The Piper (8 page)

‘I’m thirteen, sir. I’ll be fourteen in the spring.’

Mr Sheldon nodded. ‘You look as though you’re strong enough,’ he said. ‘You’ll work with Adam, out on the Marsh.’ It was not so much an invitation as a statement of fact. ‘He’ll show you how to guard the sheep and so forth. Show you where all the safe paths are. I expect you’ll want to work to earn your keep?’

Peter nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,’ he said, though he had to admit to himself that when he’d first heard about the evacuation, he’d anticipated having a bit of a holiday in the country, not a full-time job. ‘What about school?’ he asked.

Mr Sheldon looked at him. ‘What about it?’

‘We … will be going to school here … won’t we?’

Mr Sheldon frowned. ‘I’ll look into it,’ he said. ‘The nearest schools are in Hythe and that’s quite a trip. I would have thought you’d be glad to have a bit of time off. There’s lots you can learn on a farm, y’know. Stuff you won’t read in any book.’ He turned his gaze to Daisy, who was finally calming down a little. ‘As for you, young lady, you’ll be a friend and companion for my daughter, Sally.’ He thought for a moment, then glanced at Mrs Beesley. ‘Have you told them anything about Sally?’ he asked her.

‘Only a little, Mr Sheldon. Just that she’s not well.’

Mr Sheldon nodded and pushed his untouched food aside. ‘Sally is … feverish,’ he said. ‘I think that’s the best word to describe it. She’s never been very strong and lately she’s become prey to some strange notions. She … hears things. Has bad dreams. Fever dreams, I believe they’re called. These days, she rarely leaves her room. What she needs is somebody to play with her… to spend time with her. She likes to be read to.’ He looked concerned for a moment. ‘I take it you
can
read?’ he asked Daisy. She nodded sniffily. ‘You’re what, six years old?’

‘Seven,’ said Daisy. ‘I’m the best reader in my class.’

‘Good,’ said Mr Sheldon. ‘Excellent. Sally is eight,’ he added. ‘Just a little bit older than you. I want you to be nice to her because she’s all I’ve got in the world. Do you think you could do that for me?’

Daisy considered the question for a moment and then nodded her head, her expression grave. She was eating a little more steadily now as Mr Sheldon continued talking.

‘You see, I worry about Sally. After what happened to her mother, I … well, I just can’t … I
won’t
allow anything bad to happen to her. She needs calm and quiet, especially at night … she needs to be able to sleep soundly and not be worrying about … about things she doesn’t understand. She needs …’ His voice trailed away and he sat there, staring at the table, as though trying to puzzle something out. Then he made an effort to pull himself together. ‘Anyway,’ he said, a strange, forced calm in his voice. ‘Look at me sitting ’ere, chattering on with meself. I need to be gone. Work to do. There’s always work. No rest for the wicked, eh?’

He got up from the table and Peter found himself thinking that judging by the age of his daughter, Mr Sheldon probably wasn’t much older than his own father, but he looked elderly, a stooped frail old man weighed down by worry. ‘I expect I’ll see you both later,’ he said tonelessly and shuffled out of the room.

Peter sat there, wondering what could have happened to Mr Sheldon to make him the way he was. And he wondered exactly what was wrong with his daughter. From what he’d just said, it was hard to be sure.

Mrs Beesley gathered up the empty plates and took them across to the sink. Mr Sheldon’s untouched breakfast went straight into a swill bucket. Peter reflected what a terrible waste of food it was, but he was pretty full anyway and even Daisy had only managed to eat about half of her meal.

‘Now,’ said Mrs Beesley, turning away from the range. ‘If you two have finished, we’ll go on up and say hello to Miss Sally.’

Peter and Daisy followed Mrs Beesley obediently back up the staircase. Daisy seemed to have forgotten all about the dream she’d had of the children in the garden. Perhaps the excitement of meeting somebody new had banished it from her mind, but Peter couldn’t help wondering about it. It wasn’t like Daisy to act this way. She’d always been so down to earth. And it wasn’t really like him to have bad dreams. It must be something about this place, he decided.

They arrived at the top of the stairs and Mrs Beesley turned back to give them a meaningful look. ‘Don’t forget,’ she whispered, ‘Miss Sally is very delicate, so don’t you be bothering her with too many of your daft notions.’ Peter and Daisy exchanged baffled looks. They had no idea what this might mean, so they could only nod their heads in agreement.

Mrs Beesley reached out a hand and rapped her knuckles gently against the door. Then she opened it a few inches and peeked into the room. ‘Miss Sally?’ she said. ‘I’ve brought our two guests to meet you. Are you well enough to receive visitors?’

‘Yes,’ said a faint voice from within. So Mrs Beesley opened the door fully and gestured for the two children to follow her into the room. It was as big as the one in which Daisy was staying, but happily completely devoid of dolls. Miss Sally, it seemed, was rather fond of reading, since three walls of the room were lined with bookshelves, all crammed with leather-bound volumes. Strangely, the main window of the room was boarded up with tightly nailed wooden panels, something which struck Peter as very odd, because it meant that a paraffin lamp had to be lit the whole time to provide illumination and because of this, the room had a stale, muggy atmosphere. Like Daisy’s room, there was a huge four-poster bed in the centre of it and, lying in the bed, propped up on what looked like twenty lace-edged pillows, was Miss Sally herself. Peter had to admit that she did look rather ill. She was a plump girl with a pasty white complexion, dotted here and there with nasty-looking spots. She studied Peter and Daisy with her pale, rather watery hazel eyes. Her hair, a mass of red curls, lay fanned out on the pillows around her. She was clutching a book in her chubby hands and Peter could see the title,
Heidi Grows Up
, on the cover. She slipped a bookmark into the volume and set it down beside her on the bed, before directing a weak smile in the direction of her visitors. ‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Now, Miss Sally,’ said Mrs Beesley, ‘allow me to introduce our guests from Lunnen. This is Daisy,’ she said, pushing her a step closer, ‘and this here is her brother, Peter. They’re going to be spending some time with us. I’m sure you and Daisy will be
great
friends.’ Peter noticed that there was no mention of him at this point, and was unsure if this meant that Mrs Beesley thought boys and girls couldn’t actually
be
friends, but he made no comment. That was fine by him. ‘I’ll leave you all to get acquainted for a while,’ continued Mrs Beesley. ‘Peter, I’ll be back for you in a bit. We’ll see if Adam has a few odd jobs lined up for you.’ She went out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

There was an uncomfortable silence while the three of them regarded each other, trying to think of something to say, a situation that was soon resolved by Daisy, who stepped closer to the bed and pointed at the book. ‘I loved
Heidi
,’ she said. ‘I read it at school. But I’ve never heard of
Heidi Grows Up
.’

‘It’s quite new,’ said Sally. She gestured to an empty chair beside her bed and Daisy sat herself down on it. ‘Of course, it’s not even written by Johanna Spyri, it’s by her translator, Charles Tritten. And you can tell it’s not written by her because the style’s not quite the same. But it’s not bad. I have to have a book to read, otherwise life’s not worth living.’ She gestured around her. ‘I’ve read every book in this room,’ she announced with evident pride.

Peter gazed around in amazement. ‘All of them?’ he cried. ‘That’s amazing.’

Sally shrugged. ‘I have to have something to keep me occupied,’ she said. She smiled at Daisy and tapped the cover of the book beside her. ‘I’ve only just started this one. Daddy got it for me when he went to Hythe. If you want, we can go back to the beginning and you can read it to me.’

Daisy nodded eagerly. ‘I’d like that,’ she said. ‘Me and Peter saw the film of
Heidi
, didn’t we, Peter? With Shirley Temple. It was on at the Regency. It wasn’t as good as the book, but it wasn’t
terrible
. Have you seen the film?’

Sally shook her head mournfully. ‘I would have loved to,’ she said. ‘There’s a cinema in Rye, but it didn’t play there. And even if it came now, I’d be too ill to go. These days I don’t get out at all. Daddy says it’s for the best.’

‘That must be
awful
,’ said Daisy. She studied Sally thoughtfully for a moment and then with typical bluntness asked, ‘What’s wrong with you?’

Sally frowned. ‘Nobody’s really sure,’ she said. ‘I … suffer from … hallucinations.’

Daisy looked puzzled. ‘What’s “halloo …”?’

‘It means I see things that aren’t there. And I hear things too, sometimes. Voices and so forth. Not all the time, of course. It comes and goes.’

‘What do the doctors say?’ asked Peter.

‘Oh, Daddy won’t let them see me any more.’

‘Really?’ This seemed ridiculous to Peter. Whenever he was ill, his mother always took him straight to a doctor.

‘He says they don’t know anything. He says they’re all quacks.’

‘Like ducks?’ asked Daisy.

Sally smiled. ‘I suppose so. I’m not quite sure what it means. I
did
go to see doctors at first, but they came up with all these silly ideas about what might be wrong with me, and Daddy got angry and said he wasn’t going to waste any more money on them. They didn’t really have a clue what was wrong.’

‘It’s sort of like
Heidi
, isn’t it?’ said Daisy brightly.

Sally stared at her. ‘Is it?’ she asked.

‘Yes. You’re like her friend, Clara. She can’t walk, not until she goes and stays with Heidi’s grandfather. Then the goat’s milk and the mountain air make her well again.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Have you tried goat’s milk?’

‘We’ve tried everything,’ said Sally. ‘But nothing seems to work.’

‘You won’t be getting any fresh air,’ observed Peter, pointing at the boarded-up window. ‘Not with that thing there.’

‘That’s because the air isn’t good for me,’ said Sally bafflingly. ‘They put that screen in to stop me from catching a chill.’

Peter frowned. That didn’t seem to make any sense. ‘I always thought that fresh air was good for you,’ he said.

‘It’s not good for
me
,’ said Sally. ‘I’m too delicate. That’s what Mrs Beesley always says.’

Daisy still wanted to talk about
Heidi
. ‘Mrs Beesley is a bit like the woman in the book,’ she observed, gleefully. ‘What was her name again? Frau something?’

‘Fraulein Rottenmeir!’ said Sally delightedly, and they all sniggered.

‘And Heidi’s friend is even called Peter!’ added Daisy excitedly. ‘So you see, it really
is
just like the book!’

‘Oh, yes,’ chuckled Sally. ‘I see what you mean.’ Then her smile faded and a wistful look replaced it. ‘If only life was like fiction,’ she said. ‘But I think it will take more than goat’s milk and mountain air to get me out of this room.’ She looked at Peter. ‘So, tell me all about London,’ she said. ‘Or “Lunnen”, as Mrs Beesley calls it. What’s it like? I expect you go to the theatre every night, don’t you?’

Peter shook his head. ‘We
never
go to the theatre,’ he said. He thought for a moment. ‘We went to a pantomime last Christmas.’

‘
Puss In Boots
,’ said Daisy. ‘There was a cat that could talk – but it was just a man dressed up, really. It was funny though. He kept asking us where things were and we’d shout, “It’s behind you!” but by the time he’d turned round, it was always gone!’

‘And the leading man was a woman dressed up,’ added Peter, ‘but she was called the Principal Boy, which I didn’t really understand. She kept slapping her thigh and saying “Off we go!” and the cat had to sort out all her problems.’

‘It sounds like fun,’ said Sally. ‘But … what about
real
theatre? And … the ballet?’

‘We live in Dagenham,’ said Peter. ‘It’s Essex, really.’ That seemed to explain everything.

‘I’d love to go to London,’ said Sally. ‘There’s so much to see there. Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament …’

Peter and Daisy exchanged embarrassed looks. They
lived
so close to central London and hadn’t been to see either of those things. There was an awkward silence and Peter gazed around the room, trying to find something else to talk about. His gaze fell on the cabinet beside Sally’s bed, which contained a glass of water, a bottle of what must have been medicine and an open box containing two little lozenge-shaped objects. ‘What are they?’ he asked, pointing.

Sally glanced down at them. ‘Oh, they’re just my beeswax earplugs,’ she said.

‘Earplugs?’ said Daisy. ‘My friend Doreen wears those when she goes swimming. You don’t go swimming, do you, Sally?’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t go anywhere.’ For a moment she looked exasperated. ‘I wear the earplugs at night, so I can try to get some sleep.’

Peter was intrigued. ‘Why can’t you sleep without them?’ he asked.

Sally looked unsure. ‘There are noises at night. Owls hooting and so forth, the wind blowing …’

‘And music,’ added Daisy. She cast a guilty glance towards the bedroom door, as though afraid that Mrs Beesley might be listening in. ‘There was music last night,’ she whispered. Peter could see that she wanted to say more, to mention the children she thought she’d seen in the garden, but she was holding back.

Sally looked troubled. ‘There
is
music, sometimes. Daddy says it’s just people in town, rehearsing for a concert.’

‘In
town
?’ Peter looked at her doubtfully. ‘But that must be miles away.’

‘Yes, but Daddy says with the land being so flat, you see, the sound of it carries on the wind. It can travel for long distances.’ She sounded defensive, Peter thought, as though she didn’t quite believe it herself. ‘Especially at night, that’s what Daddy says. So we got the earplugs, but sometimes I can
still
hear the music, even when I’m wearing them, and those nights I don’t really get much sleep at all.’