by Joan Aiken
"I thought you liked Sir Randolph?" Lucas ventured.
"I can't imagine why you should imagine any such thing!" snapped the tutor. "It was not very observant of you." Then, making an attempt to recover his usual rather dry manner, he added, "However, my feelings are of no concern. We must just make the best of things."
"But if Sir Randolph has to sell this house"—Lucas did not love Midnight Court, but the thought of being obliged to quit was frightening—"where should we go?"
"We'd have to find somewhere else—some house without half a hundred wasted rooms. I, for one, would have little objection.... Run along now; it must be your suppertime. I daresay you may have it with Anna-Marie if you prefer her company."
Lucas did not prefer it. He had another question; it embarrassed him to ask it, but he felt he must. Nervous but resolute, he stammered, "Mr. Oakapple, d-does Sir Ralph pay your wages?"
A glance at the tutor's face gave him his answer.
"Then how do you manage?"
The tutor laughed shortly. "From hand to mouth!"
"But," Lucas persisted, more and more puzzled, "in that case, why do you stay here?"
Mr. Oakapple's continued stay at the Court, he felt, certainly could not be through fondness of the position, or of his pupil. Some expression of this thought perhaps showed in his face, for the tutor laughed again and patted him on the shoulder in a more friendly manner than he had ever shown before.
"Never mind why I stay! I have my reasons. Perhaps I'll tell you someday. Go now, before Sir Randolph wakes. Have you finished your task?"
"No, sir," Lucas replied, coming out with the truth more boldly than he might have done two days ago.
"Well, it has been a trying day. You may leave it till tomorrow morning if you make sure to do it then. In the meantime, do as you please. Amuse yourself. Perhaps you may like to go and play some game with Anna-Marie."
The tutor retired inside the study and closed the door.
Lucas walked slowly away, thinking that Mr. Oakapple could hardly have given him a more difficult order. Amuse himself! In Midnight Court! How?
Passing the open door of one of the empty bedrooms, he caught the sound of somebody singing, and looked in.
Anna-Marie was sitting on the floor with a large basket of pine cones that she had procured from somewhere; she was forming the cones into patterns on the bare boards and humming to herself in an unusually clear, true little voice. The place and occupation seemed rather cheerless.
"Hello," said Lucas. She looked up at him calmly but said nothing. "Would you like to come down to my schoolroom? You could bring those cones, and we could draw out a board with squares and use them to play checkers. Or we might toast bread at the fire."
"No, thank you," said Anna-Marie politely. "I am quite content with myself. Thank you," she said again with dignity, gave him a long, considering look, and turned back to her pattern.
Lucas went downstairs and finished his composition.
During the next fourteen days, nothing out of the way happened. Lucas woke every morning quite certain that bailiffs or constables must arrive that day who would turn them all out of house and home. But this did not occur. Life went on as before. A message arrived from Mr. Smallside to say that Lucas might resume his visits to the Mill. Anna-Marie displayed no further wish to accompany him, but stayed at home and occupied herself as best she could, spending a good deal of time with old Gabriel Towzer, who let her play with his tools and put up a swing for her in the stables. She also studied English with Mr. Oakapple, and Lucas was bound to admit that she made rapid progress. He was puzzled by Mr. Oakapple's manner toward Anna-Marie. The tutor showed her no especial favor and maintained his customary dry way with her, yet his eye lingered on her and followed her often; there was a new expression on his face when he watched her, as if he were waiting for her to do or say something, as if presently his reserve might crack and some different feeling show through.
Relations between Lucas and Anna-Marie continued very up and down. She took pains to make it clear that she was not particularly anxious for his presence and could manage quite well on her own. He, for his part, wanted it to be clearly understood that he could derive no pleasure from the company of a girl hardly more than half his age, that if he spent any time with her it was purely due to his kindness of heart.
If he did go along to the Oak Chamber and offer to tell her a story or play cat's cradle, she was likely to say, "You have only come here because Monsieur Towzir makes me a better fire than you have in your room."
So he did not go very often.
With Mr. Oakapple, Lucas now felt much more comfortable and at ease. Although the tutor's manner had not changed toward him any more than toward Anna-Marie, Lucas, knowing more of Mr. Oakapple's difficulties, wondering more and more about his reasons for staying on at Midnight Court, began to understand that the tutor's curt, short way was merely an indication of his feeling that the world was an awkward place in general, and was not intended unkindly toward Lucas in particular.
Indeed, sometimes, when Mr. Oakapple commented with a brief smile on some improvement in his schoolwork, Lucas felt that a kind of warmth was growing between him and his teacher.
Anna-Marie certainly showed Mr. Oakapple a confidence and respect that she displayed toward no one else; she would run up to him and swing on his hand if they chanced to meet in the park, and although he did not return these demonstrations, he did not rebuff them. Lucas was amazed to see her stop by Mr. Oakapple's chair once and give his head an affectionate, rumpling pat, as he sat knitting his forehead over some bills in the bare, dusty library; he nodded acknowledgment of the caress without looking up.
"Do not worry yourself so much!" she admonished him.
"II a du fonds; he has bottom, that one," she remarked later to Lucas; this seemed to be her greatest term of praise. Bottom? Lucas wondered what she meant. But Mr. Oakapple was deep, that was certain; there was more to him than met the eye.
The weather became bitterly cold. Snow fell, and more snow. The gray clouds hung lower and thicker each morning. On their drives down into Blastburn, Lucas and Mr. Oakapple wrapped themselves in their thickest clothes; they took old sacks and the carriage blanket; they put hot bricks and a pile of straw in the bottom of the trap to keep their feet from freezing; but still they reached their destination chilled through and through, with numb feet and blue fingers. Now Lucas looked forward to the heat from the great furnaces and the steam from the glue caldrons.
But the atmosphere at the Mill remained uneasy and threatening. Outwardly, things were back to normal; the men and women went silently about their work. The troops had appeared and arrested Scatcherd and his companion so speedily that their example seemed to have deterred other would-be strikers. Protest about the wage cut had been nipped in the bud.
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 whe
elchair. 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."