Read Online Grace Hardie by Anne Melville - Free Book Online

put Pepper’s body into the hole he had dug, and each of the boys threw in a handful of earth before using the spade to shovel the ground level. Although Grace was no longer watching, they continued to behave with the formal gravity that they supposed she wanted. Their ceremonial was mixed with an uneasiness which they shared but could not have explained. Each of them, on any day in the year, was accustomed to carry the guilt of a variety of sins: food stolen from the garden, rules broken at school, truths suppressed to have the effect almost of lies, neglected duties, small disloyalties – all these offences were to some extent matters of deliberate choice. In committing a small crime they took into account not only the likelihood of punishment but the probable disturbance of conscience. It seemed unfair that something which they had never intended to happen should now overwhelm them with guilt. Frank had spoken sincerely when he claimed that the killing of Pepper was an accident. But they all knew that Grace could not be expected to believe that.
    The ceremony was over. Philip arranged his armful of poppies and cornflowers above the disturbed earth. Frank picked up his jacket and took Jay’s hand. The four boys walked together through the wood and up the hill to face the music.

Chapter Three
    Halfway up the hill Grace was forced to pause, gasping for breath; but when she saw Kenneth emerge from the wood she set off again, panting and crying at the same time. Kenneth was a fast runner. If he did not catch her up it was because he was not really trying; but she did not look round again. He could say he was sorry as often as he liked: she wasn’t going to listen. She was never going to speak to him again, nor to David. She was prepared to believe that Philip had had no hand in the death of her pet, and Jay was too young to have understood what the others were doing. With more difficulty, she could accept that Frank was horrified by what had happened. He never told lies, and she had read the shock in his eyes. But David with his arrow and Kenneth with his lump of wood had hurt Pepper and made him dead. Grace vowed that she would never forgive them.
    She ran first to the nursery for comfort, but Nanny Crocker, who was usually there, was not there today: nor was there any sign of Milly, the nurserymaid. Disappointed, Grace pulled off her straw hat and threw it on the nursery floor. Then she hesitated for a moment. She was not supposed to bother her mother in the mornings, and for the past two weeks Mama had been ill, so that all the children had been restricted to a single short visit to her bedroom just before their own bedtime. But she would surely not mind being disturbed now, for such a special reason.
    There was a strange atmosphere of bustle outside Mrs Hardie’s room. Milly was carrying two jugs of hot wateralong the corridor as Grace approached, and one of the housemaids was hurrying behind her with a pile of clean sheets. Grace tried to follow them in, but was stopped by Nanny Crocker. ‘Not now, dear,’ she said, and closed the door in Grace’s face.
    It was the third betrayal of a day in which no one was prepared to love her or be kind to her. Her tearfulness turned to an angry resentment; but then she remembered that there was another way into her mother’s bedroom. She opened the dressing room door.
    In the middle of the room stood the cradle which had once belonged to Grace herself, and more recently to Jay. A strange woman in a blue uniform and white belt was bending over it.
    â€˜Who are you?’ asked Grace.
    â€˜I’m Nurse Bruton. I’ve come to look after your mother and your new baby brother for a little while. He’s just this minute arrived. Would you like to blow him a kiss? But you mustn’t touch him or come near him, because he’s very new and small.’
    â€˜I want Mama,’ said Grace.
    â€˜Not just now, dear. She’s having a little