“Or you’d been kidnapped,” added Frances, her eyes very round.
“Or we thought perhaps you’d run away,” chimed in Peter, his mouth full of cake.
“Where’ve you been?” demanded Robin, beaming at me over his mug of milk.
There was one good thing about these children: they asked questions so hard and fast that there was never time to give an answer or explain, and I did not wish to explain. I looked rather anxiously at Mrs. Owen to see if she was cross; she had certainly looked relieved when I came in.
“You mustn’t go so far alone till you know the way about, Elaine,” she said gently. “The paths are confusing around here. Now stop asking where she’s been, all of you. She doesn’t know where she’s been. She only came the day before yesterday.”
Nevertheless, as soon as tea was over, she called me into the kitchen and, sitting down on a chair by the window, she pulled me gently toward her and asked me herself where I’d been.
“Only for a walk,” I replied rather rebelliously. “There’s nothing wrong in going for a walk alone, is there, Mrs. Owen?”
“Oh, no,” she said quietly, “there’s nothing wrong at all. Janet often goes for walks alone. It’s just that I’m afraid of you getting lost when you don’t know the country. Come and tell me when you want to go out alone, Elaine, and then I shall know where you are.”
I was rather surprised at this speech, for I had thought she was going to be cross, but she wasn’t at all. Yet she seemed puzzled, as though she was trying to understand why I would want to be alone, and I had a sort of feeling that if I could make her understand, she would try to help.
“Mrs. Owen,” I murmured, “do you see that wall?”
She gazed out into the dusk. Over the hills above “my cottage,” there were still orange streaks in the stormy sky, and I could see the wall.
“Yes?” she answered questioningly.
“Well,” I said, “I won’t go any farther than there. Just around the other side of the bushes there’s a special place where I want to play. And please, Mrs. Owen, let me go and play there alone, and don’t let the others come and look for me. I like playing alone better.”
She smiled understandingly, for she knew all about special places. All of her children had them.
“You can play there whenever you like, dear,” she said kindly. “You’ve been used to playing alone, haven’t you? All the same, I hope you’ll sometimes play with Janet and Peter too. They’d like you to share their games.”
I didn’t answer and, having got what I wanted—permission to play alone—I drew away. “I haven’t finished my letter to Mummy,” I said stiffly, and went back to the table, where I tore up my effort of the afternoon and started again. “Dear Mummy,” I wrote, “I hope you are well. I like it in the country, and I would like to stay here a long time.”
I stopped writing; what would my garden look like after a long time? Perhaps it would grow into a garden like Mrs. Moody’s, full of pansies and roses and lilies, and I would watch it grow all by myself. I forgot my letter and sat dreaming.
But it was a whole week before I went back to my garden, for the next morning I started school, which took up most of my time and attention. I found the sturdy Welsh children different from my elegant friends in London, and I kept to myself, although kindhearted Janet did her best to look after me and drag me around with her. But Janet was extremely popular and was always losing me and forgetting me in the merry crowd of girls she went around with.
By Tuesday there was a strange white light in the sky, and by Wednesday snow had started to fall, and when we came out of school it was inches deep on the hills. The children went mad with joy and all started snowballing each other. I got one right down my neck and, not being used to snowballing, I lost my temper at once and got really angry. Janet, red in the face with shame, apologized, but the other girls giggled and drew away from me. “She’s no fun,” said one of them, and the game went on, but no one else threw snowballs at me. From that moment I was out of it.
Janet and I tramped up from the bus together in silence, miserable and shy of each other. As we reached the gate, Peter, who was home before us, burst out of the house.
“Come on, Jan,” he shouted. “I’m going to help Mr. Jones bring in the sheep. I met him on the way up, and he says if we don’t hurry some of the ewes will be snowed up in the ditches, and he thinks there’s one going to have lambs tonight. Give your bag to Elaine and come quick!”
Janet, relieved to get away from me, swung her bag onto my shoulder and dashed up the hill after Peter. They did not invite me to come, too, I noticed, but actually I would not have wanted to even if they had, for my fingers and toes were numb with cold and my collar was wet from the snowball. I let myself in and went up to my bedroom, sat down miserably on my bed, and stared out of the window.
Big snowflakes were floating down from a low gray sky, and I imagined the drifts were already piled against the wall of my garden. I began wondering what it looked like inside now. I wondered if the snowdrops and buttercups were buried so deep they would die. And as I sat there hoping they wouldn’t and gazing out into the white world, Mrs. Owen came in.
“Why, Elaine,” she cried, “why are you sitting there for in your wet clothes? You must change your shoes and socks and come down by the fire. You’ll catch your death of cold sitting in this icy bedroom! Where’s Janet?”
“Gone with Peter to bring in sheep,” I answered. “Mrs. Owen, do flowers die when the snow buries them?”
She was already pulling off my socks and rubbing my numb feet with her strong, warm hands.
“Dear me, no,” she answered. “There are wonderful things going on down under the snow. One day of sunshine will melt it all and the next will bring the flowers out in a rush.”
I smiled in spite of myself, for I had a sudden vision of the flowers pushing up so fast that I could see the petals unfolding. Besides, my toes were beginning to feel as though they belonged to me again, and up the stairs crept the delicious smell of hot toast. I felt comforted and went down to tea with my hand in Mrs. Owen’s.
The snow lasted for two more days, and Peter and Janet spent most of each evening up at the farm. On the second night, Mrs. Owen asked them to ask me, too, so I went with them. Dusk had already fallen, and the sheep were all settled down in the barn where the ewes were brought when their lambs were born. One had had triplets that very morning, and Mr. Jones had been up most of the night with her. Now she lay peacefully on a heap of straw, her job happily done, and two tiny lambs nuzzled her for milk.
“Where’s the third?” asked Janet, squatting beside them.
“Here,” replied Mr. Jones with a chuckle, holding up a crumpled fleece. “It was born dead. I skinned it right away.”
“What are you going to do with it?” asked Peter.
“Now, you’ve come just in time to see,” said Mr. Jones, and he strode across the snowy yard with Peter and Janet at his heels. But I stayed where I was, watching the lambs and their tired mother, for I liked the barn with its smell of sheep and leather and paraffin and straw. The light had faded outside, and Mr. Jones had lit the lantern.
The lambs had finished feeding and lay curled as close as they could to their mother; it was a cold world to have tumbled into, and they were very small and crumpled. Outside a fox barked, and some strange night bird answered with its hunting cry, but the lambs only pressed a little closer against the ewe. Neither snow nor darkness nor night hunting could hurt them. They were safe and warm and satisfied.
I heard crunching footsteps in the snow outside, and Mr. Jones came in with the children behind him. In his arms he carried a third lamb, which snuggled against him as trustfully as the twins had snuggled against their mother.
“Look, Elaine,” whispered Janet eagerly, “it’s an orphan—its mother died. Mr. Jones is going to dress it up in the fleece and see if this mother will take it on.”
It looked a very odd little thing when the skin of the d
ead lamb had been tied around it. Mr. Jones carried it up to the peaceful group in the straw and laid it very gently against the flank of the ewe. She turned her peaceful face to it and sniffed it in a puzzled way, as though looking for her dead lamb. Then she laid her forelegs protectively over it and claimed it as her own. The odd little creature snuffled and wriggled as though pleading to be accepted and then, quivering with delight, pushed its head underneath her and started to feed.
But it had to reckon with its foster brothers. They turned angrily and started butting it with their tiny heads. The frightened little trespasser wriggled away, crying and shivering, and bleated aloud for a mother. Tenderhearted Janet was down on the floor in a minute, gathering it into her arms, but Mr. Jones reached out and took it from her.
“Now, don’t make a fuss over it,” he said. “It’s got to make its own way. I’ll try again in half an hour’s time. It’s bigger than those twins, and it must learn to stand up for itself. Now you must be getting home, or your mother will be coming to fetch you.”
We turned reluctantly from the warm, lantern-lit barn and went out into the clean frost. It was a starry night and everything sparkled. “Race me home,” shouted Peter, setting off at breakneck speed down the crunching farm track with Janet at his heels. But I was afraid to run in the slippery frost and was just about to shout after them to stop and wait for me, for it was very unkind of them to dash off like that and leave me alone in the dark. If I shouted loud enough, Janet would come back and walk with me, for she was always kind if she remembered to be.
But suddenly I seemed to see that ridiculous, dressed-up lamb crying for pity, and to hear Mr. Jones’s steady voice as he picked it up. “It’ll have to make its own way. It must learn to stand up for itself.” It certainly did seem as though trying to make people feel sorry for you didn’t get you very far in the end.
I took a deep breath and began to run—cautiously at first, but I soon found that it wasn’t nearly so difficult or dangerous as I had imagined. Clumsily and with a beating heart, I began to gather speed, and as I galloped along I passed a stone wall and thought of my buried garden with its roots stirring.
“There are wonderful things going on under the snow,” I murmured to myself.
The Stranger in the Garden
All Saturday we tobogganed and snowballed and made a snowman with some of the village children, but by midday even I, unused to the country, realized that a change was taking place. A warm south wind was blowing, and by the end of the afternoon every tree was dripping, and the grass was showing through the toboggan tracks. The poor snowman was shrinking and his hat had fallen down over his shoulders. We squelched up to the farm in our Wellington boots, and long before we reached the gate we could hear the restless cries of the lambs, who were straining to escape to the open meadows. “I’ll let ’em out tomorrow,” said Mr. Jones, who was sweeping out the barn. “Spring’s on the way, and they know it!”
The children and Cadwaller knew it, too, and had seemed to me quite excited all day, rolling noisily about in the snow. Fortunately they had not tried to push me over, and I just stood around most of the time, feeling cold and bored. I was glad to get back to the farm and the lantern light in the barn.
“What happened to the lamb, Mr. Jones?” I asked eagerly.
“Come and see,” said Mr. Jones kindly, and we squelched through the muddy slush to the door of the fold. He held up the lantern and pointed to a corner.
“See there now,” he exclaimed.
The ewe was lying on her side as before, and nuzzled against her were three lambs, all feeding contentedly together. The biggest of the three seemed perfectly at home and even gave a little shove to the twin who was taking up most of the room.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did they stop butting it?” “No,” chuckled Mr. Jones, “but she stopped crying and butted back; that settled things!”
We smiled at each other, and then Peter, Janet, and I went bounding down the hill, hungry as hunters, the orange lights in the windows shining out to welcome us home. I was left far behind again, but instead of being angry, my thoughts wandered to the sleeping garden. Perhaps even now the snowdrops and buttercups were pushing up. I decided to go first thing next morning to investigate.
Fortunately I woke very early. Janet was fast asleep, and I dressed very quickly and then softly tip-toed downstairs. It was seven o’clock—two hours till breakfast. I paused for a moment on the stairs, wondering if Mrs. Owen was awake. I sped on downstairs and slipped out through the front door and didn’t stop running until I was halfway up the hill; then I stopped to get my breath back.
A big thaw had set in during the night and the earth was drinking deep. I thought about the roots underground. “One day of sunshine, and everything will burst out”—that was what Mrs. Owen had said.
The sun was not up yet, but the sky grew brighter and clearer every moment, and the birds were singing joyful messages to each other. The garden, when I slipped over the wall and climbed down my ladder, was still asleep in the shadows, and the snow was piled against the house. But on the lawn it had melted, and the buttercups smiled up at me, and the snowdrops clustered stronger and sturdier than ever. I wandered in, thrilled, and turned the corner. Then I stood quite still, rooted to the spot, for a man was standing in the little yard gazing at one of the darkened windows.
I do not know if I was frightened or just very surprised. He glanced around furtively and saw me standing there. He gave a startled jump but seemed to recover at once. Walking up to me he said, “Good morning” in quite a pleasant voice.
“Is there anyone at home?” he asked rather uncertainly.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I think it’s an empty house. Either no one lives there, or they’ve all gone away.”
He frowned at me fiercely, and this time I definitely felt frightened. “Then what are you doing here?” he asked severely.
I could have asked him the same question, but I didn’t think of it. I only minded about one thing, and that was that I should not be turned out of my garden, so I replied as boldly as I could, “Oh, I live just down the hill. I’m allowed to come here. I look after the garden.”
He looked at me narrowly. “Thought you said you didn’t know who lived here,” he said after a moment’s pause.
“Well,” I answered, “I don’t exactly know who they are because I’ve only just come to live here, but Mrs. Owen down the hill knows them, and she said I could look after the garden.”
I didn’t know whether Mrs. Owen knew them or not, nor did I care, for no one had taught me the importance of speaking the truth. But once again the man’s manner changed, and he spoke pleasantly.
“Well, it’s a nice garden to look after,” he said, looking around. “I’m a bit of a gardener myself. Do you come here every day?”
“Oh, no,” I answered. “I go to school every day. I only come here on Saturdays and Sundays.”
He looked relieved. “Do you mean to tell me,” he questioned, “that you see to this garden all alone? Does someone else come in during the week?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered innocently, for I did not like the idea of anyone else invading my secret place. But the moment I said it I wished I hadn’t, for it began to dawn on me that this man shouldn’t be here, and why was he asking all these questions?
I did not like him; his face looked ill and haggard and unshaven, his clothes were dirty, and he smelled of drink. Nor did I like the way he kept glancing around out of the corner of his shifty, frightened eyes. I stared at him very hard, and I think he felt uncomfortable, for he suddenly pulled his cap down over his eyes and turned away.
“Well,” he said, “if the master’s not at home, it’s no use waiting. I’ll call again. So long!”
He climbed over the barred gate and was gone, and I gave a sigh of relief and turned back to my garden. But somehow the birds were no longer singing as they had sung before. Perhaps they had just been frightened away by our voice
s, but it seemed to me as though some dark shadow had fallen across the garden, and for the first time I felt lonely.
But not for long. As I stood wondering whether I should run home again, I saw a streak of golden brown, and a squirrel came darting down the trunk of an old chestnut tree in the corner. He sat looking at me from between the roots of the tree, his bright eyes twinkling, and as he twitched his tail, all my loneliness melted away, forgotten.
I knew what I wanted to do that morning, and I worked away happily until the sun came up over the hill. I wanted to make a little rockery like those I had seen in parks. Someday, coming out of school when Janet was busy with her friends, I would slip away unnoticed and buy seeds. Then when summer came, my rockery would be a mass of color, and bees and butterflies would hum and flutter over it, just like in Mrs. Moody’s garden in Sussex.
So I ran to and fro, banking up the soft earth and collecting stones till it was nearly breakfast time. I noticed a ring of crocuses pushing through the grass. I jumped into it, pretending it was a fairy ring. Here, all by myself, with no one to laugh at me for being such a baby, it seemed easy to believe in such things, even though I was eleven. I stood quite still, wondering what to wish for. “I know,” I said to myself. “I’ll wish for ‘fullness of joy.’”
So I wished, and then, suddenly realizing that it was time I went back for breakfast, I skipped off down the hill.
When I got home, I ran upstairs to brush my hair and found Janet kneeling by her bed, saying her prayers. I decided to ask her an important question since I thought it might stop her from asking where I’d been.
“Janet,” I said as she lifted her head, “do you know lots of verses in the Bible?” “Oh, yes, nearly all,” she answered confidently. “Where have you been, Elaine?”
“Because,” I went on, taking no notice of her question, “there’s a special verse, and I know the beginning and I know the end, but I want to know the middle. It’s like this: ‘In . . . something . . . is fullness of joy.’”
Patricia St John Series Page 35