The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (10 page)

‘I will wait for a few days,’ suggested Bonnie, ‘just so that Miss Slighcarp shan’t be suspicious, and then will pretend to have the toothache.’

A distant bell sounded, and James sprang up. ‘There! The old cat wants me for something and I must run. I’ll be up to the schoolroom by and by with your suppers.’ And he hastened away.

Left with Pattern, the children told her how they had discovered the secret passage leading to the schoolroom, and she Was delighted.

‘I can come up that way to dress and undress you, and take your things away for washing,’ she said. ‘What a mercy of providence!’

‘Only you must take care never to tap on the panel unless you are sure Miss Slighcarp is not in the room,’ Bonnie said chuckling.

‘In any case, let us hope it need not be for long. Dr Morne will soon settle her when you tell him what’s going on here.’

‘Hark! There’s the stable clock chiming the hour, Sylvia,’ said Bonnie. ‘I believe we should go back to the schoolroom so that presently James can come and let me out of the cupboard. It would be terrible if
Miss
Slighcarp were to accompany him and find me not there!’

During the next few weeks the children became half-accustomed to their strange new life. They hardly saw Miss Slighcarp and Mr Grimshaw, who were too busy discovering what they could make away with from Sir Willoughby’s property to have much time for the children. James and Pattern cared for them, bringing their meals and protecting them from contact with the other servants, who were a rough, untrustworthy lot. Several times the secret panel proved exceedingly useful when Miss Slighcarp approached the schoolroom on her daily visit of inspection, and Pattern, busy performing some service for the children, hastily darted through it.

There was little enough to do. They dared not be seen skating, and the snowy weather kept them near the house. But one day Prout, the under-groom, finding Bonnie crying for her pony in the empty stable, whispered to her that he had not sold the ponies, only taken them to one of the farms on the estate, and that when the weather was better they might go over there and have a ride. This news cheered Bonnie a good deal; to lose her pony, Feathers, and the new one that had been bought for Sylvia, on top of everything else, had been almost more than she could bear.

At last she decided that she could write to Dr Morne without incurring suspicion. For a whole day she went about with her face tied up in a shawl, complaining that it ached, and that evening she crept up to the attic where her little desk was hidden and
composed
a note in her best handwriting, with advice from Sylvia.

Dear Doctor,

Will you please come to see us, as we don’t think Papa would like the things that are happening here and we can’t write to him for he is on board Ship. Miss Slycarp, our wicked Governess, has dismissed all the good old Servants and is making herself into a Tyrant. She wears Mamma’s dresses and Mr Grimshaw is in League with her and they drink champagne every Day.

Yours respectfully,

BONNIE GREEN AND SYLVIA GREEN.

Alas! next morning when Bonnie gave James this carefully written note a dreadful thing happened. James had the note in his hand when he met Miss Slighcarp – who seemed to have the knack of appearing always just where she was not wanted – and her sharp eyes immediately fastened upon it.

‘What is that, James?’

‘Miss Bonnie has the toothache, ma’am. She wrote a note asking Dr Morne if he would be so kind as to send her a poultice for it.’

‘I see. There is a heavy deed-box in the library I want moved, James. Come and attend to it, please, before you deliver the note.’

Unwillingly James followed.

‘Put that note on the table,’ she said, giving Mr Grimshaw, who was in the library, a significant look as she did so.

While James was struggling to put the heavy box exactly where Miss Slighcarp required it, under a confusing rain of contradictory instructions, Mr Grimshaw quickly glanced at the direction on the note, and then, with his gift for imitating handwriting, copied the address on to a similar envelope with a blank sheet of paper inside. When James’s back was turned for an instant he very adroitly exchanged one note for the other.

‘There, then,’ said Miss Slighcarp. ‘Be off with you, sirrah, and don’t loiter on the way or stop to drink porter in the doctor’s kitchen.’

The instant James was out of the room she opened the letter, and her brow darkened as she read it.

‘This must be dealt with,’ she muttered. ‘I must dispose of these children without delay!’ And she showed the letter to Mr Grimshaw.

‘Artful little minxes!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are right! The children cannot be allowed to stay here.’

‘When can we move them? Tonight?’

He nodded.

James hurriedly saddled one of the carriage horses that remained in the stable, armed himself with a pair of pistols in the saddle-holsters and one stuck in his belt, and made off at a gallop for the residence of Dr Morne, who lived some five miles beyond the park boundary.

Unfortunately when he reached his destination it was only to discover that the doctor had been called from home on an urgent case – a fire in the town of Blastburn in which several people had been injured – and was not expected home that evening. James
dared
not linger, though he had been intending to reinforce Bonnie’s note by himself telling the doctor how bad things were at the Chase. He could only deliver the letter and come away, leaving a message with the doctor’s housekeeper imploring Dr Morne to visit Miss Bonnie as soon as possible. Then he made his way homewards. A wolf-pack picked up his trail and followed him, but his horse, its hoofs winged by fear, kept well ahead, and James discouraged the pursuit by sending a couple of balls into the midst of the wolves, who fell back and decided to look for easier prey.

The dull, dark afternoon passed slowly by. The children worked fitfully at their tasks of mending. Bonnie was no longer locked up, but Miss Slighcarp made it plain that she was still in disgrace, never speaking to her, and giving her cold and sinister looks.

The sound of a horse’s hoofs had drawn both children to the window on one occasion, when Miss Slighcarp came suddenly into the room.

‘Back to your work, young ladies,’ she said angrily. ‘Whom did you expect to see, pray?’

‘I thought – that is, we did not expect –’ Sylvia faltered. ‘It is James, returning from his errand.’

‘So!’ Miss Slighcarp gave them again that strange glance, and then left them, after commenting unfavourably upon their needlework. She returned to the library, where she rang for James and gave him orders that utterly puzzled him.

‘The carriage?’ he muttered, scratching his head. ‘What can she want the carriage for, at
such
a time?’

Dusk, and then dark, came, and bedtime drew near. The children had long since abandoned their sewing and were sitting on the hearthrug, with arms entwined, in a somewhat sorrowful silence, gazing at the glowing coals which cast their dim illumination over the bare room.

‘It is too late, I fear. Dr Morne will never come today,’ Bonnie said sighing.

There was a gentle tap on the secret panel.

‘Pattern! It is Pattern!’ said Sylvia, jumping up, and she made haste to press the spring. Pattern came bustling out with a tray on which were two silver bowls of steaming bread-and-milk, besides little dishes of candied quince and plum.

‘Here’s your supper, my lambs! Now eat that while it’s hot, and I’ll be warming your beds and night-things. Thank the good providence old Pattern’s here to see you don’t go to bed cold and starving.’

When the last spoonful was eaten she hustled them into their warm blue flannel nightgowns, and saw them tucked up in bed. ‘There, my ducks! Sweet dreams guard your rest,’ she said, and gave each a good-night hug. At this moment they heard Miss Slighcarp’s brisk heavy steps coming along the passage.

‘Lawks-a-me!’ gasped Pattern. She snatched up the tray and was through the secret door in a flash. Just as it clicked behind her Miss Slighcarp entered through the other door, carrying a lamp.

‘In bed already?’ she said. She sounded displeased. The children lay wondering what fault she could find with such praiseworthy punctuality.

‘Well, you must just get up again!’ she snapped, dumping the lamp on the dressing-table. ‘Get up, dress yourselves, and pack a valise with a change of clothing. You are going on a journey.’

A journey? The children stared at each other, aghast. They could not discuss the matter, however, as Miss Slighcarp remained in the room, sorting through their clothes and deciding what they were to take with them. Sylvia noticed that she put out only their oldest and plainest things. She herself was given none of the new clothes that Pattern had been making her, but only those made from Aunt Jane’s white curtain.

‘Wh-where are we going, Miss Slighcarp?’ she presently ventured. Bonnie had such a vehement dislike of the governess that she would never address Miss Slighcarp unless obliged to do so.

‘To school.’

‘To school? But are you not then going to teach us, ma’am?’

‘I have not the leisure,’ Miss Slighcarp said sharply. ‘The estate affairs are in such a sad tangle that it will take me all my time to straighten them. You are to go to the school of a friend of mine in Blastburn.’

‘But Mamma and Papa would never agree to such a thing!’ Bonnie burst out indignantly.

‘Whether they would or whether they would not is of no importance, young lady.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Bonnie, filled with a nameless dread.

‘Because I had a message this afternoon to say that the
Thessaly
, the ship on which your mamma and
papa
set sail, has been sunk off the coast of Spain. You are an orphan, Miss Green, like your cousin, and from now on it is I who have the sole say in your affairs. I am your guardian.’

Bonnie gave one sharp cry – ‘Papa! Mamma!’ – and then sank down, trembling, on the sofa, burying her face in her hands.

Miss Slighcarp looked at her with a strange sort of triumph, and then left the room, carrying the valise, and bidding them both be ready in five minutes.

As soon as she was gone, Bonnie sprang upright again. ‘It is not true! It can’t be! She said it just to torment me! But oh,’ she cried, ‘what if it is true, Sylvia?
Could
it be true?’

How could poor Sylvia tell? She tried to comfort Bonnie, tried to assure her that it must be lies, but all the time a dreadful doubt and fear lay in her own heart. If Bonnie’s parents were no more, then their only protectors were gone. She thought with grief of cheerful, good-hearted Sir Willoughby and kind, gentle Lady Green. To whom, now, could they turn?

Before the five minutes were more than half gone Miss Slighcarp had come back to hasten them. With a vigilant eye she escorted them down the stairs and through a postern door to the stable-yard, where the carriage was waiting, with the horses harnessed and steaming in the frosty night air.

Sleepy and shivering, they hardly had strength to protest when Mr Grimshaw, who was there, hoisted each into the carriage, and then handed up Miss Slighcarp, who sat grimly between them.

‘Well, a pleasant journey, ma’am,’ he cried gaily. ‘Mind the wolves don’t get you, ha ha!’

‘I’d like to see the wolf that would tackle me,’ snapped Miss Slighcarp, and then, to James on the box, ‘You may start, sirrah!’ They rattled out of the yard and were soon crossing the dark and snowy expanses of the park.

They had gone about a mile when they spied the lights of another carriage coming towards them. It drew to a halt as it came abreast of them.

‘’Tis the doctor, ma’am,’ said James.

‘Young ladies!’ said Miss Slighcarp sharply. They caught sight of her face by the swaying carriage light; the look on it was so forbidding that it made them shiver. ‘One word from either of you, and you’ll have me to reckon with! Remember that you are now going to a place where Miss Green of Willoughby Chase is not of the slightest consequence. You can cry all day in a coal-cellar and no one will take notice of you, if I choose that it shall be so. Hold your tongues, therefore! Not a sound from you while I speak to the doctor.’

‘Is that Miss Slighcarp?’ the doctor called.

‘Dr Morne? What brings you out at this time of night?’ She spoke with false cordiality.

‘I received a strange message, ma’am – most strange, a blank sheet of paper, and an urgent summons to the Chase. Is everybody ill? Can nobody write?’

‘Oh Doctor,’ she said, sweet as syrup, ‘I’m afraid it must be some prank of those dreadful children. They are
so
naughty and high-spirited.’ (Here she
gave
both children a fierce pinch.) ‘There is nobody ill at the Chase, Doctor. I most
deeply
regret that you should have been called out for nothing. Let me give you ten guineas instead of your usual five.’

There was a chink of coins as she leaned out of the dim coach and obscured the doctor’s view of its interior.

He rumbled, dissatisfied. ‘Very odd, very. Can’t say it’s like Bonnie to do such a thing. Must be the other little minx. Don’t care for being called out on false errands. However, very kind of you, ma’am. Say no more about it.’