Midnight is a Place

by Joan Aiken

  "What do you think we should do now?"

  "I think we should follow him a little way, if we can, and see where he goes."

  "Good," said Anna-Marie. "I think so too. And Luc has told me that the way into the sewer lies somewhere along this bank. If—if we must," she said, jamming her teeth together to stop them from chattering, "I think we should go in there and hunt for Luc. It is good we have our torches."

  They made their way with caution along the slipperybank, on which the fast-falling snow did not lie for long, but continually formed a thin melting crust over the soft mud; it was hard to walk on top without sinking through. The tide was coming in; small crescent-shaped waves nibbled along the mud below them. The wind blew strongly and carried the smoke and flame from their torches ahead of them; it seemed to carry the light as well.

  "Where do you suppose Gudgeon has gone?" Anna-Marie said in a low voice.

  "He may be anywhere," said Lady Murgatroyd rather hopelessly. "It is so hard to see through the snow.... No wonder poor Lucas has been rather despondent lately. He can hardly have enjoyed patroling the sewers with Gudgeon. Has he been like this all along?"

  "No, no, I think at first he was quite sensible—oh, what is that?"

  The light from their torches had flickered on something moving rapidly through the snowflakes ahead of them: bounding along, stooping, rising up, and continuing on an erratic, zigzag progress.

  "I think it is Gudgeon again," Lady Murgatroyd said, screening her eyes with her hand to keep out the snow. "I am sure nobody else would be dancing about on the riverbank in such weather. Perhaps we had now better go up into the town and call the constables—"

  "He seems to be searching for something. I do not think he has seen us," said Anna-Marie, biting her lip. "Let us just wait to see if he goes into the sewer; I am sure the entrance must be close to here. If we had a weapon—something to fight with, in case he looks back and sees us and becomes méchant—"

  "A stone is better than nothing. There are plenty of those."

  Providing themselves with suitable stones, they moved on carefully toward Gudgeon. All they could see of him at present was his head. Where he stood, the riverbank was divided by a deep gully. He had descended into it, and now bent down, so that he was completely concealed from view.

  "That must be the sewer entrance—Luc has said there is a little river running out. Wait here, Grand'mère, one moment, while I tiptoe up and see what he is doing—"

  Stooping low, Anna-Marie stole along to the edge of the gully and looked over.

  "Be very careful!" Lady Murgatroyd called in a whisper. But in the driving snow there was not a very great chance of her being seen.

  Anna-Marie knelt on the verge and peered, screwing up her eyes. Then suddenly she let out a shriek:

  "Oh, coquin, assassin, monstre! Stop what you are doing, leave him!"

  "What is it?" demanded Lady Murgatroyd.

  Anna-Marie had lifted her arm and flung the stone she held as hard as she was able; there followed a thud from below, and a shout. She picked up another stone and scrambled over the edge. Lady Murgatroyd followed her with all speed and found her crouched over something resembling a pile of old rags that lay at the water's edge. Gudgeon, who had evidently lost his balance and fallen when the stone hit him, was clambering to his feet, muttering something about a jewel of gold in a swine's snout. The light from Lady Murgatroyd's torch picked out a gleam in the snow halfway up the slope. It was the saw, which Gudgeon had dropped when he fell. Very prudently, Lady Murgatroyd grasped the handle before he could recover it, and flung it out into the river.

  Gudgeon began to wail. "My hope is lost, I am cut off. I will go to a cave and lodge there."

  Waving his arms in a frantic manner he ran up the side of the stinking rivulet and disappeared under a black archway.

  Anna-Marie was frenziedly pulling and lifting the crumpled heap of garments down by the water.

  "Oh," she sobbed, "if he has hurt him—if he has killed him!"

  "Is it Lucas?"

  "Yes! And he is so cold! And all covered in slime and mud! I cannot see if he is cut, even, or if he breathes—"

  "Well, let us get him away from the water's edge," said Lady Murgatroyd. "What a mercy that we came along when we did, for in another fifteen minutes the tide would have carried him away."

  "I think that Gudgeon—that pig, that brute!—was just going to push him into the water when I saw him."

  Between them they lifted and pulled the inert body of Lucas up to a safer point on the bank. Then Lady Murgatroyd felt carefully for his heartbeat and pronounced him to be alive.

  "He is breathing, but very slowly. And he is dreadfully cold. I think we shall need to get help; we cannot carry him far between us. I had best stay here with him, my child, while you run fast and fetch assistance; there are houses not too far away."

  "Yes, you are right. I will be quick as lightning," promised Anna-Marie. Then she bounded away up the slope.

  She was as good as her word. Within seven minutes Lady Murgatroyd heard her call, "Here we are, Grand'mère Is he all right still?"

  She came climbing back down the bank with a youngish and active-looking man close behind her. "I was lucky to meet this monsieur not far away in Haddock Street and he is good enough to come and assist us—"

  "Eh, poor lad! 'Twere loocky for him you happened along this way. He looks like one o' the tosh boys," said the man, expertly sliding an arm under Lucas's shoulders, while Anna-Marie and Lady Murgatroyd took a leg apiece. "He wouldn't ha' lasted the night through if ye hadn't found him, reckon."

  "Where shall we carry him?" panted Anna-Marie. "There is the house of Madame Tetley at this end of the street—but I daresay she would not be pleased—"

  "Nay, t'best thing'll be to take him to my mam's house—she lives nobbut a dumpling's throw away," the man said, and guided them to a house at the opposite end of the street from Mrs. Tetley's. There he deposited Lucas, gently enough, on the cobbled footway, while he knocked on the door.

  "Hey, oop, moother! Art tha home?"

  "A'reet, a'reet, no need to raise the dead, lad!" cried a voice from within, and the door was flung open by a plump, goodna-tured-looking woman with whitish-fair hair in curlpapers, and a soiled apron, and felt slippers. "What's to do, then Davey?"

  "'Tis a poor lad half drownded—can tha take him in an' give him a bit of a roob-down an' a warm-oop?"

  "Eh, for sure—t'poor yoong chap. Fetch him in, there's a kettle a-boiling this minute!"

  They hoisted Lucas up once more and carried him into a tiny hot kitchen which seemed to be full of firelight and people. As there was nowhere else to put him, they laid him by the hearth—the man's mother first prudently unrolled a large piece of sailcloth over her rag hearth rug. There were shocked and sympathetic exclamations from all over the room—a family party seemed to be in progress. Anna-Marie and her grandmother were instantly offered cups of hot tea and wedges of dough cake, while the man who had assisted them was commanded by his mother to fetch down the paigle cordial from her bedroom.

  "We'd do best to put the poor thing straight in a bath in t'back kitchen, wi' a bit of mustard in—"

  "The very thing," agreed Lady Murgatroyd. "We are very much obliged to you."

  "Eh," cried the plump woman, looking at her closely. "If it baint Madam Minetti! Do ye mind, ma'am, ye helped Jock, my eldest, to win t'Cup for t'best all-round choirboy—eh, he were all-round an' all! There it stands to this day." She pointed to a huge brass cup on the mantel.

  The son who had gone to fetch the cordial returned and knelt to pour a dose of it between Lucas's pale and muddy lips. Anna-Marie now noticed for the first time that he had only one eye. The other was covered by a black patch. His face was faintly familiar; where had she seen it before?

  "'Tis Madam Minetti, Davey, as helped oor Jock win t'cup!"

  "Jock Scatcherd, of course; I remember. A very good treble, he had. Where is he now?" Lady Murgatroyd inquired.
>
  "He would go as a sailor, ma'am—ah, look, t'lad's stirring. Granma's cordial 'ud fetch back a dead snail that had been frozen a fortnit. Hold him oop a bit, Davey, an' you, Cathy, fetch soom towels, an' Lucy, pour t'watter in t'toob, an' Percy, lay a bit o' mat oot there, an' Auntie, put a screen across t'back door, an' Polly, fetch t'scrobbing broosh—"

  Amid a general scurry and hubbub Lucas was carried into the back kitchen, where about half the family fell on him and peeled off his muddy clothes and put him into the wooden washtub of steaming water and rubbed him and scrubbed him.

  "Eh! T'poor thing! He's all scraped an' scratted an' haggled—reckon t'hogs has been at him—"

  "Is he badly hurt?" inquired Lady Murgatroyd. It was quite impossible to see Lucas for the throng of willing helpers.

  "Nay, but he were loocky. He must ha' scaped away from t'hogs joost in time. Most folk as they nibbles niver gets to eat anoother dinner."

  "Will he be all right?" demanded Anna-Marie.

  "Aye, lass, he'll be champion by an' by. He'll be stiff an' sore, happen, for a week or so. 'Twas a good thing for him ye came by. Do ye know him?"

  "Yes, he is my friend, he works with this Gudgeon, who I think is un assassin—"

  "Eh, aye, yon Gudgeon," said an old man in the corner who had not spoken yet, "'Tis a reet scandal the noomber o' lads he an' yon Hobday ha' finished off between em."

  "Is he mad, then, this Gudgeon?" asked Lady Murgatroyd.

  "Not to say clean daft—a bit tootched, like. Times he's sensible enow, oother times he goes cuckoo-wild—and can ye woonder, considering the onnatural life he has doon there i' the dark, day in, day out?"

  "Yes, but that's not to say he should be allowed—You mean everybody knows about him and nobody stops him?"

  "Nay, I reckon folks thinks as it's noon o' their business." Then the old man took his pipe out of his mouth and said, "What did ye say the lady's name was, Marthy?"

  "Madam Minetti."

  "Nay, that bain't no Madam Minetti. 'Tis owd Lady Murgatroyd, as put a splint on my foot, time I got trompled by a bull."

  "Why so I did," said Lady Murgatroyd. "And you're Willum Scatcherd, who used to work in the dairy up at the Court and left to be a baker's apprentice."

  "I thowt ye were dead, ma'am, when owd Sir Quincy died."

  "No, I'm not dead yet," said Lady Murgatroyd, and she and the old man, who seemed delighted to see her, instantly fell into a long talk about old times when Sir Quincy was alive. "Arr, things was better then, ma'am, afore that Sir Randolph coom, what stoock my granson i' the pokey."

  Scatcherd, said Anna-Marie to herself. Of course he was the one-eyed man who was making a speech and the soldiers went galloping by to arrest him.

  "Did you get out prison, then?" she asked, as he happened to come and sit beside her, after putting away the cowslip cordial.

  "Aye, there were no witnesses against me, once yon Smallside had left t'Mill. None other would speak. We has oor fights among oorselves, but they divvn't go outside. And wi' old Randy Grimsby dead, they could find no reason to keep me."

  "Will you go back to the mill, then?"

  "Reckon so, lass; I've got mates there, see. What's thy name, then?"

  "She's my granddaughter," put in Lady Murgatroyd, looking across the hearth.

  At this moment Lucas was brought from the back kitchen in a half-reviving condition, and set in a chair, wrapped in a blanket.

  "Luc ! Are you feeling better? Can you tell us what happened? Was it le vieux Gudgeon? Did he attack you?"

  "I—I can't remember much," Lucas murmured dazedly. He was confused by the warmth and the strange room and the number of unfamiliar faces all around him. The Scatcherds were a black-eyed, red-cheeked, tousle-headed clan; he felt as if he had fallen into a Punch-and-Judy show. "Yes, yes—it was Gudgeon—for two weeks he had become stranger and stranger— he seemed as if he disliked me and then as if he hated me—he kept talking in a very odd way—I think it was bits out of the Bible—and he watched me all the time and made me walk in front of him because he said I was hiding things from him—though I wasn't. I asked Mr. Hobday about him and he said it was nothing, he'd get over it in a day or two, he always did—"

  "Ah, that's Gudgeon all over," remarked Mrs. Scatcherd. "When he gets taken this road he gets that soospicious he would-na troost his own broother—if he had woon—"

  "Then today—was it today?—there were some hogs coming—I remember that—and something hit me hard on the head and I fell—I suppose Gudgeon hit me—and the hogs all came rushing at me, I remember that—"

  He shuddered at the memory. "And then I think I managed to roll into the sewer. And then I found myself here. I'm very grateful to you, ma'am," he said to Mrs. Scatcherd, who was handing him a large mug of tea laced with cowslip cordial.

  "Ee, think nowt of it, ye poor thing—I'm reet glad that woon o' Gudgeon's boys got away at least—maybe ye can lay an information against him now. An' that Hobday—he moost 'a had a fair notion o' what was going on."

  "Nay," said Davey Scatcherd, who had been studying Lucas. "I know thee! Tha'rt the lad from t'Court as I was set to show over t'mill afore I got roon in. I' mercy's name, what wast tha doing doon in t'sewer wi' owd Gudgeon?"

  "That's a long story. I don't think Lucas is quite strong enough for storytelling yet," said Lady Murgatroyd in her deep voice. "Other people have their livings to earn as well as you, Davey Scatcherd!"

  Davey grinned and said, "Aye, ma'am!"

  "Should we take Luc home now?" said Anna-Marie. "Is he strong enough to walk? I am thinking that Monsieur Ookapool will be making himself anxious about us."

  "He will indeed," said Lady Murgatroyd. "Are you strong enough to walk, my dear boy?"

  Lucas thought he was, but he had no clothes; the savage little teeth of the hogs had chewed everything he had on to ragged scraps. However the Scatcherd family were easily able to provide a set of garments from among their various members. Lucas stood up, presently, but he was still rather weak on his legs.

  "I'll step along wi' thee a bit o' the way," said Davey Scatcherd. "For I was on my way up toon to a meeting o' t'pressers', glue boilers', an' claw operators' union when a' this gallimafry took place."

  "I thought they weren't allowed to have unions?" Anna-Marie said incautiously.

  "Whisht! Nowt said breaks no head."

  They started off, Davey and Lady Murgatroyd supporting Lucas on either side.

  "Excercise'll be the best thing for thee, sithee," Davey said.

  Lucas thought how amazingly different Davey seemed now from the rather unfriendly, sarcastic person who had shown him over the works. And yet what had made the difference? Davey had no more cause to be friendly now than then. He had just come out of prison, too; he might have been expected to feel bitter.

  "I'm sorry you were sent to prison," Lucas said awkwardly.

  "Nay, it weren't so bad. Not mooch groob, but tha gets a bit o' time to think. 'Tweren't thy fault, ony road. 'Twere on account o' Stingy Randy cutting the wages. I daresay he kept thee short too."

  "He did that," said Lucas with feeling.

  "Mr. Scatcherd," said Anna-Marie.

  "Eh, call me Davey, lass; a'body doos."

  "Eh bien, Davey, then; is your union the same as the Friendly Lads?"

  Davey halted long enough to utter a terrible oath and spit into the gutter. "Nay, it isn't, then," he said, more moderately, when he had recovered himself. "'T Friendly Boys is now but a set o'raskills lining their pockets by squeezin' poor decent folk. Bob Bludward's the head an' front of it, an' woon o' these days him an' me's due for a rare randy-dandy."

  "So," pursued Anna-Marie, "what does your union want?"

  "Why, better wages, that folk could live on, an' better working conditions. Fewer folk falling into t'glue or getting scroonched by t'press. Ye'll pardon me, I'm sure, ma'am, but things has gone all to Habbakuk since owd Sir Quincy built t'place."

  "Yes, I'm sadly aware of that," said Lady Murgatro
yd. "And I hope you achieve your aims. Now I'm sure we can manage from here and need take you no farther out of your way. We are greatly obliged to you for all your trouble—"

  They had paused outside Murgatroyd's Mill itself.

  "Why," said Davey, puzzled, scratching his head, "where i' Mickle's name do you live, then? There's no hooses oot yonder."

  "Up in the park," said Lady Murgatroyd, "in the old icehouse. Till somebody turns us out! I understand the park has been sold."

  "In the icehouse? Well I'll be dommed. Haven't ye—pardon my asking—haven't ye any brass, then, ma'am?"

  "No more than you, Davey—only what I earn. Thank you for all your help. We'll bring back the clothes tomorrow," Lady Murgatroyd said.

  They started up the hill. Anna-Marie took Lucas's arm, but he was moving more easily now; the exercise had done him good.

  Davey stood looking after them, scratching his head, until they were around the bend in the road. Then he said,

  "Well, by gar!" and turned to walk back into the town.

  Lucas had intended to start straight off next morning hunting for a new job.

  "Now, I hope," Anna-Marie had said to him on the last, slow stretch of the walk home, "Now you will not any more insist on working in this sewer, perhaps?"

  "No," he said. "No, I'm not going back there. But—you know—it is just as Grand'mère said; when something has once happened to you, then you know it isn't quite as bad as you expected. Now I've been trampled on by hogs and fallen into the sewer, it will never seem quite so awful again. Just the same," he added, "I don't care if I never see another hog for the rest of my life."

  "And what about ce Gudgeon affreux?" demanded Anna-Marie. "You will go and lay an information about him, I hope?"

  "I'm not sure," said Lucas. "He can't help it."

  "'Obday can help it, enfin!"

  "Well, I'll think about it. But in the morning I'll try to get a job in the Mill. I think Davey Scatcherd might put in a good word for me."

  In the morning, though, he was so stiff that he could hardly move, and had such a sore throat that Lady Murgatroyd dosed him with rose-hip syrup, rubbed him all over with balsam oil, and told him not to stir hand or foot until she gave him leave.