The Cuckoo Tree Read online

  ‘Hush! It’s all rug, we got him!’

  ‘Nay! You never!’

  As Dido described the mysterious way in which Cris had discovered, without being told, that Tobit was down the well, he looked more and more astonished.

  ‘Well! That beats cockfighting!’ he said at length. ‘I’d allus heard as twins was a bit uncanny and could understand each other wi’out talking but I never heard naught to equal that! And fancy you two liddle things being able to shove that gurt stone back and wrastle him out – he’d a bin drowned for sure by now, if you hadn’t. That well be a hundred foot deep, easy. Who put him down there?’

  ‘He just said some men. He and Cris was both a bit dumbstuck when I got ’em back here last night. But I reckon as how it was old Mystery.’

  Yan nodded. ‘Cousin Will said he’d not been back to the Angel all night, nor that mate of his, the fellow who plays the hoboy. They must still be out, searching for the boy – guessed he’d climbed outa the well when they saw the top shoved back, I daresay.’

  ‘What can we do with Tobit and Cris?’ Dido said. ‘They can’t stop in your Aunt Sary’s cellar for ever.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, duck. I reckon it’d be best if they came up to London with us, on our run.’

  ‘Croopus,’ said Dido, somewhat taken aback. But then she began to see that this was a sensible suggestion. ‘It’d keep them out o’ trouble here for sure, and no one’d be looking for them in London. But what about on the way – how can you keep them hid?’

  ‘We’re all hid together, duckie – ’tis a secret way we go, see?’

  ‘And what happens when you get there?’

  ‘Well,’ Yan said, ‘they could stop with Auntie Grissie in Wardrobe Court, where we always puts up; she’d keep an eye on ’em. And I was thinking – we always takes a load o’ corkscrews and two-three tubs of Hollands to Sir Percy Tipstaff – he’s the Lord Chief Justice, you know – I could tell him as how there’d been a frame-up on young Tobit. Sir Percy knows I’m a trustable chap – I reckon he’d pay heed to me.’

  ‘Oh, Yan!’ Dido fairly hugged him. ‘That’s a prime plan. It’s no use talking to old Lady Tegleaze or any of the nobs down here – the ones as hasn’t a screw loose is all in it together, thick as gutter mud.’

  ‘And I’ll take your letter to Lord Forecastle too.’

  ‘I wish I could come along,’ Dido said wistfully.

  ‘You’re kindly welcome, my duck.’

  ‘No, I’d best stay with poor old Cap’n Hughes. And if I’m seen about the town, Mr Mystery and Sannie and the rest of ’em’ll likely think that Tobit and Cris are still stowed here too, and that’ll put ’em off the scent.’

  Yan agreed with this.

  ‘But you take care of your self, lovey,’ he cautioned her. ‘Don’t you go getting chucked down a well.’

  ‘I’m fly!’ said Dido. ‘No one’s liable to sneak up on me ‘thout my hearing ’em. – Now, where should Tobit and Cris come – where do you start your run?’

  ‘We meets at the Cuckoo Tree. The ten-shilling-men pick up the stuff at Appledram Camber and fetch it so far – then five of us takes it on to London.’

  ‘Cris and Tobit better not go back to the Cuckoo Tree now old goody Lubbage knows that’s where Cris used to go.’

  ‘No,’ Yan agreed. ‘I reckon they’d best get the carrier’s cart to Pulborough – my Uncle Ned’s the driver, he’ll take ’em hid inside a pair o’ cider barrels or summat – get off at the White Hart pub by Stopham Bridge, and one of us Wineberry chaps’ll meet ’em there. And you give them Cap’n Hughes’s letter and I’ll see it’s delivered.’

  This sounded like a watertight plan, but still Dido hesitated.

  ‘Which day d’you reckon to get to London?’

  ‘Tuesday – if we don’t have too many deliveries along the way.’

  ‘Suppose there was trouble here – s’pose summat went wrong and I wanted to get in touch with you afore you got to London?”

  ‘There’s three pubs along the way where I’ll ask for a message: The Rose at Run Common, The Ring o’ Bells at Ripley and the Rising Sun in wandsworth.’

  ‘The Rose, the Ring and the Rising Sun – that’s easy to remember. And you’ll take mortal good care o’ the Cap’n’s Dispatch, won’t you – I’ve a notion it’s someway connected wi’ the coronation, and that’s why the Cap was so desperate anxious to get it there the day before.’

  ‘Don’t you worrit – I’ll keep it locked up, along o’ the Lord Mayor’s dallop of tea and the Lady Mayoress’s pipkin of pink lemon perfume,’ he promised.

  ‘And if so be as you’re chatting with old Lord Forecastle,’ Diso said, ‘could you ask him to send a decent doctor down here? That Subito’s too scared of Mother Lubbage to be any more use than a pastry pick-axe.’

  Yan said he would see to it.

  That seemed to take care of everything. ‘I’ll be getting back then,’ Dido said, and slipped into the alley, looking vigilantly all round her. After a cautious interval, Yan followed her.

  Dido carried bowls of porridge down to Cris and Tobit. They were awake, and seemed quite content with each other’s company, but still could not, or did not need to talk together. They had gone back to their old occupation of staring at one another’s faces.

  Dido, finding their silence rather fidgeting, asked Tobit how he had come to be in the well, and he told her the whole tale.

  ‘So it was old Mystery – and he’s your cousin from furrin parts. No wonder he likes to come a-sneaking around Tegleaze after cockshut, measuring the flower-beds and sizing up the pigsties,’ Dido said thoughtfully. ‘But what a murksy set-out to push you down the well. Anyway I bet he’s in a proper taking now – a-looking for you right, left and rat’s ramble. And you say the Luck-piece fell down the well too?’

  ‘I should think it must have. And so far as I care, it can stay there. Grandmother was only waiting for me to come of age so she could get hold of it and sell it for gambling money, my cousin wants it to sell to the Margrave of Bad Somewhere to pay for a Hanoverian plot – and it’s never done me any good.’

  Dido was inclined to agree.

  ‘Anyhow it can bide there for the time – nobody but us knows it’s there, reckon it’s safe enough.’ She chuckled. ‘I’ll lay old Mystery’s tearing out his hair in handfuls wondering where it’s got to – he probably reckoned you made off with it.’

  ‘Well so I did,’ said Tobit proudly.

  Dido had observed a change in him since his adventure. It was hard to put into words, but he seemed more sensible, less given to play-acting and senseless dares.

  She explained the plan in regard to Uncle Ned and the carrier’s cart and the trip to London. Tobit’s eyes certainly brightened at the thought of perhaps being able to see the coronation after all, but he was not so wildly excited as Dido had thought he would be, while Cris seemed very little interested in the prospect.

  ‘The cart don’t pass here till dusk, so you’ll have to stay down here for the day. You’d better play cat’s-cradle or summat – you can’t just sit staring all day.’

  Neither Tobit nor Cris knew how to play cat’s-cradle. Dido pulled a length of string out of her pocket and instructed them, looping the string over Tobit’s hands, crossing it, and showing Cris how to take hold of the criss-crosses, pull them under and out, and so make a new framework. In no time they had got the hang of it and were completely absorbed.

  Dido dumped a log on the fire and went upstairs, feeling rather lonely.

  I wish I was a-going up to London with them and the Wineberry Men, and not staying here in this spooky little town, she thought enviously. And don’t I just hope the Fust Lord of the Admiralty sends back some decent doctor as can put the poor old Cap’n to rights.

  It was another driply foggy day; twilight came early, long before the arrival of Uncle Ned. During the afternoon Dido helped Uncle Jarge and his son Ted pack Tobit and Cris into sacks, with handfuls of wool and all th
e sumuggler’s socks Miss Sarah had knitted to stuff out the crannies so that they looked like a load of grain or seed. Then Uncle Ned arrived in his ancient covered wagon drawn by a spavined grey mare who went along so slowly that her driver never bothered to stop her, but simply loaded and unloaded as she wandered along. The canvas cover was pulled aside, the two sacks were placed on the cart. Dido did not dare call goodbye, as two or three other people were hoisting goods on at the same time, so she gave each sack a friendly pat under the pretext of settling them in place, and jumped down on to the cobbles again.

  Eh, dear, she thought, I do hope Cap’n Hughes’s Dispatch will really be all right.

  She had given it to Tobit, with strict instructions to hand it over to Yan Wineberry as soon as they were alone together.

  ‘Jub on, mare,’ said Uncle Ned, the mare plodded slowly on up the hill, and Dido went off to Wm. Pelmett, Chymist, to get some more treacle, since Captain Hughes had finished the first gallon. The apothecary’s shop was open for an hour on Sunday evenings for the sale of treacle and cough jujubes, because so many people made themselves hoarse singing hymns in church.

  ‘I can see you’ve a sweet tooth, missie,’ said Mr Pelmett, handing her the treacle with a gluey smile.

  Dido gave him a scowl in return.

  As she was carrying the heavy jar up the High Street she caught a glimpse, in the distance, of a lanky, familiar figure, just turning left in the direction of the church.

  ‘I’ll not lose him twice!’ Dido vowed. Thrusting the jar of treacle into the arms of a startled small boy she told him to carry it to The Fighting Cocks inn and ask Miss Sarah for a spoonful.

  ‘Say I said you was to have one!’ And she made off at top speed in pursuit of the retreating figure. As he had not seen her and did not realize she was after him, she was able to dodge swiftly round the block and so meet him face to face in front of the church.

  ‘Hello, Pa dear!’ she greeted him affably. ‘Ain’t you a-going to speak to me! Your own little Dido? How’s Ma? And Penny-lope?’

  Mr Twite – for it was undoubtedly Dido’s father – would have turned and run once again, but his daughter had him firmly by the jacket buttons.

  ‘Now, Pa! Don’t you try and scarper! Jigger it, some dads would be pleased to see their child as had been twice round the world and given up for drownded. Come and sit down on a tombstone and tell us the family news.’

  ‘Why, there’s none that I know of, my chickadee. Indeed, for the last year or so I have been a happy man, free from family afflictions.’ But seeing there was no help for it, he allowed her to lead him to a dry tombstone behind a hollybush in the churchyard, where they could talk unobserved. ‘Your dear lamented mother was lost to us when Battersea Castle blew up – so was your Aunt Tinty and your cousins – your sister eloped with a very ineligible young fellow who travelled in buttonhooks – and I am under the painful necessity of supplying hoboy music for a strolling puppet troupe, since the Bow Street Runners conceived a wholly unjustified suspicion that I was in some way connected with the Battersea Castle explosion.’

  ‘Swelp me,’ said Dido. ‘The whole family’s gone, then?’ She was not particularly cast down, since her mother had never been at all fond of her. ‘But what about Simon? And our house in Rose Alley?’

  ‘Sold, sold, alas – or so I understand, not having been able to inquire personally – to pay some few trifling debts. So I have not even a home to offer you. As to Simon – the young boy who used to lodge with us? – I really cannot say,’ Mr Twite sighed. He pulled a hoboy from the front of his waistcoat and played a few melancholy notes on it, then, becoming enthusiastic, launched into a spirited jig.

  ‘Ah,’ said Dido, ‘I suspicioned it was you playing, soon as I heard the hoboy tuning up for old Mystery’s Mannikin Show. So you’re Mystery’s mate, are you? How long’ve you been with him, Pa?’

  ‘Why, but a few weeks, child. I was introduced to him by a most respectable gentleman, a Colonel Fitz-Pickwick. I understand Mr Mystery has only recently come from one of our delightful colonies.’

  ‘And is already up to his whiskers in a plot to pinch Tegleaze Manor and put Bonnie Prince Georgie on the throne, helped by those old witches and that dicey pair o’ footmen. Pa, Pa,’ said Dido sorrowfuly, ‘why will you let yourself get imbrangled with such a jammy-fingered set o’ coves? It’s sure to lead to trouble.’

  ‘Not if we succeed, my dove; it’ll be all garnets and gravy then, and Sir Desmond Twite, conductor at Sadler’s Wells, and a house in Cheyne Walk.’

  ‘But you won’t succeed, Pa.’

  ‘Oh? And why not, my sprite?’ Mr Twite gave her a sharp look.

  Dido was tempted to tell him that the Tegleaze Luck-piece, which was to have paid for the conspiracy, had been dropped in a well, but she resisted the urge. She said,

  ‘Stealing may be respectable in your circles, Pa, but attempted murder ain’t going to be so easy to laugh off.’

  ‘Humph,’ muttered Mr Twite. ‘I wondered, when I came back and found the well-stone had been pushed aside, if your little meddling hands had been at work. I had the devil of a job to get it back. So the boy did escape, did he?’

  ‘Some trustable chaps as I know of are on their way to London this minute to lay an information about the whole affair before the Lord Chief Justice,’ Dido went on, impressively. ‘So if I was you, Pa, I’d mizzle while the mizzling’s good.’

  ‘Oh, ho!’ said Mr Twite gaily, not a bit impressed. ‘But suppose I told you my dear little chickadee, that some trustworthy chaps I know are perfectly informed about your trustworthy chaps and plan to get their information off them and destroy it before they reach London. Hey, dee, marathon me, what a set of simple souls those Jacobites be!’ he hummed.

  Dido gaped at him, utterly taken aback by this news.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Mr Twite went on agreeably, ‘our friend Mystery – ah, there’s a clever spark for you – got an equally clever old lady called Mrs Lubbage to find out through some timid-hearted relative of one of those gallant Wineberry Men all about their so-called secret route to London. Unknown to the Preventive Men, maybe, but not to us: a concealed canal, I understand, all the way from the Arun river to the Thames, along which the barge of contraband plies its worthy way. With one extra crew member on board, ho ho, snug between the lavender water and the Lapsang Souchong and the Spirits of Liquorice! So this famous Dispatch will vanish before it ever reaches London; and by Thursday, you know, it won’t matter if twenty Lord Chief Justices know about the affair, it will be too late. Too late, too late, to retaliate,’ he sang joyously.

  ‘Sir Christopher Wren

  Let fall his goosefeather pen,

  But, he said, whatever else falls

  It won’t be St Paul’s.’

  ‘Ah me, ah me, even the best of us are sometimes faulty in our judgments, are we not?’

  ‘Sir Christopher Wren?’ said Dido slowly. ‘The Wren’s Nest?’

  Mr Twite suddenly stopped short in his carolling.

  ‘You didn’t know that, then, my duckling? Well, as it’s too late now to prevent it, I’ll strike a bargain with you. I will unfold to you the whole of the Wren’s Nest project – ah, and what a startlingly sublime and sweepingly satisfactory scheme it is – in return for one small piece of information which doubtless you have at your clever little fingertips. What has become of that volatile pair, the youthful Tegleaze Heir and his bewitching twin, like as one pin to another pin? Oh where and oh where can they be, with their noses turned up and their toes turned out, afloat on the bonnie blue sea? Or words to that effect,’ he added, suddenly darting another sharp look at his daughter.

  But Dido was hardly heeding him.

  ‘I couldn’t say where they are, Pa, I’m sure,’ she truthfully replied.

  ‘Oh, well, in that case, no cash, no crumpet.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dido said inattentively. ‘I must go, Pa, my Cap’ll be wanting a dose of treacle.’

  ‘Indeed, indee
d, the gallant Dispatch-bearer. Poor fellow, what a misfortune that his coach should overturn, and he on his way to town with tidings of such urgent import.’

  ‘So long, Pa.’ As impatient to leave him as she had been to question him, Dido gave her father a hasty nod and almost ran in the direction of The Fighting Cocks. Had she looked back she would have seen him staring thoughtfully after her. But she did not look back.

  9

  DIDO WAS PANTING and breathless when she arrived back at The Fighting Cocks inn.

  ‘Gracious, dearie, what’s amiss?’ inquired Miss Sarah, placidly stirring a cauldron of soup with a spoon in one hand, while she rotated five sizzling chickens on a spit with the other.

  ‘Miss Sarah, I’ve got to get arter those Wineberry chaps at once! There’s a spy among ’em that’s going to pinch the Cap’s Dispatch!’

  ‘Eh, dear, there’s a fanteague. Who could that be, I wonder?’ Miss Sarah, still unruffled, basted her chickens, took a china mug down off the mantelshelf, and counted out five gold guineas from it. ‘Well, that Dapple horse is still there eating his head off in our stable; they’ve never sent for him from the Dolphin, so you’d best take him. Here’s a bit o’ cash – it never comes amiss.’

  ‘The Cap’n – ’ Dido began.

  ‘Bless your heart, don’t you worrit about him, dearie. I’ll see to him as careful as if he was my Hannibal that was struck by lightning in a rowboat full of corkscrews, fifteen year last Michaelmas. Terrible fierce thunderstorms we had in these parts when I was a girl. Ah, it’s a hard profession being a Gentleman.’

  Dido ran up to have a last look at the Captain, who seemed to be having pleasant dreams, lapped in his brandied lily leaves.

  ‘Wrap up warm against the sea-fret now,’ warned Miss Sarah when she came down. ‘Do you know where to go?’

  ‘To the White Hart inn?’

  ‘That’s it, but don’t you cross the river. There’s an old narrow bridge they call Stopham Bridge; you stop on this side, and follow the river upstream. Then you’ll come to where the secret canal begins – ’