Chapter 14 Ormdale
Chapter fourteen
Ormdale
Una had successfully distracted herself all day from the problem of the missing key by rifling through family documents for a clue to the puzzle of Pip.
When the key turned up at teatime, relief had coursed through her veins. The man was not lurking somewhere with it, waiting to make another attempt.
But when nightfall came, and the chittering and rustling from the glasshouse died down, dread settled over her once more.
Una resented it. She had been raised in this rambling ruin of a home and knew every nook and crevice, every groaning hinge and patch of rising damp. She felt towards it like one might feel towards an elderly pet.
But now it had betrayed her by concealing an enemy. Now, all at once, every stairwell, every dark corner, was a potential threat.
She lay in bed and listened to the abbey’s arthritic moans, her hand on Oolong, the pulse of life in his body a welcome, calming counterpoint.
Una did not like windy nights. The glasshouse had been built so that the prevailing winds were blocked by the abbey itself, but it was easy to imagine some cruel turn in the weather shattering it, leaving a twisted wreck behind, with dragons spilling out into the rest of England where only heaven knew what fate might await them at the hands of a frightened populace.
A tap at her door made her sit bolt upright.
“Una? Are you awake?”
It was only Pip. Una pulled her shawl round her shoulders.
“Yes, wait a moment.”
She got up and unlocked the door, floorboards cold under her feet.
Pip checked the passage behind him in the light of his lamp, then shut the door behind him and turned the key in it.
“I heard something,” he whispered.
Una’s chest tightened. “What sort of something?”
“Crunching, or munching,” he said.
“Munching!” Una echoed.
“Yes. Moving down the passage and…munching.”
Una suppressed a laugh of relief. “Could it have been a dragon, scratching about?”
“No,” insisted Pip. “It sounded like a person.”
This sobered Una again. “You’re quite sure you didn’t dream it?”
“I hadn’t even gone to sleep yet. I couldn’t. It’s this wind.” He waved his hand in irritation. “I got used to other sounds in Bloomsbury. Hansoms and lorries and the bin-man’s cart.”
A wave of pity washed over her, because he looked so miserable. Was he regretting the fit of anger that had sent him back here?
Una went to the French doors, unlocked them, and listened.
“Nothing seems wrong,“ said Una slowly, looking back at Oolong. “Perhaps Annie was up late?”
“I happen to know Annie is down at the village this evening with her sick mother. Look here,” Pip complained, “I was supposed to stay here to make you feel safe, and you’re not even scared of the intruder I’ve just heard?”
“You said it was munching,” Una replied. “How can anyone be scared of an intruder who crunches and munches?”
Pip flushed at the implication. “Well, p’raps I’ll just go back to the village then! My bed there is a lot more comfortable, I can tell you. Your sister’s is about as old as Noah.”
“No, please don’t leave!” Una said quickly. The servants employed at the abbey slept quite far away from the old nursery, in another wing entirely. “You did check on the relic, didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course I did,” Pip snapped.
“Thanks ever so much, Pip. Now. Let’s try to be sensible about this.” Her mind ran over the day. “A lot of the apples from the winter-store for the gwiberary went missing yesterday. I thought it might be the twins again, but what if some poor vagrant got into it?”
“No one breaks into stately homes for apples, Una!“ Pip objected.
“Did it sound like an apple to you?”
“Oh. I suppose it did,” said Pip slowly. “Look here. Does it really matter if someone nabs the silver, or whatnot? Can’t the squire replace it? What if we just hole up here until it’s light?”
Una stared at him in horror.
Pip turned red. “I won’t tell if you don’t, and after all, if you’re really my aunt, how could anyone object to it…”
“It’s not about propriety, Pip!“ Una burst out. “And goodness knows I’d as soon share a room with you as my own brother—more so! But I’m not about to risk losing the muncher!”
Una shuddered at the thought. She’d already failed to stop one intruder looting the abbey—two in as many nights was simply too much to bear.
Pip’s eyes narrowed. “You are scared.”
“I’m scared of never sleeping again,” she replied, pulling her boots on.
“Wouldn’t you be, too? With a fruit-stealing phantom on the loose—hiding by day, crunching away by night?
Absolutely not. Why, it’s worse than the old Bleeding Monk that Martha used to talk about.
At least his bleeding didn’t make a sound to keep you awake. ”
Una finished tying her laces and looked at Pip.
“I’m glad you’re here, Pip,” she admitted softly. “I’d be ever so scared if you weren’t.”
Pip looked embarrassed. Una went to the old toy chest and drew something out. “Arm yourself, Pip!” she said grimly.
“That’s a play sword, Una.”
“I know, but it gave me a goose egg on my head back in the day, when Violet would play Richard the Lionheart, and made me play Saladin. Me, of all people!”
Pip laughed despite himself. “She tried to make me do it, you know. She said I was the only one swarthy enough to play a Saracen,” he recalled, taking the toy sabre and waving it about to test it. “I think I was much better at running away from her than you were.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“You never speak of her,” Pip said, as if he’d noticed for the first time.
“What’s the use?” Una said, exhaling. “It was Violet who was the best of all of us at running away, in the end. I just hope she’s happy—wherever she is—now that she’s got away from all of us.
” Una stood and tied her shawl round her firmly, fastening her dragon-keeper’s belt round her waist and tucking the shawl into it. “Let’s go.”
They went systematically through each room, casting the light of their lamps into every corner, Oolong padding along at their feet.
But they found nothing.
One or two times they thought they heard an extra patter on the floorboards or a step on the stair, always beyond the reach of the lamplight.
“The Bleeding Monk,” they would whisper to each other, and snort with laughter, and then pinch each other to stop laughing.
“Have we done our duty yet?” Pip asked with a yawn.
“Almost. I want to check the glasshouse.”
Una knew she would sleep better if she could find him.
Pip let out a groan, then followed her. The downstairs door to the glasshouse stood ever so slightly open.
Una and Pip looked at each other.
“Perhaps they forgot to lock up,” Pip whispered.
But they both knew it wasn’t that.
Una picked up Oolong and they tiptoed inside.
On any other night, Una would have noted the beauty of the ferns, silvered with moonlight, and the shadows of the iron tracery and palm leaves, overlaying everything like lace.
But this time, she only noticed that the foliage around them moved gently, as if stirred by the wind.
But there was no wind, not here.
Not inside the glasshouse.
Her foot bumped into something that rolled. An apple core.
At the same time, Oolong launched himself from her arms and barrelled straight into a bush, disappearing abruptly.
Una snatched the lamp from Pip and held it high.
“All right, I know you’re in here,” she said loudly, detaching the whistle from her belt.
“If you are hungry, we will give you something to eat. If you need work, we will help you find it. But please—show yourself, or I will blow my whistle for reinforcements. Everyone knows the signal for intruder, and they’ll come armed. ”
A bush contorted wildly and a figure emerged. A figure in bloomers, a tweed jacket, and a knit hat which failed to contain the long hair mostly stuffed under it.
And there was Oolong—happily nestled under the intruder’s arm.
“Hello, Loon,” said a voice which was as familiar to Una as her own.
A voice which Una had not heard in two years.