The Diddakoi (9 page)

‘I thought they were good tears,’ said Miss Brooke, ‘so I let things be.’

‘Come to think of it,’ said Peters, when the Admiral told him, ‘there are very few women who will let things be.’

Surprisingly, Peters had begun to know Miss Brooke, ‘a little,’ he would have said. When he and Nat had taken the furniture down he had asked her, ‘Who will put up the
bed?’

‘I will, by and by,’ said Miss Brooke.

Peters had looked at her small hands and slight body and said, ‘We’ll do it for you. Don’t suppose you’re much good with a spanner.’

‘You would be surprised,’ said Miss Brooke, ‘but I should be grateful.’ She smiled with her eyes, as the Admiral had noted.

‘We’ll put the carpet down, if you like,’ said Peters gruffly.

‘Thank you.’

The carpet did not quite cover the boards and, ‘I will stain them,’ said Miss Brooke. ‘I painted the walls.’

‘Didn’t make a bad job of it, but floors are men’s work. We’ll nip into Rye and get a pot of quick dry and do it now. Then it will be done,’ said Peters.

He and Nat stained the floor – ‘In a woman’s house!’ said Admiral Twiss – and the woman brought them a tray with mugs of hot coffee and a plate of fresh baked
scones. ‘Didn’t say a word, just put it down,’ said Peters; he sounded almost approving. He did not add that as they were going, Miss Brooke smiled at them again; though he did
not mention it, Peters remembered that smile.

If gypsies are clever at finding their way round things so was Miss Brooke.

At breakfast next morning, when Kizzy was eating her second crust – Miss Brooke had coffee and scrambled eggs – ‘I have asked Clem Oliver to tea,’ said Miss Brooke. Kizzy
stared at her plate; she knew what Miss Brooke meant; if Clem came, Kizzy could not let him eat alone, she would have to eat her tea. She darted Miss Brooke a look, half hate, half admiration.

Miss Brooke made girdle scones, dropped them hot on the children’s plates and poured on golden syrup. ‘Supersonic!’ said Clem; there was gingerbread and potted ham sandwiches,
and Kizzy had to admit to herself it was better even than Peters’ teas – admit, too, she was grateful to Clem – because she was really hungry, but, of course, she did not admit it
aloud. Clem could not come to tea every day, though, and on the next, the crusts were back.

They had to be back. Kizzy could not put it into words but she knew it would complicate everything if she grew to like Miss Brooke. Then I couldn’t be bad to her, thought Kizzy. If only
Miss Brooke would command her to eat . . . Admiral Twiss suggested that. ‘She promised she would do what you told her. She will keep her promise. You have only to tell her.’

‘I know,’ Miss Brooke had said. ‘But I should rather she did it of her own will. I don’t want an obedient child seething like a little cauldron underneath.’

It was Mrs Cuthbert who unwittingly settled it. Saturday and Sunday Kizzy had spent at the House – ‘Thank goodness she will eat there,’ said Miss Brooke. They were blissful
days; to begin with, Miss Brooke produced, not school clothes and the hated coat, but jeans, a jersey, a scarlet anorak and, not shoes, but gumboots. ‘If you are to be in the meadow with Joe,
you will need them, but remember, take them off when you go into the house.’ Kizzy gave a sigh; no one took off boots to go into a wagon.

But the weekend was soon over and it was Monday again – Kizzy produced the crusts. Miss Brooke said nothing but at teatime her face was so sad that Kizzy could not bear to look at her.
Miss Brooke helped herself to a hot parsley potato cake and had just begun her tea when there was a knock at the door, Mrs Cuthbert walked in – and instantly saw the crusts.

‘Well,
really
, Olivia! Is
that
what you give the poor child?’

‘It’s what she prefers.’ Miss Brooke’s voice was level. ‘Would you like some tea, Edna?’ But Mrs Cuthbert was indignant. ‘You let her eat those and sit
here gorging yourself?’ She was looking at the potato cakes, crisp and brown and parsleyed. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it of you, Olivia, really I shouldn’t,’ said Mrs
Cuthbert. ‘After all, you take good money for her. It’s cheating. Kizzy you come along to my house and have tea with Prudence and me.’

‘Never. Never. Never,’ said Kizzy’s eyes. Mrs Cuthbert was not to know that in her fierce little heart Kizzy blamed her for everything that had happened:‘If I
hadn’t gone to school, Gran wouldn’t have died.’ Kizzy was positive about that. ‘Our wagon wouldn’t have been burnt. Mr Doe couldn’t have tried to send Joe to
the knacker. I wouldn’t have had pneumonia.’ If she had not had pneumonia she would not have made such friends as the Admiral, Peters and Nat, but she was too angry to think of that
and, ‘I can eat crusts if I like, can’t I, Miss Brooke?’ she said.

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Miss Brooke.

‘She lets me eat anything I like,’ boasted Kizzy and, with her eyes glaring at Mrs Cuthbert, she stretched out her hand and took a bun – Miss Brooke had just baked them –
and a large helping of jam. ‘Jam and buns and crusts,’ said Kizzy.

‘And potato cakes,’ said Miss Brooke, slipping two on to Kizzy’s plate. ‘You see, things are not so bad, Edna,’ Miss Brooke said to Mrs Cuthbert, ‘though
it’s kind of you to ask Kizzy. Say “thank you”, Kizzy.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kizzy, eating.

‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ said Mrs Cuthbert.

‘Miss Brooke told me to say thank you.’

Mrs Cuthbert snorted and, ‘The whole village will know that I have starved Kizzy,’ Miss Brooke said to the Admiral on the telephone that night. ‘Never mind, she is eating
now,’ but the triumph was shortlived. That was Monday; on Tuesday Kizzy ran away.

She ran straight from school to Amberhurst House – and Admiral Twiss sent her straight back to Miss Brooke with Peters. ‘But she didn’t tell me not to run away,’
protested Kizzy.

‘You knew that you shouldn’t,’ said the Admiral.

Kizzy knew it and ran away next day – to the House.

‘What’s got into you?’ asked Peters. ‘You used to have some sense. This isn’t any good.’

Kizzy was mute and on the next day, Thursday: ‘She’s here again,’ Peters told the Admiral.

Admiral Twiss had to take steps, but took them carefully. ‘If you go on like this, Kiz, they will make us forfeit our Saturdays.’

‘Forfeit?’

‘Not have them,’ said the Admiral. ‘Nor Sundays,’ and was struck by the look of desperation on Kizzy’s face.

The village had, of course, seen Peters bringing Kizzy back. At least a hundred pairs of eyes,’ said Peters.

‘So shaming for you,’ Mrs Cuthbert condoled with Miss Brooke. ‘Have you punished her?’

Miss Brooke shook her head. ‘She must have a reason.’

‘Reason my foot,’ said Mrs Cuthbert. ‘You’re too soft, Olivia. She simply wants to get her own way. Well, I said it wouldn’t do. That child needs a foster-father to
discipline her.’

‘Are fathers much good at disciplining little girls?’

‘Besides, she needs other children.’

‘Other children?’ Miss Brooke was thoughtful; then, ‘I wonder,’ said Miss Brooke.

On Friday at five o’clock Miss Brooke telephoned the House. ‘Kizzy hasn’t come home and it’s getting late. Is she with you?’

‘She hasn’t come,’ said Admiral Twiss.

‘Where can she be?’ Miss Brooke was worried.

‘Wait,’ said the Admiral suddenly. At least, I will ring you back. I have an idea where we might find her.’

He went out and crossed the lawns where the evening light shone on the chestnut trees, and walked through the paddocks till he came to the meadow. There was Joe, swishing his tail in the long
grass and, lying curled on his back, what Admiral Twiss expected to see: a small shape in a brown duffel coat.

Kizzy was so cold they were afraid she might get pneumonia again, ‘so Peters is warming her and giving her some tea,’ the Admiral telephoned. It was he who brought her back to Miss
Brooke, ‘and stayed two hours,’ said Mrs Cuthbert.

‘Kizzy you make me very sad,’ he had said as they were driving in the car.

Kizzy was sitting upright, staring with dark eyes at the headlights’ beam that, in the dusk, seemed to be sweeping her, a helpless atom, towards the village. ‘Not half as sad as I
am,’ said Kizzy.

‘But what
is
it?’ asked Admiral Twiss. He was in a chair by Miss Brooke’s fire where she had asked him to wait while she gave Kizzy a hot shower and
got her to bed. ‘But Peters said you would never bath her,’ the Admiral said.

‘We manage like this,’ said Miss Brooke. Admiral Twiss was beginning to think Miss Brooke could manage anything. He found himself at ease and comfortable by her fireside, sipping the
whisky she brought him. ‘I need a sherry,’ she had said. He studied her face as she sat opposite in the firelight – it might be plain but he liked it – good cheekbones and a
firm little chin, he thought; her hazel eyes were beautiful, thought the Admiral, and steady, which was lucky for Kizzy. ‘What can it be?’ he asked again. ‘Could you get anything
out of her?’

‘Nothing. It’s partly,’ said Miss Brooke, ‘because, as I feared, the cottage is too narrow for her, the village too close, and partly . . . I wonder if I am right,’
said Miss Brooke.

‘Have I forfeited?’ It was Saturday, the weekend, but scarcely begun: at six o’clock Kizzy was standing by Miss Brooke’s bed.

‘Forfeited?’ Miss Brooke lifted her head and sleep-filled eyes.

‘Not having it,’ said Kizzy. ‘Not going to the House.’ Her anxious small face peered down at Miss Brooke in bed. ‘Can I go – or have I forfeited?’

‘Of course you can go.’

She dropped Kizzy at the gates, a completely different child from the silent sullen little girl of the week. Miss Brooke watched her running up the drive until the scarlet anorak disappeared
among the trees, then drove away, feeling more than ever certain.

On Monday morning, ‘Kizzy I must tell you to come straight here from school,’ Miss Brooke avoided saying ‘home’. ‘Straight here.’

Kizzy stopped eating.

‘Would it help,’ asked Miss Brooke, ‘if I came and fetched you?’

For a moment Kizzy’s face lit as if a shutter had been opened, then it closed again. ‘I would be a baby,’ she said.

‘Olivia, that child of yours came streaking through the village as if the hounds were after her.’

‘Perhaps they were,’ but Miss Brooke did not say it, nor had she commented when Kizzy had arrived, hot and out of breath, at barely ten minutes past three. ‘I can run
fast,’ said Kizzy, when she got her breath.

‘Is anything the matter, child?’ Mrs Cuthbert was sharp. ‘You should tell us if it is.’ But the shutter was down.

‘Nuthin’ ’t all,’ said Kizzy.

Next afternoon Miss Brooke waited so long she began to think Kizzy had run to the House again; then she saw her come in at the gate. There was something so weary and hopeless in the way she
walked that Miss Brooke ran to the door. ‘Kizzy?’

The buttons were off her coat, its hood half torn away; her hair was full of mud and she had a graze on her cheek. ‘I was caught,’ was all she would say.

‘But I warned them at school,’ said Admiral Twiss on the telephone when Kizzy was in bed. ‘She let it all out when she was ill. I told them and warned them. They said they
would watch.’

‘In school,’ said Miss Brooke. ‘But not out of school. That’s why she ran to Amberhurst House. The children don’t go that way and she knew one of you would bring
her safely home later. It’s the girls. Clem Oliver would fix the boys. I’m sure it’s the girls.’

‘But little girls . . .’

‘Are far the worst,’ said Miss Brooke.

The short cut from the school to the village was along a narrow lane beside what the villagers called the big field but which belonged to Amberhurst Park: there were elm trees
along it and a thick hedge of may. The children used the lane to go to and from school and next afternoon at a few minutes to three Miss Brooke stationed herself in the big field behind the hedge
where, from a gap, she could look along the lane towards the school.

She heard the bell; next moment a small figure emerged, running, putting on its coat as it ran towards the lane; hard after came a dozen or more girls. Then Kizzy came down, almost by Miss
Brooke on the other side of the hedge. ‘Yesterday we sewed up her coat sleeves, so she couldn’t get it on,’ Elizabeth Oliver was to tell, ‘and while she was struggling we
could catch her, see. Today Prue and Mary Jo asked to go to the loo and nipped out to fasten a string across the lane, low down where she couldn’t see it. Cor! she came down full tilt. .
.’ and, when Kizzy was down, they pounced.

Looking through the leaves, Miss Brooke saw her up again, her knees bleeding, as she stood in a ring of them. ‘Don’t go too near, she smells,’ ‘Doesn’t now, Barmy
Admiral’s bought her new clothes,’‘That’s why she’s so uppity and high and mighty,’ ‘Mighty-tighty,’ ‘Dandy-spandy diddakoi,’
‘Where’s yer cloes pegs, diddakoi?’ ‘Oh, we don’t sell clothes pegs
nowadays.
We’re
far
too grand,’ ‘Goes ridin’ in
Rolls-Royces.’

‘Let me go home,’ said Kizzy through tight lips.

‘Go on – we’re not stopping you,’ but Kizzy had not felt one of them skilfully looping a skipping rope round her ankles and making a slip knot; as she turned they pulled
it tight and Kizzy went smack on to the lane path. Once she was down again, ‘They were like a pack of little wild dogs,’ Miss Brooke told the Admiral, ‘Go on, then. Go home. Run,
tinker, run.’ They pulled her up by the arms. ‘We’ll make you run.’ A tree stood out in the lane, a big elm and, holding Kizzy by the arms, two of the bigger girls ran her
into it, ‘like a child battering-ram,’ said Miss Brooke. There was a gate in the hedge and she started running; she reached the gate as they were ramming Kizzy into the tree for the
third time. Miss Brooke did not wait to open the gate but swung herself over the top rail and landed in the lane with a brisk thud; they were making too much noise to hear her.

She walked into their midst, parting them before her and, without saying a word, gave each of the girls holding Kizzy a ringing slap with the flat of her hand across their cheeks; they let Kizzy
go, she dropped to the ground and lay still, while they stood, shaking their heads as if the slaps had woken them from a dream. The rest stood as shocked and still as if a bucket of cold water had
been poured over them.