The Midnight Folk Page 13

  Kay stepped aside behind the ivy as he was bidden. He found that he was in a snug room littered with moss, dead leaves and soft, rotten wood. He heard the two companions come to the foot of the tree.

  “I thought I heard a squirrel, then,” young Mr. Crowmarsh said.

  “I don’t think it was a squirrel,” his mother said. “I expect it was only Old Blinky flapping his wings. Our red squirrel has gone. I can’t help thinking that that man Bilges shot him.”

  “A regular scoundrel, Bilges, and his brother at the Gassles is as bad,” the young man said. “But is this the Old Blinky that used to roost in the ivy on the ruin?”

  “It is,” Old Blinky growled.

  “There he is growling,” the young man said. “It is Old Blinky. Well, I’m glad he’s alive still. I’ve half a mind to climb up, to look in on him.”

  He had clambered up a foot or two when his mother stopped him. “The tree really isn’t safe,” she said. “Besides, you will ruin your clothes.”

  Probably he would have climbed up, but at that moment some of the bark gave way beneath his feet, which brought him slithering down.

  “There, you see, it isn’t safe,” his mother said. “You must come along now. Look in on Old Blinky some other time.”

  When they had gone, Old Blinky said, “Well, Kay, have you been riding the hoofless horse lately?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Nor found the treasure yet?”

  “No, not yet. But I found out where it went to, up to a point. It was swallowed up in an earthquake, and though some people say that it was afterwards dug up and taken away, others aren’t so sure.”

  “Well, why don’t you make sure?”

  “Please, I don’t know how to.”

  “Is it as good to eat as mouse and sparrow?” Blinky asked.

  “It isn’t good to eat at all.”

  Blinky blinked at this and gurgled in his throat. After a long time he said, “Do you want to find this stuff?”

  “Yes, please, rather.”

  “Well, I might find out for you, perhaps, if you could tell me just whereabouts to begin.”

  “The place was somewhere near the Golden City . . .”

  “Not so loud, please,” Old Blinky said.

  “Why? There’s nobody listening.”

  “How do you know? There are a lot of these invisible people everywhere, and spies . . . well. It will be wiser to whisper.”

  Kay whispered into Blinky’s ear directions which he thought could help.

  “Right,” Blinky said. “Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll call my friend the Swift: he’ll take the message to the stormy petrel, who is much the fastest bird there is. The petrel will be across ocean in no time . . . then he’ll pass the word to a skua or something on the other side, and the skua or something will ask my cousins about it. I’ve a lot of cousins over there, very good sorts of creatures, but they have an odd habit of living in holes in the ground. I can’t understand the habit myself; but each man to his taste; it will come in handy now, though, for of course they will know everything that is underground in those parts. By the way, here is Swift. He’ll go at once; he’ll have an answer by your bedtime. Hoo, there, Swift.”

  The Swift paused on the ledge of Blinky’s Lair. He was a fine bird, bright-eyed and eager.

  “I say, Swift,” Blinky said, “this is our friend, Kay. He wants to find out about some treasure, so will you pass the word along to my foreign cousins? Put your head up to mine, will you, it had better be whispered. There are reasons why this should be kept secret, if it can be.”

  As he whispered the directions to Swift, it seemed to Kay that something rustled in the ivy above them.

  “Right,” the Swift said, “I’ll take the message and wait for an answer. It should reach me before roosting-time; if it doesn’t, I’ll send it by Bat. Anyhow, you will get it before you start your evening’s hunting, and you can send it on to Kay. Goodbye all.”

  He slipped into the air and was gone before Kay could thank him. As he sped away, Kay was quite certain that somebody or something rustled in the ivy above.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “What was what?”

  “That noise in the ivy.”

  “I didn’t notice any noise.”

  “There was a noise like someone climbing in the ivy.”

  “I expect it was the wind,” Blinky said. “The wind is always rustling this ivy. Time and again I keep thinking it’s a mouse, but it never is; it’s always the wind.

  “A very queer thing is the wind

  I don’t know how it beginn’d

  And nobody knows where it goes,

  It is wind, it beginn’d, and it blows.”

  He uttered these last words very drowsily, and snapped out a snorey kind of grunt once or twice after he had finished. He blinked at Kay once or twice, then closed his eyes and fell fast asleep.

  “It sounded liker someone climbing than the wind,” Kay thought. “But he was so drowsy he probably did not hear it.”

  He would have climbed up to make sure, but at that moment the church bells began:

  Ding Dong Ding Dong,

  Dong Dong Ding Ding,

  Ding Dong Ding Dong,

  Ding Ding, Dong Dong.

  And then struck the hour. He was sure that it would only be four o’clock: alas, it was five: the tea bell must have gone long ago; he would be late again; he would “catch it” this time and very likely be sent to bed. And he was still up the tree in the Crowmarsh Estate.

  Despair made him reckless; he slithered down the tree, ran to the spinney, dashed across to the road, scrambled over the gate and ran for home, not caring how many keepers caught him. He did not know who saw him, there were people in the road as he passed. He was ruined anyhow; what could one or two more witnesses add to his sentence? He tried to brush the green powder, dust, and ivy clips from his clothes as he ran; he was in a filthy mess. Then his right hand had one of those black resinous smears which you get from laurel or pine boughs. That would not come off, as he knew only too well, except with hot water, Ellen and pumice-stone. “Oh, I shall catch it this time,” he moaned.

  There was no question of making himself later by washing and brushing; he went straight in to the dining-room, and there, oh horror, horror of horrors . . .

  There was the governess in her icy-sweet society manner sitting at the horrid little society tea-table, with the best tea-service, which everybody called the Lowestoft, pouring out tea for Lady Crowmarsh.

  “She saw me after all,” he moaned to himself. “And now she’s come over to sneak.”

  “Kay,” the governess said, “you’re very late. Say how do you do to Lady Crowmarsh, then come and have your tea.”

  He said how do you do to Lady Crowmarsh, and was expecting the sword to fall on him for trespass, when the governess noticed the state of his hands and clothes. “Where have you been, Kay?” she asked, “to get yourself into that pickle? Go and wash your hands and brush your suit before you sit down.”

  “Oh let me plead for him, won’t you?” Lady Crowmarsh said. “I don’t like a little boy to come in to tea too tidy. Come and sit by me, Kay, and tell me all about your fossil collection. Have you found any more nice fossils lately?”

  He had given up collecting fossils for more than a year, under orders from the governess, who found that grubbing in the quarries brought him into meals too muddy. Lady Crowmarsh had once seen him grubbing for fossils and had remembered it. He thought that it was nice of her to remember, but he still could not understand why she did not begin about the trespassing. Before he could answer, the governess broke in with, “Oh don’t ask about fossils, Lady Crowmarsh; the very thought of those quarries in the rains, and the state of his clothes when he comes in, is enough . . . and then lumps of stone under all the taps, and the taps left running . . .”

  “I like men to get through the collection habit in childhood,” Lady Crowmarsh said, thinking of her son, w
ho was still a collector of things and something of a disappointment to her. “And now about the bazaar. Are you quite sure that you can take the Magic Peepshow?”

  The words Magic Peepshow made Kay prick up his ears. He looked hard at the governess, who changed colour at the words, as though she did not quite like them. “Oh yes, Lady Crowmarsh,” she said, “I will do so gladly; but might it be called the Wonder Peepshow, as Magic Peepshow might give people such strange ideas . . . magic, you know . . . well really . . . in these days.”

  “We’ve always called it Magic Peepshow in the past,” Lady Crowmarsh said. “I don’t think that anyone has minded, as it is only to amuse the children . . . still, call it Wonder Peepshow if you would really rather.”

  “I think . . . perhaps . . . if you don’t mind.”

  Kay thought her a silly ass to object to the word Magic. “Ah,” he thought, “if you knew what goes on at midnight in this very room you would be less particular.”

  Lady Crowmarsh was very nice to him during the rest of her stay. He could not think why she did not begin about the trespassing; his spirits began to rise as he thought, “She may not have seen me after all. And Sylvia Daisy hasn’t found out yet, either.” But he knew that his black hands and dusty clothes would be enquired into later, when Lady Crowmarsh was gone. “I shall catch it, then,” he thought, so he ate as much tea as he could, because his chance of supper was slight. “When Lady Crowmarsh goes,” he thought, “as soon as she is outside the door, it will be ‘Kay, how dare you come to tea in that state. You will scrub your face and hands and go straight to bed.’”

  When Lady Crowmarsh rose to go, she said, “This young man shall come with me, if you will spare him, to open the gates for me.” She clapped him on the shoulder and pinched his ear; but in such a kind way that he did not mind. “She can’t know,” he thought. “She can’t have seen me.”

  As they walked to the gate together, he felt that he could not let her be ignorant of how he had trespassed on her estate.

  “Lady Crowmarsh,” he said, “I’m very, very sorry, but I went into your estate today, in spite of the notice. I climbed the tree with the owl’s nest, and I was hiding there while you were just below, with Mr. Crowmarsh, just before tea.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Were you?”

  “Yes, while you talked of Old Blinky.”

  “Well, why do you tell me this?”

  “At first I thought you knew, and now I feel I ought to tell you.”

  “Hm,” she said, in a very tigerish way, “you are quite right to tell me. And what if I take you straight back to the governess and make you tell her?

  “Don’t look so lost, child. I’m not going to do any such thing. But tell me . . . had you climbed the tree after the cat?”

  “No, Lady Crowmarsh; what cat?”

  “There was a black cat in the ivy there. It is yours, I think. I have seen it go over your wall. A black cat with white paws and throat.”

  “Yes, that’s Blackmalkin. I didn’t know that he was in the tree, though I did hear something rustle.”

  “You’d better tell him not to touch Old Blinky,” Lady Crowmarsh said. “Blinky has been in that tree for years, and was in the ruin before that, until we pulled it down. Do you often come into my grounds, may I ask?”

  “No. I never came before today.”

  “What made you come today?”

  “Please, I wanted to see where a hundred yards south of a place would bring me.”

  “What a curious notion. And where did it bring you?”

  “To the middle of your little pond. Could you tell me, please, when those little ponds were made?”

  “They were made in 1782, when the formal garden was laid out. I suppose you are not interested in formal gardens.”

  “Please, I don’t quite know what they are.”

  “Well, come in and see. Then, if you like them, you can come in to see them again whenever you like, as long as you don’t disturb the birds. The gardens will bore you, but you may like to see my mice. I have a great many mice, for I’m interested in them.”

  Kay spent a most happy hour looking at the mice. When he was dismissed to his home he was given a big bunch of Muscatel grapes for the governess. “Give her these from me, with my compliments,” Lady Crowmarsh said. “And say that it was all my fault if I’ve kept you from preparation or bed.”

  Kay walked home with the grapes, fearing that he would “catch it” for being there so long, as well as for the other matters.

  “Please,” he said, “Lady Crowmarsh took me to see her mice, and she sends you these grapes, with her compliments.”

  “That is very kind of Lady Crowmarsh,” the governess said, with a greedy gleam in her eyes. “Please put them on the sideboard; but let me be sure, first, that you haven’t eaten any on the way. It was very kind of Lady Crowmarsh to take such notice of a dirty little boy who comes in late for tea; particularly as I hear you were seen climbing a tree in her estate this afternoon.”

  She said these last words with slow relish, knowing that they would surprise him. They did. How could she have known? Who could have seen and told? Could it possibly have been Blackmalkin? There he was, curled up on the armchair, pretending to be asleep, but Kay could see that he was listening with all his might, and grinning too, although he kept his face down.

  “Don’t try to keep things from me, Kay,” she said, “for you see I get to know. Now don’t let me hear of you climbing trees there again, or woe betide you. Now it’s past your bedtime, go to bed at once. I know all about owl’s nests, remember.”

  Kay went up to his bedroom sorely perplexed. It was bad enough to be sneaked on. But supposing the sneak had heard the directions for finding the treasure? Supposing the treasure were still there under that red clay? Supposing the sneak lay in wait for Swift, Bat or Blinky as he brought the news from over sea? Suppose the sneak tortured the messenger until he told where the treasure was? Perhaps he had done that already . . . it was time for the message to be there; and it wasn’t there.

  He stood at his open window for a long time, hoping that the message would come. Some swifts were flying about; none of them was his Swift. Presently the sun went behind the wood, which at once became very black. It was said that in the camp in the wood, called King Arthur’s Round Table, there was a door which led to the Table itself. Now the brown owl, which had nested in the hollow bough of the ruined pippin, flew out to look at the twilight. “Perhaps he will have the message,” Kay thought. No, the brown owl cried his Tchak-king cry and flew away.

  Now that the swifts had gone to their roosts, the red in the west grew clearer. In the middle heaven this red merged into a green in which a planet glowed. Soon bats began to flitter here and there across the green sky; he could hear their little shrill cries. “Perhaps one of those is Bat with the message,” he thought, so he called, “Bat, Mr. Bat, I am Kay, please.” It seemed that he had made a mistake; none of those was his Bat; he had no answer.

  As it was now chilly near the window, Kay got into bed, where he sat up waiting for the message, which did not come. He heard the owls in the wood at their hunting. “That settles it,” he thought. “The message has been stopped. Swift told Blinky that he would have an answer before he began his evening’s hunting. They have laid in wait for the messenger and caught him.”

  Then, in his drowsiness, he began again to wonder, “How did she find out ‘all about owl’s nests, remember?’ Did Blackmalkin sneak, or could she have overheard me telling Lady Crowmarsh? If she heard it from Blackmalkin, she must be a friend of the witches. But of course she can’t be, that’s absurd. I must have been watched by someone in the road who sneaked. All the same, it was Blackmalkin who has made them catch poor Old Blinky.”

  He worried over this, wondering what he could do, until he fell asleep. He woke up, or half woke up, about an hour later, when Abner’s voice (he thought it was) rang out in the hall, saying: “Well, if you won’t speak, you shall very soon be made to spe
ak. A little torture will soon change your mind. Down with him to the dungeons.”

  He thought that he heard this. He thought that it was followed by a scuffling and dragging noise, with calls of “Down you go.” “Put him in the kennel.” “We’ll teach you.” He thought that he heard Blinky’s voice giving a little hoo of pain. He was so very sleepy that he could not be sure that all this happened. It sounded like voices in a dream in the dark night. He heard some chain jangle, then a door slammed; after that he slept very heavily.

  Presently there came a noise in the wainscot, a shuffling of feet on the carpet and someone clearing his throat. Kay sat up to see what this could be. He saw a strangely disreputable Rat, who was wiping his mouth with the back of a dirty paw. “What is it?” Kay said. “Have you come with a message from Blinky?”

  “I’m Rat, I am,” the Rat said. “I’m a cellarman, I am. I never done nothing against no young ducks; nor I didn’t neither not against no chicks. I lives in a cellar, and I does a bit in the dustbin. But him as says I ducks and I chicks, he says what isn’t it, because I never.”

  “And what do you want now, Mr. Rat?” Kay asked.

  “I don’t want nothing,” Rat said. “Him as thinks as Rat wants anything for doing anything, he’d ought to have the cat after him, and he’d ought to have the dog after him.”

  “Yes, yes,” Kay said, “I’m sure he should.”

  “Ah,” Rat said, “that’s what.”

  “Is there anything that I can do for you, Mr. Rat?” Kay asked.

  “Ah,” Rat said, “there’s many might have asked that question before now, what didn’t. Because a fellow is a cellarman and does a bit in the dustbin, and comes a bit close to a old bone now and then (though even that he don’t often), people thinks, why, I don’t know what they don’t think. But what I says is, a fellow is a fellow; you have to come back to that in the end, for all your Tirritts and flurts, and then where are you?”

  “Yes, where?” Kay asked, because he didn’t know where he was.