Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

Hilda had not left her place at the luncheon table, nor had she taken her eyes off her plate. Without looking up she said:

‘He’ll soon get thin if he goes to school, if that’s what you want.’

‘ If he goes,’ said Mr. Cherrington. ‘Of course he’s going. Why do you suppose we took him to London to Faith Brothers if he wasn’t? All the same, I’m not sure we ought to have got his clothes off the peg. . . . Now go and have a look at yourself, Eustace. Mind the glass doesn’t break.’

Laughing, but half afraid of what he might see, Eustace tiptoed to the mirror. There stood his new personality, years older than a moment ago. The Eton collar, the black jacket cut like a man’s, the dark grey trousers that he could feel through his stockings, caressing his calves, made a veritable mantle of manhood. A host of new sensations, adult, prideful, standing no nonsense, coursed through him. Involuntarily, he tilted his head back and frowned, as though he were considering a leg-break that might dismiss R. H. Spooner.

‘What a pity he hasn’t got the cap,’ said Minney admiringly.

Eustace half turned his head. ‘It’s because of the crest, the White Horse of Kent. You see, if they let a common public tailor make that, anyone might wear it.’

‘Don’t call people common, please Eustace, even a tailor.’

‘I didn’t mean common in a nasty way, Aunt Sarah. Common just means anyone. It might mean me or even you.’

Hoping to change the subject, Minney dived into a cardboard box, noisily rustling the tissue paper.

‘But we’ve got the straw hat. Put that on, Master Eustace. . . . There, Mr. Cherrington, doesn’t he look nice?’

‘Not so much on the back of your head, Eustace, or you’ll look like Ally Sloper. That’s better.’

‘I wish it had a guard,’ sighed Eustace, longingly.

‘Oh well, one thing at a time.’

‘And of course it hasn’t got the school band yet. It’s blue, you know, with a white horse.’

‘What, another?’

‘Oh, no, the same one, Daddy. You are silly.’

‘Don’t call your father silly, please, Eustace.’

‘Oh, let him, this once. . . . Now take your hat off, Eustace, and bow.’

Eustace did so.

‘Now say “Please sir, it wasn’t my fault”.’

Eustace did not quite catch what his father said.

‘Please, sir, it was my fault.’

‘No, no. Wasn’t my fault.’

‘Oh, I see, Daddy. Please, sir, it wasn’t my fault. But I expect it would have been really. It nearly always is.’

‘People will think it is, if you say so. Now say “That’s all very well, old chap, but this time it’s my turn”.’

Eustace repeated the phrase, imitating his father’s intonation and dégagé man-of-the-world air; then he said:

‘What would it be my turn to do, Daddy?’

‘Well, what do you think?’ When Eustace couldn’t think, his father said: ‘Ask Minney.’

Minney was mystified but tried to carry it off.

‘They do say one good turn deserves another,’ she said, shaking her head wisely.

‘That’s the right answer as far as it goes. Your Aunt knows what I mean, Eustace, but she won’t tell us.’

‘I don’t think you should teach the boy to say such things, Alfred, even in fun. It’s an expression they use in a. . . in a public house, Eustace.’

Eustace gave his father a look of mingled admiration and reproach which Mr. Cherrington answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

‘Between you you’ll make an old woman of the boy. Good Lord, at his age, I. . .’ he broke off, his tone implying that at ten years old he had little left to learn.’ Now stand up, Eustace, and don’t stick your tummy out.’

Eustace obeyed.

‘Shoulders back.’

‘Head up.’

‘Don’t bend those knees.’

‘Don’t arch your back.’

Each command set up in Eustace a brief spasm ending in rigidity, and soon his neck, back, and shoulders were a network of wrinkles. Miss Cherrington and Minney rushed forward.

‘Give me a pin, please Minney, the left shoulder still droops.’

‘There’s too much fullness at the neck now, Miss Cherrington. Wait a moment, I’ll pin it.’

‘It’s the back that’s the worst, Minney. I can get my hand and arm up it—stand still, Eustace, one pin won’t be enough—Oh, he hasn’t buttoned his coat in front, that’s the reason——’

Hands and fingers were everywhere, pinching, patting, and pushing; Eustace swayed like a sapling in a gale. Struggling to keep his balance on the chair, he saw intent eyes flashing round him, leaving gleaming streaks like shooting stars in August. He tried first to resist, then to abandon himself to all the pressures. At last the quickened breathing subsided, there were gasps and sighs, and the ring of electric tension round Eustace suddenly dispersed, like an expiring thunderstorm.

‘ That’s better.’

‘Really, Minney, you’ve made quite a remarkable improvement.’

‘He looks quite a man now, doesn’t he, Miss Cherrington? Oh, I wish he could be photographed, just to remind us. If only Hilda would fetch her camera——’

‘Hilda!’

There was no answer. They all looked round.

The tableau broke up; and they found themselves staring at an empty room.

‘Can I get down now, Daddy?’ asked Eustace.

‘Yes, run and see if you can find her.’

‘She can’t get used to the idea of his going away,’ said Minney when Eustace had gone.

‘No, I’m afraid she’ll suffer much more than he will,’ Miss Cherrington said.

Mr. Cherrington straightened his tie and shot his cuffs. ‘You forget, Sarah, that she’s going to school herself.’

‘It’s not likely I should forget losing my right hand, Alfred.’

After her single contribution to the problems of Eustace’s school outfit, Hilda continued to sit at the table, steadily refusing to look in his direction, and trying to make her disapproval felt throughout the room. Unlike Eustace, she had long ago ceased to think that grown-up people were always right, or that if she was angry with them they possessed some special armour of experience, like an extra skin, that made them unable to feel it. She thought they were just as fallible as she was, more so, indeed; and that in this instance they were making a particularly big mistake. Her father’s high-spirited raillery, as if the whole thing was a joke, exasperated her. Again, she projected her resentment through the æther, but they all had their backs to her, they were absorbed with Eustace. Presently his father made him stand on a chair. How silly he looked, she thought, like a dummy, totally without the dignity that every human being should possess. All this flattery and attention was making him conceited, and infecting him with the lax standards of the world, which she despised and dreaded. Now he was chattering about his school crest, as if that was anything to be proud of, a device woven on a cap, such as every little boy wore. He was pluming and preening himself, just as if she had never brought him up to know what was truly serious and worthwhile. A wave of bitter feeling broke against her. She could not let this mutilation of a personality go on; she must stop it, and there was only one way, though that way was the hardest she could take and the thought of it filled her with loathing.

Her aunt and Minney were milling round Eustace like dogs over a bone; sticking their noses into him. It was almost disgusting. To get away unnoticed was easy; if she had fired a pistol they would not have heard her. Taking her pencil box which she had left on the sideboard she slouched out of the room. A moment in the drawing-room to collect some writing paper and then she was in the bedroom which she still shared with Eustace. She locked the door and, clearing a space at the corner of the dressing-table, she sat down to write. It never crossed Hilda’s mind that her plan could miscarry; she measured its success entirely by the distaste it aroused in her, and that was absolute—the strongest of her many strong feelings. She no more doubted its success than she doubted that, if she threw herself off the cliff, she would be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. In her mind, as she wrote, consoling her, was the image of Eustace, stripped of all his foolish finery, his figure restored to its proper outlines, his mouth cleansed of the puerilities of attempted schoolboy speech, his mind soft and tractable—forever hers.