“They were on the landing windowsill,” explained righteous Mrs. Thirsk.
“I think that was a very nice thought,” Astrid said unexpectedly. The rest, David included, stared at her in astonishment. Astrid went rather red. “Flowers are always a nice thought,” she said.
“It was pure disobedience,” said Cousin Ronald.
“I’m sure David was only trying to please,” said Astrid. “There’s never any pleasing you, Ronald. Can’t you tell a nice thought when you see one?”
“My geraniums are not a nice thought,” said Cousin Ronald. “And that jug is valuable.”
“You can go to bed, boy,” said Uncle Bernard. “Here and now.”
“Without supper?” David said, truly dismayed.
“Exactly,” said Aunt Dot.
David got up to go. But he did not see why Mr. Chew should get away with his bullying. “Mr. Chew told me to pick them,” he said.
“None of your lies,” said Cousin Ronald. “Chew is an excellent fellow.”
“If you ask me, he’s more like the Abominable Snowman,” said Astrid.
“We were not asking you,” said Uncle Bernard. “Leave the room, David.”
David trailed to the door, past triumphant Mrs. Thirsk. Behind him, Astrid said: “You deprive him of supper just because of a bunch of flowers! To hear you, you’d think geraniums were more important than people!”
As David walked upstairs, there was a clamor of voices in the dining room, suggesting that everyone, down to Mrs. Thirsk, had turned on Astrid. David had known them do that before from time to time. He trailed to his room. Mr. Chew was still gardening away outside, so there was no possibility of fetching Luke for company. David began a long barren evening—no Luke, no doodles, no supper.
Almost no supper. Two hours or so later, someone thumped on the door. David answered it with a forsaken mutter and hoped they would go away. To his surprise, Astrid put her head round the door, looking rather white and red round the eyes. “Here,” she said. “I can’t see you go hungry. Catch!”
David caught—in the slips it would have counted as a very good catch—a large packet of biscuits. “Thanks,” he said.
“Don’t mench,” said Astrid. “I can’t stay. Dot says to remind you to bring Luke tomorrow.” Before David could tell her this was impossible, Astrid had gone.
When your bed is full of biscuit crumbs, you wake early. David woke very early, among crumbs, sunshine and birdsong, and went at once to the window in hopes that Mr. Chew had not yet arrived.
Mr. Chew was there. He was standing in the middle of the dewy lawn, talking to another man. David, as Luke had done the day before, got himself away from the center of the window at once and looked at them round the edge of the curtain. The other man had his back to the house, and what David could see of him looked ordinary and respectable enough. He was taller than Mr. Chew and nothing like so wide, and he was wearing the kind of dark suit that Cousin Ronald’s friends usually wore. But Cousin Ronald’s friends did not usually walk in the dew with Mr. Chew.
Mr. Chew was doing most of the talking. David saw him wave one great arm up the garden and suspected he was telling the other man about the rebuilt wall. Then, after more gestures, he swung round and pointed at the house, straight at David’s window. The stranger turned to look. David saw nothing of what followed, because he was pressed against the wall beside the window hoping he had not been seen. When he dared to look again, the stranger had gone. Mr. Chew was digging viciously at a rose bed, and the only living things near him were some big black birds watching the spade for worms.
“You think you’ve got me, don’t you?” David said to the distant Mr. Chew. “Well, you’re wrong. You’ve not got me, and you’ve not got Luke either. I’ll get out this morning. You’ll see.”
A vow like this is easy to make but not so easy to fulfill. For what seemed ages, David hung about after breakfast, waiting for Mr. Chew’s attention to be fixed elsewhere, but, at the same time, he did not dare let Aunt Dot see him, because he was in his jeans, now very grubby and comfortable indeed. Aunt Dot was anxious to see him. David heard her say several times: “Where is David? I want him to bring his friend here.”
“I did remind him, Dot,” Astrid said.
“It is not merely reminding David needs,” Aunt Dot replied. “If he is to remember a thing, it must be dinned in his ears.”
David had several narrow escapes while Aunt Dot irritably searched for him. But at last what he had been hoping for happened. Cousin Ronald marched masterfully up the garden to tell Mr. Chew how to spray roses. Mr. Chew pushed his dirty hat back, scratched his wiry hair, and gave Cousin Ronald his attention. David pelted for the front door.
“David!” said Aunt Dot from the rear.
This is the kind of summons you ignore. David slammed the front door, shot down the drive and was out of the gate before the echoes from the door had died away. Down the road he went, a hurried jog-trot, with the matches rattling on his hip, wondering where it would be safe to strike one and fetch Luke. Courteous old Mr. Fry had caught someone else that morning. He was waving his rose-spray earnestly while he talked to a man in a dark suit, who was leaning with one hand on Mr. Fry’s gate, nodding and smiling pleasantly at Mr. Fry.
Something about the shape of that dark suit caused David’s steps to slow, then to halt altogether. It could have been the man who was talking to Mr. Chew. Not quite sure, David stood still, about a wicket-length away.
Mr. Fry saw him and waved the rose-spray. “Good morning, my young friend!”
The man leaning on the gate turned, casually and pleasantly, to see who Mr. Fry was calling to. His face was perfectly pleasant. But David’s stomach pitched about, because the way he turned was the same as the way he had turned when Mr. Chew pointed to David’s window.
“Morning,” David called to Mr. Fry. Then, with his hands in his pockets, he turned and sauntered back the way he had come. He tried to look casual and carefree, but he was seething with frustration and rather frightened too. The road was a dead end. The only way out was past Mr. Fry’s house, and the stranger was posted there. No wonder Mr. Chew could afford to give Cousin Ronald his attention.
Miserably, David went back into the house and pulled the door shut. Miserably, he trudged up to his room and sat on his bed, wondering how he was to get out of the house and warn Luke there were now two people after him. He simply could not see how to do it.
As he sat there, he heard voices downstairs. He could tell that Aunt Dot was still looking for him to make him fetch Luke. Fetch Luke! It was just like Aunt Dot to make things really difficult. The best thing was to stay quiet and hope she gave up.
But a minute later, hurried feet pounded on the stairs. Someone gave a hasty bang at his door and burst in. It was Astrid.
“Oh, there you are!” she said. “Thank goodness! Quick, get into those good clothes, or Dot’ll eat us both, and then make haste to the drawing room. You’re wanted.”
“All right.” Sighing, David stood up.
“Hurry!” said Astrid. “She’ll come herself in a minute!”
David hurried, feeling that this was all he needed to make this the worst day of the holiday. Three minutes later, he was ready and Astrid was rapidly brushing his hair, with hard prickly swipes. “There,” she said. “Now run.”
“Drawing room?” David asked, puzzled. It was a big stiffly furnished room in the front of the house where he was very seldom allowed to go.
“Yes,” said Astrid. “And run.”
David did not exactly see the need to run, but he went fairly swiftly downstairs and quite briskly into the drawing room. There he stopped as if he had walked into a wall. The stranger in the dark suit turned toward him with a pleasant smile. He was standing in the middle of the room, quite at his ease. Around him, Aunt Dot, Uncle Bernard and Cousin Ronald did not look at ease at all. Cousin Ronald looked almost ill, yellow and pinched and much more like Uncle Bernard than usual.
“Good morning, David,” sa
id the stranger pleasantly.
“David,” said Cousin Ronald, “this is Mr. Wedding. He has come to take you out to lunch.”
8
MR. WEDDING
“How do you do?” David said hopelessly.
Mr. Wedding held out his hand. “I hope,” he said, as David took hold of it, “you’ll give me the pleasure of your company. Your guardians have agreed.”
David tried to muster the rather large amount of courage it was going to take to refuse. To help muster it, he looked up into Mr. Wedding’s face. He was thoroughly taken aback to find that, close to, it was the kind of face he could not help liking. It was an agreeable, firm face, not young and not old, and rather lined. These lines, combined with a strange, searching way Mr. Wedding had of looking, made David feel he would like to get to know Mr. Wedding—although he also had a feeling that it would be rather difficult to do so.
“I do advise you to come,” Mr. Wedding said. He said it amiably, even laughingly, but there was a good hint of warning to it too. He was letting David know that there was going to be trouble if he refused, because Mr. Wedding had somehow got David’s relations on his side. But the most perplexing thing was the way David found himself wanting to go with Mr. Wedding, and very pleased to be asked. He struggled for a moment, and then found he had to give in.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’d love to come.”
His relations began telling him he was to mind his manners and remember to thank Mr. Wedding afterward. While they talked, David bit his tongue hard and told himself that this Mr. Wedding was certainly an enemy of Luke’s and he must be careful what he said to him.
Mr. Wedding’s car was waiting outside the front gate. It was big, white and expensive, with a lady chauffeur at the wheel. She smiled at David as Mr. Wedding opened the rear door for him to get in, and David smiled back. She was one of the prettiest ladies he had ever seen.
“I think we’ll go out to Wallsey,” Mr. Wedding said to her. “That suit you?” he asked David.
“I think so,” said David. “At least, I’ve never been.” He had heard of the place, of course, but he had no real idea where it was or what it was like.
“Wallsey,” said Mr. Wedding, and got in beside David.
The way to Wallsey seemed to be through the center of Ashbury. Before long, David saw Trubitt’s and, on the other side of the street, the black-windowed shell of the burned building. He could not resist craning his head round to have another look at the damage. When he turned back, he found Mr. Wedding watching him. David felt his face going scarlet, because he had let Mr. Wedding see he was interested in the building; but some of his shame was the way he had caused so much damage simply by a careless word to Luke. He was afraid Mr. Wedding was going to ask him about it, but Mr. Wedding said nothing. They drove out of Ashbury.
“You know,” said Mr. Wedding at last, “I really know next to nothing about you, David. Could you tell me about yourself?”
David sensed danger. “I—I don’t think there’s anything to tell,” he said.
“School?” suggested Mr. Wedding. “You go away to school?”
This was harmless enough, and nothing to do with Luke. David admitted he went away to school. But Mr. Wedding seemed interested. He asked so many questions and understood David’s answers so readily, that before long David was telling him all about the French master everyone thought was mad, friends, enemies, food, cricket; the time the whole class made groaning noises behind old Didgett’s back, books, cricket; the day he and Kent got locked in the pavilion, cricket; the punch-up with 3B, and cricket again. It was a long way to Wallsey. David had plenty of time to tell Mr. Wedding how he had taken five wickets against Radley House, and, because Mr. Wedding evidently appreciated his cunning, he described the ball which had defeated each batsman: off-break, leg-break, and the quicker one that got in under the bat and uprooted the middle stump.
While he was describing the fifth wicket, which had really been something of an accident, David noticed that the countryside he could see from the windows of the car was strange and wild. There were steep hills, very green grass, and waterfalls dashing down past pine trees. It reminded him a little of Norway, or the Lakes. He turned to ask Mr. Wedding where they were.
Before he could ask, Mr. Wedding said: “We’re nearly there now. Look.”
There was a wide, misty lake ahead, and a green island in the lake. A long arching bridge led from the land to the island, held up by a spiderweb of girders. As the car rumbled up the arch, the sun shone in through the bright ironwork, breaking up into hundreds of rainbow colors which half dazzled David. He was still blinking when the car stopped and they got out at what seemed to be an inn. The lady drove the car away, and Mr. Wedding led David to a table outside in the sun, where there was a view over the misty lake to the brown hills beyond it.
“What would you like to drink?” said Mr. Wedding.
“Milk shake, please,” said David.
The barman brought it at once, and beer for Mr. Wedding. Mr. Wedding sat down at the table and stretched, as if he found it pleasant to relax, and David sat down opposite him feeling anything but relaxed. This must be where Mr. Wedding got down to business.
But no. “I don’t much care for those people you live with,” said Mr. Wedding. “Do you?”
While he was speaking, David tasted the milk shake. It left him little attention for anything else. Never had he tasted anything so marvelous. He wondered how Mr. Wedding could prefer beer. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t like them either.”
“But you have to live with them?” said Mr. Wedding.
“Yes,” said David. “When they don’t send me off somewhere. And,” he continued bitterly—and whether it was the effect of the milk shake, or the strange clear air on the lake, or the fact that he now seemed to know Mr. Wedding so well that made him say it, he did not know—“and I’m supposed to be grateful. I wouldn’t mind them nagging so much, or being boring, or forbidding things, or going on about manners and sending me to bed without supper all the time, if only I didn’t have to be grateful all the time. I am grateful. They do look after me all right. But I wish I didn’t have to be.”
Mr. Wedding thought about this, drumming his fingers on his beer mug. “I’m not sure you do have to be grateful,” he said at last.
David looked up from the milk shake in astonishment. “You’re joking,” he said doubtfully.
Mr. Wedding shook his head. “No. I’m quite in earnest. Look at it this way. You’re still a child, and you can’t earn your living or look after yourself properly. When you were younger, you could do it even less. All children are the same. So the law says that someone has to look after you until you can do it for yourself—your guardians in your case. And there’s another law which says that when you drop a stone it falls to the ground. Are you grateful to that stone for falling, or does the stone ask the earth to be grateful?”
“I—oh—” David felt there was something missing from this. “But people aren’t stones.”
“Of course not. And if people do anything over and above the law, then you can be grateful if you want. But no one should ask it of you.”
“I see,” said David. “Yes. Thanks.” As he sucked the last bubbles of the milk shake loudly up the straw, he thought about what Mr. Wedding had said, and it was like having a huge weight slowly levered off his back. He felt lighter and lighter, and happier and happier. “Thank you, Mr. Wedding.”
“If you’ve finished that stuff,” said Mr. Wedding, “you might come and look at the river.”
The river thundered over green rocks just beyond the inn, wonderfully clear, with the sun making moving circles on the stones at the bottom. David only waited to ask before he had his shoes and socks off and his prickly trousers rolled up and had bounded into the cool water. It ran so briskly that it stood up in fans beside his legs. There were shells on the bottom of a kind he had never seen before, and stones like round jewels. Blissfully, David waded, threw stones, collected
others and picked up shells, until Mr. Wedding strolled down the bank and said it was time for lunch. David put his collection of shells and stones in his pocket and his socks and shoes back on, and they went back to the inn. There they had the most magnificent food David had ever eaten. He ate so much that he had to sit rather carefully afterward.
Finally, Mr. Wedding pushed his chair back and looked at David in a way that was different and difficult. David abruptly forgot that he had overeaten.
“David,” said Mr. Wedding, “I’m very anxious to find someone whom I imagine goes by the name of Luke. Can you help me at all?”
“No,” said David. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wedding. I can’t.”
“Perhaps you mean you won’t?” suggested Mr. Wedding.
“Yes, but I still can’t,” David said.
“But there must be one or two things you can tell me,” Mr. Wedding said thoughtfully. “For instance, how you came to let Luke out. I thought I was the only one who knew how to do that.”
“I did it by accident, trying to curse,” said David.
Mr. Wedding laughed. He threw back his head and laughed very heartily, but David, all the same, had a notion that Mr. Wedding was not amused—or not quite in the way he or Luke were when they laughed. “You did it by accident!” he said. “I wish I believed in accidents. Where is Luke now?”
“I don’t know,” David said truthfully.
“But you can find him when you want to?” said Mr. Wedding.
Before David had decided what to say to that, a swirl of black pinions was beating the sky over his head. He ducked and put one arm up, but the creature passed him and landed with a heavy clack on the table beside Mr. Wedding’s coffee cup. It was a great black crow. “That gave me a shock!” he said. The crow glanced at him over its shoulder and then looked up at Mr. Wedding.
It said something. David knew it said something, though he could not catch the words.
“It talks,” he said, fascinated.
“Just a moment,” said Mr. Wedding. “Where?”
The crow said something else.
Eight Days of Luke Page 7