“Well, do that then, dear,” said Mrs. Marble. “Go home just for the night and get all the books and things you want. Of course, if father doesn’t mind, you can stay longer if you like. But you mustn’t do anything that might make him cross.”
It was hardly the freehanded congé that Winnie would have liked her to give, but, still, it was something.
When John announced his intention of starting off at once Mrs. Marble was shocked into protest. To her there was something unthinkable in changing one’s place of abode at ten minutes’ notice. She succeeded in persuading her son into postponing his departure until the next day—Saturday.
Even then she was full of instructions at the last moment.
“You know where the clean sheets are, don’t you, dear?” she said. “They’re in the lowest drawer in the big chest of drawers. Mind you air them before you put them on your bed. Oh, and when you come down again will you bring my white fur? It’s getting rather cold in the evenings now. You’re sure you know the way home all right? It’s rather a long way to go all by yourself.”
John had often before covered three times the distance in a single day, but he forbore saying so. He felt that it would be wiser to let his mother run on and have her full say out and then he would clear off without further argument. She continued, unmindful:
“I shall be quite anxious to hear that you got home safely. Mind you write as soon as you’re there, and be sure you tell me how father is. And—and—don’t forget what I said about not doing anything to annoy father.”
That made John fidget uneasily in his chair. At long last Mrs. Marble ended with:
“Well, goodbye, dear. Have a good time. Have you got enough money? Then goodbye. Don’t forget what I said. We’re just going on the pier with Mr. Horne. Goodbye, dear.”
And Winnie and Mrs. Marble and Mr. Horne were gone.
That was a most enjoyable day for John. For once he was neither the hotel prisoner nor yet was he at home with his father. It was the transition stage. He spent his time deliciously, luxuriously. He bathed by himself, at the far end of the town—his last bathe before starting out for home. That took time, for he wanted to make the most of it. Then he came back to the Grand Pavilion Hotel, took the Giant Twin from the garage, where it stood impatient and intolerant of all these domesticated saloons and limousines. The kickstarter swung obediently, and the engine broke into its sweet thunderous roar. John swung himself into the saddle, and the Giant Twin sprang impatiently forward as he let in the clutch. They climbed the steep ascent of the side street without an effort, nosed their way through the squalor of the slums at the back of the town, and in fifteen minutes were out on the free open downs. But John was determined not to waste a minute of his day’s happiness. He curbed the ardour of the Giant Twin to a mere fourteen miles an hour—a Rocinante speed worthy of his quixotic mood, as he told himself. They ambled along the great high road in wonderful spirits. The wind blew past him gently, and he filled his lungs with it, sighing with pleasure. It was twelve o’clock when he started; by one o’clock not thirty miles—not half the way—had been covered. John lunched by himself at a big yet homely hotel by the roadside. It was a decided change from lunch at the Grand Pavilion Hotel, with a band blaring only ten feet away, and mother talking platitudes—she couldn’t help that, poor dear, but it grew wearisome after a week or two—and Winnie looking round discreetly at the men, or, worse, chattering away to some greasy-haired fellow she had wangled mother into inviting. They were all greasy-haired, somehow, and not one of them knew how to speak to a fellow, not even the young ones. And as for the old ones! There was one doddering old idiot who had asked him if he kept white mice! John stretched his legs in comforting fashion under the table and lit a cigarette. Thank God, that was over, anyway. He couldn’t have borne that place another day. He hoped he would be all right with father. Father was such an uncertain sort of fellow nowadays. But apparently all he wanted was to be left alone, and that was all he wanted, as well. So they ought to get on all right. If they didn’t—well, it couldn’t be as bad as the hotel, anyway, with mother fussing over him and Winnie scrapping all the time. There was a little bit of the boor and a little bit of the bear about John.
But he was lighthearted enough when he came down and started up the Giant Twin once more for the last run homeward. He still went slowly, partly of his own free will, partly because of the growing volume of Saturday traffic that he met. He turned away from Croydon, and the Giant Twin brought him triumphantly up the long hill to the Crystal Palace without an effort. Ten minutes later the motor-bicycle ran silently with the clutch out, down the slope of Malcolm Road, and pulled up gently outside Number 53. John dismounted slowly. It had been a glorious day. Even now it was not yet evening. There was nothing better than a late afternoon in August, at the end of a flaming day. The rather depressing little road looked positively heavenly to the exile after three weeks at the Grand Pavilion Hotel. There was just a touch of red in the sky, where the sun was beginning to sink. John was half smiling as he looked round him, while he fumbled in his pocket for his latchkey. He was even smiling as he put the key in the
