Part 8 (2/2)

'Well, I think he was a looby, to carry on so,' she said. 'If I'd have been him, I'd never '

But Bran was briskly going round among the peasants, collecting small copper coins in a wooden cup. Then he sang a song, accompanying himself on his harp: 'I can hardly bear it

Waiting for tomorrow to come

Joy I want to share it

Waiting for tomorrow to come

Love I must declare it

Waiting for tomorrow to come

For that's the day

When she, when she, when she, when she, when

she

Will come

My way.

Time seems to creep

Waiting for tomorrow to come

Clock has gone to sleep

Waiting for tomorrow to come

Patiently I keep . . .'

His voice was drowned by a tremendous shuddering, creaking and clanking as the train drew to a standstill.

'Are we taking on more wood and water?' asked Dido, as Bran stopped singing.

'No,' he said. 'We have reached our destination. We are in Bath.'

The peasants began leaping out of the box-car. In two minutes they were all gone. Dido skipped out after them, and found herself on an icy, windswept stone pavement, inadequately sheltered by a thatched canopy. The air was bitter.

'Make haste, if you please, Miss Twite!' came the captain's voice. 'No time to loiter about and much too cold. We must get poor Holystone into shelter. Come along!'

'But Bran,' said Dido, looking round. 'Won't you please tell me '

Bran's tall figure, however, had vanished among the peasants in their flowing ruanas and high-piled stacks of panama hats. Reluctantly Dido followed the captain's impatiently beckoning arm and walked, s.h.i.+vering, through a kind of open-fronted station hall to a paved courtyard beyond. Here there were hackney carriages waiting, and a number of sedan chairs with their poles resting on the ground, and the blue-coated chair-men standing by them.

'Sydney Hotel!' Captain Hughes ordered one of the hackney drivers in a loud authoritative voice. 'Gusset Multiple take Mr Holystone up carefully and lay him on the carriage seat.'

Mr Holystone was still asleep, it seemed.

'Sydney Hotel?' one of the chair-men said to Dido. 'Hop in, missie, and we'll have you there in the flick of a pig's tail.'

Dido would have liked to ride in a chair they had gone out of fas.h.i.+on in London and she had never seen one but Captain Hughes called irritably, 'Into the carriage, Miss Twite look sharp now! We don't want to keep poor Holystone hanging about in this bitter cold!'

'Sorry, mister,' Dido apologised to the hopeful chairman, and she clambered into the carriage. Glancing through the window next moment she nearly dropped her cloak-bag for an instant she could have sworn that the rear chair-man was Silver Taffy. But then he moved into the shadows and disappeared. It can't have been him anyway, Dido thought; what would he be doing here? We left him behind at Bewdley.

Dusk was falling as they clattered out of the station yard, over b.u.mpy cobbles. Dido looked down to see if they were silver, but the light was too poor to be sure. It was freezing cold inside the carriage; and the steam from the horses' nostrils looked like dragon's breath. Dido s.h.i.+vered on the slippery leather seat and huddled against the comfortable warmth of Mr Mids.h.i.+pman Multiple. He, Noah, Dido and Plum rode in this carriage; Captain Hughes, Mr Holystone and Lieutenant Windward were in the other which had already started.

Despite the cold, Dido would not have minded a long drive if it had been possible to see anything of the town, but there were hardly any streetlights; the only illumination came from dim gleams, here and there, behind lace-curtained windows. Bath Regis, for a capital city, seemed very quiet and glum.

Luckily it proved no more than a ten-minute trot from the station to the Sydney Hotel, over a covered bridge with closed market-stalls on either side, and along an extremely wide street; then the travellers had reached their destination and were being solicitously helped to alight by half-a-dozen porters and footmen.

By the time Dido entered the vestibule she heard Captain Hughes giving orders that a dressmaker be fetched immediately to fit his young companion with a court dress.

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