Greenwitch (12 page)

“We didn't go far,” Mrs Stanton said. “St Austell, round there. Clay-pits and factories and that sort of thing.” She wrinkled her friendly face. “Still, after all that's what Bill came over for. And there's a real magic about those big white clay pyramids, and the pools so quiet at the bottom of them. Such green water. . . . Are you having fun? What's everyone doing?”

“Will and Great-Uncle Merry went for a walk. Barney's over at the Grey House with Captain Toms. We're supposed to go there too this afternoon, the captain wants us all to stay for supper,” Jane said, boldly improvising. “That is if you don't mind.”

“Perfect,” Fran Stanton said. “Bill and I shan't be eating
here anyway—I left him seeing some guy near St Austell, and I have to go back tonight to pick him up. This afternoon I came back just to be lazy. Let's eat—and you can tell me all about that Greenwitch deal I wasn't allowed to watch, Jane.”

So Jane, with some difficulty, gave a description of the making of the Greenwitch as of a gay all-night party, an outing for the local girls, while Simon wolfed down Cornish pasties and tried not to catch her eye. Mrs Stanton listened happily, shaking her blonde head in admiration.

“It's just wonderful the way these old customs are kept up,” she said. “And I think it's great they wouldn't let a foreigner watch. So many of our Indians back home, they let the white man in to watch their native dances, and before you know it the whole thing's just a tourist trap.”

“I'm glad you weren't offended,” Jane said. “We were afraid—”

“Oh no no no,” said Mrs Stanton. “Why, I've already got enough material to give a great paper on this trip to my travel group back home. We have this club, you see, it meets once a month and at each meeting someone gives a little talk, with slides, on somewhere she's been. This is the first time,” she added a trifle wistfully, “I shall have had anywhere unusual to talk about—except Jamaica, and everyone else has been there too.”

Afterwards Jane said to Simon, as they scrambled down towards the harbour, “She's rather sweet really. I'm glad she'll have us to talk about to her club.”

“The natives and their quaint old customs,” Simon said.

“Come on, you aren't even a native. You're one of they furriners from London.”

“But I'm not so much
outside
it all as she is. Not her fault. She just comes from such a long way away, she isn't plugged in. Like all those people who go to the museum and look at the
grail and say, oh, how wonderful, without the least idea of what it really is.”

“You mean people who used to look at it, when it was there.”

“Oh lord. Yes.”

“Well anyway,” said Jane, “we'd be the same as Mrs Stanton if we were in her country.”

“Of course we would, that's not the point. . . .”

They bickered amiably as they crossed the quay and started up the hill towards the Grey House. Pausing to get her breath, Jane looked back the way they had come. All at once she clutched the wall beside her, and stood there, staring.

“Simon!”

“What is it?”

“Look!”

Down in the harbour, in the very centre of the quay, was the painter, the man of the Dark. He sat on a folding stool before an easel, with a knapsack open on the ground beside him, and he was painting. There was no urgency in his movements; he sat there tranquil and unhurried, dabbing at the canvas. Two visitors paused behind him to watch; he paid them no attention, but went serenely on with his work.

“Just
sitting
there!” Simon said, astounded.

“It's a trick. It must be. Perhaps he has an accomplice, someone off doing things for him while he attracts our attention.”

Simon said slowly, “There was no sign of anyone else having been in the caravan. And the farm looked as if it had been empty for years.”

“Let's go and tell the captain.”

But there was no need to tell him. At the Grey House, they found Barney perched in a small high room overlooking the harbour, studying the painter through Captain Toms' largest telescope. The old man himself, having let them in, remained
below. “This foot of mine,” he said ruefully, “isn't too grand at climbing up and down stairs.”

“But I bet you he could see as much with his eyes shut, if he wanted to, as I can through this thing,” Barney said, squinting down the telescope with one eye closed and his face screwed up. “He's special. You know? Just like Gumerry. They're the same kind.”

“But what kind is that, I wonder?” Jane said thoughtfully.

“Who knows?” Barney stood up, stretching. “A weird kind. A super kind. The kind that belongs to the Light.”

“Whatever that is.”

“Yes. Whatever that is.”

“Hey Jane, look at this!” Simon was bending to the eyepiece of the telescope. “It's fantastic, like being right on top of him. You can practically count his eyelashes.”

“I've been staring at that face so long I could draw it from memory,” Barney said.

Simon was glued to the lens, entranced. “It's as good as being able to hear anything he says. You might even be able to lip-read. You can see every single little change of expression.”

“That's right,” Barney said. He looked casually out of the window; breathed on the pane; drew a little face in the misted patch of glass, and then rubbed it out again. “The view of his face is terrific. The only trouble is, there's no view of his painting at all.”

Jane had taken her turn at the telescope now. She gazed nervously at the face caught out of the distance by the powerful lens: a dark-browed face, grim with concentration, framed by the long unruly hair. “Well yes, from this angle of course you're just looking at the back of the easel, looking down at his face over the top of the canvas. But that's not important, is it?”

“It is if you're an artist, like Barney,” Simon said. He clasped his head, striking an extravagant artistic pose.

“Ha ha,” said Barney, with heavy patience. “It's not just that. I thought the picture might be important.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. Captain Toms did ask me what he was painting.”

“What did he say when you said you couldn't see?”

“He didn't say anything.”

“Well then.”

“Your painter doesn't change his expression one bit, does he?” Jane was still peering. “Just sits there glaring at the canvas. Funny.”

“Not very funny,” Simon said. “He's a glaring sort of man.”

“No, I mean it's funny he doesn't look anywhere else. If you watch Mother when she's painting a landscape, you can see her eyes going up and down all the time. Flickering. From whatever it is she's painting, down to the picture and then back again. But he's not doing that at all.”

“Let me have another look.” Barney edged her aside and stared eagerly into the lens, grabbing his blonde forelock out of the way. “You know, you're right. Why didn't I notice that?” He thumped his knee with his fist.

“I still don't see what there is to get excited about,” Simon said mildly.

“Well, perhaps it's nothing. But let's go and tell Captain Toms anyway.”

They clattered down three flights of stairs, and into the book-lined living-room at the front of the house. Rufus stood up and waved his tail at them. Captain Toms was standing beside one of the bookcases, gazing at a small book open in his hands. He looked up as they rushed to him, and closed the book.

“What news, citizens?” he said.

Barney said, “He's still sitting there painting. But Jane just noticed something, he's not painting from life. I mean he just
looks at the canvas, without even glancing at anything else at all.”

“So he might just as well be painting in his caravan as painting here,” said Simon, his mind now in gear. “So, he can't really be here to paint, he must be here for some other reason.”

“That may be quite right,” Captain Toms said. He parted the books on the nearest shelf, carefully, and slipped his volume back. “And then again it may not be quite right.”

“What do you mean?” Jane said.

“The painting and the other reason may be one and the same thing. The only trouble is,” Captain Toms stared up at his books as if willing them to speak, “I can't for the life of me work out what that thing is all about.”

*  *  *

Hour after hour they watched, in turn. At length, after an early supper that might equally have been called a late tea, Jane and Simon sat again in the book-clothed living-room with Captain Toms. He puffed contentedly at a friendly-smelling pipe, grey hair wisping out round his bald head like the tonsure of some genial old monk.

“It'll be dark soon,” Jane said, looking out at the orange-red sunset sky. “He'll have to stop painting then.”

“Yes, but he's still at it,” Simon said, “or Barney would have come down from the eyrie.” He prowled round the room, peering at the pictures that hung between bookcases. “I remember these ships from last year. The
Golden Hind
. . . the
Mary and Ellen
. . . the
Lottery
—that's a funny name for a ship.”

“So it is,” said Captain Toms. “But suitable. A lottery is a gamble, of sorts—and she was owned by gamblers, of sorts. She was a famous smugglers' ship.”

“Smugglers!” Simon's eyes gleamed.

“A regular trade it was in Cornwall, two hundred years ago. Smuggling . . . they didn't even call it that, they called it fair-trading. Fast little boats they had, beautiful sailors. Many a fair-trader's boat was built right here in Trewissick.” The old man gazed absently down at his pipe, turning it in his fingers, his eyes distant. “But the tale of the
Lottery
is a black tale, about an ancestor of mine I sometimes wish I could forget. Though it's better to remember. . . . Out of Polperro, the
Lottery
was, a beauty before the wind. Her crew had years of fair-trading, never caught, until one day east of here a Revenue cutter came up with her, both ships fired on one another, and a Revenue man was killed. Well now, killing was a different thing from smuggling. So all the crew of the
Lottery
became hunted men. Tisn't hard to escape capture in Cornwall, and for a while they were all safe. And they might have been for longer, but one of the crew, Roger Toms, gave himself up to the Revenue and turned King's Evidence, telling them it was a shipmate of his called Tom Potter that fired the dire shot.”

“And Roger Toms was your ancestor,” Jane said.

“He was, poor misguided fellow. The folk of Polperro took him and set him on a boat bound for the Channel Isles, so he shouldn't be able to give evidence against Tom Potter in court. But the Revenue brought him back again, and Tom Potter was arrested, and tried at the Old Bailey in London, and hanged.”

“And wasn't Potter guilty?” Simon said.

“No-one knows, to this day. Polperro folk claimed he was innocent—some even said Roger Toms fired the shot himself. But they may just have been protecting one of their own, for Tom Potter was born in Polperro, but Roger Toms was a Trewissick man.”

Simon said severely, “He shouldn't have sneaked on his shipmate, even if Potter did do it. That's like murder.”

“So it was,” Captain Toms said gently. “So it was. And
Roger Toms never dared set foot in Cornwall again, from that day until the day he died. But no-one ever knew his real motives. Some Trewissick folk say that Potter was guilty, and that Toms gave him up for the sake of all the wives and children, thinking it sure that unless the one guilty man were accused, sooner or later all the crew of the
Lottery
would be taken and hanged. But most think black thoughts of him. He is the town's shame, not forgotten even yet.” He looked out of the window at the darkening sky, and the blue eyes in the round cherubic face were suddenly hard. “The very best and the very worst have come out of Cornwall. And come into her, too.”

Jane and Simon stared at him, puzzled. Before they could say anything, Barney came into the room.

“Your turn, Simon. Captain, d'you think I could go and get some more of that super cake?”

“Hungry work, watching,” said Captain Toms solemnly. “Of course you may.”

“Thank you.” Barney paused for a moment at the door, glancing round the room. “Watch this,” he said, and he reached for a switch and turned on the lights.

“Goodness!” said Jane, blinking in the sudden brightness. “It's got really dark. We hadn't noticed, we were talking.”

“And he's still sitting out there,” Barney said.

“Still? In the dark? How can he paint in the dark?”

“Well, he is. He may not be painting what's in front of him, but he's still putting paint on that canvas, cool as a cucumber. The moon's up, it's only a half-moon but it gives enough of a glimmer that you can still see him through the glass. I tell you, he must be stark raving nuts.”

Simon said, “You don't remember the caravan. He's not nuts. He's from the Dark.”

He went out of the room and up the stairs. Shrugging, Barney headed for the kitchen to fetch his cake.

Jane said, “Captain Toms, when will Gumerry be back?”

“When he has found out what he went to find out. Don't worry. They will come straight to us.” Captain Toms heaved himself to his feet, reaching for his stick. “I think I might perhaps take a look through that telescope too, now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, Jane.”

“Can you manage?”

“Oh yes, thank you. I just take my time.” He hobbled out, and Jane went to kneel on the window-seat, staring out at the harbour. A wind was rising, out there; she could hear it beginning to whine softly in the window-frames. She thought: he'll get cold out there soon, the painter from the Dark. Why does he stay there?
What's he doing?