Night Birds On Nantucket (9 page)

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.

‘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' Thursdays,' 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.

To Dido's great surprise and relief, Pen proved a handy little creature with the indoor tasks; she had been taught by her mother to wash and bake and cook and polish; ‘which it's as well,' Dido admitted, ‘for I never could abide housework and I don't know a waffle-iron from a skillet; if I'd a had to make the bread it'd turn out tougher'n old boots. It beats all how you get it to rise so, Pen. You'll have to teach me; one thing, housework ain't so bad when it's just us on our own. In fact it's quite a lark. Pity the old gal couldn't go back to wherever she came from.'

‘Oh Dido,' confessed Pen – they were out of earshot of Aunt Tribulation now, sociably hoeing the enormous potato field together, ‘she frightens me
dreadfully
! Her eyes glare so – at least I'm sure they do behind her glasses! And her voice is so angry and scolding. I'm sure I shall never get used to her.'

‘Now, now, Pen,' Dido admonished. ‘Remember as how you're learning to be brave? Every morning when you get up you must say twenty times, “I am not scared of Auntie Trib.” You'd best start now.'

‘I am not scared of Auntie Trib,' Pen said obediently. But then she broke out, ‘It's no use, Dido, I
am
scared of her!'

‘Well, we'll have to get you out o' the habit,' Dido said stoutly. ‘You watch me, see how I stand up to the old sulphur-bottom.'

Pen gulped, nodding, but she looked apprehensive.

‘Do you remember her now you see her again, Penny?' Dido asked. ‘Is she like she was when you was small?'

‘Just as frightening,' Pen said. ‘But I don't really remember her much. It was Mamma, saying she was a dragon that I remembered. She looks older than I expected. And even crosser!'

Dido pondered over Pen's words. Really, she thought, there's nothing to prove that this lady is Aunt Tribulation at all. This is a mouldy lookout for me getting back to England; I don't see leaving Pen with old Gruff-and-Grumble.

She thought this again when the noon hour came and they entered the house to the accompaniment of a regular hurricane of thumps from upstairs. Pen ran up to inquire her aunt's wishes and returned trembling and in tears, so fierce had been the request for ‘gingerbread and apple sauce and look sharp about it, miss! What have you been doing all morning, I'd like to know? Idling and playing and picking flowers, I suppose!'

‘Oh, pray don't scold, Aunt Tribulation, pray don't. Indeed, indeed, we haven't been idling; we have hoed more that half the potato field.'

‘Old harridan. I wonder how she knew you'd made some gingerbread?' Dido said. ‘She must have a nose on her like a bloodhound. There's some apples down cellar, Penny, I saw them when I was getting the kindling for the stove. And there's hams and onions and molasses and bushels of beans, so we shan't starve and nor will old Mortification upstairs.'

As Pen hurried to get the apples Dido, stoking the stove, muttered, ‘Ill, my eye! If she's so ill, what's her
nightcap ribbon doing on the kitchen floor? You've been poking and snooping and spying, you old madam, you, to see whether we did the housework, you horried old hypocrite!'

When the apple sauce was made she took a saucerful up to Aunt Tribulation with the cap ribbon ostentatiously stuck like an ornament at the side of the dish. ‘I guess this is yours, Auntie Trib,' she remarked innocently. ‘I can't
think
how it come to be lying on the floor downstairs. Acos you haven't been down, have you?'

Aunt Tribulation took this very much amiss. ‘Impertinent girl! Don't speak to me in that way. Apologize immediately!'

‘Why should I?' Dido said reasonably. ‘You ain't been extra polite to us.'

‘You shall be shut up in the attic till you learn better manners.'

‘Tally-ho! I'm agreeable,' said Dido. ‘I can jistabout do with a nap arter all that hoeing.'

‘Not now,' said Aunt Tribulation, who appeared suddenly to recollect that she had other plans for the girls. ‘I want you and Penitence to shift the sheep up to the high pasture. And mind you count them! Do that as soon as you've washed the dishes. And don't forget to make up the stove. And feed the hens and pigs.'

‘Sure that's all?' inquired Dido. ‘Nothing else as how you can lay your mind to? Sartin? Tooralooral, then.'

‘Now, how the mischief are we to count these here blame sheep?' Dido said, as the girls walked down the sandy lane to the pasture where the sheep were grazing.

‘There's a gate in those railings over there,' Pen said. ‘If you could get behind them and drive them, I could count them as they came through.'

‘Clever girl, Pen. You've got a right smart head on your shoulders when you doesn't get all of a-pucker and a-fluster.'

Dido ran off across the rough pasture which was not grass but low-growing scraggy shrubs and bushes. Pen waited by the gate, and, conquering a slight tendency to shrink in alarm as the sheep streamed towards her, manfully counted them.

‘Two hundred and twenty-three,' she said when they were all through and being driven up towards the high pasture. ‘I wonder if that is the right number?'

‘Well if it ain't you may lay Auntie Trib will tell us fast enough. Croopus, don't the wind blow up here, and can't we see a long way!'

‘All over the island,' Pen said wanly, looking across the rolling, shrubby moorlands to the line of the ocean. On the south shore white, mushrooming clouds of spray from breakers could be seen dimly through a belt of haze.

‘What's that white tower to the east?'

‘Sankaty Head lighthouse. There's a forest between us and it,' Pen said with a faint glimmer of pride, ‘but you can't see it. It's called the Hidden Forest. That's uncommon, isn't it?'

‘Rummy,' agreed Dido, ‘So's your pa's house. Why's it got a balcony on the roof? And why's it standing on legs?'

‘I don't know about the legs. The balcony was for Mamma so she could look out to sea and see if Papa's
ship was in sight. Look, isn't that a man coming to call at the house? We'd better go home.'

‘Race you down the hill,' Dido said, and was astonished when Pen nodded, picked up her skirts, and darted away down the sandy track.

But when they reached the house, panting and laughing, nobody seemed to be about. The man had vanished. They ran into the kitchen, and Dido went up to Aunt Tribulation's room.

‘Is somebody called here?' she asked, knocking and entering. There was a sort of flurry from the bed, as Aunt Tribulation huddled down in her pillows. Two spots of crimson showed on her thin cheeks.

‘Do not come in until I give you leave, miss!' she croaked.

‘Sorry, I'm sure! We were feared you mighta had to get up and answer the door.'

‘I have done no such thing! Be off to your work!'

‘Good land, don't be in such a pelter. I'm just a-going,' Dido said, injured. But in the passage outside she paused, remembering that the door next to Aunt Tribulation's opened on an upward flight of stairs. Must lead to that fancy balcony, she thought. I've a good mind to step up, won't take but a moment. She tried the door. Strangely enough it was locked now, though she was sure it had been open before.

‘Why are you loitering out there, girl?' Aunt Tribulation called angrily from her room.

Dido shrugged and ran downstairs.

‘Does that door by Aunt Trib's room lead up to the roof, Penny?' she asked.

‘Yes, and to the attic.'

‘Where's the key kept?'

‘In the door, mostly,' Pen said in surprise. ‘But there's a spare, because once when I was little I locked myself in there. Oh, I was scared, and so was Mamma!'

‘Where's the spare live, then?'

‘On a hook at the back of the china closet. Why?'

‘Just I've a fancy to go up there sometime,' Dido replied calmly. She did not add that she was also curious to know what Aunt Tribulation was up to: it seemed clear that while the girls were out she had locked the attic door and taken the key. Why had she done so?

‘What'll us do now, Penny?' she inquired.

‘I suppose we're free,' Pen said doubtfully. ‘I'd like to do some lessons. And write my journal and sew my sampler.'

‘Not on your Oliphant. There's the old gal a-thumping again.'

Aunt Tribulation called imperiously for Pen to bring her more gingerbread and apple sauce.

‘How many sheep did you count?' she demanded.

‘Two hundred and twenty-three, Aunt Tribulation,' Pen quavered.