The Borrowers (11 page)

"Oh, Pod," whimpered Homily, "don't frighten the child."

"Nay, Homily," said Pod more gently, "my poor old girl! I don't want to frighten no one, but this is serious. Suppose I said to you pack up tonight, all our bits and pieces, where would you go?"

"Not to Hendreary's," cried Homily, "not there, Pod! I couldn't never share a kitchen with Lupy—"

"No," agreed Pod, "not to Hendreary's. And don't you see for why? The boy knows about that too!"

"Oh!" cried Homily in real dismay.

"Yes," said Pod, "a couple of smart terriers or a well-trained ferret and that'd be the end of that lot."

"Oh, Pod..." said Homily and began again to tremble. The thought of living in a badger's set had been bad enough, but the thought of not having even that to go to seemed almost worse. "And I dare say I could have got it nice in the end," she said, "providing we lived quite separate—."

"Well, it's no good thinking of it now," said Pod. He turned to Arrietty: "What does your Uncle Hendreary say in his letter?"

"Yes," exclaimed Homily, "where's this letter?"

"It doesn't say much," said Arrietty, passing over the paper; "it just says 'Tell your Aunt Lupy to come home.'"

"What?" exclaimed Homily sharply, looking at the letter upside-down. "Come home? What can he mean?"

"He means," said Pod, "that Lupy must have set off to come here and that she never arrived."

"Set off to come here?" repeated Homily. "But when?"

"How should I know?" said Pod.

"It doesn't say when," said Arrietty.

"But," exclaimed Homily, "it might have been weeks ago!"

"It might," said Pod. "Long enough anyway for him to want her back."

"Oh," cried Homily, "all those poor little children!"

"They're growing up now," said Pod.

"But something must have happened to her!" exclaimed Homily.

"Yes," said Pod. He turned to Arrietty. "See what I mean, Arrietty, about those fields?"

"Oh, Pod," said Homily, her eyes full of tears, "I don't suppose none of us'll ever see poor Lupy again!"

"Well, we wouldn't have anyway," said Pod.

"Pod," said Homily soberly, "I'm frightened. Everything seems to be happening at once. What are we going to do?"

"Well," said Pod, "there's nothing we can do tonight. That's certain. But have a bit of supper and a good night's rest." He rose to his feet.

"Oh, Arrietty," wailed Homily suddenly, "you naughty wicked girl! How could you go and start all this? How could you go and talk to a human bean? If only—"

"I was 'seen,'" cried Arrietty. "I couldn't help being 'seen.' Papa was 'seen.' I don't think it's all as awful as you're trying to make out. I don't think human beans are all that bad—"

"They're bad and they're good," said Pod; "they're honest and they're artful—it's just as it takes them at the moment. And animals, if they could talk, would say the same. Steer clear of them—that's what I've always been told. No matter what they promise you. No good never really came to no one from any human bean."

T
HAT
night, while Arrietty lay straight and still under her cigar-box ceiling, Homily and Pod talked for hours. They talked in the sitting room, they talked in the kitchen, and later, much later, she heard them talk in their bedroom. She heard drawers shutting and opening, doors creaking, and boxes being pulled out from under beds. "What are they doing?" she wondered. "What will happen next?" Very still she lay in her soft little bed with her familiar belongings about her: her postage stamp view of Rio harbor; her silver pig off a charm bracelet; her turquoise ring which sometimes, for fun, she would wear as a crown, and, dearest of all, her floating ladies with the golden trumpets, tooting above their peaceful town. She did not want to lose these, she realized suddenly, lying there straight and still in bed, but to have all the other things as well, adventure and safety mixed—that's what she wanted. And that (the restless hangings and whisperings told her) is just what you couldn't do.

As it happened, Homily was only fidgeting: opening drawers and shutting them, unable to be still. And she ended up, when Pod was already in bed, by deciding to curl her hair. "Now, Homily," Pod protested wearily, lying there in his night-shirt, "there's really no call for that. Who's going to see you?"

"That's just it," exclaimed Homily, searching in a drawer for her curl-rags; "in times like these one never knows. I'm not going to be caught out," she said irritably, turning the drawer upside-down and picking over the spilled contents, "with me hair like this!"

She came to bed at last, looking spiky, like a washed-out golliwog, and Pod with a sigh turned over at last and closed his eyes.

Homily lay for a long time staring at the oil lamp; it was the silver cap of a perfume bottle with a tiny, floating wick. She felt unwilling, for some reason, to blow it out. There were movements upstairs in the kitchen and it was late for movements—the household should be asleep—and the lumpy curlers pressed uncomfortably against her neck. She gazed—just as Arrietty had done—about the familiar room (too full, she realized, with little bags and boxes and makeshift cupboards) and thought: "What now? Perhaps nothing will happen after all; the child perhaps is right, and we are making a good deal of fuss about nothing very much; this boy, when all's said and done, is only a guest; perhaps," thought Homily, "he'll go away again quite soon, and that," she told herself drowsily, "will be that."

Later (as she realized afterwards) she must have dozed off because it seemed she was crossing Parkin's Beck; it was night and the wind was blowing and the field seemed very steep; she was scrambling up it, along the ridge by the gas-pipe, sliding and falling in the wet grass. The trees, it seemed to Homily, were threshing and clashing, their branches waving and sawing against the sky. Then (as she told them many weeks later) there was a sound of splintering wood....

And Homily woke up. She saw the room again and the oil lamp flickering, but something, she knew at once, was different: there was a strange draught and her mouth felt dry and full of grit. Then she looked up at the ceiling: "Pod!" she shrieked, clutching his shoulder.

Pod rolled over and sat up. They both stared at the ceiling: the whole surface was on a steep slant and one side of it had come right away from the wall—this was what had caused the draught—and down into the room, to within an inch of the foot of the bed, protruded a curious object: a huge bar of gray steel with a flattened, shining edge.

"It's a screwdriver," said Pod.

They stared at it, fascinated, unable to move, and for a moment all was still. Then slowly the huge object swayed upward until the sharp edge lay against their ceiling and Homily heard a scrape on the floor above and a sudden human gasp. "Oh, my knees," cried Homily, "oh, my feeling—" as, with a splintering wrench, their whole roof flew off and fell down with a clatter, somewhere out of sight.

Homily screamed then. But this time it was a real scream, loud and shrill and hearty; she seemed almost to settle down in her scream, while her eyes stared up, half interested, into empty lighted space. There was another ceiling, she realized, away up above them—higher, it seemed, than the sky; a ham hung from it and two strings of onions. Arrietty appeared in the doorway, scared and trembling, clutching her nightgown. And Pod slapped Homily's back. "Have done," he said, "that's enough," and Homily, suddenly, was quiet.

A great face appeared then between them and that distant height. It wavered above them, smiling and terrible: there was silence and Homily sat bolt upright, her mouth open. "Is that your mother?" asked a surprised voice after a moment, and Arrietty from the doorway whispered: "Yes."

It was the boy.

Pod got out of bed and stood beside it, shivering in his night-shirt. "Come on," he said to Homily, "you can't stay there!"

But Homily could. She had her old nightdress on with the patch in the back and nothing was going to move her. A slow anger was rising up in Homily: she had been caught in her hair-curlers; Pod had raised his hand to her; and she remembered that, in the general turmoil and for once in her life, she had left the supper washing-up for morning, and there it would be, on the kitchen table, for all the world to see!

She glared at the boy—he was only a child after all. "Put it back!" she said, "put it back at once!" Her eyes flashed and her curlers seemed to quiver.

He knelt down then, but Homily did not flinch as the great face came slowly closer. She saw his under hp, pink and full—like an enormous exaggeration of Arrietty's—and she saw it wobble slightly. "But I've got something for you," he said.

Homily's expression did not change and Arrietty called out from her place in the doorway: "What is it?"

The boy reached behind him and very gingerly, careful to keep it upright, he held a wooden object above their heads. "It's this," he said, and very carefully, his tongue out and breathing heavily, he lowered the object slowly into their hole: it was a doll's dresser, complete with plates. It had two drawers in it and a cupboard below; he adjusted its position at the foot of Homily's bed. Arrietty ran round to see better.

"Oh," she cried ecstatically. "Mother, look!"

Homily threw the dresser a glance—it was dark oak and the plates were hand-painted—and then she looked quickly away again. "Yes," she said coldly, "it's very nice."

There was a short silence which no one knew how to break.

"The cupboard really opens," said the boy at last, and the great hand came down all amongst them, smelling of bath soap. Arrietty flattened herself against the wall and Pod exclaimed, nervous: "Now then!"

"Yes," agreed Homily after a moment, "I see it does."

Pod drew a long breath—a sigh of relief as the hand went back.

"There, Homily," he said placatingly, "you've always wanted something like that!"

"Yes," said Homily—she still sat bolt upright, her hands clasped in her lap. "Thank you very much. And now," she went on coldly, "will you please put back the roof?"

"Wait a minute," pleaded the boy. Again he reached behind him; again the hand came down; and there, beside the dresser, where there was barely room for it, was a very small doll's chair; it was a Victorian chair, upholstered in red velvet. "Oh!" Arrietty exclaimed again and Pod said shyly: "Just about fit me, that would."

"Try it," begged the boy, and Pod threw him a nervous glance. "Go on!" said Arrietty, and Pod sat down—in his night-shirt, his bare feet showing. "That's nice," he said after a moment.

"It would go by the fire in the sitting room," cried Arrietty; "it would look lovely on red blotting paper!"

"Let's try it," said the boy, and the hand came down again. Pod sprang up just in time to steady the dresser as the red velvet chair was whisked away above his head and placed presumably in the next room but one. Arrietty ran out of the door and along the passage to see. "Oh," she called out to her parents, "come and see. It's lovely!"

But Pod and Homily did not move. The boy was leaning over them, breathing hard, and they could see the middle buttons of his night-shirt. He seemed to be examining the farther room.

"What do you keep in that mustard-pot?" he asked.

"Coal," said Arrietty's voice. "And I helped to borrow this new carpet. Here's the watch I told you about, and the pictures...."

"I could get you some better stamps than those," the boy said. "I've got some jubilee ones with the Taj Mahal."

"Look," cried Arrietty's voice again, and Pod took Homily's hand, "these are my books—"

Homily clutched Pod as the great hand came down once more in the direction of Arrietty. "Quiet," he whispered; "sit still...." The boy, it seemed, was touching the books.

"What are they called?" he asked, and Arrietty reeled off the names.

"Pod," whispered Homily, "I'm going to scream—"

"No," whispered Pod. "You mustn't. Not again."

"I feel it coming on," said Homily.

Pod looked worried. "Hold your breath," he said, "and count ten."

The boy was saying to Arrietty: "Why couldn't you read me those?"

"Well, I could," said Arrietty, "but I'd rather read something new."

"But you never come," complained the boy.

"I know," said Arrietty, "but I will."

"Pod," whispered Homily, "did you hear that? Did you hear what she said?"

"Yes, yes," Pod whispered; "keep quiet—"

"Do you want to see the storerooms?" Arrietty suggested next and Homily clapped a hand to her mouth as though to stifle a cry.

Pod looked up at the boy. "Hey," he called, trying to attract his attention. The boy looked down. "Put the roof back now," Pod begged him, trying to sound matter of fact and reasonable; "we're getting cold."

"All right," agreed the boy, but he seemed to hesitate: he reached across them for the piece of board which formed their roof. "Shall I nail you down?" he asked, and they saw him pick up the hammer; it swayed above them, very dangerous looking.

"Of course nail us down," said Pod irritably.

"I mean," said the boy, "I've got some more things upstairs—"