a letter for you,” said the postman. “Addressed to Beckfoot. Miss Turner at Beckfoot wouldn’t take it. She wrote on it too.” He gave Dorothea the letter, and on it, pencilled in a clear sloping hand were the words “Not known here.”
“It’s from Mother,” said Dick.
“You didn’t say you’d seen us yesterday?” asked Dorothea.
“It was on the tip of my tongue,” said the postman. “But I saw Miss Nancy. She was there making faces at me, and I could see she meant me to say nowt. So I said nowt, and took the letter. Least said soonest mended I thought to myself. ‘Not known?’ All right. Take it back to the Post Office.”
“But … ”
“I’d nobbut got back to my bike when a stone come by my ear as near as nothing, and there was that young limb beckoning at me over the garden wall. She’s a terror, Miss Nancy. ‘About that letter,’ she says. ‘And whatever you do don’t bring any more letters for them to the front door.’ ‘But Miss Turner says they’re not here,’ says I. ‘They are here,’ she says, ‘but Aunt Maria mustn’t know. Mother knows they’re here. She invited them. But Aunt Maria doesn’t.’ And then she says where you was at, and she says I’d better bring you the letter to make sure. ‘What if Miss Turner asks me what I’ve done with it? There’ll likely be trouble for me,’ I says, ‘if I do as you say.’ ‘There’ll be much worse trouble for us if you don’t,’ says Miss Nancy. ‘And don’t you talk so loud. And there’ll be much worse trouble for Mother. That’s why they’ve gone. You ask Cook,’ she says. ‘Well, I’ve had trouble with Miss Turner myself,’ I says. ‘I’ll take them the letter. But you’ll have to clear me if there’s questions asked.’ ‘There won’t be,’ says she. Here’s your letter. But what am I to do if there are any more?”
“You mustn’t take them to Beckfoot,” said Dorothea.
“Couldn’t you put them in a hole in the wall?” said Dick. ‘“And we’ll come down and collect them.”
“If they’re addressed to Beckfoot it’s to Beckfoot I should take them,” said the postman.
“It’s just till Mrs. Blackett comes back,” said Dorothea.
Dick had gone down to the wall. “There’s a good place for letters here,” he said.
“It matters most awfully,” pleaded Dorothea.
“So she says, that young limb,” said the postman. “Well I’ll do it, but it’ll go hard with me if it all comes out. Nobbut what the letter’s for you. Nowt wrong but the address.”
“We can’t give another address,” said Dorothea. “It’s got to be secret till Mrs. Blackett comes back.”
“I’ll do it,” said the postman. “But I don’t like it. And that’s what I says to Miss Nancy. ‘And lucky it was,’ I says, ‘you didn’t hit me with that stone.’ ‘It wasn’t lucky at all,’ says she. ‘I could hit you every time if I tried, but I didn’t.’ She’s a limb, is Miss Nancy, but if it’s to save trouble for Mrs. Blackett I’ll take the risk and say nowt about it.”
“Thank you very much,” said Dorothea.
“The hole between these two stones will be the letter-box,” said Dick. “And this smaller stone will do to shut it up with when there’s a letter inside.”
The postman nodded, mounted his bicycle, and rode away.
“That letter might have spoilt everything,” said Dick.
“It’s not going to be half as easy as Nancy thought,” said Dorothea opening the letter. “We never thought of the postman.”
“And now there’s Timothy,” said Dick. “He may be charging in any minute to take us up to the mine. And he’s sure to ask for me straight off because of the work we’ve got to do in Captain Flint’s study.”
“One of them’ll be coming along soon,” said Dorothea.
“If she was coming, why didn’t Nancy keep the letter?”
“She had to let the postman see for himself that we were really here,” said Dorothea. “Let’s get a bit back from the road, so that we can dodge out of sight if there’s anyone else.”
They sat down to wait under the larches close to the place where the path climbed into the coppice. Two steps up that path and no one would be able to see them from the road.
Dorothea read her letter aloud, a pleasant cheerful letter from their mother, hoping that they would both have a happy time at Beckfoot, hoping that the new boat was ready, and that they would presently be teaching her and their father how to sail, urging them not to take risks at first, and saying that she was really rather glad that while that sensible Susan was not there to look after things they would be sleeping in a house and not miles from anywhere in tents on an island or up in the hills.
“Well, we are in a house,” said Dick.
“There’s a postscript,” said Dorothea. “Whatever you do, I’m sure you’ll try to do nothing to make Mrs. Blackett wish she had not let you come while she was away. It’s all right. Mother would have done just the same. We’ve just got to be Picts to save Mrs. Blackett from the Great Aunt. Anyway, we couldn’t say No when even Cook thought it would be better if we did.”
“I wish there was some way of reminding them about Timothy,” said Dick. “Shall I scout along towards the house?”
“No good,” said Dorothea. “One of them’s sure to be here in a minute, because of bringing the milk.”
“I’m going to look for a goldcrest,” said Dick. “Larches are always likely trees for them.”
Five minutes later he came hurrying back.
“Quick. Quick,” he whispered. “There’s someone in the wood. Coming this way.”
There was hardly time for them to get into the cover of the coppice. “Don’t move,” whispered Dick. “You can’t help making a noise on the stones … Look. I can see his legs.” Dick was crouching low, looking out below the leafy branches.
“It’s Squashy Hat himself,” said Dorothea. “It’s Timothy. Hi!”
The tall thin man hurrying through the larches stopped short as they ran out.
“Hullo!” he said.
“You mustn’t go to Beckfoot,” said Dorothea. “Or have you been?”
“You mustn’t say anything about us,” said Dick.
Dorothea was not sure whether Timothy was blushing or whether it was that he was hot. His lean face was much redder than usual.
“What’s going on at Beckfoot?” he said. “I was just turning the boat to row into the boathouse when I saw Nancy and Peggy with an ancient dame. And the clothes! I hardly knew them. The old lady didn’t see me. No more did Peggy. But Nancy did and looked scared out of her life. She waved me away down the river. So I went out round the point and
