Here, by popular demand (thank you, my lone but enthusiastic reader!), is chapter 2 of the book. I welcome comments, especially enthusiastic ones and ones that point out inconsistencies or oversights. If you think the story has potential, by all means help me find a publisher.
Chapter 2
Eliza could hardly believe her luck. She and Pansy sat in the back of the car, a bit squashed by the softer luggage, which hadn’t fit into the very back, and giggled so often that Astrid kept glaring at them from the seat before. Pansy suspected that Astrid was just peeved at not being able to bring a friend of her own, and said so. Astrid shouted, “A fat lot you know!” and whipped back around to face the front, but she didn’t glare at Eliza and Pansy anymore. That suited Pansy just fine, if Astrid was bent on being all prickly anyway. Clarence was busy reading some book about knights and dragons and didn’t seem to hear the girls at all.
Around lunchtime they stopped and picknicked at a rest area tucked a little way off the main road. By then they had left the big highway and been traveling on smaller roads for an hour or two, and the weather was really fine, and Mama had made an absolutely splendid lunch. That used to make Eliza a little weepy, years ago, that Pansy’s Mama made such delicious lunches, but now she just enjoyed it. Truth be told, Eliza could hardly remember her own Mama now, and it didn’t seem so unnatural anymore that it was just she and Papa in the little house on
Clarence stopped reading long enough to fire a few pickle slices at the girls, and they fired tomato wedges back, laughing and snorting and eventually tackling each other in the grass while the grownups finished eating. Papa generally didn’t tolerate such acting up at mealtimes, but they were out in the open on a beautiful summer’s day, and that always put him in a generous mood. So Pansy and Eliza and Clarence took full advantage of it, Pansy ripping her right pants knee (Mama just sighed; Pansy had a dresser full of pants with one bad knee, always the right one) and Eliza and Clarence rather greener from the grass.
Astrid, uncharacteristically, didn’t join in, and Clarence yelled, “Hey, you old goose, what’s holding you up?” Pansy and Clarence fairly fell out with shock when Astrid glared and threw her entire sandwich at them (falling short a few yards), then stalked off to sit in the car. Pansy glanced at her mother, but Mama was calmly eating and talking with Papa as if nothing had just happened.
“Rather big bee up her butt,” muttered Clarence, and Pansy guffawed. Even Eliza couldn't help laughing, though she was uncertain she should. After all, she was a guest, and she hadn’t gotten over the feeling that it was too good to be true, that someone (she imagined it would be Pansy’s father) might suddenly turn with a start and say, “My goodness! Eliza Higgins! How did you get into this car? Turn around at once, Milly, we’ve got to get her back home.” So Eliza didn’t want to aggravate Astrid into anything that might get Eliza noticed.
Presently they packed up and everyone loaded back into the car, a task made a bit more difficult by Astrid’s stubborn refusal to move over and let the girls crawl into the back row. Astrid hadn’t actually refused so much as just not moved; she had her head down on her arms, leaning on the window, and when Pansy’d knocked on the window glass Astrid hadn’t even budged. Well, Astrid could mope all the way to Gramma’s house if she wanted to, but Pansy was jolly well going to enjoy the trip. So she just looked at Eliza and shrugged, and the girls walked around to crawl in behind Clarence.
Several hours later, after three more stops (a pee break, and then an early dinner, and shortly thereafter another pee break for Pansy, who had forgotten to go at the restaurant; Mama just sighed), the car pulled to a stop and the girls looked out with great excitement.
“We’re here!” shouted Pansy. “Really and truly here, for the whole summer!” Eliza grabbed Pansy in a fiercely joyful hug.
Papa opened the door for Astrid, then for Clarence, and helped the girls out. Mama started in on the luggage. Pansy saw Gramma come out onto the front porch—it was surely the most marvelous front porch anywhere—and she ran up the steps, bounding into Gramma, who laughed and swept her up for a big kiss. Eliza was feeling a bit shy and just stood at the bottom of the steps, not sure whether to help Mr. and Mrs. Perkins with the luggage or greet old Mrs. Perkins on the front porch. But then old Mrs. Perkins put Pansy down and said, “Eliza Higgins! It’s a pleasure to see you again. I’m delighted you could come for the summer. Come on up here and let’s get you two some lemonade and a cookie. Ivy baked them this afternoon. Yes, Clarence, you (and Astrid) too.” She smiled warmly at Eliza, but not stupidly—you know how some grownups do—and Eliza began to remember that singularly wonderful feeling of being treated like a real person by an adult. That was something special about Pansy’s Gramma, Eliza thought, it was part of what made a whole summer here so unimaginably delicious.
After several cookies (Ivy was fantastic with cookies, thought Eliza, and wondered if Ivy might make even a spinach cookie worth eating), Pansy and Eliza had lugged their bags up into the third-floor back guest room. It was the largest of the bedrooms, even larger than Gramma’s, with a giant four-poster bed, two ancient wardrobes, an old but very comfortable sitting chair, and a divan. The girls set immediately to exploring the room—Pansy had, of course, seen it before, but she’d never had it for her own. It was always for Mama and Papa, but now that Eliza was along, and she and Pansy would be staying for the whole summer, Gramma had said that it was the sensible choice. The girls had immediately agreed. Even Astrid hadn’t gotten upset about that.
Perkins House (it was so old, it was capitalized) had four floors—five, if you counted the basement, which was more of a root cellar—and scads of guest rooms, now that the five Perkins children were grown and Gramma had the house to herself. (Well, excepting Ivy and Lucy and Gerald, the gardener.) The back of the house looked out over the Perkins land, a great expanse of flowers and vegetables, climbing trellises, stone paths, the occasional wooden bench, giant magnolias with their marvelous hiding places, and, further out, a field. At the far edge of the field was the forest, not a very big one, but large enough to satisfy one’s sense of adventure. Past the forest was a stream which meandered a mile or so westward until it reached the Owen pond, and across the stream began the Mulross farm.
Only old Mr. Mulross was still there, and he didn’t have anyone like Ivy and Lucy (or a gardener, like Gerald, which was evident from his yard). Eliza knew from Pansy that Gramma often sent Ivy with food for Mr. Mulross, and once in a while Gramma herself would go for a visit, Lucy in tow for a bit of surreptitious tidying up. Of course, Gramma didn’t go through the yard to get there; she went along the road, which had been recently paved (before that, it had been dirt, and prone to nasty ruts after a good rain).
Pansy had only been to Mr. Mulross’ once with Gramma. It had smelled dusty and not particularly interesting. She’d had to sit with Gramma on an ancient sofa in the drawing room, and every time she’d tried to wriggle away for some exploring Gramma had gently put her hand on Pansy’s leg, so that Pansy knew she’d better just stay put. Gramma listened patiently as Mr. Mulross wandered from topic to topic. Pansy kicked her heels on the sofa, sending up little plumes of dust, until Gramma moved her foot behind Pansy’s. Pansy was not anxious to get back to Mr. Mulross’ after that.
Right now, Pansy and Eliza couldn’t see anything out the back windows—it was already past bedtime—so they turned their attention to the huge wardrobes. There was a large, richly carved key for each one, and the girls spent a bit of time admiring these. Then they tried the key for one in the door of the other, and then for fun in the bedroom door (it didn’t fit, as I’m sure you suspected). After that they got busy inspecting the contents of the wardrobes, which were, I’m sorry to say, not very exciting, though Pansy did find an old dress buckle.
Eliza woke frightfully early the next morning; the sun was just coming up and it was beginning to lighten the view out the back windows. Eliza took one of the old quilts out of the chest at the end of the four-poster and pulled it over to the window seat. She watched as everything in the yard changed from a single bleak grey into the faintest of colors, then brightened. It was especially fantastic in the flower gardens. She saw Ivy come out and snip something off one of the plants in the container garden near the larder. Gerald emerged from the tool shed and began pruning a shrub near the gardens’ edge.
Eliza gave a start when Pansy appeared beside her, holding two mugs of coffee-and-milk, rich, creamy, and sweet.
“Sorry, Lize, didn’t mean to frighten you,” Pansy said, taking a big slurp of coffee. “Got these from Ivy. You really didn’t see me leave the room?”
“Heavens, no!” Eliza answered. “I was all caught up in the comings and goings of the gardener and the cook, there outside.” She said this last with great intrigue, as though there were Something Going On. But there wasn’t; that was mainly to get back at Pansy for so successfully scaring her. Pansy didn’t fall for it, however.
“How about let’s get dressed and go exploring outside,” Pansy suggested. “We can grab breakfast from Ivy on the way out.”
Eliza thought that was a splendid idea and in no time the two were deep in the garden, munching happily on ham biscuits, scouting out interesting holes and branches low enough to climb, and getting thoroughly grungy in the process.
It went on like that for nearly the whole first week; soon the girls knew the garden inside out. It wasn’t exactly as Pansy had imagined it, though, all those summers she had been at home while first Astrid and then Clarence had been off at Gramma’s. She’d expected more help from those two, for one thing. But Clarence had brought a whole stack of books, and Astrid was inexplicably mopey. Good thing Eliza could come, Pansy thought more than once, or I’d have been left without anyone. Pansy was very curious and very brave, you see, but she was also a people person, and she didn’t like an adventure half so much if no one was there to share it.
So Eliza and Pansy kept exploring on their own, and mostly they saw Clarence and Astrid at mealtimes, and mostly Clarence tried to wing peas at them, and mostly Astrid just scowled.
All that changed on a Tuesday. It was raining cats and dogs when Eliza and Pansy woke that morning, which didn’t bother them at all; they hadn’t explored even a tenth of the house, so there was no lack of interesting things to discover. To make it even better, Clarence had apparently had enough of books, and he joined the girls after lunch.
That made it possible to play a game of Three Man Round, a sort of hide-and-seek tag that keeps on going as long as you like: One person finds the second, who must then find the third, who goes back and finds the first, who has by then had time to hide again. (It could, as you may have noticed, be Four Man Round or Five Man Round or Ten Man Round, but there were three Perkins children, and therefore it had always, at the Perkins home, been Three Man Round. Astrid had invented it—or at least given it its name.)
Perkins House was a perfect place for Three Man Round, being full of staircases and doors and alcoves and nooks and piles of blankets. With so many interesting places, finding your man took a long time (this was aided in part by the interestingness of the house, which meant that sometimes the seeker got a little sidetracked).
Pansy was First Man, which meant right now that she was hiding, waiting for Clarence to find Eliza so that Eliza could get around to finding her again. Pansy knew she had a while, so she wasn’t hiding very well—if Eliza had been in the room, she’d have seen Pansy immediately—but she figured on hearing Clarence give a victory shout when he found Eliza to warn her to get back under cover.
Pansy was so absorbed in the letter that she didn’t hear Clarence’s victory shout; in fact, she didn’t realize Eliza was looking for her until she stood right over her and gave her leg a little kick to show it wasn’t fun to find her this way.
“Oh! Eliza,” Pansy said. “Look at this.”
“Pansy,” Eliza frowned, “you’re supposed to be hiding.”
“I know, Lize, sorry about that, but look! I couldn’t help it once I found the letter.” Pansy pointed to the small, lavender-colored envelope with a real wax seal.
Eliza got down for a closer look. “What’s in it?” she asked, picking it up and turning it around. It was covered with some kind of interesting design.
“I thought it was just an old letter, you know,” Pansy explained, “like from some old army husband to his wife, my great grandparents or something, it looks terribly old.” Eliza agreed about that; it did seem worn and of a kind of paper she’d never seen.
“But it isn’t,” Pansy went on. “It’s much more exciting than that. It’s a secret love letter.”
Eliza opened the envelope and began to read. Dearest Rupert, the letter started.
“See?” Pansy pointed at the name. “Rupert. Who ever names somebody Rupert anymore? This letter’s got to be really old.” Eliza waved at Pansy to be quiet. Rupert wasn’t a very exciting name.
I haven’t got very long before Mother comes back and wonders where I am. Well, that’s more intriguing, Eliza thought, glancing with raised eyebrows at Pansy, who just nodded and said “keep reading.”
I’m sitting on this bejeweled wonder you made for me, on a perfect spring day, and I’ve never felt so happy in my life.
Pansy and Eliza exchanged glances. Ooooh, a bejeweled wonder! Maybe they could find it! It must be hidden somewhere in the house, and they could search high and low for it, and when they found it Gramma Perkins would be so pleased because it was a family heirloom that had been missing for generations and it was worth a million dollars and now Pansy and Eliza were going to be famous and be invited to go sleuthing for bejeweled wonders all over the world. “Shush,” Eliza said to Pansy, “and let me finish reading the letter.”
I wish I could shout it out for the whole world to hear, but I can’t. I can’t even let Father hear it; especially not Father. He would put an end to it, and I know he would send you away. So we will have to keep our secret, and keep meeting in little stolen odds and ends of time, which is hard to bear; but this hidden garden reminds me of you.
Eliza clasped her hand to her mouth in delight. Pansy nodded in glee. Oh! A hidden garden. The bejeweled wonder was in a hidden garden? Buried treasure!
Even when you are not with me, I see your touch all around me, the violets and pansies and forget-me-nots, and my beautiful bench. Oh, Rupert! I’ll figure out a way to soften Father’s heart. I have to, for time is running short. I have done my best to hide it, but soon our secret will be out, like it or not. Father knows you are a good and honest man. When he sees the inevitability of our marriage, he won’t refuse.
“Pretty interesting, huh?” Pansy said.
“Well, that’s an understatement,” Eliza replied. “It’s frightfully exciting.”
Until tonight, my dearest love. Under the stars and the moon and the silent cloak of night, here in our garden.
Your beloved
Maud
“Oh, Pansy!” Eliza sighed. “Who do you think she was? Your great-great-grandmother?”
“Beats me,” said Pansy. “I never heard of any Mauds in the family before. Oh! Clarence! I’d forgotten all about him.” She laughed. “He must be getting fidgety by now. Come on, let’s go find him and show him the letter.”
Late that night the three children hunkered down in Pansy and Eliza’s room, studying the letter by flashlight. They hadn’t dared to tell Astrid about it yet. In her present mood it seemed better to wait until they had figured out where to dig for the bejeweled wonder before trying to get her to join them.
“Because she has to come along,” said Pansy. “She loves romantic stories. She just can’t refuse one with a mystery attached.”
“Don’t worry, Pans,” soothed Clarence. “She’ll come along. You know Astrid; she loves a good adventure as much as we do. She’ll snap out of this funk of hers and be the first one out the starting gate.”
“Let’s get started on the garden,” urged Eliza. “Think now; where could it be?”
Clarence and Pansy furrowed their brows and got down to thinking.
“Well, it isn’t anwhere near the house, because we’ve spent hours and hours rooting around outside and haven’t found anything remotely like a hidden garden,” Pansy declared.
“That makes sense,” Clarence nodded. “After all, Maud is meeting her clandestine lover in a secret garden, so it can’t be right under her parents’ nose, can it?”
“Well, where can you hide a garden?” Pansy wondered. “You can’t just plop it down in the fields. Anybody could see it.”
“It’ll be all overgrown, and we won’t recognize it at first, until we see some purple blossoms peeking out from under a lot of weeds,” Eliza ventured.
Clarence frowned. “Well, if Gerald’s found it, we’re all out of luck. He’ll have whipped it back into shape and we’ll never recognize it.”
Pansy and Eliza sighed.
Several hours later the children had agreed to a scouting mission the next morning, first thing, to get a better lay of the farther land. With a solemn promise to wake each other as soon as it got light, Clarence returned to his room (just down the hall, fortunately) and the girls tucked into bed, falling asleep almost at once.