by A. M. Howell
Stanley smiled as he looked down at the milk. “This must all seem a bit strange to you and your father.”
Helena nodded.
Stanley turned to look at her. “Automobiles and flying machines are made up of many different mechanical parts. Sometimes those parts get broken and need fixing. My mother often says people are the same as machines…they can sometimes need a bit of fixing too.”
“Are you talking about…Mr Westcott. And Boy?” said Helena.
Stanley nodded, lifted the pan off the range as the milk began to rise and poured it into two tin mugs.
“But you heard me telling Boy about the contract Mr Westcott made my father sign…and what has happened to the Fox family. Mr Westcott is not nice at all…he is bitter…and horrid and…he keeps going out at night and…” said Helena.
“Ah, but,” interrupted Stanley. “Sometimes it doesn’t pay to decide on a person’s character or circumstances until you know them better. There are reasons people behave the way they do, reasons that often become clear over time. Mr Westcott has treated the Fox family poorly, but there may be a reason for his behaviour.”
“Well, I certainly can’t think of a good reason why Mr Westcott prefers his clocks to his own daughter and has treated the Fox family so terribly,” said Helena, taking a mug from Stanley and blowing on the warm milk.
Stanley drank his milk, looking at Helena steadily. “I’m a little unsure of what it will be like when I start at the university. I imagine the other students might be different to me, have had advantages in life that I haven’t been privy to. But I see now that even those who’ve had advantages, like the Westcott family, can still have troubled lives. Mr Westcott has an odd kind of sadness behind his eyes. I see it in his daughter’s eyes too. But it’s not my business to pry into their affairs – I do the job I am paid for, and try and help while I am here.” Stanley gave Helena a small smile. “Isn’t that what anyone would do if they saw folks who needed a helping hand?”
Helena nodded, remembering all of the small kindnesses she and her father had received after her mother had died. The hot meals, the offers of washing and help with the cleaning. Stanley was right. Maybe she needed to be a little more understanding.
“I’ve enjoyed talking to you this evening, Helena. But I must go to bed – I’ve lots to do in the morning.” The skin under Stanley’s eyes was pinched with tiredness. He was working all hours of the day and night for a family who didn’t seem much like a family at all.
“I will wash up the mugs and milk pan when I’ve finished,” Helena said.
“Oh no…I can do it,” protested Stanley.
“I insist,” said Helena firmly. “Now go…please. It will not take me a minute.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” said Stanley gratefully.
“Absolutely sure,” Helena said with a smile.
Helena dried her hands on a cloth and turned to look at the tidy kitchen. She stifled a yawn. It had been a long and surprising day and she was ready for bed. As she turned to leave, a quiver of light illuminated the kitchen then vanished.
Helena frowned, turning to look at the dark panes of glass.
The sound of feet crunching on gravel.
Someone was outside in Mr Westcott’s garden – with a lantern.
Helena stood on tiptoes at the basement window. She was not tall enough to see out to the garden above. Was it Mr Westcott? If he had returned from wherever he had been, why was he now in the garden at night? Stanley had seemed unconcerned by Mr Westcott’s night-time wanderings. Maybe, if she followed him, she would discover the reason for his strange behaviour.
Unlocking and opening the back door, Helena crept up the stone steps to Mr Westcott’s garden and peered across the moonlit grass. It was the first time she had been in the garden, having only previously seen it from the upstairs windows. The moon bathed the foliage in a soft white light and the trees rustled and waved as if saying hello. A lone rabbit hopped about in the shadows. She was glad of its company as her eyes followed the pinprick of light which was moving close to the garden wall. Keeping to the shadows, Helena dashed up the remaining steps and ran through the too-long grass, which tickled her bare ankles. The point of light suddenly became brighter and was then gone, as if swallowed up by a giant’s mouth. She skirted around a forlorn stone fountain with no water, past a wooden bench with strips of peeling paint hanging off it like skin. Her heart kicked hard in her chest as she ducked behind a row of trees. Hidden from the house was a single-storey brick building – an old stable. There were no horses now, though, just a small cobbled courtyard and three stable doors. The top half of one door was ajar, a light flickering inside. Helena sidled up to the half-closed door and crouched beneath it. Bumps and thumps were coming from inside the stable. A sudden thought occurred to her. Was this where Mr Westcott was storing the Foxes’s things? Maybe she should confront him and insist he return their possessions at once! The thought of his piercing sapphire eyes made Helena shiver and she hurriedly swallowed the thought.
Clunk. “Bother it,” whispered a voice.
Helena froze. A familiar jasmine scent drifted over the stable door and prickled her nose. Katherine Westcott. Helena’s hands felt clammy and hot all at once.
“Where are they?” Katherine muttered. The scent of jasmine was growing stronger. She was approaching the half-closed door.
Helena dragged in a silent breath and scurried around the side of the building, cowering near a large upside-down plant pot.
More clunking and dragging of objects across the floor. What was Katherine Westcott doing?
Then the sound of the door shutting. Katherine Westcott’s back retreated into the dark, the lantern swinging from her right arm.
Helena slunk after her, once more keeping to the shadows of the high brick wall which separated Mr Westcott’s garden from his neighbours. She paused, watched Katherine go past the house and down a passage which led to Trumpington Street. The side gate was open, the glow of the streetlamps on the road throwing a blade of light down the passageway. Helena heard the snort of a horse, saw a carriage waiting. She leaned back against the wall, the brick cool and crumbly against her palms. Katherine Westcott was creeping around her brother’s garden at night. And as far as Helena could see, people only slunk around in the dark when they were doing things they wanted to hide.
Helena woke to a tremendous sucking, bumping noise coming from the rooms below her bedroom.
“Hickory-dickory-squawk,” cried Orbit from under his night cover.
She jumped out of bed and pulled back the curtains. It was only a little after seven-thirty in the morning, yet a small crowd of onlookers had gathered on the pavement outside Mr Westcott’s house.
Stanley was standing on the steps, a broad grin on his face as he directed a red-uniformed man standing on a ladder holding a thick hose. Helena’s eyes followed the length of the hose – to a red horse-drawn van with the letters BVCC on the side. The British Vacuum Cleaner Company.
There was an urgent rap at her door and Helena’s father burst in, his face lit up. “Mr Westcott has appointed one of Booth’s cleaning vans to come and extract the dust from the clock rooms. Quick, Helena! We must be present to make sure they are not damaged. I have heard great things about this machine – can you believe it – a machine, which can remove the dust from rooms! Whoever would have imagined such a thing?”
Throwing on her dress and only half-lacing her boots, Helena ran downstairs.
Boy was standing at the entrance to the longcase-clock room, a look of enchantment on her face. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” she whispered to Helena, the difficult words they had exchanged the night before seemingly forgotten. “Stanley saw an advertisement in one of the London papers for this machine. When Father saw it, he said it must be brought to Cambridge immediately to clean the clock rooms.”
Another red-uniformed man was in the clock room directing the end of the hose through the open window, where it sucked and slurped at the floorboards
(as far as Helena could see they were pretty spotless already).
“Mind the clocks! Mind the clocks!” shouted Helena’s father, who was flapping about the room like a mother hen, strategically placing himself between the clocks and the hose.
Helena could feel a giggle bubbling in her throat.
A chuckle flew from Boy’s lips.
They glanced at one another and Helena grinned. “No. I’ve never seen anything so bizarre in my whole life.”
Boy’s smile dropped a little and she rubbed her nose. “What you said last night…I just find it hard to believe my father could do something so…horrid,” she said quietly.
Helena stood a little closer to Boy, until their arms were touching. “I’m sorry, Boy. But what I said is the truth.”
Boy pushed her hands into her trouser pockets. “Will you come with me? I want to show you something.”
Helena nodded and followed Boy into the pocket-watch room next door. Boy closed the door and went to stand by the window. She pulled out a piece of card from her pocket and held it out to Helena. It was a postcard. On the front was a drawing of a lady on a hill holding a ruby-red parasol. She gazed through palm trees down to an aquamarine sea. On the top of the card in swirly white writing it said: Hotel Imperial, Côte d’Azur. Helena turned it over to read the words on the back.
“I have not heard from Mother since this last postcard arrived three weeks and two days ago,” said Boy miserably. “I wait for the post to arrive every day and…there is no word.”
“But your father must be terribly worried. Has he not said anything?” asked Helena.
“I want to talk to him about it, but Aunt Katherine said I should not worry him. She says…he hasn’t been feeling well,” said Boy.
Helena handed the card back to Boy. It was creased at the edges and on the folds, like it had been pored over many times.
“Is your mother’s name Evangeline?” asked Helena, remembering Mr Westcott’s mutterings from one of the clock rooms a few nights before.
Boy frowned. “Why?”
“Two nights ago, when Orbit escaped…I overheard your father say that name,” said Helena. “He said your name too.”
“So, he does think about her,” said Boy, her eyes brightening a little.
“But of course, he must! When someone is not here any more, you don’t just stop remembering them,” Helena said firmly.
“But it feels like Mother’s vanished into thin air,” sighed Boy.
“Why did she go to France?” asked Helena. “She says in the card she is gaining strength.”
“She went to a health spa,” said Boy, turning to look out of the window.
“Was she…is she…ill?” Helena asked. Was Boy’s mother sick, just as her mother had been?
“Not exactly,” said Boy, folding the card and putting it into her pocket.
Helena sighed. Talking to Boy was like doing an awkward dance – one step forward and two back. “Perhaps we could go into town to the post office, send a telegram to the hotel?”
“Stanley helped me to do that already,” said Boy. “We received a reply saying she had left. There was no forwarding address.”
“Oh,” said Helena, wrinkling her nose. How peculiar. And how worrying.
“Here you are,” said Stanley, rushing into the room. In his hands was a wicker basket. “For the Fox family,” he said, nodding at the basket. “Would you be able to do me a favour and deliver these provisions to the Fox family? Please tell them I’m very sorry for their hardship and would like to help in any way I can. Mr Fox is a good man.” He pushed the basket into Helena’s hands. “Please give Mr Fox my regards and tell him I am…sorry.”
Helena clenched the basket handle tightly, hoping against hope that the family were not already consigned to the workhouse.
“You believe it was my father’s fault…that the Fox family lost their things?” asked Boy in a small voice.
“Yes, I do,” Stanley said gently. “But as I was telling Helena just last night, there’ll be a reason behind his actions. I don’t believe your father is a cruel man.”
Boy stood up a little straighter, pushed her hands into her trouser pockets. “Then I will go to Mr Fox’s with Helena.”
Stanley’s face contorted in alarm. “But…you haven’t been outside in weeks…are you sure…?”
“I should see for myself what my father has done to this family,” Boy said firmly.
Helena gave Boy a small smile, thankful that she had changed her mind. They would pay a quick visit to the Fox family, and she would be able to collect the clock parts she had forgotten the day before, which would please her father. But her jaw tightened at the thought of what they might find when they arrived at Mr Fox’s shop and what Boy’s reaction would be when she learned the true implications of her father’s terrible and unjustified behaviour. She felt a little scared but knew this was no time to be faint-hearted. She just hoped that visiting Mr Fox would lead them one step further to finding out the truth.
They must look an odd pair, Helena thought, as she and Boy walked towards the town centre. A girl dressed as a boy, carrying a parrot in a bag, and a girl carrying a basket loaded with provisions.
Orbit’s eyes were bright, his head swivelling at the sights and sounds: stuttering automobiles with men and ladies in fine dresses and gauzy hats, students in short sleeves on bicycles, whistling birds in the trees, their voices throwing threads of silver into the air.
“Pretty Mother, Humpty Dumpty, all fall down,” Orbit squawked, as a lady with a large cream hat decorated with blood-red berries walked past. The lady turned, gave Orbit, Helena and Boy a stare, and covered her open mouth with a gloved hand.
Helena stifled a giggle.
Boy smiled, her cheeks broad as they breathed in the apple-fresh air.
They continued along Trumpington Street, past a buttery coloured stone building, which gave Helena the impression of a small castle with its crenellated walls and arched windows. “Is this a university college too, like Peterhouse?” Helena asked Boy, peering at a carved stone crest above an open doorway.
A man in a top hat, standing at the entrance, overheard. “This is Pembroke College, Miss,” he said, puffing up his chest a little like Orbit did when he was trying to impress. “It has educated some of the finest people of our country, including our youngest-ever Prime Minister, Mr William Pitt the Younger, who was only twenty-four. What’s more, a little over one hundred years ago, he helped lead Britain in the wars against Napoleon and France.”
Helena nodded her thanks to the man. Perhaps these colleges were castles of sorts – strongholds to keep the students hidden from the outside world while they learned great and important things, allowing them to do great and important things later in life. She thought of Stanley’s ambitions to study in Cambridge and assist the Wright brothers with their inventions, his worries about being different to the other students. With his determination and concern for others, he deserved a good future.
“Why are you so interested in the Wright brothers?” Helena asked Boy, as they crossed Pembroke Street.
“Do you really want to know?” said Boy, giving Orbit’s crown a gentle stroke.
“Well, I don’t know much about science – and Father is always a little disappointed at the results I get in Miss Granger’s Mathematics exams – but I am interested, yes. Your drawings are really quite brilliant,” said Helena.
A flush stole onto Boy’s cheeks. “I’ve never been to school, but I had a governess before Mother left. She certainly wasn’t very interested in teaching me anything useful, but Stanley is…well…I’ve never met anyone like him before. His parents might not understand the future he’s chosen for himself, but he’s pursuing it anyway. I admire that.” Boy suddenly stopped, held out her arms like wings. “You need three things in order to fly. Lift, forward thrust and control. The Wright brothers have been trying to use these principles to make their flying machines take to the air. But so far they have not been to
o successful. Stanley and I have been studying the designs of the machines, looking at their individual parts. We think that if the Wright brothers moved the rudder further away from the wings, this would allow the pilot to have increased control, allow their machines to stay in the air for longer.”
“But…however did you work that out?” asked Helena, scrunching her nose.
“I think when someone like Stanley is teaching you interesting things, it is easier to come up with interesting ideas,” said Boy, her eyes glinting. “And it wasn’t all me…Stanley invented most of it. He’s been talking to people at the university – they are excited about it too. As is Aunt Katherine. I think I should like to go to university one day, perhaps to study mechanical sciences.”
“I wish I was good at something,” said Helena. While she was happy for Boy, she was also slightly envious. What must it be like to have found something you enjoyed and excelled in?
“Do you go to school?” asked Boy.
Helena nodded.
Boy frowned. “I can’t imagine being taught in a proper classroom with other children. I’d quite like to try it.”
Helena thought of her high-windowed classroom, the glare from the sun in summer, the frosts, which patterned the inside of the glass in winter, the coughs and colds that passed from child to child like a game of tag and the mistress’s desk at the front with the dreaded cane resting on top of it, encouraging obedience at all times. Then she thought of the maze of books on the top floor of Boy’s house, and Stanley’s determination to learn. “I wouldn’t try and imagine what school is like too much – you are lucky to have Stanley tutoring you… I wonder if the Wright brothers will reply to your letter?” mused Helena, walking on. “Just think, Boy. They might invite you to go to America…” She paused. Boy had lagged behind. Her flying machine arms had dropped to her sides and she was staring ahead, the shine gone from her eyes.
“Oh,” Helena said in dismay, looking at a cart which had shed its load of coal at the junction of Trumpington Street and Silver Street.