by Penny Dolan
‘I knew your brain would be the right one to help me,’ Vanya rumbled, and so their happy conspiracy began.
All that week, I caught Vanya gazing up into the fly-tower, where the scenery hung, or vanishing away into his under-stage vault. When Friday came, he handed me a sealed paper. ‘For Mr Nick,’ he whispered.
On Monday, a securely tied note from Nick was tucked into my jacket. ‘For Mr Vanya,’ it read.
The next time they met, Vanya entered very, very softly, and within a moment he and Nick sat, heads together, in Nick’s tiny shop, studying an unusual mechanical device constructed from thin cane, clamped fast to the workbench.
At one end of the invention was a small pendulum, and some small gears and joints that worked a long extending arm. With its dangling thread and hook, it looked almost like a miniature crane.
‘Will it work?’ Nick’s eager grin must have raised his ears two whole inches higher on his head.
‘Ah, who knows?’ Vanya sighed, a smile appearing beneath his beard. The huge man glanced at the tiny man and they chortled. ‘Shall we see?’
Vanya hung a pippin apple, wound round with thread, on the hook. A lever was released, and somehow the whole mechanism slid into motion. Gradually the long arm extended forward, further and further. Nick released another spindle, and somehow the arm moved from side to side, swinging from its one fixed point. The gleaming apple followed, developing an arc that grew wider and wider as the thread was let out.
‘It flies!’ Vanya cried. They clapped each other on the back, applauding their own cleverness. Dog Toby, tail wagging, danced after the flying apple.
‘Nick Tick, you are a master.’
‘No, Mr Vanya, it is you who are the genius!’ They bowed a little to each other, delighted with their experiment.
‘It will need more work,’ fretted Nick, ‘but how can we get the thing properly made?’
Vanya laughed, and grinned in a determined way. ‘Where there is a will there is a way, my friend. Just now, we celebrate!’ He extracted his familiar flask and cups. ‘Here, Mouse!’ he called, throwing me the apple to eat.
It was one thing to share the idea with Nick, another to explain it to Adnam. As we stood outside his dressing room, we could hear the great actor shouting orders to his faithful dresser.
Vanya’s mouth worked away, as if he was gathering his words there, ready to present to Adnam. Nick and I carried another model of the marvellous machine between us.
‘Go away! I’m busy!’ Adnam shouted.
‘It is me, Vanya, with my friend Mr Nick and the boy!’ Within moments Peter had opened the door, iron in his other hand. Several white shirts hung over the folds of a painted screen.
‘I have only a few moments, so waste no time,’ Adnam urged. His face, make-up just removed, was red and raw. ‘I am due at a grand dinner immediately, where I must coax even more wealthy souls to donate money to my Albion.’
He rose and dragged on one of the crisp white shirts. Peter brought forward a set of evening clothes.
Vanya nudged Nick, who started babbling out his enthusiasm. ‘Mr Adnam? You want your theatre to have a new machine? You want a special invention, a new pattern, a thing never seen before?’
‘It is very, very good,’ Vanya added.
‘Of course I do, sir, if it is as good as you believe.’ Adnam checked the time on his gold fob watch. ‘So come on, tell me do, now. Speak!’
Vanya opened his arms wide as wings. ‘Is brand-new way of flying. Just now all we have is the old ceiling trap opening, and the actor going up and down, up and down on a rope, like bucket in a well. Very dreary. Very ugly. Sometimes the actor swings a little left, then sometimes swings right. Sometimes the actor is pulled back up through the trap. Some big surprise!’ Vanya curled his lower lip scornfully.
‘But me and my clever friend make something totally new. Once the lights are low, the actor will seem like angel flying out over the audience.’
‘Are you sure? Sounds impossible, Vanya.’ Adnam pulled on an emerald brocade waistcoat and an evening coat.
‘Think, think, Mr Adnam!’ said Nick. ‘Does the fisherman always stand in the water to cast his line? Show him, Vanya!’
Grandly, Vanya placed a wooden box on the table. He unclipped the lower fastenings, and lifted the lid. The new model was made of metal wire, and fine strings guided the action. Instead of that apple, a small peg-doll dangled from a silken thread. The inventors set the machine in motion.
‘Please cover those candles, Peter, sir,’ Nick said, pointing.
Peter did, though he huffed a little. With only two lights shining, the thread had become invisible, so the doll looked as if it was circling and weaving through the air.
‘Is magic?’ beamed Vanya.
‘Perfect magic!’ Adnam sprang up and slapped their backs and called them good fellows. As Peter relit the candles, Adnam pumped their hands. ‘Yes, it will be wonderful. Make it soon, soon, but with not a word to anyone, my clever, clever friends. A wonderful invention!’ With that, he pulled on his cloak and rushed out.
Peter tidied away Adnam’s clothes and rearranged his dressing table. Just as precisely, Vanya and Nick repacked their little machine, and then Peter ushered us into the corridor.
‘Did he say anything about money?’ asked Nick, as we all left.
‘Hey, that is Mr Hugo Adnam for you!’ Vanya gave an enormous shrug. ‘But an adventure, eh? Don’t you think so, Mouse?’
‘But what is the machine for?’ I asked.
‘For flying!’
‘Flying who?’
‘Who knows? Adnam has yet to name his play,’ Vanya said dismissively. ‘Now, we must both be busy with other work. Farewell, my dear Mr Nick.’
As he descended the steps to his lair, he turned and winked. ‘Have no fear, my friend. We will meet soon, and we will build our clever machine so cunningly that nobody will work out our secret. A few cogs from this one, strong struts from that one, fine rope or wire from another. No stinking spies will discover what marvel is going to appear in Adnam’s next show, not until it is too late for them to copy it! Ha!’
I am sure that little machine helped Adnam decide on his play, because within three days word arrived at the Aunts’. Time to prepare for the new extravaganza! Overnight, as the Aunts had told me, cabs arrived almost hourly bearing bundles of cloth and parcels of thread. The Aunts’ home almost became a manufactory.
Overhead, the treadle of Aunt Violet’s sewing machine whirred continually. Half-finished garments hung everywhere. Older costumes lurked about, waiting for renovation or transformation, or for cutting into useful pieces. A portfolio of Adnam’s quick sketches was spread across the table, each character’s costume covered with Peter’s meticulous measurements and detailed description.
Aunt Indigo unrolled the bales of fabric. She measured and marked and cut the cloth, then took the sections of each garment to Aunt Violet for stitching together.
There were boxes full of dazzling silks and feathers and spangles, skeins of ribbon for folding into rosebuds, and the threatening glint of needles and pins arrayed on every surface. Dog Toby was given very strict orders to stay in his box.
‘Thirty tiny fairies, plus headdresses,’ said Aunt Indigo, checking yet another list. ‘Twenty junior fairies, plus headdresses. Four headdresses for the horses . . .’
‘Horses?’ I said.
‘For the golden coach, silly!’ Dora sighed at my stupidity.
‘I’ve ridden on two huge carthorses –’ I began, but Flora interrupted.
‘Carthorses would be much too big, silly Mouse,’ she said. ‘Fairy horses are very, very little.’
‘So where do you get these fairy horses?’ I asked, half mockingly.
‘From Mr Spangle’s Emporium. Where else?’ said Kitty.
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CHAPTER 45
DOWN BY THE DOCKS
Towards the wide grey estuary, where the city’s distant stench mingled with the sea-salty air, ships lay at anchor, waiting to be taken upstream to the docks and warehouses. Small boats sculled here and there, ferrying passengers and urgent packages ashore.
The river pilots had brought Captain Marriner’s ship to a safe mooring. His voyage was almost ended. He stood by the gangplank, duty bound to bid farewell to important passengers.
These included Adeline and Albert, who were waiting to disembark. Few people would recognise them as the pair of scarecrows rescued from a desert island now that they were dressed in the fashionable clothes of wealthy gentlefolk.
It had been a strange time, thought Captain Marriner. When Albert and Adeline first sat at his table, they had been bemused by so much crockery and cutlery silverware, and the long list of dishes appearing on the menu. Yet, within days, their true British manners and poise had returned.
The pair had sent messages from each port along on their return journey: telegrams to the Geographic Club, the Botanical Society, to Kew Gardens, and to Epton Towers. Replies had come back from all except the last.
Albert and Adeline approached Captain Marriner. The porters had already lowered their personal luggage into the small boat that would ferry them to shore.
‘Thank you so much, Captain Marriner,’ said Adeline. She gazed uncertainly towards the riotous wharfs and quays ahead. Her years of life on the lonely island were still very much with her.
‘Definitely, definitely! Thank you so much for all your help, Marriner,’ enthused Albert. ‘Very well done.’
Marriner saluted, Albert raised his hat, Adeline extended her gloved hand briefly towards the Captain, and the pair descended to the sound of the ship’s whistles.
Adeline, the Captain admitted, was most charming and persuasive when she chose to be. No wonder her husband doted on her every word. However, the Captain would be glad to be rid of their collection of wretched botanical specimens. The things had filled three of his cabins. He had allowed as many on board as he could, but what a fuss there had been over all the plants abandoned on the island. Adeline had lamented as if some of those plants were her children. ‘Our life’s work gone!’ she had sobbed.
Captain Marriner turned to the next farewell and felt a reassuring surge of impatience. As soon as every passenger had disembarked, he could get his ship put in good order again. The unwelcome plants could be shipped to shore and stored in a warehouse until their destination was settled. Then his crew could set about making his vessel shipshape again. After all, he ran an orderly, sturdy ship, not a flower shop.
Busy Captain Marriner was too far away to see the newspapermen gathered on the quay. As Albert and Adeline arrived, the reporters swooped like ravens for scraps of news.
They were a little disappointed to find that the rescued plant hunters did not want fame thrust upon them, and, in fact, most rushed off to follow rumours of a murder in a local tavern.
So the news of Albert and Adeline’s return was not widely publicised, though there was much amazement and joy among several botanical scientists and map-makers.
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CHAPTER 46
THE EMPORIUM
‘Here we are,’ said Vanya, as we clattered down the broad cobbled way that led to Mr Spangle’s Exotic Emporium. The yard was full of packing cases, straw poking from between their slats, and great canvas bales sewn tightly up with twine, all marked with strange foreign letters.
The Emporium was a huge warehouse of a building, with high barred windows. Kitty’s eyes narrowed, and she became increasingly uncomfortable as we entered the imposing doorway. Aunt Indigo had sent her to note down the measurements needed for the bridles and headdresses of the new fairy horses.
‘And we are here too because we are fairies,’ Flora told me, skipping along cheerfully.
The gates clanged behind us, and we entered a realm where enormous green plants burst out of open sacks, and palm trees rose from gigantic pots.
Being inside the Emporium was like being in one of Jarvey’s stories of the jungle, a place alive with shockingly coloured birds and jewelled finches, although in Jarvey’s tales the birds were not confined to wicker cages.
Screeching peacocks plunged angrily from one roost to another. Brilliant parrots, all scarlet and emerald, circled angrily on their perches, raging at the chains on their feet. Beneath their shrill calls, I heard deeper, wilder roars echoing from somewhere within the Emporium.
Mr Spangle surged out of his office, arrayed in a jacket of deepest purple and patterned with golden dragons.
‘To what do I owe this honour, dear Vanya? I trust Hugo Adnam is well? And dear, beautiful Bellina?’ he said with a sly look at Kitty.
Kitty shrank even further into herself at the sound of Bellina’s name. She stared fiercely at the parrots.
‘So, Vanya, what can I suggest for some theatrical impact? Panthers are popular this season.’ He strolled with us around several cages and crates. ‘I’ve a wonderful python over there, and six Pekinese puppies, just arrived.’ Spangle paused thoughtfully. ‘Best not have both of those onstage together, just in case.’
‘Adnam may be interested in four ponies,’ said Vanya. ‘Small ones.’
‘Fairy ponies,’ cried Flora and Dora prettily, ‘for the Fairy Queen.’
‘Then you are in luck. A foursome arrived this very week, all white.’ Mr Spangle rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘Expensive, mind you, but trained specially for the winter season. They’ll obey a fairy princess’s whisper, stand as still as sugar mice and turn on a sixpence. They’re so well taught they won’t make a mess onstage, not even during the finale, or so I’m told. Walk this way, sirs, ladies.’
The four ponies stood in a pen, tossing their long manes and whisking their tails. They whinnied as if they were already impatient to leave Mr Spangle’s Emporium.
‘Oh, they’re just so pretty!’ gasped Dora unwisely, before Kitty could stop her.
Vanya scowled, knowing he had to bargain with the smug Spangle. ‘Huh! Silly little girl! She knows nothing. These four things look dull as boiled milk. No energy, no life. Probably poor-tempered as well.’
‘No, no. They are each as sweet as honey, I promise,’ oozed Spangle. ‘Guarantee they’ll give Adnam a stunning scene.’
Vanya shook his head slowly and glumly. ‘Think these ponies will need too much grooming and powdering to be worth putting on the Albion’s stage. Such preparation work takes time, and we are already so very busy. Maybe for a sum like this we could take them,’ Vanya sighed, rolling his eyes mournfully as he handed Spangle a written offer from Adnam.
‘My heart, my heart! Way too cheap,’ Spangle bleated. ‘Cheaper than I deserve, my friend. I paid far more than that for them.’
Vanya drew himself up to his full bear-like height. ‘Well, that is the Albion’s offer. Take it or leave it,’ he growled. ‘Is easy for Adnam to change script about,’ he suggested, ‘if ponies cost too much. Such creatures are only onstage for a moment, so they will not be missed. We have other excitements. Let us go, children.’
Mr Spangle coughed and peered at the letter again. Then he bowed and dipped and humbled himself. ‘Oh, that is the number! That is what it says. My mistake!’ he murmured. ‘Tell Mr Adnam the four white ponies are his. I can even arrange their constant care, though I will have to add a small charge for the hay and so on.’
‘I will tell Mr Adnam that there will be very small charge for such help, yes?’ rumbled Vanya, with no hint of a smile. ‘Delivery by Friday?’
‘Just as you ask, Mr Vanya,’ said Spangle. ‘Pleasure doing business with you as always.’
So they shook hands, the deal was done and we wandered back through the vast Emporium, whe
re goods and creatures from all nations of the world were gathered together behind bars.
We stopped to watch a group of small monkeys, who huddled together in a draughty cage, rocking anxiously. Their wizened keeper unlocked the door and trudged in with a bucket of water. He filled an empty bowl, threw a handful of seeds on the sawdust floor and turned to leave.
Quicker than thought, one monkey leaped through the gate, racing hand over hand up and over the cage towards the bright skylight high in the ceiling.
‘No, you don’t, you blighter!’ shouted Spangle. There was a gunshot.
The twins shrieked. The monkey fell, tumbling, landing in the angle between two iron beams. It chattered briefly, as if it might still be alive.
The footholds only needed a glance. Up the first section of ironwork I went, and the next. Ignoring the screeches of girls and peacocks, I leaned out along the girder, put the trembling little creature inside my buttoned jacket, and came down almost as quickly as I’d climbed up.
‘Well, well! Little Mouse!’ Vanya’s eyes were wide with astonishment. Kitty smiled at me too, as if she’d suddenly decided I was more than a friendly runaway.
Flora and Dora whimpered over the little monkey, though by now it was eager to return to the concerned calls of its tribe – and that was where it must go, for where else could it be kept?
I carried the creature back to its cage. The bullet had not injured the animal badly, just scraped away a line of fur. Jumping from my arms, it scampered, chattering, along a twisted log and sat to let its friend search its fur for fleas.
Mr Spangle groaned as he struggled back up off the floor, which was where Vanya’s weighty blow had laid him.
Vanya glowered. ‘You do not do that no more, Mr Spangle,’ he said, handing back the gun. ‘Understand? Or we do not trade with you no more, eh? Furthermore, I expect those horses to be very happy and healthy indeed when you deliver them, Mr Spangle.’
We left, with Spangle bowing abjectly.
Vanya gave me a strangely interested glance. ‘I did not know you climb so good, Mouse-boy. Useful to know, very useful indeed.’