Blackbriar (22 page)
“That’s plenty to hold him on, plenty,” said the policeman. “This fellow will be out of mischief for years to come. And not in a prison, I’ll bet you. In hospital.” Briskly, he snapped a pair of handcuffs on Lord Harleigh’s wrists, and in a moment the car was hurrying back across the plateau. Almost all the people were gone, and the fires were dying away.
“Well, I guess we should start back,” Danny said. He felt curiously light, as though at any moment he might simply float into the sky. “What time is it, anyway?”
“It must be almost morning,” Lark’s father said. And as Danny looked back one last time across the plateau he saw a pale glow beginning to creep over the tops of the hills.
They tramped in silence through the muddy places and out onto the track. Danny’s mind was empty; all he could think about was the countryside around them, and as they walked he studied it more carefully than ever before. Everything was gray or black in the pre-dawn light, and the forest on the left was just beginning to separate into distinct trees. It was almost as though what had just happened was a dream, until Lark, walking beside him, said, “Hey, we did it, didn’t we? It’s all over now, we found out everything, and didn’t it turn out perfect, though?”
“It almost didn’t turn out at all,” Lark’s father said. “It’s damn lucky we got there when we did, I can tell you.” He sounded a bit irritated.
“But how
did
you get there, in Lil, I mean?” Danny asked.
Philippa, walking with her head bowed, and Islington pressed tightly against her, did not answer. So in a moment Lark’s father said, “The police picked us up outside the Black Swan, then drove up the hill. We had to go past Blackbriar, that’s the only road up the hill, you know. Their car just barely made it to the house. They said it had already been up there once this evening . . .”
“Oh, yes,” Danny said, remembering Mr. Bexford.
“And the thing just died right outside the front door. We were frantic, but Philippa’s car started right up.”
They had almost reached the end of the track, and the morning light was stronger. Lark’s father looked closely at Danny and shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I wouldn’t have recognized you at all from Lark’s description. She said you were skinny and pale, but you’re just as robust and ruddy as a young farmhand.”
“I guess I’ve changed,” said Danny.
“You certainly have,” Philippa said.
“Oh, it was the country,” Lark said. “I know it.”
“And I suppose all your daring exploits had something to do with it too,” Philippa added.
“And Mary Peachy,” said Danny. “I just have the feeling that part of her is still at Blackbriar, and somehow it got through to me.”
“Oh, come off it,” said Philippa. “You don’t believe in ghosts.”
But the events of the night had been so fantastic, so unreal, that what Danny was saying about Mary Peachy hardly seemed strange to him at all. “I don’t really, but you yourself—” He stopped abruptly.
“What about me?”
Why shouldn’t I tell her? Danny thought. “You were afraid of her doll. You felt something from it. It had some kind of power over you. I didn’t throw it away, and I was never afraid of it. It had a different power over me.”
“That’s what I told you,” Lark said.
“I know. It’s a lucky thing I didn’t throw it away. No wonder you hated it, Philippa. I’m sure it was other things, too, but if it hadn’t been for that doll, and Mary Peachy, I’d probably still be—”
But this time he knew he shouldn’t finish. They stepped out of the pine thicket, and stopped.
The house itself looked no different than it had the first time they had seen it. Still a part of the earth, it seemed just as bleak and gray and desolate as ever. But as they stood there, the sun appeared over the edge of the hill and touched the house with a rich glow that made the flint walls look warm for the first time. And overnight, the yard around it had become a blanket of tiny blue flowers.
Danny went back to London with Mr. Bexford. It should have been an unpleasant train ride, but Danny stared out the window the whole time in a warm, happy daze. Once in London, he insisted on going to a school in the country, and Mr. Bexford finally agreed that the problem of finding him a place to live could most easily be solved by sending him to a boarding school. He chose one with green fields and crumbling medieval buildings, and though his life there was not quite as exciting as it had been at Blackbriar, it was stimulating enough, in many new ways, to keep him very busy for the next few years.
Philippa did not try to persuade him to stay with her. After a few lost, lonely days she woke up one morning with a brilliant idea. She gathered together all the money she had left, and bought a small shop in Dunchester. Doing much of the work herself, she made it over into a restaurant. The food she spent hours preparing was so much more delicious than anything else available in Dunchester that the restaurant soon provided her with a comfortable income. She had a small staff who followed all her orders to the letter, and not once did any of them drop a single pie. Islington’s coat soon grew back, and he was just as beautiful as he had always been. Lark’s father, and even Lark herself, became her good friends, and often visited her in her little apartment above the restaurant.
On occasional weekends she would pick Danny up in Lil and bring him back to visit Blackbriar. They never stayed long, and soon stopped entering the house at all. Year by year tiles dropped off the roof, windowpanes cracked, and the forest crept slowly into the yard.
And for years to come, Danny could not forget the sound of Mary Peachy’s voice. He often wondered if, on winter nights, it still echoed past the cold fireplaces, through the empty rooms of the house that would always belong to her alone.