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?”
The question hit her right in the heart. “I’m sorry, Robert. Your Aunt Stella couldn’t live at Highbury anymore, and she couldn’t take you where she was going.” There, that stuck closely enough to the truth that a child could understand.
“Is she dead?” he asked.
Another pang. “Why do you ask that?”
He dragged his trowel through the soft dirt. “When Dad died, I couldn’t go visit him. Or Mummy, either.”
“No, she didn’t die, Robert. She’s happy and healthy, just busy working, and you live here at Highbury with me now. We should get this treasure buried before it begins to rain.”
She placed the box in the earth, and she and Bobby pushed dirt over it until a shallow mound of disturbed earth was all that was left.
Silently they left the winter garden, stopping only to lock the gate behind them for the final time. Then Diana took Bobby by the hand and led him down to the lake’s edge.
There was a small outcropping of rocks that jutted out into the water. The key felt heavy in her hand as she turned it over and over again.
“Are you ready to say goodbye?” she asked.
Bobby nodded.
Taking a deep breath, she threw the key as far as she could. When it hit the water, it sent ripples spilling out after it.
“Mrs. Symonds?” he asked.
She glanced down at him. “Yes?”
He hesitated before looking up at her. “Can I call you Mummy?”
“Why would you want to do that?” she asked.
“Because you do all of the things that mummys do.”
The sob broke from her before she could stop it, and she clapped her free hand over her mouth.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Of course you can.”
“Mummy,” he said as though testing the name out, “could we have cocoa?”
She gave a watery laugh and swung him up into a hug. “Let’s go see what’s in the larder.”
• EPILOGUE •
MARCH 1908
She steps off the boat, glad to be on solid ground. The Atlantic crossing hasn’t been as arduous as she’s been warned, but five days on the water was enough.
A gentle hand on her elbow makes her look up. He is smiling down at her. “Are you ready?”
“I think so.”
Her heart still aches to think of all she’s left behind in England—her brother, her home, her memories—but she finds that the ache dulls a little bit each day.
They’d stolen back there one frozen January Sunday when they knew that the Melcourts would not be at home. They crossed Highbury House Farm’s fields and let themselves in through the gate by her old cottage.
They crossed the lavender walk to the yew path that went straight to Celeste’s garden. He hung back a little, but she went to the gate. The head gardener—dear, dear man—had written to tell her where she might find the key. It was under the rock just as he’d described. She let herself in, slipping it into her pocket as she went.