The Secret Passage (4 page)

Aunt Mabel shut the door with a bang and said, to John, “It seems you've got more imagination than is good for you.”

The house seemed very quiet and still but as they reached the second landing they heard something—a low muttering
that gradually got louder and louder until it burst into a deep, vibrating roar. The children stood stock still. The roar seemed to shake the house; then, suddenly, it stopped short in a loud snort and a sniffle.

They heard nothing more for a moment. Then, from behind them, they heard another queer sound. It was Aunt Mabel, laughing.

“That's Mr Agnew,” she said. “He snores. He has a quite exceptional snore. In the summer he sleeps out in his shed in the garden so he won't disturb the other guests.”

“But it's only seven o'clock,” Ben said. “Why should a grown-up man be asleep at seven o'clock?”

Aunt Mabel said crisply, “Mr Agnew is an artist. Artist's aren't ordinary people. Mr Agnew likes to sleep at funny times—sometimes he sleeps all day. I expect he'll wake up soon and want his lunch.”

The children looked at each other. Mary said, cautiously, “Where does Miss Pin live?”

“On the ground floor, because of her arthritis,” Aunt Mabel said. “Not that it matters much where she is. She never leaves her room.”

The children digested this information in silence. What odd people they must be, Miss Pin who never went out, Mr Agnew who slept during the day.

Aunt Mabel seemed to know what they were thinking. “There's no harm in people being a bit different,” she said. “Miss Pin is
very
different, you'll find, Live and let live, that's my motto.”

The third flight of stairs seemed steeper than ever, Ben groaned. “My legs will be worn out, climbing.”

“He's not used to stairs,” Mary explained. “Our bungalow didn't have stairs.”

“He'll get used to them,” Aunt Mabel said. “I daresay there'll be a lot of things you'll all have to get used to. Here we are now. This is your room.”

She switched on the light. The attic was long and low and bare-looking, with little, pointed, uncurtained windows. There was very little furniture in it, but the three beds looked neat and inviting and against one wall stood an enormous rocking horse with a saddle and stirrups, painted all over with bright, red spots.

Ben screamed with delight and climbed onto its back.

“I thought you might like it,” Aunt Mabel said. “It's
only-an
old thing—been up here for years.”

“But it looks
new
” John said. “Quite, quite new.”

“Oh—I painted it up a bit,” Aunt Mabel said. She sounded embarrassed.

Ben hurled himself off the horse and leapt at her, twining his small stout legs round her, hanging round her neck. “Oh you are
kind
,” he said.

Aunt Mabel let him kiss her, but she didn't look as if she enjoyed it much. Then she untangled his legs and arms and set him firmly down on the floor. Ben said, as if something had just struck him, “Have you got any children, Aunt Mabel?”

Aunt Mabel looked at him. There was a very odd expression on her face. “No,” she said. Then the blood came up into her cheeks and she looked very red and cross. “Get straight into bed,” she said. “No romping about. You can turn out your own light. I've got quite enough to do without traipsing up and down stairs. Good-night.”

When she had gone they undressed in silence. Ben and Mary got into bed and John pulled a chair up to one of the pointed windows. He wrestled with the rusty catch and pushed it open. The cold wind rushed in like icy breath, and they could hear the roaring, slithering sound of the sea crashing down on a pebble beach.

“This bed's horrible,” Ben said. “All lumps. And it's
cold
. Shut the window, John.”

“Not for a minute. I like it.”

Mary thought that this was the first night of her life that she had gone to bed without someone kissing her good-night. Even Mrs Epsom had touched her cheek with her lips when she tucked her up. She lay, thinking about this, and listening to the sea. It sounded very wild and lonely and strange; there was so much of it, she thought, between England and Africa. And Dad was thousands and thousands of miles away, on the other side.

Her eyelids felt very heavy and she closed them. As she drifted into sleep, she could hear the sea and John's voice, droning on and on, half talking to her, half talking to
himself
.

“If I lean out, I can see the garden. And a high wall and the big garden next door. I should think it's all overgrown and tangly. The house next door juts out much more than this house—its like a huge dark shoulder that you can't see past. It's funny to think of such a big house being shut up for years and years except for just a little bit, in the summer. I wonder what it's like inside? All dusty and dark, I should think, with lots of rooms that no one's been into for years. On the other side of this wall there's an attic full of things no one ever sees.
It would be a lovely place to hide and have a secret. Mary—that's what we'll call it.
Mary
.”

But Mary was asleep. So was Ben—fast asleep on his front with his bottom sticking up in the air. John looked at them both and then turned back to the window. He whispered to himself, “I shall call it the House of Secrets.”

J
OHN WAS AWAKE
before the others the next morning. The bare attic was flooded with clear sunlight and when he climbed up onto the rickety chair to look out of the window, he saw a pale blue sky with little clouds floating high up in it, like puffs of smoke. At the end of the garden was a line of houses with blue slate roofs and, behind them, a darker blue line where the sky met the sea. Everywhere, gulls were diving and screaming, making a tremendous noise that almost drowned the rhythmic sucking sound of the sea on the beach.

The garden immediately below the window was long and bare and narrow; at the end of it, there was a wooden shed. The garden of the big house on the other side of the high brick wall, was much larger and looked dense and overgrown with a thick shrubbery of dark, speckly evergreens.

John jumped off the chair. “Wake up,” he said, “Mary,
wake up
. Come and look at the sea.”

Mary yawned sleepily and rolled over in bed.

Ben sat up and sneezed so hard that his bed rattled.

Mary opened her eyes. “You’ve caught a cold,” she said accusingly.

“I habend.” Ben glared at her before he sneezed again. He said in a hoarse voice, “I habend gotta code.”

Aunt Mabel thought differently.

“You’ll stay indoors this morning,” she said, after Ben had sneezed his way through breakfast. (Ben had never had a cold before and he had no idea how to be polite about it. When he wanted to sneeze, he just sneezed: it was like sitting at a table with an erupting volcano.) “John and Mary can go out,” Aunt Mabel went on. “But you must stay with me.”

“I don’t want to,” Ben said. “I want to go out. It’ll make me worse to stay in a stuffy old house.”

“You’ll do as you’re told,” Aunt Mabel said.

She spoke rather sharply. She thought Ben was likely to be more difficult to control than John and Mary. She was probably right. Ben wasn’t really spoiled or even particularly naughty, but he was a tough, determined little boy who had been simply used to having his own way. Up to now, there had been no real reason why he shouldn’t have it. In Africa, there had been no need for a lot of tiresome rules; since his parents had known Ben was sensible enough to keep out of danger, they had let him go more or less where he liked and do what he liked. The first person who had tried to hedge him in was Mrs Epsom with her endless, boring, “Don’t do this … don’t do that.” It seemed to Ben, suddenly, that Aunt Mabel was going to be just like her, and he went dark red with anger.

“I won’t,” he said. “I
won’t
. I wan’ to go and look at the sea. I habend gotta code.” And he gave a simply tremendous sneeze.

Perhaps if Aunt Mabel had laughed at him, it would have been all right. But she didn’t. She was too worried in case Ben would not obey her. She knew very little about children;
certainly, she had no idea how to manage Ben any more than she would have known how to manage a strange wild animal suddenly dumped down in her kitchen.

She said briskly, “Don’t be so stupid. I won’t have it. If you go out, you might get pneumonia and I’ve got enough to do without nursing a sick child. If you don’t do what you’re told, you’ll have to go straight up to your room and stay there.”

Ben looked at Aunt Mabel and Aunt Mabel looked at Ben. If Mary hadn’t been so nervous about what was going to happen, she might have noticed that they both looked rather alike for the moment, staring at each other with the same angry, determined expression in their brown eyes. Then the colour vanished from Ben’s face and he looked as white as a piece of paper, with two dark holes for eyes.

“I hate you,” he said. “I
hate
you.” And he flew at Aunt Mabel, whirling his arms like a small windmill in a gale.

She caught hold of him by the wrists. She slapped him once, on his bare, sturdy legs. Then she took him by the collar and marched him out of the room with a grim expression on her face.

‘Mary and Ben stood still, feeling shocked and unhappy. John crept to the door and listened, but there was no sound from upstairs. They waited for about five minutes, until Aunt Mabel came back into the kitchen, stalked past them without a glance and bent over to poke the Beast. She riddled violently, so many hair pins tinkling onto the floor that her bun became unfastened and her hair fell down like a curling grey snake. She slammed the boiler door and turned to face them, two red spots high up on her cheeks, hands on hips, feet firmly planted
at ten to two. She was wearing a pair of flat, flappy houseshoes; Mary thought that they made her feet look rather like a pair of kippers. She said curtly, “Ben’s got to learn to do what he’s told. But that’s no reason why you should hang about looking like a pair of miseries. Get your coats on and go down to the sea—a bit of air will do you good.”

Mary said nervously, “If you don’t mind, Aunt Mabel, we—we’d rather not go without Ben the first time. We’d rather wait until his cold is better.”

Aunt Mabel looked at her. Then she shrugged her shoulders and said grudgingly, “All right. I don’t mind what you do as long as you clear out from under my feet.” She began to clear the table. Mary started to help her, but she said, “I’ll do this—if you want to help you can go and tell Mr Agnew his
breakfast
will be ready in ten minutes.”

John looked doubtfully at Mary. “Where is Mr Agnew?”

“Shed at bottom of garden. Put your coats on. Wind’s bitter.”

They went up the basement stairs and along the passage to the back door. The long, thin garden was empty and
bare-looking,
even when the summer came, John thought, nothing much would ever grow there. A sound of hammering came from the wooden shed and on a nail outside the open door a man’s jacket was hanging. It wasn’t an ordinary looking jacket—it was huge, immense, more like an overcoat. The children stared at it, amazed. John whispered, “He must be the biggest man in the world …”

“Ssh,” Mary said, because Mr Agnew had suddenly appeared in the doorway. He
was
big—a vast, red-haired giant with piercing blue eyes under shaggy brows and great, hairy,
gingery arms emerging from a short-sleeved red shirt. “Well,” he said. “What is it? Who are you?” He looked and sounded very fierce.

“Please,” Mary said in a small voice, “Please, Aunt Mabel said to tell you breakfast is almost ready.”

He looked down at her, frowning. Then his brow cleared and he laughed, a great, resounding laugh that echoed round the narrow, walled garden like thunder. The children
understood
why his snore was so loud—everything about Mr Agnew was larger than life. “Why—it’s the Orphanage,” he said. He clapped a big, hammy hand on each of their shoulders. “Come in,” he said. “Come into the workshop.”

“We’re not orphans,” John said with dignity, but Mr Agnew did not appear to hear him. He propelled them into the shed. In the centre of the wooden floor stood a great lump of some sort of stone, taller even than Mr Agnew. “Well,” he said, “what do you think of it? Don’t be afraid—just tell me.

The children looked at the statue in silence.

“What is it?” Mary said.

Mr Agnew gave an explosive snort. “Can’t you see? D’you mean to tell me you can’t
see
?

“I can,” John said unexpectedly.

Mr Agnew bent his bright blue gaze upon him. “Well?” he said in a threatening voice.

“It’s a fat woman,” John said. “Kneeling.”

They didn’t understand why Mr Agnew should laugh at that, but he did, longer and louder than he had laughed before. His big stomach shook like a jelly, tears streamed down his cheeks, he began to gasp for breath and ended in a kind of hoot
like a ship’s siren,
Hoo, hoo, hoo
… John and Mary watched him, astonished. Finally, he wiped his eyes and said in a choking voice, “That’s good. That’s rich. My Venus, my beautiful Venus—fat woman, kneeling.
Hoo, hoo
…” He slapped the statue affectionately with his hand. “That’s brought me down a peg. D’you know, I think that’s what I shall call her.”

He stood for a moment, gazing at the statue and rasping his hand over his plump, unshaven chin. He seemed to have forgotten the children altogether.

John said, “Your breakfast’s ready, Mr Agnew.”

“What? Oh …” He smiled at John. “Don’t call me Mr Agnew. Call me Uncle Abe. Honorary Uncle.” He reached his jacket down from the hook and began to put it on. “Do you like messing about with clay? There’s some terracotta on that bench. See what you can do with it.”

He picked up two lumps of the red clay, big as footballs, and tossed one to each of them. Mary looked at her’s, and then at the front of her coat. “It’s very kind of you,” she said. “But—but Aunt Mabel might be cross.” She thought of Mrs Epsom. “If we get dirty, I mean.”

Uncle Abe drew his bristly eyebrows together. “You’re not afraid of Mabel, surely?” He looked searchingly at their
downcast
faces. “Good Lord—I believe you are.” He sounded as if the idea astonished him and made him rather angry. “You needn’t be, y’know,” he said, frowning sternly. “Your Aunt’s an angel. Understand that? An Angel.” He glared at them, turned on his heel and marched towards the house.

“She’s a funny sort of angel,” John said thoughtfully.

“Yes.” Mary sighed and looked up at the top floor of
The 
Haven
, at the tiny, attic window that glinted in the sun. “Poor Ben. He must be awfully miserable,” she said.

*

But Ben wasn’t miserable, he was far too angry. No one had ever slapped him before or punished him in any way. He sat on the edge of his little bed, rebellion and fury burning in his heart, muttering crossly under his breath. He had sneezed so much that his head ached. When he had been angry in Africa, he had always gone off on his own, with Balthazar, until he felt better. He began to think about Balthazar and how he would probably never see him again and after a little while he began to feel comfortably sad and a lot less angry. He thought that it had been rather unkind of him to tell Aunt Mabel that he hated her. Perhaps it had made her cry. He hadn’t really meant to make her cry. He thought she had probably not meant to be so cross with him and that she might easily feel unhappy about it now. He decided that he would go and find her—not to say he was sorry, because he didn’t think he had done anything wrong—but so that
she
could say she was sorry to
him
.

He crept down the stairs, rather cautiously just in case she wasn’t feeling as sorry as she ought to feel, just yet, and stood at the top of the basement stairs. He was just going to start down to the kitchen when he heard a deep, man’s voice and then Aunt Mabel’s, answering him. Ben sighed. It was no good going down to the kitchen if she wasn’t alone, she would just shoo him back to his room. He decided to explore a little instead. He peeped into the big, silent dining room that smelt musty and shut up and had lots of tables with chairs stuck up on top of them. There was a big, dark sideboard with lots of bottles of sauce on it and a grandfather clock in the
corner that ticked with a fat, comfortable sound. Ben
unscrewed
the tops of some of the bottles and tasted the sauces with his tongue. Then he found a glass and a spoon in a
cupboard
in the sideboard and tried making a mixture to drink. He mixed and tasted and mixed and tasted until his tongue felt rather sore. So he cleaned the glass and the spoon, very carefully with his dirty handkerchief, and put them back.

Further along the passage, there was a closed door. Ben wondered if it led into another empty room; he was just about to turn the handle when he thought he heard someone talking inside. Not quite
someone
, though—it had been a thin, squeaky sound, rather like a mouse talking. He waited for a little, then, very quietly, he opened the door and went in.

He must have been wrong, he thought, because there was no one there. It was a small room, and very dark. Thick velvet curtains hung at the window, leaving only a narrow slit for the light to come through. The walls seemed to be hung with rich, dark red material that had gold thread woven into it. Above the mantelpiece there was a big picture in a heavy gilt frame, but it was so dark that Ben could not see what it was meant to be. The room was very full of chests and little tables—so full, in fact, that there was barely room to walk. In front of the fireplace there was a perfectly ordinary wooden towel horse with clothes folded over it that looked out of place, Ben thought, in this rather grand, gloomy room. Near the towel horse, Ben saw something that interested him. On a small, carved table, there was a collection of miniature china and some small, pretty figures carved in a kind of green, cloudy glass. Ben threaded his way through the furniture, being very
careful not to knock anything over, and picked up a tiny cup painted with green and yellow flowers.

Behind him a voice said, “Careful, Boy. That piece is valuable.”

He was so startled that he almost dropped the cup. He put it down gently on the table and said, severely, “You made me jump.”

There
was
someone in the room after all, watching him with eyes that were dark and shiny as boot buttons. The clothes horse was being used as a screen, and inside the screen, in front of a tall oil stove, sat a little old woman in a brilliantly coloured shawl and a queer hat that was all feathers. Beneath the hat her tiny face peeped out; it was wrinkled all over and a pale, yellowish colour. Although she was wearing a shawl and the feather hat, her feet were bare and resting in an enamel bath steaming with hot water. She held a kettle in her lap; another sizzled on the top of the oil stove.

“Who are you?” Ben said, rather rudely.

The old woman’s eyes snapped. “I think that is a question I should ask
you
.”

“I’m Ben Mallory,” Ben said.

She bowed her head in a queenly way so that all the feathers dipped and waved.

“I am Muriel Pin. Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

She was wearing long, black gloves. Very slowly, she took the right one off. Her fingers were thin and frail looking and covered with rings that flashed as she held out her hand. Ben took it and they shook hands gravely.