Midnight is a Place Read online

  "Now, sir," remonstrated Mrs. Gourd. "That's downright wicked. How can you say such things? What about the bairns—what about the poor childer? Where are they to go?"

  Sir Randolph made no answer. His eyes were still fixed on Anna-Marie, who stared back at him, her small pale face very clearly illuminated by the red flickering light.

  "Denzil's daughter, eh?" muttered Sir Randolph harshly, weaving his head to and fro, like a fighter trying to dodge invisible blows that were being rained on him from the dark air. "M'best friend Denny's little daughter. Well, m'dear, you had a warmer welcome here than you may have reckoned. Have t'find—'nother roof f'yourself now, though. T'other brat, too—Mary's boy. No more roosting at Midnight Court, eh? And it's no use hoping that those nagging lawyers got me t'change my will; no use hoping that—" He swayed, recovered, and, leaning so close to Anna-Marie that she stepped back in alarm, he said, confidentially, "I'll tell your father, m'dear, when I see him, that I didn't much care for his slice of Clutterby Pie—"

  Then, before anybody realized what he would be about and could make an attempt to stop him, he swung round on his heel and, assisting himself with his cane, made straight for the main part of the blaze, at a rapid, staggering run.

  "Sir Randolph!" screamed Mrs. Gourd.

  "Stop, stop, sir!" shouted Lucas, and dashed after him.

  "Stay there, you young fool!" exclaimed Mr. Oakapple, and shoved Lucas back so hard that he slipped and fell in the snow. By the time Lucas had picked himself up, several other men, whom he had not seen before, had suddenly appeared, running from the direction of the stable wing.

  They went after Mr. Oakapple.

  "Where is he? Where has he gone?" Lucas picked himself up and started toward the house again.

  "Dom fool," he heard someone say. Did they mean him, or Mr. Oakapple? A moment later he saw that the men were coming back, carrying something—a body, limp, and apparently lifeless.

  "Oh, who is it?" cried Anna-Marie. "Is it that man—Sir Rrandolph?"

  But it was Mr. Oakapple, who sagged in their arms with closed eyes.

  "He's not dead?" said Lucas in horror.

  "Nay, but he's badly burned—and summat fell on his head, a whole mess o' brick—t'fool would go in after t'other one—who moost've been led on by Old Scratch himself! Ran straight into t'middle o' t'fire—did ye iver see the like?"

  Mr. Oakapple was so black with soot and smoke that it was impossible to see how bad his injuries were.

  "We had better get him to the infirmary," said Lucas. He had often passed the entrance, going to and from the Mill. "Why don't you lay him in the pony trap, on some straw, and I'll take him in right away.—What about Sir Randolph?" he added reluctantly.

  "Nay, lad, not a hope—he met as well have joomped into a pottery kiln." Lucas shuddered. "Ony road, best get t'other one in afore he cooms to. There's nowt to be doon here—t'fire's taken too strong a hold—seems to ha' started oop i' six or siven places at oonce."

  Lucas, too, had felt this must be the case. He pondered about it, as he backed the shivering Noddy between the shafts and fastened her collar. Otherwise, how could the fire have spread so very rapidly?

  Had somebody lit it?

  He found Anna-Marie at the rear of the trap, busy covering Mr. Oakapple with a blanket.

  "I come with you," she announced.

  "Yes, do," said Lucas. He certainly did not know what else to do with her.

  It was a long, silent, and thoughtful drive into Blastburn. Mr. Oakapple did not recover consciousness. Neither Anna-Marie nor Lucas felt in the mood for chat. Once only was the silence broken, when she asked in a subdued voice, "Luc-asse?"

  "Well?"

  "What will happen to us now?"

  "I don't know," said Lucas.

  PART TWO

  MIDNIGHT

  At the infirmary a gray-robed, white-capped sister admitted them, briskly told off two porters to put Mr. Oakapple on a stretcher and carry him in; then Lucas and Anna-Marie were dismissed to a waiting room where they were left for a long, long time. Nobody came near, and the time dragged. Anna-Marie pulled the doll, Fifine, out of her pocket and sat on a bench with one foot tucked beneath her, sucking her finger. In the midst of his relief that the doll had been saved—the loss of Fifine would certainly have been the last straw for Anna-Marie—Lucas had a feeling of desolation as he remembered how very few of his own belongings he had managed to secure: a purse, which his mother had knitted him, containing a very little money which he had been trying to save for an emergency; two of his favorite pens; a miniature of his parents; and his brown leather book. Everything else would probably be burned to ashes by now, judging from the speed with which the fire had been progressing. And he was anxious for the book. When he went to harness the mare he had laid it, wrapped in a bit of sack, on top of the rain-water barrel by the stable; would it be all right there? In his anxiety to get Mr. Oakapple to hospital he had forgotten it.

  They were sitting on an uncomfortable bench. The small bare room was not very warm; an iron stove at the far end had a faint glow coming from its firebox, but gave off little heat. By degrees Anna-Marie slid along until she could lean against Lucas; he thought that she sank into a half-doze, sucking away at her finger. For himself, he sat comfortlessly awake, staring at the future.

  He and Anna-Marie were now doubly orphans—for there seemed no possibility that Sir Randolph could still be alive. Would there be any part of Midnight Court left standing, the stables perhaps, in which they could continue to live? Would there be any money for them to live on? Would the Mill have to be sold? Would Mr. Oakapple be all right?

  So many questions, and so few answers.

  Anna-Marie stirred restlessly. Her head slipped back at an awkward angle, and Lucas put an arm round her so that she would have something more comfortable to lean against.

  At last a youngish, plump-faced man in a frock coat came into the room. He walked quickly but he looked extremely tired. Lucas guessed that in a town like Blastburn, full of factories and foundries, there might be plenty doing at the infirmary all night long.

  "I'm Doctor Whitaker," the man said. "Did you come in with the burn case?"

  Lucas nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. "Will—will he be all right?" It was hard to speak; the words came in a croak from the back of his throat.

  "He's got some bad burns," the doctor said. "Face, hands, and chest. Lucky for him we're used to burn cases here. But he'll have to stop in for at least three weeks—maybe a month or more."

  "Is he awake? May I see him?" Lucas said nervously.

  "No, boy. We have given him laudanum to make him sleep and kill the pain. Come back in eight hours or so. You might as well go home now."

  "I see. Thank you, sir." Home? Lucas wondered. Where was home?

  Anna-Marie had woken when the doctor came in. She took her finger out of her mouth and asked matter-of-factly, "Is there money to pay for Meester Ookapool? Should we bring him food here?"

  Lucas was both surprised and ashamed that he had not thought of these questions.

  The doctor looked kindly down at Anna-Marie. "Ask at the desk in the vestibule how much there is to pay. You can bring it next time you come. And do not bring food until the sisters tell you to. At present the patient will be taking only liquids."

  "Merci, monsieur," Anna-Marie said gravely.

  At the desk they learned that there would be eighteen shillings to pay a week for Mr. Oakapple's care. Eighteen shillings! Lucas looked in despair at the contents of his purse. It held some twenty-nine shillings—all he had in the world. Sir Randolph had originally announced his intention of allowing Lucas ten shillings a week, but this allowance had been paid only about half a dozen times in full—sometimes Sir Randolph had handed out a portion of the sum; more often he had forgotten it completely. Since there was, in any case, little to spend money on at Midnight Court, Lucas had given up carrying cash about with him, and had never made much of a push to obtain his allowance; now he wished
that he had done so.

  They walked out into the hospital forecourt. A dim yellow dawn was beginning to break; the snow had stopped falling at last, but lay thick on the ground. The yard was trackless; the street beyond had already been churned into muddy ruts by the never-ending traffic of wagons taking supplies to the factories. But as the pony cart climbed the hill out of town the fields on either side of the road and the height of moorland farther off rose in curves of spotless white.

  "It's very beautiful," said Lucas.

  "Me, I do not find it so," remarked Anna-Marie, shivering. "And it is going to be a great nuisance to us."

  "Why?"

  "Well, I have been thinking, Luc-asse," she surprised him by saying. "Sir Rrandolph is dead, and Monsieur Ookapool is in the 'ospital, and our house is very likely burned, we shall have to find somewhere else to live."

  "We certainly shall," Lucas agreed.

  "Lodgings cost much money—so does food, we have also to pay for ce pauvre Monsieur Ookapool. We shall need a great deal of money, ga de voit. Have you got any?"

  "Very little," he said gloomily.

  "Ni moi non plus. We shall have to find work. You are a boy; you are big and strong and can do many things," she said calmly, "but for a girl like me, it is not so easy to earn money. But in Calais sometimes, when we are very poor, and Papa is ill, I am collecting often led bouts de cigare—"

  "Cigar stubs—"

  "Out, cigar stubs—I am picking up many in the streets and from them making whole new cigars; in this way I get enough money to buy bread and saucisson for Papa and me."

  "Did you though?" said Lucas, looking at Anna-Marie with surprise.

  "But the cigar stubs are not so easy to find if the streets are snowy, enfin. So I may have to think of something else to do. Perhaps I can look after people's babies."

  "Can you do that?"

  She nodded. "Si. I get on well with them. Cela m'amuse bien. But for such tasks I think we may need to go and live in the town, not out 'ere so far away."

  "Well, let's see first what has happened to our house. If we can go on living in Midnight Court, that will save us having to pay for lodgings."

  "Bien, c'est vrai It is lucky we have the horse and cart; cela sera trés utile."

  They drove on over the brow of the hill and through the lodge gate. Lucas glanced down at his companion, thinking, Who would have imagined she had so much sense in her?

  There she sat, wrapped in his old black duffel-jacket; there she sat, looking about six, she was sucking her finger again, her two skimpy little plaits hung down untidily, and she was planning away for their future as shrewdly as if she had been doing it for years.

  Mrs. Gribbit, the lodgekeeper's wife, came out to say, "How is poor Mester Oakapple then?" And when Lucas had told her, she went on, "T'constables have coom oop from t'town to inspect t'ruins because foul play is soospected. They found Sir Randolph—all charred to a wisp he was, nowt left of him really—so he's been took away and put in a box."

  "Oh, well, I suppose that's best," Lucas said hastily, hoping that Anna-Marie had not heard. He could not pretend grief at the death of Sir Randolph, who had not given him kindness or generosity, or even fair treatment.

  "Nobody else was killed in the fire?" Anna-Marie asked.

  "No, miss. Eh, it is a do. You're kindly welcome to coom back and have a soop of tea when ye've seen the constables, both of ye; I daresay ye can do with a warm-up."

  They thanked her, and drove on to the ruins.

  Half a dozen constables in top hats were wandering about, carefully inspecting all that was to be seen. There was not much. The destruction had been very complete. The fire must have spread even faster than Lucas had thought it might, after they had gone: everything, even the servants' quarters and the stable block had burned down to the very foundations. All that remained of the huge house with its many rooms, its tall chimneys, and its grandeur were some hundreds of yards of ashes and blackened beams, already half covered in snow. A few sad remnants lay about—a broom, a rockingchair, a washtub. The rain-water barrel on which Lucas had left his book lay on its side with one stave knocked in. Of the book there was no sign.

  Lucas could not feel much sorrow about the house. Its grandeur had had no value for him; he had been cold and lonely and unhappy and even hungry there.

  But for his book he did grieve.

  The superior officer of the constables, a thick-set man called Inspector Wedge, came up to Lucas and introduced himself.

  "Now, Master Bell," he said, "were you aware of anybody in the town who might have borne a groodge against your grandfather?"

  "Just about everybody in the town, I should think," Lucas said. "He was my guardian, not my grandfather."

  "Oh," said Inspector Wedge, making a note. "Why do you say that?"

  "He owed money to people and didn't pay them. He had halved the wages of the people at Midnight Mill. He had had two men sent to jail for protesting."

  "Yes, that seems to tie oop with what we had heard. Now, we have observed that separate fires were kindled in half a doozen places, so as to burn the house down. It was ondoubtedly a malicious act. Did you observe any strangers at the scene of the fire last night?"

  "There were some men," said Lucas. "I saw them in the stableyard. I took them for firemen."

  "Did you recognize any of them?"

  "No, it was snowing too hard to see clearly. And then we took my tutor off to the infirmary."

  "So, for all you know, those men could have started the fire?"

  "No, they could not," Anna-Marie put in composedly. Inspector Wedge was somewhat taken aback. He smiled nervously at Anna-Marie, displaying shockingly black and broken teeth.

  "Why could they not, missie?" he inquired. "This would be little Miss Bell, I daresay?"

  "Non, my name is Murgatroyd," she replied coldly. "And the men could not have begun the fire, for I heard Sir Randolph say that he had done it himself."

  "Himself, miss?" The inspector was even more startled. "Why should he do that?"

  "Why, so as not to let the tax people get hold of it," Anna-Marie said simply. "Or us, of course," she added, "Luc-asse et moi Imagine going to such a lot of trouble to keep other people from having his house. He was a very mean man—quel type!" And she thoughtfully scrunched a pile of frozen black ashes under her foot.

  "But Sir Randolph had died before the stable block started to burn," the inspector persisted. "So the other men could have burned that?"

  "Yes, perhaps. If it hadn't already caught." None of this seemed at all important to Lucas. The house was burned, it was destroyed. Anna-Marie and he were cold and hungry, Mr. Oakapple was hurt, they had had very little sleep and no breakfast, and they needed to find a place to live. Why bother to stand here in the freezing wind, arguing about who had set fire to the house, or why? Very likely Sir Randolph had begun it and other people, attracted by the blaze, had looted what they could and finished it off. Such a thing seemed quite possible and not interesting to him.

  "I'm afraid I can't help you any more," he said politely.

  Anna-Marie plainly felt as he did, but she was less polite about it.

  "Why are these stupid men asking these stupid questions?" she said crossly.

  At that moment Lucas noticed the bent old figure of Gabriel Towzer come out of the lodge and wave to them. "If you should want us again, Mr. Throgmorton, my guardian's man of business, will tell you where we are to be found," he told the inspector. "Come along, Anna-Marie."

  They discovered, when they reached old Gabriel, that he had a suggestion to make.

  "If ye've nowhere else to go, ye're kindly welcome to coom along wi' me to my widowed sister as roons a lodging house i' Blastburn. It's noon what ye'll be used to, but th'rooms is clean enough, if my sister is a bit of a mickletongue."

  They thanked him, and said they would be glad to come along with him.

  On the drive into Blastburn, Anna-Marie demanded of Mr. Towzer what had become of the other se
rvants.

  "Well, missie, not to put too fine a point on it, Sir Randolph was owing 'em all umpteen months o' wages, so they've e'en gone off to do as best they can for theirselves; they reckoned there was no bread and butter to be gained from loitering here."

  Lucas felt rather disgusted that they had not even bothered to stay and find out what would become of little Anna-Marie, but he could see they might feel they owed scant loyalty to the household where they had received such poor treatment.

  When they reached the town, old Gabriel directed them to his sister's house.

  "Aye, she lets rooms to seafarers, doos my sister Kezia; she lives not far from t'docks. Her husband used to work i' Murgatroyd's, but he got killed by t'shootle five year agone, poor chap. However she doos noon so bad."

  The dock area, which they had not previously visited, was in a low-lying quarter of the town, where the river ran out into the North Sea.

  The roads here were neither paved nor cobbled, and they were already a mess of mud and slush. Tiny grim rows of houses were jammed tightly together on land that had probably been salt marsh before the town spread over it, and was still, Gabriel told them, liable to flood if there was an unusually high tide.

  "They've built dykes all along t'edge o' t'sea—t'Mayor had soom Dootchman coom over to show 'em how—but reckon they stinted a bit in th'height o' t'dykes. But doan't ee worrit, my sister Kezia'll put ye in oopstairs rooms where ye'll be safe enow."

  "What is the river's name?" Anna-Marie asked, looking doubtfully at the tossing dirty coffee-colored water that swept past tidal mud banks covered with industrial rubbish, dead cats, broken dishes, and other oddments.

  "'Tis called the Tidey River, missie; on account o' the tides, I dessay."

  "I think rather it should be called the ‹‹tidy river," pronounced Anna-Marie, and then, impressed by her own cleverness, she dug Lucas in the ribs and exclaimed, "Luc, Luc-asse, I have made a joke in English!"

  Lucas, however, was not in a joking mood. He was dismayed by the look of this neighborhood, which seemed unutterably miserable, dirty, and unwelcoming. Rough-looking men stood idling on wharfsides; rats scuffled in garbage heaps; the houses looked damp and ruinous, although it was plain they had not long been built.