Read Online The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken - Free Book Online Page A

Slighcarp before? He seemed so different on the train.’
    At that moment she heard a familiar voice beside her, in the rapidly-thinning crowd of servants, and found Pattern at her elbow.
    ‘Miss Sylvia, dear! Thank the good Lord I saw you. That wicked Jezebel is paying us all off and sending us away, but she needn’t think
I’m
going to go and leave my darling Miss Bonnie. Do you and she come along to the little blue powder-room, Miss Sylvia, this afternoon at five, and we’ll talk over what’s best to be done.’
    ‘But Bonnie can’t! She’s locked up!’ gasped Sylvia. ‘In the schoolroom cupboard!’
    ‘She never has…!
Oh
, what wouldn’t I give to get my hands round that she-devil’s throat,’ muttered Pattern. ‘That’s because she knew Miss Bonnie would never stand tamely by and let her father’s old servants be packed off into the snow. Let her out, Miss Sylvia! Let her out of it quick! She never could endure to be shut up.’
    ‘But I can’t! Miss Slighcarp has the key.’
    ‘There’s another – in the little mother-of-pearl cabinet in the ante-room where the javelins hang.’
    Sylvia did not wait. She remembered how to find her way to the little ante-room, and she flew on winged feet to the mother-of-pearl cabinet. She found the key, ran to the school-room, opened the door, and in no time had her cheek pressed lovingly against Bonnie’s tear-stained one.
    ‘Oh, you poor precious! Oh, Bonnie, she’s wicked, Miss Slighcarp’s really wicked! She’s dismissing all the servants.’
    ‘What!’ Bonnie was distracted from her own grief and indignation by the tale Sylvia poured out.
    ‘Let us go at once,’ she exclaimed, ‘at
once
, and stop it!’ But when they passed the big schoolroom window they saw the lonely procession of servants, far away, toiling across a snow-covered ridge in the park.
    ‘We are too late,’ said Sylvia in despair. Bonnie gazed after the tiny, distant figures, biting her lips.
    ‘Is Pattern gone too?’ she asked, turning to Sylvia.
    ‘I believe not. I believe she means to hide somewhere about the house.’ Sylvia told Bonnie of Pattern’s wish to meet them that afternoon.
    ‘Oh, she is good! She is faithful!’ exclaimed Bonnie.
    ‘But will it not be very dangerous for her?’ Sylvia said doubtfully. ‘Miss Slighcarp threatened to send for the constables if she saw any of the servants near the house. She might have Pattern sent to prison!’
    ‘I do not believe Pattern would let herself be caught. There are so many secret hiding-places about the house. And in any case all the officers are our friends round here.’
    At that moment the children were startled by the sound of approaching voices. One of them was Miss Slighcarp’s. Sylvia turned pale.
    ‘She must not find you out of the cupboard. Hide, quickly, Bonnie!’
    She re-locked the cupboard door, and pocketed the key . As there was no time to lose, the two children slipped behind the window-curtain. Miss Slighcarp entered with the footman, James.
    ‘As I have done you the favour of keeping you on when all the others were dismissed, sirrah,’ she was saying. ‘you will have to work for your wages as never before.’
    The blue velvet curtains behind which the children stood were pounced all over with tiny crystal disks, encircled with seed-pearls. The little disks formed miniature windows, and, setting her eye to one, Bonnie could see that James’s good-natured face wore a sullen expression, which he was attempting to twist into an evil leer.
    ‘First, you must take out and crate all these toys. Put them into packing-cases. They are to be sent away and sold. It is quite ridiculous to keep this amount of gaudy rubbish for the amusement of two children.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    ‘At dinner-time bring some bread-and-water on a tray for Miss Green, who is locked up in that cupboard.’
    ‘Shall I let her out, ma’am?’
    ‘Certainly not. She is a badly-behaved, ill-conditioned child, and must be