The Peppermint Pig Read Online Free PDF Page B

people. Father and Mother greeted those that they knew, bowing to right and to left as if they were royalty. ‘There’s Miss Gathergood, James,’ Mother said. ‘Gracious me, hasn’t she aged? And Pamela Slap – and old Mr Mullen I used to work for. The buttonholes I’ve made for that man! Stop the trap, dear, we can’t pass without speaking, and he will be interested to know you are off to America. Sit upstraight, children, do me credit now. Poll, don’t look so miserable. Have you a stomach ache?’
    Poll shook her head. She did have a pain but it wasn’t that kind. Nor was it something she could speak of to Mother because she was partly the cause of it, sitting there in her best clothes and looking so cheerful and pretty and proud as she told Mr Mullen that Father was leaving them. Smiling as if she were happy about it!
    ‘So I’ll be a grass widow, Mr Mullen. Not for long, of course, but I dare say time will hang heavy sometimes.’
    ‘If it does,’ Mr Mullen said, ‘maybe I can put something your way.’ He looked at her solemnly and the children looked at him. They had heard about old Mr Mullen, who kept a general store and employed several girls to make dresses for his customers in a big room above it. ‘A slave driver,’ Mother had called him, ‘a wicked old devil,’ but he looked a meek, harmless man with a pink, knobbly nose and a mole on his chin that had several black hairs growing out of it. He said, ‘Business hasn’t been the same since you left, Mrs Greengrass. Sixteen years – and Lady March still says no one can fit a dress as you did.’
    Mother pursed her lips to stop herself smiling. ‘Well, I’ll have to see, Mr Mullen, it’s early days yet. These four young ones keep me busy, you know, so I can’t promise anything.’
    ‘Don’t overdo it, Mother,’ Lily said when Mr Mullen had lifted his hat and walked on. ‘Or he’ll think you don’t want to work for him.’
    ‘He’ll pay me better if he thinks I don’t need it,’ Mother said. ‘I know the old rascal. And that Lady March! Mean as two sticks and not only with money. Never a word of praise to your face.’
    Father laughed. ‘Plenty behind your back though, it seems. And you look pleased about it, so don’t pretend not to be.’
    ‘It’s nice to be remembered,’ Mother said smugly.
    And she was, it appeared. Now the trap was stationary, several people came up to them, were introduced to the children, talked of old times. Most of them had not seen Mother and Father since they were married – was that really 1886, really so long ago? – or at least since the older two children were babies and Mother had brought them to stay with the aunts for a holiday. Lily and George listened to these conversations more patiently than Theo and Poll, who began to feel that the last precious day with their father was slipping away like sand through their fingers. The young pony was fidgeting too, tossing his head up and down and clattering his bit. Poll started humming under her breath and twisting her head round. Her father saw this and nodded to Mother to finish what she was saying. Poll said, interrupting, ‘Look, there’s that Mrs Bugg, Theo.’
    She was coming towards them with her strange, swaying walk, a tall boy beside her. Mother said, ‘Wait, James, we can’t drive off now, she’ll think we are cutting her. I must have a word with the poor soul, if only a minute.’
    Mrs Bugg had called Mother poor, Poll remembered. Poor Emily. But Mother had sounded kind, Mrs Bugg hadn’t…
    She put her hand on the side of the trap. She looked at Mother with her pin-point green eyes. Then at Father. She said, ‘So you’re leaving the country, James.’
    Father smiled. ‘On business, Mrs Bugg. How are you keeping? And Noah?’
    Noah was a long, rangy boy with a small head and small ears, like his mother. His eyes were green too, but larger and lighter, like ripe dessert gooseberries.
    Mrs Bugg said, ‘Speak up, Noah.’
    He