The Secrets Tree

by Holly Webb

  “I’ve lost a dog,” Polly panted. “A little black-and-golden terrier. Do you remember a dog called Patch?”

  Rex nudged her in the ribs. “Several. Which one?”

  “He was a ratter, he said so. And he lived with a boy called Jake. I don’t know when, though.”

  Rex looked thoughtful. “I don’t remember any of the children of the house being called Jake. But if this Patch was a rat-catcher, he was probably a stable dog, not a family pet.”

  “Yes! He was sleeping in the carved latch on the door to the tack room.”

  “Then he probably belonged to one of the stable boys, or at least one of the boys would’ve taken care of him. So where is he then?”

  “I don’t know!” Polly wailed, forgetting to worry about the visitors. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Patch kept asking where Jake was and I couldn’t tell him. I don’t think he knew that he’d been asleep. He just seemed to expect Jake to be there. Then he disappeared off into the woods in a panic.”

  “You woke him without me?” Rex murmured as they set off back to the stables and the woods behind them.

  “I didn’t mean to!” Polly hurried to explain how she fell off the ladder. “I was supposed to be helping Mum hang up decorations for Halloween. She probably thinks I got bored and wandered off.” Polly sighed. Another thing to worry about.

  “Halloween decorations…” Rex’s muzzle wrinkled. “Turnip lanterns, you mean?”

  “Turnips? No, pumpkins. Lots of them. You’ll see. And I was hanging up strings of bats.”

  “Bats? Whatever for?” Rex muttered. “Oh, never mind now. Tell me later.” He circled the stable yard, sniffing busily. “Did he run off this way?” he called, looking towards the patch of woodland that spread out behind the stables.

  “Yes. He disappeared into the trees before I could follow him. He was just gone. He was so upset, Rex. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “We’ll find him.” Rex sniffed again and then set off purposefully between the trees. “Yes. This way. Hmpf. Got the scent. He went a distance. Fast too…”

  Polly hurried after him, looking around for the little terrier. Even though Patch had been fierce and growled at her, she hadn’t been scared of him. She had felt how unhappy and frightened he was. She was starting to wonder if there was more to this than just the shock of waking up. Patch had seemed so worried about Jake. Perhaps the stable boy had been in some sort of trouble?

  Rex sped up as they came out on to a patch of grassland, not far from the cliff path Polly walked along to school. The turf was rabbit-nibbled to a fine wiry carpet and a huge tree grew in the middle, its trunk so wide that Polly couldn’t have stretched her arms around it. She didn’t think she and her mum together could have done, either. It was enormous.

  “There,” Rex said triumphantly, and Polly looked around for the little tawny-and-black dog. She couldn’t see him at all.

  “Where?” she whispered, and Rex gave an exasperated little huff.

  “I forget you don’t have a nose. There, Polly, in the hollow of the tree. Gently, now. Poor beast’s scared to death.” He padded forward and stood quietly in front of the tree. Now that they were closer, Polly could see that there was a dark gap in the trunk where two of the great iron-hard roots seemed to have split apart. The roots crawled out into the turf like reaching fingers and something about them made her shudder. But nestled in the dark slit of the trunk, suspicious eyes glittered. Rex had found him.

  “Hello,” Polly whispered. “I’m sorry I frightened you. I brought Rex – he might be able to help. He could tell you … things you need to know.”

  There was a rustling sound of falling dust and bark bits as the dog shifted inside the tree, turning to gaze warily at Rex.

  “Come out,” Rex suggested gently.

  Patch’s whiskery golden muzzle appeared and then darted back.

  “We won’t hurt you. Tell us why you ran away.”

  “Dunno. Nothing’s right.” The muzzle appeared again, slowly. “S’all different.”

  Polly swallowed a sigh, not wanting to distract Patch now he’d started talking. But the sadness and fear in his voice was awful. It made her want to scratch his ears and nuzzle his neck. And to hug him, but she knew that most dogs didn’t really like to be hugged.

  “Time has passed,” Rex said. “It does that.”

  The terrier lowered his head. “A great deal of time, then? Years?”

  “Many years, I think. What do you remember? Who was here when you were last awake?”

  “Jake…” Patch whimpered.

  “Yes.” Rex leaned in and licked the smaller dog’s ear. “But who else?”

  “Old Foxy were the head groom. Mr Foxham.” Patch looked puzzled. “And there was the master.”

  “That’s it. Who was the master?”

  “Ol’ Sir Anthony.”

  “Ah…” Rex glanced at Polly. “Sir Anthony Penhallow. He lived here long ago, Polly. In the time after they brought back the king.”

  Polly stared at him, unsure what he meant. Bringing back the king sounded ancient – maybe like something from the tales of King Arthur.

  “Aye, the new king.” Patch climbed further out of the tree. “Sir Anthony was at his court in London sometimes, Jake said. And he brought people back with him to Penhallow, for all his grand parties.”

  “King Charles II, he means,” Rex murmured. “The Merry Monarch. The son of King Charles I, who was executed by Oliver Cromwell. Tell me you know all of this, Polly! What do they teach you at that school of yours?”

  “There’s an awful lot of history,” Polly pointed out. “We didn’t all live through it.”

  “Huh. Well, Charles II travelled back from the Netherlands in 1660 to be king again, after Cromwell and the Roundheads had been in charge for years. Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas, did you know that, Polly? Closed all the theatres, told everyone to dress very plain. Anyway, Sir Anthony and his friends made the most of the good times coming back.”

  “Always lots of visitors for those parties,” Patch agreed, his stub of a tail beating against the tree roots. “Good eating there was then. Even the stable boys sometimes got a few leftovers, and Jake, he always shared with me. Mutton pasties,” he whispered, and Polly noticed that he was drooling slightly. “Sherbets… Jake had a mouthful once, said it was like eating flowers.”

  “Sherbets? What, like sherbet lemons?” Polly looked at Patch doubtfully. She couldn’t imagine people in the lacy, feathery clothes that were worn centuries ago eating sherbet lemons.

  The little terrier stared back at her, obviously confused. “What’s a lemon?” he muttered.

  Rex sighed. “I think sherbets were a sort of pudding. A bit like ice cream, if I remember correctly…” He looked wistful. As a ghost he didn’t really need to eat, which was a pity because he adored food – the smell and the thought of it, anyway.

  “So Patch was here more than three hundred years ago?” Polly whispered to Rex. “Do you remember him?”

  “Mmmm,” Rex agreed. “In snatches. It was a busy time. Guests and parties and music.”

  “What has happened to Jake?” Thoughts of food had distracted Patch for a moment but it hadn’t lasted for long. He had come right out of the hole in the tree now, creeping over the grass to press himself shivering against Rex. “Where is he?”

  “Gone,” Rex murmured. “A long time gone, I must tell you. All our masters are buried now. But we stay to guard the house and the children.”

  “He was a child,” Patch whimpered. “Only a boy! I didn’t guard him proper. I should have kept him safe. He was so frightened.”

  “Why was he frightened?” Polly asked.

  Patch stared at her. “I don’t know! I don’t remember!” Then he let out a sharp growl and snapped his teeth together as there was a rustle and a thud from the tree behind them. Polly gasped, and both she and the little terrier drew closer to Rex.

  “It’s just a squirrel,” Rex murmured, leaning o
ver to sniff at the hole. “No… Maybe not. Something fell. I wonder what it could be – something hidden there perhaps… Reach in and see, Polly.”

  Polly stared at him in horror. Put her hand into that dark space, where who knows what might snatch at her?

  But Rex was sniffing curiously. “Go on, child. You’re the only one of us with fingers. What was it?”

  Polly crawled forward, her trainers slipping on the smooth tree roots, and then closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look. She reached into the hole and felt about, flinching, sure that any moment something was going to fly out at her or a spider would run over her hand. But all that happened was that her fingers closed on a small packet.

  She drew it out quickly. “Look!”

  Rex and Patch sniffed at it as she held it out to them and even Polly wanted to know what it was, now she was safe from the imaginary spiders. “Shall I open it?” she asked, turning it over in her hands. It seemed to be a sort of pouch made of leather, cracked and brittle with age. It had a flap to seal it, tied together with another strip of leather.

  “It’s Jake’s,” Patch murmured, sniffing at the pouch. “I forgot. He used it to send notes to Nat – that was his older brother,” he added. “Yes, open it up. Perhaps I’ll remember.”

  “Why couldn’t he just talk to his brother?” Polly asked, confused. “I mean, even if he didn’t work at the hall, his brother could have come up to visit, couldn’t he?” She carefully undid the packet, worried that the leather string would fall away in her fingers. Maybe she ought to keep the pouch and show it to her mum instead of opening it. She didn’t think it would be valuable but Mum was always saying that it was the little everyday things that told you most about the past.

  “Nat didn’t live in the village,” Patch said, pressing his nose so close to Polly’s fingers that she could hardly open the pouch. “This smells of Jake. Just a little.”

  “So Jake put messages in here and Nat sent him messages back the same way? Didn’t they ever see each other? Jake could have gone home to see his brother. He must have got a day off sometimes.” Polly fumbled at the leather flap, trying to open it gently.

  “Oh yes, they did see each other. Nat would leave a message saying when to meet him. Jake would whistle their song to tell Nat that there was no one around and it was safe to come out. Always the same tune – sometimes Jake would sing the words instead of whistling. The Tragical Ballad of Johnny Marks, they called it.”

  Polly stopped with the pouch gaping open and stared at Patch. “Why did it have to be a secret?”

  The terrier looked confused again and his stubby tail dropped down. “I don’t know. It just was. He only met Jake at night, when it was dark and no one would see them.”

  Polly exchanged a glance with Rex. She was starting to think that Jake’s brother sounded very suspicious.

  “What’s inside there?” Rex asked, peering at the pouch doubtfully. “Anything? I suppose it might have crumbled away to dust by now.”

  Polly reached in and drew out two pieces of paper – one rolled up roughly and the other folded into a sort of twist.

  Patch poked his nose at the twisted piece. “That’s a note from Jake to his brother. Don’t know what the other is.”

  Polly unrolled it, spreading it out carefully on her lap. “It’s a notice, I think,” she said doubtfully, peering at the odd curly type. “The print’s faded and it’s funny sort of writing, anyway… Look, there’s an ‘f’ there, and I’m sure it should be an ‘s’. Um, I think it’s offering money for something. For ‘information leading to capture’… It’s a Wanted poster! For ‘dangerous and incorrigible’ – what does that mean? – ‘incorrigible highway robbers’.” She looked at Rex, her mouth dropping open. “Highwaymen!”

  Patch didn’t look particularly surprised.

  Rex and Polly both eyed him curiously. “Is that what your boy’s brother did?” Rex asked, his voice rather stern. “Rode around the country, holding up carriages and taking people’s money and jewels?”

  Patch yawned, although Polly thought he was actually nervous and trying to hide it. “Might have been,” he admitted. “But Jake never did anything like that,” he added quickly. “He worried about his brother all the time.”

  “This notice says that they’re offering a big reward, if someone helps them find the criminals,” Polly said, still puzzling out the words. “It sounds like they were really keen to catch the robbers. Do you think Jake was trying to warn his brother?”

  “We’ll see – what does the note say?” Rex nodded to the other twist of paper.

  Polly picked it up but she didn’t undo it. “Do you think I should? I mean, it’s private. It’s still folded shut.”

  “Polly, it’s from three hundred years ago,” Rex whispered.

  Patch sniffed at the paper. “Open it up,” he demanded. “I still can’t remember – I want to know!”

  “Oh, all right.” Polly carefully began to unfold the twist of paper, flinching as the edges flaked away. It was so fragile she was worried it would fall apart before she’d even read it.

  “So what does it say?” Rex asked, his tail swishing impatiently against her feet.

  Polly looked down at the note and then up at the two dogs. “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Bad writing?” Rex peered at the piece of paper. “It looks quite clear.”

  “Yes, but it’s not words!” Polly scowled. “Look, it’s numbers – strings of numbers. Ten, forty-one, two, six. It doesn’t mean anything!” Then she groaned. “Of course. They wouldn’t risk someone else reading their messages, would they? Not if Nat was actually a highwayman. It’s in code.”

  Patch’s tail stopped wagging. “So ye can’t tell what happened?”

  Polly looked at him apologetically. “Well … not yet. I mean – maybe we could try to solve it?” She stared down at the letters. The problem was, she wasn’t really sure where to start. They’d done some codes in maths at school but they were very simple – just things like changing letters to numbers, so that A was one. She was pretty sure that Jake hadn’t done that – there would be lots more fives, because E was the most commonly used letter, and the fifth letter of the alphabet.

  “I need a bit of paper,” she told Rex and Patch. “And even then – it looks hard.”

  “But ye’ll try?” Patch licked her hand, his eyes dark and hopeful. “Ye promise? If I know what the message says, perhaps I’ll remember.” He shivered. “I hate not knowing why Jake was so scared.”

  They finished hanging up the bat garland on the way back to the house, with Rex and Patch leaning their weight on the bottom of the ladder to make sure she didn’t tip over again. Then the two dogs followed Polly up to the flat in the tower, since it was damp and chilly outside, and getting dark. Polly reckoned they could work on the code in her room – Mum wouldn’t hear her whispering to the dogs in there.

  Mum met her at the door, looking a bit guilty. “Polly! How did you get on with that garland? I’m sorry I didn’t come back and help. Stephen had to talk to me about a problem ordering all the spring bulbs he wants.”

  “It’s fine – it looks really good, actually,” Polly said quickly as the two dogs slipped past her into the flat. “Um, when will it be dinner time?”

  “French bread pizza’s in the oven, I was about to come and look for you.”

  “If I sat under your chair,” Rex whispered, “could I have just a very little bit?”

  “I’ll drop the mushrooms,” Polly muttered back as her mum went into the kitchen. “Mum always forgets I don’t like them. You still can’t really eat them, though, and I guess Patch can’t either.”

  “We can pretend.”

  Polly’s mum had to go back downstairs to the office after dinner. She said she was sorry, especially as it was the first night of the school holidays, but Polly promised her she didn’t mind – and she really didn’t. If Mum was around, she might want to snuggle up on the sofa together and watch TV, and Polly was itching to loo
k at the code. All through dinner she’d been trying to remember everything she’d ever been taught about codebreaking – but there wasn’t much.

  Now there were pieces of scribbled-on paper lying all over the living-room table and several crumpled ones on the floor. The string of numbers didn’t translate to words at all. She’d even tried mixing two codes together, taking the line of letters she’d translated, and skipping them about, so she’d written B instead of A, and C instead of B. It was still gobbledygook and her eyes were starting to hurt. “Nothing works!” Polly sighed.

  Rex was stretched the full length of the sofa, half asleep, and Patch was sniffing his way round the room investigating everything. He explained to Polly that it was all right, there weren’t any rats in the flat, it was just that he felt out of practice after so many years and he was catching up.

  Polly leaned down to scratch his ears as he pottered past. “I don’t know any other sort of code,” she said sadly. Then she pushed her chair back, scraping it across the floorboards. “I bet William does, though! He’s really into that sort of thing. He told me they used to tap messages to each other in Morse code across the classroom at his school.”

  Rex peered over the arm of the sofa. “Good idea. Shall we go to the nursery?”

  “William is a ghost,” Polly explained to Patch as they headed down the stairs from the turret flat again, hoping that he wouldn’t be frightened by this. She wasn’t sure that he understood he was mostly a ghost too. “He grew up in the house about a hundred years ago.”

  Patch stopped sniffing the steps and looked at her worriedly. “He’s a swell, then?”

  “He means a gentleman born,” Rex said, seeing Polly’s frown. “And yes he is, Patch. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m not allowed in the house. Never.” Patch’s stub of a tail was low and his ears were pressed flat against his skull. “Jake might run a message to the kitchens, maybe, but I never goes in. When you brought us up here, I thought we were only going to your rooms – up in the attics, that’s where the maids live. But I can’t go see one of the family.”