by Eva Ibbotson
‘None at all. I’ve checked all his papers. We’ll have to appoint a guardian, of course.’ The lawyer sighed. It was going to make a lot of work, putting a child into Helton Hall.
The Lexington Children’s Home was in a shabby part of London, beside a railway line and a factory which made parts for washing machines and fridges. The building was grimy, and the beds the children slept in were old bunk beds bought from the army years and years ago. Instead of soft carpets on the floor there were hard tiles, some of them chipped; the chairs were rickety and the only telly was so old that you couldn’t really tell whether the pictures were meant to be black and white or in colour.
But there was something odd about the Home and it was this: the children who lived there didn’t want to be adopted.
When there was talk of someone coming to foster a child and take it away, the children slunk off to various hiding places, or they pretended to be ill, and the naughty ones lay down on the floor and drummed their heels. People from outside couldn’t understand this, but it was perfectly simple really. The Home might be shabby and poor, but it was a happy place; it was their place. It was where they belonged.
The children came from all sorts of backgrounds, but there was something a little bit wrong with most of them and perhaps that made them kinder to each other than if they’d been big and blustering and tough. Harry stammered so badly you could hardly tell what he was saying and Trevor had lost a hand in the accident which killed his parents. Nonie still wet her bed though she was nearly ten, and Tabitha couldn’t help stealing; things just got into her locker and wouldn’t come out.
And Oliver, who thought he was called Oliver Smith, suffered from asthma; he’d had it since his parents died when he was three years old. The doctor said he’d probably grow out of it, but it could be scary, not being able to catch one’s breath.
Most of the time though Oliver was fine. There were things in the Lexington Children’s Home that made up for all the shabbiness and the rattling of the trains and the smell from the factory chimneys. Behind the house was a piece of ground where every single child that wanted to could have a little garden. Matron had saved a three-legged mongrel from a road smash – a brave and intelligent dog who lived with them – and they kept bantam hens which did not lay eggs very often but sometimes. Trevor had a guinea pig and Nonie had a rabbit and Durga had a minah bird which she had taught to sing a rude song in Urdu.
Best of all, the children had each other. You never had to be alone in the Home. At night in the bunk beds there were stories told and plans hatched, and if Matron couldn’t come to a crying child there was usually someone who got in beside the child who was miserable and made them laugh.
To Oliver the other children were his brothers and sisters; Matron – if she couldn’t come near to being his mother – was kind and fair. There was no dog like Sparky, racing round on her three legs, no conkers like the ones they shook down from the old tree on the embankment – and when the mustard and cress came up on his patch of garden and he could make sandwiches for everyone for tea, he was as pleased as if he’d won first prize at the Chelsea Flower Show.
So you can imagine how he felt on the day that Matron led him into her office and told him that he was not Oliver Smith but Oliver Snodde-Brittle and the new owner of Helton Hall.
Though she spoke slowly and carefully, Oliver at first thought that she must be joking – except that she wasn’t a person who teased people and if this was a joke it was a very cruel one.
‘It will be a fine chance for you, Oliver,’ she said. ‘In a place like that you’ll be able to help people and do so much good.’
She tried to smile at the little boy staring at her in horror out of his large dark eyes. He did not look very much like the master of a stately home, with his stick-like arms and legs and his soft fawn hair.
‘You mean I have to go miles and miles away and live by myself?’
‘You won’t be by yourself for long. Some cousins are coming to fetch you and help you settle in. Think of it, Oliver – you’ll be in the country and able to have all the animals you want. Ponies... a dog...’
‘I don’t want any dog but Sparky. I don’t want to go away. Please don’t make me go. Please!’
Matron took him in her arms. She had never told children that it was sissy to cry – sometimes one cried and that was the end of it – and now as she smoothed back his hair, she felt his tears run down her hand.
As a matter of fact she didn’t feel too good herself. She made it a rule not to have favourites but she loved this boy; he was imaginative and kind and funny and she was going to miss him horribly.
And she wasn’t the only one. There was going to be a nasty fuss when Oliver’s friends heard he was leaving. A very nasty fuss indeed.
The cousins who were coming to fetch Oliver were called Fulton and Frieda Snodde-Brittle. Fulton was the headmaster of a boys’ prep school in Yorkshire and Frieda was his sister and they had sent a letter to the lawyer, Mr Norman, offering to take charge of him.
‘Our school will be shut for the Easter holidays,’ Fulton had written, ‘and we shall be happy to help him settle in. It must be rather a shock for the poor little fellow. As you know we are used to boys; the pupils in our care are just like our own children and we shall know how to make him comfortable.’
‘I must say that’s very kind,’ said Mr Norman, showing the letter to the bank manager. ‘I was going to go and fetch Oliver myself but I’m very busy. And really I didn’t know what was going to be done with the child in that barrack of a place. It’s been shut up for months and the servants are very old.’
‘You haven’t heard from Colonel Mersham?’ asked the bank manager.
Mr Norman shook his head. The man they had chosen to be Oliver’s guardian was an explorer and away in Costa Rica looking for a rare breed of golden toad.
‘He’s due back at the end of the summer, but in the meantime this offer of Fulton’s is most convenient.’
‘Yes. I must say he’s been very decent when you think that if it wasn’t for Oliver, Fulton himself would be master of Helton Hall.’
Which just shows how simple-minded lawyers and bank managers can sometimes get.
Because Fulton wasn’t kind at all; he was evil, and so was his sister Frieda. The school that they ran was called Sunnydell, but no place could have been less sunny. The children were beaten, the food was uneatable and the classrooms were freezing. The sweets the parents sent were confiscated, and the letters the boys wrote home to say how miserable they were never got posted.
But you can only run a school like that for so long. The inspectors were getting wise to the Snodde-Brittles, and so were the parents. At first they had liked the idea of their boys being toughened up, but gradually more and more children were taken away, and as the school got smaller and smaller the Snodde-Brittles got poorer and poorer.
So when they heard that the last owner of Helton had had his head bashed in by a fierce old lady, their joy knew no bounds.
‘I’m the new master of Helton!’ yelled Fulton.
‘And I’m the new mistress!’ shouted Frieda.
‘We’ll Set Our Foot Upon Our Enemies!’ shouted Fulton.
‘Both our feet!’
And then came the letter from the lawyer saying that Oliver had been found and that he and not Fulton was the rightful owner of Helton.
For two days the Snodde-Brittles nearly choked themselves with rage. They prowled the corridors muttering and cursing; they practised every kind of cruelty on the pupils, twisting their arms, shutting them in cupboards; they shook their fists at the heavens.
Then Fulton calmed down. ‘Now listen, Frieda, there must be something we can do about this boy.’
‘Kill him, do you mean?’ asked Frieda uneasily.
‘No, no. Not directly. The police would get on to that; they’ve got all sorts of scientific equipment these days. But there’ll be something. We’ve just got to show that he’s unfit to take over... t
hat he’s mad or ill. There’s bound to be bad blood in him somewhere. Now listen; we’ve got to pretend to be his friends... his loving relations,’ said Fulton with a leer. ‘We’ve got to show everyone that we’re on his side – and then...’
‘And then what?’
‘I don’t know yet. But I will soon. Just leave it to me.’
So they wrote to the lawyer and two weeks later they were on their way to London.
‘What a shabby house,’ said Frieda disgustedly as the taxi drew up in front of the Home. ‘The curtains are patched and the plaster is peeling. Really, I don’t know what the council is doing to allow such a place.’
Both the Snodde-Brittles were dressed in black; both were tall and bony, and both had moustaches. Fulton’s moustache was there on purpose – a dung-coloured growth on his upper lip. Frieda’s was there by mistake.
‘One could hardly expect anything else in this part of London,’ said Fulton, not giving the taxi driver his tip and sneering at an old lady shuffling to the corner shop in her slippers. ‘It is given over to beggars and the Poor. People who are shiftless and don’t work.’
The door was opened by a cheerful girl in a pink overall which Frieda disapproved of: maids should wear uniform and call her ‘Madam’. She also disapproved of the rich smell of frying chips, the sound of laughter from the garden and the children’s paintings tacked to the walls of the corridor.
‘Matron will be along in a minute,’ said the girl, and showed them into an office with two sagging armchairs and a large desk almost completely covered in photographs of children who had been in the Home throughout the years.
‘It’s quite extraordinary that a true Snodde-Brittle should have been living in a place such as this,’ said Frieda.
‘If the brat is a true Snodde-Brittle,’ said Fulton, biting his moustache.
Matron came in. She wore a woollen skirt and a hand-knitted cardigan, and clinging to her hand was a small boy.
‘Good heavens!’ said Frieda rudely. ‘Is that the child?’
‘Yes, this is Oliver,’ said Matron quietly, giving his hand a squeeze.
‘I do not see even a trace of the Snodde-Brittles in this boy,’ said Fulton, frowning.
This was true. The Snodde-Brittles were tall and long-faced with bulging eyes and mouthfuls of enormous teeth.
‘His mother was French,’ said Matron. ‘We think that Oliver takes after her.’
‘Ha!’ Fulton was disgusted. Foreign blood! Then remembering that he was posing as Oliver’s friend, he leaned towards him and said: ‘Well now, boy, you will have heard of your good fortune?’
‘Yes.’
Oliver’s voice was almost a whisper. His troubled eyes were turned to Matron.
‘You don’t seem to realize how lucky you are. Children all over the world would give anything to be in your shoes.’
Oliver raised his head, suddenly looking cheerful. ‘If there are children all over the world who want to live there, can’t I give it to them – Helton Hall, I mean – and stay here?’
‘Stay here?’ said Fulton.
‘Stay here?’ said Frieda.
The Snodde-Brittles were flabbergasted. They couldn’t believe their ears.
‘Oliver, you must try out your new life,’ said Matron. ‘We’ll write you lots and lots of letters, and as soon as you’re settled, some of the children will be able to come and stay.’
The Snodde-Brittles looked at each other. Long before common and scruffy children were allowed to come and stay at Helton, Oliver should be safely out of the way.
‘We have to catch the three-twenty from King’s Cross,’ said Frieda.
Matron nodded. ‘Go and get your things, dear,’ she said to Oliver. ‘And tell the others that they can come and see you off.’
When the boy had gone she turned to the Snodde-Brittles. ‘You will find Oliver a willing and intelligent child,’ she said, ‘but he’s delicate. When he’s upset or if he gets some kind of shock, he has asthma attacks and finds trouble in breathing. I’ve put in his inhaler and exact instructions about what to do, and of course you’ll have a doctor up there. But the main thing is to keep him on an even keel, and happy. Then he’s fine.’
The Snodde-Brittles exchanged glances.
‘Really?’ said Fulton, licking his lips. ‘You mean it could be dangerous for him to have a shock? Really dangerous?’
‘It could be,’ said Matron. ‘But if you’re careful everything will be fine. We’ve never had any trouble here.’
In the taxi on the way to the station Fulton was silent, thinking hard. A shock could be dangerous, could it? But what sort of a shock?
Frieda sat with a grim face, thinking of the ridiculous fuss there had been when Oliver left. Children swarming all over him, stuffing things into his pockets; a three-legged mongrel who should have been shot, jumping up and down – and all of them running after the taxi and waving like lunatics.
Between Fulton and Frieda sat Oliver, holding his presents carefully on his lap. A torch from Trevor, a box of crayons from Nonie... they must have saved up all their pocket money. There was a huge ‘good luck’ card too, signed by everyone in the home. Even Sparky had added her pawmark in splodgy ink.
The taxi was crawling, caught in a jam. Now it stopped for traffic lights ahead. Looking out of the window, Fulton saw a number of signs on a tall grey house.
Adopt A Ghost, said one... and DialA Ghost, said another.
Dial a ghost? Now where had he seen those words before? Of course, on the leaflet he’d picked off the mat at Helton when he went ahead to give orders to the servants. ‘Every kind of ghost,’ the leaflet had offered...
Fulton bared his yellow teeth in the nearest he ever came to a smile, and his eyes glittered.
He knew now what he was going to do.
Chapter Five
No sooner had Oliver’s taxi disappeared down a side street than two nuns, looking like kind and intelligent penguins in their black and white habits, made their way up the steps of the agency. It was one of the days when people came to ask for ghosts, not ghosts for people, and as soon as she saw them Miss Pringle felt that something good was going to happen.
Mother Margaret, who was the head of the convent, came to the point at once.
‘We have been very lucky,’ she said, ‘and our order has just moved into new buildings. Very beautiful buildings with a cloister and a refectory, and a little chapel where we shall be able to pray without the rain coming on to our heads from the broken roof.’
‘God has been very good to us,’ said Sister Phyllida.
‘So we wanted to share our good fortune,’ said Mother Margaret.
‘You see, our old abbey buildings are still standing. It was too expensive to pull them down and we thought we might offer a home to a suitable family. They would be quite undisturbed. We shouldn’t trouble them – and of course we would expect them not to trouble us.’
Miss Pringle was becoming very excited.
‘You know, I think I have just the family for you. The nicest ghosts you could possibly ask for.’
‘I know you will understand that we need ghosts who are not too noisy. Sadness wouldn’t worry us,’ said Mother Margaret, ‘or cold kisses from bloodstained lips. We would completely understand about sadness and cold kisses. Someone headless would be all right too, as long as they didn’t frighten the goats. We keep goats, you know.’
‘And bees,’ said Sister Phyllida eagerly. ‘It’s quite a little paradise we have at Larchford Abbey. Our rose garden—’
‘Yes, the bees are important. We ourselves would not be disturbed too much by screams and that kind of thing, but bees are very sensitive. So we would ask you to be very choosy.’
‘Indeed, yes – I think you couldn’t help being pleased with the Wilkinsons. You wouldn’t mind a very old lady? She has rather a fierce umbrella but she is an excellent person and in no way shrivelled or withered – or at any rate no more than is usual at her age.’
�
�Being shrivelled or withered would be no problem at all,’ said Mother Margaret with her kind smile. ‘We are used to nursing old people and have great respect for them.’
‘Then there is Mr Wilkinson – he was a dentist, a most upstanding man, and his wife is one of the nicest people you could imagine. She has done wonders trying to make the knicker shop into a home.’
Miss Pringle blushed, wondering if she should have said the word ‘knickers’ in front of nuns, but they did not mind in the least.
‘They sound just the sort of people we want,’ said Mother Margaret. ‘And I may say that the accommodation we offer must be what any ghost would want. A ruined cellar – rat-infested of course. A roofless chapel overgrown with weeds and the haunt of large white owls. A tumbledown refectory with a fireplace open to the roof...’
‘And such a pretty bell tower,’ put in Sister Phyllida, ‘full of tangled ropes and iron rings and trap doors. A child would love to play there.’ She looked wistfully at Miss Pringle. ‘There don’t happen to be any children?’
‘But there are, there are! Eric is a teenager and a bit wrapped up in himself – but there’s a delightful little girl – she’s not a real Wilkinson, they found her lost and abandoned, but they quite think of her as their own. She’s rather strong-willed and very fond of animals but—’
Miss Pringle paused, wondering if she should warn the nuns about Addie’s passion for unusual pets. But the nuns just said that it was natural for children to grow up with animals, and it was arranged that the family should come to Larchford Abbey in three weeks’ time.
‘Friday the 13th seems a nice date,’ said Mother Margaret, looking at her diary. ‘Ghosts would like to come on a date like that, I feel sure.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Miss Pringle, quite overjoyed at the news she was going to give the Wilkinsons. ‘Now if you would just be kind enough to fill in this form...’
That night in the Dirty Duck the ladies had not one port and lemon, but two.
