But Jack did. Although he often did not appear to notice Lucy-Ann and did not even speak to her for some time, he was never impatient with her, never irritable or cross. Next to his birds, he cared for Lucy-Ann, thought Philip. Well, it was a good thing somebody cared for her. She didn’t seem to have much of a life.
The three children had exchanged news about themselves. Our mother and father are both dead, Jack said. We don’t remember them. They were killed in an aeroplane crash. We were sent to live with our only relation, Uncle Geoffrey. He’s old and cross, always nagging at us. His housekeeper, Mrs. Miggles, hates us to go home for the holidays and you can tell what our life is like by listening to old Kiki. Wipe your feet! Don’t sniff! Change your shoes at once! Where’s your handkerchief? How many times have I told you not to whistle? Can’t you shut the door, idiot?
Philip laughed. Well, if Kiki echoes what she hears in your home, you must have a pretty mouldy time, he said. We don’t have too grand a time either but it’s better than you and Lucy-Ann have.
Are your father and mother dead too? asked Lucy-Ann, her green eyes staring at Philip as unblinkingly as a cat’s.
Our father’s dead and he left no money, said Philip. But we’ve got a mother. She doesn’t live with us, though.
Why not? asked Lucy-Ann in surprise.
Well, she has a job, said Philip. She makes enough money at her job for our schooling and our keep in the hols. She runs an art agency you know, takes orders for posters and pictures and things, gets artists to do them for her, and then takes a commission on the sales. She’s a very good business woman but we don’t see much of her.
Is she nice? asked Jack. Never having had a mother that he could remember, he was always interested in other people’s. Philip nodded.
She’s fine, he said, thinking of his keen-eyed, pretty mother, feeling proud of her cleverness, but secretly sad when he remembered how tired she had seemed sometimes when she had paid them a flying visit. One day, thought Philip, one day he would be the clever one earn the money, keep things going, and make things easy for his hard-working mother.
And you live with an uncle, like we do? said Lucy-Ann, stroking a tiny grey squirrel that had suddenly popped its head out of one of Philip’s pockets.
Yes. Dinah and I spend all our hols with Uncle Jocelyn and Aunt Polly, said Philip. Uncle Jocelyn is quite impossible. He’s always buying old papers and books and documents, studying them and filing them. He’s making it his life-work to work out the history of the part of the coast where we live there were battles there in the old days, and burnings and killings all most exciting. He’s writing a whole history but as it seems to take him a year to make certain of a fact or two, he’ll have to live to be four or five hundred years old before he gets a quarter of the book done, it seems to me.
The others laughed. They pictured a cross and learned old man poring over yellow, musty papers. What a waste of time, thought Lucy-Ann. She wondered what Aunt Polly was like.
What’s your aunt like? she asked. Philip screwed up his nose.
A bit sour, he said. Not too bad, really. Too hard-worked, no money, no help in the old house except for old Jo-Jo, the sort of handyman servant we’ve got. She makes poor Dinah slave I won’t, so she’s given me up, but Dinah’s afraid of her and does what she is told more than I do.
What’s your home like? asked Lucy-Ann.
A funny old place, hundreds of years old, half in ruins, awfully big and draughty, set half-way up a steep cliff, and almost drowned in spray in a storm, said Philip. But I love it. It’s wild and lonely and queer, and there’s the cry of the sea-birds always round it. You’d love it, Freckles.
Jack thought he would. It sounded exciting to him. His home was ordinary, a house in a row in a small-sized town. But Philip’s house sounded really exciting. The wind and the waves and the sea-birds he felt as if he could almost hear them clamouring together, when he shut his eyes.
Wake up, wake up, sleepy-head, said Kiki, pecking gently at Jack’s ear. He opened his eyes and laughed. The parrot had an extraordinary way of saying the right thing sometimes.
I wish I could see that home of yours Craggy-Tops, he said to Philip. It sounds as if things could happen there real, live, exciting things, thrilling adventures. Nothing ever happens in Lippinton, where we live.
Well, nothing much happens at Craggy-Tops either, said Philip, putting the little squirrel back into his pocket, and taking a hedgehog out of another pocket. It was a baby one, whose prickles were not yet hardened and set. It seemed quite happy to live in Philip’s pocket, along with a very large snail, who was careful to keep inside his shell.
I wish we were all going home together, said Jack. I’d like to see your sister Dinah, though she does sound a bit of a wild-cat to me. And I’d love to see all those rare birds on the coast. I’d like to see your old half-ruined house too. Fancy living in a house so old that it’s almost a ruin. You don’t know how lucky you are.
Not so lucky when you have to carry hot water for miles to the only bath in the house, said Philip, getting up from the grass where he had been sitting with the others. Come on it’s time to get back. You’re never likely to see Craggy-Tops, and you wouldn’t like it if you did so what’s the good of talking about it?
Chapter 3
TWO LETTERS AND A PLAN
The next day Philip had a letter from Dinah. He showed it to the others.
Old Dinah’s having a rough time, he said. It’s a good thing I leave here soon. It’s better for her when I’m there.
Dear Phil [said Dinah in her letter],
Aren’t you ever coming back? Not that you’re much good for anything except quarrelling with, but still it’s pretty lonely here with nobody but Uncle and Aunt and Jo-Jo, who’s even more stupid than before. He told me yesterday not to go out at night down the cliff, because there are things wandering about. He’s quite mad. The only things wandering about besides me are the sea-birds. There are thousands of them here this year.
Don’t, for goodness’ sake, bring any creatures home these holidays. You know how I hate them. I shall die if you bring a bat again, and if you dare to try and train earwigs like you did last year, I’ll throw a chair at your head!
Aunt Polly is making me work awfully hard. We wash and scrub and clean all day, goodness knows, what for, because nobody ever comes. I shall be glad when it’s time to go off to school again. When do you come back? I wish we could earn some money somehow. Aunt Polly is worrying herself to death because she can’t pay some bill or other, and Uncle swears he hasn’t got the money, and wouldn’t give it to her if he had. I suppose Mother would send more money if we asked her, but it’s pretty awful to have her slaving away as she does, anyhow. Tell me more about Freckles and Lucy-Ann. I like the sound of them.
Your loving sister,
Dinah.
Dinah sounded rather fine, Jack thought, as he read the letter and gave it back to Philip. Here you are, Tufty, he said. Dinah sounds lonely. Hallo there’s Mr. Roy beckoning me. I’ll see what he wants. More work, I suppose.
By the same post had come a letter for Mr. Roy, from the housekeeper who looked after Jack’s Uncle Geoffrey. It was short and to the point.
Mr. Roy had read it with dismay, and then called Jack in to show him the letter. Jack read it, also filled with dismay.
Dear Mr. Roy [said the letter],
Mr. Trent has broken his leg, and he doesn’t want the children back these holidays. He wants to know if you will keep them with you, and he sends a cheque to cover the rest of the time. They can come back two days before school begins, to help me to sort out their clothes.
Yours faithfully,
Elspeth Miggles.
Oh, Mr. Roy! groaned Jack, who, much as he disliked his home, disliked the thought of staying on with Mr. Roy, and with the peevish Oliver, who was also staying on, even more than the thought of returning to his irritable uncle. I don’t see why Lucy-Ann and I can’t go back we shan’t go near Uncle.