Midnight is a Place Read online

  "Unfortunately," Mr. Smallside went on smoothly, addressing Lucas as if he had never stopped speaking, "most unfortunately it won't be convenient for you to be puttering around here today, Master Bell. For one thing the young fellow, Scatcherd, you see, is not available."

  "Perhaps somebody else—"

  "And—and other reasons make it just not a suitable time for young ladies and gentlemen to come sight-seeing. Another day, perhaps."

  Lucas felt very annoyed with Mr. Smallside, who seemed to be behaving as if a visit to the Mill were a handsome treat, which he might or might not kindly allow Lucas, instead of the professional instruction it was supposed to be.

  "I'm afraid it's not convenient for us to leave just now," he said rather shortly.

  "Young gentlemen and ladies have to learn that sometimes their convenience is not the most important thing in the world," Mr. Smallside said, always smiling.

  "Who is that man? What does he say?" Anna-Marie demanded. She was becoming bored with standing in the office doorway and was looking about her impatiently.

  Both men looked a good deal surprised at hearing her speak French.

  "Is the young lady a foreign young lady then?" asked Mr. Smallside.

  "Eye amm Mees Anna-Marie Murgatroyd," said Anna-Marie with her usual dignity.

  "Murgatroyd!" The black-haired man opened his eyes wide at this name. "Will she be soom kin to owd Sir Quincy, then? I thowt there was noan o' that stock left."

  "She is his granddaughter. She has lived in France all her life," Lucas said.

  "And now she's come to live up at the Court?" Smallside inquired. Lucas nodded.

  "If the hands knew about Sir Randolph taking the lass in, think on—" the black-haired man began dubiously.

  "Nay, it's many a long year since Sir Quincy died. Tha cannot put back the clock," Smallside said. "—Let alone Sir Quincy himself was a bad enough master, by the end.—The men are in a flaysome mood; mere sight of a child's face will not change them." His manner, for once, was neither hectoring nor obsequious, but merely weary and practical, and his accent was much broader than it had been. "This is no place for childer, my young master and miss; you must joost gang off, the best road you can. That's all there is to it."

  He made shooing movements with his hands, urging them out of his little office, across the yard.

  Lucas noticed that a great many of the workers, both men and women, seemed to have left their tasks and gathered at one side of the big yard, where they formed a restless muttering group, which swayed to and fro as some people joined it and others left. A man was standing on a bale of wool, addressing such of the crowd as were nearest him. Lucas recognized Scatcherd but could not catch much of what he said.

  A few of the workers turned to glance with curiosity or hostility at Lucas and Anna-Marie as Smallside urged them toward the gate.

  Annoyed at being hustled in this manner, Lucas hung back, and caught a few sentences of Scatcherd's harangue: "Well, friends, there we are: Sir Randolph has chosen to cut our wages by half. What are we to do about it, eh? Are we to take it lying down?"

  There was a growling mutter of response from the crowd.

  Anna-Marie and Lucas walked out through the big gate, with Smallside behind them.

  "What had we better do?" Lucas said, half to himself.

  "Do? Why, make the best of your way home," Smallside said shortly. "You've got legs, haven't you? Think yourselves lucky you've got whole skins—"

  Not a trace of his fawning servility was left; he turned back into the yard, evidently dismissing them at once from his mind.

  Lucas felt rather aggrieved; he had not intended his question for Air. Smallside.

  "It must be nearly five kilometers home and almost all uphill," he said to Anna-Marie. "Can you walk as far as that?"

  "Not in these shoes," she said positively. "They are grown too small for me and they are not comfortable at all—du tout, du tout!"

  "Then we had best inquire our way to the tax office and find Mr. Oakapple. He will be there for quite a while yet. Besides, I think it may rain."

  All memory of the bright morning had vanished. The day was dark and lowering. The town of Blastburn, not a cheerful place at the best of times, in this murky light seemed suitable only as a dwelling place for trolls or hobgoblins. Gas flares had been lit in the cobbled streets, and the foot passengers came and went out of a thick obscurity half smoke, half dark.

  "Can you tell me the way to the tax office?" Lucas asked one man.

  "Nay, it's noan a place I'd be fain to visit," he said unhelpfully, and walked on.

  But another said he thought it was near the Town Hall—"Down along t'Micklegate, past t'prison, go left when ye see t'workus, ower along by t'insane asylum, alongside t'stocks and t'ducking stool, cross t'Market Square into Brass Gate and ye canna miss it."

  He gestured down the wide busy road on which they stood.

  However it was plain that, after going some distance in the deepening fog, they must have taken a wrong turn, for instead of arriving at the Market Square, they found themselves among narrow, mean streets where a carriage could not possibly have passed; even on foot it was hard enough not to slip into the filthy gutter than ran down the middle of the way.

  "I do not like the air here," said Anna-Marie, wrinkling her nose. "This place smells of cheese that has gone bad."

  It smelled worse than that among the decaying little houses with squalid heaps of rubbish outside each door, and Lucas began to be anxious for Anna-Marie; he hoped that she might not pick up some noxious disease in this slum. He would have liked to ask the way again, but hesitated; they were receiving unfriendly glances from the shawled women on doorsteps, the men in clogs who stood lounging at corners.

  But they were certainly lost; each turning seemed only to plunge them deeper into the heart of the maze.

  At last Lucas perceived someone whose face seemed vaguely familiar—for a moment he could not think why, but he knew he had seen her recently—at all events she looked kindly enough, though sad. He started toward her, firmly gripping the hand of Anna-Marie, who showed a disposition to loiter and gaze about her.

  Before he reached the woman he was approaching, however, she had been accosted by a friend. They stood deep in talk while Lucas hesitated, feeling it would be impolite to interrupt, yet impatient to learn his direction before it should be too late, before Mr. Oakapple had finished his business at the tax office and started for home.

  The two women were talking in low voices.

  "Eh, I'm reel sorry not to oblige thee, Bess, I'd take in the liddle 'un, and gladly, wi'out a thought, if it were only me. But it's my owd man, he's a tippler, as tha knaws, and when he's a drop taken, he says there are ower many mouths to feed a'ready—he'd break ivery bone in my body if I took on another—"

  "Never fret, Annie lass. I knaw tha would if tha could. I'd take the bairn wi' me on the ship, but they tells as how bairns dies quick as windflowers on those transports. I'm afeared even for Sue, that she'll never see Van Diemen's Land."

  "Eh, Bess, woman, 'tis a long way—"the second woman sighed. Then, plainly glad to change the subject, she gave her friend a nudge and said, "Reckon the lad yonder wishes to speak to thee."

  The first woman turned, pushing back her shawl with a familiar gesture, and now that he was close enough to recognize her, Lucas would have liked to back away. He felt ashamed to trouble her. For she was Mrs. Braithwaite, the woman he had seen mourning by the roadside on the previous evening. Her face was still pale as death, but it was resolute and firm; she gave Anna-Marie and Lucas a kind glance and said simply, "Well, my lad, how can I serve thee?"

  "I—I'm sorry, I didn't wish to interrupt—" he stammered. "I only wanted to ask the way to the tax office—"

  "Oh, oh, U joli bébé, tout en riant!" exclaimed Anna-Marie at his elbow.

  For Mrs. Braithwaite held a baby in her shawled arms, and it was giving Anna-Marie a broad grin.

  "Comment est-ce qu'il s'
appelle, madame?" Anna-Marie inquired politely.

  "English, English, Anna-Marie! And it's not polite to interrupt. She is asking about your baby—what he is called," Lucas apologized to Mrs. Braithwaite.

  "It's Betsy, my little lady—she's a girl, bless her."

  Then the woman looked fully into Anna-Marie's face and started. She said, hesitantly, "You'll excuse a poor woman asking, my little lady—I can see you're quality—but what might your name be? I wouldn't take a liberty, mostly, but it's a hard time for me, joost now—if you'll not think it amiss—"

  "Je m'appelle Anna-Marie Murgatroyd, madame. "

  "Murgatroyd! Why didn't I think on it mysel'?" Mrs. Braithwaite murmured. Then, unexpectedly, she dropped a slight curtsey and kissed Anna-Marie's cheek. "Bless your bonny face, lassie. You came by in time to put a good notion into my head, and maybe the saints sent you.... May you have a long life and a happy one, happier than poor Bess Braithwaite's. Murgatroyd," she murmured to herself again. "I'll go see the old lady directly. If ony can give me good counsel, she can." Then, remembering she had been asked a question, she gave Lucas clear and explicit directions for reaching the tax office, nodded kindly to them, hastily kissed her friend, and hurried off in the opposite direction.

  "I'll see thee again, Bess, afore tha takes ship—" the other woman called anxiously.

  "Happen—if there's time—"her brief answer came back before she vanished round a corner.

  Lucas and Anna-Marie turned the other way. Anna-Marie had not understood Mrs. Braithwaite's remarks, but Lucas had, and he wondered if there were still some relative of Anna-Marie's living in the neighborhood—who could "the old lady" be? Who would know?

  However this question was banished from his mind almost at once by the situation in which they now found themselves. It had been plain, from the unfriendly stares they had been receiving as they walked along, that strangers were not welcome in this part of the town. They caught muttered remarks: "Jack Puddings! Fancy boots! High nebs! What do they think they're faring t'do here? Let 'em goo back where they coom from while they'm still got their boots on!"

  The angry looks and hostile murmurs increased; they were jostled several times and Anna-Marie who had shown a tendency, earlier, to tug away from Lucas's protective clasp, now seemed glad enough to keep close by and clutch his hand.

  At one corner a fairly large group of boys had been playing a kind of football game, using a lump of wool tied with string for their ball. As Lucas and Anna-Marie approached, the ball, whether by design or accident, struck Lucas on the side of the head. The boys gave over their game and moved, half mocking, half threatening, into a solid phalanx in the middle of the path, so that it was impossible to get by. Some of them were big and heavy—nearer men than boys

  One of them—a large, lumping fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a shock of fair, frizzy hair, thick lips, and pale blue eyes—called out, "Look a' the dainty bonnets. Eh, what a lace-edged pair! Knaw who they are, mates? Tak' a good peer at the high-belted mimsy scratlings!"

  "Nay, who are they, then?"

  "Divven't tha knaw? Old Randy Grimsby's foundlings from oop at t'Court all fatched oop i' hog's leather an' silk velvet!"

  In fact the clothes of Anna-Marie and Lucas were by no means luxurious, but they certainly seemed so in comparison with the rags worn by most of the boys.

  "Gan on home to where tha belongs, whey face!" one of them shouted.

  "Glad to, if you'll let us by," Lucas replied curtly, doing his best to conceal his anxiety for Anna-Marie; and, indeed, for himself: most of the boys were twice his size.

  "A' reet, gan on, we aren't stoppin' thee," replied some of the boys, while others cried, "Let's run 'em t'gantlet, eh, lads?"

  The group broke up to form an irregular pair of lines, between which Anna-Marie and Lucas would have to pass.

  "Ne t'inquiète pad; red le tranquille, " he whispered to her, though far from tranquil himself.

  Hand in hand, Lucas leading, they began to thread their way between the staring, jeering boys. They were jostled, pushed; Lucas received a couple of kicks; he could only hope that Anna-Marie did not understand the language that rained down on them. Insulting allusions to Sir Randolph were numerous; it seemed plain that he was about the most unpopular man in Blastburn.

  Lucas longed to speak up and say, "We don't like him any better than you do!" But instinct told him that this would be no help, might only further antagonize their attackers.

  Anna-Marie suddenly let out a sharp cry; a stone, thrown from the rear, had struck her on the cheek.

  Up to now she had remained subdued, wary, but uncertain how to behave in this hostile, unfamiliar situation. Now, suddenly, her temper blazed out.

  She snatched up the stone, which had fallen ahead of her, and hurled it, with astonishing strength and unerring aim, back at the boy who had thrown it—a big red-faced, red-headed lout who stood sniggering well to the rear of the crowd. It struck him full on the ear and made him stagger. Anna-Marie, meanwhile, screamed out a startling flood of insults, which lost nothing in force and ferocity from being all in French.

  "Ah, cochons, canaille, pigs, trash, idiots, rats, garbage, offal, vermin! Just because you are many and we only two, you think to bully us!"

  Utterly disconcerted by the vigor and unexpectedness of this defiance, most of the group fell back. Lucas caught muttered exclamations: "Nay, what a little spitfire! Who'd a thowt it? Yon lass is a reet hullum-skullum—"

  Only one boy still seriously opposed them, a big but somewhat stupid-looking lad, better dressed than the rest, in leathers and a velveteen waistcoat with brass buttons. This boy squared up to Lucas, who, now that open battle had been declared, had no hesitation in making use of a wrestling throw that Bob the groom had once taught him; momentarily letting go of Anna-Marie's grasp, he flung an arm around the other boy's neck, kicked his legs from under him, and laid him full-length in the gutter.

  "Aha! That has taught you a lesson, pig-face!" screamed Anna-Marie triumphantly, and, to Lucas, "Bravo! Well done, very good! I did not think that you were so habile!"

  "Come on, quick, let's get out of here," grunted Lucas, grabbing her arm again, and he hurried her down the alley to the next corner, which, luckily, proved to be an opening into a much wider street, which in its turn led to the Market Square. They crossed it into Brass Gate and then saw, directly fronting them, a building with a door bearing a painted legend:

  TAX AND REVENUE DEPARTMENT

  OFFICE OF HIS MAJESTY'S CUSTOMS AND EXCISE

  Outside the building, to the immense relief of Lucas, they also observed Mr. Oakapple, standing by the governess cart and still deep in discussion with a man in a dark-blue uniform and brass buttons.

  Lucas hurried across the road with Anna-Marie panting and expostulating behind him. As they reached the cart they heard a snatch of the two men's conversation.

  "Well, there it is, Mester Oakapple. I'm afeared I can't do any more. If Sir Randolph cares to coom down in person, I'll tell him the same. The taxes are long overdue, and if he cannot pay, there'll be noothing for it but to lay a distraint. As an official of the Crown, that is my last word. Nowt against you, persoonally, Mester Oakapple, you onderstand—"

  "Yes, yes, I quite understand, thank you, Mr. Gobthorpe. I'll tell Sir Randolph exactly what you have said. But I fear he's in a very difficult mood at the moment. I doubt if he'll listen to reason—" Then, seeing Lucas, Mr. Oakapple broke off to exclaim in surprise, "Hey! What are you two doing here? I told you to wait at the Mill—"

  "They wouldn't let us—"Lucas began, but at that moment his words were drowned by a tremendous clatter of hoofs and the sound of drums, as a whole detachment of mounted troopers galloped across the square, sabers ready drawn, to vanish almost as quickly as they had come into the foggy dusk.

  "Croopus! What's amiss i' the town? Who's called oot the militia?" exclaimed Mr. Gobthorpe. "Nay, if there's going to be trooble, I'd best shoot oop t'office; I'll bid ye good day, Mest
er Oakapple." And he vanished indoors, while Lucas and Anna-Marie followed the tutor's example and hastily climbed into the cart.

  "We'd better go home by Peggoly's Piece; it's roundabout, but there's not likely to be any disturbance that way," muttered Mr. Oakapple, and turned the mare's head in the opposite direction from that taken by the soldiery.

  "And now, why are you here? Why did you disobey my instructions to stay at the Mill until I called for you?" he inquired. "With this trouble in the town—if I had already left—if you had failed to find me—"

  "Mr. Smallside wouldn't let us into the Mill. He said it was not convenient," Lucas began, thinking that his explanation sounded extremely lame and unconvincing.

  But the tutor hardly seemed to heed his words; with lips pressed tight together and frowning brow, he drove on through the dim, deserted side streets of Blastburn, past the rows of little mean houses; he was evidently almost wholly preoccupied with the problem of Sir Randolph and his taxes. And after a few more unheeded sentences of explanation, Lucas, too, was glad to fall silent. As for Anna-Marie, she had wriggled back under the old carriage blanket and pulled it round her so that it almost completely covered her; Lucas could just see that she was sucking her thumb, and that her eyes held a thoughtful, far-distant expression.

  "Tell me a story, Luc-asse?" she invited.

  "Hush! Not just now," he said rather crossly, embarrassed in case Mr. Oakapple had overheard.

  Anna-Marie was silent after that.

  She's only a baby, he thought. It's lucky she didn't realize what a tricky situation we were in, back there.

  And for the rest of the silent, gloomy ride he did his best to cheer himself by the recollection of the neat hip throw with which he had disposed of the boy in the velveteen waistcoat.

  Anna-Marie was found to be asleep by the time they arrived back at Midnight Court, so the chambermaid, Abby, came out and carried her indoors without waking her.

  Mr. Oakapple hurried away, presumably to report to Sir Randolph on the outcome of his discussions with the tax officials, and Lucas wandered rather disconsolately to his own quarters. Although the day was so dark—indeed it had begun snowing on the drive home and the storm promised to be severe—it was still only midafternoon. Lucas found a cold luncheon laid out in his schoolroom: mutton, pickled onions, and a bowl of bread pudding. The slices of bluish-pink underdone mutton, accompanied by three large pale wet pickled onions, looked most unappetizing, and he left them, but ate the bread pudding; it was a dry and tasteless lump but he needed something to chew on after the day's doings.