by Sally Wragg
As she’d hoped and intended, Bronwyn managed to intercept Katherine on her return downstairs from showing Digby and Hawker the safe in the anteroom. Bronwyn had just got back from seeing Reuben to his car and after what he’d just so provokingly and prematurely revealed to Hettie about his relationship to this house, it would never do to allow Hettie to get to Katherine first. Hettie, meanwhile, she’d despatched, ears burning, back below stairs, with orders to give Cook a hand with dishing up the lunch. She’d gone so meekly her mother was already suspicious about her plans.
‘Could I have a word?’ she asked and, not waiting for answer, swung on her heel to lead the way through into the morning room.
‘Reuben’s been again, I see?’ Katherine observed, following her in and not troubling to hide her annoyance. ‘We saw him from the anteroom window. Bronwyn, you mustn’t encourage him. Digby remembered him at once and was asking some very pertinent questions. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t think Reuben’s got something to do with this wretched business. You know his thoughts last time he was here concerning Reuben starting that wretched fire that nearly burnt the place down round our ears!’
‘And he was proved wrong!’ Bronwyn snapped irritably if perhaps forgivably. ‘What have you been saying this time to put him under such a cloud?’
‘Nothing other than he left here years ago and he’s since made another life for himself,’ the older woman returned blithely. ‘But it’s bound to look suspicious, don’t you think? All those papers going missing and Reuben just happening to turn up at the same time?’
‘Katherine, for heaven’s sake!’
‘I’m only saying, my dear.’
‘Hettie knows!’ Bronwyn interrupted, hastily and, irrespective of the provocative nature of Katherine’s outburst, determined to tell her. ‘Everything,’ she added meaningfully, making up her mind to play down Reuben’s role in the matter. There was trouble enough as it was. ‘Reuben and I were talking about it, unfortunately, and she caught the tail end of our conversation. I’m sorry but it left me with no other option than to tell her.’
It was a slightly distorted view of what had happened but the best she could come up with. Only her hand, tightening around the brass handle of her walking stick, gave indication of Katherine’s displeasure. ‘And what did the child say?’ she demanded, querulously.
Bronwyn understood exactly why this proud, indomitable woman considered her husband’s illegitimate child by a servant girl something she would infinitely rather keep to herself. Her expression softened. ‘You know Hettie, Katherine. She took it in her stride. I told you there was no need to worry. She’s young! Young people look on these things so differently.’
At once, astonishingly, Katherine deflated. Her defences were down and she was vulnerable, showing a side to her nature more normally no one was allowed to see, least of all Bronwyn. ‘I hate it the child’s grandfather should be shown in such a bad light,’ she muttered, sadly.
Sorry as she felt for her, Bronwyn persisted. ‘I do understand,’ she replied, as gently as she could, ‘but Reuben is still Hettie’s uncle and she has a perfect right to know it; particularly now she’s lost her father. Oh, Katherine, we can’t deny his existence!’ she burst out, passionately.
There followed an uncomfortable pause. Had she said too much – outlined a situation that Katherine, even after all these years, still felt too raw to accept? The response, when it came, brought with it a rush of relief.
‘Aye, well, no doubt you’re right,’ the older woman muttered, albeit ungraciously.
As a concession, it failed to last. Her mother-in-law’s more usually forthright gaze hardened.
‘Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, it’s only certain, there’s nothing I can do about it now. . . .’
After a lunch for which no one appeared to have any appetite, Hettie was relieved to get away to take the dogs for their afternoon walk, away from the soldiers and the policemen and Chief Inspector Digby, whom she’d disliked on first sight, heading for Bill’s instinctively, where, to her annoyance, she was cornered by Lizzie, understandably curious over the sight of both police and army crawling over the grounds and determined to prize as much from Hettie as she could.
Bill finally came to her rescue, suggesting they continue her walk together.
Dogs in tow and once out of the village, they followed the path into the wood, taking refuge in the sanctuary offered by its massive trees and rustling, reassuring presence. ‘Have you seen Reuben?’ she demanded, burning to tell him what she’d so startlingly just learned concerning the artist’s parentage and then deciding, at the last moment, not to, after all. Once she’d have told Bill without thinking and the fact she couldn’t now was a painful reminder of how far apart they’d grown of late.
‘He called round before lunch, wanting to know what had happened to Lewis,’ he answered.
‘And did you know?’ she asked. Aware of how much the two boys disliked each other, the information surprised her.
‘He slept on our sofa last night. He’d missed the last bus. I could hardly leave him out in the road.’
‘And then what?’ she asked curiously.
Bill shrugged. ‘And then he went. Before anyone else was up and about, so I’ve no idea where he’s gone and so I told Reuben. I say, Het, that’s awful what’s happened at the hall. Are you all alright?’
‘Of course we’re alright! It’s been rather exciting,’ she replied, then wondering if, after all, it actually was. It was unnerving to think of someone creeping about the place whilst they’d been asleep. They could have been murdered in their beds, the place set on fire. . . . Now she thought about it, it was rather scary though she’d never have admitted it, not even to Bill. ‘There are no signs of a break-in,’ she told him, the one thing puzzling her more than anything else. Another and even more perplexing thought catapulted into her head. She frowned. ‘When you found me with Lewis down at the Old Hall, yesterday, I was looking for the catch to the secret passage,’ she murmured, remembering too, a little shamefaced, how she’d been trying to impress Lewis.
‘So?’ Bill could be remarkably obtuse at times.
It was too awful to say and yet she did say it because, no matter how far apart they’d grown, this was still Bill. ‘I couldn’t find it but. . . . Oh, Bill! What if Lewis came back alone and discovered it for himself? What if he used it to break into Loxley to steal those papers?’
‘But why on earth would he?’ Bill looked incredulous.
Her brows furrowed. ‘I don’t know. . . . He wants to sell them on and make some money? He’s a spy in league with the Nazis?’ It sounded ridiculous, even to her ears. The truth was, Hettie knew nothing about Lewis other than he was an unpredictable and sometimes angry young man. She could believe anything of him, she realized. ‘He’s been in trouble with the police before,’ she said.
To her annoyance, Bill was still unimpressed. ‘That doesn’t mean to say he’s responsible for this, Het. So he managed to secrete himself through a locked door, locate the safe and then open it? How would he know the combination? And anyhow, how do you know he’s been in trouble with the police?’
If there was anything Hettie hated, it was to be disbelieved and especially when, for once, like now, she was telling the truth. ‘Uncle Reuben said so . . . and Uncle Reuben knows the layout of the house, come to that,’ she retorted, with more temper than tact, meanwhile acknowledging Bill’s start of surprise at the term of endearment. What news! What a hoot! And how odd that after all, she’d blurted it out when she’d only just decided against telling him. Perhaps, deep down, she’d wanted to tell him and why shouldn’t she when, despite their present differences, they’d known each other all their lives.
So she told him what she now knew to be true, crazy as it seemed, even to her ears. Alex Windrow, alias Reuben Fairfax, was her father’s half-brother, result of a liaison between her grandfather and a maid before her grandparents had married. Reuben had been brought up here on the e
state to become the gamekeeper until he’d taken it into his head to run away and become a painter instead. ‘It’s Grandmamma I feel sorry for,’ she finished, remembering the old lady’s pained face over the lunch table, so though Hettie had longed to talk to her about what she now knew, she couldn’t somehow, for fear of trampling over her feelings. For once, the old lady had looked her age and vulnerable in a way to which Hettie simply wasn’t used.
Whatever response she’d expected from Bill, it wasn’t the one she got.
‘Hah! I wouldn’t worry about your grandmother. She’s as tough as old boots, that one!’ he snapped.
They’d reached a clearing in the wood in which stood a ramshackle, tumbledown dwelling, mildewed with rain and the years. It used to be the gamekeeper’s cottage: Uncle Reuben’s old house she realized. She stopped, turning quickly towards him.
‘What’s Grandmamma ever done to you?’ she demanded, crossly.
‘You’d be surprised!’ he returned. Two high spots of colour stained his cheeks.
‘Would I indeed! Why, exactly?’
Nothing was so certain than something was bothering him. A dull suspicion, an intuition she’d suppressed for ages, rose suddenly, alarmingly, to the surface. She was remembering now all Bill’s hurtful behaviour of late, since before she’d gone on her trip round Europe, and how she’d never really been able to understand it. ‘Did Grandmother warn you off me in some way?’ she demanded, an outlandish idea, she knew, and yet one, as soon as she’d given it air, she knew to be true. This was terrible, worse than she’d thought. She could make a good stab at why her irascible relative might have done such a terrible thing, too – to do with the old lady’s outdated ideas about their respective positions in the world. Hettie, the Duchess, Bill, the mechanic’s son. . . . As far as Katherine Loxley was concerned, what possible hope could there be for a future together? Best nip it in the bud! Hettie could almost hear her now.
Bill plunged his hands in his pockets, stabbing angrily at a loose stone on the path with the toe of his shoe, so obviously confirming all she’d just said, Hettie’s temper, always simmering, burst to the surface. Wait until she saw Grandmamma again! How dare she! Why, she’d a jolly good mind to go back to the hall this minute and give her a piece of her mind. . . .
She couldn’t bear to think how she and Bill had been kept apart purely because someone else, even her grandmother who she loved more than anyone, had decided it should be so.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she implored, for some reason, angry with Bill now too. But he should have told her! If he’d told her, they surely could have worked something out!
Before he had a chance to answer, out of the corner of her eye, in the cottage beyond, Hettie caught sight of a movement in one of its gaping windows. A shadow moving back so quickly, at first she wondered if she’d imagined it – and yet she knew she hadn’t. She gripped Bill’s arm, her fingers digging in so deeply he winced.
‘Someone’s watching us from the cottage,’ she whispered, hoarsely.
Someone silent and stealthy, keeping back and out of sight, listening to things they had no right to hear.
Chapter Eight
‘Come out, whoever you are!’ Hettie demanded, crossly.
A magpie flew shrieking from the treetops, disturbed from its lofty perch and fading quickly into the distance. Horribly, the silence grew. And then, to Hettie’s relief, framed in the doorway of the ruins of the gamekeeper’s cottage, she saw Lewis.
‘Whatever are you doing here?’ she scolded as he came slouching towards them. As he drew nearer, she was aware of a surprising fear lurking in his eyes so she wondered then what could have put it there. Lewis had never seemed to her the kind of boy to be frightened of anything – or anyone. ‘Reuben’s after you,’ she warned, remembering now the fractious relationship between the pair in Berlin. Had Reuben done something to upset him? ‘Why didn’t you go back to your digs after we’d been to see the gypsies?’ she asked. ‘You’ve caused all sorts of trouble!’
‘Hah! Why should I care? Alex . . . Reuben doesn’t own me!’ he snapped. His troubled gaze settled on Bill. ‘What’s he doing here?’ he demanded, rudely.
‘I presume you’ve heard about the burglary?’ Bill returned, showing an unaccountable hostility towards someone who, after all, he didn’t know very well.
‘Yeah . . . I’ve heard. Leon told me. . . .’
‘Bit odd, isn’t it?’ Bill persisted. ‘You arrive and things start going missing and then . . . hey . . . we find you hiding away down here!’
‘You think I’m the thief?’ Lewis’s voice rose and, incredibly, it appeared the two boys were shaping up for yet another fight. Hettie stepped between them.
‘You’ve found the passageway into the hall, haven’t you?’ she demanded of Lewis. She frowned up at him, her every intuition telling her this was so. He was hiding from something or someone and it wasn’t only Reuben. Had he any idea Reuben was really her uncle? It was hard to tell what he knew and what he didn’t. ‘You did find the secret passageway, didn’t you?’ she persisted, stubbornly.
To his credit, he never tried to deny it. ‘I never got to use it,’ he prevaricated before adding, alarmingly. ‘Oh, Hettie, I’m in such a mess!’
‘You’d better tell me what,’ she said, at once.
Thankfully, his truculence had disappeared and once again, despite his faults, he was the boy she’d grown to like. ‘I wanted to see you, if you must know,’ he admitted, sheepishly. ‘Only after I left Bill’s, it was too early for visiting, of course. . . .’
‘Yeah, well done for hanging around to thank my mother,’ Bill cut in, sarcastically. ‘She didn’t have to put you up.’
‘You tried sleeping on your sofa?’
‘Better than sleeping rough! You could have said thank you, that’s all I’m saying. . . .’
‘Bill, let him talk!’ Hettie laid a reassuring hand on Lewis’s arm. ‘Carry on,’ she coaxed.
Throwing Bill a mutinous look, he ploughed on doggedly. ‘I was waiting until it was decent time enough to call on you but then I saw the police crawling all over the place. It spooked me, I can tell you and, given I’d rather not have bumped into them. . . .’
‘You came down here?’ she prompted.
A wary look crossed his face. ‘Not exactly. . . . Not at first. . . . Like I said, I wanted to see you and I happened to think of a way I might possibly get into Loxley unseen. . . .’
And how was that, exactly, she wondered, not having to think too hard. Hettie’s gaze widened. ‘You thought you’d use the secret passageway?’ she exclaimed, seeing by his face that was it exactly. She whistled softly between her teeth. That had been one crazy idea. She was impressed.
‘I was looking for the entrance, down by the ruins and then, suddenly, this door opens up in front of me and out pops a little chap I’d never seen before, like he was a ghost or something. Balding, eyes too close together. He frightened me half to death.’
‘Chief Inspector Digby,’ Hettie breathed, sure of it. It sounded too much like their Chief Inspector to be anyone else. Her grandmother must have told him about the existence of the secret passageway and invited him to explore. For Lewis to have bumped into him at that precise moment was just rotten bad luck. Bad luck seemed to follow Lewis round, she mused, wondering why that was.
‘He said he was a copper. He wanted to know what I was up to.’
‘So what did you tell him?’ she asked, curious to know.
‘I didn’t, I ran off.’
‘Idiot,’ Bill interjected.
Hettie couldn’t argue. ‘But if he doesn’t know who you are?’ she coaxed.
Lewis’s eyes glittered. ‘You think he hasn’t made it his business to find out? How suspicious do you think it looks? Stuff going missing, me with history – which I’m sure you’ve heard about already – and apparently with knowledge of how to get into the hall unseen. I’m not stupid. I thought I’d lay low awhile and down here seemed as good a pla
ce as any. It’s a mess, Het.’
‘So it is,’ Bill agreed, sounding so smug even Hettie threw him a furious look.
Lewis was in trouble, so much was clear but the question was what was to be done about it?
‘You have to go back,’ she said, frowning. ‘It’ll look worse than ever if you don’t. . . .’
Between them, they argued him onto a bus which passed by the inn in which he was staying, though perhaps even Lewis, stubborn as he was, realized he couldn’t lurk about in that pile of old stones forever. ‘I hope he ends up where he’s supposed to,’ Hettie muttered as it disappeared round the corner in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
‘We can’t do any more, Het,’ Bill complained. His gaze narrowed. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked.
Having a pretty good idea what it might be about, Hettie pulled a face. He wanted to talk to her about how her grandmother had tried to split them up and, worse, what they were going to do about it: the last thing she needed right now – at least, not until she’d talked to her grandmother first and given her a chance to explain what she thought she’d been playing at. Hettie had always been fair, though even she failed to see how her elderly relative could extract herself from this one.
‘They’ll be wondering what’s happened to me. I’d better get back,’ she muttered, already edging away.
‘Soon then,’ he said, looking put out.
‘Soon,’ she agreed smilingly. Before he could delay her further, she set off at a brisk pace, dogs in tow, back towards the hall.
The earlier, frenetic activity of the day was gone, replaced by a strange and unexpected stillness, shrouding Loxley as if it were a tangible entity, as if the very stone of which it was built was offended by its violation, so that it had settled itself, waiting broodingly, for whatever would be – a game of chess to which Hettie hadn’t, as yet, worked out the next move. Once inside, she headed for her grandmother’s sitting room, surprised to see the Reverend Lawrence Payne emerging from it and remembering then, belatedly, it was Friday, the day the elderly cleric took tea with her grandmother to discuss the week’s events. It occurred to Hettie that she was glad the larger part of the war committee had packed their bags and gone so that only General Hawker and a handful of soldiers remained.