Back to Blackbrick (14 page)

In fact, it turned out that her father wanted a word with me and Kevin. I walked into the kitchen to find Mrs. Kelly telling Kevin that George Corporamore wanted to see us in connection with the smuggling of a girl onto the premises.

“God almighty, Kevin, but the same question occurs to me for the second time in as many days: Why didn't you come to me? It's pure silly of you lads to have done this without at least explaining to me what you were planning. If you needed help, then you should have come straight to me. Isn't that the way it used to be, Kevin?”

“I know. I didn't want to get anyone in trouble,” Kevin said, deliberately making his eyes wide and innocent-looking.

And Mrs. Kelly said, “Well, all I can say is that you're terrible altogether. And when you get back from talking to Lord
Corporamore, you're to fill me in on what has happened and who this girl is, and honestly, don't you know that you can be assured that I can help? Do you not know me by now, Kevin? Lord George is waiting for you in his study, so now it would be in both your interests to get yourselves up there as quickly as possible and explain yourselves to him. Mind your manners and prepare for an act of contrition, do you hear me? He'll be raging with the pair of you.”

We left the kitchen with Kevin spitting out words under his breath. “It must have been Cordelia. How did that brat find out? I'm going to kill her.” I started to get hot, the way you do when you're filling up with shame. I started to imagine what Kevin might do if he found out it was me who was the rat.

He told me there were sixty-four steps from the kitchen to Corporamore's study, even though at the time I wasn't really in the mood for Blackbrick trivia. I was too busy feeling very uneasy about what was waiting for us at the top.

He said, “Leave the talking to me,” which was absolutely fine as far as I was concerned.

When we got there and knocked on the door, a voice from inside said, “Come,” and we walked in.

It was the first time I got a proper look at his face. George Corporamore was sitting behind a big varnished desk. There were red curtains, shimmering in the light of a crackling, spitting fire. He was holding a massive cigar between his fingers, and he was looking the two of us up and down.
It was then that it began to occur to me the extent of the serious trouble we might both be in.

He was more or less the pointiest man I had ever seen in my life. His chin was pointy. His nose was pointy. His ears. His clothes. His shoes. His fingers. Even his eyes were like little pins, piercing and poking at us from his triangular face.

He didn't look like the kind of man who would kneel and cry at the end of someone's bed.

He asked me to introduce myself. He said that Mrs. Kelly had told him about how she had hired me in a temporary capacity because of what a great horseman I was, which was news to me. He wanted us to tell him whether we had been responsible for bringing a young girl into the Abbey, and for putting her in his son's room. A place where nobody had been permitted to go for more than two years now.

Kevin's hands were in his pockets and he was standing with his legs wide apart. If you hadn't been as close up to him as I was, you'd probably never have seen the small blob of sweat sliding down the side of his face. And you definitely wouldn't have thought he was the tiniest bit scared.

He went on about what a great worker Maggie was and how he was dead familiar with her family and what decent people they were. And he said that it was not the slightest bit “apt” for boys to be bringing breakfast to Miss Cordelia and that it would be very useful to have Maggie, who was
happy to stay and work in exchange for room and board, and she had the appetite of a small bird, so she wouldn't be that much of a drag on the household's resources.

He definitely had a talent for talking, all right. He was a high-performance persuader, no doubt about it. At the time I reckoned that this skill was probably more useful to both of us than some of the educational things he'd missed out on, on account of being so busy learning how to take proper care of horses.

Corporamore rolled his cigar between his fingers and sucked on it from time to time so that the end of it got dark and soggy. He listened, staring at Kevin and glancing at me, until Kevin stopped talking.

He spoke in a leisurely way, like someone who'd never been in a hurry in his life. The sound of his voice made my whole body feel cold.

“I was prepared to overlook the irregularity of this boy's arrival,” he said, pointing at me like I was a thing, not a person.

“And in any case, as I understand it, he'll be gone by Sunday. Furthermore, Mrs. Kelly had a part in bringing him here, which bestows upon his visit the legitimacy it requires. But now, Kevin, I'm beginning to suspect that you've lost the run of yourself altogether. What you've done is wrong. It's very wrong indeed. It makes me think that you've gotten much too big for your boots. Taking it upon yourself to smuggle a young girl into my home, my estate,
my territory without my knowledge and moving her into my deceased son's quarters? I consider that most disloyal and deceitful, and by rights you should be punished very severely.”

Kevin was doing his best to stay upright and non-intimidated-looking. Neither of us had a clue what Corporamore was going to say next, and after he said it, we were both very surprised that he had.

“But,” Corporamore continued, “you see, now that I have met your stowaway, and now that I have a sense of what kind of a girl she is . . . well, I think that given her personableness, and her clearly burgeoning health, we can certainly make room for her here at Blackbrick, and after all, Mrs. Kelly has been needing additional help for some time. Of course, you're both extremely fortunate that I have decided on this course of action. It lets you off the hook, so to speak, but do not operate under any misconception. What I am saying to you is not an invitation for you to open the doors of Blackbrick to every vagabond you happen to think deserves some shelter. Maggie McGuire, however, is no vagabond. She is welcome to stay.”

“Grand so,” said Kevin, breathing out for what seemed like the first time since we'd entered the room, and I went, “Yeah, great.” I made an effort to smile too, even though I totally did not feel like it.

“I'll talk to Mrs. Kelly about moving her out of Crispin's wing,” added Kevin, but Lord Corporamore leaned forward
on his sharp elbows and said, “No. No, she can stay there. It will be useful to have someone to warm up that part of the house, after all.

“The two of you can show her the ropes and get her organized. Now you may go.”

He flicked his pointy hand toward the door, and a gold ring on his little finger flashed. Long yellow flames licked at the inside of the fireplace.

We backed out of the study. All the way down the stairs, Kevin muttered things like “What's he up to?” and “I don't trust that man at all.”

But at the time, I thought that Corporamore was okay, that he had been fairly decent even though he was all pointy and had a horrible voice. I didn't know the real reason he wanted Maggie to stay. I hadn't a clue what he was planning for her. I just took him at face value.

Under the circumstances, it might have been easy to forget that I had to go home, but as the week went on, I knew I had to get back to the Granddad of my own time zone. It was getting urgent. Dr. Sally was probably already sharpening her pencils and freshening up her clipboard for her next visit. I had to be there to help Granddad review for his memory test. And now I had all these details about his life that I could fill him in on, so no one would take him away.

Pretty soon I only had one more night left at Blackbrick.
That was the night that I found out what George Corporamore really wanted from Maggie, and why he had decided to let her stay at Blackbrick and how, the first time he'd met her in Crispin's wing, he had interpreted her decentness in the wrong way. And the only reason I found out was because I'd forgotten a bucket and cloth near Corporamore's study, and Kevin would need it in the morning, and so, quite late, after I'd packed my stuff back into Ted's bag and checked for the millionth time that the key to the south gates was in my pocket, I went up to get the equipment. I was coming back down the stairs and through the main hallway, and that was when I saw Corporamore and Maggie standing together, very close, near the front door.

I stopped in time and hung back in the shadow of the doorway. I knew they couldn't see me. But I could see them. I was right there staring straight at them both.

Something happened then that I really don't ever like to think about, even though I still sometimes do.

Corporamore's pointy-fingered hand latched on to Maggie's shoulder. It was dark but still I could see. And then he traced his finger along her neck and he just kept staring at her the whole time with this horrible creepy smile on his face.

Maggie didn't move at all. And she didn't make a sound.

He had a cigar in his other hand, and there was a glass of brandy sitting on a silver tray. The air was thick and blue and strong, and I thought for a terrible second that I
was going to cough. I kept on watching. I kept on wishing I could look away. But I couldn't.

And then afterward he stubbed out the cigar on the tray and he picked up the brandy glass and he walked away from her. She tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, straightened her apron, stood very tall, and walked off in the opposite direction, her boots clicking on the wooden floor and her legs looking as if they were trembling slightly. I might have been wrong, but just then she seemed to wobble and her knees buckled as if she was about to fall.

I know there are some people who might say that this was just what I needed and I probably should have been happy. If Corporamore was doing things like that, then the romantic scenario with Maggie and Kevin was obviously on the rocks. But really it was a horrible result. He was ancient and pointy, and I knew she couldn't really like him, not in
that
way.

I didn't want anyone doing what I'd seen him do to her.

There are lots of things I wish I had done that night. But there's nothing I can do about any of it now. I wish I had chased after Corporamore and I wish I had pushed him so that his glass of brandy fell out of his hand and tumbled and shattered on the floor. I'd have been delighted if the brandy had spilled all over him. I wish he had been so shocked and astonished that he'd have dropped his big fat cigar. I like to think of it falling from his pointy, jagged,
startled, pink hands and burning a massive hole in his trousers.

I wish then that I had grabbed George Corporamore and shoved him up against the wall, and I wish I'd said, “Stay away from her. Don't put your disgusting fingers anywhere near her ever again, or I'll kill you myself with my own bare hands. I swear to God I'll kill you.”

There are times when I think that I did do and say all those things. I can actually see the wet stains on his clothes and the surprised look on his face, and I can see myself strong and angry and I can see Corporamore snorting and struggling with me, and I can see me holding him against the wall.

For some reason another thing I wanted to do was take Maggie by the hand. I wanted to run down to the stables with her and jump onto the horses and gallop out of Blackbrick and away. Away from this place where someone thought it was okay to do that and where she thought she had to let him.

I can see us together going really fast. I can see us laughing. It's a bit weird how I can see it quite clearly in my head even though none of it happened.

I didn't know why I wanted to protect her and save her. It was not a rational thing, but it was very powerful and it was very deep. And it never goes away.

I kept thinking then how screwed up everything was. And how it was my fault. And so I was glad that the time had come for me to go.

I stayed in the shadows, staring at the space where I'd seen Corporamore and Maggie, long after both of them had gone and the space was empty except for a twist of cigar smoke that slunk across the hall, poisoning the air.