Part 7 (2/2)
”Girls are quite different,” said Ishmael firmly; ”they talk awful rot; I've heard my sister and Phoebe--that's a girl at home.”
”Yes, so does my sister--at least, she talks sort of clever stuff that's as bad. But how about Hilaria?” asked her admirer.
”Well, she's more sensible than most, because she wants to do things as though she weren't a girl, but I don't see how she's going to keep it up. She'll fall in love and then it'll all be over.”
”You don't think much of girls, do you?”
”Oh, well ... they're all right, I suppose. I want to do things, and girls want to feel things. Oh, yes, Bunny, they're awfully different.”
”From you, perhaps ... I dunno ... I say, d'you really want the old bishop to lay his paws on your head?”
”Yes,” replied Ishmael, briefly.
”Well, so does Hilaria. She read me some stuff out of a book--ripping fine stuff it was--by a chap called Mallory. All about knights that were searching for a cup they thought had the blood of G.o.d in it or something of the sort. But she seemed to believe it.”
”I believe it, too. Not that they lived like that book, but that there is the Blood ... Oh, what's the good of trying to explain to you? It's like you when you're painting and you try and make me see a lot of colours I can't.”
”Hullo ... there she comes,” cried Killigrew, with a sudden quickening of voice and aspect; ”I say, it must be ghastly trying to walk in one of those things. Girls must be different or they wouldn't put up with them.
I'll go and help her. Come on, we'll have to sit down below now.”
The two boys scrambled down the boulders and a.s.sisted Hilaria--the hem of whose white tarlatan skirts showed already the worse for her walk--over the hummocky patch of rocks and gorse that fringed the hollow. Laughing rather ruefully, she flung herself down, scattering her bonnet, shawl, and bag over the turf in the impetuous movement. The lowest rim of the crinoline promptly stood straight up from the ground like a hoop, displaying her long legs and the mult.i.tudinous petticoats lying limply upon them, and she was forced to adopt a change of position. Finally she settled herself with her feet tucked in under her and the obnoxious garment swelling out all round, as though she had just flopped down and made what the children call a ”cheese.”
”I say, where's the magazine?” asked Ishmael.
”In my bag; but you're not to 'look on.' Here are some jumbles, but we must keep the others' share for them. Did you get them all, Ishmael?”
For some reason best known to herself, she called him by his Christian name and Killigrew by his nickname of ”Bunny,” though she addressed the other boys in mannish fas.h.i.+on of surnames only.
”I told Polkinghorne minor and told him to let the others know.”
”Did you remember to tell him we didn't want Doughty?”
”I think so ... at least I didn't say to ask him to come,” confessed Ishmael, who had the worst head in the world for a message.
”Here they are,” announced Killigrew; ”I think there're only four of them ...” He screwed up his eyes to gaze, for he was short-sighted.
Ishmael gave a glance.
”There's five ...” he said apologetically; ”I'm afraid he's there. I can see Polkinghorne and Carminow and Polkinghorne minor and Moss minor and--yes, it's Doughty. I hope you don't mind fearfully, Hilaria?”
She threw a queer little look at him. ”It's not for me,” she said slowly; ”it's only that I don't think he likes you, Ishmael. He tried to tell me something funny about you the other day. He comes to papa for extra coaching in French, you know, and I had to give him tea....”
”About me--?” Ishmael stared blankly, then, more from some premonition than anything else, grew slowly and burningly red. The colour ebbed away, leaving him pale. ”What was it?” he asked.
”Nothing. At least, I honestly don't know what. Papa shut him up. He said to him he was no gentleman to say such things before a _jeune fille_--” She broke off, feeling she had hardly improved matters. A deadly suspicion that had once before knocked on Ishmael's heart and been refused more than a second's glance for sheer incredibility pounded at him again, making the blood sing in his ears. Nothing heard at school or from the Parson--who had long perturbed himself as to the right moment for explanations--had started those first warning notes, but words freely bandied across his head at home as a little boy, and then meaningless to him--words that had since echoed back on to fuller knowledge ominously. If it had not been that Archelaus, the free-speaker and the vindictive One of the family, was still in Australia, and that Ishmael spent a large part of his holidays with friends of the Parson's in Devon and Somerset, the conspiracy of secrecy, wise or unwise, could not have lasted so long. He stared at Hilaria and his fingers dug into the turf at either side of him.
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