Free The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam Page A

written in Sanskrit. I thought the Professor’s eyes had taken on a peculiar look when I said, “talk.”
    I said, “I should like to talk to you at length . The sooner this is over the better.”
    He said vaguely, rather cross I thought, “But I think you would like to have the experience of seeing us all at tea?” He gave me a nervous—and I have to say it—sweet though bewildered smile. “Don’t you think your godmother would like that, Sarah? Sarah has often visited me here by herself, Mrs. Peabody. Haven’t you, Sarah?”
    â€œYes, I’m quite sure she has ,” I said, looking at him very straight.
    â€œOf course I should be honoured to go down to tea, but would it be private enough ? I think that there will be much to say. With Sarah’s mother in Bangladesh and Charles not readily available. Charles is her father . . .”
    â€œOh, I know Joan and Charles,” he said with ease.
    â€œI am then even more surprised.” My blackest stare I could see was giving him pause. He seemed in deep thought now, watching me carefully. I examined my fingernails and found them interesting. They had a hazy green line beneath each rim, pale, marine and eerie.
    Then he swung himself off his wing chair and said, “Oh, you know, Sarah—shall we risk it, hey? Go down to tea without the other chaperon?” and led us off through many a twist and turn along pattering marble passages and into a chamber where figures sat about in the shadows like uneasy thoughts, either alone or in well-behaved little groups, eating and sipping and now and then glinting at each other. There was a very cruel silence as Professor Hookaneye paced by with the two of us. I almost felt sorry for him, and tried to make myself invisible so that Sarah could look like the sole, permitted guest, but as I was wearing my old green trousers, zip-jacket and the earrings—I had had no time to change if I was to catch the train that Sarah had commanded—this was not easy. Sarah was certainly not invisible in her sharp pink silk and fifties Harrogate jewellery (wherever had she found it?) and gleaming legs. She was like a flamingo in a poultry house.
    There was a vast round mahogany table with plates of thin bread and butter, slab cake, Marmite and honey. We had to help ourselves. Reg brought us cups of faint tea and led us to a far corner so that, he said, we might observe.
    I observed. All those skulls full of brains. Some of the finest brains in the world. I could almost see the brains. The heads seemed lit from within so that each white spongey mass shone in the semi-darkness like a miner’s lamp or a gigantic glow-worm. An internal halo.
    Halo, by God, I thought, examining Professor Hookaneye who was lying back stirring his tea with benignity. What if I were now to say loud and clear, “Professor Hookaneye, what do you propose to do about Sarah? Were you really serious in suggesting that I should adopt your child?” I thought of what had happened to Sarah in his ascetic den, her young life spoiled, her future in sad collapse, all her carefree flute-playing in the roses done. I debated whether to pick up my slice of bread and honey and slap it on his face.
    But he talked quietly and precisely on, giving us a friendly and delightful rundown on the great men before us. “I thought you might like to see the Chapel and our dining room,” he said to me (“Go with him,” mouthed the Queen) and we processed from the room followed by glances that said, Two guests! Two guests!
    And poor Sarah at the entrance to the dining room fled again. Reg Hookaneye said, “She doesn’t seem quite the thing. Overworking”—and I was speechless. But he and I wandered on until we came to a room where after dinner each evening dessert is taken. We stood looking at silver candlesticks and a fruit bowl like a Van der Meer and a great flagon of port set ready. So