Bab Bab 17 · A FALLING OUT

. A FALLING OUT

Harold told me the main facts of this episode some time later,--in bits,

and with reluctance. It was not a recollection he cared to talk about.

The crude blank misery of a moment is apt to leave a dull bruise which

is slow to depart, if it ever does so entirely; and Harold confesses

to a twinge or two, still, at times, like the veteran who brings home a

bullet inside him from martial plains over sea.

He knew he was a brute the moment he had done it; Selina had not meant

to worry, only to comfort and assist. But his soul was one raw sore

within him, when he found himself shut up in the schoolroom after hours,

merely for insisting that 7 times 7 amounted to 47. The injustice of it

seemed so flagrant. Why not 47 as much as 49? One number was no prettier

than the other to look at, and it was evidently only a matter of

arbitrary taste and preference, and, anyhow, it had always been 47 to

him, and would be to the end of time. So when Selina came in out of the

sun, leaving the Trappers or the Far West behind her, and putting off

the glory of being an Apache squaw in order to hear him his tables and

win his release, Harold turned on her venomously, rejected her kindly

overtures, and ever drove his elbow into her sympathetic ribs, in his

determination to be left alone in the glory of sulks. The fit passed

directly, his eyes were opened, and his soul sat in the dust as he

sorrowfully began to cast about for some atonement heroic enough to

salve the wrong.

Of course poor Selina looked for no sacrifice nor heroics whatever: she

didn't even want him to say he was sorry. If he would only make it up,

she would have done the apologising part herself. But that was not a

boy's way. Something solid, Harold felt, was due from him; and until

that was achieved, making-up must not be thought of, in order that the

final effect might not be spoilt. Accordingly, when his release came,

and poor Selina hung about, trying to catch his eye, Harold, possessed

by the demon of a distorted motive, avoided her steadily--though he

was bleeding inwardly at every minute of delay--and came to me instead.

Needless to say, I approved his plan highly; it was so much more

high-toned than just going and making-up tamely, which any one could do;

and a girl who had been jobbed in the ribs by a hostile elbow could

not be expected for a moment to overlook it, without the liniment of an

offering to soothe her injured feelings.

“I know what she wants most,” said Harold. “She wants that set of

tea-things in the toy-shop window, with the red and blue flowers on 'em;

she's wanted it for months, 'cos her dolls are getting big enough to

have real afternoon tea; and she wants it so badly that she won't walk

that side of the street when we go into the town. But it costs five

shillings!”

Then we set to work seriously, and devoted the afternoon to a

realisation of assets and the composition of a Budget that might have

been dated without shame from Whitehall. The result worked out as

follows:--

s. d.

By one uncle, unspent through having been

lost for nearly a week--turned up at last

in the straw of the dog-kennel . . . . 2 6

----

Carry forward, 2 6

s. d.

Brought forward, 2 6

By advance from me on security of next

uncle, and failing that, to be called in at

Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0

By shaken out of missionary-box with the

help of a knife-blade. (They were our

own pennies and a forced levy) . . . . . 0 4

By bet due from Edward, for walking across

the field where Farmer Larkin's bull was,

and Edward bet him twopence he wouldn't

--called in with difficulty . . . . . . 0 2

By advance from Martha, on no security at

all, only you mustn't tell your aunt . . . 1 0

----

Total 5 0

and at last we breathed again.

The rest promised to be easy. Selina had a tea-party at five on the

morrow, with the chipped old wooden tea-things that had served her

successive dolls from babyhood. Harold would slip off directly after

dinner, going alone, so as not to arouse suspicion, as we were not

allowed to go into the town by ourselves. It was nearly two miles to our

small metropolis, but there would be plenty of time for him to go and

return, even laden with the olive-branch neatly packed in shavings;

besides, he might meet the butcher, who was his friend and would give

him a lift. Then, finally, at five, the rapture of the new tea-service,

descended from the skies; and, retribution made, making-up at last,

without loss of dignity. With the event before us, we thought it a small

thing that twenty-four hours more of alienation and pretended sulks must

be kept up on Harold's part; but Selina, who naturally knew nothing of

the treat in store for her, moped for the rest of the evening, and took

a very heavy heart to bed.

When next day the hour for action arrived, Harold evaded Olympian

attention with an easy modesty born of long practice, and made off for

the front gate. Selina, who had been keeping her eye upon him, thought

he was going down to the pond to catch frogs, a joy they had planned

to share together, and made after him; but Harold, though he heard her

footsteps, continued sternly on his high mission, without even looking

back; and Selina was left to wander disconsolately among flower-beds

that had lost--for her--all scent and colour. I saw it all, and although

cold reason approved our line of action, instinct told me we were

brutes.

Harold reached the town--so he recounted afterwards--in record time,

having run most of the way for fear the tea-things, which had

reposed six months in the window, should be snapped up by some other

conscience-stricken lacerator of a sister's feelings; and it seemed

hardly credible to find them still there, and their owner willing to

part with them for the price marked on the ticket. He paid his money

down at once, that there should be no drawing back from the bargain; and

then, as the things had to be taken out of the window and packed, and

the afternoon was yet young, he thought he might treat himself to a

taste of urban joys and la vie de Boheme. Shops came first, of course,

and he flattened his nose successively against the window with the

india-rubber balls in it, and the clock-work locomotive; and against

the barber's window, with wigs on blocks, reminding him of uncles,

and shaving-cream that looked so good to eat; and the grocer's window,

displaying more currants than the whole British population could

possibly consume without a special effort; and the window of the

bank, wherein gold was thought so little of that it was dealt about in

shovels. Next there was the market-place, with all its clamorous joys;

and when a runaway calf came down the street like a cannon-ball, Harold

felt that he had not lived in vain. The whole place was so brimful of

excitement that he had quite forgotten the why and the wherefore of his

being there, when a sight of the church clock recalled him to his better

self, and sent him flying out of the town, as he realised he had only

just time enough left to get back in. If he were after his appointed

hour, he would not only miss his high triumph, but probably would be

detected as a transgressor of bounds,--a crime before which a private

opinion on multiplication sank to nothingness. So he jogged along on his

homeward way, thinking of many things, and probably talking to himself

a good deal, as his habit was, and had covered nearly half the distance,

when suddenly--a deadly sinking in the pit of his stomach--a paralysis

of every limb--around him a world extinct of light and music--a black

sun and a reeling sky--he had forgotten the tea-things!

It was useless, it was hopeless, all was over, and nothing could now be

done; nevertheless he turned and ran back wildly, blindly, choking

with the big sobs that evoked neither pity nor comfort from a merciless

mocking world around; a stitch in his side, dust in his eyes, and black

despair clutching at his heart. So he stumbled on, with leaden legs and

bursting sides, till--as if Fate had not yet dealt him her last worst

buffet--on turning a corner in the road he almost ran under the wheels

of a dog-cart, in which, as it pulled up, was apparent the portly form

of Farmer Larkin, the arch-enemy, whose ducks he had been shying stones

at that very morning!

Had Harold been in his right and unclouded senses, he would have

vanished through the hedge some seconds earlier, rather than pain the

farmer by any unpleasant reminiscences which his appearance might call

up; but as things were, he could only stand and blubber hopelessly,

caring, indeed, little now what further ill might befall him.

The farmer, for his part, surveyed the desolate figure with some

astonishment, calling out in no unfriendly accents, “Why, Master Harold!

whatever be the matter? Baint runnin' away, be ee?”

Then Harold, with the unnatural courage born of desperation, flung

himself on the step, and climbing into the cart, fell in the straw at

the bottom of it, sobbing out that he wanted to go back, go back! The

situation had a vagueness; but the farmer, a man of action rather than

words, swung his horse round smartly, and they were in the town again

by the time Harold had recovered himself sufficiently to furnish some

details. As they drove up to the shop, the woman was waiting at the door

with the parcel; and hardly a minute seemed to have elapsed since the

black crisis, ere they were bowling along swiftly home, the precious

parcel hugged in a close embrace.

And now the farmer came out in quite a new and unexpected light. Never

a word did he say of broken fences and hurdles, of trampled crops and

harried flocks and herds. One would have thought the man had never

possessed a head of live stock in his life. Instead, he was deeply

interested in the whole dolorous quest of the tea-things, and

sympathised with Harold on the disputed point in mathematics as if he

had been himself at the same stage of education. As they neared home,

Harold found himself, to his surprise, sitting up and chatting to his

new friend like man to man; and before he was dropped at a convenient

gap in the garden hedge, he had promised that when Selina gave her first

public tea-party, little Miss Larkin should be invited to come and

bring ha whole sawdust family along with her; and the farmer appeared

as pleased and proud as if he hat been asked to a garden-party at

Marlborough House. Really, those Olympians have certain good points, far

down in them. I shall have to leave off abusing them some day.

At the hour of five, Selina, having spent the afternoon searching for

Harold in all his accustomed haunts, sat down disconsolately to tea with

her dolls, who ungenerously refused to wait beyond the appointed hour.

The wooden tea-things seemed more chipped than usual; and the dolls

themselves had more of wax and sawdust, and less of human colour and

intelligence about them, than she ever remembered before. It was then

that Harold burst in, very dusty, his stockings at his heels, and the

channels ploughed by tears still showing on his grimy cheeks; and Selina

was at last permitted to know that he had been thinking of her ever

since his ill-judged exhibition of temper, and that his sulks had not

been the genuine article, nor had he gone frogging by himself. It was

a very happy hostess who dispensed hospitality that evening to a

glassy-eyed stiff-kneed circle; and many a dollish gaucherie, that would

have been severely checked on ordinary occasions, was as much overlooked

as if it had been a birthday.

But Harold and I, in our stupid masculine way, thought all her happiness

sprang from possession of the long-coveted tea-service.

“