Eva Ibbotson

“It’s just so extraordinary, Henry. You see, I have been thinking and thinking about this place. For a whole week I’ve thought of nowhere else. And then I find you…” she shook her head. “It’s a beautiful book,” she said. “Absolutely beautiful.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

Fellow bibliophiles, they looked with satisfaction at the thick pages with their wavy edges, the sepia illustrations protected by wafer-thin paper; drank in the smell of old leather and dust, while Henry—an impeccable host—led her into his promised land.

“That’s an anaconda—it was twenty feet long before Colonel Bush killed it—and here’s a canoe full of Indians: friendly ones, not the kind that shoot you full of arrows. Those are terribly dangerous rapids in the background; the Colonel had to drag his boat out of the water and carry it over the hill when he got to them. And somewhere there’s a lovely one of a whole lot of capy… capy-somethings, like huge guinea-pigs. Look!”

They pored together over the herd of large, somewhat absurd rodents basking on a sand-bank. Not all the pictures were very clear, for the intrepid Colonel had wielded his Kodak under conditions of quite spectacular hardship, but to Harriet and Henry each and every one was of absorbing interest. There was one of a steamer of the Amazon Navigation Company going down the river; one of a rubber gatherer; a seringueiro, crossing a creek on a felled tree… And several of the author: a splendid man in a topee, lying in his hammock at a bivouac, standing with his gun astride a dead jaguar… arm-in-arm with an Indian chief in a lip-disc who came scarcely to his waist.

“It doesn’t hurt them, having their mouths like that,” explained Henry reassuringly. “They like it—they sort of stretch their lips gradually. It’s an honor.”

Harriet nodded, as entranced as the little boy. “Is there a picture of Manaus, Henry?”

“Yes, there is.” Enormously pleased to be able to oblige her, he turned the pages carefully, his square-tipped fingers uncannily like those of old General Brandon in the portrait the gloomy Mr. Grunthorpe had shown them in the Long Gallery. “Look, here it is! It’s called ‘the Golden City.’ Why is it called that, do you know?”

“I think it’s because everyone there is so rich,” answered Harriet thoughtfully. “But I’m not sure. People have always thought about gold in South America and searched for it. Golden cities with golden roofs; golden palaces where there’s hidden treasure. ‘Eldorado,’ they call it.”

She gazed at the picture—an elegant cathedral, a flight of steps, a park with palm trees. In the distance, blurred, some other buildings. Was that faint crisscrossing in front of one of them a line of scaffolding? The book was dated 1890—just about the time that the Opera House was begun… Avidly she began to read the text, only to be recalled by a small sigh from Henry. Glad as he was to have found for her the city she had requested, he yearned inevitably for the tree sloth and giant electric eel which awaited them.

“What I don’t understand, Henry, is why you are not supposed to read this book,” said Harriet when they had studied all the pictures. “Surely it’s a good book for someone young to read? A book about adventures?”

There was a pause while Henry pondered, evidently putting her through some final test.

“It’s because it belonged to ‘the Boy.’ ” He spoke with a curious awe, looking up at her to gauge the effect of his words. “He’s a secret, you see. No one’s allowed to talk about him and if I ask anyone, Mama gets cross. I took it from old Nannie in the Lodge, when she was asleep. It was his absolutely favorite book and he left it for her when he went away.”

“He lived here, then?”

“Oh, yes. But he did something bad, I think, and they sent him away. Before I was born, this was—about when Grandfather died. He had the book for his ninth birthday, Nannie said. Sometimes she tells me a bit about him when she’s had her medicine.”

“Her medicine?”

Henry nodded. “It’s called Gordon’s Gin and it’s in a big bottle by her bed; when she’s had some, she tells me about him. She just calls him ‘the Boy,’ as though there weren’t any other boys in the world. He was very wild and very brave. He climbed the oak tree by the gatehouse roof and swung over to the parapet—and he had a huge black dog that followed him everywhere and when he went away the dog stopped eating and died.” The child’s eyes shone with hero-worship. “He had a cross-bow too and he could shoot for males and he didn’t wear spectacles and he wasn’t afraid of the dark. At least, I don’t think he was—Nannie didn’t say.”

“I expect he was older than you, Henry,” said Harriet gently. “I expect when you’re his age you will be just like him.”