Читать книгу Seahawk - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 4

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‟IN here, Jill!”

The long country train, backing slowly into the platform of the Sydney station, came to a standstill with a clash of buffers. Four girls dived simultaneously at a door-handle, their united assault proving too much for a stout man who had marked it as his own. They tumbled into the carriage pell-mell, casting their belongings on the seats in a fashion calculated to convince any intruder that no unoccupied space remained, and gathered about the doorway flushed and laughing.

“Really, girls!” The tone was meant to be reproving, but the young teacher’s mouth twitched at the corners.

“Oh, Miss Traill—we don’t want forty people in the carriage! You always have to be ready to grab when this train comes in.”

“I should be sorry for the forty,” said Miss Traill. She smiled at her charges; the burden of term-time was slipping from her shoulders, and she looked not much older than they. The tallest of the four smiled back.

“Miss Traill, you want to get away, don’t you? You’ll have an awful—I mean, a horrible—rush for your own train if you wait.”

“But——” hesitated the teacher.

“Oh, we’ll behave like lambs. I’ll keep them in order—truly I will!”

“Well,” said Miss Traill, obviously relieved, “if you’ll be responsible, Jill, I think I might go. Girls, you won’t leave the carriage again?”

“Only over my dead body,” Jill Sherwood said. The three giggled delightedly and promised to do anything and everything that might be required of them. Miss Traill hurried off amid a chorus of farewell.

“Good business!” ejaculated Moira Ford. “I like old Trailly, but thank goodness there’ll be no more teachers for a month.” She thrust her head through the window. “Isn’t your brother coming on this train, Jill? Seen him yet?”

“No,” answered Jill to the second question. She was keeping a watchful eye on the hurrying throng on the platform. “He will turn up: he always does, generally at the last moment.”

“Hope he’ll come before anyone else grabs the spare seats.”

“Oh, Derek won’t come in here,” Jill said calmly. “He always travels with his own crowd.”

“Callous people, brothers,” commented Angela Ware. “Mine look on me as fit to sew on buttons, and that’s about all. But yours is your twin, Jill, isn’t he? I had an idea that twins had an affection for each other.”

“I don’t see why,” remarked Moira. “I think twins must feel rather annoyed with each other. Fancy having only half a birthday! Do you have to go halves in everything, Jill?”

“Not so that you’d notice it,” said Jill absently, scanning the platform.

“It’s much worse when both twins are girls,” said Angela. “Or do you say when each is a girl? It’s like talking about measles—I’m never certain whether they’re singular or plural——”

“You stop using words like that!” said fat Greta Payne from her corner. “Term’s finished!”

“Sorry,” apologized Angela. “I mean, when twins are girls their fond mothers dress ’em alike, and once they get the habit they can’t stop. Joan and Anna Burton’s mother did that. It was all right for Anna, because everything suited her, but poor old Joan looked like nothing earthly in green.”

“Joan and Anna weren’t a bit alike in looks,” said Moira, “but they were rather funny, all the same. They always shared their illnesses—if Anna had to go into the San. for anything Joan always got the same thing. And they used to dream alike. Do you and your brother go in for that sort of thing, Jill?”

Whatever Jill Sherwood might have answered was lost as she suddenly leaned farther out of the window. A knot of boys had come into sight, racing down the platform; long-limbed fellows, wearing the same school cap. One of them swung aside with a quick—“Keep me a seat, you chaps!” and with a stride was at the window, gripping Jill’s hand.

“You all right?” asked a casual voice.

“Quite, thanks, Derek. Better hurry—the train is pretty full.”

“Oh, the others will fix me up. Want any papers or things?”

“I’ve got plenty. Have some chocolate?” She produced a bar.

“Sure you can spare it?—well, thanks.” A bell rang. Porters shouted “All aboard!”

“I’d better get a move on, I think,” said Derek calmly. “The guard is semaphoring at me with his little green flag. See you later.” He ran off, swinging himself into a carriage as the train began to move. A wrathful porter banged the door. Jill withdrew her head, smiling slightly.

“He takes things easily,” said Angela. “Jill, he’s the image of you! If he came back to St. Bridget’s in your clothes nobody would know. Wouldn’t it be a lark!”

“He went to a tennis-party in my things, and nobody did know—until he began to play,” said Jill laughing. “Then they realized that the style wasn’t mine. It lacked the St. Bridget’s deportment!”

“And where were you?”

“Oh, I was in his clothes. They hadn’t found me out. I was handing tea to all the old ladies, and I heard one of them say, ‘What nice manners that Sherwood boy has!’ So we fled—I because I was laughing too much to stay, and Derek because he had split my best tennis frock. Mother made us go over next day and apologize. But it was worth it.”

“Our voices would give us away if we tried to be boys—but yours is so deep,” said Moira. “Deeper than your brother’s, I believe. And when you laugh you don’t squeak, like most of us do. But what about your hair?”

“Oh, I had an Eton crop then. It was after that tennis-party that the parents made me grow it a bit longer. They said one son was enough. Derek was glad, too—I don’t think he minded my looking like him, but he was awfully afraid of looking like a girl!” She laughed. “The tennis-party business brought home the danger to him.”

They were leaving the northern suburbs of Sydney behind them; already the train was running into open spaces where big trees dotted the paddocks. Jill turned to the window and drew a long breath.

“How I hate streets!” she said. “To think that for a whole month I shan’t see one—unless it’s the street of a little country town, and that doesn’t really count.”

“What are you going to do in the holidays?” Moira asked.

“Oh—the usual things. Ride, and boat, and bathe and fish. It won’t be quite as good as usual, because Father is away; he’s had to go to Queensland to buy cattle. But Mother always plans lots of things.”

“Well, you can have your country!” pronounced Angela. She flung her hat aside and gave a few deft touches to an unruly mop of yellow curls. “I’m glad my father chose to be a doctor. Give me a decent town where you can see life in the holidays—we don’t see much at St. Bridget’s. Mother’s going to give a dance for me.”

“I’m going to be a doctor,” stated Greta solemnly.

“Horrible life!” Angela’s tone was that of one who knows. “You’ll never be able to call your soul your own. People ringing the bell all day and night—generally the wrong bell—and calling you out when there’s nothing wrong with them. Grubby crowds in the consulting-room, and queer smells all over the house. I’d like to go on to the University, but not to cut up frogs and things there.” She shuddered delicately. “What are you going to do, Moira?”

“Oh, write, of course,” Moira answered. “That’s the only thing in the world worth doing. Fancy seeing something you’d written, seeing it in print in a paper, with your name at the top! I’m going to do a long poem these holidays and see if a paper won’t take it.”

There was an awkward silence. Moira’s “poems” were well known in the school. It was believed that the wastepaper-basket of the editor of the St. Bridget’s Magazine overflowed with them. No event during a term was too slight to induce Moira to pour out her soul in verse.

“Well, you stick to it, old girl,” said Jill Sherwood firmly. “That was a jolly good poem you wrote when we beat Surrey Hall at cricket. It’s the only time I ever saw myself in poetry, so I cherish it.”

Angela quoted softly:

“And then, to see our Captain, Jill-oh!

Brandishing her bat of springy willow!”

and Moira flushed scarlet, with an appealing look at Jill.

“Jolly good rhyme,” said Jill. “I don’t see why they wouldn’t put it in the Mag. You keep on, Moira, and you’ll make old Masefield sit up yet.”

“What are you going to do, Jill?” asked Moira hastily, to change the subject—afraid that other quotations were hovering on Angela’s lips.

“I? Oh, I don’t know. I’d rather help Father on the station than anything else, but Mother says I ought to learn Domestic Economy—cooking and things. You see, I haven’t got any brains like you people. Exams make me go all creepy. But I rather like messing about in a kitchen. Anyhow, I haven’t got to think about it yet—I’m to stay at school until I’m seventeen—perhaps eighteen, Father says. Don’t see the good of it, though.”

“Well, you’re the best all-rounder at games we ever had,” Moira put in eagerly. “And the best runner.”

“What’s the good of that?” said Jill lightly. “It’s fun, of course, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. My reports are just a catalogue of horrors: Father’s eyebrows go up into his hair while he reads them. My only comfort is that Mother says he never passed an exam himself!”

The girls said nothing. Jill’s attainments—or lack of them—on the path of learning were well known to them. They also knew that no girl of sixteen at St. Bridget’s had more influence; that she stood for straight-going and fair play in all things, and that the teachers who bewailed her indifference to her place in form relied on her in all other matters. These, however, were details not to be mentioned in Jill’s presence. They took refuge in magazines and chocolates.

The time slipped by. Station succeeded station, with increasing distances between them; the country grew wilder and more open. One by one the girls gathered up their possessions, to alight on a familiar platform, met by a welcoming group—fathers and mothers, with an excited rabble of small brothers and sisters. Angela was the last to go.

“Sorry to leave you all alone, old thing,” she said. “I suppose your brother will look you up sooner or later.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” said Jill lightly. “His friends don’t go all the way. Have a good time, and don’t come back too grown-up!”

She leaned out of the window, watching her go down the long platform, the centre of a chattering group. Far down the train she could see Derek’s head; he also was saying good-bye to a schoolfellow. Then the train began to move slowly, and Jill returned to her corner.

She was not sorry to be alone. Leaving-day, with its bustle of last-minute arrangements and good-byes, was always tiring; very jolly, but the time came when it was good to be quiet. And Derek would come soon, now. He never came until she was alone: what he termed “a mob of strange girls” was more alarming to Derek than any beasts of the jungle.

They understood each other very well. It was entirely right, in Jill’s eyes, that her twin should appear to treat her casually, that he should herd with his fellows as long as there were fellows to be with. She would not have had it otherwise, even had he been willing to brave the society of the “mob” from St. Bridget’s. Equally, she must remain with her friends. It was quite enough to know that he wanted her: that presently he would come swinging down the long line of corridors to find her. To be very sure he would be glad to come.

She went back in thought to the girls’ chatter about twins. Yes, twins were curious. She and Derek had never really wanted anyone else as friends. Always they had seemed to know each other’s thoughts, to fit into each other’s ways. They had done the same things, even to sharing illnesses and dreams. Jill had thought that things would be different when they went to school, but the separation had not changed them a bit.

Of course, the giving was on her side. That seemed natural. She had always been more boy than girl, able to do all that a boy did; so that Derek had never needed any other comrade. They had grown up on a lonely Queensland station, knowing no other children, living the free “out-back” life, their only playmates dogs, horses, and the country. Not a girl’s life—which Jill had not realized until they came South to live, and she had met other girls. She liked them, for she was a friendly soul, eager for all new experiences. But their lives seemed curiously devoid of interest to her. She had known freedom and the sharing of men’s work, while they had been playing with dolls and going to parties: and more elaborate playthings and parties still seemed to make up their existence. Even after two years at a city school it all struck Jill as very queer.

She straightened up suddenly, and a light came into her eyes. A little thread of sound drifted to her; the snatch of a song that they called their “signature tune.” It was always their private signal; not to be used lightly, but only when one had need of the other. She whistled back:

“For we’re riding—riding—riding,

Riding home again.”

Then there was a quick step in the corridor, and Derek came in. He sat down opposite her. They looked at each other steadily for a moment before they broke into smiles.

“Well—you’ve shed them all?” he said.

“All,” returned Jill thankfully. “You too?”

“Oh, there’s one left. But he’s deep in a thriller. I left him to it. I say—you’ve grown!”

“Not more than you. Let’s stand up and see.”

They stood back to back in the swaying train, twisting their necks to see what the mirror told. The likeness was extraordinary. Jill had all the boy’s lithe slenderness, and almost his breadth of shoulder. The two heads were exactly level; the brown thatch was the same, with a hint of a wave in it; brown eyes, straight noses, firm lips, square chins—feature for feature the two faces were alike. They had the same clear olive skin; the same hands, long-fingered and capable. They laughed at each other in the mirror.

“Nothing to choose between us,” said Derek, as they sat down. “How long do you think it would take Mother to spot us if we swopped clothes now?”

“Oh, Mother would know. She’s the only one we’ve never been able to puzzle. Father wouldn’t know, so long as you kept on your hat. But we couldn’t do it now, Derek: you couldn’t get my shoes on.”

“No, though there’s not much difference even there. You’ve a pretty hefty foot for a girl, haven’t you?”

“Yes, rather. Angela Ware says it’s a tragedy. She has feet half the size of mine.”

“H’m,” said Derek. “Can she run?”

“She can’t. She wouldn’t want to do anything so undignified. But you ought to see her dance, Derek!”

“Don’t want to, thank you. I suppose I’ll like dancing some day, but it bores me stiff now. Seems so silly to grab hold of another fellow and go shuffling round!”

“We might practise a bit in the hols, if you like,” suggested Jill. “Mother is keen on our dancing well.”

“Not a bad idea,” he assented. “If we have time—and there will be more time, with Father away. Pretty rotten, isn’t it? I wish we could have gone with him. Though that would have been a bit slow for Mother.”

“Oh, we’ll have plenty of fun,” Jill said. “Anything will be good, after school. Any excitement this term?”

He shook his head.

“No—it’s been very quiet. I seem to have dodged trouble in an amazing way—I was always in hot water the term before. Of course I haven’t done any good in work. Not so bad in form-work, but exam results—whew!” His whistle was a comical mixture of amusement and disgust. “How about you?”

“Very much the same, only form-work not so different to exams,” was her rueful answer. “I get decent marks in English and history, but other things simply won’t stay in my head. Derek, I often wonder if you and I did really share one brain between us! We don’t seem to have the average allowance.”

“Book-work isn’t everything,” said her twin stubbornly. “I’ll back you against other girls in everything else. And school doesn’t last for ever. Not that I’m in any hurry for it to end: I get a lot of fun out of it. But when it’s over, what will things like Latin matter? Much Father remembers of all the Latin he says he used to know!”

“If he did, I don’t see how it would help him to judge cattle any better,” Jill remarked. “But the teachers say it’s not so much the actual subjects—it’s the way your brain grows when you learn them.”

“Pity my brain, then!” he laughed. “Oh, teachers have got to say things like that, I suppose. Anyhow, I’m not going to worry over it now. We’ve a whole month without lessons, so why think of them? If you want a really comforting thought, just remember that Father will get our reports up in Queensland!”

“That’s the only good thing about his being away,” she agreed. “Won’t it seem queer not to find him waiting on the Brandan’s Point Station!”

“Beastly!” Derek affirmed. “Oh, well, there’s a hope that he’ll be home in a fortnight. And meanwhile there’ll be Mother.”

“And Joker,” she added, smiling.

“And Joker. That’s one of the things I always look forward to—the way the little chap goes nearly off his head when I come home. He’s the most faithful little dog I ever knew. I had a letter from Mother yesterday, and she said he’d been terribly excited for several days, in and out of my room all the time. He always knows.”

“I would like to see him when it’s time for them to start to meet us. Mother always says, ‘Come on, Joker—it’s time to go to find Master.’ And he races for the car, and all the way to the Point her only fear is that he’ll burst!”

“And Mother says she’s not much better herself,” he said, smiling. “Getting home is certainly jolly: I’m going to ride all day to-morrow: I never feel that I’m really home until I’ve ridden all round the place. Coming?”

“Rather!” she said happily. “And we shall have lots of fun in the Seahawk this time, Derek. The wet weather spoiled that last hols.”

“Yes, but we learned all about running her, thank goodness. Otherwise we couldn’t have taken her out, with Father away. I’ve been picking up all the points I could from other fellows whose people have motor-boats. We’ll get out to the islands at last, Jill.” His face was eager. “There’s heaps of exploring that we can do now.”

The miles flew by while they made plans for a dozen excursions by land and water. So intent were they that they did not notice the conductor when, an hour later, he came along the corridor, pausing in the doorway. He greeted them cheerfully.

“Getting home again? It seems only a few weeks since you went back.”

“Not to us!” said the twins in one voice.

“Well, I s’pose not. Your father was sayin’ he’d miss you; he went up with me last week. Hard luck, him having to go away. Ready for dinner, are you? We’re just slowing down for the refreshment-station.”

“Rather!” Derek spoke with confidence for his twin. “Come along, Jill—let’s be ready to jump for it. You don’t want a hat.”

He held her arm as they stood by the doorway in the corridor while the train ran in to the brightly-lit station. It was one of the stages in the journey home that Jill loved. Not the meal itself, though that was never unwelcome, and there was a feeling of excitement in choosing a dinner after the months of routine meals at school. But the freedom; the leap from the train before it had quite stopped; the rush across to the dining-room to seize a table and a waitress before the main horde of travellers surged in: the sense of being independent, grown-up. It never grew stale to Jill.

They were the first into the dining-room to-night, after a quick dash across the platform. The waitress they liked best greeted them—“Ah, I thought you’d be through to-night!”—and fled to bring them soup, confiding to them in a stage-whisper that, to-night, mutton was more to be recommended than beef. The room filled rapidly, everyone eating at top-speed, since the halt was but for twenty minutes. At a distant counter hungry people shouldered each other, clamouring for coffee and sandwiches and pies, to be eaten standing. Amid the din of voices, the clatter of knives and forks and plates, came the shrill cries of newsboys, shouting the evening papers.

Then, suddenly, the clang of the five-minute bell. Jill and Derek said good night to their friendly waitress—“See you this day month!”—and escaped to the platform for a quick walk in the cool air that was welcome after the reek of the dining-room. Two sharp marches up and down the length of the train, swinging aboard as the guard’s whistle blew: and they were off again, rushing through the night.

Then it seemed only a little while, so much was there to talk about, before the conductor was at the door: “Brandan’s Point next!” They gathered up their scattered possessions and stood in the corridor to catch the first glimpse of the sea that rippled under the moonlight: and forgot sea and land and everything else as the train came to a standstill by a platform where there was only one figure that mattered—a little woman whose hands were fully occupied with holding back a frantic wire-haired fox-terrier that strained on its lead, barking madly. Her face was alight with welcome as the twins dropped from the train and raced to meet her.