by Sara Seale
De Pinto’s eyes twinkled.
“Beer,” he said. “The meeting is fortuitous.”
“Sarah?”
“Gin and lime,” she said briefly.
James went over to the bar to give the order, aware of nudges and curious stares. He remembered old Tommy Noakes the landlord, who had been there when James was a boy. Noakes greeted him with pleasure.
“Good evening, sir; it’s good to see you home again.”
“Good evening, Tommy,” James replied, and gave his order. The talk had settled down again to a steady murmur. James nodded towards the settle. “This sort of thing often go on?” he asked.
The landlord leaned across the counter and lowered his voice
“Well, since you ask, sir, too often for my liking,” he said. “It isn’t that Miss Sarah does much drinking, as you might say—as often as not she says: Tommy, give me some of that ginger-pop. She comes for Mr. de Pinto. Mr. de Pinto’s all right in his way, but he can’t hold his liquor and it isn’t right for a young lady to be in this company without proper attendance. We didn’t suppose you knew about it or you’d have stopped it. Perhaps you could speak to Miss Sarah, sir. I’ve tried giving her hints myself, but she’s a self-willed young lady. But the men don’t like it, as you can understand. It cramps their style a bit, as you might say, and Mr. de Pinto, well, he behaves rather familiar at times. I hope you don’t think I encouraged Miss Sarah, sir.”
“I’m sure you haven’t, Tommy; you put it all very clearly,” said James.
“It makes it very difficult for me at times,” Noakes admitted, James carried de Pinto’s and Sarah’s drinks over to their table, then came back for his own.
“Do me a favour, Tommy,” he said. “If it happens again, refuse to serve her. Tell her you’ve had orders from me, and send her home.”
“And if she won’t go?”
“Then ring me up and I’ll come and fetch her.”
“Right, sir,” Noakes grinned. “I’m very glad you’re back. It’ll put a stop to a lot of talk.”
James pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Sarah and de Pinto.
“Well, here’s luck,” he said raising his glass.
De Pinto took a deep draught and set down his half-empty glass with care on the beer-stained table.
“I’ve been trying to explain inhibitions to this delicious child,” he said solemnly.
“Inhibitions?” said James. That covers rather a lot of ground, doesn’t it?”
“On the contrary,” de Pinto said, finding slight difficulty with the last word, “it all boils down to one thing—sex. Sex, my dear Fane, is the root of all inhibitions. Dislike of control, as in Sarah’s case, dislike of conventions, as in my own, dislike of gossip, as in your case, my dear sir.”
James sighed. The man was a driveller.
“A great deal of nonsense is talked both about sex and inhibitions,” he said a little wearily.
“But you don’t deny that sex is the mainspring of our emotions and most of our actions?”
“Why should I deny such an obvious truth, since the world is divided into male and female?” The question was a statement, “Ah, you see, my pretty Sarah! That’s what I’ve been telling you all the evening.”
“You didn’t,” said Sarah with honest bewilderment. “You told me that unless I slept with a man I couldn’t possibly understand my reactions to him. You were talking about J.B.”
“Delicious child!” exclaimed de Pinto, running a grubby forefinger down her arm. “In a world where such things were treated as they were meant to be, all things would be possible.”
“I don’t think that would solve our particular problem,” James remarked, and Sarah saw he was laughing.
Pinto finished his beer and waved the glass at James.
“I envy you, my dear Fane,” he said in a loud voice. “To be responsible for a young, untutored mind, to have the forming of desires, of experience—what could be more delectable? And this naive child, impressionable, on the brink of experience—what better material could one wish? As an artist creates a picture, so you will create a woman.”
“Yes, well—it’s getting late,” said James, glancing at his watch. “Coming, Sarah?”
She hesitated. Pinto had been particularly confusing this evening, and the thick atmosphere in the saloon had given her a headache, but this was defeat.
“I’m going back with Pinto for half an hour when they close,” she said, and looked defiant.
“Not tonight, my dear; not tonight,” murmured de Pinto. “I might not be answerable in the studio. Take her away, Fane, you have more control than I.”
“But Pinto—” Sarah paused, caught James’s eye upon her, and to her own surprise scrambled to her feet. “All right,” she said, and followed him out into the cool air.
“You’d better go first; I’ll follow,” was all James said, and she got into her car and backed it noisily into the road.
She drove home as fast as she could, aware all the time of the Bentley close on her tail.
“Like a sheep,” she said aloud. “Like a stupid little sheep being herded.” In the garage, James ran his car in beside hers and switched off the lights. In the darkness she brushed against him, and felt his hand firm on her shoulder.
“Silly young idiot, aren’t you?” he said.
She shook herself free and ran past him into the yard. She was half-way across when she heard his voice calling after hen “Sarah!”
She waited irresolutely until he caught up with her. “Does he always talk like that?” he asked casually.
Some of Pinto’s remarks came back to her, making her feel’ suddenly shy of James.
“Pinto has quite different ideas from anyone else,” she said defensively. “He’s an artist and he can say things other people can’t.”
Oh, I see,” said James mildly. “But speech is free, you know. It’s not a prerogative of artists, or has any more meaning.”
“Pinto’s taught me all I know,” she said grandly. “I owe him a lot.”
“He’s taught you a conglomeration of nonsense,” retorted James. “Fortunately I’ve a shrewd idea that it goes in at one ear and comes out at the other.”
It was nearly dark, and she couldn’t see his face very well. It was difficult to know what he was thinking.
“What exactly does go on at these sessions in the studio?” he asked abruptly.
“Nothing,” she faltered. “Pinto talks, sometimes he paints—me, I mean. He says he wants to catch all my adolescent phases.”
“And do the adolescent phases, whatever that may mean, include clothes or no clothes?”
“Clothes? Oh, I see. Well, he has asked me, but I—I didn’t think—”
“So you did show some sense! Now listen, Sarah, it’s got to stop. Pubs, studios, all that sort of thing. You can have the gentleman up here if you must, but the other business must cease.”
“It’s a free world,” said Sarah. “I shall go the studio when I like, and to the pub too, if it comes to that. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
They were half-way across the lawn, and he stopped and turned her round to face him.
“Now look here, don’t make things more difficult for us both,” he said kindly. “After all, I didn’t drag you out by the hair of your head tonight as I saw you thought I was going to. We all had a drink and a talk and no one felt uncomfortable. I could have made a scene, you know.”
Yes, that was true. The G.I. might easily have made a scene.
“I said I wouldn’t be interfered with by anyone, and I meant it,” she said, trying to hold her ground and looking straight at him.
He gave her a little shake.
“Curiously enough, I mean what I say, too,” he retorted. “As far as the pub goes, I’ll give you fair warning. I’ve told Noakes not to serve you, and if you won’t go home, to send for me. Now you don’t want that kind of humiliating situation, I’m sure, so keep away if I’m not with you.”
Sa
rah lost her temper.
“How dare you give orders about me behind my back, J.B.!” she cried. “That’s humiliating—I’ll never forgive you!”
“Don’t be silly,” he said kindly. “It was much more humiliating as things were. Noakes didn’t like it, neither did his customers. If you must know, he asked me himself to stop it.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, almost in tears, and with a horrid suspicion it might be true. “And anyway you can’t stop me going to the studio. Pinto won’t take orders from you, if Tommy Noakes will.”
“I’ll find ways,” he assured her, then laughed suddenly. “Lose your temper if it helps, Sarah, it’s at least healthy, and I can stand hard words.”
The storm passed as quickly as it had come. J.B. was a difficult person to quarrel with and she began to suffer reaction from the evening.
He watched her small face wash clear of temper, and thought she looked tired and a little bewildered.
“Friends again?” he asked, and she looked at him doubtfully. “Don’t you ever lose your temper, J.B.?” she asked resentfully.
“Not very easily,” he answered. “But when I do, I warn you, I lose it thoroughly!”
She pushed the hair back from her forehead with rather a weary gesture.
“I don’t think you understand about Pinto,” she said. “No one understands.”
“I understand,” he said gently. “You’re fond of him, aren’t you? And you think all these half-baked notions of his are rather wonderful and exciting.”
“Are they half-baked?”
He hesitated. One must tread softly on youthful dreams.
“All that sort of stuff is very trite, my dear,” he said with care. “Trite and rather dangerous if you’re going to take it seriously. Tell me—does he think he’s in love with you?”
Her mouth formed a round “O” of amazement.
“Pinto? Oh, no.” She looked at James with sudden interest, “I never thought of that. Do you think possibly he could be?”
“No,” said James, uncertain whether to laugh or be exasperated. “Not in the sense you mean. I shouldn’t think he knows the meaning of the word. He talks too much about it.”
“Love, sex, inhibitions—perhaps it’s all the same,” said Sarah thoughtfully. “I’ve been reading a book—” James was beginning to know this formula.
“About an artist with thwarted passions and a craving for beauty,” he finished.
“Yes, how did you know?”
“You’re an infant, Sarah,” he said with a grin. “You won’t learn about life from novelettes, you know. Go to bed; you’re looking tired.”
The moon was rising and hung, a bright sickle, over the dark line of the downs. In the soft light she saw James’s face looking down at her and there was a hint of tenderness in his mouth as she reached up to kiss him good night. Kissing James good night had become quite a habit.
“First score to you, after all,” she said, her hands still on his shoulders. “J.B.—do I seem awfully young to you?”
He pinched one of her ears.
“Awfully young,” he told her solemnly. “In fact, still young enough to be spanked if you don’t behave.”
“Oh!” she cried, and snatching her hands away, she darted across the lawn and into the house.
CHAPTER FIVE
During the following weeks James watched the results of his gentle management with satisfaction. If Sarah resented the small changes in her life which his homecoming had brought, she didn’t show it unduly. He had managed, without much difficulty, to make friends with her, and his plan was working. He hoped the village chatter was beginning to die down. There was less mention of the Baker family, and none at all of de Pinto. James had an uneasy suspicion that Sarah was still making surreptitious visits to the studio, and he supposed that sooner or later he would have to do something about it, but she had not been seen with the artist in public, and the visits to the Skylark had stopped. It was enough to be going on with.
In the meantime his own growing affection for the child was a pleasant thing. He often looked at Sarah and had a desire to give her something extravagant. Clare had thought him mean. She had never understood that fear of debt which had haunted him through the years of poverty, never allowing an extravagant gesture, and it was ironical that he should have had to refuse Clare whom he had loved, and could now be generous to a child whose only claim on him was the accident of her welfare being placed in his hands.
His old friend, Grace Hervey, pulled his leg gently whenever she met him.
“I hear you’re making all sorts of improvements to Fallow—and incidentally to your unruly Sarah,” she would say. “You’d better not overdo it or you’ll have her falling in love with you. She’s just at that romantic age.”
He thought of Sarah that first evening, leading him down to the pool, setting the scene with charming naiveté for a romantic interlude with a stranger she had rather liked. Well, if she had to cut her teeth at this stage, better himself than de Pinto or some other undesirable.
But Sarah had other plans. She liked the G.I. in spite of herself, but he was a definite menace to freedom. There was no help for it; she must get him married, and here, right to hand, was that nice, well-brought-up Daphne Bollard suddenly popping in at all sorts of unexpected moments. Daphne had never bothered with Fallow before James came home. She might suit him very well, thought Sarah with bland satisfaction, and she was always punctual. J.B. made a lot of unnecessary bother about punctuality. She thought it important to him. She decided she would sound him at once.
“J.B.,” she said, “have you ever thought of getting married?”
He looked at her quickly and the little lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled in laughter.
“Oh, Sarah, this is so sudden!” he said.
She gave him a push.
“Silly! I wasn’t proposing to you,” she said. “But seriously, J.B., have you ever thought of getting married?”
“I’ve thought of it, yes,” James replied cautiously.
“Lately?”
“No, not very lately. What is all this, Sarah?”
“Nothing. I just wondered. You’re attractive, J.B., in your way—to a certain type, I mean.”
“Thank you,” he said meekly. “And what would you have said was my type?”
“Oh—feminine, dutiful, and—er—punctual.”
“H’m. Sounds a bit dull. Have you anyone in mind?”
“Oh, no,” she said airily, and looked at him with eyes which were suddenly guileless but very green. “No one—no one at all.”
“That’s a relief,” remarked James gravely. “I didn’t suspect you of being a matchmaker, Sarah.”
She glanced at him suspiciously. “Matchmaking! Me?” she cried. “Oh, no, J.B., I wouldn’t dream of it.”
But she beamed with approval on Daphne, who came to borrow a book for the third time in one week, and said she had just the very thing.
“Here you are—it’s one of Sophie’s. Love’s Fulfilment,” she said, whisking the volume from behind a chair cushion. It’s all about a Nice Girl who marries a middle-age bachelor and brings him peace and happiness in his old age. Most instructive.”
“I don’t think,” Daphne said doubtfully, “it sounds quite the sort of book for me.”
“It’s exactly the sort of book for you, darling. You are very like that Mary Carruthers. Read it and see,” said Sarah, adding with apparent irrelevance to James: “Show Daphne the greenhouse or something before she goes.”
She was sitting on his desk, swinging her legs when he returned from seeing Daphne into her car.
“You have been quick! No greenhouse?” she exclaimed.
“No greenhouse. What’s all this about?” he asked, surveying her with amusement.
“What’s all what about? Daphne’s a nice girl, isn’t she?”
“I think she’s rather a bore.”
“Oh, do you, J.B.? Do you really?” She looked so crestfa
llen that he had to laugh.
“Are you trying to make me a present of Lady Bollard for a mother-in-law?” he asked with interest.
Sarah’s face fell.
“I hadn’t thought of that. But you’d deal with her, J.B. You dealt with her beautifully at tea the other day. She’d insist, of course, that I was sent packing, but that wouldn’t matter.”
“In fact,” said James with a grin, “that seems to be the main object of the whole arrangement. Fix me up with a nice, suitable wife, and you can go your own sweet way.”
“Oh, Sophie and I could buzz off somewhere,” she said vaguely. “You could fix us up with a cottage or something. You wouldn’t want me hanging around if you were married.”
James laughed.
“I see you’ve worked it all out to your own satisfaction, if not to mine,” he said. “Are you so very anxious to get rid of me?”
“N-no, not exactly.” She looked doubtful, then added cheerfully, “I could come and visit you.”
James ruffled her hair, and said unfeelingly:
“Well, you can just put that idea straight out of your head. I’ve no immediate desire to get married, and when I have, I’ll choose my own wife, thank you.”
“Oh,” said Sarah, looking crestfallen again. “But it was a good idea, wasn’t it? I thought Daphne would have suited you nicely.”
“It was a rotten idea!” retorted James. “In twenty years’ time she’ll be exactly like her mother. And in case you’ve got any more good ideas up our sleeve, Sarah, let me make this clear. Even if I did get married, you’d still go on living here with me, so you might only land yourself with a sort of stepmother.”
“Oh,” said Sarah again; then she brightened visibly. “Well, the only thing to do is get married myself.”
“Out of the frying-pan into the fire,” said James with a grin. “A guardian is only a temporary affair, a husband is apt to be permanent.”
All this sort of thing was amusing and often charming, but James knew there were serious issues which would have to be faced, and the day of the Heronsgill Fair brought about the first change in his relations with Sarah.
James and Sophie had dined alone that evening, for Sarah had gone to the fair with the two Baker boys.