Beth rounded a corner—this one constructed from brick—and found herself staring at another gate. If the garden rooms she’d just walked through were still dormant with the winter season, this one was audaciously alive, awash in greens and silvers and reds.
Glancing over each shoulder, she tried the gate. Locked. She stood there, her hands wrapped around the bars, wishing that she could enter. To see life springing forth so vigorously in the first weeks of March felt almost… obscene.
She was about to leave when something caught her eye under a bush just to the right of the gate. She crouched down and snaked her hand through the bars, just managing to grasp it—a toy train, the paint slightly chipped but otherwise in good nick. Tilting her head, she could see other toys stored under the same bush. A smile touched her lips. This must be Mrs. Symonds’s son’s playground.
Voices drifted to her from somewhere nearby. Quickly Beth replaced the train and hurried out of the garden the way she’d come, shutting the gate quietly behind her.
? STELLA ?
Stella hurried down Church Street, her hand clapped on the crown of her head to keep her green felt hat from blowing away. She was not supposed to be out and about at this time of day. She should be in the kitchen, trying to coax a final rise out of the stubborn brown bread she was baking for the household staff’s tea. In her own quiet, worrying way, Mrs. Dibble was as much a stickler for tradition as her mistress, and she had refused to let meals around the servants’ table fall by the wayside even if Highbury House boasted only a fraction of the staff it had before the war. However, the strict tradition meant that if Stella didn’t have tea on the table by half past five, her timings would all be off for Mrs. Symonds’ dinner. And now, pulled away from her duties, she would almost certainly be late.
It was Bobby, of course. Half an hour ago, a hospital clerk had clattered down the servants’ stairs and announced that the village school was on the telephone. There had been a fight.
Stella rushed up the school’s steps, her disbelief still fresh. Bobby had been in a fight? Her meek little nephew, who only spoke when spoken to?
Inside, Stella stopped at a pitted pine desk manned by an ancient man.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“Could you show me to the headmaster’s office?” she asked.
The man stood and slowly began to shuffle down the hall. “You’ll be the other boy’s mother then.”
That was just what she needed. The mother of another child, raging or fretting or crying, wasting her time when she had a job to do.
“Here you are,” said the man.
She thanked him and let herself into the door marked “Mr. Evans, Headmaster.” As soon as she was inside the small reception area, her eyes fell on Bobby, who had a plaster over his right eye and—was that Robin Symonds under all that dirt?
“Bobby, what happened?” she asked, even as she threw an appraising glance at Robin. He had no visible injuries, just a torn shirt collar and his share of smudges. Thank God.
Behind her, a door creaked open and a voice called, “Miss Adderton, would you care to join us?”
She swallowed hard, as though she’d been the one caught misbehaving.
“Are you all right?” she asked her nephew.
He nodded, his eyes still downcast. “Yes, Aunt Stella.”
“Good. Don’t you dare move.” She hesitated and then dropped a kiss to his forehead.
Her nephew didn’t protest. He didn’t do anything.
She straightened and braced herself as she turned to the headmaster.
“Miss Adderton, I’m Mr. Evans. Would you take a seat?” the man asked.
Her grip wrapped around her handbag strap a little tighter when she saw Mrs. Symonds sitting in front of the headmaster’s large oak desk.
Mrs. Symonds twisted to watch her take the chair next to her, her eyes giving nothing away from under the brim of a neat, dove-gray hat.
Mr. Evans crossed his hands on the top of his leather blotter and fixed both of them with a look. “Mrs. Symonds, Miss Adderton, as you can imagine, we are very careful at Highbury Grammar not to allow any fighting in the schoolyard.”
“Of course,” she murmured. Mrs. Symonds said nothing.
“This is not a place for roughhouse and play. I know we have taken both Robin and Bobby earlier than is usual, but they are expected to behave as the older boys do.” He paused. “I’ve already spoken to both boys individually, but I’m going to ask them to come in and tell us what happened. They must understand that actions have consequences.”