by Joan Aiken
"Can't be avoided this time, I'm afraid,” Mrs. Armitage said, sighing. “It was the only day when all the members could come."
All that week Mrs. Armitage and Harriet were busy making mince-pies. Mark, for once, was not helpful.
"He's making another of his model yachts, I suppose,” Harriet said. “That's why he always comes to meals late with gluey hands."
"You can come on the trip, as you've been such a help, Harriet,” said her mother. “But I shan't ask Mark. That'll teach him to cooperate a bit more next time I'm busy."
Mark did grumble when he heard that he had not been invited. “I've always wanted to see inside the lighthouse,” he said. But as his protests were unavailing, he soon retired to his den and began sawing away.
"Who is the other hostess and what is she providing?” said Mr. Armitage on Saturday, eyeing the growing mountain of mince-pies.
"It's Mrs. Slabb,” his wife said gloomily.
"Oh dear."
"She's making some rock cakes. I tried to persuade her that sandwiches would be nice, but she didn't take the hint. She said she reckoned her cakes would fill up the boys’ stomachs better."
"Fill them up? They'll cement them up, more likely,” said Mr. Armitage. “Remember the cake she made for the Guess the Weight Competition at last year's Christmas Bazaar—the only person who guessed within a stone was the Strong Man from the Bumstead Circus."
"Never mind, she's a kind old thing and we can't hurt her feelings,” Mrs. Armitage said firmly.
Monday dawned gray and bleak without a breath of wind.
"Looks like snow,” said Mr. Armitage, but the barometer stood at “Set Fair."
The Women's Union members assembled on the launching ramp punctually at two o'clock for the presentation amid cries of “Did you remember to lock the back door?” and “Are the hens shut up?” from the crew, who were mostly their husbands and relatives.
Mrs. Armitage made a short speech before unveiling the huge cardboard carton which contained the gift mufflers.
"Thank you kindly one and all,” said the coxswain (his name was Alf Putnam), “I hereby have pleasure in handing them out to the men, who I'm sure will thoroughly appreciate them—specially as they've seen them being knitted for the last six months. Bert Althorpe!"
Bert stepped forward to receive his muffler and Alf pulled a generous blue length out of the box, which Bert wound round his neck before stepping back again.
"Hey, you've left one end behind—you haven't got it all yet, chum,” someone called out. As Bert pulled, more and more muffler unreeled from the carton. The blue length was followed by a red one, and that by an orange one.
"Oh dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Armitage in dismay. “Can someone have joined them all together? There's been some bad coordination somewhere."
This, it seemed, was the case. Rods, poles, perches, chains, and furlongs of endless muffler, every colour of the rainbow, were drawn out and lay about the beach and ramp in gorgeous festoons.
"Looks like Christmas all right, don't it,” muttered Bert to Lofty Wainwright.
"Alf, you better stop pulling it out. If you once get lost in that lot, we shan't see you again alive."
"Maybe we should cut it,” said Alf, mopping his brow.
"You can't do that,” cried a dozen ladies. “It would all unravel. The ends will have to be stitched up."
"Well, let's put it out of the way for now,” said Alf rather desperately, “and get on with the next part of the programme."
Several people clapped at this.
"Ladies, please take your places in the lifeboat, as indicated to you by Bert, William, and Nobby,” said Alf. “Fred, you give me a hand with the grub."
The mince-pies had been brought down in two large laundry baskets, covered with clean cloths, and Mrs. Slabb had put her cakes in a couple of canvas kit bags which had once belonged to Mr. Slabb. When Fred seized one of these he turned pale.
"Blimey!” he said. “What's in them? Lead piping?"
He and Alf tottered with difficulty to the boat and heaved the sack over the side. When they had put in the second with equal difficulty, Alf muttered to Fred:
"We'd better leave the two baskets behind, accidentally like. Another two of these would sink us. As it is we'll have to move the passengers forrard or we'll be down by the stern."
So the laundry baskets were left behind on the beach, and the Women's Union were packed further along, amid cries of “What do you think we are? Sardines? Mind my toe, you big lump! Ooh!"
Harriet, in between Mrs. Slabb and Mrs. Lightbody, was nearly crushed to death.
The rest of the crew piled in, all except Fred, who was the spare and in any case had said he had more sense than to go joyriding with a passel of females. Alf leaned over the gunwale and pulled the lever and the lifeboat slid majestically down the ramp and into the sea.
Fred, left alone on the beach, dragged the two baskets of mince-pies into the shed, noticing as he did so that they were not nearly so heavy as the sacks of cakes, and then began methodically coiling up the length of muffler. There seemed to be roughly a thousand yards of it—nearly a hundred yards for each man. “Them women,” he muttered to himself. “Not a stitch of arithmetic in any of ‘em."
When he finished he straightened his back and glanced up at the sky.
"Lumme,” he exclaimed, “they're going to cop it if they don't look out."
The clouds were becoming almost as black as ink, and the wind, which had been rising, was now whipping the top of the waves in a very ugly way. A more unpleasant day for an outing could not have been imagined.
Mark, who had just arrived on his bicycle, too late for the launching, gazed in dismay at the lifeboat, which was bouncing uneasily through the sea about halfway between the shore and the lighthouse rock.
"Blowing up for a proper gale,” Fred said to him gloomily.
The passengers in the boat were not at all happy. There were several green faces, and shrieks of dismay were heard as waves occasionally slopped over and soused some of them.
"Never mind, Mum, soon be there and you can cheer yourself up with a nice cuppa,” said Alf to Mrs. Lightbody, but Harriet, who had sharp ears, heard him mutter to Nobby: “Look here, we're getting lower in the water all the time. D'you think we could throw some of these perishing granite buns overboard without anyone seeing?"
He dug an experimental hand into one of the kit bags, pulled out a cake, and tossed it to starboard. A passing gull swooped and deftly caught the cake, staggered in its flight, and fell like a stone beneath the waves. Harriet opened her mouth to gasp with horror, but was relieved to see the gull pop up again in a moment, without the cake but with an expression of extreme astonishment on its face.
"Strewth!” said Nobby, awestruck.
"See what I mean? If we don't jettison those cakes we're going to founder."
The waves, as large as houses now, towered over the heavily burdened lifeboat, which was settling deeper and deeper between them. Harriet thought they looked like huge black Christmas trees. She watched Alf pick up one of the sacks and stagger towards the side, and then Nobby shouted:
"No, hold it, here we are!"
Another of the large waves, rolling to one side, had revealed the lighthouse just ahead. The three members of its crew were dancing about on a little spur of rock at the foot, anxiously waiting to catch a rope.
"Come on,” they called encouragingly. “You made it! That's the stuff!” They spoke too soon, however.
As Bert leaned over with the painter, a gigantic wave tipped the lifeboat sideways, and crew, passengers, and cargo were all flung into the sea together as neatly as peas flipped out of a pod. Fortunately they were within a few feet of the rock and all managed to clamber ashore, but they heard the boat slam grindingly on a rock behind them, and turned to see it drift away and then submerge.
"That's that,” said Alf. “Now how are we going to get back?"
"Oh, Fred will have seen her go down. He'll pho
ne along to Slimehaven and get their boat to come and take us off."
"Not in this weather they won't. We haven't had a gale like this since ‘38."
"Well, don't stand here gossiping,” said Mrs. Lightbody tartly. “Let's get inside and have a warmup, for goodness’ sake, and where's that cup of tea? If we don't get some dry clothes on soon they needn't bother to send a boat—they can just float over some coffins."
The shipwrecked party trooped into the lighthouse, and soon clouds of steam began coming out of its windows as, in turn, members of the Women's Union and lifeboat crew wrapped themselves in blankets and dried themselves in front of the twenty thousand candlepower light. Cups of tea were provided by their kind hosts, but, alas, there was nothing to eat, for Mrs. Slabb's cakes had gone down with the boat.
"Better get ready for a hungry Christmas, ladies,” said the head lighthouse keeper. “This time of year we're often cut off for two or three weeks if the weather turns nasty."
Cries of “Oo-er” and “Love a duck” greeted this, but he continued: “We've got supplies of bully beef and biscuits, but they won't go far among ten lifeboatmen and twenty Ladies’ Union. It'll be one biscuit and one slice of bully per day till further notice."
Some of the ladies began to cry, thinking of the turkeys hanging in their larders, and the Christmas puddings all ready for boiling. Mrs. Armitage tried to cheer them, but even Harriet felt glum, and her lunch seemed to have been a long time ago. She would have welcomed one of Mrs. Slabb's buns.
Just then Alf came in looking puzzled.
"Old Fred's got the rocket apparatus out on the beach,” he said. “Can't rightly see what he's doing, it's come over so dark, but there's a boy helping him and it looks as if they're trying to send something over."
Most of the party crowded out onto the rock platform to see what was going on. Over the raging water they could dimly see two figures active on the shore, and presently they saw a flash, though it was impossible to hear the report of the rocket through the gale. But they could soon see a missile hurtling towards them, and amid cries of excitement a large rocket landed a few feet away from where they were standing. Alf went over to it.
"What's in it?” inquired the lighthouse keeper when he staggered back with it in his arms. They all gathered round as he unscrewed the canister.
A large heap of little round golden objects rolled out, from which came a delicious spicy smell, most inviting to the hungry castaways.
"Mince-pies! It's Mother's mince-pies!” shouted Harriet. “Three cheers for Fred!"
There were enough mince-pies for everyone, and a few minutes later, a new rocket landed with a second cargo, which was eagerly gathered up and taken inside. Then Fred apparently decided that the light was too bad to risk sending any more, for he and his helper took the firing apparatus back into the shed.
It was not such a miserable party after all which sat munching the mince-pies and toasting Fred in mugs of tea. And presently they all went to sleep, wrapped in blankets and packed together on the floor like sardines.
The awakening next morning was not so cheerful, as they were stiff and uncomfortable and, worse still, the storm was raging more fiercely if anything than the day before. After breakfast (one biscuit, washed down with tea), Fred managed to send over two more rocket-loads of pies, but then the gale worsened until it was impossible to see the shore, and the lifeboat crew shook their heads over the chance of any rescue that day.
Mrs. Armitage, seeing the Women's Union members looking very glum, organized them into giving the lighthouse a spring cleaning, which it badly needed.
"We'll each scrub twenty steps of the stairs and polish three windows,” she said. “At least there's one thing we're not short of, and that's water. And there seems to be plenty of soap, too—they are not extravagant with it out here, it's plain."
The male inhabitants retired outside while this was going on, and waited patiently in the storm rather than be bumped continually with brushes and buckets.
On Wednesday Fred managed to send over the rest of the mince-pies, but it was too rough for a rescue. On Thursday, however, which was Christmas Eve, the Slimehaven lifeboat came along the coast, but could not get near the lighthouse because of dangerous lumps of rock which were being flung about by the waves. Several of these pierced the sides of the boat, which were only just patched in time. It was discovered that these lumps were in fact Mrs. Slabb's cakes, which the action of salt water and cold air had rendered hard as bullets.
The Slimehaven crew tried several times to get a line to the shore which would pass by the lighthouse, so that provisions could run along it. At first they were unsuccessful, as no ordinary rope could stand the strain of the wind and waves, but finally the marooned group saw them put in to the shore and come out again trailing a cable which, even through the storm, could be seen to consist in section of different vivid colours.
"Well, I'm blest! They're using our muffler. What a sauce!” exclaimed Mrs. Slabb.
"At least it's holding,” said Alf rather sourly.
The Slimehaven boat put out beyond the lighthouse, keeping well clear of it, and then hove to. The crew could be seen feverishly winding away at a winch, and bit by bit the multicoloured line twitched and jerked itself tight, until it was a foot above the waves.
"Look! Look!” cried Harriet. “Someone's walking out along the rope."
They all gazed at the point where the line ran up the beach and saw a tiny figure coming slowly but steadily out along the rope. Some of the women could not stand it and went inside, but most of the party watched in fascination, expecting every minute that some extra large wave would knock him from his position.
Harriet saw that it was Mark when he had come about halfway, but she could not make out what he was carrying. It seemed like a model ship, but of no design that she recognized. He was holding it with both hands in front of him and using it to keep his balance.
"I didn't know Mark could tightrope walk,” murmured Mrs. Armitage distractedly, without taking her eyes off him.
"Oh yes, we both learned last year from the trapeze artiste at the Bumstead Circus,” Harriet answered absently. “What's he doing now?"
Mark had come level with them, though he was about twenty yards away to port. He deliberately dropped his little boat onto the water, staggered, nearly missed his balance, recovered it again, and made his way onto the Slimehaven boat, where he was received with clapping and cheers.
"But what's the use of that?” said Mrs. Lightbody, puzzled. “One little toy boat isn't going to help us. It's not worth all that trouble."
But even as she spoke they saw that all around the little ship the waves were dying down. Presently the sea near the lighthouse was as calm as a mill-pond, and in scenes of the wildest rejoicing the members of the Women's Union and Shambles crew were rescued from their watery jail, and a Christmas dinner was handed over to their hosts.
"But what was the little ship?” demanded Harriet, and everyone was asking the same question.
"It was a weather ship,” Mark replied. “You know, there was a radio appeal for more of them, so I thought I'd make one. For calming down the weather, you see."
"But weather ships are for recording the weather, not for calming it down."
"Are they? Oh, well, there you are. Father would turn the radio off, so I never did hear about them and I had to guess how to make it. Anyway, I think my sort's more useful,” said Mark. “I'm going to make some more, but I suppose I'd better make a new lifeboat first."
[Back to Table of Contents]
Doll's House to Let, Mod. Con.
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* * * *
The family were at breakfast when the front door bell rang, and Harriet went to see who it was.
"It's old Mrs. Perrow,” she said returning. “She says can she speak to you, Mother?"
"Oh dear,” said Mrs. Armitage sadly. “What can she want?"
She left her bacon and went into the front hall. The rest of the
family watched the bacon sympathetically as it gradually went cold on her plate while they listened to a shrill stream of complaints going on and on, punctuated occasionally by a soothing murmur from Mrs. Armitage.
"Wretched woman,” said Mr. Armitage crossly. “She must be telling all her family troubles back to Adam, by the sound of it. Mark, put your mother's plate in the hot-cupboard."
Mark had just done this when his mother came back looking indignant.
"It really is too bad, poor things,” she said sitting down. “That miserable Mr. Beezeley has turned them out of Rose Cottage on some flimsy excuse—the real reason is that he wants to do it up and let it to a rich American. So the Perrows have nowhere to live."
"What an old scoundrel,” exclaimed Mr. Armitage. “All the same, I don't see that there's much we can do about it."
"I said they could live in our loft till they found somewhere else."
"You did what?"
"Said they could live in the loft. I don't know if they'll be able to climb in, though. Children, you'd better go and see if you can rig up a ladder for them."
Mark and Harriet ran off, leaving their father to fume and simmer while his wife placidly went on with her breakfast.
The loft was over the kitchen, but it was approached from outside, by a door over the kitchen window. Harriet and Mark used it as a playroom and always climbed up by means of the toolshed roof, but grown-ups used a ladder when they entered it.
"Will the Perrows be able to use the ladder?” said Harriet doubtfully. “The rungs are rather far apart."
"No, I've had a better idea—Father's new trellis. We'll take a length of that. It's still all stacked by the back door."
The trellis was ideal for the job, being made of strong metal criss-crossed in two-inch squares. They leaned a section over the kitchen window, fastened the top securely with staples to the doorsill of the loft, and jammed the bottom firmly with stones.
"That should take their weight,” said Mark. “After all, they're not heavy. Here they come."