He opened the door a little and peeped through the crack. To his astonishment she was not heading for the woods, but opening the dilapidated old gate leading to Sir Northcote’s house.
Zak frowned. He felt worried. He knew that the old man liked to talk to her about butterflies, but surely she couldn’t be thinking of visiting him in his house. No one but Mrs Braithwaite and the potter woman visited him there. His grandmother went in once a week to clean and do the old man’s ironing, and he had heard strange tales about the house. It was dark and spooky apparently, and his grandmother was hardly allowed to move or dust anything. She was confined to keeping his kitchen and bathroom clean and making his bed. There were scary objects everywhere, like skulls and stuffed birds with staring eyes, and there were cabinets full of dead insects that Granny was forbidden to touch. There was also a poison cabinet with bottles full of evil looking liquids with skull and crossbones labels on them. “I’m always glad to get out of there,” Granny said every week. “The place gives me the creeps.”
Part of him wanted to call out and warn Hyslop not to go in. Even as he watched, however, the old man opened his door. He did not smile, but he looked as if he had been expecting her. Somehow that was even more sinister.
Well, it was too late now. Zak closed the little garden door and stood for a while with his back to the wall. She had gone where he could not follow.
Quote
“The Camberwell Beauty is one of the most spectacular butterflies to be seen in the British countryside, and one that has always elicited great excitement…”
(from The Butterflies of Britain and Ireland, by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington)
Chapter Twenty One
Hyslop Views the Collection and is given a Mission
Hyslop’s first impression of Sir Northcote’s house was the smell. It was more a mixture of smells really: damp wallpaper, forest floor leaves, old leather, stale Brazil nuts, musty books, decaying vegetables, animal fur and long rainy afternoons. Hyslop liked it.
She followed the old man down the dim passageway into a large, high-ceilinged room. The walls were panelled in dark wood, and there were heavy green curtains at the window, laced with cobwebs, which looked as if they had been there for a hundred years. In any case, the small leaded window panes were so filthy that not much light would have filtered through even if the curtains had been fully open. In such a room could the Sleeping Beauty have been found by the prince. Where she would have lain waiting for that kiss, however, was another matter. There was nowhere to sit down, let alone lie asleep for a hundred years.
“I don’t allow the cleaner in here to mess around,” said Sir Northcote suddenly whirling round to face her. He said it aggressively, as if daring her to comment. She had no intention of doing so.
To Hyslop the room was just perfect. No one had been in to dust and polish and tidy up for years, possibly decades. Dust lay thick on every surface and spiders had been spinning webs for generations, most of which were dusty too. She wondered if this would annoy the spiders as it would prevent their webs from being invisible to flying insects, which was the whole point of a web. They would have to constantly begin again with new webs. It was clearly a cycle which had gone on for some time. The least movement stirred up dust in the air. Hyslop wondered if she was breathing in air and dust from another era, possibly even from old Queen Victoria’s time.
One whole wall was given over to books, leather-bound mainly, and more books were piled up on the floor and on every piece of furniture. In one corner was a trio of stuffed owls which seemed to be glaring at her. In front of them was what looked like a real dead mouse. In another corner, piled high on a table, was a selection of bones. Hyslop wondered if they were animal or human.
Dead flies and bluebottles littered the floor and many of the surfaces. Flies were insects too of course, and it was important that they were studied, but somehow Hyslop could not get excited about flies. Her heart was definitely with the butterflies.
“Sit down, for goodness sake!” barked the old man, pointing to an armchair which only had four books on it. Hyslop pushed them to the back of the chair, and perched herself on the edge of it. She caused so much dust to rise up in the air that it made her cough.
The old man was prowling around the room, frowning and muttering to himself, with only the occasional head slap.
“I don’t do visitors,” he said aggressively. “I don’t make tea or coffee or anything like that. Don’t be expecting that sort of hospitality here.”
“No, thank you,” said Hyslop politely, as if she had in fact been offered something to drink. “I don’t really like tea or coffee.”
“There’s a tin of ginger biscuits,” he said, looking around him in a vague sort of way. “Somewhere around here. My daughter brought them when I told her you were coming. Insists on bringing me things she’s baked. Bit of a nuisance frankly.”
“Is this it?” Hyslop leaned forward and picked up a tin from the floor at her feet. It had pictures of chocolate biscuits on it beneath a thick layer of greasy dust and what looked like mouse droppings.
“No, of course not!” he snapped. “That’s been there since Christmas. Possibly the Christmas before that. You don’t want stale biscuits, do you!”
“Well, I prefer them fresh.”
He narrowed his eyes as if to check if she was being sarcastic. She wasn’t, though. She was simply telling the truth.
“Ah!” He pounced on a more shiny looking tin, beside the pile of bones. “Here it is. These are fresh. Penelope made them yesterday.”
He handed the tin to Hyslop and as she opened it a delicious smell of ginger and sugar and butter came bursting out, banishing the musty smells around her.
“Can’t eat much these days,” he said, still wandering around the room. “I tell her that but she keeps baking for me. Help me eat the wretched things, would you!”
Hyslop, who had not had breakfast, was thrilled. She bit into one and had to close her eyes it was so good. She understood why people used the phrase “melt in your mouth” about biscuits, which she never really had before.
“Mmmmm,” she said. “That’s the best ginger biscuit I’ve ever eaten.”
“Eat the whole tin!” he shouted. “The whole lot! D’you hear! I don’t want to be left with them.”
If only all adult demands were so easy to fulfil. Hyslop reached for her second biscuit, and bit into it with delight. Crumbs fell onto her lap and she brushed them onto the floor. It wasn’t the sort of place where crumbs would be minded.
“Do you want to see the collection then, Hyslop!” he said, glaring at her.
“Of course, that’s why I’ve come,” she said, looking up from the biscuits. She was pleased that he had used her name for the first time, instead of calling her “child” or “Miss Smarty Boots.” She had told him her name of course, but wasn’t sure that he had registered it. “Where are all the butterflies then, Northy?”
She had planned in advance to call him Northy. She didn’t want to call him Mr Hemmings, as, according to Sandy, that was wrong. His correct title was apparently Sir Northcote Hemmings, but she didn’t fancy calling him that all the time; it sounded like some strange medieval knight. Sandy called him Uncle Northy as he was her Godfather, but Hyslop had always had bad experiences of Uncles so had decided on plain Northy. Besides, he wasn’t a relation of hers, or ever likely to be her mother’s lover. She looked at him to see how he would react, but he did not seem to mind. He barely seemed to have noticed. He was preoccupied with opening a cabinet of drawers with a key.
As he fumbled for some time with trembling old man’s fingers, Hyslop took the chance to cram another biscuit into her mouth. She felt deliciously full.
At last he pulled a whole drawer out of the cabinet and laid it on the table, on top of a pile of books, in front of her. Hyslop put the biscuit tin out of the way on the chair behind her, closing the lid against dust, and wiped her hands on her T-shirt. Unlike everything else in the r
oom, the slim drawer with its glass top was remarkably dust-free. In it was an array of brightly coloured butterflies, each one with a tiny label beneath it.
“These are from West Africa,” the old man said. “My grandfather went out there many times. What they called the Gold Coast in those days. Been there myself. You can see a couple of hundred species in a day if you know where to look.”
“What! In one day!”
“Oh yes, there’s variety there all right.”
“They’re so fresh looking,” said Hyslop. It was extraordinary to think that these butterflies, in their rainbow colours of red and blue and yellow and green, had been flying around in African forests a hundred years ago. “I don’t know any of these species though.”
“It would be queer if you did,” said Sir Northcote. “You didn’t know a Brimstone until a few weeks ago! You’ve never been to Africa have you? Eh?” His voice rose to a shout. “Have you!”
“No,” sighed Hyslop. “No, I haven’t, but I would like to go one day. I would like to see butterflies like this and study them.”
She stared at the beautiful creatures and felt a great longing in her heart to be in a place where you could see two hundred different sorts of butterflies in one day. She would be like Alice in Wonderland, only it would be much better than that. Alice found some rather nasty things in Wonderland, and there simply couldn’t be anything nasty in a place with two hundred species of butterfly in one day.
The old man seemed to be clenching his teeth to stop a swear word from tumbling out, or maybe just his funny Scottish word.
“Can I start by looking at the British butterflies?” Hyslop said after a while. “I mean, these are unbelievably beautiful but I’d like to start with what I know.”
“I think that might be best.” She had clearly said the right thing, as he nodded his head vigorously, took the drawer away and replaced it in the cabinet. He then took a different key out of his pocket and opened a different cabinet with the same trembling and fumbling. Although it took a long time, Hyslop decided against offering to help him. She wondered about another biscuit but decided she really couldn’t manage one.
“The few people I have allowed to see my collection,” he said, pausing before he lowered the next drawer in front of her, “the few people” he repeated, “have been a great disappointment to me. A huge disappointment! ‘Which one is the biggest?’ they always ask. Or ‘How much are they worth?’” He imitated these imaginary people in an unpleasant whiny voice. “Then they always ask to see an Atlas Moth.” He spat out the word “Dunderheids!” and placed the new drawer in front of her, with its neat rows of tiny orange butterflies. “Here are some Skippers.” He glared at her, his eyes staring out from his head in his angry-old-man-way: “Most people would find these little creatures boring I suppose.”
“I don’t,” said Hyslop. “I don’t find any butterflies boring.”
“These are mainly from my grandfather’s day,” he said. “You can tell by his copperplate writing. I was with him when he collected these last two. Fine fresh specimens.”
“A boring butterfly would in fact be an oxymoron,” said Hyslop. “Just not possible.”
“This drawer is the Small Skipper and the Essex Skipper,” he said. “You can tell the difference… ”
“… by the tips of their antennae,” interrupted Hyslop. “Yes, I know.”
He pulled up an upright wooden chair and sat down beside her.
“My eyesight isn’t so good for close up,” he said, slapping his head. “Can’t enjoy them all like I used to.” His voice became gentle and soft which was unusual, and the slapping stopped. His gnarled old fingers hovered over the glass drawer, above the last two butterflies in the drawer. “Just as well I know them all off by heart.”
They sat for some time together contemplating the Skippers. After a while Hyslop offered to put the drawer away and fetch the next one in the series.
“Ah,” she said. “Chequered Skippers. They’re only found in Argyll in Scotland now.”
The old man gave a wheezy chuckle when she said this.
“You have the makings of a true lepidopterist, Hyslop,” he said. “Dunderheid!”
If she ignored the last word, it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her.
The morning was passed looking at drawer after drawer of British butterflies. Their comments on the collection were interrupted only by the occasional crunch of a biscuit or a gentle head slap. There were all her friends from her wonderful book : Red Admirals, White Admirals, Gatekeepers, Purple Emperors, Small Coppers, Green Hairstreaks, White-letter Hairstreaks, Silver-washed Fritillaries, Scotch Argus, Mountain Ringlets, Browns and Whites and Blues of all shapes and sizes. There were even drawers and drawers of aberrations, and these were what made his collection so famous: butterflies with too much or too little black or orange in their wings, butterflies with mutant markings which made them different from their peers. And there were the beautiful Swallowtails which were only found in Norfolk. Hyslop smiled to herself as she remembered Zak pretending to have found one. There was the dear little Glanville Fritillary, found only on the Isle of Wight, and called after the first ever female lepidopterist, Eleanor Glanville. Now that would be something. To have a butterfly called by one’s own name!
“In one way it could seem cruel, I suppose,” she mused aloud. “All these butterflies killed and pinned. But then again, in the days before decent photography, how else could they be studied? This is a scientific record.”
“Yes, it’s only stupid, misinformed tree-huggers who grumble about how cruel this collection is!” snarled Sir Northcote. “They don’t understand its importance. Dunderheids! It’s a collection for posterity, for science. Some of these butterflies are extinct in Britain now. Many of them are one-offs. We need records like this. If we keep killing off butterfly habitats, they’ll all be gone. We could lose them all!”
Hyslop recognised that he was about to rant. A vein was standing out on his neck, his eyes were flashing, and she knew he was getting angry. He was going to start shouting about habitats in a minute. When he mentioned tree-huggers a rant was always imminent. Quite who these people were who hugged trees was a mystery to Hyslop, but they certainly annoyed the old man.
“I know habitat is essential,” she burst in, to deflect him. “It’s the most important thing of all. I mean, I know I’ve found my habitat here.”
This did stop him from ranting. He stared at her, his mouth slightly open. His teeth were not very nice, but at least it was better than his shouting and swearing.
“It’s the place where I feel I belong,” said Hyslop. The words tumbled out of her mouth, and only once they were out did she see how true they were: she had not thought that being happy was a possibility for her until she had come to Hemmingswood. “Here, with the butterflies and you and Sandy and Penny, is the first place I’ve been happy since my Nonna died. I think it’s my natural habitat.”
“Your Nonna?”
“She was my Italian grandmother,” said Hyslop. “All my early memories are of being with her and being safe.” She paused, and for a long time there was silence, which the old man did not disturb by even the slightest slapping of his head. Hyslop sighed. “She died, my Nonna. They said the angels took her, or it may have been the Virgin Mary. I’m not sure. If you’re not a Catholic, Northy, you probably don’t believe in all that. I’d like to believe in it, and I sometimes talk to her, and say my Ave Maria and my prayers, but my mother says that religion and God and going to heaven are a load of rubbish. I don’t know what you feel about that.” The old man still said nothing, and Hyslop continued. “Anyway, after Nonna died my mother came into my life. And lots of Uncles. Uncles I didn’t like. I wasn’t happy, and now I understand the reason for that: I wasn’t in my proper habitat.”
Hyslop gave a shudder as she remembered some of the really bad habitats of the past. The old man gave a strange snort and Hyslop looked up at him.
“We all need to f
ind our natural habitat, don’t we, Northy?”
“Who were the Uncles?” asked Sir Nothcote, watching her closely. Hyslop knew that all those people who said he was losing his marbles were wrong. He had a very sharp mind. The marbles sometimes got a bit muddled up but they were all there. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, and then he slapped his head really hard. “You don’t mean real Uncles, as in relations, do you?”
This was dangerous territory as her mother had forbidden her to talk about their life in Italy, and she knew that she was certainly not allowed to mention the Uncles.
“Um, I do have one real Uncle Carlo. He never liked me much and I didn’t like him. I haven’t seen him since Nonna died. Most of the others were sort of… well, sort of friends,” she said vaguely. “Friends of my mother’s anyway.”
“Very close friends I’d imagine!” the old man slapped his head again, and glared round the room. “Dunderheids!”
Hyslop smiled to hear the Uncles described by his funny word, but decided she should change the subject again.
“I’m interested in how your grandfather killed the butterflies,” she said, peering closely at a Scottish form of the Dark Green Fritillary. “I mean you’d have to be careful not to damage their wings. It must be quite difficult to do properly.”
For a while the old man was tense and angry looking, then he relaxed his shoulders.
“Yes,” he said. “You have to be very careful. There are various ways, but I use a net and then cyanide. You can’t beat an old fashioned cyanide killing jar. I don’t want you anywhere near that, though. If you broke the glass the cyanide could be deadly. It’s not done much nowadays but it’s the method I prefer.”
Hyslop looked up, startled by his use of the present tense.
“Do you mean you still have a killing jar?” she asked, frowning. “You surely don’t kill butterflies nowadays?”
The Summer of the Mourning Cloak Page 13