by Philip Reeve
For a few moments I was quite alarmed, being entirely unsure as to what this place might be, and how I had come here. Also, my mind was filled with memories of a most absurd and alarming dream I had just had, about pirates and spiders and – oh, dreadful things – and a person called Jack Havock who – (At this point, several lines have been firmly crossed out – A. M.)
Presently, a young Martian girl in the uniform of a maid appeared, bringing me a tray of breakfast things, and a most welcome pot of tea. Though only a native, she speaks good English and seems quite civilised, despite her russet skin and purple hair. Her name is Ulla. (She also found me this small notebook, in which I am recording this account of my adventure. How I regret the loss of my own journal, which must have been left behind at Larklight. And poor Mama’s locket.)
Ulla tells me that I have been here for several days, having been carried unconscious from the wreckage of a lifeboat which fell into the desert nearby. It seems that there was a fire at Larklight, though I have no memory of it, only of my peculiar dream. Papa and Art escaped together in the other lifeboat and are now safe upon the Moon, but for some reason I left alone, and drifted through the aether until I reached Mars. Ulla says that the Governor has been informed of my arrival, and has written to Papa.
It is horrid to think of Larklight burned up, and all our belongings with it. But at least Papa and Art are safe. In my dream – but enough about that foolish dream!
Now to something very extraordinary. This house is none other than The Beeches, country seat of Sir Waverley Rain, the great manufacturing magnate, whose company built the Channel Bridge, and the Martian Railways, and all the auto-servants at Larklight, and is constructing the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition! He is a famous recluse and sees almost nobody these days, so it is a great honour for me to be a guest in his home.
I wonder if I shall be invited to meet him? I must brush my hair and ask Ulla if anything may be done with my dress, which has somehow become terribly torn and dirty.
Then I shall say my prayers, and thank God for delivering me from danger and arranging for me to be rescued by such a respectable gentleman.
April 24th
My second day at The Beeches. I have not as yet seen any sign of Sir Waverley. The maid Ulla says that he is a very private gentleman and keeps mostly to his study, when he is not away visiting one or other of his manufactories upon Phobos and Diemos, which are the moons of this world. Last night I saw them glittering in the sky, all wreathed in the smoke of Sir Waverley’s mills. What a great man he must be to have left his mark upon the Heavens like that!
I spent the morning exploring some of the rooms on the ground floor, such as the library, et cetera, which are exceedingly well appointed. My host seems to have a passion for Martian antiquities, and owns many quaint examples of statuary and carvings salvaged from old heathen temples in the upland deserts. Also, many paintings of the famous Martian canals and other curious and picturesque vistas. These were most interesting.
I have always longed to see Mars, the jewel in the crown of Her Majesty’s extraterrestrial possessions. I suppose few Martians could have imagined, in the first years of the eighteenth century, that intelligences far greater and yet as mortal as their own were observing them from across the gulf of space, and slowly and surely laying plans against them. It must have been a very great surprise to them when the Duke of Marlborough landed his army, and brought order and civilisation to their dusty, backward planet!
This afternoon, having taken luncheon alone, I set out to explore Sir Waverley’s gardens, which are quite genteel. The Beeches occupies a small island in a lake called Stonemere, the island having been landscaped to resemble an English park, with a small herd of deer and a great many copper beech trees. I confess that the masses of dark red leaves, combining with the reddish sky and the rust-red sands and rocks of the surrounding wastes, lend the spot a rather sombre feel. The lake is also somewhat unsightly, for it is filled not with water, as lakes generally are in England, but with a form of Martian rock which has an unnaturally low melting point. The surface is covered with a stony crust, which is constantly fissuring and splitting into fragments that grind one against another with a most unearthly noise. In the lower depths, I am told, the rock is liquid, sluggishly and incessantly churning. Were I Sir Waverley, I should have the whole thing drained and replaced with a croquet lawn, or perhaps a ha-ha.
Sir Waverley’s servants are all most polite, although very few of them are human. The maids and gardeners are all Martians like Ulla – thin, elfin creatures with skins the colour of rust. Apart from Ulla, none of them seems to speak English. There are also some manservants who appear to be a form of sentient cacti; very brutish they look too, with their broad shoulders and flat green hands, and their blind green knobs of heads all studded with spines and prickles. They do not speak at all. They alarm me somewhat, although I am certain that they must be quite well domesticated, or else why would Sir Waverley keep them on?
April 25th
The most exciting news! Ulla has just come to tell me that Sir Waverley Rain has invited me to dine with him this evening! I am beside myself at the thought that at last I shall be entertained in polite society. I pray that I may make a good impression.
Later
Well, what an extraordinarily disagreeable interview! I know that Sir Waverley Rain is a self-made man who has risen to great heights through innate genius and hard work, but however lowly his birth I do not think it excuses quite such eccentricity!
Ulla arrived at my door at a quarter after six o’clock, bringing with her a quite passable dress of sprig muslin, not exactly in the current fashion, but kindly meant, no doubt. For some strange reason, as she helped me dress, I found myself missing the more informal dining arrangements aboard Jack Havock’s pirate ship, and had to remind myself sharply that J. H. and his ship had been no more than figments of my silly dream. Why can I not forget that strange dream, I wonder? Why does it all seem so real in my memory?
Just before seven I made my way to the dining-room; a sumptuous room on the ground floor, decorated in the most exquisite taste, though still, I fear, somewhat gloomy. There was a great huge ebony table shining like a pool of oil, with silver centrepieces and cutlery all a-gleam and cactus-manservants standing ready to pull out my chair for me when I had made my curtsey. At the far end of the table sat a tiny, motionless figure whom I took to be Sir Waverley. He does not look the least like a Sir. I had imagined a rugged, lined, yet handsome face, a leonine mane of greying hair, and an expression of nobility and deep intelligence. Instead, Sir Waverley has a little round greyish face like an aged egg, a little bush of grey hair growing above each ear, and no expression at all. Only his eyes moved, watching me as I entered and following me as I crossed the room, and closing in a long, slow blink as I sat down in the chair which his servant had pulled out.
‘Miss Mumby,’ was all that he said.
More servants entered, and set down a shallow dish before me, and another before Sir Waverley. A pleasant smell rose from the dishes; the smell of mock turtle soup, which is my favourite. I waited for Sir Waverley to say grace, or to give some other sign that we might commence our meal, but he only sat there, silent as a stone.
I decided that I should make polite conversation, even if he would not. ‘I am deeply sensible of your kindness in bringing me here, and looking after me with such Christian charity,’ I began. ‘It is like the parable of the Good Samaritan …’
Sir Waverley leaned forwards and regarded me with his strange, pale eyes. ‘I am glad that you are comfortable,’ he said. ‘You are among friends here, you know. I hope you feel that I am your friend, Miss Mumby?’
‘Why, of course,’ I stammered. But he had spoken in such a strange, unfeeling way, not the least friendly!
‘Where is it?’ he asked, still in the same, lifeless tone. ‘Where is the key?’
I had not expected to be addressed in such a manner, and began to feel quite agitated. �
�I do not know what you mean, sir,’ I said.
‘The key,’ hissed Sir Waverley. (Some disagreeable people might argue that it is not possible to hiss ‘the key’, as it is a phrase which contains no sibilants, but I cannot think of any other way to describe his voice as he asked me this. He most definitely hissed.) ‘The key. The key to Larklight.’
‘I do not have it, sir,’ I said truthfully. All Larklight’s keys were hanging upon their hook outside the pantry door last time I noticed them, and doubtless they are there still, unless they were quite burned up in the fire. I would have liked to explain this to Sir Waverley, but there was something so cold and uncanny about the way he kept staring at me that I could not bring myself to speak.
Then he seemed to remember his manners. His face changed slowly, until he was smiling at me, though I have never seen a more strained, unnatural smile in all my life; he looked as though invisible pulleys were tugging the corners of his mouth upward. He said, ‘I only ask, Miss Mumby, because your father wishes to know.’
‘You have spoken with Papa?’ I gasped.
‘We have corresponded. As soon as I realised who you were I sent word to him by aetheric telegraph. I had a reply this morning. He is overjoyed to learn that you are safe, but most concerned as to the whereabouts of the key …’
Of course, once I knew that it was for my father’s sake I was being questioned I tried even harder to think what key it was, and where it might be, but still all I could think of was that big brass ring with all the cupboard and door keys on. ‘All the keys are on the hook outside the pantry,’ I said.
The smile fell off Sir Waverley’s face like plaster dropping from a damp wall. He looked past me at the cactus-man who stood behind my chair and said, ‘She knows nothing. Perhaps that brother of hers is the one. Webster should have taken him too. We must find him. Take her away.’
Before I could protest, the cactus-man’s spiny fists clamped around my arms and I was wrenched from my seat and carried off, back through the tasteful, gloomy halls to my room.
It is clear to me now that Sir Waverley is deranged. I do not even know whether he has really informed the authorities of my plight, or whether my presence here in his lonely house is a secret. And what of Father, and poor little Arthur? Are they really safe? And what about my dreams, which seem so real? I cannot forget how they ended, with those dreadful spiders seizing me … And was not the leader of their brood called Mr Webster, the very name that Sir Waverley mentioned?
Whatever can it all mean?
To compound my discomfort, Sir Waverley had me dragged from his dinner table before I had taken so much as a mouthful of that mock turtle soup, which means that I am exceeding hungry, and my stomach keeps making the most indelicate noises. I do not see how things could possibly be any worse!
April 26th
Merciful Heaven preserve me! Since my last entry things have become a very great deal worse!
I barely know where to begin. Sir Waverley – the cacti – the worms – it is all quite horrible, like something from one of those sensational novels which Art insists on reading!
I must endeavour to collect my thoughts …
Last night, after I had written up the account of my unpleasant meeting with Sir Waverley, I was preparing myself for bed when there came an urgent tapping at my bedroom door. I opened it, and there stood Ulla. She had, until then, always been a very meek and polite creature. I had no sooner opened my door, however, than she barged into my room in a most impertinent manner, declaring, ‘You must leave at once!’
‘What is the meaning of this?’ I cried. I imagined she was there on Sir Waverley’s orders, and that this was another instance of his rudeness. ‘How am I to leave? It is the middle of the night!’
‘And you won’t see another day if you stay here,’ said the Martian girl. ‘I heard Sir Waverley talking with his house guest, and saying how they had no more need of you.’
‘But,’ I protested, ‘but …’
Ulla put a hand on my arm, which made me flinch. She said, ‘Don’t you understand? Everything I have told you is a lie! Except that last bit, of course.’
‘What do you mean?’ cried I.
‘He made me lie to you! The story about the lifeboat! No lifeboat fell here. You were brought in an aether-ship, from who knows where. You had been drugged, to dull your memory. It is a spiky, black aether-ship. It often visits. It is moored behind the house even now.’
I gasped. ‘The spiders!’
She nodded. ‘The white spiders are Sir Waverley’s friends. He concocted those lies to put you at your ease so that you would tell him something they badly want to know.’
My mind was reeling. If what I had been told was all untrue, then the things I thought I had dreamed must be real! The Potter Moth, the Sophronia and Jack Havock. But where was Art? And Jack himself? Had the spiders destroyed them upon Venus when they captured me?
‘We must leave this place,’ Ulla vowed. ‘I listened at the drawing-room door. Sir Waverley says you do not have the thing they want. He spoke of getting rid of you.’
‘I do not believe you!’ I whispered.
‘You must! Come quickly. I have friends who can help us if we can only get across the lake of stone.’
I could think of no other course but to trust her. After all, Sir Waverley had already proved himself no friend to me. I donned my good old wool serge dress, pulled on my boots, and stuffed this journal into my bodice. Then, offering up a silent prayer, I followed Ulla out of the room and down the staircase. Through the landing windows came the pale light of the Martian moons, casting eerie double shadows which served only to heighten my terror. Ulla pushed me into an alcove to hide as one of the dreadful cactus-servants lumbered past. Then we hurried down to the ground floor. Voices came from behind the closed door of the withdrawing-room. Ulla whispered to me, ‘Take a look. See for yourself what company he keeps!’
I have always thought that spying through keyholes is a most ill-bred way to carry on, yet in this case it seemed justified. After all, if Sir Waverley Rain is involved in some criminal enterprise I should learn the facts, so that I may lay them before the authorities when I reach Port-of-Mars. So I kneeled, and put my eye to the big brass keyhole in the drawing-room door, and peeked through.
The first thing I saw was Sir Waverley himself, standing with his back to the fireplace. The sight of his grey, unfeeling face was enough to convince me of Ulla’s tale, and then, when I saw to whom he was speaking …!
It was one of those spiders, even bigger than the ones in my dreams. It had pulled up all its horrid legs into a knot so that it fitted into one of Sir Waverley’s leather wing chairs, and it was wearing a bowler hat.
‘We should take her to the rings,’ it was saying. ‘She might still be useful. For luring the other one, like. They are soft about each other, these apes of Earth.’
‘No, Mr Webster,’ said Sir Waverly. ‘She is of no use, and already she has seen too much of us. We will kill her and drop the body in the lake.’
I am afraid that I could not prevent myself from uttering a little scream. My Martian friend said something most unbecoming, and pulled me away at once, but it was too late. Along the passage from the servants’ wing a trio of the spiky cactus-men came hurrying, reaching out towards us with their blunt, thorny hands. And behind us I heard the scramble and scrabble of clawed feet, and the sound of the drawing-room door opening.
I screamed again, but Ulla reached into a pocket of her apron and drew out something that shone faintly in the moonlight. She sprang at the cactus-men and swung the shiny thing to and fro. It was, I believe, a sort of axe, or knife, made in a complicated curvy shape so that it had many points and blades. The greenish sap of the cactus-men sprayed upwards, making a most dreadful mess of Sir Waverley’s wallpaper and ceilings. A prickly head trundled across the carpet to my feet. ‘Come on!’ shouted Ulla.
I looked behind me. The enormous spider was pushing its way out through the drawing-room door
way, which luckily was rather too small for it. The lamps in the room behind it cast nightmarish shadows across the hall. Then Ulla had my hand in hers, and we were running through the darkened servants’ quarters, with Ulla shouting at startled Martians to stand out of our way as they emerged blinking from their sleeping cells, and using her axe to cut down any cactus-men who tried to stop us. I believe she hoped to reach the servant’s entrance in the west wing, but long before we gained it a whole squad of the lumbering cacti appeared ahead, cutting off our escape, and instead we ran up an iron stairway to the first floor.
We were in Sir Waverley’s private quarters, where we fled unhindered through several offices and a library, until we found ourselves in an octagonal chamber where the moonlight slanted in through several well-proportioned windows. I stopped to catch my breath and look around while Ulla attempted to force a window open. On the walls between the windows hung slabs of stone, which I recognised as yet more of Sir Waverley’s archaeological treasures. Upon each slab, amid a confusion of other shapes and symbols, were carved the forms of colossal spiders.
A voice from behind me said, ‘I see you are admiring my collection, Miss Mumby.’
I turned with a gasp. Sir Waverley stood in the doorway, his pale eyes shining like glass in the moonlight. Behind him I could hear cactus-men lurching through the library, and an unpleasant tick, tick, tick which I feared must be the footsteps of that ungodly spider.
I closed my eyes and waited to faint. In novels, when well-bred young ladies are cruelly put upon, they generally swoon and recover to find that they have been rescued and are safe in the arms of their hero. However, no fainting fit descended upon me, and perhaps that was a good thing, for strangely enough the only hero I could imagine was Jack Havock, whose arms would be most unsuitable. I therefore opened my eyes again, just in time to see Ulla’s axe go whirling past me in a sharp-edged blaze of moonbeams. She had flung it at Sir Waverley, and her aim was true; it struck him in the middle of his shirt-front.