Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

“One pulls at a cup upon a peg!” I exclaimed in unchecked amazement. The mechanical has always fascinated me. I begged forgiveness for the interruption and bade Hannah continue.

Before she could do so, Mrs. Lumbey asked how it came to be that Hannah should find herself alone and undisturbed in the cellar-storeroom, conveniently situated to pull at the cup and put the cupboard into motion. “Quite simply this: Mrs. Gallanbile sought a salt spoon. Her playful new puppy had run off with her present one, and no doubt buried it somewhere in the commons. I wondered aloud if there might be a spoon in Mrs. Gallanbile’s preferred pattern downstairs in the old relegation-cupboard. I went down alone to the storeroom and the cup that puts things immediately into motion caught my eye. It was hanging incorrectly, just as Susan had said that it would be; rather than depending upon its side in the manner of its companions, its rim kissed the cupboard itself most inordinately.”

Mrs. Lumbey nodded and continued: “I myself hate to see such things out of sorts. One must have order and decorum within one’s home and one’s shop if one is to have any hope of lifelong sanity.”

Hannah nodded with polite indulgence and resumed: “I pulled upon the cup as I had been instructed to do and in that same moment, the peg upon which it depended extended itself toward me, and the cupboard became unfastened from whatever was inside, which had held it securely in place, and it swung dramatically upon its axis, as I have said — so dramatically, in fact, that I couldn’t help jumping back in a most surprised state to marvel at this most curious phenomenon, made ever the more astounding by the sudden revelation of the descending staircase formerly hidden behind it.”

“Susan hadn’t mentioned the staircase?” I asked.

“Of course she had. I was simply unprepared for it — unprepared to behold with my own eyes the existence of this room that I’d never before seen nor heard mentioned by either my parents or my sister.” At this, Mrs. Lumbey popped the bite of cake into her mouth, but did not chew. As one suspends one’s breath in excited anticipation, my landlady postponed mastication for a full minute at least, before beginning to work her jaw in a most abstracted manner.

“Now the stairs were quite dark. I lighted a candle and proceeded to discover what mystery lay beneath my feet. I knew that my younger sister Cecilia would, in due time, come to fetch me; Mrs. Gallanbile was waiting,

and Papa doesn’t like to keep customers waiting (though he has done every other regrettable thing to a customer that can be imagined). Yet I also knew that I wouldn’t have another opportunity to find out what was in the subcellar for quite some time. Mama and Papa were each abroad this particular afternoon, but they were expected back shortly and would remain in residence for the balance of the day and perchance all of the morrow, as well. “So I took the candle to light my way and crept down the wooden stairs, and I could tell after only my first two or three steps that the room was by no means empty. I could make out the outlines in silhouette of a good many things, none of which I was able to conclusively identify save a number of cardboard boxes. As I continued my descent, the things that had been stacked and lined up and ordered about the room did not betray their

mysterious nature. Each unboxed item remained most unfamiliar to me. Some appeared to be made of metal of some sort, and others of metal and glass. Still others had apparently been fabricated from some light ceramic

that I was certain I had never before seen. It was as if this were the laboratory of a scientific madman — but not just any everyday, garden-variety madman. Here was the potential domain of a crazed man of science like none other, for nobody I knew in our valley — sane or otherwise — could have crafted those things that sat amongst all the boxes of varying sizes.

Where, I asked myself, were the madman’s smoking flasks and bubbling beakers and the galvanometers to gauge the conduction of electrical currents hither and thither?”

“Forgive me for interrupting, dear,” said Mrs. Lumbey with an expression of perplexity that replicated my own puzzled look, “but could you not identify even a single thing within the room? Was everything contained in

that sub-cellar of unfamiliar shape and design?”

Hannah nodded. “I touched an object and then another, and they were quite cold to my fingertips — hard and cold. Some had long ropes, fashioned, it would seem, of India rubber, which snaked and coiled from the inside. One of the snakes communicated with a plate upon a wall. It was the strangest assortment of things I had ever seen in my life. I knew that my father must have acquired these things from the Outlanders, but none had ever been put into the showroom upstairs nor had they even made their way to the storeroom directly above my head.

“It was at this most unfortunate moment that the outline of my sister materialised at the top of the stairs, her arms akimbo, one foot tapping an impatient tattoo. ‘Shame on you, Hannah Pupker!’ she scolded. ‘Loitering down here whilst Mrs. Gallanbile remains above, upbraiding me in that shrill voice of hers over your lengthy absence!’

“It took me a moment to compose myself, Cecilia’s sudden appearance having severely unsettled me. Then I asked my sister quite pointedly if she knew of the room.

“‘Yes, I know of the room,’ she replied with an indignant toss of the head,‘but you have no business being here. It is of no concern to either of us.’ “‘But what are these things?’ I pursued. ‘This thing here, for example.’ I

touched the top of a hard narrow box with buttons and slots upon the side.

‘What is it? Or this? Or this?’ I placed my hand first upon a box with a glass window too opaque to view what was inside and then upon a machine of some sort with numbered buttons. ‘This thing has writing upon it. It says

“Cuisinart Espresso Maker.” What is Cuisinart espresso and why would a person wish to make it?’

“‘Egad, Hannah! Do I care? Ask me if I care.’

“My sister’s tone was harsh and reproachful, and yet I persisted: ‘Did each of these things come from the Outland?’

“‘I have no doubt that they did,’ she said. Then Cecilia added: ‘But none of it should concern you in the least, Miss Nosy-body, and if you don’t remove yourself from this room at this very instant and procure that ancient spoon Mrs. Gallanbile has requested, I shall be compelled to drag you up both flights of stairs by your hair.’

“I stared at my fifteen-year-old sister to glean if she had lost her juvenile mind. Here stood I in a room never before revealed to me by my father, amongst a strange assortment of sealed boxes and metal and ceramicoid objects that made no sense at all, and which gave every reason for further investigation, and the only thought that lived within Cecilia’s dimly-lighted brain was that I should come up to attend a restive customer who after examining the spoon in question would, no doubt, as was her custom, decline either to purchase it or even to have it set aside for future consideration!

“‘I refuse to join you upstairs, Cecilia, until you tell me the purpose of this room and what all these things are for.’

“‘And I have told you that I don’t know what they’re for. Nor do I give a straw. Perhaps they’re small presses and little miniature wardrobes and divers mechanical wind-up toys that are made by the Beyonders, which our

father sought at one time to sell in Dingley Dell but then decided not to. They are most ugly, at all events, and I don’t wish to look at them another second, and you are a fool, Hannah Pupker, if you remain here in some