Is (21 page)

‘Take the crazy fool away!’ shrieked Gold Kingy, and Mrs Macclesfield was hustled off into the darkness between the stacks, farther and farther, until she was completely lost to view.

Then, in the far distance, Is could hear the grinding sound of the stacks being trundled sideways along their runners and fastened, each to the next, with a loud clang. Clang! and a pause, and then the grinding, then another clang! and a pause. No sound came from Mrs Macclesfield. After fifteen or sixteen such clangs, the guards reappeared and saluted.

‘Right: she’s fixed in there till the moon turns to cheese,’ said Gold Kingy with a grin. ‘She won’t last long. Apart from the rats, those stacks are airtight. There’s only enough in there to last her a few hours. – And I won’t hesitate to serve you likewise, miss!’ he added, fixing Is with a bloodshot, angry eye. ’Unless I get a whole lot more co-operation from you. Understand? Now bring the girl along to the post office!’ he barked at the guards. ‘I’ll talk to her again. This place gives me the ague!’

And he bustled off along the passage, his escort only just able to keep pace with him. Is and her guard followed, she trying to fix in her mind the way they took and the number of turnings and crossings so that she might come back at the first chance and try to rescue Mrs Macclesfield, whose piteous wordless message still came piercing through the dark: Save me if you can! I am helpless, tied up, imprisoned in this cave of books!

And Is, hard as she was able, sent back the message: I will try to come back as soon as they let me go. I will come as soon as I can.

She was bundled back into the cab and taken at a brisk trot along James Street. A five-minute drive brought them to the old post office, in a side street where the mail-coaches had once drawn up in glittering dark-blue rows; now the skeletons of several horses lay mouldering among rotten wheels and broken axles.

The post office was in a worse condition than the library, with half its roof open to the sky and, in the sorting-office to which Is was taken, huge heaps of rotting crumbled letters piled high as sand dunes all over the floor. Through these they picked and shuffled their way, and found Gold Kingy at the far end of the large room, perched – grinning like Mr Punch – on the rostrum from which the Postmaster must once have given orders to his staff.

It was plain that Uncle Roy enjoyed nothing better than inspecting the desolation that he had made of old Blastburn – not just in contrast to Holdernesse and its brand-new glitter, but because devastation itself delighted him. ‘Look at all those letters nobody’s going to read!’ he called gloatingly to Is. ‘Ha, ha! How it makes me laugh to think of all that wasted trouble.’

‘Proper shame if you ask me!’ snapped Is. ‘
Someone
musta paid postage on ’em.’

‘They are all to the south, or from the south,’ he retorted coldly. ‘We have no dealings with the south – not until the day when there is a glorious re-union and my troops are pasturing their horses in Hyde Park.’

And that won’t be till fish wear roller-skates, thought Is.

He was the stupidest boy in the class, she remembered Mrs Crockett saying; the others used to laugh at him. Perhaps that’s why he hates books and letters so.

Her guards pushed her close in front of Gold Kingy, who, in the meantime, had refreshed himself from a black-and-gold flask which must have held something very potent, for he suddenly yelled at Is in a loud, bullying voice:

‘Now, I want answers, girl! Don’t try to fob me off, for I’ve had you followed; I know all you’ve done and every soul you’ve spoken to. I know you’ve been hunting for the Stuart lad, and I want to know where he is. If I can only get that boy in my pocket, I can tip a settler on King Dick.
I’ll
call the shots; he’ll have to swallow my terms.’

‘No he won’t, Uncle Roy,’ said Is. ‘There bain’t no way you’ll ever have that boy in your pocket. Cos why? Cos he’s dead. He’s gone and diddled you.’

The moment the words had left her mouth she wondered if it had been wise to disclose this news to Gold Kingy – but it had been too much of a temptation. For once he seemed really taken aback and gaped at her with furious, startled eyes, which were growing bloodshot again as he swigged down more and more from his flask.

‘Dead? How do you know that?’

‘Acos I took trouble to find out, that’s why. He was killed in your foundry – like plenty of others. He fell into a trough of melted metal. He won’t come back. So you got no hold at all over King Dick. He’ll find himself some other heritor – he’ll havta, won’t he? Maybe he’s got a nephew, or a cousin.’

Gold Kingy took a long time considering this. Then he said, ‘Well, maybe that ain’t bad news. King Dick’ll surely be knocked endways when he hears his boy’s a goner. He’s sick already, I’ve heard tell. Maybe this’ll knock him off his perch.’ Uncle Roy chuckled at the thought. ‘Then the gate’ll be wide open for me to walk down and take over the Southland.’

Is feared this might be only too likely; remembering the thin, sad, woebegone man she had met in Mr Greenaway’s warehouse.

‘But what I want to know is,’ Gold Kingy now roared at her, ‘what’s
your
fiddle in all this?
Why
were you looking for Davie Stuart? What was he to you? And I want a true answer. Don’t fool with me. You saw what came to your aunt’s cat? You saw what I did to that grog-sodden, rat-infested ken where they lived?’

‘Yes, I did see!’ Is burst out, too furious to care about caution. ‘You flattened poor old Montrose and you smashed their home –
fine
doings! Two decent old bodies as never harmed anybody in all their days – unless Grandpa had a bit o’ drink in him – not to mention Doc Lemman and Old Father Lance. You did that! How do I know they ain’t all dead in the ruins?’

‘The doctor was out on his rounds; Father Lancelot had permission to leave – ’

‘And what about Grandpa? What about Aunt Ishie? Where are they?’

‘Never you mind where they are – ’ Uncle Roy was beginning, when Aunt Ishie’s voice interrupted him.

‘We are safe and sound, dearie, don’t you trouble your head about us. But no thanks to Roy.’

Is looked up and, to her huge relief, saw her elderly relatives gazing down at her. A gallery ran round three sides of the room; its rails supported hooks from which hung quantities of rotting old dark-blue canvas mailbags. Aunt Ishie and Grandpa Twite had evidently managed to enter at a higher level, for outside an alley ran uphill beside the post office. Both of them looked dusty and untidy, Aunt Ishie even paler than usual, Grandpa ominously flushed; but at least, thank heaven, they were alive.

Roy, who had started violently at the sound of Aunt Ishie’s voice, now bawled at the guards, ‘Get them down from there! Who let them in? How did they get up there?’

The guards hesitated.

‘Get them down!’ repeated Gold Kingy furiously.

‘Y’r Honour – ’ one of the guards stammered, ‘Y’r Honour, everybody knows it’s terrible bad luck to touch Y’r Honour’s kin – specially Miss Twite – ’

‘It will be worse luck if you don’t!’

But just the same, Is could see that Roy was not easy in his mind about having his elderly relatives manhandled. Do they think Aunt Ishie is a witch?

’Uncle Roy!’ she suddenly addressed Gold Kingy boldly. ‘I had a dream about you last night.’

This was true, she had; but she had forgotten all about it until this moment.

‘Be quiet, girl! Why should I wish to hear your rubbish?’

Yet she could see that he was startled and his attention caught; the whites of his eyes seemed to enlarge.

‘Shall I tell you about my dream, Uncle Roy?’

‘Be quiet, girl!’ His face was flushed; he banged on the rostrum with his fist.

‘Yes, dearie, go on, you tell him your dream!’ Aunt Ishie called encouragingly over the gallery rail. ‘The women in our family often have true dreams; my mother once had a dream foretelling the fire that burned down the Houses of Parliament.’

Gold Kingy threw her an angry look, but he said to Is unwillingly, ‘Well – ?’

Is chose her words with care.

‘I dreamed that you was walking along this wide green track, Uncle Roy. It was as wide as a street, an’ all grassy an’ flat, very smooth and easy underfoot. Birds was singing in the hedges an’ sun shining, all as happy as can be.’

‘Well
?
’

Now he was following her with close attention, his eyes almost glaring out of his head. Why? Did it tie in with a dream that he had dreamed himself? Is remembered how she and Penny had sometimes shared the same dream – mostly something quite simple. A dream about a tree or a fish.

Uncle Roy’s face had grown even redder and he was sweating copiously.

‘You was walking down the path, Uncle, very happy and jolly, laughing a lot, and the way started to slope downhill. That made the going even easier, you was regularly busting along, swinging your arms.’

Gold Kingy looked down at his arms – his hands were clasped tight in front of him – as if he were slightly surprised to find them still attached to his shoulders.

‘And then the way got narrower, Uncle Roy, just a single footway – like a sheep-track – with hedges on each side – and then – bless me – if it didn’t run plumb into a river!’

A dark slit showed where his mouth had opened; his lips and cheeks were now a uniform brick red. His eyes were trained on Is like gun-barrels.

‘Well, it didn’t matter a bit, Uncle Roy, that the path went into the water, cos, do you know what you
did?
You was able to walk on top of the water! Yus! Jist fancy! You walked along on top of that river, jist as if it was a pavement in a street!’

Gold Kingy leaned back with a huge breath of relief, an enormous sigh of satisfaction. He cast a triumphant look up at Aunt Ishie and Grandfather Twite.

But now old Mr Twite leaned over the rail and addressed him.

‘Do you want to hear my last riddle, Roy Twite? I made it up for you especial. Which was an act of charity, mind! for I don’t owe you any kindness. No, bless me, I don’t! You killed my cat, you wrecked my home and my printing-press – ’ His voice shook a little and Aunt Ishie laid an anxious hand on his arm. But he smiled at her and said, ‘Never fret, my dear. You don’t get to the age of a hundred and two without learning to keep your temper.’ Then, turning back to Gold Kingy, he announced, ‘Here’s my last riddle, Roy, boy, and you’d best pay close attention:

Grandfather Twite showed his yellow teeth in a malicious grin, studying Roy.

‘Well, boy? D’you get it? D’you fathom it? You had best commit that one to memory, for you won’t get a second chance to hear it. That’s your last. And do you want to know why that is? Because I have come to a decision. I don’t care for the kind of usage that Ishie and I have had from you lately; no, by hokey, I do not, and I don’t intend to put up with it any longer. So, do you want to know what I have done? I learned to brew other things, you know, beside a long-life essence, down there in my cellar that you just demolished. As well as a long-life potion I brewed a
short
-life potion.’

Uncle Roy looked up sharply at that.

Grandfather Twite grinned again. ‘Ah, that makes you twitch, doesn’t it? Well it may! For, half an hour ago, I swallowed it down – hemlock. Yes, Ishie and I had a few odds and bobs stowed away with a friend in another refuge because we had a notion you might one day do something hasty and ill-advised – a few rags and bones and bottles – and we were right to do so, weren’t we? Eh? So I have just ten minutes left now in which to tell you, Roy, that as well as being a stupid, greedy, callous ning-nang, you are left now with only a very short – ’

Grandfather Twite came to a stop in this oration. A thoughtful expression came over his face. He said: ‘
Not
ten minutes.’ And collapsed slowly, sideways, against the rail of the gallery.

Aunt Ishie said: ‘Oh dear!’ but her quiet exclamation was drowned in Uncle Roy’s yell of rage.

‘The old
devil
! The old
gullion
! He’s done me, he’s diddled me, he’s – ’

Gasping for breath, flapping his hands as if in a vain effort to pump more air into his lungs, Gold Kingy toppled forward off the rostrum on to the dusty floor.

The guards rushed forward to him.

‘Is he dead?’ Is asked hopefully.

‘No, just a fainting fit. He gets taken like that when he’s had a shock – it’s nowt out o’ the common,’ said one of the men, expertly loosening Gold Kingy’s cravat. ‘He’ll be right as rain in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

‘What a pity.’

In fact almost at once Gold Kingy opened a bloodshot eye, fixed it angrily on Is, and announced, ‘That was a lie! A goddam lie. About the lad, Davie Stuart, being dead. I don’t believe it’s so. He’s still alive. In the mines, very likely.’

His eyes closed again.

‘Suit yourself, Uncle Roy. Believe just what you fancy,’ said Is angrily, and then, since nobody was paying her any particular attention, she left the guards engaged in arranging a carrying-litter for Gold Kingy made from mailbags, and ran up a flight of steps that led to the gallery.

9

In the dusty gallery of old Blastburn Post Office, Is was not particularly surprised to find Dr Lemman with her aunt, kneeling by the motionless, apparently lifeless body of her great-grandfather.

‘Is he really dead? Oh,
is
he?’ she cried, clutching at Aunt Ishie.

Lemman was feeling the old man’s heart, testing his pulse.

‘Well, we don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘The first thing will be to shift him to an airier spot than this grubby hole. If we can get him along to my trap – ’