The Morrow Secrets (2 page)

‘But Grandmamma will be cross at having me under her feet,’ said Tallitha trying to wheedle away at her great aunt’s resolve.
‘Do be quiet. That will be all for now,’ said Agatha losing patience, ‘return to me a little after four o’clock, when my sisters will take you in hand.’
‘But Great Aunt Sybilla isn’t that keen on me either,’ said Tallitha with a final attempt to extricate herself from the arrangement.
‘Enough, do you hear?!’ shouted Agatha thumping the chair, ‘I have my reasons.’ Agatha Morrow’s fingers twitched nervously. ‘These are circumstances beyond my control and unfortunately you are the only one left!’ she said finally.
Agatha slumped back into her chair and reached for her smelling salts.
‘You’ve upset me, you wicked child. Quiet now. Be off with you before I completely lose my temper!’ she snapped.
In a dark fug of resentment Tallitha turned on her heel.
‘You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to!’ Tallitha shouted as she flounced out of the room.
‘We’ll see about that! I can do a great many things and taking you in hand, my girl, is one of them!’ replied Agatha firmly.
That girl was the limit. If only things had been different, she thought sadly to herself as she wiped away a stray tear. Tallitha must learn to behave for the good of the family.
Outside, Tallitha slumped heavily against the banister, kicking her feet against the loose carpet.
What was she to do? Those sisters were impossibly difficult and would make her life even more miserable. Perhaps there was a way out after all. They were definitely keeping something from her. Her great aunt had nearly let something slip, she was sure of it. But what was it? She had to find out, but who would tell her? It was hopeless, no one in the family told her anything.
Tallitha ran back to her bedroom, pushed the servants out of the way, and burst into tears.

When Marlin hurried from his mistress’s presence he took the longer route up the meandering south staircase. He needed time to consider how to deliver the Grand Morrow’s message. The old sisters hated being disturbed whilst they were working, to do so would incur their nasty remonstrations and these would pierce his delicate ears. Marlin muttered angrily to himself, wishing he could snooze in the Grand Morrow’s sitting room instead of having to take messages.

Sybilla and Edwina’s apartments were on the fourth and fifth floors of Winderling Spires in the heart of the Crewel Tower. There were two principal entrances and a number of secret staircases that only the shroves and the Misses Edwina and Sybilla knew existed.

Marlin had served the Morrow family for many years and understood their curious ways. The shrove was an odd spindly creature, bow-legged and skinny, with large bushy eyebrows and sticking-out ears. His clothes were shabby and much too small for him. They had shrunk over the years and the shrove was much too mean to acquire any new ones.

Shroves were canny creatures, innately secretive and sly. They came from the wet marshland in the south-west of Wycham Elva and from the caves in the north-west of Breedoor. They were most at home in the nooky recesses of the Spires and were partial to snoozing when they got the chance. Tucked into their stone-lairs they would take naps, sip their noggins of wild berry juice and keep themselves cool by curling up against the dry stone walls. But their half-sleeping state was a pretence as their ever-sensitive ears were always alert to gossip and their heavy-lidded eyes constantly spied on the Spire’s inhabitants.

The last flight was hard on Marlin’s chest as he crawled to the top of the winding staircase. At last he reached the sisters’ landing, clinging to the banister to get his breath.

‘A curse on those sisters always up to summat and that wayward child,’ he moaned in his wet, nasally voice. ‘Makin’ old Marlin do their biddin’. Well we’ll soon see about that. They’ll rue the day,’ he chuckled wickedly.

Marlin smoothed down his greasy grey hair and prepared to enter the sisters’ rooms. Tentatively he pressed his ear to the crack in the door. He could hear the sisters’ muffled conversation and wondered whether he should put a note under their door instead. Moisture slavered down his stubbly chin with the weight of indecision as he wrung his hands and hopped about. Oh dear, he was in such a quandary. What if they didn’t notice the message? Then he would get into worse trouble. Biting his sinewy lips and grumbling away to himself at the sisters’ impending crossness, he knocked softly and waited.

‘Oh bother, who’s that?’ Sybilla moaned, screwing up her flustered face.
‘Is someone there?’ asked Edwina crossly, ‘we are only just finishing our work,’ she barked, trying to deter the intruder.
Marlin shuffled, knocked again, and the two sisters bristled with annoyance.
‘Well, disturber of our peace. Speak to me. Who is it?’ demanded Sybilla.
Marlin peered round the door and slithered into the sitting room, making his body as low as possible. In the circular tower room, eight full-length windows opened onto a balcony overgrown with purple-flowered creepers. Every surface of the sisters’ apartment was covered with books and papers, fabrics and half-completed weaves which Marlin knew he must avoid touching at all costs. He hovered nervously, wringing his hands, prepared for the worst.
Sybilla Patch was precariously balanced on top of an extremely long ladder. She was transferring her fabrics from the hanging rack into the compartments in her material archive. The colours were incredible. Twilight lavender, sunglow orange, wild strawberry, peach puff and razzle-dazzle rose. Sybilla snapped her eyes at the shrove, climbed down the ladder and knelt to meet Marlin at eye level.
‘What do you want? Speak to me since you have troubled us so wickedly!’ she said sharply into the shrove’s weaselly face.
‘May it please you, my lady, the...’
Edwina stamped her foot and the shrove jerked backwards.
‘Spit it out, shrove creature, spit it out!’ hissed Edwina.
She snagged his collar and twisted him round to face her. ‘Come here you wretched bug. Well what do you want?’
‘Ooooooh, errrrh,’ squealed Marlin as he tried to protect his ears. ‘Please my lady, the Grand Morrow wishes to see you for tea. At four o’clock. In her sitting room,’ he cried, the words spluttering out of his wet, slimy mouth.
Edwina twisted his collar tight so that he struggled to catch his breath. ‘Bother!’ What does SHE want? I suppose you know all the details. I bet you’ve been ear-wigging haven’t you? Little spy! What do you know, Marlin? Tell us quickly, you verminous rat!’ she hurled the words in his face.
But Marlin knew that worse treatment was to come. Maybe a tweaked ear or a nip from their sharp nails, and he was not waiting around for that. He had done as he was asked so he deftly wriggled out of Edwina’s grasp and dodged backwards out of the room, past the rolled satins and damasks, and fled down the staircase with Edwina screaming after him.
‘Get back here, worm, get back into my presence at once, do you HEAR ME!’ she screamed, stamping her feet in quick succession like a petulant child
But Marlin was by this time already two flights below. The sisters had a wicked temper and Marlin needed a nip of berry juice and a rest by a cool wall in order to restore himself. Later as he snoozed in his lair he soothed himself with an abundance of wicked thoughts. They would all get their comeuppance in time, he would make certain of that.

To say that the sisters were peeved by Agatha’s summons was a gross understatement. They sat on their balcony like two over-wrought hens, intermittently cluck-clucking at each other, trying to imagine what their elder sister wanted. It was an outrage! This was their sanctuary, their special place and they despised visitors! The interruption had soured what had otherwise been a perfect day for the sisters. Each day they busied themselves with their archives, experimented with their perfumes and powders, dozed in the sun and ate their favourite food prepared by Florré, their shrove. Now their routine had been disturbed. They were twitchy, put out by Agatha’s enduring ability to unsettle them both. Although the three sisters lived in the same house, many months could go by without their meeting, and they preferred it that way. They twittered at each other, peck-pecking at the subject that had vexed them both.

Their balcony looked out over the ornate gardens of Winderling Spires to the steel-grey mountains in the north-west. Florré brought the sisters’ lunch of goose paté and melba toast, served with raspberry cordial, at precisely one o’clock. He had heard about Marlin’s unfortunate encounter with his mistresses and was therefore particularly careful not to aggravate them further. His special skill was his almost noiseless invisibility, flitting in and out of the sisters’ apartment without them quite noticing his presence.

Edwina stiffly dabbed her mouth. All her seething emotion was contained in her thin tortured lips.
‘What do you think SHE wants?’ enquired Sybilla of her sister.
Edwina pondered and fidgeted, stroking her fat white ermine, who snapped greedily at her greasy fingers, eating tit-bits from the lunch.
‘Why? To bother us and make us attend to her wishes of course,’ Edwina replied petulantly.
Edwina Mouldson was a fractious, peevish woman who was always cross at one thing or another. Her endless complaints were legendary with the servants. Her food was either too hot or too cold, or they failed to run her bath with the right amount of bubbles. She had an acute sense of her own self-importance. It was an observation, well rehearsed by all those who worked at Winderling Spires, that the three sisters tried to compete with each other in their superior mannerisms. This manifested itself in their ability, collective and individual, to stick their imperious noses high in the air whenever they walked the corridors of the grand house.
Edwina was a cold fish, with stand-offish ways. She could not abide small children, despite having produced the almost always intoxicated Maximillian Mouldson when she had briefly been married to his bookish and very boring father, Lionel, Lord Mouldson of Dorne.
‘She’s always been the same, just because she’s the eldest she thinks she can boss us about,’ said Sybilla nervously playing with her embroidery.
She fanned herself in the languid heat of the warm afternoon. Sybilla, the younger sister was a scatter-brained creature. She was often too hot because she wore many layers of clothing. Her cardigans and blouses were covered with samples of her sewing, randomly pinned to a sleeve or a bodice. She constantly mislaid her fabrics and their corresponding threads, and her patchwork of samples pinned to her clothes was her particular way of keeping track of her needlework, albeit haphazardly. She looked like an absent-minded ragamuffin most of the time.
‘It’s most irritating of her!’ said Edwina crossly.
Sybilla fiddled nervously with her pins. ‘But, on the other hand dear, tea is rather good in Agatha’s sitting room, so let us make the most of it and dress for the occasion,’ she said, attempting to extricate herself from the muddle of threads that had become tangled in her buttons.
Edwina brightened momentarily, remembering that she was the prettiest of the sisters. Everyone had made a point of saying so when she was young. It had been such a long time since she had worn her fine clothes.
‘I will wear my ostrich feathers and my pearls with my ruby coloured dress. I think you should wear your turquoise skirt and your apricot silk blouse and remember to remove the sewing samples from your clothes, dearest,’ said Edwina beginning to preen herself.
‘What about my special pins? Can I perhaps wear some of those today‒please?’ whined Sybilla pathetically.
‘No dear, not today,’ insisted Edwina, who was by now engaged in painting her fingernails a lurid green colour.
The sisters were quite odd. Peculiar, many would say. Sybilla had an obsession for black- headed death-pins. They were her absolute favourite things in the whole world. She had an arrangement with the local undertaker to collect boxes of her special pins from his funeral parlour once a month. When he ran out, as he sometimes did, she secretly crept into his workroom and stole them from the shrouds of corpses. She did not care that the servants thought these pins an ill omen, their only function to be flung into the coffin with the corpse when the lid was sealed. Sybilla liked to upset the maids. They were silly creatures and she liked to play with her special pins because they were sharp and black and she relished the satisfaction of sticking them into things.
Sybilla Patch had been a widow for many years. As a young woman she had also had a child, a strange and distant daughter called Esmerelda, or Essie as she was known in the family. Essie lived alone on the fifth floor of the Spires with her two cats, Licks and Lap, the colour of brown sugar with black smudges on their paws. Esmerelda kept her distance from the family, especially her mother and her Aunt Edwina. Sometimes she disappeared for many weeks at a time. Then she would suddenly turn up, either arriving late for some event or missing appointments altogether. Tallitha did not mind Essie, but she did not understand her. Sybilla seemed to forget she had a daughter most of the time, and Essie mostly did not remind her.
Edwina sat at her dressing table and began to apply her bright pink lipstick and touch up her cheeks with powder from her pot of caked rouge. Perfume was sprayed and dangly earrings chosen and the sisters nodded approvingly at each other’s horribly mismatched outfits. In tandem, the powdered, highly fragrant pair tottered down the west staircase in unfamiliar high heels, arriving slightly out of breath at Agatha’s sitting room, knocked, tittered nervously, and entered.
Afternoon tea was being served by the shroves, Marlin and Florré who hovered and fussed over the preparations. The tea trolley was covered with tiered plates of scones, a large sticky chocolate fudge cake, elderberry jam, muffins and a selection of delicately cut sandwiches, while the tea steamed away in the silver samovar on the sideboard. Edwina, still feeling irritated, shooed the shroves away and sat down to wait for Agatha.
‘Where is she? Agatha summons us and then makes us wait. I just ...,’ said Edwina tetchily.
At that moment Agatha entered the grand sitting room. Her billowing taffeta skirt noisily swept the parquet floor and, with her nose proudly in the air, she sat opposite her younger sisters. They surveyed each other making mental notes on each other’s dress and how much each had aged in the intervening months. Not a single detail was lost on any of them. Did Agatha have more grey hair perhaps? Oh, Edwina did look gaunt and Sybilla really should do something about those whiskers protruding from her chin! Agatha forced a weak smile and summoned Marlin to pour the tea. She waited until the shrove had finished, then began.
‘It’s been a while since we had tea together, a season or perhaps two? Would you prefer scones or muffins, Sybilla? And for you, Edwina, what would you like?’ asked Agatha politely.
Edwina and Sybilla replied demurely to their elder sister as each took a plate of cake and scones, sipped their scented tea, and watched Agatha’s expression, waiting for her to reveal the reason for their invitation. Agatha knew her sisters of old so she made them wait attendance on her as she sipped her tea and laboriously nibbled a delicate cucumber sandwich. Agatha regarded her sisters as a pair of nervous birds, preening and fussing in their circular room with only their books and needlework for company. The Grand Morrow dabbed her thin lips, waved for Marlin to replenish her tea, cleared her throat and decided to break the burdensome silence.
‘Sisters,’ Agatha began. She had their undivided attention which was just as she liked it. ‘I’m sure you must be curious as to the reason for my invitation.’
Edwina cleared her throat. ‘Well, we always enjoy seeing you, Agatha dear, don’t we Sybilla?’
The fat lie tripped so easily off Edwina’s tongue that Sybilla spluttered and choked whilst Edwina patted her sister firmly on the back. Agatha revelled in their insincerity, smiled inwardly at their flattery and decided to continue in the same vein.
‘I have asked you here today to assist me in a very delicate matter, and the subject of this matter will soon be joining us for tea. I refer to your granddaughter, Tallitha,’ she said nodding at Edwina who looked like someone had just given her a hard poke in the stomach. Her mouth gaped open and she looked quite gormless.
‘Tallitha! What has she been up to now?’ asked Edwina suspiciously. ‘Do you know, Sybilla?’
‘No dear, I don’t know anything about that girl. Haven’t seen her for ages.’
‘Nor me, I’m really not that fond of her, Agatha. You know she can be quite vexing,’ said Edwina in an off-hand manner.
Agatha stared at her younger sisters, sitting stiffly on the sofa. They were in for a shock, so she savoured the moment and continued sipping her tea.
‘For some time, I have been trying to teach Tallitha the proper accomplishments, those necessary for a girl from a good family. We have started with the art of embroidery, studying languages and painting.’
‘Have you dear? Well I shouldn’t bother with all that, she won’t be...’ interrupted Edwina.
Agatha lowered her eyes and tried again. ‘Her efforts are quite poor, I agree. But one day she will rule Wycham Elva, so, given that I have had little success with her, I have been considering what to do next.’ Agatha paused and delivered her clever blow. ‘I have decided to hand her over to you, for you to teach her, drum into her if necessary, the skills required to be a lady. She must learn discipline,’ said Agatha firmly.
The sisters were startled. Edwina’s face looked as though a mouse had just run up her skirt. She grabbed her knees, leant forward and let out a strange pathetic mewing sound. Sybilla did not know what to do, alternately forcing a weak smile at Agatha and fidgeting, observing Edwina’s reaction to the news.
‘But sister, although she is my granddaughter, she is such a noisy child and she will disturb us in our work so dreadfully,’ Edwina added quickly.
‘We have no choice, I’m afraid. She has to learn,’ insisted Agatha relishing their reaction.
‘But how long must we endure her?’ enquired Edwina, with a petulant face.
Sybilla copied her sister’s expression, clicking her tongue and shaking her head to stress the point.
‘Until she is cured of her gross tardiness and can demonstrate some skill in the areas I have mentioned, of course.’
Agatha caught Edwina’s hateful glance and toyed with her like a fish on a hook, challenging her to disagree.
‘After all, she is your granddaughter and she must be disciplined in our ways if she is to take over, well you know... after... later on... when I’m gone,’ said Agatha irritated at having to allude to her own demise. ‘Essie is not an option because of her unfortunate history.’ Agatha pursed her lips and the sisters shuffled together on the sofa. ‘Besides, Tallitha is young and I still believe she can be moulded, given time and the right amount of instruction.’
At that moment Marlin indicated that their guest had arrived. Tallitha sat next to her Grandmother and swiftly planted a half-hearted kiss on Edwina’s proffered cheek. Cissie had prepared her for the ordeal and her words were still ringing in Tallitha’s ears.
‘Your great aunt will ’ave her way missie, so there’s no use fightin’ against her. Accept what she says and do her biddin’. It will work out in the long run, you mark my words. Now kiss old Cissie, take that scowl off your face, tie back your hair and be off with you.’
So when Tallitha met the sisters she was resolved to try her best.
‘Ah, there you are. Tea is served. Now take a sandwich and some cake.’
Agatha indicated the tea trolley, meanwhile surveying her great niece disparagingly. Tallitha was, as usual, impossibly untidy. She looked crumpled and creased even when her clothes had just been pressed. She caught Agatha’s critical appraisal and glared back at her, smoothing down the hopeless dress and pulling herself up straight. Normally she didn’t care two figs about her appearance, but today she was resolved to try harder to make a good impression. At least, that’s what Cissie had said.
Rather haphazardly, Tallitha helped herself to the squidgy layered chocolate cake. She took an enormous mouthful and the cake fell apart and landed in sticky lumps in her lap.
‘Oops. Sorry about that,’ she said, flushing pink.
Chocolate butter icing dripped down her chin and stuck to her fingers which she noisily sucked one by one to the sisters’ absolute horror. Her great aunt shook her head in despair.
‘Tallitha eat properly, can’t you?’
‘Sorry. It just fell apart,’ explained Tallitha and started to wipe her hands on her dress.
‘Not there! Be quick Marlin and give Miss Tallitha a napkin.’
Marlin hobbled over and pushed a napkin into Tallitha’s ungrateful hand. She grabbed it and stuck her tongue out at the shrove so that only Marlin could see.
‘I’ve been explaining the situation to your grandmother and Great Aunt Sybilla and they have agreed to tutor you.’ Agatha took her sisters’ dumbfounded silence for agreement. ‘You must spend the next two weeks under their direction. You must do as they instruct and don’t be late. They will report your daily progress to me,’ said Agatha pompously.
‘Two weeks! But that’s such a long time!’ cried Tallitha, staring beseechingly at her great aunt and her grandmother.
The two sisters looked as depressed as she did about the arrangement.
‘Shall we say ten o’clock each morning? You have my permission to go up to my sisters’ apartments. Marlin will show you the way,’ replied Agatha in the same pompous manner.
Marlin! Tallitha threw him a vicious glance and the shrove hopped about and glared back at her. Tallitha noticed the smallest of evil smiles playing for a split-second at the corner of his thin, wet mouth. He was salivating, damn him!
‘Can’t I find my own way?’ said Tallitha acidly, ‘I don’t need him!’
She eyed Marlin spitefully, looking disdainfully up and down his crooked little body.
‘You’re not wandering about the Spires alone. You’re bound to get lost. Now do stop complaining, child.’
Tallitha grabbed another piece of chocolate cake and stuffed it into her mouth just to antagonise them further. Agatha stared in disbelief at her great niece’s inability to eat anything properly, trying to ignore a piece of cake that had fallen on the floor with a splat.
‘That’s settled then. Finish your cake without slopping it all over my sofa. My sisters and I wish to discuss the arrangements,’ said Agatha finally.
Tallitha bolted down her lemonade, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, muttered something unseemly to the annoying trio and hurried from the sitting room. She made a bolt for the staircase, reached the top of the stairs and sat down on the landing with a tremendous thump. Those three sisters were definitely in cahoots with each other! They were trying to turn her into the kind of girl she was not, just because there was no one else to take her place in the family.
‘Well, how did it go?’ asked Cissie who had been waiting anxiously for Tallitha’s return.
‘It was as bad as could be expected,’ said Tallitha putting her head in her hands.
‘Did you behave yourself?’ asked Cissie.
‘Sort of...’
But Tallitha’s mind was elsewhere and Cissie might just be able to help her.