Free Garth of Tregillis by Henrietta Reid Page A

sombre landscapes, all of which gave the impression of being painted during an approaching storm. After travelling the full length of the right-hand side of the gallery I looked at the narrower wall that ran at right angles, but there was no sign, although I scanned each picture closely, of the prissy lady with the bulgy-eyed dogs.
    I hurried my steps, feeling a rising panic. What would it be like in the passage?. Would there be enough air for the child? Was he already dead? I felt my heart thud and my knees turn to jelly. What would Garth Seaton think if he returned to find that I had been neglectful of my charge? I must find Emile, I thought desperately, and soon! Then as I traversed the opposite side a thought struck me which caused me even more panic: suppose Melinda, in her perversity, had made up the story of the lady with the dogs and it was a completely different picture beneath which the secret panel was. I looked around wildly. It could be any picture! It would take time to try the panel under each one. Again, perhaps the entrance to the passage didn’t begin in the gallery at all—perhaps in some remote room in this enormous pile. I crossed where a window intersected the rows of pictures and as I did so a sudden flood of light came through the tinted leaded panes and with a gasp of relief I saw that there was indeed the picture that Melinda had described.
    And Melinda had been accurate in saying the lady was prissy: she had the small cupid’s bow mouth and arched supercilious eyebrows that seem peculiar to the ladies of the eighteenth century: her piled-up hair was ornamented with satin bows and at her feet were two pug dogs that gazed out of the picture with fierce, bulging eyes.
    I glanced around quickly. To my relief there was no one around.

    I pressed frantically around the bevelling of the panel under the picture. With a gasp of relief I heard a click and the panel slid back. I gazed in. The passage was much wider than I had expected and I stepped in gingerly, for in spite of my terrors about Emile I was dreadfully afraid of spiders and crawly things. However, the air wasn’t damp as I had expected: in fact, it was dry and dusty. It wasn’t really a passage in the accepted sense, I decided; simply the space between the great outer walls and the panelling of the gallery. It led straight ahead without any twists and turns; nor was it completely dark, for here and there thin slivers of light had penetrated through the panelling where it had warped with age. I hurried along, but there was no sign of Emile and I began to wonder if I had misjudged Melinda. But where on earth was he? I began to feel panic rise in me. Then, quite suddenly, I saw that light was flooding through a square on the left-hand side of the passage and to my astonishment I saw that I was looking into my own bedroom and, what was even. more astonishing, that Emile was sitting composedly on the bridal chest surveying his surroundings with every sign of interest.
    When I clambered out of the passage he showed not the smallest sign of distress and his grubby face showed no evidence that he had even shed a tear. ‘How did you manage to open the panel?’ I gasped. ‘I thought you were—were—’ I hesitated. There was no point in frightening the child by letting him know the fate that I thought Melinda had planned for him.
    ‘I’ve heard about secret passages,’ he said with a pleased smile.
    ‘Melinda thinks she is very clever, but I have a book at home all about priests’ holes. The panel in your room was not shut properly,’ he said a little severely. ‘I could see right in.’
    So the wretched Melinda had not even closed the panel completely, I thought furiously.
    Now that I had found Emile safe and sound my first resolve was to expose Melinda’s villainy, yet as I accompanied Emile downstairs, my determination wavered.
    Afterwards I was not able to explain to myself why I had not informed Mrs. Kinnefer of the circumstances in