“If you pressed her she might change her mind.”
“Thanks, I never change it.”
Hilda was sitting on the Steptoes’ beautiful blue carriage rug, her heels drawn up, her arms clasping her knees, her head averted, her eyes fixed on some distant object down the valley.
“What a determined daughter you’ve got, Cherrington.”
“Well, she is a bit obstinate at times.”
“Aunt Sarah said if you keep on changing your mind no one will respect you,” said Hilda in lofty accents and without looking round.
“She’s hardly eaten anything,” said Gerald, who was Eustace’s senior by a year. “Just one or two of their sandwiches and none of our cakes.”
There was an awkward pause. Eustace came to the rescue. “She hardly ever eats cakes, do you, Hilda?”
“What an unusual little girl!” said Mrs. Steptoe with her high laugh.
“You needn’t be afraid of getting fat, you know,” said Major Steptoe, gently pinching Hilda’s thin calf with his large strong hand. Hilda rounded on him with the movement of a horse shaking off a fly.
“It doesn’t do to be greedy at my time of life.”
“Why ever not?”
Eustace whispered nervously to Nancy, “She doesn’t like being touched. Isn’t it funny? She doesn’t mind so much if you hit her.”
“Why, have you tried?”
Eustace looked shocked. “Only when we play together.”
Major Steptoe rose and stretched himself. “Well, Cherrington, what about these toboggans? We’ve given our tea time to settle.”
Miss Cherrington stopped folding up some paper bags and said:
“Alfred and I both think it would be too much for Eustace.”
“Oh come, Miss Cherrington, the boy’ll only be young once.”
“Oh, do let me, Aunt Sarah,” Eustace pleaded.
“It’s for your father to decide, not me,” said Miss Cherrington. “We remember what happened last time Eustace tobogganed, don’t we?”
“What did happen, Eustace?” asked Nancy with her flattering intimacy.
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you here.”
“Why not?”
“I was much younger then, of course.”
“Well,” said Major Steptoe, looming large over the little party, “we can’t let the boy grow up into a mollycoddle.”
“I was thinking of his health, Major Steptoe.”
“What do you say, Bet?”
“I think it would do him all the good in the world,” said Mrs. Steptoe.
“Well, Cherrington,” said Major Steptoe, “the decision rests with you and your sister.”
Mr. Cherrington also rose to his feet, a slight figure beside Major Steptoe’s bulk.
“All things considered, I think——”
“Remember, you agreed with me before we started, Alfred.”
Mr. Cherrington, unhappily placed between his sister and Major Steptoe, looked indecisively from one to the other and said:
“The boy’s not so delicate as you think, Sarah. You fuss over him too much in my opinion. One or two turns on the toboggan will do him no harm. Only remember” (he turned irritably to Eustace) “you must let it stop at that.”
Eustace jumped up, jubilant. Miss Cherrington pursed her lips and Hilda whispered, “Isn’t that like Daddy? We can’t depend on him, can we? Now Eustace will be sick.”
The males of the party started off towards the farm and presently reappeared each laden with a toboggan. Eustace could not manage his; his arm was too short to go round it; when he tried pulling it over the rough roadway it kept getting stuck behind stones. Major Steptoe, who was carrying the big toboggan with places for three on it, relieved Eustace of his.
“How strong you must be, Major Steptoe!”
“So will you be at my age, won’t he, Cherrington?”
And Eustace’s father, feeling as if Major Steptoe had somehow acquired his parental prerogative, agreed.
Then arose the question of who was to make the first descent.
“The thing is,” said Gerald, “to see who can go furthest on the flat. Now if Mother and Miss Cherrington sit here, on that stone, they’ll mark the furthest point anyone’s ever got to.”
“I don’t want to sit on a stone, thank you,” said Mrs. Steptoe, “and I don’t suppose Miss Cherrington does either.”
“Well then, sit in this cart-rut, it’s the same thing. Now you must keep a very careful watch, and mark each place with a stick —I’ll give you some.”
“Thank you.”
“And you mustn’t take your eyes off us for a second, and only where the last part of the body touches the ground counts: it might be the head, you know.”
“I suppose it might.”
“Now we’ll begin. Should I go first, just to show you what it’s like?”
“I think you might ask Hilda to go with you.”
Gerald’s face fell. “Will you come, Hilda?”
“No, thank you. I shall have plenty to do looking after Eustace.”
“Then I’ll start.” Gerald took one of the single toboggans and climbed the slope with great alacrity and an unnecessary amount of knee movement. “Coming,” he cried. The toboggan travelled swiftly down the grassy slope. The gradient was the same all the way until twenty feet or so before the bottom when, after a tiny rise, it suddenly steepened. It was this that gave the run its thrill. Gerald’s toboggan took the bump only a shade out of the straight: only a shade but enough to turn it sideways. He clung on for a moment. Then over he went, and sliding and rolling arrived at the bottom of the slope. The toboggan, deprived of his weight, slithered uncertainly after him and then stopped. It was an ignominious exhibition, and it was received in silence. Suddenly the silence was broken by a loud burst of laughter.
“He said he was going to show us what it was like,” Hilda brought out at last, between the convulsions of her mirth. “Didn’t he look funny?”
“Perhaps he meant to show us it doesn’t really hurt falling,” suggested Eustace charitably.
Gerald ignored them. “I’m glad I fell, in a way,” he explained, “because now you can all see the dangerous point. Of course, I should really have done it better if I’d come down head first. That’s the way I usually do it, only of course it wouldn’t have been any good showing you that way, because that way needs a great deal of practice.” He looked at his father for confirmation.
“Not one of your best efforts, my boy,” said Major Steptoe. “Let’s see what Eustace can do.”
As Eustace climbed the slippery hillside tugging at the rope of the toboggan with determined jerks, he suddenly thought of the Crucifixion and identified himself with its principal figure. The image seemed blasphemous so he tried to put it out of his mind. No, he was a well-known mountaineer scaling the Andes. On the other side of the valley lay the Himalayas, and that large bird was a condor vulture, which would pick his bones if he were killed.... No, it wouldn’t, for it would have to reckon with Hilda; she would be sure to defend his body with her life. There she was, quite small now, and not looking up at him, as the others were. Eustace sighed. He wished she was enjoying herself more. Mentally he projected himself into Hilda. Immediately she began to talk and smile; the others all gathered round her; even Mrs. Steptoe, aloof and mocking, hung on her lips. What a delightful girl! Not only a second mother to Eustace, but pretty and charming as well. Then he caught sight of Hilda’s face, sullen and set, and the vision faded.... It was high time, for they must be wondering why he was so long coming down. Perhaps they thought he was frightened. Eustace’s heart began to beat uncomfortably. They were all looking at him now, even Hilda, and he heard a voice—Gerald’s—call out, “Hurry up!” It was ‘hurry up,’ wasn’t it, not ‘funk,’ a horrible word Gerald had got hold of and applied to everyone he didn’t like and many that he did. Eustace tentatively paid out a few inches of the rope. The toboggan gave a sickening plunge. Again the voice floated up: “Come on!” It was ‘
come on,’ wasn’t it, not that other word? Gerald would hardly dare to use it in the presence of his parents. The difficulty with the toboggan, he remembered, was to sit on it properly before it started off. The other times his father had always held it for him, and he would have done so now, Eustace thought with rising panic, only Major Steptoe hadn’t wanted him to. Should he just walk down and say he didn’t feel very well? It was quite true: his heart was jumping about in the most extraordinary way and he could hardly breathe. He would be ill, just as they said he would be. He need never see the Steptoes again: Hilda would be delighted if he didn’t. As for Nancy——
At that moment Eustace saw his father turn to Major Steptoe and say something, at the same time pointing at Eustace. Major Steptoe nodded, his father rose to his feet, the tension in the little group relaxed, they began to look about them and talk. It was clear what had happened: his father was coming up to help him.
This decided Eustace. Holding the dirty rope in one hand, while with the other he supported his weight, he lowered himself on to the toboggan. Before he had time fairly to fix his heels against the cross-bar it was off.
The first second of the run cleared Eustace’s mind marvellously. He was able to arrange himself more firmly in his seat and even, so sharpened were his senses by the exhilaration of the movement, to guide the toboggan a little with his body. And when the pace slackened at the fatal bump he felt excited, not frightened. For a moment his feet seemed to hang over space; the toboggan pitched forward like a see-saw as the ground fell away under it. The pace was now so breath-taking that Eustace forgot where he was, forgot himself, forgot everything. Then, very tamely and undramatically, the toboggan stopped and he looked up to see the party scattering right and left, laughing and clapping their hands. He had finished up right in the middle of them.
“Bravo!”
“Well done, Eustace!”
“He didn’t need any help, you see.”
“He looks rather white, I’m afraid, Alfred.”
“I believe you’ve broken the record, Eustace,” said Nancy.
“Oh no, he’s not done that, because you see at the last moment he put his elbow on the ground, and that’s two feet, at least it’s two of my feet” (explained Gerald, measuring) “short of the Record Stone. You were just coming off, really, weren’t you, Eustace?”
“Well, perhaps I was.” Being a hero Eustace felt he could afford to be generous.
“What do you think of your brother now, Miss Hilda?” asked Major Steptoe playfully.
Hilda, who had resumed her seat on the rug, let her glance rest on the feet of her interlocutor.
“I’m glad in a way,” she admitted.
“You ought to be very proud of him.”
“I should certainly have been ashamed of him if he hadn’t.”
“Hadn’t what?”
“Broken the record, or whatever Nancy said he did.”
An astonished pause greeted this remark. It was broken by Mrs. Steptoe’s light, ironical voice.
“Your sister expects a lot of you, doesn’t she, Eustace?”
“Doesn’t Nancy expect a lot of Gerald?” Eustace asked.
“Oh, I’ve given Gerald up, he’s hopeless,” said Nancy. “I won’t trust myself on the toboggan with him. You’re so good, Eustace, may I come with you?”
Eustace, in the seventh heaven of delight, got up and looked round awkwardly at the company.
“You’ve got a great responsibility now, Eustace!”
“I feel quite safe,” said Nancy airily.
“Will you have a turn with Gerald, Hilda?” asked Major Steptoe, “or will you watch?”
“I might as well watch.”
“Then, Cherrington, what about you and me and Gerald trying our luck together?”
“Rather.”
The five of them trooped up the hill, leaving Mrs. Steptoe and Miss Cherrington and Hilda to rather desultory conversation.
“You sit in front, Nancy!”
“Oh, Eustace, I should feel much safer if you did.”
“Should we take turns?”
“They may separate us.”
“Oh, would they do that?”
“Well, you know how they do at dances.”
“I’ve never been to a dance,” said Eustace.
“But you go to the dancing class.”
“Sometimes, if I’m well enough.”
“You’ve never danced with me.”
“No, because you’re too good, you’re in A set.”
“We must dance together, some time.”
“Oh, that would be lovely!”
“Well, I’ll go in front this time.... Ooo, Eustace, how brave you are not to scream.”
“That’s the third time Nancy and Eustace have come down together,” observed Miss Cherrington.
“Yes. Don’t they look charming? And not one spill. Eustace is an expert, I must say. Here they all come. Don’t you feel tempted, Hilda?”
No reply.
“We think you ought to try a new formation now, don’t we, Miss Cherrington?” Mrs. Steptoe persisted. “What about a boy’s double, Gerald and Eustace? And perhaps Mr. Cherrington would take Nancy, and Hilda would go with Jack.”
Major Steptoe looked interrogatively at Hilda.
Hilda said nothing, and Eustace, who knew the signs, saw that she was on the brink of tears.
“Won’t you come with me, Hilda?” he asked reluctantly.
“Go on as you are, I don’t care,” Hilda replied, her words coming with difficulty and between irregular pauses. Mrs. Steptoe raised her eyebrows.
“Well, I think you’d better break up a bit. Decide among yourselves. Toss for it. I beg you pardon, Miss Cherrington?”
“I’d rather they didn’t do that, if you don’t mind.”
Nancy took advantage of this debate between the elders to whisper to Eustace, “Come on, let’s have one more together.” Laughing and excited they trudged up the hill again.
“You know,” Nancy said as confidentially as her loud panting permitted, “I arranged all this, really.”
“You arranged it?”
“Yes, the picnic.”
“Why?” asked Eustace breathlessly.
“Can’t you guess?”
“So that you and I might——?”
“Of course.”
“Oh, Nancy!”
Once more the glorious rush through the darkening air. This time Nancy was riding in front. The wind of the descent caught her long golden hair and it streamed out so that when Eustace bent forward it touched his face. When they came to the bump his customary skill deserted him; the toboggan turned sideways and they rolled and slithered to the bottom. Eustace was first on his feet. He gave his hand to Nancy and spluttered, gasping:
“Your hair got in my eyes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t mind.”
Mrs. Steptoe received them with a little smile. “Well, children, it’s getting late. I think the next ought to be the last. What do you say, Miss Cherrington?”
“I think Eustace has had quite enough.”
“Cherrington and I have broken every bone in our bodies,” remarked Major Steptoe amiably.
Both the fathers had withdrawn from the fray some time ago and were smoking their pipes. The sun was hanging over the hill behind them, a large red ball which had lost its fierceness. The grass on the opposite slope was flecked with gold; the shadows lengthened; the air turned faintly blue.
“Last round,” called Major Steptoe. “Seconds out of the ring. We’re nearly all seconds now, what, Cherrington? How is it to be this time?”
Eustace and Nancy gave each other a covert glance.
Suddenly Hilda said in a strident, croaking voice:
“I should like to go with Eustace.”
This announcement was followed by a general murmur of surprise, which soon turned into a chorus of approval.
“That’s right, Hilda! Don’t let Nancy monopolise him! Let’
s have a race between the two families—the Cherringtons versus the Steptoes.”
So it was arranged that Gerald and Nancy should have one of the double toboggans, Hilda and Eustace the other. Mr. Cherrington was to act as starter, Major Steptoe as judge. Hilda waited till her father and the two Steptoes were half-way up the slope and then said:
“You’ve been very unkind to me, Eustace.”
Eustace was feeling tired: he wished Hilda had offered to help him pull up the toboggan. Her accusation, acting on his nerves, seemed to redouble his weariness.
“Oh why, Hilda? I asked you to come and you wouldn’t.”
“Because I saw you wanted to be with Nancy,” said Hilda sombrely. “You never left her alone for a moment. You don’t know how silly you looked—both of you,” she added as an afterthought.
“You didn’t see us,” Eustace argued feebly, “you were always looking the other way.”
“I did try not to see you,” said Hilda, remorselessly striding up the slope, her superior stature, unimpaired freshness and natural vigour giving her a great advantage over Eustace. “But when I couldn’t see you I could hear you. I was ashamed of you and so was Aunt Sarah and so was Daddy.”
“Daddy said he was proud of me.”
“Oh, he said that to please Major Steptoe.”
Eustace felt profoundly depressed and, as the tide of reaction rolled over him, a little sick. But the excitement of the start, of getting into line, of holding the toboggan with Hilda on it and then jumping into his place at the word “Go!” banished his malaise. Off shot the two toboggans. When they reached the dreaded rise they were abreast of each other; then Gerald’s exaggerated technique (learned, as he had explained, from a tobogganist of world-wide renown) involved him, as so often, in disaster. The Cherringtons won, though their finish was not spectacular: the grass, now growing damp, held them back. Hilda and Eustace stumbled to their feet. They looked at each other without speaking but there was a gleam in Hilda’s eye. Major Steptoe joined the group.
“A decisive victory for your side, I’m afraid, Cherrington,” he said. “Now what about packing up?”
Gerald was heard muttering something about “our revenge.”
“What does he say?” asked Hilda.