Comforted himself by the effort to comfort Hilda, Eustace looked about for pleasant thoughts further to allay his disappointment, and soon found one. Why had it not occurred to him before? From being a mere hope it quickly grew into a certainty. Hilda had indeed refused Dick Staveley’s invitation, but that was no reason why he, Eustace, shouldn’t go to Anchorstone Hall. Dick had asked him first; he only asked Hilda (so Eustace reasoned) as a second thought, and because she happened to be there. When he found she couldn’t go, he would naturally ask Eustace to go without her. There were still six days before the fatal twenty-first; Dick would probably not trouble to write, he would just send over a message, as being quicker. To-morrow Eustace was to be allowed out for half an hour in the sun, so there could be no objection to his going to Anchorstone Hall, say, the day after to-morrow. He had become vividly day-conscious.... How splendid it would be to drive in the dog-cart, with a large and no doubt friendly dog. Eustace had never travelled in any but a hired conveyance, and the prospect of going in a private one intoxicated him. He would find it waiting for him at the top of the road, opposite Boa Vista, perhaps; they would all come to see him start, the groom would help him in, the dog would wag its tail, a flick of the whip and they would be off, Eustace waving his red silk handkerchief. They would drive smartly through the park, which would be quite empty, as the public, poor creatures, were not admitted that day. They would cross the moat, and there at the front door would be Dick and Sir John Staveley and Lady Staveley, and perhaps a lot of servants, and they would run out to welcome him and say how glad they were that he was well again. Then they would have tea and after that ...
There were a great many versions of what was to happen after tea. Eustace’s imagination had never been more fertile than in devising incidents with which to glorify his new friendship. Often Dick rescued him from a violent death, from a mad bull, perhaps, which had long haunted the park and terrorised its owners. Sometimes their respective rôles were reversed and Eustace saved Dick’s life. But this would be a less sensational occurrence, and consisted, as often as not, in his nursing Dick through a long illness contracted in Central Africa. Or he would throw himself into the jaws of a lion, thus giving Dick time to free himself and shoot it. Eustace often perished in these encounters and had an affecting death-bed scene, in which Dick acknowledged all he owed him and sometimes asked forgiveness for some long-forgiven injury. But Dick never died; Eustace had not the heart to kill him.
Not all their adventures together, however, entailed death or danger of death. Often they would simply stroll about the park, and Dick would jump a wide chasm, which conveniently opened at their feet, instructing Eustace how to do the same, or shin up a perpendicular tree, supporting Eustace with his left hand. At nightfall they would return scratched and scarred. Lady Staveley (whom Eustace, in spite of dim memories to the contrary, had fashioned in the likeness of Queen Alexandra) would shake his hand affectionately and say, ‘I’m very glad Dick has made such a nice friend.’ Any version of the visit was incomplete without this parting scene.
The precious days passed but no message came from Anchorstone Hall. Eustace could no longer get his day-dreams in focus: their golden glow faded in the grey light of reality. On the seventeenth he wrote a letter.
Dear Dick,
Thank you very much for asking Hilda to ride. It was a great pity she could not go. It was not my fault as I told her how much she would enjoy it and I should as I am quite well now and alowed to go out. It is a great pitty you have to go to Harrough so soon.
Your sincer friend,
EUSTACE CHERRINGTON.
Hope surged up in Eustace’s breast after the dispatch of this letter and the day-dreams became more frequent and more intoxicating than ever. But when the morning of the twentieth came he was still waiting for an answer.
9. LABURNUM LODGE
MR. CHERRINGTON and his sister were sitting together in the drawing-room, he with his pipe, she with her knitting. Her brows were furrowed and she looked at her brother, who was making no effort to conceal the sense of relaxation he felt after a day’s work, with a certain irritation. This care-free humour must not continue.
“I can’t think what’s come over Eustace,” she said; “he’s been so difficult this last day or two. The fact is, since he got ill, we’ve all combined to spoil him.”
“Well, we were only acting on the doctor’s orders,” replied her brother, placidly puffing at his pipe.
“I know; I always wondered if they were wise. Anyhow we can’t go on like this, or the boy will become perfectly impossible.”
“What’s he been doing?” Mr. Cherrington asked.
“Well, you know how fond he used to be of playing on the sands with Hilda? And it’s the best thing in the world for him, especially after an attack like this. Well, to-day I said he might go down. It’s the first time, mind you, since he’s been out, and I expected he would be wild with delight.”
“And wasn’t he?”
“Far from it. He actually told me he didn’t want to go; he said, if you please, he was tired of the beach—tired, when he hasn’t been near it for two months. So I took him at his word and made him go for a walk along the cliffs instead. I told him he’d be sorry afterwards, and when he came back to dinner I could see he was.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound very serious,” said Eustace’s father, smoking comfortably.
“Not to you, perhaps. But listen. On the cliffs they met Miss Fothergill, who was so distressed when Eustace ran away; and all the time he was ill, you remember, she sent to ask how he was getting on and gave him that lovely bunch of grapes.”
“The half-paralysed old lady who goes about in a bath-chair?”
“Yes. Hilda made Eustace stop and speak to her—he didn’t even want to do that—and she was so pleased to see him and asked Eustace if he would push her bath-chair for her. He did that once before, perhaps you remember? And Eustace actually said he wouldn’t because he wasn’t supposed to exert himself since he’d been ill! And whose fault was it that he was ill, I should like to know?”
“His own, of course.”
“I should think so. And then she asked him to go to tea the day after to-morrow, and Hilda couldn’t make him say yes, he said he must ask us first, though he knew perfectly well we should be delighted for him to go.”
“I suppose he oughtn’t to have said that.”
“Of course not, and it’s unlike him too; usually he’s so docile. He was quite nasty to Hilda about it, she told me afterwards, and she doesn’t often complain of him.”
“He doesn’t give her much to complain of, as a rule.”
“Oh, doesn’t he? You don’t know. Well, then he came to me, and said quite defiantly, Why was it that Nancy Steptoe had never been to see him, he felt sure we’d kept her away, and it wasn’t fair that we should expect him to have tea with Miss Fothergill who was old and ugly and dreadful and a lot more—stories he’s picked up somewhere—when we wouldn’t let him see Nancy who was all that was perfect—really, if he wasn’t such a little boy you might have thought he was in love with her. Thereupon, doctor or no doctor, I told him a little of what we thought about Nancy and the dance she’d led him.”
“No, I don’t think she’s a good influence for him. But what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to talk to him seriously. There’s no need to frighten the child, only it’s quite time he realised that all the anxiety and expense we’ve had from his illness is entirely his fault. It’s all owing to his stupid trick of running away that day. We never punished him for it, he was too ill, for one thing, and the doctor said not; but he’s well enough to be told now what a trial he has been to us. Unless we do, he’ll think he’s done something rather fine and his whole character will be ruined, if it isn’t already.”
“All right,” said Mr. Cherrington. “Don’t get tragic about it. I’ll have a word with the boy to-morrow.”
Like many amiable and easy-going people, Mr. Cherring
ton made the business of administering discipline far more painful to the culprit than it need have been. He opened in such a mild and conciliatory manner that a much older boy than Eustace would have had no inkling of what was in his mind. Accordingly Eustace put forward his case, such as it was, quite expecting sympathy. He explained more fully than he had ever done except to Hilda, that he was frightened of Miss Fothergill, and that was partly why he had run away on the day of the paper-chase. But he was too reserved and perhaps too shy to tell his father the true measure of his terror. Again, when asked why he had not been nice to Hilda he tried to make him realise how disappointed he had been when she refused Dick’s invitation; and his father listened so attentively that he even began to draw aside the veil from the less extravagant of the Staveley–Anchorstone Hall fantasies. The mistake he made was not to let his confessions go far enough. Mr. Cherrington was not a stupid man and had a good deal of the child left in him still; he might have understood, had not Eustace’s shyness checked his self-revelation half-way, that the boy lived in his imagination and that the fancied horror of Miss Fothergill’s, like the untested delights of Dick Staveley’s society, were more real to him than any actual experience, as yet, could be. Instead, he got the impression that Eustace was exaggerating his fancies and trying to substitute them for arguments. He found his son’s eloquence unconvincing largely because Eustace was self-conscious and unsure of himself from the effort to make the ruling forces of his inner life plain to the limited capacities of the adult mind. Aware of this, Eustace grew more nervous and would gladly have resumed the natural reticence out of which his father’s sympathetic attitude had surprised him.
“You see,” he said, fidgeting in his chair, “the beach hasn’t seemed the same after what Dick said about it, and whenever I remember how we should have been friends only Hilda didn’t want to I feel angry with her and don’t want to play with her.”
“Your sister can do what she pleases,” said Mr. Cherrington. “It’s very sensible of her not to want to break her neck. It’s a pity that you didn’t feel the same way about the paper-chase.”
Eustace was silent, unhappily conscious of the change in his father’s mood. Listening to Eustace’s apologia he had adopted the rôle of father-confessor. This is weakness, he thought. I promised Sarah to give the boy a good talking-to. So, venting on Eustace his irritation with his own inadequacy, he said, with an alarming transition into sternness: “I don’t want to hear any more of your being rude to Hilda, Eustace. She’s backed you up through thick and thin. She’s been like a mother to you.” He stopped. Resentment at having been betrayed into mentioning his wife in such a trivial connection as this surged up in him. “You seem to have forgotten,” he said still more angrily, “all the trouble and anxiety and expense you’ve given us this summer. Without telling anyone, you deliberately ran away and nearly frightened us all to death.” He paused to make certain that his indignation was still functioning. “And then on top of it all you must needs fall ill. I don’t say you actually meant to, but you were quite old enough to know what might happen if you overtaxed your strength in such a stupid way. You’re not a baby now. How old are you?”
“Nearly half-past nine,” sobbed Eustace, in his agitation mistaking years for hours. He had often been asked his age, but never roughly, always in tones of solicitude and affectionate interest.
“At your age——” Mr. Cherrington checked himself; he could not remember what he was doing at his son’s age; but Eustace’s conscience filled in the blank. “I was earning a living for my family.” “Anyhow,” his father went on, “it was a most stupid trick.” (Eustace couldn’t bear the word stupid; he flinched every time it came.) “I hoped you’d have the sense to see that this illness was in itself a punishment; but it seems you haven’t. You need something extra. Well, you’ll probably get it. What with the doctor and the nurse and having to take a room for Hilda outside, we’ve used up our money and may have to leave Cambo; you won’t like that, will you?”
Eustace opened wide his tear-filled eyes in horrified surprise; already he saw the dingy side street in Ousemouth and smelt the confined musty smell of the house where they lived at such close quarters round and above his father’s office. “You didn’t realise that, did you? You’re so cock-a-hoop at getting well, you think nothing else matters; you don’t bother about the sacrifices you’ve inflicted on us all, because you didn’t suspect they were going to affect you.”
Mr. Cherrington might well have finished here, for though Eustace had stopped crying out of fright, his distress was obvious enough. But he didn’t want to leave the job half done and also (to do him justice) he didn’t want ever to refer to the matter again. He loathed scenes, or he would no doubt have managed them better. He wanted to resume his old, genial, jocular relationship with Eustace, which he couldn’t do, he felt, till he had thoroughly thrashed the matter out. So, like a surgeon performing an abdominal operation, he looked round for something else to straighten out before the wound closed for ever.
“And now I hear,” he said, “that you actually have the cheek to want to see this Nancy Steptoe again.” (Eustace had been about to explain that he hadn’t much wanted to see Nancy until the removal of Dick Staveley from the foreground of his imagination had necessitated the introduction of a substitute that he could feel romantic about.) “I should have thought your commonsense would have told you better. She’s a silly, vain, badly-brought-up little girl, who’s done you nothing but harm, and your aunt has forbidden you ever to speak to her again.”
“But what am I to do,” said Eustace in a choking voice, “if she speaks to me? I’m always seeing her, on the beach, in the street, everywhere. I can’t help it.”
“You must raise your hat and walk away,” said Mr. Cherrington firmly. “But she won’t speak to you; she knows quite well what we think about her.”
Even in his misery Eustace winced at the grim self-satisfaction in his father’s voice.
“And another thing, Eustace—don’t cry so, you only make matters worse by behaving like a baby. Sit up, Eustace, and don’t look so helpless. Another thing I hear is that you’re again making a fuss about going to tea with Miss Fothergill. Now don’t let me hear another word of this. She’s a very good, kind, nice woman, and she wants to be kind to you, and the least you can do is to go and see her when she asks you. We haven’t told her more than we could help about your stupid behaviour over the paper-chase, though I’m surprised she still wants to see you after being let down once so badly. She knows you’ve been a silly little boy, that’s all.”
This seemed such a moderate and generous estimate of his character that Eustace’s tears started afresh.
“Now don’t cry any more. Let’s begin turning over a new leaf from to-day. Why, Eustace, what’s the matter?”
“Oh, Daddy, I do feel so sick.”
Mr. Cherrington gave his son a troubled, rueful look. “Bless the boy! Hold on a second!” He went into the passage, shouting, “Minney, Minney, I want you—here in the dining-room.”
About four o’clock the next day two figures emerged from the white, wood-slotted gate of Cambo and walked slowly up the hill. Both were obviously wearing their best clothes. Minney’s dark-blue coat and skirt were not new for they shone where the light caught them, but they were scrupulously neat and free from creases. Eustace was wearing a fawn-coloured coat with a velvet collar of a darker shade of brown; his head looked small and his face pale under a bulging cloth cap with ribs that converged upon a crowning button. Round his neck, and carefully crossed over his chest, was a red silk scarf. He walked listlessly, lagging half a pace behind his companion, and occasionally running forward to take the arm she generously offered him.
“That’s all right,” said Minney. “But you aren’t tired yet, you know.”
“I feel rather tired,” said Eustace, availing himself shamelessly of the support. “You forget I was sick four times.”
“But that was yesterday,” said Minney, “you
’re a different boy to-day.”
Eustace sighed.
“Yes, I am different. I don’t think I shall ever be the same again.”
“What nonsense! There, mind you don’t put your new shoes in that puddle. What makes you think you’ve changed? I don’t see any difference. You’re the same ugly little boy I’ve always known.”
“Oh, I dare say I look the same,” said Eustace. “But I don’t feel it. I don’t think I love anyone any more.”
“Don’t you love me?”
“Yes, but you don’t count. I mean,” Eustace added hastily and obscurely, “it wouldn’t matter so much if I didn’t love you.”
“Who don’t you love, then?”
“Daddy and Aunt Sarah and Hilda.”
“Oh, you soon will.”
“No, I shan’t. I didn’t ask God to bless them last night.”
“You did, because I heard you.”
“I know, but afterwards, secretly, I asked Him not to.”
“Perhaps He didn’t listen when you said that, but it wasn’t very kind.”
“Well, they haven’t been kind to me. Of course I shall go on being obedient and doing what they tell me. I shan’t speak to Nancy. I shan’t ever again do anything I really want to do. That’s partly why I’m going to Miss Fothergill’s now.”
“You told me you weren’t really frightened.”
“I was till yesterday. After that it didn’t seem to matter.”
“What didn’t seem to matter?”
“Whether I was frightened or whether I wasn’t. I mean it was so much worse when Daddy said all those things to me.”