The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (37 page)

In fact, as Mr. Armitage said to his wife, it was almost impossible to believe the evidence of one's own eyes.

In the course of three weeks Cousin Elspeth's looks and her temper improved daily and visibly. Her cheeks grew pink, her eyes blue, and her face no longer looked like a craggy mountain landscape but became simply handsome and distinguished. She was heard to laugh, several times, and told Mrs. Armitage that it didn't matter if the tea wasn't always Earl Grey; she remembered a limerick she had learned in her youth about the old man of Hoy, restored the writing-desk to Mark in her will, and began to leave her bedroom door unlocked.

Curiously enough, after a week or two, it was Mrs. Armitage who began to think rather wistfully of the wasted helot manpower lying idle down there in the cellar. She told Mark to fetch Tinthea to help with the job of washing blankets. Which Cousin Elspeth pointed out should be done before the winter.

"After all, as we've got the creatures, we might as well make
some
use of them. Just carrying blankets to and fro, Tinthea can't get up to much mischief. But don't bring Nickelas, I can't stand his big staring eyes."

So Mark, assisted by Harriet, fetched the smaller helot from the cellar. They were careful not to switch her on until she was in the utility room, and the cellar door locked again on the inert Nickelas.

But Harriet did afterwards recall that Tinthea's bulbous, sightless eyes seemed to watch the process of locking and unlocking very attentively.

For once, however, the smaller helot appeared to be in a cooperative mood, and she hoisted wet blankets out of the washing machine and trundled off with them into the garden, where she hung them on the line without doing anything unprogrammed or uncalled-for, returning three or four times for a new load.

It was bright, blowy autumn weather, the leaves were whirling off the trees, and the blankets dried so quickly that they were ready to put back on the beds after a couple of hours.

"Ech! Bless my soul!” sighed Cousin Elspeth at tea, which was, again, taken in the garden as the weather was so fine. “This veesit has passed so quickly, it's harrd to realize that it will be November on Thurrsday. I must be thinking of reeturrning to my ain wee naist."

"Oh, but you mustn't think of leaving before our Hallowe'en party,” said Mrs. Armitage quickly. “We have so much enjoyed having you, Cousin Elspeth, you must make this visit an annual event. It has been a real pleasure."

"Indeed it has! I've taken a grand fancy to your youngfolk.” Cousin Elspeth beamed benevolently at Mark and Harriet, who were lying on their stomachs on the grass, doing homework between bites of bread and damson jam.

"Where's Tinthea?” Harriet suddenly said to Mark. “Did you put her away?"

"No, I didn't. Did you?"

Harriet shook her head.

Quietly, she and Mark rose, left the group round the garden table, and went indoors.

"I can hear something upstairs,” said Mark.

A thumping could be heard from the direction of Cousin Elspeth's room.

Harriet armed herself with a broom, Mark picked a walking-stick from the front-door stand, and they hurried up the stairs.

As they entered Cousin Elspeth's room, Tinthea could be seen apparently admiring herself in the large looking-glass. Then, advancing to it with outstretched monitor selection function aligners, she was plainly about to remove it from the wall when Mark, stepping forward, tapped down her main switch with the ferrule of the walking-stick. Tinthea let out what sounded like a cry of rage and spun half-round before she lost her power and became inert with dangling mandibles and vacant receiving panel; but even so it seemed to Harriet that there was a very malevolent expression in her sixty-watt eyes.

"What was
really
queer, though,” Harriet said to her brother, “was that just before you hooked down her switch, I caught sight of her reflection in the glass, and she looked—well, not like a helot, more like a person. There is something peculiar about that mirror."

She studied herself in the glass.

"The first time I saw myself in it, I thought I looked horrible. But now I look better—"

Mark eyed his reflection and said, “Perhaps that's what's been happening to Cousin Elspeth, seeing herself in it every day..."

"Of
course
! Aren't you clever! So that's why old Miss Hooting wanted it! But what shall we do about Tinthea?"

"Put her back in the cellar. You take her legs. Don't touch the switch.” Tinthea sagged heavily between them as they carried her back to the cellar. And when she was set down next to Nickelas, it seemed that a warning message flashed between the two pairs of sightless eyes.

The Armitages’ Hallowe'en party was always a great success.

This year Mrs. Armitage, with Cousin Elspeth and Harriet helping, produced a magnificent feast, including several Scottish delicacies such as haggis and Aberdeen bun; Mark and Harriet organized apple-bobbing, table-turning, and fortune-telling with tea-leaves (large Earl Grey ones), flour, lighted candles, and soot. The guests came dressed as trolls, kelpies, banshees, werewolves, or boggarts, and the sensation of the evening was the pair of helots, Tinthea and Nickelas, who, carefully and lengthily programmed during days of hard work by Mr. Armitage, passed round trays of cheese tarts, chestnut crunch fancies, and tiny curried sausages.

"But they're not real, are they?” cried Mrs. Pontwell, the vicar's wife. “I mean—they are Mark and Harriet, cleverly dressed up, aren't they, really?"

When she discovered that the helots were not Mark and Harriet, she gave a slight scream and kept well out of their way for the rest of the evening.

Many of the guests remained, playing charades, until nearly midnight, but Cousin Elspeth, who intended to leave the following morning, retired to bed at half past ten.

"Och! I've just had a grand time,” she said. “I never thocht I'd enjoy a party so well. But old bones, ye ken, need plainty of rest; I'll e'en take maself of to ma wee bed, for I must be up bricht and airlly the morn."

Her absence did not diminish the gaiety of the party, and Mrs. Armitage was serving cups of hot chocolate with rum in it while everyone sang “Whitticomb Fair,” when piercing shrieks were heard from upstairs. Simultaneously, all the lights went out.

"Och, maircy! Mairder! Mairder! Mairder!"

"Sounds as if someone's strangling Cousin Elspeth,” said Mark, starting for the stairs.

"Where did you put the matches?” said Harriet.

There were plenty of candles and matches lying around, but in the confusion, with guests and members of the family bumping about in the dark, it was some time before a rescue party, consisting of Mark, Mr. Armitage, and Mr. Shepherd from next door, was able to mount the stairs with candles and make their way to Cousin Elspeth's room.

They found that lady sitting up in bed in shawl and nightcap, almost paralytic with indignation.

"A deedy lot you are, upon my worrd! I could have been torrn leemb fra leemb before ye lifted a feenger!"

"But what happened?” said Mr. Armitage, looking round in perplexity.

"The mirror's gone!” said Mark.

"Whit happened? Whit
happened
? Yon unco’ misshapen stravaigning shilpit monsters of yours cam’ glomping intil ma room—bald as brass!—removed the meerror fra the wall, and glomped off oot again, as calm as Plato! Wheer they have taken it, I dinna speer—nor do I care—but thankful I am this is the last nicht in life I'll pass under
this
roof, and I'll ne'er come back afore death bears me awa', and it's only a wonder I didna die on the spot wi’ petrification!” And Cousin Elspeth succumbed to a fit of violent hysterics, needing to be administered to with burnt feathers, sal volatile, brandy, snuff, hot-water bottles, and antiphlogistine poultices.

While this was happening, Mark said to Harriet,

"Where do you suppose the helots have taken the mirror?"

"Back to the cellar? How did they get out?"

By this time, most of the guests had gone. The blown fuse had been mended and the lights restored. Mark and Harriet went down, a little cautiously, to inspect the cellar, but found it empty; the lock had been neatly picked from inside.

As they returned to the hall, the telephone rang. Mark picked up the receiver and heard the vicar's voice.

"Mark, is that you, my boy? I'm afraid those two mechanical monsters of yours are up to something very fishy in the churchyard. I can see them from my study window in the moonlight. Will you ask your father to come along, and tell him I've phoned P.C. Loiter."

"Oh,
now
what?” groaned Mr. Armitage on hearing this news, but he accompanied his children to the churchyard, which was only a five-minute run along the main street, leaving Mrs. Armitage in charge of the stricken Cousin Elspeth.

A large, bright hunter's moon was sailing overhead, and by its light, it was easy to see Nickelas and Tinthea hoisting up Miss Hooting's glass coffin. They had excavated the grave with amazing speed, and now carefully placed the coffin on the grass to one side of it. Then they laid the mirror, reflecting surface down, on top of the coffin.

As the Armitages arrived at one gate, the vicar and P.C. Loiter came from the vicarage garden.

"Here! What's going on!” shouted P.C. Loiter, outraged. “Just you stop that—whatever you're doing!—If you ask me,” he added in an undertone to Mr. Pontwell, “that's what comes from burying these here wit—these old fairy ladies in churchyards along with decent folk."

"Oh dear me,” said the vicar, “but we must be broad-minded, you know, and Miss Hooting had been such a long-established member of our community—"

At this moment, Nickelas and Tinthea, taking no notice of P.C. Loiter's shouts, raised the mirror high above the coffin, holding it like a canopy.

"What's the idea, d'you suppose!” Mark muttered to Harriet.

"So as to get the reflection of Miss Hooting inside the coffin—"

"Ugh!"

The coffin suddenly exploded with the kind of noise that a gas oven makes when somebody has been too slow in lighting the match. The helots fell backwards, letting go of the mirror, which fell and smashed.

A large owl was seen to fly away from where the coffin had been.

P.C. Loiter, very reluctantly, but encouraged by the presence of Mr. Pontwell and Mr. Armitage on either side, went forward and inspected the coffin. But there was nothing in it, except a great deal of broken glass. Nor was the body of Miss Hooting ever seen again.

"
I
think it was a plan that went wrong,” said Harriet to Mark. “
I
think she hoped, if she had the mirror, it would make her young and handsome and stop her from dying."

"So she sent the helots to get it? Maybe,” said Mark.

"What a shame the mirror got smashed. Because, look at Cousin Elspeth!"

Cousin Elspeth, overnight, had gone back to exactly what she had been at the beginning of the visit—sour, dour, hard-featured, and extremely bad-tempered.

"Ye might have provided a drap of Earl Grey for my last breakfast!” she snapped. “And, as for that disgreeceful occurrence last nicht—aweel, the less said the better!” After which she went on to say a great deal more about it. And, as she left, announced that Mark would certainly not get the writing-desk, nor Harriet the mohair stole, since they were undoubtedly responsible for the goings-on in the night.

"Somehow, I don't see Cousin Elspeth putting us through art school,” mused Harriet, as the taxi rolled away with their cousin along the village street.

"That's a long way off,” said Mark peacefully.

Mr. Armitage was on the telephone with Dowbridges, the auctioneers.

"I want you to come and fetch two robots and enter them in your Friday sale. Please send a truck at once; I'd like them out of the house by noon. Yes,
robots
; two lunar-powered robots, in full working order, complete with instruction booklets. Handy for workshop, kitchen, or garden; a really useful pair; you can price the large one at 90 pounds and the small at 50 pounds."

On Friday, Mrs. Armitage and Harriet attended the sale, and returned to report with high satisfaction that both helots had been sold to Admiral Lycanthrop.

"
He'll
give them what for, I bet,” said Mark. “
He
won't stand any nonsense from them."

But, alas, it turned out that the admiral, who was rather hard of hearing, thought he was bidding for two rowboats, and when he discovered that his purchase consisted instead of two lunar-powered mechanical slaves with awkward dispositions, he returned them, demanding his money back.

The Armitages came down to breakfast on Saturday to find Nickelas and Tinthea standing mute, dogged, and expectant outside the back door....

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Harriet went once or twice a month to take spinning lessons from old Mrs. Holdernesse who lived down the hill. In between the lessons, Harriet collected sheeps’ wool from all the local barbed-wire fences, blackthorn thickets, and blackberry clumps, for Mrs. Holdernesse to spin. Two weeks’ work generally produced a basketful of gray, greasy, lumpy wool, smelling strongly of ammonia, and tangled about with thorns and dried grass and thistly-prickles. Next time Harriet saw the basketful, it would be snowy white, bleached, washed, and dried in the sun, then combed and smoothed and cleaned of all its prickles by rubbing and scraping on a teazel-board. (Teazels were the thistle-heads of tall, spiny plants which grew down in the marshy fields known as the Wuldbrooks because they flooded in winter. Teazels seemed to have been invented by Nature specially for the purpose of scratching thorns and lumps of mud out of sheeps’ wool.)