them?
âNow thatâs enough, said Lil sternly. Stop that teasing.
âItâs not teasing, Ann said, opening her eyes wide. Isnât it real? Why canât I ask him?
One summer afternoon Joyce was packing in her bedroom; she was going to spend a week in Paris with friends from the Art College. Dresses and blouses and underclothes, carefully mended and pressed, were laid out on the bed beside the open suitcase. She had sewed herself a new gray Liberty print dress with a full skirt and a white patent-leather belt; to earn the money for this and for the trip she had been working since the college term ended for a friend of Uncle Dickâs in a marine insurance office in the city. Swallows were swooping dizzily in the big empty blue bowl of sky outside; the wood pigeons were heating up their end-of-tether crooning; the weather was languid and dreamy. Then Gilbert was suddenly in the yard, home from the Brookeses before he should have been, in a flurry of noise and banging.
Joyce looked out from her window; Lil and Ann ran from the kitchen to see what the matter was. Gilbert picked up the tin bucket from where it stood outside the back door and sent it hurtling across the yard. Lil had washed the kitchen floor and the bucket was full of dirty water, which sluiced out in an interesting arc, sending the hens squawking and flattening themselves close to the ground in panic. The bucket bounced off a wall and along the cobbles with a jubilant clanging. Lil and Ann screamed. Gilbert kicked at the hens, and then he picked up the outhouse shovel and hurled that after the bucket.
âGilly, donât! cried Ann.
âStop it, stop that! said Lil, running after him and trying to hold on to him.
He reached around for something else to throw, found the bike heâd just ridden back on, and picked it up in his hands as if it were a toy.
âWhateverâs the matter? Put that down and stop misbehaving. Youâll hurt somebody.
Gilbert didnât say a word. He lifted the heavy old bike right up above his head and flung it down flat so that it jarred and leaped and skidded on its side across to where Ann dodged quickly back inside the kitchen. The bike lamp crunched and sprinkled glass like sugar; the front wheel buckled. Gilbert shook off Lil and picked up a rusted old rake, which he thrust deliberately through a window with an explosive tinkling; it was only a small filthy old cobwebbed pane in the outhouse where they kept the chicken feed and paraffin. Then, with the rake, Gilbert strode off down the side of the house.
Lil burst into tears and held her apron over her face.
Vera had been making notes from a new book on Victorian social reform at a table in the front room. Now she came blinking into the aftershock of the scene.
âGoodness me, she said, whatever was all that about?
âYou see, said Lil, shaking her head behind her apron, he isnât all right.
âWhat did he say?
âHe didnât say anything. Heâs gone down to the rhine.
Vera took in the damage: it didnât look much with Gilbert gone, just the bike sprawled down and the yard untidy.
âWell, this is too silly, she said. I suppose Iâd better go after him and ask him whatâs going on, if nobody else will.
She pushed her hair behind her ears and set off down the path with an impatient schoolmistressâs forbearing frown and authoritative step.
âHeâs got the rake! shouted Lil.
âOh, has he indeed! Vera retorted, undeterred.
Joyce joined the others downstairs, and they waited in the yard for Vera to come back.
âWill he try to drown himself? Lil said suddenly.
Ann and Joyce looked at her in dismay; although the rhines were so dry in the summer months that drowning would have taken some ingenuity.
There was a sudden fracas of agitated honking from the geese down at the rhine. Then they saw Vera: running and leaping up the path in her stocking feet, her shoes kicked off
âNow thatâs enough, said Lil sternly. Stop that teasing.
âItâs not teasing, Ann said, opening her eyes wide. Isnât it real? Why canât I ask him?
One summer afternoon Joyce was packing in her bedroom; she was going to spend a week in Paris with friends from the Art College. Dresses and blouses and underclothes, carefully mended and pressed, were laid out on the bed beside the open suitcase. She had sewed herself a new gray Liberty print dress with a full skirt and a white patent-leather belt; to earn the money for this and for the trip she had been working since the college term ended for a friend of Uncle Dickâs in a marine insurance office in the city. Swallows were swooping dizzily in the big empty blue bowl of sky outside; the wood pigeons were heating up their end-of-tether crooning; the weather was languid and dreamy. Then Gilbert was suddenly in the yard, home from the Brookeses before he should have been, in a flurry of noise and banging.
Joyce looked out from her window; Lil and Ann ran from the kitchen to see what the matter was. Gilbert picked up the tin bucket from where it stood outside the back door and sent it hurtling across the yard. Lil had washed the kitchen floor and the bucket was full of dirty water, which sluiced out in an interesting arc, sending the hens squawking and flattening themselves close to the ground in panic. The bucket bounced off a wall and along the cobbles with a jubilant clanging. Lil and Ann screamed. Gilbert kicked at the hens, and then he picked up the outhouse shovel and hurled that after the bucket.
âGilly, donât! cried Ann.
âStop it, stop that! said Lil, running after him and trying to hold on to him.
He reached around for something else to throw, found the bike heâd just ridden back on, and picked it up in his hands as if it were a toy.
âWhateverâs the matter? Put that down and stop misbehaving. Youâll hurt somebody.
Gilbert didnât say a word. He lifted the heavy old bike right up above his head and flung it down flat so that it jarred and leaped and skidded on its side across to where Ann dodged quickly back inside the kitchen. The bike lamp crunched and sprinkled glass like sugar; the front wheel buckled. Gilbert shook off Lil and picked up a rusted old rake, which he thrust deliberately through a window with an explosive tinkling; it was only a small filthy old cobwebbed pane in the outhouse where they kept the chicken feed and paraffin. Then, with the rake, Gilbert strode off down the side of the house.
Lil burst into tears and held her apron over her face.
Vera had been making notes from a new book on Victorian social reform at a table in the front room. Now she came blinking into the aftershock of the scene.
âGoodness me, she said, whatever was all that about?
âYou see, said Lil, shaking her head behind her apron, he isnât all right.
âWhat did he say?
âHe didnât say anything. Heâs gone down to the rhine.
Vera took in the damage: it didnât look much with Gilbert gone, just the bike sprawled down and the yard untidy.
âWell, this is too silly, she said. I suppose Iâd better go after him and ask him whatâs going on, if nobody else will.
She pushed her hair behind her ears and set off down the path with an impatient schoolmistressâs forbearing frown and authoritative step.
âHeâs got the rake! shouted Lil.
âOh, has he indeed! Vera retorted, undeterred.
Joyce joined the others downstairs, and they waited in the yard for Vera to come back.
âWill he try to drown himself? Lil said suddenly.
Ann and Joyce looked at her in dismay; although the rhines were so dry in the summer months that drowning would have taken some ingenuity.
There was a sudden fracas of agitated honking from the geese down at the rhine. Then they saw Vera: running and leaping up the path in her stocking feet, her shoes kicked off
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