Eustace and Hilda

by L. P. Hartley

  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.

  So we can come any time you like, and would you be quick and ask us because Eustace will go to school, so there’s no time to lose.

  Yours sincerely,

  HILDA CHERRINGTON

  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.

  Dear Dick,

  I do not know if you will remember me. I am the sister of Eustace Cherrington who was a little boy then and he was ill at your house and when you came to our house to ask after him you kindly invited us to go and see you. But we couldn’t because Eustace was too delicate. And you saw us again last summer on the sands and told Eustace about the money Miss Fothergill had left him but it hasn’t done him any good, I’m afraid, he still wants to go to school because other boys do but I would much rather he stayed at home and didn’t get like them. If you haven’t forgotten, you will remember you said I had been a good sister to him, much better than Nancy Steptoe is to Gerald. You said you would like to have me for a sister even when your own sister was there. You may not have heard but he is motherless and I have been a mother to him and it would be a great pity I’m sure you would agree if at this critical state of his development my influence was taken away. You may not remember but if you do you will recollect that you said you would pretend to be a cripple so that I could come and talk to you and play games with you like Eustace did with Miss Fothergill. There is no need for that because we can both walk over quite easily any day and the sooner the better otherwise Eustace will go to school. He is having his Sunday suit tried on at this moment so there is no time to lose. I shall be very pleased to come any time you want me and so will Eustace and we will do anything you want. I am quite brave Eustace says and do not mind strange experiences as long as they are for someone else’s good. That is why I am writing to you now.

  With my kind regards,

  Yours sincerely,

  HILDA CHERRINGTON

  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 kno
w 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.

  “Let’s begin with the Cliffs of Dover,” he said. The Cliffs of Dover, so called because a sprinkling of barnacles gave it a whitish look, was a somewhat craggy boulder about six feet away. Giving a good foothold it was their traditional first hole, and not only Hilda but Eustace could clear the distance easily. When he had alighted on it, feet together, with the soft springy pressure that was so intimately satisfying, he pulled his pole out of the sand and stepped down to let Hilda do her jump. Hilda landed on the Cliffs of Dover with the negligent grace of an alighting eagle; and, as always, Eustace, who had a feeling for style, had to fight back a twinge of envy.

  “Now the Needles,” he said. “You go first.” The Needles was both more precipitous and further away, and there was only one spot on it where you could safely make a landing. Eustace occasionally muffed it, but Hilda never; what was his consternation therefore to see her swerve in mid-leap, fumble for a foothold, and slide off on to the sand.

  “Oh, hard luck, sir!” exclaimed Eustace. The remark fell flat. He followed her in silence and made a rather heavy-footed but successful landing.

  “You’re one up,” said Hilda. They scored as in golf over a course of eighteen jumps, and when Hilda had won usually played the bye before beginning another round on a different set of rocks. Thus, the miniature but exciting landscape of mountain, plain and lake (for many of the rocks stood in deep pools, starfish-haunted) was continually changing.

  Eustace won the first round at the nineteenth rock. He could hardly believe it. Only once before had he beaten Hilda, and that occasion was so long ago that all he could remember of it was the faint, sweet feeling of triumph. In dreams, on the other hand, he was quite frequently victorious. The experience then was poignantly delightful, utterly beyond anything obtainable in daily life. But he got a whiff of it now. Muffled to a dull suggestion of itself, like some dainty eaten with a heavy cold, it was still the divine elixir.

  Hilda did not seem to realise how momentous her defeat was, nor, happily, did she seem to mind. Could she have lost on purpose? Eustace wondered. She was thoughtful and abstracted. Eustace simply had to say something.

  “Your sand-shoes are very worn, Hilda,” he said. “They slipped every time. You must get another pair.”

  She gave him a rather sad smile, and he added tentatively:

  “I expect the ibex sheds its hoofs like its antlers. You’re just going through one of those times.”

  “Oh, so that’s what we’re playing,” said Hilda, but there was a touch of languor in her manner, as well as scorn.

  “Yes, but we can play something else,” said Eustace. Trying to think of a new pretence, he began to make scratches with his pole on the smooth sand. The words ‘St. Ninian’s’ started to take shape. Quickly he obliterated them with his foot, but they had given him an idea. They had given Hilda an idea, too.

  He remarked as they moved to their new course, “I might be a boy going to school for the first time.”

  “You might be,” replied Hilda, “but you’re not.”

  Eustace was not unduly disconcerted.

  “Well, let’s pretend I am, and then we can change the names of the rocks, to suit.”

  The incoming tide had reached their second centre, and its advancing ripples were curling round the bases of the rocks.

  “Let’s re-christen this one,” said Eustace, poised on the first tee. “You kick off. It used to be ‘Aconcagua,’” he reminded her.

  “All right,” said Hilda, “call it Cambo.”

  Vaguely Eustace wondered why she had chosen the name of their house, but he was so intent on putting ideas into her head that he did not notice she was trying to put them into his.

  “Bags I this one for St. Ninian’s,” he ventured, naming a not too distant boulder. Hilda winced elaborately.

  “Mind you don’t fall off,” was all she said.

  “Oh, no. It’s my honour, isn’t it?” asked Eustace diffidently. He jumped.

  Perhaps it was the responsibility of having chosen a name unacceptable to Hilda, perhaps it was just the perversity of Fate; anyhow, he missed his aim. His feet skidded on the slippery seaweed and when h
e righted himself he was standing in water up to his ankles.

  “Now we must go home,” said Hilda. In a flash Eustace saw his plan going to ruin. There would be no more rocks to name; he might have to tell her the news outright.

  “Oh, please not, Hilda, please not. Let’s have a few more jumps. They make my feet warm, they really do. Besides, there’s something I want to say to you.”

  To his astonishment Hilda agreed at once.

  “I oughtn’t to let you,” she said, “but I’ll put your feet into mustard and hot water, privately, in the bath-room.”

  “Crikey! That would be fun.”

  “And I have something to say to you, too.”

  “Is it something nice?”

  “You’ll think so,” said Hilda darkly.

  “Tell me now.”

  “No, afterwards. Only you’ll have to pretend to be a boy who isn’t going to school. Now hurry up.”

  They were both standing on Cambo with the water swirling round them.

  “Say ‘Fains I’ if you’d like me to christen the next one,” said Eustace hopefully. “It used to be called the Inchcape Rock.”

  “No,” said Hilda slowly, and in a voice so doom-laden that anyone less preoccupied than Eustace might have seen her drift. “I’m going to call it ‘Anchorstone Hall.’”

  “Good egg!” said Eustace. “Look, there’s Dick standing on it. Mind you don’t knock him off!”

  Involuntarily Hilda closed her eyes against Dick’s image. She missed her take-off and dropped a foot short of the rock, knee-deep in water.

  “Oh, poor Hilda!” Eustace cried, aghast.

  But wading back to the rock she turned to him an excited, radiant face.

  “Now it will be mustard and water for us both.”

  “How ripping!” Eustace wriggled with delight. “That’ll be something to tell them at St. Ninian’s. I’m sure none of the other men have sisters who dare jump into the whole North Sea!”

  “Quick, quick!” said Hilda. “Your turn.”

  Anchorstone Hall was by now awash, but Eustace landed easily. The fear of getting his feet wet being removed by the simple process of having got them wet, he felt gloriously free and ready to tell anyone anything.