Seven for a Secret (12 page)

I fancied Lucy would rather I did not visit the house, but Flora liked me to, so I chose the times when I guessed Lucy would be out shopping and I could go in to see Flora and slip out without Lucy’s knowing I had been.

On this occasion Flora was sitting in the garden close to the mulberry bush, the pram with the doll beside her. When she saw me her face lit up with pleasure. She always behaved as though I had never been away.

“I was expecting you,” she said.

“Oh, were you? I only came home from school yesterday.”

She looked vague and I went on: Tell me what has been happening while I’ve been away. “

“He’s had the croup. In a real state he was. Pretty bad. I thought at one time I might lose him. It frightens the life out of you when they start that cough.”

“He’s all right now?”

“Right as a trivet. I got him over that. Mind you, it was touch and go. But he’s a little fighter. Nothing’s going to get the better of him!”

“I’m glad he’s all right now.”

She nodded and rambled on, describing the symptoms of the croup.

Suddenly she said: “I’m going to take him up now. There’s a touch of damp in the air.”

She wheeled the pram to the back door of the cottage. I could not resist the temptation to follow her. I wanted to see those magpies again. Had I fancied there was something evil about them? Probably. It would be just like me to do so.

Tenderly she carried the doll up the stairs, with me in her wake. She sat in a chair, holding it, and there was an expression of great tenderness on her face.

1 went close to the picture of the magpies.

“One for sorrow …” 1 began.

“Two for joy,” she said.

“Go on, say it.”

I did. She was before me with the last line.

“Seven for a secret…” She shook her head.

“Never to be told.” She looked very solemn and held the doll more closely to her.

There was an un canniness about the scene. The words meant something very special to her. What secret? 1 wondered Her mind was wandering, of course. Anyone who thought a doll was a baby could not be expected to have coherent thoughts.

I was alert suddenly. Someone was downstairs. I said:

“Your sister must have come back.”

She did not answer but continued to look at the doll.

There were footsteps on the stairs heavy ones, not Lucy’s, surely.

A voice called: “Lucy! Where are you?”

It was Crispin. The door opened and he stood there, looking from me to Flora. His eyes went to the picture of the magpies.

Then it happened. Flora stood up abruptly. The doll fell from her arms and crashed to the floor. For a few seconds we all stared at the broken china face. Then Flora let out a wail of anguish. She knelt by the doll and clasped her hands across her breast.

“No … no!” she cried.

“It’s not. It’s not. I didn’t. It’s a secret . never to be told.”

Crispin went to her, pulled her to her feet. She kept sobbing: “I didn’t mean … I didn’t. I didn’t.”

He lifted her as effortlessly as he had once lifted me and carried her to her bedroom where he laid her on the bed. He jerked his head to me, implying that I was to pick up;

the broken doll and take it away. I obeyed and ran downstairs with the doll in my arms il 1 put it on the kitchen table and went back to Flora’s room. ;

Flora was lying on the bed, sobbing. Crispin was not there but came in almost immediately, stirring something in a glass.

He gave it to Flora who meekly drank it.

“This will be better now,” he said, more to me than to her.

1 thought how strange it was that he managed to find whatever it was that must be used to calm her when she was upset.

He said to me in a quiet voice: “It’s all right. She’ll calm down now.

She will be asleep soon,” and I was struck afresh by his knowledge of how to treat her.

We stood by the bed watching her. In less than five minutes she had stopped moaning.

“She doesn’t remember much now. We’ll wait awhile.”

How strange it was to be here in this cottage with Flora lying on the bed and Crispin beside me. He must know the cottage well and its inmates. He must have gone straight to the place where Lucy kept the medicine her sister must need from time to time. He behaved as though he were master of the place. But then he was like that everywhere.

It was not very long before Flora slept.

Crispin looked at me, indicating that I should follow him downstairs.

In the kitchen he said: “What were you doing here?”

“I came to see Flora. I often do. She went upstairs and I went with her.”

“Miss Lucy was not here.”

“No. I expect she was shopping.”

He nodded.

“What we have to do now is get rid of that.” He indicated the broken doll which was lying on the table.

“It must be replaced at once. 1 am going into the town to buy one as like it as 1 can find.

She will not awake until this evening. It must be there then. She must find a new one lying in the cot. “

“But she will know …”

“She will be told that she had a bad dream. Miss Lucy will know how to deal with that. But there must be anothe;

doll in the same clothes. There is a toyshop . not ir Harper’s Green . we’ll have to go farther than that. shall write a note to Miss Lucy telling her what has happened and that we should be back in just over an hour. “

“We… ?” I began.

“I want you to come with me to help choose the doll We’ll take the broken one with us and you will be able to choose it more easily than I could.”

“I shall have to tell my aunt. She will be worried.”

He looked at me thoughtfully.

“I shall go back and ge the dogcart. You go at once to your aunt. Tell her wha has happened and that you are coming with me to choosi the doll. You have seen the doll many times.

I have nevei noticed it much, so I need your help. “

I was excited. It was an adventure. I said: “Yes. Yes.”

“Take the doll and I shall be with you very soon.”

1 ran home. Fortunately Aunt Sophie was in. Breathlessly I gave her an account of what had happened.

She looked puzzled.

“I never heard the like! What’s go into him?

Smashed her doll. Good Heavens! It will kil her. “

“He’s afraid for her.”

“Dear me. What a to-do.”

“I want to go with him. I couldn’t bear anything to hap pen to Flora.”

“Yes. You’ve got to get that doll replaced and quid about it. It’s the sensible thing to do as he suggests.”

Before I had finished telling Aunt Sophie, he was then with the dogcart. I dashed out carrying the doll and climbed up beside him.

:

There were two horses and they travelled fast. I sat up it front with him. It was exhilarating . riding at breaknect speed to save someone’s life, I thought. This was the second rescue in which we were involved together, and the man ne in which he took command impressed me deeply.

He did not say much as we drove along and in about thirty minutes we were in the town. He drove into an inn yard where they seemed to know him and were very respectful.

He helped me down and we went off to the shop.

He laid the remains of Flora’s doll on the counter and announced: “We want a doll. It must resemble this one.”

“This kind has not been made for several years, sir.”

“Well, the nearest. You must have something near.”

We looked at dolls. He deferred to me, which gave me a sense of pride.

“It should not look like a girl,” I said.

“The broken one had its hair cut off. And these clothes have to fit.”

It took us some time to find something which was sufficiently similar to the broken doll to be passed off as the same one; and even then I was unsure.

We put the clothes on the new doll and came out of the shop.

“We must get back at once,” he said; and so began the journey home.

“The hair is the right colour,” I said, ‘but we shall have to trim it.

This one looks too much like a girl. “

“You can do that, or Miss Lucy will.”

I wanted to do it. I wanted to remain in this adventure as long as I could. As we reached the cottage Lucy came out. She looked very worried.

“It’s all right,” said Crispin.

“We have found a replacement.” He patted her arm.

“It will work,” he went on, ‘as long as the doll is there when she wakes and she doesn’t notice the difference. “

“I’ll put it in the cot,” said Lucy.

They let me cut the hair and when this was done the new one did not look too dissimilar.

Lucy took it and went upstairs. Crispin and I were alone in the kitchen. He was looking at me intently and 1 wondered if he was still thinking that 1 was plain.

He said: “You were a great help.” I glowed with pride.

“Miss Flora is very sick in the mind,” he went on.

“We must be very gentle with her.

That doll to her is a baby. “

“Yes, I know. She thinks it is you when you were a baby.”

His face creased into a smile. Anyone less like a doll I could not imagine.

“She will have to be carefully treated after this. Let’s hope she doesn’t remember what happened. It would disturb her very much.”

Lucy came down.

“She is sleeping peacefully,” she said.

“I shall keep my eye on her. I must be there when she wakes.”

“That’s right,” he said, and smiled at her in a manner which I could only call tender. It surprised me very much, for I had never seen him look quite like that before. I was continually being surprised by him.

He is very fond of her, I thought. But then, of course, she had been his nanny after Flora became ill.

Now he was looking at me.

“I dare say your aunt is expecting you home by now,” he said.

“Yes, she will be,” I said reluctantly.

“Well, goodbye, and thank you for all you have done.”

It was a kind of dismissal, but I was glowing with pleasure as I ran home.

I could not resist going to the House of the Seven Magpies. It was two days later. Flora was sitting in her usual place in the garden, the doll’s pram beside her. I called over the wall and she welcomed me with a smile.

“How is … he … this afternoon?” I asked tentatively.

“Sleeping nicely. The little monkey woke me up at five this morning. There he was, gurgling and chuckling to himself … once he’d wakened me, of course.”

1 went over and looked down at the doll. The clothes and cutting of the hair had helped a good deal, but I was surprised she did not appear to have noticed the difference.

“He looks as well as ever,” I said cautiously.

A shadow came over her face.

“There was a nightmare,” she said, her lips beginning to tremble.

“A nightmare,” I said.

“Then don’t talk of that. They are best forgotten.”

“It’s all right.” She looked at me appealingly.

“I didn’t, did I? I held him tight, didn’t I? I couldn’t have let my baby come to any harm . not for the world.”

“No, of course not, and he is perfectly all right. You only have to look at him …” I stopped myself. That was not the right thing to say.

She was staring at the mulberry bush.

“It was a night mare, wasn’t it?” she said appealingly.

“That was all.”

“Of course it was,” I reassured her.

“We all have night mares at some times, you know.”

I was thinking of those awful moments in the wood before Crispin came . and after.

“You too?” she said.

“But you weren’t there.”

I wondered what she meant. I had been there when she dropped the doll;

but I thought it best to agree with her.

I said: “It’s all right. Just look at him. There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“No,” she murmured.

“Nothing wrong. He’s here … he’s been here all the time.”

She closed her eyes. Then she opened them very wide and said: “It’s when I look at him … I see him … his little body …”

Her thoughts were jumbled and clearly dropping the doll had unnerved her.

1 just said: “Well, everything is all right now.”

She smiled and nodded.

1 talked to her for a while until I thought it was time for Lucy’s return. Then I said goodbye and that I would come again soon.

As I came out of the cottage 1 saw Crispin St. Aubyn. I had not gone far when he was beside me.

“So you have been to the cottage,” he said.

“I think our little subterfuge worked.”

“I don’t think she has completely forgotten.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She seems disturbed.”

“How?” he asked sharply.

“I’m not sure. It was the way she talked.”

“What did she say?”

“Something about his not being there but here.”

“Her mind’s unhinged. You can’t take what she says seriously.”

“No. But there seems to be a pattern to it.”

“What do you mean? A pattern?”

“I mean that what she says one day seems to be linked with what she may say the next.”

“You seem to be a very discerning young lady.”

Young lady! I liked that. Not just the child any more. I felt he would have more respect for a young lady than he would have for a mere child.

“Well, I often go to the House of the Seven Magpies.”

“Where?”

“I mean the Lanes’ house.”

“Why did you call it that?”

“There’s a picture in the nursery …”

“So you named the house after the picture?”

“I think it has a special meaning for Flora.”

“What did you call it?”

“The Seven Magpies. You have been up there in that room. You must have seen it. It’s seven magpies sitting on a wall.”

“What is so special about it?”

“The rhyme. Flora said it came from a book and Lucy cut the picture out and framed it for her. You may know the rhyme about the magpies.

“One for sorrow, two for joy ” and all that. And seven are for a secret which must never be told. Flora knows it. She has said it to me more than once. “

He was silent for a moment. Then in a cool voice he said: “And you think there is something significant about that?”