NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES
The next afternoon he ran into Harriet Knewstubb, wheeling her bicycle
into his front hall. She bestowed upon him the kind of cool nod that
you keep for the butcher’s boy when you find him loitering at your door
without obvious excuse. She was a plain, straight girl, with keen, dark
eyes and a breeziness of manner that made the air sing in your ears.
“Helwise asked me to call for her,” she announced--“explained” implies
a certain courtesy very aggressively absent. “We’re going over to throw
cards at Watters. You’ve no objection to my shoving this in here, have
you? I hate my machine standing about in the sun.”
Lanty said he was only too pleased, and watched dispassionately while
she scraped the doorpost with her off-pedal, and a valuable oak chest
with the front mud-guard. Then he took it from her and put it in a
corner, inviting her to come in and wait, but she refused.
“No, thanks. I’ll hang about till she’s ready. Hope she won’t be long.
We arranged to go early, so as to skip kitchen tea. Is it true, do you
know? By the way, Helwise said something about driving. Hope it isn’t
a closed shanty, anyway! I can’t stick them, myself. I told her she’d
much better cycle. Do her a lot more good than stuffing along in an old
’bus.”
“It’s too hot for cycling.” Lanty tried not to look annoyed. “You’ll
hardly find it stuffy in the dog-cart, I think. I prefer my aunt to
drive. She’s so energetic, I’m afraid of her knocking up.”
In reality, he had shrunk from the mental image of Helwise in
flickering spots pounding through blazing motor-dust to call
at Watters. He had no feeling for Dandy except irritation and
misunderstanding, but it would have hurt his pride that she should see
his only female relative sliding off a bicycle at her front door. He
had even gone to the unprecedented length of suggesting costume, and
Helwise, with a conscience shrieking subscription-lists, had consented
to oblige. Miss Knewstubb, of course, was at liberty to please herself,
as far as he was concerned, and her tastes were certainly plain. She
could not be much older than Dandy, he reflected, looking back over
years of acquaintance, but she gave no impression of appealing youth.
She bullied you at bridge, hammered you at golf, while at tennis she
picked you up by the scruff of your neck, shook you, and slammed you
down again. These, however, were her amusements. Her main business in
life was farming Wild Duck Hall, the pretty farm over the hill, and
very successfully she did it. He admitted that, even while resenting
her aggressive self-satisfaction, her pistol-shot conversation and
general hardness of appearance.
He knew vaguely that Dandy’s smart tweeds had been too passionately
sporting, the fringed tongues of her polished brogues too elaborate,
her little cap worn at too rakish an angle, but she had kept a feminine
graciousness, nevertheless. Harriet’s skirt and shirt were right for
the place, if not exactly for a first call; her smoothly-drawn tie
was a tie and not a frivolous butterfly of blue silk; her hat held no
suggestion of advertisement _à la mode_; but she was hard from her tall
silk collar to the nails in her square shoes. Even her glossy hair
looked hard. He thought gloomily that no man would ever want to put his
lips to it, or draw her well-set head against his shoulder. Dandy’s
hair was soft as gossamer. Her little head would nestle as lightly as a
downy Buff Orpington. He shook off the wandering thought, surprised and
annoyed. She believed that he starved Flower!
Helwise bustled down the stairs in the requested lavender, and fell
over the bicycle, which instantly swung round by the head and described
a graceful curve on the paint with a ribbed handle. The master of the
house picked it up, and followed the ladies out, to find them already
mounted. Helwise was anxious to be off, in case he remembered the
subscriptions. Harriet had dispossessed the factotum of the reins,
without asking anybody, and flourished down the drive, leaving echoes
of “kitchen tea” behind her. Lanty went back into the house and looked
at the mark on the wall.
* * * * *
They did have tea, after all, though not in the kitchen. Hamer would
have felt the evading of his hospitality as a child the rejection of
its penny bag of sweets. He saw to it also that Armer had a square
meal. There were no half-measures about Hamer Shaw.
He had a warm greeting for Lancaster’s aunt, and laboured heartily
through her mixed periods, while Mrs. Shaw murmured crochet-patterns as
she made the tea, and Dandy, with an anxious expression, hearkened to
Harriet’s slashing opinions. There was a fair, pale young man, sitting
as close to her as possible, who also seemed fascinated by the caller’s
conversational methods. Harriet was enjoying herself.
“Two and a half, _at least!_” she pronounced firmly, with a critical
eye on Dandy’s skirt. “Anything less would be certain to trip you
in turnips. And I don’t recommend leather--no, I can’t say that I
recommend leather! It’s very nutty when it first comes home, but give
it a day over plough, and slap it has to go into the bucket! Those
brogues of yours are nailed all wrong, too. They should be done in
threes”--she extended a foot for inspection--“and plain tongues, of
course, the plainer the better. Those Indian-scalp imitations would
soon hang you up in a fence.”
“Does one run _all_ day in the country?” the young man inquired,
deeply interested. Harriet nodded with condescension.
“One gets about. Of course there are crowds of cat-footers who frowst
indoors with a book or a needle, but nobody worth mentioning. One’s
always off somewhere, either on a push-bike or Shanks’s pony. The
tennis is getting over, but I can put you up for the hockey, if you
care about it, Miss Shaw. I’m captain, and Miss Lancaster is secretary
and all that kind of thing. By the way, Helwise, have you got your
fixtures out yet?”
Miss Lancaster turned a vague eye.
“Fixtures? I believe Lancelot has them somewhere. He generally arranges
them for me--I’m so busy! He likes doing little things like that. Of
course, _I_ do all the _real_ work, shaking hands with the teams when
they come, and seeing that they have plenty of hairpins and two cups of
tea. _He_ only writes the letters and keeps the funds straight.”
“That’s her nephew,” Harriet kindly explained to Dandy and the pale
young man. “Agent for Bluecaster--perhaps you’ve met him. Rather a slow
old tortoise, but well-meaning. So it’s settled you’ll play hockey?
Where’s your place, I wonder? Forward, I should think, in a decent
skirt.”
Dandy thanked her politely, having expressed no opinion whatever on the
matter. Hamer looked across with a twinkle in his eye. Both Harriet and
Helwise pleased him mightily. The buffeting breeziness of the one moved
him to tolerant amusement, while the silvery ineffectiveness of the
other claimed his chivalry. He promised subscriptions without demur,
and Helwise almost purred aloud. Lancelot was so ridiculously narrow
and proud. Why, these new people _liked_ to be asked!
“You’ll be going to the Show, of course?” Harriet demanded. “Bluecaster
Agricultural Show, I mean. What do you do? Oh, you--you _prod_. Sheep
and cows and things, that is. I’m showing, of course, and if I don’t
get anything there’ll be a row. Perhaps you know I farm? And you scrap
with your friends as to which hunter will grab the card--at least,
other people do. I’ve given it up myself, because I’m always right.
Occasionally I get a bit lost at the Royal, and have to fall back on
Lanty Lancaster, but I’m always O.K. at these local arrangements.
You’ll join the choral society, I suppose? I’m nothing of a singist
personally, but I always put in an appearance. They like it. Keeps
the thing together, don’t you know? I’m not sure that it’s quite good
form to have much of a voice--looks a bit like swank--so you’ll be
all right. Lanty Lancaster used to belong at one time. He’s got a few
decent notes somewhere round the bottom C.”
“Wiggie--Mr. Wigmore--sings, too,” Dandy put in meekly, glad of a
chance to speak. The pale young man was the only friend from the old
life that had managed to get into touch with the new. He had stayed on
unobtrusively after the others had departed blatantly, and the house
had not repudiated him. Harriet gave him a casual stare.
“Oh?” she said, not at all encouragingly. “Not platforms and things, I
hope? We leave that to the tradespeople, here. Evening-dress and a red
handkerchief--_you_ know! Are you only stopping, or do you belong? You
might enter for my bumble-puppy tournament, next Thursday.”
The pale young man looked regretful.
“I’d love to, but I shan’t be here, worse luck! I’ve got to sing for a
few people, that very day. I’m so sorry.”
“Platforms and things, I’m afraid!” Dandy added, with a touch of
mischief. “But a white handkerchief. That’s something, isn’t it?”
Harriet looked puzzled.
“But don’t you _do_ anything?” she inquired briskly. “What’s your
handicap at golf? You look rather like a bank. _Are_ you a bank? Surely
you do something besides _sing_?”
Dandy opened her lips sharply, but Wiggie’s gentle gaze crossed her
own, checking her.
“I play draughts quite nicely,” he said thoughtfully; and Harriet
snorted and gave him her shoulder. Dandy looked at the carpet.
“Well, I can rake _you_ in, can’t I, Miss Shaw? Two bob entrance,
grub provided. Helwise, I’m bringing Miss Shaw to practise on your
pole! Mine’s being painted for the tournament. If Lanty or the
scrape-up-behind man will play, we can have a foursome.”
“Pleasure--of course--certainly!” Miss Lancaster responded, dragged
from a demand for rummage. “Armer isn’t very safe, though. He _will_
play a sort of Aunt Sally, and it hurts. And Lancelot is very worried,
just now. Some of his silly tenant-people are leaving, and he’s quite
put out about it. You’d think he actually _cared_ when an old man
began to fail, or his children turned out badly! I tell him they all
look exactly alike to me, so I’m afraid I can t pretend to be very
sympathetic.”
“You mean the Ninekyrkes business?” Harriet asked. “It’s all over the
place, of course, about young Whinnerah and Michael’s daughter. The
girl’s been over-educated, that’s what’s wrong. Thinks herself too good
for her own class. They sent for Lanty, didn’t they, to try and patch
things up?”
“Why, does he always lend a hand in the tenants’ love-affairs?” Hamer
laughed. “That’s a big order, surely!”
“Oh, they use him as a family iron to smooth out the creases!” Helwise
sighed. “I have no doubt he talked to the girl like a Methuselah.
He has no _joie de vivre_. People with no _joie de vivre_ are very
depressing to live with. Oh, _thank_ you, dear Mr. Shaw! That will be a
guinea each for the Protesters and the Rummage, half a guinea for the
Paper Roses--it _was_ the Paper Roses, wasn’t it?--and, by the way, did
I mention the Torn Tea-Cloths? Oh, you must really allow me to interest
you in the Torn Tea-Cloths!”
She had the money in her hand when Lanty was suddenly announced, and
Hamer, following his accusing eyes, grasped the situation instantly.
“I’ve just been getting Miss Lancaster’s opinion on your local
charities,” he remarked, putting his big, kindly person between the
two. “I’m a whale at charities--you just ask our Dandy Anne! They’re
a sort of hobby of mine, and I’m glad to have a bit of advice from
somebody who knows what’s worth helping. Mother, give Miss Lancaster
another cup of tea!”
“Hamer doesn’t count life worth living if he hasn’t a hand in
somebody’s pie,” his wife added, comfortably following on. “There
was one whole year I declare he talked of nothing but overworked
tram-horses! I’m glad to see you, Mr. Lancaster! You know Dandy there,
I fancy? That’s Mr. Wigmore, an old friend of ours from our old home.”
Lanty found himself engineered to a chair beside the daughter of the
house, while his aunt hurried clinking coins into her purse behind
Hamer’s broad back.
“You needn’t scowl at old Helwise like that!” Harriet flung at him,
brutally undoing the family diplomacy in a breath. “Why shouldn’t she
go round catching pennies if she wants? It’s no business of yours!”
Lanty looked at her seethingly, the memory of the bicycle handle still
rankling, but before he could answer, Wiggie was at his elbow with a
teacup. He remembered him now as the singer in the Lane, and a further
memory, of much older standing, fretted vainly at the back of his
brain. A moment later he heard him telling Helwise that he had found
half a sovereign in the gutter, and couldn’t in conscience spend it
on himself. The gentle voice was so convincing, the purring answer so
ecstatic, that he smiled unwillingly, meeting deprecating flower-blue
eyes at his side.
“It seems so rotten to rook you at a first call!” he broke out. “I
expect you’ve come up against a fearful lot of that sort of thing
already, and it can’t impress you very favourably. That’s the worst of
the country. Everybody has some sort of a show wanting a leg-up, and
all the giving falls on the same people. You’ve got to help, even when
you’re not interested, or half the things would never run at all. But
new-comers should have a certain amount of rope. You must stand out
when it gets to rank robbery, and ask for time!”
“We’ll consult Watters!” Dandy said promptly. “This is a very
strong-minded house--did you know? We have to give in to it dreadfully.
It was simply hateful to our Halsted friends, especially the Tango
ones--_you_ didn’t like them either, did you?--and now it has taken a
dislike to the gardener we brought with us--drops slates on him in a
dead calm, smokes him out of the potting-shed, and, if he tries to put
up a ladder, simply humps its back and throws it off again! I’m afraid
he’ll have to go. It’s bearing _us_, so far, but of course we’re very
careful. Mother wanted to turn the old nursery into a linen-room, but
the minute she suggested it a patch of damp appeared on the ceiling,
though there hadn’t been any rain for weeks; so we had to give up the
idea. It likes Wiggie tremendously, though. His bathwater is always
hot, and his room’s always full of spiders, and stacks of little
sunbeams follow him everywhere, patting him on the head.”
Lanty laughed, and she felt quite disproportionately pleased. When he
laughed, he looked years younger and a hundred times less worried. Then
Harriet plunged into the lightened atmosphere with the pawing of a
battle-horse.
“I say--what about this matrimonial agency of yours? We’ve all been
hearing about Francey Dockeray and young Lup. What did you say to the
girl, and how did she take it?”
The transient boyish look left his face. Dandy had drawn him into a
quaint little world where tenants and their troubles had no place, but
Harriet hauled him out again.
“Aren’t you asking a bit too much?” he answered as amiably as he
could. “You’re a Bluecaster tenant, too, remember! You’ll like _your_
sermon kept private, I fancy, if ever I come arbitrating in _your_
love-affairs!”
It was said merely to chill her curiosity, but its actual effect was
quite unaccountable. Harriet blushed--a slow, surprising blush from the
rigid silk collar to the smooth hair--but she met his eye with fierce
contempt in spite of it.
“Oh, well, be an oyster, if you choose! _I_ shan’t die of it! You
didn’t do much good, from all accounts. Have you seen Brack Holliday,
lately? They say he’s raking up the old fuss about the Lugg.”
The foreboding slid in and tapped him on the shoulder. He had not meant
to come to Watters, but something had driven him; perhaps the same need
of Hamer Shaw’s strength that he had realised yesterday. He had left
the worry at Hamer’s door. Things were no different, he told himself.
The Lugg held no threat. Brack had no case. But after that one bright
moment of clear-eyed proportion, Harriet had whistled the fear back to
his side.
“Brack’s teeming with theories--has his pockets full of them!” he
answered abruptly, getting up. He moved across to his hostess, excusing
himself on business grounds. Helwise gathered herself together in a
flutter and dropped her open purse, standing helpless in chattering
dismay while everybody else dived and darted after trundling coins.
Lanty took a last look round the room, while Wiggie, grave and
anxious, moved the coalbox and the fender and the fire-screen and
all the fire-irons to rescue a threepenny-bit. It was a lovely room,
and it soothed him; it made his own still more absurdly desolate and
drear; but even this was not his ideal. Somewhere, dimly defined in
his imagination, was his holy place, with time-worn furniture and the
calling atmosphere of home.
“Queer little body!” Hamer observed when he had seen Helwise and her
purse safely off the horizon. “Talks like a string of telephone-wires
touching in a wind. And the young one sounds as though she was
pillow-fighting folk all the time! But they’re both ladies--queer how
it creeps out, in spite of the top dressing! And the lad’s a gentleman
too, although he’s so short and see-you-damned-first! He’s worrying,
though, more than a bit. Seems to me he’s got something on his mind.
Didn’t he strike you that way, Dandy Anne--as if he’d something on his
mind?”
“He isn’t happy,” Dandy answered slowly. “He’s always thinking you’re
going to hurt him, and getting ready for it. People don’t do that when
they’re happy.”
“Likely he’s got too much to carry,” Hamer said thoughtfully. “He’s
bitten off a big bite in Bluecaster, and they say the young lord don’t
help much with the chewing. Some writing-chap has it that the strongest
man is the one that can walk under the heaviest weight without
staggering, but he doesn’t say how soon he drops in his tracks. I’ve a
feeling that that Bluecaster agent isn’t so far from dropping.”
Mrs. Shaw laid a hand on his arm and drew him towards the door. Wiggie
had petitioned her with a glance.
“Now, Father dear, you leave that particular tram alone! The horse may
be a bit overwilling, but it doesn’t follow it isn’t up to weight.
Don’t start putting things right before you’ve found the hitch. Come
and help me unpack the new vacuum cleaner.”
“I hate to see any creature overpressed,” Hamer said pitifully. “I
know what it is--it eats the soul out of you if you haven’t some big
happiness behind to hold you up. And he hasn’t that. I can see he
doesn’t take kindly to that little aunt of his. I should say they
don’t pull well together. He’s lonely, is that young chap; he’s not
satisfied--right you are, Mother, I’m coming!”
Wiggie had got his wish--Dandy all to himself--but he did not say
anything for quite a long time. Instead, he came as if by accident
to the piano, and though he played nothing coherent, he drew out
funny little bunches and ripples of sound that somehow made the cool
room seem cooler. Now and again he glanced at Dandy, sitting on her
favourite stool with her head bent. She was changed already, he
thought, and she was only too obviously not thinking of him. She had
lost a little of her Halsted brilliance; she was a shade thinner, a
shade dimmed, as if some new power had breathed a moment on her soul.
Wiggie turned his eyes away when he thought that. His own soul was full
of delicate little instincts like the dainty grace-notes tripping under
his touch.
Dandy was thinking of Lancaster, and wondering why she had felt pleased
when he laughed. Was it because in that instant he had ceased to be
aloof? Yet how alien he really found her! There was the whole network
of outlook between them. More than anybody else he had made her feel
“new.”
Wiggie stopped playing bunches and began to whisper a desperate French
appeal--
“Ma chandelle est morte,
Je n’ai plus de feu:
Ouvre-moi la porte,
Pour l’amour de Dieu!”
Dandy said “Don’t!” quite suddenly, without in the least meaning to,
and, without in the least meaning to, he got up and came to her.
“Are you hankering to help the tram-horse, too?” he asked, and she
lifted her eyes with a laugh.
“Nothing so unselfish, Wiggie dear! But that song always makes me
shiver. The door is so fast and so hard. It is bolted and barred, with
iron knobs as big as mushrooms, and nothing gets under it but the
draught of one’s sighing.”
“_My_ door isn’t like that!” Wiggie said quickly. “It’s as fine as
thistledown and as thin as air, but it keeps you out all the same. You
can see through it all the dearness within, but--it keeps you out! If
it were hard, you could hammer the ache out of your heart, and lay your
cheek against the mushroom knobs for pity. But you cannot bruise your
fists on gossamer, and the web of it blows weakly pitiless against your
cheek.”
“But it’s not for you to hammer at doors,” he added presently. “They
fly open all along your road!”
She shook her head doubtfully.
“I’ve a feeling I may come to it before I’m through!” she said
whimsically. “I can see myself in the dust and the dark, hugging a dead
candle, and begging, begging----”
He stopped her with a gesture.
“Don’t cheapen yourself! Don’t stand at the door like the milk. The
golden drink should be kept for the golden chalice.”
“Why, Wiggie, what snobbish butlerage! It is the stone jar that makes
the beauty of the miracle. Watters has taught me that.”
He took her hands.
“But for me even Cherith’s brook is dried up,--Dandy dear?”
Her lips quivered.
“Don’t quote Elijah into my mouth, Cyril!”
He let her fingers slip,--not abruptly, but with a lingering touch that
left no sense of desolation.
“Forgive me! When one is thirsty, even the golden wine is not too
precious and wonderful to drink. It’s all right. I didn’t mean to
worry. Go on thinking about the tram-horse.”
He went back to the piano and played more bunches. Presently he asked
to be taken to see the vacuum cleaner.