Years of Plenty Part 31

"Wastrel."

"He's stopping. One more kiss."

Through streets that more than ever resembled enchanted pathways in a forest of shadow and silver, Martin went back exulting to his hotel.

IX

It was the second week in January when Martin went down to The Steading: he merely stayed to collect books and clothes and returned at once to London. While he was there he told his uncle and aunt that he was engaged to be married.

That night John Berrisford discussed the matter with his wife. "Well,"

he began, "what about our young Martin?"

"I suppose it's all right," said Mrs Berrisford quietly. "He's very young, but that seems to be the fas.h.i.+on nowadays."

"Yes, that doesn't matter. Long engagements are tragic, unhealthy things, but they'll be apart and he ought to be able to marry almost at once. Quite a lot of civilians do."

"And she's quite a nice girl."

John Berrisford gave the slight wriggle of the shoulders for which we have only the excessive word "shrug."

"Don't you approve?" added his wife.

"Yes and no. On the whole, no." He kicked at the fire testily.

"She's quite a nice girl and clever and reasonable beyond the average.

If Martin were going to hang about in town, well and good. But really is she the wife of an Indian Civilian?"

"But, John, surely! You with your ideas about freedom! You don't believe in the marriage of convenience, I know. Isn't Martin to have his choice?"

"Of course he shall have every choice. I'm not one to bl.u.s.ter or give orders or interfere. He's going to marry the girl, not I. I know that. But I'd like him to think a little first. Do consider the facts. Freda is clever and quick. Perhaps she really cares for Martin, perhaps she's only sick to death of the h.e.l.lish existence decreed by modern civilisation for penniless orphans of the female s.e.x.

But she has lived in a groove, she has never met people--not the kind of people she'd run up against in India. She doesn't like games or society. She likes talking and arguing and lying in bed. She'd hate the Anglo-Indian just as she hates any kind of pomp and circ.u.mstance.

She hasn't the vaguest notion as to what they'll expect of her. Worse still, she hasn't even health. She would be invalided home in a year and Martin with a salary of three or perhaps four hundred a year would have to support a wife whom he only saw on leave. You've got to consider his career and his general happiness. There is no reason why he shouldn't find a woman who understands the kind of life and behaviour, a woman who could fit in, and yet has brains and charm enough for an intelligent person."

"Mary Brodrick?" suggested Mrs Berrisford. "The kind of girl who sings about her caravan resting after dinner?"

"We needn't go as far as that. Something between the two."

"You're a heartless old schemer, John. We must respect his choice."

"Absolutely. But I'm fairly confident about the result. Anyhow there is plenty of time and it's Martin's first affair."

"Are you sure?"

"I have watched the signs of times. This is the first time he has taken a month to see the varsity match."

"But he is stubborn when he has once settled on a thing. He doesn't decide quickly, I know, but when he has he is firm."

"We'll see. As it is, I suppose you must have her down for Easter. I got her her present job and I know her employers well. I can easily get them to allow her a holiday then. And when we've got them, we must leave them very much alone."

"But surely----"

"My dear, it's the only hope. Keep them apart, hint at the unsuitability of marriage, and they'll elope on nothing in a fortnight's time. That's quite certain. My idea is to bang them together fairly hard. I don't want it to hurt, but I do want them to have a clear idea as to what they are both made of."

"Do you think it's quite fair?"

"Isn't it what they would want themselves? It's the only possible thing we can do. And also," he added quietly, "it will give a certain interest to next Easter."

But there was no need to beg a holiday for Freda. In February, when the winds came driving up the Channel and brought to England a month-long burden of rain and sleet, her health gave way again and she was warned that she was not strong enough for the wear and tear of an office life. For most people it is true that colds are not liable to the laws of cause and effect: they happen or they don't and to be soaked to the skin is no more fatal than to bask in the sun. But for Freda to arrive at the office with feet wet and cold meant certain visitation. And by six o'clock she was always worn out. Now she would have to rely on an uncle and aunt. The uncle had money and had offered already to release Freda from the misery of work, but she had refused, so intolerable had seemed his great Victorian mansion on Sheffield's edge. She had wanted, in her youthful courage, to work and to be free.

But now there was no use in fighting and she yielded partly from a consideration of hard fact, partly because her uncle had retired from his business and was coming to London. Idleness in town with an allowance! By privation she had been taught the meaning and the value of both. So it was as a woman of moderate means and unlimited leisure that Freda came to The Steading for Easter.

Martin came from Oxford jaded and tired out. He had had to work hard in order to make up for a vacation of complete indolence. The wet February had brought floods and stinted exercise and despondency: it had been tedious work, toiling over a new language in those lonely s.h.i.+p Street rooms. His soul hungered for sympathy, his body for the infinite swell and splendour of the moor and for the cold sting of the winds that whirled across it like the thongs of a lash.

For a week he stayed about the house and strolled in the near woods with Freda, whose recent illness had left her far too weak for real walking. She hadn't the strength nor could she risk a strain or chill.

So Martin lingered with her all day, while they built fantastic castles of hopes and visions. Then the inactivity grew intolerable to his body, tore at his nerves, and made him ravenous for the moor and the golf-links. Freda despised golf and could not understand how any sane person could be bothered with it. They squabbled about it gently, never suspecting that it might come to matter.

Fate fought against Freda.

Martin, whenever during these days he handled a club, found that he could do nothing wrong: he was "on his game." And the Cartmells came down for the Easter recess. G.o.dfrey had captured the seat two years ago and had settled down comfortably on a back bench from which his wife intended to oust him. But the back-bencher may live strenuous nights and days: he too was tired and wanted air and exercise. And so in the afternoons Martin was called upon as much by civility as by the craving of his heart to motor with them to the golf-course and join in a foursome. Desperate warfare took place in which Martin was Viola's, G.o.dfrey Margaret Berrisford's ally. And Martin was wonderful. His drives flew far and low, straight for the flag or the direction post: no ugly jarring told him of the topped iron-shot: his short putts ran straight into the middle of the hole. He dug his partner's foozled drives out of heather and hedge and laid her wild approaches dead with a niblick. Up on that lonely course with only the wind and the white clouds for neighbours, with no one to keep them back or hurry them on, with turf so springy that a foot could never tire, so spongy-soft that a bra.s.sie might be lightly taken and effectively wielded, with the exquisite strain of even conflict, with matches taken to the last green and won, perhaps by Martin's inimitable 'run-up'--yes, it was golf.

The joy of it was almost insupportable. Martin began to live for those afternoons; yet, if he had been off his game, had sliced with his driver and topped with his irons, as was indeed his wont, the golf-club would have lost its appeal: there is little pleasure in playing golf badly, but there is all the world in playing above your form.

Once Freda came up to watch them and walk as far as she could. But she was plainly bored, pleaded fatigue, and went back to the little club-house where she sat reading. To Martin, in his present mood of triumphant exultation, it seemed incredible that anyone could fail to see the point of it.

He tried to convince her. "Perhaps you can't imagine the thrill that conies from a really true hit: really it's one of the few good things in the world. The ball goes off clean and sweet and leaves you with a faint tingling that lets you know you've done the trick. And then you climb a ridge and there's the ball white and glistening on the green.

That means you've done exactly what you set out to do and that you've got a long putt to beat Bogey. And if you ram it in!"

"Baby!" she said, laughing. "Did 'ums like 'ums bouncey ball."

At first he laughed too and told himself that naturally they couldn't share all the same tastes. In the morning and evening he stayed with her, neglecting his work. But gradually he came to feel that there was something more than jocosity in her denunciation of the bouncey ball.

Soon after Easter one of Freda's colds kept her in bed for breakfast.

It was the Cartmells' last day but one and everything pointed to a final test of strength. They went over in the morning and stayed to lunch at the club-house. There were two great matches, of which each side gained one. Martin had not yet lost his skill: he had dreaded the day of torture when he would go "right off."

"Let's have another nine holes," said Viola Cartmell as they took an early tea. "We aren't keeping Martin from his duty. And it's our last chance and such an evening."

They agreed to play and nerved themselves for faultless execution.

An hour later Martin lay upon the steep bank at the edge of the ninth green. Now he had grasped most certainly, what Freda would never grasp, the mystery of Ham and Eggs. In the fine light of sunset the moor seemed to tower inimitably above them, crowned with its eternal tors, clear-cut as by a razor's edge against the vast blue emptiness behind. The April breeze was whispering in the gra.s.s and timid larks soared and plunged and hung singing in the void. Before him was the smooth-shaven green, true as a billiard cloth but humped with testing undulations. And there were the three other players awaiting with tense anxiety the future of the match. G.o.dfrey was kneeling to take the line of his putt: the ball would end its journey along the side of a veritable mountain, a glorious stroke to achieve! Farther back were Margaret and Viola. Suddenly the breeze caught them, s.n.a.t.c.hed at a stray wisp of hair, played with their skirts, and gave a last caress to cheeks already kissed to flame. There were grace and strength knit perfectly: to Martin they seemed, after the slight form of Freda, tremendous. Yet why shouldn't women be strong? He wanted them to be strong, to walk with him, to fear neither wind nor weather. And Freda...

His thoughts returned swiftly to the match. G.o.dfrey was on the point of playing: he had this, a ten footer, to halve the hole and the match.

There was silence and then the gentle tap of the club on a rubber-cored ball. One gazed, one shouted. The ball had lipped the hole and swung out to the left.

In the car they fought the whole match over again.

"If only I hadn't given you the sixteenth this morning----"