The Dark House | Page 9

wife h-hit me--and I b-bit her. Jolly hard. And then I fell downstairs."
"Why did she hit you?"
"Oh, I don't know. She's just a beast----"
"Of course you know. Don't be silly."
"Well, she said I'd been smoking, and I said I hadn't----"
"Had you? You look awfully green."

"Yes, I had."
"What's the good of telling lies?"
"It's no good telling the truth," Robert answered stolidly. "They only
get crosser than ever. She hadn't any right to hit me. She's not even a
relation."
"She's your step-mother."
He began to tremble again uncontrollably.
"She's n-not. Not any sort of a mother. My mother's dead."
It was the first time he had ever said it, even to himself. It threw a chill
over him, so that for a moment he stopped thinking of Edith and his
coming black revenge. He had done something that could never be
undone. He had closed and locked a great iron door in his mother's face.
"She's just a beast," he repeated stubbornly. "I'd like to kill her."
Frances considered him with her head a little on one side. It was like
her not to enter into any argument. One couldn't tell what she was
thinking. And yet one knew that she was feeling things.
"I'd wipe that blood off," she said. "It's trickling on to your collar. No,
not with your hand. Where's your hanky?"
He tried to look contemptuous. He did, in fact, despise handkerchiefs.
The nice little girls in the Terrace had handkerchiefs, ostentatiously
clean. He had seen them, and they filled his soul with loathing. Now he
was ashamed. It seemed that even Frances expected him to have a
handkerchief.
"I haven't got one," he said.
"How do you blow your nose, then?"
"I don't," he explained truculently.

She executed one of her queer little dances, very solemnly and intently
and disconcertingly. It seemed to be her way of withdrawing into
herself at critical moments. When she stopped he was sure she had been
laughing. Laughter still twinkled at the corners of her mouth and in her
eyes.
"Well, I'm going to tidy you up, anyhow. Come sit down here."
He obeyed at once. It comforted him just to be near her. It was like
sitting by a fire on a cold day when you were half frozen. Something in
you melted and came to life and stretched itself, something that was
itself gentle and compassionate. It was difficult to remember that he
meant to kill Edith frightfully, though his mind was quite made up on
the subject. Meantime Frances had produced her own handkerchief--a
large clean one--and methodically rubbed away the blood and some of
the tear stains, and as much of the dirt as could be managed without
soap and water. This done, she refolded the handkerchief with its soiled
side innermost, and tied it neatly round the wounded head, leaving two
long ends which stood up like rabbit's ears. A gust of April wind
wagged them comically, and made mock of the sorrowful, grubby face
underneath. Even Frances, who was only nine herself, must have seen
that the sorrow was not the ordinary childish thing that came and went,
leaving no trace. In a way it was always there. When he was not
laughing and shouting you saw it--a careworn, anxious look, as though
he were always afraid something might pounce out on him. It ought to
have been pathetic, but somehow or other it was not. For one thing, he
was not an angel-child, bearing oppression meekly. He was much more
like a yellow-haired imp waiting sullenly for a chance to pounce back,
and the whole effect of him was at once furtive and obstinate. Indeed,
anyone who knew nothing of the Stonehouse temper and duns and
forgotten birthdays would have dismissed him as an ugly, disagreeable
little boy.
But Frances Wilmot, who knew nothing of these things either,
crouched down beside him, her arm about his shoulder.
"Poor Robert!"

He began to hiccough again. He had to clench his teeth and his fists not
to betray the fact that the hiccoughs were really convulsively
swallowed sobs asserting themselves. He wanted to confide in her, but
if she knew the truth about his home and his people she wouldn't play
with him any more. She would know then that he wasn't nice. And
besides, he had some dim notion of protecting her from the things he
knew.
"You t-t-tied me up jolly well," he said. "It's comfy now. It was aching
hard."
"I like tying up things," she explained easily, "You see, I'm going to be
a doctor."
The rabbit's ears stopped waving for a minute in sheer astonishment.
"Girls aren't doctors."
"Yes, they are. Heaps of them. I'm reading up already, in that book. It's
all about first-aid.