The Cuckoo Tree (11 page)

Well, she thought, if Yan, Tan, Tethera, and their mates will take the Cap'n's Dispatch to London so
that's
off my mind, I reckon I oughta do something about old gravel-voice Miles Tuggles. Dear knows what, though. Tell the Bow Street officers? That'd mean going to Bow Street; can't do it till the Cap's better. Warn Tobit? No use, he'd only start on about pirates or peashooters. Warn Lady Tegleaze? She'd never heed
me.
Maybe the lawyers in Petworth, the ones as looks after the heirloom, maybe they'd have some sense? Might be worth talking to them. Anyways, I'd like to see old Sir Tobit's luck-piece.

It had taken her the best part of an hour to reach Petworth; as she rode up the long straight track that led into the little walled, red-roofed town, she wondered at the lack of people; all the houses seemed shut and empty. But when she reached the sloping central market place this fact
was explained: a fair was in full swing there.

It was mostly a farming fair: stalls around the sides of the square and overflowing into the streets nearby offered every kind of produce—eggs, butter, cheeses, apples, red and gold, bunches of late roses and purple daisies, farming tools and equipment; there were pens of cattle and sheep, crates of poultry; girls with pails offered their services as dairymaids, Dido saw shepherds with smocks and crooks and carters with whips. But as well as these there were various entertainments and peep shows, a band playing country dances, and a central merry-go-round, which had horses gorgeously painted in red, gold, and white.

"Better-looking than you, poor old Dapple," Dido told her steed. "Guess we'd better find somewhere to leave you out of all this mollocking."

Following Gusset's directions she located The Fighting Cocks Inn at the end of Middle Street, and asked permission to tie up Dapple in its stable-yard. Then she returned to the central square on foot, for at one side of it she had seen a shop window containing scythes, fowling pieces, wooden hayrakes, stools, ladles, and copper cooking pots. Sure enough, when she approached it more closely, she found a small painted sign over the door which read: Godwit & Son, Ironmongers & Conspirators.

"Humph," said Dido, considering this. "Well, I reckon the two things does go together, so it's kind of handy having 'em under the same roof; I spose they can fettle you up a riot, weapons, trimmings, and all, at wholesale rates."

She walked in, and demanded of a thin, wizened little
man in rimless spectacles if he had any crutches in stock. He did have a pair, slightly too long for Captain Hughes (whose measurements Dido had taken before setting out); he promised to shorten them, put leather padding on the arm rests, and have them ready for her in an hour's time.

"I daresay you can amuse yourself at the fair meanwhile," he said with a meager smile.

Dido, who had decided that he was a soapy-faced fellow, replied that she had plenty of errands to occupy herself, and asked if he could direct her to an apothecary's, and also to the lawyers who had charge of the Tegleaze heirloom? At which Mr. Godwit (for it was he) raised his thin gray eyebrows and darted a very sharp glance at her indeed through the rimless glasses, but told her, still smiling gently, that she would find Wm. Pelmett, Chymist & Chirurgeon, on one side of his shop, downhill, and Messrs. Pickwick, FitzPickwick, and Wily, Solicitors and Attorneys-at-Law, on the other side, uphill.

Dido did not care for the sound of this. Still, I guess as it's to be expected they'd all be cousins or kindred in a small place like Petworth, she reflected.

She went downhill first, and bought some ointment which the doctor had recommended for the Captain's wound, and a roll of bandage, since, even in Mrs. Lubbage's exceedingly dusty house, the supply of spiderweb was running low. Wm. Pelmett, Chymist, bore a strong and unprepossessing resemblance to Pelmett the footman.

Next Dido turned uphill toward the lawyers' office, but before she reached the doorway she was startled to
observe, set in a glass-fronted case in the wall of the building, what must surely be the Tegleaze luck-piece itself.

"But that could never have hung in a dolls' house," she thought. "It's far too big." Then she realized that the whole front of the case was in fact a powerful magnifying glass; the oval picture painted on a piece of ivory mounted in the case, though appearing to be about the size of a man's face, was really not much bigger than a gull's egg.

"It's a right naffy bit o' work, I will allow," Dido thought, studying it with interest. "I still don't see how it could be worth such a
deal
of dibs, but whoever done it put plenty of elbow grease into the job, I can see that, special considering how tiny it is. Musta been at it for hours."

The picture showed a very high tower, encircled by a spiral ramp. Hundreds of little people were rushing up and down the ramp, were occupied in building the tower, climbing ladders, at work with trowels and buckets of mortar; others were setting bricks, wheeling barrows, or consulting plans; but many others were just arguing, or even fighting, presumably about how the tower should be built; and in any case the tower had been struck by lightning and was falling down, so a great many people were trying to escape from it and trampling over each other in the process; some devils, down below, were finding the whole affair very funny indeed, and some angels, up above, seemed sad about it. The picture was painted in very bright, beautiful colors, reds and greens, browns and yellows; it seemed even gayer than the merry-go-round
horses. The faces of all the little people were done with wonderful skill, no two the same, each with something strange, unexpected, yet lifelike about it; the painter's name, E Bruegel, was neatly written in one corner.

"Fancy just leaving it there, where anybody might bust the glass and walk off with it," Dido murmured wonderingly.

"Oh, there's no risk of
that.
For one thing, the glass is specially strong: you'd need a diamond to cut it; for another, everybody round here thinks it's unlucky; no one would buy it from the thief."

Dido looked around in surprise at this unexpected reply; for a moment she thought that it was Cris standing behind her; then she recognized Tobit in what he plainly considered to be disguise; he had abandoned his black velvet and ruffles; instead he wore a frieze coat and pantaloons. The lower half of his face was concealed by a red muffler.

"Tobit! What the plague are you doing here?"

Dido was not best pleased to see him; his presence would make it difficult to go into the office of the family lawyers and say she suspected a plot against the family; they would probably think it was just some of Tobit's romancing.

"Anyway, how in the world did you get leave of your gran?"

"Oh, I took French leave," said Tobit boastfully. "Pelmett told me Petworth fair was on, and I didn't see why, as I'm
not going to the coronation, I shouldn't at least come to
this;
so I put a lot of minced-up Joobie nuts in Grandmother's gruel, and she's gone to bed with one of her headaches; and now I'm going to have a fine time, I can tell you."

"Did Sannie know?"

"She kicked up a bit of a dust, but I didn't pay any heed. After all, I'm nearly of age."

"How did you get here?"

"Came with Frill in the trap; he's doing some errands for Colonel FitzPickwick. Come on—let's go and look at the shows." He grabbed her hand.

Dido went with some reluctance; she glanced back toward the offices of Pickwick, FitzPickwick, and Wily; but at this moment the heavy black outer door opened and two very elderly gentlemen came out, followed by one somewhat younger; the first two were so extremely old and frail that they could get along only by leaning against one another; they looked like ancient hairless mice; while the younger one, presumably Mr. Wily, had such an extremely villainous, untrustworthy countenance that Dido at once decided there would be no sense in going for advice and entrusting her suspicions to
him.

"All in whatever it is, hand and glove together, like as not," she thought.

Tobit did not wish to go on the roundabout; he said it would most likely make him sick; but he spent a good deal of money at the shooting gallery and the houp-la stall; it did not seem to occur to him to treat Dido, who had no
cash for such amusements, but he liked her to watch him.

"This time I really will get it over—you'll see—I am a prime shot, once my eye is in! Oh, confound it! All the stands are just too big for the hoops, if you ask
me.
That wasn't my fault. Can I have another six shots for ninepence?"

"How did you come by all the mint sauce?" Dido asked, noticing his pockets heavy with coins.

"Frill lent me some; said he'd just been paid. He's a good-natured fellow. Now—this time I'll
certainly
get it over—you just watch, you'll see."

But he did not. Presently he became bored with the houp-la and moved on to a skittle stall.

Dido, tiring of his unjustified optimism, wandered along to the next booth, which was a kind of Punch-and-Judy show, apparently. A crowd was collecting in front of it. Weird and melancholy music was being played on a hoboy, somewhere behind the booth, by an unseen performer; to Dido there was something tantalizingly familiar about this music, but she could not name it.

"Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen: watch M-Miles M-Mystery's amazingly M-Mysterious Mannikins; what m-makes them move about? See the g-grandest show of its kind in the world—the
only
show of its kind in the world! And it's all f-free—free, gratis, not a penny to pay. Watch the M-Mystery of the Miller's Daughter; the M-Macbeth Murder case; the Strange Tale of the Loch N-Ness Monster; see the dragon s-swallow St. George!"

Since the show was free, Dido stood on the outskirts of the group and waited. After a while the red-and-yellow curtain was pulled up, letting out a cloud of tobacco smoke, and revealing the little stage, lit by a baleful greenish light. There were some bits of painted wooden scenery and a backcloth representing a millhouse with a large water wheel.

"The Mystery of the Miller's Daughter! Ladies and gentlemen, you will now be the first spectators of this amazingly blood-curdling drama, the only one of its k-kind!"

The hoboy played a melancholy and off-key version of the "Miller of Dee."

"L-ladies and gentlemen, if any of you should have the m-misfortune to suffer from weak nerves, p-palpitations, sympathetic vibrations, digestive disorders, heartburn, high t-tension, low spirits, vapors, or m-melancholy, you will be p-pleased to hear that soothing refreshments are on s-sale, at the extremely reasonable price of sixpence a packet."

Sure enough, a boy was going around with a tray containing little paper twists. Dido had not sixpence to spare, nor did she suffer from any of the ailments mentioned, but she looked with curiosity to see what the refreshments could be that would cure so many different troubles: so far as she could make out, each packet contained a small quantity of Joobie nuts.

The Mystery of the Miller's Daughter was heralded by
an extra-loud flourish of hoboy music; then two puppets came hopping on to the stage: Rosie, the Miller's Daughter, and her sweetheart.

"Why," Dido thought scornfully, "they ain't but glove puppets;
I
can see what makes 'em move."

She had to admit, though, that they were unusually large, lifelike glove puppets, with something eye-catchingly strange and wild about their appearance. "I know what it is: the bloke as made them had been studying that picture, Grandpa Tegleaze's luck-piece."

The play was very comical at first: all about the efforts of Rosie and her sweetheart to escape the vigilance of her stern father, the Miller; they hid in all sorts of ingenious places—behind the mill wheel, up the apple tree, in the copper—while the Miller, completely bamboozled, rushed about the stage hunting for them, puffing and panting with fury.

But Dido soon became more interested in watching the audience than the play. The people in front nearly split their sides at the funny scenes; they staggered about and bumped into each other, bawling advice to the Miller which he always followed just too late. In their enthusiasm most of them had swallowed down all their Joobie nuts, and the boy with the tray, going around again, did a brisk sale; the sixpenny packets, Dido noticed, had been replaced by slightly larger ones which cost a shilling. Having swallowed a few more, the audience became almost hysterical with excitement, shouting, clapping, and screaming, as if they
had before them the finest actors in the world. It seemed as if they saw more than was actually taking place on the stage and Dido, remembering what she had seen after merely tasting a Joobie nut, was not surprised.

She glanced at the church clock, set high on a tower, just visible over the red roofs: ten minutes to four. Time to go and meet Mr. Gusset's boy Yan.

Tobit, luckily, was absorbed in front of a stall where the game was to swing an iron ring hanging on a long cord so as to hook it over a peg on a panel at the back. It looked easy enough, but was evidently not so, judging by his lack of success. The prizes were goldfish, swimming in little semi-transparent bags made of pigs' bladder filled with water and tied up with twine. Wonder if Cap'n Hughes would like a goldfish to keep him company, Dido thought. But then I dessay it'd hate the coach trip up to London presently. Anyway, Tobit's happy enough and he won't notice if I skice off; hope Frill takes him home afore he notices the puppet show and starts stuffing down Joobie nuts.

She made her way back to The Fighting Cocks Inn, and, following Gusset's instructions, turned under a low archway at the side, around a corner, and up a steep and narrow cobbled alley. This brought her into a little courtyard, where twenty or thirty men were standing in a circle, apparently waiting for a cockfight to begin. Two, in the middle, were taking their birds out of baskets, looking them over, strapping them into their fighting gear, and
talking to them encouragingly, while the crowd laid bets and shouted advice. Dido had seen cockfights in London and did not like them, but this one made a good excuse for loitering in the court, so she stood at the back of the crowd and pretended to be examining her purchases.