Free Carola Dunn by Angel Page A

an entire day in the open air, they all decided to retire after dinner. Catherine helped Angel to undress, then thought of something she wished to say to her mother.
    “I won’t be long,” she said. “Do you lock the door when I leave, and I will knock when I return.”
    Angel went straight to work hunting for the secret hiding place. Catherine’s amusement had deterred her before, so now she seized the opportunity offered by her cousin’s absence and poked and prodded and twisted. She was beginning to give up, when she pressed the centre of the umpteenth flower and distinctly heard a grinding noise.
    Breathless with excitement, she pushed harder. Slowly, so slowly, an entire panel swung noisily aside, and there before her opened no mere paper-stuffed niche but what must surely be a fully fledged priest’s hole. That would show Catherine!
    She was in half a mind to wait to explore until the sceptic’s return, then she thought of a better idea. She would hide in the tiny room, push the door nearly shut, and make ghostly groans and wails. Taking her candle to make sure of a good light, she stepped over the sill and looked around. There was nothing to see but bare, whitewashed walls, no skeleton, no ancient parchment scribbled with cries for help, not even a dry water jug and a crust baked hard with age. Still, it was a priest’s hole.
    Catherine must surely return soon. Angel shut the door, all but an inch-wide gap. It moved much more easily closing than it had opening. There were footsteps in the corridor, followed by a knock upon the chamber door. She had forgotten that it was locked. So much for her plan! Hurrying to let her cousin in, she stumbled against the panel, felt it move smoothly under her hand, and heard a solid click as it slid into place.
    “Bother!” she said aloud, and looked for the latch. The blank wall stared back.
    The muffled sound of knocking came to her straining ears. A swift glance around convinced her that the other walls were equally featureless.
    “Help!” she shouted, beginning to feel dreadfully closed-in. The knocking paused, then resumed slightly louder. Catherine must surely be calling to her by now, but she heard no voice. How long would it be before the landlord permitted her uncle to have the door broken down? Would they be able to hear her directions as to how to open the panelling? Could she even remember which flower it had been? How long would the air last in this coffin-like room?
    “Panic will get you nowhere,” she told herself sternly. “Calm down and look more carefully.”
    The floor was wooden, a simple parquetry pattern in pale oak. Oak parquet in this hidey-hole? Angel studied it more closely. One rectangle was of a darker hue.
    Heart in mouth, she knelt and pressed it. There was a familiar grinding noise, and a section of the floor folded down to reveal a steep stairway.
    Angel gasped. Well, it was not precisely what she had been looking for, but any port in a storm. Candle held high, she started downward.
    At the bottom was a square of floor scarce two feet wide, surrounded by the horribly familiar whitewashed walls. The floor was of plain boards. She sat on the bottom step, set her candle on the floor at her feet, and leaned forward to rest her head despairingly in her hands.
    The riser of the lowest step was carved, with three roses just like those in the inaccessible chamber above! Not pausing to wonder whether she might emerge in her nightgown in a taproom full of tipplers, Angel crouched on the tiny floor and pressed the center of the left-hand flower. Nothing happened. Perhaps it worked the trapdoor above. She tried the middle flower. Silently the riser of the second step swung down. In the cavity it had concealed were two bulging leather bags.
    At any other time, Angel would have been wildly excited. Now the need to escape was overwhelming. She pressed the third knob.
    The wall to her right slid aside and there, caught in the act of loosening his cravat,