I must go home via St George’s, she thought.
But at school Grace was a spectacular and immediate success.
Whatever some parents might say, for the older children she was instantly a thrilling novelty, a source of giddy excitement. She was all the rage. How different she was, and yet how the same, a cute little native girl, as sounded just like you did! And her so sweet in the face, pretty as a picture! And tooken up by that holy terror Mrs Dimond, as your own Da still took his hat off to!
All that first term Grace was sought out, pampered, even squabbled over, especially by the great girls of nine or ten, pretty Sally Killigrew, Linda Coachman, and strange to say Mrs Thornby’s own Norah (not at all pretty, Violet noted, with some satisfaction), who vied with one another to pick her up should she chance to fall over while playing in the schoolyard, who coaxed her to sit on their laps, and took it in turns to cuddle her. An admiring gaggle of them tenderly accompanied her home each day at dinner-time and after school was over.
‘Goodbye, Gracie, see you tomorrow!’
And young Susan Warburton turned out to have a rolling squint in one eye, and very damp hands. For a while it became the fashion to chase Susie about the Infants’ playground at break time, calling her names.
Grace, playing hopscotch with Lily or Annie Mercer, would look up now and then, as Susan Warburton, her face set with misery, fled another troop of jeering boys and girls. Rat tails! That was what they were calling after her.
Why? It made no sense at all to Grace. Unless it was a reference to Susan’s thin, mousey hair. Sometimes Lily and Annie joined in. ‘Rat tails! Rat tails!’
Grace hung back. She ignored Susan and tried not to sit near her and avoided speaking to her, same as everyone else, and she was very glad it was Susan being chased and not herself. But something stopped her jeering with the others. She hid at the edges of the playground and pretended not to see.
After school, after tea, the drifting neighbourhood crowd of children, mixed in size and age and sex, played street games together in the long sunny evenings, and Violet, watching them sometimes from a chair set in her open front doorway, felt that Grace had ceased to be different; that familiarity had made her local. There was a lot to be thankful for, thought Violet.
Sometimes in hot weather she took her chair right out on to the pavement before her front door, exchanging a word now and then with other mothers also taking their ease in the golden evening sunshine, knitting, or shelling peas. Now and then she might remember with some pain her old work, her lost expertise; but there was sweetness in this late motherhood, in waiting for her darling aged seven, or eight, or nine, to come in for her supper before bedtime.
The children played, thought Violet, just as once she and her sister had played, with the others who were children in those far-off days. Children like birds, flocking or calling, you would notice them from time to time, as every spring you saw the primroses; strange, holy, to remember that they only seemed the same, that every year they were different birds, different flowers.
By then she had also found herself decent work, helping out at a local bakery, not just with the pastries but behind the counter in the afternoons. The mystery postal order still came, as regularly as the note had said it would; Violet had opened an account for it in Grace’s name, in the Post Office, and let Mrs Bold suppose the money came from Bobby, and so far no one had dropped any hint they knew anything different.
Now and then, in an emergency, she answered a call to a childbirth, as so many of the poorer sort went on urgently knocking on her door. Was it still illegal if she worked without payment?
Yes it was, said Sister Goodrich, the lady midwife herself, coming round to remonstrate one afternoon, and to threaten Violet with the law. She was a fair fat young woman, with pale eyelashes and a hard-to-follow London accent, perhaps not such a lady after all.
‘The head was right there, I had no choice!’
‘That’s what you said last time, Mrs Dimond.’
‘That’s what happened last time. Am I to stand by, and let some poor creature deliver on her own, like a horse in a field?’
‘You are not qualified to attend a delivery; if it happens again I shall report you to the police,’ said Sister Goodrich. She was young enough to have been one of Violet’s own; as she strode off down the street Violet wondered, indeed, who had delivered her. Someone like me, I don’t doubt, she thought.
After that she was more careful, and when next she was called out let the poor wretch of a mother pretend that she had arrived just too late, and that the baby had come before she had; a shameful lie, but how could Violet Dimond risk a fine, or even gaol, with such a small child to care for?
Sister Goodrich was unimpressed. But she was gaining ground in any case. Presently Joanie Trewith, so long a martyr to her legs, was carried off by them altogether and died, and Ma Higden found work at the rope factory; and soon in that country the time of the handywoman, of the local wise woman, the experienced amateur hand, for good or for ill, was over. For a little while Violet Dimond was the very last of a tradition older than any profession, older than history, older than writing and houses, perhaps older than weapons, older than fire. Then that tradition ended, and no one, not even Violet herself, remarked its passing.
10
Like most parents Violet failed for a long time to notice that her child’s inner life was beyond her understanding. The baby’s feelings had been clear enough, transparent as a glass of water, and Violet had gone on assuming the same simplicity.
‘What did you do today?’ she might ask, on the way home from Sunday school, never suspecting for a moment that the account Grace gave her was in any way censored. But Grace had seen her mother’s face, when she had told her about the golliwogs, and tried to be careful ever afterwards. There were certain things Violet should be shielded from; she must be kept happy – that was Grace’s aim.
‘We did about Noah and the animals, we played a animal game, I was a elephant,’ she might reply, leaving out what Tommy Dando had said on the subject of animals, first privately into her ear, and then publicly, so that his nearest friends all laughed. It was best to keep such stuff from Violet; and easier, somehow. By the time you were home it might almost not have happened at all, if you didn’t mention it to anyone.
So Grace really had thought of the secret prayer all by herself.
First of course she would kneel beside the bed in her nightie, to say aloud the prayer Violet had taught her:
‘Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
God, help me be a good girl please, Amen.’
Then Violet would turn down the bedclothes, and say ‘In you get then, my lovely,’ and help Grace climb in, for the bed was chest-high, had to be pushed right up against the wall on one side to stop her falling out.
‘Warm enough?’ Violet usually asked, while she tucked in the bedclothes. Then she would blow out the candle, and kiss Grace’s cheek. ‘Straight to sleep now. And I’ll be popping in and out.’
Grace would wait until Violet had closed the door behind her before preparing for the secret prayer. She couldn’t kneel again at the bedside, even though that was the right way to pray, for while she could slide out of bed by herself, she knew she would never be able to get back in again on her own. Instead she lay still and flat on her back with her palms pressed together, like the stone knight in St George’s.
‘Dear Lord, hear my prayer,
Let me be like everyone else.
Let me wake up white in the morning.
Let me look like everyone else.
God, help me be a good girl please, Amen.’
Sometimes Grace felt sure that the strength of her longing would be enough. God couldn’t go on ignoring her, not when she could feel the secret prayer powering up into the sky like a rocket all the way through the night to where He was sit
ting with the angels in heaven, where appeals so pure, so absolute, must surely always be heard. Soon enough God would take notice and turn His eyes on her and simply do what she asked because it wasn’t so much, it wasn’t parting the Red Sea or being raised from the dead or walking on water. It was just being the same as everyone else, so little to Him, though it would be so much to her.
Often Grace lay in bed afterwards picturing how surprised everyone would be when God answered her and she woke up just like everyone else. How Lily would stare, how they both would laugh! And as for Tommy Dando, wouldn’t he feel silly then!
She would pretend nothing had happened. Ha! ‘What you staring at?’ she would ask, very snootily. No; she would just shrug her shoulders and ignore him, her nose in the air, but laughing all the time inside.
The secret prayer only faded when she started school, and slowly realized that if she wanted everything to be safe, if she wanted the house not to burn down, if she wanted Violet to be happy, if she wanted everything to stay as it was, orderly and secure, there were more important tasks that must be performed, in the right sequence, and at the right time.
She must, when going through to bed, pause in the doorway and note the shadow of her own left foot, held up behind her at a particular angle. She must fold her clothes in the right order, pile them on the chair so that their folded edges faced the wall and not the bed. After Violet had heard her bedtime prayer and gone away, there were the songs. They were ‘Bobby Shaftoe’, ‘The Harp That Once On Tara’s Walls’, and ‘Greensleeves’. They must be sung aloud, but quietly so that Violet would not hear, all the way through and word-perfect; any mistake meant starting again from the beginning, and they must all be done before Violet Popped In for the first time. That was the most worrying part, from Grace’s point of view. Some nights Violet Popped In sooner than others.
Usually though Grace was able to get through all the songs before Violet softly opened the door again and stood on the threshold in a rush of lamplight. Grace could just make out the reddish glow of it through her closed lids. For it was essential then to pretend to be asleep. Sometimes instead of going away again back to the mending or knitting, Violet stole closer so quietly that Grace could hardly hear her, and stood for a moment beside the bed, presumably looking down at her sleeping child, though of course Grace could not open her eyes to make sure.
On rare best-of-all nights, Violet bent and gave Grace a careful kiss on her forehead, and Grace would thrill all over with happiness. A kiss from someone who thought you were asleep was special. She liked the idea of it, the loving picture of it in her mind, the sleeping child, the watchful mother, the formal blessing of the kiss. And if it happened after all the songs had gone well and everything else had been properly attended to, the house was completely protected, and all night long nothing bad could happen, and even tomorrow was partly taken care of, or at least influenced in the right way, though of course you could never be quite sure.
For she was aware that to some at school her colour was a species of affliction. Not as bad as that of Fat Maggie Barnes, or of Clifford Petty, who had to wear a giant-sized boot on his clubbed left foot just to stay upright, or of Judith Laws, who wasn’t all there, and whose ears were on sideways. They were set low on her head, too, and her little mouth was squashed right up beneath her nose.
All these oddities were too familiar to be remarkable, but anyone who felt like it could make use of them, sneer at Fat Maggie, brush against Cliff in the playground and knock him over, playfully remind Judith about her ears. Or you could theatrically shun them. Or even feel a sort of affection for all three, for being so obviously inferior. This was the afflicted group that some in Grace’s class sought to place her in; while the struggle was all the harder for not being fully conscious, it was her business not to let them.
Though now and then schoolwork itself made Grace stand out. History, geography: black people were subject, unable to govern themselves; always ending up murdering each other, selling one another into slavery, cruelly burning widows alive and, of course, eating one another. It was all stark truth: the map of the world on the wall showed just how hard the British had had to work, all the pink bits showing where they were keeping black people from hurting one another.
‘Slaves, your lot,’ said Clara Collier, preening in the playground; Clara Collier, who owned one dress, whose neck and throat were dark with grime so old it had a gloss to it.
‘Cannibals,’ muttered Tommy Dando in the classroom, leaning dramatically away from Grace across the aisle, as if she might forget herself and take a bite out of him. On a sudden inspiration she pretended back, slightly widening her eyes, making a greedy yearning face at him: yes, tempted. As if it were impossible not to he instantly responded, holding out one tentative arm in mock-daring invitation; she bared her pretty teeth and briefly snapped them at him, and he grinned outright. All this neatly furtive, while Miss Foster’s back was turned; generally only the class’s lower beings got caught. Tommy was too magnificent for lines or the strap. Too canny.
But Grace Dimond had made him laugh, and everyone in the class had noticed.
The following year there was a Coronation Garden Party at Wooton Hall. This great house stood on the clifftop within sight of the sea, three miles outside Silkhampton, so the children of Silkhampton Council School were collected by several charabancs at mid-day and shepherded into the extensive grounds, where various delights awaited them; everyone knew that the Redwoods had more money than sense. A real steam roundabout with horses rising and falling in time to the piping organ music, as well as swingboats! And there were long white lines painted in the grass, so that the children could run races, and everyone who won was given a red ribbon on a safety pin, or blue for those who came second.
Grace was fast. Grace won the girls’ flat race for the Junior Girls, and the egg-and-spoon, and tied to Lily Houghton and brilliantly in step when all about them were falling over in struggling heaps, the three-legged race. Only Tommy Dando won more, and beat her in the final Race of Junior Champions at the end, though not by much.
‘Cheating, legs that long,’ murmured Grace to him, sidelong, as they went to collect their prizes, ‘Spindleshanks.’
‘Duck-arse,’ he whispered back, in the same teasing tone.
‘Come and have some lemonade, my hearties,’ said Mr Billy Redwood, when his mother had finished pinning on Grace’s blue rosette. He was a jolly pink-cheeked young man, who had fired the starting gun and jumped up and down yelling on the sidelines, just as if he had gone to the Council School himself, instead of far away somewhere else with his brother. Grace thought he was very good-looking, and gave him a particular smile she had secretly been practising in front of the small square of mirror by the kitchen door.
What did the Honourable William Philip Fane Redwood make of Grace Dimond? He knew about her, of course, vaguely, as he knew about most things in the town that was in many ways his property, or would be, one day.
‘What’s your name again, little girl?’
What gave him the idea? What kind of impulse? Perhaps he could not have said himself. Though it was something to do with his least-favourite aunt, Dora, who from the drawing-room window had earlier remarked loudly on the general shocking plainness of the children of the poor; and especially singled out the coloured child, who, she thought, rather spoilt what simple bucolic charm the scene might otherwise have had, the romping villagers so enjoying the typical summer loveliness of an English country garden.
‘I mean to say, this is a traditional garden party in a fine traditional place,’ said Aunt Dora. ‘And then you get this ghastly negro running about ruining everything. I think it’s a real shame.’
‘Come along, you two,’ said Billy Redwood now. ‘Got something to show you.’ And Grace and Tommy Dando – by now swapping glances, by now altogether comradely in shared merriment – followed this baffling toff into the cool dark enormity of the Hall, down several stone-flagged corridors, to a room bigger than
any Grace or Tommy had ever seen before in their lives, bigger than the school hall, bigger even than St George’s Silkhampton, with acres of slightly springy floor to clump across, a high ceiling painted with clouds and swirling human figures trailing yards of material, and several huge windows looking out on to a terrace edged with stone pineapples, and beyond that the long silvery line of distant blue sea.
‘Look here! Jolly, don’t you think?’
Mr Billy Redwood was standing now by a picture in one of the room’s far corners, a large painting of a beautiful lady in a shining light-blue dress, a young lady, though her hair was white, and all piled up on top of her head like an ice-cream cone.
Grace and Tommy exchanged more glances; they were both on the edge of uncontrollable giggles. ‘Thank you, sir,’ squeaked Tommy, while Grace had to look at her feet, the better to hold herself in.
‘No, no, look – look here. See him?’
Mr Billy was pointing now into the corner of the picture. Grace looked, and saw for the first time in her life a picture of someone very like herself. A dark brown boy, no older than she was, younger, perhaps, was standing beside the glowing voluminous skirts of the white-haired lady. He was wearing what looked like a sort of turban, yellow and shiny, and a long green coat and breeches.
‘His name was Barty Small; see him? What d’you think of him?’ said Mr Billy, very pleased with himself.
Grace said nothing. Barty Small’s dark eyes seemed to be looking right into her own. Why, he must be the white-haired lady’s foster child, as she herself was Violet Dimond’s! She was not the only brown child to have lived here so!
‘Brought over from St Kitt’s,’ said Mr Billy, as if this explained something.
‘What happened to him? When he grew up, like?’ Grace asked at last. But Mr Billy did not know.
‘Oh, far too long ago. A hundred and fifty years ago at least. He grew up, I suppose. Yes, I think he definitely lived to grow up.’
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