Page 82 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘Allhelp would be gratefully received,’ Benji says. ‘It has to be here somewhere and we must find it.’
‘Ace!’ we hear called from the other side of the office door. ‘A treasure hunt. Count me in!’
I open the door and find Tiffany standing the other side of it.
‘I bet no one’s ever called you subtle, have they, Tiffany?’ I ask her, smiling.
‘Don’t be daft, miss,’ Tiffany says, grinning. ‘That’s me middle name!’
The four of us spend the rest of the day looking for the missing diary.
It’s bad enough when you lose something in a normal-sized house, but in a castle, it’s truly like looking for a needle in a very large haystack!
‘It’s impossible,’ I say, when we meet up in the kitchen at lunch-time for some refreshment. ‘It could be anywhere. It’s definitely not in any of the rooms I cleared of junk.’
‘I’ve searched through the office, too, and all the surrounding rooms we keep any paperwork in,’ Tiffany says. ‘There’s nothing like that anywhere.’
‘Why do you think this particular diary wasn’t kept with the others you found?’ Tom asks. ‘Do you think it was removed on purpose?’
We all look at Benji.
‘If what I think is written in there, actually is, then I’m pretty sure it would have been removed immediately if someone read it.’
‘You’re going to have to tell us eventually, Benji,’ I implore him. ‘Perhaps it might help us to find it?’
Benji sighs. ‘All right, but you have to keep it to yourselves for now, okay? Just in case I’m wrong.’
We all nod keenly.
‘You’ve read most of Clara’s diaries, haven’t you, Amelia?’ Benji says, looking at me. ‘What did you think?’
‘Er . . . she was misunderstood,’ I say, thinking about the content of the diaries. ‘The reputation that she had wasn’t really justified if the diaries are a true reflection of her life.’
‘Go on,’ Benji says.
‘For instance, I was led to believe that she sold important items from the Chesterford family’s collection to cover her gambling debts, and yet her diaries suggest she sold them to pay the castle staff, because there was no money to pay anything when her husband died. He was the one who had gambled it all away. Clara turned to gambling to try to recoup some of the losses, so the castle could continue to run as a family home.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ Tiffany says. ‘I’ve only ever heard the first version; it was told to me when I came to work here.’
‘Exactly,’ Benji says. ‘That story has been embellished over the years so that now Clara has the reputation of being this Edwardian party girl, when really it seems she might just have been doing what was needed to keep her family home from crumbling around her.’
I know how that feels.
‘But that still doesn’t explain what you think is in this missing diary,’ Tom says. ‘What is it, proof that her reputation was unjustified, or something else?’ He glances at me, and I know what he’s thinking. Does the missing diary have some proof of Clara’s sexuality?
But if it does, why would Benji be so worried about it? And why would it matter so much if she was gay?
But Benji shakes his head. ‘If it were only that. No, the last diary before the one we’re looking for talks about a secret, and I quote . . . ’ Benji reaches for a small notebook from his pocket. ‘“A secret so big that if anyone found out it would ruin not only my reputation, but the reputation of all Chesterfords for evermore . . . ”’
Perhaps it was her sexuality, after all?
‘Ooh,’ Tiffany says, her eyes wide. ‘I wonder what it is.’
‘You wonder what what is?’ Dorothy comes bustling into the kitchen. ‘What are you lot doing here – are you all wanting lunch? I can knock up some sandwiches if you’re hungry. There’s some cold chicken and salad left from last night’s dinner if anyone’s interested?’
‘What do you reckon this secret is, then?’ Tom asks me as we search for the diary again that afternoon.
We’d all sat and had lunch in the kitchen with Dorothy, being careful not to say anything about what we were doing. Then we’d all split up again and Tom and I had been sent to look for the missing diary in some of the state rooms around the castle.
