he.
“Oh do shut up about that!” David said, and ran down the garden laughing.
CHAPTER FOUR The Third Trouble
David was filthy. He had to wash and climb into more of Cousin Ronald’s wide cast-offs before he dared to go down to supper. The odd thing about washing in a hurry is that soap and water only loosen the dirt. Most of it comes off on the towel afterwards. David looked rather nervously at the reddish-black smears on Mrs Thirsk’s bright white towel, but he was in too much of a hurry to do anything about it. The gong had gone before he started to wash.
He hurried downstairs, thinking about Luke and Luke’s odd jokes. If Luke had not come along, there was no doubt David would at this moment be crawling downstairs in the most hideous state of guilt, wondering how he was going to confess to having cursed a wall down. As it was, he felt much better. Rebuilding the wall had wiped away his misery and also the horror of the way the curse had worked. He thought of the flames and the snakes, but all they did was to remind him of Luke’s joke about kindling a flame. David grinned as he came to the bottom of the stairs, because someone – Astrid probably – had left a box of matches on the stand beside the gong. David slipped them into his pocket as he passed. If Luke wanted him to strike a match as a signal, then he would. But it was no good asking for matches. That would only remind his relations to forbid him to have them.
He went into the dining room. Astrid was saying, “And my leg never left me in peace, the whole afternoon.”
“Both my legs,” said Uncle Bernard. Then he saw David in the doorway and abandoned the contest. David walked to his place and sat down in a silence heavier and nastier than any he had known. It was clear the row was still going on. Unless, David thought rather nervously as he picked up his soup spoon, they had found out about the wall and were angry about that now. The soup was burnt. David could see black bits floating in it. It tasted burnt.
Cousin Ronald broke the silence at last by saying reproachfully, “We are waiting to hear you say sorry, David.”
“Sorry,” David said, wondering why they could not have told him that straight away.
There was another heavy silence.
“We want to hear you apologise,” said Aunt Dot.
“I apologise then,” said David.
“I don’t call that an apology,” said Uncle Bernard.
“Well, I said sorry and I said I apologise,” David pointed out. “What else do you want me to say?”
“You might take back your words,” suggested Astrid.
“All right. I take them back,” David said, hoping this would now mean peace. But he thought as he said it that it was just like Astrid to say the silliest thing of the lot. “How can you take back words anyway? I mean, once you’ve said them they’ve gone, haven’t they, and—?”
“That will do,” said Cousin Ronald. There was more silence, broken by the reluctant clinking of spoons, during which David began to wish that his curse had really been a curse and working at this moment. Then Cousin Ronald cleared his throat and said, “David, there is something we have to tell you. We have decided, solely on your account, not to go to Scarborough after all. We shall stay here, and you shall stay with us.”
David could hardly believe his ears. “You mean not go to Mr Scrum?”
“I mean not go to Mr Scrum,” said Cousin Ronald.
“Oh, brilliant!” said David. His relief and delight and gratitude were so enormous that he could almost have hugged Cousin Ronald. “Thanks!” What a good thing it had not been a curse! Now he was free to do what he liked and see as much of Luke as he could. “That’s marvellous!” David beamed round the table at his relations. They looked solemnly and reproachfully back.
“David,” Cousin Ronald said reproachfully. “I hope you realise that we are all making a considerable sacrifice for your benefit. Scarborough meant a lot to us. We will say no more about your rudeness at lunch, but what we would like to hear from you in return is a proper expression of thanks to us for all we have done for you.”
Under such a speech as this, most people’s gratitude would wither rather. David’s did. “I said Thanks,” he protested. “But I’ll say it again if you like.”
“What you say is beside the point, child,” Aunt Dot told him austerely. “All we want is that you should feel in your heart, honestly and sincerely, what it means to be grateful for once.”
“Then what do you want me to do?” David asked rather desperately.
“I sometimes think,” said Uncle Bernard vigorously, “that you were born without a scrap of gratitude or common good feeling, boy.”
“But I do feel grateful,” said David. “I’m ever so grateful for not going to Mr Scrum, really!”
“Grateful for not going to Mr Scrum!” said Astrid. “Listen to him! Does it matter to him that we’re deprived of our holiday? Not a bit. David wouldn’t turn a hair if I were to drop dead at his feet.”
“Yes I would. Anyone would,” said David. He thought about what he would feel if Astrid did actually chance to drop dead at his feet. “I’d be very surprised, and I’d think you were pretending at first. But when I began to believe it I’d get a doctor to make sure you really were dead.”
“Aren’t we chivalrous!” Astrid said crossly.
“No, I’m not,” David said, as Mrs Thirsk came in with the next course. “But you’re not a damsel in distress.”
Astrid went very red and glared at David all the time Mrs Thirsk was handing out plates with dark meat on them covered with dark gravy. The meat was dark because it was burnt. It tasted terrible, so terrible that even Uncle Bernard noticed.
“This meat is burnt,” he said fretfully. “I don’t think it’s eatable.”
Everyone except David thankfully laid down their knives and forks. David was so hungry after rebuilding the wall that he had practically eaten all his anyway, and it seemed a shame to leave the rest.
“That boy has no discrimination,” said Uncle Bernard, as Mrs Thirsk came back to see what was the matter.
“Mrs Thirsk—” began Aunt Dot.
“I can’t think how it happened!” said Mrs Thirsk. “It was beautiful five minutes ago. And when I came back after taking the soup, there it was, black! And it was on the table. No heat near it.”
“It has been near a very great heat for a considerable time, I should say,” Uncle Bernard said, prodding it. “I can’t find your explanation adequate, Mrs Thirsk.”
“Adequate or not, it’s the plain truth!” said Mrs Thirsk. She gave David a malignant look as she said it, as if she would have liked to put the
