The House on Hummingbird Island

by Sam Angus

  For a long time she stood waiting upstairs on the loggia, her arm stretched out over the railing, but no hummingbird came. She edged further along the railing, thinking again that a red ribbon around your wrist was not nearly as good as a red shirt.

  She sighed and licked the honey from her finger, thinking she would’ve written to Myles again if only he’d written to her, but things had to be fair; he must write to her before she wrote again to him.

  She heard a snort from the hall. At least Baronet was happy. He found the hall here as much to his liking as the hall at Pomeroy, and this had had a most pleasing and satisfactory benefit: Idie’s own requests that the shutters be opened had been ignored, but it appeared that the demanding whinnies of an impatient horse who desired a view of the garden and all the goings-on in it were responded to most promptly. Since Baronet had taken up residence in the hall, the shutters were opened every day at dawn.

  Baronet snorted again and Idie peered over the railing to discover what the current object of his indignation was.

  A dun-coloured mare was tethered to the veranda. Idie appeared to have a visitor. She thought she might pretend to be out, but Baronet whinnied and Idie’s curiosity got the better of her caution. She made her way downstairs, meandering a bit and trying to look as though she didn’t know anyone had come to visit at all.

  Austin, the boy who knew about pools in gullies and had clouds of hummingbirds at his beck and call. He sat on the railing, a piece of Guinea grass in his mouth, looking out into the fustic trees and swinging his legs.

  ‘Since you think more highly of animals than you do of people, and since you’re stuck here on your own, I’ve brought you some company.’

  ‘I don’t need company,’ said Idie firmly, but she looked about, curious to see what kind of company he might have brought.

  ‘Well, if you don’t like her, she’ll amuse Homer.’

  ‘Homer has a low regard for everyone except himself.’

  ‘He has something in common with his mistress then . . . Anyway, let’s see.’ Austin turned and addressed Homer, eye to eye, the pair of them in profile to each other. ‘Homer, I’m going to introduce you to Millicent, and if you have any sweetness in you, Millicent is the girl to melt your heart.’

  The name of an animal was always a serious consideration, and Idie thought Millicent a silly sort of name because you couldn’t go about the place calling out, ‘Millicent, Millicent!’ and retain any sort of dignity at all.

  ‘Millicent is rather keen on pawpaw, as well as mango and cake and many of the finer things in life.’ Austin helped himself to a piece of pawpaw. Mayella had evidently served him tea, and that made Idie cross because she herself would rather like some tea too.

  The pocket of Austin’s coat suddenly bulged as though it had taken on a life of its own. There was something very trembly and excitable and keen on pawpaw in there. Idie told herself that she wasn’t interested at all in the kind of animals that fitted inside people’s pockets.

  ‘Millicent takes strong likes and strong dislikes to people. She is a fine judge of character and can keep people she doesn’t like away, and that is the great advantage of her. It’s useful to have someone who can do that when there are all kinds of people about the place one might not like.’

  A tiny, ferrety nose peered over the rim of the pocket and Idie could no longer pretend not to be interested.

  ‘A mongoose . . .’ she breathed.

  Homer squawked and his neck ruffled like a courtier’s collar and his crown began to tremble as though he were experiencing his own special earthquake whose epicentre was a small lady mongoose, and Idie sighed, ‘Homer, it’s only a mongoose.’

  Austin spoke to Millicent, ‘Come on out, Millie. I think the mistress of Bathsheba is all right, just a bit snooty.’ He continued conversing with the mongoose as though Idie were not there at all. ‘And you are especially averse to duppies, aren’t you, Millie? Well, this house is full of duppies, even though some people think they know better and don’t believe in them.’

  Millicent sat up on her hind legs and tail in a begging position, with all the soft pink pads of her forepaws outermost, just as Mayella appeared with a large and handsome pineapple tart. Millicent’s nose trembled in the direction of the tart and she rubbed her tiny paws together and made a sort of chuckling sound that made Mayella squeal and made Idie giggle.

  ‘Millicent is rather partial to a hard-boiled egg,’ Austin said.

  ‘Mayella, Homer would like some banana bread,’ said Idie, her nose a bit put out about Millicent being favoured with egg and tart when she and Homer had been ignored.

  ‘And must I be feeding the mongoose also?’ complained Mayella, walking away. ‘The pigeon, the horse, the mongoose . . .’

  ‘Millicent, you will have to make friends with a large and uppity parakeet if you are to remain here,’ said Austin.

  ‘Millicent isn’t staying here. Homer doesn’t like her.’ Idie knew she was being pettish and that really she wanted to write straightaway to Myles how she sat down to tea with a mongoose whose name was Millicent.

  Austin ignored her. ‘Millie has to be inside, of course. She is quite spoilt and thinks she is quite a cut above an ordinary sort of wild mongoose.’

  ‘That may be the case, but Baronet does not like mongooses and Baronet lives in the hall.’

  ‘Oh yes. Horses should always be in halls.’ Austin’s face was deadpan, but Idie giggled and Austin smiled and they both smiled at each other and he said, ‘Baronet appears to be more used than most though to coming in and out of houses.’

  ‘Of course,’ answered Idie. ‘You see, Grancat never minded that he came in and out as he wanted and he’d send Silent, who is the butler, to the kitchens for a salver of scones and cream but not for cutlery, because no sensible horse can be doing with such things.’

  ‘Grancat?’ Austin queried, amused.

  ‘Father, well, sort-of-Father,’ explained Idie.

  ‘He sounds a rather good sort of sort-of-father to have.’

  Idie was silent and the tears were starting in her eyes and Austin asked quietly, ‘Do you miss him very much?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Do you love him very much?’

  Idie looked up at him as though he’d asked a rather silly sort of question and said, ‘Oh yes, everyone loves Grancat.’ Smiling now for the joy of speaking of him, she went on, ‘Stew, she’s the cook, said Grancat had lots of foibles, and that foibles make you do things like wear, from daybreak to day end and all at the same time, two binoculars round your neck and two pairs of reading glasses stacked on your head. Grancat says it saves time if all these things are immediately to hand when needed. He says you must always be practical and pragmatic about everything. And you must always save time. That’s why he slides down the banisters to breakfast and wears his cuffs loose about his wrists, because if you are saving time you can’t be doing with stairs or buttons or cufflinks.’

  ‘I see,’ Austin said. ‘Grancat, Stew and Silent.’

  ‘And Stables. And Numbers.’

  ‘Yes. What a sensible system.’ After a while he asked quietly, ‘Will Grancat come and visit?’

  ‘Well, he says he’ll never come. He says it’s just common sense to be suspicious about all the parts of the world that lie beyond the bounds of Pomeroy because you can never be so certain anywhere else of tea at four and dinner at eight as you can at Pomeroy.’

  Austin laughed, then after a minute he whispered, ‘Where is your governess?’

  Idie answered, ‘Treble is expanding by the minute so she’s more than three times the normal size now and should be called Quadruple. Anyway, now she looks like a sunset crossed with a soufflé, and she says she won’t rise from her bed until dear Algernon comes because everything here is unsafe and unsuitable.’

  Austin grinned, but it suddenly occurred to Idie that he himself was remarkably free, even by the standards of Pomeroy, to do as he pleased without any sort of grown-up about, so s
he asked, ‘What does your governess think about you going about all over the place all day with all kinds of animals in your pockets?’

  ‘Oh, there’s no money in my house for governesses and things like that. You see, Father is supposed to be a rector, but he’s not a very good one. He practises his sermons on the stuffed animals in his study, but never gets any better at them because a stuffed crocodile can’t fidget or shuffle or fall asleep. He’s really a sort of amateur biologist, because when he’s not doing sermons he writes papers about endangered species and sends them off to anyone that’ll read them. Specimens arrive in boxes and cages from all over the place and some of them are alive and some of them are dead, but Mother’s always trying to send them off again somewhere else before he knows they’ve arrived at all.’

  Idie, always curious about mothers, asked, ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Oh, Mother’s a poet, so she’s sort of forgetful of everything, and mostly what she forgets, in the best possible way, is that she’s got a son at all. Anyway, because of Father being a rector who wants to be a biologist and Mother being a quite unpublishable poetess, I don’t have to have a governess.’

  Idie decided then, on the grounds of her being an poetess and forgetful, that Austin’s mother definitely wouldn’t be prying or gossipy.

  Mayella reappeared with mashed egg on a gold coffee saucer. Millie’s tail grew bushy with excitement about the egg. With catlike delicacy, she poured herself between the teacups towards the gold saucer and demolished the egg. Mayella said, ‘She’s hungry, Master Austin. Maybe one day she eat the pigeon.’

  ‘Millicent will not eat Homer,’ said Austin rather severely.

  Mayella whispered, ‘A mongoose will be good for round here, will look after the mistress and the pigeon, and keep the duppies away . . .’

  Idie rolled her eyes and said, ‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a duppy.’

  As Mayella left, Idie went close to Austin and whispered, ‘Except perhaps Carlisle Quarterly. He might be a new variety of duppy . . .’

  Austin made his curious sort of hooting laughter and said, ‘I know, let’s find out if he is a duppy.’ He stowed Millicent away in his pocket and tiptoed into the dining room, Idie following. They crept between the portraits and the chairs to the kitchen door. It was slightly ajar and they stood behind it, waiting and watching.

  Phibbah sat at the table chopping a squash, and there was some venom in her chopping as if on account of Carlisle being in her kitchen. Celia stood close to Carlisle, facing him and wringing her fingers and smoothing her skirt and wringing her fingers again. He whispered to her and she nodded. Then he touched a finger to his mouth and whispered and she touched a finger to her own mouth as if playing a game of Simon Says.

  Austin winked at Idie, bent and placed Millie on the floor. Millie paused, nose twitching, then rushed like a ribbon into the kitchen. Carlisle squealed and leaped up on to a chair. Then Homer took fright and squawked and Baronet clattered about the hall. Idie and Austin giggled and Phibbah’s eyes sparkled with merriment and even Celia had a faint smile on her lips, and all the while Millie sat at the table on her hind legs, paws to her mouth, chuckling and looking very wicked and very delighted.

  17

  Celia came to Idie’s room the next morning and went to the wardrobe. She made a habit of this, to which Idie had grown accustomed. Besides, Idie didn’t care about dresses except that they be comfortable, so she let Celia choose what she should wear, seeing as Celia seemed to want it that way. Each morning Idie would say, ‘Good morning, Aunt Celia,’ and each morning Celia would turn away. Idie thought, Celia is like a small bird, timorous and easily alarmed. She is a tiny bit like a June Bug too, a bit annoying but harmless. But this time, when Idie said good morning, Celia ventured a brief timid smile. Little by little, Idie told herself, she will grow to trust me little by little.

  She took the heavy brown dress Celia handed her, at the same time noticing that the stuff of Celia’s dress was soft and fine, with a fresh white-green print. Idie felt the familiar drag on her spirits as she wriggled into her dress, because clothes that were good for Devon were no good for the Indies, and in any case what she wanted was something red. After a while she said, ‘Aunt Celia, where can I get some new dresses from? Mine aren’t right at all.’

  Celia paused then and turned and after a moment she half whispered, ‘Like this?’ She picked up the hem of her skirt and lifted it out at the sides and swayed as if she were a girl dressing for her first dance, and that made Idie feel a little queasy and sad for her, but she nodded and said, ‘Yes, though could it be a red one, please?’

  18

  Austin didn’t come that day, and Idie knew it would have been more fun if he had. At dusk when she returned from a ride, she handed Baronet’s reins to Sampson and paused, surprised to hear Numbers’s voice coming from the little estate-office building next to the stables. She squared her shoulders and stood up straight. It was about time he came. He owed her an explanation for the topsy-turviness of things.

  Idie walked to the window, thinking to call to him, but he was talking and his voice had that sort of whispery tone to it that put Idie on alert and made her think she should creep up and listen.

  ‘Her father’s generosity caused expectations to be raised in certain quarters, and that’s unfortunate for the child, most unfortunate. Problems may well arise from that generosity. Oh dear. And of course when her father died, her mother was faithful to his wishes concerning the arrangements he’d made for Carlisle Quarterly – even going so far as to put them in her will. Am I right in thinking Carlisle Quarterly still lives on the estate and is employed in the house?’

  My father wished Carlisle Quarterly to live here? My mother too?

  ‘Is so,’ Gladstone answered gravely.

  ‘Oh dear. What a legacy they’ve left. Oh well, no doubt the girl’ll learn to live with the situation. And Celia Rhodes? Is she well looked after, as her sister would have wished?’

  My mother wished her sister to be looked after. That is why Aunt Celia must live in my house.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Gladstone paused and then said, ‘I am glad, sir, that Miss Grace never knew her mother. It is better so. She was never the same again.’

  My mother was never the same again. But never the same after what? How could I ever be glad I never met her?

  ‘Yes, we’ve much to be thankful for. The land is good and profitable too . . . I’m afraid I’ve had word from Devon and must return. As you know, I’m also trustee to Pomeroy. Poor Pomeroy, unlike this place, she can’t stand on her own two feet. There’re envelopes his Lordship won’t open, things he can’t look square in the face, things he can’t say. All he tells me over and over is, “I leave the place FEET FIRST, Numbers, FEET FIRST,” and it’s my lot to keep the banks at bay, to hold them off until His Lordship goes.’

  Idie wondered why all of a sudden everyone was speaking in riddles. Even Numbers. How did a house ever stand on its own two feet? How did one leave a house feet first?

  ‘There’re sons, are there not?’ asked Gladstone.

  ‘They’re young and will find their way in life. Ah well, everything here is ably managed by yourself, and that’s a great comfort. You’ve always had, and have, my complete trust.’

  ‘Miss Grace should want for nothing, sir.’

  ‘Good, but she must be protected from rumours and gossip. I’m given to understand that anything personal was removed from the house. Is that so?’

  ‘Is so, sir. The women did that on account of a superstition. That happens, sir, frequently when—’

  ‘Yes, yes, quite so, but make sure if you can that she doesn’t learn what happened from anyone wishing her harm, from anyone wishing to hurt her by saying what we don’t dare.’

  What we don’t dare? What was it that no one dared tell her?

  The men stepped into the doorway and Idie shrank back. They shook hands and Numbers made his way across the lawn.

  Idie took out her book and wrote:<
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  After something happened my mother was never the same again.

  No one will tell me what that something is, and because of that I have to listen at doors and windows.

  Whatever it is that happened causes rumours and gossip.

  My mother wished Celia to be looked after.

  She was faithful to my father’s wishes. That means she put it in her will that Carlisle could stay at Bathsheba.

  Idie put her pencil down, thinking how sad it was to be sent away to the other side of the world by one’s own mother and how Myles had said that if your mother sent you away then she couldn’t have loved you and only not very nice persons sent their children away to the other side of the world.

  Grancat had heard that and he’d boxed Myles about the ears and then he’d said to Idie, ‘Remember, Idie, Myles has also lost a mother. He’s angry and sad about that too and that’s why he says horrid things sometimes.’

  Idie thought some more, picked up her pencil and wrote:

  My mother wanted her sister to be looked after, and that means that she was a nice and kind sort of person.

  19

  In the early evening Idie found Treble accommodated on the veranda, the froth of her skirt spilling over her chair and quite concealing it, Numbers standing nearby. Treble was twisting a ringlet through her fingers and gazing at dear Algernon and Idie giggled that Treble should find in Numbers sufficient reason to rise from her bed and brave all the dangers of the place.

  Treble waved girlishly as Idie climbed the stairs. ‘There she is, the dear child.’

  Numbers stepped back and set the drinks trolley wobbling as Baronet advanced up the stairs.

  I expect some answers, Idie told herself, pleased that Baronet was following her on to the veranda, because he was proving a useful means of putting certain adults at a disadvantage.