Verity Sparks and the Scarlet Hand by Susan Green Page B

his childhood in Russia at all. He seemed such a citified gentleman, and I tried to imagine him as a little boy walking up such a path as this. He squeezed my hand. “Happy memories,
chérie
. So long ago …”
    Harold, who’d been tactfully looking the other way, now gestured for us to climb the front steps onto the verandah. It was screened by a twining grapevine, and only when we reached the top of the steps did we see the elderly gentleman sitting on a bench in the shade. A collie dog, old like its owner, sat next to him. The pair of them got up on stiff legs.
    “Ah, Harold!” said the old man, walking forwards using a stick. He launched into a flood of greetings but his accent was so thick and strange that I only understood one word in ten.
    However, Papa understood. He greeted the old fellow in German (Papa, being a man of the world, spoke German, Polish, French, Russian and English) and in a trice the two of them were chatting away like old friends.
    “Come with me,” whispered Harold, and we left them on the bench in the shade.
    We went together into the house. Halfway down the hall, I sniffed. A delicious smell composed of honey, cinnamon and nutmeg, new-baked bread and buttery cake led us by our noses to the kitchen. Standing at the table, a middle-aged woman with a flushed, pretty face was beating eggwhites in a copper bowl. She looked up and her blue eyes widened with delight.
    “Harold, my boy, how good to see you again!” She put down her whisk and hugged him. She turned to me. “You must be the young lady Hannah was telling me about. I am Paulina Dohnt. Welcome to Blumberg. It means ‘flower hill’. It was the name of our village in the old country.”
    “I brought Verity’s father as well,” said Harold. “He’s sitting on the verandah with your father.”
    “Then I will make some tea for us. I have just baked a cake.”
    “When have you not just baked a cake?” said Harold, and Paulina laughed. “Hannah sent us to pick up some wine, Paulina. May we go and get it?”
    “Yes, go ahead. You know the way.”
    Harold took me through a courtyard towards a building completely covered in ivy. All around it was a strong, fruity, yeasty smell. The door was open and a bright strip of sunlight lay across the brick floor. As we walked inside, the smell became sharper, vinegary, and almost overpowering. One side of the room was lined with wooden barrels, and a man with his back to us was doing something to a tap.
    “Stay where you are for a minute, Verity,” said Harold in a low voice, and then he strode forwards, making a lot of noise with his boots on the flagged stone floor.
    “Hermann!” he called. “It’s me – Harold.”
    The man lurched to his feet and turned around. I gasped. I couldn’t stop myself, but at least I didn’t cry out. You see, the whole right side of Hermann’s face was a welter of old scars and his eye had disappeared into a pucker of skin. The poor man must have met with some terrible accident.
    “Hermann, it’s good to see you. How are you?”
    His reply was so soft I couldn’t hear it.
    “Hannah sent me to get some wine from you. And some apples and pears as well.”
    Hermann gestured towards a box on the floor and mumbled something in a hoarse whisper. His eyes flicked towards me.
    “This is Miss Verity, Hermann. She’s visiting Uncle Nicholas. Would you like to meet her?”
    I saw the hesitation. It must have been hard to have strangers looking at him, but after a few seconds the old man hobbled forwards, smiling. At least, he meant to smile, but all his damaged face could manage was twisted lips and bared teeth. He held out his hand. I winced inwardly. Hermann’s hand, too, was horribly scarred and misshapen, but I made myself take it in mine. It was bad enough, I thought, to be so disfigured and scarred. I must not make it any worse by shying away from him.
    “From town?” he asked.
    “Melbourne? Yes, I live in Melbourne,” I said. “St Kilda, by the