The House on Hummingbird Island Read online

  They went far out over the shimmering, undulating threads of petrol, indigo and turquoise to a cluster of islands, tiny spots of land, small as crumbs left for birds, and the wind was soft and the air silky and minuscule silver fish flew about the boat, breaking the water like a gospel.

  Austin leaned over the edge and ran his fingers through the water and then ran them over Gladstone’s hand-painted lettering, The Word of the Lord, and Gladstone threw a line for tunny fish overboard.

  Idie, watching Austin, asked, ‘Don’t you think about your real mother?’

  ‘She is my REAL mother. Mother and Father are my parents and I’ve never needed any others. Hey-ho.’

  Dolphins burst in concert from the blue, rising as one and falling as one. There were porpoises too and sea hawks and grampuses the size of Devon cows and turtles that slept on the waves, and Gypsy huddled at the bottom of The Word of the Lord fearful of the great size of the sea that was all around her and of all the water that seemed to be in it.

  When they turned for home Hummingbird lay before them, floating carelessly on the silver waves, melting as a dream, a happy, careless thing that God once had let slip from his pocket and never remembered to pick up and put somewhere more sensible.

  Those were the years; the years that Idie later came to think of as the Bright and Shining Years; the years that Austin came every day to Bathsheba. Those were the years that the island and the house wound themselves around her heartstrings; the years that the warmth of the place ran down into her soul; the years of creeks and waterfalls, of lemonade and picnics, of dappled light and blossomy shade, of molten marigold sundowns and rushing violet nightfalls; the years Idie felt at peace because she had no more questions to ask; the years in which grown-ups played almost no part in things at all.

  38

  Idie had never wanted to go to the races. When Austin came for her, she said, ‘Why don’t we go to the beach instead, or the waterfall?’

  ‘It’s for your education. Mother says it’s entirely necessary that you go a bit about the world.’

  ‘I see,’ said Idie doubtfully, amused that horse racing was considered educational in Austin’s house. Even Grancat had never made such a claim.

  They passed the garrison and she saw the parasols and fans and she tightened a little inside because of all the people that were there. Austin drew up and said, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fun. Look, we’ll head for the paddock first, then place our bets . . .’

  The members’ enclosure was a raised and covered stand overlooking the racetrack. It was crowded with pastel-coloured ladies and dark-suited men. On the other side of the track the pastel-coloured women sat about on the grass, like posies, their bright skirts puffed out around them on all sides.

  ‘Father’s up there – look – let’s go and join him,’ said Austin, gesturing. Idie looked up at all the white and pastel ladies there and hesitated.

  ‘Come on,’ said Austin, taking her hand and leading her on up the stairs and weaving through legs and between tables and chairs. They found Austin’s father engaged in intense conversation with two other men. The pipe that was clamped in the corner of his mouth looked as though it had once grown there and decided to stay forever after, except for the fact of it having to be taken out for sermons. Austin and Idie waited for the men to finish talking, but they went on for a long while about Serbia and Yugoslavia and an archduke who’d been assassinated.

  ‘There’ll be a war, you know,’ whispered Austin.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of the archduke who was shot.’

  ‘I see,’ said Idie, who of course didn’t see at all why the one thing should necessarily lead to the other.

  ‘Father . . .’ said Austin finally, and the circle opened to them.

  ‘Idie Grace,’ said Idie, stepping forward and holding out her hand to the rector. Grancat had taught her it was courteous to give one’s full name always so as to be as helpful as possible, a spirit of helpfulness being the only justification for manners.

  ‘Quite, quite, of course you are. I’m delighted to meet you, Idie Grace, quite delighted. Miss Grace, this is Venables, and this is Elder.’ Idie remembered the Elder ladies outside the bank in Carriacou and she flinched. Venables and Elder raised their brows faintly and gave a scant nod to Idie, before meeting each other’s eyes and withdrawing a little.

  Austin’s father took Idie’s small hand in his large one and, clasping it, bent down to her. Idie, standing in a cloud of tobacco smoke, kept very still, wondering if he’d mistaken her for a curious species from a remote jungle country. She stared into the tangled white hair that was level with her eyes, thinking that it didn’t get much tending to and one might perhaps find a new sort of bird nesting in it. Then she noticed his pockets, bulging with magnifying glasses of all shapes and sizes.

  ‘Very good. Very good.’ The pipe reverberated as he spoke. ‘Magnificent, yes, yes. Your mother, of course, was a beauty too.’

  ‘Tell me about her,’ she wanted to say, but Venables whispered to Elder, ‘Good bit of land she’s got up there.’

  He and Elder withdrew a step or two and the air between them all grew sharp and glassy, but Austin’s father seemed not to have noticed because he was still inspecting Idie, while at the same time giving Austin a tip. ‘The third race, number nine, son. That’s the one to put your money on.’

  ‘Terrible shame about the mother,’ said Elder, and Idie wondered if Venables and Elder thought she were deaf.

  ‘Father, your tips are never any good.’

  ‘Number nine in the third, number five in the fourth.’

  ‘That strange chap, the butler there, said it happened in the creek below the house . . .’

  ‘Well, he’d know, all right, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Said it was a mercy really, her being . . .’ Venables dropped his voice and whispered, but it seemed to Idie that the whole room could hear.

  ‘It runs in the blood, you know, that sort of thing.’

  She shrank back, her hands over her ears, shaking, and Austin’s father shot up and boomed, like a gust of wind across the glassy space, ‘Polecats, the pair of you. Elder, d’you know, you can find another rector to marry that dreary daughter of yours.’

  39

  Idie put two and two together and wrote:

  Bathsheba

  12th July 1914

  Dear Myles,

  Something happened here once and there is a secret that I don’t know, but it is the reason why people are scared of the house and things had to be taken out of it.

  No one will bell me what it is, but I think it happened at Black Water Creek and that is why no one will go there. Also there is something in my blood that makes people stare at me and whisper.

  That is for the Idie Book.

  Love Idie

  PS Tell Grancat I went racing. I didn’t like it very much. [Don’t tell him I didn’t like it.] DO tell him that Baronet is thinking about siring a new bloodline with a mare called Daisy. [I don’t think he knows that he can’t because of being gelded.]

  PPS Austin says there will be a war because of an Archduke who was shot.

  40

  ‘Mother’s changed her mind about you. She says children can be entirely ruined by going to school and coming across grown-ups.’

  ‘Oh good. I am so glad,’ said Idie, ‘because I have no intention of going to school or going anywhere about the place very much in fact. It is much safer staying here.’

  ‘However, she says you are her new project. I have to warn you it is dangerous being a project of Mother’s, but the good news for you is that this one won’t involve her at all except for the giving of instructions from a distance. You see, I am to be her intermediary. So, now that your soul has been taken in hand, and your education ruled out, we are to tackle your estate. Come with me.’

  They led the horses across a patch of rough ground overgrown with Guinea grass.

  ‘When you abandon the cane, the Guinea grows up, you se
e, and smothers it.’ Austin took a piece of it and put it in his mouth and chewed it. ‘Gladstone should get the cane growing here again.’

  ‘Was it all cane here once?’

  ‘Yes, once, almost up to the walls of the garden.’

  They rode together between the nutmeg and on along a sand track thickly carpeted in leathery rustling leaves, through the cacao plantation. The cacao bushes were spreading and lush, their large, glossy leaves making glittering waves on the ground, like light on the surface of water. They watched a line of men at work, poking pods to the ground with sticks.

  ‘You have responsibilities, Idie, to Bathsheba and to the people on it,’ said Austin. ‘You must know the hours they work, the amount they’re paid.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Idie, ‘I must.’

  ‘Father says sugar’ll be very profitable, you know, because of the war.’

  Austin and Idie were silent as they rode home, and Idie wondered if Austin was still thinking about the war too, because thoughts of it kept sneaking back into her head.

  After a while Austin asked, ‘How old are Myles and Benedict?’

  ‘They’re too young,’ replied Idie promptly. ‘Benedict has one more year of school. Myles is just a boy, and in any case, he’d be no good in a war; he has freckles and falls out of trees and only ever eats pancakes.’

  ‘He was just a boy when you last saw him, Idie, but boys grow up. Things change whether you want them to or not.’

  ‘It will be over before they’re old enough,’ said Idie. ‘Grancat doesn’t believe in war. He says the world should be run by women because they have more common sense. Myles and Benedict wouldn’t ever fight and neither would you, would you?’

  Austin answered, ‘Father doesn’t believe in wars either.’ After a while he added, ‘I have to creep into the Dungeon to read the newspapers now, because that’s where they get put.’

  ‘The Dungeon?’

  ‘Mother and Father don’t read letters or newspapers. There’s a special room we call the Dungeon for letters and bills and things, and they all just get popped in there. They’re in a huge pile, and Mother just shuts the door on it to stop it flooding out, and Father says it’s amazing how many problems just go away if you don’t read about them.’

  Idie rather liked the sound of Austin’s home, because not only did it have crocodiles on the walls and beetles in the drawers but now it also had a sort of Dungeon where bad things could be locked away, but she said doubtfully, ‘I don’t think wars go away just because you don’t read about them in newspapers.’ Then she added, ‘Wars go away if men don’t go to fight them. That’s how they go away. And that’s why no one should go to war.’

  41

  Pomeroy

  September 1914

  Dear Idie,

  Benedict has joined the Scots Guards. That is a family regiment and he is very proud of that. He does look guite grand in his uniform, but he shows off too much and wears it much more than he needs to, i.e. to DANCES and things.

  He says he’s going to show the Germans a thing or two as soon as he can. Grancat says it’s all stuff and nonsense because the war will be over before Benedict can even get anywhere close, but still I am a tiny bit jealous.

  Love Myles

  Idie couldn’t see how Benedict had got grown-up enough already to wear uniform and go to dances and things, let alone to be thinking of showing the Germans a thing or two. How silly of Myles to be jealous because Benedict had a uniform; how silly all boys were about uniforms and things, and how good it was that Austin was different to most of them. Furious, Idie threw the letter aside. It was just as well it would all end soon, long before Benedict would get to France.

  42

  Austin didn’t come again till Sunday. Every day that week Idie had hoped he’d come, and every day she’d waited for him.

  ‘I’ve a picnic ready,’ she told him. ‘Let’s go to the beach.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he answered.

  ‘Come on,’ she insisted.

  They walked together along the path that led to Carriacou. Austin paused in the shade of a Tamarind, where the stream met the sea. ‘They’ve formed a West Indies Regiment, you know, Idie.’

  ‘That’s silly!’ she retorted. ‘Why ever would the men from here want to fight? Why would they want to fight for something so distant and far away?’

  They walked for a while in silence till Austin said, ‘It won’t end soon, you know, the war. It might go on a very long while.’

  Idie digested this, thinking that if it went on for a long while more, then Benedict would get to France before it was all over.

  ‘There’s a German battleship in the waters just off here; it’s been seen.’

  ‘Is there?’ she answered absently, because she wasn’t much interested in things like German battleships unless perhaps they happened to sail into her bedroom, but in the waters off here sounded actually rather close at hand, and she’d never imagined the war would be here on her doorstep.

  Austin paused by the fish stall to admire the strangeness of the creatures that were pulled from the sea, and Idie read the notices pinned to the wooden post of the canopy.

  A RESERVE REGIMENT WILL BE

  FORMED IN EVERY PARISH

  for

  LOCAL DEFENCE

  Another read:

  WAR RELIEF FUND.

  Women Form Local Organizations to

  Send Woollen Clothing.

  Idie sighed, hating the reminders of the war that were everywhere, and thinking of Numbers, who’d written that he’d not be coming until the war was over because the ships weren’t getting through, and of Mayella who considered that war in Europe had absolved her of all responsibility for household dust and disorder.

  ‘Mayella has given up on cleaning altogether. Now she does nothing but knit. She’s scared the soldiers will die of cold when they arrive in England.’

  Austin laughed. ‘Mother spends all day knitting too. She’s even formed a Woollen Organization, but I know she’ll get bored of the knitting soon and, besides, she’s not awfully good at it. She says the price of everything’s going to go up and there’ll be food shortages.’

  They moved onward, thoughtfully, and Idie asked, ‘Even if you were old enough, you wouldn’t fight, would you?’

  Austin never answered because Carlisle was there, leaning against the door to the rum shack, a rolled newspaper in his hand. As they approached, he touched a hand to his hat, a slow, ironic gesture, and raised his brows at Austin’s creel and wicker basket.

  ‘Good afternoon, Carlisle,’ said Austin, very polite. He gestured to the notice for volunteers. ‘Will you be going? I hear many men’ve volunteered already and gone to Georgetown.’

  ‘It’s a white man’s war,’ Carlisle answered. He unrolled the paper and held up the front page.

  WE ARE SECOND TO NONE IN OUR LOYALTY TO THE BRITISH CROWN AND WILL RISE TO THE OCCASION, KNOWING THAT THE PEOPLE OF THIS ISLAND ARE BEHIND US IN ANY SACRIFICES WE MAKE.

  ‘But what will the British Army pay the men from here? And will they pay our transport? Will they treat us the same? Oh no.’

  Later, sitting on the white sand between clouds of sea grape, Idie said, ‘No one can get out here now from England, can they? We’re cut off.’

  Austin nodded.

  43

  Two days had passed when Mayella came running up to Idie’s room,

  ‘Hurry, Miss Idie. The German ship coming in soon. Master Austin is here with the trap. Sampson and me, and Celia, and Phibbah, we all going. What dress are you wearing this day?’

  To the great delight of the sun fowl, breakfast, on account of everyone being in a hurry, was set in the dining room. This was her kingdom, the domain of white linen and silver, and she went up and down the table, picking her way on her knock-knee ostrich legs, opening and closing her tail and clicking in a disapproving manner as she passed the monkey, though she had no objection to mongooses or parakeets at all.

  When they
drew close to Nelson Bay they heard drums and brass bands. Austin pulled aside so they could watch the Georgetown Rifles march past. Celia looked at them and her eyes grew soft and dreamy. Mayella looked and her black eyes filled at the sight of so many uniforms and ribbons and badges and fine men. She whispered to Sampson that he’d look handsome in uniform, and Idie rolled her eyes at Austin. Sampson was quiet and watched the Rifles longingly.

  They joined the crowd at the quayside and the men lifted their hats to sing the national anthem, and the breeze ruffled the skirts of the ladies and lifted the hair of the men and fluttered the blue and the white and the red bunting and the canon fired and HMS Essex steamed into the mouth of the bay. The Dresden was towed in behind her, tail between her legs, and the crowd roared.

  Someone made a speech and said that from this great British anchorage the Spaniards had been once kept at bay, from this same anchorage Lord Nelson himself had kept the French at bay, and now from this same anchorage a great German battleship had been captured. The Georgetown Infantry Volunteers marched the prisoners off the ship to the beat of the brass band, and the thunders roared from the crowd and Austin cheered and Idie turned, discomforted that he should feel such joy at it.

  ‘Oh my Lord,’ whispered Mayella, her eyes filling once again as she clutched Phibbah’s sleeve. ‘What’s he doing there? Not him, not my own father . . .’

  Idie turned. Nelson, Mayella’s father, Gladstone’s son, Nelson, at the recruiting stand. Mayella was running towards a makeshift table proudly draped in the British flag, a sign pinned to the canopy saying ‘RECRUITING STAND’.