Shabby Summer

by Warwick Deeping

  “Why Not Be A Glamour Girl?”

  Mrs. Maintenance sniffed. Well, really! Serving up stuff like that to respectable people! Glamour girl, indeed! It was an impertinent rag to ask her such a question. She tossed the paper into the grate, and called to Bunter who was assuming sleep on the hearthrug, and who had appeared wise as to his master’s absorption in other matters.

  “Come here, lovey. There’ll be other news, some day, for you and me, I’m thinking.”

  Bunter jumped into her lap and licked her nose.

  “Just you put your paws together, my lad, and pray she mayn’t be that. Glamour girl, indeed! Little bits with bleached hair!”

  * * *

  The sky was lit up as he reached the Camperdown elm; a glare of light made all the wet leaves glisten, and her hair, almost as wet as the leaves, had darkened in colour. He opened the umbrella for her.

  “This is Sarah’s, and rather precious. She lent it.”

  “How sweet of her!”

  He handed her the umbrella, but showed no inclination to share it.

  “You must have half.”

  “Oh, no; it’s simply gorgeous getting soaked like this. I’d like to be wet three times over. I say, I’m rather worried about your tent.”

  “I’m not. Other things matter more. You will have to change your clothes, you know.”

  “Yes, or I shall get a scolding.”

  “Does Mrs. Maintenance scold you?”

  “Sometimes. Quite severe and maternal.”

  “I hope she won’t scold me.”

  He could not help those words slipping out. “Could anybody?” And, for a moment there was silence between them. The brown turf under their feet was like a flooded carpet, and the sound of the rain mingled with the roar of the weir. The sky seemed to crack overhead as they reached the yard, which had become a patchwork of puddles, and Ghent, taking her by the arm, hurried her into the cottage.

  “That was pretty near.”

  She laughed.

  “Wasn’t it? Hadn’t I better——?”

  He took the soaked umbrella from her, and was leaning it against the passage wall when Mrs. Maintenance appeared from the kitchen. Wet umbrellas and wall-paper should not be allowed to meet, and though Sarah did not say so, her face might have been refusing the wiles of the glamour girl.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Maintenance. I’m afraid I——”

  “You’d better give me your mackintosh, madam.”

  “Yes, I had, hadn’t I? Thank you so much. And thank you for the umbrella.”

  Sarah took both, one in each hand.

  “And you go up and change, Mr. Peter.”

  Ghent made a droll face behind Mrs. Maintenance’s back.

  “Yes, Sarah. I’ll be a good boy, Sarah. Will you show Mrs. Strangeways into the parlour?”

  “I will, sir. You go up and change, and remember to bring those wet things down. I’ll have to dry them in front of the kitchen fire.”

  Ghent disappeared up the stairs.

  Mrs. Maintenance went to hang up Mrs. Strangeways’s mackintosh, and to stand the umbrella to drain in the sink, and Mrs. Strangeways followed her into the kitchen. Like Mrs. M. it was a place of extreme cleanliness and self-respect, with everything bright and polished, though the linoleum was shabby and the curtains had been washed until all the colour had gone from them. Bunter, rising from the hearthrug to do the duties of the kitchen, had his head caressed.

  “What a nice kitchen, Mrs. Maintenance. What do you use to polish things with?”

  “Silvex, madam.”

  “Isn’t this rain a relief? I’m so glad it has come.”

  “Yes, madam; I hope it hasn’t come too late.”

  “Too late? No, I hope not. I do hope not.”

  Mrs. Maintenance shuffled across the kitchen in her slippers.

  “May I show you into the parlour, madam?”

  Mrs. Strangeways smiled at her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you had tea, madam?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I’m afraid the storm won’t be very good for the island.”

  “I put everything I could under cover.”

  “I hope the rain won’t get through the tent.”

  “Well, if it does, it does.”

  Mrs. Maintenance, who had felt it her duty to stand upon her dignity, and to “Madam” Mrs. Strangeways, found herself tempted to address her as “Dearie.” Well, if she did, she did. Funny, how you couldn’t help liking some people for the way they smiled, and the sound of their voices, and the colour of their hair and the expression of their eyes. Glamour girl, indeed! Sarah, in her jealous moments, might have wished to be able to apply those words to Mrs. Strangeways, but they simply would not fit. She liked this little lady. She made you feel warm and friendly and smooth inside. She seemed so natural-like, as Sarah expressed it. She talked to you as though you were accepted as a very important and responsible person, which Sarah felt she was.

  “Would you like to see the paper, while Mr. Peter’s upstairs?”

  “Thank you, Sarah, I should. But perhaps you are reading it?”

  “I’ve read it. Besides, I have my cooking to do.”

  Sarah, having been addressed as Sarah, and found, to her surprise, that she was liking it, went to fetch the Daily Grievance. She folded it neatly and carried it into the parlour.

  “I don’t say that I hold with all that’s in it, Mrs. Strangeways. There must be a lot of fools in the world, judging by what they give ’em to read.”

  Mrs. Strangeways laughed, and the laugh pleased Sarah.

  “Yes, there must be, mustn’t there. Thank you so much. I haven’t seen a paper for days.”

  * * *

  She did not read Mrs. Maintenance’s paper. She curled herself up on the old sofa under the long, low window, and watched the rain. Everything was hazed by it; everything dripped. She could hear the water gurgling down a pipe, and making a liquid, musical sound in the water-butt at the corner of the cottage. Sarah had shut both casements. Mrs. Strangeways reached out and opened the one nearest to her. A beautiful, moist freshness floated in. The whole world seemed full of the rush of the rain. How all those live things must be exulting and quenching their thirst, the trees and the garden plants and the grass, all stretching out their hands to this wetness after months of drought. Nature could be very lovely, so exquisitely simple in the midst of complexity. Could a city give you any such thrill as this, only wet pavements and puddles that might be splashed on you by the wheels of the buses? Rain in a city might be no more than dried peas pattering on a tin roof. Here, it was alive. And what was happening to her tent? Did it matter? Did she care? Her small, personal cares seemed to be lost in the large, impersonal blessedness of this nature-play, this exultation of a world that was athirst.

  She did not hear Ghent come into the room, perhaps because he was wearing slippers, and the duet that was being sung by the sky and the river drowned all adventitious sounds. He stood watching her for a moment. It seemed to him that she had curled herself up there as though she belonged, with her head on a cushion, and one arm stretched along the back of the sofa. He closed the door quietly, not wanting the live figure in the picture to change its pose.

  She turned her head and sat up.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Sorry. The rain is making rather a pother.”

  “Yes, isn’t it lovely? I had to open the window.”

  “Please stay as you were.”

  She smiled at him, and let her head sink back upon the cushion.

  “The whole, thirsty world is drinking. One can feel it. Aren’t you glad?”

  His eyes did not light up to her smile. He drew a chair up between the table and sofa and sat down so that she could not see his face. It had seemed to her very grave, shadowed by some frustration that could not be conjured away by any of nature’s appeasements. She had the feeling that he wanted to tell her something, and for the moment she was troubled and
afraid. She did not want that, yet. She wanted, somehow, to prove herself, to drink in peace and assuagement and a new faith in things, even as the trees were drinking up the rain.

  “Yes, glad. But, you see, the land’s not like a machine. You can’t just pump petrol into a tank, and expect everything to function like clockwork.”

  She remained very still.

  “You mean, the rain has come too late?”

  “Yes, in a way. It takes one some years to build up one’s stock. It is live capital, so to speak, and if it is damaged and you can’t sell a part of it—— But why should I bore you with this?”

  “It doesn’t bore me. I think I understand. Is it very bad?”

  He made himself smile.

  “Oh, rather problematical. Mine’s a precarious show until you get a name and a steady flow of yearly orders, and orders are not coming in very well this year. I had one of my big buyers in the other day, and I saw that he could not risk taking trees from a droughty place like mine.”

  She looked out of the window at the rain. Why was he telling her this? Was it that he wished to be ruthlessly honest, and to warn her that materially he was something of a broken reed?

  She said: “It’s very hard. I know what it is to be up against things like this.”

  “It rather cramps one’s style. I mean, one can’t make plans, or——”

  He hesitated, and still looking out of the window at the rain, she answered him with quiet deliberateness.

  “Should that matter? After all, life’s an adventure. I’m feeling it more and more. Playing for safety, or just trying to buy it, doesn’t touch one’s imagination. I don’t think one ought to be afraid of taking risks.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then, he got up, and standing beside the sofa, put out a hand.

  “Thank you, for that. One funks things more for other people than for oneself.”

  She put her hand in his, and let it rest there for a few seconds.

  “Yes, I understand what you mean.”

  XXII

  It was raining as hard as ever when Mrs. Maintenance came in to lay the table, for this desultory year was keeping up its reputation for irresponsible contrariness. Half an hour ago Bunter had come scratching and whimpering at the door, and when Ghent had let him in the dog had decided that Mrs. Strangeways’s lap was a pleasant place, more especially so as she had been willing to tickle his chest. Sarah cast discreet glances at the little lady on the sofa, and the dog, and the weather. All three of them appeared to have settled down comfortably. Almost it was a domestic piece, with Ghent sitting astride one of the Windsor chairs and watching the rain and the dog and the lady, as though he too felt that all three were in complete accord.

  But if youth was dreaming dreams, Sarah’s practical mind concentrated upon the steady, drenching rain. The thunder-storm had passed, but the sky was emptying itself in an attempt to efface months of dryness. Sarah was thinking of Folly Island, and the camping site and Mrs. Strangeways’s bed. Even if the tent had withstood the deluge, would its interior be a fit place for so fragile a flower on a night like this? And what was the alternative? Folly Farm was shut up and dismantled. The Chequers Inn at Farley was not the kind of hostelry to which Mrs. Strangeways could be recommended. It was all beer and darts, and its lessee was a slatternly lady whose reputation had been sacrificed both to Baron Bung and Cupid.

  Mrs. Maintenance considered this pretty scene as she spread the cloth and laid the table. Marplot did possess a spare-room, but the furniture was sketchy, and the mattress on the bed——! Yes, the less said about that mattress the better. And what of the conventions? Mrs. Maintenance laid knives and forks with meticulous care, and decided, as a woman of sense, that a crisis should be allowed to transcend the conventions. She would make allowances when and where she liked. But was Mr. Peter going on mooning all the evening? Didn’t he realize——?

  Mrs. Maintenance cleared her throat.

  “Excuse me, sir, but may I have a word with you?”

  Ghent came out of his happy stupor.

  “Of course, Sarah. Anything wrong?”

  He followed Mrs. Maintenance into the passage, and was led by her into the kitchen. She closed the door.

  “It is raining very hard, sir. Supposing it doesn’t stop? And do you think the lady’s tent is dry inside?”

  “It is rather a problem, Sarah.”

  “Don’t you think you had better go and look, sir?”

  “Yes, it’s an idea.”

  “You see, Mr. Peter, if her bed isn’t fit to sleep in, she can’t go to Folly Farm, and the Chequers at Farley isn’t fit for a lady.”

  “What do you suggest, Sarah?”

  “Well, we could manage for the night, sir, though the spare-room mattress——”

  Ghent looked at her with affection.

  “Sarah, you’re God’s own old dear. That mattress is rather full of rocks. She could have mine for the night. I mean, the mattress.”

  “She could, sir,” said Mrs. Maintenance judicially.

  “I’ll give you a hand, if necessary.”

  “I can manage quite well, sir.”

  “I’ll take the punt and go across and see how things are.”

  “Take your mackintosh, Mr. Peter. You’ve been wet once, you know.”

  “Orders are orders.”

  He returned to the parlour, and told both Bunter and Mrs. Strangeways that he was going upon an adventure, and that it was Bunter’s business to entertain the lady. He put on his oldest hat, a disreputable thing, and with the brim turned down, and his mackintosh buttoned to his chin, he went down through the wet world to the river. The turf squelched under his feet. For months he had not seen the valley in its present mood, hazed with rain, deep, green and tranquil. The brittleness had gone out of nature, the dry, arid tension that made the earth feel starved and unsympathetic to his feet. The world exulted. It seemed pregnant with the young, green succulent things that would spring up out of the earth. Life drank and was glad. Even the weir had a fuller and more sonorous note.

  Ghent unmoored the punt and poled across to the island. Hitching the rope to a willow, he climbed the bank, and saw that Mrs. Strangeways had left her deck-chair out in the open, and that its green canvas seat had collected a puddle of water. He saw more than that. The tent had split down one side, and when he unfastened the flap and looked in, he discovered that the rent in the canvas was directly above her bed, and that the edges of the wound were spilling a steady wetness upon the quilt. He crawled in, turned back the quilt, felt. Yes, the bedding was soaked. It would be impossible for her to sleep here.

  What was to be done? Should he rescue her bedding, and take it back in the punt for Sarah to dry? And how was he to keep it reasonably dry, or from getting more wet, on the journey? He took off his mackintosh, and rolling up the mattress and bedding, covered it as best he could with the mackintosh. Well, anyhow, it would only get more wet in the leaking tent. Descending the bank he slipped on the wet grass, and arriving hurriedly in the punt, performed for five seconds an absurd balancing feat, clasping the roll of bedding with both arms. The punt rolled and complained, but Ghent managed to control his centre of gravity, and further disaster was avoided.

  At Marplot Mrs. Maintenance met him in the passage, clasping that brown bundle. He had sacrificed his best jacket in the cause of chivalry, and Sarah could not scold him.

  “The tent has split, Sarah. I’m afraid these things are terribly wet.”

  “I’ll have to try and dry them, sir, in front of the kitchen fire. Has it got through to the mattress?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Tut, tut, mattresses take a deal of drying. Put it down, Mr. Peter, and go and change your coat. There are your clothes, too, for me to see to.”

  Ghent carried the bundle into the kitchen.

  “I say, Sarah, supposing you tell Mrs. Strangeways, and suggest that we shall have to put her up for the night?”

  Mrs. Maintenance gave him a wise l
ook. Yes, that was a nice and considerate suggestion, and she approved of it.

  “I will, Mr. Peter. It would sound a bit more motherly, wouldn’t it, from me?”

  Ghent, going up to change his coat, heard the murmur of voices below, and did not hurry the business. He had put two coats out of action, and since his wardrobe consisted of Best, Next Best, and suits that had become purely proletarian, he had to put on an old working jacket. It was frayed at the sleeves, and barbed wire had left a ragged wound above one pocket. He did possess a dinner-jacket, etc., but in spite of Mrs. Maintenance’s care, moth had got into it, and especially so into the trousers, and the little round punctures showed either your skin or your shirt.

  Ghent went downstairs. In the parlour he found her stretched serenely on the sofa, still watching the rain. She turned her head on the cushion and smiled at him.

  “Did you ask her to ask me?”

  “In a way, I did, but she——”

  “I’ve accepted. Your Sarah’s rather an old dear. But why didn’t you tell me you were going across to the island?”

  “I saw no need.”

  “And you got wet again.”

  “Oh, just a little. I was ordered upstairs by Sarah. You’ll have to excuse this jacket.”

  “I like it. Working clothes, somehow, are always right.”

  “Always?”

  “On a man.”

  “Well, I’ve got moth in my dinner-jacket. Marplot doesn’t provide much chances of self-expression for dinner-jackets.”

  “Homespun’s more appropriate. Bunter is real homespun. Was my poor bed very derelict?”

  “The tent had split, just in the wrong place. In a way I felt rather responsible.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. The next journey will be mine.”

  “You mean, you want to go across?”

  “Well, yes. There are certain etceteras that even dear Sarah cannot provide.”

  “What an idiot I am!”

  She laughed.

  “Oh, no; you were so absorbed in rescuing the essentials that you forgot the silly little things that a woman has to regard as essential.”

  He laughed back at her.