Midnight is a Place

by Joan Aiken

  "No—no," stammered Lucas, finding his tongue. "I am sorry we disturbed you, ma'am. We did not think there was anybody here."

  At this moment Lucas felt the tight grip on his arm relax. He rubbed the place absently with his other hand while he watched Anna-Marie, who now did a thing he had never seen her do before: she moved forward and gravely curtsied to the old lady.

  "Bonsoir, madame, " she said. "On ne veut pas vous déranger. "

  The old lady inclined her head with equal gravity. "Bonsoir, ma petite, " she said. "You do not disturb me at all. On the contrary. I am enchanted to be visited. Won't you sit down?"

  There were two or three sawed-off sections of tree trunk, which did duty as stools; also, Lucas noticed, the rocking chair which he had last seen among the snowy ruins of the Court. The old lady gestured toward the seats, and went to put a handful of sticks on the fire, which immediately burst into a cheerful flame.

  Anna-Marie, however, chose to sit on the floor, which was stone-paved, and covered by loosely woven rugs. In the brighter light it was possible to see that a dog and cat also lay by the hearth, stretched out asleep in attitudes of utter comfort.

  "Why, that's Redgauntlet," Lucas suddenly said. He had thought the hound must have died in the fire.

  "Is that his name? Poor thing, I found him wandering, very sorrowful. And you two," the old lady said, looking at them attentively, "you must be the children from the Court. I have seen you from a distance; never close to. What are your names, my dears?"

  "Lucas Bell, ma'am," said Lucas; and simultaneously Anna-Marie, with her usual dignity, said, "Je m'appelle Anna-Marie Eulalie Murgatroyd, madame."

  The old lady had been moving toward a heavy wooden chest. But at Anna-Marie's words she turned round—not hastily or jerkily but quite fast all the same. "Murgatroyd," she repeated, in a tone of deep interest, studying Anna-Marie more attentively than ever. "Then who is your father, my little one?"

  "He was called Sirr Denzil Murgatroyd, miladi. He is dead since last year."

  "Since last year.... And you come from France?"

  "Oui, madame."

  "Then, my dear," said the old lady, suddenly breaking into a smile that made Lucas feel warm, all the way down to his thawing toes, "then you are my granddaughter and I am your grandmother. Isn't that delightful!"

  And she reached down her hand to take that of Anna-Marie, who jumped up and gave the old lady a hug.

  "You are my grandmother? I do not at all understand. But it is very nice. Very nice! I did not know that I had a grandmother. Papa told me that grand'mère and grandpère had died."

  "Then," said Lucas, working it out slowly, "then you must be Lady Murgatroyd, the wife of Sir Quincy?"

  "Yes, quite right, my boy."

  "But why are you living here? In the icehouse?"

  "Well," said the old lady briskly, "I don't know if you are familiar with the story of how Sir Randolph Grimsby came to be in possession of Midnight Court?"

  "He won it by a bet. From your son. And then your husband died?"

  Lucas felt uncomfortable at saying these things, but the old lady took them calmly enough.

  "Just so. That was a sad time," she said, looking back as if through a telescope at a far-distant prospect. "Well, I am extremely fond of my home, and I very much disliked leaving it. When I was obliged to go, I didn't go very far. I went to live in the village of Clutterby with an old nurse of mine, who had retired to her family cottage. I lived with her till she died. And I kept an eye on things there—I wanted to be sure that my old servants were not ill used—that kind of thing. Sir Randolph had never met me—Quincy would never receive him at the Court—he didn't know me, so I could call in from time to time—leave a parish magazine—see how things were going on. Most of the old servants left, fairly soon—except for old Gabriel. They couldn't stand Sir Randolph. And I soon saw that no use whatsoever was being made of the icehouse, so in the course of time I decided to come and live here. Old Gabriel gave me a bit of help, building a fireplace—he promised not to tell anybody who I was. Very few people noticed that I was living here; I believe those who did thought I was an old beggar woman. Nobody has ever disturbed me. Really," she said with satisfaction, looking around, "it makes a very comfortable home."

  Lucas glanced around the room too, his eyes now being accustomed to the light. One corner of the largish place, he saw, was occupied by a hand loom, with a half-woven length of material on it.

  "Oh," cried Anna-Marie, "voilà mon canari—the one I set free!"

  "He didn't like it out in that cold park, my child. He is passing the winter with me."

  Lady Murgatroyd gave a soft whistle and the canary, who had been asleep on the loom, took his head out from under his wing and came whirring across the room, with a loud cheerful chirrup, to sit on her shoulder.

  Lady Murgatroyd's sitting room was shaped like two fifths of a round tart. So there must, Lucas thought, be two or three more rooms occupying the rest of the round icehouse. This deduction was borne out by a sleepy wail which they now heard coming from a door set back in a shadowy corner.

  "She's wakeful tonight," said Lady Murgatroyd and disappeared through the door.

  When she returned, she carried a wicker cradle, which she put down near one of the rush lights, saying, "She's always good as long as she has a light to look at."

  "You havè a baby, Grand'mère?" exclaimed Anna-Marie, looking into the cradle.

  "Not mine, my dear! Just a loan. A poor woman who was going to Australia and afraid that her baby might die on the ship. Those transports are not hygienic. So the baby stays with me until she is old enough to travel."

  "But, Grand'mère, isn't it hard work for you to look after a baby, so old as you are? And supposing you were to die?"

  "I can see you have a practical nature, my child; just like me. Well," the old lady's forehead was creased by two lines into a thoughtful frown, "I felt some responsibility. If I had been given any say in the matter, that mill would be a very different place. So it was up to me to look after the baby of someone who didn't want to work there, wasn't it? And I shall simply have to stay alive until the baby is grown up. Though, now I come to think of it, if I should die, now, you can look after the baby, can't you?"

  "Of course," Anna-Marie said. "I am very good at looking after babies, me."

  "She has a bad habit of eating earth, poor dear; I think that sometimes it was all they had to give her."

  Lady Murgatroyd remembered that she had been on her way to the chest, before she discovered Anna-Marie's identity. She went back, and brought out a stone crock, which proved to contain gingersnaps.

  "I don't bake very often nowadays," she apologized "They may be past their best."

  To the hungry Lucas and Anna-Marie, the gingersnaps seemed perfect: hard, chewy, sweet, and dark. They had three apiece before remembering that it was bad manners to gobble.

  "I can give you some tea, if you like," said Lady Murgatroyd, setting a kettle to hang over the fire, "but I'm afraid I've no milk till tomorrow. The baby had the last of it."

  "Grand'mère, " said Anna-Marie curiously, "please do not think it impertinent if I ask, but have you any money? Do you go to shops? How do you make your ménage here?"

  "I have a very little money, my dear," Lady Murgatroyd said. "Well, you know how my house and all was lost. But I need little, so I manage quite well. I give lessons in music and singing."

  "Here?"

  The old lady smiled at Anna-Marie's expression of astonishment. "No, not here. I go to people's houses in the town. And I do not use my own name; Murgatroyd is such a well-known name here that it might cause embarrassment. So I call myself Madame Minetti. And by my lessons I make enough money to buy luxuries like books."

  Indeed, apart from the chest, the rugs and the tree trunks, the principal furniture in the place seemed to be books; there were certainly plenty of these, lying in piles round the sides of the room, stacked in boxes, ranged on planks, many of them left open w
ith a twig to mark the place.

  "Well, now," said Lady Murgatroyd, "you know all about me. So let me hear your histories. You first." She nodded to Lucas—"You haven't said much yet. By your name you should be a son of that Edwin Bell who had come to be manager of the mill not long before my husband died."

  "That's right, ma'am."

  "He was a good man. What became of him?"

  "He stayed on and put money into the mill and became Sir Randolph's partner. And he married my mother—her name was Mary Dunnithorne—"

  "I remember her," said Lady Murgatroyd, nodding. "She was a distant cousin of mine."

  "—and he went to India, to look after the cotton buying.... And he died out there, with my mother; and he'd named Sir Randolph as my guardian in his will, so I was sent back here."

  "Poor boy." Lady Murgatroyd's voice was full of compassion. "And you, petite?"

  "We lived in Calais.... Maman died before I can remember. We were very poor. Papa never was able to make much money. He used to teach, but he liked better to stay at home and make up songs. All the ladies used to give me clothes and they never fitted. And then Papa died," Anna-Marie said forlornly.

  So that is why her clothes were such an odd lot when she arrived, Lucas thought. He felt impatient with himself for never having bothered to ask Anna-Marie about her life in Calais.

  "And so you are both orphans. And where do you live, now that Midnight Court is burned down? And Sir Randolph has died, has he not?"

  "Si, Grand'mère. We live with old Mr. Towzer's sister in Haddock Street. But it is not at all nice. And there is no money, so I make cigars, and Luc—he collects things for a bric-à-brac seller."

  "In the sewers," Lucas said firmly.

  "So you are very hard-working," said Lady Murgatroyd. "And that is good. Well, I can't support you with money, for I haven't much, but as we are all in some sense related, would you like to come and live with me here? You would have to go on earning your livings, but it might be nicer here than in Haddock Street. And we would all be company for one another."

  "To tell you the truth, ma'am," said Lucas, "that was the idea we had in our minds when we came to look at this place."

  "I had it first!" said Anna-Marie. "But is there room for all of us, Grand'mère?"

  "Yes, there are three more rooms, petite. I think we may manage famously."

  Lucas hesitated. "There is one thing—" he began.

  "What is the trouble, my boy?"

  "There is my tutor. He is in hospital—he was badly burned, in the fire, trying to rescue Sir Randolph. When he comes out, we shall have to look after him, for he has nowhere to go—"

  "Ah, oui," broke in Anna-Marie. "Cepauvre Monsieur Ookapool, but he is very gentil. I am sure you will like him, Grand'mère."

  "What is his name? Ooka—?"

  "Oakapple—Mr. Julian Oakapple, ma'am."

  "Julian Oakapple? Oh," said Lady Murgatroyd, "I do not have to see him to like him. I think he may be somebody that I have wanted to meet for a long, long time."

  It was agreed that, since the pony must anyway be put in shelter, Lucas should return to Haddock Street for the night. He would then give notice to Mrs. Tetley, collect their few possessions, and return in the morning. As it was Sunday he would not be working in the sewer, and could spend the day settling in to the icehouse and building some kind of accommodation for the pony.

  As it happened, Mrs. Tetley herself pounced on Lucas next morning while he was boiling water for his breakfast in the little back kitchen. It was almost the first time he had seen her since moving in, for on weekdays he went off long before she was up, and she always spent the evenings handing out tracts against drunkenness in the local alehouses.

  Mrs. Tetley, as usual, was dressed in a print apron with a kerchief round her head, but just the same, one hand supported by a mop, the other on her hip, she contrived to look as dignified and affronted as Britannia with her trident.

  "Yoong man! I moost ask you to leave my house! If I'd had any notion, when I let ye lodge here, that ye were going in for that nasty toshing, I'd niver have let ye set foot in t'place. This is a respectable house, I'll have ye know. All t'lodgers have been objecting, and neighbours for three houses along. I'm sorry," she said, though plainly she was not, "but there it is. I moost ask you to leave today."

  "Why, that's quite all right, Mrs. Tetley," Lucas said blithely, "for I was just going to give you notice myself. So there's no bones broken. I believe Anna-Marie paid the rent yesterday, so perhaps you'd be good enough to give me six days' money back, in lieu of a week's notice."

  But this Mrs. Tetley had not the least intention of doing, and Lucas could not be bothered to press for it; he was so pleased to be getting out of her dismal little house. In the middle of the conversation, old Gabriel came into the back kitchen. Lucas had seen very little of the old man since they moved; when seen he was either going out in search of gin or coming back drunk. He looked very subdued and low-spirited.

  When Mrs. Tetley left the kitchen for a moment, "Here, lad," whispered old Gabriel, pulling a very dirty pound note from his pocket, "I'll split the differ wi' you a bit. It fair sickens me to see my own flesh and blood acting so."

  "Oh, no, no, Mr. Towzer, I wouldn't dream of taking your money," said Lucas, greatly touched by the old man's gesture.

  Somewhat relieved, Gabriel put the note back. "I'm leaving too," he confided. "I towd ye my sister Kezia were a mickletongue, but I'd forgot she were a teetotal termagant too. 'Tis more than a body can stand. I'm off to my other sister, over to Keighley. But, Mester Lucas, ye'll be careful, won't ee? There's terrible bad feeling in t'town against a'body connected wi' Sir Randolph, acos it were decided at t'Crowner's Quest as he'd set fire to t'house hisself, to spite t'tax folk. If t'Court could ha' been sold, there'd ha' been cash enow to pay t'taxes and settle up all t'wages owing, and like enow, too, soom rich lord might ha' coom to live there an' given employment to plenty o' folk from t'town."

  "Yes, I see," said Lucas.

  "So I'd not mention ye come from t'Court, ye and the little lass."

  "What'll happen to the park now, do you think?"

  "There's talk o' some chap called Lord Holdernesse buying it, as owns a lot o' coal mines, an' he met dig a mine there; that'd give employment to folk."

  "Oh," said Lucas. His spirits fell horribly. Dig up Midnight Park? What would happen to Lady Murgatroyd, who had lived there for so long?

  "Mr. Towzer—" he began.

  But at this moment Mrs. Tetley returned, and stood watching with a lynx eye while Lucas carried out his few belongings and piled them on the cart. Old Gabriel wandered off, muttering, probably to the nearest alehouse, and Lucas drove back to Midnight Park.

  Lady Murgatroyd and Anna-Marie, meanwhile, had been collecting brushwood and getting to know one another.

  "Do you know what I enjoyed most about losing all my money?" said Lady Murgatroyd, expertly lopping away with a billhook. "It was learning how easy it is to do a great many things like this. When I was a real lady and rode around in a carriage, I thought that chimneysweeping and bricklaying and carpentry and weaving cloth and making bowls and plates could only be done by chimneysweeps and bricklayers and carpenters and weavers and potters. Now I know that anybody can do these things, for I am not at all clever, and if I can do them, it is certain that anyone else can."

  Nevertheless, Anna-Marie thought, her grandmother did look clever: her face was so lively, and had so much shape to it. Like a carving in a church, Anna-Marie thought. And her eyes, set in the deep triangular hollows, turned out, when seen by daylight, to be a strange and beautiful gray-green, the color of weathered stone.

  "Grand'mère," said Anna-Marie, dumping an armful of brushwood in Lady Murgatroyds wooden wheelbarrow, "why is everybody in Blastburn so horrible? Truly I think we have met only one kind person, ce monsieur 'Obday, and even of him I am not sure, for I think he may not be paying Luc as much as he should."

  Lady Murgatroyd passed a dirt-
stained hand over her high forehead.

  "I am afraid it is partly your grandfathers fault," she said thoughtfully. "For it was he who started the town, with Midnight Mill. When he first built the mill, it was to be a good place for people to work in, with fair wages and everything made as well as it could be. And so it was, for a long time. But then your grandfather was so disappointed when your father would not learn to look after the Mill but wanted to write music instead—"

  "Oh, and he did! He wrote beautiful music! I can remember many, many of the tunes—"

  "Yes; but as well he was rather wild, and did some things that upset your grandfather."

  "Did they upset you, Grand'mè?"

  "Not so much," said Lady Murgatroyd, with a private smile. "He was a wild boy, Denny, but we understood one another very well, he and I.... But so, instead of making sure that the Mill was carefully run and in a good order to hand on to his son, your grandfather began to take less and less interest in it. He had it looked after by a manager instead of going there every day himself. Well, then Sir Randolph won it—you have heard about that?"

  "Yes, Luc told me, Grand'mère—"

  "And Sir Randolph looked after it still worse. All be wanted, I am afraid, was to get as much money as possible for his gambling, so things were done in a poor way, and the people were paid less, and the machinery has been allowed to get old and dangerous. And the other factories in the town are run in the same way, because the other owners have discovered that is the way to make a lot of money quickly, if you don't care what happens to the people who come after you."

  "But why is everybody in the town so mean and mechant—the boys who throw stones at me for picking up cigar ends, and the ones who take money not to hurt people in hospital, and mock at strangers in the street, and seem to hate everybody?"

  "It is because they are so poor. When you have only just enough to keep ¿dive, you are frightened of anybody who might take it from you, so you hate them. And you get your money in any way you can."