The Night Gardener (8 page)

While Penny screamed from her hole, the two boys rolled back and forth across the lawn, fighting with everything in them. Kip heard a satisfying
crack
as his forehead struck Alistair square in the nose. Blood clouded his vision, and his head throbbed horribly. But from the way Alistair was howling and clutching his face, Kip knew he had scored a direct hit. He grinned as the significance of this fact dawned on him: he was actually winning.

The next moment, Kip felt someone grab his arm from behind. “Get off him!” Molly shouted as she pulled them apart. “What’re you thinkin’?” It took Kip a moment to realize that she was talking not to Alistair but to him.

He saw her cast a panicked glance toward the open front door. Mistress Windsor was rushing out to meet them. She crouched down and helped Penny out of the hole. The little girl clung to her neck like a barnacle. “Just what is going on here?” the woman demanded.

Alistair scrambled to his feet and ran to his mother’s side. “It was the cripple who started it! He came at me like a murderer!”

Constance looked between the two boys. They both had grass stains and mud on their clothes. They were breathing heavily, and Alistair had blood on his face. “Is this true?” she said to Kip.

Kip, still on the ground, stared up at her, unable to deny the charge.

Molly stepped in front of him. “Forgive me, mum, but your son’s lying. I saw the whole thing. My brother was only defendin’ himself as any person would.”

Kip stared up at Molly, confused; if she had really seen them, then she would have known that Kip had struck first.

“Don’t listen to her, Mother!” Alistair said, clutching his nose. “She’s just trying to protect him! Ask Penny—she was there.”

Unfortunately, Penny was too busy sobbing about the worms eating her toes to give any kind of testimony. Constance gave her son a weary look. “Tormenting little girls and crippled boys? Don’t think your father won’t hear of this.”

Alistair sneered. He fished a crumpled bag of sweets from his pocket and opened his mouth. “And then what? He’ll
puh-puh-punish
me?” He said this with an exaggerated stutter.

Constance snatched the bag from his hands. Her eyes were wide, dangerous. Every muscle in her body looked tense. “You will respect your father,” she said in a constricted tone. “Go to your room immediately.” For a moment, Kip thought she might strike the boy.

Alistair turned from her, his face burning. He gave Kip a special threatening look before marching back into the house.

The woman turned to face Kip. He thought for a moment she was going to apologize for her son, but she did not. “See that you fill that hole at once. Heaven forbid someone falls in and gets injured.” She looked at Molly. “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?” Then she turned and carried Penny into the house without another word.

Molly picked up Kip’s discarded crutch and offered it to him. “You fight with the young master on our first week? That’s a sure way to promise there won’t be a second. What were you thinkin’?”

What was
he
thinking? All Kip had done was the thing she had taught him. For as long as he could remember, Molly had defended him against other children. Not a week went by when she didn’t get into a fight on his behalf. Kip had just been doing the same for Penny—only now his sister was outraged.

Kip did not accept the offered crutch. Instead, he rose on his one good leg, which was sore and threatening to buckle. “You shouldn’t ’a lied about seein’ the fight,” he said, his breathing raspy.

“Better that than tellin’ the mistress her son got walloped by a boy half his size.” Molly made a silly face, but Kip refused to smile. She sighed. “Kip, I said that to protect us. It was just a story.”

“Was it?” He fixed her with as hard a gaze as he could. “Do they count as stories when the other person thinks they’re true?” He took his crutch from her and started toward the stables. Suddenly he felt exhausted and sore from the fight—and shaky. The exhilaration of his victory had been replaced by a cold gloom.

hough Molly had perhaps stretched the truth about her domestic prowess, she was determined to make good on the claim. She spent the first week at Windsor Manor scrubbing, scouring, and dusting every surface she could find. She made a sort of game for herself out of anticipating her mistress’s every wish so that she could fulfill it before being asked. (Penny helped in this matter, often acting as a spy who would come back with reports of half-filled wineglasses or drafty windows.) By the end of the week, Molly had succeeded in her efforts, as evidenced by not one but
three
separate instances of her mistress uttering “thank you” after being served.

It was mid-Friday before Molly finally met Master Windsor. When she heard his carriage rolling up the drive, she put aside her wash and fetched her brother in the yard. The two of them rushed to the front stoop so they might greet him at the door. Molly had enough sense to know the importance of winning her master’s approval—and if he was anything like his wife, she knew it would be a difficult thing to gain.

Molly and Kip both stood at attention, straight as candlesticks, like proper servants. They were wearing clean (if oversized) clothes and shined shoes. Molly had even gotten her brother to wash his face, though he hadn’t done a very good job around the ears, and his neck still had some red marks from where Alistair had bitten him. Molly wasn’t sure whether she should be furious with her brother or proud of him for getting into that fight. She imagined her parents would have shared her ambivalence—Ma, impressed with his courage; Da, disappointed in his hotheadedness. This thought made her smile. Then it made her sad.

When the carriage rattled to a stop in front of the house, Molly was surprised by the man who climbed down from the driver’s seat. His shoulders may have once been broad, but they were now severely sloped. He had a weak chin and round face. Even his mustache was halfhearted. Like the rest of his family, he had pale skin and dark eyes, which he blinked incessantly—as though he were afraid that someone might strike him. Looking at the man, Molly understood at once why Alistair had not been afraid of his mother’s threats: to put it plainly, Bertrand Windsor was a milksop.

“We expected you some hours ago,” said Constance, who had rushed to meet him. She had been increasingly anxious for his arrival all afternoon. “Have you any news?”

“F-f-forgive me, darling,” he said with a distinct stutter. “I was a bit late getting out of town.” Master Windsor knocked some mud from his shoes. “It didn’t help that the roads have turned to marsh
since Monday—I daresay at this rate, the whole valley will be a bog by Easter!” He looked up at his wife, perhaps expecting a laugh, but none was forthcoming.

“And your meetings?” she pressed. “Were they productive?”

He apparently did not hear her and turned to Molly and Kip. “H-h-heavens!” he exclaimed. “How my two children have changed! One would h-h-hardly recognize you for Windsors.”

Molly took this to be a joke and obliged him with a polite smile. “Alistair and Penny are upstairs, readyin’ for supper. I’m Molly, and this here’s my brother, Kip.”

“We’re the help!” Kip said, bowing as best as his crutch allowed.

Molly took the man’s hat and cloak. She couldn’t help but notice the sour odor of tobacco and ale on his clothes. “I’ve nearly got food on the table, sir.”

“Ah, victuals!” Master Windsor clapped his hands, rubbing them together. “There’s nothing I prefer to a hot meal at the end of a long ride … Well, perhaps a hot meal at the end of a
short
ride!” He turned toward his wife, offering a low bow. “After you, my dear.”

Mistress Windsor rolled her eyes and walked into the house, closing the door behind her. It shut right in his face.

Bertrand gave Molly a somewhat embarrassed smile and then trotted inside after his wife, calling out some joke about the tortoise and the hare.

Molly exchanged a look with her brother. “He seems … friendly,” she said.

Kip snorted. “Friendly like a housefly. I’d ’a shook his hand if I didn’t think it’d frighten him to death.” He hobbled to the carriage and climbed onto the driver’s seat. “It’s a mixed-up world where
he’s
the one bein’ called Master.” He snapped the reins and drove into the yard.

Molly spent the next half hour finishing supper. She stewed alongside her food, thinking about how unfair Kip’s comment about Master Windsor had been. Her brother, of all people, should know what it meant to be disregarded.

The evening menu was mostly burned pork roast with a side of mostly bland vegetables—the best Molly could do in light of all the extra housework. Penny spent the bulk of her mealtime trying to see how many individual peas she could spear onto her fork tongs, Alistair busied himself with smuggling what looked to be peppermints from his pocket into his mouth without his parents noticing, Constance seemed more interested in her wineglass than her plate, and Bertrand Windsor was too busy talking to eat much of anything. “Ah! Your native cuisine!” he exclaimed as Molly spooned some boiled potatoes onto his plate. She smiled and resisted the urge to tell him that the potatoes she grew up on had been black and slimy—sick with blight.

Bertrand appeared to be the sort for whom silence was uncomfortable, and he made it his mission to furnish the meal with conversation—mostly by telling jokes he had learned in town. “Th-th-the one gentleman says to the other: ‘My wife’s always after me for money. When I wake up, she says,
Give me five pounds!
And then when I come home that night, it’s the same thing,
Give me five pounds!
’ The other
fellow asked what she does with all her money. And the first one says: ‘I don’t know, I haven’t given her any!’” He chuckled, shaking his head.

Penny looked up from her peas, pointing at Molly. “I like her stories better.”

Molly smiled modestly. “I thought it was very funny, sir,” she said.

And so it went for the rest of the meal. Master Windsor stumbled through a series of bons mots and “corkers” (a word he had picked up in town). The less interested his family acted, the more eager he became to please. No one appeared more irritated with his performance than Constance, who made repeated attempts to change the subject to something more sensible. “I should like to hear a bit more about the men from the bank, darling,” she interjected at one point. “Did they seem receptive?”

“Ah! That reminds me,” he declared, “I overheard the most amusing story about two bankers trapped in a nunnery. How does it go? Let me see …”

“Let us
not
.” Constance dropped her silverware against her plate, rose from her seat, and marched from the room.

Master Windsor smiled weakly at his children, who were now watching him. “Indigestion, p-p-perhaps?” he said.

Constance’s abrupt departure shattered any illusion of this being a happy family reunion, and the children soon excused themselves, leaving Master Windsor to eat alone. The sight was too much for Molly to bear, and she waited in the kitchen as he finished eating before returning to clear the dishes.

It wasn’t until later that evening that Molly got a clearer idea of why her mistress had been so upset. She had just dried and hung the pots in the kitchen when she heard two voices echoing faintly beside her. They were coming from the dumbwaiter, which connected to one of the rooms upstairs—

“Is that how your new business associates spend their days?” Constance said. “Telling rude jokes in public houses?”

“Wh-wh-why, of course not all day, darling. B-b-but these gentlemen … you must understand they’re cut from a different cloth. They’re earthy blokes. Still! They’re top-notch speculators. They know their way around markets and—and speculation, and … you must believe me when I tell you that these men are the fastest way out of our trouble—perhaps the only way …”

At this point they must have moved away from their spot, because Molly could no longer hear their conversation. She felt an overwhelming desire to learn more about the nature of their disagreement, which she thought might shine some light on the reasons for their moving to this old house in the first place. She filled a pitcher with water and rushed from the kitchen up the main stairway. The pitcher was her excuse, in case she was discovered eavesdropping. She had already learned that, so long as she was doing housework, the members of the family treated her like she was invisible—which suited her just fine. She quietly walked to the sideboard at the far end of the hall and began watering some wildflowers Kip had brought in from the woods. Beside her was the drawing room, and through the
gap where the door hinged, she could see the Windsors close to each other, deep in conversation.