Grace Hardie

by Anne Melville

  ‘What’s happening?’ she cried. But Andy didn’t know, and by now the wood was silent again, offering no answers.

  Chapter Two

  It was David who on the first day of the holidays had suggested that they should all search out their bows and arrows. David was the cleverest of the four elder Hardie boys, and had brought home the best set of examination marks on his school report. But he was not a fast runner like his twin brother, Kenneth; nor was he a good cricketer like Frank and Philip. He had had enough of racing and team games during the school term, and he wanted to play something at which he could be best.

  ‘We ought to wait for Grace,’ objected Philip as they lifted their bows off the rack in the carriage house.

  ‘She’s with Miss Sefton. We can play Robin Hood another day. Why don’t we get some practice? Just shooting at a target, to see who hits it most.’

  Accepting the idea, their eldest brother took charge. Frank was twelve years old: a carefully efficient boy. He insisted on inspecting each bow to make sure that there was no danger of any accidental snapping when it was drawn for the first time after a three-month gap. It was Frank, too, who decided that it would be a waste of time to make a proper archery target. Instead, they should go down to the wood, choose a tree, and see who – taking one step backwards after each attempt – could hit it from the furthest distance away.

  The contest was interrupted by two messages brought from the house by Andy Frith, the gardener’s son. Philip, who often helped in his father’s plant experiments by pricking out seedlings or hand-pollinating flowers which were to be crossed with each other, was asked to go at once to the glasshouse to draw the shades. Frank was given a greater responsibility. He was to look after three-year-old Jay, who arrived bubbling with excitement at his unexpected release from the nursery to play with the big boys.

  ‘I’m a Red Indian!’ he announced, sticking a pigeon’s feather into his fair hair; and the others agreed that they would be Red Indians as well, at least until Philip returned to continue the target competition. They set off in single file in search of cowboys to fight. It was perhaps because Jay was the smallest, with eyes nearest to the ground, that he was the first to see a quick movement in the undergrowth. ‘It’s a tiger, it’s a tiger!’ he shouted.

  ‘Can’t be,’ said Kenneth scornfully. ‘Expect it was a squirrel.’

  ‘It might be a fox.’ David moved forward cautiously with his bow at the ready.

  ‘It was Pepper.’ Frank was more realistic. But Jay was not to be talked out of one of his pretendings.

  ‘It’s a tiger,’ he insisted. ‘Going to eat Pepper. Or the baby rabbits.’

  ‘It’s more likely to eat you,’ suggested David, and Jay shivered in delighted anxiety.

  ‘Tiger hunt!’ he demanded. ‘Want a tiger hunt.’

  ‘This way, then.’ Kenneth set off in pursuit.

  ‘Hold on.’ Frank, as always, took charge. ‘If you chase it, it will just run away. We have to make a circle and drive it into the centre. Kenneth, you go to the oak tree and work in from there. David, you start at the ditch.’

  ‘What about me?’ Jay did not intend to be left out. It was his tiger.

  Frank considered how best to keep the three-year-old out of the way. ‘You can be the bait,’ he said. ‘We’ll tie you to a tree and then when the tiger comes to eat you up we’ll be able to kill it.’ He laughed at the anxiety on Jay’s face. ‘I’m only pretending, silly. It isn’t a real tiger.’ But he recognized that to his little brother a pretended tiger was as dangerous as a real one. ‘All right. You can be the look-out.’ He lifted Jay up to sit astride a strong branch of a tree. ‘Tell us if you see the tiger coming this way.’

  ‘Can tigers climb trees?’

  ‘Not English tigers,’ said Frank reassuringly, and went off to direct his twin brothers in the chase. Pepper – because of course it was Pepper – proved to be a cooperative participant in the game. Instead of running away he was ready to play, teasing the boys by first disappearing and then jumping out in front of them, climbing a young sapling with an agility which would have alarmed Jay if he had seen it, and breaking off from the role of quarry to stalk a field mouse with an intent quietness rivalling that of his hunters.

  After a little while, however, he abandoned the mouse and turned in the direction of the house, threading his way in a leisurely manner between the trees.

  ‘Tiger approaching oak tree!’ called Frank. ‘Kenneth, cut it off.’

  Kenneth stepped forward, his bow at the ready. The cat hesitated and turned away, only to find his way blocked by David. Either alarmed or angry, he bolted away towards a more heavily wooded area. A squeak of horror revealed that he had climbed the very tree in which Jay was keeping watch.

  ‘To the rescue!’ shouted Frank, and the three brothers, from different directions, rushed forward without attempting to keep their footsteps quiet. The twins were the first to arrive. Pepper, realizing that there was one boy above in the tree as well as the two on the ground, froze into stillness with claws gripping the tree trunk.

  Kenneth, carried away by the excitement of the hunt and intent on saving his little brother, was the first to fire his arrow. Even with an unmoving target his shot went wide, posing as much danger to Jay as to the cat. But Pepper seemed to recognize that the game had become dangerous. He turned his head and snarled at the two nine-year-olds, spitting at them with a ferocity that made him seem the wild animal which they had been pretending him to be. David was just as excited by the chase as his impulsive twin, but faced their quarry with more care, moving his feet until his balance was steady and biting his lip with concentration as he drew the bow and took aim.

  ‘No!’ shouted Frank, recognizing as he arrived on the scene that their game was out of hand. But he was too late. David’s arrow had already left the bow, and he was too close to miss.

  None of the four brothers ever forgot the sound of the agonized yowl with which Pepper fell to the ground. The wailing continued for a few seconds as he tried to free himself from the arrow lodged in his eye, but then gave way to a lower sound; a rattling growl which forced its way up from his stomach as his body jerked convulsively.

  ‘Stop it!’ pleaded Kenneth, unable to bear the sound of Pepper’s agony. Frank was silent, aghast at what had happened, and Jay was crying. David, slowly lowering his bow, was only just making the transition from pride at hitting his target to a realization of what he had done. But to Kenneth every jerk and groan of the wounded cat went straight to his heart until he could stand it no longer. He knew what ought to be done, because he had often heard his father describe how it had been necessary on one of his expeditions in China to shoot a mule badly injured in a landslide. ‘Stop it!’ he cried again – and then, because Pepper continued to writhe on the ground, he picked up a log of wood and hit the cat three times hard on the head.

  The silence as the wailing came to an end was absolute. No birds sang in the trees; no breeze stirred the leaves. Even Jay, wide-eyed with shock, had ceased to cry. When Philip, who had heard Pepper’s first squeal of pain from as far away as the glasshouse, came running to see what had happened, his footsteps were heard approaching through an emptiness so intense that the boys felt alone in the world.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, not immediately catching sight of Pepper’s body; but nobody answered. Frank and David and Kenneth were facing the same appalling question, which they did not need to put into words: what were they going to say to Grace?

  They were all tempted by the same thought. If they promised each other not to tell, Grace would never discover what had happened. She would assume that Pepper had got lost or had had some kind of accident.

  But Frank’s nature was too honest for him to consider any deceit for more than a few seconds; and the twins, knowing this, realized also that Jay was too little to keep a secret. They would have to confess.

  There was no need to do so in words. Seeing Philip’s eyes flicker with surprise, David and
Kenneth turned and found that their sister had arrived on the scene herself. She was wearing the linen smock and black stockings which were her schoolroom uniform. Why had Miss Sefton chosen today to release her from lessons! And how long had she been there?

  It was not a question which any of them could put to her, for their mouths were too dry to speak. Only Philip, innocent of guilt, was able to swallow the lump in his throat. ‘I only just came,’ he said.

  Grace looked at her eldest brother, knowing that he would have been in charge of whatever had been going on; and Frank recognized his responsibility.

  ‘It was an accident,’ he said. ‘We didn’t mean – we’re very sorry, all of us.’

  Grace, still without speaking, looked down at Pepper’s body, and at the arrow. For a moment her eyes seemed to move in circles, as though the world had gone out of focus. Then she stared first at David’s bow and afterwards at the bloodstained lump of wood which Kenneth was still holding. Her face was white, making her eyes look blacker than usual and, although she did not appear to be conscious of the fact, she had begun to gulp for breath in a way that often presaged one of her bouts of illness.

  Frank realized that it was up to him to break the silence. There was nothing to be done for Pepper, but some kind of positive action might be helpful to Grace. He had noticed that Andy was standing a little way behind her, half hidden by the trees. ‘Bring us a spade,’ he ordered; and then announced to the others, ‘We’ll have a proper funeral.’

  ‘Want to get down.’ Jay, feeling himself forgotten in his tree, began to wail again until Frank lifted him to the ground. He ran across to his sister and tugged at her unresponsive hand. ‘Pepper’s only pretending,’ he said – and then, seeing that she was not reassured, ‘We were only pretending too.’

  ‘Leave her alone, Jay,’ said Frank. He took off his jacket and spread it on the ground, indicating to Grace that she should sit on it. But she shook her head, continuing to stand motionless as the funeral got under way.

  Frank dug a hole himself, dismissing the gardener’s son as soon as he had handed over the spade. Philip disappeared to pick wild flowers, and David looked for a piece of sacking in which Pepper’s body could be wrapped. When the grave was ready, all five boys stood round it, singing a hymn and reciting the Lord’s Prayer, but Grace could not be persuaded to join in. Only when Frank picked up Pepper’s body, ready to put it into the grave, did she give a little moan and step forward to touch her pet for the last time. There was a moment in which she seemed to stop breathing. Then she turned away and ran through the wood in the direction of the house.

  ‘D’you think she’ll tell?’ asked David anxiously. Their father did not beat them very often, but he hit hard if he thought the crime deserved it.

  ‘Of course she’ll tell,’ said Frank resignedly. Grace was only six. ‘You’d better run after her, Kenneth. Not to stop her. Just to make sure she’s all right. And then go and find Nanny Crocker and tell her that Grace is having one of her wheezy chests. I heard it, just before she went.’

  Kenneth nodded and set off in pursuit. Frank put Pepper’s body into the hole he had dug, and each of the boys threw in a handful of earth before using the spade to shovel the ground level. Although Grace was no longer watching, they continued to behave with the formal gravity that they supposed she wanted. Their ceremonial was mixed with an uneasiness which they shared but could not have explained. Each of them, on any day in the year, was accustomed to carry the guilt of a variety of sins: food stolen from the garden, rules broken at school, truths suppressed to have the effect almost of lies, neglected duties, small disloyalties – all these offences were to some extent matters of deliberate choice. In committing a small crime they took into account not only the likelihood of punishment but the probable disturbance of conscience. It seemed unfair that something which they had never intended to happen should now overwhelm them with guilt. Frank had spoken sincerely when he claimed that the killing of Pepper was an accident. But they all knew that Grace could not be expected to believe that.

  The ceremony was over. Philip arranged his armful of poppies and cornflowers above the disturbed earth. Frank picked up his jacket and took Jay’s hand. The four boys walked together through the wood and up the hill to face the music.

  Chapter Three

  Halfway up the hill Grace was forced to pause, gasping for breath; but when she saw Kenneth emerge from the wood she set off again, panting and crying at the same time. Kenneth was a fast runner. If he did not catch her up it was because he was not really trying; but she did not look round again. He could say he was sorry as often as he liked: she wasn’t going to listen. She was never going to speak to him again, nor to David. She was prepared to believe that Philip had had no hand in the death of her pet, and Jay was too young to have understood what the others were doing. With more difficulty, she could accept that Frank was horrified by what had happened. He never told lies, and she had read the shock in his eyes. But David with his arrow and Kenneth with his lump of wood had hurt Pepper and made him dead. Grace vowed that she would never forgive them.

  She ran first to the nursery for comfort, but Nanny Crocker, who was usually there, was not there today: nor was there any sign of Milly, the nurserymaid. Disappointed, Grace pulled off her straw hat and threw it on the nursery floor. Then she hesitated for a moment. She was not supposed to bother her mother in the mornings, and for the past two weeks Mama had been ill, so that all the children had been restricted to a single short visit to her bedroom just before their own bedtime. But she would surely not mind being disturbed now, for such a special reason.

  There was a strange atmosphere of bustle outside Mrs Hardie’s room. Milly was carrying two jugs of hot water along the corridor as Grace approached, and one of the housemaids was hurrying behind her with a pile of clean sheets. Grace tried to follow them in, but was stopped by Nanny Crocker. ‘Not now, dear,’ she said, and closed the door in Grace’s face.

  It was the third betrayal of a day in which no one was prepared to love her or be kind to her. Her tearfulness turned to an angry resentment; but then she remembered that there was another way into her mother’s bedroom. She opened the dressing room door.

  In the middle of the room stood the cradle which had once belonged to Grace herself, and more recently to Jay. A strange woman in a blue uniform and white belt was bending over it.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Grace.

  ‘I’m Nurse Bruton. I’ve come to look after your mother and your new baby brother for a little while. He’s just this minute arrived. Would you like to blow him a kiss? But you mustn’t touch him or come near him, because he’s very new and small.’

  ‘I want Mama,’ said Grace.

  ‘Not just now, dear. She’s having a little sleep.’

  ‘I want Mama.’

  ‘Run along back to your classroom, there’s a good girl.’ Grace felt herself being pushed, kindly but very firmly, out of the room. Once again a door was closed, shutting her out.

  Banished to the corridor, Grace stamped both feet in frustration. What right had a stranger to keep her away from her mother? She tried the door again and found that it was not locked, so for a second time she went into the dressing room. Nurse Bruton had disappeared, but the way to Mrs Hardie’s bedroom was still barred, this time by Milly.

  ‘I want … I want …’ Grace struggled to force the words out. But the wheezing in her chest, which had begun when she first saw Pepper’s body lying on the ground and which had been made worse by her run up the hill, seemed no longer to be only inside her body, but to encircle it like an iron band which was being slowly tightened. She was unable to speak; almost unable to breathe. Milly’s eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘Stay just where you are, there’s a good girl,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and fetch the doctor to you. He’s but this minute left your mother.’

  The nurserymaid hurried away, leaving unguarded the connecting door to Mrs Hardie’s room. Grace took two steps towards it but then
was forced by a lack of breath to stop. Her wheezing was so loud and painful that perhaps it disturbed the new baby, who began to cry. The sound resembled the mewing of a kitten, reminding Grace how she had first held Pepper on her lap just after she had seen Jay for the first time in this same cradle. But Pepper was dead. She would never hold him again.

  She looked down at the baby, whose red and wrinkled face screwed up as he cried. How could anyone want a baby as ugly as this? And why had Mama not insisted on having a girl, when that was what she had asked for and as good as promised? There were enough boys in this family already: horrid, rough, cruel, hateful boys. This new one should be sent back to wherever he had come from. Grace gave a petulant push at the cradle before forcing out another wheezing breath.

  A crash was followed by a single cry. She had pushed harder than she realized, overturning the cradle and throwing the baby to the ground. A soft white shawl had been wrapped round his body and the top of his head, but he had fallen out sideways, banging his forehead on the ground. Had she killed him? It was not his fault that he had been sent by mistake. What should she do? Whom should she tell? Guilt paralysed her, rooting her to the spot.

  She heard a footstep behind her and felt someone brushing past. It was Kenneth. Following her, he must have seen what happened. He wasted no time in talking, but set the cradle upright again. Then, bending to the floor, he carefully picked up the baby. Grace put her fingers to her mouth and began to bite her nails without noticing what she was doing. The baby’s head, unsupported by Kenneth’s arm, hung downwards just as Pepper’s had done when Frank was about to put him into the grave. There was no arrow and no blood; that was the only difference.

  Now Kenneth was tugging at the shawl to make it look as though it had not been disarranged. Grace tried to help him; but, although most of her body was hot and sticky, her fingertips were as cold and clumsy as though she had just been making a snowman in December.