Journey to the River Sea

She learnt about the explorers who had braved incredible hardship to map the rivers and mountains of Brazil, she copied the drawings made by the early naturalists: drawings of marmosets and tapirs and anacondas ... and of the great trees which supplied the world with precious woods and rare medicines, and it was as though Miss Minton’s books gave her back the mysterious country she had longed to see, and which the Carters had shut out. She was told to write stories about whatever interested her; she learnt poetry by heart, and she wrote it.

From time to time she would knock on the door of the dining room, where the twins were doing their lessons, and ask how to spell a word, choosing an easy one so that the girls could despise her ...

‘How do you spell table?’ Maia would say, trying to sound worried, and Beatrice would tell her how to spell it, and say, ‘Goodness, can’t you even spell that?’

But mostly no one took any notice of what Maia was doing. The teaching had been good at the Academy but Miss Minton was a born teacher. Not that Maia enjoyed all her lessons. Minty insisted on an hour of maths each day. She also made her go on learning Portuguese, and Maia was about to complain when she tried out a few words on the sullen maid, Tapi, and found that Tapi understood her, and almost smiled!

It was because Miss Minton was determined that she should learn about the country that she lived in, that Maia had her first meeting with Mr Carter in his study.

The girls were drawing a teapot according to the instructions of Dr Bullman, narrowing their round blue eyes as they measured the exact distance from the handle to the spout, when Miss Minton came to Maia and said, ‘It’s time you learnt to draw proper maps. Go and ask Mr Carter if there’s a chart or a map of the country surrounding his house.’

Maia looked up, alarmed. She had scarcely spoken to Mr Carter who mostly sat silent and gloomy at meals and vanished as soon as he could.

‘Must I?’ asked Maia.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Minton, and returned to the twins.

Mr Carter’s room was the end one in the main part of the house. As Maia knocked on the door she heard a shuffling and a rustling, as though papers were being quickly put away. Then he called, ‘Come in.’

The room was dismal and dark like all the rooms in the house and the air was full of smoke from the cigarettes which hung from Mr Carter’s lower lip whenever he was alone. It was also dusty because he did not allow the maids to come in and clean. The charts and sales figures tacked to the wall had curling edges and looked as though they had been there for years; piles of paper lay in untidy heaps on the drawers and filing cabinets.

But in the centre of Mr Carter’s desk was a cleared space covered in a white cloth, and on it were small, round objects which he was examining carefully through a lens. At first Maia thought they might be samples of rubber or specimens of soil, or seeds. But when she came closer she gave a little gasp.

They were eyes.

Glass eyes, but still definitely eyes. And not the eyes of dolls or teddy bears. No, these were human eyes – and so carefully made that it was hard to believe they were not real.

The back of the eyes were hollowed like seashells to fit over the muscles of the person who had worn them, but the front was a perfectly copied ball. There were blue eyes and brown eyes and hazel eyes, and in the centre of the coloured part, a black pupil which looked as though it really must let in the light.

‘As you see, I am sorting my collection,’ said Mr Carter. He picked up one of the largest of the balls, criss-crossed with tiny scarlet veins, and held it to the light. ‘This is the left eye of the Duke of Wainford. He lost the real one in the Battle of Waterloo. It’s worth a pretty penny, I can tell you.’

Maia swallowed. ‘How do you get hold of them?’

‘Oh, I have a man who sends them out from England. There’s quite a few dealers in the business. They get them from the undertakers as often as not – most people don’t mind too much what happens ... afterwards.’ He put down the duke’s eye and picked up another one. ‘Now this one’s really special. It’s the right eye of a famous actress who was burnt in a fire in the theatre. Tilly Tyndall she was called. Look at the colour – it’s as blue as the sky, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe what that would fetch. Of course the really valuable ones are the doubles, but they’re rare.’

‘You mean two eyes from the same person? From someone who’s lost both eyes?’

Mr Carter nodded. ‘I’ve got three sets and they’re worth more than the rest put together.’ He put out a hand towards a blue velvet box, then changed his mind. The doubles were too valuable to show a child. ‘I tell you,’ said Mr Carter, ‘if this house went up in flames, it’s my collection I’d save.’

‘After you’d saved your wife and the twins,’ said Maia.

He looked up sharply. ‘Eh? Yes. Yes of course; that goes without saying. Now, what was it you wanted?’