Read Online The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House by Stephanie Lam - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephanie Lam
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me, I realized I could hear someone crying.
I walked as quickly as I could back to the staircase, embarrassed that I’d overheard another person’s misery. The sobs sounded like a woman’s, although I couldn’t besure, and in any case I wasn’t certain which sex would be worse. The crying seemed to chase me up the staircase, and I felt I could still hear it in the fresher air of the main hallway, although that must have been my imagination.
I climbed up again towards our flat, jangling my key to shake off the sound. It had been a desperate kind of crying, and awful to hear. I’d done a bit of it in my time, of course, but always silently, under the covers, while Susan and Val were asleep.
The kitchen door stood at a right angle to the bedroom door. I unlocked it, went in and closed it firmly, leaning my back against it and testing the silence for several seconds before verifying that the sobbing had been left behind.
The kitchen was my preferred room of the two, perhaps because the other girls were always in the bedroom, filling in ‘What Type of Guy Is Your Man?’ quizzes in their magazines or talking about how disgustingly fat they were. And now, although I had the flat to myself, I still liked the kitchen, with its large table in the centre, its rickety dresser against the left-hand wall, the floor-to-ceiling larder that needed a stepladder to get to its highest reaches.
I put my bag on the table and pulled out my purse. Dockie’s notes crackled from within; it occurred to me what a very good con artist I’d be. In fact, I could filch some of his money right now. There’d been a pair of sandals in the window of Lady Lucinda for months, with white straps and a thick brass buckle, which I envisioned would turn me into the perfect dolly. Before I’d left home I’d nagged Mum for weeks to get them for me for my birthday; now it had come and gone, and every pennyI had was being spent on such boring essentials as food and rent.
I sighed and put the notes he’d given me at the bottom of my bag, where I wouldn’t confuse them with my own. I was Rosie Churchill, and I was a good girl. I could be trusted.
I walked to the two sash windows that overlooked the back of the house, pulled one open, just as I’d done two floors below, and looked out. The basement well that Dockie’s window gave on to was hidden from here by the old Victorian conservatory directly beneath me. The glass roof was covered in seagull droppings, and the paintwork was mouldering on the wood.
I leaned out further, clinging on to the underside of the windowsill for support, raindrops spattering the back of my head. The conservatory led on to a cracked terrace, and beyond that a garden overgrown with tangles of weeds and bushes. Plants splayed dangerously across paths; grass pushed up in the gaps between uneven paving stones. In an enclosed area was a stone bench encrusted with more seagull muck, overhung with the branches from the tree behind. Towards the end of the garden an ivy-laced stone storeroom sat in one corner near an empty oblong pond, the concrete lined with green slicks of slime. A deckchair had been left out there, abandoned on its side, and its canvas innards rattled back and forth in the wind.
The rain began pounding harder. I pulled myself back inside the room and remained by the window as the sky darkened further overhead. My fingers crept under the sill, tracing the grain in the wood, feeling ridges that hadbeen gouged into it. The indentations curled, seemed linked together, and I realized eventually that they must be letters.
I sank to my knees on the gritty lino and peered at the underside of the windowsill. I was right: words had been etched into the wood beneath the sill and filled in with ink. They were very small, and I had to twist my neck at an awkward angle in order to make them out. It was dark in here; I should switch the light on but I was afraid of losing my place, and so I squinted at the awkwardly formed
I walked as quickly as I could back to the staircase, embarrassed that I’d overheard another person’s misery. The sobs sounded like a woman’s, although I couldn’t besure, and in any case I wasn’t certain which sex would be worse. The crying seemed to chase me up the staircase, and I felt I could still hear it in the fresher air of the main hallway, although that must have been my imagination.
I climbed up again towards our flat, jangling my key to shake off the sound. It had been a desperate kind of crying, and awful to hear. I’d done a bit of it in my time, of course, but always silently, under the covers, while Susan and Val were asleep.
The kitchen door stood at a right angle to the bedroom door. I unlocked it, went in and closed it firmly, leaning my back against it and testing the silence for several seconds before verifying that the sobbing had been left behind.
The kitchen was my preferred room of the two, perhaps because the other girls were always in the bedroom, filling in ‘What Type of Guy Is Your Man?’ quizzes in their magazines or talking about how disgustingly fat they were. And now, although I had the flat to myself, I still liked the kitchen, with its large table in the centre, its rickety dresser against the left-hand wall, the floor-to-ceiling larder that needed a stepladder to get to its highest reaches.
I put my bag on the table and pulled out my purse. Dockie’s notes crackled from within; it occurred to me what a very good con artist I’d be. In fact, I could filch some of his money right now. There’d been a pair of sandals in the window of Lady Lucinda for months, with white straps and a thick brass buckle, which I envisioned would turn me into the perfect dolly. Before I’d left home I’d nagged Mum for weeks to get them for me for my birthday; now it had come and gone, and every pennyI had was being spent on such boring essentials as food and rent.
I sighed and put the notes he’d given me at the bottom of my bag, where I wouldn’t confuse them with my own. I was Rosie Churchill, and I was a good girl. I could be trusted.
I walked to the two sash windows that overlooked the back of the house, pulled one open, just as I’d done two floors below, and looked out. The basement well that Dockie’s window gave on to was hidden from here by the old Victorian conservatory directly beneath me. The glass roof was covered in seagull droppings, and the paintwork was mouldering on the wood.
I leaned out further, clinging on to the underside of the windowsill for support, raindrops spattering the back of my head. The conservatory led on to a cracked terrace, and beyond that a garden overgrown with tangles of weeds and bushes. Plants splayed dangerously across paths; grass pushed up in the gaps between uneven paving stones. In an enclosed area was a stone bench encrusted with more seagull muck, overhung with the branches from the tree behind. Towards the end of the garden an ivy-laced stone storeroom sat in one corner near an empty oblong pond, the concrete lined with green slicks of slime. A deckchair had been left out there, abandoned on its side, and its canvas innards rattled back and forth in the wind.
The rain began pounding harder. I pulled myself back inside the room and remained by the window as the sky darkened further overhead. My fingers crept under the sill, tracing the grain in the wood, feeling ridges that hadbeen gouged into it. The indentations curled, seemed linked together, and I realized eventually that they must be letters.
I sank to my knees on the gritty lino and peered at the underside of the windowsill. I was right: words had been etched into the wood beneath the sill and filled in with ink. They were very small, and I had to twist my neck at an awkward angle in order to make them out. It was dark in here; I should switch the light on but I was afraid of losing my place, and so I squinted at the awkwardly formed
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