The Fortunes of Springfield (19 page)

“You are too kind,” said Caroline, but the sarcasm was wasted, or seemed to be, on Miss Weedon. She went on dropping her slow drops of poison, and Caroline became more and more grim. So the whole village considered her a failure! And how had they learned that David had been asked to bring the children home? Was it through Duncan and Mrs. Drew and her friends? Or was it through David and Patricia and Mrs. Close and
her
friends? Or could it be by the chattering of the children themselves, for Miss Weedon certainly, and others probably, would not be above pumping the children for information. Caroline was fairly sure that Duncan would not have said anything; he might, though, have mentioned casually that the children had been unmanageable on holiday. But David? David was on the friendliest terms with Patricia, and he might have discussed the children with her, and then what more natural than that Patricia should go home and talk it over with her mother? After that, Caroline could imagine how it would go: “Oh yes, my dear, she was efficient enough as Mrs. Webster’s companion, but three lively and naughty children are a very different thing; and although the girls seem to have settled down fairly well, that young Terence gets worse and worse. He was always rude and sullen, but then there was that playing truant last term, and all his lies about it; and now this
...

Caroline determined that she would show them that she was no failure. Did everybody
thin
k
that? Did Duncan and David? Did David
think
that it might be a good thing if he could get somebody else in her place? Caroline felt an immense dejection. Miss Weedon had certainly done her work well.

Since the return from the seaside, Caroline had, with David’s help, fitted up a workshop for Terence in one of the outside sheds. There he worked on his models and it seemed to Caroline that as long as he was in there he was happy. Sometimes she found a few minutes to go in while he was working and watch him; and although he said nothing to her, she thought that he liked her interest. She decided that she would also ask David to get the boy a pony; and that she mi
gh
t ask Julian and John to come and stay for a while, without the rest of the Everton family, to give Terence another and more favourable chance of asserting his equality. But she mentioned the invitation to the twins to Terence first.

She mentioned it casually, when she was watching him sawing some wood in his little workshop.

“I expect Julian and John would love to have a place like this,” she said, “where they could keep all their own tools and things—their own private place.”

“I bet they would,” said Terence, struck by yet another aspect of his wonderful workshop.

“I expect they would love to come and see the farm,” went on Caroline. “After all, it’s an exciting place, isn’t
it?”

“They’ve only got a house and garden,” said Terence.

“We could ask them to come and stay for a few days.”

Terence scowled and went on sawing. After a few minutes, he said:

“I s’pose we could.”

“Only, of course, it wouldn’t be a bit of good asking them if you were all going to fight and squabble, the way you did at the seaside.”

Terence said nothing, and Caroline watched him working a little longer and then went away. She waited, hoping that he would approach her
hims
elf,
but he did not do so until two mornings later. Then, at breakfast, he said:

“I suppose we could ask Julian and John to stay here at the farm.”

Wendy looked up quickly.

“Oh yes, do let us ask Julian and John to stay.”

“
Too much fighting and naughtiness,” said Caroline
.

“But we wouldn’t fight and we wouldn’t be naughty. Would we, Babs? Would we, Terence?”

“No,” they both said at once. Caroline looked at Terence.

“Really?” she said. “You wouldn’t fight? You would show them what a fine place your Uncle David’s farm is? You would show them the stream and the quarry and all the animals, and be really nice and friendly?”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes wary, wondering if she was up to something.

“Then we’ll ask them,” said Caroline quietly. Wendy and Babs got excited and started asking lots of questions, but Terence slipped away to think it all over. He would show them everything—he would even show them his workshop, but they wouldn’t be allowed to touch anything in it. He would behave just as the twins did; and then, perhaps, when the twins went back to school, they might think (and the “they” included Caroline and Uncle David and anybody who had authority over
him)
that he could go to this school as well.

It was a beautiful, sparkling morning. The rain had stopped, but there were still puddles left along the side of the lanes, and muddy patches in the fields. The blackberries were wet. Mrs. Davis said they had no flavour then, but Terence tasted them and they seemed good to him. He climbed the stile into one of the big fields, and sat for a moment on the top to smell the lovely fresh smell of the earth and grass. Then he saw that Davis was already ploughing this field, from which the wheat had only recently been taken; ploughing in the short golden stubble. The tractor stood there, ticking over, while Davis was talking to old man Jones over the hedge. Terence noticed the tractor, but he did not notice the steep slope at the end of the field where it was necessary to turn the tractor sharply and skilfully. He remembered that he could tell Julian and John that he had driven the tractor; and suddenly, on impulse, and without a hint of naughtiness in
him
anywhere, he ran across the field and jumped up on the tractor. Davis and Jones went on talking, quite unaware of the boy. Terence knew how to start it—why, there was nothing in driving a tractor. Plenty of boys did it, but he didn’t know one
w
ho was not yet nine years old who did it. Highly pleased with himself, he felt the big
machine
move beneath him, and go forward. He was not even alarmed when it started to go down the slope. It was not until it was at a really dangerous point that he even thought of turning it, and then it was beyond his
small
strength. Suddenly, he was frightened, but he did not think of jumping off. He only thought that he ought to stop it, but he had forgotten how to stop it. And then the tractor pitched sharply into the copse at the bottom of the steep slope and Terence was flung clear.

Davis and Jones had heard the unusual note of
the
tractor as it went down the slope: they heard the cracking of the twigs and branches as it pitched into the copse.

“Gor,” said Davis, “my tractor’s run away.” And the two men ran after it, down the slope to the copse. Then they saw Terence, lying pale and apparently lifeless at the foot of a tree.

“Is he dead?”
asked Jones.

“God knows. Stay here while I run for help.” Davis started to run towards the house. His wife, seeing him coming, said to Caroline:

“Am I late with the morning tea for the men? Here’s Davis coming running for it.”

Davis appeared at the kitchen door.

“Accident with the tractor,” he said.
“
Terry seems to be hurt. Down the big field. I’m going for Mr. Springfield.”

Caroline’s heart leaped with shock. For a moment, her body was powerless to move. Then she ran. All the way to the big field, and over the rough stubble which pricked her ankles, and down the grassy slope towards the copse. Jones was there, watching over Terence. Caroline flew to him, and knelt down beside the b
o
y. He was very pale, very still. She put her fingers on his pulse, and, with a great relief, felt it move flutteringly. There was an ugly gash on one leg, but, feeling him tentatively, she did not
th
ink
any bones were broken. “Can we ca
rr
y him, miss?” asked Jones.

“Mr. Springfield is coming,” said Caroline. “We will wait for him.”

David arrived, his face anxious and concerned. He knelt down on the other side of Terence. His first concern too was for the fluttering pulse. He felt the boy, as Caroline had done, but more expertly, for broken bones.

“Arms and legs all right,” he said. “I don’t know about ribs or collarbones. I’ll carry him to the house.”

“I’ll go and get his bed ready.”

“And ring the doctor.”

“Yes,” said Caroline, hurrying ahead.

Mrs. Davis had taken charge of the two little girls and kept them out of the way. David and Caroline put
Terence to bed and waited for the arrival of the doctor. Caroline had put a rough dressing on the ugly leg wound, and sat by the bed in case Terence should regain consciousness.

The doctor was reassuring.

“Slight concussion,” he said. “As far as I can tell, two or three broken ribs. And this nasty gash, caused, I should think, by a spike or broken branch. Nothing really serious. Don’t worry too much. We’ll dress this wound for him. Do you want him to go to hospital?”

“I can look after him,” said Caroline.

“Yes, very well. We’d better get him X-rayed, but I think that can wait till tomorrow. I’ll come in again just before dinner this evening.” He gave Caroline a few instructions and then went away with David. Mrs. Davis appeared in the doorway, anxious for news, and said she could see to the lunch, and she would take Wendy and Babs back to the cottage with her, and bring them back and put them to bed at the proper time.

“You’re such a help to me,” whispered Caroline, and Mrs. Davis thought she was on the verge of tears. “Don’t worry, my dear. He’s going to be all right.” Caroline smiled a worried little smile.

“Yes, I hope so. I’ll sit with him up here. Would you bring me my darning basket?”

David came back when the doctor had left.

“Are you sure you can manage?” he asked. “Should we get a nurse?”

“I don’t think it is necessary,” she said. “Mrs. Davis and I can manage everything between us. I would like to look after him myself.”

He said no more then, and during the long afternoon Caroline sat by the boy’s bedside, hoping he would soon regain consciousness. She had her lunch there, and then her tea, and soon after that, he stirred and moaned and finally opened his eyes. But if he knew her, he made no sign, and he did not
t
ry to talk. Caroline smiled at him, smoothed his hair back off his forehead, and left him in peace. And when the doctor arrived later, Terence was sleeping,

“He’ll be all right,” said the doctor. “After a few days, he’ll be wanting to get up. Not that we’ll let him, but, you see, he’ll soon be convalescent.”

David said, when he had gone:

“What is happening about the girls?”

“Mrs. Davis is going to get them to bed.”

“Well, don’t worry about me. I’ll go along to the Green Lion. But what about you?
”

“Mrs. Davis will sit with Terence while I go and get some cold supper ready. And if you would be so
kin
d as to bring in the hall couch, I shall sleep on that tonight in here.”

“You will not. You will have a proper night’s rest. I’ll sit with the boy.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. I’ve often stayed awake all night to sail a boat, so I can do it to watch a sick boy.” He looked down at the angelic face of the sleeping Terence. “Whatever made him do it?” he wondered aloud.

“I don’t think he meant to be naughty,” said Caroline.

“Oh, Caroline,” he said, “you are hopeless. You never think he means to be naughty.”

He called me Caroline, she thought. Never had her name sounded so beautiful to her ears.

“But he was in a particularly good mood when he went out this morning,” she said. “We were really getting somewhere. He had
asked to have Julian and John to stay with him here and he had promised to be friendly and show them everything on the farm, and not to fight and squabble. That was a terrific advance. And now this.” She looked and sounded desolate and sad. “And I suppose by now everybody in the village knows of Terence’s latest escapade, and they all think he did it in a fit of mischief; and they are all confirmed in their opinion that I am a complete failure.”

So, he thought, she has heard too what all the old busybodies are saying.

“What does it matter what village gossips say?” he asked her.

“You too thought he did it in naughtiness. You too think that I have failed with him.”

“I?” He turned to face her fully. “I
think
you are a failure? What nonsense.” He held out his two
hands
to her, and when she took them he pulled her up out of her chair. “What gives you that idea?”

“You had to come and fetch us from Janice’s.”

“What of it? One setback doesn’t make a failure. Do you want to know what I think you are, Caroline?” She waited in silence. He let her hands go, and, instead, held her face between his two strong palms.

“I do not think you are a failure,” he said. “I
thin
k
you are the nicest person to set foot in Springfield for many years. I think you have given all your energies to this house and this family, and nobody is in a better position to judge of that than I am. You have been discouraged and had nobody to turn to. Take as little notice of the gossips as I do, Caroline. You
think
that all your efforts have not been appreciated, but that is hot true. I appreciate you, Caroline. Very much.”