The Heart of Una Sackville | Page 7

across brooks without dreaming of waiting for the bridges, and I climbed and splashed with the best, and Mr Dudley twinkled his eyes at me, and said, "Well jumped, Babs!" and lifted me down from the stiles as if I had been a doll. He must be terrifically strong, for I am no light weight, and he didn't seem to feel me at all.
After that morning we were constantly meeting, and we grew to be quite friends. He has thick, crinkly eyebrows, and is clean-shaven, which I like in his case, as his mouth has such a nice expression. He went on treating me as a child, and father seemed to think it was quite natural. He likes to pretend I am young, poor dear, so that I may be his playmate as long as possible.
Yesterday father went in to see some cottagers, and Mr Dudley and I sat outside on a log of wood, and talked while we waited for him like this. He--patronisingly--
"I suppose it's a great treat for you to getaway from school for a time. Where is your school? Town or country? Brighton--ugh!" and he made a grimace of disgust. "Shops--piers--hotels--an awful place! Not a bit of Nature left unspoiled; the very sea looks artificial and unlike itself in such unnatural surroundings!"
"Plenty of crocodiles on the bank, however--that's natural enough!" I said pertly. I thought it was rather smart, too, but he smiled in a superior "I-will-because-I-must," sort of way, and said--
"How thankful you must be to get away from it all to this exquisite calm!"
I don't know much about young men, except what I've seen of Spencer and his friends, but they would call exquisite calm by a very different name, so I decided at once that Mr Will Dudley must have had a secret trouble which had made him hate the world and long for solitude. Perhaps it was a love affair! It would be interesting if he could confide in me, and I could comfort him, so I looked pensive, and said--
"You do get very tired of the glare and the dust! Some of the girls wear smoked glasses in summer, and you get so sick of marching up and down the front. Do you hate Brighton only, or every towny place?"
"I hate all towns, and can't understand how anyone can live in them who is not obliged. I have tried it for the last five years, but never again!" He stretched his big shoulders, and drew a long breath of determination. "I've said `Good-bye' for ever to a life of trammelled civilisation, with its so-called amusements and artificial manners, and hollow friendships, and"--he put his hand to his flannel collar, and patted it with an air of blissful satisfaction--"and stiff, uncomfortable clothing! It's all over and done with now, thank goodness--a dream of the past!"
"And I am just beginning it! And I expect to like it very much," I thought to myself, but I didn't say so to him; and he went on muttering and grumbling all the time he was rolling his cigarette and preparing to smoke.
"You don't understand--a child like you. It's a pity you ever should, but in a few years' time you will be so bound round with conventions that you will not dare to follow your own wishes, unless you make a bold stroke for liberty, as I have done, and free yourself once for all; but not many people have the courage to do that--"
"I don't think it takes much courage to give up what one dislikes, and to do what one likes best," I said calmly; and he gave a little jump of surprise, and stared at me over the smoke of the match with amused eyes, just as you look at a child who has said a funny thing--rather precocious for its age.
"Pray, does that wise remark apply to me or to you?" he asked; and I put my chin in the air and said--
"It was a general statement. Of course, I can't judge of your actions, and, for myself, I can't tell as yet what I do like. I must try both lives before I can decide."
"Yes, yes. You must run the gauntlet. Poor little Babs!" he sighed; and after that we sat for quite an age without speaking a word. He was remembering his secret, no doubt, and I was thinking of myself and wondering if it was really true that I was going to have such a bad time. That reminded me of Miss Martin and her advice, and it came to me with a shock that I'd been home a whole month, and had been so taken up with my own affairs that I had had no time to think of my "sister." I was in a desperate hurry to