Misselthwaite

Chapter Eight - 'The Gardener and the Robin'

It is Martha who shows me the way outside.

I follow her downstairs, matching her rushed pace as she makes her way to the kitchens. Because she is a 'maid of all', she goes wherever she is needed. This afternoon she is to help with supper.

"Hurry, Miss," she implores as I lag behind her, "They'll have already started!"

We travel down a hall that is new to me. I am once again awed by my surroundings: plush carpets and animals mounted on walls, their glass eyes shining. When I spy something familiar within their ranks, I am unable to stop myself from lingering. A magnificent tiger, all rust oranges and coal blacks, is frozen mid-prowl. How odd it is to see him here within the corridors of Misselthwaite!

"Supper isn't for a few hours yet," I muse aloud, moving to stroke the tiger's coarse pelt. The glass eyes he now possesses aren't at all like the real thing. I am both fascinated and saddened at his fate. "Besides, hasn't my uncle left for London?"

Martha, having now noticed my distraction, comes to a stop. I watch as she wrings her hands together, making frustrated little noises, her patience fraying with every passing moment. She never once comes too close to the exotic animal, saying only, "Miss, please..."

I cannot tell if her anxiety is due to the stuffed animal beside me, or for a lack of wanting to answer my question regarding supper. I only know that her evasion speaks a great deal, though I cannot discern the why just yet. It is the first time Martha has been at a loss for words.

Suspicious, but unsure what to do about it, I continue to follow her through the labyrinth of halls and passages until we reach what I presume is a servant's corridor. By the smell of smoke and roasting meats, we are fairly close to the kitchens.

Martha points toward the opposite end of the wide corridor, to where a single door is bordered by stone.

"That door there leads right to th' gardens," she tells me. "You can't go too far wrong, Miss."

A thrill goes through me at the prospect of exploring. For far too long I have been cooped up on a train, ship or the like, and I am eager to once again be amongst fresh air and living things.

With nothing but hours ahead of me, I step outside for the first time.

---

It is mid-summer, but I tighten the coat around my shoulders and bite my cheek against the wind.

Summer in India had meant damp cloths around your neck, prickly heat that sent men into madness and a frozen block of ice in your railway carriage as you made your way into the hills. England, however, seems to remain in a permanent state of winter - its summer serving merely as a brief reprieve from its harsher tendencies.

The outside stairway that leads down from the kitchens is hewn from a thick sandstone.It is a straight cut to the gardens, as Martha promised, but I take each step one at a time, my new boots stretching with each stride. As I look out across the expanse of Misselthwaite's grounds, I find that I cannot make out an end. Lush lawns, paths lined by tall evergreens and gardens bordered by hedges dot the landscape as far as the eye can see.

I wonder where I am to begin! Perhaps I'll even unearth the my aunt and uncle's secret paradise; the one Martha talked with its locked door and melted key. How wonderful it would be to see it - to be the first soul to lay eyes upon it since my aunt died. The thought fills me with elation and I feel the movements of my body becoming bolder with each step.

When the stairs come to an end, an old grey fountain sits gurgling water in the centre of a small courtyard. Words in Latin are carved around the edges of the fountain's base, worn and faded with time. The walls of the courtyard are covered in ivy, giving way to three arches and three directions.