Chapter Six da sat up in bed and peered into the inky blackness, suddenly woken by the sound of carriage wheels crunching on the gravel outside. She lit her candle and tiptoed across her enormous bedroom to the window. On the driveway in front of the steps leading to the magnificent portico of Ghastly-Gorm Hall was a black carriage drawn by four black horses with curling black feathers on their black bridles. Slowly the door to the carriage opened and a woman stepped out. She wore a black dress and jacket, black gloves and shoes, a broad-brimmed black hat and a heavy veil. In one hand she carried a large black carpet bag decorated with a skull pattern, and in the other a black umbrella. Ada stepped back from the window as the woman walked soundlessly up the step. Moments later she
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heard a sharp rat-tat-tat as the woman knocked on the front door. The carriage wheels crunched on the gravel once more as the black carriage, which didn’t seem to have a driver, disappeared into the night. Below, Ada heard the front door creak slowly open and Maltravers’s wheezing voice say, ‘Yes?’ ‘Miss Borgia from the Psychic Governess Agency,’ said a beautiful lilting voice with the hint of a foreign accent. ‘Come in,’ said Maltravers stiffly. ‘You’ll find the governess quarters in the dome. Lord Goth doesn’t like to be disturbed.’ ‘I know,’ said Miss Borgia softly, ‘That is why I am here. The agency specializes in the education of inconvenient children.’ ‘Inconvenient is right,’ muttered Maltravers. ‘And don’t let her fool you with her clumpy boots and polite manners,’ he went on, and Ada shivered at the sound of his voice. ‘She’s a sneaky one, that little Goth girl.’
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The next thing Ada knew, the great-uncle clock on the mantelpiece was striking nine. She yawned and stretched, then jumped out of bed. In her dressing room she found her Thursday clothes – a Venetian taffeta dress, an Ottoman coat with pompoms and a red tasselled hat. Ada got dressed and was about to put on her big, clumpy boots when she paused. Then she turned and walked back into her enormous bedroom and over to the eight-poster bed, where she put her black pumps on instead. She crossed to the door, opened it and peeked out. There was no sign of the governess and no sign of Maltravers. Ada tiptoed out of her bedroom and down the corridor as quietly as she could.
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When she reached the short gallery Emily and William Cabbage were waiting for her at the Jacobean sideboard. ‘Venison sausages in onion custard or porridge-crusted kippers in strawberry gravy?’ said William lifting several large silver lids and turning brown, then yellow, then strawberry. ‘Soft-boiled egg and soldiers,’ said Ada. ‘Delicious!’ said Emily, when they had finished. ‘You know, it’s Ruby’s job to cut the toast. She chooses a different regiment each morning.’ Just then, William, who was sitting by the curtains and had taken on a floral pattern, dropped his toast and pointed out of the window. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘There goes the indoor gamekeeper.’ Ada and Emily looked. Maltravers was striding along the gravel path outside Ghastly-Gorm Hall.
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‘What is the indoor gamekeeper doing outside?’ asked Emily. ‘Going to his room, probably,’ said Ada. ‘When he isn’t working, Maltravers lives in the garden.’ ‘Let’s follow him,’ said William. They made their way quickly down the grand staircase and turned into the east wing. They ran past the Egyptian drawing room, the pre-Columbian drawing room and the Chinese drawing room, where Charles Cabbage was
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hard at work inventing. They continued, passing several more drawing rooms whose furniture had been covered by dust sheets for as long as Ada could remember, before reaching the kitchens. In the inner pantry the inner-pantry maids were dusting jars, labelling preserves and filling boxes with fresh ice from the new icehouse. None of them looked up or even seemed to notice as William, Emily and Ada dashed past. In the parlour several tearful parlourmaids were sorting through wooden spoons, arranging them in pots according to size, and were also too busy to notice. In the big kitchen beyond, Mrs Beat’em sat in a huge rocking chair beside a gigantic kitchen range. She was furiously scribbling in a big battered book whose pages were feathered with little notes stuck on with flour-and-water paste. She was wearing an enormous cap that dwarfed her furious red face and an apron the size of a large tablecloth. From her belt were slung pastry nozzles, meat
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tenderizers, egg whisks and rolling pins of every size and design, which clinked and clattered as she rocked. ‘Agnes, fuddle those eggs!’ Mrs Beat’em roared like an enraged sea lion, ‘Maud, bedevil the batter! No, not that batter, you idiot! Pansy, frizzle those pies until they’re piping hot, then frangellate the crusts – quickly, girl!’ Weeping kitchen maids jostled and elbowed each other as they worked at the range or round the three kitchen tables, which were laden with bowls and baking trays and measuring jugs. ‘Come on!’ said William. ‘We mustn’t let him get away!’ Ada and Emily hurried after William as he crossed the kitchen and entered the outer pantry. This was a small room with an extremely high ceiling. The walls were lined with cupboards and shelves, all full of spices, herbs, flour, sugar, tinctures and extracts in tiny bottles. From the ceiling hung bundles of parsley, sage, rosemary
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and thyme together with three soup trumpets, a pastry trombone and several flutes for freezing sorbets. Sitting on a high stool at a desk Ruby the outer-pantry maid was patiently making seahorses out of radish shavings to decorate Mrs Beat’em’s Neptune broth. When she saw Ada she blushed. ‘Hello, Miss G . . . Ada,’ she said. ‘We’re following Maltravers,’ Ada whispered. ‘By the way, I love those seahorses. You’re very clever.’ Ruby blushed again. ‘Nelly! Neptunize those prawns, NOW!’ Mrs Beat’em’s voice screamed in the big kitchen. Ada, William and Emily ran out of the outer pantry and into the kitchen garden beyond. ‘Careful!’ whispered William, pulling Ada and Emily behind a stand of runner beans and turning green. ‘There he goes now.’ Maltravers had rounded the corner of the new icehouse and was striding through the flower
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and thyme together with three soup trumpets, a pastry trombone and several flutes for freezing sorbets. Sitting on a high stool at a desk Ruby the outer-pantry maid was patiently making seahorses out of radish shavings to decorate Mrs Beat’em’s Neptune broth. When she saw Ada she blushed. ‘Hello, Miss G . . . Ada,’ she said. ‘We’re following Maltravers,’ Ada whispered. ‘By the way, I love those seahorses. You’re very clever.’ Ruby blushed again. ‘Nelly! Neptunize those prawns, NOW!’ Mrs Beat’em’s voice screamed in the big kitchen. Ada, William and Emily ran out of the outer pantry and into the
*The Sensible Folly was built by Metaphorical Smith to look like a ruin of a Grecian Temple but had a good roof, decent guttering and excellent plumbing while, next to it, the Lake of Extremely Coy Carp was really just a lake that Metaphorical Smith had forgotten to stock with goldfish.
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kitchen garden beyond. ‘Careful!’ whispered William, pulling Ada and Emily behind a stand of runner beans and turning green. ‘There he goes now.’ Maltravers had rounded the corner of the new icehouse and was striding through the flower beds of the bedroom garden beyond. Reaching the Sensible Folly*, Maltravers took a key from the bundle attached to his waistcoat, unlocked the front door and went inside. Ada, Emily and William crept through the bedroom garden and approached the building. Crouching down, they peeked in at one of the carefully glazed Grecian
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windows. Maltravers was sitting at the desk with an envelope in his hand. As Ada, Emily and William watched, the indoor gamekeeper opened the envelope with a paper knife and read the letter inside before pinning it to the wall with a paper fork. Then he reached into the envelope and took out a folded banknote. He carefully unfolded it and held it up to the light. Printed on its very fine paper in swirling letters were the words ‘The Bank of Bavaria promises to pay the bearer of this note five pounds’. William whistled softly. He had turned the colour of white marble. ‘That’s a lot of money!’ he whispered. Maltravers got up and walked over to the bed. He reached underneath it and pulled out a metal box which he unlocked. Inside were more banknotes. Maltravers placed the five-pound note on top of the other notes and locked the box before sliding it back underneath the bed. With a low, wheezing laugh he lay down on the bed and
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closed his eyes. Ada shivered as she saw the thin, unpleasant smile on his face. William pressed his nose up against the glass of the window and narrowed his eyes as he peered at a letter pinned to the wall above the desk. ‘My dear sir,’ he read, ‘I have great expectations of Lord Goth’s house party and trust your preparations are complete. Enclosed is the final payment. Hansel and Gretel are looking
forward to their big night! Yours in anticipation, Rupert von Hellsung.’ ‘What is Maltravers up to?’ he muttered. ‘What preparations? And who are Hansel and Gretel?’ ‘They sound pretty grim,’ said Emily, shaking her head. ‘One thing is certain,’ said Ada. ‘Maltravers is up to no good!’ On the truckle bed the indoor gamekeeper seemed to be snoring. ‘You wait here,’ Emily told William, ‘in case he wakes up. Ada and I are going to the Bathroom of Zeus – to find out what he’s keeping in there. It may have something to do with these “preparations”.’
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Chapter Seven da led Emily across the hall to the tapestry and pulled it aside, to reveal the small doorway to the broken wing. ‘Follow me,’ she said. They went down a flight of stone stairs and along a dark corridor with doors lining the walls. Ada paused and opened one of the doors. Emily and Ada peered inside. The room was empty, except
for an old wardrobe containing some moth-eaten fur coats. Ada closed the door and shook her head. ‘I was sure the Bathroom of Zeus was around here somewhere . . .’ she said. Just then, from further down the hallway, there came the sound of singing. It was soft and soothing and very, very beautiful. Ada and Emily followed the sound. It was coming from behind a pair of double doors with brass hoops for handles. ‘The Bathroom of Zeus!’ Ada whispered excitedly. Emily took one hoop, and Ada took the other, and they pulled. As Emily and Ada stepped through the gap and looked around, the singing stopped. In the centre of the room was a sunken pool full of stagnant green water, in the middle of which stuck up a rock with a nest of twigs and branches on top. And sitting on the nest was one of the
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head of a woman and the body of a large bird, this was certainly not a minature drawing-room pheasant. The bird woman looked up. Her eyes were the colour of a wine-dark sea, while her hair was cormorant black, the dark curls swept back and held in place by a headdress of shimmering bronze. Her body was covered in feathers the colour of dark seaweed, while her tail and wings were a bright gold and matched the glittering talons on her feet. Ada couldn’t take her eyes off the creature. Of all the strange, forgotten things she had encountered in the rooms of the broken wing, this had to be the strangest and most beautiful.
Beside her she heard a clatter and a clink as Emily slipped her watercolour box from her shoulders and unhitched her camping stool and water jar. ‘Hello,’ said Ada, as clearly and politely as she could manage. ‘My name is Ada and I’m very pleased to meet you.’ The bird woman tilted her head to one side like a curious seagull and Ada could see a row of needle-sharp teeth glinting when she spoke. ‘I is Sesta the Siren,’ she said in a musical voice, ‘star of the Ithaca Open-Air Opera House . . . it’s more of a rock in the sea actually,’ she added with
Miss Siren Sesta and the Harpies
a twinkling laugh. ‘But still, the sailors is come from all over to hear me sing.’ ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Ada. Emily had got a piece of watercolour paper out of her portfolio and had started painting, her eyes wide with wonder. ‘The famous Lord Goth!’ the Siren Sesta exclaimed. ‘He invite me his self. Me and my backing singers, Orphia, Eurydice and Persephone . . .’ Ada had been so mesmerized by the sight of the bird woman, she hadn’t noticed the birdcage hanging from the ceiling above her head. It contained, she now saw, three more bird women who were much smaller than the Siren Sesta and had large eyes and sharp, pointy noses. ‘Is very nice to meet you,’ they chorused, flapping and fidgeting on their perch. ‘See, here . . .’ The Siren Sesta rummaged in the
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a twinkling laugh. ‘But still, the sailors is come from all over to hear me sing.’ ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Ada. Emily had got a piece of watercolour paper out of her portfolio and had started painting, her eyes wide with wonder. ‘The famous Lord Goth!’ the Siren Sesta exclaimed. ‘He invite me his self. Me and my backing singers, Orphia, Eurydice and Persephone . . .’ Ada had been so mesmerized by the sight of the bird woman, she hadn’t noticed the birdcage hanging from the ceiling above her head. It contained, she now saw, three more bird women who were much smaller than the Siren Sesta and had large eyes and sharp, pointy noses. ‘Is very nice to meet you,’ they chorused, flapping and fidgeting on their perch. ‘See, here . . .’ The Siren Sesta rummaged in the
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nest beneath her and grasped a thick gilt-edged but slightly grubby card in her talons, which she held up for Ada to read. ‘But what I not understand,’ said the Siren, ruffling her feathers and shaking her foot, ‘is when we come here, Lord Goth’s man does this to me – look!’ Ada looked. There was a manacle around Siren Sesta’s leg with a chain that was attached to a heavy loop which in turn was bolted to the side of the pool. The harpies rattled the bars of their cage, and Ada saw that there was a sturdy padlock holding
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/> the cage door shut. ‘Lord Goth’s man, he feed me smoky fish and to the girls, dead mouses.’ The Siren’s dark eyes flashed and she spread her golden wings wide. ‘But we are artists – we cannot live like this!’ Her beautiful voice echoed round the room. ‘Like this, like this, like this . . .’ the harpies harmonized from the cage above. Siren Sesta’s gaze fell on Emily Cabbage and her watercolours. ‘You’re very beautiful,’ said Emily appreciatively, mixing a seaweed green that matched Sesta’s feathers. The Siren stood still as statue as she looked down at Emily. ‘I see you too have the soul of an artist,’ she cooed. ‘You must capture
Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse Page 4