by Sylvia Waugh
She allowed him to ease off the accelerator for a sharp left turn, but then it was on again faster than ever.
The rest of the journey, all five minutes of it, passed without incident.
“You can slow down now,” said Kate, “and open your eyes. Comus House is just round the next bend.”
They turned sedately up into the drive that led to the stable-garage.
“Well?” said Albert tersely as he stopped the car and pulled on the handbrake. “What next?”
Kate was about to answer him when an instinct, stifled till now by the speed of their journey, made her suddenly aware of the terrible truth.
“We’re too late, Albert,” she said. “We’re much too late!”
35
The Burglars
IT WAS EIGHT-THIRTY on Tuesday evening – the sky pitch black and the air damp and clinging. Four boys, two on bicycles, two trotting along holding the handles of a big barrow, came down the curving road towards Comus House. After putting the barrow and the bicycles into the shelter of the hawthorn hedge, the conspirators went stealthily up the track towards the house.
The younger Mennyms were all asleep. The women were still in the breakfast-room. The front of the house was in total darkness.
The first Soobie knew of danger was when two or three torches played their beams around the room and scanned the sofa where he lay. An instinct stronger than fear impelled him to stay absolutely still.
On the gravel path outside, the four adventurers stood and prepared to force an entry. It was something they had never done before. To them, this was an empty house, long forsaken, which had come strangely to life for a few short hours some weeks ago and then relapsed into its state of chronic disuse. It was not like breaking into somebody’s home. And all they wanted was a guy for their bonfire. That was what Joe had argued. Billy was a bit unsure about this, but the rest were ready to agree with anything Joe said.
It was Joe who did the work. He put a long screwdriver in the join between the upper and lower window frames. The frames, being old, were loose-fitting. The clasp was rudimentary. Joe pushed it aside with very little effort.
“Hardest bit’ll be raising the window,” he said to his friends. “Them sashes can get stiff. They might even be broken.”
“We’ll manage it, Joe,” said Geoff Martin, a fat, fair lad with powerful shoulders. “If we don’t we’ll just have to smash the glass.”
“What about the noise?” said Billy Maughan. He was worried about his dad. He was dead worried!
“There’s nobody here,” said Jimmy Reed, a weasel of a lad with lank black hair and pale blue eyes. “There’s nobody for miles. You could let a bomb off and nobody would hear it.”
But, as it happened, there was no need to break the window. It opened with surprising ease and one by one the boys climbed over the sill.
“Look at it,” said Joe, shining his torch on Soobie’s impassive face. “Isn’t it smashing? Can you just see it right on top of the bonfire on Tidy Hill?”
“Seems a shame to burn it, though,” said Billy. “It’s too good to burn.” Soobie, hearing that, felt almost friendly towards him.
“Of course we’ll burn it,” said Joe. “Are you soft or something? That’s what guys are for.”
Soobie stayed limp. If the only way he could save his family from these marauders was to be burnt alive on their hideous bonfire, then so be it.
It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people . . .
The words came to Soobie’s mind unbidden, a memory of past reading, but in a moment he took them to his heart and resolved to save his people, no matter what the cost. If these intruders, whoever they were, should find out that the house was home to a whole family of living rag dolls, there would be no end to the misery it would cause. Soobie remembered only too sharply how his grandmother had called him a freak. All Mennyms are freaks, he thought. For what is a freak but someone or something outside the norm?
The boys dragged his limp body over the window ledge. Jimmy Reed gave a sudden howl.
“Dammit,” he said. “I’ve caught me hand on a nail.”
“Shut up, will you?” said Joe. “You’re nothing but a big babby. There could easy be somebody in the house for all you know.”
And there was, of course. There was a whole family of them. And they might have heard. Soobie was horrified at the thought. If they heard . . . if they came to see what the noise was all about . . . Even lights going on in the house would attract too much attention. Soobie was in agony. He lay on the grass like an old sack, becoming damper and dirtier as the boys looked dubiously up at the house. But it stayed unlit and silent.
Billy gave a suspicious glance at Joe. How could there ‘easy’ be somebody in the house when Joe had told them all it was empty? Joe was a good mate, but you could never be quite sure of him.
More quietly, the boys dragged the body over the damp grass. Billy held one torch to light the way. The others had put theirs away in their anorak pockets. Soobie was glad of the darkness and that the one beam of light was directed at the ground. They moved on towards the broad drive that led from the road to the stables.
Down they went to the hawthorn hedge and the bikes and the barrow. Soobie was a head taller than Joe, and much broader. Had he been human, the task of putting him onto the barrow would have been even harder. Even so, it was awkward. Billy and Jimmy held onto the handles whilst Joe and Geoff wedged the guy into the narrower end of the barrow with his legs protruding either side of the long shafts.
“There,” said Joe gasping, “that should do it.”
Joe then grabbed one bicycle and Jimmy took the other.
“Geoff and you can push the barrow, Billy. Us’ll help if it gets too hard,” said Joe, “but we’ve got our own bikes to see to and it’s not so easy uphill. Better if we’d all walked, I suppose. But it’s a bit late to think about that now.”
“I can push it easy,” said Geoff. “I don’t need little titch to help me. Out the way, Billy. I’ll soon show you how to do it.”
Geoff Martin was fair, fat, big . . . and dense as the proverbial forest. He spat on both hands and placed them in the centre of the barrow so that the two shaft handles were either side of him. Then with a great heave he set off at a run. Joe gave a smile that was not seen in the dark.
Geoff’s pace soon slackened, but he did manage to push the barrow all the way to the Maughans’ farmyard, which was where it had come from in the first place. All four boys helped manoeuvre the body up the fire escape into the loft. Once inside they switched on the light and admired their haul — one enormous, magnificent all-blue guy. Soobie’s acting was brilliant. He lurched limply to one side of the chair in which they had sat him and looked as if he had never, ever known life.
But he watched the four guardedly, and he listened to what they had to say.
“Us’ll keep ’im here till Thursday night. No good takin’ ’im up the hill too soon. Somebody might nick him. There’s some very dodgy characters about,” said Joe.
“We can make on he’s our prisoner,” said Billy, “an’ I can bring him bread and water.”
Joe gave Billy a warning look. Trouble with Geoff and Jimmy was they had no imagination. They wouldn’t understand about ‘Holmes and Watson’. It was a game for only two players. Billy took the hint and said no more.
But when the other three went home, Billy went to Soobie and sat him upright on the chair.
“You are our prisoner,” he said in a stilted, theatrical voice. “If you behave yourself, you will be treated well. But no trying to escape, mind you. No one has ever escaped from here.”
Then he went out and came back with a black plastic tray on which he had placed a white enamel mug and a chipped tea plate.
“Here is your supper,” he said. “I will return in the morning.”
Then something about the clouty doll touched Billy’s heart. The boy’s grey eyes misted. This blue doll could be a friend of his. And they were goi
ng to burn him on Friday. Billy rested one hand on the doll’s shoulder. Soobie felt a wave of sympathy and experienced a glimmer of hope. But the moment passed. The door shut and the boy locked it behind him.
Still, thought Soobie, it is only Tuesday. Friday is a long way off. Many things can happen before Friday.
36
Failure
“THEY’VE TAKEN SOOBIE.”
Aunt Kate stood helplessly beside Albert on the gravel path outside the library window. The Range Rover, parked at the top of the cart track, was their only illumination. But the open window was plain to see. The signs of a body being dragged across the grass were evidence enough. Added to this was Aunt Kate’s psychic certainty that Soobie had been kidnapped.
“Children,” she said. “Young children . . . but why?”
Albert said nothing. He was distressed and dazed. All that terrifying drive had been to no avail.
“Could you not have saved him without me?” he asked after a despairing silence.
Aunt Kate sighed and said, “There are things I’ll have to explain to you, Albert. Come inside and sit down.”
She stepped over the low window ledge, through the open window, into the library. A dazed Albert followed. They sat down, side by side, on the green plush sofa.
“Switch on the table-lamp,” said Kate.
Albert did as he was told.
“I couldn’t do that,” said Kate. “I cannot do anything physical, not even switch on a light. Without a human agent, I can do nothing. You are my agent, Albert Pond.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Albert. “You steered the car, remember. You steered it past that lorry. I could not have done that.”
“Your hands never left the steering wheel. If they had, I would have been helpless,” said Kate. “What you experienced was pure hypnosis. I did know what was ahead in a way you could never have done, but it was you who controlled the wheel, not I. All I did was give you directions.”
Albert still looked doubtful.
“If I reached my hand out to you now,” said Kate, “and you attempted to grasp it, you would find that there was nothing but air between your fingers. I appear substantial enough, I know, but I have no substance.”
Albert shivered.
“We’ll not have a practical demonstration,” said Kate. “I wouldn’t want you to fear me.”
Albert realised that he never had feared the ghostliness of Kate. She was a most unspectral spectre!
“You should have talked to Vinetta or Tulip. You should have warned them,” he said. “That would have involved no more physical effort than talking to me. And it would have been much more effective.”
“They have never seen me,” said Kate. “They must never see me.”
Albert was quick to understand. It was obviously up to him to rescue Soobie, wherever Soobie might be.
“You possess far more knowledge than I have,” said Albert. “I may be able to save Soobie. But you are the only one who can find him.”
“Limited,” said Kate. “I cannot simply range the world. Within limits, I can be where you are. I can know what I am allowed to know. There is instinct, but that comes and goes as it will.”
“Use your instincts now,” said Albert. “Tell me where to find Soobie and I will rescue him myself.”
“I can’t,” said Kate. “Instinct is a gift, but it cannot be summoned up at will. When the knowledge comes to me, I will find you, wherever you are, and guide you to Soobie. It will come. I have no doubt it will. We shall save him.”
The room beyond the light of the lamp was all shadow. Kate stood up and faded away into the darkness. Albert was alone.
He switched off the lamp. Then he stepped over the sill again and went back to the car. Through the hours of the night he drove up and down country roads, hoping that Kate would reappear at his side to give him directions. But Wednesday’s dawn came with no sign of doll or ghost. Albert returned to Comus House.
He let himself in the front door with his key. Vinetta was the only one astir. She had spent another restless night on the drawing-room sofa, wondering where Appleby had gone. When Albert came in, he hardly knew where to start. Vinetta rose to meet him.
“You had better sit down,” he said. “There are so many things I need to tell you, and one of them is very, very serious.”
“Appleby?” said Vinetta, startled.
“Appleby is safe at home in Brocklehurst Grove,” said Albert. “So is Joshua. And the Grove has been saved. You will all be able to go home.”
“Then,” said Vinetta, looking puzzled, “what is it that is so serious? Why do you look so concerned?”
“It’s Soobie,” said Albert. “All we know, Aunt Kate and I, is that he has been taken away somewhere.”
“Taken away? Who by? How? What do you mean?”
“Aunt Kate thinks he was stolen by a group of children, some sort of a game. That’s all her instincts will tell her just yet. When she knows more she will come for me, wherever I am. Those were her words. We’ll just have to trust her. I’ve searched the night for signs of Soobie’s whereabouts, but he could be anywhere.”
Vinetta was dumbfounded.
“Let’s wake the others,” she said. “Let’s tell them.”
“No,” said Albert. “There really is nothing any one of us can do. Don’t say a word to them unless you have to. They will think that Soobie is still in the library. And let’s believe that by the end of the day that’s where he will be. I’ve talked to Kate. I trust Kate. She will find him.”
He did not add the words “if anyone can” and he felt uncomfortable when Vinetta said, “Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be,” he said. “When Aunt Kate knows his whereabouts, we will rescue him.”
“But if these children, supposing it is children, know that Soobie is alive, what will they do?”
This was safer ground.
“Kate knows Soobie well enough,” Albert said. “We all know Soobie well enough. It’s a safe guess he will play dead till he is rescued, or can manage to escape. The situation is terrible. I won’t try to make it seem less serious than it really is. But I honestly do believe that it is not desperate.”
Then quite suddenly, as if a current had been switched off, Vinetta became calm. Her anguish had spent itself on Appleby. There was nothing left. But deep in her heart there was faith in Soobie, a rock-bottom confidence in his power to survive.
So Albert and Vinetta waited together in the drawing room, silently expecting Albert to receive some instant, supernatural summons. Tulip looked at them suspiciously when she came in. She sensed the strain.
They told her that Appleby was safe at home and that the threat against the Grove had been lifted.
“Then why do you both look so miserable?” asked Tulip with a sharp glance at each of them.
It was impossible to say nothing under such direct questioning. They told her everything.
When Miss Quigley appeared, she also had to be told the whole story. She listened, tight-lipped. Then, ignoring the others, she looked directly at Vinetta.
“He will be found, Vinetta,” she said. “I know he will be found.”
It was not instinct speaking, but a fierce determination not to believe the worst.
Poopie and Wimpey were told the good news but not the bad.
“When can we go home?” asked Wimpey.
“Soon,” said her mother. “In a day or two maybe. Now go and play.”
Pilbeam appeared just before eleven o’clock.
“Something’s happened to Soobie,” she said as she looked at their faces. “He’s my twin. I know something has happened to him.”
They told her the bad news along with the good. She looked at Albert.
“I trust you, Albert Pond,” she said. “I only hope your confidence in Aunt Kate is well-founded. I wouldn’t be as sure as you are that she can do what she promises.”
Albert had a sudden lurching memory that he was supposed to be in Durham
for two tutorials later that afternoon. If he set out straightaway he should just be able to make it. He explained his problem. He did not want to go, but to miss tutorials was in his eyes a cardinal sin. He already felt that Professor Hamilton was not entirely satisfied with his work.
“What if Kate wants you? What if she finds Soobie and needs you?” asked Pilbeam.
“Kate will come to me wherever I am,” said Albert, “and I will leave whatever I am doing if I am needed. Once I am there, it won’t be so difficult to make some excuse to leave if it becomes urgent.”
Tulip supported his decision. “Nothing more can be done till Kate finds Soobie. Your work is your duty. Go and do it.”
“I’ll come straight back here as soon as I am finished,” said Albert. “I should be back by seven-thirty – sooner if Kate calls me.”
That afternoon Albert struggled through two tutorials with students who, from time to time, looked puzzled at his inattentiveness.
“Are you all right, Albert?” asked Lorna as she dawdled to gather up her books. Being distantly related made the question less impertinent.
“Yes, thank you,” said Albert, smiling absently. “Late night, last night. That’s all. Back to normal tomorrow.”
But what was normal? Albert did not know any more. And who was to say what tomorrow would bring?
37
A Mennym and a Maughan
EARLY ON WEDNESDAY morning, Billy took Soobie his breakfast. A red plastic tray this time with a blue and white striped pint mug on it and a piece of cold toast on a tea plate.
“Had a good night?” he asked Soobie.
The doll in the old armchair gave not a sign. Dolls don’t.
“Here’s your breakfast,” said Billy. “Tea’s hot, mind. There’s more toast if you want it.”
Soobie sat still. It was hard not to give the boy a friendly look. Billy’s eyes were dark-rimmed with lack of sleep. His wispy hair needed combing. He was weedy but wiry. What is more, it was evident to anyone who met him that he had a heart as big as a whale! A loving child of loving parents.