Poverty Castle (12 page)

‘It will be all right, Mrs McPhee. The children will soon come round. Besides, Miss McGill is a fair-minded woman.'

‘It's not just here, it's back at the camp as weel.'

He should have realised that there would be jealousy and resentment among her own kind. Mrs McPhee and Annie were even braver than he had thought. McPhee too, to be fair. He did not look too bright. Education meant nothing to him. He would want to be at accord with his boozing companions. Yet he was standing by his wife and child.

‘We could be forced to leave,' said Mrs McPhee, ‘though we like it here weel enough.'

For a few mad moments he was on the point of offering them space for their caravan at Poverty Castle, though it wasn't really his to offer.

The children had all gone into school.

No rejected little girl crept through the gate.

‘We can go noo, Jimmy,' said Mrs McPhee. ‘Thanks, Mister.'

The van drove off.

Sempill went back to the Daimler. The village women had gone.

‘They think I put you up to it, Edward,' said his wife.

‘Put me up to what, Meg?'

‘Taking the side of the tinkers. Encouraging our girls. They like you, Edward, but they do not approve of me.'

‘They're jealous, my love. You are so much more beautiful.'

‘Didn't you find that girl with the baby attractive?'

‘In an immature kind of way. There are no depths in her or in any of them.'

‘The baby's a boy. She wouldn't let me hold it. I was on the point of telling her I would have my own one day.'

She had read recently that conception could be helped if some unusual place was chosen for love-making. Such places were not plentiful in Bell Heather Cottage. Edward took cramp so easily and was quick to grumble about discomfort. There was that patch of grass in the garden that the girls called the bower, a sun-trap, surrounded by rhododendrons and overlooked only by crows. Was it not likely that if they made love there like Adam and Eve, sung to by birds, Edward's sperm count would even be increased sufficiently for her to conceive again?

Conception was a mystery wrapped in other mysteries.

She put her hand on his knee and squeezed.

Gallantly he smiled. He knew what was on her mind. Seeing a baby boy always had this effect. She never gave up hope.

T
HE GIRLS
had lunch at school with the other children. They had said they would walk home unless it was raining heavily. So it was half past four before their parents saw them again.

To Mama and Papa's many questions they were not forthcoming. Their taciturnity this time was noticeably different from that of the morning. It had deeper reasons not so easily diagnosed. Even Rebecca was affected. Exhausted by the day's events she consented to lie down for a little while before Diana's bus was due. When Mama at her bedside asked how she had got on at school she pretended to be sleepier than she really was. Mama was upset. She knew that Rebecca loved and needed her, and yet here she was, not yet five, keeping secrets from her: not secrets really, but discoveries that she and her sisters had made that day, about themselves and other people, which they would want to examine closely before revealing, if they ever did reveal them. Mama's own mother had warned her: ‘They'll form a society of which you'll never be a member, Margaret. Weans instinctively gang up against adults as soon as they're old enough to know that adults are not always to be trusted.'

Meanwhile in the living-room Papa questioned the twins and Rowena. ‘What happened after Miss McGill got you all into the school?'

‘Nothing,' said Effie.

‘Surely she said something to the children who chanted “tinker trash”?'

‘She said they weren't to do it again,' said Jeanie.

‘Did they do it again?'

‘Yes, but she didn't notice.'

‘She didn't notice lots of things,' said Rowena.

‘What about the other teacher; Miss McKay?'

‘She didn't notice lots of things either,' said Jeanie.

‘Are you telling me that this campaign of hostility towards that little girl continued, behind the teachers' backs?'

‘Not just behind their backs,' said Effie.

‘In front of them sometimes,' said Jeanie.

‘I am astonished. I would have thought Miss McGill would miss very little that went on in her school-room.'

‘Well, she missed a lot,' said Effie.

‘Miss McKay was always looking at herself in the mirror,' said Jeanie. ‘She thinks she's good-looking.'

‘Is she good-looking?'

‘She's got big bosoms,' said Effie.

‘What about the village children? Surely some of them are nice.'

‘John McLeish is a beast,' said Rowena. ‘He's worse than Nigel.' Her face changed, became fat and ugly, as she muttered, ‘Tinker trash.'

‘Is he the ringleader?'

‘His father's got a farm,' said Effie. ‘He boasted that he wasn't afraid of bulls.'

‘And what of little Annie McPhee, at the centre of it all, tell me about her.'

Their faces went blank.

‘I had a chat with her mother. She's a very brave little girl, you know. It's not just children at the school who are unkind to her. So are the children at the camp, and the grown-ups too.'

‘She didn't cry,' said Rowena.

‘She didn't say anything,' said Jeanie.

‘That's why she's at school, to learn to read and write. Everyone should help her.'

‘We helped her,' said Rowena.

‘She doesn't like to be pitied,' said Jeanie.

‘Poor child, did she appear very unhappy?'

They looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders.

‘Did the van come for her at four o'clock?'

‘The man said he'd give us a lift if we wanted but we said we'd walk.' That was Effie, speaking dourly.

‘Do you think she'll go to school again tomorrow?'

Jeanie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘It's time for us to go and wait for Diana's bus.'

‘It's not due till five. Will she come back tomorrow, or has she been frightened away?'

‘What she's not going to do,' said Effie, ‘is take Diana's place.'

So that was it.

‘I don't think you need to worry about that. In any case her mother thinks they may have to leave Kilcalmonell.'

‘Why?' asked Jeanie.

‘Because too many people are unkind. That's why I want you to be her friends.'

‘She doesn't want anybody to be her friend,' said Effie.

‘She spoke to nobody,' said Rowena. ‘Except Rebecca. She spoke to Rebecca.'

‘Rebecca asked her if she knew how to skin rabbits,' said Effie. ‘She said she didn't.'

‘I think we should go and wait for the bus,' said Jeanie.

‘What about Rebecca?' asked Rowena.

Mama came in then. ‘She's asleep, the little darling.'

‘She wanted to be with us when we went to meet Diana's bus,' said Effie.

‘She'll be awfully disappointed,' said Jeanie. ‘She kept saying all day how she was looking forward to seeing Diana again.'

‘She'll see her when she wakes up,' said Papa.

‘She wanted to see her coming off the bus.'

He understood. It would be one of the happiest and most memorable moments of their lives. Rebecca would never forgive herself for being asleep or them for letting her sleep.

The problem was solved by Rebecca appearing at the door, sleepy-eyed but eager.

They all hurried out to wait under the lime tree.

‘If we have a little boy, Edward,' said Mama, ‘how fortunate he will be, with such loving sisters to look after him.'

There still clung to him the remnants of the foolishness he had felt when making love in the bower that morning. The pain of ant bites lingered too. He had had to wait, with cramp in his legs and ants biting and a wasp buzzing dangerously near his exposed rump until Meg was satisfied that she had received the last precious magical drip. Earlier she had let fall a remark that had chilled him from heart to scrotum. Wine, she had read, could have a deleterious effect on spermatozoa, making them lazy and unventuresome. Perhaps, if the present lovemaking failed, he might abstain from wine for a few weeks. Consider, she had said, what compensation and reward a beautiful little boy would be.

Though Tarbeg was less than twenty miles away the school bus took over an hour to reach Kilcalmonell, because of the many stops it had to make to put down pupils who lived along the way. Several times the Sempill girls' hearts almost stopped with joy, but it was a private car that came rushing round the corner. At last though it was the bus, red and yellow, more glorious than any other bus in the world. They stood back in the shadow of the tree. Effie held Rebecca's hand. The bus halted. A girl climbed down wearing a black blazer, grey skirt, and silly hat. She was the same size and age as Diana. She waved to other girls on the bus. Then she turned and said, coolly: ‘How long have you foolish creatures been waiting?'

She was Diana, their sister, and yet somehow she wasn't. One day in the alien country had changed her. This Diana did not seem to be aware, as the old Diana certainly would have been, that their waiting for her return had been a joy as hard to bear as pain and their meeting of her again should have been joyful too, with happy cries and kisses and even tears. Instead on her part it was affectionate but cool, in the way that grown-ups were cool. She did crouch down and hug Rebecca, who clung to her. She did, in her old way, pinch Effie's nose,
tweak Jeanie's ear, and stroke Rowena's hair, but she seemed to be doing it because she had done it before and knew that they would be expecting her to do it, and not because there was nothing else she would rather have done.

Without saying anything they made excuses for her. She was tired after her long day among strangers. She would have had new experiences and met new people. It would take her a little while to re-adjust. By teatime she would be their own dear Diana again. She would have forgotten everybody else except them and Mama and Papa.

They did not really believe it. Even Rebecca was aware that there had been a change which would be followed by other changes, not only in Diana but in them all. Effie and Jeanie, being older, knew that not all of those changes would be for the worse, some indeed would be welcome, but that was not much consolation then as, taking turns to carry Diana's case, heavy with books, they went up the avenue to the house.

‘Who were you waving at on the bus?' asked Rowena.

‘Some girls. No one in particular.'

‘Did you meet anyone in particular at school?' asked Jeanie.

‘Yes, I did.'

They were shocked.

‘It wouldn't be a boy, anyway,' said Effie, dourly.

Diana laughed. ‘Why wouldn't it be a boy?'

‘Because you've already got one.'

Yesterday she would have pulled their hair or tickled their ribs playfully at this reference to Edwin Campton. He had been seen lurking outside the gate of Bell Heather Cottage and had fled when they had called to him. He had passed them twice in his father's car and had waved, to them all Diana had said but they had known better. The big wistful nose had been pointed in her direction.

Today she just laughed, in a superior kind of way. ‘You really are a bunch of silly little kids.'

They were mortified. She couldn't have said a crueller thing. It increased the distance between them.

In the house they listened in silence to her off-hand replies to Mama and Papa's questions about her new school.

‘What class did they put you in?' asked Papa.

‘1B.'

‘That's not the top class, is it?'

‘There's no top class in First Year. Selection starts in Second Year.'

‘Still, they should have put you in 1A.'

‘They said they didn't have any information from my primary school.'

‘But just looking at you, by listening to you, they must have seen you were well above average in intelligence. Isn't that so, Meg?'

‘Indeed it is, darling.'

‘Next year I'll be in 2A.'

‘Won't 1A get the best teachers.'

‘Teachers don't matter, Papa. It's up to the pupils themselves.'

‘But, my dear,' said Mama, ‘any girl you would wish to make your friend is most likely to be in 1A.'

‘I've already got a friend. Yes, she's in 1A. Her name's Fiona McTaggart. Her father's a dentist.'

Effie could not resist asking: ‘Has she got good teeth?'

Diana showed hers, in an amused grimace: they were white, even, and strong.

Mama was worried. ‘I think your father should go and see the headmaster. We've got your reports from St Mabel's. They're all excellent.'

‘I can manage on my own, Mama.'

‘But as your parents it's our responsibility to give you all the assistance we can.'

‘I know that, Mama, and I am grateful, but I don't need assistance.' Diana then turned to her sisters.

‘How did you lot get on? Do you like Miss McGill? Did she object to your earrings? Was the tinker girl there?'

They found themselves answering her politely but cautiously, as if she was a stranger.

‘We got on all right.'

‘We don't know yet if we like Miss McGill.'

‘She didn't say anything about our earrings.'

‘Yes, the tinker girl was there. Her name is Annie McPhee.'

‘Was everybody nice to her?'

‘A lot of them weren't.'

‘Especially John McLeish. His father's got a farm.'

‘He says he's not afraid of bulls.'

‘He's afraid of Effie, though.'

‘You seem to have had quite an exciting time, though I must say you don't look it. What solemn faces!'

‘Be proud of them, Diana,' said Papa. ‘Some of the village children were quite beastly to the little girl. Your sisters took her part.'