by Nina Bawden
She said, ‘Then want must be your master, Nicholas Peter Willow. Pull yourself together this minute, and help me with this goose!’
Chapter Six
Mr Evans said, ‘Did you see my sister? House in good order? Get a good tea?’
He fired these questions at them the moment they walked in the kitchen. His expression was eager and sly and it made Carrie cautious.
She said, ‘She was in bed. The house and the tea were all right.’
Nick looked surprised. ‘Oh, Carrie, it was a lovely house. And a lovely tea Hepzibah gave us!’ His eyes shone, remembering.
Mr Evans sucked his teeth and scowled. ‘Better than you get here, I suppose? Oh, it’s all right when you don’t foot the bill, isn’t it? That Miss Green! She’ll not stint anyone, I daresay, but then it doesn’t come out of her pocket! She doesn’t have to sweat and slave for every penny!’
‘Hepzibah’s a good housekeeper, Samuel.’ Pink patches appeared on Auntie Lou’s neck as she looked at her brother. She moistened her lips and said pleadingly, ‘She’s been good to poor Dilys.’
Mr Evans snorted. ‘And why shouldn’t she be? She’s on to a good thing and she knows it. A mistress too ill to keep her eye on the books! Feather her own nest if she chooses, and no one to know!’
Carrie felt her face go tight with anger but she said nothing. There are some things you know without being told and she knew Mr Evans was jealous of Hepzibah. Jealous of the way Nick’s eyes had shone! It was always a mistake to let Mr Evans know you liked someone or had enjoyed anything. He didn’t really care if she and Nick were happy or not but if he thought they had been happier at Druid’s Bottom than they were at his house, he might stop them going again.
She said, ‘I thought Hepzibah Green was quite nice. But the house is awfully old and dark and big, isn’t it? and we were a bit scared of Mister Johnny!’
She thought her voice sounded put-on and silly – a silly, little girl’s voice – but Mr Evans didn’t seem to notice. Though Nick stared in bewilderment Mr Evans just said, ‘So you saw the idiot, did you?’
Nick said in an outraged voice, ‘Mister Johnny’s not an idiot, he’s not, he’s not. I think you’re just …’
He stopped and Carrie saw his mouth tremble while he searched for the right words to say how mean and horrible Mr Evans was. But perhaps he could think of no words bad enough because he began to cry instead, loud, gasping sobs, eyes wide and streaming.
Carrie said quickly, ‘He’s tired, he’s just tired. It was an awful long walk, a bit too far for him, really. Come on, Nick, up to bed …’
She put her arm round his shoulders and hustled him out and upstairs before he recovered himself. But when he did, when they were safe in their bedroom with the door closed and the candle lit, it was her he was angry with.
‘I think you’re the meanest thing on this earth, Carrie Willow. A mean, ugly cow. Saying Hepzibah was quite nice in that voice!’
‘I didn’t mean …’ Carrie began but he glared at her icily.
‘I know what you meant. You’re a traitor, that’s what! A mean, horrible traitor and you’re worse than he is. He’s just nasty about everyone but you’re nasty about people you like just to suck up to him! I hate him and I hate you and I won’t listen!’ And he flung himself down on his bed, his hands over his ears.
‘It’s not fair,’ Carrie said. ‘You’re not fair.’
But there was no point in trying to explain, the mood he was in. She left him lying there and went down to say good night, treading on the paint at the side of the stairs to spare the carpet as Mr Evans had told her to do. She was half-way along the passage when his voice stopped her.
‘Oh, the girl’s got her head screwed on all right. Miss Green didn’t take her in, did she, with her soft, smarmy ways? I tell you, Lou, it might be a good idea to get her to go there sometimes, keep her eyes open. I know what I think Miss Green’s up to but I’d like to be sure.’
Auntie Lou said something that was too low for Carrie to hear and Mr Evans laughed. His voice was pitched higher than usual: more Welsh and excitable.
‘Spying! What sort of word is that, girl? Am I the sort of man to set a child spying? Keep her eyes open, that’s all I said, no harm in that, is it? It’s Dilys I’m thinking of and you should give a thought to her, too. She’s our own flesh and blood whatever she’s done.’
Auntie Lou said, louder than before and in a voice that shook with boldness, ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you say it, Samuel. For a good many long years.’
‘Oh, I don’t forgive her, that’s one thing,’ Mr Evans said. ‘And it was one thing, see, when she had her pride and her strength. But that’s gone from her now, isn’t it? And it hurts me to think of her, helpless in that woman’s power.’
Hepzibah’s power? Did he mean Hepzibah was a witch, then? Albert had said that she was! Carrie stood shivering in the cold hall behind the half open door, wondering about Hepzibah and remembering her spellbinding voice telling that story about the old skull. And then felt, suddenly, that she was all the things Nick had said. A traitor, a mean, dirty traitor, standing here and listening and letting Mr Evans go on thinking that she hadn’t liked Hepzibah. That she hadn’t been taken in, was what he had said! Well, she would put that right now, this minute! March in and tell him, straight to his face! She drew a deep breath and ran into the kitchen and they turned in their chairs to look at her. Auntie Lou guiltily; Mr Evans with the angry red coming up in his face.
‘What are you doing, girl? You went to bed, didn’t you? Up and down, up and down, tramp, tramp, tramp on the carpet!’
‘I walked on the paint,’ Carrie said, but his face was almost purple by now and the veins stood out on his forehead as he half rose from his chair.
‘Up and down, up and down, I won’t have it, see? Back up with you now, double quick!’ And as Carrie fled, his ranting voice followed her. ‘Up and down, back and for, in and out, messing and humbugging about …’
Christmas came and went. Mr Evans was quite jolly on the Day itself, cracking jokes at dinner and giving presents, a knife for Nick and a Bible for Carrie. (The knife was a rather blunt penknife, not the sharp sheath knife Nick had hoped for, but it was better than nothing, and Carrie tried hard to be pleased with her Bible because Nick was grinning so slyly.) But the next day was doleful: Mr Evans in a bad mood because he had eaten too much and Auntie Lou tiptoeing about for fear of making things worse and so annoying him further. ‘Creep, creep, creep,’ he shouted at her, ‘skitter, skitter, skitter. Are you a mouse, girl?’
Carrie and Nick would have escaped from the house if they could but it was bitterly cold and had begun to snow heavily. It snowed for three days without stopping, great cotton wool flakes, falling from a dark sky and swirling so thickly and blindingly that Mr Evans actually said the children need not use the privy in the yard in the daytime but could go up to the bathroom whenever they needed to.
On the fourth day they woke to sun and a white, dazzling world. ‘Lovely day for a walk,’ Mr Evans said heartily. ‘Tell you what! Run along to Druid’s Bottom and take Miss Green a tin of biscuits. A little present, see, to say thank you for the goose.’
Carrie looked at him sharply but he simply seemed to be in an unusually good temper. No reason, no reason at all for the odd, uncomfortable feeling inside her …
‘Why should he want to send Hepzibah biscuits?’ she said to Nick as they plodded through the deep snow at the side of the railway line, but he hadn’t felt it was sinister.
‘I expect they’re stale,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and he’s glad to be rid of them. Rid of us, too. She might give us lunch and that’ll save him some money. Do you think she will, Carrie?’
‘Don’t you dare ask,’ Carrie warned, but he stuck out his tongue and ran ahead, unafraid in the daylight, down the path through the Grove.
And of course it was the first thing Hepzibah said, turning pink and steamy from the stove and smiling as if it were the most na
tural thing in the world that Carrie and Nick should appear in her kitchen at precisely this minute. ‘I was just dishing up. Nothing grand, mind, only roast pork and apple pie, but I expect you’re hungry enough, this bitter cold day. Albert, set two more places.’
The lovely smell of roast pork made Carrie’s mouth water but she said, very politely, ‘Oh, I don’t think we should. I mean, you weren’t expecting us, were you?’
Albert said, ‘How d’you know she wasn’t? She’s a witch, didn’t I tell you? Besides, she likes to feed people. It’s what she thinks people are for. Sometimes I think she doesn’t look at their faces, just sees rows of empty stomachs to fill.’
‘Take no notice of him,’ Hepzibah said. ‘Mr Too-Clever-By-Half. Take your coats off or you won’t feel the benefit later.’
She was pleased with the biscuits. ‘That’s nice of Mr Evans. Lemon creams are Mister Johnny’s favourites. Look, Mister Johnny, what the children have brought you!’
He stood in the corner of the kitchen, hanging his head and peeping through his fingers. But when Nick said, coaxingly, ‘They’re all for you, Mister Johnny,’ he came forward slowly, smiling his lop-sided smile and gobbling softly with pleasure. Nick said, ‘I promised we’d come again, didn’t I?’
It was a lovely dinner. Carrie had two helpings of everything and Nick had three. They sat back as warm as toast and tight as drums and Hepzibah said, ‘I’ve got to see to Mrs Gotobed now. Look after our guests, Mister Johnny.’
‘Itchela-ka, itchela-ka.’ He scrambled down from his chair and looked hopefully at Nick, and when he said, ‘Do you mean you want us to come and help milk the cow?’ Mister Johnny laughed and clapped his little hands together.
They went out in the cold afternoon. ‘It must be below zero,’ Albert said as they ran across the yard to the barn and the stables. The barn was full of roosting chickens, fluffed up against the cold, and there was an old cart horse and a cow in the stables; a fat, gentle-eyed Hereford. ‘They used to have a prize herd,’ Albert said. ‘The Gotobed bulls were famous all over the world. But the family went downhill in the thirties – lost their money gambling and giving grand parties and travelling abroad, Hepzibah says – and in the end they had to sell most of their land, and the mine. Now there’s only a couple of fields left, and one cow for the house. And not even enough money to repair the old generator, that’s why we have oil lamps. We’re too out of the way for mains electricity.’
‘Scholly-ka, scholly-ka,’ Mister Johnny said eagerly.
‘Mister Johnny’s cow,’ Nick said. ‘Is it your cow, Mister Johnny?’
‘Scholly-ka.’ Mister Johnny sat on a stool, his cheek pressed into the cow’s smooth, swollen side as he milked her. She swished her tail and danced a little on her dainty back feet. He said, ‘Letchely na, letchely na,’ and she turned her beautiful head to look at him and lowed gently.
‘She’s due to calve next month,’ Albert said. ‘Have you ever seen a calf born?’
When the milking was done they collected the eggs, warm from scattered nests in the barn and the stable block, or snugly hidden in hedges. Mister Johnny knew where every nest was and chuckled proudly as he showed them. Albert said to Carrie, ‘He even knows which time of the day each hen lays its egg, it’s really amazing. They’re like people to him, I suppose. Hepzibah says, give him a stray feather and he’ll tell you which bird it comes from!’
Mister Johnny took the eggs and the pail of frothy milk and went into the house. The sun was dark red behind the trees now and their voices echoed in the valley as they slid on the frozen horse pond in the yard. Carrie was afraid at first that Albert would despise such a babyish pastime but he seemed to enjoy it as much as Nick did, shouting with laughter when he tripped over bumps in the ice and not wanting to stop, even when she said it was time they were going.
She left the two boys and went to say good-bye to Hepzibah. She wasn’t in the kitchen, nor in the dairy where Mister Johnny was wiping the eggs and putting them into their trays. It was darker indoors than out and the oil lamp was already lit in the hall. Carrie peered into the dark library but there was no sign of Hepzibah. She waited a minute, then started to climb the smoothly polished oak stairs, but stopped half-way up. Somewhere upstairs, someone was crying. Not as if they were in pain but very quietly and evenly, as if out of some dreadful and hopeless despair. Carrie thought it was the saddest sound she had ever heard. She stood still, feeling scared, and then, when Hepzibah appeared at the top of the stairs, ashamed too, as if she had no right to be listening.
Hepzibah said, ‘Oh, it’s you, Carrie.’
Her voice was pitched low and soft. Her spell-binding voice, Carrie thought, and looked up at her. She was holding a candle and her eyes shone in its light and her gleaming hair fell like silk on her shoulders. A beautiful witch, Carrie thought, and her heart began to thump so hard that she was sure Hepzibah must hear it. And if she did, she would look into Carrie’s mind with her witch’s eyes and know that she knew that it was Mrs Gotobed weeping upstairs, and that she was remembering what Mr Evans had said. His own flesh and blood, his poor sister, helpless in that woman’s Power!
Hepzibah was coming down the stairs. She said, ‘Carrie love, don’t be frightened. It’s only …’
But Carrie didn’t want to hear. She said loudly, to cover the noise of her thumping heart, ‘I’m not frightened, Hepzibah. I only came to say good-bye and thank you for a lovely day.’
It had been a lovely day and Nick sang all the way home because of it, one of his tuneless, made-up nonsense songs. ‘We went to Druid’s Bottom and we saw Mister Johnny, gobble-gobble-gobble, and we went milking the scholly-ka, and we had roast pork for dinner …’
While he sang, Carrie walked silently. The uncomfortable feeling she’d had earlier on had come back again and sat like a solid lead ball in her chest. She had done nothing wrong but she felt that she had. It wasn’t always what you did but what you knew that was wicked! She had known why Mr Evans had sent Hepzibah biscuits; had known that he wanted her to spy, to keep her eyes open, and it seemed that without meaning to she had been doing just that! She felt mean and dirty – scared, too! Suppose, when they got back, he asked her what Miss Green was up to? Suppose he said, ‘I know what’s going on, did you find anything out?’ Of course she didn’t know anything and even if she did, she would rather die than say, but suppose he guessed she knew something? Suppose he tortured her to make her tell!
But when they got back, he barely spoke to them. He was in one of his sour silent moods and when Nick said, ‘Hepzibah said thank you very much for the biscuits,’ he only grunted in answer. Carrie thought, perhaps he’s waiting till Nick’s gone to bed! Perhaps he’ll come into the room when Nick’s fast asleep and bend over me and say, ‘Well, girl, how’s my sister?’
She lay awake until he came up but he passed their door without stopping and she heard his door close and the jangle of springs through the wall as he sat on the bed to take his boots off. She thought, perhaps he’s waiting till the next time we go, perhaps he’s biding his time …
He didn’t seem to be. He asked no questions about Druid’s Bottom, about what they had done, or what they had seen. Not that time, nor the next time they went; nor the next, nor the next …
Until, in the end, Carrie began to think she must have made it all up, that she had just dreamed all those things he had said. And as the weeks went by it grew into that. A bad dream, almost forgotten …
Chapter Seven
January snowed itself out. Auntie Lou’s cold ‘hung on’, as she put it, and she went to stay with a friend in the bigger town down the valley. She stayed for four days and Carrie did the cooking at home. Mr Evans only complained once, about burnt potatoes, and when Auntie Lou came back, he said, ‘That girl’s a better cook than you’ll ever be.’ Carrie thought this was rude but Auntie Lou didn’t seem to mind. She was much better, hardly coughing at all, and she sang while she worked in the kitchen.
February came, and the ca
lf was born at Druid’s Bottom. It was born on a Sunday afternoon and Carrie and Albert and Nick saw it happen. The cow lowing and lowing and Mister Johnny talking to her in his soft, bubbly voice, and pulling on the little hooves when they slowly appeared. And the astonishingly big calf coming out with a slippery rush and then, a few minutes later, standing up in the straw on its thin, wobbly legs, its thickly lashed eyes mild and brown like its mother’s.
‘I’ve never seen anything so exciting in my whole life,’ Nick said afterwards. ‘It’s my best thing!’
‘I shouldn’t tell Mr Evans you saw the calf born,’ Carrie said.
‘Why not?’
‘Just because.’
‘Well, I did see it, didn’t I? And my chilblains are better, too,’ Nick said, happily counting his blessings. ‘That’s the magic ointment Hepzibah gave me.’
‘Not magic, just herbs,’ Carrie said, though she wasn’t too sure about this. ‘And I shouldn’t tell Auntie Lou it was Hepzibah. She thinks it’s those gloves that she gave you, keeping you warm.’
‘I know she does.’ Nick smiled, smugly and sweetly. ‘That’s what I told her, you silly dope. D’you think I’m an idiot?’
February turned into March and Albert came back to school. Although he was only eighteen months older than Carrie he was in the top class and sometimes he was taught on his own by Mr Morgan, the Minister, because he was cleverer than even the most senior boys. But he wasn’t stuck up about this, nor did he ignore Carrie and Nick when other people were there. He didn’t seem to care that Nick was so much younger than he was. He would turn up in the Primary School playground and call, ‘Hi there, Nick!’ as if Nick was a boy the same age. ‘I don’t see what difference it makes, people’s ages,’ he said when Carrie told him the girls in her class thought this odd. ‘People are either your friends or they aren’t. Nick’s my friend, and Hepzibah. And Mrs Gotobed too, and she’s ancient.’