"If you will pass me my guitar," said George, "I will sing to you."
"I would rather you washed up," I replied. "It would be more of a novelty."
"For one who professes to be an artist," returned George, with unruffled serenity, "you are painfully lacking in sensibility. A man who can speak of washing up ten minutes after tea on a golden June evening——"
"If you are going to get poetical, George," I said, "I would sooner you sang. Here you are."
I reached out an arm into the tent, and tossed him across the somewhat battered banjo which was lying on his bed. He caught it neatly with his left hand.
"I believe you would play cricket with a Stradivarius," he said reproachfully. "What shall I sing?"
"Anything short."
"I shall sing something sad," he went on, disregarding my interruption. "I always feel very wistful after tea. Besides, I am in love with the bronze-haired girl at Otter's Holt, and perhaps she will hear me and think that I am unhappy."
"She is much more likely to think that I am," said I. "Fire ahead."
He twanged two or three experimental chords, tightened a couple of pegs, and then settling down again in his basket-chair, launched out pathetically into the time-honoured ballad of "London Bridge":
Hurry along, sorrow and song,
All is vanity 'neath the sun;
Velvet and rags, so the world wags,
Until the river no more shall run.
"I shall not applaud you," I said, when he had finished. "You might mistake courtesy for an encore."
"I wonder if the bronze-haired girl heard me?" murmured George, laying down the banjo.
"Unless she is deaf," I pointed out, "she could scarcely have avoided it. She probably thinks we are a couple of music-hall comedians."
"Perhaps I had better call to-morrow and apologize," said George thoughtfully.
I looked him in the eyes.
"George," I observed, "if I find you thrusting your society on that defenceless young woman, I shall communicate with the local policeman."
"She is not defenceless," objected George. "She has a dog and an old woman with her; and as for youth—well, I am but a lad myself."
I laughed unkindly.
"In the matter of hair," I said, glancing at the top of George's head.
"Hair," said George hastily, "has nothing to do with it. Hair is an excrescence, a hideous and perpetual reminder of our arboreal ancestry."
"You had better tell her that," I replied. "She would appreciate it."
"I was not speaking of bronze hair. You never saw a bronze-haired monkey."
"It may be dyed," I suggested.
George picked up his banjo.
"Such blasphemy," he said, "deserves a heavy punishment. I shall sing you 'Beauty's Eyes.'"
"Is there no option?" I pleaded.
With his thumb on the strings, George paused.
"Yes," he said, "you can wash up."
I did.
Next morning at breakfast George announced his intention of walking over to Chertsey.
"They are taking entries for the regatta," he explained. "And I want to put our names down for the double punting."
"How about getting a couple of insurance policies at the same time?" I suggested. (I have punted with George before.)
"What's your programme?" he inquired, disregarding my excellent proposal.
"I shall go up the Bourne," I said. "I want to finish my picture, and the light is just right this morning."
"Well, don't collar the sardines," he replied selfishly. "I should like 'em for supper."
He sauntered off about half-past ten, stopping in the garden to pick our only carnation for his buttonhole.
After some research, I unearthed a tinned tongue, some bread and butter, a cake, and last, but not least, a bottle of claret. These I transplanted tenderly to the punt, and then, putting in my painting materials, pushed off in leisurely fashion up the backwater.
As I passed Otter's Holt, the long, low, creeper-covered bungalow that adjoined our own camping-ground, I caught a glimpse of the girl who had inflamed George's susceptible heart. She was lying in a deck-chair in the verandah, reading a book. By her side crouched a large brindled bulldog, who looked up and emitted a sharp "woof!" as the splash of my punt-pole reached his ears.
His mistress put out a small reproving hand. "Lie down, sir!" she said, in a voice that no decent bulldog could possibly have resisted.
"There are excuses for George," I said to myself as an intervening dump of willow shut out any further observations.
The Bourne, as is usual on weekdays, was delightfully deserted. I pushed my way slowly up its narrow course, thrusting aside the overhanging bushes, and startling an occasional kingfisher into a streak of living blue.
My destination was just round the fourth bend, a place where the sunshine played a bewitching game of hide-and-seek through the branches of an elm. It was this tracery of light and shadow that I was attempting to transfer to my canvas.
Tying the punt up to the bank, I pulled out my paints and set to work. It was one of those mornings which make one doubt whether any conceivable heaven could really be as attractive as earth. An infinitely faint breeze just stirred the leaves overhead, and only the occasional splash of a fish or the shrill twitter of a bird disturbed the fragrant silence around.
For about an hour I laboured at my picture with commendable industry. But somehow or other I did not make as rapid progress as such diligence deserved. A vision of a girl with bronze hair kept flitting before my eyes in the most elusive and disconcerting fashion. Once I actually found myself murmuring, "Lie down, sir!" apparently in an attempt to analyze the peculiar charm with which these three words seemed to be associated.
For a person of well-regulated mind this was distinctly humiliating. I began to take myself to task. "Because a young woman happens to address a bulldog in your hearing," I inquired, "is that any reason why you should waste an entire morning?"
Getting no reply, I continued with increasing sternness: "You are as bad as George. You are making an idiot of yourself over a red-haired slip of a girl whom you have only seen about three times in your life. Why, if it comes to that, you don't even know her name! Sir, I am disgusted with you."
Relieved by this Johnsonian rebuke, I again turned to my picture, and for twenty minutes or so worked on with unruffled concentration. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I was hungry.
I moved aside my paints, carefully laid down the canvas in the end of the punt, and, pulling out the luncheon-basket from under the seat, began to prepare my frugal but well-earned meal. The tongue, my chef-d'œuvre, was encased in one of those ingenious tins which you open by twisting a key. I was deep in this fascinating process when my ears were assailed by the sudden splash of an approaching craft.
I looked up with a frown. Such an intrusion on my privacy seemed to me to savour of gross impertinence. I had come to regard the Bourne as my private property, which I was magnanimous enough to open to the public cm Saturdays and Sundays. And here was some coarse-grained stranger thrusting his way in at one o'clock on Tuesday afternoon.
"In future," I said to myself, "I shall mine the channel."
Nearer and nearer came that offensive splash, varied by the occasional swish of a parted bush, and the creaking of an indifferently handled punt-pole. Assuming an expression of cold displeasure, I sat up and waited on Fate. At last the nose of a punt thrust itself round the bend, and a moment later the intruder emerged into full view.
In my agitation I dropped the tongue in the butter. It was the bronze-haired girl from Otter's Holt!
Then a series of incidents occurred with the bewildering rapidity of a cinematograph. Disturbed, apparently, by my unfortunate lapsus linguæ, the bulldog, which was crouching in the stern of the punt, leaped forward, barking his defiance. In his ardour he cannoned heavily against a basket reposing on the seat. There was a splash, a cry of despair from the bronze-haired maiden, and the aforesaid basket settled down peacefully at the bottom of the Bourne.
Let it be stated to my credit that I rose to the situation with some promptness. Unhitching the painter by a dexterous twitch, I snatched up my pole, and, with a couple of sharp shoves, sped gracefully to the rescue.
"I am so sorry," I said. "I am afraid I frightened your dog. May I make amends by getting out the basket?"
"It's very kind of you," she said simply. "Of course, it wasn't your fault at all. Come here sir!" This last to the dog.
I turned my sleeves up to the shoulders, and, leaning over the side of the punt, groped down through the shallow water until I got hold of the handle. Then, dripping but triumphant, I extracted my burden.
"I hope there is nothing to spoil in it," I said.
She smiled and shook her head.
"It's only a matter of a few sandwiches. I am very much obliged to you, and extremely sorry to have been the cause of so much trouble."
"On the contrary," I replied, "it is I and the dog who ought to apologize to you."
"I can't imagine why he was so silly," she said, administering a reproving pat to the animal, who still eyed me with some disfavour. "As a rule, he is as good as gold in a boat."
"What do you call him?" I inquired, in a shameless attempt to prolong the conversation.
"Winston Churchill," she said, with another smile. "He was christened before I got him."
"His jaw is certainly well developed," I observed.
She laughed, and a short pause followed.
"Well," she said, "I must be getting back."
"But really," I protested, "you have only just arrived." Then a sudden fit of recklessness seized me. "Don't go because your lunch is spoiled," I pleaded. "I have a whole tongue, to say nothing of some excellent bread, and some good, if rather dilapidated, butter. As the destroyer of your sandwiches I can surely without impertinence offer you a fair compensation."
She shook her head, still smiling.
"Oh, I don't think you are impertinent," she said, "but I believe that no really nice girl ever accepts an invitation from a perfect stranger. It would distress me to think that I was outside the pale."
Her brown eyes twinkled so deliriously that I cast subterfuge to the winds.
"Do stay," I begged. "I have been alone all the morning wrestling with an obstinate picture, and I am desperately in need of a little cheering society. Besides, there is nothing so very unconventional in the idea. Winston Churchill will make a most efficient chaperon."
She wavered.
"And you can cut me afterwards," I added.
The corners of her mouth twitched.
"Your arguments," she said, "are most persuasive."
We pulled the two punts alongside each other and fastened them to the bank. By this time Winston Churchill seemed to have accepted me as a harmless and necessary evil. He sat up in the stern and watched me with intelligent interest, while I completed my preparations for lunch.
"You are in his good books now," said the bronze-haired girl, stroking him gently down the back with her fingers. "He thinks that people who provide food cannot be altogether bad."
I handed her the plate.
"To give tongue," I said, "is the recognized method of expressing friendship in canine circles."
"And, I suppose, giving the only plate implies the same idea amongst human beings?"
"George and I generally eat off paper," I replied. "We prefer it. We are leading the simple life."
"Yes," she said; "I heard you yesterday. If I remember rightly, you had arrived at the conclusion that all was vanity."
I held out a cunningly carved slice of bread-and-butter.
"George," I said, "was responsible for the song, and Solomon for the sentiments. I am innocent."
She accepted both the bread-and-butter and the apology.
"You are an artist," she said, "to say nothing of being a knight-errant. One cannot have all the talents."
"When I was a small boy," I remarked, "I remember I had a nurse who used to check my incipient tendency to sarcasm by saying warningly: 'Hush, Master Jack! No one will love you if you talk like that.'"
"No, no!" she cried, with a protesting little laugh. "I really meant it for a compliment. I paint very badly myself, but I know good work when I see it. Yours is delightful."
"I only hope the excellent Mr. Rosenthal will share your opinion," I said.
She puckered her forehead in a charming expression of mock bewilderment.
"And who is Mr. Rosenthal? He sounds very rich."
"He is a patron of the arts," I explained. "His father provided the British army with shoe-leather for some years, and the son dispenses the proceeds from a castle at Cookham. This trifle has been commissioned for the banquet-hall."
"You must feel very proud," she observed gravely. "May I look at it more closely?"
I handed her the canvas, and, propping it up in her punt, she proceeded to criticize it with an intelligence and knowledge that considerably surprised me.
"I have my doubts as to your painting so badly," I said, with some suspicion.
She shook her head.
"My father is an artist," she answered. "I have inherited his taste without his abilities."
"Has he a taste for cheap claret?" I inquired, holding up the bottle.
"For about half a glass, I think."
I poured it out, and filled my own.
"To Mr. Rosenthal," she said gaily.
"For my own part," I said, "I shall drink to Winston Churchill. I find his habit of upsetting baskets a most commendable one."
We passed on unhurriedly to the cheese and cake courses. As our acquaintance mellowed, the almost nervous flippancy with which we had bridged over its earlier stages gradually died away. Quite unaffected, and gifted with a most refreshing sense of humour, the bronze-haired girl proved a delightful companion. She had evidently been brought up in an unusual sort of atmosphere, for she chatted away easily about art and books and people, without a trace of that embarrassing shyness of opinion which seems to be the hallmark of a conventionally educated girl.
On the ground that she was chiefly responsible for their present condition, she insisted on helping me wash up our scanty luncheon outfit.
"A plate is such a nice, clean thing by nature," she said, swishing it about in the water, "that I always think one ought to attend to it immediately after lunch. It must suffer horribly if you leave it lying about all covered with grease or jam. I think I shall start a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plates."
When we had packed away everything into the basket, she accepted one of those excellent Russian cigarettes which my friend M. Demidoff makes for me, and, arranging our cushions, we lay back luxuriously in our respective punts and talked aimlessly, volubly, and cheerfully about everything on God's earth. From where I was lying I could just see the tip of her nose, and I directed my conversation to that.
By three o'clock I had decided firmly that arrangements must be made which would involve the possibility of our meeting freely in the future; and when at four she sat up suddenly and said she must go home, I had arrived at a state in which I was quite unable to contemplate existence without her.
"We shall expect you to tea to-morrow, then," she said, "provided it is not too violent a break in the simple life. Of course, if Mr. George likes to bring his banjo—" Her eyes twinkled mischievously.
"No—no," I interrupted; "don't let us be morbid on a day like this."
She gave me her dear, cool, slender hand for a moment, and then, with the blessed Winston Churchill sitting up amiably in the stern of the punt, she pushed off down the stream.
It was not until she had vanished round the bend that I remembered I had never asked her name.
George was still away when I got back. As it was after five, however, I decided not to wait for him. I put the kettle on the "Primus," and walked about the bungalow, singing "Who is Sylvia?" and other similar ballads until it boiled over. Then I made tea, and sat down in a delightfully contented frame of mind. I was so happy that I ate all the sardines before I noticed what I was doing.
George came in a moment afterwards.
"Hallo!" he said. "Still at breakfast?"
"I breakfasted, George," I answered, "exactly two centuries ago."
"Well, that must account for the horrible energy with which you're eating now." He looked round the table. "Here, hang it," he added, in a sudden tone of horror, "you've finished the sardines!"
"I am sorry, George," I said penitently. "I have been in a very exalted, spiritual meditation, and I did not notice what I was eating."
He sat down with a disbelieving grunt.
"Well, next time an attack comes on, get out some of those mouldy biscuits. This is a nice way to treat one who has been slaving for your benefit. I was looking forward to those sardines all the way home."
"What have you been doing?" I inquired, in a timely effort to turn the conversation into a less poignant channel.
George opened a bottle of Bass, and helped himself to an impressive slice of cake.
"Well," he said, "I shoved our names down for the double punting all right. As far as I can see, we've got a jolly good chance, if you'll only take it seriously."
"I take it very seriously," I interrupted.
"Barton was there," went on George; "he is entering with his brother. It would be rather fun if we were to run up against them in the finals."
"We are certain to do that," I observed, "if we get so far."
"I went back to Barton's place to lunch," said George. "And, oh, by the way, I found out all about the bronze-haired girl at Otter's Holt. Barton knows her well."
I struck a match to light my cigarette.
"Indeed!" I remarked carelessly.
"Yes; she's married."
I suppose I must have opened my mouth, for the cigarette dropped on the table.
"She's what?" I exclaimed, after a moment's pause.
"Married," said George, with a laugh. "Her husband's in the wool market. His name's Congreve; Barton says he's a very decent fellow. They've taken Otter's Holt for the summer."
If you can imagine the end of the world coming just as you had inherited a large fortune, you will get a very fair idea of my emotions at that moment. I stared at George in a kind of ghastly amazement; then, with an effort, I moistened my lips.
"I don't believe it," I said.
"It's true, though," said George. "Barton is coming over to stay with them next month. Just my atrocious luck! I always fall in love with women who either hate me or have already got husbands."
I suppose something in my face must have attracted his attention, for he stopped and looked at me curiously.
"What's the matter, old man?" he asked. "Feeling bad?"
With a big effort I pulled myself together, and picked up the cigarette which I had dropped.
"Nothing much, George," I said. "I've got a bit of a headache. Too many sardines, I expect."
"You have been sitting about in the sun without a hat again," said George severely. "I told you what would happen. Now, if you had a little less hair, like me, you might have a little more sense." He got up and put his hand on my shoulder. "You tumble in and lie down," he added. "I'll wash up."
And George did.
I spent what I believe is generally called "a wretched night." It must have been about two in the morning when I finally consigned Barton and the bronze-haired girl, and my own ridiculous emotions, to the bottom of the Thames, and, turning savagely over on my side, dropped into a troubled, useless sort of sleep.
I was awake again at six, roused by the vigorous carolling of a thrush, whose own love affairs were apparently in excellent order. George was still sleeping. I crawled out carefully so as not to disturb him, and, taking a towel, made my way down to the river.
There was the promise of another lovely day in the air, and the warm early-morning sunshine seemed to bathe one in a kind of comforting caress. By the time I had had my usual swim and dried myself on the bank, my turbulent feelings of the previous night had given place to what I believed to be a more or less philosophic resignation.
After all, I said to myself, there was nothing to be gained by weeping and gnashing one's teeth. It was distinctly distressing that my only attempt at falling in love should have met with so disastrous a check; still, other people had had equally unpleasant experiences, and had managed to survive them. Was it not brave old George Wither who had summed up the situation in that delightfully reasonable couplet:
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?
I repeated the words aloud several times as I strolled back. It comforted me to persuade myself that I agreed with them.
I found George outside the tent, shaving.
"Hallo!" he said. "Feeling fitter?"
"I am quite well this morning, thank you, George," I answered.
"In that case," said he kindly, "you may cook breakfast."
I unearthed some bacon, and, while engaged in chasing two rather elusive slices round the frying-pan, I debated with myself as to whether I should mention the invitation to tea. I had no intention of going myself—that would be altogether too great a strain upon my philosophy—but as my adventure of the previous day was bound to come out sooner or later, it seemed rather unfair to rob George of an afternoon's entertainment. Still, in my present state of mind, I shied violently at the thought of the explanations which would be involved by my telling him. I felt that anything in the nature of chaff, even from George, would be quite unbearable. So, like Mrs. Grimmage, "I just went on cookin', and said nuffin'."
It was the boy from Dunton's Boathouse who eventually supplied the solution to the problem, in the shape of the morning post. There was a letter for George, and as soon as he opened it he gave an exclamation of disgust.
"What's the matter?" I inquired.
"My futile partner," said George, "is sick of a cold, and desires me to come up to town for the day. Fancy catching cold this weather!"
"It suggests considerable skill," I admitted. "Are you going?"
"Must," answered George sadly. "He says that a man is coming to see us about designing some pigsties. In the present state of architecture we cannot afford to miss such an opportunity."
"From your ideas of keeping the tent tidy," I observed, "you ought to be an authority on the subject."
"I shall be down by the six-thirty," said George. "What will you do with yourself?"
"I shall spend the day," I replied, "in trying to forget certain incidents which ought never to have happened."
"If you forget them all," said George cynically, "you will have a busy time."
My self-imposed programme, though excellent in theory, did not prove very successful in practice. George went off, grumbling, at about half-past eight, and, having washed up the breakfast-things, and tidied up the tent, I made an attempt to settle down to some black-and-white work, which an impatient editor had just reminded me was several days overdue.
At the end of an hour all I had completed was a very passable likeness of Mrs. Congreve punting. I sat and stared at it in a kind of stupid trance. It seemed impossible to believe that my beautiful romance of yesterday was dead and buried in some obscure vestry. My whole nature rose up in passionate revolt against such an incredible idea. All the pseudo-resignation on which I had prided myself in the early morning deserted me in the hour of need. I began to recall the way she spoke, the charming manner in which the corners of her mouth turned up before she laughed, and the gracious atmosphere of tenderness and humour in which she seemed to live.
At last, with a groan, I threw down the pencil, and got up from my chair.
"Hang it," I said, "I can't stand this any longer!"
I walked to the door of the tent, and looked out. Except for a couple of barges, emerging from the lock, the river was deserted. On the further bank, however, alongside of Dunton's Boathouse, a motor-car was just discharging a giggling cargo of flimsily dressed damsels and beflannelled youths.
I glanced at them inhospitably, and then a sudden idea struck me. Why not walk over to Brooklands and watch the motor-racing? A savage four-mile-an-hour tramp across country was exactly the medicine I needed; and then there was always the chance of seeing somebody killed. I felt that a real, good sanguinary smash-up would appeal to me immensely in my present state of mind.
Without wasting any further time I picked up my hat and stick, and then, after looking in at Williamson's bungalow, and asking him to keep an eye on our tent, I set off across the fields in the direction of Weybridge.
It was not until I had reached and was walking up the main street that I remembered I had sent no message to Otter's Holt. After all, I had accepted the invitation to tea, and some sort of an excuse, however futile, was obviously needed. I turned in at the post office, and, after a moment's hesitation, wrote out the following telegram:
"Am very sorry we shall not be able to come to tea this afternoon. Called away on urgent business."
Then, having put my name to this lie, I addressed it to Mrs. Congreve, Otter's Holt, Shepperton, and handed it in.
If Brooklands failed to provide me with a catastrophe, it at least helped me to take my mind off my own affairs. Amongst the competitors was a man called Carfax, whom I knew fairly well as a fellow-member of the Barbarians. He was driving a monstrous 90 h.p. abortion; and, after the racing was over, he took me for a spin round the track, at the bracing speed of about eighty miles an hour. Subsequently we dropped in for tea with some friend of his, who had built himself a turreted atrocity in red brick, looking out over Brooklands grounds. Here I met three or four other motor enthusiasts, and listened in dazed humility while they discussed with some warmth the relative merits of various magnetos and carburettors.
It must have been well after six when I started to walk back to Shepperton. The evening was delightfully warm and still, and, soothed by a mild Cabana, which my host had insisted on my accepting before I left, I strolled leisurely on, wrapped once more in a kind of melancholy submission to destiny. I was even able to let my thoughts wander over the events of the previous afternoon without awakening any other emotion but a vague, luxurious sadness. For the moment I seemed to have escaped from my own personality, and to be looking down like one of the gods with infinite pity upon the tragedy of human desire.
Turning off half-way along the canal, I struck into a short cut which led across the fields to the spot where our tent was pitched. About half a mile from the river this path ran through the yard of the farm from which we purchased our eggs and milk. At this point it was really a private thoroughfare, but the farmer, in view of George's profitable appetite, made no objection to our using it as often as we pleased.
I was just opening the gate which led into the yard, when a sharp "woof" brought me to an abrupt halt. The wild suspicion that held me momentarily paralyzed was confirmed a moment later. There was a pattering of feet, and Winston Churchill sidled out from the porch of the house. The moment he saw who it was, he sat down in the mud, and threw up his accursed head in a howl of welcome. With a supreme effort I turned to flee, but it was too late. The door of the farm opened, and—and——
God in heaven! How good it was to see her again!
She was carrying a jug of milk in her dear hands, and she stood still and looked at me with a grave smile.
I took off my hat.
"I hope," she said, "that the urgent business has come to a successful conclusion."
I felt quite incapable of saying anything except "Yes."
"I am glad of that," she went on, "because you missed a very good tea."
Then a sudden insanity gripped me by the throat, and I committed that most unpardonable of all blunders—I told the truth.
"There was no urgent business!" I blurted out. "The telegram was a lie!"
She wrinkled up her forehead again, in that altogether adorable way of her own.
"Indeed?" she said. "And why should you send me a lie?"
I dropped the cigar which I was holding, and ground it into the mud with my boot.
"I heard you were married," I said hoarsely.
There was a moment's silence, and then, as I live, she began to laugh.
"Oh!" she said, "that accounts for the telegram! But it seems a poor reason for wasting a cigar."
I stared at her dully. "I suppose I must appear a particularly ludicrous sort of idiot," I said. "My only excuse is that I can't help it. Good-bye!"
She put out one hand, as though to stop me.
"Before you go," she said gently, "you might tell me when I was married. After all, it's only natural that I should be a little interested in the matter."
I clutched hold of the gate. Everything except her face had suddenly become dim and distant.
"Do you mean—do you mean to say that it's a mistake?" I gasped.
"There are some people," she answered mischievously, "who say that marriage is always a mistake."
"But George—Barton—Congreve," I stammered.
"You have not got his Christian names quite right," she interrupted. "They are Walter Vernon. I know, you see, because he happens to be my brother-in-law