The Guardians

by John Christopher

  “What about holovision?”

  Mike made a face. “Good God, no!” He put a hand on Rob’s shoulder. “You’ll soon get the hang of it.”

  • • •

  Mr. Gifford was a taciturn, rather awesome figure. When he spoke it was in a clipped fashion which Rob thought at first indicated disapproval. He tried to keep out of his way as much as possible. This was made easier by the fact that Mr. Gifford spent a great deal of time in the conservatory pursuing his hobby: the growing and cultivation of miniature trees.

  About a week after his arrival Rob found the conservatory empty and ventured inside. Mike was with the family doctor who had arrived, his bag strapped to the saddle of a magnificent black horse, to give him a checkup. There were rows of shelves with little trees in pots and also a Lilliputian landscape with a stream running through a forest of oak and fir, maple and beech and elm, to a lake where tiny weeping willows trailed their leaves in the water.

  The running stream in particular was fascinating. Rob could hear a faint hum and confirmed his suspicion: the water was being kept in circulation by an electric pump. This must be another of the cases where technology was permitted to intrude. It was gradually beginning to make a sort of sense. Gadgets must be kept to the bedroom and bathroom and the servants’ quarter. Where they were allowed into the house proper they had to be for some special purpose which was regarded as suitable. Such as landscaping in miniature. He heard the door open behind him and turned in alarm to see Mr. Gifford coming in.

  “I haven’t touched anything, sir. I was just looking,” Rob explained.

  “Are you interested in bonsai?” Mr. Gifford asked.

  “Do you mean these trees? Yes, but I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

  It was enough to set Mr. Gifford off. Reticence disappeared; his speech was clipped still but tumbling over itself in explanation and demonstration. It had not, Rob realized, been disapproval so much as shyness. He showed him the different methods of propagation: from seed, from cuttings, or by layering. Seeding was the best method, but the slowest. You never got the same elegance of root shape with the other forms. The root was the key to good bonsai. You had to trim them with great care in winter when you repotted the tree. Then there was pinching and pruning—always the former for preference rather than the latter. A bud pinched out gently by thumb and forefinger or with small blunt forceps left no mark. When you pruned there was a stump which marred the natural elegance of the tree.

  Then there was training. When the sap was running you could either bend or straighten the branches or the trunk by staking or weighting them, or by anchoring them to stiff wires. When you put weight on to depress a branch, you needed a counterweight on the other side of the trunk to prevent the roots from lifting. He showed Rob an oak with a split trunk, dropping down on either side of its pot.

  “Only five years old.” He shook his head. “I don’t do much of that sort of thing—forced trailing. Unnatural, I always think. Now, this is different.”

  He led the way across the room. Mr. Gifford pointed to the artificial landscape. “See the brow of the hill? I’ve assumed a prevailing wind. Westerly. Catches the trees just there. You see they’re all windswept? All leaning the same way. Of course they’ve never been in a wind, a breeze even. That’s all done by pot training.”

  “It’s very realistic.”

  “Isn’t it! Isn’t it? I’m glad you’re so interested. Come in here whenever you like. You can do some of your own if you want to.”

  Rob thanked him.

  “Layering’s best if you want something to show early,” Mr. Gifford said. “You young people are all impatient. Chinese layering’s very easy. Instead of taking the branch down to the soil you take the soil up to the branch. Find a shapely tip of tree, cut a strip of bark all around where you want it to root, and tie a pack of wet sphagnum moss and compost around it. May take a year or two for roots to form, but you’ll get a tree which would take ten or more to raise from seed. This one here . . .”

  • • •

  There was no difficulty in getting on with Mike’s sister, Cecily. She was eleven, a slim dark girl, resembling Mike only in the blueness of her eyes. She was a great talker—to the family, the servants, the various cats and dogs that wandered in and out of the house. She had a pleasant voice, high and musical. It was her curiosity Rob found a bit trying. She was delighted with her new cousin but also intrigued. She wanted to know everything about him. Mrs. Gifford chided her for asking personal questions but Rob could see, from the rebellious look in her eyes, that this was not going to have any permanent effect. Eventually she would get him on his own and try again.

  He found help in the library. This was a room about fifteen feet by twenty-five, its walls almost completely lined with glass-fronted cases that reached up nearly to the high ceiling patterned with rosettes. The cases were full of books, nearly all bound in leather. There were thousands—more than the entire stock of the Public Library, and all for the use of one small family.

  At the moment, he realized with a mixture of surprise and satisfaction, for his own personal use. None of the family seemed to go there and he could browse without interruption. He did this particularly when Mike was occupied with his tutor, and sat for hours reading in an armchair by one of the tall pointed-arch windows.

  The books were various but had one thing in common: none had been published within the last thirty or forty years. There was a great emphasis on country sports and activities—volume after volume on fly-fishing, hunting, and all aspects of the care and riding of horses. There was also a good concentration of ancient biography—memoirs of the landed gentry and of those who had lived abroad in the days of the colonies. This gave Rob an idea and he searched for works dealing with Nepal. He found several and read them carefully, making mental notes. When Cecily cornered him, he was ready for her.

  The references were all at least half a century out of date, some twice that, but according to Mrs. Gifford it was a part of the world whose rulers had chosen to keep primitive so one could hope that there had been not much change. Rob told her about the villages clinging to the sides of hills, themselves overshadowed by the snowy majesty of the peaks of the Himalayas. He spoke of oxen ploughing the stony fields and the shaggy yak which really came from Tibet, of spring when all manner of flowers—scarlet poinsettia, mauve ageratum, trumpet-flowered datura—burst forth from the earth and bloomed, of the burning summers and the freezing winters.

  Cecily clapped her hands in delight. “How wonderful!” she said. “How could you bear to leave it?”

  Later Mike said, grinning, “That must have been a very impressive account you gave Ciss of life in the East. She insisted on telling it all to me—what she could remember.”

  “I may have overdone it a bit.”

  “You convinced her, anyway. Did you make it all up?”

  He told him about the books he had found. Mike nodded. “A good idea, that.”

  “Why aren’t there any recent books?” Rob asked. “I know books are no longer printed in the Conurbs, but surely it’s different here? I mean, you have private libraries.”

  “I should think enough have been published already. You’d need a lifetime to read them. And there are so many other things to do. We probably don’t want any more.”

  “Does no one write books now?”

  “Not books as such. Some people write essays, poems, that sort of thing.” He spoke with tolerant lack of interest. “They produce them privately, just a few copies for friends. Handwritten, a lot of them. Very pretty to look at.”

  • • •

  He got on all right with Mr. Gifford and Cecily and of course Mike, less well with Mrs. Gifford and the servants. In some ways the servants made him more uneasy than she did. He could not come to terms with their deference and had the feeling that they were laughing at him behind his back, even that they guessed the truth and were biding their time before reporting him.

  There was Harry, f
or instance, the head groom. He had taken charge of Rob’s lessons in horse riding, accepting his complete lack of ability without a query or demur. He was a harsh taskmaster, relentlessly drawing attention to faults and weaknesses. His tone in the paddock was stern and sometimes angry. Rob resented it even when he knew it was justified. And he was baffled by the change which took place outside, by being called “Master Rob” and saluted with hand to forelock by this little bandy-legged man who was older than his father had been. Mike obviously saw nothing strange, no conflict between the two attitudes, but Rob could not understand it.

  Mrs. Gifford, too, was a formidable proposition. She treated him with every sign of kindness but he could not be sure of her. He had come to realize that hers was the really important influence—respect was paid to Mr. Gifford as head of the house but he left all decisions in her hands—and he did not know what she would eventually decide about him. What perhaps she already had decided, but kept concealed behind the unbroken facade of calm good manners.

  She gave him a part of her time every day to coach him in the way he was required to behave. There was an awful lot of this—how to address ladies, how to enter a room, how to walk or stand or bow, how to eat and drink, what sort of things to say in polite conversation and what must not be said. She corrected his mistakes and pointed out things he had done wrong during the previous day, not with the roughness and anger of the groom but with a cool decisiveness that could be even more disconcerting. At times, when she smiled and praised him for something, he thought she liked him; at others he was sure she detested him as a nuisance. He came to dread the visits to the little parlor where she sat over her embroidery, yet also in an odd way to look forward to them. When she did praise him it was exhilarating.

  She told him one evening that he had been accepted for entry to the school to which Mike also would return in the autumn.

  “Do I have to go, Aunt Margaret?”

  “Of course. That is the reason we have given for your being sent back from Nepal.”

  He had forgotten that. He was silent, thinking about it. Another way of life to get used to: more and more problems. There was no end to them.

  As though reading his thoughts, Mrs. Gifford said, “You must not expect it to be easy, Rob. If you are to pass as one of us you are going to have to work very hard at it. Very hard indeed.”

  • • •

  He had been introduced to a number of people—neighbors, the family doctor, the vet when he called to see a lame horse—and had got by. He had been nervous, but either Mike or Mrs. Gifford had been at hand to help him. There was a more severe ordeal when he had been with the family three weeks: the Giffords gave a garden party.

  Giving and receiving hospitality was one of the main occupations of the gentry. There had already been several evening functions—for drinks or supper—which he and Mike were left out of on account of age. Garden parties, though, were afternoon occasions, with children present and the beverages nonalcoholic. There would be more than two hundred guests for this one.

  It was to be held out of doors if possible. There had been several days of cold cloudiness and intermittent blowing rain but it cleared and the day was fine. A marquee had been set up on the lawn, and carriages began rolling up the drive just before three.

  Rob stood with the family and was introduced to guests as they arrived. They were all elegantly dressed. The ladies wore flowing silk and chiffon gowns with big gay fantastic hats, the men tail-jacketed suits, gray top hats, and flowers in their buttonholes. Mrs. Gifford gave him quiet instruction on people as they approached, and he bowed and shook hands with them as he had been taught, and made brief smiling replies to their comments.

  After the reception he was released from duty but had to stay and mingle with the crowd. A small gymkhana was held in the paddock, where jumps had been put up, and he watched Mike take fourth place on Captain. He was jumping against men and his round was greeted with applause. He doffed his riding cap in response. Watching, Rob envied him—not the success but the fact of belonging so completely. However much he learned and copied, he knew he would always be outside this world, a stranger.

  People drifted away from the paddock in the direction of the refreshment marquee and Rob went with them. There would be other sports later: archery and canoeing on the river. He was thinking of lemonade, made, unlike that in the Conurbs, with real lemons, when he was hailed.

  There were two men, one middle aged, the other quite old. It was the first of these, a squat powerful figure with a curling moustache and a deep cleft in his chin who had called his name, and Rob recognized him. Mrs. Gifford had identified him as Sir Percy Gregory, Lord Lieutenant of the County and an important figure. The other man, taller and white haired, he vaguely remembered as one of a group that had passed down the line. Rob made a small bow, and said, “Did you want me, sir?”

  “This is the lad, Harcourt.” Sir Percy nodded to his companion. “Maggie Gifford’s cousin’s boy.”

  Harcourt nodded also. He had small sharp eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles: contact lenses for men was another thing not customary in the County.

  “From Nepal, Sir Percy tells me. It’s a small world. I lived out there for a time myself as a young man.” He smiled wintrily. “That’s a few years ago, of course.”

  Rob hoped he was not showing his dismay. He looked for Mrs. Gifford but there was no sign of her. He realized the two men were watching him and tried to smile.

  “It’s a big country, of course,” Harcourt said. “Over fifty thousand square miles.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rob said gratefully.

  The relief was short lived.

  “Which is your neighborhood?” Harcourt asked.

  He thought desperately of the most detailed of the books he had read, unfortunately not the most recent, and said:

  “Katmandu.”

  “I was a year there,” Harcourt said. “Do you know the Dennings?”

  Rob made the swift decision that it was safer to deny than affirm an acquaintance which could lead to more, and more difficult questions. He felt it was the wrong one, though, when Harcourt’s brow furrowed and he said, “Odd. They’ve lived there a couple of hundred years.”

  Harcourt went on talking about Katmandu, occasionally putting queries which Rob dealt with as best he could. He had the sinking feeling that his best was not very good. Harcourt’s tone seemed critical, and he thought Sir Percy looked at him in a probing doubtful way. He became confused and stammered over his answers.

  “Notice anything about the way he speaks—his accent?” Harcourt said.

  “There’s something unusual,” Sir Percy replied.

  Rob braced himself. It had been foolish to think he could get away with it. He wondered if they would send police to take him now or wait until after the garden party.

  “Very unusual,” Harcourt said. He gave a little crow of laughter. “Typical Nepalese settler twang. Old Dumbo Denning spoke just the same way. I suppose he’s dead, and that boy of his pushed off somewhere.” He shook his head. “People get forgotten.”

  “That’s true,” Sir Percy said. He gave Rob a nod of dismissal. “Let’s go and see if we can find a cup of tea.”

  7

  The Revolutionaries

  IT WAS A GOOD SUMMER. Day after day came blue and hot, the mornings occasionally misty but the sun breaking clear after an hour or two and scorching through the afternoon to a calm warm sunset. Once or twice clouds built up and there was rolling thunder, brief torrential rain, and the land washed clean and brilliant. No one under fifty could remember a season as fine, and even the older ones admitted it compared well with the dazzling summers of their youth.

  There were plenty of things to do. Rob had a horse of his own, a dapple-gray mare called Sonnet, and he ranged the countryside on it with Mike. Almost every week there was a show somewhere, with flowers, fruit and vegetables, all carefully hand grown, arranged for judging in long tents heavy with the mixture of their fragrances. There w
as always a riding event, as well. Rob did not enter for these—he had learned to ride adequately but with no special skill—but watched Mike carry off several prizes. Then there was a regatta, held on the river near Oxford, with individual sculling and various team events including the bump races in which boats started at timed intervals and eliminated each other by closing the gap in front. There was cricket, a game forgotten in the Conurb but whose slowness and formality and restfulness seemed well suited to the life of the County and to the succession of hot summer days. There were fairs and parties.

  One party centered on the major archery contest of the year. It was held nearly twenty miles from Gifford House, and Mike and Rob rode over the day before and slept in a tented camp that had been put up in the park of Old Hall. This was the home of the Lord Lieutenant, Sir Percy Gregory, the sponsor of the contest, himself a keen archer.

  It was a sport that Rob found he particularly enjoyed. Mike beat him, as he did in everything, but the margin was not so great. Rob said, in the morning, that he thought of entering in their age group. Mike looked surprised but said, “Why not? A good idea, really.”

  The suggestion had been made on impulse and Rob later was inclined to withdraw it. Quite apart from his lack of skill, it seemed wiser to keep in the background. He was accepted as Mike’s cousin from the East but there was no point in drawing attention to himself unnecessarily. He voiced his doubts to Mike, who disagreed.

  “More conspicuous if you don’t go in for anything, I should think. There’ll be a whole mob competing.”

  There were six heats before the final and Mike and Rob were not drawn together. Mike came in second in his heat, Rob third in his, barely qualifying by a single point over the boy in fourth place.

  But he had been improving all the time. In the final his eye was in and he felt relaxed. He wound up with a couple of golds, which raised applause. He finished third in the event. Mike, shooting later, was erratic and came eleventh.