The Empty Frame Read Free

of them, and considered. Only then, in the low, pillared entrance hall, did Magnus, Floss and Sam get their first proper look at Cousin M and she at them.
    They saw a bulky, dishevelled woman of sixty wearing mud-spattered wellington boots, jeans and a baggy sweatshirt covered with meadow flowers, and the words “Worth Protecting”. Of course, Floss was thinking, she’s a gardener. That’s what she does here. Cousin M had a plain no-nonsense face, a firm jaw, astraight, biggish nose and widely-spaced eyes of the most stunning dark blue. Floss envied these on the spot, and the hair too, which was still fair and extremely thick. It was gorgeous, heavy hair, the hair of an aspiring Lady Macbeth. But Cousin M obviously didn’t care about it. It was tied back sensibly and caught up in an old scarf.
    She saw a brother and a sister so alike they could have been two peas out of one pod – shortish and square, with the same coarse, dark hair and alert rosy faces with humour playing round the mouth. That came from their mother, her younger cousin Margaret, of whom she had always been very fond. It was great that her seaside flat had been free for their little holiday. Margaret would go picking up lame ducks though, and her latest thing was fostering this child. Cousin M wasn’t at all sure about the wisdom of such an idea. Still, she liked children and these three would certainly liven the old place up.
    Magnus, the foster son, was not big but he had long hands and feet which suggested he might grow tall if someone could get enough food inside him, enough sleep and enough fun… Enough love , love that wouldn’t keep getting snatched away as he was moved from one household to the next, but poured down on him steadily, like the warmth of the sun. She knew all about what had happened to him.
    â€œYou can go to bed in two ticks, dear,” she told him, ushering them into a chilly, raftered hall hung with paintings. It was dimly lit and the pictures were not much more than dark rectangles. Light came from two standard lamps set at either end of a huge polished table which stood in front of a blazing fire laid in a grate so enormous and so elaborately carved it was like a room in its own right. A coat of arms hung above the fireplace and above that a curious black waisted clock, the shape of a legless person with a gigantic round head. It was just nine o’clock. Incongruous amid all this ancientness, was an electric food trolley on casters. Out of this Cousin M produced hot bacon sandwiches, chips and warm buns. Floss and Sam fell on the food but Magnus shook his head.
    The woman studied him quietly for a minute, then she drew him gently towards her. Floss took in a sharp breath, waiting for Magnus to push the stranger away, but to her great surprise he sat beside Cousin M on the floor, meek and unprotesting, with his head against her knees. Normally, he shrank away from people, as if anyone who approached was bound to hurt him.
    â€œFloss, Magnus and Sam… wonderful names,” Cousin M said unexpectedly, surveying them all.
    Floss said shyly, “Is your name Emily… or Emma? Mum never told us what the M was for.”
    â€œ Emma ? Heaven’s no it’s – promise you won’t laugh?”
    They promised, even Magnus. He wasn’t asleep but, from his place of safety against Cousin M’s knees, was peering up at the portraits. One was much larger than the rest, the picture of a woman with very white hands and a very white face.
    â€œMy name’s Maude.”
    In spite of himself, Sam snorted. This was catching and Floss found herself tittering.
    Cousin Maude laughed too. “I know, it’s hideous. I blame my mother, she really should have known better. She was a Maude too. She was friends with Gertrude Jekyll.”
    â€œJekyll and Hyde… ” muttered Sam. It was one of the creepiest stories he had ever read, about a man who had two personalities,