by Ann Turnbull
The door of the house was shut.
“It’ll be locked,” said Lucy. “Let’s look through the window.”
They peered in. But they could see little through the small greenish panes.
“There’s a chair. And a table with a candlestick on it,” said Eliza.
“No weapons. No documents.” Lucy looked disappointed. “Where is the cellar – the big cellar where Walter Bennett said John Johnson was guarding the firewood?”
“It’s under the House of Lords. But you can’t see it from here,” said Eliza. “There are buildings all around it.”
“Where do these steps go?” asked Lucy.
Eliza looked at the short flight of steps that led down between the house and the next-door shop. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s go and see,” Lucy said.
Eliza didn’t want to. What if someone saw them and told her mother? What if John Johnson came back and caught them?
But Lucy was already on her way down. Her voice echoed as she called, “There’s a courtyard…”
Reluctantly, Eliza followed.
At the bottom was a wall, but the passage twisted to the left and opened out into a small courtyard – a dank, dark place between tall buildings, with moss growing on the walls and bird droppings everywhere. Eliza looked up and saw a small square of sky. She felt trapped.
“Let’s go back,” she whispered.
Lucy wasn’t listening. “The passage goes on. And there’s a building that goes all the way along it.” She turned to Eliza. “Could that be the cellar?”
Before Eliza could look, or think, they heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.
“It’s him!”
“Hide!”
They looked around frantically.
“Over there!”
A water butt stood in one corner of the courtyard. They dived behind it, pulling in the layers and flounces of their skirts, and squeezed close together, just as the person came into view.
It was a woman – a servant – carrying a great basket of linen. Eliza felt weak with relief. But she held her breath and kept still as the woman plodded past and disappeared around the corner into the long passage, her footsteps gradually growing fainter.
At last the girls crept out.
“I thought – ”
“I was so scared – ”
Now that their fright was over they began to giggle.
“Your gown! It’s got green moss stains on it.”
“Yours has got something worse.”
“Ugh! Let’s go home!”
Still giggling, they ran up the stairs. And Eliza, leading the way, stepped onto the pavement and ran straight into John Johnson.
5
A Knock at the Door
“Oh!” Eliza cried out.
She felt as if her knees would give way. Behind her, Lucy gave a little shriek.
John Johnson and Eliza stared at each other. For an instant his look was fierce and pitiless, like that of the hawk she’d seen last summer on a hunter’s wrist in Warwickshire.
Then he changed. He hunched his shoulders, took off his hat and held it in front of him as he bowed and muttered, “Your pardon, mistress.”
He had the look of a servant as he shuffled aside to let them pass.
But I saw his real face, thought Eliza. John Johnson is no servant. He is playing a part, I’m sure of it. He is dangerous. And he knows we are following him.
She seized Lucy’s hand, and the two of them ran off down the street as fast as they could. They didn’t look back, but Eliza could feel John Johnson watching them till they turned the corner.
* * *
“Where have the gentlemen taken you?” cried Cecily, as she surveyed the two dishevelled girls. “Mud, cobwebs – and what are these nasty green stains?”
She unlaced their gowns and made them change into clean clothes, then set about untangling their hair.
“Ow!” wailed Eliza.
“It’s for your own good, Mistress Eliza. Your mother mustn’t see you like this. She’s already cross, waiting for you. Where have you been?”
“Nowhere much,” said Eliza. “Ouch!”
Later, on their way downstairs, Lucy whispered, “We must meet and talk privately.”
But Eliza’s mother kept them both under her eye for the rest of the day, reading from the Bible and working on their embroidery. Eliza thought they would have to wait until bedtime, but in the evening, when they were all finishing supper, there came a loud knock at the main door.
Eliza heard her father’s manservant talking to someone. Then he came in and spoke quietly to her father and uncle, who both got up at once and went out into the hall.
In the dining room, all the clatter of plates and spoons stopped, and Eliza knew her mother was listening intently. So were Eliza and Lucy.
There were several men’s voices on the other side of the door. They sounded urgent and serious. Eliza caught the words “warning…”, “a letter…”, “the King’s person…”
Then the visitors’ voices rose as they moved towards the door: “If you see or hear anything unusual…”
“We will, most certainly,” her father said.
Eliza and Lucy looked at each other. Eliza knew they were both thinking the same thing.
“Mother,” she said, “Lucy and I have noticed something unusual.”
“Oh!” Her mother seemed to see the girls for the first time. “Eliza, how many times have I told you not to listen to private conversations? Go upstairs to your bedchamber now, both of you.”
“But, Mother… There is a man – there is something strange about him…”
But her mother took no notice. Eliza knew she thought this was just one of their games. And she also knew that her mother was alarmed by what the gentlemen had been saying.
Upstairs in their bedchamber, Eliza and Lucy talked in whispers about what they had just heard.
“I’m sure it means danger to the King,” said Lucy. “We ought to inform our fathers of our suspicions.”
Lucy had a way of making things sound important. Eliza knew she must go down again and speak to her father, even if he was angry.
They found their fathers deep in discussion. It was not a good time, and the gentlemen were not pleased to see them – but Lucy’s father gave her permission to speak. “Father,” she said, “we have been watching someone we believe is an enemy.”
Eliza remembered something Mistress Perks had said, and added, “We think this concerns the safety of the realm.”
The men exchanged a glance, and Lucy’s father sighed. “Lucy,” he said, “we have no time for your games now. I am displeased at this interruption. Please leave us.”
“You too, Eliza,” said her father sternly.
“It’s not a game – ” Eliza began. But her father’s look silenced her.
The two of them retreated once again to their bedchamber.
“What can we do?” asked Eliza.
They sat on the bed, and Lucy took out her notebook and read through everything she had written down.
“Mouser…” she said at last.
“Mouser?”
“Mouser goes exploring in the coal store… And John Johnson is storing fuel in the big cellar under the House of Lords… And – do you remember? – Mistress Rowley said there used to be a way into that big cellar from this house…”
Eliza understood – and felt excited. “So, if we follow Mouser, we might find the way in?”
6
On Mouser’s Trail
They waited till night – when everyone had gone to bed, even Mistress Rowley and the maids.
“The servants work late,” said Eliza, “and Bessy – she’s the youngest maid – she sleeps in the kitchen.”
They listened to the household sounds: doors closing, footsteps on the stairs, murmured “goodnights” from the family.
Outside, in the street, the watchman passed by with his lantern. “Ten o’clock, and all’s well!”
he called.
Still they waited, dressed in their nightgowns, and sitting up straight so as not to fall asleep.
At last the house fell silent except for creaking timbers and the scuttering of mice in the wainscot.
“Let’s go,” whispered Eliza.
They crept downstairs.
The kitchen was dark, and they paused in the doorway until their eyes became accustomed to the gloom. The fire was banked up, and in front of it Bessy lay asleep on a pallet. They tiptoed past her.
Eliza gasped as she felt the brush of a furry body on her legs and heard a faint “prrrow…”
Mouser trotted towards the open storeroom doorway.
“Quick!” whispered Lucy.
They followed the cat into the storeroom as he padded past shelves laden with cleaning materials and tools. Further in Eliza could see the coal store and, next to it, bundles of firewood piled up and stacked against the wall. Mouser disappeared behind the stack.
The girls crouched and followed him, crawling on hands and knees. Eliza’s sleeve caught on a nail and she felt it tear.
Now I’ll be in more trouble, she thought.
“Look!” Lucy’s voice was full of suppressed excitement.
Eliza peered, and saw a door. There was a big hole in it near the base, where the wood had rotted – and disappearing through the hole was Mouser’s tail.
“It must be the door to the big cellar,” said Lucy. “The one Mistress Rowley said hadn’t been used for years.”
They tried the handle. “It’s locked,” said Eliza.
She knelt and pushed her head and shoulders through the hole.
“What can you see?” asked Lucy.
“Nothing. I can feel a stone floor – oh, and walls. It’s a passage!”
She came back out, and they looked at each other. Eliza wondered if Lucy felt as scared as she did. She took a breath. “Shall we go in?”
They crawled through – Eliza first, then Lucy – and stood up. The stone floor of the passage sent a chill up through their silk slippers and they shivered in the cold air. Eliza felt for Lucy’s hand as they moved forward.
To their relief, the passage was short. Almost at once they became aware of a faint greyish light and reached another door.
There was no sound from Mouser, and they could not see him. He must have found a way in.
“He went underneath,” Eliza whispered. “Look! The whole bottom of the door has rotted away. But the gap’s too small for us.”
She wrenched at the damp, crumbly wood, and a big piece broke off, startling her.
Both girls froze. What if someone was there, on the other side, watching?
But Eliza heard nothing. Cautiously they enlarged the gap some more, and then Lucy, who was thinner than Eliza, began to squeeze herself through.
Eliza breathed in, and followed.
The other side of the door was blocked with heaps of wooden crates and boxes, scrap timber, and masonry. They began creeping forward, careful not to dislodge anything.
A small “prrp!” alerted them to Mouser, but almost at once he crept away under the debris to some secret place of his own.
Eliza, squirming further in, whispered, “There are barrels here.”
She saw now that they were in what must indeed be the big cellar under the House of Lords. It was huge, with rows of pillars and arched alcoves. Her father had told her it had once been the kitchens of the great hall, back in the olden days.
Some feeble light came from narrow windows high in the walls. It showed great stacks of firewood and coal down both sides of a central space. And behind the fuel, where she and Lucy had come in, were many barrels, stacked in rows.
“It must be wine,” Eliza said. “Perhaps it’s for the State Opening of Parliament, when the King comes, and all the lords.”
She moved forward to squeeze between the piles of firewood – and at the same moment there was the sound of a door opening on the far side of the cellar, and someone else came in, carrying a lantern that lit his face.
Eliza gasped and slid back into the shelter of the woodpile.
“It’s him!” she whispered. “John Johnson!”
7
In the Cellar
Eliza and Lucy hardly dared breathe. They crouched low and hid behind the barrels as John Johnson walked up and down the length of the cellar, looking about him. His lantern cast looming shadows on the walls and ceiling.
Supposing he sees us? thought Eliza. She pressed up against the barrels and peeped between them. The shadow of the man in his tall hat reared over her.
Then a sudden scrabbling and a soft thump set Eliza’s heart racing and made the lantern swing wildly in John Johnson’s hand.
“Mouser…” breathed Lucy.
Eliza saw the black cat caught in the beam of light, with a mouse dangling from his jaws. He wailed eerily – and for an instant Johnson looked as frightened as Eliza felt. He took a step backwards and crossed himself.
Mouser trotted away – straight towards the girls.
John Johnson followed.
He’ll see us! thought Eliza, in terror.
The light from the lantern swung over and around them, and they shrank back into the shadows to hide among the piles of boxes.
Johnson frowned and moved the lantern about. He peered into the darkness.
“Nothing,” he muttered at last.
But he seemed disturbed, and they heard him pacing up and down again and saw the light swinging to and fro, making shadows leap along the walls. Then he became still, and Eliza heard only a faint murmuring. “What’s he doing?” she whispered.
Lucy could see through a small gap. “He’s kneeling down. I think he’s praying.”
They stayed still for what felt like a long time, not daring to move an inch.
At last Lucy said, “He’s getting up.” They heard a door open, the light disappeared, and there was the sound of a key turning in a lock. He was gone.
“Oh!” breathed Eliza and Lucy together.
Slowly, they crawled out, stood up, and held onto each other, trembling.
Now the cellar seemed huge and shadowy around them. Eliza heard creaks and patterings and a rustle of wings. Could it be bats? Or demons? She called softly to Mouser, but he didn’t come.
“Let’s go back,” she said. “I’m scared.”
They felt their way back to the door, squeezed under it, and hurried along the passage to Eliza’s house. As she crawled through the hole in the door and then out from behind the woodstack, Eliza thought about what they had seen. What was John Johnson doing in the cellar? Was it something to do with those barrels of wine? She felt sure it was.
The two of them stood up, brushed dust from their clothes, crept into the kitchen, and saw –
A ghost!
Screams rang out. Eliza screamed. Lucy screamed. And the ghost screamed – it was Bessy, in her nightgown.
“Oh, Bessy, hush!” gasped Eliza.
“Oh, Mistress!” Bessy curtseyed and began to cry. “Oh, I thought you were ghosts!”
“We thought you were,” said Lucy. “And now – ”
Now they were caught. Mistress Rowley appeared in the kitchen in her nightgown and cap, a candle in her hand. At the sight of Lucy and Eliza she too gave a shriek.
“Oh! Whatever – ? Your linen…your hair!”
In the candlelight Eliza saw that her nightgown was torn and dirty. Lucy’s was the same, and her hair was full of fragments of wood.
“We have something important to tell – ” Lucy began.
But there was no chance to explain. Voices and footsteps sounded from above; doors opened; and into the kitchen came first Cecily, then Mistress Perks, then Eliza’s parents, and finally Lucy’s father, all talking and all wearing nightcaps – which made Eliza want to giggle, despite her fear.
Mistress Rowley calmed Bessy, while Eliza’s mother exclaimed in horror at the sight of the girls. “You should both be beaten!” she said. “Where have you been?”
“In the cellar,” said Lucy. “The big cellar under the House of Lords. And we need to tell the gentlemen what we saw.”
“You will do no such thing!” cried Eliza’s mother. “Not in your nightclothes! It is most immodest! You will go straight up to your bedchamber and – ”
Her husband interrupted her. “My dear, we are all in our nightclothes and anxious to return to bed. But here we are, awake, and it seems the girls have something to tell us.” He glanced at his cousin. “I think we should hear it?” And Lucy’s father nodded.
So, once again, Eliza and Lucy found themselves in a private room, face to face with their fathers.
They tried to describe what had happened.
“You went into the great cellar?” Eliza’s father said. “But that door has been blocked for years. What were you doing down there?”
Lucy explained about John Johnson. “We don’t believe he is really a servant. That’s a disguise. I think he is a spy – ”
“I think,” said Eliza, “that he’s a thief. He’s planning to steal the barrels of wine.”
Her father looked puzzled. “What barrels of wine?”
“The ones stored there.”
“I thought you said there was firewood and coal stored there?”
“There is, and the barrels are behind it – rows and rows of them. Are they for a feast after the State Opening of Parliament? I thought – ” But the two men were looking at each other and frowning.
“The Lords have no wine stored in that cellar,” said Eliza’s father. “You say it’s behind the firewood – hidden?”
“Yes,” said Eliza and Lucy together.
Eliza’s father turned to his cousin. “We must report this immediately.”
Lucy’s father agreed. “Lucy,” he said, “you have not invented this? If you have, I shall be angry.”
Lucy was indignant. “No! We both saw the barrels.”
“Go up to bed, then,” Eliza’s father said. “You were right to tell us.”
“Will Mother punish us?” Eliza felt tired and tearful now.
“Probably not. But tomorrow you must stay indoors with her.”