by Rumer Godden
‘She’ll be hurt.’
‘Never mind. Quick. Come on. Come on!’
Mary Jo’s hurl sent limp light Kizzy head over heels down the stairs but Miss Brooke was another matter; though a slight woman, unconscious she was heavy for two small girls. ‘Pull,’ gasped Prue.
‘Can’t.’ Mary Jo was coughing; both their eyes were red, streaming and smarting, half blinded; heat scorched their cheeks. ‘Can’t.’
‘Must.’ Prue set her teeth and, with all the strength of their short arms, they pulled and tugged Miss Brooke to the landing. ‘Take – legs,’ spluttered Prue and together they dragged her feet round. ‘Go – down,’ Mary Jo retreated down three steps. ‘Pull – legs – pull,’ gasped Prue.
The bedroom was ablaze now but Prue knelt at the head of the stairs and got Miss Brooke’s head and shoulders up, heaving her own body beneath them. ‘Pull.’ It was torn out of Prue, whose wet cloth had slipped. She took in a mouthful of smoke and choked. ‘Pull.’ Mary Jo caught the legs and Miss Brooke began to slither downwards.
Prue felt her own hair frizzle, a searing pain on her neck and saw her dress was alight; she gave a final frantic heave and Miss Brooke cascaded down, taking Mary Jo with her as running steps burst into the cottage; a man caught up Kizzy a second Mary Jo as Prudence herself keeled over and tumbled down the flight right over Miss Brooke into a third man’s arms; he seized the hearthrug and rolled Prue in it, smothering the flames on her dress. Two more men swung up Miss Brooke.
‘’Struth,’ they said afterwards. ‘We got them out just in time.’
‘We got them out. It was young Prudence Cuthbert.’
‘Where is she?’
The Admiral’s old Rolls had come tearing into the village and he, Peters and Nat were out of it in a moment when it drew up with a shrieking of tyres outside the cottage. Two fire engines were there, firemen trampling over the garden, their hoses still jetting out water that sent a mushroom of smoke spreading over the sky with a terrible smell of charring. Some of the downstairs furniture had been carried out and stood higgledy-piggledy in the garden, soaked with dirty water and grimed with smoke. The excitement of the cottage on fire had dimmed the excitement of the bonfire and at least half the village was gathered there. Admiral Twiss went through them like a reap-hook through corn.
‘How did he get here so soon?’
‘Doctor was playing chess with him,’ Nat explained. ‘Hospital telephoned.’
‘Where is she?’ Looking at the Admiral’s blanched face, a murmur went round. ‘Lord, how he do love that child.’
‘Is she alive? Hurt? Where is she?’
‘Little girl’s all right, sir.’ The Chief Fireman came up. ‘All the little girls. Overcome by smoke, of course. The ambulance has taken them to hospital. One has some burns but not severe.’
The Admiral still seemed dazed and a dozen voices reassured him. ‘Kizzy’s safe. She’s all right. Kizzy is all right, sir.’
‘No. No, not Kizzy,’ said the Admiral. ‘At least – Kizzy yes, but not Kizzy . . .’ and in front of them all he cried, ‘Where is she? Is she hurt? Olivia? Miss Brooke?’
‘I told you she was setting her cap at him,’ said Mrs Cuthbert. The village seldom remembered a more exciting time. Mary Jo and Kizzy were discharged from hospital next day and Kizzy went to stay with the Olivers, ‘With Clem and Elizabeth,’ said Kizzy. Prudence came out next; with her bandaged neck and hands she was the heroine of the village. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if she got a medal,’ and even Peters had to say, ‘Got a head on her shoulders, that one.’
The cottage was a blackened half-ruin, sheeted with tarpaulins, the furniture stacked up. ‘You can’t live there now,’ Admiral Twiss told Miss Brooke – he had gone straight to the hospital and was there every day. ‘You and Kiz will have to come to Amberhurst.’
‘But . . .’
‘Talk. Yes, there will be talk.’ The Admiral said it irritably, but his eyebrows did not bristle. ‘But there’s one way to stop it – if you will say “Yes”, Olivia.’
‘For Kizzy’s sake . . .’
‘Not Kizzy’s – yours and mine. Kizzy too, of course, but when I thought you were burnt . . .’ The Admiral’s eyebrows and moustache worked so violently he had to go to the hospital window. ‘It’s no good. You will have to say “Yes”, Olivia.’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Brooke. It was a little while later that she asked – and her eyes were laughing, ‘How will you tell Nat and Peters?’
Chapter Seven
‘My wagon was burned, just like Gran’s. Then am I dead?’ Kizzy had said when she came round in the hospital which was not at all like her idea of heaven. ‘I must be dead.’ But, though she was not to be a star just yet, in a way the old Kizzy was dead. ‘I wouldn’t go to the bonfire,’ she confessed to the Admiral, ‘and I was showing off She could hear herself boasting, see herself with the petrol can. ‘I nearly killed Olivia.’ She caught her breath. ‘If Mary Jo and Prue . . .’ He had told her what they had done. ‘Brave little girls,’ said Admiral Twiss, ‘particularly Prudence.’
Particularly Prue. ‘I’ll ask her to sit next me,’ said Kizzy with a gulp. ‘If . . . if Clem will sit on my other side.’
Peters was icing a birthday cake in the big House kitchen, a white cake, three-tiered, that would presently be decorated with silver balls and red cherries. It was to have eight red candles and he had promised to write in chocolate icing: Kezia Happy Birthday.
‘But I thought you said you wouldn’t have anything to do with it,’ said Kizzy.
‘It’s your birthday cake, ain’t it?’ asked Peters. ‘You ain’t ever had a cake before. Who else do you think I’d let make it? Come to that, you ain’t ever had a birthday, let alone a party.’
‘Then you don’t mind about the party?’
‘Mind or not mind, makes no difference.’ Peters skilfully turned the cake. ‘Let one woman in, you may as well let fifty.’
Lady Cunningham Twiss. Mrs Cuthbert could not make her tongue say it, could not ‘swaller it’, as Nat would have said. ‘I think it’s wonderful,’ said Mrs Blount. ‘To think it was Kizzy, that little traveller girl, who brought them together. They are adopting her. She will be Kezia Cunningham Twiss.’
Mrs Cuthbert could not swallow that either. ‘And to think she came to my back door selling flowers! In a way I started it,’ which was bitter.
‘I suppose you have seen Olivia?’ Mildred Blount went on.
‘Indeed no. You’ll find she’ll have no use for us now. Lady Cunningham Twiss!’
The telephone rang. ‘Edna?’
‘It’s Olivia!’ Mrs Cuthbert whispered and said into the telephone, ‘Yes, Olivia?’ Her voice was guarded.
‘We are giving a party,’ said the voice on the telephone, ‘to say “thank you” to the village, especially to Prue, and also for Kizzy’s birthday.’
‘I didn’t know you knew it.’
‘We have given her another Kezia’s – that’s her name now. We’re hoping all the children will come and perhaps, Edna, you and Mildred would come and help me.’
‘At the House?’ Mrs Cuthbert could not believe it. ‘The House?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I never!’ said Mrs Cuthbert when she put the telephone down. ‘I wonder how she will square that with Mr Peters.’
Kizzy was worried. ‘Olivia, what happens on a birthday? I know there’ll be a wreath . . . I . . . don’t want to wear a wreath with everybody watching.’
‘Well, this time of the year there isn’t much to make a wreath of.’
‘Prob’ly be holly – it pricks,’ said Kizzy in gloom. Almost the old closed look was back. ‘And they will bump me and pull my hair. Wish I was four, not eight.’
‘Well, they won’t bump you or pull your hair nor make a wreath because the 9th is a Saturday, so there won’t be any school.’
‘Nor there will.’ Kizzy was relieved yet still knitted her brows. ‘But what happens?’
Olivia drew
Kizzy to her. ‘For birthdays you usually wait and see, but first, as soon as you wake, you look under your pillow.’
Before it was light that Saturday, Kizzy looked, and there, mysteriously under her pillow, lay a small riding whip with a silver top and a scarlet tassel. ‘What a funny thing to give me,’ thought Kizzy, but she liked to hold it in her hand; she could pretend she was Kezia Cunningham – ‘And that was only the beginning,’ marvelled Kizzy.
She had breakfast with Olivia and the Admiral, and all round her place were parcels – again of ‘funny things’: a yellow jersey from Olivia: a pair of little string gloves from Peters and a small-size horse brush and curry-comb from Nat. ‘So as I can help with the horses.’ There was nothing from the Admiral but there were many many cards. ‘The whole village must have sent them,’ said Olivia. She and Kizzy spent half an hour setting them up on the hall chimney-shelf and in Kizzy’s bedroom. Then came ‘the solemn moment,’ said Kizzy.
Admiral Twiss took her into the library and opened the big Bible. ‘This is your birthday now and I shall write in your name.’ Kizzy watched, scarcely breathing, while in his fine pointed writing he wrote ‘Kezia Lovell Cunningham Twiss, December 9th, eight years old.’
‘Lovell?’ asked Kizzy.
‘You are what you are,’ said the Admiral.
‘That’s what Gran said.’
‘She was right – and never stoop to pretend to be anything else. You should be proud to be a Lovell, and proud of your Gran.’
‘I will be,’ said Kizzy her head up. ‘I am.’
Nat’s whistle was heard on the drive and, ‘I believe Nat wants you,’ said the Admiral. He took Kizzy’s hand and opened the front door.
It was a cold clear morning and sunlight streamed in through the door – it seemed to Kizzy, from that moment, that the sun streamed in for ever. There was frost in the air – what Nat called ‘finger-cold weather’ – and on it Kizzy caught a whiff of something loved, familiar, the scent of horse and leather; for there, on the drive, Nat, trying to keep his smile in, was holding the prettiest pony Kizzy had ever seen, seen or imagined – a small bay pony, ‘Twelve hands,’ said the Admiral, ‘or, rather, twelve two.’ The pony’s ears were cocked as he looked towards them, his dark mane and flowing tail well brushed out; his coat shone as did his new saddle and bridle, his silver bit, and he fidgeted his small hooves on the gravel. ‘Now then. Now then,’ said Nat.
‘But . . . whose is he?’ Kizzy was dazed.
‘Well, he isn’t mine,’ said Nat. ‘Nor the Admiral’s, nor her ladyship’s. I don’t think Peters would ride him. I believe he is meant for you.’
Kizzy had her first ride that morning, in the railed school where Nat lunged the young horses; she walked the pony round as Admiral Twiss told her, trying to hold the reins properly use her legs, do the exercises he taught her while Nat watched critically. ‘Half an hour is enough,’ said Admiral Twiss, ‘but you must learn to put your pony away. Take off his saddle and bridle, then put on his halter. Give him some water and put him in his stall to cool off while you clean your tack.’
Kizzy had one moment of doubt – and did not voice it to the Admiral. ‘Nat,’ she said as she polished and polished the small saddle. ‘Do you . . . do you think Joe would mind?’
‘Mind what?’
‘My having another?’
‘’Course not,’ said Nat. ‘He would like to think he had made you love all horses; besides, this ain’t another Joe. He’s Joey.’
‘Joey’
‘And old Joe knows he’s too big for your wagon. This pony fits.’
But, ‘I haven’t got a wagon now,’ said Kizzy.
It was almost three o’clock, time for the party.
The party had brought another worry, a crease in Kizzy’s happiness, but she kept it to herself until Olivia had said, ‘What is the matter, Kizzy?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Something – tell me.’
‘Olivia,’ said Kizzy, ‘when . . . when the girls at school go to parties, they all wear dresses. I have lovely jerseys and skirts but – I haven’t a dress.’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘Of course, they’re quite clean . . .’
‘Haven’t you?’ Olivia said it again. Then, ‘I should go upstairs and look.’
On the new white bed a dress was spread. The last dress Kizzy had owned had been the draggled strawberry pink cotton; this was of soft maroon cloth, its sleeves puffed white muslin with a white ruffle at the neck. The bodice was laced with blue and round the skirt ran a band of blue velvet. ‘It’s – it’s – Kezia’s dress!’ breathed Kizzy.
‘This Kezia’s,’ said Olivia.
The great drawing room had been opened for the grown-up guests; the children’s tea was set in the dining room on the Admiral’s long table, with another equally long beside it. Peters’ cake was on a separate table with a wreath of holly round it. ‘You see, you don’t have to wear the wreath because it’s round the cake,’ said Olivia. There were sprays of holly down the tables and red crackers. After tea there would be games and a conjuror; then the Admiral was to set his tug, the Elsie May, going on the lake with its port and starboard lights shining, ‘and its searchlight lit,’ said Clem, who was to help. It would come to shore – ‘I hope,’ said the Admiral – with a cargo of sweets, a bag for every child.
‘There’s never been a party like this in the village,’ said Clem.
‘Nor at the House.’ Peters had to admit it.
‘At least not for a hundred years,’ said Admiral Twiss.
Yet it made Kizzy uneasy, more and more uneasy. This was the sort of party given for Kezia Cunningham Twiss. Kizzy Lovell might have asked a few boys – and girls, thought Kizzy grudgingly – to come to her fire in the orchard – if she had had a fire and an orchard. In the old days when other travellers had drawn off the road to see Gran and camp in the orchard for the night, food had been shared round, mugs of tea made; then Gran had lit her pipe with the men and someone brought out a mouth organ or an old violin, or just tambourines, thought Kizzy, and everyone would sing. Often they danced against the darkness of trees and sky, with the fire stirred up as if the sparks were music. That was the kind of party she understood and, in the beauty of her new dress, she went and looked out of the window, away to where the Admiral’s orchard lay over the line of trees. Wish I had my little orchard and my wagon, thought Kizzy. She was Kezia with a pony and a gracious spacious home, ‘More like a little princess than the saucepot that you are,’ as Peters said – yet the old gypsy yearning was there.
She turned back to the dining room, where Olivia, with Mrs Cuthbert, Mrs Blount and Mrs Oliver, was putting food on the tables – sandwiches, crisps, jellies, meringues – and folding little red napkins at the long line of places for the children. ‘Wish they wasn’t coming,’ muttered Kizzy. Her hard shell was back. ‘They’re not coming for me,’ muttered Kizzy, ‘they’re coming, like Prue did, for the House. None of them like me ’cept Clem.’
Three o’clock struck from the stable cupola clock. ‘It’s time,’ cried Mrs Blount, and Kizzy fled to Peters in the kitchen.
‘Hey you should be at the front door greeting your guests.’
‘I don’t want to greet them.’ Kizzy flung herself into Peters’ arms. ‘I won’t. I can’t. They don’t like me. They’re just coming for the House. They don’t like me.’
‘Sorry for yourself, aren’t you?’ said Peters.
‘I tell you they don’t.’ Kizzy was frantic.
‘Give them a chance.’
Kizzy shook her head and buried her curls in his coat. ‘I’ll stay here in the kitchen with you.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’
‘Let me. Let me.’ It was rising to one of Kizzy’s shrieks and Peters took her by the shoulders, shook her and stood her away on her own feet.
‘Want a smack across your bottom?’ He was terse, his blue eyes fierce. ‘Think I’m going to let you spoil this for everyone?’
‘I– spoil it?’ Kizzy was so surprised she spoke quietly.
‘Yes, you. After all our trouble. You stand up and behave, Miss Kezia.’
‘I’m Kizzy.’
‘Kizzy and Kezia.’
‘Half and half,’ pleaded Kizzy.
‘You’re both. That’s why, though you’re small, you have to be big,’ said Peters, ‘and I never heard that either of them two were cowards. Put your chin up,’ he commanded. ‘Now go and stand with Sir Admiral and her ladyship at the front door where you belong. Quick march,’ said Peters.
‘But they’re all coming at once,’ said Kizzy, amazed, and true, coming up the drive was a procession, boys first, girls after, all the boys and girls of Amberhurst school – and what were they bringing? As Kizzy stood on the steps, her legs began to tremble so much that she had to hold Olivia’s hand.
In their midst was her wagon – the boys were pulling it by the shafts – her wagon, ‘not burnt,’ whispered Kizzy. Far from it; its blue paint was glossily new, as was its gilding; its brass flashed and its windows were clean; the white curtains were new and the window boxes filled with earth. Prudence carried the kittle iron: Mary Jo the kettle; best of all, under the wagon was slung a net of hay. ‘F-for Joey?’ stammered Kizzy.
‘You see,’ Admiral Twiss explained to Kizzy, ‘the wagon almost escaped the fire. It was smoked and blackened, everything scorched and grimed, that was all.’ The boys took it out of the cottage garden and hid it in the Olivers’ barn, ‘And all of us worked to make it new,’ said Clem.
‘I bought the plastic flowers,’ said Elizabeth, ‘with my own pocket money.’
‘My mum made the pillows and pillowcases,’ broke in Carol, ‘and me and Dawn stuffed them.’
‘Lots of our mothers patchworked to make the quilts.’
‘Mum and I washed the china with sand and cold water,’ said Prue. ‘That’s best after a fire and not one saucer was broken.’
‘Mine found new little teaspoons.’
‘Clem and the boys rubbed the paint down, then painted it.’