2006 - Wildcat Moon (12 page)

“Ah, the nerves are a very troublesome thing,
n’est ce pas?
”

Nanny Bea leant towards Madame Fernaud and lowered her voice, “Just between ourselves, of course, the master has had a very hard time with her. She is quite unstable at times, although thankfully not dangerous either to herself or others.”

“I see.” Madame said thoughtfully.

“It wasn’t a suitable marriage for the master if you understand my meaning.”

“I see,” Madame Fernaud smiled sympathetically and lowered her eyes.

“The mistress was from a moneyed family but a family devoid of good breeding.”

“Where is Romilly’s mother at the moment?” Madame Fernaud asked.

“She is with the nuns at St Mary’s. It’s a private nursing home for those of a delicate nature.”

Madame nodded and sipped her tea.

“I understand a little about these things, I had a distant cousin much the same. It was a tragedy of course, such a handsome man and yet unable to live a normal life. Indeed his papa had to have him watched constantly and it was such a strain for all the family.”

“What happened to him?”

“Ah, so sad, he swallowed poison and died, a terrible ending for him but some peace at last for the family.”

Nanny Bea leant closer to Madame Fernaud. “You understand so well, my dear, the master has had the same terrible worry, it’s why we live here so quietly. Indeed much of my time was spent keeping an eye on Mrs Greswode. I’m afraid ifs all been such a strain on me, why I haven’t had a holiday in three years.”

Madame Fernaud threw up her hands and quite startled Nanny Bea. “
Mon dieu!
That is most terrible, so bad for the health to be so long without a rest!”

Nanny Bea sighed. “Yes, I used to spend a few weeks each year with my sister in Dorset and I have to admit I miss it sorely.”

“Maybe, maybe in time, when Romilly and I are used to each other, you might be able to take a little holiday if Mr Greswode approves.”

Nanny Bea smiled and patted the governess’s hand fondly. She was going to get on famously with Clementine Fernaud and she was sure that Master Jonathan would be very pleased with this new governess and her sensible ways. She was really quite the sort of woman he should have married, if she hadn’t been quite so plain and foreign of course.

Just then the telephone rang and Nanny Bea stood up stiffly and made her way into the hallway. She returned a few moments later and sat back down heavily.

She looked quite flushed, her eyes very bright.

“Is everything all right?”

“That was the master checking that you had arrived safely, such a very thoughtful gentleman. Some troubling news, though, I’m afraid.”

“What has happened?”

“The nuns have just telephoned Mr Greswode. It is as we expected. The mistress has arrived in the most terrible state, quite deranged it seems! She will, I fear, be a very long time away this time.”

“How very sad,” said Madame Fernaud simply.

“Yes, very sad indeed, but not entirely unexpected.”

§

Romilly splashed her face with cold water and stared at herself in the mirror above the washstand. Her face was very pale, her eyes red-rimmed and ugly from crying and there were smoky smudges beneath her bottom lashes. Her hair was tied as it always was in two tidy plaits with blue gingham ribbons at the ends. How she would like to take up a pair of sharp scissors and cut them off!

She studied her face carefully; she had none of Mama’s pretty features. Romilly’s nose was more like an afterthought blobbed carelessly in between her large eyes. Unlike Mama she had a wide mouth and fuller lips. Her eyes were larger than Mama’s, but the same inky blue with thick eyelashes.

She breathed in and out slowly and tried to calm herself. Nanny Bea was a liar, a hateful, hateful liar. There was nothing wrong with Mama; it was just being shut up here all the time that made her restless. Killivray House was enough to make anyone go mad!

Nanny Bea had said Mama would be away for a very long time. How long was a very long time? Every time she went away it seemed like an age before she came back again and each time she did she seemed a little thinner and paler. Romilly worried that one day she would be sent away and disappear altogether. And then what would become of Romilly?

If only she were brave enough she would chop off her silly hair, borrow some clothes from Archie Grimble, find a suitcase, pack her things and run away. Maybe she could find out where Mama was and she could take one of Papa’s guns and frighten the nuns, make them give Mama back. Romilly would rescue her and they could hide up in the mountains and live in a cave where no one could ever find them.

She turned away angrily from the mirror, wandered across to the window and stood looking down towards the sea.

To the left of the beach she could see the hole in the rock that led through to the place they called the Skallies. The houses were hidden but she could see the smoke rising from the higgledy-piggledy chimneys. She wondered what the boy Archie Grimble was doing right now? Was he in the funny house called Bag End having afternoon tea with the big, fat, stinking, hairy porker? She giggled at the thought Maybe at this very moment he was writing her a letter with his invisible ink. She hoped that Archie Grimble would come back soon and leave her a note in the little stove. How exciting it would be to have a secret friend! Tonight when she knelt down to say her prayers she’d say a prayer for Archie Grimble.

And two for Mama of course.

But tonight she wouldn’t pray for horrid Nanny Bea or bad-tempered Papa. And never for Madame Fernaud whose silly cousin drank poison and died.

She walked across to the door that led into the schoolroom, turned on the light and went in.

The light was dim and the room was cast in gloomy shadow. There were four ancient desks in the schoolroom and a larger table with a globe on top of it.

She turned the globe round slowly, found the boot shape of Italy and traced her finger dreamily around it. She screwed up her eyes and looked to see if she could find a place called Santa Caterina.

There was no sign of such a place. That’s because Thomas Greswode hadn’t been born there at all.

She sat down at her desk, opened the lid and took out her dog-eared atlas. She turned to the index at the back and looked up Santa Caterina.

No sign of it.

She looked down at the atlas and found Naples without too much trouble. Then she noticed that further along the coast someone had ringed a spot on the map with a pen.

Alongside it they had written, Santa Caterina!

Romilly sucked in her lips and thought hard.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Thomas Greswode
had
been born in this faraway place. Perhaps he had really died off Skilly Point just like Archie Grimble had said. Maybe she’d just imagined seeing him because she’d been so desperate for company.

She wished now that she’d paid more attention to Miss Naylor’s geography lessons. She did remember a little about Italy though; it was warm and they ate loads of tomatoes, had good singing voices and ice creams as big as your head. Why had Thomas Greswode come all the way from sunny Italy to gloomy old Killivray?

Maybe he had sat right here in the schoolroom at one of these desks, looking out through the windows at the grey skies and dreaming of Italy.

It was so sad if he really had died like the boy Archie Grimble had said, drowned when he was only twelve years old.

When she could escape again she was going to go back to the attic and find out as much as she could about Thomas Greswode. Maybe she’d get an exercise book and write down anything she found out about him and when she met up with Archie Grimble again, if she ever did, she would tell him everything she had learned.

What was it that Nanny Bea had said about Thomas? He was your grandfather’s cousin and he wasn’t a nice boy, not a nice boy at all!

Romilly didn’t care what Nanny Bea said! In the photograph he looked like a nice boy, in fact he looked like a very nice boy indeed. Anyway, if he wasn’t the sort of boy that Nanny Bea would like then Romilly was bound to like him.

Archie Grimble wouldn’t be the sort of boy that Nanny Bea or Papa would like one little bit. A grubby-faced boy with scruffy clothes and hair that looked as if it had been cut with a bread knife. A real, live, rough boy from the Skallies! Romilly hugged herself with excitement.

She had found a friend. Her first ever friend was a funny little boy with round spectacles, enormous blue eyes and a skinny leg in a cage.

Romilly replaced the atlas, closed the desk and looked up in alarm to see Madame Fernaud standing in the doorway watching her.

Romilly blushed and looked down at the desk.

“You are very keen, Romilly,” Madame Fernaud said smiling.

“Not really, I was just looking something up in the atlas.”

“Anything that I may be able to help you with?”

“No, thank you.”

“Tomorrow we shall begin our work together, Romilly, won’t that be good, eh?”

Madame Fernaud suppressed the desire to laugh for she could see from Romilly’s carefully controlled face that she could barely disguise her dislike of her new governess. Madame Fernaud smiled her sweetest smile and thought that she would soon have Romilly Greswode eating out of the palm of her hand and then the fun would start.

I
t began to snow in the Skallies; large, feathery flakes drifted down from a sky the colour of navy chiffon.

Archie Grimble stood alone looking up in wonder at the moon that glittered above the ragged rooftops while all around him a strange white silence fell.

In the candlelit windows of the houses in Bloater Row the tinsel on makeshift Christmas trees glistened. Christmas was almost here and there was a hint of the smell of tangerines and sticky dates in the icy air.

He heard the howl of the wildcats in the yard of the Pilchard Inn and the tinkle of wistful piano notes from Periwinkle House.

In the distance the stable clock of Killivray chimed the hour and an owl called out timidly from the woods. He wondered if the ghost animals were on the move in Killivray House. He imagined Romilly Greswode caged in behind the frosted windows of the old house while the ghost child Thomas Greswode peered in from outside or padded about up in the attics.

He waved up at Cissie Abelson who was looking down from her bedroom window above the Pilchard Inn. She grinned down at him, her face a pale moon; waved a podgy hand and then blew him a puckered kiss.

He’d called for Cissie earlier but Nan said she had found a hidden selection box and stuffed herself stupid. She’d been sick twice and put to bed early.

Archie lingered outside the door of Skibbereen where Mr and Mrs Galvini lived. He closed his eyes, sniffed up the host of glorious smells that drifted out from the house and licked his cracked lips.

The Galvinis’ house breathed out the smells of food.

Ham and sausage; cheese and pastry; marzipan and almonds; oranges and lemons.

It was such a happy house, full of chuckling and laughter, nothing like Bag End where he lived.

A sound startled him and Archie opened his eyes. Mrs Galvini stood wedged in the doorway of Skibbereen, hands clasped across her ample bosom, looking down at Archie.

“I didn’t see you standing there,” Archie muttered.

“I think for a minute you sleeping standing on your feets,” said Mrs Galvini, a wide smile jerking her eyes into twinkling stars.

“I was just thinking.”

“You stops thinking now. Too much thinking boils your brains. Come in, come a in.
Mama Mia
you must be freezed to death, Archie! It’s enough to freeze them kernackers off the china monkeys. Come see, I have made much food tonight. You must eat some and be full up and warm your bones.”

Archie stamped the snow off his boots and followed Mrs Galvini eagerly into Skibbereen, along the draughty hallway and past the door on the left that led into the front parlour.

Archie was fascinated by the Galvinis’ parlour; it was more like a grotto than a room. In a glass-fronted cabinet there were delicate flowers and tiny animals made from glass of every imaginable colour. On a polished sideboard there were intricate music boxes and fancy ornaments. On the walls there were framed Madonnas of every shape and form. There were fat ones and thin ones, miserable ones, and brazen ones with eye shadow and ruby lipstick.

The parlour in Bag End was brown and dowdy. Two mean-faced greyhounds with rabbits in their mouths guarded the window sill. An ugly king glowered from the front of a mug on a worm-eaten shelf. On one wall there was a picture of a faded pope and a china angel with a busted wing sulked on the mantelpiece. The parlour in Bag End smelled of polish and flypapers. And damp, rising fast.

The Galvinis’ parlour smelled of lemons and lilac and freshly starched antimacassars.

Reluctantly he drew his eyes away from the treasures of the Galvinis’ parlour and followed Mrs Galvini into the warm fragrance of the kitchen.

“Sit down and I gets you something to eat. Feed you up a bit, eh? Not enough of the fat on you to grease a blooming kipper.”

Archie smiled, rubbed the steam from his spectacles and sat down at the big scrubbed table.

“See this house I lives in is called a Skibbereen, eh? From this funny name of place there are starving people who come across the sea many years ago?”

“Ah yes, Skibbereen was in Ireland where they had the potato famine. Ireland is where my mammy was born, but just after the potato famine I think.”

“I says to my Alfredo, our house called after starving-people place but no one ever starve at the Galvinis’ now, eh?”

Archie giggled and looked around him. A kitchen dresser groaned beneath the weight of glass jars stuffed with all kinds of lovely things to eat. Fat red tomatoes and pears the colour of gold. Goooseberries and grapes. Peaches and plums.

Out in the pantry he could see the dark shapes of the smoked hams that hung from hooks and sausages dangling from the ceiling like meaty stalactites.

Mammy said even the woodlice in the Galvinis’ garden were giant-sized and the mice were as big as cats and too fat to get back through the holes in the skirting boards.