The Peppermint Pig

by Nina Bawden

  Poll guessed that her mother did not think the reasons particularly good ones but knew better than to ask more. She turned to her father. ‘Are you really going away to America?’ Even as she asked this she knew it couldn’t be true and started to smile.

  But she was wrong: it was true. He shook his head and said gently, ‘I think so, my little love. Your Uncle Edmund is there as you know, working on his fruit farm in California. I shall join him to start with. After that – who knows? America is a land of great opportunities. I may make a fortune!’ He pressed her hand and gazed beyond her, his eyes bright with dreams in the firelight.

  Poll heard her mother sigh, a small, cut-off sound. She tugged at her father’s sleeve to bring him back out of his dream and said, feeling hollow inside, ‘If you go away, what will happen to us?’

  He looked at her, frowning slightly. ‘Nothing, my Pretty-Poll. I’ll send for you when I’m established, of course. Until then, you will go to my sisters, your Aunt Sarah and your Aunt Harriet, in Norfolk.’

  Mother stirred and the silk of her dress rustled. She said, drily and politely as if speaking to a stranger, ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you, James?’ And then, to Poll, ‘Go upstairs now, it’s time. Tell George and Lily to come in here, please, because we must talk to them. And tell Theo to get into bed. I’ll explain to him in the morning. I don’t want him lying awake all night worrying. You know what an old worry-box he can be!’ She gave a light, breathless laugh, although there was nothing to laugh at, as far as Poll could see, and went on, ‘Not that there is anything to worry about, your father knows what is best for us all, you must not forget that. But be a good girl and do as you’re told just for once. Into bed and to sleep and not one word to Theo.’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Poll said. But she crossed her fingers behind her back as she spoke and kept them crossed while she kissed her parents goodnight and ran down the passage to tell George and Lily, doing their homework by the range in the kitchen, that they were wanted at once in the parlour. Then she went straight upstairs to tell Theo.

  He had hitched his nightshirt over the big solid knob of the brass bed he and George shared, and was swinging dreamily backwards and forwards. Poll had been forbidden to do this because she was too heavy now and might tear her gown, but Theo was lighter than she was. He went on swinging, though more slowly, while she told him what had happened downstairs. His bare legs dangled like pale, peeled willow wands and his thin feet were blue.

  ‘Get into bed,’ Poll said. ‘You’ll catch your death. It’s like ice in this room.’

  He unhitched his nightshirt and climbed on to the high bed, rubbing his feet back to life. His huge eyes shone in the light of the candle like pools of blue water. He said, ‘Who stole what?’

  Poll perched beside him, shivering, plumping the soft feather bolster up round her. ‘Mother said money. Dad didn’t say. Only that it was the old man’s only son and it would break his heart if he knew. Old Rowland’s heart.’

  She stopped. Old Rowland owned the firm Father worked for. Poll had seen him once. He was a short, stout man with a barrel-shaped belly and a red jolly face. He had said, ‘So this is your little maid, James. Pretty-Poll,’ pinched her cheek, rather hard, and given her sixpence. Poll thought of his heart breaking and saw it, in her mind’s eye, like the cracked white pudding basin that had fallen in two halves when Mother dropped it on the stone floor of the scullery

  Theo said, ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Dad took the blame. Owned up…’

  ‘To something he hadn’t done? That someone else had?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She wasn’t certain. She could barely remember. Dad going away had seemed so much more important.

  ‘Hmmm,’ Theo said in a funny voice.

  ‘What do you mean, Hmmm?’

  He shook the hair out of his eyes and blinked at her. Then whispered, ‘Suppose it wasn’t ordinary money that was stolen, but gold?’ Poll stared, bewildered, and he went on, ‘Gold leaf, anyway Those shavings he brought home last week for the Christmas cards. In the tin. They’re valuable, aren’t they? Real gold, he said so.’

  ‘Just shavings,’ Poll said. ‘What was left over after they’d finished painting the carriages. Like – like gleanings in a corn field.’

  Poll had never lived in the country but her mother had told her that when she was young she had gone gleaning after the harvest was finished, picking up the fat ears of corn that the farmer’s horse-rake had missed and left in the stubble.

  Theo said, ‘There was an awful lot, though. Pounds and pounds worth, I’d think. A fortune. If all those scraps were put together and melted down.’

  He bounced up and down, very excited, squeaking the bed springs.

  ‘Theo! Dad’s not a thief!’

  He rolled his eyes upwards as if he thought she was too stupid for words. ‘I didn’t quite mean that. Just that perhaps he thought he could take it, like gleanings, and then, later on, someone said, Where’s all that gold gone?’ He grinned at Poll shyly as if wondering if this really made sense (or if it didn’t, if he could make her believe that it did), then sighed and said, ‘He might be scared to say then, mightn’t he?’

  ‘You’re just making a story up. Dad’s never frightened of anything. Besides, it was money stolen, Mother said.’ But Poll was less sure than she sounded. Like Mother, Theo enjoyed telling stories and his were not always true. This one sounded plain silly, Poll thought. On the other hand, Theo was older than she was and everyone said he was clever.

  He was thinking now, huddled up in the feather bed, chin on his thin, pointed knees. He said, after a bit, ‘There could be two things, couldn’t there? Not connected. I mean this money gone that Dad didn’t take and the gold that he did. Not meaning to steal at the time, but it would look bad if it came out, as things are.’

  ‘I think you’re horrible,’ Poll said. ‘A horrible, mean, skinny beast.’

  Theo giggled. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’

  Poll felt as if she would burst with rage. ‘I’ll tell Dad what you said. I will!’

  Theo shook his head solemnly. ‘You mustn’t do that. He’d be upset, thinking you thought he’d really done something wrong.’

  ‘It wasn’t me thought that, it was you.’

  ‘He won’t know that, will he? Not if you say it!’

  Poll was muddled by this. She was often muddled by Theo who had a tortuous mind. Listening to him was like being trapped in the maze at Hampton Court, she thought suddenly: all those paths twisting and turning and no clear way out. She remembered how furious she had been with him earlier when she came in cold and unhappy from school and found Mother cuddling him. She longed to give him a good punch to relieve her feelings but he always yelled when she hit him – sometimes he even yelled when he just thought she was going to – and that would bring Mother up in a temper.

  He was looking at her with a nervous expression as if he knew what she was thinking. Or perhaps he was ashamed of the things he had said and was afraid that she might, after all, tell their father.

  He said, ‘Really, Poll, I think we’d best just keep quiet about it. Not a word to anyone, not even to Lily and George. Dad may have forgotten he brought home that gold. And if you remind him, he might feel he’s got to own up to that too – you know how he likes to set us a good example! And stealing gold is worse than stealing money.’ He was watching her. She stared back until his eyes fell. He said in a hushed voice, ‘He might go to prison!’

  ‘I’d rather he went to prison than to America. We could visit him and take pies,’ Poll said stoutly. She had a story book about a little girl whose father had been sent to prison for debt. There was a picture of the girl carrying a basket full of pies into her father’s cell, and the poor thin father leaping up, holding out his arms and calling her his little angel. Thinking of this picture, and then of her father going to America and being lonely and sad without her, made Poll start to cry
. Her throat and eyes burned and fat, warm, salt tears rolled down her face.

  ‘Dad wouldn’t rather go to prison, you juggins!’ Theo put an arm round Poll and dabbed at her cheeks with his other hand and an edge of the sheet. ‘Don’t cry, you’re not Lily! Dad wants to go to America, you fool. He’s wanted to for ages and ages, ever since Uncle Edmund went and started writing back letters. It’s an adventure for him, don’t you see?’

  ‘Old people don’t have adventures, it’s you that’s the fool! And he’s going without us, that’s what’s awful!’ Poll felt she would never be able to bear this, she would die rather! ‘I’ll die, I’ll die if he does, I won’t go to horrible Norfolk,’ she cried, banging her fists up and down on the bolster until feathers and dust came out of the seams, making her sneeze.

  Theo was snorting with laughter. He said, gasping and snorting, ‘Of course you won’t go if you die, unless you go nailed down in your coffin! But what’s wrong with Norfolk? It sounds a good place to me, a good deal more interesting than London, according to Mother.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  AND SO IT turned out to be.

  A week later, the four children travelled to Norfolk alone. Mother said it would be easier to clear up the house with them out of the way and she and Father would follow as soon as they could. Until then, the aunts would look after them. ‘Be good now,’ Mother said. ‘Your Aunt Sarah has very high standards.’

  Aunt Sarah met them when they changed trains at Norwich. Almost dark then, it was quite dark when they reached the Town and the first interesting thing they saw when they came out of the station was a brightly lit butcher’s shop, decorated for Christmas with holly and a crib in one window and a live monster in the other – Grummett’s Christmas Beast, a great bullock with bloodshot eyes and tight dark curls between fierce, curving horns, stamping about in his pen and blowing out foggy breath.

  ‘Poor creature,’ Lily said. ‘Oh, the poor thing! I think it’s dreadful to put him on show when he’ll be killed before Christmas.’

  ‘Silly-Lily,’ George said. ‘You eat meat, don’t you?’

  Poll and Theo were enchanted. Not only by the Beast, but by the chance to press their noses against the window and peer at the very same butcher who had chopped off their grandmother’s finger.

  ‘Is it the same one, Aunt Sarah?’ Theo asked. ‘You were there, weren’t you?’

  He looked at Aunt Sarah hopefully. Perhaps she would have a better story than even Mother had told them. She might know what had happened to the chopped finger!

  Poll had been thinking along the same lines. She said suddenly, ‘If he sold it to eat, I expect it would taste like a sausage with bone in it.’

  ‘More meaty’ Theo said. ‘They put bread in sausages.’

  ‘Shut up,’ George muttered, looking anxiously at Aunt Sarah. She was tall, like Lily, and as solemnly pretty. Her high, handsome forehead, usually smooth as pale silk, was crinkled now with shock or distress.

  She said, ‘I’m surprised you know about that. My poor mother! No, it’s not the same butcher, dear. He passed on some years ago. Although it says Grummett and Son over the shop, he had no boy of his own and the business belongs to Saul Grummett now. His nephew.’

  ‘Not Saul Grummett?’ Theo cried. This was getting better and better! ‘The one who tried to shoot Mother?’

  This was one of her very best stories. Mother had had many young men after her before she got married and Saul Grummett was one. He was a bit of a fool, Mother said, always pestering her, though she’d made it clear she’d have nothing to do with him. Then, one market day, he’d come after her in the Town Square and shouted, ‘If you won’t marry me, I’ll shoot myself and by God I’ll take you with me.’ Mother stood still. Saul meant what he said – he might be a fool but he was a dangerous fool – and everyone in the busy Square knew it. He faced Mother, the gun trembling in his hands, and you could have heard a pin drop. Mother looked down the gun barrel and said, ‘Go and put your father’s gun back before he misses it, Saul Grummett. And while you’re about it, get your mother to put you safely to bed. I wouldn’t have you if you were stuffed with gold.’

  Theo said, ‘Dad says, if he’d been Saul Grummett, he’d have let her have it with both barrels.’ He stopped and added, uncertainly, ‘That was a joke, of course.’

  Aunt Sarah had closed her eyes as if she had a bad headache. Opening them, she said, ‘Grummett is a common name in Norfolk and that was a different Saul Grummett. He is dead too, the poor, innocent soul, and glad to be in his grave, I would think, if he knew you were spreading this shameful story around. Though it’s not to his shame, altogether. I must say, I’m surprised at your mother.’

  She breathed deeply to steady herself, then smiled in a determined way, as if it was her duty to smile and she would do her duty whatever it cost her. She said, ‘Look at the pretty crib, children. Grummett always makes a beautiful Christmas crib.’

  Theo and Poll inspected the crib without enthusiasm. Mr Grummett, a whiskery gentleman, saw their innocent faces looking in at his window and smiled cheerily. George was frowning. When they moved on, up the street, he held Poll and Theo back and whispered, ‘Keep your big mouths quiet, will you? Aunt Sarah is nice, but she doesn’t like blood-and-guts talk and it’s not fair to tease her.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Theo said. ‘She’s niminy-piminy.’

  ‘Well, then. It’s not fair to Mother! Aunt Sarah will think…’

  ‘Think what?’

  But George was still hesitating. As they passed under a street lamp, Poll and Theo saw his face, screwed up and bothered. At last he said, ‘Oh, never mind. But you know Mother hates being what she calls beholden to people. Well, we’re beholden to Aunt Sarah now.’

  Poll said, ‘Why?’ at once, but George didn’t answer because Aunt Sarah had turned back and was calling, ‘Come along, we’re nearly there, children.’

  ‘There’ was a line of neat brick cottages built in a terrace. Aunt Sarah said, ‘This is our house, and the one next door is where you are going to live. Aunt Harriet has set tea for you there. We thought it would be nice for you to have tea in your own home after your journey.’

  The door was open. Aunt Sarah led them through a short, dark, narrow passage to a back room, lit by a brass oil lamp with a white shade hanging above a round table. The room was so small and the table so big that they had to edge round it to kiss Aunt Harriet when she appeared at the door of the scullery.

  ‘Come in, my chicks. Welcome home,’ Aunt Harriet cried. She was as tall as Aunt Sarah but her face was brick red and bony instead of soft and pale, and she had sharp, merry eyes, crow-footed with smiling. She hugged them all hard, till they gasped. She said, ‘What bean poles!’ to George and to Lily, and to Theo, ‘Gracious me, still knee high to a grasshopper! You’re the one takes after your dear little mother, I can see that with half an eye.’ Theo scowled and Poll was angry on his behalf because she knew how sensitive he was about being so small, but when Aunt Harriet put a finger under her chin and said, ‘Well, cherry pie, got a smile for Aunt Harry?’ she couldn’t help smiling up at the weather-beaten face that beamed down at her.

  Theo said, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’

  ‘If you want to pay a visit,’ Aunt Sarah said, ‘the closet is out in the yard. Take a candle. And there are wash stands upstairs. Hang your coats in the passage and go up to wash before tea.’

  Aunt Harriet took Theo out through the scullery; Aunt Sarah led the others upstairs. There were two doors at the top, one on each side of the stairs. ‘Theo and George will sleep in the back bedroom,’ Aunt Sarah said. ‘Your mother in the front, and Poll in the boxroom. Lily will stay next door with Harriet and me. Is that all right, Lily? Shall you mind being apart from the others?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Lily said. ‘I’d like that, Aunt Sarah!’

  Poll was surprised that she sounded so eager but Aunt Sarah looked pleased. She touched Lily’s cheek gently. The flame of the candle bent in the draught and
grew tall, filling the front room with huge shadows. Aunt Sarah opened a low door, down two steps in the corner, and said, ‘Here is your room, Poll, my dear.’

  It was tiny. An old iron bed, a chest of drawers under the window and a tin bath hanging on the back of the door. ‘Big enough for a little one,’ Aunt Sarah said, smiling.

  She set the candle down on the wash stand in what was to be Mother’s room and poured water from the ewer into the basin. ‘Wash your face and hands properly now, not just a lick and a promise, you’re covered in smuts from the train. Your trunk has arrived but you need not change your clothes till tomorrow. Just come down when you’re ready.’

  She left them alone. Lily and Poll washed in cold water and dried on a rough, sweet-smelling towel. Poll whispered, ‘It’s a little house, isn’t it? Our house in London was huge. Where will Ruby sleep?’

  Lily said, ‘Sssh…’ and glanced over her shoulder. She whispered back, ‘Ruby’s not coming.’

  George was scrubbing his face with the flannel. He put out his hand for the towel and said, ‘We can’t afford a maid now, don’t be stupid, Poll.’

  ‘I’m not stupid. Why can’t we afford it?’

  George sighed. He and Lily looked at each other over Poll’s head and she was suddenly angry because they seemed to know something she didn’t know.

  George said, ‘I did try to explain…’

  ‘Mother should have done,’ Lily said. ‘Why everything is always left to me, I don’t know! Listen, Poll! Dad hasn’t any money now he’s not working and he won’t have for ages and ages. All our furniture has to be sold to pay for his ticket to America – that’s why he and Mother have stayed behind now and Aunt Sarah will have to pay for us, for the present. The rent for this house, and our food, and – oh – everything!’ She spoke in a low, scolding voice as if all this was in some way Poll’s fault. Poll stared at her, sullen-faced, hating her. Lily said frantically, ‘Don’t you understand? If it wasn’t for Aunt Sarah, we’d be in the workhouse!’