Dear Tess,
It’s sixteen days now since you left here and there’s still no letter from you so I suppose you forgot to write? I know you said you’d write every day, but maybe once a week would be easier. Let me know when you reply, then, what day you’re going to write from now on so that I can stop watching the letter box. I think Miss Whipstead thinks there’s something wrong with me, because I’ve been sitting in the porch every morning waiting for the post to fall on the mat, and those tiles are cold. Especially when I’m still in my nightie!
Maybe there is something wrong with me.
Anyway. So. Things without you are awful. Eunice has gone right off her food. Even Prissy and Prossy aren’t themselves (which isn’t completely bad as they’ve been a bit less annoying than normal) and I think it’s safe to say that everyone misses you.
Miss Ackerbee looks like she’s covered in dust. She’s gray and sad and slow and she’s started to forget things. And Miss Whipstead is even whippier than usual, but Angela Goody reckons she saw her wiping tears off her face last Wednesday, and Miss Whipstead got really snitty with Angela when she asked her what was wrong—
The paper Wilf was writing on suddenly vanished from underneath her pen, leaving a streak of ink across the page.
“Wilhelmina Siddons,” came Rebecca’s voice. “Have you been paying attention?”
Wilf looked up. Rebecca—or Miss Whipstead, as she was from the hours of 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday to Friday—stood over her, the letter Wilf had been writing held between two fingers.
“Miss,” Wilf said. “I was just—just making some notes.”
Rebecca gave a slow blink. “The current capital of the Briternian Isles, please, Wilhelmina,” she said.
“Er,” Wilf replied, trying to think. She cast her gaze around in desperation and caught the eye of Eunice, who mouthed the answer. “Er, Cardiff, miss?” she said, looking back at Rebecca and wondering if Eunice had just dropped her in it.
“Good guess,” Rebecca replied coolly.
A wave of yawns whispered round the room and Rebecca struggled not to join in. The day was warm and the sun was out and nobody wanted to learn about which corner of the Briternian Isles was most famous for its dairy farming.
“All right,” said Rebecca, folding up Wilf’s letter and tucking it into her pocket. She turned away from Wilf’s desk and strode toward the top of the room. “We’ll finish early for the day.” An excited clamor immediately began. “Miss Siddons! You’ll stay behind, please.”
The children began to file out, Rebecca issuing gentle reprimands here and there as she spotted untied shoelaces or dirty faces, and finally the only two people left were her and Wilf.
“So,” Rebecca began, taking a seat at the desk beside Wilf’s. “You miss her.”
“Miss who?” Wilf chewed on the inside of her lip, pulling at a long splinter peeling away from her desk.
“Leave that alone, please,” said Rebecca, nodding at the desk with her eyebrows raised. Wilf pulled her hand away and folded her arms. “And you know who,” Rebecca continued.
“Not even a letter,” Wilf said, still not looking at Rebecca. “So she doesn’t miss me, that’s for sure. Off scoffing ice cream every hour of the day, no doubt. Or too busy taking piano lessons, or horse riding, or something.”
“Wilf,” chided Rebecca gently. “You know that’s rubbish.”
“Is it?” Wilf finally turned to face her teacher. Her eyes were heavy.
“Of course! There could be a hundred reasons why Tess hasn’t written.” None of them good, Rebecca continued, but she kept that part to herself. “She’s adjusting to an entirely new life. It’s hard.”
“It’s hard, all right,” said Wilf, looking away again.
“We miss her too, you know,” said Rebecca. “Miss Ackerbee and me. Being without Tess…” Her voice trailed off because she didn’t trust it to continue.
“I just wanted to let her know I hadn’t forgotten her,” Wilf began, her voice so low Rebecca had to strain to hear it. “I don’t forget my friends.”
Rebecca reached into her pocket and fished out Wilf’s letter. “Sorry for making your pen slip,” she told her. “But here you are. You can finish it while we’re waiting to see Dr. Biggs.”
Wilf looked up at Rebecca, her face horror-struck. “That’s not today, is it?”
“Had you forgotten? Again?”
“Well, obviously,” Wilf muttered, rolling her eyes.
“Come on,” said Rebecca, getting to her feet. “We have to be there by two.”
Fifteen minutes later, Rebecca and Wilf convened in the front porch of Ackerbee’s Home for Lost and Foundlings and Rebecca couldn’t resist straightening Wilf’s hat and smoothing out the collar of her coat before she put her hand on the front-door bolt. “Ready?” she asked her charge, and as Wilf nodded, she pulled open the door.
Just as she was about to step through, Wilf spoke. “Miss Whipstead, you are trying to get Tess back. Aren’t you?”
Rebecca stopped in her tracks, squinting at Wilf—the day outside was bright—and considered her answer carefully.
“Yes. Of course we are. We’re doing everything we can. Why do you ask?” She kept her voice low.
“Because something’s wrong,” Wilf said, looking up at her teacher with anxious eyes. “You know it too.”
Rebecca met Wilf’s gaze, and the girl swallowed hard. “Do you even know where she is?”
“We have a post office box number,” Rebecca replied after a moment. “No address but she’s got to be somewhere in the city.” She cleared her throat and straightened a little, giving Wilf a sympathetic look. “Miss Ackerbee and I are constrained by the law, Wilf, but we’re doing our best, despite appearances. Can you trust us?” She paused. “Please?”
Wilf considered this for a moment and nodded.
“Let’s be off then,” Rebecca said. “And try not to worry.”
But as the steam car clanked its way out into the suburbs of Hurdleford, Wilf leaned her head against the cool glass of the window and thought—about Tess, about Violet and about ways to bring them home.
“I bet Wilf’s forgotten her doctor’s appointment again,” Tess said with a fond grin. “She always does.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?” Millie replied. She was dusting in the library—or pretending to. Tess stood at a nearby bookshelf, running her fingers along the spines.
“She’s got something to do with sugar in the blood,” Tess answered as Violet crawled onto her fingers. “She has to have tests every week or two, just to see how things are.”
Millie pursed her lips sympathetically. “That sounds like an inconvenience. But I’m sure she bears up as well as can be expected.”
Tess chuckled, thinking of Wilf’s irritated face. “She does her best.”
“Do you like reading, miss?” Millie said, turning to Tess. “It’s just you spend a lot of time in here, despite having that fancy experiment room all to yourself.”
“I like it in here because there are fewer interruptions,” Tess said. “Mr. Cleat is forever coming into the lab with something or other to tell me. I like having space to think and he doesn’t let me do very much of it.” As she spoke, her eyes fell on a book with a gold-plated title on the spine. The Secret Garden, she read. She blinked and frowned at it, then reached up to pull it out.
Millie began to wipe the nonexistent dust off the next shelf down. “I suppose he must be interested in you, miss. Trying his best, I mean.”
Tess sighed, running her hands over the front cover of her book as she spoke. “Perhaps. It feels more like he’s trying to catch me out, though doing what I can’t imagine. And I’ve asked you a hundred times, Millie. Call me Tess. Please?”
“I’ll try, miss,” Millie replied with a wink.
Tess took a seat at a nearby table, settled Violet on her head and pulled her experiments notebook out of her pocket. She laid The Secret Garden flat on the table and flipped to the back of her notebook, where she’d done some drawings of the object she’d brought with her from Ackerbee’s. She’d been studying the pattern on its body through her magnifier in the lab, but with Mr. Cleat’s tendency to burst in at unexpected moments, she’d never had time to properly sit and look at her sketches. There had to be a pattern but so far it had evaded her.
She tried to focus but her eyes kept drifting toward the book she’d chosen from the shelf. Beneath its title there was a picture of a girl kneeling on the ground, holding what looked like a flower. Tess picked up the book and angled it, letting the light flash off the gilding.
“What’s that, miss?” Millie asked.
“The Secret Garden,” Tess replied. “Have you read it, Millie? I’ve never heard of it.”
Millie gave a quiet snort. “I don’t read, miss. I never get time. I hardly have time to—”
Her words were cut off by sudden, quick footsteps outside the library door. Tess sat up, her spine stiffening as she shoved her notes away. Millie stood to attention and then Mrs. Thistleton entered the room with the speed of a pouncing cat.
“Millicent, I thought I told you to mop the lobby floor this morning.” Mrs. Thistleton’s voice was like ice.
“Yes, ma’am, I was just—”
“I don’t want to hear it. Just get to work, please.” Millie stood frozen for a moment, glancing at her half-polished shelves. “Now, if you don’t mind!”
“Yes, Mrs. Thistleton,” Millie said, gathering up her polishing things. She nodded at Tess, who waved sadly as she disappeared through the door.
“Good day to you,” Mrs. Thistleton muttered, fixing Tess with a glare as she left the room. Tess didn’t have time to reply.
She let out a breath as Mrs. Thistleton’s footsteps vanished into silence. “Somehow,” she whispered to Violet, “I get the feeling that woman really doesn’t like me.”
With a sigh, Tess picked up The Secret Garden and stroked its cover again. Then, not quite knowing why, she stood up and walked to the nearest window seat, where she tucked herself up and started to read.