The Borrowers Afloat Page 3

  It was a plain meal, but wholesome: soup, and boiled butter beans with a trace of dripping—one bean each. There was none of that first evening's lavishness when Lupy had raided her store cupboards. It was as though she and Hendreary had talked things over, setting more modest standards. "We must begin," she had imagined Lupy saying to Hendreary in a firm, self-righteous voice, "as we mean to go on."

  There was, however, a sparrow's egg omelette, fried in a tin lid, for Hendreary and the two boys. Lupy saw to it herself. Seasoned with thyme and a trace of wild garlic, it smelled very savory and sizzled on the plate. "They've been borrowing, you see," Lupy explained, "out of doors all morning. They can only get out when the front door's

  open, and on some days they can't get back. Three nights Hendreary spent once in the woodshed before he got his chance."

  Homily glanced at Pod, who had finished his bean and whose eyes had become strangely round. "Pod's done a bit, too, this morning," she remarked carelessly, "more high than far; but it does give you an appetite...."

  "Borrowing?" asked Uncle Hendreary. He seemed amazed, and his thin beard had ceased the" up-and-down movement that went with his eating.

  "One or two things," said Pod modestly.

  "From where?" asked Hendreary, staring.

  "The old man's bedroom. It's just above us...

  Hendreary was silent a moment and then he said, "That's all right, Pod," but as though it wasn't all right at all. "But we've got to go steady. There isn't much in this house, not to spare like. We can't all go at it like bulls at gates." He took another mouthful of omelette and consumed it slowly while Arrietty, fascinated, watched his beard and the shadow it threw on the wall. When he had swallowed, he said, "I'd take it as a favor, Pod, if you'd just leave borrowing for a while. We know the territory, as you might say, and we work to our own methods. Better we lend you things, for the time being. And there's food for all, if you don't mind it plain."

  There was a long silence. The two elder boys, Arrietty noticed, shoveling up their food, kept their eyes on their plates. Lupy clattered about at the stove. Eggletina sat looking at her hands, and little Timmus stared wonderingly from one to another, eyes wide in his small pale face.

  "As you wish," said Pod slowly, as Lupy bustled back to the table.

  "Homily," said Lupy brightly, breaking the awkward silence, "this afternoon, if you've got a moment to spare, I'd be much obliged if you'd give me a hand with Spiller's summer clothes...."

  Homily thought of the comfortless rooms upstairs and of all she longed to do to them. "But of course," she told Lupy, trying to smile.

  "I always get them finished," Lupy explained, "by early spring. Time's getting on now: the hawthorn's out—or so they tell me." And she began to clear the table; they all jumped up to help her.

  "Where is Spiller?" asked Homily, trying to stack the snail shells.

  "Goodness knows," said Lupy, "off on some wild goose chase. No one knows where Spiller is. Nor what he does for that matter. All I know is," she went on, taking the plug out of the pipe (as they used to do at home Arrietty remembered) to release a trickle of water, "that I make his moleskin suits each autumn and his white kid ones each spring and that he always comes to fetch them."

  "It's very kind of you to make his suits," said Arrietty, watching Lupy rinse the snail shells in a small crystal salt cellar and standing by to dry them.

  "It's only human," said Lupy.

  "Human!" exclaimed Homily, startled by die choice of word.

  "Human—just short like that—means kind," explained Lupy, remembering that Homily, poor dear, had had no education, being dragged up as you might say under a kitchen floor. "It's got nothing at all to do with human beings. How could it have?"

  "That's what I was wondering..." said Homily.

  "Besides," Lupy went on, "he brings us things in exchange."

  "Oh, I see," said Homily.

  "He goes hunting, you see, and I smoke his meat for him—there in the chimney. Some we keep and some he takes away. What's over I make into paste with butter on the top—keeps for months that way. Birds' eggs, he brings, and berries and nuts ... fish from the stream. I smoke the fish, too, or pickle it. Some things I put down in salt.... And if you want anything special, you tell Spiller—ahead of time, of course—and he borrows it from the gypsies. That old stove he lives in is just by their camping site. Give him time and he can get almost anything you want from the gypsies. We have a whole arm of a waterproof raincoat, got by Spiller, and very useful it was when the bees swarmed one summer—we all crawled inside it."

  "What bees?" asked Homily.

  "Haven't I told you about the bees in the thatch? They've gone now. But that's how we got the honey, all we'd ever want, and a good, lasting wax for the candles...."

  Homily was silent a moment—enviously silent, dazzled by Lupy's riches. Then she said, as she stacked up the last snail shell, "Where do these go, Lupy?"

  "Into that wickerwork hair-tidy in the corner. They won't break—just take them on the tin lid and drop them in...."

  "I must say, Lupy," Homily remarked wonderingly as she dropped the shells one by one into the hair-tidy (it was horn-shaped with a loop to hang it on and a faded blue bow on the top), "that you've become what I'd call a very good manager...."

  "For one," agreed Lupy, laughing, "who was brought up in a drawing room and never raised a hand."

  "You weren't brought up in a drawing room," Homily reminded her.

  "Oh, I don't remember those Rain-pipe days," said Lupy blithely. "I married so young. Just a child..." and she turned suddenly to Arrietty. "Now, what are you dreaming about, Miss-butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth?"

  "I was thinking of Spiller," said Arrietty.

  "A-ha!" cried Aunt Lupy. "She was thinking of Spiller!" And she laughed again. "You don't want to waste precious thoughts on a ragamuffin like Spiller. You'll meet lots of nice borrowers, all in good time. Maybe, one day, you'll meet one brought up in a library: they're the best, so they say, gentlemen all, and a good cultural background."

  "I was thinking," continued Arrietty evenly, trying to keep her temper, "that I couldn't imagine Spiller dressed up in white kid."

  "It doesn't stay white long," cried Lupy. "Of that I can assure you! It has to be white to start with because it's made from an evening glove. A ball glove, shoulder length—it's one of the few things I salvaged from the drawing room. But he will have kid, says it's hard-wearing. It stiffens up, of course, directly he gets it wet, but he soon wears it soft again. And by that time," she added, "it's all colors of the rainbow."

  Arrietty could imagine the colors; they would not be "all colors of the rainbow"; they would be colors without real color, the shades that made Spiller invisible—soft fawns, pale browns, dull greens, and a kind of shadowy gun-metal. Spiller took care about "seasoning" his clothes: he brought them to a stage where he could melt into the landscape, where one could stand beside him, almost within touching distance, and yet not see him. Spiller deceived animals as well as gypsies. Spiller deceived hawks, and stoats, and foxes.... Spiller might not wash but he had no Spiller scent: he smelled of hedgerows, and bark, and grasses, and of wet sun-warmed earth; he smelled of buttercups, dried cow dung, and early morning dew....

  "When will he come?" Arrietty asked, but ran away upstairs before anyone could tell her. She wept a little in the upstairs room, crouched beside the soap dish.

  To talk of Spiller reminded her of out-of-doors and of a wild, free life she might never know again. This new-found haven among the lath and plaster had all too soon become another prison....

  Chapter Four

  It was Hendreary and the boys who carried the furniture up the laths with Pod standing by to receive it. In this way, Lupy lent them just what she wished to lend and nothing they would have chosen. Homily did not grumble, however. She had become very quiet lately as slowly she realized their position.

  Sometimes they stayed downstairs after meals, helping generally or talking to
Lupy. But they gauged the length of these visits according to Lupy's mood: when she became flustered, blaming them for some small mishap brought on by herself, they knew it was time to go. "We couldn't do right today," they would say, sitting empty-handed upstairs on Homily's old champagne corks that Lupy had unearthed for stools. They would sit by the chimney casing in the inner room to get the heat from the stones. Here Pod and Homily had a double bed, one of those from the dollhouse. Arrietty slept in the outer room, close beside the entrance hole. She slept on a thickish piece of wadding, borrowed in the old days from a box of artist's pastels, and they had given her most of the bedclothes.

  "We shouldn't have come, Pod," Homily said one evening as they sat alone upstairs.

  "We had no choice," said Pod.

  "And we got to go," she added and sat there watching him as he stitched the sole of a boot.

  "To where?" asked Pod.

  Things had become a little better for Pod lately: he had filed down the rusted needle and was back at his cobbling. Hendreary had brought him the skin of a weasel, one of those nailed up by the gamekeeper to dry on the outhouse door, and he was making them all new shoes. This pleased Lupy very much, and she had become a little less bossy.

  "Where's Arrietty?" asked Homily one evening.

  "Downstairs, I shouldn't wonder," said Pod.

  "What does she do downstairs?"

  "Tells Timmus a story and puts him to bed."

  "I know that," said Homily, "but why does she stay so long? I'd nearly dropped off last night when we heard her come up the laths...."

  "I suppose they get talking," said Pod.

  Homily was silent a moment and then she said, "I don't feel easy. I've got my feeling...." This was the feeling borrowers get when human beings are near; with Homily it started at the knees.

  Pod glanced up toward the floorboards above them from whence came a haze of candlelight. "It's the old man going to bed."

  "No," said Homily, getting up. "I'm used to that. We hear that every night." She began to walk about. "I think," she said at last, "that I'll just pop downstairs...."

  "What for?" asked Pod.

  "To see if she's there."

  "It's late," said Pod.

  "All the more reason," said Homily.

  "Where else would she be?" asked Pod.

  "I don't know, Pod. I've got my feeling and I've had it once or twice lately," she said.

  Homily had grown more used to the laths: she had become more agile, even in the dark. But tonight it was very dark indeed. When she reached the landing below, she felt a sense of yawning space and a kind of draft from the depth, which eddied hollowly around her: feeling her way to the drawing-room door, she kept well back from the edge of the platform.

  The drawing room, too, was strangely dark and so was the kitchen beyond: there was a faint glow from the keyhole fire and a rhythmic sound of breathing.

  "Arrietty?" she called softly from the doorway, just above a whisper.

  Hendreary gave a snort and mumbled in his sleep: she heard him turning over.

  "Arrietty..." whispered Homily again.

  "What's that?" cried Lupy, suddenly and sharply.

  "It's me ... Homily."

  "What do you want? We were all asleep. Hendreary's had a hard day...."

  "Nothing," faltered Homily, "it's all right. I was looking for Arrietty...

  "Arrietty went upstairs hours ago," said Lupy.

  "Oh," said Homily, and was silent a moment: the air was full of breathing. "All right," she said at last, "thank you ... I'm sorry..."

  "And shut the drawing-room door onto the landing as you go out. There's a howling draft," said Lupy.

  As she felt her way back across the cluttered room, Homily saw a faint light ahead, a dim reflection from the landing. Could it come from above, she wondered, where Pod, two rooms away, was stitching? Yet it had not been there before....

  Fearfully she stepped out on the platform. The glow, she realized, did not come from above but from somewhere far below. The matchstick ladder was still in place, and she saw the top rungs quiver. After a moment's pause she summoned up the courage to peer over. Her startled eyes met those of Arrietty, who was climbing up the ladder and had nearly reached the top. Far below Homily could see the Gothic shape of the hole in the skirting: it seemed a blaze of light.

  "Arrietty!" she gasped.

  Arrietty did not speak. She climbed off the last rung of the ladder, put her finger to her lips, and whispered. "I've got to draw it up. Move back." And Homily, as though in a trance, moved out of the way as Arrietty drew the ladder up rung over rung until it teetered above her into the darkness, and then, trembling a little with the effort, she eased it along and laid it against the laths.

  "Well—" began Homily in a sort of gasp. In the half-light from below they could see each other's faces: Homily's aghast with her mouth hanging open; Arrietty's grave, her finger to her lips. "One minute," she whispered and went back to the edge. "All right," she called out softly into the space beneath; Homily heard a muffled thud, a scraping sound, the clap of wood on wood, and light below went out.

  "He's pushed back the log box," Arrietty whispered across the sudden darkness. "Here, give me your hand.... Don't worry," she beseeched in a whisper, "and don't take on! I was going to tell you anyway." And supporting her shaking mother by the elbow, she helped her up the laths.

  Pod looked up startled. "What's the matter?" he said as Homily sank down on the bed.

  "Let me get her feet up first," said Arrietty. She did so gently and covered her mother's legs with a folded silk handkerchief, yellowed with washing and stained with marking ink, which Lupy had given them for a bedcover.

  Homily lay with her eyes closed and spoke through pale lips. "She's been at it again," she said.

  "At what?" asked Pod. He had laid down his boot and had risen to his feet.

  "Talking to humans," said Homily.

  Pod moved across and sat on the end of the bed. Homily opened her eyes. They both stared at Arrietty.

  "Which ones?" asked Pod.

  "Young Tom, of course," said Homily. "I caught her in the act. That's where she's been most evenings, I shouldn't wonder. Downstairs, they think she's up, and upstairs, we think she's down."

  "Well, you know where that gets us," said Pod. He became very grave. "That, my girl, back at Firbank was the start of all our troubles."

  "Talking to humans..." moaned Homily, and a quiver passed over her face. Suddenly she sat up on one elbow and glared at Arrietty. "You wicked, thoughtless girl, how could you do it again!"

  Arrietty stared back at them, not defiantly exactly, but as though she were unimpressed. "But with this one downstairs," she protested, "I can't see why it matters. He knows we're here anyway, because he put us here himself! He could get at us any minute if he really wanted to...."

  "How could he get at us," said Homily, "right up here?"

  "By breaking down the wall; it's only plaster."

  "Don't say such things, Arrietty," shuddered Homily.

  "But they're true," said Arrietty. "Anyway," she added, "he's going."

  "Going?" said Pod sharply.

  "They're both going," said Arrietty, "he and his grandfather; the grandfather's going to a place called Hospital, and the boy is going to a place called Leighton Buzzard to stay with his uncle who is an ostler. What's an ostler?" she asked.

  But neither of her parents replied: they were staring blankly, struck dumb by a sudden thought.

  "We've got to tell Hendreary," said Pod at last, "and quickly."

  Homily nodded. She had swung her legs down from the bed.

  "No good waking them now," said Pod. "I'll go down first thing in the morning."

  "Oh, my goodness," breathed Homily, "all those poor children..."

  "What's the matter?" asked Arrietty. "What have I said?" She felt scared suddenly and gazed uncertainly from one parent to the other.

  "Arrietty," said Pod, turning toward her. His face had become
very grave. "All we've told you about human beings is true; but what we haven't told you, or haven't stressed enough, is that we, the borrowers, cannot survive without them." He drew a long deep breath. "When they close up a house and go away, it usually means we're done for...."

  "No food, no fire, no clothes, no heat, no water..." chanted Homily, almost as though she were quoting.

  "Famine..." said Pod.

  Chapter Five

  Next morning, when Hendreary heard the news, a conference was called around the doorplate. They all filed in, nervous and grave, and places were allotted them by Lupy. Arrietty was questioned again.

  "Are you sure of your dates, Arrietty?"

  Yes, Arrietty was sure.

  "And of your facts?" Quite sure. Young Tom and his grandfather would leave in three days' time in a gig drawn by a gray pony called Duchess and driven by Tom's uncle, the ostler, whose name was Fred Tarabody and who lived in Leighton Buzzard and worked at the Swan Hotel—what was an ostler she wondered again—and young Tom was worried because he had lost his ferret although it had a bell round its neck and a collar with his name on. He had lost it two days ago down a rabbit hole and was afraid he might have to leave without it, and even if he found it, he wasn't sure they would let him take it with him.

  "That's neither there nor here," said Hendreary, drumming his fingers on the table.

  They all seemed very anxious and at the same time curiously calm.

  Hendreary glanced round the table. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine," he said gloomily and began to stroke his beard.

  "Pod, here," said Homily, "can help borrow."

  "And I could, too," put in Arrietty.

  "And I could," echoed Timmus in a sudden squeaky voice. They all turned round to look at him, except Hendreary, and Lupy stroked his hair.