The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories

by Joan Aiken

  "There were other glasses that went for less."

  Mr. Armitage was inclined to make light of the matter. “I don't see what dropping a bent pin into the well could do. I expect she's delirious. Wait till she's better; then you'll find the whole thing has died down, very likely."

  Next day, however, the Armitages learned that old Miss Hooting had died in the night.

  "And not before it was time,” said Mr. Armitage. “She must have been getting on for a hundred. Anyway, that solves your problem about the mirror."

  "I hope so,” said the wife.

  "Now all we have to worry about is Cousin Elspeth. Did you say she takes cubes of frozen tea in her whisky, or frozen whisky in her tea?"

  "Either way will do, so long as the tea is Earl Grey...."

  Cousin Elspeth's arrival coincided with old Miss Hooting's funeral.

  The funeral of a witch (or “old fairy lady” as they were always politely referred to in the Armitages’ village, where a great many of them resided) is always a solemn affair, and Miss Hooting, because of her great age and explosive temper, had generally been regarded as the chairwitch of the village community. So the hearse, drawn by four black griffins, and carrying a glass coffin with Miss Hooting in it, looking very severe in her black robes and hat, was followed by a long straggling procession of other old ladies, riding in vehicles of all kinds, from rickety perch phaetons with half the springs gone, to moth-eaten flying carpets and down-at-the-wheel chariots.

  Mark and Harriet would very much have liked to attend the ceremony, but were told firmly that, since the family had not been on very good terms with Miss Hooting, they were to stay at home and not intrude. They heard later from their friend Rosie Perrow that there had been a considerable fuss at the graveside because Miss Hooting had left instructions that her coffin was not to be covered over until November 1st, and the vicar had very strong objections to this.

  "Specially as the coffin was made of glass,” Rosie reported.

  "I suppose he thought kids might come and smash it,” said Mark.

  "So they might. Miss Hooting wasn't at all popular."

  Cousin Elspeth, when she arrived, was in a state of high indignation.

  "Rickety, ramshackle equipages all along the village street, holding up the traffic! My taxi took twenty-eight minutes to get here, and cost me 9.83 pounds! Furthermore, I am accustomed to take my tea at four-thirty precisely, and it is now twelve meenutes past five!"

  Cousin Elspeth was a tall, rangy lady, with teeth that Mr. Armitage said reminded him of the cliffs of Dover, a voice like a chain saw, cold, granite-colored eyes that missed nothing, hair like the English Channel on a gray, choppy day, and an Aberdeen accent as frigid as chopped ice.

  In a way, Mark thought, it was a shame that she had just missed Miss Hooting; the two of them might have hit it off.

  Tea, with three kinds of scones, two kinds of shortbread, and cubes of frozen Glensporran in her Earl Grey, was just beginning to soothe Cousin Elspeth's ruffled feelings, when there came a peal at the front doorbell.

  "Inconseederate!” Cousin Elspeth sniffed again.

  The caller proved to be Mr. Glibchick, the senior partner in the legal firm of Wright, Wright, Wright, Wright, and Wrong, who had their offices on the village green. All the Wrights and Wrongs had long since passed away, and Mr. Glibchick ran the firm with the help of his partner, Mr. Wrangle.

  "What was it, dear?” inquired Mrs. Armitage, when her husband returned, looking rather astonished, from his conversation with the lawyer.

  "Just imagine—Miss Hooting has left us something in her will!"

  Cousin Elspeth was all ears at once. Making and remaking her own will had been her favorite hobby for years past; and since arriving at the Armitage house she had already subtracted 400 pounds and a writing desk from Mark's legacy, because he had neglected to pass her the jam, and was deliberating about whether to bequeath a favorite brown mohair stole to Harriet, who had politely inquired after her lumbago.

  "Left us a legacy? What—in the name of goodness?” exclaimed Mrs. Armitage. “I thought the poor old thing hadn't two pennies together."

  "Not money. Two mechanical helots, was what Mr. Glibchick said."

  "Helots? What are they?"

  "Helots were a kind of slave."

  "Fancy Miss Hooting keeping slaves!” Harriet looked horrified. “I bet she beat them with her umbrella, and made them live on burnt toast-crusts."

  "Little gels should be seen and not hairrd,” remarked Cousin Elspeth, giving Harriet a disapproving glance, and changing her mind about the brown mohair stole.

  Next day, the mechanical slaves were delivered by Ernie Perrow in his tractor-trailer.

  They proved to be two figures, approximately human in shape, one rather larger than life-size, one rather smaller, constructed out of thin metal piping, with plastic boxes for their chests, containing a lot of electronic gadgetry. Their feet were large, round, and heavy, and they had long, multi-hinged arms, ending in prehensile hands with hooks on the fingers. They had eyes made of electric light-bulbs, and rather vacant expressions. Their names were stenciled on their feet: Tinthea and Nickelas.

  "What gruesome objects!” exclaimed Mrs. Armitage. “For mercy's sake, let's give them to the next jumble-sale; the very sight of them is enough to give me one of my migraines!"

  Cousin Elspeth entirely agreed. “Whit seengulrly reepulsive airrticles!"

  But Mark and his father, seeing eye to eye for once, were most anxious to get the mechanical slaves into working order, if possible.

  "Besides, it would be very tactless to give them to a sale. Miss Hooting's friends would be sure to get to know."

  "The things are in a horrible condition,” pronounced Mark, after some study of the helots. “All damp and dirty and rusty; the old girl must have kept them in some dismal outhouse and never oiled them."

  "What makes them go?” inquired Harriet, peering at a damp, tattered little booklet, entitled Component Identification, which hung on a chain round Tinthea's neck.

  "It seems to be lunar energy,” said her father. “Which is pretty dicey, if you ask me. I never heard of anything running on lunar energy before. But that seems to be the purpose of those glass plates on the tops of their heads."

  "More to ‘em than meets the eye,” agreed Mark, wagging his own head.

  As it happened, the month of October was very fine. Hot, sunny days were succeeded by blazing moonlit nights. Tinthea and Nickelas were put in the greenhouse to warm up and dry off. Meanwhile, Mark and his father, each guided by a booklet, spent devoted hours cleaning, drying, oiling, and de-rusting the family's new possessions.

  "'Clean glazed areas with water and ammonia solution,’ it says."

  "'Brush cassette placement with household detergent.’”

  "Which is the cassette placement?"

  "I think it must be that drawer affair in the chest."

  "Chest of drawers,” giggled Harriet.

  Tinthea, on whom Mark was working, let out something that sounded like a snort.

  "'Keep latched prehensile work/monitor selector function aligners well lubricated with sunflower or cottonseed oil.’ Which do you think those are?"

  "Its hands?” suggested Harriet.

  Mr. Armitage, doing his best to clean the feet of Nickelas, which were in a shocking state, matted with dirt and old, encrusted furniture polish, accidentally touched a concealed lever in the heel, and Nickelas began to hop about, in a slow, ungainly, but frantic way, like a toad in a bed of thistles. The helot's hand, convulsively opening and shutting, grasped the handle of Mr. Armitage's metal tool-box, picked up the box, and swung it at its owner's head. Mr. Armitage just managed to save himself from a cracked skull by falling over sideways into a tray of flowerpots. Nickelas then clumsily but effectively smashed eight greenhouse panes with the end of the tool-box, using it like a sledge-hammer, before Mark, ducking low, managed to grab the helot's leg and flick down the switch.

  "Oh,
I see, that's how they work!” Harriet pressed Tinthea's switch.

  "Don't, idiot!” shouted Mark, but it was too late. Tinthea picked up a bucket of dirty, soapy water and dashed it into Harriet's face just before Mr. Armitage, with great presence of mind, hooked the helot's feet from under her with the end of a rake. Tinthea feel flat on the ground, and Mark was able to switch her off.

  "We have got to learn to programme them properly before we switch them on. They seem to have charged up quite a lot of lunar energy,” said Mr. Armitage, trying to prize Nickelas's steel fingers loose from the handle of the tool-chest.

  He read aloud: “'To programme the helots: turn the percept/accept/monitor/selector to zero. If the helot is in multiple cycle, depress the Clear key. The memory will then return to State o 1/2. Bring the memory factor into play by raising shutter of display window, simultaneously depressing locking lever, opening upper assembly carriage masker, sliding drum axle out of tab rack, shifting wheel track chain into B position, and moving preset button to (double-arrow)] signal.’ Is that clear?” said Mr. Armitage after a little thought.

  "No,” said Mark. “Do these things have memories then?"

  "I think so. I'm not quite sure about that State o 1/2. Maybe they still have some instructions programmed into them by old Miss Hooting. I don't quite see how to get rid of those. Here, it says, ‘the helot will remember the previous day's instructions and repeat for an indefinite number of operations unless the memory factor is cancelled by opening ‘R’ slot and simultaneously depressing all function keys.’ I must say,” said Mr. Armitage, suddenly becoming enthusiastic, “if we could get Nickelas, for instance, to take over all the digging and lawnmowing and carry the garbage bin to the street, I should be quite grateful to old Miss Hooting for her legacy, and I'm sorry I ever called a trouble-making old so-and-so."

  "And maybe we can program Tinthea to wash dishes and make beds?” Harriet suggested hopefully.

  But there was a long way to go before the helots could be set to perform any useful task with the slightest certainty that it would be carried out properly.

  Tinthea, programmed to make the beds, showered sunflower oil liberally all over the blankets, and then tore up the sheets into shreds; she finished by scooping handfuls of foam rubber out of the mattresses, and unstringing all the bed-springs. The only bed spared was that of Cousin Elspeth, who always kept her bedroom door locked. Tinthea was unable to get into her room, though she returned to rattle vainly at the door handle all day long.

  Nickelas, meanwhile, ran amok with the motor mower, trundling it back and forth across the garden, laying flat all Mrs. Armitage's begonias and dahlias in fifteen minutes; Mark was able to lasso him and switch him off just before he began on the sweet peas.

  "We'd better get rid of them before they murder us all in our beds,” said Mrs. Armitage.

  "It seems a shame not to get some use out of them,” said Harriet. “Don't you think we could teach Tinthea to do the cooking?"

  But Tinthea's notion of cooking was to pile every article from the refrigerator into the oven, including ice-cubes and Mr. Armitage's special film for his Japanese camera. And then Harriet found her supplying buckets of strong Earl Grey tea to Nickelas, who was pouring them over Mr. Armitage's cherished asparagus bed.

  Instructed to pick blackberries for jam, Nickelas came back with a basket containing enough Deadly Nightshade berries to poison the entire village. Tinthea, set to polish the stairs, covered them with salad oil; Harriet was just in time to catch Cousin Elspeth as she slid down the last six steps. The results of this were quite advantageous, for Harriet was, on the spot, reappointed to the brown mohair stole in Cousin Elspeth's will (though not informed of the fact), and Cousin Elspeth's lumbago, as it proved subsequently, was cured forever by the shock of the fall; still, the Armitage household began to feel that the helots were more of a liability than an asset.

  But how to dispose of them?

  "If I were ye, I'd smesh ‘em with a hetchit,” snapped Cousin Elspeth.

  "I don't think that would be advisable. A witch's legacy, you know, should be treated with caution."

  "A witch! Hech!"

  Mr. Armitage telephoned the local museum to ask if they would accept the helots; but Mr. Muskin, the curator, was away for a month in Tasmania, collecting ethnological curiosities. The nearest National Trust mansion had to refer the possibility of being given two lunar-powered helots to its Acquisitions Board; and the librarian at the village library was quite certain she didn't want them; nor did the Primary School.

  For the time, Tinthea and Nickelas were locked in the cellar. “They won't pick up much lunar power there,” said Mr. Armitage. They could be heard gloomily thumping about from time to time.

  "I think they must have learned how to switch each other on,” said Mark.

  "It's a bit spooky having them down there,” shivered Harriet. “I wish Mr. Muskin would come back from Tasmania and decide to have them."

  Meanwhile, to everybody's amazement, a most remarkable change was taking place in Cousin Elspeth. This was so noticeable and so wholly unexpected, that it even distracted the family's attention from the uncertainty of having two somewhat unbiddable helots in the cellar.

  In fact, as Mr. Armitage said to his wife, it was almost impossible to believe the evidence of one's own eyes.

  In the course of three weeks Cousin Elspeth's looks and her temper improved daily and visibly. Her cheeks grew pink, her eyes blue, and her face no longer looked like a craggy mountain landscape but became simply handsome and distinguished. She was heard to laugh, several times, and told Mrs. Armitage that it didn't matter if the tea wasn't always Earl Grey; she remembered a limerick she had learned in her youth about the old man of Hoy, restored the writing-desk to Mark in her will, and began to leave her bedroom door unlocked.

  Curiously enough, after a week or two, it was Mrs. Armitage who began to think rather wistfully of the wasted helot manpower lying idle down there in the cellar. She told Mark to fetch Tinthea to help with the job of washing blankets. Which Cousin Elspeth pointed out should be done before the winter.

  "After all, as we've got the creatures, we might as well make some use of them. Just carrying blankets to and fro, Tinthea can't get up to much mischief. But don't bring Nickelas, I can't stand his big staring eyes."

  So Mark, assisted by Harriet, fetched the smaller helot from the cellar. They were careful not to switch her on until she was in the utility room, and the cellar door locked again on the inert Nickelas.

  But Harriet did afterwards recall that Tinthea's bulbous, sightless eyes seemed to watch the process of locking and unlocking very attentively.

  For once, however, the smaller helot appeared to be in a cooperative mood, and she hoisted wet blankets out of the washing machine and trundled off with them into the garden, where she hung them on the line without doing anything unprogrammed or uncalled-for, returning three or four times for a new load.

  It was bright, blowy autumn weather, the leaves were whirling off the trees, and the blankets dried so quickly that they were ready to put back on the beds after a couple of hours.

  "Ech! Bless my soul!” sighed Cousin Elspeth at tea, which was, again, taken in the garden as the weather was so fine. “This veesit has passed so quickly, it's harrd to realize that it will be November on Thurrsday. I must be thinking of reeturrning to my ain wee naist."

  "Oh, but you mustn't think of leaving before our Hallowe'en party,” said Mrs. Armitage quickly. “We have so much enjoyed having you, Cousin Elspeth, you must make this visit an annual event. It has been a real pleasure."

  "Indeed it has! I've taken a grand fancy to your youngfolk.” Cousin Elspeth beamed benevolently at Mark and Harriet, who were lying on their stomachs on the grass, doing homework between bites of bread and damson jam.

  "Where's Tinthea?” Harriet suddenly said to Mark. “Did you put her away?"

  "No, I didn't. Did you?"

  Harriet shook her head.

&n
bsp; Quietly, she and Mark rose, left the group round the garden table, and went indoors.

  "I can hear something upstairs,” said Mark.

  A thumping could be heard from the direction of Cousin Elspeth's room.

  Harriet armed herself with a broom, Mark picked a walking-stick from the front-door stand, and they hurried up the stairs.

  As they entered Cousin Elspeth's room, Tinthea could be seen apparently admiring herself in the large looking-glass. Then, advancing to it with outstretched monitor selection function aligners, she was plainly about to remove it from the wall when Mark, stepping forward, tapped down her main switch with the ferrule of the walking-stick. Tinthea let out what sounded like a cry of rage and spun half-round before she lost her power and became inert with dangling mandibles and vacant receiving panel; but even so it seemed to Harriet that there was a very malevolent expression in her sixty-watt eyes.

  "What was really queer, though,” Harriet said to her brother, “was that just before you hooked down her switch, I caught sight of her reflection in the glass, and she looked—well, not like a helot, more like a person. There is something peculiar about that mirror."

  She studied herself in the glass.

  "The first time I saw myself in it, I thought I looked horrible. But now I look better—"

  Mark eyed his reflection and said, “Perhaps that's what's been happening to Cousin Elspeth, seeing herself in it every day..."

  "Of course! Aren't you clever! So that's why old Miss Hooting wanted it! But what shall we do about Tinthea?"

  "Put her back in the cellar. You take her legs. Don't touch the switch.” Tinthea sagged heavily between them as they carried her back to the cellar. And when she was set down next to Nickelas, it seemed that a warning message flashed between the two pairs of sightless eyes.

  * * * *

  The Armitages’ Hallowe'en party was always a great success.

  This year Mrs. Armitage, with Cousin Elspeth and Harriet helping, produced a magnificent feast, including several Scottish delicacies such as haggis and Aberdeen bun; Mark and Harriet organized apple-bobbing, table-turning, and fortune-telling with tea-leaves (large Earl Grey ones), flour, lighted candles, and soot. The guests came dressed as trolls, kelpies, banshees, werewolves, or boggarts, and the sensation of the evening was the pair of helots, Tinthea and Nickelas, who, carefully and lengthily programmed during days of hard work by Mr. Armitage, passed round trays of cheese tarts, chestnut crunch fancies, and tiny curried sausages.