The Elderbrook Brothers by Gerald Bullet Page A

‘It’s only seven miles,’ he said, over his shoulder.
    Matthew watched his brother’s diminishing figure, and the sight cost him a pang. He would have liked to join Guy on that walk, and make it up and have everything between them as before. Making it up was a simple and oft-recurring ceremony among the three brothers. One of them would say, after a decent interval: ‘I say, shall we make it up?’ And the other: ‘Yes, all right.’ And from that moment all anger would be buried and forgotten. But now, by something he could not fully understand, Matthew was cut off from that comfort. Guy had not been quite himself. He had been likesomeone consciously playing a part, performing a set task. And this vaguely disturbed Matthew.
    What more insistently disturbed him, however, was that he had put himself wrong, he felt, with Eva Linnet. Taken by surprise he had behaved churlishly to his young brother and so shown himself in a disagreeable light to one whose good opinion had suddenly become important to him.
    He gave a sidelong glance at that heavenly profile. He thought he could read disapproval there. Perhaps even dislike.
    â€˜I expect you think we’re a rum family, don’t you, Miss Linnet?’
    She shrugged her elegant little shoulders. She smiled indifferently.
    â€˜What’s your brother’s name?’ she asked. ‘He’s a nice little boy.’
    â€˜Guy? Oh, he’s all right,’ said Matthew.
    The talk trickled on. The day was golden calm. But the spell was broken. Matthew’s moment was gone.
§ 10
    SUDDENLY, as it seemed, Felix was home for the holidays. Guy and Emily had met him at Lutterthorpe. They saw his small excited face at the carriage window as the train came in, and got to the door just in time to help him out with his tin trunk. In the warmth of embracing him Emily said to herself he’s just the same, just the same. But she lied, and knew it. She knew he was just a little different. Other things and other lives had worked upon him and changed him: the cord was at last broken and her youngest delivered to the world.
    Guy too was aware of a difference. He tried to cast it out with a charmed word.
    â€˜Ship’s sinking, Mr Mate!’
    It was a sign between them: ritual beginning of an old familiar game. But Felix’s answer—‘All hands to the boats!’—lackedsomething of its former conviction, and Guy felt himself defeated. Nor did Felix pursue the theme: he had too much else to say. He talked very fast and almost at the top of his voice, Felix who had always been considered a quiet little boy. His noisiness did not disconcert Emily: she knew it to be his way of dealing with an emotional crisis and only in part a reflection of his new importance. But to Guy it wore a more desolating aspect. He felt that his loss of Felix was confirmed, not ended, by this homecoming.
    â€˜We have morning prayers every day,’ said Felix, ‘and roll-call. They call everybody’s name and you have to say
Here
. If you’re absent or late you get an impot.’
    â€˜Do you?’ Guy would not ask what an impot was.
    â€˜Hollis got two last term. But Abbott didn’t. Nor did I.’
    â€˜Who are they? Just boys?’
    Guy wanted to ask: do you like them better than me? And holding back the question made him feel swollen and red.
    â€˜We’re the Three Highwaymen,’ said Felix, innocently dropping salt in the wound. ‘Abbott specially,’ he added after a pause, unconscious of any hiatus. ‘He helps me with my Latin a bit. He’s been doing it longer.’
    â€˜Do you have Latin?’ said Guy.
    He felt sad and ashamed. For the moment there was no anger in him. It was not easy, in Felix’s presence, to be angry with this young brother for being at a school where recondite mysteries like Impots and Latin were part of the day’s work. It was easier to do that when he wasn’t