Enchanted Glass. Diana Wynne Jones
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your grandmother? What was her name?”
“Adela Cain,” Aidan said. “She used to be a singer—”
“No! Really?” Andrew’s face lit up. “I’d no idea she had a field-of-care! When I was about fifteen, I used to collect all her records. She was a wonderful singer — and wonderful-looking too!”
“She didn’t do much singing when I was with her,” Aidan said. “She gave it up after my mum died and I had to come to live with her. She said my mother’s death had hit her too hard.”
“Your mother was a Mrs Cain too?” Andrew asked.
Aidan found himself a little confused here. “I don’t know if either of them were a Mrs,” he explained. “Gran didn’t like to be tied down. But she never stopped complaining about my mum. She said my dad was chancy folk and Mum should have known better than to take up with someone so well known to be married. That’s all I know really.”
“Ah,” said Andrew. He felt he had put his foot in it and changed the subject quickly. “So you were left all alone in the world when your grandmother died?”
“Last week. Yes,” said Aidan. “The social workers kept asking if I had any other family, and so did the Arkwrights — they were the foster family I was put with. But the — the real reason I came here was the Stalkers—”
Aidan was forced to break off here. He was not sorry. The Stalkers had been the final awful touch to the worst week of his life. Mrs Stock caused the interruption by kicking the door open and rotating into the room carrying a large tray.
“Well, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this!” she was saying as she came face forward again. “It’s a regular invasion. First that boy. Now there’s Mr Stock and this one-legged jockey with that stuck-up daughter of his come to see you. And no sign of our Shaun.”
Mrs Stock did not seem to care that all the people she was talking about could hear what she said. As she dumped the tray across the books piled on the nearest table, the three others followed her into the study. Aidan winced, knowing that Mrs Stock thought he was an intruder, and sat back against the wall, watching quietly.
Mr Stock came first, in his hat as usual. Aidan was fascinated by Mr Stock’s hat. Perhaps it had once been a trilby sort of thing. It may once have even been a definite colour. Now it was more like something that had grown — like a fungus — on Mr Stock’s head, so mashed and used and rammed down by earthy hands that you could have thought it was a mushroom that had accidentally grown into a sort of gnome-hat. It had a slightly domed top and a floppy edge. And a definite smell.
After that hat, Aidan was astonished all over again at the little man with one leg, who energetically heaved himself into the room with his crutches. He should have had the hat, Aidan thought. He was surely a gnome, beard and all. But his greying head was bare and slightly bald.
“You know my brother-in-law, Tarquin O’Connor,” Mr Stock announced.
Ah, no. He’s Irish. He’s a leprechaun, Aidan thought.
“I’ve heard of you. I’m very pleased to meet you,” Andrew said, and he hurried to tip things off another chair so that Tarquin could sit down, which Tarquin did, very deftly, swinging his stump of leg up and his crutches around, and giving Andrew a smile of thanks as he sat.
“Tark used to be a jockey,” Mr Stock told Andrew. “Won the Derby. And he’s brought his daughter, my niece Stashe, for you to interview.”
Aidan was astonished a third time by Tarquin O’Connor’s daughter. She was beautiful. She had one of those faces with delicate high cheekbones and slightly slanting eyes that he had only seen before on the covers of glossy magazines. Her eyes were green too, like someone in a fairy story, and she really was as slender as a wand. Aidan wondered how someone as gnomelike as Tarquin could be the father of a lady so lovely. The only family likeness was that they were both small.
Stashe came striding in with her fair hair flopping on her shoulders and a smile for everyone — even for Aidan and Mrs Stock — and a look at her father that said, “Are you all right in that chair, Dad?” She seemed to bring with her all the feelings that had to do with being human and warm-blooded. Her character was clearly not at all fairylike. She was in jeans and a body warmer and wellies. No, not a fairy-tale person, Aidan thought.
Mrs Stock glowered at her. Tarquin gave her a “Don’t fuss me!” look. Andrew was as astonished as Aidan. He wondered what this good-looking young lady was doing here. He moved over to her, tipping another chair free of papers as he went, and shook the hand she was holding out to him.
“Stashe?” he asked her.
“Short for Eustacia.” Stashe twisted her mouth sideways to show what she thought of the name. “Blame my parents.”
“Blame your mother,” Tarquin told her. “Her favourite name. Not mine.”
“What am I supposed to interview you about?” Andrew asked, in the special, bewildered way he often found very useful.
“I’ve suggested her for your new secretary,” Mr Stock announced. “Part time I suppose. I’ll leave you to get on with it, shall I?” And he marched out of the room, pushing Mrs Stock out in front of him.
Mrs Stock, as she left, turned her head to say, “I’m bringing Shaun for you as soon as he turns up.” It sounded like a threat.
Andrew grew very busy giving everyone coffee and some of the fat, soft, uneven biscuits Mrs Stock always made. He needed time to think about all this. “I have to deal with this young lady first,” he said apologetically to Aidan. “But we’ll talk later.”
He treats me like a grown-up! Aidan thought. Then he had to balance his coffee on the bureau beside him in order to take his glasses off and blink back more tears. Everyone had treated him like a child, and a small one at that, after Gran died, the Arkwrights most of all. “Come and give me a cuddle like the nice little fellow you are,” had been Mrs Arkwright’s favourite saying. Her other one was, “Now don’t you bother your little head with that, dear.” They were very kind — so kind they were appalling. Aidan hurt all over inside just thinking about them.
Meanwhile, Andrew was saying to Tarquin, “You live in that cottage with all the roses, don’t you?” Tarquin, giving him a wry, considering look, nodded. “I admire them every time I pass,” Andrew went on, sounding desperate to say something polite. Tarquin nodded again, and smiled.
“Oh, you don’t have to do the polite,” Stashe protested. “Let’s get on and talk business — or don’t you approve after all, Dad?”
“Oh, I like him well enough,” Tarquin said. “But I don’t think the professor quite wants us. Bit of a recluse, aren’t you?” he said to Andrew.
“Yes,” said Andrew, taken aback.
Aidan hooked his glasses across one knee, drank his coffee and stared, fascinated. To his naked eyes, here were three strongly magical people. He had been right to think leprechaun about the brave, shrewd little man with one leg. He almost was one. He was full of gifts. But quite what that made Stashe into, Aidan could not tell. She was so warm. And direct as a sunray.
“Oh, do cut the cackle, both of you!” she was saying now. “I’d make you a good secretary, Professor Hope. I’ve every possible qualification, including magical. Dad’s taught me magic. He’s quite a power, is Dad. Why don’t you take me on for a week’s trial, no strings, no bad feelings if we don’t suit?”
“I — er…” said Andrew. “I suppose I hesitate because I already have two strong-minded employees. And there’s money—”
Stashe put her head back and laughed at the ceiling beams. “Those Stocks,” she said. “Don’t like change, either of them. They’ll come round. Meanwhile, say yes or no, do. I’ve told you how much I’d charge. If you can’t afford it, say no; if you can, say yes. I think