Eustace’s mouth fell open.
‘Oh, Daddy, I couldn’t. She’d—I don’t know 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 to-morrow.’
‘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 realize 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 sandshoes 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, perha
ps it was just the perversity of Fate; anyhow, he missed his aim. His feet skidded on the slippery seaweed and when he 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 bathroom.’
‘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.
‘All square!’ he announced. ‘All square and one to play. Do you know what I am going to call this one?’ He pointed to a forbiddingly bare, black rock, round which the water surged, and when Hilda quite graciously said she didn’t, he added:
‘But first you must pretend to be a girl who’s going to school.’
‘Anything to pacify you,’ Hilda said.
‘Now I’ll tell you. It’s St. Willibald’s. Do you want to know why?’
‘Not specially,’ said Hilda. ‘It sounds such a silly name. Why should Willie be bald?’ When they had laughed their fill at this joke, Eustace said:
‘It’s got something to do with you. It’s . . . well, you’ll know all about it later on.’
‘I hope I shan’t,’ said Hilda loftily. ‘It isn’t worth the trouble of a pretence. Was this all you were going to tell me?’
‘Yes, you see it’s the name of your school.’
Hilda stared at him. ‘My school? What do you mean, my school? Me a school-mistress? You must be mad.’
Eustace had not foreseen this complication.
‘Not a school-mistress, Hilda,’ he gasped. ‘You wouldn’t be old enough yet. No, a schoolgirl, like I’m going to be a schoolboy.’
‘A schoolgirl?’ repeated Hilda. ‘A schoolgirl?’ she echoed in a still more tragic voice. ‘Who said so?’ she challenged him.
‘Well, Daddy did. They all did, while you were upstairs. Daddy told me to tell you. It’s quite settled.’
Thoughts chased each other across Hilda’s face, thoughts that were incomprehensible to Eustace. They only told him that she was not as angry as he thought she would be, perhaps not angry at all. He couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t, but the relief was overwhelming.
‘We shall go away almost on the same day,’ he said. ‘Won’t that be fun? I mean it would be much worse if one of us didn’t. And we shall be quite near to each other, in Kent. It’s called the Garden of England. That’s a nice name. You’re glad, aren’t you?’
Her eyes, swimming with happy tears, told him she was; but he could hardly believe it, and her trembling lips vouchsafed no word. He felt he must distract her.
‘You were going to tell me something, Hilda. What was it?’
She looked at him enigmatically, and the smile playing on her lips restored them to speech.
‘Oh, that? That was nothing.’
‘But it must have been something,’ Eustace persisted. ‘You said it was something I should like. Please tell me.’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said, ‘now that I am going to school.’ Her voice deepened and took on its faraway tone. ‘You will never know what I meant to do for you—how I nearly sacrificed all my happiness.’
‘Will anyone know?’ asked Eustace.
He saw he had made a false step. Hilda turned pale and a look of terror came into her eyes, all the more frightening because Hilda was never frightened. So absorbed had she been by the horrors that the letter would lead to, so thankful that the horrors were now removed, that she had forgotten the letter itself. Yes. Someone would know. . . .
Timidly Eustace repeated his question.
The pole bent beneath Hilda’s weight and her knuckles went as white as her face.
‘Oh, don’t nag me, Eustace! Can’t you see? . . . What’s the time?’ she asked sharply. ‘I’ve forgotten my watch.’
‘But you never forget it, Hilda.’
‘Fool, I tell you I have forgotten it! What’s the time?’
Eustace’s head bent towards the pocket in his waistline where his watch was lodged, and he answered with maddening slowness, anxious to get the time exactly right:
‘One minute to four.’
‘And when does the post go?’
‘A quarter past, But you know that better than I do, Hilda.’
‘Idiot, they might have changed it.’ She stiffened. The skies might fall but Eustace must be given his instructions.
‘Listen, I’ve got something to do. You go straight home, slowly, mind, and tell them to get the bath water hot and ask Minney for the mustard.’
‘How topping, Hilda! What fun we shall have.’
‘Yes, it must be boiling. I shall hurry on in front of you, and you mustn’t look to see which way I go.’
‘Oh, no, Hilda.’
‘Here’s my pole. You can jump with it if you’re careful. I shan’t be long.’
‘But, Hilda——’
There was no answer. She was gone, and he dared not turn round to call her.
A pole trailing from either hand, Eustace fixed his eyes on the waves and conscientiously walked backwards, so that he should not see her. Presently he stumbled against a stone and nearly fell. Righting himself he resumed his crab-like progress, but more slowly than before. Why had Hilda gone off like that? He could not guess, and it was a secret into which he must not pry. His sense of the inviolability of Hilda’s feelings was a sine qua non of their relationship.
The tracks traced by the two poles, his and Hilda’s, made a pattern that began to fascinate him. Parallel straight lines, he knew, were such that even if they were produced to infinity they could not meet. The idea of infinity pleased Eustace, and he dwelt on it for some time. But these lines were not straight; they followed a serpentine course, bulging at times and then narrowing, like a boa-constrictor that has swallowed a donkey. Perhaps with a little manipulation they could be made to meet.
He drew the lines closer. Yes, it looked as though they might converge. But would it be safe to try to make them when a law of Euclid said they couldn’t?
A backward glance satisfied Hilda that Eustace was following her instructions. Her heart wa
rmed to him. How obedient he was, in spite of everything. The tumult in her feelings came back, disappointment, relief, and dread struggling with each other. Disappointment that her plan had miscarried; relief that it had miscarried; dread that she would be too late to spare herself an unbearable humiliation.
She ran, taking a short cut across the sands, going by the promenade where the cliffs were lower. She flashed past the Bank with its polished granite pillars, so much admired by Eustace. Soon she was in the heart of the town.
The big hand of the post office clock was leaning on the quarter. Breathless, she went in. Behind the counter stood a girl she did not know.
‘Please can you give me back the letter I posted this afternoon?’
‘I’m afraid not, Miss. We’re not allowed to.’
‘Please do it this once. It’s very important that the letter shouldn’t go.’
The girl—she was not more than twenty herself—stared at the beautiful, agitated face, imperious, unused to pleading, the tall figure, the bosom that rose and fell, and it scarcely seemed to her that Hilda was a child.
‘I could ask the postmaster.’
‘No, please don’t do that, I’d rather you didn’t. It’s a letter that I. . . regret having written.’ A wild look came into Hilda’s eye; she fumbled in her pocket.
‘If I pay a fine may I have it back?’
How pretty she is, the girl thought. She seems thoroughly upset. Something stirred in her, and she moved towards the door of the letter box.
‘I oughtn’t to, you know. Who would the letter be to?’
‘It’s a gentleman.’ Hilda spoke with an effort.
I thought so, the girl said to herself; and she unlocked the door of the letter box.
‘What would the name be?’
The name was on Hilda’s lips, but she checked it and stood speechless.
‘Couldn’t you let me look myself?’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m afraid that would be against regulations. They might give me the sack.’
‘Oh, please, just this once. I. . . I shall never write to him again.’
The assistant’s heart was touched. ‘You made a mistake, then,’ she said.
The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley Page 57