Barney and the Secret of the French Spies by Jackie French

Author:Jackie French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

A Wedding

Mrs Johnson and Elsie made me new trousers and a jacket for the wedding, and Bill too. You should have seen Bill’s face!

‘Them’s the first new clothes I ever had,’ he said, looking at his reflection in the river. ‘Except for convict issue, and they don’t count. Do I look like a toff?’

‘A right toff,’ I said, though it wasn’t quite true. Real toffs have long superior noses like rams do, and they know how to shave better than Bill, with no cuts and no tufts of hair left behind, or maybe their valets do their shaving for them.

But I thought we looked pretty fine.

Mr Johnson gave me a bookshelf he had made himself. I’ve treasured that bookcase all my life, because Mr Johnson, what with all his duties and kindnesses to so many, had gone without sleep, late into the night or early in the morning, to make this for me, and gave me books to fill it too. Mrs Macarthur gave Elsie some pale blue silk to make her wedding dress. ‘Every bride should wear silk,’ she said, and her look dared Mrs Johnson to argue.

I bought a wedding present for Elsie too. Not just the ring, a silver one the blacksmith made, melting down three silver pieces I’d earned whaling. I also gave her a gift that Mr Johnson found sketched in one of his books. I got the blacksmith and the carpenter to make it.

I wrapped it in a nice tanned o’possum-skin rug and gave it to Elsie the week before the wedding.

The Johnsons’ kitchen was full of steam from boiling puddings. We were having the wedding feast out at the farm, but the cakes and puddings would all go there by boat.

Elsie wiped her hands on her apron as she looked at the present. I watched anxiously as she opened it.

‘Barney!’ she cried. She hugged me, and then gave me a kiss right in front of Maggie and Mr and Mrs Johnson, and they all just laughed, happy because we were happy.

‘It is the most wonderful present in the world,’ said Elsie.

She was talking now, though still just in the house. We’d told Mr and Mrs Johnson Elsie’s story. I think Mrs Macarthur had guessed some of it. Mr and Mrs Johnson agreed no one would think badly of Elsie being born French, not after so long just being Elsie and one of us, but we didn’t want tongues wagging about. Once she was living down on the farm, we’d let it be known she was beginning to talk again and let everyone assume it had been an illness or injury and that the good farm air — and being married and happy — had cured her.

And the present? It was a flower press, one you laid flowers or leaves on and pressed down tight with a screw so they dried in their true shape, and then could be packed carefully for the nine-month voyage to England.

Mr Johnson had already sent a letter

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