Midnight is a Place (12 page)

But under this apparent calm Lucas felt menace. He caught dark glances. The new foreman, Jobson, whose duty it now was to escort Lucas around was a dour, taciturn individual who never gave more than the bare information required of him. He seemed ill at ease, and it was plain that the hands paid him only token respect. And they were openly hostile to the manager, Mr. Smallside, whom they mockingly referred to as Smallbeer or Smallbritches.

On his fifth day at the Mill Lucas was witness to a disquieting incident.

The men, Jobson told him, had been strictly forbidden to assemble together in groups, even in twos or threes. The formation of unions, gangs, or associations would bring instant dismissal. And after Scatcherd's arrest they were particularly cautious about talking among themselves in the Mill, even to ask needful questions about work, and would spring hastily apart if Jobson or Smallside were seen approaching.

Yet there was one workman who showed no caution about talking to the others, and soon, during his visits to the Mill, Lucas began to be very much aware of him. His name was Robert Bludward.

He was remarkable, for a start, in being the only workman who was allowed to propel himself about in a wheelchair. Jobson told Lucas that both his legs had been cut off at the knee in an accident five years before, when he was an apprentice.

"'E were too slow getting out o' t'way o' t'shuttle," Jobson explained laconically. Lucas shivered inwardly, after this, whenever he watched the great shuttle go slicing across on the steam loom that wove the more expensive carpets.

"It's a wonder he didn't die."

"He were mortal sick. Most hands would ha' been turned off, crippled like yon. But he's clever, Bob Bludward, sharp as a whittle—he'd worked out a new dye process that only cost half as mooch, an' he had an idea for a steam fan to dry the wool after it was dipped, so he were kept on. An' he made himself yon wheelchair that roons by steam."

The wheelchair was made of wicker, with a little steam engine at the back. Its driver propelled it with amazing speed—like some curious insect, it darted up ramps, through galleries, in between the lanes of pistons. The lame man had become a kind of expert in every department, apparently; he knew how to do things the best way. No one ever knew where he might turn up next; his power of appearing like lightning whenever some difficulty arose was quite uncanny. Although the men treated him with great civility, they appeared nervous of him.

Bludward was very handsome; he had short very pale hair which curled all over his head like a ram's fleece. His face was pale too, and as sharp as if it had been cut from a block of salt, and his eyes were glass-pale; you could stare at them for minutes together, Lucas thought, and still not be sure what color they were.

As the wheelchair flitted about the Mill, the men would be galvanized into activity; Bludward seemed to have much more effect on them than Jobson, the real foreman. Lucas noticed very soon that Bludward had a kind of "shadow" or follower, who was generally to be seen not far in the rear of his chair. This was a stooped, wizened little fellow in a black-and-white cloth cap, known as Newky Shirreff. Wherever Bludward's chair rolled, Newky followed, and Lucas observed that most of the men seemed to have something to give Newky; he carried a little bag which grew heavier and heavier as the day advanced; if Lucas were close enough he sometimes caught the chink of coins. The men did not seem fond of Newky; he was greeted with sour looks and sped on his way with glum ones, but he appeared to have a remarkable power of extracting money from them.

On his fifth visit Lucas was standing alone, watching the glue-mixing process. Jobson had been called away to sign for a new intake of wool and Mr. Oakapple was in the town on one of Sir Randolph's errands.

Bludward's chair rolled past and stopped beside the glue mixer, Sam Melkinthorpe, a brawny red-headed man, who was just winching up a huge hopper of dried fishbone powder, ready to tip it into the caldron. Bludward asked some question and Lucas, drawing near, unperceived in the shadow of the hopper, was in time to hear Sam's reply, "Nay, I can't pay thee owt at present, Bob; t'missus is poorly, so's two o' t'bairns, and I'm scraped clean wi' doctor's bills. Tha'll have to do wi'out my contribution this time."

"That won't do, you know, Sam," Bludward said calmly. "You'll have to find it somehow."

"I tell thee man, can't is can't!" Sam said shortly. "I'm drained diy, sithee." And he turned on his heel, pulled the lever to tip out the contents of the hopper, and concentrated on stirring the porridge-like mess in the caldron below.

Bludward's chair moved on. But Lucas noticed that he signaled to Newky Shirreff with a slight, negative movement of his head. Newky turned and looked back into the shadows of the "still room" where the raw materials for glues and dyes were stored in great vats. Two more men moved forward out of the gloom; they came silently but fast. Before he was aware of it, they had closed in on Sam Melkinthorpe; how it was done Lucas, half hidden behind the hopper, did not see, but suddenly Sam, with a terrified scream, had fallen into the glue caldron and was struggling to keep his head above the evil-looking mixture.

"Help! Lads, don't leave—" he began to shout, but the word
leave
came out as a choked gurgle. Meanwhile the men who had engineered his fall had vanished; the whole "accident" took place so rapidly that Lucas could hardly believe what he had seen. He did realize Melkinthorpe's dreadful danger though, and, darting forward, he snatched up the long "howk," or wooden ladle that was used for stirring, and with it managed to pull and steer the wretched man to the side of the caldron. As soon as he was within reach Lucas grabbed his hands and tried to pull him out.

But Melkinthorpe was a big man, thickset and heavy, and the weight of the glue on him made him even heavier; Lucas began to despair of being able to get him out unaided, and yet he did not dare shout for help in case Newky and the other two men returned.

Luckily at this moment Jobson reappeared. "Eh! What's to do?" he grunted, quickly sized up the situation, and took a firm grip on Melkinthorpe's right arm. "Now, lad, when I say three. One—two—
three!
"

Melkinthorpe came out of the caldron with a fearful sucking
glop!
and fell forward gasping on the sandstone pavement. A drum of spirit and a quantity of cotton waste were always in readiness for such accidents, and Jobson, aided by Lucas, began swiftly soaking the cotton and wiping the man's mouth and nose clear before he should suffocate.

"Ey, Sam, tha had a narrow squeak then," Jobson commented briefly, when Melkinthorpe's gasps had turned to more normal breathing. "If the lad hadn't a' been by—"

"Aye," said Sam when he could speak, "an' if I hadn't joost tipped in a bin o' cold gurry, so the glue wasn't boiling, I'd ha' been cooked like a shrimp. I was lucky all ways, reckon." He did not seem enthusiastic about his luck, however.

"How didst tha coom to be so shovel-footed, lad? 'Tis not like thee to be careless."

Lucas had almost opened his mouth to speak when he received a warning kick from Melkinthorpe, whose leg he happened to be rubbing at that moment. He saw the man's face distorted in a desperate grimace, as he tried to open one of his eyes, stinging from the glue and spirit, long enough to wink. Lucas remained silent. Fortunately Jobson was not one to make a great deal of the incident, merely congratulated Lucas on his promptness, and departed soon after.

"Thanks, lad," muttered Sam when he had gone. "Now, doan't ee breathe a word to a soul, eh, or thee'll be In trooble, too. News travels quick, and Bludward's chaps has keen ears, sithee."

"But I don't understand," whispered Lucas. "What had you done?"

"Wouldn't pay their dues."

"What dues?"

"T'Friendly Association. If tha don't pay oop, tha gets rammed by the press, or falls in the glue, or knocked down by a troock, accidental-like. There's plenty o''mishaps' like that. Tha'd best be away now, lad, case one on 'em cooms back. I'll not forget what tha did."

"But will you be all right? Suppose they do it again?"

"This was only a warning, likely. Reckon I'll have to find t'brass, though God knows how," said Sam, sighing.

Lucas wished he could offer to lend some money, but his allowance had not been paid for weeks; he had none on him. He rode home in the trap very thoughtful indeed, and hardly said a word to Mr. Oakapple, who had been paying another visit to the tax office and was equally silent.

That evening, unwontedly, Anna-Marie came along to Lucas's schoolroom as he was in the middle of a long letter to Greg.

There had been a great deal of banging and shouting in the neighborhood of Sir Randolph's study an hour before. Lucas had wondered if Mr. Gobthorpe had come back, or some other official; but no strangers seemed to be about, when he left the schoolroom and stole along to the great hall. Redgauntlet remained silent, and the front doors were barred. He could hear Sir Randolph shouting upstairs: "I won't see her. I tell you I will not! Let her remain in the house if she must—add one more to the army that is eating me out of house and home, what can it matter? Like rats they come to prey on a ruined man. But I will not see her, is that clear? Keep her out of my sight, or by the great Harry, there'll be trouble!"

He had appeared at the top of the stairs and started to lurch down them, swearing furiously to himself; Lucas made haste to get away.

Perhaps Anna-Marie had somehow been involved in this scene? At all events she now crept quietly into Lucas's schoolroom, with none of her usual self-possession, and curled up in silence on a cushion by the dismal fire which, by slow degrees, she proceeded to coax into a flickering blaze.

Despite the fire, the stone-floored apartment was bitterly cold. Lucas had fetched down a blanket from his bed, and kept it wrapped round him as he wrote at his desk. Outside the snow fell steadily. The room Was silent, except for the tick of snowflakes against the windowpane.

Recently Lucas had redoubled his habit of
Listening
—he hardly knew what for ~r footsteps overhead, voices, water dripping, wood creaking, the scratch of mice behind the paneling. He strained his ears now, but could catch nothing at all; the whole great empty house seemed wrapped in slumber.

"Pinhorn and Abigail have gone today, did you know?" Anna-Marie said.

"Left, do you mean?"

"
Oui.
And old Meester Towzir he say he is going—and Garridge. Who will look after the pony then?"

"I don't know." Lucas was not really paying attention to her. He wished she would stop talking, so that he could go on listening.

"
Racontez une histoire
—tell a story—
s'iL vous plait,
Lucasse?" Anna-Marie asked in a small voice.

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" he said irritably. Inventing a story was the last thing he wanted to do just then. The long cold day at the Mill, the frightening incident with Bludward and Melkinthorpe had left him exhausted but jumpy; he kept reseeing in his mind's eye the horrible spectacle of the man in the glue caldron, and his muscles would tighten again to spring forward and grab the long-handled howk. Suppose he had not been quick enough? Suppose he had missed his footing on the slippery verge and also gone into the glue?

"I'm tired just now," he told Anna-Marie. "I can't be forever thinking up tales to tell you. Sometimes my mind isn't in the right mood."

Her lip trembled. Normally she would have been prompt with some stinging retort, but this evening there was no spirit in her; she curled up, sucking her thumb, gazing at the fire, and there was another long interval of silence. Lucas, glancing over a book he was pretending to read, caught a spark of flame reflected in a tear on her cheek and felt contrite.

"I'll read aloud to you if you like," he offered awkwardly.

"Your books are not interesting to me."

"Or play checkers."

"The pine cones are in my room. It is too far to fetch them."

Lucas did not offer to go. He felt a sudden disinclination for the trip through the long dark passages.

"All right, we'll play scissors-paper-stone."

"What is that game? '
Connais pad.
"

"Like this." He showed her how to shake her fist three times and then do different signals with her fingers. "Two fingers apart for scissors; flat hand means paper; fist clenched—
comme ga
—is a stone. And scissors can beat paper—"

"
Pourquoi?
"

"Because they can cut it, of course, silly. And paper can beat stone because you can wrap up a stone in a piece of paper; and stone can beat scissors—"

"Because they cannot cut the stone. I understand—"

"That's it, so shake your fist three times and then do one of the three things."

They shook: then Anna-Marie did a flat hand for paper; Lucas a clenched fist for stone.

"
C'est moi qui gagne!
" she said triumphantly. "Again!"

They played again. Anna-Marie was still paper, but this time Lucas had two fingers in a V for scissors and won the round. However Anna-Marie showed remarkable aptitude for guessing beforehand what Lucas was likely to do; and before long, as they played on, she was winning five games out of seven.

When she had won a hundred and thirty-two games, and Lucas ninety-nine, he declared that it must be long past her bedtime.

"Fanny will be looking for you."

"She has gone home to visit her mother."

"Mrs. Gourd then."

"She has tell me I can go to my bed when I choose."

"Well
I'm
tired if you aren't."

"Cannot I stay here with you, Luc-asse? I do not wish to go all that long journey back to my room. It is so dark in the passage. I could sleep in the basket chair."

"No you couldn't," said Lucas shortly. "It's freezing cold in here as soon as the fire goes out. Besides, there are mice."

"
Eh bun,
can I sleep also with you in your
chambre a coucher?
"

"Noyou can't!"