Death At The Bar

Chapter III Further Advance by Watchman

i

“The chief fault in Luke,” said Sebastian Parish, “is that he is quite incapable of letting well alone.”

Norman Cubitt tilted his hat over his eyes, peered from Parish to his canvas and began to scuffle among his tubes of paint. He uttered a short grunt.

“More than that,” added Parish, “he glories in making bad a good deal worse. Do you mind my talking, old boy?”

“No. Turn the head a little to the right. Too much. That’s right. I won’t keep you much longer. Just while the sun’s on the left side of the face. The shoulders are coming too far round again.”

“You talk like a doctor about my members—the head, the face, the shoulders.”

“You’re a vain fellow, Seb. Now, hold it like that, do. Yes, there’s something persistently impish in Luke. He jabs at people. What was he up to last night with Will Pomeroy and Legge?”

“Damned if I know. Funny business, wasn’t it? Do you think he’s jealous of Will?”

“Jealous?” repeated Cubitt. With his palette knife he laid an unctuous stroke of blue beside the margin of the painted head. “Why jealous?”

“Well, because of Decima.”

“Oh, nonsense! And yet I don’t know. He’s not your cousin for nothing, Seb. Luke’s got his share of the family vanity.”

“I don’t know why you say I’m vain, damn you. I don’t think I’m vain at all. Do you know, I get an average of twelve drivelling letters a day from females in front? And do they mean a thing to me?”

“You’d be bitterly disappointed if there was a falling off. Don’t move your shoulders. But you may be right about Luke.”

“I’d like to know,” said Parish, “just how much last year’s little flirtation with Decima added up to.”

“Would you? I don’t think it’s relevant.”

“Well,” said Parish, “she’s an attractive wench. More ‘It’ to the square inch than most of them. It’s hard to say why. She’s got looks, of course, but not the looks that usually get over that way. Not the voluptuous type. Her—”

“Shut up,” said Cubitt violently, and added: “I’m going to paint your mouth.”

His own was set in an unusually tight line. He worked for a time in silence, stood back, and said abruptly:

“I don’t really think Will Pomeroy was his objective. He was getting at Legge, and why the devil he should pick on a man he’d never seen in his life until last night is more than I can tell.”

“I thought he seemed to be sort of probing. Trying to corner Legge in some way.”

Cubitt paused with his knife over the canvas.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s perfectly true. I thought so, too. Trick of the trade, perhaps, Counsel’s curiosity. Almost, one expected him to put his foot on the seat of a chair and rest his elbow on his knee. Now I come to think of it, I believe he did hitch his coat up by the lapels.”

“Characteristic,” pronounced Parish seriously. He himself had used these touches several times in trial scenes.

Cubitt smiled. “But he sounded definitely malicious,” he added.

“He’s not malicious,” said Parish uncomfortably.

“Oh yes, he is,” said Cubitt coolly. “It’s one of his more interesting qualities. He can be very malicious.”

“He can be very generous, too.”

“I’m sure he can. I like Luke, you know. He interests me enormously.”

“Apparently he likes you,” said Parish. “Apparently.”

“Hullo!” Cubitt walked back from his canvas and stood squinting at it. “You said that with a wealth of meaning, Seb. What’s in the air? You can rest a minute, if you like.”

Parish moved off the boulder where he had been sitting, stretched himself elaborately, and joined Cubitt. He gazed solemnly at his own portrait. It was a large canvas. The figure in the dull red sweater was three-quarter life-size. It was presented as a dark form against the lighter background which was the sea and the sky. The sky appeared as a series of paling arches, the sea as a simple plane, broken by formalized waves. A glint of sunlight had found the cheek and jaw-bone on the right side of the face.

“Marvellous, old boy,” said Parish. “Marvellous!”

Cubitt, who disliked being called “old boy,” grunted.

“Did you say you’d show it in this year’s Academy?” asked Parish.

“I didn’t, Seb, but I will. I’ll stifle my aesthetic conscience, prostitute my undoubted genius, and send your portrait to join the annual assembly of cadavers. Do you prefer ‘Portrait of an Actor,’ ‘Sebastian Parish, Esq.,’ or simply ‘Sebastian Parish’?”

“I think I would like my name,” said Parish seriously. “Not, I mean, that everybody wouldn’t know—”

“Thank you. But I see your point. Your press agent would agree. What were you going to say about Luke? His generosity, you know, and his apparently liking me so much?”

“I don’t think I ought to tell you, really.”

“But of course you are going to tell me.”

“He didn’t actually say it was in confidence,” said Parish. Cubitt waited with a slight smile.

“You’d be amazed if you knew,” continued Parish.

“Yes.”

“Yes. Oh, rather. At least I imagine you would be. I was. I never expected anything of the sort, and after all I am his nearest relation. His next of kin.”

Cubitt turned and looked at him in real astonishment.

“Are you by any chance,” he asked, “talking about Luke’s will?”

“How did you guess?”

“My dear, good Seb—”

“All right, all right. I suppose I did give it away. You may as well hear the whole thing. Luke told me the other day that he was leaving his money between us.”

“Good Lord!”

“I know. I happened to look him up after the show one evening, and I found him browsing over an official-looking document. I said something, chaffingly, you know, about it, and he said: ‘Well, Seb, you’ll find it out some day, so you may as well know now.’ And then he told me.”

“Extraordinarily nice of him,” said Cubitt uncomfortably, and he added: “Damn! I wish you hadn’t told me.”

“Why, on earth?”

“I don’t know. I enjoy discussing Luke and now I’ll feel he’s sort of sacrosanct. Oh well, he’ll probably outlive both of us.”

“He’s a good bit older than I am,” said Parish. “Not, I mean, that I don’t hope with all my heart he will. I mean — as far as I’m concerned—”

“Don’t labour it, Seb,” said Cubitt kindly. “I should think Luke will certainly survive me. He’s strong as a horse and I’m not. You’ll probably come in for the packet.”

“I hate talking about it like that.”

Parish knocked his pipe out on a stone. Cubitt noticed that he was rather red in the face.

“As a matter of fact,” he muttered, “it’s rather awkward.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’m plaguily hard up at the moment and I’d been wondering—”

“If Luke would come to the rescue?”

Parish was silent.

“And in the light of this revelation,” Cubitt added, “you don’t quite like to ask. Poor Seb! But what the devil do you do with your money? You ought to be rolling. You’re always in work. This play you’re in now is a record run, isn’t it, and your salary must be superb.”

“That’s all jolly fine, old man, but you don’t know what it’s like in the business. My expenses are simply ghastly.”

“Why?”

“Why, because you’ve got to keep up a standard. Look at my house. It’s ruinous, but I’ve got to be able to ask the people that count to a place they’ll accept and, if possible, remember. You’ve got to look prosperous in this game, and you’ve got to entertain. My agent’s fees are hellish. My clubs cost the earth. And like a blasted fool I backed a show that flopped for thousands last May.”

“What did you do that for?”

“The management are friends of mine. It looked all right.”

“You give money away, Seb, don’t you? I mean literally. To out-of-luck actors? Old-timers and so on?”

“I may. Always think ‘There but for the grace of God…!’ It’s such a damn chancy business.”

“Yes. No more chancy than painting, my lad.”

“You don’t have to show so well if you’re an artist. People expect you to live in a peculiar way.”

Cubitt looked at him, but said nothing.

Parish went on defensively: “I’m sorry, but you know what I mean. People expect painters to be Bohemians and all that.”

“There was a time,” said Cubitt, “when actors were content to be ‘Bohemians,’ whatever that may mean. I never know. As far as I am concerned, it means going without things you want.”

“But your pictures sell.”

“On an average I sell six pictures a year. Their prices range from twenty pounds to two hundred. It usually works out at about four hundred. You earn that in as many weeks, don’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Oh, I’m not grumbling. I’ve got a bit of my own and I could make more, I daresay, if I took pupils or had a shot at commercial art. I’ve suited myself and it’s worked out well enough until—”

“Until what?” asked Parish.

“Nothing. Let’s get on with the work, shall we? The light’s no good after about eleven.”

Parish walked back to the rock, and took up his pose. The light wind whipped his black hair away from his forehead. He raised his chin and stared out over the sea. He assumed an expression of brooding dominance.

“That right?” he asked.

“Pretty well. You only want a pair of tarnished epaulettes and we could call it ‘Elba.’ ”

“I’ve always thought I’d like to play Napoleon.”

“A fat lot you know about Napoleon.”

Parish grinned tranquilly.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’d read him up a bit if I had to. As a matter of fact, Luke looks rather like him.”

“The shoulders should come round,” said Cubitt. “That’s more like it. Yes, Luke is rather the type.”

He painted for a minute or two in silence and then Parish suddenly laughed.

“What’s up?” asked Cubitt.

“Here comes your girl.”

“What the devil do you mean?” demanded Cubitt angrily and looked over his shoulder. “Oh — I see.”

“Violet,” said Parish. “Who did you think it was?”

“I thought you’d gone dotty. Damn the woman!”

“Will she paint me, too?”

“Not if I know it.”

“Unkind to your little Violet?” asked Parish.

“Don’t call her that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, damn it, she’s not very young and she’s— well, she may be a pest but she’s by way of being a lady.”

“Snob!”

“Don’t be so dense, Seb. Can’t you see — oh Lord, she’s got all her gear. She is going to paint. Well, I’ve just about done for to-day.”

“She’s waving.”

Cubitt looked across the headland to where Miss Darragh, a droll figure against the sky, fluttered a large handkerchief.

“She’s put her stuff down,” said Parish. “She’s going to sketch. What is there to paint over there?”

“A peep,” said Cubitt. “Now, hold hard and don’t talk. There’s a shadow under the lower lip—”

He worked with concentration for five minutes and then put down his palette.

“That’ll do for to-day. We’ll pack up.”

But when he’d hitched his pack on his shoulders and stared out to sea for some seconds, he said suddenly —

“All the same, Seb, I wish you hadn’t told me.”

ii

It was understood among the three friends that each should go his own way during the weeks they spent at Ottercombe. Watchman had played with the notion of going out in the dawn with the fishing boats. He woke before it was light and heard the tramp of heavy boots on cobblestones and the sound of voices down on Ottercombe Steps. He told himself comfortably that here was a link with the past. For hundreds of years the Coombe men had gone down to their boats before dawn. The children of Coombe had heard them stirring, their wives had fed them and seen them go, and for centuries their voices and the sound of their footsteps had roused the village for a moment in the coldest hour of the night. Watchman let the sounds die away, snuggled luxuriously down in his bed, and fell asleep.

He woke again at half-past nine and found that Parish had already breakfasted and set out for Coombe Rock.

“A mortal great mammoth of a picture Mr. Cubitt be at,” said Abel Pomeroy, as Watchman finished his breakfast. “Paint enough to cover a wall, sir, and laid on so thick as dough. At close quarters it looks like one of they rocks covered in shellfish, but ’od rabbit it, my sonnies, when you fall away twenty feet or more, it’s Mr. Parish so clear as glass. Looking out over the Rock he be, looking out to sea, and so natural you’d say the man was smelling the wind and thinking of his next meal. You might fancy a stroll out to the Rock, sir, and take a look at Mr. Cubitt flinging his paint left and right.”

“I feel lazy, Abel. Where’s Will?”

“Went out-along, with the boats, sir.” Abel rasped his chin, scratched his head, and rearranged the objects on the bar.

“He’s restless, is Will,” he said suddenly. “My own boy, Mr. Watchman, and so foreign to me as a changeling.”

“Will is?” asked Watchman, filling his pipe.

“Ah, Will. What with his politics and his notions he’s a right-down stranger to me, is Will. A very witty lad, too, proper learned, and so full of arguments as a politician. He won’t argufy with me, naturally, seeing I’m not his equal in the way of brains, nor anything like it.”

“You’re too modest, Abel,” said Watchman lightly.

“No, sir, no. I can’t stand up to that boy of mine when it comes to politics and he knows it and lets me down light. I’m for the old ways, a right-down Tory, and for why? For no better reason than it suits me, same as it suited my forebears.”

“A sound enough reason.”

“No, sir, not according to my boy. According to Will it be a damn-fool reason and a selfish one into the bargain.”

“I shouldn’t let it worry you.”

“ ‘More I do, Mr. Watchman. It’s not our differences that worry me. It’s just my lad’s restless, mumbudgeting ways. You saw how he was last night. Speaking to you that fashion. Proper ’shamed of him, I was.”

“It was entirely my fault, Abel, I baited him.”

“Right-down generous of you to put it like that but all the same he’s not himself these days. I’d like him to settle down. Tell you the truth, sir, it’s what’s to become of the Feathers that troubles me and it troubles me sore. I’m nigh on seventy, Mr. Watchman. Will’s my youngest. T’other two boys wurr took in war, and one girl’s married and in Canada, and t’other in Australia. Will’ll get the Feathers.”

“I expect,” said Watchman, “that Will’ll grow out of his red ideas and run the pub like any other Pomeroy.”

Old Abel didn’t answer and Watchman added: “When he marries and settles down.”

“And when will that be, sir? Likely you noticed how ’tis between Will and Miss Dessy? Well now, that’s a funny state of affairs, and one I can’t get used to. Miss Dessy’s father’s Jim Moore up yurr to Cary Edge Farm, and an old friend of mine. Good enough. But what happens when Dessy’s a li’l maid no higher than my hand? ’Od rabbit it, if old Jim don’t come in for a windfall. Now his wife being a ghastly proud sort of a female and never tired of letting on she came down in society when she married, what do they do but send young Dessy to a ladies’ school where she gets some kind of free pass into a female establishment at Oxford.”

“Yes. I know.”

“ ’Ess, and comes home at the end of it a dinky lil chit, sure enough, and husband-high; but speaking finicky-like and the equal of all the gentlefolks in the West Country.”

“Well?” said Watchman.

“Well, sir, that’s fair enough. If she fancies our Will above the young sparks she meets in her new walk of life, good enough. I’m proper fond of the maiden, always have been. Good as a daughter to me, and just the same always, no matter how ladylike she’m grown.”

Watchman stood up and stretched himself.

“It sounds idyllic, Abel. A charming romance.”

“Wait a bit, sir, wait a bit. ’Bain’t so simple as all that. These yurr two young folks no sooner meets again than my Will sets his heart, burning strong and powerful, on Decima Moore. Eaten up with love from time he sets eyes on her, was Will, and hell-bent to win her. She come back with radical notions same as his own, and that’s a bond atween ’em from the jump. Her folks don’t fancy my Will, however, leastways not her mother, and they don’t fancy her views neither, and worst of all they lays blame on Will. Old Jim Moore comes down yurr and has a tell with me, saying life’s not worth living up to Farm with Missus at him all day and half night to put his foot down and stop it. That’s how it was after you left last year, sir, and that’s how ’tis still. Will burning to get tokened and wed, and Dessy—”

“Yes?” asked Watchman as Abel paused and looked fixedly at the ceiling. “What about Decima?”

“That’s the queerest touch of the lot, sir,” said Abel.

Watchman, lighting his pipe, kept his eye on his host and saw that he now looked profoundly uncomfortable.

“Well?” Watchman repeated.

“It be what she says about wedlock,” Abel muttered.

“What does she say?” asked Watchman sharply.

“ ’Be shot if she haven’t got some new-fangled notion about wedlock being no better than a name for savagery. Talks wild trash about freedom. To my way of thinking the silly maiden don’t know what she says.”

“What,” asked Watchman, “does Will say to all this?”

“Don’t like it. The chap wants to be tokened and hear banns read like any other poor toad, for all his notions. He wants no free love for his wife or himself. He won’t talk to me, not a word; but Miss Dessy does, so open and natural as a daisy. Terrible nonsense it be, I tells her, and right-down dangerous into bargain. Hearing her chatter, you might suppose she’ve got some fancy-chap up her sleeve. Us knows better, of course, but it’s an uncomfortable state of affairs and seemingly no way out. Tell you what, sir, I do blame this Legge for the way things are shaping. Will’d have settled down. He was settling down, afore Bob Legge came yurr. But now he’ve stirred up all their revolutionary notions again, Miss Dessy’s along with the rest. I don’t fancy Legge. Never have. Not for all he’m a masterpiece with darts. My way of thinking, he’m a cold calculating chap and powerful bent on having his way. Well, thurr ’tis, and talking won’t mend it.”

Watchman walked to the door and Abel followed him. They stood looking up the road to Coombe Tunnel.

“Dallybuttons!” exclaimed Abel. “Talk of an angel and there she be. That’s Miss Dessy, the dinky little dear, coming in to do her marketing.”

“So it is,” said Watchman. “Well, Abel, on second thoughts I believe I’ll go and have a look at that picture.”

iii

But Watchman did not go directly to Coombe Rock. He lingered for a moment until he had seen Decima Moore go in at the post office door, and then he made for the tunnel. Soon the darkness swallowed him, his footsteps rang hollow on the wet stone floor, and above him, a luminous disc, shone the top entry. Watchman emerged, blinking, into the dust and glare of the high road. To his left the country rolled gently away to Illington, to his right a path led round the cliffs to Coombe Rock, and then wound inland to Cary Edge Farm where the Moores lived.

He arched his hand over his eyes, and on Coombe Head could make out the shape of canvas and easel with Cubitt’s figure moving to and fro, and beyond, a tiny dot which must be Sebastian Parish’s head. Watchman left the road, climbed the clay bank, circled a clump of furze, and beneath a hillock from where he could see the entrance to the tunnel, he lay full length on the short turf. With the cessation of his own movement the quiet of the countryside engulfed him. At first the silence seemed complete but after a moment or two the small noises of earth and sky welled up into his consciousness. A lark sang above his head with a note so high that it impinged upon the outer borders of hearing and at times soared into nothingness. When he turned and laid his ear to the earth it throbbed with the faraway thud of surf against Coombe Rock and when his fingers moved in the grass it was with a crisp stirring sound. He began to listen intently, lying so still that no movement of his body could come between his sense and more distant sound. He closed his eyes and to an observer he would have seemed to sleep. Indeed, his face bore that look of inscrutability which links sleep in our minds with death. But he was not asleep. He was listening; and presently his ears caught a new rhythm, a faint hollow beat. Someone was coming up through the tunnel.

Watchman looked through his eyelashes and saw Decima Moore step into the sunlight. He remained still while she mounted the bank to the cliff path. She rounded the furzebush and was almost upon him before she saw him. She stood motionless.

“Well, Decima,” said Watchman and opened his eyes.

“You startled me,” she said.

“I should leap to my feet, shouldn’t I? And apologize?”

“You needn’t trouble. I’m sorry I disturbed you. Goodbye.” She moved forward.

Watchman said: “Wait a moment, Decima.”

She hesitated. Watchman reached out a hand and seized her ankle.

“Don’t do that,” said Decima. “It makes us both look silly. I’m in no mood for dalliance.”

“Please say you’ll wait a moment and I’ll behave like a perfect little gent. I’ve something serious to say to you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I promise you. Of the first importance. Please.”

“Very well,” said Decima.

He released her and scrambled to his feet.

“Well, what is it?” asked Decima.

“It’ll take a moment or two. Do sit down and smoke a cigarette. Or shall I walk some of the way with you?”

She shot a glance at the distant figures on Coombe Head and then looked at him. She seemed ill at ease, half-defiant, half-curious.

“We may as well get it over,” she said.

“Splendid. Sit down now, do. If we stand here, we’re in full view of anybody entering or leaving Ottercombe, and I don’t want to be interrupted. No, I’ve no discreditable motive. Come now.”

He sat down on the hillock under the furze-bush and after a moment’s hesitation she joined him.

“Will you smoke? Here you are.”

He lit her cigarette, dug the match into the turf and then turned to her.

“The matter I wanted to discuss with you,” he said, “concerns this Left Movement of yours.”

Decima’s eyes opened wide.

“That surprises you?” observed Watchman.

“It does rather,” she said. “I can’t imagine why you should suddenly be interested in the C. L. M.”

‘I’ve no business to be interested,“ said Watchman, ”and in the ordinary sense, my dear Decima, I am not interested. It’s solely on your account — no, do let me make myself clear. It’s on your account that I want to put two questions to you. Of course if you choose you may refuse to answer them.”

Watchman cleared his throat, and pointed a finger at Decima.

“Now in reference to this society—”

“Dear me,” interrupted Decima with a faint smile. “This green plot shall be our court, this furze-bush our witness-box; and we will do in action as we will do it before the judge.”

“A vile paraphrase. And if we are to talk of midsummer-night’s dreams, Decima—”

“We certainly won’t do that,” she said, turning very pink. “Pray continue your cross-examination, Mr. Watchman.”

“Thank you, my lord. First question: is this body— society, club, movement or whatever it is — an incorporated company?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means among other things, that the books would have to be audited by a chartered accountant.”

“Good Heavens, no. It’s simply grown up, largely owing to the efforts of Will Pomeroy and myself.”

“So I supposed. You’ve a list of subscribing members?”

“Three hundred and forty-five,” said Decima proudly.

“And the subscription?”

“Ten bob. Are you thinking of joining us?”

“Who collects the ten bobs?”

“The Treasurer.”

“And Secretary…Mr. Legge?”

“Yes. What are you driving at? What were you at, last night, baiting Bob Legge?”

“Wait a moment. Do any other sums of money pass through his hands?”

“I don’t see why I should tell you these things,” said Decima.

“There’s no reason, but you have my assurance that I mean well.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“And you may be sure I shall regard this conversation as strictly confidential.”

“All right,” she said uneasily. “We’ve raised sums for different objects. We want to start a Left Book Club in Illington and there are one or two funds: Spanish, Czech, and Austrian refugees, and the fighting fund, and so on.”

“Yes. At the rate of how much a year? Three hundred, for instance?”

“About that. Quite that I should think. We’ve some very generous supporters.”

“Now look here, Decima. Did you inquire very carefully into this man Legge’s credentials?”

“I — no. I mean, he’s perfectly sound. He’s secretary for several other things: some philatelic society and a correspondence course, and he’s agent for one or two things.”

“He’s been there ten months, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. He’s not strong; touch of T.B., I think, and some trouble with his ears. His doctor told him to come down here. He’s been very generous and subscribed to the movement himself.”

“May I give you a word of advice? Have your books audited.”

“Do you know Bob Legge? You can’t make veiled accusations—”

“I have made no accusations.”

“You’ve suggested that—”

“That you should be businesslike,” said Watchman. “That’s all.”

“Do you know this man? You must tell me.”

There was a very long silence and then Watchman said:

“I’ve never known anybody of that name.”

“Then I don’t understand,” said Decima.

“Let us say I’ve taken an unreasonable dislike to him.”

“I’ve already come to that conclusion. It was obvious last night.”

“Well, think it over.” He looked fixedly at her and then said suddenly: “Why won’t you marry Will Pomeroy?”

Decima turned white and said: “That, at least, is entirely my own business.”

“Will you meet me here to-night?”

“No.”

“Do I no longer attract you, Decima?”

“I’m afraid you don’t.”

“Little liar, aren’t you?”

“The impertinent lady-killer stuff,” said Decima, “doesn’t wear very well. It has a way of looking merely cheap.”

“You can’t insult me,” said Watchman. “Tell me this. Am I your only experiment?”

“I don’t want to start any discussion of this sort. The thing’s at an end. It’s been dead a year.”

“No. Not on my part. It could be revived, and very pleasantly. Why are you angry? Because I didn’t write?”

“Good Lord, no!” ejaculated Decima.

“Then why—?”

He laid his hand over hers. As if unaware of his touch, her fingers plucked the blades of grass beneath them.

“Meet me here to-night,” he repeated.

“I’m meeting Will to-night at the Feathers.”

“I’ll take you home.”

Decima turned on him.

“Look here,” she said, “we’d better get this straightened out. You’re not in the least in love with me, are you?”

“I adore you.”

“I daresay, but you don’t love me. Nor do I love you. A year ago I fell for you rather heavily and we know what happened. I can admit now that I was— well, infatuated. I can even admit that what I said just then wasn’t true. For about two months I did mind your not writing. I minded damnably. Then I recovered in one bounce. I don’t want any recrudescence.”

“How solemn,” murmured Watchman, “how learned, and how young.”

“It may seem solemn and young to you. Don’t flatter yourself I’m the victim of remorse. I’m not. One has to go through with these things, I’ve decided. But don’t let’s blow on the ashes.”

“We wouldn’t have to blow very hard.”

“Perhaps not.”

“You admit that, do you?”

“Yes. But I don’t want to do it.”

“Why? Because of Pomeroy?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to marry him, after all?”

“I don’t know. He’s ridiculously class-conscious about sex. He’s completely uneducated in some ways but — I don’t know. If he knew about last year he’d take it very badly and I can’t marry him without telling him.”

“Well,” said Watchman suddenly, “don’t expect me to be chivalrous and decent. I imagine chivalry and decency don’t go with sex-education and freedom, anyway. Don’t be a fool, Decima. You know you think it would be rather fun.”

He pulled her towards him. Decima muttered, “No, you don’t,” and suddenly they were struggling fiercely. Watchman thrust her back till her shoulders were against the bank. As he stooped his head to kiss her, she wrenched one hand free and she struck him, clumsily but with violence, across the mouth.

“You—” said Watchman.

She scrambled to her feet and stood looking down at him.

“I wish to God,” she said savagely, “that you’d never come back.”

There was a moment’s silence.

Watchman, too, had got to his feet. They looked into each other’s eyes; and then, with a gesture that, for all its violence and swiftness, suggested the movement of an automaton, he took her by the shoulders and kissed her. When he had released her they moved apart stiffly, with no eloquence in either of their faces or figures.

Decima said: “You’d better get out of there. If you stay here it’ll be the worse for you. I could kill you. Get out.”

They heard the thud of footsteps on turf and Cubitt and Sebastian Parish came over the brow of the hillock.