There May Be Danger (11 page)

Read There May Be Danger Online

Authors: Ianthe Jerrold

BOOK: There May Be Danger
4.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

This was news to Kate.

“Yes, indeed,” sighed Mrs. Howells. “It was finding one of the papers up the road made us think he had turned towards the hills when he left here that night, not towards the village.”

“Whereabouts was this paper found, then, Mrs. Howells?”

“Oh, in the road about fifty yards up. The police didn't think a great deal of it, because of course there was plenty others bought toffee that day, and children mostly drops the papers about, whatever their teachers tells them! The reason Corney and me thought it was Sidney dropped this paper up the road, was, it was a green shiny paper like is on the peppermint flavours. And Sidney liked the peppermint flavours the best, and I picked out an extra lot of the green-covered ones to please him. Still, because plenty of other people like peppermint flavour, too, I did not give them all to Sidney,” said Mrs. Howells replacing the lid on the tin, and the tin below the counter. “The police did not think so much of the toffee-paper because they believed he had gone back to London, as children mostly does that doesn't like the country, and London is the opposite direction from the hills. But I knows, and Corney knows, Sidney never had a thought of going to London.”

“Did Sidney take any other food with him when he went out that night?” 

“Not from here. Sidney was a very good boy, he never went to the larder like some boys as is billeted about here.”

The extraordinary wavelike high pitched hullabaloo of young humans at play smote on her ears as she approached the school and when she went in at the entrance a football came hurtling through the air, missed her head by about three inches, and went hurtling back over the heads of innumerable shouting boys. In the tremendous noise, the interrogative upward inflections of the Marches mingled with the affirmative burr of the North, and was punctuated by the glottal stop of the Cockney kid. It occurred to Kate that the break probably only lasted a quarter of an hour, and that she had better get hold of Sidney's friend before seeking an interview with his teacher. She stopped in her tracks and looked about her for a Cockney. At once half-a-dozen boys, who had a second ago seemed oblivious of her presence, gathered round her inquiringly, with the touching helpfulness of the helpless young. The first to speak was a London child.

“Miss, do you want Mr. Pilgrim, Miss?”

“I'm looking for a friend of Sidney Brentwood's—his best friend, if possible.”

There was a noisy and sibilant consultation, and in a very short time Kate was confronted with a wiry, freckled boy in a corduroy wind-sheeter and manly blue serge trousers. Half-a-dozen boys, interested in the possibilities of unfolding drama, introduced him zestfully as Ronnie Turner. Kate thought it best to say at once, that she had no news of Sidney Brentwood, but on the contrary, wanted Ronnie to tell her something about him. Ronnie looked rather reserved, but led her to the comparative privacy of a roofed shelter where one or two smaller boys were hopping about on the benches, offered her a seat with some self-consciousness, and stood in front of her with his hands in his pockets and one leg twisted behind the other, in silence. The other boys kept a respectful but interested distance of about three yards.

When Kate explained that she had come from London to search for Sidney until she found him, Ronnie's apprehensive frown cleared, but to all Kate's inquiries as to what his own surmises were, he answered only:

“Dunno, Miss.” Kate was beginning to feel desperate when it occurred to her to break the charm by asking Ronnie a few questions about himself. His home, it seemed, was in Westbourne Grove, and he had been evacuated at the same time as Sidney. They were old friends and had hoped to be billeted together, but Sidney had gone to the Howells while Ronnie was billeted on Miss Gilliam at the Cefn up the hill. 

“Do you like it there?”

The boy made the underlip grimace which is the Londoner's shrug.

“Not much, Miss.”

“What's the matter with it?”

“Dunno, Miss,” said Ronnie, reverting to his formula. This time, however, he added, with a sudden charming half-grin:

“I'd like to be billeted on the gipsies!”

Kate laughed.

“That's an idea! Have you ever spoken to the gipsies?”

“Sidney did, Miss. He had supper with them.”

“Oh, did he? When?”

“When he went to Pentrewer, Miss.” Kicking the asphalt with a child's grand disregard for boot-leather, Ronnie suddenly found his tongue and added mournfully: “
I
was going with Sidney, on'y I sprained me ankle.”

“Was that the day Sidney went to see the tump where the piece of old money was found?”

Ronnie looked up, as if both surprised and pleased to find that Kate really did know something about Sidney and was not merely exercising the grown-up's boring prerogative of asking unexplained questions.

“Yes, Miss. Me and Sid were going over there together on our bikes to look for things. On'y I sprained me ankle so Sid went by himself. And the gipsies was camping there, and he had supper with them and all.”

“I thought he had tea with Mr. and Mrs. Davis that day?”

“So he did, and supper with the gipsies, what they cooked out of doors. The gipsies is friends with Mr. Davis, see.”

“Yes, I know. Sidney didn't tell Mrs. Howells he'd been with the gipsies, did he?”

Ronnie looked a trifle uneasy.

“Well, Miss, he would have told, on'y she didn't seem to like it when he said he'd been with Mr. Davis, so he didn't like to say he'd been with the gipsies as well, see. The people round here don't like the gipsies much, Miss. They say they pinch things. Miss, do you think Sid might've gone off with the gipsies?”

“I'm afraid not, Ronnie. I think he'd have been found long ago, if he had.”

Ronnie looked dubious. He was a good-looking child, rather narrow-faced, with the clear skin and clear grey eyes that often accompany freckles in dark-haired people. He gazed at Kate a moment, and suddenly blurted half-interrogatively:

“Miss Gilliam says he's dead, Miss?”

“We mustn't say that yet. We're going to find him, Ronnie.” 

Ronnie looked at Kate as if he had suddenly had a glimpse of Eldorado.

“Oh, Miss!” he breathed, flushing brightly. “When shall we start?”

Kate, whose “we” had been the reassuring “we” of the grown-up tribe, perceived that Ronnie had taken it to include himself. She could hardly bear to dash the joyful and adventurous spirit that had suddenly swept all dubiety out of the child's bright eyes. She temporised.

“Well—of course school takes up a lot of
your
time, Ronnie.”

“There's the evenings, Miss! There's Saturdays and Sundays! There's the nights!” breathed Ronnie, uncurling his legs and standing as lightly in his stubbed boots as though ready to spring off that minute into the unknown.

“The nights? What would Miss Gilliam say to that?”

“She wouldn't know,” answered Ronnie earnestly. “Miss, it was the night when Sid went. Well, then, we ought to look for him at night, didn't we? The night's different from the day. Different things happen.”

“How do you know that, Ronnie?” asked Kate, charmed by this sudden burst of enthusiasm, and putting off the moment when she would have to damp it down again.

Ronnie hesitated, and evidently decided to trust her.

“I know, I've been out at night, Miss,” he said in a lowered tone, as if shelters might grow pedagogic ears, even in this din. “Searching for Sid. I went on my bike, lots of nights, when he was first gone. It's different to the day. Nobody about. The hills look ever so different. I saw a badger and a hedgehog. And there's noises... only when you get to where they are, you can't hear anything.”

Kate suppressed a smile.

“You didn't ever see anything else, Ronnie, though? I mean, it's lovely to see badgers and hedgehogs, but they don't tell us anything about Sidney. And the noises at night are generally only horses and things moving in the fields, or birds, you know.”

Ronnie came closer to her and said eamestly:

“One night I saw a man going up the track at Pentrewer.”

“But, Ronnie! Probably he lived there! I mean—”

“No, it was further up than where Mr. Davis lives. There's nothing up there, I know, on'y an empty house. The track gets all narrow and is all trees after that.”

“But still—farmers are often out at night. He might have been going to see some animal or—” But Ronnie's intense expression did not alter, and, influenced a little by it in spite of common-sense, Kate asked: “What kind of man? A gipsy?”

“No. More like a toff,” said Ronnie. “It wasn't Mr. Davis, nor yet Mr. Lupton, nor anyone as I'd ever seen.”

“And what happened?”

Ronnie looked a little embarrassed.

“Well, Miss, I—I lost track of him. I kept the other side of the hedge, and went up alongside of him. On'y I came to another hedge across the field, and by the time I'd got through it and out in the lane, I couldn't see him any more.”

“What did you do?”

Ronnie looked distinctly unhappy.

“Well, Miss. I—I went back. There's an empty house up there that they says is haunted, and—and the valley gets awful narrow and crowded together up there, and it seemed so dark. And I heard funny noises—”

“Owls?”

“Yes, them, and rustling noises, too, Miss, and sort of clicking noises—”

“Pheasants, I expect.”

“So I come back.” He swallowed and admitted: “I got a bit frightened, see, all by meself, like. But I shouldn't be frightened if I was with you, Miss. When shall we start?”

“Well, Ronnie, I think we'd better talk it over when we've got a bit more time,” said Kate rather evasively, though she was beginning to feel that Ronnie, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his youth, would make the best kind of partner in a forlorn enterprise, single-minded, candid, imaginative, and not too brave. “You live at the Cefn, you say, so I'll know where to find you.”

Ronnie's face fell a little. Procrastination was an only too well-known grown-up habit.

“When, Miss?”

Kate hesitated, and rashly promised, as she had not intended to:

“To-morrow, or the day after. Will you take me to the headmaster now?”

Ronnie looked a little surprised and more dubious, as if he had thought better of Kate than that she should be hobnobbing with headmasters.


He
won't be much help, Miss. He thinks Sidney's dead, too. I heard him say so to the copper.”

“Ronnie.”

“Yes, Miss?”

“Sidney
may
be dead, you know. We mustn't absolutely refuse to face the possibility.”

“Oh, I know that, Miss. On'y—you can't look for a person properly if you think he's dead, Miss, can you?” said Ronnie. He added simply: “
I
don't think he's dead, because I don't want him to be.”

With this deplorable piece of reasoning but excellent piece of practical philosophy, he led the way into the schoolhouse.

Mr. Pilgrim was, as Ronnie Turner had prophesied, not much help. His estimate of his boys' characters and capacities was clear-cut and probably, so far as it went, correct, but a trifle rough-and-ready, as was but natural in a man under whose eyes the youth of the nation had been streaming in hordes for about forty years. Sidney Brentwood, of whom he spoke in a melancholy tone which Kate tried not to find exasperating, had been a boy of sound character: a little scatter-brained, perhaps: not clever, oh, no! just normal ability: a nice boy: a superior family: the father a fine type: no mother: motherless boys were liable to cause trouble. Ronnie Turner? Oh, Ronald was a sound boy, too. Good stuff there, good brains. Not so enterprising as Sidney, but perhaps more reliable. A more thoughtful type. Had been rather difficult and unlike himself since Sidney's disappearance. Had played truant from school on two or three occasions. His billet wasn't very satisfactory. An old maid, and Mr. Pilgrim doubted if she gave the boy enough to eat. He was intending to see the billeting-officer about it. The job of a schoolmaster in wartime, as Miss Mayhew would no doubt observe, comprised that of a nurse. As well, said Mr. Pilgrim resignedly, with a sigh, bidding Kate farewell, as that of an office-boy. And he sat down to fill in forms about milk.

Walking back to the shop, when the school-bell had gone and break in the playground had ended in a clattering and shoving and chattering back in the school-building, Kate thought over her conversation with Ronnie Turner. She liked Ronnie, and thought it would be not only pleasant but useful to see him again, for, of all the people she had met, he seemed to be the nearest link with the missing boy. But he was, after all, only about twelve years old, an age which possesses all the virtues except discretion. He had certainly, though, shown a modicum of that elderly quality in his hedge-side tracking of the gentleman at Pentrewer and his withdrawal from the trail when he realised his loneliness before the empty house. If he had followed the trail, he would probably have only found it led to a sick cow sheltered in some tumbledown barn, or, at the most exciting, to a collection of rabbit snares; but with a boy like Ronnie, no doubt the dark, the mysterious lulls, the reputation of a haunted house and the sight, in the lonely night-time, of a fellow-creature walking up the valley, combined with the mission on which he was engaged, would put all such commonplace activities out of mind. Sidney had gone off into the night, and disappeared. The night was different from the day.

It was a sound idea, reflected Kate. The night was different from the day, and different in just the way that Ronnie's eyes and tone, rather than his halting words, had implied. It put different thoughts into one's head. It made one accept ideas which, in the day, one would reject. The sight of dark, huddling hills and gaunt black tree shapes suggested ideas which would never come from looking at brackeny, heathery slopes and autumn-hued oaks and ashes in the sunlight. To follow Sidney at night was not such a childish notion as might appear. The influences which had fallen upon Sidney would fall upon one, and who knew what queer inspiration might emerge that the day kept hidden under its commonplaces?

Other books

Miranda the Great by Eleanor Estes
The Tour by Shelby Rebecca
La Ilíada by Homero
Maps by Nash Summers