Part 25 (2/2)

”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.”

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