It’s the poor wot gets the blame,
It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure;
Ain’t it all a bleedin’ shame?
“I’m all right really,” she said.
“Of course you are.”
She moved her hand over the rough wood of the rail. Its grain and texture, the flaking paint under her fingers, were new and delightful, as if she were feeling them for the first time. Her senses seemed to clear and quicken, making her aware of smells and sounds unregarded before; the plop of a jumping fish, a whiff of Turkish tobacco mixed with the dankness of water-weed, the whistle of a distant train. Joe’s cigarette glowed against the pale translucence of the reflected sky. His even voice ran on, without insistence, indifferent to reply.
“You know, this reminds me of something. When I was a kid, if I’d behaved myself for a week or two beforehand, they used to let me tag along with the remuda now and again. I’d help with the bedding-rolls and give a hand on the chuck-wagon, easy jobs like that. The nights were the best. We slept in the open, mostly, in blankets round the fire; there was a smell of wood-smoke and coffee and old leather and grass, and you could hear the wrangler—that’s the fellow who keeps an eye on the horses—singing somewhere to pass the time and keep himself awake, just bits of things, you know, as they came into his head. Some of them were as sentimental as a valentine, and some—well, they’d make tonight’s repertoire sound like nursery rhymes. I remember one beautiful night, rather like this—clearer, of course—waking a bit before dawn and being slightly astonished by what I heard, and thinking to myself, “Oh, well, it’s only Slim, so it must be all right,” and turning over and going to sleep again. Queer how one forgets things for years, and suddenly they come back. Do you smoke, by the way?”
“I’ve tried,” said Elsie with an honesty that surprised herself, “but I couldn’t get on with it.” She looked down at the water, unembarrassed by the silence that had fallen again. She felt foolish and trivial, and yet, somehow, the feeling was good. At length she said, “Have you ever been back there?” not for the sake of conversation, but because she wanted to know.
“No. I’ve never been back. … You see, all these people were friends of mine. They’d been bringing me up, ever since I could walk, to be one of themselves, and I’d taken it for granted too that I would be. I should have had my father’s ranch when I was twenty-one. But I was up at Oxford by then and I knew I didn’t belong any more. My uncle had been running it so I turned it over to him. He’s often asked me to go over, but—well, I couldn’t take to the idea of dropping in and gawping at them all like a tourist. Now I’m older and not so scared of being laughed at, and there’ll be hardly anyone left who remembers me, perhaps I might some day.” He paused, as if he were thinking it over. His voice had been quite matter-of-fact, without self-pity or discontent. Presently he glanced round at her and said, “You’re not dressed very warmly for out here. Have my jacket. Or would you like to go in now?”
“Yes,” said Elsie. “I think I would.” With sudden decision she added, “I think it’s a very nice party.”
“Sensible girl.” He opened the door for her, as if she had been grown up. “Go ahead and have a good time. You’re doing fine.”
Elsie settled herself back into the circle. To her surprise she found that everyone seemed, mysteriously, more friendly and interested. The guests, knowing nothing of her and very little of Joe, and observing that she looked the better for whatever had taken place, had drawn the obvious conclusion; but this fact did not occur to her, and Joe, who had counted on it to further his endeavours, observed the effect with an enjoyment which he kept, like much else, to himself.
The young man on her other side actually engaged her in conversation. He had spent a holiday in Cornwall some years before and was interested in caves. The caves had interested Elsie also, with the vividness of acute fear; warmed, however, by the glow of success, she discussed them with an enthusiasm in which even she herself believed. The young man said it was too bad that while she was there they hadn’t met. When Joe drifted away to sit beside Leo, she never missed him.
The shandy and the advancing night began to make her a little sleepy. She watched the party, comfortably, taking part in it less and less, but no longer feeling left out. When it finally broke up, the young man bade her an individual goodbye, and said that when next he was down that way they must certainly get up an expedition. “Always happy to meet a cave-woman,” he said, and they both laughed. It was the greatest social triumph she had ever achieved. She was still lit up with it when the noise of Joe’s last punt-load—the ferry had long since gone to bed—was fading across the water.
“Do you think it went off all right?” said Helen, rubbing off beer-stains with a duster from the furniture and floor.
“I thought it was tremendous fun.” Elsie spoke from the heart; she was busily collecting the empty glasses with a confused idea of remaining by this means still in the swim.
“I thought you seemed to be getting along with Barry very well.”
Elsie blushed with pride. “We were just talking about caves.”
“Well, take my advice and don’t go too far down one with Barry.”
“Oh, Helen, what nonsense.” Elsie’s cup of happiness was full.
Outside, on deck, Leo was shaking the table-cloth and the rug. Through the open door, Elsie heard the flurry of wavelets under the flat prow of a punt, and the drip of water from the pole.
“Just looked back,” said Joe’s voice, “to let you know that nobody fell in.”
“Come in and have another before you go.”
“No thanks, I’ve just reached my optimum. It was a darned good party. I like your people.”
“They’re Helen’s, really.”
“Oh, well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it. What’s the name of the ginger lad I talked to, by the way?”
“Boyd-Smith. He’s at Guy’s.”
“He said I could come and look at the post-mortem room if I liked. I think I will; you never know when a thing like that will come in useful.” There was a little bump from the punt or the pole as he drew alongside. “You know, it’s quite some time since I last saw you in a female manifestation. Very nice, if I may say so. That frock’s a good red.”
“It’s all right for a minute. I soon get bored with it.”
“What a night, isn’t it? It seems a shame to go indoors. Why don’t you get in the punt, and we’ll go up river for a bit. It’s a good finish to a party, I always think.”
“Not tonight. Thanks all the same, Joe. I can’t leave Helen to do all the clearing up; she had to get up early this morning. To-morrow sometime.”
“O.K. I’ll go on my own, I think.” The pole scraped again. He lifted his voice. “Good night, Helen. Thanks for the party. ’Night, Elsie.” The sound of the ripples quickened, like crisp stuff tearing, and died away. Leo came back into the room.
“Lord, I’m sleepy,” she said. “Let’s leave everything till the morning.”
They went up to bed.
Elsie, when at last her stimulated imagination settled to the edge of sleep, was wakened again by the flapping and rattling of the casement. When she crept, reluctantly, from her warm bed to close it, she felt rain on her hand. Presently it was driving down in sheets, drumming on the flat roof, flicking willow branches, like whips, against the windows. But in the meantime, Elsie, worn out with mental effort and new experience, had fallen asleep.
“What a lovely noise,” said Helen. She stretched herself, soft and catlike. “Particularly when it’s Sunday in the morning.”
“It would be lovely”—Leo’s voice was suddenly wakeful—“if I hadn’t left the pumping this morning. Do you know what? I think this might quite easily sink us, if I don’t go out and do some now.”
“What, in this, and one in the morning? What a ghastly idea. We left it nearly three days once.”
“Yes, but it was dead fine. It’s no good, I’ll have to and that’s all about it.
”
“I’ll come and help.”
“Of course you won’t, it was my morning to do it.” She slid out of bed.
“Well, take your pyjamas off, or the legs will get soaked under your mac.”
“I shan’t bother with a mac either. One’s skin dries so much more easily than anything else. It’s quite warm and there’s no one about for miles and the moon’s gone in.”
“You’ll catch pneumonia.”
“Nonsense. It hardens you.”
She stepped out into the downpour and returned ten minutes later laughing, naked and wet as a fish, reaching for the towel she had hung ready on the knob of the door. Helen had switched the fire on, and the room was bright with a coral glow.
“That was marvellous. I can’t think why I never did it before.” A light steam rose from her in the warmth of the fire.
“Get your pyjamas on, for heaven’s sake, and drink this while it’s hot.”
“This is good. What have you put in it?”
“Arsenic. Get into bed.”
“Perhaps you ought to have married a sailor. We don’t know any sailors, do we. I’m beautifully warm. The fish were jumping like mad, and a swan took off from practically under my feet, like a sort of white explosion, and went away honking. I can’t come for a minute, my hair’s still wet. I could stay up all night, now. I wish there were something amazing to do.”
“You ought to have gone with Joe when he asked you. I wonder if he got back before the rain.”
“He won’t mind if he didn’t. It’s a good job we got that hole in his roof mended. I helped him do it on Thursday. We made quite a good job of it, with tarred felt and beaver-boarding.”
“That crazy shack of his will blow down some night, if you ask me.”
“Not it. He built it himself, and he knows how. It’s perfectly solid really; I’ve slept there on a worse night than this and it didn’t budge.”
“You never told me you’d slept at Joe’s.”
“Oh, I must have. That time one of the piles gave way, when you were in town.”
“What happened?”
“I told you what happened. Some fool crashed a launch into it. Tight, I suppose. I’d have had to sleep on the roof if Joe hadn’t put me up.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. What happened at Joe’s?”
“Nothing, of course. Except Joe tried to teach me to play the mouth-organ. What a fool thing to ask.”
“There’s no need to be cross. I suppose it was. But why? That’s what I can’t understand.”
“Why what?”
“Why is it a fool thing to ask? You like him five times as much as any of these people you’ve picked up and dropped. And I should think you could have had him years ago if you’d done the first thing about it. I started wondering again tonight when you wouldn’t go on the river with him. I didn’t mean to say anything, I knew you wouldn’t like it. But then again, why? I’ve wondered for years, I suppose, on and off. At first I thought I’d mind, but then I knew I wouldn’t; he’d have been so right.”
“So right? Joe?” The quick movement of her head tossed a handful of drops, with fierce little hisses, against the glowing bars. “What’s come over you, Helen? You must have had too much to drink.”
“You see, it makes you angry. Why?”
“Why? Well, naturally. It’s—it’s indecent. I just feel it is. I don’t know why.”
“Hasn’t he ever tried?”
“He did once when he was mildly plastered after one of Emma’s parties. I forgot to warn him about her cocktails, and he had four. We laughed about it all the rest of the way home. That must be more than a year ago.”
“Well—didn’t you care about it?”
“I didn’t stop to see, I twisted his ears.”
“And yet you let Roger Brent. … Sometimes I can’t make you out.”
“Roger Brent? Good God, what does he matter? Here, I’m coming to bed. This is the most idiotic conversation I ever took part in.”
She reached for her pyjamas, tugged them on, and switched off the fire. The golden rods faded to crimson, to dusky red, and went out. But with a perversity born of the hour rather than her nature, Helen persisted. “Wouldn’t you be jealous if you knew he had another woman?”
“What do you mean, another woman? He has a woman, of course. I’ve always known that.”
“You didn’t tell me.” Helen’s voice was suddenly subdued.
“What of it, anyway? That’s his business. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Who is she? What’s she like?”
“How on earth should I know who she is? You don’t suppose he’d talk about her. And if you want to know what she’s like, you can read I suppose. He didn’t get his stuff for The Pillar of Cloud by listening to the conversation over the bar.”
“I suppose not. It didn’t strike me.”
“It probably didn’t strike him either. It’s a pretty good novel. But one would know, I should think, if he’d never written a line. It takes a healthy digestion and a sound sex life to produce a temperament like Joe’s.”
“Why don’t they get married, then?”
“Ask him, why don’t you? It could be that he picked a woman who isn’t half-witted. Maybe she can read too. What’d he do, take a nice settled job and write for an hour or two in the evenings? Or write for a living? He’s not very inventive, you know; it has to be something he’s felt about. Five years’ hack-work and he’d be finished. Shooting would be too good for a woman who’d domesticate Joe.”
“All right, don’t wake Elsie. You don’t have to shoot anyone now.”
“Sorry. What are we talking about? I don’t know, do you?”
“No, darling. It’s only that sometimes I wish I did.”
“Let’s go to sleep. Anything looks vague and complicated at two in the morning. Particularly the simplest things.”
“Sometimes I think I ought to approach you more scientifically. My knowledge of you is all so empirical.”
“I shouldn’t worry,” said Leo sleepily. “It works all right.”
CHAPTER XIV
SUNDAY WAS MEMORABLE, IN the first place, for being the first really hot day of the year. The white mists of morning were gilded with sunlight which, before ten o’clock, had drunk them all, and by noon was beating on the water as on a polished mirror, throwing up ripples of light against the sides of the houseboat. Elsie, who had got up for the early service, felt a promise of summer in the air. The trouble she had felt in church dispelled before it. Finding on her return the others still asleep, she ran to the pump in her church-going clothes (the ones catalogued so faithfully by the B.B.C.) and pumped for twenty minutes. This completed the cure. Everything was still fresh from last night’s rain; the green willows danced; overhead a lark was singing like a bubble of sparkling air. The handle she pulled on moved very easily; she wondered why it had never occurred to her to do this before. Her hat, which she had forgotten to remove, slipped to the back of her head, and her hymn-book lay on the hardly dry boards of the deck at her feet. So happy was she that it even occurred to her that too much of her time was spent in anticipation of the future; it seemed, at this moment, to be a waste. Presently she smelled coffee and went in, full of virtue, to find that Leo and Helen had breakfast ready.
“I’ve done all the pumping for today,” she announced proudly. “It wasn’t a bit hard work.”
Leo and Helen exchanged glances.
“Thank you,” said Leo at length. “That was very nice of you. Was the sermon good?”
“You don’t have a sermon at early service,” said Elsie with gentle reproof.
“We’ll just get the place straight,” Helen said, “and then have a really lazy day. No work and no people. How lovely.”
Elsie, who felt that her day’s good deed was well and truly done, went upstairs to take off her tidy clothes while they did the accumulated washing-up.
In the afternoon the sun was dazzling, with just enough b
reeze along the water to temper it. Helen brought out from its winter wrappings a bright flowered sun-suit which made her look at first glance like a pretty and intelligent child; Leo wore a two-piece bathing costume which covered, all in, about an eighth of her length; and to Elsie, whose packing had not provided for such occasions, they lent a sports shirt and some linen shorts which were a little small for Helen, and reached a third of the way down her thighs. She felt self-conscious in them at first, but the delightful play of sun and air on her skin soon made her forget it. They took all the cushions in the place on to the flat roof and sprawled there; swam in the river (it was so hot by now that even Elsie needed no coaxing); ate a scrap lunch and sprawled again. Leo went over the page-proofs of her new book, complete with the title (Outlaw Marshal) and the chapter headings (such as “Lefty Rides Alone”); she plodded through it till the heat made her fountain-pen leak, when, losing interest, she wiped off the surplus ink on the seat of her bathing costume, produced from somewhere a penny whistle, and began to play. Helen retrieved the proof and read it idly, beginning in the middle. Elsie lay on her back with her arm across her eyes, getting hotter and hotter as it drew to mid-afternoon. Her skin felt shiny and tingling, but she bore it with confidence because Leo’s and Helen’s had already the smooth creamy look which precedes a tan.
Her head ached a little; stars of green and red light, printed by the sun’s bright reflection, swam under her eyelids. She wondered when Peter would answer her letter, and what he would say. The little jiggy tune that Leo was playing (it was Auprès de ma Blonde) ran through her head like a beating pulse and mixed itself with her thoughts. She was almost asleep. Helen, with her smooth cheek on the description of a lynching-bee and her silky hair entangled with Lefty’s smoking guns, slumbered outright, relaxed like a cat in a sunny shop window. Leo, propped with her back against the flagpole, played verse after verse of Auprès de ma Blonde, accompanying the words as they ran through her mind; it was an easy tune and she lacked the energy to change it. She was the only one of the three sufficiently awake to have heard the door-bell tinkle below, and the sound of her own piping masked it in her careless ear.