The Steps up the Chimney

by William Corlett

  ‘I thought you were ill, Phoebe. We were going to get everything ready for you before you came down,’ said Mary, saying the first words that came into her head.

  ‘I’m fine now. I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Where’s Jack?’

  ‘Getting logs,’ Alice said.

  ‘And William?’ Phoebe continued.

  ‘I’m helping him make a fire,’ a voice behind Mary announced and, as they all turned to look at the fireplace, William stepped out.

  ‘William!’ Phoebe laughed. ‘You’re covered in soot!’ It was true. William’s face had smears across it, and his hands were black. ‘We should have had that chimney swept. Well, there’s no point in washing until you’ve finished the job.’ Then she shivered. ‘It’s cold out here,’ and she went into the kitchen.

  As soon as they were alone, the two girls ran to William.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ and ‘What’s happening?’ they both said at the same time.

  ‘I’ve found it,’ William said, his eyes shining with excitement.

  ‘What, oh what?’ Alice pleaded.

  ‘At least, I think I have.’

  ‘Oh, William. What?’ Mary’s impatience was beginning to make her sound cross again.

  ‘The way to the secret room,’ and as he spoke he turned to look at the fireplace.

  The two girls followed his stare.

  ‘You mean . . .’ Mary began, taking a step forward.

  ‘Up the chimney?’ Alice finished her sentence for her.

  ‘Yes, oh yes. I think so,’ William responded.

  ‘But . . . how?’ Alice said, staring at the great brick opening.

  ‘Well, I didn’t have a torch,’ William began, ‘and it was very dark up there but . . . I’m almost certain.’

  ‘William!’ Jack’s voice was heard calling from the kitchen. ‘Hurry up. I need help.’

  ‘I’m coming, Uncle Jack,’ William yelled and started towards the kitchen door.

  ‘Not before you’ve told us,’ Alice said, planting herself firmly in his path, her hands on hips, looking like business.

  ‘Yes, come on, Will,’ Mary agreed. ‘You’re being a real bore about this. What have you discovered?’

  ‘There are steps up the chimney,’ he said and he hurried past her out of the hall.

  12

  The Dovecote

  PHOEBE’S ARRIVAL DOWNSTAIRS altered all the plans. It was decided that the fire should not be lit in the hall until the evening because it would be a waste of wood and she told the girls that she ‘wouldn’t dream’ of letting them help her in the kitchen.

  ‘Good gracious, you’re on holiday. You don’t want to spend your time cooking and washing up.’

  Alice had to admit that, for a witch, she was behaving very nicely.

  But, even so, they all had a busy morning and the girls didn’t get a chance to discuss William’s discovery with him, much as they longed to do so. They passed the time cutting holly from the bushes along the drive to decorate the hall and William spent the morning out in the barn with Uncle Jack, sawing wood and stacking it on the great mound of logs that already was housed there.

  ‘I don’t know why we needed to do any more. You’d think there’d be enough there already to see them right through till the spring,’ he said later, when they were washing their hands before lunch. But when Mary pointed out that the kitchen range also used the same source of fuel he agreed that it was probably necessary and that, ‘Anyway, I quite enjoyed doing it.’

  ‘Why can’t they have coal, like everybody else does?’ Alice said. ‘You don’t have to chop coal. It comes ready to use.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a long way for the coal lorry to come. Maybe they wouldn’t deliver this far out,’ William suggested.

  But Mary shook her head:

  ‘I think it’s more likely to be because of money,’ she said. ‘They’re probably very poor and can’t afford things like coal and central heating and all the nice things.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why they only eat vegetables,’ said Alice, who was determined to get to the reason for what she considered to be by far the strangest of Phoebe’s peculiarities. ‘I bet if someone was to wrap up half a pound of sausages and give them to her for a Christmas present she’d gobble them all up without even waiting to cook them.’

  ‘Ugh, Alice!’ William protested. ‘Uncooked sausages would be revolting.’

  ‘Not half so revolting as stuffed cabbage leaves,’ his sister replied threateningly.

  ‘Is that what we’re having for lunch?’ William asked.

  Alice nodded silently and then made a hideous sick noise.

  ‘Stuffed with what, Al?’ Mary asked, nervously.

  Alice shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said airily. ‘I didn’t like to ask, did I? It looks like . . .’

  ‘Don’t tell us, Alice,’ both her brother and sister cut in, and William put a hand over her mouth, to stop her saying any more.

  ‘When will we go up the steps in the chimney?’ Mary wondered aloud, as she was combing her hair. ‘It’ll be difficult, with Jack and Phoebe coming in and out all the time.’

  ‘I know,’ William agreed. ‘It’ll have to be tonight, after they’re in bed.’

  ‘In the dark?’ Alice squealed.

  ‘We’ve got a torch,’ William told her, without sounding all that confident himself. ‘And we’ll be with you, Al.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ Alice snapped. ‘I just wondered, that’s all,’ and she ran ahead of the others down the stairs to the kitchen.

  The lunch turned out to be delicious and even the dreaded stuffing tasted quite nice. It was, so Phoebe told them, ‘lentils and things’. William had a second helping and Alice wanted one, only she couldn’t bring herself to admit that she’d actually enjoyed it.

  After lunch Jack tried to persuade Phoebe to go upstairs for a rest saying that he and the children would wash up, but once again Phoebe refused.

  ‘They’re on holiday, Jack. I’ll do the washing up and then I’ll have a rest.’

  ‘All right then, you lot,’ Jack said, ‘in that case you can go out for a while. It’s stopped snowing now and so long as you keep to the tracks you should be all right.’

  ‘Jack, they may not want to go out.’

  ‘Yes we will,’ William said firmly just before Mary managed to agree with Phoebe.

  ‘Good,’ said Jack, with a grin, ‘because I’ve got things that I want to get on with and I don’t want you all here when I do them.’

  ‘What sort of things?’ Alice asked, surreptitiously helping herself to another shortcake biscuit.

  ‘Christmas things,’ he answered mysteriously. ‘Surprise things. So off you go and get your coats and scarves and gloves and hot-water bottles and whatever else you may need. It’s bitterly cold out.’

  ‘We don’t really have to take hot-water bottles outside with us, do we?’ Alice asked, as they were putting on thick socks and other warm things in their rooms.

  ‘No, of course not,’ William called across the landing. ‘That was his joke.’

  ‘Well, it was a really pathetic one, if you ask me,’ Mary said and then she sighed.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mare?’ Alice asked her as she twisted a scarf round her neck.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Mary answered, making it sound very important indeed.

  ‘What is it?’ Alice said, suddenly really worried.

  ‘It’s just that he’s so lovely. Uncle Jack, I mean. But, when he says silly things and agrees with whatever Phoebe suggests straight away and does what he’s told, it makes him look so, I don’t know, so . . . well, silly, really.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ wailed Alice as William came into the room ready to go and carrying his newly acquired wellington boots.

  ‘Now what’s the matter?’ he said.

  ‘Mary’s in love with Uncle Jack now,’ she continued to wail.

  ‘Oh no!’ William also sounded mournful. ‘She can’t be.’<
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  ‘I’m not,’ Mary protested, blushing.

  ‘She is,’ William continued, looking at her.

  ‘Shut up, William,’ Mary yelled and she threw a wellington at him.

  William caught the boot and grinned.

  Mary ignored him and went out on to the landing and across to William’s room. She stared thoughtfully at the brick wall that they now believed divided them from the secret room.

  ‘D’you really think those steps would reach all the way up to here?’ she said, thoughtfully.

  But William put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Come on,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We’d better talk outside,’ and he ran down the stairs, his socks making no sound on the stone steps.

  The girls hurried after him and when they reached the landing, they were surprised to find Phoebe standing at the bottom of the spiral staircase.

  ‘There you are,’ she said brightly. ‘Enjoy yourselves, but don’t go too far. It gets dark so early at this time of year. And stay on the track . . .’

  ‘All right, Phoebe,’ William called over his shoulder and the three children ran down the stairs and out through the kitchen into the back porch, where they stopped to pull on their boots.

  ‘You see what I mean?’ William whispered. ‘She was listening to us. We must be careful.’

  The yard was formed by the back wall of the house, with the barn running at a right angle to it. Opposite the house, and at a right angle to the barn, a high brick wall obscured the view. In this wall there was an arch which held a wooden gate. The fourth side of the yard was open and gave a view of the drive, though even here there were signs of a fourth wall which had at some time collapsed or been pulled down.

  Mary led the way across the yard towards the gate in the wall. The air was so cold that their breath smoked in front of them and the whiteness of the snow was so bright that they had to half close their eyes against the dazzle. The gate was difficult to move.

  ‘There must be snow piled up on the other side,’ Mary said. Eventually, with the help of the other two, she managed to push it open wide enough to squeeze through.

  Alice went in first.

  ‘Oh, come and look,’ she called. But she needn’t have bothered. The others were in before she’d finished speaking.

  They were standing in a vast walled garden. There were fruit trees against the walls and others that stood in rows, their branches trained over arches and along trelliswork fences, forming walks and arbours, with seats in some and big troughs in others. There were low hedges indicating a pattern of paths that would otherwise have been obliterated by the thick covering of snow that shrouded everything in smooth white. All the paths converged on a central point and here stood a tall round building, its walls pierced by innumerable little windows, each with a ledge in front of it. There was a door in the base of this building and the children were naturally drawn towards it, both out of curiosity and also in the hope that they could step inside and shelter from the piercing wind that had sprung up as they passed through the gate and was now whipping the loose snow into a hazy cloud and sending it scudding across the surface of the ground.

  The door was locked but as William rattled it the old iron padlock clicked open and dangled on the hook.

  ‘William. You’ve broken it,’ Mary said.

  ‘I never,’ he protested. ‘I hardly touched it.’

  ‘What does it matter anyway? Let’s get inside,’ Alice said, her teeth chattering with the cold and, as she spoke, she pushed open the door and stepped through.

  They were in a circular room with a stone-flagged floor. The wall above them sloped inwards.

  ‘It’s like the inside of a pudding bowl,’ Mary said in a quiet voice.

  Steps led up to a platform just above their heads and there were other platforms, each linked by similar steps at regular intervals right to the roof. The outer wall was pierced by the same little windows that they had seen from outside.

  ‘What is it?’ Alice asked, turning in a circle and looking up at the same time.

  ‘A dovecote. Or a pigeon house,’ William replied and he started to climb the steps to the first platform. As he did so the wood above him creaked and a shower of dust and small stones cascaded down from above.

  ‘Be careful, Will,’ Mary called. ‘It doesn’t look very safe to me.’

  ‘Can I come up?’ Alice asked, putting her foot on the lowest step.

  ‘It’s a bit rickety,’ William said, walking carefully round the first platform.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Lots of snow,’ William replied and he started to climb up to the next platform.

  ‘Aren’t you coming, Mare?’ Alice called. She was already on the first landing and was moving faster as she got more confident.

  ‘Be careful, Alice!’ Mary said and a moment later the floorboard on which Alice had just put her foot, sagged beneath her weight, dislodging a shower of dust and debris.

  ‘Alice!’ Mary cried and she started to run up the first staircase to the rescue. She found Alice pressed against the wall, with a gaping hole in the floor in front of her.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said in a small voice and then she reached out and gripped Mary’s hand.

  ‘I say!’ they heard William exclaim above them. ‘Get a look at this.’

  ‘Is it safe, William?’ Mary called, anxiously.

  ‘Yeah,’ she heard him reply, but his tone didn’t suggest that he was bothering much about them.

  ‘Come on, Mare,’ Alice now said more bravely, pulling at her sister’s hand.

  ‘Carefully then. These floors are all rotten and by the time we get to William, it’ll be an awfully long drop.’

  In fact William had reached the top platform. This was a much smaller circle than all the others, because of the sloping walls of the bell-shaped building. They found him kneeling on the floor in front of one of the little windows. The ledge was covered with litter.

  ‘Oh, it’s disgusting, William,’ Mary said, wrinkling up her nose.

  There were a few bones scattered about and a dead mouse amongst the mess.

  ‘But look,’ William told them, in a hushed voice.

  So the girls knelt on either side of him and by pressing their faces close together they were all able to look out of the window at the same time.

  The white world was outside. The garden wall was capped by a thick strip of snow and beyond it the black and white stripes of the timbered house and the grey stone tower stood out against a darkening sky.

  ‘That’s the back of the house,’ William said, thinking aloud.

  The girls nodded.

  ‘So that window in the roof must be our bathroom window.’

  ‘So?’ Mary asked, straining forward, searching the distant view.

  ‘Well? Don’t you see it?’

  And as he spoke, Alice let out a gasp.

  ‘I can. I can,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Alice! Get out of the way,’ Mary exclaimed, pushing her to one side so that she wasn’t blocking her view.

  ‘Look!’ whispered William and this time his voice was full of wonder.

  He put his arms round the shoulders of the two girls, drawing them together so that all three of them were kneeling in a tight bunch at the window.

  ‘Oh, look!’ Mary murmured, seeing at last what was so exciting the other two.

  High up on the ridge of the roof, where the roof met the brick chimneys there was a little round window, exactly the same as the one they had seen the day before at the front of the house. But this time there was a difference.

  ‘There’s a light on,’ Alice said. ‘There’s a light on in the secret room.’

  And it was true. The round window glowed with golden light. It was so bright that it was almost difficult to look at it without the brilliance hurting the eyes.

  ‘Maybe Uncle Jack has lit the fire. Would that do it, d’you think?’ Mary asked.

  But William shook his head. He w
as about to speak when an even more surprising event made them all pull away from the opening in amazement. As they watched, a figure appeared at the distant window. They were too far away to see clearly who or what it was, but all three of them were certain of what Alice now said:

  ‘Look! There’s somebody up there.’

  Then, as they continued to watch, the light at the window was blotted out by a shape that seemed to spring out of the circular opening and launch itself straight in their direction.

  ‘What is it?’ Mary cried, pulling back fearfully.

  Before either of the others could reply, the answer came on its own. With a flapping of wings and a terrible screech, a great bird landed feet first on the ledge in front of them. Its talons gripped the sill and it shook its pale wings. Then it turned, slowly, and they saw its piercing eyes set in a mask-like white face.

  ‘William,’ Alice said, drawing closer to her brother.

  ‘It’s a barn owl, I think,’ was all that he said.

  Then, raising itself up on its stout legs, the bird suddenly hissed at them and the three children got up and ran for the stairs, tripping over each other in their anxiety to get away.

  They slithered and fell and jumped and ran down from the top platform, causing showers of small stones to fall and several wooden planks to crack. Reaching the ground, they bolted for the door and didn’t stop until they were halfway across the snowy garden. Then, panting and breathless, they slowed to a walk and collapsed into each other’s arms, laughing and giggling.

  Looking back at the dovecote, the face of the owl was framed in the upper window. It stared coldly down at them, watching them through its big dark eyes. And under its stern gaze the three children stopped laughing and grew quiet and still.

  The sun was setting to the west behind the dovecote and the air was crackling with frost. But the children didn’t move. They remained staring up at the owl.

  ‘It’s like the fox,’ Mary said, quietly. ‘It seems to . . . want us.’

  ‘I know,’ William agreed.

  As if it had heard them, the owl spread its wings and launched itself on to the air. Then it sailed away silently, round the dovecote and out of their sight.