Lone pine five, p.8
Lone Pine Five, page 8
"Just a walk," Dickie explained with an airy wave of the hand. "We like walks."
"Staying around here, are you? Far away?"
"Just around," Mary smiled. "Not far."
"How long will you be here, SIR?" Dickie said in his very-best-manners voice. "I mean it's too dark for us to see what sort of a field this is, but I suppose you must like it... Has it got a nice view?"
"Impertinence!" Mrs Smithson snorted.
"Got friends around these parts?" Mr Smithson tried again.
"Yes. Plenty," Mary agreed. "I expect some of them will be coming to look for us soon."
"Staying with them are you? All your party, I suppose? I was wondering why you chose this part of the country for a holiday?"
Silence greeted this question until Dickie nodded in the direction of the gleaming tools in the corner.
"I'd like to know," he said very distinctly, "whether you've got anything to do with farmers or gardeners? Are you all going to do a lot of digging? We loathe digging. Mary and me, I mean. We're just not any good at it."
"Look here, kids," Mr Smithson said suddenly, "let's stop fooling. You remember that crazy old guy who went off in your father's car this afternoon?... 'Course you do, so it's no use shaking your heads. You know perfectly well who I mean. I want to know what he's got to do with your party."
"He's a friend," Dickie replied tersely.
"No, he's not," Mrs Smithson said. "He can't be. We know all his friends."
"No, you don't!" came from Mary. " 'Cos we are, and you don't know us."
"Never mind about that now," Smithson continued, and with joy they noticed that he was getting red in the face. "What I want you to tell me - and there'll be a bit of extra pocket money for you both if you do - is whether poor old Wilkins is staying at the post office, or is he still with the rest of your party?"
The twins looked at him blankly and there was a long silence.
The man tried again.
"What I want you children to understand," he gulped as he rather meaningly jingled some coins in his pocket, "is that you can help poor old Mr Wilkins by telling me what you know. Mr Wilkins isn't at all well, and we are looking after him... Now I know I'm talking to two very good and intelligent children who would like to make a little extra pocket money for themselves... Can you tell me where Mr Wilkins is now?"
"I s'pect he's in bed," Mary replied brightly. "If he's sensible that's where he is, and I wish I was there too. That's where we'd like to be, wouldn't we, twin?"
"Yes, we would. It sounds like it's still raining, but I think we'll go now, thank you very much."
"Not just yet," Mr Smithson said quietly. "You're not going from here until you've answered some questions. Where are you staying tonight? How far have you got to go?"
If they felt frightened at this threat they certainly did not show it. Dickie felt the handle of the door sticking into his back and reckoned that it would not be very difficult to escape, and Mary fussed the little dog in her arms and said:
"We've got a very long way to go, thank you, and you wouldn't understand if we told you... Acksherly, we're staying with friends."
Mr Smithson suddenly changed his mind.
"I see," he said, and turned to his wife. "Mustn't keep 'em here if they want to go. That would be very wrong. Pass me my mack, dear, and I'll go along with them."
Dickie saw the trap at once and realized that Mr Smithson hoped that they would lead him to wherever they were staying. It occurred to him also that their enemy was particularly anxious to know whether they were all at the post office with Mr Wilkins. At the moment he could not quite see how they could prevent anyone following them if they went out into the rain, so, apart from leading Mr Smithson on a wild-goose chase all over the countryside, the best thing to do would be to stay where they were until they got an idea. And besides, they still had to find out what Percy had been doing in Barton.
Mary, as she so often did, seemed to know what he was thinking, for she looked up and said: "There's no need for you to get wet, thank you. We can manage quite well by ourselves when the rain stops... "
Then Percy spoiled his father's plan.
"Why don't you push 'em out in the wet when they've told you why they were walking down Barton's street at half-past ten? That's what we want to know."
Smithson father glared at Smithson son with such ferocity that even the latter realized he had said the wrong thing.
Dickie laughed.
"How do you know we were there? We never said so."
"Oh, Percy," Mary said, "you naughty boy! You must have been out in the dark by yourself. What were you doing? Did your mummy and daddy know?"
"If you really want to know," the tormented Percy snarled, "I was posting a letter. But what were you doing there? That's what you've got to tell us."
Then pandemonium broke loose. Mr Smithson turned on Percy, who began to shout with rage. Mackie once again wriggled out of Mary's arms and, barking furiously, leaped joyfully for Percy, who tried to kick him. Mary ran forward to rescue the dog and Dickie put his head down and butted Mr Smithson hard in his soft middle as the latter made a grab at Mary.
And while this was going on there came a thunderous knocking on the door of the caravan, which was suddenly opened from outside.
The silence that followed was broken by Mary, who grabbed Mackie again and ran to the door.
"It's David!" she shouted. "And Tom too. How wonderful of you, David. We're quite ready to go now. Come on, Dickie."
Mr Smithson then came to the open door and told them all that they were trespassing, and that if ever they came near him or his caravan again he would see that they would regret it. Then he slammed the door so violently that the caravan rocked.
"Nice chap that," Tom said, handing them raincoats. "Did he touch you kids? Are you both all right?"
"We're fine, brave rescuers," Mary said. "But first of all I think we should wait for a few minutes in the lane just to see if he follows us, 'cos he does want to know what we're doing and where we are, and then you can tell us how you found us."
"And thanks for bringing the macks," Dickie added.
David laughed. "That was Peter's idea; she's at H.Q.2 making something hot for you." Then he explained how they had heard Mackie bark when they were in the wood, and as it began to rain hard they thought it wise to send out a rescue-party. By following the lane as the twins had done, they soon saw the lights of the caravan.
They waited briefly in the lane but were not followed, and twenty minutes later splashed through the puddles in the farmyard and slipped through the big doors of H.Q.2.
"Off with those shoes and socks," Peter said as she seized a twin in each hand. "Here's a towel to dry yourselves. Sit by the stove and here's some hot soup, and while you're having that you can tell me what's happened."
"Peter darling, you're just wonderful," Mary said as she kneeled thankfully by the stove.
But while she was sipping the soup she began to nod, and although she managed to say, "Come to think of it, we're sure dear Percy was taking a message somewhere. He acksherly said he'd gone to post a letter. I b'lieve he went to the post office all right, but I reckon he took a note for Mr Wilkins... Oh dear, Peter, I'm awfully sorry, but I don't think I can finish this, I'm too tired," she slipped sideways as her mug clattered on the floor.
Peter kneeled beside her.
"Help me up the stairs with her, David, and I'll put her to bed... Look, Tom! Dickie's going off too."
For many weeks after it was easy to torment the twins by reminding them that they could not possibly deny that they had both been put to bed that night.
7. Greystone Dingle
Peter was first awake next morning and she was conscious of the steady, relentless drumming of the rain on the roof of the barn above her. She stretched luxuriously in her cosy sleeping-bag and turned over to look out of her window, but the light was grey and the glass so splashed with beating rain that she could see little.
It was raining as only it can rain in the hill country at the end of the summer. The sky was full of rain, and without looking further Peter knew that the clouds were shrouding the hill-tops and that just as the water was now gurgling in the gutters a few feet away, so it was running down the valleys and dingles of the Long Mynd and the Stiperstones.
After a while she yawned, kneeled up in her sleeping-bag and pressed her face against the window, realizing that the rain had stopped. She raised her hand and wiped away the mist of her breath from the glass and looked out. Someone was struggling up the hill between the trees. Whoever it was seemed to be in great distress, for while Peter watched the visitor slipped and fell in the muddy water twice before reaching the gate.
Suddenly Peter realized that it was Jenny - white-faced, bedraggled, stumbling in her heavy rubber boots.
Peter slipped out of her sleeping-bag, reached for her raincoat which she flung over her pyjamas, and ran for the stairs.
"Wake up, you lazy louts!" she shouted as she climbed down. "Wake up, David!... Jenny is outside, and she looks as if she's run all the way... Torn! Wake up! Jen's in trouble and it's late... Get up and give a hand."
Then came a desperate tattoo of blows on the great doors and a thin and breathless little voice pleading:
"Hurry! Hurry! Let me in! It's Jenny... "
"Don't worry, Jen," Peter shouted as she slipped back the bolt, "we're all here. Take it easy."
A gust of wind swirled into the great barn as Jenny stepped forward and grabbed Peter by the shoulders. She was sobbing and fighting for breath.
"Why, Jenny, what's wrong? Come and sit down and tell us all about it."
Jenny looked round wildly, gulped and tried to pull herself together as Tom ran forward and closed the door. Then David appeared and somehow they got her into a chair by the stove, where she collapsed and hid her face in her hands.
"Get the fire going, David," Peter snapped. "It ought to have been alight an hour ago... Tom! Pull her boots off and let's try and get her out of these wet things... Now, Jen, tell us what's happened."
Jenny shook her red curls back, sniffed and then smiled feebly.
"I'm sorry," she gasped. "Sorry to be such an idiot... He's gone!"
"Who's gone, Jen? What do you mean?" Tom asked as he passed a bundle of dry sticks to David.
"He has. Mr Wilkins... He went afore any of us were up."
"He'll come back," David said as he cupped a lighted match between his hands. "Don't worry, Jen."
"But I do worry, David. I've never worried about anything so much before. I've never been so unhappy in my whole life. Don't you see that you all trusted me to look after him, but I've failed you all and let him go."
"Don't talk nonsense, Jen," Tom said stoutly. "If the old chump has gone he's gone, and that's all there is to it... Anyway, I reckon that David is right and that he'll come back."
"But you all trusted me," Jenny wailed. "I found him for you, and this adventure was going to be mine for us all... I ought to have slept across his threshold and guarded him," she added dramatically. "I've betrayed you and the club and I'll never forgive myself."
They did their best to comfort her, and while the boys went into their cubicles to dress they kept up a running fire of cross-talk with her until she had to laugh. Peter, after she had dressed, busied herself at the stove and said that they could not or would not do anything else until they had had breakfast. Dickie woke resentfully at last and complained about the noise, while Mary, who had quietly joined the group round the stove, smiled at Jenny.
"Don't you worry, Jen," she whispered. "Don't take any notice of what David says if you don't like what he's saying. We never do. It makes him mad, but it makes us much happier... Tell us all about it at breakfast."
The rain was pouring down again when they sat round the table twenty minutes later.
"Now then," Dickie said as he started on his porridge, "tell us, Jen. I want to know why you woke me up in that rude way just now."
"He slipped out of the house while we were all still in bed. He must have done. I've been puzzling to think why he should, because I'm sure he was happy, and I'd told him that we were all coming today to look after him... Do you think he's been kidnapped by those awful people? I'll never, never forgive myself..."
"Never mind about forgiving yourself," Tom said brutally. "Did he leave any message? Surely he wouldn't run off without explaining to Mrs Harman."
"That's just exactly what I was going to tell you next, Tom Ingles," Jenny replied with her nose in the air. "But I can't tell you if you keep interrupting. As it happens, he did leave a message addressed to Mum, and after she'd read it I slipped it into my pocket. I'm sure he wouldn't mind really, but I felt awful about it. It's because I've got this key to the mystery that I ran all the way here... This is it. Mum found it on the kitchen mantelpiece. Mr Wilkins must have gone out of the back door, because it had been unlocked, and when we looked in his room his haversack thing had gone and so had his bicycle. Don't do that, Mary! It hurts!"
Mary spoke with her mouth full.
"I pinched you a'purpose, Jenny... PLEASE read the letter."
"I think you're all mean. You might let me tell everything that happened properly. It's happened to me and Mr Wilkins and not to any of you... Oh! very well." And she unfolded the paper.
"My Dear Mrs Harman,
With this you will find a week's board and lodging as arranged between us. Circumstances have arisen which make me believe that it would be better for all concerned if I left you at once. You must forgive the abrupt manner of my going and I ask you to accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused, but I am confident there will be trouble for you all if I stay with you.
Will you please convey my warm greetings to your daughter and thank her for befriending an old man. Tell her, if you please, to take the greatest care of her silver spoon, and that if she and her young friends wish to continue with their plan, I suggest that the dingle where we met yesterday - it is, I believe, called Greystone Dingle on the map - might be worth attention.
Again my thanks for kindness shown and my apologies for leaving you with such apparent lack of courtesy.
Yours truly,
George Wilkins.
P.S. - Should any letters come for me, please hold them until I call or write, and do not deliver them to anyone else without my authorization."
There was a long pause while Jenny folded up the letter and replaced it in her pocket. Then:
"So his name is George," Dickie said irrelevantly. "How peculiar."
"I don't see anything peculiar about it," Jenny said indignantly.
"That postscript sounds as if he intends to come back some time, anyway," David remarked. "But what do we do now?"
"Push all these dirty dishes in a bucket of water, clear up a bit and make a plan," Tom said briskly. "I vote we try and find old George."
"So do I," Jenny agreed. "But what was it that scared him so much that he rushed off like that without saying good-bye to me?"
Dickie jumped up from the table and, in spite of Peter's protests, began to toss the mugs and plates into the bucket of drinking water.
"Don't fuss, Peter," he begged. "Let's get on and do something more important than washing-up... We know what's happened, don't we, Mary?"
"Easy!" his twin replied. "When we saw young Percy last night he had been delivering a note from his father. I 'spect it would be an awful threatenin' letter... Blackmail, p'raps... When we asked him what he'd been doing he said he'd been to post a letter. I think he was terrified of us and let that out."
David pounced on the weakness of this argument by asking how Mr Wilkins could have found the note without the knowledge of anyone else in the house.
"But I didn't ask Mum or Dad whether a note had come for him last night," Jenny said. "I never thought of it."
"I suppose it doesn't matter very much, anyway," David said. "The point is that he's gone, and I think the twins are right when they say he was frightened away. Somehow or other the charming Smithsons must have convinced him that he would be less trouble to everybody if he joined with them and had nothing to do with us."
Peter agreed. "But he does send us a message," she pointed out. "He does suggest we explore Greystone Dingle. He wouldn't have said that if he hadn't meant something. Let's go there as soon as we can and explore."
Mary ran down the barn and flung back the doors. "That's what we've been trying to tell you ever since yesterday. We must go there. Dickie and me found a camping place... And look! The rain has stopped, and even if it pours we can shelter in the cave. Come on! Let's go!"
"Right!" David said. "Let's pack up as quickly as we can and get going. Everything we need on the trailer again and I'll remind you all that we've got a long way to go. If there's any Roman treasure to be found, and old man Wilkins thinks it's in Greystone Dingle, we may as well camp there as anywhere else - but on our way I think it would be a good idea to see whether the Smithsons have moved their camp."
Tom turned to David.
"Could you manage the trailer if Jen and I went on ahead? I reckon if we went off quickly now we'd have more chance of tracing the Smithsons and old Wilkins... Will you leave that to us? Maybe we'll pick you up somewhere on the road, but if we all keep together we shall be very slow... Besides, if Jen is going to camp with us she'll want to let them know at home and get her stuff together, and we can call in there on our way after we've checked up on the Smithsons. What do you think?"
"It's a good enough scheme, but I don't see how we'll get the trailer down the hill without you."
"We think it would be a good idea if Mary and me went on ahead to the camping place and staked a claim," Dickie said, "but we don't suppose any of you will think that's a good idea."
"You're right again, Dickie," Peter said. "We'll risk someone else getting there first, but you needn't think that David and I are going to pack the trailer and struggle up and down hill with it by ourselves. We're on a holiday too... Anyway, here comes Charles. I know he'll help us down with it, and I think Tom and Jenny should go now. That really is a brainwave."
