Silas and the Winterbottoms

by Stephen M. Giles

  ‘What kind of secrets?’ said Milo, desperate to find out what the young gardener knew. He turned back to Knox only to discover that the boy had vanished.

  ‘Enter.’

  When Mrs Hammer opened the thick oak door of the master’s study she was wearing an enormous apron covered in baking powder and a very disapproving scowl.

  ‘What is it, Mrs Hammer?’ said Silas sharply, not looking up from his desk. ‘I am escorting my nieces to the stables this afternoon so do be brief.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Mrs Hammer, clearing her throat, ‘Milo’s grandfather just phoned asking to speak with the boy.’

  ‘Again?’ snapped Silas.

  ‘Yes, sir, and earlier today Adele’s father made several calls of his own.’

  ‘Don’t these fools have anything better to do with their time?’ seethed Silas.

  ‘Sir, I must tell you that I am finding it very difficult to find excuses every time one of them calls,’ explained Mrs Hammer briskly. ‘Perhaps if you just allowed the children to talk –’

  ‘No,’ hissed Silas. ‘The children will be told nothing of these calls, is that clear?’

  ‘Perfectly clear,’ said Mrs Hammer. ‘But, sir, it’s only natural that the children’s families are anxious to talk with them. Milo’s grandfather sounded so sad on the phone – he’s missing the boy terribly.’ Silas stared at her darkly and Mrs Hammer felt her resolve wilting. ‘What I mean is . . .’

  ‘Mrs Hammer, the children have only just arrived at Sommerset,’ explained Silas. ‘I fear that talking with their parents so soon will be unsettling. I am just thinking of the children, you understand? Now, if there are any further calls for the young Winterbottoms put them through to me.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Mrs Hammer, feeling rather defeated.

  When she was gone, Silas picked up the telephone on his desk.

  ‘Bingle, come to my office at once,’ he instructed. ‘I have a job for you.’

  Rosemary Winterbottom was as stubborn as she was hefty, so once she got it into her head that Milo wasn’t spending nearly enough time with Adele and Isabella the poor boy really had no say in the matter. Milo had hoped to spend the afternoon tracking down Knox to ask him more about Uncle Silas, but instead he was forced by his aunt to visit the Sommerset stables to spend some quality time with his cousins.

  Milo’s mood wasn’t improved when he found Adele, Isabella and Uncle Silas watching a majestic black gelding being put through its paces.

  Silas stared intently at the boy as he reluctantly took his place beside his cousins.

  ‘I’m glad you came, Milo,’ said Silas warmly. ‘I have seen so little of you since you arrived.’

  Milo did not reply. Something about Silas’s penetrating stare seemed to take the wind right out of him.

  ‘Oh I adore horses!’ declared Isabella, who was wearing a pale pink riding outfit and clasping an enormous riding crop. ‘Father says I am a natural rider. Do you ride much, Adele?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Adele. ‘I mean, I’ve never actually ridden a horse.’

  ‘Never?’ said Isabella. ‘But surely you are joking, Cousin?’ Adele began to glow redder than a freshly polished apple. In a painfully unconvincing display of regret, Isabella covered her mouth in horror. ‘Oh, I am such an idiot! Here I am talking about horse riding when of course you could never afford such an activity! Do forgive me, Cousin.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Adele.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you, Isabella,’ said Milo gravely, giving Adele a mischievous grin which she did not really understand. ‘It’s something I’ve been hiding for years but I just can’t live with the shame any longer.’

  ‘Well whatever it is, Cousin, you can tell me,’ said Isabella.

  Milo cleared his throat and declared loudly, ‘My name is Milo Winterbottom and I’ve never ridden a horse either! Take pity on a poor horseless boy, Miss Isabella!’

  Adele and Rosemary began to laugh. Isabella did not. She turned on her heel and stalked towards the stables, followed closely by Hannah Spoon (who was now acting as Isabella’s personal maid and was forced to accompany the silly girl wherever she went). As the giggling died down the others headed off in the same direction.

  ‘Well done, Milo,’ said Silas, moving in front of Milo to block his way. ‘You managed to prick your cousin’s considerable ego with ease. I am impressed.’

  ‘I didn’t do it for you, Uncle Silas,’ said Milo shortly.

  ‘No, you did it for Adele. It was a very kind gesture.’

  ‘Well . . . thank you,’ said Milo awkwardly. Feeling his uncle’s intense gaze he stepped around Silas’s chair and caught up with the others as they headed into the stables.

  Once inside all three young Winterbottoms were astounded by the incredible number of Arabian horses in Silas’s massive complex – each muscular animal dazzled them, their coats shining like silken armour in shades of chestnut, grey, black and roan. Isabella quickly spotted a stunning black Arabian in a stall at the end of the barn.

  ‘That is the horse I want to ride,’ she told the stable manager, pointing with her riding crop. ‘Saddle it up for me at once.’

  ‘That’s Iris,’ said Flick, the stocky young stable manager. ‘She’s not ready for riding yet, miss.’

  ‘Why not?’ Isabella demanded to know.

  ‘Iris hasn’t been broken in yet,’ explained Flick. ‘She’s a stubborn one, miss.’

  ‘Not broken?’ said Silas, coming up behind them.

  ‘Not quite yet, sir,’ said Flick nervously. ‘But we are very close.’

  Silas looked into the open stall where the proud animal was walking in a small circle. ‘It won’t do,’ he said. ‘I have been patient but I will not stable a horse that cannot be broken.’

  ‘But, sir, she’s so close,’ said Flick. ‘If we sell her now she’ll end up as a workhorse and that’s no life for an Arabian.’

  ‘Get rid of it,’ said Silas.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Milo angrily. ‘In just a few weeks she’ll be good for riding. It would be cruel to sell her into a life of hard labour all for the sake of a few lousy weeks.’

  ‘Yes it would,’ said Rosemary, falling in beside her nephew. ‘Very cruel indeed!’

  The faintest hint of a smile curled around Silas’s dry lips. ‘Perhaps you are right, Milo,’ he said. ‘My poor health is affecting my sense of fairness it would seem.’ He turned towards the stable manager. ‘Flick, put the horse in one of the outer fields – I want you to work on her every day until she has been properly broken in. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Flick, unable to hide his relief. ‘Thank you, Mr Winterbottom!’

  ‘You do have a heart after all,’ said Rosemary, patting Silas on the shoulder. ‘What a shock!’

  While Flick prepared three medium-sized horses for the children to ride, Milo drifted off to the side of the barn and watched his uncle. The frail man sat perfectly still in his chair, his head held high. Who is Silas Winterbottom really? Milo wondered.

  When the horses were ready the children headed outside. Near the entrance to the stables Isabella stopped dead in her tracks in front of a large pile of horse manure. She called for Hannah Spoon.

  ‘Do clear away this revolting mess, dear,’ she instructed with a wave of her crop. ‘I find stepping over horse manure very upsetting.’

  Hannah stared down at the manure with a look of considerable confusion. She had never been asked to remove horse poop before and was not completely sure how to go about it. She usually cleared away unwanted mess with a vacuum cleaner but that hardly seemed appropriate.

  ‘How should I do it, miss?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Use a shovel, girl!’ snapped Isabella. Then, linking arms with Adele, she said, ‘Oh, Cousin, you will love horse riding, I am sure of it! Now I think it might be better if you took the largest horse – after all, you are so much bigger than I am.’

  Adele suddenly felt like an enormous m
arshmallow. ‘I’m sure you know best,’ she said, trying not to sound wounded.

  Returning with a shovel, Hannah carefully scooped several large pieces of manure from the stable floor and began to look around for a suitable place to throw it.

  Isabella stared impatiently at the maid. ‘Hurry up, dear!’ she snapped, bringing her riding crop down onto a wooden post for added effect. As the crop struck the post a loud crack echoed around the stables which caused a chestnut mare in the adjacent stall to buck, kicking suddenly at the stall door, which flew open. Screaming, Hannah jumped back, and the pile of horse poop was flung off the shovel, spinning through the air and landing smack bang in the middle of Isabella’s pretty face.

  Gasping in horror, Hannah Spoon’s eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped to the floor like a stone.

  ‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!’ Isabella shrieked, scooping away the horse poop covering her eyes. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Horse manure, child,’ said Silas, his voice melodious.

  Isabella released another blood-curdling scream, which flowed seamlessly into a loud crying fit. She spun around on the spot, causing several blobs of manure to fly off her face. ‘I’m covered in horse poop!’ she cried. ‘I’m covered in horse poop!’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Silas. He felt his spirits lift on the wings of his niece’s distress and it made him smile. ‘Well you did say you loved horses, Isabella.’

  Milo and Rosemary were already laughing their heads off and Adele, unable to hold it in a second longer, let out the biggest, loudest laugh she had ever produced in her life. It came up from the pit of her stomach and made her whole body shake.

  ‘It’s not funny!’ shrieked Isabella. She pointed to the unconscious maid on the floor. ‘She did this to me, the horrible cow! I want her flogged!’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Rosemary, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘It’s your own fault for banging that silly whip and scaring the horse.’

  If looks could kill, Rosemary would have dropped dead on the spot from the deadly stare Isabella was giving her. To make matters worse, Milo – whom Isabella regarded as a money-grubbing little orphan – was grinning from ear to ear, enjoying every second of her humiliation. Unable to laugh any more because her stomach ached too much, Adele started to feel a pang of guilt over her cousin’s humiliation.

  ‘Come on,’ she said gently, taking her cousin by the arm. ‘Let’s go back to the house and get you washed up.’

  Isabella nodded faintly and allowed her cousin to pull her away.

  ‘Wait,’ instructed Silas. ‘Rosemary, you are to hose this child down thoroughly before she returns to the house.’ He looked down at Hannah Spoon’s unconscious body. ‘And have someone come and remove that.’

  ‘Hose me down?’ cried Isabella. ‘Uncle, please– I don’t want to be hosed down!’

  But Silas did not stop to debate the matter. He turned his chair and headed back into the stables as Isabella was led outside. Silas could hear the fresh shrieks of his niece as the cold jets from the hose hit her putrid face.

  Later, when he was done inspecting his horses, he stopped by Flick’s office.

  ‘About that Arabian,’ he said. ‘I have changed my mind. Get rid of her today.’

  ‘Today?’ Flick could hardly believe his ears. ‘But, sir, I’ll need some time to find a place for her.’

  ‘Then shoot the animal,’ said Silas with a wave of his hand. ‘I don’t care how you do it – just remove that horse today.’ His eyes glared darkly at the stable manager. ‘I have no use for any creature that will not bend to my will – including you, Gideon Flick.’

  ‘All right, Mr Winterbottom,’ said Flick, unable to look the ghostly old man in the face. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Very good. Oh and Flick, say nothing of this to the children. They are too young to understand that sometimes in life you have to be cruel to be kind.’

  As Silas headed out into the warm afternoon sun, his eyes, which had been dull and lifeless, now glowed like hot coals.

  I SPY

  At dinner that night no mention was made of Isabella’s rather smelly encounter. Seated around a mahogany table which stretched from one end of the grand oval dining room to the other, the Winterbottoms dined on a simple meal of chicken and baked vegetables with priceless eighteenth-century silverware. Silas, seated at the head of the table, hardly touched his food. Instead, he would look out hauntingly at his guests like a scientist studying rats in a laboratory.

  A side door swung open and Bingle entered the room. He bent down beside Silas, whispering into his ear.

  ‘How very inconvenient,’ grumbled Silas, before dismissing the head butler and turning his attention back to his guests.

  ‘It seems that the phone lines have been badly damaged,’ he announced regretfully. ‘They will be out of service for several days.’

  ‘All of them?’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Silas, taking a sip of water. ‘Naturally I am furious.’

  ‘But I was going to call the maestro after dinner,’ said Milo with a scowl. He was dying to talk with his grandfather and was rather hurt that the great conductor had not phoned him yet to see how he was doing. ‘What caused the damage?’

  ‘Apparently there was a rather severe electrical storm last night,’ said Silas. ‘Lightning struck a large maple tree just outside the estate and it fell onto the wires, bringing the whole thing down.’

  ‘Really?’ said Rosemary. ‘I didn’t hear any storm last night.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ said Milo.

  ‘Well I am pleased no-one was disturbed,’ said Silas with a thin smile. ‘Do not worry, the phones will be repaired soon enough and then you will be free to make as many calls as you wish.’ Silas wiped the corner of his mouth with a white napkin. ‘Now tell me, how are you children enjoying each others’ company? Are you all getting along?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Isabella brightly. ‘We are like old friends!’

  Milo looked at her like she was crazy and Adele kept her eyes firmly on her plate. She was still preoccupied with thoughts of the cloaked stranger. Not to mention her quest to win over Uncle Silas – which had not exactly been a huge success so far. Still, she had Isabella on her side and tonight was to be the first big step in their campaign!

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Silas. ‘I was worried there might be some competition between you three.’

  ‘Worried?’ snorted Rosemary, shovelling a large piece of baked potato into her mouth. ‘Hoping is more like it!’

  ‘Well,’ said Silas, ‘a little competition is good for the soul.’

  ‘Oh, but Uncle, don’t you see? There is no competition,’ declared Isabella. ‘After all, I am already very rich and have no interest in your fortune, and Milo hates you with a vengeance.’

  ‘Does he indeed?’ said Silas dryly.

  ‘Oh yes, Uncle,’ confirmed Isabella. ‘He blames you for the dreadful volcanic eruption that killed his parents. Don’t you, Milo?’

  The room fell silent as all eyes swept to Milo. He said nothing at first, and then he began to nod slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘How very unfortunate,’ said Silas. ‘I had hoped we had gotten past all that.’

  ‘If you think about it, Uncle,’ said Isabella matter-of-factly, ‘there’s really only one person you should consider and that is Adele. After all, she has so many wonderful plans for Sommerset. Isn’t that right, Cousin?’

  ‘Well . . . I guess,’ said Adele timidly, her mouth suddenly very dry. ‘I mean, yes . . . yes I do. Lots of plans.’

  ‘How fascinating,’ said Silas. ‘Do share some of them with us.’

  Adele cleared her throat. Her hands were trembling. This was it. Her chance to win over Uncle Silas. She remembered Isabella’s instructions and tried to look as confident as she could – which was not very confident at all.

  ‘I think . . .’ she began softly. ‘I think the grounds at Sommerset are so beautiful that ev
eryone should be able to come and enjoy them. You know, like a park. A place where people could come and relax or explore the gardens or swim in the pools.’

  Silas stared at her coolly. ‘By everyone, am I to assume you mean the public?’ he sneered, his pale face screwing up as if he had just swallowed an insect.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Isabella, jumping right in. ‘And that’s not all – Adele would open the library to poor children and all sorts of other unfortunates.’ She beamed. ‘Isn’t it a wonderful idea?’

  ‘It is not,’ said Silas sharply. ‘Sommerset is a private estate not a playground!’

  ‘Well, I think it’s grand,’ said Rosemary, patting Adele on the hand.

  ‘Me too,’ said Milo, offering his cousin an encouraging nod.

  But it was no use. Adele could see the fury in her uncle’s pallid face. He hated her ideas! She looked to Isabella for help but her cousin seemed preoccupied with her meal and would not meet her desperate gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry, Uncle Silas,’ said Adele limply. ‘They were just . . . silly ideas. They don’t mean anything, honestly.’

  ‘I do not feel well,’ said Silas, closing his eyes. ‘I shall retire to my room.’

  He moved swiftly out of the dining room followed quickly by a gaggle of servants, leaving behind a heavy silence broken only by the sound of Rosemary chewing ferociously on a chicken thigh. And then, as if nothing had happened, Isabella began talking excitedly about the poached pears they were having for dessert.

  Fearing that she would burst into tears at any moment, Adele pushed her chair back, preparing to leave. Her napkin fell from her lap. Reaching down to pick it up she glanced briefly under the table. Something bright flashed in her eyes. She blinked several times. As Isabella chatted away above the table, underneath it she was folding a fork, knife and what looked like several dessert spoons into a napkin. Perhaps she was going to polish them, Adele told herself. Then Isabella carefully slid the bulky napkin into the pocket of her jacket. Adele could not believe her eyes!