Elizabeth Goudge by The White Witch

Author:The White Witch
Format: epub
Published: 2013-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V

THE FAIR i

THE fair was held two days later, on St. Thomas's Day. It was one of two fairs held yearly on the common, the other being on Midsummer Day under the patronage of St. John the Baptist. Michaelmas was a more usual time for a fair than St. Thomas's Day, the weather being better then, but the village had always favoured St. Thomas, and St. Thomas had always favoured the village with excellent weather. St. John the Baptist was less reliable, for it had been known to pelt with rain at midsummer, but St. Thomas never failed.

Will arrived home from school the day before the fair in the wildest

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spirits. He had grown and broadened out and to Froniga's sorrow there were no longer any gaps in his smile. He had his full complement of adult teeth, strong and white. His face was round and red, and rough as a nutmeg grater after the frosts, the hard water of Oxfordshire and not drying it properly. He permitted himself to be briefly kissed by his mother but not by Froniga or Jenny. If his breeching had made him technically a man a term at boarding-school had brought him very much nearer one in actual fact. He was full of strange oaths, which he was able to use before Margaret and Jenny because they did not understand them. He did not use them before Froniga because he feared she might, and he had not yet forgotten the feel of her hand against his stern. His clothes were in a shocking state and he had a black eye. There was a high watermark round his neck where he had not persevered with his ablutions in cold weather. Amongst his assorted luggage were a couple of white mice in a cage, the skin of a snake and a shepherd's crown, this latter object being a fossilized sea-urchin found by himself in the soil of Oxfordshire. Froniga perceived that the collecting craze was now upon him and Margaret had her sympathy. After the supper that had welcomed him home he became suddenly very sleepy and went off with the mice to put himself and them to bed in his father's dressing-room. He closed the door behind him with such masculine finality that no one had the temerity to go in and suggest that he should wash. Jenny and Maria went to bed as usual in the big bed by themselves, and it was a long time before Jenny fell asleep.

She woke up in the early morning, while it was still dark, to find herself being roughly pushed from the centre of the bed. She moved over, for she knew who it was. An unseen figure, sturdy and small, climbed in and lay down beside her. Maria wedged herself between them as of old and they pulled the bedclothes up to their chins.

"I was cold," said Will briefly.

Jenny stretched out her warm feet and touched his cold ones, and their feet folded together. In the old days they would have held hands, but they did not do that now.

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