A Dangerous Fortune(2)
Micky smiled at him. Edward was very English-looking, with straight fair hair and blue eyes and a nose like a broad-bladed knife. He was a big boy with wide shoulders, strong but uncoordinated. He had no sense of style, and wore his clothes awkwardly. He and Micky were the same age, sixteen, but in other ways they were very different: Micky had curly dark hair and dark eyes, and he was meticulous about his appearance, hating to be untidy or dirty. “Trust me, Pilaster,” Micky said. “Don’t I always take care of you?”
Edward grinned, mollified. “All right, let’s go.”
They followed a barely discernible path through the wood. It was a little cooler under the leaves of the beech and elm trees, and Micky began to feel better. “What will you do this summer?” he asked Edward.
“We usually go to Scotland in August.”
“Do your people have a shooting-box there?” Micky had picked up the jargon of the English upper classes, and he knew that “shooting-box” was the correct term even if the house in question was a fifty-room castle.
“They rent a place,” Edward replied. “But we don’t shoot over it. My father’s not a sportsman, you know.”
Micky heard a defensive note in Edward’s voice and pondered its significance. He knew that the English aristocracy liked to shoot birds in August and hunt foxes all winter. He also knew that aristocrats did not send their sons to this school. The fathers of Windfield boys were businessmen and engineers rather than earls and bishops, and such men did not have time to waste hunting and shooting. The Pilasters were bankers, and when Edward said “My father’s not a sportsman” he was acknowledging that his family was not in the very highest rank of society.
It amused Micky that Englishmen respected the idle more than people who worked. In his own country, respect was given neither to aimless nobles nor to hardworking businessmen. Micky’s people respected nothing but power. If a man had the power to control others—to feed or starve them, imprison or free them, kill them or let them live—what more did he need?
“What about you?” Edward said. “How will you spend the summer?”
Micky had wanted him to ask that. “Here,” he said. “At school.”
“You’re not staying at school all through the vacation again?”
“I have to. I can’t go home. It takes six weeks one way—I’d have to start back before I got there.”
“By Jove, that’s hard.”
In fact Micky had no wish to go back. He loathed his home, and had done since his mother died. There were only men there now: his father, his older brother Paulo, some uncles and cousins, and four hundred cowboys. Papa was a hero to the men and a stranger to Micky: cold, unapproachable, impatient. But Micky’s brother was the real problem. Paulo was stupid but strong. He hated Micky for being smarter, and he liked to humiliate his little brother. He never missed a chance to prove to everyone that Micky could not rope steers or break horses or shoot a snake through the head. His favorite trick was to scare Micky’s horse so it would bolt, and Micky would have to shut his eyes tight and hang on, scared to death, while the horse charged madly across the pampas until it exhausted itself. No, Micky did not want to go home for the vacation. But he did not want to remain at school, either. What he really wanted was to be invited to spend the summer with the Pilaster family.
Edward did not immediately suggest this, however, and Micky let the subject drop. He felt sure it would come up again.
They clambered over a decaying picket fence and walked up a low hill. As they breasted the rise they came upon the swimming hole. The chiseled sides of the quarry were steep, but agile boys could find a way to scramble down. At the bottom was a deep pool of murky green water that contained toads, frogs and the occasional water snake.
To Micky’s surprise, there were also three boys in it.
He narrowed his eyes against the sunlight glinting off the surface and peered at the naked figures. All three were in the lower fourth at Windfield.
The mop of carrot-colored hair belonged to Antonio Silva, who despite his coloring was a compatriot of Micky’s. Tonio’s father did not have as much land as Micky’s, but the Silvas lived in the capital and had influential friends. Like Micky, Tonio could not go home in the vacations, but he was lucky enough to have friends at the Cordovan Ministry in London, so he did not have to stay at the school all summer.
The second boy was Hugh Pilaster, a cousin of Edward’s. There was no resemblance between the cousins: Hugh had black hair and small, neat features, and he usually wore an impish grin. Edward resented Hugh for being a good scholar and making Edward look like the dunce of the family.
The other was Peter Middleton, a rather timid boy who attached himself to the more confident Hugh. All three had white, hairless thirteen-year-old bodies with thin arms and legs.
Then Micky saw a fourth boy. He was swimming on his own at the far end of the pool. He was older than the other three and did not seem to be with them. Micky could not see his face well enough to identify him.
Edward was grinning evilly. He had seen an opportunity to make mischief. He put his finger to his lips in a hushing gesture then started down the side of the quarry. Micky followed.
They reached the ledge where the small boys had left their clothes. Tonio and Hugh were diving underwater, investigating something, while Peter swam quietly up and down on his own. Peter was the first to spot the newcomers. “Oh, no,” he said.