“There is one thing I want you to do, Carl,” said Leigh.
“What is it? What is it? You only have to say.”
“It’s quite simple,” replied Leigh. “You just obey orders.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Carl. “You’re a sort of captain, Leigh. We have to do what you say. Does Edwin have to, too? Will you, Edwin? Perhaps you wouldn’t like to, being a lord and all that.”
“We are here to help Jocelyn escape,” said Edwin. “That’s all we have to think about.”
“It’s all I am thinking about,” retorted Carl.
“Carl,” I reminded him, “it will be necessary to say nothing of this to anyone... anyone, remember!”
“Of course I remember. It’s a great secret. Nobody must know.”
I looked at Leigh. “We’ve got to think of something quickly. I wonder if Jocelyn could come to the house as a traveller who has lost his way.”
“We would be expected to put him on the right road immediately,” put in Christabel.
“I wonder if he could come as someone to work in the house.”
“As what?” asked Leigh. “A gardener? Can you garden, Frinton?”
“As my tutor!” cried Carl. “They’re always saying that I don’t learn anything with the Reverend Helling.”
“That’s a reflection on you, dear brother,” I retorted, “not on the Reverend Helling.
If we want a scholar hi the family we shall have to get a new brother … not a new tutor. I think it’s dangerous for Jocelyn to come to the house. How could he possibly do that? My father and mother must have met you somewhere.”
“Yes,” said Jocelyn, “I have met them.”
Leigh, who had been rather thoughtful, sat there with a smile on his face. Something was brewing in his mind, I could see. I knew him so well that I realized he wanted to think about it before telling the rest of us and however I urged him he would say nothing until he had decided to.
Edwin was saying: “Well, that’s no good.”
“At least,” said Leigh, “you are safe here for the time being.”
We made all sorts of plans as we sat there on the beach but Leigh still said nothing of what I believed was brewing in his mind.
We would get a change of clothes for Jocelyn-something which would be more suitable for travelling if he had to go off in a hurry. One of us would come every day with food until we made up our minds what we were going to do. There must be no more picnics, as they would arouse suspicion. Emily Philpots would already be saying that we must be mad to think of such a thing at this tune of the year, and Sally might even get someone to follow us to make sure that Carl kept his leather jerkin on.
No. We should come singly, or perhaps two of us together. We should have to be very wary.
We all looked to Leigh. He was the natural leader. He was more bold and ruthless than Edwin. Edwin was always too much afraid of hurting people’s feelings. It made him act overcautiously.
Leigh had always joked about being the elder of the two. He was, by a few weeks.
I think I admired Leigh more than anyone I knew, and I was gratified whenever he showed a special feeling for me.
We reached the house at about five o’clock. It was already dark and we went in as quietly as we could. Like a company of conspirators.
Ellen looked at the empty basket.
“So you finished off every crumb?” she said.
“It was the finest mutton pie you ever made, Ellen,” said Carl.
“Then it was wasted on you,” she retorted. “It wasn’t mutton, it was pigeon.”
A small thing, but it was an indication of how careful we must be.
Sally Nullens was fussing round Carl.
“And I hope you didn’t hang about on the beach, Master Carl. If that wind gets down in your chest…”
“Oh, we didn’t go on the beach.”
“So you didn’t go on the beach, then?”
“Only just to look at it as we went along the way.”
“And you didn’t sit on the shingle? Then what’s this seaweed stain on your jacket, eh?”
Carl was embarrassed. “Well, perhaps we did sit a little bit.”
He was looking at me appealingly.
I said: “You’re always dreaming, Carl. Of course we were on the beach for a while.”
Then there was old Jasper.
“Someone’s been trampling on those new trees I put in. Well nigh broke them saplings in halves. Godless lot.”
I was thankful that Jocelyn was safely away from the house.
I went up to my room and I didn’t have to wait there long before there was a tap on the door. Leigh came in.
He grinned at me. “I shouldn’t come into a lady’s bedroom, should I? Oh, but this is only my little sister, so all would be forgiven, even by old Philpots, I reckon.”
“Don’t be foolish,” I said. “What do you want?”
He was serious immediately. “I thought I’d talk it over with you first.”
The waves of inexplicable anger which his reference to me as his little sister had aroused were swept away because I was bis chosen confidante.
“After all,” he said, “you know her better than any of us really … even better than I do.”
“Who?”
“Harriet. My mother.”
“Harriet! But where does she come into this?”
“I thought she might help us. She’s the only one I can think of who would snap her fingers at the risk. And we are taking a great risk, Priscilla.
What we have done could bring trouble on the whole of the family.”
