The Secret Passage (11 page)

“No, no,” Uncle Abe said hastily. “Not that. But you could collect cockles, could you? Well—I daresay I owe you a bit, you've collected a good many for me.”

“Oh, no,” Ben said. “I wouldn't want you to pay for the cockles you've
had
. They were presents. But if you liked, you could pay me for the cockles I get from now on. I'd try hard to get especially nice ones.”

“I suppose that's a fair bargain,” Uncle Abe said slowly. “Let's say sixpence a day. Say two and sixpence a week, counting out Sundays and supposing one day to be rainy. The Bust should fetch—say seventy-five pounds. That means you'll have to collect cockles for … let's see….”

“It'll take eight weeks to collect a pound,” Ben said in a dispirited voice.

Uncle Abe looked at him admiringly. “That's sharp. How long will seventy-five pounds take?”

Ben closed his eyes. “Six hundred weeks. That's about twelve years.”

“Mmm. And interest, of course. Still, it depends what you've got to put down as deposit….”

Unhappily, Ben turned out his pockets. “I've got one and three-halfpence. I had one and fourpence halfpenny, only I had to post a letter for Miss Pin.”

Uncle Abe looked at the money, laid out on Ben's grubby palm. He cleared his throat. “Well, that cuts it down a bit, certainly. Tell you what—I daresay I'm overcharging a bit. You usually make a special price for a friend. You collect the cockles and you can have the Bust. And when you become a wizard financier, as I daresay you will with your head for maths, you can pay off the remainder.”

Ben's face glowed. “Here's the money,” he said. “One and three halfpence. That's all I've got except for the lucky coin Miss Pin gave me.” He paused and added, rather unwillingly,
“You can have that too, if you really want it. It's a foreign coin, but I suppose it would come in useful if you went abroad.”

“No, no—you keep it. Miss Pin gave it to you, did she? Getting lavish in her old age.” Uncle Abe grinned, as if this was a huge joke. “Sure she could spare it, Ben?”

“Oh—
easily
,” Ben said. “She's got hundreds and hundreds of coins, just like this one.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Victoria was waiting for them in the garden of the house next door. This time she didn't scowl. She smiled as cheerfully as anyone and said, “I thought you were never coming.”

“We had to wait until Aunt Mabel was upstairs, doing the rooms,” Mary explained. “Because we had to get out of the house with
this
.”

In his arms, Ben was carrying a large, roundish object, wrapped in newspaper. He held it as carefully as if it were a basket of eggs.

“What is it?” Victoria asked.

“You'll see,” Mary said mysteriously. “You mustn't look yet. If you stay in the kitchen, we'll call when we're ready.”

They went through the kitchen, upstairs and into the hall. Ben placed his bundle gentle on the floor and unwrapped it. Then John picked up the Bust of the African child, stood on tiptoe and placed it on top of the empty marble column.

“Come and see,” he called.

Victoria came into the hall and saw the Bust. She stared and stared. Her thin face grew quite fat and radiant as she smiled. “It's beautiful,” she said in a breathless voice. “Oh—it's a beautiful thing.” And she went on staring at it in a rapt,
awestruck
way that the Mallorys found a little absurd.

John said, “I've brought you some breakfast.” He produced what he had managed to save: a boiled egg, rather squashed, and two pieces of bread and butter stuck together and a trifle hairy from John's pocket.

“I'm afraid the egg's a bit cold,” John said. “But I
remembered
to bring a teaspoon. There are some egg cups and plates in the glass cupboard in here.”

Victoria followed him into the big, gloomy dining room. She said in a shocked voice, “But we can't use the things in that cabinet. They're
valuable
.”

Mary said, “Surely your grandfather won't mind? Not if we're careful.”

The cupboard door was unlocked; Mary opened it and took out a very pretty plate with a pattern of green and gold leaves round the rim. She chose an egg cup with pink flowers on it and put the two pieces down on the dark, polished table. “There,” she said. “Sit in this big chair and you'll be like the Queen.”

“And we'll be your servants, waiting on you hand and foot.” Ben said, and giggled.

“I … I can't,” Victoria whispered. Her voice was so low and scared that the children looked at her curiously. She was very pale and frightened and twisting her thin hands together in front of her. Mary and John began to feel nervous
themselves
, but Ben, who never felt shy or awkward, said loudly, “Don't be silly. It doesn't matter, eating off the table as long as you don't make a mess. And you're not a baby.”

“No….” Victoria gave Ben a tremulous smile. Then she did sit down in the chair—very cautiously, on the edge. She picked up the spoon, took the shell off the egg and began to
eat. She ate slowly, not like a starving person but like someone who didn't much care for cold egg and hairy bread-and-butter. John nudged Mary and said, “I think we'll go up to the attic. You can come when you've finished breakfast.”

While they were climbing the twisting, wooden stairs, he explained. “It's embarrassing to be watched when you're eating.”

“She didn't look very hungry,” Ben said.

“Perhaps her stomach is shrunk with starvation,” John suggested. “I read somewhere that if people are dreadfully hungry, it's difficult for them to eat at first. When someone has been starving you shouldn't give them anything solid to eat to start with—just sips of sugary water.”

“We haven't got any water. And she's not starving because we gave her all that food yesterday. All our tea,” Mary said.

“It was only a few sandwiches. It wasn't much,” John said, rather indignantly. He was feeling hungry himself and thought longingly of the boiled egg that he had slipped into his pocket when Aunt Mabel's back was turned, even though he had eaten a second helping of porridge to make up for it.

“What are we going to do?” Ben said. “It's freezing cold up here.”

It
was
cold. There was no sun today and the attic looked very bleak and bare. Outside, the sky looked thick and felted like an army blanket and the seagulls, wheeling, were like chips of snow against the grey.

“Let's light a fire,” John said. “There's wood shavings in the cellar and we could get some sticks out of the garden.”

“Do you think we should?” Mary said solemnly. “The chimney might catch fire or something.”

The boys regarded her with disgust.

“We'll see to the fire,” John said with a superior look. “You and Victoria can clean up the attic and find the rugs and cushions. That's women's work.”

Mary went downstairs rather reluctantly. She was a little shy of Victoria who was so much older than she was—indeed, except when they had been playing hide-and-seek yesterday, she hadn't seemed to Mary like a child at all. Mary didn't think that Victoria would enjoy furnishing the attic and at first it looked as if she was right.

Victoria turned her mouth down at the corners and said sullenly, “Do you mean we've got to sweep up the floors and dust? That isn't
fun
. I hate housework.”

“I rather like it,” Mary said. “We never did anything like that in Africa. I like making beds and washing up …”

“Well I don't,” Victoria said roughly. “I've had to do too much of it. I …” She stopped suddenly.

Mary thought this was a little odd. Surely they didn't make you do housework at boarding school? She said quickly, “You needn't help. It doesn't matter—it's only a game. We—we just thought you might like to.”

But Victoria followed her upstairs and after Mary had been sweeping with the dustpan and brush for a little, she said abruptly, “I'll do that—I'll be quicker than you.”

She was quicker. She was very quick and neat, like Aunt Mabel. When the floor was clean, she shook the dirt out of the attic window and said cheerfully, “Well—what do we do now?

“We've got to find rugs and cushions.” Mary remembered that even if Victoria was a sort of refugee, she was still taking
refuge in her own house, so she added, politely, “If you don't mind, I mean.”

Victoria laughed. “Why should
I
care? I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”

And, in fact, she collected far more things than Mary would have dared to do—bright, silken cushions from one of the bedrooms and three gaily patterned, woollen rugs. When they staggered upstairs with their burdens, the boys had already lit the fire. The wood shavings were roaring up the chimney and John had found a stack of old, tarry road blocks in the cellar. They crackled and spat and made a delicious smell. Victoria spread a rug in front of the fire and knelt on it, her hands spread out to the flames. “Isn't it warm and lovely?” she said.

Ben knelt beside her. “Your hands are so thin I can see the fire through them,” he said.

“Don't be rude, Ben,” John said, but Victoria only smiled.

“He's not rude. He's a dear. I wish he was
my
brother.” She put an arm round Ben and hugged him tight, then went rather pink and scrambled to her feet. “I know what we want,” she said. “There's a brass fender downstairs. It's beautifully shiny and it'll look lovely with the fire dancing in it.”

They went downstairs—it would take all four of them to carry the fender, Victoria said—and as they reached the hall, they heard something that made them freeze in their tracks.

Someone was walking up the steps to the front door.
Someone
was putting the key in the lock. Victoria made a low, strangled sound and fled back up the stairs. Stiff with horror, the others stayed where they were. John had turned very white.

“
Hide
” Ben said. He seized John's hand and dragged him
into the dining room. There was a big sofa in the window, covered with a dust sheet. Quicker than it takes to tell, Ben—who was always good in emergencies—whipped up a corner of the dust sheet and scrambled underneath, pulling John with him.

Mary thought she would hide behind the sofa, but it was too late. The front door opened with a loud, sudden noise as if it had stuck fast through being shut for so long. Mary ran behind the open dining room door, and pulled it against her.

Someone came into the hall—or, rather, two people did, because one of them spoke to the other.

A man's voice said, “It's probably a tramp, Mr Reynolds. Everyone in Henstable knows the house is shut up—a tramp might easily have decided to break in and hole up for the bad weather. He could've been here for ages, no one 'ud know. I suppose he got to thinking he was safe and lit a fire.”

Mary shuddered behind the door.
Of course
. When they lit the fire, they hadn't thought of the smoke!

The other man, who must be Mr Reynolds, Mary thought, horrified, said, “Surely Mrs Clark's been in? She would have known if there had been anyone here.” He had a cracked, old voice. The other man's was deeper and rougher.

“She's been off sick. Hurt her back, her husband said. She'll not have been in for a month or two.”

“Taking advantage of my absence. That's much more likely. You can't rely on anyone nowadays.” Mr Reynolds sounded furious and Mary thought it was rather horrid of him not to be sorry because Mrs Clark had hurt her back. “All right, Jackson,” he said in a tired, irritable way, “we'll have a look around.”

Their steps came along the hall and stopped. Mary realised that they were standing in the doorway of the dining room, very close to her, on the other side of the door. She held her breath and huddled back against the wall, trying to make
herself
as small as possible. They were so close that she could hear them breathing.

Mr Reynolds said, “Good Lord Jackson—look at this. Your tramp, or whoever he is, has been making himself at home, hasn't he? Eating off my Sheraton table….” His voice rose in an angry squeak. “My Dresden plate….”

“Not broken, is it, Sir?” Jackson said. His voice was
respectful
and soothing.

“No. But it might have been. Heaven knows what else we shall find. I suppose we'd better see what damage has been done—then I shall have to get on to the insurance people and the Police.”

Mary shook behind the door. She shook so hard that she thought that they must hear her knees knocking together. What were John and Ben feeling like, under the dust cover? Surely, if the men looked at the sofa they would be bound to see them; even if the boys were lying quite flat and still, their shapes must show. And suppose they sneezed?

“In fact,” Mr Reynolds said, “I think we'd better get on to the police first. I'll wait here, Jackson, and you go straight down to the station and come back with a constable. Several. Don't let them put you off—the police are much too casual about private property. Tell them
my house
has been broken into and a great deal of damage done. I want the culprit arrested.”

He sounded in a tearing rage and Mary clenched her fists.
It would be dreadfully undignified to be caught by a
policeman
. She was frightened, but she was also angry because Mr Reynolds had said a lot of damage had been done when they had been so careful and worked so hard to make the neglected attic look nice. She came out from behind the door and said, “There isn't any tramp, Mr Reynolds. There's only us.”

She saw a tall young man in a uniform like a chauffeur's, carrying an enormous fur rug over one arm. And standing in front of him was a little old man with a thick black coat buttoned up to his chin and a black hat pulled down over his forehead so that it almost seemed to rest on a thin, hooked nose like an eagle's beak. He stared and stared at Mary with a pair of glittering, angry eyes that seemed to be boring right through her. She could think of nothing to say so she just stood miserably twisting a piece of her skirt between her fingers.

“Who the devil are you?” he said, at last. “Are you alone?”

There was a scuffling sound from the sofa, the sheet heaved and John appeared, very red in the face. He sneezed, because of the dust, and Ben, scrambling after him, sneezed too.

“Good Lord,” Mr Reynolds said. His bright eyes stared and his skinny beak of a nose flushed scarlet. “Brats,” he said to the tall young man. “Just a parcel of brats.” He wheeled round to Mary. “What do you think you're doing here? No—don't bother to tell me. The police will deal with you. The country's in a fine state when a man can't leave his house without it being broken into by a pack of delinquent brats.”

“Don't excite yourself, Mr Reynolds,” Jackson said in a soothing voice, but the old man took no notice of him.
He was breathing hard and his eyes were bulging with fury.

“We're not delin … whatever you said,” Mary said loudly. “We come from the house next door.”

“Oh. You come from the house next door. That makes you respectable, does it?” he said in a very nasty voice. “Well,
I
don't think it does. What have you been doing here?”

“Just playing,” Mary said.

“
Playing
? Among all my valuable things?”

“We just played up in the attic,” John said. “We thought it was all right because nobody seemed to have used it for ages and ages, and some of Aunt Mabel's tilings were still there. We haven't done any damage, really we haven't. We knew we had to be careful because of your pictures and things—we just borrowed a rug to put in front of the fire….” John stopped and went very pale. Mary and Ben, who were looking at him, knew why. Mary felt sick inside. She had forgotten the broken Bust.

“
Fire
” Mr Reynolds said explosively. His nose flushed red again and the blue veins stood out on his forehead. “D'you hear that, Jackson? They might have burned the house down. Fetch the police
at
once
. Heaven knows what they've done. Breaking and entering—a parcel of thieving brats.”