by Joan Aiken
Presently they came to the last steep descent into the valley, and Simon then allowed Bonnie to get out of the cart while he adjusted the drag on the wheels to stop it running downhill too fast. All this time Sylvia slept. She stirred a little as they reached the foot of the hill and walked through a fringe of rowan trees into a tiny village consisting of three or four cottages round a green, with a couple of outlying farms.
‘We’ll go to the forge,’ said Simon, and led the donkey across the green to a low building under a great walnut tree.
Bonnie fell back and walked beside the cart, smiling at Sylvia’s puzzled, sleepy face. The geese were beginning to stir and stretch their long necks, and at first sight of them Sylvia looked slightly alarmed, but when she saw Bonnie she smiled too, and shut her eyes again.
‘Smith’s up,’ said Simon. A thread of smoke dribbled from the forge chimney, and they could see a red glow over the stable-door in front, while the noise of bellows came in a regular wheezing roar.
Simon called over the forge door.
‘Mr Wilderness!’
The roaring stopped and there was a clink. Then a face appeared over the half door and the smith came out. He was an immensely tall man, wearing a blackened leather apron. Bonnie couldn’t help smiling, he looked so like a large, gentle, white-haired lion, with a pair of dark eyes like those of a collie dog, half-hidden by the locks of white hair that fell over his forehead.
‘Eh, it’s you, Simon me boy? What road can I help you?’
‘Caroline’s loosed a shoe,’ said Simon, patting the donkey, ‘and as well as that we’d like your advice about the little lass here. She’s not well.’
‘Childer come afore donkeys,’ Mr Wilderness said. He moved over beside the cart and looked down at Sylvia’s face among the geese. ‘Eh, a pretty little fair lass she be. What’s amiss with her?’
‘She’s got a cough and a sore throat and a fever,’ explained Bonnie.
The smith gazed at Bonnie wide-eyed.
‘And th’art another of ’em, bless me! Who’d ha’ thought it? I took thee for a boy in that rig. Well, she’s sleeping fair in a goosefeather bed, tha can’t better that. Are they goosefeathers?’ he said to Simon.
‘Stuffed the quilts and mattresses myself,’ said Simon nodding, ‘My own geese.’
‘Champion! Goose grease for chilblains, goosefeathers for a chill. We’ll leave her in the cart.’
‘Shouldn’t she be put to bed?’ Bonnie said doubtfully.
‘Nay, where, lass? I’ve only the forge and the kitchen, where I sleep mysen. Nay, we’ll put her, cart and all, in the shippen, she’ll be gradely there.’
He led them round the corner of the forge and showed them how to back the cart into a big barn with double doors on each side. When he opened these, sunlight poured into the place and revealed that it was half-full of hay, and lined along the walls with lambing pens made from hurdles. A tremendous baaing and bleating came from these and, walking along, Bonnie saw with delight that each pen contained a sheep and one, two, or three lambs.
‘There’s nought like lying wi’ sheep two-three days for a chesty cough,’ pronounced Mr Wilderness. ‘The breath of sheep has a powerful virtue in it. That and a brew of my cherry-bark syrup with maybe a spoonful of honey in it, and a plateful or two of good porridge, will set her to rights better than the grandest doctor in the kingdom. Put her in the sun there, lad. When sun gets round we can open t’other doors and let him in that side. Now for a bite o’ breakfast. I’m fair clemmed, and happen you’ll be the same, if you’ve walked all the way fro’ Blastburn.’
‘We’ve a pie and some victuals,’ Simon said.
‘Nay, lad, save thy pie for later. Porridge is on the forge fire this minute, and what’s better nor that?’
The geese had climbed and fluttered out of the cart, and were busy foraging in the hay. Bonnie, after making sure that Sylvia was well covered and had gone back to sleep, was glad to come into the smith’s clean little kitchen, which opened off the smithy and was as warm as an oven. They sat down at a table covered with a checked red-and-white cloth.
Mr Wilderness’s porridge was very different from that served in Mrs Brisket’s school. It was eaten with brown sugar from a big blue bag, and with dollops of thick yellow cream provided by Mr Wilderness’s two red cows, who stood sociably outside the kitchen door while breakfast was going on, and licked the nose of Caroline the donkey.
After the porridge they had great slices of sizzling bacon and cups of scalding brown tea.
Then the smith prepared a draught of his cherry-bark medicine, syrupy golden stuff with a wonderful aromatic scent, and took it out to Sylvia, who was stirring drowsily. She swallowed it down, smiled a sleepy no-thank-you to an offer of porridge and cream, and closed her eyes again.
‘Ay, sleep’s the best cure of all,’ said Mr Wilderness. ‘You look as if you could do wi’ a bit too, my lass.’
Bonnie did begin to feel that she could do nothing but yawn, and so Simon made her a nest in the hay and covered her with one of his goosefeather quilts. Here in the sun amid the comfortable creaking of the geese and the baaing chorus of the sheep she too fell into a long and dreamless sleep.
They stayed with Mr Wilderness for three days, until he pronounced Sylvia better and fit to travel.
In the meantime Simon helped the smith by blowing the fire and carving wooden handles for the farm implements he made. Bonnie washed all his curtains, tablecloths, and sheets, and, aided by Simon, did a grand spring-clean of the cottage.
‘Two months ago I shouldn’t have known how to do this,’ she said cheerfully, beating mats on the village green. ‘Going to Mrs Brisket’s at least taught me housework and how to look after hens.’
Mr Wilderness was sorry to lose them when they went. ‘If tha’d ha’ stayed another two-three weeks th’ birds would ha’ been nesting, and th’ primroses all showing their little pink faces. Herondale’s a gradely place i’ springtime.’
‘Pink faces?’ said Bonnie disbelievingly. ‘Don’t you mean yellow?’
‘Nay, they’re pink round here, lass, and the geraniums is blue.’
But even with this inducement they wanted to press on to London. They left with many farewells, promising that they would call in on the return journey, or come over as soon as they were safely back at Willoughby Chase.
The journey to London took them nearly two months. They had to go at goose-pace, for in the daytime the geese flew out of the cart and wandered along as they chose, pecking any edible thing by the roadside, and, as Simon explained, ‘There’s no sense in hurrying the geese or by the time we reach Smithfield they’ll be thin and scrawny, and nobody will buy ’em.’
‘Anyway,’ said Bonnie, ‘supposing Mrs Brisket and Miss Slighcarp have set people searching for us, the search will surely have died down by the end of two months.’
So they made their leisurely way, picking flowers, of which they found more and more as spring advanced and they travelled farther south, watching birds, and stopping to bathe and splash in moorland brooks.
At night they usually camped near a farm, sleeping in or under the cart in their warm goosefeather quilts. If it rained, farmers offered them shelter in barn or haymow. Often a kindly farmer’s wife invited them in for a plate of stew and sped them on their way with a baking of pasties and apple dumplings. In return, Sylvia did exquisite darning, Bonnie helped with housework, and Simon, who could turn his hand to anything, ploughed, or milked, or sawed wood, or mended broken tools.
Pattern had smuggled one or two books and Bonnie’s paintbox from the attic out to the cart with the food and clothes, and these were a great resource on rainy evenings in the hay. They read aloud to each other, and Simon, who had never bothered about reading before, learned how, and even pronounced it quite a handy accomplishment. He also took a keen pleasure in making use of Bonnie’s box of colours, and sometimes could hardly be torn away from some view of a crag or waterfall that he was busy sketching. The girls woul
d wander slowly on with Caroline, the cart, and the geese, until Simon, finished at last, caught them up at a run with the colour-box under his arm and the painting held out at arm’s length to dry.
Sylvia and Bonnie thought his pictures very beautiful, but Simon was always dissatisfied with them, and would give them away to any passer-by who admired them. Several times people pressed money on him for them, and once, when they were stopping overnight in a little village named Beckside, the landlord of the inn, the Snake and Ladder, who had seen one of the sketches, asked if Simon would repaint his faded inn-sign. So they spent a pleasant day at the village, feeding like gamecocks at the innkeeper’s table on roast duck and apple cheesecake, while Simon painted a gorgeous green-and-gold serpent twined in the rungs of a pruning-ladder.
‘Should you like to be a painter, do you think, Simon?’ Sylvia asked.
‘I might,’ he confessed. ‘I’d never thought of such a trade before. Eh, though, but there’s a lot to learn! And I doubt I’d never have the money for a teacher.’
Bonnie opened her lips to speak, and then checked herself, sighing.
Late in April they came to the top of Hampstead Hill, among the grey old houses and the young green trees.
At the foot of the hill they could see the village of Chalk Farm, and, far away, the great city of London spread out, with its blue veil of smoke and its myriads of spires and chimneys. Sylvia felt a quickening of her heart to think she was so close to her dear Aunt Jane again. How pleased the old lady would be to see her beloved little niece!
They camped that night on Hampstead Heath near a tribe of gipsies – and indeed they looked like gipsies themselves. Bonnie and Simon were as brown as berries and their black locks were decidedly in want of cutting, while even Sylvia would hardly have been recognized for the thin, pale, fair child who had set out to Willoughby Chase so many months ago. Her cheeks were pink, and her hair, though not its original length yet, was thick and shining and reached to her shoulders.
They found an obliging dairyman in Hampstead Village who was willing to keep Caroline and the cart for them in his stable, and next day they drove the geese down into London.
‘You girls had best not come to Smithfield Market,’ said Simon. ‘It’s a rough, wild place, not fit for little maids.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ suggested Bonnie, ‘how would it be if we tried to find Mr Gripe’s office while you are at the Market? Sylvia, can you tell us where lawyers’ offices in London are usually to be found?’
Sylvia said she thought they were in the region of Chancery Lane. Having inquired the way of a constable, therefore, the girls accompanied Simon as far as Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and there he left them with Goosey and Gandey, the two parent geese, who were never sold, while he went on to dispose of the rest of the flock.
Bonnie and Sylvia wandered along outside the houses that surrounded the Fields and saw on brass door-plates the names of many attorneys, barristers, and Commissioners for Oaths, but nowhere that of Mr Gripe.
At about midday when, tired, they were lying sunning themselves on the grass, and eating sliced beef and lemon tarts procured at a near-by cookshop, Bonnie suddenly exclaimed:
‘Look, Sylvia, look! Isn’t that Mr Grimshaw?’
A portly, middle-aged man was walking across the grass towards a near-by archway. Sylvia scrutinized him closely and whispered.
‘Yes! I am almost sure it is he! If he would but turn his head this way!’
‘We must follow him and find out,’ Bonnie said decisively. ‘If he, too, is in London we shall have to be on our guard.’
The two children got up and, calling their geese, walked fast, but not so as to attract his attention, after the gentleman in question. He passed through the archway, descended some steps, and turned into a small street, where he stopped outside one of the houses.
‘Perhaps it is his residence,’ whispered Sylvia.
They approached slowly. Unfortunately a large black cat was seated on the pavement, and if there was one animal that Goosey abominated, it was a cat. He set up a vociferous honking and cackling, and the gentleman, in the act of ringing the doorbell, turned his head and looked at the two girls. His eyes passed over Bonnie, but he stared very sharply at Sylvia for an instant – then the door opened and he was admitted.
‘Oh mercy!’ exclaimed Sylvia, ‘do you think he recognized me? For it was undoubtedly Mr Grimshaw! I could not have sat so long opposite him in the train and been mistaken.’
‘I am not certain if he knew you,’ said Bonnie uneasily. ‘It is possible. You are not so sunburned as Simon or I. We had better not remain in this vicinity.’
They were turning to go when Bonnie’s quick eyes caught sight of the brass plate by the door that Mr Grimshaw had entered.
‘Look Sylvia! Abednego Gripe, Attorney. Father’s man of business! Is not that a lucky chance!’
‘Is it so lucky?’ said Sylvia doubtfully, as they retraced their steps along the street. ‘I do not like the fact that Mr Grimshaw has gone to see him. Why can he have done so, do you suppose?’
‘No, you are right,’ Bonnie answered thoughtfully. ‘It is very queer. At all events, we must not go to see Mr Gripe while Mr Grimshaw is there. We had best wait until we have seen Aunt Jane and asked her advice.’
They remounted the steps and saw Simon crossing Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He waved to them triumphantly.
‘Twenty-two pounds, girls! They fetched fourteen and eightpence each!’ he called as soon as he came within earshot. ‘We are rich!’
‘Heavens, what a lot of money!’ breathed Sylvia.
‘Let us be off to Aunt Jane at once,’ said Bonnie.
‘Shall you want me to come?’ asked Simon diffidently.’
‘Gracious, yes! Why ever not?’
‘I’m only poor and rough –’
‘Oh, what nonsense,’ said Bonnie, seizing his hand. ‘You can’t come all this way with us and then desert us now, just when things might turn out better! Sylvia, tell us how to get from here to Park Lane.’
They finished their four-hundred-mile journey riding on the open upper deck of one of the new horse-drawn omnibuses, geese and all, though Sylvia did rather shudder to think what Aunt Jane would say to this, should she chance to be looking out of her window when they arrived. Aunt Jane had many times told Sylvia that no lady ever rode in an omnibus, and more particularly not on the upstairs deck.
‘I feel half-afraid,’ confessed Sylvia, laughing, looking up at the familiar tall house with its Grecian columns on either side of the door and white window-boxes filled with lobelia. ‘Look, Bonnie, that is our window — the attic one, right up in the roof.’
‘The window-box flowers are withered,’ commented Simon.
‘So they are. That is not like Aunt Jane,’ said Sylvia, puzzled. ‘She usually waters them so carefully.’
The main door to the house stood open, and they went in silence up the stairs – up, up again, and still up. As they passed a door on the fourth-floor landing, it flew open and a young man’s head popped out exclaiming, ‘Is that the grocer? Have you brought my pies and turpentine? Oh – ’ in disappointment, as he saw Simon and Bonnie and the geese. Sylvia had impatiently gone on ahead. The young man eyed them in surprise a moment, then shut his door again.
They caught up with Sylvia on the top landing. She was already tapping at Aunt Jane’s attic door.
‘It is strange! She does not answer!’
‘Perhaps she’s out shopping?’ suggested Simon.
‘But she always takes tea at this time of day.’ (It was five o’clock.)
‘She could not have moved away?’ Bonnie said with a sinking heart.
‘No,’ exclaimed Sylvia in relief, ‘here is the spare door-key that she always keeps under the oilcloth in case by some mischance she should lose her other one. She must be out, after all. We will go in and surprise her on her return.’
She opened the door with the key, and, cautioning them by laying her finger on her l
ips, tiptoed in. Bonnie and Simon rather shyly followed and stood hesitating in the tiny hallway, while Sylvia went on into the one room which served Aunt Jane for kitchen, parlour, and bedroom.
Suddenly they heard Sylvia give a faint cry, and she came back to them, white and frightened.
‘What is it, Sylvia?’ said Bonnie anxiously.
‘It is Aunt Jane! Oh, I think she must be dreadfully ill, or in a faint – she is there, and so thin and pale and hardly breathing! Come, come quickly!’
They hastened after her, Simon pausing but a moment to shut the geese out on the landing. They saw the poor old lady stretched on her bed under the jet-trimmed mantle. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was rapid and shallow. ‘Aunt Jane?’ whispered Sylvia. ‘It is I, Sylvia!’ There was no reply.
10
ALL THREE CHILDREN retreated on to the landing once more. It seemed dreadful to stay in the little close room and talk about Aunt Jane with her quite unconscious of their presence. Sylvia noticed that the window was shut, the dishes unwashed. A thick layer of dust covered everything.
‘What do you think is the matter with her?’ Sylvia said, her voice quavering.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bonnie decidedly, ‘but whatever it is, we must get a doctor to her at once.’
‘Yes, Bonnie, how sensible of you! But where shall we find one?’
‘Has Aunt Jane no regular doctor?’
‘She always said she could not afford one,’ said Sylvia, dissolving into tears. ‘She always said all her ailments could be cured by P-Parkinson’s Penny Pink Pills.’
‘Now come, Sylvia, don’t get into those crying ways again,’ Bonnie began, sounding cross because she was so worried, when Simon interposed:
‘I think I saw a doctor’s plate on the floor below. Wait a moment and I’ll go down and make certain.’
He pushed past the geese, who were roosting on the stairs, and ran down to the landing below. Sure enough, by the door out of which the head had popped was a notice: GABRIEL FIELD – PHYSICIAN AND CHIRURGEON.
Simon knocked. A voice shouted, ‘Come in, it’s not locked,’ and so he pushed open the door and looked into a room which was in a considerable degree of confusion. Several shelves along the walls bore a clutter of bottles, phials, and surgical implements; a large table was covered with brushes, jars, and tubes of paint, while the floor was almost equally littered with stacks of canvases and piles of medical books.