The Cat’s Eye Shell (7 page)

She did not say a word to the boys, who were busy examining John's experiments. Luka looked as if he would have been happy to stay in the laboratory all day, but Emilia had had enough. Rollo, as if sensing her thoughts, got up and went to scratch at the door, whining.

‘I need to take Rollo out,' she said. ‘He must be bursting! Is it all right if we go out into the garden?'

‘Come on, I'll take you out the back way,' John said. ‘We'll go out onto the Downs, we'll be out of sight there. Here, I'll grab my old telescope. It's only little. We'll see if we can spot some hawks.'

He opened a drawer and pulled out a smaller black tube. Luka took it from him eagerly, putting it to his eye and shouting with excitement as the map on the opposite wall sprang towards him in sudden sharp detail. He turned this way and that, and looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor.

‘Tom, I can see right up your nose,' he exclaimed. ‘Your nose hairs are as big as tree trunks!'

‘Are not!' Tom cried and went out in a huff.

Luka laughed and followed him, the telescope still to his eye, John guiding him by his shoulders so he did not bump into anything. Emilia,
following along behind, put her hand down through the slit in her pocket and fingered the little bump hidden in her purse, wondering and wishing.

F
IRLE
P
LACE
, E
AST
S
USSEX
, E
NGLAND
23rd August 1658

T
hat night, when all was dark, Emilia slipped out of bed and went to the door, her bare feet making no sound on the soft carpet. Rollo followed her, his tail wagging against her legs. She opened the bedroom door and looked up and down the hall, then quietly went down the stairs and through the silent, sleeping house till she came to the door where they had first entered the house. It was locked, but Emilia had seen where
Lady Mary had hidden the key and it was the work of a moment to unlock the door and step out into the night garden.

The air was soft and warm, and smelt of the lilies growing in pots on the patio. Emilia wandered under the trees, the grass soft under her feet, enjoying the silence and the stillness. She quite liked John, but he never stopped talking, and never sat still for more than a moment.

It was not only John's relentless energy that had driven Emilia out into the night garden. She found the soft luxury of the house stifling. Everything was so fine and precious, she dared not touch anything, and she was constantly catching Rollo's tail to stop him smashing a piece of fine china or knocking over a lantern. Emilia was not used to big, grand houses. They made her feel clumsy and out of place, and she much preferred the quiet, dark garden, and the heathery smell of the wind off the Downs.

‘Maybe I could bring a pillow and blanket out here and sleep under the stars,' she said to Rollo, lying under a big beech tree and gazing up at the night sky. Rollo beat his tail gently against the ground, and put his head on her lap. ‘I suppose I shouldn't leave the house all unlocked, though,' she said with a yawn. ‘Just a few more minutes and I'll go in.'

It was so comfortable under the tree, though, that Emilia must have slipped into sleep. She woke some hours later, feeling cold and stiff, and sat up, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

‘Better go in,' Emilia said to Rollo, and got up, stretching her arms high over her head, then making her way back to the dark, sleeping house. A flash of light made her pause. She stood still, staring at the house, and saw the flash come again. Someone was signalling from an upstairs window with a lantern, opening and closing its shutter rhythmically. Flash, flash, flash, went the light, on and on and on.

Emilia tried to fix in her head which window the light was appearing in. Why would someone be signalling? Who were they signalling to? Surely it was dangerous to draw such attention to the house when the Duke of Ormonde was hiding there? Worried and upset, she crept back inside and went up the stairs, Rollo pressed close to her legs. A stair creaked under her foot, and she froze, but nobody stirred. She went along the corridor, bending and looking through every keyhole or under the door, looking for a clue as to which room the light was in, but all was dark.

She hesitated in the corridor for a moment, not knowing what to do. She had to tell the duke, she knew, but the house was so peaceful, and she was shy of rousing him. In the end, she woke Luka and he was alarmed enough to kindle a lantern and go to the duke's room straightaway.

‘Someone was signalling!' the duke exclaimed when Emilia told him what she had seen. ‘You're
sure? There must be a traitor in our midst! Nat! Nat! Wake up! We must get on the road at once.'

For the next ten minutes there was wild confusion as everyone got dressed and threw their belongings together. Father Plummer had dragged his robe on askew, and his short hair stuck up everywhere, but he was the first one ready and chivvied Nat along mercilessly as the duke's servant methodically folded and packed all the duke's fine silk shirts.

‘He won't care if his shirts are crushed in the Tower of London, my good fellow!' Father Plummer cried. ‘Just throw them in any old how, and let us be on our way!'

Lady Mary was very unhappy at the idea someone in her household had betrayed them. ‘But nobody knows that you are here except Simon and dear old Nellie, who's as faithful as they come,' she protested. ‘And it can't have been Simon, he has his own cottage near the gatehouse.'

‘What of this Nellie?' the duke demanded.

‘I'd stake my life on her faithfulness,' Lady Mary cried.

John said stoutly, ‘Nellie is mad about the king, sir, she is always talking about the good old days and how the country's gone to rack and ruin since Old Ironsides took over. Why, she even has a handkerchief dipped in King Charles the Martyr's blood!'

This made Emilia feel quite queasy. ‘You mean the old king, whose head was cut off?'

‘Aye. She and her sister went up to London to see the beheading, and they mopped their handkerchiefs into his blood after it was done.'

‘Your cook went to see the king beheaded?' Tom was revolted.

‘They wanted to show him at least someone in the crowd would weep at his passing.'

‘That's so sad,' Emilia said.

‘Aye. Nellie said it was a dreadful day. She had
not really believed they would do it. The executioner was hooded, and wore a wig and a false beard, so no one would know who it was that killed the king.'

‘Very well, your Nellie may be loyal, but what of the other servants?' the duke asked impatiently.

‘They do not know – and not because I don't trust them. I would vouch my life on their faithfulness. I have, many times! If they wished to betray us, they could've, over and over again.' Lady Mary wrung her hands in distress.

‘Aye, but perhaps I'm a greater prize than you and your jewelled crosses and prayer books.'

‘Oh, I do not know! I hope it was no one in this house. How can I be sure? Of course, the servants must know that there are visitors, no matter how quiet we've kept you – but would they suspect who you really are? How could they?' Lady Mary turned to her son in her distress, and he comforted her, though his face was white with shock.

‘Perhaps the very fact we kept ourselves so quiet raised their suspicions, who can tell?' The duke turned to Nat. ‘We must be on our way at once. The soldiers could be here any minute!'

Nat nodded and heaved the duke's bag onto his shoulder.

‘Are you ready?' the duke asked the children, and they nodded, feeling frightened. ‘Good. Then let us go!'

Father Plummer led the way down the stairs in a rush. One by one they ran from the side door and into the shrubbery, keeping low. Emilia could see nothing in the early morning mist, but John went with them, to show them the way to a hiding place in the wood at the far end of the property. For once he was quiet and solemn, much to Emilia's relief. Her heart was hammering so loud she thought the others must hear it.

She glanced back at the house. The windows were still dark, but smoke drifted from the kitchen
chimney, and somewhere a rooster was crowing. Firle Beacon rose high against the brightening sky, like the humped shoulder of a sleeping giant. As the small party hurried through the little gate at the end of the garden, they heard the sound of horses' hooves drumming along the drive. John turned a white, scared face back towards them, and led them at a run into the wood.

They tramped through the trees, bending double to squeeze through the undergrowth, until they reached the road again. Here the land dipped, and there was a little section of road that was hidden from view, filled with mist like a cup overflowing with milk. Emilia, Luka, Tom, the Duke of Ormonde, Father Plummer and Nat each found a bush or tree to hide behind. Everyone was very afraid.

‘No one will betray you, my lord,' John said to the duke. ‘I promise you that. Wait here and Simon will bring the cart for you and take you to the coast as planned.'

The Duke of Ormonde nodded, his jaw set hard with tension.

John bent and whispered to Luka and Emilia, crouched together under an alder bush, ‘I might be seeing you two later, all right? But if I don't, well, good luck! I hope you get your family out of prison.'

‘Bye, John!' Luka said. ‘It was grand meeting you. I hope you get to invent something one day.'

John nodded and grinned, then bent and pushed something into Luka's hand. ‘Hope it helps,' he whispered, and then he turned and disappeared into the woods. With shining eyes, Luka held out his hand so Emilia could see what he held. It was the little telescope.

About an hour later, when the sun was up and the mist dissolved, a cart came trundling down the road, driven by Simon the gardener with plump Nellie the cook up on the seat beside him. The cart stopped in the little dip, and at once the six companions went running out and scrambled up
into the back, Emilia dragging Rollo up behind her, his sharp claws scratching her legs. It was a large cart, and laden with barrels and sacks and baskets, but Simon had arranged them all so that there was quite a large space in the middle, covered by a canvas tarpaulin. They were all able to squeeze in and drag the tarpaulin over their heads, though they were uncomfortably squashed.

Simon clicked his tongue and slapped the reins on the rumps of the two big, dapple-grey carthorses so that they began to haul the cart along again.

‘I don't know what those soldiers were doing, rampaging through the whole house this morning at the crack of dawn, and turning everything upside down,' Nellie said in an unnecessarily loud voice. ‘Ill-mannered louts! Lucky all was in order. My poor lady has had enough grief in her life without being turned out of her bed in her nightgown.'

The fugitives hiding in the cart all exchanged quick glances.

‘They weren't too pleased to find young Master John hiding in the cart, were they, Simon?' she went on. ‘If Lady Mary had not been so obviously upset and angry with him, I think they would have suspected her of trying to smuggle him out of the country. Poor lad! Why shouldn't he go to market if he wants? A boy deserves a bit of fun every now and again.'

Emilia and Luka glanced at each other, grinning. They were not at all surprised at this piece of news.

The cart rattled on, turning onto the main highway. Emilia wriggled about a bit until she could get her eye to a gap in the barrels, eager to see where they were going. She saw the Downs, high and green on her right, rolling down to lush squares of fields and meadows, separated by neat hedgerows and the occasional stone wall. The road dipped down to a valley and they crossed a bridge over the Cuckmere River, and then, some
time later, passed the huge white figure of a man carved into the steep hillside, a long stick in either hand. This, Nellie informed Simon, was the Long Man of Wilmington.

‘When I was a lass, my granny told me that there was once two giants, one here on Windover Hill, and the other over on Firle Beacon. They fell out, and got to throwing stones at each other, and this one here was killed. That's where he fell, that big figure. Close on two hundred and thirty feet long, he is. My granny always insisted there used to be another figure on Firle Beacon, but I never seen him.'

‘My granny used to tell me there's a silver coffin buried under the Long Man, and a gold coffin buried under Firle Beacon, with old lords from Roman days in them,' Simon said in his slow, gruff voice, ‘but I never seen them either.'

‘Master John says there are old tombs up there from the very olden days, older even than the
Romans. He calls them “barrows” and says he's found bits of old weapons there. The nasty, dirty things that boy brings into the house! I wonder his mother lets him.'

‘Aaar,' Simon agreed, and lapsed into silence once more.

Nellie, however, talked virtually nonstop all the way to the coast. By this time, the stifling heat and the rattling of the cart had made them all feel quite sick, and they were glad to stop and get out and stretch their legs, and once their stomachs had settled, have some of Nellie's delicious ham and veal pie. Simon had drawn off the main road onto a lonely stretch of beach, where seagulls hung over the empty sea, crying sadly. After they had eaten, the children walked up onto the headland and exclaimed at the view. Before them lay the sea, blue and tranquil, stretching away to low clouds on the horizon. To the west, tall white cliffs towered all along the coast, skirted with rocky
beaches. A strong breeze blew their hair back from their faces.