by Mary Norton
“Now you come to think of it,” said Crampfurl.
“Yes,” went on Mrs. Driver firmly, “and there’s something else I come to think of. Remember that girl, Rosa Pickhatchet?”
“The one that was simple?”
“Well, simple or not, she saw one—on the drawing-room mantelpiece, with a beard.”
“One what?” asked Crampfurl.
Mrs. Driver glared at him. “What I’ve been telling you about—one of these—these—”
“Mice dressed up?” said Crampfurl.
“Not mice!” Mrs. Driver almost shouted. “Mice don’t have beards.”
“But you said—” began Crampfurl.
“Yes, I know I said it. Not that these had beards. But what would you call them? What could they be but mice?”
“Not so loud!” whispered Crampfurl. “You’ll wake the house up.”
“They can’t hear,” said Mrs. Driver, “not through the baize door.” She went to the stove and picked up the fire tongs. “And what if they do? We ain’t done nothing. Move over,” she went on, “and let me get at the hole.”
One by one Mrs. Driver picked things out—with many shocked gasps, cries of amazement, and did-you-evers. She made two piles on the floor—one of valuables and one of what she called “rubbish.” Curious objects dangled from the tongs: “Would you believe it—her best lace handkerchiefs! Look, here’s another . . . and another! And my big mattress needle—I knew I had one—my silver thimble, if you please, and one of hers! And look, oh my, at the wools . . . the cottons! No wonder you can never find a spool of white cotton if you want one. Potatoes . . . nuts . . . look at this, a pot of caviar—CAVIAR! No, it’s too much, it really is. Doll’s chairs . . . tables . . . and look at all this blotting paper—so that’s where it goes! Oh, my goodness gracious!” she cried suddenly, her eyes staring. “What’s this?” Mrs. Driver laid down the tongs and leaned over the hole—tentatively and fearfully as though afraid of being stung. “It’s a watch—an emerald watch—her watch! And she’s never missed it!” Her voice rose. “And it’s going! Look, you can see by the kitchen clock! Twenty-five past twelve!” Mrs. Driver sat down suddenly on a hard chair; her eyes were staring and her face looked white and flabby, as though deflated. “You know what this means?” she said to Crampfurl.
“No?” he said.
“The police,” said Mrs. Driver, “that’s what this means—a case for the police.”
Chapter Eighteen
THE boy lay, trembling a little, beneath the bed-clothes. The screwdriver was under his mattress. He had heard the alarm clock; he had heard Mrs. Driver exclaim on the stairs and he had run. The candle on the table beside his bed still smelt a little and the wax must still be warm. He lay there waiting, but they did not come upstairs. After hours, it seemed, he heard the hall clock strike one. All seemed quiet below, and at last he slipped out of bed and crept along the passage to the head of the stairway. There he sat for a while, shivering a little, and gazing downwards into the darkened hall. There was no sound but the steady tick of the clock and occasionally that shuffle or whisper which might be wind, but which, as he knew, was the sound of the house itself—the sigh of the tired floors and the ache of knotted wood. So quiet was that at last he found courage to move and to tiptoe down the staircase and along the kitchen passage. He listened awhile outside the baize door and at length very gently he pushed it open. The kitchen was silent and filled with grayish darkness. He felt, as Mrs. Driver had done, along the shelf for the matches and he struck a light. He saw the gaping hole in the floor and the objects piled beside it and, in the same flash, he saw a candle on the shelf. He lit it clumsily, with trembling hands. Yes, there they lay—the contents of the little home-higgledy-piggledy on the boards and the tongs lay beside them. Mrs. Driver had carried away all she considered valuable and had left the “rubbish.” And rubbish it looked thrown down like this—balls of wool, old potatoes, odd pieces of doll’s furniture, match boxes, cotton spools, crumpled squares of blotting paper. . . .
He knelt down. The “house” itself was a shambles—partitions fallen, earth floors revealed (where Pod had dug down to give greater height to the rooms), match-sticks, an old cogwheel, onion skins, scattered bottle tops. . . . The boy stared, blinking his eyelids and tilting the candle so that the grease ran hot on his hand. Then he got up from his knees and, crossing the kitchen on tiptoe, he closed the scullery door. He came back to the hole and, leaning down, he called softly: “Arrietty . . . Arrietty!” After a while he called again. Something else fell hot on his hand: it was a tear from his eye. Angrily he brushed it away, and, leaning farther into the hole, he called once more. “Pod,” he whispered. “Homily!”
They appeared so quietly that at first, in the wavering light of the candle, he did not see them. Silent they stood, looking up at him with scared white faces from what had been the passage outside the storerooms.
“Where have you been?” asked the boy.
Pod cleared his throat. “Up at the end of the passage. Under the clock.”
“I’ve got to get you out,” said the boy.
“Where to?” asked Pod.
“I don’t know. What about the attic?”
“That ain’t no good,” said Pod. “I heard them talking They’re going to get the police and a cat and the sanitary inspector and the rat-catcher from the town hall at Leighton Buzzard.”
They were all silent. Little eyes stared at big eyes. “There won’t be nowhere in the house that’s safe,” Pod said at last. And no one moved.
“What about the doll’s house on the top shelf in the schoolroom?” suggested the boy. “Even a cat can’t get there.”
Homily gave a little moan of assent. “Yes,” she said, “the doll’s house. . . .”
“No,” said Pod in the same expressionless voice, “you can’t live on a shelf. Maybe the cat can’t get up, but no more can’t you get down. You’re stuck. You got to have water.”
“I’d bring you water,” said the boy. “And there are beds and things here.” He touched the pile of “rubbish.”
“No,” said Pod, “a shelf ain’t no good. Besides, you’ll be going soon, or so they say.”
“Oh, Pod,” pleaded Homily in a husky whisper, “there’s stairs in the doll’s house, and two bedrooms, and a dining room, and a kitchen. And a bathroom,” she said.
“But it’s up by the ceiling,” Pod explained wearily. “You got to eat, haven’t you,” he asked, “and drink?”
“Yes, Pod, I know. But—”
“There ain’t no buts,” said Pod. He drew a long breath. “We got to emigrate,” he said.
“Oh,” moaned Homily softly and Arrietty began to cry.
“Now don’t take on,” said Pod in a tired voice.
Arrietty had covered her face with her hands and her tears ran through her fingers; the boy, watching, saw them glisten in the candlelight. “I’m not taking on,” she gasped, “I’m so happy . . . happy.”
“You mean,” said the boy to Pod, but with one eye on Arrietty, “you’ll go to the badger’s set?” He too felt a mounting excitement.
“Where else?” asked Pod.
“Oh, my goodness gracious!” moaned Homily, and sat down on the broken match-box chest of drawers.
“But you’ve got to go somewhere tonight,” said the boy. “You’ve got to go somewhere before tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, my goodness gracious!” moaned Homily again.
“He’s right at that,” said Pod. “Can’t cross them fields in the dark. Bad enough getting across them in daylight.”
“I know,” cried Arrietty. Her wet face glistened in the candlelight; it was alight and tremulous and she raised her arms a little as though about to fly, and she swayed as she balanced on her toe-tips. “Let’s go to the doll’s house just for tonight and tomorrow—” she closed her eyes against the brightness of the vision—“tomorrow the boy will take us—take us—” and she could not say to where.
“Take us?�
�� cried Homily in a strange hollow voice. “How?”
“In his pockets,” chanted Arrietty; “won’t you?” Again she swayed, with lighted upturned face.
“Yes,” he said, “and bring the luggage up afterwards—in a fish basket.”
“Oh, my goodness!” moaned Homily.
“I’ll pick all the furniture out of this pile here. Or most of it. They’ll hardly notice. And anything else you want.”
“Tea,” murmured Homily. “Enough for our lifetimes.”
“All right,” said the boy. “I’ll get a pound of tea. And coffee too if you like. And cooking pots. And matches. You’ll be all right,” he said.
“But what do they eat?” wailed Homily. “Caterpillars?”
“Now, Homily,” said Pod, “don’t be foolish. Lupy was always a good manager.”
“But Lupy isn’t there,” said Homily. “Berries. Do they eat berries? How do they cook? Out of doors?”
“Now, Homily,” said Pod, “we’ll see all that when we get there.”
“I couldn’t light a fire of sticks,” said Homily, “not in the wind. What if it rains?” she asked. “How do they cook in the rain?”
“Now, Homily—” began Pod—he was beginning to lose patience—but Homily rushed on.
“Could you get us a couple of tins of sardines to take?” she asked the boy. “And some salt? And some candles? And matches? And could you bring us the carpets from the doll’s house?”
“Yes,” said the boy, “I could. Of course I could. Anything you want.”
“All right,” said Homily. She still looked wild, partly because some of her hair had rolled out of the curlers, but she seemed appeased. “How are you going to get us upstairs? Up to the schoolroom?”
The boy looked down at his pocketless night-shirt. “I’ll carry you,” he said.
“How?” asked Homily. “In your hands?”
“Yes,” said the boy.
“I’d rather die,” said Homily. “I’d rather stay right here and be eaten by the rat-catcher from the town hall at Leighton Buzzard.”
The boy looked round the kitchen; he seemed bewildered. “Shall I carry you in the clothespin bag?” he asked at last, seeing it hanging in its usual place on the handle of the scullery door.
“All right,” said Homily. “Take out the clothespins first.”
But she walked into it bravely enough when he laid it out on the floor. It was soft and floppy and made of woven raffia. When he picked it up Homily shrieked and clung to Pod and Arrietty. “Oh,” she gasped as the bag swayed a little, “oh, I can’t! Stop it! Put me out! Oh! Oh!” And, clutching and slipping, they fell into a tangle at the bottom.
“Be quiet, Homily, can’t you!” exclaimed Pod angrily, and held her tightly by the ankle. It was not easy to control her as he was lying on his back with his face pushed forward on his chest and one leg, held upright by the side of the bag, somewhere above his head. Arrietty climbed up, away from them, clinging to the knots of raffia, and looked out over the edge.
“Oh, I can’t! I can’t!” cried Homily. “Stop it, Pod. I’m dying. Tell him to put us down.”
“Put us down,” said Pod in his patient way, “just for a moment. That’s right. On the floor,” and, as once again the bag was placed beside the hole, they all ran out.
“Look here,” said the boy unhappily to Homily, “you’ve got to try.”
“She’ll try all right,” said Pod. “Give her a breather, and take it slower, if you see what I mean.”
“All right,” agreed the boy, “but there isn’t much time. Come on,” he said nervously, “hop in.”
“Listen!” cried Pod sharply, and froze.
The boy, looking down, saw their three upturned faces catching the light—like pebbles they looked, still and stony, against the darkness within the hole. And then in a flash they were gone—the boards were empty and the hole was bare. He leaned into it. “Pod!” he called in a frantic whisper. “Homily! Come back!” And then he too became frozen, stooped and rigid above the hole. The scullery door creaked open behind him.
It was Mrs. Driver. She stood there silent, this time in her nightdress. Turning, the boy stared up at her. “Hallo,” he said, uncertainly, after a moment.
She did not smile, but something lightened in her eyes—a malicious gleam, a look of triumph. She carried a candle which shone upwards on her face, streaking it strangely with light and shadow. “What are you doing down here?” she asked.
He stared at her, but he did not speak.
“Answer me,” she said. “And what are you doing with the clothespin bag?”
Still he stared at her, almost stupidly. “The clothespin bag?” he repeated and looked down as though surprised to see it in his hand. “Nothing,” he said.
“Was it you who put the watch in the hole?”
“No,” he said, staring up at her again, “it was there already.”
“Ah,” she said and smiled, “so you knew it was there?”
“No,” he said; “I mean yes.”
“Do you know what you are?” asked Mrs. Driver, watching him closely. “You are a sneaking, thieving, noxious little dribbet of no-good!”
His face quivered. “Why?” he said.
“You know why. You’re a wicked, black-hearted, fribbling little pickpocket. That’s what you are. And so are they. They’re nasty little crafty, scampy, scurvy, squeaking little—”
“No, they’re not,” he put in quickly.
“And you’re in league with them!” She came across to him and, taking him by the upper arm, she jerked him to his feet. “You know what they do with thieves?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“They lock them up. That’s what they do with thieves. And that’s what’s going to happen to you!”
“I’m not a thief,” cried the boy, his lips trembling, “I’m a borrower.”
“A what?” She swung him round by tightening the grip on his arm.
“A borrower,” he repeated; there were tears on his eyelids; he hoped they would not fall.
“So that’s what you call it!” she exclaimed (as he had done—so long ago, it seemed now—that day with Arrietty).
“That’s their name,” he said. “The kind of people they are—they’re Borrowers.”
“Borrowers, eh?” repeated Mrs. Driver wonderingly. She laughed. “Well, they’ve done all the borrowing they’re ever going to do in this house!” She began to drag him toward the door.
The tears spilled over his eyelids and ran down his cheeks. “Don’t hurt them,” he begged. “I’ll move them. I promise. I know how.”
Mrs. Driver laughed again and pushed him roughly through the green baize door. “They’ll be moved all right,” she said. “Don’t worry. The rat-catcher will know how. Crampfurl’s old cat will know how. So will the sanitary inspector. And the fire brigade, if need be. The police’ll know how, I shouldn’t wonder. No need to worry about moving them. Once you’ve found the nest,” she went on, dropping her voice to a vicious whisper as they passed Aunt Sophy’s door, “the rest is easy!”
She pushed him into the schoolroom and locked the door and he heard the boards of the passage creak beneath her tread as, satisfied, she moved away. He crept into bed then, because he was cold, and cried his heart out under the blankets.
Chapter Nineteen
“AND that,” said Mrs. May, laying down her crochet hook, “is really the end.”
Kate stared at her. “Oh, it can’t be,” she gasped, “oh, please . . . please. . . . ”
“The last square,” said Mrs. May, smoothing it out on her knee, “the hundred and fiftieth. Now we can sew them together—”
“Oh,” said Kate, breathing again, “the quilt! I thought you meant the story.”
“It’s the end of the story too,” said Mrs. May absently, “or the beginning. He never saw them again,” and she began to sort out the squares.
“But,” stammered Kate, “you can’t—I mean—It’s not fair,”
she cried, “it’s cheating. It’s—” Tears sprang to her eyes; she threw her work down on the table and her crochet hook after it, and she kicked the bag of wools which lay beside her on the carpet.
“Why, Kate, why?” Mrs. May looked genuinely surprised.
“Something more must have happened,” cried Kate angrily. “What about the rat-catcher? And the policeman? And the—”
“But something more did happen,” said Mrs. May, “a lot more happened. I’m going to tell you.”
“Then why did you say it was the end?”
“Because,” said Mrs. May (she still looked surprised), “he never saw them again.”
“Then how can there be more?”
“Because,” said Mrs. May, “there is more. A lot more.”
Kate glared at her. “All right,” she said, “go on.”
Mrs. May looked back at her. “Kate,” she said after a moment, “stories never really end. They can go on and on and on. It’s just that sometimes, at a certain point, one stops telling them.”
“But not at this kind of point,” said Kate.
“Well, thread your needle,” said Mrs. May, “with gray wool, this time. And we’ll sew these squares together. I’ll start at the top and you can start at the bottom. First a gray square, then an emerald, then a pink, and so on—”
“Then you didn’t really mean it,” said Kate irritably, trying to push the folded wool through the narrow eye of the needle, “when you said he never saw them again?”
“But I did mean it,” said Mrs. May. “I’m telling you just what happened. He had to leave suddenly—at the end of the week—because there was a boat for India and a family who could take him. And for the three days before he left they kept him locked up in those two rooms.”
“For three days!” exclaimed Kate.
“Yes. Mrs. Driver, it seemed, told Aunt Sophy that he had a cold. She was determined, you see, to keep him out of the way until she’d got rid of the Borrowers.”
“And did she?” asked Kate. “I mean—did they all come? The policeman? And the rat-catcher? And the—”
