The Cuckoo Tree

by Joan Aiken

  ‘An overset carriage? How do you know?’

  ‘How do I know? Acos I was in it – that’s how.’

  ‘You were in a carriage that overturned? Aren’t you lucky!’

  ‘Rummy notion o’ luck you has,’ Dido said, studying her companion with curiosity. And certainly he was an unusual figure – a boy of twelve or thirteen, tall and thin, with a pale face and a mop of black hair. More singular still, he was dressed in clothes at least two hundred years out of date – the sort of clothes worn by gentry in Charles the First’s day: a frilled shirt with long lace cuffs, a long-skirted embroidered waistcoat, a sword, velvet breeches and buckled shoes. His hair was tied back with a velvet ribbon. A huge furry white dog lay at his feet; it had a pointed nose, like a bear, and the tongue lolling from its jaws was blue.

  Her host, for his part, studied Dido with almost equal astonishment. He saw a sun-tanned girl, her brown hair cut untidily short; she wore long, wide trousers of dark-blue duffel, a white shirt with a sailor collar and a tight-fitting pea-jacket with brass buttons.

  ‘Why do you wear such peculiar clothes?’ he said.

  ‘These? They’re a midshipman’s rig; mighty comfortable too. I jist got back from sea, that’s why. Going up to London with dispatches for the Fust Lord o’ the Admiralty, and our numbskull of a driver has to overturn us afore we’ve gone twenty miles, and poor Cap’n Hughes wounded in the Chinese wars and weak as a snail – ’

  ‘You’ve been at sea – you, a girl?’ Sir Tobit stared at her round-eyed. ‘Why?’

  ‘That’d be a long tale. That’d be several long tales. What about those hurt men?’

  ‘Oh, we can do nothing for them till my grandmother has given permission,’ he said carelessly. ‘So you may as well sit down and tell me your stories till she comes. Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?’

  He pushed towards her a tray carved from some silvery foreign wood. On it were several plates, wooden likewise, containing a few wrinkled apples, some nuts and a large lump of cheese.

  ‘We never eat anything but fruit and cheese; my grandmother thinks it best. Cowslip wine?’

  The cowslip wine, pale yellow in colour, was served in an earthenware pitcher. Sir Tobit poured some into a wooden mug.

  ‘Thankee.’ Dido rejected the nuts, which were wizened, strange-looking little things, but helped herself to an apple and a lump of cheese. There had been no time for supper at the Port of Chichester so she was glad of them. The dog snarled a little as she moved, and Sir Tobit, cuffing him lightly, said,

  ‘Quiet, Lion!’

  Glancing round the room as she ate, Dido was struck by the oddity of the contents. In a mansion this size she would have expected richness and grandeur: gold door-knobs, maybe, and crystal chandeliers, such as her friend Simon once told her were to be seen at the duke’s castle in Battersea. But here everything looked dusty and worn and seemed to be made of the plainest materials: wooden chests, straw matting, loosely woven curtains in queer, bright colours, looking as if they had been sewn by people living in grass huts on some distant foreign isle. The lights were the commonest kind of tallow candles and not too plentiful. There were strangely shaped, strangely coloured clay pots, and numerous little statues and images in wood and pottery. And books were piled everywhere, higgledy-piddledy – on the chests, the floor, the chairs, and on a curious little round table which looked as if it had been carved with a toothpick from the trunk of a tree. It was rather a nasty little table, Dido thought, looking at it more closely – the top and bottom were solid discs of wood, connected by a crisscross wooden network; at every join a little wooden face grinned maliciously with white-painted teeth and eyes. The room was a large one and the farther end was almost in darkness, but Dido had an uneasy feeling that somebody was there in the shadows watching – occasionally the corner of her eye caught a movement. Perhaps it was another dog?

  ‘Tell about the carriage accident,’ Sir Tobit demanded. ‘What happened? Were you waylaid? Was there a fight?’

  ‘No, no, it was just an accident – nothing out o’ the common.’

  ‘But how did it come about?’

  ‘Land sakes, hain’t you never seen a carriage turn topsy-turvey? The driver was a bit tossicated, that’s all. I reckon he runned one o’ the wheels against the bank. So over we went. And Cap’n Hughes was stuck inside. I managed to scramble out.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’ Sir Tobit was asking, when the door was opened by Gusset the butler and a lady swept into the room.

  Although Lady Tegleaze was plainly very old, her age was not her most striking feature. What most impressed Dido about her was a feeling of queerness – as if her very bright eyes were fixed most of the time on things that nobody else could see, as if she were listening to sounds or voices that nobody else could catch. Like her grandson, she was tall and thin, she limped slightly and walked with a stick, she wore what must surely be a wig of flowing grey curls, and had carelessly flung round her a lavender-coloured satin overdress, trimmed with point-lace. It was faded, and slightly torn. As she came in, Dido heard a door close softly in the shadows at the far end of the room.

  ‘Not so close!’ Lady Tegleaze exclaimed, limping swiftly towards Dido and tapping her with a stick. ‘Not so close to Sir Tobit – remove yourself, pray!’

  The dog Lion growled softly to himself.

  Rather taken aback, Dido scrambled to her feet and stepped back, ducking her head in a mixture between a bow and a curtsey. What in tarnation does the old girl think I’m a-going to do – bite him? she wondered, but the very oddness of Lady Tegleaze commanded respect.

  ‘Now then,’ she continued, fixing Dido with those curiously bright, curiously distant eyes, ‘what is all this about? Who is this young person? Why is she here and where is Lady Rowena Palindrome?’

  ‘Please, your ladyship, the young lady is Miss Twido Dite; and Frill just gave me this; he said a messenger brought it not ten minutes since.’ The butler handed Lady Tegleaze a note.

  ‘Humph,’ she said, unfolding and reading it: ‘From the duchess – too late – too far – too rainy for the horses – cried off. Pish! When I was a gel horses were horses and could stand a bit of rain.’

  ‘They always cry off,’ Sir Tobit languidly observed. ‘No one wishes to come here. Why should they? You won’t let me go to them.’

  ‘So who are you?’ The old lady’s gaze returned to Dido. Absently she took a handful of nuts from the dish and munched them.

  ‘She had an accident to her carriage,’ Sir Tobit explained. ‘On the London road. There are two hurt men and she wants our help to fetch them. One of them’s a sea-captain carrying dispatches.’

  ‘A sea-captain? You have come off a ship?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘From what country? What ship?’

  ‘A Navy ship, ma’am, the Thrush. She was a-coming home from the China wars and stepped from her course to chase a Hanoverian schooner, and picked me up off’n the isle of Nantucket.’

  ‘China! Nantucket!’ Lady Tegleaze could not have been more horrified if Dido had said Devil’s Island. ‘And you come here – from such places – reeking of typhus, yellow fever and every kind of infection! Pray stand over by the door!’

  ‘I don’t wish to stand anywhere, ma’am, if you’ll only send someone to help right our coach and tend to those hurt chaps,’ Dido said rather aggrievedly, removing herself to the desired location.

  ‘Gusset, have two of the men go back with this young person. But the injured people certainly cannot come here; that is quite out of the question. Suppose Sir Tobit caught some noxious illness from them, and it so near of his coming-of-age!’

  ‘Where should they be taken then, marm?’ Gusset inquired doubtfully.

  ‘Someone on the estate can take them in!’

  ‘There bain’t many left on the estate now, your ladyship.’

  ‘There are some tenants in Dogkennel Cottates still, are there not? Old Mr Firkin – Mrs Lubbage? Very wel
l – take them there.’

  Gusset looked even more doubtful, and Dido was not too happy at the sound of Dogkennel Cottages. Still, it’s only for a night, she thought; tomorrow I can stop the mailcoach or summat. ‘Maybe your ladyship could tell me where I can get hold of a doctor?’ she asked politely.

  ‘A doctor?’ Lady Tegleaze seemed vaguely surprised.

  ‘Dr Subito is here, playing tiddlywinks with Mr Wilfred,’ the butler reminded her. ‘I could ask him to step along to the cottages.’

  ‘Why, yes, I suppose he could do so, if the child absolutely demands it; though I would not wish him to pick up any infection. But come, child, come along; every minute you are here increases the risk to my grandson.’

  Lady Tegleaze limped to the door.

  ‘There, I said how it would be,’ muttered Sir Tobit sulkily. ‘Just when I had the chance to hear some new tales, instead of having to make up my own.’

  But Dido was eager to be off. ‘Thanks for the wine and cheese,’ she called back, and followed Lady Tegleaze.

  At the top of the stairs, Lady Tegleaze came to a halt.

  ‘Where is Tante Sannie?’ she asked Gusset.

  The butler paused a moment before answering. Then he said, in a peculiarly expressionless voice,

  ‘She was in Mas’r Tobit’s room. I reckon she be in your ladyship’s room now. Would you wish for me to search?’

  ‘No – no. I will go myself. Follow me, child.’

  Oh crumpet it, Dido thought; now what? However she followed along another series of passages.

  Lady Tegleaze halted outside a door.

  ‘Wait here,’ she commanded Dido. She opened the door and called,

  ‘Sannie?’

  Through this door Dido could see another large dimly lit chamber filled with a clutter of foreign-looking furniture, draperies and scattered clothing. A faint, sickly waft of aromatic smoke drifted out. This is a rum house and no mistake, Dido thought.

  Next moment the skin on the back of her neck prickled as something small and dark scuttled from the shadows inside the room out through the door. It was too small for a person, surely? Could it be a large dog? Or an enormous spider?

  Then she saw that it was in fact a tiny, bent old woman, wrapped in a kind of embroidered blanket, black-and-white, which covered her entirely except for two very bright eyes which peered up at Dido from under her head-swathings.

  ‘Sannie,’ said Lady Tegleaze. ‘You see this girl?’

  ‘I see her, princessie-ma’am!’

  ‘Look at her hand for me, Sannie!’

  Dido was disconcerted when a minute, skinny brown claw shot out of the black-and-white draperies and grabbed her hand, turning it over so that the palm came uppermost. The old woman bent over it, mumbling to herself.

  ‘This girl strong girl – much temper, much wilful. Can be angry to push over a house. Can kindly love too. I see her holding gold crown in this hand – she picking it up from ground, she putting it on someone head. I see great pink fish too – ’

  ‘Is this in the past or the future?’ interrupted Lady Tegleaze.

  ‘Past, future, princessie-ma’am – all one.’

  ‘Well, has she any sickness? Is she infectious? Will she harm my grandson?’

  Tante Sannie bent over the hand once more.

  For mussy’s sake, thought Dido, what a potheration! All over five minutes’ chat with a boy that I’ll likely never see again.

  ‘Not sick – no. Strong girl. But something strange here – tree, tree growing. Can’t see clear – tree growing, spreading branches over hand. Voices talking in tree – two voices, t’ree voices? Can’t see who, tree too thick, too dark. Can’t see, can’t see, princessie-ma’am!’

  The old woman flung down Dido’s hand angrily, as if it burnt her, and hobbled away, muttering to herself in a foreign language that sounded like the resentful snarling of cats before they attack one another.

  Lady Tegleaze gazed after her rather blankly and stood a moment as if undecided. Then saying to Dido, ‘That will do – you may go,’ she limped into her chamber and shut the door.

  Ho, I may, may I? Dido thought crossly. There’s gentry for you: full of notions and fancies one minute, then drops you like a bit of orange-peel in the midst o’ nowhere and leaves you to chart your own course for home.

  She darted back the way they had come. Born and bred in the alleys of Battersea, she had no difficulty in retracing her steps through the maze of passages; she found the marble stairs and ran down them.

  Gusset was waiting at the foot.

  ‘Frill and Pelmett have set out already, Missie Dwight,’ he told Dido. ‘I reckoned you’d rather they started. Be you able to find your way back to the carriage or shall I step along wi’ you?’

  ‘Thanks, mister – that’s mighty kind of you. But I guess I can manage,’ Dido said gruffly, touched by the frail old man’s thoughtfulness.

  ‘Might I ask summat, Missie Twide?’

  ‘O’ course – what is it?’

  ‘I heerd you say as how you were told you’d get help here. Might I ask who told you?’

  ‘Why – ’ Dido began. Then she recollected the caution that had been administered by Yan, Tan, Tethera and the others.

  ‘It was a chap I met along the road, mister. I don’t know who he was. He couldn’t stop – was a-going the other way, and all in a pucker acos he was going to meet someone.’

  ‘You don’t know where he was a-going, missie?’

  ‘Why yes, matter o’ fact, I do.’ Dido wondered why the butler was so inquisitive. ‘I heerd him say he was a-going to a tree – the Cuckoo Tree.’

  The old man paled slightly. Dido, glancing about the large, bare hall, did not notice this.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said civilly, ‘but would there be a chair somewheres in this here barracks, Mister Gusset?’

  ‘A chair, missie? I’ll see if I can find one for you.’ Puzzled, worried but anxious to oblige, he hobbled off, murmuring to himself,

  ‘She couldn’t have heard wrong, could she? The Cuckoo Tree, she said plain enough. Butter my wig, I wish I weren’t so pumple-footed.’

  In a little while – evidently chairs were not too plentiful on the ground floor of Tegleaze Manor – he came slowly back carrying a rush-bottomed ladderback with a burst seat.

  ‘Here you be, then, missie. Was you wishful to sit down?’

  ‘Thankee, mister. No, it’s to get back on my nag,’ Dido explained. She carried the chair out to the portico, planted it down besides Noakes’s bay and climbed aboard.

  ‘Giddap, Dobbin. You musta had a good rest by now, let’s get back quick, eh? Good night, Mister Gusset, and thanks for all you done.’

  ‘Good night, Missie Dite.’ Gusset untied the traces and watched her trot off into the rainy dark. For a few minutes after that he stood indecisively, scratching his white whiskers; then he picked up a sack from a heap lying out in the portico, muffled it about his head and shoulders, closed the great doors behind him and set off in his turn down the pitch-black avenue.

  2

  BY THE TIME that Dido arrived back at the overturned carriage a dank and dripping moon was groping out from behind the rain clouds and giving a little light. She saw that the two footmen, Frill and Pelmett, had fastened a rope to the driver’s box and were trying to pull the carriage up on to its wheels again.

  ‘That’s a cack-handed way o’ going on,’ Dido muttered as, after some unavailing struggles, they stopped and blew their noses.

  ‘What would you suggest, then?’ Pelmet inquired sourly.

  ‘Why, pass the rope over a tree branch, o’ course!’

  This was such obvious sense that the two men received it in silence. Frill, without more ado, climbed up on to the bank and tossed the free end of the rope over a stout beech bough that extended some fifteen feet above the road. With the extra purchase thus obtained, it was not difficult to right the coach. Its only damage proved to be a snapped shaft.

  ‘Will it go?’ as
ked Dido.

  ‘Reckon so. The grey nag looks a bit swymy, though. Best unharness him and put-to the bay again.’

  While they were doing this Dido climbed into the carriage and found that the unfortunate Captain Hughes was still unconscious.

  ‘Hey, Mister Frill!’ she called softly. ‘Could you help me set the poor chap back on the seat?’

  As he assisted her to do so the moon came out fully and Dido was astonished to discover that the upholstery of the carriage had been violently slashed and ripped; the horsehair stuffing lay tossed in thick mounds and masses all over seats and floor.

  ‘How in mussy’s name did that come about?’ she exclaimed, brushing a handful of horsehair from the captain’s cravat.

  ‘Cushions split in the upset, o’ course,’ Frill said rather scornfully.

  Dido thought this improbable, but she made no further comment. Discovering with relief that Captain Hughes was still breathing, she spread rugs over him and then, while the two footmen searched for Bosky Dick, she went round to the luggage compartment of the coach, opened the lid and found, as she had expected, that their two portmanteaux and the captain’s dispatch box were gaping open and the contents strewn about. She pressed her lips together and nodded to herself.

  ‘Hey, miss! Where did you say the driver was a-lying?’ Frill asked. ‘He don’t seem to be noways hereabouts.’

  ‘He was in a patch of thistle just there by the road.’

  Dido walked up the track, now chalk-white in the moonlight, to where the two men were standing. But the crushed thistle-patch was empty; the driver lay there no longer.

  ‘Musta come to hisself and wandered off,’ Pelmett said.

  ‘Ah, that’ll be it, I’ll lay,’ Frill agreed, nodding wisely. ‘Bosky Dick allus had a larmentable hard head. Reckon he be halfway back to Chichester by now.’

  ‘Well, if you think he’ll be all right,’ Dido said doubtfully, ‘there’s no sense hanging about for him. He warn’t no shakes as a driver, anyhows, and I want to get the poor Cap’n bedded and tended as quick as possible. Let’s be off.’