Your Secret Friend by Gladys Mitchell

Author:Gladys Mitchell [Mitchell, Gladys]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2014-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hallowe’en

Time passed. The third week in September became the last week in October. Watched with covert interest and excitement by seven pairs of eyes, April Bounty continued, so far as her health was concerned, to flourish like the green bay tree. It was noticeable that her tongue had lost its sarcastic bite and that, from her lips, unkind nicknames had become a thing of the past, but of her immediate demise there was no sign at all. The spell, it seemed, had failed.

“Three boos for Sandra! She’s mucked up the curse,” said Gillian. “I vote we blackball her out of the gang. I’ll be the leader, if you like.”

“You?” said Sandra contemptuously. “Anyway, if anybody mucked it up, it was Veronica. She turned yellow and wouldn’t say the words or stick the pins in.”

“We’ve got to give it time,” said Connie Moosedeer. “You British are so impatient. You’re like babies. My tribe will wait for months, maybe for years, before they’ll give up and begin to think nothing is going to happen. It was a good spell, and it’s sure to work in the end.”

“If it doesn’t, we’ll try another,” said the leader, eyeing the forthcoming Gillian with dislike.

“We can’t go to that house again,” said Stephanie. “The workmen are all over it. When we were out for a ramble with Miss Betts to pick autumn leaves and berries, Mavis and I managed to sneak away up that lane and have a look. The house is being all done up and the garden’s been dug over and everything.”

Little Monkshood, in fact, was rapidly becoming ready for occupation. On the morning of the day when the school was preparing for its Hallowe’en celebrations, Alison received a letter from Timothy. She had seen nothing of him since the beginning of the term. He had divided his time between his own home and the hotel at Peterminster from which he visited Little Monkshood to see how the work was progressing, but he did not go there at week-ends, during which work stopped. He wrote:

“Glad to be able to tell you—although I daresay you may have noticed it for yourself—that Little Monkshood will be ready if you’d care to move in before Christmas. The house has been wired for electricity and piped water is laid on. We’ve done much better than I expected, and I do hope you’ll like the place when it’s finished. Don’t be afraid to complain to us if you find anything that doesn’t please you, so it might be an idea to go along at any time now to give the alterations the once-over and see what you think.

“You’ll find the undercroft very cold, but we’ve kept coal fires going in the solar and the second chamber, so those should be all right, but if you prefer not to move in until the spring it might be more comfortable for you. Anyway, I’ve left you a couple of electric fires which you can switch on when you go to look things over.

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