by Mary Norton
“It’s some of Wainscot’s resin mixture,” he told her. “It can be melted down again . . .” Triumphantly he carried the precious burden to a safe corner. “Your father will be pleased with this!”
The second brainwave came after the kitchen partitions had been erected and the sides glued firmly together with the help of strong strips of material cut by Pod from a dry—but grubby—floorcloth discarded by the caretakers. The little room had no ceiling, so that any smoke from Homily’s fire would escape into the vast chimney above. But Pod had made her a little door from a small book called Essays of Emerson. He had removed all the inside pages, glued the back of the book to the cardboard wall, and had left the front cover to swing to and fro against a small opening cut to the right size.
All the same, for all Pod’s cleverness and Peagreen’s bright ideas, it did not look like a particularly cheerful kitchen. The cardboard walls, now that they were erected, did not appear any too clean. There were footmarks on them here and there, and in spite of Homily’s efforts, they had collected grimy smears when laid out to dry on the floor. One could not wash so large an expanse of hearthstone with drops of water collected, drip by drip, into an eyecup. One could only brush it, as thoroughly as one could, with the heads of dried-up teasels.
It was then that Peagreen had his second brilliant idea. He remembered the roll of canvas on the top shelf of the library. It too formed a kind of cylinder. Tied and rolled, he could knock it to the floor. Pod could remove the loose tile in the fire surround, and between them, they could push the canvas through the gap.
No sooner thought of than achieved: Homily’s kitchen became lined and shining white and its enclosing walls even stronger. They pasted the canvas over the bookend, hiding it altogether, and now the little leather door looked like what it was—a little leather door. “And if ever the canvas should get a bit dingy with smoke,” Peagreen told them, “there’s plenty of whitewash in the game larder.”
“Maybe . . .” mused Pod, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully, “later on, I’ll fix some sort of a hood over the fire. But she’ll be pleased enough with it as it is for the time being.”
He smiled at Peagreen. Poets and painters might not be so good with their hands (whatever that meant), but they certainly were good with ideas. “Sure you won’t need some of this canvas for yourself?” he asked.
“There’s plenty left over,” Peagreen told him, looking down in a satisfied way at the odds and ends on the floor.
Homily was unwilling to visit the Hendrearys until her kitchen was finished. “The kitchen is the heart of the home,” she told Pod. “I don’t mind, for the moment, leaving all that stacked-up stuff in our living quarters. We can see to all that later at our leisure . . .”
And then, of course, there were the ghosts, but as Peagreen had prophesied, Arrietty soon got used to them. All the same, her attitude towards them differed a little from that of her parents and Peagreen: she never quite lost a sense of curiosity and wonder. Why should they suddenly appear and then, for no apparent reason, disappear and not be seen again for weeks? There seemed no logic in it.
She soon got used to The Footsteps. The first time she heard them was after the telephone had shrilled three times. Ready for flight into the conservatory in case she heard the warning scamper of feet along the tiles of the front hall, after a short silence she heard instead a slow and ponderous tread, which seemed, as she stood beside Peagreen in the library, to be coming down the main staircase. Who could it be? Not Mrs. Whitlace’s light, running steps, nor Mr. Whitlace’s slightly slower ones, unless, of course, he might be carrying something inordinately heavy. The Footsteps grew louder as they seemed to cross the hall. She waited tensely for the lifting of the receiver and for some kind of human voice. But nothing happened beyond the sound of a dull kind of stumble, followed by a sudden silence.
She turned an alarmed face to Peagreen and saw that he was laughing. “Nobody’s answered the telephone,” she whispered uneasily.
“Ghosts don’t,” said Peagreen.
“Oh,” exclaimed Arrietty, “was that . . . ? Do you mean . . . ?” She looked very scared.
“Those were The Footsteps. I told you about them.” He still seemed amused.
“But I don’t understand. I mean, could they hear the telephone?”
“No, of course not,” said Peagreen. He was really laughing now. “The telephone has nothing to do with it: it was just a coincidence.” He laid a hand on her arm. “It’s all right, Arrietty. There’s nothing to be frightened about: the Whitlaces are out.”
Yes, Peagreen was quite right: the real danger lay with human beings—not with harmless noises, however unearthly they might seem. Feeling rather a fool, she walked off into the conservatory, which was filled with sunlight. But she never showed (or even felt) fear of The Footsteps again.
The second ghost was The Little Girl on the Stairs. Actually, during those first weeks, Arrietty did not see her. For one reason because she appeared, slightly luminous, only at night. And, for another, because Arrietty very seldom went into the front hall. On her rare visits to the larder, she preferred Peagreen’s route along the ivy to the partly opened window. She really disliked that open, coverless trek across the vast kitchen floor and avoided it whenever she could. Pod had seen this vision regularly, on his nightly visits to collect old junk from the game larder. It was a little girl, dressed in her night clothes, crouched halfway up the curve of the main staircase. She seemed to be crying bitterly, although there was no sound. Pod had described her little nightcap, shaped like a baby’s bonnet, tied neatly below her chin. She was there most nights, he thought, weeping for a favorite brother “who had somehow got himself shot,” Peagreen had told them. The faint, pale light she gave out helped him to find his bearings as he made his way through the darkness of the hall. He found her very useful.
Last, but not least, was The Poor Young Man.
On that first morning after their arrival at the rectory, having risen early, Arrietty had glanced into the library through the half-open glass doors that led into the conservatory. Although she had not taken it in at the time, she recalled having seen something she had taken for a rolled-up rug, lying on the floor just in front of the fireplace. Then the squeaking of the wheels of Peagreen’s wagon and the sudden appearance of Peagreen himself had made her forget all about it. She had never seen it since.
She remembered it again quite suddenly on the day when, the human beings being out, Peagreen—on the topmost of the library bookshelves—had maneuvered the roll of white canvas so that it fell at the feet of Pod, who had been waiting down below. She had turned away to the tap in the conservatory to get herself a drink of water, and when she returned again to the doors of the library to see what was going on, Peagreen and Pod, one at each end of it, were carrying the roll towards the hole in the fire surround left by the missing tile.
But there was something between them and it. Again she took it for a piece of rolled-up carpet and went forwards to see better. It was not a rug, or a piece of old rolled carpet; to her horror she saw it was a human being stretched full length in front of the hearth. Asleep? Dead? She jumped back and screamed.
Pod, panting a little as he supported the back end of the roll, had turned his head irritably. “Oh, do be quiet, Arrietty! We’ve got to concentrate.”
Arrietty had clapped her hand to her mouth, her eyes staring. “Gently does it . . .” Pod was saying to Peagreen, who had not turned his head.
“Oh, Papa!” Arrietty had gasped, “whatever is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Pod had reassured her. “It’s often there. You must have seen it. Lift your end up a bit, Peagreen. You’ve got the steps, remember. We’ve got to take it in on a slant . . .” Then as if suddenly aware of Arrietty’s distress, he had turned his head towards her. “It’s all right, girl, no need to fuss—it’s not a human being: a poor lad, they say, who shot himself. A kind of ghost, like. It won’t hurt you. A bit higher, Peagreen, once you’re insid
e the hole . . .”
Arrietty had watched dumfounded as Peagreen had walked straight through the object on the floor. He and her father had grown a little dim as they passed through the apparition, but her eyes could plainly follow the white gleam of the canvas.
At last, Peagreen had emerged at the far side and had disappeared into the hole. Pod, clearly visible again, had followed. There was a lot of panting and grunting and a few muffled orders, and Arrietty was left alone with the ghost.
To her surprise, her first feeling had been one of pity. They should not have walked through him like that. It showed—what did it show?—some kind of lack of respect: thinking of nothing but the job at hand? But Peagreen—? Well, she supposed that Peagreen, having lived at the rectory all his life, was so used to ghosts that he hardly noticed them.
The Poor Young Man . . . She had found herself moving closer to look at his face. Very pale, it was turned sideways against the floor, the dark curls falling back against the boards. It was a beautiful face, the lips gently parted, the long-lashed eyes not quite closed. He wore a frilled shirt and knee breeches, and looking back along the length of him, she could make out his buckled shoes. One arm had been flung out sideways, the fingers curved as though they had held some object no longer to be seen. He looked very young. Why had he shot himself? What had made him so sad? But even as she looked at him, her pity flowing over him, he had begun to disappear, to melt away into nothingness. It was, she felt, as though he had never been there. Perhaps he never had? She had been left staring at the floorboards and the familiar dark stain.
“Well, that’s that,” said a cheerful voice. She had looked up. It was Peagreen, appearing in the entrance to the hole and rubbing his hands in a satisfied way. “I thought we might never get that great roll up the steps. But it was easy. One good thing about these old hearths is that they do give one plenty of room.” He turned. “Oh, here’s your father. We better get the tile back now.”
Arrietty had stared at Peagreen, her look accusing. “You shouldn’t have walked through him like that—”
“But I didn’t. Who? What do you mean?”
“The Poor Young Man!”
Peagreen had laughed. “Oh, that! I thought you were referring to your father . . .”
“Of course I wasn’t: you couldn’t walk through my father.”
“No, I suppose one couldn’t.” He moved towards her. “But Arrietty, The Poor Young Man, as you call him, wasn’t really there at all: it was just a—” he had hesitated, “a photograph on air.” He thought a moment. “Or on Time, if you prefer. We had to get that canvas through the hole.”
“Yes, I know. But you could have waited.”
“Oh, Arrietty, if we had to wait for ghosts to disappear or appear all the time, we’d never get in or out of anywhere in this house.” He half turned. “Look, your father’s struggling with that tile. I’d better go and help him.”
After that Arrietty had never been frightened of The Poor Young Man again, but she was always careful to walk round him.
Chapter Seventeen
The next excitement (as soon as Homily’s kitchen was finished) was their long-delayed visit to the church.
“We can’t put it off any longer,” Pod said to Homily, “or Lupy will be offended. Spiller must have told them that we’re here.”
“I don’t intend to put it off any longer,” retorted Homily. “Now that my kitchen’s finished, I’m ready to go anywhere.” She was very happy with her kitchen. “And I’d like to see what sort of house they’ve got together. A church! Seems a funny kind of place to choose to live in . . . I mean, what is there to eat in a church?”
“Well, we’ll see,” said Pod.
They chose a bright, clear morning without a threat of rain. The party consisted of Pod, Homily, and Arrietty. Peagreen had excused himself, and Spiller was elsewhere. Homily had packed a few goodies in a borrowing bag so as not to arrive empty-handed, and all three felt very cheerful. After all the days of grueling work, this was an expedition—a welcome day off.
It felt strange to be walking away from the rectory and down an unfamiliar path. Birds were building in the box hedges, and there was moss underfoot at edges of the gravel. Spiller had given them directions: “When you see the vestry drain, that’s your place.”
As they slipped through the palings of the wicket gate that led into the churchyard, Arrietty saw a little figure moving towards them on the edge of the path. “Timmus!” she exclaimed and, leaving her more cautious parents behind, hurriedly dashed towards him. Yes, it was him—much thinner, a little taller, with a very brown sunburnt face. “Oh, Timmus!” she exclaimed again and was about to hug him, but then she hesitated: he had become so still and so staring, as if he could not believe his eyes. “Oh, Timmus, my Timmus . . .” she whispered again, and laid an arm round his shoulders. Upon which, he stooped suddenly as though to pick up something on the ground. She stooped down beside him, her arm still about his shoulders. “I thought I saw a grasshopper . . .” he mumbled, and she could hear a catch in his voice. “Oh, Timmus,” she whispered, “you’re crying. Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying,” he gulped. “Of course I’m not crying . . .” Suddenly he turned his face sideways towards her: it was aglow with happiness, but the tears were running down his cheeks. “I thought I was never going to see you no more.”
“Any more . . .” said Arrietty from habit: she had always corrected Timmus’s grammar.
“I was coming to find you,” he went on. “I keep looking for you.”
“Right up to the rectory? Oh, Timmus, you’d never have found us, not in that great place: we’re very hidden up there.” She had nothing to wipe his cheeks with, so she wiped them very gently with her fingers. “And you might have got caught yourself!”
“What on earth are you two doing, crouched down there on the path?” Pod and Homily had come up beside them. “How are you, Timmus?” Homily went on as Arrietty and Timmus stood up. “My, how you’ve grown! Come and give me a kiss.” Timmus did so: he was all smiles now. “How did you know we were coming?”
“He didn’t,” said Arrietty. “He was on his way to the rectory to find us.”
Homily looked grave. “Oh, you must never do that, Timmus, not on your own. You never know what you might find up at the rectory. A couple of human beans for a start! Is your mother in?”
“Yes, she’s in,” he said. “And my father, too.”
He led them to the drain beside the vestry wall. A lead pipe came out above it through a hole cut in the stones: there was plenty of room on one side of it for a borrower to squeeze past. Timmus went through first, agile as an eel. For the others, it was stiffer going, but they soon found the trick of it.
Inside, they found themselves beneath the stone sink, beside the rusty gas ring. Here they paused and looked about them.
It was a largish room and smelled faintly of stale cassocks. In the center was a square table covered with a red plush cloth, against which several chairs were set. They were of the type usually found in kitchens. Exactly opposite from where they stood was a large oaken press set into the wall of the church. The original wall of the church, Pod realized; the vestry must have been added on at a much later date. The press was iron-studded and had a very big keyhole. On one side of the press stood a large, boxlike piece of furniture, which Pod learned later was a disused harmonium. This was piled, almost to the ceiling, with shabby hymn books. On the other side of the press was a tall old desk, on which stood an open ledger, an inkwell, and what he took to be a selection of old pens. To their right, a whole wall was taken up by cassocks and surplices hanging on hooks. To their left were floor-length curtains of faded mulberry plush. These hung on wooden rings, separating the vestry from the main church. In the far corner stood an ugly iron stove, usually described as a “tortoise,” whose pipe ran up through the ceiling.
They did not take all this in at first glance because Timmus had run away from them across the flagstones. �
��I’ll just tell them you’re here,” he called back, and disappeared into a dark rectangular hole at the base of the instrument.
“So that’s where they live,” muttered Homily. “I wonder what it’s like inside.”
“Roomy,” said Pod.
After a few moments, Lupy appeared, wiping her hands on her apron—a thing, Homily noted, she would never have done in what might be called her grander days, when she had always been one to dress up smartly for visitors. She kissed Homily rather soberly, and then did the same to Pod. “Welcome,” she said, with a gentle un-Lupy-ish smile, “welcome to the house of the Lord.”
It was a strange greeting, Homily thought, as equally soberly she kissed Lupy back. At the same time, she noticed that Lupy had grown much thinner and had lost something of her bounce. “Come in, come in . . .” she was saying. “Hendreary and Timmus are lighting the candles. We’ve been expecting you this many a long day.”
Hendreary then appeared at the entrance hole, shaking out the flame of a match. Timmus came out beside his father; his brown little face was still aglow. There were further greetings and polite compliments as the visitors were ushered inside. Arrietty, Lupy declared, had become “quite the young lady,” and Homily herself was “looking very well.”
The vast interior was ablaze with light: there were candle stubs in every type of container. These warmed the great room as well as lighted it, and Homily, looking about her at the familiar pieces of furniture, thought these had gained elegance because of the ample space surrounding them. She hardly recognized the little snuffbox settee that once had been their own. What an age it had taken, she remembered, to pad and line it, but she felt very proud of it now.
She laid her small offering on one of the tables and stiffly took a seat. Lupy bustled about and produced some sawn-off nutshells, which she carefully filled with wine. “You can drink this,” she said, “with a clear conscience, because it has not yet been blessed.” Homily again was puzzled by the oddness of this remark, but she took a sip of the wine.