The Secret Passage

by Nina Bawden

  “Go along to the end,” Victoria said. “Then turn left, and you’ll be in the street.”

  She closed the window. For a moment, her face looked out, pale and blurred behind the dirty, cobwebbed pane. Then she was gone before John could say goodbye. He walked backwards across the alley and stood for a minute, staring up at the windows of the house. They looked just as blank and empty as they had always done. No one would guess someone was hiding there.

  *

  He got home just before Aunt Mabel and the others, who came in very flushed and excited. “Hundreds of people looked at us,” Ben said. “Hundreds and hundreds. And they gave Aunt Mabel pounds and pounds. I should think she’ll be able to buy a battleship.”

  He had quite forgotten how much he had hated his costume and was even unwilling to take it off.

  “Can I keep it on till after lunch?” he begged. “I want to show Miss Pin.”

  He shot off, down the passage to her room, and Mary looked at John. “What have you been doing?” she whispered, but Aunt Mabel was standing within earshot, so he said, “Oh—nothing. Just messing about.”

  As there was no chance to take Mary into the secret, he decided it would be too difficult to take food off the table while they were having lunch. But if he ate very little himself, it would be quite fair to take something out of the larder afterwards.

  “Aren’t you hungry, John?” Aunt Mabel said, looking, with surprise at the minute piece of cold ham and the one, small baked potato he had put on his plate.

  “Not very,” he said, eyeing the dish in the middle and calculating what he might reasonably have been expected to eat: at least one more slice of ham and two potatoes, and several pieces of bread.

  Aunt Mabel frowned. “Are you feeling all right? I thought you looked a bit pale, this morning.”

  “I’m naturally a pale person,” John said. “It’s because I’ve got a thick sort of skin. The blood doesn’t show. And I’ve just got a naturally small appetite.”

  Mary and Ben stared at him and Aunt Mabel gave a snort of laughter. “It’s the first time I’ve noticed it, I must say.”

  But to John’s relief she seemed disinclined to say any more. She was too concerned to finish lunch and clear away so that she could go out flag-selling all afternoon. “There’s no need for Mary and Ben to come,” she said. “They did their share this morning. So you can all do what you like—as long as you don’t get into mischief. Miss Pin will be all right because a friend of mine has offered to pop in and see to her tea. If you like, you can go out and take a picnic.”

  John almost jumped for joy. He had been thinking that a slice of ham and two baked potatoes would hardly be enough for someone who had only had a carton of milk and a Crunchie Bar since yesterday evening. While Aunt Mabel cut sandwiches, he stood by the table, watching her.

  “I should think that will be enough,” she said, reaching for a polythene bag.

  “I don’t know,” John said, “we might be awfully hungry”

  “I thought you had a naturally small appetite,” Aunt Mabel said.

  “It might have got bigger by tea time. In fact I can feel it growing already.”

  She looked at him with a mystified expression, then shrugged her shoulders and buttered two more slices of bread and stuck them together with marmite. “I should think this will keep you from actual starvation,” she said dryly.

  As soon as she had gone, John rushed upstairs to where Ben and Mary were changing into their ordinary clothes. They could see that something had happened from the expression on his face but he didn’t tell them about Victoria at first. John enjoyed telling stories and found it was always more exciting to keep the best part until the end.

  “I went up into the attic,” he said slowly, “and I opened the chest—it’s full of old things that belonged to Aunt Mabel. Clothes and a photograph album. I brought one photograph with me.” He took the picture of Aunt Mabel out of his pocket. “I think the baby must be me.”

  Ben looked at the picture. “It’s not you. It’s Aunt Mabel’s baby.”

  They stared at him. “Aunt Mabel hasn’t got any children,” Mary said.

  “She did have. Miss Pin told me. But the baby was lost—the Enemy stole her, when she was small.”

  Mary and John looked at each other. John said gently, “I think Miss Pin sometimes gets a bit mixed up—I mean, she’s old and she gets a bit muddled.”

  Ben said stubbornly, “She does not. She knows. She said Aunt Mabel just put the baby in the pram and when she came out, it was gone.”

  Mary said, “But Ben, if someone had stolen a baby, the police would find it. Babies don’t just disappear.”

  She gave a little, disbelieving laugh that annoyed John. He hadn’t believed Ben either, but now he said, “They do sometimes. Gipsies steal children. I read a story about that once—about a girl who was really the daughter of a Duke and the gipsies stole her and brought her up.”

  “Why?” said Mary flatly.

  John looked at her prim, pretty face and sighed. It must be awfully dull to be Mary sometimes. He said patiently, “I don’t know. Perhaps girls are valuable. They are in Africa. African people always want to have girls because when they marry their father gets lots of cows as a bride-price.”

  “I don’t think that sort of thing happens in England” Mary said, and put her nose in the air.

  “She’s awfully stupid, isn’t she, John?” Ben said sweetly. “She doesn’t like to hear about exciting things.”

  “I do, I do” Mary protested. “Only I like them to be true.”

  Her lips quivered ominously and John said quickly, “All right. If you like, I’ll tell you something now. Something that’s exciting and true.”

  He paused for a minute, to make it more dramatic, and then he told them about Victoria.

  *

  They couldn’t find her at first. She wasn’t in the garden and though they went all over the house, calling softly, she didn’t seem to be there either. John began to feel rather lost and bewildered.

  “Perhaps she was a ghost after all,” he suggested, but Mary laughed.

  “She left the back door open, didn’t she?” she said. “Ghosts don’t unlock doors. They go through them.”

  In the end, Ben found her, hiding behind the curtains in the piano room. He pulled them back and she stood there, red and dishevelled and scowling.

  “This is my sister, Mary, and my brother, Ben,” John said politely, and she nodded coolly, her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “We’ve brought you some food,” he went on. “Ham and baked potatoes and Aunt Mabel made us a picnic tea. So you won’t be hungry tonight.”

  She looked at the basket but she didn’t say anything. Mary thought it was rude of her not to say thank you, so she said, “John hardly ate any lunch. So we’d have more to bring you.”

  Victoria tossed her head. “I didn’t ask him not to eat his lunch, did I?”

  John said, “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t very hungry.” He could tell what Mary was thinking, from the expression on her face, and he felt ashamed because Victoria was behaving so badly. “Do you want to eat something now?” he asked. “Or would you rather play a game or something?”

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  John took the napkin off the top of the basket and gave her a sandwich and a potato. She ate slowly, watching the children warily as if she was half-afriad of them. While she was eating, Mary wandered over to the piano. “Have you been playing?” she asked. “Would you play us a tune?”

  Victoria swallowed the last crumb of potato and went pink. “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes please,” John said. He wasn’t much interested in music but he thought it might make Victoria happier if she was doing something she liked to do.

  She sat down at the piano and began to play—a slow, rather grand tune that reminded the children of the sea, rolling in steadily the way it does on a calm day. As she played, Victoria stopped scowling and her thin face became abso
rbed and calm. She was really quite pretty, Mary thought, when she didn’t look so disagreeable. The Mallorys sat down on a long, high-backed sofa that was covered with a white dust sheet and listened. At first Ben wriggled a bit—he had never listened to music before—but after a little while he sat still.

  The music grew louder, as if a storm was brewing over the sea; Mary fancied that she could feel the dark clouds gathering. Underneath the top notes there seemed to be a steady, low, drumming tune that grew firmer and louder until the children felt their feet tapping as if they wanted to march.

  Suddenly, Victoria stopped playing. She said, “It’s no good. This next bit ought to be loud and grand like … like trumpets blowing. And I can’t play it like that because I have to keep the soft pedal down ….” She sounded really sad—almost despairing as if it was very important to her to play the piece properly.

  Mary said, “You’re awfully good. I’ve never heard a girl play the piano like that. Like someone in a real concert.”

  “Did you like it?” Victoria smiled—it was the first time she had smiled and it made her look quite different.

  “Yes,” Mary said. She remembered what a visitor had said when Sara Epsom had played for him. “It was pretty. You must have had a lot of lessons.”

  The smile went from Victoria’s face—just like the sun going in on a showery day. “I did have lessons. Then they stopped them. They said they were a waste of money.” She brought her hands down on the keys and played a loud, ugly chord. “Beasts, beasts,” she said.

  John said quickly, “Play something soft—something that’s meant to be soft, so it won’t matter.”

  She frowned for a minute and then began a light, tripping tune that was so cheerful and gay that Mary found it difficult to keep still. Her legs itched to run and jump. It seemed to affect Victoria in much the same way; when the tune was finished she said, “I like that one. It makes me want to dance.”

  “Let’s have a game,” Ben said suddenly. He had liked the music but it was hard for him to sit still for long. “My legs are tired out with sitting,” he said.

  “A game?” Victoria said. “What sort of game?”

  The Mallorys looked at each other feeling rather shy and uncomfortable. It was Victoria’s house and it was up to her to suggest a game. But she stood still and waited and the sullen look was beginning to come back into her face, so Mary said diffidently, “We could play hide-and-seek.”

  “Hide-and-seek?” Victoria said. “I’m not a kid.”

  John said, “It should be quite good fun in this house. I mean there are lots of dark places. We could divide up into girls and boys—one pair hides, you see, and the other finds, and when you’re found you have to get back to the Home—that could be the hall—without being caught.”

  “All right,” Victoria said grudgingly. “I don’t mind.”

  It wasn’t much fun at first. Victoria had no idea how to play. Though she hid where Mary told her to she didn’t try to escape when she was found, but just stood, looking wooden and awkward and as if she thought the whole thing beneath her dignity. She made John and Mary feel self-conscious and a bit silly—perhaps this was rather a babyish game, after all! Then, quite suddenly she changed; it was impossible to tell why or how. One minute she had a sneering, bored expression on her face, the next she was shrieking and careering up and down stairs, her cheeks pink and her eyes shining, as if she had been playing this game all her life. In fact, she became much noisier and rougher than the others. Once or twice she laughed so loudly that Mary was frightened. The house was solid and the walls were thick but if they made too much noise someone might hear them out in the street.

  Then an awful thing happened. Victoria was racing down the stairs with Ben after her, when she tripped and stumbled against a marble column that had a Bust—a man’s head and shoulders—on top of it. The column toppled over and the Bust came down and broke in pieces on the black and white marble floor of the hall.

  “Oh,” Victoria said. “Oh.”

  They were all shocked. But Victoria—Victoria was horrified. She stood and stared, her hand pressed to her mouth.

  “Perhaps it can be mended,” John said hopefully, after they had stood for some time, looking at the floor in silence.

  No one bothered to answer him. The Bust was broken in so many pieces that only a magician could have put it together again.

  Then—this was almost more awful than the Bust being broken—Victoria began to cry. She cried with deep, silent sobs, like painful hiccoughs, that seemed to shake her whole body. She made no noise at all.

  After a few minutes, John said nervously, “Don’t cry. Please, Victoria, don’t cry. I know it’s awful, but it was an accident. Your grandfather can’t be too angry. He’s got so many things.”

  Victoria said, “You don’t understand—oh, you don’t understand,” and sat on the foot of the stairs, a crumpled heap of misery, her long hair falling forward and covering her face. She cried so hard that Mary almost wanted to cry herself, in sympathy. Then she said, and her voice was so trembly that they could hardly hear it, “I shall get into such a row—it’s terrible—oh, I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead.”

  Mary said wonderingly, “Her grandfather must be a very angry person. A—a sort of ogre.” It seemed incredible that anyone could be so frightened of a relation. She drew a deep breath and sat down on the stair beside Victoria. She said, “If—if you stop crying, I’ll say it was me that did it.”

  Slowly, Victoria lifted her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her poor nose pink and swollen. “Would you really?” she said in a low, astonished voice. “Would you really?”

  Mary nodded. Her mouth felt dry. “It won’t matter—I mean he can’t do anything to me.”

  Victoria gave a deep sigh. Then she said, nastily, “I don’t suppose you will say you did it. Not when someone asks you.”

  Mary gasped. “Don’t be so horrible,” John said, standing in front of them, his eyes blazing at Victoria. “Of course Mary will say she did it—or I’ll say I did. I think you’re a beastly person not to believe what Mary says. Beastly and horrible.”

  His face was quite as cross as Victoria’s. Victoria looked at him in surprise. Then she said slowly, “I just don’t understand why she should take the blame, that’s all.”

  “Because she’s sorry for you,” John said. “And she’s sorry for you because you’re so horrid and such a beastly coward, that’s why. You ought to say thank you to her at once.”

  Victoria went red and then very white and her mouth looked screwed up and small. She stood up and for a second Mary thought she was going to fly at John and hit him. Then she controlled herself and said stiffly, “I’m sorry, Mary. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Only—only no one’s ever tried to stop me getting into trouble before.”

  Mary felt sorry for her, and angry with John. She said shyly, “It’s all right. Don’t mention it. I—I think we ought to sweep up the pieces, don’t you?”

  “I’ll do it,” Victoria said eagerly. “I know where there’s a dustpan and brush. Down in the kitchen.” And she ran off, down the basement stairs.

  Ben sidled up to Mary and tugged her sleeve. “I don’t like her,” he said. He thought for a minute and added, “Do you know who she looks like? She looks like Aunt Mabel.”

  Mary whispered, “I think it’s only because she looks sort of sour and pinched up. She looked quite different when we were playing.”

  Victoria came back then and swept up the pieces carefully. John stood the column up again but it looked queer and naked without the Bust on top of it.

  “You can’t help noticing it’s gone,” Mary said. She thought of how angry Aunt Mabel was going to be and it gave her a hollow feeling in her stomach.

  “I know,” Ben said. He jumped up and down with excitement. “I know. We can get another Bust and stick it on top. Then her horrible old grandfather won’t notice.”

  “How can we?” said John. “Where’d we get one from?�
��

  “Uncle Abe. He’s got lots—he makes them to sell, doesn’t he? Well, why shouldn’t he sell one to us?”

  “We haven’t got any money,” Mary said. “A Bust must cost pounds and pounds.”

  “Easy terms,” Ben said. “That’s what it says in the shop where they sell television sets.” He had spent quite a lot of time, his soft nose squashed against the glass of the electrician’s shop, watching the television on the show set in the window. The Mallorys had never seen television before because there wasn’t any television in Kenya and Aunt Mabel didn’t have a set, although she said she sometimes rented one for the visitors in summer. “We could pay it off in instalments. I’ve got one and fourpence halfpenny,” Ben said.

  “And I’ve got five shillings in my piggy bank,” Mary said, smiling to humour him.

  John said, “We can’t afford to use that. We may need it, to buy food for Victoria.”

  Mary was taken aback. John had said that Victoria was a Refugee from Injustice and that they would have to look after her and bring her food, but Mary hadn’t taken this altogether seriously. Even if Victoria had run away from her boarding school, she couldn’t just hide, for ever. In fact, Mary had thought it was all a sort of game but now, looking at John’s solemn face and remembering how frightened Victoria was of her terrible grandfather, she saw that it wasn’t a game at all. Suddenly, she felt very young and scared.

  John was saying, “If we’ve got five shillings, we can buy milk and bread. You have to have milk for bones and teeth. And we can leave the rest of the picnic for supper and tomorrow’s breakfast. And if we all——” he looked sternly at Ben, “——if we all try to eat a bit less, we can bring things from home every day.” He turned to Victoria. “Shall you mind being in the house all night?”

  She was standing with her hands behind her back, grinning nervously.