The Diddakoi (11 page)

Admiral Twiss said the same, ‘I lost Rainbird,’ and said it of his grandmother, Kezia. ‘She had an Arab mare, a white one called Silver. Silver used to come up the front steps
for sugar and followed her like a dog.’

‘What happened to Silver?’

‘Broke a leg out hunting.’

‘What happened?’

‘Had to be shot.’ The Admiral said it abruptly as if he could not bear to think of it even now and Kizzy put her hands over her ears – she seemed to hear that shot – but,
‘You have to swaller it,’ said Nat and, ‘Come along and give me a hand with Meadowsweet.’

He was pulling the filly’s tail: ‘Shaping it,’ said Nat. The long hairs came out one by one in his nimble hands while Meadowsweet fidgeted, tossed her head, pretended to bite
– and did nothing, even when Nat let Kizzy try. ‘Doesn’t hurt her, only tickles, if you take a firm hold and give a quick firm pull down.’ Afterwards he let Kizzy lead
Meadowsweet back to the paddock. ‘’S the only thing to do. Go on to the next one.’

‘Did Kezia – did your grandmother have another horse after Silver?’ Kizzy asked the Admiral.

‘Bless me, yes. Silver was one of a long long line of hunters,’ and the Admiral said what Nat said, ‘You have to go on to the next one.’

They all seemed to have forgotten that Kizzy had no next one.

‘I think you will find they won’t touch you again,’ Miss Brooke said on Monday when she dropped Kizzy at school. ‘In fact I’m sure of it,’
and did not dream how right she was.

Everyone looked at the mark on Kizzy’s forehead; the girls gave it surreptitious glances in the classroom; it was like a visible scolding, but no one spoke of it – and no one spoke
to Kizzy, except Mrs Blount, and Mr Fraser in the playground at breaktime; he made a point of coming there and found Kizzy sitting by herself on the steps with a book. ‘All right again,
Kizzy?’

‘Yes sir,’ but it was not all right; there seemed to be a magic circle drawn round Kizzy, invisible, and no girl crossed it; when she came out to go home, two boys, Stephen and
Tommy, smaller than Clem, who did not come out until half past three, were waiting at the gate; Stephen walked one side of her, Tommy on the other.

‘You needn’t,’ said Kizzy.

‘Clem said we was to,’ and they plodded on. Next day it was Robert and George. The girls watched but none of them taunted or sang an insult out. ‘Mr Fraser must have ordered
the boys to do that,’ they said among themselves; it made them feel more than ever under a cloud and they kept away from Kizzy as she kept away from them. At break and after-dinner-play, when
the boys were in a separate playground, Kizzy sat on her step with the largest book she could find; she could almost read now – Miss Brooke helped her in the evenings – but everyone
knew she certainly could not read the Encyclopaedia Britannica; she took a volume because they were the largest books in the classroom.

Once Mary Jo, playing hop-scotch, called ‘Come and hop . . . Kizzy,’ but Elizabeth Oliver whispered, ‘Silly, she doesn’t know how to play.’ Kizzy put down her book,
walked to the chalked-out space; she gave a withering look at Elizabeth, cast her pebble, hopped neatly and exactly from square to square, then ‘home’ without one fault; her legs were
far stronger than theirs. Then she walked back to her place, sat down and buried herself in her book. Even at dinner there seemed to be a little iceberg of silence each side of her. It was not that
she was ostracized now; it was simply uncomfortable to be near her. Somehow neither she, nor the other children could begin – except Clem. He often came at weekends to Amberhurst House
– the Admiral liked him more and more – and sometimes in the week to tea at the cottage. ‘You ought to ask Kizzy back,’ said his mother.

‘She wouldn’t come.’

‘Surely . . .’, but, ‘No, thank you,’ said Kizzy steadily. Mrs Cuthbert too asked her to tea or to spend the day with Prue, but Kizzy went into such panic that Miss
Brooke had to promise she need not go, ‘Not ever, promise. Promise,’ begged Kizzy. Yet she was feeling lonely. Funny; when she was in the orchard, solitary except for Gran, she had
never felt alone; now, in the middle of girls and boys, she knew sharply what loneliness was. She walked to school by herself and soon by herself walked home – when Clem was sure she was safe
from Prue’s gang, he had released the boys.

It was not only school; in those warm summer days, May, June, July, Miss Brooke would find Kizzy standing at the open window, ‘gazing,’ she told the Admiral. Once she put her arm
round Kizzy and said, ‘I wish I could help you, Kiz.’ Kizzy leant against her, rubbed her curls against Miss Brooke’s shoulder – ‘She would never have done that a few
weeks ago,’ – ‘I wish I could help.’

‘You do,’ said Kizzy, but it was such a weary little voice that, ‘I knew I didn’t,’ Miss Brooke told the Admiral, and she said, ‘Something must be done to
heal this.’

‘You wouldn’t consider,’ Miss Brooke asked Admiral Twiss, ‘letting Kizzy, one Saturday, ask the girls in her class to tea at the House?’

‘
Those
girls!’ the Admiral recoiled.

‘Those girls among them. I would willingly ask them to the cottage but it wouldn’t be the same as coming to the House to see your models and the horses – it would give Kizzy an
importance.’

‘But ask girls,
those
girls, to Amberhurst.’ The Admiral was stunned.

‘It’s a wonderful idea,’ said Mr Fraser when he was consulted. ‘Nothing could help Kizzy more.’

‘If you really think so . . .’ Admiral Twiss could be talked round, but not the gnomes, Peters and Nat. Not Kizzy.

‘Put on a tea for those bullies. Not on your life,’ said Peters.

‘They’re only little girls,’ pleaded Miss Brooke.

‘Little girls. Little monsters. Fourteen against one.’

‘Let a pack of children near my youngsters. No, Admiral
Sir
,’ said Nat while Kizzy, when the idea was broached, said, ‘I might ask the boys.’

‘But it’s not the boys, it’s the girls who need . . .’ began Miss Brooke.

‘I should have to ask Prue . . .’ Kizzy breathed through her nostrils – like a little war horse or dragon, thought Miss Brooke. ‘If Sir Admiral lets those girls come to
the House,’ said Kizzy, ‘I’ll never go there again.’

‘Kizzy, don’t you see, you have to make the first move because you were the one who was hurt?’

‘I’ll stay hurt,’ said Kizzy.

Miss Brooke gave up the idea and the loneliness went on; it was like a hard shell round Kizzy that nobody could break.

The summer holidays came and, with them, brilliant weather. ‘What are you and Kizzy going to do?’ Mrs Cuthbert asked Miss Brooke.

‘Oh, picnic and garden.’

‘Here?’

‘Where else?’

‘You should get away.’

‘I don’t think Kizzy is quite ready for that.’ Miss Brooke did not explain that she had spent so much money buying extra things for Kizzy she could not afford to go away.

‘Look,’ said Mrs Cuthbert. ‘You go, Olivia, and we’ll take Kizzy to the seaside with us.’

‘It’s very good of you, Edna . . .’

‘She can sleep with Prue . . .’

Miss Brooke could almost hear Kizzy saying, ‘I’ll climb out of the window first.’

‘It’s good of you, Edna,’ Miss Brooke repeated, ‘but it might spoil your holiday. Besides, I don’t think Kizzy would go.’

‘Heavens, you don’t have to ask her.’

‘I think I do. People should always be asked before being disposed of.’

‘A child.’

‘Children are people, Edna,’ said Miss Brooke as she had said it to Mrs Blount.

‘Well, please yourself,’ said Mrs Cuthbert. ‘But I tell you, Olivia, that child’s too much on your mind.’

‘Isn’t that what she came for?’

‘For what?’

‘To be on my mind.’

‘Peters,’ said Admiral Twiss on a close hot morning in August. ‘I was thinking. It must be stifling in that little thatched cottage of Miss
Brooke’s.’

‘It must, sir.’

The spacious rooms of the House were cool; the lawns stretched invitingly to the park where the trees gave a deep shade. ‘I was thinking if I asked Kizzy – and Miss Brooke to
stay,’ he said it with a rush – ‘until this hot spell was over, what would you say?’

Peters said nothing but began to clear away.

‘Would you . . . object?’

‘It’s not for me to object, sir,’ said Peters, who had objected so often before.

‘She could have the blue room.’ The blue room had been the Admiral’s mother’s and Kezia, his grandmother’s.

‘So she could, sir.’

‘Tell Nat,’ said the Admiral and, putting on his panama, in his thin alpaca jacket and light trousers, he walked down the village to the cottage and, for the first time, saw Miss
Brooke troubled.

‘It would be lovely,’ she had said when he asked her, ‘but . . .’

‘But what?’

‘True, it is very hot here,’ said Miss Brooke. ‘I should be grateful if you would have Kizzy She would love it but . . . I had better not.’

‘I see,’ said the Admiral slowly. ‘It’s Mrs Cuthbert.’

‘All the Mrs Cuthberts,’ said Miss Brooke.

‘Tittle-tattle,’ said Admiral Twiss crossly.

‘You can’t blame them,’ said Miss Brooke.

‘Kizzy can’t come to tea with us,’ Mrs Cuthbert had said – and Mary Jo’s mother and Sally’s and Elizabeth’s. ‘But I notice she can always go to
the House.’ ‘It’s the House, the House, the House,’ they said.

Once Mrs Cuthbert had lost her temper. ‘Olivia, I never knew you were a snob. Yes, it makes my blood boil,’ said Mrs Cuthbert. ‘My Prudence not good enough for a gypsy
brat.’

‘Don’t be silly, Edna.’ Miss Brooke was still calm. You know it isn’t that and Kizzy’s not a brat. She’s shy of other children, that’s all, and think,
Edna – she came to me from the House, where they were more than good to her. Naturally she loves them, especially Admiral Twiss.’

‘Which is why he comes to visit her so often – at your cottage.’

‘Gossiping about us, eh?’ asked the Admiral now.

‘Indeed yes.’ Miss Brooke raised her candid hazel eyes. ‘They think I’m in love with you – and you wouldn’t like to encourage that, would you?’ asked
Miss Brooke.

School began again in September and again, every day, Kizzy stayed in her circle or private shell and no one broke in. Then one afternoon she came back to find Miss Brooke
sweeping up leaves, fallen twigs and garden rubbish into a bonfire and, ‘Couldn’t we have tea out here, Olivia?’ begged Kizzy.

‘You let her call you Olivia,’ Mrs Cuthbert had said.

‘What else is she to call me? “Miss Brooke” seems so stiff.’

‘Auntie Olivia.’

‘I am not her aunt.’

‘Couldn’t we, Olivia? Have tea here?’

‘In the vegetable patch?’

‘The vegetables don’t matter. It’s the fire.’

The wind was chilly, the days were closing in and Miss Brooke hesitated. ‘I’ll show you how to keep warm.’ Kizzy was excited. She brought a piece of corrugated iron left over
from the chicken house. ‘We’ll put it up here with some bricks to hold it.’ More bricks, with the ironing board across them, made a bench. ‘I used to have a box to sit
on,’ said Kizzy. ‘If only we had Gran’s kittle iron.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You dig it into the ground to make it stand over the fire and hang the kettle on it. Prob’ly it’s still in the orchard. Tomorrow I’ll go and look.’ For the moment
they used Miss Brooke’s picnic methylated stove for the kettle and fried bacon and sausages – rather burned bacon and sausages – over the fire in an old frying pan. Kizzy put
apples on a stone and roasted them. ‘Tastes good out of doors,’ said Kizzy and Miss Brooke had to admit it. Chuff came out to bear them company and had his saucer of milk there. When it
grew dark, Kizzy fetched two sacks, one for Miss Brooke, one for herself. ‘We put ’em over our shoulders,’ and they sat there in the garden, with the fire on their faces, the
stars overhead.

Kizzy sang for Miss Brooke in a low crooning voice, unexpectedly sweet. Miss Brooke had never heard her sing, nor did she know the songs.