Journey to the River Sea

‘The Amazon is the largest river in the world. The Nile is a little bit longer but the Amazon has the most water. It used to be called The River Sea because of that, and all over Brazil there are rivers that run into it. Some of the rivers are black and some are brown and the ones that run in from the south are blue and this is because of what is under the water.

‘When I go I shall travel on a boat of the Booth Line and it will take four weeks to go across the Atlantic, and then when I get to Brazil I still have to travel a thousand miles along the river between trees that lean over the water, and there will be scarlet birds and sandbanks and creatures like big guinea pigs called capa ... capybaras which you can tame.

‘And after another two weeks on the boat I shall reach the city of Manaus, which is a beautiful place with a theatre with a green and golden roof, and shops and hotels just like here because the people who grew rubber out there became very rich and so they could build such a place even in the middle of the jungle ... And that is where I shall be met by Mr and Mrs Carter and by Beatrice and Gwendolyn—’ She broke off and grinned at her classmates. ‘And after that I don’t know, but it’s going to be all right.’

But she needed all her courage as she stood in the hall a month later, saying goodbye. Her trunk was corded, her travelling cape lay in the small suitcase which was all she was allowed to take into the cabin, and she stood in a circle of her friends. Hermione was crying, the youngest pupil, Dora, was clutching her skirt.

‘Don’t go, Maia,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t want you to go. Who’s going to tell me stories?’

‘We’ll miss you,’ shrieked Melanie.

‘Don’t step on a boa constrictor!’

‘Write – oh, please write lots and lots of letters.’

Last-minute presents had been stuffed into her case; a slightly strange pin cushion made by Anna, a set of ribbons for her hair. The teachers too had come to see her off, and the maids were coming upstairs.

‘You’ll be all right, Miss,’ they said. ‘You’ll have a lovely time.’ But they looked at her with pity. Piranhas and alligators were in the air – and the housemaid who had sat up most of the night with Maia after she heard of her parents’ death, was wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.

The headmistress now came down the stairs, followed by Miss Emily, and everyone made way for her as she came up to Maia. But the farewell speech Miss Banks had prepared was never made. Instead she came forward and put her arms round Maia, who vanished for the last time into the folds of her tremendous bosom.

‘Farewell, my child,’ she said, ‘and God bless you!’, and then the porter came and said the carriage was at the door.

The girls followed Maia out into the street, but at the sight of the black-clad woman sitting stiffly in the back of the cab, her hands on her umbrella, Maia faltered. This was Miss Minton, the governess, who was going to take care of her on the journey.

‘Doesn’t she look fierce?’ whispered Melanie.

‘Poor you,’ mumbled Hermione.

And indeed the tall, gaunt woman looked more like a rake or a nutcracker than a human being.

The door of the cab opened. A hand in a black glove, bony and cold as a skeleton, was stretched out to help her in. Maia took it and, followed by the shrieks of her schoolmates, they set off.

For the first part of the journey Maia kept her eyes on the side of the road. Now that she was really leaving her friends it was hard to hold back her tears.

She had reached the gulping stage when she heard a loud snapping noise and turned her head. Miss Minton had opened the metal clasp of her large black handbag and was handing her a clean handkerchief, embroidered with the initial ‘A’.

‘Myself,’ said the governess in her deep gruff voice, ‘I would think how lucky I was. How fortunate.’

‘To go to the Amazon, you mean?’

‘To have so many friends who were sad to see me go.’

‘Didn’t you have friends who minded you leaving?’

Miss Minton’s thin lips twitched for a moment.

‘My sister’s budgerigar, perhaps. If he had understood what was happening. Which is extremely doubtful.’

Maia turned her head. Miss Minton was certainly a most extraordinary-looking person. Her eyes, behind thick, dark-rimmed spectacles, were the colour of mud, her mouth was narrow, her nose thin and sharp and her black felt hat was tethered to her sparse bun of hair with a fearsome hat pin in the shape of a Viking spear.

‘It’s copied from the armour of Eric the Hammerer,’ said Miss Minton, following Maia’s gaze. ‘One can kill with a hatpin like that.’

Both of them fell silent again, till the cab lurched suddenly and Miss Minton’s umbrella clattered to the floor. It was quite the largest and ugliest umbrella Maia had ever seen, with a steel spike and a long shaft ending in a handle shaped like the beak of a bird of prey.

Miss Minton, however, was looking carefully at a crack in the handle which had been mended with glue.

‘Did you break it before?’ Maia asked politely.