Mr. Waddington of Wyck Part 25

"No," said f.a.n.n.y. "It isn't."

Meanwhile, if the book was to be ready for publication in the spring, the photographs would have to be taken at once, before the light and the leaves were gone.

So Pyecraft and Pyecraft's man came with their best camera, and photographed and photographed, as long as the fine weather lasted. They photographed the Market Square, Wyck-on-the-Hill; they photographed the church; they photographed Lower Wyck village and the Manor House, the residence--corrected to seat--of Mr. Horatio Bysshe Waddington, the author. They photographed the Tudor porch, showing the figures of the author and of Mrs. Waddington, his wife, and Miss Barbara Madden, his secretary. They photographed the author sitting in his garden; they photographed him in his park, mounted on his mare, Speedwell; and they photographed him in his motor-car. Then they came in and looked at the library and photographed that, with Mr. Waddington sitting in it at his writing-table.

"I suppose, sir," Mr. Pyecraft said, "you'd wish it taken from one end to show the proportions?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Waddington.

And when Pyecraft came the next day with the proofs he said, "I think, sir, we've got the proportions very well."

Mr. Waddington stared at the proofs, holding them in a hand that trembled slightly with emotion. With a just annoyance. For though Pyecraft had certainly got the proportions of the library, Mr.

Waddington's head was reduced to a mere black spot in the far corner.

If _that_ was what Pyecraft meant by proportion--

"I think," he said, "the--er--the figure is not quite satisfactory."

"The--? I see, sir. I did not understand, sir, that you wished the figure."

"We-ell--" Mr. Waddington didn't like to appear as having wished the figure so ardently as he did indeed wish it. "If I'm to be there at all--"

"Quite so, sir. But if you wish the size of the library to be shown, I am afraid the figure must be sacrificed. We can't do you it both ways.

But how would you think, sir, of being photographed yourself, somewhat larger, seated at your writing-table? We could do you that."

"I hadn't thought of it, Pyecraft."

As a matter of fact, he had thought of nothing else. He had the t.i.tle of the picture in his mind: "The Author at Work in the Library, Lower Wyck Manor."

Pyecraft waited in deference to Mr. Waddington's hesitation. His man, less delicate but more discerning, was already preparing to adjust the camera.

Mr. Waddington turned, like a man torn between personal distaste and public duty, to Barbara.

"What do _you_ think, Miss Madden?"

"I think the book would hardly be complete without you."

"Very well. You hear, Pyecraft, Miss Madden says I am to be photographed."

"Very good, sir."

He wheeled sportively. "Now how am I to sit?"

"If you would set yourself so, sir. With your papers before you, spread careless, so. And your pen in your hand, so.... A little nearer, Bateman. The figure is important this time.... _Now_, sir, if you would be so good as to look up."

Mr. Waddington looked up with a face of such extraordinary solemnity that Mr. Pyecraft smiled in spite of his deference.

"A leetle brighter expression. As if you had just got an idea."

Mr. Waddington imagined himself getting an idea and tried to look like it.

"Perfect--perfect." Mr. Pyecraft almost danced with excitement. "Keep that look on your face, sir, half a moment.... Now, Bateman."

A click.

"_That's_ over, thank goodness," said Mr. Waddington, reluctant victim of Pyecraft's and Barbara's importunity.

After that Mr. Pyecraft and his man were driven about the country taking photographs. In one of them Mr. Waddington appeared standing outside the mediaeval Market Hall of Chipping Kingdon. In another, wearing fis.h.i.+ng boots, and holding a fis.h.i.+ng-rod in his hand, he waded knee deep in the trout stream between Upper and Lower Speed.

And after that he said firmly, "I will not be photographed any more.

They've got enough of me."

2

In November, when the photographing was done, f.a.n.n.y went away to London for a fortnight, leaving Barbara, as she said, to take care of Horatio, and Ralph Bevan to take care of Barbara.

It was then, in consequence of letters he received from Mrs. Levitt, that Mr. Waddington's visits in Sheep Street became noticeably frequent.

Barbara, sitting on her camp-stool above the White House, noticed them.

She noticed, too, the singular abstraction of Mr. Waddington's manner in these days. There were even moments when he ceased to take any interest in his Ramblings, and left Barbara to continue them, as Ralph had continued them, alone, reserving to himself the authority of supervision. She had long stretches of time to herself, when she had reason to suspect that Mr. Waddington was driving Mrs. Leavitt to Cheltenham or Stratford-on-Avon in his car, while Ralph Bevan obeyed f.a.n.n.y's parting charge to look after Barbara.

Every time Barbara did a piece of the Ramblings she showed it to Ralph Bevan. They would ride off together into the open country, and Barbara would read aloud to Ralph, sitting by the roadside where they lunched, or in some inn parlour where they had tea. They had decided that, though it would be dishonourable of Barbara to show him the bits that Mr.

Waddington had written, there could be no earthly harm in trusting him with the bits she had done herself.

Not that you could tell the difference. Barbara had worked hard, knowing that the sooner Mr. Waddington's book was finished the sooner Ralph's book would come out; and under this agreeable stimulus she had developed into the perfect parodist of Waddington. She had wallowed in Waddington's style till she was saturated with it and wrote automatically about "bold escarpments" and "the rosy flush on the high forehead of Cleeve Cloud"; about "ivy-mantled houses resting in the shade of immemorial elms"; about the vale of the Windlode, "awash with the golden light of even," and "grey villages nestling in the beech-clad hollows of the hills."

"'Come with me,'" said Barbara, "'into the little sheltered valley of the Speed; let us follow the brown trout stream that goes purling--'"

"Barbara, it's priceless. What made you think of purling?"

"_He'd_ have thought of it. 'Purling through the lush green gra.s.s of the meadows.'"

Or, "'Let us away along the great high road that runs across the uplands that divide the valleys of the Windlode and the Thames. Let us rest a moment halfway and drink--no, quaff--a mug of good Gloucesters.h.i.+re ale with mine host of the Merry Mouth.'"

Not that Mr. Waddington had ever done such a thing in his life. But all the other ramblers through the Cotswolds did it, or said they did it; and he was saturated with their spirit, as Barbara was saturated with his. He could see them, robust and genial young men in tweed knickerbocker suits, tramping their thirty miles a day and quaffing mugs of ale in every tavern; and he desired to present himself, like those young men, as genial and robust. He couldn't get away from them and their books any more than he had got away from Sir Maurice Gedge and his prospectus.

And Barbara had invented all sorts of robust and genial things for him to do. She dressed him in pink, and mounted him on his mare Speedwell, and sent him flying over the stone walls and five-barred gates to the baying of "Ranter and Ranger and Bellman and True." He fished and he tramped and he quaffed and he tramped again. He did his thirty miles a day easily. She set down long conversations between Mr. Waddington and old Billy, the Cotswold shepherd, all about the good old Cotswold ways, in the good old days when the good old Squire, Mr. Waddington's father--no, his grandfather--was alive.

"'I do call to mind, zur, what old Squire did use to zay to me: "Billy,"

'e zays, "your grandchildren won't be fed, nor they won't 'ave the cottages, nor yet the clothes as you 'ave and your children. As zure as G.o.d's in Gloucester" 'e zays. They was rare old times, zur, and they be gawn.'"

"_What_ made you think of it, Barbara? I don't suppose he ever said two words to old Billy in his life."

"Of course he didn't. 'But it's the sort of thing he'd like to think he did."

"Has he pa.s.sed it?"

"Rather. He's as pleased as Punch. He thinks he's forming my style."