Celandine Read online

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  They stood beneath the spreading oak on Howard’s Hill, where Celandine had lain in the baby carriage, and shouted up at the silent trees.

  ‘Hallooo! Is there anybody in there?’

  Freddie lifted the basket so that it could more clearly be seen should anyone be watching. They had eggs and carrots, a bottle of liquorice water and most of a Bath bun, but so far no customers.

  ‘I don’t suppose they stay in the same tree all the time,’ said Freddie. ‘I expect they move about a bit. Wish we could get in there.’

  They looked doubtfully at the heavy tangle of briars and Freddie went as far as trying to part a few of them, but they could both see that it was hopeless. ‘Even if we had a billhook, it wouldn’t be any good,’ said Freddie. He brightened up. ‘Still. There might be a better place somewhere else. We’ll go and see, shall we?’

  Celandine stumbled along beside her brother, happy to let him be in charge as he swished through the long summer grass. Freddie was still hopeful that they would find a way through the continuous barrier of brambles. ‘And even if we don’t,’ he said, ‘they’re sure to spot us sooner or later. Once they see that we mean them no harm, they’ll probably come closer. Hallooo! Are you there? We’ve brought you some food!’

  They came to a halt at the top of a steep gully and looked down the bank at the little trickle of water that dampened the rocks below. The stream obviously started somewhere in the wood, and here was where it came out.

  ‘Aha! This could be a good place,’ said Freddie, and they scrambled down the side of the gully to take a closer look.

  But the brambles that overhung the stream were as thick here as anywhere and there was no possibility of even touching them without getting their feet wet and muddy.

  Freddie said that they could always come back later. ‘It might be the best place after all, but we’d better make sure that there isn’t an easier way in. Come on.’ They clambered up the opposite bank of the gully and carried on with their search.

  Right around the entire perimeter of the wood they walked, and it took hours. They kept stopping and looking up at the trees, wishing that they could find a hanging branch that was low enough to reach. They shouted and whistled and promised that they only wanted to be friendly. Occasionally they had another go at picking their way through the wall of briars. None of it did any good, yet Freddie remained cheerful. ‘There might be anything in there,’ he said. ‘Bears, even. Or wolves.’ Another thought occurred to him. ‘If we can’t get in,’ he said, ‘then how can anything get out? They might be trapped, Dinah, whoever it is that you saw. They could be just waiting for us to come and rescue them.’

  Celandine, so glad at first that Freddie had believed her story, began to wish that she’d kept quiet about the whole thing. Her legs ached, her head ached, and she was scratched and stung in a hundred places. She trailed miserably after her brother, wearily wading through the patches of nettles and dock leaves, following in his footsteps like King Wenceslas’s page.

  ‘Freddie, let’s go back,’ she said, at last. ‘I’m so tired.’

  ‘Well, but it must be just as far to go back as it is to carry on,’ said Freddie. ‘We’d do better to keep going. Tell you what though, we might as well eat the food. Here, you have the bun.’

  By the time they reached the big oak tree that they’d started from, Celandine was absolutely ready to drop.

  ‘Want me to give you a pick-a-back?’ said Freddie. Celandine shook her head. She suddenly wanted to cry. Freddie had believed her story when nobody else had, and he’d never once got cross with her, although it was clear that the whole day had been a waste of time. She felt terrible about it, yet he had never complained or hinted that she must have been mistaken. He would even give her a pick-a-back home if she wanted. But what really upset her was that he’d given her the Bath bun and she’d eaten it all and not even offered to share it with him. Freddie had eaten a carrot instead. Why was she such a bad person?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and began to walk down the hill – trying to stay ahead of him so that he shouldn’t see her watery eyes. And even then she realized that he was still being kind, that he was carefully keeping a pace or two behind her because he knew that she was crying and he didn’t want to embarrass her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dinah,’ said Freddie. ‘We’ll find them, you’ll see. Shall we try again tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes. If you like.’

  She knew that they never would. Tomorrow was tomorrow, and something else would have claimed Freddie’s attention by then – and his company. By tomorrow he would probably have forgotten all about today.

  And as the tomorrows came and went, Celandine also began to forget – there being more immediate troubles to occupy her thoughts.

  After the Coronation picnic, Miss Bell’s attitude towards her turned to open dislike and she seemed deliberately to make life difficult. No piece of work that Celandine produced was ever quite good enough for Miss Bell. Celandine could not write satisfactorily, nor paint, nor draw, nor make fingerprint pictures without smudging them, nor embroider nor sew, nor play music – she did nothing well enough to suit her governess. Everything she attempted resulted in criticism and punishment.

  ‘What a pity, Celandine, that you had to spoil your map of Norway by decorating it with drawings of mermaids,’ said Miss Bell one morning. ‘I’m afraid it just won’t do.’ She studied the map for a few moments longer before screwing it up and dropping it into the wastepaper basket. Then she said, ‘And do you really think that blue and green are suitable colours for your embroidered lettering? You had better unpick it and start all over again.’

  Celandine came to dread the very smell of the schoolroom, but worst of all were the piano lessons, held in the parlour.

  Every afternoon at four o’clock, Celandine sat at the piano to play her scales, and every afternoon she got something wrong. Miss Bell stood beside her with a wooden ruler poised above Celandine’s hands as they made their uncertain progress up and down the keys. And whenever those hands stumbled upon a wrong note, down came the ruler with a smart rap on the offending knuckle.

  There was more torture as they moved on to ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’. Celandine had played this wretched little tune so many times that it still jangled in her head when she closed her eyes at night.

  ‘Please, Miss Bell, can’t we have another piece of music?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Celandine. As I’ve told you before, we shall select another piece directly you are able to play this one without these silly mistakes. Again please.’

  And the wooden ruler continued to hover above her outraged fingers, waiting to strike.

  Celandine had appealed to her mother on several occasions, and one Sunday evening, with the prospect of another painful week before her, she tried yet again.

  ‘I hate Miss Bell,’ she said. ‘And Miss Bell hates me. I wish you’d get rid of her, Mama, and find me a better governess.’

  Her mother looked up from her sewing. ‘Miss Bell is a very good governess,’ she said. She lowered her spectacles and peered around the spirit lamp that was set upon the little table beside her. ‘And of course she does not hate you. You must not keep saying such a thing. There was no trobles with Freddie, or with Thos. If there is trobles now, then perhaps is with you, Celandine. You did not hate Miss Bell, did you Freddie?’

  Freddie mumbled something. He was sitting at the parlour table, surrounded by bits of angling tackle, concentrating upon trying to tie a fishing fly.

  ‘Well, Freddie doesn’t have to be with her any more,’ said Celandine. ‘Now that he’s going away to school. And anyway, Miss Bell was never as awful to Freddie as she is to me. I wish somebody would hurry up and marry her, then she’d have to go away.’

  ‘Tom Allen might marry her,’ said Freddie, ‘if he could only forget about her being sick in a bucket.’ He gave Celandine a sly grin.

  ‘Sick in a bucket? What is this?’ Mrs Howard looked from one to t
he other.

  ‘It’s your own fault, you know, Dinah.’ Freddie held up the brightly coloured fly and brought it towards his mouth, gulping at it as though he were a fish. ‘If you didn’t tease her she’d be much nicer to you.’

  ‘Freddie, that’s so unfair! She’s just horrible to me – it’s not my fault. She hits me with a ruler. I keep trying to tell everybody, but nobody believes me.’

  ‘No, no. I’m sure that this is not so and that Freddie is right.’ Mrs Howard picked up her sewing again. ‘And I shall hear no more, Celandine. But I shall speak with Miss Bell tomorrow, and see what again she has to say of this.’

  ‘Hmph.’ Celandine glowered at Freddie and then went back to practising her scales. She struck the piano keys as hard as she could and wished that the hated instrument would collapse into a heap of firewood. It was plain that she would have to fight her own battles and take her revenge wherever she could find it. Celandine frowned at her right hand as it stumbled up and down the keys – like a clumsy spider. Yes. That was something to think about: the big spider that she had hidden upstairs in the Bovril jar …

  Miss Bell’s spectacular fear of spiders was a great discovery, and it gave Celandine some real ammunition. Nothing could be easier than to catch one or two of the really leggy ones that inhabited the stables, pop them into an empty jar and transport them to the classroom, where they could be re-housed in Miss Bell’s desk. It was a delight to watch her governess trying to control her choking horror upon the discovery of yet another of the appalling creatures, to see her attempting to stand her ground when all her instinct was to cry out and flee the room. But Miss Bell had quickly grown wise to this trick and now opened her desk with extreme caution – and a ruler held at arm’s length. The element of surprise had gone.

  It was a shame, because Celandine had managed to catch a real monster earlier that evening, just before supper – a spider so big that she had felt it pinching furiously at her finger as she hastily clapped the pierced lid of the Bovril jar into place. She had poked a couple of dead flies through the holes in the lid and hoped that these would keep the beast going until the morning.

  Plink-plink-plink …

  Her spider-fingers crept along the piano keys more stealthily now, taking their time, quietly stalking their prey.

  The next morning Miss Bell left the schoolroom at two minutes to eleven, as she always did, to fetch her cup of coffee.

  Celandine waited for the footsteps to die away, her heart beating faster at the opportunity that now lay before her: Miss Bell’s summer gloves were lying neatly folded on the little table that held the classroom globe.

  When all was silent, Celandine jumped up and quickly crossed the room. She picked up one of the long cotton gloves and half-fitted it over the lid of the Bovril jar. Then she unscrewed the lid and shook the massive spider down into the glove, instantly folding the end of the material over a couple of times so that there could be no escape. She gently placed the glove on the table once more, tried to make everything look as it had been, and scuttled back to her seat.

  It was agony having to wait until lunchtime. Every once in a while Celandine saw the glove give a little twitch, and her stifled sniggers continually threatened to give her away. Miss Bell watched her suspiciously. But at last the hands of the clock reached twelve-thirty and Miss Bell said, ‘Very well. You may put down your pen.’

  Celandine was in no hurry, for once, to leave the classroom. She took her time organizing her exercise books, and was rewarded by seeing Miss Bell walk over to the globe and reach for her gloves.

  Miss Bell picked up the top glove and thrust her hand into it. She jumped backwards with a loud shriek, vigorously shaking her arm. It was clear that she dared not touch her gloved hand with the other one, and so was unable to rid herself of the horror of whatever was wriggling about next to her skin.

  Celandine could not have hoped for more, but when she saw the spider appear and run straight up Miss Bell’s arm, she thought she would collapse from laughing so much. Miss Bell scrunched her head down to her shoulder and spun round, banging against the desk as she tried to knock the spider off her. She grabbed wildly for her ruler but missed her grip, and the thing clattered across the room. Even when she had managed to shake the creature from her – a dark scurry across the lid of the desk and down to the floor – Miss Bell continued to screech in panic and disgust. She leaned against the chalky blackboard for support, her gloved hand clutching at her unpinned hair, until gradually she was able to calm herself.

  An entire morning’s worth of bottled-up anticipation exploded from Celandine and she hugged her ribs, exhausted with laughter but unable to stop.

  Miss Bell, her terror suddenly converted to fury, strode across the schoolroom with her arm raised to strike. Celandine lifted her own arm in defence, and for a moment the two of them remained motionless, glaring at one another.

  Miss Bell finally lowered her shaking arm. She turned and walked over to her desk once more. Celandine stared at the smudge of pink chalk dust that stained the back of the retreating white blouse. Miss Bell stood at her desk and slowly removed her glove. Her breathing was still heavy and her neck still very red, but she was back in control. There was a look of triumph almost about the pursed lips, the upright bearing.

  ‘Right, Miss Howard, that is the final straw.’ The words hissed out of her. ‘Now let me tell you something in private, whilst there is no one else to hear it. I don’t like you, and I never have. I believe you to be an entirely wicked, spoilt, and sinful child – an ugly little farm urchin who will never come to the slightest good. You have no ability whatsoever. Your only talent is for mischief, lies, and tittle-tattle. Oh yes, I know all about your complaints to your mother. Fortunately, Mrs Howard is more inclined to believe my story than she is yours – and this is hardly surprising when you are known to be such a liar. Do you see, Celandine? This is why you will never win. I have your parents’ full support. It doesn’t matter how many times you dip the chalk in the glue-pot, or put spiders in my desk. Your silly crimes will always bring you more pain than pleasure – I can promise you that – and it will do you no good to complain.’

  Miss Bell drew the long cotton glove across her palm, smoothing it out between her finger and thumb.

  ‘No doubt you are hoping to get rid of me, Celandine, but I have every intention of remaining here for several more years yet – certainly until something better comes along. My salary is generous enough, and I shall not be driven away by your antics – in fact I enjoy a challenge. I shall report this morning’s little episode to your mother, of course. I’m sure she’ll understand why I’ve kept you from your lunch, and why I’m now going to give you an extra music lesson. You may pick up my ruler and then follow me.’

  Miss Bell threw her glove down onto the desk and strode out of the room. Open war was finally declared.

  Chapter Three

  A BITTER HIGHLAND wind rattled through the pines, scattering the rooks and jackdaws and flinging them to the skies like bits of rag. Summer was barely gone, yet here in these northern woods the days already grew bleak.

  The two Ickri guards turned their backs to the weather, their wings tight-folded against the buffeting squalls. They huffed into cupped hands and drew their hoods close about their stubbled faces.

  Peck glanced behind him, at the covered entrance to Avlon’s shelter. The oilskin flap had worked loose, so he laid his spear aside and stooped to peg the material down once more, pushing the forked stick into the damp earth with fingers too numb to properly grip.

  ‘Talk talk talk,’ he muttered. ‘How much more o’ this?’

  Rafe said nothing, but slapped his arms and jigged from one foot to the other.

  Occasionally the murmur of voices inside the brushwood shelter rose above the gusting wind as Avlon and the Elders talked on. Warm it would be in there, huddled around the charcoal embers, and there would be a stoup of hot tansy to pass from hand to hand.

  Rafe looked up at the dark
ening sky. Their watch was nearly over. Soon Ibru and Acer would come to relieve them.

  Beneath the dome of woven saplings, Avlon poked at the charcoal fire with his stick, gently tapping one of the surrounding pebbles back into place. The Elders sat cross-legged in a circle and stared into the amber glow. All were silent now, their shadowed faces solemn and thoughtful as they considered what Avlon was proposing.

  Haima, the eldest of the Elders, shook his head at last.

  ‘’Tis safer to bide here,’ he said. ‘The lands to the south be thick with giants. How shall we be guided through such dangers?’

  ‘I cannot tell,’ said Avlon. ‘Yet I know that we shall.’

  ‘Thee knowst more than we, then.’ Haima sounded unconvinced.

  ‘Aye,’ said Avlon. ‘Perhaps I do.’ He continued to prod at the lumps of glowing charcoal, and the silence grew.

  The legend of the Touchstone had long been on Avlon’s mind, and in the vivid dreams that came to him each night. As ruler of the Ickri, their king, and Keeper of the Stone, he had long been aware of the old tale – how the two tribes, Ickri and Naiad, had travelled across the span of time from Elysse to Lys-Gorji, the land of the giants, with the Touchstone as their guide. The tribes had eventually quarrelled, so the story went, and the Touchstone had been split. The wingless Naiad tribe had kept the Orbis – the metal device wherein the Stone revolved – and the Ickri had kept the jasper globe itself. Then the Ickri had journeyed into the deep forests of the north, where they now dwelt, whilst the Naiad remained upon the wetlands far away to the south, and were perhaps no more.

  ‘Again.’ Avlon spoke to the Elders. ‘Let us gather all that we have, and lay it out before us, the better to decide. Come, Haima, tell us what were told to thee, and to those that came before thee.’

  Haima sighed, and raised his palms towards the warmth of the fire. ‘When the travelling tribes, Ickri and Naiad, were first come to Lys-Gorji, the giants were few. By the waters these ogres lived, in dwellings raised upon poles. Slow they were, and easy tricked. There was little danger from them, then. The Naiad were a water tribe, and so were content to remain. But we, the Ickri, were true travellers. We wished for deeper forests, and richer game. We wouldst not bide upon the wetlands, nor wouldst the Naiad leave. The tribes did quarrel then, and there was blood. Each tribe laid hold to the Touchstone and could not agree, so ’twere split – the Stone to the Ickri, the Orbis to the Naiad.’