Deep Waters - (2)

'My fault,' said George; 'I was thinking.'
    'If you must break the habit of a lifetime,' said Mr Mifflin, complainingly, 'I wish you would wait till we get ashore. You nearly upset us.'
    'It shan't happen again. They are tricky, these sailing boats--turn over in a second. Whatever you do, don't get her broadside on. There's more breeze out here than I thought there was.'
    Mr Mifflin uttered a startled exclamation.
    'What's the matter?' asked George.
    'Just like a flash,' said Mr Mifflin, complacently. 'It's always the way with me. Give me time, and the artistic idea is bound to come. Just some little thought, some little, apparently obvious, idea which stamps the man of genius. It beats me why I didn't think of it before. Why, of course, a costume piece with a male star is a hundred times more effective.'
    'What are you talking about?'
    'I see now,' continued Mr Mifflin, 'that there was a flaw in my original plan. My idea was this. We were talking in the train about the bathing down here, and Jane happened to say she could swim some, and it suddenly came to me.'
    Jane was the leading woman, she who omitted to give cues.
    'I said to myself, "George is a sportsman. He will be delighted to do a little thing like that".'
    'Like to do what?'
    'Why, rescue Jane.'
    'What!'
    'She and you,' said Mr Mifflin, 'were to go in swimming together, while I waited on the sands, holding our bone-headed Press-agent on a leash. About a hundred yards from the shore up go her arms. Piercing scream. Agitated crowds on the beach. What is the matter? What has happened? A touch of cramp. Will she be drowned? No! G. Barnert Callender, author of Fate's Footballs, which opens at the Beach Theatre on Monday evening next, at eight-fifteen sharp, will save her. See! He has her. He is bringing her in. She is safe. How pleased her mother will be! And the public, what a bit of luck for them! They will be able to see her act at eight-fifteen sharp on Monday after all. Back you come to the shore. Cheering crowds. Weeping women. Strong situation. I unleash the Press-agent, and off he shoots, in time to get the story into the evening paper. It was a great idea, but I see now there were one or two flaws in it.'
    'You do, do you?' said George.
    'It occurs to me on reflection that after all you wouldn't have agreed to it. A something, I don't know what, which is lacking in your nature, would have made you reject the scheme.'
    'I'm glad that occurred to you.'
    'And a far greater flaw was that it was too altruistic. It boomed you and it boomed Jane, but I didn't get a thing out of it. My revised scheme is a thousand times better in every way.'
    'Don't say you have another.'
    'I have. And,' added Mr Mifflin, with modest pride, 'it is a winner. This time I unhesitatingly assert that I have the goods. In about one minute from now you will hear me exclaim, in a clear musical voice, the single word, "Jump!" That is your cue to leap over the side as quick as you can move, for at that precise moment this spanking craft is going to capsize.'
    George spun round in his seat. Mr Mifflin's face was shining with kindly enthusiasm. The shore was at least two hundred yards away, and that morning he had had his first swimming-lesson.
    'A movement of the tiller will do it. These accidents are common objects of the seashore. I may mention that I can swim just enough to keep myself afloat; so it's up to you. I wouldn't do this for everyone, but, seeing that we were boys together--Are you ready?'
    'Stop!' cried George. 'Don't do it! Listen!'
    'Are you ready?'
    The Ocean Beauty gave a plunge.
    'You lunatic! Listen to me. It--'
    'Jump!' said Mr Mifflin.
    George came to the surface some yards from the overturned boat, and, looking round for Mr Mifflin, discovered that great thinker treading water a few feet away.
    'Get to work, George,' he remarked.
    It is not easy to shake one's fist at a man when in deep water, but George managed it.
    'For twopence,' he cried, 'I'd leave you to look after yourself.'
    'You can do better than that,' said Mr Mifflin. 'I'll give you threepence to tow me in. Hurry up. It's cold.'
    In gloomy silence George gripped him by the elbows. Mr Mifflin looked over his shoulder.
    'We shall have a good house,' he said. 'The stalls are full already, and the dress-circle's filling. Work away, George, you're doing fine. This act is going to be a scream from start to finish.'
    With pleasant conversation he endeavoured to while away the monotony of the journey; but George made no reply. He was doing some rapid thinking. With ordinary luck, he felt bitterly, all would have been well. He could have gone on splashing vigorously under his teacher's care for a week, gradually improving till he emerged into a reasonably proficient swimmer. But now! In an age of miracles he might have explained away his present performance; but how was he to--And then there came to him an idea--simple, as all great ideas are, but magnificent.
    He stopped and trod water.
    'Tired?' said Mr Mifflin. 'Well, take a rest,' he added, kindly, 'take a rest. No need to hurry.'
    'Look here,' said George, 'this piece is going to be recast. We're going to exchange parts. You're rescuing me. See? Never mind why. I haven't time to explain it to you now. Do you understand?'
    'No,' said Mr Mifflin.
    'I'll get behind you and push you; but don't forget, when we get to the shore, that you've done the rescuing.'
    Mr Mifflin pondered.
    'Is this wise?' he said. 'It is a strong part, the rescuer, but I'm not sure the other wouldn't suit my style better. The silent hand-grip, the catch in the voice. You want a practised actor for that. I don't think you'd be up to it, George.'
    'Never mind about me. That's how it's going to be.'
    Mr Mifflin pondered once more.
    'No,' he said at length, 'it wouldn't do. You mean well, George, but it would kill the show. We'll go on as before.'
    'Will we?' said George, unpleasantly. 'Would you like to know what I'm going to do to you, then? I'm going to hit you very hard under the jaw, and I'm going to take hold of your neck and squeeze it till you lose consciousness, and then I'm going to drag you to the beach and tell people I had to hit you because you lost your head and struggled.'
    Mr Mifflin pondered for the third time.
    'You are?' he said.
    'I am,' said George.
    'Then,' said Mr Mifflin, cordially, 'say no more. I take your point. My objections are removed. But,' he concluded, 'this is the last time I come bathing with you, George.'
    Mr Mifflin's artistic misgivings as to his colleague's ability to handle so subtle a part as that of rescuee were more than justified on their arrival. A large and interested audience had collected by the time they reached the shore, an audience to which any artist should have been glad to play; but George, forcing his way through, hurried to the hotel without attempting to satisfy them. Not a single silent hand-shake did he bestow on his rescuer. There was no catch in his voice as he made the one remark which he did make--to a man with whiskers who asked him if the boat had upset. As an exhibition of rapid footwork his performance was good. In other respects it was poor.
    He had just changed his wet clothes--it seemed to him that he had been doing nothing but change his wet clothes since he had come to Marvis Bay--when Mr Mifflin entered in a bathrobe.
    'They lent me this downstairs,' he explained, 'while they dried my clothes. They would do anything for me. I'm the popular hero. My boy, you made the mistake of your life when you threw up the rescuer part. It has all the fat. I see that now. The rescuer plays the other man off the stage every time. I've just been interviewed by the fellow on the local newspaper. He's correspondent to a couple of London papers. The country will ring with this thing. I've told them all the parts I've ever played and my favourite breakfast food. There's a man coming up to take my photograph tomorrow. Footpills stock has gone up with a run. Wait till Monday and see what sort of a house we shall draw. By the way, the reporter fellow said one funny thing. He asked if you weren't the same man who was rescued yesterday by a girl. I said of course not--that you had only come down yesterday. But he stuck to it that you were.'
    'He was quite right.'
    'What!'
    'I was.'
    Mr Mifflin sat down on the bed.
    'This fellow fell off the pier, and a girl brought him in.'
    George nodded.
    'And that was you?'
    George nodded.
    Mr Mifflin's eyes opened wide.
    'It's the heat,' he declared, finally. 'That and the worry of rehearsals. I expect a doctor could give the technical name for it. It's a what-do-you-call-it--an obsession. You often hear of cases. Fellows who are absolutely sane really, but cracked on one particular subject. Some of them think they're teapots and things. You've got a craving for being rescued from drowning. What happens, old man? Do you suddenly get the delusion that you can't swim? No, it can't be that, because you were doing all the swimming for the two of us just now. I don't know, though. Maybe you didn't realize that you were swimming?'
    George finished lacing his shoe and looked up.
    'Listen,' he said; 'I'll talk slow, so that you can understand. Suppose you fell off a pier, and a girl took a great deal of trouble to get you to the shore, would you say, "Much obliged, but you needn't have been so officious. I can swim perfectly well?"'
    Mr Mifflin considered this point. Intelligence began to dawn in his face. 'There is more in this than meets the eye,' he said. 'Tell me all.'
    'This morning'--George's voice grew dreamy--'she gave me a swimming-lesson. She thought it was my first. Don't cackle like that. There's nothing to laugh at.'
    Mr Mifflin contradicted this assertion.
    'There is you,' he said, simply. 'This should be a lesson to you, George. Avoid deceit. In future be simple and straightforward. Take me as your model. You have managed to scrape through this time. Don't risk it again. You are young. There is still time to make a fresh start. It only needs will-power. Meanwhile, lend me something to wear. They are going to take a week drying my clothes.'
    *       *       *       *       *
    There was a rehearsal at the Beach Theatre that evening. George attended it in a spirit of resignation and left it in one of elation. Three days had passed since his last sight of the company at work, and in those three days, apparently, the impossible had been achieved. There was a snap and go about the piece now. The leading lady had at length mastered that cue, and gave it out with bell-like clearness. Arthur Mifflin, as if refreshed and braced by his salt-water bath, was infusing a welcome vigour into his part. And even the comedian, George could not help admitting, showed signs of being on the eve of becoming funny. It was with a light heart and a light step that he made his way back to the hotel.
    In the veranda were a number of basket-chairs. Only one was occupied. He recognized the occupant.
    'I've just come back from a rehearsal,' he said, seating himself beside her.
    'Really?'
    'The whole thing is different,' he went on, buoyantly. 'They know their lines. They act as if they meant it. Arthur Mifflin's fine. The comedian's improved till you wouldn't know him. I'm awfully pleased about it.'
    'Really?'
    George felt damped.
    'I thought you might be pleased, too,' he said, lamely.
    'Of course I am glad that things are going well. Your accident this afternoon was lucky, too, in a way, was it not? It will interest people in the play.'
    'You heard about it?'
    'I have been hearing about nothing else.'
    'Curious it happening so soon after--'
    'And so soon before the production of your play. Most curious.'
    There was a silence. George began to feel uneasy. You could never tell with women, of course. It might be nothing; but it looked uncommonly as if--
    He changed the subject.
    'How is your aunt this evening, Miss Vaughan?'
    'Quite well, thank you. She went in. She found it a little chilly.'
    George heartily commended her good sense. A little chilly did not begin to express it. If the girl had been like this all the evening, he wondered her aunt had not caught pneumonia. He tried again.
    'Will you have time to give me another lesson tomorrow?' he said.
    She turned on him.
    'Mr Callender, don't you think this farce has gone on long enough?'
    Once, in the dear, dead days beyond recall, when but a happy child, George had been smitten unexpectedly by a sportive playmate a bare half-inch below his third waistcoat-button. The resulting emotions were still green in his memory. As he had felt then, so did he feel now.
    'Miss Vaughan! I don't understand.'
    'Really?'
    'What have I done?'
    'You have forgotten how to swim.'
    A warm and prickly sensation began to manifest itself in the region of George's forehead.
    'Forgotten!'
    'Forgotten. And in a few months. I thought I had seen you before, and today I remembered. It was just about this time last year that I saw you at Hayling Island swimming perfectly wonderfully, and today you are taking lessons. Can you explain it?'
    A frog-like croak was the best George could do in that line.
    She went on.
    'Business is business, I suppose, and a play has to be advertised somehow. But--'
    'You don't think--' croaked George.
    'I should have thought it rather beneath the dignity of an author; but, of course, you know your own business best. Only I object to being a conspirator. I am sorry for your sake that yesterday's episode attracted so little attention. Today it was much more satisfactory, wasn't it? I am so glad.'
    There was a massive silence for about a hundred years.
    'I think I'll go for a short stroll,' said George.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Scarcely had he disappeared when the long form of Mr Mifflin emerged from the shadow beyond the veranda.
    'Could you spare me a moment?'
    The girl looked up. The man was a stranger. She inclined her head coldly.
    'My name is Mifflin,' said the other, dropping comfortably into the chair which had held the remains of George.
    The girl inclined her head again more coldly; but it took more than that to embarrass Mr Mifflin. Dynamite might have done it, but not coldness.
    'The Mifflin,' he explained, crossing his legs. 'I overheard your conversation just now.'
    'You were listening?' said the girl, scornfully.
    'For all I was worth,' said Mr Mifflin. 'These things are very much a matter of habit. For years I have been playing in pieces where I have had to stand concealed up stage, drinking in the private conversation of other people, and the thing has become a second nature to me. However, leaving that point for a moment, what I wish to say is that I heard you--unknowingly, of course--doing a good man a grave injustice.'
    'Mr Callender could have defended himself if he had wished.'
    'I was not referring to George. The injustice was to myself.'
    'To you?'
    'I was the sole author of this afternoon's little drama. I like George, but I cannot permit him to pose in any way as my collaborator. George has old-fashioned ideas. He does not keep abreast of the times. He can write plays, but he needs a man with a big brain to boom them for him. So, far from being entitled to any credit for this afternoon's work, he was actually opposed to it.'
    'Then why did he pretend you had saved him?' she demanded.
    'George's,' said Mr Mifflin, 'is essentially a chivalrous nature. At any crisis demanding a display of the finer feelings he is there with the goods before you can turn round. His friends frequently wrangle warmly as to whether he is most like Bayard, Lancelot, or Happy Hooligan. Some say one, some the other. It seems that yesterday you saved him from a watery grave without giving him time to explain that he could save himself. What could he do? He said to himself, "She must never know!" and acted accordingly. But let us leave George, and return--'
    'Thank you, Mr Mifflin.' There was a break in her laugh. 'I don't think there is any necessity. I think I understand now. It was very clever of you.'
    'It was more than cleverness,' said Mr Mifflin, rising. 'It was genius.'
    *       *       *       *       *
    A white form came to meet George as he re-entered the veranda.
    'Mr Callender!'
    He stopped.
    'I'm very sorry I said such horrid things to you just now. I have been talking to Mr Mifflin, and I want to say I think it was ever so nice and thoughtful of you. I understand everything.'
    George did not, by a good deal; but he understood sufficient for his needs. He shot forward as if some strong hand were behind him with a needle.
    'Miss Vaughan--Mary--I--'
    'I think I hear aunt calling,' said she.
    *       *       *       *       *
    But a benevolent Providence has ordained that aunts cannot call for ever; and it is on record that when George entered his box on the two hundredth night of that great London success, Fate's Footballs, he did not enter it alone.