The Whitby Witches. Robin Jarvis

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СКАЧАТЬ and it was difficult to put an age to it. Miss Boston’s skin was lined, yet one grin could banish the wrinkles. Only the tufts of white woolly hair poking out beneath the hat gave any real clue to her age.

      ‘Seventy-five?’ Jennet ventured uncertainly.

      Miss Boston closed her eyes and raised her head. ‘I am ninety-two,’ she solemnly informed her. ‘Don’t be alarmed, dear – some of us do survive for that length of time.’

      ‘But you’re not frail or anything,’ Jennet declared in surprise.

      ‘As to that,’ Miss Boston lifted a finger to her nose in a gesture of secrecy, ‘I have little methods all my own. Old age is terribly unfair. Usually either the mind or the body succumbs. Hospitals and nursing homes are filled with shambling near cadavers who still possess all their marbles; intelligent people who can’t go to the bathroom by themselves or even get out of bed, in some cases. Then there is the other variety: the sprightly gibberers, I call them, senile but with perfectly healthy bodies. What a cruel joke old age is, to be sure.’

      A flock of gulls soared out over the sea, spreading their wings and hanging on the air. Miss Boston followed their course with interest. ‘They’re not supposed to be able to fly over the abbey, you know,’ she told Jennet. ‘Legend says that if they try, they are overcome and fall to the ground. There they must pay homage to St Hilda, the founder of the abbey, until she releases them.’

      ‘That’s silly,’ said Jennet.

      Miss Boston agreed. ‘I suppose so, but it is a lovely notion, don’t you think? St Hilda was a remarkable woman, after all.’

      They sat in silence for some time, listening to the wind rushing through the grass and hearing Ben’s squawks as he chased the gulls.

      ‘Why now?’ asked Jennet, breaking the calm. ‘Why didn’t you send for us before? Why wait over two years?’

      The old woman put her hand on Jennet’s and explained. ‘After the accident, Constance wrote to me and told me you had gone to stay with your father’s brother.’

      ‘Uncle Peter, yes – and Aunt Pat, his snotty wife.’

      ‘You were with them for just three months, were you not?’

      Jennet stared at the ground and mumbled, ‘Aunt Pat said she couldn’t cope with . . . well, with us.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘Ben was having a bad time, and there were other things.’

      ‘I see.’ Miss Boston turned to watch Ben playing. ‘So they put you both into care.’

      ‘Yes, then we were put with another family who actually wanted to adopt Ben and me, until . . . well, it didn’t work out that way.’

      ‘No.’ Miss Boston narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. ‘Nor did it work out with three other families after that. You asked why I had not sent for you before now. My dear child, I was hoping that you would find a good home with a family who would care for you.’ She sighed loudly. ‘Alas, it was not to be, so I decided to enter the fray and applied a little pressure here, called in some old favours there. Well, here you are; stuck with a terrible old woman like me. I’m sorry, but I could not stand by and let you stay in that hostel until you were sixteen.’

      Jennet shifted uncomfortably on the tombstone. This woman had no idea why they had been unable to fit in. She looked round for Ben and suddenly saw that he was dangerously near the cliff edge. ‘Will he be all right there?’ she asked in alarm.

      ‘I think your brother has brains enough not to go leaping off cliffs,’ remarked Miss Boston. ‘Of course, he might get blown off. The wind is notoriously strong up here.’ She raised a hand and called the boy to them. ‘Do you know it gets so violent sometimes that it actually lifts the lead off the church roof ? Last winter the vicar had to cancel the service because of the noise.’

      Ben began to make his roundabout way towards them. Miss Boston cleared her throat and said to Jennet, ‘I think I ought to tell you something before he rejoins us. It’s only fair you should know. You’ve a sensible head on your shoulders, too sensible perhaps at times.’

      ‘What should I know?’

      ‘I received a letter from Mrs Rodice.’ Miss Boston pulled a sour expression. ‘Nasty, spiteful letter it was too. It concerned Benjamin. What an unpleasant creature she must be.’

      The colour drained out of Jennet’s face and she dug her nails into the palms of her hands. ‘What did the letter say?’ she asked shakily.

      Miss Boston snorted her contempt. ‘She is obviously an ignorant woman – unbalanced too, I shouldn’t wonder. She accused Benjamin of certain things which I refuse to believe. I threw the wretched piece of paper on the fire – wish I could do the same to her.’

      The girl glanced up and found Miss Boston looking at her steadily. Now was the time to tell her everything. If that was the end of their stay in Whitby, then so be it; at least she could put the old woman straight. Lord knows what the Rodice had put in that letter.

      ‘Ben has dreams,’ she stammered. ‘Sometimes he has them in the daytime and he gets muddled up. He used to think Mum and Dad came to see him after the accident. That – that’s not all. He used to tell some of the other kids at the hostel funny stuff that frightened them. We had a new girl come who used to live with her gran before she died and Ben told her that he could see an old woman sitting next to her when she was in the TV room, stroking her hair. Apparently that’s what this grandmother used to do. Yvonne started to wet the bed after that and the other kids used to look at Ben like he was some kind of freak.’

      ‘Go on,’ Miss Boston prompted her gently.

      ‘Well, that’s why we never settled down with the foster families. With Aunt Pat, the last straw came during one of her posh dinner parties. Ben came running downstairs saying he’d seen Mum. Aunt Pat went dead red; she hated the embarrassment of it, she didn’t want anyone to think she had a retarded relative in the house. I heard her and Uncle Peter talking one night – their room was next to mine and the walls were thin. She said she couldn’t stand it any more, and Uncle Peter had to go along with her. It was horrible listening to them discussing us like that. I wanted to shout out that I could hear them but I never did.

      ‘The other families were the same. One lot were really religious and thought Ben was possessed or something and the others just looked at us funny.’

      Miss Boston frowned. ‘Yes, I can see that some people might not feel comfortable with that sort of thing – it unnerves them and upsets their established ideas of the universe.’

      ‘It got really bad, though, at the hostel,’ Jennet continued. ‘About three weeks ago Ben goes and tells the Rodice he’s seen a man on the stairs. Course, there was nobody there but Ben describes the man to her and says he told him his name was Donald. She got all angry and shook Ben, calling him a liar. He had bruises on his arms where she’d grabbed him. That frightened her, that did – they’re not supposed to hit us, see. Well, after that she had as little to do with us as possible and I actually saw her shudder when Ben pushed past her once.’

      Miss Boston put her arm around the girl and tried to comfort her. ‘Well, it won’t bother me, I assure you, dear. Benjamin can natter to an army of ghosts and I shan’t mind – I’m nearly one myself, after all. Tell me, do you ever see anything like that?’

      Jennet СКАЧАТЬ