Withering-by-Sea Read online

  Dedication

  For Hazel, Spider, Mouse and Myn

  Contents

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Stella Montgomery lay hidden behind the ferns in the conservatory of the Hotel Majestic, flat on the mossy tiles, tracing a path through the Amazon jungle in a small, damp atlas. She skirted around a vague outcrop of some kind — possibly mildew — and continued upriver. The drip and trickle of water and the hiss of steam under the grating in the floor seemed to mingle with the swish of jungle trees in the wind and the screams of parrots. Stella wiped some water drops off the map and read, On the trees, thousands of curious and gorgeous orchids live and flower. The jungle was full of all kinds of dangers — vampire bats, earthquakes and natives armed with blowpipes full of poison darts.

  Serpents 40 feet long and capable of swallowing considerable quadrupeds, such as hares, goats, deer &c. There was a picture of such a serpent in the margin. Stella studied it wistfully. It looked large enough to swallow an elephant and had a hungry expression. A serpent of that size could swallow a person — an Aunt, for example — as easy as kiss your hand. Several Aunts, probably. It looked sufficiently hungry. The people who lived in the Amazon jungle would not be bothered by Aunts.

  After eating, they lie torpid for several weeks. Stella imagined the enormous serpent sleeping off a dinner of three Aunts. Aunt Condolence for starters, Aunt Temperance for next, and then Aunt Deliverance for pudding. There would be three big lumps in the sleeping serpent.

  She picked up the second of her stolen apples and took a bite. It was small, green, hard and sour. She chewed grimly and headed upstream towards the silver mines of the Andes, the calls of monkeys ringing in her ears, jaguars lurking in the undergrowth and toucans flying overhead.

  Sudden footsteps clattered on the grating near the fountain, close to where she was lying. With a slight jolt, she returned from the Amazon, back into what could be real danger. Right now, at this moment, she should be upstairs in the Aunts’ parlour, learning a lesson from French Conversation for Young Ladies, and instead she was doing at least four forbidden things, all at once.

  Stella kept one finger on the Amazon River and peered through the ferns to get a glimpse of the intruder, but all she could see were dripping green leaves.

  In the late morning the conservatory was usually empty. The hotel servants were busy in the kitchen and the bath house. The hotel residents, including all three Aunts, should be in the bath house, or wrapped up and propped in cane chairs in the long sunroom, sipping glasses of murky water. Stella had tasted the water once. It tasted exactly as it smelled, as if rusty nails and bad eggs had been boiled up in a puddle. It came right out of the ground, from an ancient spring underneath the hotel. The water was what made the Hotel Majestic famous. People came from all over the country to drink it. It was hard to believe, but it was true.

  She gave a silent sigh of relief to see that the intruder wasn’t an Aunt. It was Mr Filbert, an elderly foreign gentleman. He was a new resident. He had been at the hotel only a few days.

  Stella liked him. He was small and frail, almost insubstantial. His voice was whispery, like rustling leaves, and his manners were old-fashioned. Every morning, he bowed to Stella across the breakfast room. His eyes were twinkling and alert, but his skin was pale, almost greenish, and stretched tightly across the bones of his face. Like many of the residents at the Hotel Majestic, he appeared to be rather unwell. However, he drank the water every day and it seemed to be doing him good.

  Mr Filbert had caused somewhat of a sensation during luncheon on his first day. He had pushed away his plate of mutton-in-aspic and had asked for greens. Then he had opened a small leather bag and, with flickering fingers, sprinkled a pinch of brown powder over the boiled spinach. An earthy smell had drifted across the dining room, causing much muttering and tut-tutting amongst the other residents.

  General Carruthers had grunted in a military manner and then marched from the dining room without having any pudding. After luncheon, Stella had seen him stamping around the garden, despite the icy wind, shouting at the wintry flowerbeds. Foreigners always made the general bad-tempered. Stella supposed this was because he had spent so much of his life fighting wars with them.

  Now, Mr Filbert seemed nervous. Stella silently sank further behind the ferns. His twig-like fingers twisted together. He walked hesitantly towards the enormous Chinese urn that stood just beyond where Stella was hiding. It was planted with a drooping, feathery fern. He pushed aside some of the fronds and prodded his fingers into the soil. He shot a furtive look over his shoulder. Then his hand darted into his inside coat pocket and brought out a small packet. He held it tightly for a moment, and then pushed it down in amongst the roots of the fern and pressed soil over it. He let the fronds fall back into place. He turned on his heel, dipped his fingers into the fountain and hurried away, wiping his hands with a handkerchief as he went.

  As his footsteps died away, Stella found she had been holding her breath. She let it out. She waited a moment, and then got up and walked softly along the path to the urn. It was very tall. Stella pushed the fern fronds aside and stood on tiptoe to feel around in the soil. What could he be hiding that made him so nervous? Perhaps he had Aunts of his own, she thought sympathetically.

  Her fingers dug into the damp soil, but before she found the little package, the door handle rattled and brisk footsteps came along the tiled path. Stella jumped back from the urn, stumbling over her feet. She turned, expecting to see Mr Filbert again, but it was Ada, Aunt Deliverance’s maid. She looked sharp-eyed and annoyed.

  ‘There you are, Miss.’ Ada strode briskly past the fountain and stood, hands on hips, her lips tight and sour-looking. ‘I knew you’d be skriving somewhere. Always hiding, you are. And where were you at luncheon?’

  ‘Luncheon?’ Stella hadn’t realised how much time had passed while she was in the Amazon. And now she’d missed luncheon. The Aunts would be seething.

  ‘As if I don’t have better things to do than play hidey seek all the time. Come on.’ She took Stella’s arm in a hard grip. ‘Look at you. All over with slime. Making more work for people.’ Ada flicked an angry hand at the green streaks on the front of Stella’s pinafore and marched out of the conservatory, gripping Stella’s arm so tightly, and walking so briskly, that she was half-dragged along. She had to jog every few steps to keep up.

  ‘I can walk myself,’ Stella said, halfway down the empty morning room.

  ‘Hush. You’re two people’s work, you are.’

  The afternoon sunshine through the windows of the long sunroom made coloured shapes on the floor and on the residents, who sat in cane chairs, sipping the water. Stella blinked. Overhead, the steam pipes hissed and clanked. The residents who had come from the wave bath or the steam bath emitted little curling wisps of vapour. The ones from the plunge bath were a shiny pink, and those from the ice bath were shivering and gasping.

  A mumbled chorus of disapproval accompanied Ada and Stella’s progress alo
ng the room. Several elderly ladies pursed their lips. Colonel Fforbes made a tut-tutting noise, and so did his ancient macaw, Wellington. Lady Clottington muttered something and tucked her feet under her chair as Stella passed, as if she were contagious. Sir Oswald, Lady Clottington’s bad-tempered little dog, dashed out from under a small table and snapped at Stella’s ankles. Despite his gout, he was as quick as a weasel, but Ada whisked Stella past, and there was a sharp click of walrus ivory as the dog’s false teeth shut on nothing.

  In the entrance hall, new residents were arriving: a tall man and a thin, pale boy. The man wore black; he had a narrow yellowish face and green-tinted spectacles. He turned to look at them, but Ada kept right on past. The man’s intent gaze followed them.

  As they approached the Vertical Omnibus, it was clear that James, the conductor, was busy with the new residents. So Stella followed Ada’s scolding voice all the long way up the winding back stairs.

  In Stella’s tiny bedroom, Ada continued scolding in an undertone as she snatched off Stella’s soggy pinafore and pushed her firmly into a stiff, clean one, tying the strings with angry little jerks. She said, ‘Hold still, drat you, Miss,’ as she pulled the hairbrush through Stella’s wispy, mouse-coloured hair.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ada,’ said Stella, and sniffed.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Ada. She tied Stella’s hair back with a new ribbon and gave her an awkward pat on the top of her head. She said, ‘Change your stockings. Put on your slippers. Wash your hands and face.’ Then she pointed towards the parlour door and told her if she knew what was good for her, she’d buckle down to it and all.

  Stella thought of the enormous serpent, sleeping in the Amazon jungle, full of Aunts. It should have cheered her up, but it did not. This was not the Amazon jungle. That was far away on the other side of the world. This was the Hotel Majestic and there were no giant serpents here.

  Nothing ever happened here at all.

  The Hotel Majestic stood high on a cliff, overlooking the town of Withering-by-Sea. It was enormous and white and had towers and turrets and curlicues and columns and chimneys and balconies and lots of curly metal sprouting here and there. It looked like a gigantic marzipan wedding cake.

  The Aunts, as long-term residents, occupied some of the best rooms on the third floor, with a view of the sea, the lighthouse and the marsh beyond the town. They had a parlour with a pianoforte, a drawing room, two large bedrooms and a private bathroom. Stella’s room was not much bigger than a cupboard. It was really a dressing room, and to get to it she had to pass through the large bedroom that Aunt Condolence and Aunt Temperance shared. Ada slept in the tiny dressing room of Aunt Deliverance’s bedroom, which was on the other side of the parlour.

  Aunt Deliverance was confined to a wheeled Bath chair and spent much of her time in the bath house undergoing treatments, so Stella saw her only at meal times and for the daily promenade along the Front, and that was more than enough. She saw Aunt Condolence and Aunt Temperance for her lessons. (Pianoforte, Deportment, Needlework and French, and Stella could not have said which she hated most.)

  Half an hour later, after a brisk, unpleasant scolding from Aunt Temperance, Stella sat stiffly at the parlour table and struggled to learn a list of French phrases to say to the wife of a bishop while drinking tea. (It wants but ten minutes to three o’clock. Is this not dreadful weather? I am delighted to see you in such tolerable health.) She suddenly remembered the Atlas. Instead of hiding it carefully in the biscuit tin underneath the ferns, she had left it lying open in the middle of the path, where anyone walking around the conservatory might stumble upon it. Her sharp indrawn breath made Aunt Temperance look up from her embroidery and say, ‘Quiet, child!’

  Stella looked down at French Conversation for Young Ladies again (The pattern of this carpet is exceedingly vulgar), chewed her lip and tried to decide what to do. The Atlas had belonged to Doctor Frobisher, an African explorer who had stayed at the hotel for several months with jungle fever, sleeping sickness, scurvy and malaria. After he had died, his room had been fumigated with burning brimstone and Stella had found the Atlas on a rubbish heap, only slightly charred. It had been lying amongst bundles of letters, broken strings of coloured glass beads and several wooden figures, which Aunt Deliverance would have said were shockingly vulgar, had she seen them. Stella had rescued the Atlas and kept it hidden. It was her greatest treasure and any minute it might be discovered.

  Without lifting her head from French Conversation for Young Ladies, she looked out of the corner of her eye. Aunt Temperance was sitting, bony and upright, by the window, sewing a pattern of violets in immaculate stitches onto an antimacassar. As usual, while one of her watery eyes was fixed on her work, the other seemed to be roving here and there around the room in a disconcerting manner, like a marble rolling around in an eggcup. She seemed very alert. Stella sighed and looked back down at the book. (It is not likely that this rain will cease. You are too kind. Permit me to offer you some cake.)

  The afternoon dragged on. The clock above the mantelpiece ticked, and sometimes a seagull cried as it sailed past the window.

  Aunt Temperance said, ‘Don’t swing your legs like that, child,’ and twenty minutes later, ‘Don’t slouch. Sit up straight.’

  Stella tried to concentrate. She fixed her eyes on her lesson book (The mists that rise from the marshes are injurious to the constitution) but her thoughts kept returning to the Atlas, lying open in the conservatory, three storeys below.

  Time passed slowly.

  At last teatime arrived. Aunt Deliverance rolled majestically into the parlour, like an enormous boiled pudding, in her wickerwork Bath chair. Ada pushed the Bath chair, and Aunt Condolence waddled behind. Aunt Condolence was very short and extremely wide. She wore a Particular Patent Corset of springs and whalebone, which creaked and twanged as she moved.

  Two parlourmaids followed with tea on silver trays. There was a cake stand, with thin bread and butter cut into little triangles, cocoanut macaroons and seed cake. While Aunt Condolence poured the tea and Ada passed the cups, Aunt Deliverance asked, ‘Has the child been dutiful and diligent?’ Her black eyes were fixed disapprovingly on Stella. ‘After her appalling behaviour this morning?’

  ‘She has, on the whole, sister,’ replied Aunt Temperance.

  ‘Shocking behaviour,’ said Aunt Condolence. Her Particular Patent Corset gave an outraged twang. ‘Always creeping around and hiding. Disgraceful, even for a half —’

  ‘Quiet, sister!’ snapped Aunt Deliverance, looking thunderous.

  Aunt Condolence shut her mouth with a snap.

  Stella thought, A half what?

  Aunt Deliverance glared at Aunt Condolence then at Stella, took a sip of tea and said, ‘Well, shall we hear her lesson?’ To Stella, she said, ‘Bring me your book, if you please, child. I trust you were not daydreaming yet again.’

  With a sinking feeling, Stella realised she had been thinking mainly about the Atlas, and then she had spent some more time thinking about the enormous Aunt-eating serpent and some of the other dangers lurking in the Amazon jungle. She looked longingly at the cake stand. She had only eaten those two little green apples since breakfast time and she was hungry.

  But it was very difficult to remember the exact words. They seemed to get tangled inside her head. She twisted her fingers together behind her back, took a breath and said in tolerable French, ‘I am delighted to see you in such dreadful health, Aunt Deliverance. You are exceedingly vulgar. Permit me to offer you some carpet.’

  Stella lay face down on her bed, in her nightgown, in the dark, in disgrace. She heard the Aunts go down for dinner. She slept for several hours and then woke to hear the twangs and creaks and little gasping yelps as Aunt Temperance helped Aunt Condolence loosen her Particular Patent Corset. Then there were murmured voices, taps and clinks and creaks of bedsprings and then, at last, snores. Whining snores from Aunt Temperance, pig-like grunts from Aunt Condolence and more distant, booming snores from Aunt Deliverance’s be
droom.

  Stella sighed miserably and rolled over onto her back. No luncheon, no tea and no supper. Her stomach made a hungry noise. She got up from her bed and silently tried the door handle. It was locked. She went to the window, pushed back the thick curtains, heaved open the window and looked out at the night. There were no stars, but gaslights glowed along the Front, and distant tinny music drifted up from the pier. Stella leaned on the windowsill, breathed the cold air and thought about the Atlas, lying open in the conservatory. It would certainly be discovered in the morning, when the gardener came in to water the ferns. And that would be the end of her beautiful Atlas, and her only book would be French Conversation for Young Ladies, for ever and ever.

  Just outside her window was a wide, flat ledge. Perhaps a foot wide. It went along past the window of Aunt Temperance and Aunt Condolence’s bedroom, and that window was also open. (Aunt Temperance believed that fresh air at night was healthy.) Stella touched the ledge with one finger. There were little patches of lichen and bird droppings, but not enough to make it slippery. To walk along the ledge would really be no different from walking along a footpath. Stella had often thought how easy it would be. Particularly if she didn’t look down. It would be only a few steps along to the Aunts’ bedroom window. And if she were going to do it, she should do it now, while the Aunts were sound asleep.

  She pushed the window up further and leaned out. A few lights from the hotel windows reflected onto the paved patio, three storeys below. It was deserted, apart from the stone lions, and it looked extremely hard. Stella swallowed.

  But she fixed her thoughts on the Atlas. In the perilous heights of the Himalayas, the sure-footed Yak bounds safely amongst the loftiest crags. She stood on tiptoe, got one knee onto the sill and pulled herself out of the window. Gripping the window frame tightly, she knelt up on the sill, facing back into her bedroom. She tried to ignore the way her insides seemed to be quivering coldly.