The Midnight Folk Read online

  The governess stalked out of the room to investigate the larder door. Ellen came in to clear away. Kay looked up at the portrait of great-grandmama Siskin. Her eyes seemed all right. “This is the loveliest time that I’ve ever had,” Kay thought, “and anything may happen.” He walked slowly round the room, tapping the panelling.

  “What are you doing, Master Kay?” Ellen asked.

  “I was just seeing if there were any secret passages,” he said.

  “Oh, there’s no secret passages in here, Master Kay. What should there be secret passages for?”

  “Oh,” Kay said, “when people were doing murders, they always used to have them. And then smugglers had them.”

  “The smugglers were never here,” Ellen said. “Not in this house. Down by the river the smugglers were, so my father said. They had the Mill at Seven Hatches. Oh! and by Drowned-Man’s-Copse way they’d a place, and at the Springs another; but they never could have come here; your great-grandfather would never have allowed them.”

  “No,” Kay said. “But he would never have known. They could have crept in at night and made the passages.”

  “I don’t think they could, Master Kay, not in stone walls.”

  After he had put on his boots Kay went out among the laurustinus to look for that secret place where the trapdoor had opened beneath his feet. Ten o’clock struck while he was still searching, but by great good fortune he got to the schoolroom before the governess arrived. It was French morning. He struggled through an exercise in Ollendorf and a little translation from Chardenal. Unfortunately, the governess would not let him translate what had seemed (at private readings) a very promising passage about an axe and skull, with a war-cry of “Hailulli.” She said that it was not fit for a little boy to read. Then came the dreaded moment.

  “And now, Kay, since you were a very naughty little boy last night, and were most disobedient and dreamy this morning, you will learn ‘pouvoir,’ while I go to look at the larder again, now that Wiggins is there.”

  “What do you think it was that did it in the larder?” he asked.

  “You learn your lessons,” she said. “Never mind about what I think it was.”

  She left him with “pouvoir.” Kay had a special prejudice against “pouvoir.” It wasn’t a good, straightforward word like “aimer.” It was a mean and ugly word, which went into “peux” and “pu.” It didn’t seem to have any sense in it. He wrestled with it with each boot twisted round a leg of his chair, scraping up and down. Then, looking up, he saw great-grandpapa Harker looking down at him from his portrait over the mantelpiece.

  The portrait was one that he had looked at during lessons ever since lessons began. It was just “great-grandpapa Harker’s portrait,” though it was labelled Baxter. When people were shown the schoolroom, the governess always said “That is a Baxter,” and then people said, “Really” or “Fancy that” or “How interesting” It was the full-length portrait of a man in old-fashioned clothes. There was a sort of shrubbery behind him and a sort of blueness behind the shrubbery. It was said to be the only full-length Baxter, as generally Baxter only did down to the knees. But now, as Kay looked, great-grandpapa Harker distinctly took a step forward, and as he did so, the wind ruffled the skirt of his coat and shook the shrubs behind him. A couple of blue butterflies which had been upon the shrubs for seventy odd years, flew out into the room. Great-grandpapa Harker took another step forward, and smiled. Now Kay could see into the shrubbery: it was just where Kay’s fort now was, but the box trees had grown enormously since then, although the bullfinches were already there. Great-grandpapa Harker held out his hand and smiled again. His face, which had seemed such an old-portrait-kind of a face, became alive and full of welcome. He seemed a fine fellow, not at all old, and very kind and good.

  “Well, great-grandson Kay,” he said, “ne pouvez vous pas come into the jardin avec moi?”

  Kay thought it odd, but it was a perfect excuse for not doing “pouvoir”: “I would have learned it, but great-grandpapa Harker asked me to come into the jardin avec him, so of course I thought you wouldn’t mind.” He smiled back at great-grandpapa Harker and said, “Oui, grand-grand-père, thank you; je serai very glad.”

  Great-grandpapa Harker held out both hands, and Kay jumped onto the table; from there, with a step of run, he leaped onto the top of the fender and caught the mantelpiece. Great-grandpapa Harker caught him and helped him up into the picture. Instantly the schoolroom disappeared. Kay was out of doors standing beside his great-grandfather, looking at the house as it was in the pencil drawing in the study, with cows in the field close to the house on what was now the lawn, the church, unchanged, beyond, and nearby some standard yellow roses, long since vanished, but now seemingly in full bloom.

  Kay did not know quite what to say, so he said: “Did the cows really come so close to the house?”

  “Yes, indeed. That is Sweetlips; that one is Rosemary; and the brindle is Colinette.”

  Kay was looking at the cows, who were all in the rich grass, grazing and swishing away the flies. An amiable-looking man, with a fat, pale face, a sun hat and big green spectacles, rose up from behind an easel among the roses. “That will be all that I can do for today, Harker,” he said, as he packed his things. “Come to think of it, you’re the first full-length I’ve done.”

  Kay knew somehow that this was Baxter. He watched him move off, across the grass, to the gate, which was not a drive gate, as now, but a farm field gate, overshadowed by trees long since cut down. Kay was alone with great-grandpapa Harker in a place that was his home, but yet strangely different; so much of it was not there at all, not yet built.

  “Is that all the house?” he asked.

  “Yes. Come in, great-grandson, and see it.”

  He led the way along a cobblestone path to a door “somewhere near where the dining-room door is,” as Kay thought. Pear trees grew up the house here. The porch was supported by the snouts of two carven wooden dolphins standing on their tails. “I brought those from Sainte Eustasie,” great-grandpapa Harker said. “They came off the stern of a Dutch ship that was wrecked there in the great storm of 1782, the year I was born. They must have blunted some chisels to carve them; feel how tough the wood is.”

  Kay felt the hard, dark wood, as close-grained as African oak. Great-grandpapa Harker opened the door into a long, rather dark panelled room, now completely gone. There were some portraits on the wall: the man in the blue coat, with white stockings, now in the best bedroom; the man in the long brown coat with the red belt, now in the hall; and the lady that looked so like a camel. As they entered, a white cockatoo, which had been sitting quietly upon her perch, rose in excitement, with an open bill. An old, old lady was asleep in a chair. Something told Kay that when she had been younger she had looked like a camel. The only other things that Kay recognised were the arms in coloured glass; these were in a window, whereas Kay saw them daily now in the fanlight of a door: three oreilles couped, for Harker; two siskins proper, for Siskin; seven abeilles, grommelees or, for Colway; and three alms spirty, for Mynd.

  Great-grandpapa Harker led the way out of the dining-room, which was dark, into the study, which was still darker, too dark, as Kay thought, for anybody to read in comfort in it. It was panelled up to the ceiling and lined with books, nearly all of them little volumes bound in calfskin. They had been arranged according to size. When he looked round, having entered the room, he found that there were folios behind him.

  “You see, great-grandson,” he said, “these books are not really books, but a shutter.

  He moved something in the wall and a shelf of books swung away and let in a flood of light. Over the mantel was the portrait of the man in the puce coat, who was now in the hall. There was a blunderbuss up in one corner, wired to some nails, and an old harpsichord, which was now up in the box-room with so many other mouldering wrecks.

  “Now, my little great-grandson,” great-grandpapa Harker said, “let me look at you and talk with you. Do they sti
ll think that I stole the treasure?”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Kay said.

  “Many thought that I did, and that I hid it somewhere; perhaps in the floor above this room. For years I had letters from people (who dared not sign their names) accusing me of stealing it. I lost it. It was trusted to me and I lost it; and what became of it, no one knows; though I think it must be sunk or scattered.”

  A black cat, with white throat and paws, which had been ashes for forty years, rubbed up against great-grandpapa Harker’s legs, and then, springing on the arm of his chair, watched the long dead sparrows in the plum tree which had been firewood a quarter of a century ago.

  “You ought to know about the treasure, Kay,” great- grandpapa Harker said; “for until it is restored or traced, no man of our name ought to rest. Your grandfather would not move in the matter; your father could not; there is only you.”

  “I’d love to hear all about it, if you’d tell me,” Kay said.

  “It was in the year 1811,” Captain Harker began. “I was then in the Plunderer, West Indiaman, which I commanded and partly owned, in the port of Santa Barbara, loading sugar. War was raging all over the world. We in the Plunderer were very short-handed. The Admiral on the station had impressed all our best men, and we had lost some by fever. We had a crew of twenty-one, all told, to load, sail and defend the ship, and of all of them only Hollings, my mate, was a man to trust in trouble.

  “Nearly all the South American States were then breaking loose from Spain. A revolution broke out in Santa Barbara. The rebels marched upon the capital, which had only a hundred soldiers in the garrison. The people expected the city to be sacked.

  “The Archbishop with his Priors came off to the Plunderer to ask me if they might lodge the treasures of the churches on board my ship for safety. I said that I had a very weak crew, that I was in an undefended port, and that French privateers were known to be on the coast. They said that as the rebels were in sight, they had no other chance of saving the things. So at this, I consented.

  “They brought it aboard at once, and I had it stricken down into the after-hold. It consisted of church ornaments, images, lamps, candlesticks, reliquaries, chalices and crosses, of gold, silver, and precious stones. Most of it was packed in grass matting, but in the hurry some was bare. I had never seen such wealth; certainly my crew never had.

  “In a way I saved it, for two hours later the rebels entered the city and sacked every church within the walls.

  “Then my troubles began, but not from the rebels.

  “Seven ships were seen approaching the port. From the whiteness of their sails I judged them to be French. Hollings, my mate, agreed with me. Roper Bilges, my gunner, a drunken and careless man, thought that they were Brazilians. Twiney Pricker, my sailmaker, a sinister person, with a great deal in him, said that they were French privateers. I gave the word to lower the boats and tow the ship out to sea, there being then a dead calm in shore.

  “By the time that we were clear of the headland, the squadron was within shot. They were four French corvettes, two brigs, and a schooner, all full of men and well armed. In the first shots exchanged between us they wounded poor Hollings. They continued in chase till dark, driving us to the westward, but not gaining on us.

  “I was more than anxious, having now only eighteen unwounded men on board, to sail the ship and defend this great wealth.

  “After seeking guidance, I determined to make for our naval station at Puerto Recife, to hand over the treasure to the British Admiral commanding there, and ask him to return it in a ship of war when the civil troubles had ceased.

  “Having set down this determination in writing, I read it to poor Hollings, to the gunner, Roper Bilges, and to the sailmaker, who all approved it. Going on deck, I read it to the ship’s company.

  “It was then dark, but the enemy ships’ signals were still visible astern, perhaps two miles away. The wind was freshening from the north, which made the land a lee coast to us. Our rigging had been somewhat cut by shot, and with poor Hollings dying, the enemy near, the rocks close, night upon us, two wounded men to dress, and the whole navigation of the ship depending on me, I had my hands full. I have blamed myself bitterly for being taken unawares. I had no thought that what afterwards happened would occur.

  “Poor Hollings died at midnight. With the wind freshening, I could not be present to minister to him. I stayed on deck till about three o’clock in the morning, when it was light enough to see the enemy ships far astern. That danger being past, for the moment, and the ship holding her course well, I left the deck in charge of the sailmaker, intending to lie down in my clothes for an hour. I was gravely uneasy at my position, but did not doubt that I had decided rightly, both in receiving the treasure on board and in making for our squadron at Puerto Recife.

  “I had not been long asleep when I was awakened by Roper Bilges bursting into my cabin with some of the crew, who seized me and bound me, threatening to kill me with their pistols, etc., and saying that the ship was now theirs. On my trying to reason with them, they put a gag in my mouth, and gave three cheers ‘for Roper Bilges and the Bishop’s treasure.’

  They said that they were now going to be gentlemen, and ‘on the account,’ that is, pirates. Whether the first thought of this came from Bilges or the sailmaker, I cannot say; certainly Bilges was now their captain.

  “After five days of standing to the West, they put me ashore on the coast three hundred miles from any settlement of white men, with no weapon but a knife and no means of livelihood but that and a fishing-line, which my negro seaman had the humanity to slip into my hand. They left me on the coast and sailed away upon a north-westerly course, as though for the Gulf. What became of them, no man knows.

  “I was made prisoner by the Indians, who took me with them far into the forest, to their camp by the falls. I was with the Indians, as a slave, for more than five years. Being a slave is bad; it makes a man think too much of his own misery.

  “Still, in the end I escaped, which few slaves do, and returned to a home of love and beauty, such as few slaves have ever had. I had been given up for dead by many; some supposed that I had run away with the treasure. I am glad to say that the Archbishop, who knew me, never thought that. He had caused the ships of our Navy to search for us. The Admiral in his Report said that the Plunderer had left Santa Barbara fighting an enemy squadron, and that although she had not been captured (as the men of the squadron confessed, when they were afterwards taken), she had probably received grave injuries and had sunk.

  “When I made the truth known, the members of the crew were described and posted as pirates throughout the western seaports. I visited all the possible ports myself, and sought among the receivers of stolen goods for some trace of the treasure; I searched among hospitals, prisons, hulks and galleys for some of the crew. I found no trace whatever, nor could I find any ship, lighthouse-keeper, or signalman who had seen the Plunderer after me, when I saw her heading north-west as though for the Gulf. I do not know what became of her. Sometimes I think that she sank with all on board. Sometimes I think that she reached some port in the Gulf, where the crew settled and lived at ease.

  The treasure was trusted to me, my little great-grandson; I cannot tell you how the loss of it weighed upon me. I could not go back to my profession of merchant trader. My remaining days were passed in hunting for clues to it. For months I would say to myself, ‘No, the Plunderer sank with all on board.’ Then I would read that pirates had been captured in such-and-such a place, and after that I would know no rest till I had examined the confessions of the crew, what ships they had taken, and whether any could have been the Plunderer. Then after more months of thinking that she had sunk, I would say to myself: ‘No; Roper Bilges probably sailed her to Europe, to a port of France or Spain. He may now be a great man in either land.’ When such thoughts came, away I would go for months, to either land, or to Holland or Denmark, or further still to Italy and the Levant, to ask in the ports, till my hear
t sickened. I was known in many ports as ‘the mad Englishman.’ No one had ever seen the Plunderer except an Italian in Genoa, who had been my steward in her for a year.

  “One of my griefs was this: that my wife and son (your grandfather) longed for me to give up the quest. They were sure that the Plunderer had sunk, and thought me mad to persist.

  “Another grief was the knowledge that many people here believed that I had run away with the ship and stolen the treasure. It is said that listeners hear no good of themselves. I sometimes heard people say: ‘Ah, old Harker! They do say that he was a pirate and ran away with all the cathedral money.’ Or: ‘Yes, he says that they took the ship from him with all that treasure on board. I daresay he wasn’t very unwilling. Why didn’t he shoot them? He had his pistols.’ Or: ‘A very likely tale, that he was among the Indians for five years. Much more likely he was spending the treasure somewhere.’ Once I heard a man say: ‘It’s my belief he’s got the treasure hidden in his house. Everybody says so. Besides, if he hasn’t, what is it that he’s got hidden under the hearthstone in his bedroom?’

  “My bedroom is now yours, Kay; the room over this.”

  “What is underneath that big hearthstone?” Kay asked.

  “Underneath that big hearthstone,” great-grandpapa Harker repeated. “Of course, some say the treasure; then some think that somebody has been murdered and hidden there.”

  “And what is there?” Kay asked.

  “Would you like to see, my little great-grandson?” great-grandpapa Harker answered. “There is not much to see. What is it, Rover?”