AN UNDERSTUDY

"The indulgence of the audience is asked on behalf of Miss Joan Gaymer, who, owing to the sudden indisposition of Miss Mildred Freshwater, has taken up that lady's part at very short notice."

A couple of hours later Hughie, roaring very gently for so great a lion, was engaged in paddling a Canadian canoe down to Ditton Corner.

The canoe contained one passenger, who, with feminine indifference to the inflexible laws of science, was endeavouring to assist its progress by paddling in the wrong direction. Her small person, propped by convenient cushions, was wedged into the bow of the vessel, and her white frock and attenuated black legs were protected from the results of her own efforts at navigation by a spare blazer of Hughie's. Her hat lay on the floor of the canoe, half-full of cherries, and her long hair rippled and glimmered in the afternoon sun. Miss Joan Gaymer would be a beauty some day, but for the present all knowledge of that fact was being tactfully withheld from her. To do her justice, the prospect would have interested her but little. Like most small girls of eleven, she desired nothing so much at present as to resemble a small boy as closely as possible. She would rather have captured one bird's-nest than twenty hearts, and appearances she counted as dross provided she could hold her own in a catherine-wheel competition.

They were rather a silent couple. Joan was filled with that contentment which is beyond words. She was wearing a new frock; she had escaped under an escort almost exclusively male—if we except the benevolent despotism of Mrs. Ames—from home, nurse, and governess, to attend a series of purely grown-up functions; and to crown all, she was alone in the canoe, a light-blue blazer spread over her knees, with one who represented to her small experience the head and summit of all that a man should—nay, could—be.

"I expect," she remarked, in a sudden burst of exultation, as the canoe slid past two gorgeously arrayed young persons who were seated by the water's edge, "that those two are pretty sorry they're not in this canoe with us."

The ladies referred to arose and walked inland with some deliberation. Hughie did not answer. His brow was knitted and his manner somewhat absent.

"Hughie," announced Miss Gaymer reproachfully, "you are looking very cross at me."

She had a curiously gruff and hoarse little voice, and suffered in addition from inability to pronounce those elusive consonants r and l. So she did not say "very cross," but "ve'y c'oss," in a deep bass.

Hughie roused himself.

"Sorry, Joey!" he said; "I was thinking."

"Sec'ets?" inquired Miss Gaymer, all agog with femininity at once.

"No."

"Oh,"—rather disappointedly. "About your old boat, then?"

"Yes," said Hughie untruthfully. "Do you quite understand how we race?"

"I think so," said the child. "Your boat is second, and it wants to bump into the boat in f'ont—is that it?"

"Yes."

"Well, do it just when you pass us, will you?"

"I'll try," said Hughie, beginning to brighten up. "But it may take longer than that. About the Railway Bridge, I should think."

"And after the race will you take me home again?" inquired the lady anxiously.

"Can't be done, I'm afraid. The race finishes miles from Ditton, where you will be; and I shouldn't be able to get back in time. You had better drive home with the others."

"When shall I see you again, then?" demanded Miss Gaymer, who was not of an age to be reticent about the trend of her virgin affections.

"About seven. You are all coming to dine in my rooms."

"Ooh!" exclaimed his companion in a flutter of excitement. "How long can I sit up?"

"Ask Mrs. Ames," replied the diplomatic Hughie.

"Till ten?" hazarded Joey, with the air of one initiating a Dutch auction.

"Don't ask me, old lady."

"Supposing," suggested Miss Gaymer craftily, "that you was to say you wanted me to sit up and keep you company?"

Hughie laughed. "Afraid that wouldn't work. I have to go out about nine to a Bump Supper."

"What's that?"

"A College supper, in honour of the men who have been rowing."

"I like suppers," said Miss Gaymer tentatively.

Hughie smiled. "I don't think you'd like this one, Joey," he said.

"Why? Don't they have any sixpences or thimbles in the t'ifle?" said Miss Gaymer, in whose infant mind the word supper merely conjured up a vision of sticky children, wearing paper caps out of crackers, distending themselves under adult supervision.

"I don't think they have any trifle."

"Perfectly p'eposte'ous!" commented Miss Gaymer with heat. (I think it has already been mentioned that she spent a good deal of her time in the company of Jimmy Marrable.) "Ices?"

"Let me see. Yes—sometimes."

"Ah!" crooned Joey, with a happy little sigh. "Can't I come?"

"Afraid not, madam. Bump Suppers are for gentlemen only."

"I should like that," said madam frankly.

"And they are rather noisy. You might get frightened."

"Not if I was sitting alongside of you," was the tender reply.

Joey's anxiety for his company renewed Hughie's depression of spirits. Admiration and confidence are very desirable tributes to receive; but when they come from every quarter save the right one the desirability of that quarter is only intensified. Poor human nature! Hughie sighed again in a manner which caused the entire canoe to vibrate. Miss Gaymer suddenly turned the conversation.

"What was that person talking to you about, Hughie?" she inquired.

"Who?"

"That person that came with us in the t'ain. Miss—" Joey's mouth twisted itself into a hopeless tangle.

"Freshwater?" said Hughie, reddening.

"Yes. When you were taking us round the Co'ege after lunch you and her stayed behind on the top of the Chapel, while the rest of us were coming down. When I was waiting for you, I heard her say: 'You're the first to hear of it, Hughie.' To hear of what?"

Hughie looked genuinely disturbed.

"I don't know whether she wants it known yet, Joey," he said.

Miss Gaymer assumed an expression before which she knew that most gentlemen of her acquaintance, from Uncle Jimmy down to the coachman at home, were powerless.

"Hughie dear, you'll tell me, won't you?" she said.

Hughie, making a virtue of necessity, agreed.

"Well, promise you won't tell anybody," he said.

"All right," agreed Miss Gaymer, pleasantly intrigued.

"She's going to be married," said Hughie, in a voice which he endeavoured to make as matter-of-fact as possible. It was not a very successful effort. At twenty-one these things hurt quite as much, if not so lastingly, as in later life.

"I'm ve'y g'ad to hear it," remarked Miss Gaymer with composure.

Hughie looked at the small flushed face before him rather curiously.

"Why, Joey?" he asked.

"Never mind!" replied Miss Gaymer primly.

After that the conversation languished, for they were approaching the race-course, and boats of every size and rig were thronging round them. There was the stately family gig, with an academic and myopic paterfamilias at the helm and his numerous progeny at the oars, sweeping the deep of surrounding craft like Van Tromp's broom. There was the typical May Week argosy, consisting of a rowing-man's mother and sisters, left in the care of two or three amorous but unnautical cricketers, what time their relative performed prodigies of valour in the Second Division. There was also a particularly noisome home-made motor-boat,—known up and down the river from Grantchester to Ely as "The Stinkpot,"—about the size of a coffin, at present occupied (in the fullest sense of the word) by its designer, builder, and owner; who, packed securely into his craft, with his feet in a pile of small coal, the end of the boiler in the pit of his stomach, and the engines working at fever heat between his legs, was combining the duties of stoker, engineer, helmsman, and finally (with conspicuous success) director of ramming operations.

Through these various obstacles Hughie, despite the assistance of his passenger, directed his canoe with unerring precision, and finally brought up with all standing beside the piles at Ditton. He experienced no difficulty in making arrangements for the return journey of the canoe, for a gentleman of his acquaintance begged to be allowed the privilege of navigating it home, pleading internal pressure in his own craft as the reason. Hughie granted the boon with alacrity, merely wondering in his heart which of the three languishing damsels planted round his friend's tea-urn he had to thank for the deliverance.

They found the fly in a good position close to the water, with the rest of the party drinking tea, and meekly wondering when the heroes who dotted the landscape in various attitudes of nervousness would disencumber themselves of their gorgeous trappings and get to business. Hughie deposited Joan beside a mountain of buns and a fountain of tea, and, after expressing a hope that every one was getting on all right, announced that the Second Division might be expected to paddle down at any moment now.

This statement involved a chorus of questions regarding the technicalities of rowing, which that model of utility, Mr. Lunn, had confessed himself unable to answer, and which had accordingly been held over till Hughie's arrival.

Hughie's rather diffident impersonation of Sir Oracle, and his intricate explanation of the exact difference between bucketing and tubbing (listened to with respectful interest by surrounding tea-parties), was suddenly interrupted by a small but insistent voice, which besought him to turn the tap off and look pretty for a moment.

There was a shout of laughter, and Hughie turned round, to find that one of those privileged and all too inveterate attendants upon the modern athlete, a photographer, was (with the assistance of a megaphone) maintaining a reputation for humorous offensiveness, at his expense, on the towpath opposite.

After this the Second Division paddled down to the start, arrayed in colours which would have relegated such competitors as King Solomon and the lilies of the field to that euphemistic but humiliating category indicated by the formula "Highly Commended." Presently they returned, unclothed to an alarming and increasing extent, and rowing forty to the minute. One crew brought off a "gallery" bump right at Ditton Corner, to the joy of the galaxy of beauty and fashion thereon assembled. The bumped crew made the best of an inglorious situation by running into the piles and doubling up the nose of the boat, which suddenly buckled and assumed a sentry-box attitude over the head of the apoplectic gentleman who was rowing bow. The good ship herself incontinently sank, all hands going down with her like an octette of Casabiancas. Whereupon applause for the victors was turned into cries of compassion for the vanquished. However, as all concerned shook themselves clear of the wreck without difficulty and paddled contentedly to the bank, the panic subsided, and the rest of the procession raced past without further incident.

As the last boat, remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, accompanied by a coloured gentleman ringing a dinner-bell and a spectacled don who trotted alongside chanting, "Well rowed, Non-Collegiate Students!" creaked dismally past, Hughie arose and shook himself.

"Our turn now," he said. "So long, everybody!"

"Good luck, Hughie!" said Mrs. Ames. "Your health!"

She waved her cup and then took a sip of tea.

There was a chorus of good wishes from the party, and one or two neighbouring enthusiasts raised a cry of "Benedict's!" which swelled to a roar as Hughie, flushing red, elbowed his way out of the paddock and steered a course for a ferry-boat a hundred yards down the Long Reach. Popular feeling, which likes a peg upon which to hang its predilections, was running high in favour of Hughie and his practically single-handed endeavour to humble the pride of the All Saints men, with their four Blues and five years' Headship.

Still, though many a man's—especially a young man's—heart would have swelled excusably enough at such homage, Hughie cared very little for these things. The notoriety of the sporting paper and the picture-postcard attracted him not at all. He was doggedly determined to take his boat to the Head of the river, not for the glory the achievement would bring him, but for the very simple and sufficient reason that he had made up his mind, four Blues notwithstanding, to leave it there before he went down. A Cambridge man's pride in his College is a very real thing. An Oxford man will tell you that he is an Oxford man. A Cambridge man will say: "I was at such-and-such a College, Cambridge." Which sentiment is the nobler need not be decided here, but the fact remains.

However, there was a fly in the ointment. Amid the expressions of goodwill that emanated from Hughie's own party one voice had been silent. The omission was quite unintentional, for Miss Mildred Freshwater's head had been buried in a hamper in search of spoons at the moment of Hughie's departure. But to poor Hughie, who for all his strength was no more reasonable where his affections were concerned than other and weaker brethren, the circumstance bereft the ovation of the one mitigating feature it might otherwise have possessed for him.

As he strode along the bank to where the ferry-boat was waiting, he heard a pattering of feet behind. A small, hot, and rather grubby hand was thrust into his, and Miss Gaymer remarked:—

"I'm coming as far as that boat with you, Hughie. Can I?"

"All right, Joey," he replied.

They had only a few yards farther to go. Miss Gaymer looked up into her idol's troubled countenance.

"What's the matter, Hughie!" she inquired.

"Joey, I've got the hump."

Miss Gaymer squeezed his arm affectionately.

"Never mind, I'll marry you when I'm grown up," she announced rather breathlessly.

Hughie felt a little awed, as a man must always when he realises that a woman, however old or young, loves him. He smiled down on the slim figure beside him.

"You're a good sort, Joey," he said. "One of the best!"

Miss Gaymer returned contentedly to her tea, utterly and absolutely rewarded for the effort involved by the sacrifice of this, her maidenly reserve.