The Stolen Lake (7 page)

"Is Mr. Holystone downstairs? Is he busy?"

"He is supervising the captain's repast. Do you wish me to give him a message?"

"Jist—when he's free—I'd be obliged if he'd get someone to fetch me a bite of prog. I'm nibblish sharp-set," Dido said disconsolately.

Mr. Windward's long, serious face broke into a sympathetic grin as he looked at the two dressmakers waiting to start operations on Dido. He said, "Very good, young 'un, I'll tell him to have a bite sent up to you." The door clapped to behind him.

"Well, now! Listen to Miss Throw Her Weight Around!" said Mrs. Morgan, with strong disapproval.

"Acts as if she were Lady Ettarde herself!"

"Little gels oughter be seen and not heard!"

"Us had best waste no time."

"Not a blessed minute."

"Just you step thisaway, dearie."

Drawing their tape measures from their belts, both women urged Dido toward the window.

"Come here where the light's better," cooed old Mrs. Morgan, and Mrs. Vavasour said, "See that pincushion, sweetheart? See all those pins in it? Can you make out what's writ there?"

A quantity of brass-headed pins were stuck into the fat cushion; they spelled out some word with a large number of
x
's in it. Dido, no great reader at best, shook her head.

"Study it a mite closer, dearie—see if you can't make it out."

Both women had her by the shoulders now; they were forcing her head down on to the pincushion. As it came closer to her face, she discovered that it had a strong, sweet, musky odor, somewhat resembling camphor, but much more powerful.

"Hey! Lemme go!" she said, struggling; but already her head was swimming, her voice seemed to come not out of her throat, but faintly, and from a long way off.

"
That
's the dandy! Now then, us'll jist oping this lid..."

With immense indignation, Dido realized that Mrs. Vavasour had tied her hands behind her with a tape measure, while Mrs. Morgan opened the lid of the chest. Surprisingly, this proved to cover and surround a kind of stairhead; a flight of narrow steps led down steeply from it into blackness.

"Now, us'll jist help the liddle dear over the side..."

"I'll not! I'll not go! Cap'n Hughes'll have your guts for garters when he hears of this!" gasped Dido, doing her best to fight the two women, who were half lifting, half dragging her over the side of the chest.

"Ah, but he won't hear, lovie, not till you're as lost as Lucy's pocket. You step down, Nynevie, hold her legs—lucky she's sich a skinny one, her 'on't be no trouble to fetch to the boat...."

Dido was rolled down the steps; Mrs. Vavasour made no attempt to break her fall, and she lay half-stunned at the bottom of the fairly long flight. A moment later she felt a thick, blanketlike sack pulled over her legs and body; a string was drawn tight at the top, catching some of her hair painfully, and tied in a knot. Then she felt herself being dragged along the ground over rough, uneven planks full of splinters, many of which pierced through the fabric of the bag, and also through Dido's skin. Her head and limbs were banged and thumped against the edges of boards; she was shaken and scraped and jounced and battered.

One good result of this unpleasant exercise, however, was that, after a few minutes of it, Dido, who had been at the start almost unconscious from the fumes of the pincushion, was jolted back into full, angry, and wary intelligence. Blister them, the old bags, she thought; I'll not yammer to let them know I'm awake—but what a gull I was! How could I be sich a nodcock as not to twig their lay from the first minute? Any addlepate could see they was a pair of downy ones. Guess I'd best look out for myself in New Cumbria; Cap'n Hughes ain't used to sich goings-on. He'll be no more use here than a thread-paper parasol in a thunderstorm.

She had to bite her lip several times not to cry out. As she was ruthlessly dragged along, she wrestled against the tape that bound her wrists until it cut into them. She thought she felt it give a little, and so persisted in spite of the pain.

"Lay aholt with me, Ma, and pull her down here," said Mrs. Vavasour's voice.

The bag was given a sudden vigorous jerk. Again, Dido felt herself rolling helplessly, over and over down a long bumpy slope. By the time she came to a stop she was too dazed and bruised to do anything but lie motionless. To her joy, though, the tape round her wrists had finally broken. She was able to move her hands.

"Where'll we lay her?" came Mrs. Vavasour's voice.

"There, on the dried fish."

"What about rats, Ma? Wouldn't do if her was to turn up gnawed.
She
'on't have em if they ain't complete."

Something in the woman's voice made Dido's skin crawl; also, she did not care for the reference to rats.

"Oh, very well. On the ax heads, then."

The sack was hoisted up, and dropped heavily on to a pile of sharp edges and hard corners.

"When's the boat leave, Ma?"

"Midnight. Best you stay and keep an eye on the kinchin. Do she stir, give her another whiff of guayala."

"I stay here? Not on your oliphant! She'll not stir. Give her another whiff now, to make certing."

"Not too much, then!
She
don't like 'em if they're droopy."

The camphor fumes came close again. Dido tried to hold her breath; she pressed her lips together, wrinkled up her nose, and squeezed her eyes tight shut.

Then, suddenly, she heard a man's voice raised in song, not far away; the sound was muffled, as if heard through a thin partition or a pile of objects.

"
My heart goes pink!
" he sang:

"
My heart goes pink, the very minute I see her!
My heart goes rose pink, like the rrrrrrising sun!
When she is nigh, this unmistakable feeling
Tingles in all my senses, every one!
I feel she is close, I know she is nigh,
If I were in Paris, Geneva, or Rye,
I'd quickly perceive her.
My cherished Nyneva—
"

"Oh, no!" Dido heard Nynevie exclaim in a horrified whisper. "That's Bran!"

And Mrs. Morgan snapped, "How the pest did
he
get here? I thought he were in the mountains?"

"Oh, who ever knows where he'll turn up? Quick—let's get outa here. Make haste, Ma! Never mind the liddle varmint. She'll be right enough—"

"A-right, a-right! Don't hurry me, gel!"

From the sound, it appeared that Mrs. Vavasour was pushing her elderly parent up a flight of steps; there was a stumble and a smothered curse. Then a door closed with a rattle of bolts. This was followed by silence.

Dido found herself in no great hurry to make a move. For one thing, she was not certain as to the whereabouts of the singer. The fact that this Bran, whoever he was, seemed to strike alarm into the dressmakers did not, Dido thought, necessarily mean that he would be prepared to help
her;
she was not going to risk being found by him. She would wait awhile.

She occupied the time by enlarging a hole in the sack, which had been torn as it was dragged along. At last she managed to get her head out, but could see little of her surroundings, for the light was very dim. She thought she must be in some cellar or storeroom of The White Hart. They sure got a big store, she thought; seems big as Covent Garden.

By cautious rolling and slithering she worked herself off the ax heads, which were very uncomfortable, and onto what felt like a pile of sacks, or sails. That's better, she thought. Now I'll jist rest me a few minutes, then I'll wriggle out of the sack. Croopus, how those old harridans did thump me along....

Her head dropped back against the dusty sackcloth, and she slept.

When Dido next woke, it was with a feeling of deep anxiety and apprehension. How long had she been asleep?

Addlehead! she told herself. For all you know, it's nigh on midnight, and those old carrion crows'll be coming back any minute. Why the pize did I have to go and fall asleep?

Trying to make as little noise as possible, she wriggled clear of the sack and looked around her. Although it was darker now, her eyes were more accustomed to the dimness. She seemed to be in a very large warehouse stacked with many kinds of goods: farm implements, fodder, tools, seeds, bales, barrels, and crates. Narrow alleys threaded between the high piles; it was like a maze, and Dido tried several alleys before she found one that led her to a wall, in which she saw two or three small window squares high above her head.

They were too small and too high to be any use for escape; she edged her way along the wall, hastened on her way by certain squeaks and scurryings close by; there ain't no shortage of rats here, she thought, and was glad not to be still fastened in a sack with her hands tied behind her.

At last she reached a wide loading space by a pair of big double doors, plainly the main entrance to the store. But the doors were fastened, as was a little wicket cut through them.

Dido began to feel annoyed. She was hollow with hunger too. Old Cap'll be real mortallious when he wants to catch that boat and finds I'm missing, she thought. Peering up in the gloom she discovered that the fastening of the double doors consisted of a long iron bar, held in place by four massive staples. All I have to do is knock that out, she thought. But what with? It's out o' my reach. But among all this mollux of goods there must be summat I can use.

Her luck had changed. She discovered a pile of hay rakes not far away in the murk—fell over them, in fact, and grazed her shin on the sharp tines. Just the job, she thought joyfully, rubbing her leg, and she pulled one free and returned to the door.

It was impossible not to make a good deal of noise pushing the bar along through the staples. In for a penny, in for a pound, Dido decided, bashing away with her rake head. At least, if those two hear and come back, I've got me summat to thump
them,
with. They won't put me in a bag so easy next time!

The bar fell to the ground with a clang. Of their own accord, the two great doors began to open slightly, disclosing a twilit scene outside. Inching her way through the narrow gap, Dido looked cautiously round her. She was amazed to find herself down on the quayside. Fancy! she thought. There must be a passageway right from The White Hart to that storehouse. Underground, maybe. Likely there's a bit of smuggling goes on in these parts.

Dusk was falling fast—she must have slept for two or three hours. The quay was empty and silent, except for an occasional seagull, pondering on a bollard. But—Dido was delighted to notice—only a couple of hundred yards from the building in which she had been imprisoned floated the pinnace belonging to H. M. S.
Thrush,
still moored alongside the quay.

Glancing both ways, Dido broke into a fast run. I'll ask one o' the crew to see me back to The White Hart. Reckon that Vavasour was right in one thing she said—this don't feel a healthy town to loiter about the streets alone.

A couple of sailors were in the pinnace, doing something to the rudder; she hailed them, panting, as she came alongside.

"Hey-o, Solly and Tad! Can I come aboard?"

"Why, 'tis the supercargo—little Miss Dido. What be you a-doing down on the dockside? Thought you was with the cap'n, dining on roast goose and gravy!"

"He's a-calling on the mayor," Dido replied. "And I'm not supposed to be in the street by myself. Would one o' you coves be agreeable to walk me back to The White Hart?"

"The bosun'd have us over a gun barrel, duck, if he come back and found us missing—he's in the town buying nails. You'd best come on board till he gets back."

Dido was about to accept this invitation when a man who had been limping slowly toward them came up beside her and said, "The young lady wishes to be escorted to The White Hart hostelry? I shall be glad to accompany her. I am going that way."

The sailors had been working by the light of the two lanterns that hung in the rigging. Their yellow glow illuminated the face of the newcomer. Swelp me,
he
's a rum gager, Dido thought. Dare I trust him?

He was indeed a very strange-looking individual: tall, deathly pale, even in that gold light—as if he had been in prison fifty years—with great cavernous eye sockets, a long curved nose, a thin wide mouth, and a shock of snow-white hair. His clothes were black. A large white cockatoo sat on his shoulder, and he carried a triangular stringed instrument. He had a wooden leg.

Dido was on the point of saying "No thanks, mister," in the firmest possible way, when he halted her with upraised hand.

"You are about to refuse my offer. You are afraid of me."

"No I ain't!" she retorted crossly (though she was, a little). "It's jist that one dassn't trust a soul in this rabshackle town."

"Spoken like a wise child! But you may trust me."

"How can I be sure, mister? I been gulled afore."

He sighed.

"You may trust me because it is not in my power to harm. I can
prevent
harm, sometimes; sometimes not even that."

Dido studied him a while longer. That's what
you
say, she thought.

He disconcerted her by reading her thought.

"It is what I say. And it is the truth. I tell nothing but truth."

"Humph!"

Dido was still not at all sure that she trusted him. But there was something about him that pricked her curiosity greatly. He looked as if he knew such a lot! She had a notion that, if he chose, he would be able to answer any question she cared to put to him.

At last she said, "How do I know as you ain't pals with that pair as nabbled me?"

"Oh, how,
how?
" he exclaimed impatiently. "How do you know that two and two make four, or that your name is Dido and your sister's Penelope? I know because I know, but I could explain for years, and
you
would still be in the dark."

Dido was so amazed at this answer that, after a moment, quite meekly, she said, "Reckon I'll go with you, then, mister, and thank you kindly."

Tad and Solly, reassured, returned to their work on the rudder, nodding in a friendly way to Dido as she walked off with the stranger.