by Joan Aiken
Godwit and Mrs Daizley had heard the closing exchanges between Sydney Ward and Lady Ursula and were now clear that the deeds rightfully belonged to Hatty.
‘—Which I always suspicioned was the case,’ said Godwit, ‘for that had been Master Harry’s intention, I knew full well; he spoke of you often; and it seemed mighty strange that he should have changed his mind so sudden; but then Lady Ursula told us of the note she had from him – and she did have the deeds – and he is one to keep surprising us all – so what were we to think?’
‘You could not think anything else,’ Hatty agreed.
He shook his head.
‘They are a freakish lot, those Fowldes, there’s no denying,’ he said. ‘The last Earl, it’s said, could not abear for any water to be thrown away, ever; he had great tanks and cisterns all round the garden and even in the house there was pots and pannikins of water everywhere you looked; frightened of drought, he was. Or fire.’
‘How very strange. Why?’
‘I dunno. Maybe he had his reasons. Went thirsty some time when he was a young lad, maybe.’
I could write a poem about that, thought Hatty.
‘But, Miss Hatty, dear,’ said Mrs Daizley – they were outside, winding up a pail of water from the well, safely out of earshot of the house – ‘now we know That One don’t own the deeds, and took them without a smidgeon of right to do so – could you not take it upon yourself to give her her marching orders? Tell her to walk her chalks and find some other place to perch. She’s such a burden to us all – and most special to you, Miss Hatty! I know there’s times ye’re a-dying to go off to Master Harry’s study and write one of your poems – and you have to sit listening to her and twiddling your thumbs—’
‘Oh, darling Mrs Daizley, I know she’s a burden – but Lord Camber did invite her after all—’
‘Ye-es,’ assented Mrs Daizley doubtfully, ‘he did, there’s no doubt of that – his Lordship is that good-hearted – special when it’s no skin off his nose. But did he mean her to stop here for ever – surely not that?’
‘Well,’ said Hatty, ‘I don’t say I disagree with you – not at all – but since he did invite her – and more especially since we don’t know where he is at this present – and since she can only go back to Underwood – and that is such a terribly sad place to live – I cannot find it in my heart to ask her to leave. Let us wait until we have more definite news of Lord Camber.’
‘But perhaps we never shall,’ Godwit pointed out.
‘No. That I will not believe,’ said Hatty.
Godwit gave her a long strange look – of pity, understanding, earnest desire to do all he could for her – and, after a moment, said, ‘No. You are right, Miss Hatty. We must honour his Lordship’s wishes – so far as we know what they are. We’ll try to put up with the lady a while longer.’
Hatty smiled at him gratefully. He is such a good man, she thought. As good as Lord Camber, indeed. Perhaps even better. Because he takes a more realistic view of humanity – and adapts his behaviour accordingly.
She carried her pail of water indoors, while Godwit wound up another.
The hot summer drew on into a hot dry autumn.
The former Lord Elstow would have been in a dreadful state of worry, thought Hatty; he would have had basins of water all over the house.
A gipsy, selling clothes-pegs, came by and told them that the Duke of Dungeness continued to linger between life and death, that there was still no news of Lord Camber, that Colonel Wisbech remained at Bythorn Chase, making everybody’s life a burden.
‘Which you can’t blame him,’ said Godwit. ‘He don’t know will he inherit or not. Hard on anybody’s disposition, that would be.’
That year there was a lavish crop of quinces, and Mrs Daizley, who had already made gooseberry and currant preserves, apple jelly and plum jam, now turned her hand to quince preserve. Hatty helped her carry baskets of the stone-hard russet and yellow fruit into the house and cut them into segments. Cauldrons of them simmered all day over the fire, and the whole house filled with their sharp, aromatic scent. Which also brought the wasps in their hundreds, hovering, humming and greedily immolating themselves in the tempting scarlet syrup.
‘Plaguey things,’ said Mrs Daizley. ‘There must be a nest of them close by, don’t ye think so, Eli?’
Lady Ursula was one of those who could not remain calm in the presence of a winged insect. She seemed to have a personal vendetta against them, cried out angrily, slashed at them with knife or spoon, behaved as if they had come with intent to attack her. Although the weather continued so torrid, she would hardly stir out of doors, and during Mrs Daizley’s jam-making days, keeping well away from the kitchen, with its syrupy odours and myriad winged visitants, she remained upstairs, cloistered in her own chamber, with her cat, who was also terrified of wasps, probably because he had once been stung by one.
‘Good riddance to both,’ said Mrs Daizley, chopping quinces on a wooden board.
Godwit went hunting for the wasps’ nest and found it, buried in the thatch at the end of the house.
‘I’ll put a brazier full of damp straw underneath, and smoke them out,’ he said.
‘Yes, do, Eli dear, for there’s a squillion of them in my kitchen this minute,’ said Mrs Daizley. ‘I can hardly pour the jelly without them falling into it.’
When this was done, and the row of covered pots stood waiting to cool and set, Hatty went upstairs to read Law’s Remarks Upon the Fable of the Bees to Lady Ursula.
‘But do let us have the window open,’ she pleaded. ‘For it is terribly close in here.’
‘Whose fault is that?’ grumbled Lady Ursula. ‘If Mrs Daizley did not keep that furnace roaring away in the kitchen—’
‘We shall be glad of all her quince jelly next winter,’ said Hatty, thinking of the cold weather ahead, wondering how long Lady Ursula intended to quarter herself on them. For ever? It was a daunting thought.
She opened the window and sat down to read aloud.
Two things then happened very suddenly. A black humming cloud, the size and shape of a hogshead of beer, boomed in through the open window and began to disintegrate into a million buzzing wasps. Lady Ursula’s cat gave a yell, and leapt from the bed where he was lying. His moving shape attracted the swarm, which dropped on to him.
‘Get him out of here!’ shrieked Lady Ursula, and, springing from her chair, she seized a large shawl, bundled it round the shape of the cat, almost hidden by wasps, and flung shawl and cat together out of the window, just as Godwit entered the room with a pail of water in one hand, and a smoking brazier of straw in the other.
‘Quick, Miss Hatty!’ he said. ‘Out of here. And you, too, my Lady!’
They needed no urging. Lady Ursula was out through the door in a flash, along the dark upstairs hallway, and had shut herself into one of the small, unused attic rooms before Hatty could follow. Hearing the slam of the door Hatty ran downstairs and went outside, taking up a pail of water as she went. Her pitying thought was all for the cat – a dismal, bad-tempered beast, to be sure, nobody in the household liked him, but something must be done to save him.
She found that Dickon had anticipated her: he had already flung a basin of water over the cat’s body and was dispersing the wasps by knocking them off with a knotted towel.
But he spread his hands wide and shook his head.
‘It is no good,’ he said, in the sign language they had begun to use. ‘The cat is dead.’
‘Oh, poor thing! I wonder if it was the wasps that killed him, or the fall from the window. At least it was a quick end. But Lady Ursula will be very sorry . . .’
It took the household some considerable time to resume its normal tranquil activity after this dramatic disruption. First, all the dead wasps had to be swept out and incinerated. Lady Ursula insisted that her room must be fumigated and disinfected
with carbolic acid, or that sulphur must be burned there.
‘I refuse to occupy that room again until it has been thoroughly cleansed,’ she said.
At that, Mr Godwit very deliberately laid down the broom he was wielding, and folded his arms.
‘My Lady,’ he said, ‘it will not be convenient for you to continue residing in this house any longer.’
‘You impertinent man! How dare you say such a thing! I shall reside here just as long as I please!’
‘No, ma’am. I am Lord Camber’s steward, and he gave me authority to say who should stay here, and who should not. Lord Camber is a gentleman of very high principles – as ye are no doubt aware, ma’am – and it would be flat against his wish that anybody should live under his roof who had killed a poor animal, on purpose, by flinging it out of a window. Lord Camber can’t abide cruelty. As you well know, ma’am.’
Lady Ursula’s gaze fell. After a moment, she faltered: ‘Isabel! Isabel! You will not let this be done to me?’
‘I am not Isabel,’ said Hatty sadly. ‘I am Hatty. Which you know quite well, Lady Ursula.’
‘But where can I go? Who will have me?’
‘You can go back to the Priors, ma’am – where you belong. And where there is work waiting for you to do,’ said Godwit indisputably. ‘The ladies will pack up for you now.’
‘But how shall I go? I have no means of transport. It is impossible—’
‘No, ma’am, it is quite simple.’
And, while Hatty and Mrs Daizley packed Lady Ursula’s things, Godwit, with swift efficiency, arranged for a chaise to convey the lady from Wanmaulden Cross to Underwood, and for a sedan chair to carry her from the Grotto to Wanmaulden Cross. (It seemed they had a sedan chair mouldering in the stables of the Woodpecker Inn, and were only too pleased to fetch it out, dust it, and provide it for the lady’s use at an exorbitant fee.) Two men from the inn, with Dickon and Godwit, carried her through the wood, Lady Ursula maintaining a grim silence all the way.
Godwit paid the fee. ‘Which I am happy to,’ he said, ‘just to rid us of that bird of ill omen.’
Hatty was torn. She could not but remember Lord Camber’s letter to his cousin, offering her the use of the house – she could not help but remember his own expressed wish to her that she and his cousin should be friends – but, in opposition to these thoughts, came the huge relief that Godwit had so firmly, so clear-sightedly taken matters into his own hands and sent the lady back where she belonged.
The matter of the title-deeds had not been raised. Hatty had quietly removed them and placed them among Lord Camber’s papers.
‘Poor Lady Ursula!’ she sighed. ‘I am afraid she will have a most dismal home-coming. But perhaps Drusilla will be happy to see her. Poor little Drusilla will have found life sadly tedious with only her piano and Winship for company. Perhaps she can teach Lady Ursula some battle games. And, who knows? Lady Elstow may be pleased to see her daughter again.’
XXIV
The unseasonably warm weather lasted for another three weeks, until well into October.
‘When it breaks,’ said Godwit, ‘it will break sudden. There will be a bad storm, likely.’
In the meantime, the occupants of the Thatched Grotto rested, not unhappily, in a quiet frontier-land between grief and hope, between past and future. The relief and easement of not having Lady Ursula with them was very great. They hardly ever spoke of her; if they chanced to think of her they exchanged wordless smiles. Hatty remembered reading of some savage tribe who took pains to avoid treading on the shadow of an enemy or an accursed person; the Grotto family behaved in the same way over the name of Lady Ursula.
Perhaps she really is an ill-luck bringer, thought Hatty. At all events I am pleased that she left before the copies of my book arrived. I should not have liked her to set eyes on them.
They understood that the lady had arrived safely at Underwood Priors, for Godwit, buying a newspaper in Bythorn, had encountered Glastonbury, who inquired kindly after Miss Hatty, and said the repairs to the library at the Priors were taking a mighty long time, because Lady Ursula and his Lordship could never agree about a single thing. And his Grace the Duke, over at Bythorn Chase, had taken a turn for the better, and was now believed to be out of danger.
‘So if Master Harry was to turn up unexpected,’ said Mrs Daizley, ‘he’s like to find he’s had his journey for nought.’
Hatty had a melancholy letter from Ned.
My dear Cousin Hatty:
When I rid to London, what did I find but that Miss Nancy Price whom I had always thought to be so Faithful, has play’d me False & now tells me that she has pledg’d her hand to Another, some older fellow whom she has been meeting and entertaining these many weeks; she will not tell me his name or rank for fear that in my jealous rage I might Call him Out; but in any case I can see that she is now a Fine Lady of the town & would never consent to accept the hand of a poor naval lieut; her uncle died and left her 10,000 L., so she feels herself quite beyond my Touch. I am wholly quenched & cast down by this blow, dear Hatty, & do not after all plan to come to see you this leave, as it would waken too many painful memories of Portsmouth & our beloved Kingdom Tree. (Also my leave has been curtail’d from two weeks to one, so there would barely be time.) I heard a tale from Tom that our brother Sydney plans to marry you, but I am sure it is no such thing for I know you never could abide him. He (I hear) thrives apace and all the Nobs go to him. Just as well for Tom tells me that Burnaby had her child & it is a Boy. No doubt B will contrive that our Father leaves him all he has; I shall need to become an Admiral and Tom a General.
With many kind remembrances,
Yr affct Cousin Ned.
And then, on a sultry day of black-piled cloud and warm, dank air, who should come walking up to the Thatched Grotto but Lord Camber, with a thin, dark-skinned girl beside him. He wore a curious broad-brimmed hat, and she a magnificent mantle of dark furs.
Hatty was upstairs in Camber’s study, working, at the time of this arrival; it was Mrs Daizley who opened the door to his knock, and let out an ecstatic shriek of surprise.
‘My Lord! You are safe home again! Oh, what a joyful, joyful day! Just wait, just wait, till I call the others.’
But Godwit, outside collecting wood not far off, had seen his Lordship through the trees and came at a run, along with Dickon; and Mrs Godwit, who had been in the dairy, heard Mrs Daizley’s cry and tottered along as fast as her aged limbs could carry her. There was a loud clamour of happy welcoming voices.
‘My Lord! Your Lordship! Welcome home! This is a glad day indeed!’
Outside the house there came a sudden ear-splitting clap of thunder.
‘We seem to have arrived not a moment too soon!’ said Lord Camber laughing. ‘Hark at the rain! How shall we ever be able to leave again? But now let me make this lady known to you – she is my wife and a long way from her home for she is from the Indian tribe of the Algonquins—’
A startled silence fell. Hatty, coming down the stairs, heard Lord Camber’s words and was thereby given a moment to catch her breath. Then Lord Camber looked up and saw her; he broke off abruptly in what he was saying. He and Hatty stared at one another for a moment of silence that seemed to last a lifetime; then old Mrs Godwit ended the pause by saying comfortably, ‘Eh, then you wed an Indian maid, did you, your Lordship? Fancy that, now! I never looked to see a real Indian lady, not in my whole lifetime. What may be your name, my dearie? (Does she speak our tongue, Master Harry?)’
‘I speak a very little,’ the girl said, smiling cautiously – she had seemed a little frightened at first, perhaps by the sight of so many strange faces. ‘My name in your language is Changing Sky.’
‘Changing Sky! Well! What next!’
‘But I call her Anna,’ Lord Camber said. ‘It is quicker – and more friendly.’
He was regaining a minor portion of h
is old, easy, kindly manner; for a moment, before, he had turned perfectly white and seemed quite lost.
A sudden splash of lightning lit the room, which had grown oppressively dark, though it was only mid-afternoon. The women cried out in fright, and then Mrs Daizley said, ‘I’ll put on the kettle. Your Lordship and the lady will be glad of a hot drink I’ll be bound – some of my camomile tea.’
They drew round the table, and amid the bustle of plates and cups, Lord Camber said quietly to Hatty: ‘I am surprised to see you here. I had thought you would be at Bythorn.’
‘At Bythorn? No. Where else should I be but here? Lord Camber, let me now thank you—’
‘But,’ he broke in, ‘I understood that you were married? To your cousin. The lawyer.’
‘To Sydney? Great heavens, no! What can have given you that notion?’
‘It was in a letter. Not to me. From my cousin Ursula to Kittridge’s sister Lucy—’
Their eyes met helplessly. Then old Mrs Godwit said, ‘But tell us the tale, Master Harry. Tell us how you came to marry this handsome Indian lady.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I found her on an island where she had been left to die.’
‘Dear to goodness! Why?’
‘She had broken a tribal law. By mistake. But they are very strict. The Indian tribes are governed by a hierarchy of manido, or spirits. Each tribe has its own totem animal or plant. Anna’s tribal totem was the squirrel. She killed a squirrel, quite by accident, shooting an arrow at a woodchuck. And so she was left to starve on the island.’
‘Could she not have escaped?’ Hatty asked, caught, in spite of her own anguish, by such a strange, unexpected story.
Camber looked across the table at her. Each time their eyes met she felt pierced by a completely unfamiliar pain. But I shall get over it, she promised herself. I have survived other pains. I shall survive this one.
