The Borrowers Aloft (6 page)

Chapter Ten

At first they lay very still in the corner of the cardboard box, recovering from the shock. Since the lid had been removed, they were aware of vastness and of great white sloping ceilings. Two dormer windows, high in the tentlike walls, let in a coldish light. The edges of the box obscured the floor.

Arrietty felt very bruised and shaken; she glanced at her mother who lay back limply, in her long white nightgown, her eyes still doggedly closed, and knew that, for the present, Homily had given up. She glanced at her father who, leaning forward, limp hands on knees, sat lost in thought, and noticed that he alone had managed to snatch up a garment—a patched pair of working trousers, which he had pulled on over his nightshirt.

Shivering a little in her thin cambric nightgown, she crept toward him and, crouching beside him, laid her cheek against his shoulder. He did not speak, but his arm came loosely about her, and he patted her gently in an absent-minded way.

"Who are they?" she whispered huskily. "What happened, Papa?"

"I don't rightly know," he said.

"It was all so quick—like an earthquake..."

"That's right," he said.

"Mother won't speak," whispered Arrietty.

"I don't blame her," said Pod.

"But she's all right, I think," Arrietty went on. "It's just her nerves..."

"We'd better take a look at her," said Pod. They crawled toward her on their knees across the washed-out blanket with which the box was lined. For some reason—perhaps their old instinct for cover—neither as yet had dared stand upright.

"How are you feeling, Homily?" asked Pod.

"Just off dead," she muttered faintly through barely moving lips. Dreadful she looked—lying so straight and so still.

"Anything broken?" asked Pod.

"Everything," she moaned. But when anxiously he tried to feel the sticklike arms and the fragile stretched-out legs, she sat up suddenly and exclaimed crossly, "Don't, Pod—" and began to pin up her hair. She then sank back again and in a faint voice murmured, "Where am I?" and, with a loose, almost tragic gesture, flung the back of her hand on her brow.

"Well, we could all ask ourselves
that,
" said Pod. "We're in some kind of room in some kind of human house." He glanced up at the distant windows. "We're in an attic; that's where we are. Take a look—"

"I couldn't," said Homily and shivered.

"And we're alone," said Pod.

"We won't be for long," said Homily. "I've got my 'feeling' and I've got it pretty sharp."

"She's right," said Arrietty, and gripped her father's shoulder. "Listen!"

With beating hearts and raised faces, they crouched together tensely in the corner of the box. There were footsteps below them on the stairs.

Arrietty sprang up wildly, but her father caught her by the arm. "Steady, girl, what are you after?"

"Cover," gasped Arrietty, as the footsteps became less muffled. "There must be somewhere.... Come on; quick, let's hide!"

"No good," said Pod. "They know we're here. There'd only be searchings and pokings and sticks and pullings-out—your mother couldn't stand it. No, better we stay dead quiet."

"But we don't know what they'll do to us." Arrietty almost sobbed. "We can't just be here and let them!"

Homily suddenly sat up and took Arrietty in her arms. "Hush, girl, hush—" she whispered, strangely calm all at once. "Your father's right. There's nothing we can do."

The footsteps grew louder as though the stairs were now uncarpeted; and there was a creaking of wooden treads. The borrowers clung more tightly together. Pod, face raised, was listening intently.

"That's good," he breathed in Arrietty's ear. "I like to hear that—gives us plenty of warning. They can't burst in on us unexpected like—"

Arrietty, still sobbing below her breath, clung to her mother's waist. Never had she been more terrified. "Hush, girl, hush—" Homily kept saying.

The footsteps now had reached the landing. There was heavy breathing outside the door, the clink of keys, and the tinkle of china. There was the thud of a drawn bolt, and then another, and a key squeaked and turned in. the lock.

"Careful," said a voice, "you're spilling it!"

Then the floor boards creaked and trembled as the two pairs of footsteps approached. A great plate loomed suddenly over them and, behind the plate, a face. Extraordinary it looked—pink and powdered, with piled-up golden hair. On each side of this face two jet earrings dangled toward them. Down it came: closer, closer—until they could see each purple vein in the powdered bloom

of the cheeks and each pale eyelash of the staring light blue eyes; and the plate was set down on the floor.

Another face appeared hanging beside the first—tighter and lighter, with rimless glasses, blank and pale with light. A saucer swung sharply toward them and was set down beside the plate.

The pinkish mouth of the first face opened suddenly, and some words came tumbling out. "Think they're all right, dear?" it said, on a warm gust of breath that ruffled Homily's hair.

From the other face they saw the rimless glasses removed suddenly, polished, and put back again. Scared as he was, Pod could not help thinking: I could use those for something and that great silk handkerchief, too. "Bit out of shape," the thinner mouth replied. "You bumped them a bit in the box."

"What about a drop of brandy in their milk, dear?" the pink mouth suggested. "Have you got your hip flask?"

The rimless glasses receded, disappeared for a moment, and there was the clink of metal on china. Pod, in some message to Homily, tightened his grip on her hand. Quite strongly, she squeezed his back as the first voice said, "That's enough, Sidney; you don't want to overdo it."

Again the two faces loomed over them, staring, staring...

"Look at their little faces—hands, hair, feet, and everything. What
are
they, do you think, Sidney?"

"They're a find; that's what they are! They're a gold mine! Come, dear, they won't eat while we're here."

"Suppose I picked one up?"

"No, Mabel, they shouldn't be handled." (Again Pod squeezed Homily's hand.)

"How do you know?"

"It stands to reason—we haven't got them here as pets. Leave them be now, Mabel, and let's see how they settle. We can come back a bit later on."

Chapter Eleven

"Mabel and Sidney," said Arrietty, as the footsteps died away. She seemed quite calm suddenly.

"What do you mean—Mabel and Sidney?" asked Pod.

"Those are their names," said Arrietty lightly. "Didn't you listen when they were talking?"

"Yes, I heard them say that we mustn't be handled and they would put a drop of brandy in our milk..."

"As though we were cats or something!" muttered Homily.

But suddenly they all felt relieved; the moment of terror had passed—at least they had seen their captors.

"If you ask me," said Pod, "I'd say they were not too bright. Clever enough, maybe, in their way—but not what you'd rightly call 'bright.'"

"Mabel and Sidney?" said Arrietty, smiling. She stood up suddenly and walked to the edge of the box.

Pod too smiled slightly. "Yes, them," he said.

"Food," announced Arrietty, looking over the box edge. "I'm terribly hungry; aren't you?"

"I wouldn't touch a thing!" said Homily. But after a moment she seemed to change her mind. "What
is
there?" she asked faintly.

"I can't quite recognize it from here," Arrietty told her, leaning over.

"Wait a moment," said Pod. "Something's just come to me—something important and it's come to me like a flash. Come back here, Arrietty. Sit down beside your mother. The food won't run away."

When both were seated, staring expectantly, Pod coughed to clear his throat. "We don't want to underrate our position," he began. "I been thinking it over, and I don't want to frighten you like—but our position is bad, it's very bad indeed." He paused, and Homily took Arrietty's hand in both of hers and patted it reassuringly, but her eyes were on Pod's face. "No borrower," Pod went on, "at least none that I've ever heard tell of, has lived in the absolute power of a set of human beings. The absolute power!" he repeated, gravely looking from one scared face to the other. "Borrowers have been 'seen'—we been 'seen' ourselves—borrowers have been starved out or chased away, but I never heard tell of this sort of caper—not ever in the whole of my life. Have you, Homily?"

Homily moistened her lips. "No," she whispered. Arrietty looked very grave.

"Well, unless we can hit on some sensible way of escape, that's what's going to happen to us. We're going to live out our lives in the absolute power of a set of human beings. The absolute power..." he repeated again slowly as though to brand the phrase on their minds. There was an awed silence until Pod spoke again. "Now, who is the captain of our little ship?"

"You are, Pod," said Homily huskily.

"Yes, I am. And I'm going to ask a lot of you both—and, as we go along, I'm going to make rules as we go, depending on what's needed. The first rule, of course, is obedience..."

"Of course," nodded Homily, squeezing Arrietty's hand.

"...and the second rule—this is the thing that came to me—is: we must none of us speak a word."

"Now, Pod—" began Homily reasonably, aware of her own limitations.

Arrietty saw the point. "He means to Mabel and Sidney."

Pod smiled again at her tone, albeit rather wryly. "Yes, them," he said. "Never let 'em know we can speak. Because"—he struck his left palm with two fingers of his right to emphasize his meaning—"if they don't think we can speak, they'll think we don't understand. Just as they are with animals. And if they think we don't understand, they'll talk before us.
Now
do you get my meaning?"

Homily nodded several times in quick succession; she felt very proud of Pod.

"Well," he went on in a more relaxed tone, "let's take a look at this food, and after we've eaten, we're going to begin a tour of this room—explore every crack and cranny of it from floor to ceiling. May take us several days...."

Arrietty helped her mother to her feet. Pod, at the box edge, swung a leg and lightly dropped to the floor. Then he turned to help Homily. Arrietty followed and made at once for the plate.

"Cold rice pudding," she said, walking around it, "a bit of mince, cold cabbage, bread." She put out a finger to touch something black. She sucked the finger. "And half a pickled walnut."

"Careful, Arrietty," warned Homily, "it may be poisoned."

"I wouldn't reckon so," said Pod. "Seems like they want us alive. Wish I knew for why."

"But how are we supposed to drink this milk?" complained Homily.

"Well, take it up in your hands, like."

Homily knelt down and cupped her hands. Her face became very milky, but as she drank, a reviving warmth seemed to flow through her veins, and her spirits lifted. "Brandy," she said. "Back home at Firbank, they kept it in the morning room, and those Overmantels used to—"

"Now, Homily," said Pod, "this is no time for gossip. And that was whisky."

"Something anyway, and dead drunk they used to be ... or so they say ... every time the bailiff came in to do the accounts. What's the mince like, Arrietty?"

Chapter Twelve

"Now," said Pod sometime later when they had finished eating, "we better start on the room."

He looked upward. In each sharply sloping wall was set a dormer window, at what seemed a dizzy height; the windows were casement-latched and each had a vertical bolt. Above each was a naked brass curtain rail, hung with rusted rings. Through one window, Pod could see the bough of an ilex tree tossing in the wind.

"It's odd," Arrietty remarked, "how from starting under the floor we seem to get higher and higher..."

"And it isn't natural," put in Homily quickly, "for borrowers to get high. Never leads to no good. Look at those Overmantels, for instance, back in the morning room at Firbank. Stuck up they were, through living high. Never so much as give you good day, say you were on the floor. It was as though they couldn't see you. Those windows are no good," she remarked. "Doubt if even a human being could reach up there. Wonder how they clean them?"

"They'd stand on a chair," said Pod.

"What about the gas fire?" Homily suggested.

"No hope there," said Pod. "It's soldered in to the chimney surround."

It was a small iron gas fire with a separate ring—on which, in a pan, stood a battered gluepot.

"What about the door?" said Arrietty. "Suppose we cut a piece out of the bottom?"

"What with?" asked Pod, who was still examining the fireplace.

"We might find something," said Arrietty, looking about her.

There were plenty of objects in the room. Beside the fireplace stood a dressmaker's dummy, upholstered in a dark green rep; it was shaped like an hour glass, had a knob for a head, and below the swelling hips a kind of wire-frame petticoat—a support for the fitting of skirts. It stood on three curved legs with swivel wheels. Its dark green bosom was stuck with pins and on one shoulder, in a row, three threaded needles. Arrietty had a strange thought: did human beings look like this, she wondered, without their clothes? Were they, unlike the borrowers, perhaps not made of flesh and blood at all? Come to think of it, as "Mabel" had put down the plate, there had been a kind of creaking; and it stood to reason that, to keep such bulk erect, there must surely be some secret form of scaffolding.

Above the mantelshelf, on either side, were gas brackets of tarnished brass. From one hung a length of measuring tape, marked in inches. On the shelf itself she saw the edge of a chipped saucer, the blades of what must be a pair of cutting-out scissors, and a large iron horseshoe propped upside down.

At right angles to the fireplace, pulled out from the sloping wall, she saw a treadle sewing machine; it was like one she remembered at Firbank. Above the sewing machine, hanging on a nail, was the inner tube of a bicycle tire and a bunch of raffia. There were two trunks, several piles of magazines, and some broken slatted chairs. Between the trunks, leaning at an angle, was the shrimping net that had achieved their capture. Homily glanced at the bamboo handle and, shuddering, averted her eyes.

On the other side of the room was a fair-sized kitchen table, pushed against the wall, and beside it a ladder-back chair. The table was piled with various neat stacks of plates and saucers and other things, which from floor level were difficult to recognize.

On the floor, beyond the chair and immediately below the window, stood a solid box of walnut veneer, inlaid with tarnished brass. The veneer was cracked and peeling. "It's a dressing case," said Pod, who had seen something like it at Firbank, "or one of those folding writing desks. No, it isn't though," he went on as he walked around to the far side. "It's got a handle—"

"It's a musical box," said Arrietty.

After a moment of seeming stuck, the handle wound quite easily. They could turn it as one turned an old-fashioned mangle, though the upward swing at its highest limit was difficult to control. Homily could manage, though, with her long wrists and arms; she was a little taller than Pod. There was a grinding sound from within the box, and suddenly the tune tinkled out. It was fairylike and charming, but somehow a little sad. It ended very abruptly.

"Oh, play it again!" cried Arrietty.

"No, that's enough," said Pod. "We've got to get on." He was staring again toward the table.

"Just once," pleaded Arrietty.

"All right," he said, "but hurry up. We haven't got all day..."

And while they played their encore, he stood in the middle of the room, gazing thoughtfully at the table top.

When at last they came beside him, he said, "It's worthwhile getting up there!"

"Don't see quite how you could," said Homily.

"Quiet," said Pod, "I'm getting it..."

Obediently they stood silent, watching the direction of his eyes as he gauged the height of the ladder-back chair and then, turning his back on it, glanced up at the raffia on the opposite wall, took in the position of the pins in the bosom of the dressmaker's dummy, and turned back again to the table. Homily and Arrietty held their breaths, aware some great issue was at stake.

"Easy," said Pod at last, "child's play," and, smiling, he rubbed his hands; it always cheered him to solve a professional problem. "Some good stuff up there, I shouldn't wonder."

"But what good can it do us," asked Homily, "seeing there's no way out?"

"Well, you never know," said Pod. "Anyway," he went on briskly, "keeps your hand in and your mind off."