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

disciplined. She may be let out this evening at half past eight. Here is the key.’
    ‘Yes ma’am.’
    ‘The other child, Miss Sylvia Green, may lunch in the schoolroom as usual. Plain food, mind. Nothing fancy. From now on the children are to make their own beds, sweep their own rooms, and wash their own plates and clothes.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    ‘After dinner I wish you to see to the grooming of the horses and ponies. They are all to be sold save four carriage horses.’
    ‘The children’s ponies as well, ma’am?’
    ‘Certainly! I shall find more suitable occupations for the children than such idle and extravagant pursuits! Now I am going to be busy in the Estate Room. You may bring me a light luncheon at one o’clock: chicken, oyster patties, trifle, and a half-bottle of champagne.’
    She swept out of the room. The moment she had gone James went quickly to the closet and unlocked it, saying in a low voice, ‘She’s gone now, Miss Bonnie, you can come out.’
    He seemed greatly astonished to find the cupboard empty, but next minute the children ran out from behind the curtain.
    ‘James, James!’ cried Bonnie, ‘what does it all mean? How dare she sell my toys, and Papa’s horses? What is she doing it for?’
    ‘Why, she’s wicked!’ Sylvia exclaimed indignantly. ‘She’s a fiend!’
    ‘You’re right, miss, she’s a thorough wrong ’un,’ said James gloomily, when he had got over the surprise of Bonnie’s not being in the cupboard after all. ‘How your pa came to be so deceived in her I’ll never know.’
    ‘But he had never met her! It was arranged that she should come here to look after us by his lawyer in London, Mr Gripe. And after all, she is a relative.’
    ‘Ah, I see,’ said James, scratching his head. ‘Even so, it’s a puzzle to me why Sir Willoughby didn’t rumble her when he saw her. One look at her face would be enough to show the sort she is, you’d think. But I suppose he was worried over her ladyship.’
    ‘But James, why is she dismissing the servants, and why has she kept you on?’
    ‘Why, miss, I suppose she means to make hay while the sun shines – save the servants’ wages and pop as much of your pa’s money into her own pocket as she can while he’s away. Then before he comes back, I suppose she’ll be off. She’s kept on three or four servants, just to look after her, like. The worst of it is, she’s kept on all the untrustworthy ones, Groach, the keeper, and Marl, the steward that Sir Willoughby was giving another chance to after he was caught pilfering, and Prout, the under-groom that drinks – I dare say she liked the looks of their knavish faces. I saw how it was going, so I tried to make myself look as hangdog and sullen as I could, and the trick worked: she kept me on too. I couldn’t abear to think of you, Miss Bonnie, and Miss Sylvia, being left all alone in the house with that harpy and such a pack of thieves. Poor Pattern had to go; in a mighty taking she was.’
    ‘But she hasn’t gone far,’ Bonnie told him and explained about the scheme to meet in the little blue powder-room. James’s face broke into a slow grin.
    ‘I might ha’ known she wouldn’t be driven off so easily,’ he said. ‘Well, we’ll have a proper old council then and decide what to do. In the meantime I’d better be getting on with packing up these things, Miss Bonnie, or I shall lose my place and not be able to help you.’
    ‘Pack up my toys? But you
can’t
!’ exclaimed Bonnie in grief and horror, looking at her treasured things. ‘Couldn’t you hide them away in one of the attics?’
    ‘Can’t be, Miss Bonnie dear. She’s going to go through ’em when they’re in the boxes. I could save out a few, though, I dare say,’ James said pityingly.
    Half-distracted, Bonnie looked among her toys, trying to decide which she could bear to part with – ’Dolphus must go, for he would be missed, and so must the dolls’ house and the bigger dolls, but she