As usual, they were always together and if Hilda did not get the old satisfaction from the company of this polite but aloof little stranger (for so he seemed to her) the change in his attitude made her all the more determined to win him back, and the thought of losing him all the more desolating. She hated the places where they used to play together and wished that Eustace, who was sentimental about his old haunts, would not take her to them. “I just want to see it once again,” he would plead, and she did not like to refuse him, though his new mantle of authority sat so precariously on him. Beneath her moods, which she expressed in so many ways, was a steadily increasing misery; the future stretched away featureless without landmarks; nothing beckoned, nothing drew her on.
Obscurely she realised that the change had been brought about by Miss Fothergill’s money. It had made Eustace independent, not completely independent, not as independent as she was, but it had given a force to his wishes that they never possessed before. It was no good trying to make him not want to go to school; she must make him want to stay at home. In this new state of affairs she believed that if Eustace refused to go to school his father would not try to compel him. But how to go about it? How to make Anchorstone suddenly so attractive, so irresistibly magnetic, that Eustace would not be able to bring himself to leave?
When Eustace told her that Dick Staveley was coming to live at Anchorstone Hall he mentioned this (for him) momentous event as casually as possible. Hilda did not like Dick Staveley, she professed abhorrence of him; she would not go to Anchorstone Hall when Dick had invited her, promising he would teach her to ride. The whole idea of the place was distasteful to her; it chilled and shrivelled her thoughts, just as it warmed and expanded Eustace’s. Even to hear it mentioned cast a shadow over her mind, and as to going there, she would rather die; and she had often told Eustace so.
It was a sign of emancipation that he let Dick’s name cross his lips. He awaited the explosion, and it came.
“That man!”—she never spoke of him as a boy, though he was only a few years older than she was. “Well, you won’t see him, will you?” she added almost vindictively. “You’ll be at school.”
“Oh,” said Eustace, “that won’t make any difference. I shouldn’t see him anyhow. You see, he never wanted to be friends with me. It was you he liked. If you had gone, I dare say he would have asked me to go too, just as your—well, you know, to hold the horse, and so on.”
“You and your horses!” said Hilda, scornfully. “You don’t know one end of a horse from the other.” He expected she would let the subject drop, but her eyes grew thoughtful and to his astonishment she said, “Suppose I had gone?” “Oh, well,” said Eustace, “that would have changed everything. I shouldn’t have had time to go to tea with Miss Fothergill—you see we should always have been having tea at Anchorstone Hall. Then she wouldn’t have died and left me her money—I mean, she would have died; but she wouldn’t have left me any money because she wouldn’t have known me well enough. You have to know someone well to do that. And then I shouldn’t be going to school now, because Daddy says it’s her money that pays for me—and now” (he glanced up, the clock on the Town Hall, with its white face and black hands, said four o’clock) “you would be coming in from riding with Dick, and I should be sitting on one of those grand sofas in the drawing-room at Anchorstone Hall, perhaps talking to Lady Staveley.”
Involuntarily Hilda closed her eyes against this picture—let it be confounded! Let it be blotted out! But aloud she said:
“Wouldn’t you have liked that?”
“Oh, yes,” said Eustace fervently.
“Better than going to school?”
Eustace considered. The trussed boy was being carried towards a very large, but slow, fire; other boys, black demons with pitch-forks, were scurrying about, piling on coals. His mood of heroism deserted him.
“Oh yes, much better.”
Hilda said nothing, and they continued to saunter down the hill, past the ruined cross, past the pier-head with its perpetual invitation, towards the glories of the Wolferton Hotel—winter-gardened, girt with iron fire-escapes—and the manifold exciting sounds, and heavy, sulphurous smells, of the railway station.
“Are we going to Mrs. Wrench’s?” Eustace asked.
“No, why should we? We had fish for dinner; you never notice. Oh, I know, you want to see the crocodile.”
“Well, just this once. You see, I may not see it again for a long time.”
Hilda sniffed. “I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying that,” she said. “It seems the only thing you can say. Oh, very well, then, we’ll go in and look round and come out.”
“Oh, but we must buy something. She would be disappointed if we didn’t. Let’s get some shrimps. Aunt Sarah won’t mind just for once, and I don’t suppose I shall have any at St. Ninian’s. I expect the Fourth Form gets them, though.”
“Why should they?”
“Oh, didn’t you know, they have all sorts of privileges.”
“I expect they have shrimps every day at Anchorstone Hall,” said Hilda, meaningly.
“Oh, I expect they do. What a pity you didn’t want to go. We have missed such a lot.”
Cautiously they crossed the road, for the wheeled traffic was thick here and might include a motor-car. Fat Mrs. Wrench was standing at the door of the fish-shop. She saw them coming, went in, and smiled expectantly from behind the counter.
“Well, Miss Hilda?”
“Eustace wants a fillet of the best end of the crocodile.”
“Oh Hilda, I don’t!”
They all laughed uproariously, Hilda loudest of all; while the stuffed crocodile (a small one) sprawling on the wall with tufts of bright green foliage glued round it, glared down on them malignantly. Eustace felt the tremor of delighted terror that he had been waiting for.
“I’ve got some lovely fresh shrimps,” said Mrs. Wrench.
“Turn round, Eustace,” said Miss Cherrington.
“Oh must I again, Aunt Sarah?”
“Yes, you must. You don’t want the other boys to laugh at you, do you?”
Reluctantly, Eustace revolved. He hated having his clothes tried on. He felt it was he who was being criticised, not they. It gave him a feeling of being trapped, as though each of the three pairs of eyes fixed on him, impersonal, fault-finding, was attached to him by a silken cord that bound him to the spot. He tried to restrain his wriggles within himself but they broke out and rippled on the surface.
“Do try to stand still, Eustace.”
Aunt Sarah was operating; she had some pins in her mouth with which, here and there, she pinched grooves and ridges in his black jacket. Alas, it was rather too wide at the shoulders and not wide enough round the waist.
“Eustace is getting quite a corporation,” said his father.
“Corporation, Daddy?” Eustace was always interested in words.
“Well, I didn’t like to say fat.”
“It’s because you would make me feed up,” Eustace complained. “I was quite thin before. Nancy Steptoe said I was just the right size for a boy.”
No one took this up; indeed, a slight chill fell on the company at the mention of Nancy’s name.
“Never mind,” Minney soothed him, “there’s some who would give a lot to be so comfortable looking as Master Eustace is.”
“Would they, Minney?”
Eustace was encouraged.
“Yes, they would, nasty scraggy things. And I can make that quite all right.” She inserted two soft fingers beneath the tight line round his waist.
“Hilda hasn’t said anything yet,” said Mr. Cherrington. “What do you think of your brother now, Hilda?”
Hilda had not left her place at the luncheon table, nor had she taken her eyes off her plate. Without looking up she said:
“He’ll soon get thin if he goes to school, if that’s what you want.”
“If he goes,” said Mr. Cherrington. “Of course he’s going. Why do you suppose we took him to London
to Faith Brothers if he wasn’t? All the same, I’m not sure we ought to have got his clothes off the peg.... Now go and have a look at yourself, Eustace. Mind the glass doesn’t break.”
Laughing, but half afraid of what he might see, Eustace tiptoed to the mirror. There stood his new personality, years older than a moment ago. The Eton collar, the black jacket cut like a man’s, the dark grey trousers that he could feel through his stockings, caressing his calves, made a veritable mantle of manhood. A host of new sensations, adult, prideful, standing no nonsense, coursed through him. Involuntarily, he tilted his head back and frowned, as though he were considering a leg-break that might dismiss R.H. Spooner.
“What a pity he hasn’t got the cap,” said Minney admiringly.
Eustace half turned his head. “It’s because of the crest, the White Horse of Kent. You see, if they let a common public tailor make that, anyone might wear it.”
“Don’t call people common, please Eustace, even a tailor.”
“I didn’t mean common in a nasty way, Aunt Sarah. Common just means anyone. It might mean me or even you.”
Hoping to change the subject, Minney dived into a cardboard box, noisily rustling the tissue paper.
“But we’ve got the straw hat. Put that on, Master Eustace.... There, Mr. Cherrington, doesn’t he look nice?”
“Not so much on the back of your head, Eustace, or you’ll look like Ally Sloper. That’s better.”
“I wish it had a guard,” sighed Eustace, longingly.
“Oh well, one thing at a time.”
“And of course it hasn’t got the school band yet. It’s blue, you know, with a white horse.”
“What, another?”
“Oh, no, the same one, Daddy. You are silly.”
“Don’t call your father silly, please, Eustace.”
“Oh, let him, this once.... Now take your hat off, Eustace, and bow.”
Eustace did so.
“Now say ‘Please sir, it wasn’t my fault.’”
Eustace did not quite catch what his father said.
“Please, sir, it was my fault.”
“No, no. Wasn’t my fault.”
“Oh, I see, Daddy. Please, sir, it wasn’t my fault. But I expect it would have been really. It nearly always is.”
“People will think it is, if you say so. Now say ‘That’s all very well, old chap, but this time it’s my turn.’”
Eustace repeated the phrase, imitating his father’s intonation and dégagé man-of-the-world air; then he said:
“What would it be my turn to do, Daddy?”
“Well, what do you think?” When Eustace couldn’t think, his father said: “Ask Minney.”
Minney was mystified but tried to carry it off.
“They do say one good turn deserves another,” she said, shaking her head wisely.
“That’s the right answer as far as it goes. Your aunt knows what I mean, Eustace, but she won’t tell us.”
“I don’t think you should teach the boy to say such things, Alfred, even in fun. It’s an expression they use in a ... in a public house, Eustace.”
Eustace gave his father a look of mingled admiration and reproach which Mr. Cherrington answered with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Between you you’ll make an old woman of the boy. Good Lord, at his age, I...” he broke off, his tone implying that at ten years old he had little left to learn. “Now stand up, Eustace, and don’t stick your tummy out.”
Eustace obeyed.
“Shoulders back.”
“Head up.”
“Don’t bend those knees.”
“Don’t arch your back.”
Each command set up in Eustace a brief spasm ending in rigidity, and soon his neck, back, and shoulders were a network of wrinkles. Miss Cherrington and Minney rushed forward.
“Give me a pin, please Minney, the left shoulder still droops.”
“There’s too much fullness at the neck now, Miss Cherrington. Wait a moment, I’ll pin it.”
“It’s the back that’s the worst, Minney. I can get my hand and arm up it—stand still, Eustace, one pin won’t be enough—Oh, he hasn’t buttoned his coat in front, that’s the reason——”
Hands and fingers were everywhere, pinching, patting, and pushing; Eustace swayed like a sapling in a gale. Struggling to keep his balance on the chair, he saw intent eyes flashing round him, leaving gleaming streaks like shooting stars in August. He tried first to resist, then to abandon himself to all the pressures. At last the quickened breathing subsided, there were gasps and sighs, and the ring of electric tension round Eustace suddenly dispersed, like an expiring thunderstorm.
“That’s better.”
“Really, Minney, you’ve made quite a remarkable improvement.”
“He looks quite a man now, doesn’t he, Miss Cherrington? Oh, I wish he could be photographed, just to remind us. If only Hilda would fetch her camera——”
“Hilda!”
There was no answer. They all looked round.
The tableau broke up; and they found themselves staring at an empty room.
“Can I get down now, Daddy?” asked Eustace.
“Yes, run and see if you can find her.”
“She can’t get used to the idea of his going away,” said Minney when Eustace had gone.
“No, I’m afraid she’ll suffer much more than he will,” Miss Cherrington said.
Mr. Cherrington straightened his tie and shot his cuffs. “You forget, Sarah, that she’s going to school herself.”
“It’s not likely I should forget losing my right hand, Alfred.”
After her single contribution to the problems of Eustace’s school outfit, Hilda continued to sit at the table, steadily refusing to look in his direction, and trying to make her disapproval felt throughout the room. Unlike Eustace, she had long ago ceased to think that grown-up people were always right, or that if she was angry with them they possessed some special armour of experience, like an extra skin, that made them unable to feel it. She thought they were just as fallible as she was, more so, indeed; and that in this instance they were making a particularly big mistake. Her father’s high-spirited raillery, as if the whole thing was a joke, exasperated her. Again, she projected her resentment through the æther, but they all had their backs to her, they were absorbed with Eustace. Presently his father made him stand on a chair. How silly he looked, she thought, like a dummy, totally without the dignity that every human being should possess. All this flattery and attention was making him conceited, and infecting him with the lax standards of the world, which she despised and dreaded. Now he was chattering about his school crest, as if that was anything to be proud of, a device woven on a cap, such as every little boy wore. He was pluming and preening himself, just as if she had never brought him up to know what was truly serious and worth while. A wave of bitter feeling broke against her. She could not let this mutilation of a personality go on; she must stop it, and there was only one way, though that way was the hardest she could take and the thought of it filled her with loathing.
Her aunt and Minney were milling round Eustace like dogs over a bone; sticking their noses into him. It was almost disgusting. To get away unnoticed was easy; if she had fired a pistol they would not have heard her. Taking her pencil-box which she had left on the sideboard she slouched out of the room. A moment in the drawing-room to collect some writing-paper and then she was in the bed room which she still shared with Eustace. She locked the door and, clearing a space at the corner of the dressing-table, she sat down to write. It never crossed Hilda’s mind that her plan could miscarry; she measured its success entirely by the distaste it aroused in her, and that was absolute—the strongest of her many strong feelings. She no more doubted its success than she doubted that, if she threw herself off the cliff, she would be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. In her mind, as she wrote, consoling her, was the image of Eustace, stripped of all his foolish finery, his figure restored to its proper outlines, his mouth cleanse
d of the puerilities of attempted schoolboy speech, his mind soft and tractable—for ever hers.
But the letter did not come easily, partly because Hilda never wrote letters, but chiefly because her inclination battled with her will, and her sense of her destiny warned her against what she was doing. More than once she was on the point of abandoning the letter, but in the pauses of her thoughts she heard the excited murmur of voices in the room below. This letter, if she posted it, would still those voices and send those silly clothes back to Messrs. Faith Brothers. It could do anything, this letter, stop the clock, put it back even, restore to her the Eustace of pre–Miss Fothergill days. Then why did she hesitate? Was it an obscure presentiment that she would regain Eustace but lose herself?
Dear Mr. Staveley [she had written],
Some time ago you asked me and Eustace to visit you, and we were not able to because...[Because why?]
Because I didn’t want to go, that was the real reason, and I don’t want to now except that it’s the only way of keeping Eustace at home.