“Bless you!” “Bless you!” voices said all morning long. Benny was down on his knees cleaning the carved wooden legs of the dining-room table with a soft toothbrush. Jessie was making a list in an old ledger. And Violet was dusting glass and china figurines. All morning long the dust made everyone sneeze. Meanwhile Grandfather and Henry were working outside.
“Careful! Watch that!” Sandy said every time one of the Aldens pulled something delicate from the huge built-in china closet.
The Aldens didn’t need Sandy Munson to tell them to take care. No one was better at handling fragile things than they were.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be careful,” Jessie said. She remembered Grandfather Alden’s advice. Find out what new people like to do, and you’ll make a friend. That’s just what she was going to do with Sandy Munson.
“How did you learn so much about Drummond Castle?” Jessie began in her friendliest voice. “You seem to know your way around this big place so well after such a short time.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sandy demanded.
“I’m sorry,” Jessie apologized. “I only meant …” Jessie stopped before she got into any more trouble with Sandy.
Sandy pointed to a low cabinet. “Hand me that box, please,” she ordered Benny. “It’s heavy, so watch out.”
Benny carefully pulled down a large leather-covered box. “Whew, what’s in here?” The box was heavy!
“Silverware!” Sandy snapped. “Now be careful!”
Benny was as careful as could be. He held the heavy box in his arms for Sandy to take. Yet she grabbed it so fast that it crashed to the floor. Silverware scattered all over.
“Now look what happened!” Sandy yelled. “Please leave the rest of the work in here. I’ll finish up by myself.”
Benny Alden wasn’t used to sharp voices. He bit his lip. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
Sandy took the ledger from Jessie. “I’ll do the rest.” Jessie, Violet, and Benny left the dining room quietly.
“Come on,” Jessie said. “Carrie said we should take our lunch down to the lake after we finished in the dining room. I guess Sandy thinks we’re finished.”
“A picnic would be nice,” Violet said softly. “That was a dusty job.”
The children went to their rooms for their jackets and came back down the narrow twisty staircase.
“Look,” Benny whispered when the children reached the second-floor landing. “Grandfather must be finished with his work, too. His door’s open.”
But when they entered his room, they got a surprise. Mr. Tooner was in Mr. Alden’s room, kneeling on the floor. He was trying to pry up some floorboards underneath the carpet.
Benny felt his nose twitch. “Aaaachoo!” he cried when he couldn’t keep from sneezing.
Startled, Mr. Tooner turned around. “What are you kids doing here?”
Jessie stepped forward. “We came to visit our grandfather.”
Mr. Tooner banged in the floorboard with his hammer. “Well, you can see he’s not here. He and that boy have been out on the porch trying to destroy that wisteria vine that’s older than the two of ’em put together! That’s where they are. Hmph!”
Violet was a quiet one but not when it came to her family. “My grandfather is a wonderful gardener. Why he even had a rose named after him! He would never destroy any living thing!”
Mr. Tooner looked as if he was about to apologize, but he changed his mind.
“Well, if I didn’t always have to be fixing things for all the guests that keep coming here, then maybe I could have trimmed that vine myself. Now scat!”
Jessie took Benny’s hand, then Violet’s, and the three went down to the kitchen. “I just wish people around here would let us help more,” Jessie said to Carrie.
“Help?” Carrie said. “Why you children are just in time to help me with this platter of sandwiches.”
Jessie helped Carrie put sandwiches on a big tray. “Sorry we’re so early for lunch, but Sandy told us to leave for now. She wants to finish the work in the dining room by herself.”
Carrie shook her head. “Dear, dear. I wish she wouldn’t. She means well, but she can be all thumbs around delicate things. She doesn’t listen. Well, I’d better get up there before there’s a crash. I know you children can fix yourselves a little picnic together, now can’t you?”
“We sure can!” Benny said. “Picnics are one thing we’re good at.”
After they’d gathered some lunch, the children stopped by to see how Henry and Grandfather were doing.
“The castle looks brighter already,” Violet said when she saw how many vines had been cut back.
Grandfather and Henry stood back to check their work.
“I’d like to be here in two months when this starts blooming,” Mr. Alden said. “Who votes for another trip to Drummond Castle in the summer?”
Mr. Alden was surprised that only Henry raised his hand.
“What is it, Jessie?” Henry asked. “Don’t you like working at Drummond Castle?”
Jessie nodded. “We would like working here if anyone besides Carrie would let us. Sandy thinks we’re going to break things. This morning Tom wouldn’t even let Violet take a peek at the beautiful books he discovered in the library.”
“And Mr. Tooner thinks we’re pests!” Benny said, his eyes full of surprise and hurt. “He shooed us out of your room when he was fixing broken floorboards.”
Now it was Mr. Alden’s turn to look surprised. “Broken floorboards! Why the floors in that room are as solid as rock. Caroline said it’s one of the few rooms that doesn’t need any renovation at all. I can’t imagine what Mr. Tooner was doing in there.”
“Chasing us out!” Benny said hotly.
After the children gave Mr. Alden some sandwiches, they took the steep footpath down to the lake. No one was going to stop them from having a picnic!
“Look at the pretty view,” Jessie said halfway down. “I can see why the Drummonds picked this spot to build their castle. It’s perfect.”
Indeed it was. Out in front lay a sparkling lake. Behind the children was a wall of rock and moss that would soon be full of delicate wildflowers.
“Carrie told me the first Mr. Drummond put in this railing and these steps so his children would have a shortcut to the beach,” Henry mentioned. “She said to look for a gate halfway down. The Drummonds installed it after one of their children got lost in the cave.”
“Well I’d like to get lost in there, too,” Benny said when they passed by a gate that blocked a cave entrance. “Wooo. Wooo.”
“Wooo. Wooo,” his echo said back.
“Do you suppose the violin could be hidden in there?” Violet asked, remembering the music they had heard on their walk the night before.
Henry shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s too damp to keep a valuable instrument in there. And look how rusty that lock is. Carrie said the gate has been locked since way before William Drummond died.”
Benny rattled the gate. “I sure wish there was another way to get in here.”
“I can’t decide whether to eat, or hike, or hike and eat,” Jessie said when the children reached the little lake beach.
“It’s too cold for a hike,” Benny said, “so let’s eat.”
That settled it. The children went on down to the lake. They set their picnic lunch on a flattened tree trunk lying in the sand. Benny got busy making sand chairs all around the log so they could eat at a proper table.
“This should be a restaurant when they turn the castle into a museum,” Benny said proudly.
“Or a tea shop,” Violet added.
“Or a snack bar.” Jessie handed out thick sandwiches made from Carrie’s leftover roast chicken.
When Henry finished eating, he stood up to stretch out. “Pruning is hard work. It looks so easy, but to do it right takes a long time. My arm muscles ache. From down here I can see that Grandfather and I still have plenty left to do. Look.”
Jessie looked up at the castle. For the first time, she noticed a small building set into the cliff. “Never mind the castle, Henry. Look there.”
All the children looked up to where Jessie was pointing. A pretty little stone house was built right into the side of a cliff.
“It’s almost like those Indian dwellings we saw out West,” Violet said. “Only this one is like a cottage. I wish we could go see it.”
“That must be Mr. Tooner’s cottage,” Jessie explained. “From what Carrie said, I thought it was attached to the castle. But it’s all by itself.”
“And so is Mr. Tooner,” Violet said.
A cold wind began to blow across the lake. The picnic was over. Even Benny was ready to get back to work. On the return trip up the footpath, he went right by the cave entrance. He didn’t even stop to make an echo.
Carrie was waiting in the kitchen with a clipboard. “I hope you’ve had fun. This afternoon we’re going to tackle the great hall. The Drummonds held banquets and dances in there,” Carrie told the children. “Now the room isn’t used, but somebody … well, I’d like to see it filled with guests again. But first we need to fix it up.”
Violet wasn’t keen on this plan. The great hall was full of big white shapes that looked like ghost chairs and ghost tables. She didn’t even like to walk by that room. In fact, when she walked in, Violet thought she saw a sheet-covered chair move.
A minute later, she felt very silly when Carrie began to pull back the draperies and open the windows for fresh air. The room began to look more normal. Carrie removed the dust sheets from a few pieces of furniture.
“Now look at this beautiful sofa,” Carrie said. “Try it out, Benny. You too, Violet.”
Violet and Benny sat themselves on opposite sides of a fancy S-shaped curved sofa. The seats were placed so that the two Aldens were nearly face to face.
“It’s called a conversational sofa. This is how young ladies and gentlemen socialized in the old days,” Carrie said. “Between dances a young lady and a young man might chat with each other while sitting on this sofa.”
With that, Benny bolted from the funny-shaped sofa. No one would catch him talking to a girl at a dance!
Henry came in with a box of cleaning supplies.
Carrie looked around the room. “You know, I think for this afternoon, we should just work on polishing up the woodwork. Let’s leave the rest of the dust cloths on the furniture for now.”
The children set to work. The boys began on the wood trim around the windows and doorways. Henry was tall and could polish the high door frames and the tops of the cabinets. Benny was just the right height to reach down and dust off everything that was low.
Carrie and the girls rolled up their sleeves. They removed the dust covers from two large oak tables and several small tables. There was plenty to do.
When the afternoon light began to fade, Carrie put down her polishing rag. “Whew, we got quite a bit done. We can finish in here tomorrow.”
“And maybe we can clean those tall windows,” Jessie added. “This room would be much brighter if the windows weren’t so dusty.”
“That sounds like a good plan, Jessie,” Carrie said. “Now I want you children to take the rest of the afternoon off. You’ve done plenty of work for one day.”
Benny put down the feather duster. “Do you think we could start looking for the violin in here, Carrie?”
Carrie smiled. “I don’t see why not! Of course, Mr. Tooner said he made a complete search of every nook and cranny in the castle. But the poor man has so much else to do, I can’t imagine he checked everywhere.”
“I hope not,” Benny said. “I mean to find that violin myself!”
Benny Alden didn’t waste any time. He opened every cabinet and looked inside every bookcase. He gently tugged on each painting. Maybe there was a secret safe hidden behind one of them!
“Nuts!” he said when he was almost through. “There are no good hiding places in here, Carrie.”
But Benny was wrong. There was at least one very good hiding place in the great hall. Under a dust sheet covering a big chair, which Benny hadn’t thought to check, sat someone who had been listening to every word. |