The Shadow Guests

by Joan Aiken

Cosmo went in to school thinking about this.

  If man was so good at measuring, why did he have to fight, too? Con had said he was here to fight. Measuring and fighting seemed highly contradictory pursuits. Or were there, perhaps, two sorts of people, the measuring kind, and the fighting kind?

  ‘And how’s our dear Wonder Boy today?’ said Tansy.

  Cosmo ignored her; and it seemed to him that several others in the form were also beginning to find that joke a trifle stale.

  Glancing around as he dropped his homework books on the staff table, he noticed that something seemed to be amiss with Meredith. Usually he found her face rather satisfying despite its bleak expression – it was such a clear, shapely oval, with large eyes of a strange, very beautiful greenish-grey, fringed by black lashes. Her face was his favourite among those of the girls, if you can have a favourite among enemies. But today it was swollen and blurred, its pallor blotchy, the whites of her eyes reddened.

  ‘What’s up with Meredith?’ he murmured to Bun, as they crossed the garden to prayers in the school hall. As he had reckoned, stupid Bun was not going to place obedience to form rule above the passing on of a noteworthy piece of news.

  ‘Her mother died,’ he whispered. Charley kicked him sharply on the shin, and he quickly shuffled to a place farther away from Cosmo, who felt a sharp twinge of sympathy for Meredith. Poor wretch – perhaps that was why she had been called to Gabby’s office last week – to be told that her mother was ill. And now she had died – and while Meredith was away from home, too. He wondered if she would go home for the funeral. And then thought of his father’s latest letter.

  ‘We had a memorial service for your mother and Mark, since it is not possible to have a funeral for people who are only presumed dead. But something seemed needed – to say that their lives had been of value, to round them off.’

  Glancing to his right – as usual, he had taken the place at the end of the row, so that only one of his form mates would be able to demonstrate disgust at having to stand next to him – Cosmo saw that the person next to him was Meredith. Evidently she was too sunk in grief to care where she stood. During prayers he noticed her surreptitiously dab at her eyes a couple of times with a tissue. Going out afterwards he ventured, taking advantage of the general bustle and shuffle, to murmur in her ear,

  ‘I’m awfully sorry about your mother, Meredith.’

  She glanced back at him in surprise, and he noticed that, though the whites of her eyes were reddened, the dark green-grey of the pupils was still beautiful – like moss on a grey rock. She did not reply, but made a tiny movement of her head, a faint acknowledgement. This encouraged him to add,

  ‘I know what it’s like. Mine died two months ago.’

  At that she looked round at him full and clear, eyes opened wide. To his hurt astonishment there was now blazing scorn in her face. She said,

  ‘I don’t believe you! And I call it pretty cheap to invent a thing like that, just to get attention.’

  Then she took two hasty steps, so as to catch up with Sheil, and grabbed her arm.

  Cosmo felt as if he had been slapped. His cheeks stung with rage and hurt. He would let himself be fried in boiling oil before he offered any sympathy to her again. Blast her! He was enraged at having laid himself open to her retort by his stupid, spongy craving for sympathy. Con wouldn’t have done such a thing. Con would probably let his skin be peeled off inch by inch before he expected anybody to offer sympathy for anything – and, from now on, Cosmo would be the same. Hunching his shoulders, he followed the rest of his form in to lessons.

  The black mood that followed this incident lay on Cosmo for several days; he did not care whether anybody in Remove spoke to him or not. In fact he preferred his own thoughts. He had plenty of them.

  Sliding in the playroom after supper with Frances and Tim had begun to seem decidedly boring and babyish, and he now spent most of his evenings in the library, reading. He had discovered, with great pleasure, sequels of several books that he and Mark had owned (the ones that were following across the sea in a box; heaven only knew when they would arrive); he had read Jan, Son of Finn, The Second Jungle Book, and The Box of Delights. But on Thursday night when he went up to the library he found to his great frustration that a staff meeting was about to begin there, and he was not allowed in.

  ‘Well, you can change your book if you are quick, Cosmo,’ Miss Nivven told him kindly, ‘and then go and read it in your own form room.’

  All in a hurry Cosmo grabbed Kim, which he had read several times, and turned to leave. Read in his own form room indeed! Ha, what a hope! But then he thought, Well, why shouldn’t I go in there if I want to? I’ve a perfect right to read in there if I choose. Con would think I was crazy if I didn’t, and he strolled in, trying to look unconcerned.

  Two things struck him instantly – that there was a rather hectic, feverish, giggly atmosphere in the room, and that, for once, it was not aimed at or concentrated on him.

  In fact, apart from a couple of chilly stares, he was ignored. He slipped into his seat, pulled out pad and pencil, and started writing a letter to Con.

  ‘Dear Con,’ he wrote, ‘I wonder what you would make of the people at this school. I think you might find them pretty childish …’

  The people in the room – there were eight of them, everybody, in fact, but the two day boys – seemed to be engaged in talking about snuff. Listening to them, as he invented his imaginary letter, Cosmo wondered what there was in snuff to make them so excited and conspiratorial.

  ‘My father always uses rappee,’ said Moley learnedly. ‘He prefers to buy a coarse snuff and then regrind it himself, flavouring it in the process with bergamot oil and coriander bark. But I prefer a lighter snuff myself.’

  ‘Do you take snuff, Moley?’ Bun asked wonderingly.

  ‘But of course. Always, in the holidays. Don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Bun.

  ‘You don’t take snuff, Bun?’ exclaimed Tansy, giggling. ‘Well you are a stick-in-the-mud! Everybody else does. What sort do you take, Charley?’

  ‘Oh, I usually prefer a dry snuff,’ drawled Charley. ‘I use a Welsh mixture mostly – that’s roasted before it is ground, you know.’

  ‘I like a moist, spiced snuff,’ put in Sheil. ‘And I like it scented with cloves and attar of roses. Remind me to show you my snuffbox, sometime, Bun; it’s a very pretty one; I keep it upstairs in my work basket.’

  It now became plain to Cosmo that an elaborate tease of Bun was in process; evidently his classmates had temporarily lost interest in Cosmo as a target and were using their waspish energy in other directions.

  ‘You really ought to take snuff, you know, Bun,’ Chris said. ‘It’s pretty childish not to. I daresay even our Wonder Boy along there would admit to taking snuff if anyone were to ask him.’

  Cosmo felt this was some kind of challenge. Was he going to buy acceptance at the price of baiting Bun? He decided not to be drawn in.

  Bun became very flustered and apologetic. ‘But I don’t know how to take snuff! Or where to get it! Where do I go? Can I get it from a shop? No one has ever told me about snuff before.’

  ‘Oh, you needn’t worry about that,’ Charley reassured him kindly. ‘Well, you can get if from tobacconists, of course, but until you have actually decided which kind you prefer, it’s much better to go to Mr Gabbitas and ask his advice.’

  Here many nudges and significant looks were exchanged; it became plain to Cosmo where the course of the tease was leading.

  ‘I couldn’t do that!’ exclaimed Bun, alarmed. ‘Ask Mr Gabbitas? I couldn’t!’

  ‘But don’t you see, that’s what he’s there for. To advise you. Just you go and knock on his door – he’s in his office now, I happen to know, having coffee – and you say to him, “I’d like to try a little of your snuff, Mr Gabbitas, please.” ’

  ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,’ protested poor Bun, but it was plain that, none the less, he was fascinated by the idea, almo
st hypnotized by it.

  ‘You really should, you know,’ Rebecca soberly assured him. ‘Just think how we shall all feel when we are in first Intermediate, and you still aren’t taking snuff.’

  Everybody endorsed this.

  ‘We shall feel ashamed of you, Bun. When we’re all in studies and you not knowing about snuff.’

  ‘You might have to stop down in Remove for another year.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Bun, moithered and distracted. ‘Might I? I shouldn’t like that. Oh, all right then, I’ll go. But tell me again what I have to say.’

  Cosmo noticed that among all the teasing chorus, Meredith was the only one who had not spoken. She was sitting silent, with her chin on her hands, wrapped in her own thoughts.

  ‘Even Cosmo here will tell you that you ought to go to Mr Gabbitas, Bun,’ said Charley, giving Cosmo a measuring look. ‘Won’t you, Wonder Boy? And I’m sure Dracula’s aunt would agree, too. I’m sure she takes snuff.’

  ‘Should I go to Mr Gabbitas, Cosmo?’

  ‘No, Bun, don’t be so silly. Can’t you see they’re pulling your leg?’

  ‘Oh-oh,’ muttered Moley, ‘Cosmic doesn’t approve of snuff for the young.’

  ‘I think you’re all pretty childish if you want to know,’ Cosmo said. ‘Bun, they’re making you go to Mr Gabbitas for a joke, can’t you see?’

  Despite this, Bun was at length persuaded to go to Mr Gabbitas; his classmates waited in delighted apprehension, seething with suppressed laughter, for the explosion.

  Bun came back in a minute looking puzzled and quenched.

  ‘He didn’t do at all what you said he would; he just seemed cross! He had two ladies having coffee with him and he said, “Don’t be silly, Bunthorne, go away and don’t bother me.” ’

  ‘Oh, you must have asked him in the wrong way,’ said Charley, dying of laughter. ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘What you told me: “Can I have some snuff, please, Mr Gabbitas.” ’

  ‘No, no, no, you should have said, “I’d like to try a little snuff, Mr Gabbitas, from your store!” Now just you go back and have another try, using those words, and it’ll work like a charm, you’ll see.’

  Bun, red-faced and protesting, was urged to the door again.

  ‘Oh, you are a lot of lunkheads,’ said Cosmo crossly standing up. It was half past eight, thank goodness, he could go to bed. ‘Why you get such a kick out of fooling that poor dummy, heaven only knows; I should have thought you could find something more interesting to do.’

  ‘Goody-goody-gumdrop,’ said Tansy into the startled silence that followed his words. Cosmo walked out and shut the door sharply behind him.

  He went up to bed in a sad, angry, rebellious frame of mind.

  He was thinking about his imaginary letter to Con.

  I’d like to post it, he thought, but I can’t. There’s no way I can get in touch with Con. Or with Mark and Ma. They are lost to me, but why? I can write a letter to Father, put it in an envelope, stick a stamp on it, put it in the wooden box on the hall table, and somehow or other, from that box, it will find its way to Australia, ten thousand miles away. What proof have I that it will go from the box to Australia? None. Yet it does. Why isn’t there some way of getting in touch with Con and Mark and Ma? That doesn’t seem any more unlikely. I don’t care a rap about laser beams or putting men on Mars – why can’t scientists work harder on getting in touch with people who have gone?

  He wrote in his diary, ‘Everyone in Remove teasing poor Bun’, and went to sleep. At once he started dreaming about Mark, who, oddly, was wearing glasses, which he had not in real life. He was deep in some book, and very exasperated because Cosmo wanted to talk to him – as Mark often had been. He couldn’t stand being bothered when he was reading – that was the one thing that shook his equable temper.

  ‘Do go away, Cosmo,’ he said in the dream. ‘Don’t bother me now. You can look at my butterflies if you want.’

  Mark’s butterflies! Cosmo half woke, moved by the intensity of wondering what had happened to them. They had been a dazzling collection, not only Australian, but many from New Guinea, China, Japan. Mark had bought and collected and corresponded and swapped with immense diligence and had them all beautifully housed in three Japanese lacquer cabinets. What would become of them? Father could hardly bring them to England. At one time it had been the height of Cosmo’s ambition to possess the beautiful things – Mark had only rarely allowed him to look at them, because he said being exposed to light too often would fade their colours. But since Mark’s death somehow the thought of owning them had lost its appeal for Cosmo. Probably Father would give them to a museum …

  Next day, just as the members of Remove were about to go and wash their hands for lunch, Mr Gabbitas swept into the room in a cold rage. Cosmo had only seen the headmaster in benign moods before, and was interested to find that he could be in a rage – he had appeared to be such a mild, milk-and-watery man. Now he was quite white with anger, so that, with his thinness, pale eyes, white hair, brows and lashes, and his quick, whipping movements, he looked like a white-coated ferret, or perhaps, Cosmo thought, some thin, dry, white, venomous furry snake, angry and dangerous. Bun had already left the room, summoned by Mrs Robinson to be measured for a new blazer. Old Gabby looked sharply round the form room.

  ‘Priest and Salford can go to lunch,’ he said. Andy and Lot left. ‘I’ve something to say to the rest of you,’ Mr Gabbitas went on. ‘Last night you all conspired together in a particularly stupid, childish and spiteful manner to make a fool of poor Bunthorne. And also of me. I can look after myself – though I intensely dislike being bothered by silly practical jokes at the end of a hard day, and when I have visitors – but poor Bunthorne, as you are perfectly well aware, is not capable of understanding such jokes. You hurt, upset and bothered him. I hope you are all thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.’

  Nobody spoke. He stared at the row of downcast, unresponsive faces, and went on,

  ‘Your punishment for this piece of childishness is that nobody will be allowed to go out or home during the weekend. You can stay in and do extra Latin prep, which Mr Falaise will set you. And I hope that will persuade you to behave less irresponsibly in future.’

  He turned to leave amid a collective gasp. Really that was going it a bit strong! But no one had the courage to protest.

  Meredith, however, put up her hand.

  ‘Yes, Meredith, what is it?’ Mr Gabbitas modified his tone slightly when addressing her, but then made matters worse by adding, ‘I must say, I am very surprised at you, Meredith, getting involved in such a mean joke, specially just now. Well, what is it?’

  Meredith went scarlet, then pale again. Somebody was heard to mutter, ‘Unfair old bastard.’

  Collecting herself, Meredith said, ‘Sir, Cosmo Curtoys oughtn’t to be punished. He didn’t – didn’t take part in the snuff joke. In fact he tried to persuade Bun not to go to you and – and said that we were a lot of lunkheads.’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Mr Gabbitas looked at Cosmo sharply. ‘Well, I am not going to remit your punishment, Cosmo. You may think that unfair. But if you were clear enough about the issue not to take part in the prank, you should have been able to dissuade them from it; or Bun from believing them. That is all I have to say. Now you may go down to lunch.’

  And he left the room.

  Cosmo felt a deep sense of shock and outrage at the knowledge that he was prevented from going back to the mill house for another eight days. How was he going to bear it?

  Then he realized that the rest of his classmates were looking at him commiseratingly.

  ‘I must say that’s a bit thick on you, Cosmo,’ Charley said.

  ‘Jolly hard cheese,’ Chris remarked.

  ‘Gabby really is a cunning old bounder,’ Moley murmured.

  ‘Poor Wonder Boy gets the thin end of both wedges,’ Tansy giggled.

  Sheil said, ‘Damn that man! Damn him! My sister was going to take me to
the ballet.’

  ‘Thanks for sticking up for me, anyway,’ Cosmo said to Meredith.

  ‘Oh, I daresay you would have stuck up for yourself if I hadn’t,’ she replied coldly.

  ‘Wouldn’t have done any good, anyway,’ Chris said. ‘Oh well, now we’re stuck with Cosmic for the weekend.’

  ‘Don’t let it worry you. I shan’t get in your hair,’ said Cosmo, and went downstairs to lunch, thinking how horrible and embarrassing it was going to be to have to tell Eunice, right there on the front steps, that he was not allowed to come home.

  However, to his surprise, Mr Gabbitas stopped him on the stairs after lunch and told him that he had already telephoned Professor Doom and explained the situation. ‘And I may as well add, Cosmo, that I appreciate you must feel your punishment is – ah – somewhat unjust. But I fancied that if you were the only person to go unpunished it might – ah – exacerbate your difficulties with the rest of your form.’

  ‘I see, sir.’ Wily old character! Cosmo thought. Moley was right. He sees more than he gets given credit for. Maybe Maugham had said something to him.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Mr Gabbitas went on, ‘you will be able, in the course of the weekend, to get on to – ah – closer, more congenial terms with some of your companions.’

  Cosmo rather doubted this.

  The following week crawled at tortoise speed. Every day seemed to last forty-eight hours. Not having the weekend as a springboard to get him through from Monday to Friday made Cosmo realize how much he owed to Eunice and Mrs Tydings and Mr Marvell, and how badly he would miss the mill house, the walnut tree, the weir, the island, the meadow, if he were to be deprived of them again.

  Another exasperation was that this had been the weekend of the full moon.

  ‘Blast it!’ he exclaimed, when he saw it sailing past the window on Saturday night.

  ‘Now what?’ said Chris, morosely doing Latin – Mr Falaise had co-operated by giving them an immense amount of translation.

  Cosmo couldn’t help noticing that his classmates had somewhat relaxed their ban, and begun speaking to him occasionally. He supposed he ought to be grateful for this. But he did not answer Chris; if he explained that he was sore at missing a phantom coach-and-six, it would have sent him back to square one.