24
" The children slept late, and washed and dressed almost in silence. Both of them were afraid to speak. Maia packed her belongings in an old canvas bag and stroked the dog.
“I’ll come over in a minute to say good-bye,” said Finn.
The Carters’ boat was ready to leave, breakfast tidied away, ropes coiled. The professor was sorting out the firebox and feeding in fresh logs. Miss Minton, sitting in the stern, had a parcel wrapped in burlap on her knees.
“I’m ready,” said Maia, trying to keep her voice steady. She mustn’t cry. Above all, she mustn’t sulk. “Finn’s coming over to say good-bye.”
“No need,” said Miss Minton.
“He’d like to.”
“All the same, there is no need.”
Maia looked at her governess. Miss Minton seemed different…Softer? Rounder? More at peace?
“Why?” she asked. “Why is there no need?”
“Because we’re coming with you. We’re going on. Get back on the Arabella and tell Finn we’ll follow three lengths behind.”
As Maia turned to go, hardly believing that there could be such happiness, she heard a loud splash. Miss Minton was leaning over the side, watching the parcel she had held on her knees floating away downriver.
“What was that?” asked Maia.
Miss Minton straightened herself.
If you must know,” she said, “it was my corset. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
27
" They went on arguing, but Maia had forgotten them again, following Finn in her mind.
Where was he? Did he have enough wood for the firebox? Were his maps accurate? Did he miss her at all?
Finn did miss her--she would have been surprised to know how much. He had never sailed the Arabella alone for any distance and it wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. While she was under way he managed well, but when it came to anchoring in the evening or setting off at dawn, he would have given anything for another pair of hands. Not any pair of hands--Maia’s. She had obeyed his orders quickly but not blindly; he had learned to trust her completely.
And she was nice. Fun. Quick to catch a joke and so interested in everything--asking about the birds, the plants. This morning he had found himself starting to say, “Look, Maia!” when he saw an umbrella bird strutting along a branch, and when he realized that she wasn’t there, the exotic creature, with its sunshade of feathers, had seemed somehow less exciting. After all, sharing was something everyone wanted to do. He could hear his father’s voice calling, “Look, Finn, over there!” a dozen times a day. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
29
" The howler monkeys had been right to laugh when he said he wasn’t going back. He had turned downriver again almost at once to fetch Maia, and he had made good time, traveling with the current--but he had come too late.
Finn went outside again and stood on the square of raked gravel that had been the Carters’ garden.
His mind seemed to have stopped working. He had no idea what to do. Should he go in to Manaus and see if he could find anything out--from the hospital perhaps?
After a while he found himself walking back along the river path to where he had left the Arabella. As he came to the fork in the path which led back into the forest, the dog put his head down excitedly into a patch of leaf mold. Finn pushed him aside and saw a smear of blood…and then a little way off, another…and another.
He almost fell over her, she lay so still, hidden in the leaves and creepers, almost as if she had burrowed into the forest to die.
But she was not dead. She lay stunned, still in her nightdress, breathing lightly with closed eyes. The blood came from a gash in her leg. He could see no burns on her skin. She must have fainted from loss of blood.
Then, when he said her name, she opened her eyes. One hand went out to his sleeve.
“Can we go now?” she whispered.
And he answered. “Yes. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
35
" Right,” she said. “Come down off that chair. I think we are ready for the next step.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am going to see Mrs. Carter tomorrow. I shall tell her that you are not able to keep up with the twins in lessons.”
“But--”
Miss Minton held up her hand. “Don’t interrupt, please. I shall tell her that I will set you to work separately because you are holding the twins back. That means I am trusting you to work on your own. I shall, of course, help you whenever I can, but you must keep up the deception.” She gave one of her tight smiles. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t have an interesting time. I have a book about the history of Brazil, and one by Bates, the explorer who first described this part of the Amazon. And another by Humboldt--a very great scientist. The twins may live as though they are still in Littleford-on-Sea, but there is no need for us to do so.”
Maia jumped from the chair. “Oh, Minty,” she said, and threw her arms around her governess. “Thank you. I’m sorry…I thought--”
“Well don’t,” said Miss Minton briskly. And then: “Come along, it’s time we opened my trunk.”
Miss Minton had been poor all her life. She had no trinkets, no personal possessions; her employers underpaid her when they paid her at all--but her trunk was an Aladdin’s cave. There were travel books and fairy tales, novels and dictionaries and collections of poetry…
“How did you get them all?” Maia asked wonderingly. “How did you manage?”
Miss Minton shrugged.
“If you want something enough you usually get it. But you have to take what goes with it”--and she pointed to her shabby blouse and mended skirt. “Now, let’s see---what shall we start with? Ah yes, here is Bates. He must have sailed down this very river not sixty years ago. Look at that drawing of a sloth… "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
36
" How did you know? How did you know who I was as soon as you saw me come out of the trapdoor in the museum?”
“You’re so like your father. The eyes, the way your voice is pitched. He wasn’t much older than you are now when he ran away from Westwood. And I knew he’d married an Indian woman and had a son; we kept in touch. So when I saw that the crows had caught you, I realized your plan had gone wrong.”
“You mean you knew what we were planning?” said Maia--not at all pleased.
“More or less. Your acting skills are not very great,” said Miss Minton, “And as a liar you are bottom of the class. I made friends with old Lila, and when she realized that I knew Bernard, she told me about this place. But you seemed to know what you were doing, so I left you to it.”
“We did know what we were doing,” said Finn. “But Clovis just went berserk when he got down to the cellar. Some skulls came tumbling out of a packing case, and he saw these eye sockets staring at him. Then he fell over a throwing spear and the lamp kept going out. There was a weird moaning noise, too--it was only the water pipes--but he got hysterical and said he felt sick and he couldn’t go through with it. I suppose it was sort of stage fright--he really thought the crows were going to hurt him. I’d promised Maia I wouldn’t let him get too scared, so I stayed. I meant to make a dash for it when the crows opened the door and lead them away from him. When the sloth fell over he thought it was a bomb!”
“Poor Clovis,” said Maia.
“She’s always sticking up for him,” said Finn.
“Still, he gave a fine performance at the end, you must admit,” said Miss Minton. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
38
" There’s no point in waiting any longer,” said Finn. “The boat is as ready as she’ll ever be. If we clear the reeds away, she’ll just get through.”
We, thought Maia bitterly. Obviously he expected her to help him clear the passage out of the lagoon, and then he’d wave good-bye and she’d never see him again.
“If it had been the other way round, I’d have taken you,” she said.
“I suppose you think that makes it easier for me,” said Finn angrily.
“I wasn’t trying to make it easier for you,” said Maia, and stalked away. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea