by Heide Goody
There’s no-one quite like Myra, with all her chains and whips
I like to go down on my knees and kiss her ruby lips
“Euw!” Ella turned the paper over quickly. “Two. Stop the wedding,” she said emphatically.
She quickly sorted her father’s detritus into four piles, namely work papers that made sense, work papers that didn’t make sense, erotic poetry and bottles of wine.
“Three. Find Mum,” she said. “And four. Find that bloody fairy and stick her wand where the sun don’t shine.”
A curious gurgling noise came from the corner of the room. It sounded like laughter being expressed through a china nozzle. Ella went across to look, but it was a very crowded corner. Her father had clearly been researching some of Mr Dainty’s possessions, as there were several tables pushed against the wall, crowded with household goods, tasteless ornaments and reference books. She scrutinised each one in turn, looking for signs of life. She paused over a rococo clock, all gilded leaves and swirls.
“Weren’t you in my bedroom last night?” she said.
Its face, somehow, seemed to be inexplicably looking at her. She mentally dared it to move but it did nothing. She put the clock down when she saw the teapot.
It was an ugly globular thing painted with brown swirls, as though it was wearing a badly knitted jumper. In a white oval on its side was a painting of Thornbeard House.
“You were definitely in my room,” she said.
She picked it up, wondering if it might have Wedgwood helpfully marked on its bottom, but it wriggled out of her grasp before she could tilt it.
“Awright treacle, don’t let’s get too familiar eh?” It scuttled across the floor on its stubby tripod legs and hopped onto the desk, sending Gavin’s paperwork in all directions. “Hows about a nice cuppa, hm?”
“Tea? No. Thank you,” said Ella.
“What? Fink you mean yes, dontcha? If it’s good enough fer the Great Earl of China, it’s good enough fer you, darlin’.”
“Great Earl of China?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure that was ‘is name. You know ‘im. Big tea drinker.”
Ella was torn. If Granny Rose had been there, she would surely have wasted no time in bringing a heavy poker into play and silencing this teapot in the most final way possible. Ella had chosen to walk into this situation though, and wondered if she might learn something.
“I’ll have a cup in a bit,” she said. “Now, I bet you know your way round this castle really well, don’t you?”
“Yer looking for the best tea drinkin’ locations?”
“Um.”
“Oh yes, I know all about them. There’s a drawin’ room as gets the sun in the mornin’, lovely it is. Nice roof terrace a few floors up if the rain stays off. Fer evenin’ sophistication, yer might want the velvet room, wiv its decanters to slip a little nightcap in —”
“Good, let’s go and see those places,” said Ella. “You can take me on a tour and I’ll decide where to have a cup of tea.”
“Right you are!” The teapot bustled over to the skirting board and pushed it, revealing a tiny door which led to a tiny staircase. “This way!”
“Whoa! I can’t get through there!” said Ella.
“Yer what? You one o’ them difficult types as likes to go the long way round?”
“Yes, that’s me,” said Ella.
The teapot wasn’t equipped with a face, but Ella could tell it was rolling its eyes at her.
“C’mon then, doors it is.”
They walked down the corridor. Ella was starting to realise that all of the corridors in the castle looked roughly the same. They were badly lit and uncarpeted, with ridiculous tiny tables dotted at frequent intervals, so that even more antiques and nick-nacks could be accommodated.
The teapot walked happily ahead of her, whistling through its spout. It paused at one of the tables which held a set of highly glazed ceramics, including another teapot. With a swift flick of its tripod, the teapot upended the table, and sent the contents crashing to the floor. Ella looked at the shards of broken pottery.
“What did you do that for? Do you hate other teapots or something?” she asked.
“Gotta weed out the weak opposition, aintcha?” it replied and sauntered on.
They came to a staircase. Ella peered over the bannister, looking up and down. There were at least three floors lower down and maybe six higher up.
“I’m just going to have a look for my car,” said Ella.
“Is it a brown one, with a sticker that says This Car Runs on Compost?”
“Yes!”
“I saw them towing that away. You’re not getting out of here that easily.”
They went up a flight of stairs to a floor where the ceilings were higher, and the rooms on a much larger scale. The teapot crossed to a doorway, and then without warning, sprang onto a nearby table and froze, with a brief hiss of warning to Ella.
Mr Dainty emerged from the doorway. “Aha, our young antiques expert is exploring the castle!” he said with a broad smile. “You have seen some of my valuable treasures already, yes?”
“I thought you were attending to business today. Elsewhere,” said Ella.
“Maybe I am,” said Mr Dainty. “Maybe I am doing that right now.”
Ella nodded and peered through the doorway into a grand corridor lined with tall windows.
“You are lost,” Mr Dainty stated. “My home is huge, yes.”
“Yes, just getting my bearings. I see you have suits of armour. Fascinating.”
Mr Dainty wheeled around and made an expansive gesture. “Oh yes, you must see. My armoury is fascinating. The suits of armour are for show, like a toy, yes? Come through here and see the more interesting items.”
He led Ella into a room that held racks of firearms and swords on every wall. In a siege situation, Ella imagined you could crush an army just by dropping a ton of antique weaponry from a convenient vantage point.
“Here is a very primitive ancestor of a Gatling gun from my home country. I would very much like to fire it one day, but there is a high probability that it would explode in my face.”
Ella regarded the unlikely looking weapon that was mounted upon a small table. It looked as though it was designed as a film prop, with a fat cluster of brass barrels and ornate patterns etched into the sides.
“So where is your home country?” she asked.
“Ach, it is a country that no longer exists, apart from in here.” He thumped his chest. “And in here.” He grabbed his crotch with solemn sincerity. “Here I will always carry the precious memory of those small things that define a nation. Our national dance for instance…” He hummed a brief atonal refrain. “Dance, dance, for tomorrow our sons will die and you will walk no more. It is very pretty song but a manly dance. It is very precious to me, you know?”
Ella nodded and moved amongst the exhibits. She moved quickly past some massive crossbows and some iron monstrosities bearing shackles that were clearly instruments of torture.
“Used for the birthing of babies in my former country,” said Mr Dainty, running his hands over the framework.
Ella tried to picture how that might work but her mind shrank away from the image.
“Ah, now this is something that you should see.” He stepped towards a corner, where a large pair of millstones were mounted horizontally, like a giant Victoria sponge cake. “Used for the disposal of enemies in times gone by. You will see the metal chute here, where you can load up the body, yes? You can put a person in head first or feet first, depending on how whimsical you are feeling.” He laughed loudly at this. “Whimsical. I love this word. You know it?” He threw a huge lever, which made a large leather band quiver into life above their heads. It turned the upper wheel with a loud noise. “Powered by water from the stream outside. Efficient or what? The drain in the floor washes the remains into the same stream for simple disposal. You can raise and lower the grindstone to accommodate a crowd if you like.” He slapped his thigh an
d roared with laughter. To Ella’s relief he reversed the lever and the grindstone halted.
Ella was very nervous about approaching the awful machinery, but she stepped towards the drain in the floor. “The stains there look so fresh. Has it been...used?”
He paused for only a second.
“But of course! A building this size has a rodent problem.”
“Big rats,” she said quietly.
“Yes. And it is helpful to keep the machinery in good order.”
“Nice. Well, you must be busy.”
“Always.”
“I’ll just carry on taking a look round, shall I?”
“Very well,” said Mr Dainty. “You may go anywhere you wish. There is one thing I must tell you first. Come with me.”
He led her through the castle-like house.
“I’d like to know something,” said Ella.
“For you, I will answer one question,” he said.
“What have you done with my car?”
“Ah, it has been taken for a service at my expense. You will find I am a very generous host. I saw that one of the tyres was slightly worn and I take your safety very seriously.”
They went up stairs, along corridors, down further stairs (which seemed quite unnecessary from a logical perspective), along numerous passages and came eventually to a room with a single window. Ella looked out and saw a dizzying drop down into the sea. Rough Atlantic waves pounded against the rocks on the shore.
“How high up are we?” she said.
Mr Dainty shrugged. “Here is the one place you are not permitted to go.”
“Where?” Ella looked around the empty room.
“A secret doorway, built into the panelling,” said Mr Dainty, indicating the wall. Ella couldn’t see the doorway but she was prepared to believe that one was there.
“Why am I not permitted?” she asked.
“It is the south tower. Only I am allowed,” he said.
“Okay,” she said and then thought about. “So wait. You have pointed out a door that I wouldn’t have found in a month of Sundays just to tell me that I mustn’t go through it, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Are you really sure you don’t want me to go through it?”
“I am.”
“You could have just not mentioned it, or locked it or something.”
“It is indeed locked. However, because this is a matter of trust, I will tell you where the key is.”
“Oh, I know this one,” said Ella. “It’s on a chain hung around your neck?”
“No.”
“It’s in your bedchamber, on a special hook?”
“No.”
“It’s at the bottom of a tank where you keep your pet piranhas?”
“No, Ella. It is on the keyring which is carried by my most faithful servant, Ernst. A safe place, as Ernst owes me his life.”
“Ernst?” she said. “He’s the one with the…?” She drew a line down her cheek.
“There is an interesting story that I might tell you one day,” said Mr Dainty. “It involves a failed assassination attempt on the president of our homeland, a forty-day siege and a military coup. All hushed up, as with so many things from that unfortunate time. Very few details were leaked from our country, to protect the royal family, you see.”
“You had a president and a royal family?”
“Hmm,” said Mr Dainty with a dismissive wave of his hand. “An outsider would never understand the complex politics, the divide between North and South, the fluctuating nature of our economy. Some it has killed. Others it has made very, very wealthy.”
Ella nodded, acknowledging that comprehension was indeed well beyond her powers.
“But I can see that you have much work to be doing.”
“I do,” she agreed.
He ushered Ella back to the study by a decidedly different route to the one by which that had come. As they went, he spoke more (and clarified less) regarding the wars and cultural divisions that had made, shaped and destroyed his country.
Nowhere along the route back or in the study did Ella spot a rare teapot with a penchant for mindless vandalism.
Lunch arrived at one on a silver platter, by which time Ella was engrossed in the paper trail her dad had created. Besides the cataloguing and evaluations, there were some attempts to map the layout of Thornbeard house, but rather than providing a cross reference for the location of the antiques it was more like a set of crazed TripAdvisor reviews.
Northern ballroom. Chandeliers are unpredictable.
Don’t leave breakables on the second floor, things get thrown downstairs.
Ebony room – teapot spotted!
If there were errant teapots and other ambulatory furnishings then it was no surprise that Gavin Hannaford had failed to keep track of the household valuables and thereby aroused Mr Dainty’s anger. However, she realised, Gavin’s haphazard mapping did provide a rudimentary plan of the house. She cleared a table and began laying the notes and sketches out. If there was a way to escape easily and unnoticed then she would eagerly take advantage of it.
The lunch tray was removed and, some hours later, an evening meal was also brought to the study and, when Cheeky (also known as Ernst) had stealthily cleared that away, the sun was setting on her second night in Thornbeard House and Ella had a passable plan of the building about her. It was an insane, asymmetrical hodgepodge of a house. It was a maze. But, of course it was.
A labyrinthine castle. An imposing and dangerous foreign gentleman. Forbidden rooms. Talking ornaments. This was one fairy tale she had walked straight into without any help from her fairy godmother.
Tired and sore-eyed, Ella managed to find her way back to her own rooms. She stuck the velvet chair under the door handle again, not because she thought it made a difference but because she thought it a statement worth making. She undressed, climbed under the covers and turned on her mum’s Dictaphone. She had listened to the tape in its entirety already but there was something comforting in the sound of her mum’s voice.
“Rule eight, do not enter buildings or gardens that do not belong to you or you are forbidden to enter —”
“Like the forbidden south tower, you mean,” Ella said, snuggling down.
“— breaking and entering is a crime. Rule nine, do not take anything that does not belong to you; theft is a crime also. Rule ten, many things do not want to be stolen and will try to stop you.”
“That’s right.” The teapot jumped onto the bed beside her. “Anyone tries to ‘alf-inch me and I’ll give ‘em such a scalding.”
Ella huffed and sat up.
“I thought I’d left you downstairs,” she said.
“An’ leave you in your hour of need?” said the teapot.
“Hour of need?”
“You awake and unable to sleep. You know what you need?”
“Tea?”
The teapot gave a jolly jiggle.
“Be nice to ‘ave a night cap, dontcha reckon? Cup of tea before you settle down? Hmmm?”
Ella rolled over with a groan and pulled the pillow over her head.
Chapter Ten
Poorly behaved furniture even invaded her dreams. In her sleep, she heard scuffling from the skirting board. And in her drifting mind, she heard snippets of conversation.
…order some furniture please, charge it to my credit card
…any kind of table. Anything you’ve got with four legs and a bit of love in its heart.
Ella woke to a Westminster chime which sounded unnervingly close. She opened her eyes and saw the rococo mantel clock on her pillow, looking pleased with itself. She wriggled to a sitting position and saw that the teapot was on the other side.
“’e don’t say a lot, but ’e’s got a beautiful singing voice, ain’t ‘e? Now, ‘ow d’ya like yer cuppa?”
Ella looked to the breakfast that had been set out on the window table. The silver teapot had been knocked onto the floor and pounded flat.
She gave
the Wedgwood teapot a reproachful look. “What’s with the violence towards other teapots?”
“It’s economics, ain’t it?” declared the teapot.
“What do you mean?”
“Supply and demand, treacle. I’m valuable ‘cos I’m rare. The fewer teapots there are, the more I’m worth, yeah?”
“I’m not sure it’s that simple.”
“Course it is. If I was the only teapot in the ‘ole wide world then I’d be priceless and everyone would come to me for their cups of tea. Speaking of which…” The teapot jiggled its spout.
Would a Regency teapot be able to magically make fresh tea, or had it been stewing for a hundred years or more? It had to be worth a go, it wasn’t every day that she got the offer of tea in bed.
“Milk, no sugar please,” she said.
She wasn’t sure how the cup and saucer came to be in her lap, but she sat still as the teapot wasted no time in pouring steaming liquid into it.
“And do you want to be the only teapot in the whole wide world?” she asked.
“You’ve gotta ‘ave dreams, aintcha?”
She took a sip. “This is good.”
“Only good?” said the teapot, crestfallen.
“I meant very good. Excellent in fact.”
“That’s awright then. So what are our plans for today then?” it enquired.
“Our plans? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some antiques to catalogue.”
“Yeah right. Cos everyone that comes here tells the truth. You’ll be looking fer treasure or the answer to a mystery, surely?”
“Maybe. But right now I have work to do.”
“’ow’s about I take you dahn the dungeon, eh?”
“What’s down there?” asked Ella.
“Nuffin’ really, but everyone always wants to see the dungeon.”
“I have no desire to see Mr Dainty’s dungeon,” she said. “He still probably uses it.”
Ella looked across at her bags and saw that her purse sat, unclasped, on the top.
“Has someone been in my purse?” she said.
The teapot said nothing.
Later that morning, among the more comprehensible files her dad had left behind in the study, Ella discovered a detailed index of books in Mr Dainty’s collection. There were hundreds of items, many of which she knew to be extraordinarily valuable: An Olde Thrift newly revived by R.C., English Homes by Tipping, Birds of Britain by J.J. Audubon. She scanned down the list, looking for anything that caught her interest. She wondered if there might be material about Thornbeard House, but couldn’t find anything. As she slid her finger down the entries, she hesitated. Something tugged at her memory. She looked up the list to see what had made her pause. There. Solomon Re-examined by Makepeace Alexander.