The Steps up the Chimney

by William Corlett

  ‘But won’t you be cold?’ she asked, turning to look at them. ‘We aren’t really prepared yet for cold weather. Jack is going to light a log fire in the hall for Christmas. But really, this is the only warm place. Would you like to play in here?’

  ‘No, it’s all right, thank you,’ he said, leading the way towards the door.

  Mary followed then Alice slid off her chair and ran after them.

  ‘Alice,’ Phoebe called to her. ‘Please let’s be friends.’

  But Alice pushed past William and out through the door into the hall. Phoebe looked disappointed and crossed to start clearing the table.

  ‘Light the electric fire up there, won’t you?’ she said to William, as he followed his sisters out of the kitchen, closing the door after him.

  ‘I hate her. I hate her. I hate her,’ Alice sobbed, lying face down on her bed and kicking her feet.

  William and Mary sat on Mary’s bed, watching her, glumly.

  ‘I hate her and I hate it here and I wish Mum and Dad hadn’t gone to Africa and . . . oh . . .’ A great wave of sobbing choked her words.

  Still William and Mary remained silent. William had stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and Mary was sitting on hers.

  ‘Uncle Jack must be mad,’ Alice started again. ‘He must be mad. Of all the horrible women to pick to live with . . . No wonder he hasn’t married her. I don’t blame him one little bit. If it wasn’t for the baby on the way . . . I bet it’s a horrible baby, with a mother like that. Oh, William . . .’ and as she said his name, Alice sat bolt upright, wide-eyed and shattered by a thought that had suddenly occurred to her. ‘William,’ she said again, this time in a frightened whisper, ‘d’you suppose she’s a witch? I bet she is. I bet that’s what it’s all about. Phoebe’s a witch. She’s probably put Uncle Jack under some awful spell and forced him to give her a baby and to come and live with her in this horrible house and eat nothing but cabbage and carrots for the rest of his life.’ Alice sniffed and wiped her tear-stained face with the back of her hands.

  The other two continued to stare at her as before. Long practice had taught them that the best way to deal with Alice’s tantrums was to wait for them to go away. If you said anything, anything at all, it only added fuel to the fire. The best thing to do was wait.

  ‘Well, I think she is,’ Alice spat at them, disconcerted by their silence. She sniffed and wiped her nose with a hanky. ‘I shall starve to death as well. Then you’ll be sorry. I’ll just disappear from lack of food.’

  ‘Ally, you don’t even like meat much,’ William said, testing the water.

  ‘I love meat,’ Alice rounded on him with renewed vigour. ‘Everyone knows how much I adore sausages. They’re my favourite, favourite food. That year we had sausages and potatoes cooked in the bonfire was the best meal I’ve ever had. Oh, I wish Mum and Dad were here,’ and then she added in a desperately sad voice, ‘It’s going to be a horrible Christmas.’ She started to cry again, but this time, more quietly; this time real tears.

  William crossed over to her bed and sat beside her, putting an arm round her.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he said gently, ‘please don’t cry, Ally. You promised Mum and Dad that you wouldn’t. They had to go – because they’re needed over there. Thousands of people are dying in Africa from the famine and because there aren’t enough doctors or medicine. Mum and Dad had to go because, maybe, they’ll be able to help a bit. Oh, Alice, please don’t cry,’ and as he spoke he could feel a tight lump in the back of his throat and he had to swallow hard to stop tears coming into his own eyes.

  ‘Come on,’ Mary said, standing up. ‘Let’s try to find that room.’

  ‘What room?’ Alice asked, blowing her nose again.

  ‘The one that’s up above us,’ Mary replied thoughtfully. As she spoke she stared up at the roof.

  ‘I never really saw the window,’ Alice said, still sounding miserable. ‘You’re sure it is there?’

  ‘A little round window, right at the bottom of the chimneys,’ Mary insisted, ‘where the roof meets the bricks. It looked almost like part of the pattern of the brick base. It is there. Isn’t it, Will?’

  ‘Maybe there was a room up in the eaves and at some time it was removed,’ William suggested.

  ‘But, how d’you know it isn’t still there?’ Alice asked, now also staring at the roof above them.

  ‘That’s easy. You can see that, in here, the roof goes up to a point, can’t you? There’s no space for another room.’

  ‘Where do the chimneys come up?’ Mary said, crossing to the door and going out on to the landing. The other two followed her.

  It was dark on the landing. William flicked the light switch. Nothing happened.

  ‘Bulb must have gone,’ he said. ‘Leave the door open, Alice,’ and as he spoke he opened his bedroom door also and that of the bathroom, which had a window looking out over the back of the house. The light filtering from the three rooms filled the landing with half shadows.

  ‘That’s odd,’ William said. ‘There are two rooms at the front, right? Yours and mine. But there’s only one room, the bathroom, at the back. Oh, of course. My room isn’t as big as yours. And’ – as he spoke he went into the bathroom – ‘the rest of the space in here is taken up by that brick wall. That’s it,’ he said with a gesture. ‘The chimneys.’

  ‘Where?’ Alice asked. Staring at the wall.

  ‘Behind this wall. And’ – he hurried into his room – ‘here is another side of the same brick square.’ Then he went and opened his bedroom window and leaned out. A cold gust of wind blew in and a powdering of snow fell on to the sill.

  ‘Be careful, Will. It’s ever so steep,’ Mary said, pulling her cardigan round her against the cold.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Alice asked, trying to squeeze out of the small opening beside him.

  ‘Just a minute, Al,’ he said. ‘Yes, I thought so. The roof goes much further along.’ William came back into the room and crossed to the side wall, opposite the door. He tapped the wall. ‘It doesn’t sound hollow,’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘But why should it? Oh, one of you explain, please,’ Alice pleaded.

  ‘I could show you from outside,’ William said.

  ‘I’m not going out there, it’s freezing. And close the window, William,’ Mary said, shivering and running back to the warmth of the electric fire in the girls’ room. William and Alice followed after her.

  ‘Go on, tell us, Will, please,’ Alice said again.

  ‘Well,’ William began, ‘you remember how the centre of the house is like a stone tower? Like a monastery tower only not very high?’ The girls nodded. ‘Well, that’s taken up by the big hall downstairs, with that sort of gallery round it that’s now used as a landing. I think that must be the only bit of the medieval building that’s left. Then the bedrooms below here are in the Tudor wing.’

  ‘That’s where Uncle Jack sleeps,’ Mary said, working it out as he spoke.

  ‘Right,’ William agreed.

  ‘With her,’ Alice said and made an elaborate sick sound.

  ‘Don’t start that again, Alice, please,’ William begged, trying not to lose his train of thought. ‘The rooms on the other side of the hallway, round the gallery, are in the opposite wing. I think Uncle Jack said it was added in George the First’s reign. But we don’t need to bother about those. When the Tudor bit was added, they decided to make the house higher than the stone tower. So they put these attic rooms on, stretching over the Tudor bit and also over the top of the tower. Our bedrooms are really over the Tudor bit. Right? Except a bit of the bathroom and a bit of my bedroom. OK? But if you look out of my window, the roof stretches on beyond the side wall of the bathroom and my room, to the other side of the main tower. So there has to be more space there. You see? A bit that isn’t accounted for. In other words,’ William concluded triumphantly, ‘more rooms.’

  The girls blinked at him with looks of utter confusion.

  ‘I don’t see .
. . I mean there are probably more rooms the other side of this wall as well,’ Mary said, tapping the side wall of the room they were in.

  ‘Of course there are. You can see the windows along the roof,’ William agreed.

  ‘So?’ Mary asked.

  ‘There’s probably a staircase further along in the Tudor wing that will lead up to them. But – where’s the staircase to the bit on the other side of my room? There can’t be one. The only stairs up to here are the ones we use.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ Alice cried. ‘Maybe there was a door once up here that went through and someone blocked it up.’

  ‘Yes,’ William agreed, ‘but what a funny thing to do. To seal off rooms so that no one can get into them. I mean, what’s in there? Why did they seal them off? Maybe they were trying to hide something? But, if so – what?’

  They looked at one another in silence.

  ‘Oh, Will,’ Mary said at last. ‘I’m glad it’s your side of the landing,’ and Alice moved closer to her sister and took hold of her hand.

  ‘This is a really creepy place,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I think I’m a bit scared.’

  ‘It’s all right, Al,’ William said, sounding far from certain about the statement. ‘There’s bound to be some simple explanation.’ Then he got up and ran to the window. ‘Uncle Jack’s back,’ he said with relief as he saw the Land-Rover skid to a halt on the drive.

  8

  Uncle Jack’s Discoveries

  THE ROAD OVER the moor had not been too bad on Jack’s outward journey. There had been a certain amount of drifting snow during the night, but the Land-Rover managed to cling to the icy surface and he had got to the town in good time.

  ‘But what I hadn’t reckoned,’ he told them, ‘is how much the weather can vary in the mountains. There was bright sunshine down there. It never entered my head that it would be snowing up on the tops!’

  Consequently, he’d been in no hurry to get back. When he’d completed the shopping, which included three pairs of wellingtons for the children, he’d called in at the Local History Museum. The librarian there, a woman called Miss Prewett, had promised to get him a copy of a book that referred to Golden House and the valley and would give him, she thought, quite a lot of interesting bits of history about the house.

  Miss Prewett turned out to be highly delighted when he arrived.

  ‘It’s all so exciting,’ she exclaimed as soon as she had made him a cup of coffee and he was sitting in her office facing her across the desk. ‘I managed to get hold of that book I mentioned. It belongs to Major Blenkins, but he’s so old now he’d forgotten that he’d even got it. His housekeeper found it for me. Of course we must return it eventually, but he’s happy for you to borrow it for as long as you like to.’ She slammed her hands down on top of her desk and raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘But, my dear Mr’ – she fumbled in her own mind, trying to remember Jack’s surname, which she was unable to recall, if indeed she had ever known it – ‘of course, I’ve only glanced at this’ – she indicated a thick, battered book that was lying on the desk in front of her – ‘and I warn you, it’s a bit of a plod, written at the turn of the century by a Jonas Lewis, who had probably quite a bright mind but was not what you might call a natural writer . . . Oh, it’s fascinating.’ She pulled the book towards her and started flicking through the pages. ‘Privately produced, of course. I believe the Major bought it at an auction, years ago.’ She shook her head and sighed, as she moved the pages. ‘So much I didn’t know. Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t know any of it. You see the title?’ She held up the book so that Jack got a quick glimpse of the faded cover and then put it back on the desk before he had a chance to read anything that might have been written on it. ‘Well, there you are. What a bit of luck, don’t you agree?’

  Jack tried several times during the early stages of the interview to interrupt her, but he soon realized that it was useless.

  ‘Do you know anything about the subject?’ she asked him suddenly, blinking as she looked at him through her small wire spectacles.

  Jack was so surprised to be directly addressed that it took him a moment to respond. When he did, he realized that he hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Miss Prewett. What subject?’ he said, a little breathlessly.

  ‘This, nincom!’ she cried, slapping the book in front of her and smiling at him at the same time. ‘Alchemy, man. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve been saying?’

  ‘Alchemy?’ Jack had responded, totally at sea now. ‘The book is about alchemy?’

  ‘No, no, no, no,’ Miss Prewett cried. Then, ‘Well, yes, in a way it is. But think, man. What do you know about alchemy?’

  ‘Well, not a lot, actually,’ Jack replied, trying desperately to remember anything at all about the subject. ‘Wasn’t it the . . . the forerunner of chemistry . . .?’

  ‘Go on,’ Miss Prewett said, nodding her head vigorously.

  ‘The alchemists believed that they had discovered a way of turning base metals into gold. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Quite, I expect that’s all any of us know, really. All a lot of nonsense, I dare say, and frankly I think a rather dubious occupation. All that glisters is not gold, you know. If, of course, that is all there was to it.’ She paused for a moment, considering, then shook her head, seeming mentally to change the subject. ‘But think, Mr . . .’ She stopped again and looked at him. ‘I’m so sorry . . . what is your name?’

  ‘Green,’ Jack replied. ‘Jack Green.’

  ‘Is it? I never knew that. I’m not sure I can even guarantee I’ll remember it in the future. Think, Mr . . .’ She waved her hand; she’d forgotten it already. ‘The name of your house, man?’

  ‘Golden House in Golden Valley,’ and as Jack spoke what she was trying to tell him fell into place.

  ‘This book is called The Alchemical Writings of Jonas Lewis. See here, the title page,’ and opening the book, she pushed it across to Jack’s side of the desk. Jack stood up and turned the book in order that he could read:

  ‘The Alchemical Writings of Jonas Lewis, of The House in Golden Valley. Being completed this last day of the last year of the century, 31st December, 1899.’

  ‘Isn’t it thrilling?’ Miss Prewett said, looking at him again. ‘Of course, he was probably a maniac, but – a book written in and about your house; well, not about it, exactly, but it does explain the name. Of course, this little chappy – Jonas thing – may just have been making capital out of the place. After all, there are records of a house called Gelden Place on the site as far back as 1350.’

  ‘Where would this reference be, please?’ Jack asked.

  ‘In the parish records. I made some notes for you,’ Miss Prewett said, sliding an envelope towards him across the surface of the desk. ‘All the owners of Gelden Place, later called Golden House, are listed there for you. The house name was changed during the reign of Henry the Eighth; before that it was some sort of religious establishment, I think. Not a monastery, exactly, but a place of retreat. I suppose it fell into disuse at the dissolution. How is your history, Mr . . .? You remember the dates? The Dissolution of the Monasteries? 1536 to 1540? You’ll have to do some mugging up, I’m afraid. I’m a bit rusty, so no good relying on me. The most people want to know now is what time the tea shop opens at Hope Castle and whether the piece of stone they’ve dug up in their garden might perhaps be a prehistoric spearhead. It never is, of course, but they don’t want to believe me. However, what little I could glean is written down in there. If you can read my writing. I have to admit I have a job sometimes myself. It’s the sign of a quick mind, they say. But I rather think it’s an indication of supreme sloppiness. To think that I had the makings of a scholar. Too bad. The waste, the waste. Never mind. Over to you, then. Good hunting!’

  ‘You’ve been most kind,’ Jack said, rising and taking the envelope and slipping it between the pages of the book. ‘I’ll take great care of the book and return i
t soon in the new year.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry too much. I can’t help feeling the book belongs in your house anyway. You’ll see what I mean when you read it. Terribly heavy going’ – she lowered her voice again – ‘I actually very much like the writings of Agatha Christie. Do you read her? Frightfully good. I like a good murder, personally. But of course, here, I let it appear that I’m steeped in historical research. I used to be, Mr Lewis’ – she beamed at Jack, having obviously decided that any surname was better than none – ‘but that was when I was a girl. With age I have realized that a good murder mystery is far more satisfying. You see, if you can’t work it out for yourself, you’re usually given the answer – whodunnit, you know – by the end of the book. With history, we will never know whodunnit. In the end, I find that rather frustrating.’

  She was still talking when Jack left the office. He wondered if she’d noticed that he’d gone.

  He’d spent far longer with her than he’d meant to and when he turned the Land-Rover off the forest road and started to climb up towards the moor, he was horrified to discover that near blizzard conditions were raging, through which he’d only just managed to drive.

  ‘Are we going to be snowed in?’ Phoebe asked, quietly.

  ‘We will be by the morning, I’m afraid,’ Jack replied grimly.

  They both glanced at the children, who were seated round the table in the kitchen, listening to his story.

  ‘But not to worry,’ Jack told them, lightly. ‘We’ve plenty of food and I’m going to light a fire in the hall. That should warm the whole house. And we can sit in front of it and . . . play games, or whatever.’ He smiled at them and shrugged.

  ‘Have you got television?’ Mary asked, cheerfully.

  Jack pulled a glum face and shook his head.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Mary said, trying to make it sound as if she meant it.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Jack said, ‘after supper, we could have a look at the book.’

  ‘Oooh, yes!’ the three children chorused, sounding surprisingly keen.