The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (36 page)

^{He said, slowly: "There are things a man likes to remember. I should like to remember this afternoon, the day a woman who could attract any young man had an impulsively generous notion to give herself to a man like me and that isn't humility, Rachel, it's simply facing facts and I'm not nearly so reluctant to do that as I was in the days before I met you." -,->}

^{She scrambled to her knees, smiling.}

^{"I've got to inject more confidence into you, Martin. Sometimes I think you're coming along all right on your own and then, quite}

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^{suddenly, all the air hisses out of the tube. You've been more than half-deflated ever since that wife of yours swept down on you and perhaps . . ." She broke off, shaking her head, "No, I won't try and bamboozle myself! I was going to say that this was one of the reasons I wanted you just now but it wasn't, mostly it was just honest man-hunger I guess, so why dress it up in fancy language?"}

^{She leaned forward and took his face in her hands. "Stop feeling grateful for every woman who takes a fancy to you, Martin- Sebastian-I'm-a-bit-of-a-droop-Sermon! Women like your type! Intelligent, dependable and virile, too, I wouldn't wonder given the right sort of encouragement!" and still smiling she kissed him on the mouth and held him there, enlarging the kiss in a manner that was half-sensual, half-humorous.}

^{Then she got up, caught him by the hand and led him into the blazing sunshine that was beating over the shoulder of the hill and down the steep path to the 'White Rabbit" and as he followed her striding figure, marking the grace of her long, swinging strides, he reflected; 'I'm an even bigger fool than I thought I was! Why can't I adopt her code? One day is like another so why not eat all the fruit you find beside the road ? The time will come when you'll never be able to explain to yourself why you held back just now. A woman's lips freely given are one thing but that would have been really something to remember in your old age, you idiot!' Yet, notwithstanding his ruefulness, he was able to smile at himself a little as well as at her and he doubted if he would have been able to do this had the encounter been carried to its logical conclusion. 'I know one thing though,' he added to himself, as they emerged from the wood and crossed the paddock to the tea house, 'I shall feel a damned sight more easy in my mind when I meet her father tonight and at my time of life I'm all for possessing the tranquil mind that poor old Othello set so much store upon!"}

^{Looking back on that blazing afternoon Sebastian came to regard it as a kind of half-way house in his odyssey, a place where he got}

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^{his second wind after the distressing days that followed Sybil's descent upon Kingsbay.}

^{For one thing it was the beginning of a run of luck and the run began as they entered the farm. At the end of the paddock they passed close to an open shed and Sebastian's Tapper-trained eye caught a glimpse of lumber among which were three wickerwork perambulators, high built, strap-slung vehicles of early Victorian design. He pointed them out and asked if she thought they might be for sale.}

^{"What do you want with a pram?" Rachel asked, her humour now thoroughly restored. "I could make a really nasty crack about that but I won't, providing you'll tell me what use you would put them to."}

^{"I think they'd sell," said Sebastian, "I think they might start a fashion. People have been using old wheelbarrows and carts for flower-stands for some time, so why not period prams ?"}

^{"I dare say the new people here would pay you to take them away," she said. "Come on, let's see what they've made of the place, I've heard it's gone contemporary since old man Thorn died and his family sold up."}

^{She told him that when they first came to Barrowdene the 'White Rabbit" had been a cider-house kept by an explosive old character called 'Dido' Thorn.}

^{"He was a bit of a hermit," she added, "and people would come from miles around to be insulted by him and then go home treasuring his abuse like famous last words. He had the place so stuffed with junk you could hardly see out of the windows!"}

^{A severe-looking woman served them with china tea and open Danish sandwiches and he pressed Rachel for more information regarding the late Dido Thorn's junk.}

^{"Oh, I can't remember what he had here," she said, "pistols and blunderbusses and stacks of pewter plates and tankards. There was a horrid tankard with a frog in the bottom I remember and I'm thankful it's all gone. I like smooth surfaces and fresh air!"}

^{"I wonder what happened to it all," mused Sebastian, "it sounds like a very good buy for someone," and when he paid the bill he asked if the Victorian prams were for sale and was referred to a}

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^{young man tending fowls who was identified as the new proprietor. The man agreed to sell the perambulators for a pound apiece and looked at Mr. Sermon as though he was doing business with an escaped lunatic. When Sebastian enquired if there was any more lumber for sale the man suddenly became very businesslike and said that some of the effects of the late owner were still in the loft and that he had plans for converting the outbuildings into a battery-house for his hens and was prepared to dispose of the litter en bloc, providing Mr. Sermon would undertake to take it away himself. A brief inspection of the loft and stables encouraged Sebastian to make a spot decision. He could see a variety of saleable goods under cobwebs and mouldering sacks, an oak dresser base, a set of copper measures, several battered oak coffers containing pewter ware, fire-dogs, ponderous kitchen utensils, a hanging bookshelf of Regency design, chairs with broken backs and missing legs, and a dozen or so pictures in heavy Victorian frames.}

^{"It's quite hopeless to sort all this out now but it looks to me as if at least half of it is valueless," he said cautiously. "I'll give you two hundred pounds for the lot and undertake to remove it all by next Wednesday."}

^{The young man was unable to conceal his satisfaction and Mr. Sermon reflected that had Tapper Sugg been negotiating the deal he would have probably closed at a hundred less. He was certain, however, that he had driven a good bargain and when they were returning along the track to the woods Rachel said; "You're a deep one, Martin! How much do you stand to make on that rubbish?"}

^{"That's the glorious thing about The Trade," said Mr. Sermon jubilantly, "one never knows but I can tell you this, we're in on it already. I can sell the prams, the dresser base and the pewter for the outlay and whatever else is there, is profit less transport costs! There's no such word as rubbish in The Trade."}

^{"Martin," she said solemnly, "I don't think we've heard the last of you! Why on earth didn't you branch out years ago ? Why did you waste so much time bogged down at places like Napier Hall? Was it Sybil?"}

^{He thought for a moment before answering, then he said, deliberately: "No, Rachel, it wasn't Sybil or Sybil's money. It was some-}

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^{thing more fundamental. I'm a teacher at heart not a businessman. This kind of thing is all right as a hobby, a kind of private joke with myself like the post of Beach Supervisor but it isn't basic. I'd sooner be your father than the most successful tycoon in Threadneedle Street. I don't think I could spend my life dealing in things, I'm too interested in people."}

^{"Two hundred pounds seems to me an expensive joke," she said, "I hope it doesn't end in hollow laughter."}

^{"It won't," he said simply, "I feel lucky today. Maybe it's because of you!"}

^{He said this lightly, supposing her to have put the incident in the cave out of mind but he misjudged her for she gave him a searching look and thereafter became thoughtful again, answering him with monosyllables and sometimes not at all as they walked into the sunset towards Barrowdene. Then, as they were emerging from the coppice to take the track across the water meadow to the rugger field, she called to him, sharply: "Martin!"}

^{He stopped and turned back, thinking for a moment she had stumbled and wrenched her ankle.}

^{"What is it?"}

^{"I won't have a chance of a word alone with you when we get in, Father will monopolise you as he always does."}

^{He was struck by the earnestness in her voice. "There's Monday Rachel, and you're not thinking of resigning from the zoo because I didn't come up to scratch, are you?"}

^{"I might even do that!"}

^{"Look here," he said, sharply, "this isn't fair! I've already said it doesn't make any difference and you agreed. I thought . . ."}

^{"It isn't what happened back there, Martin, we aren't talking about the same thing."}

^{"Then what the devil are we talking about?"}

^{She said, slowly and distinctly, "I believe I'm in love with you, Martin, and I'm not in the least sure what I can do about it! I know one thing, two in fact, I won't become a damned nuisance to you and if you ever do break with Sybil, Olga Boxall won't be the only one in the queue. Something else too, the next time I'd go about it with more finesse!"}

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^{He had not the least idea how to reply to this or what face to put upon such a declaration. He stood there with his mouth slightly open, finding her words more bewildering than her behaviour on the tor but she gave him no chance to comment, walking swiftly past and almost running across to the gap in the hedge that marked the Barrowdene boundary.}

^{He went after her but she could move faster than him and had jumped down on to the rugger pitch before he had reached the gap. Then, seeing a group of boys practising at the long-jump pit, he abandoned the pursuit, annoyed with her for once more destroying the balance in their relationship. "Oh, to the devil with women," he said grumpily, "from now on I'll concentrate on making money!" and he waved vaguely to a boy who greeted him and crossed the field to the quad, applying his mind, but not altogether successfully, to the less erratic vagaries of The Trade.}

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^{CHAPTER EIGHT}

^{Mr. Sermon}

^{Is Faced with a Choice}

^{of Professions}

^{sebastian's
life in Kingsbay now fell into a pleasant rhythm. He was a success at his job on the Esplanade which occupied him five days a week and on weekday evenings he usually took a walk, or drove out with Rachel, or drank a pint with Tapper Sugg in one or other of the local taverns. On Saturdays he usually went over to Barrowdene and spent the day with Fred Grey, occasionally helping out with school routine, as when he took the Sixth for a double-period history and amused the staff, most of whom he had come to know well, by tempting the science section to join the class and learn some spicy details regarding the character of the Bourbon court. All day Sunday he presided over Tapper Sugg's antique shop at the top of the High Street hill. Tapper liked to have him there and would have preferred to engage 'The Perfesser' as he continued to refer to him, as a full-time scout and salesman.}

^{He was elated by news of Sebastian's overall purchase at the 'White Rabbit' and made three trips out there within twenty-four hours of receiving Sebastian's telephone call. Privately, Sebastian wondered whether Tapper would decide that he had been too generous with the vendor but during the lunch break that same}

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^{Monday, Tapper appeared on the parking ground in a state of considerable excitement.}

^{"Lumme Perfesser, you struck oil! You reely struck it this time. Two 'undred you give 'im? Streuth, you peeled the pants orf "im! You'd have been flippin' lucky to get it for five!"}

^{"Oh, come now," protested Sebastian, "there were one or two nice pieces there but a great deal of it was junk."}

^{"Junk!" exclaimed Tapper, extracting a small but carefully wrapped object from his pocket and peeling away the tissue and newspaper, "you call this junk? It's a fammy-rose plate and it ain't got a chip nowhere. If there's more o' that stowed away we're home an' dry, not countin" the pewter an' copper and all them witch-doctor's masks!"}

^{"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," said Sebastian, "so, suppose I come up tonight and help you sort and price ?"}

^{"It's a date," said Tapper. "I'll nip over for me third load this afternoon. Lumme, it's like fallin' A over B into the treasure o' the perishin' Incas this is!" He stopped and looked at Sebastian keenly.}

^{"How you off fer crinkly? You want a bit to go on with?"}

^{'Crinkly* was Tapper's term for paper currency but in his mind it excluded everything but the five-pound note. Mr. Sermon told him that he had paid for the goods by cheque.}

^{"That's bad, that's real bad!" said Tapper. "We'll have to break you of that habit. Worse'n bitin' your nails that is!" and he lumbered off towards his estate van, leaving his promising pupil to equate two hundred and thirty-two parking tickets with a leather bag full of loose silver.}

^{When Sebastian entered the shop that evening he had great difficulty in making his way as far as the green baize door for Tapper had unloaded the furniture and dumped it higgledy-piggedly into every available corner. He was in high spirits and beamed up at Sebastian from a recumbent position he occupied beneath a converted spinet.}