The Borrowers: Chapters 14–17

“Look,” she said, “here’s a letter from Uncle Hendreary. I wrote to him and the boy took the letter—”
“You wrote to him!” cried Homily on a kind of suppressed shriek.

And how—more than important—how imperative it had seemed to make sure the Hendrearys were alive. “Do understand,” pleaded Arrietty, “please understand! I’m trying to save the race!”

But Pod was not listening. “Save the race!” he repeated grimly. “It’s people like you, my girl, who do things sudden like with no respect for tradition, who’ll finish us Borrowers once for all. Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

“Pod,” said Homily soberly, “I’m frightened. Everything seems to be happening at once. What are we going to do?”

She gazed—just as Arrietty had done—about the familiar room (too full, she realized, with little bags and boxes and makeshift cupboards) and thought: “What now? Perhaps nothing will happen after all; the child perhaps is right, and we are making a good deal of fuss about nothing very much; this boy, when all’s said and done, is only a guest; perhaps,” thought Homily, “he’ll go away again quite soon, and that,” she told herself drowsily, “will be that.”

They both stared at the ceiling: the whole surface was on a steep slant and one side of it had come right away from the wall—this was what had caused the draught—and down into the room, to within an inch of the foot of the bed, protruded a curious object: a huge bar of gray steel with a flattened, shining edge.

They both stared at the ceiling: the whole surface was on a steep slant and one side of it had come right away from the wall—this was what had caused the draught—and down into the room, to within an inch of the foot of the bed, protruded a curious object: a huge bar of gray steel with a flattened, shining edge.

A slow anger was rising up in Homily: she had been caught in her hair-curlers; Pod had raised his hand to her; and she remembered that, in the general turmoil and for once in her life, she had left the supper washing-up for morning, and there it would be, on the kitchen table, for all the world to see!

Pod sprang up just in time to steady the dresser as the red velvet chair was whisked away above his head and placed presumably in the next room but one.

“Oh, everything,” the boy told her; “carpets and rugs and beds with mattresses, and there’s a bird in a cage—not a real one—of course, and cooking pans and tables and five gilt chairs and a pot with a palm in it—a dish of plaster tarts and an imitation leg of mutton—”

“Oh, everything,” the boy told her; “carpets and rugs and beds with mattresses, and there’s a bird in a cage—not a real one—of course, and cooking pans and tables and five gilt chairs and a pot with a palm in it—a dish of plaster tarts and an imitation leg of mutton—”

But as Pod well knew, in actual fact it would be several hours before, disheveled and aching, they finally dropped into bed.

“He’s been ill,” she told her mother and father; “he’s been here for the quiet and the country air. But soon he’ll go back to India. Did you know,” she asked the amazed Homily, “that the Arctic night lasts six months, and that the distance between the two poles is less than that between the two extremities of a diameter drawn through the equator?”

“A musical conversazione, that’s what we could have!” cried the exulting Homily as Arrietty struck a tiny, tuneless note on a horse-hair string.

“If only,” she went on fervently, clasping her hands, “your father would start on the drawing room!”

Even Great-Aunt Sophy, right away upstairs in the littered grandeur of her bedroom, seemed distantly affected by a spirit of endeavor which seemed to flow, in gleeful whorls and eddies, about the staid old house.

Even Great-Aunt Sophy, right away upstairs in the littered grandeur of her bedroom, seemed distantly affected by a spirit of endeavor which seemed to flow, in gleeful whorls and eddies, about the staid old house.

Even Great-Aunt Sophy, right away upstairs in the littered grandeur of her bedroom, seemed distantly affected by a spirit of endeavor which seemed to flow, in gleeful whorls and eddies, about the staid old house.

Even Great-Aunt Sophy, right away upstairs in the littered grandeur of her bedroom, seemed distantly affected by a spirit of endeavor which seemed to flow, in gleeful whorls and eddies, about the staid old house.

Even Great-Aunt Sophy, right away upstairs in the littered grandeur of her bedroom, seemed distantly affected by a spirit of endeavor which seemed to flow, in gleeful whorls and eddies, about the staid old house.

Pod was a little irked by his riches; he had never visualized, not in his wildest dreams, borrowing such as this.

Standing there, on that fateful day, in the spring sunshine, feather duster in hand, her little black eyes had become slits of anger and cunning.

Standing there, on that fateful day, in the spring sunshine, feather duster in hand, her little black eyes had become slits of anger and cunning.

Ah, thought Mrs. Driver, was not this just the sort of thing she might do—the sort of thing she would cackle over, back upstairs again among her pillows, watching and waiting for Mrs. Driver to report the loss?

She had pulled his suitcase out from under the wardrobe and found his dear dead mole and his hoard of sugar lumps and her best potato knife.

Hurriedly Mrs. Driver felt her way into the kitchen and fumbled for matches along the ledge above the stove; she knocked off a pepper-pot and a paper bag of cloves, and glancing quickly downwards saw a filament of light; she saw it in the second before she struck a match—a thread of light, it looked like, on the floor beside her feet; it ran in an oblong shape, outlining a rough square.

She hesitated and glanced about the kitchen: everything else looked normal and just as she had left it—the plates on the dresser, the saucepans on the wall, and the row of tea-towels hanging symmetrically on their string above the stove.

And then she shrieked, loud and long. She saw movement: a running, a scrambling, a fluttering! She heard a squeaking, a jabbering, and a gasping.

She clambered on to it and it wobbled beneath her and she climbed, still shrieking, from the chair to the table....And there she stood, marooned, crying and gasping, and calling out for help, until, after hours it seemed, there was a rattling at the scullery door. Crampfurl it was, roused at last by the light and the noise.

She clambered on to it and it wobbled beneath her and she climbed, still shrieking, from the chair to the table....And there she stood, marooned, crying and gasping, and calling out for help, until, after hours it seemed, there was a rattling at the scullery door. Crampfurl it was, roused at last by the light and the noise.

She clambered on to it and it wobbled beneath her and she climbed, still shrieking, from the chair to the table....And there she stood, marooned, crying and gasping, and calling out for help, until, after hours it seemed, there was a rattling at the scullery door. Crampfurl it was, roused at last by the light and the noise.

He staggered, slightly dazed, into the kitchen, his corduroy trousers pulled on over his nightshirt.

“Well,” said Crampfurl stolidly, “maybe. But if you ask me, I think it’s that boy—where he hides things.” His eye brightened and he went down on one knee, “Where he’s got the ferret, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Listen,” cried Mrs. Driver, and there was a despairing note in her voice, “you’ve got to listen. This wasn't no boy and it wasn’t no ferret.”

“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!”