by Mary Norton
“And still are, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Homily.
“Well, they won’t find us here,” said Pod. He looked round in a pleased way at their sitting room, which was now taking shape: the chairs and sofa were now unstacked, and they were sitting on them.
Homily rose to her feet. “I’ve got a bit of supper all ready in the kitchen,” she told them, and led the way down the steps to the passage under the floor.
Pod took one last look round. “I’ll cut a nice piece of glass to fit that grating,” he said. “Peagreen’s got plenty. And then, come winter, when they turn the central heating on, we’ll be snug as houses . . .”
Homily was very silent during supper, and a little absent-minded. When they had finished eating, she sat with one elbow on the table and, leaning a cheek upon her hand, stared downwards at her plate. Pod, looking at her across the table, seemed puzzled.
“Is anything on your mind, Homily?” he asked, after a longish silence. He knew how easily she could become worried.
She shook her head. “Not really . . .”
“But there is something?” persisted Pod.
“Nothing really,” said Homily, and began to gather up the plates. “It’s only . . .” “Only what, Homily?”
She sat down again. “It’s only . . . Well, I wish sometimes they’d never told us about that Lady Mullings.” “Why, Homily?”
“I don’t sort of like the idea of a ‘finder,’” she said.
Chapter Nineteen
There was no doubt that Homily very much enjoyed the snippets of human gossip with which Arrietty regaled her after visits to the church. Although the news of the Platters’ invasion of the model village had shocked and frightened her at the time, by the next day it had slid to the back of her mind, merging into a feeling of relief at their escape and the prospect of a safe and happy future.
Peagreen’s pictures were a great success. They were the size of postage stamps and, as Homily said, “went very well together.” Each painting was of a single object: a bumblebee with every glinting hair lovingly observed, its iridescent wings delicately transparent; blossoms of vetch, of speedwell, and of their familiar pimpernel; a striped fly; a snail emerging from its shell—all silver and gunmetal and whorling curves of golden brown—the head turned inquiringly towards them. “Why,” she exclaimed, “you could almost pick it up! Not that I would want to. And look at its eyes on stalks!”
Peagreen had stuck the fine canvas onto pieces of cardboard and, on the edge of each, he had painted a frame. It looked like a real frame: only by touching it did you find it was flat. (Some sixty years later, when repairs were being done to the house, these pictures were discovered by a human being; they aroused great wonder and were put into a collection.)
“He says they’re your Easter present,” Arrietty told her mother.
“What’s Easter?” asked Homily, wonderingly.
“Oh, I told you, Mother. Easter is next Sunday. And all the ladies will come and do the flowers for the church. Even Miss Menzies! I heard Lady Mullings say that, however busy she is, Miss Menzies would never miss helping with the flowers for Easter. Oh, Mother”—she sounded tearful—“I wish Papa would let me speak to her—just once! After all, when you come to think of it, everything we have we owe to Miss Menzies—this lovely room, the chiffonier, the cooking pots, our clothes . . . She loved us, Mother, she really did!”
“It wouldn’t do,” said Homily. “All our troubles started by you speaking to that boy. And you might say he loved us, too . . .” She sounded sarcastic.
“He did,” said Arrietty.
“And much good it did us,” retorted Homily.
“Oh, Mother, he saved our lives!”
“Which wouldn’t have been in danger but for him. No, Arrietty, your father’s right. Go down and listen to them as much as you like. But no speaking. No being ‘seen.’ We’ve got to trust you, Arrietty. Especially now, when you’ve got all this newfangled liberty . . .” Seeing the expression on Arrietty’s face, she added more gently, “Not that you and Timmus aren’t doing a very good job. And your Aunty Lupy thinks so, too.”
Some days before, Aunt Lupy and Uncle Hendreary had come to tea. It had taken a good deal of persuasion. The rectory was foreign ground to them, and they did not know quite what to expect. Nowadays neither of them went out of doors much: the church was their territory, and there they felt at home. And, although Aunt Lupy was thinner than she used to be, she did not much care for that scramble through the stone wall and the rough passage alongside the drainpipe: there was always the fear of getting stuck. However, Pod and Arrietty went to fetch them. Pod helped Lupy through the hole and guided her courteously along the path, through the paling of the wicket gate, and up to the opened grating. Arrietty stayed down in the church with Timmus—both of them delighted to miss the boredom of a grown-up tea party.
Once she was safely inside, Lupy was astonished at the grandeur of their dollhouse furniture. Homily, as polite as Pod on this occasion, took no credit for it. “All given,” she trilled gaily. “There’s nothing here we chose ourselves. Nor made, for that matter—except the walls and doors.”
Aunt Lupy had looked round wonderingly. “Very tasteful,” she said at last. “I like your wallpaper.”
“Do you?” exclaimed Homily with feigned surprise. “I thought it a bit dull.” Though, in reality, she had grown to admire it herself.
“I’d call it refined,” said Lupy.
“Oh, would you? I’m so glad. Of course, there’s a lot of good reading on it, if you bend yourself sideways . . .” The fact that neither Lupy nor Homily could read was gently ignored.
If there was a gleam of envy in Aunt Lupy’s eye when Homily brought out the doll’s tea service, she suppressed it quickly. That it was a little out of proportion did not seem to matter: Miss Menzies had searched high and low for cups small enough to suit such tiny fingers and a teapot that would not be too heavy for a tiny hand to hold. But large as the cups were, they were very pretty, with their pattern of wild forget-me-nots, and Homily always remembered only to half-fill the teapot.
After tea, Lupy was taken to see the kitchen. She expressed some surprise at the long walk under the floor. “I wouldn’t like to have to carry our meals all this distance,” she said. “At home, I have only to slip back from the gas ring.”
“Yes. Very convenient,” agreed Homily politely. For some reason, she did not explain to Lupy that they never carried meals “all this distance” but ate them comfortably at the tiled table in front of the kitchen fire.
“And in winter,” went on Lupy, “they light up that big coke stove in the corner of the vestry. And what’s more, they keep it on all night.”
“Very cozy,” said Homily.
“And useful, for soups and stews and things like that.”
“Well, you were always a good manager, Lupy.”
By this time, they had reached the steps, and Homily paused for a moment. Pod had gone ahead to light the candles, and she wanted to give him time. Lupy was staring up the steps, mystified and very curious. “It looks very dark up there.”
“Not really,” said Homily: she had seen the gleam of candlelight. “Come along, I’ll show you . . .” and she led the way up into the chimney.
Lupy looked around with something like horror: the great draft space, the soot-darkened walls. She could not think of anything to say. Was this really their kitchen? Ah, there was a glint of light in the far corner . . .
“Better take my hand,” Homily was saying. “Careful of the sticks. The jackdaws drop them down . . .” Stooping, she picked up two recent ones and threw them onto the neater pile.
When at last they reached the little door with the title Essays of Emerson, Homily held it aside for Lupy to enter first. There was no mistaking the pride on her face, lit up as it was by the glow from two bright candles: the fire burning merrily (remade by Pod), the shelves, Miss Menzies’s cooking utensils, the spotless cleanliness . . .
�
�It’s very nice,” Lupy said at last. She sounded rather breathless.
“It is, rather,” Homily agreed modestly. “No drafts in here . . . just a bit of fresh air from above.”
Lupy looked up and glimpsed the distant sky. “Oh, I see, we’re in some kind of chimney.”
“Yes, a very large one. Sometimes the rain comes in. But not in this corner. But sometimes below that far wall, there’s quite a little pool.”
“You should keep a toad,” said Lupy firmly.
“A toad! Why?”
“To eat up the black beetles.”
“We have no black beetles,” retorted Homily coldly. How like Lupy to mention such a hazard! She felt deeply affronted. All the same, as they made their way back towards the entrance, she glanced a little fearfully at the pile of wood on the shadowy floor.
Chapter Twenty
“Where are you going, Sidney?” asked Mrs. Platter as Mr. Platter got up from the breakfast table, making his way rather lackadaisically towards the back door.
“To catch the pony,” he said in a bored voice. (Once they had employed a boy to do these chores.) “I’ll need the cart this morning. I’m not going to bicycle all the way to Fordham: that hill coming back just about kills you.”
“What are you on to at Fordham?” There was a note of hope in Mrs. Platter’s question. They had not been doing so well lately: people were not dying as often as they used to, and, now the Council estate was finished, they did not seem to be building many houses. She hoped he was on to a good job.
“It’s that Lady Mullings,” he told her, “and hardly worth the journey. Some of her windows got stuck with the rain last winter—wood swelled up, like. And she’s locked herself out of the attic and lost the key . . . We had a box of old keys somewhere. Where did you put it?”
“I didn’t put it anywhere. It’s where you always keep it: on one of the bottom shelves of your workshop.” She stood up suddenly. “Oh, Sidney!” she exclaimed.
He looked surprised at the sudden emotion in her voice. “What is it now?” he asked.
“Oh, Sidney!” she exclaimed again. “Don’t you see? This may be our last chance . . . Lady Mullings might get her feeling. Take the little apron!”
“Oh, that,” he said uncomfortably.
“You ought to have taken it weeks ago. But there you were—going on about not knowing quite what to say to her, feeling foolish, and all that. You should have taken it when you did her gutters.”
“It’s not my line, Mabel—psychic or physic, or whatever they call it. It’s such a silly little bit of a shred of a thing—who was I going to say it belonged to? It takes a bit of thinking about. I mean, how to bring the subject up, like, when all we was talking about was gutters. And I’ve got to bring up gutters again: she hasn’t paid my bill yet . . .”
Mrs. Platter went to a drawer in the dresser and drew out a small beige envelope. She laid it firmly on the table. “All you have to say to her, Sidney, is: ‘Lady Mullings, if it isn’t too much trouble, could you find out who the owner of this is and where they are living now?’ That’s all you have to say, Sidney, quite casual like. They are only words, Sidney, and what are words with our whole future at stake! Just hand it to her, as though it was your bill, or something. That’s all you have to do.”
“I’ll hand her my bill, too,” said Mr. Platter grimly. He picked up the envelope, looked at it distastefully, and put it in his pocket. “All right, I’ll take it.”
“It’s our last chance, Sidney, as I said before. It was you yourself who told me she was a finder and all about the church candlesticks and Mrs. Crabtree’s ring. If this fails, Sidney, we might just as well go to Australia.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Mabel!”
“It isn’t nonsense. And I don’t see much future for us here, unless—I say, unless—we can get back those tiresome creatures and display them in the showcase just as we had planned. As you have always said, there was money in them, all right! But your brother’s getting on now, and in the same line of business. And you remember what he said in his last letter? That he wouldn’t have minded taking on a partner? That was a broad hint if ever there was one. And—”
“All right, all right, Mabel,” Mr. Platter interrupted. “I said I’d take the envelope,” and he made, more hurriedly this time, for the outside door.
“It’s all washed and ironed and folded,” Mrs. Platter called after him. But he did not seem to hear.
The door was opened for Mr. Platter by Lady Mullings’s stiff and starched old house-parlormaid, and he was ushered into the hall. “Her Ladyship will be down in a minute,” he was told. “Pray take a seat.” Mr. Platter sat down on one of the straight-backed chairs beside the oak chest, took off his hat, and placed it on his knees and his tool bag beside him on the floor. Mr. Platter had always been a “front-door caller,” by reason of his status as undertaker and comforter of the bereaved (no common handyman he!), but he was always willing to oblige his more favored clients with small repairs in the hope of another funeral or a building contract to come. When at last Lady Mullings appeared, she seemed to be in a hurry. She flew down the stairs, hatted and veiled and pulling on her gloves. At the same moment, her gardener appeared from the back premises carrying two large buckets filled to overflowing with a variety of spring flowers.
“Oh, Mr. Platter, I am so relieved to see you. We are in a dreadful pickle here—” Mr. Platter had risen, and she was shaking him warmly by the hand. “How are you? And how is Mrs. Platter? Well, I hope. We can’t get into the attic, and it’s so tiresome. All the stuff for the jumble stall is locked up in there, and the church garden party is on Easter Monday. And those new windows you put in last spring seemed to have hermetically sealed themselves during the winter. And there are one or two other things—” She was opening the front door. “But Parkinson will explain to you . . .” She had turned to the gardener. “Those look wonderful, Henry! Are you sure you can manage them as far as the church? We don’t want any more bad backs, do we?” As the buckets were being carried through on to the pavement, she turned back to Mr. Platter. “I am so sorry, dear Mr. Platter, to be in such a rush. But yesterday being Good Friday and tomorrow Easter Sunday, we have only this one day in which to decorate the whole church. It’s always like this, I’m afraid. It’s the fault of the calendar.”
Mr. Platter almost leaped forwards to catch her before she closed the door. “One moment, my lady—”
She hesitated. “Only one, I’m afraid, Mr. Platter. I’m late already.”
Mr. Platter almost gabbled as he brought two beige envelopes out of his pocket. “Should I take the liberty of adding the account of today’s little jobs on to the account for the guttering?”
“Didn’t I pay you for guttering, Mr. Platter?”
“No, my lady, it must have slipped your memory.”
“Oh, dear, I am so sorry. What a juggins I am getting in my old age! Yes, yes. Add today’s account on to the other one. Of course, of course. Now, I really must be—”
“It just occurs to me, my lady, that I might not be here when you get back from the church.” He only just stopped himself from holding on to the door.
“Then send it through the post, Mr. Platter. Oh, no, I have my checkbook. When you’ve finished here, why not come along to the church? I shall be there most of the day. It’s only a step—”
“Very well, I’ll do that, my lady.” He was pushing one beige envelope back into his pocket, but the other one he was holding out towards her. This was the difficult moment, but he was determined to get it over with: you never knew with these people. By the time he got to the church, she might have gone off somewhere else—to tea with Miss Menzies or something. He couldn’t go chasing her around the village. “There’s just one thing, if you’ll forgive me detaining you just a bare second longer . . .”
Lady Mullings looked down at the envelope. “Not another account, Mr. Platter?”
Mr. Platter tried to smile—and almost managed it, but t
he hand that held the envelope was trembling slightly. “No, this is something quite different, something I promised my wife to do.” He had rehearsed this approach all the way down to Little Fordham: it was a maneuver he had once heard described as “passing the buck,” and he had decided to use it.
Lady Mullings seemed to hesitate. She liked men who tried to please their wives, and in all the long years she had known Mr. Platter, he had always been so kind, so tactful, so obliging. She glanced up the road and was reassured to see her gardener plodding along towards the church with the buckets. She turned back to Mr. Platter and took up the envelope. It felt soft. What could it be? Perhaps. Mrs. Platter had sent her a little present? A handkerchief or something? She began to feel touched already.
“It is something my wife cares very much about,” Mr. Platter was saying. “She knows your great gift, my lady, of being a finder, and she begs you that, when you have time and it isn’t too much trouble, you might be able to tell her who is the owner of this little thing in the envelope and where that owner is living at present. Please don’t bother to open it now,” he added quickly as he saw Lady Mullings was about to do so. “Any time will do.”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Platter. I never promise anything. Sometimes things happen, and sometimes they don’t. I don’t really have a ‘great gift,’ as you so kindly put it. Something just seems to work through me. I am just an empty vessel.” She felt in the little basket containing her picnic luncheon, took out her handbag, and placed the envelope, almost reverently, inside. “Please give my warmest regards to Mrs. Platter, and tell her I’ll do my very best.” And smiling very kindly at Mr. Platter, she closed the door gently behind her.
As Mr. Platter picked up his tool bag, he felt extremely pleased with himself. He felt he had “handled” Lady Mullings very successfully, all due to his own foresight and hard thinking as he had driven along in his cart. What he did not take into account (and it would never have occurred to him to do so) was Beatrice Mullings’s own character: that it was one which was incapable of thinking ill of others. And that, since the death of her husband and her two sons, she had devoted her life to her friends. Any call for help, however trivial, took first priority over all the other, more mundane duties of her daily life. She would have no curiosity about the contents of the beige envelope, only that the object it contained was somehow dear to Mrs. Platter and that news of its owner’s whereabouts must mean a great deal to her.