“Is he all right, do you think?” asked Dora, worried.
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Toby with authority. He seemed, Michael noticed, to regard himself by now as part owner of Murphy and able to answer for his peculiarities and well-being. “He often swims in the lake, he likes it. Hey, Murphy! Good boy!”
The dog gave them a quick sidelong glance and returned to his paddling. He reached the land before them, shook himself vigorously, and ran away in the direction of the Lodge. Everyone seemed curiously elated at having seen him.
Disembarked, they began to trail along to the right across the grass and into the woodland that lay between the lake and the main road and which was bordered at the far end by the high Abbey wall as it curved back at right angles from the waterside. Dora, partly as it seemed to tease Paul, began to monopolize Peter Topglass, and was asking him questions about the birds. She was astonished at the variety of creatures which could be seen on even the most casual stroll about the estate. She felt the slightly scandalized surprise of the true town-dweller that all these beasts should be here, displaying themselves, quite free, and getting on with their own lives perfectly unmindful of human patronage and protection. She had been much upset that morning, on the little walk with Paul, to see a magpie flying off from the lake with a frog in its beak.
“Do you think the frog knew what was happening? Do you think animals suffer as we do?”
“Who can say?” said Peter. “But for myself I believe with Shakespeare that ‘the poor beetle that we tread upon in corporal sufferance feels a pang as great as when a giant dies’.”
“Why can’t the animals all be good to each other and live at peace?” said Dora, twirling the parasol.
“Why can’t human beings?” said Michael to Toby, who was walking beside him.
The other three were drawing ahead. Peter swung along light-heartedly, the sun glinting on his spectacles, his field-glasses and camera bumping on his back, setting now a more vigorous pace. His bald spot was shining, burnt to a glowing red. Looking at him affectionately Michael marvelled at his detachment, his absorption in his beloved studies, his absence of competitive vanity. He lacked that dimension of the spirit which made James formidable as well as endearing; but he was a person who, like Chaucer’s gentle knight, was remarkable for harming no one.
They had now entered the wood. Dora kept step with Peter, and the two of them occupied the narrow path, while Paul, who insisted on holding onto Dora’s arm, had to stumble along in the undergrowth, falling over brambles and tufts of grass.
Toby, now quite at his ease, and obviously very happy, kept up a desultory chatter, stopping every now and then and dropping behind to inspect wild flowers, investigate fugitive rustlings, or peer into mysterious bolt-holes in the earth. Michael paced along evenly, feeling pleasantly older and protective and unusually cheerful. He wondered if anything would come of his having lodged Toby with Nick. The idea had seemed to Michael when he first had it, which was before he had met Toby, a brilliant conjecture. Toby was in fact the only person available; and Nick had been alone quite long enough. But apart from that, Michael had felt that the presence of a younger person might constitute a sort of challenge to Nick, might stir him into some sort of participation. At worst, Toby could keep an eye on the black sheep, and perhaps his proximity would reduce the drinking which Michael had no doubt went on. It had to be admitted that James had been right; the present organization at Imber simply had no place for a sick man such as Nick. It was no one’s business to look after him. For himself, Michael felt that reminiscing with Nick was a self-indulgence he ought definitely to avoid. He recalled the way the Abbess had declined to hear the story of his life. No, he would have to rely here on Toby and Catherine. It did not seriously enter his head that Nick might do Toby any harm. Michael could not now see Nick, as James so dramatically saw him, as a destructive force. The designation “poor fish” was after all nearer to being the truth. Nick’s vague dejected appearance, his watery eye, his comatose behaviour were not those of a tiger waiting to spring. Moreover, although not in any way warmed by the atmosphere of Imber, he had shown a due respect for the place, and Michael could not imagine that he would dare seriously to misbehave or to upset the boy by any grossness of speech or conduct. Nick was by now far too subdued for any such outbreak.
Since making the acquaintance of Toby, Michael had reviewed his thoughts on this subject. The fact was that Toby was exceptionally attractive. He watched him now as he bounded about near the path, running up to Michael and away again like an exuberant dog. His long limbs had still the sprawling awkwardness of youth, but there was something neat and clean in his whole demeanour which took away any suggestion of untidiness. Michael noticed the freshness of the pale blue open shirt which he was wearing; and reflected ruefully upon the filthiness of his own. He guessed that as an undergraduate the boy would be something of a dandy. Above the firm and now darker flesh of his neck the dark brown hair ended in a clear furry line, and similarly fringed his brow, carefully cut, and showing the finely rounded head. His cheeks and lips bulged ruddy with health. His eyes retained the shy searching look of a boy; he had not yet become the confident or self-assertive young man. He seemed electrical with unused energy and hope. Michael reflected how much less complex an entity he seemed at eighteen than Nick had seemed at fifteen. All the same, it must be admitted that he was charming. Michael’s mind reproduced with a vividness amounting to violence the image of the pale body of the boy naked beside the pool. How startling and in a way how utterly delightful that had been. At the time Michael had been upset to find how greatly the sudden vision had moved him. Now more gently he put the image aside. Perhaps he ought to insist on both Toby and Nick coming to live in the house; it was difficult to find a pretext for moving Toby alone. But somehow the idea of having Nick so near to him was not acceptable. He dismissed the problem for the moment and returned to his enjoyment of the evening.
A further scandal had arisen in the group ahead, to whose conversation Michael had been vaguely listening. Peter had been asking Dora whether she was going to paint any landscapes while she was at Imber: a question which she seemed to find surprising. It had evidently not occurred to her, or to Paul, Michael noted, that she might do any painting. After a few more exchanges about country life and the observation of nature it emerged that Dora had never heard the cuckoo. Peter found this almost inconceivable. “Surely, in the country, as a child?” He seemed to imagine that all children naturally lived in the country.
“I was never in the country as a child,” said Dora, laughing. “We always took our holidays at Bognor Regis. I can’t remember much about my childhood actually, but I’m sure I never heard (he cuckoo. I’ve heard cuckoo clocks, of course.”
Toby and Michael came up with them as, still disputing, they approached the grassy clearing where the traps were laid. Peter hushed them to silence. They came cautiously up to where the path opened out, and Peter went forward to survey his catch. He had laid three old-fashioned sparrow-traps, dome-shaped wire structures about three feet long and eighteen inches high, which stood upon the grass. Each trap was divided into two compartments. One end wall of the trap sloped gradually inward to a small opening fringed by projecting wires which led into the first compartment at ground level. A similar opening, wide at the near end and narrow at the far end, led a little above ground level into the second compartment, on the other side of which, in the farther wall of the trap, there was a small door to admit the trapper’s hand. It appeared at once that there were several small birds in each trap. There was a good deal of fluttering as Peter approached.
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