by John Masters
Mr Savage said: ‘Thank you, Mrs Fenton. It’s very kind of you, but I’m afraid I had made plans to go to Henley with Adam.’
‘What a pity,’ Mally said pleasantly.
‘Henley?’ Gerry cried, interrupting himself in the middle of a sentence. ‘What are you going to do after that?’
‘We thought of going back to London and staying with my grandfather,’ Peter Savage said.
‘London in the second week of July!’ Gerry cried in mock horror. ‘You can’t do that. It’s a desert! Unless you’re going to spend your time at the Tivoli and the Gaiety. There won’t be much competition in July, eh?’
Peter Savage smiled suddenly, and Emily saw that Peggy was blushing again. Oh, don’t be silly, she thought to herself. They’re just talking; that’s the way they have to talk to show they’re men, not boys, the same as we put our hair up.
Peter Savage said: ‘It wasn’t me who threw that mash note on to the stage on New Year’s Eve.’
‘You didn’t, Gerry!’ Oh, dash, damn, bother! There she went again, and everyone round the table laughing at her.
Gerry was laughing, his voice high with sheer excited pleasure. Well, he’d had at least three glasses of wine by now. ‘Peter dared me to,’ he said, ‘and I did--but he was the one who bought the drinks for her in the Tivoli Bar afterwards.’
Emily sniffed and said: ‘I don’t see anything funny in that at all,’ but they were all laughing, and Peter Savage was looking at her with the strong, electric light sparkling in his pale eyes. She smiled. What fools men were!
Gerry said: ‘Come to Llyn Gared! You too, Adam. Think what a good time we can have, Peter. You’ve often told me you wanted to learn dry-fly fishing, and you know how you talk about the sea. Well, we’ve got both!’
‘I’m sure Mr Savage would come if he could,’ Mally said with a slight warning in her voice.
Peter Savage said: ‘I would like to come, Mrs Fenton, and I’m sure Adam would, but I know that your main sport is mountaineering. Gerry has often told me about what a good time he and Mr Fenton have on the mountains. Neither Adam nor I can climb--so we’d just spoil it for you, wouldn’t we, Gerry? If not for you, then certainly for Mr Fenton.’
‘Nonsense,’ Emily’s father growled. ‘Delighted to have you both.’ But Mally was looking at Mr Savage in quite a different, almost appreciative way, and Emily thought: He is a strange man; there he is again, saying something that is right but that people don’t usually say.
‘Of course it’s nonsense,’ Gerry broke in eagerly, and was about to go on, but this time Mally said firmly: ‘Now, Gerry, I won’t have Mr Savage bullied. The invitation remains open, as we’re not thinking of asking anybody else. You talk to Mr Savage and Mr Khan later and see if you can persuade them--but not now. George, don’t sit here too long. We shall be waiting in the drawing-room.’
The men pushed back their chairs, and Emily rose to her feet in obedience to her mother’s light, sweeping glance. Up one flight of stairs to the ladies’ room; wash her mouth carefully, bite her lips, bite, bite, bite; wish she could put on just a tiny bit of something to make her cheeks redder than they were; downstairs, remembering to move the feet so that she swept, the gown gliding with and around her--but no one there except the old porter to admire with narrowed eyes, man’s eyes, and he reading a newspaper; on into the drawing-room, sweep, rustle, shirr of organdie; cup of coffee, no milk, no sugar: correct.
The men joined them ten minutes later, and almost before they had sat down Gerry said: ‘Peter and Adam will be coming to stay.’
Emily’s father explained: ‘They’re going to have a punt race along the backs, before the ball. If Savage or Khan wins, Gerry will go where Peter decides, but if Gerry wins, they’ll come to Llyn Gared.’
‘Whose idea is this?’ her mother asked coldly.
‘Mine,’ Gerry said, grinning.
Mr Khan said: ‘You must excuse us, ma’am. It is not as rude as it sounds, to decide your kind invitation this way. I have poled a punt but three times in my life, and Peter only twice--and Gerry, as you know, is an expert.’
‘It’s just a way of letting off steam,’ Emily’s father said. She thought he would have liked nothing better than to join in.
‘No, it’s a bet,’ Gerry said, ‘and each of us is going to have one of the girls as passenger.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ her mother said automatically.
‘Oh, yes, please,’ Peggy said. ‘Please, Mally! It’ll be such fun.’
Emily saw her mother glance at her father. He shrugged. ‘No harm in it, dear. They can all swim, and the Backs are hardly deep enough to worry about even that. It’s the men who’ll fall in, if anyone’s going to.’
Mally said tartly: ‘Well, Gerry, it’s a strange way of getting someone to accept an invitation. And of course I won’t permit it to be binding, but if you---‘
‘Oh, it will be binding,’ Peter Savage said calmly.
Emily’s mother went on, with a look: ‘But if you want to make exhibitions of yourselves, I suppose I can’t stop you.’ Gerry kissed her quickly on the cheek and swung round, his eyes dancing. ‘Dolbys will have the punts at the foot of the back lawn by now, won’t they, Peter?’
‘Yes,’ Adam Khan said, ‘I saw them, on our way here.’ ‘Well, let’s take three down to Clare Bridge, start there, and race to Silver Street Bridge.’
‘All right,’ Peter said.
Gerry said: ‘Now, who’s going to go with whom? I choose Emily. She’s the lightest.’
‘What charming manners you have, Lord Manningford,’ Joan Gordon said mockingly. ‘And haven’t you forgotten about Mr Walsh?’
The short young man, who hardly seemed to have opened his mouth since he came in, said: ‘Sorry, I’m not in this race. I won’t be able to join you at the ball till about eleven, either, I’m afraid. I have an appointment with the Vice-Provost.’
‘On ball night?’ Mally said.
Gerry cut in at once. ‘Yes, Mally. About the Chapel. Harry has something he wants to do for the Chapel. Business. He couldn’t get down any other night. I’m sure I told you about it.’
‘I’m sure you did not,’ Emily’s mother said decisively. ‘That will leave us with even numbers, and I had carefully planned to have an extra man.’
‘I hope I won’t be kept after eleven,’ Harry Walsh said, and again Gerry cut in. ‘It’s a dashed shame, Mally, I know, but we’ll see the girls aren’t wallflowers, and . . .’
He rattled on while Emily looked at him suspiciously. She knew Gerry very well indeed, and he was telling a fib. The honest-looking Mr Walsh was not comfortable, either. She saw that her mother, too, had sensed that something was being hidden but decided not to press it now, and allowed Gerry, who heaved an almost audible sigh of relief, to return to the business of allotting passengers for the race.
‘I’ll take Peggy,’ Peter Savage said, and Peggy said, ‘Oh, yes!’
‘Peggy’ now, Emily thought. They must have seen a lot of each other in London at Christmas.
‘Then it looks as if you and I will bring up the rear of the procession, Miss Gordon,’ Mr Khan said cheerfully. ‘How are we going to get to the Backs?’
‘Walk,’ Gerry cried. ‘It’s only a couple of hundred yards. Fine evening. We don’t need a chaperon for this, Mally.’
Her mother said: ‘No, but I will be waiting on the lawn and will expect to receive these young ladies in good condition as soon as this nonsense is over. George and I shall go in a hansom.’ She laughed suddenly and gave Gerry a big hug. ‘Enjoy yourselves! And may the best man win.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Gerry cried. ‘Not the best man--just the most expert waterman. And that’s me!’
Chapter 2
‘Ready?’ Gerry called.
Peter Savage, on the right, answered: ‘Yes.’ Adam Khan, on the left, called: ‘Wait a minute, Gerry.’ Emily snuggled down on the cushions and waved happily to Peggy a few feet away. This was ridiculous, not at
all what she had expected of her first big dance--but exciting; and there were several men peering down at them from the bridge. ‘What are they doing?’ she heard one ask.
‘Racing, of course!’ Gerry called back. If she or Peggy had thought of having a boat race in evening dress, Mally would have been very firm and mean about it, but because it was Gerry’s idea it was all right. Not fair.
All the men looked handsome really, once you got used to Adam Khan’s darker skin, but Gerry was the most handsome. For a moment she felt her heart flutter as it had two years ago when she was fifteen and suddenly the boy who climbed trees with her and rode across the hills with her was a member of Pop, and going to Cambridge, and she knew she’d miss him for something more than his lost companionship. She remembered cursing her pigtails and her straight figure, and the serpentine ladies her mind conjured up, only half envious, for him to squire. Well, her hair was up now; and her figure was not so straight.
She strained her ears to hear music but could hear nothing. The water made no sound as it slid past, and the twilight slid down the buildings on her left and it was dark under the arches ahead. She could smell a cigar, and there were roses at her breast.
Peter Savage stood poised on the stern deck of his punt, the foot of the long pole just touching the water. He had a strange face, all hard angles; and his eyes, so bright and pale, glittered in the dusk; and he was not smiling. Anyone would think his life depended on winning, but really it was only a question of who decided where they spent a week or two of the summer--as if the summer didn’t last for ever, and then the next summer after that--as if he could win, anyway. And Peggy was looking up at him with lips parted, devotion written all over her. She was coiled like a spring, in sympathy with him. But Gerry just stood there, so gracefully, and Adam Khan said: ‘Ready now’ and the funny thing was that everyone, including herself, was looking at Peter Savage.
‘Go!’ Gerry called.
The poles dipped into the water, all together, and she felt the surge of power pushing the punt away from under her as it leaped forward. They glided together under the arches and shot out on the other side. Gerry slid his pole easily up and forward, dropped it into the water, leaned back on it. The punt moved faster; the pole lifted, dripping, forward again.
He smiled down at her as he pushed the pole in. ‘Hope I’m not splashing you.’
‘Gerry’s drawing ahead,’ she heard Peggy scream.
But Peter Savage wasn’t going to waste breath answering. Looking across at him, Emily thought he probably hadn’t even heard. Gerry was three or four yards ahead and Adam Khan another yard behind Peter. The water hissed merrily, and she put her hand over the side to trail her fingers in it. It was cool, and lovely to touch, like velvet, and the bubbles that fled back from her fingers were green and gold and silver. Now there were lawns on the left, and men and women in evening dress turning to watch the race, and a looming, immense building, but they shot under another bridge, and there she just caught a strange, fierce grin leaving Peter Savage’s face. He had been looking at her hand trailing in the water. Ah, she was slowing Gerry’s speed that way, and that was why Peter’s teeth had gleamed in a smile, a spider’s smile. She pulled her hand out of the water quickly.
It was quite frightening to think anything so small could matter so much. Peter’s forehead was beaded in the summer night, and his punt rocked with strong, ungainly jerks as he forced it forward, while Gerry’s glided on, steady as a liner, graceful as a swan. But Peter was gaining. He was only a yard back; and it did matter. They shot under another bridge. Gerry mustn’t allow himself to be beaten.
‘Queen’s,’ Gerry said conversationally. ‘The next one’s Silver Street.’
‘You’re gaining, Peter,’ Peggy screamed.
‘Faster, faster,’ Emily found herself yelling at Gerry. He smiled as the pole slid into the water. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Only ten more and we’ll be there.’ Effortlessly he stepped up the pace, still the punt rode the water like a swan.
A yard, two yards back, Peter hammered at the lead. Fascinated, almost appalled, she watched him. He didn’t look strong, like a strong man in the circus; he was lean, leaner than Gerry, and a little shorter, too--five foot eleven or so to Gerry’s six foot three. He didn’t know much about poling a punt, so he wasted his time and his strength in ugly, needless movements--but his boat jerked forward, gaining on them. Whence came the sudden fierce release, like a bowstring, as he rammed the punt forward? From nervous strength alone?
She sighed. He was going to win. Gerry was trying with all his might and all his greater strength and skill, but Peter Savage was going to win. The square bow of Peter’s punt edged past and with a final plunge lurched ahead as they shot under Silver Street Bridge. The men eased the poles into the water to brake the speed.
Adam Khan glided alongside on her left. ‘Congratulations,’ he called across her to Peter. ‘I don’t know how you did it. I kept back to rescue you in case you got stranded on the pole.’ He laughed, and Emily saw that he was as delighted with Peter’s victory as if it had been his own.
Gerry said: ‘Peter, how on earth did you do that? I didn’t think there was a man on the river who could beat me.’ They were turning the punts slowly and heading back downstream. The girls were smiling at each other, Peggy as proud as--as a hen that’s hatched a duckling!
Peter Savage said: ‘I wanted to win.’
Gerry said: ‘But Peter, don’t you want to come to Llyn Gared?’ He sounded distressed, and Emily thought: It’s not fair, turning a joke into a battle and then winning.
Peter’s face had relaxed a little, as much as it could, and he looked quite ordinary again--not a bit handsome really, his nose a little too long and his jaw too long and his cheekbones too high. He said: ‘I don’t know yet--but I thought I’d prefer to make the decisions. Now you’re going to spend those two weeks where I say.’ He was looking across at Gerry, and she could not for the life of her tell whether he was joking or not.
Nor could Gerry. He mumbled unhappily: ‘But Peter, Mally and Uncle G. will have their noses put out of joint if I don’t go there.’
‘It wasn’t my idea to race,’ Peter said. ‘You’ll still have the rest of the Long Vac at Llyn Gared.’
Then they reached the bank at the back lawn of King’s, and Gerry handed Emily out. Mally and her father were waiting there. ‘How much did you win by?’ her father asked. ‘A length, and going away, when you passed here.’
‘I didn’t,’ Gerry muttered.
Emily saw her mother look at Peter, again with that surprised, calculating glance. She looked at him herself, because she had made up her mind that she did not like him. Gerry and Peggy might be unhappy that he wasn’t coming to Llyn Gared, but she wasn’t. Only... Gerry would be doing what he wanted him to, and that wasn’t good.
She turned away. The ball had begun, and she was going to have a wonderful time. She took Gerry’s arm and squeezed it. ‘Take my programme and write your name in it lots of times,’ she said.
They were walking up the centuries-old lawn, the smell of the cut grass in her nostrils, towards one of the most lovely buildings she had ever seen.
‘Gibbs,’ Gerry said. ‘Isn’t it marvellous? Peter’s rooms are in there, on L staircase. Mine are in Chetwynd.’
His face cleared in the glow of light from the windows, and he began to laugh. ‘The biter bit! I ought to have known you can’t get the better of Peter when he’s made up his mind. Well, I’m sure he’ll think up something wonderful for us to do. Let’s have a look at that programme.’
They had passed through a deep-arched passage under the building, and now on her left she became aware of a vast presence, King’s College Chapel. She turned, and although she realized she had seen it twice before, this evening, she found herself sighing in wonder. Beside her the tremendous wall of stone and glass soared up into the summer night, and above again the pinnacles were haloed in summer stars, so thick and close that they seemed to have be
en set there by the hand of the same sculptor.
After a time she turned away. She could hear the music of the ball very plainly now; but these years of organdie and sipped wine seemed so small, with the towering mystery of the Chapel behind her, that she was ashamed to be enjoying them. This time was only a vestibule or ante-room to life, and though there was fun here it was not, surely, what she meant by happiness. Happiness must be bigger and higher--and deeper--as when you had responsibilities, and knew sadness. Then perhaps she would become like her mother, tall and beautiful and deep- rooted in the walled garden of Llyn Gared, as the foundations of the Chapel lay deep under the velvet lawns.
And her father there, would he be the model for Gerry? He was forty-five now, and he did not have ‘fun.’ Most of the time he seemed more worried than happy, yet she knew he was content. When he was at Llyn Gared he thought of Zermatt, and oiled his ice axe and fondled his climbing ropes and rubbed saddle soap into his boots, and read and reread Whymper and Freshfield; and when they were at Zermatt he was soberly grateful for the good days on the mountain, but when the clouds came down and it was impossible to climb, he thought of Llyn Gared and wrote letters about the management of the home farm, and wondered whether Preece’s wife had had her baby yet.
It would be good to know what happiness was, exactly, before she reached out for it; also, to have grown big enough for it. She could not yet, for instance, be happy with her mother’s kind of happiness. That meant she didn’t even want to be married yet. With a queer, cold sense of doing something wrong she examined her mind as it was and not as it was supposed to be.
She did not want to be married yet. That was the truth. She prayed with sudden passion that Gerry would wait a few years before asking her. If he didn’t, heaven knew what she might have to say or do. Her mother’s life was beautiful, and so was her father’s in its way, and more beautiful still the way they had made their lives one; but she knew there was more yet, and that she was not old enough, or was too taken up with the present, to find it. Her mother and father were rooted in Llyn Gared, but the Chapel went down deeper than the soil. It stood, and towered so against the stars, because its foundations were in the history of Cambridge University, and that meant in something very old and deep, which had nothing to do with comfort or happiness. The builders must have found some purpose or fire to give them the power to raise that magic tower of stone and crystal. Somewhere there must be such a purpose for her, and such a life as much beyond happiness as happiness was beyond fun--not for her alone, for her and Gerry together. But if she talked about it to him, he would laugh and be a little embarrassed. That was why she knew he must wait. He must understand, and she must be ready.
