The Borrowers Afield (16 page)

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Authors: Mary Norton

BOOK: The Borrowers Afield

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"Why didn't he stay for supper?"

"He don't ever," Hendreary told her. "Doesn't like company. He'll cook something on his own."

"Where?"

"In his stove."

"But that's miles away!"

"Not for Spiller—he's used to it. Goes part way by water."

"And it must be getting dark," Arrietty went on unhappily.

"Now don't you fret about Spiller," her uncle told her. "You eat up your pie...."

Arrietty looked down at her plate (pink celluloid, it was, part of a tea-service which she seemed to remember): somehow she had no appetite. She raised her eyes. "And when will he be back?" she asked anxiously.

"He don't come back much. Once a year for his new clothes. Or if young Tom sends 'im special."

Arrietty looked thoughtful. "He must be lonely," she ventured at last.

"Spiller? No ... I wouldn't say he was lonely. Some borrowers is made like that. Solitary. You get 'em now and again." He glanced across the room to where his daughter, having left the table, was sitting alone by the fire. "Eggletina's a bit like that ... Pity, but you can't do nothing about it. Them's the ones as gets this craze for humans—kind of man-eaters, they turns out to be..."

When Lupy returned, refreshed from her rest, it all began again: talk, talk, talk ... and Arrietty slipped unnoticed from the table. But, as she wandered away toward the other room, she heard it going on: talk about living arrangements, about the construction of a suite of rooms upstairs; about what pitfalls there were in this new way of life and the rules they had made to avoid such pitfalls-how you always drew the ladder up last thing at night but that it should never be moved while the men were out borrowing; that the young boys went out as learners, each in turn, but that, true to borrowing tradition, the women would stay at home. She heard her mother declining the use of the kitchen. "Thank you, Lupy," Homily was saying, "it's very kind of you but we'd better begin as we mean to go on, don't you think, quite separate."

And so it starts again, thought Arrietty, as entering the next room she seated herself in a stiff armchair. But no longer quite under the floor—up a little, they would be now, among the lath and plaster: there would be ladders instead of dusty passages and that platform, she hoped, might do instead of her grating.

She glanced about her at the over-furnished room: the doll's house leftovers suddenly looked silly—everything for show and nothing much for use; the false coals in the fireplace looked worn as though scrubbed too often by Lupy and the painted views in the windows had finger-marks round the edge.

She wandered out to the dim-lit platform; this, with its dust and shadows—had she known of such things—was something like going backstage. The ladder was in place, she noticed—a sign that someone was out—but in this case, not so much "out" as "gone." Poor Spiller ... solitary, they had called him. Perhaps, thought Arrietty self-pityingly, that's what's the matter with me....

There was a faint light, she saw now, in the chasm below her; what at first had seemed a lessening of darkness seemed now a welcoming glow. Arrietty, her heart beating, took hold of the ladder and set her foot on the first rung. If I don't do it now, she thought desperately, this first evening—perhaps, in the future, I should never dare again; there seemed too many rules in Aunt Lupy's house, too many people, and the rooms seemed too dark and too hot. There may be compensations, she thought—her knees trembling a little as rung after rung she started to climb down—but I'll have to discover them myself.

Soon she stood once again in the dusty entrance hall; she glanced about her and then nervously she looked up; she saw the top of the ladder outlined against the light and the jagged edge of the high platform. It made her feel suddenly dizzy and more than a little afraid: suppose someone, not realizing she was below, decided to pull it up?

The faint light, she realized, came from the hole in the wainscot: the log-box, for some reason, was not laid flush against it—there might well be room to squeeze through. She would like to have one more peep at the room in which, some hours before, young Tom had set them down—to have some little knowledge, however fleeting, of this human dwelling which from now on would compose her world.

All was quiet as she stole toward the gothic-shaped opening. The log-box, she found, was a good inch and a half away. It was easy enough to slip out and ease her tiny body along the narrow passage left between the side of the box and the wall. Again a little frightening: suppose some human being decided suddenly to shove the log-box into place; she would be squashed, she thought, and found long afterwards glued to the wainscot, like some strange, pressed flower. For this reason, she moved fast, and reaching the box's corner, she stepped out on the hearth.

She glanced about the room. She could see the rafters of the ceiling, the legs of a Windsor chair and the underside of its seat. She saw a lighted candle on a wooden table, and, by its leg, a pile of skins on the floor—ah, this, she realized, was the secret of Spiller's wardrobe.

Another kind of fur lay on the table, just beyond the candle, above a piece of cloth—tawny yellow and somehow rougher. As she stared it seemed to stir. A cat? A fox? Arrietty froze to stillness but she bravely stood her ground. Now the movement became unmistakable: a roll over and a sudden lifting up.

Arrietty gasped—a tiny sound but it was heard.

A face looked back at her, candle-lit and drowsed with sleep, below its thatch of hair. There was a long silence. At last, the boy's lips curved softly into a smile—and very young, he looked, after sleeping, very harmless. The arm on which he had rested his head lay loosely on the table and Arrietty, from where she stood, had seen his fingers relax. A clock was ticking somewhere above her head; the candle flame rose, still and steady, lighting the peaceful room; the coals gave a gentle shudder and settled in the grate.

"Hallo," said Arietty.

"Hallo," replied young Tom.