A Brief History of Montmaray (21 page)

It shouldn’t have surprised me that the question of who should be King was foremost in Veronica’s mind. However, Rebecca’s outburst had other implications.

‘You know, if Simon really is Uncle John’s son,’ I said, ‘that makes him your ... well, half-brother. And it means Rebecca is my aunt. Sort of.’

‘Don’t be so
revolting,
Sophie,’ said Veronica with a faint shudder. ‘Anyway, what happened? Is the funeral over?’

I shook my head and explained it had been postponed. The coronation, traditionally held seven days after the King’s funeral, seemed destined to be even more postponed. I couldn’t see Rebecca backing down on this, no matter how many relevant documents Veronica pulled off the library shelves. And if Simon were convinced that Rebecca was telling the truth, not to mention Toby...

As usual, Veronica seemed to be able to read my mind. ‘I suspect Toby regards Simon taking over the throne as a lucky escape for him,’ she said quietly. ‘However,
we’re
going to convince him otherwise.’ She brightened. ‘Oh, and I must write to Aunt Charlotte at once. I’m sure she’ll be
very
supportive of our position when she hears of this.’

She gathered up all her books and we went back to the kitchen. Rebecca appeared to have locked herself inside Uncle John’s room and was thumping around in there, possibly in some sort of tribute to him. Henry was beating Mr Herbert at Squid, and Toby and Simon had disappeared. Veronica sat down next to Vulcan and started scribbling down notes while I went looking for the boys. They weren’t in Henry’s room, which they’d been sharing, nor in the nursery, the Blue Room, the Gold Room, the attics, up on the roof, in the chapel (poor Uncle John looked quite forlorn lying there, alone and unburied), in the gatehouse or anywhere in the courtyard. It was only after I’d given up and was washing my hands in the bathroom that I heard a low laugh and realised they’d hidden themselves away in the Solar. I shoved open the door at the far end of the bathroom.

‘I’ve been looking all over for you–’ I started crossly, then broke off. Toby and Simon were scrambling up from where they’d been half-sitting, half-lying against the wall. Both looked flushed; Toby looked guilty.

‘How’s Veronica?’ said Toby at once.

‘What do you care?’ I frowned.

‘Sorry, we were busy talking and lost track of the time,’ said Simon, smoothing back his hair. ‘There was rather a lot to discuss and we preferred not to say it in front of Henry.’

I stared at him. ‘Sorting out which one of you is going to be King?’ I said in a voice that sounded remarkably like Veronica’s. Simon blinked at me.

‘Now, Soph–’ began Toby.

‘Don’t
Now Soph
me!’ I cried. ‘Veronica’s right – you
don’t
want to be King, do you?’

There was a pause.

‘Perhaps Simon would do a better job of it,’ said Toby.

‘Perhaps
Veronica
would do a better job of it,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’m certain she would. But it’s not going to happen, is it? She’s already looking up things in the library and there’s no way ... Besides, when Aunt Charlotte hears about this–’

‘I’ve a great deal more influence over Aunt Charlotte than either of
you
have,’ said Toby. The set of his mouth reminded me of Henry at her most stubborn. It made me absolutely furious.

‘Don’t you
dare
threaten me!’ I shouted.

‘You have
no
idea–’ Toby began.

‘Stop it! Both of you,’ said Simon. We stopped it. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Things are a bit strange at the moment, but there’s no need to shout at each other like this.’

‘I’m sorry, Soph,’ said Toby quickly. ‘I’ve just been very ... upset.’

He hadn’t looked at all upset when I’d pushed the door open. He’d been smiling and leaning against Simon, practically sitting in his lap. If I was being honest with myself, it was
that
that had bothered me the most. If Toby had been a girl, I would have been burning up with jealousy (well, obviously if Toby had been a girl, he wouldn’t have gone off alone with Simon and ended up sprawled over the floor with him, but still). Even as it was, I envied Toby for how close he was to Simon, for having the sort of friendship with Simon that I could never have. And this made me ashamed of myself, especially as I was supposed to be finished with my ridiculous infatuation with Simon. So although I was still angry on Veronica’s behalf, I grudgingly accepted Toby’s apology and offered an (insincere) apology of my own. Then we all went downstairs.

A couple of hours later, the funeral started again and this time continued to the end without interruption. After the blessing, we stood and carried Uncle John down to the crypt, stopping before one of the few unoccupied tombs (I tried not to think about the last time I’d been down there). As a compromise, Simon and Toby removed the Royal Seal together and handed it to Mr Herbert for safekeeping. The Oath of Accession, the traditional method of introducing the soon-to-becrowned King, was omitted altogether. Finally, the stone lid was scraped back into place over Uncle John and we trooped back upstairs into the chapel to snuff out the candles.

The funeral dinner was a dismal affair. Rebecca was stomping around upstairs, occasionally bursting into unintelligible rants. The rest of us poked at the rabbit stew on our plates and said very little. As soon as possible, I escaped to the library so I could find a book to bury myself in. I wasn’t in the mood for Jane Austen or even the Brontës. I wanted something with no romance at all, something sharp and cynical, so I ended up with
The Importance of Being Earnest.
It was as I was settling myself in bed with it, wondering what the time was and wishing that
I
had a watch like Simon’s, that I had a horrible thought. I must have made some sort of strangled noise – Veronica glanced up from the letter she was writing.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘You don’t think that Toby and Simon are...’ I said, then bit my lip. I looked at Henry, sprawled across Veronica’s bed with her Meccano train engine. Veronica raised her eyebrows impatiently. Henry was working away with her tiny screwdriver, the tip of her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth. ‘Well, that they’re a bit like Oscar Wilde and that boy?’ I whispered.

‘Oscar Wilde?’ said Veronica blankly.

‘The writer!’ I said, waving my book at her. ‘The one who went to prison!’

‘Did he?’ said Veronica. ‘Why? Was it for sedition or forgery or something?’

‘No, no, it was for...’ I hesitated again. If I said, ‘the love that dares not speak its name’, I might have to explain further. This would cause problems, not only because Henry was in the room, but also because I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. Well, I knew in general terms, but...

‘It was for indecent behaviour,’ I ended up whispering at Veronica.

‘Oh,’ she said without much interest, turning back to her letter. ‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything
Simon Chester
gets up to.’

Henry lifted her head at that. ‘Veronica, is
Simon
going to be King now, instead of Toby?’

‘Over my dead body,’ said Veronica, her pen scratching across the paper.

‘Is that what your letter to Aunt Charlotte says?’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Ooh! Can I write one too?’

‘Why not?’ said Veronica, handing her a piece of paper and a pencil. ‘And what do
you
want?’ I glanced around and saw with a start that Rebecca was in the doorway, looking furious. I suspected she’d heard every thing, even the Oscar Wilde bit, although she was glaring at Veronica, not me. She snarled in our general direction, then disappeared.

‘You can do a letter, as well,’ Henry said to me, not having noticed this. ‘Or you can help me with mine. I’m going to do mostly pictures. I’m doing one of Toby wearing a crown.’

I shook my head, my mind still full of Simon. I was almost certain now that
Toby
had given Simon that gold watch; it fitted with the accounts Veronica had been going over. It was Simon’s birthday at the start of the school year, I was sure of it...

I groaned and buried my head in my pillow.

‘I know how you feel,’ said Veronica sympathetically. ‘It’s an awful situation, isn’t it?’

I agreed in a muffled voice that it was completely awful.

‘But there’s nothing else to be done about it at the moment, so why don’t you update your journal? It’s important we have a record of these events.’

I sighed. Then I went out and got my book from its hiding place in the gallery and I wrote all this down.

MR HERBERT'S YELLOW HAIR is sticking up all over his head from his clutching at it, making him resemble nothing so much as a stout hen with very ruffled feathers. ‘My dear child,’ he clucked at me when I poured his tea this morning. ‘I would feel far easier if you and your sister and cousin would join me. Your passage
is
booked aboard the ship, you know, and I believe the Princess Royal is expecting you...’

Mr Herbert has also made several attempts to talk Toby into returning to school, but Toby says he wants to make sure we are all right. Simon assured Mr Herbert that he’d accompany Toby back to London in a fortnight or so, once Rebecca was feeling more ‘herself’ (not an appealing prospect – I think I preferred her silent). Simon implied that our entire household will be leaving with him. He only dared say that because Veronica was in the library at the time, though.

Poor Mr Herbert, he can’t comprehend our resistance. He himself can’t wait to leave this cold, dripping, rat-infested castle, populated as it is with madwomen and ghosts and people who have no idea who their fathers are. He is refusing point-blank to take sides in the King debate, saying only that he will consult with Aunt Charlotte as soon as he returns and promising to pass on all our letters. There is a thick wad of them. Even Simon wrote one, although I’m pretty sure Veronica contrived to burn it before the package went into Mr Herbert’s bag.

Luckily for him, Mr Herbert won’t have to endure Montmaray much longer. The ship arrived this morning, carrying Mr Davies-Chesterton from the British Foreign Office. Toby and Simon are down in the crypt with the young man now, showing him the tomb. It shouldn’t take long for him to pay his respects – he didn’t even have a wreath, it fell overboard when he was getting out of the launch. He is a very
junior
diplomat. He looks about fourteen. He looked even younger when Veronica was ticking him off about his having missed the funeral. He made the crewman who brought him across from the ship come with him up to the castle, as though he were afraid he might otherwise be left stranded here.

I wonder how he’d react if he were in the kitchen now, because Rebecca has just burst in and is raving on and on about Death. I really do wonder if she’s gone a bit mad. Apparently she was off telling the bees about Uncle John’s demise –
if
there are any of the poor little creatures left, that is; I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d all drowned, in this weather. It
is
an old Cornish custom, telling the bees, but there’s nothing in the tradition that says one can’t wear a raincoat or a hat if it’s pouring. She looks like an elderly Ophelia risen from a watery grave – sodden hair straggling over her face, black dress plastered to her body – as she staggers toward the stairs. I suppose it’s rather appropriate, given Uncle John’s Hamlet-ish behaviour over the years. Now I’m trying to imagine the two of them as beautiful, tragic young lovers, torn asunder by cruel fate. It isn’t really working. It does explain Rebecca’s hatred of Isabella, though, and the way she’s treated Veronica all these years. Did Isabella know about Simon, I wonder? Was it that knowledge that helped her decide to leave?

Thank Heavens I’ve switched to writing in Kernetin – Mr Herbert just peered over my shoulder. I’m sure he’d be scandalised by a young lady writing about It, particularly if he managed to read last night’s entry about Simon and Toby. Oh, and now Rebecca’s stumbled back downstairs with some black cloth to drape over the kitchen garden, otherwise the plants will wither, the crop will fail, we’ll perish of starvation, and so on. Where did she get all that black stuff from, anyway?

Oh, she really is
too
much, that’s my mourning dress! Admittedly, it was a bit big around the waist, but I was going to take it in. It was the first new frock I’ve had in ages! Oh, the others are leaving now...

Goodbye, Reverend Mr Herbert. Goodbye, Mr Davies-Chesterton. Heavens, Simon must be the only person in the world who can manage to look dashing in that old macintosh.

No, I’m not going with them. I am going to console myself over the loss of my frock with some of that fig-and-ginger jam and a left-over breakfast scone...

Oh, the most dreadful, terrible, awful thing has happened! I
should
have gone down to the wharf with them, I really ought to have gone, but Toby said he and Simon could manage the bags themselves and it was raining so hard and I couldn’t bear the thought of trailing after the two of them, watching Toby with his arm around Simon’s shoulders or, even worse, Simon tousling Toby’s hair and laughing at Toby’s jokes ... but now I can’t help thinking that if only I’d gone, it wouldn’t have happened. Or if I’d been firmer with Henry and insisted she stay, if I’d ordered Carlos to go along with them...

Oh, God, poor, poor Toby! And I felt so
angry
yesterday when I found him in the Solar with Simon, so full of sick, jealous fury, that for a moment I actually wanted to hurt him. It’s as though I’m being punished now for thinking such horrible thoughts, because it’s far worse to see Toby in pain than to have suffered such an injury myself. The snapped bone was actually sticking out through his skin ... ugh, I think I’m going to be sick, just remembering it...

Back now, having hung over the basin for a bit. Wasn’t actually sick, as it turned out.

All right.

What happened was that Simon, Toby and Henry took Mr Herbert, Mr Davies-Chesterton and the crewman down to the wharf. The two passengers were bundled into the launch with Mr Herbert’s luggage, the crewman tugged the rope free of the pylon and jumped in himself, and the launch was wrenched away by the waves, disappearing almost at once in the spray and the mist.

Simon isn’t sure what happened next. He said Henry had been doing handstands and cartwheels along the wharf, and that she must have slipped. Toby lunged to catch her, both of them dangerously close to the edge. It might have been all right, even then, except for the wave that suddenly crashed over them – not even an ordinary wave, but one of those ten-foot terrors. Simon, turning around at that moment, said they vanished completely in the white water. When it cleared, Toby was clinging to the side of the wharf, his legs battering against a pylon, and Henry was clutching at his arms, screaming for help. Simon ran over, almost skidding into the sea himself, and yanked Toby to safety, shouting at Henry to run back to the castle and try to signal the ship. But there was no point, it had already gone, disappeared into the fog.

By the time Veronica and I got there, Simon had pushed Toby’s dislocated arm back into his shoulder (mercifully, the freezing water had numbed it) and carried Toby to Alice’s cottage. There hadn’t been much he could do for the leg, though. Even Veronica looked daunted when she tore away Toby’s trousers. The break was halfway down his shin, the bone having carved itself through the flesh like a serrated knife. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen – worse than Hans Brandt, even, because I knew that
he
wasn’t suffering, not any more, whereas Toby clearly was. In the end, we gave Toby a mug of brandy (Veronica had had the foresight to grab a bottle of it, as well as the bandages, before we ran down). Then I went outside with Henry while Veronica and Simon pushed the bone back into place, and strapped it all up with a splint.

Henry was in hysterics. She blamed herself entirely and I can’t say I did much to disabuse her of that notion. If she hadn’t been showing off, hadn’t been her usual foolish, reckless self, Toby wouldn’t have put himself in any danger. It’s a terrible way to learn a lesson, though. We could hear Toby’s screams from outside, even over the wind and the rain. I think Veronica did most of the surgery. Simon said afterwards, rather shakily, that his main contribution had been lying on top of Toby to stop him moving.

The trip back up to the castle was a nightmare, too. We tried to fashion a stretcher using a blanket and the oars from the rowboat, but it didn’t work very well, especially up the steep bits. Toby ended up limping part of the way, propped up by three of us, until he put his good foot in a rabbit hole. We managed to catch him before he hit the ground, but he’d blacked out by then, what with all the brandy and the blood loss and the pain. Simon and Veronica carried him the rest of the way.

Now Toby is lying in Uncle John’s room (
former
room, I should say, I’ll have to stop thinking of it as his). We evicted Rebecca – there was no way we were going to try getting Toby up that staircase. He has three blankets (held up over his leg with the aid of the folding tea-tray) and the warming pan, but he’s still shivering. Henry went out to raise the doctor’s flag, but it was torn off the flagpole at once – it’s probably flapping over France by now. In any case, who would see it? Dusk is falling and there are no ships. There are few at this time of year anyway, but with the war in Spain, shipping around here has almost ceased entirely. Oh, if only the Germans had left their radio equipment! And we knew how to use it! What on Earth are we going to
do?