Brightwood (7 page)

DAY FOUR

FIFTEEN

Little Charles called out to Daisy on her way downstairs the next morning. His voice was anguished.

“You have to find my dog! My Minette!”

Daisy stood on her tiptoes and peered through the gap in the books.

“She needs to poop!” Little Charles said. “It's urgent!”

Daisy frowned. If she widened the gap between the two piles of books, the piles themselves might collapse. But she'd promised Little Charles that she would find him more room. She held her breath as she carefully pushed a few more books aside. The piles wobbled slightly yet held.

Minette's body appeared. She was gray, with a long, thin snout and shaggy body. Little Charles gave a whoop.

“I didn't think you needed to poop if you were painted,” Daisy said.

“You don't,” Little Charles said. “It was a trick.”

“You'd better be careful,” Daisy said, “or I'll cover you up again.”

“You'd do that?”

Daisy sighed. “No,” she admitted. “I'd never do that to you, Little Charles.”

It had been a couple of days since Daisy had fed the animals. She fetched the birdseed, went out the front door, and veered right, heading towards the Winter Grove on the far western side of the estate.

It was more of an avenue than a grove, a broad, sandy path with Himalayan birch trees on either side. Their trunks were pure white, and in winter they made a dazzling display against the cold sky. Now they were hung with a canopy of silvery leaves that sent lace shadows dancing across the path.

Daisy walked slowly, scattering seed to her left and right. There were a lot of thrushes in this area, and it was a favorite haunt of squirrels. Today, however, it was quiet. Then, so abruptly it made her start, a crow shrieked from the far trees. Daisy looked up.

The man was standing at the end of the path with a black trash bag in his hand. He hadn't seen her. He was looking in the other direction.

Daisy froze in sudden recognition. The way he held himself, with his face half turned away, she had seen it before. He was posed in exactly the same way in the photograph on her mum's bedside table. He was far younger then, no more than a boy, but now that she had spotted the resemblance, Daisy wondered how she could have missed it up till then.

That's James. He was some sort of cousin.

He had told her he used to visit Brightwood Hall a long time ago. Daisy felt a surge of reassurance. He had been a guest here, a member of the family.

Just then the man looked up and saw her, and Daisy risked a tiny smile.

“Didn't you enjoy the strawberries?” he said, walking towards her.

Daisy felt her face grow hot. She didn't want to tell him that she had been forced to throw his gift away.

“Well, never mind,” he said. “There are plenty more where those came from.” He rolled up the black trash bag and put it in his pocket.

“I know who you are,” Daisy said. “There's a picture of you. Your first name is James.”

“So you guessed it,” the man said. “I wondered if you would.”

“You must have the same last name as me,” Daisy said, feeling more reassured by the second, “because you're a relative.”

“People in the same family don't always have the same name, don't you know that?” He paused. “No, of course you don't. Why would you? My name is different from yours.”

“What is it?”

He hesitated and then shrugged slightly. “It's Gritting,” he said. “James Gritting.”

Daisy thought Fitzjohn was a much nicer-­sounding name than Gritting, but it would have been unkind of her to say that.

“Did you know my grandparents?” she asked.

“Oh, certainly,” Gritting said. “Wonderful people.”

He paused. “Of course Brightwood Hall was different then. Very grand. I used to think it would make a great hotel. I might have suggested the idea to your mother once or twice. Did she ever mention it?”

Daisy shook her head.

“Since then, I've changed my mind,” Gritting continued. “I now think it could be so much more. The hotel would just be part of it. There's space for a golf course and a spa.” He gestured over the meadow. “Cut down those big trees to make room for a parking lot . . . big indoor swimming pool . . . ”

“My mum wouldn't want that,” Daisy said. “This is our home!”

“Yes,” Gritting said, “yes, of course.”

“We like it just the way it is,” Daisy said, half surprised by her fierce tone of voice.

Gritting looked at her with his head to one side, his eyes thoughtful. “I tell you what,” he said. “I used to come here every summer. But I bet there are areas that even I've never seen. How about you show me around? Give me a tour of the place.”

Daisy hesitated. “All right,” she said at last. She looked down at her bare feet. She was still wearing her pajamas. “I'll have to have breakfast and get changed first.”

“Take your time,” Gritting said. “I'll be right here, waiting.”

Daisy went back inside and fetched herself a bowl of cereal. Tar was nowhere to be seen. He was probably still recovering from his illness of the night before. She ate standing up at the sink, watching Gritting through the window. He had fetched the shears and was passing time by snipping and slicing at the weeds again.

I must tell him to stop doing that,
Daisy thought.
It will be easier now that I know who he is.
She rinsed her cereal bowl and went upstairs to her room to get dressed.

SIXTEEN

Frank was sitting on the end of Daisy's bed. She had rolled up one sleeve of her dirty white shirt and was digging into the flesh of her arm with the tip of her knife.

“What are you doing?” Daisy said, horrified.

“Amazonian zombie tick,” Frank told her with relish. “Got to get it out.”

“
Zombie
tick?”

“They keep going until they get to your brain,” Frank said. “Nasty way to die.”

“There's no such thing as a zombie tick,” Daisy said. She pulled open a drawer and started rummaging for a pair of shorts.

“You don't know much,” Frank said. She dug deeper with the knife, wincing. “Even less than Sir Clarence, and that's saying something.”

Daisy slammed the drawer shut with irritation. “You keep saying Sir Clarence was no good, but he must have been! He was knighted! He shot a tiger and stood on top of it!”

Frank shook her head. “Sir Clarence couldn't shoot a tiger if it was sitting on his lap.”

“So who shot it, then?”

“Nobody,” Frank said. “It's not really a tiger. I made it from a sack and a bit of orange paint. You don't think I'd let him kill a tiger for
real,
do you?”

She twisted the knife in her arm. “Got it!”

She pulled out the knife, wiped it clean on her trousers, and stuck it back into her belt.

“I can't spend time talking to you,” Daisy said, stepping into her shorts. “I've got to show Gritting around. That's his name, James Gritting.”

“What you have to do is start thinking,” Frank said. “You go into the jungle with that rival explorer, you're not coming back out.”

“He's not a rival explorer! He's a relative.”

“Any reason why he can't be both? He broke in, didn't he? You've got no idea what he might be planning. Could be anything, in my opinion.”

Daisy didn't reply. Frank thought the Wilderness was the Amazon jungle and Brightwood Hall was the Lost City of Valcadia. Her opinions were hardly reliable.

“Don't listen to me, then,” Frank said. “Show the fellow around the place. But don't expect me to fish your bones out of the river after the piranhas are done with you.”

“Everything you say is completely made up!” Daisy burst out.

Frank shrugged. “Suit yourself. Do what you want.”

Daisy hesitated. “Maybe I ought to follow True's advice,” she said. “He told me to go outside and look for help.”

“And leave the Lost City undefended?”

“So what
should
I do?”

Frank began counting on her fingers. “Number one: secure the place. You don't want him getting inside. Number two: find a good spot for a base camp. Number three: gather provisions. Number four: you've got to find out everything you can about this Gritting fellow.”

“How am I meant to do that?”

“Go find some relics,” Frank said. She cast her eyes around her with a disapproving look. “Lord knows this place is full of them.”

“Relics?”

“You know, pots, mummies, hieroglyphics, old tablets, anything with mysterious writing on it. Stuff that holds clues to the past. Sir Clarence is very fond of relics.”

“You mean like the monkey vase on my grandfather's old desk?”

Frank snorted. “That thing? That's no relic! Sir Clarence found it in a cave in Africa. Thought it must be priceless. He hadn't noticed they were selling hundreds of the things in the market down the road. Two pence each!” She smiled scornfully. “And that was
before
haggling.”

Daisy reached under her bed, where she had placed the envelope with the smashed watch. “Do you think this could be a relic?” she asked.

“It looks like one,” Frank said, glancing at it. “Has it got mysterious writing on it?”

Daisy turned the watch over and looked at the inscription. “No,” she said. “I can read it just fine.”

“Well, it's probably still a relic,” Frank said. “It's old, isn't it?”

Daisy didn't reply. She had just remembered something her mum had told her. James Gritting used to visit Brightwood Hall every summer. Then he had stopped coming and there had been a reason for that.

He stole a watch. Or they thought he had.

Daisy stared at the watch in her hand, frowning. “How did it end up in one of Mum's Day Boxes from just a few months ago?” she asked.

But Frank had gone. Daisy was just talking to an empty space on the bed.

SEVENTEEN

Frank's talk about piranhas was all nonsense, of course, although some of her advice made sense. She had told Daisy to secure the place, which was another way of telling her to lock up the house. Daisy thought she might as well do this at once, just to be on the safe side.

She went downstairs and made sure the key was turned in the kitchen door. There was a bolt at the top of the door, and she stood on tiptoe and drew it back. She looked around the kitchen, thinking. There was a storage unit, with a chopping block built into the top, that looked heavy. Daisy leaned her whole body against it and shoved it inch by inch until it was wedged against the door.

She made her way through the Marble Hall to have another look at the front door. The wood was so thick, she thought it would take a battering ram to get it open.

Of course, a house the size of Brightwood Hall had more than two entrances. But Daisy didn't think she needed to worry too much about the others. One was in the ballroom and had been covered up behind furniture for as long as she could remember. Another led out from the library onto a patio with a view of the lake. You could turn the handle on the inside, but you couldn't push it open because it was blocked on the outside by a pile of bricks and old masonry that had been left over from a long-­ago building project. There was a third door located in the back of the house, in the old utilities room. But it was made of some kind of metal—steel perhaps. The metal had rusted and jammed the lock. Daisy had tried opening it once and it hadn't given an inch.

There wasn't any way that Gritting could get into the house without a huge effort. Daisy went back upstairs.

“You forgot something!” Little Charles piped up as she walked past.

He stared at her from his nook, his eyes bright with triumph.

“What?”

“You locked everything up so he can't get in,” Little Charles said. “How are
you
going to get out?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you're an annoying little boy?” Daisy said.

“They wouldn't dare. They'd be flogged.”

“The olden days sound horrible,” Daisy said.

“Oh no,” Little Charles corrected her, “they were
great
.”

Daisy went back to her bedroom. Little Charles was right; she needed a secret way to get in and out of the house. After a few moments of thought, she went downstairs again to the utilities room and hunted among the old tools and laundry baskets until she found a long length of rope.

Frank might have an impressive survival bag, but Brightwood Hall was even better. It contained everything a person might ever need.

She returned to her bedroom and opened the window that faced the western side. Brightwood Hall was constructed a little like a cake, or rather several cakes, with each floor forming a new layer and a series of flat roofs and balconies connecting one part of the house with another. Directly below her window was one such area of rooftop; flat and wide, it led along the side of the building and around to the front. It was edged with a stone parapet decorated with ornamental urns.

Daisy climbed out her window, and then tied the length of rope to the parapet. It didn't reach all the way down to the ground, although a stretch of ivy growing on the wall covered the rest of the distance. She gave the rope a tug to make sure it was secure. As a way in and out of the house it would do nicely.

Daisy walked around the side of the roof to the front of the building. It was sheltered from the breeze up there, and the sun felt warm on her face. She stood at the edge, staring out at the view. She could see so far. The broad expanse of lawn spread before her, divided by the driveway. To the left was the topiary, with True in the center like a green flag. And far beyond, behind the woodland and the wall, she could see the road. She had never noticed how it curved like that, nor that just before it did so, there was a signpost and another road . . .

She turned to look at Brightwood Hall rising at her back. From this vantage point, the walls seemed almost frighteningly close. Fast moving clouds were traveling across the sky, making the towers and turrets and ornate chimneys appear to shift and tilt towards her. Daisy reached out a hand to steady herself against one of the stone urns on the parapet. She looked down.

Gritting was standing directly below her. She could see the skin of his head through his thin hair. He must have grown tired of trimming the plants, although the shears still dangled from his hand, their blades almost long enough to reach the ground.

Daisy shrank back behind the urn, immediately aware of two things. The first was that despite Frank's warnings and the disturbing puzzle of the watch, she had still been considering showing Gritting around the place. The second was the sudden realization that she absolutely would not do that. Seeing Gritting below, so still, so clearly waiting for her, all her fears had returned.

Gritting looked up and saw her peering around the side of the urn.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Nothing,” Daisy said.

He swung the shears idly from one hand to the other, his eyes still fixed on her. “Are you ready for the tour?”

“I've changed my mind,” Daisy said.

“Why?”

“I don't want to,” she said. She forced herself to look him in the eyes. “I want you to go away.”

Gritting made a face and spread his arms.

“You know I can't do that,” he said in a kindly tone.

“Why not?”

Daisy didn't like the way he smiled, his eyes squinting against the light.

“Because I have to take care of you,” he said.