The Secret Passage

by Nina Bawden

  John sighed deeply, with relief. And Victoria clung to Aunt Mabel, just as if she had been her long lost daughter, and cried a little.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I WANT MY DAD TO COME HOME”

  WHEN THEY GOT home, Ben was waiting on the doorstep. Before Aunt Mabel had closed the door, he said in an excited voice, “There’s a man come to see Miss Pin. He’s talking to her in her room.”

  “Talking to Miss Pin?” Aunt Mabel said. “Whoever . .?”

  “Miss Pin says he’s her Man of Affairs,” Ben said importantly. “And he wants to see you, Aunt Mabel.”

  “What?” Aunt Mabel frowned. “I suppose I’d better go and see what Miss Pin has been up to. Mary—go down to the kitchen and lay the table for tea.”

  “Tea” John said indignantly. “But we haven’t had lunch yet.”

  “People who get arrested by the police must expect to miss their meals,” Aunt Mabel said, and walked down the passage to Miss Pin’s room.

  The children went down to the kitchen. “My stomach’s empty,” John said. “It feels like a drum. What’s in the larder, Mary?”

  “There’s a lovely big bowl of dripping.” Mary picked it up carefully and put it on the table, with the bread and the knife.

  John sighed. “I feel more like steak. Still, I suppose we’re lucky not to be locked up in a cold cell and fed on dry crusts and water.”

  “We may be yet,” Mary said gloomily. “You heard what Aunt Mabel said. We’ll have to come up before a magistrate. He may send us to prison.”

  “No he won’t,” Ben said suddenly. “He’ll send Mr Reynolds to prison. For stealing my horse.”

  “He didn’t steal it,” John said. “Stealing is when you come stealthily, by night. He just took it because he thought it was his.”

  “Well it wasn’t,” Ben said. “And he’d no right to take it. Miss Pin said so. She says she’ll see I get it back.”

  “She can’t do anything,” John said. “She’s only an old woman. And just stop talking about your old horse. There are a lot of more important things to think about, like going to prison and dying of hunger.” He took the knife and began to cut thick slices of bread.

  Ben looked miserable and angry at the same time.

  “Never mind, Ben,” Mary said. “I expect you’ll get Pin back, in the end. I mean—when Mr Reynolds has had a good look at it, he’ll see it isn’t one of his. All his horses are terribly valuable.”

  Ben said nothing. He just glared at John in a furious, smouldering way and tucked into the thick slice of bread and dripping Mary gave him. In spite of the prospect of prison, all their appetites were remarkably sound. Even Victoria, who had not said a word since they left the police station, had eaten her second slice of bread and dripping by the time Aunt Mabel came into the kitchen and closed the door behind her.

  She had a puzzled look on her face. She said, in a hurried voice, “Ben, come here. I have something to say to you.”

  Ben gulped down his mouthful of bread and went up to her. She looked searchingly into his face. “Ben—what have you said to Miss Pin?”

  Ben shuffled his feet and stared at the floor. “Nothing,” he said.

  Aunt Mabel said quickly, “I didn’t mean you’d said anything wrong, Ben, you’re too young to understand. But did you tell her I was poor?”

  Ben went brick red. “I did in a way. She asked me, see? I wanted some money to buy something and she said couldn’t you give it to me and I said, no, you couldn’t. And she said she’d give me some money and she did, but it wasn’t real money, only an old foreign coin.”

  “Will you show me the coin, Ben?” Aunt Mabel said, and Ben fumbled in his pocket and brought out the little, bright yellow coin and gave to her. She looked at it, turned it over and looked at it again. There was an odd, bemused expression on her face as if something had happened that she didn’t understand at all. She said nothing for several minutes.

  Then Mary said nervously, “Is anything the matter, Aunt Mabel? Has anything happened? What has Ben done?”

  Aunt Mabel looked at her as if from a great distance. “There’s someone upstairs who wants to talk to Ben,” she said.

  She looked so vague, so flustered, so almost alarmed, that the children were afraid to ask any more questions. Ben stood still while Aunt Mabel scrubbed at his mouth with a corner of her apron and tried, rather unsuccessfully, to sleek back his tousled hair with a comb. The others followed and clustered in the doorway, feeling rather odd inside.

  On one of the tables there were a great many papers, all spread out, and several thick looking files. Behind the table sat a sharp-featured, rather dry looking gentleman with a bald head and spectacles.

  He looked at Ben.

  “Is this the boy?” he asked in a cold voice. He took his spectacles off, put them on top of the papers and gave them a little flip—all without taking his eyes off Ben. They were chilly, grey eyes, the same colour as the English sea, and they regarded Ben with stern disapproval.

  “Yes, Mr Green,” Aunt Mabel said. “This is Ben. Benjamin Mallory.”

  “Come here, Benjamin,” Mr Green said. “Here—on the other side of the table.”

  Ben glanced at Aunt Mabel who gave him a little push. He walked steadily up to the table and stood, very straight and still.

  Mr Green looked at Aunt Mabel. “What have you told him?”

  “Nothing,” Aunt Mabel said.

  Mr Green sighed and looked even more cold and disapproving.

  “Very well, Mrs Haggard. Now Benjamin, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I’m a solicitor. Miss Pin’s solicitor. Do you know what a solicitor is?”

  “No,” Ben said.

  “Well—oh, never mind. Now—you know Miss Pin, don’t you?

  Ben looked at him boldly. “Of course I do. She’s my friend.”

  Mr Green gave his spectacles another little flip. “Your friend?” he said, giving the word a nasty, sarcastic sound. “Do you really expect me to believe that? You’re only a little boy How can an old lady be your friend?’

  Ben said loudly, “She is my friend. Not my best friend, because Thomas is that, but my second best friend.”

  Mr Green leaned back in his chair and twirled his spectacles in his hand. He said, incredulously, “Do you mean that you like talking to her … that sort of thing?”

  “We don’t just talk,” Ben said. “We play draughts. And she tells me stories. I like playing draughts and listening to stories.”

  “She’s a very old lady,” Mr Green said. “I shouldn’t have thought a boy would have been interested in anything such a very old lady had to say.”

  This was such a very stupid remark that Ben did not bother to reply to it.

  Mr Green settled his spectacles back on his thin, long nose and gazed at Ben thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said, “I’m going to ask you a question, young man, and I want you to answer me quite truthfully. I shall know if you tell me a lie. Did anyone tell you to go and see Miss Pin and play draughts with her? Has your Aunt, for example, ever said that it would be a good thing if you got friendly with Miss Pin and were nice to her?”

  Ben opened his mouth to answer but Aunt Mabel put in quickly, “Mr Green, I cannot believe it is necessary to take this attitude. The child has never been encouraged to visit Miss Pin. It has been entirely his own doing.”

  Mr Green sat up straight in his chair. He said in a weary voice, “Mrs Haggard, that may or may not be true. I am simply trying to get at the truth in order to avoid trouble in the future. Miss Pin’s relations …”

  “Have never bothered with her,” Aunt Mabel said sharply.

  “No doubt. But should she … should anything happen to her,” he went on with a quick glance at the watching children, “I daresay they will bother. They may even contest the Will in the courts and try to prove that you had persuaded the boy to make friends with her for your own gain….”

  The children did not understand. They stared at Mr Green and then at
Aunt Mabel. Aunt Mabel’s face was pale and nervous but Ben’s was pale and angry.

  He said furiously, “No one asked me to be friends with Miss Pin. I just wanted to be because I like her. She can’t help being old. And she tells lovely stories. If you don’t believe that, you must be a stupid, horrible man….”

  This was dreadfully rude and John and Mary gasped, but Mr Green did not seem to mind at all. He even produced a smile—very small and rather sour, but still a smile.

  He said, “I believe you, Benjamin. I am very glad you are fond of Miss Pin, because she is very, very fond of you. So fond, in fact, that she has decided to give you a lot of money….”

  “But she hasn’t got any,” Ben said. “She says she has, I mean—she thinks she has….” He felt hot and uncomfortable. It seemed very unkind to Miss Pin to tell this stiff, cold man that she didn’t understand about real money. On the other hand, it might be even more unkind not to tell him. He might be terribly angry with Miss Pin for telling him stories and wasting his time. So he said, breathlessly, “You see, she has a story she tells—about her Papa and his Enemies and the Treasure he left her to look after. B-but it’s just a sort of game—the treasure is only a lot of foreign coins that you can’t spend in England. She doesn’t know that because it’s a long time since she went to the shops but I know, because she gave me one. Look….”

  He put his lucky coin down on the table and watched Mr Green as he picked it up and looked at it. Ben said anxiously, “You won’t be angry with Miss Pin, will you? For … for wasting your time and things….”

  Mr Green’s thin mouth twitched violently. Mary and John had the impression—which couldn’t be true, of course, because he was such a cold, humourless man—that he was trying very hard not to burst out laughing. He didn’t laugh, though. He said, gently, “This isn’t a foreign coin, Ben. It isn’t legal tender, either—that means you couldn’t change it in a sweet shop. But it’s real English money, all the same. It’s a Golden Sovereign—I don’t imagine you’ve ever seen one before.” He fondled the little coin tenderly and then handed it back to Ben. He went on slowly, “Miss Pin is rich, Ben. I know she gets a little muddled sometimes, because she’s old and falls asleep easily and dreams a lot—but she’s not muddled about that. She is a very, very rich old lady and one day, Ben, you will be a very, very rich man….”

  Aunt Mabel said in a low voice, “I don’t think there is any need to go into that….”

  “No,” Mr Green said. “No, perhaps not.” He drummed his fingers on the table top and cleared his throat. “Well. Apart from her Will, Miss Pin has instructed me to deal with all her financial affairs. The jade is not to be sold for the moment but the sovereigns will cover all her current expenses, including,”—he smiled at Aunt Mabel—“the very considerable amount she clearly owes you for all the years you have cared for her.”

  Aunt Mabel said, in a funny, gasping voice, “And to think I thought she hadn’t a penny. When all the time she was sitting on a gold mine.”

  “A gold mine?” John said, surprised.

  Aunt Mabel smiled. “Well—not quite. I meant her jade collection. Mr Green says it’s worth a lot of money.”

  “Priceless,” Mr Green said, lovingly.

  Aunt Mabel sighed. “All that old junk. Junk. That’s what I thought it was. Can you imagine?”

  Mr Green gave a short, dry laugh. “Do you know, Mrs Haggard, there are pieces in that trunk that have not even been unpacked!”

  “Incredible!” Aunt Mabel said.

  Ben said suddenly, “Do you mean my horse is really precious?”

  Both Aunt Mabel and Mr Green looked at him in surprise. It was as if they had been so busy exclaiming over Miss Pin’s fortune, that they had forgotten the children’s presence.

  “What horse?” Mr Green said.

  “The one Mr Reynolds took. He shouldn’t have taken it, Miss Pin gave it to me, he’s a thief,” Ben said.

  “And he said we were,” Mary burst out.

  “Mr Reynolds—what has Mr Reynolds to do with it?” Mr Green said.

  The children all started to talk at once but Mr Green held up his hand and said in a commanding voice, “One at a time, please.” So Mary told him, rather hesitantly, about the House of Secrets and how Mr Reynolds had found them and taken Ben’s horse and said they were a parcel of thieving brats and sent them down to the police station.

  When she had finished, Mr Green said nothing for a few minutes except, “Hmmm,” and played with his spectacles. Then he said, “Well …” and looked at them all so gravely that they began to feel very guilty and scared. He put his spectacles on and looked at John over the top of the lenses. “Tell me,” he said, “you broke into this house—in itself, a very wrong thing to do, of course—but did you do any wilful damage? Did you break anything?”

  John drew a deep, quivering breath and looked at Mary. There was no hope for it—they would have to explain about the broken Bust. But just as he was gathering his courage, Ben said loudly,

  “I suppose if my horse really is precious, Miss Pin had better have him back. When Mr Reynolds gives him back to me, I mean. I don’t suppose she knew he was really precious, do you. She wouldn’t have given a really precious thing to a boy.”

  His face was very sad. Mr Green looked at Aunt Mabel and smiled. Then he said, “I think you can keep your horse, Ben. Miss Pin would like you to, I’m sure. In fact she would like you to have other things. Is there anything you want?”

  Ben stared at him blankly.

  “Come on, don’t be shy. You’re a young man of substance now,” Mr Green said jokingly. “There must be something you’d like. Toys, books—anything you want.”

  Ben’s eyes grew large and dark and shiny. “I want my Dad to come home,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU LIKE TO ME”

  “HMM,” MR GREEN said. He stopped smiling and looked at Ben in a sad, rather sorry way.

  And Ben went dreadfully white, as if he was going to faint.

  “I feel sick,” he muttered, and clasped his hands over his stomach.

  “Not on my good carpet,” Aunt Mabel said. She flew to him and led him, groaning, from the room.

  “Excitement, I daresay,” Mr Green said. He stood up, thoughtfully tapping his teeth with one end of his spectacles. Then he folded them up, snapped them away into a red leather case and began to gather his papers together. “I imagine your Aunt will be fully occupied for a little while. Perhaps you would convey my sympathies to Master Benjamin and tell Mrs Haggard I will contact her in the morning. I have a little business to do.” His mouth was set in a grimly amused smile, as if the little business was something he rather expected to enjoy.

  The children waited while he fastened his brief case and picked up his neat bowler hat and his neat, black umbrella. Then they showed him politely to the door. When he was gone, they stood in the hall and looked at each other. John and Mary felt rather confused and their stomachs had that queer, fluttery feeling stomachs have when you are in the middle of something exciting.

  John said thoughtfully, “I think I could do with some more bread-and-dripping,” and set off purposefully towards the kitchen. Mary followed him and, after a minute, Victoria followed her; lagging behind and moving very quietly as if she wasn’t sure whether she was wanted or not.

  Their minds were so full of what had happened that they ate several slices of bread-and-dripping without speaking. Then, when his stomach was feeling slightly distended, but more comfortable, John wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I don’t think Ben really understands. Not about Wills and things.”

  “Perhaps we’d better not tell him,” Mary said. “It would upset him dreadfully. Not being rich, I mean, but thinking that Miss Pin might die one day. He’d simply hate to think of her dying.” A lump came into her own throat and her eyes smarted.

  John said, “Do you think he’ll turn into a fat, rich man like that fat man on the plane from
Nairobi? Do you remember—the one who kept on drinking whisky and smoking simply enormous cigars?”

  Mary giggled. “Perhaps Ben’ll be so rich that he’ll buy an aeroplane of his own.”

  “And a yacht and a car—a marvellous, exotic car, like a Golden Hawk.”

  They began to laugh. It seemed so absurd to think of little Ben, grown very fat and riding round in a huge car, drinking whisky and smoking cigars. They laughed, a bit hysterically, until their sides and their stomachs ached: everything they said made them laugh harder. “Perhaps he’ll wear a bowler hat,” John gasped, and the idea of Ben in a bowler hat was one of the funniest things they had ever heard. They reeled about the room, half doubled over and clutching at each other for support.

  They might have gone on for ages, giggling in that wild, silly way, if Victoria had not made an odd, choking sound. That sobered them. They stopped cavorting round the room and looked at her, wiping their streaming eyes.

  She was standing by the kitchen door, hunched up and miserable, and trying very hard not to cry.

  “What’s up?” John said. For a moment he felt rather irritated; it seemed that Victoria was always crying, or about to cry. Then he remembered what had happened in the police station and thought that perhaps she had rather a lot to cry about. So he said awkwardly, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so cross and beastly.”

  Victoria rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just—just that you’re so lucky. Whatever happens—whatever the police do, your Aunt’ll see nothing very awful happens. Everything turns out all right for you. Nothing does for me—you’ll see, I shall just get into dreadful trouble and Mrs Clark’ll send me back to the orphanage and I shan’t be able to play the piano again, ever, ever….” And two tears spilled out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, fat and pale as pearls.

  “You mind about not playing the piano dreadfully, don’t you?” Mary said slowly. This was something that was rather hard for her to understand.