The Night Gardener (9 page)

Constance had her arms folded tight across her chest. “I feel as though I’m not even part of this marriage. I tell you I want nothing to do with this house, and you ignore me. I say I don’t want servants here, and what do you do? You send me a pair of children.
Children
, Bertie.”

“Well, they’re working for free,” he said brightly. “That’s something.” Bertrand rested a hand on her shoulder. “P-p-please trust me. This will work, but it will take time.”

“You told me there was no time.”

“You’re right. You’re right.” He moved closer, lowering his voice. “But there is, of course, a way to
buy
time.” He held out his hand.

Constance stiffened. Molly leaned close to the jamb, trying to read the expression on her face. The woman sighed and removed something from her dress pocket. “Promise me this will end,” she said.

Master Windsor did not answer but snatched the object, which was long and seemed to be made of metal, from her grasp. He clutched it in his fingers like a treasure. He turned around and marched into the hallway. Molly pressed herself against the wall, hoping the half-opened door might hide her. He walked right past her, and she caught a glimpse of the object gripped in his pale hand—

It was a key.

ll right. Into bed with you.”

Molly stood in Penny’s room, a battlefield littered with the corpses of dollies and wooden toys and stuffed animals. With all the additional work to prepare the house for Master Windsor’s return, Molly had not had time to clean it. Tomorrow, perhaps. The bed was covered in lace pillows and had a muslin canopy overhead. How was it fair that this family should have so much when she and her brother had so little? She pulled back the thick covers, and Penny—hair brushed and wearing a fresh nightgown—scrambled onto the feather mattress. She climbed to her knees. “What else can you tell me about Cleopatra?” she asked.

In the week since Molly’s arrival, bedtime stories had developed into something of a sacred ritual. Unlike most six-year-olds, Penny eagerly awaited the hour when she might run upstairs, put on her nightgown, and snuggle under the covers—because that meant she was about to hear another of Molly’s thrilling tales. (On Wednesday, she had been so keen to hear a story that she’d tried advancing the
hands of the grandfather clock so that she might convince Molly to tuck her in just after tea.) Molly removed the girl’s glasses and set them on the nightstand. “Well,” she said, buying herself a moment, “some folks say she was actually a fallen angel.”

“I bet that’s why the archbishop fancied her,” Penny said. “Did she have real angel wings?”

Molly nodded. “But she had to give ’em up when she got here. You could see the stitches from where they cut off her wings”—she ran a finger along Penny’s shoulder blades—“right here.” The girl squirmed and collapsed onto the mattress. Molly pulled the covers over her. “I’ll tell you somethin’ else about Cleopatra. When she sang, her voice was so pretty that the whole world stopped what it was doin’ just to listen. Wherever you were, you could hear her, like a choir of bells.”

“Can you sing?” Penny asked.

Molly shook her head. “Not like that, I can’t.”

The girl sighed. “Mummy used to sing to me. She’d sing about Princess Penny—that was me. And afterward she’d hold my hand the whole way while I fell asleep.”

This surprised Molly, who had trouble imagining her mistress being anything but stern. Just thinking of the way she had treated poor Master Windsor at supper left Molly feeling a chill. “Your mother don’t tuck you in no more?” she said.

Penny sighed. “Not since we moved to this ugly house. Now she’s only cross with me. I hate this place. There’s no one to play with.”

“You’ve got your brother, miss. And mine.”

The girl sat up, her face a picture of scandal. “I can’t play with
boys
.” She flopped back down. “Besides, Alistair won’t let me play with him. He just bullies me.”

Molly pulled the covers right up to Penny’s chin. “I promise that whenever I’m around I’ll not let him bully you. Fair?” She crossed her heart to show she was serious.

Molly glanced at the girl’s bed stand. She noticed a stack of books hidden behind a lamp. They were square and thin—the sort of books that contained more pictures than words. Each one was brightly colored and had gilded lettering along the spine. They seemed to be part of a series:

Princess Penny and the Beast

Princess Penny Eats a Whole Cake

Princess Penny Visits the Moon

Princess Penny Stays Up Late

Molly reached for the closest one, which had a picture of a girl with glasses fighting a sea dragon. “Princess Penny … just like your mum’s tales!”

Penny sat up. “Don’t!” She reached out to intercept Molly’s arm. “You’re not supposed to see those.”

Molly thought she was making a joke, but the girl looked very serious. “Fair enough, miss. We’re all entitled to our secret things.” She winked. “Only you might want to look for a better hidin’ place.”

Penny sat back, apparently satisfied that the issue had been settled. “Why did you and your brother leave Ireland?” she said.

Molly knew that these questions were a way of tricking her into another story, but she found it hard not to oblige. “The truth is, I came here because I had a dream.”

The girl gave a small gasp, sitting up. “Was it a very bad dream?” She spoke with the tone of someone who knew the subject all too well.

Molly shook her head. “Far from it, miss. I dreamed about a little girl named Penny who needed a maid.” She stroked Penny’s dark hair. “And she was so pretty and well behaved that I decided to come right over and do the job myself.”

Penny shrank from her touch. “That’s not true,” she said.

“True as time, miss.”

Penny tugged at a knot in her hair. “I used to have dreams like that. But here, everyone has horrid dreams. Every night. Mummy, Papa, even Alistair. I hear them in their rooms.”

Molly thought of her own dreams, which had lately been terrible and haunting. She looked into Penny’s dark eyes and wondered if this was the reason the girl had become so dependent on bedtime stories: they were a candle to light her to bed. “Of course, you know bad dreams is only that,” she said. “They’re none of ’em real. They canna hurt you or anyone else.”

Penny shook her head. “It’s not the dreams that frighten me.” She peered about the room, as if the walls might be listening. “It’s that sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I hear something else … I hear
him
.”

Molly caught her breath. “Him, who?” she asked.

Penny leaned close, her voice barely a whisper. “The night man.”

Molly stared at the little girl, trying to discern if she was making a joke. Penny went on. “He walks through the whole house, room to room, and then he’s gone. I asked Mummy about him, and she said I just made him up. But I’m sure I didn’t, because some mornings I see the footprints he’s left behind. They’re muddy and shaped wrong and I don’t like them.”

Molly’s heart was beating very quickly. She thought of the footprints she’d been scrubbing throughout the house, and she thought of the story her brother had told their first night, about a figure in the fog—had he told the same story to Penny, who had added some details of her own? “Well, the next time you hear this night fellow, could you tell him to wipe his boots before comin’ inside? I dinna break my back scrubbin’ these floors just to have him ruin it all while I sleep.” She stood up.

“Don’t go,” Penny protested through a yawn.

“You’ve a lifetime of tuck-ins ahead of you.” She silently hoped this was true. But even in the orange lamplight, the girl’s complexion was as white as a headstone. Dark shadows flickered and danced across her face, clinging to the wells beneath her eyes. Molly put on a smile. “And until then—

“You sleep soft, you sleep sound,

You sleep the snow in Dublin town.”

This was a rhyme her own mother had sung to her when she was little. When Molly sang the words now, she could almost hear Ma’s voice echoing in the air, distant and faint, calling to her from someplace far away. Molly hid her face from Penny’s view and slipped from the room.

The grandfather clock struck nine as Molly walked down the hall. Penny’s tuck-in had taken longer than she’d planned, and she knew her brother would be waiting at the window. When she turned the corner toward the stairs, however, she stopped. In the last week, she had been inside every room of Windsor Manor—every room, that is, but for the one with the green door at the top of the stairs. Mistress Windsor had given Molly the impression that the key had been lost, and Molly had believed her. But what she had witnessed that night between Bertrand and Constance in the drawing room after supper had changed her mind.

And now, the green door was unlocked.

It was not completely open, but Molly could see a sliver of light shining out from the side that should have been closed tight. She glanced at the bank of windows above the foyer. Kip was waiting outside, probably catching cold at this very moment. Still, perhaps there was time for a quick peek. She dimmed her lamp and crept toward the door. She could hear sounds of someone moving on the other side—scraping, clinking, shuffling, grunting. The noises would have been frightening if they were not so obviously comical.

Molly was about to reach for the handle when the door swung open to reveal the folds of a man’s nightgown. It was Master Windsor.
He was bent away from her, trying to drag a large canvas sack into the hall. The bag was half-full and seemed quite heavy; whatever was inside rattled and clinked as he pulled it across the floorboards. Molly watched him struggle, unsure whether she should interrupt him. “Pardon, sir?” she said softly.

Bertrand let out a startled noise and spun around. The moment he saw Molly, he lunged for the door and pulled it shut behind him. There was a look of panic on his pale face. “M-M-Molly!” he said, doing a bad job at sounding happy to see her. “I thought you had turned in for the night.”

“Just puttin’ Miss Penny to bed, sir.” She craned her neck to get a better look inside the bag, but he had tied the end shut. “It looks heavy,” she said. “Can I help you with it?”

“N-n-no! I’m p-p-perfectly fine. Wouldn’t want you to, er … strain yourself …” He fumbled with his key, dropping it twice before he managed to fit it into the lock. He secured the green door and mopped his brow with the end of his nightcap. “Goodness!” He covered his mouth, giving a theatrical yawn. “It certainly has been a long day—for you as well, I’d imagine! Perhaps it’s time we turn in.” He said this in a way that led her to understand that “we” really meant “you.”

Much as Molly wanted to see what was inside the bag, she knew it would not happen tonight. “Good night to you, sir,” she said, bowing. She turned and walked down the stairs, her small lamp lighting the darkness.

Molly reached her room to find her brother waiting at the window, looking half-frozen and exhausted. When he asked what had taken her so long, she muttered something about chores and promised to make it up to him with an extra big breakfast the next morning. The two of them undressed and went to bed with scarcely another word—slipping into the rare, comfortable silence of those who know each other even better than they know themselves.

As Kip nestled beside her, Molly kept going over her encounter with Master Windsor in the hall. The man had been so startled to find her outside the door.
More than startled
, she thought to herself as she drifted to sleep—

He had looked afraid.