The Discovery.

The cello sat in the corner of the attic, dusty and forgotten. She had been there for years, abandoned by the boy who had had such good times with her. The boy had grown up and become a business man, following in his parents footsteps, and so had more important things to think about. He didn’t want to play any more……

For years the cello didn’t move and the dust sat in layers on her curved and once shiny body. The strings were now fragile and worn and silent. Because the cello had been asleep for so long she wasn’t aware of the day a young girl climbed into the attic while she was visiting her grandparents. The girl’s name was Lucy and she had been bored because her grandparents were just like her father, too busy working to take any notice of her. Oh they loved her sure enough but they weren’t very good at showing it.

“Run along and play now”, they would say when Lucy wanted them to play with her. “We’re busy right now, but we’ll play with you later.”

But later never came and Lucy began to feel abandoned and very, very bored! One day, to amuse herself she decided she was going to go on an expedition. She was going to discover a new land, somewhere where people had never been before. So, with Kitty the housekeepers help, she packed a little backpack with sandwiches, a bottle of pineapple juice, some crisps and an apple and she set off. In her pocket she kept a pencil and a small note book so she could record her journey into the unknown. Inside her backpack she also stuffed a jersey and a hat for she did not know what kind of land she would discover. Who knows it might be an arctic wasteland or a desert? She thought that she had better be prepared for all eventualities.

 

Her grandparents lived in a big old rambling house on the outskirts of a small Irish town. It had huge gardens, perfectly maintained by the gardener and some beautiful Victorian hothouses where he grew tomatoes and cucumbers. There was even an orchard, full of apple trees and plum trees which grew along the back wall where the sun could shine on them all day.

In order to get to the orchard Lucy had to pass the scullery and the small back-staircase which led up the two maid’s rooms above the kitchen. Of course they didn’t have maids any more so the two rooms were full of old junk, a treasure trove really, full of mysterious old objects and books. “One day I’ll explore them,” Lucy thought to herself as she pushed open the big heavy door which led into the courtyard. To get to the orchard Lucy had to go through the passage-way which led off from the courtyard. Once upon a time there had been horses and carriages kept in this courtyard and Lucy could see it all still. The cobbled ground still rang with the sound of wooden carriage wheels and horses metal shoes. She could still hear the stable master shouting at the horse-boy to get the horses and carriage ready for the mistress who had decided she wanted to go for a spin.

Lucy sighed wistfully and then, readjusting the pack on her back, headed off into the orchard through the passageway. At the end of the passageway was a large red door and she had to push very hard to open it, but she managed to push it far enough so she could just squeeze through without her bag becoming stuck in the narrow space! Once she was through she took out her notebook and pencil and wrote down the beginning of the journey. She drew a small map, so she could find her way back, then she put it away and began to walk slowly up the mossy, well trodden path which led…….somewhere. When she reached the top of the path she had a choice. She could go either left, or right. Looking to the right she saw that the path led through another green gate but she decided to take the left path because she couldn’t see to the end of it, and that felt more exiting. Who knew what she might find?

As she walked she looked all around her. The apple trees were in full bloom and they looked very magical. She looked hard to see if there were any fairies in the trees because she had read stories all about them so she knew that they sometimes lived in orchards too. But she couldn’t see any. She wrote that down in her book and continued her journey. The path veered off when it reached the old Victorian hothouses and she stopped to peer in the glass window. She could see the tomatoes plants, lush and green and the peach tree which grew along the back wall, its branches held on by lines of string. There were no peaches, only very pretty pink flowers. It was quite hard to see in the windows as there was a lot of water on the inside of the glass but it did look magical.

Lucy wrote it all down and put a star next to it so she would remember to explore it too, next time. She walked further down the path, looking at all the young vegetables which were growing in long rows toward the end of the walled orchard. The path turned left again so she followed it down. More vegetables! At the bottom of the path was the orchard wall which she stopped to look over. She leaned out over it and saw that below it was another path which seemed to lead into the woods through a wrought iron gate painted white. She drew it all down on the map and continued following the path until it eventually ended at a stone staircase which led out onto the croquet lawns. She finished the map and headed into the garden. She felt a little disappointed as she had found herself back in the familiar garden, with its rose beds and huge sweet chestnut trees.

No amazing discoveries today she thought and she sat down on the green iron garden bench which lay beneath the porch entrance window and took out her notebook. NO DISCOVERIES TODAY. She wrote in capital letters. She stuffed the notebook back into her pocket and took out her sandwiches. While she ate them she thought about where else she could go. Perhaps there are undiscovered places inside she thought suddenly. She had never considered this before as people always went outside to discover new places. Excitedly she finished her sandwich as quickly as possible and was just beginning to put her backpack on when her grandmother appeared at the door of the porch.

“Lucy, I’m just popping into town for a few messages. I’ll be back shortly. You’ll be OK with Kitty won’t you?” she said as she opened the car door and sat in behind the wheel.

“I’ll be fine.” Lucy answered. “See you in a while.” And she waved as her grandmother drove over the cattle grid and down the avenue. She waved until she could no longer see her then went into the house to look for inside places to discover.

At the end of the long hallway she decided that her best bet was probably upstairs so she trotted up the stairs until she reached the top. To her left was the doorway which led into the maid’s rooms but she decided to explore the very end room which her great grandmother Gertie used to live in.  Gertie’s room was very large and the windows looked out over the gravelled front and the terraced gardens with the lily pond. Beyond the lily pond garden was the disused tennis court and beyond that the tree lined avenue which led down to the main road.

In the room there was a large double bed with wooden head and foot boards. A big green feather quilt lay across it. A huge old marble fireplace sat against the wall and a full length wooden mirror stood beside it. There was a large chest of drawers in the corner, between two big windows, which Lucy decided to investigate. On the chest of drawers there was a set of silver brushes and a matching silver mirror. Lucy picked up the brush and began to brush her shoulder-length hair imagining that this was her bedroom and her silver hair set. She imagined that the shutters were closed and green velvet curtains shut. A fire filled the room with a warm glow as she brushed her hair. A hundred strokes she thought, while she sat in her white cotton embroidered nightdress. There was a knock on the door and Lucy imagined herself saying “Come in.” as she placed the hairbrush neatly beside its companion comb. Brigit the maid entered. “I’ll just turn down your bed Miss.” She said as she walked to the bed and plumped up the eiderdown and turned it down ready for her young mistress to get into. She put the hot-water bottle deep beneath the sheets then turned to the fire and placed the fireguard in front of it.She curtseyed and asked “Is there anything else Miss?”

“No thank you Brigit, that will be all.” And with a nod, Brigit left the room and closed the door behind her.

Lucy gazed into the mirror and smiled. She looked about the room. She could imagine her elderly great grandmother lying in her bed. Mrs. G the staff always called her. She was strict but fair and was well respected. But she did have a spark of playfulness in her and Lucy could remember some of the stories her father had told her about his grandmother. Once, when her father was only 24, he had wanted to go into business raising pure bred cattle, but he didn’t have the money. As the eldest son he was supposed to take over the running of the family business but he wasn’t interested in doing what everyone else had always done. He wanted to be different, to explore new ideas. Just like me, thought Lucy. So his grandmother Gertie had secretly given him the money to buy some special calves. When he had bought the calves he wanted to show his grandmother so had to sneak the calf up the stairs and into Gertie’s room where he laid the calf on the bed where his grandmother lay. Gertie was delighted. But, the calf had other ideas about being snuck around the house and promptly pooed, all over the eiderdown. Lucy’s father and Gertie had to work very fast to get rid of the smelly eiderdown before anyone noticed. They thought it was very funny at the time.

I wonder what they did with it? Lucy thought as she ran her hands over this silken green eiderdown. As she was wondering she noticed another cupboard, but it was painted white and was set into the wall. She opened up the double doors and behind it was tiny washroom, complete with washbasin and commode. Must have been Gertie’s, she thought and was just about to close the doors again when she noticed another door set into the right hand wall of this tiny washroom. Her curiosity was aroused but she couldn’t see how to open the door. There was a small enamelled doorknob but it wouldn’t turn, no matter how much she tried. “Maybe its only a decoration,” she muttered finally, giving up. But just as she did so she pushed on the handle and the door suddenly swung inwards. It happened so fast she nearly fell through it. Gasping she grabbed the handle to stop herself from falling through and pulling herself upright, her heart beating fast, she noticed that beyond the door was a small wooden staircase leading up to…..somewhere. She felt really excited. A mysterious inside place, she thought and she began to walk carefully up the stairs. She heard the door click shut behind her but she was too excited to worry about that. The stairs were rather steep so it took a little effort to climb them but once she was at the top she stopped and looked around her. It was rather dim so she felt around the walls for a light switch. She eventually found one and pushed it. An old and very yellow light came on lighting up the darkness.

“Wow,” Lucy said out loud as she looked all around her. There were cobwebs everywhere and she had to duck to avoid getting them in her hair. Yuck she thought to herself, shivering with disgust. She crept around the attic looking into corners. There were lots of boxes and pieces of old furniture but there was so much dust everywhere it was hard to make out what they were. In one corner there was a rusty old fireplace. How on earth did they get that up here, she wondered. She continued looking through all the junk that had been left there, peering into old boxes and trunks until she suddenly heard a ‘ping’. She looked up quickly, suddenly nervous, to see where the noise had come from. When she couldn’t see anything she thought it must have been a mouse or something and she continued to root through the old boxes. There were books and old pieces of paper, some of which were quite wood wormy in one old wooden chest. In another there were old clothes, all dusty and moth-eaten so that when she picked up a shirt it fell to pieces in her hands. “aw, what a pity,” she said, “I could have used that.” She didn’t try to pick up another one!

Suddenly she heard the ‘ping’ again but this time it was more prolonged. She looked up sharply, scanning the attic for the source of the noise. But she couldn’t see anything. She decided to take a look for something must have made the noise. She felt a little nervous but she needed to find out what it was. She heard it again, from the corner under the eaves. She carefully picked her way through all the boxes and furniture until she saw it. There, sitting in the corner of the attic was the old cello. “Wow.” Lucy said again, moving quickly to where the cello stood. “I wonder who owned this?” She touched the edges of the cello carefully, brushing off some of the dust as she did so. Beneath the dust the wood of the instrument was a warm reddish brown. Dislodging the dust made her sneeze violently so she pulled up her tee-shirt and hid her nose behind it while she brushed the dust carefully off. “I wonder what made it make a noise?” she said out loud, looking at the strings to see how they might have moved. But she could see nothing. The dust hadn’t moved so they couldn’t have made the noise.

The odd thing was that as Lucy was trying to clean off the dust from its beautiful wood a strange feeling began to grow in her belly. She twanged the dust from one of the strings and as she did so the dust filled the air but the sound made her stomach jump. She tried it again, amazed at what she was experiencing. Each time she twanged a string her stomach jumped. It was as though she too was a cello and as she played the strings on the instrument her strings would play too. It was too weird! She sat back on her heels and stared at the cello, now nearly entirely free of dust. Squinting her eyes at it she tried to figure out what was happening, but she couldn’t. She twanged a couple of strings, which were badly out of tune and sounded horrible, but the same thing happened. This time she had two feelings, the same as the cello’s sounds! She couldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t possible. She sat and stared, and stared and thought but she just couldn’t get away from the fact that when she played the cello’s strings something happened inside her body. In a way it frightened her but in another way it felt completely natural but she had never even picked up an instrument before so it wasn’t even like she knew what she was doing.

“This is a mystery,” she said to herself. “I’m going to have to find out about this.” and she stood up and brushed the dust from her jeans. She walked away from the cello and with her head full of thoughts and mysteries, went back down the stairs and out through the little door into the washroom.

She went back to her own little bedroom, at the end of the landing, which over looked the courtyard and lay down on her bed to think.

She could hear her grandmother talking downstairs to Kitty. She hadn’t even heard her coming back! Her grandmother called her from the bottom of the stairs.

“Lucy dear, can you get cleaned up for dinner please?” she said. Lucy looked at her clothes and realised that she was covered in dust. “I’ll be right there Gran’ she called down and hurriedly undressed and then put on a clean pair of jeans and a new tee-shirt. She ran the brush quickly through her hair then raced to the bathroom to wash her face and hands. She wasn’t quite sure if it was a good idea to tell her grandmother where she had been. She might not allow her up there again and that wouldn’t be good. But she had to find out who the cello had belonged to and she had to solve the mystery of the magic sounds, before she had to return to her parents home in the city.

 

 

 

Reviews

[Dorchadas]

Beautifully written ~smiles~
I was drawn in by the imagery from the very beginning... you paint an amazing picture and do it so well... I could almost see the vividness of the colours, smell the scents, hear the sounds.
I love the mystery here and am really looking forward to finding out how the story unfolds.
Lovely opening chapter ;)