by Sylvia Waugh
“Go to Googles,” he said gently. “Spend time with her.”
“But . . .” protested Miss Quigley.
“No buts,” said Soobie, taking one parcel under each arm. “Go downstairs to Googles. I will look after these.”
As the day went on, the wind dropped, the sun shone and it became almost warm. Poopie, uncomfortable in his uniform, sat on the back step with his toy rabbit, Paddy Black, by his side. Wimpey sat on the swing, nursing Polly, her American doll, still her favourite no matter what other dolls might be added to her collection. Soobie finished his task and returned to his seat by the window. In her bedroom Pilbeam made sure that everything was neat and tidy.
Vinetta and Hortensia sat together in the nursery where Googles was playing a particularly lively game in her play-pen. And Tulip? Tulip spent the day in Appleby’s room, bringing in and arranging stools and chairs. Before the light faded, she went to Magnus, helped him into his dressing-gown and slippers and took him to the armchair she had placed by Appleby’s bed. Seeing him sitting there she could almost believe that his predictions might come true. Almost, but not quite.
“It has been a very long day,” said Vinetta as she switched on the light and drew the nursery curtains.
“A long day,” said Hortensia, “but a short life.”
At six-thirty, the whole family began to prepare for the seven o’clock deadline. In one way, it had hung over the day so much that they were glad to do so. But in addition, it must be said, not one of them would have had the temerity to disobey Sir Magnus’s strict instructions.
The television in the lounge was switched off and unplugged. Miss Quigley, hearing the others moving about, came into the hall with Googles in her arms. Soobie and Pilbeam joined them.
“Anyone else down here?” said Vinetta.
“No,” said Soobie. “Poopie and Wimpey are in their own rooms. I think Granny must be with Granpa. Dad went upstairs about ten minutes ago.”
“Good,” said Vinetta. “The next thing is to lock up and see that everything is right on this floor.”
They locked and bolted the back door. The front door was locked, but left unbolted. Pilbeam had been about to draw the bolt when her mother stopped her.
“If things come to pass as Granpa has foretold,” said Vinetta, “someone is going to have to come in from the outside with a key. We wouldn’t want them to have to break the door down.”
All of the ground floor lights were extinguished. The front curtains were opened, but not too wide. When day came again, a house with all of the curtains closed might look odd to outsiders.
They all proceeded to the floor above.
“It’s time to go,” said Vinetta, looking in at the big front bedroom where Joshua lay half-asleep. “Straighten the bed cover. Put out the table-lamp and open the curtains.”
Joshua got up and did exactly as he was told.
Poopie was called out from his room. His toys had all been put away in their cupboards. Everything was in a tidier state than it had been for many a long year. Vinetta, looking in earlier in the day, had been appalled at the mess. So Poopie was told that his room might be inspected by Aunt Kate when she came to visit. The idea of a kit inspection had led him to spend the past two hours tidying his room till everything was all ship-shape and Bristol fashion. It was like a game of soldiers – or sailors!
When Wimpey came out of her room carrying Polly, the American doll, Poopie took one look at her and dived back into his own room. A rummage in the cupboard and he emerged again with Paddy Black under his arm.
Eight living rag dolls formed a puzzled group on the landing. Even Googles, wriggling in Hortensia’s arms, looked bewildered. Vinetta ushered them up ahead of her, but Joshua insisted upon going last.
The lights were extinguished on this floor too. By Joshua.
Next, each room on the top landing was checked and left in darkness. They came at last to Appleby’s door. The plaque Miss Quigley had made was fixed neatly to the centre panel. Poopie and Wimpey read it and were puzzled.
“It is part of the game,” said Vinetta and felt guilty, guilty, guilty. But what else could she say? What else could she do? There was still the faint hope that it might be no more than a foolish pretend. They would sit and wait and nothing would happen. Poopie would end up in a tired tantrum, calling it a daft game, a right load of rubbish. But if they all lived through this night, thought Vinetta, oh, he could call it anything he liked!
They went into the room and Tulip told them where to sit.
“Now,” said Magnus, “you must switch off this light and open the curtains. The moon will give us all the illumination we will need in the short time before . . .”
Vinetta, seated on the settle (brought from Pilbeam’s room), Poopie one side of her, Wimpey the other, interrupted him.
“. . . in the time before Kate comes to see us,” she said, hugging both children. “This is like magic. Who knows what might happen?”
CHAPTER 18
Waiting
THE WINDOW OF Appleby’s room overlooked the back garden, no street-lamps there, no lights from other houses. Far away across the hedge and beyond unkempt gardens, the Georgian houses in the old terrace, ghostly neighbours, were deserted and derelict. Only the pale moonlight saved the ‘doll-room’ from total darkness.
The seating arrangements were very precise, giving each one all the support he or she would need if death should really come. Joshua had been directed by Tulip to a carver chair brought up from the dining-room. It was wedged between the wardrobe and the settle where Vinetta sat with the younger twins. To the other side of the settle, on a velvet pouffe jammed up against the armrest, sat Pilbeam. Miss Quigley nursed Googles in a chair placed in the corner furthest away from Appleby’s bed. Closest to the bed were Sir Magnus in the big armchair and Granny Tulip on a basket bedroom chair supported by three large cushions. Soobie had another carver chair just by the door.
The luminous points of the clock on the wall showed how the minutes ticked by. Seven o’clock became seven-thirty and nothing happened. The family waited in silence.
It became too much for Poopie. He held onto Paddy Black and gave a quiet giggle into his velvet fur. It was like playing hide-and-seek, the whole family sitting there crammed into one little room in the darkness. Vinetta shushed him but sympathised. What were they all doing here? It said much for Sir Magnus’s authority that he had got them this far. If any of them had ever believed in the coming of the end, and to be honest some of them had, their belief dwindled as they sat there feeling more and more silly.
“Will Aunt Kate be coming soon?” whispered Wimpey.
Joshua heard her and grunted.
“Just wait,” Vinetta whispered in reply. “She might not come after all. We can’t be sure.”
The waiting went on for another hour. The odd word was passed in a whisper and each whisper elicited a frown from Magnus.
We are pretending to be dolls, thought Vinetta, and the thought made her feel giggly in a nervous way. Only the smallest of sounds escaped her lips and only Joshua noticed. He looked round the room. Stuffed dummies, he thought, but felt no inclination to laugh. What will happen will happen. Waiting here is stupid.
“I’ve had enough of this,” he said loudly. “At least, let’s have the light on.”
He sprang up from his chair, but before he could do anything his father yelled at him, “Don’t move another step, Joshua. Sit down and wait. Don’t you dare do anything. Am I the head of this household, or am I not?”
Joshua was about to argue, but Vinetta pulled him by the sleeve, and made him sit down.
“There’s no point in arguing,” she said. “If he is wrong, time will prove it. Even if it takes a few hours, we must give him that time. If he is right, then we are where we should be.”
It was Poopie’s turn to protest. He stood up, still clutching Paddy Black.
“A few hours. You must be mad. You must all be mad. We’ve been here for ages and ages alrea
dy. We can’t wait forever. She might never come. It’s just a game.”
“We can wait,” said his grandfather in slow tones like a preacher speaking from the pulpit, “and we will. And it is not Kate we are waiting for, young man. It is Destiny.”
Poopie sat back baffled. Wimpey trembled and hugged her doll tightly. She did not know what the word ‘destiny’ meant, but she felt instinctively that it was something to fear.
Magnus’s dramatic insistence on declaring what he believed to be the truth had the effect of quashing any thoughts of rebellion. Even Tulip, sitting close to him, stifled an inclination to protest. Vinetta was angry, but this time it was Joshua’s turn to restrain her, to reach over and grip her shoulder.
“Steady,” he said quietly, “steady. Let him have the time he needs. You can chide him later.”
So they all sat there, waiting, like passengers in a railway carriage wondering when the train will leave the station. There should be something like the shunting of an engine, the slow turning of wheels, some indication that the journey is about to begin . . .
Joshua sat back in his chair, folded his arms and attempted to sleep. His chin sank to his chest but sleep would not come. In a little while, Poopie and Wimpey both cuddled into Vinetta and really did sleep. Miss Quigley dozed, holding Googles firmly in her arms. Tulip lay back on her cushions and went off into a reverie, making plans for all she would have to do in the next few days to put everything right again – and this included looking after Magnus who might be expected to suffer acute embarrassment when dawn came and found them no different from the day before.
Two people in that room were fully alert. Magnus was looking over Appleby’s bed towards the window where the moon was dipping in the sky and would soon shine directly in. What did he expect? Kate to come and summon their wraiths to join her? To see the ghost in whom he had once expressed scornful disbelief. How does a rag doll die?
Soobie, well-shadowed in his seat by the door, thought of his dead sister and wondered – How does a rag doll die? He remembered the door in the attic. As the minutes turned to hours, he noticed how still and silent the others all were. Even the whispers had stopped entirely. He thought again of the door in the attic and he made up his mind to go and see. Moving silently, warily watching the back of Granpa’s chair, he turned the door handle and cautiously opened the room door. Edging it just far enough open, he slipped out into the hall and closed it behind him.
He walked carefully along the dark landing towards the attic stairs. The staircase was lighter because it had a small uncurtained window that faced towards the front of the house where there were street-lamps, and the glow of the town hung in the sky. Soobie climbed the staircase, wincing at every creak he made on the bare boards and hoping that the sound would not carry. He was as cautious going into the attic as he had been in leaving the bedroom below. No lights. It was possible that Granpa could be right, and if they really were all going to die, the house must be left unlit as it would be if a real family had quit the premises.
The attic was darker than the stairs, but there was enough illumination from the skylights for Soobie to make his way to the rocking chair without falling over. He sat down and looked towards the mysterious door. If death comes now, he thought, then I shall die alone. Apt fate for a blue Mennym, a misfit even in his own odd family. He did not want to be found with the rest of them. He would much prefer never to be found at all. But would it happen? Would they really cease to live?
He lay stretched out in the rocking chair and rocked slowly back and forward. It will happen, he thought. And rocked. It won’t happen, he thought. And rocked again. It can’t happen, he thought, and thrust his feet onto the footstool, bringing the chair to a halt. Across the attic, the length of the house away, the mystic door was so deep in shadow it was practically invisible.
In the room below, the moonlight crept in over the bed and shone on Appleby’s face. Her grandfather, just beginning to nod, looked up with a jerk.
What he saw brought a strangled squeak to the little voice box in his throat. Appleby’s head was moving! Her face was turning slowly towards him. He found himself gazing into unseeing green glass eyes. The doll in the bed groaned softly. Quiet, so quiet it was, but in that silent room loud enough to arouse everyone. They all sat up straight and looked towards Appleby with a feeling that can only be described as terror. Even Vinetta was terrified. The twins let go of their toys and dug their fingers into their mother’s arms. Paddy Black and Polly clattered to the floor. No one gave them a thought. All eyes were fixed on the bed bathed in moonlight.
Then the figure of Appleby sat bolt upright. She did not look at any of them. She seemed not to know that they were there. Her arms rose up and stretched towards the ceiling. In a clear voice, she called out, “Kate!” The single word came out in a slow and piercing wail.
In the attic, at that moment, Soobie saw the far door swing slowly open and a milky-white light begin to spill across the wood floor. Then, then . . . stillness.
Appleby fell back onto her pillows, as dead as she had ever been. The others in the room gave one last gasp, and ceased to live. Their bodies swayed to left and right, settling in helpless poses. Bereft of their spirit, they were just an odd assortment of rag dolls, indistinguishable in kind from the stuffed toy rabbit that lay on the floor.
Kate Penshaw was gone.
The Mennyms were all alone.
PART TWO
Please, love them . . .
CHAPTER 19
News for Jennifer
NEWS OF THE departure of the Mennym family reached the Gladstones by letter on Friday the thirteenth of December. It was a very short, formal invitation to call at the office of Cromarty, Varley and Thynne to sign some papers and to accept the keys to Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove, ‘which premises have, on the instructions of the previous owner, been inspected by an independent surveyor and found to be in good order.’
Jennifer was alone in the house when she read the letter. Her first reaction was one of apprehension and dismay. It was over a year since the letter requesting birth certificates had been sent and received its coldly civil reply. Jennifer had been more than content to forget about the whole business. But the memory of it was there at the back of her mind, waiting to pounce. It made her look carefully for hidden meanings.
Why had the Mennyms insisted upon a survey? To Jennifer that suggested hostility. They obviously wanted to show her how well they had cared for the house during their years of stewardship. You have driven us out, it said, but we have left with dignity.
“We’ll have to go and see it,” said Tom when he read the letter. “When shall we pick up the keys?”
Jennifer pushed a stray wisp of hair back from her brow and answered him tersely.
“After New Year,” she said. “I’ll ring up and make an appointment. No one wants to see people just before the holidays.”
Tom looked at her and he knew what she was thinking. Years of practice had made him an expert. He smiled.
“You’re probably right,” he said, “and another week or two will give you time to get used to the idea. But try not to wonder about the Mennyms. Where they have gone and why they have gone is none of our business.”
Jennifer bit her lip. She hesitated before saying, “You don’t think it could be because we asked for the birth certificates?” She stared at the letter as if it could give her some sort of clue. “I’d hate to think we’d driven them away. Brocklehurst Grove was their home. It has been their home for goodness knows how many years. I probably wasn’t even born when they first went to live with Aunt Kate.”
Tom grasped Jennifer firmly by both shoulders.
“Listen,” he said, “don’t let your imagination run away with you. People are not so easily driven away. The Mennyms have gone and, I do assure you, their going had nothing whatsoever to do with your letter. Don’t look for what’s not there.”
“I am pleased, you know,” said Jennifer, looking down at the letter.
“We do need more space. And by the time we sell this house, we’ll be better off than we’ve ever been. But, you’re right – it does take getting used to.”
“Why don’t you ring your mother?” said Tom. “She’ll be delighted. Family property returning to the family . . .”
“Not yet,” said Jennifer. “I don’t want to tell any of them yet. Let’s just wait till after Christmas.”
“If you say so,” said Tom, “but it seems mean. This is good news. I would have thought you’d want to share it. Leave the keys till after Christmas if that’s what you want to do, but I think you should tell the family about the letter. There is no point in keeping it a secret. I doubt if you could manage it anyway.”
Jennifer thought about it. He was right. She knew he was right.
“Just give me an hour or two, then,” she said. “I can’t help being the way I am. It just seems to me that my good news might be bad news for somebody else. I wonder if one of the Mennyms has died?”
Elsie Layton, Jennifer’s mother, came to tea on the Saturday before Christmas. She sat in the taxi with an M&S bag on her knee and two others on the seat beside her. They were filled with presents for all the family.
“Sound the horn,” she said to the driver. “Let them know I’m here.”
Tom and Anna came to the door. Anna dashed forward, Tom following, and the two of them picked up the carrier bags which Elsie had stacked together on the icy pavement. By that time, Jennifer was at the open door ready to greet her mother.
And Elsie’s first words to her daughter were, “So you’ve got the house at last! And not before time! But I must say, I don’t know why you haven’t been to collect the keys.”
