Eustace and Hilda (17 page)

“Shall I deal for you?”

“If you don't mind.”

“Is this how Miss Grimshaw does it?” asked Eustace, dealing the cards in alternate twos and threes.

“No, she has another way, but the one I showed you is the right way.”

Eustace looked pleased, then a shadow crossed his face.

“You do still play with her sometimes, don't you?”

“Every now and then, but I think she's glad of a rest.”

“She didn't say so the other evening.”

“What did she say?”

Eustace hesitated. “Oh, she said she wished those evenings could come back when you and she always played together.”

“Did she? Well, speak up. I expect you're ashamed to declare a point of seven.”

“I threw one away,” admitted Eustace.

“Foolish fellow! You must count the pips up now.”

A complacent smile upon his face Eustace did so.

“Fifty-six.”

“No good. Now you can see what comes of throwing away your opportunities.”

“Well, I had to keep my four kings.”

“Ah! I might have known you had a rod in pickle for me somewhere.”

“Yes, four kings, fourteen, three aces, seventeen, three knaves, twenty.” Eustace hurried over these small additions and tried not to let exultation at the impressive total show in his voice. Then he said diffidently, “And I've got a carte major too.”

“Well, don't say it as if you were announcing a death. You know you're pleased really.”

“I suppose I am.”

“You certainly ought to be. It's a great mistake not to feel pleased when you have the chance. Remember that, Eustace.”

“Yes, Miss Fothergill.” He groped on the floor and came up with some cards. “Here's your discard. I haven't looked at it,” he added virtuously.

“No, you're much too good a boy to do that, aren't you?”

Eustace scented criticism in these friendly words.

“Do you think I'm too good?”

“That would be impossible.”

The suggestion of irony in Miss Fothergill's last remark was a little disturbing. When they had reached the end of the partie, which resulted in a heavy victory for Eustace, Miss Fothergill asked for her bag. Eustace found it and undid the clasp. Clearly the action had become second nature to him, for he performed it automatically. But to-night there was a furrow between his brows.

“Is it a great deal?” asked Miss Fothergill. “Have you ruined me? You look so distressed.”

“It isn't that,” said Eustace uncomfortably.

“You don't mind my being ruined?”

“Of course I should.... Only they say I oughtn't to play cards for money.”

“Who says so?”

“At home they do.”

“I noticed you hadn't come so often lately. Was that why you didn't come last week and only once the week before?”

Eustace did not answer.

“But there's nothing to object to, surely,” said Miss Fothergill, “in the arrangement we've made? I should have thought it was ideal. You don't mind having the money, do you?”

“No,” said Eustace, “I like it very much. Only they say I ought to be too proud to take it.”

“Oh, I think that's a trifle unreasonable.” Miss Fothergill's voice bubbled, as it always did when she was nervous or excited, and the mittened, swollen hand lying in her lap described a fidgety little circle. “What harm could a penny or two more a week possibly do you?”

“It's the principle of the thing,” said Eustace, evidently quoting something he had heard before on the lips of an indignant grown-up person. “It might get me into bad ways.”

Miss Fothergill sighed. “Well, well, let's play for love. But then I shan't be able to claim my side of the stakes. But perhaps they mind that too!”

“They don't, but——”

Eustace turned scarlet.

“But you do?”

Eustace jumped from his chair in an agony of denial. He had got used to the look of physical suffering that often crossed Miss Fothergill's face: it was present even in the photograph she had given him, taken many years ago. But he had never seen the expression of anger and mortification, like a disguise on a disguise, that transformed her features now.

“Of course not!” he cried. “Of course not! ... Why,” he said, thinking man-like that a reason would carry more weight than an asseveration, “I always kissed you, Miss Fothergill, long before we started to play piquet, long before” (he had a happy thought) “you asked me to, even! Don't you remember,” he said, innocently taking it for granted that of course she must, “it was under the mistletoe, that day you had the Christmas tree?”

Miss Fothergill's expression relaxed somewhat. “Yes,” she said, “I remember perfectly.”

“You didn't think,” said Eustace, subsiding with relief into his chair, “that I only kissed you because ... because ... it was part of the game?”

“No, of course not,” said Miss Fothergill. She spoke with an exaggerated composure which Eustace slightly resented: it suggested, somehow, that he had been wanting in taste to take up so strongly her challenge about the kisses. “I thought perhaps picquet was a rather grown-up game for you,” she went on, “and it might make it more ... more amusing if we each paid a forfeit when we lost—I sixpence a hundred and you—you——” Here Miss Fothergill's voice, which rarely failed her completely, dissolved into a bubbling.

“A kiss.” Eustace finished her sentence for her. “It was a very good plan, for me, you know—and it's always worked beautifully.”

Miss Fothergill smiled.

“Till now. I wonder why Helen didn't like it!” she added carelessly. “Perhaps she told you?”

Eustace stared at Miss Fothergill from under his lashes. He had not, he never would have, told her that it was Miss Grimshaw who had objected to the kisses. She had been helping him on with his coat but really she was only pretending to, for when it was half on she gave him a little shake that startled him very much and whispered so unkindly in his ear: “They won't catch me kissing you—or giving you half-crowns either.” For days he had been afraid she might do it again. The scene was re-enacted before his eyes while he looked at Miss Fothergill. She seemed amused, not at all angry.

“I didn't
say
it was Miss Grimshaw,” he said at last.

“No, but it was.”

Now, as often in the past, Eustace felt that the effort of finding the right thing to say was more than he could bear. At length he said:

“When you used to play with Miss Grimshaw”—he corrected himself—“when you play with her, do you have the same arrangement?” As Miss Fothergill did not answer, he went on, “I mean——”

But she interrupted him. “Yes, I understand what you mean. No, I don't think we did have that arrangement.”

“Well,” said Eustace soothingly, “I expect she wished you had, and that annoyed her.”

“Oh, she was annoyed?” asked Miss Fothergill, smiling.

“Well, not really,” said Eustace. “Not like Hilda would have been.”

“It is Hilda I have to thank for your coming here,” said Miss Fothergill, who seemed pleased to change the subject. “I wish she came oftener herself. She's only been twice.”

“She's not as fond of pleasure as I am,” said Eustace. “And she doesn't really like beautiful things or being shown pictures or talking about books.”

“Or playing cards?”

“No, she thinks that's a waste of time.”

“I hope she doesn't think I am a bad influence for you,” said Miss Fothergill lightly.

“Oh no, she doesn't really think that, nobody does.”

Miss Fothergill considered this remark and said: “A year ago she seemed so anxious you should come and see me.”

“She was,” said Eustace eagerly, “but that was because she thought I didn't want to—— No,” he took himself up, horrified even more by the explanations that must follow than by the indiscretion itself. Miss Fothergill's interruption saved him.

“But she is very fond of you, anyone can see that.”

“Oh yes, she is. They all are. But—I don't know how it is—if they see me really happy—for long together, I mean—they don't seem to like it.”

“And you're happy here?” said Miss Fothergill.

“Very,” said Eustace.

There was a long pause. Miss Fothergill stared into the fire, burning brightly in the steel grate that Eustace so much admired. Perhaps she saw a picture there. At last she turned to him.

“You mustn't come so often,” she said, “if that's the way your father and your aunt feel about it. I shan't be hurt, you understand.”

Eustace's face fell.

“But I wish you had some ... some other friends. What about the Staveley boy? Do you ever see him now?”

Eustace's face grew even longer.

“He wrote to Hilda at Christmas and asked her again to go riding with him but she wouldn't.”

“I wonder why. But couldn't you go without her?”

“He didn't ask me.”

“Well,” said Miss Fothergill, “don't let's feel sad about it. Perhaps you'll go to school soon and make a whole lot of new friends.”

“Daddy can't afford to send me to a good school,” Eustace said sorrowfully, “and Aunt Sarah won't let me go to a bad one.”

“She's quite right,” said Miss Fothergill. “Perhaps you'll find yourself at a good one one of these days. How old are you?” she asked gently.

“Nearly ten and a half. I'm getting on.”

Since his father's outburst Eustace always felt that he was older than he had a right to be.

Miss Fothergill seemed to make a calculation. Suddenly her face grew extremely sad. A stranger might not have noticed it, so odd was her habitual expression. She began to fumble in her bag.

“You'll take the two shillings this time?” she said, and Eustace expected to see her get the money from her purse; but it was her handkerchief she wanted. She blew her nose and then handed Eustace his winnings.

Immediately, though it was not in their contract, he got up and kissed her. There was a salt-tasting tear on her cheek. “Are you crying?” he asked.

“As you would say, ‘Not really,'” she replied. “I ought to be glad, oughtn't I, that I'm going to save so many shillings in future?”

Young as he was Eustace already experienced the awkwardness that falls between people when discharging debts of honour.

“But you'll let me kiss you all the same?” he said. “Once if I lose, twice if I win.”

Miss Fothergill did not answer for a moment. Then she said, “When am I going to see you again?”

Eustace suggested the day after to-morrow.

“I'm afraid I've got some people coming then,” Miss Fothergill said. The answer chilled Eustace. She had often, he knew, put off her other friends on his account but she had never put him off on theirs. “Let's look a little way ahead. What about Friday week?”

Eustace's face fell.

“Will you be busy all that time?”

“No, but I think perhaps you ought to be. You mustn't spend too long playing cards with an old woman.”

“It's what I like doing best,” said Eustace lugubriously.

“Let's say Wednesday then. Now ring the bell three times and someone will come and help you off the premises.”

This little ceremonial at his departure never failed to give Eustace exquisite pleasure. Even to press the electric bell—a luxury unknown at Cambo—was a delight.

“And say to your aunt,” said Miss Fothergill suddenly, “that we do other things besides play cards. You read poetry to me and play the piano and take me for walks and have been known to write my letters and I—well, I enjoy it all,” she concluded rather lamely.

“You do much more than that,” cried Eustace warmly, “you—you——” He saw Miss Fothergill looking at him expectantly. His heart was full of the benefits she had conferred on him, but his lips could not find words to name them. All about the room he was conscious of the influences—nourishing, refreshing, intoxicating —she had loosed in his direction. But he did not know in what currency of speech his debt could be acknowledged; and meantime the eager look on Miss Fothergill's face faded and changed to disappointment. “You have a civilising effect on me,” at last he managed to bring out. “Daddy said so.”

The situation was saved, for Miss Fothergill looked quite pleased. “In that case perhaps you could stay a little longer.”

“Ought I to keep Alice waiting?” asked Eustace, with a nervous glance towards the door.

“Run and tell her it was a false alarm.”

Eustace lingered a moment in the hall to apologise to Alice for having given her trouble for nothing. The complaisance with which she accepted his explanations made him stay longer. When he returned to the drawing-room he found Miss Grimshaw there. She was standing with her back to him, talking to Miss Fothergill, and did not turn her head when he came in. There was a moment's silence while he threaded his way through the little tables and came to a halt between the two women. Miss Grimshaw ignored his outstretched hand. She was looking fixedly at Miss Fothergill who said:

“I tell you it's nothing, Helen. I've often been like this before.”

Her mittened hands made a fumbling movement as though to bury themselves in the lace and lilac of her long, loose sleeves. Her bosom rose and fell quickly and her head was pressed against the chair-back. Eustace stared at her, fascinated.

“I shall telephone for the doctor,” Miss Grimshaw said. “Eustace, you had better run away now.”

Eustace looked from one to the other in doubt. Neither seemed conscious he was there, so lost were they in this new situation which seemed to shut him out. At last Miss Fothergill said, speaking less indistinctly than before:

“Let the boy stay, Helen. He can be with me while you telephone.”