Page 115 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘But now I also have good reason to believe that that heir might already be here at the castle. So the thing I’m wondering is . . . ’
‘Yes?’ Arthur prompts when I don’t finish my sentence.
‘The thing I’m wondering is, Arthur, areyouthe true heir to the castle? Should it be you that becomes the new Earl of Chesterford?’
Forty-three
‘Me?’ Arthur splutters, putting his tea down on the table in front of us in case he spills it. ‘Why would you think I’m the missing heir?’
‘Because you were so keen to hide everything from me,’ I explain. ‘I know you were the person who locked everything away in the cellar, and we know that some of Clara’s things had only recently been rewrapped. Because you were so annoyed at finding us down there, I put two and two together.’
‘And got five,’ Arthur says.
I can’t really tell if he’s amused or cross. His face is difficult to read right now.
‘Why were you so annoyed at finding us there if you didn’t have anything to hide?’
‘I didn’t say I didn’t have anything to hide,’ Arthur says cryptically. ‘I said I wasn’t the missing heir.’
‘Right . . . I think you’d better explain.’
Arthur takes a sip of his tea before continuing. ‘I’ve known about Clara’s diaries for a long time,’ he says. ‘Her missing diary has been locked away in the castle since Clara herself first hid it – afraid that someone might read what she’d written and tell her secret.’
‘But why didn’t she simply destroy it, if she didn’t want anyone to know what was in there?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine – perhaps secretly she wanted someone to discover it one day? So that the true Chesterford lineage could be revealed. If the secret had died with Clara, then no one would ever have known.’
‘You might be right there. So how long have you known about all this?’
‘As much as I hate to speak ill of the dead,’ Arthur admits, ‘when the last Earl was in his later years, he wasn’t really the best at running the place. He was what Dorothy would call scatter-brained. So I sort of took over all the duties usually performed by the Earl, and he seemed to prefer it that way. I was his right-hand man, and that meant I got the keys to everywhere in the castle. As you’ve seen, over the years things had built up, there was junk everywhere, no administration and seemingly no systems for anything really. It’s a wonder the place had lasted as long as it had. You might not have thought we were very organised when you arrived, but compared to what I took on it was super-efficient, I can tell you.’
‘I’ve never said you weren’t organised, Arthur; far from it. I just thought we could modernise things a bit, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I understand that now . . . ’ Arthur drifts and appears to be thinking about something.
‘Arthur, the diary?’ I remind him.
‘Oh, yes, sorry. So one day I was attempting to sort through some old files and I discovered, like you did, the diaries – and just like you a missing diary, too. It didn’t take me all that long to work out the clues Clara had left to find the whereabouts of the missing diary. Back then it was simply kept locked in a drawer of her old bureau – you know the one in the painting?’
‘Yes, I know the one; Joey has it now in his room. How did he get that, anyway?’
Arthur shakes his head. ‘I have no idea. He must have asked the Earl for it. It wasn’t on show or anything in any of the state rooms. It was simply upstairs with all the other junk. But after I discovered the locked box hidden in the bureau, I knew it had to contain the diary. Unlike you, I couldn’t find the original key. I would never have looked on that mangy old dog, so I . . . ’ Arthur looks embarrassed.
‘What? What did you do, Arthur?’
‘I’m afraid to say I picked the lock.’
‘Arthur,’ I exclaim, pretending to be shocked, ‘you didn’t?’
‘I did. It’s not something I’m proud of – picking that lock, or even knowing how to. A lad showed me how to do it down the pub one day when I was much, much younger, and I’ve never forgotten. I’d never used it, mind, until that day, but I had to know what was inside the box, and of course when I read the diary I knew I had to hide it away so no one else would discover it. So I took the box and hid it somewhere a lot safer than an old desk – down in the cellar with a lot of Clara’s other possessions. I thought no one would ever go looking down in a dirty dark cellar for it, and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to piece together all the clues without the other diaries to help them, so I hid those diaries too – up in those disused rooms, thinking no one would ever go looking up there for anything amongst all that junk.’
‘Until I started nosing around, that is,’ I say. ‘I bet you hated me trying to sort everything out upstairs.’
‘I was a bit panicky, yes; but I thought you’d probably get bored before you found more than one of those diaries, so I didn’t worry too much. Little did I know you’d find the whole flipping set!’
‘I know; I think I might have had a bit of help with that, though . . . Anyway, carry on with your story, Arthur.’
‘So to begin with, yes, I was a bit annoyed that you were poking your nose in and trying to change things here – not just because of the diaries, but because I didn’t think anything needed to change,’ Arthur admits. ‘I couldn’t see the point to all these modifications and new ideas, but then a different Chesterford began to emerge. I could see it becoming a happier place to live, and the people inside it were becoming happier too, and that is all thanks to you and young Charlie. I might sound like a mad old fool, but you’ve made this castle happy again, Amelia, and I don’t think it’s been happy for a very long time.’
