The Secret Passage Read Online Free PDF Page B

in a mud hut, but she didn’t like to ask her.
    Ben wasn’t so tactful. He said, looking bright and interested, “Are you a beggar, then?”
    Aunt Mabel’s face went very red. “Certainly not.”
    John said quickly, “He didn’t mean to be rude. He just wanted to know if you were really poor like some of the Africans are. Some of their children have big swollen stomachs that stick right out because they’re starving.”
    â€œOh,” said Aunt Mabel. “Oh—I see.” She said, to Ben, “I’m not poor, not in that way. But I keep a boarding house and if it’s a bad season, I don’t make very much money. When it rains a lot, no one wants to come to the sea, and they cancel their bookings.”
    The children looked at her blankly.
    â€œWhat is a boarding house?” Ben said.
    â€œIt’s a place people go to for holidays. It’s my house, you see, and they pay me to come and be guests in it. I’ve only got two guests now because it’s winter. Mr Agnew and Miss Pin. Mr Agnew is a sculptor—he’s very busy all the time, and you must be sure and not bother him. Miss Pin is—is a little peculiar.” She gave a little sigh. “Just now, there isn’t anyone else.”
    Mary said, “Is it the same house that you and mother lived in, when you were girls?”
    â€œNo. That’s the house next door. It’s a big place—when my husband died it was too big for me to keep up. So I sold itto a man who took a fancy to it; he wanted it for summers, he said—he had more money than sense, if you ask me—and now he’s old and ill and it’s shut up mostly. It’s a pity, it’s a nice old place with a huge garden and lots of rambling rooms. And attics. We used to play up in the attics—you can see the sea from some of the windows, and there was an old brass bedstead that we used to play on. We used to tie string to the posts and pretend we were driving a horse and cart. I wonder if it’s still there—I left a lot of stuff behind when I left and as far as I know he never turned anything out.”
    Aunt Mabel smiled and her face was soft and much gentler, suddenly, as if she were remembering a very happy time.
    Mary said, “What was our mother like, when she was a little girl?” Her eyes were very bright and she was breathing very fast. John and Ben looked at her and then down at their feet. It was the first time any of them had spoken about their mother since the dreadful morning Mrs Epsom had come into their room and told them that they would never see her again. Mary’s question made them feel very lost and strange.
    Aunt Mabel caught her breath. “She was very pretty. Very pretty and gay.” She looked at John and Ben, sitting still and silent as wax images and then she looked at Mary as if she were really seeing her for the first time. She said in a low voice, “She looked a little bit like you …”
    *
    The train stopped. A large notice on the platform said HENSTABLE, and outside the Waiting Room there was a coloured poster of a girl in a bathing costume, sitting by a bright, blue sea. The poster said, Sunny Hcnstable Welcomes You.
    They didn’t feel very welcomed, though. It was dark and cold and the wind sliced through their thin clothes like a sharp knife.
    â€œIt must be like the North Pole,” said Ben.
    They climbed into a taxi and drove away from the twinkling lights of the station, into the dark town. The houses all seemed very tall and narrow and somehow sloping , as if the fierce, cold wind from the sea had blown them sideways. The taxi stopped outside a house with The Haven painted on the lighted fanlight above the door. It was a particularly tall, thin house that seemed to lean against the much bigger house next door to it—a large, looming building with a heavy, pillared porch and dark, empty windows. “That must be the