Eva Ibbotson - Journey to the River Sea

‘Did I say I didn’t care for foreign food?’ said Miss Minton huffily. ‘I don’t remember saying it. In fact I didn’t say it.’

Up in the bungalow, the twins thought of nothing but the reward. When would it come, what would they do with it, how could they stop their parents from trying to get a share? Maia heard them still whispering about it when they went to bed. Sometimes their voices rose and they seemed to be on the edge of a quarrel, but then they made it up again because they saw themselves as standing alone against the world.

‘And as soon as we get it we can start getting rid of Maia.’

That was the other thing they whispered about. They had got rid of Miss Porterhouse by accusing her of stealing their things, and they had got rid of Miss Chisholm by telling their mother that she had been seen in Manaus with MEN.

They’d have to think of something different for Maia but they would do it, and once Maia went, Miss Minton would go too and they would be free.

And while the twins quarrelled about the reward, Mr and Mrs Carter quarrelled about Maia’s allowance.

‘I tell you,’ said Mr Carter, ‘I have to have this month’s allowance for Maia. It’s no good you hanging on to it like you did last month.’

‘Well, you can’t. The twins need new dancing shoes — and the dentist says they should have braces on their teeth. You know how expensive that is. You don’t want your daughters to grow up with crooked teeth, do you?’

‘If all I had to worry about was my daughters’ teeth I’d be a happy man. That swine Lima has walked out on me — my own agent! If he gangs up with Gonzales I’m finished.’

‘Perhaps if you didn’t spend our money on those ridiculous glass eyes, you wouldn’t be so hard up.’

‘Let me tell you that my collection is worth more than anything else in this house.’

‘Well, why don’t you sell it then and pay your debts? You know I only agreed to have Maia because of the money she brought. It’s I who have to put up with her, not you — you hardly see her. You hardly see your own daughters. And anyway I’ve ordered a new cockroach killer — they’re sending it out from the Army and Navy Stores in London and it’s expensive.’

‘Cockroach killer! I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. Just throw benzene over them and set them alight.’

‘Really, Clifford — no wonder you can’t run a proper business. Benzene indeed! I shall have to write to Mr Murray and ask him for more money for the girl. She’s not worth keeping for what I get.’

She broke off because Maia had come into the room, carrying her dancing shoes, to say that the launch was ready to go Manaus.

Maia had heard the quarrel — their angry voices echoed through the bungalow. It was a long time since she had thought that the Carters had taken her in because they wanted her, but knowing that she would still be living with these people after Finn had gone was hard to bear.

Two hours later she was playing the piano to Mr Haltmann and had forgotten her misery. She was getting on well, but the best part of her lesson came at the end when Haltmann made her sing. She still wouldn’t listen when he suggested that she had her voice trained, but she asked him about the Indian tribes — had their songs been collected, could she get hold of them?

‘I mean the Indians that live in tribes in the forest, not the ones near the towns.’

‘A few of them have been collected,’ he answered. ‘Only a very few — and there is much work to be done there. But you would find these songs very different and not at all easy to write down.’

‘But it could be done?’

‘Yes… with patience and a good ear.’ He smiled at Maia’s eager face. ‘And you have both, I think?’

At the dancing class everyone knew that Finn Taverner had been caught by the crows, that the twins had betrayed his hiding place and that he was on his way to England and the dreaded Westwood.

Everyone was sorry and no one would speak to the twins — not that they noticed. Even before the news of the reward the twins had lived in a world of their own.

Sergei was not there, his father had taken him on a journey upriver, but Mademoiselle Lille had brought Olga.

The Keminskys’ governess had come with red-rimmed eyes and the news that her father had died back in France, and that she was sailing home on the next boat to Europe.

‘I am thinking,’ she whispered to Miss Minton as they sat and watched the children dance, ‘why don’t you come and take my job? The Keminskys are excellent employers — well, you have seen.’

‘Yes, I can imagine no one better to work for,’ said Miss Minton. ‘But I couldn’t leave Maia.’

‘Perhaps they would have Maia also. The children are very fond of her — Sergei in particular.’

‘When do you leave?’

‘In two weeks. My poor mother is quite distraught.’

‘I’ll think about it. Thank you,’ said Miss Minton.

But she doubted whether Mr Murray would give permission for Maia to go and live with an unknown family of Russians. She would say nothing to Maia — there was no point in raising her hopes.

Though Finn had made it clear that he would not take Maia with him, she could not stop dreaming. It seemed to her that there could be nothing better than to travel on the Arabella on and on and on… To wake at dawn and cook breakfast over a Primus and watch the herons and cormorants dive for fish… to feed logs into the firebox and smell the wood smoke as they caught… And then to chug up the still, dark rivers with the trees leaning over to give shade, or across the sudden white-water lagoons where the water was milky in the sunlight.

This was what she had imagined that evening in the school library, sitting on top of the ladder and reading about the treasures that the Amazon would pour into the lap of those who were not afraid.

But she had not then imagined Finn. Finn was obstinate; he could be bad-tempered and curt and he was far too full of his own opinions — but she had fallen into friendship with him as surely as the soppy older girls at school had fallen into love. And now he was going, and Clovis had gone, and she would be left alone with the twins.

At first, hoping that Finn would change his mind and let her come, she had worked extra-hard helping him with the Arabella , but after a while she became so interested that she helped for its own sake.

‘Have you got any books about boats?’ she asked Minty.

‘One doesn’t learn about boats from books,’ said Miss Minton, but she found a manual about the maintenance of steam launches in the second-hand bookshop in Manaus.

‘What do you think they’ll be like, the Xanti?’ Maia asked Finn, and he shrugged.

‘My father said they were the kindest people he’d ever met. And they knew everything there was to know about healing. I’d like to learn that from them; after all, three-quarters of the medicines we use come from plants, and most of them come from the forest here.’ He hesitated. ‘I thought maybe one day I could become a doctor, but not the kind that just gives people pills.’

Maia nodded. Finn would make a good doctor, she could see that. ‘Did he say if they had any songs?’

‘They’ll have songs all right. All Indians sing, especially when they’re travelling.’

Maia sighed. She wanted to learn about the songs like Finn wanted to learn about the plants.

But it was hopeless. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ was all Finn would say, and that was that. She tried to put it out of her mind but she couldn’t. There were girls at school who wanted to ride, and others who wanted to go on the stage, and there was a girl who had made a terrible fuss till she was allowed to learn the oboe — not the flute, not the clarinet, it had to be the oboe. They knew that these things were for them; and Maia knew that boats were for her. Boats, and going on and on and not arriving unless one wanted to.