The Ghastly Gerty Swindle With the Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane (2 page)

In this letter that Gerty wrote for herself, some things were not quite true. She didn't know a Lady Diana Rich. Neither did she have a middle name, but “Elizabeth” had such a nice ring to it—it made her feel … well, Elizabethan.

On the other hand, she
had
once been a sort of nanny to a bad little boy who wouldn't go to bed at night. Gerty had sorted out the little monster by putting his hamster in the trash can every time he misbehaved.
That
soon had him skipping up the stairs to say his prayers. The parents found out about this, though, and fired her. (Parents were far too soft these days, Gerty often said.)

In her next job, an antique Chinese vase had been found in her wardrobe. That was bad enough, but it had also been wrapped up in her summer petticoat. All very embarrassing. Difficult to explain. Oh well,
Gerty sighed as she packed for the morning train to Tunwold village, it was all water under the bridge.

And what a dreary place Tunwold village turned out to be, with its one wide street! It felt like the middle of bleeping nowhere. Then she had to walk two miles along a country road, with aching bunions, until she arrived at Hungryhouse Lane. An avenue of massive trees led up to the old house, and birds sang out as she crunched along the gravel path below.

Birdsong! thought Gerty. Anybody who thinks that's singing needs their head looked at.

Well, what a house! It seemed at first to be all roof—the thatch was so neat that a hairdresser might have given it the old back and sides only yesterday, especially up there where it curled over two small attic windows. Curiously like eyes, those windows … Wouldn't be surprised if that old straw leaks, thought Gerty. And as for those plants creeping up the walls, why, you might just as well put up a ladder for spiders and earwigs. And worse. Should have packed a mousetrap, thought Gerty.

But this was a grand place, no doubt.
Time passes slowly here
, the old house seemed to say.
I've had three hundred years already, and three hundred more to come.
Gerty was no fool. She'd seen such places in the glossy magazines. Whoever lived here had money, lovely money….

The old lady who came to the door wore a brooch
at her throat and her hair in a bun. Also two cardigan sweaters. Probably felt the cold. Deep and quiet eyes, both somewhat red and dull. Genteel sort, Gerty guessed. Easy meat.

“How are you, dear? I've come about your ad in the paper. Gertrude Elizabeth Moag is my name. I've had lots of experience. Got a bit of leg trouble have we, yes? I can tell. Been a nurse in my time, of course. Your house is a picture, dear, I'm sure I've seen it in a painting—and the little birds singing in the trees! The countryside is just so pretty, don't you think?”

A blink or two. Then, “Oh … well … I must say, I did think applicants would phone me first, Miss Moag.”

“
Mrs.
, dear. Phones!” Gerty dismissed all phones with a sweep of her hand. “What do phones tell you, I always say. Here's my reference.” And here, Gertrude Elizabeth Moag lowered her voice. “Lady Diana Rich. Her cousin was twenty-second in line, you know.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Amy Steadings.

“In line for the throne, dear. The
throne.
”

They came into the hall. And ooh, what a flight of stairs, how they seemed to soar before disappearing round a bend! A grandfather clock of classic proportions looked down from the first landing. On the way through to the kitchen Gerty peeped into the parlor, feasting her roving eyes on an actual Persian carpet on the floor. None of your pretend reproduction rubbish here!

In the kitchen lots of ancient copper things hung on the walls. And ornamental plates. The huge black Aga cookstove gave out a heat she could feel from here. A few dishes and some washing lay about.

“We'll soon have it looking the way it should be,” said Gerty, folding a tea cloth.

“But I quite like it the way it is.”

“Of course! Things should look lived in, shouldn't they, dear? A little crumple is comfortable, I always say. Why don't you sit down and we can talk things over while I make us a nice cup of tea?”

Later that day Gerty unpacked her bags in an upstairs room with white and lemon walls—nice and light and bright. A tapping on the window made her jump, but it was only a branch of creeping ivy moving with the breeze. Gerty made short work of it with a pair of nail scissors, then set out a large book on the table beside her:
Antiques and How to Recognize Them.
It was her favorite book and she read it every day.

In the kitchen far below, Amy Steadings was not quite sure what to make of Gertrude Elizabeth Moag. The woman seemed to be a little common, and perhaps even coarse; but she didn't seem to be the nervous sort, and that might be very important. In any case, Amy liked to think the best of people—this had
been her policy throughout life and it had served her very well. Besides, no one else had applied for the position of companion. She would make a point of telling Gertrude to stay out of the attic for the time being.

3 …

A Bandage for Bonnie

When Mrs. Sweet read the letter from Amy Steadings in Hungryhouse Lane, for some moments she didn't quite know what to make of it.

Here was someone who actually wanted her three children to come and stay for a few days? All of them—together? Good heavens, what a surprise. Not that they were terribly wicked children, but they certainly weren't perfect. Most of their uncles and aunts liked to be told in advance that they were coming so that ornaments and breakable things could be removed to a safe place.

Zoe Sweet, like many eldest children, was a rather bossy sort. It was as if she'd said to herself, “Right, I've been born first and I'm going to make the most of it.” She believed strongly that her mother and father didn't understand that children have rights. Take the pear incident, for example. People had the right to eat unbruised pears, and Mother should have
banned Charlie from eating pears for two years so that he would learn his lesson and never juggle pears again. Zoe got top marks in many of her tests at school, and was very interested in first aid.

Charlie, the middle Sweet, was a moody boy who gave a lot of trouble to his sisters. Only yesterday he played them a recording of them snoring their heads off in bed. (The sound was actually water sucking down the plug hole, but it still drove them crazy.) From time to time Charlie developed a passion for something. He would suddenly take up bone collecting, and just as suddenly give it up for airplane spotting or juggling. While his big sister believed in rights, Charlie believed in grabbing what you could get. He didn't mind eating bruised pears. Or even no pears. He could easily buy himself a whole bag of pears and gobble them all by himself in a corner of the swimming pool. At school he was good at math but bad at spelling, although this did not worry him because he now planned to work in sound effects when he grew up.

Little Bonnie was so sweet that she melted the hearts of people in supermarkets. However, those familiar with her will of iron and her loud screams were not fooled. (Bonnie was quite likely to refuse pears and scream for melon boats with little umbrellas sticking out of them.) Mr. Sweet usually picked her up by the heels and set her in the bath when she
had one of her tantrums. Her doll Lulubelle had no mouth. Bonnie had taken off the red-thread smile in a temper because Lulubelle kept on smiling when she, Bonnie, was unhappy. When big, she expected to work at wrapping things up nicely in shops because she could now tie lovely satin bows.

Muldoon Sweet licked Charlie's feet when he hung them out of bed at night; acted as a horse for Lulubelle; and sat up and begged for Zoe when nobody else would obey her orders. He regarded himself as one of the Sweet kids and refused to eat dog food.

“Geoffrey,” said Mrs. Sweet. “Look at this. Amy Steadings has invited the children down to stay with her for a few days in the country. Isn't that awfully nice of her?”

Geoffrey Sweet put down his
Financial Times
to accept the letter from his wife. “Well, I'm bound to say that she seems very fond of them for some reason,” he agreed with a frown. “How curious. Perhaps the poor woman is lonely, although I see that she has taken a lady companion.”

Just then the Sweet parents heard an almighty scream coming from the hall. It was the sort of sound that makes you want to rush and see what awful thing has happened, and yet somehow roots you to the spot because you are terrified of what you might see when you get there. Mr. Sweet threw away his
Financial Times
and tried not to panic. Mrs. Sweet, therefore, made it into the hall before him.

The sight that met her eyes made her poor heart lurch. Little Bonnie lay stretched out at the bottom of the stairs, in a small pool of blood, unconscious to the world. As Mr. Sweet arrived, Zoe was already wrapping the little blond head in a red-stained bandage, saying into Charlie's tape recorder, “Home accidents account for some thirteen percent of fatalities every year.”

From the third step up, Muldoon pointed his nose at the roof and just howled as if he could smell the postman.

“Geoffrey, she's fallen down the stairs! She may have broken her neck!”

While the appalled parents looked on, Zoe ever so slowly straightened a Bonnie leg. “This will obviously need splints.”

“Leave her
alone
, Zoe!” cried Mrs. Sweet, while Mr. Sweet rushed to the phone and seized it with hands that trembled.

Bonnie sat up. Zoe flew into a rage.

“Daddy, you are ruining
everything.
”

“It's only pretend,” said Bonnie. “Was I good?” Then she licked some of the tomato sauce.

Mrs. Sweet sank onto the third step up beside the howling Muldoon. Her husband replaced the phone with a blank look on his face. He would have a thing or two to say in a moment, but not yet. Right now he was speechless.

“She didn't fall down the stairs?” said Mrs. Sweet.

“No! And how am I supposed to get first-aid practice if people are always butting in?”

“Practice?” Mrs. Sweet stared at the open first-aid kit. “Couldn't you have told us? Couldn't you have … warned us?”

“People don't get warnings about accidents, Mother. And I sincerely hope that you aren't going to complain about the sauce, because I have to get used to the sight of blood. Everybody thinks it's a joke, but it's not a joke and you won't be laughing if I save somebody's life one day.”

Nobody was laughing. Mr. Sweet, who looked as though he might have fallen down the stairs himself, spoke.

“You are going on holiday. Tomorrow. I shall phone Amy Steadings tonight. In fact, I'll phone her now.”

“But she hasn't got a VCR, Daddy,” said Bonnie sweetly.

“We'll buy her one!” said Mr. Sweet between clenched teeth. “Go and pack.”

“And who knows,” said Mrs. Sweet, brightening up considerably, “if you're
very
well behaved and don't do silly things, there may be water in the swimming pool when you get back.”

Then she noticed how Mr. Sweet was staring at the tomato-sauce bandage around Bonnie's head. Perhaps water in the swimming pool wasn't a good bet right now.

4 …

Why
Not
the Attic?

Why
not
the attic, that's what Gerty wanted to know as she polished the banister on the first landing.