Mennyms Alive

by Sylvia Waugh

  “I’ll be back soon,” she said as she stood up. “I’m just going to see the others. They might be pleased to have a visitor.”

  With that she left the room and closed the door behind her, almost as if an instinct told her to be polite and allow her new guests time to talk alone.

  As soon as the door shut, Wimpey turned to look at her mother.

  “Does she know?” she asked in a scared whisper.

  “Hush!” said Joshua.

  Pilbeam squeezed Appleby’s hand to warn her not to speak. Appleby pulled her hand away and looked haughty. What do you think I am, the look said, totally stupid?

  The footsteps went clumsily up the second staircase. As they died away, Vinetta turned to the others and said in low, urgent tones, “Whatever we do, whatever we suspect, we must not be lulled into giving ourselves away. You almost did, Wimpey. When you looked up at that cactus plant my heart was in my mouth!”

  On the floor above, a door opened and closed quite loudly.

  “But what do you make of her?” asked Pilbeam in the same low tones. “She talks as if we could hear.”

  “We can hear,” said Wimpey. “We’ve always been able to hear.”

  “But she doesn’t know that,” said Appleby. “She’s pretending. We’re not the only ones who have pretends.”

  “She talks to us,” insisted Wimpey.

  “She probably has long conversations with her cat,” said Appleby. “She’s some sort of nutter.”

  Vinetta looked annoyed.

  “We can do without cruel snap judgments,” she said. “Let’s just wait and see.”

  Upstairs, the door opened and closed again. Then another door could be heard opening, indicating that Daisy had gone into the next room.

  “Poopie talks to Paddy Black,” said Wimpey thoughtfully. “Nobody says Poopie’s a nutter.”

  That was true enough. Nobody would dare call Poopie a nutter!

  “Exactly,” said Vinetta, agreeing with Wimpey.

  But she was more interested in what was going on upstairs. “I think she must have gone to see Poopie,” she said. “We must be ready to go stiff and silent as soon as we hear her feet on the stairs. I hope the others are managing. It’s not easy, is it?”

  When the feet descended the stairs again their owner did not stop at the living room door. She passed by and went into the nursery.

  Poor Hortensia, thought Vinetta. She’ll be petrified!

  CHAPTER 17

  Puzzles

  WHEN DAISY CLOSED the living-room door behind her, she stood still for a few seconds in the hall and took a very deep breath.

  That doll moved its head, she thought. The doll I call Miranda moved its head to look up at the telly. Daisy’s scalp prickled at the thought of what that might mean. Then she pulled herself up sharp and set her reason to work.

  For the doll to move her head, deliberately move her head, was clearly impossible. It must have been an accident, a freak movement like the pen that appears to roll off the table of its own accord, or the plastic carrier bag that suddenly collapses because gravity has been operating very slowly. That must be it.

  If it weren’t for Billy, thought Daisy, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

  Billy Maughan was Daisy’s great-nephew. He had seen the dolls in the flat and had been delighted and amazed. It put him in mind of a mysterious adventure he had taken part in three years before. He had been ten at the time. He and some older friends had taken a life-sized blue doll from a deserted country house, meaning to use it for a guy on their bonfire. What happened next had terrified and bewildered them. The doll came to life and made its escape. Billy had told Daisy the whole of this story, but made her promise to tell no one. His parents certainly had no suspicion of their son’s nocturnal adventures!

  “I imagined it,” murmured Daisy to herself as she tackled the staircase, not using her stick but keeping it crooked over her arm, ready for support when she reached the landing. For the staircase itself she relied on the help of the bannister.

  “It’s easy to imagine things,” she said.

  But she tapped quite loudly at the door of the big front bedroom, and this time it was not just part of the game, it was a precaution. Of course the dolls weren’t alive . . . they couldn’t be.

  Daisy opened the bedroom door and went in. ‘Granny’ was there, sitting in her armchair with her knitting, ‘Grandad’ was propped up in bed with his book. Daisy nodded to both of them and smiled.

  “I hope you’re comfortable,” she said. “It may not be what you’re used to, but it is a pleasant flat. I’ve always loved the view from this window.”

  She went across and looked out briefly at the bridges and the river.

  Then, turning her gaze to the room again, she noticed Sir Magnus’s purple foot dangling from the counterpane. That was surely not as she had left it?

  Must have slipped out, she thought, carefully controlling her active imagination. She lifted the foot and tucked it back into bed. Its owner only just resisted the temptation to thrust it out again!

  Daisy sat on the stool by the dressing table and gave Tulip a friendly smile.

  “I hope you enjoy knitting,” she said. “You look like a knitter. I’m sorry my effort to provide you with the right ‘props’ is not very good. Knitting was never one of my strong points. Machinery is more my going! I would have made a good mechanic!”

  She turned to the doll in the bed.

  “My eyes are not what they used to be,” she said, “but you look as if you’re managing quite well. That book came from Brocklehurst Grove, you know. There was a whole bookcase full of them. All about the Civil War. Funny that. You would never think there was so much to tell. The only thing I remember about it is the story of Charles the First being beheaded in 1649 and it being a cold morning in January. It was a lovely history lesson, that. I always liked history.”

  Sir Magnus did not move his head. And button eyes do not swivel as human eyes do. But something about him registered alertness. He could almost love Daisy for remembering the king who wore two shirts at his execution lest he should shiver and be thought afraid.

  “I would take you both downstairs,” said Daisy, “for a change of scene, but I don’t think I could manage it. When young Billy comes again, we’ll see what we can do. I’m thinking seriously about having a chair-lift put on the stairs. It would be easier for me, and you could both ride down to join us all for dinner.”

  It was Tulip’s turn to be mystified. She sat outwardly impassive in her armchair, but her brain was working in top gear. What does she know, this woman? Why does she talk to us this way? You’d think she knew we could hear her. She should really assume that we can’t. She is playing a game, thought Tulip. That must be it. She’s playing a game with us, as if we were nothing but . . . and Tulip stopped short as she realised that her thoughts were tying themselves in knots!

  “You’re very dainty,” said Daisy to Tulip, turning her full attention on the little woman in the armchair. “I always wanted to be dainty. But I’m what they call an endomorph. You would be classed as an ectomorph. Lovely words. But in plain English, you’re nice and thin, and I am fat.”

  Tulip was mollified by these words. She liked being neat and presenting a trim figure. Even a rag doll can be susceptible to flattery. A pleasant woman, thought Tulip. A bit odd, but undeniably pleasant.

  “Now I’m off to see the boy in the next room,” said Daisy. “Then it’s down those stairs again to look in on Nanny and the baby. I’ve a taxi ordered for eight-thirty. I always go home by taxi, have done for years now. I’ll look in again on Wednesday afternoon – it’s half-day closing. I won’t be able to manage tomorrow – too much to see to at home. Good night, now, and take care.”

  Daisy left the room and shut the door quite loudly behind her.

  I felt as if he was listening, thought Daisy, when I mentioned the history lesson . . . but there she stopped herself. I must stop being so fanciful!

 
So she deliberately turned away from the floppy-eared rabbit in the corner of Poopie’s room. She admired the training tower, and talked to Poopie about Billy. Not by the shift of an eye did she betray her consciousness of the presence of the rabbit. Her heart beat faster as she thought, that rabbit was downstairs in the baby’s playpen. I’m sure it was. But I suppose I could be wrong. Or there could be two of them.

  These thoughts occupied her mind until she reached the nursery.

  Miss Quigley looked up as the door began to open and then had no time look down again. She knew, only too well she knew, that she must remain completely still. Googles had already been told to play dead.

  Daisy came in, stood with one hand on the doorknob and looked around the room with a glance that was as casual as she could make it. There was no rabbit in the playpen.

  “I could have sworn there was a rabbit in that playpen,” she said, looking directly at Miss Quigley who appeared to be looking directly back. “But I must be mistaken. I’ve usually found there’s a rational explanation for most things that seem strange.”

  She sat down in the fireside chair opposite the nanny’s.

  “There was a time when we lived in Glenthorn Drive,” she said, being firm with herself. “My mam and dad had gone to the pictures. I got home first to an empty house. We had this bay window with curtains drawn across the front instead of round the inside. I went in and saw the toes of a pair of boots peeping from under the curtains. To be honest, I knew straightaway that they weren’t very big or I might have been more frightened. But I did think the house had been broken into and that some youngster was hiding there. I took the poker from the hearth and prodded the curtain. There was nobody there!”

  Daisy laughed.

  “It was just a pair of boots belonging to our Tommy!”

  She got up and went to the cupboard where she had put a baby’s bottle, another item brought from the house she had emptied.

  “There,” she said as she carefully fixed the bottle in Miss Quigley’s hand, folding her fingers around it. “You can give the baby her feed.”

  Then she lifted the stiff little doll from the playpen. Googles was perfect. Not by a flicker or a twitch did she betray the fact that there was life in her.

  Daisy placed the baby in the nanny’s arms and put the teat of the bottle to her lips.

  Poor Miss Quigley! If rag dolls had been liable to sweat she would have been oozing perspiration!

  Don’t suck the bottle, she prayed.

  It is not time to wake up. I am not cuddling you, she thought earnestly as if trying to reach Googles by telepathy. You must not move. You must not move.

  And Googles, bless her, remained totally inert.

  “Is that the time already?” said Daisy looking down at her watch. “Quarter past eight! I’ll just pop next door before my taxi comes. I wish I could stay longer! My little house in Hartside Gardens is comfy enough, but it’s not the same as being here with you.”

  Hortensia remembered the old days when the hall cupboard at Brocklehurst Grove had been her ‘little house’ in Trevethick Street. Is Hartside Gardens a cupboard? she thought. And love, that wonderful drifting feeling that moves about like magic, passed from the nanny to the shopkeeper with a warmth that could be felt in the room. Daisy, on her feet and ready to go, looked down at the baby and smiled.

  “I’m going now,” she said. “Take care.”

  She looked in at the living-room.

  “Goodbye, everyone,” she said. “I won’t be seeing you till Wednesday afternoon. So you’ll have the place all to yourselves!”

  By the time Daisy Maughan had shut the front door behind her and gone off in her taxi, the Mennyms were sure of just one thing. The woman whose house they now lived in was someone they could learn to love.

  But to trust? To trust with their secret?

  That was something else!

  CHAPTER 18

  News for Daisy

  DAISY WAS SITTING at home in Hartside Gardens on Tuesday evening, accounts all done, books all balanced, not to mention a pile of ironing all neatly pressed. The cleaning lady, Mrs Cooper, did most of Daisy’s housework, coming in twice a week, but on Tuesdays Daisy fended for herself. She was just about to watch the nine o’clock news when the telephone rang.

  “Hello?” said Daisy and waited for the caller to identify himself.

  “It’s Albert, Albert Pond,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I hope you don’t mind me ringing you this late. I have been meaning to get on to you since Saturday, only I’ve been very busy.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Daisy. “Too many things happening all at once.” She leant forward and switched off the television set. “How is everything? Has Jennifer made any decision about moving yet?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about – indirectly. We still don’t know what she intends to do, but Lorna and I have a bit of a problem. Did you know there’s an attic at Brocklehurst Grove?”

  “An attic?” said Daisy. There would be a loft under the roof, naturally, but Daisy hadn’t realised that there was a room up there. “A room?”

  “I don’t know how we missed it,” said Albert. “There’s a staircase leading to it at the end of the top floor landing. It is tucked away and . . .”

  Daisy laughed as she remembered the day they looked over the house together.

  “And I was so interested in the doll-room that we got no further. My people were meticulous in clearing everything out. But they never mentioned an attic. I suppose since the attic wasn’t on any of the lists they wouldn’t concern themselves with it . . .”

  “That makes sense,” said Albert. “The stairs don’t look as if they have ever been carpeted, so even the carpet wouldn’t have led them there.”

  “So what did you find in the attic?” asked Daisy. “More things to clear out?”

  “A fair bit more,” said Albert, “but that’s not the problem. I could have cleared most of it myself.”

  “So what is the problem?” asked Daisy.

  “The doll,” said Albert.

  “Yes?” said Daisy, already feeling apprehensive.

  “There’s a life-sized rag doll up there, sitting in a rocking chair,” said Albert. “It’s just like the others, except that it’s blue all over, hands, face and everything. But Lorna thought and I thought that it should be put with the others. So if you can send someone over to see to it, we really would be very grateful.”

  At the other end of the phone there was silence, the silence of someone stunned by the news. Another rag doll! A BLUE rag doll! Thoughts flipped over in Daisy’s mind . . . Billy and the blue doll, the purple foot, the rabbit, the head that moved . . .

  “Daisy,” said Albert. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” said Daisy. “Yes. I’m just thinking.”

  She did not want to say anything about Billy. It was much too complicated. And at that moment a convenient thought came to mind. “What about the keys?” she said. “I handed them back. We won’t be able to get in.”

  “I have to go to Manchester tomorrow,” said Albert. “I was going to suggest bringing you the keys this weekend, but I have business in Castledean on Thursday afternoon. I could drop them off then if you like.”

  “That’ll be fine,” said Daisy. “I could probably have the attic cleared on Friday. No point in waiting longer.”

  “I’ll just be able to pop in for a minute,” said Albert, remembering Daisy’s hospitality. “It really will be no more than a flying visit. Round about four o’clock, if that’s all right.”

  When she put the phone down, Daisy sat back, thinking of what his words could mean. There was a blue rag doll in the attic at Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove. Billy had seen a blue rag doll come to life far away in Allenbridge. Outside a country house there he had seen a girl doll skipping who he was sure looked exactly like the doll now called Miranda.

  “I don’t know what to make of it,” she said. “I just don’t know what to make
of it.”

  But she knew how she felt. She felt afraid and overawed.

  On that same Tuesday, just after ten-thirty, Soobie came to visit his family again. They talked deep into the night, speculating on what might happen next.

  In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Vinetta saw Soobie to the door.

  “See you tonight,” said Soobie.

  He paused on the front step to fix his goggles in place and pull his hood down over his head. This was the third time he had jogged there from Brocklehurst Grove and returned to the attic at daybreak.

  “I’ll be glad when you live here officially,” said Vinetta.

  “It shouldn’t be long,” said Soobie. “If Albert gives Daisy the keys on Saturday, as he said he would when I heard him and his wife talking about it in the attic, then perhaps I’ll be brought here this weekend.”

  Vinetta looked concerned.

  “Will you hate it, being carried as if you weren’t alive? Will you manage to play dead?”

  Soobie smiled, one hand on his mother’s shoulder.

  “If Googles can manage it,” he said, “I think I can.”

  He felt fully in control of the situation. He had no way of knowing that Albert had changed his plans, bringing forward by two days his visit to Daisy’s shop.

  CHAPTER 19

  Early Closing

  AT ONE-FIFTEEN ON Wednesday afternoon Daisy put on her coat and walked along to Number 39. She rang the doorbell very firmly three times before opening the door, as if she were warning a colony of mice to scuttle back to their holes. Shutting the door behind her, she shouted up the stairs, “Hello there. Don’t worry. It’s only me, Daisy. Early closing today. I promised I’d come and see you all.”

  When she went into the living-room the Mennyms immediately detected a difference. Daisy did not smile and she did not look directly at any of the dolls. In her nervousness, she went straight to the window and looked out at the river and the street below.

  “I think we might be due for some rain,” she said. “The sky looks heavy.”