Pat, for her part, appeared composed.
'That mongrel of yours is a nice sort of watchdog,' she said. 'I've been flinging tons of gravel at your window and she hasn't uttered a sound.'
'Emily's gone away somewhere.'
'I hope she gets bitten by a rabbit,' said Pat. 'I'm off that hound for life. I met her in the village a little while ago and she practically cut me dead.'
There was a pause.
'Pat!' said John, thickly.
'I thought I'd come up and see how you were getting on. It was such a lovely night, I couldn't go to bed. What were you doing, prowling round?'
It suddenly came home to John that he was neglecting his vigil. The thought caused him no remorse whatever. A thousand burglars with a thousand jemmies could break into the Hall and he would not stir a step to prevent them.
'Oh, just walking.'
'Were you surprised to see me?'
'Yes.'
'We don't see much of each other nowadays.'
'I didn't know. . . . I wasn't sure you wanted to see me.'
'Good gracious! What made you think that?'
'I don't know.'
Silence fell upon them again. John was harassed by a growing consciousness that he was failing to prove himself worthy of this golden moment which the Fates had granted to him. Was this all he was capable of – stiff, halting words which sounded banal even to himself? A night like this deserved, he felt, something better. He saw himself for an instant as he must be appearing to a girl like Pat, a girl who had been everywhere and met all sorts of men – glib, dashing men; suave, ingratiating men; men of poise and savoir faire who could carry themselves with a swagger. An aching humility swept over him.
And yet she had come here tonight to see him. The thought a little restored his self-respect, and he was trying with desperate search in the unexplored recesses of his mind to discover some remark which would show his appreciation of that divine benevolence, when she spoke again.
'Johnnie, let's go out on the moat.'
John's heart was singing like one of the morning stars. The suggestion was not one which he would have made himself, for it would not have occurred to him, but now that it had been made, he saw how super-excellent it was. He tried to say so, but words would not come to him.
'You don't seem very enthusiastic,' said Pat. 'I suppose you think I ought to be at home and in bed?'
'No.'
'Perhaps you want to go to bed?'
'No.'
'Well, come on then.'
They walked in silence down the yew-hedged path that led to the boat-house. The tranquil beauty of the night wrapped them about as in a garment. It was very dark here, and even the gleam of white that was Pat had become indistinct.
'Johnnie?'
'Yes?'
He heard her utter a little exclamation. Something soft and scented stumbled against him, and for an instant he was holding her in his arms. The next moment he had very properly released her again, and he heard her laugh.
'Sorry,' said Pat. 'I stumbled.'
John did not reply. He was incapable of speech. That swift moment of contact had had the effect of clarifying his mental turmoil. Luminously now he perceived what was causing his lack of eloquence. It was the surging, choking desire to kiss Pat, to reach out and snatch her up in his arms and hold her there.
He stopped abruptly.
'What's the matter?'
'Nothing,' said John.
Prudence, the kill-joy, had whispered in his ear. He visualized Prudence as a pale-faced female with down-drawn lips and mild, warning stare who murmured thinly 'Is it wise?' Before her whisper primitive emotions fled, abashed. The caveman in John fled back into the dim past whence he had come. Most certainly, felt the twentieth-century John, it would not be wise. Very clearly Pat had shown him, that night in London, that all that she could give him was friendship, and to gratify the urge of some distant ancestor who ought to have been ashamed of himself he had been proposing to shatter the delicate crystal of this friendship into fragments. He shivered at the narrowness of escape.
He had read stories. In stories girls drew their breath in sharply and said 'Oh, why must you spoil everything?' He decided not to spoil everything. Walking warily, he reached the little gate that led to the boat-house steps and opened it with something of a flourish.
'Be careful,' he said.
'What of?' said Pat. It seemed to John that she spoke a trifle flatly.
'These steps are rather tricky.'
'Oh?' said Pat.
III
He followed her into the punt, oppressed once more by a feeling that something had gone wrong with what should have been the most wonderful night of his life. Girls are creatures of moods, and Pat seemed now to have fallen into one of odd aloofness. She said nothing as he pushed the boat out, and remained silent as it slid through the water with a little tinkling ripple, bearing them into a world of stars and coolness, where everything was still and the trees stood out against the sky as if carved from cardboard.
'Are you all right?' said John, at last.
'Splendid, thanks.' Pat's mood seemed to have undergone another swift change. Her voice was friendly again. She nestled into the cushions. 'This is luxury. Do you remember the old days when there was nothing but the weed-boat?'
'They were pretty good days,' said John wistfully.
'They were, rather,' said Pat.
The spell of the summer night held them silent again. No sound broke the stillness but the slap of tiny waves and the rhythmic dip and splash of the paddle. Then with a dry flittering a bat wheeled overhead, and out somewhere by the little island where the birds nested something leaped noisily in the water. Pat raised her head.
'A pike?'
'Must have been.'
Pat sat up and leaned forward.
'That would have excited father,' she said. 'I know he's dying to get out here and have another go at the pike. Johnnie, I do wish somebody could do something to stop this absurd feud between him and Mr Carmody. It's too silly. I know father would be all over Mr Carmody if only he would make some sort of advance. After all, he did behave very badly. He might at least apologize.'
John did not reply for a moment. He was thinking that whoever tried to make his uncle apologize for anything had a whole-time job on his hands. Obstinate was a mild word for the squire of Rudge. Pigs bowed as he passed, and mules could have taken his correspondence course.
'Uncle Lester's a peculiar man.'
'But he might listen to you.'
'He might,' said John doubtfully.
'Well, will you try? Will you go to him and say that all father wants is for him to admit he was in the wrong? Good heavens! It isn't asking much of a man to admit that when he's nearly murdered somebody.'
'I'll try.'
'Hugo says Mr Carmody has gone off his head, but he can't have gone far enough off not to be able to see that father has a perfect right to be offended at being grabbed round the waist and used as a dug-out against dynamite explosions.'
'I think Hugo's off his head,' said John. 'He was running round the garden last night, dashing himself against trees. He said he was chasing a burglar.'
Pat was not to be diverted into a discussion of Hugo's mental deficiencies.
'Well, will you do your best, Johnnie? Don't just let things slide as if they didn't matter. I tell you, it's rotten for me. Father found me talking to Hugo the other day and behaved like something out of a super-film. He seemed sorry there wasn't any snow, so that he couldn't drive his erring daughter out into it. If he knew I was up here tonight he would foam with fury. He says I mustn't speak to you or Hugo or Mr Carmody or Emily – not that I want to speak to Emily, the little blighter – nor your ox nor your ass nor anything that is within your gates. He's put a curse on the Hall. It's one of those comprehensive curses, taking in everything from the family to the mice in the kitchen, and I tell you I'm jolly well fed up. This place has always been just like a home to me, and you...'
John paused in the act of dipping his paddle into the water.
'. . . and you have always been just like a brother . . .'
John dug the paddle down with a vicious jerk.
'. . . and if father thinks it doesn't affect me to be told I mustn't come here and see you, he's wrong. I suppose most girls nowadays would just laugh at him, but I can't. It isn't his being angry I'd mind – it would hurt his feelings so frightfully if I let him down and went fraternizing with the enemy. So I have come here on the sly, and if there's one thing in the world I hate it's doing things on the sly. So do reason with that old pig of an uncle of yours, Johnnie. Talk to him like a mother.'
'Pat,' said John fervently, 'I don't know how it's going to be done, but if it can be done I'll do it.'
'That's the stuff ! You're a funny old thing, Johnnie. In some ways you're so slow, but I believe when you really start out to do anything you generally put it through.'
'Slow?' said John, stung. 'How do you mean, slow?'
'Well, don't you think you're slow?'
'In what way?'
'Oh, just slow.'
In spite of the fact that the stars were shining bravely, the night was very dark, much too dark for John to be able to see Pat's face: but he got the impression that, could he have seen it, he would have discovered that she was smiling that old mocking smile of hers. And somehow, though in the past he had often wilted meekly and apologetically beneath this smile, it filled him now with a surge of fury. He plied the paddle wrathfully, and the boat shot forward.
'Don't go so fast,' said Pat.
'I thought I was slow,' retorted John, sinking back through the years to the repartee of school days.
Pat gurgled in the darkness.
'Did I wound you, Johnnie? I'm sorry. You aren't slow. It's just Prudence, I expect.'
Prudence! John ceased to paddle. He was tingling all over, and there had come upon him a strange breathlessness.
'How do you mean, prudence?'
'Oh, just prudence. I can't explain.'
Prudence! John sat and stared through the darkness in a futile effort to see her face. A water-rat swam past, cleaving a fan-shaped trail. The stars winked down at him. In the little island a bird moved among the reeds. Prudence! Was she referring . . .? Had she meant...? Did she allude...?
He came to life and dug the paddle into the water. Of course she wasn't. Of course she hadn't. Of course she didn't. In that little episode on the path, he had behaved exactly as he should have behaved. If he had behaved as he should not have behaved, if he had behaved as that old flint-axe and bearskin John of the Stone Age would have had him behave, he would have behaved unpardonably. The swift intake of the breath and the 'Oh, why must you spoil everything?' – that was what would have been the result of listening to the advice of a bounder of an ancestor who might have been a social success in his day but certainly didn't understand the niceties of modern civilization.
Nevertheless, he worked with unnecessary vigour at the paddle, calling down another rebuke from his passenger.
'Don't race along like that. Are you trying to hint that you want to get this over as quickly as you can and send me home to bed?'
'No,' was all John could find to say.
'Well, I suppose I ought to be thinking of bed. I'll tell you what. Take me out into the Skirme and down as far as the bridge and drop me there. Or is that too big a programme? You're probably tired.'
John had motored two hundred miles that day, but he had never felt less tired. His view was that he wished they could row on for ever.
'All right,' he said.
'Push on, then,' said Pat. 'Only do go slowly. I want to enjoy this. I don't want to whizz by all the old landmarks. How far to Ghost Corner?'
'It's just ahead.'
'Well, take it easy.'
The moat proper was a narrow strip of water which encircled the Hall and had been placed there by the first Carmody in the days when householders believed in making things difficult for their visitors. With the gradual spread of peace throughout the land its original purpose had been forgotten, and later members of the family had broadened it and added to it and tinkered with it and sprinkled it with little islands with the view of converting it into something resembling as nearly as possible an ornamental lake. Apparently it came to an end at the spot where a mass of yew-trees stood forbiddingly in a gloomy row; that haunted spot which Pat as a child had named Ghost Corner: but if you approached this corner intrepidly you found there a narrow channel. Which navigated, you came into a winding stream which led past meadows and under bridges to the upper reaches of the Skirme.
'How old were you, Johnnie, when you were first brave enough to come past Ghost Corner at night all by yourself?' asked Pat.
'Sixteen.'
'I bet you were much more than that.'
'I did it on my sixteenth birthday.'
Pat stretched out a hand and the branches brushed her fingers.
'I wouldn't do it even now,' she said. 'I know perfectly well a skinny arm covered with black hair would come out of the yews and grab me. There's something that looks like a skinny arm hovering at the back of your neck now, Johnnie. What made you such a hero that particular day?'
'You had betted me I wouldn't, if you remember.'
'I don't remember. Did I?'
'Well, you egged me on with taunts.'
'And you went and did it? What a good influence I've been in your life, haven't I? Oh, dear! It's funny to think of you and me as kids on this very bit of water and here we are again now, old and worn and quite different people, and the water's just the same as ever.'
'I'm not different.'
'Yes, you are.'
'What makes you say I'm different?'
'Oh, I don't know.'
John stopped paddling. He wanted to get to the bottom of this.
'Why do you say I'm different?'
'Those white things through the trees there must be geese.'
John was not interested in geese.
'I'm not different at all,' he said, 'I . . . ' He broke off. He had been on the verge of saying that he had loved her then and that he loved her still – which, he perceived, would have spoiled everything. 'I'm just the same,' he concluded lamely.
'Then why don't you sport with me on the green as you did when you were a growing lad? Here you have been back for days, and tonight is the first glimpse I get of you. And, even so, I had to walk a mile and fling gravel at your window. In the old days you used to live on my doorstep. Do you think I've enjoyed being left all alone all this time?'
John was appalled. Put this way, the facts did seem to point to a callous negligence on his part. And all the while he had been supposing his conduct due to delicacy and a sense of what was fitting and would be appreciated. In John's code, it was the duty of a man who has told a girl he loves her and been informed that she does not love him to efface himself, to crawl into the background, to pass out of her life till the memory of his crude audacity shall have been blotted out by time. Why, half the big game shot in Africa owed their untimely end, he understood, to this tradition.
'I didn't know. . . .'
'What?'
'I didn't know you wanted to see me.'
'Of course I wanted to see you. Look here, Johnnie. I'll tell you what. Are you doing anything tomorrow?'
'No.'
'Then get out that old rattletrap of yours and gather me up at my place, and we'll go off and have a regular picnic like we used to do in the old days. Father is lunching out. You could come at about one o'clock. We could get out to Wenlock Edge in an hour. It would be lovely there if this weather holds up. What do you say?'
John did not immediately say anything. His feelings were too deep for words. He urged the boat forward, and the Skirme received it with that slow, grave, sleepy courtesy which made it for right-thinking people the best of all rivers.
'Will you?'
'Will I!'
'All right. That's splendi
d. I'll expect you at one.'
The Skirme rippled about the boat, chuckling softly to itself. It was a kindly, thoughtful river, given to chuckling to itself like an old gentleman who likes seeing young people happy.
'We used to have some topping picnics in the old days,' said Pat dreamily.
'We did,' said John.
'Though why on earth you ever wanted to be with a beastly bossy, consequential, fractious kid like me, goodness knows.'
'You were fine,' said John.
The Old Bridge loomed up through the shadows. John had steered the boat shorewards, and it brushed against the reeds with a sound like the blowing of fairy bugles.
Pat scrambled out and bent down to where he sat, holding to the bank.
'I'm not nearly so beastly now, Johnnie,' she said in a whisper. 'You'll find that out some day, perhaps, if you're very patient. Good-night, Johnnie, dear. Don't forget tomorrow.'
She flitted away into the darkness, and John, releasing his hold on the bank and starting up as if he had had an electric shock, was carried out into midstream. He was tingling from head to foot. It could not have happened, of course, but for a moment he had suddenly received the extraordinary impression that Pat had kissed him.
'Pat!' he called, choking.
There came no answer out of the night – only the sleepy chuckling of the Skirme as it pottered on to tell its old friend the Severn about it.
'Pat!'
John drove the paddle forcefully into the water, and the Skirme, ceasing to chuckle, uttered two loud gurgles of protest as if resenting treatment so violent. The nose of the boat bumped against the bank, and he sprang ashore. He stood there, listening. But there was nothing to hear. Silence had fallen on an empty world.