Ripeness is All

by Eric Linklater

  ‘Haig looked at me very gravely. “The Crown Prince has very little knowledge of the English if he doesn’t realize we are dangerous fighters in such a position,” he said.

  ‘Then he thanked me for the information I had brought, and I returned to my battalion. A few days later he issued his message to the troops, and no one but Haig and myself knew its full significance. That magnificent sentence, “We are fighting with our backs to the wall,” wasn’t only encouragement to the soldiers – though of course it did encourage them – but also, and this is more important I think, it was deliberate and open defiance of Ludendorff and the Crown Prince!’

  A little snore, like the far whisper of a foghorn, blew softly out of Stephen’s lips. Wilfrid, despite an almost equal weariness, made haste to cover this breach of hospitality and cried, ‘Oh, Stephen, you’ve dropped your cigarette!’

  Stephen woke, and felt for his bottle of bismuth tablets.

  ‘You were going to read your poem to us,’ said Wilfrid, ‘but we forgot all about it. Arthur’s stories have been so perfectly absorbing.’

  ‘It isn’t really ready for publication,’ said Stephen. ‘I never believe in showing unfinished work.’ He yawned without concealment.

  Arthur looked at his watch. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘I’d no idea it was so late. I must go home: Daisy’ll be wondering what’s become of me.’ He stood up, tentatively.

  ‘Have a little more brandy,’ said Wilfrid with unfailing kindness.

  Stephen yawned again.

  ‘No, really,’ said Arthur. ‘I’m afraid Eve stayed too long as it is.’

  ‘Oh, indeed you haven’t,’ Wilfrid protested.

  ‘Come again,’ said Stephen. ‘Good night, Arthur, I’m going to bed now.’

  Wilfrid led Arthur to the door, and bade him a warm farewell. Arthur trod the high ridge with exhilaration in his steps. He had had a magnificent evening, and he was a little better than sober. He stopped on the starlit road, and stiffened his shoulders, and saluted. ‘I have come, sir, to report a most unusual occurrence,’ he said. He was talking to his Commander-in-Chief.

  He was delighted with the story about the Crown Prince and the Waacs. The idea had come to him between his fourth and fifth brandies, and he had developed it with most laudably swift decision. He had the soldier’s instinct, he knew when to attack, and how to consolidate. ‘I crept down the sap, sir, and strained every nerve to hear what they were saying,’ he announced to the starlight.

  Between tall trees the road appeared to grow narrower, and Arthur remembered his first story, of the Lewis gun and the bottle of champagne. There were lime trees in blossom on the one side, and their sweet smell induced a momentary sadness in him. Suddenly he wished – Oh God, how greatly he wished! – that the story of the Lewis gun had been true, and he in very fact a hero. But the stars shone bright, the night was kind, and brandy enlivened his pulse. He put away unmanly repining, and walked on with a soldier’s stride.

  His lips were moving. ‘I considered it my duty to make an immediate report to you, sir,’ he was saying, ‘and when I suggested this to my Commanding Officer he at once concurred.’

  Arthur was very happy. He was still talking to Sir Douglas Haig.

  Chapter 6

  Jane Sutton went to North Berwick in August, and played golf every day. Her great friend, Bolivia Ramboise, went to Prestwick, and also played regularly. They returned to Lammiter early in September, Bolivia some days later than Jane, and the morning after Bolivia’s return they played together on the Lammiter Heath course, and lunched in the Clubhouse. They went out again after lunch, but a heavy shower at the short fifteenth interrupted their accurate and hard-hitting progress. The fairway of the fifteenth ran parallel with the front of the Clubhouse and not very far from it.

  ‘I don’t think it’s worth getting wet,’ said Bolivia. ‘We’ve had a decent amount of golf lately, we can afford to miss a hole or two.’

  Jane agreed, and they returned to the Clubhouse and ordered tea. They sat in the bay of a large window and looked with critical affection at the pleasing harmony, now subdued by rain, of green turf and brown heath and yellow sand.

  ‘I want the Committee to dig another trap on the near side of that green,’ said Jane, pointing to the fifteenth. ‘It’s a damned sight too easy at present.’

  Bolivia agreed. ‘Do you remember Eve Puddifoot in the last Medal Handicap? She sliced her drive, topped her approach, rolled in, and was down in four. Now that sort of thing’s not good enough.’

  ‘No, it’s got to be stopped,’ said Jane. ‘I’ve several ideas for tightening things up a bit, and if you’ll back me I’ll make a lot of difference to this course. I want a really big bunker about a hundred and twenty yards in front of the tee at the seventh, for instance. It makes me sick to see the rabbits roll down hill there, and get away with it, and think they’re playing golf.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ said Bolivia. ‘And why not shift the eleventh tee about thirty yards west? That would make the brook absolutely deadly, and if you were short …’

  ‘You’d be in the trees! Now that’s what I call a brilliant suggestion! You know, with a bit of digging, and shifting, we could make this course twice as difficult, and then it would be really worth playing on.’

  ‘You’ve got the right ideas,’ said Bolivia and swallowed her tea at a gulp.

  They made a magnificent picture of English womanhood as they sat there: Jane thick as an ox, thewed like a wrestler, broad-browed, heavy in the jaw, tawny haired; Bolivia tall as a Guardsman, muscular and swift in movement, black haired, with thick black eyebrows that met in the middle, a Roman nose, a jutting chin, and weather-beaten cheeks. They had for each other a solid friendship, unselfish and undemonstrative, of the kind that is supposed to be more common among men. Bolivia – she had been so christened to commemorate the death of her uncle, the General’s brother, who had been killed by Tobas while exploring the Gran Chaco – Bolivia had listened with real interest to Jane’s description of golf at North Berwick, and Jane had paid close attention to all that Bolivia had to say about Prestwick. Without any nonsense or extravagance they admired each other’s good qualities – Bolivia was ever the first to admit the superior technique of Jane’s approach-shots – and without any tedious parade of their emotions, which were indeed neither complex nor many, they thoroughly understood each other.

  Presently Jane said, ‘I must go and have a talk with Stephen and Wilfrid one of these days, I’ve got to get a few clothes before winter, I suppose, and God knows what people are wearing nowadays. It’s a damned nuisance having to dress oneself. I’m simply defeated when it comes to buying anything new. But Wilfrid’s marvellous at suggesting things, and Stephen’s pretty good too.’

  Bolivia agreed. ‘It is rather a bore. I just go to my dressmaker and let her do what she likes with me.’

  ‘I can’t afford to do that, worse luck. North Berwick was filthily expensive, and my new pack of clubs cost a devil of a lot. But I really needed them.’

  ‘It’s a pity the Major hadn’t made a more sensible will. You’d be all right if you’d got your share of seventy thousand.’

  ‘Yes, I was a bit sore about that to begin with, but I’ve got over it now.’

  ‘Any news of developments in the family?’ asked Bolivia.

  ‘Not so far as I know. Arthur’s down with a bilious attack, due to Daisy’s attempts to feed him up, and Katherine hasn’t written lately. She was very cock-a-hoop to begin with, but we haven’t heard from her for the last few weeks, so I suppose she’s got nothing to report yet. Some women don’t take so easily as others.’

  ‘And you’ve simply resigned the competition to those two?’

  ‘Well, Stephen’s not likely to marry, and Hilary’s rising forty. There’s no one else, unless George turns up. Nobody’s heard of him for years, and so far Peabody hasn’t had any replies to the advertisement he put in the papers. I expect George drank himself to death years ago.’


  Bolivia said, ‘Did you never think of trying for the prize yourself? You’d have a good enough chance. There’s only Arthur and his solitary child to set the pace: bogey’s only one.’

  Jane frowned. ‘Well, I did toy with the idea for a week or two. Freddy Hislop began to show signs of interest, and so did young Wheatley – they’d heard the news, of course – and I wondered for a few days whether it would be worth while to whistle them in. But Wheatley’s rather a bore, and Freddy’s never broken ninety yet, and isn’t likely to, so I came to the conclusion that the whole business would try my temper too much, and I dropped it.’

  ‘But Wheatley and Freddy aren’t the only men in Lammiter,’ Bolivia urged, ‘and seventy thousand’s a lot of money.’

  ‘Oh, I know, but the truth is I don’t like babies, and each one would mean losing at least four months’ golf, and probably more. No, it isn’t worth it. I’ve almost decided to put my name in for the Ladies’ Open next year, and that means I’ve got to play steadily and really seriously from now on. I’ve wasted far too much time in the past, playing with Tom, Dick, and Harry, but all that’s got to stop now, and I’m going to concentrate, really concentrate, on my short game. And as that’s the case it would be simply ruinous to have a baby.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Bolivia. ‘But if I were in your place, I think I’d say good-bye to golf and marry Wheatley or anybody at all, if only to keep the money away from Daisy and Katherine.’

  ‘Yes, it is rather sickening to think they’re going to get it. But I’m not going to stop them, and as I said before, Stephen isn’t likely to.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong with him, but he’s so frightened of women that he’ll never get married unless somebody bullies him into it. My God, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t you whistle him in?’

  Bolivia gave a snort of laughter. ‘No, thanks,’ she said.

  ‘I’m being perfectly serious,’ said Jane. ‘Stephen’s not at all a bad sort when you get to know him. He’s very intelligent, and a sensible woman could knock all the nonsense out of him, and make him quite presentable. You see, he started badly. He was terribly cut up by his father’s death, and then, when he was about twenty-two, he got a hell of a fright from a girl in Italy. But he only needs somebody to take him in hand and treat him decently and he’d be all right again. It would really be a kindness to Stephen if you married him, and personally I’d be as pleased as a dog with a couple of tails if you got Uncle John’s money, and wiped Katherine’s eye, and Daisy’s too.’

  ‘What was the fright he got?’ asked Bolivia.

  Jane lit a cigarette. ‘Do you remember when I went to Florence, five or six years ago? Well, Stephen was there at the same time, but he’d been staying for months, and a couple of weeks was more than enough for me. There’s nothing to do there actually, except go to tea-parties and look at pictures, and though I’m fond enough of pictures in their proper place I got sick to death of them in Florence. There’s far too many of them. But Stephen really enjoyed himself, and he seemed to know quite a lot about everything. I remember he took me to the Uffizi one morning, and spent an hour talking about the difference between Botticelli’s Annunciation and Leonardo da Vinci’s; he said the one had a simple emotional appeal, and the other was full of intellectual excitement; however, they didn’t excite me very much, but then I haven’t any patience with Roman Catholics.’

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ said Bolivia. ‘I spent six months in Malta once, with Sylvia Main. You ought to see their priests.’

  Jane nodded understandingly. ‘I was staying with Elizabeth Chattan,’ she said, ‘and she had leanings that way. That would have put me off, if nothing else did.’

  ‘Well, I interrupted you,’ said Bolivia.

  Jane continued: ‘I will say this for Florence: there are some very good restaurants there, and Elizabeth and I went quite often to a place called Betti’s in the Via Tosinghi, near the Duomo. We were having lunch there one day when Elizabeth suddenly said, “What a heavenly blaze of colour!” – that’s the way she used to speak – and pointed to four people who’d just sat down on the other side of the road. There was another restaurant there, with tables put out on the pavement, and actually these people were sitting in front of a barber’s shop, next door to the restaurant. One of the girls was dressed in bright blue, and the other in red, with a big red hat. And one of the men with them was Stephen; he was sitting between the two girls; they were all in a row facing the street.

  ‘Now it’s a little difficult to describe what happened, and of course I don’t actually know everything that did happen, or what they were talking about, and that sort of thing, because I never liked to ask Stephen about it, and he never knew I’d been there.’

  ‘But he must have seen you,’ said Bolivia.

  ‘No, he didn’t. Our table was indoors – I don’t see any point in having your meals in the street – and it was comparatively dark in there, because there was a big awning in front of Betti’s. Well, the girl in red was called Giulia Something-or-Other, she was an American, though her father was Italian, and Stephen had known her casually for some time. Who the others were I don’t know, but they were all enjoying themselves, and Stephen was playing up astonishingly. He’s never really been much of an argument for vice, you know, but he was doing his best that day. I suppose they’d had a couple of drinks somewhere, and they put away a good lot of wine at lunch. Giulia was the kind of girl you’d imagine with a name like that, and I expect she encouraged him, but I was rather surprised when I saw Stephen pinching her behind.’

  ‘Stephen! Pinching her behind!’

  ‘Oh, it’s a Florentine custom. When Elizabeth Chattan and I went to a cinema she always came home black and blue. They didn’t touch me, but Elizabeth looks like the sort of girl they cast for a nun at Hollywood; that’s the kind that always gets pinched. She quite enjoyed it, and so did Giulia apparently. But Stephen was having a proper day out, and the next time I saw him in action he was pinching the other girl. And she liked it, too, and started a tremendous conversation with Stephen, so that her young man was left unoccupied at one end and Giulia was stranded at the other. And that didn’t suit Giulia. But why she bit his ear I don’t know. It may have been spite, it may be an American or Italian habit, or it may have been just excitement and the heat. I don’t know. But she did, and pretty hard too.

  ‘She suddenly leaned across, put her arm round his shoulders, and snapped at his left ear. That was too much for Stephen. He was frightened, and he was hurt too. He jumped up and howled like a dog.

  ‘That made rather a disturbance, but things wouldn’t have been so bad if their table, as I told you, hadn’t been just in front of a barber’s shop. There were two Italians in there, getting shaved. They were sitting right in the window, and they must have had a far better view of what was going on than I had, and I suppose the sight of Stephen pinching both girls in turn, and then making such a fuss about getting his ear bitten, was too much for them. It was a very hot day. Anyway, they rushed out of the barber’s shop, all swathed in dust-covers, and their faces covered with soap, and shouted at poor Stephen, and shook their fists at him, and generally made themselves a damned nuisance. And the two barbers followed them, and they shouted, and waved their razors about, and the only person who kept her head was Giulia. She told everybody to go to hell. But it wasn’t any good. All the waiters in the Via Tosinghi, and half the people lunching there, joined in the argument, and a few tables got upset. Then a couple of Carabinieri came along and arrested the barbers, and that quietened things down a bit.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘I told Elizabeth she wasn’t to say anything about it, and Stephen took the Rome Express to Paris at three o’clock that afternoon.’

  ‘And you mean to say that Stephen’s avoided women ever since, just because of that?’

  ‘Well, damn it all, Bolivia! If you were a sensitive young man, and one day you were tem
pted to pinch a girl’s behind, and suddenly the whole world went mad in front of you – Italians covered with shaving soap, and people brandishing razors, and waiters flapping their napkins, and Giulia throwing forks at them – well, I mean to say, would you ever pinch anybody again? That’s what it amounts to. God knows I’m no psychologist, but that’s merely common sense. Stephen got a hell of a fright, and if he’s ever going to get married he’ll have to be married very gently and quietly.’

  ‘Poor old Stephen,’ said Bolivia.

  ‘I like him, you know,’ said Jane. ‘He may be a bit of a fool in some ways, but potentially he’s worth a dozen of Freddy Hislop or young Wheatley. He is intelligent. But he’s like a salmon when the river’s too low; he can’t get over the falls, and he’s not doing himself any good where he is.’

  ‘Do you remember when I sprained my ankle and couldn’t play any golf for a couple of months? Stephen was very decent to me then. He lent me a lot of books, and though they weren’t the sort of stuff I’d read normally, I’d nothing else to do at the time, and I dipped into a few of them. And some of them were really quite interesting.’

  ‘I think you’d get on very well with him,’ said Jane.

  ‘Well, I think I’d understand him better than most people after what you’ve told me.’

  ‘Look here,’ said Jane, ‘let’s go along and see them. I must have a talk to Wilfrid about clothes, and I might as well get it over now; there’s not going to be any more golf today.’

  Bolivia rang the bell and paid for their tea. ‘That’s all right,’ she said when Jane offered her share.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ said Jane. ‘You’ve got your car here, haven’t you?’

  Bolivia had. They drove in silence till they came to Lammiter West, when Bolivia inquired what news there was of the Vicar. After the death of his wife the Vicar had fallen into so pitiable a state of health and mind that his friends had booked a passage for him on a Mediterranean cruise arranged by the Hellenic Club, and trusting to the salutary effect of sea breezes and classical lectures, had overcome his querulous objections, packed his clothes, and taken him aboard the steamship Alcyone, The Alcyone, her cruise finished, was due to dock in Southampton in a week’s time, said Jane, and though the Vicar’s letters had been far from gay, they showed a growing interest in his surroundings and a determined effort to face life in a reasonably cheerful manner.