House of Secrets

by Lynda Stacey

  Bandit walked around carefully looking at the structure. ‘There has to be a clue,’ he said pulling the boxes from their pile and moving them to a new one behind him.

  ‘Which direction are the woods?’ she asked as she spun around on the spot.

  Bandit thought carefully for a moment and then pointed towards the wine cellar. ‘That would be the outside wall facing the woods.’

  Madeleine stood with her hands on her hips. ‘Then isn’t it logical that if the entrance is down here, it would be in there?’

  They both moved quickly into the second room. Every wall was full of wine racks, every rack overflowed with bottles that were all stacked on their sides. Each rack was dated, each bottle dusty.

  Bandit cast a glance over at Maddie. ‘Listen, I’m sorry. I wish I’d been there for you, you know, at home when you needed me.’

  Madeleine stopped in her tracks and breathed in. Since the night she’d hid in Bandit’s garden she’d managed to distance herself from everyone’s sympathy and had felt that she could just about cope with what happened. But here, now, Bandit’s voice had softened and she felt herself begin to shake as memories of that night flooded back.

  Bandit’s hand was immediately on her shoulder. ‘Hey. Come here.’ He turned her to him and pulled her into a hold that surrounded her whole body with a tenderness and warmth that she hadn’t felt for years. Her tears began to fall. She could hear Bandit’s soft voice that sounded as though it came from somewhere in the distance. His hand rested on the back of her head and his slow, deep breaths pulled her into an almost trance-like state for what felt like an eternity.

  ‘It’s okay, shhhhh, let it all out,’ Bandit whispered as he pulled a tissue from his pocket and gently wiped away her tears and Madeleine knew that he’d known by the distant look in her eyes that she’d been suffering from within. She’d seen the trauma in his own eyes that day he’d pulled Poppy from the greenhouse and knew that he knew how she felt, knew what trauma could do to you.

  ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.’

  Madeleine watched as he moved his body into a sitting position against the wine rack and she relaxed in his hold. The cellar probably wasn’t the best place to be and she knew she’d be much better up in the kitchen where it was warmer, but the last thing she wanted to do was to move. She felt safe in his arms. Her whole body now felt calm as he pulled his jacket tightly around them both and for the first time in days, she was warm without overheating.

  After what seemed like an age, Madeleine looked into his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she managed to say as she took the tissue from his hand and blew her nose. ‘It just got the better of me and, as though I didn’t look bad enough before, I bet I look a right state now.’

  ‘Maddie, you always look perfect to me,’ he said sincerely as he pushed the hair away from her face.

  Maddie knew she didn’t look her best. Knew his words were kind and knew that she wanted him to kiss her, but not now, not here. It wasn’t right, not like this. She pushed away from him abruptly making them both stumble and they crashed back against the wine rack in an undignified heap. A loud noise filled the cellar and the wine rack began to move.

  Bandit jumped towards Maddie once again, catching hold of her in a protective gesture. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Oh my goodness, Bandit. We did it. It’s … it’s the tunnel. We found the bloody tunnel,’ Madeleine squealed as she grabbed hold of Bandit’s hand and dragged him to the opening that had suddenly appeared within the wall.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ‘For God’s sake, Bandit. Why can’t we just walk down the damn tunnel?’ Madeleine said for the umpteenth time as she impatiently stamped from one foot to the other while she waited for Bandit to repeatedly check the contents of his rucksack.

  It was now two hours since they’d found the entrance and two hours since she’d run upstairs with a tear stained face, yelling and screaming for everyone to come and look at the tunnel that had most probably been hidden for over fifty years.

  Each and every member of staff had rushed down the cellar steps, peered into the darkness of the arched tunnel, taken photos on their mobile phones and made jokes about going in there and never coming back out again. This, of course, had sent Bandit into what Madeleine could only have described as military planning mode and every possible scenario had been thought of and every item of safety equipment had been packed into the small rucksack that he now lifted onto one shoulder. Madeleine stood with her arms crossed, watching and waiting for the moment he’d stop discussing possible problems, synchronise watches and pass the written time plan to Nomsa.

  Even Poppy had been into the cellar to look at the tunnel. She’d stood as far back from the hole in the wall as possible, pulled a face and then conveniently remembered that Jess had mentioned the Sea Life Centre, insisted that Jess had promised that they would go and disappeared back up the cellar steps as fast as she could. They’d both now gone for the whole afternoon, totally unimpressed with the happenings in the cellar.

  Bandit once again stood in the entrance and assessed the tunnel. Then he turned and picked up the two hard hats and three torches from the bench behind him.

  He passed one of the hats and a torch to Maddie. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘Thank God for that, you bet I am.’ She turned on the torch and marched into the darkness beyond.

  ‘Maddie, go slow. Keep checking around you and if there’s any sound or movement, I want you to retreat as fast as you can back to the house.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She stamped her foot as though on parade and then shone the torch directly at him. ‘Can we go now?’

  The first thing she noticed were the brick lined arches that rose above her like a giant underground semicircle. ‘Bandit, these are the tunnels that Emily Ennis talks about. Isn’t that exciting?’ she said thinking of the diary which still lay on her bed. ‘I’m surprised, though, that the cellar being the starting point of the tunnels hadn’t occurred to you before.’

  ‘I could say the same,’ he asked as he shined his torch under his chin and pulled a face.

  ‘Oh, they did. I actually looked down here when I first began reading the diary. I came down to get some wine, searched all around but I didn’t notice anything beyond the small rooms and the shelves. I would have thought a tunnel would have been a little more obvious than it was.’

  Bandit’s laugh echoed. ‘It’s a secret tunnel, you dummy. You didn’t expect it to have a sign and an arrow pointing to it, did you?’

  Madeleine slapped his arm, making Bandit turn to her. ‘Ha, ha. You’re so funny.’

  ‘Am I?’ he whispered as he took a step through the darkness towards her.

  She looked up, immediately captured by the deep, volcanic sparkles that were his eyes. ‘Well, I … I … was kind of being ironic,’ she stumbled over her words as his fingers reached out and touched her cheek.

  ‘Were you?’ He stepped closer still and Madeleine could feel his breath on her face. She caught a drift of his musky aftershave and stared into his eyes, not daring to look away. She could barely breathe as his face came towards hers, slowly at first. Then without warning, she felt the hard thud as both hard hats crashed together.

  They both laughed nervously and hesitated before removing the hats. Madeleine reached her hand up to his face, gently touching the side of his cheek as though guiding his lips to hers and just for a moment they touched, soft and gently as though both were waiting for permission from the other. They moved in unison, slowly at first. Both teasing the other as their mouths parted, hands roamed and breathing became laboured. Every touch of Bandit’s lips sent short sharp sparks of desire burning through every part of her. His hands moved over her shoulders, caught the back of her neck and pulled her firmly to him sending mini electric shocks flashing through her entire body as his lips unexpectedly left hers and began searing a path across her cheek and down her neck. She could feel his breaths coming faster, could hear his heart beating in his c
hest and then as suddenly as the kiss had begun, he stepped away and turned around. And Madeleine watched as his hands shot up to run them through his hair.

  ‘I … I … think …’ He looked around the tunnel. ‘… we shouldn’t do this here … it’s really not the most romantic place and … and … I’m sorry, it shouldn’t be like this. You deserve better, you deserve romance.’ He stepped away, replaced his hard hat, turned back in the direction they had been walking and held out his hand.

  Madeleine felt cold, stunned and disappointed at the abrupt ending of the kiss, but she put her hat back on, took his hand and followed him through the disused tunnel. Of course he was right, but that didn’t stop her stomach doing somersaults, while her cheeks burnt with embarrassment. Why had she allowed that to happen, why had he kissed her at all and why here?

  After all she’d read in the diaries, of the love between Emily and Eddie, she’d thought of the tunnels as romantic, but instead it was dark, cold and endless.

  She thought about the past. She knew it had been complicated back in Emily Ennis’s time but she hadn’t realised the trouble that she and Eddie had gone through just to be together. Surely Emily would have had to walk along this tunnel alone, she’d said so in the diary. But on occasions, Eddie would have walked with her, which made her wonder if they too had shared a kiss down here? Had they shared the heat of passion that she’d just felt or had they walked platonically hand in hand, just as she and Bandit did now?

  ‘It’s been a long night. I thought you could do with some food and a drink,’ Bandit said as he stood in the entrance to the office, tray in hand. He lifted a glass of wine from the tray and passed it to her. ‘Are you working? Where’s Poppy?’

  He sat in the spare chair, crossed his legs and looked at her.

  ‘Yes, I’m working. Trying to understand how the hell a hotel runs. As for Poppy, she’s in with Jess. I’ve let her move into Dad’s old bedroom, you know, till we sort things out properly.’

  ‘I brought sandwiches too,’ Bandit said with a smile.

  Madeleine eyed up the thick granary bread with what looked like a generous amount of tuna mayonnaise sandwiched between. ‘Looks amazing, did you make these yourself?’

  ‘Mmmmm, if I said yes, would you believe me?’ He winked and passed the sandwich to her. ‘Nomsa, she was worried that you hadn’t eaten since lunchtime.’

  Madeleine laughed, picked up the bread and took a giant mouthful of food. Nomsa was right, she hadn’t eaten since the bacon sandwich and what’s more it was only now that she started to eat that she realised just how hungry she really was. ‘I should have known better. Having Nomsa around is like having another mother.’

  He nodded in agreement. ‘Were you surprised that there were two tunnels?’

  ‘Mmmmm, not really,’ she managed to say between mouthfuls of sandwich. ‘The diary kind of hinted that there might be.’

  ‘Such a shame the tunnel came to an abrupt end. Who do you think bricked it up?’

  She picked up Emily Ennis’s diary that lay unopened on her desk and began flicking through its pages. ‘Emily said that one went to the summer house. But the other, that’s confusing.’

  ‘It seemed to head out to the gates, towards the gatehouse,’ Bandit said, thoughtfully. ‘Which kind of makes sense. My father keeps talking about going through the tunnel to visit the lady? And he lived in the gatehouse.’

  ‘Do you think that lady could have been Emily Ennis?’ Madeleine sat excitedly upright in her chair.

  ‘I guess she might have been.’ Bandit picked at the fluff on his jumper and then pointed to the diary. ‘It has to hold the answers.’

  July 19th, 1942

  My whole life is falling apart and there is nothing I can do except lie in my bed and allow my heart to break. I’ve cried now for so many hours, yet still I can’t seem to stop.

  My Eddie has gone to war and I don’t know when he’ll ever come home. I begged for him to stay and even tried to change his mind but he is not a coward and wouldn’t even consider the idea that he could hide until the war was at an end.

  On the last night that he was home, we went through the tunnel to the summer house. I’m so proud that he would build such a house for us both and even though it’s made of wood, Eddie has made such a lovely job. The house is beautiful, curtains have been hung and a small kitchen stands in one corner. There’s no gas lighting or running water, but it didn’t seem to matter, we had a candle that lit up the room and added to the romance and, for the first time, we made love.

  It was beautiful and part of me wishes that we’d made love many times before. Eddie must have known what it meant for me to give myself to him and I only hope that the war is over soon and he comes home safe. Even though I’m happy that we had our one special night, it now makes it so much worse that he’s been taken away from me, but Eddie has promised that the moment he comes back from the war, he’ll do all that he can to convince Father to allow us to marry. The problem is that Father seems pleased that Eddie has gone. So what are the chances that he’d agree to a union?

  Both Mary and I still have to go to London and even though I don’t want to go, it’s Mary that has put up the biggest protest. I could hear her wailing and screaming at Mother, but I doubt Mother cares how unfair it all seems to my sister. After all, finding us both good marriages has been something her and Father have spoken of for years and I’m sure somewhere they’ve kept a book and written down the names of suitable young men that have crossed our path since we were born.

  Rationing is still a problem. Meat is rare and tinned vegetables are hard to come by. Father actually gave the village butcher one of our biggest pigs and told him to keep the carcass hidden and to only give the meat to the people local to Scalby. Now everywhere Father walks, the villagers are patting him on the back, shaking his hand and giving him knowing smiles, albeit no one actually mentions the meat.

  I gave Eddie a chicken to ensure that both he and his mother got meat too. If Father can give away meat, then so can I. Eddie told me that his mother had cried, carried the chicken like gold dust and had promised to cook a good dinner for them both before he left.

  So now I wait. I wait to hear from Eddie. I wait to be taken to London and I wait for our parents to parade us before bachelors, well at least the ones who are not in the forces and away fighting. I just know that the coming months will be the worst of my life and there is nothing I can do to stop them from happening.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Madeleine woke and immediately looked through the window and out over the fields to where the summer house stood.

  She thought of Emily Ennis’s words, the ones she’d read the night before and wiped the tears from her eyes. Emily had been so young, so naive and so desperate to be loved. She’d fallen for a man who her family disapproved of, a man beneath her station, a man so anxious to be recognised as a hero that he went to war at just eighteen years old to become a soldier, yet he was still a man that her father didn’t deem worthy.

  Madeleine needed to know what had happened to Eddie. The next page of the diary had shown pictures, drawings and had clippings from newspapers folded into envelopes.

  The telephone rang and she answered. ‘Hi, Jack, is all okay?’

  ‘Mrs Frost,’ Jack’s voice sounded nervous. ‘You seem to have a delivery.’

  ‘Jack, you sound anxious. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a bed, Mrs Frost. In fact, it’s quite a large, Victorian four-poster bed. Do you know anything about it?’

  Madeleine’s mind flashed back to her father and the conversation they’d had about the new bed that he’d found. Following his death, she’d totally forgotten that it would be arriving and, with all that had happened, room four, where it was intended to go, still hadn’t been finished. She placed the phone down in its holder and went into Poppy’s room.

  ‘Come on, sleepy girl, we’ve got to get up. Let’s go see Nomsa.’

  Jack was right. The bed was indeed one of the
largest she’d ever seen. It was currently standing on the back of a truck, covered in bubble wrap and cardboard.

  ‘Where do you want it, miss?’ the lorry driver asked as he lowered the tailgate.

  Madeleine looked at Jack. ‘Do you have any idea what my father would have done?’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Frost. Would you like me to take care of it for you?’ Jack said as he immediately jumped into action. He not only began organising the deliveryman, but also the staff within the hall. Within an hour, the bed had been offloaded and placed in the rose room where it was to be kept until room four was ready.

  Madeleine went into the office and searched through her father’s computer for phone numbers. There was a file on the desktop labelled ‘refurbishment’. Opening it, she found the most comprehensive filing system she’d ever seen. Inside the main folder, there were sub folders: one for each room, and in each of these were colour boards and pictures of wallpapers, furniture, curtains and carpets. Each room had its own supplier list and priority lists for which jobs came first and what had to be added into each room.

  Madeleine noticed that her father had been laying new water pipes between the rooms that were not yet connected, new heating systems and fire detection equipment. It was only now that she realised how admirable her father had been. All of this was for the future of the hotel and what’s more it was foresight into his future. It certainly wasn’t the actions of a man who hadn’t planned to be here, a man who would take his own life.

  ‘Look at this, Jack. Do you know about any of this?’ She showed him the file, the colour boards and the plans.

  ‘Of course, Mrs Frost, let me show you.’ He went into a room next to her father’s office and returned with a full-sized colour board. It was adorned with pieces of material, pictures of settees, beds and phone numbers. Each phone number had an arrow that pointed to a different part of the board; this indicated which supplier was responsible for which job.