The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

by Joan Aiken

‘How surprised she will be!’ exclaimed Sylvia with lively pleasure. ‘I almost wish I could be there to see!’

  ‘But, Sylvia, you are to be there! They most particularly requested that you and I should be taken too, to act as witnesses.’

  ‘But who will look after Aunt Jane?’ inquired Sylvia anxiously.

  ‘Dr Field has said that he would procure a nurse for a few days. And it need be for only two – you can return directly Miss Slighcarp is apprehended. And Sylvia, as soon as Aunt Jane is well enough to travel, I have asked Mr Gripe to arrange that she shall come and live at Willoughby, and be our guardian.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ exclaimed Sylvia, her face brightening, ‘what a splendid plan, Bonnie!’

  It was a gay and lively party that assembled in the train next day – very different from that earlier and sorrowful departure when Sylvia had taken leave of Aunt Jane. A special coupé compartment had been chartered, and the Bow Street officers had no objection to Simon and his geese travelling in it as well. Dr Field was remaining to keep an eye on Aunt Jane, but he bade the children a cordial farewell and invited them to come and sleep in his apartment again when they returned to take Aunt Jane to Willoughby. Mr Gripe the lawyer was with them, and had given his clerk instructions to procure a luncheon hamper from which came the most savoury smells. Sylvia smiled faintly as she thought of the other tiny food-packet and Mr Grimshaw’s sumptuous jam-filled cakes.

  ‘I suppose he only pretended to have forgotten who he was when the portmanteau fell on him’, she said to Bonnie.

  ‘So that he would be taken to Willoughby,’ said Bonnie, nodding. ‘How I wish that we had left him in the train!’

  ‘Still, he did save me from the wolves.’

  There were no wolves to be seen on this journey. The packs had all retreated to the bleak north country, and the train ran through smiling pasture-lands, all astir with sheep and lambs, or through green and golden woods carpeted with bluebells.

  The day passed gaily, with songs and story-telling – even the dry Mr Gripe proved to know a number of amusing tales – and in between the laughter and chat Cardigan and Spock, the Bow Street officers, busily wrote down in their notebooks more and more of the dreadful deeds of Miss Slighcarp recounted to them by Bonnie and Sylvia.

  They reached Willoughby Station at dawn. Mr Gripe had written to one of the inns at Blastburn for a chaise and it was there to meet them.

  ‘How different this road seems,’ said Sylvia, as they set off at a gallop. ‘Last time I travelled along it there were wolves and snow and it was cold and dark – now I see primroses everywhere and I am so hot in these clothes that I can hardly breathe.’

  They were still wearing the tinker children’s clothes Pattern had made them, for there had been no time in London to get any others made. Mr Gripe’s eye winced when it encountered them, for he liked children to look neat and nicely dressed.

  ‘Let us hope that Miss Slighcarp has not got rid of all our own clothes,’ said Bonnie.

  When they reached the boundary of Willoughby Park they saw an enormous notice, new since they had left. It said:

  WILLOUGHBY CHASE SCHOOL

  A select Seminary for the Daughters of Gentlemen and the Nobility Boarders and Parlour Boarders

  Principals: MISS L. SLIGHCARP AND MRS BRISKET

  ‘What impertinence!’ gasped Bonnie. ‘Can she really have made our home into a school?’

  ‘This is worse even than I had feared,’ said Mr Gripe grimly, as the chaise turned into the gateway.

  They took the longer and more roundabout road that led to the back of the house, for the Bow Street officers wanted to surprise Miss Slighcarp.

  ‘Didn’t you say there was a secret passage, miss?’ Sam Cardigan said to Bonnie.

  ‘Yes, and a priests’ hole and an oubliette –’

  ‘Very good. Couldn’t be better. We’ll put some ginger in the good lady’s gravy.’

  He explained his plan to Mr Gripe and the children, and then they knocked at the back door. It was opened by James.

  ‘Miss Bonnie! Miss Sylvia!’ he exclaimed, scarlet with joy and surprise. They both flung themselves on him and hugged him.

  ‘James, dear James! Are you all right? Is Pattern all right? What is going on here?’

  ‘Terrible doings, miss –’

  ‘Now, now,’ said Sam Cardigan. ‘Pleasure at seeing old acquaintance all very well, but business is business. We must get under cover. My man, where can this carriage be concealed?’

  ‘It can go in the coach-house, sir,’ James told him. ‘There’s only Miss Slighcarp’s landau now.’

  The carriage was hastily put away, and the conspirators took refuge in the dairy.

  ‘Now James,’ said Bonnie, dancing with excitement, ‘you must go and tell Miss Slighcarp that Sylvia and I have come back, and that we are very sad and sorry for having run away. Don’t say anything about these gentlemen.’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ said James, his eyes beginning to twinkle. ‘She’s teaching just now, up in the schoolroom. The pupils study for an hour before breakfast.’

  ‘Is the entrance to the secret passage still open, James? Has Miss Slighcarp ever discovered it?’

  ‘No to the second and yes to the first, Miss Bonnie,’ said James, and pulled aside the cupboard and horse-blankets which he had arranged to conceal the opening.

  ‘Capital! Go to her quickly, then, James! Tell her we are starving!’

  ‘You don’t look it, begging your pardon, miss,’ said James, grinning, and left the room. Mr Gripe and the two Bow Street officers squeezed their way into the secret passage. Simon, who had left his geese in the stable-yard, hesitated, but Mr Gripe said, ‘Come on, come on, boy. The more witnesses, the better,’ so he followed.

  Bonnie and Sylvia spent the time while they waited for James’s return in artistically dirtying and untidying each other, rubbing dust and coal on their faces, rumpling their hair, and making themselves look as dejected and orphanly as possible.

  James came back with a long face.

  ‘You’re to come up to the schoolroom, young ladies. At once.’

  He led the way, and they followed in silence. The house bore traces everywhere of its new use as a school. On the crystal chandelier in the ballroom ropes had been slung for climbing, and the billiards-table had been exchanged for backboards. The portraits of ancestors in the long gallery had been replaced by notice-boards and the gold-leaf and ormolu tables were covered with chalk-powder and ink-stains.

  Even though they knew they had good friends close at hand, the children could not control a certain swelled and breathless feeling in the region of their midriffs as they approached the schoolroom door.

  James tapped at the door and in response to Miss Slighcarp’s ‘Come in’ opened it and stood aside to let the children through.

  A quick glance showed them that all the furniture had been removed and that the room was filled with desks. The more senior children from Mrs Brisket’s school were sitting at them, with expressions varying from nervous excitement to petrifaction on their faces.

  Miss Slighcarp stood on a raised platform by a blackboard. She had a long wooden pointer in her hand. Mrs Brisket was there, too, sitting at the instructress’s desk. She wore a stern and forbidding expression, but on Miss Slighcarp’s face there was a look of triumph.

  ‘So!’ she said – a long, hissing exhalation. ‘So, you have returned! – Come here.’

  They advanced, slowly and trembling, until they stood below the platform. Miss Slighcarp was so tall that they had almost to lean back to look up at her.

  ‘P-please take us back into your school, Miss Slighcarp,’ faltered Bonnie. ‘We’re so cold and tired and hungry.’

  Into Sylvia’s mind came a sudden recollection of the grouse pies and apricots they had eaten on the train. She bit her lip, and tried to look sorrowful.

  Behind them, James quietly poked the fire, but no one noticed him. All eyes were on the returning truants.

  ‘Hun
gry!’ said Miss Slighcarp. ‘You’ll be hungrier still before I’ve done with you. Do you think you can run away, spend two months idling and playing on the moors, return when it suits you, and then expect to be given roast beef and pudding? You’ll have no food for three days! Perhaps that will teach you something. And you shall both be beaten, and we’ll see what a taste of the dungeons will do for your spirit. James, go and get the dungeon keys.’

  ‘No, miss,’ said James firmly. ‘I obey some of your orders because I’ve got no alternative, but help to put children in those dungeons I can’t and won’t. It’s not Christian.’ And he left the room, shutting the door sharply behind him.

  ‘I’ll get the keys, Letitia,’ said Mrs Brisket, rising ponderously. ‘You can be administering chastisement, meanwhile.’

  Miss Slighcarp came down from her platform. ‘Miss Green,’ she said, and her eyes were so glittering with fury that even Bonnie quailed, ‘put out your hand.’

  Bonnie took a step backward. Miss Slighcarp followed her, and raised the pointer menacingly. The children at the desks drew a tremulous breath. But just as the pointer came swishing down, the chimneypiece panel flew open, and Mr Gripe, stepping out, seized hold of Miss Slighcarp’s arm.

  For a moment she was utterly dumbfounded. Then, in wrath she exclaimed:

  ‘Who are you, sir? Let me go at once! What are you doing in my house?’

  ‘In your house, ma’am? In your house? Don’t you remember me, Miss Slighcarp?’ said Mr Gripe. ‘I was the attorney instructed by your distant relative, Sir Willoughby Green, to seek you out and offer you the position of instructress to his daughter. You brought with you a testimonial from the Duchess of Kensington. Don’t you remember?’

  Miss Slighcarp turned pale.

  ‘And who gave you permission, woman,’ suddenly thundered Mr Gripe, ‘to turn this house into a boarding school? Who said you could use these children with villainous cruelty, beat them, starve them, and lock them in dungeons? Oh, it’s no use to protest, I’ve been behind that panel and heard every word you’ve uttered.’

  ‘It was only a joke,’ faltered Miss Slighcarp. ‘I had no intention of really shutting them in the dungeons.’

  At this moment Mrs Brisket re-entered the room holding a bunch of enormous rusty keys.

  ‘We can’t use the upper dungeons, Letitia,’ she began briskly, ‘for Lucy and Emma are occupying them. I have brought the lower …’

  Then she saw Mr Gripe, and behind him the two Bow Street officers. Her jaw dropped, and she was stricken to silence.

  ‘Only a joke, indeed?’ said Mr Gripe harshly. ‘Mr Cardigan, place these two females under arrest, if you please. Until it is convenient to remove them to jail, you may as well avail yourself of the dungeon keys so obligingly put at your disposal.’

  ‘You can’t do this! You’ve no right!’ shrieked the enraged Miss Slighcarp, struggling in the grip of Cardigan. ‘I have papers signed by Sir Willoughby empowering me to do as I please with this property in the event of his death, and appointing me guardian of the children – ’

  ‘Papers signed by Sir Willoughby. Pish!’ said Mr Gripe scornfully. ‘You may as well know, ma’am, that your accomplice Grimshaw, who is already in prison, has confessed to the whole plot.’

  At this news all the fight went out of Mrs Brisket, and she allowed herself to be manacled by Spock, only muttering, ‘Grimshaw’s a fool, a paltry, whining fool.’

  But Miss Slighcarp still gave battle.

  ‘I tell you,’ she shouted, ‘I saw Sir Willoughby before he departed and he himself left me full powers – ’

  At this moment a heavy tread resounded along the passage, and they heard a voice exclaiming:

  ‘What the devil’s all this? Desks, blackboards, carpet taken up – has m’house been turned into a reformatory?’

  The door burst open and in marched – Sir Willoughby Green! Behind him stood James, grinning for joy.

  Bonnie turned absolutely pale with incredulity, stood so for a moment, motionless and wide-eyed, then, uttering one cry – ‘Papa!’ – she flung herself into her father’s arms.

  ‘Well, minx? Have you missed us, eh? Have you been a good girl and minded your book? I can see you haven’t,’ he said, surveying her lovingly. ‘Rosy as a pippin and brown as a berry. I can see you’ve been out of doors all day long instead of sewing your sampler and learning your je ne sais quoi. And Sylvia too – eh, my word, what a change from the little white mouse we left here! Well, well, well, girls will be girls! But what’s all this, ma’am,’ he continued, addressing Miss Slighcarp threateningly, ‘what’s all this hugger-mugger? I never gave you permission to turn Willoughby Chase into a school, no, damme I didn’t! Being my fourth cousin doesn’t give you such rights as that.’

  ‘But, sir,’ interjected Mr Gripe, who, at first silent with amazement, had now got his breath back, ‘Sir Willoughby! This is joyful indeed! We had all supposed you drowned when the Thessaly sank.’

  Sir Willoughby burst into a fit of laughter.

  ‘Ay, so they told me at your office! We have been travelling close behind you, Mr Gripe – I visited your place of business yesterday, learned you had just departed for Willoughby, and, since Lady Green was anxious to get back as soon as may be, and relieve the children’s anxiety, we hired a special train and came post-haste after you.’

  ‘But were you not in the shipwreck then, Sir Willoughby?’

  The reply to this question was lost in Bonnie’s rapturous cry – ‘Is Mamma here too? Is she?’

  ‘Why yes, miss, and ettling to see you, I’ll be bound!’

  Before the words had left his mouth Bonnie was out of the door. Sylvia, from a nice sense of delicacy, did not follow her cousin. She thought that Bonnie and her mother should be allowed those first few blissful moments of reunion alone together.

  Sir Willoughby and Mr Gripe had retired to a corner of the schoolroom and Mr Gripe was talking hard, while Sir Willoughby listened with his blue eyes bulging, occasionally exclaiming, ‘Why damme! For sheer, cool, calm, impertinent effrontery – why, bless my soul!’ Once he wheeled round to his niece and said, is it really true, Sylvia? Did Miss Slighcarp do these things?’

  ‘Yes, sir, indeed she did,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Then hanging’s too good for you, ma’am,’ he growled at Miss Slighcarp. ‘Have her taken to the dungeons, Gripe. When these two excellent fellows have breakfasted they can take her and the other harpy off to prison.’

  ‘Oh sir …’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Well, miss puss?’

  ‘May I go with them to the dungeons, sir? I believe there are two children who have been put down there by Miss Slighcarp, and they will be so cold and unhappy and frightened!’

  ‘Are there, by Joshua! We’ll all go,’ said Sir Willoughby.

  Sylvia had never visited the dungeons at Willoughby Chase. They were a dismal and frightening quarter, never entered by the present owner and his family, though in days gone by they had been extensively employed by ancestors of Sir Willoughby.

  Down dark, dank, weed-encrusted steps they trod, and along narrow, rock-hewn passages, where the only sound beside the echo of their own footfalls was the drip of water. Sylvia shuddered when she remembered Miss Slighcarp’s expressed intention of imprisoning herself and Bonnie down here.

  ‘Oh, do let us hasten,’ she implored. ‘Poor Lucy and Emma must be nearly frozen with cold and fear.’

  ‘Upon my soul,’ muttered Mr Gripe. ‘This passes everything. Fancy putting children in a place like this!’

  Miss Slighcarp and Mrs Brisket trod along in the rear of their captors, silent and sullen, looking neither to right nor to left.

  The plight of Lucy and Emma was not quite so bad as it might have been. This was owing to the kind-hearted James, who, though he could not release them, had contrived to pass through their bars a number of warm blankets and a quantity of kindling and some tapers, to enable them to light a fire, and he had also kept them supplied with food out of his o
wn meagre rations.

  But they were cold and miserable enough, and their astonishment and joy at the sight of Sylvia was touching to behold.

  Sylvia danced up and down outside the bars with impatience while James found the right key, and then she hurried them off upstairs, without waiting to see Miss Slighcarp locked in their place.

  ‘Come, come quickly, and get warm by a fire. Pattern shall make you a posset – or no, I forget, Pattern is probably not here yet, but I think I know how it is done.’

  However, they had no more than reached the Great Hall when they were greeted with an ecstatic cry from Bonnie.

  ‘Sylvia! Emma! Lucy! Come and see Mamma! Oh, she is so different! So much better!’

  They went rather shyly into the salon, where Pattern, who had been summoned by Simon at full gallop on one of the coach-horses, bustled about in joyful tears and served everybody with cups of frothing hot chocolate.

  ‘Well,’ a gay voice exclaimed, ‘where’s my second daughter?’ And in swept someone whom Sylvia would hardly have recognized for the frail, languid Lady Green, so blooming, beautiful, and bright-eyed did she appear. She embraced Sylvia, cordially made welcome the two poor prisoners, and declared:

  ‘Now I want to hear all your story, every word, from the very beginning! I am proud of you both – and as for that Miss Slighcarp, cousin of your father’s though she be, I hope she is sent to Botany Bay!’

  ‘But Aunt Sophy,’ said Sylvia, ‘your tale must be so much more adventurous than ours! Were you not ship-wrecked?’

  ‘Yes, indeed we were!’ said Lady Green laughing, ‘and your uncle and I spent six very tedious days drifting in a rowing-boat, our only fare being a monotonous choice of grapes or oranges, of which there happened to be a large crate in the dinghy, fortunately for us. We were then picked up by a small and most insanitary fishing-boat, manned by a set of fellows as picturesque as they were unwashed, who none of them spoke a word of English. They would carry us nowhere but to their home port, which turned out to be the Canary Islands. On this boat we received nothing to eat but sardines in olive oil. I am surprised these shocks and privations did not carry me off, but Sir Willoughby maintains they were the saving of me, for from the time of the wreck my health began to pick up. On reaching the Canaries we determined to come home by the next mail-ship, but they only visit these islands every three months or so, and one had just left. We had to wait a weary time, but the peace and the sunshine during our enforced stay completed my cure, as you see.’