beggar.”
Magnus suspected that a fireman’s lift, one of the few terms with which he was not familiar, involved being carried back to his room over the old man’s shoulder. “I’m all right,” he said firmly. “I’d just like to go back to bed. Sorry if I frightened you.”
The Colonel gave a dry laugh. “You didn’t frighten me, young man, I often sit up late. Can’t sleep y’know, it’s my age. All right then, follow me, and mind where you put your feet, the lighting’s not good along these corridors.”
But as they left the hall something made Magnus look back. He said, “You’ve left one of the lights on.”
Colonel Stickley turned round. “So I have, and the Lady Alice won’t like that. Beautiful young woman but she had quite a temper, they say, quite an old paddy.” He clicked a switch and Magnus saw the tall woman in white and black with the thin little dog at her feet fade into the darkness.
As they went along the corridors towards the turret stairs, he saw two tapestries hanging on a wall, lit by a solitary lamp. One portrayed Pontius Pilate washing his hands in a bowl of water. A soldier stood by with a scarlet towel and Jesus, in a corner and already wearing his crown of thorns, was looking on, sadly. The other showed a scene from the Old Testament. Father Robert had told him the story, about Balaam’s donkey who was beaten because he disobeyed his master. Knowing that he was in the presence of an angel of God, the poor beast had lain down in the road and would not budge. Here, in ragged, faded threads, was that donkey, flattened, with its ears sticking out at right angles, as if something had run over it, and a great ball of shimmering light that was the angel. It was only a glimpse as the Colonel, puffing slightly, started to mount the spiral stairs, but it made Magnus think of Arthur, the little cat. Animals were sometimes more sensitive to the big, deep things than human beings were, and Arthur had been plainly terrified when the crying began. Like Balaam’s ass, the cat must have suddenly picked up a very strong presence, and he had fled from it. It was definitely not good, like the angel, but perhaps it was not totally bad either. All Magnus knew for certain was that it was very troubled. Its grief was great and it had wept human tears.
But how could it have anything to do with that hard-faced woman in the gold frame, the woman who had, he was sure, been out of it when he’d first come into the Great Hall and found the Colonel playing chess? And had Colonel Stickley known that the woman had gone from the frame and was that gruff, calm treatment of Magnus all a sham?
As the Colonel said goodnight to him and he snuggled down into his bed again, he once more felt afraid. He wanted some arms round him. Why hadn’t he gone to Majorca with Auntie Win and Uncle Donald? He felt round in the bed. Perhaps Arthur had crept back and was waiting for him, a warm purry presence, but the cat was not there. So he turned on his side, burrowing down as Colonel Stickley limped down the stairs, still muttering to himself. “Flowers in the fireplace,” Magnus heard. “Whatever next… for three children. Is this the Hilton Hotel? Humph, I’m not clearing the mess up. It’ll be that damned cat.”
But a cat as small as Arthur could not have achieved the complete wreckage that now lay in the grate, a wreckage Magnus had not seen as he’d climbed thankfully and hurriedly into his bed. Cousin M’s beautiful arrangement of wild peonies, set in the fireplace in their honour, lay in ruins. The simple green vase that had held them was smashed and it looked as if some of the smaller pieces of glass had been ground into powder. The flowers themselves had been torn from their stalks and dismembered, petal by petal, and they lay upon the dark polished floor of the tower room like big flakes of snow.
Cousin M, coming into the turret room next morning, saw the flowers scattered in the grate, knelt down and, without comment, began to pick them up.
“It wasn’t me, I didn’t knock them over,” Magnus said defensively, sitting up in bed. He’d become very used to people telling him off for things he hadn’t done.
Cousin M showed no reaction. “It’s all right dear. It’s a shame about the vase though, it was a pretty one. Perhaps the children’s mother could get me another. It came from the old glass factory near my flat in Majorca.”
Sam and Floss had woken up too. Through the barred window they could see a square of cloudless blue sky, sun shining on a sheet of water. The day suddenly felt good.
“Don’t know if you’re interested, but there’s breakfast down below,” Cousin M said casually, tidying the bits of glass into a heap. “Mind you don’t cut yourselves on this. I’ll bring a dustpan.”
“Did Arthur knock the flowers over?” asked Floss.
“Probably. He doesn’t know his own strength, that animal.” But Magnus, who was observing her very carefully, didn’t believe a word of it. It was quite obvious to him that this kind of thing must have happened before and she’d got used to it. Her studied matter-of-factness did not fool him at all.
“I’m very interested in breakfast,” announced Sam, suddenly smelling a faint bacon smell which he decided must be coming up the chimney flue. The sandwiches and buns of the night before now seemed a very long time ago.
“Well, get ready and come down. We’ll be in the hall. When there are just the two of us we usually eat in the kitchen but you’re a good excuse to do things properly. I’m afraid the Colonel doesn’t like the way I slob around in my gardening things.”
While they were cleaning their teeth, Floss said to Sam, “Do you think Mags is all right?”
“Seems to be. Why?”
“I’m sure he was crying again, in the night. It woke me up.”
Sam shrugged, then made a great business of rinsing and spitting. He half-believed that a noise had woken him too, the voice of someone in distress. It hadn’t sounded at all like Magnus, it had sounded too adult. But he was a very sound sleeper and he had finally concluded that he was almost certainly dreaming. He’d snuggled down in the bed until he’d fallen asleep again.
Floss had lain awake for some time too, but the sound she’d thought was Magnus had faded away in the end. The other thing she remembered was feeling very cold. “Do you think Cousin M has got any hot water bottles?” she said, as they climbed back up to Dove, to collect Magnus for breakfast. “My feet were like ice, last night.”
“You could ask her,” said Sam. Then he added, “My feet were cold too. I put some socks on. It’s funny, how it suddenly went very cold. It was cold down in the Great Hall as well. And yet our dormitory’s a warm little room compared with the others, according to Cousin M. That’s why she’s put us up there. She said that Colonel Stickley was cross about it, apparently. He told her off. He said we should have been in one of the portakabins.”
The long oak table by the fireplace was set for breakfast with a checked cloth and neatly folded napkins. As Cousin M seated them all Colonel Stickley came in with a loaded tray. He presented an interesting contrast with Cousin M who was wearing her grubby gardening clothes of the night before. He looked very formal and very smart in a tweed suit with a waistcoat and a watch chain across it, a silk handkerchief tucked into the top pocket and brown brogue shoes polished to a mirror gloss. “He’s a bit of a smoothie, isn’t he?” Sam whispered to Floss, as they sat down. “What is he doing frying breakfast for us lot? Don’t they have servants in a place like this? Where’s the cook?”
Cousin
