“I’m sure I know better than she does what’s good for Eustace,” she announced decidedly.
“Then you must see that he doesn’t run about like a little mad thing and over-eat himself,” said Aunt Sarah. “If you do that everything will be all right.”
“Oh yes,” cried Eustace ecstatically, “I’m sure it will. Hilda always tells me to stop playing when I begin to look tired.”
“Yes, I do,” said Hilda a trifle grimly, “but you don’t always stop.”
Aunt Sarah was moving to the door when Eustace called after her. “May I do my corrections in the nursery?”
“Do you think Minney will want you when she’s busy with Baby?”
“Oh, she won’t mind if I keep very still.”
“I think I’d better come too,” said Hilda.
“Yes, do come,” said Eustace. “But mightn’t two be more in the way than one?”
“Very well, I’ll stay here since you don’t want me.”
“I do want you, I do want you!” cried Eustace. “Only I didn’t think there was any red ink in the nursery.”
“That shows all the more you don’t want me!” said Hilda. “When you come down I shall have gone out.”
“Don’t go far!”
“I shall go a long way. You won’t be able to find me.”
“Where shall you go?”
“Oh, nowhere in particular.” And then as Eustace was closing the door she called out, “Perhaps towards the lighthouse.”
Eustace knocked at the nursery door. “It’s me, Minney.”
“Come in, Eustace.... Goodness gracious! What have you got there?”
She bustled up, a small, active woman with a kind round face and soft tidy hair. “Whatever’s that?”
“It’s what I’ve done wrong,” said Eustace gloomily.
“Is it? Let me look. I don’t call that much. I should be very proud if I made no more mistakes than that.”
“Would you?” asked Eustace almost incredulously.
“Yes, I should. I’ll be bound Hilda didn’t get as many right as you did.”
Eustace considered. “Of course she’s very good at sums.... But you mustn’t let me interrupt you, Minney.”
“Interrupt! Listen to the boy. I’ve got nothing to do. Baby’s outside in the pram, asleep, I hope.”
“Oughtn’t one of us to go and look at her, perhaps?”
“Certainly not. Now, what do you want? A table? Here it is. A chair? I’ll put it there, and you on it.” Suiting the action to the word, she lifted Eustace, passive and acquiescent, on to the white chair. “And now what? Ink? I’ll go and fetch it.” Poor lamb, she murmured to herself outside the door, how tired he looks!
Left alone, Eustace fell into a reverie. Though he could not have formulated the reason for it, he felt an exquisite sense of relief; the tongues of criticism, that wagged around him all day, at last were stilled.
“Here’s the ink,” said Minney, appearing with a great impression of rapid movement, “and the blotting-paper and a pen. My word, you want a lot of waiting on, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid I do,” said Eustace humbly. “Hilda says you spoil me.”
“What nonsense! But mind you, don’t make a mess, or else you’ll hear about it.”
“Do you think I’m messy?” asked Eustace anxiously.
“No, you’re always a good boy.” This favourable judgement surprised Eustace into a shocked denial.
“Oh no,” he said, as though the idea were blasphemous.
“Yes, you are. You’re just like your mother.”
“I wish I could remember her better.”
“Well, you were very young then.”
“Why did she die, Minney?”
“I’ve told you ever so many times, she died when your sister Barbara was born.”
“But mothers don’t always die then.”
“No ...” said Minney, turning away, “but she did.... Now get on, Eustace, or you’ll have the whole morning gone.”
Eustace began to write. Presently his tongue came out and followed his pen with sympathetic movements.
“Good gracious, child, don’t do that—if the wind changed——”
“I’m sorry, Minney.”
“And don’t for heaven’s sake sit all hunched up. You’ll grow into a question mark.”
Obediently Eustace straightened himself, but the effort of sitting upright and keeping his tongue in was so great that the work proceeded twice as slowly as before.
“That’s better,” said Minney, coming and standing behind him, her sewing in her hand. “But what do you call that letter, a C? It looks more like an L.”
“It’s a capital C,” explained Eustace. Oh dear! Here was the voice of criticism again, and coming, most disappointingly, from Minney’s mouth. “Don’t you make them like that?”
“No, I don’t, but I dare say I’m old-fashioned.”
“Then I like people to be old-fashioned,” said Eustace placatingly.
“I always tell them you’ll get on in the world, Eustace. You say such nice things to people.”
“Dear Minney!”
It was delicious to be praised. A sense of luxury invaded Eustace’s heart. Get on in the world ... say nice things to people ... he would remember that. He was copying ‘Oakham’ for the fourth time when he heard a shout at the window, repeated a second later still more imperiously, “Eustace! EUSTACE!”
“Gracious!” said Minney. “She’ll wake the baby. When she wants a thing she never thinks of anyone else.”
Eustace was already at the window. “Coming, Hilda!” he cried in a raucous whisper. “I was afraid you’d gone to the lighthouse.”
4. THE PICNIC ON THE DOWNS
CAMBO WAS the last house in its row; nothing intervened between it and the sea except the Rev. A.J. Johnson’s preparatory school, a large square brown building which, partly from its size, partly from the boys it housed and at stated hours disgorged in crocodile form, exerted a strong influence over Eustace’s imagination. He had been told that when he grew older and his father richer he might be sent there. The thought appalled him—he devoted certain private prayers to the effect that he might never become any older than he was, and he continually asked Minney, “Daddy isn’t any richer now, is he?”—simply for the sake of hearing her say, “You ought to be glad if your father makes more money,” an answer he rightly interpreted to mean that he was not doing so yet.
But this morning, as for the fifth time he opened the garden gate, he did not even notice the menacing shape on his right. His eyes were turned away from the sea to the houses at the top of the square and the road where surely, by this time, he would see something to reward his vigil. Yes, there was the landau, with Brown Bess between the shafts, and the driver in his bowler hat sitting enthroned above. He never would drive down to Cambo, the road was so full of ruts and there was no room, he said, to turn the horses.
Eustace lingered to make sure there could be no mistake and then dashed into the house, colliding with his father in the doorway.
“Oh, Daddy, it’s there!”
“Well, you needn’t knock me over if it is,” said Alfred Cherrington, recoiling a little at the impact.
“Oh, Daddy, have I hurt you?”
“Not seriously, but I should like to know what you’re in such a hurry about?”
“Oh, Daddy, you do know.”
His father’s pale blue eyes under their straw-coloured lashes narrowed in pretended ignorance.
“Were you being chased by a bull?”
“Oh, Daddy, there aren’t any bulls on the green.”
“There might be if they saw your red jersey.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“Well, what was it?”
“Why, the carriage, of course.”
“What carriage? I don’t know anything about a carriage. Has it come to take you to school?”
“No, it’s going to take us to the Downs,” cried Eustace. “You mus
t hurry. Mustn’t he hurry, Aunt Sarah?” He appealed to his aunt who had appeared in the porch, a grey veil drawn over her hat and tied tightly under her chin.
“I don’t think you ought to tell your father to hurry,” Aunt Sarah said.
Eustace became anxious and crestfallen at once.
“Oh, I didn’t really mean he was to hurry.... Only just not ... not to waste time. You knew what I meant, didn’t you, Daddy?”
He looked up at his father, and Aunt Sarah looked at him too. Mr. Cherrington was silent. At last he said:
“Well, I suppose you ought to be careful how you talk to me.”
“Has Eustace been rude to Daddy again?” inquired Hilda, who had joined the group.
“Oh, nothing much,” said Mr. Cherrington awkwardly. “Come along now, or we shall never get started.” He spoke with irritation but without authority. Eustace looked back into the hall.
“Isn’t Minney coming?”
“No,” said Aunt Sarah. “I told you before, she has to look after Barbara.”
They started up the hill towards the carriage.
Hilda and Eustace took turns to sit on the box. Eustace’s turn came last. This meant missing a bird’s-eye view of the streets of Anchorstone, but certain interesting and venerated landmarks such as the soaring water-tower, a magnificent structure of red brick which he never passed under without a thrill, thinking it might burst with the weight of water imprisoned in it, could be seen almost as well from inside. He loved the moment when they turned off the main road on the brink of Frontisham Hill, that frightful declivity with its rusty warning to cyclists, and began to go inland. Every beat of the horses’ hoofs brought the Downs nearer. Hilda would talk to the driver with an almost professional knowledge of horses. He let her use the whip and even, when they got clear of the town, hold the reins herself. Eustace had once been offered this privilege. At first he enjoyed the sensation of power, and the touch of the driver’s large gloved hand over his gave him a feeling of security. But suddenly the horse stumbled, then broke into a gallop, and the driver, snatching the reins, swore with a vehemence that terrified Eustace. He had never seen anyone so angry before, and though the man, when he calmed down, assured him he was not to blame, he felt he was, and refused to repeat the experiment. A conviction of failure clung to him, reasserting itself when Hilda, erect and unruffled, displayed her proficiency and fearlessness; in fact whenever he saw a horse. And everyone assured him that he would never be a man until he learned how to drive. Indeed, the future was already dull and menacing with the ambitions other people entertained on his behalf. It seldom occurred to him to question their right to cherish these expectations. Not only must he learn to drive a horse, he must master so many difficult matters: ride a bicycle, play hockey, play the piano, talk French and, hardest of all, earn his living and provide for his sisters and his Aunt Sarah and his father when he got too old to work.... The future was to be a laborious business. And if he did not fulfil these obligations, everyone would be angry, or at least grieved and disappointed.
In self-defence Eustace had formed the mental habit of postponing starting to make a man of himself to an unspecified date that never came nearer, remaining miraculously just far enough away not to arouse feelings of nervous dread, but not so far away as to give his conscience cause to reproach him with neglect of his duties. The charm did not always work, but it worked to-day: his enjoyment of the drive was undisturbed by any sense of private failure. Presently Hilda announced that it was time for him to take her place on the box. The carriage stopped while he climbed up.
Searching for a subject of conversation that might interest his neighbour, he said, “Have you ever ridden a racehorse?”
The driver smiled.
“No, you want to be a jockey to do that.”
A jockey: no one had ever proposed that Eustace should be a jockey. It always gave him pleasure to contemplate a profession with which his future was not involved.
“Do jockeys get rich?” he presently inquired.
“Some of ’em do,” the man replied.
“Richer than you?” Eustace was afraid the question might be too personal so he made his voice sound as incredulous as possible.
“I should think they did,” said the driver warmly.
“I’m sorry,” said Eustace. Then, voicing an ancient fear, he asked, “It’s very hard to make money, isn’t it?”
“You’re right,” said the driver. “It jolly well is.”
Eustace sighed, and for a moment the Future loomed up, black and threatening and charged with responsibility. But the appearance of a ruined roofless church made of flints, grey and jagged and very wild-looking, distracted him. Its loneliness challenged his imagination. Moreover, it was a sign that the Downs were at hand.
“Soon we shall see the farm-house,” he remarked.
The driver pointed with his whip. “There it is!”
A cluster of buildings, shabby and uncared for, came into view.
“And there’s the iron spring,” cried Eustace. “Look, it’s running.”
A trickle of brownish water came out of a pipe under the farm-house wall. The ground around it was dyed bright orange; but disappointingly it failed to colour the pond which received it a yard or two below.
“If you was to drink that every day,” observed the driver, “you’d soon be a big chap.”
“You don’t think I’m very big now?”
“You’ll grow a lot bigger yet,” said the driver diplomatically.
Eustace was relieved. He had been told that he was undersized. One of the tasks enjoined on him was to increase his stature. Some association of ideas led him to say:
“Do you know a girl called Nancy Steptoe?”
“I should think I did,” said the driver. “If I wasn’t driving you to-day I should be driving them.”
“I’m glad we asked you first,” said Eustace politely. The man seemed pleased. “She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?”
No answer came for a moment. Then the driver said:
“I’d rather be taking you and Miss Hilda.”
“Oh!” cried Eustace, emotions of delight and disappointment struggling in him, “but don’t you like Nancy?”
“It’s not for me to say whether I like her or whether I don’t.”
“But you must know which you do,” exclaimed Eustace.
The driver grunted.
“But she’s so pretty.”
“Not so pretty as Miss Hilda by a long sight.”
Eustace was amazed. He had heard Hilda called pretty, but that she should be prettier than Nancy—the gay and the daring, the care-free, the well-dressed, the belle of Anchorstone—he could not believe it. Hilda was wonderful; everything she did was right; Eustace could not exist without her, could not long be happy without her good opinion, but he had never imagined that her supremacy held good outside the moral sphere and the realm of the affections.
“She doesn’t think she’s pretty herself,” he said at last.
“She will some day,” said the driver.
“But, Mr. Craddock,” exclaimed Eustace (he always called Craddock Mr. having received a hint from Minney: the others never did), “she’s too good to be pretty.”
Mr. Craddock laughed.
“You say some old-fashioned things, Master Eustace,” he said.
Eustace pondered. He still wanted to know why the driver preferred taking them, the humble Cherringtons, to the glorious, exciting Steptoes.
“Do you think Nancy is proud?” he asked at last.
“She’s got no call to be,” Mr. Craddock said.
Eustace thought she had, but did not say so. He determined to make a frontal attack.
“Do you often take the Steptoes in your carriage, Mr. Craddock?”
“Yes, often.”
Naturally he would. To the Steptoes, a picnic was nothing unusual: they probably had one every day. Eustace was still surprised at being asked to join them. He thought Gerald must want to swap so
mething, and had put in his pocket all his available treasures, though ashamed of their commonplace quality.
“When you drive them,” he proceeded, “what do they do different from us?”
Mr. Craddock laughed shortly. “They don’t pay for my tea.”
“But aren’t they very rich?”
“They’re near, if you ask me.”
Eustace had scarcely time to digest this disagreeable information when he heard his father’s voice: “Eustace, look! There are the Steptoes—they’ve got here first.”
By now the Downs were upon them, green slopes, low but steep, enclosing a miniature valley. The valley swung away to the left, giving an effect of mystery and distance. The four Steptoes were sitting by the stream—hardly perceptible but for its fringe of reeds and tall grasses—that divided the valley. Nancy had taken her hat off and was shaking back her golden hair. Eustace knew the gesture well; he felt it to be the perfection of sophistication and savoir-faire. He raised his hat and waved. Nancy responded with elegant negligence. Major and Mrs. Steptoe rose to their feet. Something made Eustace look back into the landau at Hilda. She could see the Steptoes quite well, but she didn’t appear to notice them. A small bush to the left was engaging her attention: she peered at it from under her drawn brows as though it was something quite extraordinary and an eagle might fly out of it. Turning away, Eustace sighed.
“I hope you will have a nice time, Mr. Craddock,” he said.
“Don’t you worry about that, Master Eustace.”
“Will you have some more cake, Nancy?”
“No, thank you, Eustace.”
“Will you have some of the sandwiches we brought, though I’m afraid they’re not as nice as your cake?”
“They’re delicious, but I don’t think I’ll have any more.”
“I could easily make you some fresh tea, couldn’t I, Aunt Sarah?”
“Yes, but you must take care not to scald yourself.”
“Well, if it’s absolutely no trouble, Eustace. You made it so beautifully before.”
Eustace glowed.
“Look here, Gerald,” said Major Steptoe, turning on his massive tweed-clad elbow, “you’re neglecting Hilda.”
“She said she didn’t want any more,” remarked Gerald a trifle curtly.