by Joan Aiken
"Well—I'm sorry for you that you didn't manage to buy the park, Gus," said Lady Murgatroyd. "But I am glad for us."
She looked away from Blastburn over the great, bare, dirty, beautiful stretch of land, with its sooty trees, and its trampled snow, and the lake full of cracked ice.
"Oh, I don't begrudge it to you, my dear Eulalia—not at all. I have got the Mill, after all."
"Haveyou, sir?" said Lucas, with interest. "Are you the British Rug, Mat, and Carpet Manufacturing Corporation?"
"I do own that company, yes."
"Then," said Lady Murgatroyd, "you are going to have your hands full setting things to rights there. But there is someone here who can advise you. My young cousin Lucas Bell. He has been studying the Mill and knows a great deal about it."
"I'll be very glad of your advice, my dear boy."
"Well—" Lucas ventured, "I had been thinking of becoming a writer—now that I have my father's twenty pounds a year to live on—"
But then he thought of his promise to Davey Scatcherd.
"Naturally you can be a writer as well," said Lady Murgatroyd briskly. "But you must certainly advise Gus."
Must I? thought Lucas. Do I know enough about it? He thought, Industry id a good thing because it is better to work in a carpet factory than to be out in the rain with nothing to eat.
"I'm sorry I was obliged to break the press in your factory, sir," he said to Lord Holdernesse.
"Did you, my dear boy? I was not aware of it. Well, I daresay it can be mended."
"I'm not sure that is really a very good way of making carpets, sir."
"No? You must explain it all to me by and by."
"Oh, and there's another thing, sir, that perhaps you should know," Lucas said. "When I was down in the town I overheard a couple of people talking very wild and saying they were going to breach the dikes and flood the lower part of the town—It was Joe Bludward and Newky," he told Anna-Marie—"So I went round by Haddock Street and warned the Scatcherds and everyone there. Apparently the Bluddites live mostly up at the Clutterby end of the town, so they thought they would be safe. But old Mr. Scatcherd says they have probably forgotten that the tides are at springs and most likely the whole town will be flooded; Joe Bludward always was a stupid lad, he says. So the Scatcherds are going to warn everybody to be on the lookout, and I mentioned it to Mr. Gravestone at the Mill, as that is fairly low-lying."
"It sounds," said Lady Murgatroyd, "as if we shall have everybody camping in the park. Well there will be plenty to do. How fortunate that the weather is a little warmer."
"That old Gudgeon!" said Anna-Marie in sudden alarm. "He is sure to be drowned if there is a flood!"
"I warned him too," said Lucas. "I went round that way."
"By his boat? Mon Dieu! Were you not afraid?"
"It was all right. He hardly seemed to remember me. I'm not sure whether he really understood what I was telling him though. He just said, 'The end thereof shall come in with a flood; but neither can the floods drown love,' and then he wandered away and started hunting for tosh on the bank."
"Oh well," said Anna-Marie, "you did your best."
Lord Holdernesse and Lady Murgatroyd had strolled up onto the ridge and were looking down at the town. Scraps of their conversation floated in among Anna-Marie's sad thoughts.
"It is no use telling people to change, Gus. But if their lives are better—I think there is a younger Scatcherd brother who might—"
"—Encourage the notion of fair play, start educational groups, inculcate higher principles—that sort of thing, eh, Eulalia?"
Groups, principles, Anna-Marie thought, but people are more important. I am important, me: I am going to make up tunes that will be cheering people for hundreds of years.
"Just the same," Mr. Oakapple said, standing beside her, as if he had heard her thoughts, "if you went away from here, what would you remember most? Not any of the people singly, but this great dark town with all its hardship and trouble."
"Davey said it was a m-moocky old place but he loved it." She wiped her eyes again.
Lady Murgatroyd and her cousin were talking about Sir Denzil.
"Ah, he was a wayward, reckless boy—but everybody loved him. He had a way of looking at you and smiling—Quincy was rather a hard parent, y'know, Eulalia. If he had been more understanding, now—"
Lucas thought sadly about the life and death of Denzil Murgatroyd. What a waste of that gifted, lively, inventive boy, he thought. If he had meekly done what his father wanted, and devoted himself to the Mill, would things have turned out better? What good did it do, that everybody loved him? If he and Sir Randolph had not quarreled, would Sir Randolph have been a better person, not left such a trail of destruction behind him? Does Anna-Marie take after her father? No, Lucas thought, she is herself, no person is a continuation of anybody else. And then he thought, perhaps I could write about Denzil Murgatroyd. Perhaps I could write his story.
Once upon a time, he thought, there wad a hoy... and then stopped short in astonishment as the two images overflowed across one another, the image of Greg and the image of Denzil. They were the same person, and I never guessed it till now.
"So what will you do with your park, Eulalia?" said Lord Holdernesse.
The sun was low on the horizon, the shadows were long, it was becoming chilly.
"Well," said Lady Murgatroyd, "what shall we do with it, my dears? Build another great house?"
"No, no, let us not," said Anna-Marie. "Besides, we have no money. I have thought what I shall do: I shall collect snails. I have seen a sign saying that doctors at the infirmary will buy snails—with shells—for fourpence a quart; people want them for cage birds, also. And I do not believe the Friendly Boys will be able to say they have the rights to the snails in Blastburn. Also the doctors want frogs, one penny each, and worms are required by the men who sell turf. I shall get the other fluff-pickers to help me too; I think they did not look happy and will be glad of a change. And Luc can help me and we shall do quite well."
But Lucas thanked her and he thought he would have enough to do.
"And we'll write, read, sing—run a music school—"
"Avec le diapason de Handel, alors!"
"Just live here," said Lucas.
"Do come and call on us, Gus, whenever you like," said Lady Murgatroyd, as he raised his hat to them and took his departure.
They went into the icehouse where the fire smoldered gently and there was a warm smell of woodsmoke. Redgauntlet thumped his tail.
"I think perhaps this evening it would be a nice thing if you were to play your violin a little, Monsieur Ookapool, n'est-ce pas?" said Anna-Marie.
