A flight of stone steps led down to a cavernous cellar, full of clanking and banging and hissing steam. The furnace filled the room. It was the size of a small whale and bristled with complicated-looking dials and levers. Iron pipes snaked off in all directions, like the tentacles of a monstrous metal octopus. Strideforth rubbed a bit of shiny brass with the sleeve of his coat.
‘An engineer came to clean it and make it work again. Mr Burdock looks after it, and I help him. It burns coal. It comes down that chute there, from the yard,’ he said, pointing. ‘The pipes lead everywhere, all through the house. I haven’t traced them all yet. I’ve been making some diagrams. It’s very interesting.’ He waved his arm at some scratchy drawings pinned to the wall. ‘When it’s working properly, the whole house will be warm.’ He gave the furnace a pat and grinned proudly once more.
They climbed back up the stairs. ‘Stillroom, scullery, larder,’ said Strideforth. ‘Here’s the kitchen.’ It was at the end of the passageway, a long room with an arched ceiling. A huge range filled one wall. A fire glowed in the grate. Iron pipes curled up the walls and across the ceiling, groaning and hissing.
Henry was walking sideways along the mantelpiece, jabbing things with his beak and muttering. He screamed cheerfully when he saw them and flapped his wings. Hortense screamed back at him.
‘Sit here, Stella, near the range,’ said Strideforth.
She sat down and looked around. High up on one wall was a row of servants’ bells: Ballroom, Japanese Drawing Room, Yellow Bedroom. Drawings of birds and plants and animals were pinned on the walls. A mixed group of wooden kitchen chairs and gilt armchairs stood around a large table, which was covered with all kinds of things: books, empty tins, pens and ink, an arrangement of preserved ferns in a glass dome, a row of tiny plants growing in teacups, a magnifying glass, some kind of chemical apparatus and a sewing basket. A dresser was stacked with plates and cups and pots and pans.
‘That’s the doorbell there,’ said Strideforth, pointing up to a collection of tea trays and old tins that dangled from a wire, connected to several pulleys and a knotted rope that disappeared into the ceiling. ‘You were the first visitor since I fixed it. It worked well. It was very, very loud. We all jumped.’ He took off his coat and unwound his scarf. ‘Can you cook?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Stella.
‘We can’t either. We hoped you might be able to. We mostly eat bread and cheese from the village. And we found lots of old jam in the larder. Blackberry, we think.’ He waved at a jar of dark jam on the table. ‘And Mrs Burdock brings us apples and walnuts, and sometimes eggs, when she is not cross with us, which she generally is, and once she made us a rabbit stew. That was very good. And Father sent us a hamper.’ He rummaged in a large wicker basket, packed with straw. ‘So we had lots of different things in tins: curried chicken, pineapple, biscuits, sardines and mackerel for Henry. We’ve nearly finished them, but we’ve been saving this last one for when you came.’ He held up a tin with a colourful label. ‘It’s a plum pudding. It looks good.’ He dropped the tin gingerly into a saucepan of boiling water on the range.
Something moved on the floor beside Stella’s foot. She looked down. A little hedgehog was sniffing around the leg of her chair.
‘That’s Teasel,’ said Strideforth. ‘Hortense found her in the garden. She likes snails. And she eats all the cockroaches and black beetles in the kitchen. She crunches them up like toffee. You have to watch her, though, because she does nip a bit.’
Hortense made a grunting sound, and the hedgehog answered her. The little creature looked up at Stella with bright, beady eyes before wandering away under the table.
‘Look at this,’ said Strideforth. He picked up a loaf of bread and pushed it inside a contraption that was made from pieces of metal, bits of wire, cogs and wheels. He turned a handle on the top. ‘Watch out,’ he said. Stella looked around nervously. Hortense covered her head with her hands. Henry gave a shriek. There was a clanking sound, a whirr, and suddenly several torn-off pieces of bread shot out of the contraption and spun across the room.
‘It’s a bread-slicing machine,’ Strideforth said proudly, as he collected the scattered, raggedy pieces of bread from distant corners of the kitchen. ‘It’s a very good invention. More interesting than a knife. It’s working very well. I built it from a bread box and the insides of a clock. It’s no use with cheese, though. It just smashes it to pieces.’ As he was talking, he cut slices of cheese with his pocketknife and quickly made a pile of lopsided sandwiches. He passed one each to Stella and Hortense. He gave a piece of cheese to Henry on the mantelpiece. The bird shrieked happily, and then said, ‘Gratias.’
Stella almost choked on a mouthful of bread and cheese. ‘He talks?’
‘It’s Latin. I have to learn Latin for school.’ Strideforth pulled a face. ‘But it is very useless, I think. And not interesting at all. Henry thinks he knows more than me. But he does not. He is just showing off.’ He frowned at Henry, who cackled and fluffed up his feathers. ‘I like to find out how things work. Miss Araminter is teaching me mathematics and engineering and drawing. And Hortense is learning drawing too, and zoology, which she likes. And French and mathematics, which she does not like so much. And botany. That’s why Father sent us home. For our education. To prepare for school. Father says it’s time we were more proper and correct. To make friends with other children, and go to school. For me to learn Latin and Greek, and for Hortense to learn how to play the pianoforte and dance, and talk to people and not so much to animals, he says.’
‘Where were you before?’ asked Stella.
‘Tribulation Island.’ Strideforth sat down on a chair beside her, took a big bite of his sandwich and spoke with his mouth full. ‘Father’s a lighthouse keeper.’
‘Oh,’ Stella breathed. She wished she could look it up in her Atlas. ‘What is it like?’ she asked.
‘Very cold and windy, and snow and ice in the winter. Lots of seals and penguins. The lighthouse is very interesting. The lamp burns whale oil and rotates by clockwork. It must be wound up every two hours, all night. I helped to look after it.’ Strideforth paused. Then he said, ‘Every month, a ship comes with supplies. Flour and tea and sugar and oil and letters and hampers. Father loves hampers. He loves food in tins.’
Hortense sniffed and stroked Anya.
Strideforth went on sadly, ‘But this time he sent us away on the ship. He always said that he would send us away to school, when we were old enough. He promised Mother, before she died. We thought perhaps it would not be until next year, or the year after that. Or perhaps never. But then something unfortunate happened. I improved his bed. With clockwork. To help him wake up early in the morning. You wind it up,’ Strideforth demonstrated, waving his sandwich in a circle, ‘and set the time. There’s a pivot. And a spring. And in the morning, the whole bed spins over and dumps you very hard on the floor. It was a good invention, and much better than an alarm clock, and more interesting too. But Father was not so happy. It is not proper and correct to dump your father on the floor like that. And then Hortense invited many penguins into the lighthouse for a party and gave them sardines from tins and tea and biscuits. Which they liked a lot, but Father did not like at all. They made a lot of noise and mess, and they broke many teacups and also the lid of the sugar bowl. And then Henry tore up a book of lighthouse regulations and signals into tiny pieces. And then Father shouted a lot, and said enough is enough, and now we are old enough to go away, first to have a governess and then to go to school.’
Strideforth sighed. ‘Father hated school. He said it was dreadful. Very, very cold and there is horrible food. Porridge with big lumps in it, and boiled white fish that tastes like washing, and a kind of pudding that is like frogspawn, but with skin on top. And other things even more terrible than that. Father ran away from school many times. At last he hid on a ship that went all the way to the Argentine, where he met Mother. But when Mother died, Father was very unhappy, and so were we. And then we went to li
ve on Tribulation Island.’ Strideforth shrugged. ‘And now we will go to school. Gloamings for me, that is the same school that Father went to, and Wakestone Hall for Hortense. He has written to them, and we will start next term. It will be very, very dreadful, that is certain.’
Stella wondered what would happen to her, when the cousins went to school. Would she go too? She asked, ‘What is your governess like? Is she very strict?’
‘Father advertised for a governess in The Times. Miss Araminter is the only one who would come here. None of the others would because the house is empty and there are no servants, and it is so far from everywhere. She is nice, but she is interested only in —’ He broke off as Henry gave an ear-splitting cry and flapped up into the air. At the far end of the room, a door opened and a tall woman strode into the kitchen in a purposeful manner. She was wet through. She wore a long cape, and an extraordinary hat, decorated with twigs and leaves. She carried an enormous black umbrella, a lantern and an armful of dripping plants.
She said, ‘Stinking gladwin, Siberian thistle, devil’s bit, Tibetan fogwort, I believe. And a marvellous Batavian buttercup.’
Henry landed on her hat with an affectionate scream. ‘Heus!’ he shrieked.
‘Here’s Stella,’ said Strideforth, waving his arm. ‘Stella Montgomery, Miss Araminter. Our governess.’
‘My dear. You have arrived at last. How do you do?’ Miss Araminter passed the umbrella and the lantern to Strideforth and the bundle of plants to Hortense. She shooed Henry off her head, swooped down and shook Stella’s hand with both of hers. She had an interesting face, bony and expressive. She smiled. ‘Welcome to Wormwood Mire,’ she said. ‘We are so very pleased to have you with us.’
Five
Miss Araminter pulled off her gloves and rubbed her hands together. She took off her wet hat and cape and hung them up. ‘Charming evening for a brisk walk in the garden,’ she said, dripping. Strideforth passed her a cheese sandwich on a plate. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said, and sat down at the table. She ate in an inattentive manner as she gazed at Stella. ‘Did you have a pleasant journey?’ she asked.
‘Yes, thank you, Miss Araminter.’
The governess poked her long fingers into the pile of wet plants. ‘Are you interested in botany at all?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Stella doubtfully.
‘There are some fascinating plants in the garden. Wilberforce Montgomery was a famous collector. He built this house and garden to hold his collection. It was rather modern, for its time. Splendid heating system, all these pipes everywhere. And he drained the mire, built the lake and brought back many plants and animals and other curiosities from foreign places. The museum took most of his collection, and of course the animals went to the zoo. But the plants are still here. I am exploring the garden and finding many interesting specimens. There is a quite enormous monkey puzzle on the front lawn and a delightful Chinese pagoda tree down near the lake. The leaves are an emetic.’ She noticed Stella’s puzzled face. ‘They induce vomiting,’ she explained.
Stella wondered why anyone would want to induce vomiting, but she did not like to ask.
‘And there is a wonderful colony of dragon orchids on the hillside behind the stables. Extremely rare and rather lethal, my dear, so do be careful. And who knows what other treasures lurk in the shrubberies? Many surprising things thrive here, as the valley is very sheltered. I have encountered some marvellous foreign slugs. And yesterday, I came across a huge centipede, perhaps from Brazil. Are you interested at all in large, poisonous invertebrates, my dear?’
Startled, Stella shook her head.
‘Are you sure? There may be a book in the library,’ said Miss Araminter. She extracted a plant from the pile and sniffed it, her long bony nose quivering. ‘Now, this is devil’s bit. A charming herb. Would you be so kind as to consult Culpeper?’
Stella looked where she was pointing and pulled a leather-bound book from under a heavy green stone on a nearby chair.
Culpeper’s Complete Herbal
By Nich. Culpeper, Gent.
Student in Phyfick and Aftrology
She laid it on her lap and leafed through the pages. The paper was thin and crinkly, like the skin of an onion. The words were difficult to read, the printing dense and black, and some of the letters were unfamiliar shapes, stretched out long and thin, or jammed up together. There were pictures of different plants, beautifully coloured.
Bazil. Betony. Bishop’s Weed. Stella turned the pages. Daifies. Dandelion. Darnel. Devil’s Bit. She tilted the book to the lantern light and carefully followed the words with her finger as she read out, ‘The diftilled water of the herb is very effectual for green wounds and old sores …’
Henry edged sideways along the mantelpiece and made a sudden flapping pounce on the book.
Stella gasped, snatched it away and clutched it to her chest. Hortense made some loud, squawking sounds to him, and he backed away with an angry cluck, his head cocked.
‘You have to watch him around books and paper, my dear,’ said Miss Araminter. ‘He does enjoy tearing things up. And he will steal things. He is rather unprincipled.’
Stella noticed that all the books in the room were held down by heavy objects: a glossy purple crystal, a fossil, a stone rabbit. Keeping a cautious eye on Henry, she opened the book again and continued reading, ‘… sores, scurf, itch, pimples, freckles, morphew, or other deformities …’
‘Morphew. Marvellous. Thank you, my dear. I will make a distillation,’ said Miss Araminter, tasting a leaf of the devil’s bit. ‘Mr Burdock has such trouble with his feet. Perhaps this will help.’ She pushed her plate aside, dipped a pen into an ink bottle and made some quick, pecking notes in a journal.
‘Miss Araminter is writing a book,’ said Strideforth, biting into another sandwich. ‘Some Reflections on the Properties of Plants, by A Lady. Fully Illustrated.’ He pointed to a thick pile of pages, held down by a large marble foot, part of a broken statue.
‘Tomorrow, we will begin your studies, my dear,’ said Miss Araminter, as she connected a glass tube to a rubber hose. ‘Botany? Essential. The queen of the sciences. We can learn everything we need to know about the world from the study of plants. Observation and experimentation, that’s the key, I believe. And perhaps also Latin with Strideforth? Zoology, mathematics and engineering? And drawing?’
‘I’ve never learned them,’ said Stella uncertainly. Lessons had always been deportment and French with Aunt Temperance, and needlework and pianoforte with Aunt Condolence. All equally disagreeable.
‘Then there is no time to lose,’ Miss Araminter said. ‘You and Strideforth are of an age. You will be able to study together.’
Strideforth was attacking the hot plum-pudding tin with his pocketknife. He grinned at Stella as he levered the top off the tin with a screwdriver-like attachment, and began scooping the steaming contents out into a bowl.
She said, ‘I’ll try.’
Miss Araminter flashed her a sudden smile. ‘We have lessons in the morning, dinner at midday, and you will have preparation to complete in the afternoon. And no doubt you have your own studies to pursue. The library here is old-fashioned and rather damp, but you may find something of interest.’
‘Can — I mean, may I read the books?’ asked Stella, stroking the cover of Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. With the Aunts, her only books had been the dull French Conversation for Young Ladies, the depressing A Garden of Lilies and her beloved Atlas. She had kept the Atlas hidden because if her Aunts had ever found it, they would have had it burned. She had given it away and she missed it enormously.
Strideforth passed her a bowl of plum pudding. It was hot, and smelled of cloves and cinnamon and raisins and treacle.
‘Of course,’ said Miss Araminter. ‘You must read anything you like, my dear.’
Stella smiled. It felt like it was the first time for weeks.
Later, in her bedroom, Stella prepared for bed, listening to the huge house creaking and settling
. From somewhere far below came echoing, sighing sounds and trickling water. Hortense was already asleep, her arm flung around Henry. He was snoring, his head tucked under his wing. Anya was a tiny white ball tangled in Hortense’s dark hair and Teasel was a little pincushion on her pillow.
It was odd to think she had been here before, when she was a baby.
‘What will it be like living here?’ she whispered to Letty.
She imagined that Letty giggled, which was somewhat encouraging.
It felt strange to have no maid to help her undress and fold her clothes, but Stella did the best she could. She found her nightgown and pulled it on over her head.
She washed her face in the icy water and brushed her hair. It didn’t hurt as much as when Ada did it, yanking the brush through the knots and scolding all the time. In A Garden of Lilies, Isadora did not brush her hair properly, and straight away fell from the top of a high cliff into the ocean and was swallowed by a large fish.
For hair that’s glossy, clean and bright,
Two hundred strokes, both morn and night.
Sighing, Stella struggled with the tangles in her hair, plaited it with some difficulty and tied the end with a piece of ribbon.
The large mirror above the dressing table was flyspecked, and parts of the silvery backing had come away. The uneven surface of the mirror made her reflection shift and change. For a moment, Stella did not recognise herself. It seemed as if she were looking into the pale face of a stranger. But someone who looked just like her. She gave herself a tentative smile, and her reflection smiled back uncertainly.
She shivered and crawled into bed. The sheets felt damp. The pillow was lumpy and uncomfortable. She was very sleepy. An owl hooted in the garden. Stella blew out the candle, pulled the blankets over her head and fell asleep.
Stella dreamed she was walking through a dense wood, singing to herself under her breath. Overhead, the tangled, wintry branches stretched up into the night sky. Raindrops pattered down all around. Somewhere in the darkness, she heard a fox yelp and a nightjar’s churring call. Above, a pale shape swooped. An owl, hunting. She froze, fading into the shadow, until the owl passed by, and then she crept on, her feet silent on the wet leaves.
Wormwood Mire Page 3
