saw them it might mean you were mad, and mad people were shut away and never let to go out into the world.
CHAPTER FIVE
T HE BLACK STONE house was called Mortmain House, and people who lived there were hardly ever let to go out into the world. Sometimes they were shut away inside it for years and yearsâchildren as well as grown-ups.
But one of the really bad things about it was not knowing who to trust. The children who lived there could not tell whether the men who came to visit were nice, ordinary men, interested in hearing about lessons and about the food that was served, or whether they were the other ones: the ones with the treacly voices, who were the baddest people in the world. If you had known how to tell the difference, the little girl said to Simone, then you might have been able to do something about it when they came. Hide somewhere or put a chair under the door-handle so they could not get in, that would be one way. But as it was, nobody could tell.
Simone asked who the treacly voiced men were, and the little girl said the children called them the Pigs. They had nasty piggy eyes, greedy and sly, and thick fingers that prodded at you. After they had looked, they quite often smiled and nodded to one another, and said you were good enough to save up for a while.
Save up for what?
But the little girl only laughed when Simone asked this, and even though the laugh and the voice was still inside her head Simone heard that it was a horrid kind of laugh, pitying and smug, as if the little girl thought Simone was stupid. You know, she said. You know what I mean, and so Simone pretended that she did know, really.
Mortmain meant dead-manâs hands. It was French, and the little girl had explained it to Simone. âItâs always been called that,â she said. âMort is French for dead, and main means hands. I donât suppose youâd know that, though.â There was a faint air of Iâm-better-than-you, which was one of the things Simone hated. So she said she was just starting French at school, and she knew what Mortmain meant perfectly well.
But it was a pretty spooky name for a houseâeven for that house. Spookiest of all was Mortmainâs crumbliness, because you had only to see it once to know that people had not lived there for years and years.
âItâs a famous ruin,â Mother said, when Simone asked about it one day. They had been at Weston Fferna for several weeks, and they were getting to know some of the places and some of the people. Mother had made one or two friends, mostly other parents at Simoneâs school. âItâs quite a prominent local landmark,â Mother said. âI read about it in the libraryâtheyâve got some quite good books on local history there. Iâll take you to see them one Saturday.â Mother liked things like local history and local legends; she liked Simone to know about them as well.
âBut what was it really? I mean years agoâwhen it wasnât all broken up?â
âA workhouse. Thatâs a place where people in the past had to go if they hadnât got any money. Workhouses were dreadful places, not much better than prisons, and it was regarded as very shameful if you were taken into the workhouse; it meant you couldnât pay your way in life. And then I think that later on Mortmain was used by the army in the war. For the soldiers to live.â
âWorld War Two.â They had learned about this a bit at school; Simone had always hated the sound of it, because it must be pretty horrid to have the whole world at war all round you, and bombs being dropped all the time. Simone had made some drawings of soldiers and air-raid shelters, and then Mother had found some old photographs that had been her motherâsâthat was Simoneâs grandmother, whom Simone had never met because she had died when Mother was quite small.
But the photos were great; they showed young men in
CHAPTER FIVE
T HE BLACK STONE house was called Mortmain House, and people who lived there were hardly ever let to go out into the world. Sometimes they were shut away inside it for years and yearsâchildren as well as grown-ups.
But one of the really bad things about it was not knowing who to trust. The children who lived there could not tell whether the men who came to visit were nice, ordinary men, interested in hearing about lessons and about the food that was served, or whether they were the other ones: the ones with the treacly voices, who were the baddest people in the world. If you had known how to tell the difference, the little girl said to Simone, then you might have been able to do something about it when they came. Hide somewhere or put a chair under the door-handle so they could not get in, that would be one way. But as it was, nobody could tell.
Simone asked who the treacly voiced men were, and the little girl said the children called them the Pigs. They had nasty piggy eyes, greedy and sly, and thick fingers that prodded at you. After they had looked, they quite often smiled and nodded to one another, and said you were good enough to save up for a while.
Save up for what?
But the little girl only laughed when Simone asked this, and even though the laugh and the voice was still inside her head Simone heard that it was a horrid kind of laugh, pitying and smug, as if the little girl thought Simone was stupid. You know, she said. You know what I mean, and so Simone pretended that she did know, really.
Mortmain meant dead-manâs hands. It was French, and the little girl had explained it to Simone. âItâs always been called that,â she said. âMort is French for dead, and main means hands. I donât suppose youâd know that, though.â There was a faint air of Iâm-better-than-you, which was one of the things Simone hated. So she said she was just starting French at school, and she knew what Mortmain meant perfectly well.
But it was a pretty spooky name for a houseâeven for that house. Spookiest of all was Mortmainâs crumbliness, because you had only to see it once to know that people had not lived there for years and years.
âItâs a famous ruin,â Mother said, when Simone asked about it one day. They had been at Weston Fferna for several weeks, and they were getting to know some of the places and some of the people. Mother had made one or two friends, mostly other parents at Simoneâs school. âItâs quite a prominent local landmark,â Mother said. âI read about it in the libraryâtheyâve got some quite good books on local history there. Iâll take you to see them one Saturday.â Mother liked things like local history and local legends; she liked Simone to know about them as well.
âBut what was it really? I mean years agoâwhen it wasnât all broken up?â
âA workhouse. Thatâs a place where people in the past had to go if they hadnât got any money. Workhouses were dreadful places, not much better than prisons, and it was regarded as very shameful if you were taken into the workhouse; it meant you couldnât pay your way in life. And then I think that later on Mortmain was used by the army in the war. For the soldiers to live.â
âWorld War Two.â They had learned about this a bit at school; Simone had always hated the sound of it, because it must be pretty horrid to have the whole world at war all round you, and bombs being dropped all the time. Simone had made some drawings of soldiers and air-raid shelters, and then Mother had found some old photographs that had been her motherâsâthat was Simoneâs grandmother, whom Simone had never met because she had died when Mother was quite small.
But the photos were great; they showed young men in