by Joan Aiken
“Hope ’e don’t slither offen it,” somebody gloomily said.
“Suppose we get a haitch o’ rain, an’ the water come down in a lavant,” somebody else suggested. “It’ll rise up an’ drown the dawlin’.”
“But can he not be rescued?” Fanny frantically said. “Why does nobody go down after him?”
She looked desperately around at the ring of faces. “Jem? Goble? Can you not—?”
But Goble seemed to have been overwhelmed by a fit of prayer. He was kneeling on his leather apron in the mud and chanting, “‘They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.’”
This last seemed to be in reference to Jem, who now brought a candle and held it over the edge of the well, endeavoring to show Fanny where the problem lay.
“Ye see, missus, ’tis wide enow up atop here, but lower down the owd quill do become lamentable narrer. ’Tis on’y just wide enow to take the bucket, see? I’d goo down on a rope, and gladly, aiter the nipper, but I be too broad in the beam.”
Jem, indeed, was a big, broad-shouldered boy, but even so—“Are you sure, Jem?” Fanny asked.
“Sartin sure, missus. Daintrey an’ them, they h’isted me down thurr afore, but I stuck fast; cardenly they drug me up agen.”
“But then what is to be done?”
“Could send for a looksman and borrow his bilbo? Hook out the liddle ’un,” somebody suggested.
Surely, Fanny thought, there must be a more suitable implement than a shepherd’s crook nearer to hand.
“’Appen us might use a weed hook—or a ditch hook—or a Cannerbury hoe?”
Jem ran off to the shed and came back with a Canterbury hoe, which was lowered on the end of a rope.
“Pray take care!” Fanny cried beseechingly.
The rain now came on harder.
“Let me fetch ye a cloak, ma’am,” said Mrs. Strudwick solicitously, and did so, draping it around the shoulders of Fanny, who hardly noticed the attention.
“Can you not reach him?” she demanded as the third attempt with the Canterbury hoe proved unavailing.
“’Tisn’t that, missus; but the hoe do slip off ’thout gripping, simmingly, an’ we dassn’t furrage about, ’fear of tipping the liddle feller off’n the rock. ’Tis a hem setout!”
“Oh, dear God! What can be done?”
“’E be still lively enow, anyways,” someone said hearteningly. “Hark at ’im gizzle!”
Indeed the baby’s cries, because of the rain, or possibly because he had been scraped by the hoe, now became louder.
“Soon it will be dark. What shall we do then?” Bet said with what seemed like a kind of gloomy relish.
Fanny had an inspiration.
“Jem! Pray run up to Petworth House and ask for Lord Egremont!”
“Ah—I’ll fet’n anon, missus! That be a ’countable good notion!” said Jem, and ran off.
“I am sure he will know what to do,” Fanny said hopefully to Bet.
For though the ring of men around the well seemed kindly enough disposed toward her, she could not feel that their intelligence was of a high order. Moreover they appeared rather inclined to regard the emergency as an interesting event on its own merits, a kind of entertainment to be relished for its drama, rather than a challenge requiring any solution by them.
Some, indeed, muttered that it was the will of ’Im up there, and it was best to let such matters alone.
“Ah, I allus did say this was a proper unked owd spot! They do say as ’ow the owd monks still haunts around, from the monastery as used to be here in Queen Mary’s time.”
“Arr! My owd ’ooman, she saw a black Token down this-a-way on Andring Eve. An’ it beckoned to her, but she ran t’other way.”
“’Tis larmentable ellynge, here, come bat-flit time. Ye can hear the owd aps tree a-groaning an’ the house do give a skreek or a skreel, now an’ now; I wouldn’t live ’in ’er, not nohow, not for a whole trug o’ gold guineas.”
To turn the talk from this depressing and unprofitable vein, Fanny asked:
“Can nobody tell me how the baby contrived to fall into the well?”
Heads were shaken. Nobody knew. The bricklayers all asseverated that they had taken pains to make sure the well cover was always closed. Goble, interrupted in his orisons, agreed.
“Ah, she were shut, right enow, time I done watering my greens and brockyloes.”
Jemima swore, again and again, that she had only left the baby for a moment, to run indoors and get an umbrella to put over him, as it was coming on to fret with rain. But why hadn’t she taken the baby in with her, as it was raining? Fanny asked. “Oh, it didn’t look to be coming on muchly, ma’am. If you ask me,” Jemima said with a darkling glance around her, “’twas liddle Miss Patty as done it! You know how she is—forever tormenting and teasing Master Tom, don’t I watch her like a hawk.”
“What?” exclaimed Fanny. “You think that Patty—oh no, impossible!”
Privately, it was true, Fanny did believe her youngest stepdaughter capable of conceiving such an act—especially when suffering from such a severe disappointment as she had that day—but it was doubtful whether Patty would be physically capable of it. Thomas was a large, heavy baby; his inertia and slowness in learning to roll over had made him unusually stout for his age.
“I don’t believe Patty could carry him so far. And you say that you were gone only a couple of minutes,” Fanny pointed out.
“’Count it might ha’ been a liddle longer—time Missus Strudwick ast me to hurry an’ help her in wi’ the wash afore it got wet,” Jemima said in a defensive tone.
“You were a-drinking a cup of morgan tea in my kitchen!” Mrs. Strudwick contradicted.
“Where is Patty now, by the by?” Fanny asked, perceiving that it was going to be almost impossible to sift a true tale from these accounts.
“I locked her in her room,” Jemima said self-righteously. “She was a-willocking around, an’ getting underfoot, so I took an’ shut her in.”
Fanny let pass without comment the fact that Patty was supposed to be confined to her chamber in any case. Fortunately at this moment Jem appeared at a run and panted out the information that Lord Egremont was following fast behind.
“’E’ll be here drackly, missus; ’e be a-going to the town cage, fustways.”
“The jail? But why?” Fanny demanded, greatly puzzled.
“Ah!” said Jem, proud of himself. “I ax to see owd Lordy, missus, like ye said, an’ I tells him how ’countable narrer ’tis, down thurr. ‘Then we’ll be needing a ’countable skinny feller to goo down arter the babby,’ says Lordy, ‘an’ the place to find un’s in the jail, where the prisoners gits only the vittles they needs an’ nothing extry. Tell your missus I’ll be down wi’ the skinnest poacher or pickpocket they have in the place.’”
And indeed, hardly more than three minutes later, Lord Egremont himself came down the lane, cheerful and good-natured-looking as always, with his hat tipped onto the back of his head, accompanied by the tallest, thinnest, palest man that Fanny had ever laid eyes on, clad in the prison garb of dark-colored waistcoat and breeches and coarse shirt with different-colored sleeves.
“Massypanme,” muttered Jem. “I niver did see one nigher a skellington, not in all my borns! If he can’t do it, no one in the world can!”
Lord Egremont walked rapidly up to Fanny, exclaiming, “Why, my poor child, this is a wretched affair! I was never so shocked in my life as when your garden lad told me what had happened—”
“Oh, my lord, I am sensible of my forwardness in applying to you, but indeed I knew not where else to turn—I am so unspeakably grateful—” she stammered.
“Come, come, no tears now! I daresay we shall find that it is no great matter after all,” he added reassuringly. “These good fellows are apt to fall int
o a despondency at the least setback, you know!”
Two of the Petworth House footmen had followed Lord Egremont, bearing bundles of the rush flares known as fried straws, and they now lit these so as to allow Lord Egremont sufficient light to inspect the situation in the well.
“Hm, yes—I see how it is,” he remarked. “Indeed I had no idea that well was built so narrow! I fancy the soil must have subsided, pushing the walls inward. But now, let us consider. What we need here, I fancy, is a pair of fire tongs. Have you such a thing in the house, ma’am—a pair with a decent long handle?”
“Why, yes, I fancy so, sir,” said Fanny, and set Tess running for the long-handled pair from the parlor. Meanwhile Egremont had the prisoner, whose name, it appeared, was Tom Callow, brought up to inspect the well. He peered down it somewhat wanly and nodded without speaking as Lord Egremont gave him his instructions.
Tess came back with the tongs.
“Capital; capital. Now, these must be tied to your wrists, Tom, my man—it would not do if you were to let them drop on the baby, ha! ha!—and the other ropes around your ankles—so—”
“Ah, say one thing for owd Lordy, ’e do allus know ’is mind to a marvel,” someone murmured admiringly.
“The man is to go down head foremost?” Fanny demanded in horror as Callow was lowered over the lip of the well.
“Certainly he must,” Egremont assured her. “Even he, you see, skinny though he is, would not, the right way up, be able to dangle low enough down to reach your little one. What we need is somebody with a girth of a child—but then a child’s reach and strength would not be sufficient. However I am in hopes that Callow may succeed with those tongs—if not, we must find a longer implement.”
A long-drawn-out, silent, tense period of time ensued. When what seemed intolerable slowness the silent Callow was gingerly lowered, several men holding on to each of the top ropes that were attached to his ankles. Fanny clenched her hands, thinking, first, of the dreadfulness of being hung upside down in a well, and second!—a thought which she tried to banish—of how desperate the case must be if Callow could not reach the baby.
“I hope that poor fellow may be pardoned for whatever crime he has committed,” she murmured in a low voice to Lord Egremont. “It is very brave of him to attempt the rescue.”
“Pardoned? No, my child, that would not be right,” Lord Egremont said kindly but briskly. “What he has done, he has done. However, as chief magistrate and lord lieutenant, I can see to it that his sentence is as light as possible. He stole a loaf, you know, from a bakery; bakers have to live as well as other people. But you can take Callow a basket of fruit in jail, if you wish to show your gratitude—the prisoners get meat, potatoes, bread, and buttermilk for their daily diet—I daresay they acquire a craving for green stuff.”
Callow, down the well, here let out a muffled guttural sound which the men holding the rope interpreted as a signal of qualified cheer.
“’E kicked twice, that means let down another couple o’ feet,” said Daintrey.
“No, ’e kicked once, to signify lug ’er up a bit,” objected another man.
Daintrey overruled this man, and more rope was let out.
“Liz sent her love to you, by the by,” said Lord Egremont, kindly attempting to distract Fanny at this agitating moment. “She would have accompanied me, only she is laid up—has been, indeed, these ten days—with a putrid sore throat, and cannot leave her chamber. She would have asked you to visit her but feared to communicate the infection—Aha!”
Another, more promising signal from Callow had induced the men to begin cautiously hauling up on the ropes. Egremont went swiftly to the wellside.
“Handsomely now, my lads!—Not too fast, or you may jerk his hold—remember he grasps the child but with a pair of fire tongs—it would be easy to let go—and then all your work is for naught! Handsomely—imagine that you have the biggest carp in Burton Furnace Pond at the end of your line! Half a guinea to each of you if you bring him safe to land!”
Sweating and silent, the men continued to pull. At last Callow’s feet appeared above the coping, and all who could reach him laid hold of his body. He was dragged backward over the edge, gasping, dark red in the face with effort and the effect of being upside down for so long, his temples bulging, his eyes bloodshot—but he still grimly grasped the handles of the tongs, and now, with triumph, drew into sight the damp swaddle bundle, wriggling and crying, that was little Thomas, horribly dirty and muddy but indubitably safe and alive. Fanny rushed forward and received the shrieking child in her arms, while Lord Egremont was exclaiming, “Well done! Capitally done, my good fellow!” and the other men were thumping Callow on the back and congratulating him as they untied his ropes. He stood smiling sheepishly, and Fanny, having ascertained that the child seemed unhurt, save for some bruises and scratches, handed Thomas over to Jemima and went forward to clasp Callow’s hand and to thank him, over and over.
“And you too, Lord Egremont—oh, I shall remember this to my dying day! I cannot express—”
“Phoo, phoo, my dear,” he said, laughing good-naturedly. “Brats will always be getting into these scrapes, as I know full well! There was never a day when mine were not up a tree or locked in a stable or being fished out of some pond—and still it is so, indeed! Is the little fellow unhurt, ma’am?”
“Yes, I think so—but it is very strange,” Fanny said, frowning, puzzling over the contradictions of the affair. “He appears unhurt because he was so tightly swaddled around with cradle cloths—and that was how Callow was able to drag him up, I imagine—but that means he could not have fallen from his cradle. He must have been taken up and carried by somebody.”
There was a silent pause while Lord Egremont considered this anomaly. Most of the group, the excitement now being over, had begun to trickle away. Jem silently returned the ropes and tools to the shed. Goble had disappeared on his own concerns. Bet, Jemima, and Mrs. Strudwick carried little Thomas back to the house to wash him and tend him. Tess, at a word from Fanny, ran off to summon Dr. Chilgrove. The Petworth House servants escorted the unfortunate Callow away, presumably back to his place of incarceration. But Lord Egremont still stood scratching his head, his eyes on the heavy well cover which had been lowered back into place.
“Are you aware of any who might wish your husband ill, ma’am?” he asked abruptly, at length.
“Well,” faltered Fanny, “you must know, my lord, that his profession carries with it certain unpopularity—”
“Yes; but hardly to this degree!”
Fanny then recollected what had occurred earlier that afternoon, on the pleasant visit to Lady Montague, which had been quite driven from her mind by the accident.
“Curiously enough,” she said doubtfully, “I was warned—this very day, indeed—that Thomas has an enemy in the town—two enemies. One is—was—I believe—his children’s former governess where they lived before—a Miss Fox—but this is only hearsay.”
From Lord Egremont’s expression it was plain that he hardly considered an ex-governess capable of throwing a baby down a well.
“Some old maid at her last prayers! No, no, I do not believe a Miss Fox would do such a thing. Who was the other person, then, ma’am?”
“My informant did not know,” Fanny told him.
“Captain Paget is still in London, I understand?”
“Yes, sir—thank God! I must beg that you will not—will not refine too much upon this occurrence, sir, when talking to him. He will be so—so very angry—” Fanny’s voice trembled as she thought of Thomas’s probable reaction. His heir, his treasure, thus at risk! Whoever had done the deed certainly knew how to gauge Thomas’s vulnerable spot to a nicety.
“Well—I will reflect on the matter,” Lord Egremont said at length. “And will talk to your husband on his return. Do not put yourself in a taking, my dear—I will not agitate him unduly! I k
now he tends to be a trifle sidy, as we say in these parts. But now—do not you be standing any longer in the rain, or you will be laid up like my Liz.”
Fanny felt that she ought to ask him in and offer him a glass of wine, but he walked off unceremoniously, giving her a friendly smile and nod.
“Oh, pray give dear Liz my love—my best love!” she called impulsively after him. He waved his hat in reply and disappeared around the bend in the lane.
Fanny moved slowly toward the house. By now dusk was beginning to shroud the valley; a rare, rainy evening, for that splendid summer, was setting in, wet and windy. Shivering, huddling her cloak around her, Fanny recalled some of the remarks about the Hermitage that she had heard earlier.
“I allus did say this was a proper unked spot…” “I wouldn’t live in ’er, not for a whole trug o’ gold guineas.” Absurd, she had thought at the time; idle talk of villagers who enjoyed scaring themselves with follies. The Hermitage had always felt like a warm and welcoming house to her; she loved it, despite the adversities of her situation, and she felt that it had responded. But now, suddenly, passing the wind-tossed branches of the weeping ash, entering through the garden door, she sensed a different atmosphere—not, exactly, that the house was hostile, but that it was uneasy, mournful, waiting for something to happen. I am being fanciful, Fanny thought wearily, pushing back the damp hair from her forehead. I have had a fright and am thinking foolish nonsense, childish fancies; I will put on a warm gown and tidy myself to receive Dr. Chilgrove, and then I will feel better.
It was at that moment that Fanny heard, for the first time, the house give its shriek. She had wondered, earlier, what the man meant when he said, “Ye can hear the house give a skreek”; now, with her own ears, she heard it: an indescribably sad, eerie, keening wail. Was it the house, or the ash tree outside moaning in the wind? The sound was repeated twice, then no more. I must stop imagining things, Fanny repeated to herself, and went on toward her chamber.
* * *
Thomas returned to Petworth next day. As it chanced, he and Captain Holland stopped first at Petworth House, to report to Lord Egremont on the success of their trip and deposit a quantity of equipment in the tennis court, which had been adapted into a drill hall. Thomas, therefore, heard from Lord Egremont the story of his son’s rescue from the well, and Fanny was spared the task of breaking the news to him. He arrived home in a predictably black mood, ready to castigate all the females of the household for not keeping better watch over the baby. Even Mrs. Baggot came in for her share of commination, but she retorted sharply that minding the baby was no part of her duty and so Captain Paget might please to remember. Fanny, overhearing the last part of the dialogue as she came downstairs with the doctor who had called in to inquire how the baby went on, was moved to hope that Thomas might consider what a very inessential part Mrs. Baggot played in the household and revise his decision to keep her on; but the nurse walked off composedly enough, only her high color betraying her vexation, and Thomas, with equally high color, came to put stringent questions to the doctor regarding his son’s welfare.