The Cuckoo Tree (24 page)

"Put away this elephant; see she is fed and rubbed down."

"Begging your pardon, sir, can't undertake to stable her without Lord Sope himself personally consigns her to our stable."

"Oh, tush—" Sir Percy was beginning, when Yan interposed.

"Excuse me, sir, but best not waste time in arguing; I daresay my auntie Grissie will oblige if they ain't willing here."

So Rachel was allowed to follow behind Sir Percy's curricle, and this was perhaps just as well, for it was plain that she had every intention of doing so anyway.

Yan and Dido sprang into the vehicle, Sir Percy touched up his horses, and the procession whirled away toward Piccadilly.

"Now," said the Lord Chief justice, skillfully guiding his team through the crowds, which became denser and
denser as they approached the City of London, "you know more about this murky business than is mentioned in the Dispatch, hey? How do the miscreants propose to topple over St. Paul's?"

"Well, sir," Dido told him, "one night I heard two coves, as I know to be mixed up in this, a-talking together and one of 'em said, 'The rollers is mounted already. All we want now is motive power.'"

"Rollers? Good gracious. Do you mean to suggest that the whole cathedral is already mounted on castors like—like a sofa?"

"Yes, sir. We reckons so."

"How very shocking. Well, proceed! What about the motive power—have you ascertained how they propose to give it the final push?"

"They ran into a bit o' trouble when it came to that, sir," said Dido, and explained about the defection of Mr. Godwit. "Someone run off with a valuable bit o' property that they was going to sell to pay for the levers and stuff, you see."

"So our worries are at an end? They cannot start the cathedral rolling?"

"I ain't so sure about that, sir," said Dido. "There's these two old witches—"

"
Witches?
Come, come, child. Do not try my credulity too far. Rollers are one thing, witches are quite another. Let us leave magic and spookery out of the business, pray!"

"But they
can
do queer things, sir! They put poor Cap'n Hughes in a sleep and no one can't rouse him—"

"A drug or a blow on the head would do as much—"

"They can make folk see things as isn't there—"

"Bah!"

"Well, anyways, Colonel FitzPickwick believes they can fix it."

"FitzPickwick, eh? I always suspected he had Hanoverian leanings," Sir Percy said thoughtfully. "But this talk of sorcery and such jiggery-pokery, you know, is the outside of enough."

By now the curricle, with Rachel in anxious pursuit, had rolled briskly along the Strand, along Fleet Street, up Ludgate Hill, and had turned left below the towering bulk of St. Paul's Cathedral. They drew up outside the Old Bailey.

"The Yeoman of the Guard and just about the whole of the London constabulary are quartered here in readiness for tomorrow," Sir Percy explained. "And Lord Raven, the Home Secretary, is certain to be here, so we can put the whole matter before him and decide on a proper course of action."

This sounded promising. But when Lord Raven presently appeared, in a small gloomy office to which Sir Percy had led them, Dido's heart sank.

The Home Secretary was a tall, gaunt, draggled-looking character with rusty black hair and a rusty black beard and such very thick drooping black eyebrows that it seemed unlikely that he could see much unless he looked sidelong.

He listened to Sir Percy's outline of the plot to dispose of King Richard the Fourth, along with the Archbishop of
Canterbury, all the nobility and gentry of the land, as well as members of parliament, clergy, choir, St. Paul's Cathedral itself, and a congregation of several thousand, in a discouraging silence.

"So you see," concluded Sir Percy, "whether or not these dastardly plotters have, since our young friends left them, actually discovered a means of shifting the edifice or not, it is urgently necessary to survey the foundations before tomorrow's ceremony, so as to remove any risk of such an attempt."

The Home Secretary ran one hand through his beard, looked at it, ran the other hand through, looked at it, and after a thoughtful pause replied,

"Can't be done."

"What is that you say, man?" exclaimed Sir Percy. "How do you mean, can't be done?"

"Cathedral's not my province. Can't set foot in it without permission of the Dean. Certainly can't arrest anyone in it."

"But, good heavens, man, there's a double cordon of your constabulary officers all around the place this minute. I noticed them as we came up Ludgate Hill."

"That's to keep people out," replied Lord Raven. "Cathedral's already filling up fast—tomorrow's congregation will all be there by invitation. About the only ones left to come now are members of parliament and peers."

"The congregation's there already?"

"A cathedral's not like a teapot—you can't fill it and empty it in five minutes," Lord Raven said sourly. "Every person who'll be there tomorrow has to have a pass—every pass has to be countersigned by ten different constabulary officers—takes hours to get 'em all in and out again."

"Well, we must obtain passes so that we can go and look at the crypt—I presume that is where the malefactors will have placed their rollers," said Sir Percy impatiently. "And surely conspirators could be arrested in the crypt?"

Lord Raven ran one hand through his beard, ran the other hand through, and replied, "Can't get passes."

"Why not, in the name of St. Pancras?" demanded the Lord Chief Justice, in a high state of exasperation.

"Passes have to be issued by the Dean."

"Very well, then let us go to the Dean, for goodness' sake."

"Can't. The Dean is passing the night with His Majesty, in meditation and serious talk."

"Oh." Sir Percy considered, and then said, "Just the same, in a case of such danger and urgency—Where are they having this talk?"

"In St. Paul's library."

"In the
cathedral?
You mean His Majesty is there
already?
"

"That is so. He arrived just after lunch, and will not leave until after tomorrow's ceremony."

"But, in that case—good gracious, don't you see that the danger is critical
now?
Why, if everybody is inside it already—except the peers and M.P.s and who cares about them—if the plotters have by now found some means of moving the building, there's not a thing to stop them doing
so
at any time
—supposing they knew His Majesty is in there. Good heavens, man, the whole thing is perched at the top of Ludgate Hill like a boot on a roller-skate, just waiting for someone to give it a shove. We
must
get inside, I tell you!"

"Can't, without a pass," replied the Home Secretary immovably.

Dido plucked Yan's hand and drew him from the room.

"Come on," she whispered outside. "That pair will be at it for hours, to and fro. I wouldn't give a buttered biscuit for Sir Percy's chances of getting into St. Paul's. Dismal old croaker, that Lord Raven, ain't he?"

Yan could only agree.

"What'll us do? Got any notion, duck?"

"Let's go up to your aunt Grissie's," Dido suggested. "If she lives in Wardrobe Court, that's right handy for St. Paul's, and maybe the others'll have got there by now; they might have some good ideas."

They walked up the short but steep hill—Rachel following—and admired the great west front of the cathedral, which had been garlanded all over, presumably by the students of Dr. Furneaux's Academy, with purple daisies and bunches of red autumn berries. The roadway down toward the City of Westminster had been kept clear by Yeomen, but in all the houses, and everywhere that people were allowed to stand, the crowds were massing thicker and thicker. People were all in their holiday best. There was an atmosphere everywhere of jubilation and expectancy.

Yan turned right, off Ludgate Hill, into a tiny cobbled street, and right again, under an arch. Rachel, unable to squeeze through, trumpeted mournfully.

"Just you wait there a minute, Rachel my duck, and we'll bring you something nice," Dido reassured her.

Wardrobe Court was a tiny enclosure, in which two plane trees were dropping their pale yellow leaves on to soft green grass. Around the sides of the court were peaceful little old houses which looked as if they had grown there, like the trees. Up above, the sky, for once, was clear; its luminous green, with one or two stars prickling out, gave promise that the next day would be fine.

They knocked at Number Four. Aunt Grissie, a small cheerful old lady exactly like a nut, hugged Yan and said, "There! I made sure I'd see you directly. I've been a-watching the old
Relish
a-tying up at Mermaid Wharf from my kitchen window. But how is it you're ahead of her, Yan, boy?"

"We had a bit o' business to do, Auntie, so we left the ship at Wandsworth. This here's Dido Twite, and we've left an elephant outside, if so be as you've any buns."

Aunt Grissie made no difficulty about producing buns—"I always lays in plenty of provisions when the Wineberry lads are due," she explained to Dido, giving her a trayful. While Aunt Grissie and Yan were exchanging family news in the neat little kitchen Dido wandered back through the parlor—with its painted glass ornaments, pictures made from butterflies' wings, red chenille tablecloth, and wax fruit under glass domes. Outside the window a larger dome, that of St. Paul's, faced the house over the roofs of Wardrobe Court.

"If St. Paul's does go a-skating down into the river," Dido thought, carrying the buns to Rachel, "it'll take Aunt Grissie's house with it.
And
topple in right on top of the old
Gentlemen's Relish.
"

Rachel, appeased by buns, was content to wait in the street. As Dido returned to the house the rest of the
Gentlemen's Relish
crew trooped into the court, hungry, highly scented, and cheerful.

"Well, did you fix things with his lordship?" asked Tethera.

Cris ran to Dido and caught her by the hand.

"Oh Dido—I'm so worried about Tobit!"

"He's not back yet? Oh well, I daresay he'll be along by and by," Dido soothed her.

"But
I keep getting messages from him!
"

Dido's skin prickled.

"Like when he was in the well?"

"Yes! No, not quite like that—it doesn't seem so much that he's in danger—but he's stuck somewhere and can't get out, and he wants to tell me something and I can't understand it."

"Like it was with Aswell sometimes?"

"Aswell?"

Blimey, thought Dido, has she clean forgotten? "You remember Aswell, that you used to talk to in the Cuckoo Tree?"

"Oh," said Cris slowly, "yes—I
think
I do—but I was just a child then. That was a long time ago. Was it someone I used to believe was up in the sky? I've almost forgotten."

"Oh well, no matter. D'you reckon if we went upstairs, or somewhere quiet, you might hear better?"

Cris thought this might help. As the tiny house was now crammed with Wineberry Men shaving, washing their socks, eating bacon and eggs, and discussing Lord Raven's behavior, Dido and Cris went out through Wardrobe Court, gave Rachel a passing pat, and strolled on into St. Paul's churchyard.

"This is better—but let's keep going." Cris tugged Dido along toward the cathedral. Since the double line of constables prevented the crowd from entering and kept urging people to move on, Dido and Cris continued going east—anti-clockwise—until they were around on the north side of St. Paul's. Here the crowd was thicker still. Every now and then somebody who had a pass showed it and was allowed to go in.

"Can't
we
go in?" Cris said impatiently. "I'm almost sure Tobit's voice is coming from inside there."

"That's funny," Dido thought. "Well, I suppose if Tobit had come straight, he
could
have got here while we was argufying with old Fo'c'stle, but why? And how did he fetch up inside? And how can we?"

Her last question was answered at once.

"Buy a pass, dearie?" muttered a voice in her ear. "Only two guineas to
you,
for I've took a fancy to you. You've a lucky face."

She turned to find a little man like a blackbeetle at her elbow. "Passes for the North Door and Lord Mayor's Vestry—you'll never be sorry you took the chance," he urged her. "Only two guineas—in an hour's time you won't be able to get 'em for twenty!"

"Does I look as if I had two guineas?" Dido began tartly, and then remembered that as a matter of fact she
had;
thanks to Miss Sarah Gusset she had five. She glanced about and realized that in fact a brisk trade in illegal passes was going on. Pity old Raven couldn't come up here and buy a few, she thought.

"Please,
please
let's go in," besought Cris, who had seen Dido's hand move toward her pocket.

"Oh, very well!" Dido brought out four of the five guinea pieces, and received in exchange two large pieces of pasteboard all covered with lions, unicorns, balls, crosses, and croziers, that said, "Admit bearer to North Transept. (Signed) Thos. Talisman, Dean." They looked very official.

The salesman, having taken their money, vanished into the crowd like a lemming. Cris and Dido showed their passes, were allowed through the double line of constables, and climbed the steps to the North Door. "Wonder if I oughta let Yan know?" Dido thought. "But we needn't stay long, and this does seem a chance. We mightn't get in so easy another time."

Although born and bred in London, Dido had never before set foot inside St. Paul's Cathedral. When they had passed through the entrance vestibule and came out into the north transept, she was amazed at the size of the place. It was like being in some clearing among giant trees. Underfoot were black and white marble squares, an enormous checkerboard stretching away in every direction. Massive pillars led the eye upward to a roof that was a series of lofty white domes, encircled by dark-brown rings. Although there were so many people already in the cathedral, they seemed tiny in its hugeness.

The students from Dr. Furneaux's Art Academy were still running to and fro, busily at work on the decorations. Up and down the pillars, on the choir stalls, statues, monuments—wherever stone, wood, marble, or ironwork provided a hold, they were fastening great festoons of autumn leaves, brown, gold, and rust colored. And among the leaves hung oranges and lemons in profusion, so that
the principal color everywhere was gold—it seemed like a forest of gilded trees, seen in the half dark, with the infrequent rays of light picking out pale gold, bright gold, rich gold, dark gold. The tiny flickering tapers carried by the students to give light for their labors enhanced this effect—the dusk among the majestic pillars, under the soaring arches, seemed powdered with a dazzling shimmer.