Read Online The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories by Garth Nix, Joan Aiken, Andi Watson, Lizza Aiken - Free Book Online Page A

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The Ghostly Governess
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    The house stood a little way above the town, on the side of a hall. The front windows looked out on a great bare expanse of downs, stretching into the distance. From the pantry, and the bathroom, and the window halfway up the stairs, you could see down the river valley to Lynchbourne, the smoky port two miles away, and beyond its roofs, masts, and funnels was the silver line of the sea.
    The children approved of the house at once; it was old and full of unexpected corners, with a smell of polished floors and lavender and old carpets. The family had taken it furnished for August.
    "I asked the agent and he said we could use the piano,” said Mrs. Armitage, “so you'll be able to keep up with your practicing."
    But Mark and Harriet made secret faces at each other. They preferred the idea of hide-and-seek in the unexplored cupboards or picnics on the downs, or taking a boat down the river to the sea. They also explored the town—it was hardly more than a village—below the house. The thing they liked best was a cottage down by the river. The paths in its gardens were all paved with oyster shells, and there were two great carved dolphins on either side of the door.
    "I wonder who lives there,” said Mark. “I bet they've got some lovely things inside."
    But the cottage seemed to be unoccupied. The windows were all closed and curtained, and no smoke came from the chimney. They found out that it belonged to an admiral, so it seemed probable that he was at sea.
    By the end of a week they felt as if they had been there all their lives. Every day they asked if they could take out a picnic lunch, and the Armitage parents declared that they had never known such peace; they hardly saw the children from breakfast till suppertime.
    "But I'm glad to find that you're keeping up your practicing,” said Mrs. Armitage. “I heard you playing that little German tune—what is it?—' Du Lieber Augustin' —very nicely the other evening."
    "Oh, yes,” said Harriet, and looked blank. The conversation turned on other things. Afterwards when she compared notes with Mark they agreed that neither of them had ever played “ Du Lieber Augustin."
    "Do you suppose Father might have?"
    "He never plays anything but Bach and Beethoven."
    "Well, someone must have played it, because I was humming it this morning, so I must have heard it somewhere."
    "Maybe it was on the wireless. Let's take our bikes down to Lynchbourne and see if there's a new ship in."
    They forgot about the incident, but later Harriet had cause to remember it. She woke in the night very thirsty, and found that her glass was empty. Coming back from the bathroom, she thought she heard a noise downstairs and paused. Could someone be playing the piano at half past one in the morning? Harriet was not at all timid, and she resolved to go and see. She stole down the stairs in her slippers. Yes, there it was again—a faint thread of melody. She pushed the drawing-room door open and looked in.
    The moon was setting and threw long stripes of light across the floor and the polished lid of the grand piano. There was nobody in the room. But as Harriet stood in the doorway she heard faint tinkling music which sounded more like a cottage piano than a Bechstein, and after a moment a quavering old voice was lifted in song:
    "Ach, du lieber Augustin, Weib ist hin, Gold ist hin,
    Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin."
    The piano keys were moving up and down by themselves.
    Harriet ought to have been terribly frightened, but she was not. The quavering voice sounded too harmless. She stood in fascination, watching the keys move and wondering how long it would go on, and if, perhaps, she were dreaming.
    Presently the music stopped, and there was a sound of the stool being pushed back. Harriet took a step backwards. On the edge of the patch of moonlight she saw a little, frail old woman, dressed in a long gray skirt, white starched blouse, and a gray