by Babs Horton
She hadn’t slept well herself what with the terrible storm and then worrying about Master Jonathan driving off like that after the argument he’d had with the mistress. Presently she’d ring the house in London and check that he’d arrived safely. It was quite absurd really, the way she worried about him and still called him Master Jonathan. Lord, he was a grown man yet she still thought of him as the sensitive little fellow he’d been as a child.
That first day when he’d been sent off to school had been one of the worst days of her life. He’d been little more than a baby really, just seven years of age and he’d clung to her skirts and sobbed enough to break his poor heart.
In the end Old Master Greswode had threatened him with a whipping and dragged him into the car.
He was a cruel old thing, the old master, and that stuck-up wife of his was of no comfort to the boy at all.
“Eat up, Romilly. When I’ve finished my jobs well go downstairs and you can say your goodbyes to your mama.”
Romilly put down her spoon and looked up at Nanny Bea. “How long will Mama be away this time?”
“About six weeks your papa said.”
“But that’s ages and I don’t want her to go.”
“She has to go and, you’ll see, when she gets back she will be well again.”
“But I don’t think she is ill now, so why does she have to go?”
“All these questions, Romilly, are really very tiresome. Your mama needs a change of air and the Anglican nuns at St Mary’s will see to it that she gets the treatment she so badly needs.”
“Why is she going to St Mary’s?”
“It’s a new place your papa has found, rather more, er, secure than the others, where they will guarantee her a good rest.”
“But why can’t she rest here? There’s nothing to do here at all, she could lie down all day if she wanted to.”
“Your papa thinks a change of scenery will do her a power of good.”
“Can we go to the railway station and wave her goodbye.?”
“No, dear, it’s far too cold. And besides, we must prepare for this afternoon. It will be exciting to meet your new governess, won’t it?” Nanny Bea said, changing the subject.
Romilly stared sullenly up at her. “Will it really?” she said.
There was a note of sarcasm in her voice that took the old woman by surprise.
There had been a change in Romilly of late, a growing insolence about her and a tendency to sulks and flounces.
She’d started to be quite secretive about things and had been behaving in a peculiar fashion. Several times she had overheard her talking to herself. It had given her quite a turn the first time; she’d been walking past the library and for a moment she’d have sworn that Romilly really was talking to someone in there. She fervently hoped that she wasn’t going to turn out anything like that damned mother of hers, all theatrical and highly strung. God alone knew that one like that in a family was enough!
“When Madame Fernaud has arrived we shall have tea in the drawing room with scones and your favourite raspberry jam.”
Romilly sighed and did not answer.
She looked out through the window and watched the smoke from the chimney on the Boathouse, where the mad woman lived, rise into a clear blue sky.
Then she said quite sweetly, “May I leave the table, Nanny Bea, and go and play?”
“Eat up that last soldier and then you may.”
Romilly did as she was bid, then left the nursery, hurried along the corridor and climbed the narrow, uncarpeted stairs that led up to the attics.
She paused outside the attic door and listened. Mama was still in the bathroom and Nanny Bea was humming to herself as she cleared away the nursery table. She took off her shoes and slipped inside the attic.
There was no electric light but the skylight windows let in enough daylight for her to find her way around the piles of old junk.
She tiptoed carefully across the bare boards, squeezed between an ancient gramophone, a bird cage and a broken card table and then settled herself down on the floor next to a wooden trunk. Carefully, tongue poking out in an effort of concentration, she eased the heavy lid open and looked inside.
There was a name written on the inside of the lid.
Thomas Gasparini Greswode’. This was her secret treasure trove. She loved the smell of the trunk when it was first opened, the heady whiff of camphor and mystery.
She pulled out the scrap book first and laid it in her lap. It was old and fragile now and the dust got up her nostrils and she had to squeeze her nose to stop herself sneezing because if Nanny Bea caught her up here she’d have a telling off and the door would be locked again.
She opened the scrap book and looked in fascination at the first page.
There was a photograph of a man hanging upside down on a trapeze and a woman flying through the air towards him.
The photograph always made her gasp because there was no knowing whether the man had ever caught her.
How awful if he hadn’t! She imagined the woman’s face as she realized that it had gone wrong. The sweet smile turning to a terrified gasp. Then falling and falling and knowing she would die like a broken doll.
She turned the page with a shudder.
On the following page there was a photograph of a man and a woman getting married. They were standing outside a tiny church and looking at each other with soppy eyes.
Ugh. Romilly was never ever going to get married.
When you got married your husband bossed you around all the time and wouldn’t let you do what you wanted. Nanny Bea would probably know who the people were in the photograph if she asked but she couldn’t ask because then she’d know that Romilly had been snooping, and snooping was forbidden.
On another page a circus programme had been carefully glued in. ‘Fun for everyone!’ There was a picture of a smiling elephant and a monkey dressed in human clothes.
Some of the other pages were covered in boring things.
Newspaper cuttings and postcards from faraway places with peculiar names.
Carcassone. Viana de Castello. Paris. Napoli. San Donate. Sienna.
On the last page of the scrap book was another photograph. It was of a boy standing outside the summerhouse in the garden at Killivray. There were pretty curtains at the windows and the door was open; she could just make out someone inside in the shadows. The boy was dressed in a sailor suit and was holding some sort of bat; his hair was sticking out as though he had just been swimming. He was smiling at somebody or something not shown in the photograph. He had the kind of smile that made Romilly want to smile too. He looked so happy, like he was having the very best day of his life.
Sometimes, when she was allowed outside, she walked down to the gloomy summerhouse in the hope that she might find him there but she never had.
She closed the scrap book and replaced it in the trunk. Next she took out a bundle of dreary-looking letters that she couldn’t be bothered to read.
There was a mouldy old atlas, a half-filled stamp album and the diary she’d found beneath a broken floorboard in the summerhouse; a diary with a lock on the front but no key.
Lastly she lifted out a small metal box and opened it carefully. Inside were the most wonderful treasures of all.
A small silver capsule that pulled apart revealing a tiny replica of a holy saint. She turned it over in her hands and marvelled at the detail on such a tiny thing. She put the saint back into the capsule and put it back into the box.
Saints were not allowed in Killivray House. Or holy pictures. They were Papist paraphernalia and once Papa found Mama’s secret rosary and broke it in half and the beads fell onto the wooden floor of the dining room and made a sound like hailstones on the nursery windowpanes.
Finally, she took out her most favourite possession of all.
She had found it in the nursery, wedged down behind the skirting board. She’d been afraid that Nanny Bea would take it off her so she kept it here in the secret
trunk. It was a silver bird through which a tangled silver chain was threaded.
“Romilly! Romilly!”
Heck! Nanny Bea was calling loudly from the nursery.
Romilly piled the treasure hastily back into the trunk, dosed the lid and tiptoed back across the attic. She put on her shoes and went quietly down the stairs.
“I’m coming, Nanny Bea,” she called when she was safely back down on the landing. “I was just in the long room looking at a picture book,” she lied cheerfully.
Down in the hallway Mama stood beneath the huge stag’s head, dabbing her nose with a handkerchief.
She had been crying and the skin around her eyes was as puffy as pink marshmallows.
She held out her arms and Romilly ran to her eagerly.
Mama hugged her tightly and Romilly breathed in her lovely smell, rose-perfumed soap that she bathed in each morning, Midnight in Paris perfume and an overlay of menthol cigarettes mat she smoked when she had a headache.
Mama whispered in Romilly’s ear, “Be good, my darling, while I am away.”
“I will.”
“I promise you that whatever it takes this is the last time we shall ever be separated.”
Romilly whispered back, “Oh, Mama! I hope so. Can we go with the elephant on the road to Mandalay?”
“Perhaps,” She kissed Romilly gently on the forehead.
“Mama, may I play the gramophone records while you are gone to remind me of you?”
“Of course.”
Outside a car parped its horn impatiently and Mama let Romilly go reluctantly.
“Make sure that she gets plenty of fresh air and is not kept cooped up all day in the house.”
Nanny Bea nodded curtly.
Romilly ran behind Mama to the door but Nanny Bea caught hold of her arm and pulled her back.
Instead Romilly watched from the window as an old man got out of a grey car, lifted Mama’s suitcase into the boot then held the back door open for her.
Mama looked out through the window and waved, trying to keep a smile on her face.
Romilly smiled back and blew a kiss.
Nanny Bea turned away from the window with a sly smile. From what Master Jonathan had told her, Margot Greswode would be away for a great deal longer than six weeks and good riddance. Maybe, just maybe, Master Jonathan would come home more often and things could be like they used to be.
“Romilly, come away from the window please.”
But Romilly hadn’t heard a word she was saying. She was staling at the small boy who was standing in the doorway of the summerhouse, a small boy standing quite extraordinarily still, looking steadfastly back at her.
“Romilly, do you hear me?” Nanny Bea’s voice was sharp with impatience.
“Why is there a boy in the summerhouse?”
Nanny Bea rounded on her, “Don’t be so ridiculous.”
Romilly didn’t reply, she was too busy watching the boy.
“I think, Romilly, you are having one of your sillier moments.”
“I think his name is Thomas Greswode.”
Nanny Bea stared hard at the child. “Thomas Greswode died before you were born, before even your papa was born.”
“Who was he?”
“He was your grandfather’s cousin, I believe, and not a nice boy, not a nice boy at all.”
“But he only looks about the same age as me.”
Nanny Bea stepped up to the window and looked fearfully down towards the dilapidated summerhouse.
There was no sign of a boy. How could there possibly be?
She looked at the child with concern. Romilly was transfixed as if she could really see someone.
“He’s smiling at me,” she said in a faraway voice. “I think he’d like to be my friend.”
“Well, I won’t be smiling at you if you don’t come away from that window this instant and put an end to this nonsense.”
Romilly turned away from the window and followed Nanny Bea obediently across the hallway without a murmur.
Nanny Bea needed a drop of medicinal brandy. Hearing Thomas Greswode’s name mentioned after all this time had made her feel quite out of sorts.
Archie Grimble woke with a start. He was stiff and sore and his brain felt as though it was wrapped tightly in muslin, like a boiled pudding.
He sat up and touched the back of his head gingerly; there was a bump there the size of a gooseberry. He scrabbled around for his spectacles, found them and put them on.
One lens was cracked and it took some moments for his eyes to get used to the dim light. He looked around him and gasped.
He’d expected to see the familiar surroundings of his bedroom but he realized with a shudder that he had spent the night on the floor of the wobbly chapel.
He wriggled out from a black cloak that was wrapped tightly around him and tried to stand but his legs were too weak. He slumped back down onto the floor and cradled his head in his hands. His thoughts were all jumbled up as though he were half in the real world and half in a dream.
He could vaguely remember putting the key in the lock and coming inside the chapel but after that his thoughts were all blurred up.
He remembered being afraid because someone had tried to get into the chapel. He’d gone down some steep steps, then stumbled over something in the dark and fell.
That must have been when he’d banged his head.
He winced now as he remembered falling, then hitting the water and going down and down.
His feet touching the sea bed, cheeks puffed out with air, eyes bulging, fighting desperately to get to the top. Then the waters parted and he was gasping and coughing. The starlit sky was quivering above him and somehow he’d managed to heave himself up out of the water and onto the rocks.
He could have drowned. He hadn’t though. He must have swum. Eejit! He couldn’t swim…
He looked down at his skinny legs; they were crisscrossed with scratches, his pale skin streaked with dried blood.
Somehow he had dragged his bad leg up over the rocks, miraculously finding his way back up through the hole he had earlier fallen through. Then, trembling, his body racked with cold, sobbing with fear and relief he had found the first of the steep slippery steps that led him back up to the cupboard into the chapel.
His brain was slowly warming up, his memory returning.
He remembered that he hadn’t been able to go home because Nan had shut the Pilchard early.
He stood up again, leaning against a pew to gather his strength. His clothes were filthy and damp and he stank of mould and salt and mouse shit. He’d never been so dirty or so cold in all his life.
Mammy would have a blue fit if she saw him like this, especially if she knew he’d been out all night like a bloody torn cat and nearly drowned himself to boot. Oh, my God, by now she would have realized that he hadn’t slept in his bed…
She’d be hysterical and the fat porker would be angry and all the men from the Skallies were probably already scouring the countryside.
Then he remembered with relief that today was market day in St Werburgh’s and Mammy would have left early to catch the bus from Rhoskilly. On market days during the school holidays she always left him sleeping.
He watched as a mouse scurried down the aisle and came to rest on top of an old hymn book, whiskers twitching, eyes bright in the gloomy dawn light. It looked up at Archie curiously for a moment and then hurried off.
He could hardly believe that all this had happened to him and all because he’d made a daft promise to old Benjamin. He had been brave enough to come out in the pitch black and get into the chapel!
It was the first time in his life he’d been brave!
He didn’t have much to show for it though. A bump on the head and his clothes ruined. His spectacles were cracked, his detective torch at the bottom of the sea and his legs skinned almost to the bone.
He’d done it, though, just like he’d promised and Benjamin would have been really proud of him. But he hadn’t discove
red any mysteries to solve.
In the distance the church clock in Rhoskilly Milage chimed eight.
He’d just have to pray that he would be able to creep back into Bag End without being seen, get himself deaned up and have a sleep, and by to get his strength back.
He made his way towards the door and just as he was about to turn the key, sunlight flooded in through the chapel window and he was bathed in a myriad of dancing colours. It was as though he had been dropped inside a kaleidoscope. He watched as the colours played across the floor and the walls.
He looked down and realized with a shudder that he was standing on a flagstone with someone’s name on it He stepped quickly to the side and peered down at the inscription.
THOMAS GASPARINI GRESWODE
BORN DECEMBER 17th 1888 IN SANTA CATERINA ITALY
TRAGICALLY DROWNED OFF SKILLY POINT AUGUST 21st 1900.
Archie reckoned up in his head.
The poor thing had been only about twelve years of age when he had died.
He shivered. Poor bugger to have died of drowning.
And he was only two years older than Archie was now.
December 17th. That was today.
Happy birthday, Thomas Greswode, whoever you were.
If he’d lived he’d have been an old man by now.
Archie looked around him and thought that the chapel looked even more ghostly in the daylight than it did at night.
It was as if one day it had suddenly been abandoned; the people had left in a hurry; the door was locked and the place left just as it was.
The hymn numbers were still up on the board.
15
176
33
He knelt down and picked up the prayer book he had seen last night There on the front page was the same boy’s name. Thomas Gasparini Greswode. He flicked through the yellowing pages then slipped the prayer book into his pocket.
Then he remembered the letter addressed to him that he’d found in Benjamin’s jacket.
Damn and double damn. He must have dropped it last night.
He made his way back to the cupboard and let out a delighted squeal when he saw the letter on the floor. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d climbed into the hole. He picked it up eagerly, put it into his pocket, hurried back through the chapel and let himself out.