Maxwell's Island Read Online Free Page A

Wight, behaving like kids, would do them all the world of good.
    But every time he tried to immerse himself in household tasks, Mrs Whatmough’s face loomed like some terrible gorgon from the suds in the sink, from the chocolaty smears on the tabletop, from the cat food detritus in Metternich’s bowl – though to be fair the detritus was on the meagre side, so her features were rather sketchy. But sufficient unto the day was the Headmistress thereof, so it was a sunny Peter Maxwell who wheeled White Surrey down the path a few minutes later. The old velocipede wasn’t what he once was, but then, which of us is, Maxwell pondered. If he’d had to take the flyover at near-impossible speeds every morning with just a hint of WD-40 on his working parts, how would he feel? Maxwell was in midleg swing, not something that could be interrupted without serious tendon-twanging these days, when he heard the thing he most dreaded.
    â€˜Mr Maxwell?’
    Could he ignore it? How would he feel if it turned out she was calling with the last breath in her body and he ignored her? Fine, probably. He prepared to swing again.
    â€˜Mr Maxwell? Have you got a moment?’
    Without turning his head, he answered. ‘Not so’s you’d notice, Mrs Troubridge, no. Off to school, you know how it is.’ Since Mrs Troubridge had last seen a school when that nice Mr Nickleby was her form tutor, that statement was probably pretty wide of the mark.
    â€˜I only need a moment, Mr Maxwell.’ She was beginning to sound testy. ‘I have someone I would love you to meet.’ She sounded so excited, like an incompetent magician who had finally managed to produce a rabbit out of his hat, that Maxwell gave in. He was a kind man and his neighbour, though annoying and physically reminiscent of something from a Rider Haggard novel, was, when all was done and said, his neighbour. She and Nole got on like houses on fire, and even Metternich kept the number of dismembered voles left on her front step to a minimum, ever since the incident of which they no longer spoke. So, Maxwell turned to face her. And swallowed an involuntary shriek.
    Mrs Troubridge was standing halfway down her path, her little marmoset-like features split in a happy grin. All four foot eleven of her was swelling with pride but she was still, as always, tiny. Behind her, in the doorway, like some living optical illusion, stood an almost identical person. But this person was not, like Miss Troubridge, Mrs Troubridge’s previously long-lost, then found, then lost again sister, as like her as two peas in a pod.No, this person was as like her as one pea in a pod and one simply enormous pea, growing on a giant’s allotment. Everything else was the same. The grinning face, the fluffy hair, the pink dressing gown clutched tightly at chest and waist, so as not to inflame Maxwell’s passions so early in the morning.
    Maxwell rearranged his face into an amazed and welcoming smile. ‘Mrs Troubridge! A visitor; how lovely.’
    â€˜Not just
a
visitor, Mr Maxwell,’ she trilled. ‘This is my cousin Millie. She comes from the North, you know, but you mustn’t mind that.’ She came closer to Maxwell, and reached up slightly so she could whisper near his ear. ‘Miss Troubridge found her for me.’
    Maxwell fought down the sentences which were gathering on his tongue, ready to leap into the air. ‘She must have been quite easy to find,’ was the least offensive, but even so he preferred to settle for, ‘How kind. Had you been looking long?’
    She risked releasing her dressing gown for long enough to cuff him lightly on the arm. ‘Mr Maxwell, you always make me laugh. Except about the Incident, of course.’
    Maxwell tapped his nose wisely. ‘Not about the Incident, no. I do understand.’
    Mrs Troubridge’s voice became shriller. ‘I still wake up, sometimes,’ she cried. ‘It never