The Cuckoo Tree

by Joan Aiken

  Dido was somewhat dashed to realize that she would still have to apply to Mrs Lubbage for sick-nursing.

  ‘Anyhows, you didn’t want to rouse her yet awhile or she’ll be sidy,’ Mr Firkin said. ‘She be a late-lier, owd Mis’ Lubbage. Come ee back and eat a rasher o’bacon, cardenly.’

  Since she would be next door and within earshot of the captain, Dido accepted.

  Mr Firkin’s bacon was delicious, and so was his home-made bread-and-butter, and so was his tea, ‘that thunderin’ strong ye could trot a mouldiwarp on it’. After breakfast Dido washed up for him, peeled potatoes for his dinner and swept out his kitchen, which was the same size as that of Mrs Lubbage but exquisitely neat. Then she chopped some firewood because Mr Firkin told her that was the one job he was sure to make a boffle of. His woodshed contained a large untidy pile of dry boughs and a small neat pile of kindling already chopped to the right size. Dido wondered who had done it.

  ‘Mr Firkin,’ she said, ‘if I wanted to get a letter taken to London, who’d I best ask? Is there a regular mailcoach as goes by this way?’

  ‘Once every two days Jem Hoadley takes mail so far as Petworth.’

  ‘Is he reliable? What happens to it there?’

  ‘Nay, he’s a bit shravey, Jem is; times folks’ letters has gone no-one-wheres. And if the mail does get to Petworth, I dunnasay what come to it there.’

  Dido resolved not to trust Captain Hughes’s Dispatch to the shravey Jem until she had tried him out.

  ‘D’you think Mrs Lubbage’ll be stirring by now? Maybe I’d best go and see her or she’ll be offended?’

  ‘Ah, she’m a taffety one,’ he agreed. ‘There’s some as dassn’t go anigh her, ‘case she puts a mischief on ’em; Some reckons she’s a wise ’ooman, others say she’s downright a witch.’

  ‘What do you reckon, mister?’

  ‘I ain’t afeered o’ the owd skaddle, however skrow she be. But then I wears mouldiwarpses’ toeses; she can’t mischief me.’ He pulled out and showed Dido two mole’s claws on a leather bootlace round his neck. ‘Powerful good agin the toothache they be and against the powers o’ dark too. Tell ee what, darter, I’ll give ee a pair; then ee ’on’t come to no harm.’

  He picked another pair of feet from a wooden box full of very strong-smelling tobacco and threaded them on a string. Dido slung them round her neck and tucked them out of sight along with Captain Hughes’s Dispatch.

  Mr Firkin and Toby then set off up the smooth steep grassy slope of the hill behind Dogkennel Cottages – which he had told her was called Barlton Down – to look after the sheep. Dido walked along to Mrs Lubbage’s cottage. Outside the door she paused with her hand upraised to knock. She could hear voices inside – or rather, one voice, very angry. It was Mrs Lubbage.

  ‘Show your face down here again between sun-up and moon-up and I’ll give ee such a dose of hazel-oil, ye ’on’t be able to set down for a week. Hear what I say? Maybe that’ll teach ee!’

  There was a thud and a stifled cry.

  ‘Now be off outa my sight,’ said Mrs Lubbage’s voice. There was no reply.

  Dido knocked loudly on the door.

  A long silence followed. Then Mrs Lubbage – much closer to – said, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s me, from next door,’ Dido called. ‘Come to ask you to take a look at the hurt man.’

  After another long wait the door opened a crack and Mrs Lubbage’s large red face peered suspiciously round it. The smell from her kitchen also came out through the crack; it seemed to have thickened and strengthened during the night.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ Mrs Lubbage said, and opened the door completely. Dido looked past her, but nobody else was there.

  ‘S’pose I better come along and hob him up,’ the wise woman said in a surly tone. ‘I’ll jest fetch my things.’

  She retired to rummage in a chest in her back room. No one else was there; but of course they might have gone out of the back door. And there was a loft entrance similar to that in Dido’s cottage; perhaps the other person was up there?

  Dido felt sorry for anyone who lived with Mrs Lubbage.

  ‘Right, then, here I be,’ said the wise woman, emerging with a cloth bag. She glanced at Dido out of the corners of her sharp little eyes and said, ‘Did ee hear me a-thumping my owd Tibbie jest now?’

  ‘Maybe, missus,’ Dido said cautiously. ‘Why did you do that, then?’

  ‘He be a turble owd thief, my Tib; he sucked up a pan o’ milk while my back was turned, so I was a-larruping of him. He be my magico; helps me cast spells.’

  Dido made no reply to this, but opened the door to let Mrs Lubbage into the Captain’s sickroom. Mr Firkin had run his fingers sensitively through a tray of oddments in his toolshed and found a pair of keys, one of which fitted the lock of her front door. She saw the sharp little eyes take note of the lock, and the key.

  It became plain at once that Mrs Lubbage knew quite a bit about nursing. She carefully removed the bandages, inspected the healing wound on the Captain’s head and dusted it with some powder from a small jar.

  ‘What’s that, missus?’

  ‘Powdered sungreen, it be; wunnerful good for a healing cut. Now I’ll put a handful o’ cobwebs atop’ – she did so – ‘and you leave them lay, and in tuthree days he’ll be sprackish enough and through this liddle toss o’ fever. If he gets fretful, soak these in water’ – she passed Dido a handful of dried berries like raisins – ‘give him the water to drink, that’ll ease him till he sweats.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Mortal quizzitive you be,’ Mrs Lubbage said sourly. ‘Where I was reared, children kept their eyes open and their mouthses shut. Dried pethwine they be – if that learns you.’

  It did not, and Dido resolved to throw the berries away and give Captain Hughes nothing but the doctor’s medicine. Mrs Lubbage then inspected the broken leg which she said was mending well and not inflamed.

  ‘I’m obliged to you, missus,’ Dido said politely. ‘Can I dig your garden or do aught useful for you?’

  ‘You can muck-out my chicken-house if ye’ve a mind to.’

  Dido was not enthusiastic about this task but at least it would be more pleasant than cleaning out Mrs Lubbage’s horrible kitchen. First making sure that the captain was once more peacefully asleep and had a drink within easy reach if he were to wake, she locked him in. Whoever had searched their baggage might return for another look; besides, Dido did not trust the sly-eyed Mrs Lubbage, good nurse or no.

  Mr Firkin’s chickens had been plump, well-feathered and lively; Mrs Lubbage’s were scrawny, mopey and moulting. You’d think a wise woman’d be able to take better care of her poultry, Dido thought, carrying baskets of shed feathers and dirty straw from the chicken-coop to a pile of rubbish at the bottom of Mrs Lubbage’s muddy garden. While doing so, she observed a pony-and-trap trot briskly along the road and come to a halt in front of Dogkennel Cottages. Old Gusset the butler descended with a white-covered basket.

  ‘Aha, there’s the soup and jelly!’ Dido stuck her pitchfork into a straw-stack and started towards the butler, but before she reached him, Mrs Lubbage opened her door and beckoned Gusset inside. He went after several doubtful and uneasy glances about him. The door closed. Dido, still a fair way off, then noticed another figure slip out from under the seat of the trap, look sharply around and hurry off round the corner of the cottages.

  The day was a misty, murky one – what Mr Firkin called driply weather – but even through the damp rainy greyness this second caller, though bundled up like a chrysalis in draperies, had a familiar appearance.

  It’s the funny old gal that Lady Tegleaze called Tante Sannie, Dido thought. Why’s she stealing a ride with the butler?

  In a moment Gusset appeared, looking glad to have completed his errand. He caught sight of Dido. Coming up, she noticed that he held a little carved wooden pistol, about the size of a radish, threaded on a leather thong. He pocketed it, saying in an embarrassed way, �
�’Tis a luck-charm,’ and pulled out a note, folded like a cocked hat. ‘I was to bring you this, Missie Twido Dide. And I’ve left some things for the sick gentleman with Mrs Lubbage. Good day to ee, missie.’

  He climbed back into the pony-trap and drove off.

  Dido, not wishing to read her note where she could be seen from the windows, retired behind the hen-house.

  ‘Come up to the South Door after dark,’ she read, ‘follow the track, turn right at the top, across the tilting-yard, up the steps, along the terrace, through the lavender-court, and I’ll be waiting inside the door.’

  No signature – unless the smudge at the bottom was a T – and the writing was very untidy.

  Oh, that’s naffy! Dido thought. S’posing I go all that way and nobody’s there? Well, I’ll wait and see what the weather’s like, and how the Cap’n’s fettling. Now, what about these here delicacies?

  She started back towards the cottages but before she reached them Mrs Lubbage came out, wrapped in a man’s coat and with a sack over her head. The shawled figure of Tante Sannie darted from behind a barn and joined her. The two talked together, then Mrs Lubbage locked her door and they set off side by side along the road away from Tegleaze Manor.

  Proper pair of old witches they be, thought Dido. Right good company for each other. I’m not weeping millstones that old Madam Lubbage is out o’ the road for a bit. But it’s a cuss about the locked door.

  Through the window the basket of provisions could be seen, very tantalizingly, on her kitchen table. What’s the odds she’d never hand it over unless I ask for it? she thought. Oh well, let’s have a wash and see what can be done.

  The hen-house being as clean as she could make it. Dido drew a pail of water from the rain-butt, heated it over Mr Firkin’s fire and had an enjoyable splash.

  Then she re-entered her own cottage and climbed up into the loft. As she had noticed before, the partition between one loft and the next was formed only of wattles. It was easy enough to push a way through this thin barrier.

  But what was her surprise when she started doing so to hear, evidently from the loft over the empty cottage, a voice singing softly to itself a strange little chant:

  ‘Dwah, dwah, dwuddy dwuddy dwee,

  I can’t see you but you can see me –

  Canarack, stanarack, out of the blue

  You can see me but I can’t see you – ’

  Mystified, Dido parted two wattles and laid her eye against the partition.

  Someone was sitting cross-legged in the shadows – someone about Dido’s size, dark-haired, wearing ragged trousers and a shirt, that was all Dido had a chance to see, for she had made a slight noise pulling the withies apart. The singer turned a startled face towards her, sprang up, made a dart for a hole in the roof and vanished through it. Dido heard a scrambling outside on the tiles and then a thud; evidently she was not the only one to use the water-butt as an escape route.

  ‘Drabbit it!’ Dido exclaimed. ‘There’s altogether too many mysteries around here. Now, what’d I best do – keep an eye on the Cap or go arter this here hop o’ my thumb?’

  Curiosity won. The Cap’ll come to no harm in ten minutes, she decided, scrambled out of her own hole, and slid down the roof. As she did so she observed a small distant figure cross the field and take the chalk track that ran from Dogkennel Cottages between Barlton Down and the next big grassy hill. Almost at once the figure was out of sight in the mist, but Dido, hurrying to the chalk track, found a trail of new footprints in the white oozy mud.

  My stars, she thought, hearing no sound ahead, whoever it is can’t half cover the ground.

  Luckily Dido herself was no mean runner; even so she began to wonder if she would ever catch up. The chalk road climbed steeply. High hedges on either side cut off the view. At the topmost point between the two hills, where the track started to descend, the footprints suddenly came to a stop. Dido, questing about, noticed a trail of scuffled leaves under some big beech trees to her left. She followed this clue, and came out from the trees into a wide, hummock-spaced grassy place; beyond it rose the big dome of Barlton Down. Far ahead Dido could see her quarry, running along a grass path that led round the side of the hill.

  ‘Plague take the critter,’ Dido muttered, picking her way at top speed through damp knee-high tussocks of coarse downland grass. ‘At this rate we’ll be halfway to London before I get any closer. Another five minutes and I give up!’

  However, once she reached the grass path, which was flat and smooth as a shelf, the pursuit was easier. On her right the grassy slope ran steeply down into mist; a few big, dark-green bushy trees dotted the uphill slope to her left.

  ‘All we want’s a few candles and there’d be enough Christmas trees here for every soul in the country. Croopus, this is a funny sort o’ place. There’s so much of it; naught but trees and grass, and no people, and all tipped up like the side of a roof.’

  She was fairly out of breath, but the trail of footprints in the short, dewy grass of the path was easy to follow. As she ran soundlessly along the smooth turf she heard the voice again singing its queer little rune:

  ‘Canarack, stanarack, out of the blue

  You can see me but I can’t see you – ’

  What does the silly perisher mean? wondered Dido. Dunno whether he can see me, but I sure as Sunday can’t see him.

  The voice was close at hand, up the hill to her left. She stood still and then began cautiously climbing the steep slope through the mist which was suddenly much thicker here. After a moment or two the voice seemed to be straight ahead. Dido stood still again.

  ‘There you are at last as well,’ the voice said in a conversational tone. ‘I couldn’t come before – Auntie Daisy was beating me.’

  Silence for a moment. Dido moved another step or two. Where was the voice coming from?

  ‘Why did she beat me? For coming out of the loft to get a bit of bread. It didn’t matter as well – beating’s not the worst.’

  Dido stopped once more. She had thought the voice was speaking to her; now she realized it was not. Who else was there, then? Who was answering? Where in the mist were they?

  ‘I don’t mind anything so long as I can talk to you as well.’

  As well? Dido thought. As well as what?

  She took another step.

  ‘Dear Aswell,’ said the voice. ‘I do love you.’

  Aswell?

  Another silent step. Dido felt something tickle her nose: a gossamer-spangled sprig of yew. Peering ahead into the mist she saw that she was close to a small tree which stuck out at right angles from the steep hillside. It was a curious little stunted yew, not much more than twelve feet high; the foliage began about four feet above the ground, thick, bushy and flattened as if the top had been chopped off, so that the tree resembled a finger with a round cake balanced on its tip. The cake was composed of close-set branches and twigs covered with dark-green yew needles and luminous red yew berries, while the finger – the trunk – was so twisted and knobbed and grooved that Dido could see it would be very easy to climb: just like walking up stairs. And the voice now came from directly above her.

  ‘What have you been doing, Aswell?’

  This is getting spooky, Dido thought. I’m a-going up to find who’s atop there.

  Ducking, she edged under the branches and looked up the trunk, which was about as thick as a gatepost. The trunk turned sideways just above Dido’s head, and three or four branches came out from it, like the spokes of a bent wheel. There was a gap in the greenery just big enough to climb through. Dido could see a pair of feet in very patched, broken boots, resting on one branch.

  Still very silently, she set foot on the lowest knob, caught hold of two spoke-branches, and with one rapid movement pulled and thrust herself up the sloping trunk so that her head suddenly shot out through the central hole.

  ‘Oh!’ said the voice.

  Dido found herself face to face – almost nose to nose – with the boy who had been in Mrs Lub
bage’s loft.

  Blimey, he’s thin! was Dido’s first thought. Then she looked round. They were sitting – it was impossible not to sit at once – in a kind of soup bowl of green yew needles: the foliage was so thickly massed that it held them like a cushion, with their feet in the middle, resting on the central spokes.

  The boy would have bolted again, but Dido was in his way – he could not escape. Besides –

  ‘Please don’t skedaddle!’ Dido said. ‘Croopus. I can do with a bit o’ company in this wilderness! I’m lonesome! What d’ you think I’ve bin a-chasing you for?’

  The boy took a deep breath. It was plain that Dido’s sudden appearance had frightened him badly – she could almost see his heart thumping under the thin torn shirt. He looked nice, though. He was amazingly dirty: smeared with grime, wet from the drizzle, wrapped in a filthy matted old sheepskin jacket. His dark hair was cut raggedly short and festooned with cobwebs as if he spent most of his time in the loft. But he looked far, very far, from stupid.

  ‘Who are you?’ he brought out presently.

  ‘I’m Dido Twite. I’m stopping in one o’ those Dogkennel Cottages with a hurt chap – Mrs Lubbage is tending him.’

  ‘Please,’ said the boy earnestly, ‘please don’t tell Mrs Lubbage that you saw me!’

  ‘Course I won’t.’ Dido was affronted. ‘I ain’t a blob-tongue. What’d happen – would she beat you?’

  ‘I don’t mind being beaten. She does worse things than that.’

  He looked as if he would rather not discuss it. Dido asked instead,

  ‘Is she your Auntie Daisy?’

  ‘Not really. All my family are dead. I used to live with another old woman in Suffolk – I think she was Auntie Daisy’s cousin. She wasn’t any kin of mine. Then she died – that was last year – and Auntie Daisy fetched me here. She said no one must ever find out I was living with her. I don’t much like it here. It was better in Suffolk. Sometimes the rector used to teach me.’