The Girl on the Boat
separated from these by a gravel pathway, a smooth lawn, whose green
and silky turf rivalled the lawns of Oxford colleges, stretched to a
picturesque shrubbery, not so dense as to withhold altogether from the
eye of the observer an occasional silvery glimpse of the lake that lay
behind it. To the left, through noble trees, appeared a white
suggestion of old stable yards; while to the right, bordering on the
drive as it swept round to a distant gate, nothing less than a fragment
of a ruined castle reared itself against a background of firs.
It had been this sensational fragment of Old England which had
definitely captured Mr. Bennett on his first visit to the place. He
could not have believed that the time would ever come when he could
gaze on it without any lightening of the spirits.
The explanation of his gloom was simple. In addition to looking at the
flower beds, the lawn, the shrubbery, the stable yard, and the castle,
Mr. Bennett was also looking at the fifth heavy shower that had fallen
since breakfast. This was the third afternoon of his tenancy. The first
day it had rained all the time. The second day it had rained from eight
till twelve-fifteen, from twelve-thirty till four, and from five till
eleven. And on this, the third day, there had been no intermission
longer than ten minutes. It was a trying Summer. Even the writers in
the daily papers seemed mildly surprised, and claimed that England had
seen finer Julys. Mr. Bennett, who had lived his life in a country of
warmth and sunshine, the thing affected in much the same way as the
early days of the Flood must have affected Noah. A first startled
resentment had given place to a despair too militant to be called
resignation. And with the despair had come a strong distaste for his
fellow human beings, notably and in particular his old friend Mr.
Mortimer, who at this moment broke impatiently in on his meditations.
“Come along, Bennett. It’s your deal. It’s no good looking at the rain.
Looking at it won’t stop it.”
Mr. Mortimer’s nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather.
Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as
partner he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against
Bream and Billie. He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to
do.
Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way
through the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to
proceed from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down,
and curled his legs round his chair.
“I have fourteen cards,” said Mr. Mortimer. “That’s the third time
you’ve mis-dealt.”
“I don’t care how many cards you’ve got!” said Mr. Bennett with heat.
“That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!”
He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its
cover and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered
dog, handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly.
Murder seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged
countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was
Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to
serve the establishment as a watch-dog.
“He won’t hurt you,” said Mr. Mortimer carelessly.
“You keep saying that!” replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. “How do you
know? He’s a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were
buying him, I would have had something to say about it!”
“Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am
within my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least,
Wilhelmina has.”
“Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith,” said Billie.
“I’ve seen them playing together.”
Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He
disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a
faint paternal fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He
disliked Bream, and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him,
though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He
disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace
Hignett. And he disliked Eustace.
Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the
others. He resented the young man’s presence in the house; and he
resented the fact that, being in the house, he should go about, pale
and haggard, as though he were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had
the most violent objection to associating with people who looked as
though they were sickening for something.
He got up and went to the window. The rain leaped at the glass like a
frolicking puppy. It seemed to want to get inside and play with Mr.
Bennett.
§ 2
Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch
on the dressing table when he got up, and found that it was past ten.
Taking a second look to assure himself that he had really slumbered to
this unusual hour, he suddenly became aware of something bright and
yellow resting beside the watch, and paused, transfixed, like Robinson
Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand. If he had not been in
England, he would have said that it was a patch of sunshine.
Mr. Bennett stared at the yellow blob with the wistful mistrust of a
traveller in a desert who has been taken in once or twice by mirages.
It was not till he had pulled up the blind and was looking out on a
garden full of brightness and warmth and singing birds that he
definitely permitted himself to accept the situation.
It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great
bottle full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay.
Mr. Bennett rang the bell joyfully, and presently there entered a
grave, thin, intellectual-looking man who looked like a duke, only more
respectable. This was Webster, Mr. Bennett’s valet. He carried in one
hand a small mug of hot water, reverently, as if it were a present of
jewellery.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Morning, Webster,” said Mr. Bennett. “Rather late, eh?”
“It is,” replied Webster precisely, “a little late, sir. I would have
awakened you at the customary hour, but it was Miss Bennett’s opinion
that a rest would do you good.”
Mr. Bennett’s sense of well-being deepened. What more could a man want
in this world than fine weather and a dutiful daughter?
“She did, eh?”
“Yes, sir. She desired me to inform you that, having already
breakfasted, she proposed to drive Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Bream Mortimer
into Southampton in the car. Mr. Mortimer senior wished to buy a panama
hat.”
“A panama hat!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett.
“A panama hat, sir.”
Mr. Bennett’s feeling of satisfaction grew still greater. It was a fine
day; he had a dutiful daughter; and he was going to see Henry Mortimer
in a panama hat. Providence was spoiling him.
The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the Royal Presence, not actually
walking backwards but giving the impression of doing so; and Mr.
Bennett, having decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to
shave himself.
Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay
his white flannel trousers. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He
drew them out, and as he did so, something gleamed pinkly up at him
from a corner of the drawer. His salmon-coloured bathing-suit.
Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after
all, why not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere
fifty yards away. What could be more refreshing? He shed his pyjamas,
and climbed into the bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun
on a foggy day, he emerged from the house and picked his way with
gingerly steps across the smooth surface of the lawn.
At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying
a yesterday’s bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He
drank in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent
excavations had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett,
and moved gladly towards him. He did not recognise Mr. Bennett, for he
remembered his friends principally by their respective bouquets, so he
cantered silently across the turf to take a sniff at him. He was
half-way across the lawn when some of the mud which he had inhaled when
burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused to cough.
Mr. Bennett whirled round; and then with a sharp exclamation picked up
his pink feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a
momentary pause of surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly.
This man, he felt, was evidently one of the right sort, a merry
playfellow.
Mr. Bennett continued to run; but already he had begun to pant and
falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that
ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that
occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he
saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order.
He swerved sharply, took the base of the edifice in his stride,
clutched at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as
his pursuer arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a
ledge, where he sat with his feet hanging well out of reach. The
bulldog Smith, gazed up at him expectantly. The game was a new one to
Smith, but it seemed to have possibilities. He was a dog who was always
perfectly willing to try anything once.
Mr. Bennett now began to address himself in earnest to the task of
calling for assistance. His physical discomfort was acute. Insects,
some winged, some without wings but—through Nature’s wonderful law of
compensation—equipped with a number of extra pairs of legs, had begun
to fit out exploring expeditions over his body. They roamed about him
as if he were some newly opened recreation ground, strolled in couples
down his neck, and made up jolly family parties on his bare feet. And
then, first dropping like the gentle dew upon the place beneath, then
swishing down in a steady flood, it began to rain again.
It was at this point that Mr. Bennett’s manly spirit broke and time
ceased to exist for him.
Aeons later, a voice spoke from below.
“Hullo!” said the voice.
Mr. Bennett looked down. The stalwart form of Jane Hubbard was standing
beneath him, gazing up from under a tam o’shanter cap. Smith, the
bulldog, gambolled about her shapely feet.
“Whatever are you doing up there?” said Jane. “I say, do you know if
the car has come back?”
“No. It has not.”
“I’ve got to go to the doctor’s. Poor little Mr. Hignett is ill. Oh,
well, I’ll have to walk. Come along, Smith!” She turned towards the
drive, Smith caracoling at her side.
Mr. Bennett, though free now to move, remained where he was,
transfixed. That sinister word “ill” held him like a spell. Eustace
Hignett was ill! He had thought all along that the fellow was sickening
for something, confound him!
“What’s the matter with him?” bellowed Mr. Bennett after Jane Hubbard’s
retreating back.
“Eh?” queried Jane, stopping.
“What’s the matter with Hignett?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it infectious?”
“I expect so.”
“Great Heavens!” cried Mr. Bennett, and, lowering himself cautiously to
the ground, squelched across the dripping grass.
In the hall, Webster the valet, dry and dignified, was tapping the
barometer with the wrist action of an ambassador knocking on the door
of a friendly monarch.
“A sharp downpour, sir,” he remarked.
“Have you been in the house all the time?” demanded Mr. Bennett.
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you hear me shouting?”
“I did fancy I heard something, sir.”
“Then why the devil didn’t you come to me?”
“I supposed it to be the owls, sir, a bird very frequent in this
locality. They make a sort of harsh, hooting howl, sir. I have