The Secret Passage (15 page)

“Trumpets blowing?” Mr Reynolds said. He looked interested. He said gently to Victoria, “Perhaps you'd like to come and play it to me now. Loud as you like….”

Victoria was white to the lips. “No … no, I couldn't,” she murmured.

Aunt Mabel said briskly, “Nonsense, child. It's only fair. You've been using Mr Reynolds' paino without his permission. He's got a right to hear how well you played on it.”

Victoria gave a little, gasping sigh. “Now?”

“No time like the present,” Aunt Mabel said. “John—take Ben home. He should be in bed.”

“I feel all right,” Ben said. “Just empty but that's natural. I lost my bread-and-dripping
and
my breakfast and yesterday's supper too, I should think….”

“That'll do,” Aunt Mabel said. “Clear off—the pair of you.”

She turned to Victoria and her voice was quite different—gentle and coaxing. “Come along, dear,” she said.

She put her hand on Victoria's shoulder and Victoria walked towards the piano room, like a girl in a dream.

*

The big room looked quite different with the heavy curtains drawn back and the window open letting in the garden smells of earth and wet grass. The sunlight slanted across the piano where Victoria sat, playing for Mr Reynolds. She played some of the pieces of music she had played for the Mallory children and then some others that Mary had not heard. Her face was grave, but relaxed and calm.

After a little, Mr Reynolds who was sitting on the sofa with Aunt Mabel, began to whisper. Mary, standing behind them so Aunt Mabel shouldn't see her and send her home with John and Ben, could hear what he said.

“It's incredible—do you really mean she hasn't been properly taught?”

“Only a local music teacher,” Aunt Mabel murmured. “And that has stopped. Apparently she's not allowed lessons
anymore
.”

“Scandalous,” Mr Reynolds said. As he turned sideways, Mary could see that his thin nose had flushed purple again.
“Disgraceful. I shall speak to Mrs Clark. It's wicked to neglect a talent like this.”

Aunt Mabel sighed a little. “I don't think it will be easy to make Mrs Clark understand,” she said. “She's a very good sort of woman and I'm sure she does her best, but I've heard in the town that the girl's not easy.”

“Brilliant people never are,” Mr Reynolds said. “D'you mean the girl's not cared for properly?”

His voice had risen. Victoria played a loud chord on the piano and then sat still and scowling. She said, “I can't play if you talk.”

“Vicky,” Aunt Mabel said reproachfully, but Mr Reynolds laughed, his cackly laugh, and stood up.

“Quite right,” he said. “She needs a bit of temperament if she's to get on,” He went over to the piano and stood looking down at Victoria and stroking his chin. She went on scowling at him but he did not seem to mind. He said abruptly, “What school do you go to?”

Victoria said, “It doesn't matter, does it? I'm leaving at the end of next term when I'm fifteen. I'm going into a shop.”

“A
shop
.” The veins bulged out on Mr Reynolds' forehead until they looked as if they might burst through the skin. He glared at Victoria and then walked to the far end of the room, mumbling fiercely to himself. He swung round on his heel. “Nonsense,” he said loudly. “Utter nonsense.” He glared at Victoria again. “Tell me—how would you like to have lessons—go to a proper music school?”

Victoria looked at him, her lips parted. Her eyes were big and glowing. Then she closed her mouth into an ugly, hard line and looked down at her lap. “Mrs Clark wouldn't let me.”

“Mrs Clark.
Mrs Clark
? What right has she to stop you?”

“She looks after me,” Victoria said.

“That's no reason, no reason at all. I'll speak to her—make some financial arrangement.” He frowned severely, thinking aloud. “A bit of local tuition first, then the Royal Academy—perhaps Berlin. I know an excellent man …”

“Mr Reynolds,” Aunt Mabel said in a warning voice. He started and looked at her as if he had forgotten she was there. “You can't collect people like … like pictures,” Aunt Mabel went on. “Victoria has a lot of talent, but you can't just buy her and put her in your collection.”

“What … what …” Mr Reynolds was staring at Aunt Mabel as if no one had ever spoken to him like that before.

Aunt Mabel's colour heightened a little and she clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “She's young,” she said. “She has to be looked after. It would be very kind of you to pay for her to have lessons, but there are other things to be considered….”

“Mrs Clark wouldn't let me,” Victoria said in a loud, dull voice. “And even if she did, there's just the kitchen and one living room with all the kids banging about and shouting. So even if I could have lessons, there's nowhere for me to practise. And if I can't practise I won't be
good
, and if I can't be good—famous like Myra Hess—I'd rather not play at all.”

Mr Reynolds chuckled in an approving sort of way. “That's the right attitude.” He looked thoughtfully at Victoria, “Are you happy with Mrs Clark—fond of her, that sort of thing?”

Victoria said nothing.

“I want the truth,” Mr Reynolds said impatiently. “Don't say ‘yes' just because you think it's unkind to say ‘no'.”

Mary thought this was very sensible of him; it showed that he understood how someone might feel.

Victoria took a deep breath. “No,” she said. “I'm not fond of her and she doesn't like me and I'm not happy there.”

“Then I see no reason why you should remain there,” Mr Reynolds said. “Do you, Mrs Haggard?” And he shot Aunt Mabel a sly, twinkling glance.

Mary could keep silent no longer. The most wonderful idea had been churning round and round inside her all the time she had been standing quiet, and out of sight and listening. She ran up to Aunt Mabel, scarlet with excitement, and said, “She could come and live with us and she could come and practise
here
and you'd be able to afford it now because Miss Pin is rich after all and Uncle Abe may be able to sell his statues so
he'll
be rich and you will, too, won't you, with two lodgers who
pay…
.”

Aunt Mabel raised her eyebrows. “Who told you they didn't?” She started to smile but then seemed to remember something, and stopped. “It seems to me that you know more than is good for you,” she said.

“B
UT WHAT DID
Uncle Abe say?” John asked, almost irritably.

It had been a most exciting day but too much excitement is like over-eating; it leaves you feeling liverish. Besides, John had missed some of the things that had happened towards the end—the best things, it seemed to him. While Victoria played to Mr Reynolds
he
had been sent home with Ben, and Ben had been sick again. And then, when Aunt Mabel took Victoria home and left John and Mary to eat supper alone with strict instructions to go to bed immediately afterwards, Uncle Abe had lumbered upstairs to have what he called a Very private conversation with my Agent and Benefactor. That was Ben. So it was no wonder John was feeling left out and a little cross.

Ben was sitting up in bed, his face the ivory colour of piano keys, but his eyes were bright and dancing with excitement.

“Mr Reynolds went to see him in his workshop—he’s going to buy all the statues. Fat Woman Kneeling and all. Uncle” Abe said it was a lucky break….”

Mary said, “The House of Secrets has been awfully lucky, hasn’t it? We ought to call it the Lucky House. Because if we hadn’t broken that Bust we’d never have put Uncle Abe’s thing there and Mr Reynolds would never have seen it and bought it.”

“He’s not going to buy that one,” Ben said quickly. “That one’s mine.”

“But you can’t keep it,” John said. “Not if it’s worth a lot of money.”

“Yes, I can,” Ben said in a lordly way. “You know what Mr Green said. I can have anything I like.”

This was really insufferably cocky. John thought: he’ll turn into a horrible person if he goes on like this.

But Ben wasn’t as bad as he had sounded. “I don’t suppose I’ll have enough to buy the African boy,” he said. “But Uncle Abe said I can keep him. He said it was Commission—that’s what Agents get. Because I sort of told Mr Reynolds about him—that’s what Agents do.”

Downstairs, the front door banged. It was Aunt Mabel, coming home. She came upstairs and into their attic
bedroom
.

“What happened?” Mary asked, bouncing up and down on her bed in her vest arid knickers, her face on fire with
excitement
. “What did Mrs Clark say? Was she cross?”

“All in good time,” Aunt Mabel said. “Get into your night things.”

When she first came in she had been smiling a faint, pleased smile but now it had faded and she watched them scramble into their pyjamas with a puzzled frown.

She said, after a little, “There’s something I want to ask you. Something I don’t understand.” She cleared her throat as if it had an uncomfortable lump in it. “It’s not the sort of thing I should have expected from you children. I know I’ve
sometimes
thought, perhaps unfairly, that you were rather spoiled, but I’ve never—not once—thought you were unkind. And
yet …” She swallowed hard as if the lump in her throat was still there.

“What have we done wrong?” Mary said unhappily. Aunt Mabel looked so stern and solemn—it seemed dreadful, after this splendid day.

Aunt Mabel looked at her searchingly. “Don’t you know? Or you, John?”

John and Mary shook their heads. Aunt Mabel looked at their worried faces and seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then she sighed and said, “I know it’s fun to play jokes on people sometimes. But now and again jokes aren’t funny—sometimes they can be very unkind. It is rather unkind, don’t you think, when you know someone once had a little baby that they loved very much, to come marching in with a strange girl and
pretend
that this
is
the baby, grown up?”

Her hands were folded in front of her and Mary saw that she clasped them together very tightly, as if to stop them shaking.

She said, “But Aunt Mabel, we thought Victoria was your girl. I mean, John did. He told you—it was because of the locket and because of what she said—we thought what she said was true, we didn’t know it was just a game. And it
might
have been her, mightn’t it? Victoria might have been your baby that was stolen by Enemies….”

“Stolen? Enemies?” Aunt Mabel said in an astonished voice. “What do you mean?”

“Ben told us,” John said. “After I’d found the photograph of the baby. Didn’t you, Ben?”

“Miss Pin told
me
,” Ben said. “She said it was dreadfully sad because you had lost your little girl and I said, did the Enemies steal her, and she said yes….”

Aunt Mabel started laughing. The children were rather shocked because it didn’t seem anything to laugh about. But Aunt Mabel laughed until the tears came into her eyes. And then she cried for a little while, without laughing.

When she could speak, she said, “Oh Ben—darling little Ben. I’m so sorry—of course none of you would have played such a trick on me! I don’t understand about the Enemies, but I know what Miss Pin meant. My poor baby died, she was never very strong, and one morning after I’d put her in her pram, she just closed her eyes and went to sleep for … for ever.” Her mouth trembled a little but she went on firmly, “So you see, I
did
lose her, though not quite in the way you thought….”

The children sat in their beds, very silent and solemn. This was very sad, much sadder than they had realised. Aunt Mabel seemed to know what they were thinking because she said softly, “If someone you love dies, you know one thing—you know they’re never going to be unhappy or in pain anymore. It would have been much worse if my baby really
had
been lost, in the way you meant. Because I would never have known if she was happy or not, would I? She might have been living with people who didn’t love her, perhaps, even, neglected her….” She stopped and drew in her breath sharply.

Mary said, in a hushed voice, “Like Victoria?”

Aunt Mabel nodded. Her upper lip was caught between her teeth and she sat down, rather suddenly, on Mary’s bed as if her legs felt shaky.

Mary came out from under the bedclothes and slid along to her. She said awkwardly, “I’m sorry. It would have been so nice if Victoria had been your girl.”

“You mean it would have been like something in a story? I suppose it would have been exciting—though very unlikely.”

Mary shook her head. “I didn’t mean because of that. I meant it would have been nice for you. Because then you’d have had a family to … to
like
.”

Aunt Mabel stared at her. Then she coughed, rather violently, until her face was red, pulled Mary onto her lap and said in a funny, choking voice, “You’re all the family I want.”

She said nothing more for a minute, just rocked Mary backwards and forwards and watched John and Ben with eyes that were very bright and shining.

At last she said, “Though I daresay I shall be able to manage Victoria too.” And in a voice that was steadier now, she told them that she had talked to Mrs Clark who was quite willing—indeed, very glad—to give up being Victoria’s foster mother. Though she didn’t really dislike Victoria she had more than enough to do with her own children, especially since she had hurt her back and the only reason she hadn’t sent Victoria back to the orphanage was that she thought the girl was so difficult and cross that no one else would be willing to look after her. “So if they agree, and I expect they will,” Aunt Mabel said, “I’ll be her foster mother and she’ll live here and Mr Reynolds will pay for her to have music lessons and let her practise on the piano next door until she is old enough to go wherever he wants to send her.” She looked at the children uncertainly, “You won’t mind? I mean you’re quite fond of her, aren’t you?”

“Oh,” Mary said. “Oh—it’ll be lovely. We’ll be such a nice family, two girls and two boys….”

Aunt Mabel hugged and kissed Mary without speaking, then tipped her gently off her lap and went over to John and Ben and hugged and kissed over and over again, rather as if to make up for all the times she hadn’t kissed them. In fact, John and Ben who didn’t like being kissed all that much, thought she was over-doing it. John was beginning to wriggle when the telephone rang downstairs.

“I’ll go,” he said and slid out of Aunt Mabel’s arms and shot out of the door.

Aunt Mabel, her arms empty, looked hungrily at Ben, but he said quickly, “I want a drink, I’m awfully dry.”

Aunt Mabel fetched him a glass of water from the bathroom but he had only had time to just sip at it when John burst into the room shouting, “Oh—this is the best thing, the best thing of all. Do you know who that was? That was
Dad
.”

Immediately, there was pandemonium; so much noise in the room and so many questions being asked that no one could hear what they were, let alone answer them. Finally, by dint of getting hold of John by the shoulders and shaking him quite hard, Aunt Mabel managed to get out of him that Mr Mallory was waiting on the telephone to speak to her.

“Goodness—and my hair’s coming down,” she said in a flustered voice and ran out of the room, light as a girl.

“He can’t see you on the telephone,” John shouted after her. Then he began to laugh—or perhaps ‘crow’ would be a better word because that is just what he sounded like, a fat, barn rooster, crowing. He jumped up and down, making this extraordinary noise, his face, bright red and glistening.

“He’s at the station,” he shouted, “at the station, at the station. He wanted to telephone from the Airport but there
wasn’t time because he wanted to catch the last train. He’ll be here any minute—any
second
.”

Mary began to cry, out of happiness. The tears rolled out of her eyes, down her cheeks and into her mouth, tasting warm and salt.

Ben got out of bed and stood on his head against the wall because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“What do you think you’re doing, young man?” Aunt Mabel said as she came back into the room. “You’ll be sick again, mark my words. A fine welcome for your father!”

She seized Ben by the seat of his pyjamas and jerked him right side up. “Now,” she said in a commanding voice, “be quiet—all of you.”

She waited while Mary’s sobs quietened and John’s crowing died down to a series of small, strangled hiccoughs.

Then she said, “I want you to listen—we’ve only got a few minutes. Your father has been dreadfully ill. He went off into the bush, in a very wild part of Kenya, and caught a fever. He was lying in his tent, all alone, when a local tribeman found him and took him to hospital, but for weeks no one knew who he was—he didn’t even seem to know himself. His memory came back a few days ago and he went straight to Nairobi to catch the first plane. He’s better of course, but he’s not strong, still—you mustn’t bounce at him too much or shout too loud….”

Ben had been too busy thinking to listen. As soon as Aunt Mabel paused for breath, he said, “Are we going back to Africa?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Aunt Mabel said. “You mustn’t build on it. Your father may not be able to afford to take you.”

Ben drew a deep breath. “
I
can afford it,” he said grandly. “I can afford anything I like. And if we don’t go back to Africa, I shall pay to have Thomas flown over here, and Balthazar too, and if Dad wants to retire I shall buy him a television set, so he won’t be bored, living in England.”

Aunt Mabel started to laugh but stopped herself. “That’s quite enough of that sort of talk, Ben,” she said crushingly. “You’re getting above yourself. Miss Pin may have made a fuss of you, she may even want to make you a few small presents but you must understand that you’ll have what’s good for you and no more. You’re not a sort of little prince—you’re just a little boy. And your nose needs wiping.”

She dived at him, handkerchief at the ready, but he danced out of her way.

Then the door bell rang; a piercing sound, bright as a sword.

John and Mary were out of the door in a flash but Ben lingered, just for a second. He had to have the last word.

“I’m not just a little boy,” he said, and drew himself up with dignity. “Mr Green says I’m a Man of Substance.”