The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (20 page)

"And here's the cat, but I'm not going to risk being caught by the Silver Lady for a lot of starlings,” she said descending for the last time with the tabby slumped peacefully under her arm. “What shall we do with them now?"

"Eh, well, there's little can be done till I've reflected,” said the doctor, who seemed to be infected by the general somnolence, and was yawning dreadfully. “We'll just get them indoors safe and snug and then I'll be off home. I'll come up in the morning for a confabulation with your granny. Meanwhile they'll take no harm."

Using the barrow for the longer stretch of the journey, they carted the slumberers into a sort of garden room, where they were propped about in canvas swings and deck chairs, and covered with tartan rugs. The rising moon silvered the three inert bundles (and one small one) through the window. Harriet and the doctor stepped out, closing the glass door behind them, and the doctor's peg-legged shadow stretched out, long and fantastic, across the lawn, as he stumped off with a good-night wave.

Harriet turned indoors, feeling rather forlorn. She didn't want any supper, and went straight upstairs to bed. The whole house was as quiet as a stringless harp, and she missed Mark's companionable coughing from next door. Nevertheless, she managed to fall asleep in fifteen minutes or so and drifted into some very strange dreams about flying cats, laurel trees full of sharks, and a Silver Lady with a wooden leg. “You give me back my brother!” shouted Harriet, and at once became aware that she was coughing, and that she was awake.

"Eh, nonny, nonny, what's all this?” said Nursie, materializing beside the bed with her candle and red dressing gown. “Here you are then, my duck, here's a drink of black currant for that cough.” Harriet obediently swallowed it down. It tasted like permanganate.

"Nursie,” she said miserably, “we've lost Mark. The Silver Lady's got him—he's asleep and won't wake up."

"Laws-a-me,” Nursie said sharply, “he's been up the laurel tree then? All the same they are—tell them not to do a thing and they run straight away and do it. A good sleep'll work wonders for his cough, that's one comfort."

"But how are we going to wake him? The postman's been asleep since May."

"As to that,” Nursie answered, “I couldn't say. The rhyme says:

Those by the silver slumber taken

Only the Tawny Owl can waken.

But I can hear a couple of owls down in the orchard this minute and it takes more than them to waken Master Mark in the normal way, let alone when the Silver Lady's put her finger on him. We'll think about it in the morning, Miss Harriet, dear. Deary me, there's the telephone ringing at half past nine at night, of all the ungodly times."

And blowing out her candle, she tiptoed away.

The telephone was the children's father ringing up to ask if they were behaving themselves. Nursie told him to hold on while she went and fetched Granny from the television, explaining to her on the way what had happened to Mark.

"That you, Mother? How are you?” shouted Mr. Armitage, loud enough to penetrate Granny's deafness.

"I am well, thank you, Geoffrey. The children are looking much better."

"Behaving all right?"

"There is no need to shout, Geoffrey, I can hear perfectly well over the telephone. Mark is unfortunately in a coma; all the fault of the Silver Lady, you know. Otherwise nothing out of the common has occurred."

"What? What?” shouted Mr. Armitage, becoming very agitated. “What are you doing about it?"

"Why, my dear boy, there is nothing to be done. It is my bedtime now, good night.” And Granny firmly rang off, leaving Mr. Armitage in a great state of irritation.

The dying tink of the telephone came to Harriet as she lay wide awake and worrying in a patch of moonlight. Something out to be done about Mark soon, she was sure; otherwise he might sink so deep into sleep that he could
never
be awakened. And then all their plans for Christmas would be spoiled. Not to mention camping out during the Easter holidays.

The Tawny Owl, Nursie had said. There was a tawny owl, too, in the rhyme about the land of trees and heroes. Perhaps it was the same one? In any case, the time to find a tawny owl was now, while it was dark and the owls were abroad, not tomorrow morning when they were all fast asleep and hidden away in thickets.

Harriet had by now thought herself wide awake, and she got up silently and began putting on her clothes again. The sound of the telephone had given her an idea. It seemed so wild and odd that she hardly liked to put it to herself in actual thought, but she slipped out of her room, carrying her shoes in her hand, and went downstairs to the little telephone room off the front hall. The house was silent again. Nursie and Granny had gone to bed. Only the faint crackle of coal settling for the night came from the kitchen stove.

Harriet sat looking at the telephone in its little pool of moonlight. How did you ring up an orchard? In the end she dialed “O."

For a long, long time she could hear ringing, but no one answered. She almost gave up in despair and put the receiver back, but then she thought she might as well wait a bit longer. At last the ringing stopped, there came a click, and she could hear a far-off sighing, like the wind in the branches.

"Who is there?” she asked, rather nervously.

A whisper answered her. “Cox's Ooooor-ange Pippin speeee-king...” it murmured leafily against her ear. “To whoooooom did you wish to speeeeeeeeek?"

"May I please speak to the Tawny Owl?” Harriet's heart beat in triumph at this success.

"Hold on, pleasssssss...” whispered Cox's Orange, and there was another long pause, a long, long pause, while Harriet heard, down the receiver, the trees in the orchard all turning their branches this way and that against the night sky.

Presently there came a click as if somebody had picked up the receiver.

"I—is that the Tawny Owl?” Harriet asked nervously.

"Who?"

"I asked to speak to the Tawny Owl."

"To who?"

"You mean to whom,” Harriet was on the point of saying, when she realized that it
was
the Tawny Owl speaking. She explained the trouble they were in, and that he was their only hope. “Oh, please, sir,” she ended despairingly, “won't you help us? I'm sure Dr. Groves won't have much idea what to do."

"You will need ammunition,” said the Tawny Owl. “To wit, a bow and some arrows."

"I can manage that.” Harriet was much encouraged by his voice—a friendly, brown, furry sort of voice. “What shall I do with them?"

"Bring them to the laurel tree. Do not delay. I will be there."

"Oh,
thank
you,” Harriet said gratefully.

"Who?"

"You—oh, I mean whooo,” she replied politely, put the receiver back, and ran tiptoeing into the garden room, where she had left the bow and the remaining two arrows. Everyone was breathing peacefully, and she went out, making snail tracks in the moony dew, across the lawn to the laurel tree.

She had not been there a moment when the branches parted and a large pale shape coasted silently down and landed as lightly as a dead leaf on her shoulder. She felt the smoothness of feathers against her cheek.

"Whooo,” the Tawny Owl said gently in her ear. “The arrows—of what wood are they?"

"Elder."

"A moody personality. Was permission obtained? It would not do to be rude to her."

"We—we
asked
,” said Harriet anxiously, “but she didn't answer."

"I will enquire anew. Do you procure a bicycle and return hither—be swift. Adieu."

Quick as she was, the owl had returned to the tree before her.

"Elder is graciously pleased to allow the use of those two. It is a propitious wood. Now! We must go fast. I will sit on your shoulder and instruct you as to the route,” said the Tawny Owl.

He soon found, however, that it was easier if he flew ahead and Harriet followed, for he could go much faster. Whizzing after him down the garden path, Harriet realized that she was not going to have time to dismount for the steps and discovered, without much surprise, halfway down them that she had become airborne and was pedaling briskly after the owl ten feet above the white surface of the road, which streamed away like a nylon ribbon beneath her.

"Where are we going?” she called after him.

"To the land,” his hoot came faintly back between wing beats, “to the land of trees and heroes...."

It was a wonderful ride. Harriet would not have minded going on all night, seeing the moon-silvered fields sliding under her feet and breathing the sharp cold scent of the trees when they swooped through the darkness of a wood. But presently she found that they were toiling up a long, cloudy ascent; the Tawny Owl went more slowly, and she herself was glad of Nursie's three-speed. Great cliffs of cloud built up on either side, drifts of loose cloud sometimes obscured the path, and at length they came to a door.

The owl flew up against it and clung, as a woodpecker or nuthatch will cling to the side of a tree, and in a moment or two the door swung open and they passed through.

Harriet often wished afterwards that she had had more time to notice the beauties of that land. It was smooth and rolling—a country like a counterpane of grassy downs and small groves on the hilltops, set with statues that shone white, here and there, against the trees. And strolling on the grass, or lying in the shade, some near, some far, were the heroes. Many of them she recognized at once. There was Hercules, doing his best, with the assistance of two grass snakes, to copy the position of a statue of himself, but the snakes were not being cooperative and he was not managing very well. There was Jason, with only one sandal. There were Prince Hal, galloping about on a fiery horse, with Ivanhoe; Davy Crockett and Robin Hood, having a shooting match; Captain Nemo and Captain Ahab, having a nice chat in the shade. Harriet saw with wonder, not unmixed with envy, that the postman was sitting and chatting with them, a large tabby on his lap; that the butcher's boy was playing bowls with Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh; and that Bellerophon was giving Mark a ride on Pegasus.

"How did they get here?” she asked in astonishment.

"They are dreaming,” the Tawny Owl answered her. She had propped her bicycle against an ilex tree, and the owl was once more sitting on her shoulder. “But now you must not delay—the Silver Lady will soon be returning, and you must shoot her."

"I don't much want to shoot anybody,” Harriet said doubtfully.

"She will take no harm from it. And only thus will you have power over her, to make her let your brother free. Watch, now—"

"String your bow,” said Robin Hood, who had strolled up and stood watching with friendly interest. “Then you'll be ready. Like this."

Several other heroes gathered round with encouragement and advice as Harriet strung her bow and pointed it at the sky. Bellerophon grounded Pegasus in case of accidents. “Isn't this a grand place?” Mark shouted to Harriet.

"There she goes!” suddenly came a cry from the watchers, and Harriet saw something silvery and unbelievably swift streak across the sky towards the moon.

"Quick!” the Tawny Owl murmured, “before she hides. Or you will have to wait for twenty-four hours."

Harriet shot after the flashing figure.

"Oh!” came a long-drawn cry from the watchers. “You've shot the moon!"

And so indeed she had. Down it came, tumbling and drifting, like a great silver honesty pod falling through leaves of air. All the shadows rushed upward.

Harriet was appalled. But Ivanhoe, galloping up to where the moon lay blazing coldly (it was about the size of a nursery table), shouted, “You've caught her!"

"Make haste!” called Jason.

Harriet ran to the moon. It had fallen on its edge and was standing upright. The arrow, thrust clean through, was still quivering. And on the far side of the moon the Silver Lady struggled angrily to be free. The arrow had caught the bracelet on her wrist, and she was a prisoner, fastened by her hand to the shining disk. She was very beautiful, but her rage was frightening, and Harriet hesitated before approaching her; the air all around her was bitterly cold, and Harriet felt as if she might freeze to the ground.

"Don't be afraid,” said the Tawny Owl in her ear, and he called to the lady, “Mistress, the child has beaten you fairly."

"Not without your help and counsel,” the Silver Lady replied, giving him a black look. “Well, child, what is it you want? Quick! Selene is not to be humiliated for long."

"I—I want you to set my brother free, please,” Harriet said hurriedly. “And the postman and the butcher's boy and the cat."

"Is that all? You might have asked for kingdoms while you were about it.” And the Silver Lady blew in the direction of Mark, who vanished like a pricked bubble. The postman and the butcher's boy disappeared at the same time. Then, twisting her bracelet free from the arrow, the Silver Lady smiled at Harriet enchantingly and shot upwards like a spark into the Milky Way.

"You must put back the moon,” she called over her shoulder, “or you will be my next prisoner."

"Put back the moon!” Harriet stared at it in horror. How was that ever to be accomplished? But Perseus grinned at her reassuringly, tugged it out of the ground, and, leaning backwards, slung it up with a mighty swing of his arm.

Higher and higher the moon soared, and finally steadied, like a kite that feels the pull of the wind, and sailed among its accustomed stars.

"Homeward now,” the Tawny Owl warned Harriet. “Dawn approaches, when the road is closed."

It was a race home, through the mighty door, down the slopes of paling clouds. The stars were thinning out in the sky as Harriet and the owl covered the last furlong, and the bearings on Nursie's bike were red hot.

"Owl,” said Harriet when they stood again beneath the laurel tree, “is the tree disenchanted now?"

"Oh, no,” said the owl. “The tree is Selene's, and will always be hers. Just as the other trees in your grandmother's garden each belong to a specific Power. Did you not know? The Elder, the Quince, and the dark-berried Yew...” His voice was trailing away as if he were yawning, and he murmured, “Adieu,” gave Harriet's ear a little peck just as the sun rose, and flitted silently off to a lilac thicket.