Compact as Cambo was, it had never assimilated Hilda’s room.
“Well!” said Minney, “to think that she should be the first of you!” She spoke elliptically, but Eustace knew what she meant, and accepted for himself and Hilda the reproach of barrenness. He patted Minney’s useful, well-worn hand. So many children had been through those hands that she had come to think of herself as entitled to the status of parenthood.
“Now we shall be together like we used to be,” she went on, “and you’ll be my little boy again.” Her tone was business-like rather than wistful, and made Eustace feel that he might look backwards, at any rate for a moment, without incurring the fate of Lot’s wife.
“You were always such a loving little thing,” she said. “Of course you loved Miss Hilda best, but you loved me too.”
“I still do, dearest Minney,” said Eustace, pressing her hand.
“Oh yes, I know you do,” said Minney with serene assurance. “Only people don’t love in quite the same way when they grow up. I suppose it wouldn’t be right if they did. And poor Miss Hilda so afflicted too. But she’ll get better, you’ll see, one of these days. You won’t always have to be watching over her.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that,” Eustace said.
“No, I don’t believe you do. You were always a good boy, weren’t you? You never gave any trouble.”
“Oh yes, I did,” said Eustace. “I——” On the brink of a lengthy confession he drew back, reminding himself that self-reproach was weakness.
“Well, you were always good with me, and if anyone says anything different, they may. Now you must go back to your books, just as if nothing had happened, and I’ll go to Miss Hilda—I expect she’s all worked up inside.”
Eustace took Minney’s advice but could not act on it, for he too was worked up. He felt that the occasion called for a celebration—but what, and with whom, and where? His friends were far away; they stretched out their hands to him in vain; they were divided from him by much more than distance, by the barrier of his will, by the thick rampart of denials and inhibitions with which he kept them out. Barbara’s friends, the Gang, were coming to-morrow, but he wanted to do something to-day. The only opportunities for celebrating that Anchorstone offered him were the celebrations of the past which he had forbidden himself. The sands, dearly as one part of him longed to go there, were still out of bounds. But he had his bicycle and the freedom of the roads; why not make the expedition he had promised himself, through Old Anchorstone, skirting the Park, and back by Frontisham Hill? If he could ride up Frontisham Hill it would be a sign, almost a proof, that there was nothing wrong with him, and that the Eustace of the past, ailing and in need of guidance, was a myth created by his own fears.
Eustace had to be on special terms with somebody or something. In Venice it had been Lady Nelly, and Jasper, and the promise of Antony’s presence, thrown so brightly on the screen of his mind. In Venice he had felt lonely only when Lady Nelly, faithless, looked away from him. His time of travail for Hilda did not count, for then all the processes of his being were distorted or reversed. In Venice he had bought no bibelots for himself; he had not felt the need of them: as an outlet for his extra-personal affections the present from Anchorstone sufficed. But that brown-pink relic had lost its virtue and now lay in a drawer discredited, awaiting the moment when he would have strength of mind to throw it away. Meanwhile he needed a substitute, an object in whose presence he could feel that sense of identity completed by a possession which had prompted his purchases in the lonely days at the Ministry of Labour. Here he could not satisfy this craving, for Anchorstone boasted no antique shop; and if it had he might have resisted the temptation to enter, for bric-à-brac was useless and dust-harbouring and static, a throw-back to the bad old times. Besides, he could not afford such indulgences. But a bicycle was different: a bicycle was an object of high practical utility, a vital adjunct of industry, essential to the well-being of the proletariat; and with his bicycle Eustace now began to feel the joy of intimate association, the sweet pride of possession.
Jimmy had chosen it for him, from among a stable of second-hands steeds, and it was rather like Jimmy in being rawboned and workman-like and unadorned—the sort of bicycle one might find lying against a hedge with a rush-bag of tools strapped to the carrier. But it had been a good one in its day, a sports model, a roadster; it boasted a three-speed gear, and Eustace did not take long to discover points in which it excelled all other bicycles. He kept it in a shed in the backyard of Cambo, the porch being fully occupied; sometimes he went in, in the middle of the morning, to wipe it with an oily rag, according to Jimmy’s instructions; sometimes for no better reason than to look at it and make sure it was there. Theoretically he had mastered the messy process of mending a puncture, and quite looked forward to the moment, which had not yet come, when he would feel the wheel wobble and the rims bumping upon the road. Then he would dismount, take the roll of cotton-waste from the saddle-bag, extract the scissors, the india-rubber, the solution, and the chalk, and begin that delicate operation on the viscera of his friend which would unite them yet more closely by the bonds of mutual benefit.
He was envisaging this scene of the Good Samaritan and the sports model when the door opened and Minney came in. Slightly puffing out her cheeks, she looked mysterious and important.
“Miss Hilda wants to tell you something,” she said, using the old formula. “You’d better go and find out what it is. I’m not sure, but I think she wants you to take her out in the bath-chair while it’s still daylight.”
Minney was right: that was what Hilda did want. Whether she was borne to this decision on a gust of confidence caught from Barbara’s serene approach to her ordeal, Eustace could not tell. But the fact was enough, and it was arranged that after an early tea Hilda should emerge from the shadows and make her bow to the sun.
Eustace had uprooted many of the bad habits that came from living in a wish-fed world; but one still clung to him: he did not know how long a thing would take, or if he did, he could not act upon his knowledge. Besides, the long bicycle-ride was to be his treat: a double treat, a twofold celebration, now that it also expressed his gratitude for Hilda liberated from her fears. So he started off a little sooner after luncheon than Miss Cherrington would have deemed quite wise—but what did a touch of indigestion matter to someone as strong as he was?—and climbing on to the bicycle by its charmingly archaic step (he was careful always to leave it in its lowest gear, for fear of strain), he rode up the hill beside the brown-faced houses. It was a sharp tug, and he found himself puffing; but now came a level bit, parallel with the cliff, and then the much gentler slope of Coronation Avenue. Mafeking, Ladysmith, Pretoria, Omdurman, Bulawayo, Rorke’s Drift (Eustace always passed that smug villa with a mental absit omen: could its occupants have known what the name meant?), then a dash into Wales: Bryn Tirion and Plas Newydd, and then the highroad, the town’s femoral artery, which led to Old Anchorstone, its parent. This was no longer the white road of his childhood: tarmac had restrained its diffuseness, and the hedges, though spotty with cigarette cartons, wore their autumn livery undefiled by dust.
Supposing he had been going to call at Anchorstone Hall, this was the way he would have gone. He was not going to call, of course. In spite of Lady Nelly’s injunction, he knew it wouldn’t do. With her he might have gone, for a situation did not remain itself when she took hold of it. But not alone: alone he would tread on thorns. The machine would puncture from the start, and there would be no mending it.
‘To what, Mr. Cherrington, do we owe the honour of this visit?’ ‘If I choose to call, Lady Staveley, it is hardly for you to take offence. My sister Hilda——’ ‘Your sister Hilda! You talk of your sister Hilda! It is our son, Dick, we think about. You have your sister; she is sitting, safe if not sound, in a small, dark room in a poky villa in New Anchorstone, where she deserves to be. But where is Dick? Show him to us. Bring him back from the sands of Arabia where he lies wounded, perhaps dyi
ng, and all because of your precious sister.’ ‘Excuse me, Lady Staveley, but it was not Hilda’s fault. Your son Dick deliberately——’ ‘Nonsense! She flung herself at him. You do not know, because you never went there—one part of the house, at least, was uncontaminated by your touch—but she opened the door, she opened all the doors, she opened his door, and flung herself at him.’ ‘Lady Staveley, how can you possibly know all this? But even if she did do as you say, and—and made the first advances, still, it was not her fault. It was mine. I brought her to Anchorstone Hall. I persuaded her. I was to blame.’ ‘You, you miserable creature, do you suppose that anything you could do would affect the ancient family of Staveley, settled at Anchorstone since the Conquest?’
Eustace pulled himself up. The interior dialogue, whether with himself or someone else, was one of his worst habits, tending to split personality and who knows what else; to indulge it was to break Rule Number One of the New Mental Order. He must concentrate on the landscape. On his left, down a side-road, squatted the decapitated lighthouse tea-house, a mournful sight. On his right, among the trees, he would soon see, after an absence not to be measured by time, the chimneys and turrets of Anchorstone Hall. Yes, there they were; look at them well, as a stranger, a tripper, a tourist on a secondhand bicycle might look. They had not fallen down, as he had pictured them falling, in the general crash; they looked just the same; some of them were smoking lazily. And here, fronting him, was the Staveley Arms. The great escutcheon over the door did not seem to have weathered since he saw it last.
The village street was not a long one, half a mile at most. When he got past the church, Eustace calculated, and the gateway into the park, he would be safe—safe from the undesirable influences that were spreading towards him, safe from any inauspicious encounter. Here it was, the little group, the church, the pond, the gate. If he could have trusted himself in that spot, he would have got off and visited Miss Fothergill’s grave. But better press on. In a moment his thoughts would be free—free to wander where they would, to speculate on the future, to see the world as Hilda would see it, fresh from the gloom of her prison-house.
He had passed the danger-zone, as he thought, and was already enjoying his freedom, when he saw, coming down the hill towards him, a figure on horseback. A woman, he noticed, as she came nearer, but he did not feel specially interested, for he had crossed the Staveley frontier. Still, one never knew what a horse might do, though this one was walking, and seemed very quiet; he must be on the watch. The rider looked up at the same moment and their eyes met.
Sure she had not recognised him, he was riding on, but glancing back he saw that she had turned her horse round and was looking after him. Dick had asked him to say something to Anne. Well, he must.
He dismounted awkwardly, aware of his trouser-clips and his old clothes, and pushed the bicycle, which no longer seemed glorious, into the dangerous area of the horse’s legs. Anne bent down and gave him her hand and her brief smile, to neither of which could he give due attention, as his handle-bars betrayed a wish to bury themselves in the horse’s flank.
“I didn’t recognise you at first. I must apologise,” she said. “Haven’t you—isn’t there something different?”
Eustace was grateful to her for taking on herself the onus of non-recognition.
“Yes, my moustache,” he said. “I don’t wonder you didn’t recognise me. Sometimes I don’t recognise myself.”
Anne gave him her considering look. “Oh, it hasn’t changed you as much as all that.”
Eustace thought for a moment, quite unproductively. “Were you just coming in from a ride?”
“Yes,” said Anne. “Oddly enough. I don’t often go that way. And you were starting out on one?”
“Yes,” said Eustace. ‘Here it will end,’ he thought, ‘here we must shake hands.’ What empty words to cover so momentous a meeting. Trying to keep his eyes on her as he did so, he detached his bicycle from the horse and got round on its other side, her side, the better to say good-bye.
“If you have a moment to spare,” Anne said hesitatingly, “and don’t mind interrupting your ride, won’t you come in and walk round the garden? Not that there’s anything to see.”
Eustace said yes before he had time to say no, and found himself riding by her side past the church, through the gateway, and along the tree-shaded drive. The college front came into view.
“Put your bicycle under the arch,” Anne said. “It’ll be safe there. Ah, here’s Watkins. He’ll take it. Can you amuse yourself for a minute while I see to Dapple?”
The courtyard was empty. Though there were signs that it had lately been swept, autumn leaves were lying in thin drifts; and as Eustace almost mechanically turned his eyes upwards to the windows of the New Building, he saw them drifting across with a lost motion from the chestnut trees beyond. Believing himself to be alone, he tried to catch one as it fell, having been told that each leaf caught meant a month of happiness; but its eddying flight, baffling as a butterfly’s, eluded him. Suddenly a leaf lodged in his hands and he felt absurdly pleased; clutching his capture, he looked round, to see Anne watching him from the garden gate. Ashamed of being caught in such a childish pastime, he dropped the leaf and walked towards her.
“I used to do that,” she said, “but I never found it work. Still, I hope it will with you. I should like to think we had been the means of bringing you some happiness, however indirectly.”
“Oh, I’m much happier than I was,” said Eustace awkwardly.
The grass that grew among the ruins was blanched and yellow. Eustace saw the broken font and fancied he could see the raw red scar where Dick had wrenched off the fragment for him.
“Let’s go this way,” Anne said, leading him across the grass towards the Chinese bridge. “You know, I didn’t recognise you, but I wasn’t surprised to see you.”
Her voice was bleak and tinged with the greyness of her personality. If she was surprised she did not sound glad to see him. But he warned himself not to mistake her reserve for hostility.
“You knew I was here?”
“Yes.”
Eustace felt he was giving her very little help.
“Did Dick tell you?”
“Yes, he did, and Aunt Nelly. Mama wanted to write or call; but I’m glad I met you this way.”
“Dick asked me to see you,” Eustace said; “but I didn’t know whether you’d want to.”
“I didn’t know whether you would.”
They were standing on the little bridge, and for a fleeting moment Eustace marvelled that something which existed so strongly in his imagination could have its counterpart in reality.
“We didn’t part in—in anger,” he said. “I had been angry, I was so unhappy about Hilda. But he had suffered too. And I was a great deal to blame. I see that now.”
“Were you?” said Anne, opening her grey eyes wide. “None of us thought so.”
“She wouldn’t have come but for me,” Eustace muttered.
Anne was silent. Then she said, “I’m sure Dick would have found a way of meeting her. He never forgot her since the time they met as children. But he didn’t think women needed understanding, and he didn’t understand her.”
“She isn’t easy to understand,” said Eustace.
“No. Let’s go into the garden, shall we?”
They went through the gate in the green hedge. The three other sides were walled. They walked on towards a lead figure rising grey and spectral from a fountain. Bordering the path, tall clumps of sunflowers, chrysanthemums, golden rod, and Michaelmas-daisies still glowed with mauve and yellow, but some showed a disposition to fall apart from the centre, and a few were lying on the ground. Twisted this way and that, the petals of the smaller sunflowers looked like displaced eyelashes.
“There’s one thing about autumn flowers,” said Anne, “they’re no trouble to arrange.... No, she isn’t easy to understand. If only Dick had tried sooner.”
“He did try?” asked Eustace.
“Yes, but he hasn’t had the credit for that. Everyone thinks he treated her very badly. So he did, I suppose. You don’t mind us talking like this?”
Eustace said he was glad to. “Hilda’s my sister and you’re Dick’s. We needn’t stand on ceremony with each other.”
“I don’t defend him,” said Anne. “But he had got an altogether wrong idea of her. He thought that her beauty, and her—her work at the clinic, and the way she had lived, entirely on her own, would—well, have toughened her. I don’t defend him; he behaved very badly. But you can have no idea (or perhaps you have?) how he dreads being clung to or depended on or made responsible for someone else’s happiness. He’s the same with us here: if we as much as look at him with affection he gets up and goes out. That’s an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. He feels shut in and stifled the moment his independence is threatened, and then he becomes cruel. Some women don’t mind that.”
“No,” said Eustace.
“Hilda meant more to him than anyone ever has. He adored her. He’s still in love with her. And he would have asked her to marry him if she could have taken him as he was. But she marked down every moment of his time; she mixed herself up with all his thoughts. She wanted him to do this and be that, and the more he drew away the closer she clung to him. He was odious to her often, and in front of people. But her will was stronger than his, and she makes it seem wrong not to do what she wants, not only wrong but impossible. When he was with her he couldn’t say the things he meant to. And being in love made it harder. Dick detests explanations; I’ve never heard him try to explain why he did something—but he tried to make her see that they couldn’t go on.”