Moominvalley in November Page 4

  ‘Really,’ said Mymble. ‘And you’re raking leaves.’

  ‘I’m making the place look nice,’ the Hemulen added.

  Suddenly Fillyjonk shouted: ‘You mustn’t touch old leaves! They’re dangerous! They’re full of putrefaction!’ She dashed to the front of the veranda with the blankets trailing behind her. ‘Bacteria!’ she screamed. ‘Worms! Maggots! Creepy-crawlies! Don’t touch them!’

  The Hemulen went on raking. He screwed up his stubborn, innocent face and repeated loudly: ‘I’m making the place look nice, for Moominpappa.’

  ‘I know what I’m talking about,’ said Fillyjonk menacingly, and came closer. Mymble watched them. Old leaves? she thought. People are odd… She went into the house and up to the attic. It was very cold there. The guest room facing south was just the same as it had always been, the white washstand, the faded picture of a storm ages ago, the blue eiderdown. The water-jug was empty and there was a dead spider at the bottom of it. Fillyjonk’s suitcase was in the middle of the room and there was a pink nightdress lying on the bed.

  Mymble took the suitcase and the nightdress into the guest room facing north and shut the door. The guest room facing south was hers, just as certainly as there was an old comb of hers underneath the lace doiley on the washstand. She lifted the doiley and the comb was there. Mymble sat down by the window, undid her lovely long hair and began to comb it. Down below, the morning quarrel continued noiselessly outside the closed windows.

  Mymble combed and combed. Her hair crackled with small electric sparks and became glossier and glossier. She stared out of the window absent-mindedly at the garden, which the autumn had changed and turned into a strange and deserted landscape. The trees were like grey stage decorations, screens standing one behind the other in the wet mist, all quite bare. The noiseless quarrel in front of the veranda continued. They were waving their paws about, running this way and that and looking as unreal as the trees. Except Toft, he was standing quite still, staring at the ground.

  *

  A broad shadow came down the valley, more rain was coming. And there was Snufkin walking over the bridge. It must be him because no one else wore such green clothes. He stopped at the lilac-bushes and looked. Then he came closer, but now he was walking differently, much more slowly. Mymble opened the window.

  The Hemulen flung the rake away. ‘Huh! Organize indeed!’ he said.

  Fillyjonk said into the air: ‘It was different in Moominmamma’s day.’

  Toft stood looking at her boots, he could see that they were too tight. The rain had come. The last sorrowful leaf relinquished its hold and floated down to the veranda, the rain got heavier and heavier.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Snufkin.

  They looked at each other.

  ‘It seems to be raining,’ said Fillyjonk nervously. ‘No one is at home.’

  The Hemulen said: ‘So nice that you’re here.’ Snufkin made a vague gesture, tentatively, and crept in under the shadow of his hat. He turned round and went back to the river. The Hemulen and Fillyjonk followed him. They stood a little way away and waited while he put up his tent next to the bridge, and they watched him creep inside.

  ‘It’s nice that you’re here,’ the Hemulen said again.

  They stayed there for a while and waited in the rain.

  ‘He’s gone to sleep,’ the Hemulen whispered. ‘He’s tired.’

  Mymble saw them coming back to the house. She shut the window and carefully put her hair up in a beautiful little tight knot.

  There’s nothing as lovely as being comfortable and nothing is so simple. Mymble didn’t feel sorry for those people she met and then forgot, and she tried not to get mixed up in what they were doing. She regarded them and their mess with amused surprise.

  The eiderdown was blue. Moominmamma had collected the down for six years and now the eiderdown lay in the guest room facing south inside its cover of crotcheted lace waiting for someone to be comfortable. Mymble decided to have a hot-water bottle at her feet, she knew where they were kept in this house. She would wash her hair in rain-water every fifth day. She would take a little nap at dusk. In the evening the kitchen would be warm from the cooking.

  You can lie on a bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, or wade through a swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It’s very easy to enjoy yourself.

  The November day moved slowly towards twilight. Mymble crept in under the eiderdown, stretched her long legs until they cracked and curled her toes round the hot-water bottle. It was raining outside. In a couple of hours she would feel hungry enough to eat Fillyjonk’s dinner and perhaps she would feel like talking. But at the moment she didn’t need to do anything except sink down in the warmth, the whole world was a single great big eiderdown which encircled a mymble and everything else was outside.

  Mymble never dreamed, she slept when she felt like it and woke up when there was anything to make it worthwhile waking up.

  CHAPTER 10

  Late That Night

  IT was dark in the tent. Snufkin crept out of his sleeping-bag, the five bars had come no nearer. Not a sign of any music. Outside it was very quiet, the rain had stopped. He decided to fry some pork and went to the woodshed to get fuel.

  When the fire was alight the Hemulen and Fillyjonk came down to the tent again and stood there watching without saying anything.

  ‘Have you had dinner?’ Snufkin asked.

  ‘We can’t,’ the Hemulen answered. ‘We can’t agree about who’s going to do the washing-up.’

  ‘Toft,’ said Fillyjonk.

  ‘No, not Toft,’ the Hemulen said. ‘He’s helping me in the garden. Fillyjonk and Mymble ought to keep house for us all, the womenfolk should do these things, eh? Don’t you think I’m right? I can make the coffee and see to it that everybody has a nice time. And Grandpa-Grumble is so old, I’ll let him please himself what he does.’

  ‘Why do hemulens have to organize things for other people all the time!’ Fillyjonk exclaimed.

  They both looked at Snufkin anxiously and expectantly.

  Washing-up, he thought. They don’t know a thing about it. What is washing-up? Tossing a plate into the stream, rinsing one’s paws, throwing away a green leaf, it’s nothing at all. What are they talking about?

  ‘Isn’t it true that hemulens want to organize things the whole time?’ Fillyjonk asked. ‘This is important.’

  Snufkin got up, he was a little scared of both of them. He tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t find an explanation that seemed fair.

  Suddenly the Hemulen shouted: ‘I won’t organize a thing! I want to live in a tent and be independent!’ He tore open the tent door and crept inside, filling the whole tent. ‘You see what I mean,’ Fillyjonk whispered. She waited for a moment or two and then went away.

  Snufkin lifted the frying-pan off the fire, the pork was quite black. He filled his pipe. After a while he asked cautiously: ‘Are you used to sleeping in a tent?’

  The Hemulen answered gloomily: ‘Living in the wilds is the best thing I know.’

  It was now quite dark. Up at the house two windows were lit and the light was just as steady and just as soft as it always used to be in the evenings.

  *

  In the guest room facing north Fillyjonk lay with the blanket pulled up round her nose and her head full of curlers which hurt her neck. She lay counting knots in the ceiling and she was hungry.

  All the time, right from the beginning, Fillyjonk had thought that she would be the one to prepare the food. She loved arranging small jars and bags on the shelves, she thought it was fun to work out new ways of doing up left-overs in puddings and rissoles so that nobody could recognize them. She loved doing the cooking as economically as possible, and knowing that not a single drop of semolina had been wasted.

  The family’s great gong hung on the veranda. Fillyjonk had always longed to be the one who announced dinner, making the sonorous brass resound, dong dong, through t
he valley until everybody came running and shouting: ‘Food! food! What have you got for us today? We’re so hungry!’

  Tears came into Fillyjonk’s eyes. The Hemulen had spoilt everything for her. She would willingly have done the washing-up, provided it had been her own idea. Fillyjonk should look after the housekeeping because that’s what womenfolk do! Huh! And with Mymble, what’s more!

  Fillyjonk put out the light so that it wouldn’t burn quite unnecessarily and pulled the blanket over her head. The stairs squeaked. A very, very faint rattling sound came from the drawing-room. Somewhere in the empty house someone shut a door. How can there be so many sounds in an empty house, Fillyjonk thought. Then she remembered that the house was full of people. But somehow she still thought it was empty.

  *

  Grandpa-Grumble lay on the drawing-room sofa with his nose buried in the best velvet cushion and heard somebody creeping into the kitchen. There was a very faint sound of clinking glass. He sat up in the dark and pricked up his ears and thought: they’re having a party.

  Now it was quite quiet again. Grandpa-Grumble went across the cold floor and crept up to the kitchen door. The kitchen was dark, too, but a ray of light shone from under the pantry door.

  Aha, he thought. They’ve hidden themselves in the pantry. He jerked open the door, and there sat Mymble eating pickled gherkins, with two candles burning on the shelf beside her.

  ‘So you had the same idea,’ she said. ‘There are the pickled gherkins and there are the cinnamon biscuits. Those are mustard pickles, you’d better. not eat them, they’re too strong for you.’

  Grandpa-Grumble immediately took the jar of pickles and started eating. He didn’t think they were much good, but he went on eating them all the same.

  After a while Mymble said: ‘They’ll upset your stomach. You’ll explode and drop dead on the spot.’

  ‘One doesn’t die on holiday,’ Grandpa-Grumble said cheerfully. ‘What’s that in the soup tureen?’

  ‘Spruce-needles,’ Mymble answered. ‘They fill their stomachs with them before they hibernate.’ She lifted the lid: ‘The Ancestor seems to have stuffed most of them.’

  ‘What Ancestor?’ Grandpa-Grumble asked, surreptitiously changing over to gherkins.

  ‘He’s in the stove,’ Mymble explained. ‘He’s three hundred years old and is hibernating just now.’

  Grandpa-Grumble said nothing. He couldn’t quite decide whether he felt pleased or offended that there was someone who was even older than himself. His interest was aroused and he made up his mind to wake up the Ancestor and make his acquaintance.

  ‘Listen,’ Mymble said, ‘it’s not worth trying to wake him up. He won’t wake up till April. You’ve got through half that jar of gherkins.’

  Grandpa-Grumble snorted and screwed up his face, stuffed his pockets with gherkins and cinnamon biscuits, took one of the candles and shuffled back into the drawing-room. He put the candle on the floor in front of the stove and opened the doors. There was nothing but darkness inside. He lifted the candle into the stove and looked again. All there was was a piece of paper and a little soot that had fallen down the chimney.

  ‘Are you there?’ he called. ‘Wake up! I want to see what you look like!’ But the Ancestor didn’t answer; he was hibernating with his stomach full of spruce-needles.

  Grandpa-Grumble picked up the piece of paper and saw that it was a letter. He sat on the floor and tried to remember where he had left his glasses. But he couldn’t. Then he hid the letter in a safe place, blew out the candle and crept in among the cushions again.

  I wonder whether the Ancestor is allowed to join in when they have a party, he thought gloomily. Never mind. I’ve had a very enjoyable day. A day that’s been my very own.

  *

  Toft lay in the box-room reading his book. The light at his side made a little circle of safety in this strange, great house.

  ‘As we intimated earlier,’ Toft read, ‘this curious species gathered its energy from the electrical charges which regularly accumulated in these elongated valleys and illuminated the night with their white and violet light. We can picture to ourselves the last of this virtually extinct species of Nummulites gradually rising to the surface, struggling towards the boundless swamps of the rain-drenched forests where the lightning was reflected in the bubbles rising from the ooze, and finally abandoning his original element.’

  He must have been really lonely, Toft thought. He wasn’t like any of the others and his family didn’t bother about him, so he left. I wonder where he is now and whether I shall ever be able to meet him. Perhaps he’ll show himself if I can describe him clearly enough.

  Toft said: end of the chapter, and put out the light.

  CHAPTER 11

  Next Morning

  IN the long, vague dawn as the November night changed to morning, the fog moved in from the sea. It rolled up the hillsides and slid down into the valleys on the other side and filled every corner of them. Snufkin had determined that he would wake up early in order to have an hour or two to himself. His fire had burnt out long ago but he didn’t feel cold. He had that simple but rare ability to retain his own warmth, he gathered it all round him and lay very still and took care not to dream.

  The fog had brought complete silence with it, the valley was quite motionless.

  Snufkin woke up as quickly as an animal, wide awake. The five bars had come a little nearer.

  Good, he thought. A cup of coffee and I’ll get them. (He ought to have skipped the coffee.)

  The morning fire picked up and began to burn. Snufkin filled the coffee-pot with water from the river and put it on the fire, took a step backwards and tumbled over the Hemulen’s rake. With a terrible clatter his saucepan rolled down the river bank, and the Hemulen stuck his nose out of the tent and said: ‘Hallo!’

  ‘Hallo!’ said Snufkin.

  The Hemulen crawled up to the fire with the sleeping-bag over his head, he was cold and sleepy but quite determined to be amiable. ‘Life in the wilds!’ he said.

  Snufkin saw to the coffee.

  ‘Just think,’ the Hemulen continued, ‘being able to hear all the mysterious sounds of the night from inside a real tent! I’m sure you’ve got something for a stiff neck, haven’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Snufkin. ‘Do you want sugar or not?’

  ‘Sugar, yes, four lumps preferably.’ His front was now getting warm and the small of his back didn’t ache so much any more. The coffee was very hot.

  ‘What’s so nice about you,’ said the Hemulen confidentially, ‘is that you are so little. You must be terribly clever because you don’t say anything. It makes me want to talk about my boat.’

  The fog had lifted a little, quite quietly, and the black wet ground began to appear around them and round the Hemulen’s big boots, but his head was still in the fog. Everything was almost as usual, except his neck. The coffee warmed his stomach and suddenly he felt gay and without a care in the world: ‘You know what,’ he said, ‘you and I understand each other. Moominpappa’s boat is down by the bathing-hut. That’s where it is, isn’t it?’

  And they remembered the jetty, narrow and solitary, resting shakily on blackening piles and the bathing-hut at the end of it with its pointed roof and red and green window-panes and the steep steps leading down into the water.

  ‘I’m not sure that the boat is still there,’ said Snufkin, putting his mug down. He thought: they’ve sailed away. I don’t feel like talking about them with this hemulen. But the Hemulen leant forward and said gravely: ‘We must go and have a look. Just you and me, it’ll feel better that way.’

  They went off into the fog, which lifted and began to drift out of the way. In the forest it was an endless white ceiling held up by the black pillars of the tree-trunks, a tall, solemn landscape created for silence. The Hemulen thought about his boat but said nothing. He followed Snufkin all the way down to the sea and at last everything had become uncomplicated and meaningful again.

  The bathing-hut jetty w
as the same as ever. The sailing-boat wasn’t there. The duckboards and the fish-basket lay above the high-water line and they had pulled the little dinghy right up to the trees. The fog drifted away over the water and everything was soft and grey, the beach, the air, and the silence.

  ‘You know how I feel,’ the Hemulen burst out, ‘I feel quite – quite strange! My neck’s not stiff any longer.’ He had a sudden desire to confide and to tell Snufkin about his efforts to arrange everything so that other people could enjoy themselves, but he was too shy and couldn’t find the words he needed. Snufkin walked on. A dark bank of everything that storm and high-water had thrown up, discarded things, forgotten things, all jumbled up under seaweed and reeds, heavy and blackened with water, covered the beach as far as the eye could see. The splintered timbers were full of old nails and bent cramp-irons. The sea had devoured the beach right up to the first trees, and there was seaweed hanging in their branches.

  ‘It’s been blowing very hard,’ said Snufkin.

  ‘I’m trying so terribly hard,’ the Hemulen exclaimed behind him. ‘I want to so awfully much.’

  Snufkin made his usual vague noise which meant that he had heard but had nothing to add. He walked along the bathing-hut jetty. The sandy bottom underneath the jetty was covered with a brown mass that rocked gently with the movement of the water, it was seaweed which the storm had torn to little pieces. The fog had gone, and there wasn’t an emptier beach in the whole world.

  ‘You understand,’ the Hemulen said.

  Snufkin bit his pipe and stared down into the water. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. And after a while: ‘I think that all small boats should be clinker-built.’

  ‘I think so, too,’ the Hemulen agreed. ‘My boat is clinker-built. It’s absolutely the nicest thing for small boats. And it should be tarred and not varnished, shouldn’t it? I tar my boat every spring before I go out sailing. Listen. Can you help me with one thing? It’s the sail. I can’t decide whether I should have a white one or a red one. White’s always a good colour, sort of classical? But then I happened to think of red, it’s so daring in a way? What do you think? Do you think it would look a bit provocative?’