There was not one message for Bobby in the entire letter.
No. Diana may have made many mistakes in her life, but adopting Bobby was not one of them.
“Are you certain you don’t want to keep it, Robert?” she asked, nodding to the toy.
He shrugged in a way that she was learning meant he was embarrassed. “It was Robin’s favorite.”
Tears stung at the bridge of her nose. “Then you’re right. It should go into the box.”
Silently she packed the rest of the items on the table into the box. A red jumper she’d knitted for Robin two Christmases ago. A couple of his baby photos she had duplicates of. A set of tin army men who’d fought brave battles over the grass of the children’s garden. The spare key to the winter garden.
Her hand hesitated over a sealed envelope that lay to her right. Perhaps it was unwise for her to hide away the adoption papers, but she didn’t want them in the house where Bobby might come across them. He was her child now.
Carefully she placed the envelope inside the box, closed the lid, and latched it shut.
“Come along now. It’s time to bury our treasure,” she said, offering her hand to Bobby.
The two of them made their way out of her new office. In the hallway, a nurse and a soldier who had been flirting parted at the sight of her, making her smile. When she’d assumed the title of commandant, she’d ceased to be an object of curiosity who’d thrown a party and a wedding and had become an authority figure to be tiptoed around—with respect. With Matron’s guidance, she would show them that she could be trusted.
As they walked, soldiers making their way up and down the hall stopped to say hello to Bobby. He hugged close to Diana’s side but said a polite “Hello” to every one of them. When Father Devlin called to her from where he was sitting with a patient in Ward B, they stopped.
“Off to defeat the Nazis?” the chaplain asked.
“That was yesterday,” said Bobby.
After luncheon, Diana had taken him to the ramble for hide-and-seek. She hadn’t cared about the stained elbows of his shirts. Bobby had laughed. She’d laughed. It had felt like catharsis.
“So what is it today?” Father Devlin asked.
“We’re burying treasure,” Bobby said.
“Is that right?” asked Father Devlin. “What sort of treasure does a pirate hide in Warwickshire?”
“A lorry and playing cards and a top and pictures,” Bobby rattled off.
Father Devlin lifted his eyes to Diana’s. “Ah. Treasures, indeed.”
She crouched down, still holding the box. “Robert, be a good boy, go ask Mrs. Dibble to find us the trowel, please. And my gardening gloves.”
He skipped off—skipped!—and she straightened. “I thought it might help him to bury some of Robin’s things.”
“Him or you?” asked the chaplain.
“Both of us.”
He nodded.
“I don’t think he understands. He knows that his aunt has gone away, but I don’t know if he’s absorbed it,” she said.
“Be gentle with him.”
She nodded, thinking about the new nanny’s stories of how Bobby thrashed in the night.
“Where are you going to bury the box?” he asked.
“In the winter garden. I never understood why it was Robin’s favorite place,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Nothing is more tempting to little boys than a locked gate.”
She gave a little smile. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Remember, I was a little boy once, too, difficult though that is to imagine.” He nodded behind her. “Your pirate returns.”
Bobby was brandishing two trowels and a set of gardening gloves. He stuck them out to her.
“Thank you very much, Robert,” she said, her tone brighter. She collected the gardening things on top of the box and ignored the loose dirt that fell from her gloves onto her cashmere sweater. “Now, shall we go?”
The rain that had been threatening all day held off for them as they moved through the garden rooms. When they reached the winter garden, she pulled out the key she’d slipped into her pocket and unlocked the gate.
“Now, where would a pirate bury this treasure?” she asked.
“Here!” Bobby shouted and ran toward the dogwood trees.
She handed him a trowel, and together they dug a hole for the box. Most of Bobby’s dirt slid back in, but he worked diligently with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. When it was almost a foot deep, he looked at her and asked, “When is Aunt Stella coming back?”