The Summer of the Mourning Cloak

by Kathleen Nelson

  The cottage was smaller than anywhere they normally stayed. It seemed cramped after the huge French and Italian houses they had grown used to, but Hyslop liked it better. It seemed to beckon her in and embrace her in a secret hug. Her new bedroom was not much bigger than the single bed and tiny chest of drawers it contained, but there was a little fireplace there with chipped green tiles round it and a broken grate. It looked as if it hadn’t been lit for a hundred years. To Hyslop’s delight there were cobwebs there and two woodlice. There did not seem to be any likelihood of maids bursting in to clean and polish.

  She opened her curtains. Her window looked out onto a stone patio, and beyond that to a meadow of tall grasses. Giant nettles at the edge of the meadow bent their heads towards the patio area, nodding in the breeze. Some of them had been hacked at roughly, as had the creeping briars and brambles, but they looked as if they wanted to come and invade the little paved patio as soon as they were given a chance. It all felt like a neglected corner of somewhere more important, and as she opened her window and listened to the birdsong, Hyslop felt a restless urge to be outside. She wondered what the rest of the garden was like, and decided that it was time to explore.

  Her mother had been drinking wine with Sandy until late, and Hyslop knew better than to disturb her sleep. She dressed quickly and crept downstairs. There was no sound from her mother’s room so she went outside. As well as morning birdsong, she could hear the buzzing of bees, though not the familiar sound of the cicadas. She rather missed the Tuscan cicadas. She would need to attune to different bird and insect noises here.

  As she stepped out beyond the tiny garden gate, more grasses and nettles surrounded her. She did not know the names of the flowers she saw but they looked like the kind of plants which would grow randomly in a field, rather than be cultivated in a garden. There were lots of plants with pinky-purple flowers which smelt like oregano in Italy. Bees were buzzing all around them, and butterflies hung from purple thistle heads. It did not look as if gardeners ever came near. Hyslop liked the feel of the grassy wilderness.

  Soon she came upon a large kitchen garden. It was not all straight and orderly like vegetable gardens she had seen before. The vegetables had not been planted in rigidly straight lines, and weeds grew in profusion amongst them, green and lush. There was a cabbage patch too, whose cabbages seemed to have been stripped to shreds. Hardly an edible patch of green remained, and Hyslop smiled to see little caterpillars of varying sizes munching their way through what was left of them. There were different sorts of lettuces: red and green, straight leaved and frilly, shiny green courgettes with large yellow flowers, peas and potatoes, and two scarlet wigwams of runner beans. The tomatoes were in greenhouses, and she put her head in and sniffed the intense tomato smell. There were aubergines and peppers inside too, in terracotta pots, looking healthy enough but not large and bursting with ripeness like they would be in the Italian sunshine. Two wasps were buzzing against the glass unable to understand why they couldn’t get out. How long would it take insects to understand glass, she wondered. Might it take a thousand generations? Or a million years? It must seem like a hard piece of air: it just wouldn’t make sense. Hyslop set about rescuing them. She found a piece of cardboard and shooed them out into the fresh air and freedom. “Fly away, little wasps,” she murmured.

  The morning air was warm but not fiercely so. Perhaps her mother would not need her long beauty sleep after lunch here, although Hyslop could not decide whether that was a good or a bad thing. She followed the overgrown paths past the vegetable garden until she came to beds of tall brightly coloured flowers, some as high as her head. They were deep shades of purple, vibrant red, yellow, pink and orange. They were almost too exotic looking to be English, and Hyslop was pleased to see bees and bumblebees buzzing around. England might not be as hot as Italy, but there seemed to be no shortage of insect life.

  After the beds of tall flowers, through an archway in an enormous hedge, she suddenly came upon neatly mown lawns and saw the main house itself. Her heart sank. Her mother’s friends, or rather the friends of Godmother Sandy, lived here, the people who were letting them live in the cottage. It looked very grand: not the sort of house that beckoned you in with a smile, but the kind of house that had stood for hundreds of years, confident of itself and its grandeur, the kind of house that told you to keep out unless invited. Such a house meant rich people and this made Hyslop sigh. She did not care for rich people. Most of her mother’s friends had silly amounts of money: rich people with their rich toys. For as long as she could remember, they had flitted from one group of wealthy people to another, and Hyslop was tired of them all with their big houses and fast cars and boats, with servants who ran after them and poured them far too much wine. This part of the garden, so formal and tidy, must have staff, and she did not particularly want to meet the gardener. She decided it might be best to head back for the safety of the wild garden. She did not want to meet anyone at all, although it would be good to meet a dog or two. She had thought she had heard dogs barking earlier, and had a fantasy that the dogs would be let out. They would be big fierce dogs, wolf-like and terrifying, and they would all run at her snarling and foaming at the mouth, but she would not be afraid.

  She would stand her ground, looking at them calmly and they would whine and sit down in a circle around her. There would be a Doberman amongst them, Hyslop decided, with its lip curled up viciously. “I’m not afraid of you,” she would say, pointing a rebuking finger at it. Perhaps a German Shepherd would also be baring its teeth at her, but one look from Hyslop would calm it too. Snarling would turn to low growling, and foaming at the mouth to gentle drooling. Most children would run in terror but Hyslop had no fear of animals. It was people she usually wanted to run from. After a while she would put her hand out to the lead dog (there was always a pack leader), the fiercest of them all, and he would approach her slowly, head lowered submissively and tail wagging. Then the others would bark excitedly and follow his lead, all wagging tails and licking her hands. Perhaps the owner of the house would come running up and cry in astonishment, “Good heavens, I’ve never seen the dogs do that. How did you tame them?”

  “YOU THERE, LITTLE GIRL!” boomed a real voice, bursting into her reverie.

  Hyslop whirled round and saw an old man moving towards her at an alarming speed, pointing a walking stick at her.

  Chapter Six

  Hyslop meets a Peculiar Old Man, a Brimstone and some Peacocks

  “Can I help you?” The old man made the question sound more like a threat as he pointed his walking stick at her. “This is private property.”

  “I live in the cottage beyond the vegetable garden,” said Hyslop. She decided to remain as calm as she could, despite her heart thumping. She would treat him like a snarling Doberman and show no fear. Unlike with dogs, she knew she could outrun him if she had to, and she tensed her body, ready for flight.

  “You live there, do you?” he said in rather an unpleasant tone. “In Keeper’s Cottage!”

  “My mother is renting it from the owner of this house,” said Hyslop. Was renting the correct word when no money changed hands? What exactly was the connection between the owner of the house and her Godmother, Sandy? Perhaps this old man was the owner of the house, though he did not seem like the sort of rich person her mother usually targeted. Not like an Uncle at all. It was best to say nothing more. Perhaps she had already said too much.

  “Renting, are we!” he said, eyes bulging at her in an angry-old-man-staring kind of way. “And where do you pay your rent I wonder. Do you know who owns this house? Hmmm?”

  In fact Hyslop did not know who the owner of the house was so she said nothing, but held her head up in a calm “I’m not frightened of you” sort of way. It was an attitude she had learned over the years: you had to show that you were not being insolent, but that at the same time you were not afraid. Showing fear to any predator was dangerous.

  The old man stared at her for a while, then muttered s
omething to himself. It sounded like a rude swear-word, so Hyslop pretended not to have heard it. She was more sure of Italian swear words, but the English word sounded similar to a term she knew in Italian. At least he did not seem to be directing it at her; it was as if he had forgotten she was there. He leaned on his walking stick and looked beyond her. Suddenly his eyes took on a look of fondness as if he had just seen his favourite child, though there was no one in sight. He slapped his head with his hand and muttered to himself a few times. Hyslop decided that he was a very strange person, and wondered if all old people in England were as peculiar as this. As she watched him, his face creased into a lop-sided smile that showed his yellow old man’s teeth.

  “D’you know what that is?” he said. He seemed to be addressing her directly now, and Hyslop turned around to follow the direction of his gaze. He was staring at a butterfly.

  “It’s a butterfly,” she said. How young did he think she was, for goodness sake?

  “A butterfly. Yes, just a butterfly. That’s all it is to you, isn’t it? That’s all you can say about it. How pathetic!”

  “Well, I don’t know what else to say about it,” said Hyslop. “What do you want me to say? It’s a yellow butterfly,” she added to appease him further. It was indeed a very yellow butterfly, and Hyslop mused on this: a butterfly that was the colour of butter.

  “It’s a BRIMSTONE!” he said, glaring at her. “Don’t they teach you about butterflies in school these days?”

  “No, unfortunately we don’t learn about insects in school,” said Hyslop. She pondered for a moment. In the various French and Italian schools she had attended no one had taught her anything about butterflies. In France they were all papillons and in Italy they were farfalle. Maybe English children had learned about butterflies in school and she had missed out. That would be typical: something she would have been interested in learning about, and the moment might be gone forever. She would go back to English and arithmetic and geography in some strange class and never learn about butterflies.

  “Hah! I know who you are,” said the old man, pointing his walking stick at her. He didn’t seem to need it for walking as far as Hyslop could see, but used it for pointing and poking at things. She kept a careful watch on where he was pointing in case he turned violent with it. He was a very posh-sounding old man, but no one seemed to have told him it was rude to point at people and shout, let alone mutter swear words. “You’re guests of Sandy, aren’t you?” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “Haven’t been in touch for years, and now that you’ve run out of cash in Italy you sell her a sob story and come over here for some free board and lodging. Oh yes, I’ve heard all about it.”

  “Yes, I am Sandy’s Goddaughter,” said Hyslop with as much dignity as she could, “but I think it’s rude to talk about running out of cash,” she paused to show that she found it a vulgar word, “to a child. Quite bad manners in fact.” This seemed to be an effective strategy, as it made him frown and pause.

  “I suppose it is,” he said after a while, nodding slowly as if she had said something which, upon consideration, he agreed with. He glared at her again: “But if you’re so keen on manners, child,” he spat the word out at her, “don’t you know that it is rude to trespass in someone else’s garden.”

  “I am not trespassing, I am exploring,” said Hyslop.

  “Exploring in someone else’s property is trespassing,” he said. “I should have thought that would be perfectly clear to even the youngest and stupidest child. Or how would you define the word?”

  “Well, I didn’t know I was trespassing,” said Hyslop. For some reason she was not afraid of this rude old man, and the realisation astonished her. She thought of him as a noisy dog, growling and snarling but not dangerous: all bark and no bite. “Anyway,” she added, “I thought people in England were meant to be polite to guests, and I am a guest of my Godmother Sandy. I assumed that no one would mind if I took a walk around the garden. If this is your garden and you object to my presence, then I am very sorry.”

  There was a silence as he seemed to think about this. Then he began slapping his head again and Hyslop wondered if he were slightly mad. He was muttering swear words to himself as if he had forgotten that she was there, and suddenly in a strange accent, quite unlike his normal posh voice he bellowed a strange word at her: “Dunderheids!” He said it several times.

  Hyslop did not know what the word meant or why he had shouted it. She decided to ignore it. “Oh well, I had better go back now,” she said, pretending to consult a watch, as his slapping movements became more extreme. She thought it best to keep facing him and walk backwards rather than turn her back on him. Her talk of politeness to guests seemed to have deflected his aggression, but it was best to keep him in view. There was something unpredictable, almost wild about him.

  “Sandy’s Goddaughter, are you? Hey, don’t leave just yet! Come with me!” he ordered, waving his stick in her direction, setting off towards the other end of the garden. Hyslop followed him, even though he was – in the most literal sense of the word – a stranger, and Nonna and her school-teachers in Italy had always told her not to talk to strangers. She was curious, however, and reassured herself again that she could outrun him if she had to. Besides, he seemed to know Sandy. They passed many flowers and shrubs, all neatly pruned and tidy. A gardener had obviously been around this part of the garden. The old man peered closely at some of the flowers, and finally stopped beneath a tall purple-flowered bush and looked up. He raised his stick to point upwards.

  “D’you see?” he said, his voice much quieter and gentler now. “Do you see? The butterfly bush!”

  Hyslop looked up and opened her mouth wide in wonder. She had never seen anything like it in her life. The long purple flowers of the bush in front of her were covered in butterflies. At first they seemed like exotic blossoms shimmering in the breeze, then two of them flew up and changed places. Some were predominantly red, some were multicoloured, two were black and orange, and one was white.

  “They’re… they’re amazing!” she cried, her eyes shining. It was one of the most wonderful things she had ever seen. A butterfly bush! Why had no one told her about such things!

  “There are eight butterflies!” she cried, counting swiftly. “Oh, here’s another. Oh my goodness, nine!”

  She glanced at the old man. His face looked quite different, softer, almost kind.

  “Do you know their names?” he said.

  Hyslop frowned. Surely he didn’t have names for all the butterflies. Then she realised he did not mean names like Lucia or Carlo; he meant did she know what sort of butterflies they were.

  “Oh,” she said. There were no more yellow Brimstones as far as she could see. There was, however, a white one with black spots on its wings, and she was sure she had heard gardeners cursing about their caterpillars eating cabbages when they had lived with Uncle Paolo. Everyone got cross with the poor caterpillars and Hyslop had tried to stop the gardeners from killing them. “That one is a Cabbage White.”

  “Only if you’re American,” said the old man. “Are you American, little girl?”

  This was a random question.

  “No, I’m not,” she said.

  “Didn’t think you were,” he said. He slapped his head, then returned to pointing at the butterflies. “Strictly, there’s no such thing as a Cabbage White here. In America they call them that, but here in England we call our white butterflies different names. That one’s a Large White.”

  “I thought the caterpillars ate cabbages,” said Hyslop. She wanted to show that she did in fact know a thing or two about insects herself. She could have told him that the cabbages she had just seen in the vegetable garden beside the cottage were pretty much eaten up by caterpillars.

  “That’s true,” he said. “Bit of a nuisance at times.” He shrugged. “But then again, we’ve all got to eat. I don’t allow them to kill the caterpillars. It really annoys my son-in-law.” He pointed at a particularly beautiful butterfly
. “Don’t you know that one?”

  It was the most exquisite creature that Hyslop had ever seen. It had eyes on its wings like a male peacock and its colours were iridescent in the sunlight. She shook her head sadly.

  “No, I don’t know its name,” she said.

  “Dunderheids!” He said his strange word again, in an accent that sounded unlike his normal posh voice. Was he imitating someone? Hyslop wondered if he was talking about her, or the butterflies, or about some unspecified people in his own mind. It was as if he didn’t know he was saying the strange word, as if it had just tumbled out of his mouth. She hoped it wasn’t the name for the beautiful butterfly. That would be most unfortunate.

  “It’s a Peacock!” He spoke in his normal voice again. “See the Peacock eyes on its wings? Look, there’s another over there. Mind you, when I was a boy you used to see dozens round here.”

  He turned to face her, his eyes flashing: “I mean it, literally dozens. My grandfather’s garden was alive with them. The place was dancing with butterflies.” He almost sounded angry at her, then his shoulders sagged and he looked sad. He shook his head. “You just don’t see that now.”

  He was staring off into the distance as if at the long-gone world of his childhood, a world that had been full of those wonderful Peacocks. Hyslop looked back up at them. Seeing two of them was exciting enough, and she tried to imagine the beauty of dozens of them dancing around the purple bush. Where had they all gone, she wondered and the sheer sadness of it brought a stinging sensation to the back of her eyes.

  Chapter Seven

  Failed Pots and Blueberry Muffins

  As Hyslop ran back to the cottage for breakfast, Peacocks and Brimstones were still fluttering around the butterfly bush in her head. She had to go and look at them again more closely. She wanted to study the colour and the shape of those “eyes” on their wings. The strange old man had become less grumpy when she had showed an interest in the butterflies. He had stopped calling her a trespasser, and told her that he had a grove full of buddleia, or butterfly bushes. He had stopped scowling and muttering swear words when she asked him if she could come back and see the butterflies again. Hyslop knew that she would not be afraid to go back into his garden.