Merryn Allingham - The Secret of Summerhayes

She feared the mention of paint and colour would bring Elizabeth into the conversation once more. ‘Shall I draw Izzy into the picture? I think she’ll be happy on her adventure – to begin with at least.’

‘Yes, do that.’ Alice’s voice was weary now, her eyes heavy-lidded, and before Beth had finished the illustration, the old lady was breathing heavily. She fetched a blanket from the bedroom and tucked it around the sleeping woman. She should just have sufficient time to find Ralph and haul him up the stairs for his lesson. He was bound to be in the grounds somewhere, though finding him amid the mayhem of a military arrival could prove difficult. But if she knew the boy, he would most likely be sitting on the largest tank or questioning the gun crew on their stock of ammunition. She edged the front door shut and sped down the stairs.

The small boy had emerged from the thicket of grass, but he was inches away before Jos could see his entire person: his hair a thatch of light brown, his smile engaging, and his bare knees scratched and muddied.

‘I’m Ralph.’ He held out his hand.

‘Jos Kerrigan.’ They exchanged a solemn handshake. ‘You seem to know your way around this wilderness,’ Jos said. ‘Do you live here?’

‘Not here but next door – at Amberley. It’s much more fun here though. We don’t have any soldiers at Amberley.’

‘So can you show me how to get out of this darn place? Or is it all like this?’

Ralph considered the question judiciously. ‘This is the worst bit, I think, but the whole estate is pretty run down.’ That seemed an understatement to Jos. ‘I can take you to the main camp, if you like?’

‘I’d like that fine. Do you spend a lot of time there?’

‘When I’m allowed to,’ the boy said simply. ‘There’s been a camp for ages, but this week there’s been loads going on. And I’ve made a special friend.’

He was intrigued. ‘And who’s that?’

‘His name is Eddie. Eddie Rich.’

‘Is that so? He just happens to be my special friend, too.’

Ralph’s grin spread across his face. ‘He’s the bee’s knees, isn’t he?’

Jos’s deep blue eyes lit with amusement. ‘He sure is.’

‘It’s getting hot out here.’ The boy patted several stalks of grass away from his face. ‘Shall I take you to him?’

‘I’d appreciate that, Ralph.’

‘C’mon then.’ He turned round and traced a path along what Jos thought must be the thinnest line of flattened grass he’d ever seen, just wide enough for a nine year old’s feet but way too narrow for his own size twelves.

‘I’m crushing a heck of a lot of grass here,’ he called to Ralph, a few steps ahead. ‘Will it matter?’ Why it would, he couldn’t imagine.

‘It doesn’t matter at all. No one comes here except me, and it will make it easier the next time I go to the secret garden. That’s what I call it. It’s where you came in. It will make it easier for you, too, if you want to go back.’

He had no intention of ever returning to this maze of heat and bother. The grass tickled at his nose and infiltrated his ears, and on occasions he had to sway to one side to avoid a giant fern or be knocked uncomfortably into the rough trunk of a palm tree.

‘So why aren’t you at school?’ he asked conversationally, more to distract himself from the discomfort of the journey, than from any real desire to know.

‘My school’s been closed. It was just outside London, and they said it was too dangerous for us to stay.’

‘You lived at the school?’

‘Of course. I was a boarder.’

He’d heard that English families often sent their young children away to school but he’d never really believed it.

‘And now?’

‘The school moved up to Cheshire. At least, I think it was Cheshire. I don’t really know where that is.’ Neither did Jos, but it seemed strange that the child hadn’t moved with it. He must have felt settled in the school, had friends there. It seemed like a lonely life for him here.

‘My father didn’t want me to go,’ Ralph explained. ‘When I was at school near London, I could come back at weekends, you see, but Cheshire was too far. I don’t think he wanted to be on his own at Amberley all the time.’

He didn’t like to ask about the boy’s mother, fearing there had been some kind of wartime tragedy, but then Ralph said, ‘My mother’s a long way away. She’s in New York. She’s American.’

‘So it’s just your dad and you?’

‘That’s right. Well,’ Ralph said over his shoulder, ‘there are other people. Quite a few actually. There’s the butler, and the footman, and the parlour maid, and cook and a kitchen maid, and the gardener and the chauffeur…’

‘I get the picture.’

‘I could have gone to the village school, but Daddy didn’t want me to. He was going to hire a tutor and then Miss Merston came and she’s teaching me instead. It’s heaps better.’

‘And who is Miss Merston?’

The ground had gradually been sloping upwards, but in the last few yards it had taken on an even steeper incline. Beneath the weighty backpack, he was beginning to puff slightly and that didn’t please him. He’d thought himself fit enough, but he’d need to be a good deal fitter come invasion day.

‘Miss Merston is great. She rescued a bird’s nest with me last week and I’m helping the eggs to hatch. She’s a school teacher.’ Ralph sensed a little more explanation was needed. ‘She doesn’t have a school any more either, and she looks after my father’s aunt. That’s my great-aunt. Her name is Alice and she’s very old.’

They had finally emerged from the jungle of long grass and reached a gravel path. Jos breathed a sigh of pleasure, feeling solid ground beneath his feet again. He allowed himself a short stop and looked around. He was standing in what had once been a vegetable garden, he could see. Vegetable gardens, he corrected himself. The area was immense and bounded to the south by a circular brick wall against which some dessicated fruit trees still clung to a semblance of life. Vegetables had not been grown here for many a year; the soil was untilled and broken canes, rotting wooden staves and remnants of netting were strewn across its surface. In the distance, to the right, stood what was left of a string of greenhouses, their glass long shattered. Nearer to hand, a tarpaulin covered the unknown. He’d put his life on it being ammunition. It was a dismal picture and made him keen to walk on, but once through the brick arch the view was no improvement. More tarpaulins, more mounds. Several trees had been toppled and lay spread-eagled where the wind had blown them, others had brambles up to ten feet high climbing their trunks. He passed what he thought must be one of the oldest trees in the garden, stoic in its lost grandeur. A fig tree, he was sure of it. Scattered in its branches was shrivelled fruit, unharvested year on year. The gnarled trunk was punctured by bullet marks and when he looked around, he saw that nearly every surviving tree in this part of the garden was similarly afflicted. Someone had been using them for target practice. Whatever devastation had existed before the war, a succession of military occupations must have made it worse.

‘This place is in poor shape,’ he said.

Ralph looked puzzled. It was evident that for him the Summerhayes estate was fine as it was. ‘I s’pose,’ he admitted cautiously. ‘It used to look different. I saw an old photograph once. But that was a long time ago.’

The boy was still ahead of him, walking beneath the pergola that connected fruit and vegetables with the upper reaches of the garden. The pergola had once been covered by roses and its wooden structure was more or less intact, but what plants remained had grown wild, their thorns a danger to passers-by. Dodging between waving suckers, he could see lying ahead another huge open area, once a vast lawn, he presumed. At its far end was a semicircular flight of steps leading up to a flagged terrace. He could imagine the ladies of the house taking a stroll on that terrace, tripping daintily down the steps to the rolling grass. Now, not a blade was visible. The lawn had been covered in concrete and a row of trucks parked tidily across its expanse.