Shabby Summer

by Warwick Deeping

  And Ghent was grateful to them. He felt that these two men knew that he was feeling pretty miserable, and that they avoided looking at him too closely, for there are human subtleties and reticences that the man of the soil understands like the gentleman he can be.

  * * *

  Lady Melissa, telling her man to pull up on the Weir Bridge, sat and surveyed the scene. Let the modern world accuse her of obstructing progress. The Vandeleurs had built this bridge, and if she, the last of them, was not allowed to use it as a grandstand, then privilege was indeed dead. She could see the black and yellow pantechnicons at Folly Farm, and men in white aprons carrying and loading furniture into the vans. That, too, was final. On the other side of the river three figures were at work about Ghent’s water-shaft, and in mid-stream Folly Island had set a little white sail, Mrs. Strangeways’s tent. The stage was peopled and complete, and when Mr. Crabtree’s motor-boat suddenly appeared round a green bend, Lady Melissa smiled on it, and told the man to drive on to the Marplot gate. Even the evil genius of this English scene was present.

  Lady Melissa came upon them unannounced. The hose had been fixed to the pump, and Ghent was holding the end of it, while Fanshaw swung the pump-handle. With each pulsation of the pump a little jet of water gushed from the end of the tube. Peter was watching it, almost with a pity that was ironic, and in his sloped shoulders and bowed head Lady Melissa divined a feeling of futility.

  “So, you have found water. Good afternoon, Bob; good afternoon, George.”

  Ghent turned sharply and saw her. His face was very grave. And then he smiled.

  “Yes, we’ve found it, my lady.”

  He let the end of the hose drop to the ground, and Bob ceased pumping. The pipe emptied itself like a creature bleeding to death, and in the silence they heard Mr. Crabtree’s motor-boat passing down the river. It was level with Folly Island, and all the men turned and looked at it with secret anger.

  Lady Melissa understood.

  “Mr. Crabtree, I think?”

  “Yes,” said Ghent, “on an observation tour.”

  Lady Vandeleur walked forward towards the bank.

  “Shall we stroll along the river. I have one or two things to ask you.”

  Ghent’s head went up. He put himself beside her, and they passed along the bank together at the moment when the Temple Towers boat drew level with Ghent’s well. They were aware of Mr. Roger Crabtree’s full moon of a face turned up towards them.

  Lady Melissa paused for a moment to survey the scene, but her consciousness of it did not appear to include Mr. Roger Crabtree and his boat. She looked over and beyond them to the elms of Farley, smilingly, serenely. She spoke to Ghent.

  “When every prospect pleases, Peter.”

  She resumed her walk along the river, with Ghent at her side, a young man who understood the significance of this gesture. Temple Manor had unfurled a flag, stretched out a regal hand. And possibly Mr. Roger Crabtree, that man of ideas, had gauged the meaning of Temple Manor’s association with Marplot.

  XX

  Mr. Crabtree was not a man who camouflaged his feelings in the family circle. His indignations had for him complete validity. He was angry, therefore his indignation was good and right. He broke forth at lunch upon the snobberies and jobberies of the countryside, and said very vulgar things about Temple Manor and Marplot. He declared that he had always suspected that old woman of being an elderly vampire, and that she was vamping young Ghent.

  For once, Mrs. Mary protested.

  “Really, Roger, how can you say such things?”

  “I do say ’em.”

  Irene, who had prepared a tennis-party for the afternoon, and who was more interested in a particular person who was to be present than in her father’s fret and fury, caused a diversion by announcing that Bill was going to land in the paddock. She had had the Jerseys moved from it for the occasion.

  “What!” snapped her father, “what, what!”

  “Bill’s flying over in his new Gosshawk.”

  “And who’s Bill?”

  “My latest.”

  “Land in my paddock? I’m damned if he will.”

  “And just how are you going to stop him, Parent? Stand in the middle of the field and flag-wag?”

  “I won’t have it. Moving my cows.”

  “Well, Bill’s flying over and he’s got to come down somewhere. He makes up our four. Besides, if you’re a man of ideas, Parent, here’s one.”

  “What’s the idea?”

  “Why don’t you buy a plane?”

  “What for? And who’s going to fly it?”

  “I might, Parent. Bill could teach me. Besides, that isn’t the whole idea.”

  “Well, get on with it.”

  “Haven’t you heard that old Mother Vandeleur hates anything in the air. Gets quite jittery about it. Well, if we had a plane we could fly around over Temple Manor and make things hum a bit. If you want to be nasty over the garden fence——”

  Mr. Crabtree grinned at his daughter.

  “You’re a bright one, you are. It is an idea. Get her mad, what? Listen to that, Mother. I guess the girl takes after me.”

  “Yes, Roger,” said Mrs. Crabtree meekly, “but I don’t want a horrid, noisy thing like that.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “And the cows. I’m sure it wouldn’t be good for the milk.”

  “Or the snails, Ma!”

  Mrs. Crabtree showed temper.

  “I won’t be ridiculed by my children. I may say, that I have had nothing but unhappiness from——”

  “Don’t be a coot, Mater.”

  “Coot, indeed! Your father may say unkind things, but I won’t——”

  Mr. Crabtree exerted authority. He might be rude to his wife, but that was his particular privilege.

  “You dry up, young woman. I won’t have you being rude to your mother.”

  “Fectious,” said Irene, making a mouth.

  “ ‘Fectious!’ Why don’t you talk English?”

  “In, Parent, in. Good English and catching. Good-byee, going to see that Smith has marked the court out properly. He’s the world’s worst boob.”

  “You’ve no manners,” said her father.

  “Fectious, old dear. We’re tough, we are. Aren’t you a tough?”

  “Get along with you!” said Mr. Crabtree, not displeased.

  * * *

  Ghent heard someone shouting across the river. He was proposing to salvage his submerged punt that evening, and to borrow Mrs. Strangeways’s punt for the purpose, and standing in the Folly Farm orchard he saw one of the remover’s men hailing Folly Island and its occupant. The man was dressed in black, and wore a bowler hat. He had a hoarse voice like a crow’s, and a very large red mouth, and both his colour and his cawing suggested a large, black bird.

  “Hi, lidy, what abart the punt? Excoose me, but we’ve orders ter take it.”

  He kept on croaking the same refrain until Mrs. Strangeways appeared among the willows.

  “I’m keeping the punt.”

  “You’ll ex-coose me, of course, lidy, but our orders were——”

  “Yes, I understand. I will communicate with the gentleman about it. The punt is staying.”

  “Very good, lidy.”

  He mooched off, doubtless realizing that since the punt was protected by a stretch of water and that to recover it one of them would have to strip and swim the river, and that, in a state of nature, the temporary possession of the punt was ensured to her by the water and the nudity of a cutting-out party. Mrs. Strangeways, leaning against a willow, watched the black figure disappear, while reflecting upon the complete and thorough spitefulness of her late lover. Max had been very prompt in emptying Folly Farm. He was even prepared to impound and warehouse a large object like the punt. Well, she would keep it for a week or two, and then run it into the Folly Farm boat-house, and inform him that the craft was now at his disposal.

  Five minutes later she heard another voice, Ghent�
�s voice. It spoke to her quietly across the river.

  “Mrs. Strangeways, would you mind if I came to collect my punt this evening?”

  “How can you get across?”

  “Oh, swim. I expect I can empty the thing, and get it back to my side.”

  “No, I’ll fetch you.”

  “Would you?”

  “Isn’t that common sense?”

  “Well, yes, in a way,” though had she been nearer to him and able to see his eyes, she would have realized that she transcended common sense.

  * * *

  Bill duly arrived in his Gosshawk, landing in the Temple Towers paddock after exhibiting himself and his machine to the startled cows and a passively indignant Mrs. Crabtree. Three sets of tennis were played, and then Bill took Irene up for a joy ride, and under her instructions cut every sort of aerial caper and made every sort of noise directly over Temple Manor. He flew round and round over the house, zoomed up with his engine roaring, swooped down on it, and almost lifted a leg over the place. Roger Crabtree watched these aerial acrobatics from the Temple Towers terrace, and chuckled appreciatively. That should be giving the old hen something to cluck about! Yes, daughter Irene was distinctly a bright young thing. She had ideas, like her father.

  Ghent, too, heard this dreadful noise; everybody in the neighbourhood heard it; and he went out to watch the machine’s stuntings over Temple Manor. Who was responsible for this exhibition? The Crabtrees? He remained there observing the show until he saw the plane fly back across the river, and after circling Temple Towers, glide down to land near Mr. Crabtree’s house.

  * * *

  It was very grey and still when she poled the punt across to the Marplot bank. Peter was waiting there, wearing brown shorts and an old green pullover, for the recovering of his submerged punt promised to be a damp affair. Bunter, who came trotting down to join in the adventure, was taken on board, with a length of rope and a tin can for baling. Regarded in the modern spirit the dog was Ghent’s chaperon.

  If they were a little shy of each other, and moved to evasion in the matter of any intimate interchange, the day had had its incidents for the making of conversation. Had he found water? He had, but he did not confess to his own feeling of helplessness in his clash with nature. Nor did he tell her of Mr. Pelling’s visit and the unhappy inference he had drawn from it. The aeroplane’s high-jinks over Temple Manor was a subject that offered itself inevitably, and allowed them to exchange suggestions as to the plane’s origin and the purpose of its performance.

  Ghent was sure it was a Crabtree gesture.

  “Did you see her with me this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just as our old friend went by. He sat up and took notice. I wonder if he was up in that machine.”

  “Are such things done on purpose?”

  “In the Crabtree world, yes. They were stunting over Temple Manor just to annoy her. She happens to have a particular loathing for flying lorries.”

  “It seems too petty.”

  “Oh, just human nature in its back-yard phase.”

  The evening might be grey, but it was so gentle a greyness and so English, and so laced with green, that she stood still for a moment, letting the pole trail in the water. Bunter, sitting at his master’s feet, looked up at her inquiringly, with his head on one side. Very little water was coming down, and the punt slid on towards the island without much drift down stream. Ghent, putting out a hand to stroke the dog, saw her slim figure and gentle head against the greenness of the island and the willows.

  “I wonder why the world can’t be content with this? I suppose it used to be.”

  Did she expect him to answer that question? Besides, the answering of it would involve a complete criticism of the industrial age and its ideals, or lack of them.

  “Oh, I think we have been educated out of nature. We moderns are so easily bored.”

  “Are you?”

  “Sometimes. But I chose this life, and I don’t suppose I could stomach any other. After all, it’s real.”

  She echoed the word.

  “Yes, real. In a London flat nothing is very real. If you feel bored you rush out to join a crowd that has nothing real to do. Distractions. To escape from life, somehow, because you are not really living. Is that it?”

  “Possibly. You see, I’m prejudiced in favour of the country mind. Life in the cities is tinned, stale stuff.”

  Bunter was the first to land, scuttling up the bank as though he might expect to discover rabbits upon the island. Standing in her punt, which she had moored to a willow, Ghent could see the nose of his own craft just under water. The water was shallow here, and the drought had lowered the river level, and slipping over the gunwale Ghent found that he was on a shingle bank and that the water did not rise above his knees. He reached for the rope he had brought with him, he slipped an end through the mooring ring and knotted it.

  “Can I help?”

  She was standing up above, and he threw her the other end of the rope and told her to pass it over a biggish bough, and to drop the end back to him. She did so, and when he pulled on the rope, the nose of his old black coffin rose above water. He stood considering the problem. Baling would be useless unless he could get the punt on an even keel, and he waded round to the stern end, bent down, got his hands under the boat and raised it. But he realized that he would need a second piece of rope to hold it in position, and he had not got that rope.

  “I see. You want someone to bale, while you hold the stern up.”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  She disappeared, to return with her skirt pinned up, and a bucket in her hand.

  “If I get in, ever so gently, do you think you can hold on?”

  He smiled at her.

  “You’ll get wet.”

  “What fun! Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  She slithered down the bank, and into the waterlogged punt, and both rope and Ghent’s arms sufficed to hold it steady.

  “Splendid.”

  She set to with the bucket, a little flush on her face, her movements those of an excited child.

  “If we get it half afloat, you can bale too.”

  “Yes,” said he, with his eyes on her face.

  “Can you manage?”

  “Rather.”

  “What fun!”

  Bunter, having discovered no wild life on the island, sat solemnly up above and watched them. She was flinging water out of the boat with a kind of happy recklessness. The gunwale began to rise, until Ghent, letting go for a moment, saw that it had sufficient buoyancy to support her. He dashed for the baling tin, passed it to Mrs. Strangeways, and deprived her of the bucket.

  “I can work from outside.”

  She laughed.

  “All hands to the pump.”

  They found that they could bale out water sufficiently quickly to outpace the leak, but when no more than two inches of water were left in the punt, both bucket and tin failed to scoop up a satisfying quantity. It occurred to Ghent that if he pushed the boat against the bank, and holding it there, turned it on its side, the rest of the water could be spilled out. He told her to climb on to the bank, and then he tried to turn the punt over, with one side pressed against the bank, but the water left in it made the lift just too much for him.

  “Wait a moment.”

  She joined him in the river, and adding her strength to his, they were able to roll the punt on its side, and run the water out of it.

  “Just the difference. I say, your skirt has got wet.”

  “Well, I have another.”

  And then he realized that if he was to persuade the leaky punt back into its boat-house, there was no time for dalliance. He called Bunter down, and climbing into the punt, unfastened the rope, and then found that he had neither pole nor paddle.

  “Sorry, I’m afraid I shall have to rush the wretched thing over before it sinks again. I haven’t a paddle.”

  “I h
ave two.”

  She waded to her own punt, took a paddle out of it, and passed it to him.

  “Thanks so much. I’ll return it to-morrow.”

  “I’ll fetch it. You won’t be able——”

  “No, that’s true. Not until this old coffin has had its leak plugged and has had a coat of tar.”

  “I’ll fetch the paddle. Or why shouldn’t I lend it to you?”

  “All right.”

  “In return for the tent!”

  He pushed off, and then paused to look down at her as she stood knee deep in the water. His face had taken to itself a sudden shimmer of shyness.

  “I suppose you couldn’t come over and let Mrs. Maintenance give you supper?”

  Her face had grown as shy as his.

  “I might.”

  “Do, Sybil.”

  “I will. What time?”

  “About eight.”

  “I’ll come, Peter. Nothing formal.”

  “Oh no, nothing formal.”

  * * *

  Ghent paddled the old punt across without it sinking under him. She saw him drag it half-way up the bank until the water had poured out of it, and then turn it bottom upwards. He waved to her, and walked off towards Marplot with the dog at his heels, and she sat down in the grass, with her chin cupped in her hands. How peaceful it was here, and how the doing of simple things seemed to bring people together! She had helped him; her strength, added to his, had sufficed to lift that burden, and she was happy. Yes, happiness came to you uncourted. It seemed to be a part of nature, like rain and sunlight, a subtle essence distilled from the things you did spontaneously. You could not plan for it, buy it, or deposit it in the bank, and as someone had said to her it was the very clever people who seemed to make such a horrid mess of their own lives.