The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories

by Joan Aiken

  However, Mr. Armitage didn't believe in crossing his bridges before they were built, preferred peace and quiet, and wanted to get on with his report about sugar. He did not mention any of these things, but merely remarked, “A cat, ma'am, in law, is counted as a member of the class ferae naturae, for whose actions the owners cannot be held responsible."

  "I don't care a twopenny fig for your idiotic law,” snapped Miss Pursey. “I want that cat removed before it does irreparable damage to my tree.” And she glared at Walrus, who swayed serenely about in the branches of the tiny tree, with his tail stuck out sideways to avoid getting it entangled in a twig.

  Mr. Armitage said, “Here, puss, puss!” wondering as he did so why Miss Pursey did not herself remove the cat. He was well within reach, for the tree was only four feet high.

  Walrus took no notice of Mr. Armitage.

  "I'll have to go back to the house and bang on his plate,” Mr. Armitage said, and did so. Walrus ate his meals off a tin plate, the sound of which, when banged with a spoon, always fetched him with a gallop, no matter where he was. It was the only time he did gallop. As soon as he heard the banging now, he dropped from the tree like a sack of coal, leaving it wildly swaying, and shot off to the kitchen, where Mr. Armitage had to open a can of sardines, because there seemed to be no cat food. “And don't go up that tree anymore,” he admonished Walrus, who took no notice. He was busy flicking sardine oil about with his whiskers.

  Miss Pursey did not thank Mr. Armitage. She was to be seen in the distance angrily inspecting the little tree for damage.

  Mr. Armitage shut his study window and went back to work. But at lunch, a cold one assembled by the children from ingredients assembled by Mrs. Armitage, there came a furious rapping at the door.

  "Your cat,” said Miss Pursey to Harriet, who opened the door, “is up my tree again. Please come and remove it at once."

  Harriet went through the gate in the hedge and lifted Walrus out of the tree. He allowed himself to be lifted, but he looked martyred about it and let his back legs dangle down, always a sign that he was not pleased. “You see, he remembers that there used to be a chaffinch's nest in the hedge just beside that tree,” Harriet explained.

  "I don't care what kind of a nest there was or what he remembers,” Miss Pursey said. “Don't let this happen again, or I shall be obliged to take drastic action."

  "My goodness!” Harriet said, returning to the lunch table. “Miss Pursey's got some really awful-looking plaster gnomes in her garden, wheeling little barrows full of skulls. They're enough to give anyone nightmares."

  "And did you notice the plastic toadstools?” said her father.

  "The red-and-white-spotted ones?” said Harriet. “Those aren't plastic. I had a good look at them. They're real. She must have been sowing quick-grow toadstool spores. I've read about those red-and-white ones. On the steppes of Siberia, they are regarded as a great delicacy, and may be sold for three or four reindeer apiece."

  "Well, we are not in Siberia now,” said her father, “and have no reindeer, thank heaven. Don't eat any of those toadstools; they give you hallucinations."

  "I suppose the Siberians like hallucinations,” Mark said thoughtfully.

  In the next few days, a great many more toadstools and other fungi sprouted in Miss Pursey's garden, including Amanita phalloides, the death cup, which gives anybody who eats it three or four days of increasingly unpleasant sensations ending in death. Miss Pursey had a full bed of death-cups. She had also stinkhorns, false blushers, sickeners, devil's boletus, and lurid boletus. As well as her fungi, she had several handsome bushes of deadly nightshade, covered with large glossy black berries—enough, as Mr. Armitage said, regarding them apprehensively, to poison the whole village. He strongly recommended his children to keep well away from Miss Pursey's garden.

  "But we have to keep going in to get Walrus out of the tree,” objected Mark.

  Walrus, not an intelligent cat, seemed obsessed by memories of the chaffinch's nest. He spent as much of his time as possible in the little tree, which was developing a permanent list towards the hedge. Mark and Harriet had to make constant rescue dashes, and Harriet worried about the situation. They could not keep guard over Walrus for twenty-four hours a day—after all, they had to go to school, and it seemed likely that any drastic action taken by Miss Pursey would be very drastic indeed.

  "I wonder why she doesn't take Walrus out of the tree herself?” said Mark.

  "I expect it's because cats are witch animals,” suggested Harriet. “Probably you aren't allowed to touch somebody else's familiar."

  "But Walrus isn't anyone's familiar."

  "I know, but she doesn't know that."

  "She could do something at long distance—lasso him or shoot him."

  "Don't!” shuddered Harriet.

  Familiar or unfamiliar, one evening Walrus did not arrive at his usual headlong speed when Harriet banged the tin-plate supper gong.

  There followed a long, worried wait.

  "Oh goodness,” said Harriet with quivering lip, “I do hope Miss Pursey hasn't done something awful. Do you think we should go round and ask—"

  "Half a mo',” said Mark. “Something's trying to get through the cat flap."

  Something was having a hard struggle.

  "Oh!” cried Harriet. “If that fiend has hurt Walrus—"

  She rushed to the door and opened it. At once it was plain why the creature outside had been unable to get in through the cat flap. A full-grown timber wolf bounded past Harriet into the kitchen. He stood about three foot high, weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, and was covered in a shaggy, grayish-white coat with a splendid ruff about his neck.

  Mark and Harriet were disconcerted, but the wolf seemed quite accustomed to his surroundings; he made straight for Walrus's tin plate, and sucked up the small portion of chopped rock salmon that lay upon it with one scoop of his long, supple tongue. Then he looked around for more.

  "Oh gosh,” said Harriet, “has she changed Walrus to this?"

  "Looks like it,” said Mark. He approached the wolf with caution and felt under the silvery sweep of ruff. “Yes! Here's Walrus's flea collar—lucky for him it was the stretch kind."

  "It must be stretched pretty far. Do you think it's too tight for him!"

  "Seems okay. We'd better leave it on; I daresay wolves have fleas, too."

  Wolf-Walrus thought quite plainly one small portion of fish quite insufficient and demanded more with one long, lugubrious howl.

  "All right—here—” said Harriet, hastily dumping out the rest of the panful. “I'm afraid he's going to be expensive to feed. Almost as bad as darling Furry."

  Furry had been a griffin who lodged briefly with the Armitages and required at least forty bowls of bread-and-milk a day, with raisins.

  "Very handsome, though,” said Mark, admiringly stroking the muscular shoulders with their tremendous coat of fur as Wolf snuffled down the rest of the fish. “I quite like the idea of having a wolf."

  Mrs. Armitage did not like it when she came into the kitchen to make supper.

  "Children! What have you got there?"

  Wolf, stretched in front of the stove, took up the entire hearthrug.

  "Miss Pursey has turned Walrus into a wolf. We'll have to enlarge the cat flap quite a lot,” Harriet said. “But don't worry—Mark can do it with his fret saw. I don't know if Wolf will be able to squeeze through the bathroom window."

  Wolf had a try. It was plain that he had not yet grown accustomed to the change in his size. At two in the morning, the Armitages woke to a rending crash, and soon after, Mark was almost suffocated by Wolf's two hundred and fifty pounds spread out across the eiderdown. Next day, it was discovered that the bathroom window frame had been stove in.

  And the carpets and table legs soon began to suffer severely.

  "I really don't think we can keep him,” Mrs. Armitage said. “Besides, he's much more short-tempered than he used to be. Walrus was always such a placid
cat. Perhaps some zoo—"

  "Oh, Mother! How could you? Why, it's our old Walrus, that we've had ever since he was a kitten—"

  "Well, you'll have to approach Miss Pursey. Ask her to change him back. But be tactful—I don't want you changed to owls or weasels...."

  "You'd think that Miss Pursey might be glad to change him back, actually,” said Harriet. “He does quite as much damage in his wolf shape."

  Certainly Walrus no longer tried to climb the little tree. Timberwolves do not climb trees; which was just as well, for two hundred fifty pounds of wolf-Walrus would have done for the tree completely. But wolves dig a lot; and Miss Pursey was often to be seen throwing furious stones after Walrus, who had just scooped out a large cavity in her hemlock bed, or among her poison ivy.

  Mark went around the bungalow, as he had not yet had conflict with Miss Pursey, and put the case to her politely.

  "I expect he's got over his tree habit by now. Walrus has quite a short memory. He's quite a stupid cat. Couldn't you see your way to change him back?"

  But Miss Pursey was unapproachable.

  "Why should I?” she snapped. “I have just about lost my patience with your family. You give me nothing but trouble. Get out of my garden and don't let me see you in it again."

  Mark left before she lost any more patience.

  "We'll have to think of something else,” he said to Harriet.

  "I've had an idea,” she said. “There's a new stall at the fair this year. Janie Perrow was telling me—it's a magician. Janie says he's marvelous. He can cure all sorts of illnesses and change spring onions into diamonds—I bet he can change a wolf back into a cat. Though it does seem rather a pity,” she added, wrapping an arm around Walrus's huge gray bulk. He snapped at her hand in his sleep. They were sitting on the hearthrug after tea.

  "Let's go down to the fair now,” said Mark, jumping up. “Have you any money?"

  "A pound saved from hop-picking."

  "I've got two. Perhaps Father will give us something. A magician might be expensive."

  Mr. Armitage was cautious. “First find out if the chap will do it. Then find out how much it costs. Then I'll see.” He added gloomily, “It would be more useful if he could find some way of removing Miss Pursey. However, do your best."

  Mark and Harriet ran down to the village fair, which was spread all over the village green. It was called the Slow-Fair, happened once a year, and lasted for two weeks, from six to midnight every night. The stalls and sideshows were all terribly expensive, so Mark and Harriet usually waited until the last night, which was always the gayest and wildest, when pigs and coconuts were being auctioned off, and the fair people, having made a good deal of money, were more inclined to let customers onto the swings and roundabouts at half price, if half price was all they could afford, rather than let them go home with any money left unspent.

  The roundabout, perched slantways on the hillside, was a particularly good one, with dragons and cockatrices, griffins, unicorns, hydras, camelopards, and Tasmanian devils, all painted in brilliant and luminous colors. It made a tremendous noise of bawling music and grinding machinery. Before getting down to business with the magician, Mark and Harriet each had one ride on it; he chose a dragon and she a cockatrice. It really felt like flying as one swung out over the tremendous drop on the lower side.

  Close by the roundabout stood a very small stall indeed. It was hardly larger than a horse box and had a sign on top, very brightly painted, illuminated by lightbulbs all around, which said, MAESTRO CAPPODOCCIO, Leech to the Old Man of the Mountains, Tooth Puller to Prester John, Chirurgeon to the Grand Lama, Hakkim to the Bey of Tunis, and his Superb Assistant, Alicia Morgiana, Queen of the Sorceresses. Not to mention Lupus, the Wisest Beast in Christendom.

  "This must be our man,” said Mark. “There doesn't seem to be much going on in his van, though."

  Indeed, the little van, which was on wheels, seemed dark and silent enough. The door was closed. A small window on one side gave out a dim gleam of light.

  Harriet stood on tiptoe and peered through the window. “I can see someone in there sitting on a stool,” she reported. So she went around to the end, climbed up the two steps, and tapped on the door. After considerable pause, it was slowly pulled back.

  Inside stood a pale girl with lanky fair hair and a good many spots. She wore a sagging skirt, a draggled cardigan, trodden-over shoes, and a lot of mascara. She was chewing gum. She hardly looked like the Queen of the Sorceresses.

  "Is Maestro Cappodoccio about?” said Harriet.

  "I couldn't say, I'm sure,” said the girl, as if she didn't care, either. She had a flat, uninterested voice.

  "When will he be back?"

  "I couldn't say. He'll be back sometime."

  "Are you his assistant?"

  "Yes,” the girl said, shifting her gum from one cheek to the other.

  "Well, can you help us?"

  "Nah. Not without the professor."

  "Well, can we come in and wait?"

  "Suppose so,” said the girl unenthusiastically, and went back to her stool. They edged inside. The van was about five foot by seven—large enough to accommodate four or five people standing, but not much more. At the far end was a stove with a black pot boiling. The walls were lined with shelves containing small pots and jars labeled Ac. Phen., Ol. Euc., Sod. Bic., etc. There were two pull-down bunks. The ceiling was painted with geometrical signs. The girl's stool was the only seat, and she had gone back to reading Girl's Star Weekly.

  Mark and Harriet each stood facing a wall. Harriet's had the window in it. She discovered with surprise that it was not a window, but a picture. One-way glass? It had certainly been a window from the outside, but now, instead of the fairground, she saw, very far away, a garden with mossy lawns, weeping willows, a fountain, a stone seat—

  "Gosh,” murmured Harriet half to herself. “It isn't a picture. It's real.” She had noticed that the weeping willow was swaying in the breeze.

  She jogged Mark's elbow.

  "Hey—look at this. It's a real garden—miles and miles away—"

  "Sure it's not a TV screen?” murmured Mark, turning around cautiously so as not to knock any of the little pots. But as soon as he studied the framed garden, he went very pale—his eyes almost popped out of his head. “Harriet! Do you know what that is?"

  "No, what?” she glanced warningly at the girl, but the girl was absorbed in an article about “Your Stars, Your Makeup, and You."

  "That garden!” hissed Mark. “It's Mr. Johansen's garden. Wait here! I'm going to fetch him right away!"

  And without wasting a moment he slipped out of the van and rushed off into the dusk.

  Harriet had known immediately what he meant. Mark's music teacher, a kind, sad, white-haired man called Rudolph Johansen, had once, many years before, fallen in love with a German princess whom he had the misfortune to lose through a piece of drawing-room magic. Somewhere, folded up in an enchanted garden inside the pages of a book, the Princess Sophia Maria Louisa of Saxe-Hoffenpoffen-und-Hamster was still waiting for Mr. Johansen, but nobody knew where she was or where the book was. It had been lost. But now here, according to Mark, was a picture of her garden—no, the garden itself, Harriet thought—and Mark should know, for he had once cut it all carefully off the sides of six cereal packets and pasted it together, only to have it destroyed during some disastrous spring cleaning.

  Harriet gazed at the garden as if it might melt away in front of her eyes.

  Far in the distance, she saw a speck of silvery white, which slowly came closer and turned into a tiny, faraway lady, stiffly dressed in a white crinoline, with her powdered hair dragged high on top of her head. Miles away, at the far end of the lawn, she sat herself rather wearily down on a stone seat, laying her hand on the head of a big shaggy dog who sat down on the ground by her feet.

  "That must be Princess Sophie! If only Mark can find Mr. Johansen, and only Mr. Johansen can remember his tune—” For entry to the garden coul
d be achieved only by humming a tune that Mr. Johansen himself had made up.

  "Hey,” said Alicia, the Queen of the Sorceresses, closing her magazine and standing up. “I can hear the professor coming, and he's got someone with him. Only one customer allowed at a time. You'd best wait outside."

  "But we were here first,” Harriet protested.

  "Can't help that,” said the girl, and jerked her head toward the door. Harriet went out and stood beside the van, in its shadow. She could hear voices and footsteps approaching, for the merry-go-round was temporarily at a standstill. Then, at her feet, she heard the rattle of a chain.

  Rather startled, she looked down and saw a large paw extending from under the van.

  It looked suspiciously like that of Walrus.

  Harriet dropped on her knees. Her eyes were accustomed to the dim light; she found herself staring straight into the face of a large pale gray wolf.

  Was it Walrus?

  Very cautiously, she held out a hand. “Are you Walrus?” she whispered.

  A low growl answered her.

  The voices and footsteps had now arrived outside the van.

  Harriet heard a man's voice—a dry, gentle, calm voice, rather like that of Mr. Garrett, her English master, who liked to recite such long poems that not infrequently he put the whole class to sleep.

  "But, madam, I already have a wolf in my act,” he was saying. “As you can see from my sign. I have Lupus, the Wisest Beast in Christendom, who can tell gold from sham by touch and recognizes all the letters of the Greek alphabet.

  "That's why I thought you'd like to have two.” The other voice was Miss Pursey's—Harriet recognized it at once. “Two would be better still. You could teach the second one the Russian alphabet—it's a Siberian wolf, actually—and how to tell butter from marge."

  "Why do you wish to dispose of the animal?"