The Secret Passage (12 page)

“We're not thieves,” John said indignantly.

“Then what are you doing here?” His sharp eyes swept over the three of them and fixed on Ben. “What have you got there?
In your hand
”

Ben held out the green horse that he had taken out of his pocket when he was hiding under the dust cover. He had been stroking it for comfort. Mr Reynolds pounced on him, like a hawk on a mouse, and snatched it out of his hand.

He held it up triumphantly. “Not thieves, eh?” he said with a grim, pleased smile. “Then what are you doing with this? This piece of jade? You stole it, you little thief, took it out of my collection upstairs….”

“I didn't steal it, it's
mine
. I know it looks like some of your old things, but it's not. It was given to me….” Ben was quite as angry as Mr Reynolds. His skin was white and damp and his eyes shone dangerously.

“That's a fine story,” Mr Reynolds said, and made a curious, snorting noise through his nose. “Who on earth would give a boy a valuable piece like this?” He had put on a pair of
gold-rimmed
spectacles and was examining the little horse and fondling it gently, as if he loved it.

“Miss Pin did.” Ben looked as if he was going to burst. “I think you're very
rude
,” he said.

Mary gave a little gasp. But though Mr Reynolds went on frowning, his nose wasn't quite as red as it had been and a ghost of a smile touched his thin mouth.

“We'll see about that, won't we?” he said, quite pleasantly. Then his face went dark purple and he shouted, “Jackson—take these children down to the station. I want them charged with breaking and entering. I am going upstairs to examine my collection of jade. I want to present the Inspector with a full list of what is missing.”

He turned on his heel and marched out of the dining room.

Mary ran after him and caught his arm. “Please—please, Mr Reynolds, don't send us to the police. Just—just go upstairs and look in the cabinet and you'll
see
nothing's missing. The horse belongs to Ben, it really does, it's called Pin and it isn't precious like your things, it's ….”

Mr Reynolds said nothing at all. He just shook her hand contemptuously off his arm and went on, up the stairs.

Jackson said softly behind her, “Don't make him angrier. It won't do you a mite of good.” Mary turned round, her eyes brimming with tears and he added, quite gently, “He can't tell if anything's missing just by
looking
. He's got so much stuff, see. He'll have to go right through all his insurance lists, it's the only way he can tell. And that'll take him hours and hours, I reckon.” He sighed heavily. “In the meantime—I'm afraid I'll have to do as he says. Whatever got into you, breaking into a house like this? Does your mother know anything about it?”

“Our mother is dead,” Ben said in a cold, still voice.

“Oh,” Jackson said. “Oh,” and looked at all three of them with a troubled expression.

John said suddenly, “Before we go, can I go upstairs? I—I want to go to the bathroom.”

Jackson hesitated. “All right. But be quiet—don't let him hear you. And quick. I'll give you three minutes. You needn't try to make a dash for it. I'm hanging on to these two.”

He took hold of Mary and Ben just above the elbow and held them in a firm, but not ungentle grip.

*

John sped up the stairs, running on the balls of his feet. Three minutes wasn't long, but it must be long enough to persuade Victoria to come down and tell her grandfather she was here. It might not make him any less angry, but if she told him they hadn't stolen anything, it might stop him sending them to the police station. She wouldn't be too frightened to do
that, surely? Even if Mr Reynolds was a terrifying person—and he
was
—he was still her grandfather.

Victoria was crouching on the bed, all huddled up against the wall. She had her head down on the beautiful shawl and her shoulders were shaking.

John said, “Stop crying. You
must
. It's important.”

She sat up and looked at him, her face puffy with tears. “Does he know—does he know I'm here?”

John shook his head. “No. But …”

She said quickly, “You won't tell him, will you?”

John fidgeted uneasily from one foot to the other. “
I
won't. But you've got to tell him.” Then the words came tumbling out of him very fast. “He's dreadfully angry—he's going to send us down to the police station—he thinks we're thieves and robbers. And they'll send for Aunt Mabel and she'll be awfully upset and our father will too, and they may send us to prison for years and years—so you've got to come down and tell him we aren't thieves and that Ben didn't steal his little horse….”

“I can't,” she breathed, very low. Her eyes gazed at him; they were like deep, dark wells.

John gave a long, shaky sigh. “You must, you know. He can't hurt you—even if he is cross. If you tell him everything—all about how horrid they were to you at school, he'll
understand
and take you away.”

She shook her head, looking frightened and mulish at one and the same time and John felt suddenly hot and red with anger. She didn't care about him and Mary and Ben, she didn't care if they were sent to prison for life. He couldn't believe that anyone could be so selfish and mean. He rushed across the
attic and dragged her across the bed, shouting, “You've
got
to come. You're just a stupid coward. It's stupid and silly to be frightened of
your grandfather
.”

She fought him like a mad person, pummelling his chest and scratching his face. Though she was taller and older, John was the heavier of the two and he had dragged her almost to the door of the attic when she gasped in a strangled voice, “He's not—he's not my grandfather. Oh—you've broken my locket.”

The locket fell to the floor as John let go of her. He bent to pick it up. She had hurt him quite badly, his cheek was bleeding where she had scratched him, but he was far too curious to be angry. “What do you mean?” he said, astonished. “You
told
us….”

“I know.” She bit her lower lip and her eyes looked wild and scared—like a frightened wild animal's, John thought. She said slowly, “I only meant—he's not my
real
grandfather.” She paused, bowing her head so that her dark hair fell forward and almost hid her face. Finally she mumbled in a low, rapid voice, “My parents weren't my real parents either. My real mother abandoned me—she left me on the steps of the church, Mrs Clark says, and
they
adopted me. My father was Mr Reynolds' son and Mr Reynolds didn't want him to adopt a strange child—he wanted a grandson who was his own flesh and blood to inherit all his art treasures. So when my parents died he didn't want to look after me—he sent me off to a horrible boarding school because he didn't want to see me—I think he almost
hates
me….”

Her eyes weren't wild now, but soft and dreamy. “Who's Mrs Clark?” John asked, but he didn't wait for her answer because he was looking at the little gold locket that had broken
open when it fell to the floor. Inside it, there was a picture. A picture just like the one in the photograph album, of Aunt Mabel when she was young.

“This isn't your locket,” he said, “It's——”

But she wouldn't let him finish. “It is mine—it
is
,” she said passionately. “It … it was round my neck when I was found. I was dressed in beautiful clothes—all silk and lace—that's how I've always known my real parents must have been rich people, and I was wearing this locket. I—I think it must be my mother's picture….”

John looked at her wonderingly. Something very exciting and strange had happened and he could hardly believe it. Although he had always been sure, whatever Mary said, that queer and marvellous things
did
happen, it was always hard to believe it when they did.

“Oh … oh …” he started to say, “oh,
Victoria
…”

He had no time to say anymore, because there were loud, clumping steps on the stairs and Jackson appeared in the
doorway
of the attic. He looked very angry and bothered.

“There you are,” he said. His eyes went past John, to Victoria, and opened wide in surprise. “Oh ho,” he said, and regarded John grimly. “So that's what you were up to, was it? Sneaking off to warn your chum here. I suppose I might have known it. And I was fool enough to think you were just a
pack of
scared kids! I was even soft enough to feel a bit sorry for you …”

His face was scarlet with indignation. He took hold of John by the shoulder. “Come on you,” he said to Victoria, and gave John a rough little push. “And step lively. I shan't let any of you out of my sight till we're safe at the police station.”

T
HE BIG, SHINY
car purred through the streets of Henstable with the four children huddled in the back, not speaking. Mary felt very miserable and scared—and hungry, too, because it was lunch time. She sat next to John and held his hand to comfort him though, in fact, John looked more thoughtful than frightened. His face was pink and his eyes were bright—almost, Mary thought, surprised, as if something
extraordinarily
nice and exciting had happened. He certainly didn’t look like a criminal being taken to the police station.

Neither did Ben. He sat stolidly, his hands clenched on his knees. He had not spoken once and he was so furiously angry that his eyes were like hard, dark little stones. Mary knew he was angry about Pin and was glad of it; as long as he was angry he couldn’t be scared, though he probably wouldn’t have been scared anyway. He was too young, she thought, to understand the dreadful thing that was happening to them.

Victoria was frightened, though. She was crouching in the corner and shivering as if she was very cold. Her face looked just as it had when they first met her; a screwed up, pale, sullen face, glowering out of the window.

The car stopped. Jackson got out, opened the back door and jerked his head. “Out,” he said curtly.

They went up some stone steps into a big, bare room where
there was a kind of counter and a policeman standing behind it. The children waited while Jackson spoke to the policeman in a low voice. The policeman was a tall, red-faced man with a great deal of hair; not only did he have a vast, ginger
moustache
, but there were spikes of red hair growing stiffly out of his ears. He looked at the children while Jackson was talking and after a bit, he beckoned to them.

They went up to the counter. It was so high that Ben could could barely see over it. The policeman spoke to them. They would have to stay here for a while, he said; they were to tell him their names and addresses and their parents would be sent for.

Ben’s mouth was shut tight as a clamp and John seemed speechless—not through fear, exactly, it was more as if he was far away in a world of his own. Mary glanced at Victoria because she was so obviously the oldest, but she was clasping her arms across her chest and quivering and staring at the floor.

So it was Mary who talked to the policeman. She said that their name was Mallory, she told him where they lived and Aunt Mabel’s telephone number. The policeman put little questions, to encourage her; though his voice was gruff it was also quite kind and after a little Mary began to feel a good deal less frightened. When she had finished, she glanced at Victoria again and suddenly realized what John had realised earlier: that Victoria only had to say she was Victoria Reynolds and everyone would know that they weren’t criminals, only rather naughty children who had broken into someone else’s house. And though her grandfather might still be very angry, he would hardly send his grand-daughter’s friends to prison.

She was rather surprised because Victoria didn’t speak up
and say who she was, but she wasn’t angry. Mary had a very kind heart and was always ready to make allowances for people: she thought Victoria was silly not to tell the policeman her name but she was very sorry for her, because she looked so pale and terrified.

Perhaps the policeman was sorry for her too because he didn’t question her, though he looked at her once or twice in a curious sort of way. Or perhaps he thought that she was a Mallory too.

When he had written down all the things that Mary told him, he took them behind the counter and into another room, where there was a bench and some chairs. It was a high, bleak room with a lot of bright, scrubbed, yellow paint and a small, barred window high up in one wall. The policeman said they were to wait there for a little while. Just after he had left, another policeman—a very young one—came in with a tray on which there were four steaming cups of tea that he put down on the bench. He didn’t say anything but winked at them in a cheerful way.

In spite of his wink and the tea—which was so strong and sweet none of them could drink it—the next half hour was a very unhappy time. In fact it seemed more like half a day than half an hour. None of them spoke much. Ben just said, in a quiet, ominous voice, “Just wait till Miss Pin hears of this!” and relapsed into a dark, gloomy silence. Victoria just sat and shook and John peered sideways at her from time to time—an odd, secretive glance that would have puzzled Mary, if she hadn’t been so busy wondering what would happen to them. And what Aunt Mabel would say!

Perhaps even when they discovered who Victoria was, and
that they hadn’t stolen anything, they would still be sent to prison! Perhaps breaking into a house—Breaking and Entering, was what Mr Reynolds had said—was just as bad as stealing something. And they had broken the Bust. Perhaps once Mr Reynolds discovered that, they would all be thrown into jail straightaway, and not let out until they were quite old….

This thought was so alarming that she quite stopped
worrying
about how upset and angry Aunt Mabel was going to be, and when, finally, the door opened and Aunt Mabel was ushered in by the hairy policeman, Mary ran up to her, crying, “Please—oh, please Aunt Mabel, don’t let them send us to prison.”

Aunt Mabel’s eyes were red and her face was pinched and cross, but she held Mary’s head tightly against her side and said soothingly, “There, there, my lamb, don’t cry….” Then, as if she was rather ashamed of herself for being so kind and gentle, she pushed Mary away and said coldly, “I am deeply ashamed—so ashamed I don’t know what to say. Your Father will have to know—everyone will know. It will be in all the papers, you will have to come up before a
magistrate
….”

Ben pushed Mary aside and stood in front of Aunt Mabel. He burst out, “He said we were
thieves
. And we’re not. Miss Pin knows. I’m going to tell her.”

His face was so set and burning with rage that John and Mary would have laughed, if it had not been such a solemn occasion. Then he ran towards the door, butted the hairy policeman in the stomach and squeezed past him. He took everyone by surprise; he was out of the police station and in the street, almost before the policeman could turn round.

“Ben,” Aunt Mabel called in a high voice, “Ben, come back here…”

She would have gone after him if the policeman had not stopped her with a loud, good-natured laugh. “Let him go, Mrs Haggard. We know where he lives, don’t we? We can get hold of him when we want to.” And he went out, closing the door.

Aunt Mabel said, “Well, you’ve got yourselves into a pretty pickle…. You …” Then she saw Victoria, and her eyes sharpened with surprise.

John gave a queer little squeak of excitement. “Aunt Mabel,” he said, “This is Victoria. She is your Long Lost Daughter.”

Aunt Mabel looked thunderstruck. John said, “I knew, because of the locket. She was wearing it when she was found on the steps of the church.” He beamed at Aunt Mabel, very proud and happy, as if he had quite forgotten he was locked in a police station. “We went into the House of Secrets and we found the brass bedstead and the chest with your things in it and the picture of your baby that was stolen—and then we found Victoria had the locket with your picture in it….”

In a minute, he thought, when Aunt Mabel had taken in this wonderful news, she would open her arms wide and clasp Victoria to her bosom. He was a little surprised—even though perhaps he hadn’t explained it very well—when Aunt Mabel did not do this. She simply stood there, her mouth opening and shutting, like a fish gasping for air.

Mary stammered, “But … but I thought Mr Reynolds was her grandfather….”

“Only her
adopted
grandfather,” John explained. “That’s not
the same thing at all.” He looked at Aunt Mabel solicitously. “I suppose it’s an awful shock. Would you feel better if you sat down?”

But Aunt Mabel wasn’t just shocked. Something was
dreadfully
wrong. Her face had gone a curious, mottled colour as she looked at Victoria and suddenly she burst out, “Why,
Vicky Clark
. What have you been telling them—you
wicked
girl?”

Victoria burst into tears.

“I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t …” she sobbed. “They found me in the house and I was so scared … they kept asking questions on and on and they thought Mr Reynolds was my grandfather and I said yes, he was, because I thought otherwise they’d tell on me and I’d get into awful trouble. Then, later on, when I found they hadn’t any more business being there than I had … I couldn’t, I couldn’t….”

John stared at her. He couldn’t believe it. Why should Victoria have told such dreadful lies?

He said indignantly, “But you had that locket? You said …”

She looked at him miserably. “I took the locket out of the chest in the attic. It was so pretty, I only wanted to wear it for a little while. But—but I thought you’d think I’d stolen it. And—and anyway I’d been pretending to myself about it being my mother’s locket….”

“But why did you tell us the other things? Do you mean it wasn’t true,
none
of it—about the awful school and being adopted and your mother and father dying and everything….”

John was dreadfully angry. It was partly disappointment, of course—it had been so exciting and wonderful to think he had discovered Aunt Mabel’s daughter—but he was also an upright boy who despised people who didn’t tell the truth.

Victoria drew a long, sobbing breath. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to tell lies, but I just started and I went on. And it was nice thinking that I lived in that lovely house and that my real parents were rich and everything. It was sort of exciting and everything’s really so horrible and
dull
….”

Aunt Mabel’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. “It wasn’t all lies, John. Vicky’s parents are dead. She’s an orphan and she lives with her foster mother, Mrs Clark. Mrs Clark works for Mr Reynolds—she keeps the house clean for him when he’s away.”

But John’s face stayed cold and stony. He said, “So that’s how you had a key. You just came in and out through the back door. I think you’re a nasty, lying little sneak. Telling us all those stories and making us sorry for you … and … eating our food….”

“I didn’t want it,” Victoria shouted fiercely—she wasn’t crying now, but just as angry as John. “D’you think I wanted that horrible, cold egg and that horrible bread and butter all covered with
dirt
? It’s your fault—you made me eat it, you
made
me….”

She looked thoroughly bad-tempered and cross but Mary felt, suddenly, rather sorry for her. It was their fault in a way, they’d wanted her to be mysterious and exciting. And it was silly of John to be angry when all Victoria had done was to pretend to be someone else—and John himself was always pretending. But of course, though it was all right to pretend, it was wrong to tell lies; sometimes it was very difficult to tell which you were doing.

Mary said, “You should have told us. I mean, it was all right to pretend in the beginning, but after we’d been found out—
when Mr Reynolds had caught us, I mean—you could have told us in the car, or something….”

Victoria gave a sniff. “I thought you’d hate me for telling those lies and think I was horrible, the way everyone else does. And I wanted us to be friends.”

“But we
were
friends,” Mary said, surprised. “So you could have told us. And you should have told us you’d only borrowed the locket because …”

Her voice trailed away. She had suddenly realised how awful it must be for Aunt Mabel when she came into the room and John said, ‘this is your Long Lost Daughter’, when it was only a girl she knew called Vicky Clark.

She looked at Aunt Mabel anxiously, but Aunt Mabel didn’t appear in the least upset. She looked grim. She gave Mary an I’ll-talk-to-you-later, look. But when she turned to Victoria, her expression wasn’t grim at all. It was kind and pitying.

She said, “What were
you
doing in the house, Vicky? Did Mrs Clark know you were there?”

“Once she did,” Victoria said unhappily. “She hurt her back, see about two months ago, and she said I was to go in and dust downstairs so the place would keep clean for Mr Reynolds. He’s ever such a fussy man. Mrs Clark said I was to go home after school and give the little ones their tea and put them to bed and then go along to Mr Reynolds house and clean. I didn’t want to go—I was scared because the house was shut-up and spooky—but she said I was stupid. So I went and dusted like she said—the dining room and the stairs and the hall and then I was tired and my legs ached and I thought Mr Reynolds wouldn’t mind if I sat down for a little while. So I went into that room and saw the piano….”

Aunt Mabel said softly, “And then? What happened then?”

Victoria looked into Aunt Mabel’s face and gave a relaxed little sigh, as if something she saw there made her feel soothed and comforted. She said, “I played it. It’s a lovely piano, it’s got a lovely tone. And I wanted—I wanted to play it more than anything in the world. I
needed
to practise. The lady next door to Mrs Clark’s used to let me practise on her piano and then she got a television set and she couldn’t be bothered with me anymore because they wanted to watch the television … though Mrs Clark said it was because she didn’t like me, she said I looked so sour and cross no one
could
like me. And she said it wasn’t worth my having music lessons anymore if I couldn’t practise.” She paused. “I didn’t hurt the piano. I didn’t do any damage.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Aunt Mabel said.

She was looking at Victoria in an odd way, almost as if she wanted to cry, and Victoria looked back at her with a sad, trusting expression on her face and said piteously, “Will Mrs Clark have to know? About the police and everything? I did an awful thing, you see, I gave her back the front door key but I took the key out of the back door so I could get in to play the piano without anyone knowing. I didn’t do
anything
else except once or twice I went to sleep on the bed in the attic because I was tired—I took an alarm clock so I’d wake up before it was dark. And now Mrs Clark’ll find out and she’ll send me back to the orphanage.” Her voice broke in a sob. “I don’t like Mrs Clark, but I don’t want to go back to the orphanage.”