"If you would set yourself so, sir. With your papers before you, spread
careless, so. And your pen in your hand, so.... A little nearer,
Bateman. The figure is important this time.... _Now_, sir, if you would
be so good as to look up."
Mr. Waddington looked up with a face of such extraordinary solemnity
that Mr. Pyecraft smiled in spite of his deference.
"A leetle brighter expression. As if you had just got an idea."
Mr. Waddington imagined himself getting an idea and tried to look like
it.
"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 fishing
boots, and holding a fishing-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, Fanny 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
Fanny'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 grass 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 Gloucestershire 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
God'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 passed it?"
"Rather. He's as pleased as Punch. He thinks he's forming my style."
3
Mr. Waddington was rapidly acquiring the habit of going round to Sheep
Street after dinner. But in those evenings that he did not devote to
Mrs. Levitt he applied himself to his task of supervision.
On the whole he was delighted with his secretary. There could be no
doubt that the little thing was deeply attached to him. You could tell
that by the way she worked, by her ardour and eagerness to please him.
There could be only one explanation of the ease with which she had
received the stamp of his personality.
Therefore he used tact. He used tact.
"I'm giving you a great deal of work, Barbara," he would say. "But you
must look on it as part of your training. You're learning to write good
English. There's nothing like clear, easy, flowing sentences. You can't
have literature without 'em. I might have written those passages myself.
In fact, I can hardly distinguish--" His face shook over it; she
noticed the tremor of imminent revision. "Still, I _think_ I should
prefer 'babbling streams' here to 'purling streams.' Shakespearean."
"I _had_ 'babbling' first," said Barbara, "but I thought 'purling' would
be nearer to what you'd have written yourself. I forgot about
Shakespeare. And babbling isn't exactly purling, is it?"
"True--true. Babbling is _not_ purling. We want the exact word. Purling
let it be....
"And 'lush.' Good girl. You remembered that 'lush' was one of my words?"
"I thought it _would_ be."
"Good. You see," said Mr. Waddington, "how you learn. You're getting the
sense, the _flair_ for style. I shall always be glad to think I trained
you, Barbara.... And you may be very thankful it _is_ I and not Ralph
Bevan. Of all the jerky--eccentric--incoherent--"