Читать книгу The Secrets of Greystone House - Marcus Attwater - Страница 8

There is a building in the kitchen yard which contains the stable for Biscuit on one side and a garage on the other, with a flat above where Mr Matthews lives. When the weather is good and he is not needed for the pony carriage, Biscuit is put in the paddock which lies beyond the little door in the garden wall. Every evening, when we are going to bed or a little later, Mr Matthews fetches in Biscuit and makes a circuit of the grounds to shut the gates and make sure the doors of the outbuildings are locked. I like to sit by my dormer window and watch this nightly ritual. It is the most normal thing in the world here, and utterly unlike anything I know. Sometimes I stay at the window until it gets dark, because I have trouble falling asleep. It is so different from the city, where I can sleep through any amount of noise. Here it is always quiet, so that every little rush and rustle startles me. It also gets very hot up in my attic room, and I have to keep the window open all the time, with the result that I am covered in gnat bites. But Nanny has given me some citronella oil for that, and I still like to sit by the window and feel the night air on my face. When there’s a moon it is brighter than the city with the streetlights on. One time I see a fox briskly trotting across the lawn before slipping away under the hedge, on another evening an owl swoops past just level with my head.

When the room isn’t too hot, or when it is too dark to see anything in the garden, I switch on the bedside lamp and read instead. There is a bookcase in the drawing room containing sets of Scott and Dickens and Trollope which are never touched except for dusting, but the bookcase in the schoolroom is a treasure house. The childhood reading of several generations of Hambletons has come to rest there, from Sunday school prizes dated 1886 to the latest Swallows and Amazons. I have already finished Tales of Troy and Greece, and am now halfway through The Green Fairy Book, but no one else except Arthur is interested in reading. That changes when Mr Braithwaite issues his challenge.

It is the second week of lessons, and English is becoming a problem. Mr Braithwaite is finding it hard to keep our minds on grammar and spelling, and since we are all at different levels, whenever he needs to explain anything there is always someone’s attention wandering off.

‘This is no use,’ he says, when he discovers Rory drawing a treasure map in his exercise book. ‘I have a different proposition. We are not going to do any more grammar exercises or spelling tests during English lessons. Instead, we are going to make your experience of the English language as wide as possible. We have five lessons a week: every day one of you will tell us about a book he or she has read that week.’

‘You mean, just talk about it?’

‘Not only that. You must write down a synopsis – that’s a summary – and what you liked and didn’t like about the book. That way you’ll all practice your composition at the same time.’

‘But there are only four of us,’ Jamie says.

‘We’ll ask Gwendolyn to join you. And to make sure I can answer your questions, I’ll read the books as well.’

‘You mean you’ll read everything we read, even if we do more than one book a week?’ Rory asks, in plain disbelief that anyone could be so foolhardy.

‘Yes. I will have read some of them already, and some of you may read the same books, so you needn’t worry about me.’

‘Any kind of book?’ Rory says, checking for hidden traps.

‘As many kinds as possible.’

It appears not to trouble him that keeping up with us means he will have to read at least five books a week, probably more when the weather is bad. What Mr Braithwaite didn’t think of is that inviting the girls to join means he also has to read stories like Dimsie Goes Up (Jamie) and Pomfret Towers (Gwendolyn). But he gamely battles on, and matches us book for book.

Trying to outread Mr Braithwaite becomes an obsession. Gwendolyn studies Shakespeare, Ian moves on from Conan Doyle and tackles Jules Verne. Felicity doesn’t want to be left out, so we take turns to read to her from The Enchanted Castle before she has her nap. Even Rory makes his laborious way through Treasure Island and The Jungle Book.

I don’t know why I think I have to read all the books the others do as well. I have a lot of time when they leave me to myself on Sundays, and since there aren’t that many books at home I want to make the most of the opportunity. We are some weeks into the challenge when Mr Braithwaite notices I have been reading as much as he is.

‘But I’m sure I saw you reading Puck of Pook’s Hill,’ he says, when I add Tales from Shakespeare to his list.

‘Yes, but Ian already put that,’ I say.

He looks up and pushes the list across. ‘Show me which of these books you’ve read that you haven’t told me.’

I worry that I have done something wrong. But we are supposed to read as much as possible, aren’t we? ‘Why, all of them. No, wait, not all. Not Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, they were too difficult. That’s why I did Tales from Shakespeare. And because I liked the pictures.’

‘That’s quite remarkable. Your English teacher won’t have anything left to tell you at this rate.’

It dawns on me that I’m not being told off, I’m being praised, and I don’t know what to say.

‘I like reading, sir.’

II

We are sailing across the Mediterranean (the grounds of Greystone), having narrowly escaped from Troy (the stables), hoping eventually to reach Italy (the rose garden). Ian is Aeneas, and Rory his son Ascanius. As usual, I am called upon to be any minor character that may be needed. Gwendolyn announces that she will be Dido and proposes the drawing room terrace for Carthage.

‘We can skip that bit, it’s soppy,’ her brother says.

‘It’s the only interesting part in the story!’

Rory, meanwhile, has objections to the aimlessness of the whole adventure. ‘I don’t see what’s the point of sailing through uncharted waters and landing on all those islands if you’re not going to find treasure there,’ he says obstinately.

‘But that’s not in the story. Aeneas doesn’t find treasure.’ Ian doesn’t like deviations from a set course.

‘There are the spoils of war, though,’ I offer, trying to find a middle ground. ‘We can have a raid on the enemy camp.’

Rory concedes that this sounds interesting. ‘But is it in the story?’ he asks, with a glance at Ian – all that reading is rubbing off even on him.

‘Yes, because there were these two followers of Aeneas, see, who were great friends, and they slipped in among their sleeping enemies and tried to carry off a lot of gold but one of them was captured and the other turned back to save him and then they were both killed.’

Ian’s face indicates that he finds this at least as soppy as Aeneas falling in love with the queen of Carthage. Rory protests that that means they didn’t carry off any spoils after all. Jamie complains that she is not satisfied with the role of Lavinia, who does not appear to do anything, and doesn’t come into the story until the very end.

‘You can be Dido’s sister instead,’ Gwendolyn promises, ‘Trying to persuade me not to kill myself.’

Ian is disgusted. ‘That’s what you get trying to play with girls,’ he tells Rory.

‘So don’t play with us, then! Come on, Jamie, we have better things to do.’ Gwendolyn gets up and stalks back towards the house. After a moment’s hesitation, Jamie follows. The south-facing wall with the fruit trees stops being a sheltered bay, and the Mediterranean vanishes.

Rory looks stunned. His sister has never deserted him before. ‘I’m going to read that book for Mr Braithwaite,’ he mumbles, and follows the girls into the house.

Ian looks at me. ‘What shall we do?’

We spend the rest of the afternoon playing tennis, which cheers him up no end because he is so much better at it than me.

By unspoken agreement we abandon The Aeneid, but when Gwendolyn reads to us that evening after tea I suspect her of choosing love passages just to annoy Ian.

How now?

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections

With an invisible and subtle stealth,

To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.

Rory sniggers, but Jamie looks at her cousin admiringly. Gwendolyn has a lovely voice, you never hear her shriek with laughter or yell to make herself heard. She says she wants to be an actress, and when she reads speeches from Shakespeare you can see how this may be a good idea. She longs for us to put on a play, but that doesn’t prove a very realistic ambition, since we don’t want to stay indoors with her now the weather has changed for the better. But we do perform an abbreviated version of Hamlet with Felicity’s toy theatre one Saturday afternoon, with each of us reading a part and Rory shuffling the little paper figures around. Nanny, Dolly and Gladys are the audience (although it must be said that they are all doing some knitting or mending at the same time). Since Gwendolyn insisted on being Hamlet, I am cast as Ophelia, singing a silly song about flowers and making the other boys giggle. I ignore them and wonder what rue looks like, and fennel, and columbine.

Unlike Ian and Rory, I love the language of Shakespeare. I find it much easier to follow hearing it spoken than when I tried to read the entire play by myself. Sometimes it is like I can understand it even if I don’t know the meaning of the individual words.

‘That’s stupid, you either understand it or you don’t,’ Ian says, when I try to explain this. But Gwendolyn says she knows exactly what I mean (‘maybe Ian will understand when he is older’) making me glow with pleasure even though it puts me in her brother’s bad books for an entire week.

On the Wednesday after Hamlet there are no lessons, because Mrs Hambleton and Mrs Knight are taking Ian and Rory to London to get their new school uniforms. Rory tells me that this is an annual treat, with a super tea, and presents for both of them. ‘And then next week or so they take the girls.’

The boys and their mothers are duly driven off by Mr Matthews, and I am left alone in the schoolroom.

‘You can play with Jamie,’ Nanny says, but Jamie doesn’t want to be played with. She goes off with Gwendolyn to see Miranda Norwood’s ponies, and I am left on my own. I would have liked to go to London and see the big department stores, but I know perfectly well I cannot expect Mrs Hambleton to include me in the treat. There is something else worrying me, though. What about my school uniform? There is a long list of all the things I’ll need with the letter from Woodhill Grammar School, and I have no idea how I will get them.

‘Aunt Helen, I will need to buy my school uniform as well, before September. I don’t think I can get everything in town here.’

She wipes her hands on her apron. ‘Oh dear, I think your dad never thought of that. We’ll have to see. Perhaps I can take you to London on my day off.’ I can tell she doesn’t want to go shopping in crowded London streets after being on her feet six days out of seven, and I don’t think it would be much fun for me either. But she says, ‘We’ll work something out Jack, don’t worry.’

When Ian and Rory return I admire their new blazers and ties (although I am quietly relieved that I shall never have to wear a straw boater) and especially their presents: a new engine for Rory’s railway and a Skybirds Hurricane for Ian. How different the city is for them! To me, London is just where East Finchley happens to be. The city of shops and clubs and offices where Mr Hambleton works and his wife buys the children’s clothes is unknown territory to me, and the other boys are constantly surprised I am not familiar with this or that landmark.

‘But you said you live in London,’ Rory complains.

‘London’s very big.’

III

One moonlit evening in what must be my third week at Greystone I am still sitting up after midnight. It is a warm night, with a bright half-moon. I am almost ready to nod off when a movement catches my eye. Someone is pulling himself up on the garden wall, just to the right of the little door. He pushes up with his hands and swings himself over, landing with a soft thump on the garden side. Is it a burglar? He doesn’t much look like one (I don’t stop to think that I’ve never seen one before). He is young and fair-haired, which I can see because he is hatless, and wearing flannel trousers and a jumper. Moving quietly on his tennis shoes he walks up to the conservatory. I hear the door open, and I can just make out the shadow of another person when I crane my head.

‘Artie?’ the visitor says.

They go inside together and the door closes again. I wait, but nothing else happens, and I go to bed hugging my secret to myself. It never occurs to me to tell anyone about the midnight visitor, even though his furtive arrival suggests there is something wrong with his being there. If Arthur knows it must be all right. And I like there being something I know that Ian doesn’t.

The next day is Gwendolyn’s fifteenth birthday, and there is a tea party in the garden. I am not really invited, but I sit on the steps of the terrace with Rory and Jamie, and have cake and lemonade just the same.

I study the guests, trying to see if the midnight visitor is there, but I am disappointed. There are girls called Jessica and Angela, and Miranda Norwood and her brothers, the rector’s son Graham, and Francis, whose father is the baronet. The only young men present are Arthur and Mr Braithwaite. They all play silly games, and Gwendolyn is laughing a lot. I can’t imagine what it will be like to be fifteen, or almost twenty, like Arthur is. I used to think you just got bigger and bigger until you were grown, but that’s not true, I can see that now: you don’t just grow, you change. I don’t know if I want to change.

‘This is boring,’ Rory says, ‘Let’s find Ian and play pirates.’