Wil was indifferent to the public rooms, though his relatives were not. They spent their lives polishing and furbishing and when everything was polished they went on endless grubbing searches through the unused rooms looking for more relics which could be cleaned up and sold to the British Museum.
Wil stood outside the schoolroom door listening. Down below he could hear the murmur of voices. Saturday was cheap visiting day—only two and six instead of five schillings—so there were twice as many people, and both Mr. Buckle and the skinny lady were at work escorting their little groups. Wil nodded to himself and slipped away, softly as a mouse, towards the back of the house where the tourists were never taken. Here it became darker and dustier, the windows were small, heavily leaded, and never cleaned. Little passages, unexpected stairways and landings wound about past innumerable doors, many of which had not been opened since Anne Boleyn popped her head around to say good-bye to some bedridden old retainer before taking horse to London. Tapestries hung thick with velvet dust—had Wil touched them they would have crumbled to pieces, but he slid past them like a shadow.
He was already lost, but he meant to be; he stood listening to the old house creaking and rustling around him like a forest. He had a fancy that if he penetrated far enough he would find himself in the forest without having noticed the transition. He was following a particularly crooked and winding passage, leading to a kind of crossroads or cross-passages from which other alleys led away, mostly dark, some with a faint gleam from a rain-streaked window far away down their length, and all lined with doors.
He paused, wondering which to choose, and then heard something which might have been the faintest of whispers—but it was enough to decide him on taking the passage directly fronting him. He went slowly to a door some twelve feet along it, rather a low, small door on his right.
After pushing he discovered that it opened outwards towards him. He pulled it back, stepped around, and gazed in bewilderment at what he saw. It was like a curtain, of a silvery, faded brown, which hung across the doorway. Then looking closer he saw that it was really leaves—piled high and drifted one on another, lying so heaped up that the entrance was filled with them, and if the door had swung inwards he could never have pushed it open. Wil felt them with his hand; they were not brittle like dead beech leaves, but soft and supple, making only the faintest rustle when he touched them. He took one and looked at it in the palm of his hand. It was almost a skeleton, covered with faint silvery marks like letters. As he stood looking at it he heard a little voice whisper from inside the room:
“Well, boy, aren’t you coming in?”
Much excited, he stared once more at the apparently impenetrable wall of leaves in front of him, and said softly:
“How do I get through?”
“Burrow, of course,” whispered the voice impatiently.
He obeyed and, stooping a little, plunged his head and arms among the leaves and began working his way inside them like a mole. When he was entirely inside the doorway he wriggled around and pulled the door shut behind him. The leaves made hardly any noise as he inched through them. There was just enough air to breathe, and a dryish, aromatic scent. His progress was slow, and it seemed to take about ten minutes before the leaves began to thin out, and striking upwards like a diver he finally came to the surface.
He was in a room, or so he supposed, having come into it through an ordinary door in a corridor, but the walls could not be seen at all on account of the rampart of leaves piled up all around him. Towards the center there was a clear space on the ground, and in this grew a mighty trunk, as large around as a table, covered with roughish silver bark, all protrusions and knobs. The branches began above his head, thrusting out laterally like those of an oak or beech, but very little could be seen of them on account of the leaves which grew everywhere in thick clusters, and the upper reaches of the tree were not visible at all. The growing leaves were yellow—not the faded yellow of autumn but a brilliant gold which illuminated the room. At least there was no other source of light, and it was not dark.
There appeared to be no one else under the tree and Wil wondered who had spoken to him and where they could be.
As if in answer to his thoughts the voice spoke again:
“Can’t you climb up?”
“Yes, of course I can,” he said, annoyed with himself for not thinking of this, and he began setting his feet on the rough ledges of bark and pulling himself up. Soon he could not see the floor below, and was in a cage of leaves which fluttered all around him, dazzling his eyes. The scent in the tree was like thyme on the Downs on a hot summer’s day.
“Where are you?” he asked in bewilderment.
He heard a giggle.
“I’m here,” said the voice, and he saw an agitation among the leaves at the end of a branch, and worked his way out to it. He found a little girl with freckles and reddish hair hidden under some kind of cap. She wore a long green velvet dress and a ruff, and she was seated comfortably swinging herself up and down in a natural hammock of small branches.
“Really I thought you’d never find your way here,” she said, giving him a derisive welcoming grin.
“I’m not used to climbing trees,” he excused himself.
“I know, poor wretch. Never mind, this one’s easy enough. What’s your name? Mine’s Em.”
“Mine’s Wil. Do you live here?”
“Of course. This isn’t really my branch—some of them are very severe about staying on their own branches—look at him.” She indicated a very Puritanical-looking gentleman in black knee-breeches who appeared for a moment and then vanished again as a cluster of leaves swayed. “I go where I like, though. My branch isn’t respectable—we were on the wrong side in every war from Matilda and Stephen on. As soon as the colonies were invented they shipped a lot of us out there, but it was no use, they left a lot behind. They always hope that we’ll die out, but of course we don’t. Shall I show you some of the tree?”
“Yes, please.”
“Come along then. Don’t be frightened, you can hold my hand a lot of the time. It’s almost as easy as stairs.”
When she began leading him about he realized that the tree was much more enormous than he had supposed; in fact he did not understand how it could be growing in a room inside a house. The branches curved about making platforms, caves, spiral staircases, seats, cupboards, and cages. Em led him through the maze, which she seemed to know by heart, pushing past the clusters of yellow leaves. She showed him how to swing from one branch to another, how to slide down the slopes and wriggle through the crevices and how to lie back in a network of boughs and rest his head on a thick pillow of leaves.
They made quite a lot of noise and several disapproving old faces peered at them from the ends of branches, though one crusader smiled faintly and his dog wagged its tail.
“Have you anything to eat?” asked Em presently, mopping her brow with her kerchief.
“Yes, I’ve got some cookies I didn’t eat for my mid-morning snack. I’m not allowed to keep them of course; they’d be cross if they knew.”
“Of course,” nodded Em, taking a cookie. “Thanks. Dryish, aren’t they—but welcome. Wait a minute and I’ll bring you a drink.” She disappeared among the boughs and came back in a few moments with two little greenish crystal cups full of a golden liquid.
“It’s sap,” she said, passing one over. “It has a sort of forest taste, hasn’t it; it makes you think of horns. Now I’ll give you a present.”
She took the cups away and he heard her rummaging somewhere down by the trunk of the tree.
“There’s all sorts of odds and ends down there. This is the first thing I could find. Do you like it?”
She looked at it critically. “I think it’s the shoehorn that Queen Elizabeth used (she always had trouble with wearing too tight shoes). She must have le
ft it behind here some time. You can have it anyway—you might find a use for it. You’d better be going now or you’ll be in trouble and then it won’t be so easy for you to come here another time.”
“How shall I ever find my way back here?”
“You must stand quite still and listen. You’ll hear me whisper, and the leaves rustling. Good-bye.” She suddenly put a skinny little arm around his neck and gave him a hug. “It’s nice having someone to play with; I’ve been a bit bored sometimes.”
Wil squirmed out through the leaves again and shut the door, turning to look at it as he did so. There was nothing in the least unusual about its appearance.
When he arrived back in the schoolroom (after some false turnings) he found his Aunt Agatha waiting for him. Squabb and Buckle were hovering on the threshold, but she dismissed them with a wave of her hand. The occasion was too serious for underlings.
“Wilfred,” she said in a very awful tone.
“Yes, Aunt Agatha.”
“Where have you been?”
“Playing in the back part of the house.”
“Playing! A child of your standing and responsibilities playing? Instead of getting on with your puzzle? What is that?” She pounced on him and dragged out the shoehorn which was protruding from his pocket.
“Concealment! I suppose you found this and intended to creep out and sell it to some museum. You are an exceedingly wicked, disobedient boy, and as punishment for running away and hiding in this manner you will go to bed as soon as I have finished with you, you will have nothing to eat but toast-gruel, and you will have to take off your clothes yourself, and feed yourself, like a common child.”
“Yes, Aunt.”
“You know that you are the Heir to this noble house (when your great-uncle Winthrop dies)?”
“Yes, Aunt.”
“Do you know anything about your parents?”
“No”
“It is as well. Look at this.” She pulled out a little case, containing two miniatures of perfectly ordinary people. Wil studied them.
“That is your father—our brother. He disgraced the family—he sullied the scutcheon—by becoming—a writer—and worse—he married a female writer, your mother. Mercifully for the family reputation they were both drowned in the Oranjeboot disaster, before anything worse could happen. You were rescued, floating in a pickle barrel. Now do you see why we all take such pains with your education? It is to save you from the taint of your unfortunate heritage.”
Wil was still digesting this when there came a knock at the door and Mr. Buckle put his head around.
“There is a Mr. Slockenheimer demanding to see you, Lady Agatha,” he said. “Apparently he will not take No for an answer. Shall I continue with the reprimand?”
“No, Buckle—you presume,” said Aunt Agatha coldly. “I have finished.”
Wil put himself to bed, watched minutely by Buckle to see that he did not omit to brush his teeth with the silver brush or comb his eyebrows with King Alfred’s comb in the manner befitting an heir of Troy. The toast and water was brought in a gold porringer. Wil ate it absently; it was very nasty, but he was so overcome by the luck of not having been found out, and wondering how he could get back to see Em another time, that he hardly noticed it.
Next morning at breakfast (which he had with his relatives) he expected to be in disgrace, but curiously enough they paid no attention to him. They were all talking about Mr. Slockenheimer.
“Such a piece of luck,” said Cousin Cedric. “Just as the tourist season is ending.”
“Who is this man?” creaked Great-Aunt Gertrude.
“He is a film director, from Hollywood,” explained Aunt Agatha, loudly and patiently. “He is making a film about Robin Hood and he has asked permission to shoot some of the indoor scenes in Troy—for which we shall all be handsomely paid, naturally.”
“Naturally, naturally,” croaked the old ravens, all around the table.
Wil pricked up his ears, and then an anxious thought struck him. Suppose Mr. Slockenheimer’s people discovered the room with the tree?
“They are coming today,” Uncle Umbert was shrieking into Great-Uncle Ulric’s ear trumpet.
Mr. Slockenheimer’s outfit arrived after breakfast while Wil was doing his daily run—a hundred times around the triangle of grass in front of the house, while Mr. Buckle timed him with a stop-watch.
A lovely lady shot out of the huge green motor car, and shrieked:
“Oh, you cute darling! Now you must tell me the way to the nearest milk bar,” and whisked him back into the car with her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Mr. Buckle had been commandeered to show somebody the spiral staircase.
Wil ate his raspberry sundae in a daze. He had never been in the milk bar before, never eaten ice cream, never ridden in a car. To have it all following on his discovery of the day before was almost too much for him.
“Gracious!” exclaimed his new friend, looking at her wristwatch. “I must be on the set! I’m Maid Marian you know. Tarzan, I mean Robin, has to rescue me from the wicked baron at eleven in the Great Hall.”
“I’ll show you where it is,” said Wil.
He expected more trouble when he reached home, but the whole household was disorganized: Mr. Buckle was showing Robin Hood how to put on the Black Prince’s helmet (which was too big) and Aunt Agatha was having a long business conversation with Mr. Slockenheimer, so his arrival passed unnoticed.
He was relieved to find that the film was only going to be shot in the main public rooms, so there did not seem to be much risk of the tree being discovered.
After lunch Mr. Buckle was called on again to demonstrate the firing of the 9th Earl’s crossbow (he shot an extra) and Wil was able to escape once more and reach in safety the regions at the back.
He stood on a dark landing for what seemed like hours, listening to the patter of his own heart. Then, tickling his ear like a thread of cobweb, he heard Em’s whisper:
“Wil! Here I am! This way!” and below it he heard the rustle of the tree, as if it too were whispering: “Here I am.”
It did not take him long to find the room, but his progress through the leaves was slightly impeded by the things he was carrying. When he emerged at the foot of the tree he found Em waiting there. The hug she gave him nearly throttled him.
“I’ve been thinking of some more places to show you. And all sorts of games to play!”
“I’ve brought you a present,” he said, emptying his pockets.
“Oh! What’s in those little tubs?”
“Ice cream. The chief electrician gave them to me.”
“What a strange confection,” she said, tasting it. “It is smooth and sweet but it makes my teeth chatter.”
“And here’s your present.” It was a gold Mickey Mouse with ruby eyes which Maid Marian had given him. Em handled it with respect and presently stored it away in one of her hidey-holes in the trunk. Then they played follow-my-leader until they were so tired that they had to lie back on thick beds of leaves and rest.
“I did not expect to see you so soon,” said Em as they lay picking the aromatic leaves and chewing them, while a prim Jacobean lady shook her head at them.
Wil explained about the invasion of the film company and she listened with interest.
“A sort of strolling players,” she commented. “My father was one—flat contrary to the family’s commands, of course. I saw many pieces performed before I was rescued from the life by my respected grandmother to be brought up as befitted one of our name.” She sighed.
For the next two months Wil found many opportunities to slip off and visit Em, for Mr. Buckle became greatly in demand as an advisor on matters of costume, and even Squabb was pressed into service ironing doublets and mending hose.
But one day
Wil saw his relatives at breakfast with long faces, and he learned that the company had finished shooting the inside scenes and were about to move to Florida to take the Sherwood Forest sequences. The handsome additional income which the family had been making was about to cease, and Wil realized with dismay that the old life would begin again.
Later when he was starting off to visit Em he found a little group, consisting of Aunt Agatha, Uncle Umbert, Mr. Slockenheimer and his secretary, Mr. Jakes, on one of the back landings. Wil shrank into the shadows and listened to their conversation with alarm.
“One million,” Mr. Slockenheimer was saying. “Yes, sir, one million’s my last word. But I’ll ship the house over to Hollywood myself, as carefully as if it were a new-laid egg. You may be sure of that, Ma’am. I appreciate your feelings, and you and your family may go on living in it for the rest of your days. Every brick will be numbered and every floorboard will be lettered so that they’ll go back in their exact places. This house certainly will be a gold mine to me—it’ll save its value twice over in a year as sets for different films. There’s Tudor, Gothic, Norman, Saxon, Georgian, Decorated, all under one roof.”