Eva Ibbotson - The Dragonfly Pool

And that meant dry ice!

The blocks of frozen carbon dioxide had arrived the night before, heavily packed in straw — a special consignment as a try-out before the play at the end of term. They had to be carefully lowered into a tin bath and warm water poured over them, and Karil, filling the buckets from the tap in the cloakroom, was in a state of bliss. The more water you poured, the mistier and more obscure the stage became.

The three little girls who were the heads of Cerberus were near the front of the stage; their masks had not been finished yet, but their necks swayed alarmingly. Barney was on a ladder, trying to reach his jet of water. Other spirits dashed about moaning and beseeching.

The ice was going so well that it was becoming harder and harder to make out the characters onstage.

“Isn’t it amazing stuff?” whispered Tally, and Karil nodded.

More mist floated onto the stage. And more figures blundered about. One was very large and used language that was not in the script as he tripped over a rock.

“It’s a policeman!” cried one of the heads of Cerberus.

“Two policemen,” called out the second head.

The men were enormous, looming in and out of the vapor with their arms stretched out in front of them.

For a moment, Karil was turned to stone. Then he threw a last bucket of water into the tub, ran out of the wings, jumped over the end of the stage, and raced the length of the hall.

Straight into the arms of a third policeman, guarding the door.

It was over so quickly, all the hope and the happiness. As he was led away by two of the policemen, it was all Karil could do to walk upright and hold up his head. Knowing what awaited him, he felt a despair so deep that he did not know how he would bear it.

Behind Karil and the policemen came his friends. The officers tried to shoo them away, but they had been through too much with Karil to leave him now.

Apparently he was not to be driven straight back to the hell of Rottingdene House. The policemen were making for the headmaster’s study, and Karil shivered. Had the duke come himself to clamp him in irons? Everything seemed possible.

Daley was seated behind his desk. Yet another policeman stood beside him — a swarthy man with a mustache, holding a briefcase — but this was clearly a high-ranking officer, because the men who had held Karil saluted him.

Karil’s friends had followed him into the room.

“It’s no good throwing us out,” said Tally, “because we won’t go.”

“Your manners are deplorable,” said Daley. “But as a matter of fact I wasn’t going to. Karil may be glad of your support.” And to Karil: “This is Chief Inspector Ferguson from Scotland Yard.”

The inspector nodded at the policemen. “You can let him go now,” he said. He walked over to Karil. “You’d better sit down, Your Grace. I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news for you.”

He pointed to a chair and Karil sat down, ever more confused and bewildered. Had the duke decided to send him straight to Borstal? The fact that the inspector was being so kind was surely ominous. And why was he calling him Your Grace? That was his grandfather’s title.

“Perhaps a drink of water, sir?” suggested one of the policemen, and Daley poured out a glass from the carafe on his desk.

Karil took it but could not bring himself to drink. His heart was beating so loudly that he thought it must be heard by everybody in the room.

“What is it?” he managed to ask. “The bad news…?”

The inspector laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’d better prepare yourself, Your Grace. It’s as bad as could be. Your grandfather is dead.”

People had been streaming into the school all day: parents and sisters and aunts. Some came by train, some by car using their saved-up petrol coupons. The hotels in the neighborhood were fully booked, though some of the visitors were staying in the school itself or in houses in the village.

It was the end of term; the parents would see a performance of Persephone and take their children home the following day.

And it was spring. After days of grayness and rain, Delderton was bathed in sunshine; primroses and violets studded the hedgerows. In the pet hut the large white rabbit was molting; Borro’s cow had had her calf, and Delderton was in a festive mood. As well as the play, there were exhibitions of the children’s paintings, and the garments made out of Josie’s carded wool, and all the things that are made in school carpentry workshops the world over: bookends and small tables with wobbly legs and boxes into which things could be put (provided one didn’t need to shut the lid). But the play was what everyone had come for.

Tally’s aunts were among the first to arrive; her father had an urgent meeting at the hospital and was coming on a later train. They wanted to see everything that Tally had described in her letters. The cedar tree, Magda’s room, Mortimer, the library, Clemmy’s art room, and Clemmy herself. They admired everything, knew where everything was — it was as though they had been to the school there themselves.

“Oh yes, yes, of course,” they cried as Tally led them through the building. Karil they knew already; he had stayed the night with them in London after his grandfather’s funeral and was coming to spend the Easter holidays. After a while they disappeared into the kitchen because it looked as though Clemmy could do with some help.

Thank God I decided to stay, thought Daley, as he watched the visitors arrive. Well-trained visitors, whose children had told them about the importance of the cedar tree and who stopped to admire it or pat its trunk. They all came: Barney’s father, Borro’s parents, the older sister who had brought Tod up…

Early in the afternoon a guest arrived in a large closed car — a man wearing a shabby dark suit, with straggles of silver hair under his hat — and was taken to Magda’s room, where she was frantically sorting the children’s clothes for packing.

“Oh!” she said. “You were able to come — we hoped, but…”

The minister of culture nodded. “There is not so very much to do at the moment — we watch and hope that things will change and that one day Bergania will be free again. But there is certainly time to visit my nephew.”

“He’ll be in the hall — they’re very busy with the play. We haven’t said anything to him in case you were detained. It is such splendid news that you and the prime minister will act as Karil’s guardians till he is of age.”

“Yes, we agreed as long as Matteo joined with us. Neither of us is young anymore.”

But now he had seen the manuscript laid out on Magda’s desk.

“Ah, Schopenhauer,” he said. “You are nearly finished?”

“Well nearly, but not quite,” admitted Magda. “You see, there is the question of this washerwoman. Here is a man who has devoted his life to Reason and the Will — is it likely that he would throw a washerwoman down the stairs?”

The minister of culture bent over the page she showed him.

“It’s a problem, certainly; don’t you think perhaps what really happened was that he just gave her a little push — nothing serious — and her legs were weak from standing over a washtub all day, and she fell?”

Magda looked at him gratefully. “Yes. Yes, that seems very probable. You think I should write it like that?”

They were still discussing this urgent matter when the door opened and Karil burst into the room.

“Magda, we need—”