I Capture the Castle (12 page)

She thought it would work. We decided to keep the fur coats on, so that we should be invisible in the darkness at the end of the platform if the Cottons looked back while we were getting the trunks.

Rose turned up the huge bearskin collar to hide her bright hair.

“Let’s hope no train comes on the other line while we’re walking along,” I said. But I knew it was unlikely at that time of night, and they come very slowly.

“Anyway, we could push these little trains back with one hand,” said Rose.

I hoisted the collie dog rug over my shoulder, Rose took the sealskin jacket. The instant the train stopped we jumped down on to the line.

We hadn’t realized how difficult walking would be —the coats were so awkward to hold up and we kept tripping over things. The paraffin lamps on the platform gave a very weak light and there were no lamps at all so far along as the guard’s van. We couldn’t reach the doors on our side, so we went round the back of the train and climbed up on to the platform. The doors of the van were open that side, but there appeared to be no guard to put the trunks off.

The stationmaster usually helps with luggage but he is the ticket collector, too, and I was sure he would be busy seeing the Cottons off.

“We must manage by ourselves,” I said.

The van was so dimly lit that at first we couldn’t see the trunks;

then Rose spotted them at the far end, behind a lot of tall milk cans.

As we went over, we passed a big crate. The feeble little gas mantle was just above it and I saw on the label Cotton, Scoatney, Suffolk.

Rose saw it, too, and gave a gasp. The next second we heard voices and steps coming along the platform.

We rushed to the doorway; then realized it was too late to get out.

“Quick—get behind the trunks,” said Rose.

If I’d had time to think, I might have reasoned with her—told her we should look such fools if we were discovered. But she bolted to the trunks and I bolted too.

“They’ll never see us,” she said as we crouched down.

I didn’t think they would, either-the trunks were high and the light was so weak and so far away from us.

“But crouch lower,” I whispered, “your trunk’s not as high as mine.”

“Oh, we’ll manage it between us, sir,” said a man’s voice—it wasn’t the stationmaster’s so I guessed it was the guard come back.

I’ll help,” said Neil Cotton, jumping into the van. Then he shouted: “My God!” and jumped out again. The next instant the doors crashed together with such violence that the gas mantle broke, leaving us in blackness. “What is it, what’s the matter?” shouted Simon Cotton.

I couldn’t hear what Neil answered, but I heard the guard give a roar of laughter and say: “Well, that’s a good “un, that is.”

“Oh, Rose, he saw us!” I whispered.

“Rubbish-why would he slam the doors on us?”

she whispered back.

“No, it’s something else. Shut up!

Listen!”

I raised my head cautiously. I could just see the outline of the window, a little open at the top. I heard Simon Cotton say:

“Neil, you’re crazy.”

“I tell you I’m certain.”

“Oh, come, sir-I’ve been sitting in that van,” said the guard.

“But you left the doors open.”

I saw a faint blur moving in the darkness-it was Rose’s face coming up from behind her trunk.

“What is it?” she whispered desperately.

“Ssh,.”” I said, straining my ears. I think I shall remember that minute as long as I live-the stars in the square of window, the bead of light above the broken mantle, the smell of stale milk and fish. I heard Simon Cotton say he would get a flashlight from the car.

“And tell Mother to stay inside with the door shut,” Neil called after him.

Rose began to crawl towards the window. There was a hollow clang; she had collided with a milk can.

The guard gave a low whistle.

“Sounds like you’re right, sir.”

“Of course I’m right,” said Neil.

“Haven’t I fed them in Yellow stone Park?”

And then it dawned on me.

“Rose,” I said, “you’ve been mistaken for a bear.”

I heard her gasp.

“The idiot, the idiot!”

Then she clanged into another milk can.

“Well, seven eighths of you is a bear. And the Circus is at King’s Crypt—the tents were close to the railway line, the Cottons couldn’t have missed seeing them.” I began to laugh, but stopped when I heard her struggling with the doors on the far side of the van. She got them open and I saw her black against the stars.

“Come on, quick,” she said as she jumped down on to the line.

I got across to the doorway-and every milk can clanged into the one next to it. Above the din I could hear Neil Cotton and the guard running along the platform and shouting to the engine driver.

“Oh, Rose, don’t be a fool,” I cried, “we’ll have to explain.”

She grabbed my hands and pulled until I had to jump.

“If you don’t come with me, I’ll never forgive you,” she whispered fiercely.

“I’d die rather than explain.”

“Then you quite probably will die-because lots of people in the country have guns handy .. was But it was no use, she had vanished into the darkness at the back of the train. Passengers were shouting and banging doors—there couldn’t have been many of them, but they were making a devil of a noise; fortunately they were concentrating on the platform side of the train. It suddenly came to me that if I could make Rose take her coat off, we could join in the pursuit as if we had no connection with the bear; so I struggled out of my own coat, flung it up into the van and started after her. But before I had gone a couple of yards, the beam of a torch shone out. I saw Rose clearly. She had got beyond the end of the platform and was scrambling up the little embankment, and as she was on all fours she really did look exactly like a bear. There was a wild shout from the people on the platform. Rose topped the embankment and disappeared over into the fields.

“Foxearth Farm’s over there,” shouted a woman. “They’ve got three little children.”

I heard someone running along the platform. The woman yelled:

“Quick, quick—over to Foxearth.”

There was a thump as someone jumped down on to the line, then Stephen crossed the beam of the torch. The light gleamed on metal and I realized that he was carrying a pitchfork -it must have been in Mr. Stebbins’s cart.

“Stop, Stephen, stop!” I screamed.

He turned and shouted: “I won’t hurt it unless I have to, Miss Cassandra-I’ll head it into a barn.”

Neil Cotton went past me.

“Here, give me that,” he said, grabbing Stephen’s pitchfork. Simon came running along, shooting his torch ahead of him.

The guard and some of the passengers came pounding after him and some body crashed into me and knocked me over. The torch began to flicker on and off; Simon thumped it and then it went out altogether.

“Get the station lanterns,” shouted the guard, scrambling back on to the platform. The passengers waited for him, but Simon and Stephen went on after Neil into the darkness.

Perhaps I ought to have explained at once—but what with the noise and being knocked down I was a bit dazed.

And I knew how ghastly it would be for Rose—not only the Cottons knowing, but all the local people on the train. And I did think she had a good chance to get away.

“Anyway, Neil will see she’s not a bear if he gets close to her,” I told myself. Then they all came thudding past with the lanterns, and the stationmaster had his great black dog on a chain and a stone in his hand. I knew it wasn’t safe to keep quiet any longer.

I started to tell them, but the dog was barking so loudly that nobody heard me. And then, high above everything, I heard the most piercing shriek.

I lost my head completely.

“It’s my sister,” I screamed, “he’s killing her!” And I dashed off along the line. They all came after me, shouting, and someone fell over the dog’s chain and cursed extensively. We climbed over the embankment into the field and the men held the lanterns high, but we couldn’t see Rose or the Cottons or Stephen. Everyone was talking at once, making suggestions. There was a fat woman who wanted the stationmaster to let his dog off its chain, but he was afraid it might bite the Cottons instead of the bear.

“But it’ll hug them to death,” moaned the fat woman, “they won’t have a chance.”

I opened my mouth to make them understand that there wasn’t any bear—and then I saw something white in the distance.

The men with the lanterns saw it too, and ran towards it. And suddenly Neil Cotton walked into the light, carrying Rose, in her suit.

“Rose, Rose!” I cried, running to her.

“She’s all right,” said Simon Cotton, quickly, “but we want to get her to our car.” He grabbed one of the lanterns, lit the way for Neil, and they walked stolidly on.

“But the bear, sir” said the guard.

“Dead,” said Simon Cotton.

“My brother killed it.”

“Are you sure, sir?” said the stationmaster.

“We’d better have a look,” said the fat woman.

“The dog’ll soon “No, it won’t,” said Neil Cotton, over his shoulder.

“It fell in the river and was carried away by the current.”

“Poor thing, poor thing, it didn’t have a chance,” wailed the fat woman.

“Killed first and drowned afterwards, and I daresay it was valuable.”

“You go with your sister,” Simon Cotton told me, and I was only too glad to. He handed the lantern to Stephen and stayed behind urging the people back to the train.

“Well, it’s a rum go,” said the stationmaster.

It was certainly a rum go as far as I was concerned.

“What happened, Stephen?” I asked, under my breath.

Rose suddenly raised her head and whispered fiercely:

“Shut up. Get the trunks off the train.” Then, as Neil was carrying her carefully down the little embankment, I heard her tell him they could get out through the field at the back of the station.

He crossed the line with her and went straight into it—they never went back to the station at all. Stephen lit them with the lantern for a minute or two, then joined me in the guard’s van. Before I could get a word out, he said: “Please, please, don’t ask me any questions yet, Miss Cassandra. I was throwing the beaver coat and the rug and the jacket out on to the platform.

“Well, at least you can tell me where the bear coat is,” I began, but just then the guard came back. Poor man, he couldn’t make out how the bear had got out of the van. I told him Rose had been in there when Neil Cotton slammed the doors and had opened the far-side doors when she heard the bear growling.

“It was after her like a streak,” I said.

That seemed to clear things up nicely.

The stationmaster helped us to get the trunks on to Mr. Stebbins’s cart. The Cottons” car was only a few yards away and there was Rose inside it, talking to Mrs. Cotton.

Simon Cotton came out of the station and said to me:

“We’re driving your sister home-will you come, too?”

But I said I would stay with Stephen; it was partly embarrassment and partly that I was afraid I should say the wrong thing, not having the faintest idea what had really happened. And I couldn’t get anything out of Stephen on the way home. All he would say was:

“Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful. Miss Rose had better tell you herself.

I’m saying nothing.”

I had to wait until she and I were in bed last night for anything like the whole story—oh, she gave us all a brief outline as soon as she got home, but I guessed she was holding things back. All she told us then was that Neil Cotton came rushing at her with the pitchfork; she screamed, and then suddenly he got the hang of things and told Simon and Stephen to pretend there really had been a bear.

“Neil and Simon even pretended it to their Mother,” she said.

“Oh, they were marvelous.”

I never heard Father laugh so much-he said the story would be built up and embroidered on until Rose had been pursued by a herd of stampeding elephants. And he was greatly impressed by the Cottons’ quick-mindedness.

They hadn’t come in—just left Rose in the courtyard.

“Neil said they’d leave me to tell my story in my own way,” she said.

“And now I’ve told it. And you’ll all have to pretend there was really a bear, for ever and ever.”

She was ablaze with excitement, not in the least upset at having been so conspicuous. It was I who was upset; I don’t know why perhaps I was just overtired. I suddenly began to shiver and wanted to cry. Topaz hurried us to bed and brought us cocoa, and hot bricks for our feet, and I soon felt better.

She kissed us in a motherly way that Rose doesn’t appreciate, and told us not to talk too long I think she wanted to stay and talk herself but Father yelled for her to come along to bed. “Let’s finish our cocoa in the dark,” I said, and blew out the candle. Rose is always more confidential in the dark.

The first thing she said was:

“How much did Stephen tell you on the way home?”

I told her how he had said it was too dreadful to tell.

“I wondered if he’d seen,” she said. Then she began to giggle-the first time for months. The giggles became muffled and I guessed she was stifling them in her pillow. At last she came up for air and said:

“I slapped Neil Cotton’s face.”

“Rose!” I gasped.

“Why?”

She said she had looked round and seen him coming, seen the pitchfork against the sky, and let out the scream we heard.

“Then I tried to get out of the coat but I couldn’t find the buttons, so I went on running. He yelled “Stop, stop” -he must have seen by then that I wasn’t really a bear—then he caught up with me and grabbed me by the arm. I said “Let go, damn you” and Stephen heard my voice and called out “It’s Miss Rose.”

Neil Cotton shouted “But why are you running away?” and I said “Because I don’t want to meet you—or your brother either. You can both go to hell!”

And I hit him across the face.”

“Oh, Rose I” I felt all knotted up by the awfulness of it.

“What did he say?”

“He said “Good God!” and then Simon and Stephen came up, and Stephen said all the people on the train were out after me.