The Borrowers Read online

  "Ah, yes," said Pod, "in a way. But where does freedom take you?" He looked up uncertainly. "Where are they all now?"

  "Some of them may have bettered themselves, I shouldn't wonder," said Homily sharply. "Times have changed in the whole house. Pickings aren't what they were. There were those that went, you remember, when they dug a trench for the gas-pipe.' Over the fields, and through the wood, and all. A kind of tunnel it gave them, all the way to Leighton Buzzard."

  "And what did they find there?" said Pod unkindly. "A mountain of coke!"'

  Homily turned away. "Arrietty," she said, in the same firm voice, "supposing one day—we'd pick a special day when there was no one about, and providing they don't get a cat which I have my reasons for thinking they won't—supposing, one day, your father took you out borrowing, you'd be a good girl, wouldn't you? You'd do just what he said, quickly and quietly and no arguing?"

  Arrietty turned quite pink; she clasped her hands together. "Oh—" she began in an ecstatic voice, but Pod cut in quickly:

  "Now, Homily, we got to think. You can't just say things like that without thinking it out proper. I been 'seen,' remember. This is no kind of time for taking a child upstairs."

  "There won't be no cat," said Homily; "there wasn't no screeching. It's not like that time with Rosa Pickhatchet."

  "All the same," said Pod uncertainly, "the risk's there. I never heard of no girl going borrowing before."

  "The way I look at it," said Homily, "and it's only now it's come to me: if you had a son, you'd take him borrowing, now wouldn't you? Well, you haven't got no son—only Arrietty. Suppose anything happened to you or me, where would Arrietty be—if she hadn't learned to borrow?"

  Pod stared down at his knees. "Yes," he said after a moment, "I see what you mean."

  "And it'll give her a bit of interest like and stop her hankering."

  "Hankering for what?"

  "For blue sky and grass and suchlike." Arrietty caught her breath and Homily turned on her swiftly: "It's no good, Arrietty, I'm not going to emigrate—not for you nor any one else!"

  "Ah," said Pod and began to laugh, "so that's it!"

  "Shush!" said Homily, annoyed, and glanced quickly at the ceiling. "Not so loud! Now kiss your father, Arrietty," she went on briskly, "and pop off back to bed."

  As Arrietty snuggled down under the bedclothes she felt, creeping up from her toes, a glow of happiness like a glow of warmth. She heard their voices rising and falling in the next room: Homily's went on and on, measured and confident—there was, Arrietty felt, a kind of conviction behind it; it was the winning voice. Once she heard Pod get up and the scrape of a chair. "I don't like it!" she heard him say. And she heard Homily whisper "Hush!" and there were tremulous footfalls on the floor above and the sudden clash of pans.

  Arrietty, half dozing, gazed up at her painted ceiling. "FLOR DE HAVANA," proclaimed the banners proudly. "Garantizados ... Superiores ... Non Plus Ultra ... Esquisitos..." and the lovely gauzy ladies blew their trumpets, silently, triumphantly, on soundless notes of glee....

  Chapter Seven

  FOR the next three weeks Arrietty was especially "good": she helped her mother tidy the storerooms; she swept and watered the passages and trod them down: she sorted and graded the beads (which they used as buttons) into the screw tops of aspirin bottles; she cut old kid gloves into squares for Pod's shoemaking; she filed fish-bone needles to a bee-sting sharpness; she hung up the washing to dry by the grating so that it blew in the soft air; and at last the day came—that dreadful, wonderful, never-to-be-forgotten day —when Homily, scrubbing the kitchen table, straightened her back and called "Pod!"

  He came in from his workroom, last in hand.

  "Look at this brush!" cried Homily. It was a fiber brush with a plaited, fiber back.

  "Aye," said Pod, "worn down."

  "Gets me knuckles now," said Homily, "every time I scrub."

  Pod looked worried. Since he had been "seen," they had stuck to kitchen borrowing, the bare essentials of fuel and food. There was an old mousehole under the kitchen stove upstairs which, at night when the fire was out or very low, Pod could use as a chute to save carrying. Since the window-curtain incident they had pushed a match-box chest of drawers below the mousehole, and had stood a wooden stool on the chest of drawers; and Pod, with much help and shoving from Homily, had learned to squeeze up the chute instead of down. In this way he need not venture into the great hall and passages; he could just nip out, from under the vast black stove in the kitchen, for a clove or a carrot or a tasty piece of ham. But it was not a satisfactory arrangement: even when the fire was out, often there was hot ash and cinders under the stove and once as he emerged, a great brush came at him wielded by Mrs. Driver; and he slithered back on tot) of Homily singed shaken' and coughing dust. Another time for some reason the fire had been in full blaze and Pod had arrived suddenly beneath a glowing inferno dropping white-hot coals But usually at night, the fire was out, and Pod could pick his through the cinders into the kitchen proper.

  "Mrs. Driver's out," Homily went on. "It's her day off. And She"—they always spoke of Aunt Sophy as "She"—"is safe enough in bed."

  "It's not them that worries me," said Pod.

  "Why," exclaimed Homily sharply, "the boy's not still here?"

  "I don't know," said Pod; "there's always a risk," he added.

  "And there always will be," retorted Homily, "like when you was in the coal cellar and the coal cart came."

  "But the other two," said Pod, "Mrs. Driver and Her, I always know where they are, like."

  "As for that," exclaimed Homily, "a boy's even better. You can hear a boy a mile off. Well," she went on after a moment, "please yourself. But it's not like you to talk of risks...."

  Pod sighed. "All right," he said and turned away to fetch his borrowing-bag.

  "Take the child," called Homily after him.

  Pod turned. "Now, Homily," he began in an alarmed voice.

  "Why not?" asked Homily sharply. "It's just the day. You aren't going no farther than the front door. If you're nervous you can leave her by the clock, ready to nip underneath and down the hole. Let her just see at any rate. Arrietty!"

  As Arrietty came running in, Pod tried again. "Now listen, Homily—" he protested.

  Homily ignored him. "Arrietty," she said brightly, "would you like to go along with your father and borrow me some brush fiber from the doormat in the hall?"

  Arrietty gave a little skip. "Oh," she cried, "could I?"

  "Well, take your apron off," said Homily, "and change your boots. You want light shoes for borrowing—better wear the red kid." And then as Arrietty spun away Homily turned to Pod: "She'll be all right," she said; "you'll see."

  As she followed her father down the passage Arrietty's heart began to beat faster. Now the moment had come at last she found it almost too much to bear. She felt light and trembly, and hollow with excitement.

  They had three borrowing-bags between the two of them ("In case," Pod had explained, "we pick up something. A bad borrower loses many a chance for lack of an extra bag") and Pod laid these down to open the first gate, which was latched by a safety pin. It was a big pin, too strongly sprung for little hands to open, and Arrietty watched her father swing his whole weight on the bar and his feet kick loose off the ground. Hanging from his hands, he shifted his weight along the pin toward the curved sheath and, as he moved, the pin sprang open and he, in the same instant, jumped free. "You couldn't do that," he remarked, dusting his hands; "too light. Nor could your mother. Come along now. Quietly...."

  There were other gates; all of which Pod left open ("Never shut a gate on the way out," he explained in a whisper, "you might need to get back quick") and, after a while, Arrietty saw a faint light at the end of the passage. She pulled her father's sleeve. "Is that it?" she whispered.

  Pod stood still. "Quietly, now," he warned her. "Yes, that's it: the hole under the clock!" As he said these words, Arrietty felt breathless but, outwardly, she m
ade no sign. "There are three steps up to it," Pod went on, "steep like, so mind how you go. When you're under the clock you just stay there; don't let your mind wander and keep your eyes on me: if all's clear, I'll give you the sign."

  The steps were high and a little uneven but Arrietty took them more lightly than Pod. As she scrambled past the jagged edges of the hole she had a sudden blinding glimpse of molten gold: it was spring sunshine on the pale stones of the hall floor. Standing upright, she could no longer see this; she could only see the cave-like shadows in the great case above her and the dim outline of the hanging weights. The hollow darkness around her vibrated with sound; it was a safe sound—solid and regular; and, far above her head, she saw the movement of the pendulum; it gleamed a little in the half light, remote and cautious in its rhythmic swing. Arrietty felt warm tears behind her eyelids and a sudden swelling pride: so this, at last, was The Clock! Their clock ... after which her family was named! For two hundred years it had stood here, deep-voiced and patient, guarding their threshold, and measuring their time.

  But Pod, she saw, stood crouched beneath the carved archway against the light: "Keep your eyes on me," he had said, so Arrietty crouched too. She saw the gleaming golden stone floor of the hall stretching away into distance; she saw the edges of rugs, like richly colored islands in a molten sea, and she saw, in a glory of sunlight—like a dreamed-of gateway to fairyland—the open front door. Beyond she saw grass and, against the clear, bright sky, a waving frond of green.

  Pod's eyes slewed round. "Wait," he breathed, "and watch." And then in a flash he was gone.

  Arrietty saw him scurry across the sunlit floor. Swiftly he ran—as a mouse runs or a blown dry leaf—and suddenly she saw him as "small." "But," she told herself, "he isn't small. He's half a head taller than Mother...." She watched him run round a chestnut-colored island of doormat into the shadows beside the door. There, it seemed, he became invisible.

  Arrietty watched and waited. All was still except for a sudden whirr within the clock. A grinding whirr it was, up high in the hollow darkness above her head, then the sliding grate of slipped metal before the clock sang out its chime. Three notes were struck, deliberate and mellow: "Take it or leave it," they seemed to say, "but that's the time—"

  A sudden movement near the shadowed lintel of the front door and there was Pod again, bag in hand, beside the mat; it rose knee deep before him like a field of chestnut corn. Arrietty saw him glance toward the clock and then she saw him raise his hand.

  Oh, the warmth of the stone flags as she ran across them ... the gladdening sunlight on her face and hands ... the awful space above and around her! Pod caught her and held her at last, and patted her shoulder. "There, there..." he said, "get your breath—good girl!"

  Panting a little, Arrietty gazed about her. She saw great chair legs rearing up into sunlight; she saw the shadowed undersides of their seats spread above her like canopies; she saw the nails and the strapping and odd tags of silk and string; she saw the terraced cliffs of the stairs, mounting up into the distance, up and up ... she saw carved table legs and a cavern under the chest. And all the time, in the stillness, the clock spoke—measuring out the seconds, spreading its layers of calm.

  And then, turning, Arrietty looked at the garden. She saw a graveled path, full of colored stones—the size of walnuts they were with, here and there, a blade of grass between them, transparent green against the light of the sun. Beyond the path she saw a grassy bank rising steeply to a tangled hedge; and beyond the hedge she saw fruit trees, bright with blossom.

  "Here's a bag," said Pod in a hoarse whisper; "better get down to work."

  Obediently Arrietty started pulling fiber; stiff it was and full of dust. Pod worked swiftly and methodically, making small bundles, each of which he put immediately in the bag. "If you have to run suddenly," he explained, "you don't want to leave nothing behind."

  "It hurts your hands," said Arrietty, "doesn't it?" and suddenly she sneezed.

  "Not my hands it doesn't," said Pod; "they're hardened like," and Arrietty sneezed again.

  "Dusty, isn't it?" she said.

  Pod straightened his back. "No good pulling where it's knotted right in," he said, watching her. "No wonder it hurts your hands. See here," he exclaimed after a moment, "you leave it! It's your first time up like. You sit on the step there and take a peek out of doors."

  "Oh, no—" Arrietty began ("If I don't help," she thought, "he won't want me again") but Pod insisted.

  "I'm better on me own," he said. "I can choose me bits, if you see what I mean, seeing as it's me who's got to make the brush."

  Chapter Eight

  THE step was warm but very steep. "If I got down on to the path," Arrietty thought, "I might not get up again," so for some moments she sat quietly. After a while she noticed the shoe-scraper.

  "Arrietty," called Pod softly, "where have you got to?"

  "I just climbed down the shoe-scraper," she called back.

  He came along and looked down at her from the top of the step. "That's all right," he said after a moment's stare, "but never climb down anything that isn't fixed like. Supposing one of them came along and moved the shoe-scraper—where would you be then? How would you get up again?"

  "It's heavy to move," said Arrietty.

  "Maybe," said Pod, "but it's movable. See what I mean? There's rules, my lass, and you got to learn."

  "This path," Arrietty said, "goes round the house. And the bank does too."

  "Well," said Pod, "what of it?"

  Arrietty rubbed one red kid shoe on a rounded stone. "It's my grating," she explained. "I was thinking that my grating must be just round the corner. My grating looks out on to this bank."

  "Your grating!" exclaimed Pod. "Since when has it been your grating?"

  "I was thinking," Arrietty went on. "Suppose I just went round the corner and called through the grating to Mother?"

  "No," said Pod, "we're not going to have none of that. Not going round corners."

  "Then," went on Arrietty, "she'd see I was all right like."

  "Well," said Pod, and then he half smiled, "go quickly then and call. I'll watch for you here. Not loud mind!"

  Arrietty ran. The stones in the path were firmly bedded and her light, soft shoes hardly seemed to touch them. How glorious it was to run—you could never run under the floor: you walked, you stooped, you crawled—but you never ran. Arrietty nearly ran past the grating. She saw it just in time after she turned the corner. Yes, there it was quite close to the ground, embedded deeply in the old wall of the house; there was moss below it in a spreading, greenish stain.

  Arrietty ran up to it. "Mother!" she called, her nose against the iron grille. "Mother!" She waited quietly and, after a moment, she called again.

  At the third call Homily came. Her hair was coming down and she carried, as though it were heavy, the screw lid of a pickle jar, filled with soapy water. "Oh," she said in an annoyed voice, "you didn't half give me a turn! What do you think you're up to? Where's your father?"

  Arrietty jerked her head sideways. "Just there—by the front door!" She was so full of happiness that, out of Homily's sight, her toes danced on the green moss. Here she was on the other side of the grating—here she was at last, on the outside—looking in!

  "Yes," said Homily, "they open that door like that—the first day of spring. Well," she went on briskly, "you run back to your father. And tell him, if the morning-room door happens to be open that I wouldn't say no to a bit of red blotting paper. Mind, out of my way now—while I throw the water!"

  "That's what grows the moss," thought Arrietty as she sped back to her father, "all the water we empty through the grating...."

  Pod looked relieved when he saw her but frowned at the message. "How's she expect me to climb that desk without me pin? Blotting paper's a curtain-and-chair job and she should know it. Come on now! Up with you!"

  "Let me stay down," pleaded Arrietty, "just a bit longer. Just till you finish. They're all out.
Except Her. Mother said so."

  "She'd say anything," grumbled Pod, "when she wants something quick. How does she know She won't take it into her head to get out of that bed of Hers and come downstairs with a stick? How does she know Mrs. Driver ain't stayed at home today—with a headache? How does she know that boy ain't still here?"

  "What boy?" asked Arrietty.

  Pod looked embarrassed. "What boy?" he repeated vaguely and then went on: "Or may be Crampfurl—"

  "Crampfurl isn't a boy," said Arrietty.

  "No, he isn't," said Pod, "not in a manner of speaking. No," he went on as though thinking this out, "no, you wouldn't call Crampfurl a boy. Not, as you might say, a boy—exactly. Well," he said, beginning to move away, "stay down a bit if you like. But stay close!"

  Arrietty watched him move away from the step and then she looked about her. Oh, glory! Oh, joy! Oh, freedom! The sunlight, the grasses, the soft, moving air and halfway up the bank, where it curved round the corner, a flowering cherry tree! Below it on the path lay a stain of pinkish petals and, at the tree's foot, pale as butter, a nest of primroses.

  Arrietty threw a cautious glance toward the front doorstep and then, light and dancey, in her soft red shoes, she ran toward the petals. They were curved like shells and rocked as she touched them. She gathered several up and laid them, one inside the other ... up and up ... like a card castle. And then she spilled them. Pod came again to the top of the step and looked along the path. "Don't you go far," he said after a moment. Seeing his lips move, she smiled back at him: she was too far already to hear the words.

  A greenish beetle, shining in the sunlight, came toward her across the stones. She laid her fingers lightly on its shell and it stood still, waiting and watchful, and when she moved her hand the beetle went swiftly on. An ant came hurrying in a busy zigzag. She danced in front of it to tease it and put out her foot. It stared at her, nonplused, waving its antennae; then pettishly, as though put out, it swerved away. Two birds came down, quarreling shrilly, into the grass below the tree. One flew away but Arrietty could see the other among the moving grass stems above her on the slope. Cautiously she moved toward the bank and climbed a little nervously in amongst the green blades. As she parted them gently with her bare hands, drops of water plopped on her skirt and she felt the red shoes become damp. But on she went, pulling herself up now and again by rooty stems into this jungle of moss and wood-violet and creeping leaves of clover. The sharp-seeming grass blades, waist high, were tender to the touch and sprang back lightly behind her as she passed. When at last she reached the foot of the tree, the bird took fright and flew away and she sat down suddenly on a gnarled leaf of primrose. The air was filled with scent. "But nothing will play with you," she thought and saw the cracks and furrows of the primrose leaves held crystal beads of dew. If she pressed the leaf these rolled like marbles. The bank was warm, almost too warm here within the shelter of the tall grass, and the sandy earth smelled dry. Standing up, she picked a primrose. The pink stalk felt tender and living in her hands and was covered with silvery hairs, and when she held the flower, like a parasol, between her eyes and the sky, she saw the sun's pale light through the veined petals. On a piece of bark she found a wood louse and she struck it lightly with her swaying flower. It curled immediately and became a ball, bumping softly away downhill in amongst the grass roots. But she knew about wood lice. There were plenty of them at home under the floor. Homily always scolded her if she played with them because, she said, they smelled of old knives. She lay back among the stalks of the primroses and they made a coolness between her and the sun, and then, sighing, she turned her head and looked sideways up the bank among the grass stems. Startled, she caught her breath. Something had moved above her on the bank. Something had glittered. Arrietty stared.