by Joan Aiken
‘Thank the gentleman!’ said Burnaby sharply.
‘Ang – kew,’ uttered Eliza.
‘Ooobye,’ breathed Sophy.
Lord Camber turned his engaging smile on to Burnaby.
‘I know your family, do I not? Burnaby? Did I catch your name correctly? Was not your uncle Jasper transported for poaching?’
To Hatty’s utter amazement, Burnaby, with nothing worse than her usual bleak, dour manner replied, ‘It was a base, shabby lie. Evidence was planted on him by them as wanted his place.’
‘Ah, I always thought that,’ agreed Camber. ‘I was a boy at the time, my uncle Gilbert was Justice of the Peace in that case. How does Mr Burnaby go on in Australia? Do you hear from him?’
‘Now and again. He does well enough,’ Burnaby answered laconically. ‘Excuse me, sir, it’s time for the girls’ bath. Come along now, you two.’
The twins uttered faint moans of protest but obeyed. Hatty touched each of them lightly on the head, ignoring Burnaby’s malignant stare, and said, ‘Goodbye, my dears. Until my next visit!’
Lord Camber remained silent until they had reached the downstairs hall, then said, in a low tone, ‘What a very remarkable pair! I am so delighted that you allowed me to visit them. But should they not have been playing out of doors on a fine autumn day such as this?’
‘They never do wish to go out of doors,’ Hatty told him. ‘And my uncle prefers them not to go out into the street. He – he thinks they are frail, and may too easily pick up some infection.’
‘And perhaps he is ashamed of their appearance?’
‘I – I suppose so. That too. Yes.’
The large blueish-black naevus on the side of each twin’s face had not diminished as they grew; on the contrary the marks had expanded and now covered three-quarters of the cheek and forehead, forming a strange contrast to the rest of their pallid and freckled complexions. They themselves were unperturbed by their appearance, but new young nursery-maids were often upset at first and required time to grow accustomed.
‘But it cannot be good for them to remain indoors always,’ observed Lord Camber.
‘I know,’ agreed Hatty sadly. ‘They do not complain, however. They are very lethargic. The cause of that, I am very much afraid, is that Burnaby pacifies them continually with doses of medicine—’
‘Laudanum?’ Camber threw her a keen glance. ‘You fear it dulls their wits?’
‘I am not sure of that – it is only a guess – I believe they are naturally clever – but whatever it is she gives them makes them apathetic and not at all wishful to take pains – as you saw – except when they are really engaged, as they were over your cat’s-cradle game.’
‘They do lessons?’
‘No, sir. Only when I am allowed to go in.’
‘And you are their only visitor?’
‘Oh well, of course my uncle sees them for a moment each morning.’ Hatty did not dare attempt to describe the irritable and perfunctory nature of her uncle’s morning duty-visits. But Lord Camber nodded, as if some nuance had nevertheless been communicated.
‘And your aunt?’
Hatty looked even more troubled. ‘She – Aunt Polly – finds their company deeply distressing.’
By now the pair of them had left the house through the drawing-room french windows and were slowly pacing across the leaf-strewn lawn at the rear of the house. ‘I think, after my three boy-cousins were born, Aunt Polly very much longed for a daughter – a girl, you know, who would be company for her.’
‘Ha,’ said Lord Camber. He gave Hatty a shrewd, understanding glance. ‘Poor lady – we can compassionate her. For what arrived instead was two daughters who are company only for each other and not at all for her – am I right in my guess?’
‘Yes, that is it exactly. And then, they are so plain, poor dears. I think she had hoped for a handsome daughter, in whom she could take pride.’
‘Their brothers do not play with them – visit them?’
‘Only Ned. He sometimes plays chess with them. The older two – Tom and Sydney – I think they find the twins embarrassing.’
‘Yes, boys of their age would do so, of course.’
Lord Camber did not appear to pass any judgement on this state of affairs. He said, musingly, ‘One wonders how many other families contain such secrets behind their well-polished brass door-knockers. In my own experience – but no matter for that. Why does Burnaby dislike you so? Because you are a challenge to her authority?’
‘I suppose so. There can be no—’
At this moment their talk was interrupted by Mr Ward, who threw open the casement window of his office upstairs and exclaimed, ‘My Lord! There you are! I had no notion that you had arrived. Pray step up! I have the papers all ready for your signature.’
‘Business, business,’ sighed Lord Camber. Again he gave Hatty his broad, all-comprehending smile, and briefly raised her hand to his lips. ‘I always learn something of a new and highly nutritious nature from you, Miss Hatty. And your silences, I believe, are as instructive as your speech. I shall miss our salutary encounters. But I have not had time to inquire about your Muse? Has she been active lately? Or is it he? Your daemon, perhaps?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. But I must not keep you – my uncle is waiting for you,’ she murmured, and quickly made her escape into the shrubbery. She wondered very much whether Lord Camber would discuss the plight of the twins with their father, and if Mr Ward would be angry with her for disclosing the fact of their existence. But I do not see what else I could have done, she told herself, walking on in the direction of the kitchen garden. And Aunt Polly? Will she be distressed that Lord Camber – for whom I know she has a high regard – should be privy to the twins’ subterranean existence in this family?
Hatty herself could not feel that Lord Camber’s admission into the twins’ life was in any way undesirable; there was something so open-minded, so good-humoured, so unprejudiced about his way of thinking upon almost any subject that, it seemed to her, his mere knowledge of a situation would have the power of disinfecting guilt, and making anger harmless. How queer, how very queer, though, that he and Lady Ursula—
But here Hatty came to a sudden stop.
Without thinking, she had made her way towards the place always referred to by herself and Ned as the Kingdom – the secret, derelict graveyard with its moss-covered tombstones and giant lime-tree. She hardly ever came here unless accompanied by Ned, for she had felt strongly from her very first days in the household that it was his discovery, his domain, that she set foot there by invitation only, and ought not to presume upon his early, sympathetic hospitality when she had been no more than a homesick, unhappy stranger. But today there was so much pressing on her mind, matters about which she needed to reflect without interruption, that, unaware, wrapped in thought, she picked her way among the overgrown currant bushes and slipped through the narrow gap between creeper-hung wall and ancient dusty door.
Afternoon light had begun to dull and thicken already, the autumn dusk was closing in. Soon wintry conditions would prohibit access to the secret place.
And in any case, reflected Hatty sadly, Ned and I are becoming too old for such childish retreats. Soon we shall have outgrown this sanctuary.
During the last few months, Ned had grown very much in height, had become tall and gangling, seemed hardly to know what to do with his long, bony limbs. It was just as well, Hatty thought, that he enjoyed the dancing classes at the Crown and found pleasure in capering up and down the ballroom floor with Nancy Price . . . Soon he would be gone into the Navy, it was only repeated pleas from Aunt Polly that had kept him at home until now—
With a sharp intake of breath, Hatty stood still in the doorway. For, across the tops of a couple of tombs, barely visible in the dim light above the tangled grass of autumn, were to be seen two figures: what appeared to be a female sitti
ng on a table-top gravestone, and a male standing very close to her, almost indistinguishable from her.
Nancy and Ned.
Precisely how close the pair were to each other Hatty had only a second’s time to estimate, for she must have made some sound, and the two figures sprang self-consciously apart.
Hatty had an immediate, violent impulse to retreat, to try and pretend that the confrontation had not taken place, but it was too late; she heard Ned’s voice murmur, ‘Thank goodness! it is only Hatty,’ and a soft, impatient exclamation from the girl, who stood up, shaking her shawl and dress into order, before beginning to move towards Hatty.
Ned muttered something in an undertone, at which Nancy vigorously shook her head. She continued walking towards Hatty with a languid, gliding gait, recognizably imitated from Mme Lamartine’s assistant.
Hatty remained unable to move from where she stood.
‘Lord! Miss Hatty! Is not this fun?’ exclaimed Nancy in a conspiratorial whisper when the pair were only a few feet apart. ‘Lassy me! Are you not a lucky pair, you and Ned, to have this charming retreat, all to yourselves? I vow you are the luckiest pair in Portsmouth town! I can tell you, I am quite eaten up with envy, and so I say to Neddy! As soon as ever he told me about this fine hidey-hole I began to tease and tease him to let me have a glimpse of it! An’t that so, Neddy?’
Hatty was perplexed. ‘But how in the world could you ever make your way here, without being seen? You could not have come through my uncle’s house?’
‘Oh, no, my dear! The simplest thing in the world! I walked out, you see, on an errand, with our maid Sukey and your sister Frances, to buy ribbons, and then I told them I had a blister on my heel, so turned back. After that, instead of going home, I ran down Widdershins Lane, where, you see, there was an old rusty gate, long out of use, fastened by a chain and padlock, which must, I knew, lead to this place; and clever Neddy was there already with a file, and soon filed through the chain that fastened the gate, and hacked a way for me through the holly bushes that grow inside the wall. I vow, though, I am stung and scratched all to pieces – my muslin will never be the same again – look at this monstrous rent! I shall have to bribe Sukey to mend it. (Lucky for me that Uncle Jonathan is so ready with his cash.) The state of my shawl, too, is all your fault, naughty sir, for luring me into your den. You are a sad tempter!’
She gave Ned’s cheek a possessive pinch.
To Hatty there seemed several points very unsatisfactory and odd about this explanation. Firstly, how did it chance that Nancy was aware of the existence of the disused gate in Widdershins Lane, a seldom-used alleyway along which, normally, few people ever had any occasion to pass? And when had she managed to communicate the knowledge to Ned? Today, or on some previous occasion? And how in the world had Ned, who was neither quick nor dextrous with his hands, managed to procure a file – from where? – and cut, or break through an old, thick rusty iron chain? An operation which must have taken several hours, surely?
‘It grows late,’ interrupted Ned nervously. ‘Nancy, I think you had best return home. I will see you back to the gate.’
He did not meet Hatty’s eye. He was wretchedly discomposed, she could tell, aghast that she should have happened upon this rendezvous of his with Nancy Price; he looked as if beset by a strong inclination simply to bolt off and leave the two young ladies to make the best of their way home. But Nancy thrust her arm briskly and confidently through his, and said, in her chuckling, cooing voice: ‘You will have to lead me back to the gate, Neddy, or, to be sure, I shall lose myself entirely in this wilderness of yours, and be taken up in the morning, witless and raving! Goodnight, Miss Hatty; we shall meet, prim and proper, at the dancing class and not betray one another! I fear I cannot give your love to your sister Frances, for she must not know that we have met here!’
She and Ned moved quietly away to a thicket of hollies on the far side of the graveyard, behind which the Widdershins Lane gate must lie concealed.
Sore at heart, and deeply perturbed, Hatty made her way slowly to the conservatory. It was time to change her dress for dinner, but she needed a moment’s thinking-time.
In this refuge, not long after, Ned found her.
‘Hatty! I had hoped you might be here!’ There was a nervous hesitancy about his voice, almost a stammer. Hatty gazed at him in silence, greatly troubled, really not knowing what to say. By now dusk had wholly fallen and she could see little of his face but a pale oval with two black sockets for eyes.
‘Hatty! You won’t tell about Nancy being there – will you? You won’t tell anybody in the house? My father would be so very – I don’t know what he would say.’
‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘no, Ned, of course I won’t tell anybody. But Ned – have you met Nancy there before today – has she been there at any time before now?’
‘Well – yes! Yes; she has. You see – after I told her about the Kingdom – she has so much; I wanted to show that I had something too – she was so interested – and she told me one day about the gate in the lane – her brothers knew of it – and she said, if I could cut through the chain and open the gate, she could slip away from home and meet me there. She was so wild to see my secret place! And so – and so she helped me file through the chain. In fact,’ he added simply, ‘she did most of the work. I do not think I could have done it by myself. And various times she has brought cake and wine in a little bottle for a – for a picnic. You see – she is quite used to such secret outings; she has been on many such, she told me, with her brothers when they were younger. Imagine it! They even used to go swimming down by the shore! Nancy as well!’
‘Good heavens.’
Hatty had not the heart to ask for how long Nancy had been coming to the secret Kingdom.
‘Cousin Hatty!’ Ned’s voice shook. ‘Nancy and I – we have not done anything wrong – don’t think it – ’
Hatty could not help recalling her first glimpse of the pair, indistinctly seen through the mild grey dusk – the girl sitting, the boy standing so close against her – the startled speed with which they had plucked themselves apart.
‘Ned,’ she said slowly, ‘what you and Nancy do is no business of mine. None! But – you do realize – there would be dreadful, dreadful trouble if you were found out – suppose some person were to see Nancy walk down Widdershins Lane? Or go through the gate? Think what my uncle would say if he found out. Or Aunt Polly. She is so – so very fond of you – you are her favourite of the whole family.’
Indeed, Hatty could not help wondering whether her aunt did have some doubt, some unvoiced suspicion – if that might account for her unwonted fatigue, her headaches, her troubled silences.
Ned said, ‘Don’t, Hatty, don’t!’
‘Or if Nancy’s family found out that she has been going out by herself – she must have had to tell a great many lies.’
‘Her uncle often gives her presents of money, she tells me, so she pays the maid Sukey to say they have been sewing together, or gone on some errand.’
Curiously, what Hatty minded most was not that another person had been introduced into their hidden place – though she disliked Nancy Price and deeply mistrusted her influence over simple, childlike, guileless Ned – but the fact that another entrance had been opened, leading to a public road. For her, the secret Kingdom was now ruined, violated, laid bare; it would never again, she knew, possess the feeling of utter security, of sanctuary, that it had had before.
At dinner that evening Hatty thought that her uncle appeared graver and more curt-spoken than usual. Aunt Polly had a high colour and seemed uneasy and short of breath. She ate little, as had been her habit of late, and that very slowly, and was by no means her normal, cheerful self.
Was it because of Lord Camber’s visit to the twins? Hatty wondered anxiously. Were they angry about his access to this knowledge? Or could they – terrifying thought – have discovered about Ne
d and Nancy? Nothing was said; the meal was eaten almost in silence. Tom was the only one who seemed at ease. Hatty resolved that, during the brief interval after dinner, when her uncle was left alone with his wine and nuts, before tea was brought in, she would broach the matter of Lord Camber with Aunt Polly and ask for forgiveness.
But Hatty was not given the chance to do this.
At the end of the meal, Mr Ward laid down his knife and fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and said in a cold, disapproving tone: ‘I suppose the news may as well be disclosed now as later. Though I am sure there is small matter for rejoicing. Today I have had an express from Huntingdonshire informing me, Harriet, that your father is about to celebrate his marriage with Lady Ursula Fowldes.’
Mrs Ward’s high colour became even more pronounced; her cheeks darkened to a purplish hue, and, with a sharp choking sigh, she rolled off her chair on to the dining-room floor.
VI
Aunt Polly’s illness threw the whole household into disarray. She had contrived to keep all the affairs of the establishment in good order, yet had never been too busy to attend to her husband and the boys, always kind and sympathetic to Hatty. Without her calming influence tempers went awry, tasks were neglected and good habits tended to lapse.
Mr Filingay, the apothecary and surgeon, gave it as his opinion that she was suffering from an acute affection of the heart, that she had been over-exerting herself, probably for years past, and now must submit to a regime of complete rest, careful diet and regular remedial doses. It was a measure of Mrs Ward’s lowered state, Hatty thought, that she submitted to this edict with no more than an acquiescent sigh, and the acknowledgement that she did feel rather poorly, could do with a bit of a respite. Hatty, she dared say, would for a while be able to manage the house very well.
Hatty, with all the affairs of the household thus suddenly thrown on her shoulders, found herself stretched, taxed and strained in many hitherto undreamed-of ways. Fortunately for her, she had, unawares, absorbed a great quantity of Aunt Polly’s calm good sense and philosophical attitudes during many friendly, peaceful, talkative sessions while hemming household linen or darning the boys’ stockings. This involuntary intake of practice and principles now stood her in good stead. Another advantage was the loyalty and devotion of Mrs Ward’s household. The cook, the housekeeper, the maids, the coachman and Deakin the gardener were all deeply attached to their mistress and as many of them had followed her from the former house in London, they were anxious to act for her comfort and well-being in every possible way. Any instruction from Hatty beginning with the words ‘My aunt wishes’ was sure to be obeyed with eager rapidity.
