And exploring unhappily the backwaters of his own impulses he asked himself finally if perhaps he resented the gift because he was not the author of it.
The rural mail-car passed along the main highway at about eleven o’clock in the morning, and any letters for the Springs were left in a tin post-box on the top gate. Parcels too big for the box were merely dumped beneath it. The morning was overcast and Gaunt was in a fever lest the Claires should delay the trip to the gate and the parcel from Sarah Snappe be rained upon. Dikon gathered that the gift was to remain anonymous but doubted Gaunt’s ability to deny himself the pleasure of enacting the part of fairy godfather. “He will drop some arch hint and betray himself,” Dikon thought angrily. “And even if she refuses the blasted dress she’ll be more besotted on him than ever.”
After breakfast Mrs. Claire and Barbara, assisted in a leisurely manner by Huia, bucketed into their household duties with their customary air of laying back their ears and rushing their fences. Simon, who usually fetched the mail, disappeared and presently it began to rain.
“The oaf!” Gaunt fulminated. “He will lurch up the hill an hour late and bring down a mass of repellent pulp.”
“I can go up if you like, sir. The man always sounds his horn if he has anything for us. I can go as soon as I hear it.”
“They would guess that we expected something. Even Colly — No, they must fetch their own detestable mail. She must receive her parcel at their hands. I want to see it, though. I can stroll out for my own letters. Good God, a second deluge is descending upon us. Perhaps, after all, Dikon, you had better go for a stroll and casually pick up the mail.”
Dikon looked at the rods of water that now descended with such force that they spurted off the pumice in fans, and asked his employer if he did not think it would seem a little eccentric to stroll in such weather. “Besides, sir,” he pointed out, “the mail-car cannot possibly arrive for two hours and my stroll would be ridiculously protracted.”
“You have been against me from the outset,” Gaunt muttered. “Very well, I shall dictate for an hour.”
Dikon followed him indoors, sat down, and produced his shorthand pad. He was dying to ask Simon if he had succeeded in his vigil.
Gaunt walked up and down and began to dictate. “The actor” he said, “is a modest warm-hearted fellow. Being, perhaps, more highly sensitized than his fellow man he is more sensitive. .” Dikon hesitated. “Well, what’s wrong with that?” Gaunt demanded.
“Sensitized, sensitive!”
“Death and damnation!.. he is more responsive, then, to the more subtle …”
“More, sir, and more.”
“Then delete the second more. How often am I to implore you to make these paltry amendments without disturbing me? …to the subtle nuances, the delicate half-tones of emotion. I had always been conscious of this gift, if it is one, in myself.
“Do you mind repeating that, sir? The rain makes such a din on the iron roof I can scarcely hear you. I got the subtle nuances.”
“Am I, then, to compose at the full pitch of my lungs?”
“I could trot after you with my little pad in my hand.”
“A preposterous suggestion.”
“It’s leaving off, now.”
The rain stopped with the abruptness of subtropical downpours, and the ground and roofs of Wai-ata-tapu began to steam. Gaunt became less restive and the dictation proceeded along lines that Dikon, in his new mood of open-eyed criticism, considered all too typical of almost any theatrical autobiography. But perhaps Gaunt would rescue his book by taking a line of defiant egoism. He seemed to be drifting that way. There was a growing flavour of: “This is the life story of a damn’ good actor who isn’t going to spoil it with gestures of false modesty”; a fashionable attitude, and no doubt Gaunt had decided to adopt it.
At ten o’clock Gaunt went down to the Springs with Colly in attendance, and Dikon hurried away in search of Simon. He found him in his cabin, a scrupulously tidy room where wireless magazines and text-books were set out on a working bench. He was in consultation with Smith, who broke ofï in the middle of some mumbled recital and with a grudging acknowledgment of Dikon’s greeting sloped away.
In contrast to Smith, Simon appeared to be almost cordial. Dikon was not quite sure how he stood with this curious young man, but he had a notion that his passive acceptance of the rôle cast for him in the lake incident as the remover of Barbara, and his suggestion that Simon should drive the car, had given him a kind of status. He thought that Simon disapproved of him on general principles as a parasite and a freak, but didn’t altogether dislike him.
“Here!” said Simon. “Can you beat it? Questing’s been telling Bert Smith he won’t put him off after all, when he cleans us up. He’s going to keep him on and give him good money. What d’you make of that?”
“Sudden change, isn’t it?”
“You bet it’s sudden. D’you get the big idea, though?”
“Does he want to keep him quiet?” Dikon suggested cautiously.
“I’ll say! Too right he wants to keep him quiet. He’s windy. He’s had one pop at rubbing Bert out and he’s made a mess of it. He daren’t come at that game again so he’s trying the other stuff. ‘Keep your mouth shut and it’s O.K. by me.’ ”
“But honestly —”
“Look, Mr. Bell, don’t start telling me it’s ‘incredible.’ You’ve been getting round with theatrical sissies for so long you don’t know a real man when you see one.”
“My dear Claire,” said Dikon with some heat, “may I suggest that speaking in the back of your throat and going out of your way to insult everybody that doesn’t is not the sole evidence of virility. And if real men spend their time trying to kill and bribe each other, I infinitely prefer my theatrical sissies.” Dikon removed his spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. “And if,” he added, “you mean what I imagine you to mean by ‘sissies,’ allow me to tell you you’re a liar. And furthermore, don’t call me Mr. Bell. I’m afraid you’re an inverted snob.”
Simon stared at him. “Aw, dickon!” he said at last, and then turned purple. “I’m not calling you by your Christian name,” he explained hurriedly. “That’s a kind of expression. Like you’d say, ‘Come off it.’ ”
“Oh.”
“And sissy is just a chap who’s kind of weak. You know. Too tired to take the trouble. English!”
“Like Winston Churchill?”