by Nina Bawden
*
It might have seemed, to most people, a strange, lonely sort of place, unsuitable for a little girl to grow up in. Certainly Mr Smith had thought so. ‘It’s no place for a child,’ he had said, when he had engaged Annie MacLaren as his housekeeper, just after he came to the island. ‘You must leave her with someone. A relation. Surely she must have some relation.’
‘She has no one but me,’ Annie MacLaren had said. ‘I’ll see she’s not in your way.’
Mr Smith had frowned. ‘I’ve had—business worries. I must have peace and quiet. A child is out of the question.’
‘I’ll keep her quiet,’ Annie MacLaren had said flatly. Her old face, stony and stubborn, showed none of the despair she was feeling. Until a few months back, she and her brother had farmed a small croft. The brother had died and she had had to sell the croft for a pathetically small sum which was now almost gone: she was desperate for this chance to keep body and soul together.
‘I must have absolute privacy. Absolute. Whatever goes on in this house, whoever comes—not a word must get out.’ He looked carefully at Annie MacLaren. ‘Do you find that strange?’
‘A man has a right to mind his own business,’ Annie MacLaren had said.
‘Not an easy thing to do, with a child in the house.’
‘She’s only little.’
‘She’ll grow. Chatter to other children, carry tales …’
‘Not this one.’ Annie MacLaren had been nervous of the effect her insistence might have, because if she lost this job, what would she do, where would she go? But she had insisted just the same. ‘The others won’t play with her.’ She had hesitated, wondering how much this city-bred man from England would understand. ‘They say she’s bewitched,’ she had said finally. ‘A witch’s daughter.’
‘Bewitched?’ Mr Smith’s eyes were hidden behind his dark glasses, but his lips smiled. ‘Bewitched?’ he repeated, and suddenly burst out laughing. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
But because he had laughed, Annie MacLaren was deeply offended and refused to tell him, even when he said, on a wave of good humour, that it was all right, she could bring the child if she wanted, not even much later, when they were all settled at Luinpool and he would play with Perdita, when he was in a good mood, calling her his little changeling, his little witch….
*
Now, three years later, he still thought it an excellent joke.
CHAPTER TWO
A PIECE OF GLASS WORTH A KING’S RANSOM
THE MOON, FALLING full on her face, woke Perdita up. She slipped from her bed to look out of the window. The clouds were hanging in a long, black ridge over Ben Luin and the moon was drifting in a clear sky. The air was almost still: the wind pump was still creaking, but only slowly, and the surface of the loch was silvery calm.
Perdita felt sticky from sleep. She would have liked to open the window but the sash was jammed tight with wooden wedges because Annie MacLaren believed the night air was dangerous to health. As a result, Perdita’s tiny bedroom, which was only just large enough to hold a small bed and a chair, was airless and hot, so hot that she felt she could not bear it a moment longer. It looked cool and peaceful outside. She took her dress from the hook on the back of the door and slipped it on over her nightdress which, like her dress, was one of Annie MacLaren’s cut down.
She opened her door. Across the landing, Annie MacLaren’s door was open, but Perdita knew she was safely asleep because she could hear the old woman muttering and creaking the bed springs: when she was asleep, she lay still. Barefoot, Perdita slipped past her door and down the stairs. At the bottom, she looked along the hall and saw a light under Mr Smith’s door. She heard him laugh and crept closer, to listen.
‘Golf clubs,’ he said, ‘Golf clubs! For a holiday on Skua! What d’you think this place is, man? A holiday camp?’
A strange voice answered, sounding injured. ‘How was I to know? Scottish island, you said. Well, they play a lot of golf in Scotland, I thought. So I bought a set of clubs. Sort of disguise, like. Cost me a packet, I don’t mind telling you.’
‘Disguise? You might as well have worn a thumping great wig. Or a false nose. It wouldn’t have been any more noticeable. Golf clubs!’ Mr Smith snorted. ‘A good laugh like that will be right round the island by morning.’
Perdita thought he sounded in a good-humoured, teasing mood. At the same time, she realised she was hungry. A bowl of porridge was not very much to go to bed on. It filled you up at the time, but left you empty later. And Annie MacLaren was safely asleep. She would never know Perdita had disobeyed her.
She opened the door a crack. The oil lamp was turned low: most of the light came from the peat fire, which, in spite of the warm night, was banked up high. Two men sat on either side of it: Mr Smith and the short, fat man she had seen on the jetty this morning. Between them was a small table with two glasses and a bottle of whisky on it: on another, larger table, that stood between Perdita and the fire, the remains of a good meal. She saw bread, cheese, butter—and felt her stomach groan with emptiness. Holding her breath, she slipped just inside the room.
‘You didn’t, by any chance, ask where the golf club was?’ Mr Smith was asking, politely.
‘Well—as a matter of fact—oh, all right, I did. Mr Tarbutt just said there wasn’t one.’
Mr Smith reached for his glass and drained it. ‘He didn’t laugh in your face? No—he wouldn’t do that. Too polite. But it’ll make talk, that’s the pity. Still, maybe it’ll be all right. Maybe they’ll just think you’re a bit cracked. As long as they don’t connect …’ Mr Smith drew in his breath and leaned forward. ‘No one saw you come here?’
The stranger shook his head. ‘I did what you said. Said I was tired, went to bed. Then got out of the window. And walked. Three miles, you said.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Seemed more like thirty. Oh, my poor feet.’ There was a crackle as he took a bag of sweets out of his pocket, unwrapped what looked like a toffee, and popped it into his mouth.
‘Island miles,’ Mr Smith explained. ‘Different from what you’re used to, like every other kind of measure. Time, for instance. Tomorrow doesn’t mean what you think—not here. It means next week, next month—even next year. You ought to live here a while, you’d find out!’ He spoke distinctly and bitterly, as if he wasn’t, Perdita thought, in such a good mood after all. That was a pity, but she was so hungry—surely, whatever mood he was in, he wouldn’t be angry if she said she was hungry? Moving silently on her bare feet, she stole nearer to the table.
‘Oh, look here,’ the stranger said. ‘It don’t seem to me you’ve got much to complain of. Place is pretty as a picture. Mountains, sheep. Communing with Nature. Romantic, that’s what it is!’
‘I’d like to see you communing with Nature,’ Mr Smith said. The stranger chuckled. ‘Maybe you’re right. I like to see a bit of life. Still, at least you’re fixed up cosy enough.’ A faint acrimony entered his voice. ‘I haven’t had it so easy. Sweating out a nine to five job, knowing there was no need. Waiting …’
‘D’you think it’s been easy waiting here?’ Mr Smith leaned forward to pour himself a generous helping of whisky. ‘Stuck in this dead and alive hole for three years? There’ve been times when I thought I’d go mad. Nothing to do, no one to talk to—no one but an ignorant old woman and …’
A shout from the other man stopped him short. ‘Good God, what’s this …’
Full face, he looked rather like a frog, with a broad, flat mouth and bulgy eyes, set high in a bald forehead. Those eyes stared at Perdita in a way that made her tremble. She slipped round the table for safety and got behind Mr Smith’s chair. He reached out a long arm and pulled her round to face him. His eyes were hidden behind his glasses, but his mouth was angry. ‘What are you up to? I thought I told Annie …’
‘T’wasn’t her fault,’ Perdita pleaded. ‘She told me not to. Only I woke up and I was so hungry.’
‘How long have you been here?’ Frog Face shouted. He jumped to
his feet and stood on the hearth, short, fat legs planted solid as trees. ‘Spying—I’ll teach you to spy …’
Mr Smith said quickly, ‘There’s no need to speak to the child like that.’
‘Wants a whipping,’ Frog Face said. ‘A good whipping. And if she was anything to do with me, that’s what she’d get. Spying on a private conversation.’
‘She means no harm,’ Mr Smith said. ‘Tells no tales, either. Not if she’s treated properly.’ He spoke in a meaning voice, and Frog Face swallowed hard. He looked at Mr Smith and then sat down in his chair, seeming to collapse suddenly, like a balloon when the air is let out of it. He took a red silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket, mopped his bald forehead, and smiled at Perdita. It was a damp, forced smile. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘weakness of mine. Always lose my temper when taken by surprise.’
Perdita was not taken in by the smile: the expression in his eyes remained the same as before. As if conscious of this, he smiled more broadly, to compensate. ‘So you didn’t mean to be a naughty spy, then? You’re a good little girl, are you? Are you a little girl who can keep secrets, I wonder?’
‘She doesn’t carry tales,’ Mr Smith said. ‘I told you.’
Frog Face looked at him. ‘You never said there was a kid. Taking a chance, weren’t you?’
‘Not so much as might appear,’ Mr Smith said. ‘And, anyway, chances have to be taken. You took a chance on me, didn’t you?’
Still looking at him, Frog Face nodded, slowly. ‘I reckon I did,’ he said. He smiled again, more naturally this time, and settled back in his chair. ‘After the shock, a spot of liquid refreshment wouldn’t come amiss,’ he remarked, unwrapped another toffee, and put it in his mouth.
Mr Smith poured whisky. ‘Take the glass over to the gentleman, Perdita,’ he said, ‘and introduce yourself. This is Mr Jones. Mr Jones,’ he repeated, smiling to himself suddenly, as if Mr Jones’s name was an exceedingly funny joke.
Hesitantly, Perdita did as she was told. Mr Jones took the whisky with one hand, with the other he caught Perdita’s wrist and drew her close to his fat knee.
‘Perdita,’ he said, mumbling his toffee, ‘That’s pretty. Unusual, too. How old are you, Perdita?’
‘Ten. Going on eleven,’ Perdita said, disliking the feel of his clammy hand on her wrist, but not daring to pull away.
Mr Jones looked surprised. ‘You don’t look that old to me. I’ve got two girls. One nine, one ten. The nine year old is a good bit bigger than you.’
‘She’s small for her age,’ Mr Smith said.
‘Small? Skinny, I’d say. Looks underfed to me,’ Mr Jones answered.
He lifted his glass and took a long swallow. His Adam’s apple wobbled up and down. He set his empty glass down on the table and nodded solemnly while Mr Smith re-filled it. ‘Kids need a lot of nourishment, you know Smithie. Milk. Vitamins. Orange juice. My word—it’s quite an expense, feeding a child.’ He picked up his whisky glass and cradled it lovingly to his chest. ‘Expense and worry. Worry and expense. That’s what children mean. I was saying to the wife, only the other day …’
Mr Smith interrupted him. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked Perdita.
She turned, slipping her hand gently out of Frog Face’s grasp. Now she had stopped being frightened, she had begun to notice her empty stomach again.
‘You’d better have something to eat, then.’ Mr Smith stood up and went over to the table. ‘There’s lobster left. Would you like that? And a glass of wine?’
‘Poison to a child,’ Mr Jones said loudly from his chair. ‘Milk, Smithie, milk. That’s what she needs. Good, fresh milk. And no lobster. Positively no lobster. Unsuitable for a young stomach.’
‘Cheese?’ Mr Smith asked tentatively. Frog Face seemed to have fallen into a doze and he raised his voice. ‘Come on—tell me what to give her. You’re the family man.’
Frog Face blew out through his lips. ‘Cheese in moderation. Not at night, though. It lies heavy.’
Mr Smith sighed. ‘There doesn’t seem much else. What does Annie give you, Perdita?’
‘Porridge,’ Perdita said. ‘Potatoes. And bits of other things. What you leave over.’ Annie MacLaren had told her that Mr Smith had been good to them and it would be wrong to repay him by eating him out of house and home.
Frog Face laughed from his chair. ‘Keeping the servants short, eh? Shame on you, Smithie …’
Mr Smith looked worried. ‘I’ve never had anything to do with children. I’d have thought the old woman would have had more sense …’ He cut a good piece of cheese and several slices of bread, buttering them thickly. Then he wiped out a used glass with his handkerchief and filled it to the brim with creamy milk.
‘She won’t come to much harm if she gets outside of that,’ Frog Face said.
Perdita sat on a stool by the fire. While she ate, the two men watched her, not talking, and after a while the silence and the food and the warmth from the fire made her feel sleepy. Her eyelids drooped, her stomach felt tight as a drum. She leaned back against the arm of Mr Smith’s chair, and dozed …
*
While she slept, someone must have lifted her and placed her in a chair. The next thing she knew was the roughness of the chair cover under her cheek, and the murmuring sound of voices.
‘… thinking of South America,’ Mr Jones was saying. ‘But the wife isn’t keen, not at all. Doesn’t want to interrupt the girls’ education, she says. Very keen on their schooling. There’ll be schools in South America, I tell her, but she says it won’t be the same. She wants to stay put, that’s the truth of it …’
‘Sensible woman,’ Mr Smith said, rather dryly. ‘It’s what I told you to do, wasn’t it? Stay put, sit tight. Enjoy a bit of extra comfort here and there …’
‘Not enough, Smithie …’ Suddenly Mr Jones’s voice was pleading. ‘Come on, be fair! Put yourself in my place. Would it have been enough for you, knowing what you’d got in that box there? Lap of luxury all your life, not just comfort. And freedom …’ His voice sank, lingered lovingly. ‘Freedom, Smithie …’
‘Let’s hope it turns out that way,’ Mr Smith said.
Perdita yawned and stretched. There was a sudden, sharp sound as of a metal lid slamming shut. She sat up sleepily and saw the two men standing and looking at her. Frog Face put out one hand as if to cover up a small box on the table in front of him; then he seemed to think better of it, tucked both hands into his pockets and smiled at her benignly.
‘Woke up, have you?’ he said. He nodded at Mr Smith, ‘Bed’s the best place.’
Perdita slipped off the chair, rubbing her eyes. One of her legs had gone to sleep, making her stagger, and Frog Face caught her arm to steady her.
‘One thing first, though,’ he said. ‘Smithie here says you don’t carry tales. I believe him, so you won’t, will you? Not about me.’ He shook her a little, in a friendly enough way, but there was a warning in his voice. ‘Forget you ever saw me, eh?’
‘She knows,’ Mr Smith says. ‘Don’t you, witch?’
Perdita nodded.
‘That’s good.’ Frog Face smiled fatly. ‘You’re a good little girl. Good little girls sometimes get nice presents.’ He paused. ‘What would you think was a nice present?’
‘I don’t know,’ Perdita murmured.
‘There’s no need,’ Mr Smith said sharply. ‘The child’s not used to presents.’
‘Oh come,’ Frog Face said. ‘Little girls are the same the world over.’ His voice was coaxing. ‘There must be something she’d like, something she wants …’
Sleepiness had made Perdita bold. ‘All I want,’ she said suddenly, ‘the only thing I want, is to go to school.’
‘School?’ Frog Face said, astonished. ‘Don’t you go to school?’
Mr Smith answered for her. ‘No. She doesn’t. Never has. I don’t think she can even read and write.’ He hesitated. ‘She runs wild. Like a little wild cat.’
‘Good heavens!’ Frog Face said. ‘But she can’t—I me
an, she can’t not go to school. Good heavens, man, that’s against the law.’
Perdita was awake enough, now, to wonder why Mr Smith should laugh so merrily at that.
‘Not really,’ he said, after a minute. ‘There is a school at Skuaphort, but it’s more than three miles and there’s no bus to fetch her. And unless they fetch her, they can’t insist. Not legally. So they turn a blind eye.’
Frog Face whistled through his teeth. ‘I think that’s terrible,’ he said, very slowly and seriously. ‘I don’t know what the wife would say, I really don’t. A child should go to school.’
Perdita looked at him. ‘I want to go to school,’ she said, ‘and learn to read and write, and then, when I’m older, I want to go to the big school on Trull.’ Frog Face was staring at her, and she thought perhaps he didn’t know where Trull was, as he was a stranger. ‘Trull’s the big island,’ she said, ‘with an air port and a cinema and this fine, big school.’ She stopped, her heart banging against her ribs. She had never said this to anyone before. It was strange—if she had had time to think, she would have thought it strange—that she should have said it to Frog Face whom she barely knew, and didn’t, really, like very much.
Mr Smith was watching her. He said, to Frog Face, ‘In the circumstances, it’s convenient she doesn’t go, don’t you think?’ And then he gave her hair a little tug, to tease her, and added, ‘It wouldn’t do, not for a witch’s daughter. If you mixed with other children, you’d lose your Powers. You’d grow ordinary, like them.’
Perdita said, ‘I wouldn’t mind being ordinary, if I could learn to read and write.’