Eva Ibbotson

“And I you, Henry!” She had been right to love him; there was nothing else to do with this child. “Only how did you get here? I had no idea—” They had moved a little, so that the light of the terrace lantern was on his face. “Are you all right, Henry?” she asked, startled. “You haven’t been ill?”

“I had the measles, but I’m all right now. We came this morning and a nice man called Miguel brought us here in a little boat and I saw an alligator right close to, truly I did, and everything is absolutely marvelous, Harriet, and it’s all because of you.”

“Why me, Henry?” She drank in his soapy smell, put a hand on his ruffled hair. Soon it would come, the next bit, but she had a few moments still to relish his presence and his happiness.

“Because you found him—the ‘secret boy’—you told him about us and that we needed him. He knew all about Stavely and it was because of you, he told me. And Harriet, he’s bought it—bought Stavely, did you know?”

“No.”

“You can do that,” explained Henry. “You can buy places without being there. You send a cable and it goes snaking out along a tube at the bottom of the sea—and then the bank gives people money and you buy their houses. He did it just as soon as you told him about us, and it’s because of you that someone else didn’t buy it first. I told Mummy you’d find him; I told her!”

“She’s here then, your mother?” asked Harriet, noting her own idiocy. Where else would she be, the mother of such a child? The pain was beginning now—not unendurable yet… just mustering.

“Yes! And she’s so happy! She hasn’t been cross all day—well, only when I asked Uncle Rom a lot of questions, but he said I had a refreshing mind.” Henry paused and beamed up at her. The discovery that he had a refreshing mind had set the seal on this joyous and successful day. “He’s so nice, isn’t he—Uncle Rom? He’s just right for a ‘secret boy,’ even though he’s grown-up. I thought uncles might be… well, you know, uncles… but he isn’t. He showed me the manatees and some poisoned arrows he got from an Indian and the coati took a nut from my hand.” His attention caught by something in her expression, he said anxiously, “You do like him too, don’t you, Harriet?” ‘ “Yes, Henry. I like him very much.”

“Because he likes you a lot. He said we had a… mutual friend and that was you. And, Harriet, he told me all the things he’s going to do at Stavely. He’s going to make a tree-house, only not in the Wellingtonia because it’s too high; not that I’d be frightened, but it’s not convenient for it to be so high. And he’s going to get a huge dog—a wolfhound—and show me how to train him—and he’s going to get rid of awful Mr. Grunthorpe and let old Nannie come and live in the house again. He told me all that while Mummy was resting, and it’s all because of you, Harriet—otherwise someone else might have bought Stavely first, but you found him and you made everything come right.”

“I’m glad, Henry.” The pain could definitely be said to be limbering up. She had imagined it often, but there seemed to be aspects that one could not in fact anticipate and the physical part was beginning to be a nuisance: the nausea, the trembling that assailed her limbs—and needing cover, she moved away a little so as to be out of the brightest rays of the lamp.

“Mummy said I could stay awake and tell you all about it as long as I didn’t bother Uncle Rom.” Henry paused, remembering his mother’s unaccustomed gentleness as she put him to bed. “She said I could watch out for you and tell you everything because you’ve been so kind to us.” He moved closer to Harriet because there was still one anxiety that he needed to share with this best of friends. “When she was saying good night, Mummy told me that she had to marry my father when she was young because he made such a dreadful fuss when she said she wouldn’t, but now he’s dead she can marry Uncle Rom. Only Harriet, when she marries him he’ll be my stepfather, won’t he? Like Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield and all those cruel step-people in fairy stories. And Mr. Murdstone was nice to David before he married his mother, but then he was awful. Only I don’t see how Uncle Rom could be awful, do you?”

One last effort and then she could let go… crawl away, be sick, howl like Hecuba…

“Henry, if you don’t mind my saying so you’re being a little bit silly,” said Harriet, managing to make her voice matter-of-fact—almost reproving. “Surely you have read the Jungle Book?”

“Yes. Yes, I have.” She made no attempt to prompt him, but waited quietly until understanding came. “You mean Mowgli!” cried Henry. “Mowgli had a stepfather!”

“Exactly.”