III
But one thing there was that Puddle still feared, and this was the girl’s desire for isolation. To her it appeared like a weakness in Stephen; she divined the bruised humility of spirit that now underlay this desire for isolation, and she did her best to frustrate it. It was Puddle who had forced the embarrassed Stephen to let in the Press photographers, and Puddle it was who had given the details for the captions that were to appear with the pictures: “If you choose to behave like a hermit crab I shall use my own judgment about what I say!”
“I don’t care a tinker’s darn what you say! Now leave me in peace do, Puddle.”
It was Puddle who answered the telephone calls: “I’m afraid Miss Gordon will be busy working—what name did you say? Oh, The Literary Monthly! I see—well suppose you come on Wednesday.” And on Wednesday morning there was old Puddle waiting to waylay the anxious young man who had been commanded to dig up some copy about the new novelist, Stephen Gordon. Then Puddle had smiled at the anxious young man and had shepherded him into her own little sanctum, and had given him a comfortable chair, and had stirred the fire the better to warm him. And the young man had noticed her charming smile and had thought how kind was this ageing woman, and how damned hard it was to go tramping the streets in quest of erratic, unsociable authors.
Puddle had said, still smiling kindly: “I’d hate you to go back without your copy, but Miss Gordon’s been working overtime lately, I dare not disturb her, you don’t mind, do you? Now if you could possibly make shift with me—I really do know a great deal about her; as a matter of fact I’m her ex-governess, so I really do know quite a lot about her.”
Out had come notebook and copying pencil; it was easy to talk to this sympathetic woman: “Well, if you could give me some interesting details—say, her taste in books and her recreations, I’d be awfully grateful. She hunts, I believe?”
“Oh, not now!”
“I see—well then, she did hunt. And wasn’t her father Sir Philip Gordon who had a place down in Worcestershire and was killed by a falling tree or something? What kind of pupil did you find Miss Gordon? I’ll send her my notes when I’ve worked them up, but I really would like to see her, you know.” Then being a fairly sagacious young man: “I’ve just read The Furrow, it’s a wonderful book!”
Puddle talked glibly while the young man scribbled, and when at last he was just about going she let him out on to the balcony from which he could look into Stephen’s study.
“There she is at her desk! What more could you ask?” she said triumphantly, pointing to Stephen whose hair was literally standing on end, as is sometimes the way with youthful authors. She even managed occasionally, to make Stephen see the journalists herself.