AT THAMES HEAD
Betty Carew might have prayed, and did pray, for deliverance from
many evils, great and small. That she had failed to include a
supplication for quittance of an untidy young American, who spent his
work days in the office of Pawter’s Intensive Publicity Agency, and
his Sundays in inexpensive exploration, was brought home to her with
force on the sunny Sabbath that followed her interview with Dr.
Laffin.
Betty was on one side of the Thames, Bill Holbrook on the other, and
Betty was surrounded by a large wasp. Betty hated wasps, and
apparently this particular wasp hated Betty, for its “z-u-u-u!” held
a ferocity of purpose which was terrifying.
“_Vespa vulgaris!_” murmured Bill with satisfaction. “A hymenopterous
insect of the family _vespidæ_!”
And then Betty gave a scream. To her, _vespa vulgar_ was just plain
wasp, and it had made an angry dart toward her face. She shrank back,
one foot went into the water, but by an effort she recovered her
balance. In another second Bill had leapt across the Thames to her
side, and with one sweep of his soft hat had sent the vulgar vespa to
destruction.
“Saved,” he said, made a false step and went calf-deep into very cold
water.
“You might have come before,” she said tartly. “You saw the horrid
thing attacking me.”
“Not every man would leap across the Thames--that river which carries
the commerce of the world upon her broad bosom----”
For this was the source of the historic river, and about them were the
rolling hills of Gloucestershire.
“Anybody could jump the Thames here,” she said scornfully. “A rabbit
could jump it!”
“Put me down as being no better than a rabbit,” he said with a quiet
dignity. “And as to your ingratitude, we will overlook that. One
doesn’t expect it nowadays. The war has changed people’s manners and
cut away much of the silk linings of behaviour. May I see you home?”
“No, you may not see me home. I don’t live here--as you well know,”
she said a little breathlessly. “I am greatly obliged to you, but I
don’t think you ran much risk.”
“Any man who saves a popular actress from the malignant pursuit of a
wasp deserves well of his country, Miss Carew,” he said, and she went
pink with annoyance. “I should have recognised you, even if I hadn’t
met you last night,” said Bill, wagging his head. “There’s nobody in
the world with hair like yours. Think better of it, Miss Carew. Place
yourself in the hands of Pips, or, better still, in mine, and I would
make you famous in a month.”
She had disliked him instinctively before; she hated him now. He was
so young, so horribly self-satisfied and so terribly common. Nor did
his frank admiration of her hair soothe her. Betty’s hair was
admittedly wonderful. It had the colour and bloom of sunset corn, a
red through which the gold shone so insistently that the redness did
not appear until it was caught by a ray of light. And under the hair
were features that could not be faulted, and a skin of delicate
texture--such skins as that colour of hair so often favour.
“I think you should know that I can find my way back to the--the car
without assistance,” she said coldly.
“I’ll come round and talk this over with you, Miss Carew,” he said
gravely. “Pips can give you fame. A corporation like ours that can
make people look for the label on a paint can, wouldn’t have much
trouble in placing your name in half-watt blinders--and Pips are
reasonable. So far as I am concerned, it will be a labour of love--and
for fear I raise your hopes, I will add that ‘love’ is only used in a
Pickwickian sense. What I mean is----”
But she was walking rapidly down the road to the little village where
the joy wagons were parked, and her fury was only discernible by the
vigour and length of her stride.
Stillwell’s Select Charabanc Tours had brought her that Sunday the
hundred miles which separated the head of the Thames from the City of
the Eighteen Bridges--which is London. These same tours, but a
different car, were also responsible for the presence of Bill
Holbrook. They ran from Trafalgar Square on Sunday mornings, and for a
ridiculously small sum one might be insured of a day in the country
and the association of a superior company--for these were select
tours. The employment of that qualifying adjective suggested that Mr.
Stillwell spent his time between tours examining the social
credentials of his clients.
Unfortunately, Mr. Stillwell must have been ill during the week
preceding this particular Sunday, and handed over this selective
function to a careless subordinate, since the people who rode in
Betty’s coach were members of no exclusive social set. There were
stout women who brought luncheon baskets and ate throughout the
journey, riotous young men who carried refreshments in bottles,
mothers of families who brought their responsibilities with them, and
a vinegary spinster or two.
Happily, Mr. Holbrook was accommodated in another coach. Or he had
been until the tour began its homeward journey. Then she saw him,
wedged between two voluble ladies who shouted at one another across
him; he was on the front seat of the wagon, and far enough removed
from her to make conversation impossible.
The great, lumbering coach rolled across the dreary plain which
separates Cheltenham from Oxford. Clouds had come heaping from the
west; ahead the skies were a coppery grey. Somebody in the front seats
began to sing a doleful song about mother. Betty shivered and drew her
wrap a little closer, though the afternoon was warm to the point of
discomfort. Once she saw the annoying young publicity agent glance
round at her a little anxiously. He was wondering whether
thunderstorms scared her--and that a storm was gathering he knew long
before the first growl of thunder insisted above the noise of the
coach, and the big spots came splashing down.
On the outskirts of Oxford the three coaches stopped, and, as usual,
at a place of refreshment. Most of Mr. Stillwell’s select company
descended to fortify their nerves for the coming ordeal.
They were not alone in the caravan sense. Drawn up on the broad gravel
campus before the Five Stars Inn were three huge joy wagons, but
whereas Mr. Stillwell’s select conveyances bore no more than his name
in letters of modest size and irreproachable character, these
charabancs wore sheets that covered the backs of each car and were
lettered conspicuously:
“The Proud Sons of Ragousa.
(Pride of the medway lodge 95)
Annual Picnic.”
As Stillwell’s wagons came to a halt, the inn was disgorging the proud
children of Ragousa, and one wagon was already filled ready for
departure.
Betty, who had got down to stretch her cramped limbs, watched them,
puzzled.
“Who on earth are the Proud Sons of Ragousa?” she asked, and could
have bitten her tongue when she discovered that, unconsciously, she
was putting the question to the objectionable young American.
“You’ve asked me one too many,” said Bill. “I only know that it is a
society of some kind. Cute little name, isn’t it? Sons of Ragousa!
Name seems kind of familiar. Say, Miss Carew, what’s the idea of this
desk stunt? I meant to ask you before, but you were so mad at me that
I hadn’t a chance…”
But Betty was already moving away. Of all the things she did not wish
to do, she placed an exchange of confidence between herself and Mr.
William Holbrook in the forefront.
Along the road she had seen a bush pink with dog-roses, and although
dog-roses are notoriously without vitality, the plucking of them would
occupy time.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the offensive young man
hesitating; some remnant of decent feeling restrained him, she noted
with satisfaction. Perhaps she had penetrated beneath his thick skin,
or, what was more likely, he had not the gift of perseverance.
She picked her roses undisturbed, save by the swift rush of a little
car that came flying past in a cloud of dust which the thunder drops
had not as yet laid. Then, to her surprise, the car came to a violent
halt twenty yards beyond her, and began to move backward. Though it
was hardly likely that the driver wanted information about his route,
there seemed no other reason, until the machine was abreast of her,
and a man leaned out of the window.
“Isn’t that Betty?” he asked.
She gave a little gasp of astonishment.
“Clive!” She took the extended hand with a sense of deepest relief.
“Charabanc? Oh, Lord! Whatever made you do it? And I asked you to let
me take you out! You don’t want to go with that lot, do you?” he
asked. “Jump in.”
He opened the door for her, and she was by his side in an instant.
“I _don’t_!” she said emphatically. “Providence is working for me!
They are terrible!”
“I’ve been to Witney, to my noble house,” said her companion
bitterly. “You’ve never seen it? You’re lucky! It is a horror!”
She glanced round at him, inclined to be amused, but a deep frown
furrowed his smooth brow, and the good-looking face was puckered in a
grimace of utter disgust.
_Flick… flick!_
A blue ribbon of lightning quivered for the fraction of a second ahead
of the car, a tree by the roadside burst into white flame--she smelt
burning wood as the car spun past, and instinctively nestled nearer to
Clive.
“That was a beauty,” he said calmly. “We’ll run out of this before we
reach Oxford--I think we’re on the edge of the storm. You’re a bad
girl to go charabancing around,” he said. (She thought he was trying
to keep her mind off the storm, and was not far wrong.)
“I like them--the excursions, I mean. One gets into a new atmosphere
and meets types. Only to-day… well, they were rather awful!”
Clive laughed softly.
“What about this show-girl idea of the doctor’s?” he asked. “Do you
intend humouring him?”
She nodded.
“You do? Moses!”
“I must--for reasons. And Clive, dear, you are to promise me that you
will not come anywhere near the wretched shop when I am installed. I’d
not survive your seeing me.”
“Not me. I never go shopping. Benson does all that. Were you in one of
those decorated barouches--poor dear!”
“Where--oh, you mean the big wagons with their banners? No, that was
an excursion party. The Sons of Ragousa--Clive!”
She uttered a little scream. Twice, three times the lightning stabbed
down, so close that Betty was for the moment blinded.
She looked at her companion. His face was a shade paler, his
wide-opened eyes held a something she could not read.
“Sons of Ragousa!” he said jerkily. “My God… How funny!”