by Joan Aiken
“The driver needs nothing. He is well enough without,” said de la Twite shortly.
But at this the driver – who could evidently hear all they were saying – suddenly bawled out, “No, I bain’t! I’ve a thirst on me like the go-shop desert; I’d break me neck for a sup o’ drink.”
“Oh, all right, very well,” said de la Twite shortly. “The gal’s got some tansy tea; she’ll pass you the bottle.”
“Tansy tea! What sort of a jossop is that?”
But still, he accepted the stone bottle when Is handed it over the box; to her dismay, he then drained it completely.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Now there’s none for you, Mister.”
“Wouldn’t have touched the stuff anyway; tea is about as welcome as water in my shoes,” said the Leader shortly, and drank from a bottle of his own which he produced from his greatcoat pocket.
But oh, drabbit it, thought Is; now what’ll we do? If only it had been the other way round! For that driver fellow seems as thick as a plank, no sweat getting away from him; but the Leader’s quite another basket of eels. Now we’re really in the suds.
Indeed, the Leader appeared more and more alert, as they approached Blackheath Edge. He kept asking Is for directions at every crossroads, at every path or turning, almost at every tree. His eyes bored into her like drills and Is found that – entirely against her own will and convictions – she was guiding him, willy-nilly, along the tangled way through the forest to the remote and unvisited region where she and Penny had lived in their peaceful barn.
Supposing Penny’s there with Arun’s Mum, she thought desperately. How’ll we manage, what’ll we do? How could I have let this happen? How could I?
The horses were tired now, plodding along more and more slowly; or perhaps it was because the driver sat nodding, almost asleep, on his seat. The last part of the way followed a woodland ride, grassed over, where the trees crowded close to the track, so that it was just as well the pace of the chaise had dwindled to a weary walk.
Ahead of them in the dusk could now be seen a low one-storey building; and Is hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry that no light showed in the slit windows, no sound came from it, or sign of activity showed around it.
“Is this the place?” Dominic de la Twite asked, and his voice was full of scorn – and disappointment as well. “Is this your sister’s house? This shed?”
“Yes, Mister. This is it,” croaked Is, from a throat pulled tight with trouble and pain. She scrambled out, looking hopefully around the clearing for her cat Figgin. But no shadowy form came running to plunge against her legs. Nobody answered her knock on the door. No light kindled. She filled her lungs and did her best to shout, “Penny! Ho there!” loudly and cheerfully. “I’ve come home!” But nobody answered.
An owl hooted somewhere in the forest, that was all.
It was one of the worst moments that Is had ever lived through.
All of a sudden she felt a huge sympathy for Arun. Now she had an inkling of how baffled and disappointed he must have felt when they entered the damp, silent little house in Cold Shoulder Road.
Dominic de la Twite descended from the carriage and strode authoritatively to the door. He rapped on it, long and loud.
“Is anybody there?” he shouted. “Open up, if you please! Miss Twite! Mrs Twite!”
But there was no response. He rattled the latch. The door was locked.
“You, girl!” He turned on Is. “Do you have a key to this place?”
Is looked at him consideringly. Then she looked back at the carriage. Arun had climbed slowly down, and was standing staring about him, his face a white blur in the dusk. Will Fobbing, slumped on the box, his elbows on his knees, his head on his arms, could be heard snoring loudly.
“Well,” said Is after a pause, “I do have a key, as it comes about.”
Very slowly and deliberately, she drew out a ravelled piece of grubby string which had been round her neck, with a key attached to it, and pulled it over her head. De la Twite stepped forward to snatch it from her, but she neatly side-stepped him, skipped to the door, and unlocked it. The Leader followed her, almost treading on her heels, as she walked inside.
“Is there a light?” he demanded.
“Hold on a minute, Mister. Don’t be in such a pelter.” Feeling about with the ease of long habit, Is found a shelf by the door, a flint, tinder, and candle. She struck a light, kindled a flame. Light slowly grew, and showed a big, shadowed room, table and stools carved from bits of tree-trunk, shelves against the wooden walls holding pots and cups; two beds, and a few books. There were ashes in the central hearth. But these ashes were stone-cold; nobody had lit a fire here for days, weeks, perhaps months.
De la Twite, glaring about him, swore long and softly and savagely. What specially riveted his attention were two pictures hanging from nails on the wall. As he stared at those, Is moved to the table, on which there stood a saucer containing a few coins, and a scrap of paper. These things she quietly pocketed. Then she caught hold of Arun’s hand – he had followed her in, blinking and confused, moving like a sleepwalker.
“Come quickly, quickly,” she said to him in thought-speech, and pulled him out of the barn. “You can see they aren’t here. Quick – after me.”
Once outside she hastily and soundlessly relocked the door and slung the key on its string back round her neck.
While they were out of sight, Will Fobbing had climbed, or tumbled, down from the box of the chaise and now lay stretched out at full-length on the mossy turf. He snored loudly.
Let’s just hope the wolves don’t get him, thought Is, swiftly beginning to unbuckle the harness of one of the horses.
“Quick, Arun, you untie the other.”
Automatically he did as she directed. Thanks be, she thought, he’s hearing me again.
“Good! Now lep up on his back. He’ll not be resty – poor beasts, they’re both as tired as can be. But they’ll carry us a mile or two farther.”
Both horses, in fact, pleased to be free from the shafts, trotted away briskly enough out of the clearing. Is turned for another look at the place which had been her home for so long.
Now a furious banging and shouting broke out inside the barn.
He better not do too much of that, thought Is, it might attract the wolves.
Arun rode along beside Is in silence, in a kind of dream, for some considerable distance. Then he mumbled confusedly, “Where are we, Is? Where did these horses come from? Where are we going?”
“First thing we’re doing is getting away from that skellum,” said Is grimly, kicking the fat sides of her bareback mount. “Do you know what he had in the coach, under his seat? Handcuffs! And a pair of barking irons as well. What’d he want those for? When he was going to see your Mum and my sis?”
“For the wolves?” Arun suggested vaguely.
“Well – maybe! But I never heard of putting wolves in handcuffs! That man means no good. Not to us, anyway. And I believe he meant harm to your Mum.”
Arun still looked confused and only half-awake. But the fresh air, and the rhythm of the trotting horses, were helping to rouse him. After they had ridden a mile or so farther, Is began to hope that the Leader’s grim influence was wearing off.
She took a right turn, southwards, down a ride that crossed the one along which they had come.
. . . Behind them, far away in the clearing, a speck of bright fiery light began to dance among the trees.
“Where are we bound for?” Arun asked again, sleepily, after they had ridden another couple of miles.
“We’re going to a Cold Harbour,” Is told him. “There used to be one down somewhere here-along. It was southwards of where Penny and I lived, a matter of nine or ten miles.”
“What’s a Cold Harbour?” he asked, yawning.
“Oh – you know – a place where trampers and travellers can put up. A poor folk’s refuge. It’ll do for us. We can’t go back to Seagate . . . now we know your Mum ain’t there a
nyhow.” She gave a brief chuckle. “Did you see them pictures up on the wall, back in Penny’s place?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Two of ’em there was – they’d come since my time, Penny and I hadn’t no pictures when I was at home. And guess what they were! One was a picture of the Admiral – a real nimble likeness – and t’other was of old Domino Twite his own self. Didn’t I notice him take that in! He was fair pussy-struck! That was how I was able to nip out the door and lock it. And it shows your Mum musta been there with Penny, and not so long ago, neither. She and Pen musta reckoned, for some reason, that they’d best scarper off to another pad. Maybe they figured old Domino ’ud come seeking them there. After all, lots o’ folks knows Penny; she sells her dolls all over the countryside.”
“But why? I don’t understand,” Arun said helplessly. “I thought – the Leader said – he liked my Mum.”
“Hah! So he said! The way a fox likes a chicken. You’re still a bit dumfoozled, matey,” Is told her cousin kindly. “You’ll see things clearer when we’ve got ourselves well away, and had a rest, and maybe a drop o’ summat hot.”
“Hot? Here? In the middle of this great wood?”
“You’ll see. Like I told you. In the Cold Harbour. Not far now . . . I hope.”
They had been climbing, and the forest had changed from oak to beech. By this time it was full dark, and a misty moon was keeping pace with them in the sky above, visible from time to time through the branches. They crossed over a ridge, and began to descend again.
Now, ahead, a dim glow could be seen through the trees, and they smelt wood smoke. The horses pricked up their ears and went on a little faster.
“Hope there’s a bit o’ fodder for the poor brutes,” said Is. “They’ve come a perishing long way.”
The refuge, when they reached it, was a queer building, unlike any other. It stood in a small clearing of the wood, and consisted, principally, of four huge stones, three of them standing up like fingers, and the fourth one, which was big as a farm cart, balanced on the tops of the other three, forming a roof. Round this structure, more stones had been added later, in a rough wall, to make a kind of shelter.
“The place is called Pook’s Pantry,” Is told Arun. “It’s very, very old.”
A fire burned in front of the refuge. Across from it, on the far side of the clearing, grew a huge and venerable yew tree, with a trunk that ten people holding hands could hardly encircle. Its canopy of needles above was so dense and dark that it formed a roof. Another horse was already tethered under it.
“Lucky the branches is so high overhead,” said Is. “Yew leaves is downright pizen to nags . . . Hey, look, some thoughtful soul has left a bit of hay and chaff. Can you draw a pail of water from the well, Arun?”
When the horses were fed and cared for, Is and Arun went over to the fire, where six or seven people were quietly resting, or talking in low voices, or cooking their supper.
“Evening, all,” said Is politely, and received a mild rumble of greeting in return.
Branches lay piled against the stone hut. She and Arun added a few to the fire, then heated some water in a metal pot which they found by the entrance.
“I’ve a flask of rose-hip syrup, young ’uns,” offered a tall gypsy woman. “Ye can have a spoonful apiece, if ye’re so minded.”
“Thank ye kindly, missus. We’ve got dried cherries,” said Is, and offered them in exchange. They drank hot water, flavoured with rose-hip, out of wooden mugs.
Two men, who said they were sailors, paid off at Dover and walking to the Port of London, where they hoped to pick up another ship, were willing to share their rabbit stew. A bagman on his way north offered a mouthful from his bottle of grog, but this Arun and Is, remembering the Admiral’s fearsome brew, politely refused. A tinker gave them a bit of his bread and cheese, which was very good. Nobody presumed to ask any questions except an old white-haired fellow, apparently a travelling preacher, who studied them attentively in the mixed fire and moonlight, then said, slowly, “How come ye wear the clothes of the Silent Sect, at Seagate, young ’uns? Are ye runaways?”
“No, sir,” Is told him. “Our own duds was all in tatters, so a lady at Seagate gave us her boys’ things, acos they was drownded.” The old fellow seemed sincerely interested, so she went on explaining: “My cousin’s Mum used to belong to that Sect. We’re a-looking for her. Has anybody here heard tell of her, maybe? Her name’s Missus Ruth Twite.”
A thoughtful silence settled over the group round the fire.
After a while, the bagman said, “Twite. That’s an okkard kind of name. I’ve heard tell of Twite, afore now.”
“There’s a rhyme,” said the tinker. “Many knows it:
Twite smile, Twite smite
One’s wrong, one’s right
One’ll help ye with all his might
One’ll rob ye out of spite
One’s dark, one’s light
One’s day, one’s night,
One’s blessing, one’s blight
Twite smile, and Twite smite.”
After the tinker had said these lines, nobody spoke for some time. Then the tinker asked Is and Arun, “Did ye never hear that rhyme, young ’uns?”
“No,” said Arun. “I never heard it before.”
“Nor did I,” said Is. “But it sounds to me like a true rhyme. There’s bad Twites, and there’s decent ones. And the ones that’s bad, they are bad through and through. My Dad was one o’ that kind. An out-and-out no-good, he was. Though,” she added thoughtfully, “he made up some real choice tunes. But Arun’s Mum, that we’re a searching for, she sounds like a right nice lady and paints pictures that you never saw the match of.”
“So,” said the old preacher after some thought, “you two young ’uns are both Twites, eh? Cousins?”
“That’s so,” said Is.
“And are ye black Twites, or white?”
“Blest if I know!” said Is. “No one ever asked us before! But that Dominic de la Twite, him as is Leader of the Silent Sect over at Seagate, I reckon he’s a black ’un.”
“I never heard no harm of the Sect,” said the bagman. “Queer pernickety folk, they be, for sure, but they keep themselves to themselves and do no ill. Not like the Merry Gentry. Now they do harm, no question.”
“Ah! That they do,” said the tinker. “Any that threatens to split on them to the Preventives, or the Coastguards, he’ll never eat another breakfast. Let alone dinner.”
“I marvel ye dare speak so free,” said the gypsy woman. “How do ye know there ain’t somebody here as belongs to the Gentry?”
There was a short, chill silence. But then one of the sailors said, “Ah, hokum! Any cove what belonged to the Gentry, he wouldn’t be sitting here sucking rabbit bones. He’d be in the Old Maison Dieu, drinking sherry wine.”
“That’s so,” they all agreed, relieved.
A general easement set in, the sailors offered more rabbit stew all round and, when that was declined, began singing sea shanties.
Then the gypsy woman sang a sad ballad about a dear lost companion, and the tinker sang a song about three jolly huntsmen.
“Do ye know any songs, lad?” the bagman asked Arun.
“Um,” he said. And then, to the complete amazement of Is, he stood up and sang:
“If I had a bird that would bounce
or a ball that would fly
no field would be long enough
net would be strong enough
song could be sung
bell could be rung
to give voice
to our joy
my companions and I
I would toss up my bird on the wind
bounce my ball on the sky.
If I had a rope that would roll
or a wheel that would swing
no slope would be steep enough
hole would be deep enough
space could be found
on the ground
no plain to c
ontain
our wild wayfaring
all winter I’d spin on my rope
whirl my wheel in the spring!”
“Hey! Boy! That’s a sparky tune you’ve got there,” said the tinker. “Sing it again.”
Arun sang it again. It was indeed, thought Is critically, a very sparky tune, intricate and lively, half-sad, half-playful. And I ought to know, she thought, I’ve heard a plenty good-enough tunes in my time.
“When did you make that up?” she asked Arun, as the group began singing a song about a saucy sailor boy.
“Oh,” he said vaguely, “it was the first tune that ever came into my head. When I was four or five, I reckon. And I sang it to my Dad, and he was shocked to death. Told me I was cutting a hole in the Holy Silence. So I never sang him any of the others.”
“Are there lots of others?”
“Of course. A fair few.”
And indeed, when asked for more, he sang, very simply, without shyness or pride, four or five others, one about tales of whales and snails, one about the hedgehog in his prickly vest, one about a soldier with a hole in his sock who could not go to war, one about the last snowflake of winter.
Is listened and wondered. Those songs are as good as my Dad’s, she thought; maybe better. Why wouldn’t he ever sing them before? Except that one time in Seagate when the old ’uns were dancing? Was it the life in the mines, up north, put a stopper on him? But, if so, what started him off again?
Perhaps, she thought, puzzling about it, as the tinker sang ‘Polly put the kettle on’, with a lot of rude extra verses, perhaps that sleep, that queer deep sleep in the coach, perhaps that unknotted something that was knotted up in Arun. It was the Leader who sent Arun into that sleep. Maybe, without meaning to, old Domino did Arun a good turn. But, if so, I’ll lay it was the only good turn he ever did do to anybody in this land. And not a-purpose.
She remembered the Leader’s eyes boring into her own, and how she had almost felt obliged to obey his orders, take him where he wanted to go.