The Borrowers Avenged Page 10

  "No one ever has moved it," said Peagreen, "at least, not in my lifetime. It's a mossy kind of old brick: you'd hardly notice it, among all the weeds and things..."

  "All the same—" said Pod.

  "And I never did open it right down," Peagreen went on. "I'd just open it a little way so I could slip out sideways. Except, of course, during these last few days, when I had to get my things out."

  "Yes, that must have been quite a business," said Pod.

  "Oh, Papa," Arrietty broke in, "he has a little wagon! Quite a big wagon, really—it's half a date box. With wheels," she added eagerly. "Four wheels!"

  "A wagon, eh?" said Pod, looking at Peagreen with increased respect. "With wheels?"

  "I didn't make it," Peagreen hastened to assure him. "It belonged to the Wainscots. I'm not very good with my hands." He glanced at the weight and pulley. "I loathe that contraption. That's why I'm moving, partly."

  Pod turned back to the grating. "Well, let's try it," he said. "What do you say, Homily?"

  "No harm in trying," she said timidly. Although she had kept so quiet, she had been watching closely. Arrietty could not quite make out her expression: it was an odd mixture of anxiety, hope, and fear. Her hands were so tightly clasped together against her chest that the knuckles shone white.

  Pod went close to the grating and, raising his arm above his head, struck the top of it with the side of his closed fist. It began to slide forwards, and as the weight on the floor began to rise, Pod stepped aside quickly to avoid its sudden ascent. A bit too sudden, Arrietty thought, as the floor weight clashed up against the pulley. The grating lay fully open, resting, it seemed, on the brick. You could walk out on it, Arrietty realized, into the sunlit world outside.

  "Well, that's that," said Pod, rubbing the side of his hand: the blow he had given to the cast iron had been a bit severe. "Is there any way of working this thing more slowly?"

  "Well," said Peagreen, "you can keep a guiding hand on the twine and pull it aside—if you see what I mean—depending on how far you want to let the whole thing go. If you want to stop it at a certain place, you can give it a couple of twists round this"—he put up a hand and touched a piece of metal in the wall—"sort of cleat, don't they call it?"

  "I see what you mean," said Pod. "I never noticed that."

  "It comes in useful," Peagreen told him, "especially for someone like me. I hardly ever open that grating fully."

  "How do you shut it?" asked Pod.

  "You pull on the weight," said Peagreen.

  "I see," said Pod. He seemed very impressed. "What do you think of it, Homily?"

  "Very nice," said Homily uncertainly. "But..."

  "But what?" Pod asked her.

  "Say you pull that weight right down till it reaches the ground, what's to prevent it going up again?"

  "Because," said Pod, "by the time that weight's on the ground, the grating will be back in position: there'll be no more strain on the twine, like."

  He turned his back to the sill of the now empty gap and, with a hand on either side, swiftly hitched himself up into a sitting position. He did this, Arrietty noticed, with something of his old athletic manner. Proudly she watched him as, swinging both legs around onto the grating, he swiftly rose to his feet. To her loving eyes, he seemed, quite suddenly, to have found his youth again. Quickly she turned as though to speak to her mother, but was silenced by what she saw. Homily, too, had been gazing at Pod. She seemed to be smiling, but her lips were trembling and her eyes looked suspiciously bright. Catching Arrietty's glance, she opened her arms and Arrietty flew into them. They clung together. Were they laughing or crying? It was difficult to tell.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the end, they all climbed out onto the grating. The sun, by now, had moved slightly round towards the west, but its rays still poured down on this south side of the house. Through a thin fringe of weeds, Arrietty could see the path along which they had traipsed (was it really only yesterday?) dragging Spiller's soapbox. Where was Spiller now? she wondered. Why had he disappeared? He would have liked this place. Or perhaps he already knew about it?

  Pod, his legs apart, was staring down at the grating. "You know, Peagreen," he was saying, "this thing isn't resting on the brick at all: it's held in this straight-out position by that weight coming up against the pulley ... All the same," went on Pod, "that brick's a bit of a safeguard: supposing, say, the twine broke, or something...."

  "Heaven forbid!" muttered Homily.

  "It's all right, Homily. I've got plenty of twine among our stuff. Fishing line," he explained to Peagreen, "good and strong—stronger than this, I shouldn't wonder." Another idea seemed to strike him. "What sort of fish do you have in that pond?"

  Peagreen hesitated; he was not a fishing man. "Roach, they say, and chub. Wainscot once caught a trout. Minnows..."

  "Minnows will do for us," said Pod. "There's nothing tastier than a fresh-caught minnow, the way Homily cooks it."

  Homily, thinking of that dark, drafty cavern behind the fireplace, said, "But we've got the larder now, Pod. Seems to be everything that we might ever need in that larder. And most of it ready-cooked..."

  "Now, Homily," said Pod, "let's get this straight once and for all: I don't want you depending too much on that larder. A bit here, a bit there—well, that's all right. That's how we managed at Firbank. But remember when we lived in the boot? We had to use our..." He hesitated. "Our..."

  "Imagination?" suggested Arrietty.

  "That's it. We got to use our imagination, and get back to our old ways, as far as we can. Suppose those Witlesses moved out sudden like? Suppose Mrs. Witless took ill? Suppose I got caught, stranded on one of those shelves? Or Arrietty here—once she's learned to borrow? It's hard work, my girl, and dangerous work. Borrowers only borrow the things they can't live without. Not for the fun of it. Not out of greediness. And not out of laziness, neither. Borrowing for borrowers—and well you know it, Homily—is their only means of..." Again he hesitated, seeking the word.

  "Subsistence?" murmured Arrietty tentatively.

  "Survival," said Pod firmly. He looked round at them all as though happy to have found the word for himself.

  For a short while, there was a silence: it had been a long time since they had heard Pod make such a long speech. And it seemed he had more to say.

  "Now, don't get me wrong," he went on. "That walled garden, the kitchen garden, we can borrow from that to our heart's content. Compare us, say, with the pigeons, the field mice, the slugs, the snails, the caterpillars ... I mean, one pod of peas would give us a meal, like, and who's there to grudge us that? Not Witless, that's for sure. Nor Mrs. Witless neither. And there'd be Spiller with his bow, keeping down the field mice. There's a mite of things to keep down in a kitchen garden."

  "Who's to grudge us a sliver of cheese, a pinch or two of tea, a drop of milk?" said Homily, "or a bit of ham off the bone before they throw the bone away? Or—"

  "I don't say we won't never borrow from the larder, Homily. All I'm saying is we got to watch it."

  "I have to depend on the larder for everything," said Pea-green glumly. "That's why I'm moving house."

  They all turned to look at him, and he smiled rather wanly. "You see," he explained, "for me to get to the larder, I have to open this grating a crack, slide out sideways, and walk round the corner of the conservatory, and on along that same path as far as the larder window, and then back again by the same route. It's the safest way for someone who can't run fast. There's always that box hedge for cover, but it's very inconvenient sometimes, especially in winter. One can get snowed in."

  "I see your point," said Pod. "You want to be nearer the larder?"

  "Yes," said Peagreen. "Not that I eat so much, but it's all that walking. I find it a waste of time. Of course," he went on, "it might be a bit shorter down that passage and across the old kitchen. But I have to take it slowly, and there's not much cover. Once there used to be a great old table in the middle of that kitchen, b
ut it's gone now."

  "Yes," said Pod, "there's a good bit of open floor to cover. I see your point," he repeated. There was a short silence, then Pod said, "Your new house..." and he hesitated. Arrietty guessed that her father longed to know where Peagreen's new house might be, just as she herself had longed to know, but that manners forbade his actually asking. "I mean," said Pod, "this new house of yours, you'll find it easier?"

  "Very much easier," said Peagreen. Suddenly his face lit up. "Would you like to see it?"

  "Oh, I would!" cried Arrietty, running towards him across the opened grating.

  "It's a bit of a walk," said Peagreen to Pod.

  Pod still seemed to hesitate out of some kind of politeness: perhaps he did not want to appear to pry. "Another day," he said. "I'd like to poke about here a bit longer." He looked at the gap in the wall and down again at the grating. "I want to get the hang of this thing..."

  "Can I go, Papa?" cried Arrietty eagerly. Her legs already were over the side of the grating. Pod looked down at her.

  "I don't see why not," he said, after a moment, "providing you're quick," he added.

  "We'll be as quick as we can," she promised, and slid off the grating into the grasses. "Come, Peagreen!" For the moment, she had forgotten Peagreen's lameness.

  "Oh, Peagreen," called Pod, as the latter was preparing to slide off the edge of the grating, "there's just one thing—"

  "What's that?" asked Peagreen, pausing.

  Pod jerked his head towards the long, windowlike gap in the brickwork. "All those books in there, have you read them?"

  "Yes," said Peagreen.

  "Do you want to read them again?"

  "Not particularly. Are they in your way?" he went on. "I just left them there because they were too big to fit into my new place."

  "No," said Pod, "they're not in my way. Not at all," he added in a satisfied voice.

  "If so, now the grating's open, we can chuck them out into the grasses and move them away after dark. I've got a lot of smaller ones..."

  "And where would we hide these?" asked Pod. "No, no, leave them be. I might have a use for them ..."

  "Right," said Peagreen, and slid off the grating into the grasses.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Arrietty did not speak as, matching her step to Peagreen's, they passed along the western side of the conservatory. Her feeling of relief and happiness seemed almost too much to bear: so they were going to stay—that much had become obvious! A new life and a freedom such as she had never dared to dream of, and it was just about to begin—it had begun!

  Once round the corner, Peagreen said, "Excuse me," and stooped rather gingerly to feel among the dried dock and nettles. He drew out a grimy piece of broken glass. "I'm collecting these," he said. He then took her arm and guided her across the patch into the shelter of the box hedge. "Safer to walk on this far side," he said.

  Arrietty stared with interest across the path at the ivy-clad wall of a part of the rectory she had not yet seen. The ivy was small-leaved and variegated and clung stoutly to the dark-red brick; its woody stems ran snakelike in all directions across the ancient surface. How easy, she realized, these rootlike tentacles would be to climb. Could Peagreen's new house be on an upper floor? No, he had said that it was near the larder. Then, a few steps ahead of them, she noticed a long cagelike erection firmly fixed, it seemed, to the old red bricks. As they came abreast of it, Peagreen halted. It consisted of several metal posts and crossbars, netted with torn and rusted chicken wire. Inside were what looked like several small dead trees, some of whose many branches had rotted away. In one corner stood a mossy-looking water barrel, full to the brim and with water flowing over. This was fed by a pipe running down from the roof. What could this place be? Some kind of fruit cage?

  "It's the old aviary," said Peagreen.

  "Oh," said Arrietty uncertainly: she was not quite sure what an aviary might be.

  "They kept birds in it," Peagreen explained. "All kinds of birds. Rare birds. I wish I had seen it in the old days..."

  They stood looking at it for a little while longer. The ivy, Arrietty noticed, had spread itself like a tattered carpet over the whole floor of the aviary except in the very center, where a round stone trough stood up among the variegated leaves.

  "The birdbath," Peagreen told her. "Not as deep as it looks; it's raised up on a base. Come on and I'll show you the larder window."

  A few paces farther on, Arrietty saw a barred window set deep in the ivied wall. It was a latticed window, and from where she stood, peering hard at the bars, it seemed to her that one side of the window stood slightly ajar.

  "It's open," she said to Peagreen.

  "Yes, they always leave it like that—to keep the larder aired. You can't quite see it from here, but they've got a bit of chicken wire—from the aviary, I suppose—tacked across the frame. Against the cats, when they used to have cats. I've untacked the bottom corner: you can sort of lift it. No one's ever noticed—not ever bothered, for that matter—seeing there are no cats here now."

  "I'm glad to hear that," said Arrietty. "My cousin Eggletina was supposed to have been eaten by a cat. But it came out that she escaped in the end. But she was never quite the same afterwards..."

  "It's understandable..." said Peagreen.

  "Cats and owls," Arrietty went on, "I suppose those are the two things borrowers really are frightened of. As frightened as human beans are supposed to be of ghosts."

  "Don't say 'human beans,' " said Peagreen.

  "Why not?" retorted Arrietty. "We always called them that under the floor at Firbank."

  "It sounds silly," Peagreen remarked. "And it isn't correct." He looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't mean to be rude, but you must have picked up a lot of odd expressions living, as you say you did, under the kitchen floor."

  "I suppose we did," said Arrietty almost humbly. It occurred to her that there might be quite a lot to be learned from Peagreen, steeped as he was in book learning. And an Overmantel to boot. "All the same," she went on firmly, "I believe that any expression that is good enough for my father and mother should be good enough for me." She was eying him rather coldly. "Don't you agree?"

  Peagreen flushed. Then he smiled his gentle, sideways smile. "Yes," he said, "I do agree. And I agree with something else..."

  "Oh?"

  "Something you didn't say: that I'm a rotten snob!"

  Arrietty laughed. "Oh, you're just an Overmantel," she said airily. Then she laid a hand on his arm. "Aren't you going to show me the larder?"

  "I'll show you my house first." He led her back beside the path until they stood once again in front of the aviary. "That's where I'm going to live," he said.

  Arrietty stared in a puzzled way at the metal posts and the torn strips of rusted netting.

  "Look up a bit," said Peagreen.

  Arrietty raised her eyes, and then she saw a row of sun-bleached nesting boxes fixed to the ivied wall. Some were half-concealed by tendrils of trailing leaves, others were fully exposed. In the front of each was a small round hole, a borrower-sized hole.

  "The lids lift up," Peagreen told her. "You can put in all kinds of stuff from the top."

  Arrietty was breathless with admiration. "How marvelous," she breathed at last. "What a wonderful idea!"

  "It is, rather," Peagreen admitted modestly. "And what's more, they're made of teak—a wood that lasts forever."

  "Forever?" echoed Arrietty.

  "Well, in a manner of speaking. Come rain or shine, it doesn't rot like other woods. The humans who built this aviary were not short of a few pennies."

  "Are rectors rich, then?" asked Arrietty, still gazing admiringly at the nesting boxes.

  "Not nowadays," said Peagreen. "But from what I've heard and read, some of them used to be—horses, carriages, servants. The lot. And, of course, in the olden days, money went further."

  Arrietty knew about servants: Mrs. Driver had been one. But she did not know much about money. "What is money?" she
decided to ask. "I can never quite figure it out..."

  "And you'll never need to," Peagreen told her, laughing.

  After a while, still staring bemusedly at the nesting boxes, Arrietty said, "Which one are you going to live in?"

  "Well, the first will be my sitting room, the next will be my bedroom in summer, the one after that I'll keep my books in and all my bits of paper. In the next one I'll keep my painting things, and the last one, the one nearest the larder window, I'll turn into my dining room."

  This was a scale of living undreamed of by Arrietty: grandeur beyond grandeur—and all for one young borrower who lived alone!

  "I suppose you must have a lot of furniture," she said after a minute.

  "Very little," Peagreen told her. "Nice rooms don't need much furniture."

  "What do you paint with your painting things?" asked Arrietty then.

  "Pictures," said Peagreen.

  "On what you call your bits of paper?"

  "Sometimes. But there's a roll of fine canvas on the top shelf of the library. Paper is very hard to come by. I try to keep it for writing."

  "Letters?" asked Arrietty.

  "Poems," said Peagreen, and he blushed. "Most of the books I read are poetry," he went on, as though to excuse himself, "the smaller ones, up there"—he nodded towards the aviary—"the ones I brought away."

  "Could you ever let me read a little of the poetry you write?" Arrietty spoke rather shyly.

  Peagreen's blush deepened. "It's not very good," he said shortly, and he turned away somewhat hurriedly. "Come along; now I'll show you the larder."

  He looked swiftly from right to left to make sure the coast was clear, then taking her by the sleeve, he pulled her across the path, moving as fast as he was able. He dragged her rather roughly through one of the many gaps in the wire netting into what seemed to her a forest of ivy leaves that met above their heads. "Excuse me a minute," he said then; and, pushing aside a frond or two of green-and-white ivy, he laid down his piece of glass on an almost hidden pile of other grimy pieces.