Under the Green Hill (2 page)

His head popped back through the door, and he beckoned his wife by gesturing with his chin. With raised eyebrows and an amused look, she slipped past him, murmuring, “You caveman!” as she went. Whatever she said on the phone remains a mystery. When Glynnis Morgan was happy, her voice would ring through the neighborhood. But the more annoyed she was, the softer her voice would become, and when she reached a whisper she was very dangerous indeed. Back in the dining room, their father added another splash of Scotch to his drink and hunched in his chair, and the children knew better than to ask him any questions.

“Tom,” she called a moment later, “come in here a minute.” On the pretext of clearing the table, Rowan, Meg, and Silly migrated to the part of the room nearest the door and heard their mother's tense whisper: “What can I do? His boy's in the same position as ours. He doesn't have anywhere else to send him.”

“Well, he should have stayed on speaking terms with his relatives. I've heard even his parents won't talk to him. Anyway, with that TV commentary slot, he makes twice what we do. He can send his kid to boarding school. Or military school. Silly says she can't stand him, and Rowan isn't too keen on him, either.”

“But he's a child, Tom. What if it was your boy? Wouldn't you want him to be safe?”

“It's up to you. They're your relatives. But I don't think they want to run a hostel for American children.”

“They have a huge house, and probably dozens of servants. They won't even notice one more boy. His father will set up an account there to take care of any expenses. I'll wire them and let them know.”

“Our kids won't like it.”

“Well, I don't have any choice. I can't say no.”

“I can.”

“You're not a mother.”

By now, of course, the Morgan children had more than an inkling of what was coming, and they exchanged distraught glances.

Their parents returned, and their mother took a breath to compose herself. “I have some news for you, duckies. Your friend Finn Fachan will be going with you to England.”

“Well, there's one consolation,” Rowan said to Meg as they were brushing their teeth. “At least we know Finn's dad's a coddling coward, too.”

The airline clerk who would escort the children to the gate told the Morgans boarding would commence in ten minutes. Then she discreetly melted into the background to let them say their good-byes before the children passed through security. Glynnis Morgan gathered her children around her and looked at them so sternly the other passengers must have thought she was angry with them. But she wasn't—she was only very, very worried at the idea of letting them travel on their own.

“Someone will be meeting you at Heathrow. I'm not sure if it will be your great-great-uncle or great-great-aunt, or if they're sending someone. If you don't see them right away,
wait
for them. For goodness' sake, don't go wandering around Heathrow trying to find them. Just sit down and wait until someone comes for you.”

“What if they never come?” asked Silly. “Do we stay there and starve and petrify?”

“Yes, baby, you stay there until you fossilize. Now, do you promise me you'll be good, and careful, so your poor mother doesn't have to worry herself sick?”

The children promised, of course, wondering how their mother could have such a low opinion of their common sense.

“They just started boarding first-class passengers and travelers with special needs,” the clerk whispered, and stepped away again.

“What are special needs?” Silly asked.

“Oh, someone with a disability, or maybe with a baby,” their father said.

“Since you're traveling alone, you could probably board now,” their mother said.

“But I want to keep you with me as long as possible.” She managed to hug all four of them at once, to their acute embarrassment. That embarrassment was trebled when, from down the terminal, there came a sort of tumult, and the crowd parted to reveal none other than Finn Fachan, accompanied by his parents, his Colombian nanny, and a little round hunched figure that seemed caught in their wake and looked as though it didn't belong there.

Finn's eyes skimmed over the Morgans, and he stopped a little way from them. He shook his father's hand, nodded to his mother, and sidestepped the arms of his nanny, who seemed to have more affection for him than his parents did. But as he headed for the plane, Silly shouted after him, “Can't get on yet! They're only boarding first class and special needs!” She was hoping to see him turn away awkwardly, but it was Silly who felt her cheeks burn when he flashed her a malicious grin and said, “I
am
in first class.” She shook with rage as he swept by without a backward glance to them or his parents and disappeared down the gangplank.

“Don't let him get to you,” Rowan said in an undertone. “He's probably lying—he's boarding under the special-needs category. They have to seat the idiots first so they don't get in the normal people's way.” But he thought of his own economy-class ticket, where he would be seated squished between Silly, who fidgeted, and James, who occasionally drooled or, worse yet, vomited, on long plane rides. He hadn't ever envied passengers in first class, because it always seemed an unimaginable luxury—he would no more think to envy people who lived in palaces. But here was a boy, no better (and, he thought, far worse) than he, who would be wallowing in whatever decadent delicacies and private bathrooms first class might offer.

Now his parents were talking with Finn's large, loud, boorish father and pale, distant mother. The round little person with them turned out to be a boy a bit younger than Meg, a bit older than Silly, whom the Morgan children knew vaguely. He was one of the faculty children, but they'd only seen him at Arcadia staff gatherings. His name, if Rowan remembered it correctly, was Dickie Rhys, and his father taught philosophy. His mother had died when he was a baby. What in the world was he doing here? He certainly wasn't a friend of Finn's come to give him a tearful sendoff. Dickie was carrying a bag too heavy for him, and he dropped it with a thud, then winced as it landed on his toe.

“Bit of a surprise for you, Tom,” Mr. Fachan said, pointedly leaving Glynnis Morgan out of the conversation. “Ran into Rhyst' other day and told him where I was sending my boy. Said why don't he send his along for the ride. Owed Rhys a favor for a while, got out of it pretty cheap, don't you think? Couldn't hurt to have another along. You said they have a big house. Rhys's boy's a round one, but not too tall. Won't take up much room, and that grandmother or whatever of yours can put 'im on a diet. Works out well all around.” His voice, accustomed to filling a vast lecture hall, echoed through the terminal. Several people stopped to stare.

Tom Morgan looked as if he might explode, but his wife, seeing how miserable Dickie was, gritted her teeth and said, in the low voice she reserved for her darkest moods, “Of course Professor Rhys's son is welcome.” And in a very motherly way she drew Dickie into her own fold, away from the Fachans. But to herself, she wondered what kind of impression this caravan of children would make on her relatives. Years—generations—of the most sporadic contact, and then this. We'll be disowned, she thought. Then she corrected herself. That had already happened decades ago, when her grandmother Chlorinda Ash left England under circumstances that were never spoken of, though occasionally alluded to.

Many embraces and a few secret tears later, they were through security and all aboard. When the
Fasten Seatbelt
sign was turned off, the Morgans had a visitor.

Sauntering down the aisle from first class, carrying a glass of something that to Rowan looked suspiciously like champagne (though it was actually ginger ale), came Finn. He lounged against the seat in front of them, and looked down at the Morgans.

“Enjoying your seats in steerage?” he asked, oblivious of the resentful looks the other economy-class passengers were giving him. “I'd bring you my leftover filet mignon in a doggy bag, but the waitress said it would only stir up rebellion. What are they feeding you back here?” He looked with some distaste at the limp salad and questionable chicken sitting on Meg's tray. “Hmm, yes. Well, as my father says, you get what you pay for. So what can I expect from this place we're headed? Father says it's in the middle of nowhere.”

“Mother says it's very pretty there,” Meg began, not quite looking at Finn.

Finn looked disgusted at the very idea. “I mean, what's fun? There's a town, right? Is there a movie theater? An arcade?”

“I don't think so, Finn,” Rowan said, more inclined to sound pleasant in the middle of a crowded plane than he might otherwise.

“Well, Father set up a bank account for me there, so money won't be an obstacle. And I've brought my collection of video games and DVDs, so even if there's nothing to do the summer won't be a total loss. Did you know there're only a few channels on British TV? Maybe if you're good little boys and girls I'll let you play some of my video games. If only so I can see how lousy you are at them.”

As you might imagine, it gave Rowan real pleasure to reveal the following fact: “Sorry, Finn. They don't have electricity at the Rookery. It's an authentic old manor, and they haven't allowed improvements. Hope your collection wasn't too heavy.”

Finn's jaw gaped slightly, and for a moment he was at a loss for words. At last, sounding a bit less cocky than before, he said, “Doesn't matter if they're heavy. I can pay a porter to carry them.” He managed to maintain his composure better than the Morgan children would have liked, but they could tell he was thinking of the grim prospect of being cooped up in a place without electronic diversions all summer.

“I'm going back where I belong,” Finn said loftily, and returned to his seat.

Many tush-numbing hours later, the plane touched ground and taxied up to the terminal. It was midmorning local time, and the children, wrinkled and bone-weary from their confinement, filed out. There was a peculiar light in their eyes that came from not sleeping, and knowing that they wouldn't sleep for another twelve hours at least. They felt almost as though they were dreaming, sleepwalking through a crowd of strangers, looking for the one who had come to collect them.

Dickie fumbled in his bag and retrieved a small contraption, which he held to his mouth and quickly inhaled.

“What's that?” Silly asked.

“It's for my asthma,” Dickie replied in a small voice. “I don't feel an attack coming on, but since it's new air here, I figured I better be careful.”

Silly, who didn't know much about asthma but was intrigued by the word “attack,” began to press him for details on his condition as they went through customs and looked around for whoever was supposed to meet them. Some of the passengers marched straight on, as though their future was perfectly mapped out before them; some lingered at the gate, greeted by smiling and squealing loved ones. But no one showed any interest in the children.

Finn, straddling a chair off to one side, was ostentatiously thumbing through his new checkbook. “If no one comes in ten minutes,” he said, “I'm getting a hotel. Someplace modern enough to have electricity.”

Just then Meg saw a figure striding, almost charging, down the nearly empty corridor. He was tall and dark and seemed to be moving in shadow even under the fluorescent light of the airport. At first glance, Meg thought he must be rather old, fifty or more, for though she could not yet see his features there hung about him a dourness she associated with age, and though he moved quickly his shoulders seemed somewhat hunched, as if he might be hiding an old pain. He wore high boots that looked as if they belonged outdoors, and the low heels clicked as he walked straight toward them.

“I'm late,” he said in a gruff, gravelly voice, not apologizing but almost as if he was challenging them to object. “But not very. You're the children?” He looked them up and down with no sign of approval, and Meg saw that he was much younger than she had first thought, perhaps not even thirty. His hair was wild, looking as if it had been chopped with a knife, and his eyes were a peculiar light brown that Meg would almost have called orange, if she'd thought it was possible for anyone to have orange eyes. They looked like a fox's eyes, but the rest of him made her think of a dark, shaggy wolf.

“I'm t' take you to the Rookery,” he said. He didn't seem very friendly.

“Is it a long drive?” Rowan inquired politely, as the man of the family. But their chauffeur looked around at the children, seeming to take a long time counting. At last he said, “There's more'n four of you. Supposed to be four.”

“Well, yes, you see…,” began Rowan, but Finn stepped forward, holding out his hand to the man as if they were both wearing suits and standing in a bank lobby.

“I'm Finn Fachan. Pleased to meet you,” he said, more nicely than the others had ever heard him speak. “Dickie Rhys and I have come along for the summer. Don't worry, it's all been arranged.” His hand still stuck out before him, ungrasped, as the man looked disapprovingly down at him. At last the man turned away, and said only, “Come along,” without looking back to see if they were following.

“The
nerve
of him!” Finn said to Rowan as they set out. “Who does he think he is? He's just a gardener or someone, or a filthy gamekeeper, or whatever they have around here. Bet I can get him sacked when I tell your relatives.”

Somehow, Rowan didn't think so.

They trudged behind the man to collect their bags. Dickie and the Morgans rented little trolleys with pound coins they'd exchanged before coming, and Finn, true to his word, found an elderly man in airport livery to load his bags and push them along. But Finn balked when they came to the vehicle, an ancient-looking, open-backed contraption they couldn't readily identify. It was somewhere between a pickup truck and a piece of farm equipment.

“Little 'uns up front, big 'uns in the back.”

“I'm not riding back there!” Finn said, but for all the good it did he might as well have been talking to the truck itself. The man opened the front passenger door (on the left) for Silly, who dragged James up after her, and then started the car, looking impatient to be off. Meg, Rowan, and Dickie heaved their bags into the back and then settled themselves as best they could on the scraps of hay and old burlap sacks that lay strewn in the bed. Finn mumbled something about getting a taxi, but he wasn't quite brave enough to follow through with his threat (though Rowan had his fingers crossed), and finally directed the porter to throw his bags in as he scrambled up into the truck. The moment Finn was in, the man pressed the gas. As far as Meg could tell, he hadn't even turned around to make sure everyone was aboard.

Meg never expected it to be a pleasant ride, but she found that once they got into the countryside she didn't mind the violence of the wind on her face or the growing heat of the late-spring sun. The land was hilly and green, divided into oddly shaped fields and pastures by rows of hedges or low rough stone walls that looked as if they had been in place for eons. White balls of sheep dotted the hillsides, and she saw that some of them, when they turned toward her, had black faces. She wished she'd been inside with Silly and James, though, if only so she'd have a chance to talk to the man. He might seem stern and taciturn, but Meg figured he could hardly refuse to answer her questions if he was trapped in a truck with her.

Inside, Silly was meeting with little success. It took her a while to get over the fact that they were driving on the wrong (that is, the left) side of the road. Twice she almost grabbed the man's arm to pull him over to the other side, but she controlled herself. It made her dizzy to see the cars zooming past them on the wrong side. Eventually, she got used to it, though she would still sometimes flinch if she'd been looking down for a while, then, suddenly, looked up to find herself in the unaccustomed place.

She tried to strike up a conversation right away. “What's your name?” she asked. It seemed a fair question. He replied with something that sounded like a grunt.