Midnight is a Place (8 page)

"Tell a story about a girl," Anna-Marie repeated, standing still and pulling back on the hand that clasped hers. "I will not come unless you do."

"Oh, all right. Once upon a time there was—
il était une fois une jeune fille—
a girl who was a snatcher."

He used the English word because he did not know what the French would be, and Anna-Marie asked at once, "What is that?"

"She worked in a factory." Lucas was proud that he remembered the word
udine.
"A big house where they make carpets."

"What was it like?"

As well as he could, with many gestures, Lucas described the Mill: its great machines, its noise, confusion, blackness, smoke, whirring wheels, heat, danger, and muddle.

"So what did the girl do there? What was her name?"

"Let's think. Her name was Mary," he said, using his mother's name, which was the first that occurred to him.

"No it was not, it was Michelle."

"If you wish. Every day Michelle stood on the steps waiting to pick up any bits of cotton that might have been left on the carpet. Or dirt."

"Well? And what happened?" Anna-Marie said impatiently as Lucas paused.

He racked his brain. What
did
happen?

"She used to bring her dinner to work every day in a red cotton handkerchief," he said, improvising, marking time.

"What did she have for her dinner?"

"Brown bread and cold bacon."

"And cherries."

"Very well. Then one day," said Lucas, the wheels of the story suddenly beginning to turn in his mind as he remembered the scene in the Oak Chamber last night—"I had forgotten to tell you that this girl called Michelle had a pet bird in a cage, a yellow bird—"

"
Un canari
—like the one Madame gave me—"

"
Oui, an canari
—and this canary was very fond of cherries, and one day when Michelle was getting her dinner ready, the canary saw her putting the cherries into her bundle, and it pulled and pulled with its claws at the door of the cage, and at last pulled it quite open, and flew after Michelle all the way down the street and in at the gate of the factory where she worked, and it came to perch on her shoulder just as she was waiting in the pressing room. And when she ran out under the press to pick up a piece of cotton, the bird flew after her."

"
del!
" Anna-Marie grabbed hold of Lucas's arm with both hands in fright. "What happened then?"

"Oh—■" Inspiration had left him again. "Then Michelle's fairy godmother looked down and saw what was happening—"

"
No,
she did not, idiot! There is not such a thing as a fairy godmother."

"This is
my
story that I am making up, and if I want to put a fairy godmother in it, I shall have one."

"Then I shall not listen." She pulled her hand out of his and stuck her fingers in her ears. "Fairy godmothers are nothing but stupidness and make-believe. If there was such a thing as a fairy godmother, mine would come and take me away from here. What
really
happened to Michelle's bird?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, "The press came down and squashed it flat," but her hopeful expression, like that of the bird itself, looking up for crumbs, pricked his conscience. He glanced around him for a new idea.

They had been wandering, not toward the house, but rather away from it, and had reached the corner of the park nearest to the town. Here a belt of trees screened the high stone wall from view, and a little round, artificial hill rose in front of the trees. On top of the hillock a miniature thorn tree had been planted, and by its roots lay a couple of boulders, poised near the edge of a dark, crevice-like opening in the side of the mound.

"The carpet factory where Michelle worked," Lucas continued, strolling on past the little hill, "was at the foot of an enormously high mountain, so high that its top was almost always covered in cloud."

They passed the cleft in the hillside, which, as Lucas knew, contained a door. But he had never been inside.

"The cherry tree from which Michelle picked her cherries grew on top of this high mountain."

"
Eh bien?
"

"Well, that morning when she picked her cherries, Michelle had kicked a small stone. And it slowly rolled nearer and nearer to the top of a cliff down the side of the mountain, until at last it lay right on the edge of the cliff. And presently the wind blew hard, and the stone fell off the edge of the cliff. It fell to the bottom and started a whole lot of other stones rolling, and they all went roaring down the side of the mountain."

"
Une avalanche, alors! Et puis?
"

"The avalanche roared down to where the factory was."

"And knocked it down?"

"Well, not quite," said Lucas. "But the stones fell into the machinery and stopped it. So the press stuck halfway down, and Michelle's canary was safe."

"And it flew back to her shoulder, and she gave it a cherry out of her red bundle," said Anna-Marie with satisfaction. "I think I
will let
my
canary go free. It makes me sad to see it in a cage."

Lucas opened his mouth to say, No, you should not do that; it will die of cold or be caught by a hawk. But then he decided to wait. Perhaps she would forget this impulse. And in the meantime she was looking more cheerful, swinging on his hand, from time to time trying to take little skipping steps; there was no sense in upsetting her over a trifle.

They walked round to the side of the house and entered the stableyard, for Lucas thought Anna-Marie might like to see what horses were left.

Garridge was there, setting Noddy between the shafts of the governess cart. As they approached him, Mr. Oakapple came out of the house. He was carrying a large bundle of papers and wore a harassed expression.

"There you are," he said to Lucas. "I have to go down into Blastburn to take this note to the tax office. You might as well ride in with me and pay your second visit to the Mill; then I will pick you up on my way back."

"
Et moi?
"said Anna-Marie. "What is to happen to me?"

"Garridge will take you indoors to Mrs. Gourd," Mr. Oakapple said to her in French.

"I will not go with that man," Anna-Marie said loftily. "He smells of dirty straw and besides I do not like his face. I will come with you."

"Certainly not. The place where we are going is not at all suitable for you," Mr. Oakapple said hastily, but without conviction.

Lucas could see that Anna-Marie was going to get her way, and in fact she did, by stubbornly refusing to go into the house, and finally by simply climbing into the governess cart and sitting there, defying anyone to remove her.

"She'd best have a comforter," said Garridge, who had watched this scene in silence with a sardonic expression. And he fetched out a musty-smelling carriage rug and wrapped it round Anna-Marie, muttering, "Proper chip off the owd block
you
be; a'body can see that."

"
Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?
" asked Anna-Marie as they drove away.

"He says that you resemble your father, who lived in this house when he was a boy."

Mr. Oakapple sighed, glancing at Anna-Marie as if he wondered whether she had inherited her father's abilities along with his willful disposition.

Over in the distance to their right lay the little hillock with the thorn tree on top and the opening in the side.

Anna-Marie glanced at it as they passed it again, and inquired, "Is that a cave? Who lives in it?"

"A witch—" Lucas was beginning, but Mr. Oakapple interrupted him with a frown. "What nonsense. Don't let me hear you frighten the child with such tales."

"But Bob the groom always used to say so. An old woman who only came out in the dusk—"

"Then Bob the groom talked a lot of rubbish and I am glad that he is no longer here. That cave was once an icehouse," Mr. Oakapple told Anna-Marie. "It is not a real cave, but was built by your grandfather."

Lucas kept silent, deciding not to say that once or twice in the twilight he personally had seen what, in the distance, looked like the figure of an old woman dressed in gray slipping into the cave. What could she possibly be but a witch? However he was sure that Mr. Oakapple would dismiss this as mere invention, and unsuitable for Anna-Marie's ears at that.

"What is an icehouse?" Anna-Marie was asking.

"When your grandfather was young he used to have big parties, and. all the visitors would drink wine and eat ice pudding. In the winter, when the lake on the other side of the park froze solid, your grandfather used to send men with axes and carts to chop out the ice and pack it away in that cave. Then it would stay frozen all through the summer."

"And they could come whenever they liked and take some to put round their pudding."

"I suppose so," said Mr. Oakapple. "I'm not quite sure how you make ice pudding."

"
I
am sure. You take eggs and cream and sugar and lemon and beat all together and put the basin in a bowl of ice, and you beat it and beat it and beat it. Madame Hortense who keeps the Auberge du Cheval Blanc has often shown me," Anna-Marie said triumphantly.

"Er—very likely." The tutor seemed a little taken aback. "Now here we are at the Mill. I'll leave you two with Mr. Smallside and drive back to collect you in an hour or so."

"Can't Anna-Marie go with you?" Lucas murmured in an undertone, but Mr. Oakapple shook his head.

"It would be out of the question to take her into the tax inspector's office."

Lucas felt that it would be equally out of the question to take Anna-Marie over the factory. It had been bad enough going round with Mr. Oakapple, meeting the hostile, curious, or sneering glances of the workers, trying to ignore the veiled mockery of Scatcherd, but with the small Anna-Marie it would be far worse. He would be reduced to her status, made to look like a child.

However he was given no choice; Mr. Oakapple pulled up by the door of Smallside's office, lifted Anna-Marie down, waited briefly for Lucas to alight, then whipped up the mare and drove off.

The moment that Lucas set foot inside Mr. Smallside's little office he felt again the prickling sensation of approaching trouble that had visited him so often, and with so little cause, it seemed, during the last few days. And yet he could hardly have said what caused the feeling. Mr. Smallside was talking in a low voice to a big black-haired man at the other end of the room; the two men's heads were bent close together.

"If it should come to a strike, whom can you trust?" Lucas heard Smallside demand softly. His pale soapy face wore an even yellower tinge than it had on the previous day.

"Noakes and Goadby are staunch," the big man returned in the same tone. "But I'd not trust Bludward farther than I could push him in that chair o' his."

"You are certain of those two?"

"I'll go bail for 'em."

"Then tell them to keep by the big gates, ready to shoot the bolts, the very minute the last of this shift's out. There's a feeling around the works I don't like; mischief's afoot, or my name's not Bertram Smallside. I've sent for the dragoons, but dear knows how long it'll take 'em to come."

"A strike's not the only form that mischief can take."

Both men looked over their shoulders, nervously, at this, and then for the first time Smallside caught sight of Lucas and Anna-Marie. With considerable difficulty he creased his face into the ingratiating smile that Lucas had found so annoying the day before.

"What a surprise!" he said with false heartiness. "Young Master Bell and a young lady. Just fancy that, now!"

"I've come for my lesson," Lucas said stiffly. He felt foolish at having to say this, particularly since Mr. Smallside quite plainly had. not been expecting him at all, and seemed decidedly put out by his arrival.

"Indeed? Is that so? Well, now, can you imagine it?" Smallside spoke at random, quite mechanically, as if his mind were not at all concentrated on Lucas, but were occupied with something else entirely.

The black-haired man addressed a question to him, in a voice too low to be heard.

"Young Master Lucas Bell from up at the Court," Smallside replied. Lucas might not have heard this if he had not caught his own name. The other man looked extremely startled, and made a gesture as if he were shutting a door.

"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.