‘What?’ said Peggy, as if in a dream. ‘Well, yes and no. Yes, she has left the house to me, and no, I won’t be selling it.’
Her mother-in-law looked aghast. ‘You don’t intend to keep it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how are you going to look after it?’
‘Mother does have a point.’
‘Odd weekends. The children’s holidays. Who knows, we might want to move down there.’
‘But Margaret, you can’t possibly keep it,’ said Mrs Dickinson Senior. She paused. ‘I think you should at least put it in Roger’s name.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that either.’
‘But Margaret,’ said her husband, ‘you know how impractical you are. You wouldn’t have a clue.’
‘I have changed, you know. I’m not quite as useless as I used to be five years ago. And anyway, I’m afraid it’s legally impossible. I’m not allowed to sell it for seventeen years, and it’s a stipulation of the will that it remains in a woman’s name.’ Peggy threw her cigarette end into the fire. Crafty Beatie, she thought, she must have foreseen all this.
‘It is rather odd, I must say,’ said her husband.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Peggy. ‘Charlie loves it there. So do I. I suppose Beatie thought she’d like us at least to have the opportunity of spending our holidays there. I’m sure you’d like it, too. We could all go there in Virginia’s Christmas holidays.’
‘I was rather looking forward to spending Christmas here.’
‘Of course you were,’ put in his mother. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense.’
‘I didn’t mean Christmas Day. I meant in the New Year.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said.
‘More tea, Roger?’ said his mother.
He nodded and pushed his cup and saucer in her direction.
The next morning, to Rusty’s relief her mother agreed readily to letting her catch an earlier train. She seemed pleased that Rusty was eager to return to school, and relieved to get out of the house. For the first time she brought Charlie with her. It couldn’t have been more perfect for, with Charlie for Peggy to look after, Rusty could easily insist on carrying the grip without arousing suspicion.
They were sitting on a platform bench a full ten minutes before the train drew in. Rusty was shocked by her mother’s appearance: her face was ashen and she looked as though she had had no sleep.
‘When is that man going away?’ Charlie said suddenly. He was sitting with his teddy-bear on Peggy’s lap.
‘What man, darling?’
‘You know,’ he said, twisting himself around. ‘The man with the moustache.’
‘Oh, Charlie!’ she exclaimed. ‘You are a funniosity. I told you. He’s your daddy.’
‘Can’t I have Uncle Harvey instead?’
‘Of course not. Don’t be silly.’
‘I don’t like that man.’
‘You wait. You’ll have lots of fun with him.’
‘Why doesn’t he smile?’
‘I expect it’s because he’s very tired.’
‘Oh.’
‘Next weekend we’ll all do something together,’ she said. ‘It’ll be like being a real family again.’
‘Grandmother too?’ asked Rusty.
‘I expect so.’ But when Peggy saw Rusty’s expression, she burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Virginia,’ she said, ‘you’re quite dreadful!’
‘So’s she.’
‘Oh, stop it.’ And she attempted to smother her laughter. Charlie started giggling too, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was all about.
For a moment Rusty wished she could stay there with her mother and Charlie, and the three of them could just go off somewhere together but, before she could say anything, her train pulled into the station.
She stood up, kissed her mother, and then bent down and kissed Charlie on the cheek.
‘Ugh!’ he said, rubbing his face hastily, but Rusty could see he liked it. When she looked at her mother, she was surprised to see that she had turned quite red and there were tears in her eyes.
‘I guess I better be going,’ she muttered.
Her mother nodded. ‘I’ll see you on Friday.’
Rusty pulled open one of the train doors, slammed it quickly, and leaned out of the window. The whistle blew and the train began to move away in a cloud of steam.
‘So long!’ she yelled.
Her mother laughed. ‘So long!’
Charlie thrust his teddy-bear forward and made one of the paws go up and down.
‘Monster,’ she muttered warmly.
It was easy smuggling the tools into Benwood House. Immediately Rusty entered the school grounds, she sneaked around to the back, ran across the lacrosse pitches, threw the bundle of tools over the wall, and sprinted back towards the Fourth Form cloakroom of Butt House.
Gradually, the other girls started drifting into the cloakroom, chatting and laughing, while Rusty sat on one of the benches, her heart beating.
Within minutes a bell started to ring. It was time for assembly.
26
On Thursday night, Lance arrived over a quarter of an hour later than usual. Rusty had almost given up hope when he stumbled up the field, hot and breathless.
‘Sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I had a bit of trouble getting out!’ He glanced down at the sodden bundle in her arms. ‘What’s that?’ *
‘Tools. I’ll show you at the Cabin. I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff to tell you. My father came back and my mother got a house.’ She took out her torch and began walking hurriedly into the woods, telling him all about her half-term as fast as she could.
At last they reached the slope with the three tall trees. As they slid down towards the old gate, Rusty gazed at the remains of the house.
‘It’s almost as if it’s waiting for us,’ she murmured, ‘don’t you think? Like an old friend.’
She pushed aside the gate and ran through the grass towards the exposed hallway. ‘Hi there, Cabin!’ she said.
‘You’re crazy,’ commented Lance behind her.
‘Well then, I hope I stay crazy. ‘Cause it sure feels good.’ She turned. ‘Let’s go get the oil-lamps.’
She strode across the hall and pushed open the cellar door. It gave a loud creak. They raced down the stairs and picked up a lamp each, took them back up to the Cabin, and placed them on the stone hearth in front of the fireplace.
‘Just shine the flashlight on me so I can see what I’m doing,’ said Rusty.
The knots on the bundle were too damp to undo. Rusty took out her jack-knife, cut the string, and then unrolled the overalls. Inside lay a small axe, a saw, a large paintbrush, a small paintbrush, and an assortment of tools.
‘Where on earth did you find these?’ gasped Lance.
‘Except for the axe and the paintbrushes, the tools were left to me in Beatie’s will. There’s a whole lot more, back at my mother’s place.’
‘Is Beatie the lady in Devon who died?’
Rusty nodded, and then suddenly felt very sad. Lance put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake. ‘Hey, cheer up,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do with it all?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. First of all I’m going to cut us some wood for a fire.’
‘What about matches?’
She unwrapped an old headscarf of her mother’s. Inside lay a small cardboard box. ‘I took them from the mantelpiece at my mother’s place. I didn’t think it was stealing. After all, no one’ll be there to use them. I just hope the rain hasn’t gotten to them.’
While Lance held the torch, Rusty lit a match.
‘They’re dry,’ she whispered.
She lit the two lamps, sending a soft, flickering light around the room. Then she jumped up. ‘Come on, let’s go find some wood. It’s beginning to feel like home already.’
They collected armfuls of leaves and twigs and branches, throwing them into a pile.
‘Right,’ said Rusty, ‘now we have to sort them
out into size. Little bitty thin ones at one end and the biggies at the other end.’
Using a stick of wood, Rusty raked the grate out. There was a bent shovel and a bucket by one of the alcoves. The bucket had a small hole in the bottom, but it’d do for the moment, thought Rusty, as she shovelled year-old ash into it. She picked up some of the thicker branches and began chopping them into smaller pieces.
Lance was mesmerized. ‘Thank goodness I don’t have to do that,’ he said. ‘At least we have firewood at school.’
‘Then it should be a.cinch,’ said Rusty.
‘Don’t say that. It makes me feel even worse.’
‘I’ll do it like we do in Girl Scouts. Watch!’ she said.
She placed all the leaves in a pile on top of the grate. Then she began to build a pyramid of wood on top of the leaves, using the tiniest twigs first and then going up in size.
‘We’ll leave the really big ones till after it’s gotten good and hot,’ she said, lighting a match. ‘Now, keep your fingers crossed that it’ll catch.’
She squatted down low and pushed a flame into the leaves. It took several minutes before the fire caught.
‘I think the pyramid’s falling,’ whispered Lance as the wood began to hiss and move.
‘I just hope it doesn’t put it out,’ she whispered back.
‘Why are we whispering?’
‘Search me.’ She began to giggle.
After the two of them had been blowing into the base of the wood for a quarter of an hour, the fire burst into life.
‘From now on,’ said Rusty, ‘we should always bring some wood in to dry. This is a little damp from last night’s rain.’ She tossed some branches into the fireplace. ‘This is the life, eh?’
He nodded, grinning. ‘All we need now,’ he said, ‘is some pork and baked beans and a guitar.’
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s bring up the rest of the stuff from the cellar.’
They dragged up the unbroken camp-bed and placed it in front of the fire, hanging the overalls and a blanket over it. The other blankets and pillows they placed on the floor.
‘Boy, look at that steam!’ exclaimed Rusty as great clouds came wafting up from the blanket.
‘Next Tuesday I’ll try and bring some things back with me too,’ said Lance. ‘I don’t think my half-term is going to be as exciting as yours, though/
‘Well, mine wasn’t exactly exciting,’ she said. ‘Just mixed up. You know, I didn’t recognize my father at all. I mean I had a photograph of him, but in the photograph he was fatter and white, and his hair was dark and he didn’t have a moustache. I mean, I didn’t even recognize his voice! Did that happen to you?’
Lance looked down hastily at his feet. ‘Well, I don’t see too much of mine, actually.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told you. My parents aren’t living together at the moment.’
‘Are they divorced?’
His head shot up. ‘Oh no!’ he said, horrified. ‘Nothing like that! It’s just for the time being. He’s working in Scotland, you see, and my mother didn’t want to move there.’ He’d got all serious-looking again. ‘So anyway,’ he stammered, ‘I’ll be staying with an aunt down on the south coast. By the sea.’
‘I love the sea.’
He brightened up. ‘Shall I bring you back some seaweed?’
‘Sure. We can hang it above the fireplace. Then it can be our Cabin in the Woods by the Sea.’
He grinned. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. This afternoon we had rugger practice.’
‘How did you make out?’
He gave a thumbs-down sign.
‘Nobody would pass the ball to me. I did manage to grab it once, but before I’d run a couple of feet, everyone was on top of me, calling me… guess what.’
‘Yank?’
He nodded.
‘And it still hurts?’
‘Yes. But I hurt all over anyway.’
‘More beatings?’
‘Yes. Because I’m so useless at fires and so slow. I go as fast as I can, but I feel so miserable that it makes me go slower.’
‘I know it,’ said Rusty. ‘Sometimes when the morning bell rings, I feel so heavy inside that I can hardly move.’
‘Trouble with me is, the more he beats me, the more miserable I feel and the slower I get.’
‘Isn’t it the end? I have that with lessons. The more I try in class, the more I ask questions or take an interest or be friendly, the more of a troublemaker they say I am.’
‘But something really good happened to me today,’ he added.
‘Is that possible?’ said Rusty wryly.
He smiled. ‘It happened after the game. I was dragging myself off the pitch when some of the older boys who were watching started making comments about me. And I couldn’t understand what they were saying. So I watched their mouths. And you’re right. They hardly move their lips at all, the ones who talk that way. And I suddenly remembered you imitating them and I just started to laugh. And then I had a picture of all those marbles in their mouths and that made it worse and I couldn’t stop. And I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t understand a single word you’re saying. You’re just going to have to move your mouths a bit when you speak to me, because us Yanks” – that nearly gave the game away, us Yanks – “we like to move our lips when we talk.” And I just started laughing again. And a couple of the other chaps started laughing, too. And the ones with the tight mouths asked them what they were laughing at, and they pointed to me and said, “Him!” But the best thing was that the prefect I fag for had been watching this on the other side, and he came over and slapped me on the back and said, “We’ll anglify you yet, Yank,” and when he said Yank it didn’t feel so horrid any more. It was O.K.!’
‘And he’s the one who beats you. Right?’
‘He’s the one who beats me the most.’
‘So maybe he won’t beat you any more.’
‘If I don’t light his fires properly he will.’
‘O.K.,’ she said, handing him a branch. ‘From now on, you’re in charge of this one. The next time we meet, you’ll do it yourself.’
They turned the blankets and overalls over so that they would dry on the other side.
As Rusty stared into the fire, she remembered how she and her mother had sat in front of one, only a few nights back. She glanced at Lance who was gingerly placing a branch on the fire. She wanted to ask him how he got along with his mother, but he always looked so sad when she asked him about his family.
‘It won’t bite,’ she said, when he jumped back quickly.
They blew out the lamps and, when the embers had almost died out, they opened the door of the Cabin and peered out.
‘It’s so cold,’ moaned Rusty.
They stepped out and ran through the grass to the gate. ‘So long, Cabin,’ said Rusty over her shoulder.
‘How long is your half-term?’ she asked as they walked among the trees.
‘From tomorrow until Tuesday morning.’
‘When should we meet up? Wednesday?’
‘I’d rather not. I have rugger on Thursday. I’d like to get a good night’s sleep before that.’
‘O.K. Thursday again. Then you can tell me how the practice went.’
Soon they were by the wall.
‘Have a good half-term,’ she whispered.
‘I’ll try.’
She had just begun to climb the wall when she stopped.
‘Lance?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t forget the seaweed.’
He smothered a laugh. ‘O.K.’
‘And don’t laugh or we’re in for it.’
He gave a loud snort, turned swiftly, and ran offin the direction of the field.
As Rusty began climbing up the scaffolding again, she found it more difficult, for the bars were so cold that they numbed her hands. She stuck her fingers in her mouth, and then warmed them under her armpits. Hauling he
rself up, she gritted her teeth as the wind bit into her cheeks and seeped into her ears.
It took her much longer than usual to undress and clean up her sneakers, for she could hardly move her fingers at all. She slipped in between the ice-cold sheets and lay there, rigid. Stiffly curled up, she drifted in and out of a fitful sleep.
She was woken by the sound of the rising bell. Outside, it was still dark. She watched as Judith Poole and the other girls stumbled around for their dressing gowns. She stretched across and took hold of hers. When the others had turned their backs, she pressed it to her face and took a long, hard sniff. She smiled. It smelled of wood-smoke.
27
The prefect left Rusty to walk down the driveway alone; she wanted to dash off to a lacrosse practice. Rusty, secretly relieved, promised not to tell on her.
Her mother was waiting for her at the school gates. As Rusty drew nearer, she was unnerved to see how pale and drawn her mother had become. She leaned forward to take Rusty’s grip.
‘It’s O.K.,’ said Rusty. ‘I can manage.’
Her mother nodded weakly, and they crossed over the road to the bus-stop.
It wasn’t until they were in the train that Peggy began talking. She was staring bleakly out of the window when she said, rather too lightly, ‘How do you feel about not staying at school during the weekends? I mean,’ she added, turning, ‘do you think perhaps you would make friends more easily if you stayed?’
‘Uh-uh.’ She crossed her fingers in the pockets of her Beanie. ‘I like coming back weekends. Why? Don’t you want me to?’
‘Of course I do. It’s just that…’ She paused. ‘Your father seems to think that you’d adjust to England more quickly if you remained for the whole term and we just saw you at half-terms and holidays. He’s not accustomed to weekly boarding. He seems to think it’s neither one thing nor the other.’
Rusty looked away. She felt choked. Boy, he’d only met her one evening.
‘Doesn’t he like me? I mean, did I do something wrong?’
‘Of course you didn’t. He only wants what’s best for you.’
Her father was in his study when she arrived back. ‘He is not to be disturbed,’ said her grandmother.
Rusty hung up her hat and Beanie and took her grip up to her bedroom. She crept back down again, ran past the drawing room, knocked on the study door, and pushed it open.