Shabby Summer

by Warwick Deeping

  And presently, she turned and slipped away, smiling to herself in the moonlight. He was at work, and happy, and loving him as she did, his happiness was hers.

  XXVIII

  Bob and George, working together in a plantation of Japanese cherries, heard Ghent’s voice down by the river.

  “Sybil, Sybil, can you come across?”

  George winked at Robert, but Fanshaw’s face remained stolid and unmoved. It said, “You mind your own business, my lad. I suppose you never went courtin’? Handsome is as handsome does.” George spat on a hand and resumed his labours. Bob could be damp tinder when you tried to drop sparks on him.

  Mrs. Strangeways came down to the willows where the punt was lying.

  “Finished breakfast?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I have a plan out. I want you to see it.”

  “Wait for me. I’ve no shoes on. I’ve been paddling in the dew!”

  She knew how much depended upon the pleasurableness of this plan, and yet she was intuitively sure that Sir Gavin Marwood would accept it. Not that Peter was to be told this, for no one should rob him of the joy and stress of adventure. He came down to the boat-house to meet her, and to moor the punt, and she put up her face to be kissed.

  “What, a plan already, Peter?”

  “Yes, one has to make one’s leap.”

  She was all innocence.

  “You must have been working late.”

  “I think Grandfather struck one when I was going up the stairs.”

  He slipped an arm under hers, and Sarah, who was washing-up, saw them cross the yard to the office, linked together as lovers should be.

  The plan was pinned on the table, and with their arms round each other they bent over it, their heads in the morning sunlight, while Ghent explained it to her. Here were the Thursby terraces; there, below, The Dell and the lake. Those black smudges were the old trees that he proposed to keep in order to give background and shadow effects. A vista without trees was like a face without eyebrows. He used a pencil as a pointer, and moved it about the plan. Here were to be flowering cherries, almonds, Pyrus Eleyi and Floribunda, lilacs, thorns, laburnums, philadelphus, ceanothus. Yes, did she see that wiggle-waggle there? She did. That was a particular piece of inspiration, wistaria standards that were to flow upon ropes behind beds of rhododendron and azalea.

  “How lovely!”

  “Like it?”

  She hugged him gently.

  “How do you do it?”

  “Oh, I just see things. Now, wait a bit. Here’s the water. Water-lilies, of course, and primulas, and Iris Kaempferi, and Marsh Marigolds, and gunnera, and scented bog-bean. And some musk. Then, the rough grass here can be full of bulbs. You look down on the whole thing from the terrace and see the water and all that colour clasped in the half moon shadow of the old trees. Here and there a cypress spiring up, green or grey-blue.”

  “It’s perfect. And the terraces?”

  “Let’s take the lower one. A stone path, turf, a gorgeous herbaceous border, with the old brick retaining wall hung with vines, roses, clematis, solanum, honeysuckles, jasmine. I’d have clematis flammula here near the steps, just for the scent. Think of looking along that border, two hundred yards of it, when it’s in full flare.”

  “Marvellous!”

  “I wonder if Sir Gavin will like it?”

  “Of course he will.”

  “It would look more convincing if the plan were coloured. Colour gets people, you know.”

  “I could do that, darling.”

  “Could you?”

  “Yes. If you could make notes on the colours.”

  “I could. There is a devil of a lot in this herbaceous border.”

  “Never mind. I’d love to do it.”

  “I say, you are marvellous.”

  “Am I?”

  “It’s going to be a partnership in more senses than one. Then, there are the other two terraces. I have put down roses for the second, and annuals and bedding plants on the first. You don’t know how lovely annuals can be when they are treated in masses.”

  “I could colour them too.”

  “Yes, I’ll make notes. I haven’t done the walled garden yet, or the shrubberies. You could work here, you know.”

  “I’ll start at once, if you will give me a colour scheme.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Oh, not long. Besides, dear, I shouldn’t hurry.”

  “No?”

  “Won’t it seem rather more impressive if you linger a little.”

  “You are wise, Heart’s Ease.”

  “Well, perhaps, a little. I once ran a hat-shop. I don’t know why, but clients seemed more impressed if you suggested making up a special creation, and were rather mysterious about it, than if you clutched something equally chic off a stand.”

  He laughed, and drew her head against his shoulder.

  “Oh, wise woman! I think I will write to Sir Gavin, and say that I am at work on the plan, but that I don’t want to hurry it.”

  “I should, darling. I should say just that.”

  * * *

  Mr. Roger Crabtree ordered out his Rolls and his wife, and was driven to Thursby. He had ceased to covet Thursby. Indeed, as the car traversed Sir Gavin Marwood’s park, Mr. Crabtree showed himself critical of Thursby and its trees and atmosphere. He said that it was a shabby old place, and that the gardens were as shabby as the house, nor did he suppose that Marwood had the money to restore the place properly. He referred to the great man casually as Marwood, and as they neared the house he pointed out to his wife the poor, starved lawns, and the scrambling shrubberies.

  “Wants a bit of colour, what! Begonias, yes, lots of begonias, and dahlias. Put your hat on straight. It’s crooked.”

  Mrs. Crabtree made a pretence of adjusting her hat. She was nervous, and Roger was such a man for putting you out of step just when you were half-way up the aisle, so to speak. Scattergood brought the yellow Rolls in a triumphant sweep to the Thursby porch, got out and came to the door.

  “Ring the bell,” said his master. “Ask whether Sir Gavin is at home.”

  Scattergood rang the bell, and Mr. Crabtree observed the coat-of-arms and the date on the porch.

  “Sixteen hundred and ten. Henry the Eighth, wasn’t it?”

  “No, Father, James the First.”

  “Well, it doesn’t make much difference, anyway. They’ve been stiffs for three hundred years or more.”

  A manservant had opened the door, and he came to the car to say that the gentleman was not at home.

  “Got the cards, Mother?”

  Mrs. Crabtree fumbled with her card-case, and dropped half the contents on the floor.

  “Pick ’em up, man, pick ’em up.”

  Scattergood picked them up.

  “Do I leave the lot?”

  “No, you don’t. Give ’em to your mistress and wait for your orders.”

  Mrs. Crabtree sorted out the necessary cards, and gave them to Scattergood who hurried to deliver them to the manservant.

  “Hi, wait a moment. Tell the fellow to tell his master I was sorry to miss him, and that he’ll find us at home any week-end.”

  Scattergood delivered the cards and the message, and the door of Thursby was closed upon them.

  The Rolls was passing through a beech-wood in the park when Sir Gavin Marwood came out of the wood with a couple of dogs at his heels. He stood back against a tree, keeping the dogs at his feet while the yellow Rolls passed by, and he and Mr. Crabtree exchanged glances through the rear side window.

  “Why, I’ve seen that chap before.”

  “Have you, Father?”

  “Yes, ran up against him in a lane. Dirty little old car, staff car, I guess. He was pert with me, and I told him something.”

  “But, Roger——”

  “Marwood’s butler, I’d say, exercisin’ the dogs. Looked like a butler to me.”

  Mrs. Crabtree swallowed, put her hand to her hat, opened he
r lips, and then closed them precisely. She had recognized Sir Gavin Marwood from his photos, for he had a head that few women would ignore or forget. So her husband had been rude to the great man! Well, well, he was rude to everybody, so why create further complications? She sat back and smoothed her dress.

  “Yes, dear, I expect it was the butler.”

  * * *

  Watering continued to be the order of the day at Marplot, but to Ghent the labour and sweat of it had become less urgent, perhaps, because in hoping for possible reprieve he had ceased from attempting the impossible. Dead trees were dead trees, and other trees that were flirting with death were suffered to risk salvation. Water was pumped or carried to the more precious and younger members of the flock, and Ghent, conscious of the rising sun of Thursby, felt the shadows slipping away. He knew that if he obtained that contract he would be given breathing-space and time to replenish and restore that which nature had wounded.

  Moreover, he was not alone. He was conscious, while he worked, of the nearness of his good comrade; she who, somehow, was incredibly concerned in all that concerned him. Was he grateful to her for this? He was. Did he take it for granted? He did not. He was not the victim of that sort of vanity.

  She had said to him: “I should be finished by twelve,” and at midday he left his work, and with his jacket slung over one shoulder, made for the office. He found her at his table, sleeves rolled up, and wearing a flowered overall. She had a paint brush between her lips, and her right hand was busy with another brush. She smiled at him, and shook her head, and he went to stand behind her and look over her shoulders. Did she know that she had a little blob of carmine paint on her chin? And did it matter? He looked at the coloured plan, and was thrilled by it. This was a work of art. How had she managed to persuade so many gradations of colour into delicate contrast?

  She discarded a brush, and took the other from between her lips.

  “Just one more patch. How do you like it?”

  He bent over her.

  “Marvellous! If Sir Gavin does not fall to that——”

  “Do you really like it?”

  “Almost as much as I like you.”

  “Darling.”

  He took her chin between thumb and finger and tilted her small face.

  “You’ve painted yourself too.”

  “Oh, have I? Where?”

  “Just here,” and he kissed the spot of carmine on her chin.

  “I believe you’re fibbing.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not. Handkerchief needed.”

  He produced his own, and it happened to be clean.

  “A little spittle needed. Spit.”

  “No, you do it.”

  “I shouldn’t dare.”

  “I don’t mind. Be brave and——”

  “All right.”

  With the handkerchief gloved over his finger he effaced the carmine spot.

  “All correct. Don’t you think I might take the plan over to Sir Gavin this afternoon?”

  “Yes, I think you might.”

  “I will.”

  * * *

  She lay on a spread rug under the willows, with a cushion under her head, and so fell asleep. Peter had gone to Thursby and of Thursby she had no fear. Fear, indeed, seemed to be passing out of her life; even her eyes showed that, for they could look happily at her new world without those oblique and furtive glances that had made Ghent think of a hare crouching in its form. He too had seen her eyes go back into her head, as he put it to himself, and their recovered serenity had touched him. Was this his doing, this effacing of those startled, backward glances? Had he given her a love that she did not fear? And thinking of this, he knew what love should be, a transparent tenderness, forethought, a desire that transcended the little greeds of the flesh.

  Some discord forced itself into the dream that she was dreaming. Noise! She woke suddenly to find the willows and blue sky overhead, and the strident blaring of a motor horn filling the air. She sat up. That was not Peter’s horn. Moreover, the swashbuckling summons was not his. The sound was coming from Folly Farm, and looking towards it she could see a particular car by the railings, and a man standing beside it, with an arm through the window and his fingers on the horn-button.

  Max! Oh, dear God! Why had this ghost out of her old world reappeared? That the new and the old should meet seemed to her disastrous and unthinkable. What should she do? Her eyes had become the startled and wild eyes of yesterday. Thank heaven Peter was at Thursby! And then a courage born of anger, a fierce protective anger, drove her into the punt. She poled down stream and across to the Folly Farm garden.

  He came to meet her, and as she looked into his face she wondered how she could have suffered the thing he called love. But she was strung up for her crisis. She smiled, and was casual.

  “Hallo, Max. Come for the punt?”

  His eyes narrowed. She knew that particular expression, a kind of sardonic gravity that became sarcastic and cruel.

  “What’s the idea? Camping on that island?”

  “Oh, just a temporary expedient. I am going up to Temple Manor in a day or two.”

  “Temple Manor?”

  “Yes, Lady Vandeleur’s, the place on the hill. And I am going to be married. If you want the punt I’ll leave it in the boat-house, and I’ll send you a cheque for hiring.”

  A little smirk flitted across his face.

  “Marrying the tree man?”

  “I am.”

  “Taking a good deal on trust, isn’t he?”

  “More than you will ever realize, Max. I suppose you sometimes do a decent thing? You can do it now.”

  “Can I?”

  “Yes, leave me in peace.”

  “And supposing I don’t choose to be sentimental?”

  She laughed. She could have said to him that in such a case he might get a devil of a thrashing.

  “Oh, well, I shall keep the punt. How’s Irene?”

  He looked at her for a moment as though, complete egoist though he was, he found something strange and mysterious in her. She looked younger than he remembered, yes, quite girlish. Also, his power over her had passed, and in realizing it, he was ready to indulge in a gesture that should flatter his essential vanity.

  “No, you can keep the punt, my dear, as a wedding-present. Well, good luck. I was down this way, so I thought I would just look in. For old time’s sake, you know.”

  She put her head back and smiled at him.

  “I’m glad you have said this to me. No one loses, my dear, by being generous. I’d like to think of you in that way. Good-bye, Max.”

  “Bye-bye,” and he put up a facetious hand, as though giving her his benediction.

  When Broster had gone she poled the punt across to the Marplot boat-house and moored it there. She had work to do in the office, for Peter had been taking stock of his healthy trees, and she was typing out the stock-lists from his notes. But she was still troubled by Max Broster’s reappearance, even though he had behaved to her somewhat better than himself. Should she tell Peter? And if she did not tell him, might not one of his men, or Sarah pass on the news, for that trumpeting horn could not have failed to provoke attention. As she crossed the yard, Bunter, who had been snoozing in the sun, got up and trotted to meet her, and the dog’s friendliness seemed a happy omen.

  “Hallo, dear. What’s the time?”

  Bunter looked up at her with liquid brown eyes, but he could not answer that question. Yet, how kind were the eyes of a dog! She bent down and kissed him, and was kissed on the pretty blunt tip of her nose.

  “Thank you, Bunter dear.”

  Then Sarah appeared at the back door with something that had to be put in the dustbin, and Mrs. Strangeways rose to her occasion.

  “Oh, Sarah, do you know the time?”

  “About half-past three, m’am.”

  “Oh, Sarah, I’m so excited. Mr. Peter ought to be back from Thursby for tea. We shall know what we want to know.”

  Mrs. Maintenance deposited
that something in the dustbin.

  “A gentleman called.”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Broster. I was on the river and saw him. It was about the punt. And that, too, is in the dustbin, Sarah, for good and ever.”

  Sarah’s stolidity suggested that she had had a duty to perform, and that she had performed it, though enigmas and mysterious pasts were not all to her liking. Maybe, Sarah had accepted this romance with certain reservations, but when a pretty thing like Mrs. Strangeways took you into her heart, you could not play the crab-apple. Sarah looked at the lady, and the lady looked at Sarah, and then, that which was mutual in them flashed into fruition.

  “You do understand, Sarah, don’t you?”

  Sarah’s face seemed to crumple.

  “I only want him to be happy.”

  “And me, too. Oh, Sarah, say you do. Because, if we aren’t both happy——”

  “Yes, you too, dearie.”

  Mrs. Strangeways kissed her, and Mrs. Maintenance burst into sudden tears.

  “He’s such a——”

  “I know. If one loves somebody better than one loves one’s self, Sarah, life ought to be good. One can’t do more than that, Sarah, can one?”

  “No, dearie. It’s silly of me. And I’ve left my handkerchief somewhere.”

  “No, it isn’t silly. I shall do it myself in a moment if you don’t stop. We oughtn’t to have red eyes, ought we, when he is coming back with such wonderful news.”

  “Are you sure it will be wonderful, miss?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “I do hope it will be. It will be the ruin of him if it isn’t.”

  “But it will be. I’m quite sure. Go and find your handkerchief, Sarah dear.”

  Sarah sniffed, and still holding the dust-pan, waddled solemnly into the cottage, and sat down with the dust-pan in her lap. Dear, dear, dear, dust and ashes! No, not at all. Sarah went on weeping, exultantly and comfortably, for quite five minutes, enjoying it, and the feeling that all was well with the world. She did not bother about handkerchiefs, but presently she did wake up to the fact that she was nursing the dust-pan.