“Then we must find a school for you where they teach all that sort of thing,” said Oswald, as though it was merely a question of ordering goods from the Civil Service Stores....
He had much to learn yet about education.
§ 12
But Oswald was still only face to face with the half of his responsibility.
One morning he found Peter at the schoolroom table very busy cutting big letters out of white paper. Beside him was a long strip of Turkey twill from the dressing-up box that The Ingle-Nook had plagiarized from the Sheldricks. “I’m getting ready for Joan,” said Peter. “I’m going to put ’Welcome’ on this for over the garden gate. And there’s to be a triumphal arch.”
Hitherto Peter had scarcely betrayed any interest in Joan at all, now he seemed able to think of no one else, and Oswald found himself reduced abruptly from the position of centre of Peter’s universe to a mere helper in the decorations. But he was beginning to understand the small boy by this time, and he took the withdrawal of the limelight philosophically.
When Aunt Phyllis and Joan arrived they found the flagged path from the “Welcome” gate festooned with chains of coloured paper (bought with Peter’s own pocket-money and made by him and Oswald, with some slight assistance and much moral support from Aunt Phœbe in the evening) to the door. The triumphal arch had been achieved rather in the Gothic style by putting the movable Badminton net posts into a sort of trousering of assorted oriental cloths from the dressing-up chest, and crossing two heads of giant Heracleum between them. Peter stood at the door in the white satin suit his innocent vanity loved—among other rôles it had served for Bassanio, Prince Hal, and Antony (over the body of Cæsar)—with a face of extraordinary solemnity. Behind him stood Uncle Nobby.
Joan wasn’t quite the Joan that Peter expected. She was still wan from her illness and she had grown several inches. She was as tall as he. And she was white-faced, so that her hair seemed blacker than ever, and her eyes were big and lustrous. She came walking slowly down the path with her eyes wide open. There was a difference, he felt, in her movement as she came forward, though he could not have said what it was; there was more grace in Joan now and less vigour. But it was the same Joan’s voice that cried, “Oh, Petah! It’s lovely!” She stood before him for a moment and then threw her arms about him. She hugged him and kissed him, and Uncle Nobby knew that it was the smear of High Cross School that made him wriggle out of her embrace and not return her kisses.
But immediately he took her by the hand.
“It’s better in the playroom, Joan,” he said.