Fundamentally, Geoffrey was afraid of women. His endeavours to categorize those he had met as either courtesan or domestic had led to dismal misunderstandings, since he had never known anyone remotely resembling either kind. He also laboured, as a result of reading books, under the delusion that every unmarried woman he met was hunting, with all the tricks and subterfuges of her deadly and mysterious sex, for a husband, and congratulated himself inwardly upon hair-raising escapes from several women who in point of fact had never even considered marrying him, and who had merely used him as a convenient temporary paramour and offered him the honourable courtesy of the sex, a good-night kiss at the end of an evening enjoyed at his expense. Beyond the age of thirty, he had gradually shunned acquaintance with these puzzling beings. Consequently, he approached this new example of the species with a trepidation accentuated by her obvious charm.
‘Damn the child!’ she said, and gave up the pursuit.
‘Has she been naughty?’ said Fielding simply. He asked the question with the ease and authority of one too essentially courteous to need the formal preliminaries of acquaintance.
The girl met him, with equal ease, on his own ground. ‘Do you think children should be spanked?’ she said. ‘Girls of that age, that is? I know I was – but Josephine’s such a proud, headstrong brat she takes it hard.’
‘I think you should avoid it if possible,’ said Fielding with unnecessary seriousness.
The girl laughed – a low, gurgling, infectious chuckle. ‘I see – you think it was me. No, I haven’t got to the stage of walloping children yet. Father did it – and I must say I hardly blame him. Would you believe it, Josephine tore up and burnt the whole of the manuscript of the book he was working on?’ An almost imperceptible chill came into the atmosphere. There are acts of petulance and ill-temper, and there are acts of deliberate malice. Geoffrey changed the subject with painfully obvious intent.
‘We ought to introduce ourselves,’ he said. ‘This is the Earl of – the Earl of – What are you the Earl of?’
‘It’s not of the least importance,’ said Fielding. He had put down the bags and was despairingly towelling his face and neck with an immense white silk handkerchief. ‘Don’t misunderstand me – if I thought that either of you would resent my being an earl, I should give you the full details immediately. But we might just as well say Henry Fielding, and be done with it.’
‘Not,’ the girl said, ‘the author of—?’
Geoffrey interrupted in some haste. ‘And I’m Geoffrey Vintner,’ he said. He made the assertion despondently, as though he scarcely expected anyone to credit it.
‘How nice,’ said the girl with business-like conviction. ‘We often do your Communion Service here. I’m Frances Butler.’
‘Good. So now we all know each other,’ said Fielding. He paused and gazed expectantly at Geoffrey.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Geoffrey. ‘We are looking for Fen – Gervase Fen.’
‘I thought you were,’ said the girl, gazing pointedly at the butterfly-net, which he still brandished like a banner in front of him, ‘because of that.’
Geoffrey regarded her gloomily for a moment. ‘Insects?’ he ventured at last.
She nodded gravely.
‘He’s out at the moment, and I don’t know when he’ll be back again. I gather he’s going to make some experiment tonight with moths, but we told him he couldn’t do it here, because poor little Dutton, the Deputy Organist, is terrified of them at the best of times; and as it’s got something to do with males flying hundreds of miles to get at a female in a darkened room, we thought that a clergy-house was an unsuitable place for such demonstrations. Besides, in the unlikely event of its succeeding, we couldn’t possibly have the place full of moths. So I believe he’s going to do it somewhere else.’
Geoffrey sighed. ‘How characteristic!’ he said. ‘He asks me to come down here, and then at the crucial moment disappears into the blue. I suppose he didn’t mention my arrival?’
‘Not a word.’
‘No.’ Geoffrey sighed; the burden of Atlas seemed to be upon him. ‘No, I might have expected that.’
‘Were you going to stay here?’ asked the girl.
‘Well, I imagined so. But I can’t possibly push myself in if you’re unprepared.’
‘I could manage one of you,’ said the girl dubiously, ‘but not both, by any possible means. There just isn’t a bed.’
‘I can find somewhere in the town to stay,’ said Fielding.
‘You’d better go to the Whale and Coffin,’ said the girl.
‘It sounds terrible.’
‘It is terrible, but there’s nowhere any better. Look, Mr Vintner, leave your bags in the porch. Someone will take them in later, I dare say. And would you like a wash?’
‘What I really want,’ said Geoffrey, ‘is a drink. Several drinks.’
‘All right. We’ll all go down to the Whale and Coffin. It is after six, isn’t it? Then we can talk about things.’
‘I don’t want to drag you away…’
‘Away from what? Don’t be so silly. Come on, both of you. It’s only three minutes from here.’
Geoffrey had nearly arrived before he realized he was still carrying the butterfly-net. He cursed it inwardly, murmuring under his breath.
‘Have a good, rousing swear,’ said the girl. ‘You’ll feel better.’
The Whale and Coffin turned out to be a large, low, rambling building of indefinite date situated in the middle of the old town. It was provided with innumerable bars, labelled variously: Bar, Saloon, Lounge Bar, Public Bar, Private Bar, and so on; these departments being ineffectually presided over by a small shortsighted, elderly man who hurried constantly from one to another, less with any hope of being useful, one felt, than because it had become a habit and he couldn’t stop it. He peered astigmatically at Geoffrey as he ordered drinks.
‘Stranger?’ he said. ‘Not been here before?’
‘No,’ said Geoffrey shortly. He refused to be kept from his beer by well-meaning chatter.
‘I think you’ll like it,’ said the other without particular confidence. ‘It’s a good local brew and we get a nice crowd here.’ From his accent it was evident that he was not a Devon man. ‘Strange name for a pub, isn’t it?’
‘Very.’
‘You’d imagine there’d be some story connected with a name like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘There isn’t, though. Someone just thought it up one day.’
Geoffrey looked at him with contempt and moved shakily back to the others, carrying drinks. They had settled in a remote alcove. Frances Butler crossed her legs, smoothed out her skirt with automatic propriety, and said:
‘You needn’t have worried – Harry never talks to anyone for more than a minute at a time. I’ve watched him.’
‘Do you come here often?’ asked Fielding.
‘Oh, so-so. I don’t haunt the place, if that’s what you mean. But it’s the nearest