by Joan Aiken
"Well, almost."
"No, what I'm worried about,” Harriet went on, “is if she asks us to learn things and recite. Because if we haven't got the books to learn them from—like this wretched Crosby—we're stumped. Have you ever heard of Crosby?"
"No, we use Kennedy in our class."
"So do we. Well, maybe we could ask to write them down from memory instead of reciting them. It'll be all right, of course, if she asks us to learn something like The Ancient Mariner."
"I dunno,” said Mark, “all this sounds a bit too much like work to me."
"It is a bit. Still, not too many people have learned Latin prepositions from a ghost. That's something."
"I tell you,” said Mark. “The attic."
"What about it?"
"There are hundreds of old boxes there with things in them that belong to the house. I was up there one day looking for secret passages. Maybe if we looked in them we'd find some old lesson books that belonged to the people who were here before."
"That's an idea. We might find something about Miss Allison too—a diary or something. Let's go now."
"Anyway,” Harriet pointed out as they walked back to the house, “if it does get too much of a good thing, we can always just stay in bed and not go to her."
"All right for you,” said Mark, “but I expect she's in my room all the time. She'll probably just haul me out of bed at ten o'clock."
The lunch bell rang as they came up the garden, so they had to put off their search in the attic.
It was a dark, cool room, lit only by green glass tiles in the roof. Harriet sat for a while pensively on a box while Mark rummaged about, turning out with everything little piles of thickish yellow powder smelling of pine needles.
"That's for the moths,” she said. Then she began folding the things and putting them back as he went on. They were mostly clothes folded in tissue paper, and old rush baskets pressed flat, large women's hats with draggled bunches of feathers, and pairs of kid gloves.
"People wore things like these in the 1914 war,” said Harriet. “Look, here's a newspaper. January, 1914. This is too modern."
"Half a sec,” said Mark, “over here they seem to be older.” He pulled out an enormous flounced ball-dress of fawn-colored satin; some shawls; a pair of satin slippers; a little woven basket with a lid, containing brightly colored glass bracelets and necklaces of glass beads; a large flat box full of fans—ivory, with pink flowers, satinwood, and wonderful plumy feathers.
"I wish there were some letters or books or something,” Mark murmured discontentedly. Harriet was exclaiming to herself over the fans before laying them back in the box.
"This one's very heavy,” said Mark, tugging at a chest. The lid came up unwillingly. Underneath was a gorgeous Chinese hanging of silk, folded square. He lifted it out.
"Aha!” A heavy, old-fashioned Bible lay on the tissue paper.
"Harriet, look here!"
Harriet came across and read over her brother's shoulder the inscription in a beautiful copperplate handwriting: “to my dear daughter Georgiana Lucy Allison from her affectionate Mother, Christmas 1831."
"Well!” they breathed at each other. Mark flipped through the leaves, but there was nothing else, except for a faded pansy.
"Let's see what else there is in the box."
Underneath the tissue paper were more books.
"Lesson books,” said Harriet ecstatically. “Primer of Geography. Mason's Manual of Arithmetic. Look! Here's Crosby's Latin Grammar Made Easy."
Besides the lesson books there were children's books—Improving Tales for the Young, Tales for Little Folks, Good Deeds in a Bad World, Tales from the Gospel, and a number of others, all improving. Several of them also had Miss Allison's name in them. Others had children's names—"John, from his affec. Governess,” “Lucy, from Mamma,” and in a large stumbling script, “Lucy, from Isabel."
"We'd better take down all the lesson books,” said Harriet. “They can live on the bookshelf in your room—there's plenty of empty space."
They had a further search in the other boxes, but found nothing else interesting except some children's clothes—sailor suits, dresses, and pantalets, which Harriet would have liked to try on. “But they look so fragile,” she said with a sigh, “I'd probably tear them.” So everything was replaced and they went downstairs, each with an armful of books.
Later that evening, Harriet's mother found her sprawled on the drawing-room sofa looking at a book and then shutting it and muttering to herself.
"You look as if you were learning poetry,” said Mrs. Armitage, glancing over her shoulder. “What, Latin! Good heavens, I have got diligent children. Incidentally I wish you'd find another tune to practice on the piano. I find myself singing that 'Lieber Augustin' all day long."
That night, when Harriet went along to Mark's room at about midnight, she found him already at work reciting the principal parts of Latin verbs.
"Mark knows his list of words very well, Harriet. I trust that you will also be able to earn your caraway biscuit,” remarked Miss Allison, and then, while Harriet lay on her imaginary back-board, the governess read them a long, boring chapter about the War of the Roses.
"I generally start my pupils at the beginning of history, with William the Conqueror,” explained Miss Allison, “but your dear mother expressed a wish for you to study this period particularly."
Afterwards Harriet recited her Latin and also earned a caraway biscuit. Then Harriet and Mark showed Miss Allison their invisible essays on Duty, and Harriet's point was proved. Miss Allison obviously saw them, even if the children didn't, and peevishly pointed out several spelling mistakes.
"Mark, you will write out the word ‘ceiling’ fifty times,” she said. “That will be all for this morning, dears. Harriet, will you ask Anne to run up with a duster, and I will dust my room myself. And tell her that she forgot to sweep under the bed yesterday, though I reminded her particularly."
"Mother,” said Mark one morning. “Can I change my bedroom? I'd much rather sleep in the room next to Harriet."
"Well, if you do,” said his mother, looking at him acutely, “you must promise not to be popping in and out of each other's rooms all night. I thought I heard something last night.” But they gazed at her so innocently that she agreed and said they could change the things over themselves.
"Just as well,” said Mark, when they were carrying sheets along the passage. “Do you know she hauled me out of bed last night and asked me what I thought I was doing sleeping on the schoolroom sofa?"
"She is queer,” Harriet remarked thoughtfully. “I sometimes wonder if she really sees us at all. She obviously doesn't see the same furniture we do, because sometimes she uses tables and chairs that aren't there, and when she talks about our parents, she doesn't mean Mother and Father, because they never said anything to her about the War of the Roses."
"And there's all this business about Anne and Cook, too. I suppose she sort of sees them all around. Poor old thing,” said Mark, tucking in a lump of blanket, “I'm getting quite fond of her."
"You know, I'm sure she has something on her mind,” added Harriet. “She looks so worried at times, as if she was trying to remember things."
It soon appeared that the children had something on their minds, too.
"You both of you look dreadfully tired nowadays,” remarked Mrs. Armitage. “You aren't sickening for measles, are you? And don't you think you're overdoing this holiday work a bit? Surely you don't need to do all that Latin and History. The other afternoon when you were asleep on the lawn, Mark, I heard you muttering the dates of the kings of England in your sleep. Take a bit of rest from it. By the way, there's an Admiral Lecacheur coming to tea this afternoon—he lives in that little house on the river you've taken such a fancy to. If you want to get invited to have a look round it, you'd better put in an appearance."
"Lecacheur?” said Mark vaguely. “I seem to know the name."
"Yes, it's the family who lived here b
efore. He's the owner of this house, actually, but he's mostly away, so he prefers to let it and live in the cottage."
Lecacheur! Of course it was the name written in the lesson books! Mark and Harriet exchanged a swift, excited look.
"Is he an old man?” asked Mark carelessly.
"About sixty, I believe. Now I must fly. I've masses to do. Be good, children."
"If he's about sixty,” said Harriet, when they were alone, “he must have been born in 1885. I wish we knew when Miss Allison died."
"Well, we know she was alive in 1831 because of that Bible. I wonder how old she was when she was given that?"
"Say she was about ten,” said Harriet, counting on her fingers, “that makes her sixty-five when the admiral was born. Well, that's quite possible. She looks more than that. He may easily have known her. We'll have to draw him out, somehow."
"Maybe, if he knew her, he'd know what it is she worries about,” said Harriet hopefully. “You know, I believe if we could find out what's on her mind and help her, she'd vanish. That's the sort of thing ghosts do."
"Well, I'm not sure I'd be sorry,” said Mark, puffing out a deep breath. “I'd like a night's sleep for once. Remember when we didn't wake up, how cross she was next night? And I've had just about enough Latin verbs. And the Kings of England."
Harriet agreed. “And the parents are beginning to think that there's something funny going on. Father started whistling ‘Lieber Augustin’ the other day, and then he turned and gave me an awfully queer look."
Admiral Lecacheur turned out to be a pleasant man, large, jovial, gray-haired. It was not difficult for the children to get an invitation from him to go and look at his cottage.
As he showed them the stuffed shark and the model ships in bottles, Harriet summoned up the courage to speak.
"Admiral,” she finally said timidly, “did you ever know a Miss Georgiana Lucy Allison?"
"God bless my soul, yes,” he said, turning round and smiling at her. “She was our family governess. Is there some stuff of hers still knocking about in the house?"
"Yes, there are some books of hers. And a Bible."
"Old Allie,” he said reminiscently. “She was a wonderful old girl. Must have been with our family for fifty years. She taught three generations of us. I was the last."
"Did she teach you?"
"I remember her very well,” he went on, without noticing the interruption, “though she died, I suppose, when I was about five. That would be around 1890. But she'd already taught me to read, and some of the multiplication table, and the kings of England. She was great on learning things by heart. Not like the modern education you get now, I daresay. ‘Cedric,’ she used to say, ‘how will you ever get on in life if you don't know these things?’ Ah, well. Here I am an admiral, and I daresay if she'd taught me longer, I should have been Admiral of the Fleet. But there! She must have died more than fifty years ago."
He smiled at their serious faces and said, “Now here's a thing you ought to like. Just look at the size of that!” And he handed Harriet a shell the size of a dinner plate.
"Well, we still don't know what's on her mind,” said Mark, as they walked homewards.
"No, but we couldn't ask him all at once. Another time we'll jolly well pump him."
But as things turned out they didn't need to. That night when Mark was reciting the dates of the kings of England, he absentmindedly followed William and Mary with “Queen Anne, 1700."
There was an ominous pause, and Miss Allison suddenly burst into tears.
"Cedric, you wicked boy,” she sobbed, “will you never get it right? How can you expect to be a success in life, if you don't know your dates? And you going into the Navy, too.” She hid her face in her hands, but through them they could hear her say, “I'm getting so old. How can I die happy if that boy doesn't know the date of Queen Anne? All the others learned it."
"Please don't cry,” said Mark awkwardly, patting her shoulder. “It was only a mistake. I do know it. Really I do. It's 1702, isn't it?"
But she went on sobbing “Cedric! Cedric!” and after a minute Harriet touched his arm and pulled him softly out of the room.
"Let's go to bed,” she whispered. “We can't do anything about her. And I've got a brilliant idea. Tell you in the morning."
Next day she dragged him down to Dolphin Cottage. The admiral was surprised to see them. “What, you again so early? You're just in time to help me syringe my greenfly."
"Admiral,” said Harriet, fixing her eyes on him earnestly, “will you tell me something terribly important?"
"What is it,” he said, very much astonished.
"Tell me when Queen Anne came to the throne."
He burst into a great roar of laughter, slapping his knees. “Well, I'm blessed; do you know, it's funny you should ask me that, because it's the one date I never have been able to remember. Miss Allison used to get wild about it. ‘I shan't die happy till you know that date, Cedric,’ she used to say. But she did die, poor old soul, and I don't know it to this day."
"Come and sit down,” said Harriet, dragging him to a garden seat. One on each side, she and Mark told him the whole story. When he heard how Miss Allison made their nights a burden, he shouted with laughter.
"That's just like her, bless her,” he exclaimed.
"So you see, it really has got to stop,” Harriet explained. “We're getting worn out, and I'm sure she is too—after all, she must be about a hundred and twenty, far too old to be teaching. And she's so miserable, poor dear. I think you can help us."
She told him their plan, and after some hesitation the admiral agreed. “But if you're pulling my leg,” he threatened, “you'll never forget it, the pair of you."
"Now you've got to learn it,” said Harriet. “Write it on a bit of paper somewhere—here, I'll do it for you. Now stick it up where you'll be able to see it all day. And we'll meet you at the garden gate tonight at midnight."
"What your parents would say if they caught us—” he exclaimed, but he agreed. The children went home very hopeful.
The meeting came off as arranged. They let him in by the garden door and took him quietly up the back stairs into the schoolroom, where Miss Allison was pacing up and down looking very impatient.
"What time,” she began, and then suddenly she saw who was with them. “Why, Cedric!"
"Allie!” he exclaimed.
"You wicked boy! Where have you been all this time?"
"I'm sorry,” he said meekly, looking more like a small boy than a gray-haired man of sixty.
"Just you tell me one thing,” she said, drawing herself up and giving him a piercing look. “When did Queen Anne come to the throne?"
The children gazed at him anxiously, but they need not have worried. He had learned his lesson this time.
"Seventeen-two,” he said promptly, and they sighed with relief.
Miss Allison burst into tears of joy.
"I might have known it,” she sobbed. “My good boy. Why, now you know that, you might even become an admiral, and I can die happy."
And as they watched her, suddenly, flick! like a candle, she went out, and there was no one in the room but their three selves.
"Well, I'm blessed,” said the admiral, not for the first time. “Old Allie.” He walked quietly from the room. Mark saw him down to the garden gate. When he came back, he found Harriet dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
"You know, I'm going to miss her,” she said. “Oh, well, let's got to bed."
They never saw Miss Allison again.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Harriet's Birthday Present
* * * *
* * * *
I've been sent home early,” Harriet wrote, “because they've all got German measles at school, and they don't want any more of us to get them. Isn't it a joke?"
Mark envied her for two days until his mother wrote in some annoyance to say that the first thing Harriet had done when she got home was develop that short but ti
resome disease. This meant that Mark would have to stay on at school for four days after term to let her get out of quarantine. He was in the middle of an indignant letter asking her how she could have been so careless when the wire came from his Aunt Hal in London.
"Come here till quarantine over key under flowerpot as usual,” it said.
So Mark tore up his letter, thanked his stars that he had not yet begun to search the small town of Warrington for Harriet's birthday present, and packed himself on the school train with the rest of his friends on Friday morning.
His Aunt Hal's flat was over a garage, which was in itself delightful. Also you climbed up to it by a flight of steps outside, and there was a balcony, and a marmalade cat called Tomsk.
Hal was in the process of distempering the walls of the three rooms, and they spent an energetic weekend dropping brushfuls of paint over each other and the carpet, only breaking off for large mixed meals and a cinema.
"I've got tickets for Robin Hood on Monday evening,” she told him. “Of course I'm working on Monday. Will you be able to amuse yourself all day?"
"I want to get some lino-cutting tools,” said Mark, “and there's Harriet's birthday present to shop for. Mother doesn't want me to go down until Tuesday afternoon because of choir practice and the sheets and the fumigating."
"O.K.,” said Hal, “I'll leave you your lunch, if you like, and meet you at the theatre."
She had already gone off to work when he got up on Monday morning. He ate his breakfast lying on the floor on his stomach with Tomsk sitting gravely beside him. Aunt Hal had two wonderful books which he always looked at when he came to see her. One of them was about Louis the Eleventh, whom he knew from Quentin Durward, and the other was about Napoleon's Moscow campaign. Unfortunately, they were in French, and not very easy, but it was the pictures he looked at them for. These were very strange and exciting. There were three that he always remembered particularly. One of them showed the siege of a castle. The besiegers had put up an enormously tall ladder against the walls and a lot of men had climbed up it. But just when the first ones were getting near the top, the defenders had managed to push the ladder over, and the picture showed it slowly falling backwards, and the horrified faces of the men on it. Another picture was of a man falling through a trap door into an oubliette, and the third was Louis being haunted by all the people he had hanged. Mark spent a lot of time on this book, and then stacked his breakfast things in the kitchen, took the sandwiches that his Aunt Hal had made him, saw that Tomsk had enough milk, and went out.