“Killing things? No! I would never do that.” (His brother Maurice, yes.) “I don’t even know where it is. I used to use it to get conkers down from the tree.”
She looked disappointed by his pacifism but was not to be diverted from the catechism. “What about scrapes? You must get into those, all boys do, don’t they? Scrapes and japes.”
“Scrapes?” He remembered with a certain horror the incident with the green paint.
“Are you a Boy Scout?” she said, standing to mock attention and giving a smart salute. “I bet you’re a Scout. Dyb, dyb, dob and all that.”
“Used to be,” he muttered. “Used to be a Cub.” It was not a topic he wished to explore with her but it was actually impossible for him to lie, as if a spell had been put on him at birth. Both his sisters—and even Nancy—could lie beautifully if necessary, and Maurice and truth (or Truth) were poorly acquainted, but Teddy was deplorably honest.
“Did you get kicked out of the Scouts?” Izzie asked eagerly. “Cashiered? Was there some terrible scandal?”
“Of course not.”
“Do tell. What happened?”
The Kinship of the Kibbo Kift happened, Teddy thought. He would probably have to spend hours explaining to Izzie if he so much as mentioned the words.
“Kibbo Kift?” she said. “It sounds like the name of a clown.”
How about sweets? Are you very fond of them, for example, and if so, what kind?” A little notebook appeared, alarming Teddy. “Oh, don’t mind this,” she said. “Everyone takes notes these days. So… sweets?”
“Sweets?”
“Sweets,” she affirmed and then sighed and said, “You know, dear Teddy, it’s just that I don’t know any little boys, apart from you. I have often wondered what goes into the making of a boy, apart from the usual slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails, of course. And a boy,” she continued, “is a man in the making. The boy in the man, the man in the boy, and so on.” This last said rather absently while considering the cow parsley. “I wonder if you will be like your father when you grow up, for example?”
“I hope so.”
“Oh, you mustn’t settle for ordinariness, I’m sure I never shall. You must grow up to be quite piratical!” She started to shred the cow parsley to pieces. “Men say that women are mysterious creatures, but I think that’s a ruse to deflect us from seeing their absolute incomprehensibility.” These last two words said rather loudly and very irritably as if she had a particular person in mind. (“She always has some man or other on the go,” he had heard his mother say.) “And what about little girls?” Izzie said.
“What about them?” he puzzled.
“Well, do you have a ‘special friend’—you know, a girl you particularly like?” She made a silly, smirking face which he supposed was her attempt (a very poor one) at miming romance or some such other nonsense.
He blushed.
“A little bird tells me,” she continued relentlessly, “that you have a bit of a pash on one of the next-door girls.”
What little bird, he wondered? Nancy and her clutch of sisters—Winnie, Gertie, Millie and Bea—lived next to Fox Corner in a house called Jackdaws. A great many of these birds roosted in the woods and showed a preference for the Shawcross lawn, on to which Mrs. Shawcross tossed cold toast every morning.
Teddy would not give Izzie Nancy, not under any circumstances, not under torture—which this was. He would not say her name to have it sullied on Izzie’s lips and be made fun of. Nancy was his friend, his boon companion, not the stupid soppy sweetheart that Izzie was implying. Of course he would marry Nancy one day and he would love her, yes, but it would be the pure chivalrous love of a knight. Not that he really understood any other kind. He had seen the bull with the cows, and Maurice said that was what people did too, including their mother and father, he sniggered. Teddy was pretty sure he was lying. Hugh and Sylvie were far too dignified for such acrobatics.
“Oh, my, are you blushing?” Izzie crowed. “I do believe I’ve ferreted out your secret!”
“Pear drops,” Teddy said in an effort to put an end to this inquisition.
“What about them?” Izzie said. (She was easily distracted.) The ruined cow parsley was tossed on to the ground. She cared nothing for nature. In her heedlessness she would have trampled through the meadow, kicked over lapwings’ nests, terrorized the field mice. She belonged in the city, in a world of machines.
“They’re my favourite sweets,” he said.
Turning a corner they came across the dairy herd, nudging and bumping their way along the lane as they returned from milking. It must be late, Teddy thought. He hoped he hadn’t missed tea.
Oh, bluebells, how lovely,” his mother said when they walked through the front door. She was dressed in evening clothes and looked rather lovely herself. At the school he was about to start his mother had many admirers, according to Maurice. Teddy felt rather proud of his mother’s status as a beauty. “What on earth have you been doing all this time?” Sylvie asked. A question aimed at Teddy but intended for Izzie.