The Steps up the Chimney

by William Corlett

  ‘Happy Christmas, Uncle Jack,’ they replied, in unison, though they made it sound far from cheerful.

  Jack looked at them thoughtfully for a moment.

  ‘Whatever you were doing, forget about it now,’ he told them. ‘It’s Christmas morning. Our first Christmas at Golden House. I want it to be a day we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. Now go upstairs and wash and change and when you come down . . . I’ll be ready.’

  17

  Thoughts and Feathers

  ‘IT WAS HORRIBLE,’ Alice said, sitting on the side of her bed and shaking like a leaf.

  ‘It wasn’t nearly so bad for you,’ Mary snapped at her. ‘William was carrying you for most of the time. You didn’t have them swarming all over your feet and up your legs, nibbling and clawing.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Mary. I can’t stand it. You know how I hate rats.’

  ‘Well, I hope you don’t think I like them,’ Mary told her. ‘They were all slimy and slithery and their tails felt wet like worms . . .’

  Alice screamed and dived under the eiderdown, shutting out the sound of her sister’s voice.

  Mary smiled a secret smile to herself. There was something very satisfying about frightening Alice. There always had been. It gave her quite a lot of pleasure, which sometimes she felt guilty about, but which didn’t stop her doing it. Now, in order to round off her conquest, she tip-toed across the room and then jumped on top of her, squeaking and hissing like a mad person.

  Alice let out a muffled yell and then they were rolling about on the bed, fighting, with the eiderdown between them.

  William ran into the bedroom, holding a toothbrush and looking worried.

  ‘Now what’s happened?’ he asked, looking round and half expecting the rats to have reappeared.

  As he spoke, Mary, covered by the eiderdown, crashed down on to the floor with Alice kicking and yelling on top of her.

  William leaned over and, grabbing Alice by the back of her sweater, he pulled her away with a hefty tug. Unfortunately Alice was still clinging to the eiderdown with a vice-like grip. There was a rending sound. William fell backwards on to the floor with Alice on top of him and a moment later the air was filled with swirling, flying goose feathers.

  ‘Oh!’ Alice said, opening her eyes. ‘It’s snowing indoors.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ William groaned. ‘That’s torn it!’

  Mary emerged from a heap of white down that stirred and fluttered about her as she moved. She blinked and looked across at her brother and sister.

  ‘Well,’ she said, spitting feathers out of her mouth, ‘it’s certainly torn the eiderdown!’

  ‘Oh, sausages!’ Alice sighed, and then she started to giggle.

  ‘Who’s going to tell Phoebe?’ William said in a grim voice and then he started giggling as well.

  ‘You are, William,’ Mary replied, scooping her hands in the feathers and making them fly and float in front of her, ‘after all, you’re the man!’

  ‘Huh!’ her brother responded. ‘So much for women’s lib!’ and he lay back and hooted with laughter.

  Alice was rolling on the floor, laughing so much that it made her stomach ache.

  Mary looked at them both for a moment.

  ‘William,’ she hissed in a serious whisper, ‘shut up for a minute. We don’t have much time and we’ve masses to talk about.’

  ‘Not rats, Mary, please,’ Alice squealed. ‘I don’t want to talk about the rats,’ and then she continued her giggling.

  ‘But we must,’ Mary insisted, getting up and crossing to the window. ‘We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.’

  Behind her, William and Alice stopped laughing and lay on their backs, panting and silent, each of them remembering the events of the morning and trying to make some sense of what had happened.

  Mary leaned on the window sill looking out at the steep rake of the roof and the white world beyond. The sky was heavy with clouds.

  ‘It’s like a black and white photograph,’ she said to herself. And it was true; there was no colour and no movement outside, just the grey and white world of the snow, silent and untouched. ‘As though we’ve slipped out of time into a sort of nowhere . . .’

  ‘A limbo,’ William told her, crossing to lean beside her and looking out at the half-lit, half-finished sketch of a view.

  ‘Did we really meet a magician?’ Alice said, in a small voice, from her position on the floor behind them.

  ‘I suppose so,’ William replied. ‘What do you think, Mary?’

  ‘Well, if we all think we saw the same things, we must have, mustn’t we? There was an owl . . .’

  ‘And the Magician had a silver walking stick,’ Alice chimed in, ‘with dragons on it.’

  ‘And he was called Stephen Tyler,’ William added, but he seemed to be talking more to himself. Then he frowned and dug his hands into his pockets, always an indication that he was thinking deeply.

  ‘What, Will?’ Mary asked, recognizing the signs.

  ‘He said he built the steps up the chimney,’ William said.

  ‘But they’re ever so old,’ Alice protested.

  ‘Maybe he meant the steps up the inside of the hearth. You know, the ones that get you on to the ledge at the bottom of the spiral staircase. ’Cause the actual stairs must belong to the tower of the old medieval building,’ William continued, still working things out in his mind.

  ‘Oh, well then they could have been done any time, couldn’t they?’ Alice said, sounding more cheerful.

  But William shook his head.

  ‘It’s all in that book that Uncle Jack brought back from the town. Well, actually, it’s on the sheets of paper that the librarian woman gave him.’

  ‘What is?’ Mary asked him.

  ‘A list of all the people who lived here over the years. I can’t remember it all. I didn’t even read it all – because the beginning gave me such a shock that I felt creepy and wanted to get back to bed.’

  ‘What, Will?’ Mary was feeling creepy now.

  ‘Gelden Place was some sort of religious house. Like an abbey or a . . . I don’t know . . . what are those places religious people go to?’

  ‘Churches?’

  ‘Sort of, Alice, but . . . more like retreats, or something. Anyway – what happened in 1540?’

  ‘King Henry the Eighth dissolved the monasteries,’ Mary chimed in.

  ‘Dissolved?’ Alice exclaimed, trying to keep up with them.

  ‘Got rid of them,’ William told her, ‘and Gelden Place was bought and made into a house for someone to live in.’

  ‘Who by?’ Mary asked, half knowing what the answer would be.

  ‘That’s the point,’ William said, looking at her. ‘According to the information that Uncle Jack brought, the property was purchased and restored as a private house in about 1550. And the person who bought it was Stephen Tyler.’

  ‘But you asked him,’ Mary exclaimed. ‘He said he wasn’t a descendant of that Stephen Tyler.’

  ‘Exactly,’ William replied.

  ‘Well, then?’ Mary insisted, as if that settled the matter.

  ‘I think what he was saying was that he wasn’t a descendant of Stephen Tyler – because he is that Stephen Tyler.’

  There was a moment’s silence in the room. Alice’s eyes were round with sudden understanding.

  ‘You mean he’s the same man? Still alive now? But he must be hundreds of years old. How, William?’ she gasped.

  ‘I don’t know. But that’s what I think. And I’ll tell you something else,’ he said, his mind racing ahead, ‘he said we would have to be tested, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, because we’ve got to help him.’ Mary nodded, remembering.

  ‘We’re going to have to save all the worlds,’ Alice groaned, making it sound like a pretty big job and exhausting.

  ‘But what happened a moment after he told us that?’ William asked, as the memories came flooding in.

  The girls both frowned, going back into the events
in their minds.

  ‘The rat!’ Alice said, suddenly.

  ‘And it said we were going to be tested as well,’ Mary exclaimed.

  ‘Exactly.’ William sounded triumphant. ‘So, maybe the Magician turned himself into the rat to test us.’

  ‘Ooooh!’ Alice said triumphantly. ‘How beastly of him. Frightening us all like that.’

  ‘Well, at least we know that it was just a test and not the real thing,’ William said, sounding relieved.

  ‘I wonder if we passed the test,’ Mary mused, and then she shivered. ‘Have you finished in the bathroom, Will? I want to get ready and go down to the warm.’

  ‘I’ve lost my toothbrush,’ William said.

  Alice found it for him, on the floor where he’d dropped it when he’d entered the fray between the girls. Suddenly the room was filled with activity as they all started to get ready for Christmas Day.

  But if they hadn’t been moving about and chattering so much, they might have heard the now familiar long, slow dragging sound of the rat’s claws as it stealthily crawled away from its position behind the skirting board, where it had listened to every word that they’d been saying. And, if they had been able to follow it, they would have seen that it went through narrow tunnels and across rotten beams and up and down crumbling stone and plaster until it reached a part of the house that hadn’t been occupied for many years. There the rat had its dwelling and there it made its secret plans. From that place it could hear all the sounds of the house and knew all the comings and goings of the people and creatures that lived in it. From there it had access to every corner of every room, for this was its kingdom and there wasn’t anything that ever happened at Golden House that it didn’t know about and that it didn’t try to turn to its own best advantage.

  For the rat was an evil creature and it served an evil master. But the children didn’t know that yet.

  18

  Christmas at Golden House

  THE HALL HAD been transformed when they came down. A great fire was blazing in the hearth, with flames so big that they licked right up the chimney into the darkness. The children ran towards it and looked anxiously up towards the ledge at the bottom of the staircase, but the draught up the chimney was such that all the smoke and flames were drawn away from the back corner and it looked as if it would be perfectly possible, if a little hot, to mount to the secret room even when a fire was alight.

  ‘Very clever,’ William whispered, admiring the scientific thinking behind the design. ‘You see, the hot air rises, and the cold air, up in the chimney, draws on it. I expect the door halfway up the stairs is all part of it – it will stop the staircase becoming a sort of second chimney. Very clever indeed . . .’

  ‘Oh, Mary, look!’ Alice exclaimed. She had quickly become bored with William’s lecture on the working of a chimney and had looked round at the rest of the hall.

  In one corner, beside the front door, there was a towering tree. It was so high that it almost touched the ceiling. It was covered with tiny pin-pricks of dancing light; candles so small that you could hardly see them. Each candle was held in a cup, clipped to the branches of the tree, and below each of these cups a silver star dangled and flashed, reflecting the light of the candles that surrounded it. The only other ornament was a huge golden star on the topmost branch. This star had a tail of golden chains that looped down over the lower branches until each individual glittering chain was lost to the sight in the lush, dark-green depths of the tree.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Mary gasped.

  The three children stood, with their backs to the fire, staring in wonder.

  ‘But won’t the candles burn out very quickly?’ Alice said at last.

  ‘They’re night lights, I think,’ William replied, taking a step towards the tree.

  ‘Brilliant, boy!’ Jack’s voice said behind them. ‘Go straight to the top of the form!’ He was standing in the open kitchen doorway, through which wafted warm, delicious smells of cooking. In his arms he was carrying a huge bowl of holly, covered with red berries and with snow still nestling in some of the leaves. ‘Where should I put this? Centre of the table?’

  Jack placed the bowl on the table and then realized that the snow would drip on to the wood.

  ‘I’d better let it melt first,’ he said, speaking to himself. He placed the bowl on the stone floor, near to the tree.

  ‘But – when did you do the tree, Uncle Jack?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Yesterday. It was hidden in one of the other rooms.’

  ‘But how did you manage to get it in here?’

  ‘Wheels!’ Jack told her, with a laugh. ‘It was a wonderful invention, the wheel! Look,’ and he pointed at the barrel into which the base of the tree was fixed. The barrel was mounted on a square platform with little wheels, like a miniature cart.

  ‘You made that?’ William asked, impressed.

  ‘No, actually. I found it in one of the outhouses. I am a firm believer in the ethic of retention! Never throw anything away – you never know when it might come in handy. Now, breakfast.’ And as he spoke he marched across to the kitchen door followed by the others.

  Phoebe was standing at the range, toasting bread on a long fork in front of the open grate. She looked round as they came into the room, leaning one hand on the back of her waist and holding the toasting-fork in front of her with the other. She looked tired and drawn and there were wisps of hair falling across her face. Her big, pregnant stomach bulged under a long, plain blue dress. But she smiled as she saw them and even Alice, who was determined not to be won over, had to admit later that she did seem to make an effort to be cheerful.

  ‘There you are,’ she cried. ‘Breakfast first and then presents around the tree, how’s that?’ The smell of toast and coffee mingled with other cooking smells and with the scent of the wood smoke from the hall.

  ‘Happy Christmas, everyone,’ Phoebe added, and she slipped the toast off the fork and added it to the toast rack on the table.

  As soon as breakfast was over the children ran back upstairs to get their own presents, which they added to the ones already piled up under the tree in the hall. Then, just as ten was being chimed by the grandfather clock, they all gathered in front of the fire and Jack appeared from the kitchen carrying a tray. On it was an ice bucket out of which a bottle of champagne poked and a group of glasses.

  ‘Champagne,’ he announced dramatically, as he entered.

  With a pop and a lot of fizzing the cork came off and Jack poured the frothing liquid into five glasses. Then he handed a glass to each of them. Phoebe was sitting in one of the wooden armchairs in front of the fire and the children were kneeling on the hearth rug.

  ‘Don’t drink until we’ve had the toast,’ he warned them.

  Alice didn’t want any more toast and said so, which the others seemed to think was a huge joke and so she let them think how clever she’d been without really being quite sure what they were laughing at. Then Jack raised his glass.

  ‘We’ve got lots of things to drink to: our first Christmas here at Golden House, the fact that we’re all together, the forthcoming baby. But I think we’ll only drink to one thing, shall we?’

  ‘Oh, hurry up, please, Uncle Jack,’ Mary cried. ‘I can’t wait to taste the champagne.’

  ‘All right then,’ he laughed and he held the glass out in front of him. ‘To your parents, kids; wherever they are and whatever they’re doing.’

  ‘To William and Mary and Alice’s parents,’ Phoebe said, raising her glass.

  ‘To Mummy and Daddy,’ William said, feeling a lump forming in his throat.

  Alice glanced uncomfortably at Mary, uncertain what was expected of her. She saw Mary raise her glass. There were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Mummy and Dad,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Oh stop it, all of you,’ Alice cried out, unable to stop tears spilling out of her eyes and splashing down her cheeks. She took a huge gulp of the champagne and a moment later sneezed violently.

 
Jack threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘That’ll be the bubbles!’ he said. ‘Right now – there’s orange juice here if you’d rather have it?’

  ‘Yes please, Uncle Jack,’ Mary said at once. ‘Tell the truth, I’m not very keen on champagne.’

  ‘Shame on you, child! One day you’ll think it’s the finest drink in the world.’

  ‘Can I have orange juice as well, please?’ William asked, setting down his glass of champagne with only a sip taken out of it.

  ‘Can I have yours, Will?’ Alice asked, reaching for it.

  ‘No, Jack. It’s too strong,’ Phoebe told him.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ Jack said, retrieving the full glass and also Mary’s glass and putting them back on the tray. ‘One glass is the limit then it’s on to the orange juice.’

  ‘But what’ll you do with their glasses?’ Alice pleaded. ‘You’ll surely not throw it away.’

  ‘I most certainly will not,’ he told her and he gave her a grin and a wink. ‘Now, presents!’ he said, crossing to the tree.

  The children had bought a box of chocolates for Phoebe and Jack. Mary got a pencil sharpener shaped like a whale from William, and a poster of Alice’s favourite pop star from Alice. Actually Mary didn’t like him much, but Alice said she was crazy and that she’d have the poster in her bedroom, if Mary didn’t want it. William got a puzzle from Mary; it was a little square box, filled with minute ball bearings that had to be fitted into a heart shape. He got a different poster of the same star from Alice. William couldn’t stand him either. Alice got a puzzle from Mary – a similar square box to William’s, but in hers the ball bearings had to fit into a star – and she got a pencil sharpener from William in the shape of an elephant, which she considered horribly rude, because the pencil to be sharpened had to be stuck into the elephant’s bottom. They all got money from their mother and father and a special letter each, which they read quickly and then put in their pockets to be enjoyed in privacy later.

  But the presents from Jack and Phoebe were the real surprises. Phoebe had knitted each of them jumpers in the most beautiful rich, jewel colours. William’s was black, red and white, in a sort of random geometric pattern. Mary’s was pale misty blue and pinks with stronger greens and looked a bit like a picture of a hazy summer morning in the countryside. Alice’s was all bright oranges and yellows and blues, like a sunburst. They were all big and comfortable, with loose round necks and long sleeves.