Diamond Read online

  ‘Mr Marvel?’ For one second I actually believed her, even though Mr Marvel was such a vast age and as wizened as his monkeys. And then I started giggling, and Hetty did too.

  ‘You’re teasing me!’ I said.

  ‘No, no, I’m absolutely serious. I shall set my cap at Mr Marvel and marry him, and all the monkeys will be my stepchildren and little Mavis will be my special baby,’ said Hetty.

  ‘No, Mavis is my baby!’

  ‘Oh, very well, you can have Mavis, but you’re definitely not getting my Marvel too, even though he told me you were his sweetheart.’

  ‘Did he really? He is very kind to me and I love him dearly, but he’s even older than my pa, and he is very elderly,’ I said.

  ‘I have quite a young pa,’ Hetty told me, suddenly serious.

  I was astonished. I’d thought Hetty was an orphan. I knew she’d lost her mother, but this father was total news to me. I wondered why she did not live with him.

  ‘Did he not want you, Hetty?’ I said. ‘My pa didn’t want me. He sold me to Beppo for five guineas.’

  ‘Then he was very silly, because you’re worth at least five thousand guineas, Diamond. No, I think my pa does want me. He made me as welcome as he could when I went to stay with him. But his new wife did not care for me at all. She’d sell me for five pennies and think she’d got a bargain!’

  ‘And . . . have you any other family, Hetty?’ I asked tentatively, thinking of the foster brother.

  Perhaps Hetty was thinking of him too, because her blue eyes looked very shiny, as if they were full of tears. But then she gave a great sniff. ‘You are my family now, Diamond,’ she said. ‘You and Madame Adeline.’

  This time I knew she was serious and I felt wondrously joyful. But she was certainly a little fond of dear old Mr Marvel, even if she didn’t quite want him for a sweetheart, because she bought new material the next time she found a clothes market, and made a whole set of clothes for the monkey family.

  She stitched Melinda and Marianne wonderful tiny frocks in silk bombazine – one heliotrope with navy stripes, one brilliant peacock blue, both with bonnets to match and fur-trimmed mantles. Both girl monkeys had to mind their manners now they were dressed as elegant ladies. It took them a while to get used to their new costumes, and they wriggled and scratched and pulled off each other’s bonnets in a very comical fashion. But Marmaduke and Michael adopted a dandy air as soon as Hetty kitted them out with little jackets and waistcoats and pinstripe trousers, and wore their mini bowler hats at a comical angle, crammed over their little round ears. Hetty dressed Mavis as a real baby, with a long cream gown and infant bonnet, and Mr Marvel taught her to tuck her gown up into her napkin, which always got a huge laugh from the audience.

  Hetty worked on her own clothes too. She cut a very fine figure in her borrowed fleshings, but she hated it when lads in the audience shouted out that she had ‘a cracking pair of pins’. She bought a length of good quality cream cotton and tried to make herself a proper pair of riding breeches. She had difficulty fashioning the legs at first, and wasted her first length of cloth, which made her swear because it was expensive. But the second time around she mastered the flair of the leg, while getting a good tight fit around the hips.

  It was perhaps a little too good a fit, because the lads started shouting rude remarks about her nether regions instead. One windy day she found a fine top hat that must have bowled right off some gent’s head. It was a little muddy, but after a stiff brush it came up as good as new. I thought she’d throw her stovepipe hat away, because even I knew it was old-fashioned and it had become very shabby – but she rolled it up in a length of silk and kept it stowed away in an old pillowcase as if it were as valuable as a jewelled crown.

  She gazed at herself in Madame Adeline’s looking glass, flourishing her top hat and striking poses in her new breeches.

  ‘You look lovely, Hetty,’ I said admiringly.

  ‘Hmn,’ said Hetty. ‘I really need proper boots though. Polished riding boots.’

  I was in awe of Hetty because she could make most things, but I knew even she couldn’t manage a pair of leather boots. I saw her eyeing Mr Tanglefield’s shiny black boots enviously.

  ‘Perhaps he’s got an old pair he doesn’t wear any more,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘He’s a small man, but his feet are still twice the size of yours,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I could stuff the toes with paper,’ said Hetty. ‘Oh, I wish I had a proper pair of boots.’

  ‘Are they very expensive, Hetty?’ I asked.

  ‘Desperately so. I’ve asked at the bootmaker’s in town. Their best pair is five guineas.’

  ‘Oh my goodness, I cost that much,’ I said.

  ‘I suppose I can save up, but it’s going to take such ages.’ Hetty kicked up her legs and sighed.

  But she didn’t have to wait ages after all. The next day Madame Adeline went out straight after breakfast and came back with a great brown paper parcel in her arms.

  ‘What have you got there, Madame Addie?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a little present, Diamond,’ she said.

  ‘It looks like a very big present.’ I looked at it hopefully.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not for you, sweetheart. But I dare say I can find you a chocolate treat, and that can be your very little present,’ said Madame Adeline.

  ‘Then who is it for?’

  She nodded towards Hetty, who was wobbling all over the meadow on Chino and Beppo’s penny-farthing cycle. She kept falling off, but she just brushed herself down and tried again, laughing.

  At that moment Mister spotted her too and came hobbling towards her, spitting with fury. ‘You, girl! Get off that machine immediately! What do you think you’re doing? That contraption cost a small fortune. If that wheel’s buckled, I’ll have your guts for garters.’

  Hetty jumped off the penny-farthing and untucked her skirts, laughing at him. ‘Don’t get so agitated, Mr Beppo. See – your penny-farthing’s utterly unblemished.’ She handed it over to him, dropping him a little curtsy.

  ‘Don’t put on airs and graces with me, you little trollop. You might have old Tanglefield so dazed he’s practically signing his whole circus over to you – but you don’t impress me one little bit,’ said Beppo.

  He climbed onto the penny-farthing himself to establish his rightful ownership – but he wasn’t as skilled as Chino, and when he rode away he wobbled precariously, got the front wheel stuck on a tuft of grass, and fell right off, landing comically on his behind.

  ‘You’re such a funny clown!’ said Hetty, and ran off to join Madame Adeline and me.

  ‘Watch yourself, Hetty. It’s not wise to tease Beppo too much. He can be a bad enemy,’ said Madame Adeline.

  ‘When you’ve grown up with terrible pig-faced matrons who hit you and locked you up in the attic, you don’t get frightened of silly little circus men,’ said Hetty.

  Madame Adeline shook her head at her, but I was thrilled to hear her talking like that, even though I knew she was showing off. It helped me not to be so frightened of Mister.

  ‘You’re a naughty girl, Hetty, and a bad example to little Diamond,’ said Madame Adeline. ‘You don’t really deserve a present – but here, take a look at this.’ She handed Hetty the parcel.

  Hetty held it, feeling the shapes under the paper, suddenly shocked into silence.

  ‘What is it, Hetty? Oh, quick, tear the paper off!’ I shouted.

  Hetty gave a tiny pull at the wrapping, exploring something that gleamed conker-brown underneath. She gasped, and then suddenly tore the rest of the paper off so that it fluttered in shreds to her feet. She was left holding a pair of polished riding boots.

  She cradled them as if they were two babies.

  ‘I hope they’re the right sort,’ said Madame Adeline. ‘They should be a reasonable fit. I took an outline of your shoes to show the bootmaker.’

  ‘Oh, Madame Adeline, they’re simply beautiful,’ Hetty whispered. ‘But –