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2.The German girl
Geoffrey's face turned white. He heard the fall.
He stood still, listening. He could hear no sound from below;
he could hear no sound at all, anywhere. Then he was filled with sudden terror.
‘Father!’ he shouted, in his great deep voice. ‘Father! FATHER!’
The cry rang across the fields.
Men came running from the bottom field, and a girl ran down across the upper field.
Geoffrey heard her strange, wild voice. ‘Ah-h!’ she cried out. ‘Ah-h! Are you dead?’
On the top of the stack Geoffrey did not move or speak.
He was too afraid to go down, too afraid even to hide in the hay.
He listened to the voices below. First to arrive was his older brother, Henry.
Then came his father, and Bill, one of the farm workers.
‘What's the matter? What's happened? Oh no!’ That was his father's voice.
They were all silent for a few seconds, then came Henry's voice. ‘He's not dead- look, he's opening his eyes.’
Geoffrey heard, but he was not pleased. Half of him wanted Maurice to be dead.
‘If Maurice is not dead and only hurt, what will he say about me?’ he thought.
‘And what will mother say? I can never look anybody in the face again.’ He felt lonely, and afraid.
Down below on the ground the German girl was crying and laughing at the same time.
‘No, he's not dead, no, he's not dead, no-o.’
‘He can't speak. He needs some water,’ said Henry.
‘Yes, somebody must run and get some,’ said the father. ‘Bill, you go. The vicar's house is nearest.’
Bill ran up to the vicar's house beside the top field, where the German governess worked.
Soon he came back, followed by the vicar.
Maurice drank a little water, and began to make noises, trying to speak.
‘What happened to him?’ asked the vicar. Everybody spoke at once, but the German girl's voice was the loudest.
‘It was the brother- the other brother,’ she cried. ‘He knocked him over. I saw him, I was watching.’
‘I don't think so,’ said the father to the vicar.
Then he got down next to Maurice, who was still making little noises.
‘Where does it hurt, boy, eh?’ he asked, worried.
‘Wait a bit,’ said Henry. ‘Wait until he can speak.’
‘Has he broken anything?’ asked the vicar.
‘He was lucky,’ said the farm worker. Bill, ‘lucky to fall on this bit of hay, and not the hard ground.’
Maurice could speak a little now, and the father asked him, ‘What were you doing, boy?
‘Were you playing around with our Geoffrey? Yes, and where is he?’
On top of the stack Geoffrey stood like a stone.
‘I'll have a look on the stack,’ said Henry.
Geoffrey did not want his big brother to come up on the stack, so he climbed down,
and at the bottom of the ladder stood like a criminal, looking at the ground.
‘What were you doing?’ asked Henry's cold voice.
‘I don't know. Nothing,’ Geoffrey said.[]‘But I saw him!’ cried the governess.
She was sitting on the ground, holding Maurice in her arms. ‘He knocked him over the side- bouf! like that!’
Henry looked from one brother to the other.
‘No, girl,’ whispered Maurice, smiling up at her. ‘He wasn't near me. I just fell- fell over the side.’
‘Oh!’ cried the girl, not understanding.
‘You just made a mistake,’ said the father. ‘That's all.’
‘Oh no,’ she cried. ‘I saw him.’
Her name was Paula Jablonowsky, and her family came from Poland.
She was twenty years old, quick and light as a wild-cat, with a strange, wild way of laughing.
She had bright blue eyes and short golden hair.
Everybody could see that the vicar hated her.
Maurice's face was still white, but he lay, smiling happily in the girl's arms.
She smiled down at him, with her quick, bright smile.
Her English was not very good, but there are stronger things than words.
‘You say what you like,’ she laughed, ‘about your brother, about anything.’
‘Perhaps you need to go back to the children now,’ the vicar said to her, frowning a little.
‘I will go soon,’ the girl said.
She smiled at Maurice again. ‘You want to get up now?’ she asked softly.
‘I'm not in a hurry,’ Maurice said, smiling happily.
‘She's leaving us soon,’ the vicar whispered to the father. ‘My wife really doesn't like her.’
‘Why, is she—?’[]‘Like a wild thing- she won't do what we tell her.’
Maurice decided to get up, and the girl helped him, with her strong arms. ‘You are well,’ she cried happily.
‘Yes, I'm all right,’ he said. ‘The fall knocked the breath out of me, that's all.’
After a moment he walked a few steps. ‘See, father,’ he laughed. ‘I'm fine now.’
‘Fine, fine!’ the girl said, her eyes shining.
Maurice laughed, and touched her face gently.
‘Don't worry. She's going at the end of three weeks,’ the vicar said quietly in the farmer's ear.