The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris

Harris and Bostock are best friends, but they are as different from one another as night and day. Harris thinks up harebrained schemes and Bostock gets in trouble for them.

When Harris puts his baby sister Adelaide in the words to see if she will be adopted by a fox, little do they realize that they are starting a chain of events that will be remembered in their little seaside town as the Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris.

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

About the Author

Also by Leon Garfield

Copyright

 

To Patrick Hardy

A MUSTY, DUSTY,
leathery smell of boys, books and ink. Words drone and a family of flies stagger through the heavy air as if in pursuit of them. But they turn out to be of Ancient History so the flies blunder moodily against the parlor window beyond which the June sun ripens tempting dinners at roadsides and down by the strong smelling beach—day after day after day.

“Among the customs of ancient Sparta,” says Mr. Brett at the twelve enormously crumpled boys before him, and then goes on to tell of mothers bidding their sons come back
with
their shields or cold and dead
upon
them. He gazes at his twelve and reflects that Spartan mothers knew what they were about. He looks particularly hard at Bostock and
Harris whom he hates and fears—day after day after day . . .

Thin, depressed, humane man, though with a touch of youth still remaining, Mr. Brett was employed to teach classical education at Dr. Bunnion's Academy in Brighton. There was something of a mystery about Mr. Brett. He was a well-spoken, gentlemanly sort of person, quite out of the usual run of schoolmasters. It was generally supposed that he'd fled from a well-to-do family in the north after committing some horrible crime and had found sanctuary in Dr. Bunnion's obscure school. This notion lent him a certain melancholy distinction in the eyes of the pupils and helped to explain why he never left the school for more than a few hours—even remaining through the holidays—and always tended to start and grow pale whenever there was a knock on the door.

From time to time, with the object of trapping Mr. Brett into betraying his crime, some ingenious pupil would ask seemingly innocent questions about patricides, fratricides, and what were Mr. Brett's thoughts on poisonings (of which matters Ancient History was interestingly full), and then sit back and closely observe him for signs of guilty dismay.

Oddly enough, such questions did seem to disturb Mr. Brett in quite a striking way. When some sly and brutish boy at the back, or the terrible Harris in the front, inquired how finely glass needed to be powdered before it might be used to commit murder, he would always falter and look alarmed.

Then there'd fall an absolute silence on the class; the pupils would stare at Mr. Brett and Mr. Brett would stare at the pupils, and each would be struggling with his private thoughts of the other, and only God Almighty knew which was nearer the truth.

But now the day was almost done. Ten of the boys appeared to be asleep and Mr. Brett dropped his voice, for he did not want to awaken them. Only Bostock and Harris still seemed to be interested in him. Side by side they sat in the front row and watched him attentively. Bostock was the larger of the two, but Harris was the deadlier. Though Bostock had caused more destruction and would most likely end on the gallows, Mr. Brett believed Harris to be his evil genius. Or would have believed it did not “genius” suggest a high intelligence—which Harris did not have. But there would be no more of them. So far as Mr. Brett was concerned, they were the end of their line. Harris had only a quantity of sisters and Bostock was a single child, so Mr. Brett thought that even his parents were appalled by what they'd done and would do no more.

Ten minutes of the lesson remained and Mr. Brett struggled on with the customs of ancient Sparta. A fat boy at the back was actually asleep with his mouth open. Mr. Brett had a childish desire to throw an ink pellet into it, but did nothing of the kind. The fat boy was a boarder at ninety pounds per annum and so worth three day pupils. Not for worlds would Mr. Brett have risked Dr. Bunnion's anger, and
therefore his situation. He was desperately anxious to remain.
Desperately
. . .

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Harris, cupping an ear and leaning forward earnestly. “Can't quite hear you. Could I have that last item again?”

There was an unwholesome light in Harris's eyes. Uneasily Mr. Brett wondered what could have been the cause of it. He hoped it was a fever, as he did not care to think of its being an idea.

“Little children,” repeated Mr. Brett, as softly and tenderly as he could, “quite tiny infants exposed on the mountainside by their parents . . .”

Harris nodded shrewdly, and Mr. Brett caught himself wondering why the custom was ever abandoned. He would like to have lived in ancient Sparta—or, better, he would like Bostock and Harris to have lived there.

As these thoughts drifted into his mind, the bell rang and thunder from aloft proclaimed that Dr. Bunnion's Religious Instruction had finished for the day. Then all the little academy rocked and shook as Major Alexander's twelve rose from Arithmetic in the back parlor and all the six and thirty sons of merchants and gentlefolk tumbled fiercely out into the five o'clock sun. Even the fat boarder had gone—not to join his friends, for he had none—but to the kitchen, and Mr. Brett was left alone with his strange secret . . .

The unearthly light was still in Harris's eyes. Bostock noticed it and held his tongue. There was
no point in interrupting his friend's thoughts. He would be told of them when Harris was ripe.

They lived on neighboring streets, about a mile and a half from the school, so there was time enough. As they walked, the sun streamed down and gave them immense shadows which fell like black phantoms among the half-built houses that littered their way—as if haunting them prematurely with the ghosts of tragedies to come. Their pace was slow, their manner winding but sedate. There was no hurry. After some minutes of silence, Bostock stole a glance at his friend, but it was plain that Harris's thoughts were still in the furnace, and at white heat. So Bostock scowled and punched an imaginary enemy. He was angry; he was often angry. It was part of his nature. Fits of anger came over him like waves of the sea till he longed to hiss and seethe and hurl stones like the sea itself. His father was a retired sea captain and he put it all down to that. Harris had once explained it to him—this notion of inherited passion—and Bostock had nodded fiercely, feeling at one with the elements. Harris's father, on the other hand, was a learned physician, so Harris was able to explain his own advanced manner of thinking in the same way.

They suited each other very well, did Bostock and Harris. Each had what the other lacked, and was always ready to part with it: Harris with his powerful mind and Bostock with his powerful limbs. In a way they represented the ancient idea of soul and body, but in a very pure state. Harris was as weak as a kitten and Bostock was as thick as a post. They
were the greatest of friends and had the utmost respect for each other.

“I think he admires me, you know,” said Harris abruptly.

“Who does?” asked Bostock, curious but not surprised.

“Mister Brett.”

“Oh,” said Bostock, and waited. Whenever Harris opened his thoughts, the strange light in his eyes seemed to go out—like candles snuffed in an emptied room. But the light was still on, so Bostock knew there was more to come.

“Haven't you noticed how he looks at me and drops his voice like we was the only two in the room?”

The friends halted and Bostock stared down toward the wide, glittering sea where distant fishing vessels seemed like faint perforations on a blaze of silver. They had reached the corner of his street. Far away the clock of St. Nicholas's began to chime six and the setting sun, striking on the walls of the square flint houses, rosied the cobbles as if to show that even stone, when scrutinized by the eye of heaven, might have cause to blush.

Harris laid an inky finger on Bostock's torn blue sleeve. Bostock started and withdrew his eyes from the bright sea. “Old friend,” murmured Harris, his large face seeming vague and luminous in Bostock's sun-dazzled eyes, “What do you say to this?”

Then he told Bostock what he had in mind. As he murmured on, now rapidly, now slowly, a wisp of
cloud passed across the sun; the flushed houses changed their complexions and an unearthly gray pallor fell across the little golden street. There was a brief chill in the air, and Bostock shivered.

“Well?” said Harris softly.

Bostock gazed at him in terrified admiration. Harris wanted to expose an infant.

Among his numerous sisters, there was one of seven weeks old who was peculiarly suitable, and he was quite willing for Bostock to carry her up and expose her on the Downs. “It's a warm evening,” he concluded with unusual humanity, “so I don't suppose she'll come to much harm. And anyway, my pa says it's wonderful what they can stand.”

He stopped. The light had gone out in his eyes so Bostock knew he had finished. Bostock frowned. He knew Harris was not mad. There were good reasons behind Harris's scheme—very good reasons indeed. Only Bostock had not quite taken them in. A real tidal wave of anger at his own stupidity swept over him. He kicked a stone violently and watched it bounding down the street. Having no sisters of his own, he didn't presume to judge of Harris's generosity with his. The only living creature that Bostock had to share his meager thoughts and confidences with was a great brute of a ginger cat called Jupiter. Not for worlds would he have exposed Jupiter, but then he supposed cats were different. So Bostock, who would have trusted Harris with his life, helplessly nodded and hoped to understand everything in time.

Adelaide was the infant's name and Harris swore she was fed at six and then put down till she howled about four hours later. She wouldn't be missed.

Bostock felt himself being gently tugged toward the neighboring street where the Harris family lived a shade more elegantly than did the Bostocks. Already he could hear the faint shouts of the Harris girls and wondered, with a little pang, which was Mary's—for she had a thin, wild beauty that Bostock greatly admired.

“Quiet, Bosty—quiet as a mouse!”

Tiny Adelaide, fed and happy and dreaming her muslin dreams, snoozed in her crib while her giant sisters squabbled in the garden and the rest of the household obligingly forgot her. Of a sudden, she dreamed she was lifted into the air in a big fluffy cloud. She bubbled and chuckled and tightened her creased-up eyes against any interruption. She flew . . . she flew . . .

Bostock had got her partly under his coat. Leaving their loud boots in the street, the friends had entered the house, crept upstairs and abstracted the child. The fine weather had drawn everyone out of doors and only a kitchen maid had glimpsed them as they'd vanished through the front door. But she'd taken no particular notice. Master Harris and Master Bostock always came and went like ghosts, and were just about as welcome.

Once outside, the friends paused only to put on their boots before turning northward and hastening
toward the Downs. This first, easy success of the scheme filled them with a trembling anticipation—though Bostock, heavily burdened, still did not know for what.