Blackbriar (10 page)

“I’m sure he would.”

“Well, in that case, I suppose it’s all right.”

“Oh, thank you so much! That’s
super
. I’ve just got to go and tell my father. I mean ask.”

“And you must be sure to tell him precisely where it is we live,” Philippa said, as the three of them started for the door, “in case he has any objections to your spending the night in that house.”

“Oh, I’m sure he won’t worry about it.”

Danny pulled open the heavy, iron-studded door, and they stepped out into the starry night. The air was icy, as clear and brittle as glass. “We just live a few yards from here,” Lark said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She dashed off into the darkness.

“Whew! It does feel good to be able to breathe again, after being in that smoky hole for so long.”

“It’s a nice pub,” Philippa said, climbing into the car. “You didn’t have to come in, you know. And you might as well stop sulking and whining. It’s not going to do any good. And besides, I was just thinking aloud. I still don’t understand why you’ve suddenly decided to like being here—although perhaps I do now,” she added slowly, looking back for a moment in the direction Lark had gone. She paused, then went on quickly. “But be that as it may, I haven’t decided to leave—yet.”

Danny was eager to turn the conversation away from Lark. “It would be nice if there was a heater in this thing,” he said, as she started the car and turned on the lights.

“Oh,
do
shut up, will you? It’s going to be hard enough to get up there in the pitch darkness as it is, without your nasty little comments. Not that I expect you to behave so childishly in front of your friend. Which reminds me, I think you’d better get in the back so that there’ll be room for her. And you can keep a grip on the lamps and things so that they won’t get broken on the way up.”

Sighing audibly, but leaving the blanket on the front seat, Danny climbed into the back. He tried to arrange himself in a comfortable position but found that the back was full of hard edges and sharp places that stuck into him painfully. “She can take care of Islington,” he said. “She has the blanket, and I’ll have to be holding on to all this stuff back here.”

They heard quick footsteps on the gravel, and in a moment Lark poked her head through the front window. “This must be the right car,” she said brightly as she climbed in. “I
adore
Land Rovers.”

“Would you hold Islington?” Philippa said. “Here, put this blanket on your lap first, he gets a bit panicky on the track and hangs on to people’s legs with his claws, as I’m sure Danny will be glad to describe to you in gory detail.”

“Great fun back there, isn’t it,” Lark said to him, turning around in her seat.

“Mmmm,” said Danny.

“What was your father’s reaction when you asked him about spending the night at Blackbriar?” Philippa asked as she turned onto the dirt lane that wound up the hill. “I assume he said yes.”

“He did. I’d already told him about meeting Danny at the tumuli, so he knew I knew the people who were living there. He didn’t say much, just told me not to get into any mischief. He did ask me what you were like, but when I told him you had been a school secretary he seemed satisfied.”

“Hmph!” Philippa said. “Secretaries
can
be quite wild, you know.” The engine groaned and she shifted with a lurch into a lower gear.

On the field, the moonlight was almost as bright as day. The car swayed across the open expanse of land like a small boat rocking on a silver-green sea. The night sky shimmered above them, more huge and endless than in day; but the other hilltops, like mysterious black-crowned islands, seemed to enclose them in their own lonely world, cutting them off from all that was comforting and ordinary down below. They were all eager, Danny felt, to get to the relative security of the house.

But when they reached the house and saw the firelight flickering in the windows, the pale, moonlit smoke curling from the chimney, Islington was the only one who seemed to want to get out of the car.

“Well,” Philippa said finally, a slight tremor in her voice, “the perfect end to this wonderful day. Now what do we do?”

Islington scratched at the door, eager to begin his nightly mouse hunt around the yard.

“You’re sure you didn’t leave a fire burning this morning?” Lark asked.

“I would never leave a fire burning in an empty house. And even if I had, it would have burned out hours ago.”

For a moment no one spoke. Then, turning to face Danny (who was waiting for her to decide what to do), Philippa said, “Well? I thought you wanted to find out all about this place. Didn’t I hear you make some remark about how ridiculous it was to be afraid?”

“What I said was . . .” Danny began, and then stopped. They were both staring at him. What would Lark think of him if he didn’t do something? He sighed. “Well,” he said peevishly, “how can I get out of the car unless somebody moves?”

Lark opened the door and Islington sprang through it, disappearing immediately into some bushes. Lark stepped out cautiously, and Danny followed her.

“What are you going to do, then?” Philippa whispered.

“Just . . . I don’t know. Look in the windows, I suppose.”

“I’ll wait for you here. And you two had better be careful.”

Danny started quietly across the yard, Lark close behind him. He felt helpless and exposed, and every step was an effort. But he hated to think of what Philippa would say if he backed down, especially in front of Lark; and some- how he was able to put each foot forward mechanically, trying not to think what he might find.

Finally he reached the house. Holding his breath, he peered through one of the living room windows.

The fire, which looked freshly built, only dimly illuminated the room. But although there were some dark corners, Danny was sure no one was there. “Let’s look through the other windows,” he whispered. They slunk around to the other side, and from this viewpoint the room seemed as empty as before. Silently, they peered through the other ground-floor windows. All the rooms were empty.

“But there could still be somebody upstairs,” Lark whispered, as they started back to the car. “And if anybody is there, they’ll know we’re back. That car makes an awful lot of noise in the quiet up here.”

“Well?” Philippa said, leaning out of the car win- dow, “well?”

“Nothing,” said Danny.

“Nobody,” said Lark.

“Then the only thing we can do now is go inside,” Philippa said. Do we have to? Danny almost whined, but stopped himself in time. Philippa twisted around and struggled with the packages in the back of the car, finally unearthing a huge flashlight. “We can use this as a weapon as well as a light source,” she said, stepping out of the car and then smoothing her skirt nervously. “Shall we get started, then?”

The key in the lock seemed to make an incredible amount of noise, and Danny was sure the door had never squeaked so loudly. Philippa switched on the flashlight. Its yellow beam darted into all the corners, exposing no crouching figures. “Shhhh!” she hissed as she led them into the kitchen. “Be as quiet as possible so we can hear any other noises there might be.”

Danny hung behind her nervously. He thought of their conversation in the car, and wondered why he had spoken so bravely, without really thinking about how frightening the house could be. He also wondered what he would have done in the present situation if Philippa had not been there. All at once the London apartment did not seem so bad.

The kitchen was untouched, not a dish or a towel out of place. The dining room table was still covered with the crumbs Danny had forgotten to wipe away after breakfast, and as they approached the door to the stairway Philippa managed to shoot him an annoyed glance.

She pulled open the door as slowly and silently as she could, then paused for a long moment, listening. There were creaks, and something that sounded like scratching, but it was hard to tell in an old house which noises were natural and which were not. Finally she started up the stairs, flinging the beam ahead of her. Lark and Danny were just behind.

Danny’s bedroom was empty. As they stepped into the middle room Philippa whispered to Lark, “This is where you’ll be sleeping.” This room was empty too. Philippa’s bedroom was the largest and most shadowy. Hardly cautious anymore, she flashed the light around her. “Naturally, no one would be under the bed,” she said, and they all peered into the cavern beneath the sagging mattress.

There was a quick scuffling behind them. Philippa spun around the light. Suddenly Lark and Danny were clutching each other.

Islington was pawing about in the ashes of the fireplace. “Oh, you monster!” Danny cried. His knees were shaking.

“Don’t you talk to him like that!” Philippa said angrily. “He can’t help it, he’s just playing.” She kneeled down. “Come here, darling.” Islington curled and stretched under her hand.

“Well, now I suppose we’ve got to look in the basement,” Danny muttered.

“Yes,” Philippa said, standing up. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

It was Philippa who led the way down the basement steps. Danny did not stay very close behind her, until Lark stepped on his heel in the darkness and automatically he moved forward quickly. He had never been in the basement with Philippa before, and found that the room was not necessarily as frightening as he had thought.

“It really is creepy down here,” Lark whispered.

Philippa flashed the light over the damp stone walls. “There certainly isn’t anyone here,” she said at last.

There was a short silence.

“But what’s going on?” Danny said suddenly. “And who would build that fire, and why?” Now that it was clear that they were the only people in the house, his courage very quickly returned. “We have to find out. I mean, we can’t let people come in and out of here without trying to find out who it is, and why they would do it!”

“Listen,” Philippa said, “what we really have to do is get organized. We can’t just stand here all night blathering and dithering. We’ve got to keep busy, and try to think about something else for a while. Why don’t you two unload the car while I get the stove going. Then, Lark, you can fill the lamps and the paraffin stove, I’m sure you know how, and Danny can do some pumping, and I’ll start dinner and get Lark’s bed made up. Then, when we have light, and some food in our stomachs, we’ll be able to think much better about what we should do.”

Lark and Danny brought the small flashlight out to the car. Danny tried to think of something to say that would show Lark how calm he was. “Philippa is a wonderful cook,” he finally managed, as they began to gather up the food and the equipment in the back of the car.

“That’s too bad. I love to eat, and it’s a real treat for me to eat someone else’s cooking. But I don’t have much appetite now. I’m still nervous about that fire.”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would have built it.”

They put the bundles down in the kitchen, where Philippa was poking around in the oven with the big flashlight. “This is going to take some time,” she said when she emerged. “It’s hard enough to get this monster started in daylight. Lark, do you know how to deal with these lamps?”

“Well, sort of. You just fill them with paraffin, and I know how to pump and light this hurricane one. But this other thing, the Aladdin lamp, you have to put this asbestos filament in, or something, and I don’t know how to light it.”

“Just do the hurricane and fill the Aladdin. I think you’d better do it outside, if you don’t mind. I don’t want paraffin all over the floor. Do it on that old table out there.”

Outside the door was a large round wooden table, gray and mottled with long years of continuous exposure to every kind of weather. Lark brought out the flashlight and set down the two lamps and the little stove, then meticulously began to pour paraffin into them from a large metal can.

Danny was on the cellar landing, beginning to pump. The first few strokes were a struggle, but soon he developed a rhythm which made it somewhat easier. The surprise of what had just happened had filled him with nervous energy; and his thoughts were spinning so fast that he practically forgot he was pumping at all. Somewhere in the back of his mind, however, he continued to count the strokes. He pumped till his arms ached and he felt stiflingly hot in his heavy coat. And after he had taken it off, dropping it carelessly on the stone floor, he began to pump again, hardly knowing what he was doing. Finally his arms simply refused to move, and when he stopped he noticed that his shirt was wet through, and sweat was dripping down his forehead and rolling off his cheeks. He had never really sweated before in his life, and was quite surprised that he was capable of it. As he wobbled up the steps on shaking legs, panting heavily, he realized that he had done seventy strokes, more than twice as many as he had been able to do before.

“You were certainly down there a long time,” Philippa said as he came into the kitchen. She was spreading out the glowing coals at the bottom of the stove with an iron poker.

“I know,” he gasped. “I did seventy strokes! The most I could do before was thirty.”

There was a sudden hissing noise from outside, then a brilliant glow, wavering at first, but soon steady. Lark walked into the kitchen, proudly holding the hurricane lamp above her head.

“How marvelous!” Philippa cried, clapping her hands together. “At last I can
see
! Now I can really begin to cook again. Danny, hang the lamp on that hook over the stove.”