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Benji was no more than a baby, but he was extraordinarily devoted to Doda, liked only the things that Doda liked, and did not like the things that Doda didn't like, or, in the language sometimes a little unpleasantly emphatic that always was Doda's and Huggo's, that Doda "simply loathed." Rosalie had some old bound numbers of treasured juvenile periodicals of the rectory days.
Doda is sometimes glimpsed, no more, with Benji, always putting off or chilling off her brother for her friends; sometimes she's seen with Huggo, meeting him and he her, more like an acquaintance of their sets than like fruit of the same parents; familiar, apparently, with one another's lives: referring to places of amusement by both frequented, as had been done, in instance, on that night of Huggo's announcement of his marriage when with a note that rung sinister he had bantered Doda and she had turned and run upstairs.
"They're wretched even in Huggo. But Huggo's a boy. You're a girl." "Well, mother, I didn't ask to be a girl." "Doda, that's merely silly." "A lot of us say it, that's all I know." "Then, darling, a lot of you are silly." "Oh, I shall be glad when next week I go to the Fergussons. It is dull." Look, there she is. She's sixteen. She's beautiful. She's pretty as a picture, and she knows she is.
Huggo was dressed to the same pattern but his hat exactly suited his face which was thin and, by contrast with these others, old for his years. Rosalie wished somehow that Huggo's hat didn't suit so well; the imminent extinguisher look of theirs made them look such darling babies.
"It's Huggo." "Huggo?" "Huggo!" Like axes! He fought for words. When they came out they thudded out. "Do you know where Huggo's been this past month?" "With the Thorntons, his friends." "He's not. He's lied. He's been living with some blackguard friend in rooms in Turnhampton, in Buckinghamshire." "Harry! Doing what? Land-work?" "Land-work! Loafing! Drinking!" "Drinking? Huggo?" "Listen to me.
He gave a sound that was glint, as it were, of the blade in his voice: "Our discussions! I am a little tired of that blind alley, Rosalie." She said sombrely, "And I." "Will you suggest how the letter is to be answered?" She said: "It's plain. If you agree with Mr. Hammond, it's plain. You can say you will stop Huggo's invitations.
Oh, Harry, like an extraordinary dream, I was a child again. It wasn't here; it was happening; it was the rectory; and not you and the children but all us children that used to be around the table there. No, not quite that. More extraordinary than that. Robert was there; Robert, I think, in Huggo's place; and all the rest were me me as I used to be when I was ten; small, grave, wondering, staring.
And doesn't Harry love having the boy with him! Harry idolises the boy. Of course Huggo is Harry's eldest, and whatever Huggo's disappointments, these men at least these perfect Harry type of men have for their eldest boy within their hearts a place no other child can quite exactly fill. There's some especial yearning that the eldest seems to call.
Her eagerness for school had been much fostered by Huggo's holiday stories of school life; and Huggo, as Doda now adduced, was leaving his preparatory and starting at Tidborough next term; couldn't she, oh, couldn't she make also her start then? Harry said, "O grown-up woman of enormous years, think of your sorrowing parents. How will you like to leave your weeping mother, Doda?
Well, old man, it's all over. I can't go down to Founders' Day ever again. I've never missed. Now I've had to withdraw my boy. I can't go again. I couldn't face it." He wiped his eyes. No tears in Huggo's eyes. On Huggo's face only a look sullen and aggrieved; and sullen and aggrieved his mutter, "Well, perhaps it was different for you. I couldn't stick the place."
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