It Was the Nightingale (21 page)

“My seeds never come up, sir.”

These words produced laughter, in which Phillip joined. Then, feeling it was a propitious moment to leave, he looked at the
watch on his wrist, and pretended to surprise. “Heavens, it’s six o’clock! Well, I must be going. Goodbye, sir.”

“Goodbye to ye.”

“Must you go?” said Lucy, outside the iron gate. He hesitated, and pretended interest in the cycle-car. “Is it yours?”

“Oh no, my brothers are going to sell it for a friend, who has gone back to Africa.”

“I see. Well, I suppose I should be going back now.”

“Must you go?”

“I don’t
have
to! Only I don’t want to be in the way!”

“Oh, but you won’t be.”

She led him through the wooden gates by the canoe and into the neglected garden.

Soon with a cloth he was drying and polishing knives and forks, while she washed up. When the job was done they went down the lane, and getting over a stone wall entered a wood above a river. This was one of her favourite walks, she said, as they sat down under a tree.

On returning to the house, he was invited to stay to supper. Soon he was feeling entirely at home, sitting at the table among them, the spaniel lying on the floor. So quiet, so friendly, so free—could any young men anywhere else in the world be so nice, an old gentleman be so merry, so natural, so courteously indifferent about the world in general, never bothering about things outside his house and garden? A tremendous admiration grew in Phillip for him, and he told himself he was indeed fortunate to have met with such a family.

For supper Lucy had cut a plate of bloater-paste sandwiches. A silver kettle stood on the table, heated by a spirit flame. Everyone made his own coffee, by pouring a tablespoonful of brown liquid out of a bottle, filling the cup with hot water, adding sugar and milk and leaving the next person to fill the kettle and put it on the stand to boil. Likewise with the sandwiches: no formality of helping someone else first; hands stretched out to take.

“Everyone pleases himself here,” declared Mr. Copleston; and, as far as Phillip could see, pleased everyone else as well.

However, the last sandwich left on the plate was subject to ceremony. Four pairs of male eyes looked at it. “Odd man out!” said the youngest brother, who wore spectacles like the eldest. Immediately four coins were tossed into the air. By a process of
elimination the sandwich was won. Without a word the winner was about to put out a hand to take it went the youngest brother exclaimed, “By Jove, wait a moment, I say! Our guest didn’t toss odd-man-out!” Five coins were then tossed. Four of the losers laughed as it was grabbed and immediately eaten.

“If you don’t take what you want in this house, you won’t get anything,” remarked the old man.

Phillip was looking forward to the washing up, to be alone once more with Lucy. This presented no difficulties, for as soon as anyone had finished eating he left the table, leaving Lucy to do the clearing-away. The table-cloth, she said, was left where it was, for breakfast. The salt cellars and pepper pots were also left.

He went happily with her into the scullery. The work seemed to be finished almost as soon as it was begun, and it was time to join the others in the sitting-room, where four grown men were sitting in silence, all reading. Only the youngest, who sat beside a pile of bound volumes of
The
Model
Engineer
, moved to make a place for the newcomers on the sofa. Phillip sank into the broken corner, content to sit beside his pretty girl.

After awhile he became interested in what the others were reading. Mr. Copleston, sitting in the only armchair, which had partly burst away from its frame, was intent on a small paperbacked booklet meticulously fixed on a brass-and-mahogany reading stand beside him. The youngest brother, solemn of face, was examining the blueprint of a wireless set. The middle boy, who was fair and good-looking, sat back in a creaking wicker affair and smoked reflectively.

“I say,” said Tim, the youngest boy, in a soft whisper, to Phillip. “Must you really go back to Devon tonight? You can stop here if you like, you know. Please do, if you’d like to. We’d love to have you, really. There’s a hammock outside in the veranda. Or you could have the chalet on the lawn if you like.”

Phillip thanked him, and after awhile he and Lucy went outside, where they could talk the easier. It was decided that he should stay the night in the chalet, one side of which was open to the air.

*

He wanted to wear his best Indian cavalry drill breeches, washed, for when Lucy arrived with her Guides. They had been made by his London tailor, Mr. Kerr, in the autumn of 1918, when Phillip
had been ordered to India, but the posting had been stopped owing to the Armistice.

When he arrived back he saw that Mrs. Mules had
boiled
his breeches. Giving them to him, with his other washing, neatly folded, she exclaimed before he could open his mouth, “I know what you be looking at, but ’tidden no good you saying naught! ’Tes what you asked Zillah for me to do! You told ’r I must boil’m, so I boiled ’m! And there you be, you see, ’tes no good you saying naught about it! I’ve done my best vor ’ee! You axed Zillah for me to boil’m in the furnace, an’ I boiled ’m, and so you see it be no good you telling me they’m zamzawed, because I knows they’m zamzawed, see!”

Before Phillip could utter a word, Mules broke in, bobbing his carroty head with, “I’m sure my wife’s been very kind to ’ee, very kind to ’ee. My wife hath always done her best to plaize ivryone, ivryone my wife hath; ivryone, like.”

Phillip looked at the buckskin strappings. They were shrivelled, and had drawn the cotton cloth. Seeing him looking at them, Zillah cried in her ringing treble, “’Tes no use your saying anything, Mr. Maddison! Us knows all about you, and why you wanted to smarten up, so don’t you say naught, for we won’t believe it, see?”

He looked at his bill for the baby’s board and his own. By a simple error in rural arithmetic the past week had been reckoned as eight days. He knew the Mules to be scrupulously honest and particular; it was merely a slip in calculation.

“Tes no gude you lookin’ like that!” said Mrs. Mules. “You told Zillah I was to boil’m, so I boiled’m! You can’t get over that, not with all your nonsense!”

“Are you sure I didn’t tell Zillah that I wanted them fried? And while Jehovah worked to a seven-day plan, why does this village apparently work eight days in a week?”

But it was no good arguing. He went back to his cottage; and later in the afternoon went to see Mules, who was digging a grave in the churchyard, and made a man-to-man appeal on this question: “Are there eight days in a week, or are there seven? Would you just answer that chronological query?”

Perhaps Mules thought he was swearing; for with Christian humility appropriate to the place they were standing in he said, while tapping the thigh-bone of a previous tenant of the grave upon the handle of his shovel:

“My wife hath been very kind to ’ee, zur. Very kind my wife hath been. My wife hath done her best for ’ee, Mis’r Masson. I’m sure you know my wife hath.”

“Your wife hath, I know. But will you please look at this piece of paper. I paid my bill exactly a week ago. Under the solar system, to which mankind endeavours to adapt itself in this vale of tears, there are seven days in a week——”

“Us have looked after ’ee proper, us don’t mind what us does for ’ee, us’ll do aught for the babby, Mis’r Masson, and for your Rusty old dog tew—
he-he
. I shouldn’t by rights be laffin’ in th’ churchyard, should I? Don’t ’ee tell his Reverence, will ’ee? There be Rusty, dear old dog, Rusty, surenuff, Rusty—dear li’l ole dog, dear ole Moggy, too. Moggy cometh often and my wife doth look after Moggy, when you’m gone, gone away, like.”

“Yes, I know, I agree, I couldn’t find nicer or kinder people anywhere; but just tell me this, Are there seven days in a week, or are there eight, my dear old wimbling machine?”

“I’m sure us does all us can for ’ee, all us can, my wife doth.”
Tap
tap
of the bone on the handle of the shovel. “When be ’ee goin’ vor ’ave th’ babby christened, zur? Tidden right, you know, people be zaying it ban’t right. There was your cousin, beggin’ your pardon, zur, there was Mis’r Will’um, you know what became of he, don’t ’ee? Twas God’s punishment, I did hear someone zay. Only don’t ’ee tell anyone I told ’ee, wull ’ee?”

“Muley, my dear,” Phillip said, as quietly as the gravedigger had spoken. “Do you not understand that a man may care for truth for its own sake? Do you remember what my cousin Willie said? The village thought that he was ‘mazed’—but the village lives in a world actuated by suspicion, mental fear, distrust of self and therefore of neighbour. That is what my cousin was up against.”

“I’m sure my wife hath always bin very kind to both of ’ee, very kind my wife hath bin, my wife,” murmured the grave-digger.

Phillip amended the bill to seven days, and left it with the money under a saucer on the kitchen table.

At supper that night both daughter and mother blamed him for the underhand way he had altered the bill in pencil, instead of having the
honesty
to speak openly to them about it. His lips parted, but both women told him not to dare to say anything
further. “Proper old praicher you be!” cried the daughter. “Us heard all about ’ee praiching to feyther in the grave ’a was digging!”

“Yes,” he said, “I was quite wrong. I asked you to roast, boil and fry my breeches; and there are eight days in a week!”

Within a few minutes they were all laughing together, and in the excitement Rusty stole the Mules’ cat’s supper.

Later Phillip said, “Now I know why the Romans, who built straight roads, never came to Devon. They conked out, defeated by the Dumnonians, or Damnonians as they later became. They chucked in their hand at Exeter! And after that the Damns settled down for life as Dumms.”

*

Lucy arrived with her Girl Guides, together with an older woman Ginny, who was in charge of younger girls, the Brownies. When they were settled in the camp Phillip called there with baby and spaniel, both of whom immediately became favourites. This visit was known by the time he arrived back at the Mules’ cottage, and he realised the underlying resentment after he had told Mrs. Mules how his new friend thought Billy was a wonderful child.

“Pshaw! ’Er’s set ’er cap at ’ee,” said Mrs. Mules. “Can’t ’ee zee that? ’Er don’t want Billy, so much as ’er wants ’ee, but if you think——” Mrs. Mules was getting excited—“If you think ’er’ll look after Billy better than us can, then why don’t ’ee get ’er vor come and take on the job? I seen many like that in my time—as soon as baby be born they’m after folks like us to be wet nurses, just to save their own figures and go out into Society agen, and can’t be bothered to feed their own babbies! Don’t tell me! Why, any young leddy wanting a man will make a fuss over his babby, if he be a widower, and for why? To catch ’n, that be why!”

“Anyhow, she said that Billy had been very well looked after.”

“There, you zee!” Mrs. Mules cried. “No one can zay us don’t do our best to look after ’n, noomye!”

“Of course not, Mrs. Mules.”

“You can ‘Missis Mules’ me, if you’m a mind to, but I’m telling ’ee to look out for yourself, my dear man! You’ll be catched before ’ee knaws it, yesmye, you’ll find yourself catched!”

“That’s right, zur,” murmured Mules, “My wife be quite honest.”

He determined not to be affected by these remarks, while feeling
that he was entirely responsible for the growth of familiarity. No reserve, as Mother had often told him.

Seeing his face, Mules chipped in, “Us be very fond of ’ee, zur, don’t ’ee zee. Us wouldn’t like vor ’ee to come to no harm. Harm, like. There be all sorts about today!” he giggled. “Zome high-up ladies do paint their faces, and wear short skirts, so I do hear!” This bold statement was followed by Mules bending almost double with subdued hilarity. “Mrs. Wigfull, ’er paints her face, zo I did hear zom’n zay, he-he-he.”

“Have a fag, my dear old Wimbling Machine!” cried Phillip, offering his case. “You and I are above the gossip of the sergeants’ cookhouse.”

“Now don’t you teach Feyther bad ways, Mis’r Mass’n!” cried Zillah. “We’ve read your book you know! We all know it was you, called yourself Donkin, didn’t you, and that ‘Pauline’, who was she really? The fast thing!” She fired again. “Tes all lies, anyway, I reckon!”

Mules took the cigarette, and held it wobblingly to the match offered by Phillip.

“Well, I’ll be off now, Mrs. Mules. Thanks for my sandwiches. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“They say in the village that you’re taking the Girl Guide mistress on the back of your bike!” Zillah challenged him.

“Only as far as Bideford, to visit her relations.”

“I know—Commander and Mrs. Gilbert!” said Zillah. “Can you deny it?”

“My,” said Mules, gingerly puffing, and blowing smoke through a round hole of his lips. “You be goin’ up, you’m goin’ among the high-ups, like. I’m sure I be very glad to hear it.” He puffed gingerly at his cigarette: it was the first time he had smoked.

“Have a good time!” cried Zillah, as Phillip got up to go. “Us’ll mind your son and heir for you, Mis’r Mass’n. Now don’t go too fast, and have an upset with your passenger, will you?”

Mules took another delicate puff of the cigarette held at right angles between two fingers. “My, ban’t you be goin’ up! What times us be livin’ in!”

“And don’t ’ee forget that you’ve got another leddy and gentleman comin’ vor zee ’ee, will ’ee? They’m comin’ tomorrow, mind, so don’t ’ee get hitched up with no young leddy an’ forget all about Mr. and Mrs. Beausire,” Mrs. Mules reminded him.

Martin Beausire had written to ask Phillip if he would find him lodgings, with a private sitting-room, for his wife and himself, for the next fortnight. Mrs. Mules had agreed to take them, and Phillip had already sent a postcard to tell Beausire this at his Fleet Street address.

Martin Beausire was not on the fast midday train from Waterloo. Phillip went for a walk around the Great Field while waiting for the afternoon train. No Martin and wife. Later, having postponed his supper, he went to meet the nine-thirty p.m.; to return once again and apologise for the non-appearance of his guests.

“What sort of people be’m?” asked Mrs. Mules. “My dear man, I’ve a-had the cockerel ins and outs of the bodley since lunchtime!”

“Mr. Beausire is a very busy man, Mrs. Mules.”

“So be I a very busy woman, my dear man!”

“And don’t you forget it!” cried Zillah.

“That be true,” put in Mules. “My wife be very honest, very honest, like.”

No letter arrived the next day. At the end of the week Phillip insisted on paying for the lodgings. Then came a scrawled note saying that Martin and wife were coming on Saturday and reminding Phillip to have a taxi for him at the station.

There was only one in the village, a Chevrolet open tourer. It rained on the Friday night and all Saturday morning. Phillip went to see if there was a hood on the Chev and volunteered to repair the celluloid curtains with bits of an old hood, which he stuck across the holes with rubber solution. It was better than nothing. Once again he was waiting for the Waterloo train, in vain; and again in the afternoon. Then a telegram came saying that Martin was arriving at Victoria Road Station in Barnstaple, which was the
Great Western Railway terminus, at 7.18 p.m. Thither he went in the rattling pre-war taxi.

Martin’s first words on getting out of the carriage with two heavy suitcases were, “The most ghastly journey! We might have been two characters in ‘Outward Bound’. Look at your blasted weather!” The platform roof was gushing water from a squall. Phillip made to take his bags. “I’ll manage these, my lad. Take the heavy one from Fiona. The latch is broken, so be careful, there are five hundred books inside.”

Phillip took the bag from the very young and slender woman in a green cloche hat matching her eyes. “You don’t know my wife, do you? This is Phillip Maddison. Come on.” Wrapped in a heavy overcoat, Martin led the way to the barrier. “Is this the only taxi you could get?” he growled, glancing at the sagging hood of the Chevrolet.

“It’s the only taxi in Speering Folliot, Martin.”

“Then why didn’t you get one in this town? There’s Grinlings in the Square, and Pedler’s.”

“It’s not far to go.”

“Come on, girl, don’t stand there as though this is a fashion show,” he said to Fiona, who had hesitated. “There’s no need to freeze to death.” To Phillip he said, “I hope you’ve had the sense to order fires to be lit in both our sitting-room and bedroom! This blasted English weather,” he moaned, trying to look through the small space left in the celluloid curtain on his side of the back seat. “What’s this?” He pulled at the black material stuck on with rubber solution and it came away on his fingers.

“It wasn’t very secure, rubber solution won’t stick on celluloid, I’m afraid, Martin.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.” He flapped his hand, shook it violently, the tacky black cloth stuck to his cheek.

“Let me sit where you are,” suggested Phillip, removing the material. “The rain will beat against the curtain as we go beside the estuary.” Martin moved up against Fiona. “Why are we waiting here?” he asked, unhappily.

“Aiy Aiy, I’ll get’n started,” said the driver. “My Gor’, I ’opes it will spark! Tes a turrible drop o’ rain us’v had last twenty-four hours, zur.”

Fortunately the engine started. Martin made further observations as they left the station yard.

“Your railway supplies the bloodiest food in Europe. The General Manager deserves to be drowned in a bath of his own Brown Windsor soup!”

“Isn’t that a soap?”

“Soap or soup, the taste is the same.”

“How’s Fleet Street getting along?” asked Phillip, stopping the inrush of wind and water with the near side of his trench-coat.

“Good God,” muttered Martin. “Here I am, having just managed to crawl for my life out of that stinking sewer, that cesspit which deals in the direct by-products of the creeping paralysis of our so-called civilisation—and the first thing I hear after arriving in Glorious Devon is, ‘How’s Fleet Street getting along?’” A paroxysm of coughing stopped further words.

Phillip looked at the supposed Mrs. Beausire, remembering that Beausire’s mother had spoken of Martin’s wife as
Ursula
. “It will soon clear up! This country is like that, grey and wet and suddenly open blue and shining!”

Martin’s mouth was open, his eyes half-closed. He held up a hand for silence. After hesitation, an enormous sneeze shook him.

“There you are!” he turned to Fiona. “Why the hell didn’t you bring my aspirin bottle?”

“I did, Martin. It’s in my suitcase.” She made as if to lift it from under her feet but Martin cried, “Don’t open the damned thing here, for God’s sake!” as there came a thunderous flapping of the hood. They were now going along the estuary road.

“It’s the south-west gale,” explained Phillip.

“Good God, do you think I thought it was an April shower?” said Martin.

“I can taste the salt!” cried Fiona, her eyes shining. “How lovely!” She seemed to Phillip to be extraordinarily young, with fair bobbed hair and a slim figure. She turned greenish eyes upon him. “I hope it will soon clear up, as you said. Martin is tremendously looking forward to walking under your guidance. He wants to write a book about walking in Devon while he is down here, and has waited for simply ages to talk with you.”

“As long as he doesn’t ask me about the human rat-runs of the publishing world,” growled Martin. “If I hear one word about Fleet Street or the Stock Exchange I shall get out and take the next train back.” Wrapping the collar of his greatcoat round his neck he appeared to go to sleep.

Zillah soon had a fire going in the sitting-room, where a clean laundered cloth was spread on the circular mahogany table, with the supper things and a bowl of flowers. Phillip sat there until the guests came down from upstairs.

“No fireplace in the bedroom,” grumbled Martin. “Fifi, get them to put in hot-water bottles.” He turned to Phillip. “Cold pork and cold prunes, is that the best you could do?”

Phillip felt like saying that if he had come a week earlier there would have been a cockerel of six pounds including the bones for him to gnaw. Zillah came to the defence.

“We didn’t know when you were coming, you see, Mr. Beausire, else we would have had the roast duck ready. It’s no good you blaming Mr. Maddison! When you didn’t come at five o’clock, Mother didn’t like to put it in the oven in case it got zamzawed like the cockerel Mr. Maddison ordered for you last week. It isn’t his fault at all!” she cried in a voice slightly higher than usual in her nervousness before these London visitors. She fired another shot: “Last time you wrote and said you were coming you didn’t turn up, you know!”

“Oh, I expect it was my making a mistake in the date,” said Phillip. “You know how unreliable I am about letting you know when
I
’
m
coming back, Zillah!”

“Well, you’re all here now, that’s the main thing!” the young girl announced. “I’ll bring along the soup. It’s Mother’s special soup, so mind you like it!”

Fiona whispered to Phillip, “What a perfectly sweet baby asleep in the cradle in the kitchen! Who’s is it, the girl’s?”

“It’s mine.”

“But, Martin, you didn’t tell me that Phillip had a baby! What is it, a boy or a girl, Phillip?”

“A boy. Please don’t say anything about it to the Mules.”

They sat at table, Martin with back to the fire, writing a letter. Zillah brought in three plates of soup, Martin went on writing rapidly with a thick black fountain pen. Then putting it down, he tasted the soup. “My God, it’s Brown Windsor!”

“That’s where you’re mistaken,” said Zillah, entering unexpectedly. “It’s Mother’s special soup. I hope you like it, there’s giblets in it.”

“It tastes like mulligatawny to me,” said Fiona.

“There’s some of that in it, but that’s not all,” replied Zillah. “Mr. Maddison likes it, don’t you, Mis’r Mass’n?”

“Beautiful soup, Zillah. If Mr. Beausire doesn’t want his, I’ll eat it for him.” But Martin, having put aside his writing, was already sucking his down.

“Anyone like another helping?” enquired Zillah, coming in later.

“Would I not,” said Martin, in a clipped, donnish voice, as he took the dark-blue writing paper pad to dash off another line before looking up to say, “What’s that at the window?”

A black and white face, with staring green eyes, was looking through the lower panes of the casement.

“That’s Moggy, Mr. Maddison’s cat,” said Zillah, arriving with the soup tureen. “She always comes in at the window. I expect Rusty will be here in a minute. Rusty’s Mr. Maddison’s spaniel,” she explained. “Ever such a dear old dog. So’s Moggy a dear little cat. They go through a hole in Mr. Maddison’s door, they always know when he comes back, and wait for him in there. That’s more than we do, sometimes!” she cried, turning her head as she went out to give Phillip a soft glance, which Fiona noticed.

“I believe Zillah’s the mother of the baby!” she whispered to Phillip.

“Why not ask her?” suggested Martin, writing away.

“Yes, why not?” said Phillip, “and earn half-a-crown from
The
People
.”

Although he had grumbled at the idea of cold pork, Martin soon ate his helping, and pushing aside his plate, continued the letter writing. How crowded his brain must be, thought Phillip: he must live under pressure the whole time.

Having finished the letter, Martin said to Fiona, “Bed, Fifi my love,” arid led the way to the kitchen. Phillip, sitting by the fire, was relieved to hear his jovial voice, amidst laughter, for a couple of minutes before their footfalls went up the stairs.

When they were in the bedroom, Zillah slipped in to say to Phillip, “I thought you told us Mr. Beausire had two daughters!”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Now he’s just told us that it’s his wife’s nineteenth birthday! Funny goings on, if you ask me! She seems so shy, Mother says. Of him, I mean. ’Tidden right, you know, to pretend you’m married if you’re not,” mixing school-lesson English with her
native Devon dialect. “
I
s
it, ‘Mr. Donkin’? Yes, it’s you in that book you wrote, I know it, and you can’t deny it. Can you? You and your ‘Pauline’! Wasn’t she someone you knew at Folkestone? Admit it, now! Tell the truth and shame the devil! Come on, Mis’r Mass’n!”

There was a bump overhead. “My lor’, I hope Mr. Beausire’s not bangin’ his young leddy about! I’d give any man a thumping big bang if he tried any tricks on me, Mis’r Mass’n! Don’t you go treating
your
young leddy like that, will you?”

She came close, creamy cheeks and vivid red hair, teasing him. Her face was so young and pretty that he kissed her. “S-sh!” she whispered, looking round. “Don’t let Mother or Dad hear you, or they’ll wonder what we’m up to, all alone in here.” She skipped out of the room.

Martin had left the writing pad face down on the sofa beside his attaché case. Phillip thought it best to put the pad in the case, and picking it up, saw in one glance the first words written in the large, sprawling hand. Looking no further, he pressed the lock buttons and slipped the pad inside.

Zillah returned. “Anything I can get for you, Mis’r Mass’n?”

“No thanks, Zillah. I think I’ll go to bed. Good-night!”

He left thinking that if he hadn’t seen the beginning of Martin’s letter he might have kissed Zillah again: thank heaven he hadn’t, in the circumstances.

*

In the morning the sun was shining. Martin was almost a different man.

“We’ve had breakfast. We want to get out as soon as we can!”

“I imagined you’d be sleeping late. Still, I can do without breakfast. Where do you want to go?”

“It’s your country, you lead on and we’ll follow.” Martin delved into his attaché case, took out a stamped addressed envelope and put it in his pocket.

“Where’s the post office?”

“Mules will take it.” As Phillip had anticipated, Martin wanted to post it elsewhere.

“Shall we be going near a village?”

“Yes, at Broccombe. By the way, there’s our otter hunt ball next week. Would you and Fiona care to come as my guests?”

The association of the words
hunt
ball
had a distinct effect on
Beausire: he spoke like a gentleman. “My dear Phillip, it’s most kind of you, but we’ve both got to go back on Sunday.” He became himself again. “Hell! Back to that stinking little office, half as big as an early Victorian lavatory, literally no room to turn round in, the boy coming up every afternoon at four p.m. with a cup of cold tea half-swimming in the saucer with smuts and drowning flies. Let’s get out while we can, for God’s sake!” as Fiona joined them. “Where are you taking us, my lord?”

“Up over the fields to the high ground and round the coast to Broccombe, if that will suit you.”

The walk was at first enjoyable. Then it formed into the previous pattern: Martin continually asking questions about country matters, Phillip supplying the answers until he grew weary of Martin’s search for information and lagged behind for Fiona to catch up to him.

It was now Fiona’s turn to seek information.

“Tell me, Phillip,” she began, while Martin tore alone into the morning. “Is your partner at the otter ball the Girl Guide mistress that the Muleses told me about before breakfast?”

“I haven’t had any breakfast, so I can’t really say.”

“The Muleses say that you are interested in her, and that she’s a foreigner. Does she speak English?”

“A few words, now and again.”

“Where is the camp?”

“Beyond those pine trees on the horizon.”

“She’s been here before, so Zillah said.”

“She came with me to view the site.”

“Are you having an
affaire
with her? Why don’t you answer, Phillip? There’s no harm in having an
affaire
, is there?” persisted Fiona.

“It depends on all sorts of things, I suppose.”