The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories (8 page)

“I shall do no such thing,” Miss Lestrange said firmly, and she went on her way, and David went skating zigzag on his way, whistling again the little tune,
Snowdrops
—“Mi, re, doh, Snowdrops in the snow . . .”

But Miss Lestrange did turn and look once after David, slightly puzzled. He was so different, so much livelier and more sure of himself than during her lessons; he had quite surprised her.

But as for getting lost—what nonsense.

Nevertheless, in a couple of minutes, without being aware of it, Miss Lestrange did lose herself. She came to a point where five alleys met at an open space shaped like a star, chose one at random, walked a fair way along it, came to another similar intersection, and chose again. Rumbury Town folded itself round her. The green sky overhead was turning to navy-blue.

And all around her was dark, too; like the crater of an extinct volcano. An occasional orange streetlight dimly illuminated the alleyway. Not a sound to be heard. It was a dead world.

Suddenly Miss Lestrange felt uneasy. Her thoughts flew to the professional visit taking place behind her, from the vision of which she had so determinedly started away. Jane must have left him by now. Probably in the car, wondering where I’ve got to. I had better turn back.

She turned back. And came to the first of the star-shaped conjunctions of lanes.

“Which was mine?” She stood wondering. All four openings facing her looked blank, like shut drawers; she could find no recognizable feature in any of them. The names were just visible: Lambskin Alley, New Year Way, Peridot Lane, Hell Passage; none of them did she consciously remember seeing before.

“I’d surely have noticed New Year’s Way,” she thought, and so chose Hell Passage—not that it looked any more familiar than the rest. What may have caught her unwitting ear was the faint thrum and throb of music, somewhere far away in that direction; as she proceeded along the narrow passage the sound became steadily more identifiable as music, though Miss Lestrange could not put a name to the actual
tune
; but then the world of pop music was unfamiliar territory to her. At least, though, music meant people, and inhabited regions; just for a minute or two, back there, although she would not have admitted it to anybody, Miss Lestrange had felt a stirring of panic at the vacuum of silence all around her.

On she went; crossed another star-shaped conjunction of alleys and, by the light of one high-up orange sodium tube, hung where the youth of Rumbury Town were unlikely to be able to break it by throwing bottles, saw that Hell Passage still continued, bisecting the angle between Sky Peals Lane and Whalebone Way.

“Curious names they have hereabouts; it must be a very old quarter. I shall look up the names on the map if—when I get home.
Did
I come this way?” Miss Lestrange asked herself; another surge of anxiety and alarm swept over her as she passed the closed premises of the Prong, Thong, and Trident Company—surely she would have noticed
that
on the way along?

But the music was much louder now; at least, soon, she must encounter somebody whom she could ask.

Then, without any question, she knew she was lost. For Hell Passage came to a stop—or rather, it opened into a little cul-de-sac of a yard out of which there was no exit. Miss Lestrange could see quite plainly that there was no other exit because the yard was illuminated by a fierce, flicking, variable light which came from bundles of tarry rags stuffed into roadmenders’ tripods and burning vigorously. These were set against the walls. There were about a dozen people in the yard, and Miss Lestrange’s first reaction was one of relief.

“It’s one of those pop groups,” she thought. “I’ve heard it’s hard for them, when they’re starting, to find places to practice; I suppose if you can’t afford to hire a studio, somewhere like this, far off and out of earshot, would be a godsend.”

Somehow the phrase
out of earshot
, though she had used it herself, made her feel uncomfortable; the beat and howl of the music, failing to fight its way out of the narrow court, was so tremendous, that it gave her a slight chill to think what a long way she must be from any residential streets, for people not to have complained about it.

She glanced again at the group; decided not to ask them her way, and turned to go quickly and quietly back. But she was too late; she found somebody standing behind her: an enormously large, tall man, dressed in red velvet trousers and jacket, with a frilled shirt.

“Hey, now, you’re not thinking of
leaving
, are you—when you just got here?” His voice was a genial roar, easily heard even above the boom of the music, but there was a jeering note under its geniality. “Surely not going to run off without hearing us, were you? Look, boys and girls,” he went on, his voice becoming, without the slightest difficulty, even louder, “Look who’s here! It’s Miss Lestrange, Miss January Lestrange, come to give us her critical opinion!”

A wild shout of derisive laughter went up from the group in the court.

“Three cheers for Miss January Lestrange—the hippest harpist in the whole of toe-tapping Rumbury Town!”

They cheered her, on and on, and the tall man led her with grinning mock civility to a seat on an upturned Snowcem tin. The players began tuning their instruments, some of which, trumpets and basses, seemed conventional enough, but others were contrivances that Miss Lestrange had never laid eyes on before—zinc washtubs with strings stretched across, large twisted shells, stringed instruments that looked more like weapons—crossbows, perhaps—than zithers, strange prehistoric-looking wooden pipes at least six or seven feet long—and surely that was an actual
fire
burning under the kettle-drum?

“January!” the large man boomed, standing just behind the shoulder of Miss Lestrange. “Now,
there’s
a chilly sort of name to give a spirited lady like yourself—a downright cold, miserable kind of dreary name, isn’t it, boys and girls? The worst month of the year!”

“It is not!” snapped Miss Lestrange—but she did wish he would not stand so close, for his presence just out of sight gave her the cold grue—for some odd reason the phrase
Get thee behind me, Satan
, slipped into her mind—“January means hope, it means looking forward, because the whole year lies ahead.”

But her retort was drowned in the shout from the group of players—“
We’ll
soon warm her up!
”

“Happy lot, ain’t they?” confided the voice at her back. “Nick’s Nightflowers, we call ourselves—from the location, see?” He pointed up and, by the light of the flaring rags, Miss Lestrange could just read the sign on the wall:
old nick’s court, e.i.
“And I’m Old Nick, naturally—happy to have you with us tonight, Miss Lestrange.”

She flicked a glance sideways, to see if it would be possible to slip away once they began playing, but to her dismay most of the group were now between her and the entrance, blocking the way; from their grins, it was plain that they knew what she had in mind. And she had never seen such a unattractive crew—“Really, she thought, “if they had
tails
they could hardly look less human.”

Old Nick, with his red velvet and ruffles, was about the most normal in appearance and dress, but she cared for him least of all, and unobtrusively edged her Snowcem tin cornerways until at least she had the wall at her back.

“Ready, all? Cool it now—
real cool,
” called Nick, at which there was a howl of laughter. “One, two, three-
stomp
!”

The music broke out again. If music it could be called. The sound seemed to push Miss Lestrange’s blood backward along her arteries, to flog on her eardrums, to slam in her lungs, to seize hold of her heart and dash it from side to side.

“I shan’t be able to endure it for more than a minute or two,” she thought quite calmly. “It’s devilish, that’s what it is—really devilish.”

Just at the point when she had decided she could stand it no longer, half a dozen more figures lounged forward from a shadow at the side of the court, and began to dance. Boys or girls? It was hard to say. They seemed bald, and extraordinarily
thin
—they had white, hollow faces, deepset eyes under bulging foreheads, meaningless grins. “White satin!” thought Miss Lestrange scornfully. “And ruffles! What an extraordinarily dated kind of costume—like the pierrot troupes when I was young.”

But at closer view the satin seemed transparent gauze, or chiffon. “I’ve never
seen
anyone so thin—they are like something out of Belsen,” thought Miss Lestrange. “That one must have had rickets when young—his legs are no more than bones. They must all have had rickets,” she decided.

“D’you like it?” boomed the leader in her ear. It seemed amazing that he could still make his voice heard above the row, but he could.

“Frankly, no,” said Miss Lestrange. “I never laid eyes on such a spiritless ensemble. They all dance as if they wanted dosing with Parrish’s Food and codliver oil.”

“Hear that, gang?” he bawled to the troupe. “Hear that? The lady doesn’t care for your dancing; she thinks you’re a lily-livered lot.”

The dancers paused; they turned their bloodless faces towards Miss Lestrange. For a moment she quailed, as tiny lights seemed to burn in the deep eye-sockets, all fixed on her. But then the leader shouted,

“And what’s more, I think so too! Do it again—and this time, put some guts into it, or it’ll be prong, thong, and trident, all right!”

The players redoubled their pace and volume, the dancers broke into a faster shuffle. And the leader, still making himself heard above the maniac noise, shouted,

“Hope! Where are you? Come along out, you mangy old tom-cat, you!” And, to the group, “
He’ll
soon tickle you up!”

A dismal and terrified wailing issued from the dancers at these words.

“Hope’s a little pet of mine,” confided the leader to Miss Lestrange. “Makes all the difference when they’
re a bit sluggish;
you
ought to like him too.”

She distrusted his tone, which seemed to promise some highly unpleasant surprise, and looked round sharply.

A kind of ripple parted the musicians and dancers; at first Miss Lestrange could not see what had caused this, but, even through the music, she thought she could hear cries of pain or terror; then a wave of dancers eddied away from her and a gold-brown animal bounded through, snatching with sabre-teeth at a bony thigh as it passed.

“That’s Hope,” said the leader with satisfaction. “
That’s
my little tiger-kitten. Isn’t he a beauty? Isn’t he a ducky-diddums? I powder his fur with pepper and ginger before we start, to put him in a lively mood—and
then
doesn
’t he chase them about if they’re a bit mopish!”

Hope certainly had a galvanizing effect upon the dancers; as he slunk and bounded among them, their leaps and gyrations had the frenzy of a tarantella; sometimes he turned and made a sudden snarling foray among the musicians, which produced a wild flurry of extra discords and double drumbeats.

“Here, puss, puss! Nice pussy, then! There’s a lady here who’d like to stroke you.”

Hope turned, and silently sprang in their direction. Miss Lestrange had her first good look at him. He was bigger than a leopard, a brownish-ginger colour all over, with a long, angrily switching tail; his fangs glistened white-gold in the fiery light, his eyes blazed like carbuncles; he came towards Miss Lestrange slowly, stalking, with head lowered.

And she put out her right hand, confidently running it over his shoulder-blades and along the curving, knobbed spine; its bristles undulated under the light pressure. “There, then!” she said absently. Hope turned, and rubbed his harsh ruff against her hand; elevated his chin to be scratched; finally sat down beside her and swung the long tail neatly into place over formidable talons.

Miss Lestrange thoughtfully pulled his ears; she had always liked cats.

She turned to the leader again.

“
I still don
’t think much of your dancers. And, to be honest, your music seems to me nothing but a diabolical row!”

Silence followed her words. She felt the dark cavities in their faces trained on her, and forced herself not to shrink.

“However, thank you for playing to me. And now I must be going,” she ended politely.

“Dear me.” The leader’s tone was thoughtful. “That fairly puts us in our place, don’t it, boys and girls? You certainly are a free-spoken one, Miss January Lestrange. Come now—I’m sure a nice lady, a dyed-in-the-wool lady like you, wouldn’t want to be too hard on the lads, and
really
upset them. Just before you go—if—you
do
go—
tell me, don
’t you think that, in time, if they practice hard enough, they might amount to something?’

“I am absolutely not prepared to make such a statement,” Miss Lestrange said firmly. “Your kind of music is quite outside my province. And I have never believed in flattery.” A kind of rustle ran through the group; they moved closer.

“Our kind of music ain’t her province,” the leader said. “That’s true. Tell you what, Miss Lestrange.
You
shall give
us
a tune. Let’s have some of
your
kind of music—eh? That’d be a treat for us, wouldn’t it, gang?”

They guffawed, crowding closer and closer; she bit her lip.

“Fetch over the harp!” bawled Nick. “No one in our ensemble actually pays it,” he explained to Miss Lestrange. “But we like to have one along always—you never know when someone may turn up who’s a harp fancier. Like you. No strings, I’m afraid, but we can fix that easy.”

A warped, battered, peeling old harp was dumped down before her; it had no strings, but one of the dancers dragged up a coil of what looked like telephone cable and began rapidly stringing it to and fro across the frame.

“Now,” said Nick, “you shall delight us, Miss Lestrange! And if you
do
, then maybe we’ll see about allowing you to leave. Really, you know, we’d hate to part from you.”

An expectant pause had fallen: an unpleasant, mocking, triumphant silence.

“I haven’t the least intention of playing that ridiculous instrument,” Miss Lestrange said coldly. “And now, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me; my friend will be wondering where I’
ve got to. Come, Hope.
”

She turned and walked briskly to the entrance of the court; there was no need to push her way, they parted before her. Hope trotted at her side.

Far off, down Hell Passage, could be heard a faint, clear whistle, coming her way.

But, once out in the alley, Miss Lestrange tottered, and nearly fell; she was obliged to put a hand against the wall to support herself. Seized with a deep chill and trembling, she was afraid to trust her unsteady legs, and had to wait until the boy David reached her, whistling and zig-zagging along on his rollerskates.

“Coo, Miss Lestrange, I knew you’d get lost; and you did, didn’t you? Thought I’d better come back and see where you’d got to. You all right?”
he said, sharply scrutinizing her face.