The House on Hummingbird Island Read online

  We took forty prisoners and captured fourteen guns, and Chaytor, the general, said afterwards he could wish for no better men than the BWIR. Nelson was awarded the DCM and promoted to corporal.

  It is cold in a desert at night and I strongly suspect that the jersey I’ve been issued was made by you, since it is full of holes. My battalion has one hundred and twenty mules and thirty-six camels attached to it, though not a monkey or mongoose in sight. Idie, is your chin –

  She stopped reading aloud and scanned the next few lines. Edith looked straight ahead and for once picked up the reins and fidgeted with them, in such a way that Daisy, with a toss of her head, made clear was entirely unnecessary.

  – still high? Is your heart still laced with moonshine? Do you dress in rainbows? I would like to bring you back a camel. You don’t yet have a camel.

  These are the other animals I can offer you:

  1. Scorpion

  2. Snake

  3. Mosquito

  They are all, for various different reasons, unsuitable; 1. A nuisance as they get under the blankets. 2 & 3. Self-explanatory.

  So I will do my best to squeeze a camel into a kitbag though it might be a little awkward.

  Love,

  Austin

  ‘Don’t forget to send the jam,’ Idie said aloud, improvising, ‘From Austin.’

  She was silent for a while and cross, for he had written to her as if she were just a child.

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  Early in 1918 a telegraph boy came to Bathsheba. Idie stared at the envelope in her hands, at the handwriting on it, the unfamiliar hand of some GPO clerk. She saw the words ‘URGENT, PERSONAL’, and hesitated to open it. Mayella and Phibbah read on Idie’s face the dread in her heart. Idie stepped away from them and walked alone into the garden.

  Kantara

  Egypt

  April 1918

  Dear Miss Grace,

  Be alone when you read this, God bless you and steel yourself.

  Idie turned the paper over. The Reverend Lionel Hayne. Austin’s father.

  Not Austin, please not Austin too.

  She read on, trembling.

  Nelson, poor man, has asked that you break this news to Mayella before the official notice comes.

  Sampson. Dear God, not Sampson. Stricken, Idie raised her eyes to the kitchen window. She saw Mayella in there, a red hibiscus in her hair, dancing a pasodoble around the table with Gypsy. Oh, Mayella . . .

  The trouble we knew was brewing has come but, dear God, that it should come in such a way.

  One of the men from Bathsheba, Sampson Sealy, is dead, executed by firing squad.

  Damn them all – the British officers provoked this. The West Indies Regiment came to fight, but for two years were forced only to dig pipes, stack shells and clean latrines. Two days ago the men were made to unload white men’s kit from the train and that was when the trouble started. On some minor account of ill discipline, Sampson Sealy was given a field punishment. It was not warranted, for he was never insubordinate, but a certain officer has had it in for Sampson from the start and had Sampson confined and punished. It is claimed then that at some time during that punishment Sampson assaulted a military policeman. I can’t believe it of him, nor can anyone who knew him.

  The highest price is paid for this offence.

  Forgive me, Miss Grace, there is no gentle way to tell what happened. I was called to attend the execution and went at dawn, together with my medical officer. Sampson stood close to the wall, naked from the waist up, as gentle-looking a man as I ever saw, waiting his moment with grace and dignity. the staff were hesitant, the little quartermaster white with fear, the assistant provost marshal fidgeting with his revolver and shuffling. Only Sampson was still and calm. the dawn rose and gathered all her light on him. The firing party huddled, twenty or so feet away, their faces drawn. the QM stuck strips of plaster to Sampson’s heart, his fingers trembling while Sampson gazed ahead, his eyes soft and shining.

  As the QM fumbled to tie the handkerchief around his eyes, Sampson said, ‘Is all right, reverend, I can die with my eyes open.’ I whispered that it were better he didn’t as this would be seen as an act of defiance. ‘All right, sir,’ Sampson said, and the handkerchief was tied.

  Afterwards a stunned silence fell over us all.

  Tell Mayella that a chaplain had been with Sampson all the preceding day, that I was there and gave him the last offices and that he died in readiness to face his God. Tell her too that his last words were for her, asking that I tell her that he had seen all over the world now and knew for certain that the best lady in all of it was sweet Mayella Mayley. He asked also that his brother Reuben take good care of her.

  I am sorry to be the bearer of such dreadful tidings.

  Yours, Lionel Hayne

  Mayella came and set down a bowl of golden pawpaw for Homer. Idie started and looked up, clutching the paper to her chest.

  ‘I bring you banana bread, hot chocolate, mango. We have the bib for the monkey, the bib for the mongoose.’

  Idie stared at Mayella aghast.

  Mayella saw Idie’s distress and said gently, ‘The war it gon’ end soon and the men they come home . . .’

  ‘Mayella . . .’ Idie began.

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  Mayella’s grief and silence was the grief and silence of a whole house. She didn’t sing nor dance nor speak in riddles and Bathsheba became a sad, dim place.

  Gypsy never swung from the rafters, nor did the sun fowl click her tail, nor Homer whistle, nor Baronet whinny. Every creature drooped and bent his head in shame that such things could come to pass. Everything was muted, the sprinkling of moonshine on the lawn faint and dingy, the song of the tree frogs flat, and there was no coconut cake, no lemonade.

  Sampson was dead. Myles was dead.

  The armistice came and went unmarked at Bathsheba.

  Ships began to reach Georgetown, and the shops, after three long years, filled their shelves. Benedict had written that he’d been released, would come soon, was in need of a rest. Men began to return from Europe though Austin, like many of the BWIR, was still stationed at Taranto in Italy, waiting for transport home.

  In January 1919, Austin wrote to Edith of a mutiny among his men. The BWIR Taranto in Italy were doing labour fatigues alongside the Egyptian troops. The matter of the recent pay rise for the English troops had come up again. Austin had petitioned on behalf of his men for an equal rise, but in response was given an order that his men start to clean the latrines used by Italian labourers. Tempers burst, the men mutinied and were tried. Forty-nine were found guilty and imprisoned to hard labour, among them Carlisle Quarterly.

  One February morning Mayella whispered, ‘My father is coming. He’s on the next ship.’

  ‘We must all go to welcome him home,’ Idie said.

  Phibbah braided Mayella’s hair and Celia had made her a new dress.

  When Nelson’s ship came in they stood, Idie, Celia, Phibbah, Clement, Reuben and Mayella together amidst Mayella’s sisters and brothers, on the dock at Georgetown. Red, white and blue shone from every post and tree. Mayella’s new dress was fresh and pretty as a doily, and Reuben stood close beside her.

  The steps were lowered from the ship. The military police formed a flank on either side and the first of the men began to disembark. They fell into line on the dock. Heads peered and strained as they searched for the faces of those they loved. A group of nearby women glanced at Idie and whispered, but Idie didn’t care; she’d live her life as she wished, among the people she loved.

  ‘They say she’s not quite right, like the mother you know, the same thing . . .’

  Idie lifted her head and looked away. What did it matter what they said, or what became of her?

  The crowds roared and the bands struck up in every corner as the returning men paraded into the square. They came to a halt before the crowd. Idie scanned their faces, thinking idly that Carlisle wouldn’t be among them, him being a prisoner in Taranto, but that made no d
ifference to her now. Fear of him had been long displaced by larger griefs.

  Sampson should be there among those men, returning to marry Miss Mayella Mayley in the little Baptist chapel.

  Nelson stood at the far end of the line in the front row.

  Idie touched Mayella’s sleeve. ‘There – Mayella – your father – do you see him, at the front on the left?’

  Nelson’s arm was bandaged. He wore a medal on his chest, a badge on his cap and the twin stripes of a corporal on his sleeve. He was thin and scarred and his eyes were deep and sad, but when he saw his clutch of children there together on that dock he smiled and it was as if the sun had risen in his face.

  On the podium in the centre of the square, the governor waited for absolute silence.

  ‘Men of this sweet island, you’re home again. Look at this harbour, at these white sands, these hills and trees, and be sure you are not dreaming.

  ‘Many of you standing here today remember the first contingent of men this island sent; many of you will still feel the tears on your faces, still see the ship sailing out as the sinking sun streamed across the water and the band played the last strains of the Soldier’s Song.

  ‘Four years have passed since then. The war has been fought and won. More than ten thousand men left this shore, of whom a thousand will never return.’

  Mayella dropped her head and murmured a prayer. Reuben took her hand in his.

  From each corner of the square a brass band played a chord and the soldiers and the police, the governor and the onlookers and all the people of Hummingbird broke into song and sang with all their hearts till their anthem resounded from the mountains to the reefs and shook the plumes of the palms, and somewhere deep and buried, a still light and living corner of Idie was stirred.

  Afterwards Edith sought out Idie and said, ‘We still have long work to do, you and I, for armistices do not mend the minds that war unravels.’

  And together they made their way to Boscobelle, each alone with her thoughts.

  83

  Bristol

  March 1919

  Dear Miss Grace,

  I board a ship tomorrow and hope to arrive at Georgetown within ten days.

  I bring Benedict with me in the hope that he will have a period of rest calm at Bathsheba. He contracted malaria in the desert and is in need of some warmth and quiet.

  His Lordship asks to be remembered to you.

  Yours,

  Algernon Webb

  Idie put the letter down and looked up.

  She had left it at twelve, was now almost nineteen, but Pomeroy wasn’t far away and long ago to her. It was still the measure by which she lived; Grancat, Myles and Benedict still her yardsticks. She’d make Benedict proud of her. She’d show him the land, show him the cane fields and the sugar works, show him how the new cacao crop was faring, how it didn’t hurt the hands of the men as cane did.

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  Later, standing again on the kitchen chair, she turned a quarter-circle as Celia pulled out the tacking stitches along her hem.

  Benedict was now an officer and decorated. He went to balls and bars and regimental dances and he was coming from the other side of the world to visit her. The Jack monkey must leave the guest bedroom and the sun fowl must be persuaded out of the dining room.

  Idie thought too of Mayella and of how light and song was returning by degrees to Bathsheba. Since that day on the quay when Mayella had waited to see Nelson’s return, she’d begun to hum and dance and hum again as she went about her ineffectual, pretty sort of dabbing at the household dust. Gypsy’s spirits had rallied with Mayella’s and she too had taken up a mop once more and cradled it and turned in circles, and Idie smiled, glad to think that others, at least, could still find some lightness in their hearts.

  The door opened now and Mayella came in, but she stomped across the kitchen with her bucket, filling it noisily at the dripping tap.

  Then she put her hands on her hips and demanded, ‘Why must that Jack monkey move? Who this man coming that is so special he must sleep in the monkey’s bedroom?’ She stomped out, pail banging, the water slopping on the tiles.

  Idie shook her head in bewilderment at Mayella’s reversal in temper, but she put Mayella’s sourness aside because Benedict was coming that afternoon. She lifted her head and ran her hands down the silky cloth of the new dress. Now the ships were getting through, there was fabric in the shops once more and she no longer had to wear the drapery of Bathsheba’s windows. Idie turned another quarter-circle, a little offended that Mayella had said nothing nice about her dress, for Idie was sure it was very pretty.

  She bent to Celia and said, ‘One day I will set you up a shop in Georgetown, and when I do you will have a line of customers from there to Carriacou.’

  Celia smiled shyly and Idie thought that she must ask Clement about premises. She looked out through the window to the new cane fields, thinking too that she’d show Benedict how she’d managed, show him the new offices, the accounts and payroll system. Benedict would bring news of Pomeroy. He’d tell of her of the years Idie thought of as the missing years, and most of all of he’d tell her of Grancat and Lancelot, of Stables and Pomeroy, and together they’d remember Myles too.

  Idie looked at the counter where the coconut cake stood ready, the squash and guineafowl prepared for dinner. She and Benedict would eat perhaps on the lawn under the moonflowers, where the breeze was coolest. Benedict needed rest and peace and, because of that and because of Benedict being so grand, the Jack monkey had been removed from his room.

  The kitchen door swung open once more and Mayella set down the pail abruptly, folded her arms and said, ‘The lawyer man is here. Only him. The other one is not here.’

  The floor beneath Idie fell away. For a second or two she could not move. Then she lifted her head and yanked the thread from her neckline, stepped down and walked to the window. Numbers stood alone on the forecourt, dismissing the driver.

  She hesitated there, gripping the windowsill. Where was Benedict?

  Numbers’s face was leaner, more lines had grown between those that were there before and his glasses sat on his face as though they’d blossomed right there before his eyes and then thought they’d stay in just that place forever. Idie bowed her head a second, biting her lip and fighting the hurt that was welling inside her. Benedict hadn’t come; it was because he was not well perhaps, or weak after the sea journey. Celia and Phibbah stood either side of Idie, each looking with concern at the young woman who stood between them.

  Idie lifted her head, smoothed her dress and walked with slow dignity through the dining room and out into the hall. Numbers was climbing the stairs to the veranda. Gypsy sat on a rafter, scratching her cheek and tugging her ear, uncertain what to make of him.

  ‘YOUR EXCELLENCY,’ Homer said, and Numbers smiled and raised his hat in response.

  ‘Homer.’

  And at that Gyspy decided resolutely in favour of Numbers and sprang down beside him and, to his confusion, curled her tail about his waist. Numbers looked in alarm towards the door and there saw Idie, and slowly, with the monkey’s tail still about his waist, took stock of the young woman the small girl he’d last seen had become.

  ‘Miss Grace.’

  Idie looked at the man who’d transported her this far side of the world and left her here. Anger gathered in her and she said, a little acid, ‘Tell me, did Miss Treble settle over you like a sunset? Did she whisk you away in a cloud of lilac chiffon?’

  Astonishment silenced Numbers for a moment or two. Then he blinked and said, ‘You’ve lost none of your candour, Miss Grace.’

  The Crockets, like spectators at a tennis match, turned as one, their long beaks from Numbers to Idie when she retorted, ‘Mr Webb, you left me here with Treble . . .’

  Gypsy uncoiled her tail from about his waist and Numbers stepped across the veranda, circumnavigating at a safe distance the Crockets.

  The good in Idie, along with the mischief, surfaced like a cork an
d she smiled.

  ‘All right, I won’t be beastly, I promise.’

  She drew up a chair for them both and sat. Millie slipped from her basket and settled, like a coiled ribbon, on her lap.

  ‘Miss Grace.’ Numbers opened his mouth and closed it. Then he smiled and said, ‘Fishes do that.’

  Idie grinned. ‘I believe a horrid little girl may once have told you something along those lines.’

  ‘I never met a horrid little girl in all my life. I once boarded a large ship in the company of a large horse and a brave little girl who wouldn’t wear her hat. She caused me all kinds of trouble and taught me all kinds of things.’

  He looked down and twisted his hat in his hands as if astonished he’d said so many words in one go, so Idie asked what she most wanted to know.

  ‘Where’s Benedict?’

  Numbers opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.

  ‘Fishes,’ said Idie.

  He nodded and said, ‘He’s at the governor’s house. He’s involved with the cenotaph they’re building and, well, there’s a dance there tonight. But he needs rest – please make him rest; he’s weaker than he knows and reckless and, well, it may just be his age, but he’s perhaps too fond of parties.’

  Idie, still sensitive to such things as other people going to dances and not she, understood at once that there would be a dance that night and Benedict would go but that he’d not take her. She lifted her head and swallowed and said, as if talking of a stranger about whom she had only a mild curiosity, ‘Is he well? Was the journey all right?’