The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (13 page)

"It's to raise money for a bazaar."

"Yes?"

"And the bazaar is to raise money for a progressive whist drive which is to raise money for a garden fête."

"So far, so good,” said Mr. Armitage, stepping over his daughter, Harriet, who was counting cornflowers, and helping himself to porridge. “And what's the garden fête in aid of?"

"The S.A.D.O.F.L., of course."

"And that is?"

"The Society for the Aid of Distressed Old Fairy Ladies."

"Do you expect to raise much for them?"

"Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Armitage confidently. “Last year we made a terrible lot for the N.S.P.C.M.—enough to provide a warm swimming bath for rheumatic mermaids
and
a beach canteen serving them with hot soup and fish rolls throughout the winter months."

"Most praiseworthy.” Mr. Armitage shuddered a little at the thought of the fish rolls and hurriedly took some bacon.

"So we expect to be able to do something of the sort this year. There's a slight difference of opinion on the committee, unfortunately; some people want a free dispensary for magical ingredients—eye of newt and toe of frog, you know, and belladonna and so forth; but some committee members think that ought to come under the National Health Service anyway, and that we should write to our Member of Parliament about it."

"So what do they want?"

"A mobile library of magical reference books and free replacements of worn-out wands."

"Well, it all sounds very fine,” said Mr. Armitage, gulping down the last of his coffee and preparing to rush off, for this was his office day, “provided you think these people
deserve
to be helped."

"Oh, yes, darling, poor old things! Have you finished counting those out, Harriet? Here come the other helpers, and we must be off."

The flower sellers were beginning to crowd the front hall. Mrs. Armitage gave each of them a set of one tray, a collection box, and a poster. She took the last set herself and, with Harriet, started off along her beat, between the post office and the green.

At first all went excellently. Heads were shaken and sighs heaved over the plight of the poor, resourceless old fairy ladies in want of comforts. Money flowed in, the tin box became heavier and heavier, until by eleven o'clock it was nearly full.

They were approaching a small cottage, set back from the road among apple trees. It was called The Bat's Nest, and in it lived old Mr. Grogan, with his housekeeper, old Miss Hooting. Mr. Grogan made dolls’ furniture. He was stone deaf and hardly talked to anyone except Miss Hooting, who had a very shrill voice which he could just hear. If anyone wanted dolls’ furniture, they came and told Miss Hooting their requirements: the size, period, design, and materials wanted. She would pass the information on to Mr. Grogan, and in due course the article would arrive, very beautifully made. Harriet had a Queen Anne walnut chest of drawers with brass handles, of his workmanship, and also a rosewood grand piano, its tiny keys made from spillikins, which really played. Miss Hooting, as well as looking after Mr. Grogan, kept what was thought to be a hen-battery and sold the eggs. She also made hats and did weaving.

When Harriet and her mother came up the cottage, they saw Miss Hooting walking down the garden path to the battery-shed, and as they knew it would be useless to apply to Mr. Grogan, they went round to intercept her.

"Good morning,” she said in her creaking voice. “Would you like to see me feed my birds?"

"Oh, yes, please,” said Harriet.

"What do you give them?” inquired Mrs. Armitage.

"Pellets,” replied Miss Hooting, opening a bin that contained tiny whitish balls and shoveling some of them into two buckets. “Now they are tipped into these containers, so, and I pull the rope to raise them to roof level. Now we can go inside."

As she opened the door into the battery, which was dark, pandemonium broke loose.

"Those don't sound like hens,” said Mrs. Armitage, puzzled.

"Hens? Who said they were hens?” There was a squawking and a screeching, a hooting and a snoring.

"I'll have to switch on the light,” said Miss Hooting, and did so. The birds immediately became quiet in their little cages and sat watching her with great round eyes.

"Goodness,” said Mrs. Armitage in surprise. “They're owls. Do you sell the eggs?"

"Yes, to Sorcerers’ Supply Stores. They collect the eggs once every six months or so—owls’ eggs don't have to be very fresh."

She pulled the two pellet containers through the hatches, and the visitors saw that the containers ran on wheels along two little overhead railways. When they were pushed, they trundled the whole length of the battery, tipping off a portion of food into each owl's cage. The owls bounced up and down with excitement, but kept quiet.

"Now,” said Miss Hooting, dusting her hands, “you are collecting, are you not? For some worthy cause, no doubt, but I haven't got my spectacles or my purse, so we must go indoors and I will also show you the bit of weaving I am engaged on."

They followed her back to the house and into a front room that smelled strongly of raffia, wool, artificial flowers, and basket canes, all of which were lying about in large quantities by a large loom.

"Oh,” said Harriet in admiration, “what lovely stuff!” The piece of cloth on the loom was not at all the sort of handwoven stuff she had expected to see. It was a thick, rich-looking red velvet with a black and gold design woven through it.

"It's for a cloak,” explained Miss Hooting carelessly, coming back with her bag and glasses. “There's the hat to match.” She nodded at a black steeple-crowned one lying beside the bunch of red ribbons that was to trim it. “Now what is it you are collecting in aid of?"

"The S.A.D.O.F.L.,” said Mrs. Armitage. “For helping old fairy ladies of various kinds. When they're old, they often get a bit past their work, and we ought to do a bit for them. This is going to a fund for replacing worn-out wands and things of that sort. Gracious, is something the matter?"

Miss Hooting had gone perfectly pale with rage.

"The impertinence!” she exclaimed. “The barefaced, unparalleled effrontery of coming here and saying that to
me
! I suppose you did it as a deliberate insult."

"No, indeed,” said Mrs. Armitage, much bewildered. “I certainly had no such intention."

"Fiddlestick! I suppose you'll say next you didn't
know
I was a retired enchantress (fairy lady, indeed). I am not in the least distressed, I'll have you know. I have my pension, my salary from Mr. Grogan, besides what I make from my owls and handicrafts. I am hard-working and self-respecting, and there are plenty more like me who won't say thank you for your charity. The door is behind you.
Good
morning."

Unfortunately, at that moment Mr. Grogan came downstairs, having heard Miss Hooting's voice raised in rage. He rather liked Mrs. Armitage and Harriet, so he said good morning to them and asked Miss Hooting what they had come for.

"Impertinence!” she screeched.

"Yes, I dare say, but what sort of furniture?"

"
Not
furniture. They are collecting for a most offensive cause."

"Chest of drawers? Yes, I can do a chest of drawers, but what period?"

"
Not
a chest of drawers, an appeal."

"Made of deal? Never touch the stuff."

Harriet and Mrs. Armitage felt that if they did not leave, Miss Hooting might do something drastic—she was casting meaningful looks at a tall black stick leaning against the mantelpiece. If it was a wand, they thought it would be prudent not to chance the possibility of its not yet being worn out, so, nodding and smiling at Mr. Grogan, they escaped.

When the contents of the various collecting boxes were added together, the total sum was found to be quite a handsome one, though several of the collectors had had unfortunate experiences, like that of the Armitages, with innocent-seeming old ladies.

Mr. Armitage shook his head when he heard about it.

"I should leave the whole affair alone if I were you,” he said. “Buy a grand piano for the Ladies’ Social Club, or a machine gun for the Boy Scouts, or something harmless. It's always better to collect for a charity that's a long way off, in Africa or somewhere like that, if you must. These old fairy ladies are devilish touchy and independent, and there's sure to be trouble."

He was an obliging man, however, and he consented to say a few words to open the bazaar which was due to follow in three weeks, because he said he might not make such a hash of it as the vicar.

Everyone was working early and late making things for the stalls—cakes, embroidered milk-bottle covers, tea-cosy cases, jam-pot containers, bags to put dusters in and bags to put those bags in, dolls with crinolines to put over the coal-scuttle, and crocheted chocolate-bar containers. There was also to be a jumble stall, and all the village flocked to the bazaar in the hope of picking up cheaply the clothes of the children next door which they had been despising and condemning as unsuitable for the past year.

Mr. Armitage stood on the platform to say his opening words, supported by his wife and the members of the committee.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, spurred on to rashness by several cups of very strong tea that he had just drunk. “We are all assembled here to enjoy ourselves (I hope) and to raise money for all the poor old distressed fairy ladies living round about. Well now, let's give the poor old things a big hand and buy everything in sight, however nasty or useless it appears to be—"

Here he paused with his mouth open, for several old ladies near the front of the hall were standing up and looking at him in a very unfriendly way. Old Mrs. Lomax was pointing her stick at him.

"Hush, man, hush,” she croaked:

"By the magic of this wand,

Be a tadpole in a pond."

Nothing happened.

"
You're
no use,” said old Mrs. Lockspith acidly. “You're one of the ones they need to help, evidently.” She pointed a long Malacca cane at the speechless Mr. Armitage, and exclaimed:

"Powers of witchcraft in this cane,

Turn him into a drop of rain."

Nothing happened.

"Here, this is ludicrous,” said Miss Hooting furiously. “It's my turn. You ladies are a disgrace to the profession.” She grabbed her own black staff, leveled it at the platform and recited:

"Enough of useless spells and wasted words,

Turn Armitage and wife to ladybirds."

There was a hush as the people in the audience craned over one another's shoulders to see if the spell had worked this time, and then a spontaneous burst of applause. Miss Hooting bowed haughtily and left the hall.

On the platform, the remaining committee members gazed at one another blankly across a gap. Then the vicar, peering longsightedly at the floor, remarked: “Ah! What a fortunate thing that I have my collecting box with me."

He took it from his pocket, tipped out a hummingbird hawk moth, and placed in the box the two ladybirds, who were dazedly crawling about the floor.

"Perhaps I ought to take charge of those,” suggested Harriet, coming up. “They'll want to go home, I expect.” Secretly, she was a little afraid that the vicar, who was notoriously absentminded, might forget that there was anything special about the ladybirds and add them to his collection.

She and Mark left the bazaar (which went on swimmingly after such an eventful start and netted two hundred pounds) and took their parents home. They put the ladybirds in a shoebox with some biscuit crumbs and drops of hot sweet tea (for shock) and sat down to discuss the situation.

"Perhaps it's the sort of spell that will wear off in due course,” said Harriet.

"Not if I know Miss Hooting, and I somehow feel it wouldn't be much use going to her and begging her to take it off,” said her brother.

Harriet grinned. “I've got an idea,” she said. “But let's wait till tomorrow. After all, it's rather nice and peaceful like this."

Agnes and Mrs. Epis happened to be on holiday that week, so, with nobody at all to bother them, Mark and Harriet had a beautiful evening: they played mah-jongg till ten and listened to records till midnight.

After next day's breakfast (at which they felt it necessary to eat twice as much as usual and open a pot of strawberry jam to fortify them in their orphaned state), they went and looked into the shoebox.

Much to their surprise they were greeted with a stream of shrill and indignant expostulation. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Armitage had recovered the use of their voices. The children were scolded for the uncomfortable bedding they had provided and for not bringing breakfast sooner.

"Now, Mark,” said Mr. Armitage. “I have a most important conference at my office today—there's a meeting of the World Organization of Agricultural Producers being held there, and I'm the chairman. So you'll have to take me. Go and put on some presentable clothes, find a nice airy matchbox with some cotton wool in it, and you can catch the nine-eighteen. And bring the file of papers on my dressing table."

Mark went off rather gloomily to obey. He had had the best intentions of trying to recover his parents from ladybirdhood, but he had agreed with Harriet that a few days’ freedom from grown-ups would be a pleasant change. Now it seemed that they were going to be more parent-ridden than ever.

"Harriet,” Mrs. Armitage was saying. “You'll have to carry me on my National Savings round, and this afternoon I'm going to tea with Mrs. Mildew, so you'll have to take me there. Just give my back a spot of polish, will you?"

Harriet complied, thinking regretfully of the day she had planned, riding the unicorn and spring-cleaning her doll's house.

The nine-eighteen was crowded that morning, but when Mark's fellow passengers observed that a tiny voice was speaking to Mark from his breast pocket, they moved well away from him, and at the next stop they all got out.

When Mark and his father reached the office, Miss Choop, the secretary, was sitting on her desk polishing her nails.

"Hello, sonny,” she said condescendingly. “You're in town early. Your pa's not in yet. Was he at a party last night?"