by Mary Clive
‘No,’ I said in my grandest voice. ‘That wouldn’t do at all. If I am to have a trial it must be a solemn one. I’m not going to have any old trial. The idea! You’ve got to get everything ready and do it really properly or I shan’t come to it. Tomorrow afternoon is the very earliest I could think of coming.’
‘She’s perfectly right,’ said Rosamund. ‘Charles I was kept in prison for ages before he was tried.’
‘All right,’ said Lionel. ‘Tomorrow afternoon then. Anyway, I don’t know that we could have it sooner. People would interfere if we held it in the house and I’m riding tomorrow morning, worse luck. Let’s have it in the rubbish heap. The boys can be judges and the girls can be jury.’
The girls said that they wanted to be judges too, so it was arranged that some dolls should be brought out to be jury.
‘What about a black cap for the judge?’ asked Lionel.
Betty said there was a black cat in the kitchen but she was told to shut up. No one seemed to possess anything black, but at last Peggy remembered that there was a small black hearthrug in her room, which she thought she could hide under her coat.
We came up to the nursery maids and Lionel said ingratiatingly to Minnie:
‘Minnie, do sing us that lovely song about “They call me hanging Johnny”.’
Minnie was very good-natured and began to sing it at once, little realizing the discomfort that she was causing me.
‘Court martial tomorrow!’ shouted the Savages as they clattered up the wooden stairs.
12. Escape
I dawdled behind. I felt that I had had enough of this particular house party. I wanted to go home.
As if in answer to my thoughts the baize door which led into the front part of the house swung open and Lady Tamerlane came rapidly through. She was holding a telegram.
‘Oh, there you are, Everline,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ve some good news for you. Your father is so very much better that they can move him back to London. But I’m afraid that means we shall have to part with you. Your mother wants you to be there when they arrive, so you are to leave us tomorrow morning.’
At home in my London schoolroom was a picture called The Reprieve. A prisoner was standing against a wall. He was obviously about to be shot, but a young lady in a beautiful riding-habit had just galloped up holding out a roll of paper. Lady Tamerlane was not young and not on a horse, but she held out the telegram with a similar flourish.
For a moment the world seemed all right again, but then an awful thought struck me. Perhaps the Savages would not allow themselves to be cheated of their prey. Perhaps they would alter the time of the court martial and hold it that very night.
‘Lady Tamerlane,’ I said solemnly.
‘What, child?’
‘Will you do something for me, something very particular?’
‘It all depends, child. What is it?’
‘Lady Tamerlane, for a particular reason, for a very particular reason, I don’t want the others to know that I am going away tomorrow. Would you, could you, keep it a secret?’
Lady Tamerlane looked first surprised and then amused.
‘And may I ask the reason for this strange secrecy?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ I said. ‘But it’s nothing naughty. It’s just something very particular and private.’
‘Very well,’ said Lady Tamerlane who was, as I hope you have noticed, always very reasonable. ‘I won’t mention it to the other children. And I will ask the people in the library not to mention it either. But I can’t answer for everybody in the house. You must take your chance about that.’
‘Thank you, Lady Tamerlane,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what you have saved me from.’
‘Can you remember to tell your bonne to be packed by eleven o’clock? It is very sad that you will miss the dance and she will miss the servants’ ball.’
‘I don’t mind one scrap,’ I said tactlessly, and added, ‘and Marguerite will be just as glad to go as I am.’
Lady Tamerlane took no notice of this ungrateful remark and disappeared through the baize door.
By the time I got upstairs I had arranged my plans. First I got Marguerite into my bedroom and explained things to her. She could really understand English perfectly well if one talked slowly enough, and she quite got the idea that my trunk was not to be brought out till the other children had gone downstairs, and that our going away was to be kept a deadly secret.
At teatime Lionel produced a paper headed ‘Court Marshal in the Rubbish Heap’ which he wished to nail up on the nursery wall. The nurses, in agreement for once, prevented him, and he had to content himself with sticking it up with stamp paper in his own bedroom. I hugged my secret and was sweet and sugary to everybody.
After tea, when we were dressed and about to go downstairs, I said:
‘Don’t wait for me. There’s something I’ve just remembered that I’ve got to say to Marguerite. You go on and I’ll follow.’
The big children ran on and I was able to stop the Howliboos’ nurse who was starting off with the toddlers, and I told her that I was going away in the morning and made her promise that she would not tell any of the other children. She was always friendly to me as I was nice to Tommy, and she obligingly promised at once.
Then I dashed back to the nursery where I found the two other nurses and the nursery maids relaxing, being relieved of all the children except two harmless babies. They said, ‘What is it now?’ rather grudgingly as I burst into the room, but they were amused by my anxiety and all promised to keep my secret.
I had thought about the other people in the house and which of them might give me away, and the dangerous ones seemed to be Mr O’Sullivan, Miss Spenser (Lady Tamerlane’s maid) and Mrs Peabody. I thought I would chance the first two, but Mrs Peabody was such friends with the Glens that I felt I must warn her in some way.
The still room was a long way off; but I knew where her bedroom was, so I tore a sheet out of my diary and wrote on it: ‘Dear Mrs Peabody. Will you please do me a great flavour. Will you please not tell the others that I’m going till after I’ve gone. Love from Evelyn.’
I underlined ‘please’ several times in red chalk, and then I tiptoed along the passage which led to her room. The door was ajar but there was no light in it.
I pushed the door open and heard a low growl. The gaslight from the passage showed me two eyes glaring at me from under the bed. It was Kim.
I took a step forward and Kim growled again.
‘Dear Kim,’ I whispered, trying to imitate Betty’s voice and the way she used to speak to him, ‘is he really Lord Tamerlane?’
Kim did not answer my question, but his growls grew louder. I looked round for something with which to soften his heart.
In the passage was a tray with the remains of somebody’s tea on it, and that somebody had failed to eat a pink sugar cake. I fetched the pink sugar cake and threw a bit of it at Kim. He stopped growling, sniffed it, ate it and smiled at me for more. I broke the rest into pieces which I scattered underneath the bed and then, groping to the dressing table, fixed my letter to the pincushion with a hatpin.
Even when I had regained the passage I was not satisfied. How could I feel sure that Mrs Peabody (who after all was so very thick with the Glens) would be really touched by my letter? I wondered if I could bribe her with anything.
Then I remembered my beautiful and lovely glass swan which I had got in my stocking and which was the pair to hers, except that while hers had red eyes, mine had green. It was a dreadful wrench for me to part with it, but great emergencies can only be met by great sacrifices.
Marguerite had only just got out my trunk and was still putting boots in the bottom layer. I took the darling little swan off the top of my heap of toys and also took my two last chocolate creams. They had rather nasty fillings, which is why they had been left to the last; but Kim, who had finished his cake and was getting ready to growl again, made no objection. He crunched them up while I put the swan on to
p of the letter, and I got away safely. My heart was heavy as I went downstairs, for I had loved my swan, but I felt that I had done the right thing.
In the library the children were jumping round the youngest uncle and the prettiest aunt shouting:
‘Ogres! We’re going to play ogres!’
‘Come on, Evelyn,’ said the uncle with a sort of twinkle, ‘it’s ogres tonight. Tomorrow you shall choose the game.’
I could not make out if he were teasing me on purpose, and I got red and felt very awkward. I even began to think that there really was something a bit ogreish about him.
We played in the mysterious room called the billiard room, in which I had never before set foot. The glass dome was veiled in shadow and the lights, with their thick green shades, were hung low so that the top of the table was lit and all the rest of the room was in gloom.
Under the table was the ogre’s den. As one crawled in one came face to face with a tiger – for a moment I thought it was Kim again, come down to give me away. As a matter of fact the tiger’s face was the worst part of him, as his body was quite flat with arms spread out, rather as if he had tripped up and come the most awful cropper. At the other end of the table was a leopard, smaller, but in its own way equally fierce.
When I had time to look about I found bits of other animals all over the room – heads, horns, skins, tails and even feet. The billiard balls lived in an elephant’s foot and the inkpot was the hoof of a racehorse. But the most curious thing in the room was a stuffed mermaid which Lord Tamerlane, who in his youth had been a bit of a wanderer, had long ago bought in San Francisco. She was small, wrinkled and hideous, but her top half had clearly once been a person, and the tail had equally clearly once been a fish. Even Betty was silenced.
‘Evelyn likes mysteries,’ said Uncle Jack; ‘perhaps she can explain the mermaid.’
I did wish that he would not make that sort of remark, but nobody else seemed to notice anything.
All the way round the walls of the billiard room there were seats built up on steps so that people could watch a game being played on the table. The seats had long, stuffed cushions on them like you sometimes see in churches, and Uncle Jack built these cushions into prisons for us, and though we could knock the prisons down it was very exciting. In fact, it was too exciting for Betty who soon forgot that we were only pretending, and at last could stand it no longer and broke loose and ran and ran until she reached the nursery.
I did not enjoy myself either, as I was on thorns that Uncle Jack would give me away. To make matters worse, Mr O’Sullivan came in to put coal on the fire and said casually to me (Uncle Jack had placed me on the mantelpiece):
‘I hear your pa’s better. And Marguerite hasn’t finished teaching me French!’
I made terrible faces at him which he couldn’t at all understand, but fortunately the others didn’t notice anything as they were busy escaping from Lionel who had put on the tiger skin and was running amok.
I was glad when the ogre’s wife said she must dress for dinner, and we went upstairs: but when we got there Rosamund and Peggy came into my bedroom with me, although I tried to say goodnight at the door. However, Marguerite had pushed my trunk behind a screen and there was only one candle alight, so they did not notice how bare my room was looking with most of my belongings packed.
‘Can I look at your swan?’ said Peggy suddenly.
‘No, it’s asleep,’ I answered, pushing her out of the door. ‘Goodnight, Peggy. Goodnight, Rosamund.’
‘Goodnight, Evelyn. Court martial tomorrow,’ said Rosamund cheerfully as they went away.
The worst was now over. As I undressed I told the pictures of the great grey stags and the little boy crossing the brook in his underclothes that this was my last night with them, and that I was jolly glad, too.
I was not out of the wood, however, and the next morning, when we were leaving Lady Tamerlane’s room, her maid suddenly said goodbye to me quite loudly. I muttered something and got away, but the others had noticed.
‘Why on earth did Miss Spenser say goodbye to you?’ asked Rosamund afterwards.
‘Perhaps she went suddenly loony,’ said Harry before I could answer. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets sent to an asylum. Minnie’s cousin’s husband joined Colney Hatch and he got that fat he couldn’t get into none of his clothes.’
Rosamund and Harry liked talking about lunatic asylums so much that they quite forgot Miss Spenser.
I went and played with Tommy in the nursery, and presently I heard the sound of horses being led round from the stables – clip-clop, clip-clop, and now and then a jingle. In these days children catch and harness their own ponies, but a tidy groom brought the Savages’ ponies, shining and fierce, to the mounting block by the front door. These ponies were fed on oats and highly nervous. They tossed their heads, put back their ears, rolled their eyes and now and then did a few dancing steps to the side. If they saw a bit of paper they pretended to be terrified, while they never passed a motor car without shying. When they bolted, which they did frequently, there was no question of the children being able to stop them. The groom used to come thundering along behind on his big horse, cursing and swearing (or so the children said), and the whole party would go galloping along the road like a lot of John Gilpins. No wonder that when the fateful clip-clop-jingle was heard on the gravel even the daring Rosamund would sometimes be put out of action by an unaccountable pain in her middle, which would unaccountably go away again as soon as her pony was led back to the stable yard. As for Lionel and Harry they really hated riding.
With exquisite happiness I sat in the nursery window with Tommy on my knee, and watched the two boys get on to their two ponies. They were fresher than ever, I noticed, and Lionel’s one pretended that he had never seen the scraper before. The groom appeared to be in his usual bad temper, and even at that distance I could feel Lionel’s misery.
‘Ponies vewy cwoss,’ said Tommy. ‘Take naughty boys away and not bwing ’em back.’
I gave him a kiss.
When the riders had disappeared down the avenue, going at that uncomfortable pace which is neither a trot nor a walk but which may turn into almost anything including a buck, I left the window and went to put on my hat and coat and boots. Just as I was ready Rosamund came into my room.
‘Why are you in your best clothes? Where are you going? Why is your trunk here?’
‘I am returning to London,’ I said, graciously smirking, ‘to my own mother and my own father. And I really must hurry. The fly will be here at any minute.’
‘But you can’t!’ cried Rosamund; ‘you mustn’t! What will Lionel say! The court martial! We can’t have it without you.’
‘I’m afraid you must court martial someone else,’ I said, smirking even more. ‘You can do eena-meena for who’s to be shot.’
And I sailed past her like a Duchess.
That was the end of my Christmas with the Savages. When I got back to London it was wonderful to be alone in my own schoolroom again, and the next day my mother came home and I was allowed down into the drawing room more than ever. My father seemed to me to be much the same as usual, although I was told that he was only convalescent, and for a long time afterwards he had special puddings at lunch.
And I mustn’t forget to say that when Marguerite came to unpack my trunk she found something done up in a lot of tissue-paper. It turned out to be a glass swan, one with red eyes – Mrs Peabody’s glass swan in fact. Round his neck was a label, ‘Exchange is no robbery’, and with him was a sugar nest with sugar eggs in it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARY CLIVE
1907 Born Lady Mary Katharine Pakenham on 23 August in Bryanston Square, London, fourth child and second of the four daughters of the 5th Earl of Longford and Lady Mary Child-Villiers. Educated mainly at home by governesses, with one short period at boarding school and another at a school of domestic economy
1915 On 21 August her father is killed in action at Gallipoli during th
e First World War
1922–6 Attends art classes at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, and later at Heatherley’s School of Art in London
1926 Presented at court, but she does not enjoy being a debutante; it is much more fun running a canteen in Hyde Park during the General Strike
1928 Aged twenty-one, inherits some money and leaves home, and after a brief period as a secretary resolves to become an artist. She studies at several art schools in London, Paris and Rome
1931–2 Goes round the world, visiting Canada, New Zealand and the Pacific
1932 In England Now, the first of four novels, is published under the name Hans Duffy
1933 Travels to India where she meets her future husband, Meysey Clive, who is one of the assistants to the Viceroy of India
1934–5 Works for the London Evening Standard newspaper, writing fashion and gossip columns as Mary Grant, and then for the Daily Express
1938 Publishes her autobiography, Brought Up and Brought Out, as Mary Pakenham
1939 In September the Second World War breaks out, and in December she marries Meysey Clive at a week’s notice, in the Guards Chapel, in a tiara and a long white dress
1940 In December her son George is born
1942 In March her daughter Alice is born
1943 Her husband Meysey is killed in action during the Second World War
1949 Publishes Caroline Clive, an edition of the diary and letters of her husband’s great-grandmother, a Victorian novelist and poet
1955 Christmas with the Savages is published
1964 The Day of Reckoning, about the prints and illustrations of her childhood, is published
1966 Jack and the Doctor, a biography of the poet John Donne is published
1973 This Sun of York: A Biography of Edward IV is published
1999 Son George dies
2010 Dies on 19 March, at the family home in Whitfield, Herefordshire, aged 102, leaving her daughter, four grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren
Interesting Facts