Eustace and Hilda (8 page)

Eustace loved the room, especially on mornings like this, when he was allowed to go into the bed Hilda had vacated and enjoy the less restricted view commanded by it. She would be shopping now; she was probably at Love's the butcher's, whose name they both thought so funny. He did not envy her that item in her list. He wondered if Nancy ever shopped. He could imagine her buying shoes and stockings and dresses of silk, satin and velvet, but he did not think she brought home the groceries, for instance, as he and Hilda often did. How she occupied herself most of the time was a mystery—a delightful mystery that it gave him increasing pleasure to try to solve. Only on rare occasions did she go down to the beach, as Eustace knew, for he always looked for her, and still more seldom was she to be seen on the cliffs. It was most unlikely that he would find her there this morning when he joined Hilda at the First Shelter, at twelve o'clock.

Just as he remembered this appointment Minney came in to tell him to get up. It was half-past eleven; how would he have time to wash his neck, clean his teeth and say his prayers?

Eustace was inwardly sure he would find time, unless he were held up by his prayers. During the last week or two they had presented a difficult problem. He wanted to include Nancy, if not in a special prayer, at any rate in the general comprehensive blessing at the end. This already included many people whom he did not like so much; he even had to mention Mr. Craddock's dog, simply because Hilda was fond of it. There could be no harm, surely, in adding Nancy's name. But when the moment arrived he always flinched. He had to say his prayers aloud, usually to Hilda, but always to somebody, and he knew instinctively that the mention of Nancy's name would give rise to inquiry and probably to protest. To offer a silent prayer on her behalf seemed underhand and shabby. God would not approve and Nancy, if she knew, would feel ill used. So he made a compromise; he said Nancy's prayer out loud, but he waited till he was alone to say it. Minney was helping him to dress and she clearly meant to stay on to make the bed after he was gone. An inspiration seized him.

“Minney, would you fetch my sand-shoes? I left them in the hall to dry.”

“What a good, thoughtful boy! Of course I will.”

Rather guiltily Eustace sank on to his knees and repeated very fast in a most audible voice: “Please God bless Nancy and make her a good girl for ever and ever. Amen.”

Hilda was duly waiting for him at the First Shelter. There were three shelters on the cliff between the steps down to the sea and the lighthouse, more than a mile away: not only did they mark distances to Eustace and Hilda with an authority no milestone could ever compass, but they also, similar though they were in all respects to the casual eye, possessed highly developed personalities which could never for a moment be confused.

“Do you think we shall get as far as the Third Shelter?” asked Eustace as they set out.

“We've got an hour; we might even get to the lighthouse if you don't dawdle,” said Hilda.

They walked along the path at a respectful distance from the edge of the cliff. Some sixty feet deep, it was very treacherous. Anchorstone was full of legends of unwary or foolhardy persons who had ventured too near the brink, felt the earth give way under them, and been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

“Gerald got as far as that once,” said Eustace, indicating a peculiarly dangerous-looking tuft of grass, between which and the true face of the cliff the weather had worked a deep trench, plain for all to see.

It was a thoughtless remark and Hilda pounced on it. “The more fool he,” she said.

That subject was closed. They continued their walk till they came to a storm-bent hedge which clung giddily to the uttermost verge of the cliff. Every year it surrendered something to the elements. But buffeted and curtailed as it was, it presented a magnificent picture of tenacity, and Eustace never saw it without a thrill. This morning, however, it lacked the splendid isolation in which he liked to imagine it. Someone was walking alongside it, perhaps two people. But Hilda had better eyes than he and cried at once, “There's Miss Fothergill and her companion.”

“Oh!” cried Eustace; “let's turn back.”

But the light of battle was in Hilda's eye.

“Why should we turn back? It's just the opportunity we've been looking for.”

“Perhaps you have,” said Eustace. “I haven't.”

He had already turned away from the approaching bath-chair and was tugging at Hilda's hand.

“The Bible says, ‘Sick and in prison and I visited you,'” Hilda quoted with considerable effect. “You've always been naughty about this, Eustace: it's the chief failing I've never been able to cure you of.”

“But she's so ugly,” protested Eustace.

“What difference does that make?”

“And she frightens me.”

“A big boy like you!”

“Her face is all crooked.”

“You haven't seen it—you always run away.”

“And her hands are all black.”

“Silly, that's only her gloves.”

“Yes, but they aren't proper hands, that's why she wears gloves. Annie told me.”

Annie was the Cherringtons' daily ‘help.'

“She ought to have known better.”

“Anyhow we've been told ever so often not to speak to strangers.”

“She isn't a stranger, she's always been here. And it doesn't matter as long as they're old and ... and ugly, and ill, like she is.”

“Perhaps she'll say, ‘Go away, you cheeky little boy. I don't want to talk to you. You want to beg, I suppose?' What shall I do then?”

“Of course she wouldn't. Ill people are never rude. Besides, she'll see me behind you.”

“But what shall I say to her?”

Hilda considered. “You always find plenty to say to Nancy.”

“Oh, but I couldn't say those sort of things to her.”

“Well, say ‘How do you do, Miss Fothergill? It's a nice day, isn't it? I thought perhaps you would like me to help to push your bath-chair.'”

“But I might upset her,” objected Eustace. “You know how I once upset Baby in the pram.”

“Oh, there wouldn't be any risk of that. Miss Fothergill's grown up—you'd only just be able to move her. Then you could say, ‘Aren't I lucky to be able to walk?'”

“Oh no,” said Eustace decisively. “She wouldn't like that.”

“Then think of something yourself.”

“But why don't you speak to her, Hilda? Wouldn't that do as well? It would really be better, because if I speak to her she'll think you don't want to.”

“It doesn't matter about me,” said Hilda. “I want her to see what good manners you've got.”

Eustace wriggled with obstinacy and irritation.

“But won't it be deceitful if I say how-do-you-do without meaning it? She won't know I'm doing it to please you and she'll think I'm politer than I really am. And Jesus will say I'm a whited-sepulchre like in that sermon we heard last Sunday. Besides, we are told to do good by stealth, not out in the open air.”

Hilda considered this. “I don't think Jesus would mind,” she said at last. “He always said we were to visit the sick, and that meant whether we wanted to or not. Those ministering children Minney read to us about were good because they visited the poor, the book didn't say they wanted to.”

“You don't know that Miss Fothergill is poor,” Eustace countered. “I don't think she can be, because she lives in that big house, you know, all by itself, with lovely dark green bushes all round it. Jesus never said we were to visit the rich.”

“Now you're only arguing,” said Hilda. “You said that about Jesus and not being polite on purpose because you don't want to do your duty. It isn't as if you were doing it for gain—that would be wrong, of course.”

“Of course,” said Eustace, horrified.

“She might give you a chocolate, though,” said Hilda, hoping to appeal to Eustace's charity through his appetite. “Old ladies like that often have some.”

“I don't want her nasty chocolates.”

“There, I knew you'd say something naughty soon. Here she comes; if you speak to her now she'll know you don't really want to, you look so cross; so you won't be deceiving her.”

Eustace's face began to wrinkle up. “Oh, Hilda, I can't!”

There was no time to be lost. Realising that argument and injunction had alike proved vain, Hilda adopted a new form of tactics—tactics, it may be said, she used but rarely.

“Oh, Eustace, please do it for my sake. Remember how I helped you with the toboggan yesterday, and how I always let you pat down the castles, though I am a girl, and I never mind playing horses with you, though Minney says I ought not to, at my age” (Hilda was much fonder of playing horses than Eustace), “and how Aunt Sarah said you wouldn't be anywhere without me. And if you don't mind how I feel just think of poor Miss Fothergill going home and saying to the housemaid, ‘I met such a dear little boy on the cliff this morning; he spoke to me so nicely, it's quite made me forget'—well, you know, her face and her hands and everything. ‘I think I shall ask him to tea and give him a lot of lovely cakes.'”

“Oh, that would be dreadful!” cried Eustace, much moved by Hilda's eloquence but appalled by the prospect evoked by her final sentence. “You wouldn't let me go, would you? Promise, and I'll speak to her now.”

“I won't promise, but I'll see.”

Hilda fell back a pace or two, rather with the gesture of an impresario introducing a prima-donna. Standing unnaturally straight and holding his arm out as though to lose no time in shaking hands, Eustace advanced to meet the oncoming bath-chair. Then he changed his mind, jerkily withdrew the hand and took off his hat. The bath-chair halted.

“Well, my little man,” said Miss Fothergill, “what can I do for you?” Her voice bubbled a little.

Eustace lost his head completely: the words died on his lips. Miss Fothergill's face was swathed in a thick veil, made yet more opaque by a plentiful sprinkling of large black spots. But even through this protection one could not but see her mouth—that dreadful wine-coloured mouth that went up sideways and, meeting a wrinkle half-way up her cheek, seemed to reach to her right eye. The eye was half closed, so she seemed to be winking at Eustace. His face registering everything he felt he hastily dropped his glance. Why was Miss Fothergill carrying a muff on this warm summer day? Suddenly he remembered why and his discomfiture increased. Feeling that there was no part of Miss Fothergill he could safely look at, he made his gaze describe a half-circle. Now it rested on her companion, who returned the look with a disconcerting, unrecognising stare. Eustace felt acutely embarrassed.

“Well?” said Miss Fothergill again. “Haven't you anything to say for yourself? Or did you just stop out of curiosity?”

Eustace was between two fires: he could feel Hilda's eyes boring into his back. “Please,” he began, “I wanted to say ‘How do you do, Miss Fothergill, isn't it a nice day?'”

“Very nice, but I don't think we know each other, do we?”

“Well, not yet,” said Eustace, “only I thought perhaps you would let me push your—your” (he didn't like to say ‘bath-chair') “invalid's carriage for you.”

Miss Fothergill tried to screw her head round to look at her companion, then seemed to remember she couldn't, and said, “You're very young to be starting work. Oughtn't you to be at school?”

Eustace took a nervous look at his darned blue jersey, and glancing over his shoulder at Hilda, pulled it down so hard that a small hole appeared at the shoulder.

“Oh, I have lessons at home,” he said, “with Hilda.” Again he glanced over his shoulder: if only she would come to his rescue! “She thought you might like——”

“This is very mysterious, Helen,” said Miss Fothergill, the words coming like little explosions from her wounded cheek. “Can you make it out? Does he want to earn sixpence by pushing me, or what is it?”

Eustace saw that she was under a misapprehension.

“Of course I should do it for nothing,” he said earnestly. “I have quite a lot of money in the Savings Bank, twenty-five pounds, and sixpence a week pocket money. You wouldn't have to do anything more than let me push you. If I was going to be paid, you would have had to ask me first, wouldn't you, instead of me asking you?”

Miss Fothergill's face made a movement which might have been interpreted as a smile.

“Have you tried before?”

“Well yes, with the pram, but you needn't be afraid because I only upset it on the kerbstone and there isn't one here.”

“I'm very heavy, you know.”

Eustace looked at her doubtfully.

“Not going downhill. It would be like a toboggan.”

“That would be too fast and my tobogganing days are over. Well, you can try if you like.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Eustace fervently. He turned to the companion. “Will you show me how?”

“I think you'd better keep a hand on it, Helen,” said Miss Fothergill. “I don't quite like to trust myself to a strange young man.”

With some slight hesitating reluctance the companion made way for Eustace, who braced himself valiantly to the task. The bath-chair moved forward jerkily. To his humiliation Eustace found himself clinging to the handle, instead of controlling it. They passed Hilda: she was gazing with feigned interest at the lighthouse.

“The path's a bit bumpy here,” he gasped.

“Well, St. Christopher, you mustn't complain.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Eustace, “but my name isn't Christopher, it's Eustace—Eustace Cherrington. And that girl we passed is my sister Hilda.”

“My name is Janet,” said Miss Fothergill, “and Helen's name is Miss Grimshaw. Are you going to leave your sister behind?”