The Secret Starling by Judith Eagle

Author:Judith Eagle [Judith Eagle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571346318
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2019-07-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

As far as Clara was concerned, the one redeeming thing about the study had always been the fire. No matter how chilly Uncle had been, the fire could always be relied on to burn brightly.

But no fire burned in the grate today and the room looked stark and uninviting. It was as if a giant brush had swept the whole place clean. In the cold light of day, the leather armchairs looked stiff and uncomfortable, the curtains and rugs revealed as threadbare. No longer were towers of paper teetering on every surface, nor were letters and bills and books littering the floor.

‘Wow,’ said Peter, ‘she has been busy.’

The books in the bookcase had all been lined up in order of size and colour. The scattered papers had been neatly sorted into the metal filing cabinet by the door. The bureau had been tidied, with letters tucked into one drawer and bills in the other. The desk had been scrubbed clean; not one ink spot remained. The collection of fountain pens had disappeared, and in their place was a solitary plastic biro. Green.

They had to search and be quick about it. It wouldn’t be long before Stella returned.

‘I’ll start with the letters. You look at the bills,’ declared Peter. So Clara began leafing through them, page after page filled with squiggly numbers that made no sense, covered in Uncle’s scrawl, sums and workings-out filling the margins and sometimes fervently spilling out to cover the page. Amongst it all she found receipts for many of the things that had disappeared. A thousand pounds for a watercolour; fifty pounds for the paintings of farmyard animals that had decorated the hall; five hundred pounds for the blue-and-white soup tureen.

‘Look.’ She showed Peter.

‘Five hundred for a bowl?’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s our rent for five months!’

‘Anything in the letters?’

‘Yes,’ said Peter, ‘heaps of stuff about deeds and whatnot. It’s all to do with selling the house. Oh no! Clara, you’re not going to like this. This one says, “acting on behalf of Mr and Mrs Morden” and it’s going on about “converting the premises”. What does that mean?’

‘But we put a stop to all that!’ cried Clara. Anxiety plucked at her. The euphoria she had felt when Stella had fallen for their plan had vanished. Feverishly she opened the filing cabinet, which was also packed with correspondence.

‘Quick,’ said Peter, who had finished going through his drawer and had come over to help her. ‘Just leaf through, see if anything stands out … There! Look, that one!’ The address was written in green biro.

Clara plucked out the envelope Peter was referring to and drew out the thin paper from within. It crackled between her fingertips. The spiky message looked as though it had been hastily scrawled.

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