The Runaways (9 page)

‘You dropped them?’ asked Nan. He nodded and smiled at her and taking a wrinkled apple from a basket he held it out to her. To please him she took it and ate it, but it was as dry as a bit of leather. He opened his mouth and made a strange sound and an expression of deep sorrow came over his face, and Nan knew that he was dumb. She knew because they had had a dumb servant in India, and he had made those same
strange noises and his face had worn that same look of bewildered sorrow. Nan had grown very clever at saying for him what he wanted to say and she found she could do the same for this man. ‘You were picking flowers in the wood down below,’ she said, ‘and you heard voices and a dog barking and you ran away and climbed up above the treetops home again, but in your hurry you dropped some of the flowers. One must not drop flowers, for then they die. It was only my voice you heard, and Ezra’s, and our dog barking, and we wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.’

An expression of relief came over the tramp’s face, and taking her hand he bent down and kissed it. His gesture was gentle and courteous and she thought that after all he couldn’t be quite an ordinary tramp, not the sort you warn off by notices on the gate about savage dogs that aren’t there, and he would understand how anxious she was about Betsy. And so leaving her hand in his, she told him about Betsy being lost. He looked sad and shook his head to show her that Betsy was not there, and he pointed up the ladder down which he had come and shook his head again to tell her that Betsy was not up there with the sheep on the hillside, and then taking Nan with him, he went to the mouth of the cave and stood looking out, his hand over his eyes. They saw no one at first and then the tramp gave a croak of pleasure, for down below them in the small valley was a little white figure scurrying along by the stream. But it wasn’t Betsy, it was Absolom. ‘It’s Absolom, our dog,’ said Nan, and she and the tramp climbed down the steps to the valley.

Absolom came bounding to meet them, his tongue out and his ears flapping, very proud of himself that he had found Nan. He had a bit of paper fastened to his collar with a piece of gardener’s bast and Nan took it and read it. On one side of it, in Uncle Ambrose’s
beautiful
handwriting, was a list of the groceries that Ezra had bought and the children had found in the trap and eaten, and on the other side crookedly printed words had been inscribed so painfully and laboriously that in places the pencil point had dug through the paper.

Nan was glad she had not read the message aloud because of the word daft. If this man was Daft Davie he was not daft and she felt hot with anger that anyone should call him so.

‘It is Ezra,’ she said, ‘and he’s down below in the wood and he is anxious about me, but he can’t come up because of his wooden leg. So as Betsy isn’t here I must go back.’

Daft Davie looked very bewildered and so Nan told him how they had come to live with Uncle Ambrose for always, and so she would see him again. Then she said goodbye and ran off down the valley with Absolom. Just before she climbed up over the Lion’s paw she turned and looked back and there was Daft Davie at the top of the steps, just outside the entrance to his cave. He
was watching her go away and he looked very sad. She waved to him, and she felt sad too, but she knew she would see him again, and his wonderful home inside the Lion’s head. Ezra was waiting for her and Absolom at the foot of the cliff and he was pleased to see them again, for he had been anxious. He was also annoyed. ‘Give I the slip like that again, maid,’ he said, ‘an’ I’ll tell on you to your uncle.’

‘But I had to go,’ said Nan. ‘The bees said so. There were four of them turning round and round in the sunbeam and they led me on.’

‘Well now,’ said Ezra, astonished, ‘what were they thinkin’ on? The little ’un wasn’t up there.’

‘I must have had to go there,’ said Nan, ‘or the bees wouldn’t have said so.’

‘That they wouldn’t,’ agreed Ezra. ‘Don’t know, I’m sure. Well, us better be gettin’ back to Manor. You’ve been gone nigh an hour an’ we ’aven’t found the little ’un.’

As they went Nan said, ‘I like Daft Davie and I like his house. Who is he?’

‘Used to live over to Pizzleton village down on t’other side of Lion Tor. Worked for the blacksmith there. But the village boys laughed at ’im, bein’ dumb an’
peculiar
, as you might say, an’ threw stones an’ that, an’ ’e ran away an’ ’e’s lived on Lion Tor ever since. ’E earns a bit now and again, ’elpin’ with the lambin’ an’ the ’arvestin’, an’ he’s clever with ’is ’ands. But daft, poor chap. No ’arm in ’im.’

They were back again in the yard by the well, but there were no signs of the others and no signs of Betsy.

chapter six

the garden of the fountain

The second search-party, Timothy, Robert, and Moses put Rob-Roy in the stable and set out for the garden.

‘Where do the best flowers grow?’ asked Robert.

‘In the garden of the fountain to the west of the house,’ said Moses. ‘There’s wallflower and sweet briar there, and come the summer there’ll be night-scented stock and mignonette. I plant there all things that be sweet to smell beneath the moon.’

‘Don’t they smell sweet beneath the sun too?’ asked Timothy.

‘They do, young master, but it be below the moon that milady paces the garden of the fountain upon my arm.’

‘Does Lady Alicia only go out at night?’ asked the astonished Robert.

‘Only at night, young master,’ said Moses pensively.

‘Why does she only go out at night?’

Moses smiled and shook his head and gave no answer. Timothy thought that he was not a very
communicative
person. He spoke slowly, as though he were not used to talking, and his deep soft voice would begin a sentence with power and then die sadly away to a mere breath of sound. Yet he did not seem a dying sort
of person, for somewhere at the back of his dark eyes there was fire. Robert did not notice these things about Moses because he was a practical person, always much occupied in telling people what they ought to do, but Timothy was not practical and following where Robert led he was able to notice things. As Moses led them silently through the tall grass that bordered the terrace in front of the house he noticed three things. There was an uncurtained window upstairs and it was a little open, and three bees flew out of it as he watched. Those were two things. The third was the great wisteria vine that grew up the side of the house and had such thick branches that it would be possible to climb it.

They came round to the west side of the house and through an archway into a small garden entirely enclosed by yew hedges. In the middle of it was a fountain with a statue in the centre, and there were winding grass paths and flowerbeds full of dark red wallflowers,
southern-wood
, lemon verbena, and thyme. And there were hedges of lavender and sweet briar, rosemary bushes grown almost as large as trees and an arbour grown over with honeysuckle. There was nothing growing here that was not sweet-smelling and the little place was most lovingly taken care of.

‘Do you take care of it?’ Timothy asked Moses.

Moses smiled and nodded. ‘Moses is gardener to milady,’ he said. ‘And chef to milady. And butler to milady and once he was coachman. But the horses are dead now and the rats have eaten holes in the seats of the carriage. No more horses.’ He had began to speak with a sort of forlorn pride, but now his deep voice
sank away into inaudible sorrow and Timothy wanted to cry.

Robert didn’t because he was not listening; being practical he was looking for Betsy. ‘She’s not in the arbour,’ he called out. ‘Let’s look behind all the bushes.’

Moses joined him in the search, but Timothy felt quite sure that Betsy was not here. If she had been she would have heard their voices and called out to them. He wandered off by himself to the centre of the garden where the fountain was. There was no longer any water in the marble basin and the man sitting on the rock in the centre of it had moss growing on him and he looked heavy and weary. Yet he wasn’t old because the beard that flowed over his chest was crisply curly, and his hair, bound with a fillet, was curly too. And the muscles of his back and bare arms were so strong that one expected him to be holding a sword or spear. But he wasn’t; he was holding in his left hand some queer sort of musical instrument made of reeds, the hand raised as though he had only just taken it from his lips, and his right hand was lifted too, as though he was calling to someone to listen to the echo of his vanished music. His face was strong and sad and two strange little horns grew out of his head. Timothy had not noticed the horns at first because they were almost hidden in the curly hair, and when he did notice them he began to feel a little scared. Then he looked down at the rock on which the man was sitting and had the shock of his life, because he saw suddenly that the man was only a man as far as the waist. Below the waist he was an animal, with hairy goat-shaped legs and hooves instead of feet. Panic seized Timothy and with
one part of himself he wanted to scream and run away, yet with the other part of himself he wanted to look again at the listening face and because he was a plucky child he stayed where he was and lifted his eyes. Looking up, he was not aware now of heaviness or weariness, but of power and loneliness. He was still afraid, but
differently
afraid. He no longer wanted to scream, but he did want to be right outside this garden, and suddenly he ran through the archway in the yew hedge and back to the place where he had seen the three bees.

He looked up at the window and they were no longer there, but he could hear a faint reassuring humming in the pale wisteria flowers over his head, and partly because he loved climbing trees and partly because he wanted to be up there with the bees, he began to climb up the wisteria. It was quite an easy climb for an agile small boy and so enjoyable that he forgot his panic in the garden, and in a few minutes he was on the flat top of the porch and not far below the open window. He climbed up a bit farther, the porch below giving him a sense of not having to fall far if he were to lose his footing, and presently he was right under the window and heard a murmur of voices mingling with the murmur of the bees. There were three voices, an old lady’s voice, a chattering monkey voice, and the other was Betsy’s. Timothy climbed down to the top of the porch again, slowly so as not to make a noise, and standing there he noticed a small uncurtained window almost hidden behind the wisteria to his left, a window that was neither upstairs nor downstairs but somewhere between the two. He walked cautiously to the edge of the porch and peeped through it, and he had another shock,
for sitting on the floor of the little room inside, a room no bigger than a cupboard, was Frederick the cat washing ears. Feeling eyes upon him, Frederick turned his head and saw Timothy. They looked at each other and Timothy was so fascinated by Frederick’s unblinking stare that he could not look away.

Then Frederick began to swell. He swelled and swelled and his blazing eyes grew larger. One great paw struck the glass of the window and it cracked. Timothy did not wait any longer. He had no recollection of climbing down the wisteria. The next thing he knew he was running under the arch of yew into the garden of the fountain as though he were running home, and the great stone man in the centre was no longer a frightening thing but a rock of defence.

Moses and Robert came from behind a tree. ‘She’s not here,’ said Robert. ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’

‘Of course she isn’t here,’ said Timothy. ‘She’s upstairs with Lady Alicia. I climbed up into the wisteria and heard them talking.’

‘With milady!’ ejaculated Moses. ‘But milady does not see visitors.’

‘If Betsy just walked in how could she help seeing her?’ said Robert. ‘What do we do now? Wait till Betsy comes out?’

‘No,’ said Timothy. ‘We must go and fetch her because the cat is in the house. I saw him through that little window by the porch and if Betsy runs through the house by herself he might catch her.’

Moses growled and he suddenly looked so alarming that Robert and Timothy gazed at him in astonishment.
‘That cat!’ he muttered. ‘Let Moses leave one door open and that cat creeps in. That cat’s a bad cat. What he come here for? Let Moses get his hands on that cat and he’ll strangle him!’ This was a new Moses, big and angry, with his sad eyes burning in his face, his teeth showing and his hands clasping and unclasping themselves against his sides as though they itched for the feel of Frederick’s throat between them.

‘Please, Moses, take us upstairs to fetch Betsy,’ said Robert.

Moses changed back to his usual self. ‘What will milady say?’ he asked anxiously.

‘It doesn’t matter what she says,’ retorted Robert. ‘Whatever she says we storm the citadel for Betsy. Which way in?’

He flung the toga of a Roman emperor about his splendid torso and flourished a short but deadly sword. He could change from one person to another as rapidly as Moses, but whereas Moses was only one man or another man, and both of them Moses, Robert could be any number of men, all of them quite unconnected with him until he had buckled them on. Whether they were still unconnected with him when he had taken them off, who can say? ‘Slave,’ he said to his coal-black Nubian standard-bearer, ‘lead on.’

Timothy looked anxiously at Moses, but saw to his relief, that he did not seem to be at all hurt in his feelings and was smiling quite amiably as he led the way towards the house. Hurt feelings were no part of the two men Moses was. One was gentle and humble and the other could be wild as a thunderstorm, but neither was resentful.

A small door led from the house to the garden of the fountain and Moses took a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked it. ‘Milady uses this door when she walks in the garden in the moonlight,’ he said. They went in and Moses closed the door carefully behind them.

He led them down a long dark passage and then up a staircase. The stairs were not the stately ones that Betsy had climbed, but narrow stone steps that went round and round. Then they went down more dark passages until they reached a door where a sunbeam was climbing through a keyhole, and here Moses stopped and tapped.

‘Come in,’ said the voice of an imperious old lady.

Moses, Lady Alicia’s butler, threw open the door and announced, ‘Master Robert Linnet and Master Timothy Linnet.’ They went in, and he shut the door behind them and withdrew.

Lady Alicia, Betsy, and Abednego were playing
spillikins
. Each had a pile of delicate little ivory sticks in front of them and Abednego was winning. The entry of the boys caused him to drop the spillikins and he
chattered
with annoyance.

‘Where are your manners, Abednego?’ asked Lady Alicia. ‘Remember it is now your duty to set a good example to the doll Gertrude.’ Then she turned to Robert and Timothy. ‘And to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’ she asked. Her voice was very icy, and her beautiful pencilled eyebrows lifted themselves quite a long way up her forehead. It was obvious that she did not like being visited and Robert bowed very humbly indeed, sweeping his feathered hat from his head. Sir Walter Raleigh could not lay his cloak at the feet of
Gloriana, since she showed no signs of wishing to leave her chair, but his burning glance told her of his deep devotion. ‘Is this histrionic gentleman your elder brother?’ she asked Betsy.

‘That’s Robert,’ said Betsy. ‘And that’s Timothy.’

Lady Alicia lifted her right hand and held it out to the boys. ‘Since you are here, boys, we had better become acquainted,’ she said. They advanced and Robert, since he was Raleigh until circumstances required of him that he should be somebody else, kissed her hand. Timothy, who was not anyone except a fair-haired small boy, merely looked up at Lady Alicia out of his intensely blue eyes and smiled. He did not know it yet, but he had a devastating smile. Lady Alicia stared at him and suddenly appeared ten years older, and as she looked old already, that was very old indeed. It would not have surprised Robert if she had suddenly fallen to dust before his eyes. Her voice, when she spoke to Timothy, was hoarse. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.