Dubious Deeds

by Philip Ardagh

  The tall woman in the black dress still hadn’t answered Eddie’s question, so Eddie tried a different approach. ‘My name is Edmund Dickens,’ he said. ‘I am the great-nephew of the very last of the MacMuckles, the owners of Tall Hall and I was – er – wondering what you’re all doing here.’

  The bearded man at the head of the table stood up, the legs of his enormous carved chair scraping across the stone flagging, causing a sound with an effect not dissimilar to someone scratching their fingernails down a blackboard, and setting Eddie’s teeth on edge. The man strode over to the woman’s side and glared down at Eddie. He looked like an angry mountain, if there are such things. Volcanoes, perhaps?

  ‘The last of the MacMuckles?’ he said, sounding very indignant indeed. ‘The last of the MacMuckles? I think not.’

  There were murmurs of agreement from those still at the table, like when Members of Parliament say, ‘Hear! Hear!’ when they agree with whoever’s speaking at the time.

  ‘Young man,’ said the mountain of a man, leaning so far forward that the wispy end of his thick black beard tickled Eddie’s forehead, ‘we, the assembled company, are the last of the MacMuckles.’

  Episode 5

  Many a MacMuckle …

  In which Eddie is given a local history lesson and a punch on the nose

  To say that Eddie ‘was surprised’ by the man’s statement would be like saying that if someone tied your hands and feet together, filled each and every one of your pockets with rocks, chained you to a block of concrete and then threw you in a flooded mine shaft that you’d ‘get a little wet’.

  In modern parlance, Eddie was jaw-droppingly gobsmacked. He was stunned. His mind was boggled. He could hardly believe what he was hearing but, his mother having cleaned out both of his ears with a broad bean soaked in alcohol (attached to the end of a crochet needle), just two nights previously, he accepted that his ears were operating at 100 per cent efficiency.

  ‘You’re a MacMuckle?’ he gasped.

  ‘We all are!’ said the other five, in chorus. All of them spoke with broad Scottish accents.

  ‘This is Alexander MacMuckle, Clan Chief of the MacMuckles,’ said the woman, nodding in the direction of the fierce-looking bearded man towering above Eddie.

  ‘What’s all this nonsense about your great-aunt being the last MacMuckle?’ he demanded.

  ‘I – er – Before she was married she was called Mad Maud MacMuckle,’ Eddie explained.

  A look passed between the woman and Alexander MacMuckle.

  ‘Mad Maud MacMuckle?’ asked Alexander Muckle.

  ‘Well, I suppose she’s Mrs Jack Dickens now,’ said Eddie. ‘But we all call her Even Madder Aunt Maud … except for Mad Uncle Jack – Mad Mr Jack Dickens – that is. He calls her love pumpkin and my little couchy-coo and suchlike.’ As he spoke, Eddie realised that if anyone was going to get confused about being last in the line of MacMuckles when there were actually other MacMuckles still out there, it’d be Even Madder Aunt Maud. Even Mad Uncle Jack had been rather vague about the whole thing. When, back at Awful End and up in his treehouse, Eddie had asked him about the MacMuckles, MUJ had started drawing a family tree but, when it began to look a bit like a scarecrow with straw hair and twigs-for-fingers, that’s what he turned it into a picture of … and then coloured it in … and then put it up in his study next to a drawing of a frog which had once started out as a map showing Eddie how to get to somewhere (though he could no longer remember where).

  ‘I – I see,’ said the woman, who clearly didn’t.

  ‘Who was Maud MacMuckle’s father?’ asked Alexander MacMuckle, looking less stern and more confused.

  ‘That would be Mad Fraser MacMuckle,’ said Eddie. ‘I think he’d have been my great-great-uncle, but he died a long, long time ago.’

  ‘Well,’ said Alexander MacMuckle, ‘any relative of a MacMuckle is welcome in Tall Hall –’

  ‘– by the MacMuckle Falls,’ chanted the others.

  Eddie wondered if these MacMuckles knew that it’d been renamed ‘Gudger’s Dump’, and what they’d have to say about it.

  ‘This is my sister Martha MacMuckle,’ Alexander MacMuckle said, putting his arm around the tall woman in the black dress. ‘Won’t you come and sit with us, Master Dickens?’

  His head still reeling at what all this might mean, Eddie followed them over to the table where an extra place was hastily laid for him.

  The very wide woman introduced herself as Nelly MacMuckle and the blushing girl next to her as her daughter Roberta. She proffered Eddie a bowl of fruit. He chose an apple.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘We’re vegetarians you see, dear,’ she said.

  ‘But this is a fruit, not a vegetable,’ Eddie responded. Vegetarians were much rarer in Britain then than they are now.

  ‘What Nelly means is that we don’t eat meat,’ explained another of the bearded men, who said that his name was ‘Iain with two ‘i’s, unlike that Englishman Lord Nelson who only had one.’ I warned you that puns were popular back then. (It helps if you know that Lord Nelson was a one-eyed admiral.) Although Iain probably made the same joke every time he said his name, he laughed heartily.

  Soon all six of them had introduced themselves as: Alexander, Martha, Nelly, Iain, Hamish and Roberta MacMuckle.

  ‘I thought everyone in the same clan wore the same tartan,’ said Eddie, between bites of his apple. It was delicious.

  Martha MacMuckle snorted. ‘And that all the men wore kilts, I suppose?’

  ‘Let me tell you a wee bit about clan tartans,’ boomed Alexander MacMuckle, cutting into a pear with a small bone-handled knife. ‘Have ye heard of a fella by the name of Sir Walter Scott?’

  Eddie shook his head. ‘But with a name like that he certainly sounds Scottish,’ he said.

  ‘Well, not that long ago’ (if you must know, dear readers, the year was 1822) ‘Sir Walter was put in charge of organising an event where the Clan Chiefs – the heads of the various families – would be presented to King George IV …’ At the mention of the previous monarch’s name, there was much mumbling under the assembled company’s breath. Eddie got the distinct impression that the British royal family weren’t the most popular people in Tall Hall. ‘The event was intended to be dramatic and romantic and full of pageantry –’

  ‘You English like pageantry,’ said Nelly with a stern look on her face which would have said (if looks could speak), ‘And we all know that pageantry is not a good thing.’

  ‘So Sir Walter laid down a few ground rules. He decided that each clan should have its own special tartan and the particular patterns were decided then and there,’ said Alexander.

  ‘Many of them were made up on the spot!’ said Martha.

  ‘But I thought they were traditional designs going back hundreds of years!’ said Eddie.

  ‘So do most people,’ said Nelly. ‘There’s been breacan – tartan – around Scotland for centuries, but nothing as organised and regimented until recent times, laddie, with particular setts for particular clans.’

  ‘Setts?’ asked Eddie, surprising himself by remembering that this was the proper name for badgers’ burrows.

  ‘Patterns,’ growled Alexander MacMuckle.

  ‘And many of them have only recently been made up?’ Eddie gasped.

  The MacMuckles nodded as one. And how right they were. The belief that this fairly modern idea is steeped in ancient Celtic history is how, in the twenty-first century, there comes to be a whole Scottish industry grown up around people who believe they have Scottish ancestry buying rugs, shawls, tam-o’-shanters, kilts and so on in particular tartans closest to their names. ‘Smith?’ the helpful Scottish shop assistant, grins. ‘Oh, that’s a well-known corruption of the Scottish name MacSplurge, and entitles you to wear the clan tartan. We have a very fine range of items in the tartan, including this superb machine-made imitation-leather keyring for just one hundred and thirty-five dollars,’ which is a fine thing for the Scottish
economy.

  ‘What about kilts?’ asked Eddie, thinking about the pleated tartan skirt he’d seen his great-great-uncle Mad Fraser MacMuckle wearing in the oil painting Even Madder Aunt Maud had hanging upside down at the head of her bed inside Marjorie.

  ‘A genuinely ancient form of Scottish dress?’ asked Martha MacMuckle with a look of contempt.

  ‘Invented by an Englishman named Thomas Rawlinson in 1768,’ said her brother. ‘We Scots only started making a point of wearing them when you English banned them, thus makin’ it a matter of honour!’

  There was a cheer from the others around the table, resulting in some of those who were still eating showering the others with half-chewed bits of fruit and nut. The spitees (if there is such a word) swore at the spitters in colourful Scots.

  Eddie wondered what Mr McFeeeeeeee would make of these MacMuckles. There he was thinking that his client, Even Madder Aunt Maud, was the last of the MacMuckles and that she and Mad Uncle Jack were the rightful owners of Tall Hall … yet here was a whole different branch of the MacMuckle family, including one who claimed to be the Clan Chief. Not only that, McFeeeeeeee had suggested that the MacMuckles had been either English or supporters of the English, but these particular MacMuckles seemed as pro-Scottish and anti-Queen Victoria as Angus McFeeeeeeee’s own son Magnus!

  The history lesson over, Eddie thought it best to mention what was worrying him about suddenly discovering that he had a whole bunch of distant relatives whom, less than an hour before, he hadn’t even known existed. ‘Er, Mr MacMuckle –’ he began.

  ‘Yes?’ replied Alexander, Iain and Hamish, three pairs of eyes on him at once.

  ‘I meant you, sir,’ he said, addressing himself to Alexander, him having been introduced as the Clan Chief and being therefore, Eddie supposed, the most important person in the room.

  ‘Yes, laddie, what is it? What’s prayin’ on your mind?’

  Eddie knew that this next part would be awkward but, having once ended up being arrested and (wrongly) put in an orphanage, rather than break a promise and, therefore, bring possible shame to the Dickens family, he knew that he must stake the Dickens claim. ‘I’m afraid you can’t – er – stay here … any of you. I came to Tall Hall in advance of my great-aunt and great-uncle putting it up for sale.’

  There was a loud clatter as Hamish MacMuckle, by far the smallest of the MacMuckles but with the biggest, reddest beard Eddie had ever seen (and would ever see), dropped the pewter platter he was holding to the stone floor. Walnuts shattered and skidded across the huge flagstones.

  Alexander MacMuckle was back on his feet at the head of the table. He glared at Eddie so effectively that it makes one wonder whether he’d been practising in the mirror or taking special night classes. ‘Tall Hall is not for Mad Fraser MacMuckle’s daughter to sell!’ he shouted – yes, shouted. ‘This place is MINE, I tell you. It belongs to ME.’

  Eddie knew that it would be very silly of him to argue.

  Martha MacMuckle put a calming hand on Alexander’s shoulder and he sank back into his seat – rather like a throne – shaking with anger.

  ‘Forgive my brother,’ she said, ‘but surely you can understand his upset?’

  Little Hamish stomped over to Eddie and, to everyone’s amazement, punched him on the nose. More surprised than hurt, Eddie staggered backwards and landed on his bottom with a jarring bump. Hamish stomped back to his place.

  Moments later, Roberta MacMuckle was helping up Eddie. She handed him a lacy hanky she’d had tucked up the left sleeve of her blouse. ‘Your nose is bleeding, Master Eddie,’ she said.

  He took the hanky and pressed it to his nose. It smelt of heather. ‘Thank you, Miss Roberta,’ he said.

  ‘My friends call me Robbie,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Robbie,’ said Eddie.

  Roberta smiled. Eddie smiled. He thought she was rather pretty.

  Just then, Angus McFeeeeeeee came charging through the front door. He stopped dead in his tracks (which may be a cliché but describes exactly what happened). ‘What the devil’s going on here?’ he demanded.

  Episode 6

  Disputed Deeds

  In which Eddie gets a guided tour and a right royal surprise

  ‘You didnae waste your time in throwin’ a party, Master Edmund!’ said Angus McFeeeeeeee in obvious amazement. ‘Are you not going to introduce me to your friends?’

  ‘These are no friends of mine, Mr McFeeeeeeee,’ began Eddie, then, realising that this sounded rather ruder than he’d intended, quickly added: ‘What I meant to say was that they were here when I arrived.’

  The lawyer raised one of his caterpillar-like eyebrows into a quizzical arch. ‘Were they indeed? We appear to have a clear-cut case of breaking and entering. Well,’ he said, now confronting the assembled MacMuckles. ‘What do you have to say for yourselves?’

  ‘What I have to say,’ said Alexander, ‘is that a wee chap like you should be extremely careful who you go accusin’ of breakin’ and entering!’

  Something changed in Angus McFeeeeeeee and Eddie could suddenly picture him falling from a tree with the cry of ‘McFeeeeeeee!’ on his lips and his bare hands around the neck of his enemy. ‘I may appear small to you, sir!’ he breathed heavily. ‘But I have the might of the Law on my side!’

  Nelly MacMuckle stepped between the two feuding men, filling the space quite nicely.

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ she said. ‘There’s no need for this. Alexander, you must simply explain the situation to Mr –’

  ‘This is Mr Angus McFeeeeeeee, my family’s lawyer,’ said Eddie.

  ‘– to Mr McFeeeeeeee. He can’t know the facts until you give them to him now, can he? Fruit?’ Nelly thrust the bowl right under McFeeeeeeee’s nose.

  He seemed disarmed. ‘What? Er – no, thank you.’ It was hard to be angry when fruit was on offer. A nice apple can sometimes have a calming effect on even the most angry of people.

  ‘You see, Mr McFeeeeee –’ began Eddie.

  ‘McFeeeeeeee,’ McFeeeeeeee corrected him.

  ‘This is Mr Alexander MacMuckle, Clan Chief of the MacMuckles. He claims that Tall Hall isn’t Mad Uncle Jack’s and Even Madder Aunt Maud’s to sell. He says it belongs to him.’

  The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. ‘And I suppose you have papers to prove it, sir? And I am using the term sir loosely!’

  ‘To prove what exactly, Mr McFeeeeeeee?’

  ‘That you’re a MacMuckle. That you’re the Clan Chief and that you have a right to this property. I hold the deeds to this house and lands on behalf of Mad Mrs Jack Dickens, formerly Mad Maud MacMuckle … and possession is nine-tenths of the law. Where’s your documentation, Mr MacMuckle?’

  ‘I usually find that in any dispute this puts across my point of view most effectively,’ said the now red-faced Alexander MacMuckle, waving his huge fist in the lawyer’s face.

  Little Hamish wandered over and was about to bop McFeeeeeeee on the nose, in the same way that he had Eddie, when Martha MacMuckle grabbed his wrist with her long, slender fingers (including the one with which she had so successfully prodded Eddie on his arrival).

  ‘Stop acting like children, the lot of you!’ she pleaded. ‘We cannae go on like this!’

  This had the desired effect and, over the next half an hour or so, Eddie and McFeeeeeeee sat with the six MacMuckles or, if the lawyer’s suspicions were correct, the six people claiming to be MacMuckles, and each side heard the other’s explanation as to the state of affairs: Eddie and McFeeeeeeee were under the impression that Even Madder Aunt Maud was the last of the MacMuckles and, as her husband, Mad Uncle Jack was therefore the rightful owner of the hall, its contents and lands, and could do with them as he pleased; Alexander claimed that he and the others were all MacMuckles and, as Clan Chief, the hall was rightfully his and couldn’t therefore be sold.

  Eddie was simply relieved that there was no more nose-punching or fist-waving. Nutty though his family undoubtedly was, the most aggressive any of them ever g
ot was when Even Madder Aunt Maud hit or prodded people with her stuffed stoat Malcolm.

  Though once a leader-of-men in the army (and some of them were still hanging around following him all these years later), Mad Uncle Jack had claimed never to have fired a shot in anger, which was probably true because my research has uncovered the fact that he could never load his rifle properly and that the man who was supposed to do it for him – a Welshman named Private Evan Topping – used to fill it with wads of blotting paper (which he kept hidden in his kitbag for this specific purpose) because, his commanding officer or not, he didn’t trust Mad Major Dickens with a loaded weapon. It is, I suspect, thanks to Private Topping that more people didn’t die in Mad Uncle Jack’s regiment.

  True, Eddie’s father, Mr Dickens, had once blown up his bedroom, but that had been as a result of lighting an early-morning cigar when the gas from a lamp had been left on.

  True, Eddie’s mother, Mrs Dickens, had killed Private Gorey (retired) in the sunken garden at Awful End when she’d thrown a mortar shell over a wall, but that had been an accident.

  As for being on the receiving end of violence, Even Madder Aunt Maud had once been hit by a hot-air balloon (which she rather enjoyed) and chased by peelers (policemen) with dogs through a hawthorn hedge. (As you can see, there’s a picture of this below. It first appeared in another one of my books, in which I described the incident, but I liked it so much I wanted to give those of you who’ve never seen it before a chance to have a look at it, and those of you who have, a chance to enjoy it for a second time. I’m kind-hearted like that.)