Next morning at breakfast George announced his intention of walking
over to Chertsey.
"They are taking entries for the regatta," he explained. "And I want
to put our names down for the double punting."
"How about getting a couple of insurance policies at the same time?"
I suggested. (I have punted with George before.)
"What's your programme?" he inquired, disregarding my excellent
proposal.
"I shall go up the Bourne," I said. "I want to finish my picture,
and the light is just right this morning."
"Well, don't collar the sardines," he replied selfishly. "I should
like 'em for supper."
He sauntered off about half-past ten, stopping in the garden to pick
our only carnation for his buttonhole.
After some research, I unearthed a tinned tongue, some bread and
butter, a cake, and last, but not least, a bottle of claret. These I
transplanted tenderly to the punt, and then, putting in my painting
materials, pushed off in leisurely fashion up the backwater.
As I passed Otter's Holt, the long, low, creeper-covered bungalow
that adjoined our own camping-ground, I caught a glimpse of the girl
who had inflamed George's susceptible heart. She was lying in a
deck-chair in the verandah, reading a book. By her side crouched a
large brindled bulldog, who looked up and emitted a sharp "woof!" as
the splash of my punt-pole reached his ears.
His mistress put out a small reproving hand. "Lie down, sir!" she
said, in a voice that no decent bulldog could possibly have resisted.
"There are excuses for George," I said to myself as an intervening
dump of willow shut out any further observations.
The Bourne, as is usual on weekdays, was delightfully deserted. I
pushed my way slowly up its narrow course, thrusting aside the
overhanging bushes, and startling an occasional kingfisher into a
streak of living blue.
My destination was just round the fourth bend, a place where the
sunshine played a bewitching game of hide-and-seek through the
branches of an elm. It was this tracery of light and shadow that I
was attempting to transfer to my canvas.
Tying the punt up to the bank, I pulled out my paints and set to
work. It was one of those mornings which make one doubt whether any
conceivable heaven could really be as attractive as earth. An
infinitely faint breeze just stirred the leaves overhead, and only
the occasional splash of a fish or the shrill twitter of a bird
disturbed the fragrant silence around.
For about an hour I laboured at my picture with commendable industry.
But somehow or other I did not make as rapid progress as such
diligence deserved. A vision of a girl with bronze hair kept
flitting before my eyes in the most elusive and disconcerting
fashion. Once I actually found myself murmuring, "Lie down, sir!"
apparently in an attempt to analyze the peculiar charm with which
these three words seemed to be associated.
For a person of well-regulated mind this was distinctly humiliating.
I began to take myself to task. "Because a young woman happens to
address a bulldog in your hearing," I inquired, "is that any reason
why you should waste an entire morning?"
Getting no reply, I continued with increasing sternness: "You are as
bad as George. You are making an idiot of yourself over a red-haired
slip of a girl whom you have only seen about three times in your
life. Why, if it comes to that, you don't even know her name! Sir,
I am disgusted with you."
Relieved by this Johnsonian rebuke, I again turned to my picture, and
for twenty minutes or so worked on with unruffled concentration.
Then it suddenly occurred to me that I was hungry.
I moved aside my paints, carefully laid down the canvas in the end of
the punt, and, pulling out the luncheon-basket from under the seat,
began to prepare my frugal but well-earned meal. The tongue, my
_chef-d'œuvre_, was encased in one of those ingenious tins which
you open by twisting a key. I was deep in this fascinating process
when my ears were assailed by the sudden splash of an approaching
craft.
I looked up with a frown. Such an intrusion on my privacy seemed to
me to savour of gross impertinence. I had come to regard the Bourne
as my private property, which I was magnanimous enough to open to the
public cm Saturdays and Sundays. And here was some coarse-grained
stranger thrusting his way in at one o'clock on Tuesday afternoon.
"In future," I said to myself, "I shall mine the channel."
Nearer and nearer came that offensive splash, varied by the
occasional swish of a parted bush, and the creaking of an
indifferently handled punt-pole. Assuming an expression of cold
displeasure, I sat up and waited on Fate. At last the nose of a punt
thrust itself round the bend, and a moment later the intruder emerged
into full view.
In my agitation I dropped the tongue in the butter. It was the
bronze-haired girl from Otter's Holt!
Then a series of incidents occurred with the bewildering rapidity of
a cinematograph. Disturbed, apparently, by my unfortunate _lapsus
linguæ_, the bulldog, which was crouching in the stern of the punt,
leaped forward, barking his defiance. In his ardour he cannoned
heavily against a basket reposing on the seat. There was a splash, a
cry of despair from the bronze-haired maiden, and the aforesaid
basket settled down peacefully at the bottom of the Bourne.
Let it be stated to my credit that I rose to the situation with some
promptness. Unhitching the painter by a dexterous twitch, I snatched
up my pole, and, with a couple of sharp shoves, sped gracefully to
the rescue.
"I am so sorry," I said. "I am afraid I frightened your dog. May I
make amends by getting out the basket?"
"It's very kind of you," she said simply. "Of course, it wasn't your
fault at all. Come here sir!" This last to the dog.
I turned my sleeves up to the shoulders, and, leaning over the side
of the punt, groped down through the shallow water until I got hold
of the handle. Then, dripping but triumphant, I extracted my burden.
"I hope there is nothing to spoil in it," I said.
She smiled and shook her head.
"It's only a matter of a few sandwiches. I am very much obliged to
you, and extremely sorry to have been the cause of so much trouble."
"On the contrary," I replied, "it is I and the dog who ought to
apologize to you."
"I can't imagine why he was so silly," she said, administering a
reproving pat to the animal, who still eyed me with some disfavour.
"As a rule, he is as good as gold in a boat."
"What do you call him?" I inquired, in a shameless attempt to prolong
the conversation.
"Winston Churchill," she said, with another smile. "He was
christened before I got him."
"His jaw is certainly well developed," I observed.
She laughed, and a short pause followed.
"Well," she said, "I must be getting back."
"But really," I protested, "you have only just arrived." Then a
sudden fit of recklessness seized me. "Don't go because your lunch
is spoiled," I pleaded. "I have a whole tongue, to say nothing of
some excellent bread, and some good, if rather dilapidated, butter.
As the destroyer of your sandwiches I can surely without impertinence
offer you a fair compensation."
She shook her head, still smiling.
"Oh, I don't think you are impertinent," she said, "but I believe
that no really nice girl ever accepts an invitation from a perfect
stranger. It would distress me to think that I was outside the pale."
Her brown eyes twinkled so deliriously that I cast subterfuge to the
winds.
"Do stay," I begged. "I have been alone all the morning wrestling
with an obstinate picture, and I am desperately in need of a little
cheering society. Besides, there is nothing so very unconventional
in the idea. Winston Churchill will make a most efficient chaperon."
She wavered.
"And you can cut me afterwards," I added.
The corners of her mouth twitched.
"Your arguments," she said, "are most persuasive."
We pulled the two punts alongside each other and fastened them to the
bank. By this time Winston Churchill seemed to have accepted me as a
harmless and necessary evil. He sat up in the stern and watched me
with intelligent interest, while I completed my preparations for
lunch.
"You are in his good books now," said the bronze-haired girl,
stroking him gently down the back with her fingers. "He thinks that
people who provide food cannot be altogether bad."