Midnight is a Place

by Joan Aiken

  "Oh"—Mr. Oakapple turned slightly at the question, then concentrated once more on the dark road—"I thought Sir Randolph had told you. We are going because it is your birthday tomorrow."

  "I don't understand."

  Lucas knew that he ought to have been pleased at his birthday's being remembered, but he could only feel cold, wet, and anxious. They jolted on through the rainy dark. By now the lodge gates had been left behind; they were descending the broad main hill that led into Blastburn. Gas lamps flared at intervals; the mare's feet slipped and rang on granite cobbles.

  "Well"—Mr. Oakapple drew a sharp, impatient sigh—"You know that your father was Sir Randolph's partner."

  "Yes."

  "And after he died, it was found that he had left a will appointing Sir Randolph as your guardian."

  "Yes," Lucas answered despondently, remembering his journey back from India to England last year, after the death of his parents from smallpox, and the miserable arrival at Midnight Court.

  "It was also laid down in your father's will that from the age of thirteen you should be permitted to learn the business, in order that when you were of age you could take your father's place as partner. Your father stipulated that some part of each day should be spent in the Mill, studying how it is run. And I have to go with you."

  Mr. Oakapple's tone indicated that he did not in the least relish this program, but Lucas did not notice the tutor's shortness for once.

  His great relief at learning that he was not immediately to be put to work as a stripper or fluff-picker was mixed with another anxiety. How, he wondered, did one set about running a carpet factory? He found it quite hard enough to perform the tasks in geometry or history prepared for him by Mr. Oakapple, who often called him a slowtop; he was unhappily certain that learning how to look after a whole factory would be completely beyond him.

  They had reached the town. There were very few shops, taverns, or dwelling houses. The buildings for the most part were factories, workshops where articles were made—nail foundries where clanging lengths of iron were cut into strips, gasworks where coal was baked in huge ovens, papermills where wood pulp and clay were boiled into a porridge that was the raw material for books and magazines—jute mills, cotton mills, potteries, collieries. None of these places looked as if they were built by human beings or used by them. Huge, dark, irregular shapes rose up all around; they were like pinnacles in a rocky desert, like ruined prehistoric remains, or like the broken toys of some giant's baby. The potteries were enormous funnels; the gasworks huge flowerpots; the collieries monstrous pyramids, with skeleton wheels the size of whole church fronts which stood above them against the fiery sky.

  Every now and then the roadway was cut by sets of iron rails, and sometimes a clanking train of wagons would run slowly across in front of the governess cart, and the mare would sweat and whinny and shudder her coat at the sudden loud noise, and the smell of hot metal, and the spark-filled smoke.

  "Why do we have to go to the factory at this time?" said Lucas nervously in one of these pauses while they waited for a train to cross. "Won't it be shut for the night?"

  "Factories never shut." The tutor glanced at him briefly. "Didn't you know about shift work? When the day workers leave, the night workers come on, so that the machines, which cost a great deal of money, need never stand idle. We shall get there just as the night shift comes on duty. It makes no difference when we arrive—people are always at work."

  Somehow this idea filled Lucas with dismay. He thought of the machinery always running by night and day, the great fires always burning, the huge buildings always filled with little people dashing to and fro—never any darkness, or silence, or rest. He felt a kind of terror at the thought of wheels turning on and on, without ever stopping.

  "Don't the machines ever stop at all?"

  "Oh, perhaps for one week in the year, so that they can clean the boilers and put a new lining on the main press. Here we are," said Mr. Oakapple with gloom, turning the mare's head in at a pair of huge gates through a wall even higher than that around Midnight Park. Tram rails ran right through the gates and across a wide cobbled area beyond which was lit by gas flares.

  Mr. Oakapple brought the mare to a halt and found a place to tether her in a line of stable sheds at one side of the factory yard. As he did this, they were passed by a dismal little procession going in the opposite direction. Two or three women with checked shawls over their heads accompanied a pair of men who were carrying something—a small shape—on a plank and covered by a blanket.

  A short distance behind them walked another shawled woman. Her arms were folded, her head bent. She walked draggingly, as if she had been dead-tired for more weeks than she could remember.

  As she passed near Lucas and Mr. Oakapple, a man in a black frock coat came out of a small brightly lit office and spoke to her. "Mrs. Braithwaite—ah, Mrs. Braithwaite! Mr. Gammel said to tell you that the compensation will be sent up tomorrow morning—you may be sure of that—ten shillings and a free doormat. The very best quality!"

  "Ten shillings?" The woman flung back her shawl and stared at him for a moment in silence. Her face was very pale. Then she said, "What do I care about your ten shillings? That won't bring my Jinny back, that had the sweetest voice in our lane and could make a bacon pudding to equal mine, though she was only eight."

  The frock-coated man shrugged. "Say what you please, there's not many turns up their noses at ten shillings and a free mat—why, you could sell that again, if you already have one, for double the factory price."

  "Have one?" she said bitterly, her voice rising. "Why, we have three, already. Three fine free doormats. What do you say to that, Mr. Bertram Smallside?" Then she drew the shawl over her face again and followed the plank-bearers out through the gate into the rainy night.

  "What did she mean?" whispered Lucas uneasily, as he and Mr. Oakapple left the cart and walked toward the frock-coated man, who had turned back in the direction of his office.

  "Oh"—the tutor's voice was low and dry: he spoke hurriedly—"I suppose her child may have been injured by the great press—she was one of the fluff-pickers, maybe; it does happen from time to time, I have heard—"

  He entered the office. Lucas remained outside, looking toward the gateway, which was empty now. He remembered the words of Bob the groom: "Nineteen or twenty a year, regular—specially fluff-pickers—even more than falls into the soap-plodders at Lathers and Smothers—"

  Inside the office he heard his tutor saying, "Mr. Smallside? Good evening. I believe Sir Randolph has already sent word. I come from the Court; I have brought down young Master Lucas Bell, as arranged, to be shown the works."

  Mr. Smallside's manner changed completely. He had been looking irritably at the visitors as if he had little time for them. Now he smiled, and the brisk, matter-of-fact tone he had used with Mrs. Braithwaite was replaced by obsequious, hand-rubbing civility, as he came out into the yard.

  "Young Master Bell? Yes, indeed, yes, indeed. Sir Randolph did graciously think to mention it. He sent a note. Delighted to meet you, Master Bell, delighted indeed! What a pleasure, what a pleasure! How well I remember your dear father, at least I almost remember him, for in fact he left to look after our Indian supply office just the year before I became manager here, but I've heard his name spoken so often that it's much the same. Such a sad loss when he passed away. And so you're his son—young Master Bell! Well, well, well, young Master Bell, what can we do for you?"

  "I—I don't exactly know," stammered Lucas, quite taken aback by all this politeness, so extremely different from his usual treatment. In spite of it—or even because of it—he was not sure that he liked Mr. Smallside, who was a lean, pallid man with a bidding head and a face the color and shape of a bar of carpet soap. His hand, also, with which he grasped that of Lucas and shook it up and down very many times, had a kind of damp soapy feel to it. Lucas withdrew his own as soon as possible, and, when he could manage it without being observed, rubbed his pal
m vigorously against the skirts of his rough frieze jacket.

  "Now," said Mr. Smallside, leading them into his office, which was a kind of little hut in the middle of the yard, cramped, hot, piled high with dusty papers and lit by hissing gas globes. "Now, what can we offer young Master Bell? A bit of parkin? A drop of prune wine? A caraway biscuit? Young gentlemen usually have a sweet tooth, I know!"

  "Nothing, thank you," Mr. Oakapple replied for Lucas. His tone was brusque. "I think we should commence our tour straight away. The boy still has his schoolwork to do as well."

  "Dear, dear, dear!" Mr. Smallside shook his head sorrowfully. "Don't stretch the young shoot too far, though, Mr. Oakapple? All work and no play won't make the best hay, we used to say when I was a young lad—" Putting his head on one side, he smiled at Lucas so much that the smile seemed likely to run round and meet at the back of his head. Lucas felt more than ever that he could not possibly be at ease in the company of Mr. Smallside and hoped that they would not have his escort while they went over the Mill.

  He soon discovered that he need have had no anxieties on that score. It was suddenly plain that Mr. Smallside felt he had kept his smile on long enough; it dropped from his face like melted butter, and he went to the door of his hut and bawled across the yard towards a group of men engaged in unloading a truck: "Scatcherd! Scatcherd! Where are you? Hey, one of you trimmers—Barth, Stewkley, Danby, Bloggs—send Scatcherd to me directly. Make haste there!"

  His tone was quite different again—bullying, loud, sharp, as if he enjoyed showing off his power.

  A man left the rest and ran across the yard.

  "There you are then," Mr. Smallside addressed him disagreeably. "Took your time, didn't you? You're to show young Master Bell here over the works, anything he wants to see."

  "What about the new load o' wool?" said the man, who had come into the hut. His tone was not quite insolent, but it was by no means humble; he stood in the doorway, panting a little, and looked squarely at Smallside. He was a thin, white-faced, muscular youngish man with sharp features and black hair, a lock of which had fallen across his forehead, partly obscuring but not concealing the fact that he had one eye covered by a black patch. It might have been the reflection from the red flares outside, shining through the unglazed window, but Lucas thought that Scatcherd's other eye held a spark of something bright, fierce, and dangerous. He looked like a circus animal that had not been very well tamed.

  "Bloggs can handle the wool," Smallside answered shortly. "Show the young gentleman round, anywhere he asks you to take him."

  "Where shall I start?" said Scatcherd in a sulky tone.

  "At the beginning. Show him the wool intake. And then the cutters. And then the looms. And the gluing. And the trimming. And so on—good heavens, I don't have to wet-nurse you, do I?"

  "Shall I show him the press?" Scatcherd inquired. There was nothing out of the way about his manner, but the question somehow fell oddly.

  Smallside's answer took a moment in coming. "Later—that can come later. After the rest. If there's time. Get on, man! I have all these orders to countersign."

  Mr. Smallside turned with a preoccupied busy air to the papers on his desk, and Scatcherd by means of a sideways jerk of his head indicated that Oakapple and Lucas were to follow him. They hurried after him across the cobbled yard. Lucas, glancing back, felt sorry for poor Noddy, the mare, left alone in the dark, noisy, dreary place, and highly apprehensive for himself as to what lay ahead.

  He was to dream, that night and for many nights to come, of what he saw during the next couple of hours.

  It was not so much that the sights were frightening, though some were that; but they were so strange, so totally unfamiliar from anything that he had ever seen before; the shapes and movements of the machines were so black, quick, ugly, or sudden; the noises were so atrociously loud, the heat was so blistering, the smells so sickly, acid, or stifling.

  "This here's the melder"—or the grabber, the sorting-press, or the tub thumper—Scatcherd kept saying, as he dodged nimbly under great metal arms, round swiftly-spinning enormous screws, by wheels that were almost invisible from speed and ever-whirling belts, through arches of pistons that rose and fell like the legs of some great insect, the body of which was hidden in the forest of machinery above them. Scatcherd never bothered to turn his head or to raise his voice while he imparted information about the work. Often Lucas could see his lips move but could catch less than a tenth of what he said. Could those be the right names for the machines, or could Scatcherd be deliberately misleading them? In either case, Lucas felt that at the end of the two hours he would be no wiser than at the start; he was totally bewildered by all he saw.

  The wool intake was the only part of the process that he could really grasp: raw wool, as taken from the sheep's back, came clanking into the works on the trains of trucks that ran through the forecourt. The wool was in huge bales, corded up like outsize parcels. Men slashed through the cords, and the bales immediately exploded apart into masses of springy fluff which was sent sliding down a great chute into a kind of hopper where it was washed and graded; then it was teased, to have the knots and lumps and prickles taken out; then, according to the grade, some wool was dyed, some was bleached. The men in charge of the dye vats were a strange sight, for they were splashed all over in brilliant colors, their hair was colored, their arms were green or blue or crimson to the elbows.

  Some of the carpets were woven with shuttles on looms. The looms, with their high and complicated machinery, occupied several of the large central buildings. But other carpets, the more inexpensive ones, were made in a new way, invented, Scatcherd told them, by Sir Quincy Murgatroyd, the original founder of the factory. He had devised a means of sticking short lengths of wool onto canvas, which was both faster and cheaper than the weaving process. And if the carpets tended to come unstuck after a few years, what did that matter? They were not the kind of carpets that were bought by rich folks. Imparting this information, Scatcherd gave his audience a malicious, sidelong glance.

  "T'glue's not t'best grade, you see," he remarked, pausing beside a huge vat which contained a frothy brown vile-smelling brew that was just coming to the boil. "Very poor glue that is, and joost as well, for when chaps falls into it, which happens from time to time, they stand a better chance o' coming out alive. Which they never did, mind you, in owd Sir Quincy's day; the glue he used would ha' stuck Blastburn Town Hall oopside down on top o' Kilnpit Crags till the week after Joodgement Day."

  "People fall in there?" said Lucas faintly.

  "Ah, it's slippery roond the edge, you see; you don't want to step too close, yoong master, or you'll get those nice nankeen britches splashed," Scatcherd told him with a mocking smile.

  Oakapple opened his mouth as if he would have liked to put in some remark, but Scatcherd led them on, talking all the time, past wide rollers, which spread the glue on the canvas backing, and complicated mechanical arms which, working back and forth on hinges, sprinkled the chopped-up wool over the gluey surface. Then there were implements like rakes, or combs, which straightened the pile, teasers to remove any dots of glue, sponges to mop away loose hairs, and a sucker-fan to draw the wool up so that it stood on end while the carpet was whirled round on a platform called a swiveler.

  "Had enow, maybe?" Scatcherd inquired drily as they stood by the swiveler which spun and rocked so giddily that it made Lucas feel dizzy just to watch it. "Reckon you've looked at as mooch as you can take for one shift?"

  Lucas did feel so, but his pride was pricked by Scatherd's tone. "What was that thing you spoke of to Mr. Smallside—the press? We haven't seen that yet, have we?"

  "Oh, I think we've looked at quite enough for one evening—<" Mr. Oakapple was beginning, but Scatcherd, again without seeming to have heard the tutor, said, seeming to find this a most unexpected request, "The press? You want to see the press? Eh, very well"—and he turned on his heel. "Down this way then. Pressing's the end o' the manufacturing process. Afte
r that the carpet's ready for sale. This here's the pressing room—careful down t'steps. They're slippery—t'glue gets all over."

  The pressing room was a huge place like the crypt of a church. Steps led down to it on all four sides.

  "Where is the press?" Lucas began, and then, looking up, he saw that the whole ceiling was in fact a great metal slab which could be raised or lowered by hydraulic machinery.

  A carpet was being unrolled and spread at feverish speed in the square central part of the room. The very instant it was laid out flat the men who had done so bounded up the steps, not a moment too soon, for the press came thudding down with a tremendous clap of dull sound.

  "Toss a cob nut in there, you'll get it cracked free gratis," Scatcherd said briefly.

  Lucas could well believe him. If anybody slipped and fell under the press, they would be done for. It rose up again much more slowly than it had come down, and the carpet was snatched away by a mechanical grab; then half a dozen overall-clad children with brooms, who had been ready waiting on the steps, darted out onto the floor and swept it with frantic speed and assiduity before the next piece of carpet was unrolled.

  "Why can't the floor be swept by machinery?" Lucas asked.

  "Childer's cheaper," Scatcherd answered laconically, with another of his sidelong glances. "Machines has to be kept cleaned and oiled, but there's always a new supply o' kids."

  A question trembled in Lucas's mind; but Scatcherd, as if hearing the unspoken words, went on, "That bit's not do risky, but what does come up chancy is when there's a bit o' fluff or dirt discoovered on the carpet when it's spread out—ah! Like there, see?"

  A new carpet had been spread out, brown and gold; in the middle, clearly visible on a circle of gold, was a clot of black oily wool, seemingly left from one of the previous processes.

  "The chaps on the swiveler work too fast, you see; it often happens," Scatcherd said. "Now someone has to go get it off, o' course, before it's ground in by t'press. The quickest one on the shift has to do it—the one they call the snatcher. Watch now—"