Here Comes a Chopper (7 page)

‘I’m not sure if the sheets are aired, and I think mother sent the eiderdown to be cleaned. He won’t want sheets and things on a camp bed, will he, if you let him have your sleeping bag and one of your blankets?’

‘I
want
all my blankets, damn it!’

‘Oh, Bob, don’t be selfish! How many have you got?’

‘Five, and I want ’em all. You brought him home, so you jolly well go and forage for him. Although what the devil it’s all about I can’t imagine.’

‘Oh, Bob! We must give him a bed!’

‘Dump him in the parents’ bedroom, then. What’s the matter with that?’

‘I don’t know whether Ellen has changed the sheets yet.’

‘Good Lord, he won’t look at sheets! Go and get him, and bung him in here to talk to me while you have a look to see that everything’s ship-shape. And then you get into bed, You look as though you’d had enough for one day.’

‘Yes, I think I have,’ said Dorothy, suddenly realizing that she was very tired. ‘And I don’t think I liked it after all. Good night, then. We shan’t be long.’

‘You mind you’re not! I’ll give you twenty minutes.’

Dorothy went to the door. Bob called her back.

‘Er—what do you
think
of Hoskyn, by the way? And what does he think of
you?
I’ll bet he’s thinking long, long thoughts of both of us now we’ve gone and spoiled his holiday.’

Dorothy did not answer. She returned to the bedside and kissed the end of her brother’s firm and pugnacious nose. Bob caught her and pulled her down, wincing as she landed on the bed, but holding her tight.

‘Answer the questions,’ he said, ‘you little fiend.’

‘I can’t. And he’ll be wondering where I am.’

Bob rumpled her hair and kissed her.

S
HAKESPEARE
, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

BREAKFAST NEXT MORNING
was taken by the three of them together, for Bob had swung himself downstairs. He sat by the fire, with his injured foot on a cushion placed on top of a small stool, whilst the others sat at the table.

‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked, when, the meal over, both men had lighted their pipes and were occupying armchairs, and Dorothy, seated in the window, was watching the maid clear the table.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Roger. ‘Have you a dog that wants taking out for a run?’

‘No. Only a sister,’ said Bob, with a lordly grin. ‘But what about your holiday? You can’t spend it here with us.’

‘Can’t I? I’d rather hoped I could. After all, it’s
your fault we aren’t walking together, you old mudhead.’

‘Well, damn it,’ said Bob. ‘I can’t help it!’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Roger, suddenly addressing Dorothy. ‘Let’s hire a car and take this surly invalid to Whiteledge.’

‘Whiteledge? I’ve never heard of it.’

‘You’ve been there, though. We needn’t stay to dinner this time, of course, but I do want to go there again.’

‘Oh, it’s the name of that house!’

‘It is. I found the County History in your bookcase, and I’ve already had a look at it. The house is quite famous, it seems. Sort of three star Baedeker and all that. I’d rather like Bob to see it.’

‘I could manage all right in a car,’ said Bob cheerfully. ‘I call it a brain-wave, old man. Dorothy can ring up the garage. Will yon drive, or shall she get them to send a man? The parents have taken our car.’

‘What make of car will it be?’

‘A Morris, most likely.’

‘Can do. And I’d much rather be on our own.’

‘Good. So would I. All set? Buzz along, young D. and get contact. Tell them we want it for the day.’

‘Dash it! I can ’phone a garage!’ protested Roger.

Dorothy, who realized (without altogether being aware of the fact) that Bob and Roger were, for the moment, antagonistic, and that she was the bone of contention, went at once to the telephone. She
did not, in the ordinary course of events, readily accept orders from her brother, but on this particular occasion she took a perverse, particular pleasure in obeying him, for Roger met this obedience with a scowl.

The response from the garage was favourable. A car was forthcoming within twenty minutes. The three climbed into it in a holiday spirit which was particularly noticeable in Bob, who had not expected any kind of a holiday, and who, aided by Roger and Roger’s ashplant, ‘made the grade,’ as he put it, without disaster, and settled comfortably on the back scat.

The main road ran through fairly open country, but there was a prettier drive by way of secondary roads and a water-splash. Guided by Dorothy, who sat beside him, Roger drove carefully, as became one who did not know the road and who had (as Bob insisted) an invalid on the back seat, past fields and beside a golf course, and then on a right-of-way through a large and handsome park.

The road turned sharply then towards the east, and gave a view of the race-course. About two miles further on, it crossed the water-splash and then began to mount, although not steeply.

At the top of the rise the secondary road dropped southward, to merge with the main road somewhere nearer the coast, but the eastward course was continued by a lane just wide enough to take the car. This lane was part of an old Roman road, and some distance along it they saw the old mill and met the boy George.

The mill, with its enormous, slatted sails, stood up behind a small, dilapidated farmhouse. Roger had to pull up on rough grass by a crazy fence to let a farm-cart go by, and it was whilst they were waiting here that they saw George swinging on a gate. The gate gave on to a field on the slope of a hill. It was a ploughed field, dark with its level furrows and crowned at the top by a wood. The lane led onwards through the gate on which George was swinging, climbed the hill, and was lost among the trees.

The farm-cart turned into the farmyard, Roger let in his clutch, and the car crawled forward. George slid down from the gate and politely held it open. Roger stopped the car in the gateway, leaned out and said:

‘Hullo!’

‘Oh, good morning,’ said George, who, in shorts and a sweater, looked even more handsome than in polo-collar and riding breeches or in his evening clothes. ‘I say, I don’t think you’ll get much farther along this track. It ends in the wood up there, and then you’re stuck.’

‘Yes, I thought that myself,’ said Roger, ‘but there doesn’t seem room to turn here.’

‘Back into the farmyard. I’ll open the gate,’ said the boy. ‘The farmer’s gone to market, but his wife won’t mind a bit, so long as you give her a shilling. She collects quite a lot of money in the summer. She buys her boy’s boots out of motorists. She told me so just now. She saw you coming, so she’s ready for you.’

‘Does she get a shilling from everyone?’ Dorothy asked.

‘Mostly. She’s got a bull, you see, and as people have to get out of their cars to open the gate if she isn’t doing it for them, they mostly pay up, and let her do it.’

‘You’re a long way from home,’ said Roger, having digested and approved of the farmer’s wife’s thrift and sagacity.

‘Yes. I’ve been turned out,’ said George. ‘Mr Lingfield hasn’t come back, and they’ve sent to the police about him. I’m not supposed to know, but, of course, I do. I think I’ve been got out of the way.’

‘Mr Lingfield? Not——’

‘Yes, the man who was missing from the table. He’s a sort of uncle of mine. He owns the house. Aunt Mary and Great-aunt Catherine and I just live there. Anyway, he hasn’t turned up. I expect he’s gone off to Central Africa. He does that when people annoy him. I think Mrs Denbies annoyed him yesterday. I say, I was awfully glad you came along last night. Great-aunt Catherine wanted to ask Miss Pigdon or Mr Bookham to have dinner alone, but I couldn’t agree to that, as I like them better than anyone else in the house, and, after all, it
was
my party. So we were stuck, until you two came. I do thank you very much. I didn’t have a chance to speak before you went.’

‘We had a jolly good time,’ said Roger. ‘The thanks are all on our side. I suppose we can’t give you a lift?’

‘You’d better not, thanks. I shall hang about here for a bit, and the farmer’s wife will give me my dinner. Then, at three o’clock, I’ll go home.’

‘But surely it’s more than ten miles?’

‘Not by the way I shall go. Back her, if you’re ready. I’ll shut this gate, and then the farmer’s wife will open the other one as soon as you’ve given her the shilling.’

‘You seem jolly keen on this shilling business,’ said Roger. ‘Do you and the farmer’s wife divvy up, by any chance?’

The boy laughed, and then asked suddenly:

‘Did Sim pick you up last night? We forgot we’d be thirteen if Mr Lingfield came in. I wanted to be first up to see what would happen, but Great-aunt Catherine wouldn’t let me. I think superstitions are silly. Besides, it’s awkward when she will insist that there are the wrong number present. I don’t like it. After all he
didn’t
come in.’

‘Oh, yes, he found us,’ said Roger. ‘I wished at first he’d missed us, but it was worth a lot to hear Mrs Denbies play. How is her back this morning?’

‘Oh, just the same, I think,’ replied the boy. ‘She’s worried about Mr Lingfield. I think they all are. Rather silly, really. I’m sure he’s simply gone off exploring again.’

‘I suppose he didn’t go by train?’ asked Roger. The boy looked at him intently for the moment, and then said he did not know. Roger was tempted to follow up this question and ask whether the boy had been a witness to a quarrel between Lingfield and Mrs Denbies, but he knew that it was not
his business, and regretfully abandoned the idea. ‘By the way,’ he added, ‘what did he do with his horse?’

‘His horse? Oh, he sent it back to the house, I suppose. He had Strawberry, and Strawberry is certainly in his stable this morning, because I saw him there myself.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Roger. ‘Well, so long! Oh, I didn’t get a chance yesterday to wish you Many Happy Returns.’

Dorothy echoed this wish, and George, acknowledging their congratulations, observed:

‘I’ve come of age, you know. We do, in our family, at thirteen. That’s why Great-aunt Catherine wanted me to have a decent party. And it wouldn’t have been a decent party without Mr Bookham and Piggie, so I really am glad you turned up.’

‘Talking of turning, I think the farmer’s wife is waiting for us,’ said Bob, who, for some reason not understood by himself, felt irritated by this conversation.

‘I think she is,’ George agreed. ‘I say, I think I’ll come back to lunch after all. I suppose you couldn’t give me a lift?’

‘Hop in,’ said Bob, making room.

By using the farmyard gate, the motorists found the turn a simple matter, if rather muddy, and, having gained the end of the Roman road, Roger drove southward until a side-turning, half a mile long, brought the car to the station approach.

It was not very far to the house. Dorothy realized, as soon as she saw it, that she had never expected
to find it; yet here it was. The archery butts had been removed, but, apart from this, and the severe purity of the architecture of the house itself, nothing seemed exceptional. Nevertheless, she and Roger gazed at the house in silence, and even Bob sat without a word. George opened the door and got out.

‘Won’t you come in?’ he enquired. But Dorothy had packed up some food, and now proposed that the party should drive on to the common and picnic there. Bob was in favour of this, and Roger, who would have liked to accept the invitation to re-enter Whiteledge, said nothing and so was held to be in agreement.

He backed the car away from the house, and, as he did so, an easily-recognized figure passed George and, descending the steps from the portico, began to walk towards the gate.

‘Oh, do stop!’ said Dorothy. ‘Look! It’s Mrs Bradley, and I think she’s waving to us.’ Mrs Bradley soon came up to them. She was wearing a tweed costume in which a remarkably lordly purple was the predominant hue, and had on a woollen jumper in another shade of purple. A bright yellow hat, which made her sallow complexion look muddy and tired, and a pair of wash-leather gloves completed her attire. Her black eyes were as brilliant as ever, and she held on the end of a lead a young Alsatian dog of exuberant disposition and inquisitive habits with which she seemed unable to cope.

Dorothy lowered the window and wished Mrs Bradley good morning.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I thought it might be.’

‘What made you think that?’

‘When I was your age, dear child, wild horses would not have kept me away from a house into which I had been kidnapped; which I had left in a hasty and surreptitious manner following some (probably fatherly) advice given me by the butler; and to which I had been persuaded, or, shall we say, compelled to return.’

Dorothy, who had seen most of the previous night’s proceedings in exactly this light, smiled appreciatively.

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘but it’s serious.’

‘I know,’ said Dorothy. ‘We met George, and brought him back with us, as you saw.’

‘I thought you would. I posted him there to meet you and ask (I hope he did it tactfully) for a lift.’

‘But he wasn’t on any road that we ought to have come by! How could you think we might meet him? And does that mean—?’ She paused. It seemed pertinent but slightly impudent to ask whether Mrs Bradley had wanted to see them again.

‘Sim,’ Mrs Bradley explained, ‘had heard you ask for your tickets. I had a word with Sim when he had brought you back to the house. Then I drove you home. I did not imagine that you would repeat your long walk of yesterday to get to the house, and therefore it seemed feasible to suppose that you might come by car. I had gathered enough of Mr Hoskyn’s mentality and reactions …’
she grinned at the tall young man—‘to deduce that he would not come along main roads if he could avoid them, and I trusted to luck that our Roman road might appeal to him, and that neither you nor he would know that it petered out in a wood.’

‘Well, I’m dashed!’ said Roger. ‘Oh, by the way, Mrs Bradley, this is Bob.’