Talisman Chapter 7

Chapter 7 “Talisman de Malherbe. Don’t just stand there all agape. These plants need tending.”
Her words were brisk but affectionate. And this Talisman stopped gazing at the sunset and went to help her mother weed the plants. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to have two parents! Talisman’s mother Anna, and her father Pierre were both still alive: my own father had died when I was no more than two, and I didn’t remember him at all. And Talisman had brothers and sisters as well, although at this moment her two sisters had gone to visit their aunt, Anna’s sister. The brothers were away from home too, but that was not surprising, as they were both training to be knights. The younger was still a page, but the older of the two had been made squire. With Talisman’s sisters away though, there was a lot of extra work to do. Ship House looked more like a little castle to me than a house. And Talisman’s father was a knight; Sir Pierre de Malherbe. But he held the house and the estate from his overlord, who in turn held it from the King. King Henry – the year was 1107 – now ruled England, with his brother Robert keeping the Dukedom of Normandy. They had been turbulent years, the years of Talisman’s childhood, years of revolts and intrigues, and something perilously close to civil war, but now the times looked to be more peaceful at last.
“We will need to be thinking of your betrothal soon,” Talisman’s father said to her. “But your mother and I would have you taste something of the happiness we have known, and as I am neither rich nor powerful, I doubt that the King will care where I bestow you. I hope that we will find you a husband with whom you can be happy.”
Talisman thanked her father for his kindness, with a grave formality. Manners really mattered in this time! I could tell how much they loved each other, but she still spoke to him as a much-respected elder. Come the evening, if Talisman could get away, she liked to go up onto the roof of the castle and watch the sun set. She definitely had her dreamy side, though she was also unbelievably competent. I mean, the things the girl knew how to do! She was my age – fifteen – and she could bake, brew beer and ale, cook, preserve food by salting and drying (no cans, no fridges, no freezers) make medicines from the herbs they grew in the garden, spin and weave…the list went on and on.
People sometimes said to me “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Nobody ever said that to this Talisman. When she grew up, she was going to get married and run a household – hopefully, just as well as her mother ran this one. But she did daydream a little about marrying someone she could love as her mother loved her father. And she knew that she was lucky in that the family was not important; she wasn’t going to be a bargaining counter in someone’s power games, married off merely to help some-one’s political ambitions. When I first looked through Talisman’s eyes, I thought that the castle had a number of sheds built around it. But they were houses, for the male servants who worked in the castle. All the servants were male, and they all went home at night to their own homes. Some lived here round the castle, and some lived in the village that had grown up by the river in the forty years since the de Malherbes arrived. It had been Talisman’s great-grandfather, Sir Guy de Malherbe, who had built the castle, and built it well. Despite the moat, the stones always felt dry and sun-warmed, and the place had a welcoming atmosphere to it as well. And I thought: Ship. Ship trying to restore herself, spreading herself through the walls and collecting energy from the sunshine.
Sir Guy had been a poor younger son, coming over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, hoping to gain a bit of land for himself here, as there was nothing for him to inherit in Normandy. He hadn’t even been Sir Guy then, just Guy de Malherbe, but he had fought well at Senlac, and been rewarded with a knighthood, and this piece of land to hold from his overlord. He’d come with his brother Hugo, but they had fallen out over something, and now the two sides of the family didn’t have much to do with each other. There had been rumours that Hugo’s grandson had been involved with the Mowbray revolt, but only rumours – he had kept his skin whole. I was really glad Ship had sent me to 1929 first, though. This time was so different! Clothes to start off with, of course. I wore a chemise under everything – this was a bit like a long nightie, and in fact Talisman slept in it in winter. This was made of linen, and it was changed and washed from time to time. No bra – they hadn’t been invented, and no knickers either. Which didn’t matter, because all the clothes were floor-length, but it still seemed weird to me.
Over the chemise, Talisman wore a robe, and this was made of wool, dyed with dyes made from plants. No buttons, no zips – everything laced up, or had drawstrings. And this just wasn’t washed at all, but what surprised me was that it wasn’t all smelly like unwashed things were back in my time. Instead it smelt of woodsmoke and, well, wool.
The food was different too – no potatoes at all! And we drank ale or beer or wine with everything, not water.
But the real horror story was the toilets! Just a plank with a hole in it, over a hole in the castle wall! Everything you did just fell down into a sort of chimney, with a door at the bottom – and some lucky person had to open that door every so often and shovel out the mess! All the fur garments were hung up in the toilet because the smells helped to keep the moths at bay – whenever Talisman used the garde-robe, it made me feel as though I was Lucy going into Narnia. And of course, toilet paper hadn’t been invented yet (neither had any sort of paper) so it was big leaves, moss…I’ll leave it to your imagination. The work was endless! – but with good company, surprisingly enjoyable. Everything was used, and nothing was wasted. I remembered Granny Thomas telling me what it was like during the war, and afterwards when rationing was in full swing, how you didn’t throw anything away. It was like that, but here one of the things that was never wasted was time. Any spare time Talisman and her mother had, they would be spinning thread as well, using a distaff and spindle. A whole year’s spinning would yield enough thread to make one set of clothes! One set only from a year’s work! And I thought of some people at school who would buy an outfit, wear it a few times and then get tired of it and throw it away. Talisman had been down to the village one afternoon on several errands for her mother. There had been a pair of fine beeswax candles to take to the priest’s house, for putting on the altar in the church. Then there had been a soothing syrup to take to the forge for the smith, who had a sore throat that wasn’t getting any better. Talisman was crossing the grass to the small stone church where Father Anselm now held his daily services, instead of the chapel up at the castle when she heard hoofbeats in the distance. Visitors! You didn’t always get advance warning, or if you did, it was of the “I will be arriving some time next month” type of warning. After all, someone had to carry the message, so why not just go yourself? She headed for home, instead of going to say a prayer for her grandfather’s soul as she had meant to. The visitors were all male, and mostly men-at-arms. Their horses were stabled at the back of the castle, with their own horses, and the men were fed. Their leader was someone Talisman had never met before. Talisman’s father obviously knew him though – and to Talisman, it was clear that, although he afforded his visitor every courtesy, her father was not happy to see him. It was Hugo de Malherbe – not Sir Guy’s brother, but his grandson. Talisman’s father took him up onto the roof of the castle to see the lie of the land, and Talisman was sent up after them to bid them come to the table. Her feet were light and quiet on the stone stairs, and the men didn’t hear her coming. Their voices came down to Talisman, and when I heard what they were saying, I told her to freeze in her place and listen to the rest of it.
“The truth is, I want one of your daughters as a wife for my third son.” Hugo’s voice was hard and uncompromising. “I like the look of your eldest.”
“We haven’t even met your son. And why would you want an alliance with our branch of the family in any case?” Talisman’s father was not best pleased with Hugo’s blunt demand.
“After Tinchebrai, and your deeds there – yes, I’ve heard about them – you’re in the King’s favour. An alliance with your house won’t hurt me at all. It might even go some way to allaying any suspicions anyone has about me.”
“I have other plans for Talisman.”
“Then forget them – fast.”
They began to move towards the stairs, and I sent Talisman hastening down a few steps, and then turning and beginning to mount again as they came to the top of the stairs.
“My mother bids you both to table, Sirs.” As we took our places at the table and waited for the serving-men to bring in the food, I could feel Hugo eying up Talisman with a cold, hard gaze.

Talisman Chapter 6

Chapter 6 I was back in my own time. And the last crew member (I must ask her name) was thanking me, and taking the thing I was holding from my hands. Talisman Mallerby, and Miss Aislaby were gone completely. The last crew member headed for one of the empty niches. A strange rumbling noise came from somewhere under my feet, and then lights came on. “You didn’t tell me that ‘being a little unhappy’ was code for ‘being a total nutter’. You have no idea what Talisman and I had to put up with!”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want to frighten you.” Her calm and slightly superior air was beginning to annoy me.
“I think I’d like to go home now.”
“You can’t. Ship won’t let you. You’ll have to stay here until she’s finished with you.”
I put my hands on my hips and glared at her.
“Well, if I’m not home by tonight, a lot of people are going to be looking for me. And here is one of the places they’ll look.” For the first time, the last crew member looked alarmed. “We can’t have people coming here looking for you!”
It’ll spoil your plans, I thought. But maybe I’d misjudged her.
“Ship won’t let them – and I don’t like to think of what she’ll do to stop them. We’re going to have to think of something.”
“In the next four hours? My train leaves at half past five. And by the way, what’s your name? I can’t keep thinking of you as The Last Crew Member.”
“Then how about Perdita?”
Talisman’s Latin lessons sprang into my mind.
“But that means lost.”
“Precisely. And now I have got to get you to understand what Ship is like by now.”
Ship was a sentient being, she explained, and very long-lived. But she had been so starved of power for so long, that she was now operating on the most basic of levels – survival at any cost. She was like a wounded and dying animal – but an intelligent and powerful one. Trying to cross her purposes would be very dangerous. The doors to the downstairs rooms had reappeared, but not the front door. I sat on the chair in the dining room and tried to work out what to do. How could I stop Harry and Sapphire looking for me? Of course they would try and find me – they cared about me. I began to see Aunt Violet in them – despite the tough times they’d both been through, they’d gone on choosing to give and to care. And I didn’t want to hurt them – or to let them get hurt by Ship, who was probably capable of electrocuting them or something. But Perdita had said it would be at least a week before Ship could send me to the next time – it was a long way back, and Ship needed to build up the power necessary to get me there. In the end, I phoned Sapphire while I knew she’d be at work and left a message on her phone, saying that I was staying at a friend’s for the night. It bought me a little time. By now, I was hungry, big time, so I went in search of something to eat. I found it hanging on a tree in the orchard, and then I went and checked out the kitchen garden as well. The early plums I ate raw, and the potatoes I baked in the oven (thankfully, the power and water were still on) and ate cooked. Without butter or salt, they weren’t very tasty, but it was food. I would have liked to be able to clean my teeth too, but had to settle for a cold water wash. Then I needed to see it there was anywhere to sleep. I finally found a bed in one of the little attic rooms on the top floor. It looked like it had belonged to one of the servants about a hundred and fifty years ago! I didn’t fancy getting under the bedclothes, so I lay on top of it and dozed, somewhat chilly, all night long. Next morning, I went downstairs, feeling grubby, tired, chilly and hungry. On the landing, I went into the room that Aunt Violet and Talisman had called the Blue Bedroom. It was such a contrast to the way I remembered it. Tears pricked at my eyelids, as I thought about how the room had used to look. It had been one of the best guest bedrooms. I went into Aunt Violet’s bedroom, but there was no trace of her there any more. Looking at the time, I knew I could phone Sapphire and get away with leaving a message – she wouldn’t be awake yet after last night’s late shift, and neither would Harry for the same reason. Then I did start crying – Aunt Violet’s room came back to me so vividly: not just the way it looked, but the smell of her perfume, and her kind loving voice.
This had to stop! I was going to go and put my foot down. I wasn’t going to be bullied any more. “This is ridiculous! There’s nothing for me to eat. There’s only water to drink. I’ve got no toothbrush, no toothpaste, no toilet paper even – I had to go and find some big leaves before I could use the toilet last night! I’ve only got the clothes I’m standing up in…” I was all set to go on for quite a while, but Perdita broke in on me.
“I know. But I can’t turn Ship from her purpose. Believe me, I’ve tried. That’s why I sent your parents away, while you were too young to be used by Ship – and Ship took her revenge on them for that. Ship’s not rational any longer.
If we had internet access, I could fix the food and clothes and so on problem for you. But I don’t know how to stop someone coming to look for you. And I think that Ship will kill them if she has to – she’ll do anything now to survive. Including not letting you go. How can you stop your family looking for you?” “They will look for me. I know they will. Harry and Sapphire care about me.”
“You’ve got to stop them! Can’t you think of a reasonable excuse why you might have run away?”
"I’m under sixteen. I’m not allowed to live on my own!” Perdita really had trouble grasping this one. “I’m supposed to be at school on Monday morning.”
“School. Summer school. Aren’t there things called Summer Schools? You could be at one of those. We’ll get the professor in to educate you in the gaps between Ship sending you back in time – and it would be company for you too.”
“And just how do I find a convincing reason for not being at home…” I began, rather sarcastically – and then it hit me. I suddenly realised how I could manipulate Sapphire. Perdita watched my face change.
“You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?” I went upstairs to the entrance hall – there was no reception at all down where Perdita was – and phoned Sapphire again. She should be up by now, and Harry should be at work unless his shifts had been changed.
“Sapphire, it’s me. Listen, you’re not going to like this, but you have to listen, and you have to help me.”
Sapphire’s a lot tougher than Harry, and I think she’s been through a lot more too. She fussed a bit and then said I was to tell her exactly what was up.
“That first day when Brett came round, just to see you? I’d come home from school sick, and was in bed. I heard it all.” I heard her gasp, but I carried on. “Sapphire, I’m not going to let him ruin our lives. You’re so good for Harry, and Harry loves you so much.” Now she was crying. “So let’s try out of sight and out of mind for a bit. Tell Brett I’ve …I’ve won a place on a summer school. No. No-one would believe that. Tell Brett I’ve got a job at a summer school – free lessons in exchange for washing up, bed-making and cleaning and so on.” “But where are you? Are you all right? Tallie, it’s a wicked world out there.”
“Yes, I am okay. And I’ve got a summer job – cleaning, and dish-washing and so on – I just said I was sixteen, that’s all. I get food and lodging, and work clothes, and some money too – and it’s out in the country and really pretty.”
“And what about school? Didn’t they wonder why you weren’t at school?”
“I’m sixteen, remember? I’ve just done my GCSE’s, and I’ve got a long summer break. So I’m trying to earn a little money towards going to college in two years’ time.”
“And references?”
“Well, they were desperate,” (gosh, I was getting good at all this lying), “as the girl they’d employed had just cancelled on them, so I got one of my friends to pretend to be the newsagent where I’d been a really reliable papergirl for the last two years.” Actually, as we both knew, I’d been a really reliable papergirl for six months, and then her nephew had got my job. I didn’t like lying to Sapphire. And I didn’t like telling her I knew about Brett and his threats to her. But even less did I like the idea of her or Harry getting hurt by Ship.
“Look, I’ll phone you every day – or text if I’m too busy to phone, but I will phone as often as I possibly can, so you can hear that I’m okay. Can you top my phone up for me though? – it’s a bit remote here. And if it goes all pear-shaped, I’ll tell you, I promise. Sapphire, will you keep Harry happy, though? Tell him the summer school story as well? I don’t want him upset or worrying. And Sapphire – I do love you both.”
That made her cry again. But by the time she rang off, she had agreed to support my story, and to keep Harry happy.
“But you’ll have to talk to Harry as well as me, so you’ll have to have a good story for him.” I went back down to Perdita.
“I’ve fixed it. I’ve got them to stay away and not look for me – for a few weeks at least. But I have to phone them each day to let them know I’m okay. So I’ll need a new phone charger. You said you could fix food and things with internet access? Here – can you use my phone?” Perdita took it off me and examined it carefully.
“Yes. Ship’s computers can interface with this. Give me an hour or so, and we can buy everything you need.” And an hour later, Perdita was pulling up shopping websites. And the food would arrive in six hours’ time! We ordered loads of stuff – Perdita said I didn’t have to be uncomfortable – a new duvet, pillows, sheets for the bed in the attic, food, soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toilet roll!!! And clothes for me. After being a different Talisman Mallerby for so long, and after wearing such nice clothes for most of it (though I preferred a bra to a Liberty bodice, and modern knickers to the undies she’d worn), I wanted flat shoes and less – well, revealing – clothes. Cleaning stuff as well – that kitchen was filthy, and the toilet was no better – and a new phone charger. That was Sunday, and probably the longest weekend of my life. After all, I had spent months of it living as Talisman Mallerby in 1929. (And what had happened to her? I desperately wanted to know.) I cleaned the inside of the fridge, ready for the food coming, and also inside a couple of cupboards, with the ripped up old sheets from the bed. I also scoured the house for odds and ends of furniture and brought them all down into the kitchen. It was too lonely up in the attic. Fortunately, the bed took to pieces (with a little persuasion) so I could get it downstairs in bits. But by teatime, the shopping had arrived. I ate cold food for tea, but it wasn’t dug up out of the garden, and tomorrow, that kitchen was going to get a serious clean.
Mrs Frumenty would have had a fit if she could have seen the state her kitchen had got into. But I had a whole battery of cleaning stuff – cloths, brushes, soaps, polishes, cleansers, bleach, rubber gloves – and a whole day with nothing to do. I plugged in my earphones, switched on my music and made a start. Until I cleaned up all these pans, plates and jugs - not to mention the benches – I couldn’t really cook anything, so I’d start there. The kettle first, so that I could boil some water in it, and have hot water for the other jobs. I sat down to a late lunch – still cold stuff: I hadn’t done the cooker yet – feeling rather proud of what I’d achieved so far. Then I phoned Sapphire and gave her a fairly factual account of my morning – I missed out things like washing down the walls, and played down the actual amount of dirt I’d shifted. After that, I was ready to attack the other half of the kitchen. The floor however – which had got noticeably dirtier as I had washed down the walls – was going to have to wait until tomorrow. I could get into the kitchen garden now, and the brambly wilderness that had once been the tennis court, and the old orchard, but no further than that. The kitchen garden was an overgrown jungle, and bore no resemblance to the one MacTavish and Jacob had so lovingly tended. Amazingly enough, there was the odd self-seeded plant struggling up among the brambles, dandelions, docks, (nice big leaves, those docks had!) and other weeds. I decided to see if I could rescue any of them – when I wasn’t inside cleaning! I had made myself a little bedroom corner in the kitchen. I’d found the old wash-stand in one of the attic rooms, and cleaned it up, along with the jug and basin. A bath was out of the question – I’d never be able to heat enough kettles of water to fill it – but a bowlful of hot water worked okay. These walls really needed painting though – a shame I didn’t have any paint or brushes. But on the other hand, Perdita had internet access, and some way of paying for things…maybe I could do something about the walls after all? I’d started painting the walls in the bedroom end of the kitchen – okay, it was probably going to need another coat, and I’d redesigned my T-shirt and jeans somewhat – when I heard footsteps in the hall. A delivery? But normally, whenever a delivery came, Ship locked me into whichever room I was in, so that no-one would see me. I’m not quite sure what the delivery people thought of Perdita, when she signed for things! But this time, the kitchen door was still there. He was tall, grey-haired and dressed, well - unusually.
“You must be Talisman,” he said, before I could even begin to ask him any questions.
“I’m the professor. Professor Saturn Navelli.” He caught sight of my expression and laughed. “My brother is called Jupiter. Our progenitors were serious about astronomy. Ship and Perdita said that I would be needed. I’ve been studying the history of the Mallerby family for quite a while now.” Instantly, I forgot about everything else.
“The Mallerby family? Then do you know what happened to the Talisman Mallerby who came here from India in 1929?”
“Come into my study.”
And the door into the study had reappeared! It looked almost like it had in Aunt Violet’s time, only a bit shabbier, and the paint on the windows was cracked and peeling. The professor pulled a few books off the shelves and began looking through them.
“1929, 1929…here we are. Oh my, her life had its adventurous moments. She had a governess – a distant cousin actually – who went insane while she was supposed to be taking care of Talisman. She went to Cambridge to study mathematics – unusual for a girl, then – oh, and during the Second World War, I discovered recently, she worked at Bletchley Park. Her parents came back from India not long after she came here – oh yes, and she had three much younger brothers, who were all born here.”
So Talisman had survived! I’d love to know more about the mad governess, though. I’d ask him another time, maybe. Life acquired a routine after the professor arrived. We’d do lessons together in the morning – and boy, was he an inspiring teacher – then he’d work on his researches in the afternoon, and I’d work in the garden, or paint walls, or sand down the kitchen furniture, as I wanted to paint that too – whatever took my fancy. Then in the evenings, I’d read, or play chess with him – I was learning the moves!
It was easy to talk to Harry and Sapphire, and convince them that I was alright – all I had to do was tell them the truth about my days. I told Sapphire that the couple I was working for were teachers, and that the wife had been very ill and was recovering from a major op. and that was why they needed the help with the housework, and why it was so urgent to have someone.
About five days after the professor arrived, I was working in the garden when I heard my name being called.
“Talisman Mallerby.”
I straightened up and looked round, expecting to see the professor at the back door. But as I turned, all I saw was blackness. “Talisman de Malherbe.” Someone was coming towards me, saying my name. But where was I now? And when was I now?

Talisman Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Aunt Violet and Talisman went out for the day together, one last holiday outing before Aunt Violet had to go away for a while. That was another difference I noticed between then and now – Aunt Violet would never go out of the house without her hat and gloves on. Talisman just got away with going out bare-headed, but only because they were going out into the countryside, and wouldn’t meet anyone they knew.
Aunt Violet fascinated me. She’d had a pretty tough time of it – three brothers and her fiancé killed in the war, her sister dying from influenza – and yet she wasn’t bitter, twisted or even obviously unhappy. I couldn’t work it out. And then, to my surprise, Talisman said,
“Aunt Violet, may I ask you a slightly personal question?”
“Of course, my dear.”
“How do I grow up to be like you? I mean, all these simply frightful things have happened to you and yet you’re still so ripping. But some people just go all awful – like Mrs Petheridge, back home for instance; remember, I told you about her.”
Aunt Violet smiled very fondly at Talisman.
“You have to go on caring, my dear. You grieve, yes, and there are days that seem blacker than black. But there are always other people to help, who need what you can give. And so you choose to give.”
I had influenced Talisman! I know she hadn’t been asking herself that question; she’d just accepted Aunt Violet unquestioningly. And now I thought about it, I remembered other times I’d done it too. When I’d stood in the old part of the house, and thought about Ship, not idly, but with deep feeling, and Talisman had reached out and touched the wall. And the other time had been when Talisman had just arrived, and I hadn’t been able to believe what I was seeing – and Talisman had stared and stared as well. But it seemed as though I could only influence her if I was thinking something really major. I had a feeling that this was a really important discovery. Talisman listened as Aunt Violet talked about the work she’d done during and after the War – hospital visiting, fund-raising, sitting on committees.
“Which sounds very boring, I know, but we do manage to change things. That’s why I need to go away for a while – we have some major business to get through. And then another friend needs my help to set up a scheme for the relief of the poor where she lives – there is so much unemployment and hardship there – so that will take a while as well. But I will miss you very much, my dear.” “And I will miss you too. Oh, Aunt Violet, I do so love you. You’re the toppingest aunt a girl ever had!” Aunt Violet left the next day.
“I do want Talisman to carry on with her piano – she’s making such nice progress – so can you make sure she practises each day, please, Miss Aislaby. Her mathematics is still a little weak, though I think she shows great potential, so perhaps she could work on that. And I know you’re just the person to start her off on Latin, as you’re so good at it yourself.” And distant-cousin-Gertrude assented.
“And I will make sure she writes to you each week, Miss Mallerby. I have the addresses where you will be staying. She can tell you herself of the progress she is making.”
“Thank you , Miss Aislaby.”
Then Aunt Violet hugged Talisman, kissed her, said goodbye, was driven off to the station, and Talisman was alone with Miss Aislaby. The change was immediate. “That is simply not good enough. You will do the whole exercise again, more neatly this time. Careless, sloppy work is inexcusable!”
Talisman had never been spoken to so roughly in all her life. After all, she’d never been to school, and Aunt Violet had been so patient with her. Which hadn’t been hard. Talisman wanted to please people. And Talisman’s fear pleased Miss Aislaby. I could tell that. She enjoyed seeing Talisman cringe away from her. Talisman’s life changed overnight. She was forever in the schoolroom – Miss Aislaby piled on the work.
“You are disgracefully behind. When I was your age, I had thoroughly mastered all four declensions.”
She ate all her meals up there.
“The nursery wing is the proper place for young girls such as you.” Talisman gazed wistfully out of the window at the gardens she never got to go into any more, and thought longingly of the times she had spent with Aunt Violet, and wished that she was back again. But alas, Aunt Violet’s latest letter had said that her return would be delayed by several weeks more, as there was more business to sort out than she had first realised. “But I’m pleased to hear how well your music and your lessons are coming on. Much love as always, Aunt Violet.”
There was no hope there. Talisman’s only solace was her twice-daily piano practice – an hour each time. I think that Miss Aislaby meant it to be more work for Talisman, but actually it was all that kept her going. “You are just not working hard enough. I am going to have to begin punishing you if you don’t finish the tasks I set you. This is your only warning.” Talisman was starting to look pale and she was getting thinner. Miss Aislaby insisted on reading Talisman’s weekly letters to her parents and to Aunt Violet, so she had no chance to tell them what was going on. And Miss Aislaby made sure that Talisman never had the chance to talk to MacTavish, or Mrs Frumenty or even Jacob. She took away all the children’s books that Talisman had enjoyed reading.
“You cannot afford to waste your time with them. You need to work and learn.”
And then she swept out of the room, leaving Talisman sobbing bitterly. The piles of books got higher, and the books got drier, and Talisman was panicking. She was jumping from one bit of work to another, and not concentrating on finishing one piece well. Which was exactly what Miss Aislaby wanted. I could see her gloating over Talisman’s mistakes and unfinished work. She was just longing to punish her, you could tell, but it was as if she had to be able to justify it to herself. Talisman was still totally bewildered by it all. ] I was expecting the bed-with-no-supper routine. I wasn’t prepared for the thin cane which Miss Aislaby produced.
“Any girl in my school who had produced such disgraceful work would have been soundly punished.”
Gosh, I thought, I bet she was a bundle of laughs when she was a teacher.
“Your pampered, spoilt upbringing does not excuse you. Bend over.”
And she gave Talisman three stinging blows on the back of her legs.
“And that work has to be done again properly before tomorrow’s lessons begin.”
Once again she strode out of the room, but this time she locked the door behind her. She left Talisman in tears. The next two weeks were a nightmare. Talisman’s homework went from bad to worse, and Miss Aislaby had plenty of excuses to pick on her. She didn’t always cane her – Talisman might have got used to that. Just often enough to keep her afraid. She found out that Talisman didn’t like the pitch-dark, so she locked her in the landing cupboard in the evening, after Mrs Frumenty, Jacob and MacTavish had gone home. She even left the key in the lock to block that tiny bit of light. There was the bed-with-no-supper routine, and Talisman got used to being hungry. And if she wasn’t in the room with Talisman, Miss Aislaby locked the door, and her bedroom door at night.
And yet Miss Aislaby was a good teacher. Her explanations were clear and concise – only Talisman was now too nervous to take them in. Miss Aislaby decided that Talisman should wear a school uniform, to help concentrate her mind, and produced some hideous hot and itchy garments, and insisted that Talisman wore them. She only got to wear her pretty Liberty dresses when she was practising the piano – and I could work out why: it was in case MacTavish happened to be working on that side of the house. Another set of badly-done homework, another flood of tears. I liked Talisman, but she was a bit wet sometimes.
“For goodness’ sake,” I thought furiously, “pull yourself together, Talisman Mallerby. You’ve got to work out how to beat her at her own game. Fight back! She’s walking all over you!” Fight back? Talisman suddenly straightened up. Once again, I had managed to influence her. Once again, I had felt really strongly about something. Fight back – but how?
“Stop giving her excuses to get at you. Get on top of the work she’s setting you. Stop panicking and do it well. You’ve got a good brain – use it!” And I heard an echo of Granny Thomas in that last thought. And Talisman did. You could see Miss Aislaby’s frustration as Talisman took away her excuses for punishing her. Miss Aislaby picked up the pace, but Talisman was on a roll (not that she would ever have used that phrase!) and she was enjoying outwitting Miss Aislaby. I just wondered what had made someone with such an obvious gift for teaching so unhappy. So unhappy! It was like a light bulb going on in my head. But when Ship’s last crew member had said unhappy, I had been expecting someone sad. Not someone who was halfway to being a dangerous lunatic. Why hadn’t I been warned? And where was the guerdon? The answer to that one was obvious – most likely in distant-cousin-Gertrude’s bedroom. But how was Talisman going to be able to look for it? That was a much harder question. I began to realise how little freedom Talisman had. The only time she was allowed off the nursery floor was to practise the piano. Miss Aislaby was actually controlling every moment of her day. Managing to look in her bedroom was going to be difficult. As Talisman’s school work improved, Miss Aislaby had to find other ways of getting at her. This time it was an unmade bed, and a bitter rant about how Talisman thought herself too good to do any honest work, not like some people. Well, if she couldn’t appreciate her bed, she could spend the night without it. Distant-cousin-Gertrude seemed to be getting worse, and I suddenly wondered if it was because she – and the stolen guerdon – were here. Near Ship. Was Ship affecting things?
I had a fair idea what Miss Aislaby was planning for Talisman – and suddenly I saw my chance to get into her bedroom. But I had to get Talisman to do something first. If I thought about it hard enough, maybe I could influence her… A very miserable Talisman was forced to do a hard day’s work. I had to hand it to her – she was now a whizz at maths: the endless practice, and sheer volume of work she had covered had transformed her. I think she had a natural talent for it too – she cottoned on to new ideas so quickly.
Miss Aislaby had the cane very much in evidence, obviously hoping to un-nerve Talisman. Then she dropped her bombshell. Mrs Frumenty, and Jacob, and MacTavish were being given a week’s holiday. It would just be the two of them in the house for the next week. Wouldn’t that be nice?
We had to act that night. The landing cupboard was dark, dusty and windowless. Talisman hated it. Come bedtime, Miss Aislaby seized her by the wrist and marched her off to it.
“Little girls who don’t appreciate their nice beds can do without them. Maybe spending the night in here will make you more grateful.”
And she closed the door and turned the key in the lock, leaving Talisman alone in the dark. And now we had to wait. Gradually, the house settled into quietness. The noises of Miss Aislaby using the bathroom, going into her bedroom, turning off the light – all over, and all there was to hear was Talisman’s panicky breathing. Right. Time to put my plan into action. Urgently, I thought hard about what to do, how to use what she had brought with her. And Talisman did it! She took out the sheet of paper she had torn out from her exercise book, and pushed it under the door, below the handle. She took out her pencil and gently, carefully, pushed the key out of the lock. It fell with a little jingle onto the piece of paper. With shaking fingers, Talisman pulled the paper back under the door, and the key came with it! Then, greatly daring, she crept across the landing and listened outside Miss Aislaby’s bedroom. Steady snoring greeted her ears. She crept into the bedroom and slid open the drawer of the dresser – and as soon as she did this, I could feel that the thing I was looking for was there. With all the force in me, I pushed Talisman to find it, pick it up. Her fingers closed over it – just as Miss Aislaby’s hand gripped her arm.
“So,” she hissed. “I think you have another lesson to learn.”
“Talisman! Fight back! Talisman!” But even as I thought this, everything dissolved again into that strange folded blackness. The only reality was the feel of this strange object between my hands, and a name echoing in my head. “Talisman! Talisman!”