Celandine Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Also by Steve Augarde

  Praise

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Not everything in this world can be understood by us, nor should it be …

  The year is 1915, Britain is at war, and life for Celandine has become unbearable. Bullied at boarding school and haunted by the loss of her brother, Celandine runs away to a place known only to her: the secret world of the little people.

  But her existence among the Various is no less dangerous than the one she has left behind, for the little people are also at war, and Celandine is in the line of fire …

  Hypnotic and uplifting, Steve Augarde’s extraordinary sequel to The Various will take you to a place where the magical becomes real, and the real becomes magical.

  For Grace and Eric

  Chapter One

  SHE WAS RUNNING away for the third time. How terrible it would be if she were caught yet again. The thought of it was unbearable. Even now they might be discovering the damage that she had left behind her, the awful revenge that she had taken.

  There would be no more chances after today. She must succeed.

  ‘Celandine, Celandine,

  Caught the seven thirty-nine.

  Seven thirty-nine was late,

  Now she’s back inside the gate!’

  The mocking chant of the Lower School tinies rang through her head. Poor stuff it was, though not so very far from the truth.

  She had indeed tried to escape by train, and twice she had failed. How stupid she had been to go to Town station whilst still in her uniform. No wonder the stationmaster had been suspicious of her and telephoned the school. At the second attempt, dressed in mufti, she had almost got away with it but had then been recognized by the very same man – who had no other business to attend to, apparently, than the business of others. The result had been a further interview with Miss Craven, another long letter to her father, and another beating from the Bulldog. If she were caught now, then it would surely be the end of her.

  Celandine splashed down the dreary little lane, avoiding the worst of the mud by walking along the blurred channels made by the cartwheels, occasionally stepping up onto the rain-sodden grass verges when the puddles in the road became too wide to jump.

  Her walking shoes were tight and uncomfortable. The stout leather soles made the arches of her feet feel as though they were being stabbed at every step, and the stiff backs nipped at her heels. She was sure that she had blisters, but she dared not stop to look – nor would she examine her leg where the buckle of her heavy canvas bag continually rubbed and snagged at her woollen stocking. These things would have to wait. And besides, the walk was a necessary part of her plan. This time she would catch a train that would make it seem as though she was travelling towards the school rather than away from it. She glanced up at the black rain clouds, and pulled the collar of her mackintosh a little closer about her neck.

  ‘Raining, raining, raining. Always bloomin’ well raining.’ That’s what they sang in Flanders, according to Freddie – only they used another word instead of ‘bloomin’’. When he first put on his uniform he was just Freddie, her brother, dressed up in a uniform. But when he came home on leave he looked like a soldier. Even when he was out of his uniform he still looked like a soldier.

  Raining, raining, raining. They shot you in Flanders for running away. It was letting down the side, Freddie said, and an example had to be made of cowards.

  Celandine walked up to the ticket office at Little Cricket station and put down her bag. ‘Second-class single to Town, please,’ she said, ‘half’, and wondered whether she would ever have a nose as red and drippy as that of the ticket man. She hoped not. The sad-eyed clerk looked at her over the top of his spectacles, glancing at the badge on her straw hat before taking a ticket from his board. ‘Going back to school?’ he said. ‘Bit late, aren’t you, miss? Term started weeks ago.’

  ‘I’ve had scarlet fever.’ Celandine tried not to stare at the drop of moisture at the end of the old man’s nose. ‘I’ve been in quarantine.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said the clerk. ‘Quarantine. Over the bridge, then. Platform Two. Next one due in …’ he glanced at his pocket watch ‘ … thirteen minutes.’

  She wandered towards the single lonely bench, painted in cream and brown, that stood next to a tub of flowers halfway down the platform. The cast-iron bench-end was made up of a pattern of interwoven letters – GWR. God’s Wonderful Railway, somebody had once said. What was so wonderful about it? The bench was too wet to sit on and the geraniums in their concrete tub looked shabby and weather-blown.

  Celandine thought that perhaps the ticket man might be watching her, and so she pretended to be interested in the damp wrinkled poster and the two enamelled advertisements mounted on the wooden fencing behind her. The advertisements told her to take Dr Collis-Brown’s Mixture, and to smoke Craven ‘A’ cigarettes, and the poster informed her that the Women of Britain said ‘Go!’ – meaning that they told their menfolk to go and enlist as soldiers and fight in the war. The women who represented the Women of Britain didn’t look like any women that she’d ever seen. Stupid poster. Telling people to go. They hadn’t needed to tell Freddie to go – he had gone of his own accord. Freddie was brave and would never run away, but they had killed him all the same. Killed in action, fighting for King and Country. Just as dead as if he’d been a coward.

  It didn’t seem real, though. Celandine could not make it so, and she could not cry for him. Not properly.

  She heard the whispering of the rails, and knew that the train was approaching at last. A heavy plume of smoke rose through the dripping trees that obscured the distant bend. Celandine watched as the smoke trail drew nearer – and then a wonderful thing happened. As the engine appeared from behind the trees, the clouds parted and a shaft of brilliant early evening sunshine fell upon the angular boiler, sparkling on the fresh water droplets that had fallen from the trees, making rainbows in the steam, so that the whole train – the little square engine with its grubby coal tender and four cream-and-brown coaches – was transformed into something shining, something beautiful. God’s Wonderful Railway.

  A sunshine train, towing its own sunshine with it. Through all the bright countries of the world this train might have travelled, scooping up sunlight against days like these, to arrive before her wrapped in splendour, as cheerful as a maypole.

  Celandine reached up to turn the brass door handle of the second-class carriage, and felt that this time she would succeed, that the sunshine train would take her away from all that was hateful and bring her safely home, at last, to her friends.

  It was cramped in the little washroom, and the carriage lurched annoyingly as she tried to balance on one leg in order to unlace her shoe. Celandine leaned against the rounded edge of the tiny sink and managed to remove her uniform, which she then replaced with her gardening clothes – the anonymous muslin blouse and plain brown skirt she wore for duties in the school allotments. Both were a bit grubby and stained, but so much the be
tter, she felt, for now she might pass as a kitchenmaid or a laundry worker, at least until she spoke. Then her accent might give her away, but there was no point in worrying about that for the time being. She delved further into her canvas bag and found the pieces of bread and greengage jam, wrapped in greaseproof paper, that she’d stolen from the staffroom. She had taken some cake as well, but she was saving that. The walk from her school to the station at Little Cricket had made her hungry. She rested against the sink and took a mouthful of the slightly squashed and sticky sandwich – but immediately had to steady herself, accidentally biting her tongue as the train began to brake, jerkily. It was pulling into Town station already. This was where her ticket said she should get off.

  The washroom windows were frosted glass and Celandine could see nothing but vague shapes and colours, flashes of sunlight turning to deep shadow as the carriage slowed down and finally came to a squeaky halt beneath the overhanging station roof. There was a noise of carriage doors repeatedly slamming, the rumbling grind of the porters’ trolleys, echoing voices, and footsteps shuffling up and down the corridor outside the washroom. Somebody tried the door, rattled the handle a couple of times and then passed on. Celandine looked at her piece of bread and jam, took another cautious bite and chewed slowly, willing the train to start moving again. Come on. What were they waiting for? More slamming of doors. A long peep from the guard’s whistle, and the carriage jerked forward. Celandine gripped the edge of the sink. They were away at last.

  And from here onwards she was travelling illegally. There was no turnstile at Withney Halt where she intended to get off, and once there she would be safe from ticket collectors, but could she last that far without being caught? She simply had to trust to luck that the inspector didn’t make his rounds before then.

  When she had finished her sandwich, she washed her hands and looked at her reflection in the mottled oblong mirror above the sink. Her hair always came as a surprise to her. The frizzy mane didn’t match her dark solemn eyes somehow – didn’t even match her eyebrows. It was like some frightful wig that had been put on her head for a joke. She hated it. She hated brushing it and brushing it, because it never did the slightest good. It wouldn’t plait properly, wouldn’t go up into a bun, wouldn’t do anything but remain as it was, all springy and horrid. Well, she thought darkly, she had plans – though they would have to wait a little longer.

  The door handle was rattled again and a loud female voice outside said, ‘Come along! Come along!’

  Celandine flushed the lavatory, briefly turned the tap on and off, and unlocked the door. A large woman in a nurse’s uniform was waiting in the corridor, and it was a struggle to get past the bulky figure. Celandine caught the odour of hospitals and antiseptic on the woman’s rustling blue cape as she squeezed by. There was something comforting about the smell of antiseptic. It reminded her of the time she had spent in the school sanatorium, finding there a haven of tranquillity, a delicious respite from the misery of school life.

  Celandine struggled along the corridor towards the rear of the train, glancing into each compartment as she passed, praying that she wouldn’t meet the ticket inspector. Her stomach felt tight now and she wished she had not eaten the bread and jam.

  She slid back the door of the last compartment, and nearly turned and walked straight back out again. A man in khaki uniform was huddled, alone, in the far corner, next to the window. He had an army blanket slung loosely round his shoulders, and a stick resting across his knees. But the stick was a white stick and, most terribly, the entire top of the man’s head was bandaged – covering his eyes so that he couldn’t see. He could still hear, that was apparent, for the swaddled head turned in her direction as she stood at the doorway.

  It seemed rude, somehow, to leave. But it also seemed rude to stay. Celandine felt as though she were intruding. The man turned away. Celandine sat down on the opposite carriage seat, as near as possible to the door, and tried not to stare. The soldier’s bandaged head was leaning against the window. He casually drew a packet of cigarettes from his tunic pocket and tapped one out.

  Celandine hated the smell of cigarette smoke, but would not say so of course. The soldier calmly searched his pockets, for matches presumably, and once again Celandine had to force herself not to stare. It was ill-mannered, surely, to stare at someone who couldn’t stare back. Strange, though, how the man turned his bandaged eyes in the direction of his hands as they moved from pocket to pocket, as if he was still able to see what he was doing. Eventually he found what he was searching for – a box of lucifers, as she had guessed – and settled back, apparently relaxed, as he tried to strike a light on the side of the box.

  ‘Would you like me to do that for you?’ she said. The soldier was struggling with his box of matches, having succeeded so far only in burning his fingertips and singeing the cigarette halfway along its length. Celandine moved along the seat a little, wondering if he would think it impertinent of her to offer help. To address a strange man, alone in a railway compartment, and to offer to light his cigarette! What would Miss Craven say if she ever got to hear of it? Well, it didn’t matter what Miss Craven would say, any more – or what anyone else would say, or think. It just didn’t matter. The man was injured, horribly wounded by the look of it, and in need of help. She moved still closer, reaching out towards him, but then stopped herself. The soldier’s hands were shaking. He had lowered the matchbox into his lap and his hands were shaking like anything. His poor bandaged head dropped forward and he sat, desolate, the ruined cigarette hanging from his lips. The coarse army blanket rose and fell as the man’s shoulders began to quake. He was crying. Underneath the bandages he was crying, though no tears were visible – either because the bandages would soak them all up, or because there were no eyes beneath those bandages for tears to flow from.

  ‘Jesus!’ His voice was a cracked whisper, bubbling with spit. He flung the little box of lucifers across the compartment and brought his shaking hands up to his face, dashing the blackened cigarette away in order to wipe his mouth and nose on his fingertips. His white stick fell to the floor. Celandine could see, suddenly, that he was just a boy. He was a wounded soldier, foreign to her, unshaven, blasphemous and frightening, but just a boy. Not much older than Freddie.

  She quietly collected up the lucifers that had spilled over the opposite seat and put them back into their cheap matchwood box, saying nothing, whilst the soldier gradually gulped back his emotion to become calmer once more. Then she leaned over and took a cigarette from the pack beside him. She had never touched a cigarette before, and it felt strange – a smooth and delicate thing. How ever did they make them? Celandine looked at it for a moment, curious, then put it in her mouth – an act that made her hands shake almost as badly as the soldier’s had. She struck a lucifer on the rough side of the box, as she had seen the man do, and clumsily lit the end of the cigarette. It tasted foul, absolutely foul, and she gagged slightly as she blew out the match. But she managed to say ‘Here you are’, without coughing, and gently put the cigarette between the soldier’s fingers. He flinched at her touch, not realizing at first what she was doing. His shoulders heaved and it seemed that he would cry again, but then he relaxed, gave a long sigh and brought the cigarette up to his lips. He took a deep draw on it and let out a thin stream of smoke. Celandine wrinkled her nose and turned her head away.

  ‘What’s your name?’ The soldier’s words were so faint that she could hardly hear them.

  ‘Celandine.’ She paused for a moment. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Tommy.’ Again the word was barely a whisper, as though the effort of speaking was almost too much for him. Then the door slid open and the big woman in the nurse’s uniform came in. She looked at Celandine in surprise and said loudly, ‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Very well, thank—’ Celandine began to say, and then realized that of course the nurse was talking to the soldier.

  Tommy said nothing, but merely blew out another stream of smoke an
d nodded his head. The nurse seemed to accept this as a reply. ‘Good man!’ she shouted, still looking at Celandine, and she sat down heavily next to the soldier, causing the upholstery springs to squeak in alarm. ‘Soon be there now! Shouldn’t be smoking though – you know that, don’t you? I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?’ The nurse leaned forward, bringing the faint smell of antiseptic with her, and her large shiny face seemed to loom across the carriage like a huge piece of waxed fruit. She reached over, took the white stick from Celandine’s grasp and sank back comfortably in her seat without another word. Celandine felt awkward and tried to avoid the nurse’s gaze. She sat in silence, regarding her sore feet and thinking about Tommy, and Freddie. She wondered why any Women of Britain would ever say ‘Go’ if this was what their sons were going to.

  The compartment door rumbled back with a bang, and there was the ticket inspector. Celandine felt her stomach jump, and she momentarily clutched at the material of her skirt, just for something to hold on to.

  The grey-haired inspector, horribly official-looking in his blue serge uniform and peaked cap, glanced at her briefly, but then noticed the soldier huddled in the far corner. ‘Dear, oh dear,’ he said. ‘Copped a packet then, lad? You look as though you’ve been in the wars good and proper. Talk about the walking wounded.’ The soldier huddled deeper into his blanket and didn’t answer. Celandine offered her useless ticket. Her hand shook as though she were holding it out for a beating.

  ‘He’s in my charge, Inspector,’ bellowed the big nurse. ‘I’m escorting him to Staplegrove Hospital. I have his ticket here, with mine.’ She reached into the large leather bag on her lap and drew out her tickets. The inspector took them, and punched them with his machine, but it was clear that he was more interested in the soldier than in tickets. ‘Where’d you get that little lot then, son?’ he persisted.