‘Get out of the way, you bastard.’
When Alice’s Dad got really cross he went red, which until this minute Alice had thought was the most frightening it was possible to be. To her dismay, the tramp carried on wheezing. He turned from the wall, shaking something in his hand as he advanced on them, all the while talking in a long growl that didn’t make sense. Doctor Ramsay gave him a shove in the chest that sent him reeling against the wall and he sank in a heap into the nasty liquid puddling at their feet. He didn’t move or speak. Grasping Alice’s hand in his, Doctor Ramsay guided her past what now looked like an old Guy waiting for a bonfire. Alice noticed with relief as she stepped around him that he had stopped smiling. Soon they had left the tramp behind, and there was no one but them on the path.
‘Are you all right, Alice?’ Doctor Ramsay was irritated and not so nice.
‘Ye-es.’
‘Now we do really have to be careful that no one else sees us. We don’t want that happening again, do we?’ Alice presumed from this that the tramp had been her fault and nodded firmly. She didn’t know what else to do to make amends except to go on being herself, which he had seemed to like before.
Mark Ramsay was leading Alice back to Charbury along a route that few people had used because it went only to the White House. Because of this, it would be a couple of days before the police got round to searching it. By the time they did, the tramp had gone.
Ahead they could see the high garden wall of the White House. Then Doctor Ramsay stepped off the path and pushed his way through some bushes.
‘Come this way.’
He brought her to a rusting gate in the garden wall. It was cloaked in tangles of thick green ivy. Alice was astonished. As she came nearer, she saw that the wrought iron depicted an idyllic rural scene with all the animals of the countryside. At the base of a spreading tree she spotted a badger, and a hedgehog, while up in its branches was a tiny wren and a goldfinch. Doctor Ramsay bent down to her and made her follow very carefully the direction of his pointing finger.
‘No, up a bit, D’you see? To the right of the butterfly.’
Right at the top, looking out at the hills that formed the curve of the gate was a little man crouched over an easel.
‘He’s fixed forever painting the landscape. Look carefully. What he is painting hasn’t changed over the last two hundred years.’ Doctor Ramsay straightened up. ‘Let me show you properly.’ Very gently, making sure her dress was straight, he lifted her high up, past the level of the gate, past his shoulders so that she was looking down on to the top of his head. Then she looked beyond the gate, at the thick canopy of the trees. There was a hole not much bigger than a dinner plate through which Alice could see the downs veined with white streaks of chalk exactly like the shapes wrought into the gate. Sloping light green grass was spotted with darker green blobs for trees. Doctor Ramsay lowered Alice back to the ground.
‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’ She sighed. Invested with Eleanor’s imaginative powers, Alice knew the gate was the entrance to a magic land visible only to those with the password. Doctor Ramsay’s next words proved her right:
‘This is the secret way into my garden. I have the only key.’
He slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and brandished a bright silver key. Alice came closer to him as, still smiling into her eyes, he inserted it in the lock. It turned easily and the gate swung open. He ushered Alice through. They were in a small clearing, sheltered from the blazing sunlight by the tall trees growing around the edges of the garden. It was cool and damp and quiet except for the occasional echoing chirrup of a blackbird far above them. There was a rustle – a baby rabbit broke cover and hopped quickly off into the undergrowth. Alice was overjoyed; she had stepped into Bambi. Doctor Ramsay had transformed her life.
‘I’d like to live here for ever and ever,’ she confided to him.
‘Be as quiet as a mouse. I know you can.’ He was being nice again.
They tiptoed around the tree trunks following a zig-zag route. Beneath their feet the ground was soft. It was carpeted with pine needles, chips of bark and spongy moss all draped in snaking tendrils of ivy that had crawled around the base of the trees.
A heavy scent made Alice drowsy and filled her with a rush of optimism. She gave in to a succession of happy associations: building a snowman with her Mum and Dad; piggy backs on her Dad’s shoulders; making fairy cakes with her Mum on a cold winter afternoon. And most of alclass="underline" the flower expedition with Doctor Ramsay.
Then she saw it. It was the most exquisite rose she had ever seen. A brilliant white, it reminded her of a giant snowball. Even her Dad didn’t grow such big ones. Doctor Ramsay pulled the branch with the rose down towards her and standing on her toes, Alice buried her face deep into it.
‘Boule de neige,’ he murmured in her ear.
‘Snowball,’ Alice returned promptly. She had come top in French last year. Suddenly she knew she wasn’t a bad girl after all. She closed her eyes. The rose’s petals were cool and firm on her cheeks like a cat’s ear. She filled her lungs with the insistent smell as she imagined it really was a snowball, cold and thirst quenching on this boiling hot day.
As she opened her eyes, she gasped. There were roses all around them, great nodding white flowers like beacons in the dark, secret place where Alice was positive that Eleanor had never been. Their branches intertwined with the ivy to form an impenetrable wall of foliage; untrimmed and untamed. This was a proper garden.
Alice saw where they were. Up until now, being with Doctor Ramsay had shed a different light over everything, rendering it strange and exciting. Now Alice recognised the Ramsays’ lawn, although she had never seen it from this angle before. To their right was the willow tree where she had sat through several horrible tea times, and beyond that the gate to the river where Lucian tried in vain to catch fish. The house was on their left, and now Alice could acknowledge its close resemblance to Eleanor’s dirty old doll’s house. Now that she had Doctor Ramsay, Alice could admit to herself that she was jealous of the doll’s house. She had never seen anything so magnificent. So when Eleanor had proudly explained that it was exactly the same as the real White House, Alice had assumed an air of indifference. So she had never fully appreciated that it was indeed a precise replica. Now as she stared up at the solid grand house, three floors high not including the attics above, standing proudly on a sprawling lawn, it seemed less forbidding. With Doctor Ramsay there beside her, the White House was nothing but a toy.
‘Thank you very much for bringing me to your secret place. It’s the best I’ve ever been to.’
‘Oh, this isn’t it. Just wait and see. There’s more.’
Alice gazed up at the windows. Apart from the ones on the top floor with the bars, which she knew were the playroom, all the windows were open. Then Alice saw that the middle window on the second floor was shut, with the curtains closed. Alice guessed this was Mrs Ramsay’s bedroom and assumed she must be having one of her lie-downs. As they were about to venture out across the lawn, Doctor Ramsay put his hand on Alice’s shoulder, keeping her still. Not that she would have gone anywhere without him. Lucian was running out of the back door and was struggling across the lawn hampered by all his fishing equipment. The Ramsays were always in a hurry.
Not all of them.
Lucian’s rod caught between his ankles. He tripped and fell headlong on to the grass. Alice heard him swear as he picked himself up and readjusted his knapsack and her cheeks went red. She marvelled that she could ever have wanted to marry him. His face was pink from sitting out on the riverbank in the sun all day and he had untidy hair sticking up like Eleanor’s. If she had been with him when they met the tramp he wouldn’t have saved her. Because this occurred to her, Alice resisted going over to him when he fell.