Over Sea, Under Stone

by Susan Cooper

  “Like those papers in glass cases in museums, with little curtains to keep the light out.”

  “Where did it come from? How did it get up here?”

  “Somebody must have hidden it.”

  “But it’s older than the house. I mean look at it, it must be, some of the writing’s nearly faded away.”

  “It wasn’t hidden,” Barney said, with absolute conviction, though he had no clear idea why. “Someone just threw it down where I found it.”

  Simon whooped suddenly, making them jump. “This is terrific! Do you realize, we’ve got a real live treasure map? It could lead us to anything, anywhere, secret passages, real hidden caves—the treasure of Trewissick”—he rolled the words lovingly round his tongue.

  “There isn’t much map, it’s all writing.”

  “Well then, that’s instructions. Look in ye little room on ye second floor, I expect it says, ye second floorboard on the, I mean ye, left—”

  “When this was written there weren’t such things as floorboards.”

  “Oh come off it, it’s not that old.”

  “I bet it is,” Barney said, quietly. “Anyway, you look at this writing. You can’t read it, it’s all in some funny language.”

  “Course you can read it if you look properly,” Simon said impatiently. In his mind he was already half-way through a sliding panel, throwing back the lid of a chest to reveal hoards of untold wealth. He could almost hear the chink of doubloons.

  “Let’s have a look.” He leant forward, the floorboards hard and rough under his knees, and peered at the manuscript. There was a long pause. “Oh,” he said at last, reluctantly.

  Barney said nothing, but looked at him very expressively indeed.

  “Well all right,” said Simon. “There’s no need to look so cocky. It isn’t in English. But that doesn’t mean we shan’t be able to find out what it says.”

  “Why isn’t it in English?”

  “How on earth should I know?”

  “I mean,” Barney said patiently, “that we’re in England, so what other language could it possibly be in?”

  “Latin,” Jane said unexpectedly. She had been looking quietly at the manuscript over Simon’s shoulder.

  “Latin?”

  “Yes. All old manuscripts are written in Latin. The monks used to write them down with a goose-feather for a pen, and put flowers and birds and things all squiggling round the capital letters.”

  “There isn’t anything squiggling here. It looks as if it’s been written in rather a hurry. I can’t even see any capital letters at all.”

  “But why Latin?” demanded Barney.

  “I don’t know, the monks just always used it, that’s all, it was one of their things. I suppose it’s a religious-sounding kind of language.”

  “Well, Simon does Latin.”

  “Yes, come on, Simon, translate it,” Jane said maliciously. At school she had not yet begun Latin, but he had been learning it for two years, and was rather superior about the fact.

  “I don’t think it’s Latin at all,” Simon said rebelliously. He peered at the manuscript again. “This writing’s so odd, the letters all look the same. Like a lot of little straight lines all in a row. The light in here isn’t very good either.”

  “You’re just making excuses.”

  “No, I’m not. It’s jolly difficult.”

  “Well, if you can’t even recognize Latin when you see it you can’t be nearly as good as you make out.”

  “Have another look,” said Barney hopefully.

  “I think it’s in two parts,” Simon said slowly. “One little paragraph on top, and then a lot more all together after a gap. The second bit I can’t make out at all, but the first paragraph does look as if it might be Latin. The first word looks like cum, that means with, but I can’t see what comes after it. Then later on there’s post multos annos, that’s after many years. But the writing’s all so small and squashy I can’t—wait a minute, there’s some names in the last line. It says Mar—no, Marco Arturoque.”

  “Like Marco Polo,” Jane said doubtfully. “What a funny name.”

  “Not one name, it’s two. Que means and, only they put it on the end instead of in the middle. And o on the end is the ablative of us, so this means by with or from Marcus and Arturus.”

  “By with or from? What a—Barney! Whatever’s the matter?”

  Barney, red in the face and spluttering, had suddenly thumped his fist on the floor, caught his breath trying to say something, and collapsed into a thunderous fit of coughing. They patted him on the back and gave him a drink of lemonade.

  “Marcus and Arturus,” he said hoarsely, gulping his breath back. “Don’t you see, it’s Mark and Arthur! It’s about King Arthur and his knights. Mark was one of them, and he was King of Cornwall. It must be about them

  “Gosh,” Simon said. “I think he’s right.”

  “It must be that. I bet old King Mark left some treasure behind somewhere and that’s why there’s a map.”

  “Suppose we find it.”

  “We’d be rich.”

  “We’d be famous.”

  “We shall have to tell Mother and Father,” Jane said.

  The two boys stopped thumping each other ecstatically and looked at her.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Well—” Jane said lamely, taken aback. “I suppose we ought to, that’s all.”

  Barney sat back on his heels again, frowning, and riffled his fingers through his hair, which by now looked several shades darker than it had when they came up to the attic.

  “I wonder what they’d say?”

  “I know what they’d say,” Simon said promptly. “They’d say it was all our imagination, and anyway they’d tell us to put the manuscript back where we found it because it isn’t ours.”

  “Well,” said Jane, “it isn’t, is it?”

  “It’s a treasure trove. Finding’s keepings.”

  “But we found it in someone else’s house. It belongs to the captain. You know what Mother said about not touching anything.”

  “She said anything that was put away. This wasn’t put away, it was just chucked down in a comer.”

  “I found it,” Barney said. “It was all forgotten and dusty. I bet you anything the captain hadn’t a clue it was there.”

  “Oh honestly, Jane,” Simon said. “You can’t find a treasure map and just say, ‘Oh, how nice,’ and put it back again. And that’s what they’d make us do.”

  “Oh well,” Jane said doubtfully, “I suppose you’re right. We can always put it back afterwards.”

  Barney had turned to the manuscript again. “Hey,” he said, “look at this top part, the old manuscript that’s stuck down on the parchment. What’s it made of? I thought it was parchment like the outside bit, but when you look properly it isn’t, and it’s not paper either. It’s some funny thick stuff, and it’s hard, like wood.”

  He touched an edge of the strange brown surface gingerly with one finger.

  “Be careful,” Jane said nervously. “It might crumble away into dust before our eyes or something.”

  “I suppose you’d still want to go showing everyone even then,” Simon said acidly. “‘Look what we’ve found, does it matter if we touch it?’ and show them a little heap of dust in a match-box.”

  Jane said nothing.

  “Oh well, never mind,” Simon said, relenting. She meant well, after all. “Hey, it’s getting awfully dark up here, d’you think we ought to go down? They’ll be looking for us soon, Mother will have stopped painting.”

  “It is getting late.” Jane looked round the attic and shivered suddenly. The big echoing room was growing dark, and there was a dismal sound now to the rain faintly tapping on the glass.

  Back in their bedrooms, the boys’ wardrobe pushed in again to hide the small secret door, they washed and changed hurriedly as the curt clang of the ship’s bell calling them to supper echoed up the stairs. Simon changed his dusty shirt, rolling the cle
an one into a crumpled ball before he put it on, and hoping no one would notice it was fresh. There was not very much they could do about Barney’s hair, now khaki. “It’s like what Mother says about that rug in the living-room at home,” Jane said in despair, trying to brush out the dust while her brother wriggled in protest. “It shows every mark.”

  “Perhaps we ought to wash it.” Simon peered at Barney critically.

  “No,” Barney said.

  “Oh well, there isn’t time really. Anyway, I’m hungry. You’ll just have to sit away from the light.”

  But when they were all sitting round the supper-table, it soon became clear that no one was going to ask questions about where they had been. The evening began as one of those times when everything seemed determined to go wrong. Mother looked tired and depressed, and did not say very much; signs, they knew, that her day’s painting had not been a success. Father, gloomy after the grey day, erupted into wrath when Rufus bounced in dripping from his walk, and banished him to the kitchen with Mrs Palk. And Great-Uncle Merry had come in silent and thoughtful, mysteriously brooding. He sat at one end of the table, alone, staring into the middle distance like a great carved totem-pole.

  The children eyed him warily, and took care to pass him the salt before he had to ask. But Great-Uncle Merry scarcely seemed to see them. He ate automatically, picking up his food and guiding it to his mouth without taking the slightest notice of it. Barney wondered for a wistful moment what would happen if he were to slip a cork table-mat on to his great-uncle’s plate.

  Mrs Palk came in with an enormous apple tart and a dish of mounded yellow cream and clattered the dirty plates into a pile. She went out down the hall, and they heard the rich rolling contralto of “O God, our help in ages past” echoing into the distance.

  Father sighed. “There are times,” he said irritably, “when I could dispense with devotions at every meal.”

  “The Cornish,” boomed Great-Uncle Merry from the shadows, “are a devout and evangelical people.”

  “I dare say,” said Father. He passed Simon the cream. Simon helped himself to a large spoonful, and a yellow blob dropped from the spoon to the table-cloth.

  “Oh Simon” Mother said. “Do look what you’re doing.”

  “I couldn’t help it. It just fell.”

  “That comes of trying to take too much at once,” Father said.

  “Well, you like it too.”

  “Possibly. But I don’t try to transport a quart in a pint pot.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Never mind,” Father said. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Simon, that’s just making it worse.” Simon, in an attempt to retrieve the blob of cream with his spoon, had left a large yellow smear on the cloth.

  “Sorry.”

  “I should think so.”

  “Did you go fishing today, Father?” Jane said hopefully from across the table, feeling that it was time to change the subject.

  “No,” said Father.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Simon said ungratefully, still smarting. “It was raining.”

  “Well, Father does go fishing in the rain sometimes.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “If I may be allowed to explain my own actions,” Father said with heavy sarcasm. “Occasionally I have been known to go fishing in the rain. Today I did not. Is that comprehensible?”

  “Have some apple tart, dear,” said Mother, handing him a plate.

  “Hrmm,” Father said, glancing at her sideways, and he lapsed into silence. After a moment he said, hopefully: “Might be an idea if we all went for a walk after supper. It seems to be clearing up.”

  Everyone looked out of the window, and the temperature of the room rose several degrees. Over the sea the clouds had broken, leaving a deepening blue sky, and the opposite headland glowed suddenly a brighter green as the sinking sun shone for the first time that day.

  Then they heard the doorbell ring.

  “Bother,” Mother said wearily. “Whoever can that be?”

  Mrs Palk’s footsteps rang briskly past the door, and then back again. She put her head in. “’Tis some people for you, Dr. Drew.”

  “Stand by to repel boarders,” Father said, and he went out into the hall. In a few moments he was back, talking to someone over his shoulder as he came through the door. “. . . very kind of you indeed, we hadn’t really thought what we were going to do tomorrow. They’re an independent lot, you know. Well, here we are.” He beamed heartily round with what the family called his public face. “My wife, Simon, Jane, Barney . . . this is Mr. and Miss—er—Withers. From that yacht you admire so much, Simon. We met in the harbour this morning.”

  A man and a girl stood behind him in the doorway. Both were dark-haired, with beaming smiles bright in sun-tanned faces. They looked like beings suddenly materialised from another very tidy planet. The man stepped forward, holding out his hand: “How do you do, Mrs Drew?”

  They sat staring blankly at him as he advanced towards Mother; he wore dazzling white flannel trousers, and a blazer, with a dark-blue scarf tucked in the neck of his white shirt, and they had not expected to see anything like him in Trewissick at all. Then they jumped up hastily as Mother stood to shake hands, and Simon knocked over his chair. Into the confusion Mrs Palk appeared with a large teapot and a tray of cups and saucers.

  “Two extra cups,” she said, smiling blandly, and departed again.

  “Do sit down,” the girl said. “We only popped in for a moment, we didn’t want to interrupt.” She bent to help Simon pick up his chair. Her black curls bobbed forward over her forehead. She was a very pretty girl, Jane thought, watching her. Much older than any of them, of course. She wore a bright green shirt and black trousers, and her eyes seemed to twinkle with a kind of hidden private laughter. Jane suddenly felt extremely young.

  Mr. Withers, showing a lot of very white teeth, was talking to Mother. “Mrs Drew, do please forgive this intrusion, we had no intention of breaking into your supper.”

  “Not at all,” said Mother, looking faintly bemused. “Won’t you have a cup of tea?”

  “Thank you, no, no, most kind, but we have a meal waiting on the boat. We simply came to issue an invitation. My sister and I are in Trewissick for some days, with the yacht to ourselves—on our way round the coast, you know—and we wondered whether you and the children would care to spend a day out at sea. We have—”

  “Gosh!” Simon nearly upset his chair again. “How marvellous! You mean go out in that fabulous boat?”

  “I do indeed,” said the smiling Mr. Withers.

  Simon spluttered without words, his face glowing with delight. Mother said hesitantly: “Well. . .”

  “Of course I realise we’re descending on you out of the blue,” Mr. Withers said soothingly. “But it would be pleasant to have company for a change. And when we met your husband in the harbourmaster’s office this morning, and discovered we are neighbours in London—”

  “Are you?” said Barney curiously from the table. “Where?”

  “Marylebone High Street, just round the corner from you,” said the girl, dimpling at him. “Norman sells antiques.” She looked across at Mother. “I expect you and I use the same shops, Mrs Drew—you know that little pâtisserie where you can get those gorgeous rum babas?”

  “I try not to,” Mother said, beginning to smile. “Well really, this is very kind, considering we’re strangers. But I’m not sure whether . . . well, the three of them can be rather a handful, you know.”

  “Mother!” Simon looked aghast.

  Mr. Withers puckered his nose boyishly at her. “But my invitation extends to the whole family, Mrs Drew. We sincerely hope you and your husband will join our little crew as well. Just a trip out and back, you understand—round the bay, as the commercial gentlemen have it. With perhaps a little fishing. I shall enjoy showing off the boat. Tomorrow perhaps? They say it should be a fine day.”

  What an old-fashioned way of
talking he has, Jane thought idly; perhaps it comes of selling antiques. She looked at Simon and Barney, both all eagerness at the idea of a day on the strange yacht, gazing anxiously at their parents; and then back at Mr. Withers’ immaculate white flannels and folded scarf. I don’t like him, she thought. I wonder why?

  “Well, thank you very much indeed,” Mother said finally. “I don’t think I shall come, if you’ll forgive me—if the sun comes out I shall go and work up above the harbour. But I know Dick and the children would love to go.”

  “Ah yes, Dr. Drew was telling us about your painting,” Mr. Withers said warmly. “Well, the loss will be ours—but if the muse calls, dear lady. . . . The rest of the family will come, though, I hope?”

  “Not half,” said Simon swiftly.

  “It sounds smashing,” Barney said. He added, as an afterthought: “Thank you very much.”

  “Well,” said Father cheerfully, “this is a noble gesture, I must say. We’re all very grateful to you. As a matter of fact”—he looked vaguely round the room—“there should have been one other member of the family here, but he seems to have disappeared. My wife’s uncle. He rented the house for us.”

  The children automatically followed his gaze round the room. They had forgotten Great-Uncle Merry. Now they realized that there had been no sign of him since the two sudden visitors appeared. The door that led into the breakfast room at the back of the house stood slightly open—but when Barney ran across to look in, there was no one there.

  “Professor Lyon, you mean?” the girl said.

  “That’s right.” Father stared at her for a moment. “I didn’t think I’d mentioned him this morning. D’you know him, then?”

  Mr. Withers answered for her, quickly and smoothly. “I believe we have met, once or twice. In another sphere than this. In the course of our work, you know. A charming old gentleman, as I remember, but a little unpredictable.”

  “That he certainly is,” Mother said ruefully. “Always dashing off somewhere. He hasn’t even finished his supper this time. But do let me give you some tea, or coffee.”

  “Thank you, but I think we should be getting back,” the girl said. “Vayne will have supper waiting.”