The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (17 page)

They saw Mr. Beezeley and said good morning to him rather coldly.

"Morning, morning, young people,” he replied. “Bitter weather for the time of year, isn't it. My rheumaticks are terrible bad."

Indeed he was walking with great difficulty, almost doubled up.

"You'll be glad to hear that the Perrows have found a suitable house,” Harriet said shortly. “They've rented Mrs. Nightshade's dolls’ house."

"Old Mrs. Nightshade over at Blackwood?” said Mr. Beezeley, bursting into hearty laughter. “I sold her a couple of hens that had the henbane once. She's never forgiven me; I bet she'd do me a bad turn if she could. But all's fair in love and farming,
I
say. Ugh, this rheumatism is fairly crippling me."

The children left him and went home.

"Gosh,” said Harriet, “do you suppose Mrs. Nightshade is giving him rheumatism?"

"Well, he jolly well deserves it. I hope she ties him in knots."

When they arrived home they were dismayed to hear Mrs. Perrow's shrill, complaining voice in the kitchen.

"What I mean to say, it's a fine thing, first to turn us out of our house, then have to live in a loft, all cobwebs though kindly meant I daresay, not what we're used to, and then when we move into the new house what do we find?"

"Well, what
do
you find?” said Mrs. Armitage patiently.

"Nothing won't stay put!” cried Mrs. Perrow. She had climbed onto a chair and was standing on it, quivering with indignation. “You put down the kettle and it flies across and sticks on the wall. There's all Lily's bottled elderberries fallen down and broken and the daisy wine full of ashes that blew out of the fire by themselves, and young Sid's got a black eye from the mustard, and the bedroom door slammed and knocked baby down the stairs, and the dishes fall off the dresser all the time, it won't do, Mrs. Armitage, it really won't do."

"Oh dear,” Mrs. Armitage said sympathetically, “it sounds as if you have a poltergeist."

"Can't say about that, Mum, but it's not good enough for me and Ernie and Lily, and that's a fact. We'd sooner live in your house loft, though it's not what we're used to, but stay in that house we cannot and will not."

Mrs. Armitage gazed at her in despair.

Just at that moment, they all heard an extraordinary noise from the direction of Beezeley's farm, a sort of whistling which rose to a roar.

"What can be going on?” exclaimed Harriet. “Let's go and see. I bet it's the new cultivator."

They all ran out, leaving Mrs. Perrow to continue her complaints to an empty kitchen. A strange sight met their eyes as they reached the new cultivator. It was swaying from side to side, shuddering and groaning as if at any moment it might leave the ground and take off into the air. Mr. Spoggin was rushing about in great agitation with an oilcan. Mr. Beezeley was there too, but did not seem to be taking much notice; he was standing hunched up, looking very miserable and groaning from time to time.

"Look!” said Mark, “there's corn sprouting through the walls."

Wheat ears of an enormous size were pushing their way out between the panes of glass, and through the windows they could see that the whole inside was a tangled mass of stalks which continuously writhed and pushed upwards.

"It's cursed,” cried poor Mr. Spoggin frantically. “None of my other machines has done this. Someone's put a hoodoo on it."

As he spoke there was a shattering explosion. Bits of broken glass and ears of corn the size of vegetable marrows filled the air. Fortunately the spectators were all blown backwards across several fields by the blast, and came to rest, breathless but unhurt, in Miss Rogers's field outside the dolls’ house.

"Well, that certainly is the end,” said Mr. Spoggin, struggling to his feet. “Never again do I try any experiments in your country. There must be something peculiar about the soil. I'm going straight back to the U.S.A. by the next boat.” He paused, with his mouth open and his eyes bulging.

"That dolls’ house! Am I dreaming, or is it real?"

"Oh, it's real, right enough,” they assured him gloomily as a saucepan and two little Perrows, inextricably entangled, rolled screaming and kicking down the front steps.

"I must add it to my collection. I have the largest collection of dolls’ houses in five continents, including a real Eskimo child's dolls’ igloo, made out of genuine snow. I definitely must have that house."

"That's a fine thing,” shrieked Mrs. Perrow, who had come up behind him in time to hear this. “And where do we live, I should like to know?"

Mr. Spoggin was visibly startled but recovered himself quickly and bowed to her.

"I'll make you a present of my place, ma'am,” he said. “It's a poky little hole, I only paid twenty thousand pounds for it, but such as it is, it's yours. Just up the road, Rose Cottage is the name. Here are the title deeds.” He pulled them out of his pocket.

"We'll take you to see the agent,” Harriet said quickly. “The dolls’ house doesn't belong to the Perrows, and I don't know if the owner will want to sell. I fancy she prefers letting it."

"She'll sell,” said Mr. Spoggin confidently. “Where's Tin Lizzie?"

He found his Packard roosting in a nearby hawthorn tree and whirled them off to the agent, who received them warily. He was evidently used to complaints from tenants.

"If you want your quarter's rent back, I'm afraid it's out of the question,” he said at once. “It's been used already."

"I want to buy that dolls’ house,” shouted Mr. Spoggin. “Name your figure."

"I should warn you that it's haunted,” Harriet muttered. “There's a poltergeist in it."

"Haunted?” said Mr. Spoggin, his eyes like stars. “A haunted dolls’ house! It'll be the gem of the whole collection.” He was in ecstasies.

"I don't know if my client wishes to sell,” said the agent repressively.

"I'll give you forty thousand pounds for it, not a penny more, so it's no use acting cagey in the hope that I'll put my price up, I shan't,” said Mr. Spoggin. “You can take it or leave it."

The agent took it.

Mr. Spoggin took them home and carried off the dolls’ house then and there in Tin Lizzie, having telephoned the
Queen Mary
to wait for him. He left the remains of the cultivator.

Mr. Beezeley was not seen for some hours after the explosion, but finally turned up in a bed of stinging-nettles, which had cured his rheumatism but left him much chastened. He spent a lot of time wandering round the deep hole which was all that was left of the hundred-acre field, and finally sold his farm and left the neighborhood.

As the children came down to breakfast next morning they heard the grumbling voice of old Mrs. Perrow in the porch:

"It's all very well, Mrs. Armitage, but what I mean to say is, Rose Cottage is not what we've been used to. Cooking on that old oil stove of Lily's after Calor gas and a bathroom and all, say what you like, it's not the same thing, and what I mean to say—"

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Bother,” said Mrs. Armitage, reading her midmorning mail. She took the letter that had annoyed her and went upstairs. Through a closed door came the sound of a typewriter. She tapped on the door and went in. Immediately the typing ceased.

The room she had entered was large and sunny, with a huge dormer window taking up most of one side. It was empty, save for a typing table, portable typewriter and chair, and some shelves of books.

"Oh, Mr. Peake,” said Mrs. Armitage, “I'm terribly sorry to disturb you at this hour of the morning, but would you mind if I used the typewriter for five minutes? I must just write a note to Harriet."

There was an offended silence.

"It's
most
wicked of me, and I won't do it again,” Mrs. Armitage went on placatingly, “but my wretched old Aunt Adelaide has just cabled from the south of France asking me to meet her in London on Saturday, so I shan't be able to go down and take Harriet out from school this weekend. She'll be cross, I'm afraid. Are you sitting in the chair?"

"No, I'm not,” said a voice behind her shoulder. Mrs. Armitage jumped. Although she had known him for twenty years, she was never quite used to not knowing where Mr. Peake was.

"It's most tiresome,” she said, rattling away at the keys, “I'd much rather see Harriet, but Aunt Adelaide is so very rich that it would be foolish to offend her."

"Nevertheless, it seems hard that the little wench should lose her holiday,” said Mr. Peake. “'Tis a good child. Last holidays she mended the toes of my carpet slippers until I could not tell where the holes had been.” He stuck out his invisible feet and regarded them with satisfaction.

"Well I know,” agreed Harriet's mother, “but my husband can't go, he has a meeting of the Grass Growers’ Association, and Mark is in quarantine for whooping cough."

"I shall escort her out,” announced Mr. Peake.

Mrs. Armitage looked startled.

"Well—that's very sweet of you,” she answered dubiously. “But are you sure you'll be able to manage?"

"Madam, you forget that I was once an explorer and sailed to the New World. What terrors could a female boarding establishment have for me?"

"In that case, I'll add a P.S. to say that you're coming instead. Harriet
will
be excited. And you can take her a spare pair of socks and a pot of gooseberry jam. There.” She flipped her letter out of the machine, quickly addressed an envelope to Miss Armitage, Silverside School, Ham Street, Dorset, and stood up.

"Now perhaps,” said Mr. Peake, as she left the room, “I can get on with my memoirs.” But he said it to himself, for he was a polite man.

Mr. Peake was the Armitages’ lodger, and if he has not been mentioned before, it is because he was so very quiet and unobtrusive that the family hardly noticed his existence. He had one room, with use of Mrs. Armitage's typewriter in the mornings, and he hardly ever came downstairs. He had lived in the house for three hundred years, ever since his death, in fact, and was thought to be writing his autobiography, though as it was invisible no one had read it. He had been a sailor and explorer and a friend of Drake, so there was plenty to write about.

When the Armitage family first moved into the house, they took over Mr. Peake from the previous owners. Harriet was a baby at the time, and the nursemaid had left in hysterics next week because one night when Harriet was teething she had come up to the nursery and seen Mr. Peake walking to and fro hushing Harriet in his arms; or at least she had seen Harriet, for of course no one saw Mr. Peake.

He had always remained very fond of Harriet ever since and used to give her odd little presents which he called fairings or baubles. When she had measles he sat by her bed reading to her for hours and hours. No one had ever known Mr. Peake to go to sleep.

Harriet was devoted to Mr. Peake, but just the same, she was a little doubtful at the thought of being taken out from school by him. She had not been at Silverside very long, and did not want to get a reputation for peculiarity. It was very disappointing that her mother was obliged to go and meet Aunt Adelaide, as Mrs. Armitage always made a good impression—she arrived punctually, wore the right sort of hat, made the right sort of remarks (and not too many of them) when she was taken round the school, and had tea with Harriet at the right places. It was to be hoped that Mr. Peake would behave in an equally exemplary manner, but Harriet was afraid that he might seem eccentric to the rest of the school.

On the following Saturday, she hung about in the front hall, hoping to catch him when he arrived. She did not want the difficulty of explaining about an invisible bell-ringer to one of the housemaids. Unfortunately, members of the junior classes were not supposed to loiter in the hallway and she had to keep pretending to be looking to see if there were any letters for her on the hall table, and then walk briskly up the front stairs and run hurriedly down the back stairs. After one of these descents she was lucky enough to see a pot of gooseberries and a pair of her mother's knitted socks approaching up the front steps, and was just in time to intercept Mr. Peake before he rang the bell.

"It is nice to see you,” she said (no one ever remembered to adapt their speech to Mr. Peake's peculiarity). “Let me take that jam from you, and then I have to report that I am going out to my house-mistress and we can be off."

"I should admire to see a little of this female academy of learning, if it is convenient,” said her visitor. “Such things have come in since my day."

"Oh blow,” thought Harriet. Luckily on a Saturday afternoon she could rely on the place being fairly well deserted, but two tiny juniors squeaked as she showed him around the gymnasium:

"Coo, listen to Harriet Armitage talking to herself. She must be going crackers!"

Harriet swept Mr. Peake off to the library before he had half finished gazing at the ropes and the parallel bars.

Talking in the library was normally forbidden but a certain amount of latitude was allowed when visitors were being shown round. Mr. Peake took a great interest in the historical section and asked dozens of questions. Harriet noticed with alarm that Madeline Bogg, the Head Girl, who was working for a history examination, was in the next alcove and looking angrily in their direction.