Cold Shoulder Road (11 page)

“Do you like him?” asked Is.

She thought some more.

“You are not meant to like the Leader. He is the voice of Duty. Duty is seldom pleasant. Duty orders us to save every penny we can until we have enough to sail to Connecticut, where Amos Furze plans to buy a plot of land.”

Arun asked, “Did my Mum like Dominic de la Twite? She and Dad liked Amos Furze well enough. They used to drink tansy tea with him, now and then.”

Mrs Swannett said, “Your Mother had strong views about Dominic de la Twite. She said he was the servant of the Demiurge.”

“Servant of
what
?”

“The Demiurge,” repeated Mrs Swannett. “The origin of all evil.”

“Croopus!”

“Your Mother said,” went on Mrs Swannett, who now seemed almost delirious with the pleasure of being able to make contact with other people in this way – and she was a remarkably quick learner; Is could not remember any of the workers in the mines catching on so speedily – “your Mother said that it was a wicked thing, the way that Twite and that sister of his treated that poor Handsel Child, who lodged with them. That was when we all lived in Folkestone still, when the Elder lived in the house next to your parents in Cold Shoulder Road. She—”

The front gate squeaked. There was a step on the pebblepath. Then the house door opened.

Is flashed a rapid question to Mrs Swannett.

“Shall you tell your husband that you are able to talk in this way?”

Mrs Swannett frowned for a moment, thinking. Then: “No. At least, not just yet. He . . . I am not sure if he would approve. I think – for him – it might seem that, even talking to one another in this speechless way, we are breaking into the Holy Silence. Which ought to wrap each one of us in a thick, thick quilt of solitary wonder and mystery.”

While Arun and Is were slowly pondering this statement, Micah Swannett came into the room, and gave them a kindly nod. He did not pause, but strode straight through to the back kitchen and, in his turn, washed off the tang of the hop-manure, then returned and sat down to a bowl of lentil stew.

He glanced in a friendly way at Is and Arun, and nodded approval of their changed appearance. His long, gloomy face was not adapted for smiling, but it was plain that he was glad the boys’ clothes fitted them. They could feel him deciding, slowly and solidly, that it was better the clothes should be put to use, rather than lie upstairs in a chest, filling his wife with sad thoughts. He was a simple, direct man, and the movements of his mind came to them in clear shapes, as if he were talking aloud to himself . . . Whereas Window’s thoughts lay at a much deeper level, and, except when aimed at Is and Arun, could not be heard at all.

After he had eaten, Micah wrote on a slate
The Leader told me to bring you to him
, and handed the slate to Arun.

“What about me?” said Is. “Don’t he wish to speak to me?”

Mr Swannett shook his head. He took back the slate and added the words,
I will take you to him now
, then stood up and walked to the door.

Arun stood too, casting a doubtful glance at Is. His catlook had come back. He said to Is., “What d’you think? Hadn’t you better come – see what he wants?”

Is considered.

“I dunno. Maybe not. We don’t want to start by putting him in bad skin. Let’s wait and see what he has to say to you. He might cut up rusty if I barge in.”

Just the same, she thought, I’m not going to be far away from that palaver, not if I can help it.

Arun went out with Micah, and Is followed to see which way they turned.

To her surprise, Micah did not go back into the town, but walked along the crest of the shingle bank, going north towards a group of sheds and sail lofts that stood inland on a thistly patch of sand.

Window Swannett’s thought came to Is. She too had come into the little pebbly garden.

“The Elder has made himself a room for study and hearkening, in one of the sail lofts. He lives there with his sister Merlwyn. He chooses not to be close to other members of the Sect . . . Look, there he is now.”

A massive man, dressed all in black, stood sombrely, with arms folded, on the shingle ridge, staring out to sea. The wind lifted his thick grey hair off his brow. He was a little taller than Micah Swannett, who now approached him, and much more solidly built, with a huge head like that of a lion. At this distance Is could not see his face clearly, but from the way he stood and held himself she caught a feeling of great power and strong will.

He sure looks like a Leader. I hope he don’t come the old bag over Arun, she thought uneasily. Arun – specially just now, when he’s worried about his Ma – can be uncommonly easy to overset. And I guess that feller –
De la Twite
, as he calls hisself, though I bet he’s as much
de la
as my cat Figgin – I guess he’s real sore at Arun’s Mum, and real keen to get that Handsel kid back. So he’s liable to lay into Arun, one way and another.

I dunno – maybe I should have gone along with Arun.

She watched the meeting intently. She saw the Leader lay what looked like a benevolent, fatherly hand on Arun’s head, and she saw Arun flinch back; then Micah Swannett, obeying a sharp jerk of the Leader’s head, walked away from the pair and left them alone on the shingle ridge.

“He has very great power, that man,” said Window Swannett’s voice in her mind.

“You’re not just whistling Annie Laurie,” Is flashed back. “What’s he a-going to do to my cousin?”

“Is your cousin a strong character?”

“I dunno,” thought Is doubtfully. “In some ways, yes; some, no.”

“Then I think you should go along, get as close as you can, out of sight, and try to help him.”

This seemed like excellent advice.

Is ran like a sandpiper along the middle road, out of sight, behind hulls of ships, and sheds, until she was within a short distance of where Arun and Dominic de la Twite were standing.

The pair had now moved down the shingle bank on to the sandy lower beach. They began walking to and fro. Is squatted down behind an upturned fishing smack and listened keenly.

“I miss your dear, dear Mother so
much
!” the Leader was saying. “A truly original soul! A maker! An inventor! How very rare that is! Her pictures are so startling – so brilliant. I hope very much that, wherever she has retired to, she is still creating such beautiful offerings to the Great Spirit . . . And do you, dear boy, follow in her footsteps? Do you paint pictures?”

“No I don’t,” said Arun. His voice was low and mumbling compared with de la Twite’s loud, confident, ringing tones;
he
sounded hostile and ill-at-ease.

“Ah, but now, I do recall . . . you wrote
songs
, was that not so?” de la Twite said distastefully. “And this was a sad cause of contention between you and your good father. (Or so I have heard, at least.) For song, of course, is a terrible infringement of the Holy Quiet. But could this activity not be transposed – could you not, like your dear Mamma, turn to painting pictures? A delightfully silent occupation?”

This de la Twite can’t really be such a clodpole, thought Is, as to believe a body could just change over from songs to pictures. He’s gotta be after something. But what?

Arun remained silent. He had not replied to de la Twite’s suggestion. Is sent him a thought-message. “This cove is a real Captain Sharp. You want to watch his fambles all the time, or your dinner ‘ull be in his pudding-box.”

She received no answer from Arun.

“And your dear Mamma’s pictures – what has become of them?” De la Twite was inquiring solicitously. “I
do trust
they are in safe keeping? I do trust they are not still reposing in that sad little empty house, at the mercy of hostile neighbours?”

“No, sir. The Admiral’s got ’em. Admiral Fishskin. He has them in his cave,” Arun said stolidly.

There was a short silence. Is wished very much that she could see de la Twite’s face.

Then he said reflectively, “Ah, yes. I think I have heard of him. Admiral Fishskin. A cousin, is he not, of our own esteemed Denzil Fishskin, the dental practitioner. And, I believe, a most excellent, worthy old gentleman. No doubt he will take the best possible care of the pictures. In his
cave
, you say? Ah – were there any portraits among the paintings, did you say?”

Is could feel the leader’s thoughts hammering like knuckles on Arun’s mind. Let me in! Let me in!

No, Arun, no! Don’t you let him in! Is silently urged.

After a pause, Arun said, “No, there wasn’t.” Is sent him an urgent message, and he added slowly, “Not unless the portraits was fixed up so as to look like flowers.”

“Ah, indeed. Now that is a very interesting notion,” said de la Twite thoughtfully. “But now, my dear lad, we must – must we not? – go in search of your deeply esteemed Mother. You, most naturally, wish to be reunited with her. And I . . . am
intensely
anxious to resume our friendship.”

Arun said nothing.

“So . . . all we have to do – I am sure – is put our heads together. And, without a shadow of doubt, we shall come up with the answer.”

“The answer,” repeated Arun flatly.

“Wind for music and seagulls for dancers!” exclaimed de la Twite, suddenly changing his tone to a high and fluting one as he broke into verse. “Soon or late, we’ll discover the answer! Ah hah! my boy, you didn’t know that I, too, am a poet! As well as being the Leader of the Silent Sect, I too, in my humble way, have a right to be considered a Creator. Not on the same level as your wonderful Mother (I do wonder where she is?) but still, an artist.” And he recited several more lines of verse. “What do you think of those, my boy?”

“Very nice,” said Arun lamely.

“But now, to our task. I understand, from various sources, that your Mother has been seen in the company of some female relative. Can you attest to that?”

“Some say so. I dunno,” said Arun.

“A female relative called – if I mistake not – Penelope Twite. Such an interesting, varied family, the Twites! I look forward with the liveliest pleasure to meeting another member of it.”

Now, how the pize did he hear that? wondered Is.

“Do you think it might be safe to conclude that your dear parent has gone to reside with this Miss Twite?”

“As to that I can’t say,” said Arun.

“So, all we have to do is discover the whereabouts of Miss Twite’s rural abode!” concluded the Leader in a voice of triumph. “And that – most likely – is something that you have at your fingers’ ends? Eh?”

All the time, while he talked, Is could feel de la Twite’s thoughts, like plucking, prying fingers, teasing, twitching at the network of Arun’s mind, as if they meant to push their way to its extreme innermost core.

No, Arun, no! Don’t let them in!

Is sent her own thoughts whizzing like darts cross the beach. He means harm, I’m sure of that! Your Mum didn’t trust him. She thought he was the Devil’s boyo. Don’t you tell him
anything
.

Anyhow you don’t know where Penny lives. Which is just as well.

But Arun, plainly, was beginning to give way to this continuous, relentless pressure. His voice became drowsy, his thoughts were slowing down as if he were in a helpless drift towards sleep.

“No . . .” he said, half-yawning. “No, I don’t know where Penny lives. But Is knows. Is used to live with Penny. Penny’s her sister.”

“Is? Ah! Your cousin. Your companion? That shabby girl I saw outside the inn?”

Great Scissors, mister! thought Is huffily.
You
’d look a mite shabby if you’d crawled through a cave on your stummick for seven hours.

But the Leader was saying, “Let us go in search of her directly. We shall need a carriage, I presume, to travel to Miss Twite’s abode?” And Arun was answering, “My cousin will be in Mr Swannett’s house, sir,” – meek as a perishing choirboy, thought Is, enraged – so there was no time to be lost.

Keeping low to the ground, Is darted away, screened by boats and piles of net, until she had put a safe distance between herself and Dominic de la Twite. Then she took her way back to the Swannett house, gloomily enough, and plumped down on a chair by Window, who was sorting through her and Arun’s ruined clothes.

“They’re a-coming here,” said Is in thought-speech, in answer to Window’s look of query. “I wish we’d never come to Seagate. That big feller’s properly put the come-hither on Arun . . . got him hoisted and hog-tied.”

“Oh, that is a terrible pity. Yes, I was afraid that would happen. The Leader has great mental power over people.”

“What’ll we do? They’re a-going to ask me where my sister Penny’s ken is, in the woods. They believe that’s where Arun’s Mum might be hiding out with the Handsel kid. And maybe it is! What’ll I do? Where can I take them?”

Mrs Swannett thought for a minute.

“You could lead them astray? Does Arun know your sister’s house?”

“’Tis only a barn. No, but he does know that it’s on Blackheath Edge. I’d have to take ’em that-a-way.”

“How far?”

“Matter o’ forty mile from here, I reckon. It’d take three or four hours in a chaise.”

Window Swannett reflected.

“I have a syrup made from poppies and belladonna that I gave to my Hiram when he had the fever; there’s a good half of the flask left. If you could get the Leader to drink that on the journey – in a flask of tansy tea, say – then, before you had reached the place, he’d be drowsy, you and your cousin could perhaps slip away from him and run off into the woods. It is all forest round there, is it not?”

“Yes, for miles and miles.” Is felt a spark of hope light in her. “And if he was drowsy-like, maybe he’d loose his grab-hold on poor old Arun’s wits.”

Mrs Swannett walked swiftly into the back kitchen.

“I will put you up a few oatcakes and dried plums as well, for the journey,” her thought came back. “Then the flask of tansy tea will seem natural enough. But, mind! Do not you or your cousin touch any of it—”