And Damaris knew that the time had come for her to go back to the wild. Peter too. He said, ‘Will you do it, or shall I?’
‘You,’ Damaris said. She stroked the smooth red head between the dark-tipped ears for the last time, in farewell.
There was an aching in her throat as she watched Peter’s hands on the buckle of the old dog-collar, slipping it free, rubbing the place where the collar had been. ‘Go then. Free now.’
The vixen looked up into Damaris’s face. ‘Goodbye, Lady. Don’t quite forget us,’ Damaris said. But Lady was already trotting off. In a few moments she too had disappeared into the undergrowth.
‘She didn’t even look back,’ Damaris said.
There was the faintest frowing among the bushes, and Genty Small stepped out into the clearing, with a filled basket on her arm, and the white nanny-goat on the end of its tether in her hand. ‘She wouldn’,’ said the Wise Woman. ‘She’s away to her own kind; but she’ll not forget ’ee for all that.’
‘A dog fox came by and she got his scent,’ Peter was loosing the old dog-collar from the chain. ‘Do you suppose he was her mate?’
‘A’ might be, though ’tis like a’ would have taken more interest in this place. She’s a young vixen. Sometimes they don’t think about mating so early in the first spring.’ She stood looking after Lady for a moment, the basket propped on her hip, while the nanny began to lip at the rough grass. Then she glanced in through the sagging doorway. ‘He didn’t waken? Aye, that’s well; ’tis sleep a’ needs more than all else; sleep and ol’ Genty’s fever draught, an’ milk—I’ll tether Maudlin and she’ll see to that. . . . Now do ’ee be gettin’ off home, my lovers.’
‘There’s nothing we can do to help?’ Peter asked.
‘Later; aye, sure-lye. But now tes just for me and my skills. God an’ the Good Folk go with ’ee.’
So they knew they were dismissed.
‘I’ll come back with you,’ Peter said. ‘Will Aunt Selina give me some supper, do you suppose? I promised Sim Bundy I’d give him a hand in the lambing fold tonight.’
Chapter 6: The Oilskin Packet
FOR TWO DAYS the fever lasted, and Genty remained at Joyous Gard, scarcely letting Damaris or Peter through the door, which Damaris felt was hard. Tom Wildgoose, smuggler or spy or no, was hers. She was happy to share him with Peter, as she shared most things. But it was rather different to have a third person, even Genty, there and not sharing him at all. But she had enough sense to keep all that to herself; and ran the Wise Woman’s errands, to fetch things from her cottage, and put down food for Grizelda without any protest.
Peter seemed not to mind so much, and whenever he could get away from Latin with his father, there was always the busy lambing fold for him to turn to. (‘You did ought to be a shepherd: proper way wi’ the ewes ye’ve got,’ Sim Bundy told him, and Peter flushed with pleasure at the old shepherd’s praise.)
But on the third morning, when Damaris arrived at Joyous Gard, the nanny-goat was no longer picketed in the little clearing, and when she slipped in through the half-open doorway there was no sign of the Wise Woman, and Tom Wildgoose was lying propped high on a thick roll of dry bracken, looking more like a real person and less like the flushed and restless shell of one.
‘You’re better!’ Damaris said.
‘I’m better,’ Tom Wildgoose agreed, ‘much more the thing.’ He managed a rather crooked smile. ‘I’m being a most unconscionable nuisance to all of you.’
‘You’re not!’ Damaris said indignantly, squatting down beside him, her bundle in her lap. ‘You’re—’ she hesitated, seeking the right word, and came out with one that was a favourite with Aunt Selina, ‘I think you’re very romantic!’
He gave a weak croak of laughter. ‘I don’t feel romantic, I feel like a half-drowned kitten, which is confounded awkward, because the sooner I’m away from here the better.’
‘Not yet,’ Damaris said quickly, ‘you’ll be stronger soon, and you mustn’t go until you are . . . Besides—’
‘Besides?’
‘Oh I don’t know. I hate people going away. First Lady—’
‘The little vixen? You did not let her go because of me? Having to feed me as well? Something like that?’
‘No. Her paw was mended, and Genty said it was time to let her go.’
‘And Genty, I am sure would be right. But I don’t think she is quite gone yet. I saw her in the doorway last night, just at twilight. I don’t believe I dreamed her.’
‘Oh, I wish I’d been here! Do you think she will come again?’
‘I should think very likely—for a while. This is a good refuging place; when I go away from here, I think I would come back if I could.’ He had spoken the last bit very softly. Then he added in quite a different tone, ‘Damaris, would there be something to eat in that bundle? Genty gave me bread and milk before she went, but that was quite a long time ago.’
Damaris hesitated. ‘Yes, I did bring some bits, just in case—But Genty didn’t say anything about not having any more to eat because of the fever, or—or anything of that sort, did she?’
‘No, she didn’t; I promise you she didn’t, on my honour, Mistress Damaris.’
‘I’ll trust you,’ Damaris decided, untying the knots of her little bundle. ‘There’s some raised pie and some gingerbread and the heel of a loaf. The rest is just scraps, like—like I used to bring for Lady.’
Tom eyed the food hungrily.
‘If there’s more than you can eat—’ Damaris began, and hesitated.
‘There isn’t. But there’s more than Genty would approve of my eating. Do you think Lady might feel like the scraps, if she comes again?’
He pulled himself further up on his bed of piled bracken, shaking his head as though to clear it, and leaned forward to take the small ragged lump of pie she held out to him; and as he did so the breast of his tattered shirt fell open, and she saw that the oilskin packet on its ribbon was gone from round his neck.
As though he felt her questioning gaze, he glanced up quickly, and saw where she was looking, and smiled. ‘Only some papers that—had best not be found on me if I should be taken. They’re in a safe place,’ he jerked a thumb towards the doorway.
‘But you can’t walk yet,’ Damaris said.
‘I didn’t walk. I did a fine imitation of a caterpillar. Slow and not very elegant, but I had plenty of time once Genty was gone. And the undergrowth is thick and the earth soft round Joyous Gard.’
Then Damaris said a stupid thing. She knew it was stupid the moment she had said it; but she had not meant to say it at all.
‘You’re not a spy, are you? Oh please, you’re not a spy?’
He looked at her in silence for a long breath of time. Then he said ‘I could be, of course, could I not?’
‘No!’ she said quickly. ‘Anyway England and France aren’t at war now.’
‘But they generally are. And like enough we soon shall be again.’
‘That’s what Peter said.’
‘Sensible Peter. Does he think that of me, then?’
‘No. He just—isn’t sure. . . .’
‘But you are, well, almost sure?’ The strange young man put down his lump of pie, and took her chin between a crumby finger and thumb, and tipped it up to look into her face. ‘There are letters in that packet which like most letters, should not be read by anyone save the people they are meant for. But there is nothing in them that can harm England or make a featherweight of difference to fat King George on his throne.’ There was a kind of mockery in his tone, but as though it was himself he mocked at; and a bitter brightness in his eyes that was nothing to do with the fever that had so lately left him, and which she did not understand. ‘I promise you I’m not a spy.’
Damaris had not known that she was holding her breath, until she let it go in a long sigh. ‘Of course you’re not a spy,’ she said. ‘Now eat up your gingerbread, and I’ll put the scraps out for Lady.’
And she wondered why he la
ughed.
Over the next few days Damaris and Peter between them kept Tom Wildgoose in food and company, coming and going as chance offered; sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both together; sometimes finding him alone, sometimes finding Genty with him and the place reeking of her wound-salves and herbal remedies. Twice, Lady appeared, like a russet shadow, coming half back from the wild to eat the scraps put out for her, though she did not come even as far as the doorway, and Damaris felt that as long as she came at all, they still made a kind of unbroken circle. Peter said no more as to his suspicions that the wounded man might be a spy; indeed it was Peter who on the second day produced a well-worn translation of Don Quixote, saying ‘Thought you might like something to read; it must be devilish dull here when none of us are by.’
Tom Wildgoose took it and looked with pleasure at the title page, ‘An old friend to keep me company. But will your father not miss it?’
‘It’s not out of Father’s library,’ Peter said. ‘His are mostly in Greek or Latin, and the rest are sermons or theology. This one is mine. But I have others—a few. If you have read this one would you rather have Hadslypt’s Voyages? Though I’ve only got one volume of that.’
Tom Wildgoose shook his head, ‘There are times when old friends make the best company. And I know of few better for my present needs than Cervantes. Thank you, I will take the greatest care of him.’
And it was Peter who a few days later, cut him a stout blackthorn staff to help him get back onto his feet again.
Damaris, arriving later on the same afternoon, found him hobbling about Joyous Gard leaning on it. At some time while he was ill, Genty had washed his shirt for him, and sponged and mended the knee of his breeches, so that he really looked quite respectable; but the first thing she noticed as he straightened up and turned to face her, was his height. Never having seen him on his feet before, she had not thought of him as tall, only long. Now she checked, looking at him with surprised interest. ‘How tall you are! It’s a good thing you’re narrow, or we would never have got you across Snowball’s back on the day we found you!’
‘It’s a good thing I’m narrow,’ he agreed, and took a hobbling step towards her.
‘Ought you to be walking yet?’ Damaris asked doubtfully.
‘No,’ said Genty’s voice in the doorway, ‘he shouldn’t.’ And the Wise Woman came in and set down the usual basket that she carried. ‘Not for so many days as there are fingers on my liddle ol’ left hand with the thumb turned down.’ She turned on Tom like a small scolding game-hen, ‘Haven’t ’ee no sense in that thick high head of yours, my fine young gentleman? Do ’ee want the wound breaking down, or the fever back again?’
‘No more than any man would,’ said Tom Wildgoose, ‘but I am being careful, and it’s time to get some practice in—I must be on my way before many more days are out. Look, I’ll sit down now, if it will stop you scolding.’ And he folded up onto the piled bracken of his bed, laying his staff beside him.
‘Where must you be away to?’ Damaris asked, not looking at him. She had not asked until then, but his going away had not seemed so suddenly near, before.
‘London,’ he said, ‘and then back to—where I came from.’
‘And how would ’ee be thinking of gettin’ to London?’ asked Genty, unpacking her basket. ‘Will ’ee add horse thievin’ to smugglin’?’
He shook his head. ‘No need. I’ve enough gold in my purse for the stage coach—just about. And once I get there, I have friends.’
‘Well, ye’ll not go anywhere till the moon’s past its first quarter,’ Genty told him. ‘Now pull down that stocking and I’ll take a look how the wound does.’
Chapter 7: Mr Farrington’s Hunting
THE MOON WAS not far off Genty’s first quarter; or it would be when evening came and you could see it. Now it was afternoon, and Damaris was sitting with Tom Wildgoose in the doorway of Joyous Gard. The first real warmth of the year was in the sunshine, and Tom had left his jacket on the piled bracken of his bed. Earlier, he had been practising walking in the little tangled clearing and along the edge of the rife, even managing short distances without his blackthorn staff. Earlier, too, Peter had been with them, but he had had to go home a while since, because his Great Aunt was coming on a visit, and at such times he was always expected to be there and make a good impression so that Great Aunt would continue to help with his school fees. Peter was not very interested in his school fees, but he realized that the stipend of a country vicar was not large, especially in a lean year when everybody tried to get out of paying their tithes; also he liked his Great Aunt, who had never had any sons of her own, and knew that she would be hurt if he was not there to greet her. So he had gone off with a slightly ill grace, and now the other two sat by themselves in the ramshackle doorway of Joyous Gard.
All about them the Manhood was waking up to the spring-time, the sky as blue as a dunnock’s egg beyond the interlacing twigs of the still bare trees, and all the mazy woodlands alive with the flitter of small birds. All so safe and peaceful that looking about her and listening to the Manhood thrush singing his soul out nearby, Damaris could scarcely believe in the other darker things that went on among the same woods and along the same marshy coast; in the cross on the stable door and Shadow Mason playing ‘Spanish Ladies’ in the lane, and the snapping of pistol shots in the night that had brought Tom Wildgoose into their lives. Easier to believe in this morning’s dark thing; the news that a fox had taken two of the Big House peahens that one heard sometimes screaming before rain. She was sure that it could not have been Lady’s doing, though nobody else would have shared her certainty; but the big dog fox was another matter, and whichever of them was the killer, it could mean danger for Lady, just the same. . . .
Tom Wildgoose was sitting with his head tipped back against the half-rotten doorpost, his gaze moving in a lingering sort of way over the clearing before them. ‘I suppose you know these woods better than almost anyone,’ he said, ‘you and Peter, and Genty Small.’
Damaris nodded. ‘There’s the Gypsies of course.’
‘Are there Gypsies in the Manhood?’
‘Not now. Later in the year they come, around harvest time.’ Damaris linked her hands round her up-drawn knees. The memory of the big dog fox on the edge of the clearing, with the sunlight turning his red-brown to flame was weaving thought-links in her head, and suddenly for the moment she was not seeing the spring-time woods at all. ‘Two years ago when I was ten there was a gypsy girl came and danced in the tithe barn at harvest supper. She had a flame-coloured petticoat; silky—it made a rustling sound like taffeta—swirling out round her on the threshing floor; and all the lanterns were lit, and the fiddler playing, and stars seemed to be dancing too in the open doorway. And afterwards everything seemed dull and ordinary for a while, and there was not anything I wanted in the world so much as a flame-coloured taffeta petticoat. But nobody understood.’
‘Nobody ever does,’ said Tom Wildgoose, sadly. ‘And now that you are twelve and almost grown up, do you still want a flame-coloured taffeta petticoat?’
Damaris met his look gravely. ‘Yes. But I don’t tell people about it anymore. That is—I don’t know why I told you.’
Tom Wildgoose was silent a long moment. Then he said, ‘Maybe because I’m just someone passing through. I’ll soon be away, so it doesn’t really matter.’
Damaris shook her head. ‘I know you’ll soon be away, but you’re not just someone passing through—Oh Tom, I shan’t ever forget you!’
He smiled, ‘Nor shall I ever forget you, any of you, Peter or Genty—or Damaris—or these English woods with the sea sounding in them. . . .’
‘Don’t! You sound as though you were going so far away,’ said Damaris with a small catch in her voice. And then screwing up her courage, she asked, ‘Tom, will you write to me, sometimes?’
‘No,’ said Tom Wildgoose.
‘But if you don’t send me word, I shan’t know, ever—where you are, or how yo
u are—or—’
Tom Wildgoose brought his gaze back from the tree-tops. ‘When you come to be married, I will send you a length of flame-coloured taffeta for a petticoat to wear under your wedding-dress. And when you get it, you will know that all is well with me and I wish you happy.’
Damaris sat looking down at her hands. ‘You will not know when I come to be married.’
‘I’ll know. News travels on the smuggling luggers for anyone who—takes an interest.’
They were silent again.
And in the silence suddenly the woods were uneasy.
Knowing them as she did, Damaris felt the uneasiness before she saw or heard anything to account for it. Then as she listened, head up like a woodland creature herself, the waiting quiet was torn apart by the alarm call of a jay. And a few moments later, faint and far off and gone again almost before she caught it, the musical menace of hounds giving tongue.
‘What is it?’ Tom asked.
‘Hounds, I think. Mr Farrington at the Big House has a kind of rough pack of them, all kinds, five or six. And sometimes he takes it into his head to hunt something, ’specially when his London friends are down with him.’ The cold shadow of fear that had been at the back of her mind all day suddenly took shape, and she gripped her hands together. ‘A fox took two of the Big House peahens last night—’
Almost as she spoke, the baying of hounds broke out again nearer this time, and a moment later a moving flicker of red showed among the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing, and a young vixen arrowed out from the brambles, hard-pressed and with panting flanks, and made for the cottage as for a remembered refuge.
‘Lady!’ Damaris gasped, as the red shadow streaked in through the open doorway between her and Tom. ‘But she couldn’t have! It must have been the dog fox!’
Both of them were on their feet, Tom with his blackthorn staff suddenly become a weapon in his hands. ‘It makes no difference which of them. It’s her scent they have,’ he snapped. ‘Get inside after her.’
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