The Morrow Secrets Read Free

aunt’s resolve.
‘Do be quiet. That will be all for now,’ said Agatha losing patience, ‘return to me a little after four o’clock, when my sisters will take you in hand.’
‘But Great Aunt Sybilla isn’t that keen on me either,’ said Tallitha with a final attempt to extricate herself from the arrangement.
‘Enough, do you hear?!’ shouted Agatha thumping the chair, ‘I have my reasons.’ Agatha Morrow’s fingers twitched nervously. ‘These are circumstances beyond my control and unfortunately you are the only one left!’ she said finally.
Agatha slumped back into her chair and reached for her smelling salts.
‘You’ve upset me, you wicked child. Quiet now. Be off with you before I completely lose my temper!’ she snapped.
In a dark fug of resentment Tallitha turned on her heel.
‘You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to!’ Tallitha shouted as she flounced out of the room.
‘We’ll see about that! I can do a great many things and taking you in hand, my girl, is one of them!’ replied Agatha firmly.
That girl was the limit. If only things had been different, she thought sadly to herself as she wiped away a stray tear. Tallitha must learn to behave for the good of the family.
Outside, Tallitha slumped heavily against the banister, kicking her feet against the loose carpet.
What was she to do? Those sisters were impossibly difficult and would make her life even more miserable. Perhaps there was a way out after all. They were definitely keeping something from her. Her great aunt had nearly let something slip, she was sure of it. But what was it? She had to find out, but who would tell her? It was hopeless, no one in the family told her anything.
Tallitha ran back to her bedroom, pushed the servants out of the way, and burst into tears.
Chapter Two
The Morrow Sisters
    When Marlin hurried from his mistress’s presence he took the longer route up the meandering south staircase. He needed time to consider how to deliver the Grand Morrow’s message. The old sisters hated being disturbed whilst they were working, to do so would incur their nasty remonstrations and these would pierce his delicate ears. Marlin muttered angrily to himself, wishing he could snooze in the Grand Morrow’s sitting room instead of having to take messages.
    Sybilla and Edwina’s apartments were on the fourth and fifth floors of Winderling Spires in the heart of the Crewel Tower. There were two principal entrances and a number of secret staircases that only the shroves and the Misses Edwina and Sybilla knew existed.
    Marlin had served the Morrow family for many years and understood their curious ways. The shrove was an odd spindly creature, bow-legged and skinny, with large bushy eyebrows and sticking-out ears. His clothes were shabby and much too small for him. They had shrunk over the years and the shrove was much too mean to acquire any new ones.
    Shroves were canny creatures, innately secretive and sly. They came from the wet marshland in the south-west of Wycham Elva and from the caves in the north-west of Breedoor. They were most at home in the nooky recesses of the Spires and were partial to snoozing when they got the chance. Tucked into their stone-lairs they would take naps, sip their noggins of wild berry juice and keep themselves cool by curling up against the dry stone walls. But their half-sleeping state was a pretence as their ever-sensitive ears were always alert to gossip and their heavy-lidded eyes constantly spied on the Spire’s inhabitants.
    The last flight was hard on Marlin’s chest as he crawled to the top of the winding staircase. At last he reached the sisters’ landing, clinging to the banister to get his breath.
    ‘A curse on those sisters always up to summat and that wayward child,’ he moaned in his wet, nasally voice. ‘Makin’ old Marlin do their biddin’. Well we’ll soon see about that. They’ll rue the day,’ he chuckled wickedly.
    Marlin smoothed down his greasy grey hair and