Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce Page A

them. Listening, Tom suddenly caught his breath: Mrs Bartholomew, of course! She, of all people, might know something of the past history of this house; or rather, there must once have been a Mr Bartholomew, and his family had perhaps owned this house for generations, and therefore he had known all about it. He would surely have told his wife the history of it, which she would still remember.
    Tom resolved that, as soon as he was better, he would call on Mrs Bartholomew. True, she was an unsociable old woman of whom people were afraid; but Tom could not let that stand in his way. He would boldly ring her front door bell; she would open her front door just a crack and peer crossly out at him. Then she would see him, and at the sight of his face her heart would melt (Tom had read of such occurrences in the more old-fashioned children’s books; he had never before thought them very probable, but now it suited him to believe): Mrs Bartholomew, who did not like children, would love Tom as soon as she saw his face. She would draw him inside at once, then and there; and later, over a tea-table laden with delicacies for him alone, she would tell Tom the stories of long ago. Sometimes Tom would ask questions, and she would answer them. ‘A little girl called Harriet, or Hatty?’ she would say, musingly. ‘Why, yes, my late husband told me once of such a child—oh! long ago! An only child she was, and an orphan. When her parents died, her aunt took her into this house to live. Her aunt was a disagreeable woman …’
    So the story, in Tom’s imagination, rolled on. It became confused and halting where Tom himself did not already know the facts; but, after all, he would only have to wait to pay his call upon Mrs Bartholomew, to hear it all from her own lips. She would perhaps end her story, he thought, with a dropping of her voice: ‘And since then, Tom, they say that she and her garden and all the rest haunt this house. They say that those who are lucky may go down, about when the clock strikes for midnight, and open what was once the garden door and see the ghost of that garden and of the little girl.’
    Tom’s mind ran on the subject. His cold was getting so much better now that his aunt and uncle had insisted on coming to sit with him, to keep him company. One day, hardly speaking aloud, Tom began a sentence: ‘When Mr Bartholomew lived in this house—’
    ‘But I don’t think Mr Bartholomew ever did live here,’ said Aunt Gwen. ‘Do you, Alan?’
    Uncle Alan did not answer at first, being in the depths of a chess problem in which he had failed to interest Tom.
    ‘But, Aunt Gwen,’ Tom protested, ‘this was his family home. How else would he have known the history of this house, and the ghost stories too? How else could he have told Mrs Bartholomew?’
    ‘Why, Tom—’ said his aunt, in bewilderment.
    ‘Mr Bartholomew, whoever he was, never lived in this house,’ Uncle Alan now said positively. ‘Mrs Bartholomew was a widow when she came here; and that wasn’t so many years ago, either.’
    ‘But what about the clock?’
    ‘What clock?’
    ‘The grandfather clock in the hall. You said it belonged to Mrs Bartholomew; but that clock has always been in this house. It was here long, long ago—it was here when the house had a garden.’
    ‘Now, what reason have you for supposing all this, Tom?’ asked Uncle Alan. He spoke less sharply than usual, because he really thought the boy must be feverish.
    Tom was searching in his mind for an explanation that yet would not give away his secret, when his aunt came unexpectedly to his rescue. ‘You know, Alan, the clock certainly must have been here a long time, because of its screws at the back having rusted into the wall.’
    ‘Well, now, Tom, that might explain a little,’ said Uncle Alan. He patted Tom’s hand, as it lay on the counterpane, to soothe him. ‘The clock may well have been here a long time, as you say, and during that time the screws rusted up.