We had very nice brown bread for tea, rather a light brown, and spongy—Mrs. Jeyes made it, the Yearsly cook, who had been there always and stayed always—the servants never changed at Yearsly—and milk and butter from Cousin John’s Jersey cows, specially nice butter. Sometimes one of the cows would look in at the window, the north window, on to the park. Once Guy got out of the window on to a cow’s back, and rode off on it—but the cow kicked him off very soon, and we watched him chasing it and laughing, but he could not get on again.
We had ponies, too, that grazed in the park with the cows. We used to catch them ourselves and ride about bareback on them. When we were older we rode out properly with the coachman, Mathew, and Guy became a great rider. I loved it too, but Hugo did not ride so much when he grew older. I was sorry he didn’t, for I always did the same as he did, when I could.
The dogs were deerhounds. There were always two of them and sometimes three, and Cousin John had black spaniels as well. The dogs lived outside in kennels, or at the stables, but they played with us and were very much part of our life.
It is hard for me now when I think of those years at Yearsly to see them clearly and critically at all. It seems to me now that the life we led was a perfect life, as happy and complete as any children could possibly have. I know that it is unlikely to have been quite perfect, for nothing is; perhaps we were too idle; perhaps we should have been made to work harder and take lessons more seriously. I know Walter thinks we were all spoiled, that the realities of life were not brought before us, and that Guy and Hugo suffered afterwards for this. There may be something in what he says. I don’t know. I only know that it was the happiest part of my life and I believe of theirs too, and that it has helped me afterwards, when things were bad and difficult, to look back to those times and live them over again; and as for Guy and Hugo, they were and are to me all I could wish for anyone to be, and I cannot wish anything at all different about them.
IV
The first big change came when Hugo went to school.
Guy had gone two years before, when he was ten years old. That made a break in our lives, of course; we missed Guy badly, but it seemed somehow in the order of things and natural. It had always been settled for Guy to go away to school when he was ten. He had accepted the idea, and Hugo and I accepted it for him. He was ready to go, and there was nothing tragic in the separation.
He went and came back, and went again and came back again. The term time while he was away passed not interminably, and he slipped back into our life each holiday time without a serious break.
With Hugo it was quite different. We had known that it was intended for him to go some time, but vaguely. Cousin Delia had said so at the time Guy went, and Guy spoke of it from time to time. But it had not seemed real or imminent, and had not worried us. Just as we grown-up people live always with the knowledge of death in front of us, yet do not think of it much, until it comes certainly near.
So two years went by after Guy’s going, and we had grown accustomed to life with him only sometimes there, and were as happy as before, and as free from care. Then, a month after Hugo’s tenth birthday, Cousin Delia told him that he was going to school with Guy the next autumn.