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Authors: Elizabeth Cooke
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then turned towards the house. But, instead of going in, she walked around the terrace and right around to the front. Here, on the broad stone steps, she looked down the drive and out across the lawns; then, she continued on around the exterior, following the same herringbone path.
Halfway along the east wing, she stopped and looked down at the pattern under her feet. The path was very old, made of the same brick of the center of the house; before Rutherford was extended, it would have been out in the gardens. She looked carefully at its surface, smoothed down in places by generations of feet, and pitted in others by the rain of hundreds of winters and the heat of hundreds of summers; each crack, each undulation had a history. Mr. March, the gardener, had told her once that the bricks came from a village on the Ouse to the east of York; he claimed to know their provenance by their color. He said that the villagers there had been digging out clay pits in their fields for so long that the place was now surrounded by water-filled rectangles and ditches. And it had all come to Rutherford, to make the place pretty, to provide a dry place to walk.
She stood and looked east, in the direction that the anonymous village must lie. Out there in the world, whole communities existed to service Rutherford, but she had heard her parents discussing how the country was running dry of men. She had listened to what the war was doing, she had read the newspapers, and she had said nothing, but she felt more and more like a traveler stranded on a desert island—a beautiful island in a green sea.
Out there in the world, lives had a raw edge, not one smoothed by time and routine. The bricks of the world—the people, the cities—did not lie flat and prettily patterned. They broke up; they changed, they re-formed themselves. They were smashed to pieces, and they rebuilt themselves, or they were lost, or decayed, or buried; they sprang up in new shapes, or flung themselves into new ventures. They invented and moved and imagined and achieved. Time did not stand still out there as it seemed to at Rutherford. The world rushed hotly by somewhere beyond the great gates and the parkland. She wanted to be in it; she felt that she must. But she would not go rushing at freedom like Louisa had done. She would think of a way, a plan.
She walked on, past the eastern edge of the house. Here, the formal gardens at the back of the main building were revealed in all their glory. Gravel paths dissected the knot gardens, and, farther on, laurels and bays had been cut into topiary shapes. Around the edge was a thick border of lavender; at the wall to the kitchen gardens were pollarded limes. “I don’t see why the trees have to be tortured into shapes,” she had once complained to her father. “It makes them look so ugly in winter, and so strange in the spring.”
“March knows best,” Father had responded. But she looked at it now and thought that March’s own brutish character was reflected in the trees. “March is hardly a brute,” Louisa had admonished her when she had shared this thought with her sister. “How can he be, when he produces such lovely roses?”
But Charlotte thought she saw something else than delicacy in the chief gardener. She saw him—a bad-tempered old man—laying about the boys sometimes; she saw the way he hacked at the trees and hedges with his pruning shears and axes. Some of the March children were fat little bullies at the Christmas party, stuffing their faces, slapping their friends. “You are very judgmental,” Louisa had commented.
Charlotte wondered now if that were true. She thought perhaps that she saw too much, thought too much. She was not sentimental, but still the trees disturbed her. She worried that Rutherford stood for something more than prettiness. Way back in the family history, blood had flowed, and Beckforths had spilled it. It was as if the trees, with their blunt-fisted branches, and their curious
Halfway along the east wing, she stopped and looked down at the pattern under her feet. The path was very old, made of the same brick of the center of the house; before Rutherford was extended, it would have been out in the gardens. She looked carefully at its surface, smoothed down in places by generations of feet, and pitted in others by the rain of hundreds of winters and the heat of hundreds of summers; each crack, each undulation had a history. Mr. March, the gardener, had told her once that the bricks came from a village on the Ouse to the east of York; he claimed to know their provenance by their color. He said that the villagers there had been digging out clay pits in their fields for so long that the place was now surrounded by water-filled rectangles and ditches. And it had all come to Rutherford, to make the place pretty, to provide a dry place to walk.
She stood and looked east, in the direction that the anonymous village must lie. Out there in the world, whole communities existed to service Rutherford, but she had heard her parents discussing how the country was running dry of men. She had listened to what the war was doing, she had read the newspapers, and she had said nothing, but she felt more and more like a traveler stranded on a desert island—a beautiful island in a green sea.
Out there in the world, lives had a raw edge, not one smoothed by time and routine. The bricks of the world—the people, the cities—did not lie flat and prettily patterned. They broke up; they changed, they re-formed themselves. They were smashed to pieces, and they rebuilt themselves, or they were lost, or decayed, or buried; they sprang up in new shapes, or flung themselves into new ventures. They invented and moved and imagined and achieved. Time did not stand still out there as it seemed to at Rutherford. The world rushed hotly by somewhere beyond the great gates and the parkland. She wanted to be in it; she felt that she must. But she would not go rushing at freedom like Louisa had done. She would think of a way, a plan.
She walked on, past the eastern edge of the house. Here, the formal gardens at the back of the main building were revealed in all their glory. Gravel paths dissected the knot gardens, and, farther on, laurels and bays had been cut into topiary shapes. Around the edge was a thick border of lavender; at the wall to the kitchen gardens were pollarded limes. “I don’t see why the trees have to be tortured into shapes,” she had once complained to her father. “It makes them look so ugly in winter, and so strange in the spring.”
“March knows best,” Father had responded. But she looked at it now and thought that March’s own brutish character was reflected in the trees. “March is hardly a brute,” Louisa had admonished her when she had shared this thought with her sister. “How can he be, when he produces such lovely roses?”
But Charlotte thought she saw something else than delicacy in the chief gardener. She saw him—a bad-tempered old man—laying about the boys sometimes; she saw the way he hacked at the trees and hedges with his pruning shears and axes. Some of the March children were fat little bullies at the Christmas party, stuffing their faces, slapping their friends. “You are very judgmental,” Louisa had commented.
Charlotte wondered now if that were true. She thought perhaps that she saw too much, thought too much. She was not sentimental, but still the trees disturbed her. She worried that Rutherford stood for something more than prettiness. Way back in the family history, blood had flowed, and Beckforths had spilled it. It was as if the trees, with their blunt-fisted branches, and their curious
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