the decay of the old house itself.
Dogger was waiting at the front door.
“Welcome home, Miss Flavia,” he said. “We have missed you.”
I rode past him, into the foyer, and up the east staircase—which goes to show how ridiculous dreams can be: Although I had ridden down the stairs, I had never, ever been guilty of riding
up
them.
In my chemical laboratory, an experiment was in busyprogress. Beakers bubbled, flasks simmered, and various colored liquids flowed importantly to and fro in twists and coils of glass tubing.
Although I couldn’t remember the purpose of the experiment, I was full of excitement at the outcome.
I would write it up in my laboratory notebook: from
Hypothesis
to
Conclusion
, all neatly presented so that even an idiot could follow each step of my brilliant thinking.
The chemical journals would come to fisticuffs over the rights to publish my work.
And yet there was an indescribable sadness about this dream: the kind of sadness that comes when the heart and the brain do not agree.
Half of me was filled with joy. Half of me wanted to weep.
When I awoke, a bell was ringing somewhere.
• FOUR •
M Y EYES REFUSED TO open. It was as if, as I slept, someone had glued them shut.
“Hurry up,” Miss Fawlthorne’s voice was saying. “The bell has already gone.”
I looked up at her from bleary sockets.
“Your uniform is on the chair,” she said. “Put it on and come down for breakfast. There’s a ewer on the table. Wash your face. Brush your teeth. Try to look presentable.”
And then she was gone.
How could anyone be so changeable?
I wondered.
The woman’s moods appeared to be connected to some inner weathercock that swung wildly round with every wind. One moment she was almost tender, and the next a harridan.
Even the mercurial Daffy—from whom I had learnedboth words—was no match for these cyclonic changes of character.
The cold horsehair stuffing gave out a groan as I sat up and levered myself to my feet. My back was sore, my knees were numb, and I had a crick in my neck.
I already had the feeling that this was not going to be a red-letter day.
I forced myself to crawl into the school uniform Miss Fawlthorne had laid out for me: a sort of navy blue wool pinafore dress with a pleated skirt, black tights, white blouse, and necktie—the latter striped diagonally in the school colors, yellow and black. A navy blazer completed the horror.
I winced as I examined my reflection in a silver tea service that stood on a side table. Hideous! I looked like someone in one of those baggy bathing costumes that you see on Victorian postcards.
I pinched a sugar cube and washed it down with a swig of slightly soured milk from the creamer.
Curse this life!
I thought.
And then I remembered the dead body upstairs and I cheered up at once.
Had the police come in the night? Surely they must have, by now.
I was hardly in a position to ask, but there is no law against keeping your eyes peeled and your ears open, is there?
* * *
I had been worried that I would be stared at, but no one gave me so much as a second glance as I came tentatively down the staircase and paused on the landing. From some far corner of the house came the sound of a distant regiment of girls, all talking and laughing at the same time.
I won’t say that my blood ran cold, but it distinctly cooled. I was not at my best with hordes: a fact that I had not entirely realized until the day I was sacked (unfairly) from the Girl Guides.
My case had been debated from the vicarage kitchen all the way up to the solemnly paneled council chamber of the Girl Guide Imperial Headquarters in London.
But it was no use. The die, as someone or another had said, was cast.
I recalled with bitterness the moment that Miss Delaney ripped my badges from my sleeves as the troop was made to chant in unison:
“Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!… Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!”
I knew suddenly how the children of Israel must have felt when they
Dogger was waiting at the front door.
“Welcome home, Miss Flavia,” he said. “We have missed you.”
I rode past him, into the foyer, and up the east staircase—which goes to show how ridiculous dreams can be: Although I had ridden down the stairs, I had never, ever been guilty of riding
up
them.
In my chemical laboratory, an experiment was in busyprogress. Beakers bubbled, flasks simmered, and various colored liquids flowed importantly to and fro in twists and coils of glass tubing.
Although I couldn’t remember the purpose of the experiment, I was full of excitement at the outcome.
I would write it up in my laboratory notebook: from
Hypothesis
to
Conclusion
, all neatly presented so that even an idiot could follow each step of my brilliant thinking.
The chemical journals would come to fisticuffs over the rights to publish my work.
And yet there was an indescribable sadness about this dream: the kind of sadness that comes when the heart and the brain do not agree.
Half of me was filled with joy. Half of me wanted to weep.
When I awoke, a bell was ringing somewhere.
• FOUR •
M Y EYES REFUSED TO open. It was as if, as I slept, someone had glued them shut.
“Hurry up,” Miss Fawlthorne’s voice was saying. “The bell has already gone.”
I looked up at her from bleary sockets.
“Your uniform is on the chair,” she said. “Put it on and come down for breakfast. There’s a ewer on the table. Wash your face. Brush your teeth. Try to look presentable.”
And then she was gone.
How could anyone be so changeable?
I wondered.
The woman’s moods appeared to be connected to some inner weathercock that swung wildly round with every wind. One moment she was almost tender, and the next a harridan.
Even the mercurial Daffy—from whom I had learnedboth words—was no match for these cyclonic changes of character.
The cold horsehair stuffing gave out a groan as I sat up and levered myself to my feet. My back was sore, my knees were numb, and I had a crick in my neck.
I already had the feeling that this was not going to be a red-letter day.
I forced myself to crawl into the school uniform Miss Fawlthorne had laid out for me: a sort of navy blue wool pinafore dress with a pleated skirt, black tights, white blouse, and necktie—the latter striped diagonally in the school colors, yellow and black. A navy blazer completed the horror.
I winced as I examined my reflection in a silver tea service that stood on a side table. Hideous! I looked like someone in one of those baggy bathing costumes that you see on Victorian postcards.
I pinched a sugar cube and washed it down with a swig of slightly soured milk from the creamer.
Curse this life!
I thought.
And then I remembered the dead body upstairs and I cheered up at once.
Had the police come in the night? Surely they must have, by now.
I was hardly in a position to ask, but there is no law against keeping your eyes peeled and your ears open, is there?
* * *
I had been worried that I would be stared at, but no one gave me so much as a second glance as I came tentatively down the staircase and paused on the landing. From some far corner of the house came the sound of a distant regiment of girls, all talking and laughing at the same time.
I won’t say that my blood ran cold, but it distinctly cooled. I was not at my best with hordes: a fact that I had not entirely realized until the day I was sacked (unfairly) from the Girl Guides.
My case had been debated from the vicarage kitchen all the way up to the solemnly paneled council chamber of the Girl Guide Imperial Headquarters in London.
But it was no use. The die, as someone or another had said, was cast.
I recalled with bitterness the moment that Miss Delaney ripped my badges from my sleeves as the troop was made to chant in unison:
“Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!… Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!”
I knew suddenly how the children of Israel must have felt when they
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