• Chapter Eleven •
But as soon as they came down within sight of the harbour they saw that there was no question either of passing unseen or of being caught.
The streets round the harbour were thronged with people; fishermen and shopkeepers in their Sunday suits, wives in their best summer dresses, and more gay crowding tourists than the children had ever seen in Trewissick before. All the boats, swaying level with the quays on the high tide, were moored at one side, leaving a clear rectangle of water marked out with strings of bobbing white floats. As they came down the road they heard the faint thud of a starting-pistol, and six brown bodies flung themselves into the water and began thrashing in a white flurry of spray across the marked course. The crowd began to cheer.
“It must be the end of the swimming gala,” Jane said eagerly, caught up in the carnival atmosphere below them. “Let’s go and watch for a minute.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Simon said in despair. “We’re on a mission. We’ve got to find Great-Uncle Merry before we do anything else.”
But there was no answer to the doorbell of the Grey House, as they stood on the doorstep with knots of shirtsleeved visitors chattering past them up and down the hill. And when Simon had gone round to the back and retrieved the front-door key from its secret place in the toolshed, they went inside to find the house quite deserted.
Great-Uncle Merry’s bed was neatly made, but there was no sign, in his bedroom or anywhere else, to tell them where he had gone. Mrs. Palk was nowhere to be found. There were three plates of cold mackerel and salad covered up on the kitchen table, left for their lunch. But that was all. The house was spotless, silent and neat—and empty.
“Where can he have gone? And where’s Mrs. Palk?”
“Well, that’s easy enough. She’ll be outside watching the swimming with everyone else. You know how she was drooling about carnival day.”
“Let’s go and find her. She must know where he is.”
“Tell you what,” Barney said. “You two go down to the harbour and I’ll run up to the top of the hill and see if Gumerry has gone up there after all. I’d be able to see him if he’s climbing the headland, it takes quite a time to get to the top.”
Simon thought for a moment. “All right, that seems sensible enough. But for goodness’ sake keep out of sight of the yacht if you see it coming back. And come down to us as quick as you can, we don’t want to get separated. We’ll be down there on the quay where the start of the swimming is.”
“Righto.” Barney made off, but then turned back. “I say, what are you going to do with the manuscript? If we don’t find Gumerry and we’re all on our own, d’you think it’s safe to go on carrying it about?”
“A lot safer than I’d feel if we left it anywhere,” Simon said grimly, looking down at the case in his hand. “I’m going to hang on to it whatever happens.”
“Oh well,” Barney said cheerfully. “Don’t drop it in the harbour, that’s all. Cheerio. Shan’t be long.”
“I’m glad he’s so bright about it all,” Jane said, as the front door slammed. “I wish I were. It’s as if there’s someone waiting behind every corner to pounce on us. I only feel safe when I’m in bed.”
“Cheer up,” said Simon. “You’re still suffering from last night. I was scared then too, but I’m not now. Try and forget about it.”
“That’s all very well,” said poor Jane miserably, “but everyone seems to be turning out to be bad now, and it isn’t even as if we knew what sort of badness it is. Why do they all want the manuscript so much?”
“Well”—Simon wrinkled his forehead, trying to remember what Great-Uncle Merry had said on the first day—“it’s the grail they want, isn’t it? Because it stands for something, somehow. And that’s why Gumerry wants to find it as well. It’s like two armies fighting in history. You’re never quite sure what they’re actually fighting about, but only that one wants to beat the other.”
“Great-Uncle Merry’s like an army sometimes, all in one person. Those times when he goes all peculiar and distant and you feel he’s not quite there.”
“Well, there you are, then. It’s the same with the others. They’re a kind of bad army. Up on the standing stones last night, even before we knew they were there, you could still feel the badness.”
“I know,” Jane said fervently. “Oh dear. I should feel much better if we knew where Great-Uncle Merry was.”
“We shall know as soon as we find Mrs. Palk. Buck up, Jane.” Simon patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go down to the harbour. Barney’ll get there before us at this rate.”
Jane nodded, feeling a little better. “Oh—Mother and Father will be coming back this afternoon. D’you think we ought to leave a note?”
“No, we’ll be back long before them.”
They went out of the Grey House, leaving it to its silence, and walked down the hill to the harbour. Unfamiliar children were running all over the place, ignoring their anxious calling parents; and the sleepy little shop which sold ice-cream down on the quay was festooned with flags and posters and doing a roaring trade.
Simon and Jane threaded their way along the side of the harbour, through the wandering crowds, to the course marked out for the swimming gala. But they felt as if they were paddling against a current; all the crowds were moving towards them, and when they reached the right place they found everything was over. Only a few boys and girls dodging wet through the crowds in swim-suits, and the bobbing lines of floats on the empty water, showed that there had been a swimming gala at all.
One of the swimmers brushed past Simon, and as he glanced up at the wet brown body he recognized the face below the dark water-flattened hair. It was Bill.
The boy’s mouth opened and he paused belligerently; but then in an instant, changing his mind, he scowled and disappeared, running barefoot through the crowds towards the front quay.
“Hey, Jane! Jane!” Simon called urgently. She was a few paces ahead of him, and had not noticed Bill.
A deep voice said in Simon’s ear, “Your young friend lost un’s race. He’m not in a very good temper. They ’Oovers be all the same.”
Simon looked round, and saw the beaming wrinkled brown face of the old fisherman they had met on the day they first encountered the boy Bill.
“Hallo, Mr. Penhallow,” he said, reflecting how odd the greeting sounded. “Was he in the swimming gala, then?”
“Aye, that he were, the race for the championship. Be’aved ’isself badly as usual too, lost by a few yards and turned ’n’s back on the winner when the lad went to thank’n for a good race.” He chuckled. “The winner were my youngest.”
“Your son?” said Jane, who had turned back at Simon’s call.
She looked at Mr. Penhallow’s weather-beaten face; he looked much too old to have a son young enough for a swimming race.
“’A’s right,” said the fisherman equably. “Tough little lad. He’m sixteen now, on leave from the Merchant Navy.”
“I say,” said Simon, impressed. “Could I join the Merchant Navy when I’m sixteen, d’you think?”
“You wait awhile,” said Mr. Penhallow, twinkling at him. “’Tis a hard life at sea.”
“Barney says he wants to be a fisherman like you now,” Jane said. “With a boat like the White Heather.”
Mr. Penhallow laughed. “That’s an idea won’t last long neither. I’d take ’n out with us one night if he were a bit bigger, then he’d soon change his tune.”
“Are you going out tonight?”
“No. Havin’ a rest.”
Jane, suddenly feeling one of her shoes damp, looked down and found she was standing in a pool of water. She moved hurriedly. “Those swimmers must have splashed about a lot. There’s puddles all along the quay.”
“Not just the swimming, my love,” Mr. Penhallow said. “’Tis the tide. It came right over there this morning—spring tides be higher than usual this month.”
“Oh yes,” said Simo
n. “Look—there are bits of seaweed right at the back of the path. It must have washed right up to the wall. Does it often come as high as that?”
“Not often. Once or twice a year, usually—March and September. ’Tis strange to have such big tides in August. I reckon ’tis because of these strong winds we been havin’.”
“How low will it go down?” Jane said, fascinated.
“Oh, a long way. Th ’arbour don’t look pretty at any low tide, but it do look worse at the biggest springs. Lot of stinkin’ old mud and weed that ’ee don’t normally see. You wait till about five o’clock today. Still, I dare say you’ll be watching the carnival like everyone else then.”
“I expect so,” Simon said vaguely. He was thinking furiously; it was as if the fisherman’s words had touched a spring in his brain. “Mr. Penhallow,” he said, carefully casual, “I suppose when you get a really low tide like that there’s a lot more rocks than usual uncovered outside the harbour?”
“Oh, a good old lot,” the fisherman said. “They do say ’tis possible to walk all the way round from Trewissick harbour to the Dodman, that’s two-three bays beyond Kemare Head. But that be nothing more’n a tale—I dessay the rocks be uncovered, but the tide’d be coming up again before you was half-way there.”
Jane was only half listening. “Mr. Penhallow, we were looking for Mrs. Palk, she’s the lady who keeps house for us. Do you know her?”
“Know Molly Palk?” said Mr. Penhallow, chuckling. “I should say I do. Nice lass, she used to be—still is, but she turned a bit miserly when old Jim Palk died. Costing your mum and dad a pretty penny, I’ll be bound. Do anything for a few extra pound, would old Moll. Now I come to think of it, course, she’m your young friend Bill’s auntie, too.”
“Mrs. Palk is?” Jane said, amazed. “That awful boy?”
“Ah,” Mr. Penhallow said, placidly. “The two sides of the family don’t have much to do with each other, mind. Most of Trewissick forgets they’m even related. Don’t suppose Moll likes people to know.”
“I think Great-Uncle Merry told me once,” Simon said. “I’d clean forgotten. He said Bill was Mrs. Palk’s no-good brother’s son.”
Jane said thoughtfully: “I wonder whether. . . . Oh well, it doesn’t matter now. Have you seen her anywhere about?”
“Let me see, now, I did pass the time of day with her. Oh ah, up on the front quay. She were all dressed up for the carnival, some funny affair on her head, helping with the procession, most like. I reckon you’ll still find her up by there, unless she’ve popped in to have her dinner.”
The crowds had thinned round them now, milling about instead on the front quay, with here and there groups of bandsmen in bright blue uniforms, clutching large curly silver instruments and wearing ill-fitting blue peaked caps. Simon and Jane peered across the harbour, but they were too far away to be able to distinguish faces.
“Well, I must be off to find my young Walter. Real cock-a-hoop he’ll be. Remember me to our liddle fisherman, midears.” Mr. Penhallow toddled off along the quay, grinning to himself. Jane, who had been wondering what it was about him that seemed different, realized for the first time that instead of the blue jersey and long thigh-boots, he was in a stiff black suit, and shoes that squeaked.
“I don’t think he should have talked like that about Mrs. Palk,” she said, troubled.
“You don’t know, it might be important,” Simon said. “Anyway, what are we going to do now? We’ve got to find Mrs. Palk to know where Great-Uncle Merry’s gone. But Mr. Penhallow says he saw her on the other side of the harbour, and we told Barney we’d meet him here.”
“I wonder where Barney is? He’s surely had time to get up to the top of the road and back by now. Look, you go and see if Mrs. Palk is over there, and I’ll wait here till he comes.
Simon rubbed his ear. “I don’t know, I don’t like all this splitting up. We haven’t got Great-Uncle Merry, we haven’t got Barney for the moment, and if you and I split up, nobody will have anybody else at all. Any one of us could get nobbled and the others not know. I think we ought to keep together.”
“Well, all right,” Jane said. “We’ll wait a bit longer. Let’s go back to the corner of the front quay and we can cut him off. That’s the only way down here, he’ll have to pass it.”
As they walked back they saw the Trewissick band forming up across the harbour, with the crowd bobbing and weaving round them and children darting excitedly to and fro on the edge. One or two strange figures stood out among the white shirts and summer dresses; tall, fantastically coloured, decked with ribbons and leaves, with monstrous false heads set on their shoulders.
“They must be part of the carnival procession.”
“I think it’s starting. Listen, what a horrible noise.”
The band had begun a wavering brassy tune that resolved itself gradually into a recognisable march.
“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” Jane said. “I expect they’re more used to fishing then playing trumpets. Anyway, it’s very cheerful-sounding. I like it.”
“Hmmf. Let’s sit on the wall here at the corner, we can catch Barney when he passes.” Simon crossed into the road and looked up the hill. “I can’t see any sign of him. But there’s so many people about it’s difficult to see properly.”
“Oh well.” Jane hoisted herself up on to the wall, wincing as the rough slate rubbed the skin behind her knees. “We’ll just wait. Hey listen, the music’s getting louder.”
“Music!” said Simon.
“Well, it is. . . . Oh look, the procession’s started! And they’re coming this way!”
“I thought Mrs. Palk said they would go straight up the hill.”
“Perhaps they go up from this corner of the harbour instead of the other. Or perhaps they go all round the village first. . . look, they’re all dressed up. And they’re playing that thing Mrs. Palk was singing this morning, the ’Floral Dance.’”
“We’ve got a good view, anyway.” Simon hopped up to sit on the wall beside her.
Slowly the crowd drew near them along the front quay, children running and jumping about in front of the red-faced puffing band. Behind them, edged by delighted pushing throngs of visitors, came a dancing file of the fantastic figures they had seen from across the harbour, the monstrous heads lurching and hopping in a slow parody of dance, and others, masked and disguised, weaving in and out of the crowds. Here and there they swooped on the bystanders, taking pretty girls by the hand, pretending to strike squealing old ladies with a ribboned wand, guiding the visitors and villagers to join hands and dance with them in rows across the width of the street. “Pom . . . pom . . . di-pom-pom-pom . . . ” the music boomed in the children’s ears where they sat on the wall, and the crowds eddied all round them on the corner, overflowing up the hill as well as down.
Jane, beaming round her in delight at the tops of the giant grinning heads, suddenly stared across the crowd. She pointed, and shouted something in Simon’s ear.
Simon could hear nothing but the music, thrumming round him till the wall seemed to shake. “What?” he shouted back.
Jane ducked her head close to his ear. “There’s Mrs. Palk! Look! Just over there, with feathers on her head, behind the man covered in leaves. Quickly, let’s catch her!” And before Simon could stop her she had slipped down from the wall and was on the edge of the crowd.
Simon jumped down after her and caught at her arm just as she was about to push her way across the crowd between two dancing, laughing files. “Not now, Jane!” But he too was swept along for several yards by the dancing crowd before he could draw her back into a clear space. They stood pinned against the far wall of the road, away from the harbour, hemmed in by others standing watching the carnival procession dance by.
And that was why they did not see Barney, who had been threading his way down the hill-road past the Grey House, dodge between people’s legs to slip round the corner of the wall, ignoring the procession; and run as fast as he could along the inner
quay to the place where they had agreed to meet.
• Chapter Twelve •
It took Barney a long time to make his way down the hill past the house. There had been no sign of Great-Uncle Merry on the headland. On the road, knots of wandering people were scattered maddeningly about in his path, and three times he had to stand aside as a car came grinding up the steep narrow slope. Barney dodged impatiently to and fro, in and out, with Rufus at his heels.
Half-way down the hill he heard music from the other side of the harbour, and through the heads he caught sight of the dancing procession moving forward along the quay. Slipping his finger inside Rufus’s collar, he side-stepped through the thickening crowd and down the hill as fast he could, darting through every visible gap like a shrimp in a pool.
But when he reached the corner of the harbour the procession was upon him, and he could see nothing at all but an impenetrable wall of legs and backs. He wriggled through behind them, the din of the music thumping in his ears, until he was out of the crowd at last and on the quay. With a sigh of relief he let go of Rufus’s collar, and ran with him towards the deserted corner where he had arranged to meet Simon and Jane.
There was nobody there.
Barney looked round wildly. He could see nothing to give him the slightest hint of where the others had gone. Reasoning with himself, he decided they must have caught sight of Mrs. Palk. She had been very keen on the idea of the carnival and the dancing; she must be in the procession. And it had been Simon’s and Jane’s job to go and find her, as it had been his to go and scout on the headland. They must have gone chasing her, knowing that he would guess where they had gone.
Satisfied, Barney went off to find the carnival. He followed the last of the crowd still drifting up the road. Even down in the sheltered harbour the wind was blowing in from the sea, but now and again it dropped for a moment, and Barney heard a tantalizing snatch of music come wafting over the roofs from somewhere in the village. “Pom . . . pom . . . di-pom-pom-pom. . . .” All round him people were wandering aimlessly about, idly talking . . . “Where’ve they gone?” . . . “We can meet them at the ground” . . . “But they dance through the streets for ages yet” . . . “Oh, come on”