Homily shook her head. How could she know?
"A voice was saying, 'Come unto me all ye that travel and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.' We had traveled and we were heavy-laden—"
Yes, thought Homily, glancing again about the room, heavy-laden with a whole lot of household objects that had once belonged to them.
"Wasn't that wonderful? And we did find rest. And have done ever since. And the hymns they sing! You can't imagine!" With one arm round Timmus and the other held up as though to beat time, she broke out into a little air: "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small . . . Great and small, Homily. Although no one knew we were here, you will understand that we could not help but feel welcome, if you see what I mean." She followed the direction of Homily's eyes. "Yes, dear, I think there are one or two things here that once belonged to you and Pod. We never thought you'd need them again, going off in the night like you did. But if there's anything you'd like to take away—just to help you start up life in the Old Rectory, just say the word: we'd only be too delighted. Anything we can do to help—"
Homily's astonished eyes swerved back to Lupy's face. She could hardly believe her ears. Lupy offering things! And, seemingly, with real sincerity—although she did notice a little quiver about the lips and a slightly nervous flutter of the eyelids. Homily looked round for Pod, but Hendreary had taken him out into the vestry. Some great change had taken place in Lupy, and Homily needed Pod to witness it. She turned back again to those eager, questioning eyes. "Oh, Lupy," she said, "you're welcome to all that old stuff that came in the pillowcase. Up at the Old Rectory, we've got all we need now. And more."
"Are you sure, dear? You're not just saying that?" Homily could hear the relief in her voice.
"Quite sure. It's a long story. I mean, there are some things that happened to us since then that you'll hardly credit—"
"And the same with us, dear ... What's the matter, Timmus?" She turned to him impatiently: he had been whispering in her ear. "What are you saying? It's rude to whisper..."
"Could I take Arrietty into the church?"
"I don't see why not. If Arrietty wants to go?" And it might be a relief to get rid of two extra pairs of listening ears: there were still so many things she longed to recount to Homily.
As Arrietty and Timmus slipped away, Homily said, "Timmus is very brown. I suppose he spends a lot of time out of doors?"
"No, very little, as a matter of fact. We never let him go out alone."
"Then how—?" began Homily.
"All that brown? That's just a fad of his. I'll tell you about that later . .." It was almost a relief to Homily to recognize a trace of Lupy's old impatience. Lupy leaned forwards towards her. "Now where had we got to? You were just going to tell me..."
"Ours is a long story," said Homily. "You tell me yours first."
Lupy did not need asking twice.
As Arrietty and Timmus crossed the vestry, Pod and Uncle Hendreary emerged from between the curtains that separated it from the church, each with his nutshell in hand. They were deep in conversation. "Very fine," Pod was saying, "never seen carving like that, not anywhere. No wonder the ... the ... what-you-call-'ems come."
"Tourists," said Hendreary, "from right across the world!"
"I can well believe it," Pod went on as he and Hendreary, still talking, made their way into the harmonium.
Timmus and Arrietty slipped through the curtains, and then, for a moment, Arrietty stood still. So this was the church!
The building was simple, with its pillars and arches and its rows of orderly pews. If the human beans called this a little church, what, thought Arrietty, could a big church be like? She almost trembled at the height and vastness. It had a strange smell and a strange feeling: it was a feeling she had never felt before. At the far end, behind the last row of pews, there was a pair of curtains very like the ones beside which she was standing. Beams of colored light streamed in through the stained-glass windows. She felt more than a little afraid. Where did the Lord live? she wondered. She moved slightly closer to Timmus. "What's behind those curtains at the end?" she whispered.
Timmus answered in his ordinary voice. "Oh, that leads to the bell chamber and the stairs to the belfry," he said, cheerfully. "I'll show you in a minute. And there are stone stairs to the belfry. But I don't use them myself." His face suddenly filled with mischief. "You can get out onto the roof," he told her gleefully.
Arrietty did not answer his smile. Stone stairs! How could creatures their size get up stone stairs built for humans? Carpeted stairs had been another matter—in the days when Pod had still had his tape and hatpin.
Timmus was pulling her sideways. "Come on. I'll show you the rood screen."
She followed him across to the center aisle. Here the stone flags had pictures engraved on them. Odd-looking pictures of stiff-looking people—right down the church they went, in all shapes and sizes, as far as the curtains at the end. But Timmus was looking in the opposite direction. "There it is," he announced.
It was indeed a wonderful feat of carving, this rood screen, which divided the chancel from the nave. It rose from the floor at either side, with a wide arch in the middle. Through this arch she could see the choir stalls, which, unlike the pews, were set out lengthwise, and beyond these, facing her, she could make out the altar. Above the altar was a stained glass window. Yes, there were the two branched candlesticks, which had once been stolen and since retrieved, and tall silver vases generously filled with flowers. The air was heavy with the scent of lilies of the valley.
Timmus was nudging her: evidently she was not paying enough attention to the rood screen. She smiled at him and took a few paces backwards down the aisle to study it from a wider angle.
The background (if anything so frail-looking could be called a background) was a delicate lattice of leaves and flowers, from among which peered a myriad of little forms and faces: some human, some angelic, others devilish. Some were laughing, others looked very solemn. These last ones, Arrietty was told later, were most likely actual portraits of dignitaries of the time. At the very top of the arch was a larger face, very gentle and calm, with flowing hair. On each side of this, a hand had been carved, the palms exposed, in a gesture that seemed to be saying, "Look." Or was it "Come"?
Arrietty turned to Timmus. "That bigger face up there, is that a portrait of the man who carved all this?"
"I don't know," said Timmus.
"Or is it—" Arrietty hesitated, "a portrait of the Lord?"
"I don't know," said Timmus. "My mother calls it the Creator." He pulled on her sleeve. "Now do you want to see the bell chamber?"
"In a minute," said Arrietty: there was still so much to see in the rood screen. A little gallery, she noted, ran along the top of it, with a quaintly designed balustrade. Halfway along the balustrade was the carved figure of a dove, with wings outstretched. It looked, thought Arrietty, as though it had just alighted there. Or, perhaps, was just about to take off. It was very lifelike. The outstretched wings balanced and enhanced the outstretched hands just below them.
"It's beautiful..." she said to Timmus.
"Yes, and it's fun, too," he told her, and as they turned aside to make their way down the aisle, he added suddenly, "Would you like to see me run as fast as a mouse?"
"If you like," said Arrietty. She realized suddenly that Timmus, who was not yet allowed out of doors alone, had only this church for a playground. She hoped the Lord liked little children. She rather thought he must if Aunt Lupy had been right about "all creatures great and small."
She watched, smiling, as Timmus darted away from her towards the curtains of the alcove at the end. Yes, he could run: the little legs almost flew; and he fetched up panting before a low bench set just in front of the curtains. This bench, Arrietty noticed when at last she came up with him and had climbed up on a hassock, held neat piles of pamphlets about the church, a few picture post cards, and a brass-bound wooden collecting box. There was an ample s
lit in the lid, almost long enough to take a letter. A notice, propped behind it, Said THANK YOU.
"Do you think—" Timmus was saying, still panting a little, "that if I practiced, I could run as fast as a ferret?"
"Faster," said Arrietty. "Even rabbits can run faster than ferrets: ferrets can catch rabbits only by chasing them down their holes."
Timmus looked pleased. "Come on," he said, and darting under the bench, he slipped through the gap in between the curtains.
The room inside was bare stone but with a white-plastered ceiling. Three kitchen chairs were set along one wall, and the staircase rose up along another. But what fascinated Arrietty most were the six round holes in the ceiling, through each of which protruded a long length of rope. A few feet up, along each rope, was a sausagelike piece of padding. So this was how they rang the bells! Since her family had been living in the Old Rectory, they had only heard a single bell, and this was only for the services on Sunday. Each piece of rope ended in a "tail," which lay in coils on the floor. It was thinner than the main rope.
Timmus leaped upon the first rope, clung there for a moment, then slid downwards so that he sat astride the "tail." "Watch me," he said, and eased off his shoes. As they tumbled off, Arrietty recognized them as a pair her father had made—some years ago—for Timmus's elder brother. She looked down at her own shoes, which had once belonged to Homily and were getting very shabby. She hoped that, when they were really settled in their new home, Pod would take up his trade again: he had been a wonderful shoemaker. All he would need was an old leather glove; and there must be plenty of those left in churches.
"Please look," Timmus was begging. He was standing up now on the knot, his hands grasping the rope above his head. What was he going to do? She soon saw: if he could run like a mouse, he could climb like one, too. Up he went. Up and up, hands and feet moving like clockwork. Faster even than a mouse, more like a spider on a filament of web. Except the bell rope was no filament: the coarse weave was heavy and thick, providing invisible footholds.
Arrietty watched, amazed, until at last he reached the ceiling. Without looking down, he disappeared through the hole. In just those few moments, Timmus had vanished from sight. Rooted to the spot, Arrietty stood there dumfounded, craning her neck at the ceiling. Her neck began to ache, but she dared not look away. What hours of practice this must have cost him! And she had thought that she could climb...
At last, the little face appeared, peering down at her through the hole. "You see," he called out, "to get to the belfry, borrowers don't need stairs!"
He came down more slowly, perhaps a little tired by the effort, and sat himself comfortably astride the rope. "You can get right up to the bells," he told her, "and there's a place where you can get right out onto the roof. There used to be six bell ringers, but now there's only one—except at Easter and a day they call Christmas."
"Oh," cried Arrietty, "I know all about Christmas. My mother's always talking about it. And the feasts they always had. When she was a girl, there were a lot more borrowers in the house, and that was the time—Christmas time—when she first began to notice my father. The feasts! There were things called raisins and crystal fruit and plum puddings and turkey and something called game pie ... And the mine they left in glasses! My father used to get it out with a fountain-pen filler. He'd be up a fold in the tablecloth almost before the last human bean had left the room. And my mother began to see what a wonderful borrower he might turn out to be. He brought her a little ring out of something called a cracker, and she wore it as a crown..." She fell silent a moment, remembering that ring. Where was it now? she wondered. She had worn it often herself.
"Go on," said Timmus: he hoped this might turn out to be one of her stories.
"That's all," said Arrietty.
"Oh..." Timmus sounded disappointed. After a while he said, "What's it like up at the rectory?"
"Nice. You could come and visit us..."
"They don't let me go out alone."
"I could come and fetch you—"
"Could you? Could you really? Can you still tell stories?"
"I think so," said Arrietty.
Timmus stood up, clasping the rope with his hands. "Now, if you like, we could go and climb the rood screen," he suggested.
Arrietty hesitated. "I can't climb as well as you," she said at last, but then she added quickly, "yet."
"It's easy. You can get about all over that rood screen. I go up there to watch the human beans..."
"What human beans?"
"The human beans who come to church. They can't see you. Not if you stay quite still. They think you're part of the carving. That's why I brown my face."
"What with?" asked Arrietty.
"Walnut juice, of course." He swung the rope a little. "Could you give me a bit of a push?"
Arrietty was bewildered. How quickly he went from one subject to another! "What sort of a push?" she said.
"On me. Just give a push on me."
Hand over hand, he was climbing up the "tail," and once he had gripped it firmly between his feet and knees, Arrietty pushed him gently. This first bell rope, she saw, hung lower than the others. Perhaps through constant use? The sausage-shaped pad looked frayed and shabby and had been cleverly reinforced by a piece of old carpet, neatly bound round with string. This, she supposed, was the bell they heard on Sundays.
"Harder!" cried Timmus. "Much harder!" So she gave him a massive shove. He leaned outwards from the rope and, by pushing with his feet and pulling with his hands, began to gain momentum. Backwards and forwards swung the bell rope, farther and farther, higher and higher. Once he brushed the curtains, which opened slightly. She became afraid he might hit the walls!
"Careful...!" she called in rising panic: the bell rope was too long to be checked by its radius—it could go any distance within sight. "Careful, Timmus!" she implored. "Please be careful...!"
He only laughed, lithe and confident. With a twist of his body, he made a circular swerve, brushing the other bell ropes, so they too swung and trembled. The whole bell chamber became alive with movement. Supposing somebody came! Supposing the bells began to ring! Arrietty felt a sudden sense of guilt: this wild display was all for her benefit.
"Stop it, Timmus," she begged him, almost in tears. She threw out her arms, as though to check him—a fruitless gesture at the speed he was going—and she had to dodge back swiftly as the bell rope flew wildly past her through the gap in the curtains. She heard the sliding crash and the scrape of wood on stone. He had hit the bench. "Oh, please don't let him be dead," she cried out to herself as she rushed through the curtains.
He wasn't dead at all: he was standing on the bench, surrounded by scattered pamphlets—the rope still held in his hand. He looked down on it in a bewildered way, then gently let it go. In her distress, Arrietty hardly noticed it as it sailed softly past her through the gaping curtains and back to its usual place, curving and trembling as though it were alive.
There were pamphlets on the floor, the collecting box was pushed sideways, and the bench was out of place. Not very much out of place, she noticed with relief. "Oh, Timmus...!" she exclaimed, and there was a world of reproach in her voice.
"I'm sorry," he said, and moved towards the edge of the bench, as if about to descend. It would have been a big drop. "Stay where you are," Arrietty ordered him. "I'll get you down later. We've got to tidy this up ... Have you hurt yourself?"
He still looked bewildered. "Not much," he said.
"Then collect all those papers together and put them back into piles. I'll pass you these ones on the floor."
He did as he was told. He was moving rather stiffly, but Arrietty, stooping to collect the scattered pamphlets on the flagstones, had no time to notice or look up. At least, he could walk and bend.
On tiptoe, she passed her small collection of post cards and pamphlets up to him while he, perilously leaning over the edge of the polished bench, stretched down to receive them. At last, all the papers were in
place. The bench itself, alas, would have to remain crooked.
"Now, you'd better try to straighten up the collecting box—if it's not too heavy..."
It was heavy, but he managed it after a struggle. Then Arrietty passed him up the card that said THANK YOU. And that, at last, was that.
They walked back up the aisle very soberly. Neither of them felt much like talking, but as they reached the rood screen, Arrietty said, "I don't think we'll climb that today." Although he did not answer, Timmus appeared to agree with her.
Chapter Eighteen
After that, Arrietty went down to the church quite often: it was because of the "new arrangements"—arrangements that made Arrietty very happy and became a turning point in her life: she was to be allowed to borrow, and not only that but, joy of joys, to borrow out of doors!
It came about like this: her uncle Hendreary had been finding the long walk to the kitchen garden increasingly tiring, and Timmus was too young to be sent out alone. He would go with his father sometimes to help to carry, but he would dash about and "run like a mouse," and this exercise, too, Hendreary found tiresome, being prone to odd twinges of gout. It had been different when the two elder boys had been at home: they had always undertaken to do what Aunt Lupy called the donkey work, but now' that they had returned to their old home in the badgers' set with Eggletina to keep house for them, seeking what they called their independence, the daily chores fell heavily on their father. "I am not as young as I was," he would say, and he would say it very often.
Pod could not help much: he had worked out a wonderful scheme for their living quarters under the window seat, and the work this entailed took up all of his time. He was determined to divide up this fairly large space into three separate rooms: a little one for Arrietty, another for himself and Homily, and a bright, sun-filled sitting room, which would look out on to the grating. He would construct the partitions from the backs of the many odd books Peagreen had left behind. Montaigne's Essays, in two volumes, were the largest, and these he had set up first; the smaller books he would use for doors. He kept back a good supply of the inside pages. With these he planned to paper the walls in vertical lines of news type. Homily thought the even lettering a little dull and uninteresting for the sitting room: She would have preferred a touch of color. "You don't want a big room like this all gray. And that's what it'll look like if you don't look closely. Just gray: the print's so small, like..." But Arrietty and Pod persuaded her that this neutral shade would increase the feeling of space and make a splendid background for the pictures Peagreen had promised to paint for them.