“Nonsense, Constance, stop pampering the child. Besides, it’s unpatriotic to waste tallow in wartime.”
It was unpatriotic, apparently, to waste quite a few things on Branny. The teas stopped almost immediately and his diet was rigidly overhauled. Meat, which he loved, was almost forbidden. In place of warm slices from a new cottage loaf with butter or jam, he had to make out with thick slices of yesterday’s bread scraped by Aunt Hilda’s own hands with a thin film of margarine. And at breakfast, even in holiday time when there were no pupils to consider, he had to endure the agony of lumpy porridge swimming in hot milk while his aunts, good trencherwomen both, partook liberally of ham, sausages, or poached eggs and bacon.
Exasperated one morning when Constance furtively slipped a sausage to Branny from her own plate, Aunt Hilda coldly pronounced the dreaded words:
“Constance, you are hopeless with that child. There is only one thing to do. He must go to a boys’ boarding school. He needs the discipline of boys of his own age. You are turning him into a milksop.”
There followed a heated argument at the end of which Constance dissolved in tears and Branny, goaded beyond endurance called his aunts “Two fat old pigs.”
Oddly enough in this impasse it was Aunt Nellie who came forward with a solution which more or less proved satisfactory to all parties. She approached Constance some hours later in her bedroom where she had taken her poorliness and Branny after the storm in the breakfast teacups. Aunt Nellie argued with sweet persuasiveness. No one wanted to get rid of dear Branson, of course, but Constance must admit it was not good for a child to be the only little boy in a school for girls. Now she, Aunt Nellie, had been writing to her friends in Mysore; indeed, she flattered herself she had worked up quite a neat little Anglo-Indian connection for the school. In some cases parents had not wanted their children to be separated, it being wartime and India being so far away, and several girls could be snared for the school provided their little brothers could also be admitted. The introduction of boys into the school would not only solve the problem of Branny, it would bring the sisters proportionate financial benefits.
It was this last consideration which won the nod of approval from Aunt Hilda, and the winter term was not too far advanced by the time Branny was sharing his attic — now pretentiously called the boys’ dormitory — with the first harbinger of the male contingent.
Branny might almost have been at boarding school, so far had he been severed from his mother. They had to scheme for their meetings like guilty lovers. Since Branny could do nothing, it was Mrs. Foster who developed craft. She persuaded one of the junior governesses that she was not “strong” enough and substituted herself as director of the younger children’s afternoon walk. She imagined ailments for the solitary male boarder so that she could sneak up to the dormitory for a surreptitious squeeze of Branny’s hand before “Lights out.”
These were, however, frugal crumbs of comfort for Branny. Life had become even bleaker than in the most flourishing days of the mustache. And with the stubborn simplification of the very young, Branny viewed the causes of this new regime and affixed all the blame for it on Aunt Hilda.
From then on he hated Aunt Hilda with a hatred that was the more bitter because there was no one with whom he could share it.
Although the admission of boys to Oaklawn had brought him no positive advantages, it did bring him a friend and ally who influenced him profoundly. This was the male boarder, a youngster of Branny’s own age, who was afflicted with the name of Marmaduke Cattermole. His father was the Vice-vice something-or-other of something-or-other in India and the son was Vice and Sophistication personified. A degenerate imp, as Aunt Hilda was to call him later, not without a certain approximation to essential truth.
Branny was a trifle overawed when this angelic-looking child first appeared. In fact everyone was overawed by Marmalade, as he himself chose to be called. Aunt Hilda, observing his ethereal complexion and remembering the alphabetic distinctions following his father’s name, decreed an extra blanket for him and a glass of milk at midday.
This milk, intended by Aunt Hilda as a special mark of favor, produced an unexpected result. For Marmalade had a passionate and whimsical hatred for milk and when it became plain that milk was to be forced upon him willynilly, this hatred transferred itself to Aunt Hilda as the instigator of his misery. In a short time his loathing outrivalled and outshone even that of Branny.
Indeed, Marmalade was obsessed with Aunt Hilda. He brewed malice against her with every breath and being a talented boy both with pencil and in doggerel rhythm, he mightily convulsed Branny with his verses and sketches. Outwardly he was honey-sweet to her but behind her back the angel was transformed into a monster. He invented innumerable names for her, among which the few printable ones were “blackbeetle,” “hellwitch,” and “the female gorilla.”
There is nothing like hatred to breed hatred in others. Branny and Marmalade fanned each other to a pitch of frenzy and in this new alliance with a boy of his own age against the Arch-Enemy, Branny forgot some of his hunger for his mother.
Gradually and imperceptibly Marmalade led the more timid Branny into action. It started with a terrifying, tiptoed investigation of Aunt Hilda s bedroom. The yield was less exotic than that of Aunt Nellie’s room. There were some severe black dresses with whalebone collar-supports which Marmalade promptly removed; a coroneted handkerchief sachet, doubtless the gift of the titled lady whose declining years had been cheered; some entrancing thick bloomers over which the two boys giggled; and several pairs of formidable stays.
The nearest approach to feminine daintiness was a bottle of eau de cologne. Following Marmalade’s lead, Branny spat into it long and dribblingly.
The most intriguing object was a key hidden in a small drawer. After frantic detective work it was found to open a small medicine closet on the shelf above Aunt Hilda’s bed. Its contents were disappointing too. Apart from a few household medicaments, there was an enema tube, whose purpose was unknown even to the sophisticated Marmalade, and a small bottle labeled brandy.
Marmalade pointed to it in delight. “Look, man. I bet the old blackbeetle guzzles brandy all night. Bet she gets drunk as a geyser, man.”
This allegation, though fascinating, was incidentally quite unfounded. Aunt Hilda was the soberest of mortals and kept a small supply of brandy as an emergency measure against sickness in others of less iron constitution.
Marmalade pointed excitedly to another bottle of approximately the same size and shape. It was labeled TINCTURE OF IODINE-POISON, and there was a red skull and crossbones.
“Coo, man, let’s pour some of that into the brandy,” he said daringly, “so next time the old witch takes a swig—”
“Gosh, no, man. You’d get put in prison or hanged.” Branny’s voice was awestruck. He had a wholesome terror of the forces of law and justice.
Marmalade snorted. “Who cares for the rotten old police? If old black-beetle was out in India, we’d do her in easy, man. One of my Dad’s house-boys pushed his wife off a cliff into the river and a crocodile ate her. Never found out either till someone killed the crocodile and found her bracelet inside. He didn’t get into any kind of a row.” Marmy’s saintlike face puckered in a simian grin. “Pity the poor crocodile that ate old hellwitch.”