When Mr. Germain approached the tables, Miss Middleham, who had been very aware of his coming, became instantly circumspect. He advanced deliberately and stood by her side for a while without speaking: he then offered himself to hand tea-cups, and when she assured him that the work was done, held to his post without any more words or seeming embarrassment. He was affable to Mr. Soames, if somewhat lofty; spoke of cricket and cricketers, the performances of Somerset, and of its champion, whom he was careful to call Mr. Palairet. For Berks, his own county, he apologized. He had a theory, not fully worked out yet, that the Scandinavian blood in us produced the best athletes. Consider Yorkshire and Lancashire. Kent, too: there was an undoubted strain of the Norseman in Kent. Surrey was against him—apparently; but he could not admit it. Of course, London gave the pick of everything; Surrey, a metropolitan shire, could hardly be reckoned, nor, by a parity of reasoning, Middlesex. Mr. Soames, who had not hitherto considered the ethnological side of his game, shook his head and said, “No, by jingo!” then plunged to another table and appeared to be busy. Mr. Germain turned to Miss Middleham and begged to know how he could be of service. “I must make good my boast: I rely upon the loyalty of Miss Cecily Bingham. Do you play after tea?” She said that there would be games. “For instance?” he inquired, and Mr. Soames, who was now hovering near again, said, “We shall finish the match. Perhaps you would care to umpire?” But Mr. Germain had picked up a small wooden implement and was turning it about like a fan. Bat, trap, and ball, he supposed? She laughed him yes. “Very well, then,” said he, “you shall allow me to help you in bat, trap, and ball.” Cecily Bingham’s eyes had now to be avoided at all costs.
The tall, stiff-shouldered gentleman made good his word—if that can be called playing the game where a player never hits the ball, frequently himself, and once (with a resounding smack) the boy fielding behind him. Grouped girls admired with open mouths; but the temptation to giggle when he caught himself for the second time upon the elbow and betrayed something of the torment he suffered was not to be resisted. Miss Middleham bit her lip, but turned to rend one of her pupils. “Gracie,” she said in a fierce whisper, “if you dare to laugh I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Here comes Tristram,” said Cecily, but Miss Middleham had no need to be told that. She was very busy teaching a small boy how to wield the bat which Mr. Germain now hastened to discard. “Thank you, Mr. Germain,” she said sincerely. “It’s very kind of you.”
“I am delighted to have been of the least service to you,” he replied with a bow. “You set us all an example which I, for one, am proud to follow.”
The games languished, flickered out under the calm eyes of Mr. Duplessis, but he took no part in reviving them. Nor did Miss Middleham do more than pretend to instruct. He stood, hands in pockets, for a while, looking at nothing, whistling softly to himself, then strolled towards Mary Middleham and, without looking at her, said two or three words. She listened to them intently without turning her head, said, “Yes,” and went on with her business of the moment. Still whistling, Duplessis strolled away, and, in passing, tweaked Cecily Bingham’s straight hair.
Mr. Germain, after salutations of a courtly kind, had returned leisurely to the Rectory Garden—to help his sister-in-law feel the early peaches on the wall.
III
MR. DUPLESSIS PREVARICATES
That evening there was a vacant place at the Rectory dinner-table. Tristram Duplessis was to have filled it, but did not appear until dessert. He entered then with smiles and light-hearted apologies.
“It isn’t often that I work, you’ll say, but when I do, I believe I’m not to be restrained. Thanks, Molesworth, anything will do for me.” This was how he put it, first to his hostess, next to the anxious butler, each of whom knew better. He chose to add, for the general benefit, “As a matter of fact, I got interested, and entirely forgot that a man must eat.”
“Or behave himself,” said the Rector, with lifted brows.