Poverty Castle (10 page)

‘Think before you speak,' said Diana.

They sat thinking.

Rowena spoke first. ‘I think they should all be made to go away.'

‘You have to give your reasons,' said Effie.

‘They're dirty.'

‘If you didn't have a bathroom with warm water and soap you'd be dirty too, Rowena Sempill.'

‘The lady with the red hair said they were clean,' said Rebecca. ‘She showed us.'

‘Why don't they live in houses with bathrooms?' said Jeanie, hurriedly.

‘They don't like living in houses,' said Effie. ‘That's why they call themselves travelling people.'

‘Why do we call them tinkers then?' asked Rowena.

‘They used to mend pots and pans,' said Diana.

‘Nobody wants them as neighbours,' said Jeanie.

‘Would
we
want them as neighbours?' asked Diana.

None of them would, except possibly the blackbird, which sang passionately, perhaps to that effect.

‘Their dogs are skinny,' said Rebecca. ‘They had scabs.'

‘They shouldn't be allowed to keep dogs,' said Jeanie.

Rebecca was becoming dangerously talkative. ‘I think the tinker children should go to school. If we have to go why shouldn't they?'

‘Would you like to sit beside one of them?' asked Rowena, and twisted her face into a resemblance of a tinker child's. Even her hair seemed to turn shaggy.

‘I don't see why children should have to go to school,' said Effie, ‘if they don't want to. Papa says it's a free country. Being made to go and sit in a school for hours every day listening to a boring teacher, that's not being free, is it?'

‘It's for our own good,' said Diana.

‘They're always saying things are for our own good. They don't ask us, do they?'

‘That's not fair, Effie,' said her twin. ‘Papa and Mama often ask us. Granny Ruthven says they ask us too much.'

‘We're wandering off the subject,' said Diana. ‘What do you
think of Papa's idea, that there should be camps for tinkers, with toilets, all over the country, so that they could travel about and mind their own business?'

‘On whose land would it be built?' asked Effie. ‘Nobody wants them.'

‘Who would pay for the camps?' asked Jeanie. ‘The tinkers haven't any money.'

‘They've got money to buy whisky with,' said Rebecca.

‘The taxpayers would have to pay for them,' said Diana.

‘They would grumble,' said Rowena. ‘Papa's always saying that taxpayers grumble.'

‘The lady with the red hair said they wouldn't pay rent,' said Rebecca.

‘They would jolly well have to,' said Effie.

‘What did she mean,' went on Rebecca, ‘when she said her children knew things we didn't? What things?'

‘How to skin rabbits,' said Diana. ‘Things like that.'

‘I don't want to know how to do that.'

There was a pause then, during which they listened to the blackbird and watched Squeaky.

‘It's the grown-ups' fault,' said Jeanie.

‘They're always getting things in a mess,' said Effie.

‘We'll all be grown-ups ourselves one day,' said Rowena.

Each of them contemplated that prospect. Rowena found it exciting: she wanted to be an actress. Rebecca thought it would be so much nicer having a real baby to nurse instead of a doll. Effie saw herself as a doctor, looking after lepers in Africa. Jeanie's vision was of herself as a vet, curing sheep with sore feet. Diana imagined herself married to Edwin Campton. She remembered him saying, ‘She's super.'

At the meeting in the village hall tempers were lost. The local councillor was abused to his face, for not having got rid of the pests on the shore. The MP for the district had been invited but had not attended: his letter of apology was dismissed as craven drivel. It was not in the least helpful of him to remind
them that he represented other communities besides Kilcalmonell, none of which would welcome the travelling people (in mealy-mouthed fashion he avoided using the honest term tinkers). It was unanimously agreed to send him a letter pointing out that Kilcalmonell had suffered far worse than those other counties and hinting that at the next General Election he need not count on their votes. Since he knew that they would have endured the Plagues of Egypt rather than vote Labour the threat was not likely to perturb him.

Papa had put forward his suggestion of a permanent camp, with sanitary facilities. Everybody had approved, on condition that it was built far from Kilcalmonell and paid for by somebody else.

‘You should have heard the hypocrites, Meg,' he said sadly, to his assembled family. ‘Full of goodwill towards the unfortunate creatures, provided they cleared out and never came back.'

‘I am afraid, Edward, that if I had been present I might have adopted the same attitude.'

The girls looked at one another guiltily.

‘Wherever I find hypocrisy, Meg, I must speak against it. I did so, in the strongest terms.'

‘I hope you didn't offend them, darling. They are our neighbours now.'

‘So are the travelling people our neighbours. I intend to do what I can to alleviate their conditions.'

‘No, Edward, you must not go near them again. Please. I beg you. Did not that dreadful woman say that all they wanted was to mind their own business? Leave them alone, my love.'

‘Perhaps we could have some of their children to pay us a visit. When we have moved into Poverty Castle, I mean. I'm sure the girls would co-operate.'

They looked aghast.

Later Effie was to hiss: ‘Isn't it strange how Papa doesn't seem to understand?'

All the same, if he did invite some tinker children, though they hoped he wouldn't, they would do their best to make them feel welcome.

‘We wouldn't patronise them,' said Jeanie.

A
WEEK
after the start of the grouse-shooting the schools reopened after the summer holidays. It was an event the Sempill girls had been dreading. Not because it would be a pity to have to sit captive indoors after so much freedom in the sun, nor because Miss McGill, the schoolmistress, was reputed to be a ‘Tartar', but because it would mean separation. Diana being almost twelve would have to attend the secondary school in Tarbeg. A bus would take her, and other pupils of secondary age, in the morning and bring them back after four. For nearly nine hours a day she would be parted from her sisters, and in the bus and at school she would meet other girls who would become her friends. She would start thinking of herself as a grown-up. The distance between her and her sisters would grow. So Rebecca, Rowena, and the twins cast up, mournfully.

She tried to comfort them, though she felt disconsolate herself. She would be home every evening and all weekend. It was true she might make friends but they would never take her sisters' place.

They remained doleful. The twins said they should have stayed in Edinburgh where they could all have gone to the same school. In two years they themselves would have moved on to secondary school, which would mean Rowena and Rebecca being left alone in Kilcalmonell. By the time
they
were ready for secondary school, Diana would have gone to University. It was no good Diana or Mama or Papa pretending otherwise, this was the beginning of the break-up of the family. Papa tried to cheer them up by saying how happy they would all be when they moved into Poverty Castle in a few weeks' time.

Mama was saddest. She had an additional anxiety, which she kept private. It concerned her son still to be born, indeed still to be conceived. If he came too late he would find the nest empty. Poor wee soul, he would be the loneliest of them all. He would never know the joy of having his sisters round him. We must hurry, Edward, she whispered at night. In a magazine she had read that a certain brew, concocted from herbs and plants, including ragwort, increased fertility. For some time she had been taking it, though it smelled like urine. Now she urged Edward to take it too. He sipped once and was sick.

Three days before the primary school reopened, in accordance with a summons from Miss McGill, the headmistress, Papa and Mama with the twins, Rowena, and Rebecca presented themselves at the school, for purposes of enrolment and instruction in the rules. Diana went with them but waited on the shore among the dippers and sandpipers.

Miss McGill, a grey-haired spinster of fifty-nine, stared at her new recruits and said, with a sternness she did not feel: ‘The wearing of jewellery and make-up is not allowed.'

She herself wore none, not so much as a ring.

Their mother, dozy creature, was red in the mouth, white in the cheeks and neck, and blue above the eyes, with makeup. As for jewellery she dripped, glittered, and tinkled with it. Miss McGill used only soap and water and sensible clothes, on the present occasion a navy-blue costume, with the skirt below her knees, a white blouse, with a high collar, and low-heeled black shoes, in great contrast to Mrs Sempill's long loose yellow skirt, pink blouse, and high-heeled sandals. That she was tall and slender did not in the schoolmistress's opinion justify her wearing clothes more suitable for a girl of eighteen with hippy notions. Miss McGill herself was small and stout. Being honest she admitted that there might be in her disapproval of Mrs Sempill's flamboyancy a trace of jealousy; no, a great deal more than a trace, for Mrs Sempill possessed what Miss McGill would have given her soul for: four beautiful well-mannered little girls. Miss McGill's objection to their jewellery,
which amounted only to beads on their ear-lobes and a ring or two, had been her arcane way of saying how delightful she found them. Often she praised by finding fault. This wasn't because she was a sour-faced curmudgeon (though this was her reputation) but for the opposite reason, because, like her friend Peggy McGibbon, she was at heart a sentimentalist. Such a person if not restrained would never have made an effective teacher. Therefore Miss McGill had restrained herself relentlessly for over forty years.

Rebecca, she said curtly, was too young to be enrolled that term.

‘Oh, I hope not,' said Mrs Sempill. ‘It would break her heart to be separated from her sisters.'

‘In my experience children's hearts don't break all that easily.'

It was the kind of perverse remark with which she disguised her true feelings. Better than most she knew how deeply children could suffer.

‘Head Office decides,' she said. ‘Usually they stick by the regulations.'

‘Even if she cannot be admitted officially,' said Mr Sempill, with one of his gay-cavalier smiles, ‘can it not be done unofficially?'

He was as fond of peacockery as his wife. His trousers were pale blue, his shirt red, and his jacket white. He was too fragrant.

‘I'm afraid that is out of the question, Mr Sempill.'

It wasn't of course. In her school Miss McGill was queen. It would not be the first time that, in professional language, she had told Head Office to go to Hell.

‘I can always recommend her admission. That is the most I can do.'

First the parents thanked her, and then, without bidding, the girls. They were greatly relieved that they weren't going to be separated.

‘The twins are very alike,' said Miss McGill, gruffly. ‘I would appreciate it if they wore ribbons of different colours: until I know them better.'

‘I'll wear yellow,' said one twin. ‘Jeanie can wear pink.'

‘As long as you tell me which is which.'

Miss McGill never had favourites. Seldom indeed had she been tempted. Most children were lovable. Now she saw temptation in front of her. Rowena Sempill was the most fascinating child she had ever seen.

It wasn't just the long fair hair bleached by the sun, the eyes of milkwort blue, the tanned skin smooth as silk, and the perfectly shaped mouth. It was something else, rarer than physical beauty, which Miss McGill, expert in the physiognomy of children, could not name for she had never seen it before. She had had children in her classes who had afterwards gained first-class honours degrees at University, but that had been intellectual capacity, not all that uncommon. What Rowena Sempill had was much rarer. She might not be particularly smart at lessons though she would be no dunce, but she had a distinction that would make her famous one day.

Miss McGill had heard that the Sempills were well-off. According to report they were making a palace out of Poverty Castle. But it was in themselves that their greatest riches lay.

She found herself doing what she had never done before. She babbled to strangers what ought to have been kept confidential.

‘You know about the tinkers,' she said. She had seen and heard Mr Sempill at the meeting. ‘About an hour ago I had a visit from one of them, a woman, who wanted to enrol her child, a girl of eight.'

‘Not a big red-haired woman?' cried Mrs Sempill.

‘No. A small black-haired one. Her child can hardly read or write. She wishes to remedy that.'

‘How very commendable,' cried Mr Sempill.

‘Yes, but there are difficulties.' Miss McGill looked at the girls. ‘I think you should go and join your sister.'

It was evident, from their surprise, that they were not often excluded, but they did not whine or whimper. Excusing themselves, they left at once.

Their names kept bothering Miss McGill. There was
something odd about them. Rebecca and Rowena, so pretentious. Effie and Jeanie, so plebian. Diana, so upper class.

‘What difficulties?' asked Mr Sempill.

‘Parents of other children have warned me that if any tinker child is allowed into the school they will immediately withdraw theirs.'

‘How mean-spirited!' he cried.

‘But, Edward,' said his wife, ‘they have a right to be concerned. Those children we saw at the caravans, they looked so rough and alien. Surely they would be a disruptive element.'

‘The girl in question would not be disruptive,' replied the schoolmistress. ‘Not in herself. Her presence might be, however. She is small and shy. She could suffer.'