Eustace was thinking that this was a very fair arrangement when Miss Cherrington said, ‘Please don’t say “you”, Alfred, or Eustace might imagine that you were in the habit of making bets yourself.’

‘Well—’ began Mr. Cherrington.

‘Betting is a very bad habit,’ said Miss Cherrington firmly, ‘and I’m sorry to hear that the boys of St. Ninian’s practise it—if they do: again, Gerald may have been exaggerating, and it is quite usual, I imagine, for the boys of one school to run down another. But there is no reason that Eustace should learn to. To be exposed to temptation is one thing, to give way is another, and resistance to temptation is a valuable form of self-discipline.’

‘Oh, but they don’t resist!’ cried Hilda. ‘And Eustace wouldn’t either. You know how he likes to do the same as everyone else. And if any boy, especially any new boy, tries to be good and different from the rest they tease him and call him some horrid name (Gerald wouldn’t tell me what it was), and sometimes punch him, too.’

Eustace, who had always been told he must try to be good in all circumstances, turned rather pale and looked down at the floor.

‘Now, now, Hilda,’ said her father, impatiently. ‘You’ve said quite enough. You sound as if you didn’t want Eustace to go to school.’

But Hilda was unabashed. She knew she had made an impression on the grown-ups.

‘Oh, it’s only that I want him to go to the right school, isn’t it, Aunt Sarah?’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t like him to go to a school where he learned bad habits and—and nothing else, should we? He would be much better off as he is now, with you teaching him and me helping. Gerald said they really knew nothing; he said he knew more than the oldest boys at St. Ninian’s, and he’s only twelve.’

‘But he does boast, doesn’t he?’ put in Eustace timidly. ‘You used to say so yourself, Hilda.’ Hilda had never had a good word for Gerald Steptoe before to-day.

‘Oh, yes, you all boast,’ said Hilda sweepingly. ‘But I don’t think he was boasting. I asked him how much he knew, and he said, The Kings and Queens of England, so I told him to repeat them and he broke down down at Richard II. Eustace can say them perfectly, and he’s only ten, so you see for the next four years he wouldn’t be learning anything, he’d just be forgetting everything, wouldn’t he, Aunt Sarah? Don’t let him go, I’m sure it would be a mistake.’

Minney, Barbara’s nurse, came bustling in. She was rather short and had soft hair and gentle eyes. ‘Excuse me, Miss Cherrington,’ she said, ‘but it’s Master Eustace’s bedtime.’

Eustace said good night. Hilda walked with him to the door and when they were just outside she said in a whisper:

‘I think I shall be able to persuade them.’

‘But I think I want to go, Hilda!’ muttered Eustace.

‘It isn’t what you want, it’s what’s good for you,’ exclaimed Hilda, looking at him with affectionate fierceness. As she turned the handle of the drawing-room door she overheard her father saying to Miss Cherrington: ‘I shouldn’t pay too much attention to all that, Sarah. If the boy didn’t want to go it would be different. As the money’s his, he ought to be allowed to please himself. But he’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

The days passed and Hilda wept in secret. Sometimes she wept openly, for she knew how it hurt Eustace to see her cry. When he asked her why she was crying she wouldn’t tell him at first, but just shook her head. Later on she said, ‘You know quite well: why do you ask me?’ and, of course, Eustace did know. It made him unhappy to know he was making her unhappy and besides, as the time to leave home drew nearer, he became much less sure that he liked the prospect. Hilda saw that he was weakening and she played upon his fears and gave him Eric or Little by Little as a Christmas present, to warn him of what he might expect when he went to school. Eustace read it and was extremely worried; he didn’t see how he could possibly succeed where a boy as clever, and handsome, and good as Eric had been before he went to school, had failed. But it did not make him want to turn back, for he now felt that if school was going to be an unpleasant business, all the more must he go through with it—especially as it was going to be unpleasant for him, and not for anyone else; which would have been an excuse for backing out. ‘You see it won’t really matter,’ he explained to Hilda, ‘they can’t kill me—Daddy said so—and he said they don’t even roast boys at preparatory schools, only at public schools, and I shan’t be going to a public school for a long time, if ever. I expect they will just do a few things to me like pulling my hair and twisting my arm and perhaps kicking me a little, but I shan’t really mind that. It was much worse all that time after Miss Fothergill died, because then I didn’t know what was going to happen and now I do know, so I shall be prepared.’ Hilda was nonplussed by this argument, all the more so because it was she who had told Eustace that it was always good for you to do something you didn’t like. ‘You say so now,’ she said, ‘but you won’t say so on the seventeenth of January.’ And when Eustace said nothing but only looked rather sad and worried she burst into tears. ‘You’re so selfish,’ she sobbed. ‘You only think about being good—as if that mattered—you don’t think about me at all. I shan’t eat or drink anything while you are away, and I shall probably die.’

Eustace was growing older and he did not really believe that Hilda would do this, but the sight of her unhappiness and the tears (which sometimes started to her eyes unbidden the moment he came into the room where she was) distressed him very much. Already, he thought, she was growing thinner, there were hollows in her cheeks, she was silent, or spoke in snatches, very fast and with far more vehemence and emphasis than the occasion called for; she came in late for meals and never apologized, she had never been interested in clothes, but now she was positively untidy. The grown-ups, to his surprise, did not seem to notice.

He felt he must consult someone and thought at once of Minney, because she was the easiest to talk to. But he knew she would counsel patience; that was her idea, that people would come to themselves if they were left alone. Action was needed and she wouldn’t take any action. Besides, Hilda had outgrown Minney’s influence; Minney wasn’t drastic enough to cut any ice with her. Aunt Sarah would be far more helpful because she understood Hilda. But she didn’t understand Eustace and would make him feel that he was making a fuss about nothing, or if he did manage to persuade her that Hilda was unhappy she would somehow lay the blame on him. There remained his father. Eustace was nervous of consulting his father, because he never knew what mood he would find him in. Mr. Cherrington could be very jolly and treat Eustace almost as an equal; then something Eustace said would upset him and he would get angry and make Eustace wish he had never spoken. But since Miss Fothergill’s death his attitude to Eustace had changed. His outbursts of irritation were much less frequent and he often asked Eustace his opinion and drew him out and made him feel more self-confident. It all depended on finding him in a good mood.

Of late Mr. Cherrington had taken to drinking a whisky and soda and smoking a cigar when he came back from his office in Ousemouth; this was at about six o’clock, and he was always alone then, in the drawing-room, because Miss Cherrington did not approve of this new habit. When he had finished she would go in and throw open the windows, but she never went in while he was there.

Eustace found him with his feet up enveloped in the fumes of whisky and cigar smoke, which seemed to Eustace the very being and breath of manliness. Mr. Cherrington stirred. The fragrant cloud rolled away and his face grew more distinct.