CHAPTER XII
THE PICNIC
For a long day Estelle devoted herself whole-heartedly to winning the friendship of Abel Dinnett. Her chances of success were increased by an accident, though it appeared at first that the misadventure would ruin all. For when Estelle arrived at 'The Magnolias' in her pony carriage, Sabina proved to be sick and quite unequal to the proposed day in the air.
Abel declined to go without his mother, but, after considerable persuasion, allowed the prospect of pleasure to outweigh his distrust.
Estelle promised to let him drive, and that privilege in itself proved a temptation too great to resist. His mother's word finally convinced him, and he drove an elderly pony so considerately that his hostess praised him.
"I see you are kind to dumb things," she said. "I am glad of that, for they are very understanding and soon know who are their friends and who are not."
"If beasts treat me well," he answered, "then I treat them well. And if they treated me badly, then I'd treat them badly."
She did not argue about this; indeed, all that day her care was to amuse him and hear his opinions without boring him if she could avoid doing so.
He remained shy at first and quiet. From time to time she was in a fair way to break down his reserve; but he seemed to catch himself becoming more friendly and, once or twice, after laughing at something, he relapsed into long silence and looked at her from under his eyelids suspiciously when he thought she was not looking at him. Thus she won, only to lose what she had won, and when they reached the breezy cliffs of Eype, Estelle reckoned that she stood towards him pretty much as she stood at starting. But slowly, surely, inevitably, before such good temper and tact he thawed a little. They tethered the pony, gave it a nosebag and then spread their meal. Abel was quick and neat. She noticed that his hands were like his mother's—finely tapered, suggestive of art. But on that subject he seemed to have no ideas, and she found, after trying various themes, that he cared not in the least for music, or pictures, but certainly shared his father's interest in mechanics.
Abel talked of the Mill—self-consciously at first; yet when he found that Estelle ignored the past, and understood spinning, he forgot himself entirely for a time under the spell of the subject.
They compared notes, and she saw he was more familiar than she with detail. Then, while still forgetting his listener, Abel remembered himself and his talk of the Mill turned into a personal channel. There is no more confidential thing, by fits and starts, than a shy child; and just as Estelle felt the boy would never come any closer, or give her a chance to help him, suddenly he startled her with the most unexpected utterance.
"You mightn't know it," he said, "but by justice and right I should have the whole works for my very own when Mister Ironsyde died. Because he's my father, though I daresay he pretends to everybody he isn't."
"I'm very sure Mister Ironsyde doesn't feel anything but jolly kind and friendly to you, Abel. He doesn't pretend he isn't your father. Why should he? You know he's often offered to be friends, and he even forgave you for trying to burn down the Mill. Surely that was a pretty good sign he means to be friendly?"
"I don't want his friendship, because he's not good to mother. He served her very badly. I understand things a lot better than you might think."
"Well, don't spoil your lunch," she said. "We'll talk afterwards. Are you ready for another bottle of gingerbeer? I don't like this gingerbeer out of glass bottles. I like it out of stone bottles."
"So do I," he answered, instantly dropping his own wrongs. "But the glass bottles have glass marbles in them, which you can use; and so it's better to have them, because it doesn't matter so much about the taste after it's drunk."
She asked him concerning his work and he told her that he best liked history. She asked why, and he gave a curious reason.
"Because it tells you the truth, and you don't find good men always scoring and bad men always coming to grief. In history, good men come to grief sometimes and bad men score."
"But you can't always be sure what is good and what is bad," she argued.
"The people who write the histories don't worry you about that," he answered, "but just tell you what happened. And sometimes you are jolly glad when a beast gets murdered, or his throne is taken away from him; and sometimes you are sorry when a brave chap comes to grief, even though he may be bad."
"Some historians are not fair, though," she said. "Some happen to feel like you. They hate some people and some ideas, and always show them in an unfriendly light. If you write history, you must be tremendously fair and keep your own little whims out of it."
After their meal Estelle smoked a cigarette, much to Abel's interest.
"I never knew a girl could smoke," he said.
"Why not? Would you like one? I don't suppose a cigarette once in a way can hurt you."
"I've smoked thousands," he told her. "And a pipe, too, for that matter.
I smoked a cigar once. I found it and smoked it right through."
"Didn't it make you ill?"
"Yes—fearfully; but I hid till I was all right again."
He smoked a cigarette, and Estelle told him that his father was a great smoker and very fond of a pipe.
"But he wouldn't let you smoke, except now and again in holiday times—not yet. Nobody ought to smoke till he's done growing."
"What about you, then?" asked Abel.
"I've done growing ages ago. I'm nearly twenty-eight."
He looked at her and his eyes clouded. He entered a phase of reserve.
Then she, guessing how to enchant him, suggested the next step.
"If you help me pack up now, we'll harness the pony and go down to West Haven for a bit. I want to see the old stores I've heard such a lot about. You must show them to me."
"Yes—part. I know every inch of them, but I can't show you my own secret den, though."
"Do. I should love to see it."
He shook his head.
"No good asking," he said. "That's my greatest secret. You can't expect me to tell you. Even mother doesn't know."
"I won't ask, then. I've got a den, too, for that matter—in fact, two.
One on North Hill and one in our garden."
"D'you know the lime-kiln on North Hill?"
"Rather. The bee orchis grows thereabout."
He thought for a moment. "If I showed you my den in the store, would you swear to God never to tell?"
"Yes, I'd swear faithfully not to."
"Perhaps I will, then."
But when presently they reached his haunt, he had changed his mood. She did not remind him, left him to his devices and sat patiently outside while he was hidden within. Occasionally his head popped out of unexpected places aloft, then disappeared again. Once she heard a great noise, followed by silence. She called to him and, after a pause, he shouted down that he was all right.
When an hour had passed she called out again to tell him to come back to her.
"We're going to Bridport to tea," she said.
He came immediately and revealed a badly torn trouser leg.
"I fell," he explained. "I fell through a rotten ceiling, and I've cut my leg. When I was young the sight of blood made me go fainty, but I laugh at it now."
He pulled up his trousers and showed a badly barked shin.
"We'll go to a chemist and get him to wash it, and I'll get a needle and thread and sew it up," said Estelle.
She condoled with him as they drove to Bridport, but he was impatient of sympathy.
"I don't mind pain," he said. "I've tried the Red Indian tests on myself before to-day. Once I had to see a doctor after; but I didn't flinch when I was doing it."
A chemist dressed the wounded leg and presently they arrived at 'The
Seven Stars,' where the pony was stabled and tea taken in the garden.
Mrs. Legg provided a needle and thread and produced a very excellent
tea.
Abel enjoyed the swing for some time, but would not let Estelle help him.
"I can swing myself," he said, "but I'll swing you afterwards."
He did so until they were tired. Then he walked round the flower borders and presently picked Estelle a rose.
She thanked him very heartily and told him the names of the blossoms which he did not know.
Job came and talked to them for a time, and Estelle praised the garden, while Abel listened. Then Mr. Legg turned to the boy.
"Holidays round again, young man? I dare say we shall see you sometimes, and, if you like flowers, you can always come in and have a look."
"I don't like flowers," said the boy. "I like fruit."
He went back to the swing and Job asked after Mr. Waldron.
Estelle reminded him that he had promised to come and see her garden some day.
"Be sure I shall, miss," he answered, "but, for the minute, work fastens on me from my rising up to my going down."
"However do you get through it all?"
"Thanks to method. It's summed up in that. Without method, I should be a lost man."
"You ought to slack off," she said. "I'm sure that Nelly doesn't like to see you work so hard."
"She'd work hard too, but Nature and not her will shortens her great powers. She grows into a mountain of flesh and her substance prevents activity; but the mind is there unclouded. In my case the flesh doesn't gain on me and work agrees with my system."
"You're a very wonderful man," declared Estelle; "but no doubt plenty of people tell you that."
"Only by comparison," he explained. "The wonder is all summed up in the one word 'method,' coupled with a good digestion and no strong drink. I'd like to talk more on the subject, but I must be going."
"And tell them to put in the pony. We must be going, too."
On the way home Estelle tried to interest Abel in sport. She had been very careful all day to keep Raymond off her lips, but now intentionally she spoke of him. It was done with care and she only named him casually in the course of general remarks. Thus she hoped that, in time, he would allow her to mention his father without opposition.
"I think you ought to play some games with your old friends at
Bridetown these holidays," she said.
"I haven't any old friends there. I don't want friends. I never made that fire you promised."
"You shall make it next time we come out; and everybody wants friends. You can't get on without friends. And the good of games is that you make friends. I'm very keen on golf now, though I never thought I should like sport. Did you play any cricket at school?"
"Yes, but I don't care about it."
"How did you play? You ought to be rather a dab at it."
"I played very well and was in the second eleven. But I don't care about it. It's all right at school, but there are better things to do in the holidays."
"If you're a good cricketer, you might get some matches. Your father is a very good cricketer, and would have played for the county if he'd been able to practise enough. And Mister Roberts at the mill is a splendid player."
His nervous face twitched and his instant passion ran into his whip hand. He gave the astonished pony a lash and made it start across the road, so that Estelle was nearly thrown from her seat.
"Don't! Don't!" she said. "What's the matter?"
But she knew.
He showed his teeth.
"I won't hear his name—I won't hear it. I hate him, I hate him. Take the reins—I'll walk. You've spoilt everything now. I always wish he was dead when I hear his name, and I wish he was dead this minute."
"My dear Abel, I'm sorry. I didn't think you felt so bad as that about him. He doesn't feel at all like that about you."
"I hate him, I tell you, and I'm not the only one that hates him. And I don't care what he feels about me. He's my greatest enemy on earth, and people who understand have told me so, and I won't be beholden to him for anything—and—and you can stick up for him till you're black in the face for all I care. I know he's bad and I'll be his enemy always."
"You're a little fool," she said calmly. "Let me drive and you can listen to me now. If you listen to stupid, wicked people talking of your father, then listen to me for a change. You don't know anything whatever about him, because you won't give him a chance to talk to you himself. If you once let him, you'd very soon stop all this nonsense."
"You're bluffing," he said. "You think you'll get round me like that, but you won't. You're only a girl. You don't know anything. It's men tell me about my father. You think he's good, because you love him; but he's bad, really—as bad as hell—as bad as hell."
"What's he done then? I'm not bluffing, Abel. There's nothing to bluff about. What's your father done to you? You must have some reason for hating him?"
"Yes, I have."
"What is it, then?"
"It's because the Mill ought to be mine when he dies—there!"
She did not answer immediately. She had often thought the same thing. Instinct told her that frankness must be the only course. Through frankness he might still be won.
He did not speak again after his last assertion, and presently she answered in a manner to surprise him. Directness was natural to Estelle and both her father and her friend, Mr. Churchouse, had fostered it. People either deprecated or admired this quality of her talk, for directness of speech is so rare that it never fails to appear surprising.
"I think you're right there, Abel. Perhaps the Mill ought to be yours some day. Perhaps it will be. The things that ought to happen really do sometimes."
Then he surprised her in his turn.
"I wouldn't take the Mill—not now. I'll never take anything from him.
It's too late now."
She realised the futility of argument.
"You're tired," she said, "and so am I. We'll talk about important things again some day. Only don't—don't imagine people aren't your friends. If you'd only think, you'd see how jolly kind people have been to you over and over again. Didn't you ever wonder how you got off so well after trying to burn down the works? You must have. Anyway, it showed you'd got plenty of good friends, surely?"
"It didn't matter to me. I'd have gone to prison. I don't care what they do to me. They can't make me feel different."
"Well, leave it. We've had a good day and you needn't quarrel with me, at any rate."
"I don't know that. You're his friend."
"You surely don't want to quarrel with all his friends as well as him? We are going to be friends, anyway, and have some more good times together. I like you."
"I thought I liked you," he said, "but you called me a little fool."
"That's nothing. You were a little fool just now. We're all fools sometimes. I've been a fool to-day, myself. You're a little fool to hate anybody. What good does it do you to hate?"
"It does do me good; and if I didn't hate him, I should hate myself," the boy declared.
"Well, it's better to hate yourself than somebody else. It's a good sign I should think if we hate ourselves. We ought to hate ourselves more than we do, because we know better than anybody else how hateful we can be. Instead of that, we waste tons of energy hating other people, and think there's nobody so fine and nice and interesting as we are ourselves."
"Mister Churchouse says the less we think about ourselves the better.
But you've got to if you've been ill-used."
In the dusk twinkled out a glow-worm beside the hedge, and they stopped while Abel picked it up. Gradually he grew calmer, and when they parted he thanked her for her goodness to him.
"It's been a proper day, all but the end," he said, "and I will like you and be your friend. But I won't like my father and be his friend, because he's bad and served mother and me badly. You may think I don't understand such things, but I do. And I never will be beholden to him as long as I live—never."
He left her at the outer gate of his home and she drove on and considered him rather hopelessly. He had some feeling for beauty on which she had trusted to work, but it was slight. He was vain, very sensitive, and disposed to be malignant. As yet reason had not come to his rescue and his emotions, ill-directed, ran awry. He was evidently unaware that his father had so far saved the situation for him. What would he do when he knew it?
Estelle felt the picnic not altogether a failure, yet saw little signs of a situation more hopeful at present.
"I can win him," she decided; "but it looks as though his father never would."