Midnight is a Place Read Free Page A

magazines—jute mills, cotton mills, potteries, collieries. None of these places looked as if they were built by human beings or used by them. Huge, dark, irregular shapes rose up all around; they were like pinnacles in a rocky desert, like ruined prehistoric remains, or like the broken toys of some giant's baby. The potteries were enormous funnels; the gasworks huge flowerpots; the collieries monstrous pyramids, with skeleton wheels the size of whole church fronts which stood above them against the fiery sky.
    Every now and then the roadway was cut by sets of iron rails, and sometimes a clanking train of wagons would run slowly across in front of the governess cart, and the mare would sweat and whinny and shudder her coat at the sudden loud noise, and the smell of hot metal, and the spark-filled smoke.
    "Why do we have to go to the factory at this time?" said Lucas nervously in one of these pauses while they waited for a train to cross. "Won't it be shut for the night?"
    "Factories never shut." The tutor glanced at him briefly. "Didn't you know about shift work? When the day workers leave, the night workers come on, so that the machines, which cost a great deal of money, need never stand idle. We shall get there just as the night shift comes on duty. It makes no difference when we arrive—people are always at work."
    Somehow this idea filled Lucas with dismay. He thought of the machinery always running by night and day, the great fires always burning, the huge buildings always filled with little people dashing to and fro—never any darkness, or silence, or rest. He felt a kind of terror at the thought of wheels turning on and on, without ever stopping.
    "Don't the machines ever stop at all?"
    "Oh, perhaps for one week in the year, so that they can clean the boilers and put a new lining on the main press. Here we are," said Mr. Oakapple with gloom, turning the mare's head in at a pair of huge gates through a wall even higher than that around Midnight Park. Tram rails ran right through the gates and across a wide cobbled area beyond which was lit by gas flares.
    Mr. Oakapple brought the mare to a halt and found a place to tether her in a line of stable sheds at one side of the factory yard. As he did this, they were passed by a dismal little procession going in the opposite direction. Two or three women with checked shawls over their heads accompanied a pair of men who were carrying something—a small shape—on a plank and covered by a blanket.
    A short distance behind them walked another shawled woman. Her arms were folded, her head bent. She walked draggingly, as if she had been dead-tired for more weeks than she could remember.
    As she passed near Lucas and Mr. Oakapple, a man in a black frock coat came out of a small brightly lit office and spoke to her. "Mrs. Braithwaite—ah, Mrs. Braithwaite! Mr. Gammel said to tell you that the compensation will be sent up tomorrow morning—you may be sure of that—ten shillings and a free doormat. The very best quality!"
    "Ten shillings?" The woman flung back her shawl and stared at him for a moment in silence. Her face was very pale. Then she said, "What do I care about your ten shillings? That won't bring my Jinny back, that had the sweetest voice in our lane and could make a bacon pudding to equal mine, though she was only eight."
    The frock-coated man shrugged. "Say what you please, there's not many turns up their noses at ten shillings and a free mat—why, you could sell
that
again, if you already have one, for double the factory price."
    "Have one?" she said bitterly, her voice rising. "Why, we have
three,
already. Three fine free doormats. What do you say to that, Mr. Bertram Smallside?" Then she drew the shawl over her face again and followed the plank-bearers out through the gate into the rainy night.
    "What did she mean?" whispered Lucas uneasily, as he and Mr. Oakapple left the cart and walked toward the frock-coated man, who had turned