The Cuckoo Tree

by Joan Aiken

  Joobie nuts. He felt them rattling in his pocket like heavy little peas. He could chew a couple and give himself a different kind of dream – but then he would go to sleep and fall off the bucket and that would be the end of him.

  Presently, for no better reason than to distract his mind from the hopelessness of his plight, he began puzzling over the talk between Tegleaze and Colonel FitzPickwick.

  ‘Where’s your sister?’ Tegleaze had asked. And FitzPickwick had said, ‘He didn’t know she existed.’

  What could they have meant? Surely they were not talking about him?

  ‘I haven’t got a sister,’ Tobit repeated obstinately.

  After another very long pause he added,

  ‘Have I?’

  Dido, Cris and the four Wineberry Men stood in dismay, at a loss, out by the jail, until Pimp said in an urgent whisper,

  ‘Butter my wig, boys, let’s scarper! Us doesn’t want to be picked up by the constables spannelling around outside the lock-up.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Yan. ‘You two liddle maids’d best get back to The Fighting Cocks, smartish. If there’s kidnappers abroad ’tis time for honest folk to be under cover.’

  ‘But what’ll us do about Tobit?’ said Dido worriedly. ‘I don’t trust Mystery – he’d pinch the birdseed from a blind canary. What’d he want to kidnap Tobit from the jail for?’

  No one could answer this.

  ‘I’ll nip round to the Angel, where he was staying, and have a word with the landlord,’ said Yan. ‘He be my great-aunt Gertrude’s godson. He’ll tell me if old Mystery’s stirred out lately and where he’s been. You three lads, Tan, Tethera and Pimp, quick yourselves out o’ town and get to work on tomorrow’s load. I’ll see you presently. And if I pick up any news at the Angel I’ll leave word with Aunt Sary.’

  They separated, going in three different directions. Dido and Cris started down the alley, back towards The Fighting Cocks. But Cris went slower and slower, presently stopped altogether.

  ‘What ails you, gal?’ Dido said in an impatient whisper. ‘Bustle on, can’t you?’

  ‘I – I feel as if Aswell were trying to say something,’ Cris whispered back. ‘But I can’t quite hear – can’t make out what it is. Wait – wait just a minute!’

  She stood still, then turned slowly back the way they had come, like a water-diviner questing for the pull of the rod.

  ‘Oh, rummage it,’ Dido muttered. ‘This is a fine time for Aswell to feel like a chat.’

  Very unwillingly she followed Cris, who was now proceeding at a steady pace back along the alleyway. At the top she went left, passing the jail again, and entered a grass-grown yard at the side of a windmill. Someone was inside the mill: there was a faint rim of light round the door. Dido looked inquiringly at Cris, who shook her head.

  ‘Hush! I can almost hear it now!’ she breathed. ‘Why are you so faint, Aswell?’

  Their eyes were used to the dark: they could see the round stone in the middle of the yard, and the well-head. Cris moved slowly towards this, listening all the time. Dido took two or three steps after her, glancing warily round.

  ‘Cris! Yan said we oughta get under cover!’ she whispered urgently.

  ‘Hush!’ Cris, heedless of Dido’s warning, seemed to be listening through every pore of her skin. She murmured, ‘I can’t make it out – Aswell seems to be in trouble – ’

  There followed a pause which seemed nerve-rackingly long to Dido, then Cris added with the beginnings of doubt in her voice,

  ‘Is it Aswell?’

  At that moment something struck Dido on her wrist. She rubbed the place and whispered, ‘Do come on, gal, we dassn’t stay scambling about here so near the lock-up – ’

  ‘Could Aswell be down there?’

  Like a bird-dog, Cris was pointing to the well – not with her hand, but with her whole attention.

  ‘In the well? Look, Cris, it just ain’t sensible to stay here – ’

  Two more pellets struck Dido’s hand. Purely by chance she caught one of them and rolled it unthinkingly between her fingers. Something about the feel and shape of it attracted her notice; she sniffed it, peered at it, tested it with the tip of her tongue. It was a Joobie nut.

  ‘Hey! Where did that come from?’

  She knelt down to look at the millstone covering the well; as she did so, a fourth nut hit her on the cheek. It had come, there was no doubt at all, through the round hole in the well-lid.

  ‘What the dickens is going on round here?’ she whispered to Cris. ‘Surely to goodness Aswell ain’t shooting Joobie nuts at us from down the well?’

  Even while she said the words her mind leapt ahead and found the explanation.

  ‘Tobit!’

  She squatted down by the stone and leaned so that her face was over the hole. A nut struck her cheek. ‘Hey Tobit!’ she called softly. ‘Are you down there, boy?’

  She could feel the well’s hollowness carry her voice downward.

  ‘Yes!’ An urgent whisper came echoing back. ‘I’m halfway down here, hanging on a bucket. Can you pull me up? Some men threw me down here. Is that Dido? Are you on your own?’

  ‘Rabbit me, now what are we going to do?’ Dido muttered. ‘We don’t dare waste time hunting for Yan – how does this pesky well open up?’

  She felt all over the millstone; tugged upwards. It was immovable.

  ‘They musta shifted the stone somehow to get him in – ’

  All this time Cris had been standing silent, apparently dumbstruck. Now she murmured in bewilderment,

  ‘It’s not Aswell!’

  ‘O’ course it’s not Aswell, you noddy!’ whispered Dido, hauling unavailingly at the millstone. ‘It’s your brother. It’s Tobit. Give us a hand, do!’

  ‘No, but Aswell is saying something now – listen! Aswell says – wait, I’m getting it – Aswell says sideways. Push the stone sideways.’

  ‘What, like this?’ More than doubtful, Dido gave the stone a shove, and nearly tumbled headlong in herself as it swung round, evidently on a pivot, to reveal a black crescent-shaped hole. The loud grinding rumble it made terrified the girls. Cris ran on tiptoe round to the far side of the stone. She and Dido eased it farther round, inch by inch; even so it seemed to make a hideous row in the quiet night. It would not go all the way. Feeling around, Dido discovered that the rope had somehow jammed underneath it, which was why, evidently, the bucket had stuck halfway down and broken Tobit’s fall.

  ‘Anyways, I reckon there’s room for him to clamber through,’ she whispered to Cris. ‘We can’t wind up the bucket, though – we’ll just have to haul him up. Brace yourself, Cris! It’s lucky Tobit’s skinny like you.’

  Heaving and straining, trying to stifle their gasps, they dragged Tobit on the bucket nearer and nearer to the top. When he was only a few feet down, Dido, changing places with Cris to get a closer purchase on the rope, fell or stumbled against the millstone and contrived to loosen it so that with a loud rasping thud it shot back the final foot. The freed rope would have run back down the well but Dido flung herself on it and reached down a hand to grab Tobit. She caught his hair and he let out a yell.

  ‘Quiet! Grip on my hand, boy! – Cris, you hold my feet.’

  Somehow, all struggling together on the brink, they managed to haul him out, losing a good deal of skin in the process.

  There was a noise from inside the mill. Rapid steps came towards the door and they heard the sound of bolts being drawn.

  ‘Quick!’ gasped Tobit. ‘He’s in there!’

  No one asked who. Without a word, they flew round to the back of the mill and dropped behind a stack of old farm implements grown over with brambles.

  They heard the door open and a voice shout, ‘Pelmett? Where the devil are you?

  Somebody ran out. There was another shout, then silence.

  ‘They’ve seen the well’s open,’ Dido guessed. ‘Now what’ll they do? Go off into the town, most like – they’d not expect anyone to be hiding ro
und here.

  Cris, Dido and Tobit huddled in a heap, among the nettles and the rusty harrow-blades.

  ‘Keep your breathing down, you two – try not to breathe, can’t you!’ Dido whispered.

  There was no more sound from the other side of the mill.

  After five minutes had gone by, Dido said, ‘Guess it’d be all right to mizzle off? We’d best climb over this wall behind us and circle around. Agreeable? Tobit, give Cris a hoist over the wall, can you?’

  With the utmost caution they climbed by means of the junk-heap on to the wall, which was not very high. There was much more of a drop down on the far side, into a field. Dido realized that this was in fact the town wall.

  Without speaking, Dido grabbed Cris’s hand, gestured her to take that of Tobit and led off at a silent trot, under the wall, until they came to a small copse. Striking a footpath, they turned along it, through a gate, across another field, all the time skirting round the edge of Petworth which they could see as a few twinkling lights in the distance. At last their path met another which led back towards the town; they followed this warily, ready to duck into the hedge if they heard anybody approaching. But they met no one, and the path presently brought them out beside a big house at the bottom of the High Street.

  ‘Right,’ muttered Dido. ‘You two bide here – duck down behind them bushes if you hear anybody coming – and I’ll scout on ahead and make sure all’s clear. Don’t either of you dare to say a word!’

  8

  LUCKILY THERE WAS no cockfight that evening, and the yard at the rear of The Fighting Cocks inn was empty and dark. Before going in, Dido glanced through the kitchen window and saw Miss Sarah Gusset knitting socks by the fire; nobody else was in the room. Dido slipped softly in the back door.

  ‘There you are, then dearie,’ Miss Sarah remarked placidly, finishing off her sock and adding it to a large heap of others. ‘Where’s t’other little lass? And did you find the one you went to look for?’ She spoke as if rescuing people from jail was a perfectly normal occupation.

  ‘Yes, ma’am, we did,’ Dido said quietly. ‘They’re a-waiting outside – I was wondering where we’d best put ’em – it wouldn’t do for anyone to lay eyes on ’em.’

  ‘No, indeed, dearie. They’d best go in our Gentlemen’s cellar, the one the Wineberry lads uses in wintertime; they’ll be cosy as two mice in a nest there. Just you fetch them in, poor little scrumplings – I daresay you can all do with a bowl of my soup.’

  Reassured by this calm welcome, Dido went off to fetch her companions. Halfway down the High Street an alley led in from the left. Just as Dido reached its entrance, a man came hurrying out of it; unable to check herself in time, she ran straight into him.

  ‘Croopus, I’m sorry, mister – ’ she began, and then, getting a sudden glimpse of his face by the glimmer of a street lantern, ‘Why, it’s Pa!’

  The man’s mouth fell open in utter dismay. ‘Great fish swallow us, it can’t be Dido?’ he muttered, gave her a hunted look, and made off at top speed up the hill.

  Dido stared after him for a moment, biting her knuckle. But the first need was to get Tobit and Cris under cover. She went on down the hill. When she reached the point at which she had left them they were not to be seen. She gave a soft whistle.

  ‘All clear, it’s me – Dido!’

  After a pause, long enough for her to grow anxious, Tobit and Cris crept out from behind two bay trees in tubs that ornamented the closed front of a greengrocer’s shop.

  ‘That man came by,’ Tobit whispered nervously. ‘I think he was hunting for me.’

  ‘Humph,’ Dido muttered to herself. ‘Here’s a fine start. How’s my Pa got muxed up in this?’ But aloud she was encouraging: ‘There was a chap, but he’s gone – went off up the hill. Come on now – look sharp!’

  Silently as three fish in a river they ran up the High Street and round to the back of The Fighting Cocks. Miss Sarah was waiting at the back door to let them in.

  ‘That’s the dandy,’ she said comfortably. ‘Come you down into the cellar now, while there’s no folk about.’

  An iron spike, with a side of bacon hanging from it, stuck out of the bricks on one side of the big kitchen fireplace. Miss Sarah gave this a sharp tug; a large section of bricks opened outwards like a door, revealing a narrow flight of stone steps.

  ‘Take this rush dip, sweetheart, and go you down,’ Miss Sarah told Dido. ‘I put the soup on the hob and I’ve a pair of beds a-warming – I daresay the liddle ’uns’ll be middling weary.’ She spoke as if Tobit and Cris were about six years old and gave them a kindly smile. ‘Then, when you’ve settled ’em, dearie, you come up and tap twice to be let out – I know you’ll be wanting to have a look at your Cap’n. He’s no different, but seems comfortable. Oh, just take the socks as you’re a-going down, lovey, will you – I try to keep those Wineberry chaps socked up regular, their poor feet do get so wet.’

  The brick door closed behind them.

  After descending about twenty winding steps they found themselves in a dry, brick-paved, brick-vaulted cellar which was so large that Dido guessed it must extend under the house next door as well as the inn kitchen. At the far end were about forty massive casks, labelled Sack, Rhenish, Canaries, Oporto, etc. There were also bales of tobacco, crates of corkscrews and clay pipes, and half a dozen fourteen-quart kegs of brandy. Ten hammocks were slung from the ceiling, neatly made up with patchwork quilts; from two of them the handles of copper warming-pans protruded. Ten seats, made from sawn-off sections of tree trunk, were ranged in front of a small but hot fire which burned in a kind of hollow pillar, open at one side, in the middle of the room; evidently its chimney ran up into that of the kitchen fireplace in the room above. A pot of soup stood on the hob.

  ‘Jeeminy, this is snug,’ Dido said with approval. ‘It’s a sight better than jail, or Mother Lubbage’s parlour, hey Cris?’ Cris gazed around wonderingly, so did Tobit. Then Dido recollected something.

  ‘Oh, Cris, this here’s your brother Tobit; Tobit, meet your sis. Reckon you ain’t hardly had a chance to look at each other yet.’

  There followed a silence while they did so and Dido added with friendly impatience, ‘Well – go on! Don’t you want to say summat to one another?’

  It seemed they did not. They stared and stared. Tobit twisted a lock of his hair round his finger; Cris sucked a finger and rubbed it against the collar of her sheepskin jacket. At last Dido said, ‘Well, if you don’t feel like talking, best eat,’ and ladled soup into earthenware bowls. Tobit gulped his down ravenously; Cris almost forgot to eat, watching every movement he made. Still neither of them spoke.

  Rumple me, Dido thought. If I’d only just met my brother for the first time I’d have a sight more to say, I reckon. What a rum pair they are! She stacked the soup bowls, put a couple of logs on the fire, and added aloud,

  ‘Sweet dreams, then, mates. Us’ll talk about plans in the morning. Now, don’t you go a-making any ruckus, or chattering all night. Those is your hammocks a-warming. I’d best go and look after my Cap’n now.’

  She left, feeling that the silence behind her was closing and thickening, and becoming coloured, like water into which a brilliant dye is slowing being poured. She had the fancy that if she turned and tried to go down the stairs again she would find it almost impossible to push her way.

  When she had tapped twice and been let out by Miss Sarah, she went up to the attic and hung anxiously over Captain Hughes. His condition was unchanged, but he certainly seemed peaceful enough, and appeared to have been tidied up a good deal.

  ‘I took off all those nasty old cobwebs,’ Miss Sarah explained, ‘and wrapped him up from head to toe in brandy leaves: that’s why he smells so medical.’

  ‘What’s brandy leaves, missus?’

  ‘Lily leaves soaked in brandy. My old mother always used to say they’d cure any trouble but a broken heart. Now don’t you fret about him, dearie, we’ll get him better one way or another. My stars! He’s a fi
ne-looking fellow, isn’t he – handsome as a herring. Yan sent a message to say he’d be round in the banquet hall at screech o’ dawn for a confabulation. He went to the Angel but could get no news, he said to tell you. So you’d best get a bit o’ sleep yourself. I had to put you in the loft as all our guest-rooms are full, but you’ll sleep as soft as a silkworm there, for that’s where the owlers keep their packs.’

  ‘What’s owlers, ma’am?’ Dido asked, as Miss Sarah opened a small trapdoor over the attic stairs, which led to the roof.

  ‘Wool smugglers, dearie.’

  And indeed Dido discovered that all the space between the joists was packed with wool to a depth of several feet, so that it was like sleeping on a marvellously thick, springy mattress the size of a whole room. She burrowed herself a nest and lay in luxury. She could hear genuine owls calling, among the chimney-pots outside. The owl hoots changed imperceptibly into the chattering of starlings, and she found that splinters of light were making their way between the tiles and that Miss Sarah had stuck her head through the trapdoor and was calling softly,

  ‘Morning time, love! There’s a bowl o’ porridge keeping hot for you in the kitchen!’

  While Dido gulped down her porridge, Miss Sarah, busy frying twenty eggs for the inn guests, said,

  ‘I’ll see to the Cap’n presently, don’t you fret your head about him. And I reckon the liddle ’uns below can sleep a bit longer yet? I’ve not heard chirp nor cheep from them. You can take down their breakfasts when you come back from seeing my nevvy Yan.’

  So Dido slipped out to the banquet hall and found Yan Wineberry already there, carving a whistle from an elder twig. His brown face looked less cheerful than usual and he greeted Dido soberly.

  ‘I’ve not been able to find out anything about the boy, my duck. That Tegleaze be missing too – ’ he was beginning when Dido, first glancing cautiously about the big empty room, whispered,