The Borrowers Afloat (4 page)

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.

"Borrow
what?
" asked Hendreary. "No, it isn't borrowers we want; on the contrary"—he glanced across the table, and Homily, meeting his eye, suddenly turned pink— "it's something left to borrow. They won't leave a crumb behind, those two, not if I know 'em. We'll have to live, from now on, on just what we've saved..."

"For as long as it lasts," said Lupy grimly.

"For as long as it lasts," repeated Hendreary, "and such as it is." All their eyes grew wider.

"Which it won't do forever," said Lupy. She glanced up at her store shelves and quickly away again. She too had become rather red.

"About borrowing..." ventured Homily. "I was meaning out-of-doors ... the vegetable patch ... beans and peas ... and suchlike."

"The birds will have them," said Hendreary, "with this house closed and the human beings gone. The birds always know in a trice.... And what's more," he went on, "there's more wild things and vermin in these woods than in all the rest of the county put together ... weasels, stoats, foxes, badgers, shrikes, magpies, sparrow hawks, crows..."

"That's enough, Hendreary," Pod put in quickly. "Homily's feeling faint...."

"It's all right..." murmured Homily. She took a sip of water out of the acorn cup, and staring down at the table, she rested her head on her hand.

Hendreary, carried away by the length of his list, seemed not to notice. "...owls and buzzards," he concluded in a satisfied voice. "You've seen the skins for yourselves nailed up on the outhouse door, and the birds strung up on a thornbush, gamekeeper's gibbet they call it. He keeps them down all right, when he's well and about. And the boy, too, takes a hand. But with them two gone—!" Hendreary raised his gaunt arms and cast his eyes toward the ceiling.

No one spoke. Arrietty stoke a look at Timmus, whose face had become very pale.

"And when the house is closed and shuttered," Hendreary went on again suddenly, "how do you propose to get out?" He looked round the table triumphantly as one who had made a point. Homily, her head on her hand, was silent. She had begun to regret having spoken.

"There's always ways," murmured Pod.

Hendreary pounced on him. "Such as?" When Pod did not reply at once, Hendreary thundered on, "The last time they went away we had a plague of field mice ... the whole house awash with them, upstairs and down. Now when they lock up, they lock up proper. Not so much as a spider could get in!"

"Nor out," said Lupy, nodding.

"Nor out," agreed Hendreary, and as though exhausted by his own eloquence, he took a sip from the cup.

For a moment or two no one spoke. Then Pod cleared his throat. "They won't be gone forever," he said.

Hendreary shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?"

"Looks to me," said Pod, "that they'll always need a gamekeeper. Say this one goes, another moves in like. Won't be empty long—a good house like this on the edge of the coverts, with water laid on in the washhouse...."

"Who knows?" said Hendreary again.

"Your problem, as I see it," went on Pod, "is to hold out over a period."

"That's it," agreed Hendreary.

"But you don't know for how long; that's your problem."

"That's it," agreed Hendreary.

"The farther you can stretch your food," Pod elaborated, "the longer you'll be able to wait...."

"Stands to reason," said Lupy.

"And," Pod went on, "the fewer mouths you have to feed, the farther the food will stretch."

"That's right," agreed Hendreary.

"Now," went on Pod, "say there are six of you..."

"Nine," said Hendreary, looking round the table, "to be exact."

"You don't count us," said Pod. "Homily, Arrietty, and me—we're moving out." There was a stunned silence round the table as Pod, very calm, turned to Homily. "That's right, isn't it?" he asked her.

Homily stared back at him as though he were crazy, and, in despair, he nudged her with his foot. At that she swallowed hastily and began to nod her head. "That's right..." she managed to stammer, blinking her eye-lids.

Then pandemonium broke out: questions, suggestions, protestations, and arguments.... "You don't know what you're saying, Pod," Hendreary kept repeating, and Lupy kept on asking, "Moving out where to?"

"No good being hasty, Pod," Hendreary said at last. "The choice of course is yours. But we're all in this together, and for as long as it lasts"—he glanced around the table as though putting the words on record—"and such as it is, what is ours is yours."

"That's very kind of you, Hendreary," said Pod.

"Not at all," said Hendreary, speaking rather too smoothly, "it stands to reason."

"It's only human," put in Lupy: she was very fond of this word.

"But," went on Hendreary, as Pod remained silent, "I see you've made up your mind."

"That's right," said Pod.

"In which case," said Hendreary, "there's nothing we can do but adjourn the meeting and wish you all good luck!"

"That's right," said Pod.

"Good luck, Pod," said Hendreary.

"Thanks, Hendreary," said Pod.

"And to all three valiant souls—Pod, Homily, and little Arrietty—good luck and good borrowing!"

Homily murmured something and then there was silence: an awkward silence while eyes avoided eyes. "Come on, me old girl," said Pod at last, and turning to Homily, he helped her to her feet. "If you'll excuse us," he said to Lupy, who had become rather red in the face again, "we got one or two plans to discuss."

They all rose, and Hendreary, looking worried, followed Pod to the door. "When do you think of leaving, Pod?"

"In a day or two's time," said Pod, "when the coast's clear down below."

"No hurry, you know," said Hendreary. "And any tackle you want—"

"Thanks," said Pod.

"...just say the word."

"I will," said Pod. He gave a half-smile, rather shy, and went on through the door.

Chapter Six

Homily went up the laths without speaking; she went straight to the inner room and sat down on the bed. She sat there shivering slightly and staring at her hands.

"I had to say it," said Pod, "and we have to do it, what's more."

Homily nodded.

"You see how we're placed?" said Pod.

Homily nodded again.

"Any suggestions?" said Pod. "Anything else we could do?"

"No," said Homily, "we've got to go. And what's more," she added, "we'd have had to anyway."

"How do you make that out?" said Pod.

"I wouldn't stay here with Lupy," declared Homily, "not if she bribed me with molten gold, which she isn't likely to. I kept quiet, Pod, for the child's sake. A bit of young company, I thought, and a family background. I even kept quiet about the furniture...."

"Yes, you did," said Pod.

"It's only—" said Homily, and again she began to shiver, "that he went on so about the vermin...."

"Yes, he did go on," said Pod.

"Better a place of our own," said Homily.

"Yes," agreed Pod, "better a place of our own..." But he gazed round the room in a hunted kind of way, and his flat round face looked blank.

When Arrietty arrived upstairs with Timmus, she looked both scared and elated.

"Oh," said Homily, "here you are." And she stared rather blankly at Timmus.

"He would come," Arrietty told her, holding him tight by the hand.

"Well, take him along to your room. And tell him a story or something...."

"AH right. I will in a minute. But, first, I just wanted to ask you—"

"Later," said Pod, "there'll be plenty of time: we'll talk about everything later."

"That's right," said Homily. "You tell Timmus a story."

"Not about owls?" pleaded Timmus; he still looked rather wide-eyed.

"No," agreed Homily, "not about owls. You ask her to tell you about the dollhouse"—she glanced at Arrietty—"or that other place—what's it called now?—that place with the plaster borrowers?"

But Arrietty seemed not to be listening. "You did mean it, didn't you?" she burst out suddenly.

Homily and Pod stared back at her, startled by her tone. "Of course, we meant it," said Pod.

"Oh," cried Arrietty, "thank goodness ... thank goodness," and her eyes filled suddenly with tears. "To be out of doors again ... to see the sun, to..." Running forward, she embraced them each in turn. "It will be all right—I know it will!" Aglow with relief and joy, she turned back to Timmus. "Come, Timmus, I know a lovely story—better than the dollhouse—about a whole town of houses: a place called Little Fordham...."

This place, of recent years, had become a kind of legend to borrowers. How they got to know it no one could remember—perhaps a conversation overheard in some kitchen and corroborated later through dining room or nursery—but know of it they did. Little Fordham, it appeared, was a complete model village. Solidly built, it stood out of doors in all weather in the garden of the man who had designed it, and it covered half an acre. It had a church, with organ music laid on, a school, a row of shops, and—because it lay by a stream—its own port, shipping and custom houses. It was inhabited—or so they had heard—by a race of plaster figures, borrower-size, who stood about in frozen positions, or who, wooden-faced and hopeless, traveled interminably in trains. They also knew that from early morning until dusk troops of human beings wound around and about it, removed on asphalt paths and safely enclosed by chains. They knew—as the birds knew—that these human beings would drop litter—sandwich crusts, nuts, buns, half-eaten apples, ("Not that you can live on that sort of stuff," Homily would remark. "I mean, you'd want a change....") But what fascinated them most about the place was the number of empty houses—houses to suit every taste and every size of family: detached, semidetached, stuck together in a row, or standing comfortably each in its separate garden—houses that were solidly built and solidly roofed, set firmly in the ground, and that no human being, however curious, could carelessly wrench open—as they could with dollhouses—and poke about inside. In fact, as Arrietty had heard, doors and windows were one with the structure—there were no kinds of openings at all. But this was a drawback easily remedied. "Not that they'd open up the front doors—" she explained in whispers to Timmus as they lay curled up on Arrietty's bed. "Borrowers wouldn't be so silly: they'd burrow through the soft earth and get in underneath ... and no human being would know they were there."

"Go on about the trains," whispered Timmus.

And Arrietty went on, and on—explaining and inventing, creating another kind of life. Deep in this world she forgot the present crisis, her parents' worries and her uncle's fears, she forgot the dusty drabness of the rooms between the laths, the hidden dangers of the woods outside and that already she was feeling rather hungry.