He straightened himself, and shook his head vigorously.
“What’s the matter?” said Hilda. “Is a fly bothering you?”
“No,” said Eustace, “it was some thoughts I had.”
“Well, you won’t get rid of them like that, and your hat will come off. Oh, and that reminds me! You promised to tell me what your thoughts were, and you haven’t. I knew you’d forget.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” said Eustace.
“Well, come on. I’m waiting.”
An overpowering reluctance, like a spasm in the throat, seized Eustace, almost robbing him of speech.
“Just give me a little longer.”
“Very well, then, I’ll give you five minutes from now.” Digging her chin into her chest she looked at the watch which hung suspended there. “That’ll be five minutes past eleven.”
They worked on in silence, Eustace searching frantically for a formula for what he had to say and finding none. So acute was his sense of the passing minutes that he began to feel himself ticking like a clock. Twice he saw Hilda surreptitiously glancing at her watch.
“Time’s up,” she said at last.
Eustace gazed at her blankly.
“Well?”
“Do you really want to know?” Eustace temporised, shuffling with his feet.
“I don’t suppose it’s anything important, but as I’ve paid for it I might as well have it.”
“It is important in a way, to me at any rate. But I don’t think you’ll like to hear what I’m going to say, any more than I shall like telling you. At least I hope you won’t.”
Hilda frowned. “What is all this about?”
The rapids were close at hand now and he could hear the roar of the cataract. He plunged.
“You see, I want to make my will.”
If Eustace had counted on making an effect, he ought to have been gratified. Hilda opened her eyes and stared at him. She opened her mouth, too, but no words came.
“You didn’t know about me then? I didn’t think you did.”
“Know what?” said Hilda at length.
“That I was going away.”
Hilda’s heart turned over, but bewilderment was still uppermost in her mind.
“I thought they hadn’t told you. It was so as not to worry you, I expect.”
“But who told you?” asked Hilda, making crosses in the sand with her spade.
“Mr. Craddock told me first, the evening we drove back from Frontisham. He said I was going away and he would be sorry to lose me. And then I asked Minney, and she told me not to pay any attention to what Mr. Craddock said because he was an old cabman. But she didn’t say it wasn’t true, and I could see she knew it was. You know how you can sometimes tell with grown-up people.”
Understandingly but unwillingly Hilda nodded.
“And then I asked Daddy.”
“What did he say?”
“He said something about not taking offences before you came to them, which I didn’t quite understand, and not meeting trouble half-way. He was angry with Mr. Craddock too, I could see that. He said he was a silly old gossip. He said it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought, and that everyone had to go through it sooner or later, and I shouldn’t mind much when the time came, and I wasn’t to think about it, because that only made it worse.”
“They never said anything to me,” said Hilda.
“Well, I had to tell you because, you see, I wanted to give you my things before I go away.”
Hilda said nothing to this, but she sat down rather suddenly on a rock, with back bent and knees spread out, in the attitude Eustace knew so well.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” he went on with an effort, “because, you see, unless I leave a will you might not get my things at all—they might go into Chancery. But I haven’t many that would do for someone who isn’t a boy” (Eustace was unwilling to call Hilda a girl, it would sound like a kind of taunt). “My clothes wouldn’t be any use, except my combinations, and they’re too small. I should like you to have my handkerchiefs, though. They would be washed by that time, of course.”
“There’s your red silk scarf,” said Hilda, with the stirring of self-interest that no beneficiary, however tender-hearted, can quite succeed in stifling.
“I was just coming to that. And my woolly gloves too. You’ve often worn them and they’ve stretched a bit. When you had the scarf on and the gloves, and one of my handkerchiefs, it would look almost as though I was still walking about.”
“No one could ever mistake me for you if that’s what you mean,” said Hilda.
“It wasn’t quite what I meant,” said Eustace, but a doubt crossed his mind as to what he really did mean, and he went on:
“My hairbrushes wouldn’t be any good because they haven’t got handles, and besides you have some. Perhaps Daddy could use them when his wear out. Then there’s my sponge and toothbrush and flannel. Some poor boy might like them when they’ve been well dried.” Raised interrogatively, Eustace’s voice trailed away when the suggestion met with no response.
“I doubt it,” said Hilda practically, “but of course we could try.”
“There isn’t much more,” said Eustace. “I should like Minney to have the watch that Miss Fothergill gave me. Of course it’s rather large for a lady, but it goes very well because I’ve never been allowed to take it out of my room, and hers doesn’t; and you have yours, the one that belonged to Mother.”
“I’ve never seen a lady wear a watch that size,” said Hilda. “But she could tuck it in her belt where it wouldn’t show, though of course it would leave a bulge.”
A shadow passed over Eustace’s face.
“Well, perhaps she could use it as a clock. Then I thought I’d give all my toys to Barbara, except Jumbo, who you take to bed. She uses them already, I know, so it wouldn’t seem like a present, but she might like to know that they were hers by law.”
“I don’t think she minds about that,” said Hilda. “She takes anything she can get hold of.”
“Yes, she’s different from us, isn’t she?” said Eustace. “She doesn’t seem to care whether something is right or wrong. It will be a great handicap to her, won’t it, in after-life.”
“Not if she doesn’t mind about it,” Hilda said.
“I’ve nearly done now, and then we can go on with the pond. I haven’t anything to leave to Daddy and Aunt Sarah, so I thought I’d take two of those sheets of writing-paper from the drawing-room table, which we only use to thank for presents, and write ‘Love from Eustace’ on them. I think I should print the messages in different coloured inks, and then put them in envelopes addressed to Mr. Cherrington and Miss Cherrington, and drop them in the letter-box when the time came, and they might think they had come by post, and it would be a surprise.”
“Yes,” said Hilda, “that’s a good idea.”
“And all the rest I should leave to you, Hilda. That is, my money in the money-box, and my books, and my guide-book, and my knife, and my pencils, and the ball of string, and the india-rubber rings, and the pink rosette that I wore at the election, and the picture postcard of Zena Dare, and the General View of Mt. Pelée before the earthquake.”
“You won’t want to be parted from that,” said Hilda. “I should take that with you.”
“I don’t think I should be allowed to,” said Eustace. “You see...” marvelling at Hilda’s obtuseness, he left the sentence unfinished. “I won’t leave the things lying about, I’ll put them all in the drawer with the pencil-box—the one with marguerites on the lid—so you’ll know where to find them.”
“I always know better than you do, really,” said Hilda.
Eustace let this pass.
“The only thing I’m not sure about is how to get my money out of the post office. There’s quite a lot there, thirty-three pounds. Do you think if I went and asked for it they’d give it me? They ought to, because it belongs to me, but I don’t think they would. Daddy once told me that banks use your
money for themselves. I shall have to ask Daddy and I don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to talk about it to anyone but you. And I only told you because I thought you didn’t know what was going to happen. But I shall write everything down and put it in an envelope under your pillow, so that’s where you’ll find it when the time comes.”
“When will that be?” said Hilda.
“I don’t quite know yet.”
Eustace picked up his spade and, returning to his unfinished portion of the wall, began to dig. He was a little disappointed with the matter-of-fact way in which Hilda, after the novelty was over, had discussed the items of his bequest; she might have been more demonstrative; but the relief of having told her was immense. All that remained to do now was of a practical nature and would make no call on his emotions. The question of the Post Office he tried to thrust out of his mind. After all, it was a grown-up’s matter and grown-ups would know how to deal with it. He worked on, and only when his spade, instead of sinking into the moist sand, struck a stone and jarred him did he look up and notice that Hilda was not doing her piece, but was still sitting on the rock where he had left her. He stopped digging and walked across to her.
“What’s the matter, Hilda?”
She lifted her face and he saw that it was full of pain. It kept twitching and crinkling in places where normally it was smooth and stationary. She tried to speak for a moment, and then said:
“I don’t see why you are giving all these things away, to me or to anyone else. You’ll want them when you come back.”
So that was how it was. She hadn’t understood after all. She didn’t realise that he wasn’t coming back, and how could he tell her, how could he deal her a second blow when the first had been so hurtful?
“I don’t think I shall come back for a long time,” he said at length, hoping that this was not an implied falsehood.
“How long?” asked Hilda. “A week, a month, a year?”
“It might be more than a year.”
Hilda stared at him through unshed tears.
“But where are you going to? Who’s going to take care of you? You’ve never stayed away from home before and you know you can’t look after yourself.”
“I don’t know where I shall be,” said Eustace. Suddenly a picture of Anchorstone churchyard occurred to him, and of Miss Fothergill being laid in her grave that windy day. He had never before thought of his disappearance in terms of burial.
“Perhaps not very far from here,” he said.
“Oh, if you’re not going far it won’t matter so much,” said Hilda. “Because we shall be able to drive over and see you and bring you things. But you must be somewhere, in someone’s house, I mean. Everybody except a tramp lives in a house, and I shouldn’t think you’d want to leave us just to become a tramp.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Well, who says you have to?”
“They all do, really.”
“But I don’t understand—they can’t turn you into the street—they’re very fond of you. And who is there for you to stay with near here? It would have been different while Miss Fothergill was alive. You could have gone to her. But she’s dead.”
Distress had made Hilda angry, as it so often did. Eustace’s heart began to race; he couldn’t bear the strain of all this talk at cross-purposes and must find some way of bringing it to an end.
“I missed her very much at first,” he began, “but I don’t miss her so much now. You see, she is with God. And perhaps you won’t miss me very much when I go away.”
Hilda stared at him uncomprehending.
“Because it will be rather the same, you see.”
There was a long silence. Then Hilda said:
“Do you mean you are going to die?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Instantly a feeling of complete peace possessed him. His sense of his surroundings, never very strong except when they helped to intensify his thoughts, faded away; the long struggle with his fate, inside him and outside, seemed over. But Hilda’s voice recalled him to actuality. She had risen from the rock and was standing over him, her face transformed with fury and pain.
“How can you say such a wicked thing? You don’t know what you’re talking about. You must be mad. I shall go straight home and tell them!”
Eustace rose too, and began to tremble. “They’d only tell you the same as they told me.”
“It’s nonsense. You’re not ill, are you, I mean you’re not specially ill? People don’t die just because they say they’re going to. You can’t think yourself dead.” She glared at him accusingly. “Don’t you feel well?”
“I don’t feel very well,” said Eustace, beginning to cry. “But it isn’t only that. I’ve had warnings and messages—you wouldn’t understand. And I feel it here,” he made a vague gesture, his hand swept over his heart and rested on his forehead—“as though I hadn’t long to stay. It isn’t the same with me as it used to be, even here on the sands. Don’t be angry with me, Hilda. You’ll make me sorry I told you. I didn’t want to.”
“But I am angry with you,” cried Hilda. “How dare you talk like that? I see how it is—you want to go away—you want to leave us! You tried before, the time of the paper-chase, but you had to come back. You had to come back from Miss Fothergill too. You think you’ll be with someone who loves you more than we do—that’s why you talk about dying! But I won’t allow it! I’ll stop you! I’ll see you don’t slip away!” She looked wildly at Eustace and advanced a step towards him: he recoiled. “I shan’t leave you,” she whispered, still more excitedly and making passes at him with her spade. “I shan’t let them get by me, whoever they are, and I shan’t let you. I shall always be there. I shan’t let you walk along the cliff-edge alone, and I shall take away your knife, and your ball of string too, so that you can’t do anything to yourself! You’d like to, wouldn’t you? You’d like to get rid of us all!”
Eustace’s eyes grew round with terror. Dimly the meaning of what Hilda had been saying began to detach itself from the violence of the words. The cliff’s edge ... the knife ... the ball of string. He began to visualise them, and to realise what they stood for. The string was for his neck, the knife was for his throat, and the cliff’s edge was for his whole body.... Turning away from Hilda he began to stray and stumble towards the sea. The sun was in his eyes, dazzling him; it shone from the sky, from the foaming crests of the breakers, from the tiny water-furrows between the sand-ribs. Faintly the sound of hoof-beats caught his ears; sliding below his reasoning faculty, their rhythm started a vision in his mind. Clop-clop, clop-clop, on they came, and the chariot, too, came nearer, fringed with fire. But Hilda had flung herself at the horses’ heads. In one hand she held the knife, with the other she was hanging to the reins. The near horse turned to bite her, and she fell; and the horses trampled on her and the wheels of the chariot passed over her.
Suddenly the air was full of voices, and Eustace heard his name called. He turned round and saw, not far away, a party of people mounted on horseback. No, they were not people, they were children, or two of them were, and he thought he recognised them, but his eyes were still too full of sun to see properly and his mind too troubled to take in what he saw. While he tried to adjust his faculties to this new situation, one of the riders drew away from the group and came towards him. The horse screwed and sidled and tossed its head, but she brought it to a stand within a few yards of him.
“We’ve come to congratulate you, Eustace,” Nancy Steptoe said.
14. ANGELS ON HORSEBACK
THE WORDS were hardly out of her mouth when, as though at a pre-arranged signal, the other members of the party put their steeds in motion. To the accompaniment of much prancing, head-tossing and tail-swishing, they joined their spokesman, and after some manœuvring formed a rough semicircle round Eustace.
“Congratulations, Eustace!” said Gerald Steptoe.
“Congratulatio
ns, Eustace!” said Dick Staveley.
“Congratulations!” after a second’s hesitation said the lady on Dick’s right.
Eustace stared at them in amazement.
“Aren’t you going to speak to us, Eustace?” said Nancy, with a flash of her frosty eyes. “Are you still angry? He isn’t supposed to speak to us, you know,” she confided to the others, “and now I expect he’s too proud to as well.”
With the tail of his eye Eustace looked round for Hilda, but he could not see her.
“She’s just behind you,” said Nancy, interpreting his glance. “Good-morning, Hilda,” she called over his head. “We were passing by, so we thought we’d stop to congratulate Eustace.”
“Good-morning, Nancy,” said Hilda shortly. “It’s very kind of you to congratulate Eustace, but I don’t know what it’s for and nor does he.”
“They don’t know!”
“They haven’t been told!”
“Well, really!”
Only the lady on Dick’s right contributed nothing to the hubbub of incredulity and surprise. Erect and a little apart she sat, in a grey riding habit whose close fit made her seem to Eustace’s eyes unbelievably slim and elegant. She wore her hair in a bun under her bowler hat. You could not expect her to speak, you could not expect a goddess to speak, her whole appearance spoke for her. But she raised her eyebrows slightly and made a movement with her shoulders, as if to imply that among ordinary mortals anything might happen.
High in the air above him, as it seemed to Eustace, the chime and jingle of voices went on. Now the little fountains of exclamation and interjection had died down, and they were discussing something, but the wind tore the words to pieces along with the wisps of foam from the horses’ lips, and Eustace could not understand their drift. Soon the discussion became an argument, almost a wrangle: the figures seemed to stiffen on their saddles; arms jerked; heads turned abruptly. At last Dick appealed to the lady on his right.
“What do you think, Anne?”
She hesitated and looked down at Eustace with a greater appearance of interest than she had yet shown.
“I should tell him,” she said. “I think it would be kinder.”