Shabby Summer

by Warwick Deeping

  She sat there while the warm dusk came down. She found herself praying that it might rain, because he needed rain so badly. She more than suspected that things were rather desperate for him, poor dear! If only she could help as she had helped him with that punt, add her smaller strength to his. Would it be possible? Was she sure of her new self? Oh yes, she was very sure. All this was different, not tinned life, or the futile sophistications of the city. She wanted to be knee-deep in reality, to work, to give, to spend herself to the utmost for real man. She spread her hands and looked at them. She had been rather proud of her hands, and with justification, but now she saw them with different eyes. Max had liked tinted finger-nails! Ye gods, what nasty symbolism! Painted claws! What were hands for? Use, work, helping. Would such hands as hers have any meaning in a little world of trees? But, dear heart, she was becoming too forward in her feelings. She had nothing, and he was drifting towards the rocks, poor lad. They had poverty and its problems in common, if nothing else, but might not that nothing mean everything? If she had stripped herself of the past, she would come to this new life, clean and naked.

  Ghent wandered out into the warm darkness. He saw a faint haze of light across the river, the candle that was burning in her tent. He stood and watched it until it suddenly vanished, and he could picture her leaning over, and with her pretty mouth blowing out the flame. How was it she was different to him from other women, that her mouth was more than a mouth, and seemed to have a little soul of its own, a soul that could be gay and sad, with wings fluttering or folded? What was it he loved in her, temperament, esprit, a lovely shell, a kind of beautiful childishness, her little sensitive face, the very shames she had experienced. Shames! What was shame? She had suffered adventure and adversities just as his trees were suffering from drought.

  He stood there a long while in the darkness, reflecting upon the strange choice she had made, the ruthlessness of her rebirth. She had been born again into the world, naked. She had nothing over her head but that flimsy tent, and her sojourn on the island was at the mercy of wind and weather. But what a lovely situation, how like her little, sensitive face, and her frail, butterfly body! But she had courage.

  He walked up and down by the dark river.

  Ought he not to tell her how precarious his own small world was, an island threatened by Crabtree seas? If he saw himself as her comrade and lover, should she not know that in six months’ time he might be somebody’s gardener, or a shabby young man, an ex-public schoolboy out of a job? She had been used to such other things. What could he give her, at the best? And then, as he turned about by the boundary fence he saw the light on the island had come alive again. She had re-lit her candle. Perhaps she was as sleepless as he felt. Perhaps she too was feeling her way into the mysteries of to-morrow?

  Yes, feeling your way! Life was like that, unless you subscribed to the butcher-boy’s credo, some new blood and sawdust ideology.

  He felt that he ought to tell her.

  He would tell her.

  XXI

  Having taken long in going to sleep, Peter overslept himself, and was roused by Mrs. Maintenance knocking at his door. “Your tea, sir.” He stretched, reached for his watch, saw that it was seven o’clock, and let his head fall back for a moment on the pillow. He was conscious of a feeling of languor, of wanting to lie there and dream, but the early tea waited for him and so did the day’s adventure. He rolled out of bed, went to the window, and pulling back the curtains, saw a heavy, tumid sky. Heat, thundery heat. Was it possible that the day would give them rain?

  There were other indications of a storm. Mrs. Maintenance returned him a curt, “Very good, sir” when he told her that Mrs. Strangeways was to be expected to supper, and Bob Fanshaw was in one of his awkward moods. His back looked more round than usual as he slouched about the tool-shed with an air of disgruntled gloom. Bob’s manners could be somewhat trying on such occasions, but Ghent, who knew the man, bore with his surliness and ignored it.

  “Thundery, Bob.”

  Bob grunted.

  “I think we will give the pump a miss, and gamble on a storm.”

  Bob made more animal noises, which Ghent translated into expressions of pessimism.

  “Where’ve you put the cutting-box?”

  “On the shelf, as usual. Well, if we get some rain, Bob.”

  “Won’t rain here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sure to miss us. Always does. Breaks on the hills and leaves us dry. Is it soft wood cuttings we’re taking?”

  “Yes, soft wood, Bob. You know that as well as I do.”

  Fanshaw slouched off, wilfully leaving the zinc vasculum behind him. Bloody silly contraption! Ghent had always insisted upon this box being used, especially in very dry weather, and Bob would always leave it behind if he could. Rustic obstinacy can be tireless.

  “Take the box, Bob.”

  “If it’s going to rain,” said Bob rudely, “I don’t see——”

  “I thought it was you who said it wasn’t going to rain.”

  “Nor is it. Won’t rain till November.”

  “Well, take the box, man.”

  “Won’t make no difference. I don’t hold——”

  Ghent lost patience. There were times when he could bear with Fanshaw’s prejudices, and the resistance of the rustic mind to any new refinement in technique, but on this stuffy morning Bob’s grumpy opposition irritated him. He wanted to say: “You obstinate, ignorant idiot, do what I tell you, and be damned.” But he held himself in. He spoke to the man gently.

  “Bob, I’ve enough worries without you adding to them.”

  Fanshaw grunted.

  “I don’t want to make any more worries for ’ee.”

  “All right. I have reasons for what I do and say.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll come along and join you in five minutes.”

  Fanshaw took the big zinc box, tucked it under his arm, and mooched out to his work, and Ghent knew that whatever his mood might be, he would not advertise his sulkiness by slacking.

  Remembering the salvaged punt, he called to George, who was watering the propagating frames, and went down to the river to pull the old boat up the bank where it could be tarred more easily. The river was like the sky, leaden and sunless. It was a morning when the water seemed to lose its look of fluidity, and to become like a sheet of polished metal. It showed no ripple marks, only viscous streaks where the current moved sluggishly. Between them they pulled the punt up the bank, and George had enough discretion to refrain from asking questions.

  “Think we shall get it, George?”

  “I’d say it’d break about four.”

  “Why four?”

  “By the feel of it, sir. Sulky sort of storm that takes a long time to say anything. Rather like Brother Bob on a bad day.”

  “Bob doesn’t think we’ll get it.”

  “He told me we should, sir.”

  “He told me we shouldn’t.”

  They both laughed. No Mary could be quite so contrary as Bob Fanshaw.

  All the morning Ghent watched that sky while he worked. The temper of it did not appear to change; it remained sullen and non-committal, a tantalizing canopy of cloud. There was no wind. The air was close and dead. It was a day when a man sweated easily, and yet could not rid himself of his sweat, and felt tired and heavy. Once or twice thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “What d’you think of that, Bob?”

  “Wind,” said Bob grumpily, “this ruddy year can’t do aught but blow.”

  Yes, Bob’s manners were very much out of order.

  Would it rain? Ghent found himself confronting a double-faced problem. If the day were to give them a real, crashing storm, with deluges of rain, what would happen to Mrs. Strangeways on the island? That tent was a poor, old flimsy thing, and only fit for fair weather. Folly Farm was locked up, and the keys had been returned to the landlord in Farley. Certainly, there was the boat-house, and in a crisis she could run her pu
nt in there, make her bed in it and sleep in the punt.

  * * *

  When they knocked off work at five o’clock Bob was still surly, and save for distant thunder the storm had given them nothing. Also, the three of them were tired, for it had occurred to Peter that in view of possible rain it would be a wise course to break up some of the soil in the smaller and more precious of his plantations. Broken soil would take up the rain more thoroughly, whereas a caked surface would let it lie in puddles to evaporate, or send it flooding down to the grass verges. For several hours they had poked at the caked crust with digging forks, breaking it into rough clods about the young trees, on the chance of letting in the rain. It had been a bad day for work, heavy and sultry, and the stubborn, brick-like soil had jarred their hands and not improved their tempers.

  Ghent, having locked up the office and the tool-shed, walked across the yard, just as the men were leaving. Fanshaw’s rounded back continued to suggest an uncompromising pessimism. Peter watched them wheel their bicycles into the lane, and heard their voices dying away in the direction of Farley.

  “Like to bet on it, brother?”

  “Bet on what?” growled Bob.

  “Rain.”

  “We shan’t get any ruddy rain. Poking about with forks, all for nothing.”

  “Bet you a bob, then, it won’t rain!”

  “Shut it; I’m not feeling funny.”

  Ghent went in to his tea. He noticed that Mrs. Maintenance had put flowers into the old pewter tankard that decorated the gate-legged table. Mrs. Maintenance was not an adept in the arranging of flowers, or in the blending of her colours, but for this concession Ghent was grateful. If the good Sarah had deigned to pack that pot with flowers, then her disapproval of Mrs. Strangeways coming to sup with him could not be too serious. Or was it housewifely pride? Mrs. Maintenance had stuck a sheaf of cornflowers, gaillardias, coreopsis, and pink achillea into the pewter tankard, and though it was not exactly a happy posy, Peter did not dare to interfere with it. Sarah noticed such things and was touchy about them, and like most capable creatures she preferred praise to criticism. She would iron the trousers of Ghent’s pyjamas in a particular way, and go on ironing them in that same way, though they stuck out sideways like boards. Ghent had often wished to say to her, “Iron them down the front, Sarah, like tailor’s trousers,” but, after all, no one saw you in pyjamas, so what did it matter?

  Mrs. Maintenance came into the room while he was drinking his second cup of tea and watching that ominous sky through the parlour window, and just as Sarah entered, there was a flash of light over Farley, followed by a growl of thunder.

  “There’s going to be a storm, sir.”

  “I hope so, Sarah.”

  “If it is a bad storm, sir, do you think the lady will come?”

  Peter’s impulse was to repeat the “I hope so” more emphatically.

  “Better prepare, Sarah, anyway.”

  “I have, sir. Chops and green peas, and trifle. But if there’s any doubt, sir, I don’t want to roast good meat for nothing.”

  “Quite so, Sarah. But I think we ought to be ready.”

  Mrs. Maintenance’s scepticism both troubled him, and prompted him to action. If there was to be a storm, would it not be better for Mrs. Strangeways to cross the river before the storm broke? The island would not be a comfortable spot, with lightning playing about. She might be afraid of lightning, and at Marplot she would have a roof over her head. Ghent finished his tea, lit a pipe and went down to the river. The green valley was filled with a strange, grey-blue gloom. The air was heavy and still, and even the sound of the weir had a muffled indistinctness. Walking along the bank Ghent saw her tent standing like a white stone amid the willows. Even the foliage of the trees had a dark solidity. The water lay like black glass about the island.

  A few drops of rain fell as he came level with the island. Mrs. Strangeways was kneeling by the tent, doing something to the guy-ropes. Was she slacking them off, or tightening them? If she pulled them too tight, and the rain came down, the wetted ropes might put too much tension on the canvas, and the tent would split, for it was an old and flimsy thing.

  He called across to her.

  “Mrs. Strangeways, Mrs. Strangeways.”

  She turned on her knees.

  “The sky looks pretty ugly. Why not cross now?”

  Her voice came back to him with peculiar distinctness.

  “I might. I’m just tightening up the ropes. I’ve put everything inside I can.”

  “Don’t tighten them too much.”

  “Mustn’t I?”

  “No, the tent might split.”

  He watched her slacken off the ropes, and disappear into the tent. When she reappeared she was wearing a brown mackintosh, but no hat. She laced up the flap, and climbed down the bank into the punt. Already the still surface of the river was being pitted by heavy drops of rain. She unmoored the punt, and poled across, and Ghent pointed her down stream. She could house her punt in his empty boat-house.

  “Isn’t it splendid!”

  “You mean——?”

  “You are going to get your rain.”

  Her little face had a strangely luminous look, in contrast to the heavy greens and blues and greys of the landscape and the sky. There was some emotional quality about her that thrilled him. He caught the nose of the punt as it glided into the rough, tarred shed, and reaching for the rope, knotted it through the ring. She shipped the pole, and he held the punt steady while she stepped out.

  “I’m so glad.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What lovely big drops.”

  “Your hair will get wet.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Take my hat.”

  “No, it’s rather lovely to feel the rain on one’s hair.”

  Half-way to the cottage the Camperdown elm offered its green umbrella, and they took shelter here, while the rain came rattling on the leaves. A grey curtain had been let down over the valley, and all its familiar details were blurred. Ghent’s face was wet, and so was her hair, and as they stood there side by side, she was conscious of secret exultation. She glanced up at him. His face looked all smoothed out and young, as though his very body was drinking in all this exquisite and refreshing wetness like the trees and the soil.

  “I’m so glad.”

  “Yes, it’s all so good.”

  Already they could see little trickles of water running over the parched grass of the Green Way. Moreover, the rain was beginning to find its way through the canopy of leaves, and to drip upon their heads and shoulders.

  “Time we made a bolt for the cottage.”

  “Oh, let’s stay a little longer.”

  “I hope your tent will be all right.”

  She pointed.

  “Look. The island’s almost lost. It’s all wrapped up in gossamer.”

  Suddenly, over Temple Manor, the sky cracked, and a zig-zag of light flashed from the sky into the tops of the trees.

  “Warning signal. Time to take cover. Wait a moment; I’ll run for an umbrella.”

  He was gone before she could stop him.

  But an umbrella was not a thing he happened to possess, or one that was in a fit state to be held over her precious head. He opened the kitchen door, to find Mrs. Maintenance enjoying half an hour’s leisure in her armchair with the daily paper. It was her paper, and she paid for it, and disagreed with most of its opinions, but a daily grievance was cheap at a penny. Ghent was content with a more responsible paper on Sunday, and if he wished to read the Daily Grievance, it was always at his disposal.

  “Will you lend me your umbrella, Sarah?”

  Mrs. Maintenance’s umbrella was, rather like her virtue, kept treasured and neatly rolled. Also, it was a very mature article, and had been twice re-covered. She put down her paper, and removed her spectacles.

  “My umbrella, sir?”

  Was he asking so much of her?

  “Yes, Sarah. I’ve left Mrs. Strangeways
out there under the elm, and it’s raining like——”

  Mrs. Maintenance shuffled her feet into her slippers, and stood up. Her umbrella lived upstairs in her bedroom, rather like some sacred flag sheathed in tissue paper. Silently, she passed up the stairs, and Ghent waited for her in the passage, feeling that Sarah was the eternal matriarch who might sit in judgment upon him and his romance. She came stolidly down the stairs. She presented the handle end of the umbrella to him.

  “She’s welcome to it, Mr. Peter.”

  “Thank you, ever so much, Sarah.”

  Her solid old face hung solemnly in front of him, and suddenly he kissed it, and something seemed to happen to Mrs. Maintenance’s self-control. She put both her hands on his shoulders, and patted them.

  “There, there, if it’s all right for you, Mr. Peter, I’m not——”

  “It is all right for me, Sarah. You’re about the best friend I have, you know.”

  “Lorks, you’re all wet, my dear; you ought to change your coat.”

  “I will, Sarah, in a minute. I’m rather happy about this rain, you know.”

  Of course he was, and happy about something else. Sarah followed him to the back door and saw him dash off across the yard. Bless the lad, if he hadn’t forgotten to open the umbrella! Mrs. Maintenance sniffed once or twice with feeling, returned to the kitchen, closed the door, and sitting down in her chair, put on her spectacles and picked up the paper. Her old eyes fell upon a particular caption.