2006 - Wildcat Moon (7 page)

She smiled to herself then. She was very much looking forward to meeting young Romilly Greswode. She was quite intrigued to know why the Greswodes had thought of choosing Nanskelly for their daughter considering the bad blood between Nanskelly and Killivray House in the past Still, the past was the past and maybe it was time to bury old enmities.

She wondered if Romilly’s mother was the actress Margot Lee Greswode. She and Hermione had seen her once in a play in a London theatre; a most talented and charismatic young woman and quite exquisitely beautiful too. And yet she’d played the part of a very old woman and very convincing she’d been too. Hermione had thought that she would achieve great heights on the stage, and then suddenly she had disappeared from public life.

Miss Fanthorpe stood up and stretched, then made her way down the stairs and out of the front door. It was her habit each morning to take a stroll while the girls of Nanskelly still slept.

She made her way across the lawns, past the hockey pitch and the peeling sports pavilion and on down the steep steps carved from the rock that led down to the beach.

She walked slowly along the sand, stooped to pick up a shell, turned it over in her hands and marvelled at its beauty. Further round the coast she could see the small houses in that peculiar little place that was built on the rocks; it really was quite amazing it hadn’t been blown away years ago.

She could see wisps of smoke rising from the chimneys and washing already pegged out on washing lines down on the beach.

Then she noticed half a dozen cigarette butts wedged into a crack between the rocks along with an empty bottle of whisky.

That really was most odd This was a private beach and the main access to it was from the path down which she had come. It was possible to get down to the beach if one walked from the opposite direction but it was one hell of a climb down and whoever had managed it must be very fit indeed. And who would make such a journey to drink and smoke themselves silly?

She walked back along the beach then climbed slowly up the steps, pausing halfway up on the viewing platform to catch her breath.

When she arrived back at the school the rising bell had gone and the girls were up, the building filled with the sounds of frantic scurrying between washrooms and dormitories.

Hermione Thomas greeted her from the doorway of the library.

“Eloise, dear, I’ve been to call Miss Moses and it seems she’s unwell this morning and won’t be able to take the girls on their morning run.” She edged closer to Eloise and whispered, “Personally, I think she takes a little too much strong liquor before retiring and hence finds the mornings difficult.”

Eloise Fanthorpe smiled. Hermione Thomas, despite her diminutive form, could knock back several very stiff gin and vermouths most evenings!

“I’m sure she’s just got a chill or an upset stomach and she’ll be back on her feet in no time at all. Why don’t we take the girls down onto the beach for a walk, ifs a wonderful morning.”

Fifteen minutes later the fifty girls of Nanskelly School, resplendent in their scarlet uniforms, set off down towards the beach. Miss Thomas was leading the crocodile line and Miss Fanthorpe bringing up the rear. Halfway down Miss Thomas stopped on the viewing platform and gathered the girls around her. She was about to wax lyrical on the beauty of the morning when one of the smaller girls standing dose to her gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with surprise.

“What is it, Eveline?”

This first gasp was followed swiftly by a ripple of stifled giggling from the gathered girls.

“Silence, girls, please. This behaviour is most unbecoming.”

The girls of Nanskelly bit their lips and covered their mouths with their hands but their shoulders shook with the effort of not laughing.

Miss Thomas turned and looked down towards the beach.

She drew back aghast threw her hands into the air and shrieked, “Dear God in heaven, what is the world coming to?”

A man stood quite still at the edge of the sea, with his back to them. A young man as brazen as you like, standing there as naked as the day he was born. His pale flesh was goose-pimpled and his buttocks were clenched tightly against the cool wind.

Suddenly the man turned around and looked up in astonishment.

Miss Thomas screeched. “Everyone back up the steps now! This instant! Miss Fanthorpe! We must ring for the police!”

Miss Fanthorpe was still staring at the agitated young man and wishing that they might borrow him for a life-drawing class. A very fine specimen of the male form he was too.

The girls of Nanskelly clattered noisily up the steps, past Miss Fanthorpe turning to get a last glimpse of the bewildered man who was scrabbling to pull on his trousers and make his escape. Miss Fanthorpe watched him steadfastly. If she judged that look on his face correctly it had not been merely an early morning skinny dip he was intent upon. Oh, no, here was a young man very at odds with the world, a very interesting young man indeed. She turned and, deep in thought, followed the hysterical girls back towards the school.

In the nursery in Killivray House Romilly Greswode ate her breakfast reluctantly. The egg was over boiled and the toast soldiers already limp and cold.

She had woken several times in the night and had a headache that was making her eyes ache.

Nanny Bea shuffled about the room, banked the fire, tidied away dirty laundry and then poured herself a cup of tea and sat down opposite Romilly at the small table near the window.

She thought that the child looked even paler than usual this morning and the dark circles beneath her eyes made her look quite ill.

She hadn’t slept well herself what with the terrible storm and then worrying about Master Jonathan driving off like that after the argument he’d had with the mistress. Presently she’d ring the house in London and check that he’d arrived safely. It was quite absurd really, the way she worried about him and still called him Master Jonathan. Lord, he was a grown man yet she still thought of him as the sensitive little fellow he’d been as a child.

That first day when he’d been sent off to school had been one of the worst days of her life. He’d been little more than a baby really, just seven years of age and he’d clung to her skirts and sobbed enough to break his poor heart.

In the end Old Master Greswode had threatened him with a whipping and dragged him into the car.

He was a cruel old thing, the old master, and that stuck-up wife of his was of no comfort to the boy at all.

“Eat up, Romilly. When I’ve finished my jobs well go downstairs and you can say your goodbyes to your mama.”

Romilly put down her spoon and looked up at Nanny Bea. “How long will Mama be away this time?”

“About six weeks your papa said.”

“But that’s ages and I don’t want her to go.”

“She has to go and, you’ll see, when she gets back she will be well again.”

“But I don’t think she is ill now, so why does she have to go?”

“All these questions, Romilly, are really very tiresome. Your mama needs a change of air and the Anglican nuns at St Mary’s will see to it that she gets the treatment she so badly needs.”

“Why is she going to St Mary’s?”

“It’s a new place your papa has found, rather more, er, secure than the others, where they will guarantee her a good rest.”

“But why can’t she rest here? There’s nothing to do here at all, she could lie down all day if she wanted to.”

“Your papa thinks a change of scenery will do her a power of good.”

“Can we go to the railway station and wave her goodbye.?”

“No, dear, it’s far too cold. And besides, we must prepare for this afternoon. It will be exciting to meet your new governess, won’t it?” Nanny Bea said, changing the subject.

Romilly stared sullenly up at her. “Will it really?” she said.

There was a note of sarcasm in her voice that took the old woman by surprise.

There had been a change in Romilly of late, a growing insolence about her and a tendency to sulks and flounces.

She’d started to be quite secretive about things and had been behaving in a peculiar fashion. Several times she had overheard her talking to herself. It had given her quite a turn the first time; she’d been walking past the library and for a moment she’d have sworn that Romilly really was talking to someone in there. She fervently hoped that she wasn’t going to turn out anything like that damned mother of hers, all theatrical and highly strung. God alone knew that one like that in a family was enough!

“When Madame Fernaud has arrived we shall have tea in the drawing room with scones and your favourite raspberry jam.”

Romilly sighed and did not answer.

She looked out through the window and watched the smoke from the chimney on the Boathouse, where the mad woman lived, rise into a clear blue sky.

Then she said quite sweetly, “May I leave the table, Nanny Bea, and go and play?”

“Eat up that last soldier and then you may.”

Romilly did as she was bid, then left the nursery, hurried along the corridor and climbed the narrow, uncarpeted stairs that led up to the attics.

She paused outside the attic door and listened. Mama was still in the bathroom and Nanny Bea was humming to herself as she cleared away the nursery table. She took off her shoes and slipped inside the attic.

There was no electric light but the skylight windows let in enough daylight for her to find her way around the piles of old junk.

She tiptoed carefully across the bare boards, squeezed between an ancient gramophone, a bird cage and a broken card table and then settled herself down on the floor next to a wooden trunk. Carefully, tongue poking out in an effort of concentration, she eased the heavy lid open and looked inside.

There was a name written on the inside of the lid.

Thomas Gasparini Greswode’. This was her secret treasure trove. She loved the smell of the trunk when it was first opened, the heady whiff of camphor and mystery.

She pulled out the scrap book first and laid it in her lap. It was old and fragile now and the dust got up her nostrils and she had to squeeze her nose to stop herself sneezing because if Nanny Bea caught her up here she’d have a telling off and the door would be locked again.

She opened the scrap book and looked in fascination at the first page.

There was a photograph of a man hanging upside down on a trapeze and a woman flying through the air towards him.

The photograph always made her gasp because there was no knowing whether the man had ever caught her.

How awful if he hadn’t! She imagined the woman’s face as she realized that it had gone wrong. The sweet smile turning to a terrified gasp. Then falling and falling and knowing she would die like a broken doll.

She turned the page with a shudder.

On the following page there was a photograph of a man and a woman getting married. They were standing outside a tiny church and looking at each other with soppy eyes.

Ugh. Romilly was never ever going to get married.

When you got married your husband bossed you around all the time and wouldn’t let you do what you wanted. Nanny Bea would probably know who the people were in the photograph if she asked but she couldn’t ask because then she’d know that Romilly had been snooping, and snooping was forbidden.

On another page a circus programme had been carefully glued in. ‘Fun for everyone!’ There was a picture of a smiling elephant and a monkey dressed in human clothes.

Some of the other pages were covered in boring things.

Newspaper cuttings and postcards from faraway places with peculiar names.

Carcassone. Viana de Castello. Paris. Napoli. San Donate. Sienna.

On the last page of the scrap book was another photograph. It was of a boy standing outside the summerhouse in the garden at Killivray. There were pretty curtains at the windows and the door was open; she could just make out someone inside in the shadows. The boy was dressed in a sailor suit and was holding some sort of bat; his hair was sticking out as though he had just been swimming. He was smiling at somebody or something not shown in the photograph. He had the kind of smile that made Romilly want to smile too. He looked so happy, like he was having the very best day of his life.

Sometimes, when she was allowed outside, she walked down to the gloomy summerhouse in the hope that she might find him there but she never had.

She closed the scrap book and replaced it in the trunk. Next she took out a bundle of dreary-looking letters that she couldn’t be bothered to read.

There was a mouldy old atlas, a half-filled stamp album and the diary she’d found beneath a broken floorboard in the summerhouse; a diary with a lock on the front but no key.

Lastly she lifted out a small metal box and opened it carefully. Inside were the most wonderful treasures of all.

A small silver capsule that pulled apart revealing a tiny replica of a holy saint. She turned it over in her hands and marvelled at the detail on such a tiny thing. She put the saint back into the capsule and put it back into the box.

Saints were not allowed in Killivray House. Or holy pictures. They were Papist paraphernalia and once Papa found Mama’s secret rosary and broke it in half and the beads fell onto the wooden floor of the dining room and made a sound like hailstones on the nursery windowpanes.

Finally, she took out her most favourite possession of all.

She had found it in the nursery, wedged down behind the skirting board. She’d been afraid that Nanny Bea would take it off her so she kept it here in the secret trunk. It was a silver bird through which a tangled silver chain was threaded.

“Romilly! Romilly!”

Heck! Nanny Bea was calling loudly from the nursery.

Romilly piled the treasure hastily back into the trunk, dosed the lid and tiptoed back across the attic. She put on her shoes and went quietly down the stairs.

“I’m coming, Nanny Bea,” she called when she was safely back down on the landing. “I was just in the long room looking at a picture book,” she lied cheerfully.

Down in the hallway Mama stood beneath the huge stag’s head, dabbing her nose with a handkerchief.