Eustace and Hilda (106 page)

Suddenly Eustace's mind was flooded with light.

“The wedges! the wedges!” he shouted, getting up and stand-ing over Hilda and thrusting the lumps of granite in her face. “The wedges I always took with me, in case—in case something happened, and the bath-chair ran away. That was why I kept them, to put under the wheels. You must have seen my pockets bulging,” he said, glaring down at her. “Didn't you see them bulge,” he demanded, “every night I came to take you out?”

“Yes, I did,” said Hilda in a low, uncertain voice. “I wondered why you looked like that.”

“Take them! take them!” shouted Eustace, putting the wedges into Hilda's wondering hands. “Look at them! Feel how heavy they are! They've worn out my pockets,” he grumbled, his voice querulous as well as angry. “Look, they're full of holes.” He pulled the dirty grey pockets out, and showed Hilda the jagged tear in each. “They've been mended twice, but they won't hold anything except these big stones. All my money falls out. Minney's always on to me about them. She knows! She can tell you! I'll call her!”

He went to the door, and was fumbling with the knob when he heard Hilda's voice. “No, don't, Eustace. Come back.”

It was her old voice, the voice he knew. Reluctantly, still glaring at her, he sat down in the chair again.

She got up quietly and put the wedges on the table by his side.

“Thank you, Eustace,” she said.

He looked at her again. The strain and strangeness had gone out of her face. He hardly dare believe it, but it seemed as though what his arguments could not bring about, his anger had. His anger, and the wedges—those concrete testimonies to his innocence.

Timidly he smiled at her and she smiled back, and they stayed so for a moment, exploring each other's faces with their smiles.

“Why did you put on the Fortuny frock to-day?” Eustace said. “You look so lovely in it.”

The blue and silver of the dress seemed to have woven their own moonlight round her.

“I don't quite know,” said Hilda. “It was something to do with Barbara. I was so glad about her, and then I had a vague feeling I didn't want to be outdone by her. Such nonsense.” She smiled at him almost shyly. “But I can't quite explain—I felt so many things when I was sitting apart, locked up in myself. You were very good to me, Eustace.”

“Oh no, I wasn't,” said Eustace, horrified. “I could have done much more.”

“No, you couldn't.”

“Yes, I could.”

“Tell me how.” Her eyes challenged him in the old way. “You can't.”

Gratefully, Eustace gave up trying. But he was feeling misty again. It seemed as though his nerves, which had seen him through a crisis, failed him in a calm.

“What you said to me on the cliff,” said Hilda, “broke some skin that was forming over me. Then ... I couldn't help it, the skin closed again and I was underneath it. I've had an awful time, Eustace; I can't tell you how I've suffered.”

“I can guess,” said Eustace rashly.

“No, you can't, you can't.” A far-away tone crept into Hilda's voice. With her eyes half closed and her chin slightly up, she looked like the goddess of self-pity. “No one can.”

Thoughtfully she smoothed out the folds of her dress, making the moonlight and the clouds change places with each other.

“Dick's message interested and touched me,” she said carelessly. “Poor boy, such a good fellow in his way. Perhaps I was rather hard on him.” Eustace gazed at her in bewilderment. “But he was cruel to me, very cruel. And you were cruel too, Eustace. You helped him.”

Eustace's much-tried heart turned over. Was he to go through all this again—Sisyphus resuming his stone?

“Oh, Hilda,” he began, “I—”

“Yes, you did, you put me into his clutches. But I forgive you, and I forgive him too. Only,” she added, “I shan't be caught that way again.”

“No, indeed,” said Eustace.

“I shall have a great deal to do,” said Hilda, her voice suddenly becoming sharp and business-like. “I must lose no time in taking up the reins at the clinic. Heaven knows what they will have been doing there while I've been away. I must get in touch with them at once. Perhaps I'd better have Stephen Hilliard down to arrange the preliminaries. I'll write to him to-morrow.”

“Yes, that's a good plan,” said Eustace.

“He's a sensible, practical man—a man you can trust,” said Hilda. “And, I think I may say, devoted to my interests. Dick wasn't. He—he put himself first.”

“Yes,” Eustace said.

“That's why I never felt he was a good influence for you, Eustace,” Hilda went on, frankly but firmly, and with a look that was at once mild and severe. “The kind of life he led—the kind of life they all led—was no good to you. Nor to me, perhaps; but I'm made of much stronger stuff than you are, and I learn by experience. I don't ask what you did in Venice, but what have you been doing, Eustace, all the time since you came back?”

“Well,” said Eustace, trying not to feel guilty, “I've been working, you know, reading the set books. Of course I didn't quite know what I should be doing—I mean—” His voice died away.

“You didn't know? But surely you knew the Oxford term began in October? You'd better hurry up, or we shall be having more trouble from them about those scholarships.”

“Yes, Hilda, I'll write to-morrow.”

“I should write to-night; no good putting things off. The sooner we all get back to normal, the better. And by the way,” she said, “you're not very well, are you? You need a good overhaul. I'll arrange with one of our doctors—a man I can trust. Speedwell has a pleasant bedside manner, but he doesn't know much. Remind me about that, Eustace.”

“Yes, Hilda, I will; but I don't think it's really necessary. I've been much better—all this bicycling does me good.”

“In moderation, I dare say. But you didn't look very well this evening, lying on the ground with your legs stretched out.”

“I'm afraid I must have looked rather a sight.”

“It wasn't only that. Oh, Eustace, you must be careful, you are so precious to me; I don't believe you realise how precious you are.”

“And you to me, Hilda darling.”

“No, not in the same way—not in the same way. You had Miss Fothergill, and now your friend Lady Nelly, and I don't know how many more. You collect friends like you do paper-weights. But I only have you. I feel jealous sometimes.”

“But, Hilda—”

“Don't argue, it is so. And if anything happened to you, I don't know what would become of me. You must look after yourself.” Tears stood in her eyes.

Eustace was too deeply moved to speak.

“But you must work hard too,” she went on. “We can't have you loafing about. Did you say something about a book?”

“Yes,” said Eustace eagerly. “It's going to be published. I—”

“I shall read it with great interest,” said Hilda. “But writing novels isn't a life's work. You'll have to do more than that, and better than that, if I am to be as proud of you as I want to be.”

“Still, it's something, isn't it?” protested Eustace. “Even if I did nothing else, people will remember me by that.”

Hilda gave a great yawn that rippled through all her pleats; when she had enjoyed it to the full, she shook with laughter.

“You do look so solemn sitting in that chair,” she said, “and talking about being remembered. I shall remember you all right, don't you worry.”

The door opened and Minney tiptoed in, with the nervous, self-conscious, but resolute air of someone coming late into church.

“I've come to pack you both off to bed,” she said. “You'll be sitting up here all night at this rate.”

“Oh, Minney, we were enjoying ourselves so much,” said Eustace.

“Well, bed's a good place,” said Minney. “You'll enjoy yourselves there too.”

“Really, Minney, what a thing to say,” said Hilda, laughing again till the tears came into her eyes. Minney couldn't see anything funny in what she had said, and Eustace was amazed, for this was a Hilda he did not know. Still laughing, she looked from Minney's blank face to Eustace's cautiously smiling one.

“Oh, well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “But Eustace can't go to bed: he's got to stay up and write a letter.”

“Oh, the poor lamb,” said Minney. “Why should he?”

“He must tell them he's going back to Oxford.”

“Yes, and telephone some telegrams,” said Eustace.

“Telegrams?” said Hilda. “Why?”

“To say you're better.”

“I should have thought postcards would meet the case.”

“Can't you do all that in the morning, Master Eustace?”

“Minney, you
spoil
him.” Hilda rose with a superb swish and put her arm affectionately round Minney's neck. “I shall have to begin all over again.”

Eustace got up and joined them, and she put an arm round him too.

“Isn't it nice to think you're all within my reach?” she said. A spasm seized her; she dropped her arms and yawned again, luxuriously and without concealment. “You can't imagine what fun it is to yawn,” she said.

“Some of us would like to yawn too,” said Minney. “Look, you've started Mr. Eustace off.”

Eustace quickly covered his mouth with his hand.

“That's better,” said Hilda.

“I'm sorry. I never had any manners.”

“I mean, I like you better without that moustache. Surely you don't intend to keep it? You've no idea how funny it makes you look.”

“Funny?” said Eustace.

“Yes, it doesn't suit you at all. It makes you look as if you were trying to be someone else.”

Eustace was nettled. “Well, I am in a way.”

“Don't, then. We don't want him any different, do we, Minney?”

“Well, that's as Master Eustace likes,” said Minney. “I say it makes him look more of a man, and Miss Cherrington says so too.”

Eustace began to feel uncomfortable under the intensity of their feminine regard.

“More of a man?” said Hilda. “More of a man?” She repeated the phrase with growing distaste. “I should have thought he could have left that sort of thing to other people. There are quite enough men already.... Promise me you'll take it off, Eustace.”

“I'll think about it,” said Eustace evasively. He rubbed his finger across the offending moustache, and its bristly stiffness put him in mind of Captain Bruce-Popham. “You see, one or two people have told me—”

“Oh, never mind what they say. You pay too much attention to what people say. Now promise me.”

“Hilda, I—”

“Oh, Eustace, you wouldn't disappoint me, and on my first evening too. Say you'll take it off. I don't feel it's you when you look like that.”

Eustace capitulated. “All right, I will.”

“Good boy,” said Hilda. “I knew you would.”

Suddenly she looked rather tired, and feeling the onset of another yawn she suppressed it, as though averse from the effort.

“Well, good-night, Minney; good-night, Eustace. See you in the morning.”

Eustace kissed her on the cheek.

“That's not the way to do it,” said Hilda. “He's a lot to learn, hasn't he, Minney?
This
is the way.” And she gave him a long embrace on the lips.

Eustace, though a little breathless, was grateful to her. The gesture crowned the evening with a panache he couldn't have given it—nor could Hilda, a few months ago.

He followed her out into the hall. “Hullo,” said Hilda, “I thought you were going to write a letter.”

“I just wanted to see you walk upstairs.”

She laughed, and he watched her billowy dress mounting the mean and narrow stairway. She never faltered, but at the top she turned and waved to him. He listened to her footsteps, firm and regular, until they stopped at the door of her room.

“Well,” said Minney, “I suppose we must say, ‘All's well that ends well,' Master Eustace.”

“Oh, it's only the beginning, Minney,” Eustace said.

“You'll have to hurry up, Master Eustace,” Minney said darkly, “or she'll be getting married before you do.”

“You think so?” Eustace was surprised.

“I do,” said Minney firmly. “Now, good-night, Master Eustace. Don't stay up; you've got great rings under your eyes.”

“Good-night, Minney dear.”

Eustace went through the hall, past the carrying-chair, already discarded, into the porch, and through the narrow strait between the bath-chair, which had also done its job, and the perambulator, whose turn was still to come.

The night was starry and the moon was up; in the square all was quiet. With a little imagination the corner pinnacles of Palmerston Parade might be thought to resemble the West Front of Peterborough Cathedral. The idea pleased Eustace, but it was not en règle, and he dismissed it and walked back into the house.

Silence. Women cry when they bear children: Barbara perhaps would cry; but the future, now so big with events at Cambo, was giving birth without a sound.

Eustace had already rung up the nursing-home in Ousemouth, but Barbara could not come to the telephone and Jimmy was not there. The nurse spoke as though she was more accustomed to giving messages than to receiving them, and as though the Home, having the prerogative of joyful news, could not take in any from outside. “Mrs. Crankshaw is doing very very nicely, thank you,” was all she would say in answer to his message about Hilda.

He sat down and began to write out the telegrams.