Mennyms Under Siege Read online

  Vinetta sat and watched him for a while.

  Then she said, “I’ve something to tell you, Josh.”

  Joshua knew the look on his wife’s face and winced as he wondered what was coming next. She always told him everything, but he would often have preferred to be left in the dark. He eased his chair back from the table and prepared to listen. As the story of the attic door unfolded he became increasingly conscious that it rang false. There was something abnormal about Vinetta’s voice. He could hear the strain in it, the effort to tell too much, yet somehow to keep back some essential detail – she seemed to be hiding a sharp needle in a stack of prickly hay.

  “So where is Appleby now?” he said, interrupting her rambling tale.

  Vinetta stopped speaking. She sat there at the table just staring at him.

  “Appleby,” Joshua repeated. “Where is she now? You both managed to keep the door closed. Then she appeared to go into some sort of trance. So where is she now?”

  Vinetta shook her head.

  “She must still be in the attic,” she said. “She hasn’t come down yet. If we just leave her there, she will be down sometime. She’s like that. You know she is.”

  Joshua rose from the table.

  “I think we’d better go and see her, both of us.”

  “Can’t we just wait awhile? You know what she’s like. She’ll be angry, Josh. She’ll come down when she’s ready. I know she will.”

  Joshua said no more but took Vinetta by the arm and led her out of the room.

  Appleby was in the rocking-chair where her mother had left her but she was slumped to one side, limp as a puppet whose strings have snapped. Her green glass eyes were lustreless. On her lips was a loose pink thread. Her left arm was lying twisted across her lap, the cloth that covered it all crumpled.

  Joshua lifted the arm and let it fall. He settled Appleby back in the chair and looked at her intently. Vinetta stood anxiously by him.

  “She’s dead, Vinny,” said Joshua, putting one arm round his wife’s shoulders. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “She’s not, Josh. She can’t be. Rag dolls don’t die.”

  “She has ceased to live.”

  “For now. Just for now,” said Vinetta. “She’ll come to life again. Pilbeam came to life.”

  “That was different. Pilbeam had never lived.”

  “Appleby’s been like this before, remember. When we gave her a bath, she was almost lifeless and spent months drying out in the cupboard.”

  Joshua took another look at the doll in the chair and then looked directly at Vinetta, his amber lozenge eyes full of loving pity. He gripped her hand.

  “She is dead,” he said in a quiet, gentle voice. “For whatever reason, the spirit has left her. She will never live again.”

  “No!” screamed Vinetta, pulling away from him. “No! You cannot say that. I won’t let you say that.”

  “Hush,” said Joshua. “Don’t let the others hear. This must be orderly and it must be right.”

  He stooped and picked Appleby up in both his arms, carrying her like a baby.

  “Open the attic door wide,” he said, “and lead the way.”

  Vinetta mutely obeyed.

  Joshua carried Appleby down the attic stairs and along the hall into her own room. He laid her on the bed and sat down himself on the bedside chair. Vinetta stood near him. Suddenly, Joshua put his head in his hands and his body shook with inner sobs. Vinetta, watching him, did not know what to do.

  The door opened and Pilbeam was about to enter, but seeing her parents there made her pause. Vinetta looked across at the door and waved Pilbeam away. When the door closed again, Vinetta sat down on the foot of the bed. A full hour passed before either she or Joshua moved.

  Then Joshua raised his head and said, “We’ll leave her now. There’s nothing we can do here.” He spread the blankets over Appleby’s body.

  “I don’t want to leave her, Joshua. I don’t ever want to leave her,” said Vinetta in a strange, stubborn voice. “If she is dead, truly dead, I don’t think I can go on living.”

  “You must,” said Joshua. “You have other children, living children who need you. Appleby will never need you again.”

  Vinetta gave Joshua a look of hatred.

  “How can you accept her death? You are wicked even to let the thought enter your mind. She can live. She will live. And nothing you say will change that. I shall stay here with her till she comes to life.”

  “You can’t, Vinetta. You can’t, I tell you. Your duty is to the rest of the family now.”

  Vinetta was wretched and looking around for some sort of revenge on fate.

  “Very well then,” she snapped. “I will come and look after everyone, since that is what you say I’m on this earth for. But I can die too.”

  Joshua looked startled.

  “No,” said Vinetta bitterly. “I don’t intend to do anything drastic. I won’t rush into the street and tell the world what I am. There is more than one way of dying. I can go through the motions of living whilst I die inside. I will go round doing any work I need to do, but I will be dead. If Appleby is dead, so am I. What is left of me will be just a walking shell.”

  Joshua knew that now was not the time to argue, but something had to be said. Words of comfort would be empty. He did not even dare to clasp her hand.

  “For now,” he said firmly, “you must at least pretend to live, even if it is the hardest pretend of your life. You will have to try your best to staunch the suffering of all the others. They will need you more than ever. They loved Appleby too. They will need you to be practical and sensible. And so do I.”

  Joshua put his arm round Vinetta’s shoulders and took her out of Appleby’s room, closing the door behind them. Vinetta said nothing, but offered no resistance. She let herself be taken downstairs to her own room.

  “Lie down,” said Joshua, “and think about what I have said. I am going to see the others now. I’ll ask Hortensia to come in and see you.”

  36

  The Confrontation

  AFTER JOSHUA HAD asked Hortensia to go to her friend, he hurried down to the breakfast-room and told his mother all that had happened. Or, at least, as much as she needed to know. The door in the attic was dangerous, and her granddaughter Appleby was dead. They went together to Appleby’s room. Tulip felt more affectionate towards her in death than she ever had in life. A hard fact, but true.

  “Miss Quigley is with Vinetta,” said Joshua. “You must tell the children. Tell them as little as possible and make it as easy for them as you can.”

  “What about your father?” said Tulip. She stood by the bed, stroking the hair back from Appleby’s brow. “He adores her. I don’t know what this news will do to him.”

  “I shall see Father,” said Joshua. “That is something that I must do.”

  It was late morning and the old man was snoozing again, having been awake very early, reading.

  “Father,” said Joshua, “wake up. Listen to me. There is something I have to tell you.”

  Sir Magnus tried to look as if he had not been sleeping and said tetchily, “Well, get on with it then. I haven’t got all day.”

  In as few words as possible, Joshua told his father about the door in the attic and the death of Appleby.

  Magnus was shattered. Hiding his grief under a blustering anger, he cried out, “I always knew that attic was dangerous. It should have been kept locked and bolted. You have all dragged me through hell this year, what with one thing and another. I am an old man. I shouldn’t have to suffer like this.”

  “Vinetta is suffering,” said Joshua. “If you could see Vinetta, you would know what suffering really is. It is driving her mad. And I can see only one way of helping her.”

  “Yes?” said Magnus. “And what would that be?”

  “For Vinetta’s sake, for all our sakes, including yours, this siege must be over. Our troubles all began with your crazy idea that we must hide ourselves away from the neighbou
rs. You tied my family down till they were nearly stifled. Anyone could see that there would be strife. From now on, we do things my way.”

  Sir Magnus groaned.

  “We must do our best to return to normal,” Joshua continued. “We will be extra careful and extra cautious. But we must go back to living a normal life. Otherwise accepting Appleby’s death and learning to live with it will be impossible. We will be trapped in grief.”

  “So you want them all to come and go as they like?”

  “That’s right. No locked doors. No stupid restrictions. Just good guidance and common sense.”

  “And if we fail?” said Granpa, white eyebrows raised. “If some outsider discovers our secret? Have you thought about that?”

  “We’ll not fail,” said Joshua, “as long as we stick to certain practical rules.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Joshua saw with sudden clarity the true answer to his question.

  “I can’t be. No one can. If we are found out,” he said, “we will just have to put up with the consequences.”

  Magnus worked himself up into a frenzy.

  “Burnt on a bonfire,” he said. “Cut up in a laboratory. Paraded in a circus. Is that what you would like your family to come to?”

  “So what do you suggest, Father? Should we open the attic door? I have lost one child. Give me credit for having some idea of how to save the others. There was a time when I agreed with you completely. I have learnt the hard way that you were wrong.”

  “And what of Appleby?” asked Magnus. “What will happen to my granddaughter now? Are you so sure she’s dead? Rag dolls don’t die. Look how old I am, and I go on living.”

  “There is only one way to answer to that question. I’ll take you to see her, Father,” said Joshua, offering an arm and placing a walking-stick in the old man’s hand. Sir Magnus swung himself round and shook shakily on his two purple feet. Slowly they left the room and walked across to Appleby’s door. Joshua opened it. On the bed, covered in the blankets, just as he had left her, was the body of his daughter.

  Sir Magnus went up to the bed and took Appleby’s dead hand in his. He slumped into the chair where Joshua had sat. For some minutes he did not speak.

  “Why could it not have been me who died?” he said at length. “She was so full of life, so very full of life. And look at me – old and crippled and useless.”

  And he looked older than ever. He had come from his room without dressing-gown or slippers. His purple feet looked monstrous, the left paler than the right because it had not had the continuous protection of the counterpane. His green checked nightshirt, flopping nearly to his ankles, looked undignified. Tulip would never have allowed him to leave his room in such disarray. Tulip would have insisted upon his proper attire, no matter what the emergency.

  Joshua became conscious of his father’s pathetic appearance. He gripped the older man’s arm firmly but gently and took him back to his own room.

  “And now everything returns to normal,” he said, as he helped Sir Magnus back into bed. “I will tell the others today, and I will explain the precautions they must all take.”

  “Do what you like,” said Magnus. “They can all do what they like. I don’t care any more.”

  The others were all told of Joshua’s decision.

  “And though we are now free to go in and out of the house again,” said Joshua, “a watch must still be kept at the front window. We must become the nosy neighbours. That is just common sense.”

  It was Miss Quigley who told the children that their mother would need their help.

  “She has cared for you for years,” she said. “Now you must care for her. Think of her as being not well. Till she is better, I will look after the house and do the washing and the ironing. But you must all do your share. I have no intention of neglecting Googles.”

  Poopie and Wimpey nodded solemnly. Pilbeam and Soobie resolved to give her all the help they could.

  Within a few days, Vinetta managed to pull herself round enough to come out of her room and face everyone. They were all subdued, waiting for the first mention of Appleby. Soobie sat in his chair by the window and doubted whether life could be normal ever again without Appleby, Vinetta’s lost sheep. Joshua kept careful watch, prepared to help, but ready to remain silent.

  “You are all wondering what I am going to say,” said Vinetta. She looked careworn. She had combed her black hair neatly and her lips were set in an unnatural smile, but her flecked blue eyes had no sparkle. “I can see that you are. I have spent the last few days just thinking. It seems to me that no one can really be sure that Appleby is dead forever. Even where there appears to be no life there can still be hope. All we have to do is wait.”

  “And in the meantime?” asked Soobie, worried in case his mother should rely too heavily on a vain hope. Tulip had taken him and Pilbeam to see Appleby, to say their last goodbyes. They had faced the reality of their sister’s death. It had hurt deeply. It still hurt. But they knew it was a fact they would have to accept. It seemed to him dangerous that his mother should think otherwise.

  “In the meantime,” said Vinetta, giving him a sharp, comprehending look, “we live as we lived before.”

  It was a brave decision, not one she had reached easily.

  Later, Joshua spoke to Soobie alone.

  “Try not to worry,” he said. “Your mother will grieve some day, and in her grieving she will know that Appleby is really dead. But she is not ready for that yet.”

  Soobie gave his father a look of respect.

  “You understand her,” he said.

  “I love her,” said Joshua, and then turned away as if he felt he had said too much.

  Of the secret visits Tulip paid to the room on the second floor, little need be said. The loose thread was trimmed from Appleby’s lip, her long red hair was brushed smooth, and fresh pillows were placed beneath her head.

  37

  Watching

  SO THE MENNYMS went about their business as usual. Poopie worked with a will in the garden and restored it to orderliness. Joshua helped him whenever he had the time. Pilbeam went shopping. Vinetta went to the Market. Miss Quigley waited patiently for the new pram they had decided should be bought to replace the old-fashioned one, but she was delighted to take Googles into the back garden and to sit and paint in the sheltered corner down by the hedge. And when Tulip needed a fresh supply of wool she made a ceremony of preparing to face the world and out she went, though she did feel a little disloyal to her husband. But even he managed to get over his sulks and his sorrow enough to employ Pilbeam as his errand-girl.

  “Don’t leave the house unless you are sure that the street is empty,” he said. “And check with the look-out before you go.”

  The ‘look-out’ was whoever was on duty at the upstairs window. It had been decided that the window immediately above the lounge, Joshua and Vinetta’s bedroom window, would afford a better all-round view of the street. Vigilance was kept more rigorously than ever, from sunrise till sunset and a little beyond. Joshua had to take his daytime rest on the sofa in the dining room.

  The watchers observed scenes from the sort of life they themselves would never lead, scenes most of them had never bothered to notice before.

  The Richardsons at Number 2 suddenly acquired a new baby. Vinetta, taking her turn at the window, saw a smart young woman wheeling a small, modern pram out of the gate.

  “That’s what we need for Googles,” she said to Hortensia who was keeping her company on the window-watch. They had looked at a fair number of Tulip’s catalogues but had so far been unable to make up their minds as between a small pram, a carrycot on wheels and a large canopied pushchair.

  Hortensia looked worried.

  “I may have to wait a year or two before I take baby to the park again,” she said. “Another baby in the street could make it awkward. Its mother might try to stop me to compare notes.”

  It was Soobie who saw the funeral.

  �
�Someone must have died at Number 4,” he said. There were many cars and flowers and mourners. It was from the Castledean Gazette that Miss Quigley produced the information that the deceased was Millicent Isabella Jarman, aged 78, wife of Andrew Jarman, mother of Oswald, George and Helen, and loving grandmother to all the family.

  Watching made the Mennyms aware that the Jarmans were in no hurry to move. One of the sons was obviously still living at home, going to work in his car at the same time each morning. The father could be seen doing the garden, helped by a young man who might have been a grandson, or perhaps a handyman gardener.

  Then, one Saturday morning in the middle of October, Wimpey was on watch when she saw the most exciting thing ever. A wedding! A big, wonderful wedding!

  “Quick, quick, Mum,” she shouted. “Come and look! Somebody’s getting married.”

  Vinetta, Tulip and Pilbeam all came hurrying in. Looking out of the window, unable to resist the temptation to lift the net curtain, they saw the bride, on the arm of her father, standing at the gateway of Number 9. The couple were about to enter the wedding car which was a Rolls Royce festooned with white satin ribbon. A photographer was taking a picture of the bride, who was Anthea Fryer, and her parents, Alec and Loretta. This album, Alec had decided, would be a work of art to treasure forever. Anthea had put her foot down very firmly when he had wanted to video the whole proceedings, but had given in over the album.

  Anthea had given way to her mother’s wishes over the dress. It was long and dreamy in satin and lace. It was totally out of character for an Amazon, but even Hippolyta had to submit to a stately wedding! The ceremony was to take place at St Mark’s on Lower Malvern Street. That too had been a compromise. Her father wanted the Cathedral. Anthea, beginning to feel more mature already, favoured a quiet, family wedding without any fuss. The guest list was longer than she wanted it to be, but at least the church was small and pretty, offering comfort rather than ostentation.