Alice-Miranda on Vacation (8 page)

If there was one thing they most certainly did know, it was that their daughter was more than capable of looking after her own affairs. After the term she had just had, they were convinced more than ever that she really was a most capable child.

T
hat night, Alice-Miranda lay in her bed thinking about her day. She had been looking forward to coming home, and it was so lovely to see everyone. But there was something bothering her. Not anything in particular, just a strange feeling that things weren’t quite right. And Alice-Miranda had a very good nose for strange feelings.

Lying in her enormous bed, she felt awfully small.

Alice-Miranda stared at the canopy above her, fighting off the sleep that threatened to interrupt the movie of the day she was replaying in her head. There had been lots of lovely things, but she was worried about Lucas. And then Daisy was upset too,
but she wouldn’t say why. There was that strange black car in the laneway and then Mr. Ridley arrived. He was very friendly and terribly handsome, but he had argued with Daddy at dinner and that had given her a bad feeling.

Her eyelids were getting heavier and her mind was drifting when the door to her bathroom flew open and Jacinta leapt onto her bed.

Alice-Miranda sat bolt upright. “What? What is it?”

“I need you to see something,” Jacinta whispered loudly.

“What’s the matter?” Alice-Miranda’s brown eyes were at once wide and alert.

“I just saw Mr. Ridley in the garden.”

“What were you doing in the garden?” Alice-Miranda asked.

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Jacinta pulled back the covers and grabbed Alice-Miranda’s arm.

She opened the bedroom door and leaned her head outside, then turned back to her friend. “Clear!”

On bare toes, the girls crept along the hallway to the top of the staircase.

“I think we should use the kitchen stairs.” Alice-Miranda tugged Jacinta’s arm and motioned toward the other end of the hall. “It’s quieter than the foyer, and we don’t want to wake up the whole house,
although Daddy seems to have bionic hearing and sleeps with one eye open.” She giggled until Jacinta hushed her with a fierce look.

“Then
stop
talking!” Jacinta hissed. “What about Mrs. Oliver and Shilly?”

“Most likely in bed.” Alice-Miranda pointed at the grandfather clock that stood on the landing halfway down the main staircase. It was about to strike twelve.

The girls made their way along the hall, anxious that every step could be their undoing. Old houses had a way of giving up their secrets at the most inopportune times; the girls listened for every creak and groan and tiptoed down the kitchen stairs.

A light flickered as they reached the bottom, and Alice-Miranda realized that it was the television in the side sitting room. She pressed her finger to her lips and started across the kitchen floor. There was a loud grunt, and a snort. Alice-Miranda jumped as she realized that Shilly was sitting in her favorite armchair. The girls froze. And then there was a sound like air escaping from a balloon. Jacinta stifled a laugh. Shilly began snoring very loudly.

The girls reached the outside kitchen door and Alice-Miranda gently turned the handle. It wasn’t locked. The doors never were. On the side porch
the girls allowed their eyes to adjust to the light. A golden moon hung in a pillow of clouds, gently illuminating the garden around them. The sky was scattered with diamonds.

“Where did you see him?” Alice-Miranda whispered.

Jacinta pointed toward the walled garden.

The girls crept around the veranda, eager to avoid the crunchy gravel driveway. When they reached the grass, Alice-Miranda grabbed Jacinta by the hand and they shot off into the garden—in search of what exactly, Alice-Miranda still did not really know.

They reached the cherub fountain and at last Alice-Miranda felt it was safe to talk.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

Jacinta’s eyes were wide with excitement. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I would do some stretching on the floor in my bedroom. But then I heard a door click and I thought it might have been you, so I peeked outside for a better look. But it wasn’t you, it was Mr. Ridley and he was wearing a black cloak and carrying a yellow folder. He was checking to see that there was no one in the hallway, so I quickly ducked my head back inside and waited until he had gone. Then I followed him and he went downstairs and out the front door. I was a bit worried about going after
him in the dark on my own, so I ran back to the bedroom to see if I could track where he went from the window.”

“He probably couldn’t sleep—like you—and me too now,” Alice-Miranda replied.

“That’s what I thought to begin with, but then I saw a light coming from the field beyond the walled garden. And then there was an outline of a figure. He was meeting someone.”

Alice-Miranda’s mind began to race. Who would he be meeting in the middle of the night? Didn’t Daddy say that it was just a coincidence that he ran into Mr. Ridley at the club? It was rather strange.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Jacinta sounded a little worried—but mostly excited now.

“I don’t know.” Alice-Miranda bit her lip. “Perhaps we should go and see if we can find him?” She took Jacinta’s hand and they scurried to the door in the stone wall, which led through to the long meadow. Alice-Miranda was about to turn the brass handle when they heard voices. They were getting closer. Jacinta grabbed Alice-Miranda’s hand and wrenched her behind a nearby camelia hedge.

The handle turned. Alice-Miranda began to stand up when Jacinta pulled her arm and she fell with a thump onto the lawn.

“What did you do that for?” asked Alice-Miranda as she dusted herself off and kneeled on the ground.

“Sorry,” Jacinta mouthed. “I don’t think you should go out there. What if he’s up to no good?”

Alice-Miranda was not convinced. Jacinta kneeled up too and tried to part the leaves to get a better look, but there was too much foliage. The girls had to rely on their ears instead.

“Thank you,” came Lawrence’s voice. “This is worth more to me than gold.”

The other voice sounded like a woman’s. If the speakers took just a few more steps into the garden, the girls might have heard better.

Jacinta screwed up her nose and looked at Alice-Miranda, who was shaking her head. Neither of them could work out what the woman was saying.

“I’d better get back,” Lawrence whispered. “Don’t want anyone to miss me.”

“… maybe tomorrow or the next day …” was all Alice-Miranda could make out from the female voice.

“Just let me know …” Lawrence closed the door and swept back toward the house.

Alice-Miranda popped up first, followed by Jacinta.

“What was all that?”

“ ‘Worth more than gold?’ I wonder what he was
talking about?” Alice-Miranda had a twisting feeling in her stomach. “We’d better get back to the house.”

The girls walked to the edge of the garden and waited until they saw Lawrence disappearing through the front door and up the stairs.

Back in the safety of Alice-Miranda’s bedroom, the pair lay side by side whispering about what they had just seen and heard.

“You should tell your parents in the morning.” Jacinta pulled the covers up under her chin.

“Why don’t we just ask Mr. Ridley?” Alice-Miranda suggested.

“But what if he’s up to no good?” Jacinta replied. “He’s probably a spy or something—he did seem to know lots of things about African governments at dinnertime.” She gasped. “Oh, how romantic.”

Alice-Miranda made up her mind. “Well, I’m going to talk to him as soon as I can. Perhaps I could go now. I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation for his midnight meeting.” She glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was almost one a.m.—perhaps a bit late to be bothering their guest. “Do you want to stay here tonight?” she asked, turning to her friend. But Jacinta was already fast asleep.

A
lice-Miranda was awake early. She had dreamt of all manner of strange things, and it took her a minute to remember that their nocturnal adventure into the garden had in fact actually happened. Jacinta was still asleep. Her delicate even breaths were occasionally punctuated by loud grunts that would rival Shilly’s best efforts. Alice-Miranda was impressed.

Not wanting to wake her, Alice-Miranda grabbed a clean shirt, a pair of socks and the jeans that were hanging over the back of her chair and crept to the bathroom. She dressed quickly and exited through Jacinta’s adjoining room.

She was determined to have a chat with Mr. Ridley before the whole house was awake.

Tiptoeing along the hallway to the blue room, Alice-Miranda raised her tiny hand and knocked ever so gently. From inside she thought she could hear papers rustling, so she knocked again—a little harder. She waited, just a moment, and then turned the handle.

“Mr. Ridley, are you there? It’s me, Alice-Miranda,” she announced. “I wondered if we could have a quick chat?” She leaned around the door to take a peek inside. The four-poster bed was empty and unmade. The curtains were billowing and there were papers scattered all over the floor.

Alice-Miranda climbed up onto the writing table to shut the window. She pulled hard. The giant frame squeaked and shuddered as she hauled with all her might. It finally released and hit the sill with a thud. Alice-Miranda snipped the brass latch before attempting to push the curtains back behind the desk as best she could manage.

There was a yellow folder on the floor—perhaps it was the same one Jacinta had seen Mr. Ridley carrying last night. Alice-Miranda wasn’t going to look at the papers; she knew it was wrong to mind other
people’s private business. But Shilly would have a fit if she saw the mess. Anyway, they looked like handwritten letters and she still wasn’t very good at reading fancy curly-swirly writing. Alice-Miranda shuffled the pages back together and was about to place them in the folder when something caught her eye—a name at the bottom of one of the papers.

Kitty. Now, where had she heard that name lately? And then she remembered. What a strange coincidence, she thought. Her mind began to race. Perhaps Lawrence’s meeting her father in the club yesterday afternoon wasn’t just an accident after all.

Alice-Miranda placed the folder on the writing table and promptly left the room.

She scampered down the kitchen stairs, hoping to find Mr. Ridley at breakfast. Mrs. Oliver was bustling about stirring pots and buttering toast. The scrubbed table was set for five, but Alice-Miranda noticed that two spots were already playing host to dirty bowls and plates.

“Hello, my darling girl.” Dolly turned from the steaming pot of porridge simmering on the stove. “You’re up bright and early. Jacinta still asleep?”

“Yes, I didn’t want to wake her. I mean, it is holidays, after all.” Alice-Miranda pulled out a chair and
sat down. “Have Daddy and Mummy had breakfast already?” she asked, surveying the empty plates opposite.

“No, it was your father and Mr. Ridley up early. Shilly and I were having a quiet start to the day, enjoying some tea and toast with a rather thick helping of Mrs. Smith’s cherry jam, might I add, when they clattered downstairs. I don’t know what happened last night but Shilly turned the color of those apples there”—Mrs. Oliver pointed at the bowl of Red Delicious in the middle of the table—“and immediately made an excuse that she needed to start on polishing the silver in the dining room. At this hour. Can you imagine? Anyway, they’ve gone for a ride and I don’t think they plan to be back for quite some time. Your father mentioned something about lunch at the Red Lion, so goodness knows when they’ll return.”

“Oh.” Alice-Miranda’s tone betrayed her disappointment.

“But your father said that when he gets back he will give you girls his undivided attention,” Dolly continued. “He wanted to let you sleep in on your first morning home. Now, what would you like for your breakfast?”

“Umm … scrambled eggs, please,” Alice-Miranda
replied. “If that’s not too much trouble. I can have porridge if it’s easier,” she added.

“Get off with you, young lady. You know it’s no bother, and if the day should arrive that it were, I would find myself a cottage and move there in the morn,” Dolly quipped. “Now sit down and pour yourself some of that juice. Mr. Greening picked those oranges just yesterday.”