“Might do. If they knew where we were.”
I could see the grey towers of Cador. We went up the incline and Jacco stopped suddenly.
“I know,” he said. “The Dogs’ Home.”
“Oh yes,” I cried. “That’ll do.”
The Dogs’ Home was an old shed a little way from the stables. Jacco used it for anything he needed for his pets. Our father had said that if he had them he must be able to look after them; they were his responsibility. He had a key and no one else had one.
“It’s the safest place,” he said.
We went on to the shed. Then Jacco dismounted, pulling Digory with him. The boy seemed in a state of shock and hardly to be aware of either of us.
Jacco always carried the key of the shed with him. Now he opened it and we went inside. There were dogs’ baskets and sacks of peas with which Jacco fed his peacocks. It smelt like a granary.
“You’ll be all right here,” he said. “No one would dare come here. We’ll get you blankets and food, so you needn’t worry.”
Digory still did not speak.
“Now,” said Jacco, “we’re going to see you’re all right. Annora, you get some blankets for him. You’ll have to be quiet. First let’s stable the horses.”
We left Digory in the shed, locking him in. He was still stunned. I wondered how much he had seen of the terrible thing which had happened to his grandmother.
As we left the stables, Jacco said: “We’ll keep him there until our father comes home. He’ll know what to do.”
I felt an immense relief. Yes, our father would know what to do.
“None of this would have happened if he had been here,” I said. “Mother Ginny is dead. She couldn’t have survived in that fire. She walked right into it.”
“She killed herself.”
“No,” I said, “They killed her.” And to myself I murmured: And Rolf was one of those who killed her. How could he? And yet I had seen him. Rolf. My Rolf. I would never have believed it possible if I had not witnessed it with my own eyes.
I was glad of something to do. It stopped my thinking of that terrible scene. But I knew I should go on thinking of it … always.
The task before me was not easy. I had to tread very carefully for fear of arousing attention. I did not know who was in the house. How many of them, I wondered, were still in the woods? But they would soon be coming back. They had done their wicked deed. Surely they would want to get as far away from it as possible.
I went into the linen room and took some blankets and a pillow. I went to the Dogs’ Home where Jacco was impatiently waiting for me. He seized them and made a bed of some straw. Digory stood there—his thoughts, I knew, far away at that terrible scene—and when we told him to lie down, he obeyed us as though in a trance.
Jacco knelt beside him. He was gentle. This was a new side to my brother and I loved him the more for it.
“You’ll be all right now,” he said. “They won’t come here. We’ll keep you here till our father comes home. He’ll know what to do.”
Jacco stood up and looked at me. “First thing in the morning we’ll bring him some food. Have to be careful with old Penlock.”
I nodded.
“Here’s the key,” went on Jacco, turning to Digory and putting it into his hand. “Lock yourself in when we’ve gone. Don’t open the door to anyone except us. Understand?”
Digory moved his head slightly.
I wanted to weep seeing him thus, denuded of that reckless bravado which had been such a part of him. I was discovering something about Digory, about Jacco, and so much more about the baser instincts of people whom I had always before thought commonplace. But what I had learned tonight of that other one whom I had idolized—that was what hurt and bewildered me most.
We went into the house cautiously. I crept up to my room, undressed and got into bed.
I lay looking through the window at that slim slice of moon and I could not shut out of my mind the sound of voices, the weird light of torches, and all that had happened on that terrible night.
I had roughly been jerked out of my childhood and I should never be the same again.
I did fall into an uneasy doze just as it was getting light, but my sleep was haunted by nightmares. I woke up sweating with horror. Will it always be like this? I wondered. I can never forget. I should be haunted forever by the memory of Mother Ginny walking into the flames. But most of all by a figure in a greyish robe leading the mob.
As soon as I awoke I remembered the boy. The terrible adventure was not over. I tried to imagine what his feelings would be on this morning. His whole life had changed. He had lost his home and his grandmother, who was the only family he had. What else had he? Only us. How I wished my father were home. I kept telling myself that if he had been, this would never have happened. He would have stopped it before it went so far. He alone could have put an end to those proceedings.
As soon as I went downstairs I found Jacco waiting impatiently.
“We’ve got to get some food for him,” he said.
“I don’t suppose he feels much like eating. I don’t.”
“He’ll have to eat. See what you can get. You go to the kitchens more than I do, so it will be best for you to get it. You’ll have to be careful.”
“I know,” I said. “Leave it to me.”
There was a subdued atmosphere throughout the house. How many servants had been in the woods last night? I wondered. Some of them might well have remained on the moor or perhaps they did not get farther than the quay.
We had to make a pretence of eating breakfast although it was an effort to do so for both of us.
Afterwards I made my way to the kitchen. I was aware of an unusual silence.
Mrs. Penlock was seated at the big kitchen table with Isaacs and some of the others.
This was clearly not the moment to go to the pantry. I should have to bide my time.
“Good morning,” I said, trying to appear as usual.
“Morning, Miss Annora.”
“Is—is anything wrong?”
There was a brief silence, then Mrs. Penlock said: “There was a fire last night, Mother Ginny’s house was burned to a cinder … and her in it.”
I looked steadily at them. “How … how did it happen?”
After some hesitation Isaacs said: “Who’s to know how fires start? They do and that’s about it.”
They looked down at their plates. I thought: I am sure some of them must have been there. Murderers! I wanted to shout at them. That was who killed Mother Ginny.
But I must be careful. I had to think of Digory.
I must get away or I should betray something; and yet on the other hand I had to show curiosity. Hadn’t I been told a hundred times that I had my nose into everything? “Curiosity killed the cat,” Mrs. Penlock had told me on more than one occasion.
“There … must have been a cause.”
“It’s easy done,” said Mrs. Penlock. “Her always had a fire going. Sparks fall out and a place like that—it gone in next to no time.”
“Is she dead? Are you sure?”
“Reckon,” said Mrs. Penlock.
“And,” I went on, “the boy …”
“There ain’t no sign of him. He must have gone too.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Well, her being a witch, you’d have thought the Devil would have come to her aid.”
“And he didn’t?”
“Seems not.”
I hated them all in that moment. How dared they sit there lying to me. They knew, all of them, how she had died.
I wanted to shout at them, telling them that I knew, that I had been there and seen it all. Then I remembered the frenzy of the mob last night and I thought of the boy who had been saved. If they turned on him they might devise some terrible end for him as they had for his grandmother.
I said: “It is … terrible.” And I ran out of the kitchen.