Chapter Thirty-Four
Ever since that night in the woods when Terry Sands had threatened to make their lives hell, Venetia and Lucien had tried their hardest to keep out of his way.
But it soon became clear that it was Lucien who was the real target of Terry’s taunts and jibes, often in petty ways, like deliberately knocking into him when he ‘just happened’ to be passing.
Other times he lay in wait when Lucien and the other boys were out on a cross country run.
Lucien hated cross country, he could see no point in it and was hampered by his asthma, and was usually to be found at the back of the group of runners.
Terry would be lying in wait for him and with no one else around, he would pounce and knock Lucien to the ground.
He would then stand over him and laugh his sickeningly sadistic laugh while kicking him.
After it had happened three times, Lucien complained to their games teacher, but Mr Grafton didn’t believe him.
He accused Lucien of making up something to get out of doing cross country.
Venetia wanted to tell Edie Buckle what was going on because she was sure Edie would believe them, but Lucien wouldn’t have it.
He didn’t want anyone knowing what was happening.
Venetia only knew about the cross-country incidents because she’d forced Lucien to tell her how he had so many bruises on his legs.
‘If we make a big deal of it,’ Lucien said, ‘we might end up having to explain how all this started in the first place, and Terry will say we were doing more than just kissing in the woods when he found us. I don’t want to risk that.
And if we do tell Edie and she makes a fuss and Terry loses his job, who knows what he might do.
He’s a dangerous thug. I don’t care what he does to me, but if he hurts you, well …
’ he paused, ‘just never mind what I’d do then. ’
Venetia could see the sense in what he was saying, and was touched how protective he was of her, but she didn’t like the thought of letting Terry get away with bullying Lucien.
For a couple of weeks, it seemed as though Terry had grown bored of baiting Lucien and left him alone, but then out of the blue, Lucien was summoned to Lady Constance’s office.
Lady Constance was still away on her extended honeymoon around Europe with Mr Butler and so in her absence it was Miss Selby who was in charge.
With Terry in the office with her, she explained to Lucien that he was there to come clean for what he’d done and then apologise.
Venetia was hovering outside, her ear pressed to the door, and she clearly heard Terry accuse Lucien of sneaking into his cottage and stealing a tin of money. What was more, Terry had said, he’d actually seen Lucien do it.
So why didn’t you try to stop him? Venetia wanted to scream through the door.
Lady Constance would never have believed such a blatant lie, especially not of Lucien, but Miss Selby urged him to own up to his crime and return the money.
Quick as a flash and suspecting that Terry would insist that a search be carried out, Venetia dashed up the stairs to the dormitory that Lucien shared with ten other boys.
She knew that his bed was by the window and that he kept what few possessions he had in a cupboard to the side of the bed.
She rifled through it and in amongst his games kit and books, she found an old Holborn tobacco tin which rattled when she shook it.
Prising off the lid, she was amazed to see a thick wad of one pound notes and an assortment of shillings, thrupenny bits and ha’pennies.
It seemed an awful lot for a groundsman to have in his possession.
Not for a minute did she think Lucien was guilty of stealing the money and hiding the tin in so obvious a place.
More likely, and determined to cause trouble, Terry must have slipped up here when nobody was looking, just like Venetia had, and put the tin in the cupboard.
Placing it inside the bib of her dungarees, she took to her heels and sped back down the stairs, pushing her way through a group of children on their way up, and then outside.
She ran like the wind, the coins rattling inside the tin against her chest. Her intention was to return the tin to Terry’s cottage, but when she got there, she found the door was locked.
She yanked on the handle, rammed her shoulder against it just in case it was jammed shut rather than locked, but the door remained firmly closed.
She went round to the back of the cottage, but the door there was also locked. The two small windows either side of the door were shut too. She thought about smashing a window and placing the tin on the ledge inside, as though it had always been there, but how to explain the broken glass?
There were three options open to her: leave the tin in the garden as though the culprit had returned it, hide it somewhere in the grounds, or hurl it in the river where it would sink without trace.
The first option was the most tempting and certainly the easiest, but what if Lucien was still accused of the crime and the reappearance of the tin only served to prove his guilt, that he had returned it once he knew the game was up?
Then there was the chance that she would be accused of being his accomplice and she had returned to the scene of the crime to cover their tracks?
Better, she decided, to hide the tin and its contents. But where?
The woods! It had to be there.
When she’d completed her task, she ran back to the Hall, just in time to hear the lunch bell being rung.
After scrubbing her hands, paying attention to her nails which were filthy after burying the tin without the aid of a spade or trowel, she nonchalantly joined the queue.
Everybody, so it seemed, was talking about Lucien and how he’d been caught stealing.
‘I didn’t think he was the sort,’ said one of the girls who had been stupid enough to have her head turned by the odious Terry.
‘That’s because he’s not,’ said Venetia staunchly, ‘Lucien would never do anything like that. He’s completely innocent.’
Her defence of her friend was met with sniggers and eye-rolling.
‘We all know you’d do anything to defend your precious sweetheart,’ said the girl.
Yes, thought Venetia, that much was true. Taking her tray of food over to a table where nobody else was sitting, she waited for Lucien to appear in the dining hall. But he didn’t come.
When lunch was over, she went to look for him in the library.
That was often where he went when he wanted to be alone.
Sure enough, he was there, sitting at the table farthest from the door, but not with his head in a book as he usually was but staring with what looked like furious concentration out of the bay window.
He had to have been so deep in thought he didn’t hear her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the wooden floor.
He started when she said, ‘Why didn’t you come for lunch?’
‘I wasn’t hungry,’ he said with a husky wheeze when she sat down in front of him. Clasped in his right hand was the asthma inhaler he had to use to keep his attacks under control.
‘I overheard part of what was said between you and Miss Selby,’ she admitted.
He looked at her. ‘Only part?’
She explained what she’d done, that she’d found the tin of money in his bedside cupboard and had buried it.
‘I’m not sure that will be of much help,’ Lucien said morosely.
‘Terry made Miss Selby take me upstairs to search my things for the money which I’m supposed to have stolen.
When she couldn’t find the money, he claimed that of course I wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave it where it could be found so easily. ’
‘Does Miss Selby really believe you did it?’
He nodded with an expression of grim pessimism. ‘She’s given me twenty-four hours to do, what she calls, the right thing and return the money to Terry and apologise to him.’
‘But that’s so wrong when you’re completely innocent! And why would Miss Selby believe an ex-convict over you? Anyone can see that Terry Sands is trouble and the last person on earth to be trusted!’
‘I can only think Miss Selby is scared of him. But I’ll tell you this for nothing, I’m never apologising to that bastard!’
But the next morning Miss Selby, accompanied by Mr Grafton, as though she needed back up, told Lucien that Terry was now saying that if he didn’t receive an apology in person, he would go to the police. It was laughable, an ex-convict threatening to go to the police!
The conversation had taken place in Lady Constance’s office and once again Venetia had been the other side of the panelled door, her ear pressed against it.
‘The last thing we need is for the police to be involved while Lady Constance is away,’ Miss Selby said. ‘It wouldn’t do at all.’
‘You just need to admit what you did and say sorry,’ Mr Grafton said.
‘I know from what you’ve said in the past that you don’t like Terry and that you’ve deliberately made up things about him, but you have to be more of a man now and admit to what you did.
Do that and you won’t have a black mark against your name. ’
‘But I didn’t do anything!’ Lucien had shouted angrily.
‘That’s enough,’ intoned Miss Selby. ‘Mr Grafton has offered to accompany you to Terry’s cottage after tea today. And that’s an end to it.’
‘I don’t have any choice, do I?’ Lucien said to Venetia a short while later. ‘If I don’t do as they say, this will go on and on and what if the police believe Terry’s story and not mine? I could end up in a borstal!’
Desperately upset for Lucien, Venetia went up to the sick room to confide in Edie Buckle in the hope that she might be able to help. ‘It’s not fair,’ she said, ‘how could anyone believe a word that horrible man, Terry, ever says, he’s vile!’
Jiggling a whimpering baby on her shoulder, a recent arrival to Hope Hall, Edie sighed and let out a series of alternate tuts and oh dears, none of which really helped.