The Borrowers Afloat (8 page)

Chapter Thirteen

The warmth from the bath water soon wore off and the rest of the walk was chilly. The circle of light grew larger and brighter as they advanced toward it until, at last, its radiance dazzled their eyes.

"The sun's out," Arrietty decided. It was a pleasant thought, soaked to the skin as they were, and they slightly quickened their steps. The bath-water flow had sunk to the merest trickle and the drain felt gloriously clean.

Arrietty, too, felt somehow purged as though all traces of the old dark, dusty life had been washed away—even from their clothes. Homily had a similar thought.

"Nothing like a good, strong stream of soapy water running clean through the fabric ... no rubbing or squeezing; all we've got to do now is lay them out to dry."

They emerged at last, Arrietty running ahead onto a small sandy beach that fanned out sideways and down to the water in front. The mouth of the drain was set well back under the bank of the stream, which overhung it, crowned with rushes and grasses: a sheltered, windless corner on which the sun beat down, rich with the golden promise of an early summer.

"But you can never tell," said Homily gazing around at the weatherworn flotsam and jetsam spewed out by the drain, "not in March..."

They had found Pod's bundle just within the mouth of the drain where the hatpin had stuck in the sand. The soapbox lid had fetched up, upside down, against a protruding root, and the egg, Arrietty discovered, had rolled right into the water; it lay in the shallows below a fish-boning of silver ripples and seemed to have flattened out. But when they hooked it onto the dry sand, they saw it was due to refraction of the water: the egg was still its old familiar shape but covered with tiny cracks. Arrietty and Spiller rolled it up the slope to where Pod was unpacking the water-soaked bundles, anxious to see if the mackintosh covering had worked. Triumphantly he laid out the contents one by one on the warm sand. "Dry as a bone..." he kept saying.

Homily picked out a change of clothes for each. The jerseys, though clean, were rather worn and stretched: they were the ones she had knitted—so long ago it seemed now—on blunted darning needles when they had lived under the kitchen at Firbank. Arrietty and Homily undressed in the mouth of the drain, but Spiller—although offered a garment of Pod's—would not bother to change. He slid off round the corner of the beach to take a look at his kettle.

When they were dressed and the wet clothes spread out to dry, Homily shelled off the top of the egg. Pod wiped down his precious piece of razor blade, oiled to preserve it against rust, and cut them each a slice. They sat in the sunshine, eating contentedly, watching the ripples of the stream. After a while Spiller joined them. He sat just below them, steaming in the warmth and thoughtfully eating his egg.

"Where is the kettle exactly, Spiller?" asked Arrietty.

Spiller jerked his head. "Just round the corner."

Pod had packed the Christmas pudding thimble, and they each had a drink of fresh water. Then they packed up the bundles again, and leaving the clothes to dry, they followed Spiller round the bend.

It was a second beach, rather more open, and the kettle lay against the bank at the far end. It lay slightly inclined, as Spiller had found it, wedged in by the twigs and branches washed by the river downstream. It was a corner on which floating things caught up and anchored themselves against a projection of the bank; the river twisted inwards at this point, running quite swiftly just below the kettle where, Arrietty noticed, the water looked suddenly deep.

Beyond the kettle a cluster of brambles growing under the bank hung out over the water—with new leaves growing among the tawny dead ones; some of these older shoots were trailing in the water, and in the tunnel beneath them, Spiller kept his boat.

Arrietty wanted to see the boat first, but Pod was examining the kettle, in the side of which, where it met the base, was a fair-sized circular rust hole.

"That the way in?" asked Pod.

Spiller nodded.

Pod looked up at the top of the kettle. The lid, he noticed, was not quite in, and Spiller had fixed a piece of twine to the knob in the middle of the lid and had slung it over the arched handle above.

"Come inside," he said to Pod. "I'll show you..."

They went inside while Arrietty and Homily waited in the sunshine. Spiller appeared again almost immediately at the rust-hole entrance, exclaiming irritably, "Go on, get out...." And, aided by a shove from Spiller's bare foot, a mottled yellow frog leapt through the air and slithered swiftly into the stream. It was followed by two wood lice, which, as they rolled themselves up in balls, Spiller stooped down and picked up from the floor and threw lightly onto the bank above. "Nothing else," he remarked to Homily, grinning, and disappeared again.

Homily was silent a moment and then she whispered to Arrietty, "Don't fancy sleeping in there tonight...."

"We can clean it out," Arrietty whispered back. "Remember the boot," she added.

Homily nodded, rather unhappily. "When do you think he'll get us down to Little Fordham?"

"Soon as he's been upstream to load. He likes the moon full...." Arrietty whispered.

"Why?" whispered Homily.

"He travels mostly at night."

"Oh," said Homily, her expression bewildered and slightly wild.

A metallic sound attracted their attention to the top of the kettle. The lid, they saw, was wobbling on and off, raised and lowered from inside. "According to how you want it..." said a voice. "Very ingenious," they heard a second voice reply in curiously hollow tones.

"Doesn't sound like Pod," whispered Homily, looking startled.

"It's because they're in a kettle," explained Arrietty.

"Oh?" said Homily again. "I wish they'd come out."

They came out then, even as she spoke. As Pod stepped down on the flat stone that was used as a doorstep, he looked very pleased. "See that?" he said to Homily.

Homily nodded.

"Ingenious, eh?"

Homily nodded again.

"Now," Pod went on happily, "we're going to take a look at Spiller's boat. What sort of shoes you got on?"

They were old ones Pod had made. "Why?" asked Homily. "Is it muddy?"

"Not that I know of. But if you're going aboard, you don't want to slip. Better go barefoot like Arrietty...."

Chapter Fourteen

Although she seemed nearly aground, a runnel of ice-cold water ran between the boat and the shore; through this they waded, and Spiller, at the prow, helped them to climb aboard. Roomy but clumsy (Arrietty thought as she scrambled in under the legging) but, with her flat bottom, practically impossible to capsize. She was, in fact, as Homily had guessed, a knife box: very long and narrow, with symmetrical compartments for varying sizes of cutlery.

"More what you'd call a barge," remarked Pod, looking about him. A wooden handle rose up inside, to which, he noticed, the legging had been nailed. "Holds her firm," explained Spiller, tapping the roof of the canopy, "say you want to lift up the sides."

The holds were empty at the moment, except for the narrowest. In this Pod saw an amber-colored knitting needle that ran the length of the vessel, a folded square of frayed red blanket, a wafer-thin butter knife of tarnished Georgian silver, and the handle and blade of his old nail scissor.

"So you've still got that?" he said.

"Comes in useful," said Spiller. "Careful," he said as Pod took it up, "I've sharpened it up a bit."

"Wouldn't mind this back," said Pod, a trifle enviously, "say, one day, you got another like it."

"Not so easy to come by," said Spiller, and as though to change the subject, he took up the butter knife. "Found this wedged down a crack in the side ... does me all right for a paddle."

"Just the thing," said Pod. All the cracks and joins were filled in now, he noticed, as regretfully he put back the nail scissor. "Where did you pick up this knife box in the first place?"

"Lying on the bottom upstream. Full of mud when I spotted her. Bit of a job to salvage. Up by the caravans, that's where she was. Like as not, someone pinched the silver and didn't want the box."

"Like as not," said Pod. "So you sharpened her up?" he went on, staring again at the nail scissor.

"That's right," said Spiller, and stooping swiftly, he snatched up the piece of blanket, "You take this," he said. "Might be chilly in the kettle."

"What about you?" said Pod.

"That's all right," said Spiller. "You take it!"

"Oh," exclaimed Homily, "it's the bit we had in the boot..." and then she colored slightly. "I think," she added.

"That's right," said Spiller, "better you take it."

"Well, thanks," said Pod and threw it over his shoulder. He looked around again; the legging, he realized, was both camouflage and shelter. "You done a good job, Spiller. I mean ... you could live in a boat like this—come wind, say, and wet weather."

"That's right," agreed Spiller, and he began to ease the knitting needle out from under the legging, the knob emerging forward at an angle. "Don't want to hurry you," he said.

Homily seemed taken aback. "You going already?" she faltered.

"Sooner he's gone, sooner he's back," said Pod. "Come on, Homily, all ashore now."

"But how long does he reckon he'll be?"

"What would you put it at, Spiller?" asked Pod. "A couple of days? Three? Four? A week?"

"May be less, may be more," said Spiller. "Depends on the weather. Three nights from now, say, if it's moonlight...."

"But what if we're asleep in the kettle?" said Homily.

"That's all right, Homily; Spiller will
knock.
" Pod took her firmly by the elbow. "Come on now, all ashore ... you too, Arrietty."

As Homily, with Pod's help, was lowered into the water, Arrietty jumped from the side; the wet mud, she noticed, was spangled all over with tiny footprints. They linked arms and stood well back to watch Spiller depart. He unloosed the painter, and paddle in hand, let the boat slide stern foremost from under the brambles. As it glided out into open water, it became unnoticeable suddenly and somehow part of the landscape; it might have been a curl of bark or a piece of floating wood.

It was only when Spiller laid down the paddle and stood up to punt with the knitting needle that he became at all conspicuous. They watched through the brambles as, slowly and painstakingly, leaning at each plunge on his pole, he began to come back upstream. As he came abreast of them, they ran out from the brambles to see better. Shoes in hand, they crossed the beach of the kettle and, to keep up with him, climbed round the bluff at the corner and onto the beach of the drain. There, by a tree root, which came sharply into deepish water, they waved him a last good-by.

"Wish he hadn't had to go," said Homily, as they made their way back across the sand toward the mouth of the drain.

There lay their clothes, drying in the sun, and as they approached, an iridescent cloud like a flock of birds flew off the top of the egg. "Bluebottles!" cried Homily, running forward; then, relieved, she slackened her steps. They were not bluebottles after all but cleanly burnished river flies, striped gaily with blue and gold. The egg appeared untouched, but Homily blew on it hard and dusted it up with her apron because, she explained, "You never know where they may have put their feet...."

Pod, poking about among the flotsam and jetsam, salvaged the circular cork that Homily had used as a seat. "This'll just about do it..." he murmured reflectively.

"Do what?" asked Arrietty idly. A beetle had run out from where the cork had been resting, and stooping, she held it by its shell. She liked beetles: their shiny, clear-cut armor, their mechanical joints and joins. And she liked just a little to tease them: they were so easy to hold by the sharp edge of their wing casings and so anxious to get away.

"One day you'll get bitten..." Homily warned her as she folded up the clothes, which still, though dry, smelled faintly and pleasantly of sandalwood, "or stung, or nipped, or whatever they do, and serve you right."

Arrietty let the beetle go. "They don't mind, really," she remarked, watching the horned legs scuttle up the slope and the fine grains of dislodged sand tumbling down behind them.

"And here's a hairpin," exclaimed Pod. It was the one Arrietty had found in the drain, clean-washed now and gleaming. "You know what we should do," he went on, "while we're here, that is?"

"What?" asked Homily.

"Come along here regular like, every morning, and see what the drain's brought down."

"There wouldn't be anything I'd fancy," said Homily, folding the last garment.

"What about a gold ring? Many a gold ring, or so I've heard, gets lost down a drain ... and you wouldn't say no to a safety pin."

"I'd sooner a safety pin," said Homily, "living as we do now."

They carried the bundles round the bluff onto the beach by the kettle. Homily climbed on the smooth stone that wedged the kettle at an angle and peered in through the rust hole. A cold light shone down from above where the lid was raised by its string: the interior smelled of rust and looked very uninviting.

"What we want now, before sundown," said Pod, "is some good clean dried grass to sleep on. We've got the piece of blanket..."

He looked about for some way of climbing the bank. There was a perfect place, as though invented for borrowers, where a cluster of tangled roots hung down from the lip of the cliff that curved deeply in behind them. At some time the stream had risen and washed the roots clean of earth, and they hung in festoons and clusters, elastic but safely anchored. Pod and Arrietty went up, hand over hand; there were handholds and footholds, seats, swings, ladders, ropes.... It was a borrowers' gymnasium and almost a disappointment to Arrietty when—so soon—they reached the top.

Here among the jadelike spears of new spring growth were pale clumps of hairlike grasses bleached to the color of tow.... Pod reaped these down with his razor blade and Arrietty tied them into sheaves. Homily, below, collected these bundles as they pushed them over the cliff edge and carried them up to the kettle.

When the floor of the kettle was well and truly lined, Pod and Arrietty climbed down. Arrietty peered in through the rust hole: the kettle now smelled of hay. The sun was sinking and the air felt slightly colder. "What we all need now," remarked Homily, "is a good hot drink before bed...." But there was no means of making one, so they got out the egg instead. There was plenty left: they each had a thickish slice, topped up by a leaf of sorrel.

Pod unpacked his length of tarred string, knotted one end securely, and passed the other through the center of the cork. He pulled it tight.

"What's that for?" asked Homily, coming beside him, wiping her hands on her apron (...no washing up, thank goodness: she had carried the egg shells down to the water's edge and had thrown them into the stream).

"Can't you guess?" asked Pod. He was trimming the cork now, breathing hard, and beveling the edges.

"To block up the rust hole?"

"That's right," said Pod. "We can pull it tight like some kind of stopper once we're all safely inside...."

Arrietty had climbed up the roots again. They could see her on top of the bank. It was breezier up there and her hair was stirring slightly in the wind. Around her the great grass blades, in gentle motion, crossed and recrossed against the darkening sky.

"She likes it out of doors..." said Homily fondly.

"What about you?" asked Pod.

"Well," said Homily after a moment, "I'm not one for insects, Pod, never was. Nor for the simple life—if there is such a thing. But tonight"—she gazed about her at the peaceful scene—"tonight, I feel kind of all right."

"That's the way to talk," said Pod, scraping away with his razor blade.

"Or, it might," said Homily, watching him, "be partly due to that cork."

An owl hooted somewhere in the distance, on a hollow, wobbling note ... a liquid note, it seemed, falling musically on the dusk. But Homily's eyes widened. "Arrietty—" she called shrilly. "Quickly! Come on down."

They felt snug enough in the kettle—snug and secure, with the cork pulled in and the lid let down. Homily had insisted on the latter precaution. "We won't need to
see
" she explained to Pod and Arrietty, "and we get enough air down the spout."

When they woke in the morning, the sun was up and the kettle felt rather hot. But it was exciting to lift off the lid, hand over hand on the twine, and to see a cloudless sky. Pod kicked out the cork, and they crawled through the rust hole and there again was the beach....

They breakfasted out-of-doors. The egg was wearing down, but there was two-thirds left to go. "And sunshine feeds," said Pod. After breakfast Pod went off with his hatpin to see what had come down the drain; Homily busied herself about the kettle and laid out the blanket to air; Arrietty climbed the roots again to explore the top of the bank. "Keep within earshot," Pod had warned them, "and call out now and again. We don't want accidents at this stage—not before Spiller arrives."

"And we don't want them then," retorted Homily. But she seemed curiously relaxed: there was nothing to do but wait—no housework, no cooking, no borrowing, no planning. "Might as well enjoy ourselves," she reflected and settled herself in the sun on the piece of red blanket. To Pod and Arrietty she seemed to be dozing, but this was not the case at all. Homily was busy daydreaming about a house with front door and windows—a home of their very own. Sometimes it was small and compact, sometimes four stories high. And what about the castle she wondered?

For some reason the thought of the castle reminded her of Lupy. What would they be thinking now—back there in that shuttered house? That we've vanished into thin air—that's what it will seem like to them. Homily imagined Lupy's surprise, the excitement, the conjectures.... And, smiling to herself, she half closed her eyes: never would they think of the drain. And never, in their wildest dreams, would they think of Little Fordham....

Two halcyon days went by, but on the third day it rained. Clouds gathered in the morning and by afternoon there was a downpour. At first, Arrietty—avid to stay outdoors—took shelter among the roots under the overhanging bank, but soon the rain drove in on the wind and leaked down from the bank above. The roots became slippery and greasy with mud—so all three of them fled to the drain. "I mean," said Homily as they crouched in the entrance, "at least from here we can see out, which is more than you can say for the kettle."

They moved from the drain, however, when Pod heard a drumming in the distance. "Holmcroft," he exclaimed after listening a moment. "Come on, get moving...." Homily, staring at the gray veil of rain outside, protested that, if they were in for a soaking, they might just as well have it hot as cold.