Hetty Feather (2 page)

'No chance of forgetting this one. Miss Hetty
Feather. I'm not sure you'll want her, missus. She
might be little but she's a shocker for screaming.
She's been squealing like a pig ever since we left
London.'

'Oh well, it shows she's got spirit,' said a voice.
'Let's have a squint at her then.'

I was placed in strong arms, my face pressed
against a very large soft chest. I snuffled against
her. She smelled of strange new things, lard and
cabbage and potatoes, but she also smelled of sweet
milk. I opened my lips eagerly and I heard laughter
all around.

'There! She's smiling at you, Mother! She's taken
to you already!'

I was stunned. This was not my real mother.
Was she a
new
mother? She held me in one arm,
my basket baby brother in the other. Her large
hands held us safe as she walked out of the station,
children clamouring about her.

'I dare say you'll do a good job with them,
missus. You bring on the scrawny ones something
wonderful,' said the basket-carrier.

'It's a bit of challenge, two little ones together,
but I dare say I'll manage,' she said. 'Let's take you
home and get you fed, my poor little lambs,' she
murmured in our ears.

We had a home. We had a mother. We were safe.
We never had to go back to the great chill baby
hospital again.

Don't mock, I say! I was only a few weeks old. I
didn't know any better.

My new home was a small thatched cottage with
whitewashed walls, and roses and honeysuckle
hanging around the front door. It was small and dark
and crowded inside. It smelled of cooking all the
time, plus strong yellow soap on a Monday, washday.
That was
our
washday too. When the sheets and all
our shirts and frocks and underwear were flapping
on the line, our mother, Peg, popped all us children
in the clothes tub. Gideon and I were tossed in
first. Gideon always cried, but I bobbed up and down
like a duckling and only wailed if Mother rubbed
soap in my eyes.

Gideon was my foundling brother, my baby
travelling companion in the basket. He was not
much bigger than me, a pale, spindly baby with a
thatch of black hair and large eyes that fixed you
with a mournful stare.

'There's not enough meat on these two together
to bake into a pie,' said our new father, John.

He poked both of us in our belly buttons. It was
a playful poke but we both shrieked. We weren't
used to big, loud father people. All men were big
and loud to us babies, but when we were older we
saw that John was the tallest man in the village,
with arms like tree trunks and a belly like a barrel.
His voice was so loud his holler could carry clear
across five acres. He was as strong as the huge shire
horses he used to plough the land. No man dared
argue with him because it was clear who would
win – but Peg wasn't the slightest bit frightened
of him.

'Get away from my new babies, you great fat
lummox,' she said, slapping his hands away. 'You're
scaring them silly. Don't cry, my lambkins, this is
just your father, he don't mean you no harm.'

'Chickee-chickee-chickee, coochie-coochie-coochie,'
said Father, tickling under our chins with his big
blunt fingers. We screamed as if he was a storybook
ogre about to snap our heads off our necks.

'Get out of it,' said Peg, flapping at him with
a towel. She gathered Gideon and me up out of
our improvised bathtub and wrapped us together
in the towel, warm from the hearthside. She held
us close against the vast pillow of her bosom and
we stopped crying and snuffled close to our
new mother.

'My
muvver!' said Saul, swotting at us with his
hard little fists.

He was just starting to walk, though he had a
withered leg so that he limped. Father had fashioned
him a little wooden crutch. Saul used it to prod
Gideon and me. He hated us because he wanted
Mother all to himself.

'There now, my little hoppy sparrow. You come
and have a cuddle too,' said Peg, hauling him up
into her arms alongside us.

'And me, and me!' said three-year-old Martha,
burrowing in. Her eyes were weak, and one of them
squinted sideways.

Jem held back, his chin held high.

'Don't you want to come and join in the cuddle,
Jem dearie?' said Mother.

'Yes, but I'm not one of the babies,' said Jem
stoutly. 'I'm five. Nearly.'

'Yes, my pet, you're my big boy – but you're not
too big to say no to a cuddle with your old mum.
Come here and meet your new brother and sister.'

I was wriggling and squirming, squashed
by Saul.

'Here, Jem, you take little Hetty for me,' said
Peg. 'Ain't she tiny? You were twice her size as a
baby. She's had a bad start in life – both the babies
have, bless them. Still, we'll soon fatten them up,
just you wait and see.'

I nestled in Jem's arms. He might still be a
little boy not yet five but he seemed as strong as
our father to me – but nowhere near as frightening.
Jem's hands cupped me gently.

'Hello, little Hetty. I'm your brother Jem,' he
said softly, rubbing his face against mine.

I couldn't speak but my lips puckered and I gave
him my first real smile.

Jem wasn't the eldest. He was the youngest child
who really belonged to Peg and John. They also had
Rosie and Nat and Eliza, and there were more still
– Marcus, who'd gone off to be a soldier, and Bess
and Nora, who were away in service.

All these children – so many that your head must
be reeling trying to keep count of them all!
I
find it
hard enough to sort them all out in my head. The
older ones kept themselves separate from us younger
fostered foundlings, though Eliza sometimes liked
to play schools with us.

She lined us all up in a row by the front step and
asked us to add two and two and recite the
alphabet. At first Gideon and I couldn't even sit
up by ourselves, so we clearly had no chance of
coming top in Eliza's school. She lisped our answers
for us, and answered for Saul and Martha too.
She didn't have to invent replies for Jem. He
knew simple sums and could read out of
The Good
Child's ABC.

'A is for Apple. B is for Bear. C is for Chair. D is
for Daisy. E is for Elephant.'

I could chant my own way through by the time I
was two. Eliza fancied herself a teacher and sat us
in the corner if she felt we were stupid and caned us
with a twig if we protested.

Jem was the true teacher. He showed me
how to eat up my porridge and my mash-and-
gravy and my tea-time slices of bread and jam.
'That's right, you're a baby bird. Open your beak,'
he said.

I opened my mouth wide and then smacked my
lips together, swallowing every morsel, though I was
a picky eater and fussed and turned my head away
when Mother tried to feed me.

We didn't have any toys. Mother would have
thought them a waste of money. She didn't
have
any money anyway. However, Jem found a red
rubber ball in a rubbish heap. He washed it well
and polished it so it shone like an apple. He flung
it high into the air and caught it nine times out of
ten, and then kicked it from one end of the village
to the other.

'Me, me, me!' I said, on my feet now, but still
so little that I toppled over when I tried to kick
too.

The others laughed at me, especially Saul, but
Jem held me under my arms and aimed me at the
ball until one of my flailing feet connected and gave
it a feeble little kick.

'There, Hetty, you can kick the ball, just like me!'
he said, hugging me.

He sat beside me on the front step and drew me
pictures in the dust with his finger. His men and
women were round blobs with stick arms and legs,
his babies were little lozenges, his animals barely
distinguishable one from the other, but I saw
them through Jem's eyes and clapped and crowed
delightedly.

He helped me toddle down the road to the stream
and then held me tight while I splashed and squealed
in the cold water. If I kept my legs still while he
dangled me, the minnows would come and tickle
my toes.

'Fishy fishy!' I'd shriek.

Sometimes Jem turned his hand into a fish and
made it swim along beside me and nibble titbits
while I laughed.

When I grew bigger, he pushed me in a little cart
all the way to the woods and showed me red squirrels
darting up the tree trunks.

'That's where they've got their houses, right up
in the trees,' said Jem. 'Shall
we
have a squirrel
house, Hetty?'

He knew an old oak that was completely hollow
inside. He stood on one of the great spreading
roots, lifted me up, deposited me inside the tree
and squeezed in after me. There! We were in our
very own squirrel house. We were only a foot or so
from the ground but it felt as if we were right up in
the treetops.

'There, little Miss Squirrel. Are you happy in
your new house?' Jem asked, poking me gently on
my button nose.

'Yes, Mr Squirrel, yes yes yes!' I said happily.

I loved our little treehouse so much I didn't want
to go home for tea. I shook my head and protested,
clinging to the bark with my fingertips. Jem had to
carry me home kicking and screaming. I wouldn't
be quiet until he promised we'd play there the very
next day.

I went leaping onto the boys' bed at five o'clock
in the morning, before Father and Mother were
stirring, demanding that Jem keep his promise.

He stayed true to his word, even though I was
behaving like an almighty pest. He carted me back
to our house in the woods straight after breakfast.
He patiently ate another pretend breakfast of acorns
and grass, and he helped me care for my squirrel
babies (lumps of mud wrapped in dock leaves). He
even lined the floor of our house with moss and
sprinkled it with wild flowers to make a pattern on
our green carpet.

I stupidly babbled about our wondrous
squirrel house that bedtime, and of course all the
other children wanted to come and see it too, even
Rosie and Eliza. Nat sneered at Jem for playing
a girly game of house with a baby, but Jem was
unruffled.

'I
like
playing with Hetty, it's fun,' he said, and
my heart thumped with love for him.

I wanted to keep the squirrel house just for
us, but Jem was far too good-natured. 'Of course
you can all come a-visiting,' he told everyone. But
then he added, 'But you must remember, it's
Hetty's
house.'

I didn't mind Gideon coming. He was my special
little basket brother and I loved him second best
to Jem. I was a few days older than Gideon but he
was a half a head taller than me now, though still
ultra-spindly, his neck and wrists and ankles so
thin they looked in danger of snapping. Mother
took it to heart that he looked so frail and sneaked
him extra strips of bacon and a bite of Father's
chop, but the ribs still stuck out on his chest and
his shoulder blades seemed about to slice straight
through his skin.

Mother tried to encourage him to run about and
play in the sunshine with us, but he preferred to
cling to her skirts and climb on her lap whenever
she sat down to shell peas or darn stockings.

I could sometimes tempt Gideon away to play,
though he was incredibly tiresome when it came to
my special picturing games.

'Listen, Gideon. Let's picture we're in the woods.
We're lost and a huge huge huge howling wolf is
going to eat us all up,' I'd say.

Gideon would start and tremble, and when I
growled he ran screaming for Mother. She'd scoop
him up in her arms and aim a swipe at me.

'Stop scaring the poor little mite senseless,
Hetty. I'll paddle you with my ladle if you don't
watch out.'

I'd been well and truly paddled several times
and I didn't enjoy the experience. I didn't mean
Gideon any
harm.
It wasn't
my
fault he was
such a little milksop. But I smiled at him even
so, and said he could come and visit my squirrel
house. I let him squeeze into the cart with me
while poor Jem puffed along pushing the two
of us.

Gideon squirmed uneasily as I chatted about my
house. 'Squirrels might bite,' he said fearfully.

'Oh, Gideon,
squirrels
don't bite! We'll bite
them,'
I said, giggling.

'Can't climb up the tree, Hetty,' Gideon wailed.

'It's easy, Gideon. I can climb. Jem can too,'
I said.

'I might fall!' said Gideon, nearly in tears.

'Don't cry, Gideon. You won't fall. Just
think, you're getting to see my squirrel house and
Saul
isn't.'

'Saul can come too,' said Jem quickly. 'And
Martha.'

'No they can't – too much of a squash,' I said,
wishing Jem wasn't always so kind. I just wanted
him to be kind to
me.

It was a waste of our kindness inviting Gideon.
To help him appreciate the charm of the squirrel
house I made us 'climb' in the air for several seconds
before we hopped up into the hole in the tree. This
was fatal. He clung to me desperately.

'Whee –
we're right up in the treetops! See the
birds flying!' I said.

'Have to get down! It's too high, too high!' Gideon
said, peering down fearfully, though if he reached
right out he could put his hand on the ground.

'It's not
really
high, Gideon, look,' said Jem,
dangling his leg down.

'Hetty makes it high!' said Gideon.

Jem laughed. 'That's what she's best at, picturing.
She's grand at it.'

'I wish she wasn't,' said Gideon, and he closed
his eyes tight, as if he could shut out my picturing
that way.

Gideon stayed in the cottage with Mother when
Jem made me take Saul and Martha to the squirrel
house. That was a waste of time too. I didn't mind
Martha, but she was so near-sighted she had no idea
what a squirrel
was.
She sat in the tree and blinked
solemnly, waiting for something to happen. I served
her tea in an acorn cup and gave her a slice of fairy
bread on a leaf, and she tried to eat and drink politely,
but she looked puzzled when there was nothing in
her mouth. She started to eat the leaf itself and Jem
had to prise it out quickly lest she was sick.

I'd have happily stuffed a whole
tree
of leaves
down Saul's throat.

'This is a stupid place. It's not a
real
squirrel
house. That's not a fine green rug, that's moss.
That's not china, it's leaves. They're not babies.
They look like pig poo.
Dirty
Hetty, playing with pig
poo.'

I pushed him hard in the chest, because no mother
can stand to have her babies insulted. I pushed a
little too hard. Jem tried to catch him but he wasn't
quite quick enough. Saul fell right out of my squirrel
house. It truly wasn't far, and any other child would
have jumped up again and laughed – but not Saul.

His eyes slid into slits and his mouth went square.
'You've hurt my poorly leg!' he bawled. 'I'm telling
Mother!'

Oh dear. Gideon was clearly Mother's favourite,
but she had a particular soft spot for Saul, Lord
knows why. She fussed over his leg, rubbing it with
different remedies – goose grease and witch hazel
– and knitted him a special soft pair of stockings
because his boot rubbed his twisted foot. Saul
enjoyed this attention and exaggerated his limp in
front of Mother for all he was worth.