2

MY NEW HOME was a small thatched cottage with whitewashed walls, and roses and honeysuckle hanging around the front door. It was small and dark and crowded inside. It smelled of cooking all the time, plus strong yellow soap on a Monday, washday. That was our washday too. When the sheets and all our shirts and frocks and underwear were flapping on the line, our mother, Peg, popped all us children in the clothes tub. Gideon and I were tossed in first. Gideon always cried, but I bobbed up and down like a duckling and only wailed if Mother rubbed soap in my eyes.

Gideon was my foundling brother, my baby travelling companion in the basket. He was not much bigger than me, a pale, spindly baby with a thatch of black hair and large eyes that fixed you with a mournful stare.

‘There’s not enough meat on these two together to bake into a pie,’ said our new father, John.

He poked both of us in our belly buttons. It was a playful poke but we both shrieked. We weren’t used to big, loud father people. All men were big and loud to us babies, but when we were older we saw that John was the tallest man in the village, with arms like tree trunks and a belly like a barrel. His voice was so loud his holler could carry clear across five acres. He was as strong as the huge shire horses he used to plough the land. No man dared argue with him because it was clear who would win – but Peg wasn’t the slightest bit frightened of him.

‘Get away from my new babies, you great fat lummox,’ she said, slapping his hands away. ‘You’re scaring them silly. Don’t cry, my lambkins, this is just your father, he don’t mean you no harm.’

‘Chickee-chickee-chickee, coochie-coochie-coochie,’ said Father, tickling under our chins with his big blunt fingers. We screamed as if he was a storybook ogre about to snap our heads off our necks.

‘Get out of it,’ said Peg, flapping at him with a towel. She gathered Gideon and me up out of our improvised bathtub and wrapped us together in the towel, warm from the hearthside. She held us close against the vast pillow of her bosom and we stopped crying and snuffled close to our new mother.

‘My muvver!’ said Saul, swotting at us with his hard little fists.

He was just starting to walk, though he had a withered leg so that he limped. Father had fashioned him a little wooden crutch. Saul used it to prod Gideon and me. He hated us because he wanted Mother all to himself.

‘There now, my little hoppy sparrow. You come and have a cuddle too,’ said Peg, hauling him up into her arms alongside us.

‘And me, and me!’ said three-year-old Martha, burrowing in. Her eyes were weak, and one of them squinted sideways.

Jem held back, his chin held high.

‘Don’t you want to come and join in the cuddle, Jem dearie?’ said Mother.

‘Yes, but I’m not one of the babies,’ said Jem stoutly. ‘I’m five. Nearly.’

‘Yes, my pet, you’re my big boy – but you’re not too big to say no to a cuddle with your old mum. Come here and meet your new brother and sister.’

I was wriggling and squirming, squashed by Saul.

‘Here, Jem, you take little Hetty for me,’ said Peg. ‘Ain’t she tiny? You were twice her size as a baby. She’s had a bad start in life – both the babies have, bless them. Still, we’ll soon fatten them up, just you wait and see.’

I nestled in Jem’s arms. He might still be a little boy not yet five but he seemed as strong as our father to me – but nowhere near as frightening. Jem’s hands cupped me gently.

‘Hello, little Hetty. I’m your brother Jem,’ he said softly, rubbing his face against mine.

I couldn’t speak but my lips puckered and I gave him my first real smile.

Jem wasn’t the eldest. He was the youngest child who really belonged to Peg and John. They also had Rosie and Nat and Eliza, and there were more still – Marcus, who’d gone off to be a soldier, and Bess and Nora, who were away in service.

All these children – so many that your head must be reeling trying to keep count of them all! I find it hard enough to sort them all out in my head. The older ones kept themselves separate from us younger fostered foundlings, though Eliza sometimes liked to play schools with us.

She lined us all up in a row by the front step and asked us to add two and two and recite the alphabet. At first Gideon and I couldn’t even sit up by ourselves, so we clearly had no chance of coming top in Eliza’s school. She lisped our answers for us, and answered for Saul and Martha too. She didn’t have to invent replies for Jem. He knew simple sums and could read out of The Good Child’s ABC.

‘A is for Apple. B is for Bear. C is for Chair. D is for Daisy. E is for Elephant.’

I could chant my own way through by the time I was two. Eliza fancied herself a teacher and sat us in the corner if she felt we were stupid and caned us with a twig if we protested.

Jem was the true teacher. He showed me how to eat up my porridge and my mash-and-gravy and my tea-time slices of bread and jam. ‘That’s right, you’re a baby bird. Open your beak,’ he said.

I opened my mouth wide and then smacked my lips together, swallowing every morsel, though I was a picky eater and fussed and turned my head away when Mother tried to feed me.

We didn’t have any toys. Mother would have thought them a waste of money. She didn’t have any money anyway. However, Jem found a red rubber ball in a rubbish heap. He washed it well and polished it so it shone like an apple. He flung it high into the air and caught it nine times out of ten, and then kicked it from one end of the village to the other.

‘Me, me, me!’ I said, on my feet now, but still so little that I toppled over when I tried to kick too.

The others laughed at me, especially Saul, but Jem held me under my arms and aimed me at the ball until one of my flailing feet connected and gave it a feeble little kick.

‘There, Hetty, you can kick the ball, just like me!’ he said, hugging me.

He sat beside me on the front step and drew me pictures in the dust with his finger. His men and women were round blobs with stick arms and legs, his babies were little lozenges, his animals barely distinguishable one from the other, but I saw them through Jem’s eyes and clapped and crowed delightedly.

He helped me toddle down the road to the stream and then held me tight while I splashed and squealed in the cold water. If I kept my legs still while he dangled me, the minnows would come and tickle my toes.

‘Fishy fishy!’ I’d shriek.

Sometimes Jem turned his hand into a fish and made it swim along beside me and nibble titbits while I laughed.

When I grew bigger, he pushed me in a little cart all the way to the woods and showed me red squirrels darting up the tree trunks.

‘That’s where they’ve got their houses, right up in the trees,’ said Jem. ‘Shall we have a squirrel house, Hetty?’

He knew an old oak that was completely hollow inside. He stood on one of the great spreading roots, lifted me up, deposited me inside the tree and squeezed in after me. There! We were in our very own squirrel house. We were only a foot or so from the ground but it felt as if we were right up in the treetops.

‘There, little Miss Squirrel. Are you happy in your new house?’ Jem asked, poking me gently on my button nose.

‘Yes, Mr Squirrel, yes yes yes!’ I said happily.

I loved our little treehouse so much I didn’t want to go home for tea. I shook my head and protested, clinging to the bark with my fingertips. Jem had to carry me home kicking and screaming. I wouldn’t be quiet until he promised we’d play there the very next day.

I went leaping onto the boys’ bed at five o’clock in the morning, before Father and Mother were stirring, demanding that Jem keep his promise.

He stayed true to his word, even though I was behaving like an almighty pest. He carted me back to our house in the woods straight after breakfast. He patiently ate another pretend breakfast of acorns and grass, and he helped me care for my squirrel babies (lumps of mud wrapped in dock leaves). He even lined the floor of our house with moss and sprinkled it with wild flowers to make a pattern on our green carpet.

I stupidly babbled about our wondrous squirrel house that bedtime, and of course all the other children wanted to come and see it too, even Rosie and Eliza. Nat sneered at Jem for playing a girly game of house with a baby, but Jem was unruffled.

‘I like playing with Hetty, it’s fun,’ he said, and my heart thumped with love for him.

I wanted to keep the squirrel house just for us, but Jem was far too good-natured. ‘Of course you can all come a-visiting,’ he told everyone. But then he added, ‘But you must remember, it’s Hetty’s house.’

I didn’t mind Gideon coming. He was my special little basket brother and I loved him second best to Jem. I was a few days older than Gideon but he was a half a head taller than me now, though still ultra-spindly, his neck and wrists and ankles so thin they looked in danger of snapping. Mother took it to heart that he looked so frail and sneaked him extra strips of bacon and a bite of Father’s chop, but the ribs still stuck out on his chest and his shoulder blades seemed about to slice straight through his skin.

Mother tried to encourage him to run about and play in the sunshine with us, but he preferred to cling to her skirts and climb on her lap whenever she sat down to shell peas or darn stockings.

I could sometimes tempt Gideon away to play, though he was incredibly tiresome when it came to my special picturing games.

‘Listen, Gideon. Let’s picture we’re in the woods. We’re lost and a huge huge huge howling wolf is going to eat us all up,’ I’d say.

Gideon would start and tremble, and when I growled he ran screaming for Mother. She’d scoop him up in her arms and aim a swipe at me.

‘Stop scaring the poor little mite senseless, Hetty. I’ll paddle you with my ladle if you don’t watch out.’

I’d been well and truly paddled several times and I didn’t enjoy the experience. I didn’t mean Gideon any harm. It wasn’t my fault he was such a little milksop. But I smiled at him even so, and said he could come and visit my squirrel house. I let him squeeze into the cart with me while poor Jem puffed along pushing the two of us.

Gideon squirmed uneasily as I chatted about my house. ‘Squirrels might bite,’ he said fearfully.

‘Oh, Gideon, squirrels don’t bite! We’ll bite them,’ I said, giggling.

‘Can’t climb up the tree, Hetty,’ Gideon wailed.

‘It’s easy, Gideon. I can climb. Jem can too,’ I said.

‘I might fall!’ said Gideon, nearly in tears.

‘Don’t cry, Gideon. You won’t fall. Just think, you’re getting to see my squirrel house and Saul isn’t.’

‘Saul can come too,’ said Jem quickly. ‘And Martha.’

‘No they can’t – too much of a squash,’ I said, wishing Jem wasn’t always so kind. I just wanted him to be kind to me.

It was a waste of our kindness inviting Gideon. To help him appreciate the charm of the squirrel house I made us ‘climb’ in the air for several seconds before we hopped up into the hole in the tree. This was fatal. He clung to me desperately.

‘Whee – we’re right up in the treetops! See the birds flying!’ I said.

‘Have to get down! It’s too high, too high!’ Gideon said, peering down fearfully, though if he reached right out he could put his hand on the ground.

‘It’s not really high, Gideon, look,’ said Jem, dangling his leg down.

‘Hetty makes it high!’ said Gideon.

Jem laughed. ‘That’s what she’s best at, picturing. She’s grand at it.’

‘I wish she wasn’t,’ said Gideon, and he closed his eyes tight, as if he could shut out my picturing that way.

Gideon stayed in the cottage with Mother when Jem made me take Saul and Martha to the squirrel house. That was a waste of time too. I didn’t mind Martha, but she was so near-sighted she had no idea what a squirrel was. She sat in the tree and blinked solemnly, waiting for something to happen. I served her tea in an acorn cup and gave her a slice of fairy bread on a leaf, and she tried to eat and drink politely, but she looked puzzled when there was nothing in her mouth. She started to eat the leaf itself and Jem had to prise it out quickly lest she was sick.

I’d have happily stuffed a whole tree of leaves down Saul’s throat.

‘This is a stupid place. It’s not a real squirrel house. That’s not a fine green rug, that’s moss. That’s not china, it’s leaves. They’re not babies. They look like pig poo. Dirty Hetty, playing with pig poo.’

I pushed him hard in the chest, because no mother can stand to have her babies insulted. I pushed a little too hard. Jem tried to catch him but he wasn’t quite quick enough. Saul fell right out of my squirrel house. It truly wasn’t far, and any other child would have jumped up again and laughed – but not Saul.

His eyes slid into slits and his mouth went square. ‘You’ve hurt my poorly leg!’ he bawled. ‘I’m telling Mother!’

Oh dear. Gideon was clearly Mother’s favourite, but she had a particular soft spot for Saul, Lord knows why. She fussed over his leg, rubbing it with different remedies – goose grease and witch hazel – and knitted him a special soft pair of stockings because his boot rubbed his twisted foot. Saul enjoyed this attention and exaggerated his limp in front of Mother for all he was worth.

She was outraged when Saul told tales on me. ‘You pushed our Saul out of a tree, Hetty?’ she said, horrified. She reached for her paddling ladle and I ran to hide behind Jem.

‘It wasn’t high up in the tree, Mother, and she didn’t mean to,’ said Jem, doing his best to defend me.

Oh, I did so love Jem. But it was no use: I was well and truly paddled, and Mother forbade all of us to play in the squirrel house.

Gideon looked mightily relieved, Martha was indifferent, Jem was clearly sad for me – but I was so aggravated I stamped and shouted and screamed at Mother. You can guess the result. I got paddled all over again, and sent to bed without any supper.

Mother came and sat beside me as I snuffled in the dark. ‘Now, Hetty, are you sorry for being such a bad girl?’

‘No, I am not sorry. You should be sorry for being a bad mother,’ I mumbled beneath my blanket.

Mother had sharper ears than I’d reckoned. ‘What did you say, Hetty?’ she said.

Oh no, was I about to get another paddling? My bed started shaking. Mother was making odd gasping sounds. Had I shocked her so much she was having a fit, like Ruben in the village after drinking too much ale?

I peeped above the blanket in terror. Mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands over her mouth, splitting her sides with laughter. Oh, the relief!

‘Don’t you grin at me, girl!’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve never known such an imp as you. What am I going to do with you?’

‘Paddle me and paddle me, even when I’m a big girl like Rosie,’ I said, laughing too.

But Mother suddenly stopped. She put her arms round me and hugged me tight. ‘Oh, I’m going to miss you so, little Hetty, even though you’re such a bad, bad girl.’

I am absolutely certain that is what she whispered into my red hair. I didn’t understand. I thought she meant when I had to attend the village school like Jem. I didn’t dream I was only a temporary member of Mother’s family.