The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (5 page)

Tears began to run down Sylvia’s cheeks and she drew a long breath, trying to suppress her silent sobs.

The next moment she heard feet patter across the carpet, and two small, comforting arms came round her neck. A cheek was rubbed lovingly against her wet one.

‘What is it, Sylvia dear? Are you homesick? Shall I come into bed with you?’

Sylvia was on the point of revealing her worries about Aunt Jane. Then she realized that she must not. Aunt Jane’s pride would not let her accept help from her brother, and so Sylvia must not disclose that she was lonely and cold and poor. But oh, somehow she must find a means of helping her aunt – she must! She must!

‘Don’t cry,’ Bonnie whispered. ‘This is your home now, and we shall do such delightful things together. I am sure I can make you happy.’ She hugged Sylvia again, and, slipping into the bed, began telling her of all the plans she had, for sledging and skating, and picking primroses in spring, and days on the moors in summer. Sylvia could not help being cheered by this happy prospect, and soon both children fell asleep, the dark head and the fair on one pillow.

4

NEXT MORNING THE
children had breakfast together in the nursery, which was gay with the sunshine that sparkled on crystal and silver and found golden lights in the honey and quince preserve.

Miss Slighcarp, it seemed, was to take her meals in her own apartments, and of this Sylvia was glad, for when she met the governess after breakfast she found her a somewhat frightening lady, cold and severe and forbidding. However, Aunt Jane had taught Sylvia well, and in many respects it was found that she was ahead of Bonnie.

‘You will have to work, miss,’ said Miss Slighcarp curtly to Bonnie. ‘You will have to work hard to catch up with your cousin.’

‘I am glad,’ said Bonnie, hugging Sylvia. ‘I want to work hard. It is delightful that you are so clever, we shall study all sorts of interesting things, botany and Greek and the use of the globes.’

They did not do many lessons that morning. After they had lain on their backboards while Miss Slighcarp read them a short chapter of Egyptian history, they were dismissed to their own devices. Sir Willoughby and Lady Green would be departing at
midday
, and he wanted to instruct Miss Slighcarp in various matters relating to the running of the estate and household, of which she was to be in charge while he was away.

‘Let us go and see how poor Mr Grimshaw is this morning,’ Bonnie proposed. ‘I am longing to take you to Mamma and Papa, but Miss Slighcarp is with them now. We will wait until she comes back.’

They ran along to the chamber where the unfortunate traveller had been placed, and found there an elderly whiskered gentleman, Dr Morne, in consultation with round, rosy Mrs Shubunkin, the housekeeper. They
curtsied
to the doctor, who patted their heads absently.

‘It is a most unusual case,’ he was saying to Mrs Shubunkin. ‘The poor gentleman has recovered consciousness, but he has clean lost all recollection of his name and address and who he is. I have ordered him some medicines, and he must be kept very quiet and remain in bed until his memory returns. I will go and speak to Sir Willoughby on the matter.’

‘Perhaps if he were to see Sylvia he would remember the train journey,’ Bonnie suggested. ‘He told you his name, did he not, Sylvia?’

‘Yes – Mr Grimshaw, Josiah Grimshaw.’

‘It would be worth a trial,’ the doctor agreed, and, a footman just then arriving to inform him that Sir Willoughby was at liberty, he left them, while the children ventured unescorted into Mr Grimshaw’s chamber.

What was their surprise to discover that the patient was not in bed but up and standing by the fire, wrapped in a crimson plush dressing-gown! Moreover, he seemed to have been burning papers, for the fireplace was full of black ash, and the room of blue smoke. He started violently as they entered, slammed shut the lid of a small dispatch-box, and flung himself back into bed.

‘What the deuce are you doing here?’ he growled. Who are you?’

‘Don’t you remember Sylvia, Mr Grimshaw?’ said Bonnie. ‘I am Bonnie Green, and Sylvia is my cousin who travelled with you on the train yesterday.’

‘Never seen her in my life before. And name’s not
Grimshaw
,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t know what it is, but not Grimshaw.’

‘He’s wandering, poor fellow,’ whispered Bonnie. ‘He must have got out of bed in delirium. We had best send Mrs Shubunkin to sit with him and see he does not do himself a mischief.’

Mr Grimshaw was plainly most displeased at their presence in his room, so they went off to tell the housekeeper that the invalid should not be left alone.

‘Now come,’ said Bonnie then, taking her cousin’s hand, ‘Papa and Mamma must be free now, for I saw Miss Slighcarp downstairs as we crossed the stair-head.

When they reached Lady Green’s sitting-room, they found the doctor there speaking with Sir Willoughby.

‘And so you will let this poor man remain here so long as he is in need of attention?’ the doctor was saying. ‘That is most kind of you, Sir Willoughby, and like your liberality.’

‘Eh, well,’ Sir Willoughby said, ‘couldn’t turn the poor fellow out into the snow, what? Plenty of room here. He can remain till he gets his wits back – till we return, if need be. Looking after him will give the servants something to do while we are away. You’ll come in and see him from time to time, Morne?’

The doctor departed, promising careful attendance on the stranger and wishing Lady Green a speedy return to health.

‘Nothing like a sea voyage, dear lady, to bring roses back to the cheeks.’

‘And so this is Sylvia,’ said Lady Green very kindly,
when
the doctor had gone, ‘I hope that you and Bonnie are going to be dear friends and look after one another when we are away.’

‘Oh yes, Mamma!’ Bonnie exclaimed. ‘I love her already. We are going to be so happy together …’

Then her face fell and her bright colour faded, for at that moment Lady Green’s maid entered the room with wraps and a travelling-mantle.

‘Are you leaving
now
Mamma? So soon?’

‘It wants but five minutes to midday, my child,’ said Lady Green as she wearily allowed herself to be swathed in her cloak. Sylvia observed how thin her aunt’s wrists were, how languid her beautiful dark eyes.

Silently the children followed downstairs in the bustle of departure. Servants darted here and there, mound upon mound of boxes went out to the chaise, Sir Willoughby tenderly supported his wife to the hall door. There she enveloped Bonnie in a long and loving embrace, had a warm kiss, too, for Sylvia, and, pale as death, allowed herself to be lifted into the carriage. They saw her face at the window, with her eyes fixed yearningly on Bonnie.

‘It won’t be long, Mamma,’ Bonnie called. Her voice was strained and dry.

‘Not long, my darling.’

‘Be good children,’ said Sir Willoughby hurriedly. ‘Mind what Miss Slighcarp tells you, now.’ He pressed a golden sovereign into each of their hands, and jumped quickly into the carriage after his wife. ‘Ready, James!’

The whip cracked, the mettlesome horses blew
great
clouds of steam into the frosty air, and they were off. The carriage whirled over the packed snow of the driveway, passed beyond a grove of leafless trees, and was lost to view.

Without a word, Bonnie turned on her heel and marched up the stairs and along the passages to the nursery. Sylvia followed, her heart swollen with compassion. She longed to say some comforting words, but could think of none.

‘It may not be long, Bonnie,’ she ventured at length.

Bonnie sat at the table, her hands tightly clenched together. ‘I will not, I
will
not cry,’ she was saying to herself.

At Sylvia’s anxious, loving, compassionate voice she took heart a little, and gave her cousin a smile. ‘After all,’ she thought, ‘I am lucky to have Papa and Mamma even if they have gone away; poor Sylvia has no one at all.’

‘Come,’ she said, jumping up, ‘the sun is shining. I will show you some of the grounds. Let us go skating.’

‘But Bonnie dear, I have no skates, and I do not know how.’

‘Oh, it is the easiest thing in the world, I will soon show you; and as for skates, Papa thought of that already, look …’ Bonnie pulled open a cupboard door and showed six pairs of white kid skating-boots, all different sizes. ‘We knew your feet must be somewhere near the same size as mine, since we are the same age, so Papa had several different pairs made and we thought one of them was certain to fit.’

Sure enough, one of the pairs of boots fitted exactly. Sylvia was much struck by this thought on the part of her uncle, and astonished at the lavishness of having six pairs made for one to be chosen.

Likewise, Pattern pulled out a whole series of white fur caps and pelisses, and tried them against Sylvia until she found ones that fitted. ‘I’ve hung your green velvet in the closet, miss,’ she said. ‘Green velvet’s all very well for London, but you want something warmer in the country.’

Sylvia could not help a pang as she remembered the cutting of the green velvet shawl and saw the sumptuous pile of white fur; how she wished she might send one of the pelisses to Aunt Jane. But next moment Bonnie caught her hand and pulled her to the door.

‘Don’t go outside the park now, Miss Bonnie,’ Pattern said.

‘We won’t,’ Bonnie promised.

Snug in their furs, the two children ran out across the great snow-covered slope in front of the house, through the grove, and down to where a frozen river meandered across the park, after falling over two or three artificial cascades, now stiff and gleaming with icicles.

The children sat on a garden bench to put on their skates. Then, with much laughter and encouragement. Bonnie began to show Sylvia how to keep her balance on the ice.

‘Why, Sylvia, you might have been born to it, you are a thousand times better than I was when I began.’

‘Perhaps it is because Aunt Jane took such pains
teaching
me to curtsy and dance the gavotte balancing Dr Johnson’s Dictionary on my head,’ Sylvia suggested, as she cautiously glided across to the opposite snow-piled bank and then hurriedly returned to the safety of Bonnie’s helping hand.

‘Whatever the reason, it is perfectly splendid! We can go right down the river to the end of the park, much farther skating than we can walking. The wolves, you see, cannot catch us on the ice.’

‘Is the river frozen all the way down?’

‘Yes, all the way to the sea. Oh, I can’t wait for you to see this countryside in summer,’ Bonnie said, as they skated carefully downstream. ‘The river is not nearly so full then, it is just a shallow, rocky stream, and we bathe, and paddle, and the banks are covered with heather and rockrose, it is so pretty.’

‘Is it far to the sea?’

‘Oh, far — far. Fifty miles. First you come to Blastburn, which is a hideous town, all coal tips and ugly mills. Papa goes there sometimes on business. And then at the sea itself there is Rivermouth, where Papa and Mamma will go on board their ship the
Thessaly
.’ Bonnie sighed and skated a few yards in silence. ‘Why!’ she exclaimed suddenly, ‘is not that Miss Slighcarp over there? It is not very safe to go walking so near the park’s boundary. The wolves have more than once been known to get in. I wonder if she knows, or if we should warn her?’

‘Are you sure it is Miss Slighcarp?’ said Sylvia, straining her eyes to study the grey figure walking beside a distant coppice.

‘I think it is. Are you tired, Sylvia? Can you
manage
another half-mile? If we continue down the river it will curve round and bring us near to her. I think we should remind her about the wolves.’

Sylvia protested that she was not at all tired, that she could easily skate for another hour, two hours if necessary, and, increasing their speed, the children hastened on down the frozen stream. The bank soon hid Miss Slighcarp from their sight.

‘It is very imprudent of her,’ Bonnie commented, ‘I suppose, coming from London, she does not realize about the wolves.’

Sylvia, secretly, began to be a little anxious. They seemed to have come a very long way, the house was nearly out of sight across the rolling parkland, and when they rounded the curve of the river they saw that Miss Slighcarp had cut across another ridge and was almost as far from them as ever. Sylvia’s legs and back, unused to this form of exercise, began to feel tired and to ache, but she valiantly strove to keep up with the sturdier Bonnie.

‘Just round this next bend,’ Bonnie encouraged her, ‘and then we
must
meet her. If not, I do not know what we can do – we shall have reached the park boundary, and moreover, the river runs into woods here, and the ice is treacherous and full of broken branches.’

They passed the bend and saw a figure – but not the figure they expected. A stout woman in a red velvet jacket was walking away from them briskly into the wood. She was not Miss Slighcarp, nor in the least like her.

‘It isn’t she!’ exclaimed Sylvia.

At the sound of her voice the woman swung round sharply and seemed to give them an angry look. Then she hurried on into the wood and disappeared. A moment later they heard the sound of horses’ hoofs and the rumbling of carriage wheels.