‘Eustace has always been a very good boy. He doesn’t steal or tell lies, and he nearly always does what he is told. He is helpful and unselfish. For instance, he took Miss Fothergill for a ride though he didn’t want to, and she asked him to tea, so of course he said he would go, though he was rather frightened.’ ‘He must be a bit of a funk,’ said the prosecutor, ‘to be afraid of a poor old lady.’ ‘Oh no, not really. You see she was nearly half a lion, and a witch as well, and mad too, so really it was very brave of him to say he would go. But it kept him awake at night and he didn’t complain and bore it like a hero....’ ‘What about his sister?’ said the prosecutor. ‘Didn’t he ask her to come to bed early, because he was frightened? That wasn’t very brave.’ ‘Oh, but she always thinks of what’s good for him, so naturally she didn’t want him to be frightened. Then he went to the dancing class and danced with a girl called Nancy Steptoe because she asked him to, though she is very pretty and all the boys wanted her to dance with them. And he danced very well and then they talked and she said Miss Fothergill was a witch and not quite all there, and tried to frighten him. And at last she asked him to go with her for a paper-chase instead of having tea with Miss Fothergill. But he said, “No, I have given my promise.” He was an extremely brave boy to resist temptation like that. And Nancy said, “Then I shan’t speak to you again,” and he said “I don’t care.”’
At this point the prosecutor intervened violently, but Eustace contrived not to hear what he said. He was conscious of a kind of mental scuffle, in the course of which the prosecution seemed to be worsted and beaten off the field, for the apologist took up his tale uninterrupted.
‘Of course Eustace could never have broken a promise because it is wrong to, besides Hilda wouldn’t like it. Naturally he was sorry to disappoint Nancy, especially as she said she was relying on him and the paper-chase couldn’t happen without him. But if he had gone he would have had to deceive Hilda and Minney and everyone, and that would have been very wicked. Eustace may have made mistakes but he has never done anything wrong and doesn’t mean to. And now he’s not afraid of going to see Miss Fothergill: as he walks to her house with Minney he’ll feel very glad he isn’t being a hare with Nancy. For one thing he is delicate and it would have been a strain on his heart.
‘When he got to Miss Fothergill he told her about Nancy and she said I’m so glad you came here instead. I like little boys who keep their word and don’t tell lies and don’t deceive those who love them. If you come a little nearer, Eustace, I’ll let you see my hand—no one has ever seen it before—I’m going to show it to you because I like you so much. Don’t be frightened....’
The reverie ceased abruptly. Eustace looked round, they had reached the site of the pond. It was a glorious day, though there was a bank of cloud hanging over the Lincolnshire coast.
“A penny for your thoughts,” said Hilda.
“They’re too expensive now. Perhaps I’ll tell you this afternoon.”
“What time?”
“When I get back from Miss Fothergill’s.”
They began to dig, and the pond slowly filled with water.
“Hilda,” said Eustace, pausing with a spadeful of sand in his hand, “should you go on loving me if I’d done anything wrong?”
“It depends what.”
“Supposing I broke a promise?”
“Perhaps I should, if it was only one.”
Eustace sighed. “And if I was disobedient?”
“Oh, you’ve often been that.”
“Suppose I deceived you?”
“I’m not afraid of that. You couldn’t,” said Hilda.
“Supposing I told a lie?”
“After you’d been punished, I suppose I might. It wouldn’t be quite the same, of course, afterwards.”
“Supposing I ran away from home,” said Eustace, looking round at the blue sky, “and came back all in rags and starving, like the Prodigal Son?”
“I should be very angry, of course,” said Hilda, “and I should feel it was my fault for not watching you. But I should have to forgive you, because it says so in the Bible.”
Eustace drew a long breath.
“But supposing I did all those things at once, would that make you hate me?”
“Oh yes,” Hilda answered without hesitation. “I should just hand you over to the police.”
Eustace was silent for a time. Some weak places in the bank needed attention. When he had repaired them with more than usual care he said:
“I suppose you couldn’t come with me this afternoon to Miss Fothergill?”
Hilda looked surprised. “Good gracious, no,” she said. “I thought that was all settled. Minney’s going to take you and I’m to stay and look after Baby till she comes back. She won’t be long, because Miss Fothergill didn’t ask her to stay to tea.”
Almost for the first time in the history of their relationship Eustace felt that Hilda was treating him badly. Angry with her he had often been. But that was mere rebelliousness and irritation, and he had never denied her right of domination. Lacking it he was as helpless as the ivy without its wall. Hilda’s ascendancy was the keystone in the arch that supported his existence. And the submissiveness that he felt before her he extended, in a lesser degree, to almost everyone he knew; even Nancy and the shadowy Miss Fothergill had a claim on it. At Hilda’s peremptory and callous-seeming refusal to accompany him into the lion’s den, to which, after all, she had led him, he suddenly felt aggrieved. It did not occur to him that he was being unfair. After her first refusal he hadn’t urged her to go; and she might be excused for not taking his night fears very seriously. To be sure he had complained and made a fuss in the family circle, at intervals, ever since the invitation had been given, but this was his habit when made to do something he did not want to do. He had cried ‘Wolf!’ so often that now, when the beast was really at the door, no one, least of all the unimaginative Hilda, was likely to believe him. Moreover, there was just enough pride and reserve in his nature to make an unconditional appeal to pity unpalatable. He did not hesitate to do so when his nerves alone were affected, as they were the evenings he could not sleep; but when it was a question of an action demanding will-power he tried to face the music. He made a trouble of going to the dentist, but he did not cry when the dentist hurt him.
For the first time, then, he obscurely felt that Hilda was treating him badly. She was a tyrant, and he was justified in resisting her. Nancy was right to taunt him with his dependence on her. His thoughts ran on. He was surrounded by tyrants who thought they had a right to order him about: it was a conspiracy. He could not call his soul his own. In all his actions he was propitiating somebody. This must stop. His lot was not, he saw in a flash of illumination, the common lot of children. Like him they were obedient, perhaps, and punished for disobedience, but obedience had not got into their blood, it was not a habit of mind, it was detachable, like the clothes they put on and off. As far as they could, they did what they liked; they were not haunted, as he was, with the fear of not giving satisfaction to someone else.
It was along some such route as this, if not with the same stopping-places, that Eustace arrived at the conviction that his servitude must be ended and the independence of his personality proclaimed.
‘Eustace had never been disobedient before,’ ran the self-congratulatory monologue in his mind, ‘except once or twice, and now he was only doing what Gerald and Nancy Steptoe have always done. Of course they would be angry with him at home, very angry, and say he had told a story but that wouldn’t be true, because he had slipped out of the house without telling anyone.’ (Eustace’s advocate unscrupulously mixed his tenses, choosing whichever seemed the more reassuring.) ‘And it was not true that acting a lie was worse than telling one. Eustace would have liked to tell Minney but knew she would stop him if he did. He was a little frightened as he was running along in front of the houses in case they should see him, but directly he was out of sight in Lexton Road he felt so happy, thinking th
at Miss Fothergill would be there all alone, with no one to frighten. And Nancy came out from under the water-tower and said, “Eustace, you’re a brick, we didn’t think you’d dare, we’re so grateful to you and it’s going to be a lovely day.” Then they drove off to the place, and the hounds went to another, and he and Nancy each had a bag full of paper and they ran and ran and ran. Nancy got rather tired and Eustace helped her along and even carried her some of the way. Then when the hounds were close Eustace laid a false trail, and the hounds went after that. But of course Eustace was soon back with Nancy, and after running another hour or two they got home. The hounds didn’t come in till much later, they said it wasn’t fair having to hunt the two best runners in Anchorstone. And Major Steptoe said, “Yes, they are.” And when Eustace got back to Cambo they were all very glad to see him, even Hilda was, and said they didn’t know he could have done it, and in future he could do anything he wanted to, as long as it wasn’t wicked.’
Here the record, which had been wobbling and scratching for some time past, stopped with a scream of disgust. Nervously Eustace tried another.
‘And when Eustace got home they were all very angry, especially Hilda. And they said he must go to bed at once, and Hilda said he oughtn’t to be allowed to play on the sands ever again, as a punishment. And Eustace said he didn’t care. And when Minney wouldn’t come to hear him say his prayers he began to say them to himself. But God said, “I don’t want to hear you, Eustace. You’ve been very wicked. I’m very angry with you. I think I shall strike you dead....”’
Hilda turned round to see Eustace leaning on his spade.
“Why, Eustace, you’re looking so white. Do you feel sick?”
At the sound of her voice he began to feel better.
“You’ve been standing in the sun too much,” said Hilda.
“No, it was some thoughts I had.”
“You shouldn’t think,” said Hilda, with one of her laughs. “It’s bad for you.”
Eustace tried to smile.
“Minney heard the doctor say my heart wasn’t very strong.”
“She shouldn’t have told you. But it’ll be all right if you don’t overtire yourself.”
Eustace relapsed into thought.
‘Then the doctor said, “I wouldn’t have believed it, Miss Cherrington, the way that boy’s heart has improved since he took to going on those runs. He’s quite a sturdy little fellow now.” “Yes, isn’t it wonderful, Doctor Speedwell? We were afraid he might have injured it ... injured it ... injured it....” (The monologue began to lose its sanguine tone.) “I’m afraid, Miss Cherrington, Eustace has injured his heart. It’s broken in two places. I’m sorry to have to say it to his aunt, but I’m afraid he may fall down dead at any moment.”’
With an effort he shut his thoughts off, for again he was aware of oncoming faintness. But Hilda, occupied at a danger spot in the wall, didn’t notice the pallor returning to his face. In a moment he began to feel better; his ebbing consciousness returned to his control. Looking up, he could just see the rounded summit of the water-tower soaring above the roofs of Anchorstone.
Banishing fantasy from his mind he summoned all his willpower.
“I don’t care what happens,” he thought, “I will go, and they shan’t stop me.”
It was past four o’clock when Hilda got back to Cambo. Miss Cherrington was standing on the door-step.
“Well?” she said anxiously.
“Oh, Aunt Sarah, I went all the way along the beach to Old Anchorstone, and I did what you said, I went as near the cliffs as was safe and I looked everywhere in case—you know—Eustace had fallen over, but there was nothing and I asked everyone I met if they’d seen a little boy in a blue jersey which was what Eustace was wearing at dinner-time. But they hadn’t seen him, though some of them knew him quite well.”
“Come in,” said Miss Cherrington, “it’s no use standing out here. I’ve sent Minney to Miss Fothergill in case Eustace did go there after all. She ought to be back in a few minutes.”
“She won’t find him there, Aunt Sarah,” said Hilda, dropping into a plush-covered arm-chair, a luxury she seldom allowed herself. “He didn’t want to go at all.”
“I know, but he’s like that, he often says he won’t do a thing and then does it.”
There was a baffled, anxious pause.
“Ah, there’s Minney,” said Miss Cherrington, getting up.
Minney bustled in, her habitual cheerfulness of movement belied by the anxiety on her face.
“I see you haven’t found him,” she said, “and I didn’t find him either. But that Miss Fothergill she was so kind. She’d got a lovely tea all ready, and water boiling in a silver kettle—you never saw so many silver things in your life as there were in that room. And servants, I don’t know how many. I saw three different ones while I was there.”
Hilda remained unmoved by this, but Miss Cherrington raised her head.
“I shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did, but she made me have a cup of tea—china tea like hay with no comfort in it—and all the while she kept asking me questions, where we thought Eustace could have gone and so on. She seemed every bit as concerned as we are. And she said, ‘Do you think he was shy and afraid to come by himself, because he seemed rather a nervous little boy?’ and of course when I looked at her I knew what she meant, with those black gloves and that mouth going up at the corner. Eustace takes a lot of notice what people look like, I often tell him we’re all the same underneath.”
“He would never have spoken to her if I hadn’t made him,” observed Hilda. “He was in one of his most obstinate moods.”
“I suppose she hadn’t any other suggestions to offer?” asked Miss Cherrington.
“No, I told her we were afraid he might have been run over by one of those motor-car things. I saw another yesterday, that makes four in a fortnight. I said he was always walking about like Johnny Head-in-air. She seemed quite upset, as if she was really fond of him.”
“She’d only seen him once,” objected Hilda.
“He’s a taking child to those that like him.” Minney took out her handkerchief; the excitement of the recital over, her anxiety was beginning to re-assert itself. “Oh yes, and she said we were to let her know if she could do anything, like telling the police or the town-crier.”
At these words, with their ominous ring, suggesting that the disappearance of Eustace had passed outside the family circle and become an object of official concern, a silence fell on them all.
“We’d better wait till his father comes in,” said Miss Cherrington at length, “before we do anything like that.” She looked at the black marble clock. “He’ll be here in half an hour.” She went to the window and drew aside one of the lace curtains. “But I don’t like the look of that cloud. I’ll go and see after Baby, Minney. You sit down and have a rest. There’s daylight for some hours yet, thank goodness!” The door closed after her.
“Minney,” said Hilda, “if Eustace has stayed away on purpose, what punishment shall we give him?”
“Don’t talk of punishments,” said Minney in a snuffly voice. “If he was to come in at this moment, I should fall down on my knees in thankfulness.”
Meanwhile Nancy and Eustace were trotting down a green lane, fully four miles away from Cambo. Slung from her shoulder, Nancy carried a bag made of blue linen with a swallow, cut out of paper, appliqué on it. Eustace carried a more manly, and slightly larger, bag, made of canvas, and his emblem of speed was a racehorse. Both bags were three-quarters full of paper. Eustace was just going to pull out a handful when Nancy said, “Wait a bit. We mustn’t make it too easy for them.”
Eustace withdrew his hand at once. “I thought they mightn’t have noticed yours behind that tree.”
“That’s their look-out,” said Nancy. “Don’t forget there are ten of them.”
Eustace looked worried. After a minute or two he said: “Shall I drop some now?”
“Yes, but don’t let it show too much.”
Making a slight detour to a gorse bush Eustace scattered a generous contribution to the trail. Nancy watched him. When he rejoined her she said:
“Be careful. We’ve got to make this last out till we get to Old Anchorstone Church.”
“How far is that now?”
“About two miles if we don’t miss the way.”
“But you said you knew it.”
“I’m not sure after we get into the park.”
“Hadn’t we better join the road, as you said at first?”
“Well, the road’s so dull. It’s a short cut through the park, and they wouldn’t think of our going that way because it’s closed to the public except on Thursdays.”
Eustace remembered it was a Thursday when they drove through on their way from the Downs.
“Shouldn’t we be trespassers?” he said.
“I expect so.”
“But mightn’t we be prosecuted?”
“Oh, come on, Eustace, you said you were going to be different now.”
“Of course. I’m glad you said that. I was brave about coming, wasn’t I? I stole out right under their noses.”
“You told us that before.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you think they’ve missed me by now?”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Do you think they’ll be worried?”
“It doesn’t matter if they are.”
This was a new idea to Eustace. He had always believed that for people to be worried on his account was, next to their being angry, the worst thing that could happen. Cautiously he introduced the new thought into his consciousness and found it took root.