CHAPTER XVI
A NOTE OF INQUIRY
Ripleigh Regatta is one of the pleasantest of the upriver festivals. It is not an aquatic circus, like Henley; neither is it swamped by a too convenient train service from Town, as at Maidenhead; yet it is not so remote or so obscure as to be disregarded by the metropolitan and University crews. The Ripleigh Grand Challenge Cup is a valuable prize. Last year it was won by Jesus College, Cambridge, after a memorable struggle with Thames Rowing Club, New College and London having gone down gloriously in the semi final. Altogether Ripleigh Regatta is not an event to be taken lightly, I can assure you.
Denny Cradock and Leo Bagby were not particularly interested in the fate of the Grand Challenge Cup. Their field of vision was entirely occupied by the Darnborough Vase, an unsightly receptacle of silver gilt, the prospective property for twelve months of the crew who should win the Junior-Senior Fours. The Ripleigh Four, the local hope, consisting of Denny at stroke and Leo at three, with a stout pair of brothers named Bullock at bow and two, had been training hard for nearly three weeks. Each evening they put forth in their frail craft; and with Youth at the helm, in the person of Master Bobby Devereux, lent by the Vicarage, proceeded to row courses, half courses, minutes, half-minutes, and short bursts, after the accepted canons of amateur rowing (which have not changed a particle since sliding seats were invented), until now, upon the eve of the Regatta, they found themselves as physically fit and mechanically perfect as plain living and high endeavour could make them.
Their chief difficulty had been to secure adequate coaching. A good rowing coach is a pearl of great price—and corresponding rarity. He must be able not only to point out to the oarsman the errors of his way, but to tell him what to do to correct them—a rare combination in any critic. He must also possess an authoritative manner and lungs of brass. Under these conditions an asthmatic and intermittent vicar on a bicycle can only be described as a makeshift.
Great, then, was the joy of the Ripleigh Junior Senior crew when the heavens opened, and Captain Dale Conway—soldier, athlete, and very engaging man of the world—descended therefrom and volunteered to coach them. His offer was accepted with acclamation, and the crew made marked progress from that hour. Captain Conway was perhaps not quite such a good coach as he sounded; but, as a popular preacher once observed in a confiding moment, ‘It’s the air of conviction that does it.’ At any rate, Conway succeeded in animating his charges with complete belief in their own invincibility, which is the only thing that really matters in racing—or, indeed, in most phases of the battle of life.
It was six o’clock on the evening before the Regatta, and the crew were returning from their final practice in a quiet part of the river. They had just easied after a short burst, and now sat humped over their oars, panting contentedly and paying respectful attention to the words of their preceptor, who reclined gracefully against a bicycle upon the towpath.
‘Very well rowed! Much better all round; but you’re still inclined to rush the first few strokes. Remember, it’s no use swinging right out for the second stroke—or the third, for that matter. Keep your slides well back, and content yourselves with getting a quick grip of the water. When the boat has really begun to run, you can swing till your noses hit the keel, if you like. Bow, keep your hands up over the stretcher, or you’ll be late on Three all the time. Three’s a big bouncing boy, I know, but that’s no reason why he should row one side of the boat along all by himself. Cox, watch Bow’s blade, and give him ginger every time he’s late. Stroke, old man, you have still got a dirty finish. The only way to cure it is by getting a harder beginning; so steady forward! Now, everybody, we’ll try one more start, and see if we can’t get her off like a stone out of a catapult. Remember, there’s only one rule in boat-racing, and that is to get the lead and stick to it. Get forward!—I want to see ten strokes in the first quarter of a minute this time—are you ready? Row!... Oh, well done, well done! Easy, Cox!’
On the opposite side of the river, moored to the bank, lay a punt containing Joan and Uncle Tony.
‘They certainly have come on a lot since he took them in hand,’ remarked Joan, gazing across the river. ‘Do you think he’s really any good as a coach, Uncle Tony?’
Sir Anthony surveyed his critical young companion quizzically.
‘That sounds as if you didn’t, Joan.’
‘You’re right. I don’t see how such a born humbug could really be much good at anything,’ replied Joan, with characteristic candour.
Uncle Tony removed his pipe from his mouth, leaned forward, and extended a hand.
‘Shake!’ he said.
Joan complied, and, the Anti-Conway Lodge being thus formally inaugurated, the pair resumed their positions at opposite ends of the punt and smiled at one another—the rare smile of those fortunate people who can understand without explanations.
‘He’s an interesting rascal,’ said Uncle Tony thoughtfully—‘a curious case. I have been studying him pretty closely for the past three weeks. He seems to be entirely devoid of moral principle and utterly without compassion or conscience of any kind; yet one cannot deny that he is a genial, breezy, attractive fellow, and a delightful companion when he likes. Am I right in supposing that he has brought his talents to bear on you already, Joan?’
‘Oh, yes. He began the day after he arrived.’
‘What line did he take?’
‘He began by working the “old-friend-of-your father” act.’
‘To which, I suppose, you retaliated with a few observations on Ancestor Worship?’
‘I believe I did.’
‘That choked him off, I’ll be bound.’
‘Oh, dear, no. One evening last week he took me out on the river in a punt. He tied the punt to a willow stump, and told me the sad story of his life.’
‘Poor fellow! What made it sad?’
‘His wife. He had been married.’
‘I can believe that, without any difficulty whatsoever. She didn’t understand him, of course?’
‘You’ve hit it. She set his own children against him, too—’
‘That hardly sounds necessary.’
—‘and finally he lost her.’
‘That should not have been so difficult. Is she dead?’
Joan gave a little gurgle of laughter.
‘That’s what I asked,’ she said. ‘Apparently I shouldn’t have; I knew I’d made a faux pas the moment I’d spoken.’
‘It was most tactless of you,’ remarked Uncle Tony severely. ‘You pinned him down to a plain statement of fact—yea or nay? No wonder he was pained. What did he say?’
‘He buried his face in his hands—like this—and gave a sort of groan, and then asked me to spare him!’
‘That meant, “Give me time to think of a good one!” What did he say when he had recovered?’
‘He said,’ replied Joan with relish, ‘that life was a desert, and I was an oasis.’
‘Very pretty. And how did you react to that piece of information?’
‘I said I didn’t think I was green enough to be an oasis.’
This time Uncle Tony leaned back and laughed out loud.
‘You’re an unsentimental young woman, Joan,’ he said; ‘but you’ve got your head screwed on the right way.’
Joan did not reply. She was watching the boat, now far downstream, indulging in a final burst before putting into port.
‘They did ten strokes all right that time,’ she said with approval. ‘Has he tried to get round you at all, Uncle Tony?’
‘Not yet. Probably he is reserving me as a forlorn hope. How does he get on with the rest of the family?’
Joan’s brow puckered.
‘He’s after both Denny and Leo, I’m afraid. Of course Leo’s quite safe.’
Uncle Tony looked genuinely surprised.
‘You don’t say so!’ he said.
‘Yes. If Leo gets into a mess, he’ll come and tell me about it,’ explained Joan with composure, ‘and I’ll get him out of it.’
‘I was forgetting,’ said Sir Anthony gravely. Then he added:
‘Do you love that boy, Joan?’
Joan reddened.
As her mother had noted, she was utterly reticent about her own heart.
‘He’s a great big helpless baby,’ she said; ‘and I’d give—everything—to save him from hurting himself.’
‘O fortunate youth!’ murmured Uncle Tony softly. ‘Proceed, my dear!’
‘Denny is the difficulty,’ said Joan, in a troubled voice. ‘He is self-conscious, and that makes him secretive. I’m sorry for people like that; they are so sensitive that sometimes they simply can’t be straightforward. When Denny was quite a little boy, he was always playing his own games, and having his own pretends; and he was so afraid of being criticised or laughed at that very often he got into a row for concealing something, or denying something, that was perfectly harmless, really.’
‘You appear to have some knowledge of human nature, Joan.’
‘I suppose I have, in some ways. I wonder where I get it from. Not Mother: she is a child at judging character. My late papa, perhaps. One thing I am thankful for, and that is that Molly isn’t at home. She would simply have wallowed in dear Captain Conway—almost as badly as Mother.’
‘Ha!’ said Sir Anthony, looking up. ‘Is Mother wallowing?’
‘I should think she was! Haven’t you noticed?’
‘I am afraid I have, Joan. Conway is just the type to influence your mother. The kinder and gentler a woman is, the more easily she succumbs to the Conways of this world.’
Joan smiled, impishly.
‘Laura Meakin has made up her mind differently,’ she said.
‘Ah, the lady who is going to hold a meeting in your mother’s drawing-room to-morrow? What of her?’
‘She has decided that if there is any succumbing to be done in this neighbourhood she’ll do it herself. The silly creature’s in love with him. What’s more, she thinks Mother is, too; and she’s as jealous—’
Sir Anthony glanced at Joan keenly.
‘Your mother—eh? Is that true, Joan?’
Joan clasped her hands, in unwonted agitation.
‘Uncle Tony,’ she said, ‘I don’t know! I don’t know! It seems absurd even to consider such a thing being possible—Mother making a fool of herself over a man at her time of life. But—well, there it is! What do you think?’
‘Tell me what you think. Your sex possesses certain exasperating but invaluable intuitions, denied to mere man.’
For a moment Joan sat with her arms clasped round her knees, gazing downstream towards the raft, where the four boys had just hoisted their frail craft from the water, preparatory to carrying it into the boat house. Master Bobby Devereux, clinging manfully to the switching tail of the vessel, was, as usual, nearly flicked into the river by his playful companions; and a shout of laughter came floating upstream.
Then Joan spoke again.
‘Uncle Tony, there is something queer going on at home; I can feel it whenever Captain Conway comes into the house. He has some influence over Mother. It may be love; it may be fear; but she does whatever he tells her. She doesn’t seem to want to see him, yet she does see him. He’s in and out of the place all day long. What’s more, she goes and visits him.’
‘God bless me! At his bungalow?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s very imprudent!’
‘Imprudent?
It’s insane! Why, Laura Meakin saw her three days ago, coming out.’
‘And Laura has been—broadcasting—eh?’
‘I should think she has. “”She says it very loud and clear; she says it in the Vicar’s ear,” quoted Joan.
‘What is impelling your mother to do this? Love, or fear?’
Joan regarded her uncle steadily for a moment, then spoke.
She was not a girl who evaded realities.
‘I hate to say it, but something tells me it’s love.’
Uncle Tony shook his head.
‘I respect your instincts, Joan, but I don’t agree with you. My theory is that this man has some hold over your mother—some secret or other.’
‘But, Uncle Tony, can you imagine Mother ever having done anything shady in her life? The whole thing would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic.’
Uncle Tony sat up, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
‘That’s the word, Joan,’ he said—‘tragic! There’s a black spirit of tragedy hovering over this little backwater of ours: one can almost hear its ghostly wings rustling. In these surroundings the whole thing seems ludicrous. We row, we picnic, we frivol; we haven’t a care in the world! But the Spirit is there, waiting to pounce. Joan, we must exorcise that Spirit.’
‘But how? Surely Mother, of all people, can’t have done anything that this man could use against her?’
‘I am quite sure she hasn’t. But perhaps some one else has.’
‘Who?’
‘That remains to be seen. It is not always for our own actions that we have to suffer. But I’ll talk to your mother.’
‘I wish you would. Now we must get home to dinner, or there’ll be a yowl from the boys.’
Joan took the pole and began to propel the punt downstream with her long easy swing.
‘I imagine Captain Conway will also be present at the meal,’ said Sir Anthony.
‘No great stretch of imagination is required,’ replied Joan. ‘By the way, I wonder if Thwaites knows anything about him.’
‘Who is Thwaites?’
‘That grim-faced lady who has taken the place of the late lamented Simmons. She was Mother’s maid for years. She left us to do war-work; and now she’s come back. I’ll pump her, but I don’t suppose I shall get much change out of her. She’s as close as an oyster. Mind that willow-branch!’