I can do them for myself.' He grinned. 'I can, you know. I can do them quite well.'
She sniffed audibly. 'About as well as I can run your submarine. You'd better make up a parcel of everything you've got that needs mending, and let me have it. That shirt included. Have you got the button?'
'I think I lost that.'
'You should be more careful. When a button comes off, you don't just chuck it away.'
'If you talk to me like that,' he said grimly, 'I really will give you everything I've got that needs mending. I'll bury you in the stuff.'
'Now we're getting somewhere,' she remarked. 'I thought you'd been concealing things. You'd better put it all into a cabin trunk, or two cabin trunks, and let me have them.'
'There's quite a lot,' he said.
'I knew it. If there's too much I'll shove some of it off on to Mummy and she'll probably distribute it all round the district. The First Naval Member lives quite near us; Mummy'll probably give Lady Hartman your underpants to mend.'
He looked at her in mock alarm. 'Say, Scorpion certainly would need another captain, then.'
She said, 'This conversation's going round in circles. You let me have everything that you've got that needs mending, anyway, and I'll see if I can't get you dressed up like a naval officer.'
'Okay,' he said. 'Where shall I bring the stuff to?'
She thought for a moment. 'You're on leave, aren't you?'
'On and off,' he said. 'We're giving leave over ten days, but I don't get that much. The captain has to stick around, or thinks he has.'
'Probably do the ship a world of good if he didn't,' she said. 'You'd better bring them down to me at Berwick, and stay a couple of nights. Can you drive a bullock?'
'I've never driven one,' he said. 'I could try.'
She eyed him speculatively. 'I suppose you'd be all right. If you can command a submarine you probably can't do much harm to one of our bullocks. Daddy's got a cart horse now called Prince, but I don't suppose he'd let you touch that. He'd probably let you drive one of the bullocks.'
'That's all right with me,' he said meekly. 'What am I supposed to do with the bullock?'
'Spread the dung,' she said. 'The cow pats. It has a harness that pulls a chain harrow over the grass. You walk beside it, leading it with a halter. You have a stick to tap it with as well. It's a very restful occupation. Good for the nerves.'
'I'm sure it is,' he said. 'What's it for? I mean, why do you do it?'
'It makes a good pasture,' she said. 'If you just leave the droppings where they are, the grass comes up in rank tufts and the animals won't eat it. Then the pasture isn't half as good next year as if you'd harrowed it. Daddy's very particular about harrowing each pasture after the beasts come out. We used to do it with a tractor. Now we do it with a bullock.'
'This is all so that he'd get a better pasture next year?'
'Yes, it is,' she said firmly. 'All right, you needn't say it. It's good farming to harrow the paddocks, and Daddy's a good farmer.'
'I wasn't going to say it. How many acres does he farm?'
'About five hundred. We do Angus beef cattle and sheep.'
'You shear the sheep for the wool?'
'That's right.'
'When do you do that?' he asked. 'I've never seen a shearing.'
'Usually we shear in October,' she said. 'Daddy's a bit worried that if we leave it till October this year it won't get done. He's talking of putting it forward and shearing in August.'
'That makes sense,' he observed gravely. He bent forward to put on his shoes. 'It's a long time since I was on a farm,' he said. 'I'd like to come and spend a day or two, if you can put up with me. I expect I can make myself useful, one way or another.'
'Don't worry about that,' she said. 'Daddy'll see you make yourself useful. It's going to be a godsend to him, having another man on the place.'
He smiled. 'And you'd really like me to bring all the mending with me?'
'I'll never forgive you if you just turn up with a couple of pairs of socks and say that your pyjamas are all right. Besides, Lady Hartman's looking forward to doing your pants. She doesn't know it, but she is.'
'I'll take your word for it.'
She drove him down to the station that evening in the Abbott buggy. As he got down from the vehicle she said, 'I'll expect you on Tuesday, at Berwick station, in the afternoon. Give me a ring about the time of your train if you can. Otherwise I'll be there at about four o'clock, and wait.'
He nodded. 'I'll call you. You really mean that about bringing all the mending?'
'I'll never forgive you if you don't.'
'Okay.' He hesitated. 'It'll be dark by the time you get home,' he said. 'Look after yourself.'
She smiled at him. 'I'll be all right. See you on Tuesday. Good night, Dwight.'
'Good night,' he said a little thickly. She drove off. He stood watching her until the buggy turned a corner and was out of sight.
It was ten o'clock at night when she drove into the yard outside the homestead. Her father heard the horse and came out in the darkness to help her unharness and put the buggy in the shed. In the dim light as they eased the vehicle back under cover, she said, 'I asked Dwight Towers down here for a couple of days. He's coming on Tuesday.'
'Coming here?' he asked, surprised.
'Yes. They've got leave before they go off on some other trip. You don't mind, do you?'
'Of course not. I hope it's not going to be dull for him, though. What are you going to do with him all day?'
'I told him he could drive the bullock round the paddocks. He's very practical.'
'I could do with somebody to help feed out the silage,' her father said.
'Well, I expect he could do that. After all, if he commands a nuclear-powered submarine he ought to be able to learn to shovel silage.'
They went into the house. Later that night he told her mother about their visitor. She was properly impressed. 'Do you think there's anything in it?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'She must like him all right.'
'She hasn't had a man to stay since that Forrest boy, before the war.'
He nodded. 'I remember. Never thought much of him. I'm glad that came to an end.'
'It was his Austin-Healey,' her mother remarked. 'I don't think she ever cared for him, not really.'
'This one's got a submarine,' her father said helpfully. 'It's probably the same thing.'
'He can't take her down the road in that at ninety miles an hour.' She paused, and then she said, 'Of course, he must be a widower now.'
He nodded. 'Everybody says that he's a very decent sort of chap.'
Her mother said, 'I do hope something comes of it. I would like to see her settled down, and happily married with some children.'
'She'll have to be quick about it, if you're going to see that,' remarked her father.
'Oh dear, I keep forgetting. But you know what I mean.'
He came to her on Tuesday afternoon; she met him with the horse and buggy. He got out of the train and looked around, sniffing the warm country air. 'Say,' he said, 'you've got some pretty nice country around here. Which way is your place?'
She pointed to the north. 'Over there, about three miles.'
'Up on that range of hills?'
'Not right up,' she said. 'Just a bit of the way up.'
He was carrying a suitcase, and swung it up into the buggy, pushing it under the seat. 'Is that all you've got?' she demanded.
'That's right. It's full of mending.'
'It doesn't look much. I'm sure you must have more than that.'
