The Perfect Retreat. Kate Forster

he remembered, enthusiastic about Merritt’s ideas, and they included their child in everything. Merritt had stayed nearby the house for six weeks to ensure the proper placement of their large collection of rare trees, and he had spoken at length with the wife about her son. He tried to remember what she had said her child’s condition was. She had asked Merritt to design a sensory garden for him and he had had much delight in working with the boy, getting him to choose plants and flowers that would stimulate him.

      A few times a week a special teacher would come and work with him and mostly they worked outside on the green lawn, playing games and rolling on sports equipment, even crawling together. Merritt had watched with interest and he even saw small improvements by the time he left. Merritt reminded himself to email the woman to ask for more information so he could give it to Kitty for Willow.

      Inside the house Kitty was fighting with Poppy, who was insisting on using her crayons on the wooden oak panels in the hallway. ‘No,’ said Kitty. ‘These are not for drawing on.’

      ‘Well I want to draw. I want my art things and you didn’t bring them,’ moaned Poppy accusingly.

      ‘Well I’m sure we have some paper somewhere,’ said Kitty, licking her thumb and trying to get the green crayon off the wall.

      ‘I want real art things,’ said Poppy, making a face that Kitty knew from experience would turn into a giant wail.

      Kitty thought of the eaves, where all of Clementina’s paintings were housed. Perhaps there were things up there. She remembered her mother and her father had dabbled in art, and they had also encouraged Merritt and Kitty to paint, hoping that their ancestor’s genes would come through – but to no avail. Eventually it had all been packed away. Kitty wondered if it was all still stored up there in the eaves.

      ‘Alright, come on then,’ she said impatiently, and picking up Jinty and gently pushing Lucian ahead of her she led the way for Poppy to follow her up to the eaves. The stairs got smaller as they climbed and it became darker, the air mustier. Jinty started to cry and squirm in Kitty’s arms. ‘Hang on, nearly there,’ she said, and they came to a small wooden door. Kitty hadn’t been up here in years, and she pushed open the door wondering what she would find.

      The room was dank and smelt of stale air and oil paints. Kitty held Jinty as she drew back one of the blinds and sunlight flooded the room. All of Clementina’s paintings leant against the far wall and there were many easels and canvases with half-finished paintings. A red chaise longue in tattered velvet was the only piece of real furniture in the room apart from a small table with a tarnished bowl sitting on top of it. There were shelves of books and art supplies and a small sink in the corner of the room.

      There were trunks stacked on top of each other and a few boxes marked ‘Iris’. No doubt her mother’s things that her father had hidden away after her death, thought Kitty sadly. She remembered how desolate her father had been. That’s when he forgot me, she thought, trying to hold back the tears that pricked her eyes.

      Kitty’s father had been so enveloped in his own grief that he’d let Kitty do as she pleased. He had ignored her failing at school, her lack of confidence and her sadness. She had lost her mother, but that was not enough to pierce his veil of desolation, and so they had lived in the same house, sometimes not speaking for days. She felt like her mother had abandoned her first by dying, then Merritt had abandoned her when he and Eliza split up, and then her own father had abandoned her in her own house.

      Kitty sat on the sagging chaise longue. The emotion threatened to overwhelm her and she wondered at the strange turn of events that had brought her here, back at Middlemist with Willow’s children and Merritt, sitting in the eaves.

      Poppy danced around the room. ‘Look at all the things! Can I have them?’ she asked, expecting the answer to be yes, as it usually was. ‘No, but you may borrow them,’ said Kitty firmly.

      ‘OK,’ said Poppy, turning up her little nose. ‘This will be my playhouse,’ she said decidedly, ‘and you two cannot come in unless you ask,’ she said to Jinty and Lucian. Lucian was standing by the window staring ahead over the grounds, watching Merritt in the garden. Jinty was sitting on Kitty’s lap, playing with a long strand of torn velvet.

      ‘Can I come up here whenever I want?’ asked Poppy.

      ‘You must ask me first, and I will have to do a scout around to see you can’t get hurt on anything.’

      ‘OK,’ said Poppy happily.

      Kitty placed Jinty on the floor and she promptly pulled herself up to a standing position to continue playing with the velvet strand. Kitty looked around; there was nothing major Poppy could hurt herself with. The windows were too large to lift, so she couldn’t fall out the window. She pushed the easels against the walls so they wouldn’t topple over and lifted one of the trunks down onto the floor to ensure that it too would not fall on Poppy. Looking through the shelves of art supplies, she found some watercolours and paper. She took out a brush and filled up a glass jar with water. ‘Here you go,’ she said to Poppy. She placed the paper on the table and put the bowl next to it. ‘You use them like this,’ and she painted a few strokes for Poppy to see what she was doing.

      Poppy snatched the brush out of Kitty’s hand. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, and Kitty looked at her. ‘Don’t snatch, Poppy. And say thank you.’

      Poppy turned her head towards Lucian. ‘Lucian needs to go to the toilet,’ she said, and Kitty jumped up. ‘You need to do a wee, Lucian?’ she asked. She took him by the hand, lifted Jinty expertly with one arm, and started down the stairs. ‘Stay there. Don’t paint on anything but the paper and don’t hurt yourself. I’ll be back in a minute,’ she called up.

      Poppy smiled as they left. She had no idea if Lucian wanted to go to the toilet, but she always found this the best way to get rid of Kitty or her mother. Poppy looked around the room and sighed with delight. Although she didn’t know the word for it, it felt good to be alone. To have a place where Jinty and Lucian couldn’t come.

      She walked over to the trunk that Kitty had moved and examined the strap that was holding it together. It was worn leather, fraying in parts. Poppy wasn’t strong enough to pull it open, so she picked at the leather until it fell apart. Straining at the large lid, she struggled till it fell backwards with a thud. She waited for Kitty to yell out to her, but heard nothing from downstairs.

      Peering into the trunk, she saw layers of yellow paper with fabric underneath. Pulling off the paper, Poppy lifted up a hat covered in roses, faded but still pretty. Poppy put it on her head. Digging deeper into the trunk, she found old fans, some broken but some still in good condition. Small shoes and coats. A large petticoat and huge cream dress with lots and lots of buttons and lace.

      Poppy pulled everything out of the trunk into the middle of the floor and climbed into the empty space, wearing a pair of the tiny shoes. I could lie down in here, she thought, and she jumped on the box’s floor until she heard a crack. Looking down she saw her foot had gone through the bottom of the trunk, but when she lifted her leg out carefully she couldn’t see the floor below it. She squatted to the side of the hole and picked at the old, splintering wood, lifting up small pieces. Worried about a splinter, which she had had once before, she pulled on one of the kid gloves lying in the heap on the floor and noticed her hand nearly fitted it perfectly.

      Once she had both gloves on, Poppy worked furiously until she had made a large hole in the base of the trunk. She slipped her hand in to see if there were any other items underneath. Maybe this is the treasure that Merritt and Kitty talked about, she thought excitedly.

      Her gloved hand brushed against something and she gasped as she pulled it out. It was a bundle of letters bound by a pale blue ribbon. Poppy was disappointed; she couldn’t even read yet. She threw them on the floor and continued searching the cavity in the trunk. Next she pulled out a few small leather-bound books. She threw them over with the letters – they were no good either. She put her arm back into the trunk’s false base one last time and stretched her hand as far into the corner as she could. She drew out a small box. Opening it, she found a beautiful ring. It was a large square-cut emerald