Journey to the River Sea - 10th Anniversary Edition (21 page)

‘Look, we’ve got no time to waste. And we’ve got a gun.’ Mr Trapwood patted his chest.

‘Shoot me then,’ said Maia. ‘You can shoot me before I’ll betray—’

‘That’s enough, Maia. You’re being hysterical. Tell these gentlemen what they want to know and then we shall go home.’

‘I don’t want Finn to—’

‘Finn. Is that his name?’ said Trapwood. ‘Yes, that sounds right. The letter was signed F. Taverner. Come on then.’

‘He’s in the cellar.’ Maia’s voice was very quiet. She turned her head away.

‘Where’s that? How do you get down there?’

‘There’s a trapdoor. It’s under the giant sloth. The skeleton. In the lab.’

The crows barged ahead, holding Maia by the arm, and Miss Minton followed. Still no chance to warn her governess.

They reached the sloth. ‘There, look. You can see the handle,’ said Mr Low.

Mr Trapwood pushed him aside and caught the edge of the stand with his arm.

The sloth crashed to the ground.

Miss Minton and Maia cried out, seeing the jumbled bones.

‘There it is! Come on. Heave!’

Mr Trapwood heaved. The door creaked slowly upwards . . . And out of the dark hole there sprang, not a cowering, frightened boy, but a furious, thrashing figure. A boy with black hair and a headband who charged at the two men, shouting and jabbering in an Indian dialect. The crows tried to grab his arm – and missed. The Indian boy ran past Mr Low, but was tripped up by Mr Trapwood and stumbled, cursing in his strange babble; screaming like a trapped animal.

Maia gave a moan of despair and stood there, her hand over her mouth. What was Finn doing here? What had gone so terribly wrong? And where was Clovis?

The crows wrestled with Finn. Two to one; a gun against bare fists. But as they fought the boy, trying to pinion him, they were aghast.

So this was the heir to Westwood – a savage, babbling away in an unearthly tongue! No wonder he had been afraid to take up his rightful place in England! He probably lived in a tree.

Maia’s eyes never left Finn. He was still hoping to escape, she could see that. If he could get out into the street, he might have a chance but not here. He fought like a demon; once he managed to free himself, but Mr Low caught his leg while Mr Trapwood hit him on the side of the head with the butt of his pistol.

‘Now, now, boy, we’re not here to hurt you.’

But the wild boy didn’t understand. He went on struggling and fighting and shouting in his ghastly tongue. They’d have to tie him up to get him on the boat. And what would Sir Aubrey say? If ever there was a hollow victory, this was it.

Miss Minton, all this time, had been standing stock-still, looking at the Indian boy with a strange expression on her face. Now she walked carefully to the edge of the open trapdoor and looked down the flight of steps leading into the darkness.

Miss Minton waited. She was staring intently at the back of the cellar and the pile of packing cases.

Then she said loudly and clearly, ‘Come out, Finn Taverner. Come out and be a man.’

Among the packing cases something stirred. A glimmer of light fell on fair hair. A boy straightened himself and stood up.

Miss Minton continued to stare down into the murk.

‘You heard me, Finn,’ she said – and the crows turned, amazed. ‘The mantle of the Taverners has fallen on your shoulders. It is time you faced your destiny.’

Clovis looked up and saw the upright figure of Miss Minton, standing above him. She had always made him feel brave – and now he forgot that an hour before he had been overcome with terror and begged Finn not to give him up to the crows.

Clovis straightened himself. He squared his shoulders. He tossed back his curls. Then slowly, with immense dignity, he climbed the cellar steps.

‘Unhand my servant, please,’ he ordered the crows. ‘As you see,
I
am Finn Taverner.’

The crows let go of the Indian. They stared at the golden-haired youth who had appeared at the top of the cellar steps. The boy’s breeding showed in every movement; he was an undoubted and true aristocrat. Here before them was The Blood which Sir Aubrey longed for, and they were filled with joy.

The boy now addressed his servant. ‘You have served me well, Kumari,’ he said – and every word was crystal clear; the words of a perfect English gentleman, speaking slowly to a foreigner. ‘Now I give you your freedom. And with it, this token of my thanks.’

And out of the pocket of his tunic he took a watch on a long chain which he handed to the Indian.

‘But, sir,’ said Mr Trapwood, who had seen the glint of silver. ‘Should you—’

‘I am a Taverner,’ said Clovis. ‘And no one shall say that I am not grateful to those who have served me. And now, gentlemen, I am ready. I take it you have reserved a first-class cabin for me?’

‘Well,’ began Mr Low.

Mr Trapwood kicked his shin. ‘It shall be arranged, sir,’ he said. ‘Everything will be taken care of.’

‘Good. I should like to go on board immediately.’

‘Yes, sir, of course. If you’ll just come with us.’

Clovis bowed to Miss Minton, then to Maia. His eyes were dry and his dignity was matchless. Then he followed the crows out of the museum.

‘Come and see her,’ said Finn. ‘Come and see your namesake.’

He got into the canoe beside Maia and Miss Minton, and paddled round to the side of the
Arab
ella
, so that Miss Minton could see the name painted on the bows.

Miss Minton put up a bony hand to trace the letters. For a while she was silent. Then she said, ‘It’s a better name for a boat than for a governess. Or a housemaid.’

She sniffed and felt for her handkerchief, the same one with the initial ‘A’ on it that she had lent to Maia in the cab – and once again Maia thought what an idiot she had been not to guess what Finn had guessed so quickly.

‘He said if he got away and got himself a boat he’d call her after me,’ Miss Minton went on. ‘I didn’t help him all that much – he’d have done it anyway – but he never forgot a promise.’

They were in the lagoon. It was the day after Clovis had sailed on the
Bishop.
The twins and Mrs Carter had gone to church. But when Miss Minton had shown Mrs Carter the mysterious bruises on Maia’s arm, she had got permission to keep her at home – and as soon as they were safely away, Furo had come to fetch them.

Back in the hut, Finn began on the questions.

‘How did you know? How did you know who I was as soon as you saw me come out of the trapdoor in the museum?’

‘You’re so like your father. The eyes, the way your voice is pitched. He wasn’t much older than you are now when he ran away from Westwood. And I knew he’d married an Indian woman and had a son; we kept in touch. So when I saw that the crows had caught you, I realized your plan had gone wrong.’

‘You mean you knew what we were planning?’ said Maia – not at all pleased.

‘More or less. Your acting skills are not very great,’ said Miss Minton. ‘And as a liar you are bottom of the class. I made friends with old Lila and when she realized that I knew Bernard, she told me about this place. But you seemed to know what you were doing so I left you to it.’

‘We did know what we were doing,’ said Finn. ‘But Clovis just went berserk when he got down to the cellar. Some skulls came tumbling out of a packing case and he saw these eye sockets staring at him. Then he fell over a throwing spear and the lamp kept going out. There was a weird moaning noise too – it was only the water pipes – but he got hysterical and said he felt sick and he couldn’t go through with it. I suppose it was a sort of stage fright – he really thought the crows were going to hurt him. I’d promised Maia I wouldn’t let him get too scared so I stayed. I meant to make a dash for it when the crows opened the door and lead them away from him. When the sloth fell over he thought it was a bomb!’

‘Poor Clovis,’ said Maia.

‘She’s always sticking up for him,’ said Finn.

‘Still, he gave a fine performance at the end, you must admit,’ said Miss Minton.

Then they asked her about her time at Westwood.

‘I was just a housemaid,’ she said. ‘No one called me Arabella – the butler wouldn’t permit it. I was always Bella, except to Bernard.’

And she told them what had happened after Bernard left.

‘You can’t imagine the uproar. Everyone was stamping about and shouting – but they were angry, not sad. Then very soon after that the butler found me reading in the library – no one read the books at Westwood; I was meant to be dusting them, not reading them – and I was dismissed. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I remembered what Bernard had said – that I should go away and get an education. He said there were colleges where you could study at night and earn your keep during the day. So I went to London and I did just that. It took me six years to get a degree, but I did it.’ Miss Minton looked away and permitted herself a smile – for she had got not just a degree but a First, which no one had done in that college before.

‘So then you became a governess,’ said Maia.

‘Yes. But Bernard wrote to me, and his letters made me want to see the place where he was so happy. I tried hard to save enough for the fare but I never succeeded – and then this job came up with the Carters. Just two weeks after I accepted it, I heard that Bernard had died – the letter came back with a blue cross and ‘deceased’ on the envelope. It was a fearful shock. Then when I came out here and guessed what the crows were up to, I kept my eyes open. I knew how Bernard felt about Westwood and that he would hate his son to be dragged back there against his will.’

‘Well, thank goodness you did,’ said Finn.

But Miss Minton now wanted to see the animals that Bernard had written about.

‘Does the anteater still come?’ she asked, ‘and the capuchin monkey?’, and Finn said yes, and showed her everything – the humming bird bottle, the place where the turtle hauled out of the water, while the dog padded between them.

‘I see why he was so happy here,’ she said. ‘It’s a wonderful place.’

‘Yes, but Finn’s going away. In the
Arabella
,’ said Maia. ‘He’s going a long, long way,’ and Minty frowned at the sadness in her voice. ‘And he won’t take me.’

‘No, of course not,’ said Miss Minton. ‘That would hardly do.’

Maia looked up into her face. ‘Wouldn’t you like to go on a great journey? Find a place no one knew about?’

‘What I would like has nothing to do with it. I have my living to earn – and you must get an education.’

But even though she knew that Finn would not take her, Maia was hungry for all the details of his journey.

‘What if they aren’t there any more?’ she wanted to know. ‘The Xanti?’

‘Then I’ll go on till I find them,’ said Finn. ‘They have to be somewhere.’

Miss Minton was silent. It wasn’t strictly true – tribes had been wiped out by illness, or fighting, or been kidnapped. She could not be happy about a boy of his age making such a journey alone, but she had no power to prevent Finn from living his life as he wished. Maia was a different matter. She was wholly responsible for keeping Maia safe and it was out of the question that she should be allowed to go.

It was as they came away from the lagoon in Furo’s canoe that Miss Minton suddenly told Furo to stop. A breeze had sprung up and as the leaves of a tall broad-leafed tree blew to one side, she had seen on its trunk, a large and most exquisite butterfly.

Miss Minton did not chase butterflies, but this one was so enormous and so beautiful – and so still – that she clambered out of the canoe and went to look.

‘My goodness!’ she said.

The butterfly was still because it was dead. Dead, but perfectly preserved in the web of a large spider who had left it there, and would probably come back and eat it later.

Very carefully, Miss Minton took the butterfly from the tree, using her handkerchief so as not to touch it directly, and carried it back.

‘Oh!’ said Maia. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that!’, and even Furo shook his head.

The brilliant yellow and black of the wings ended in two long tails, like the tail of a swallow.

‘It looks special, doesn’t it?’ Maia went on. ‘Professor Glastonberry will know what it is.’

Miss Minton nodded, trying not to feel excited. ‘It is most unlikely that it will turn out to be anything unusual,’ she said firmly, but Maia saw her looking at the creature lying on her lap again and again.

In Manaus it quickly got about that Finn Taverner had been snatched by the crows and taken on board the
Bishop
, and that it was the Carter twins who had betrayed him.

The reaction of almost everyone was anger. Anger with the crows, anger with the twins.

Colonel da Silva was particularly upset. All the trouble he had taken to lead the crows astray had come to nothing. He felt he had failed his old friend Bernard, and he was going to miss Finn.

‘I’d better go and see what’s to be done about the
Arabella
,’ he said to his second in command. ‘And all Taverner’s things. The dog’ll go wild, I imagine; he can fend for himself.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll go next week – the Indians will see that no one steals anything. And if those wretched Carter twins come again to ask about the reward, send them away with a flea in their ear. The boy hasn’t been gone three days. Nasty, money-grubbing little worms!’