Midnight is a Place (33 page)

He departed at great speed, looking, Anna-Marie said, as if somebody had hit him with a sack full of snow.

When he was gone Lady Murgatroyd turned to old Mr. Scatcherd and said, "It was kind of you to come up, Mr. Scatcherd. I am very much obliged to you. Won't you take a bowl of soup with us?"

"Why, thank you, my lady." The old man suddenly looked rather tired. "I won't say no. Not so stout on my pins as I reckoned. An' I want to stay on to watch t'fight."

"Fight?" said Lady Murgatroyd. "What is that?"

Lucas explained to her why the men were fighting and, like Rose, she sighed and said, "What good will that do?"

"I do not at all like them fighting because of what happened to me," said Anna-Marie.

"They would ha' fought onyway, lass, soon or late," said the old man. "Those two has always been at odds. Half the town follows yon Bludward—acos he puts 'em in fear wi' his Friendly Lads—an' the oother half's for my Davey. They even calls theirselves Bluddites an' Scatchers. So it were bahn to coom to a fight i' the end."

Anna-Marie, who had wandered to the door, exclaimed, "Why, what a lot of people are coming into the park. And, Mr. Scatcherd, there goes your son!"

She ran out to meet him across the thawing snow.

"Hallo, lass," he said smiling. "Art cooming to see me fight, then?"

"Perhaps," said Anna-Marie. "I do not much like it, though. Davey, your papa is here—do you not want to come in and see him?"

"My dad? Here?" He was very surprised. Old Mr. Scatcherd, evidently somewhat relieved that he had got his awkward confession over before his son arrived, clapped Davey on the back and said, "Now, mind tha doos us all credit, Davey, boy. I haven't alius fought straight, but mind tha do, now. Stick 'im right i' the gizzard, we'll all be watching."

Lady Murgatroyd said she was not going to watch any fight, but Mr. Oakapple went out with old Mr. Scatcherd. Anna-Marie and Lucas walked with Davey across the park toward the site that Bludward had chosen. The lake was in a dip, at some distance from the ruins of the house, beyond a slight ridge.

On the ridge they turned to look at Blastburn which lay down below, damp and glittering and smoky, its chimneys black against the unwonted sunshine.

"Aye, it's a moocky old hole," Davey said affectionately. "There's a lot wrong, but still, it's lively! It takes a howd on ye, if ye live there. Luke, lad, I want to ask thee summat."

"Yes of course; what?" said Lucas.

"You're a good friend, I can see that—you an' I might be friends, happen. But if yon Bludward doos me in, I hope tha'll take on the job o' seeing that he an' his mates doosn't have things all their own way i' the place."

"You're asking
me?
" said Lucas, surprised. And then he said, "Yes; all right."

"Shake hands on it," said Davey, and they shook.

"What about me?" said Anna-Marie.

"I doubt I don't have to ask thee!" said Davey, rumpling her hair. "Tha'rt a fighter born. I've summat to give thee, though; kind of a keepsake to pass on, ye might say."

"Oh, what is it?"

"My mam tells me as tha has a rare sweet voice for a lass thy age. Now, my owd gran, she come of gypsy stock, an' she taught me a way to sing wi' mouth closed, so the sound seems to come from a' round aboot. Like this." And he demonstrated.

"Oh, it is strange!" cried Anna-Marie. "But I thank you. I am sure not one person in a hundred knows to sing so. Not even Monsieur Ookapool."

She had several tries at it without success, and then suddenly achieved the knack. "I feel as if the sound was coming in at my ears instead of going out!"

"That's it," said Davey, satisfied. "Just the way my gran used to do it. I wouldn't like not to have told somebody how."

By now a large crowd had collected in the park; evidently half the town had got wind of the fight and come out to watch.

Lucas even observed Mr. Hobday, who, catching sight of him sidled up and said, "Hey, Luke, boy, I've 'eard tell as 'ow your gran 'as a famous owd tuning fork as used to belong to Orlando Gubbins. I know a cove what would be prepared to pay thousands and thousands for that-ere fork; 'ow about it, eh? Think your gran would sell?"

"No," said Lucas. "I'm quite certain she wouldn't. It is not even worth asking her."

Mr. Hobday, much dashed, looked as if he intended to try more persuasion, but at this moment they saw Bludward in his chair being pushed over the snow by Newky and his fuzzy-haired brother Joe. They wheeled him to a spot about ten yards from the lake, and then Lucas noticed that Joe went round among the crowd offering odds of twenty to one against Scatcherd. But there were not many takers; Bludward, it seemed, had too high a reputation as a marksman.

The ground for the duel was marked out: twenty-five yards. Scatcherd, with a little group of friends, stood nearer to the frozen ruins of the Court; Bludward's chair was not far from a big chestnut tree.

The seconds carefully checked over the bolt guns. These were a kind of metal bow, wound up by a spring; they fired the stack pins, which were used to skewer labels to the big bolts of wool in the mill. They were deadly weapons because the pins, although only four inches long, were fired with such tremendous force.

Not at all the sort of tool Mr. Oakapple would approve, Lucas thought, noticing the tutor studying one of them.

"Right? Ready?" called the taciturn Jobson, who was organizing and umpiring the duel. "When I drop this swab, both fire!"

He dropped the hank of wool. Everybody heard the
spang
of Bludward's bow, and saw Davey start as if he had been bitten; but he still stood straight, with his bow unfired. Then he began to take aim, very deliberately; Bludward, seeing this, suddenly gave his wheelchair a vigorous shove to shift it out of the line of fire. It catapulted backward down the slight slope, and out on to the frozen lake, where a number of people were standing.

The crowd scattered—some to one side, some to another—and the chair flew along the lane thus formed. And then an awesome thing happened: jarred by the sudden pressure from the people moving all at once, the ice began to crack down the middle of the lake. A dark, widening gap appeared: Bludward's chair rolled straight into it and vanished from view.

There were screams and shouts as the people on the sloping ice saved themselves by scrambling to the bank; but by the time anyone had thought to try and rescue the man in the wheelchair, it was too late.

Then they heard the twang of Davey's bow.

Anna-Marie and Lucas ran to him. He was leaning against a tree.

"Oh, are you all right?" she cried. "Did he not hit you?"

"Nay, lass, I'm doon for. Owd Bob got me right here." And he laid a hand on his breastbone.

"What for didst tha not fire?" said Melkinthorpe.

"Nay, I did. I aimed for yon chestnut tree, an' I hit it too!" said Davey grinning.

Old Scatcherd came hobbling up. "Hang on, Davey lad—tha did well—hang on!"

"Nay, I can't Dad. Owd Bob's fixed me proper. Give my love to Mam—an' the little 'uns. Remember what I taught thee, lass—"

"Oh,
don't
die!" cried Anna-Marie.

But he did die.

Sam Melkinthorpe and other friends carried him home, and old Scatcherd walked alongside. The crowd slowly melted away from the park, leaving the snow blackened and trampled and thawing, with patches of green visible for the first time in weeks. Lucas walked slowly after the mourners.

Anna-Marie spoke to nobody. She walked back to the icehouse with her lips pressed tightly together, and, once inside, sat down on the floor with her arms round Redgauntlet and cried very bitterly for a long time.

"I don't
want
him to be dead," she wept.

Her grandmother and Mr. Oakapple watched her sadly in silence.

But, much later, she finally sighed deeply, and sat up, and blew her nose. "Well—he
id
dead—like Papa and Sidi. So that is that. But it is such a waste! He was so nice. And he p-played for the Blastburn Wanderers—"

"Yes, it is a waste," said Lady Murgatroyd.

There was a tap at the door.

"May I come in?" said a tall thin man, and did so. "I heard a rumor—so I thought, if it was true, that I would come to pay my respects—Why, Eulalia! It
id
you. What a pleasant surprise. So you have not been dead all these years?"

"Why, Gus—good afternoon," Lady Murgatroyd said. "Let me introduce my friend Julian Oakapple. And this is my granddaughter, Anna-Marie. My cousin, Lord Holdernesse."

Dabbing her eyes, Anna-Marie studied Lord Holdernesse and saw that there was a strong family resemblance between him and Lady Murgatroyd. They both had the same tall bony thinness and grayness. But where she looked firm, and full of thought and decision, he looked like a dreamy old scarecrow. He gazed about him absently, murmuring, "The old icehouse; yes indeed. I can remember playing hide-and-seek here with Quincy and his sister when I was eight or nine—now what was her name?"

"So I hear you have been trying to buy Midnight Park, Gus," said Lady Murgatroyd. "I hope you weren't too upset to hear that the sale was off. I daresay you'll get your money back—if that wretched Throgmorton doesn't abscond with it. You had better watch him pretty sharply."

"Oh?" he said vaguely. "The sale's off, is it? Why is that, Eulalia?"

At this moment Lucas came silently in. He looked pale, but collected.

"Why? Because Sir Randolph won the estate by a fraud."

"A pestilent fellow; never liked him. I am not at all surprised. So to whom does it belong?"

"Why—to us, I suppose. All of us here. Let us go and look at it."

They walked outside, all of them, into the cool vaporous sunshine. Anna-Marie carried Bet, hugging her tightly. The smoke of Blastburn lay like a cushion on the horizon.

"Well—I'm sorry for you that you didn't manage to buy the park, Gus," said Lady Murgatroyd. "But I am glad for us."

She looked away from Blastburn over the great, bare, dirty,
beautiful stretch of land, with its sooty trees, and its trampled snow, and the lake full of cracked ice.

"Oh, I don't begrudge it to you, my dear Eulalia—not at all. I have got the Mill, after all."

"Haveyou, sir?" said Lucas, with interest. "Are
you
the British Rug, Mat, and Carpet Manufacturing Corporation?"

"I do own that company, yes."

"Then," said Lady Murgatroyd, "you are going to have your hands full setting things to rights there. But there is someone here who can advise you. My young cousin Lucas Bell. He has been studying the Mill and knows a great deal about it."

"I'll be very glad of your advice, my dear boy."

"Well—" Lucas ventured, "I had been thinking of becoming a writer—now that I have my father's twenty pounds a year to live on—"

But then he thought of his promise to Davey Scatcherd.

"Naturally you can be a writer as
well,
" said Lady Murgatroyd briskly. "But you must certainly advise Gus."

Must I? thought Lucas. Do I know enough about it? He thought,
Industry id a good thing because it is better to work in a carpet factory than to be out in the rain with nothing to eat.

"I'm sorry I was obliged to break the press in your factory, sir," he said to Lord Holdernesse.

"Did you, my dear boy? I was not aware of it. Well, I daresay it can be mended."

"I'm not sure that is really a very good way of making carpets, sir."

"No? You must explain it all to me by and by."

"Oh, and there's another thing, sir, that perhaps you should know," Lucas said. "When I was down in the town I overheard a couple of people talking very wild and saying they were going to breach the dikes and flood the lower part of the town—It was Joe Bludward and Newky," he told Anna-Marie—"So I went round by Haddock Street and warned the Scatcherds and everyone there. Apparently the Bluddites live mostly up at the Clutterby end of the town, so they thought they would be safe. But old Mr. Scatcherd says they have probably forgotten that the tides are at springs and most likely the whole town will be flooded; Joe Bludward always was a stupid lad, he says. So the Scatcherds are going to warn everybody to be on the lookout, and I mentioned it to Mr. Gravestone at the Mill, as that is fairly low-lying."

"It sounds," said Lady Murgatroyd, "as if we shall have everybody camping in the park. Well there will be plenty to do. How fortunate that the weather is a little warmer."

"That old Gudgeon!" said Anna-Marie in sudden alarm. "He is sure to be drowned if there is a flood!"

"I warned him too," said Lucas. "I went round that way."

"By his boat?
Mon Dieu!
Were you not afraid?"

"It was all right. He hardly seemed to remember me. I'm not sure whether he really understood what I was telling him though. He just said, 'The end thereof shall come in with a flood; but neither can the floods drown love,' and then he wandered away and started hunting for tosh on the bank."

"Oh well," said Anna-Marie, "you did your best."

Lord Holdernesse and Lady Murgatroyd had strolled up onto the ridge and were looking down at the town. Scraps of their conversation floated in among Anna-Marie's sad thoughts.

"It is no use
telling
people to change, Gus. But if their lives are better—I think there is a younger Scatcherd brother who might—"

"—Encourage the notion of fair play, start educational groups, inculcate higher principles—that sort of thing, eh, Eulalia?"

Groups, principles, Anna-Marie thought, but
people
are more important. I am important, me: I am going to make up tunes that will be cheering people for hundreds of years.

"Just the same," Mr. Oakapple said, standing beside her, as if he had heard her thoughts, "if you went away from here, what would you remember most? Not any of the people singly, but this great dark town with all its hardship and trouble."

"Davey said it was a m-moocky old place but he loved it." She wiped her eyes again.

Lady Murgatroyd and her cousin were talking about Sir Denzil.