Eustace and Hilda (23 page)

“Was it Hilda you meant?” he asked.

Mr. Craddock looked first amused and then rather serious.

“No, it wasn't Miss Hilda,” he answered, lowering his voice. “She's a good girl, don't you forget that. I like Miss Hilda more than many of them, and she's as pretty as a picture, or she will be one day. But no, I shouldn't want to be in her shoes.”

“Why not?” asked Eustace.

“She's going to have a rough deal, that's why,” said the driver, sinking his voice almost to a whisper.

Eustace did not know what a rough deal was; it sounded like something he ought to try to protect Hilda from. But to ask Mr. Craddock at this juncture might be taken as a reflection on his use of English. Besides Eustace wanted to guess the answer to his riddle.

“Would you like to be Aunt Sarah, or Minney, or Barbara?” he demanded all in a breath, just to make absolutely sure.

“No offence meant, but none of them,” said Mr. Craddock.

“But there isn't anyone else!” exclaimed Eustace.

“If you say there isn't, there isn't,” said Mr. Craddock, nor could all Eustace's persuasions induce him to advance another word. His sphinx-like profile gave no hint to what was passing through his mind. He seemed to be looking straight into the future. But after Eustace had sat for some time in the wounded silence that belongs to the hoaxed, he remarked in a solemn tone, and as one who opens up an entirely new subject: “I hear we shall be losing you before long.”

“Losing me?” repeated Eustace.

“Yes, they say we shan't have you with us much longer. I shall be sorry, I don't mind telling you. There are several we could spare better than you, mentioning no names. They just clutter up the streets, asking to be run over. But there, it's always the way, the best go first, even when it's only a boy, begging your pardon, Master Eustace.”

“Do you mean I'm going away?”

“A long way away by all accounts. We've all noticed you haven't been looking any too grand lately—kind of pinched, if you know what I mean. Anchorstone's said to be a health resort but it doesn't suit everyone, not by any means. My sister's boy was a healthy-looking little chap when they came here to live; in fact, he looked a lot stronger than you do. But he hadn't been with us a twelvemonth when his liver began to grow into his lights, and the doctors couldn't save him. He was just about your age when he was taken. Nice little chap too.” Mr. Craddock paused reflectively. “Miss Fothergill would have missed you, wouldn't she? But she's gone too, poor old lady, though I expect it was about time.”

Eustace turned pale and his lips began to tremble.

“Do you mean that I'm going to——?”

“Craddock, Craddock,” cried a voice from below, “excuse my breaking into your conversation, but will you go back the way we came? And, Eustace, do you mind changing places with Hilda, so that she can drive the last little bit?”

“I never said I wanted to drive,” remonstrated Hilda, “and it isn't fair to Eustace.”

“You know you always like to,” said Mr. Cherrington. “Up you go!”

Still shaking, Eustace took Hilda's place between his father and Miss Cherrington; and for the rest of the journey he said not a word. His father took his silence for pique, and playfully tried to coax him out of it. Beset with terrors as he was, Eustace felt he would have preferred a scolding. The sounds of their arrival at Cambo must have reached Annie in the kitchen, for she appeared at the door before they had time to open it. Her face was stiff with urgency and importance.

“Oh, Mr. Cherrington,” she said, “while you were out a gentleman called. He was dressed in black and wearing a top hat. He said he was staying at Laburnum Lodge, so I expect he brought a message from Miss Fothergill.”

“Come along, Eustace, bedtime now,” said Minney, and he heard no more.

“A gentleman in black with a message from Miss Fothergill.” The phrase repeated itself again and again in Eustace's mind, until to his overheated fancy it began to have a monstrous significance. When Minney came to say good-night he determined to confide to her something of the fear that was oppressing him. Even to approach the subject by word of mouth was a torture, but he felt sure that the mere act of telling her would charm it away. He couldn't bring himself, however, to say exactly what the nature of the fear was, so he reported the substance of Mr. Craddock's disturbing utterances on the box. “He said I was going away,” said Eustace as lightly as he could, “and that he wouldn't be seeing me any more. What did he mean by that?” But Minney, instead of making fun of him, seemed to get flustered and annoyed. “What does he know?” she demanded almost truculently. “He's only an old cabman. You shouldn't pay any attention to what he says, Master Eustace.” Master! Minney had never called him that before: it was another sign of the change that was taking the meaning out of all his relationships. “But he seemed so certain about it, Minney,” he persisted. “He even said he would be sorry to lose me.”

“There's others besides him that would be sorry,” retorted Minney. “The cheek of it!” Eustace could hear tears contending with indignation in her voice, and his heart sank.

“But it wasn't true, was it, Minney?” he urged. “I'm not going away, Minney, am I? I shall be here a long time yet, shan't I?” But Minney didn't answer him directly: she seemed to get more flurried and angry and unlike herself. “Silly old fool, talking like that to a child! Don't you worry, Master Eustace. It'll all come right. Go to sleep now, you'll have forgotten about it in the morning!”

And with that assurance she left him. But he was not satisfied and for the first time in his life he did not believe her. She was in the secret: she knew that he was going away. Now he understood why they all made such a fuss of him and asked him if he wanted this and that, and let him pay for tea, and tried to make him feel important and called him ‘Master.' It was because they knew, all of them except Hilda, that they were going to lose him. His thoughts kept snatching him back from the edge of sleep, and when he did drop off his dreams were haunted by a gentleman in black, bringing a message from Miss Fothergill; and the message, which was written on a piece of black-edged paper in a black bag he carried, said that Miss Fothergill was looking forward to meeting Eustace again very soon.

He awoke in the morning convinced that he was going to die.

A
S EUSTACE
tunnelled deeper into his obsession the acute terror passed and was replaced by a settled melancholy which did not interfere with the routine processes of his mind. He did his lessons, went for walks with Hilda and accompanied her on shopping expeditions with docility and punctuality; but they were the actions of a sleep-walker and had ceased to have the power of reality behind them. Like a servant under notice, he felt a sense of detachment from his present activities; their meaning, which postulated permanence, had gone out of them; and the centre of his life had moved to another plane of experience, a height as yet unfurnished with a landscape, from which he watched the Eustace of former days going through the motions of daily living. These activities were now utterly provisional; they no longer mattered—nothing mattered. This, for Eustace, whose whole outlook had been conditioned by the conviction that everything mattered, was the great change, the change which helped to make him almost unrecognisable to himself, the actual change, symbol of the change to come. And they all, except Hilda, seemed by their behaviour to accept the change as inevitable, just as he did. They looked at him differently and spoke to him differently, in prepared voices, he fancied, as though they had been in church. They fell in with his smallest whims, and even, as if disappointed that he had so few, invented for him small preferences and prejudices which, for fear of hurting their feelings, he did not like to disclaim.

Leading this posthumous existence Eustace felt lightened of all responsibility. Nothing mattered.... But to those who are accustomed to listen for it, the voice of conscience is not easily silenced; it goes on mumbling even if it cannot find anything to say. Eustace was aware of the menacing monotone, as of some large noxious insect trying to find its way in through a closed window, but its angry buzz did not greatly disturb him. The voice was still inarticulate. But, as ever, there was a part of him which was in league with the enemy, a traitor who wanted to open the gates.

Eustace awoke one morning to find that the foe had forced an entrance, taken possession, formulated its charge and, unusually practical, told him what he must do to placate it. Eustace did not put up a fight. The demand, unlike so many of them, had reason behind it; he might really have thought of it for himself, without any prompting from his vigilant adviser. It was something that people in his circumstances always did. He felt under the pillow for the watch Miss Fothergill had given him. He could just make out the time—five minutes to seven. He stared at the watch a moment longer. He had treasured it so much that it seemed to have become a part of him, an extension of his personality. Now it gave him a look so impersonal as to be almost unfriendly—the kind of look on the face of someone else's watch. His eyes growing accustomed to the light he could see his hairbrushes on the dressing-table. The fact that they were handle-less, a man's, had been a source of pride to him. Now they looked forlorn, unprized, reproachful. On the washing-stand lay the dark lump that was his sponge, and the white streak of his toothbrush.

Eustace pondered. It was not going to be easy.

“I don't think we'll do any lessons this morning,” said Miss Cherrington. “Eustace is looking a bit tired. Why don't you both go down and play on the sands? It's only ten o'clock so you'll have all the morning for it. You won't get many more days like this.”

Armed with their spades they started off across the ragged stretch of chalky green that intervened between Cambo and the cliffs. On their left the sun shone brightly with a promise of more than September warmth. Its loving touch lay on everything they looked at, but Eustace walked in silence, dragging his spade. “You won't get many more days like this.” Making for a gap in the broken fence they passed the threatening brown bulk of Mr. Johnson's school. A hum of voices came from it, the boys were lining up for physical exercises in the playground. Almost for the first time Eustace felt a twinge of envy mingle with the mistrust in which he habitually held them. Soon, stretching away to the right, came the familiar vista, the First Shelter, the Second Shelter, the rise in the ground that hid all but the red roof of the Third Shelter, and then the mysterious round white summit of the lighthouse. Even at this distance you could see the sun striking the great rainbow-coloured lantern within, a sight that seldom failed to move Eustace. But it did not move him to-day.

They stopped from habit among the penny-in-the-slot machines at the head of the concrete staircase which zigzagged its way majestically below, and looked down at the beach to see whether the rocks that formed the bastions of their pond had been appropriated by others. As they gazed their faces, even Eustace's, took on the intent forbidding look of a gamekeeper on the watch for poachers. No, the rocks were free—it was too early for marauders—and the beach was nearly deserted.

“A penny for your thoughts,” said Hilda.

Eustace started.

“If you give me the penny now, may I tell you my thoughts later on?”

Hilda considered.

“But you may be thinking something else then.”

“No, I shall still be thinking the same thing.”

“Very well, then.” Hilda produced a purse from the pocket half-way down her dress and gave him a penny. “But why do you want it now?”

Eustace looked rather shamefaced.

“I wanted to see how strong I was.”

He advanced cautiously upon the Try-Your-Grip machine. Flanked on one side by a bold-faced gipsy offering to tell your fortune, and on the other by an apparatus for giving you an electric shock, the Try-Your-Grip machine responded to Eustace's diffident inspection with a secret, surly expression. Dark green and battered, it had a disreputable air as indeed had all its neighbours, and Eustace vaguely felt that he was in bad company.

“I shouldn't try if I were you,” said Hilda, coming up behind him.

“Why not?”

“Oh, you never know what they might do. Besides, it's wasting money.”

Eustace thought she was right, but he had gone too far to retreat with self-respect. He had issued a challenge and the machine, withdrawn and sullen as it was, must have heard: Destiny, which had its eye on Eustace, must have heard too. ‘Moderate strength rings the bell; great strength returns the penny.' He pondered. After all, one never could be sure. Supposing the bell rang; supposing the penny were returned: wouldn't that prove something, wouldn't he feel different afterwards? He looked round. The green feathers of the tamarisk hedge were waving restlessly; he had liked them once but there was no comfort in them now, no comfort in the bow-windows, the beetling walls, the turrets and pinnacles of Palmerston Parade looking down on him: no comfort in the day.

He slipped the penny in the slot. The machine was cold and repellent to his touch; he screwed his face up and tried to give it a look as hostile as its own. Then he pressed his palm against the brass bar and curled his finger-tips, which would only just reach, round the inner handle, and pulled. The handle bit cruelly into his soft flesh; the indicator, vibrating wildly, travelled as far across the dial as the figure 10, and stopped, still flickering. Eustace saw that he must get it to 130 for the penny to be returned. Scarlet in the face he redoubled his efforts. The indicator began to lose ground. In desperation he was bringing up his left hand as a reinforcement when he heard Hilda's voice.

“That's against the rules! You're cheating!”