‘Did Aunt Madge have it when she was cook, then?’
‘’Ow should I know? I suppose so. Yes, I should think. A sight better’n the poky little ’ ole they gave me. She’d see to that. D’on’t she sew your buttons on for you?’
‘Um? No. No, I manage myself.’
‘I suppose she’s just the same, eh? Waggin’ about like a queen.’
He was surprised at the hostility which had come into the girl’s voice.
‘Oh, she’s all right,’ he said defensively. ‘Why shouldn’t she be?’
‘Why shouldn’t she be! ’Deed, yes! She’s fell on ’er feet’andsome, ’asn’t she?’
‘I don’t see what you mean.’
She tossed her head. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? You’re ’er nephew. You’d stick up for ’er if she was ’ anged for ’igh treason.’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ he said doggedly.
‘You say you wouldn’t, but you would. I know. Hoity-toity, off we go to church together!’
The boy felt himself going red. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, anyway. What’s wrong with us going to church? You’ve only got a grudge against her because she gave you the sack.’
‘No, I ’aven’t. I wouldn’t lower meself.’
‘If you haven’t, what did she sack you for then?’
Fanny’s eyes went smaller. Her thin face pinched itself up like the closing of a hand.
‘She didn’t ’appen to tell you that, I s’pose.’
‘No.’
‘Well, why don’t you ask ’ er instead of me? Try it on, Mr Clever, an’ see what she says.’
‘Afraid to tell me?’ he challenged.
‘I don’t tell things like that to kids. You be careful of your aunt. She’s got a dirty mind, she ’ as.’
‘It must have been something awful you did.’
‘ ’Twasn’t nothing of the sort. ’Twas ’er dirty mind an’ nothing more to it. ’Er and Mr Perry between ’em. Wasn’t my asking, I can tell you.’
‘Didn’t you want to leave?’
‘Oh, I should’ve lef’ whether or no! Didn’t like it well enough the way it was going.’
‘What happened?’
She hesitated and again arranged her parcels. ‘I’ll be going now. I got to go. Ma’s expecting me.’
‘Go on,’ he said persuasively. ‘Tell us. Be a sport. Wasn’t it your fault at all?’
This cunning appeal was too much for Fanny.
‘Course it wasn’t! You know what your uncle is. ’E started tickling me. Same as ’e’s done before; same as ’e’s done to you; there weren’t nothing to it. But she came round the door quiet like, and she was mad. Thought she was goin’ to ’ave a fit. I’m well out of that ’ ouse, I can tell you!’ Her eyes, in which there was a trace of embarrassment, searched his thoughtful face for blushes or condemnation, but this time neither came. ‘You know now, Mr Clever. But don’t say it was my fault, because it weren’t. And if Mr Veal’d been alive nothing wouldn’t’ve happened.’ She paused again, waiting for his response, seeking it because it did not come. ‘You’re welcome to your nice big bedroom at that ’ouse. I wouldn’t ’ave it as a gift, I can tell you. Never know what’s goin’ on in that ’ouse, do you?’
With this parting shot, and still unsatisfied, Fanny gave her basket a contemptuous jerk and went on her way.
When he returned home, studiously late this time, the searchers were gone, and he could tell from the faintly self-righteous expression showing over the top of Aunt Madge’s boned collar that they had been unsuccessful.
At supper Perry laughed and joked like his old self, but Anthony’s responses were slow. He was still thinking about what little Fanny had said. Sometimes he turned his thoughtful blue eyes on the jovial man at the table, and his mind conjured up the scene Fanny had described. That she might have been lying never occurred to him; the incident rang true. It had happened like that.
After a time he began to think of the spy-hole in his bedroom, and his eyes turned on his aunt, whose knife and fork were working up and down like pistons. Her table manners were studiously refined in company but not so select in the bosom of her family, and her plump little cheeks were puffed out with what she was chewing.
Somehow, almost in the last few hours, the matter of the envelope in the picture had become real to Anthony. For a long time he had forgotten the incident, even when there was the wrangle over the Will; or perhaps it would be more true to say that the memory had remained at the bottom of his mind as an unimportant one. Lately it had come to the surface, floating about without serious or connected thought. He had felt that someone besides Uncle Joe was bound to know of the existence of the cache and to have examined its contents. Now he began to think he had taken too much for granted.
He wondered what to do. He might just say at the end of the meal: ‘Oh, about this Will; I suppose you’ve looked behind the oil-painting in the office, haven’t you?’
But that put the initiative in their hands. He didn’t fancy that. He might leave the issue three weeks until Pat came again. Or he might ask Tom Harris’s advice. But Tom, he knew, was away, staying with his sister at Maenporth. He wouldn’t be back for a week.
There was of course one other way. He could look for himself.
Chapter Twenty One
Ever since he came to Falmouth there had been nights on which he had been sleepy and others when he could not settle off and tossed and turned for hours. This was one of the latter, so he had no difficulty in keeping awake until half-past eleven, which was about the customary time for the others to retire. From then on, however, began a struggle. The minutes were dragging at his eyelids, and although he felt a bit strung up, yet at the same time he was falling asleep. He had had to lie in the dark all the time, because from the bottom of the stairs you could see a light under his door.
Soon after twelve he found he couldn’t wait any longer. He lit the candle and climbed out of bed, putting on his coat and trousers over his nightshirt and taking care to avoid the loose boards as he moved about. Then, just to be on the safe side, he slid under the bed and pulled out the cork. There was no light below.
Opening his door was difficult, for if it was done slowly the creak was enough to wake the dead, and if it was done too quickly the sudden draught made the upper sash of the window rattle violently. But he had practised earlier that evening and he was successful in making no noise. He wedged it open with a spare sock and, shielding the name of the candle with his hand, began to go down.
With no idea of ever having to make a secret descent he had often played at going up and down without treading on a creaky stair, and he knew by heart the numbers to avoid: one, three, nine and twelve going down; four, seven, thirteen and fifteen coming up.
On the landing below it was necessary to pass Aunt Madge’s and Uncle Perry’s doors, for these two doors faced each other and the office was between Aunt Madge’s room and the drawing-room, from which a door led off into it. As he had only been in the office once there was no means of knowing whether this door creaked; there was no guarantee that it was not locked, but he had seen the adults go in and out freely during the daytime.
With his hand stretched out to grasp the knob he realised that the best means of entry for him was the parlour. This would mean passing two doors instead of one but would keep him further away from Aunt Madge, and he did know that the drawing-room door did not squeak.
He slipped into the sitting-room, and as he did so the French clock under its glass shade on the mantelshelf chimed the half-hour after midnight. The room still had an occupied smell, and some of the ash from Perry’s pipe lay in a grey heap upon the top bar of the grate. The embroidered bag with Aunt Madge’s sewing in it was slumped upon a chair with something of the shapelessness of its owner. When he put back the bound volume of The Quiver this evening he had not turned the key in the bookcase and the door gaped an inch open.
After a pause to gather his courage he turned the knob of the doo
r leading to the office, and the door to his relief opened easily and silently. Feeling uncomfortable about his way of escape, he left this open behind him and set the candle down on the office desk. The picture of the old lady faced him on the opposite wall. It was the head and shoulders of a little grey-haired woman in a lace cap and her small black eyes seemed to be fixed upon something just over Anthony’s shoulder, as if there were a person standing behind him. He saw that he would need a chair.
He carried one across. He felt very uncomfortable about the curtains not being drawn, but he could not move them without risking noise and the window looked out over the harbour. No man was tall enough to stand with his feet in the mud and stare in at a second-storey window; nevertheless one could not get over the feeling that someone might.
The chair creaked under his weight and the picture-hook nearly fell off the rail, but at last he was safely down with the old lady between his hands.
He carried her to the table which had once been littered with papers and set her face downwards. There was no obvious catch as he had expected or anything which suggested to the casual gaze that the back was detachable. He tried to remember what he had seen his uncle do. There was no glass in the frame. He unscrewed the two hooks by which the picture was hung but this had no effect. Then he turned the old lady over to face him and the painting and the back fell out of its frame upon the table.
The noise made him sweat, and little pricklings of nervousness ran out to his finger-tips like pins and needles. After a moment he summoned up the courage to continue and as he lifted the picture away from its back he saw the envelope which his uncle had put there.
So his latest idea had been the best. He had been wrong not to think of it before, not to look before. Perhaps he was still going too fast. This was probably something to do with the shipping line; he had seen …
He slid the document out of its long envelope and opened it with a crackle of parchment. He read hastily through about half and that was enough. He put his find on the table and picked up the frame to put it back, his mind already leaping ahead to what he should do next.
The point was, whom should he trust? His duty was to hand it to Aunt Madge, his inclination, to keep it until Pat came home. Or again he might take it tomorrow to Aunt Louisa. But he didn’t like her well enough, for all that she seemed to be working with Pat’s good at heart. And taking it to her was too much like rank treason. Aunt Madge and Uncle Perry looked after him and were not unkind. They might be as peculiar as some people thought, but they were honest in all their dealings and they had been kind to Pat and not wanted her to leave home. Since Pat left, Aunt Madge had made quite a fuss of him; the fact that he could not somehow take to her was surely his fault, not hers. To give this document to the opposite side was a rank betrayal he could not quite face.
He might let Tom see it, or first tell him about it, or better still go straight to Mr Cowdray.
But that was obviously showing a distrust for Aunt Madge. She would see that he had gone behind her back, and it would be horribly uncomfortable facing her afterwards. He could hardly go on living here unless he took the Will to her first thing in the morning.
Anthony began to see that the possession of such a document as he had found was more of a responsibility than he had bargained for. All very well for grown-ups to make decisions, but he was so young and so alone in the world. He didn’t know when his father would be able to send for him, whether he even wanted him or not. Tom did not want him; Patricia could not have him; where would he go if he left here? Why turn against the people who gave him shelter? He almost regretted having found the envelope. If he had looked and there had been nothing there, then his conscience would have been clear.
But first get the painting back. This was something over which he had not expected to have any difficulty, and not until he had tried three times to fit the back into the frame did he realise that the frame had ‘ sprung’. He broke out into a new perspiration as he failed at the fifth attempt. The only way seemed to be to take the picture and hide it and hope that no one would notice that it was missing from the wall.
‘Stap me, boy; I thought you were asleep hours ago!’ said a voice in his ear.
Anthony jerked his head up, and his heart and throat congealed, so that he could not even cry out. He could only hold the table and stare at Perry and try not to fall. Perry, in a nightshirt and big coat and his black hair all towsled.
‘What’s the matter, boy; been sleep walking? Don’t look so scary; I’m not going to eat you.’
Then he saw or pretended see for the first time the document Anthony had found in the picture. He picked it up and opened it.
‘What’s this, eh? Don’t say it’s what … Hm. Where did you find it, in that picture? Glory be. What made you look behind old Granny. How’s it work? Show me.’
‘I – I don’t know. I – it just came to pieces. Er – Uncle Joe showed me once … but I forgot how he did it. I –’
‘What made you think there was something here? Rot me, what a place to look!’
‘I … saw Uncle Joe put something one day. It – never occurred to me it would be – anything important – till this search today. Then I thought I’d … just look.’
‘Um,’ said Perry, staring at the paper and twitching his lips. ‘Can’t say whether it’s important or not, not just at a glance. Don’t think it’s much, you know. Fancy old Granny having a secret for us like that. But if you’d known the old Four-Master you’d know it was quite in keeping. Not that it’s likely to be important. I’m pretty sure it’s not much; but perhaps it will be as well to let old man Cowdray see it, eh, boy?’ He pushed back his hair and met Anthony’s gaze. ‘Did you read any of it?’
The boy said: ‘I only just glanced at the front and then I tried to put the picture back. I … can’t get it back.’ In order to hide his eyes he turned to the table and tried to force the picture into its frame.
‘Easy does it.’ Perry slipped the document into his pocket and bent to help. But something had gone wrong with the frame when the back fell out. ‘Oh, blast that! We’ll be waking the old lady. Leave it now, boy; it’s time for our beauty sleep. Now if –’
‘Did you see my light?’ Anthony asked.
‘No. You dropped something overboard, boy. Well, well, you never know what’s going to turn up in this world, do you, now? Everybody searches the house and finds sweet Fanny Adams, and then you go adrift in your sleep and tickle up old Granny and out comes this. But I think it’s a mare’s nest, boy. I think it’s nothing important. I think it’s nothing much. Keep it to yourself for the time being, what?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Anthony.
They had come out of the office into the sitting-room. ‘Keep it from Aunt Madge, too, shall we?’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper and dug Anthony in the ribs. ‘Just the two of us in the secret. Then tomorrow I’ll lay off to board old Cowdray and we’ll see what sort of a signal he runs up.’
His manner was so friendly that Anthony felt ashamed of himself. Ashamed of himself for feeling frustrated in his purposes. He knew now that in his heart, for all his professed loyalty, he had never had the least intention of handing over to his uncle and aunt anything he found in the picture, certainly not if it was a Will. They might give him shelter and food and reasonable consideration but they did not give him confidence. He might defend them before any outsider who presumed to criticise, but he could not defend them to himself.
He did not sleep much that night, and more than once he wondered how Uncle Perry had come to hear the noise he had made with the picture frame, for Uncle Perry’s bedroom was on the other side of the passage. He thought he could guess the answer to that.
The next morning The Grey Cat was in harbour. She had slipped in some time during the night and was a little nearer the quay than her usual anchorage.
Although he had been sorry to see her go, Anthony was far more pleased at her return. He was lonely, missed Patricia more than ever, and his meetings
with Tom were too infrequent to be looked on as more than an isolated adventure. Now for a week or more there would be the gruff Ned Pawlyn to bring a breath of fresh air into the house. Never, he felt, had he so much needed it.
The captain and mate put in an appearance while he was at breakfast, and he at once dropped his knife and fork and rushed out to meet them. But it was not Aunt Madge’s rebuke which made him stop and blink. Captain Stevens had as a companion a dark, thick-set man none of them had seen before.
‘Morning, ma’am,’ said Captain Stevens, removing his cap. ‘This is Mr O’Brien. Mr Pawlyn went ashore at Hull. He said he felt the need of a change. Morning, sir,’ he added, addressing Perry, who was just making a dishevelled appearance. But it was to Madge that the Captain gave his account of the voyage. Joe’s widow not only held the money, she also held the reins of business, and although one or two of the older captains might feel a prejudice against dealing with a woman, there was no question of shifting any of the responsibility upon Perry. Aunt Madge was now the J. Veal Blue Water Line, and no one who wished to continue in her employment must make the mistake of thinking otherwise. And, however much she might neglect the re-opening of the restaurant – which entailed a resumption of the old routine of hard work – one had to admit that she seemed perfectly capable of continuing to conduct the J. Veal Blue Water Line on the basis that it was bequeathed to her. Captain Stevens had not been in the house ten minutes before she announced that a new cargo was waiting for him as soon as he had discharged his present one.
Four days went by after this disappointment and Perry said nothing to Anthony about the picture. Several times during the week the boy thought he saw his aunt regarding him curiously, and not once during the week did she ask him to go with her. But so far as Perry himself was concerned there was not the smallest indication that the incident had ever occurred. The boy began to wonder whether Perry intended to forget the whole occurrence and rely on his superior age and position to override any questions that were put him. If so, Anthony was determined that Uncle Perry should be mistaken.