by Sara Seale
She had annoyed rather than disturbed him, and it was Grace Hervev, the doctor’s charming and tolerant wife, who had made him uneasy.
“Well, of course, you know what a village is like, and Lady Bollard in particular,” she had said in answer to his enquiry. “But I do think it’s rather a pity. Sarah is very young, and she’s getting herself talked about. Besides, I think the sort of dangerous twaddle he talks is apt to be taken seriously by the young.”
“What sort of man is he?”
“Oh, fortyish, handsome and picturesque in a grubby sort of way. Not a bad artist if he drank less and really had to keep himself by painting. Rather enjoys his reputation of the village bad man, I suspect, and is not a very good companion for a young impressionable girl. Sarah was lonely—she hasn’t many friends here—and the man has a kind of spurious charm, I suppose. I should stop it, James. Such silly stories fly about.” Yes, the matter of Claude de Pinto would have be dealt with.
Sarah shivered.
“Getting cold?” asked James. “We’d better go in.”
They walked back to the house, and this time it was Sarah who slipped a hand through James’s arm.
“You aren’t a bit like I thought you’d be,” she said artlessly. “What did you think I’d be like—this is if you thought at all?”
“Well, I didn’t much. But—oh, well, sort of busting in and forbidding the banns right and left.”
James smiled.
“I’d be very foolish if I did,” he said. “I don’t feel that’s the way to manage you, Sarah.”
“Oh!” She sounded a little uneasy. James evidently had a line, too. That was rather disconcerting. She looked up at him and grinned, her red head barely reaching his shoulder. “It will be fun seeing who scores first, won’t it?”
“Yes, won’t it?” agreed James with disarming gentleness. In the hall she said: “Have you met Sir Halibut? He’s a friend of mine. Halibut, old thing, meet the boss.”
She proffered one of the mailed fists to James, who shook it solemnly.
“How do you do? I think we’ve met before,” he said gravely.
Sarah laughed.
“You’re nice. J.B.,” she said with faint surprise. “I suppose I can kiss you good night—as ward to guardian, I mean.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t misunderstand?”
“Oh, no,” James assured her solemnly. “Strictly parental.”
She reached up, kissed him quickly, and ran upstairs to bed.
During the next few days James realised to his amusement that he was on trial. Sarah gave up her time to him, but he was aware that she was measuring him up to her own queer standards.
On the first morning she took him out riding.
“I told them to give you Falcon,” she said with an offhandedness which made him suspicious, and when Falcon, a showy but rather shelly black, was led, sweating and sidling, into the yard, he glanced at her quickly but said nothing.
“Go easy on the curb, sir, he’s tender in the mouth,” the groom said, eyeing James a little doubtfully.
It very soon became clear that not only had Falcon a tender mouth, but he possessed an evil disposition into the bargain. He tried his best to buck James off, laid his ears back and shied at every possible object in the hedges and was altogether one of the most uncomfortable rides James had ever experienced.
He was aware of Sarah riding beside him, a rather smug look of satisfaction on her face.
“Let’s go on to Fallow Down and have a gallop,” she suggested.
They rode up the steep chalky lane which led to the Downs, Falcon’s restless feet slipping and sliding as he went, and as they mounted, the breeze whistled down to meet them. James looked at Sarah, and liked the way she sat her well-bred chestnut. The child rode well, and knew it. James was perfectly aware that she was only waiting for the moment when the black would take him by surprise and send him flying.
They were at the top now, and before them stretched that long ridge of grassland known as Fallow Down.
“Come on,” he said, and shortened his reins.
Falcon responded with a mighty fly jump, then feeling the turf firm and springy beneath his hooves, settled down to an easy steady gallop.
“ ’Ware quarry,” James shouted at the point where they should turn off to the right. By this time Sarah was behind him and she followed him as he picked his way with as sure a knowledge as herself over the treacherous gorse-grown ground beyond.
They turned and walked the horses back the way they had come. The black had settled down after his gallop, and Sarah watched James’s firm light hands on the reins and said impulsively:
“You ride Falcon better than anyone I’ve known—better than I do.”
He turned in the saddle and his grey eyes twinkled.
“You hoped he’d put me off, didn’t you?” he said.
She laughed.
“I thought he might. He’s a bit of a swine,” she admitted.
“You are a child, aren’t you, Sarah?” he said. “Let’s change. I’d like to see what you do with him.”
They dismounted and changed horses, but despite Sarah’s light weight the black was restive. Her slim hands, less experienced than James’s, communicated her own tension, and, despite the fact that the horse knew her, he began to play up. She battled with him grimly until they reached the long track down, when James asked if she’d like to change again.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll give you best, J.B., but I’ll ride the brute home.”
James regarded with amused affection her determined little back preceding him down the hill. She sat very straight and very firm in her saddle, resisting all the horse’s efforts to unseat her. Funny stubborn little cuss! But she was honest, honest and game.
Next James was taken to see the Bakers, driven perilously by Sarah in her small sports car. He found it a little difficult to assimilate details about the Bakers between near shaves with other traffic, corners taken at a speed which nearly turned them over, and Sarah’s repeated blasts on the horn at inoffensive pedestrians.
The Bakers lived in a tumble-down farmhouse with a garden running wild and a litter of empty tin-cans by the front of the door.
‘They’re really Londoners,” said Sarah, who saw James looking at the cans. “They live on tinned food. Ma Willick can’t cook.” She stopped suddenly in the middle of the path and looked up at James with an oddly pleading expression.
“You’ll be nice to them, J.B., won’t you?” she said anxiously.
He touched her cheek with gentle fingers.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” he asked. “I want to meet any friends of yours, Sarah.”
She turned and walked in at the open door without knocking and shouted: “Open.”
James, standing in the low rather dark little living-room, thought the Bakers might be poor, but was it necessary for them to live in quite so much dirt? Dust was thick on the mantelpiece, and although it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon the remains of a meal still littered the table.
Jake acknowledged Sarah’s introduction with a gruff “Good afternoon,” but Tigger, the younger, who had been staring at James with impudent curiosity, exclaimed:
“Are you the Poor Fish? We’ve heard about you. How long are you staying?”
“Do you mean here?” asked James politely.
“No. How could you stay here? I mean with Sarah.”
“Oh, I shan’t be going away. I live at Fallow,” replied James, “But Sarah said—”
“Please don’t tell him all I said,” laughed Sarah. “Where’s Pop?”
“In bed writing. He’s thought of another plot,” said Tigger. “Sarah, when are we coming to lunch?”
“Any time you like. Would Ma make us a cup of tea, Jake?” “She might. She’s been in a wax all day. Ma!” he went to the door and shouted, and a slatternly Cockney woman put her head inside and called, “What is it now?” She saw James and came farther into the ro
om and sniffed. “Visitors!” she remarked gloomily. “That’s a change.”
“It’s only my guardian, Ma,” said Sarah. “I’ve brought him to tea.”
“We don’t ’ave tea in this ’ouse, as well you know, Miss Sarah,” she said, and fixed James with a melancholy eye. “Reminds me of me poor sister’s dead ’usband, ’im wot ’ad fits. I’ll make the tea.”
Everyone laughed uproariously and a querulous voice shouted from upstairs:
“How do you expect me to work with that infernal racket going on?”
Ma Willick brought in four cups of tea on a battered tray, the tea slopping into the saucers in her unsteady grasp.
“I suppose you’ll put a stop to all the goings-on,” she said mournfully to James. Ma’s whole aspect appeared to be one of deep melancholia.
“What goings-on?” asked James with interest.
“Oh, these ’ere wirelesses and gadgets. To say nothing of the food and strong drink which does the old man no good neither.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” said James.
“She buys ‘em, that’s all,” said Ma, pointing a grubby finger at Sarah. “Robs your cellar too, but you wouldn’t know about that.”
“Oh Ma, you know good food is needed,” protested Sarah, going a little pink.
“I know very well it’s nothing of the kind. What’s needed ’ere is someone with a steady job. But ’e’ll stop it all, you’ll see.” Ma jerked her head in James’s direction and stumped out.
James, recognising an unexpected ally in Ma, suggested it was time they were going.
“Yes,” said Sarah, suddenly quiet, and turned toward the door.
James followed her out into the sunshine. What in heaven’s name, he wondered, was the attraction for her in this second-rate, so blatantly grabbing household? Of the lot of them, Ma Willick was easily the most likeable. Didn’t the child see what they were, or did she see and enjoy the small power it gave her?
She had run on ahead down the path, and was already behind the wheel. As he got in beside her, he saw she was blinking back the tears.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said before he could speak, “I wish I’d never brought you.”
“Why? Are you ashamed of them?” James asked curiously.
She rounded on him.
“Of course I’m not ashamed of them,” she cried. “But you got all the wrong impression today. You made them nervous. What does it matter if I have sneaked a bottle or two out of your cellar? They can’t afford good things. That old fool Ma making out—well, Jake and Tigger were the best friends I had before I grew up.”
“But, Sarah,” he said gently, “I haven’t said anything against them, have I? Don’t be so fierce about it, child. If they’re so important to you, well see what can be done to help them.”
She blinked the tears away very fast and smiled suddenly. “Sorry, J.B.,” she said. “You made me feel self-conscious, I’m afraid. Would you like to drive? I expect you’d feel happier.”
CHAPTER FOUR
But she wouldn’t take him to see Pinto. Sometimes after tea Sarah would slip away, and James guessed she had been to the studio. Occasionally she talked about him casually.
“Pinto was in a bad temper today. He couldn’t work.”
“Pinto says the Psyche is going to be good. He paints better when he’s drunk.”
Once or twice James put out a feeler, suggesting a meeting, but she made some vague excuse and left it at that. James was aware that their visit to the Bakers had shaken her. He had been most careful not to criticise at this early date, but criticism hadn’t been necessary. Sarah had seen for herself.
“What I can’t understand,” he said to Sophie, “is how the child could ever have found them attractive. Their squalor isn’t even picturesque, and they seem to spend their whole time seeing what they can get out of her.”
“I think,” Sophie said with a rare flash of insight, “that at the time it satisfied some sort of craving in Sarah to be of importance to someone. John Silver had just died when the Bakers came to live here. He had never encouraged friendships for Sarah, you know—he disliked his neighbours—so no one took very much notice of the child. Also, there weren’t many children of her own age in Heronsgill. They were all older. Sarah was in the tomboy stage—she liked the boys’ roughness, and she liked the feeling of playing Providence. Of course no one who matters knows the Bakers, but it didn’t seem important at the time. I thought she would grow out of the friendship when she started bringing Miss Chase and all that London crowd down here.”
It was the longest constructive speech James had ever heard Sophie make.
“Yes, I see,” he said slowly. “A pity you didn’t bestir yourself a little more, Sophie. Sarah doesn’t seem very clever in the matter of choosing her friends.”
“My dear James, I never dreamed when I suggested the child should have art lessons that it would lead to anything like this,” Sophie protested, switching immediately on to what was, to her, the most disastrous of Sarah’s friendships.
“Like what?” asked James, watching her.
“Like—well—you’ve heard all the gossip, my dear man. But you know what young girls are, or perhaps you don’t. They get crushes for older men—it all wears off in time,” Sophie said.
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he said with a smile. “But, you know, I don’t believe everything I hear. I want to see the fellow before I form any judgment as to the possible dangers of the friendship. Why didn’t you stop it?”
She said humbly: “I don’t seem to be very good at laying down the law.”
James laughed.
“Poor Sophie! Sarah was too tough a proposition for you! And now you’ve left me the job of cleaning up. All these undesirable artists and dressmakers and rude little boys.”
“Oh, but,” Sophie’s eyes grew round, “you surely don’t include Miss Chase in your list of undesirables? She has been the making of Sarah so far. At least the child is beginning to take an interest in her appearance.”
“Sarah’s appearance is all right,” said James with a grin. “She’ll knock spots off most women anywhere in a few years’ time. But the charming Peronel—I’m not sure. I rather think I smell another opportunist.”
“What on earth do you mean?” asked Sophie, and James answered with a hint of impatience:
“You wouldn’t understand, Sophie. You are such a guileless person. Perhaps I’m wrong, anyway.”
Sarah, to her own surprise, was enjoying the first weeks of James’s return. She found him a companionable person, and very much interested in her own doings. She liked accompanying him round the small estate watching the alterations and improvements he was making.
Their rounds were pleasant explorations, for they discovered together all the old haunts of childhood and Sarah found herself forgetting that she must get rid of James.
One afternoon as they were walking back across the park for tea, James said:
“There’s the fir that barked your shins coming down. Looks quite a tough proposition, doesn’t it?”
“Bet you couldn’t do it now,” said Sarah, thrusting her hands in the pockets of her shorts and swaggering a little.
“Could you?” he asked.
“Of course!” She sounded scornful. “I climbed it the other day, but it must be years and years since you did.”
“Done!” said James, promptly taking off his coat and throwing it on the grass. “You shan’t throw my years in my face like that, Sarah!”
“Bet I go higher,” shouted Sarah gleefully, and began swarming up the tree with practically no difficulty at all.
He followed her, remembering as he did so the old footholds, the branches that wouldn’t bear.
They were half-way up when a car swept up the drive and made a circle in front of the house.
“The Bollard Daimler!” cried Sarah. “They can’t be coming to call!”
“Oh, lord!” groaned James. “Perhaps they’ll say
we’re out. We are technically.”
But Sophie hurrying across the lawn had already seen them. They could see her hastening towards the car waving her hands wildly in the direction of the wood.
“Technically, we’re up a tree!” giggled Sarah.
There was no escape. Lady Bollard’s massive bulk was already bearing down on their refuge, her daughter following reluctantly behind. They could hear Sophie’s hospitable voice urging them on.
“What on earth,” cried Sophie as soon as she was in earshot, “are you doing up there? Lady Bollard and Daphne are here.”
“So I see,” said James helplessly. “How do you do, Lady Bollard? We’ll be with you in a moment.”
He came down the tree with more haste than dignity, heard a shriek from Sarah who was barking her shins badly, and caught her as she descended with a rush almost on top of him.
“I should have thought,” boomed Lady Bollard, surveying them both with disapproval, “that you would have got over climbing trees at your age, James.”
“Well, you see, Sarah dared me, and since she was implying that I was now too senile to do more than stagger about on terra firma, what could I do?”
“Very extraordinary,” said Lady Bollard. “You remember Daphne, don’t you?”
James vaguely remembered a well-behaved child who he supposed had been Daphne, and shook hands saying: “Of course.”
Daphne at twenty-five was still well behaved. She kept in the background, but her big blue eyes examined James with interest.
Sarah was annoyed. She had been having fun with J.B. and now it was all spoilt. The Bollard person would make pointed unpleasant remarks at her over the tea-table, and Sow Seeds in the G.I.’s mind.
Her fears were soon realised. Lady Bollard had come partly because she wished to have a serious talk with James, partly because it was time Daphne settled down, and James, although saddled with that dreadful girl, was still the most eligible bachelor in Heronsgill. She had been too long a power in the district to realise that her methods were unpleasant or to care very much if they were. She believed in doing her duty as she saw it, and if her duty made things awkward for other people, then it was no one’s fault but their own.