The Captain's Daughter by Minnie Simpson Read Free Book Online Page B

back into the
trap. Amy was about to join her sister when her curiosity got the better of
her.
    “Wait here Emma. I’m going to take
a quick look around the house.”
    From previous snooping, which had
generally been justified by some tortured excuse, she knew that at the back of
the house was a walled garden. This was unusual for a country house where it
seemed quite unnecessary unlike its city companions.
    As she sneaked towards the wall at
the back end of the house she heard the sound of digging. Peeking through the
broad slit between the wall and the edge of the solid gate she could see a
garden that had not been well tended. This was likely because the house had
been closed for a while and was just recently being occupied again.
    When she moved sideways her narrow
vertical view of the garden changed. Suddenly she saw three men. Two were
standing beside what appeared to be an open trench. One of the men was dressed
in clothing similar to that of a clerk. The other man standing next to the
trench was wearing rough clothing such as a gardener might wear. The man
digging in the trench, who was bent over as he shoveled dirt out of the trench,
was also wearing peasant clothing.
    She had hoped at first that Ben
might be there because that would explain why he was not available to respond
to her request, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then she realized as she studied
the trio that the man digging in the trench was Ben.
    She was deeply puzzled why Sir
Benjamin Anstruther, Baronet, would be digging dirt while a clerk and even the
gardener looked on. It just didn’t make sense. And what was the trench. It
looked for all the world like a grave. After watching the proceedings for about
ten minutes she tiptoed away from the gate as if to hide her footsteps that no
one would hear anyway since the soft soil was cushioning her steps.
    As they headed home in the trap she
told Emma what she saw. Thoughts were whirling around in her head but they
weren’t coming in for a landing because she could think of no possible
explanation for what she had just witnessed.
    “Sorry for leaving you in the trap
for so long,” apologized Amy, “but it was a really puzzling scene.”
    “Don’t be concerned,” Emma
reassured her. “Anyway, you surely don’t think I would sit here twiddling my
thumbs while you were snooping... I mean investigating mysterious goings on at
Hillfield House. While you had your nose stuck in the gate I looked around
myself.”
    “What did you see?”
    “Nothing much. I looked through the
side window but couldn’t see anything because of the lace curtain. There was a
little table under the window and what looked like an artist’s sketchbook. As
far as I could make out there was a sketch of a horse, but that’s all I could
see. So I gave up and went back to the trap. I didn’t want to go around the
other side. I thought I better wait in the trap in case you had to make a quick
escape.”
    “Emma, you make it sound like I was
engaged in some kind of a furtive activity.”
    “Weren’t you?”
    Emma frowned and wrinkled he nose.
    “Are you sure it was Ben who was
digging the grave.”
    “He was digging a trench. I didn’t
say he was digging a grave. I said it looked like a grave.”
    “This seems like something out of a
novel by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Emma eagerly.
    “No it is not,” said Amy firmly.
“Anyway how do you even know about Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels? For that matter,
how do you even know about Ann Radcliffe? Do you pay someone to smuggle in
contraband? I saw you earlier reading that broadsheet that you tried to hide
from me.”
    “No, that’s absurd. It’s not
contraband.”
    “To mother, it most assuredly is.”
    “If you have to know, snoopy, the
paper I was reading is called Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society which is a perfectly respectable journal to read.”
    “Not to mother, because
you-are-a-girl.”
    Amy dragged out the last four words
semi-mockingly.
    “Anyway,