by Nina Bawden
Mr Hoggart had been allowed out of hospital that morning and was pale, but recovered. He was gently humble with his son and did not once comment on Tim’s romantic imagination. Instead, he encouraged Tim to tell him all that had happened and even speculated himself upon where Mr Jones’s share of the loot might be. ‘The most likely thing, I would think, is that he gave the jewels to Mr Campbell—and there’s no sign of him yet. I’m afraid the chances are no one will ever find them.’
‘Because there weren’t any? That’s what you really think isn’t it?’ Tim’s voice was too indifferent to be rude. It sounded simply as if he no longer cared much, one way or the other. He was quiet for a minute, leaning back listlessly against the pillows and staring out of the window, and then he said, ‘What happened about the wreck?’
His father hesitated. Then he told Tim that salvage operations had begun on the boat, but so far they had yielded nothing. Tim’s face remained calm. Mr Hoggart cleared his throat and said that Mr Smith’s body had not yet been recovered, and, if he had had any jewels with him, they had almost certainly gone to the bottom of the sea. As for Perdita’s diamond, Mr Hoggart went on, she had it no longer. The words, if she ever did have it, trembled on the tip of his tongue but he refrained from speaking them aloud, saying only, ‘I expect she lost it in the sea, poor child.’
Then he fell silent, thinking not about the diamond but about the little girl who had not, Mrs Hoggart had told him, spoken once since her rescue, only clung dumbly to Annie MacLaren until the old woman had asked Mr Tarbutt to take them back to Luinpool and to leave them there in peace.
‘Will they be able to stay there?’ Tim asked suddenly. ‘I mean it was …’ He swallowed and turned pale. ‘It was his house, wasn’t it?’
Mr Hoggart pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked at his son anxiously. He had tried to talk about the wreck in an ordinary, matter-of-fact way, because it had seemed better to talk and to accept what had happened than to pretend nothing had. Now he wondered if he had been wrong. Tim was not to blame for what had happened to Mr Smith—or only in such a roundabout way that no sensible person would count it as blame. But was Tim sensible? Mr Hoggart reminded himself that he had often thought he was not, and been impatient with him because of it. Remembering this made him nervous. He wanted to talk to Tim about Mr Smith but did not know how to begin. So instead, he smiled brightly and said in an unnaturally cheery voice, ‘We thought we might go on a picnic tomorrow. Janey wants to go back to Carlin’s Cave—to show us the scene of her triumph! We’ve got a day before the steamer comes and Mr Tarbutt says he’ll take us in a boat. Would you like that?’
‘I don’t mind.’ Tim spoke about as enthusiastically as if his father had suggested a trip to the natural history museum. Then he looked at him. ‘You don’t have to cheer me up. I mean, I know it wasn’t really my fault about Mr Smith—at least, I know it in my head. What you call sensibly. But it doesn’t feel like that in my … my inside, and I don’t suppose it ever will. Not for a long time, anyway.’ He paused. ‘But what I asked you—I mean, I really wanted to know. What’ll happen to Perdita, if he’s dead?’
Mr Hoggart took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. He said—it seemed for no particular reason—‘I’m sorry, Tim.’ And then, ‘She’ll be all right. At least, from what Mr Tarbutt says, she’ll have a roof over her head.’
*
‘Mr Smith left a will,’ Annie MacLaren said. She sat in the kitchen at Luinpool and Perdita lay on the settle opposite her. ‘That policeman found it yesterday when he was up here turning everything upside down and higgledy-piggledy. It seems the house is your’s, lady.’
Perdita did not appear to have heard. She was staring into the fire.
Annie MacLaren sighed. ‘At least we’ll have a roof over our heads, even if it leaks in places. And we’ve got my pension and the little bit I’ve put by.’
There was silence except for the hiss of the fire and the tick of the clock in the corner.
‘I had a long talk with Mrs Hoggart,’ Annie said. ‘She’s a nice woman and very well educated. She says you should go to school. Here first, and then the big school on Trull. Will you like that?’
A faint interest stirred in the child’s eyes, but vanished almost at once.
Annie looked at her, her heart wrung. ‘There’s been a lot of things sent. Mr Duncan sent up a nice chicken, and butter, and a pound of tea. And the Findlay boy came up this morning with a packet of chocolate.’ There had been other gifts too, left secretly at the back door or sent in the back of Duncan’s van, when he delivered the chicken. Perdita had shown no interest in any of them. She had eaten nothing, seemed to want nothing, except that Annie should stay with her. The old woman had sat up all night, sleepless on a chair, while Perdita had moaned and tossed in her narrow bed. Tired now, and distressed by the child’s lack of response, tears welled up in the old woman’s eyes and slipped down her soft, pouchy cheeks.
For a moment Perdita stayed where she was, looking away and frowning as if pretending to herself there was nothing wrong. Then she gave a little sigh, slipped off the settle and went over to Annie. She put her arms round her—or, rather, round as much of her as she could manage, since Annie was a big woman—and whispered in her ear. ‘Will I make you a cup of tea, Annie? And a nice bit of toast, at the fire?’
*
Mrs Hoggart and Janey arrived just as Perdita had finished making the tea and setting out cups on a tray. Annie’s hands flew to untie her apron while Perdita went to the door. She went reluctantly, only because Annie had told her to, and stood with her eyes on the ground while Mrs Hoggart asked her how she was, and told her that she and Janey had come to see if she would like to go on a picnic tomorrow. Would she like that? Perdita did not answer and Mrs Hoggart went on encouragingly. If she would like to come, they had thought of doing something rather especially exciting …
Perdita shuffled her feet and scowled. For Annie’s sake, she had made an effort to talk and make tea, but she still felt very stiff and strange, rather as if she had a lump of ice inside her instead of a heart. And she was not used to loud, cheerful people like Mrs Hoggart with bright, bustling voices—though, in fact, poor Mrs Hoggart’s voice became a good deal less bright as she looked at this unwelcoming little girl who scowled and scowled and said nothing. She was about to say, ‘Well, dear, another day, then?’ and beat a hasty retreat, when Janey spoke.
‘Aren’t you going to ask us in? It’s absolutely horribly rude, when visitors come, to keep them waiting on the doorstep.’
‘Oh Janey, you mustn’t …’ Mrs Hoggart began, and then stopped, because Perdita was smiling.
It was a shy, lop-sided smile and it vanished almost at once, but it was still a smile. She said, ‘If you like, you can come in and have a cup of tea.’
After that it was all right—or almost all right. They had tea and Annie made toast by the range fire and spread it generously with Mr Duncan’s butter while they talked. At least, while Janey talked. She ate more toast than anyone else and still had time to talk much more. She told Annie how they had been left in the cave and how they would almost certainly have died, if she had not been clever enough to find the way out. ‘It was terribly clever of me,’ she said admiringly, after she had told the story for the second time. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, we would have been skeletons by now, I expect, just our poor bones lying there, like the sheep skulls. I was a heroine, wasn’t I, Perdita?’
Directly addressed, Perdita seemed to shrink into herself. She had not spoken since she had invited them in, Mrs Hoggart realised, just crouched still and quiet on a footstool beside Annie MacLaren’s chair. Now she glanced nervously in Mrs Hoggart’s direction and whispered, very low, ‘It was magic, Annie. I couldn’t see, it was pitch, but she could. She has the Second Sight.’
‘Not as good as you,’ Janey said. ‘I told my Dad about you and I told him Tim said it wasn’t true about second sight, and I asked Dad if it was, and he said, well, perhaps it
was, in a way. He said he didn’t believe in witches himself, but he was sure some people were special, all the same. Blind ones like me and girls who’ve been alone a lot, like you. He said we’ve learned to see and hear things other people don’t have time to, because they’re always too busy just looking and playing. Dad says people like you and me—well—it’s as if we’d grown an extra piece of ourselves that other people don’t have …’ She swallowed her last piece of toast and added, kindly, ‘I expect, if you’d really tried, Perdita, you could have found your way out of the cave by yourself.’ She did not really believe this, but it brought the conversation back to her own stupendous achievement. ‘That’s where we’re going tomorrow, to the cave. So Mum and Dad can see just what I did and how hard it was. You will come, won’t you? We’re going to take an extra special picnic.’
Perdita stared in horror—as if, Mrs Hoggart thought, she had been invited to accompany Janey into a lion’s den—before shaking her head violently. Then, remembering Janey could not see her, she said, ‘No thank you,’ and began to blush.
‘She’s not used to a lot of people,’ Annie said.
‘She’s used to me and Tim. And we won’t be a lot. Only five. Our family and Mr Tarbutt.’
‘Five people at once is a lot for her,’ Annie said.
Janey scowled. ‘She’ll have to get used to more people than five when she goes to school. So she might as well start now.’
‘That’s enough, dear,’ her mother said, seeing Perdita’s miserable look and the painful colour rising in her cheeks. ‘Perhaps she’ll think it over tonight, and decide to come tomorrow.’
*
But she didn’t come. They waited for nearly an hour after the time Mrs Hoggart had told Annie they would be leaving the hotel, but there was no sign of her. Mr Tarbutt offered to drive up and fetch her but Mrs Hoggart said that would be unkind. ‘If she’d wanted to come, she’d have come. The child’s shy and—well—upset, I imagine. After all, she’s had a terrible time, these last few days.’
Mr Hoggart glanced at Tim and gave his wife a warning frown. Tim gave no sign of having heard, but when they were in the boat and heading seaward, out of Loch Kinnit, he said suddenly, ‘I expect it’s me she doesn’t want to see. I expect she thinks it’s all my fault.’
Mr Hoggart put his hand over his son’s and pressed it. Then he said, ‘Maybe she thinks it’s her’s. Have you thought of that?’
The sea was calm and solid. Mr Tarbutt’s boat skimmed over it. The outboard motor spluttered and spray blew in their faces. He let Janey sit in the stern and hold the tiller, explaining how she could steer by the feel of the wind on her cheek. ‘I love the sea, I love the sea,’ she chanted. ‘I’m going to be a sailor when I grow up.’
They rounded the point of Loch Kinnit and crossed the bay where the great rock reared up like a castle. They could see the path round the headland, a hair-thin line against the cliff. Mr Tarbutt slowed the motor and put his hand over Janey’s to steer the boat into harbour at Carlin’s Cave. They passed Mr Campbell’s green glass lobster floats, bobbing above his pots.
‘I wonder if they’ll ever find him,’ Tim said, half to himself.
‘Campbell?’ Mr Tarbutt grinned. ‘They’ll have a job—if he doesn’t want to be found. And I’d be surprised if anyone was really bothered to try. Why should they? Unless those jewels of your’s turn up, young man.’
His eyes twinkled at Tim in a friendly, but amused and sceptical way. Tim looked at his mother and father and saw they were smiling too. He turned away and stared moodily at the approaching shore. The outboard motor cut out and the boat slipped quietly into the little harbour. Mr Tarbutt tied up and helped Mrs Hoggart with the picnic basket. Mr Hoggart carried Janey over the rocks to the beach.
Tim followed them slowly. No one believed him, he thought. Janey did, but she was only small, she would believe a lie if he told her. Perhaps his mother did, but she was not really interested, now he and Janey were safe and his father well and they were all together again. Nor was his father: though he had made a show of being interested, to please him, all he really wanted was to forget about the whole business. He had told the police that as far as he was concerned, he would prefer them not to press the charge against Mr Jones. ‘Give him the benefit of the doubt,’ Tim had heard him say to his mother as he passed their bedroom door that morning. ‘I admit I thought he’d pushed me deliberately, but it’s all so hazy in my mind now—it might well have been an accident, as he says. And, as for the business of the children and the cave …’
He had lowered his voice then, and Tim could not hear what his next words were, but his imagination supplied them. We’ve only Tim’s word for that, and you know what he is. And then his mother had said, ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter, I suppose. It’s all over now.’
All over now. As they explored the cave, the comforting light of torches and lanterns showing them the dangerous way Janey had led them to safety, the words whispered over and over inside Tim’s head.
All over now—for Mr Smith? Tim flinched inside him and fixed his mind on the policeman. He had said he believed him, but he had also said what he believed wasn’t evidence. Was it even evidence, the fact that Mr Smith had run away? They might guess Perdita had warned him, but would they ever know? Remembering the way she had behaved that night at the hotel, Tim thought it unlikely that she would ever talk to a stranger. Of course, she might tell me, he thought, and then, suddenly, perhaps that’s why she didn’t come today, she knows I’d ask questions and she hates that …
In front of him, his father was holding a lantern high and Janey was saying, ‘This is the place where I shouted and Tim was frightened.’
Tim felt a faint indignation, but it died almost at once. He stumped down the tunnel after the others, and crossed the ravine by the wall. Then the stairway. He lingered there, as the others went on, into the cavern. Then he switched out his own torch, and stood in the dark. This was where he had heard the men talking. Suddenly, he could hear every word clear, like ghost voices, mocking him. Smithie can look after himself … he’s good at that … The whole idea was his … And then getting me to go stealing that kid’s ruby … Risky to leave it, he said …
He had heard it. He hadn’t dreamed it. Or made it up, as he was certain his father believed. Oh—it was a horrible, nightmarish feeling, to know something was true, and yet no one believed you. Tim shivered. The kid’s ruby. Risky to leave it. Risky? Why? Because they might have realised, in the end, that it really was a ruby, and other people might come searching? And because Mr Smith didn’t want people searching in the cave because it was a convenient place to leave the stolen treasure? A place where he could come and go quite openly, on the face of it lobster fishing with Mr Campbell, but really to look at the jewels, counting them like a miser, sometimes taking a few to sell, or to give Mr Jones his share …
And, at one of those times, one tiny ruby had slipped through his fingers, and Tim had found it …
Tim felt sick in his stomach. It was so obvious to him. But there was no way of proving it. He began to stumble back along the tunnel, not waiting for the others. If Mr Smith had hidden the jewels here, wouldn’t he have taken them, before he set sail? Or would he have left them, thinking to slip into the little harbour and collect them another time, when the hue and cry had died down?
He came out into the main cave. The walls rose high above his head, and, beyond the mouth of the tunnel, the cave went back, into darkness. He walked away from the beach, deeper into the cliff. It was an enormous cave—vast. There were hundreds of boulders, hundreds of rock pools, hundreds of ledges, crevices, hiding places …
He lost his footing and slipped into a rock pool scraping his knee, and was glad of the excuse to whimper a little. He peered between the boulders and up at the high, black walls, aimlessly, despairingly …
The others emerged from the tunnel. Mrs Hoggart, who had not enjoyed this expedition, was looking slightly green. ‘I think I could do with
my lunch‚’ she said, and went quickly towards the light and the sunshine. Janey and Mr Tarbutt went with her. Mr Hoggart walked towards the back of the cave and saw the light of Tim’s torch and then Tim himself, scrambling desperately over the great boulders, thrusting his hand into cracks and crevices, looking hopelessly around him …
Mr Hoggart watched him for a minute. Then he said, ‘You’d need an army, Tim, to search this place.’
Tim paused in his frantic search. He tried to speak, but a sob choked him.
Mr Hoggart said gently, ‘I know all boys like to think of finding hidden treasure. But this is like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
Tim looked down at his father’s face, illuminated by the yellow lantern light. ‘T’isn’t for that,’ he said. ‘I mean, not just for that. It’s because you don’t believe me.’
Mr Hoggart caught his breath. ‘That’s not true, Tim.’
‘It is. I heard you this morning, talking to Mum. You don’t believe about the cave or about what Mr Jones said or about the jewels … or … anything. You never do listen to me, you think I make things up all the time. That’s why we came to the cave in the first place because the ruby’d been stolen and I knew you’d never believe me …’
Mr Hoggart said slowly, ‘I’m sorry, Tim. Sorry you couldn’t trust me, I mean. That’s my fault. I suppose I’m a dull and unimaginative man and so I always think explanations have to be dull and ordinary.’ He looked at Tim and then smiled, suddenly. ‘But you do make things up sometimes. You made up what I said to your mother, didn’t you? I told her I believed you, but there was nothing we could do about it—or should. That it was up to the police, though I doubted whether they would do anything either. Not on your unsupported word. You see …