The Empty Frame. Ann Pilling

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      Embarrassed, and unused to formal introductions, the three of them made vague mumbling noises and took refuge in their bowls of cornflakes. “Stick insect,” thought Sam, watching the colonel’s long legs arrange themselves neatly under the table. The old man did not smile, nor did he look in their direction. The business of the moment was breakfast and he was concentrating on that.

      Magnus, who was sitting with his back to the fireplace, thought he knew why Colonel Stickley was ignoring them all. It was because of the episode the night before. He’d been quite friendly in the end, in a stiff, grandfatherly way, helping him up to bed, but he was very different this morning. Magnus was determined to talk to him in private but he would have to find the right moment.

      He chewed his cornflakes and ran his eyes along the rows of portraits. The Lady Alice Neale, in her black dress, was back in her frame. There were the thin, unkind lips and the cruel hands, there was the little dog. He did not dare look from the portrait to Colonel Stickley. It was obviously better for now to go along with the pretence that the two of them had never met before.

      Instead he said, “Who is the big fat man?”

      Colonel Stickley glanced along the rows of painted faces and removed a sliver of food from between his teeth. “His nickname is Burst Belly,” he said. “He was a monk, head of this place, once. He was in charge of the Black Canons. Henry the Eighth got rid of them and he didn’t much like it. So he put a curse on the Abbey, or so people say.”

      Floss and Sam looked up at Burst Belly too. He was a huge and ugly man wearing the black and white robes of a priest. The white part of the costume was lacy and frilled like a Victorian night gown, incongruous under the flat silver cross which hung round his neck.

      “Good name for him, wasn’t it, Burst Belly,” Cousin M remarked, buttering her toast thickly and heaping on the marmalade. “He obviously ate too much, like me. I do love food, don’t you?”

      Floss said, “I don’t like his face. It doesn’t look exactly… well, holy, to me. It’s not the kind of expression you expect in a priest. Did he really curse the Abbey?”

      “That’s the story,” said Colonel Stickley. “But who knows? It’s certainly had a sad history. If you look at all the families that have lived here, you’ll see that nobody stayed around for very long. Things tended to happen to people.”

      “What sorts of things?” demanded Magnus, and his voice was unnaturally high and shrill. It was the voice he unconsciously seemed to develop when he was really concentrating on something. It irritated the other two.

      “Shh, Mags,” said Floss, and pressed his foot under the table.

      But Magnus seemed not to have heard. “That’s what you told us,” he informed Cousin M.

      Cousin M blinked at him. “Me, dear? What did I tell you? I’m afraid you’ll have to remind me.”

      “You said yesterday that Lady Alice did things she lived to regret; that’s exactly what you said, those were your exact words.”

      Floss was now pressing down on Magnus’s feet just as hard as she could because she knew it was a dangerous moment. If they didn’t somehow change course, he would start crying, possibly even screaming. It had happened just once or twice, and it was frightening. It seemed to be something to do with the stresses of the awful life he’d had, shut away in the unfamiliar house with his sick mother, wondering what had happened to his father.

      But Colonel Stickley, not knowing what was going on under the table, actually helped matters by glaring at Cousin M, rolling up his napkin and standing up. “End of subject,” he announced crisply. “Now then, I have a very busy morning, but if you’re prepared to come with me now I will show you a little of the Abbey, so you can get your bearings for the day.”

      Cousin M said in a nervous voice, “Why don’t you let them go round on their own, Cecil? You’ve so much else to do and I’m sure they’d be happier poking round independently.”

      Sam said, “We’ll be fine, sir, we won’t touch anything.” He was dying to get away from Colonel Stickley.

      “I shall take you round,” he said frostily. “‘Poking about’, as you call it, is precisely what I do not wish to encourage,” and he produced a bunch of keys from his pocket. “The public still use this place from time to time, Maude, in spite of our present circumstances. There are all kinds of hazards in an old building like this. I’d like them to see exactly what’s what.”

      “Very well, Cecil,” Maude said meekly, then, to the children, “I’ll be in my garden this morning, dears, if you want me. It’s the walled garden, beyond the dovecote at the end of the Long Walk. Otherwise, see you at lunch.”

      “At twelve-thirty,” said Colonel Stickley, “and it’s… nine o’clock now.” He consulted a large gold pocket watch, tapped it and dropped it back into his waistcoat pocket. “I will meet you in the entrance hall in ten minutes, after you’ve rinsed off your breakfast crumbs. I shall go and do the same.”

      Floss and Sam exchanged disappointed looks, shrugged silently at each other, then set off obligingly for their turret room. But Magnus lingered. In between the pictures of Burst Belly and the Lady Alice Neale was a tiny portrait of a young boy. Magnus hadn’t noticed it the night before but now sunshine was filtering through small leaded panes and a square of barred light was shining on it. He was almost certain that it was a boy, though the child was very prettily dressed in a lacy ruff and had longish golden curls. Between two fingers he held a white, many-petalled flower.

      Magnus said, “Is that a peony?”

      The Colonel glanced up at the little painting. “I wouldn’t know. Flowers are Maude’s department. Why?” he demanded quite sharply. “I must say you ask rather a lot of questions.”

      Magnus was not put off. He was collecting information. “Well, she put some flowers like that in our room, and the cat knocked them over and broke the vase. Where is Arthur, by the way?”

      “I’m sure I don’t know. Cats aren’t my department, young man. Asleep somewhere, I suppose, it’s a nice life. I must get on, I’ve a great deal to do this morning. Rinsed your hands, have you?”

      Ignoring this Magnus said, “Who is that boy in the painting? Is it a boy?”

      “It is. And we don’t know. He might have been a son of the Lady Alice. She was married twice and she had several children. If it is a son of hers, then he wasn’t born here. He’s not in the parish records, and he’s not included in the family memorial, down in the church. Seen the church, have you? Rinsed your hands?” he repeated.

      “Just going to,” muttered Magnus, but he didn’t. His hands were perfectly clean. Instead he went into the entrance hall and stood by the tapestries, Balaam’s donkey and its meeting with the angel, Pontius Pilate washing away his guilt. That set him thinking about the woman in the night again, the woman who’d cried, and about the misty coldness, and how Arthur had fled in terror. Who was the pretty child with the flower between his fingers, and who had smashed Cousin M’s vase of green glass and torn her peonies to pieces? He had come to a conclusion about Cousin Maude and Colonel Stickley. They were both pretending. Both of them knew that all was not well in the Abbey but neither of them was prepared to say anything. This thought rather excited Magnus, but it also made him afraid. He’d quite like to talk to Floss and Sam about it, but would they laugh at him? He suspected that СКАЧАТЬ