‘You might manage to speak politely,’ he said.
‘Why should I?’ said the boy.
He turned as a footstep sounded coming through the undergrowth.
‘Is that you, Sam?’ he said. ‘Just turn these trespassing kids off the place, will you?’
The keeper who had stepped out beside him grinned and touched his forehead. The boy strolled away, as though he had lost all interest. The keeper turned to the children and put on a ferocious scowl.
‘Out of it, you young varmints! I’ll turn the dogs loose on you unless you’re out of here in double quick time.’
‘We’re not afraid of dogs,’ said Vernon haughtily, as he turned to depart.
‘Ho, you’re not, h’aren’t you? Well, then, I’ve got a rhinoHoceras here and I’m-a going to loose that this minute.’
He stalked off. Nell gave a terrified pull at Vernon’s arm.
‘He’s gone to get it,’ she cried. ‘Oh! hurry – hurry –’
Her alarm was contagious. So much had been retailed about the Levinnes that the keeper’s threat seemed a perfectly likely one to the children. With one accord they ran for home. They plunged in a bee-line, pushing their way through the undergrowth. Vernon and Joe led. A piteous cry arose from Nell.
‘Vernon – Vernon – Oh! do wait. I’ve got stuck –’
What a nuisance Nell was! She couldn’t run or do anything. He turned back – gave her frock a vigorous pull to free it from the brambles with which it was entangled (a good deal to the frock’s detriment) and hauled her to her feet.
‘Come on, do.’
‘I’m so out of breath. I can’t run any more. Oh! Vernon, I’m so frightened.’
‘Come on.’
Hand in hand he pulled her along. They reached the Park palings, scrambled over …
6
‘We-ell,’ said Joe, fanning herself with a very dirty linen hat. ‘That was an adventure.’
‘My frock’s all torn,’ said Nell. ‘What shall I do?’
‘I hate that boy,’ said Vernon. ‘He’s a beast.’
‘He’s a beastly beast,’ agreed Joe. ‘We’ll declare war on him. Shall we?’
‘Rather!’
‘What shall I do about my frock?’
‘It’s very awkward their having a rhinoceros,’ said Joe thoughtfully. ‘Do you think Tom Boy would go for it if we trained him to?’
‘I shouldn’t like Tom Boy to be hurt,’ said Vernon.
Tom Boy was the stable dog – a great favourite of his. His mother had always vetoed a dog in the house, so Tom Boy was the nearest Vernon had got to having a dog of his own.
‘I don’t know what Mother will say about my frock.’
‘Oh, bother your frock, Nell. It’s not the sort of frock for playing in the garden, anyway.’
‘I’ll tell your mother it’s my fault,’ said Vernon impatiently. ‘Don’t be so like a girl.’
‘I am a girl,’ said Nell.
‘Well, so is Joe a girl. But she doesn’t go on like you do. She’s as good as a boy any day.’
Nell looked ready to cry, but at that minute they were called from the house.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Vereker,’ said Vernon. ‘I’m afraid I’ve torn Nell’s frock.’
There were reproaches from Myra, civil disclaimers from Mrs Vereker. When Nell and her mother had gone, Myra said:
‘You must not be so rough, Vernon, darling. When a little girl friend comes to tea, you must take great care of her.’
‘Why have we got to have her to tea? We don’t like her. She spoils everything.’
‘Vernon! Nell is such a dear little girl.’
‘She isn’t, Mother. She’s awful.’
‘Vernon!’
‘Well, she is. I don’t like her mother either.’
‘I don’t like Mrs Vereker much,’ said Myra. ‘I always think she’s a very hard woman. But I can’t think why you children don’t like Nell. Mrs Vereker tells me she’s absolutely devoted to you, Vernon.’
‘Well, I don’t want her to be.’
He escaped with Joe.
‘War,’ he said. ‘That’s what it is – war! I daresay that Levinne boy is really a Boer in disguise. We must plan out our campaign. Why should he come and live next door to us, and spoil everything?’
The kind of guerilla warfare that followed occupied Vernon and Joe in a most pleasurable fashion. They invented all kinds of methods of harassing the enemy. Concealed in trees, they pelted him with chestnuts. They stalked him with pea-shooters. They outlined a hand in red paint and crept secretly up to the house one night after dark, and left it on the doorstep with the word ‘Revenge’ printed at the bottom of the sheet of paper.
Sometimes their enemy retaliated in kind. He, too, had a pea-shooter and it was he who laid in wait for them one day with a garden hose.
Hostilities had been going on for nearly ten days when Vernon came upon Joe sitting on a tree stump looking unusually despondent.
‘Hallo, what’s up? I thought you were going to stalk the enemy with those squashy tomatoes Cook gave us.’
‘I was. I mean I did.’
‘What’s the matter, Joe?’
‘I was up a tree and he came right by underneath. I could have got him beautifully.’
‘Do you mean to say you didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘Why ever not?’
Joe’s face became very red, and she began to speak very fast.
‘I couldn’t. You see, he didn’t know I was there, and he looked – oh, Vernon! he looked so awfully lonely – as though he were simply hating things. You know, it must be pretty beastly having no one to do things with.’
‘Yes, but –’
Vernon paused to adjust his ideas.
‘Don’t you remember how we said it was all rotten?’ went on Joe. ‘People being so beastly about the Levinnes, and now we’re being as beastly as anyone.’
‘Yes, but he was beastly to us!’
‘Perhaps he didn’t mean to be.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘No, it isn’t. Look at the way dogs bite you if they’re afraid or suspicious. I expect he just expected us to be beastly to him, and wanted to start first. Let’s be friends.’
‘You can’t be in the middle of a war.’
‘Yes, you can. We’ll make a white flag, and then you march with it and demand a parley, and see if you can’t agree upon honourable terms of peace.’
‘Well,’ said Vernon, ‘I don’t mind if we do. It would be a change, anyway. What shall we use for a flag of truce – my handkerchief or your pinafore?’
Marching with the flag of truce was rather exciting. It was not long before they encountered the enemy. He stared in complete surprise.
‘What’s up?’ he said.
‘We want a parley,’ said Vernon.
‘Well, I’m agreeable,’ said the other boy, after a moment’s pause.
‘What we want to say is this,’ said Joe. ‘If you’ll agree, we’d like to be friends.’
They looked from one to the other.
‘Why do you want to be friends?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘It seems a bit silly,’ said Vernon. ‘Living next door and not being friends, doesn’t it?’
‘Which of you thought of that first?’
‘I did,’ said Joe.
She felt those small jet black eyes boring into her. What a queer boy he was. His ears seemed to stick out more than ever.
‘All right,’ said the boy. ‘I’d like to.’
There was a minute’s embarrassed pause.
‘What’s your name?’ said Joe.
‘Sebastian.’
There was just the faintest lisp, so little as hardly to be noticed.
‘What a funny name. Mine’s Joe and this is Vernon. He’s at school. Do you go to school?’
‘Yes. I’m going to Eton later.’
‘So am I,’ said Vernon.
Again a faint tide of hostility rose
between them. Then it ebbed away – never to return.
‘Come and see our swimming pool,’ said Sebastian. ‘It’s rather jolly.’
Chapter Eight
1
The friendship with Sebastian Levinne prospered and throve apace. Half the zest of it lay in the secrecy that had to be adopted. Vernon’s mother would have been horrified if she had guessed at anything of the kind. The Levinnes would certainly not have been horrified – but their gratification might have led to equally dire results.
School time passed on leaden wings for poor Joe, cooped up with a daily governess, who arrived every morning, and who subtly disapproved of her outspoken and rebellious pupil. Joe only lived for the holidays. As soon as they came, she and Vernon would set off to a secret meeting-place where there was a convenient gap in a hedge. They had invented a code of whistles and many unnecessary signals. Sometimes Sebastian would be there before time – lying on the bracken – his yellow face and jutting out ears looking strangely at variance with his knickerbocker suit.
They played games, but they also talked – how they talked! Sebastian told them stories of Russia – they learnt of the persecution of Jews – of Pogroms! Sebastian himself had never been in Russia, but he had lived for years amongst other Russian Jews and his own father had narrowly escaped with his life in a Pogrom. Sometimes he would say sentences in Russian to please Vernon and Joe. It was all entrancing.
‘Everybody hates us down here,’ said Sebastian. ‘But it doesn’t matter. They won’t be able to do without us because my father is so rich. You can buy everything with money.’
He had a certain queer arrogance about him.
‘You can’t buy everything,’ objected Vernon. ‘Old Nicoll’s son has come home from the war without a leg. Money couldn’t make his leg grow again.’
‘No,’ admitted Sebastian. ‘I didn’t mean things like that. But money would get you a very good wooden leg, and the best kind of crutches.’
‘I had crutches once,’ said Vernon. ‘It was rather fun. And I had an awfully nice nurse to look after me.’
‘You see, you couldn’t have had that if you hadn’t been rich.’
Was he rich? He supposed he was. He’d never thought about it.
‘I wish I was rich,’ said Joe.
‘You can marry me when you grow up,’ said Sebastian, ‘and then you will be.’
‘It wouldn’t be nice for Joe if nobody came to see her,’ objected Vernon.
‘I wouldn’t mind that a bit,’ said Joe. ‘I wouldn’t care what Aunt Myra or anybody said. I’d marry Sebastian if I wanted to.’
‘People will come and see her then,’ said Sebastian. ‘You don’t realize. Jews are frightfully powerful. My father says people can’t do without them. That’s why Sir Charles Alington had to sell us Deerfields.’
A sudden chill came over Vernon. He felt without putting the thought into words that he was talking to a member of an enemy race. But he felt no antagonism towards Sebastian. That was over long ago. He and Sebastian were friends – somehow he was sure they always would be.
‘Money,’ said Sebastian, ‘isn’t just buying things. It’s ever so much more than that. And it isn’t only having power over people. It’s – it’s being able to get together lots of beauty.’
He made a queer un-English gesture with his hands.
‘What do you mean,’ said Vernon, ‘by get together?’
Sebastian didn’t know what he meant. The words had just come.
‘Anyway,’ said Vernon, ‘things aren’t beauty.’
‘Yes, they are. Deerfields is beautiful – but not nearly so beautiful as Abbots Puissants.’
‘When Abbots Puissants belongs to me,’ said Vernon, ‘you can come and stay there as much as ever you like. We’re always going to be friends, aren’t we? No matter what anyone says?’
‘We’re always going to be friends,’ said Sebastian.
2
Little by little the Levinnes made headway. The church needed a new organ – Mr Levinne presented it with one. Deerfields was thrown open on the occasion of the choir boys’ outing, and strawberries and cream provided. A large donation was given to the Primrose League. Turn where you would, you came up against the opulence and the kindness of the Levinnes.
People began to say: ‘Of course they’re impossible – but Mrs Levinne is wonderfully kind.’
And they said other things.
‘Oh, of course – Jews! But perhaps it is absurd of one to be prejudiced. Some very good people have been Jews.’
It was rumoured that the Vicar had said: ‘Including Jesus Christ,’ in answer. But nobody really believed that. The Vicar was unmarried which was very unusual – and had odd ideas about Holy Communion – and sometimes preached very incomprehensible sermons; but nobody believed that he would have said anything really sacrilegious.
It was the Vicar who introduced Mrs Levinne to the Sewing Circle which met twice a week to provide comforts for our brave soldiers in South Africa. And meeting her twice a week there certainly made it awkward.
In the end, Lady Coomberleigh, softened by the immense donation to the Primrose League, took the plunge and called. And where Lady Coomberleigh led, everybody followed.
Not that the Levinnes were ever admitted to intimacy. But they were officially accepted, and people were heard saying:
‘She’s a very kind woman – even if she does wear impossible clothes for the country.’
But that, too, followed. Mrs Levinne was adaptable like all her race. A very short time elapsed before she appeared in even tweedier tweeds than her neighbour’s.
Joe and Vernon were solemnly bidden to tea with Sebastian Levinne.
‘We must go this once, I suppose,’ said Myra, sighing. ‘But we need never get really intimate. What a queer-looking boy he is. You won’t be rude to him, will you, Vernon, darling?’
The children solemnly made the official acquaintance of Sebastian. It amused them very much.
But the sharp-witted Joe fancied that Mrs Levinne knew more about their friendship than Aunt Myra did. Mrs Levinne wasn’t a fool. She was like Sebastian.
3
Walter Deyre was killed a few weeks before the war ended. His end was a gallant one. He was shot when going back to rescue a wounded comrade under heavy fire. He was awarded a posthumous VC, and the letter his colonel wrote to Myra was treasured by her as her dearest possession.
‘Never,’ wrote the colonel, ‘have I known anyone so fearless of danger. His men adored him and would have followed him anywhere. He has risked his life again and again in the gallantest way. You can indeed be proud of him.’
Myra read that letter again and again. She read it to all her friends. It wiped away the faint sting that her husband had left no last word or letter for her.
‘But being a Deyre, he wouldn’t,’ she said to herself.
Yet Walter Deyre had left a letter ‘in case I should be killed’. But it was not to Myra, and she never knew of it. She was grief-stricken, but happy. Her husband was hers in death as he had never been in life, and with her easy power of making things as she wished them to be, she began to weave a convincing romance of her wonderfully happy married life.
It is difficult to say how Vernon was affected by his father’s death. He felt no actual grief – was rendered even more stolid by his mother’s obvious wish for him to display emotion. He was proud of his father – so proud that it almost hurt – yet he understood what Joe had meant when she said that it was better for her mother to be dead. He remembered very clearly that last evening walk with his father – the things he had said – the feeling there had been between them.
His father, he knew, hadn’t really wanted to come back. He was sorry for his father – he always had been. He didn’t know why.
It was not grief he felt for his father – it was more a kind of heart-gripping loneliness. Father was dead – Aunt Nina was dead. There was Mother, of course, but that was different.
He couldn’t s
atisfy his mother – he never had been able to. She was always hugging him, crying over him – telling him they must be all in all to each other now. And he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, say the things she wanted him to say. He couldn’t even put his arms round her neck and hug her back.
He longed for the holidays to be over. His mother, with her red eyes, and her widow’s weeds – of the heaviest crape. Somehow she overpowered things.
Mr Flemming, the lawyer from London, came down to stay, and Uncle Sydney came from Birmingham. He stayed two days. At the end of them, Vernon was summoned to the library.
The two men were sitting at the long table. Myra was sitting in a low chair by the fire, her handkerchief to her eyes.
‘Well, my boy,’ said Uncle Sydney, ‘we’ve got something to talk to you about. How would you like to come and live near your Aunt Carrie and me at Birmingham?’
‘Thank you,’ said Vernon, ‘but I’d rather live here.’
‘A bit gloomy, don’t you think?’ said his uncle. ‘Now I’ve got my eye on a jolly house – not too big, thoroughly comfortable. There’ll be your cousins near for you to play with in the holidays. It’s a very good idea, I think.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Vernon politely. ‘But I’d really like being here best, thank you.’
‘Ah! H’m,’ said Uncle Sydney. He blew his nose and looked questioningly at the lawyer, who assented to the look with a slight nod.
‘It’s not quite so simple as that, old chap,’ said Uncle Sydney. ‘I think you’re quite old enough to understand if I explain things to you. Now that your father’s dead – er – passed from us, Abbots Puissants belongs to you.’
‘I know,’ said Vernon.
‘Eh? How do you know? Servants been talking?’
‘Father told me before he went away.’
‘Oh!’ said Uncle Sydney rather taken aback. ‘Oh, I see. Well, as I say, Abbots Puissants belongs to you, but a place like this takes a lot of money to run – paying wages and things like that – you understand? And then there are some things called Death Duties. When anyone dies, you have to pay out a lot of money to the Government.
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