Last, but not least, was The Poor Young Man.
On that first morning after their arrival at the rectory, having risen early, Arrietty had glanced into the library through the half-open glass doors that led into the conservatory. Although she had not taken it in at the time, she recalled having seen something she had taken for a rolled-up rug, lying on the floor just in front of the fireplace. Then the squeaking of the wheels of Peagreen's wagon and the sudden appearance of Peagreen himself had made her forget all about it. She had never seen it since.
She remembered it again quite suddenly on the day when, the human beings being out, Peagreen—on the topmost of the library bookshelves—had maneuvered the roll of white canvas so that it fell at the feet of Pod, who had been waiting down below. She had turned away to the tap in the conservatory to get herself a drink of water, and when she returned again to the doors of the library to see what was going on, Peagreen and Pod, one at each end of it, were carrying the roll towards the hole in the fire surround left by the missing tile.
But there was something between them and it. Again she took it for a piece of rolled-up carpet and went forwards to see better. It was not a rug, or a piece of old rolled carpet; to her horror she saw it was a human being stretched full length in front of the hearth. Asleep? Dead? She jumped back and screamed.
Pod, panting a little as he supported the back end of the roll, had turned his head irritably. "Oh, do be quiet, Arrietty! We've got to concentrate."
Arrietty had clapped her hand to her mouth, her eyes staring. "Gently does it..." Pod was saying to Peagreen, who had not turned his head.
"Oh, Papa!" Arrietty had gasped, "whatever is it?"
"It's nothing," Pod had reassured her. "It's often there. You must have seen it. Lift your end up a bit, Peagreen. You've got the steps, remember. We've got to take it in on a slant..." Then as if suddenly aware of Arrietty's distress, he had turned his head towards her. "It's all right, girl, no need to
fuss—it's not a human being: a poor lad, they say, who shot himself. A kind of ghost, like. It won't hurt you. A bit higher, Peagreen, once you're inside the hole..."
Arrietty had watched dumfounded as Peagreen had walked straight through the object on the floor. He and her father had grown a little dim as they passed through the apparition, but her eyes could plainly follow the white gleam of the canvas.
At last, Peagreen had emerged at the far side and had disappeared into the hole. Pod, clearly visible again, had followed. There was a lot of panting and grunting and a few muffled orders, and Arrietty was left alone with the ghost.
To her surprise, her first feeling had been one of pity. They should not have walked through him like that. It showed—what did it show?—some kind of lack of respect: thinking of nothing but the job at hand? But Peagreen—? Well, she supposed that Peagreen, having lived at the rectory all his life, was so used to ghosts that he hardly noticed them.
The Poor Young Man ... She had found herself moving closer to look at his face. Very pale, it was turned sideways against the floor, the dark curls falling back against the boards. It was a beautiful face, the lips gently parted, the long-lashed eyes not quite closed. He wore a frilled shirt and knee breeches, and looking back along the length of him, she could make out his buckled shoes. One arm had been flung out sideways, the fingers curved as though they had held some object no longer to be seen. He looked very young. Why had he shot himself? What had made him so sad? But even as she looked at him, her pity flowing over him, he had begun to disappear, to melt away into nothingness. It was, she felt, as though he had never been there. Perhaps he never had? She
had been left staring at the floorboards and the familiar dark stain.
"Well, that's that," said a cheerful voice. She had looked up. It was Peagreen, appearing in the entrance to the hole and rubbing his hands in a satisfied way. "I thought we might never get that great roll up the steps. But it was easy. One good thing about these old hearths is that they do give one plenty of room." He turned. "Oh, here's your father. We better get the tile back now."
Arrietty had stared at Peagreen, her look accusing. "You shouldn't have walked through him like that—"
"But I didn't. Who? What do you mean?"
"The Poor Young Man!"
Peagreen had laughed. "Oh, that! I thought you were referring to your father..."
"Of course I wasn't: you couldn't walk through my father."
"No, I suppose one couldn't." He moved towards her. "But Arrietty, The Poor Young Man, as you call him, wasn't really there at all: it was just a—" he had hesitated, "a photograph on air." He thought a moment. "Or on Time, if you prefer. We had to get that canvas through the hole."
"Yes, I know. But you could have waited."
"Oh, Arrietty, if we had to wait for ghosts to disappear or appear all the time, we'd never get in or out of anywhere in this house." He half turned. "Look, your father's struggling with that tile. I'd better go and help him."
After that Arrietty had never been frightened of The Poor Young Man again, but she was always careful to walk round him.
Chapter Seventeen
The next excitement (as soon as Homily's kitchen was finished) was their long-delayed visit to the church.
"We can't put it off any longer," Pod said to Homily, "or Lupy will be offended. Spiller must have told them that we're here."
"I don't intend to put it off any longer," retorted Homily. "Now that my kitchen's finished, I'm ready to go anywhere." She was very happy with her kitchen. "And I'd like to see what sort of house they've got together. A church! Seems a funny kind of place to choose to live in ... I mean, what is there to eat in a church?"
"Well, we'll see," said Pod.
They chose a bright, clear morning without a threat of rain. The party consisted of Pod, Homily, and Arrietty. Pea-green had excused himself, and Spiller was elsewhere. Homily had packed a few goodies in a borrowing bag so as not to arrive empty-handed, and all three felt very cheerful. After all the days of grueling work, this was an expedition—a welcome day off.
It felt strange to be walking away from the rectory and down an unfamiliar path. Birds were building in the box hedges, and there was moss underfoot at edges of the gravel. Spiller had given them directions: "When you see the vestry drain, that's your place."
As they slipped through the palings of the wicket gate that led into the churchyard, Arrietty saw a little figure moving towards them on the edge of the path. "Timmus!" she exclaimed and, leaving her more cautious parents behind, hurriedly dashed towards him. Yes, it was him—much thinner, a little taller, with a very brown sunburnt face. "Oh, Timmus!" she exclaimed again and was about to hug him, but then she hesitated: he had become so still and so staring, as if he could not believe his eyes. "Oh, Timmus, my Timmus..." she whispered again, and laid an arm round his shoulders. Upon which, he stooped suddenly as though to pick up something on the ground. She stooped down beside him, her arm still about his shoulders. "I thought I saw a grasshopper..." he mumbled, and she could hear a catch in his voice. "Oh, Timmus," she whispered, "you're crying. Why are you crying?"
"I'm not crying," he gulped. "Of course I'm not crying . .." Suddenly he turned his face sideways towards her: it was aglow with happiness, but the tears were running down his cheeks. "I thought I was never going to see you no more."
"Any more..." said Arrietty from habit: she had always corrected Timmus's grammar.
"I was coming to find you," he went on. "I keep looking for you."
"Right up to the rectory? Oh, Timmus, you'd never have found us, not in that great place: we're very hidden up there." She had nothing to wipe his cheeks with, so she wiped them very gently with her fingers. "And you might have got caught yourself!"
"What on earth are you two doing, crouched down there on the path?" Pod and Homily had come up beside them. "How are you, Timmus?" Homily went on as Arrietty and Timmus stood up. "My, how you've grown! Come and give me a kiss." Timmus did so: he was all smiles now. "How did yo
u know we were coming?"
"He didn't," said Arrietty. "He was on his way to the rectory to find us."
Homily looked grave. "Oh, you must never do that, Timmus, not on your own. You never know what you might find up at the rectory. A couple of human beans for a start! Is your mother in?"
"Yes, she's in," he said. "And my father, too."
He led them to the drain beside the vestry wall. A lead pipe came out above it through a hole cut in the stones: there was plenty of room on one side of it for a borrower to squeeze past. Timmus went through first, agile as an eel. For the others, it was stiffer going, but they soon found the trick of it.
Inside, they found themselves beneath the stone sink, beside the rusty gas ring. Here they paused and looked about them.
It was a largish room and smelled faintly of stale cassocks. In the center was a square table covered with a red plush cloth, against which several chairs were set. They were of the type usually found in kitchens. Exactly opposite from where they stood was a large oaken press set into the wall of the church. The original wall of the church, Pod realized; the vestry must have been added on at a much later date. The press was iron-studded and had a very big keyhole. On one side of the press stood a large, boxlike piece of furniture, which Pod learned later was a disused harmonium. This was piled, almost to the ceiling, with shabby hymn books. On the other side of the press was a tall old desk, on which stood an open ledger, an inkwell, and what he took to be a selection of old pens. To their right, a whole wall was taken up by cassocks and surplices hanging on hooks. To their left were floor-length curtains of faded mulberry plush. These hung on wooden rings, separating the vestry from the main church. In the far corner stood an ugly iron stove, usually described as a "tortoise," whose pipe ran up through the ceiling.
They did not take all this in at first glance because Timmus had run away from them across the flagstones. "I'll just tell them you're here," he called back, and disappeared into a dark rectangular hole at the base of the instrument.
"So that's where they live," muttered Homily. "I wonder what it's like inside."
"Roomy," said Pod.
After a few moments, Lupy appeared, wiping her hands on her apron—a thing, Homily noted, she would never have done in what might be called her grander days, when she had always been one to dress up smartly for visitors. She kissed Homily rather soberly, and then did the same to Pod. "Welcome," she said, with a gentle un-Lupy-ish smile, "welcome to the house of the Lord."
It was a strange greeting, Homily thought, as equally soberly she kissed Lupy back. At the same time, she noticed that Lupy had grown much thinner and had lost something of her bounce. "Come in, come in..." she was saying. "Hendreary and Timmus are lighting the candles. We've been expecting you this many a long day."
Hendreary then appeared at the entrance hole, shaking out the flame of a match. Timmus came out beside his father; his brown little face was still aglow. There were further greetings and polite compliments as the visitors were ushered inside. Arrietty, Lupy declared, had become "quite the young lady," and Homily herself was "looking very well."
The vast interior was ablaze with light: there were candle stubs in every type of container. These warmed the great room as well as lighted it, and Homily, looking about her at the familiar pieces of furniture, thought these had gained elegance because of the ample space surrounding them. She hardly recognized the little snuffbox settee that once had been their own. What an age it had taken, she remembered, to pad and line it, but she felt very proud of it now.
She laid her small offering on one of the tables and stiffly took a seat. Lupy bustled about and produced some sawn-off nutshells, which she carefully filled with wine. "You can drink this," she said, "with a clear conscience, because it has not yet been blessed." Homily again was puzzled by the oddness of this remark, but she took a sip of the wine.
"Or, perhaps," went on Lupy, "you'd prefer gooseberry: my own make?"
"This is fine," Pod assured her, taking a sip. "Never was one for gooseberry wine—strong, gouty stuff."
"Hendreary's very partial to it..."
"Hope it's partial to him," said Pod. "A bit too acid for me."
Hendreary then started to show Pod round the premises. "This," he said, pointing out the entrance hole, "is where the pedals used to be. Up there"—he raised his head to the heights above them—"was where they had the bellows, but they took those out when they moved the broken harmonium to make room in the church for the organ. But we've still got the reeds: Lupy finds them useful for hanging the clothes to dry..."
"Hendreary looks very well," said Homily, taking another delicate sip of wine. And Arrietty wondered why, when people had not met for some time, they must always tell each other they looked well. To her, Uncle Hendreary looked more scrawny than ever, and his funny little tuft of beard had become slightly grizzled. Did she herself look well? she wondered.
"He is and he isn't," Aunt Lupy was saying. "With the boys away, he's finding the borrowing here rather heavy. But we manage," she added brightly. "Spiller brings us things, and the ladies are here twice a week."
"What ladies?" asked Homily. She wondered if they were anything to do with "the lord."
"The ladies who do the flowers, and they always bring a little refreshment. And we have our ways with that. You see, they set their baskets down on the floor until Miss Menzies has laid the table. In fact, once they've finished the flowers, they sit down to a very hearty tea."
Arrietty jumped up from her chair. "Miss Menzies?" she exclaimed. Only Timmus noticed her excitement.
"Yes, she's one of them. I know most of their names. There's Lady Mullings and Mrs. Crabtree. And Mrs. Witless, of course: she does most of the cooking: cakes, sausage rolls—all those sorts of things. And I must confess to you, Homily, that it's quite an entertainment to listen to their talk. I just sit here quietly and listen. Since we last met, Homily, I've learned quite a lot about human beans. They come in all shapes and sizes. You wouldn't credit some of the things I've heard."
Arrietty sat down again slowly, and Timmus, on the arm of her chair, leaned against her. Something his mother had just said had obviously interested her: he wondered what it was. Her face was still a little pink.
"Does the lord live in the vestry?" asked Homily.
"Oh, dear me, no!" exclaimed Aunt Lupy—she sounded slightly shocked. "The Lord only lives in the church." Something about the way she pronounced the word "Lord" warned Homily that it was one that should be spoken as though it began with a capital letter. Lupy's normally loud voice had fallen respectfully to a note of awe. "The vestry," she said gently, as though explaining to a child, "isn't really part of the church."
"Oh, I see," said Homily, although she didn't see at all. But she was determined not to reveal her ignorance.
"This church," went on Lupy, "by human standards, is a very small church. And the rector is inclined to be high. Because of this, we don't have a very large congregation."
"Oh," said Homily, but she could not quite see what the rector's height had to do with it.
"He does not use incense or anything like that," went on Lupy, "but he does like lighted candles on the altar. And thank goodness for it, because we can always get hold of the leftovers."
"So I see," said Homily, looking round the brightly lighted room.
"Because of this, a great many of the locals go to the church at Went-le-Cray."
"Because of the candles here on the altar?" asked Homily, astonished.
"Yes," said Lupy, "because the vicar at Went-le-Cray is very low."
"Oh, I see," said Homily again: a whole new world was opening before her. No wonder Lupy had said that human beans came in all shapes and sizes.
"Of course, this 'little' church—as they call it—is the more famous. It's far older, for one thing. And tourists come from all over the world to see the rood screen."
"Do they?" said Homily, wonderingly. She was feeling more and more puzzled.
"Of c
ourse, when we first came here, we went through a few hard times. Yes, indeed. There was one week when we lived entirely on bull's-eyes—"
"Bull's-eyes!" exclaimed Homily. Whatever was she going to hear next?
"They're those stripey sweets, shaped like pincushions—the choirboys always bring a few bags of them to suck during the sermons. The trouble with them is that when they get warm, they're apt to stick together..."
The choirboys or the bull's-eyes? Homily decided to keep silent.
"Little rascals, those choirboys. The gigglings, the goings-on in the vestry. And Timmus is beginning to pick up some of their expressions. And yet," she went on, "when they go into church, they sing like little angels—and look like them, too."
Timmus rose from his seat and came beside his mother: he looked as though he wished to ask her a question. Lupy put an arm round him, affectionately but absent-mindedly; she still had plenty more to tell Homily.
"Do you know, Homily, what were the first words we ever heard spoken in this church?"