The Secret Keepers by Tilly Bagshawe

Author:Tilly Bagshawe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2024-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cornwall, England, November 1942

‘Put that glass down. Jimmy, I mean it!’ Ines shouted helplessly, as a nine-year-old boy with filthy hands and a face more freckles than skin ran towards the stairs. In his hand was a water glass containing a wolf spider – a fat, hairy monster of a thing – with which Jimmy intended to surprise his older sister, Agnes.

As thirteen-year-old Agnes had a phobia of spiders bordering on the hysterical, Ines was keen to put an end to this practical joke before it brought the house to a shrieking, deafening standstill. Especially as Renée and Charlotte were staying with them for the weekend, and poor Charlotte had already taken to her bed with a migraine.

‘Jimmy! I mean it. You take that creature upstairs and you won’t get a bite of rice pudding. Not one bite.’

The little boy hesitated. This was a major threat. Ines had used the very last of the delicious condensed milk on tonight’s pudding, in honour of their guests. Jimmy had been salivating over the thought of it for days.

‘All right,’ he said grudgingly, scuffing over to Ines in his heavy lace-up boots and thrusting the unwanted glass into her hands. ‘Would have been fun, though. That’s the biggest one I ever caught.’

Jimmy and Ag had been living with Ines for over a year now, and she’d grown tremendously close to both of them. The first few months had been awful. Both children resented having been sent away, and Jimmy in particular decided early on that Ines was the enemy, greeting her every question or attempt at kindness with crossed arms and sullen silences. Cornwall was ‘ugly’, the countryside ‘boring’ and Ines ‘a Frog’ who ‘shun’t even ’ave been in England in the first place’.

In the end, it was this last complaint that helped Ines to build bridges with both Jimmy and his sister. She, too, was finding her way in a strange place, far away from the home she’d grown up in and everyone she loved. She knew how lonely and frightening that could be. The fact that she was so young, only ten years older than Ag, probably also helped, enabling her to step into the role of an adult sister, rather than trying to usurp their mother’s place.

One weekend, to welcome Gunn home on leave, Ines had decided to stencil the entire staircase at the cottage with colourful, exotic birds as a surprise for him. She still longed for adventure, and hoped one day to explore the Andean cloud forests that her mother had told her about and that had so enchanted her as a child. But for the time being, all her hopes and dreams were confined within the four walls of this tiny cottage. Painting the birds would be some sort of release.

With nothing else to do, the children had agreed to help, and the day had proved a real turning point in their relationship. Jimmy loved that Ines didn’t seem to care at all when he spilled paint on the floor, or got it on his hands and face.

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