Talisman Chapter 4

Chapter 4 I followed Aunt Violet into the house, and it was the same hallway – but so different! The curtains were bright with colour, instead of faded and thick with dust, and the tiles on the floor were an oh-so-smart black and white, like the paintwork in the hall. Aunt Violet led me into the room on the left – the first one I’d gone onto earlier on. The difference was so amazing, I couldn’t help but stare around wide-eyed. But luckily this Talisman Mallerby had never seen it before either, and she was as interested as I was. The thing that caught my eye the most was the piano. Aunt Violet caught me looking at it.
“Have you had a chance to learn the piano yet, my dear?”
Had I? I didn’t know. But Talisman Mallerby knew.
“No, Aunt Violet. You couldn’t keep one in tune where we were – the heat and the damp affected it so badly.”
“I’ll teach you if you like. We’ve got a while before your governess arrives. Your father and I agreed that you need building back up again for a while, and where better than here? But a little work each day won’t hurt you.” Later on, she took me upstairs and showed me my room.
“I hope you like it – I tried to make it pretty for you.”
It was lovely, and Talisman thanked her very prettily. “And this is your schoolroom – or will be, when you start lessons in earnest.”
She smiled faintly.
“This used to be the day nursery – I remember your father and me, and your Uncle John building an enormous fort out of bricks one wet day. Your Uncle David and Uncle Alex were both at school by then, of course – and your Aunt Talisman too. Now why don’t you slip your dressing gown on and have a nice lie-down for a while, and I’ll show you round everywhere else later on. You’ve travelled a long way today.” You have no idea how far I’ve travelled, I thought, as I lay down on the pretty (and very comfortable) bed. My head was spinning.
That strange person had been right when she said Ship would send me back to overlap with someone. That was exactly what it was like. I knew I was me, but I was also this Talisman Mallerby too. I knew that my three uncles had all died in the war – one at Ypres, and two at Auber’s Ridge, at Festubert, but that my father had come through it in one piece. And the ring on Aunt Violet’s left hand was here engagement ring, that she still wore, even though her fiancé, like Uncle David, had died at Ypres. And I had been named after my Aunt Talisman, but she had died in the influenza epidemic. This had been a big family once. To my surprise, I did fall asleep. My mind might have been buzzing, but Talisman Mallerby’s body was exhausted. Aunt Violet came and woke me up a couple of hours later and showed me the clothes she had bought for me.
“I went to Liberty’s. I do like their fabrics, and their clothes are so suitable for young girls.”
And that was odd. This Talisman was fourteen, not fifteen like me, but she was still considered a child. Not in a babyish way; I could tell that. But she wasn’t expected to look or dress like an adult. She was too young for that. Aunt Violet took me round the gardens. She showed me the kitchen garden first.
“We grow nearly all of our own fruit and vegetables – thanks to MacTavish here.” And she smiled at the gardener, who said,
“Aye, and it will be a grand year for the fruit and vegetables this year, mistress Mallerby.” “And this is the tennis court. When you’re feeling stronger, I’ll have the net put up, and teach you how to play.” We went through the orchard I’d seen from the roof of that other Ship House, and round to the old stables. Aunt Violet showed me the car that was her pride and joy.
“I’ll take you out in it later, and you can explore the neighbourhood a little.”
“That would be absolutely ripping! When did you learn to drive, Aunt Violet?”
“In the War, my dear, in the War. Ambulances some of the time, and at one point I drove a General around for a while.” “Now this is the oldest part of the house – all that’s left of the original castle. There have been Mallerbys living here for hundreds of years.”
I looked at the wall and thought of Ship, trapped for all that time. Talisman stretched out her hand and touched the wall. It was dry, and faintly warm, as though the sun had been on it all day. Aunt Violet led the way up the stairs, and we went out onto the roof together. The gardens were beautiful; so unlike the overgrown mess I had seen earlier. Then we sat in the sunshine at the other end of the roof, and Aunt Violet asked Talisman about her life in India, and I sat back mentally and listened, and wondered how the Mallerby family had gone from this to my mother’s near-poverty. Aunt Violet was as good as her word, and started teaching me to play the piano. I practised – or Talisman did – every day in the cool cream and eau-de-nil sitting room. Aunt Violet would often listen to my practice, helping me and teaching me, and when I’d done she’d play for me too – classical pieces like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, or modern composers like Debussy and Ravel, or, for a treat, jazz and songs from Mr Coward’s musicals. This house had a second door in the hall (as well as an amazing sculpture) that I hadn’t seen in the earlier house. Or should I say later house? This was all getting very confusing! It led into the study – Aunt Violet would get me to do a couple of hours’ lessons a day here. When she realised how appallingly weak Talisman Mallerby was at maths, she focussed on that. And I found myself understanding things I’d never understood before. Aunt Violet was a good teacher – and she used such straightforward methods. We’d been doing things called “chunking” at school, which meant that it took a whole page to write down one division sum. Aunt Violet showed Talisman how to do it in two lines. And she made her learn her tables! It became a sort of game. It was very obvious that Talisman had been quite ill. Too much effort, and she was exhausted, but Aunt Violet’s kindness, the rest, the change of climate and the good food were all working on her, and she was steadily getting stronger. There was a gardener’s boy to help MacTavish, a cheerful freckled lad called Jacob. His mother, Mrs Frumenty, was our cook. The enormous kitchen looked so much more cheerful in this house, and she filled it with delicious smalls and good humour in roughly equal quantities. She started teaching Talisman the basics of cookery, and admitted that she had a nice light hand with the pastry, and her scones were not bad at all. Jacob ate three, and grinned at her. Like MacTavish, they lived in the village, and came up to the house each day. Ship had sent me to the right time, I decided. This was a good start, as it was quite easy to get used to. The plumbing, for instance, was recognisably the same, though to me it looked old-fashioned. And the clothes weren’t too bad, though instead of the underwired push-you-up-and-out bras that Sapphire favoured for me, I wore a liberty bodice, which was a bit like a vest, with funny flat buttons down the front. Aunt Violet’s underwear was lovely – silk and crepe-de-chine and lace trim to it, but Talisman was still a child, and should dress like one. But I still hadn’t found the guerdon. No-one here seemed to be unhappy at all. How would Ship let me know? I looked all round the garden, and all through the house, even in the little attic rooms opposite the schoolroom, and saw nothing.
However, it was hard to worry too much. Talisman was getting better and she was happy; though she missed her parents, Aunt Violet’s love and kindness went a long way towards helping her cope with that. And every week letters arrived from India. Aunt Violet called Talisman upstairs to the “small” bedroom.
“Talisman, your governess will be arriving in about two weeks’ time – I thought we’d give her this room, and she can use the landing bathroom. What do you think we can do to make this room look nice for her?”
I liked Talisman. She felt much younger than me in some ways, but she had a really sweet nature. I listened to her – there’s really no other way to describe it – thinking about how to make her governess feel welcome. “There. This looks simply topping now,” Talisman said, sitting down and admiring the room.
Aunt Violet laughed at her. “You girls and your slang. You’d better not use it with your governess.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She’s actually a distant cousin. Gertrude Aislaby, but you will call her Miss Aislaby unless she asks you to call her Cousin Gertrude. I know she’s fallen on hard times, so this seemed like a good way to help her without her feeling like she was accepting charity. I shall be glad when she’s here, as I have to go away for a few weeks, but I’ll see you settled with her first.” Miss Aislaby arrived when we were just sitting down to dinner one evening, and she came and sat with us. Aunt Violet chatted politely to her about her journey, and it was a long way from the station, wasn’t it, and had the village taxi been waiting for her, like she’d asked it to. Miss Aislaby answered equally politely. Talisman was ready and willing to believe that Miss Aislaby would be as kind and as friendly as everyone else in the house. Like I said, in some ways she was a bit young for her age, and had had a bit of a sheltered life. Plus she did have a very sweet nature. But I looked at distant-cousin-Gertrude and wasn’t altogether happy with what I saw. I had no idea how bad things were going to get though.