Prospero's Children Read Online Free PDF Page A

shaped, looking almost like an old man sitting hunched up, cloaked and hooded against the weather. It was not actually raining but a layer of pale cloud covered the sky and the air felt damp. A budding inclination to explore the path died when Fern realized she had come without suitable boots.
    Downstairs, she found her brother in the kitchen, bemoaning a lack of cereal, while the water boiled away from the old-fashioned iron kettle which Robin had left on the hob.
    “Dad’s gone to the village shop,” Will reported. “I asked him to get me some Frosties. He said he’d bring orange juice too.”
    “Is there a village shop?” Fern inquired, transferring the kettle to an unheated surface.
    “Probably.”
    Robin returned about three quarters of an hour later with squash instead of juice and no Frosties. “Only cornflakes,” he explained, “and porridge oats. Didn’t think you’d like those. Sorry about the juice. Said they’d run out.”
    “No Frosties!” Will bewailed.
    “You took a long time,” said Fern.
    “Met the vicar. Nice chap. Name of Dinsdale—Gus Dinsdale. Invited us to tea. Thought we might like to visit Edward Capel’s grave, pay our respects, I suppose. He’s buried here: local churchyard. Anyway, I said fine. Nothing else to do.”
    “A visit to a grave and tea with the vicar,” said Will. “Lovely weekend we’re having.”
    They spent the rest of the morning going through the house. Fern found a long-handled broom for the cobwebs and an antiquated vacuum cleaner which made a noise like a small tornado and seemed bent on sucking up the carpets. In the drawing room, she moved the idol to a place where it would not catch her eye every time she opened the door. It was much heavier than she had anticipated and the stone felt rough and chill; she shivered when she set it down. On the second floor, Robin became absorbed in the paintings and estimated that a couple of murky landscapes and the portrait of a little girl with Shirley Temple ringlets clutching a puppy might possibly be worth something. Will, disappointed to find that the vaulted gloom of the cellar contained nothing more promising than a wine-rack with several bottles of superior burgundy, was cheered by the discovery of an attic running the length of the house, colonized by spiders and littered with bric-a-brac, including an iron-bound chest which might have come straight from a pirates’ hoard. His enthusiasm was enhanced rather than mitigated when the chest proved to be locked, with no immediate sign of a key.
    “Looking for it will give you something useless to occupy your time,” said Fern, who had stubbed her toe on a lurking footstool and was determined to find nothing intriguing in an overcrowded attic. She was too old for treasure hunts.
    “I say,” said Robin from behind her. “Quite a place. Might find all kinds of stuff here—family heirlooms, missing works of art . . . That chair looks like a Chippendale. Pity it’s broken. Not much light, is there? We need Fern’s flashlight.”
    They came down finally at lunchtime when Mrs. Wicklow arrived carrying a covered dish. Her greeting was abrupt and her face only slightly less stony than that of the idol but the dish emanated an agreeable aroma of steak-and-kidney and Fern concluded that her attitude was not actively grudging, it was simply that she was resistant to change and unused to the incursion of strangers. “Solicitors told me t’ Captain was your great-uncle,” she said to Robin over their meal.
    “Well, not exactly . . .”
    “We decided he was our great-cousin,” Will said, “with an extra great for Fern and me.”
    “You must miss him,” Fern offered.
    “He was a good man,” Mrs. Wicklow conceded, “but tired. He was old and he didn’t like it. He couldn’t go walking the way he used to. Folks say long life is a thing to wish for, but I’m not so sure. It can’t be pleasant to outlive your friends. T’ Captain, he wasn’t t’ same since