by Helen Wells
“I say, Holt, I’ve nothing against your looking for this girl, as girls go,” he said cheerfully, “but have you quite forgotten the sterling character with whom you have a tennis date? I refer, naturally, to myself.”
Cherry’s mouth opened at the sight of this tall, limp young man, who reminded her of an earthworm standing on end. Martha Logan’s face said plainly: “Who in the world is this?”
“Oh, I am sorry, Ryder,” said Peter, getting up. “You wandered off there, and then when I found my friends—” He apologized and asked Ryder to join them, signaling the waitress for a fourth orange squash.
Ryder stood jauntily before them, plucking at his tennis racket as if it were a banjo. “I was about to suggest another game, but instinct tells me you won’t bob up on the court again today. Ladies”—Ryder bowed a little to them—“I was advising Holt on his backhand drive, and he was advising me on Shakespeare.”
“Sit down, Ryder,” Peter said with a grin. “Rodney Ryder has taken a sudden interest in Shakespeare.”
Ryder sat down, folding his lean length to cramp himself into the chair. His eyes were like blue icicles, and Cherry noticed he had a habit of blinking.
“My dear fellow,” Ryder said, “why shouldn’t I fancy going along with your learned little band to the Shakespeare exhibit again tomorrow?” He gave the two ladies a bland smile.
Peter hid his amusement. “Certainly, come along, if you like. Mrs. Logan, Miss Cherry Ames, this is Mr. Ryder.”
Rodney Ryder’s expression changed as the American made the introductions. He looked uncomfortable. Perhaps, Cherry thought, Ryder knew of Martha Logan’s reputation as a writer, and felt self-conscious at finding himself in the company of the well-known historical novelist. Ryder blinked rapidly, said, “How d’you do? So happy to meet you. Now I must trot along and—er—telephone.”
“Here come our refreshments—” Peter put a detaining hand on the other young man’s arm. But Ryder clambered to his feet, mumbling, “Tennis tomorrow, at two on the tick? And then off for more Shakespeare?”
“It’s a date,” Peter agreed. “Before you go, you’ve got to recite that toast you said for us yesterday. Please.”
Rodney Ryder lifted his glass and reeled off, as fast as he could:
“Here’s to you as good as you are
And here’s to me as bad as I am
And as bad as I am, and as good as you are,
I’m as good as you are as bad as I am.”
He took one gulp of his orange squash, said good-bye, and shot out of the tearoom.
“What an extraordinary young man!” Martha said, and the three of them exploded with pent-up laughter.
“Why did he run away from us like that?” Cherry wanted to know. Peter shrugged.
Martha Logan asked, “Is he genuinely interested in Shakespeare?”
“Well, Ryder tags along with us to exhibits and asks questions,” Peter said. He explained that when he and his students arrived in Stratford on Friday afternoon, Rodney Ryder was wandering around looking for a tennis partner. “He saw me carrying a racket, and that was the beginning of our constant companionship. Ryder certainly is giving me a rush,” Peter said, a little ruefully. “I told him I’m here to teach, and to learn, too—that my students and I would be busy, really busy. I’m fortunate enough to have a letter through a university contact to a Shakespeare curator who’s here in charge of a special exhibit. But Rodney Ryder is not a man you can discourage easily.” Peter smiled and shook his head. “I guess he really is interested. He seems fairly well educated, nice manners, probably quite bright if and when he’s ever serious. Anyway, Ryder plays a good game of tennis, and my students think he’s entertaining company.”
Martha Logan asked, “What does your learned curator make of your Rodney Ryder?”
“They haven’t met yet, and frankly I can’t visualize such a meeting,” Peter said. “By the way, you two mustn’t miss seeing the paintings of characters from the Shakespearean plays.”
“Oh, yes, the London newspapers have been full of news of this exhibit for weeks,” Martha said. “Well, we’ll be in Stratford for several days, so there’s no hurry.”
“Tomorrow is the last day to see it,” Peter said. “After tomorrow, the paintings will be shipped to Edinburgh to go on public exhibit there.”
They were all going on to Edinburgh, but agreed it would be more appropriate to see the Shakespearean paintings here. Peter invited Martha and Cherry to come along the next afternoon, with his students “and probably with Rodney Ryder,” to see the paintings and meet the curator.
They compared notes for a while on what they had seen and done in London. Mention of the art museums reminded Peter of Archibald Hazard. “He’s awfully knowledgeable about paintings, isn’t he?”
Martha Logan answered, “I rather thought so, too, on the plane. But do you know, I’ve been thinking, and I’ve changed my mind about him. I wonder if he isn’t bluffing some of his knowledge. Oh, Mr. Hazard knows the main facts, and he knows the financial value of paintings, but that’s about all.”
Cherry was interested to hear Martha confirm her own impression—that Mr. Hazard might be rather a phony. Not that it mattered, they’d probably never see Mr. Hazard again.
Their glasses of orange squash were emptied, and Cherry thought Martha Logan looked tired. As they rose to go to their rooms, thanking Peter, he asked, “Who would like to go for a walk this evening?”
“Cherry is a great walker,” Martha said with a straight face. “As for me, I plan to work on my notes this evening. … Yes, Nurse Ames, I promise to go to bed early.”
So, after dinner, Cherry found herself strolling along the riverbank with Peter. She enjoyed the country quiet, and the clear, sweet air, and the snatches of Shakespeare that Peter recited for her. His choices all were so romantic that she giggled.
“What’s funny,” he demanded, “about ‘Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—’?”
“I’m sorry,” Cherry said. “I’ve had such matter-of-fact training in the sciences that I guess I don’t have your appreciation of poetry.”
“That’s no reason why we can’t be friends, and good friends, is it?” Peter said. “I have to confess to you that I flunked biology twice.”
Cherry laughed. “Wouldn’t it be a dull world if we were all alike?”
“I like you,” Peter announced, and took her hand as they walked. He told her about his students, whom he was fond of. They all were staying at a small pension in Stratford. Later in the week they planned to rent bicycles, and cycle part of the way to Edinburgh.
“You really see the country from a bicycle,” Peter said. “We stop and study along the way, of course—otherwise, the kids wouldn’t get university credit for this study tour. Yesterday we cycled over to see Warwick Castle. Good hiking around here, too. For a start you and I could stroll out to see Anne Hathaway’s cottage and garden. She was Mrs. Shakespeare, you know. I should say, Mistress Shakespeare. Anyway, it’s not far, and you like to walk.”
Cherry was about to say she walked miles on hospital duty, that on a trip she’d prefer a bicycle or even a ride on the handlebars of his bicycle, when a laughing crowd of young people appeared at a bend in the lane.
“There’s Mr. Holt!” a boy cried out. “We’ve been looking for you!” A girl called out, “We thought you might be with Rodney Ryder.”
“Not exactly,” Peter said to Cherry under his breath.
His students emerged from leafy shadows into bright moonlight, and surrounded them. Peter did not appear much older than these boys and girls in their late teens. He introduced them to Cherry—a brother and sister from a ranch, Douglas and Deborah Kimball; Nancy Cerutti, who came from St. Louis; quiet, big Ken Ecklund; Mary McBride who was animatedly explaining something to Masakiyo Yamonoto, a classmate and an exchange student from Japan, and several other lively students. Cherry liked them all, and liked the respect and affection the
y showed to Peter. But romance was over for the evening, as they all walked back to the inn.
Next day Martha, too, eventually met Peter’s students. She and Cherry made morning visits to Shakespeare’s church, and to the thatch-roofed cottage where the poet and his wife Anne and their children had lived. The cottage still held its crude wooden settles and cradles, its pewter vessels and candlesticks at the fire-places. The goose-feather beds were still made with lavender-scented flax sheets. After a rest in the hedge-walled garden, Cherry insisted on a leisurely lunch and on her patient’s necessary nap. Then they went downstairs to the lobby of the inn, where students swarmed around them, and they were off to the exhibit of paintings, with Peter in the lead.
Martha Logan disengaged herself from the admiring students and asked, “Where is Mr. Ryder?”
Peter, still flushed from tennis, said, “I think Rodney Ryder is shy of you, ma’am. At any rate, he said he’d ‘pop up to meet the curator after I’ve been a bit mellowed with food.’ Guess Ryder wanted a bite first.”
“What is he doing in Stratford, of all unlikely places to find that frivolous character?” Cherry asked.
“Says he’s on vacation and wants to soak up culture,” Peter answered. “He seems to have plenty of leisure and money. I tried asking Ryder what he does, but he said ‘Don’t be idiotic, my dear chap, I have no talent for work.’”
Everyone laughed, and someone said, “Rodney’s a lot of fun.”
At one of the larger houses they went in and waited while Peter sought out the curator, Philip Lawrence. Waiting, they looked at the extraordinary collection of paintings temporarily hung in these rooms. Here were King Lear, Macbeth, Ophelia, and Caesar, here a brooding Hamlet looked out of the frame, and here were the English kings and jesters and ladies of Shakespeare’s plays.
Martha Logan said in delight, “Look, some of these are portraits of the great Shakespearean actors of the past. And look at this murky old picture! Why, these paintings must cover a span of three or four hundred years.” She agreed with the students that the curator had brought together a marvelous collection. “I’ve heard of Mr. Lawrence,” Martha said, “though I’ve never had the privilege of meeting him. He’s widely known as an Elizabethan scholar, a very able man.”
Mr. Lawrence came out with Peter, to meet the American writer and her companion, and Peter’s students. The curator was a gentle, dignified, gray-haired man, eager to tell his visitors all he could.
“This collection is unique, I believe,” Mr. Lawrence said, “in that the paintings have come from all over England, some from other countries. Everything here is on loan from museums and universities and private owners. It’s most unusual to have so comprehensive—so rare—a Shakespeare display assembled all in one place at one time.”
Peter, Martha Logan, and the students had a great many questions. Mr. Lawrence obligingly answered all of them. Cherry listened, enjoying the pictures, and half looking for Rodney Ryder who amused her so much. He did not come. Ryder did not show up for tea later. Peter remarked, “He knew where we’d be all afternoon. Well, I guess Ryder latched onto another tennis partner.”
“Someone who can teach him about Shakespeare while batting a tennis ball?” Martha joked.
“Perhaps that is my fascination for him,” Peter said. “He’s pinned me down to a regular tennis date for every day we’re here.”
“You,” Cherry said gently to Martha, “have a date any minute now to rest. … Yes, you do. Particularly if we’re to go to the Shakespeare Memorial Theater this evening.” This was like offering a carrot to a rabbit.
Martha Logan made a sweeping theatrical gesture. “Sweet nurse, let us away. To you, my good lord Peter, and young friends all”—she stood up grandly—“I must begone. Mistress Cherry hath decreed it. Adieu.”
Peter and his students rose too. “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’” said Peter, and doffed an imaginary plumed hat.
Between the acts that evening, they all met on the theater’s outdoor promenade beside the river. Peter obviously wanted to speak to Cherry alone, but had no chance. And next day they all met briefly again, in the sunny meadows outside the town, where ferns and blackberries grew near the streams. Peter and his students and Rodney Ryder had bicycled out for a picnic. Ryder, trying to catch a cow, stumbled all over his long, lean self. Everybody watched in amusement as the cow triumphed and got away. Cherry was sorry when Martha Logan, after a few minutes, declined Peter’s invitation to join the picnic and instructed their taxi driver to drive them on. Later that day Peter came by their hotel, and returned in the evening, but Cherry was not free to see him, except for a moment each time.
“No, Mrs. Logan isn’t sick,” Cherry answered Peter’s question. “In fact, she’s regaining her strength in this country air. But she has to work on her research notes for her next book. I help her, you see.”
Peter understood about working hard and systematically on these trips. “Tomorrow, then?” he asked Cherry. “Right after my tennis date with Ryder? We could spend most of the afternoon together.”
Cherry smiled. “I think you’re as mad about tennis as Rodney Ryder is. Are all college instructors as athletic as you?”
Peter ignored her teasing. “Please come. We’re leaving late tomorrow afternoon, darn it. Come and watch me play. Two on the tick, at the tennis courts?”
Cherry promised to try to arrange for time off. Of course her amiable employer said Yes. On the following day, Wednesday, Cherry arrived a little after two, to find Peter alone on one of the grass courts.
“Hi, Peter!” said Cherry. “Where’s Rodney Ryder?”
“He hasn’t showed up yet. I’m annoyed with him for another reason, too. Am I glad to see you!”
“Is that a compliment, or do you just see me as a substitute tennis partner?” Cherry asked with a grin.
“Compliment,” Peter said. “Let’s sit at that table under the umbrella while we wait for him. I have something to tell you.” He smiled at her as they sat down together. “You’re so pretty. I’ll bet you look wonderful in a nurse’s uniform, all in white.”
“Thank you,” Cherry said, smiling back at him. “Now what’s on the Holt mind?”
“Well, I saw Mr. Lawrence this morning, and he told me that Rodney Ryder came in alone to see him late Monday afternoon—after we left the exhibit hall. Ryder introduced himself as a friend of mine, and somehow gave Mr. Lawrence the impression that he’s one of our student group.” Peter frowned. “I feel Ryder took rather a liberty. He never mentioned his visit to me, either, unless he forgot. What bothers me is that he asked the curator so many questions.”
“What sort of questions?” Cherry asked. “Mr. Lawrence is so gracious, I suppose he answered Ryder’s questions?”
“Well, he answered within limits. Mr. Lawrence didn’t know whether to think Rodney Ryder is simply foolish and ignorant, or else inordinately inquisitive. The point is, though, that Ryder had no right to impose on the curator for a private interview without my knowledge. Ryder knew we were all going to have tea at that hour on Monday afternoon, and where—he could have joined us and asked me to introduce him to the curator.”
“Or Rodney Ryder could have come when we all went to meet the curator,” Cherry said. “Hmm. Did Ryder have any special reason for wanting to talk with Mr. Lawrence privately?”
“I can’t imagine any sensible reason,” Peter said. “Oh, he’s just scatterbrained—just wandered to the exhibit an hour late, and went rambling on to the curator the way he’s been throwing aimless questions at me. Ryder probably has no idea that one shouldn’t waste the time of a distinguished scholar in that irresponsible way.”
Cherry remarked that it was silly of Ryder to be so impressed and intimidated by Martha Logan that he ran away, but all boldness with the eminent Philip Lawrence. “Unless he’s plain ignorant about Mr. Lawrence, or is scared of women. What sort of questions did he ask Mr. Lawrence?” Cherry asked again.
“Perfectly innocent questions
,” Peter replied. “Which paintings of the Shakespearean characters are the most famous, which the rarest, or the oldest.” Peter grinned ruefully. “Poor Mr. Lawrence! I apologized to him all over the place. I’m going to give Ryder a good bawling out if it will register with that featherbrain.” Peter looked at his wristwatch. “He’s twenty minutes late for our tennis date. Come on. Let’s go to his inn and see if we can find him. I lent him my book of Shakespeare’s plays, and he promised to return it today.”
Peter left word with an attendant at the tennis court, in case Ryder showed up. Then he and Cherry started out for Ryder’s inn, along cobblestoned High Street. Ryder would come along High Street, Peter said, if he were heading for the tennis courts. But they did not see his tall, skinny, apparently boneless figure. They passed the exhibit hall, and Cherry said, “I’d like to see those paintings again.”
“You’ll have to wait and see them when you get to Edinburgh,” Peter said. “Mr. Lawrence and his staff packed them up all day yesterday, and this morning they were put on the train to Edinburgh.”
“Accompanied by a guard, I hope,” Cherry said.
“Yes, certainly. They’re all catalogued and insured.” Peter guffawed. “Ryder actually offered to help Mr. Lawrence pack the paintings. In his enthusiasm for all things Shakespearean! He only means to be amiable and helpful, but can you imagine! He’d put his big feet through two or three of the canvases while he was ‘helping.’”
Cherry laughed. “He’ll probably forget all about Shakespeare the moment he’s left Stratford.”
At the small inn where Rodney Ryder was staying, Peter and Cherry went to the desk. They asked the pleasant, pink-cheeked woman in charge whether Mr. Ryder was in.
“I believe Mr. Ryder left last evening,” the woman said. She glanced at the inn’s account books. “Yes, he has gone.”
Peter stared. “I mean Rodney Ryder—a tall, thin young man—blinks his eyes rapidly—joking, light-hearted—”
“Yes, I mean the tall, thin Mr. Ryder who blinks,” the woman said, “although he impressed me as being quite serious and preoccupied.”