The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Read online

  By the day of departure, all the clothes had been finished. Nothing much could be done about Sylvia’s shoes, which were deplorably shabby, but Aunt Jane blacked them with a mixture of soot and candle grease, and Sylvia’s bonnet was trimmed with a white plume from the ostrich-feather fan which her aunt had carried at her coming-out ball. All Sylvia’s belongings were neatly packed into an old carpetbag, and Aunt Jane had made her up a little packet of provisions for the journey, though with strict injunctions not to eat them if there were anyone else in the compartment.

  ‘For ladies never eat in public.’

  They were too poor to take a hackney-carriage to the station, and Aunt Jane always refused to travel in omnibuses, so they walked, carrying the bag between them. Fortunately the station was not far, nor the bag heavy.

  Aunt Jane secured a corner seat for her charge, and put her under the care of the guard.

  ‘Now remember, my dear child,’ she said, kissing Sylvia and looking suspiciously round the empty compartment, ‘never speak to strangers, tip all the servants immediately (I have put all the farthings from my reticule at the bottom of your valise); do not model yourself on your cousin Bonnie, who I believe is a dear good child but a little wild; give my fond regards to my brother Willoughby and tell him that I am in the pink of health and amply provided for; and if anyone except the guard speaks to you, pull the communication cord.’

  ‘Yes, Auntie,’ replied Sylvia dutifully, embracing her. She felt a pang as she saw the frail old figure struggling away through the crowd, and wondered how her Aunt Jane would manage that evening without her little niece to adjust her curl-papers and read aloud a page of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary.

  Then all Sylvia’s fears were aroused, for a strange man entered the compartment and sat down. He did not speak, however, and took no notice of her, and, the train shortly afterwards departing, her thoughts were diverted into a less apprehensive vein as she watched the unfamiliar houses with their lighted windows flying past.

  It was to be a long journey – a night and a day. The hour of departure was six o’clock in the evening, and Sylvia knew that she did not arrive at her destination until about eight of the following evening. What strange forests, towns, mountains, and stretches of countryside would they not have passed by then, as the train proceeded at its steady fifteen miles an hour! She had never been out of London before, and watched eagerly from her window until they had left the houses behind, and she was driven to study the toes of her own shoes, so lovingly polished by Aunt Jane.

  The thought of the old lady, carefully preparing for her solitary slumbers, was too much for Sylvia, and tears began to run silently down her cheeks, which she endeavoured to mop with her tiny handkerchief (made from a spare two inches of white brocade).

  ‘Here, this won’t do,’ said a voice in her ear suddenly, and she looked up in alarm to see that the man at the other end of the compartment had moved along and was sitting opposite and staring at her. Sylvia gave her eyes a final dab and haughtily concentrated on her reflection in the dark window, but her heart was racing. Should she pull the communication cord? She stole a cautious glance at the man’s reflection and saw that he was standing up, apparently extracting something from a large leather portmanteau. Then he turned towards her, holding something out: she looked round enough to see that it was a box of chocolates about a foot square by six inches deep, swathed around with violet ribbons.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Sylvia, in as ladylike a tone as she could muster. ‘I never touch chocolate.’ All the same, she had to swallow rapidly a couple of times, for the tea which she had shared with Aunt Jane before the journey, although very refined, had not been substantial – two pieces of thin bread-and-butter, a cinnamon wafer, and a sliver of caraway cake.

  She knew better, however, than to accept food from strangers, and as to opening her own little packet while he was in the carriage – that was out of the question. She shook her head again.

  ‘Now come along – do,’ said the man coaxingly. ‘All little girls like sweeties, I know.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Sylvia coldly, ‘if you speak to me again I shall be obliged to pull the communication cord.’

  He sighed and put away the box. Her relief over this was premature, however, for he turned round next minute with a confectioner’s pasteboard carton filled with every imaginable variety of little cakes – there were jam tarts, maids of honour, lemon cheese cakes, Chelsea buns, and numerous little iced confections in brilliant and enticing colours.

  ‘I always put up a bit of tiffin for a journey,’ he murmured as if to himself, and, placing the box on the seat directly opposite Sylvia, he selected a cake covered with violet icing and bit into it. It appeared to be filled with jam. Sylvia looked straight ahead and ignored him, but again she had to swallow.

  ‘Now my dear, how about one of these little odds and ends?’ said the man. ‘I can’t possibly eat them all by myself – can I?’

  Sylvia stood up and looked for the communication cord. It was out of her reach.

  ‘Shall I pull it for you?’ inquired her fellow-traveller politely, following the direction of her eyes upwards. Sylvia did not reply to him. She did not feel, though, that it would be ladylike to climb up on the seat or arm-rest to pull the cord herself, so she sat down again, biting her lip with anxiety. To her inexpressible relief the stranger, after eating three or four more cakes with every appearance of enjoyment, put the box back in his portmanteau, wrapped himself in a richly furred cloak, retired to his own corner, and shut his eyes. A subdued but regular snore soon issuing from his partly-opened mouth presently convinced Sylvia that he was asleep, and she began to breathe more freely. At length she brought out from concealment under her mantle her most treasured possession, and held it lovingly in her arms.

  This was a doll named Annabelle, made of wood, not much larger than a candle, and plainly dressed, but extremely dear to Sylvia. She and Annabelle had no secrets from one another, and it was a great comfort to her to have this companion as the train rocked on through the unfamiliar dark.

  Presently she grew drowsy and fell into uneasy slumber, but not for long; it was bitterly cold and her feet in their thin shoes felt like lumps of ice. She huddled into her corner and wrapped herself in the green cloak, envying her companion his thick furs and undisturbed repose, and wishing it were ladylike to curl her feet up beneath her on the seat. Unfortunately she knew better than that.

  She dreamed, without being really asleep, of arctic seas, of monstrous tunnels through hillsides fringed with icicles. Her travelling companion, who had grown a long tail and a pair of horns, offered her cakes the size of grand pianos and coloured scarlet, blue, and green; when she bit into them she found they were made of snow.

  She woke suddenly from one of these dreams to find that the train had stopped with a jerk.

  ‘Oh! What is it? Where are we?’ she exclaimed before she could stop herself.

  ‘No need to alarm yourself, miss,’ said her companion, looking unavailingly out of the black square of window. ‘Wolves on the line, most likely – they often have trouble of that kind hereabouts.’

  ‘Wolves!’ Sylvia stared at him in terror.

  ‘They don’t often get into the train, though,’ he added reassuringly. ‘Two years ago they managed to climb into the guard’s van and eat a pig, and once they got the engine-driver – another had to be sent in a relief-engine – but they don’t often eat a passenger, I promise you.’

  As if in contradiction of his words a sad and sinister howling now arose beyond the windows, and Sylvia, pressing her face against the dark pane, saw that they were passing through a thickly wooded region where snow lay deep on the ground. Across this white carpet she could just discern a ragged multitude pouring, out of which arose, from time to time, this terrible cry. She was almost petrified with fear and sat clutching Annabelle in a cold and trembling hand. At length she summoned up strength to whisper:

  ‘Why don’t we go on?’

  ‘
Oh, I expect there are too many of ’em on the line ahead,’ the man answered carelessly. ‘Can’t just push through them, you see – the engine would be derailed in no time, and then we should be in a bad way. No, I expect we’ll have to wait here till daylight now – the wolves get scared then, you know, and make for home. All that matters is that the driver shan’t get eaten in the meantime – he’ll keep ’em off by throwing lumps of coal at them I dare say.’

  ‘Oh!’ Sylvia exclaimed in irrepressible alarm, as a heavy body thudded suddenly against the window, and she had a momentary view of a pointed grey head, red slavering jaws, and pale eyes gleaming with ferocity.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ soothed her companion. ‘They’ll keep up that jumping against the windows for hours. They’re not much danger, you know, singly; it’s only in the whole pack you’ve got to watch out for ’em.’

  Sylvia was not much comforted by this. She moved along to the middle of the seat and huddled there, glancing fearfully first to one side and then to the other. The strange man seemed quite undisturbed by the repeated onslaught of the wolves which followed. He took a pinch of snuff, remarked that it was all a great nuisance and they would be late, and composed himself to sleep again.

  He had just begun to snore when a discomposing incident occurred. The window beside him, which must have been insecurely fastened, was not proof against the continuous impact of the frenzied and ravenous animals. The catch suddenly slipped, and the window fell open with a crash, its glass shivering into fragments.

  Sylvia screamed. Another instant, and a wolf precipitated itself through the aperture thus formed. It turned snarling on the sleeping stranger, who started awake with an oath, and very adroitly flung his cloak over the animal. He then seized one of the shattered pieces of glass lying on the floor and stabbed the imprisoned beast through the cloak. It fell dead.

  ‘Tush,’ said Sylvia’s companion, breathing heavily and passing his hand over his face. ‘Unexpected – most.’

  He extracted the dead wolf from the folds of the cloak and tipped its body, with some exertion, out through the broken window. There was a chorus of snarling and yelping outside, and then the wolves seemed to take fright at the appearance of their dead comrade, for Sylvia saw them coursing away over the snow.

  ‘Come, that’s capital,’ said the man. ‘We’d better shift before they come back.’

  ‘Shift?’

  ‘Into another compartment,’ he explained. ‘Can’t stay in this one now – too cold for one thing, and for another, have wolves popping in the whole time – nuisance. No, come along, now’s the time to do it.’

  Sylvia was most reluctant, and indeed almost too terrified to accompany him, but she saw the force of his proposal and watched anxiously as he opened the door and glanced this way and that.

  ‘Right! Just pass me out those bags, will you?’ He had placed both his and hers ready on the seat. She passed them out. Holding them in one hand, he made his way sideways along the footboard to the next carriage door, which he opened. He tossed in the bags, returned for his cloak and rug, and finally reappeared and held out his hand to Sylvia.

  ‘Come along now, my dear, if you don’t want to be made into wolf-porridge,’ he exclaimed with frightening joviality, and Sylvia timorously permitted him to assist her along the narrow ledge and into the next carriage. It was with a sense of unbounded relief and thankfulness that she heard him slam the door and make sure that the windows were securely fastened.

  ‘Excellent,’ he remarked with a smile at Sylvia which bared every tooth in his head. ‘Now we can have another forty winks,’ and he wrapped himself up again in his cloak, careless of any wolf gore that might remain on its folds, and shut his eyes.

  Sylvia was too cold and terrified to sleep. She crouched, as before, in the middle of the seat – icy, shivering, and expecting at any minute to hear the wolves recommence their attack against the window.

  ‘Here, we can’t have this,’ said a disapproving voice, and she turned to see the man awake again and scrutinizing her closely. ‘Not warm enough, eh? Here …’ and then as he saw her wince away from his cloak, he unstrapped a warm plaid travelling rug and insisted on wrapping her in it. Tired, frozen, and frightened, Sylvia was unable to resist him any longer.

  ‘Put your feet up and lie down,’ he ordered. ‘That’s right. Now shut your eyes. No more wolves for the time being – they’ve been scared away. Off to sleep with you.’

  Sylvia was beginning to be deliciously warm. Her last recollection was of hearing his snores begin again.

  3

  WHEN SYLVIA WOKE, it was broad daylight and the train was running through a mountainous region, wooded here and there, and with but few and scattered dwellings. Her companion was already awake, and munching away at an enormous piece of cold sausage.

  Sylvia felt herself to be nearly dead of hunger. She remembered Aunt Jane’s precept, ‘Never eat in front of strangers,’ but surely Aunt Jane had not intended her to go for a whole night and a day without taking some refreshment? And moreover, the good soul could not have anticipated the dreadful perils that her niece was to encounter, perils which had left Sylvia so weak and faint that she felt she might never reach Willoughby Chase alive unless she could open her little packet and consume some of its contents. Perhaps, she thought, the shared adventure of the wolves formed some sort of an introduction to her fellow-traveller.

  She pondered over this matter for some time and at length, driven by her ravenous appetite, and with many timorous glances at the strange man, she opened her carpet-bag and took from her parcel of food one or two of the little dry rolls her aunt had provided — rolls that contained in each a tiny sliver of ham, frail and thin as pink tissue paper. The remainder she put back for later in the day. After this frugal meal she felt greatly restored, and was not too discomposed when she saw that the man, having devoured his sausage down to the twisted end, was now smiling at her in a manner that was evidently intended to be the height of amiability.

  ‘There! Now we both feel better,’ he remarked.

  ‘It was most kind of you, sir, to lend me your rug,’ Sylvia faltered.

  ‘Couldn’t let you freeze to death, m’dear, could I? Not after you’d shown such pluck and spirit over the wolves. Some little gels would have screamed and cried, I can tell you!’

  ‘Will they come back again?’ inquired Sylvia, glancing anxiously out. The train was now running across a wide snowy plain, dazzlingly bright under the sun of a clear blue morning.

  ‘Not till this evening,’ he told her. ‘When we get to the wolds at dusk you can depend on it there’ll be wolves there to meet us. No need to worry, though.’

  Sylvia looked her doubt of this statement, and he exclaimed, ‘Pshaw! Wolves are cowardly brutes! They won’t hurt you unless they outnumber you by more than ten to one. If you feel anxious about it I’ll get my gun, though I don’t generally use it for small fry.’

  And to Sylvia’s alarm he pulled down a canvas-wrapped bundle that she had taken for fishing-rods and took from it a long, heavy, glinting blue gun. Opening a smaller bag he brought out a few cartridges and clapped them into the breech. Then, turning to Sylvia – she winced away in alarm – he said, ‘Now, my dear, shall I give you a proof of my marksmanship? Shall I, eh?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir, please don’t! Please do not! Indeed, indeed, I am sure you can shoot extremely well!’

  ‘Can’t be sure till you have seen me! And it will pass the time for us both.’

  So saying, he opened the window at one end of the compartment while Sylvia, with her hands to her ears, pressed herself as far as possible into a corner at the other end.

  ‘Now then, what’s there to shoot? Can’t very well shoot cattle, though it would be a rare joke, ha ha! There’s a bunny, bang! Got him – did you see him go head over heels?’ Sylvia had seen no such thing, for her hands were over her eyes, and her nose buried in the red-and-black patterned upholstery.

  ‘Now a rook – he’s flap
ping along slowly, I’ll wait till we catch him up – there! Tumbled down like a stone. The farmer’ll wonder where he came from.’

  He fired one or two more shots and then remarked, ‘But I mustn’t waste all my cartridges, must keep some for the wolves, what?’ and put the gun back in its case, carefully cleaning it before he did so. The compartment was reeking with acrid blue smoke and Sylvia was nearly choking.

  ‘There, I never asked if you’d like to try a shot,’ the man said, ‘but I fancy the gun would be a bit heavy for you, as you’re on the small side – a lighter fowling-piece would be the thing for you.’

  ‘Indeed, I hope I shall never need to shoot at all,’ said Sylvia, horrified at the very possibility of such an idea.

  ‘Never know when it might come in useful – my old mother used to say that every little girl should be able to cook, play the piano, sing, and shoot.’

  Sylvia thought of Aunt Jane’s very different catalogue of accomplishments for little girls, in which crewel-work, purse-netting, and making paper doilies took high place, and could not agree with him. The thought of Aunt Jane made her sad once more and she sighed deeply.

  ‘Are you going far?’ the man asked. ‘Let’s get acquainted. My name’s Grimshaw – Josiah Grimshaw.’

  Sylvia did not much wish to confide in him, but she felt that if she did not talk to him he might get bored and recommence shooting out of the window. Anything was preferable to that. Accordingly she told him her name, and that she was travelling to the house of her uncle, Sir Willoughby Green.

  He expressed great interest in this.

  ‘Ah yes, yes indeed. I’ve heard of Sir Willoughby. Richest man in five counties, isn’t he?’

  Sylvia knew nothing of that.

  ‘And you’ll have a fine time there, eh? Shall you be staying there long?’

  ‘Oh yes. You see, my dear mamma and papa are dead, and so I am to live there now with my cousin Bonnie.’

  ‘And your uncle and aunt will look after you,’ he said, nodding.