by Katie Flynn
Glenys shook her head. ‘If I turn up without any children I may be welcomed by a landlady who only takes adults and would be unpleasantly surprised when you two arrived,’ she explained. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
‘Right,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’ll go and check the guard’s van. Meet you at the ticket office in five minutes.’
But five minutes later Jimmy could only shake his head, an anxious frown marring his usually cheerful face. ‘She didn’t travel in the guard’s van. The guard didn’t worry – he just assumed you hadn’t agreed to it,’ he explained. ‘He did say that Mo could have re-joined the train at any number of places, only she would have had to have got a lift to do so, and you know very well she wouldn’t have done that. Where can she be?’
Seeing their worried faces, a porter came over to ask if they needed any help. Quickly, Glenys told him what had happened and the porter sighed. ‘Kids! They’re more trouble than they’re worth, I’m tellin’ you. How old was this ’un? Ten? Twelve?’
‘She’s six,’ Jimmy said, his voice wobbling. ‘Only six.’ He turned to Glenys. ‘What’ll we do, Auntie Glenys? Can she have been kidnapped? Oh why on earth didn’t she get into the guard’s van, or even just get aboard the train and walk up the corridor until she found us? What possible reason could she have for hiding away like a thief in the night?’
Glenys chewed her lip, but the porter spoke up.
‘She might have been in the toilet block, or the waitin’ room, and not realised the train were leavin’ till it were too late.’
Glenys shook her head. ‘She’s only six, but she’s a sensible child,’ she said. ‘She’d have gone to the station master’s house, or asked the way to the nearest bus stop. She wouldn’t have just disappeared. Is there a public telephone near here? Can you give me the number of the last two or three stations? She has no money on her, you see.’
The porter grinned. ‘We can do better’n that,’ he said proudly. ‘The station master here, Mr Alf Grimes, can send a message to every station on the line.’ He turned to Jimmy. ‘Is she your sister? Well. don’t you worry, young feller, we’ll have her back wi’ you before you know it.’
An hour later Glenys had used some of her precious savings on a local bus which trundled them back through beautiful countryside to the place which they now thought of as the puppy station. To Glenys, and to Jimmy too, it looked just like all the other stations they had passed, with one difference. ‘There’s glass scattered all over the platform there,’ the keen-eyed Jimmy remarked. ‘Someone’s tried to clear it up, but there are fragments in between the paving slabs. I wonder . . .’
‘It can’t have anything to do with Mo,’ Glenys was beginning, when Jimmy pounced on something which had rolled a short way away.
‘She was filling a bottle so the puppy could have a drink, and here’s the cork,’ he said triumphantly. ‘If she was surprised whilst filling it, it could have got dropped. But even that shouldn’t have stopped her getting on the train, unless she thought she saw . . .’
Mo lay in her little hideout until her heart stopped hammering and she was certain there were no signs of pursuit. Even then, however, she hesitated to leave the safety of the woods. She was sure the man who had shouted at her must have been Cyril, but in her mind the figure grew and grew until he was twice the size of Cyril and three times as dangerous. She had barely caught a glimpse of his face, but now it was clear in her mind: thick, angry eyebrows, dark pockmarked skin, mean little eyes and huge ham-like hands. If he had removed his hat, she felt sure it would have revealed a red spotted handkerchief and a black eyepatch; all the markings of a pirate, in fact. I ought to go back to the station, Mo told herself. Jimmy and Auntie Glenys will be worried when they realise I’m not in the guard’s van. But why haven’t they checked yet? She began to feel aggrieved. Cyril chased me into the woods and no one came to rescue me, even though I’m only little. Jimmy should have come to help me, and so should Glenys. It’s very wicked to leave someone to look after herself whilst you go off in a warm and comfortable train. Forgotten were the hours spent sitting, bored and cold, in the cheerless compartment as the train chugged deeper into the hills, and as dusk fell Mo got angrier and angrier. It wasn’t right. Auntie Glenys had said they must stick together, and what had she and Jimmy done? They had gone off, abandoned her, left her to be very nearly caught by their dreaded enemy. How she would reproach them when she saw them again; if she did ever see them again, that was.
But now, though the sound of pursuit had long since stopped, she fancied she could hear voices, and presently saw the gleam of artificial light as someone with a lantern made his or her way along the edge of the wood. Mo gave a squeak; she would know that voice anywhere! Oh, how she would give it to Jimmy when they met! She stood up and ran towards the light.
Despite her intentions, thoughts of revenge crumbled away the moment she emerged from the trees and flung herself into her brother’s arms. She had meant to blame him, to tell him and Auntie Glenys just what she thought of them, but instead common sense reasserted itself.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she wailed. ‘I was frightened.’
‘You little idiot,’ Jimmy said fondly, lifting her up to give her a big hug. ‘You said you were going to travel in the guard’s van, but you didn’t get on the train at all! Whatever happened to make you run into the woods instead of getting back on to the train? We thought . . . we thought someone had kidnapped you!’ The station porter had accompanied them on their search, and Jimmy was reluctant to mention Cyril’s name in front of a stranger who might demand all sorts of explanations. The warning glance he received from Glenys told him she felt the same, so when he saw the porter’s eyebrows shoot up he changed it to a joke. ‘To tell you the truth, queen, I thought you’d probably let the puppy out of the crate by accident and were searching the woods for it.’
Mo was indignant. ‘As if I would,’ she said. ‘But there were a man, Jimmy – he shouted “come here” at me, sounding rare angry, and I thought he’d tell the station people that I were thievin’ their water, so I ran into the trees. He followed me for a bit, but then he give up and I thought I’d come back to the station and see if I could catch the next train.’
‘Well, why didn’t you, then?’ the porter said, in a grumbling voice. ‘That would ha’ been the sensible thing to do.’ He was swinging the lighted lantern as he spoke, and Mo gave him a brilliant smile.
‘I couldn’t find my way out of the wood,’ she said simply. ‘I walked around for ages, and then I sat down on a log and had a bit of a weep, and then I heard Jimmy’s voice and ran towards it, and the rest you know.’
‘But who was the feller what chased you into the wood?’ the porter grumbled.
‘We’ve no idea, have we, you two?’ Glenys said quickly. ‘But I do believe that you should report him as dangerous.’ She lowered her voice. ‘What might have happened had he caught up with my niece, before she hid in the trees? I shudder to think!’
The porter nodded, and lowered his voice in his turn. ‘You are very right, miss. Happily, we found the child before harm could come to her, but the feller must be reported. Do you think she will be able to describe him?’
Jimmy started to say that he could describe the man perfectly well himself, which caused the porter’s eyebrows to shoot up his forehead once more. ‘That is, it must have been the man Auntie Glenys saw through the window of the train,’ Jimmy gabbled. ‘He almost pressed his nose against the glass, didn’t you say, Auntie Glenys? He had these thick eyebrows . . .’ He gave the same description of the man that Glenys had given him, though Mo stuck out her lower lip.
‘I saw him first, and I was the one he chased so I should be the one to tell the scuffers, not you,’ she said mulishly. ‘He had this big scar on his cheek and a black patch over one eye . . .’
Everyone laughed. ‘And a parrot on his shoulder shouting Pieces of eight, pieces of eight,’ Jimmy said. ‘Oh, Mo, I think you ought to leave descriptions for someone wh
o wasn’t frightened out of their life at the time.’
‘I wasn’t frightened,’ Mo said belligerently. ‘I’m brave as a lion I am! Why, I only cried a little bit.’
Jimmy gave her a playful shake. ‘Course you did,’ he said comfortably. ‘And now let’s get back down to the station, otherwise we’ll arrive in town too late to buy fish and chips for our supper.’
Mo was about to argue when she caught Jimmy’s eye and subsided, realising that he had described Cyril Huxtable as exactly as was possible.
‘I’ll go and give Ifan tacsi a ring,’ the porter said. He winked at Glenys, who was delving in her elderly leather handbag for her purse. ‘Don’t worry, miss. It ain’t that far by road to Deniol, so it shouldn’t break the bank.’ He pulled a gunmetal watch out of his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. ‘He’ll be here in no time; he’ll have just finished his tea,’ he said, and disappeared into the office. True to his word, the taxi drew up a few minutes later with a scream of brakes and a fat little man with ginger hair jumped out to help his passengers aboard. The porter watched as Glenys joined the children on the back seat. ‘All aboard. And rest assured, if that feller turns up again, he’ll get a pretty hot reception!’
Half an hour later they had arrived in the market town of Ruthin, Glenys having simply asked the driver to take them to the nearest lodging-house he could recommend.
‘You’ll find Mrs Buttermilk is just grand with kiddies, and knows every soul for miles around,’ their taxi driver had assured them, stopping his cab directly at the foot of eight steep steps leading to the front door of a tall thin house which leaned perilously towards the one on the opposite side of the street. A sign in the window read Vacancies. Glenys had looked at the quaint old house, the gleaming window panes and the net curtains looped back to show a cosy firelit interior, and had voiced her fears aloud. ‘Forgive me, but it looks expensive,’ she said. ‘As I told you, we’re looking for relatives who used to live in these parts, and it may be some while before we contact them, so we need something quite cheap. This house is so delightful that I imagine Mrs Buttermilk can charge what she likes.’
The taxi driver slewed in his seat to grin, revealing large yellowing teeth. ‘Aye, you’d be right in what you might call the normal way,’ he agreed, his grin widening. ‘But this house is halfway up Ffordd Hilbre, so whatever you want, the town square at the top or the recreation ground at the bottom, climb you must, and then there’s them eight steep steps. So Mrs Buttermilk’s lodgings are often vacant, and that means she has to keep her prices down.’ He named a sum which had Glenys smiling with relief and struggling out of the cab, but before she had done more than get one foot on the roadway the taxi driver gestured her back to her seat. ‘I’m used to them steps; if you’re willing, I’ll book a double and a single room and help you up with your luggage.’
So some time later, Glenys, Jimmy and Mo found themselves sitting in the cosy parlour which was set aside for guests and enjoying a cup of tea and a Welsh cake, liberally buttered, whilst in the big stone-flagged kitchen Mrs Buttermilk was preparing a meal for which she would charge them a very reasonable sum. Jimmy looked around at the comfortable chairs, the little bookcase upon which many of his favourite titles were displayed, and the log fire roaring up the chimney, and spoke through a mouthful of Welsh cake. ‘We’ve fallen on our feet this time, don’t you think, Auntie Glenys? I doesn’t care if we never find a Griffiths so long as we can stay at Ty Bryn. I’ve got a grand bedroom overlooking the street; it’s only small, but it’s cosy, like my little room in the Court before . . . oh, well, no point in lookin’ back.’
‘And no point, alas, in believing that we can stay here for long, unless I can find work,’ Glenys said ruefully. ‘When I went down to the basement kitchen to pay Mrs Buttermilk – I’ve booked us in for two nights’ supper, bed and breakfast – I asked if there was any chance of a teaching job around here, and, to be blunt, there isn’t. Then I mentioned Griffiths, and oh, Jimmy, there are hundreds of them.’ She peered out of the window and up into the sky. ‘Mrs Buttermilk says it always snows here, so there’s no point our searching for a dry and cosy barn because there’s no such thing. However, she did think that one of the outlying farms might give us beds in what they call bunkhouses, which the holidaymakers hire when the weather’s warmer. And, she says, someone on those farms might have work for a strong young woman.’ She giggled. ‘She meant me, of course. So immediately after breakfast tomorrow I think we should start visiting.’
Mo, who had curled up on a chair with eyes shut and toes pointed at the fire, suddenly opened her eyes. ‘Cyril will be real cross when they haul him off to the police station,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Serves him right for frightenin’ little girls. Serves him right for pokin’ his long nose into other people’s railway carriages . . .’
Glenys and Jimmy exchanged indulgent looks. It was clear to them both that the cosy armchair, the roaring fire and the welcome Mrs Buttermilk had given them were rapidly sending Mo into the land of nod. ‘Serves him right, serves him right . . .’ she said dreamily, as Glenys lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom – and the big double bed – which they were to share. She was still murmuring ‘serves him right’ as Glenys helped her out of her travelling clothes and into a white cotton nightie. The last thing Glenys heard, before she closed the door and went downstairs for supper, was Mo’s small, smug voice: ‘Serves him jolly well right.’
After hearing Mo’s description of her horrible experience Jimmy did not expect to fall asleep without a struggle, for losing Mo and then hearing how she had been pursued by a man whose description certainly fitted that of Cyril Huxtable had upset Jimmy deeply. Tossing and turning in his small but comfortable bed he told himself that now they were beyond the reach of both parents it was even more his duty to look after Mo and see she came to no harm. And what had he done? He had let her get off the train and trot around looking after some puppy or other. Of course it was not his fault that Cyril had come on to the platform to search the train and had got between Mo and the guard’s van, but he told himself he should have checked that she was aboard and not merely taken it for granted. When he thought of all the things which might have happened to a little girl of six, apparently abandoned by her companions, his blood ran cold. It was not just Cyril who might have harmed her. He had read stories in the newspaper . . . but he refused to allow himself to think of them now. What had happened was bad enough without letting his imagination run wild, and anyway they had been lucky. Mo had returned to them unscathed, and now all they had to do was find their mother’s family and ask to be taken in. Once the Griffiths were convinced that they were speaking the truth about the Huxtables, the scuffers could be called in to find whatever it was Cyril believed he and Mo had taken, and all would be well.
Jimmy sighed deeply, tucked his hand beneath his pillow, and, at long last, fell asleep.
Chapter 10
WHEN GLENYS AWOKE a wintry sun was shining, and for some reason she felt optimistic, sure that in this pleasant little town they would run the Trewins’ family to earth. She rolled over in bed and found that her companion had abandoned her; plainly the sunshine had given Mo her confidence back. The smell of bacon which came floating through the half-open door made Glenys’s nostrils twitch.
She swung her legs out of bed, washed rather shrinkingly in the cold water contained in the ewer, and went downstairs. She hesitated in the hallway, trying to remember which door led to the kitchen and which to the parlour, but then she heard muffled voices from the door on her right and feeling rather foolish, for she had promised to be up betimes, she tapped lightly on the door and went in.
The first sight which met her eyes was Jimmy and Mo seated at the table with bowls of what looked like porridge or cereal before them. Also at the table were a couple, probably in their mid-twenties, who turned as the door opened and smiled at the teacher, chorusing ‘Good morning’ as she came fully into the room. Mrs Buttermilk was at the stove, manoeuvr
ing a mighty frying pan as she dished out crisp bacon and golden-yolked eggs on to half a dozen plates.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Glenys began, but the landlady shook her head.
‘You’re just in nice time you are, my dear,’ she assured her guest. ‘There’s porridge to start, unless you’d rather have cereal, a good hot cup of tea to go with it and piles of toast with butter and marmalade to fill the chinks. As my hubby always says, “An empty sack won’t stand up”, so just you tuck in, my dear, and don’t worry about time.’ She began to hand around plates of bacon, egg and sausage, saying as she did so: ‘But I must introduce you to my other guests. Them’s Mr and Mrs Horner, what’s just here for a couple of days’ hillwalking.’ She turned to the young couple and gave them a roguish look. ‘Last time they come they was Miss Clark and Mr Horner. I tease them that they only got wed to save the price of two single rooms.’
Glenys smiled at the young couple, who were both blushing furiously. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said. ‘I’m Glenys Trent, the children’s aunt. We’ve come here to try to contact the children’s relatives on their mother’s side. Their name is Griffiths, but it turns out that Wales is full of Griffiths, so we’ve had no luck so far.’
Having handed round all the plates Mrs Buttermilk took her place at the head of the table and picked up her knife and fork, nodding to the others to follow suit. ‘I’m a Griffiths myself,’ she said conversationally. ‘The reason they call me Mrs Buttermilk is to avoid confusion, ’cos there’s at least half a dozen Griffiths families livin’ in the town, and more on the outskirts of course.’ She raised a plump hand and began to tell off her neighbours on her fingers. ‘One, there’s Mrs Icecream because she makes her own in the summer; two, there’s Mr and Mrs River because their land runs down to the river; three . . .’
But here Jimmy interrupted. ‘Do you think you could write them down for us please, Mrs Buttermilk?’ he asked eagerly. ‘It would be a great help in our search.’
