let her through and she dashed up the stairs, thinking it would just serve her right if she did run into Mum. Mum was probably the last person she wanted to meet – apart from Dad, that was – at least until she had thought of some way to stop Robert working magic all over the place. Andeven then there was the problem of what he was going to do for the rest of his life, she realised. She clattered up the stairs trying to think of jobs for magicians. All she could think of was a magic show on television. And wouldn’t Robert hate that?
She caught up with Robert outside the bedroom Queen Elizabeth I slept in. He was peering inside wonderingly. “What is the reason for the red rope across the doorway?” he asked her. “Is there danger beyond?”
“No, it’s because Queen Elizabeth I slept there,” Heather said. “The room’s full of treasures. Now
look—
!”
“But she never used
this
room!” Robert said. “They told me how a place was made for her downstairs. She was old then, and stairs troubled her.” And when Heather opened her mouth again to scold him, he gave her another of his odd sideways looks and said, “What strange things are called treasures! I see no treasure here but the coverlet my grandmother stitched for my brother’s wedding.”
“Well that’s a treasure because she stitched it so beautifully!” Heather snapped. “Now
listen
to me! You had no business sending those people home. They’d all paid to
be
here!”
Robert shrugged. “This is a matter I shall discuss with your father,” he said. “Where is he?”
Heather knew she needed a lot more time to think before she let Robert anywhere near Dad.She thought of herself saying to Dad, “This is Wild Robert. I just happened to call him up out of his mound.” And she knew just the kind, unbelieving look Dad would give her, and how he would try to hide a smile. Then she thought of Robert getting angry and turning Dad into a dog. She even knew the lean, brown, trusting sort of dog that Dad would turn into. No – she would have to do a lot of thinking before she let them get together.
“Last time I saw my father,” she said truthfully, “he was by the stairs to William Toller’s tower.”
Robert’s face brightened. “The old watch-tower! How do we go there these days?”
“Through the Long Gallery,” said Heather, and took him that way.
Robert was delighted with the Long Gallery. “This is almost as I remember!” he said, looking through one of the line of leaded windows. “And the view of the garden is not so strange, either! I can almost begin to think myself at home. Except—” He waved towards the rows of pictures in their fat gilt frames. “Except for these strangers. Who are they all?”
Heather seized on the chance to side-track him. She took Robert along the pictures and told him about all the ones she could remember the names of. “This is Lady Mary Francey,” she said. “I know her because she’s so pretty. And the bishop is Henry Toller. And here’s James Toller in the curly wig. Thisone with the gun is Edward Toller-Francey – I think he was killed in a war.”
As she went, she kept noticing a very mixed expression on Robert’s face. Heather thought she understood. Some of it was pride, some of it was the lost look she had noticed when Robert first saw the house. She thought she would feel very odd, too, looking at all the people who came after her in her own family. None of them looked much like Robert. Some of them had dark eyes and light hair, but none of them had the brown, slanted features of Robert’s face.
“There isn’t a picture of you, is there?” she said, as they came round under the picture of Sir Francis bowing to Queen Elizabeth I.
The mixed feelings on Robert’s face gave way to a bright smile Heather somehow did not believe in. She knew he was hurt again. “There would be none,”he said. “I had my portrait done, but I daresay it was burnt when I – when I was put