Let's Kill Uncle (8 page)

Mr Rice-Hope, caught in the cross fire, but on Albert’s side, nodded nervously.

Albert’s determined face was enough to make Mr and Mrs Brooks realise he meant every word, and alarmed by this latest threat to their darling, they gave in.

Albert, pleased with himself in his Solomon’s role, turned to Miss Proudfoot, but if he thought he had placated that lady, he was very much mistaken.

Miss Proudfoot was still bitter. It had taken years of love, patience and coaxing on her part to teach Fletcher to sing, and while they might recompense her for his ‘real’ value, indeed, they might even replace him with another budgie, nevertheless his passing left a void that nothing but time could fill.

And if those wicked children so much as set foot on her property again, she would write to her member of Parliament. There was still decency and order on this Island, although one could scarcely believe it with the present police administration. And as a taxpayer she felt it was her moral duty to see that decency and order were preserved. It was no wonder the world was in the state it was, and the Communists taking over.

And she was very disappointed in Albert’s attitude. He simply did not seem to understand the seriousness of the crime, but she supposed he would wait until anarchy reigned supreme before taking a sensible stand and putting those children behind bars where they belonged.

Albert eyed her silently. The miserable old trout. Well, from a lifetime of experience on the Island, he knew that it was impossible to please everybody, but he had been just and firm. Secure in the knowledge that he had upheld the reputation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he assisted Lady Syddyns to her feet.

Dudley Rice-Hope stood at the door, an awkward look on his pale curate’s face.

‘I hate to bother you further, Sergeant- ’

‘Yes, Mr Rice-Hope?’

It was, said Mr Rice-Hope, about Lady Syddyns’s windows.

‘I’ve had some trouble getting them to stay in. The ones in the sides remain propped up nicely, but the top ones seem to drop right through.’

Sergeant Coulter thought for a moment.

‘It’s probably the putty,’ he said. ‘If it dries too quickly, that could happen. If you lay the putty on a coat of wet paint it helps a lot. It makes it much easier to install the glass.’

Mr Rice-Hope looked bewildered.

‘Perhaps,’ Albert paused, ‘perhaps, Mr Rice-Hope, I could finish the windows. Is the glass still at Lady Syddyns’s?’

Dudley Rice-Hope flushed miserably.

‘I’m very much afraid, Sergeant, that I have broken most of the glass.’

‘I’ll pick up more in Victoria on Tuesday,’ said Albert. ‘Nine-by-nine-inch, weren’t they?’

Mr Rice-Hope nodded humbly. ‘Be sure and give me the bill. I’m sorry you are being put to extra trouble, Sergeant.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ said Albert, knowing that he would never give the bill to Dudley Rice-Hope. With the nameless waifs of southern Europe that he supported, and the local Indian children he insisted on showering with flannel vests and his many extra charities, Dudley’s stipend was already strained.

And so the incident was closed, with big, brutal Sergeant Coulter buying the glass, paying for the glass and installing the glass, for all of which he received no particular thanks from his grateful Islanders.

B
ARNABY WAS
an early riser, the earliest on the Island, and at dawn the goat-lady found him sitting patiently on her porch. With his head leaning against the carved post and old Shep cradled in his arms, he was waiting for his breakfast. The price was chores, which he performed cheerfully. He got the milk can out of the well for her, he watered Gudrun and he collected eggs. Then, eager and hungry, he sat in the kitchen while she started his meal.

When Christie, still in her nightgown, came down the ladder like a cross little princess, he was rocking noisily back and forth, usually carrying on a spirited gourmet’s conversation with the goat-lady. Food was the one and only thing his uncle had taught him to appreciate.

Later in the morning he and Christie went back to the Brookses for a second breakfast of tea and toast. That fare might have been enough for the frail Mr and Mrs Brooks, but Barnaby looked upon it as a between-meal snack.

Mrs Brooks would have been alarmed at both the quantity and choice of foods Mrs Nielsen served, for Dickie had had a delicate stomach, but the goat-lady’s meals were never
left unfinished by Barnaby and now even Christie usually cleaned her plate.

They lived largely off the products of the sea and the Island. The children were particularly fond of oysters, and with watering mouths they watched the goat-lady dip the big, pearl-gray blobs, first in beaten egg, then in crushed cracker crumbs. Dropped into deep fat in the black frying pan, the oysters came out golden and plump. Sometimes the goat-lady baked them on fat slices of beefsteak tomatoes, seasoned with vinegar, salt, pepper and grated yellow cheese. While Barnaby and Christie hovered anxiously by the stove, the oysters were lifted from the oven with sizzling ebony edges.

They had oysters simmered in milk, topped with paprika and chives, and they had them in omelettes. They loved clams steamed in an inch of water, and scooping out the tiny insides with toothpicks, they dipped them in butter. The goat-lady’s clam chowder was as thick as a stew, solid with bacon, new potatoes, sliced onions and halved tomatoes.

Oysters, clams, crabs or salmon, whatever the goat-lady cooked was good.

Each night the goat-lady washed Christie’s blouse and cotton skirt and hung them on a line over the stove to dry. Each night she set Christie’s hair in rag curls, and each morning as the children ate breakfast the goat-lady heated a flat iron on the stove and ironed Christie’s clothing.

While Barnaby stacked the dishes and got water from the well, the goat-lady sat on the sofa with Christie at her feet, and undoing the rags she brushed Christie’s hair until it stood out like a halo of fine, wheat-coloured silk.

With a satisfied expression she watched them going off. Already Christie was filling out, and the salt breezes had
whipped a tinge of rose to her sallow cheeks. Why, the child looked almost healthy.

And the children, for the first time in their lives, were learning to play.

Each day brought new surprises and delights, and they soon knew the paths, fields and beaches of the Island. On the strange, fire-scarred mountainside they found ragged foxgloves rising bravely, and beneath cool ferns starpetaled trilliums winked at them. When they were thirsty they stum bled on secret icy springs. When they were hungry they found abandoned orchards where weary old trees were heavy with summer fruit, and along the lanes patches of wild blackberries, salmonberries and huckleberries beckoned a passing child.

They pointed to the sinister floating eagles who shrilled from their airy heights at the two dots who were Barnaby and Christie.

‘Listen!’ said Christie, squinting against the sun, ‘you’d sort of expect them to roar instead of making that silly little squeak.’

‘Come on!’ cried Barnaby. Life was too short for dawdling.

They had also, of course, their appointed judicial sentences to serve. They usually did the graveyard work before their second breakfast, while the bread delivery route was saved for the afternoon, when the bread was cool.

Surrounded by a drooping fence, the forsaken little graveyard was so overgrown with weeds that the toppling crosses and monuments were hardly visible.

The aged of the Island could no longer tend the verdant, lively dead, and the children, leaping about the garter-snake-ridden
paths, found pitiful glass jars filled with longfaded flowers. On the graves of the poorer the white crosses, made of wood, had rotted at the bases and tilted wearily in the heat and life of the rich soil.

With perspiring faces, Barnaby and Christie took a rest, sitting on the wobbly fence and gazing at the deserted tombstones.

And from the underbrush, a puzzled One-ear lay watching them.

‘Well, come on,’ sighed Barnaby, jumping down. ‘We’ll never get Lydia Buckingham done today if we don’t get busy.’

Sergeant Coulter checked their work religiously any time he passed the graveyard, and sent them back for an extra stint if he thought they were shirking.

‘Whew!’ said Christie, looking at the task ahead of them.

They worked like coolies in the broiling sun. Barnaby took off his shirt and wrapped it about his hands to tug out the wild blackberry vines, while Christie pulled and carried armfuls of grass and ferns to the roadside.

It was hard work but finally they had Mrs Buckingham as neatly weeded as the day she was buried forty years past.

Christie sat on a tombstone, panting in the heat and looked proudly at their handiwork.

‘That looks really good,’ she said. ‘I bet even Sergeant Coulter can’t find anything the matter with that one. Let’s quit now. My back’s aching and it’s too hot to do any more.’

‘You better get up,’ said Barnaby, ‘you’re sitting on Major-General Sir Adrian Syddyns.’

Christie leaped to her feet.

‘I keep forgetting there are people under there.’

‘Look, Christie!’

Barnaby was pulling ferns from a small white object.

‘It’s a little marble angel!’

They pushed the moss away and spelled out,

TO THE MEMORY OF OUR DARLING BABY
John Townsend
TAKEN TO JESUS, JULY 8TH
, 1903

With his parents long buried on either side of him, there was no one left to tend or mourn little John Townsend. Saddened, the children knelt and stroked the angel’s head.

‘It seems funny to think of a baby dying, it’s almost as hard to believe as that kids can die,’ said Christie.

‘Kids can die all right,’ said Barnaby, ‘but I can’t understand a baby being born at all - if it’s got to die it - I mean, it never got a chance to play or anything.’

Christie sighed. ‘Well, he did die. Let’s go. It’s too hot to do any more today.’

‘Oh, let’s just finish the baby. I hate to leave him half done.’

‘We can do him tomorrow. Come on, I’m cooking.’

But Barnaby stubbornly refused to go until he had finished.

As Christie sat watching him, her expression changed.

‘You know,’ she said in a very small voice, ‘somebody’s watching us.’

‘There you are, John Townsend, your little angel looks much nicer now.’ Barnaby patted the angel’s head and turned to her. ‘Who?’

Christie pointed to the large tombstone at the head of Sir Adrian Syddyns’s grave.

‘Behind there.’

A black-tipped tail flicked nervously at the edge of the tombstone.

Rushing over, the children found themselves looking into the large, cool green eyes of One-ear.

Like all cats, he was insatiably curious. What
were
they doing here? Believing the graveyard to be deserted, he often used it for sunbathing.

They were just as curious.

‘It’s a great big cat!’ said Christie. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘It’s a cougar, stupid,’ whispered Barnaby. ‘Isn’t he beautiful? Don’t frighten him.’

One-ear backed away from them. He had seen quite enough.

Christie stood rooted to the spot, but Barnaby advanced a step. One-ear gave a warning snarl, and turning, fled. With the stiff, high-rumped lope of the cougar, he cleared the graveyard in ten-foot bounds and disappeared through a hole in the thicket.

Barnaby turned to Christie.

‘Come on!’ he cried, and ran after the cougar. ‘Hurry up or we’ll lose him.’

Christie followed, but when they reached the dark tunneled break in the bushes, she stopped.

‘Well, are you coming?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Christie. ‘What if he bites?’

‘All right, stay here then!’

Without another glance at her, he dropped to his knees and began crawling through the hole. Christie took a deep breath and followed.

The tunnel led through thick underbrush for a hundred feet and emerged into a heavily wooded glade. A game trail, worn by generations of wild life, spiralled to the heart of the forest.

The earth beneath their feet was springy with years of fallen leaves. It was breathtakingly silent, even the birds
were songless, and it was dim, for the sun filtered only fleetingly through the branches above.

The children had been warned to stay away from two places, a certain dangerous beach, and the forest. So this was the forest.

Between the great, moss-stockinged firs and cedars grew ferns, some six feet tall, and pale skunk cabbages, their broad leaves swaying like banners of evil, were as high as Barnaby. Devil clubs and salal formed impenetrable walls, and fallen, half-rotten trees wearied the children as they struggled on and over them.

‘Let’s go back,’ said Christie, pausing. ‘It’s so dark and quiet here, and I’m tired. Let’s go back. We aren’t supposed to come here anyway.’

Barnaby waited until she caught up with him.

‘Just a bit farther,’ he coaxed.

They reached a sharp bend in the trail. Off the side was a shaded leafy alcove, One-ear’s home.

He cringed on his belly, regarding them with raging suspicion. He was trapped in his own house, and in order to get away, he would have to pass either directly between, over or by them.