She was rising to the bait! Her thoughts were written on her face as clearly as if they were tattooed on her cheeks.
And so forth.
“Oh, just odd bits and pieces,” I said. “Letters to one of my ancestors—Lucius de Luce—about this and that—
“Just a lot of names and dates,” I added. “Nothing terribly interesting, I’m afraid.”
This was the cherry on the icing—but I would pretend to brush it off as worthless.
She was staring at me through her lenses like a birdwatcher who has unexpectedly come upon the rare spotted crake.
Now was the time to keep perfectly still. If my words hadn’t primed the pump of curiosity, then nothing would.
I could almost feel the heat of her gaze.
“There’s more,” she said. “What is it? You’re not telling me the whole truth.”
“Well,” I blurted, “actually, I was thinking of asking if I might be allowed to convert to the Hobblers. We de Luces are not really Anglicans, you see—we’ve been Roman Catholics for ages, but—Feely was telling me that the Hobblers were non—non—”
“Nonconformists?”
“Yes, that’s it—Nonconformists, and I thought that, since I’m a nonconformist myself … well, why not join?”
There was a grain of truth in this: I remembered that one of my heroes, Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, had once been the minister of a dissenting sect in Leeds, and if it was good enough for the esteemed Joseph—
“There’s been a great deal of debate,” she said reflectively, “about whether we’re Nonconformists or Dissenters, what with our Reconstitution in 17—”
“Then you
She stared at me long and hard, as if thinking. “There are those,” she said, “who work to preserve the foundations upon which their forefathers built. It is not always easy in this day and age …”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said. “I’d give anything to be a Hobbler.”
And in a way it was true. I had visions of myself limping cheerily along a country lane, my arms outstretched for balance, teetering like a tightrope walker, as I veered crazily from hedge to hedge.
“I’m a Hobbler,” I would shout out to everyone as I stumped past.
“Most interesting,” the woman was saying as I came back to reality. “And is your father aware of your aspirations?”
“
“I understand,” she said. “We shall let it be our little secret, then. No one but you and I shall know about any of this.”
Hey presto!
“Oh,
As she rattled on about the Act of Toleration, the Five Mile Act, the Countess of Huntingdon, and the Calvinist Connection, I took the opportunity to look around the room.
There wasn’t much to see: the bed, of course, which, now that I had time to think about it, reminded me of the Great Bed of Ware in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In a far corner near a window was a small table with an electric ring and a small kettle, a Brown Betty teapot, a biscuit tin, and a single cup and saucer. Reginald Pettibone was evidently not in the habit of having breakfast with his wife.
“Would you care for a biscuit?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I don’t use sugar.”
It was a lie—but an excellent one.
“What an unusual child you are,” she said, and with a wave of the hand towards the tin, she added, “Well, then, perhaps you won’t mind fetching one for me. I have no such scruples.”
I went to the window and reached for the biscuit tin. As I turned, I happened to glance outside—down into the fenced area behind the shop’s back door.
A rusty green van stood with its double doors open, and I knew instantly that it was the one I’d seen parked outside Willow Villa.
As I watched, a powerful man in shirtsleeves stepped into view from somewhere below. It was the bulldog man—the man who had almost caught me in the coach house!
Unless I was sadly mistaken, this would be Edward Sampson, of Rye Road, East Finching—whose name I had found on the papers in the glove compartment.
As I stood rooted to the spot, he reached into the back of the van and dragged out a couple of heavy objects.
