CHAPTER XXV. Crome yellow | ||
25. CHAPTER XXV.
"I hope you all realise," said Henry Wimbush during dinner, "that next Monday is Bank Holiday, and that you will all be expected to help in the Fair."
"Heavens!" cried Anne. "The Fair--I had forgotten all about it. What a nightmare! Couldn't you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?"
Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. "Alas," he said, "I fear I cannot. I should have liked to put an end to it years ago; but the claims of Charity are strong."
"It's not charity we want," Anne murmured rebelliously; "it's justice."
"Besides," Mr. Wimbush went on, "the Fair has become an institution. Let me see, it must be twenty-two years since we started it. It was a modest affair then. Now..." he made a sweeping movement with his hand and was silent.
It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush's
"I've made all the arrangements already," Henry Wimbush went on. "Some of the larger marquees will be put up to-morrow. The swings and the merry-go-round arrive on Sunday."
"So there's no escape," said Anne, turning to the rest of the party. "You'll all have to do something. As a special favour you're allowed to choose your slavery. My job is the tea tent, as usual, Aunt Priscilla..."
"My dear," said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, "I have more important things to think about than the Fair. But you need have no doubt that I shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage the villagers."
"That's splendid," said Anne. "Aunt Priscilla will encourage the villagers. What will you do, Mary?"
"I won't do anything where I have to stand by and watch other people eat."
"Then you'll look after the children's sports."
"All right," Mary agreed. "I'll look after the children's sports."
"And Mr. Scogan?"
Mr. Scogan reflected. "May I be allowed to tell fortunes?" he asked at last. "I think I should be good at telling fortunes."
"But you can't tell fortunes in that costume!"
"Can't I?" Mr. Scogan surveyed himself.
"You'll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?"
"I'm ready to suffer all indignities."
"Good!" said Anne; and turning to
"It's a pity I'm not Ivor," said Gombauld, with a laugh. "I could throw in a picture of their Auras for an extra sixpence."
Mary flushed. "Nothing is to be gained," she said severely, "by speaking with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, whatever your personal views may be, psychical research is a perfectly serious subject."
"And what about Denis?"
Denis made a deprecating gesture. "I have no accomplishments," he said, "I'll just be one of those men who wear a thing in their buttonholes and go about telling people which is the way to tea and not to walk on the grass."
"No, no," said Anne. "That won't do. You must do something more than that."
"But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing but lisp in numbers."
"Well, then, you must lisp," concluded Anne. "You must write a poem for the occasion--an 'Ode on Bank Holiday.'
"Sixpence," Denis protested. "It'll be worth sixpence."
Anne shook her head. "Twopence," she repeated firmly. "Nobody will pay more than twopence."
"And now there's Jenny," said Mr Wimbush. "Jenny," he said, raising his voice, "what will you do?"
Denis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures at sixpence an execution, but decided it would be wiser to go on feigning ignorance of her talent. His mind reverted to the red notebook. Could it really be true that he looked like that?
"What will I do," Jenny echoed, "what will I do?" She frowned thoughtfully for a moment; then her face brightened and she smiled. "When I was young," she said, "I learnt to play the drums."
"The drums?"
Jenny nodded, and, in proof of her assertion, agitated her knife and fork, like a pair of drumsticks, over her plate. "If there's any opportunity of playing the drums..." she began.
"But of course," said Anne, "there's any amount of opportunity. We'll put you down definitely for the drums. That's the lot," she added.
"And a very good lot too," said Gombauld. "I look forward to my Bank Holiday. It ought to be gay."
"It ought indeed," Mr Scogan assented. "But you may rest assured that it won't be. No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment."
"Come, come," protested Gombauld. "My holiday at Crome isn't being a disappointment."
"Isn't it?" Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him.
"No, it isn't," he answered.
"I'm delighted to hear it."
"It's in the very nature of things," Mr. Scogan went on; "our holidays can't help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment. What is a holiday? The ideal, the Platonic Holiday of Holidays is surely a complete and absolute change. You agree with me in my definition?" Mr. Scogan glanced from face to face round the table; his sharp nose moved in a series of rapid jerks through all the points of the compass.
"You're depressing," said Anne.
"I mean to be," Mr. Scogan replied, and, expanding the fingers of his right hand, he went on: "Look at me, for example. What sort of a holiday can I take? In endowing me with passions and faculties Nature has been horribly niggardly. The full range of human
Gombauld shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps," he said, "my standards aren't as elevated as yours. But personally I found the war quite as thorough a holiday from all the ordinary decencies and sanities, all the common emotions and preoccupations, as I ever want to have."
"Yes," Mr. Scogan thoughtfully agreed. "Yes, the war was certainly something of a holiday. It was a step beyond Southend; it was Weston-super-Mare; it was almost Ilfracombe."
CHAPTER XXV. Crome yellow | ||