Is

by Joan Aiken

  ‘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:

  As backward you go, take a turn round the pond

  If your threescore-and-ten you would pass beyond!

  But is a long life worth all this trouble

  When even a short life is such a muddle?’

  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 l
eft 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

  I feed my cat by yonder tree

  Cat goes fiddle-I-fee . . .

  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 – ’

  A footway led from the gallery to the lane at the back where Dr Lemman’s trap was tethered. They got the old man out, with some difficulty, by means of Aunt Ishie’s wheeled sled.

  ‘Stupid old clunch. I knew he’d go and overdo the dose if I was not there to supervise – ’ Lemman was muttering. ‘I knew he’d make a mull of it.’

  ‘Didn’t he mean to do hisself in?’ asked Is.

  ‘Not to my knowledge . . .’

  ‘Where were he and Aunt when Roy blew up the house?’

  ‘Out. They’d had a warning from an associate of Kingy’s – that fellow Gower – don’t know why he turned neighbourly all of a sudden – surly Friday-faced devil in the general way – Good, that’s right, heave his feet in, and then we’ll be off.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The library.’

  ‘The library?’

  ‘Your aunt and grandpa have a notion to take up quarters there; not a bad plan, I dare say, it’s in middling good repair. And I believe there’s even an old printing press down in the basement, which your grandpa – if he survives this crazy freak – ’

  Aunt Ishie was already crouched in the back of the trap beside the huddled form of Grandpa Twite. Is clambered in beside her and clasped her hand. But Ishie looked resigned, even calm.

  ‘If your great-grandfather dies, I shall take it as meant,’ she explained, ‘and shall consider that he brought it on himself, teasing poor Roy.’

  ‘Poor Roy?’

  ‘Oh, such a hopeless, wretched, unlovable creature!’ Aunt Ishie sighed. ‘I suppose it is almost always that kind who change the course of public events, because they have nothing better to do with themselves.’

  ‘D’you know what he did? He locked up Mrs Macclesfield in the library basement, among all them books! Soon’s we get there I’m agoing to let her out – ’

  ‘That’s a good child; no, Mrs Macclesfield should most certainly not be left in there . . . Ah, here we are. Now, Chester, if you can just help me up the stairs with Papa – ’

  There were two flights of stairs to be tackled; the imposing steps outside, leading to the bronze doors, and then, even steeper, the double marble ascent curving in elegance from the entry hall. Although it was a cold day, they were all heated and panting by the time they had hoisted old Mr Twite to the top of the second flight.

  ‘Only hope it’ll have been worth it, fetching him up here,’ growled Lemman.

  As soon as Aunt Ishie and the unconscious old man had been established in the Head Librarian’s office, Is said,

  ‘Now I’ll go and look for Mrs Macclesfield.’

  She had been exceedingly anxious to get away for the last ten minutes. All the time they had been laboriously heaving Grandfather Twite from step to step, she had been aware, inside her head, of Mrs Macclesfield’s piercing, piteous, continuous cry for help, a soundless moan. Then, suddenly, just as they reached the door of the office, it had stopped. Now what could that mean? Is hated to think. Had the supply of air suddenly run out?

  ‘Yes, do hurry,’ agreed Aunt Ishie. ‘Take a candle, you had better – ’

  She had a stock of household goods already collected here: lamps, candles, blankets and provisions, Is noticed.

  Hurrying downstairs with the lighted candle, Is retraced the route along which she had been taken earlier that day – it already seemed a long time ago – by the two guards, down the basement stairs and along the silent passage-way among the stacks of books. But now there was no light ahead to guide her. And there seemed to be a dreadfully confusing number of passages to choose from. Is tried to follow a course straight forward, relying on the good sense of direction that she had acquired in Blackheath Woods, but it was hard to be sure that she was keeping to the same route, for she began to think that in the meantime somebody else had been there, disturbing the stacks and shifting them along on their tracks, so that the distances between them were different. If only she could find the opening where Gold Kingy had sat, with the table and chair; but those were gone, the space had vanished. Who could have taken the furniture?

  Where are you? I am looking for you everywhere, she sent out in a soundless call to Mrs Macclesfield. But no answer came back. And the candle, which had been little more than a stub to start, was beginning to burn low . . .

  Now there came another disquieting phenomenon. Somewhere, not too far away, Is thought she began to detect a stealthy footstep. At first she had taken it for an echo of her own tread, but it fell at different intervals, it was heavier and slower.

  I don’t like this place one bit, thought Is; I’d hate to be shut up in here. She stood still and tried to avoid breathing while she waited and listened for the step to sound again. Yes: there it was, closer now. Somebody was following her, stalking her in the darkness. I know a game worth two o’ that, thought Is, and blew out her candle. Dark, thick as soot, settled round her. If I keep still for long enough, Is decided, Mr Footfall can’t help giving himself away; I bet I can hold my breath longer than he can.

  She was right: after an interval she heard a stealthy shuffle and a suppressed cough. Is, by now, found that her eyes had adjusted to the dark sufficiently to see the upright line of a stack fairly close to where the sound had come from; she put down her candle and, in two tiptoe strides, swung herself round the stack and made a grab with her right hand at what lurked behind it. Unexpectedly, the stack slid sideways in its groove, unbalancing the other person, who fell heavily, letting out a stifled oath: ‘S’wounds!’ and dropping something with a clatter. Is, pouncing on this, found it to be a tinder-box and struck a light. To her complete surprise, the person lying on the floor turned out to be Mr Gower.

  ‘Well, jell me!’ exclaimed Is, while he, looking extremely harrassed and put out, as much at the loss of his dignity as a
nything else, picked up his pince-nez and climbed slowly to his feet. ‘I never thought it would be you, mister, playing hide-and-find here in the dark!’

  He made no reply to that but, after frowningly scrutinising her for a moment, demanded, ‘You were here, were you not, this morning, when your uncle had my sister-in-law shut up in this repellent place?’

  ‘Sure, I was; that’s why – ’

  ‘Can you remember what number of row – ?’

  ‘Ah, now, that’s sharp,’ said Is approvingly. ‘Yus; now you come to name it, where Gold Kingy was sitting, at his little table in the middle, that row was K30. I know that’s so, cos I remember thinking K for Kingy.’

  He took back the tinder-box from her and lit a candle of his own, holding it up to the nearest stack, which was R17.

  ‘Ah,’ he muttered, ‘then I have come by far too far – ’ and began working his way back towards the entrance. Having re-lit her own candle from his, she followed.

  ‘You come to let her out, then, mister? I thought you was on Gold Kingy’s side?’

  ‘My affiliations are no business of yours whatsoever,’ he snapped.

  ‘Suit yourself, mister. – Now, this was where Uncle Roy sat this morning, for here’s a drop o’ candlegrease on the floor. Somebody musta moved the table, that’s what foxed me. Wonder who? And I reckon it was down this way they took Mrs M – a good long way, till they was almost outa hearing.’

  But though they followed the row K30 to its extreme end – among dark, rusty, mouldy, half-empty stacks, and rotten, sodden volumes – they could find no sign of the imprisoned lady. Mr Gower called out, once or twice, in a cautious undertone: ‘Susan? Are you there? Susan?’

  And Is sent out her silent mind-message. But neither of these received any reply. Nor, thank goodness, did they come on what Is had feared they might find: poor Mrs Macclesfield’s body, perished for want of air; although Mr Gower moved all the stacks in turn and hunted with great persistence.

  ‘My wife will certainly expect it – ’ he muttered. ‘What is that you just picked up?’

  ‘Dunno – feels like it might be a locket.’