The Steps up the Chimney

by William Corlett

  ‘Don’t go,’ Mary called and then was surprised by her own voice.

  A moment later a streak of red shot from behind the dovecote and raced towards the back of the garden.

  ‘The fox!’ William exclaimed.

  As he spoke, the fox stopped in its tracks, slewed round in the snow, sending up a shower of silver and white that shimmered golden in the rays of the setting sun, and stood, one paw raised, staring at them.

  ‘It is the owl,’ William said almost to himself.

  ‘But how can it be?’ Alice asked, but not disagreeing with him.

  ‘I don’t know. But . . . the way it looks at us . . .’ William said. He started to walk slowly towards the fox, one hand held out in front of him, as though it was a dog he was trying to befriend.

  The fox continued to stare, but before William had taken many steps, it turned and with a bound of immense energy it darted away down a distant path, parallel to the one they were on, making for the door in the wall.

  The children hurried to follow, but by the time they reached the gate the fox was already out of sight.

  ‘There you are!’ said Uncle Jack, appearing at the kitchen door. ‘We wondered what had happened to you. Come in and get warm. I’ve just made a pot of tea.’

  As they crossed the yard, Alice suddenly stopped and grabbed Mary’s arm.

  ‘Look, Mare,’ she said and she pointed to the distant trees beyond the drive.

  The dog was standing on the edge of the flat land, where the steep bank of the valley started. Its tail was wagging and, as the three children stopped to look at it, it barked loudly then turned and bounded up into the obscurity of the forest.

  ‘My dog,’ Alice murmured gladly.

  ‘Now we’ve seen them all. Except . . .’ William didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘Except what, Will?’

  ‘The man. Stephen Tyler.’

  ‘But why should we see him here?’ Mary was puzzled.

  ‘He has the same eyes, as well. The same stare.’

  ‘Then maybe he made the footprints I found,’ Alice said and then she gasped. ‘And maybe . . .’

  ‘Yes. Maybe,’ William said quietly.

  ‘Maybe what?’ Mary cried.

  ‘Maybe he can change himself into foxes and owls and dogs and . . . things,’ Alice told her.

  ‘How!’ Mary protested. ‘He’d have to be a magician to do that.’

  ‘Then, maybe he is,’ said William, quietly.

  13

  Tempers and Moods

  WHATEVER THE SURPRISES were that Jack had been preparing, there was no sign of them when they went in. Phoebe was busy in the kitchen, making supper and also ‘things for tomorrow’s meal’.

  Alice gave William a sideways look at this, which seemed to imply that ‘things’ could mean almost anything and he had to look away quickly, for fear of laughing in Phoebe’s face.

  They had a mug of tea sitting round the kitchen fire and then went up to their rooms to ‘play until supper’ as William put it, much to Mary’s disgust.

  ‘Honestly, William. We’re not children,’ she protested as she followed him up the stairs. Alice had run on ahead and was already kneeling in front of the electric fire when the other two came in.

  ‘I’m frozen stiff,’ she said. ‘The sooner Uncle Jack lights the big fire the better.’

  ‘Move over, Alice,’ Mary said, squatting down beside her and holding her hands out to the glowing bar.

  William stood at the window, his hands in his trouser pockets, staring out at the almost night sky. The two girls glanced at him and then exchanged a look.

  ‘He’s thinking,’ Mary whispered, pulling a face’.

  ‘Shut up, Mary,’ he said, without looking at them.

  Alice started to giggle and Mary put a hand over her mouth and then she also felt a sudden urge to laugh. The two girls tried hard not to let this show but eventually they were rolling on the floor, shaking and groaning with the pain in their stomachs from holding back the laughter.

  William remained standing at the window, a frown on his brow as he concentrated on the events of the day, seemingly oblivious to them. Eventually he arrived at a decision and without a word he turned and went out of the room.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Alice called, scrambling up and following him.

  ‘To my room. I think we should have an early night tonight. We should come to bed as soon as supper is over . . .’

  ‘You mean so we can get up later,’ Alice interrupted, ‘and go up the chimney?’

  ‘No, I think we should leave that for another night. I’m really tired.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going straight to bed.’ Mary now joined Alice in the protest. ‘Uncle Jack is going to light the fire in the hall.’

  ‘Well, there won’t be any point, will there? If we’re all going to bed.’

  ‘But if we’re not going up the chimney, I want to sit by the fire,’ Mary insisted.

  ‘Why?’ William demanded. ‘What will be so special about that?’

  ‘It’ll be nice,’ Mary answered. ‘We can sit there and . . .’ She couldn’t think of anything spectacular to add, and so she just shrugged. ‘Well, we can just . . . enjoy it.’

  ‘Exactly. We can just sit there. That’s all. Well, I’ve got more important things to do. So I’m going to bed early.’

  ‘Honestly, William!’ Mary snapped, giving him a pitying look. ‘You must think we’re thick or something.’

  William turned away, not wanting to meet her eyes.

  ‘Why?’ Alice squealed. ‘What’s going on? What d’you mean, Mary?’

  ‘He’s going to go up the chimney on his own,’ Mary told her.

  ‘When?’ Alice demanded, indignantly.

  ‘Tonight, of course,’ Mary replied.

  ‘Without us? He can’t. William Constant, we made a Solemn Vow. You’ve already broken it once. If you go without us, I’ll never believe in you again. Not ever.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ William snapped, giving in with bad grace. ‘I’ll come and get you.’

  ‘But why in the middle of the night?’ Alice wailed. ‘I’m sure there’ll be ghosts here.’

  ‘Either we go then or not at all,’ William told her. ‘It’s Christmas tomorrow, Alice.’

  ‘I know that,’ Alice said, sounding cross.

  ‘Well, the fire’ll be alight and Phoebe and Jack’ll be there . . .’

  ‘William,’ Mary announced in a firm voice, ‘if you go up the chimney without us, we’ll never forgive you and we’ll make your life really miserable. That’s a promise.’

  ‘I’ve said I’ll come for you,’ William groaned, ‘but you’ll only be scared.’

  ‘No more scared than you’ll be,’ Mary retorted. ‘Of course we’ll be scared. But we’ve got to go together – or at least you’ve got to give us the chance to . . .’

  ‘Yes, I’ve said I will,’ William replied. ‘Now clear off. I want to get out of these clothes.’

  ‘Oooh!’ Mary exclaimed, kicking the floor and walking back across the landing to the girls’ room. ‘Stuck-up pig. I hate him when he gets like this.’

  ‘He’s right, though. I will be scared. Oh, Mary, just think, it’s Christmas Eve. If Mum and Dad were here and we were at home in London . . . what would we be doing now?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Alice,’ Mary said, glumly.

  ‘Supper in front of the tree and then the midnight service. Coming home all frosty and tired and hot water bottles in the beds. Oh, I wish they were here.’

  ‘You don’t even like church,’ Mary said, brushing her hair and staring in the mirror.

  ‘I do,’ Alice protested. ‘So long as they don’t go on too much. I like the songs . . .’

  ‘Hymns, Alice,’ Mary said in a show-off sort of voice.

  ‘And Hers, then,’ Alice snapped back. ‘It’s sexist otherwise. I don’t like the long palms.’

  ‘Psalms,’ Mary told her.

  ‘You shut up, Mary. What does i
t matter if I get the words wrong?’

  ‘If you get the words wrong, how can you expect anyone to know what you’re trying to say?’

  Alice shrugged and closed her eyes.

  ‘I won’t speak ever again then,’ she said, and she pinched her lips together.

  It was a bad-tempered and disgruntled group that gathered round the kitchen table for supper and the atmosphere was not helped by Phoebe saying that she felt sick soon after the food was on the table and Uncle Jack taking her up to bed and leaving the children to look after themselves.

  Alice hummed to herself and ate great quantities of cauliflower cheese. She always hummed when she was in a ‘not speaking’ mood. William stared at his plate and refused to be drawn into any conversation by Mary, who eventually got so annoyed that she pushed her plate away from her and banged her fists on the table in fury.

  ‘I’m fed up, fed up, fed up,’ she said. A statement which received silence from William and an increase in the volume of the tuneless humming from Alice.

  Eventually Jack returned, looking worried.

  ‘I hope she’s all right,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be able to get her to the hospital, not through this snow.’

  Jack was therefore relieved when William announced with a great deal of yawning that he was so tired he didn’t want to sit up after supper, but that he would go straight to bed, if that was all right.

  ‘Maybe it would be best,’ Uncle Jack said. ‘Not much point lighting the fire if we’re all going to bed in half an hour. What do you girls say?’

  Alice shrugged and looked at her plate. Since Jack’s return she had stopped humming, but she was still ‘not speaking’.

  Mary, however, wasn’t prepared to give in so easily.

  ‘Maybe we could sit by the kitchen fire,’ she said. ‘It is Christmas Eve after all, Uncle Jack.’

  ‘All the more reason to go to bed early,’ he told her, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Otherwise you might catch Father Christmas doing the rounds.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ she said. ‘We are not children.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jack said, looking suitably shamefaced.

  Mary stared at him through slitty eyes. She had a feeling that he was teasing her. If he was, then that would be the final insult of the horrible evening they were having.

  Jack grinned at her. It looked as though he was making a face, though actually he was trying to be friendly.

  Right, thought Mary, you’ll wish you weren’t teasing me.

  ‘Aren’t you going to marry Phoebe, Uncle Jack?’ she asked in an innocent voice, watching the surprise hit him like a slap in the face.

  ‘What?’ he gasped.

  ‘Aren’t you going to marry her? Particularly now, with the baby coming. Poor thing,’ she added and she stretched across the table to help herself to a tangerine. William was watching her, horrified, and Alice’s mouth had dropped open for the first time in ages, apart from the necessity of admitting food.

  ‘Marry her? Oh, I see. Well, yes, we . . . we may,’ Jack stammered.

  ‘Why haven’t you, though?’ Mary pressed her point.

  ‘Well, because . . . has this really got anything to do with you, Mary?’ Jack asked, trying to sound adult and therefore superior to her.

  ‘I only asked,’ Mary said, still innocent and sweet. ‘It seems such a pity that the baby’ll be born out of wedlock.’

  ‘Mary!’ William protested.

  ‘What? We’ve all been talking about it. What’s so awful about me asking?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Jack said, regaining his composure. ‘We just haven’t married yet in a legal sense. But we feel very much married to each other – in spirit.’

  ‘But you haven’t been to church, have you?’ Mary pressed on. ‘Nor even to a registry office.’

  ‘But we never go to church. It’d be hypocritical to go just to get married! And I loathe the idea of a registry office.’

  ‘You’d think she’d have wanted a nice wedding. Even if you don’t.’

  ‘I promise you something. When we get married, if we get married, it will be the most beautiful wedding,’ Uncle Jack said, ‘and you will all be invited. All right?’

  Mary shrugged.

  ‘It’ll be a bit late then, won’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be such a little prude, Mary!’ Jack laughed. ‘And it wasn’t me that didn’t want to get married yet. It was both of us. So please don’t think I’m some horrible person stopping Phoebe from having her heart’s desires.’ Now he sounded a little angry.

  ‘Oh, I don’t. Honestly I don’t, Uncle Jack,’ Mary said, very contrite. ‘Please don’t think that,’ and she had to stop talking for fear of beginning to cry.

  William sighed and Alice started to hum. Jack looked embarrassed and Mary got up from the table and with a mumbled ‘I think I’ll go to bed now,’ she ran from the room.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Uncle Jack when the door closed.

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ William told him. ‘She gets in these states.’

  ‘But what caused it?’ Jack said, utterly confused.

  William and Alice exchanged a look but remained silent.

  And so the day came to an early close. William and Alice said good night to Jack, who said that he’d just do the washing-up and then he also would go to bed.

  ‘I couldn’t tell him she was in love with him, could I?’ Alice said as she and her brother climbed the stairs to bed.

  ‘Love!’ William exclaimed. ‘Honestly!’ and he sounded far from sympathetic.

  As they parted on the landing Alice said:

  ‘Why must we go to bed? I’m not even tired. We could go up the chimney now. Why not? Oh, let’s, Will . . .’

  But William silenced her with a gesture and looked over his shoulder down the dark well of the spiral staircase.

  ‘Sssh, Alice!’ he hissed.

  ‘Oh, Will, there’s so much to talk about; so much has happened today. The owl and the window . . . We actually saw somebody at the window of the secret room . . .’

  ‘Shut up, Alice. You never know who might be listening. Go to bed. I’ll come for you later.’

  ‘But why not now?’ Alice insisted in a lower voice.

  ‘Because!’ he answered, sounding cross again. ‘Oh, Alice! Don’t keep asking questions! Jack’s still up for one thing. And . . . oh, just leave it to me. I am the oldest, you know.’ And, without waiting for any more conversation, he went into his room and closed the door.

  Alice went thoughtfully into the girls’ room. Mary was lying on her side in bed, with her eyes closed. She looked miserable and tense. Alice crossed and sat on the edge of her bed.

  ‘Stuck-up pig!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re right, Mary. I hate William when he’s like this. Mary! Mary – you’re not asleep . . .’

  ‘What?’ Mary said, her face half covered with the eiderdown.

  ‘William’s still acting like a stuck-up pig!’

  But Mary continued to ignore her. So Alice got undressed and climbed into bed without speaking to her again. Instead, she said aloud to herself:

  ‘It’s been a perfectly horrid evening and I wish I was an only child.’

  The overhead light had been left on and the switch was by the door. Each girl waited for the other to get out and cross the cold room to switch it off. Neither of them moved. Eventually Alice fell asleep.

  Well, I’m not going to do it, Mary thought and then she fell asleep as well.

  14

  The Steps up the Chimney

  WILLIAM WOKE WITH a start. It was dark in the room but his first thought was that he had overslept. He switched on the torch and looked at his watch. It was six o’clock. He had meant to be awake earlier.

  He got out of bed quickly and pulled on his clothes in the dark. Luckily he’d brought his gym shoes with him, so he’d be able to move about easily and without any noise. Taking the torch, he crept out on to the landing.

  Light glowed under the girls’ door.

  He
pushed it open gently and went in. Because of the light, he thought he’d find them awake and waiting for him. But they were both asleep. He crossed the room and shook Mary.

  ‘Mary,’ he whispered, ‘Mary, wake up!’

  But Mary only grunted and pulled away from him.

  ‘Wake up!’ he hissed in her ear.

  ‘Go away, Will,’ she said, in a sleepy voice.

  He looked round at Alice, fast asleep with her cheek on her hand. Then he shrugged. He’d promised to come for them. Well, he had done, he thought. It wasn’t his fault if they wouldn’t wake up.

  Turning, he tiptoed back towards the door. He hadn’t wanted to take them anyway. He’d be much better off on his own, he thought. So he went back on to the landing and ran swiftly and silently down the stone spiral to the gallery below.

  The hall was in darkness. William hurried down the broad staircase. The treads were made of oak and some of the boards creaked loudly as he stood on them. Several times he glanced up at Jack and Phoebe’s room, expecting the door to open and his uncle to come out to see who was moving about so early in the morning. It was only a short distance from the foot of the stairs to the fireplace but by the time he reached it his heart was beating so fast and so loudly that he had to pause, gasping for breath.

  Switching on the torch again, he pointed the beam up the chimney. A cold current of air fanned his face and the wind moaned in the black vault above him. Slowly he lowered the torch until it was shining at the stones that protruded like a ladder up the side wall as far as the ledge.

  Taking a deep breath to give himself courage and setting his face in a determined expression, he climbed up to the ledge.

  He found the steps almost at once. They were set into a dark niche at the back of the chimney. Here, the back wall jutted out, forming a false corner. From down below, at hearth level, it was impossible to see that this corner had a narrow passage running behind it. Indeed, even standing on the ledge, the niche was not very obvious unless, of course, you knew what you were looking for.

  It was a narrow opening. William had to stand sideways in order to squeeze between the true side wall of the chimney and the thick stone protuberance formed by the false corner. The steps were situated between it and the wall. They were steep and extremely narrow, a tight little spiral twisting up into the dark so precipitously that the easiest way to climb them was by using hands as well as feet, rather like going up a ladder.