about boarding school and lessons at home. Geraint would have liked to be at Eton or Marlowe, he thought, but was coached in Latin and History by Frank Mallett, and shared a maths tutor with the sons of the local squire. He was not pleased to be interrupted by Dobbin, earnestly asking about Philip.
“Go and ask Mama,” he said.
Dobbin looked depressed. Both of them knew she would give no answer. Florence said she had seen Philip’s drawings, which were amazingly good. Geraint said if he was that good, they were not doing him a kindness to bury him in the marshes with no one to talk to. Florence said he had been sleeping in a tomb in the basement. Florence’s interest roused Geraint. He said that he thought his father might be pleased to think about Philip if Florence’s father were to recommend him—send a letter or something. So Prosper Cain was consulted, and he spoke to Seraphita, who smiled pacifically and said she was sure it would all turn out well.
7
Humphry left on Monday morning to resign his post at the Bank of England. He was full of nervous excitement. He told Olive, who was resting in bed, that he would speak to the Secretary and ask for his resignation to take place immediately. He said he should miss the Old Lady. He thought he might stay in Town and see a few people. He would go to the
“It was only a French novel. Not Harland’s
“Nevertheless, they had their windows smashed by a nasty crowd.”
Humphry in his city suit bent and kissed his wife. She was never responsive in the early days of pregnancy, another reason for taking a trip elsewhere. He said he would get breakfast sent up.
“And send Tom, if you see him.”
“Of course.”
In the hall Violet held out his overcoat and his hat, with his briefcase. He wondered if Violet knew Olive was expecting. He knew remarkably little about what the sisters knew about each other. He said “Look after the house, Vi.”
“You may be sure I shall.”
Tom came up with the breakfast, which Ada had put on a tray. Olive said, as she always said, “Come to my arms my beamish boy,” and they both laughed. Tom put the tray on the bedside table, and bent into Olive’s embrace. She was flushed. Her hair was a dark pool against the pillows. In earlier days Tom had snuggled into bed with her, and she had told stories of the inch-high warriors who marched through the counterpane’s hills and valleys. Later, both he and Dorothy had been invited to curl one at each side, but Dorothy was gawky and the whole thing became less cosy. He had for some time been too big to get into the bed. But he sat on the edge, and patted the unseen limbs under the covers, and said he was sorry she didn’t feel well. She smiled, and said it would pass. She thought she would have a working-in-bed day. Perhaps he would fetch the story books? She had had a few new ideas. Tom kissed her again, slid off the bed and went downstairs.
The story books were kept in a glass-faced cabinet in Olive’s study. Each child had a book, and each child had his or her own story. It had begun, of course, with Tom, whose story was the longest. Each story was written in its own book, hand-decorated with stuck-on scraps and coloured patterns. Tom’s was inky-blue-black, covered with ferns and brackens, some real, dried and pressed, some cut out of gold and silver paper. Dorothy’s was forest- green, covered with nursery scraps of small creatures, hedgehogs, rabbits, mice, blue-tits and frogs. Phyllis’s was rose-pink and lacy, with scraps of gauzy-winged fairies in florid dresses, sweet-peas and bluebells, daisies and pansies. Hedda’s was striped in purple, green and white, with silhouettes of witches and dragons. Florian’s book was only little, a nice warm red, with Father Christmas and a yule log.
The project had begun with Tom’s discovery, in his story, of a door into a magic world that appeared and disappeared. The imaginary door was in a real place, in a Todefright cellar full of coal and cobwebs. It was a small, silver trap-door, that would take a child, but not an adult, and it could be seen only by the light of the full moon. It led into an underground world full of tunnels, passages, mines, and strange folk and creatures, benign, maleficent and indifferent. It turned out that Tom’s hero, who was sometimes called Tom and sometimes Lancelin, was on an apparently endless quest to find his shadow, which had been stolen by a Rat, when he was in his cradle.
This tale had been so successful, that Olive had invented other doors, in the fabric of their daily reality, for the other children. Dorothy’s alter ego, a stalwart child called Peggy, had found a wooden door, with iron bolts, in the root system of the apple tree in the orchard. This proved to be a way into a strange country populated by half- beasts, people and creatures who could change their skins and sizes, sometimes by choice and sometimes by accident, so that you might find that you were a human child one moment, and a hedgehog the next, hiding in dead leaves. There were wolves in this land, and wild boars. Phyllis’s character, a princess who had been changed for a little servant girl, found a crack in a teapot she was being made to wash, in the middle of a picture of a pretty glade, in which ladies danced, with flutes and tambourines. You could make yourself small enough to slip through the crack by chewing a certain kind of Chinese tealeaf, known as gunpowder, which came in hard little pellets and unrolled into leaf shapes in hot water. In Phyllis’s story there were princes and princesses all waiting in castles, frozen or sleeping, for the redeemer to find the clue, and release them. Hedda’s way in was inside the grandfather clock in the dining-hall. You could see the gateway whilst the clock was striking midnight. It led to a world of witches, wizards, woods, cellars and potions, with children roosting in cages like chickens in need of setting free, and wondrous contests in shape-shifting between magical dwarfs and wizards, black ladies and blue gnomes. Florian’s story had hardly begun. It was possible his door was in the chimney, where he claimed to have seen a hefty scarlet figure with a sack. It was also possible that he would grow out of that, and make another world. In the interim, his story was peopled by his stuffed toys, a bear called Furry, a white cat called Snowy, and a stripy knitted snake called Ringary. In the world through the portal they were figures of power, sleek and glossy, Bear, Cat and Snake.
Tom looked into his book. The story had advanced a page or two. A group of seekers were descending a dark tunnel—they were the shadow-less hero, a gold lizard the size of a terrier with garnet eyes, and a transparent, jellylike formless being who poured along the ground and constantly changed shape. A new figure had appeared, who ran in front of them, leaving soft footprints in the dust. There was some question as to whether it was the lost shadow, who had taken on substance. Or it might be another seeker, a friend or an enemy or simply a stranger, in the dark.
The stories in the books were, in their nature, endless. They were like segmented worms, with hooks and eyes to fit onto the next moving and coiling section. Every closure of plot had to contain a new beginning. There were tributary plots, that joined the mainstream again, further on, further in. Olive plundered the children’s stories sometimes, for publishable situations, or people, or settings, but everyone understood that the magic persisted because it was hidden, because it was a shared secret.
All of them, from Florian to Olive herself, walked about the house and garden, the shrubbery and the orchard,
