of a pineapple pit? What an ignominious way to perish.

  Once more she tried to push her way out, her shoulder smushed against the dirty glass.

  Then there was nothing except the sweet smell of fresh, cool air. She drew a deep gasp of freedom.

  “Are you all right, Miss Uxbridge?” a familiar voice asked.

  Master Elijah held open the frame and looked down on her with a worried look so like his uncle’s. The wolfhound stood next to him and snuffled his face into the pit.

  She didn’t have the strength to stand just yet but held up the small creature nestled in her palm. Mouse gave a short bark at the ball shaped creature. “I climbed in to rescue a hedgehog and the frame must have blown shut in the wind.”

  Elijah frowned. “The pin was through the latch.”

  He must be mistaken. She remembered putting the pin on the ground so she could find it again later. There was no way it could jump up into the latch.

  The youth held out a hand. “Lucky that Mouse raised the alarm. I was reading outside on the lawn, and he was most insistent I follow him.”

  Dawn patted his furry face with her free hand, and his shaggy tail wagged back and forth. “Clever boy, thank you.”

  “Let’s get you out of there and into the shade.” Elijah took her hand.

  He pulled her up and steadied her balance as she climbed out of the pit, made more difficult by her long skirts getting in the way. The raven on the wall watched as she tried to lift her skirt without revealing her ankles to the lad or squashing the creature in her hand. She scowled up at the watcher. If the bird spied on her constantly, why hadn’t it fetched help?

  They walked over to a shady spot under the fruit trees, where Dawn held out the prickly bundle to the young man. “Would you mind setting him free under a bush, please? He needs to find his family.”

  Then she dropped down on the grass and leaned against the trunk of an apple tree.