The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth by Michelle Paver Page B

that?’
    ‘A desert in Africa. He was a soldier.’
    Despite hisself, Ben’s impressed.
    Sophie pipes up. ‘His name was Major Alasdair Falkirk and he came from Jamaica and deserted his young wife to run off with our mother. Her name was Rose, but that’s all we know.’
    Madeleine keeps her eyes on the table, and Ben guesses she knows more than she’s letting on.
    ‘We’re not supposed to talk about them,’ says Sophie.
    ‘Why?’ says Ben.
    Sophie shoots Madeleine a look. Madeleine gets up and puts her bowl in the sink and smooths back her hair from her temples. ‘We’re illegitimate,’ she says.
    Ben don’t know what that means, but it’s plain that they think it’s the worst thing ever.
    ‘It means’, says Madeleine, ‘that our father never married our mother.’
    ‘Is that all,’ says Ben. ‘Can I have more soup?’
    Madeleine and Sophie stare at him like he’s cracked.
    So he gets hisself more soup. ‘Where I live,’ he goes, ‘you don’t get spliced. In fact, nobody does except toffs. Don’t you know that?’
    Madeleine shakes her head.
    ‘Think about it. It costs at least sevenpence, and you’re prossing about all morning, and for what? Some bit of paper that says you can’t get out of it, ever.’
    Madeleine is watching his lips like he’s talking Chinese.
    ‘Only toffs get spliced,’ he goes. ‘Cos only toffs got to worry about who gets the house and the jewels and that.’
    She looks at him as if he’s said something deep, and in spite of hisself he’s pleased.
    Robbie asks Sophie if she wants to play stick and goose, and she says what’s that, and Madeleine sends them out into the garden, calling after Sophie to put on her hat.
    ‘Proper garden they got,’ Robbie shouts down from the steps. ‘Grass and flowerpots and a tree.’
    When they’re gone, Madeleine goes to the dresser and fetches a book and plonks it down in front of him.
    ‘What’s this?’ he says.
    ‘ The Downfall of the Dervishes . It’s a Jack Hathaway adventure. We thought you might like it.’
    He looks at the letters on the front and thinks, so that’s what s and h do to each other. Then he realizes she’s had that book waiting all along, like she knew he was coming. He hates that. He goes, ‘I never read the last one. Sold it. I’ll do the same with this.’
    ‘Do what you like. It was cheap enough.’
    ‘Cheap?’ he snaps. ‘Nothing’s cheap if you can’t pay for it. Don’t you know that yet?’
    She’s leaning against the dresser with her arms crossed. ‘I don’t know anything,’ she says in a funny voice.
    What’s she on about?
    ‘Sophie knows more than I do,’ she goes. ‘She’s amazing, she reads everything. I’m too stupid and undisciplined. Like my mother.’ She bites her lip. ‘I don’t even know the sort of things you know.’
    You got that right, girl, he thinks.
    She sits down across from him and puts her hands on the table. ‘You think we’re rich, but soon we’ll have nothing. We’ve got to sell the furniture to pay off the debts, and I’ll have to work to support us.’ She pauses. ‘Mr Rennard can’t afford to give me a job, and no-one else seems to want a photographer’s assistant. I can’t be a governess because I never went to school, and I can’t be a stenographer, I don’t know how. I could be a lady’s companion or a shop assistant, but that won’t keep the three of us alive.’
    ‘So?’ says Ben. ‘Why tell me?’
    She looks at him with her big dark eyes. ‘I thought you might be able to help.’
    He’s outraged. ‘Me? I don’t help nobody.’
    ‘Then why are you here?’
    ‘That was Robbie’s idea.’
    She don’t say nothing. Just makes patterns on the table with her fingernail.
    The answer’s as plain as the nose on her face, but she can’t see it cos she’s a toff. She can read but she can’t sodding see. They’re all the same.
    After a bit he says, ‘You could make a fortune on your back.’
    She don’t even blink. Not