“He only said them for your good. You’ll thank him one day when everyone tells you how much nicer you are than one or two spoilt little boys I could mention.”
“I shan’t thank him,” said Eustace mournfully, “and if I do it’ll only be because he expects me to. I shall always do what other people expect me to. Then they can’t be angry.”
“I shall be angry with you if you’re not more cheerful,” said Minney briskly. “Look, here’s the water-tower. How many gallons did you say it holds?”
“Two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred,” said Eustace in a dull voice.
“Good gracious, what a memory you’ve got. And how long would it take you to drink it?”
“One million and twenty-six thousand days, if I drank a pint a day,” said Eustace, a shade more interest in his tone.
“You are good at mental arithmetic,” said Minney admiringly.
Eustace saw through her efforts to cheer him and the genuine unhappiness he felt beneath his attempts to dramatise it returned and increased.
“I didn’t do that in my head,” he confessed. “Daddy told me. He used to tell me interesting things like that.”
“Well, he will again.”
“No, he won’t, he’ll be too busy trying to make money because it’s cost such a lot me being ill.” Eustace began to weep.
“There, there, it’s no use crying over spilt milk. You’ll know better another time. Now we’re nearly there. That’s Miss Fothergill’s gate, between those bushes.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Now dry your eyes, you mustn’t let her see you’ve been crying. You’ll find she’s ever so kind. I expect you’ll fall in love with her and forget about us all. Isn’t it a beautiful gate?”
Miss Fothergill’s gate boasted at least five bars and was made of fumed oak, with studs and other iron embellishments painted blue. Across the topmost bar the words ‘Laburnum Lodge’ were written in old English characters.
“Are these all laburnums?” asked Eustace, staring respectfully at the thick shrubs.
“No, they’re laurels. I expect we shall see some laburnums, but they won’t be in flower now.”
They passed through the gate and walked on. The house was almost hidden by an immense oval clump of shrubs. “Those are rhododendrons,” whispered Minney.
“Are they really? Which way do we go now?”
Here the carriage road, deep in yellow gravel, divided and flowed majestically round the soaring rhododendrons.
“The left is quickest. There’s the house.”
Built of the tawny local stone, not very high but long and of incalculable depth, Miss Fothergill’s mansion might have been designed to strike awe into the beholder. Eustace got an impression of a great many windows. They stopped in front of the porch. It framed a semi-circular arch of dark red brick, surmounted by a lamp of vaguely ecclesiastical design.
“It looks like a church,” whispered Eustace.
“Not when you get inside. There’s the bell—isn’t it funny, hanging down like that? Don’t pull it too hard.”
Eustace was much too confused to have any clear memory of what followed. The interior which was to become so familiar to him left little impression that afternoon beyond the gleam of dark furniture, the shine of white paint, and the inexplicable to-and-fro movement of the maid, taking his cap and coat, and hiding them away. Then she opened a door and they entered a long low room flooded with afternoon sunlight and full of objects, high up and low down, which, from Eustace’s angle of vision, looked like the indented skyline of some fabulous city.
Bewildered by the complexity of his sensations, Eustace came to a halt. There was a stirring at the far end of the room, between the window and the fireplace. Threading her way through chairs and stools and tables, Miss Grimshaw bore down upon them. She did not speak but from somewhere behind her came a voice that, like the singing tea-kettle, bubbled a little.
“Well,” it said, “here comes the hero of the paper-chase. This is nice! I’m sorry I can’t get up to greet you. Can you find me over here?”
“She said I was a hero,” Eustace found time to whisper to Minney before, joined now by Miss Grimshaw, they approached the tea-table. Miss Fothergill was still hidden behind the silver tea-kettle. What would he see? The hat, the veil, the gloves? Eustace faltered, then, rounding the table-leg, he found himself looking straight at the subject of so many waking nightmares.
It certainly was a shock. Neither the hat nor the veil was there. All the same in that moment Eustace lost his terror of Miss Fothergill, and only once did it return. Before tea was over he could look squarely and without shrinking at her brick-red face, her long nose which was not quite straight, her mouth that went up sideways and had a round hole left in it as though for ventilation, even when her lips were meant to be closed. Most surprising of all, he did not mind her hands, the fingers of which were now visible, peeping out of black mittens curiously humped. That afternoon marked more than one change in Eustace’s attitude towards life. Physical ugliness ceased to repel him and conversely physical beauty lost some of its appeal.
“He’d better sit there,” said Miss Fothergill, “so as to be near the cakes.”
Eustace was too young to notice that, as a result of this arrangement, Miss Fothergill had her back to the light.
“And you sit here, Miss Minney,” she continued. “You’ll stay and have a cup of tea, too?”
“Just one, thank you, but I really ought to be getting on.”
Minney glanced at Eustace, who had already helped himself to a cake. “I think he can manage by himself.”
“I’m sure he can.”
Eustace’s features suggested no denial of this. “What time shall I come for him?” Minney asked a little wistfully. She noticed how Eustace’s small figure was contentedly adapting itself to the lines of his chair. He looked up and said almost airily:
“Oh, Minney, I can find my way all right.”
Slightly wounded, Minney hit back. “What about that black dog near the post-office?”
Eustace hesitated. “Helen will see him home if it’ll save you,” said Miss Fothergill, “won’t you, Helen?”
Miss Grimshaw indicated assent but no more. “We’ll get him back somehow,” said Miss Fothergill pacifically.
“Then I shan’t have to start at any special time, shall I?” observed Eustace, evidently relieved.
“To-night the hare can rest his weary bones,” said Miss Fothergill with a smile. But Minney looked grave.
“We don’t want anything like that to happen again,” she said, as she rose to take her leave. Eustace gave her an abstracted smile, then his eyes slid from her face and wandered round the room, pleased with the bright soft colours, the glint of silver and china, the clusters of small objects.
“I shall be quite safe as long as I’m here,” he said.
10. WHEN SHALL I SEE YOU AGAIN?
IT WAS another September, but Eustace had not lost his taste for Miss Fothergill’s company nor she for his. The room they sat in drew him now as surely as it had once repelled him. He went there not only to meet Miss Fothergill but the self that he liked best.
The curtains had not yet been drawn, but tea was over and instead of the tea-table they had between them a tall round stool, the canvas top of which was worked in a pattern of gay flowers in wool. It made a rather exiguous card-table, but then piquet does not take much space.
“Shall I deal for you?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Is this how Miss Grimshaw does it?” asked Eustace, dealing the cards in alternate twos and threes.
“No, she has another way, but the one I showed you is the right way.”
Eustace looked pleased, then a shadow crossed his face.
“You do still play with her sometimes, don’t you?”
“Every now and then, but I think she’s glad of a rest.”
“She didn’t say so the other evening.”
“What
did she say?”
Eustace hesitated. “Oh, she said she wished those evenings could come back when you and she always played together.”
“Did she? Well, speak up. I expect you’re ashamed to declare a point of seven.”
“I threw one away,” admitted Eustace.
“Foolish fellow! You must count the pips up now.”
A complacent smile upon his face Eustace did so.
“Fifty-six.”
“No good. Now you can see what comes of throwing away your opportunities.”
“Well, I had to keep my four kings.”
“Ah! I might have known you had a rod in pickle for me somewhere.”
“Yes, four kings, fourteen, three aces, seventeen, three knaves, twenty.” Eustace hurried over these small additions and tried not to let exultation at the impressive total show in his voice. Then he said diffidently, “And I’ve got a carte major too.”
“Well, don’t say it as if you were announcing a death. You know you’re pleased really.”
“I suppose I am.”
“You certainly ought to be. It’s a great mistake not to feel pleased when you have the chance. Remember that, Eustace.”
“Yes, Miss Fothergill.” He groped on the floor and came up with some cards. “Here’s your discard. I haven’t looked at it,” he added virtuously.
“No, you’re much too good a boy to do that, aren’t you?”
Eustace scented criticism in these friendly words.
“Do you think I’m too good?”
“That would be impossible.”
The suggestion of irony in Miss Fothergill’s last remark was a little disturbing. When they had reached the end of the partie, which resulted in a heavy victory for Eustace, Miss Fothergill asked for her bag. Eustace found it and undid the clasp. Clearly the action had become second nature to him, for he performed it automatically. But to-night there was a furrow between his brows.
“Is it a great deal?” asked Miss Fothergill. “Have you ruined me? You look so distressed.”
“It isn’t that,” said Eustace uncomfortably.
“You don’t mind my being ruined?”
“Of course I should.... Only they say I oughtn’t to play cards for money.”
“Who says so?”
“At home they do.”
“I noticed you hadn’t come so often lately. Was that why you didn’t come last week and only once the week before?”
Eustace did not answer.
“But there’s nothing to object to, surely,” said Miss Fothergill, “in the arrangement we’ve made? I should have thought it was ideal. You don’t mind having the money, do you?”
“No,” said Eustace, “I like it very much. Only they say I ought to be too proud to take it.”
“Oh, I think that’s a trifle unreasonable.” Miss Fothergill’s voice bubbled, as it always did when she was nervous or excited, and the mittened, swollen hand lying in her lap described a fidgety little circle. “What harm could a penny or two more a week possibly do you?”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” said Eustace, evidently quoting something he had heard before on the lips of an indignant grown-up person. “It might get me into bad ways.”
Miss Fothergill sighed. “Well, well, let’s play for love. But then I shan’t be able to claim my side of the stakes. But perhaps they mind that too!”
“They don’t, but——”
Eustace turned scarlet.
“But you do?”
Eustace jumped from his chair in an agony of denial. He had got used to the look of physical suffering that often crossed Miss Fothergill’s face: it was present even in the photograph she had given him, taken many years ago. But he had never seen the expression of anger and mortification, like a disguise on a disguise, that transformed her features now.
“Of course not!” he cried. “Of course not! ... Why,” he said, thinking man-like that a reason would carry more weight than an asseveration, “I always kissed you, Miss Fothergill, long before we started to play piquet, long before” (he had a happy thought) “you asked me to, even! Don’t you remember,” he said, innocently taking it for granted that of course she must, “it was under the mistletoe, that day you had the Christmas tree?”
Miss Fothergill’s expression relaxed somewhat. “Yes,” she said, “I remember perfectly.”
“You didn’t think,” said Eustace, subsiding with relief into his chair, “that I only kissed you because ... because ... it was part of the game?”
“No, of course not,” said Miss Fothergill. She spoke with an exaggerated composure which Eustace slightly resented: it suggested, somehow, that he had been wanting in taste to take up so strongly her challenge about the kisses. “I thought perhaps picquet was a rather grown-up game for you,” she went on, “and it might make it more ... more amusing if we each paid a forfeit when we lost—I sixpence a hundred and you—you——” Here Miss Fothergill’s voice, which rarely failed her completely, dissolved into a bubbling.
“A kiss.” Eustace finished her sentence for her. “It was a very good plan, for me, you know—and it’s always worked beautifully.”
Miss Fothergill smiled.
“Till now. I wonder why Helen didn’t like it!” she added carelessly. “Perhaps she told you?”
Eustace stared at Miss Fothergill from under his lashes. He had not, he never would have, told her that it was Miss Grimshaw who had objected to the kisses. She had been helping him on with his coat but really she was only pretending to, for when it was half on she gave him a little shake that startled him very much and whispered so unkindly in his ear: “They won’t catch me kissing you—or giving you half-crowns either.” For days he had been afraid she might do it again. The scene was re-enacted before his eyes while he looked at Miss Fothergill. She seemed amused, not at all angry.
“I didn’t say it was Miss Grimshaw,” he said at last.
“No, but it was.”
Now, as often in the past, Eustace felt that the effort of finding the right thing to say was more than he could bear. At length he said:
“When you used to play with Miss Grimshaw”—he corrected himself—“when you play with her, do you have the same arrangement?” As Miss Fothergill did not answer, he went on, “I mean——”
But she interrupted him. “Yes, I understand what you mean. No, I don’t think we did have that arrangement.”
“Well,” said Eustace soothingly, “I expect she wished you had, and that annoyed her.”
“Oh, she was annoyed?” asked Miss Fothergill, smiling.
“Well, not really,” said Eustace. “Not like Hilda would have been.”
“It is Hilda I have to thank for your coming here,” said Miss Fothergill, who seemed pleased to change the subject. “I wish she came oftener herself. She’s only been twice.”
“She’s not as fond of pleasure as I am,” said Eustace. “And she doesn’t really like beautiful things or being shown pictures or talking about books.”
“Or playing cards?”
“No, she thinks that’s a waste of time.”
“I hope she doesn’t think I am a bad influence for you,” said Miss Fothergill lightly.
“Oh no, she doesn’t really think that, nobody does.”
Miss Fothergill considered this remark and said: “A year ago she seemed so anxious you should come and see me.”
“She was,” said Eustace eagerly, “but that was because she thought I didn’t want to—— No,” he took himself up, horrified even more by the explanations that must follow than by the indiscretion itself. Miss Fothergill’s interruption saved him.
“But she is very fond of you, anyone can see that.”
“Oh yes, she is. They all are. But—I don’t know how it is—if they see me really happy—for long together, I mean—they don’t seem to like it.”
“And you’re happy here?” said Miss Fothergill.
“Very,” said Eustace.
There was a long pause. Miss Foth
ergill stared into the fire, burning brightly in the steel grate that Eustace so much admired. Perhaps she saw a picture there. At last she turned to him.
“You mustn’t come so often,” she said, “if that’s the way your father and your aunt feel about it. I shan’t be hurt, you understand.”
Eustace’s face fell.
“But I wish you had some ... some other friends. What about the Staveley boy? Do you ever see him now?”
Eustace’s face grew even longer.
“He wrote to Hilda at Christmas and asked her again to go riding with him but she wouldn’t.”
“I wonder why. But couldn’t you go without her?”
“He didn’t ask me.”
“Well,” said Miss Fothergill, “don’t let’s feel sad about it. Perhaps you’ll go to school soon and make a whole lot of new friends.”
“Daddy can’t afford to send me to a good school,” Eustace said sorrowfully, “and Aunt Sarah won’t let me go to a bad one.”
“She’s quite right,” said Miss Fothergill. “Perhaps you’ll find yourself at a good one one of these days. How old are you?” she asked gently.
“Nearly ten and a half. I’m getting on.”
Since his father’s outburst Eustace always felt that he was older than he had a right to be.
Miss Fothergill seemed to make a calculation. Suddenly her face grew extremely sad. A stranger might not have noticed it, so odd was her habitual expression. She began to fumble in her bag.
“You’ll take the two shillings this time?” she said, and Eustace expected to see her get the money from her purse; but it was her handkerchief she wanted. She blew her nose and then handed Eustace his winnings.
Immediately, though it was not in their contract, he got up and kissed her. There was a salt-tasting tear on her cheek. “Are you crying?” he asked.
“As you would say, ‘Not really,’” she replied. “I ought to be glad, oughtn’t I, that I’m going to save so many shillings in future?”
Young as he was Eustace already experienced the awkwardness that falls between people when discharging debts of honour.
“But you’ll let me kiss you all the same?” he said. “Once if I lose, twice if I win.”