The House on Hummingbird Island Read online

  Idie was terribly keen on the idea of monkeys coming to Bathsheba so she said in a hurry, ‘Oh, Treble doesn’t notice things like monkeys and, in any case, because there’s no rum left in the house and because there’s plenty on the boat, she’s left to follow her heart. Following her heart means chasing Numbers, my trustee, all the way back to Bristol.’

  Austin regarded Idie thoughtfully for a minute or two.

  ‘So you’re here alone.’

  Idie nodded.

  She smiled, but had to force her smile to stay in place, and when she could no longer keep it there she dropped her head and bit her lower lip because it began to tremble whenever she thought quite how alone she really was. Despite the unusual sense of normality that life at Pomeroy had given her, Idie knew that being left alone on a remote plantation on the other side of the world in the company of Mayella, whose fears came to life as duppies, and Celia, who was made of water, Phibbah, who was a sphinx, and a butler who thought he was the master was not at all in the usual run of things for a child.

  ‘Golly,’ said Austin. Then he jumped up and laughed and said, ‘What fun you’ll have. We’ll fill the house; station a guard in every room. We’ll put turtles in the bathtubs, hummingbirds in the hall, monkeys in the rafters . . . You’ll whistle them out in the mornings . . .’ He took a pencil stub from his pocket and read as he wrote:

  ‘Monkeys, Cebus, plenty

  Monkey, small Spider, one

  Jack monkey, one

  Toucans, two

  Sun fowl, female, one’

  ‘Turtles, plenty, small

  Let’s see, what else . . . ? They’ll be the elders of the house, your personal retinue, your household cavalry, they’ll sit in judgement . . .’

  ‘They will not sit in judgement over me,’ said Idie immediately.

  ‘Not over you, silly, over everyone else of course.’

  Idie smiled then and said, ‘I’ll paint the house the colour of the sky and the moon, the windows will always be open and the winds will blow from front to back, and the stars will hang inside . . .’

  ‘And you will dress in rainbows . . .’

  ‘YOU WILL DRESS IN RAINBOWS,’ echoed Homer, adding as an afterthought, ‘YOUR EXCELLENCY.’

  PART III

  November 1912

  24

  Bathsheba

  22nd November 1912

  Dear Myles,

  I am not scared any more because I have all sorts of animals. You see, Austin’s father wishes he was a biologist, and specimens and animals from all the jungles of the world arrive at his house. Austin’s mother gets annoyed about that and tells Austin to bring them here.

  These are the animals I have:

  1. A mongoose called Millie that you know about. She makes hissing noises when NOT NICE people come near.

  2. A sulphur-crested parakeet called Homer. He thinks he’s better than anyone else because only he can talk. He’s a true and faithful friend, but neither his conversation nor his character have developed at all, and I can’t say anything serious to him as he is so prone to repeating secrets in front of people.

  3. A family of Cebu monkeys that live in a spare bedroom. They are really not very friendly.

  4. A Jack monkey that lives in another spare room. He has to live there because the Cebus don’t like him. You see, Jack is bitter in his heart and thinks the world is against him, but he’s as happy in the guest bedroom as he could be anywhere because of the canopy over the bed. He perches there and swings down suddenly to terrify anyone who comes into the room. So you see, monkeys and mongooses can keep NOT NICE people away.

  5. A sun fowl, who lives in the dining room and is a perfectly silly sort of thing with knobbly knees and wings that click and make a noise like a grandfather clock.

  6. A greenback turtle. Tommy is only the size of a beetle but one day he’ll be so big there won’t be enough room for him in the bathtub. I have to feed him crabs and jellyfish and keep his windows closed, otherwise the gulls will get him.

  7. BARONET, who is still the best.

  Do you know, perfectly sensible people here believe all sorts of things and speak in riddles? For example, 1. No one goes to a place called Black Water Creek because they say the devil walks about there at night. 2. Everyone believes in duppies. They are the fears and worries that are inside your head and they come alive and live in silk cotton trees and like to play in candle flames and cupboards, so opening cupboards and lighting candles can be a risky business.

  The GOOD news is that the butler hasn’t come upstairs since all the animals came.

  Treble’s gone. She left because she took too much punch and that made her weepy about Numbers. I’ll never drink punch in case that happens to me, but please tell Grancat not to send another governess out because it isn’t necessary at all.

  Tell Stables there’s a kind of grass called Guinea grass, and Baronet thinks it’s rather good.

  Did you know that hummingbirds live in nests the size of walnut shells. I can see one from my window. It is made of spider’s silk.

  Love Idie

  PS The only thing I don’t yet have is a Spider monkey and I do very much want one.

  PPS Something happened in this house that makes people scared of it and it is why they whisper and gossip. I didn’t tell you that before, did I?

  25

  A small Spider monkey did one day come to live at Bathsheba. When Idie came down to breakfast Austin was introducing Baronet to a strange little thing that was all grey and black and definitely the dowdiest, plainest creature Idie had ever seen. Because Baronet was tall and fine, he snorted and whinnied and made it clear that he distrusted monkeys of all stripes and would have no truck with such a creature. Gypsy was hurt and bent her head and rubbed her eyes and threw herself to the ground and wailed.

  ‘Her name is Gypsy,’ Austin told Idie. ‘She thinks she’s human, you see – that’s why she wails – but she can’t get any tears out because monkeys can’t cry.

  The wailing monkey unpeeled a hand from her face and looked out of the corner of her eye at Idie.

  ‘She’ll make herself princess of all of this place and you will be her queen,’ Austin whispered.

  Her grievances suddenly forgotten, Gypsy scamp­ered up and slipped her hand into Idie’s, and Idie, because she’d never held a monkey by the hand before, was worried that it was so cold and had no thumb to it. Then Gypsy stood upright as though she weren’t a monkey at all and looped her tail round Idie’s waist and looked up at her, grinning. Idie took a step and Gypsy took a step, and another, and then the two of them were walking side by side and hand in hand in and out of the fustic trees.

  That first breakfast Gypsy sat at the table to one side of Idie, Millie to the other, both with bibs about their necks. Homer was above consorting with monkeys and mongooses and he took umbrage and refused his food, disdaining to eat while there were such creatures at his table, but Idie had to admit that a monkey was better company than either a mongoose or a parakeet.

  Mayella came out with soursop juice and a bowl of bananas and rolled her eyes.

  ‘You only pretend not to like them, Mayella,’ said Austin, adding in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Besides, you know they do a lot of good.’

  Idie turned her attention from Gypsy to Millie and fed her some pawpaw, and Gypsy grew jealous and sprang down and snatched Celia’s posy from its vase. Terrifically proud of herself, Gypsy carried the posy high in a curl of her tail, to Idie.

  ‘She thinks such a gift deserves at least one banana,’ Austin whispered, ‘but you must not on any account give in to her.’

  26

  Austin paused at a fork and took the dark and tangled path to the right. With a sudden arrowy chill in her, Idie whispered, ‘Not Black Water Creek . . . ?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t take you there,’ he answered quietly.

  Idie glanced sideways at him, wondering if he knew why it was that no one went there.

  ‘Sampson says the devil
walks about there at night. Is that true?’

  ‘Sampson says that, does he?’ Austin chuckled. ‘I like Sampson.’ His face grew serious. ‘No, we won’t go there.’

  They rode through mangrove forest, the horse-hoofs muffled on the white sand path that led beside a stream. Green balisiers brushed their arms and butterflies kissed their cheeks. There were clouds and clouds of butterflies, crimson and sulphur and tangerine, and it was like being inside a kaleidoscope. Idie captured a yellow and brown one from Baronet’s neck because he was jumpy about butterflies.

  ‘Carlisle doesn’t come into the house at all any more. Or only into the kitchen, to see Celia, because she has a sort of little sitting room behind the kitchen. That’s ever since you bought the Cebus, because if you try to go near them they swing down and squawk and jabber. And on top of that he’s afraid of the sun fowl because she clacks her tail at him.’

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ said Austin, smiling.

  They reached a small and secret bay where the mangroves kept their feet in the green water and the coconuts reached their heads into the sky. Tiny waves broke fussily over the sand. Boats and canoes were pulled up on the shore and men were at work mending sails and wicker baskets in the shade of a manchineel tree.

  Baronet was very pleased at the sea and the shade and the general absence of butterflies on beaches and he set about eating the young palm leaves that arched over the sand like lace parasols. Austin rolled up his trousers and waded to the shady fringe of the water under the manchineel tree. He pushed up his sleeves and began to fish with his hands among the rocks.

  While Austin fished and Baronet feasted on palm leaves, Idie lay on the sand, listening to the sigh of the waves. The wind was warm and dry and she was glad they’d come.

  When she woke and looked about she found Austin had laid a circle of pink conch shells all around her. He reached out and placed something on her belly. She felt the creepy skittle of crab legs skirling over her skin and leaped up screaming and ran into the water.

  Austin swam after her. They surfaced in the middle of the bay, laughing, and a darting splatter and glitter of flying fish broke the water all around, silvery and strange and vanishing as a dream.

  Idie hadn’t had times like this even at Pomeroy, and the shine of the moment was shadowed with the fear that things might not always be so. She watched Austin and wondered if he knew everything about her, all the things that other people seemed to know, the things that made them whisper. After a while she said, ‘I’m surprised you want to be friends with me.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good point, because you are a spiky and prickly kind of creature.’

  Idie’s face was sad and serious and she whispered, ‘Do you know anything about my family, I mean any sort of secret things . . . ?’

  ‘No.’ He laughed. ‘Why, what sort of things? Shall I find them out?’

  ‘Hasn’t your mother told you anything?’

  ‘No.’ He laughed a little ruefully. ‘Mother works on what she calls a need-to-know basis, which means more or less that she doesn’t tell me anything because children must find out life for themselves.’

  Idie whispered, ‘Please don’t find out any things about me, because they may not be nice things. I know that because people stare at me and whisper.’

  The tears were standing in her eyes so she ducked and swam furiously through the water, and when she surfaced Austin was there beside her and he said, ‘We don’t mind about the things that other people mind about.’

  27

  Feeling braver, Idie began to go about the island a bit, and often Mayella would accompany her. Gladstone took them in the cart one day to the market. The lane ran alongside a clear, shallow river bordered with tamarinds, all the way to Carriacou where the houses were all in sweet-shop colours and a stream sang through the middle of the village and children played naked and women carried things about on their heads. Baskets of fruit hung from the tamarind trees and stalls stood here and there in patches of shade.

  Gladstone went to purchase spades from the hardware shop. Mayella and Idie went about among the trees choosing fruit and filling their baskets. Seeing the women that carried their baskets on their heads, Gypsy placed her own basket on her own plain little head and cooed with delight. Idie placed her basket on her head too and took Gypsy’s hand. Gypsy wrapped her tail around the girl’s waist and they walked from stall to stall together. Mayella laughed and Homer looked stroppy at having to share the uppermost parts of Idie with a basket of fruit. They found themselves in front of a stall with bolts of cloth laid out. Idie’s hand went straight to a plain red cotton. Gladstone joined them and Idie held out the red cloth and said, ‘I should like this one.’

  Mayella regarded it doubtfully. ‘That plenty money, that one.’ She felt the weight of it and said, ‘Look, it’s stiff and straight as a plank of wood.’

  ‘The mistress want that one, the mistress can have that one, Mayella,’ said Gladstone. Smiling, he handed over the money and they walked back through the market, Gypsy’s tail around Idie’s waist, Idie clutching the bolt of cloth and trying to balance a basket on her head and a parakeet on her shoulder and smiling to think how she would soon go about with a flock of hummingbirds about her too.

  Two women stood in the doorway of the little haberdashery on the main street. Idie recognized them from the ship and hesitated. They saw the girl with a basket on her head, a parakeet on her arm and a monkey at her side and they raised their parasols and pursed their lips and stared.

  ‘Look at her.’

  ‘She’s gone quite savage, they say . . .’

  Mayella took Idie’s hand, but Idie, happy about the red cloth, didn’t care what they said.

  ‘Nobody goes up there, you know. Nobody visits her.’

  ‘Look, she goes about with locals.’

  ‘What will become of her?’

  ‘The staff go up there, of course, but only because they’re paid to.’

  ‘Everything was taken out, you know. They had to do that or the staff wouldn’t return.’

  They peered at Idie and one whispered to the other, ‘You’d never tell, would you, from the look of her?’

  What you’d never tell, Idie didn’t know, but she did know that you had to have your chin very high to carry a basket on your head so she couldn’t show them she didn’t care by tilting it any higher than it already was, but Gladstone stepped towards the women and raised his hat.

  ‘Good morning to you, Mrs Elder, Miss Elder.’ Still smiling he said, ‘I’m sorry to say I can’t spare any labour for your fields next week. Please tell Mr Elder that – not for this harvest, nor for the next.’

  Homer eyed the women and he must’ve been a quick learner because he squawked, ‘WHAT WILL BECOME OF HER?’

  He is a pillar, thought Idie. Homer is a pillar and so is Gladstone.

  28

  Dear Aunt Celia,

  Please would you make me a dress All in red. Can it be

  1. comfortable

  2. have big pockets

  3. NOT have any sleeves

  Thank you,

  Idie

  PS It MUST be only red because you have to wear red to be friends with a hummingbird.

  Phibbah sat at the kitchen table. That day she wore a towering turban of lemon and turquoise. There was a chopping board in front of her, and a breadfruit, but she was just chewing her pipe. It was a wonder really that anything got made in this kitchen, Idie thought.

  She smiled uncertainly at Phibbah. She’d never asked how Phibbah’s muteness had come about, but supposed it had been some accident at birth. Phibbah rose from the table, took a jar from a shelf and held out some cashew nuts in the palm of her hand to Homer, and that made Idie feel that Phibbah was on their side. She went into Celia’s little room and placed the red cloth there with the note on top of it.

  29

  Idie stood in a corner of the veranda very much hoping that she didn’t look as though she were wearing a plank of wood. She
examined herself and the new red dress from all angles, but it was tricky to see all of herself in just a hand mirror. She scowled at her reflection.

  ‘Aha. Red. Red is just the thing.’

  Idie jumped at the voice and snatched the mirror behind her, mortified.

  Austin was wearing his red shirt. He watched her, amused, as she tried to sit on the mirror, and said, ‘You look all right.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Idie was burning with shame to have been caught like that staring at herself.

  ‘Well, I think you’re all right.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  Austin paused, watching Idie closely. After a while he said quietly, ‘My mother says your mother was a wonderful sort of creature too.’

  Idie looked at him astonished. Slowly she took in what Austin had said and grew hot and shaky. She jumped up and stood before him, trembling and scared at what he might know. The whispers and the scraps of gossip she’d heard began to crowd her head. Everywhere whispers had passed like ripples before her and now they all collected in her ears and grew deafening so she clapped her hands over them.

  ‘Mother says she was sort of like a poem,’ said Austin.

  ‘Like a poem?’ she whispered doubtfully. ‘Like a. . . poem?’ she asked in a wavering voice. ‘When did she say that?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Did she say anything else?’

  ‘Oh well, you know,’ Austin answered airily. ‘Lots of not very helpful things, along the lines of her being the kind of person that made gardens so beautiful they looked like paintings, and filling rooms so full of flowers that they looked like gardens, and loving to swim at night along the stream of the moon and in and out of stars.’ He waited, watching Idie.

  ‘Yes, but she didn’t want me, did she?’ Idie whispered fiercely.