The Runaways (6 page)

It was true that in those days a great many sweets could be bought for fourpence-ha'penny. After a heated discussion, which lasted a full ten minutes, they chose a pennyworth of peppermint lumps that looked like striped brown bees, a pennyworth of boiled lemon sweets the colour of pale honey, a
penny-ha'
pennyworth
of satin pralines in colours of pink and mauve, and a pennyworth of liquorice allsorts. And out of pure goodness of heart Emma Cobley added for nothing a packet of sherbet. They did not know what that was, and she had to show them how to put a pinch of the powder on their tongues and then stand with their tongues out enjoying the glorious refreshing fizz. If they had felt any fear of her it vanished with the fizz, and when they looked at the black cat peacefully asleep
in the window, he looked so very ordinary that they no longer believed he had been as big as a tiger. They had just imagined it.

‘Frederick,' said Emma, following the direction of their eyes. ‘A sweet cat. A dear, pretty, loving, gentle cat.'

Though the scratches on his chest were still smarting, Timothy kept silent during this eulogy, but something made him glance at Absolom and he was standing by the door with his tail between his legs, tucked down and in so very firmly it could scarcely be seen, and when Robert opened the door he vanished like a streak of lightning.

They said goodbye to Emma and went out into the
sunshine
sucking pralines. They were crisp and crackling on the outside and soft and squishy inside. The moment when the teeth crashed through from the outside was heaven.

‘Not too many,' said Nan. ‘Remember the muffins and strawberry jam. We must leave room.'

‘The food's good here,' said Robert.

‘Everything's good here,' said Nan.

Timothy forbore to mention the cat Frederick. Instead he said, ‘Fancy Uncle Ambrose being Vicar. He's not dressed right. Grandmama's vicar had a stiff white piece of cardboard round his neck. Uncle Ambrose wears that white thing.'

‘Uncle Ambrose would never dress like all the other vicars,' said Nan with a touch of pride. ‘Uncle Ambrose would always be different.'

‘He said he'd been a schoolmaster,' said Timothy. ‘How can he be a parson too?'

‘Very clever men can be both,' said Nan. ‘Uncle Ambrose is both. Look. There's the carrier's cart.'

From where they stood munching they could look down the hill towards the Vicarage, and drawn up outside the porch was a covered wagon drawn by a big grey horse. The carrier and Ezra were lifting out their trunks. Betsy's doll Gertrude and Nan's sewing basket, Timothy's box of soldiers and Robert's water-pistol, all they possessed was in those boxes. Now they knew they had really arrived. Now they knew without any doubt that they were here for good. They stuffed their sweets into their pockets, Robert took Betsy on his back and yelling hurrah they raced down the hill.

The rest of that day passed like a happy dream. Tea came up to their fullest expectations, with no scrimping of butter on the muffins and the strawberries in the jam large and juicy. It was great fun unpacking their
belongings
and putting them away in their rooms. For they had two rooms now. Ezra had put sheets on the
four-poster
in the spare room for Nan and Betsy, and the boys were to sleep in the dressing room opening out of it. At present they only had blankets and pillows on the floor, but they did not mind this because Uncle Ambrose said that presently they would borrow a couple of beds from Lady Alicia, and her name had such a soft silky sound that they were sure they would be comfortable.

After the unpacking Betsy suddenly said she felt sick, so she was given a cup of warm milk to settle her and put to bed and very soon she was settled and asleep. Her digestion was really very good for her age, but it had been a bit strained that day. The others did not feel sick, but they did feel disinclined for anything solid for
supper, so they had milk and biscuits in the kitchen with Ezra, and Absolom had boiled cabbage, and some scraps left over from dinner.

‘Since you've come to stop,' said Ezra when they had finished, ‘we must tell the bees.'

‘Tell the bees?' ejaculated Robert. ‘But bees don't understand when you talk to them.'

‘Never let me 'ear you say that again,' said Ezra sternly. ‘Bees understand every word you say. They be the most wonderful creatures God ever made. If men were to 'ave one-quarter o' the wisdom o' the bees this wicked world would be a better place, an' so I be tellin' you.'

‘We did see the hives this morning,' said Nan, ‘but we didn't dare go near.'

‘That's right,' said Ezra. ‘They don't like you near till they've been told about you. Now come along o' me. Step quiet and keep civil tongues in your 'eads and be'ave yourselves seemly.'

He led the way up the garden and Robert, Nan, Timothy and Absolom followed him in single file. The sun had set and the sky was a deep blue, with one star shining above the tall dark church tower. The
wallflowers
by the beehives smelt wonderful, but in the dim light their deep red had turned to a mysterious velvety darkness. It was very quiet, for the birds and the lambs had gone to bed. The hives were quiet too, with only a few late bees coming home with the last load of honey. When they were all in Ezra brought the children quite close to the hives and touched his
forehead
in salutation, and Nan curtsied and Robert and
Timothy bowed. Absolom lowered his tail and touched the ground with his nose. It came quite naturally to do this. It is what they would have done if they had found themselves suddenly in the presence of royalty.

‘Madam queens an' noble bees,' said Ezra, ‘there be four children come to bide in this 'ouse, nephews an' nieces o' the Master. Their names be Robert, Nan, Timothy an' Betsy. The three eldest, they are 'ere with old Ezra an' they've made their reverence to ee. The little un, she be poorly, but come the mornin' I'll bring to make 'er curtsy. There be a dog, Absolom, a good dog. They be good children. 'Ave a care of 'em and let no 'arm come to 'em. 'Ave a care of 'em in the wood and on the 'ill. Good night to you, madam queens an' noble bees, good night to you from the Master, from 'Ector and Andromache an' 'er four kittens, from Jason now called Rob-Roy, from Nan, Robert, Timothy an' the little un that's poorly. From Absolom an' from Ezra. Good night all that lives an' breathes in 'ouse an' garden, the mice in the wainscot an' the spiders round about an' all that wears fur or feather in your dominion. Good night all your subjects, madam queens an' noble bees.'

He touched his forehead again and the children bowed and curtsied and said good night and then they went solemnly back to the house again in single file.

‘Can bees take care of you?' asked Timothy
wonderingly
, when they were back in the kitchen and Ezra had lit the oil lamp that hung from the central beam and they were sitting round the fire.

‘The Vicarage bees, I reckon they saved my life,' said Ezra. ‘There's always been bees at the Vicarage an' from
a boy I've loved 'em, an' so they saved my life. I were a shepherd once an' one spring I was up on the moor with my sheep an' a lamb strayed. It was evenin' when I found it, caught in a thorn tree an' bleatin' somethin' pitiful. I ran towards it an' sudden I felt the ground give way beneath I an' I fell. It was one o' the workin's of an old tin mine, all overgrown with brambles, so that runnin' quick I didn't see it. I fell a long ways down and I knew when I got to the bottom as I'd 'urt meself real bad, for I couldn't get up, not nohow. I was scared as I'd never be found, an' I never would 'ave been but for the Vicarage bees. They swarmed that mornin' an' your uncle 'e ran after with a spare skep in 'is 'and, and they led 'im on till they brought 'im where the lamb an' I was, and then they settled theirselves 'angin' from the bough of a tree just on the near side o' the pit, bringin' the Vicar up sharp. I was near a goner, but I 'ollered an' 'e 'eard me. 'E fetched 'elp from the village and I was took to 'orspital. They took me leg off, but they saved me life, an' when I come back to the village again the Vicar took me to be 'is man, for I be too lame now to be a shepherd. I was that grateful to the bees that I carved a bee on me wooden leg and painted it ever so pretty. Do you say now, young uns, as bees don't take care o' you? If you're good to the bees the bees they'll be good to you. But you must mind your manners with 'em. They like a bit o' courtesy.'

‘Is it dangerous in the wood and on the hill that you asked the bees to take care of us there?' asked Nan.

‘There's dangers if you don't keep your wits about you,' said Ezra. ‘But if you want to go there you won't
come to no real 'arm now I've told the bees to look after you.'

Timothy's head was already nodding, and the others were feeling sleepy too, but Robert had enough wits left to put his hand in his pocket and bring out one of the bags of sweets that they had bought from Emma Cobley. He peeped inside. It was what was left of the pennyworth of bee-striped round peppermints, and feeling them to be appropriate to the occasion he offered them to Ezra. He did not want to, for he liked them himself, but courtesy had been stressed and he felt he ought. The effect on Ezra was alarming. He shot up out of his chair like a jack-
in-the
-box and roared out, ‘Where did you get them sweets?'

‘From the shop on the green,' said Robert.

‘Emma Cobley's.'

‘Yes,' said Robert.

‘Then don't you never go there no more,' thundered Ezra. ‘I don't buy nothin' at Emma Cobley's. The Vicar, 'e buys 'is stamps from Emma, that bein' 'is duty bein' Vicar, but I wouldn't get so much as a bootlace there not to save me life. I gets our groceries in the town. When you want sweets you tell me and I'll buy 'em in town for ee. But don't ee get 'em from Emma.'

He was so angry that for a few moments no one dared speak and then Nan said gently, ‘But she seems a very nice old lady.'

‘'Andsome is as 'andsome does,' said Ezra.

‘But what
does
she do?' asked Timothy.

‘Never you mind,' said Ezra. ‘An' as for that cat of 'ers, that Frederick, you can ask 'Ector an' Andromache about Frederick. They'll tell ee.'

His mouth set like a trap and it was obvious that he was not going to tell them any more, and since they did not know how to converse intelligibly with Hector or Andromache, there seemed no way of acquiring further information. Discouraged, they went to bed. But they did not stay discouraged, for when they slept they dreamed of bees, thousands of bees rustling all about them in a murmurous, musical, protecting cloud.

chapter four

lady alicia

Breakfast was at eight o’clock in the kitchen, and Ezra told them that at nine o’clock punctually they were to go in the library to be educated. Nan had feared as much and had put them into clean clothes and seen to it that their hands were clean and their hair well brushed.

‘Come in,’ said Uncle Ambrose in a terrible voice when they knocked at the library door. They entered timidly and found him standing with his back to the fireplace. His hands were clasped under his coat tails and his eyebrows beetled. Hector was perched on the clock behind him. The writing table had been cleared and was out in the middle of the room, with the big high-backed chair at one end and four smaller chairs, two on each side of the table. There was one cushion on Timothy’s and two on Betsy’s.

‘Girls to the right, boys to the left,’ thundered Uncle Ambrose and when they had taken their places he stalked forward and seated himself in his chair. Hector spread his wings and glided from the clock to its high back, where he drew himself up to his fullest height and winked at the children over Uncle Ambrose’s head. His wink was wonderfully reassuring. Evidently he
liked them now and in this business of education was on their side.

‘I observe that you are slightly more prepossessing in appearance than I had previously supposed,’ said Uncle Ambrose, his glance resting with stern pleasure upon their clean clothes and sleek hands. ‘You are not
bad-looking
children. If I can succeed in inserting a little knowledge into your vacant heads you may yet bring honour upon the name of Linnet. An old and honoured name and a charming bird. Linnets and nightingales sang in the enchanted groves that clothed the lower slopes of Mount Hymettus, that sacred mountain above Athens that in the summer season is as purple with heather and as musical with bees as our own Lion Tor above Linden Wood. Where’s Athens?’

The question shot out at Robert as though from a pistol and Uncle Ambrose’s terrible bright glance seemed to reach right down into his head like a hook. It groped about there and came up with something.

‘In Greece, sir,’ gasped Robert.

‘Where’s Greece?’ Uncle Ambrose shot at Timothy.

‘In the Mediterranean,’ was hooked out of Timothy. He stumbled over the long word, but he remembered Father using it on the ship that brought them home.

‘Do you, child, know anything whatever about Greece?’ Uncle Ambrose asked Nan.

‘It has a wine-dark sea,’ said Nan. It was a phrase she had heard once and forgotten. It had needed Uncle Ambrose’s brilliant hooking glance to make her remember it again.

‘Good,’ said Uncle Ambrose and passed on to Betsy.
‘You, child. What do you know of Greece?’

Betsy had not understood much of what had passed, but she remembered her nursery night-light burning in a little pan of grease and she said, ‘It is a bright light.’

Uncle Ambrose leaned back in his chair and stared at her and his jaw dropped. Then an expression of great
tenderness
came over his face and he said: ‘Child, you are right. A bright light. One of the brightest the world has known. But that you should know that, a child of your age. I am astonished. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.’

He smiled at Betsy as though he loved her very dearly and she smiled back at him. The other three, though well aware of the night-light in Betsy’s mind, did not give her away. They never gave each other away. Also it would be useful if Uncle Ambrose should become infatuated with Betsy. She would be able to wheedle things out of him.

‘Sir,’ said Robert suddenly, ‘what about pocket money?’

‘Pocket money?’ ejaculated Uncle Ambrose.

‘Yes, sir, I had sixpence, but it’s spent now. Do you give us pocket money?’

‘I do not,’ said Uncle Ambrose sternly.

‘Betsy likes sweets,’ said Robert. ‘They’re good for her. I mean the plain boiled kind. Grandmama said so.’

‘I do not give pocket money,’ said Uncle Ambrose more gently, his eyes on Betsy’s shock of red curls in the sunshine, ‘but it can be earned.’

‘How, sir?’ asked Timothy.

‘Threepence for a bucket of snails collected in the garden,’ said Uncle Ambrose. ‘Sixpence for a
barrowfull
of weeds similarly come by. Sixpence a week for
grooming Jason-Rob-Roy and polishing his harness. Sixpence a week for darning the socks of the male members of the family. A penny for any child who helps Ezra with the washing-up. Sixpence a week for cleaning the shoes of the entire household. These tasks may be divided among yourselves as you wish, excepting only that Robert, single-handed, tackles the snails.’ His terrible eyes searched out the thoughts Robert thought he had hidden so carefully. ‘No, Robert, not the pony only, leaving the less congenial tasks to the weaker sex. Pony and snails or no pony. You are likely to earn a considerable income. Let that console you.’

He opened a drawer, took something out and laid it in the centre of the table. It was a slender little switch.

‘I do not like caning boys,’ said Uncle Ambrose, ‘though I have of course caned hundreds in the course of my professional duties. Upon a girl I would never practise corporal punishment. Nevertheless, Robert and Timothy, any serious wrongdoing, and under that heading I include deliberate disobedience, lying, stealing, and any form of unkindness, will be punished with this switch. There is one more thing that will cause you to be severely punished, and that is
interrupting
the process of education with conversation upon irrelevant matters. For this once, Robert, we will pass it over, but if it occurs again you will know what to expect. We will now return to that bright light, the land of Greece. Before you learn her language, her history and her literature, I will tell you of the land itself. I have travelled there, and shall endeavour to travel there again in your company. Attention, please.’

Uncle Ambrose did not have to call for attention twice, for in a few moments he had them spellbound. He was, they discovered, the most wonderful
storyteller
. Who would have thought that education was like this? He told them first about the land itself, and he took books down from his shelves and showed them pictures of the glories he had seen, mountains crowned with ruined palaces, statues and temples and shrines beside the sea. And all he described they saw with their inside eyes, so that the pictures in the books were scarcely necessary, and the words that he used fell chiming, so that they remembered the sequence of them as one remembers the sequence of the notes in a tune. Milk and biscuits were brought by Ezra at eleven o’clock and devoured and then they were sent into the garden for ten minutes. When they came back again it was even better, for Uncle Ambrose told them a story about one of the Grecian heroes. He told them about Jason and the golden fleece. He had in front of him a box filled with the letters of the alphabet cut out in cardboard and painted in different colours (had he been up half the night making them? Nan wondered), and with these he set out Jason’s name for Betsy on the table top, and made her do it. And she learned to make ‘bright light’ too, and her own name. She learned quickly and easily, and the other three learned to repeat after Uncle Ambrose lines of poetry that he spoke for them, first in Greek and then in English. There was a bit about the evening star that made them think of Ezra and stuck in their minds. ‘Star of evening, bringing all things that bright dawn has scattered, you bring the
sheep, you bring the goat, you bring the child back to its mother.’ It was wonderful how Uncle Ambrose seemed to keep the three things going at once, telling stories, speaking poetry and helping Betsy with her coloured letters, as though he were a conjuror tossing three balls in the air. When one o’clock struck from the church tower, and Ezra sounded the gong, they could not realize it was dinner time already.

‘Enjoyed yourselves?’ said Uncle Ambrose.

‘Yes!’ they chorused.

‘Enjoyed yourselves enough to want to learn the history of this country, its language and poetry? And in due course the history, language, and poetry of other countries, including your own?’

‘Yes!’ they said.

‘Together with the knowledge of such kindred subjects as mathematics, geography, grammar, and syntax? Education is a mosaic of beauty. The various coloured fragments are interrelated.’

Understanding failed them, but they still said yes.

‘Very well then,’ said Uncle Ambrose. ‘Tomorrow we start work.’

They gazed at him open-mouthed and Betsy said in a small voice, ‘Haven’t we been working this morning?’

‘Working? By Hector no!’ said Uncle Ambrose. ‘That was mere titillation of the appetite. Tomorrow I shall teach you how to lay the foundation stone of all education; hard work. Robert, do not look so
downcast
. Believe me, I will teach even you to find sweated labour entirely admirable. Go and wash your hands. I smell liver and bacon.’

At dinner Uncle Ambrose was quite gay and chatty. ‘The education of the very young is something at which I have not hitherto tried my hand,’ he said to the world at large. ‘I taught the sixth form in my teaching days. But I have had my theories and I am not displeased at being compelled to put them into practice. Ezra, what’s to follow? Apple dumplings, I trust.’

‘No, sir. Junket, sir. Miss Betsy was poorly yesterday.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Uncle Ambrose resignedly. ‘You
delivered
my note to Lady Alicia?’

‘Yes, sir. An’ waited for the reply. ’Er ladyship will be pleased to lend ee two truckle-beds, two goose feather mattresses an’ two patchwork counterpanes. I be to take the trap to the Manor this afternoon an’ Moses Glory Glory Alleluja will give ’em to me.’

Four pairs of pleading eyes fixed themselves on Uncle Ambrose’s face. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Did I not say you could go where you liked and do what you liked in hours not devoted to education? It is most unlikely that you will see Lady Alicia, who has lived in strict
seclusion
for thirty years, but should you do so, present my compliments. Ezra, these children will accompany you upon your errand in order, I gather, to set eyes upon a man whose name it appears intrigues them. Ezra, if I am to eat junket it must be to the accompaniment of nutmeg, sugar, and cream.’

An hour later Ezra and the children, Betsy’s doll Gertrude, with whom she had been reunited yesterday, Absolom, Rob-Roy and the pony-cart were driving up the hill to the village. Old Tom Biddle, who seemed to
sit permanently just inside his front door, nodded and smiled as they went by and called out to Ezra, ‘See the little maid don’t get ’er eyes scratched out.’

Ezra who did not seem to like Tom Biddle, growled and muttered to the children, ‘The old varmint! Today’s the second day I be forgettin’ to shut the dinin’ room window.’

‘Who would scratch out Betsy’s eyes?’ asked Nan anxiously. ‘Not Moses Glory Glory Alleluja?’

‘Lor’ no! Moses wouldn’t hurt a fly. ’E means Abednego. But if you don’t worrit Abednego, ’e won’t do you no ’arm. Likes to keep ’imself to ’imself, Abednego does. But worrit Abednego and I won’t be answerable for no consequences.’

‘We won’t worrit Abednego,’ they promised. They had reached the green and Ezra drove round it and stopped in front of the iron gates between the stone pillars with lions on top. The monkey was not there today. So this was the home of Lady Alicia. The children looked at each other with sparkling eyes and then the boys and Nan scrambled out of the trap to help Ezra get the gates open. Betsy stayed where she was, for she had Gertrude in her arms, and looking round she saw the cat Frederick come out of the shop. He sat down on the doorstep and became absorbed in washing behind his ears, but she knew very well that he was keeping his eye on them.

The gates opened reluctantly, as though they seldom did, and did not want to now, and Ezra led Rob-Roy and the trap through. Nan and the boys did not get in again, for the drive beyond the gates led into such a
thicket of evergreens that they had to go ahead, pushing the branches back to make a way through for the trap. But though they made a way through, they didn’t seem to come through. The shrubbery appeared endless, a tangled dark forest of yews, laurels and
rhododendrons
, and the moss under their feet was so thick and soft that the wheels, and Rob-Roy’s hooves, made no sound. Absolom did not like it very much and kept his tail tucked down.