"If he does, he dissembles his love. Edwin is Mrs. Ukridge"s pet. He is the only subject on which they disagree. Edwin is certainly in the way on a chicken farm. He has got over his fear of Bob, and is now perfectly lawless. We have to keep a steady eye on him."
"And have you had any success with the incubator? I love incubators. I have always wanted to have one of my own, but we have never kept fowls."
"The incubator has not done all that it should have done," I said.
"Ukridge looks after it, and I fancy his methods are not the right methods. I don"t know if I have got the figures absolutely correct, but Ukridge reasons on these lines. He says you are supposed to keep the temperature up to a hundred and five degrees. I think he said a hundred and five. Then the eggs are supposed to hatch out in a week or so. He argues that you may just as well keep the temperature at seventy-two, and wait a fortnight for your chickens. I am certain there"s a fallacy in the system somewhere, because we never seem to get as far as the chickens. But Ukridge says his theory is mathematically sound, and he sticks to it."
"Are you quite sure that the way you are doing it is the best way to manage a chicken farm?"
"I should very much doubt it. I am a child in these matters. I had only seen a chicken in its wild state once or twice before we came down here. I had never dreamed of being an active a.s.sistant on a real farm.
The whole thing began like Mr. George Ade"s fable of the Author. An Author--myself--was sitting at his desk trying to turn out any old thing that could be converted into breakfast-food when a friend came in and sat down on the table, and told him to go right on and not mind him."
"Did Mr. Ukridge do that?"
"Very nearly that. He called at my rooms one beautiful morning when I was feeling desperately tired of London and overworked and dying for a holiday, and suggested that I should come to Combe Regis with him and help him farm chickens. I have not regretted it."
"It is a lovely place, isn"t it?"
"The loveliest I have ever seen. How charming your garden is."
"Shall we go and look at it? You have not seen the whole of it."
As she rose, I saw her book, which she had laid face downwards on the gra.s.s beside her. It was the same much-enduring copy of the "Manoeuvres of Arthur." I was thrilled. This patient perseverance must surely mean something. She saw me looking at it.
"Did you draw Pamela from anybody?" she asked suddenly.
I was glad now that I had not done so. The wretched Pamela, once my pride, was for some reason unpopular with the only critic about whose opinion I cared, and had fallen accordingly from her pedestal.
As we wandered down from the garden paths, she gave me her opinion of the book. In the main it was appreciative. I shall always a.s.sociate the scent of yellow lupin with the higher criticism.
"Of course, I don"t know anything about writing books," she said.
"Yes?" my tone implied, or I hope it did, that she was an expert on books, and that if she was not it didn"t matter.
"But I don"t think you do your heroines well. I have just got "The Outsider--"" (My other novel. Bastable & Kirby, 6s. Satirical. All about Society--of which I know less than I know about chicken-farming.
Slated by _Times_ and _Spectator_. Well received by _London Mail_ and _Winning Post_)--"and," continued Phyllis, "Lady Maud is exactly the same as Pamela in the "Manoeuvres of Arthur." I thought you must have drawn both characters from some one you knew."
"No," I said. "No. Purely imaginary."
"I am so glad," said Phyllis.
And then neither of us seemed to have anything to say. My knees began to tremble. I realised that the moment had arrived when my fate must be put to the touch; and I feared that the moment was premature. We cannot arrange these things to suit ourselves. I knew that the time was not yet ripe; but the magic scent of the yellow lupin was too much for me.
"Miss Derrick," I said hoa.r.s.ely.
Phyllis was looking with more intentness than the attractions of the flower justified at a rose she held in her hand. The bee hummed in the lupin.
"Miss Derrick," I said, and stopped again.
"I say, you people," said a cheerful voice, "tea is ready. Hullo, Garnet, how are you? That medal arrived yet from the Humane Society?"
I spun round. Mr. Tom Chase was standing at the end of the path. The only word that could deal adequately with the situation slapped against my front teeth. I grinned a sickly grin.
"Well, Tom," said Phyllis.
And there was, I thought, just the faintest tinkle of annoyance in her voice.
"I"ve been bathing," said Mr. Chase, _a propos des bottes_.
"Oh," I replied. "And I wish," I added, "that you"d drowned yourself."
But I added it silently to myself.
CHAPTER XIII
TEA AND TENNIS
"Met the professor"s late boatman on the Cob," said Mr. Chase, dissecting a chocolate cake.
"Clumsy man," said Phyllis. "I hope he was ashamed of himself. I shall never forgive him for trying to drown papa."
My heart bled for Mr. Henry Hawk, that modern martyr.
"When I met him," said Tom Chase, "he looked as if he had been trying to drown his sorrow as well."
"I knew he drank," said Phyllis severely, "the very first time I saw him."
"You might have warned the professor," murmured Mr. Chase.
"He couldn"t have upset the boat if he had been sober."
"You never know. He may have done it on purpose."
"Tom, how absurd."
"Rather rough on the man, aren"t you?" I said.
"Merely a suggestion," continued Mr. Chase airily. "I"ve been reading sensational novels lately, and it seems to me that Mr. Hawk"s cut out to be a minion. Probably some secret foe of the professor"s bribed him."
My heart stood still. Did he know, I wondered, and was this all a roundabout way of telling me he knew?
"The professor may be a member of an Anarchist League, or something, and this is his punishment for refusing to a.s.sa.s.sinate some sportsman."
"Have another cup of tea, Tom, and stop talking nonsense."
Mr. Chase handed in his cup.