Prospero's Children Read Online Free PDF

his dog died.”
    “Was he really a captain?” Will asked.
    “He was that. Been all over the world, he had. I don’t know as how he ever really took to it, being what he called a lands-man all the time. Of course, we’re near the coast here. He’d go down to look at t’ sea often and often, and come back sad about the eyes. Can’t say I trust it myself, t’ sea: it can seem so blue and gentle, but t’ water’s always cold and tricksy underneath.”
    “He must have collected a lot of things on his travels,” Will said opportunely. “I don’t suppose you know where I could find the key to that big chest in the attic?”
    “Could be anywhere.” Mrs. Wicklow achieved a shrug. “House is full of stuff. Most of it’s rubbish, if you ask me; he wasn’t one for throwing things away. T’ key’ll be tucked in a drawer in t’ study or bedroom if you’re that set on it.”
    “Which was the Captain’s room?” Will pursued.
    “One Mr. Capel has now,” Mrs. Wicklow said. She had done some investigative bed-making before serving the pie.
    “Er—make it Robin,” their father interjected. “Mr. Capel . . . bit formal.”
    “Mr. Robin, then.”
    “Might not all be rubbish, you know,” Mr. Robin remarked, discarding any further attempt at informality. “There are some good pictures, although I expect those came to him through the family.”
    “I don’t mind pictures,” said Mrs. Wicklow. “It’s that heathen idol in the drawing room I don’t like. Evil-looking object, I told t’ Captain to his face. Unchristian. He said it amused him. There’s different kinds of God, he used to say, all over t’ world. That’s not a kind I’d want in my prayers, I told him, nor any respectable person.”
    “I don’t care for it much either,” said Fern.
    “And then there’s that woman,” Mrs. Wicklow continued, obscurely. “Carved out of a whole tree, according to t’ Captain, painted up as bright as life, and showing her all just like in t’ Sunday papers. She came from a shipwreck, he said, back in t’ old days when ships had a real lady up front for t’ sailors to warm to, only she doesn’t look much like a lady to me. T’ prow, that’s what they call it. He kept it in t’ barn next door, and a big piece of t’ ship with it.”
    “We haven’t looked in the barn yet,” said Will, glancing compellingly at his father, his interest in sea chests temporarily in abeyance.
    “We ought to go and see,” Robin affirmed. “A ship’s figurehead—sounds pretty exciting.” His eyes were as bright as his son’s.
    Fern stayed in the kitchen, although her offer to help with the washing up was firmly rejected.
    “Funny thing, what your brother was asking,” Mrs. Wicklow resumed. “There was a young woman over from Guisborough, not long before t’ Captain died. Something to do with antiques. They’re all crooks, so I hear. Wanting him to sell stuff, she was. He sent her about her business. Anyway, I was doing t’ drawing room when they came downstairs, and I heard them talking. She was asking about keys.”
    Later that afternoon they paid a brief visit to the churchyard, where Ned Capel lay in the lee of a dry stone wall, with the turf plumped up like a pillow over his grave. It was a quiet place hollowed into the hillside, with the petals of a hawthorn drifting across the ground like a spring snowfall. “Home is the sailor, home from the sea,” Fern quoted, and for an instant she felt, irrationally, that she too had come home—home to the grimness of Dale House and the wild country waiting in the wings. “Is it supposed to be haunted?” she asked the vicar, over tea.
    “Extraordinary question,” said Robin. “Didn’t think you believed in ghosts.”
    “I don’t. It’s just—when we arrived, the house appeared, not exactly menacing, but reserved, sort of sullen, unwilling—or afraid—to let us in. I almost fancied . . .” She checked herself, remembering her vaunted distrust of