Eustace and Hilda (32 page)

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 cleansed 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?

Then he would see where he stood; she had sacrificed her pride by writing to him at all, she wouldn't throw away the rest by pretending she wanted to see him. Instinctively she knew that however rude and ungracious the letter, he would want to see her just the same.

Hilda was staring at the letter when there came a loud knock on the door, repeated twice with growing imperiousness before she had time to answer.

“Yes?” she shouted.

“Oh, Hilda, can I come in?”

“No, you can't.”

“Why not?”

“I'm busy, that's why.”

Eustace's tone gathered urgency and became almost menacing as he said:

“Well, you've got to come down because Daddy said so. He wants you to take my snapshot.”

“I can't. I couldn't anyhow because the film's used up.”

“Shall I go out and buy some? You see, it's very important, it's like a change of life. They want a record of me.”

“They can go on wanting, for all I care.”

“Oh, Hilda, I shan't be here for you to photograph this time next Thursday week.”

“Yes, you will, you see if you're not.”

“Don't you want to remember what I look like?”

“No, I don't. Go away, go away, you're driving me mad.”

She heard his footsteps retreating from the door. Wretchedly she turned to the letter. It looked blurred and misty, and a tear fell on it. Hilda had no blotting-paper, and soon the tear-drop, absorbing the ink, began to turn blue at the edges.

‘He mustn't see that,' she thought, and taking another sheet began to copy the letter out. ‘Dear Mr. Staveley...' But she did not like what she had written; it was out of key with her present mood. She took another sheet and began again:

‘Dear Mr. Staveley, My brother Eustace and I are now free...' That wouldn't do. Recklessly she snatched another sheet, and then another. ‘Dear Mr. Staveley, Dear Mr. Staveley.' Strangely enough, with the repetition of the words he seemed to become almost dear; the warmth of dearness crept into her lonely, miserable heart and softly spread there—‘Dear Richard,' she wrote, and then, ‘Dear Dick.' ‘Dear' meant something to her now; it meant that Dick was someone of whom she could ask a favour without reserve.

She sat for a moment looking at the letter, then with an angry and despairing sigh she crossed out ‘sincerely' and wrote ‘affectionately.' But the word ‘sincerely' was still legible, even to a casual glance; so she again tried to delete it, this time with so much vehemence that her pen almost went through the paper.

Sitting back, she fell into a mood of bitter musing. She saw the letter piling up behind her like a huge cliff, unscalable, taking away the sunlight, cutting off retreat. She dared not read it through but thrust it into an envelope, addressed and stamped it in a daze, and ran downstairs.

Eustace and his father were sitting together; the others had gone. Eustace kept looking at his new suit and fingering it as though to make sure it was real. They both jumped as they heard the door bang, and exchanged man-to-man glances.

“She seems in a great hurry,” said Mr. Cherrington.

“Oh yes, Hilda's always like that. She never gives things time to settle.”

“You'll miss her, won't you?”

“Oh, of
course
,” said Eustace. “I shall be quite unconscionable.” It was the new suit that said the word; Eustace knew the word was wrong and hurried on.

“Of course, it wouldn't do for her to be with me there, even if she could be, in a boys' school, I mean, because she would see me being, well, you know, tortured, and that would upset her terribly. Besides, the other fellows would think she was bossing me, though I don't.”

“You don't?”

“Oh no, it's quite right at her time of life, but, of course, it couldn't go on always. They would laugh at me, for one thing.”

“If they did,” said Mr. Cherrington, “it's because they don't know Hilda. Perhaps it's a good thing she's going to school herself.”

“Oh, she
is
?” Eustace had been so wrapped up in his own concerns that he had forgotten the threat which hung over Hilda, But was it a threat or a promise? Ought he to feel glad for her sake or sorry? He couldn't decide, and as it was natural for his mind to feel things as either nice or nasty, which meant right or wrong, of course, but one didn't always know that at the time, he couldn't easily entertain a mixed emotion, and the question of Hilda's future wasn't very real to him.

“Yes,” his father was saying, “we only got the letter this morning, telling us we could get her in. The school is very full but they are making an exception for her, as a favour to Dr. Waghorn, your headmaster.”

“Then it must be a good school,” exclaimed Eustace, “if it's at all like mine.”

“Yes, St. Willibald's is a pretty good school,” said his father carelessly. “It isn't so far from yours, either; just round the North Foreland. I shouldn't be surprised if you couldn't see each other with a telescope.”

Eustace's eyes sparkled, then he looked anxious. “Do you think they'll have a white horse on their hats?” Mr. Cherrington laughed. “I'm afraid I couldn't tell you that.” Eustace shook his head, and said earnestly:

“I hope they won't try to copy us too much. Boys and girls should be kept separate, shouldn't they?” He thought for a moment and his brow cleared. “Of course, there was Lady Godiva.”

“I'm afraid I don't see the connection,” said his father.

“Well, she rode on a white horse.” Eustace didn't like being called on to explain what he meant. “But only with nothing on.” He paused. “Hilda will have to get some new clothes now, won't she? She'll have to have them tried on.” His eye brightened; he liked to see Hilda freshly adorned.

“Yes, and there's no time to lose. I've spoken to your aunt, Eustace, and she agrees with me that you're the right person to break the news to Hilda. We think it'll come better from you. Companions in adversity and all that, you know.”

Eustace's mouth fell open.

“Oh, Daddy, I couldn't. She'd—I don't know what she might not do. She's so funny with me now, anyway. She might almost go off her rocker.”

“Not if you approach her tactfully.”

“Well, I'll try,” said Eustace. “Perhaps the day after tomorrow.”

“No, tell her this afternoon.”

“Fains I, Daddy. Couldn't
you
? It
is
your afternoon off.”

“Yes, and I want a little peace. Listen, isn't that Hilda coming in? Now run away and get your jumping-poles and go down on the beach.”

They heard the front door open and shut; it wasn't quite a slam but near enough to show that Hilda was in the state of mind in which things slipped easily from her fingers.

Each with grave news to tell the other, and neither knowing how, they started for the beach. Eustace's jumping-pole was a stout rod of bamboo, prettily ringed and patterned with spots like a leopard. By stretching his hand up he could nearly reach the top; he might have been a bear trying to climb up a ragged staff. As they walked across the green that sloped down to the cliff he planted the pole in front of him and took practice leaps over any obstacle that showed itself—a brick it might be, or a bit of fencing, or the cart-track which ran just below the square. Hilda's jumping-pole was made of wood, and much longer than Eustace's; near to the end it tapered slightly and then swelled out again, like a broom-handle. It was the kind of pole used by real pole-jumpers at athletic events, and she did not play about with it but saved her energy for when it should be needed. The January sun still spread a pearly radiance round them; it hung over the sea, quite low down, and was already beginning to cast fiery reflections on the water. The day was not cold for January, and Eustace was well wrapped up, but his bare knees felt the chill rising from the ground, and he said to Hilda:

“Of course, trousers would be much warmer.”

She made no answer but quickened her pace so that Eustace had to run between his jumps. He had never known her so preoccupied before.

In silence they reached the edge of the cliff and the spiked railing at the head of the concrete staircase. A glance showed them the sea was coming in. It had that purposeful look and the sands were dry in front of it. A line of foam, like a border of white braid, was curling round the outermost rocks.

Except for an occasional crunch their black beach-shoes made no sound on the sand-strewn steps. Eustace let his pole slide from one to the other, pleased with the rhythmic tapping.

“Oh, don't do that, Eustace. You have no pity on my poor nerves.”

“I'm so sorry, Hilda.”

But a moment later, changing her mind as visibly as if she were passing an apple from one hand to the other, she said, “You can, if you like. I don't really mind.”

Obediently Eustace resumed his tapping but it now gave him the feeling of something done under sufferance and was not so much fun. He was quite glad when they came to the bottom of the steps and the tapping stopped.

Here, under the cliff, the sand was pale and fine and powdery; it lay in craters inches deep and was useless for jumping, for the pole could get no purchase on such a treacherous foundation; it turned in mid-air and the jumper came down heavily on one side or the other. So they hurried down to the beach proper, where the sand was brown and close and firm, and were soon among the smooth, seaweed-coated rocks which bestrewed the shore like a vast colony of sleeping seals.

Eustace was rapidly and insensibly turning into a chamois or an ibex when he checked himself and remembered that, for the task that lay before him, some other pretence might be more helpful. An ibex
could
break the news to a sister-ibex that she was to go to boarding school in a few days' time, but there would be nothing tactful, subtle, or imaginative in such a method of disclosure; he might almost as well tell her himself. They had reached their favourite jumping ground and he took his stand on a rock, wondering and perplexed.