Night Birds On Nantucket

by Joan Aiken

Dido had never been treated so in her life before and was almost too thunderstruck to protest; in no time they were put to bed in a spotlessly neat bedroom with white chintz curtains and fringed white dimity bed-covers, a braided rug exactly in the middle of the floor and a square of oilcloth in front of the wash-stand.

  ‘Why’ve we got to go to bed in daytime?’ grumbled Dido. ‘We ain’t done nothing wrong!’

  ‘Oh, for the land’s sake, will you hold your hush. You must stay out of sight of the neighbours till you’ve something fit to wear.’

  Miss Alsop the dressmaker soon arrived, and with Cousin Ann’s help two brown calico dresses trimmed with white tape were hastily run up so that the children might put them on, get out of bed, and help to hem some more garments.

  ‘I won’t stand for it,’ Dido muttered again and again, wriggling her neck furiously in her starched collar as she sewed under Cousin Ann’s gimlet-eyed supervision. The only respite they had from sewing was when the gaunt and gloomy maid Keziah compelled them to swallow another dose of rhubarb or senna or sassafras tea; Cousin Ann seemed quite certain that they had brought the plague with them from abroad and must be physicked at frequent intervals to prevent it from spreading through the town.

  Even Captain Casket was mildly surprised at the transformation in the two children when he came to call. Dido badly wanted to tackle him about the possibility of finding a home for Pen other than with Aunt Tribulation, and about her own passage to England, but he paid only a brief visit and never came near Cousin Ann’s house again, so busy was he with refitting and reprovisioning the ship, and asking all newcomers for news of the pink whale. Meanwhile the children were kept under strict supervision; only allowed out for a short walk once a day, to the end of the road and back.

  However, on the ninth day while Keziah was at a missionary meeting, Cousin Ann found herself obliged to lie down with a headache brought on, she said, by the trampling of children’s feet upstairs in the bedroom. No sooner had she retired than Dido was out of the house like a bullet.

  ‘You can stay, Pen, if you’re scared to come,’ she said, ‘but I wants to see your pa and get things fixed up shipshape.’

  Pen said she would remain at home in case Cousin Ann needed anything, so Dido flew down the hill to the wharfside. What was her horror, when she reached the berth that had been the Sarah Casket’s, to find it empty!

  ‘Hey,’ she said to a boy who was fishing near by, ‘where’s the ship that was here?’

  ‘Sailed this morning on the early tide.’

  ‘She didn’t! You’re bamming!’

  He shrugged. ‘What d’you think she did, then? Walked away up the hill? The old skipper was raring to go – someone telled him they’d seen a pink whale off Gay Head. He was missing his first mate when he sailed but he said he couldn’t wait, so he up anchor and off; guess he’s halfway to the Grand Banks b’now.’

  ‘Oh, croopus,’ groaned Dido, She turned and walked wearily back up the steep hill; her legs felt as heavy as lead. ‘Now we are in the basket! What an old chiseller Cap’n Casket is; I mighta knowed he’d play us a trick like that – sneaking off on the quiet so’s Pen couldn’t make a fuss, I’ll lay! One thing’s certain, though – I ain’t a-goin to stop any longer with Cousin Ann.’

  Luckily Cousin Ann was of the same mind. She had had the forethought to collect money for their fares to Nantucket from Captain Casket when he called, and the very next day they were dispatched, with their new clothes, on the packet Adelaide, a small schooner loaded up to her eyebrows with coal, cordwood, and watermelons.

  A rising gale delayed the crossing considerably, and dusk had fallen by the time the ship rounded Brant Point and came safe into Nantucket harbour. Salty, soaked, and shivering, the girls clambered on to the wharf with their bundles. ‘Hey!’ the captain called into the gloom.

  ‘Anyone here from the Casket place?’

  Nobody answered. The two children waited for some time, until most of the other passengers, or people unloading goods from the packet, had left.

  ‘Well, it ain’t no manner of use standing here all night,’ Dido said, clenching her teeth to prevent their chattering. ‘And it ain’t half a-going to rain in a minute. What’ll us do, Pen? Can we walk to your pa’s farm? Is it far?’

  ‘N-nine miles,’ shivered Pen. ‘It’s much too far to walk with our bundles.’

  ‘Had us better put up at an inn?’

  ‘Oh, no! They’re sure to be full of horrid rough sailors.’

  ‘Well I ain’t stopping here,’ Dido said, and led the way into Nantucket town with Pen following irresolutely. ‘Maybe we’ll see somebody you know if we wander a bit; maybe your Auntie Trib reckoned the packet warn’t coming and went shopping or started home again. I can tell you one thing, I’m crabbish hungry,’ she added, as they passed a chowder parlour and a heart-breaking smell of food drifted out to them.

  ‘Oh, so am I!’

  ‘Got any money?’

  ‘Why, no,’ faltered Penitence. ‘Cousin Ann only gave me the boat tickets.’

  ‘Hum,’ Dido said. She hefted her bundle thoughtfully. Just ahead of them, on the corner of Main and Union streets, was a store with windows still brightly lit up and a sign that said: ‘Bracy and Starbuck, Ships’ Outfitters and General Soft Goods’.

  ‘I’m a-going in here,’ Dido said, and did so, ignoring Pen’s apprehensive squeak. She addressed herself to a man behind the counter.

  ‘Hey, mister, I’ve got a load of clobber here that I don’t want, will you buy it off me?’

  To Pen’s horror the man was quite prepared to buy the carefully-made dresses and frilly underwear considered suitable by Cousin Ann. ‘What do I want with ’em?’ Dido said. ‘I’d sooner have a pair of britches any day.’ She bought herself a red flannel shirt and a pair of denim trousers for one dollar sixty-two cents, and still had two dollars left. ‘Come on, Pen,’ she said, ‘we’ll go get us some prog. By the way,’ she asked the outfitter, ‘you don’t know if there’s anybody in town a-waiting for Miss Pen Casket, does you?’

  ‘Little Miss Casket for the Casket farm?’ he said. ‘Why yes, the old mule’s been in every day this week. Guess he’s still around; Mr Hussey at the Grampus Inn knows not to loose him till the packet’s been in an hour. Are you little Miss Casket then? My, how you have growed!’

  Dido didn’t wait to chat. ‘Which way’s the Grampus Inn?’ she asked. ‘Come on, Pen, hurry!’ Slipping and stumbling, they ran along the cobbled streets, scaring a number of sheep which appeared to have come into the town to take shelter, and reached a building with a wildly swinging sign that showed a grampus in full spout. Below the sign was tethered a mule-cart; the dejected mule, his coat sleek with rain, seemed to be trying to keep his head dry by hiding it between his forelegs.

  ‘Is that your pa’s cart?’ asked Dido.

  ‘I – I’m not sure,’ Penitence confessed. ‘It’s such a long time since I was at home. There was a mule – I think he was called Mungo – but I used to be scared of him, I never noticed what he was like.’

  ‘Oy,’ said Dido, going round to the mule’s front end. ‘Psst, you! Hey! Is your name Mungo?’

  The mule made no response, except to give her a despising glance from one white-rimmed eye, backwards, between his legs.

  ‘I’m going in to ask,’ Dido said.

  ‘Oh dear, I’m sure you shouldn’t go into an inn!’ Pen lamented. ‘There will be dreadful people. It isn’t ladylike behaviour!’

  ‘Oh, scrape ladylike behaviour!’ Dido snapped impatiently. ‘If you want to get soaked and starved, I don’t!’

  She marched into the inn. Having ascertained that it was indeed Captain Casket’s mule and cart standing outside, she said: ‘Well, if he’s waited for us every day this week it won’t kill him to wait another twenty minutes,’ and to Pen’s fright she ordered three bowls of clam chowder. However, the chowder was so welcome when it came, savoury and hot, full of tender little clams, that Pen at length overcame her qualms
and consented to eat it.

  ‘Who’s the third bowl for?’ she asked.

  ‘Why, poor old Mungo, o’ course,’ Dido said reprovingly. ‘If he’s got nine miles to go through the wet he ought to have summat to stay his stomach.’

  ‘Will he like it?’ Pen quavered.

  ‘We’ll soon see, won’t us? If he don’t, I dessay you can do with a second help.’

  However, the mule seemed quite willing to accept a helping of chowder and appeared to improve greatly in his spirits once he had snuffled it down. The dish was returned to the inn, Dido helped Pen into the cart and wrapped her in a quantity of sheepskins which were found under the seat. Then she untied Mungo’s head, slapped him with the reins, and they were off.

  ‘Whizzo!’ she said, as they rattled through the dimly lit streets. ‘This is something like, ain’t it? I loves drivin’ – if only it didn’t rain and blow quite so hard. I say, Pen, does you know the way?’

  ‘Mungo knows it, I dare say,’ said Pen faintly – she had soon left the box and was huddled down in the bottom of the cart trying to keep herself from slipping about. ‘Mamma used to send him in to market on his own with the eggs and stuff. Just give him his head, he’ll find his way home.’

  In no time they were out of the little town and making their way along a high and exposed sandy track in open country. The wind and rain buffeted them and it was too dark to see anything except some low-growing shrubs by the roadside. A distant, continuous roar could be heard to their right, and from ahead of them came louder, but intermittent booming.

  ‘What’s all that row?’ Dido said.

  ‘It’s the waves.’

  ‘But we’ve just come from the sea.’

  ‘Nantucket’s an island, don’t forget,’ Pen sighed drearily. ‘What you can hear is the breakers on the south and east shores. Oh, how I hate it!’

  ‘Now, Pen, cheer up, do!’ Dido said. ‘How about a song to keep ourselves cheerful, one o’ Nate’s?’ And she began to sing in a hoarse but tuneful voice:

  ‘Oh, fierce is the Ocean and wild is the Sound,

  But the isle of Nantucket is where I am bound,

  Sweet isle of Nantucket! where the grapes are so red,

  And the light flashes nightly on Sankaty Head!’

  Inspired by this, Mungo the mule actually broke into a canter and so they went briskly on their way through the storm.

  ‘Hey,’ said Dido, at last, ‘Pen, here’s a gate. Croopus, did you ever see sich a peculiar one? Is this your pa’s place?’

  ‘I think so,’ Pen sighed faintly, peering forward in the gloom. ‘Yes, he put up the gate; it is made of a spermwhale’s jawbone. Oh, I am so cold and wet and miserable.’

  ‘Ne’mind, in ten minutes you’ll be tucked in bed with a warming-pan. There’s a barn, anyhows; Mungo seems to think he lives here.’

  In fact, after they had passed the gate, which was like an enormous wish-bone, Mungo trotted into the big barn without worrying any further about his human passengers; Penitence was rather impatient when Dido insisted on unharnessing him and giving him a rub with a wisp of hay, ‘Just in case,’ she said, ‘your Auntie Trib don’t fancy stepping out into the wet. All right, come on now, bring your traps.’

  There appeared to be quite a group of farm buildings set in a hollow of the hillside with a few trees round about. Not a light showed anywhere and it was hard to be sure which was the dwelling-house.

  At last they found what seemed to be a house door and Pen, a sudden memory returning from earlier childhood, stood on tiptoe and discovered a key hanging on a nail.

  ‘Hooroar,’ Dido said as they stepped inside. ‘Ain’t I glad to get in out o’ the wet. Know where the candles is kept, Pen?’

  ‘N-no, I forget,’ Pen said dolefully. ‘Oh, isn’t it dark and cold!’

  Luckily, feeling about, Dido chanced to knock over a candle; when it was restored and lit they saw that they were in a large, old-fashioned kitchen which, given warmth and light, would have been a cheerful place enough. There was a big potbellied stove, black, unlit, and unwelcoming; a brightly-coloured braided rug, and a dresser covered with dishes. An enormous grandfather clock ticked solemnly against the wall. The place was clean and tidy but silent, empty, and deathly cold.

  ‘Oh,’ whispered Pen. ‘What shall we do now?’

  ‘Do? Why, go to bed. Things’ll be better in the morning,’ Dido said stoutly. ‘Where’s the stairs?’

  Pen opened a door disclosing a steep narrow flight, and Dido went ahead with the candle.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, checking to let Pen catch up, ‘look there’s a light under that door at the end o’ the passage. Must be your Auntie Trib’s room. We’d better go and tell her we’ve come.’

  ‘B-b-but,’ whispered Pen tremulously, ‘supposing it isn’t her?’

  She clutched Dido’s arm.

  ‘Why, you sapskull! Who else could it be? Come on!’

  Dido marched boldly along the passage and rapped on the door.

  ‘Miss Casket?’ she called. ‘It’s us – Penitence and Dido, just arrived.’

  From the room beyond a voice replied, ‘And about time, too! Wipe your feet on the mat before you come in.’

  Even Dido quailed momentarily at the sound of this voice. It was low, harsh, and grating; there was something very forbidding, and something strangely familiar about it. Her hand trembled slightly and she spilled a drop of hot wax from the candle which went out; then, summoning resolution, she pushed open the door and went in.

  By the light of one dim candle on the bedside table they could see a woman in the bed, propped against many pillows, regarding them fixedly.

  6

  Aunt Tribulation – pigs and sheep – green boots in the attic – Aunt Tribulation is hungry – Pen meets a stranger

  ‘LIGHT ANOTHER CANDLE,’ ordered the woman in the bed, ‘and let’s have a look at you. Hum,’ she said to Dido, ‘you don’t favour my side of the family. Must take after that poor sickly Sarah.’

  ‘You got it wrong, ma’am,’ Dido said hastily. ‘That’s Pen there. I’m Dido Twite.’

  Although she stared at the girls pretty sharply, it was hard for them to see much of Pen’s aunt, for she held the bedclothes up to her chin, and had on a nightcap with a wide frill that left most of her face in shadow. They could just make out a gaunt, nutcracker chin, and a thin nose, so like a ship’s rudder that Dido half expected it to move from side to side. A pair of tinted glasses hid Aunt Tribulation’s eyes from view. Dido grinned, thinking of the wolf, and subdued an urge to exclaim: ‘Why, Auntie Trib, what big eyes you have!’

  ‘You’re a pasty-faced little bag of bones,’ Aunt Tribulation commented, looking at Pen. ‘Haven’t filled out as you grew, have you? Well, I hope you’re both used to hard work, that’s all. You’ll get no lounging and pampering here.’ She thumped on the floor with a rubber-shod stick to emphasize her words. ‘There’s all the house chores and the farm work; I can’t help you, as I’ve been sick abed ever since I got here; this damp island air turns a body’s bones to corkscrews. So you’d best get to bed now.’

  ‘Where shall we sleep, Aunt Trib?’ Dido asked.

  ‘In the chamber at the other end of the passage. Sheets and blankets are in the cedarwood box. Mrs Pardon’s been coming over to tend the animals, but you’ll have to do them now. Feed the hens and pigs at four, groom the mule. Light the stove – you’ll need to chop some kindling if there’s none in the cellar; and the peat’s in the peat-house – and you can bring me a pot of coffee and a bowl of gruel at seven. Look sharp now.’

  Too dazed by the length of this list of tasks to make any protest, the girls retreated, and found their room, which was as bleak and clean as at Cousin Ann’s, but lacking the washstand, square of oilcloth, and braid rug. Shivering and yawning they dragged comforters and sheets from the cedar box, made up the bed, and tumbled into it, huddling against one another for warmth.

  ‘I’m that tired I could sleep for a week o’ Thursday
s,’ Dido murmured drowsily. ‘Dear knows how we’ll ever wake at four.’

  Pen was asleep already, but Dido lay for a moment trying to think why Aunt Tribulation’s voice had sounded so familiar. Then she too fell deep asleep.

  She need not have worried about how they were to wake; there were three roosters on the farm whose lusty crowing had the girls roused long before any touch of dawn had crossed the sky. Dressing themselves hastily in warm things – Dido put on the denims and red shirt she had bought – they groped their way downstairs.

  They lit the potbellied stove, staggered in from the pump with a bucket of water between them, fed the animals, and were just making the gruel when a loud thumping on the floor overhead proclaimed that Aunt Tribulation was awake. Pen went up to see what she wanted and was greeted with the words:

  ‘Where’s my breakfast? You’re ten minutes late.’

  ‘I – I’m very sorry, Aunt Tribulation.’

  ‘Sorry! Sorry’s not good enough. Don’t forget to scald the coffee pot. And clear the coffee with eggshells. And when you’ve brought me my breakfast and washed the dishes and towels, you can scrub the kitchen floor and dust the parlour. Then you’ll have to make some bread. And that other girl can hoe the potato field.’

  ‘Huh,’ Dido said when this programme was unfolded to her. ‘Don’t she want us to cut down no trees? Or slap a few bricks together and put up a new barn? Anyhows I’m a-going to have some breakfast before I start on that lot. Here, I’ll take up the old girl’s prog, Pen; I’ve fried you some eggs; sit down and get ’em inside you, you look like a bit o’ cheesecloth.’

  Aunt Tribulation received her breakfast tray without enthusiasm. ‘Wash your face before you come up another time, girl,’ she said harshly. ‘And where’s my napkin? You should have used the pink china, this is kitchen stuff.’

  ‘Lookahere, you ungrateful old cuss,’ burst out Dido, her patience at an end, ‘you oughta be thankful I didn’t bring it up in a baking-pan! Lord bless us, am I glad you ain’t my Aunt Trib.’

  She ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.