She had to be careful climbing the path back to the terrace. The ground was slippery, iced fronds of fern hanging over the stream where the water ran between banks piled with snow. It sounded like music in her ears but then everything was bewitching to her this morning. From the top of the spiral mound she could see for miles across the vale. The snow had cleared away now and the sky was the palest blue of a bird’s egg.

She scrambled down the hillside to join her family in the labyrinth. The hem of her gown was soaking now and her feet felt wet and cold, but happiness bubbled up inside her, banishing the discomfort. This was how she had imagined it, only far, far better; her garden a place where joy and laughter dwelled.

Robert threw a snowball at her and it melted down the neck of her cloak. She pretended to be angry but all she wanted to do was kiss him, to whirl around in his arms. So she did, and their sons ran alongside; or William did—Robbie was still barely able to stand. The nurses laughed and everyone’s faces were rosy, and when they could no longer feel their fingers or toes they went inside to sit before the fire and drink spiced ale to warm up.

Later, when she finally realized that the key was missing from the chain about her neck, she knew she would never find it again. She had explored every corner of the garden earlier that morning. She had no idea which snowdrift might hold it.

They searched; of course they did. They retraced her steps, she and Robert and the servants, digging, huffing and puffing until the snow was trampled and the garden no longer looked enchanted. There was no sign of it.

“I will have a new key made,” Robert promised, as they lay beneath the tester together that night, burrowed in and warm in each other’s arms. “Or buy you a new box for your treasures. Do not fear, my love. Perhaps we shall find it anyway, when the spring comes.”

But the melting of the snow did not reveal the key and although Robert had gone to London and promised a new box for her as a gift, it would have meant breaking open the old one, splintering the highly polished wood she loved, so she was glad when he forgot.

Eventually, as the summer came, she decided she must put aside any sentimentality and break into the box so she could see the pictures again. She missed them and already the boys had grown and changed almost out of all recognition. But the summer brought with it nothing but trouble and soon the key was forgotten beneath matters much weightier than snow, and it was to be more than three hundred years before it was found again.

One

Lucy

The Present
Late July

The house looked exactly as she remembered it.

Immediately ahead of her was a low wall of chalk and sarsen stone, overgrown with a tangle of white and gold honeysuckle, pink wild rose and white star jasmine. Tall pink-colored hollyhocks bent confidingly close toward one another, almost blocking the little wooden gate. Beyond that, a path of irregular flagstones cut across a wide lawn—almost a meadow because the grass was so long and dotted with wildflowers—up to the pale green-painted door, which nestled beneath a flat porch. The windows were irregular too, two of them set on each side of the entrance, their Georgian casements reflecting a gleam of lamplight within.