Page 36 of The Secret Christmas Library

The sheer relief of being back in the kitchen was immense.

Bonnie had found storm lamps and lit them, and they flickered reassuringly around the place, and made it cosier than ever.

She had also lined the kitchen door to keep the snow and the draughts out.

If she hadn’t had exciting news to impart, Mirren would have been in grave danger of falling asleep the second she sat down.

They sat around the table, as Bonnie served them tea with a slug of whisky in it to make up for there being no fresh milk today, and black bun, a thick, treacly fruit cake that was absolutely delicious.

Mirren showed them the ingenious cut-out book.

‘I wonder if he was ever a spy?’ pondered Jamie, and Esme snorted and said, if he was he would have probably spent more time in the House of Lords, where he had once held a hereditary seat, and less poking around old second-hand bookshops buying stock by the yard, and Jamie had had to concede that that was probably true.

‘Didn’t he ever have a real job?’ asked Mirren.

‘The estate is a real job,’ said Esme quickly.

‘That he was very, very bad at,’ added Jamie.

‘Yes, bit of a family tradition,’ said Esme, holding up the locket to the light. ‘This is just cheap tat,’ she said. ‘Disappointing. I suppose if it had been worth anything Mummy would have sniffed it out a mile off.’

‘I think it’s pretty,’ said Mirren.

‘Do you?’ said Esme, and Mirren felt that any warmth that had grown between them this morning had abruptly worn off.

‘What’s inside?’ said Jamie. ‘I couldn’t open it.’

Esme, however, had perfectly manicured nails with neat edges, and with absolute precision she carefully found the latch and clicked it. They all leaned over, with Theo holding up the lantern to get a closer look.

Inside was a tiny picture.

But it was not, as Mirren had expected, a photograph of a young woman – nobody had recognised the handwriting of the letters.

Instead, it was a tiny, ancient painting.

It was of a young man, but it wasn’t James; it was a boy of a fashion many years ago, painted, with pink cheeks and blond hair, and an old suit with an Elizabethan ruff.

Around his neck was an animal that looked something like a monkey.

Both gazed out of the tiny locket with a cool, penetrating stare.

The colours were crude – red, blue and yellow – but they glowed bright. The style was very old indeed.

‘What?’ said Theo. ‘Who the hell is that?’

‘It can’t be someone from here,’ said Jamie. ‘It’s much earlier.’

All four of them stared at the picture. Theo once again took out his tweezers and very carefully worked the photo out of the locket. It was so beautiful and so strange.

Turning it over in the dim light, they saw a faint trace of writing on the back. And sure enough, once more there they were: a series of numbers.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Esme. ‘Grandfather, what the hell else did you have to do all day?’

Mirren read them out. ‘1, 2, 1, 3, 4, 1, 4, 2.’ She blinked. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Seriously, what now? Don’t say Fibonacci.’

‘Fibonacci what?’ said Theo. ‘What could it be?’

‘A date? The day this was painted? The first of the second, 1341?’

‘Not very likely,’ said Jamie gloomily. ‘The fashion is Elizabethan.’

‘And it’s printed, not painted,’ said Theo, holding it close to the candle, although wary of it. ‘Although that could be the original date . . . ’

‘But the clothes are too late; you’d need a 5 in there, minimum.’

‘Well, a date from another time, then?’

‘Yes, but where?’

‘Also, you know, this picture is almost certainly cut out of a book,’ ventured Theo, and they all groaned in unison.

‘Oh, God,’ said Esme. ‘For GOD’S SAKE. This is absolutely bloody ridiculous.

I don’t even think there’s anything at the other end.

I don’t even think there’s that. There’s nothing.

It’s all been some completely futile ha ha ha make money on your own, you suckers, it’s all gone.

If we ever get there, which I very much doubt, it’ll be an empty jack-in-the-box.

No wonder you didn’t tell Mum about this stupid thing. ’

‘Es,’ said Jamie, in a softer tone than he normally used.

‘It’s okay for you!’ said Esme. ‘You’ve got a roof over your head. You’ve got it all! I’m the one bouncing about between friends I went to school with, spending half the year yacht-hopping!’

‘I thought you loved yacht-hopping,’ said Jamie. ‘You’re always going on about how great it is.’

Esme rolled her eyes. ‘What, hanging on, being beautiful and elegant and delightful and entertaining and hoping for crumbs off their table? As every year the other girls get younger. Not particularly, no.’

‘Could you not just go and get a job?’ said Mirren, timidly. ‘You must have friends who work in film and fashion and cool stuff like that?’

Esme heaved a sigh. ‘Yes, I do. Those jobs don’t pay actual money, you do know that? You can’t live off them.’

‘Um,’ said Mirren, who did not know that.

‘You don’t search for books for a living, do you?’

‘I’m a quantity surveyor.’

Esme snorted. ‘Exactly. I don’t even know what the hell that is.’

‘It means she can tell you if your house is about to fall down,’ said Theo.

‘Is this house about to fall down?’

Mirren made a wobbling ‘maybe’ sign with her hand flat.

‘Oh, that looks like an easy job,’ said Esme. ‘Better than wasting your time here with this nonsense. What do you think, Theo? You’re meant to be the book guy.’

Theo looked serious. ‘There’s a lot of house clearance stuff here,’ he said.

‘I think when your grandfather . . . we see this quite a lot. When he bought a lot of stuff at auction, when people get really accumulative with book-collecting or anything else . . . they can get a bit less discriminating. Which means they’ll buy anything.

And collections that come to auction . .

. well, usually those families have been through them first to see if there’s anything truly valuable. ’

Esme folded her arms. ‘So it’s just a heap of fucking junk,’ she said.

‘Just like I always thought.’ She kicked the wooden kitchen table leg in frustration.

‘And he just let these bloody books pile all their way up over here like a fricking . . . maze. The house is already a maze; he just made another maze. Out of garbage.’

‘Oh, Esme . . . ’ began Mirren, feeling sorry for the beautiful posh girl, which felt like a completely absurd position to be in.

‘Ssssshhh!’ said Jamie suddenly.

They all turned to stare at him, Esme looking truculent: how dare her little brother consider giving her a telling off? But Jamie was screwing up his eyes as if trying to ignore everyone else in the room.

‘A maze,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Esme. ‘That’s what I said.’

He grabbed the tweezers from Theo and stared intently at the picture.

‘What’s that monkey thing?’ he asked finally, screwing his eyes up even tighter and holding it right up to his face. ‘I don’t think it is a monkey. It’s got stripes. Monkeys don’t have stripes.’

‘It’s a bush baby?’ said Theo. ‘Something like that?’

Jamie snapped his fingers. ‘It’s a lemur.’

They stared at him, uncomprehending.

‘Hang on,’ said Mirren. ‘What about the boy with a ruff? Is he a fairy-tale boy? He’s wearing a fairy-tale outfit. Like in “The Elves and the Shoemaker”.’

‘I think something like that . . . ’ said Jamie. ‘Oh, lord, it’s on the tip of my tongue who he reminds me of.’

They stared at it.

‘Poem!’ said Mirren, flapping her hand, then remembered it was still in her pocket. ‘The saddest tale of woe is told,’ she said.

‘Yes!’ said Jamie, then thought for a second. ‘For never was a story of more woe,’ he quoted, ‘than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’

Mirren grinned. The embroidered pantaloons, the dagger round his waist, the floppy hat . . . ‘It’s Romeo!!!’

‘YES!’

They practically hopped up and down in glee.

‘And?’ said Theo.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Jamie.

‘Yeah,’ said Mirren. ‘Oh, no, hang on, I don’t get it at all. Why is there a locket with Romeo on it?’

‘The one thing this isn’t,’ said Theo, ‘is obvious.’

‘So it’s Romeo. From Romeo and Juliet,’ said Jamie.

‘Romeo and a lemur?’

‘Exactly. Romeo Lemur.’

‘Who the fuck is Romeo Lemur?’ said Esme.

‘No. It’s not a name. Romeo is R. Lemur is L. In the phonetic alphabet.’

Theo scrunched up his nose. ‘Lemur isn’t L in the phonetic alphabet. It’s lima.’ He saw Mirren’s surprised face. ‘I’m good in a pub quiz. Shut up.’

‘It’s lima these days,’ said Jamie, refusing to be put off. ‘It used to be lemur, then they changed it because more people recognised it.’

‘They should probably change Zulu now,’ said Theo, musing.

‘Okay, let’s not get into this,’ said Mirren, staring at the tiny picture. ‘Do you really think that’s what it means? But then what do the numbers mean.’

‘Well, it’s possible . . . Look, this is a reach,’ said Jamie.

‘YOU THINK?’ said Esme.

‘I think if you started with Romeo at the entrance of the maze – and went one right, two left, one right, three left . . . ’

They all stared.

‘I haven’t been in that stupid thing in years,’ said Esme.

‘Well, that’s not quite true,’ said Jamie. ‘Because someone used to go and smoke dope in it every school holidays.’

Esme didn’t deign to give this an answer, but Mirren, looking at her, could see she was working it out in her head, mentally tracing her steps.

Something occurred to her. Even now, she still instinctively went to her pocket for her phone, before remembering.

‘Jamie!’ she said. ‘The poem. How does it go?’

Jamie took out the copy he was keeping in his back pocket and traced down the lines.

‘The ancient routes stand fast,’ he read.

‘ Oh, yeah, those roots are ancient,’ said Esme. ‘They’ve been growing it for hundreds of years.’

‘No, not roots, r-o-u.’ Jamie paused. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, it could be. I mean, it could be roots . . . ’

‘Sounds encouraging,’ said Mirren.

‘Or rubbish,’ said Esme.

‘Well, what’s next?’ said Theo.

‘A crown of gold,’ said Mirren. ‘Is there a crown of gold anywhere?’

Esme and Jamie looked at each other.

‘It all got sold,’ said Esme. ‘Everything. This is so stupid. If we had any gold . . . ’

‘Well, we wouldn’t, because it would have been sold,’ said Jamie.

‘He should have put that in his stupid poem,’ said Esme. ‘All the gold, which we accidentally sold. And now my stupid story is told and this house is stupid and old.’

Jamie walked towards the kitchen window. The snow had stopped, and a vast oak moon hung over the gardens.

‘I think we should probably call it a day before Esme goes bonkers,’ he said.

‘Don’t be so bloody bold,’ said Esme.

‘If it doesn’t snow tomorrow, we can probably get out. Sky is clear,’ he said. ‘That’s a good sign. Hopefully everything will ice over. Shall we dress for dinner?’

‘No, because it’s TOO! FRICKING! COLD!’ shouted Esme after him, as he disappeared upstairs.