Narnia, the sequel

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The Trunk in the Attic

It was raining. The wind swept over the moors and seemed to be trying to push the little cottage over the edge of the cliff and into the gray waves far below.

“I don't know what you're going to do with yourself today,” said Grandmama Susan. “I'll light the fire, and we can bake something, if you'd like. Would Jeremy care to come over and help?”

“He's gone to London to see his dad,” said Lucilla. “On the train. He'll be gone for two days.” The time seemed to stretch dismally before her. And then she thought of something she had wondered about. “What's in the attic?” she asked.

“Mostly rubbish,” said Grandmama Susan. “Some of my old things. There's a trunk full of gowns I used to wear to evening parties when I was young. You might like them.”

Grandmama Susan had been a great beauty. She had married a very rich man she met while travelling with her parents in the U.S. and then been divorced and done all sorts of dashing, grownup things before finally marrying Grandpa. She was still quite beautiful, Lucilla thought. Not much like the grandmothers in books. Tall, slender, strong, with masses of silver hair. But there was that weariness around her eyes.

“Grandmama Susan has been very sad since your grandfather died,” Lucilla's parents had told her. “She wants you to spend the summer with her in her cottage by the sea in England, to cheer her up. How do you feel about that?”

“I will think about it,” said Lucilla, for she was a thoughtful girl. And she did. She knew that her parents hoped the visit would do her good, too. She had been so awfully ill. She suspected, also, that it would do her parents good. They were worn out from worrying about her, though they didn’t admit it. So she had decided to come, to a country she had never been to before to spend two months with a grandmother she did not know very well. She wasn't sure which it was that made her stomach give that odd lurch when the plane took off from New York City. Probably both. And it did seem strange at first. But not long after that she had met Jeremy, who lived next door and had no idea she had been ill. And Grandmama, or rather, Susan, as she had asked Lucilla to call her, had been different than she expected. More like a special teacher or grownup friend than a relative, really. Though very old, of course.