Free Seven for a Secret by Victoria Holt Page A

bush which Tamarisk had mentioned, and seated near it was Flora. Beside her was a doll’s pram and I guessed that the doll was in it.
    I leaned over the wall to look more closely. She saw me and said, “Hello.”
    “Hello,” I replied.
    “Have you come to see Lucy?” she asked.
    “Oh no. I was just passing.”
    “The gate is there … the back gate.”
    It sounded like an invitation and, spurred on by my ever-present curiosity, I went through the gate to where she was sitting.
    “Shh,” she said.
    “He’s sleeping now. He can be a little cross if anyone wakes him.”
    “I see,” I said.
    She was sitting on ‘a wooden bench and she made room for me to sit beside her.
    “He’s one for his own way,” she went on.
    “I can believe that.”
    “He won’t go to anyone but me.”
    “His mother …” I began.
    “Ought not to have had children. People like that … going off to London … to my mind they shouldn’t have them.”
    “No,” I said.
    She was nodding and staring at the mulberry bush.
    “There’s nothing there,” she said.
    “Where?” I asked.
    She nodded towards the bush.
    “Whatever they say … mustn’t disturb, though.”
     
    “Why not?” I asked, because 1 was doing my best to find out what she was talking about.
    It was the wrong thing to have said. She turned to me and her eyes had lost a certain calmness which had been there when I arrived.
    “No,” she said.
    “There isn’t. You mustn’t… it would be wrong. You shouldn’t.”
    “All right,” I said.
    “I won’t. Do you sit here often?”
    She turned her troubled eyes to me. Suspicion remained there.
    “He’s all right … my little baby. He’s sleeping like an angel.
    Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, you’d think. ” She gave a little laugh.
    “You should hear him in one of his paddies. He’s going to be a tartar, that one. He’s going to get what he wants in life.”
    Lucy must have seen me from a window of the cottage. She came out and I sensed at once that she was not pleased to see me sitting there talking to her sister.
    She said: “It’s Miss Cardingham’s niece, isn’t it?”
    I told her I was and that I had been passing, seen Flora in the garden and had been invited in.
    “Oh, that was nice. Were you going for a walk?”
    “I have been to the Bell House and was on my way home.”
    “That was nice.”
    Everything seemed nice to her, but I sensed this was due to a certain nervousness and that she wanted me to be gone. So I said: “My aunt will be expecting me.”
    “Then you mustn’t keep her waiting, dear,” she said with relief.
    “No. Goodbye,” I said, looking at Flora, who smiled at me.
    Then she said: “There’s nothing there, is there … Lucy?” Lucy wrinkled her brows as though she were not sure what Flora was talking about. I supposed she often said things which had no reasonable meaning. Lucy walked with me to the gate.
     
    The Rowans isn’t far. You know your way? “
    “Oh yes. I know my way around very well now.”
    “Give my kind regards to Miss Cardingham.”
    “I will.”
    1 was off running again, feeling the wind in my hair.
    A strange afternoon, I was thinking. There are some very mysterious people here and this afternoon I had encountered two of the strangest, and I now felt the need to get back quickly to dear sane Aunt Sophie.
    She was waiting for me.
    “I expected you back before now,” she said.
    “I saw Flora Lane in the garden and stopped to talk to her.”
    “Poor Flora! How was the party?”
    I hesitated.
    “I thought so,” she went on.
    “I know what they’re like at the Bell House. I feel sorry for poor Hilda. These good people who have their places booked in Heaven can be a bit of a trial on Earth.”
    “He asked me if I say my prayers every night. I have to ask for forgiveness in case I die in the night.”
    Aunt Sophie burst out laughing.
    “Did you ask if he did the same?”
    “I suppose he does. They have prayers all the time. Oh, Aunt