They reached the top of the first hill out of Golden House valley. Here the snow was so deep that Spot sank up to his chin in it and had to kick and leap his way on to a firmer surface. Then they stopped and scanned the white countryside.
The snow was also falling less thickly for them now and they were able to see miles and miles of blank white country.
‘Not a sign,’ Spot growled.
‘The owl said we were to look for the fox,’ Alice reminded him.
‘Blooming owl,’ Spot growled. ‘Always thinks he knows what’s best.’
‘Why are all of you males, Spot?’ Alice asked, unable to stop a complaining note from creeping into her voice. ‘It really isn’t fair. Why aren’t any of the Magician’s friends female like Mary and me?’
Spot sat back on his haunches and scratched behind his ear as he thought about this.
‘I don’t think the Magician has much time for women,’ he said eventually.
‘Huh!’ said Alice furiously. But before she could speak her mind on the subject they got a faint whiff of Jack’s boots striking off towards the tree line.
‘They went this way,’ Spot said and they bounded away, running fast towards the distant woods.
Once within their shelter the going was much easier and Spot’s feet skittered across the hard earth, his nose picking up strong smells of William and Jack until, on a long straight slope, the smell of fox became overwhelming.
‘Fox,’ the dog growled. ‘I hate fox.’
‘You can’t,’ Alice said, surprised. ‘The fox is the Magician’s friend.’
‘Well,’ grumbled Spot, ‘you don’t automatically like the friends of friends, do you?’
‘No,’ Alice agreed, remembering one or two of Mary’s friends who she thought were horrid.
They shot up the hill, following the fox’s scent, until they reached a narrow track. Here, once again, they picked up the smell of William and Jack.
‘The fox showed them this path,’ Spot said, going slower now, much to Alice’s relief. Although Spot was doing the running, she also felt as if she was using energy.
‘It isn’t like being on a bus, you know,’ she told him.
‘What isn’t?’ Spot demanded.
‘Travelling with you. I still seem to do the moving.’
‘Well of course you do,’ Spot told her, as if she was really a bit thick. ‘You are me and I am you.’
‘Does that mean that sometimes you’ll be a dog, walking about looking like a girl?’ Alice asked, trying very hard to understand.
But this was too much even for Spot. He paused and scratched his ear.
‘I don’t know about that,’ he said. ‘I mean – what would be the point?’
‘Well’ – Alice searched for a good enough reason – ‘you could come to my school or go to the cinema or for a cheeseburger or . . . things like that.’
Spot yawned and didn’t even bother to reply. Alice couldn’t blame him. She thought it was much more fun being a dog.
They found the place where Jack had fallen and soon after they reached where the fox and William had gone off downhill towards the valley bottom. Here they discovered Jack’s scent going on alone along the forest track.
‘They parted company here,’ Spot said, snuffling the ground excitedly. ‘And the man is only walking on one leg.’
‘Only walking on one leg?’ Alice said, deeply puzzled. ‘How can that be?’
‘He’s hurt,’ Spot continued, still sniffing at the ground. ‘He walks heavily on one leg and trails the other. And he has a stick to support him.’
‘That’ll be Uncle Jack,’ Alice said and then she added in a worried voice, ‘Oh dear! I wonder what’s happened. Which way did William go, Spot? Can you tell?’
‘He’s travelling with the fox, of course,’ Spot replied in a matter-of-fact voice.
‘You must admit all this is a bit weird,’ Alice said. ‘Not everyone pops in and out of animals, you know. Not everyone goes running off in a dog and sniffs things and burrows in the snow. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve never heard of anything like this before.’
‘But then, not many people know a magician, do they?’ Spot asked.
‘That is very true,’ Alice said, impressed by Spot’s intelligence.
‘Which way shall we go?’ Spot asked. ‘Do we follow Jack or William?’
‘The owl said . . .’
‘There you go again. Why does everyone pay attention to the owl?’
‘The owl said . . .’ Alice insisted, ignoring the dog, ‘that we should find the fox.’
So saying, they hurried off the track down into the trees towards the valley bottom.
The fox finished the meal and licked his chops. Not a bad bit of chicken. Then he went to find the boy.
William hadn’t got far. The sledge wasn’t all that easy to pull and he was half inclined to leave it. But he reckoned that it would make transporting Jack to the road much easier once he had found him.
I hope this track leads into the right part of the woods, he thought.
‘It does,’ the fox told him, trotting up and walking beside him.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ William said, surprised to hear a voice.
‘Who did you think it would be?’ the fox asked him, scathingly. But before William could answer him back, the sound of someone calling made them both look across the fields in the direction of the high woods.
It was a high, piping voice; a familiar voice.
‘William,’ it called. ‘Oh, William!’
‘That’s Alice,’ William said.
‘This way,’ the fox told him and the next moment William was leaping a stone wall and streaking across the snowy ground towards the distant shape of the big black and white dog.
‘Are you all right, Phoebe?’ Mary asked her.
‘Don’t bother her with questions,’ the owl told her. ‘She needs all her strength.’
Mary thought the owl was rather bossy, but she was glad it was there. Twice it had flown at the rat and sent it scuttling for cover.
‘I’ll get it eventually,’ the owl told her. ‘Now what are you doing, girl?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mary answered, desperately. ‘I’ve never delivered a baby before.’
‘Just let it come,’ the owl had told her and although its voice was rather hooting and haughty, it sounded kindly.
The baby came just as the darkness settled completely round the house. It came quietly and surprisingly gently and Mary thought it was the most wonderful thing that she had ever seen anywhere or that she was ever likely to see.
‘It was magic,’ she told Phoebe, when she had bathed it and wrapped it in a towel and done all the other things that Phoebe instructed her to do.
‘It’s a boy,’ Phoebe whispered, taking the baby in her arms. She wasn’t really asking a question, it was more as though she was making a statement.
‘No,’ Mary told her, breathless still with excitement. ‘It’s a little girl.’
‘A girl,’ Phoebe said, so quietly that it was almost like a sigh.
‘A girl,’ the owl hooted. It was a mournful sound.
‘But – isn’t that good?’ Mary exclaimed.
‘I’m not sure,’ Phoebe said.
‘The Magician won’t be pleased,’ the owl hooted.
‘But – why ever not?’ Mary said. She could feel herself getting cross.
‘Well,’ the owl hooted. ‘He was expecting a boy.’
‘Well, bother the Magician,’ Mary stormed. ‘She’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. She’s the first baby I’ve ever helped be born and she’s the best baby in the whole world,’ and, she couldn’t help it, she started to cry.
‘Mary,’ Phoebe whispered, holding a hand out to her. ‘I agree with you. Thank you, Mary.’
‘And I agree with you too,’ the owl hooted. ‘But I’m not sure about the Magician.’
‘The Magician?’ Mary said, crossly. ‘Bother the Magician. She’s a little girl, whe
ther he likes it or not. And I don’t see how he could fail to. Anyway, whatever the Magician says won’t make any difference, because she’s here.’
And, right on cue, the baby let out a great, noisy wail.
22
The Empty Room
AFTER THE BLIZZARD died down, the clouds parted and then gradually dispersed. By nightfall, a clear sky soared, like a dark dome, over the winter landscape. Stars came out, one by one, and a thin moon floated in a halo of silver mist. The snow crunched underfoot and long thin icicles glittered like daggers from the branches of the trees and the bars of the farm gates.
Spot and the fox found Jack huddled in the shelter of a holly bush. He had lit a fire with some of the dry brushwood that lay deep in the forest, protected from the storm by the density of the trees up above. But it had given only a poor flame and little warmth and, because he found moving so difficult, he was unable to get sufficient fuel to keep it going for very long. Then, once it had died and darkness had settled over the woods, he had wrapped himself as well as he could in his anorak and, drawing his good leg up under his chin, he had prepared to sit out the night.
Eventually he fell into an uneasy sleep, full of visions and strange sounds. Later he would tell Phoebe how he had dreamed that a fox came with a dog and that they carried him to a sledge and on that he had made the journey back to Golden House.
‘But, of course,’ he added, ‘I was dreaming. It was William and Alice who came to the rescue. Though how they managed to get through that storm beats me.’
He would remember lying on the sledge, with the dog and the fox pulling it across the sparkling, moonlit ground.
‘But as I say, it was Alice and William. How they had the strength to pull me I can’t imagine.’
He would remember a sky crowded with stars like a jewel case; each one twinkling and flashing to outshine its neighbour. He would remember the sharp feeling of the icy air against his cheeks and the snow flying like a bow wave on each side of the sledge. He would remember the dark horizon, black against the blue-black of the sky, and the trees weighed down with shimmering snow, and the sound of the animals’ breath as they pulled his weight, and their paws as they pounded the ground and the swish of the sledge as it skimmed across the smooth earth.
Most of all that night he would remember the sledge pausing for a moment at the summit of a hill and seeing, down below, the orange glow of lamplight spilling from the front door of Golden House, where Mary stood, impatient on the porch, waiting for his return.
Perhaps it was his fever that confused the dreams and the reality. Did a great owl swoop low over the sledge and did it call out to the dog and the fox? Or was it Mary, running out to welcome Alice and William as they pulled their heavy cargo into the drive and up the final stretch to the door?
Certainly there was a dog there. Jack remembered Alice stroking it as it lay panting at her feet. And there was a fox, which William helped to unharness from the sledge. But could that be right? Could a fox be persuaded to pull a sledge? He’d never heard of a thing like that before.
But there are many miracles and many unexplained events and sometimes it’s best to leave them as precious memories in the mind and to let them, little by little, fade and alter until they become no more than fragments of a legend. And so it would be for Jack. His scientific brain couldn’t wrestle for too long with the possibility of magic without him losing his trust in his own logical thinking and his reasoning capacity on which he relied almost exclusively. And this time he was saved by the greatest miracle of all.
‘Uncle Jack!’ Mary exclaimed, running to him. ‘Oh, Uncle Jack, you’re here at last. Come quickly and see.’
Phoebe was lying on the hearth rug in front of the fire, propped up on pillows and covered with blankets and an eiderdown. In her arms Jack saw that she was holding a small bundle of white towel. Then, as he hobbled towards her, leaning heavily on William, the bundle moved and turned and he was looking into the eyes of his first-born child.
‘Jack,’ Phoebe murmured drowsily. ‘Jack, thank God you’re home. She’s a girl, Jack. A baby girl . . . Mary did it all . . .’
‘Mare,’ Alice whispered in amazement.
‘It wasn’t really me,’ Mary whispered, blushing as she spoke. ‘The owl told me what to do – and, really, babies come on their own.’
‘Was it very rude?’ Alice asked.
‘No, of course it wasn’t,’ Mary assured her.
Alice had grave doubts all the same. Babies, like most other ‘natural’ things, were too rude to be thought about. So instead she ran out on to the porch, to look for Spot.
‘Spot! Spot!’ she called, finding that he and the fox had disappeared. Then she saw their footprints in the snow, leading in the direction of the trees.
‘Spot!’ she called again. ‘Uncle Jack will let you live inside.’
Distantly she heard an answering bark, but she could see no sign of the dog and, as it was now intensely cold, she went back into the hall and closed the door.
The children helped Phoebe and Jack up the stairs to their room. Mary remade the bed and William brought them hot-water bottles. The baby was placed in a cradle beside Phoebe and she said that she would be able to manage until the morning and that they should go down into the kitchen and have some supper and then go to bed.
‘You must all be tired out,’ she said and indeed, as she spoke, Jack was already snoring quietly beside her.
Mary said that they could easily look after themselves and soon the three children were sitting round the kitchen range recounting all that had happened to each of them from the moment that Jack and William had set off on the journey to the phone box.
When all the stories were finished they relapsed into silence, staring at the dull embers of the fire.
‘What a Christmas!’ Mary said eventually. ‘D’you remember Uncle Jack saying he wanted it to be a day we’d remember always?’
‘Oh, Christmas!’ Alice exclaimed, then she giggled.
‘What d’you suppose the rat meant?’ William asked. ‘Tell us again what it said, Alice.’
Alice shrugged and swung her feet. It was nice being the centre of attention for once.
‘He said he belonged to a magician – but not our magician.’
‘Oh, no!’ William groaned. ‘Not two magicians!’
‘You know what I think,’ Mary said after a moment. ‘I think the rat was trying to stop the baby being born.’
‘But – why?’ Alice asked.
Mary shrugged.
‘Twice while the birth was taking place the owl had to scare it off.’
‘Well, I told you, didn’t I?’ Alice said, smugly. She was really enjoying having been right about it. ‘I never could bring myself to trust a rat.’
‘It was the rat that destroyed the tyres,’ William said. ‘I suppose that was so we couldn’t go for help.’
‘Unless of course,’ Mary pondered, ‘unless this was all part of our test. The one the Magician said we should have.’
‘No,’ Alice protested. ‘Spot asked it to say the password, and it couldn’t. That rat has nothing to do with our magician, I’m sure of that.’
‘What password?’ William asked, filled with curiosity.
Alice shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask Spot. Oh, I really loved being in the dog. Did you, Will? Did you like being in the fox?’
‘I don’t know how we could have been,’ William protested. ‘I think it must have been some sort of a dream or something. I mean, how else can you explain it?’
Alice groaned. William was sometimes so thick.
‘We don’t have to explain it. Why need we? It just happened. I could smell scents and we ran through the snow with our noses so close to the ground that the snow went up our nostrils and made us sneeze.’
‘Well, I nearly ate a raw chicken,’ William said.
‘William, you didn’t?’ Mary exclaimed. ‘But why?’
‘The fox w
as hungry,’ William said.
‘Ugh! How horrible.’ Alice screwed up her face in disgust. ‘It’s enough to make you want to be a vegetable.’
‘You are lucky,’ Mary sighed. ‘I didn’t get to travel in anything.’
‘But you delivered the baby,’ Alice told her. ‘You had the most important job.’
‘Would you have liked it instead?’ Mary asked, rather sharply.
‘Not much,’ Alice was forced to admit.
‘Precisely. You two go off having magic and I’m left at home. Typical!’ Mary filled the words with distaste.
They were silent again for a moment as each of them relived the events in their minds.
‘The owl says the Magician’ll be furious,’ Mary said, almost to herself.
‘What about?’ William asked.
‘The baby – being a girl,’ Mary told him.
Alice nodded.
‘Spot says the Magician can’t be bothered with females,’ she said, helping herself to another of Phoebe’s mince tarts.
‘Why not?’ William asked.
‘Because he must be a male-thingy,’ Mary said. ‘You know, those funny pigs.’
‘A chauvinist,’ William declared, solemnly.
‘What are they?’ Alice asked.
‘They’re the men that women have to fight against,’ Mary told her, authoritatively.
‘How d’you mean, fight against?’ Alice asked, her eyes wide with excitement. ‘Do we all have to?’
‘It’s male-thingy-pigs who have stopped women being treated as equals,’ Mary told her.
‘Equal to who?’ Alice asked.
‘Equal to men,’ Mary replied, patiently.
‘Ugh,’ cried Alice. ‘But that’s stupid. Of course women aren’t the same as men. I’d far rather be a man. They have a much better time. I’m sure I was meant to be a man really, only there was a mix-up at the hospital.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Alice,’ Mary told her, losing her temper.
The Steps up the Chimney Page 16