Part 32 (1/2)

”No, it was my fault. If I miss two-foot putts, you can't be expected----”

And thus during the whole journey superb concentration on an end to be won, superb oblivion to work and wealth and weariness.

Martin found Freda yawning in the porch.

”I thought you were staying upstairs all day,” he began.

”Who said so?”

”The maid, I think.”

”Well, I never said anything about it. You don't seem very glad to see me.”

”Of course I am. Only I meant that I would have come back earlier if I had known.”

”I wouldn't keep you from your golf.”

He sat beside her, but she did not welcome him. She was hurt.

”If I'd only known, I wouldn't----”

”Day after day,” she whispered. ”I know you like to be out and about.

I don't claim you always, do I? But sometimes, surely.”

”I didn't know,” he repeated remorsefully. ”I didn't know.”

”Yesterday you went and to-morrow you'll go.”

”No, I won't. Freda, I'm a brute. I've been rotten to you. I've nothing to say for myself.”

”You've got to go to-morrow.”

”I won't. You don't want me to go.”

”You must go. I'm not going to keep you, if you don't stay of your own accord. The ball is much more amusing than I am.”

He pleaded, he fought against her, but she insisted on his going.

The punishment was effective. He went in anguish and played with no zest for the game. He sliced, he topped, he missed short putts. The match fizzled out on the fourteenth green, a fiasco.

The Cartmells hurried back to London and Martin remained to make peace with Freda. He had been unspeakably pained by the sordidness and waste of energy and peace that quarrelling had entailed. He hated the suspicions and embarra.s.sments that must linger on: he was pa.s.sionately desirous of restoring the old intimacy and yet ... somehow or other the wound remained. He couldn't forget that evening on the ninth green.

Why wouldn't Freda see the point of these things? Why wouldn't she walk? She was strong enough now for a mile or two. Almost he was angry with her for having been ill, for it is an odd feature of humanity that we sometimes dislike people for their sufferings, hate them for a cough or sniff. And now Martin was on the point of blaming Freda for the weakness he had once adored. Why wasn't she strong like Margaret or Viola? Why didn't she understand about the moor and wind-swept s.p.a.ces and the miracle of hitting a golf-ball?

While he was bearing the olive branch these questions, dreaded and strongly combated, kept forcing themselves into the narrow pa.s.ses of his mind as the Persian host flooded into Thermopylae. It was futile to feign deafness: in time they would force a hearing. And there were other less easily worded doubts and apprehensions.

Perhaps the summer-time came as a release. More than he would have cared to admit, Martin wanted to be alone, to see Freda dispa.s.sionately, from a distance. And so to Oxford.

Freda, while undergoing all unconsciously this dispa.s.sionate appreciation, retired to London. But within a few weeks' time she had received another invitation to Devons.h.i.+re, and tired not so much of town as of her relations she gladly accepted.

At The Steading were a Mr and Mrs Brodrick with their daughter. Arthur Brodrick had been contemporary with John Berrisford at Oxford and had pa.s.sed high into the Indian Civil Service. Just before his time for a pension was due he had been invalided home and had missed the full reward of his service. The Brodricks lived at Sutton in a remote mediocrity of wealth more galling than actual poverty.