The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (14 page)

With great reluctance Emma locked the door again. Instantly Bonnie flung off her brown overall and hustled on her boy’s clothes, which felt very thick and strange, but comfortable.

‘Oh, how funny I must look! I wish we could see ourselves. Here, Sylvia, I saved a piece of cheese for you. Try to eat it. It will give you some strength. We must take our aprons with us. It won’t do to leave them behind, or they will guess that we have got other clothes and may be in disguise.’ She bundled them up and tucked them in her capacious pockets.

‘Now for the key!’

Just for one awful moment it seemed as if the somewhat roughly-made key would not open the outer door. However, wrapping a fold of her jacket over it and wrenching it with both hands, Bonnie got it round, and raised the flap. A gust of snowflakes blew into her face. ‘Good, it’s snowing, so much the better. We shan’t leave any footprints. Now, Sylvia, you had better have my coat as well as your own.’ She buttoned it on to her cousin, who was really too ill and weak to make any objection, and half-pulled, half-hoisted her up the slope down which the coal was poured. Then, swiftly, she re-locked the door, put the key in her pocket, and urged Sylvia towards the gate with an arm round her shoulders.

‘We can hide in a laurel bush,’ she whispered. ‘There’s a thick one beside the front railings. Then if Mrs Brisket or Diana should come back, they won’t see us. I can hear the town clock striking ten – Simon should be here at any moment.’

And indeed, as they reached the railings, they heard his voice whispering, ‘Miss Bonnie? Miss Sylvia? Is that you?’

‘Yes, it’s us!’ Bonnie called back quietly, and ran to open the gate.

9

‘SYLVIA’S ILL!’ BONNIE
muttered to Simon as soon as they were outside the gate. ‘She can hardly walk! I think we shall have to carry her.’

‘No, she can go in the cart,’ Simon whispered back, and then Bonnie saw that he had with him a beautiful little cart, drawn by a donkey.

Her eyes lit up with delight. ‘Why, it’s the very thing! Isn’t it the one from Willoughby that we use for picnics –’

‘Hush. Yes!’ whispered Simon. ‘Let’s get away quick, and then I’ll explain.’

Between them they lifted the trembling, shivering Sylvia into the cart. She gave a little protesting moan as she came into contact with something soft that seemed alive.

‘What is it?’ breathed Bonnie.

‘The geese! They won’t hurt her. There are quilts and mattresses underneath.’

Swiftly and skilfully Simon disposed Sylvia in the cart, on a warm mattress, covered with several quilts. Thirty sleepy, grumbling geese were pushed unceremoniously to one side and then, when Sylvia
was
settled, allowed to perch all over and round her until only her face was showing.

‘There! They’ll keep her famously warm.’

And in fact the warmth of the mattress and quilts and the soft feathery bodies on top was such that in two minutes Sylvia was in a deep sleep, and never even felt the cart begin to move.

‘Will you ride too, Miss Bonnie?’

‘No, I’ll walk at the head with you, Simon.’

‘Let’s be off, then.’

They hastened away. Simon had tied rags round the wheels and they went silently over the cobbled road. The only sound was the tippety-tap of the donkey’s feet.

When they had turned several corners, and put several streets between them and Mrs Brisket’s school, both Simon and Bonnie breathed more freely.

‘No one will remark us now,’ said Bonnie, as they passed into a wide, naphtha-lighted street in the middle of the town, where, although it was nearly midnight, trams still clanged up and down, and pit and factory workers trudged to and fro in their clogs.

‘Certainly no one would take you for Miss Bonnie Green,’ said Simon, chuckling. ‘You make a proper boy in those things, haircut and all. Here, I brought these for you.’ He turned, sank an arm into the cart and rummaged among the geese, and brought out two sheep’s-wool-lined caps, one of which he carefully placed over Sylvia’s sleeping head. The other he gave to Bonnie, who gratefully pulled it on, for the snow was now falling thick and fast.

‘Miss Pattern made them for you; they weren’t finished in time to leave with the other things.’

‘Pattern? Oh, did she make the clothes?’

‘Yes, she did, when she heard I was going to help you, and James found the donkey and cart – Miss Slighcarp was going to have sold them, but James told her they belonged to parson and hid them away. I reckoned it would be just the thing for our journey. And Miss Pattern gave me a saucepan and a fry-pan and some cups and plates and a great pie – they’re all in the back, under the seat. We’ll have a bite to eat presently – I dare say you’re clemmed, Miss Bonnie – but not till we’re out of the town.’

‘Where is Pattern?’ asked Bonnie.

‘She’s gone back to live with her mother at the lodge. She sent her dear love but didn’t dare ask you to call in, for Miss Slighcarp passes there every day and there’s only the one room, as you know. If there’s a search for you they’d be bound to go there. It’s best Pattern should not have seen you.’

‘And is James still at the house?’

‘Yes. He gave me the guineas to put in your pockets out of his wages – and gracious knows they’re little enough now.’

‘I’ve spent mine already, Simon,’ confessed Bonnie, and told what she had done.

Simon shook his head at her, but all he said was, ‘’Twas like you, Miss Bonnie.’

‘Simon, it’s ridiculous to go on calling me miss. Just call me plain Bonnie.’

Simon grinned, but answered indirectly, ‘Have you
got
that coal-cellar key with you? Here’s a good place to get rid of it.’

They were crossing the bridge over the wide river, with its busy traffic of coal barges and wool wherries. When Bonnie produced the key and the two overalls, he made them into a bundle with a bit of string, weighted it with a cobble, and threw the whole thing into the river. Then they went on with light hearts.

The town presently gave way to country. Not much could be seen in the dark, but Bonnie caught dim glimpses of snow-covered slag-heaps, with here and there a great pit-wheel or chimney. Then they passed fields, enclosed in dry-stone walls. After a while they were climbing up a long, slow ascent, the beginning of the wolds.

‘You’d best have a bit of a sleep now,’ Simon suggested to Bonnie after a couple of hours had passed. ‘We’re safe away, and ’twill be morning by and by.’

‘What about the wolves, though?’ Bonnie said. ‘Shan’t we be in danger from them? I’d better help you keep a look-out. Have you brought a gun?’

‘Ay, I’ve my bow, and James gave me your fowling-piece. It’s in the cart. But I doubt we’ll not be troubled by wolves; it’s turned March now, and with spring coming they’ll be moving farther north. We’re not likely to see any of them once we’re over Great Whinside.’

‘What shall we do about Sylvia, Simon? She ought to stop somewhere till she’s well enough for the journey.’

‘I’ve been thinking that, and I know the very place. We’ll reach it about six in the morning. You get in the cart and have a nap now.’

‘All right, I will,’ said Bonnie, who was beginning to be very sleepy, ‘if you’re sure the donkey can stand the load.’ She patted the donkey’s nose.

‘Caroline’s pulled heavier loads than that.’

So the cart was halted, and Bonnie, carefully, so as not to wake Sylvia, scrambled in and made a nest for herself among the feather quilts and the warm, drowsy geese. Soon she, too, was asleep.

When Bonnie woke she lay wondering for a moment where she was. There was no clanging bell, no complaining voices, and instead of shivering under her one thin blanket she was deliciously comfortable and warm.

A cool breeze blew over her face, the cart jolted, and then she remembered what had been happening and said softly, ‘Simon?’

His voice came from somewhere in front. ‘Yes?’

‘Stop the cart a moment, I want to get out.’

‘Not worth it,’ he said. ‘We’re nearly there.’

Bonnie wriggled to a sitting position and looked about her. The sky was still mostly dark, but daylight was slowly growing in the east. Thin fronds of green and lemon-yellow were beginning to uncurl among masses of inky cloud. When Bonnie looked back she could see that they had come over a great ridge of hills, whose tops were still lost in the blackness of the sky to the north. Ahead of them was a little dale, and loops of the white road were visible leading down to it over rolling folds of moor. A tremendous hush lay
over the whole countryside. Even the birds were not awake yet.

‘That’s where we’ll have our breakfast.’ Simon pointed ahead. ‘That’s Herondale. We’re way off the main road now. No one’s likely to come looking for us here.’

He began to whistle a soft tune as he walked, and Bonnie, curling up even more snugly, watched in great contentment as the lemon-yellow sky changed to orange and then to red, and presently the sun burst up in a blaze of gold.

‘Simon.’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s no snow here.’

‘Often it’s like that,’ he said nodding. ‘We’ve left snow t’other side of Whinside. Down in Herondale it’ll be warm.’

Presently they came to the last steep descent into the valley, and Simon then allowed Bonnie to get out of the cart while he adjusted the drag on the wheels to stop it running downhill too fast. All this time Sylvia slept. She stirred a little as they reached the foot of the hill and walked through a fringe of rowan trees into a tiny village consisting of three or four cottages round a green, with a couple of outlying farms.

‘We’ll go to the forge,’ said Simon, and led the donkey across the green to a low building under a great walnut tree.

Bonnie fell back and walked beside the cart, smiling at Sylvia’s puzzled, sleepy face. The geese were beginning to stir and stretch their long necks, and at first sight of them Sylvia looked slightly alarmed, but when she saw Bonnie she smiled too, and shut her eyes again.

‘Smith’s up,’ said Simon. A thread of smoke dribbled from the forge chimney, and they could see a red glow over the stable-door in front, while the noise of bellows came in a regular wheezing roar.

Simon called over the forge door.

‘Mr Wilderness!’

The roaring stopped and there was a clink. Then a face appeared over the half door and the smith came out. He was an immensely tall man, wearing a blackened leather apron. Bonnie couldn’t help smiling, he looked so like a large, gentle, white-haired lion, with a pair of dark eyes like those of a
collie
dog, half-hidden by the locks of white hair that fell over his forehead.

‘Eh, it’s you, Simon me boy? What road can I help you?’

‘Caroline’s loosed a shoe,’ said Simon, patting the donkey, ‘and as well as that we’d like your advice about the little lass here. She’s not well.’

‘Childer come afore donkeys,’ Mr Wilderness said. He moved over beside the cart and looked down at Sylvia’s face among the geese. ‘Eh, a pretty little fair lass she be. What’s amiss with her?’

‘She’s got a cough and a sore throat and a fever,’ explained Bonnie.

The smith gazed at Bonnie wide-eyed.

‘And th’art another of ’em, bless me! Who’d ha’ thought it? I took thee for a boy in that rig. Well, she’s sleeping fair in a goosefeather bed, tha can’t better that. Are they goosefeathers?’ he said to Simon.

‘Stuffed the quilts and mattresses myself,’ said Simon nodding, ‘My own geese.’

‘Champion! Goose grease for chilblains, goosefeathers for a chill. We’ll leave her in the cart.’

‘Shouldn’t she be put to bed?’ Bonnie said doubtfully.

‘Nay, where, lass? I’ve only the forge and the kitchen, where I sleep mysen. Nay, we’ll put her, cart and all, in the shippen, she’ll be gradely there.’

He led them round the corner of the forge and showed them how to back the cart into a big barn with double doors on each side. When he opened these, sunlight poured into the place and revealed that it was half-f of hay, and lined along the walls
with
lambing pens made from hurdles. A tremendous baaing and bleating came from these and, walking along, Bonnie saw with delight that each pen contained a sheep and one, two, or three lambs.

‘There’s nought like lying wi’ sheep two-three days for a chesty cough,’ pronounced Mr Wilderness. ‘The breath of sheep has a powerful virtue in it. That and a brew of my cherry-bark syrup with maybe a spoonful of honey in it, and a plateful or two of good porridge, will set her to rights better than the grandest doctor in the kingdom. Put her in the sun there, lad. When sun gets round we can open t’other doors and let him in that side. Now for a bite o’ breakfast. I’m fair clemmed, and happen you’ll be the same, if you’ve walked all the way fro’ Blastburn.’

‘We’ve a pie and some victuals,’ Simon said.

‘Nay, lad, save thy pie for later. Porridge is on the forge fire this minute, and what’s better nor that?’

The geese had climbed and fluttered out of the cart, and were busy foraging in the hay. Bonnie, after making sure that Sylvia was well covered and had gone back to sleep, was glad to come into the smith’s clean little kitchen, which opened off the smithy and was as warm as an oven. They sat down at a table covered with a checked red-and-white cloth.