They grew irregularly, and that made some quaint variations of relationship. Peter, soon after he went to Caxton, fell to expanding enormously. He developed a chest, his limbs became great things. There was a summer bitten into Joan’s memory when he regarded her as nothing more than a “leetle teeny female tick,” and descanted on the minuteness of her soul and body. But he had lost some of his lightness, if none of his dexterity and balance, as a climber, and Joan got her consolations among the lighter branches of various trees they explored. Next Christmas Joan herself had done some serious growing, and the gap was not so wide. But it was only after her first term at Newnham that Joan passed from the subservience of a junior to the confidence of a senior. She did it at a bound. She met him one day in the narrow way between Sidney Street and Petty Cury. Her hair was up and her eyes were steady; most of her legs had vanished, and she had clothes like a real woman. We do not foregather even with foster brothers in the streets of Cambridge, but a passing hail is beyond the reach of discipline. “Hullo, Petah!” she said, “what a gawky great thing you’re getting!”
Peter, a man in his second year, was so taken aback he had no adequate reply.
“You’ve grown too,” he said, “if it comes to that”;—a flavourless reply. And there was admiration in his eyes.
An encounter for subsequent regrets. He thought over it afterwards. The cheek of her! It made his blood boil.
“So long, Petah,” said Joan, carrying it off to the end....
They were sterner than brother and sister with each other. There was never going to be anything “soppy” between them. At fourteen, when Peter passed into the Red Indian phase of a boy’s development, when there can be no more “blubbing,” no more shirking, he carried Joan with him. She responded magnificently to the idea of pluck. Spartan ideals ruled them both. And a dark taciturnity. Joan would have died with shame if Peter had penetrated the secret romance of Joan Stubland, and the days of Peter’s sagas were over for ever. When Peter was fifteen he was consumed by a craving for a gun, and Oswald gave him one. “But kill,” said Oswald. “If you let anything get away wounded——”
Peter took Joan out into the wood at the back. He missed a pigeon, and then he got one.
“Pick it up, Joan,” he said, very calmly and grandly.
Joan was white to the lips, but she picked up the bloodstained bird in silence. These things had to happen.
Then out of a heap of leaves in front darted a rabbit. Lop, lop, lop, went its little white scut. Bang! and over it rolled, but it wasn’t instantly killed. Horror came upon Joan. She was nearest; she ran to the wretched animal, which was lying on its side and kicking automatically, and stood over it. Its eyes were bright and wide with terror. “Oh, how am I to kill it?” she cried, with agony in her voice; “what am I to do-o?” She wrung her hands. She felt she was going to pieces, giving herself away, failing utterly. Peter would despise her and jeer at her. But the poor little beast! The poor beast! There is a limit to pride. She caught it up. “Petah!” she cried quite pitifully, on the verge of a whimper.