Even then, the blowsy teenager was sent with him on the first day, lest, presumably, he faint at the roadside or vanish upwards to Heaven. His heart was heavy and confused, as he walked; and Eileen found difficulty in conversing with a kid of his kind anyway. He was slightly relieved by the fact that when they arrived at the school, she had no other idea than to hasten off with alacrity.
The headmistress (if so one might term her), who was also part-proprietor of the establishment, a neat lady of 36, was waiting specially for Hilary's arrival after his illness; and greeted him with kindness and a certain understanding. The children also felt a new interest in him, though with most of them it was only faint. But there was a little girl with two tight plaits and a gingham dress patterned with asters and sunflowers, who seemed more sincerely concerned about what had been happening to him. Her name was Valerie Watkinson.
"Where's Mary?" asked Hilary.
"Mary's dead," said Valerie Watkinson solemnly.
Hilary's first response was merely hostile. "I don't believe you," he said.
Valerie Watkinson nodded three or four times, even more solemnly.
Hilary clutched hold of both her arms above the elbows. "I don't believe you," he said again.
Valerie Watkinson began to cry. "You're hurting me."
Hilary took away his hands. Valerie did not move or make any further complaint. They stood facing one another in silence for a perceptible pause, with Valerie quietly weeping.
"Is it true?" said Hilary in the end.
Valerie nodded again behind her tiny handkerchief with a pinky-blue Swiss milkmaid on one corner. "You're very pale," she gasped out, her mouth muffled.
She stretched out a small damp hand. "Poor Hilary. Mary was your friend. I'm sorry for you, Hilary."
"Did she go to bed with a temperature?" asked Hilary. He was less unaccustomed than most children to the idea of death because he was perfectly well aware that of late he himself was said to have escaped death but narrowly.
This time Valerie shook her head, though with equal solemnity. "No," she said. "At least, I don't think so. It's all a mystery. We haven't been told she's dead. We thought she was ill, like you. Then Sandy saw something in the paper." Sandy Stainer was a podgy sprawling boy with, as one might suppose, vaguely reddish hair.
"What did he see?"
"Something nasty," said Valerie with confidence. "I don't know what it was. We're not supposed to know."
"Sandy knows."
"Yes," said Valerie.
"Hasn't he told?"
"He's been told not to. Miss Milland had him in her room."
"But don't you want to know yourself?"
"No, I don't," said Valerie, with extreme firmness. "My mummy says it's enough for us to know that poor Mary's dead. She says that's what really matters."
It was certainly what really mattered to Hilary. He passed his first day back at school looking very pallid and speaking no further word except when directly addressed by Miss Milland or Mrs Everson; both of whom agreed, after school hours, that Hilary Brigstock had been sent back before he should have been. It was something to which they were entirely accustomed: the children often seemed to divide into those perpetually truant and those perpetually in seeming need of more care and attention than they were receiving at home. That it should be so was odd in such a professional and directorial area; though Mrs Cartier, who looked in every now and then to teach elementary French, and was a Maoist, said it was just what one always found.
Hilary had never spoken to Sandy Stainer, nor ever wanted to. The present matter was not one which he would care to enquire about in such a quarter. Moreover, he knew perfectly well that he would be told nothing, but merely tormented. Sandy Stainer's lips had somehow been sealed in some remarkably effective way; and he would be likely to find, in such a situation, clear conscience and positive social sanction for quiet arm-twisting and general vexing of enquirers, especially of enquirers known to be as vulnerable as Hilary. And Mary had been so much to Hilary that he had no other close friend in the school — probably no other friend there at all. Perhaps Hilary was one of those men who are designed for one woman only.
Certainly he had no little friends outside the school; nor had ever been offered any. Nor, as usual, was the death of Mary a matter that could be laid before his father. In any case, what could his father permit himself to tell him; when all was so obscure, and so properly so?
Within a day or two, Hilary was back in bed once more, and again missing from school.
Doctor Morgan-Vaughan could not but suspect this time that the trouble contained a marked element of "the psychological"; but it was an aspect of medicine that had always struck him as almost entirely unreal, and certainly as a therapeutic dead end, except for those resolved to mine it financially. He preferred to treat visibly physiological disturbances with acceptably physiological nostra. In the present case, he seriously thought of again calling in Doctor Oughtred, who had undoubtedly made a very real contribution in the earlier manifestation of the child's illness.
"Do you read the local paper, Mrs Parker?" asked Hilary, whiter than the sheets between which he lay.
"I don't get round to it," replied Mrs Parker, in her carefully uncommitted way. "We take it in. Mr Parker feels we should."
"Why does he feel that?"
"Well, you want to know what's going on around you, don't you?"
"Yes," said Hilary.
"Not that Mr Parker reads anything very much. Why should he, when he's got the wireless? The Advertiser just piles up in heaps till the waste people come for it from the hospital."
"What do they do with it at the hospital?"
"Pulp it, I believe. You've got to do what you can for charity, haven't you?"
"Bring me all the local papers in the heap, Mrs Parker. I'm ill too. It's just like the hospital."
"You couldn't read them," said Mrs Parker, as before; carefully not conceding.
"I could," said Hilary.
"How's that? You can't read."
"I can," said Hilary. "I can read anything. Well, almost anything. Bring me the papers, Mrs Parker."
She expressed no surprise that he should want to read something so boring even to her; nor did it seem to strike her that there might be anything significant in his demand. In fact, she could think of nothing to say; and as, in any case, she was always wary about what she let fall in the ambience of her employment, she left Hilary's room without one word more.
But, as much as three days later, Eileen had something to say when she brought him his midday meal (not a very imaginative one) and an assembly of pills.
"You are old-fashioned," remarked Eileen. "At least that's what Mrs Parker thinks."
"What d'you mean?" asked Hilary in a sulky tone, because he disliked Eileen.
"Asking for the Advertiser, when you can't even read it."
"I can read it," said Hilary.
"I know more than Mrs Parker knows," said Eileen. "It's that little girl, isn't it? Mary Rossiter, your little sweetheart."
Hilary said nothing.
"I've seen you together. I know. Not that I've told Mrs Parker."
"You haven't?"
"Not likely. Why should I tell her?"
Hilary considered that.
"She's a silly cow," said Eileen casually.
Hilary was clutching with both hands at the sheet. "Do you know what happened to Mary?" he asked, looking as far away from Eileen as he could look.
"Not exactly. She was interfered with, and mauled about. Bitten all over, they say, poor little thing. But it's been hushed up proper, and you'd better hurry and forget all about her. That's all you can do, isn't it?"