by John Harding
I made sure the coast was clear and sped down the staircase to the first floor, along the main corridor, and threw the blankets over the barrier at the bottom of the tower stairs. I had just hauled myself up onto the outside of the stairs when the door to the main corridor opened. No time to wait! I hurled myself head over toe over banister rail and onto the stairs, where I crouched behind the barricade, hoping for unseenery through the gaps.
‘Oh my goodness, what was that!’ It was Mary’s voice.
‘Ghosts most likely,’ said a voice I recognised as belonging to Meg. ‘They say Blithe is full of ghosts.’
‘Tch! You don’t believe in that nonsense, do you?’ Mary’s voice betrayed a certain lack of confidence in the words it uttered.
I spyholed them through the barricade. Meg raised an eyebrow. ‘I reckon I’ve worked here five years and seen many things. When you’ve been here as long as I have, you’ll know, you’ll know.’ And she opened the door to the main corridor again, picking up a dustpan into which she’d evidently just swept something. She disappeared inside; before Mary followed her, she pulled a face at the older woman’s retreating back.
So here I was, princessed in my tower, blanketed at my desk, shivering some when the wind blew, but alone and able to read, at least until it twilighted, because I could have no giveaway candles here. I suddened a twinge, thinking – I knew not why just then – of Giles, away at his school, in turn thinking perhaps of me, and I wondered if he was happy. It brought to mind how I had once torn in two a playing card – the queen of spades it was – straight across the middle, thinking to make two queens from one, the picture at the top and its mirror image below, but found instead I did not even have one, the separate parts useless on their own, and it struck me this was me without Giles, who was a part of my own person. How I longed for his holidays to begin so I could show him our new kingdom. This was all I lacked for happiness, for Giles to be here to share it with me.
It was not to be. And so I started off on my new life. I morninged in the library and afternooned in my tower. I reasoned early on that it would be foolish to keep returning books to the library after finishing my day in the tower; carrying them about increased the likelihood of being caught. This meant that if I were reading something in the morning, I could not continue with the same book in the afternoon. I resolved therefore to make a smugglery of books in the tower (where there was little chance of detection anyway), which would remain there until they were finished, and for my reading day to be of two separate parts. I libraried the mornings away on solid books, philosophy, history and the like; I also began to teach myself languages and to work up a passable knowledge of French, Italian, Latin and Greek, although I would not vouch for my accent in the two former, never having heard either of them spoke; the afternoons were my fantasy time, appropriate for my tower. I indulged myself in Mrs Radcliffe, ancient myths and Edgar Allan Poe. The only fly in my ointment here, though, was that I must never let my concentration lapse, must never surrender myself too much to the words that swam before my eyes and in my head and distract myself to my doom.
On the day after I first occupied my tower, I morninged out up the drive, measuring how long it would take Theo Van Hoosier to walk its length, from the moment he first visibled from the tower, to the moment when he vanished from view under the front porch of the house. How did I work out the time, I who had no timepiece? I counted it out, second by second, and to make sure my seconds were all the right length I figured them thus: one Shakespeare, two Shakespeare, three Shakespeare. In this way I reckoned that young Van Hoosier would be in view for four and a half minutes. Thus, when I set out for the tower room after lunch I would first sneak into the drawing room, which has a direct view of the drive, and make sure Van Hoosier was not in view. If he was not, then I had four and a half minutes to get to the tower, otherwise, if I took any longer and he should appear unviewed at the precise moment my back was turned when I set off, he could have reached the front door and be out of view again before I was at my post and so occasion all the dangerous calling and searching for me. Let me tell you, it was a stretch to make it to the tower in that time. If I happened to meet John or Mary or Meg or Mrs Grouse and they delayed me for even a few seconds it impossibled my journey in the allotted time and so meant I had to go back and check the drive and start once more from the beginning. Not only that, all the while I had to be one-Shakespearing-two-Shakespearing and if someone should speak to me and I should lose my number, then it was back to the drawing board – that is the drawing room – all over again.
By the time I reached the bottom of the tower staircase I was usually up to two hundred-Shakespeare and it was touch and go whether I could climb the outside of the staircase, haul myself over the banisters, take off my shoes (for fear of my running feet booming out on the uncarpeted treads) and get to the tower room in time. On one occasion I just made it, peeped through the window and saw Van Hoosier’s hat disappearing under the front porch, so that I had to tear back down the staircase, haul myself back over the banisters, climb down the outside bit and get myself into the main corridor all over again before they started hollering for me. But then, no one had ever told me having a secret life was going to be easy.
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Copyright © John Harding 2010
ISBN 9780007315062
About the Author
John Harding was born near Ely. He is the author of the international bestseller Florence & Giles and lives in London.
Also by John Harding
What We Did on Our Holiday
While the Sun Shines
One Big Damn Puzzler
Florence & Giles
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