Flame-Coloured Taffeta by Rosemary Sutcliff

Author:Rosemary Sutcliff [Sutcliff, Rosemary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448172993
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 1985-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8: The Wicked Thing

DAMARIS HAD NO need to wonder this time who she should go to for help. No use going to the Vicarage, as she had done on the day, now seemingly so long ago, when she had found her smuggler lying face down among the dog’s mercury; there would be no possibility of Peter getting away this evening without somebody asking disastrous questions. That left only one person to turn to; and she set off for Genty’s cottage. Snowball would just have to bide where he was for a while, she would be quicker without him. But when her hurried way brought her past the usual place where she had left him hitched, he was not there; and the trampled grass and torn-off willow catkins told their own story. The noise of the hunt must have startled him, and he had dragged free and bolted.

She checked a moment, considering. Actually, it might be a good thing. Snowball would take himself home, and they would be frightened at Carthagena. She was sorry about that. Also of course it would start them looking for her, which was a pity. But it would give her a good excuse if she needed one, for being out late; for she could say that the hunt had startled him (that bit would be true, anyway) while she was looking for primroses, and she had been looking for him ever since. That might mean that they would forbid her to go off on her own for a while. But when you had a lot of problems on your hands the best you could so was to take them one at a time.

She was already running again, her skirts bunched inelegantly to her knees. Branches whipped across her face, brambles like witches’ fingers clutched hold of her, and she left wisps of dark green worsted here and there in her wake. And as she had done that other time, she was praying as she ran, that she might find Genty at home; for if she didn’t, she could not think what she was to do.

She was only just in time, for when she reached the cottage in its woodshore clearing just short of the village, the Wise Woman had her cloak on and was stowing things in her basket on the table, while the little grey cat sat watching her from the window-sill.

‘What is it, then?’ she asked, as Damaris almost fell down the step into the strange-smelling room. And while Damaris poured out her story, she went on filling the basket.

Damaris was not even sure that she was listening properly; but when all was told, the old woman said, ‘Aye—in the stable, ye say? Then Mus’ Binns will be our man, my lover.’

‘Then you’ll go to the Big House? You’ll go now?’

Genty had turned to the carved old chest under the window and opened it, speaking with her head half inside, ‘Not I, my lover. There’a a child down at the fisher cottages needs me tonight, more’n your Tom Wildgoose.

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