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| By P. G. Wodehouse
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| In a day in June, at the hour when London moves abroad in quest
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| of lunch, a young man stood at the entrance of the Bandolero
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| Restaurant looking earnestly up Shaftesbury Avenue--a large young
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| man in excellent condition, with a pleasant, good-humoured, brown,
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| clean-cut face. He paid no attention to the stream of humanity
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| that flowed past him. His mouth was set and his eyes wore a
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| serious, almost a wistful expression. He was frowning slightly.
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| One would have said that here was a man with a secret sorrow.
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| William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish, had no secret
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| sorrow. All that he was thinking of at that moment was the best
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| method of laying a golf ball dead in front of the Palace Theatre.
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| It was his habit to pass the time in mental golf when Claire
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| Fenwick was late in keeping her appointments with him. On one
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| occasion she had kept him waiting so long that he had been able to
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| do nine holes, starting at the Savoy Grill and finishing up near
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| Hammersmith. His was a simple mind, able to amuse itself with
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| simple things.
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| As he stood there, gazing into the middle distance, an individual
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| of dishevelled aspect sidled up, a vagrant of almost the maximum
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| seediness, from whose midriff there protruded a trayful of a
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| strange welter of collar-studs, shoe-laces, rubber rings,
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| buttonhooks, and dying roosters. For some minutes he had been
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| eyeing his lordship appraisingly from the edge of the kerb, and
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| now, secure in the fact that there seemed to be no policeman in
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| the immediate vicinity, he anchored himself in front of him and
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| observed that he had a wife and four children at home, all
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| starving.
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| This sort of thing was always happening to Lord Dawlish. There was
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| something about him, some atmosphere of unaffected kindliness,
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| that invited it.
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| In these days when everything, from the shape of a man's hat to
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| his method of dealing with asparagus, is supposed to be an index
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| to character, it is possible to form some estimate of Lord Dawlish
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| from the fact that his vigil in front of the Bandolero had been
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| expensive even before the advent of the Benedict with the studs
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| and laces. In London, as in New York, there are spots where it is
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| unsafe for a man of yielding disposition to stand still, and the
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| corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus is one of them.
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| Scrubby, impecunious men drift to and fro there, waiting for the
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| gods to provide something easy; and the prudent man, conscious of
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| the possession of loose change, whizzes through the danger zone at
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| his best speed, 'like one that on a lonesome road doth walk in
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| fear and dread, and having once turned round walks on, and turns
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| no more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth close
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| behind him tread.' In the seven minutes he had been waiting two
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| frightful fiends closed in on Lord Dawlish, requesting loans of
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| five shillings till Wednesday week and Saturday week respectively,
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| and he had parted with the [[money]] without a murmur.
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| A further clue to his character is supplied by the fact that both
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| these needy persons seemed to know him intimately, and that each
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| called him Bill. All Lord Dawlish's friends called him Bill, and
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| he had a catholic list of them, ranging from men whose names were
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| in 'Debrett' to men whose names were on the notice boards of
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| obscure clubs in connexion with the non-payment of dues. He was
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| the sort of man one instinctively calls Bill.
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| The anti-race-suicide enthusiast with the rubber rings did not call
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| Lord Dawlish Bill, but otherwise his manner was intimate. His
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| lordship's gaze being a little slow in returning from the middle
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| distance--for it was not a matter to be decided carelessly and
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| without thought, this problem of carrying the length of Shaftesbury
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| Avenue with a single brassy shot--he repeated the gossip from the
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| home. Lord Dawlish regarded him thoughtfully.
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| 'It could be done,' he said, 'but you'd want a bit of pull on it.
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| I'm sorry; I didn't catch what you said.'
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| The other obliged with his remark for the third time, with
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| increased pathos, for constant repetition was making him almost
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| believe it himself.
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| 'Four starving children?'
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| 'Four, guv'nor, so help me!'
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| 'I suppose you don't get much time for golf then, what?' said Lord
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| Dawlish, sympathetically.
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| It was precisely three days, said the man, mournfully inflating a
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| dying rooster, since his offspring had tasted bread.
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| This did not touch Lord Dawlish deeply. He was not very fond of
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| bread. But it seemed to be troubling the poor fellow with the
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| studs a great deal, so, realizing that tastes differ and that
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| there is no accounting for them, he looked at him commiseratingly.
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| 'Of course, if they like bread, that makes it rather rotten,
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| doesn't it? What are you going to do about it?'
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| 'Buy a dying rooster, guv'nor,' he advised. 'Causes great fun and
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| laughter.'
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| Lord Dawlish eyed the strange fowl without enthusiasm.
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| 'No,' he said, with a slight shudder.
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| There was a pause. The situation had the appearance of being at a
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| deadlock.
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| 'I'll tell you what,' said Lord Dawlish, with the air of one who,
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| having pondered, has been rewarded with a great idea: 'the fact
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| is, I really don't want to buy anything. You seem by bad luck to
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| be stocked up with just the sort of things I wouldn't be seen dead
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| in a ditch with. I can't stand rubber rings, never could. I'm not
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| really keen on buttonhooks. And I don't want to hurt your
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| feelings, but I think that squeaking bird of yours is about the
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| beastliest thing I ever met. So suppose I give you a shilling and
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| call it square, what?'
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| 'Gawd bless yer, guv'nor.'
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| 'Not at all. You'll be able to get those children of yours some
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| bread--I expect you can get a lot of bread for a shilling. Do they
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| really like it? Rum kids!'
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| And having concluded this delicate financial deal Lord Dawlish
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| turned, the movement bringing him face to face with a tall girl in
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| white.
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| During the business talk which had just come to an end this girl
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| had been making her way up the side street which forms a short cut
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| between Coventry Street and the Bandolero, and several admirers of
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| feminine beauty who happened to be using the same route had almost
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| dislocated their necks looking after her. She was a strikingly
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| handsome girl. She was tall and willowy. Her eyes, shaded by her
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| hat, were large and grey. Her nose was small and straight, her
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| mouth, though somewhat hard, admirably shaped, and she carried
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| herself magnificently. One cannot blame the policeman on duty in
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| Leicester Square for remarking to a cabman as she passed that he
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| envied the bloke that that was going to meet.
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| Bill Dawlish was this fortunate bloke, but, from the look of him
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| as he caught sight of her, one would have said that he did not
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| appreciate his luck. The fact of the matter was that he had only
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| just finished giving the father of the family his shilling, and he
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| was afraid that Claire had seen him doing it. For Claire, dear
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| girl, was apt to be unreasonable about these little generosities
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| of his. He cast a furtive glance behind him in the hope that the
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| disseminator of expiring roosters had vanished, but the man was
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| still at his elbow. Worse, he faced them, and in a hoarse but
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| carrying voice he was instructing Heaven to bless his benefactor.
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| 'Halloa, Claire darling!' said Lord Dawlish, with a sort of
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| sheepish breeziness. 'Here you are.'
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| Claire was looking after the stud merchant, as, grasping his
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| wealth, he scuttled up the avenue.
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| 'Only a bob,' his lordship hastened to say. 'Rather a sad case,
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| don't you know. Squads of children at home demanding bread. Didn't
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| want much else, apparently, but were frightfully keen on bread.'
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| 'He has just gone into a public-house.'
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| 'He may have gone to telephone or something, what?'
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| 'I wish,' said Claire, fretfully, leading the way down the
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| grillroom stairs, 'that you wouldn't let all London sponge on you
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| like this. I keep telling you not to. I should have thought that
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| if any one needed to keep what little money he has got it was
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| you.'
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| Certainly Lord Dawlish would have been more prudent not to have
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| parted with even eleven shillings, for he was not a rich man.
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| Indeed, with the single exception of the Earl of Wetherby, whose
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| finances were so irregular that he could not be said to possess an
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| income at all, he was the poorest man of his rank in the British
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| Isles.
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| It was in the days of the Regency that the Dawlish coffers first
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| began to show signs of cracking under the strain, in the era of
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| the then celebrated Beau Dawlish. Nor were his successors backward
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| in the spending art. A breezy disregard for the preservation of
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| the pence was a family trait. Bill was at Cambridge when his
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| predecessor in the title, his Uncle Philip, was performing the
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| concluding exercises of the dissipation of the Dawlish doubloons,
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| a feat which he achieved so neatly that when he died there was
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| just enough [[cash]] to pay the doctors, and no more. Bill found
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| himself the possessor of that most ironical thing, a moneyless
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| title. He was then twenty-three.
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| Until six months before, when he had become engaged to Claire
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| Fenwick, he had found nothing to quarrel with in his lot. He was
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| not the type to waste time in vain regrets. His tastes were
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| simple. As long as he could afford to belong to one or two golf
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| clubs and have something over for those small loans which, in
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| certain of the numerous circles in which he moved, were the
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| inevitable concomitant of popularity, he was satisfied. And this
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| modest ambition had been realized for him by a group of what he
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| was accustomed to refer to as decent old bucks, who had installed
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| him as secretary of that aristocratic and exclusive club, Brown's
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| in St James Street, at an annual salary of four hundred pounds.
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| With that wealth, added to free lodging at one of the best clubs
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| in London, perfect health, a steadily-diminishing golf handicap,
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| and a host of friends in every walk of life, Bill had felt that it
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| would be absurd not to be happy and contented.
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| But Claire had made a difference. There was no question of that.
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| In the first place, she resolutely declined to marry him on four
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| hundred pounds a year. She scoffed at four hundred pounds a year.
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| To hear her talk, you would have supposed that she had been
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| brought up from the cradle to look on four hundred pounds a year
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| as small change to be disposed of in tips and cab fares. That in
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| itself would have been enough to sow doubts in Bill's mind as to
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| whether he had really got all the money that a reasonable man
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| needed; and Claire saw to it that these doubts sprouted, by
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| confining her conversation on the occasions of their meeting
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| almost entirely to the great theme of money, with its minor
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| sub-divisions of How to get it, Why don't you get it? and I'm sick
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| and tired of not having it.
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| She developed this theme to-day, not only on the stairs leading to
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| the grillroom, but even after they had seated themselves at their
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| table. It was a relief to Bill when the arrival of the waiter with
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| food caused a break in the conversation and enabled him adroitly
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| to change the subject.
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| 'What have you been doing this morning?' he asked.
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| 'I went to see Maginnis at the theatre.'
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| 'Oh!'
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| 'I had a wire from him asking me to call. They want me to call.
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| They want me to take up Claudia Winslow's part in the number one
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| company.'
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| 'That's good.'
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| 'Why?'
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| 'Well--er--what I mean--well, isn't it? What I mean is, leading
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| part, and so forth.'
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| 'In a touring company?'
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| 'Yes, I see what you mean,' said Lord Dawlish, who didn't at all.
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| He thought rather highly of the number one companies that hailed
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| from the theatre of which Mr Maginnis was proprietor.
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| 'And anyhow, I ought to have had the part in the first place
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| instead of when the tour's half over. They are at Southampton this
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| week. He wants me to join them there and go on to Portsmouth with
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| them.'
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| 'You'll like Portsmouth.'
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| 'Why?'
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| 'Well--er--good links quite near.'
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| 'You know I don't play golf.'
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| 'Nor do you. I was forgetting. Still, it's quite a jolly place.'
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| 'It's a horrible place. I loathe it. I've half a mind not to go.'
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| 'Oh, I don't know.'
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| 'What do you mean?'
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| Lord Dawlish was feeling a little sorry for himself. Whatever he
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| said seemed to be the wrong thing. This evidently was one of the
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| days on which Claire was not so sweet-tempered as on some other
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| days. It crossed his mind that of late these irritable moods of
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| hers had grown more frequent. It was not her fault, poor girl! he
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| told himself. She had rather a rotten time.
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| It was always Lord Dawlish's habit on these occasions to make this
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| excuse for Claire. It was such a satisfactory excuse. It covered
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| everything. But, as a matter of fact, the rather rotten time which
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| she was having was not such a very rotten one. Reducing it to its
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| simplest terms, and forgetting for the moment that she was an
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| extraordinarily beautiful girl--which his lordship found it
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| impossible to do--all that it amounted to was that, her mother
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| having but a small income, and existence in the West Kensington
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| flat being consequently a trifle dull for one with a taste for the
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| luxuries of life, Claire had gone on the stage. By birth she
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| belonged to a class of which the female members are seldom called
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| upon to earn money at all, and that was one count of her grievance
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| against Fate. Another was that she had not done as well on the
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| stage as she had expected to do. When she became engaged to Bill
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| she had reached a point where she could obtain without difficulty
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| good parts in the touring companies of London successes, but
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| beyond that it seemed it was impossible for her to soar. It was
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| not, perhaps, a very exhilarating life, but, except to the eyes of
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| love, there was nothing tragic about it. It was the cumulative
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| effect of having a mother in reduced circumstances and grumbling
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| about it, of being compelled to work and grumbling about that, and
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| of achieving in her work only a semi-success and grumbling about
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| that also, that--backed by her looks--enabled Claire to give quite
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| a number of people, and Bill Dawlish in particular, the impression
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| that she was a modern martyr, only sustained by her indomitable
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| courage.
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| So Bill, being requested in a peevish voice to explain what he
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| meant by saying, 'Oh, I don't know,' condoned the peevishness. He
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| then bent his mind to the task of trying to ascertain what he had
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| meant.
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| 'Well,' he said, 'what I mean is, if you don't show up won't it be
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| rather a jar for old friend Maginnis? Won't he be apt to foam at
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| the mouth a bit and stop giving you parts in his companies?'
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| 'I'm sick of trying to please Maginnis. What's the good? He never
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| gives me a chance in London. I'm sick of being always on tour. I'm
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| sick of everything.'
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| 'It's the heat,' said Lord Dawlish, most injudiciously.
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| 'It isn't the heat. It's you!'
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| 'Me? What have I done?'
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| 'It's what you've not done. Why can't you exert yourself and make
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| some money?'
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| Lord Dawlish groaned a silent groan. By a devious route, but with
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| unfailing precision, they had come homing back to the same old
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| subject.
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| 'We have been engaged for six months, and there seems about as
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| much chance of our ever getting married as of--I can't think of
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| anything unlikely enough. We shall go on like this till we're
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| dead.'
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| 'But, my dear girl!'
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| 'I wish you wouldn't talk to me as if you were my grandfather.
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| What were you going to say?'
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| 'Only that we can get married this afternoon if you'll say the
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| word.'
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| 'Oh, don't let us go into all that again! I'm not going to marry
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| on four hundred a year and spend the rest of my life in a pokey
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| little flat on the edge of London. Why can't you make more money?'
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| 'I did have a dash at it, you know. I waylaid old Bodger--Colonel
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| Bodger, on the committee of the club, you know--and suggested over
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| a whisky-and-soda that the management of Brown's would be behaving
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| like sportsmen if they bumped my salary up a bit, and the old boy
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| nearly strangled himself trying to suck down Scotch and laugh at
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| the same time. I give you my word, he nearly expired on the
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| smoking-room floor. When he came to he said that he wished I
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| wouldn't spring my good things on him so suddenly, as he had a
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| weak heart. He said they were only paying me my present salary
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| because they liked me so much. You know, it was decent of the old
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| boy to say that.'
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| 'What is the good of being liked by the men in your club if you
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| won't make any use of it?'
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| 'How do you mean?'
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| 'There are endless things you could do. You could have got Mr
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| Breitstein elected at Brown's if you had liked. They wouldn't have
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| dreamed of blackballing any one proposed by a popular man like you,
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| and Mr Breitstein asked you personally to use your influence--you
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| told me so.'
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| 'But, my dear girl--I mean my darling--Breitstein! He's the limit!
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| He's the worst bounder in London.'
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| 'He's also one of the richest men in London. He would have done
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| anything for you. And you let him go! You insulted him!'
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| 'Insulted him?'
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| 'Didn't you send him an admission ticket to the Zoo?'
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| 'Oh, well, yes, I did do that. He thanked me and went the
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| following Sunday. Amazing how these rich Johnnies love getting
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| something for nothing. There was that old American I met down at
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| Marvis Bay last year--'
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| 'You threw away a wonderful chance of making all sorts of money.
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| Why, a single tip from Mr Breitstein would have made your
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| fortune.'
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| 'But, Claire, you know, there are some things--what I mean is, if
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| they like me at Brown's, it's awfully decent of them and all that,
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| but I couldn't take advantage of it to plant a fellow like
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| Breitstein on them. It wouldn't be playing the game.'
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| 'Oh, nonsense!'
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| Lord Dawlish looked unhappy, but said nothing. This matter of Mr
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| Breitstein had been touched upon by Claire in previous conversations,
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| and it was a subject for which he had little liking. Experience had
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| taught him that none of the arguments which seemed so conclusive
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| to him--to wit, that the financier had on two occasions only just
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| escaped imprisonment for fraud, and, what was worse, made a
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| noise when he drank soup, like water running out of a bathtub--had
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| the least effect upon her. The only thing to do when Mr Breitstein
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| came up in the course of chitchat over the festive board was to
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| stay quiet until he blew over.
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| 'That old American you met at Marvis Bay,' said Claire, her memory
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| flitting back to the remark which she had interrupted; 'well,
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| there's another case. You could easily have got him to do
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| something for you.'
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| 'Claire, really!' said his goaded lordship, protestingly. 'How on
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| earth? I only met the man on the links.'
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| 'But you were very nice to him. You told me yourself that you
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| spent hours helping him to get rid of his slice, whatever that
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| is.'
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| 'We happened to be the only two down there at the time, so I was
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| as civil as I could manage. If you're marooned at a Cornish
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| seaside resort out of the season with a man, you can't spend your
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| time dodging him. And this man had a slice that fascinated me. I
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| felt at the time that it was my mission in life to cure him, so I
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| had a dash at it. But I don't see how on the strength of that I
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| could expect the old boy to adopt me. He probably forgot my
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| existence after I had left.'
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| 'You said you met him in London a month or two afterwards, and he
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| hadn't forgotten you.'
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| 'Well, yes, that's true. He was walking up the Haymarket and I was
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| walking down. I caught his eye, and he nodded and passed on. I
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| don't see how I could construe that into an invitation to go and
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| sit on his lap and help myself out of his pockets.'
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| 'You couldn't expect him to go out of his way to help you; but
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| probably if you had gone to him he would have done something.'
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| 'You haven't the pleasure of Mr Ira Nutcombe's acquaintance,
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| Claire, or you wouldn't talk like that. He wasn't the sort of man
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| you could get things out of. He didn't even tip the caddie.
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| Besides, can't you see what I mean? I couldn't trade on a chance
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| acquaintance of the golf links to--'
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| 'That is just what I complain of in you. You're too diffident.'
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| 'It isn't diffidence exactly. Talking of old Nutcombe, I was
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| speaking to Gates again the other night. He was telling me about
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| America. There's a lot of money to be made over there, you know,
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| and the committee owes me a holiday. They would give me a few
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| weeks off any time I liked.
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| 'What do you say? Shall I pop over and have a look round? I might
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| happen to drop into something. Gates was telling me about fellows
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| he knew who had dropped into things in New York.'
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| 'What's the good of putting yourself to all the trouble and
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| expense of going to America? You can easily make all you want in
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| London if you will only try. It isn't as if you had no chances.
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| You have more chances than almost any man in town. With your title
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| you could get all the directorships in the City that you wanted.'
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| 'Well, the fact is, this business of taking directorships has
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| never quite appealed to me. I don't know anything about the game,
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| and I should probably run up against some wildcat company. I can't
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| say I like the directorship wheeze much. It's the idea of knowing
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| that one's name would be being used as a bait. Every time I saw it
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| on a prospectus I should feel like a trout fly.'
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| Claire bit her lip.
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| 'It's so exasperating!' she broke out. 'When I first told my
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| friends that I was engaged to Lord Dawlish they were tremendously
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| impressed. They took it for granted that you must have lots of
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| money. Now I have to keep explaining to them that the reason we
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| don't get married is that we can't afford to. I'm almost as badly
| |
| off as poor Polly Davis who was in the Heavenly Waltz Company with
| |
| me when she married that man, Lord Wetherby. A man with a title
| |
| has no right not to have money. It makes the whole thing farcical.
| |
| | |
| 'If I were in your place I should have tried a hundred things by
| |
| now, but you always have some silly objection. Why couldn't you,
| |
| for instance, have taken on the agency of that what-d'you-call-it
| |
| car?'
| |
| | |
| 'What I called it would have been nothing to what the poor devils
| |
| who bought it would have called it.'
| |
| | |
| 'You could have sold hundreds of them, and the company would have
| |
| given you any commission you asked. You know just the sort of
| |
| people they wanted to get in touch with.'
| |
| | |
| 'But, darling, how could I? Planting Breitstein on the club would
| |
| have been nothing compared with sowing these horrors about London.
| |
| I couldn't go about the place sticking my pals with a car which, I
| |
| give you my honest word, was stuck together with chewing-gum and
| |
| tied up with string.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why not? It would be their fault if they bought a car that wasn't
| |
| any good. Why should you have to worry once you had it sold?'
| |
| | |
| It was not Lord Dawlish's lucky afternoon. All through lunch he
| |
| had been saying the wrong thing, and now he put the coping-stone
| |
| on his misdeeds. Of all the ways in which he could have answered
| |
| Claire's question he chose the worst.
| |
| | |
| 'Er--well,' he said, '_noblesse oblige_, don't you know, what?'
| |
| | |
| For a moment Claire did not speak. Then she looked at her watch
| |
| and got up.
| |
| | |
| 'I must be going,' she said, coldly.
| |
| | |
| 'But you haven't had your coffee yet.'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't want any coffee.'
| |
| | |
| 'What's the matter, dear?'
| |
| | |
| 'Nothing is the matter. I have to go home and pack. I'm going to
| |
| Southampton this afternoon.'
| |
| | |
| She began to move towards the door. Lord Dawlish, anxious to
| |
| follow, was detained by the fact that he had not yet paid the
| |
| bill. The production and settling of this took time, and when
| |
| finally he turned in search of Claire she was nowhere visible.
| |
| | |
| Bounding upstairs on the swift feet of love, he reached the
| |
| street. She had gone.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 2
| |
| | |
| | |
| A grey sadness surged over Bill Dawlish. The sun hid itself behind
| |
| a cloud, the sky took on a leaden hue, and a chill wind blew
| |
| through the world. He scanned Shaftesbury Avenue with a jaundiced
| |
| eye, and thought that he had never seen a beastlier thoroughfare.
| |
| Piccadilly, however, into which he shortly dragged himself, was
| |
| even worse. It was full of men and women and other depressing
| |
| things.
| |
| | |
| He pitied himself profoundly. It was a rotten world to live in,
| |
| this, where a fellow couldn't say _noblesse oblige_ without
| |
| upsetting the universe. Why shouldn't a fellow say _noblesse
| |
| oblige?_ Why--? At this juncture Lord Dawlish walked into a
| |
| lamp-post.
| |
| | |
| The shock changed his mood. Gloom still obsessed him, but blended
| |
| now with remorse. He began to look at the matter from Claire's
| |
| viewpoint, and his pity switched from himself to her. In the first
| |
| place, the poor girl had rather a rotten time. Could she be blamed
| |
| for wanting him to make money? No. Yet whenever she made suggestions
| |
| as to how the thing was to be done, he snubbed her by saying
| |
| _noblesse oblige_. Naturally a refined and sensitive young girl
| |
| objected to having things like _noblesse oblige_ said to her. Where
| |
| was the sense in saying _noblesse oblige_? Such a confoundedly silly
| |
| thing to say. Only a perfect ass would spend his time rushing about
| |
| the place saying _noblesse oblige_ to people.
| |
| | |
| 'By Jove!' Lord Dawlish stopped in his stride. He disentangled
| |
| himself from a pedestrian who had rammed him on the back. 'I'll do
| |
| it!'
| |
| | |
| He hailed a passing taxi and directed the driver to make for the
| |
| Pen and Ink Club.
| |
| | |
| The decision at which Bill had arrived with such dramatic
| |
| suddenness in the middle of Piccadilly was the same at which some
| |
| centuries earlier Columbus had arrived in the privacy of his home.
| |
| | |
| 'Hang it!' said Bill to himself in the cab, 'I'll go to America!'
| |
| The exact words probably which Columbus had used, talking the
| |
| thing over with his wife.
| |
| | |
| Bill's knowledge of the great republic across the sea was at this
| |
| period of his life a little sketchy. He knew that there had been
| |
| unpleasantness between England and the United States in
| |
| seventeen-something and again in eighteen-something, but that
| |
| things had eventually been straightened out by Miss Edna May
| |
| and her fellow missionaries of the Belle of New York Company,
| |
| since which time there had been no more trouble. Of American
| |
| cocktails he had a fair working knowledge, and he appreciated
| |
| ragtime. But of the other great American institutions he was
| |
| completely ignorant.
| |
| | |
| He was on his way now to see Gates. Gates was a comparatively
| |
| recent addition to his list of friends, a New York newspaperman
| |
| who had come to England a few months before to act as his paper's
| |
| London correspondent. He was generally to be found at the Pen and
| |
| Ink Club, an institution affiliated with the New York Players, of
| |
| which he was a member.
| |
| | |
| Gates was in. He had just finished lunch.
| |
| | |
| 'What's the trouble, Bill?' he inquired, when he had deposited his
| |
| lordship in a corner of the reading-room, which he had selected
| |
| because silence was compulsory there, thus rendering it possible
| |
| for two men to hear each other speak. 'What brings you charging in
| |
| here looking like the Soul's Awakening?'
| |
| | |
| 'I've had an idea, old man.'
| |
| | |
| 'Proceed. Continue.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh! Well, you remember what you were saying about America?'
| |
| | |
| 'What was I saying about America?'
| |
| | |
| 'The other day, don't you remember? What a lot of money there was
| |
| to be made there and so forth.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well?'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm going there.'
| |
| | |
| 'To America?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'To make money?'
| |
| | |
| 'Rather.'
| |
| | |
| Gates nodded--sadly, it seemed to Bill. He was rather a melancholy
| |
| young man, with a long face not unlike a pessimistic horse.
| |
| | |
| 'Gosh!' he said.
| |
| | |
| Bill felt a little damped. By no mental juggling could he construe
| |
| 'Gosh!' into an expression of enthusiastic approbation.
| |
| | |
| Gates looked at Bill curiously. 'What's the idea?' he said. 'I
| |
| could have understood it if you had told me that you were going to
| |
| New York for pleasure, instructing your man Willoughby to see that
| |
| the trunks were jolly well packed and wiring to the skipper of
| |
| your yacht to meet you at Liverpool. But you seem to have sordid
| |
| motives. You talk about making money. What do you want with more
| |
| money?'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, I'm devilish hard up.'
| |
| | |
| 'Tenantry a bit slack with the rent?' said Gates sympathetically.
| |
| | |
| Bill laughed.
| |
| | |
| 'My dear chap, I don't know what on earth you're talking about.
| |
| How much money do you think I've got? Four hundred pounds a year,
| |
| and no prospect of ever making more unless I sweat for it.'
| |
| | |
| 'What! I always thought you were rolling in money.'
| |
| | |
| 'What gave you that idea?'
| |
| | |
| 'You have a prosperous look. It's a funny thing about England.
| |
| I've known you four months, and I know men who know you; but I've
| |
| never heard a word about your finances. In New York we all wear
| |
| labels, stating our incomes and prospects in clear lettering.
| |
| Well, if it's like that it's different, of course. There certainly
| |
| is more money to be made in America than here. I don't quite see
| |
| what you think you're going to do when you get there, but that's
| |
| up to you.
| |
| | |
| 'There's no harm in giving the city a trial. Anyway, I can give
| |
| you a letter or two that might help.'
| |
| | |
| 'That's awfully good of you.'
| |
| | |
| 'You won't mind my alluding to you as my friend William Smith?'
| |
| | |
| 'William Smith?'
| |
| | |
| 'You can't travel under your own name if you are really serious
| |
| about getting a job. Mind you, if my letters lead to anything it
| |
| will probably be a situation as an earnest bill-clerk or an
| |
| effervescent office-boy, for Rockefeller and Carnegie and that lot
| |
| have swiped all the soft jobs. But if you go over as Lord Dawlish
| |
| you won't even get that. Lords are popular socially in America,
| |
| but are not used to any great extent in the office. If you try to
| |
| break in under your right name you'll get the glad hand and be
| |
| asked to stay here and there and play a good deal of golf and
| |
| dance quite a lot, but you won't get a job. A gentle smile will
| |
| greet all your pleadings that you be allowed to come in and save
| |
| the firm.'
| |
| | |
| 'I see.'
| |
| | |
| 'We may look on Smith as a necessity.'
| |
| | |
| 'Do you know, I'm not frightfully keen on the name Smith. Wouldn't
| |
| something else do?'
| |
| | |
| 'Sure. We aim to please. How would Jones suit you?'
| |
| | |
| 'The trouble is, you know, that if I took a name I wasn't used to
| |
| I might forget it.'
| |
| | |
| 'If you've the sort of mind that would forget Jones I doubt if
| |
| ever you'll be a captain of industry.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why not Chalmers?'
| |
| | |
| 'You think it easier to memorize than Jones?'
| |
| | |
| 'It used to be my name, you see, before I got the title.'
| |
| | |
| 'I see. All right. Chalmers then. When do you think of starting?'
| |
| | |
| 'To-morrow.'
| |
| | |
| 'You aren't losing much time. By the way, as you're going to New
| |
| York you might as well use my flat.'
| |
| | |
| 'It's awfully good of you.'
| |
| | |
| 'Not a bit. You would be doing me a favour. I had to leave at a
| |
| moment's notice, and I want to know what's been happening to the
| |
| place. I left some Japanese prints there, and my favourite
| |
| nightmare is that someone has broken in and sneaked them. Write
| |
| down the address--Forty-blank East Twenty-seventh Street. I'll
| |
| send you the key to Brown's to-night with those letters.'
| |
| | |
| Bill walked up the Strand, glowing with energy. He made his way to
| |
| Cockspur Street to buy his ticket for New York. This done, he set
| |
| out to Brown's to arrange with the committee the details of his
| |
| departure.
| |
| | |
| He reached Brown's at twenty minutes past two and left it again at
| |
| twenty-three minutes past; for, directly he entered, the hall
| |
| porter had handed him a telephone message. The telephone
| |
| attendants at London clubs are masters of suggestive brevity. The
| |
| one in the basement of Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paper
| |
| the words: '1 p.m. Will Lord Dawlish as soon as possible call upon
| |
| Mr Gerald Nichols at his office?' To this was appended a message
| |
| consisting of two words: 'Good news.'
| |
| | |
| It was stimulating. The probability was that all Jerry Nichols
| |
| wanted to tell him was that he had received stable information
| |
| about some horse or had been given a box for the Empire, but for
| |
| all that it was stimulating.
| |
| | |
| Bill looked at his watch. He could spare half an hour. He set out
| |
| at once for the offices of the eminent law firm of Nichols,
| |
| Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols, of which aggregation of Nicholses
| |
| his friend Jerry was the last and smallest.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 3
| |
| | |
| | |
| On a west-bound omnibus Claire Fenwick sat and raged silently in the
| |
| June sunshine. She was furious. What right had Lord Dawlish to look
| |
| down his nose and murmur '_Noblesse oblige_' when she asked him a
| |
| question, as if she had suggested that he should commit some crime?
| |
| It was the patronizing way he had said it that infuriated her, as if
| |
| he were a superior being of some kind, governed by codes which she
| |
| could not be expected to understand. Everybody nowadays did the sort
| |
| of things she suggested, so what was the good of looking shocked and
| |
| saying '_Noblesse oblige_'?
| |
| | |
| The omnibus rolled on towards West Kensington. Claire hated the
| |
| place with the bitter hate of one who had read society novels, and
| |
| yearned for Grosvenor Square and butlers and a general atmosphere
| |
| of soft cushions and pink-shaded lights and maids to do one's
| |
| hair. She hated the cheap furniture of the little parlour, the
| |
| penetrating contralto of the cook singing hymns in the kitchen,
| |
| and the ubiquitousness of her small brother. He was only ten, and
| |
| small for his age, yet he appeared to have the power of being in
| |
| two rooms at the same time while making a nerve-racking noise in
| |
| another.
| |
| | |
| It was Percy who greeted her to-day as she entered the flat.
| |
| | |
| 'Halloa, Claire! I say, Claire, there's a letter for you. It came
| |
| by the second post. I say, Claire, it's got an American stamp on
| |
| it. Can I have it, Claire? I haven't got one in my collection.'
| |
| | |
| His sister regarded him broodingly. 'For goodness' sake don't
| |
| bellow like that!' she said. 'Of course, you can have the stamp. I
| |
| don't want it. Where is the letter?'
| |
| | |
| Claire took the envelope from him, extracted the letter, and
| |
| handed back the envelope. Percy vanished into the dining-room with
| |
| a shattering squeal of pleasure.
| |
| | |
| A voice spoke from behind a half-opened door--
| |
| | |
| 'Is that you, Claire?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, mother; I've come back to pack. They want me to go to
| |
| Southampton to-night to take up Claudia Winslow's part.'
| |
| | |
| 'What train are you catching?'
| |
| | |
| 'The three-fifteen.'
| |
| | |
| 'You will have to hurry.'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm going to hurry,' said Claire, clenching her fists as two
| |
| simultaneous bursts of song, in different keys and varying tempos,
| |
| proceeded from the dining-room and kitchen. A girl has to be in a
| |
| sunnier mood than she was to bear up without wincing under the
| |
| infliction of a duet consisting of the Rock of Ages and Waiting
| |
| for the Robert E. Lee. Assuredly Claire proposed to hurry. She
| |
| meant to get her packing done in record time and escape from this
| |
| place. She went into her bedroom and began to throw things
| |
| untidily into her trunk. She had put the letter in her pocket
| |
| against a more favourable time for perusal. A glance had told her
| |
| that it was from her friend Polly, Countess of Wetherby: that
| |
| Polly Davis of whom she had spoken to Lord Dawlish. Polly Davis,
| |
| now married for better or for worse to that curious invertebrate
| |
| person, Algie Wetherby, was the only real friend Claire had made
| |
| on the stage. A sort of shivering gentility had kept her aloof
| |
| from the rest of her fellow-workers, but it took more than a
| |
| shivering gentility to stave off Polly.
| |
| | |
| Claire had passed through the various stages of intimacy with her,
| |
| until on the occasion of Polly's marriage she had acted as her
| |
| bridesmaid.
| |
| | |
| It was a long letter, too long to be read until she was at
| |
| leisure, and written in a straggling hand that made reading
| |
| difficult. She was mildly surprised that Polly should have written
| |
| her, for she had been back in America a year or more now, and this
| |
| was her first letter. Polly had a warm heart and did not forget
| |
| her friends, but she was not a good correspondent.
| |
| | |
| The need of getting her things ready at once drove the letter from
| |
| Claire's mind. She was in the train on her way to Southampton
| |
| before she remembered its existence.
| |
| | |
| It was dated from New York.
| |
| | |
| MY DEAR OLD CLAIRE,--Is this really my first letter to you? Isn't
| |
| that awful! Gee! A lot's happened since I saw you last. I must
| |
| tell you first about my hit. Some hit! Claire, old girl, I own New
| |
| York. I daren't tell you what my salary is. You'd faint.
| |
| | |
| I'm doing barefoot dancing. You know the sort of stuff. I started
| |
| it in vaudeville, and went so big that my agent shifted me to the
| |
| restaurants, and they have to call out the police reserves to
| |
| handle the crowd. You can't get a table at Reigelheimer's, which
| |
| is my pitch, unless you tip the head waiter a small fortune and
| |
| promise to mail him your clothes when you get home. I dance during
| |
| supper with nothing on my feet and not much anywhere else, and it
| |
| takes three vans to carry my [[salary]] to the [[bank]].
| |
| | |
| Of course, it's the title that does it: 'Lady Pauline Wetherby!'
| |
| Algie says it oughtn't to be that, because I'm not the daughter of
| |
| a duke, but I don't worry about that. It looks good, and that's
| |
| all that matters. You can't get away from the title. I was born in
| |
| Carbondale, Illinois, but that doesn't matter--I'm an English
| |
| countess, doing barefoot dancing to work off the mortgage on the
| |
| ancestral castle, and they eat me. Take it from me, Claire, I'm a
| |
| riot.
| |
| | |
| Well, that's that. What I am really writing about is to tell you
| |
| that you have got to come over here. I've taken a house at
| |
| Brookport, on Long Island, for the summer. You can stay with me
| |
| till the fall, and then I can easily get you a good job in New
| |
| York. I have some pull these days, believe me. Not that you'll
| |
| need my help. The managers have only got to see you and they'll
| |
| all want you. I showed one of them that photograph you gave me,
| |
| and he went up in the air. They pay twice as big salaries over
| |
| here, you know, as in England, so come by the next boat.
| |
| | |
| Claire, darling, you must come. I'm wretched. Algie has got my
| |
| goat the worst way. If you don't know what that means it means
| |
| that he's behaving like a perfect pig. I hardly know where to
| |
| begin. Well, it was this way: directly I made my hit my press
| |
| agent, a real bright man named Sherriff, got busy, of course.
| |
| Interviews, you know, and Advice to Young Girls in the evening
| |
| papers, and How I preserve my beauty, and all that sort of thing.
| |
| Well, one thing he made me do was to buy a snake and a monkey.
| |
| Roscoe Sherriff is crazy about animals as aids to advertisement.
| |
| He says an animal story is the thing he does best. So I bought
| |
| them.
| |
| | |
| Algie kicked from the first. I ought to tell you that since we
| |
| left England he has taken up painting footling little pictures,
| |
| and has got the artistic temperament badly. All his life he's been
| |
| starting some new fool thing. When I first met him he prided
| |
| himself on having the finest collection of photographs of
| |
| race-horses in England. Then he got a craze for model engines.
| |
| After that he used to work the piano player till I nearly went
| |
| crazy. And now it's pictures.
| |
| | |
| I don't mind his painting. It gives him something to do and keeps
| |
| him out of mischief. He has a studio down in Washington Square,
| |
| and is perfectly happy messing about there all day.
| |
| | |
| Everything would be fine if he didn't think it necessary to tack
| |
| on the artistic temperament to his painting. He's developed the
| |
| idea that he has nerves and everything upsets them.
| |
| | |
| Things came to a head this morning at breakfast. Clarence, my
| |
| snake, has the cutest way of climbing up the leg of the table and
| |
| looking at you pleadingly in the hope that you will give him
| |
| soft-boiled egg, which he adores. He did it this morning, and no
| |
| sooner had his head appeared above the table than Algie, with a kind
| |
| of sharp wail, struck him a violent blow on the nose with a teaspoon.
| |
| Then he turned to me, very pale, and said: 'Pauline, this must
| |
| end! The time has come to speak up. A nervous, highly-strung man
| |
| like myself should not, and must not, be called upon to live in a
| |
| house where he is constantly meeting snakes and monkeys without
| |
| warning. Choose between me and--'
| |
| | |
| We had got as far as this when Eustace, the monkey, who I didn't
| |
| know was in the room at all, suddenly sprang on to his back. He is
| |
| very fond of Algie.
| |
| | |
| Would you believe it? Algie walked straight out of the house, still
| |
| holding the teaspoon, and has not returned. Later in the day he
| |
| called me up on the phone and said that, though he realized that a
| |
| man's place was the home, he declined to cross the threshold again
| |
| until I had got rid of Eustace and Clarence. I tried to reason with
| |
| him. I told him that he ought to think himself lucky it wasn't
| |
| anything worse than a monkey and a snake, for the last person Roscoe
| |
| Sherriff handled, an emotional actress named Devenish, had to keep a
| |
| young puma. But he wouldn't listen, and the end of it was that he
| |
| rang off and I have not seen or heard of him since.
| |
| | |
| I am broken-hearted. I won't give in, but I am having an awful time.
| |
| So, dearest Claire, do come over and help me. If you could possibly
| |
| sail by the _Atlantic_, leaving Southampton on the twenty-fourth of
| |
| this month, you would meet a friend of mine whom I think you would
| |
| like. His name is Dudley Pickering, and he made a fortune in
| |
| automobiles. I expect you have heard of the Pickering automobiles?
| |
| | |
| Darling Claire, do come, or I know I shall weaken and yield to
| |
| Algie's outrageous demands, for, though I would like to hit him
| |
| with a brick, I love him dearly.
| |
| | |
| Your affectionate
| |
| POLLY WETHERBY
| |
| | |
| Claire sank back against the cushioned seat and her eyes filled
| |
| with tears of disappointment. Of all the things which would have
| |
| chimed in with her discontented mood at that moment a sudden
| |
| flight to America was the most alluring. Only one consideration
| |
| held her back--she had not the money for her fare.
| |
| | |
| Polly might have thought of that, she reflected, bitterly. She
| |
| took the letter up again and saw that on the last page there was a
| |
| postscript--
| |
| | |
| PS.--I don't know how you are fixed for money, old girl, but if
| |
| things are the same with you as in the old days you can't be
| |
| rolling. So I have paid for a passage for you with the liner
| |
| people this side, and they have cabled their English office, so
| |
| you can sail whenever you want to. Come right over.
| |
| | |
| An hour later the manager of the Southampton branch of the White
| |
| Star Line was dazzled by an apparition, a beautiful girl who burst
| |
| in upon him with flushed face and shining eyes, demanding a berth on
| |
| the steamship _Atlantic_ and talking about a Lady Wetherby. Ten
| |
| minutes later, her passage secured, Claire was walking to the local
| |
| theatre to inform those in charge of the destinies of The Girl and
| |
| the Artist number one company that they must look elsewhere for a
| |
| substitute for Miss Claudia Winslow. Then she went back to her hotel
| |
| to write a letter home, notifying her mother of her plans.
| |
| | |
| She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock. Back in West
| |
| Kensington a rich smell of dinner would be floating through the
| |
| flat; the cook, watching the boiling cabbage, would be singing A
| |
| Few More Years Shall Roll; her mother would be sighing; and her
| |
| little brother Percy would be employed upon some juvenile
| |
| deviltry, the exact nature of which it was not possible to
| |
| conjecture, though one could be certain that it would be something
| |
| involving a deafening noise.
| |
| | |
| Claire smiled a happy smile.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 4
| |
| | |
| | |
| The offices of Messrs Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols were
| |
| in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The first Nichols had been dead since the
| |
| reign of King William the Fourth, the second since the jubilee
| |
| year of Queen Victoria. The remaining brace were Lord Dawlish's
| |
| friend Jerry and his father, a formidable old man who knew all the
| |
| shady secrets of all the noble families in England.
| |
| | |
| Bill walked up the stairs and was shown into the room where Jerry,
| |
| when his father's eye was upon him, gave his daily imitation of a
| |
| young man labouring with diligence and enthusiasm at the law. His
| |
| father being at the moment out at lunch, the junior partner was
| |
| practising putts with an umbrella and a ball of paper.
| |
| | |
| Jerry Nichols was not the typical lawyer. At Cambridge, where Bill
| |
| had first made his acquaintance, he had been notable for an
| |
| exuberance of which Lincoln's Inn Fields had not yet cured him.
| |
| There was an airy disregard for legal formalities about him which
| |
| exasperated his father, an attorney of the old school. He came to
| |
| the point, directly Bill entered the room, with a speed and levity
| |
| that would have appalled Nichols Senior, and must have caused the
| |
| other two Nicholses to revolve in their graves.
| |
| | |
| 'Halloa, Bill, old man,' he said, prodding him amiably in the
| |
| waistcoat with the ferrule of the umbrella. 'How's the boy? Fine!
| |
| So'm I. So you got my message? Wonderful invention, the
| |
| telephone.'
| |
| | |
| 'I've just come from the club.'
| |
| | |
| 'Take a chair.'
| |
| | |
| 'What's the matter?'
| |
| | |
| Jerry Nichols thrust Bill into a chair and seated himself on the
| |
| table.
| |
| | |
| 'Now look here, Bill,' he said, 'this isn't the way we usually do
| |
| this sort of thing, and if the governor were here he would spend
| |
| an hour and a half rambling on about testators and beneficiary
| |
| legatees, and parties of the first part, and all that sort of rot.
| |
| But as he isn't here I want to know, as one pal to another, what
| |
| you've been doing to an old buster of the name of Nutcombe.'
| |
| | |
| 'Nutcombe?'
| |
| | |
| 'Nutcombe.'
| |
| | |
| 'Not Ira Nutcombe?'
| |
| | |
| 'Ira J. Nutcombe, formerly of Chicago, later of London, now a
| |
| disembodied spirit.'
| |
| | |
| 'Is he dead?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes. And he's left you something like a million pounds.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish looked at his watch.
| |
| | |
| 'Joking apart, Jerry, old man,' he said, 'what did you ask me to
| |
| come here for? The committee expects me to spend some of my time
| |
| at the club, and if I hang about here all the afternoon I shall
| |
| lose my job. Besides, I've got to get back to ask them for--'
| |
| | |
| Jerry Nichols clutched his forehead with both hands, raised both
| |
| hands to heaven, and then, as if despairing of calming himself by
| |
| these means, picked up a paper-weight from the desk and hurled it
| |
| at a portrait of the founder of the firm, which hung over the
| |
| mantelpiece. He got down from the table and crossed the room to
| |
| inspect the ruins.
| |
| | |
| Then, having taken a pair of scissors and cut the cord, he allowed
| |
| the portrait to fall to the floor.
| |
| | |
| He rang the bell. The prematurely-aged office-boy, who was
| |
| undoubtedly destined to become a member of the firm some day,
| |
| answered the ring.
| |
| | |
| 'Perkins.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, sir?'
| |
| | |
| 'Inspect yonder _soufflee_.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, sir.'
| |
| | |
| 'You have observed it?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, sir.'
| |
| | |
| 'You are wondering how it got there?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, sir.'
| |
| | |
| 'I will tell you. You and I were in here, discussing certain legal
| |
| minutiae in the interests of the firm, when it suddenly fell. We
| |
| both saw it and were very much surprised and startled. I soothed
| |
| your nervous system by giving you this half-crown. The whole
| |
| incident was very painful. Can you remember all this to tell my
| |
| father when he comes in? I shall be out lunching then.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, sir.'
| |
| | |
| 'An admirable lad that,' said Jerry Nichols as the door closed.
| |
| 'He has been here two years, and I have never heard him say
| |
| anything except "Yes, sir." He will go far. Well, now that I am
| |
| calmer let us return to your little matter. Honestly, Bill, you
| |
| make me sick. When I contemplate you the iron enters my soul. You
| |
| stand there talking about your tuppenny-ha'penny job as if it
| |
| mattered a cent whether you kept it or not. Can't you understand
| |
| plain English? Can't you realize that you can buy Brown's and turn
| |
| it into a moving-picture house if you like? You're a millionaire!'
| |
| | |
| Bill's face expressed no emotion whatsoever. Outwardly he appeared
| |
| unmoved. Inwardly he was a riot of bewilderment, incapable of
| |
| speech. He stared at Jerry dumbly.
| |
| | |
| 'We've got the will in the old oak chest,' went on Jerry Nichols.
| |
| 'I won't show it to you, partly because the governor has got the
| |
| key and he would have a fit if he knew that I was giving you early
| |
| information like this, and partly because you wouldn't understand
| |
| it. It is full of "whereases" and "peradventures" and "heretofores"
| |
| and similar swank, and there aren't any stops in it. It takes the legal
| |
| mind, like mine, to tackle wills. What it says, when you've peeled
| |
| off a few of the long words which they put in to make it more
| |
| interesting, is that old Nutcombe leaves you the money because
| |
| you are the only man who ever did him a disinterested kindness--and
| |
| what I want to get out of you is, what was the disinterested kindness?
| |
| Because I'm going straight out to do it to every elderly, rich-looking
| |
| man I can find till I pick a winner.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish found speech.
| |
| | |
| 'Jerry, is this really true?'
| |
| | |
| 'Gospel.'
| |
| | |
| 'You aren't pulling my leg?'
| |
| | |
| 'Pulling your leg? Of course I'm not pulling your leg. What do you
| |
| take me for? I'm a dry, hard-headed lawyer. The firm of Nichols,
| |
| Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols doesn't go about pulling people's
| |
| legs!'
| |
| | |
| 'Good Lord!'
| |
| | |
| 'It appears from the will that you worked this disinterested gag,
| |
| whatever it was, at Marvis Bay no longer ago than last year.
| |
| Wherein you showed a lot of sense, for Ira J., having altered his
| |
| will in your favour, apparently had no time before he died to
| |
| alter it again in somebody else's, which he would most certainly
| |
| have done if he had lived long enough, for his chief recreation
| |
| seems to have been making his will. To my certain knowledge he has
| |
| made three in the last two years. I've seen them. He was one of
| |
| those confirmed will-makers. He got the habit at an early age, and
| |
| was never able to shake it off. Do you remember anything about the
| |
| man?'
| |
| | |
| 'It isn't possible!'
| |
| | |
| 'Anything's possible with a man cracked enough to make freak wills
| |
| and not cracked enough to have them disputed on the ground of
| |
| insanity. What did you do to him at Marvis Bay? Save him from
| |
| drowning?'
| |
| | |
| 'I cured him of slicing.'
| |
| | |
| 'You did what?'
| |
| | |
| 'He used to slice his approach shots. I cured him.'
| |
| | |
| 'The thing begins to hang together. A certain plausibility creeps
| |
| into it. The late Nutcombe was crazy about golf. The governor used
| |
| to play with him now and then at Walton Heath. It was the only
| |
| thing Nutcombe seemed to live for. That being so, if you got rid
| |
| of his slice for him it seems to me, that you earned your money.
| |
| The only point that occurs to me is, how does it affect your
| |
| amateur status? It looks to me as if you were now a pro.'
| |
| | |
| 'But, Jerry, it's absurd. All I did was to give him a tip or two.
| |
| We were the only men down there, as it was out of the season, and
| |
| that drew us together. And when I spotted this slice of his I just
| |
| gave him a bit of advice. I give you my word that was all. He
| |
| can't have left me a fortune on the strength of that!'
| |
| | |
| 'You don't tell the story right, Bill. I can guess what really
| |
| happened--to wit, that you gave up all your time to helping the
| |
| old fellow improve his game, regardless of the fact that it
| |
| completely ruined your holiday.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, no!'
| |
| | |
| 'It's no use sitting there saying "Oh, no!" I can see you at it.
| |
| The fact is, you're such an infernally good chap that something of
| |
| this sort was bound to happen to you sooner or later. I think
| |
| making you his heir was the only sensible thing old Nutcombe ever
| |
| did. In his place I'd have done the same.'
| |
| | |
| 'But he didn't even seem decently grateful at the time.'
| |
| | |
| 'Probably not. He was a queer old bird. He had a most almighty row
| |
| with the governor in this office only a month or two ago about
| |
| absolutely nothing. They disagreed about something trivial, and
| |
| old Nutcombe stalked out and never came in again. That's the sort
| |
| of old bird he was.'
| |
| | |
| 'Was he sane, do you think?'
| |
| | |
| 'Absolutely, for legal purposes. We have three opinions from leading
| |
| doctors--collected by him in case of accidents, I suppose--each of
| |
| which declares him perfectly sound from the collar upward. But a
| |
| man can be pretty far gone, you know, without being legally insane,
| |
| and old Nutcombe--well, suppose we call him whimsical. He seems to
| |
| have zigzagged between the normal and the eccentric.
| |
| | |
| 'His only surviving relatives appear to be a nephew and a niece.
| |
| The nephew dropped out of the running two years ago when his aunt,
| |
| old Nutcombe's wife, who had divorced old Nutcombe, left him her
| |
| money. This seems to have soured the old boy on the nephew, for in
| |
| the first of his wills that I've seen--you remember I told you I
| |
| had seen three--he leaves the niece the pile and the nephew only
| |
| gets twenty pounds. Well, so far there's nothing very eccentric
| |
| about old Nutcombe's proceedings. But wait!
| |
| | |
| 'Six months after he had made that will he came in here and made
| |
| another. This left twenty pounds to the nephew as before, but
| |
| nothing at all to the niece. Why, I don't know. There was nothing
| |
| in the will about her having done anything to offend him during
| |
| those six months, none of those nasty slams you see in wills about
| |
| "I bequeath to my only son John one shilling and sixpence. Now
| |
| perhaps he's sorry he married the cook." As far as I can make out
| |
| he changed his will just as he did when he left the money to you,
| |
| purely through some passing whim. Anyway, he did change it. He
| |
| left the pile to support the movement those people are running for
| |
| getting the Jews back to Palestine.
| |
| | |
| 'He didn't seem, on second thoughts, to feel that this was quite
| |
| such a brainy scheme as he had at first, and it wasn't long before
| |
| he came trotting back to tear up this second will and switch back
| |
| to the first one--the one leaving the money to the niece. That
| |
| restoration to sanity lasted till about a month ago, when he broke
| |
| loose once more and paid his final visit here to will you the
| |
| contents of his stocking. This morning I see he's dead after a
| |
| short illness, so you collect. Congratulations!'
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish had listened to this speech in perfect silence. He now
| |
| rose and began to pace the room. He looked warm and uncomfortable.
| |
| His demeanour, in fact, was by no means the accepted demeanour of
| |
| the lucky heir.
| |
| | |
| 'This is awful!' he said. 'Good Lord, Jerry, it's frightful!'
| |
| | |
| 'Awful!--being left a million pounds?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, like this. I feel like a bally thief.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why on earth?'
| |
| | |
| 'If it hadn't been for me this girl--what's her name?'
| |
| | |
| 'Her name is Boyd--Elizabeth Boyd.'
| |
| | |
| 'She would have had the whole million if it hadn't been for me.
| |
| Have you told her yet?'
| |
| | |
| 'She's in America. I was writing her a letter just before you came
| |
| in--informal, you know, to put her out of her misery. If I had
| |
| waited for the governor to let her know in the usual course of red
| |
| tape we should never have got anywhere. Also one to the nephew,
| |
| telling him about his twenty pounds. I believe in humane treatment
| |
| on these occasions. The governor would write them a legal letter
| |
| with so many "hereinbefores" in it that they would get the idea
| |
| that they had been left the whole pile. I just send a cheery line
| |
| saying "It's no good, old top. Abandon hope," and they know just
| |
| where they are. Simple and considerate.'
| |
| | |
| A glance at Bill's face moved him to further speech.
| |
| | |
| 'I don't see why you should worry, Bill. How, by any stretch of
| |
| the imagination, can you make out that you are to blame for this
| |
| Boyd girl's misfortune? It looks to me as if these eccentric wills
| |
| of old Nutcombe's came in cycles, as it were. Just as he was due
| |
| for another outbreak he happened to meet you. It's a moral
| |
| certainty that if he hadn't met you he would have left all his
| |
| money to a Home for Superannuated Caddies or a Fund for Supplying
| |
| the Deserving Poor with Niblicks. Why should you blame yourself?'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't blame myself. It isn't exactly that. But--but, well, what
| |
| would you feel like in my place?'
| |
| | |
| 'A two-year-old.'
| |
| | |
| 'Wouldn't you do anything?'
| |
| | |
| 'I certainly would. By my halidom, I would! I would spend that
| |
| money with a vim and speed that would make your respected
| |
| ancestor, the Beau, look like a village miser.'
| |
| | |
| 'You wouldn't--er--pop over to America and see whether something
| |
| couldn't be arranged?'
| |
| | |
| 'What!'
| |
| | |
| 'I mean--suppose you were popping in any case. Suppose you had
| |
| happened to buy a ticket for New York on to-morrow's boat,
| |
| wouldn't you try to get in touch with this girl when you got to
| |
| America, and see if you couldn't--er--fix up something?'
| |
| | |
| Jerry Nichols looked at him in honest consternation. He had always
| |
| known that old Bill was a dear old ass, but he had never dreamed
| |
| that he was such an infernal old ass as this.
| |
| | |
| 'You aren't thinking of doing that?' he gasped.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, you see, it's a funny coincidence, but I was going to
| |
| America, anyhow, to-morrow. I don't see why I shouldn't try to fix
| |
| up something with this girl.'
| |
| | |
| 'What do you mean--fix up something? You don't suggest that you
| |
| should give the money up, do you?'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't know. Not exactly that, perhaps. How would it be if I
| |
| gave her half, what? Anyway, I should like to find out about her,
| |
| see if she's hard up, and so on. I should like to nose round, you
| |
| know, and--er--and so forth, don't you know. Where did you say the
| |
| girl lived?'
| |
| | |
| 'I didn't say, and I'm not sure that I shall. Honestly, Bill, you
| |
| mustn't be so quixotic.'
| |
| | |
| 'There's no harm in my nosing round, is there? Be a good chap and
| |
| give me the address.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well'--with misgivings--'Brookport, Long Island.'
| |
| | |
| 'Thanks.'
| |
| | |
| 'Bill, are you really going to make a fool of yourself?'
| |
| | |
| 'Not a bit of it, old chap. I'm just going to--er--'
| |
| | |
| 'To nose round?'
| |
| | |
| 'To nose round,' said Bill.
| |
| | |
| Jerry Nichols accompanied his friend to the door, and once more
| |
| peace reigned in the offices of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and
| |
| Nichols.
| |
| | |
| The time of a man who has at a moment's notice decided to leave
| |
| his native land for a sojourn on foreign soil is necessarily taken
| |
| up with a variety of occupations; and it was not till the
| |
| following afternoon, on the boat at Liverpool, that Bill had
| |
| leisure to write to Claire, giving her the news of what had
| |
| befallen him. He had booked his ticket by a Liverpool boat in
| |
| preference to one that sailed from Southampton because he had not
| |
| been sure how Claire would take the news of his sudden decision to
| |
| leave for America. There was the chance that she might ridicule or
| |
| condemn the scheme, and he preferred to get away without seeing
| |
| her. Now that he had received this astounding piece of news from
| |
| Jerry Nichols he was relieved that he had acted in this way.
| |
| Whatever Claire might have thought of the original scheme, there
| |
| was no doubt at all what she would think of his plan of seeking
| |
| out Elizabeth Boyd with a view to dividing the legacy with her.
| |
| | |
| He was guarded in his letter. He mentioned no definite figures. He
| |
| wrote that Ira Nutcombe of whom they had spoken so often had most
| |
| surprisingly left him in his will a large sum of money, and eased
| |
| his conscience by telling himself that half of a million pounds
| |
| undeniably was a large sum of money.
| |
| | |
| The addressing of the letter called for thought. She would have
| |
| left Southampton with the rest of the company before it could
| |
| arrive. Where was it that she said they were going next week?
| |
| Portsmouth, that was it. He addressed the letter Care of The Girl
| |
| and the Artist Company, to the King's Theatre, Portsmouth.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 5
| |
| | |
| | |
| The village of Brookport, Long Island, is a summer place. It
| |
| lives, like the mosquitoes that infest it, entirely on its summer
| |
| visitors. At the time of the death of Mr Ira Nutcombe, the only
| |
| all-the-year-round inhabitants were the butcher, the grocer, the
| |
| chemist, the other customary fauna of villages, and Miss Elizabeth
| |
| Boyd, who rented the ramshackle farm known locally as Flack's and
| |
| eked out a precarious livelihood by keeping bees.
| |
| | |
| If you take down your _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Volume III,
| |
| AUS to BIS, you will find that bees are a 'large and natural
| |
| family of the zoological order Hymenoptera, characterized by the
| |
| plumose form of many of their hairs, by the large size of the
| |
| basal segment of the foot ... and by the development of a "tongue"
| |
| for sucking liquid food,' the last of which peculiarities, it is
| |
| interesting to note, they shared with Claude Nutcombe Boyd,
| |
| Elizabeth's brother, who for quite a long time--till his money ran
| |
| out--had made liquid food almost his sole means of sustenance.
| |
| These things, however, are by the way. We are not such snobs as to
| |
| think better or worse of a bee because it can claim kinship with
| |
| the _Hymenoptera_ family, nor so ill-bred as to chaff it for
| |
| having large feet. The really interesting passage in the article
| |
| occurs later, where it says: 'The bee industry prospers greatly in
| |
| America.'
| |
| | |
| This is one of those broad statements that invite challenge.
| |
| Elizabeth Boyd would have challenged it. She had not prospered
| |
| greatly. With considerable trouble she contrived to pay her way,
| |
| and that was all.
| |
| | |
| Again referring to the 'Encyclopaedia,' we find the words: 'Before
| |
| undertaking the management of a modern apiary, the beekeeper
| |
| should possess a certain amount of aptitude for the pursuit.' This
| |
| was possibly the trouble with Elizabeth's venture, considered from
| |
| a commercial point of view. She loved bees, but she was not an
| |
| expert on them. She had started her apiary with a small capital, a
| |
| book of practical hints, and a second-hand queen, principally
| |
| because she was in need of some occupation that would enable her
| |
| to live in the country. It was the unfortunate condition of Claude
| |
| Nutcombe which made life in the country a necessity. At that time
| |
| he was spending the remains of the money left him by his aunt, and
| |
| Elizabeth had hardly settled down at Brookport and got her venture
| |
| under way when she found herself obliged to provide for Nutty a
| |
| combination of home and sanatorium. It had been the poor lad's
| |
| mistaken view that he could drink up all the alcoholic liquor in
| |
| America.
| |
| | |
| It is a curious law of Nature that the most undeserving brothers
| |
| always have the best sisters. Thrifty, plodding young men, who get
| |
| up early, and do it now, and catch the employer's eye, and save
| |
| half their salaries, have sisters who never speak civilly to them
| |
| except when they want to borrow money. To the Claude Nutcombes of
| |
| the world are vouchsafed the Elizabeths.
| |
| | |
| The great aim of Elizabeth's life was to make a new man of Nutty.
| |
| It was her hope that the quiet life and soothing air of Brookport,
| |
| with--unless you counted the money-in-the-slot musical box at the
| |
| store--its absence of the fiercer excitements, might in time pull
| |
| him together and unscramble his disordered nervous system. She
| |
| liked to listen of a morning to the sound of Nutty busy in the
| |
| next room with a broom and a dustpan, for in the simple lexicon of
| |
| Flack's there was no such word as 'help'. The privy purse would
| |
| not run to a maid. Elizabeth did the cooking and Claude Nutcombe
| |
| the housework.
| |
| | |
| Several days after Claire Fenwick and Lord Dawlish, by different
| |
| routes, had sailed from England, Elizabeth Boyd sat up in bed and
| |
| shook her mane of hair from her eyes, yawning. Outside her window
| |
| the birds were singing, and a shaft of sunlight intruded itself
| |
| beneath the blind. But what definitely convinced her that it was
| |
| time to get up was the plaintive note of James, the cat,
| |
| patrolling the roof of the porch. An animal of regular habits,
| |
| James always called for breakfast at eight-thirty sharp.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth got out of bed, wrapped her small body in a pink kimono,
| |
| thrust her small feet into a pair of blue slippers, yawned again,
| |
| and went downstairs. Having taken last night's milk from the ice-box,
| |
| she went to the back door, and, having filled James's saucer,
| |
| stood on the grass beside it, sniffing the morning air.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth Boyd was twenty-one, but standing there with her hair
| |
| tumbling about her shoulders she might have been taken by a
| |
| not-too-close observer for a child. It was only when you saw her eyes
| |
| and the resolute tilt of the chin that you realized that she was a
| |
| young woman very well able to take care of herself in a difficult
| |
| world. Her hair was very fair, her eyes brown and very bright, and
| |
| the contrast was extraordinarily piquant. They were valiant eyes,
| |
| full of spirit; eyes, also, that saw the humour of things. And her
| |
| mouth was the mouth of one who laughs easily. Her chin, small like
| |
| the rest of her, was strong; and in the way she held herself there
| |
| was a boyish jauntiness. She looked--and was--a capable little
| |
| person.
| |
| | |
| She stood besides James like a sentinel, watching over him as he
| |
| breakfasted. There was a puppy belonging to one of the neighbours
| |
| who sometimes lumbered over and stole James's milk, disposing of
| |
| it in greedy gulps while its rightful proprietor looked on with
| |
| piteous helplessness. Elizabeth was fond of the puppy, but her
| |
| sense of justice was keen and she was there to check this
| |
| brigandage.
| |
| | |
| It was a perfect day, cloudless and still. There was peace in the
| |
| air. James, having finished his milk, began to wash himself. A
| |
| squirrel climbed cautiously down from a linden tree. From the
| |
| orchard came the murmur of many bees.
| |
| | |
| Aesthetically Elizabeth was fond of still, cloudless days, but
| |
| experience had taught her to suspect them. As was the custom in
| |
| that locality, the water supply depended on a rickety windwheel.
| |
| It was with a dark foreboding that she returned to the kitchen and
| |
| turned on one of the taps. For perhaps three seconds a stream of
| |
| the dimension of a darning-needle emerged, then with a sad gurgle
| |
| the tap relapsed into a stolid inaction. There is no stolidity so
| |
| utter as that of a waterless tap.
| |
| | |
| 'Confound it!' said Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| She passed through the dining-room to the foot of the stairs.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty!'
| |
| | |
| There was no reply.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty, my precious lamb!'
| |
| | |
| Upstairs in the room next to her own a long, spare form began to
| |
| uncurl itself in bed; a face with a receding chin and a small
| |
| forehead raised itself reluctantly from the pillow, and Claude
| |
| Nutcombe Boyd signalized the fact that he was awake by scowling at
| |
| the morning sun and uttering an aggrieved groan.
| |
| | |
| Alas, poor Nutty! This was he whom but yesterday Broadway had
| |
| known as the Speed Kid, on whom head-waiters had smiled and lesser
| |
| waiters fawned; whose snake-like form had nestled in so many a
| |
| front-row orchestra stall.
| |
| | |
| Where were his lobster Newburgs now, his cold quarts that were
| |
| wont to set the table in a roar?
| |
| | |
| Nutty Boyd conformed as nearly as a human being may to Euclid's
| |
| definition of a straight line. He was length without breadth. From
| |
| boyhood's early day he had sprouted like a weed, till now in the
| |
| middle twenties he gave startled strangers the conviction that it
| |
| only required a sharp gust of wind to snap him in half. Lying in
| |
| bed, he looked more like a length of hose-pipe than anything else.
| |
| While he was unwinding himself the door opened and Elizabeth came
| |
| into the room.
| |
| | |
| 'Good morning, Nutty!'
| |
| | |
| 'What's the time?' asked her brother, hollowly.
| |
| | |
| 'Getting on towards nine. It's a lovely day. The birds are
| |
| singing, the bees are buzzing, summer's in the air. It's one of
| |
| those beautiful, shiny, heavenly, gorgeous days.'
| |
| | |
| A look of suspicion came into Nutty's eyes. Elizabeth was not
| |
| often as lyrical as this.
| |
| | |
| 'There's a catch somewhere,' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, as a matter of fact,' said Elizabeth, carelessly, 'the
| |
| water's off again.'
| |
| | |
| 'Confound it!'
| |
| | |
| 'I said that. I'm afraid we aren't a very original family.'
| |
| | |
| 'What a ghastly place this is! Why can't you see old Flack and
| |
| make him mend that infernal wheel?'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm going to pounce on him and have another try directly I see
| |
| him. Meanwhile, darling Nutty, will you get some clothes on and go
| |
| round to the Smiths and ask them to lend us a pailful?'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, gosh, it's over a mile!'
| |
| | |
| 'No, no, not more than three-quarters.'
| |
| | |
| 'Lugging a pail that weighs a ton! The last time I went there
| |
| their dog bit me.'
| |
| | |
| 'I expect that was because you slunk in all doubled up, and he got
| |
| suspicious. You should hold your head up and throw your chest out
| |
| and stride up as if you were a military friend of the family.'
| |
| | |
| Self-pity lent Nutty eloquence.
| |
| | |
| 'For Heaven's sake! You drag me out of bed at some awful hour of
| |
| the morning when a rational person would just be turning in; you
| |
| send me across country to fetch pailfuls of water when I'm feeling
| |
| like a corpse; and on top of that you expect me to behave like a
| |
| drum-major!'
| |
| | |
| 'Dearest, you can wriggle on your tummy, if you like, so long as
| |
| you get the fluid. We must have water. I can't fetch it. I'm a
| |
| delicately-nurtured female.'
| |
| | |
| 'We ought to have a man to do these ghastly jobs.'
| |
| | |
| 'But we can't afford one. Just at present all I ask is to be able
| |
| to pay expenses. And, as a matter of fact, you ought to be very
| |
| thankful that you have got--'
| |
| | |
| 'A roof over my head? I know. You needn't keep rubbing it in.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth flushed.
| |
| | |
| 'I wasn't going to say that at all. What a pig you are sometimes,
| |
| Nutty. As if I wasn't only too glad to have you here. What I was
| |
| going to say was that you ought to be very thankful that you have
| |
| got to draw water and hew wood--'
| |
| | |
| A look of absolute alarm came into Nutty's pallid face.
| |
| | |
| 'You don't mean to say that you want some wood chopped?'
| |
| | |
| 'I was speaking figuratively. I meant hustle about and work in the
| |
| open air. The sort of life you are leading now is what millionaires
| |
| pay hundreds of dollars for at these physical-culture places. It
| |
| has been the making of you.'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't feel made.'
| |
| | |
| 'Your nerves are ever so much better.'
| |
| | |
| 'They aren't.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth looked at him in alarm.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, Nutty, you haven't been--seeing anything again, have you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Not seeing, dreaming. I've been dreaming about monkeys. Why
| |
| should I dream about monkeys if my nerves were all right?'
| |
| | |
| 'I often dream about all sorts of queer things.'
| |
| | |
| 'Have you ever dreamed that you were being chased up Broadway by a
| |
| chimpanzee in evening dress?'
| |
| | |
| 'Never mind, dear, you'll be quite all right again when you have
| |
| been living this life down here a little longer.'
| |
| | |
| Nutty glared balefully at the ceiling.
| |
| | |
| 'What's that darned thing up there on the ceiling? It looks like a
| |
| hornet. How on earth do these things get into the house?'
| |
| | |
| 'We ought to have nettings. I am going to pounce on Mr Flack about
| |
| that too.'
| |
| | |
| 'Thank goodness this isn't going to last much longer. It's nearly
| |
| two weeks since Uncle Ira died. We ought to be hearing from the
| |
| lawyers any day now. There might be a letter this morning.'
| |
| | |
| 'Do you think he has left us his money?'
| |
| | |
| 'Do I? Why, what else could he do with it? We are his only
| |
| surviving relatives, aren't we? I've had to go through life with a
| |
| ghastly name like Nutcombe as a compliment to him, haven't I? I
| |
| wrote to him regularly at Christmas and on his birthday, didn't I?
| |
| Well, then! I have a feeling there will be a letter from the
| |
| lawyers to-day. I wish you would get dressed and go down to the
| |
| post-office while I'm fetching that infernal water. I can't think
| |
| why the fools haven't cabled. You would have supposed they would
| |
| have thought of that.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth returned to her room to dress. She was conscious of a
| |
| feeling that nothing was quite perfect in this world. It would be
| |
| nice to have a great deal of money, for she had a scheme in her
| |
| mind which called for a large capital; but she was sorry that it
| |
| could come to her only through the death of her uncle, of whom,
| |
| despite his somewhat forbidding personality, she had always been
| |
| fond. She was also sorry that a large sum of money was coming to
| |
| Nutty at that particular point in his career, just when there
| |
| seemed the hope that the simple life might pull him together. She
| |
| knew Nutty too well not to be able to forecast his probable
| |
| behaviour under the influence of a sudden restoration of wealth.
| |
| | |
| While these thoughts were passing through her mind she happened to
| |
| glance out of the window. Nutty was shambling through the garden
| |
| with his pail, a bowed, shuffling pillar of gloom. As Elizabeth
| |
| watched, he dropped the pail and lashed the air violently for a
| |
| while. From her knowledge of bees ('It is needful to remember that
| |
| bees resent outside interference and will resolutely defend
| |
| themselves,' _Encyc. Brit._, Vol. III, AUS to BIS) Elizabeth
| |
| deduced that one of her little pets was annoying him. This episode
| |
| concluded, Nutty resumed his pail and the journey, and at this
| |
| moment there appeared over the hedge the face of Mr John Prescott,
| |
| a neighbour. Mr Prescott, who had dismounted from a bicycle,
| |
| called to Nutty and waved something in the air. To a stranger the
| |
| performance would have been obscure, but Elizabeth understood it.
| |
| Mr Prescott was intimating that he had been down to the post-office
| |
| for his own letters and, as was his neighbourly custom on these
| |
| occasions, had brought back also letters for Flack's.
| |
| | |
| Nutty foregathered with Mr Prescott and took the letters from him.
| |
| Mr Prescott disappeared. Nutty selected one of the letters and
| |
| opened it. Then, having stood perfectly still for some moments, he
| |
| suddenly turned and began to run towards the house.
| |
| | |
| The mere fact that her brother, whose usual mode of progression
| |
| was a languid saunter, should be actually running, was enough to
| |
| tell Elizabeth that the letter which Nutty had read was from the
| |
| London lawyers. No other communication could have galvanized him
| |
| into such energy. Whether the contents of the letter were good or
| |
| bad it was impossible at that distance to say. But when she
| |
| reached the open air, just as Nutty charged up, she saw by his
| |
| face that it was anguish not joy that had spurred him on. He was
| |
| gasping and he bubbled unintelligible words. His little eyes
| |
| gleamed wildly.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty, darling, what is it?' cried Elizabeth, every maternal
| |
| instinct in her aroused.
| |
| | |
| He was thrusting a sheet of paper at her, a sheet of paper that
| |
| bore the superscription of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols,
| |
| with a London address.
| |
| | |
| 'Uncle Ira--' Nutty choked. 'Twenty pounds! He's left me twenty
| |
| pounds, and all the rest to a--to a man named Dawlish!'
| |
| | |
| In silence Elizabeth took the letter. It was even as he had said.
| |
| A few moments before Elizabeth had been regretting the imminent
| |
| descent of wealth upon her brother. Now she was inconsistent
| |
| enough to boil with rage at the shattering blow which had befallen
| |
| him. That she, too, had lost her inheritance hardly occurred to
| |
| her. Her thoughts were all for Nutty. It did not need the sight of
| |
| him, gasping and gurgling before her, to tell her how overwhelming
| |
| was his disappointment.
| |
| | |
| It was useless to be angry with the deceased Mr Nutcombe. He was
| |
| too shadowy a mark. Besides, he was dead. The whole current of her
| |
| wrath turned upon the supplanter, this Lord Dawlish. She pictured
| |
| him as a crafty adventurer, a wretched fortune-hunter. For some
| |
| reason or other she imagined him a sinister person with a black
| |
| moustache, a face thin and hawk-like, and unpleasant eyes. That
| |
| was the sort of man who would be likely to fasten his talons into
| |
| poor Uncle Ira.
| |
| | |
| She had never hated any one in her life before, but as she stood
| |
| there at that moment she felt that she loathed and detested
| |
| William Lord Dawlish--unhappy, well-meaning Bill, who only a few
| |
| hours back had set foot on American soil in his desire to nose
| |
| round and see if something couldn't be arranged.
| |
| | |
| Nutty fetched the water. Life is like that. There is nothing
| |
| clean-cut about it, no sense of form. Instead of being permitted
| |
| to concentrate his attention on his tragedy Nutty had to trudge
| |
| three-quarters of a mile, conciliate a bull-terrier, and trudge
| |
| back again carrying a heavy pail. It was as if one of the heroes
| |
| of Greek drama, in the middle of his big scene, had been asked to
| |
| run round the corner to a provision store.
| |
| | |
| The exercise did not act as a restorative. The blow had been too
| |
| sudden, too overwhelming. Nutty's reason--such as it was--tottered
| |
| on its throne. Who was Lord Dawlish? What had he done to
| |
| ingratiate himself with Uncle Ira? By what insidious means, with
| |
| what devilish cunning, had he wormed his way into the old man's
| |
| favour? These were the questions that vexed Nutty's mind when he
| |
| was able to think at all coherently.
| |
| | |
| Back at the farm Elizabeth cooked breakfast and awaited her
| |
| brother's return with a sinking heart. She was a soft-hearted
| |
| girl, easily distressed by the sight of suffering; and she was
| |
| aware that Nutty was scarcely of the type that masks its woes
| |
| behind a brave and cheerful smile. Her heart bled for Nutty.
| |
| | |
| There was a weary step outside. Nutty entered, slopping water. One
| |
| glance at his face was enough to tell Elizabeth that she had
| |
| formed a too conservative estimate of his probable gloom. Without
| |
| a word he coiled his long form in a chair. There was silence in
| |
| the stricken house.
| |
| | |
| 'What's the time?'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth glanced at her watch.
| |
| | |
| 'Half-past nine.'
| |
| | |
| 'About now,' said Nutty, sepulchrally, 'the blighter is ringing
| |
| for his man to prepare his bally bath and lay out his gold-leaf
| |
| underwear. After that he will drive down to the bank and draw some
| |
| of our money.'
| |
| | |
| The day passed wearily for Elizabeth. Nutty having the air of one
| |
| who is still engaged in picking up the pieces, she had not the
| |
| heart to ask him to play his customary part in the household
| |
| duties, so she washed the dishes and made the beds herself. After
| |
| that she attended to the bees. After that she cooked lunch.
| |
| | |
| Nutty was not chatty at lunch. Having observed 'About now the
| |
| blighter is cursing the waiter for bringing the wrong brand of
| |
| champagne,' he relapsed into a silence which he did not again
| |
| break.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth was busy again in the afternoon. At four o'clock,
| |
| feeling tired out, she went to her room to lie down until the next
| |
| of her cycle of domestic duties should come round.
| |
| | |
| It was late when she came downstairs, for she had fallen asleep.
| |
| The sun had gone down. Bees were winging their way heavily back to
| |
| the hives with their honey. She went out into the grounds to try
| |
| to find Nutty. There had been no signs of him in the house. There
| |
| were no signs of him about the grounds. It was not like him to
| |
| have taken a walk, but it seemed the only possibility. She went
| |
| back to the house to wait. Eight o'clock came, and nine, and it
| |
| was then the truth dawned upon her--Nutty had escaped. He had
| |
| slipped away and gone up to New York.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 6
| |
| | |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish sat in the New York flat which had been lent him by
| |
| his friend Gates. The hour was half-past ten in the evening; the
| |
| day, the second day after the exodus of Nutty Boyd from the farm.
| |
| Before him on the table lay a letter. He was smoking pensively.
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish had found New York enjoyable, but a trifle fatiguing.
| |
| There was much to be seen in the city, and he had made the mistake
| |
| of trying to see it all at once. It had been his intention, when
| |
| he came home after dinner that night, to try to restore the
| |
| balance of things by going to bed early. He had sat up longer than
| |
| he had intended, because he had been thinking about this letter.
| |
| | |
| Immediately upon his arrival in America, Bill had sought out a
| |
| lawyer and instructed him to write to Elizabeth Boyd, offering her
| |
| one-half of the late Ira Nutcombe's money. He had had time during
| |
| the voyage to think the whole matter over, and this seemed to him
| |
| the only possible course. He could not keep it all. He would feel
| |
| like the despoiler of the widow and the orphan. Nor would it be
| |
| fair to Claire to give it all up. If he halved the legacy
| |
| everybody would be satisfied.
| |
| | |
| That at least had been his view until Elizabeth's reply had
| |
| arrived. It was this reply that lay on the table--a brief, formal
| |
| note, setting forth Miss Boyd's absolute refusal to accept any
| |
| portion of the money. This was a development which Bill had not
| |
| foreseen, and he was feeling baffled. What was the next step? He
| |
| had smoked many pipes in the endeavour to find an answer to this
| |
| problem, and was lighting another when the door-bell rang.
| |
| | |
| He opened the door and found himself confronting an extraordinarily
| |
| tall and thin young man in evening-dress.
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish was a little startled. He had taken it for granted,
| |
| when the bell rang, that his visitor was Tom, the liftman from
| |
| downstairs, a friendly soul who hailed from London and had been
| |
| dropping in at intervals during the past two days to acquire the
| |
| latest news from his native land. He stared at this changeling
| |
| inquiringly. The solution of the mystery came with the stranger's
| |
| first words--
| |
| | |
| 'Is Gates in?'
| |
| | |
| He spoke eagerly, as if Gates were extremely necessary to his
| |
| well-being. It distressed Lord Dawlish to disappoint him, but
| |
| there was nothing else to be done.
| |
| | |
| 'Gates is in London,' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'What! When did he go there?'
| |
| | |
| 'About four months ago.'
| |
| | |
| 'May I come in a minute?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, rather, do.'
| |
| | |
| He led the way into the sitting-room. The stranger gave abruptly
| |
| in the middle, as if he were being folded up by some invisible
| |
| agency, and in this attitude sank into a chair, where he lay back
| |
| looking at Bill over his knees, like a sorrowful sheep peering
| |
| over a sharp-pointed fence.
| |
| | |
| 'You're from England, aren't you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'Been in New York long?'
| |
| | |
| 'Only a couple of days.'
| |
| | |
| The stranger folded himself up another foot or so until his knees
| |
| were higher than his head, and lit a cigarette.
| |
| | |
| 'The curse of New York,' he said, mournfully, 'is the way
| |
| everything changes in it. You can't take your eyes off it for a
| |
| minute. The population's always shifting. It's like a railway
| |
| station. You go away for a bit and come back and try to find your
| |
| old pals, and they're all gone: Ike's in Arizona, Mike's in a
| |
| sanatorium, Spike's in jail, and nobody seems to know where the
| |
| rest of them have got to. I came up from the country two days ago,
| |
| expecting to find the old gang along Broadway the same as ever,
| |
| and I'm dashed if I've been able to put my hands on one of them!
| |
| Not a single, solitary one of them! And it's only six months since
| |
| I was here last.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish made sympathetic noises.
| |
| | |
| 'Of course,' proceeded the other, 'the time of year may have
| |
| something to do with it. Living down in the country you lose count
| |
| of time, and I forgot that it was July, when people go out of the
| |
| city. I guess that must be what happened. I used to know all sorts
| |
| of fellows, actors and fellows like that, and they're all away
| |
| somewhere. I tell you,' he said, with pathos, 'I never knew I
| |
| could be so infernally lonesome as I have been these last two
| |
| days. If I had known what a rotten time I was going to have I
| |
| would never have left Brookport.'
| |
| | |
| 'Brookport!'
| |
| | |
| 'It's a place down on Long Island.'
| |
| | |
| Bill was not by nature a plotter, but the mere fact of travelling
| |
| under an assumed name had developed a streak of wariness in him.
| |
| He checked himself just as he was about to ask his companion if he
| |
| happened to know a Miss Elizabeth Boyd, who also lived at
| |
| Brookport. It occurred to him that the question would invite a
| |
| counter-question as to his own knowledge of Miss Boyd, and he knew
| |
| that he would not be able to invent a satisfactory answer to that
| |
| offhand.
| |
| | |
| 'This evening,' said the thin young man, resuming his dirge, 'I
| |
| was sweating my brain to try to think of somebody I could hunt up
| |
| in this ghastly, deserted city. It isn't so easy, you know, to
| |
| think of fellows' names and addresses. I can get the names all
| |
| right, but unless the fellow's in the telephone-book, I'm done.
| |
| Well, I was trying to think of some of my pals who might still be
| |
| around the place, and I remembered Gates. Remembered his address,
| |
| too, by a miracle. You're a pal of his, of course?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, I knew him in London.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, I see. And when you came over here he lent you his flat? By
| |
| the way, I didn't get your name?'
| |
| | |
| 'My name's Chalmers.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, as I say, I remembered Gates and came down here to look him
| |
| up. We used to have a lot of good times together a year ago. And
| |
| now he's gone too!'
| |
| | |
| 'Did you want to see him about anything important?'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, it's important to me. I wanted him to come out to supper.
| |
| You see, it's this way: I'm giving supper to-night to a girl who's
| |
| in that show at the Forty-ninth Street Theatre, a Miss Leonard,
| |
| and she insists on bringing a pal. She says the pal is a good
| |
| sport, which sounds all right--' Bill admitted that it sounded all
| |
| right. 'But it makes the party three. And of all the infernal
| |
| things a party of three is the ghastliest.'
| |
| | |
| Having delivered himself of this undeniable truth the stranger
| |
| slid a little farther into his chair and paused. 'Look here, what
| |
| are you doing to-night?' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'I was thinking of going to bed.'
| |
| | |
| 'Going to bed!' The stranger's voice was shocked, as if he had
| |
| heard blasphemy. 'Going to bed at half-past ten in New York! My
| |
| dear chap, what you want is a bit of supper. Why don't you come
| |
| along?'
| |
| | |
| Amiability was, perhaps, the leading quality of Lord Dawlish's
| |
| character. He did not want to have to dress and go out to supper,
| |
| but there was something almost pleading in the eyes that looked at
| |
| him between the sharply-pointed knees.
| |
| | |
| 'It's awfully good of you--' He hesitated.
| |
| | |
| 'Not a bit; I wish you would. You would be a life-saver.'
| |
| | |
| Bill felt that he was in for it. He got up.
| |
| | |
| 'You will?' said the other. 'Good boy! You go and get into some
| |
| clothes and come along. I'm sorry, what did you say your name
| |
| was?'
| |
| | |
| 'Chalmers.'
| |
| | |
| 'Mine's Boyd--Nutcombe Boyd.'
| |
| | |
| 'Boyd!' cried Bill.
| |
| | |
| Nutty took his astonishment, which was too great to be concealed,
| |
| as a compliment. He chuckled.
| |
| | |
| 'I thought you would know the name if you were a pal of Gates's. I
| |
| expect he's always talking about me. You see, I was pretty well
| |
| known in this old place before I had to leave it.'
| |
| | |
| Bill walked down the long passage to his bedroom with no trace of
| |
| the sleepiness which had been weighing on him five minutes before.
| |
| He was galvanized by a superstitious thrill. It was fate,
| |
| Elizabeth Boyd's brother turning up like this and making friendly
| |
| overtures right on top of that letter from her. This astonishing
| |
| thing could not have been better arranged if he had planned it
| |
| himself. From what little he had seen of Nutty he gathered that
| |
| the latter was not hard to make friends with. It would be a simple
| |
| task to cultivate his acquaintance. And having done so, he could
| |
| renew negotiations with Elizabeth. The desire to rid himself of
| |
| half the legacy had become a fixed idea with Bill. He had the
| |
| impression that he could not really feel clean again until he had
| |
| made matters square with his conscience in this respect. He felt
| |
| that he was probably a fool to take that view of the thing, but
| |
| that was the way he was built and there was no getting away from
| |
| it.
| |
| | |
| This irruption of Nutty Boyd into his life was an omen. It meant
| |
| that all was not yet over. He was conscious of a mild surprise
| |
| that he had ever intended to go to bed. He felt now as if he never
| |
| wanted to go to bed again. He felt exhilarated.
| |
| | |
| In these days one cannot say that a supper-party is actually given
| |
| in any one place. Supping in New York has become a peripatetic
| |
| pastime. The supper-party arranged by Nutty Boyd was scheduled to
| |
| start at Reigelheimer's on Forty-second Street, and it was there
| |
| that the revellers assembled.
| |
| | |
| Nutty and Bill had been there a few minutes when Miss Daisy
| |
| Leonard arrived with her friend. And from that moment Bill was
| |
| never himself again.
| |
| | |
| The Good Sport was, so to speak, an outsize in Good Sports. She
| |
| loomed up behind the small and demure Miss Leonard like a liner
| |
| towed by a tug. She was big, blonde, skittish, and exuberant; she
| |
| wore a dress like the sunset of a fine summer evening, and she
| |
| effervesced with spacious good will to all men. She was one of
| |
| those girls who splash into public places like stones into quiet
| |
| pools. Her form was large, her eyes were large, her teeth were
| |
| large, and her voice was large. She overwhelmed Bill. She hit his
| |
| astounded consciousness like a shell. She gave him a buzzing in
| |
| the ears. She was not so much a Good Sport as some kind of an
| |
| explosion.
| |
| | |
| He was still reeling from the spiritual impact with this female
| |
| tidal wave when he became aware, as one who, coming out of a
| |
| swoon, hears voices faintly, that he was being addressed by Miss
| |
| Leonard. To turn from Miss Leonard's friend to Miss Leonard
| |
| herself was like hearing the falling of gentle rain after a
| |
| thunderstorm. For a moment he revelled in the sense of being
| |
| soothed; then, as he realized what she was saying, he started
| |
| violently. Miss Leonard was looking at him curiously.
| |
| | |
| 'I beg your pardon?' said Bill.
| |
| | |
| 'I'm sure I've met you before, Mr Chalmers.'
| |
| | |
| 'Er--really?'
| |
| | |
| 'But I can't think where.'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm sure,' said the Good Sport, languishingly, like a sentimental
| |
| siege-gun, 'that if I had ever met Mr Chalmers before I shouldn't
| |
| have forgotten him.'
| |
| | |
| 'You're English, aren't you?' asked Miss Leonard.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| The Good Sport said she was crazy about Englishmen.
| |
| | |
| 'I thought so from your voice.'
| |
| | |
| The Good Sport said that she was crazy about the English accent.
| |
| | |
| 'It must have been in London that I met you. I was in the revue at
| |
| the Alhambra last year.'
| |
| | |
| 'By George, I wish I had seen you!' interjected the infatuated
| |
| Nutty.
| |
| | |
| The Good Sport said that she was crazy about London.
| |
| | |
| 'I seem to remember,' went on Miss Leonard, 'meeting you out at
| |
| supper. Do you know a man named Delaney in the Coldstream Guards?'
| |
| | |
| Bill would have liked to deny all knowledge of Delaney, though the
| |
| latter was one of his best friends, but his natural honesty
| |
| prevented him.
| |
| | |
| 'I'm sure I met you at a supper he gave at Oddy's one Friday
| |
| night. We all went on to Covent Garden. Don't you remember?'
| |
| | |
| 'Talking of supper,' broke in Nutty, earning Bill's hearty
| |
| gratitude thereby, 'where's the dashed head-waiter? I want to find
| |
| my table.'
| |
| | |
| He surveyed the restaurant with a melancholy eye.
| |
| | |
| 'Everything changed!' He spoke sadly, as Ulysses might have done
| |
| when his boat put in at Ithaca. 'Every darned thing different
| |
| since I was here last. New waiter, head-waiter I never saw before
| |
| in my life, different-coloured carpet--'
| |
| | |
| 'Cheer up, Nutty, old thing!' said Miss Leonard. 'You'll feel
| |
| better when you've had something to eat. I hope you had the sense
| |
| to tip the head-waiter, or there won't be any table. Funny how
| |
| these places go up and down in New York. A year ago the whole
| |
| management would turn out and kiss you if you looked like spending
| |
| a couple of dollars here. Now it costs the earth to get in at
| |
| all.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why's that?' asked Nutty.
| |
| | |
| 'Lady Pauline Wetherby, of course. Didn't you know this was where
| |
| she danced?'
| |
| | |
| 'Never heard of her,' said Nutty, in a sort of ecstasy of wistful
| |
| gloom. 'That will show you how long I've been away. Who is she?'
| |
| | |
| Miss Leonard invoked the name of Mike.
| |
| | |
| 'Don't you ever get the papers in your village, Nutty?'
| |
| | |
| 'I never read the papers. I don't suppose I've read a paper for
| |
| years. I can't stand 'em. Who is Lady Pauline Wetherby?'
| |
| | |
| 'She does Greek dances--at least, I suppose they're Greek. They
| |
| all are nowadays, unless they're Russian. She's an English
| |
| peeress.'
| |
| | |
| Miss Leonard's friend said she was crazy about these picturesque
| |
| old English families; and they went in to supper.
| |
| | |
| * * * * *
| |
| | |
| Looking back on the evening later and reviewing its leading
| |
| features, Lord Dawlish came to the conclusion that he never
| |
| completely recovered from the first shock of the Good Sport. He
| |
| was conscious all the time of a dream-like feeling, as if he were
| |
| watching himself from somewhere outside himself. From some
| |
| conning-tower in this fourth dimension he perceived himself eating
| |
| broiled lobster and drinking champagne and heard himself bearing
| |
| an adequate part in the conversation; but his movements were
| |
| largely automatic.
| |
| | |
| Time passed. It seemed to Lord Dawlish, watching from without,
| |
| that things were livening up. He seemed to perceive a quickening
| |
| of the _tempo_ of the revels, an added abandon. Nutty was
| |
| getting quite bright. He had the air of one who recalls the good
| |
| old days, of one who in familiar scenes re-enacts the joys of his
| |
| vanished youth. The chastened melancholy induced by many months of
| |
| fetching of pails of water, of scrubbing floors with a mop, and of
| |
| jumping like a firecracker to avoid excited bees had been purged
| |
| from him by the lights and the music and the wine. He was telling
| |
| a long anecdote, laughing at it, throwing a crust of bread at an
| |
| adjacent waiter, and refilling his glass at the same time. It is
| |
| not easy to do all these things simultaneously, and the fact that
| |
| Nutty did them with notable success was proof that he was picking
| |
| up.
| |
| | |
| Miss Daisy Leonard was still demure, but as she had just slipped a
| |
| piece of ice down the back of Nutty's neck one may assume that she
| |
| was feeling at her ease and had overcome any diffidence or shyness
| |
| which might have interfered with her complete enjoyment of the
| |
| festivities. As for the Good Sport, she was larger, blonder, and
| |
| more exuberant than ever and she was addressing someone as 'Bill'.
| |
| | |
| Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon of the evening, as it
| |
| advanced, was the change it wrought in Lord Dawlish's attitude
| |
| toward this same Good Sport. He was not conscious of the beginning
| |
| of the change; he awoke to the realization of it suddenly. At the
| |
| beginning of supper his views on her had been definite and clear.
| |
| When they had first been introduced to each other he had had a
| |
| stunned feeling that this sort of thing ought not to be allowed at
| |
| large, and his battered brain had instinctively recalled that line
| |
| of Tennyson: 'The curse is come upon me.' But now, warmed with
| |
| food and drink and smoking an excellent cigar, he found that a
| |
| gentler, more charitable mood had descended upon him.
| |
| | |
| He argued with himself in extenuation of the girl's peculiar
| |
| idiosyncrasies. Was it, he asked himself, altogether her fault
| |
| that she was so massive and spoke as if she were addressing an
| |
| open-air meeting in a strong gale? Perhaps it was hereditary.
| |
| Perhaps her father had been a circus giant and her mother the
| |
| strong woman of the troupe. And for the unrestraint of her manner
| |
| defective training in early girlhood would account. He began to
| |
| regard her with a quiet, kindly commiseration, which in its turn
| |
| changed into a sort of brotherly affection. He discovered that he
| |
| liked her. He liked her very much. She was so big and jolly and
| |
| robust, and spoke in such a clear, full voice. He was glad that
| |
| she was patting his hand. He was glad that he had asked her to
| |
| call him Bill.
| |
| | |
| People were dancing now. It has been claimed by patriots that
| |
| American dyspeptics lead the world. This supremacy, though partly
| |
| due, no doubt, to vast supplies of pie absorbed in youth, may be
| |
| attributed to a certain extent also to the national habit of
| |
| dancing during meals. Lord Dawlish had that sturdy reverence for
| |
| his interior organism which is the birthright of every Briton. And
| |
| at the beginning of supper he had resolved that nothing should
| |
| induce him to court disaster in this fashion. But as the time went
| |
| on he began to waver.
| |
| | |
| The situation was awkward. Nutty and Miss Leonard were repeatedly
| |
| leaving the table to tread the measure, and on these occasions the
| |
| Good Sport's wistfulness was a haunting reproach. Nor was the
| |
| spectacle of Nutty in action without its effect on Bill's
| |
| resolution. Nutty dancing was a sight to stir the most stolid.
| |
| | |
| Bill wavered. The music had started again now, one of those
| |
| twentieth-century eruptions of sound that begin like a train going
| |
| through a tunnel and continue like audible electric shocks, that
| |
| set the feet tapping beneath the table and the spine thrilling
| |
| with an unaccustomed exhilaration. Every drop of blood in his body
| |
| cried to him 'Dance!' He could resist no longer.
| |
| | |
| 'Shall we?' he said.
| |
| | |
| Bill should not have danced. He was an estimable young man,
| |
| honest, amiable, with high ideals. He had played an excellent game
| |
| of football at the university; his golf handicap was plus two; and
| |
| he was no mean performer with the gloves. But we all of us have
| |
| our limitations, and Bill had his. He was not a good dancer. He
| |
| was energetic, but he required more elbow room than the ordinary
| |
| dancing floor provides. As a dancer, in fact, he closely resembled
| |
| a Newfoundland puppy trying to run across a field.
| |
| | |
| It takes a good deal to daunt the New York dancing man, but the
| |
| invasion of the floor by Bill and the Good Sport undoubtedly
| |
| caused a profound and even painful sensation. Linked together they
| |
| formed a living projectile which might well have intimidated the
| |
| bravest. Nutty was their first victim. They caught him in
| |
| mid-step--one of those fancy steps which he was just beginning to
| |
| exhume from the cobwebbed recesses of his memory--and swept him
| |
| away. After which they descended resistlessly upon a stout
| |
| gentleman of middle age, chiefly conspicuous for the glittering
| |
| diamonds which he wore and the stoical manner in which he danced
| |
| to and fro on one spot of not more than a few inches in size in
| |
| the exact centre of the room. He had apparently staked out a claim
| |
| to this small spot, a claim which the other dancers had decided to
| |
| respect; but Bill and the Good Sport, coming up from behind, had
| |
| him two yards away from it at the first impact. Then, scattering
| |
| apologies broadcast like a medieval monarch distributing largesse,
| |
| Bill whirled his partner round by sheer muscular force and began
| |
| what he intended to be a movement toward the farther corner,
| |
| skirting the edge of the floor. It was his simple belief that
| |
| there was more safety there than in the middle.
| |
| | |
| He had not reckoned with Heinrich Joerg. Indeed, he was not aware
| |
| of Heinrich Joerg's existence. Yet fate was shortly to bring them
| |
| together, with far-reaching results. Heinrich Joerg had left the
| |
| Fatherland a good many years before with the prudent purpose of
| |
| escaping military service. After various vicissitudes in the land
| |
| of his adoption--which it would be extremely interesting to
| |
| relate, but which must wait for a more favourable opportunity--he
| |
| had secured a useful and not ill-recompensed situation as one of
| |
| the staff of Reigelheimer's Restaurant. He was, in point of fact,
| |
| a waiter, and he comes into the story at this point bearing a tray
| |
| full of glasses, knives, forks, and pats of butter on little
| |
| plates. He was setting a table for some new arrivals, and in order
| |
| to obtain more scope for that task he had left the crowded aisle
| |
| beyond the table and come round to the edge of the dancing-floor.
| |
| | |
| He should not have come out on to the dancing-floor. In another
| |
| moment he was admitting that himself. For just as he was lowering
| |
| his tray and bending over the table in the pursuance of his
| |
| professional duties, along came Bill at his customary high rate
| |
| of speed, propelling his partner before him, and for the first
| |
| time since he left home Heinrich was conscious of a regret that he
| |
| had done so. There are worse things than military service!
| |
| | |
| It was the table that saved Bill. He clutched at it and it
| |
| supported him. He was thus enabled to keep the Good Sport from
| |
| falling and to assist Heinrich to rise from the morass of glasses,
| |
| knives, and pats of butter in which he was wallowing. Then, the
| |
| dance having been abandoned by mutual consent, he helped his now
| |
| somewhat hysterical partner back to their table.
| |
| | |
| Remorse came upon Bill. He was sorry that he had danced; sorry
| |
| that he had upset Heinrich; sorry that he had subjected the Good
| |
| Sport's nervous system to such a strain; sorry that so much glass
| |
| had been broken and so many pats of butter bruised beyond repair.
| |
| But of one thing, even in that moment of bleak regrets, he was
| |
| distinctly glad, and that was that all these things had taken
| |
| place three thousand miles away from Claire Fenwick. He had not
| |
| been appearing at his best, and he was glad that Claire had not
| |
| seen him.
| |
| | |
| As he sat and smoked the remains of his cigar, while renewing his
| |
| apologies and explanations to his partner and soothing the ruffled
| |
| Nutty with well-chosen condolences, he wondered idly what Claire
| |
| was doing at that moment.
| |
| | |
| Claire at that moment, having been an astonished eye-witness of
| |
| the whole performance, was resuming her seat at a table at the
| |
| other end of the room.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 7
| |
| | |
| | |
| There were two reasons why Lord Dawlish was unaware of Claire
| |
| Fenwick's presence at Reigelheimer's Restaurant: Reigelheimer's is
| |
| situated in a basement below a ten-storey building, and in order
| |
| to prevent this edifice from falling into his patrons' soup the
| |
| proprietor had been obliged to shore up his ceiling with massive
| |
| pillars. One of these protruded itself between the table which
| |
| Nutty had secured for his supper-party and the table at which
| |
| Claire was sitting with her friend, Lady Wetherby, and her steamer
| |
| acquaintance, Mr Dudley Pickering. That was why Bill had not seen
| |
| Claire from where he sat; and the reason that he had not seen her
| |
| when he left his seat and began to dance was that he was not one
| |
| of your dancers who glance airily about them. When Bill danced he
| |
| danced.
| |
| | |
| He would have been stunned with amazement if he had known that
| |
| Claire was at Reigelheimer's that night. And yet it would have
| |
| been remarkable, seeing that she was the guest of Lady Wetherby,
| |
| if she had not been there. When you have travelled three thousand
| |
| miles to enjoy the hospitality of a friend who does near-Greek
| |
| dances at a popular restaurant, the least you can do is to go to
| |
| the restaurant and watch her step. Claire had arrived with Polly
| |
| Wetherby and Mr Dudley Pickering at about the time when Nutty, his
| |
| gloom melting rapidly, was instructing the waiter to open the
| |
| second bottle.
| |
| | |
| Of Claire's movements between the time when she secured her ticket
| |
| at the steamship offices at Southampton and the moment when she
| |
| entered Reigelheimer's Restaurant it is not necessary to give a
| |
| detailed record. She had had the usual experiences of the ocean
| |
| voyager. She had fed, read, and gone to bed. The only notable
| |
| event in her trip had been her intimacy with Mr Dudley Pickering.
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering was a middle-aged Middle Westerner, who by thrift
| |
| and industry had amassed a considerable fortune out of automobiles.
| |
| Everybody spoke well of Dudley Pickering. The papers spoke well of
| |
| him, Bradstreet spoke well of him, and he spoke well of himself. On
| |
| board the liner he had poured the saga of his life into Claire's
| |
| attentive ears, and there was a gentle sweetness in her manner which
| |
| encouraged Mr Pickering mightily, for he had fallen in love with
| |
| Claire on sight.
| |
| | |
| It would seem that a schoolgirl in these advanced days would know
| |
| what to do when she found that a man worth millions was in love
| |
| with her; yet there were factors in the situation which gave
| |
| Claire pause. Lord Dawlish, of course, was one of them. She had
| |
| not mentioned Lord Dawlish to Mr Pickering, and--doubtless lest
| |
| the sight of it might pain him--she had abstained from wearing her
| |
| engagement ring during the voyage. But she had not completely lost
| |
| sight of the fact that she was engaged to Bill. Another thing that
| |
| caused her to hesitate was the fact that Dudley Pickering, however
| |
| wealthy, was a most colossal bore. As far as Claire could
| |
| ascertain on their short acquaintance, he had but one subject of
| |
| conversation--automobiles.
| |
| | |
| To Claire an automobile was a shiny thing with padded seats, in
| |
| which you rode if you were lucky enough to know somebody who owned
| |
| one. She had no wish to go more deeply into the matter. Dudley
| |
| Pickering's attitude towards automobiles, on the other hand, more
| |
| nearly resembled that of a surgeon towards the human body. To him
| |
| a car was something to dissect, something with an interior both
| |
| interesting to explore and fascinating to talk about. Claire
| |
| listened with a radiant display of interest, but she had her
| |
| doubts as to whether any amount of money would make it worth while
| |
| to undergo this sort of thing for life. She was still in this
| |
| hesitant frame of mind when she entered Reigelheimer's Restaurant,
| |
| and it perturbed her that she could not come to some definite
| |
| decision on Mr Pickering, for those subtle signs which every woman
| |
| can recognize and interpret told her that the latter, having paved
| |
| the way by talking machinery for a week, was about to boil over
| |
| and speak of higher things.
| |
| | |
| At the very next opportunity, she was certain, he intended to
| |
| propose.
| |
| | |
| The presence of Lady Wetherby acted as a temporary check on the
| |
| development of the situation, but after they had been seated at
| |
| their table a short time the lights of the restaurant were
| |
| suddenly lowered, a coloured limelight became manifest near the
| |
| roof, and classical music made itself heard from the fiddles in
| |
| the orchestra.
| |
| | |
| You could tell it was classical, because the banjo players were
| |
| leaning back and chewing gum; and in New York restaurants only
| |
| death or a classical speciality can stop banjoists.
| |
| | |
| There was a spatter of applause, and Lady Wetherby rose.
| |
| | |
| 'This,' she explained to Claire, 'is where I do my stunt. Watch
| |
| it. I invented the steps myself. Classical stuff. It's called the
| |
| Dream of Psyche.'
| |
| | |
| It was difficult for one who knew her as Claire did to associate
| |
| Polly Wetherby with anything classical. On the road, in England,
| |
| when they had been fellow-members of the Number Two company of
| |
| _The Heavenly Waltz_, Polly had been remarkable chiefly for a
| |
| fund of humorous anecdote and a gift, amounting almost to genius,
| |
| for doing battle with militant landladies. And renewing their
| |
| intimacy after a hiatus of a little less than a year Claire had
| |
| found her unchanged.
| |
| | |
| It was a truculent affair, this Dream of Psyche. It was not so much
| |
| dancing as shadow boxing. It began mildly enough to the accompaniment
| |
| of _pizzicato_ strains from the orchestra--Psyche in her training
| |
| quarters. _Rallentando_--Psyche punching the bag. _Diminuendo_--Psyche
| |
| using the medicine ball. _Presto_--Psyche doing road work. _Forte_--The
| |
| night of the fight. And then things began to move to a climax. With
| |
| the fiddles working themselves to the bone and the piano bounding
| |
| under its persecutor's blows, Lady Wetherby ducked, side-stepped,
| |
| rushed, and sprang, moving her arms in a manner that may have been
| |
| classical Greek, but to the untrained eye looked much more like the
| |
| last round of some open-air bout.
| |
| | |
| It was half-way through the exhibition, when you could smell the
| |
| sawdust and hear the seconds shouting advice under the ropes, that
| |
| Claire, who, never having seen anything in her life like this
| |
| extraordinary performance, had been staring spellbound, awoke to
| |
| the realization that Dudley Pickering was proposing to her. It
| |
| required a woman's intuition to divine this fact, for Mr Pickering
| |
| was not coherent. He did not go straight to the point. He rambled.
| |
| But Claire understood, and it came to her that this thing had
| |
| taken her before she was ready. In a brief while she would have to
| |
| give an answer of some sort, and she had not clearly decided what
| |
| answer she meant to give.
| |
| | |
| Then, while he was still skirting his subject, before he had
| |
| wandered to what he really wished to say, the music stopped, the
| |
| applause broke out again, and Lady Wetherby returned to the table
| |
| like a pugilist seeking his corner at the end of a round. Her face
| |
| was flushed and she was breathing hard.
| |
| | |
| 'They pay me money for that!' she observed, genially. 'Can you
| |
| beat it?'
| |
| | |
| The spell was broken. Mr Pickering sank back in his chair in a
| |
| punctured manner. And Claire, making monosyllabic replies to her
| |
| friend's remarks, was able to bend her mind to the task of finding
| |
| out how she stood on this important Pickering issue. That he would
| |
| return to the attack as soon as possible she knew; and the next
| |
| time she must have her attitude clearly defined one way or the
| |
| other.
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby, having got the Dance of Psyche out of her system,
| |
| and replaced it with a glass of iced coffee, was inclined for
| |
| conversation.
| |
| | |
| 'Algie called me up on the phone this evening, Claire.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes?'
| |
| | |
| | |
| Claire was examining Mr Pickering with furtive side glances. He
| |
| was not handsome, nor, on the other hand, was he repulsive.
| |
| 'Undistinguished' was the adjective that would have described him.
| |
| He was inclined to stoutness, but not unpardonably so; his hair
| |
| was thin, but he was not aggressively bald; his face was dull, but
| |
| certainly not stupid. There was nothing in his outer man which his
| |
| millions would not offset. As regarded his other qualities, his
| |
| conversation was certainly not exhilarating. But that also was
| |
| not, under certain conditions, an unforgivable thing. No, looking
| |
| at the matter all round and weighing it with care, the real
| |
| obstacle, Claire decided, was not any quality or lack of qualities
| |
| in Dudley Pickering--it was Lord Dawlish and the simple fact that
| |
| it would be extremely difficult, if she discarded him in favour of a
| |
| richer man without any ostensible cause, to retain her self-respect.
| |
| | |
| 'I think he's weakening.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes?'
| |
| | |
| Yes, that was the crux of the matter. She wanted to retain her
| |
| good opinion of herself. And in order to achieve that end it was
| |
| essential that she find some excuse, however trivial, for breaking
| |
| off the engagement.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes?'
| |
| | |
| A waiter approached the table.
| |
| | |
| 'Mr Pickering!'
| |
| | |
| The thwarted lover came to life with a start.
| |
| | |
| 'Eh?'
| |
| | |
| 'A gentleman wishes to speak to you on the telephone.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, yes. I was expecting a long-distance call, Lady Wetherby, and
| |
| left word I would be here. Will you excuse me?'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby watched him as he bustled across the room.
| |
| | |
| 'What do you think of him, Claire?'
| |
| | |
| 'Mr Pickering? I think he's very nice.'
| |
| | |
| 'He admires you frantically. I hoped he would. That's why I wanted
| |
| you to come over on the same ship with him.'
| |
| | |
| 'Polly! I had no notion you were such a schemer.'
| |
| | |
| 'I would just love to see you two fix it up,' continued Lady
| |
| Wetherby, earnestly. 'He may not be what you might call a genius,
| |
| but he's a darned good sort; and all his millions help, don't
| |
| they? You don't want to overlook these millions, Claire!'
| |
| | |
| 'I do like Mr Pickering.'
| |
| | |
| 'Claire, he asked me if you were engaged.'
| |
| | |
| 'What!'
| |
| | |
| 'When I told him you weren't, he beamed. Honestly, you've only got
| |
| to lift your little finger and--Oh, good Lord, there's Algie!'
| |
| | |
| Claire looked up. A dapper, trim little man of about forty was
| |
| threading his way among the tables in their direction. It was a
| |
| year since Claire had seen Lord Wetherby, but she recognized him
| |
| at once. He had a red, weather-beaten face with a suspicion of
| |
| side-whiskers, small, pink-rimmed eyes with sandy eyebrows, the
| |
| smoothest of sandy hair, and a chin so cleanly shaven that it was
| |
| difficult to believe that hair had ever grown there. Although his
| |
| evening-dress was perfect in every detail, he conveyed a subtle
| |
| suggestion of horsiness. He reached the table and sat down without
| |
| invitation in the vacant chair.
| |
| | |
| 'Pauline!' he said, sorrowfully.
| |
| | |
| 'Algie!' said Lady Wetherby, tensely. 'I don't know what you've
| |
| come here for, and I don't remember asking you to sit down and put
| |
| your elbows on that table, but I want to begin by saying that I
| |
| will not be called Pauline. My name's Polly. You've got a way of
| |
| saying Pauline, as if it were a gentlemanly cuss-word, that makes
| |
| me want to scream. And while you're about it, why don't you say
| |
| how-d'you-do to Claire? You ought to remember her, she was my
| |
| bridesmaid.'
| |
| | |
| 'How do you do, Miss Fenwick. Of course, I remember you perfectly.
| |
| I'm glad to see you again.'
| |
| | |
| 'And now, Algie, what is it? Why have you come here?' Lord
| |
| Wetherby looked doubtfully at Claire. 'Oh, that's all right,' said
| |
| Lady Wetherby. 'Claire knows all about it--I told her.'
| |
| | |
| 'Then I appeal to Miss Fenwick, if, as you say, she knows all the
| |
| facts of the case, to say whether it is reasonable to expect a man
| |
| of my temperament, a nervous, highly-strung artist, to welcome the
| |
| presence of snakes at the breakfast-table. I trust that I am not
| |
| an unreasonable man, but I decline to admit that a long, green
| |
| snake is a proper thing to keep about the house.'
| |
| | |
| 'You had no right to strike the poor thing.'
| |
| | |
| 'In that one respect I was perhaps a little hasty. I happened to
| |
| be stirring my tea at the moment his head rose above the edge of
| |
| the table. I was not entirely myself that morning. My nerves were
| |
| somewhat disordered. I had lain awake much of the night planning a
| |
| canvas.'
| |
| | |
| 'Planning a what?'
| |
| | |
| 'A canvas--a picture.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.
| |
| | |
| 'I want you to listen to Algie, Claire. A year ago he did not know
| |
| one end of a paint-brush from the other. He didn't know he had any
| |
| nerves. If you had brought him the artistic temperament on a plate
| |
| with a bit of watercress round it, he wouldn't have recognized it.
| |
| And now, just because he's got a studio, he thinks he has a right
| |
| to go up in the air if you speak to him suddenly and run about the
| |
| place hitting snakes with teaspoons as if he were Michelangelo!'
| |
| | |
| 'You do me an injustice. It is true that as an artist I developed
| |
| late--But why should we quarrel? If it will help to pave the way
| |
| to a renewed understanding between us, I am prepared to apologize
| |
| for striking Clarence. That is conciliatory, I think, Miss
| |
| Fenwick?'
| |
| | |
| 'Very.'
| |
| | |
| 'Miss Fenwick considers my attitude conciliatory.'
| |
| | |
| 'It's something,' admitted Lady Wetherby, grudgingly.
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby drained the whisky-and-soda which Dudley Pickering
| |
| had left behind him, and seemed to draw strength from it, for he
| |
| now struck a firmer note.
| |
| | |
| 'But, though expressing regret for my momentary loss of self-control,
| |
| I cannot recede from the position I have taken up as regards the
| |
| essential unfitness of Clarence's presence in the home.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby looked despairingly at Claire.
| |
| | |
| 'The very first words I heard Algie speak, Claire, were at
| |
| Newmarket during the three o'clock race one May afternoon. He was
| |
| hanging over the rail, yelling like an Indian, and what he was
| |
| yelling was, "Come on, you blighter, come on! By the living jingo,
| |
| Brickbat wins in a walk!" And now he's talking about receding from
| |
| essential positions! Oh, well, he wasn't an artist then!'
| |
| | |
| 'My dear Pau--Polly. I am purposely picking my words on the
| |
| present occasion in order to prevent the possibility of further
| |
| misunderstandings. I consider myself an ambassador.'
| |
| | |
| 'You would be shocked if you knew what I consider you!'
| |
| | |
| 'I am endeavouring to the best of my ability--'
| |
| | |
| 'Algie, listen to me! I am quite calm at present, but there's no
| |
| knowing how soon I may hit you with a chair if you don't come to
| |
| earth quick and talk like an ordinary human being. What is it that
| |
| you are driving at?'
| |
| | |
| 'Very well, it's this: I'll come home if you get rid of that
| |
| snake.'
| |
| | |
| 'Never!'
| |
| | |
| 'It's surely not much to ask of you, Polly?'
| |
| | |
| 'I won't!'
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby sighed.
| |
| | |
| 'When I led you to the altar,' he said, reproachfully, 'you
| |
| promised to love, honour, and obey me. I thought at the time it
| |
| was a bit of swank!'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby's manner thawed. She became more friendly.
| |
| | |
| 'When you talk like that, Algie, I feel there's hope for you after
| |
| all. That's how you used to talk in the dear old days when you'd
| |
| come to me to borrow half-a-crown to put on a horse! Listen, now
| |
| that at last you seem to be getting more reasonable; I wish I
| |
| could make you understand that I don't keep Clarence for sheer
| |
| love of him. He's a commercial asset. He's an advertisement. You
| |
| must know that I have got to have something to--'
| |
| | |
| 'I admit that may be so as regards the monkey, Eustace. Monkeys as
| |
| aids to publicity have, I believe, been tested and found valuable
| |
| by other artistes. I am prepared to accept Eustace, but the snake
| |
| is worthless.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, you don't object to Eustace, then?'
| |
| | |
| 'I do strongly, but I concede his uses.'
| |
| | |
| 'You would live in the same house as Eustace?'
| |
| | |
| 'I would endeavour to do so. But not in the same house as Eustace
| |
| and Clarence.'
| |
| | |
| There was a pause.
| |
| | |
| 'I don't know that I'm so stuck on Clarence myself,' said Lady
| |
| Wetherby, weakly.
| |
| | |
| 'My darling!'
| |
| | |
| 'Wait a minute. I've not said I would get rid of him.'
| |
| | |
| 'But you will?'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby's hesitation lasted but a moment. 'All right, Algie.
| |
| I'll send him to the Zoo to-morrow.'
| |
| | |
| 'My precious pet!'
| |
| | |
| A hand, reaching under the table, enveloped Claire's in a loving
| |
| clasp.
| |
| | |
| From the look on Lord Wetherby's face she supposed that he was
| |
| under the delusion that he was bestowing this attention on his
| |
| wife.
| |
| | |
| 'You know, Algie, darling,' said Lady Wetherby, melting completely,
| |
| 'when you get that yearning note in your voice I just flop and take
| |
| the full count.'
| |
| | |
| 'My sweetheart, when I saw you doing that Dream of
| |
| What's-the-girl's-bally-name dance just now, it was all I could
| |
| do to keep from rushing out on to the floor and hugging you.'
| |
| | |
| 'Algie!'
| |
| | |
| 'Polly!'
| |
| | |
| 'Do you mind letting go of my hand, please, Lord Wetherby?' said
| |
| Claire, on whom these saccharine exchanges were beginning to have
| |
| a cloying effect.
| |
| | |
| For a moment Lord Wetherby seemed somewhat confused, but, pulling
| |
| himself together, he covered his embarrassment with a pomposity
| |
| that blended poorly with his horsy appearance.
| |
| | |
| 'Married life, Miss Fenwick,' he said, 'as you will no doubt
| |
| discover some day, must always be a series of mutual compromises,
| |
| of cheerful give and take. The lamp of love--'
| |
| | |
| His remarks were cut short by a crash at the other end of the
| |
| room. There was a sharp cry and the splintering of glass. The
| |
| place was full of a sudden, sharp confusion. They jumped up with
| |
| one accord. Lady Wetherby spilled her iced coffee; Lord Wetherby
| |
| dropped the lamp of love. Claire, who was nearest the pillar that
| |
| separated them from the part of the restaurant where the accident
| |
| had happened, was the first to see what had taken place.
| |
| | |
| A large man, dancing with a large girl, appeared to have charged
| |
| into a small waiter, upsetting him and his tray and the contents
| |
| of his tray. The various actors in the drama were now engaged in
| |
| sorting themselves out from the ruins. The man had his back toward
| |
| her, and it seemed to Claire that there was something familiar
| |
| about that back. Then he turned, and she recognized Lord Dawlish.
| |
| | |
| She stood transfixed. For a moment surprise was her only emotion.
| |
| How came Bill to be in America? Then other feelings blended with
| |
| her surprise. It is a fact that Lord Dawlish was looking
| |
| singularly uncomfortable.
| |
| | |
| Claire's eyes travelled from Bill to his partner and took in with
| |
| one swift feminine glance her large, exuberant blondeness. There
| |
| is no denying that, seen with a somewhat biased eye, the Good
| |
| Sport resembled rather closely a poster advertising a revue.
| |
| | |
| Claire returned to her seat. Lord and Lady Wetherby continued to
| |
| talk, but she allowed them to conduct the conversation without her
| |
| assistance.
| |
| | |
| 'You're very quiet, Claire,' said Polly.
| |
| | |
| 'I'm thinking.'
| |
| | |
| 'A very good thing, too, so they tell me. I've never tried it
| |
| myself. Algie, darling, he was a bad boy to leave his nice home,
| |
| wasn't he? He didn't deserve to have his hand held.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 8
| |
| | |
| | |
| It had been a great night for Nutty Boyd. If the vision of his
| |
| sister Elizabeth, at home at the farm speculating sadly on the
| |
| whereabouts of her wandering boy, ever came before his mental eye
| |
| he certainly did not allow it to interfere with his appreciation
| |
| of the festivities. At Frolics in the Air, whither they moved
| |
| after draining Reigelheimer's of what joys it had to offer, and at
| |
| Peale's, where they went after wearying of Frolics in the Air, he
| |
| was in the highest spirits. It was only occasionally that the
| |
| recollection came to vex him that this could not last, that--since
| |
| his Uncle Ira had played him false--he must return anon to the
| |
| place whence he had come.
| |
| | |
| Why, in a city of all-night restaurants, these parties ever break
| |
| up one cannot say, but a merciful Providence sees to it that they
| |
| do, and just as Lord Dawlish was contemplating an eternity of the
| |
| company of Nutty and his two companions, the end came. Miss
| |
| Leonard said that she was tired. Her friend said that it was a
| |
| shame to go home at dusk like this, but, if the party was going to
| |
| be broken up, she supposed there was nothing else for it. Bill was
| |
| too sleepy to say anything.
| |
| | |
| The Good Sport lived round the corner, and only required Lord
| |
| Dawlish's escort for a couple of hundred yards. But Miss Leonard's
| |
| hotel was in the neighbourhood of Washington Square, and it was
| |
| Nutty's pleasing task to drive her thither. Engaged thus, he
| |
| received a shock that electrified him.
| |
| | |
| 'That pal of yours,' said Miss Leonard, drowsily--she was
| |
| half-asleep--'what did you say his name was?'
| |
| | |
| 'Chalmers, he told me. I only met him to-night.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, it isn't; it's something else. It'--Miss Leonard
| |
| yawned--'it's Lord something.'
| |
| | |
| 'How do you mean, "Lord something"?'
| |
| | |
| 'He's a lord--at least, he was when I met him in London.'
| |
| | |
| 'Are you sure you met him in London?'
| |
| | |
| 'Of course I'm sure. He was at that supper Captain Delaney gave at
| |
| Oddy's. There can't be two men in England who dance like that!'
| |
| | |
| The recollection of Bill's performance stimulated Miss Leonard
| |
| into a temporary wakefulness, and she giggled.
| |
| | |
| 'He danced just the same way that night in London. I wish I could
| |
| remember his name. I almost had it a dozen times tonight. It's
| |
| something with a window in it.'
| |
| | |
| 'A window?' Nutty's brain was a little fatigued and he felt
| |
| himself unequal to grasping this. 'How do you mean, a window?'
| |
| | |
| 'No, not a window--a door! I knew it was something about a house.
| |
| I know now, his name's Lord Dawlish.'
| |
| | |
| Nutty's fatigue fell from him like a garment.
| |
| | |
| 'It can't be!'
| |
| | |
| 'It is.'
| |
| | |
| Miss Leonard's eyes had closed and she spoke in a muffled voice.
| |
| | |
| 'Are you sure?'
| |
| | |
| 'Mm-mm.'
| |
| | |
| 'By gad!'
| |
| | |
| Nutty was wide awake now and full of inquiries; but his companion
| |
| unfortunately was asleep, and he could not put them to her. A
| |
| gentleman cannot prod a lady--and his guest, at that--in the ribs
| |
| in order to wake her up and ask her questions. Nutty sat back and
| |
| gave himself up to feverish thought.
| |
| | |
| He could think of no reason why Lord Dawlish should have come to
| |
| America calling himself William Chalmers, but that was no reason
| |
| why he should not have done so. And Daisy Leonard, who all along
| |
| had remembered meeting him in London, had identified him.
| |
| | |
| Nutty was convinced. Arriving finally at Miss Leonard's hotel, he
| |
| woke her up and saw her in at the door; then, telling the man to
| |
| drive to the lodgings of his new friend, he urged his mind to
| |
| rapid thought. He had decided as a first step in the following up
| |
| of this matter to invite Bill down to Elizabeth's farm, and the
| |
| thought occurred to him that this had better be done to-night, for
| |
| he knew by experience that on the morning after these little
| |
| jaunts he was seldom in the mood to seek people out and invite
| |
| them to go anywhere.
| |
| | |
| All the way to the flat he continued to think, and it was
| |
| wonderful what possibilities there seemed to be in this little
| |
| scheme of courting the society of the man who had robbed him of
| |
| his inheritance. He had worked on Bill's feelings so successfully
| |
| as to elicit a loan of a million dollars, and was just proceeding
| |
| to marry him to Elizabeth, when the cab stopped with the sudden
| |
| sharpness peculiar to New York cabs, and he woke up, to find
| |
| himself at his destination.
| |
| | |
| Bill was in bed when the bell rang, and received his late host in
| |
| his pyjamas, wondering, as he did so, whether this was the New
| |
| York custom, to foregather again after a party had been broken up,
| |
| and chat till breakfast. But Nutty, it seemed, had come with a
| |
| motive, not from a desire for more conversation.
| |
| | |
| 'Sorry to disturb you, old man,' said Nutty. 'I looked in to tell
| |
| you that I was going down to the country to-morrow. I wondered
| |
| whether you would care to come and spend a day or two with us.'
| |
| | |
| Bill was delighted. This was better than he had hoped for.
| |
| | |
| 'Rather!' he said. 'Thanks awfully!'
| |
| | |
| 'There are plenty of trains in the afternoon,' said Nutty. 'I
| |
| don't suppose either of us will feel like getting up early. I'll
| |
| call for you here at half-past six, and we'll have an early dinner
| |
| and catch the seven-fifteen, shall we? We live very simply, you
| |
| know. You won't mind that?'
| |
| | |
| 'My dear chap!'
| |
| | |
| 'That's all right, then,' said Nutty, closing the door. 'Good
| |
| night.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 9
| |
| | |
| | |
| Elizabeth entered Nutty's room and, seating herself on the bed,
| |
| surveyed him with a bright, quiet eye that drilled holes in her
| |
| brother's uneasy conscience. This was her second visit to him that
| |
| morning. She had come an hour ago, bearing breakfast on a tray,
| |
| and had departed without saying a word. It was this uncanny
| |
| silence of hers even more than the effects--which still lingered--of
| |
| his revels in the metropolis that had interfered with Nutty's
| |
| enjoyment of the morning meal. Never a hearty breakfaster, he had
| |
| found himself under the influence of her wordless disapproval
| |
| physically unable to consume the fried egg that confronted him. He
| |
| had given it one look; then, endorsing the opinion which he had
| |
| once heard a character in a play utter in somewhat similar
| |
| circumstances--that there was nothing on earth so homely as an
| |
| egg--he had covered it with a handkerchief and tried to pull
| |
| himself round with hot tea. He was now smoking a sad cigarette and
| |
| waiting for the blow to fall.
| |
| | |
| Her silence had puzzled him. Though he had tried to give her no
| |
| opportunity of getting him alone on the previous evening when he
| |
| had arrived at the farm with Lord Dawlish, he had fully expected
| |
| that she would have broken in upon him with abuse and recrimination
| |
| in the middle of the night. Yet she had not done this, nor had she
| |
| spoken to him when bringing him his breakfast. These things found
| |
| their explanation in Elizabeth's character, with which Nutty, though
| |
| he had known her so long, was but imperfectly acquainted. Elizabeth
| |
| had never been angrier with her brother, but an innate goodness of
| |
| heart had prevented her falling upon him before he had had rest and
| |
| refreshment.
| |
| | |
| She wanted to massacre him, but at the same time she told herself
| |
| that the poor dear must be feeling very, very ill, and should have
| |
| a reasonable respite before the slaughter commenced.
| |
| | |
| It was plain that in her opinion this respite had now lasted long
| |
| enough. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that she had
| |
| closed the door, then leaned a little forward and spoke.
| |
| | |
| 'Now, Nutty!'
| |
| | |
| The wretched youth attempted bluster.
| |
| | |
| 'What do you mean--"Now, Nutty"? What's the use of looking at a
| |
| fellow like that and saying "Now, Nutty"? Where's the sense--'
| |
| | |
| His voice trailed off. He was not a very intelligent young man,
| |
| but even he could see that his was not a position where righteous
| |
| indignation could be assumed with any solid chance of success. As
| |
| a substitute he tried pathos.
| |
| | |
| 'Oo-oo, my head does ache!'
| |
| | |
| 'I wish it would burst,' said his sister, unkindly.
| |
| | |
| 'That's a nice thing to say to a fellow!'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm sorry. I wouldn't have said it--'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, well!'
| |
| | |
| 'Only I couldn't think of anything worse.'
| |
| | |
| It began to seem to Nutty that pathos was a bit of a failure too.
| |
| As a last resort he fell back on silence. He wriggled as far down
| |
| as he could beneath the sheets and breathed in a soft and wounded
| |
| sort of way. Elizabeth took up the conversation.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty,' she said, 'I've struggled for years against the
| |
| conviction that you were a perfect idiot. I've forced myself,
| |
| against my better judgement, to try to look on you as sane, but
| |
| now I give in. I can't believe you are responsible for your
| |
| actions. Don't imagine that I am going to heap you with reproaches
| |
| because you sneaked off to New York. I'm not even going to tell
| |
| you what I thought of you for not sending me a telegram, letting
| |
| me know where you were. I can understand all that. You were
| |
| disappointed because Uncle Ira had not left you his money, and I
| |
| suppose that was your way of working it off. If you had just run
| |
| away and come back again with a headache, I'd have treated you
| |
| like the Prodigal Son. But there are some things which are too
| |
| much, and bringing a perfect stranger back with you for an
| |
| indefinite period is one of them. I'm not saying anything against
| |
| Mr Chalmers personally. I haven't had time to find out much about
| |
| him, except that he's an Englishman; but he looks respectable.
| |
| Which, as he's a friend of yours, is more or less of a miracle.'
| |
| | |
| She raised her eyebrows as a faint moan of protest came from
| |
| beneath the sheets.
| |
| | |
| 'You surely,' she said, 'aren't going to suggest at this hour of
| |
| the day, Nutty, that your friends aren't the most horrible set of
| |
| pests outside a prison? Not that it's likely after all these
| |
| months that they are outside a prison. You know perfectly well
| |
| that while you were running round New York you collected the most
| |
| pernicious bunch of rogues that ever fastened their talons into a
| |
| silly child who ought never to have been allowed out without his
| |
| nurse.' After which complicated insult Elizabeth paused for
| |
| breath, and there was silence for a space.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, as I was saying, I know nothing against this Mr Chalmers.
| |
| Probably his finger-prints are in the Rogues' Gallery, and he is
| |
| better known to the police as Jack the Blood, or something, but he
| |
| hasn't shown that side of him yet. My point is that, whoever he
| |
| is, I do not want him or anybody else coming and taking up his
| |
| abode here while I have to be cook and housemaid too. I object to
| |
| having a stranger on the premises spying out the nakedness of the
| |
| land. I am sensitive about my honest poverty. So, darling Nutty,
| |
| my precious Nutty, you poor boneheaded muddler, will you kindly
| |
| think up at your earliest convenience some plan for politely
| |
| ejecting this Mr Chalmers of yours from our humble home?--because
| |
| if you don't, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.'
| |
| | |
| And, completely restored to good humour by her own eloquence,
| |
| Elizabeth burst out laughing. It was a trait in her character
| |
| which she had often lamented, that she could not succeed in
| |
| keeping angry with anyone for more than a few minutes on end.
| |
| Sooner or later some happy selection of a phrase of abuse would
| |
| tickle her sense of humour, or the appearance of her victim would
| |
| become too funny not to be laughed at. On the present occasion it
| |
| was the ridiculous spectacle of Nutty cowering beneath the
| |
| bedclothes that caused her wrath to evaporate. She made a weak
| |
| attempt to recover it. She glared at Nutty, who at the sound of
| |
| her laughter had emerged from under the clothes like a worm after
| |
| a thunderstorm.
| |
| | |
| 'I mean it,' she said. 'It really is too bad of you! You might
| |
| have had some sense and a little consideration. Ask yourself if we
| |
| are in a position here to entertain visitors. Well, I'm going to
| |
| make myself very unpopular with this Mr Chalmers of yours. By this
| |
| evening he will be regarding me with utter loathing, for I am
| |
| about to persecute him.'
| |
| | |
| 'What do you mean?' asked Nutty, alarmed.
| |
| | |
| 'I am going to begin by asking him to help me open one of the
| |
| hives.'
| |
| | |
| 'For goodness' sake!'
| |
| | |
| 'After that I shall--with his assistance--transfer some honey. And
| |
| after that--well, I don't suppose he will be alive by then. If he
| |
| is, I shall make him wash the dishes for me. The least he can do,
| |
| after swooping down on us like this, is to make himself useful.'
| |
| | |
| A cry of protest broke from the appalled Nutty, but Elizabeth did
| |
| not hear it. She had left the room and was on her way downstairs.
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish was smoking an after-breakfast cigar in the grounds.
| |
| It was a beautiful day, and a peaceful happiness had come upon
| |
| him. He told himself that he had made progress. He was under the
| |
| same roof as the girl he had deprived of her inheritance, and it
| |
| should be simple to establish such friendly relations as would
| |
| enable him to reveal his identity and ask her to reconsider her
| |
| refusal to relieve him of a just share of her uncle's money. He
| |
| had seen Elizabeth for only a short time on the previous night,
| |
| but he had taken an immediate liking to her. There was something
| |
| about the American girl, he reflected, which seemed to put a man
| |
| at his ease, a charm and directness all her own. Yes, he liked
| |
| Elizabeth, and he liked this dwelling-place of hers. He was quite
| |
| willing to stay on here indefinitely.
| |
| | |
| Nature had done well by Flack's. The house itself was more
| |
| pleasing to the eye than most of the houses in those parts, owing
| |
| to the black and white paint which decorated it and an unconventional
| |
| flattening and rounding of the roof. Nature, too, had made so many
| |
| improvements that the general effect was unusually delightful.
| |
| | |
| Bill perceived Elizabeth coming toward him from the house. He
| |
| threw away his cigar and went to meet her. Seen by daylight, she
| |
| was more attractive than ever. She looked so small and neat and
| |
| wholesome, so extremely unlike Miss Daisy Leonard's friend. And
| |
| such was the reaction from what might be termed his later
| |
| Reigelheimer's mood that if he had been asked to define feminine
| |
| charm in a few words, he would have replied without hesitation
| |
| that it was the quality of being as different as possible in every
| |
| way from the Good Sport. Elizabeth fulfilled this qualification.
| |
| She was not only small and neat, but she had a soft voice to which
| |
| it was a joy to listen.
| |
| | |
| 'I was just admiring your place,' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'Its appearance is the best part of it,' said Elizabeth. 'It is a
| |
| deceptive place. The bay looks beautiful, but you can't bathe in
| |
| it because of the jellyfish. The woods are lovely, but you daren't
| |
| go near them because of the ticks.'
| |
| | |
| 'Ticks?'
| |
| | |
| 'They jump on you and suck your blood,' said Elizabeth, carelessly.
| |
| 'And the nights are gorgeous, but you have to stay indoors after
| |
| dusk because of the mosquitoes.' She paused to mark the effect of
| |
| these horrors on her visitor. 'And then, of course,' she went on,
| |
| as he showed no signs of flying to the house to pack his bag and
| |
| catch the next train, 'the bees are always stinging you. I hope you
| |
| are not afraid of bees, Mr Chalmers?'
| |
| | |
| 'Rather not. Jolly little chaps!'
| |
| | |
| A gleam appeared in Elizabeth's eye.
| |
| | |
| 'If you are so fond of them, perhaps you wouldn't mind coming and
| |
| helping me open one of the hives?'
| |
| | |
| 'Rather!'
| |
| | |
| 'I'll go and fetch the things.'
| |
| | |
| She went into the house and ran up to Nutty's room, waking that
| |
| sufferer from a troubled sleep.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty, he's bitten.'
| |
| | |
| Nutty sat up violently.
| |
| | |
| 'Good gracious! What by?'
| |
| | |
| 'You don't understand. What I meant was that I invited your Mr
| |
| Chalmers to help me open a hive, and he said "Rather!" and is
| |
| waiting to do it now. Be ready to say good-bye to him. If he comes
| |
| out of this alive, his first act, after bathing the wounds with
| |
| ammonia, will be to leave us for ever.'
| |
| | |
| 'But look here, he's a visitor--'
| |
| | |
| 'Cheer up! He won't be much longer.'
| |
| | |
| 'You can't let him in for a ghastly thing like opening a hive.
| |
| When you made me do it that time I was picking stings out of
| |
| myself for a week.'
| |
| | |
| 'That was because you had been smoking. Bees dislike the smell of
| |
| tobacco.'
| |
| | |
| 'But this fellow may have been smoking.'
| |
| | |
| 'He has just finished a strong cigar.'
| |
| | |
| 'For Heaven's sake!'
| |
| | |
| 'Good-bye, Nutty, dear; I mustn't keep him waiting.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish looked with interest at the various implements which
| |
| she had collected when she rejoined him outside. He relieved her
| |
| of the stool, the smoker, the cotton-waste, the knife, the
| |
| screwdriver, and the queen-clipping cage.
| |
| | |
| 'Let me carry these for you,' he said, 'unless you've hired a
| |
| van.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth disapproved of this flippancy. It was out of place in
| |
| one who should have been trembling at the prospect of doom.
| |
| | |
| 'Don't you wear a veil for this sort of job?'
| |
| | |
| As a rule Elizabeth did. She had reached a stage of intimacy with
| |
| her bees which rendered a veil a superfluous precaution, but until
| |
| to-day she had never abandoned it. Her view of the matter was
| |
| that, though the inhabitants of the hives were familiar and
| |
| friendly with her by this time and recognized that she came among
| |
| them without hostile intent, it might well happen that among so
| |
| many thousands there might be one slow-witted enough and obtuse
| |
| enough not to have grasped this fact. And in such an event a veil
| |
| was better than any amount of explanations, for you cannot stick
| |
| to pure reason when quarrelling with bees.
| |
| | |
| But to-day it had struck her that she could hardly protect herself
| |
| in this way without offering a similar safeguard to her visitor,
| |
| and she had no wish to hedge him about with safeguards.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, no,' she said, brightly; 'I'm not afraid of a few bees. Are
| |
| you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Rather not!'
| |
| | |
| 'You know what to do if one of them flies at you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, it would, anyway--what? What I mean to say is, I could
| |
| leave most of the doing to the bee.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth was more disapproving than ever. This was mere bravado.
| |
| She did not speak again until they reached the hives.
| |
| | |
| In the neighbourhood of the hives a vast activity prevailed. What,
| |
| heard from afar, had been a pleasant murmur became at close
| |
| quarters a menacing tumult. The air was full of bees--bees
| |
| sallying forth for honey, bees returning with honey, bees
| |
| trampling on each other's heels, bees pausing in mid-air to pass
| |
| the time of day with rivals on competing lines of traffic.
| |
| Blunt-bodied drones whizzed to and fro with a noise like miniature
| |
| high-powered automobiles, as if anxious to convey the idea of being
| |
| tremendously busy without going to the length of doing any actual
| |
| work. One of these blundered into Lord Dawlish's face, and it
| |
| pleased Elizabeth to observe that he gave a jump.
| |
| | |
| 'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'it's only a drone. Drones have no
| |
| stings.'
| |
| | |
| 'They have hard heads, though. Here he comes again!'
| |
| | |
| 'I suppose he smells your tobacco. A drone has thirty-seven
| |
| thousand eight hundred nostrils, you know.'
| |
| | |
| 'That gives him a sporting chance of smelling a cigar--what? I
| |
| mean to say, if he misses with eight hundred of his nostrils he's
| |
| apt to get it with the other thirty-seven thousand.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth was feeling annoyed with her bees. They resolutely
| |
| declined to sting this young man. Bees flew past him, bees flew
| |
| into him, bees settled upon his coat, bees paused questioningly in
| |
| front of him, as who should say, 'What have we here?' but not a
| |
| single bee molested him. Yet when Nutty, poor darling, went within
| |
| a dozen yards of the hives he never failed to suffer for it. In
| |
| her heart Elizabeth knew perfectly well that this was because
| |
| Nutty, when in the presence of the bees, lost his head completely
| |
| and behaved like an exaggerated version of Lady Wetherby's Dream
| |
| of Psyche, whereas Bill maintained an easy calm; but at the moment
| |
| she put the phenomenon down to that inexplicable cussedness which
| |
| does so much to exasperate the human race, and it fed her
| |
| annoyance with her unbidden guest.
| |
| | |
| Without commenting on his last remark, she took the smoker from
| |
| him and set to work. She inserted in the fire-chamber a handful of
| |
| the cotton-waste and set fire to it; then with a preliminary puff
| |
| or two of the bellows to make sure that the conflagration had not
| |
| gone out, she aimed the nozzle at the front door of the hive.
| |
| | |
| The results were instantaneous. One or two bee-policemen, who were
| |
| doing fixed point-duty near the opening, scuttled hastily back
| |
| into the hive; and from within came a muffled buzzing as other
| |
| bees, all talking at once, worried the perplexed officials with
| |
| foolish questions, a buzzing that became less muffled and more
| |
| pronounced as Elizabeth lifted the edge of the cover and directed
| |
| more smoke through the crack. This done, she removed the cover,
| |
| set it down on the grass beside her, lifted the super-cover and
| |
| applied more smoke, and raised her eyes to where Bill stood
| |
| watching. His face wore a smile of pleased interest.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth's irritation became painful. She resented his smile. She
| |
| hung the smoker on the side of the hive.
| |
| | |
| 'The stool, please, and the screw-driver.'
| |
| | |
| She seated herself beside the hive and began to loosen the outside
| |
| section. Then taking the brood-frame by the projecting ends, she
| |
| pulled it out and handed it to her companion. She did it as one
| |
| who plays an ace of trumps.
| |
| | |
| 'Would you mind holding this, Mr Chalmers?'
| |
| | |
| This was the point in the ceremony at which the wretched Nutty had
| |
| broken down absolutely, and not inexcusably, considering the
| |
| severity of the test. The surface of the frame was black with what
| |
| appeared at first sight to be a thick, bubbling fluid of some
| |
| sort, pouring viscously to and fro as if some hidden fire had been
| |
| lighted beneath it. Only after a closer inspection was it apparent
| |
| to the lay eye that this seeming fluid was in reality composed of
| |
| mass upon mass of bees. They shoved and writhed and muttered and
| |
| jostled, for all the world like a collection of home-seeking City
| |
| men trying to secure standing room on the Underground at half-past
| |
| five in the afternoon.
| |
| | |
| Nutty, making this discovery, had emitted one wild yell, dropped
| |
| the frame, and started at full speed for the house, his retreat
| |
| expedited by repeated stings from the nervous bees. Bill, more
| |
| prudent, remained absolutely motionless. He eyed the seething
| |
| frame with interest, but without apparent panic.
| |
| | |
| 'I want you to help me here, Mr Chalmers. You have stronger wrists
| |
| than I have. I will tell you what to do. Hold the frame tightly.'
| |
| | |
| 'I've got it.'
| |
| | |
| 'Jerk it down as sharply as you can to within a few inches of the
| |
| door, and then jerk it up again. You see, that shakes them off.'
| |
| | |
| 'It would me,' agreed Bill, cordially, 'if I were a bee.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth had the feeling that she had played her ace of trumps
| |
| and by some miracle lost the trick. If this grisly operation did
| |
| not daunt the man, nothing, not even the transferring of honey,
| |
| would. She watched him as he raised the frame and jerked it down
| |
| with a strong swiftness which her less powerful wrists had never
| |
| been able to achieve. The bees tumbled off in a dense shower,
| |
| asking questions to the last; then, sighting the familiar entrance
| |
| to the hive, they bustled in without waiting to investigate the
| |
| cause of the earthquake.
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly interest.
| |
| | |
| 'It has always been a mystery to me,' he said, 'why they never
| |
| seem to think of manhandling the Johnny who does that to them.
| |
| They don't seem able to connect cause and effect. I suppose the
| |
| only way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenly
| |
| dropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out for
| |
| home that they haven't time to go to the root of things. But it's
| |
| a ticklish job, for all that, if you're not used to it. I know
| |
| when I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they would
| |
| bury my remains or cremate them.'
| |
| | |
| 'When you first did it?' Elizabeth was staring at him blankly.
| |
| 'Have you done it before?'
| |
| | |
| Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly.
| |
| | |
| 'Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. You see, I spent a
| |
| year on a bee-farm once, learning the business.'
| |
| | |
| For a moment mortification was the only emotion of which Elizabeth
| |
| was conscious. She felt supremely ridiculous. For this she had
| |
| schemed and plotted--to give a practised expert the opportunity of
| |
| doing what he had done a thousand times before!
| |
| | |
| And then her mood changed in a flash. Nature has decreed that
| |
| there are certain things in life which shall act as hoops of
| |
| steel, grappling the souls of the elect together. Golf is one of
| |
| these; a mutual love of horseflesh another; but the greatest of
| |
| all is bees. Between two beekeepers there can be no strife. Not
| |
| even a tepid hostility can mar their perfect communion.
| |
| | |
| The petty enmities which life raises to be barriers between man
| |
| and man and between man and woman vanish once it is revealed to
| |
| them that they are linked by this great bond. Envy, malice,
| |
| hatred, and all uncharitableness disappear, and they look into
| |
| each other's eyes and say 'My brother!'
| |
| | |
| The effect of Bill's words on Elizabeth was revolutionary. They
| |
| crashed through her dislike, scattering it like an explosive
| |
| shell. She had resented this golden young man's presence at the
| |
| farm. She had thought him in the way. She had objected to his
| |
| becoming aware that she did such prosaic tasks as cooking and
| |
| washing-up. But now her whole attitude toward him was changed. She
| |
| reflected that he was there. He could stay there as long as he
| |
| liked, the longer the better.
| |
| | |
| 'You have really kept bees?'
| |
| | |
| 'Not actually kept them, worse luck! I couldn't raise the capital.
| |
| You see, money was a bit tight--'
| |
| | |
| 'I know,' said Elizabeth, sympathetically. 'Money is like that,
| |
| isn't it?'
| |
| | |
| 'The general impression seemed to be that I should be foolish to
| |
| try anything so speculative as beekeeping, so it fell through.
| |
| Some very decent old boys got me another job.'
| |
| | |
| 'What job?'
| |
| | |
| 'Secretary to a club.'
| |
| | |
| 'In London, of course?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'And all the time you wanted to be in the country keeping bees!'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth could hardly control her voice, her pity was so great.
| |
| | |
| 'I should have liked it,' said Bill, wistfully. 'London's all
| |
| right, but I love the country. My ambition would be to have a
| |
| whacking big farm, a sort of ranch, miles away from anywhere--'
| |
| | |
| He broke off. This was not the first time he had caught himself
| |
| forgetting how his circumstances had changed in the past few
| |
| weeks. It was ridiculous to be telling hard-luck stories about not
| |
| being able to buy a farm, when he had the wherewithal to buy
| |
| dozens of farms. It took a lot of getting used to, this business
| |
| of being a millionaire.
| |
| | |
| 'That's my ambition too,' said Elizabeth, eagerly. This was the
| |
| very first time she had met a congenial spirit. Nutty's views on
| |
| farming and the Arcadian life generally were saddening to an
| |
| enthusiast. 'If I had the money I should get an enormous farm, and
| |
| in the summer I should borrow all the children I could find, and
| |
| take them out to it and let them wallow in it.'
| |
| | |
| 'Wouldn't they do a lot of damage?'
| |
| | |
| 'I shouldn't mind. I should be too rich to worry about the damage.
| |
| If they ruined the place beyond repair I'd go and buy another.'
| |
| She laughed. 'It isn't so impossible as it sounds. I came very
| |
| near being able to do it.' She paused for a moment, but went on
| |
| almost at once. After all, if you cannot confide your intimate
| |
| troubles to a fellow bee-lover, to whom can you confide them? 'An
| |
| uncle of mine--'
| |
| | |
| Bill felt himself flushing. He looked away from her. He had a
| |
| sense of almost unbearable guilt, as if he had just done some
| |
| particularly low crime and was contemplating another.
| |
| | |
| '--An uncle of mine would have left me enough money to buy all the
| |
| farms I wanted, only an awful person, an English lord. I wonder if
| |
| you have heard of him?--Lord Dawlish--got hold of uncle somehow
| |
| and induced him to make a will leaving all the money to him.'
| |
| | |
| She looked at Bill for sympathy, and was touched to see that he
| |
| was crimson with emotion. He must be a perfect dear to take other
| |
| people's misfortunes to heart like that.
| |
| | |
| 'I don't know how he managed it,' she went on. 'He must have
| |
| worked and plotted and schemed, for Uncle Ira wasn't a weak sort
| |
| of man whom you could do what you liked with. He was very
| |
| obstinate. But, anyway, this Lord Dawlish succeeded in doing it
| |
| somehow, and then'--her eyes blazed at the recollection--'he had
| |
| the insolence to write to me through his lawyers offering me half.
| |
| I suppose he was hoping to satisfy his conscience. Naturally I
| |
| refused it.'
| |
| | |
| 'But--but--but why?'
| |
| | |
| 'Why! Why did I refuse it? Surely you don't think I was going to
| |
| accept charity from the man who had cheated me?'
| |
| | |
| 'But--but perhaps he didn't mean it like that. What I mean to say
| |
| is--as charity, you know.'
| |
| | |
| 'He did! But don't let's talk of it any more. It makes me angry to
| |
| think of him, and there's no use spoiling a lovely day like this
| |
| by getting angry.'
| |
| | |
| Bill sighed. He had never dreamed before that it could be so
| |
| difficult to give money away. He was profoundly glad that he had
| |
| not revealed his identity, as he had been on the very point of
| |
| doing just when she began her remarks. He understood now why that
| |
| curt refusal had come in answer to his lawyer's letter. Well,
| |
| there was nothing to do but wait and hope that time might
| |
| accomplish something.
| |
| | |
| 'What do you want me to do next?' he said. 'Why did you open the
| |
| hive? Did you want to take a look at the queen?'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth hesitated. She blushed with pure shame. She had had but
| |
| one motive in opening the hive, and that had been to annoy him.
| |
| She scorned to take advantage of the loophole he had provided.
| |
| Beekeeping is a freemasonry. A beekeeper cannot deceive a
| |
| brother-mason.
| |
| | |
| She faced him bravely.
| |
| | |
| 'I didn't want to take a look at anything, Mr Chalmers. I opened
| |
| that hive because I wanted you to drop the frame, as my brother
| |
| did, and get stung, as he was; because I thought that would drive
| |
| you away, because I thought then that I didn't want you down here.
| |
| I'm ashamed of myself, and I don't know where I'm getting the
| |
| nerve to tell you this. I hope you will stay on--on and on and
| |
| on.'
| |
| | |
| Bill was aghast.
| |
| | |
| 'Good Lord! If I'm in the way--'
| |
| | |
| 'You aren't in the way.'
| |
| | |
| 'But you said--'
| |
| | |
| 'But don't you see that it's so different now? I didn't know then
| |
| that you were fond of bees. You must stay, if my telling you
| |
| hasn't made you feel that you want to catch the next train. You
| |
| will save our lives--mine and Nutty's too. Oh, dear, you're
| |
| hesitating! You're trying to think up some polite way of getting
| |
| out of the place! You mustn't go, Mr Chalmers; you simply must
| |
| stay. There aren't any mosquitoes, no jellyfish--nothing! At
| |
| least, there are; but what do they matter? You don't mind them. Do
| |
| you play golf?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'There are links here. You can't go until you've tried them. What
| |
| is your handicap?'
| |
| | |
| 'Plus two.'
| |
| | |
| 'So is mine.'
| |
| | |
| 'By Jove! Really?'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes dancing.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, we're practically twin souls, Mr Chalmers! Tell me, I know
| |
| your game is nearly perfect, but if you have a fault, is it a
| |
| tendency to putt too hard?'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, by Jove--yes, it is!'
| |
| | |
| 'I knew it. Something told me. It's the curse of my life too!
| |
| Well, after that you can't go away.'
| |
| | |
| 'But if I'm in the way--'
| |
| | |
| 'In the way! Mr Chalmers, will you come in now and help me wash
| |
| the breakfast things?'
| |
| | |
| 'Rather!' said Lord Dawlish.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 10
| |
| | |
| | |
| In the days that followed their interrupted love-scene at
| |
| Reigelheimer's Restaurant that night of Lord Dawlish's unfortunate
| |
| encounter with the tray-bearing waiter, Dudley Pickering's
| |
| behaviour had perplexed Claire Fenwick. She had taken it for
| |
| granted that next day at the latest he would resume the offer of
| |
| his hand, heart, and automobiles. But time passed and he made no
| |
| move in that direction. Of limousine bodies, carburettors,
| |
| spark-plugs, and inner tubes he spoke with freedom and eloquence,
| |
| but the subject of love and marriage he avoided absolutely. His
| |
| behaviour was inexplicable.
| |
| | |
| Claire was piqued. She was in the position of a hostess who has
| |
| swept and garnished her house against the coming of a guest and
| |
| waits in vain for that guest's arrival. She made up her mind what
| |
| to do when Dudley Pickering proposed to her next time, and
| |
| thereby, it seemed to her, had removed all difficulties in the
| |
| way of that proposal. She little knew her Pickering!
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering was not a self-starter in the motordrome of love.
| |
| He needed cranking. He was that most unpromising of matrimonial
| |
| material, a shy man with a cautious disposition. If he overcame
| |
| his shyness, caution applied the foot-brake. If he succeeded in
| |
| forgetting caution, shyness shut off the gas. At Reigelheimer's
| |
| some miracle had made him not only reckless but un-self-conscious.
| |
| Possibly the Dream of Psyche had gone to his head. At any rate, he
| |
| had been on the very verge of proposing to Claire when the
| |
| interruption had occurred, and in bed that night, reviewing the
| |
| affair, he had been appalled at the narrowness of his escape from
| |
| taking a definite step. Except in the way of business, he was a
| |
| man who hated definite steps. He never accepted even a dinner
| |
| invitation without subsequent doubts and remorse. The consequence
| |
| was that, in the days that followed the Reigelheimer episode, what
| |
| Lord Wetherby would have called the lamp of love burned rather low
| |
| in Mr Pickering, as if the acetylene were running out. He still
| |
| admired Claire intensely and experienced disturbing emotions when
| |
| he beheld her perfect tonneau and wonderful headlights; but he
| |
| regarded her with a cautious fear. Although he sometimes dreamed
| |
| sentimentally of marriage in the abstract, of actual marriage, of
| |
| marriage with a flesh-and-blood individual, of marriage that
| |
| involved clergymen and 'Voices that Breathe o'er Eden,' and
| |
| giggling bridesmaids and cake, Dudley Pickering was afraid with a
| |
| terror that woke him sweating in the night. His shyness shrank
| |
| from the ceremony, his caution jibbed at the mysteries of married
| |
| life. So his attitude toward Claire, the only girl who had
| |
| succeeded in bewitching him into the opening words of an actual
| |
| proposal, was a little less cordial and affectionate than if she
| |
| had been a rival automobile manufacturer.
| |
| | |
| Matters were in this state when Lady Wetherby, who, having danced
| |
| classical dances for three months without a break, required a
| |
| rest, shifted her camp to the house which she had rented for the
| |
| summer at Brookport, Long Island, taking with her Algie, her
| |
| husband, the monkey Eustace, and Claire and Mr Pickering, her
| |
| guests. The house was a large one, capable of receiving a big
| |
| party, but she did not wish to entertain on an ambitious scale.
| |
| The only other guest she proposed to put up was Roscoe Sherriff,
| |
| her press agent, who was to come down as soon as he could get away
| |
| from his metropolitan duties.
| |
| | |
| It was a pleasant and romantic place, the estate which Lady
| |
| Wetherby had rented. Standing on a hill, the house looked down
| |
| through green trees on the gleaming waters of the bay. Smooth
| |
| lawns and shady walks it had, and rustic seats beneath spreading
| |
| cedars. Yet for all its effect on Dudley Pickering it might have
| |
| been a gasworks. He roamed the smooth lawns with Claire, and sat
| |
| with her on the rustic benches and talked guardedly of lubricating
| |
| oil. There were moments when Claire was almost impelled to forfeit
| |
| whatever chance she might have had of becoming mistress of thirty
| |
| million dollars and a flourishing business, for the satisfaction
| |
| of administering just one whole-hearted slap on his round and
| |
| thinly-covered head.
| |
| | |
| And then Roscoe Sherriff came down, and Dudley Pickering, who for
| |
| days had been using all his resolution to struggle against the
| |
| siren, suddenly found that there was no siren to struggle against.
| |
| No sooner had the press agent appeared than Claire deserted him
| |
| shamelessly and absolutely. She walked with Roscoe Sherriff. Mr
| |
| Pickering experienced the discomfiting emotions of the man who
| |
| pushes violently against an abruptly-yielding door, or treads
| |
| heavily on the top stair where there is no top stair. He was
| |
| shaken, and the clamlike stolidity which he had assumed as
| |
| protection gave way.
| |
| | |
| Night had descended upon Brookport. Eustace, the monkey, was in
| |
| his little bed; Lord Wetherby in the smoking-room. It was Sunday,
| |
| the day of rest. Dinner was over, and the remainder of the party
| |
| were gathered in the drawing-room, with the exception of Mr
| |
| Pickering, who was smoking a cigar on the porch. A full moon
| |
| turned Long Island into a fairyland.
| |
| | |
| Gloom had settled upon Dudley Pickering and he smoked sadly. All
| |
| rather stout automobile manufacturers are sad when there is a full
| |
| moon. It makes them feel lonely. It stirs their hearts to thoughts
| |
| of love. Marriage loses its terrors for them, and they think
| |
| wistfully of hooking some fair woman up the back and buying her
| |
| hats. Such was the mood of Mr Pickering, when through the dimness
| |
| of the porch there appeared a white shape, moving softly toward
| |
| him.
| |
| | |
| 'Is that you, Mr Pickering?'
| |
| | |
| Claire dropped into the seat beside him. From the drawing-room
| |
| came the soft tinkle of a piano. The sound blended harmoniously
| |
| with the quiet peace of the night. Mr Pickering let his cigar go
| |
| out and clutched the sides of his chair.
| |
| | |
| Oi'll--er--sing thee saw-ongs ov Arrabee,
| |
| Und--ah ta-ales of farrr Cash-mee-eere,
| |
| Wi-ild tales to che-eat thee ovasigh
| |
| Und charrrrm thee to-oo a tear-er.
| |
| | |
| Claire gave a little sigh.
| |
| | |
| 'What a beautiful voice Mr Sherriff has!'
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering made no reply. He thought Roscoe Sherriff had a
| |
| beastly voice. He resented Roscoe Sherriff's voice. He objected to
| |
| Roscoe Sherriff's polluting this fair night with his cacophony.
| |
| | |
| 'Don't you think so, Mr Pickering?'
| |
| | |
| 'Uh-huh.'
| |
| | |
| 'That doesn't sound very enthusiastic. Mr Pickering, I want you to
| |
| tell me something. Have I done anything to offend you?'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering started violently.
| |
| | |
| 'Eh?'
| |
| | |
| 'I have seen so little of you these last few days. A little while
| |
| ago we were always together, having such interesting talks. But
| |
| lately it has seemed to me that you have been avoiding me.'
| |
| | |
| A feeling of helplessness swept over Mr Pickering. He was vaguely
| |
| conscious of a sense of being treated unjustly, of there being a
| |
| flaw in Claire's words somewhere if he could only find it, but the
| |
| sudden attack had deprived him of the free and unfettered use of
| |
| his powers of reasoning. He gurgled wordlessly, and Claire went
| |
| on, her low, sad voice mingling with the moonlight in a manner
| |
| that caused thrills to run up and down his spine. He felt
| |
| paralyzed. Caution urged him to make some excuse and follow it
| |
| with a bolt to the drawing-room, but he was physically incapable
| |
| of taking the excellent advice. Sometimes when you are out in your
| |
| Pickering Gem or your Pickering Giant the car hesitates, falters,
| |
| and stops dead, and your chauffeur, having examined the carburettor,
| |
| turns to you and explains the phenomenon in these words: 'The
| |
| mixture is too rich.' So was it with Mr Pickering now. The moonlight
| |
| alone might not have held him; Claire's voice alone might not have
| |
| held him; but against the two combined he was powerless. The
| |
| mixture was too rich. He sat and breathed a little stertorously,
| |
| and there came to him that conviction that comes to all of us now
| |
| and then, that we are at a crisis of our careers and that the
| |
| moment through which we are living is a moment big with fate.
| |
| | |
| The voice in the drawing-room stopped. Having sung songs of Araby
| |
| and tales of far Cashmere, Mr Roscoe Sherriff was refreshing
| |
| himself with a comic paper. But Lady Wetherby, seated at the
| |
| piano, still touched the keys softly, and the sound increased the
| |
| richness of the mixture which choked Dudley Pickering's spiritual
| |
| carburettor. It is not fair that a rather stout manufacturer
| |
| should be called upon to sit in the moonlight while a beautiful
| |
| girl, to the accompaniment of soft music, reproaches him with
| |
| having avoided her.
| |
| | |
| 'I should be so sorry, Mr Pickering, if I had done anything to
| |
| make a difference between us--'
| |
| | |
| 'Eh?' said Mr Pickering.
| |
| | |
| 'I have so few real friends over here.'
| |
| | |
| Claire's voice trembled.
| |
| | |
| 'I--I get a little lonely, a little homesick sometimes--'
| |
| | |
| She paused, musing, and a spasm of pity rent the bosom beneath
| |
| Dudley Pickering's ample shirt. There was a buzzing in his ears
| |
| and a lump choked his throat.
| |
| | |
| 'Of course, I am loving the life here. I think America's
| |
| wonderful, and nobody could be kinder than Lady Wetherby. But--I
| |
| miss my home. It's the first time I have been away for so long. I
| |
| feel very far away sometimes. There are only three of us at home:
| |
| my mother, myself, and my little brother--little Percy.'
| |
| | |
| Her voice trembled again as she spoke the last two words, and it
| |
| was possibly this that caused Mr Pickering to visualize Percy as a
| |
| sort of little Lord Fauntleroy, his favourite character in English
| |
| literature. He had a vision of a small, delicate, wistful child
| |
| pining away for his absent sister. Consumptive probably. Or
| |
| curvature of the spine.
| |
| | |
| He found Claire's hand in his. He supposed dully he must have
| |
| reached out for it. Soft and warm it lay there, while the universe
| |
| paused breathlessly. And then from the semi-darkness beside him
| |
| there came the sound of a stifled sob, and his fingers closed as
| |
| if someone had touched a button.
| |
| | |
| 'We have always been such chums. He is only ten--such a dear boy!
| |
| He must be missing me--'
| |
| | |
| She stopped, and simultaneously Dudley Pickering began to speak.
| |
| | |
| There is this to be said for your shy, cautious man, that on the
| |
| rare occasions when he does tap the vein of eloquence that vein
| |
| becomes a geyser. It was as if after years of silence and
| |
| monosyllables Dudley Pickering was endeavouring to restore the
| |
| average.
| |
| | |
| He began by touching on his alleged neglect and avoidance of
| |
| Claire. He called himself names and more names. He plumbed the
| |
| depth of repentance and remorse. Proceeding from this, he
| |
| eulogized her courage, the pluck with which she presented a
| |
| smiling face to the world while tortured inwardly by separation
| |
| from her little brother Percy. He then turned to his own feelings.
| |
| | |
| But there are some things which the historian should hold sacred,
| |
| some things which he should look on as proscribed material for his
| |
| pen, and the actual words of a stout manufacturer of automobiles
| |
| proposing marriage in the moonlight fall into this class. It is
| |
| enough to say that Dudley Pickering was definite. He left no room
| |
| for doubt as to his meaning.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley!'
| |
| | |
| She was in his arms. He was embracing her. She was his--the latest
| |
| model, self-starting, with limousine body and all the newest. No,
| |
| no, his mind was wandering. She was his, this divine girl, this
| |
| queen among women, this--
| |
| | |
| From the drawing-room Roscoe Sherriff's voice floated out in
| |
| unconscious comment--
| |
| | |
| Good-bye, boys!
| |
| I'm going to be married to-morrow.
| |
| Good-bye, boys!
| |
| I'm going from sunshine to sorrow.
| |
| No more sitting up till broad daylight.
| |
| | |
| Did a momentary chill cool the intensity of Dudley Pickering's
| |
| ardour? If so he overcame it instantly. He despised Roscoe
| |
| Sherriff. He flattered himself that he had shown Roscoe Sherriff
| |
| pretty well who was who and what was what.
| |
| | |
| They would have a wonderful wedding--dozens of clergymen, scores
| |
| of organs playing 'The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden,' platoons of
| |
| bridesmaids, wagonloads of cake. And then they would go back to
| |
| Detroit and live happy ever after. And it might be that in time to
| |
| come there would be given to them little runabouts.
| |
| | |
| I'm going to a life
| |
| Of misery and strife,
| |
| So good-bye, boys!
| |
| | |
| Hang Roscoe Sherriff! What did he know about it! Confound him!
| |
| Dudley Pickering turned a deaf ear to the song and wallowed in his
| |
| happiness.
| |
| | |
| Claire walked slowly down the moonlit drive. She had removed
| |
| herself from her Dudley's embraces, for she wished to be alone, to
| |
| think. The engagement had been announced. All that part of it was
| |
| over--Dudley's stammering speech, the unrestrained delight of
| |
| Polly Wetherby, the facetious rendering of 'The Wedding Glide' on
| |
| the piano by Roscoe Sherriff, and it now remained for her to try
| |
| to discover a way of conveying the news to Bill.
| |
| | |
| It had just struck her that, though she knew that Bill was in
| |
| America, she had not his address.
| |
| | |
| What was she to do? She must tell him. Otherwise it might quite
| |
| easily happen that they might meet in New York when she returned
| |
| there. She pictured the scene. She saw herself walking with Dudley
| |
| Pickering. Along came Bill. 'Claire, darling!' ... Heavens, what
| |
| would Dudley think? It would be too awful! She couldn't explain.
| |
| No, somehow or other, even if she put detectives on his trail, she
| |
| must find him, and be off with the old love now that she was on
| |
| with the new.
| |
| | |
| She reached the gate and leaned over it. And as she did so someone
| |
| in the shadow of a tall tree spoke her name. A man came into the
| |
| light, and she saw that it was Lord Dawlish.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 11
| |
| | |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish had gone for a moonlight walk that night because,
| |
| like Claire, he wished to be alone to think. He had fallen with a
| |
| pleasant ease and smoothness into the rather curious life lived at
| |
| Elizabeth Boyd's bee-farm. A liking for picnics had lingered in
| |
| him from boyhood, and existence at Flack's was one prolonged
| |
| picnic. He found that he had a natural aptitude for the more
| |
| muscular domestic duties, and his energy in this direction
| |
| enchanted Nutty, who before his advent had had a monopoly of these
| |
| tasks.
| |
| | |
| Nor was this the only aspect of the situation that pleased Nutty.
| |
| When he had invited Bill to the farm he had had a vague hope that
| |
| good might come of it, but he had never dreamed that things would
| |
| turn out as well as they promised to do, or that such a warm and
| |
| immediate friendship would spring up between his sister and the
| |
| man who had diverted the family fortune into his own pocket. Bill
| |
| and Elizabeth were getting on splendidly. They were together all
| |
| the time--walking, golfing, attending to the numerous needs of the
| |
| bees, or sitting on the porch. Nutty's imagination began to run
| |
| away with him. He seemed to smell the scent of orange-blossoms, to
| |
| hear the joyous pealing of church bells--in fact, with the
| |
| difference that it was not his own wedding that he was anticipating,
| |
| he had begun to take very much the same view of the future that was
| |
| about to come to Dudley Pickering.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth would have been startled and embarrassed if she could
| |
| have read his thoughts, for they might have suggested to her that
| |
| she was becoming a great deal fonder of Bill than the shortness of
| |
| their acquaintance warranted. But though she did not fail to
| |
| observe the strangeness of her brother's manner, she traced it to
| |
| another source than the real one. Nutty had a habit of starting
| |
| back and removing himself when, entering the porch, he perceived
| |
| that Bill and his sister were already seated there. His own
| |
| impression on such occasions was that he was behaving with
| |
| consummate tact. Elizabeth supposed that he had had some sort of a
| |
| spasm.
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish, if he had been able to diagnose correctly the almost
| |
| paternal attitude which had become his host's normal manner these
| |
| days, would have been equally embarrassed but less startled, for
| |
| conscience had already suggested to him from time to time that he
| |
| had been guilty of a feeling toward Elizabeth warmer than any
| |
| feeling that should come to an engaged man. Lying in bed at the
| |
| end of his first week at the farm, he reviewed the progress of his
| |
| friendship with her, and was amazed at the rapidity with which it
| |
| had grown.
| |
| | |
| He could not conceal it from himself--Elizabeth appealed to him.
| |
| Being built on a large scale himself, he had always been attracted
| |
| by small women. There was a smallness, a daintiness, a liveliness
| |
| about Elizabeth that was almost irresistible. She was so capable,
| |
| so cheerful in spite of the fact that she was having a hard time.
| |
| And then their minds seemed to blend so remarkably. There were no
| |
| odd corners to be smoothed away. Never in his life had he felt so
| |
| supremely at his ease with one of the opposite sex. He loved
| |
| Claire--he drove that fact home almost angrily to himself--but he
| |
| was forced to admit that he had always been aware of something in
| |
| the nature of a barrier between them. Claire was querulous at
| |
| times, and always a little too apt to take offence. He had never
| |
| been able to talk to her with that easy freedom that Elizabeth
| |
| invited. Talking to Elizabeth was like talking to an attractive
| |
| version of oneself. It was a thing to be done with perfect
| |
| confidence, without any of that apprehension which Claire inspired
| |
| lest the next remark might prove the spark to cause an explosion.
| |
| But Claire was the girl he loved--there must be no mistake about
| |
| that.
| |
| | |
| He came to the conclusion that the key to the situation was the
| |
| fact that Elizabeth was American. He had read so much of the
| |
| American girl, her unaffectedness, her genius for easy comradeship.
| |
| Well, this must be what the writer fellows meant. He had happened
| |
| upon one of those delightful friendships without any suspicion of
| |
| sex in them of which the American girl had the monopoly. Yes, that
| |
| must be it. It was a comforting explanation. It accounted for his
| |
| feeling at a loose end whenever he was away from Elizabeth for as
| |
| much as half an hour. It accounted for the fact that they understood
| |
| each other so well. It accounted for everything so satisfactorily
| |
| that he was able to get to sleep that night after all.
| |
| | |
| But next morning--for his conscience was one of those persistent
| |
| consciences--he began to have doubts again. Nothing clings like a
| |
| suspicion in the mind of a conscientious young man that he has
| |
| been allowing his heart to stray from its proper anchorage.
| |
| | |
| Could it be that he was behaving badly toward Claire? The thought
| |
| was unpleasant, but he could not get rid of it. He extracted
| |
| Claire's photograph from his suit-case and gazed solemnly upon it.
| |
| | |
| At first he was shocked to find that it only succeeded in
| |
| convincing him that Elizabeth was quite the most attractive girl
| |
| he ever had met. The photographer had given Claire rather a severe
| |
| look. He had told her to moisten the lips with the tip of the
| |
| tongue and assume a pleasant smile, with the result that she
| |
| seemed to glare. She had a rather markedly aggressive look,
| |
| queenly perhaps, but not very comfortable.
| |
| | |
| But there is no species of self-hypnotism equal to that of a man
| |
| who gazes persistently at a photograph with the preconceived idea
| |
| that he is in love with the original of it. Little by little Bill
| |
| found that the old feeling began to return. He persevered. By the
| |
| end of a quarter of an hour he had almost succeeded in capturing
| |
| anew that first fine careless rapture which, six months ago, had
| |
| caused him to propose to Claire and walk on air when she accepted
| |
| him.
| |
| | |
| He continued the treatment throughout the day, and by dinner-time
| |
| had arranged everything with his conscience in the most satisfactory
| |
| manner possible. He loved Claire with a passionate fervour; he
| |
| liked Elizabeth very much indeed. He submitted this diagnosis to
| |
| conscience, and conscience graciously approved and accepted it.
| |
| | |
| It was Sunday that day. That helped. There is nothing like Sunday
| |
| in a foreign country for helping a man to sentimental thoughts of
| |
| the girl he has left behind him elsewhere. And the fact that there
| |
| was a full moon clinched it. Bill was enabled to go for an
| |
| after-dinner stroll in a condition of almost painful loyalty to Claire.
| |
| | |
| From time to time, as he walked along the road, he took out the
| |
| photograph and did some more gazing. The last occasion on which he
| |
| did this was just as he emerged from the shadow of a large tree
| |
| that stood by the roadside, and a gush of rich emotion rewarded
| |
| him.
| |
| | |
| 'Claire!' he murmured.
| |
| | |
| An exclamation at his elbow caused him to look up. There, leaning
| |
| over a gate, the light of the moon falling on her beautiful face,
| |
| stood Claire herself!
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 12
| |
| | |
| | |
| In trying interviews, as in sprint races, the start is everything.
| |
| It was the fact that she recovered more quickly from her
| |
| astonishment that enabled Claire to dominate her scene with Bill.
| |
| She had the advantage of having a less complicated astonishment to
| |
| recover from, for, though it was a shock to see him there when she
| |
| had imagined that he was in New York, it was not nearly such a
| |
| shock as it was to him to see her here when he had imagined that
| |
| she was in England. She had adjusted her brain to the situation
| |
| while he was still gaping.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, Bill?'
| |
| | |
| This speech in itself should have been enough to warn Lord Dawlish
| |
| of impending doom. As far as love, affection, and tenderness are
| |
| concerned, a girl might just as well hit a man with an axe as say
| |
| 'Well, Bill?' to him when they have met unexpectedly in the
| |
| moonlight after long separation. But Lord Dawlish was too shattered
| |
| by surprise to be capable of observing _nuances_. If his love had
| |
| ever waned or faltered, as conscience had suggested earlier in the
| |
| day, it was at full blast now.
| |
| | |
| 'Claire!' he cried.
| |
| | |
| He was moving to take her in his arms, but she drew back.
| |
| | |
| 'No, really, Bill!' she said; and this time it did filter through
| |
| into his disordered mind that all was not well. A man who is a
| |
| good deal dazed at the moment may fail to appreciate a remark like
| |
| 'Well, Bill?' but for a girl to draw back and say, 'No, really,
| |
| Bill!' in a tone not exactly of loathing, but certainly of pained
| |
| aversion, is a deliberately unfriendly act. The three short words,
| |
| taken in conjunction with the movement, brought him up with as
| |
| sharp a turn as if she had punched him in the eye.
| |
| | |
| 'Claire! What's the matter?'
| |
| | |
| She looked at him steadily. She looked at him with a sort of
| |
| queenly woodenness, as if he were behind a camera with a velvet
| |
| bag over his head and had just told her to moisten the lips with
| |
| the tip of the tongue. Her aspect staggered Lord Dawlish. A
| |
| cursory inspection of his conscience showed nothing but purity and
| |
| whiteness, but he must have done something, or she would not be
| |
| staring at him like this.
| |
| | |
| 'I don't understand!' was the only remark that occurred to him.
| |
| | |
| 'Are you sure?'
| |
| | |
| 'What do you mean?'
| |
| | |
| 'I was at Reigelheimer's Restaurant--Ah!'
| |
| | |
| The sudden start which Lord Dawlish had given at the opening words
| |
| of her sentence justified the concluding word. Innocent as his
| |
| behaviour had been that night at Reigelheimer's, he had been glad
| |
| at the time that he had not been observed. It now appeared that he
| |
| had been observed, and it seemed to him that Long Island suddenly
| |
| flung itself into a whirling dance. He heard Claire speaking a
| |
| long way off: 'I was there with Lady Wetherby. It was she who
| |
| invited me to come to America. I went to the restaurant to see her
| |
| dance--and I saw you!'
| |
| | |
| With a supreme effort Bill succeeded in calming down the excited
| |
| landscape. He willed the trees to stop dancing, and they came
| |
| reluctantly to a standstill. The world ceased to swim and flicker.
| |
| | |
| 'Let me explain,' he said.
| |
| | |
| The moment he had said the words he wished he could recall them.
| |
| Their substance was right enough; it was the sound of them that
| |
| was wrong. They sounded like a line from a farce, where the erring
| |
| husband has been caught by the masterful wife. They were
| |
| ridiculous. Worse than being merely ridiculous, they created an
| |
| atmosphere of guilt and evasion.
| |
| | |
| 'Explain! How can you explain? It is impossible to explain. I saw
| |
| you with my own eyes making an exhibition of yourself with a
| |
| horrible creature in salmon-pink. I'm not asking you who she is.
| |
| I'm not questioning you about your relations with her at all. I
| |
| don't care who she was. The mere fact that you were at a public
| |
| restaurant with a person of that kind is enough. No doubt you
| |
| think I am making a great deal of fuss about a very ordinary
| |
| thing. You consider that it is a man's privilege to do these
| |
| things, if he can do them without being found out. But it ended
| |
| everything so far as I am concerned. Am I unreasonable? I don't
| |
| think so. You steal off to America, thinking I am in England, and
| |
| behave like this. How could you do that if you really loved me?
| |
| It's the deceit of it that hurts me.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish drew in a few breaths of pure Long Island air, but he
| |
| did not speak. He felt helpless. If he were to be allowed to
| |
| withdraw into the privacy of the study and wrap a cold, wet towel
| |
| about his forehead and buckle down to it, he knew that he could
| |
| draft an excellent and satisfactory explanation of his presence at
| |
| Reigelheimer's with the Good Sport. But to do it on the spur of
| |
| the moment like this was beyond him.
| |
| | |
| Claire was speaking again. She had paused for a while after her
| |
| recent speech, in order to think of something else to say; and
| |
| during this pause had come to her mind certain excerpts from one
| |
| of those admirable articles on love, by Luella Delia Philpotts,
| |
| which do so much to boost the reading public of the United States
| |
| into the higher planes. She had read it that afternoon in the
| |
| Sunday paper, and it came back to her now.
| |
| | |
| 'I may be hypersensitive,' she said, dropping her voice from the
| |
| accusatory register to the lower tones of pathos, 'but I have such
| |
| high ideals of love. There can be no true love where there is not
| |
| perfect trust. Trust is to love what--'
| |
| | |
| She paused again. She could not remember just what Luella Delia
| |
| Philpotts had said trust was to love. It was something extremely
| |
| neat, but it had slipped her memory.
| |
| | |
| 'A woman has the right to expect the man she is about to marry to
| |
| regard their troth as a sacred obligation that shall keep him as
| |
| pure as a young knight who has dedicated himself to the quest of
| |
| the Holy Grail. And I find you in a public restaurant, dancing
| |
| with a creature with yellow hair, upsetting waiters, and
| |
| staggering about with pats of butter all over you.'
| |
| | |
| Here a sense of injustice stung Lord Dawlish. It was true that
| |
| after his regrettable collision with Heinrich, the waiter, he had
| |
| discovered butter upon his person, but it was only one pat. Claire
| |
| had spoken as if he had been festooned with butter.
| |
| | |
| 'I am not angry with you, only disappointed. What has happened has
| |
| shown me that you do not really love me, not as I think of love.
| |
| Oh, I know that when we are together you think you do, but absence
| |
| is the test. Absence is the acid-test of love that separates the
| |
| base metal from the true. After what has happened, we can't go on
| |
| with our engagement. It would be farcical. I could never feel that
| |
| way toward you again. We shall always be friends, I hope. But as
| |
| for love--love is not a machine. It cannot be shattered and put
| |
| together again.'
| |
| | |
| She turned and began to walk up the drive. Hanging over the top of
| |
| the gate like a wet sock, Lord Dawlish watched her go. The
| |
| interview was over, and he could not think of one single thing to
| |
| say. Her white dress made a patch of light in the shadows. She
| |
| moved slowly, as if weighed down by sad thoughts, like one who, as
| |
| Luella Delia Philpotts beautifully puts it, paces with measured
| |
| step behind the coffin of a murdered heart. The bend of the drive
| |
| hid her from his sight.
| |
| | |
| About twenty minutes later Dudley Pickering, smoking sentimentally
| |
| in the darkness hard by the porch, received a shock. He was musing
| |
| tenderly on his Claire, who was assisting him in the process by
| |
| singing in the drawing-room, when he was aware of a figure, the
| |
| sinister figure of a man who, pressed against the netting of the
| |
| porch, stared into the lighted room beyond.
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering's first impulse was to stride briskly up to the
| |
| intruder, tap him on the shoulder, and ask him what the devil he
| |
| wanted; but a second look showed him that the other was built on
| |
| too ample a scale to make this advisable. He was a large,
| |
| fit-looking intruder.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering was alarmed. There had been the usual epidemic of
| |
| burglaries that season. Houses had been broken into, valuable
| |
| possessions removed. In one case a negro butler had been struck
| |
| over the head with a gas-pipe and given a headache. In these
| |
| circumstances, it was unpleasant to find burly strangers looking
| |
| in at windows.
| |
| | |
| 'Hi!' cried Mr Pickering.
| |
| | |
| The intruder leaped a foot. It had not occurred to Lord Dawlish,
| |
| when in an access of wistful yearning he had decided to sneak up
| |
| to the house in order to increase his anguish by one last glimpse
| |
| of Claire, that other members of the household might be out in the
| |
| grounds. He was just thinking sorrowfully, as he listened to the
| |
| music, how like his own position was to that of the hero of
| |
| Tennyson's _Maud_--a poem to which he was greatly addicted,
| |
| when Mr Pickering's 'Hi!' came out of nowhere and hit him like a
| |
| torpedo.
| |
| | |
| He turned in agitation. Mr Pickering having prudently elected to
| |
| stay in the shadows, there was no one to be seen. It was as if the
| |
| voice of conscience had shouted 'Hi!' at him. He was just
| |
| wondering if he had imagined the whole thing, when he perceived
| |
| the red glow of a cigar and beyond it a shadowy form.
| |
| | |
| It was not the fact that he was in an equivocal position, staring
| |
| into a house which did not belong to him, with his feet on
| |
| somebody else's private soil, that caused Bill to act as he did.
| |
| It was the fact that at that moment he was not feeling equal to
| |
| conversation with anybody on any subject whatsoever. It did not
| |
| occur to him that his behaviour might strike a nervous stranger as
| |
| suspicious. All he aimed at was the swift removal of himself from
| |
| a spot infested by others of his species. He ran, and Mr
| |
| Pickering, having followed him with the eye of fear, went rather
| |
| shakily into the house, his brain whirling with professional
| |
| cracksmen and gas pipes and assaulted butlers, to relate his
| |
| adventure.
| |
| | |
| 'A great, hulking, ruffianly sort of fellow glaring in at the
| |
| window,' said Mr Pickering. 'I shouted at him and he ran like a
| |
| rabbit.'
| |
| | |
| 'Gee! Must have been one of the gang that's been working down
| |
| here,' said Roscoe Sherriff. 'There might be a quarter of a column
| |
| in that, properly worked, but I guess I'd better wait until he
| |
| actually does bust the place.'
| |
| | |
| 'We must notify the police!'
| |
| | |
| 'Notify the police, and have them butt in and stop the thing and
| |
| kill a good story!' There was honest amazement in the Press-agent's
| |
| voice. 'Let me tell you, it isn't so easy to get publicity
| |
| these days that you want to go out of your way to stop it!'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering was appalled. A dislike of this man, which had grown
| |
| less vivid since his scene with Claire, returned to him with
| |
| redoubled force.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, we may all be murdered in our beds!' he cried.
| |
| | |
| 'Front-page stuff!' said Roscoe Sherriff, with gleaming eyes. 'And
| |
| three columns at least. Fine!'
| |
| | |
| It might have consoled Lord Dawlish somewhat, as he lay awake
| |
| that night, to have known that the man who had taken Claire from
| |
| him--though at present he was not aware of such a man's
| |
| existence--also slept ill.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 13
| |
| | |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby sat in her room, writing letters. The rest of the
| |
| household were variously employed. Roscoe Sherriff was prowling
| |
| about the house, brooding on campaigns of publicity. Dudley
| |
| Pickering was walking in the grounds with Claire. In a little
| |
| shack in the woods that adjoined the high-road, which he had
| |
| converted into a temporary studio, Lord Wetherby was working on a
| |
| picture which he proposed to call 'Innocence', a study of a small
| |
| Italian child he had discovered in Washington Square. Lady
| |
| Wetherby, who had been taken to see the picture, had suggested
| |
| 'The Black Hand's Newest Recruit' as a better title than the one
| |
| selected by the artist.
| |
| | |
| It is a fact to be noted that of the entire household only Lady
| |
| Wetherby could fairly be described as happy. It took very little to
| |
| make Lady Wetherby happy. Fine weather, good food, and a complete
| |
| abstention from classical dancing--give her these and she asked no
| |
| more. She was, moreover, delighted at Claire's engagement. It
| |
| seemed to her, for she had no knowledge of the existence of Lord
| |
| Dawlish, a genuine manifestation of Love's Young Dream. She liked
| |
| Dudley Pickering and she was devoted to Claire. It made her happy
| |
| to think that it was she who had brought them together.
| |
| | |
| But of the other members of the party, Dudley Pickering was
| |
| unhappy because he feared that burglars were about to raid the
| |
| house; Roscoe Sherriff because he feared they were not; Claire
| |
| because, now that the news of the engagement was out, it seemed to
| |
| be everybody's aim to leave her alone with Mr Pickering, whose
| |
| undiluted society tended to pall. And Lord Wetherby was unhappy
| |
| because he found Eustace, the monkey, a perpetual strain upon his
| |
| artistic nerves. It was Eustace who had driven him to his shack in
| |
| the woods. He could have painted far more comfortably in the
| |
| house, but Eustace had developed a habit of stealing up to him and
| |
| plucking the leg of his trousers; and an artist simply cannot give
| |
| of his best with that sort of thing going on.
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby wrote on. She was not fond of letter-writing and she
| |
| had allowed her correspondence to accumulate; but she was
| |
| disposing of it in an energetic and conscientious way, when the
| |
| entrance of Wrench, the butler, interrupted her.
| |
| | |
| Wrench had been imported from England at the request of Lord
| |
| Wetherby, who had said that it soothed him and kept him from
| |
| feeling home-sick to see a butler about the place. Since then he
| |
| had been hanging to the establishment as it were by a hair. He
| |
| gave the impression of being always on the point of giving notice.
| |
| There were so many things connected with his position of which he
| |
| disapproved. He had made no official pronouncement of the matter,
| |
| but Lady Wetherby knew that he disapproved of her classical
| |
| dancing. His last position had been with the Dowager Duchess of
| |
| Waveney, the well-known political hostess, who--even had the
| |
| somewhat generous lines on which she was built not prevented the
| |
| possibility of such a thing--would have perished rather than dance
| |
| barefooted in a public restaurant. Wrench also disapproved of
| |
| America. That fact had been made plain immediately upon his
| |
| arrival in the country. He had given America one look, and then
| |
| his mind was made up--he disapproved of it.
| |
| | |
| 'If you please, m'lady!'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby turned. The butler was looking even more than
| |
| usually disapproving, and his disapproval had, so to speak,
| |
| crystallized, as if it had found some more concrete and definite
| |
| objective than either barefoot dancing or the United States.
| |
| | |
| 'If you please, m'lady--the hape!'
| |
| | |
| It was Wrench's custom to speak of Eustace in a tone of restrained
| |
| disgust. He disapproved of Eustace. The Dowager Duchess of
| |
| Waveney, though she kept open house for members of Parliament,
| |
| would have drawn the line at monkeys.
| |
| | |
| 'The hape is behaving very strange, m'lady,' said Wrench,
| |
| frostily.
| |
| | |
| It has been well said that in this world there is always
| |
| something. A moment before, Lady Wetherby had been feeling
| |
| completely contented, without a care on her horizon. It was
| |
| foolish of her to have expected such a state of things to last,
| |
| for what is life but a series of sharp corners, round each of
| |
| which Fate lies in wait for us with a stuffed eel-skin? Something
| |
| in the butler's manner, a sort of gloating gloom which he
| |
| radiated, told her that she had arrived at one of these corners
| |
| now.
| |
| | |
| 'The hape is seated on the kitchen-sink, m'lady, throwing new-laid
| |
| eggs at the scullery-maid, and cook desired me to step up and ask
| |
| for instructions.'
| |
| | |
| 'What!' Lady Wetherby rose in agitation. 'What's he doing that
| |
| for?' she asked, weakly.
| |
| | |
| A slight, dignified gesture was Wrench's only reply. It was not
| |
| his place to analyse the motives of monkeys.
| |
| | |
| 'Throwing eggs!'
| |
| | |
| The sight of Lady Wetherby's distress melted the butler's stern
| |
| reserve. He unbent so far as to supply a clue.
| |
| | |
| 'As I understand from cook, m'lady, the animal appears to have
| |
| taken umbrage at a lack of cordiality on the part of the cat. It
| |
| seems that the hape attempted to fondle the cat, but the latter
| |
| scratched him; being suspicious,' said Wrench, 'of his _bona
| |
| fides_.' He scrutinized the ceiling with a dull eye. 'Whereupon,'
| |
| he continued, 'he seized her tail and threw her with considerable
| |
| force. He then removed himself to the sink and began to hurl eggs
| |
| at the scullery-maid.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby's mental eye attempted to produce a picture of the
| |
| scene, but failed.
| |
| | |
| 'I suppose I had better go down and see about it,' she said.
| |
| | |
| Wrench withdrew his gaze from the ceiling.
| |
| | |
| 'I think it would be advisable, m'lady. The scullery-maid is
| |
| already in hysterics.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby led the way to the kitchen. She was wroth with
| |
| Eustace. This was just the sort of thing out of which Algie would
| |
| be able to make unlimited capital. It weakened her position with
| |
| Algie. There was only one thing to do--she must hush it up.
| |
| | |
| Her first glance, however, at the actual theatre of war gave her
| |
| the impression that matters had advanced beyond the hushing-up
| |
| stage. A yellow desolation brooded over the kitchen. It was not so
| |
| much a kitchen as an omelette. There were eggs everywhere, from
| |
| floor to ceiling. She crunched her way in on a carpet of oozing
| |
| shells.
| |
| | |
| Her entry was a signal for a renewal on a more impressive scale of
| |
| the uproar that she had heard while opening the door. The air was
| |
| full of voices. The cook was expressing herself in Norwegian, the
| |
| parlour-maid in what appeared to be Erse. On a chair in a corner
| |
| the scullery-maid sobbed and whooped. The odd-job man, who was a
| |
| baseball enthusiast, was speaking in terms of high praise of
| |
| Eustace's combined speed and control.
| |
| | |
| The only calm occupant of the room was Eustace himself, who,
| |
| either through a shortage of ammunition or through weariness of
| |
| the pitching-arm, had suspended active hostilities, and was now
| |
| looking down on the scene from a high shelf. There was a brooding
| |
| expression in his deep-set eyes. He massaged his right ear with
| |
| the sole of his left foot in a somewhat _distrait_ manner.
| |
| | |
| 'Eustace!' cried Lady Wetherby, severely.
| |
| | |
| Eustace lowered his foot and gazed at her meditatively, then at
| |
| the odd-job man, then at the scullery-maid, whose voice rose high
| |
| above the din.
| |
| | |
| 'I rather fancy, m'lady,' said Wrench, dispassionately, 'that the
| |
| animal is about to hurl a plate.'
| |
| | |
| It had escaped the notice of those present that the shelf on which
| |
| the rioter had taken refuge was within comfortable reach of the
| |
| dresser, but Eustace himself had not overlooked this important
| |
| strategic point. As the butler spoke, Eustace picked up a plate
| |
| and threw it at the scullery-maid, whom he seemed definitely to
| |
| have picked out as the most hostile of the allies. It was a fast
| |
| inshoot, and hit the wall just above her head.
| |
| | |
| ''At-a-boy!' said the odd-job man, reverently.
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby turned on him with some violence. His detached
| |
| attitude was the most irritating of the many irritating aspects of
| |
| the situation. She paid this man a weekly wage to do odd jobs. The
| |
| capture of Eustace was essentially an odd job. Yet, instead of
| |
| doing it, he hung about with the air of one who has paid his
| |
| half-dollar and bought his bag of peanuts and has now nothing to
| |
| do but look on and enjoy himself.
| |
| | |
| 'Why don't you catch him?' she cried.
| |
| | |
| The odd-job man came out of his trance. A sudden realization came
| |
| upon him that life was real and life was earnest, and that if he
| |
| did not wish to jeopardize a good situation he must bestir
| |
| himself. Everybody was looking at him expectantly. It seemed to be
| |
| definitely up to him. It was imperative that, whatever he did, he
| |
| should do it quickly. There was an apron hanging over the back of
| |
| a chair. More with the idea of doing something than because he
| |
| thought he would achieve anything definite thereby, he picked up
| |
| the apron and flung it at Eustace. Luck was with him. The apron
| |
| enveloped Eustace just as he was winding up for another inshoot
| |
| and was off his balance. He tripped and fell, clutched at the
| |
| apron to save himself, and came to the ground swathed in it,
| |
| giving the effect of an apron mysteriously endowed with life. The
| |
| triumphant odd-job man, pressing his advantage like a good
| |
| general, gathered up the ends, converted it into a rude bag, and
| |
| one more was added to the long list of the victories of the human
| |
| over the brute intelligence.
| |
| | |
| Everybody had a suggestion now. The cook advocated drowning. The
| |
| parlour-maid favoured the idea of hitting the prisoner with a
| |
| broom-handle. Wrench, eyeing the struggling apron disapprovingly,
| |
| mentioned that Mr Pickering had bought a revolver that morning.
| |
| | |
| 'Put him in the coal-cellar,' said Lady Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| Wrench was more far-seeing.
| |
| | |
| 'If I might offer the warning, m'lady,' said Wrench, 'not the
| |
| cellar. It is full of coal. It would be placing temptation in the
| |
| animal's way.'
| |
| | |
| The odd-job man endorsed this.
| |
| | |
| 'Put him in the garage, then,' said Lady Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| The odd-job man departed, bearing his heaving bag at arm's length.
| |
| The cook and the parlour-maid addressed themselves to comforting
| |
| and healing the scullery-maid. Wrench went off to polish silver,
| |
| Lady Wetherby to resume her letters. The cat was the last of the
| |
| party to return to the normal. She came down from the chimney an
| |
| hour later covered with soot, demanding restoratives.
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby finished her letters. She cut them short, for
| |
| Eustace's insurgence had interfered with her flow of ideas. She
| |
| went into the drawing-room, where she found Roscoe Sherriff
| |
| strumming on the piano.
| |
| | |
| 'Eustace has been raising Cain,' she said.
| |
| | |
| The Press-agent looked up hopefully. He had been wearing a rather
| |
| preoccupied air.
| |
| | |
| 'How's that?' he asked.
| |
| | |
| 'Throwing eggs and plates in the kitchen.'
| |
| | |
| The gleam of interest which had come into Roscoe Sherriff's face
| |
| died out.
| |
| | |
| 'You couldn't get more than a fill-in at the bottom of a column on
| |
| that,' he said, regretfully. 'I'm a little disappointed in that
| |
| monk. I hoped he would pan out bigger. Well, I guess we've just
| |
| got to give him time. I have an idea that he'll set the house on
| |
| fire or do something with a punch like that one of these days. You
| |
| mustn't get discouraged. Why, that puma I made Valerie Devenish
| |
| keep looked like a perfect failure for four whole months. A child
| |
| could have played with it. Miss Devenish called me up on the
| |
| phone, I remember, and said she was darned if she was going to
| |
| spend the rest of her life maintaining an animal that might as
| |
| well be stuffed for all the liveliness it showed, and that she was
| |
| going right out to buy a white mouse instead. Fortunately, I
| |
| talked her round.
| |
| | |
| 'A few weeks later she came round and thanked me with tears in her
| |
| eyes. The puma had suddenly struck real mid-season form. It clawed
| |
| the elevator-boy, bit a postman, held up the traffic for miles,
| |
| and was finally shot by a policeman. Why, for the next few days
| |
| there was nothing in the papers at all but Miss Devenish and her
| |
| puma. There was a war on at the time in Mexico or somewhere, and
| |
| we had it backed off the front page so far that it was over before
| |
| it could get back. So, you see, there's always hope. I've been
| |
| nursing the papers with bits about Eustace, so as to be ready for
| |
| the grand-stand play when it comes--and all we can do is to wait.
| |
| It's something if he's been throwing eggs. It shows he's waking
| |
| up.'
| |
| | |
| The door opened and Lord Wetherby entered. He looked fatigued. He
| |
| sank into a chair and sighed.
| |
| | |
| 'I cannot get it,' he said. 'It eludes me.'
| |
| | |
| He lapsed into a sombre silence.
| |
| | |
| 'What can't you get?' said Lady Wetherby, cautiously.
| |
| | |
| 'The expression--the expression I want to get into the child's
| |
| eyes in my picture, "Innocence".'
| |
| | |
| 'But you have got it.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby shook his head.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, you had when I saw the picture,' persisted Lady Wetherby.
| |
| 'This child you're painting has just joined the Black Hand. He
| |
| has been rushed in young over the heads of the waiting list
| |
| because his father had a pull. Naturally the kid wants to do
| |
| something to justify his election, and he wants to do it quick.
| |
| You have caught him at the moment when he sees an old gentleman
| |
| coming down the street and realizes that he has only got to sneak
| |
| up and stick his little knife--'
| |
| | |
| 'My dear Polly, I welcome criticism, but this is more--'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby stroked his coat-sleeve fondly.
| |
| | |
| 'Never mind, Algie, I was only joking, precious. I thought the
| |
| picture was coming along fine when you showed it to me. I'll come
| |
| and take another look at it.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby shook his head.
| |
| | |
| 'I should have a model. An artist cannot mirror Nature properly
| |
| without a model. I wish you would invite that child down here.'
| |
| | |
| 'No, Algie, there are limits. I wouldn't have him within a mile
| |
| of the place.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yet you keep Eustace.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, you made me engage Wrench. It's fifty-fifty. I wish you
| |
| wouldn't keep picking on Eustace, Algie dear. He does no harm. Mr
| |
| Sherriff and I were just saying how peaceable he is. He wouldn't
| |
| hurt--'
| |
| | |
| Claire came in.
| |
| | |
| 'Polly,' she said, 'did you put that monkey of yours in the
| |
| garage? He's just bitten Dudley in the leg.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby uttered an exclamation.
| |
| | |
| 'Now perhaps--'
| |
| | |
| 'We went in just now to have a look at the car,' continued
| |
| Claire. 'Dudley wanted to show me the commutator on the exhaust-box
| |
| or the windscreen, or something, and he was just bending over
| |
| when Eustace jumped out from nowhere and pinned him. I'm afraid he
| |
| has taken it to heart rather.'
| |
| | |
| Roscoe Sherriff pondered.
| |
| | |
| 'Is this worth half a column?' He shook his head. 'No, I'm afraid
| |
| not. The public doesn't know Pickering. If it had been Charlie
| |
| Chaplin or William J. Bryan, or someone on those lines, we could
| |
| have had the papers bringing out extras. You can visualize William
| |
| J. Bryan being bitten in the leg by a monkey. It hits you. But
| |
| Pickering! Eustace might just as well have bitten the leg of the
| |
| table!'
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby reasserted himself.
| |
| | |
| 'Now that the animal has become a public menace--'
| |
| | |
| 'He's nothing of the kind,' said Lady Wetherby. 'He's only a
| |
| little upset to-day.'
| |
| | |
| 'Do you mean, Pauline, that even after this you will not get rid
| |
| of him?'
| |
| | |
| 'Certainly not--poor dear!'
| |
| | |
| 'Very well,' said Lord Wetherby, calmly. 'I give you warning that
| |
| if he attacks me I shall defend myself.'
| |
| | |
| He brooded. Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.
| |
| | |
| 'What happened then? Did you shut the door of the garage?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, but not until Eustace had got away. He slipped out like a
| |
| streak and disappeared. It was too dark to see which way he went.'
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering limped heavily into the room.
| |
| | |
| 'I was just telling them about you and Eustace, Dudley.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering nodded moodily. He was too full for words.
| |
| | |
| 'I think Eustace must be mad,' said Claire.
| |
| | |
| Roscoe Sherriff uttered a cry of rapture.
| |
| | |
| 'You've said it!' he exclaimed. 'I knew we should get action
| |
| sooner or later. It's the puma over again. Now we are all right.
| |
| Now I have something to work on. "Monkey Menaces Countryside."
| |
| "Long Island Summer Colony in Panic." "Mad Monkey Bites One--"'
| |
| | |
| A convulsive shudder galvanized Mr Pickering's portly frame.
| |
| | |
| '"Mad Monkey Terrorizes Long Island. One Dead!"' murmured Roscoe
| |
| Sherriff, wistfully. 'Do you feel a sort of shooting, Pickering--a
| |
| kind of burning sensation under the skin? Lady Wetherby, I guess
| |
| I'll be getting some of the papers on the phone. We've got a big
| |
| story.'
| |
| | |
| He hurried to the telephone, but it was some little time before he
| |
| could use it. Dudley Pickering was in possession, talking
| |
| earnestly to the local doctor.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 14
| |
| | |
| | |
| It was Nutty Boyd's habit to retire immediately after dinner to
| |
| his bedroom. What he did there Elizabeth did not know. Sometimes
| |
| she pictured him reading, sometimes thinking. Neither supposition
| |
| was correct. Nutty never read. Newspapers bored him and books made
| |
| his head ache. And as for thinking, he had the wrong shape of
| |
| forehead. The nearest he ever got to meditation was a sort of
| |
| trance-like state, a kind of suspended animation in which his mind
| |
| drifted sluggishly like a log in a backwater. Nutty, it is
| |
| regrettable to say, went to his room after dinner for the purpose
| |
| of imbibing two or three surreptitious whiskies-and-sodas.
| |
| | |
| He behaved in this way, he told himself, purely in order to spare
| |
| Elizabeth anxiety. There had been in the past a fool of a doctor
| |
| who had prescribed total abstinence for Nutty, and Elizabeth knew
| |
| this. Therefore, Nutty held, to take the mildest of drinks with
| |
| her knowledge would have been to fill her with fears for his
| |
| safety. So he went to considerable inconvenience to keep the
| |
| matter from her notice, and thought rather highly of himself for
| |
| doing so.
| |
| | |
| It certainly was inconvenient--there was no doubt of that. It made
| |
| him feel like a cross between a hunted fawn and a burglar. But he
| |
| had to some extent diminished the possibility of surprise by
| |
| leaving his door open; and to-night he approached the cupboard
| |
| where he kept the materials for refreshment with a certain
| |
| confidence. He had left Elizabeth on the porch in a hammock,
| |
| apparently anchored for some time. Lord Dawlish was out in the
| |
| grounds somewhere. Presently he would come in and join Elizabeth
| |
| on the porch. The risk of interruption was negligible.
| |
| | |
| Nutty mixed himself a drink and settled down to brood bitterly, as
| |
| he often did, on the doctor who had made that disastrous
| |
| statement. Doctors were always saying things like that--sweeping
| |
| things which nervous people took too literally. It was true that
| |
| he had been in pretty bad shape at the moment when the words had
| |
| been spoken. It was just at the end of his Broadway career, when,
| |
| as he handsomely admitted, there was a certain amount of truth in
| |
| the opinion that his interior needed a vacation. But since then he
| |
| had been living in the country, breathing good air, taking things
| |
| easy. In these altered conditions and after this lapse of time it
| |
| was absurd to imagine that a moderate amount of alcohol could do
| |
| him any harm.
| |
| | |
| It hadn't done him any harm, that was the point. He had tested the
| |
| doctor's statement and found it incorrect. He had spent three
| |
| hectic days and nights in New York, and--after a reasonable
| |
| interval--had felt much the same as usual. And since then he had
| |
| imbibed each night, and nothing had happened. What it came to was
| |
| that the doctor was a chump and a blighter. Simply that and
| |
| nothing more.
| |
| | |
| Having come to this decision, Nutty mixed another drink. He went
| |
| to the head of the stairs and listened. He heard nothing. He
| |
| returned to his room.
| |
| | |
| Yes, that was it, the doctor was a chump. So far from doing him
| |
| any harm, these nightly potations brightened Nutty up, gave him
| |
| heart, and enabled him to endure life in this hole of a place. He
| |
| felt a certain scornful amusement. Doctors, he supposed, had to
| |
| get off that sort of talk to earn their money.
| |
| | |
| He reached out for the bottle, and as he grasped it his eye was
| |
| caught by something on the floor. A brown monkey with a long, grey
| |
| tail was sitting there staring at him.
| |
| | |
| There was one of those painful pauses. Nutty looked at the monkey
| |
| rather like an elongated Macbeth inspecting the ghost of Banquo.
| |
| The monkey looked at Nutty. The pause continued. Nutty shut his
| |
| eyes, counted ten slowly, and opened them.
| |
| | |
| The monkey was still there.
| |
| | |
| 'Boo!' said Nutty, in an apprehensive undertone.
| |
| | |
| The monkey looked at him.
| |
| | |
| Nutty shut his eyes again. He would count sixty this time. A cold
| |
| fear had laid its clammy fingers on his heart. This was what that
| |
| doctor--not such a chump after all--must have meant!
| |
| | |
| Nutty began to count. There seemed to be a heavy lump inside him,
| |
| and his mouth was dry; but otherwise he felt all right. That was
| |
| the gruesome part of it--this dreadful thing had come upon him at
| |
| a moment when he could have sworn that he was sound as a bell. If
| |
| this had happened in the days when he ranged the Great White Way,
| |
| sucking up deleterious moisture like a cloud, it would have been
| |
| intelligible. But it had sneaked upon him like a thief in the
| |
| night; it had stolen unheralded into his life when he had
| |
| practically reformed. What was the good of practically reforming
| |
| if this sort of thing was going to happen to one?
| |
| | |
| '... Fifty-nine ... sixty.'
| |
| | |
| He opened his eyes. The monkey was still there, in precisely the
| |
| same attitude, as if it was sitting for its portrait. Panic surged
| |
| upon Nutty. He lost his head completely. He uttered a wild yell
| |
| and threw the bottle at the apparition.
| |
| | |
| Life had not been treating Eustace well that evening. He seemed to
| |
| have happened upon one of those days when everything goes wrong.
| |
| The cat had scratched him, the odd-job man had swathed him in an
| |
| apron, and now this stranger, in whom he had found at first a
| |
| pleasant restfulness, soothing after the recent scenes of violence
| |
| in which he had participated, did this to him. He dodged the
| |
| missile and clambered on to the top of the wardrobe. It was his
| |
| instinct in times of stress to seek the high spots. And then
| |
| Elizabeth hurried into the room.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth had been lying in the hammock on the porch when her
| |
| brother's yell had broken forth. It was a lovely, calm, moonlight
| |
| night, and she had been revelling in the peace of it, when
| |
| suddenly this outcry from above had shot her out of her hammock
| |
| like an explosion. She ran upstairs, fearing she knew not what.
| |
| She found Nutty sitting on the bed, looking like an overwrought
| |
| giraffe.
| |
| | |
| 'Whatever is the--?' she began; and then things began to impress
| |
| themselves on her senses.
| |
| | |
| The bottle which Nutty had thrown at Eustace had missed the
| |
| latter, but it had hit the wall, and was now lying in many pieces
| |
| on the floor, and the air was heavy with the scent of it. The
| |
| remains seemed to leer at her with a kind of furtive swagger,
| |
| after the manner of broken bottles. A quick thrill of anger ran
| |
| through Elizabeth. She had always felt more like a mother to Nutty
| |
| than a sister, and now she would have liked to exercise the
| |
| maternal privilege of slapping him.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty!'
| |
| | |
| 'I saw a monkey!' said her brother, hollowly. 'I was standing over
| |
| there and I saw a monkey! Of course, it wasn't there really. I
| |
| flung the bottle at it, and it seemed to climb on to that
| |
| wardrobe.'
| |
| | |
| 'This wardrobe?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth struck it a resounding blow with the palm of her hand,
| |
| and Eustace's face popped over the edge, peering down anxiously.
| |
| 'I can see it now,' said Nutty. A sudden, faint hope came to him.
| |
| 'Can you see it?' he asked.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth did not speak for a moment. This was an unusual
| |
| situation, and she was wondering how to treat it. She was sorry
| |
| for Nutty, but Providence had sent this thing and it would be
| |
| foolish to reject it. She must look on herself in the light of a
| |
| doctor. It would be kinder to Nutty in the end. She had the
| |
| feminine aversion from the lie deliberate. Her ethics on the
| |
| _suggestio falsi_ were weak. She looked at Nutty questioningly.
| |
| | |
| 'See it?' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'Don't you see a monkey on the top of the wardrobe?' said Nutty,
| |
| becoming more definite.
| |
| | |
| | |
| 'There's a sort of bit of wood sticking out--'
| |
| | |
| Nutty sighed.
| |
| | |
| 'No, not that. You didn't see it. I don't think you would.'
| |
| | |
| He spoke so dejectedly that for a moment Elizabeth weakened, but
| |
| only for an instant.
| |
| | |
| 'Tell me all about this, Nutty,' she said.
| |
| | |
| Nutty was beyond the desire for evasion and concealment. His one
| |
| wish was to tell. He told all.
| |
| | |
| 'But, Nutty, how silly of you!'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'After what the doctor said.'
| |
| | |
| 'I know.'
| |
| | |
| 'You remember his telling you--'
| |
| | |
| 'I know. Never again!'
| |
| | |
| 'What do you mean?'
| |
| | |
| 'I quit. I'm going to give it up.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth embraced him maternally.
| |
| | |
| 'That's a good child!' she said. 'You really promise?'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't have to promise, I'm just going to do it.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth compromised with her conscience by becoming soothing.
| |
| | |
| 'You know, this isn't so very serious, Nutty, darling. I mean,
| |
| it's just a warning.'
| |
| | |
| 'It's warned me all right.'
| |
| | |
| 'You will be perfectly all right if--'
| |
| | |
| Nutty interrupted her.
| |
| | |
| 'You're sure you can't see anything?'
| |
| | |
| 'See what?'
| |
| | |
| Nutty's voice became almost apologetic.
| |
| | |
| 'I know it's just imagination, but the monkey seems to me to be
| |
| climbing down from the wardrobe.'
| |
| | |
| 'I can't see anything climbing down the wardrobe,' said Elizabeth,
| |
| as Eustace touched the floor.
| |
| | |
| 'It's come down now. It's crossing the carpet.'
| |
| | |
| 'Where?'
| |
| | |
| 'It's gone now. It went out of the door.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh!'
| |
| | |
| 'I say, Elizabeth, what do you think I ought to do?'
| |
| | |
| 'I should go to bed and have a nice long sleep, and you'll feel--'
| |
| | |
| 'Somehow I don't feel much like going to bed. This sort of thing
| |
| upsets a chap, you know.'
| |
| | |
| 'Poor dear!'
| |
| | |
| 'I think I'll go for a long walk.'
| |
| | |
| 'That's a splendid idea.'
| |
| | |
| 'I think I'd better do a good lot of walking from now on. Didn't
| |
| Chalmers bring down some Indian clubs with him? I think I'll
| |
| borrow them. I ought to keep out in the open a lot, I think. I
| |
| wonder if there's any special diet I ought to have. Well, anyway,
| |
| I'll be going for that walk.'
| |
| | |
| At the foot of the stairs Nutty stopped. He looked quickly into
| |
| the porch, then looked away again.
| |
| | |
| 'What's the matter?' asked Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| 'I thought for a moment I saw the monkey sitting on the hammock.'
| |
| | |
| He went out of the house and disappeared from view down the drive,
| |
| walking with long, rapid strides.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth's first act, when he had gone, was to fetch a banana
| |
| from the ice-box. Her knowledge of monkeys was slight, but she
| |
| fancied they looked with favour on bananas. It was her intention
| |
| to conciliate Eustace.
| |
| | |
| She had placed Eustace by now. Unlike Nutty, she read the papers,
| |
| and she knew all about Lady Wetherby and her pets. The fact that
| |
| Lady Wetherby, as she had been informed by the grocer in friendly
| |
| talk, had rented a summer house in the neighbourhood made
| |
| Eustace's identity positive.
| |
| | |
| She had no very clear plans as to what she intended to do with
| |
| Eustace, beyond being quite resolved that she was going to board
| |
| and lodge him for a few days. Nutty had had the jolt he needed,
| |
| but it might be that the first freshness of it would wear away, in
| |
| which event it would be convenient to have Eustace on the
| |
| premises. She regarded Eustace as a sort of medicine. A second
| |
| dose might not be necessary, but it was as well to have the
| |
| mixture handy. She took another banana, in case the first might
| |
| not be sufficient. She then returned to the porch.
| |
| | |
| Eustace was sitting on the hammock, brooding. The complexities of
| |
| life were weighing him down a good deal. He was not aware of
| |
| Elizabeth's presence until he found her standing by him. He had
| |
| just braced himself for flight, when he perceived that she bore
| |
| rich gifts.
| |
| | |
| Eustace was always ready for a light snack--readier now than
| |
| usual, for air and exercise had sharpened his appetite. He took
| |
| the banana in a detached manner, as it to convey the idea that it
| |
| did not commit him to any particular course of conduct. It was a
| |
| good banana, and he stretched out a hand for the other. Elizabeth
| |
| sat down beside him, but he did not move. He was convinced now of
| |
| her good intentions. It was thus that Lord Dawlish found them when
| |
| he came in from the garden.
| |
| | |
| 'Where has your brother gone to?' he asked. 'He passed me just now
| |
| at eight miles an hour. Great Scot! What's that?'
| |
| | |
| 'It's a monkey. Don't frighten him; he's rather nervous.'
| |
| | |
| She tickled Eustace under the ear, for their relations were now
| |
| friendly.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty went for a walk because he thought he saw it.'
| |
| | |
| 'Thought he saw it?'
| |
| | |
| 'Thought he saw it,' repeated Elizabeth, firmly. 'Will you
| |
| remember, Mr Chalmers, that, as far as he is concerned, this
| |
| monkey has no existence?'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't understand.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth explained.
| |
| | |
| 'You see now?'
| |
| | |
| 'I see. But how long are you going to keep the animal?'
| |
| | |
| 'Just a day or two--in case.'
| |
| | |
| 'Where are you going to keep it?'
| |
| | |
| 'In the outhouse. Nutty never goes there, it's too near the
| |
| bee-hives.'
| |
| | |
| 'I suppose you don't know who the owner is?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, I do; it must be Lady Wetherby.'
| |
| | |
| 'Lady Wetherby!'
| |
| | |
| 'She's a woman who dances at one of the restaurants. I read in a
| |
| Sunday paper about her monkey. She has just taken a house near
| |
| here. I don't see who else the animal could belong to. Monkeys are
| |
| rarities on Long Island.'
| |
| | |
| Bill was silent. 'Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
| |
| flushing his brow.' For days he had been trying to find an excuse
| |
| for calling on Lady Wetherby as a first step toward meeting Claire
| |
| again. Here it was. There would be no need to interfere with
| |
| Elizabeth's plans. He would be vague. He would say he had just
| |
| seen the runaway, but would not add where. He would create an
| |
| atmosphere of helpful sympathy. Perhaps, later on, Elizabeth would
| |
| let him take the monkey back.
| |
| | |
| 'What are you thinking about?' asked Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, nothing,' said Bill.
| |
| | |
| 'Perhaps we had better stow away our visitor for the night.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth got up.
| |
| | |
| 'Poor, dear Nutty may be coming back at any moment now,' she said.
| |
| | |
| But poor, dear Nutty did not return for a full two hours. When he
| |
| did he was dusty and tired, but almost cheerful.
| |
| | |
| 'I didn't see the brute once all the time I was out,' he told
| |
| Elizabeth. 'Not once!'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth kissed him fondly and offered to heat water for a bath;
| |
| but Nutty said he would take it cold. From now on, he vowed,
| |
| nothing but cold baths. He conveyed the impression of being a
| |
| blend of repentant sinner and hardy Norseman. Before he went to
| |
| bed he approached Bill on the subject of Indian clubs.
| |
| | |
| 'I want to get myself into shape, old top,' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes?'
| |
| | |
| 'I've got to cut it out--to-night I thought I saw a monkey.'
| |
| | |
| 'Really?'
| |
| | |
| 'As plain as I see you now.' Nutty gave the clubs a tentative
| |
| swing. 'What do you do with these darned things? Swing them about
| |
| and all that? All right, I see the idea. Good night.'
| |
| | |
| But Bill did not pass a good night. He lay awake long, thinking
| |
| over his plans for the morrow.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 15
| |
| | |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby was feeling battered. She had not realized how
| |
| seriously Roscoe Sherriff took the art of publicity, nor what
| |
| would be the result of the half-hour he had spent at the telephone
| |
| on the night of the departure of Eustace.
| |
| | |
| Roscoe Sherriff's eloquence had fired the imagination of editors.
| |
| There had been a notable lack of interesting happenings this
| |
| summer. Nobody seemed to be striking or murdering or having
| |
| violent accidents. The universe was torpid. In these circumstances,
| |
| the escape of Eustace seemed to present possibilities. Reporters
| |
| had been sent down. There were three of them living in the house
| |
| now, and Wrench's air of disapproval was deepening every hour.
| |
| | |
| It was their strenuousness which had given Lady Wetherby that
| |
| battered feeling. There was strenuousness in the air, and she
| |
| resented it on her vacation. She had come to Long Island to
| |
| vegetate, and with all this going on round her vegetation was
| |
| impossible. She was not long alone. Wrench entered.
| |
| | |
| 'A gentleman to see you, m'lady.'
| |
| | |
| In the good old days, when she had been plain Polly Davis, of the
| |
| personnel of the chorus of various musical comedies, Lady Wetherby
| |
| would have suggested a short way of disposing of this untimely
| |
| visitor; but she had a position to keep up now.
| |
| | |
| 'From some darned paper?' she asked, wearily.
| |
| | |
| 'No, m'lady. I fancy he is not connected with the Press.'
| |
| | |
| There was something in Wrench's manner that perplexed Lady
| |
| Wetherby, something almost human, as if Wrench were on the point
| |
| of coming alive. She did not guess it, but the explanation was
| |
| that Bill, quite unwittingly, had impressed Wrench. There was that
| |
| about Bill that reminded the butler of London and dignified
| |
| receptions at the house of the Dowager Duchess of Waveney. It was
| |
| deep calling unto deep.
| |
| | |
| 'Where is he?'
| |
| | |
| 'I have shown him into the drawing-room, m'lady.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby went downstairs and found a large young man awaiting
| |
| her, looking nervous.
| |
| | |
| Bill was feeling nervous. A sense of the ridiculousness of his
| |
| mission had come upon him. After all, he asked himself, what on
| |
| earth had he got to say? A presentiment had come upon him that he
| |
| was about to look a perfect ass. At the sight of Lady Wetherby his
| |
| nervousness began to diminish. Lady Wetherby was not a formidable
| |
| person. In spite of her momentary peevishness, she brought with
| |
| her an atmosphere of geniality and camaraderie.
| |
| | |
| 'It's about your monkey,' he said, coming to the point at once.
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby brightened.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh! Have you seen it?'
| |
| | |
| He was glad that she put it like that.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes. It came round our way last night.'
| |
| | |
| 'Where is that?'
| |
| | |
| 'I am staying at a farm near here, a place they call Flack's. The
| |
| monkey got into one of the rooms.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes?'
| |
| | |
| 'And then--er--then it got out again, don't you know.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby looked disappointed.
| |
| | |
| 'So it may be anywhere now?' she said.
| |
| | |
| In the interests of truth, Bill thought it best to leave this
| |
| question unanswered.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, it's very good of you to have bothered to come out and tell
| |
| me,' said Lady Wetherby. 'It gives us a clue, at any rate. Thank
| |
| you. At least, we know now in which direction it went.'
| |
| | |
| There was a pause. Bill gathered that the other was looking on the
| |
| interview as terminated, and that she was expecting him to go, and
| |
| he had not begun to say what he wanted to say. He tried to think
| |
| of a way of introducing the subject of Claire that should not seem
| |
| too abrupt.
| |
| | |
| 'Er--' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'Well?' said Lady Wetherby, simultaneously.
| |
| | |
| 'I beg your pardon.'
| |
| | |
| 'You have the floor,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Shoot!'
| |
| | |
| It was not what she had intended to say. For months she had been
| |
| trying to get out of the habit of saying that sort of thing, but
| |
| she still suffered relapses. Only the other day she had told
| |
| Wrench to check some domestic problem or other with his hat, and
| |
| he had nearly given notice. But if she had been intending to put
| |
| Bill at his ease she could not have said anything better.
| |
| | |
| 'You have a Miss Fenwick staying with you, haven't you?' he said.
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby beamed.
| |
| | |
| 'Do you know Claire?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, rather!'
| |
| | |
| 'She's my best friend. We used to be in the same company when I
| |
| was in England.'
| |
| | |
| 'So she has told me.'
| |
| | |
| 'She was my bridesmaid when I married Lord Wetherby.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby was feeling perfectly happy now, and when Lady
| |
| Wetherby felt happy she always became garrulous. She was one of
| |
| those people who are incapable of looking on anybody as a stranger
| |
| after five minutes' acquaintance. Already she had begun to regard
| |
| Bill as an old friend.
| |
| | |
| 'Those were great days,' she said, cheerfully. 'None of us had a
| |
| bean, and Algie was the hardest up of the whole bunch. After we
| |
| were married we went to the Savoy for the wedding-breakfast, and
| |
| when it was over and the waiter came with the check, Algie said he
| |
| was sorry, but he had had a bad week at Lincoln and hadn't the
| |
| price on him. He tried to touch me, but I passed. Then he had a go
| |
| at the best man, but the best man had nothing in the world but one
| |
| suit of clothes and a spare collar. Claire was broke, too, so the
| |
| end of it was that the best man had to sneak out and pawn my watch
| |
| and the wedding-ring.'
| |
| | |
| The room rang with her reminiscent laughter, Bill supplying a bass
| |
| accompaniment. Bill was delighted. He had never hoped that it
| |
| would be granted to him to become so rapidly intimate with
| |
| Claire's hostess. Why, he had only to keep the conversation in
| |
| this chummy vein for a little while longer and she would give him
| |
| the run of the house.
| |
| | |
| 'Miss Fenwick isn't in now, I suppose?' he asked.
| |
| | |
| 'No, Claire's out with Dudley Pickering. You don't know him, do
| |
| you?'
| |
| | |
| | |
| 'No.'
| |
| | |
| 'She's engaged to him.'
| |
| | |
| It is an ironical fact that Lady Wetherby was by nature one of the
| |
| firmest believers in existence in the policy of breaking things
| |
| gently to people. She had a big, soft heart, and she hated hurting
| |
| her fellows. As a rule, when she had bad news to impart to any one
| |
| she administered the blow so gradually and with such mystery as to
| |
| the actual facts that the victim, having passed through the
| |
| various stages of imagined horrors, was genuinely relieved, when
| |
| she actually came to the point, to find that all that had happened
| |
| was that he had lost all his money. But now in perfect innocence,
| |
| thinking only to pass along an interesting bit of information, she
| |
| had crushed Bill as effectively as if she had used a club for that
| |
| purpose.
| |
| | |
| 'I'm tickled to death about it,' she went on, as it were over her
| |
| hearer's prostrate body. It was I who brought them together, you
| |
| know. I wrote telling Claire to come out here on the _Atlantic,_
| |
| knowing that Dudley was sailing on that boat. I had an idea they
| |
| would hit it off together. Dudley fell for her right away, and she
| |
| must have fallen for him, for they had only known each other
| |
| for a few weeks when they came and told me they were engaged.
| |
| It happened last Sunday.'
| |
| | |
| 'Last Sunday!'
| |
| | |
| It had seemed to Bill a moment before that he would never again be
| |
| capable of speech, but this statement dragged the words out of
| |
| him. Last Sunday! Why, it was last Sunday that Claire had broken
| |
| off her engagement with him!
| |
| | |
| 'Last Sunday at nine o'clock in the evening, with a full moon
| |
| shining and soft music going on off-stage. Real third-act stuff.'
| |
| | |
| Bill felt positively dizzy. He groped back in his memory for
| |
| facts. He had gone out for his walk after dinner. They had dined
| |
| at eight. He had been walking some time. Why, in Heaven's name,
| |
| this was the quickest thing in the amatory annals of civilization!
| |
| His brain was too numbed to work out a perfectly accurate
| |
| schedule, but it looked as if she must have got engaged to this
| |
| Pickering person before she met him, Bill, in the road that night.
| |
| | |
| 'It's a wonderful match for dear old Claire,' resumed Lady
| |
| Wetherby, twisting the knife in the wound with a happy unconsciousness.
| |
| 'Dudley's not only a corking good fellow, but he has thirty million
| |
| dollars stuffed away in the stocking and a business that brings him
| |
| in a perfectly awful mess of money every year. He's the Pickering of
| |
| the Pickering automobiles, you know.'
| |
| | |
| Bill got up. He stood for a moment holding to the back of his
| |
| chair before speaking. It was almost exactly thus that he had felt
| |
| in the days when he had gone in for boxing and had stopped
| |
| forceful swings with the more sensitive portions of his person.
| |
| | |
| 'That--that's splendid!' he said. 'I--I think I'll be going.'
| |
| | |
| 'I heard the car outside just now,' said Lady Wetherby. 'I think
| |
| it's probably Claire and Dudley come back. Won't you wait and see
| |
| her?'
| |
| | |
| Bill shook his head.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, good-bye for the present, then. You must come round again.
| |
| Any friend of Claire's--and it was bully of you to bother about
| |
| looking in to tell of Eustace.'
| |
| | |
| Bill had reached the door. He was about to turn the handle when
| |
| someone turned it on the other side.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, here is Dudley,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Dudley, this is a
| |
| friend of Claire's.'
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering was one of those men who take the ceremony of
| |
| introduction with a measured solemnity. It was his practice to
| |
| grasp the party of the second part firmly by the hand, hold it,
| |
| look into his eyes in a reverent manner, and get off some little
| |
| speech of appreciation, short but full of feeling. The opening
| |
| part of this ceremony he performed now. He grasped Bill's hand
| |
| firmly, held it, and looked into his eyes. And then, having
| |
| performed his business, he fell down on his lines. Not a word
| |
| proceeded from him. He dropped the hand and stared at Bill
| |
| amazedly and--more than that--with fear.
| |
| | |
| Bill, too, uttered no word. It was not one of those chatty
| |
| meetings.
| |
| | |
| But if they were short on words, both Bill and Mr Pickering were
| |
| long on looks. Bill stared at Mr Pickering. Mr Pickering stared at
| |
| Bill.
| |
| | |
| Bill was drinking in Mr Pickering. The stoutness of Mr Pickering--the
| |
| orderliness of Mr Pickering--the dullness of Mr Pickering--all these
| |
| things he perceived. And illumination broke upon him.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering was drinking in Bill. The largeness of Bill--the
| |
| embarrassment of Bill--the obvious villainy of Bill--none of these
| |
| things escaped his notice. And illumination broke upon him also.
| |
| | |
| For Dudley Pickering, in the first moment of their meeting, had
| |
| recognized Bill as the man who had been lurking in the grounds and
| |
| peering in at the window, the man at whom on the night when he had
| |
| become engaged to Claire he had shouted 'Hi!'
| |
| | |
| 'Where's Claire, Dudley?' asked Lady Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering withdrew his gaze reluctantly from Bill.
| |
| | |
| 'Gone upstairs.'
| |
| | |
| I'll go and tell her that you're here, Mr--You never told me your
| |
| name.'
| |
| | |
| Bill came to life with an almost acrobatic abruptness. There were
| |
| many things of which at that moment he felt absolutely incapable,
| |
| and meeting Claire was one of them.
| |
| | |
| 'No; I must be going,' he said, hurriedly. 'Good-bye.'
| |
| | |
| He came very near running out of the room. Lady Wetherby regarded
| |
| the practically slammed door with wide eyes.
| |
| | |
| 'Quick exit of Nut Comedian!' she said. 'Whatever was the matter
| |
| with the man? He's scorched a trail in the carpet.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering was trembling violently.
| |
| | |
| 'Do you know who that was? He was the man!' said Mr Pickering.
| |
| | |
| 'What man?'
| |
| | |
| 'The man I caught looking in at the window that night!'
| |
| | |
| 'What nonsense! You must be mistaken. He said he knew Claire quite
| |
| well.'
| |
| | |
| 'But when you suggested that he should meet her he ran.'
| |
| | |
| This aspect of the matter had not occurred to Lady Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| 'So he did!'
| |
| | |
| 'What did he tell you that showed he knew Claire?'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, now that I come to think of it, he didn't tell me anything.
| |
| I did the talking. He just sat there.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering quivered with combined fear and excitement and
| |
| inductive reasoning.
| |
| | |
| 'It was a trick!' he cried. 'Remember what Sherriff said that
| |
| night when I told you about finding the man looking in at the
| |
| window? He said that the fellow was spying round as a preliminary
| |
| move. To-day he trumps up an obviously false excuse for getting
| |
| into the house. Was he left alone in the rooms at all?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes. Wrench loosed him in here and then came up to tell me.'
| |
| | |
| 'For several minutes, then, he was alone in the house. Why, he had
| |
| time to do all he wanted to do!'
| |
| | |
| 'Calm down!'
| |
| | |
| 'I am perfectly calm. But--'
| |
| | |
| 'You've been seeing too many crook plays, Dudley. A man isn't
| |
| necessarily a burglar because he wears a decent suit of clothes.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why was he lurking in the grounds that night?'
| |
| | |
| 'You're just imagining that it was the same man.'
| |
| | |
| 'I am absolutely positive it was the same man.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, we can easily settle one thing about him, at any rate. Here
| |
| comes Claire. Claire, old girl,' she said, as the door opened, 'do
| |
| you know a man named--Darn it! I never got his name, but he's--'
| |
| | |
| Claire stood in the doorway, looking from one to the other.
| |
| | |
| 'What's the matter, Dudley?' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley's gone clean up in the air,' explained Lady Wetherby,
| |
| tolerantly. 'A friend of yours called to tell me he had seen
| |
| Eustace--'
| |
| | |
| 'So that was his excuse, was it?' said Dudley Pickering. 'Did he
| |
| say where Eustace was?'
| |
| | |
| 'No; he said he had seen him; that was all'
| |
| | |
| 'An obviously trumped-up story. He had heard of Eustace's escape
| |
| and he knew that any story connected with him would be a passport
| |
| into the house.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.
| |
| | |
| 'You haven't told us yet if you know the man. He was a big, tall,
| |
| broad gazook,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Very English'
| |
| | |
| 'He faked the English,' said Dudley Pickering. 'That man was no
| |
| more an Englishman than I am.'
| |
| | |
| 'Be patient with him, Claire,' urged Lady Wetherby. 'He's been
| |
| going to the movies too much, and thinks every man who has had his
| |
| trousers pressed is a social gangster. This man was the most
| |
| English thing I've ever seen--talked like this.'
| |
| | |
| She gave a passable reproduction of Bill's speech. Claire started.
| |
| | |
| 'I don't know him!' she cried.
| |
| | |
| Her mind was in a whirl of agitation. Why had Bill come to the
| |
| house? What had he said? Had he told Dudley anything?
| |
| | |
| 'I don't recognize the description,' she said, quickly. 'I don't
| |
| know anything about him.'
| |
| | |
| 'There!' said Dudley Pickering, triumphantly.
| |
| | |
| 'It's queer,' said Lady Wetherby. 'You're sure you don't know him,
| |
| Claire?'
| |
| | |
| 'Absolutely sure.'
| |
| | |
| 'He said he was living at a place near here, called Flack's.'
| |
| | |
| 'I know the place,' said Dudley Pickering. 'A sinister, tumbledown
| |
| sort of place. Just where a bunch of crooks would be living.'
| |
| | |
| 'I thought it was a bee-farm,' said Lady Wetherby. 'One of the
| |
| tradesmen told me about it. I saw a most corkingly pretty girl
| |
| bicycling down to the village one morning, and they told me she
| |
| was named Boyd and kept a bee-farm at Flack's.'
| |
| | |
| 'A blind!' said Mr Pickering, stoutly. 'The girl's the man's
| |
| accomplice. It's quite easy to see the way they work. The girl
| |
| comes and settles in the place so that everybody knows her. That's
| |
| to lull suspicion. Then the man comes down for a visit and goes
| |
| about cleaning up the neighbouring houses. You can't get away from
| |
| the fact that this summer there have been half a dozen burglaries
| |
| down here, and nobody has found out who did them.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby looked at him indulgently.
| |
| | |
| 'And now,' she said, 'having got us scared stiff, what are you
| |
| going to do about it?'
| |
| | |
| 'I am going,' he said, with determination, 'to take steps.'
| |
| | |
| He went out quickly, the keen, tense man of affairs.
| |
| | |
| 'Bless him!' said Lady Wetherby. 'I'd no idea your Dudley had so
| |
| much imagination, Claire. He's a perfect bomb-shell.'
| |
| | |
| Claire laughed shakily.
| |
| | |
| 'It is odd, though,' said Lady Wetherby, meditatively, 'that this
| |
| man should have said that he knew you, when you don't--'
| |
| | |
| Claire turned impulsively.
| |
| | |
| 'Polly, I want to tell you something. Promise you won't tell
| |
| Dudley. I wasn't telling the truth just now. I do know this man. I
| |
| was engaged to him once.'
| |
| | |
| 'What!'
| |
| | |
| 'For goodness' sake don't tell Dudley!'
| |
| | |
| 'But--'
| |
| | |
| 'It's all over now; but I used to be engaged to him.'
| |
| | |
| 'Not when I was in England?'
| |
| | |
| 'No, after that.'
| |
| | |
| 'Then he didn't know you are engaged to Dudley now?'
| |
| | |
| 'N-no. I--I haven't seen him for a long time.'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby looked remorseful.
| |
| | |
| 'Poor man! I must have given him a jolt! But why didn't you tell
| |
| me about him before?'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, I don't know.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, well, I'm not inquisitive. There's no rubber in my
| |
| composition. It's your affair.'
| |
| | |
| 'You won't tell Dudley?'
| |
| | |
| 'Of course not. But why not? You've nothing to be ashamed of.'
| |
| | |
| 'No; but--'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, I won't tell him, anyway. But I'm glad you told me about
| |
| him. Dudley was so eloquent about burglars that he almost had me
| |
| going. I wonder where he rushed off to?'
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering had rushed off to his bedroom, and was examining
| |
| a revolver there. He examined it carefully, keenly. Preparedness
| |
| was Dudley Pickering's slogan. He looked rather like a stout
| |
| sheriff in a film drama.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 16
| |
| | |
| | |
| In the interesting land of India, where snakes abound and
| |
| scorpions are common objects of the wayside, a native who has had
| |
| the misfortune to be bitten by one of the latter pursues an
| |
| admirably common-sense plan. He does not stop to lament, nor does
| |
| he hang about analysing his emotions. He runs and runs and runs,
| |
| and keeps on running until he has worked the poison out of his
| |
| system. Not until then does he attempt introspection.
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish, though ignorant of this fact, pursued almost
| |
| identically the same policy. He did not run on leaving Lady
| |
| Wetherby's house, but he took a very long and very rapid walk,
| |
| than which in times of stress there are few things of greater
| |
| medicinal value to the human mind. To increase the similarity, he
| |
| was conscious of a curious sense of being poisoned. He felt
| |
| stifled--in want of air.
| |
| | |
| Bill was a simple young man, and he had a simple code of ethics.
| |
| Above all things he prized and admired and demanded from his
| |
| friends the quality of straightness. It was his one demand. He had
| |
| never actually had a criminal friend, but he was quite capable of
| |
| intimacy with even a criminal, provided only that there was
| |
| something spacious about his brand of crime and that it did not
| |
| involve anything mean or underhand. It was the fact that Mr
| |
| Breitstein whom Claire had wished him to insinuate into his club,
| |
| though acquitted of actual crime, had been proved guilty of
| |
| meanness and treachery, that had so prejudiced Bill against him.
| |
| The worst accusation that he could bring against a man was that he
| |
| was not square, that he had not played the game.
| |
| | |
| Claire had not been square. It was that, more than the shock of
| |
| surprise of Lady Wetherby's news, that had sent him striding along
| |
| the State Road at the rate of five miles an hour, staring before
| |
| him with unseeing eyes. A sudden recollection of their last
| |
| interview brought a dull flush to Bill's face and accelerated his
| |
| speed. He felt physically ill.
| |
| | |
| It was not immediately that he had arrived at even this sketchy
| |
| outline of his feelings. For perhaps a mile he walked as the
| |
| scorpion-stung natives run--blindly, wildly, with nothing in his
| |
| mind but a desire to walk faster and faster, to walk as no man had
| |
| ever walked before. And then--one does not wish to be unduly
| |
| realistic, but the fact is too important to be ignored--he began
| |
| to perspire. And hard upon that unrefined but wonder-working flow
| |
| came a certain healing of spirit. Dimly at first but every moment
| |
| more clearly, he found it possible to think.
| |
| | |
| In a man of Bill's temperament there are so many qualities wounded
| |
| by a blow such as he had received, that it is hardly surprising
| |
| that his emotions, when he began to examine them, were mixed. Now
| |
| one, now another, of his wounds presented itself to his notice.
| |
| And then individual wounds would become difficult to distinguish
| |
| in the mass of injuries. Spiritually, he was in the position of a
| |
| man who has been hit simultaneously in a number of sensitive spots
| |
| by a variety of hard and hurtful things. He was as little able,
| |
| during the early stages of his meditations, to say where he was
| |
| hurt most as a man who had been stabbed in the back, bitten in the
| |
| ankle, hit in the eye, smitten with a blackjack, and kicked on the
| |
| shin in the same moment of time. All that such a man would be able
| |
| to say with certainty would be that unpleasant things had happened
| |
| to him; and that was all that Bill was able to say.
| |
| | |
| Little by little, walking swiftly the while, he began to make a
| |
| rough inventory. He sorted out his injuries, catalogued them. It
| |
| was perhaps his self-esteem that had suffered least of all, for he
| |
| was by nature modest. He had a savage humility, valuable in a
| |
| crisis of this sort.
| |
| | |
| But he looked up to Claire. He had thought her straight. And all
| |
| the time that she had been saying those things to him that night
| |
| of their last meeting she had been engaged to another man, a fat,
| |
| bald, doddering, senile fool, whose only merit was his money.
| |
| Scarcely a fair description of Mr Pickering, but in a man in
| |
| Bill's position a little bias is excusable.
| |
| | |
| Bill walked on. He felt as if he could walk for ever. Automobiles
| |
| whirred past, hooting peevishly, but he heeded them not. Dogs
| |
| trotted out to exchange civilities, but he ignored them. The
| |
| poison in his blood drove him on.
| |
| | |
| And then quite suddenly and unexpectedly the fever passed. Almost
| |
| in mid-stride he became another man, a healed, sane man, keenly
| |
| aware of a very vivid thirst and a desire to sit down and rest
| |
| before attempting the ten miles of cement road that lay between
| |
| him and home. Half an hour at a wayside inn completed the cure. It
| |
| was a weary but clear-headed Bill who trudged back through the
| |
| gathering dusk.
| |
| | |
| He found himself thinking of Claire as of someone he had known
| |
| long ago, someone who had never touched his life. She seemed so
| |
| far away that he wondered how she could ever have affected him for
| |
| pain or pleasure. He looked at her across a chasm. This is the
| |
| real difference between love and infatuation, that infatuation
| |
| can be slain cleanly with a single blow. In the hour of clear
| |
| vision which had come to him, Bill saw that he had never loved
| |
| Claire. It was her beauty that had held him, that and the appeal
| |
| which her circumstances had made to his pity. Their minds had not
| |
| run smoothly together. Always there had been something that
| |
| jarred, a subtle antagonism. And she was crooked.
| |
| | |
| Almost unconsciously his mind began to build up an image of the
| |
| ideal girl, the girl he would have liked Claire to be, the girl
| |
| who would conform to all that he demanded of woman. She would be
| |
| brave. He realized now that, even though it had moved his pity,
| |
| Claire's querulousness had offended something in him.
| |
| | |
| He had made allowances for her, but the ideal girl would have had
| |
| no need of allowances. The ideal girl would be plucky, cheerfully
| |
| valiant, a fighter. She would not admit the existence of hard
| |
| luck.
| |
| | |
| She would be honest. Here, too, she would have no need of allowances.
| |
| No temptation would be strong enough to make her do a mean act or
| |
| think a mean thought, for her courage would give her strength, and
| |
| her strength would make her proof against temptation. She would be
| |
| kind. That was because she would also be extremely intelligent,
| |
| and, being extremely intelligent, would have need of kindness to
| |
| enable her to bear with a not very intelligent man like himself.
| |
| For the rest, she would be small and alert and pretty, and fair
| |
| haired--and brown-eyed--and she would keep a bee farm and her name
| |
| would be Elizabeth Boyd.
| |
| | |
| Having arrived with a sense of mild astonishment at this
| |
| conclusion, Bill found, also to his surprise, that he had walked
| |
| ten miles without knowing it and that he was turning in at the
| |
| farm gate. Somebody came down the drive, and he saw that it was
| |
| Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| She hurried to meet him, small and shadowy in the uncertain light.
| |
| James, the cat, stalked rheumatically at her side. She came up to
| |
| Bill, and he saw that her face wore an anxious look. He gazed at
| |
| her with a curious feeling that it was a very long time since he
| |
| had seen her last.
| |
| | |
| 'Where have you been?' she said, her voice troubled. 'I couldn't
| |
| think what had become of you.'
| |
| | |
| 'I went for a walk.'
| |
| | |
| 'But you've been gone hours and hours.'
| |
| | |
| 'I went to a place called Morrisville.'
| |
| | |
| 'Morrisville!' Elizabeth's eyes opened wide. 'Have you walked
| |
| twenty miles?'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, I--I believe I have.'
| |
| | |
| It was the first time he had been really conscious of it.
| |
| Elizabeth looked at him in consternation. Perhaps it was the
| |
| association in her mind of unexpected walks with the newly-born
| |
| activities of the repentant Nutty that gave her the feeling that
| |
| there must be some mental upheaval on a large scale at the back of
| |
| this sudden ebullition of long-distance pedestrianism. She
| |
| remembered that the thought had come to her once or twice during
| |
| the past week that all was not well with her visitor, and that he
| |
| had seemed downcast and out of spirits.
| |
| | |
| She hesitated.
| |
| | |
| 'Is anything the matter, Mr Chalmers?'
| |
| | |
| 'No,' said Bill, decidedly. He would have found a difficulty in
| |
| making that answer with any ring of conviction earlier in the day,
| |
| but now it was different. There was nothing whatever the matter
| |
| with him now. He had never felt happier.
| |
| | |
| 'You're sure?'
| |
| | |
| 'Absolutely. I feel fine.'
| |
| | |
| 'I thought--I've been thinking for some days--that you might be in
| |
| trouble of some sort.'
| |
| | |
| Bill swiftly added another to that list of qualities which he had
| |
| been framing on his homeward journey. That girl of his would be
| |
| angelically sympathetic.
| |
| | |
| 'It's awfully good of you,' he said, 'but honestly I feel like--I
| |
| feel great.'
| |
| | |
| The little troubled look passed from Elizabeth's face. Her eyes
| |
| twinkled.
| |
| | |
| 'You're really feeling happy?'
| |
| | |
| 'Tremendously.'
| |
| | |
| 'Then let me damp you. We're in an awful fix!'
| |
| | |
| 'What! In what way?'
| |
| | |
| 'About the monkey.'
| |
| | |
| 'Has he escaped?'
| |
| | |
| 'That's the trouble--he hasn't.'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't understand.'
| |
| | |
| 'Come and sit down and I'll tell you. It's a shame to keep you
| |
| standing after your walk.'
| |
| | |
| They made their way to the massive stone seat which Mr Flack, the
| |
| landlord, had bought at a sale and dumped in a moment of
| |
| exuberance on the farm grounds.
| |
| | |
| 'This is the most hideous thing on earth,' said Elizabeth
| |
| casually, 'but it will do to sit on. Now tell me: why did you go
| |
| to Lady Wetherby's this afternoon?'
| |
| | |
| It was all so remote, it seemed so long ago that he had wanted to
| |
| find an excuse for meeting Claire again, that for a moment Bill
| |
| hesitated in actual perplexity, and before he could speak Elizabeth
| |
| had answered the question for him.
| |
| | |
| 'I suppose you went out of kindness of heart to relieve the poor
| |
| lady's mind,' she said. 'But you certainly did the wrong thing.
| |
| You started something!'
| |
| | |
| 'I didn't tell her the animal was here.'
| |
| | |
| 'What did you tell her?'
| |
| | |
| 'I said I had seen it, don't you know.'
| |
| | |
| 'That was enough.'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm awfully sorry.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, we shall pull through all right, but we must act at once. We
| |
| must be swift and resolute. We must saddle our chargers and up and
| |
| away, and all that sort of thing. Show a flash of speed,' she
| |
| explained kindly, at the sight of Bill's bewildered face.
| |
| | |
| 'But what has happened?'
| |
| | |
| 'The press is on our trail. I've been interviewing reporters all
| |
| the afternoon.'
| |
| | |
| 'Reporters!'
| |
| | |
| 'Millions of them. The place is alive with them. Keen, hatchet-faced
| |
| young men, and every one of them was the man who really unravelled
| |
| some murder mystery or other, though the police got the credit for
| |
| it. They told me so.'
| |
| | |
| 'But, I say, how on earth--'
| |
| | |
| '--did they get here? I suppose Lady Wetherby invited them,'
| |
| | |
| 'But why?'
| |
| | |
| 'She wants the advertisement, of course. I know it doesn't sound
| |
| sensational--a lost monkey; but when it's a celebrity's lost
| |
| monkey it makes a difference. Suppose King George had lost a
| |
| monkey; wouldn't your London newspapers give it a good deal of
| |
| space? Especially if it had thrown eggs at one of the ladies and
| |
| bitten the Duke of Norfolk in the leg? That's what our visitor has
| |
| been doing apparently. At least, he threw eggs at the scullery-maid
| |
| and bit a millionaire. It's practically the same thing. At any
| |
| rate, there it is. The newspaper men are here, and they seem
| |
| to regard this farm as their centre of operations. I had the
| |
| greatest difficulty in inducing them to go home to their well-earned
| |
| dinners. They wanted to camp out on the place. As it is, there may
| |
| still be some of them round, hiding in the grass with notebooks,
| |
| and telling one another in whispers that they were the men who
| |
| really solved the murder mystery. What shall we do?'
| |
| | |
| Bill had no suggestions.
| |
| | |
| 'You realize our position? I wonder if we could be arrested for
| |
| kidnapping. The monkey is far more human than most of the
| |
| millionaire children who get kidnapped. It's an awful fix. Did you
| |
| know that Lady Wetherby is going to offer a reward for the
| |
| animal?'
| |
| | |
| 'No, really?'
| |
| | |
| 'Five hundred dollars!'
| |
| | |
| 'Surely not!'
| |
| | |
| 'She is. I suppose she feels she can charge it up to necessary
| |
| expenses for publicity and still be ahead of the game, taking into
| |
| account the advertising she's going to get.'
| |
| | |
| 'She said nothing about that when I saw her.'
| |
| | |
| 'No, because it won't be offered until to-morrow or the day after.
| |
| One of the newspaper men told me that. The idea is, of course, to
| |
| make the thing exciting just when it would otherwise be dying as a
| |
| news item. Cumulative interest. It's a good scheme, too, but it
| |
| makes it very awkward for me. I don't want to be in the position
| |
| of keeping a monkey locked up with the idea of waiting until
| |
| somebody starts a bull market in monkeys. I consider that that
| |
| sort of thing would stain the spotless escutcheon of the Boyds. It
| |
| would be a low trick for that old-established family to play. Not
| |
| but what poor, dear Nutty would do it like a shot,' she concluded
| |
| meditatively.
| |
| | |
| Bill was impressed.
| |
| | |
| 'It does make it awkward, what?'
| |
| | |
| 'It makes it more than awkward, what! Take another aspect of the
| |
| situation. The night before last my precious Nutty, while ruining
| |
| his constitution with the demon rum, thought he saw a monkey that
| |
| wasn't there, and instantly resolved to lead a new and better
| |
| life. He hates walking, but he has now begun to do his five miles
| |
| a day. He loathes cold baths, but he now wallows in them. I don't
| |
| know his views on Indian clubs, but I should think that he has a
| |
| strong prejudice against them, too, but now you can't go near him
| |
| without taking a chance of being brained. Are all these good
| |
| things to stop as quickly as they began? If I know Nutty, he would
| |
| drop them exactly one minute after he heard that it was a real
| |
| monkey he saw that night. And how are we to prevent his hearing?
| |
| By a merciful miracle he was out taking his walk when the
| |
| newspaper men began to infest the place to-day, but that might not
| |
| happen another time. What conclusion does all this suggest to you,
| |
| Mr Chalmers?'
| |
| | |
| 'We ought to get rid of the animal.'
| |
| | |
| 'This very minute. But don't you bother to come. You must be tired
| |
| out, poor thing.'
| |
| | |
| 'I never felt less tired,' said Bill stoutly.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth looked at him in silence for a moment.
| |
| | |
| 'You're rather splendid, you know, Mr Chalmers. You make a great
| |
| partner for an adventure of this kind. You're nice and solid.'
| |
| | |
| The outhouse lay in the neighbourhood of the hives, a gaunt,
| |
| wooden structure surrounded by bushes. Elizabeth glanced over her
| |
| shoulder as she drew the key from her pocket.
| |
| | |
| 'You can't think how nervous I was this afternoon,' she said. 'I
| |
| thought every moment one of those newspaper men would look in
| |
| here. I--James! James! I thought I heard James in those bushes--I
| |
| kept heading them away. Once I thought it was all up.' She
| |
| unlocked the door. 'One of them was about a yard from the window,
| |
| just going to look in. Thank goodness, a bee stung him at the
| |
| psychological moment, and--Oh!'
| |
| | |
| 'What's the matter?'
| |
| | |
| 'Come and get a banana.'
| |
| | |
| They walked to the house. On the way Elizabeth stopped.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, you haven't had any dinner either!' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'Never mind me,' said Bill, 'I can wait. Let's get this thing
| |
| finished first.'
| |
| | |
| 'You really are a sport, Mr Chalmers,' said Elizabeth gratefully.
| |
| 'It would kill me to wait a minute. I shan't feel happy until I've
| |
| got it over. Will you stay here while I go up and see that Nutty's
| |
| safe in his room?' she added as they entered the house.
| |
| | |
| She stopped abruptly. A feline howl had broken the stillness of
| |
| the night, followed instantly by a sharp report.
| |
| | |
| 'What was that?'
| |
| | |
| 'It sounded like a car backfiring.'
| |
| | |
| 'No, it was a shot. One of the neighbours, I expect. You can hear
| |
| miles away on a night like this. I suppose a cat was after his
| |
| chickens. Thank goodness, James isn't a pirate cat. Wait while I
| |
| go up and see Nutty.'
| |
| | |
| She was gone only a moment.
| |
| | |
| 'It's all right,' she said. 'I peeped in. He's doing deep
| |
| breathing exercises at his window which looks out the other way.
| |
| Come along.'
| |
| | |
| When they reached the outhouse they found the door open.
| |
| | |
| 'Did you do that?' said Elizabeth. 'Did you leave it open?'
| |
| | |
| 'No.'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't remember doing it myself. It must have swung open. Well,
| |
| this saves us a walk. He'll have gone.'
| |
| | |
| 'Better take a look round, what?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, I suppose so; but he's sure not to be there. Have you a
| |
| match?'
| |
| | |
| Bill struck one and held it up.
| |
| | |
| 'Good Lord!'
| |
| | |
| The match went out.
| |
| | |
| 'What is it? What has happened?'
| |
| | |
| Bill was fumbling for another match.
| |
| | |
| 'There's something on the floor. It looks like--I thought for a
| |
| minute--' The small flame shot out of the gloom, flickered, then
| |
| burned with a steady glow. Bill stooped, bending over something on
| |
| the ground. The match burned down.
| |
| | |
| Bill's voice came out of the darkness:
| |
| | |
| 'I say, you were right about that noise. It was a shot. The poor
| |
| little chap's down there on the floor with a hole in him the size
| |
| of my fist.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 17
| |
| | |
| | |
| Boyhood, like measles, is one of those complaints which a man
| |
| should catch young and have done with, for when it comes in
| |
| middle life it is apt to be serious. Dudley Pickering had escaped
| |
| boyhood at the time when his contemporaries were contracting it.
| |
| It is true that for a few years after leaving the cradle he had
| |
| exhibited a certain immatureness, but as soon as he put on
| |
| knickerbockers and began to go about a little he outgrew all that.
| |
| He avoided altogether the chaotic period which usually lies
| |
| between the years of ten and fourteen. At ten he was a thoughtful
| |
| and sober-minded young man, at fourteen almost an old fogy.
| |
| | |
| And now--thirty-odd years overdue--boyhood had come upon him. As
| |
| he examined the revolver in his bedroom, wild and unfamiliar
| |
| emotions seethed within him. He did not realize it, but they were
| |
| the emotions which should have come to him thirty years before and
| |
| driven him out to hunt Indians in the garden. An imagination which
| |
| might well have become atrophied through disuse had him as
| |
| thoroughly in its control as ever he had had his Pickering Giant.
| |
| | |
| He believed almost with devoutness in the plot which he had
| |
| detected for the spoliation of Lord Wetherby's summer-house, that
| |
| plot of which he held Lord Dawlish to be the mainspring. And it
| |
| must be admitted that circumstances had combined to help his
| |
| belief. If the atmosphere in which he was moving was not sinister
| |
| then there was no meaning in the word.
| |
| | |
| Summer homes had been burgled, there was no getting away from
| |
| that--half a dozen at least in the past two months. He was a
| |
| stranger in the locality, so had no means of knowing that summer
| |
| homes were always burgled on Long Island every year, as regularly
| |
| as the coming of the mosquito and the advent of the jelly-fish. It
| |
| was one of the local industries. People left summer homes lying
| |
| about loose in lonely spots, and you just naturally got in through
| |
| the cellar window. Such was the Long Islander's simple creed.
| |
| | |
| This created in Mr Pickering's mind an atmosphere of burglary, a
| |
| receptiveness, as it were, toward burglars as phenomena, and the
| |
| extremely peculiar behaviour of the person whom in his thoughts he
| |
| always referred to as The Man crystallized it. He had seen The Man
| |
| hanging about, peering in at windows. He had shouted 'Hi!' and The
| |
| Man had run. The Man had got into the house under the pretence of
| |
| being a friend of Claire's. At the suggestion that he should meet
| |
| Claire he had dashed away in a panic. And Claire, both then and
| |
| later, had denied absolutely any knowledge of him.
| |
| | |
| As for the apparently blameless beekeeping that was going on at
| |
| the place where he lived, that was easily discounted. Mr Pickering
| |
| had heard somewhere or read somewhere--he rather thought that it
| |
| was in those interesting but disturbing chronicles of Raffles--that
| |
| the first thing an intelligent burglar did was to assume some
| |
| open and innocent occupation to avert possible inquiry into his
| |
| real mode of life. Mr Pickering did not put it so to himself, for
| |
| he was rarely slangy even in thought, but what he felt was that he
| |
| had caught The Man and his confederate with the goods.
| |
| | |
| If Mr Pickering had had his boyhood at the proper time and
| |
| finished with it, he would no doubt have acted otherwise than he
| |
| did. He would have contented himself with conducting a war of
| |
| defence. He would have notified the police, and considered that
| |
| all that remained for him personally to do was to stay in his room
| |
| at night with his revolver. But boys will be boys. The only course
| |
| that seemed to him in any way satisfactory in this his hour of
| |
| rejuvenation was to visit the bee farm, the hotbed of crime, and
| |
| keep an eye on it. He wanted to go there and prowl.
| |
| | |
| He did not anticipate any definite outcome of his visit. In his
| |
| boyish, elemental way he just wanted to take a revolver and a
| |
| pocketful of cartridges, and prowl.
| |
| | |
| It was a great night for prowling. A moon so little less than full
| |
| that the eye could barely detect its slight tendency to become
| |
| concave, shone serenely, creating a desirable combination of black
| |
| shadows where the prowler might hide and great stretches of light
| |
| in which the prowler might reveal his wickedness without disguise.
| |
| Mr Pickering walked briskly along the road, then less briskly as
| |
| he drew nearer the farm. An opportune belt of shrubs that ran from
| |
| the gate adjoining the road to a point not far from the house gave
| |
| him just the cover he needed. He slipped into this belt of shrubs
| |
| and began to work his way through them.
| |
| | |
| Like generals, authors, artists, and others who, after planning
| |
| broad effects, have to get down to the detail work, he found that
| |
| this was where his troubles began. He had conceived the journey
| |
| through the shrubbery in rather an airy mood. He thought he would
| |
| just go through the shrubbery. He had not taken into account the
| |
| branches, the thorns, the occasional unexpected holes, and he was
| |
| both warm and dishevelled when he reached the end of it and found
| |
| himself out in the open within a short distance of what he
| |
| recognized as beehives. It was not for some time that he was able
| |
| to give that selfless attention to exterior objects which is the
| |
| prowler's chief asset. For quite a while the only thought of which
| |
| he was conscious was that what he needed most was a cold drink and
| |
| a cold bath. Then, with a return to clear-headedness, he realized
| |
| that he was standing out in the open, visible from three sides to
| |
| anyone who might be in the vicinity, and he withdrew into the
| |
| shrubbery. He was not fond of the shrubbery, but it was a splendid
| |
| place to withdraw into. It swallowed you up.
| |
| | |
| This was the last move of the first part of Mr Pickering's active
| |
| campaign. He stayed where he was, in the middle of a bush, and
| |
| waited for the enemy to do something. What he expected him to do
| |
| he did not know. The subconscious thought that animated him was
| |
| that on a night like this something was bound to happen sooner or
| |
| later. Just such a thought on similarly stimulating nights had
| |
| animated men of his acquaintance thirty years ago, men who were
| |
| as elderly and stolid and unadventurous now as Mr Pickering had
| |
| been then. He would have resented the suggestion profoundly, but
| |
| the truth of the matter was that Dudley Pickering, after a late
| |
| start, had begun to play Indians.
| |
| | |
| Nothing had happened for a long time--for such a long time that,
| |
| in spite of the ferment within him, Mr Pickering almost began to
| |
| believe that nothing would happen. The moon shone with unutterable
| |
| calm. The crickets and the tree frogs performed their interminable
| |
| duet, apparently unconscious that they were attacking it in
| |
| different keys--a fact that, after a while, began to infuriate
| |
| Mr Pickering. Mosquitoes added their reedy tenor to the concert.
| |
| A twig on which he was standing snapped with a report like a pistol.
| |
| The moon went on shining.
| |
| | |
| Away in the distance a dog began to howl. An automobile passed in
| |
| the road. For a few moments Mr Pickering was able to occupy
| |
| himself pleasantly with speculations as to its make; and then he
| |
| became aware that something was walking down the back of his neck
| |
| just beyond the point where his fingers could reach it. Discomfort
| |
| enveloped Mr Pickering. At various times by day he had seen
| |
| long-winged black creatures with slim waists and unpleasant faces.
| |
| Could it be one of these? Or a caterpillar? Or--and the maddening
| |
| thing was that he did not dare to slap at it, for who knew what
| |
| desperate characters the sound might not attract?
| |
| | |
| Well, it wasn't stinging him; that was something.
| |
| | |
| A second howling dog joined the first one. A wave of sadness was
| |
| apparently afflicting the canine population of the district to-night.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering's vitality began to ebb. He was ageing, and
| |
| imagination slackened its grip. And then, just as he had begun to
| |
| contemplate the possibility of abandoning the whole adventure and
| |
| returning home, he was jerked back to boyhood again by the sound
| |
| of voices.
| |
| | |
| He shrank farther back into the bushes. A man--The Man--was
| |
| approaching, accompanied by his female associate. They passed so
| |
| close to him that he could have stretched out a hand and touched
| |
| them.
| |
| | |
| The female associate was speaking, and her first words set all Mr
| |
| Pickering's suspicions dancing a dance of triumph. The girl gave
| |
| herself away with her opening sentence.
| |
| | |
| 'You can't think how nervous I was this afternoon,' he heard her
| |
| say. She had a soft pleasant voice; but soft, pleasant voices may
| |
| be the vehicles for conveying criminal thoughts. 'I thought every
| |
| moment one of those newspaper men would look in here.'
| |
| | |
| Where was here? Ah, that outhouse! Mr Pickering had had his
| |
| suspicions of that outhouse already. It was one of those
| |
| structures that look at you furtively as if something were hiding
| |
| in them.
| |
| | |
| 'James! James! I thought I heard James in those bushes.'
| |
| | |
| The girl was looking straight at the spot occupied by Mr
| |
| Pickering, and it had been the start caused by her first words and
| |
| the resultant rustle of branches that had directed her attention
| |
| to him. He froze. The danger passed. She went on speaking. Mr
| |
| Pickering pondered on James. Who was James? Another of the gang,
| |
| of course. How many of them were there?
| |
| | |
| 'Once I thought it was all up. One of them was about a yard from
| |
| the window, just going to look in.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering thrilled. There was something hidden in the outhouse,
| |
| then! Swag?
| |
| | |
| 'Thank goodness, a bee stung him at the psychological moment,
| |
| and--oh!'
| |
| | |
| She stopped, and The Man spoke:
| |
| | |
| 'What's the matter?'
| |
| | |
| It interested Mr Pickering that The Man retained his English
| |
| accent even when talking privately with his associates. For
| |
| practice, no doubt.
| |
| | |
| 'Come and get a banana,' said the girl. And they went off together
| |
| in the direction of the house, leaving Mr Pickering bewildered.
| |
| Why a banana? Was it a slang term of the underworld for a pistol?
| |
| It must be that.
| |
| | |
| But he had no time for speculation. Now was his chance, the only
| |
| chance he would ever get of looking into that outhouse and finding
| |
| out its mysterious contents. He had seen the girl unlock the door.
| |
| A few steps would take him there. All it needed was nerve. With a
| |
| strong effort Mr Pickering succeeded in obtaining the nerve. He
| |
| burst from his bush and trotted to the outhouse door, opened it,
| |
| and looked in. And at that moment something touched his leg.
| |
| | |
| At the right time and in the right frame of mind man is capable of
| |
| stoic endurances that excite wonder and admiration. Mr Pickering
| |
| was no weakling. He had once upset his automobile in a ditch, and
| |
| had waited for twenty minutes until help came to relieve a broken
| |
| arm, and he had done it without a murmur. But on the present
| |
| occasion there was a difference. His mind was not adjusted for the
| |
| occurrence. There are times when it is unseasonable to touch a man
| |
| on the leg. This was a moment when it was unseasonable in the case
| |
| of Mr Pickering. He bounded silently into the air, his whole being
| |
| rent asunder as by a cataclysm.
| |
| | |
| He had been holding his revolver in his hand as a protection
| |
| against nameless terrors, and as he leaped he pulled the trigger.
| |
| Then with the automatic instinct for self-preservation, he sprang
| |
| back into the bushes, and began to push his way through them until
| |
| he had reached a safe distance from the danger zone.
| |
| | |
| James, the cat, meanwhile, hurt at the manner in which his
| |
| friendly move had been received, had taken refuge on the outhouse
| |
| roof. He mewed complainingly, a puzzled note in his voice. Mr
| |
| Pickering's behaviour had been one of those things that no fellow
| |
| can understand. The whole thing seemed inexplicable to James.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 18
| |
| | |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish stood in the doorway of the outhouse, holding the
| |
| body of Eustace gingerly by the tail. It was a solemn moment.
| |
| There was no room for doubt as to the completeness of the
| |
| extinction of Lady Wetherby's pet.
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering's bullet had done its lethal work. Eustace's
| |
| adventurous career was over. He was through.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth's mouth was trembling, and she looked very white in the
| |
| moonlight. Being naturally soft-hearted, she deplored the tragedy
| |
| for its own sake; and she was also, though not lacking in courage,
| |
| decidedly upset by the discovery that some person unknown had been
| |
| roaming her premises with a firearm.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, Bill!' she said. Then: 'Poor little chap!' And then: 'Who
| |
| could have done it?'
| |
| | |
| Lord Dawlish did not answer. His whole mind was occupied at the
| |
| moment with the contemplation of the fact that she had called him
| |
| Bill. Then he realized that she had spoken three times and
| |
| expected a reply.
| |
| | |
| 'Who could have done it?'
| |
| | |
| Bill pondered. Never a quick thinker, the question found him
| |
| unprepared.
| |
| | |
| 'Some fellow, I expect,' he said at last brightly. 'Got in, don't
| |
| you know, and then his pistol went off by accident.'
| |
| | |
| 'But what was he doing with a pistol?'
| |
| | |
| Bill looked a little puzzled at this.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, he would have a pistol, wouldn't he? I thought everybody
| |
| had over here.'
| |
| | |
| Except for what he had been able to observe during the brief
| |
| period of his present visit, Lord Dawlish's knowledge of the
| |
| United States had been derived from the American plays which he
| |
| had seen in London, and in these chappies were producing revolvers
| |
| all the time. He had got the impression that a revolver was as
| |
| much a part of the ordinary well-dressed man's equipment in the
| |
| United States as a collar.
| |
| | |
| 'I think it was a burglar,' said Elizabeth. 'There have been a lot
| |
| of burglaries down here this summer.'
| |
| | |
| 'Would a burglar burgle the outhouse? Rummy idea, rather, what?
| |
| Not much sense in it. I think it must have been a tramp. I expect
| |
| tramps are always popping about and nosing into all sorts of
| |
| extraordinary places, you know.'
| |
| | |
| 'He must have been standing quite close to us while we were
| |
| talking,' said Elizabeth, with a shiver.
| |
| | |
| Bill looked about him. Everywhere was peace. No sinister sounds
| |
| competed with the croaking of the tree frogs. No alien figures
| |
| infested the landscape. The only alien figure, that of Mr
| |
| Pickering, was wedged into a bush, invisible to the naked eye.
| |
| | |
| 'He's gone now, at any rate,' he said. 'What are we going to do?'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth gave another shiver as she glanced hurriedly at the
| |
| deceased. After life's fitful fever Eustace slept well, but he was
| |
| not looking his best.
| |
| | |
| | |
| 'With--it?' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'I say,' advised Bill, 'I shouldn't call him "it," don't you know.
| |
| It sort of rubs it in. Why not "him"? I suppose we had better bury
| |
| him. Have you a spade anywhere handy?'
| |
| | |
| 'There isn't a spade on the place.'
| |
| | |
| Bill looked thoughtful.
| |
| | |
| 'It takes weeks to make a hole with anything else, you know,' he
| |
| said. 'When I was a kid a friend of mine bet me I wouldn't dig my
| |
| way through to China with a pocket knife. It was an awful frost. I
| |
| tried for a couple of days, and broke the knife and didn't get
| |
| anywhere near China.' He laid the remains on the grass and
| |
| surveyed them meditatively. 'This is what fellows always run up
| |
| against in the detective novels--What to Do With the Body. They
| |
| manage the murder part of it all right, and then stub their toes
| |
| on the body problem.'
| |
| | |
| 'I wish you wouldn't talk as if we had done a murder.'
| |
| | |
| 'I feel as if we had, don't you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Exactly.'
| |
| | |
| 'I read a story once where a fellow slugged somebody and melted
| |
| the corpse down in a bath tub with sulphuric--'
| |
| | |
| 'Stop! You're making me sick!'
| |
| | |
| 'Only a suggestion, don't you know,' said Bill apologetically.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, suggest something else, then.'
| |
| | |
| 'How about leaving him on Lady Wetherby's doorstep? See what I
| |
| mean--let them take him in with the morning milk? Or, if you would
| |
| rather ring the bell and go away, and--you don't think much of
| |
| it?'
| |
| | |
| 'I simply haven't the nerve to do anything so risky.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, I would do it. There would be no need for you to come.'
| |
| | |
| 'I wouldn't dream of deserting you.'
| |
| | |
| 'That's awfully good of you.'
| |
| | |
| 'Besides, I'm not going to be left alone to-night until I can jump
| |
| into my little white bed and pull the clothes over my head. I'm
| |
| scared, I'm just boneless with fright. And I wouldn't go anywhere
| |
| near Lady Wetherby's doorstep with it.'
| |
| | |
| 'Him.'
| |
| | |
| 'It's no use, I can't think of it as "him." It's no good asking me
| |
| to.'
| |
| | |
| Bill frowned thoughtfully.
| |
| | |
| 'I read a story once where two chappies wanted to get rid of a
| |
| body. They put it inside a fellow's piano.'
| |
| | |
| 'You do seem to have read the most horrible sort of books.'
| |
| | |
| 'I rather like a bit of blood with my fiction,' said Bill. 'What
| |
| about this piano scheme I read about?'
| |
| | |
| 'People only have talking machines in these parts.'
| |
| | |
| 'I read a story--'
| |
| | |
| 'Let's try to forget the stories you've read. Suggest something of
| |
| your own.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, could we dissect the little chap?'
| |
| | |
| 'Dissect him?'
| |
| | |
| 'And bury him in the cellar, you know. Fellows do it to their
| |
| wives.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth shuddered.
| |
| | |
| 'Try again,' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, the only other thing I can think of is to take him into the
| |
| woods and leave him there. It's a pity we can't let Lady Wetherby
| |
| know where he is; she seems rather keen on him. But I suppose the
| |
| main point is to get rid of him.'
| |
| | |
| 'I know how we can do both. That's a good idea of yours about the
| |
| woods. They are part of Lady Wetherby's property. I used to wander
| |
| about there in the spring when the house was empty. There's a sort
| |
| of shack in the middle of them. I shouldn't think anybody ever
| |
| went there--it's a deserted sort of place. We could leave him
| |
| there, and then--well, we might write Lady Wetherby a letter or
| |
| something. We could think out that part afterward.'
| |
| | |
| 'It's the best thing we've thought of. You really want to come?'
| |
| | |
| 'If you attempt to leave here without me I shall scream. Let's be
| |
| starting.'
| |
| | |
| Bill picked Eustace up by his convenient tail.
| |
| | |
| 'I read a story once,' he said, 'where a fellow was lugging a
| |
| corpse through a wood, when suddenly--'
| |
| | |
| 'Stop right there,' said Elizabeth firmly.
| |
| | |
| During the conversation just recorded Dudley Pickering had been
| |
| keeping a watchful eye on Bill and Elizabeth from the interior of
| |
| a bush. His was not the ideal position for espionage, for he was
| |
| too far off to hear what they said, and the light was too dim to
| |
| enable him to see what it was that Bill was holding. It looked to
| |
| Mr Pickering like a sack or bag of some sort. As time went by he
| |
| became convinced that it was a sack, limp and empty at present,
| |
| but destined later to receive and bulge with what he believed was
| |
| technically known as the swag. When the two objects of vigilance
| |
| concluded their lengthy consultation, and moved off in the
| |
| direction of Lady Wetherby's woods, any doubts he may have had as
| |
| to whether they were the criminals he had suspected them of being
| |
| were dispersed. The whole thing worked out logically.
| |
| | |
| The Man, having spied out the land in his two visits to Lady
| |
| Wetherby's house, was now about to break in. His accomplice would
| |
| stand by with the sack. With a beating heart Mr Pickering gripped
| |
| his revolver and moved round in the shadow of the shrubbery till
| |
| he came to the gate, when he was just in time to see the guilty
| |
| couple disappear into the woods. He followed them. He was glad to
| |
| get on the move again. While he had been wedged into the bush,
| |
| quite a lot of the bush had been wedged into him. Something sharp
| |
| had pressed against the calf of his leg, and he had been pinched
| |
| in a number of tender places. And he was convinced that one more
| |
| of God's unpleasant creatures had got down the back of his neck.
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering moved through the wood as snakily as he could.
| |
| Nature had shaped him more for stability than for snakiness, but
| |
| he did his best. He tingled with the excitement of the chase, and
| |
| endeavoured to creep through the undergrowth like one of those
| |
| intelligent Indians of whom he had read so many years before in
| |
| the pages of Mr Fenimore Cooper. In those days Dudley Pickering
| |
| had not thought very highly of Fenimore Cooper, holding his work
| |
| deficient in serious and scientific interest; but now it seemed to
| |
| him that there had been something in the man after all, and he
| |
| resolved to get some of his books and go over them again. He
| |
| wished he had read them more carefully at the time, for they
| |
| doubtless contained much information and many hints which would
| |
| have come in handy just now. He seemed, for example, to recall
| |
| characters in them who had the knack of going through forests
| |
| without letting a single twig crack beneath their feet. Probably
| |
| the author had told how this was done. In his unenlightened state
| |
| it was beyond Mr Pickering. The wood seemed carpeted with twigs.
| |
| Whenever he stepped he trod on one, and whenever he trod on one it
| |
| cracked beneath his feet. There were moments when he felt gloomily
| |
| that he might just as well be firing a machine-gun.
| |
| | |
| Bill, meanwhile, Elizabeth following close behind him, was
| |
| ploughing his way onward. From time to time he would turn to
| |
| administer some encouraging remark, for it had come home to him by
| |
| now that encouraging remarks were what she needed very much in the
| |
| present crisis of her affairs. She was showing him a new and
| |
| hitherto unsuspected side of her character. The Elizabeth whom he
| |
| had known--the valiant, self-reliant Elizabeth--had gone, leaving
| |
| in her stead someone softer, more appealing, more approachable. It
| |
| was this that was filling him with strange emotions as he led the
| |
| way to their destination.
| |
| | |
| He was becoming more and more conscious of a sense of being drawn
| |
| very near to Elizabeth, of a desire to soothe, comfort, and protect
| |
| her. It was as if to-night he had discovered the missing key to a
| |
| puzzle or the missing element in some chemical combination. Like
| |
| most big men, his mind was essentially a protective mind; weakness
| |
| drew out the best that was in him. And it was only to-night that
| |
| Elizabeth had given any sign of having any weakness in her
| |
| composition. That clear vision which had come to him on his long
| |
| walk came again now, that vivid conviction that she was the only
| |
| girl in the world for him.
| |
| | |
| He was debating within himself the advisability of trying to find
| |
| words to express this sentiment, when Mr Pickering, the modern
| |
| Chingachgook, trod on another twig in the background and Elizabeth
| |
| stopped abruptly with a little cry.
| |
| | |
| 'What was that?' she demanded.
| |
| | |
| Bill had heard a noise too. It was impossible to be within a dozen
| |
| yards of Mr Pickering, when on the trail, and not hear a noise.
| |
| The suspicion that someone was following them did not come to him,
| |
| for he was a man rather of common sense than of imagination, and
| |
| common sense was asking him bluntly why the deuce anybody should
| |
| want to tramp after them through a wood at that time of night. He
| |
| caught the note of panic in Elizabeth's voice, and was soothing
| |
| her.
| |
| | |
| 'It was just a branch breaking. You hear all sorts of rum noises
| |
| in a wood.'
| |
| | |
| 'I believe it's the man with the pistol following us!'
| |
| | |
| 'Nonsense. Why should he? Silly thing to do!' He spoke almost
| |
| severely.
| |
| | |
| 'Look!' cried Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| 'What?'
| |
| | |
| 'I saw someone dodge behind that tree.'
| |
| | |
| 'You mustn't let yourself imagine things. Buck up!'
| |
| | |
| 'I can't buck up. I'm scared.'
| |
| | |
| 'Which tree did you think you saw someone dodge behind?'
| |
| | |
| 'That big one there.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, listen: I'll go back and--'
| |
| | |
| 'If you leave me for an instant I shall die in agonies.' She
| |
| gulped. 'I never knew I was such a coward before. I'm just a
| |
| worm.'
| |
| | |
| 'Nonsense. This sort of thing might frighten anyone. I read a
| |
| story once--'
| |
| | |
| 'Don't!'
| |
| | |
| Bill found that his heart had suddenly begun to beat with
| |
| unaccustomed rapidity. The desire to soothe, comfort, and protect
| |
| Elizabeth became the immediate ambition of his life. It was very
| |
| dark where they stood. The moonlight, which fell in little patches
| |
| round them, did not penetrate the thicket which they had entered.
| |
| He could hardly see her. He was merely aware of her as a presence.
| |
| An excellent idea occurred to him.
| |
| | |
| 'Hold my hand,' he said.
| |
| | |
| It was what he would have said to a frightened child, and there was
| |
| much of the frightened child about Elizabeth then. The Eustace mystery
| |
| had given her a shock which subsequent events had done nothing to
| |
| dispel, and she had lost that jauntiness and self-confidence which was
| |
| her natural armour against the more ordinary happenings of life.
| |
| | |
| Something small and soft slid gratefully into his palm, and there
| |
| was silence for a space. Bill said nothing. Elizabeth said
| |
| nothing. And Mr Pickering had stopped treading on twigs. The
| |
| faintest of night breezes ruffled the tree-tops above them. The
| |
| moonbeams filtered through the branches. He held her hand tightly.
| |
| | |
| 'Better?'
| |
| | |
| 'Much.'
| |
| | |
| The breeze died away. Not a leaf stirred. The wood was very still.
| |
| Somewhere on a bough a bird moved drowsily 'All right?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| And then something happened--something shattering, disintegrating.
| |
| It was only a pheasant, but it sounded like the end of the world.
| |
| It rose at their feet with a rattle that filled the universe, and
| |
| for a moment all was black confusion. And when that moment had
| |
| passed it became apparent to Bill that his arm was round
| |
| Elizabeth, that she was sobbing helplessly, and that he was
| |
| kissing her. Somebody was talking very rapidly in a low voice.
| |
| | |
| He found that it was himself.
| |
| | |
| 'Elizabeth!'
| |
| | |
| There was something wonderful about the name, a sort of music.
| |
| This was odd, because the name, as a name, was far from being a
| |
| favourite of his. Until that moment childish associations had
| |
| prejudiced him against it. It had been inextricably involved in
| |
| his mind with an atmosphere of stuffy schoolrooms and general
| |
| misery, for it had been his misfortune that his budding mind was
| |
| constitutionally incapable of remembering who had been Queen of
| |
| England at the time of the Spanish Armada--a fact that had caused
| |
| a good deal of friction with a rather sharp-tempered governess.
| |
| But now it seemed the only possible name for a girl to have, the
| |
| only label that could even remotely suggest those feminine charms
| |
| which he found in this girl beside him. There was poetry in every
| |
| syllable of it. It was like one of those deep chords which fill
| |
| the hearer with vague yearnings for strange and beautiful things.
| |
| He asked for nothing better than to stand here repeating it.
| |
| | |
| 'Elizabeth!'
| |
| | |
| 'Bill, dear!'
| |
| | |
| That sounded good too. There was music in 'Bill' when properly
| |
| spoken. The reason why all the other Bills in the world had got
| |
| the impression that it was a prosaic sort of name was that there
| |
| was only one girl in existence capable of speaking it properly,
| |
| and she was not for them.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill, are you really fond of me?'
| |
| | |
| 'Fond of you!'
| |
| | |
| She gave a sigh. 'You're so splendid!'
| |
| | |
| Bill was staggered. These were strange words. He had never thought
| |
| much of himself. He had always looked on himself as rather a
| |
| chump--well-meaning, perhaps, but an awful ass. It seemed
| |
| incredible that any one--and Elizabeth of all people--could look
| |
| on him as splendid.
| |
| | |
| And yet the very fact that she had said it gave it a plausible
| |
| sort of sound. It shook his convictions. Splendid! Was he? By
| |
| Jove, perhaps he was, what? Rum idea, but it grew on a chap.
| |
| Filled with a novel feeling of exaltation, he kissed Elizabeth
| |
| eleven times in rapid succession.
| |
| | |
| He felt devilish fit. He would have liked to run a mile or two and
| |
| jump a few gates. He wished five or six starving beggars would
| |
| come along; it would be pleasant to give the poor blighters money.
| |
| It was too much to expect at that time of night, of course, but it
| |
| would be rather jolly if Jess Willard would roll up and try to
| |
| pick a quarrel. He would show him something. He felt grand and
| |
| strong and full of beans. What a ripping thing life was when you
| |
| came to think of it.
| |
| | |
| 'This,' he said, 'is perfectly extraordinary!' And time stood
| |
| still.
| |
| | |
| A sense of something incongruous jarred upon Bill. Something
| |
| seemed to be interfering with the supreme romance of that golden
| |
| moment. It baffled him at first. Then he realized that he was
| |
| still holding Eustace by the tail.
| |
| | |
| Dudley Pickering had watched these proceedings--as well as the
| |
| fact that it was extremely dark and that he was endeavouring to
| |
| hide a portly form behind a slender bush would permit him--with a
| |
| sense of bewilderment. A comic artist drawing Mr Pickering at that
| |
| moment would no doubt have placed above his head one of those
| |
| large marks of interrogation which lend vigour and snap to modern
| |
| comic art. Certainly such a mark of interrogation would have
| |
| summed up his feelings exactly. Of what was taking place he had
| |
| not the remotest notion. All he knew was that for some inexplicable
| |
| reason his quarry had come to a halt and seemed to have settled down
| |
| for an indefinite stay. Voices came to him in an indistinguishable
| |
| murmur, intensely irritating to a conscientious tracker. One of
| |
| Fenimore Cooper's Indians--notably Chingachgook, if, which seemed
| |
| incredible, that was really the man's name--would have crept up
| |
| without a sound and heard what was being said and got in on the
| |
| ground floor of whatever plot was being hatched. But experience
| |
| had taught Mr Pickering that, superior as he was to Chingachgook
| |
| and his friends in many ways, as a creeper he was not in their class.
| |
| He weighed thirty or forty pounds more than a first-class creeper
| |
| should. Besides, creeping is like golf. You can't take it up in the
| |
| middle forties and expect to compete with those who have been at it
| |
| from infancy.
| |
| | |
| He had resigned himself to an all-night vigil behind the bush,
| |
| when to his great delight he perceived that things had begun to
| |
| move again. There was a rustling of feet in the undergrowth, and
| |
| he could just see two indistinct forms making their way among the
| |
| bushes. He came out of his hiding place and followed stealthily,
| |
| or as stealthily as the fact that he had not even taken a
| |
| correspondence course in creeping allowed. And profiting by
| |
| earlier mistakes, he did succeed in making far less noise than
| |
| before. In place of his former somewhat elephantine method of
| |
| progression he adopted a species of shuffle which had excellent
| |
| results, for it enabled him to brush twigs away instead of
| |
| stepping flatfootedly on them. The new method was slow, but it had
| |
| no other disadvantages.
| |
| | |
| Because it was slow, Mr Pickering was obliged to follow his prey
| |
| almost entirely by ear. It was easy at first, for they seemed to
| |
| be hurrying on regardless of noise. Then unexpectedly the sounds
| |
| of their passage ceased.
| |
| | |
| He halted. In his boyish way the first thing he thought was that
| |
| it was an ambush. He had a vision of that large man suspecting his
| |
| presence and lying in wait for him with a revolver. This was not a
| |
| comforting thought. Of course, if a man is going to fire a
| |
| revolver at you it makes little difference whether he is a giant
| |
| or a pygmy, but Mr Pickering was in no frame of mind for nice
| |
| reasoning. It was the thought of Bill's physique which kept him
| |
| standing there irresolute.
| |
| | |
| What would Chingachgook--assuming, for purposes of argument, that
| |
| any sane godfather could really have given a helpless child a name
| |
| like that--have done? He would, Mr Pickering considered, after
| |
| giving the matter his earnest attention, have made a _detour_
| |
| and outflanked the enemy. An excellent solution of the difficulty.
| |
| Mr Pickering turned to the left and began to advance circuitously,
| |
| with the result that, before he knew what he was doing, he came
| |
| out into a clearing and understood the meaning of the sudden
| |
| silence which had perplexed him. Footsteps made no sound on this
| |
| mossy turf.
| |
| | |
| He knew where he was now; the clearing was familiar. This was
| |
| where Lord Wetherby's shack-studio stood; and there it was, right
| |
| in front of him, black and clear in the moonlight. And the two
| |
| dark figures were going into it.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering retreated into the shelter of the bushes and mused
| |
| upon this thing. It seemed to him that for centuries he had been
| |
| doing nothing but retreat into bushes for this purpose. His
| |
| perplexity had returned. He could imagine no reason why burglars
| |
| should want to visit Lord Wetherby's studio. He had taken it for
| |
| granted, when he had tracked them to the clearing, that they were
| |
| on their way to the house, which was quite close to the shack,
| |
| separated from it only by a thin belt of trees and a lawn.
| |
| | |
| They had certainly gone in. He had seen them with his own eyes--first
| |
| the man, then very close behind him, apparently holding to his coat,
| |
| the girl. But why?
| |
| | |
| Creep up and watch them? Would Chingachgook have taken a risk like
| |
| that? Hardly, unless insured with some good company. Then what? He
| |
| was still undecided when he perceived the objects of his attention
| |
| emerging. He backed a little farther into the bushes.
| |
| | |
| They stood for an instant, listening apparently. The man no longer
| |
| carried the sack. They exchanged a few inaudible words. Then they
| |
| crossed the clearing and entered the wood a few yards to his
| |
| right. He could hear the crackling of their footsteps diminishing
| |
| in the direction of the road.
| |
| | |
| A devouring curiosity seized upon Mr Pickering. He wanted, more
| |
| than he had wanted almost anything before in his life, to find out
| |
| what the dickens they had been up to in there. He listened. The
| |
| footsteps were no longer audible. He ran across the clearing and
| |
| into the shack. It was then that he discovered that he had no
| |
| matches.
| |
| | |
| This needless infliction, coming upon him at the crisis of an
| |
| adventurous night, infuriated Mr Pickering. He swore softly. He
| |
| groped round the walls for an electric-light switch, but the shack
| |
| had no electric-light switch. When there was need to illuminate it
| |
| an oil lamp performed the duty. This occurred to Mr Pickering
| |
| after he had been round the place three times, and he ceased to
| |
| grope for a switch and began to seek for a match-box. He was still
| |
| seeking it when he was frozen in his tracks by the sound of
| |
| footsteps, muffled but by their nearness audible, just outside the
| |
| door. He pulled out his pistol, which he had replaced in his
| |
| pocket, backed against the wall, and stood there prepared to sell
| |
| his life dearly.
| |
| | |
| The door opened.
| |
| | |
| One reads of desperate experiences ageing people in a single
| |
| night. His present predicament aged Mr Pickering in a single
| |
| minute. In the brief interval of time between the opening of the
| |
| door and the moment when a voice outside began to speak he became
| |
| a full thirty years older. His boyish ardour slipped from him, and
| |
| he was once more the Dudley Pickering whom the world knew, the
| |
| staid and respectable middle-aged man of affairs, who would have
| |
| given a million dollars not to have got himself mixed up in this
| |
| deplorable business.
| |
| | |
| And then the voice spoke.
| |
| | |
| 'I'll light the lamp,' it said; and with an overpowering feeling
| |
| of relief Mr Pickering recognized it as Lord Wetherby's. A moment
| |
| later the temperamental peer's dapper figure became visible in
| |
| silhouette against a background of pale light.
| |
| | |
| 'Ah-hum!' said Mr Pickering.
| |
| | |
| The effect on Lord Wetherby was remarkable. To hear some one clear
| |
| his throat at the back of a dark room, where there should
| |
| rightfully be no throat to be cleared, would cause even your man
| |
| of stolid habit a passing thrill. The thing got right in among
| |
| Lord Wetherby's highly sensitive ganglions like an earthquake. He
| |
| uttered a strangled cry, then dashed out and slammed the door
| |
| behind him.
| |
| | |
| 'There's someone in there!'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby's tranquil voice made itself heard.
| |
| | |
| 'Nonsense; who could be in there?'
| |
| | |
| 'I heard him, I tell you. He growled at me!'
| |
| | |
| It seemed to Mr Pickering that the time had come to relieve the
| |
| mental distress which he was causing his host. He raised his
| |
| voice.
| |
| | |
| 'It's all right!' he called.
| |
| | |
| 'There!' said Lord Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| 'Who's that?' asked Lady Wetherby, through the door.
| |
| | |
| 'It's all right. It's me--Pickering.'
| |
| | |
| The door was opened a few inches by a cautious hand.
| |
| | |
| 'Is that you, Pickering?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes. It's all right.'
| |
| | |
| 'Don't keep saying it's all right,' said Lord Wetherby, irritably.
| |
| 'It isn't all right. What do you mean by hiding in the dark and
| |
| popping out and barking at a man? You made me bite my tongue. I've
| |
| never had such a shock in my life.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering left his lair and came out into the open. Lord
| |
| Wetherby was looking aggrieved, Lady Wetherby peacefully
| |
| inquisitive. For the first time Mr Pickering discovered that
| |
| Claire was present. She was standing behind Lady Wetherby with a
| |
| floating white something over her head, looking very beautiful.
| |
| | |
| 'For the love of Mike!' said Lady Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering became aware that he was still holding the revolver.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, ah!' he said, and pocketed the weapon.
| |
| | |
| 'Barking at people!' muttered Lord Wetherby in a querulous
| |
| undertone.
| |
| | |
| 'What on earth are you doing, Dudley?' said Claire.
| |
| | |
| There was a note in her voice which both puzzled and pained Mr
| |
| Pickering, a note that seemed to suggest that she found herself in
| |
| imperfect sympathy with him. Her expression deepened the
| |
| suggestion. It was a cold expression, unfriendly, as if it was not
| |
| so keen a pleasure to Claire to look at him as it should be for a
| |
| girl to look at the man whom she is engaged to marry. He had
| |
| noticed the same note in her voice and the same hostile look in
| |
| her eye earlier in the evening. He had found her alone, reading a
| |
| letter which, as the stamp on the envelope showed, had come from
| |
| England. She had seemed so upset that he had asked her if it
| |
| contained bad news, and she had replied in the negative with so
| |
| much irritation that he had desisted from inquiries. But his own
| |
| idea was that she had had bad news from home. Mr Pickering still
| |
| clung to his early impression that her little brother Percy was
| |
| consumptive, and he thought the child must have taken a turn for
| |
| the worse. It was odd that she should have looked and spoken like
| |
| that then, and it was odd that she should look and speak like that
| |
| now. He had been vaguely disturbed then and he was vaguely
| |
| disturbed now. He had the feeling that all was not well.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes,' said Lady Wetherby. 'What on earth are you doing, Dudley?'
| |
| | |
| 'Popping out!' grumbled Lord Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| 'We came here to see Algie's picture, which has got something
| |
| wrong with its eyes apparently, and we find you hiding in the dark
| |
| with a gun. What's the idea?'
| |
| | |
| 'It's a long story,' said Mr Pickering.
| |
| | |
| 'We have the night before us,' said Lady Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| 'You remember The Man--the fellow I found looking in at the
| |
| window, The Man who said he knew Claire?'
| |
| | |
| 'You've got that man on the brain, Dudley. What's he been doing to
| |
| you now?'
| |
| | |
| 'I tracked him here.'
| |
| | |
| 'Tracked him? Where from?'
| |
| | |
| 'From that bee-farm place where he's living. He and that girl you
| |
| spoke of went into these woods. I thought they were making for the
| |
| house, but they went into the shack.'
| |
| | |
| 'What did they do then?' asked Lady Wetherby
| |
| | |
| 'They came out again.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why?'
| |
| | |
| 'That's what I was trying to find out.'
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby uttered an exclamation.
| |
| | |
| 'By Jove!' There was apprehension in his voice, but mingled with
| |
| it a certain pleased surprise. 'Perhaps they were after my
| |
| picture. I'll light the lamp. Good Lord, picture thieves--Romneys
| |
| --missing Gainsboroughs--' His voice trailed off as he found the
| |
| lamp and lit it. Relief and disappointment were nicely blended in
| |
| his next words: 'No, it's still there.'
| |
| | |
| The soft light of the lamp filled the studio.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, that's a comfort,' said Lady Wetherby, sauntering in. 'We
| |
| couldn't afford to lose--Oh!'
| |
| | |
| Lord Wetherby spun round as her scream burst upon his already
| |
| tortured nerve centres. Lady Wetherby was kneeling on the floor.
| |
| Claire hurried in.
| |
| | |
| 'What is it, Polly?'
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby rose to her feet, and pointed. Her face had lost its
| |
| look of patient amusement. It was hard and set. She eyed Mr
| |
| Pickering in a menacing way.
| |
| | |
| 'Look!'
| |
| | |
| Claire followed her finger.
| |
| | |
| 'Good gracious! It's Eustace!'
| |
| | |
| 'Shot!'
| |
| | |
| She was looking intently at Mr Pickering. 'Well, Dudley,' she
| |
| said, coldly, 'what about it?'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering found that they were all looking at him--Lady
| |
| Wetherby with glittering eyes, Claire with cool scorn, Lord
| |
| Wetherby with a horror which he seemed to have achieved with
| |
| something of an effort.
| |
| | |
| 'Well!' said Claire.
| |
| | |
| 'What about it, Dudley?' said Lady Wetherby.
| |
| | |
| 'I must say, Pickering,' said Lord Wetherby, 'much as I disliked
| |
| the animal, it's a bit thick!'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering recoiled from their accusing gaze.
| |
| | |
| 'Good heavens! Do you think I did it?'
| |
| | |
| In the midst of his anguish there flashed across his mind the
| |
| recollection of having seen just this sort of situation in a
| |
| moving picture, and of having thought it far-fetched.
| |
| | |
| Lady Wetherby's good-tempered mouth, far from good-tempered now,
| |
| curled in a devastating sneer. She was looking at him as Claire,
| |
| in the old days when they had toured England together in road
| |
| companies, had sometimes seen her look at recalcitrant landladies.
| |
| The landladies, without exception, had wilted beneath that gaze,
| |
| and Mr Pickering wilted now.
| |
| | |
| 'But--but--but--' was all he could contrive to say.
| |
| | |
| 'Why should we think you did it?' said Lady Wetherby, bitterly.
| |
| 'You had a grudge against the poor brute for biting you. We find
| |
| you hiding here with a pistol and a story about burglars which an
| |
| infant couldn't swallow. I suppose you thought that, if you
| |
| planted the poor creature's body here, it would be up to Algie to
| |
| get rid of it, and that if he were found with it I should think
| |
| that it was he who had killed the animal.'
| |
| | |
| The look of horror which Lord Wetherby had managed to assume
| |
| became genuine at these words. The gratitude which he had been
| |
| feeling towards Mr Pickering for having removed one of the chief
| |
| trials of his existence vanished.
| |
| | |
| 'Great Scot!' he cried. 'So that was the game, was it?'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering struggled for speech. This was a nightmare.
| |
| | |
| 'But I didn't! I didn't! I didn't! I tell you I hadn't the
| |
| remotest notion the creature was there.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, come, Pickering!' said Lord Wetherby. 'Come, come, come!'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering found that his accusers were ebbing away. Lady
| |
| Wetherby had gone. Claire had gone. Only Lord Wetherby remained,
| |
| looking at him like a pained groom. He dashed from the place and
| |
| followed his hostess, speaking incoherently of burglars,
| |
| outhouses, and misunderstandings. He even mentioned Chingachgook.
| |
| But Lady Wetherby would not listen. Nobody would listen.
| |
| | |
| He found Lord Wetherby at his side, evidently prepared to go
| |
| deeper into the subject. Lord Wetherby was looking now like a
| |
| groom whose favourite horse has kicked him in the stomach.
| |
| | |
| 'Wouldn't have thought it of you, Pickering,' said Lord Wetherby.
| |
| Mr Pickering found no words. 'Wouldn't, honestly. Low trick!'
| |
| | |
| 'But I tell you--'
| |
| | |
| 'Devilish low trick!' repeated Lord Wetherby, with a shake of the
| |
| head. 'Laws of hospitality--eaten our bread and salt, what!--all
| |
| that sort of thing--kill valuable monkey--not done, you know--low,
| |
| very low!'
| |
| | |
| And he followed his wife, now in full retreat, with scorn and
| |
| repulsion written in her very walk.
| |
| | |
| 'Mr Pickering!'
| |
| | |
| It was Claire. She stood there, holding something towards him,
| |
| something that glittered in the moonlight. Her voice was hard, and
| |
| the expression on her face suggested that in her estimation he was
| |
| a particularly low-grade worm, one of the submerged tenth of the
| |
| worm world.
| |
| | |
| 'Eh?' said Mr Pickering, dazedly.
| |
| | |
| He looked at what she had in her hand, but it conveyed nothing to
| |
| his overwrought mind.
| |
| | |
| 'Take it!'
| |
| | |
| 'Eh?'
| |
| | |
| Claire stamped.
| |
| | |
| 'Very well,' she said.
| |
| | |
| She flung something on the ground before him--a small, sparkling
| |
| object. Then she swept away, his eyes following her, and was lost
| |
| in the darkness of the trees. Mechanically Mr Pickering stooped to
| |
| pick up what she had let fall. He recognized it now. It was her
| |
| engagement ring.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 19
| |
| | |
| | |
| Bill leaned his back against the gate that separated the grounds of
| |
| the bee-farm from the high road and mused pleasantly. He was alone.
| |
| Elizabeth was walking up the drive on her way to the house to tell
| |
| the news to Nutty. James, the cat, who had come down from the roof
| |
| of the outhouse, was sharpening his claws on a neighbouring tree.
| |
| After the whirl of excitement that had been his portion for the past
| |
| few hours, the peace of it all appealed strongly to Bill. It suited
| |
| the mood of quiet happiness which was upon him.
| |
| | |
| Quietly happy, that was how he felt now that it was all over. The
| |
| white heat of emotion had subsided to a gentle glow of contentment
| |
| conducive to thought. He thought tenderly of Elizabeth. She had
| |
| turned to wave her hand before going into the house, and he was
| |
| still smiling fatuously. Wonderful girl! Lucky chap he was! Rum,
| |
| the way they had come together! Talk about Fate, what?
| |
| | |
| He stooped to tickle James, who had finished stropping his claws
| |
| and was now enjoying a friction massage against his leg, and began
| |
| to brood on the inscrutable way of Fate.
| |
| | |
| Rum thing, Fate! Most extraordinary!
| |
| | |
| Suppose he had never gone down to Marvis Bay that time. He had
| |
| wavered between half a dozen places; it was pure chance that he
| |
| had chosen Marvis Bay. If he hadn't he would never have met old
| |
| Nutcombe. Probably old Nutcombe had wavered between half a dozen
| |
| places too. If they hadn't both happened to choose Marvis Bay they
| |
| would never have met. And if they hadn't been the only visitors
| |
| there they might never have got to know each other. And if old
| |
| Nutcombe hadn't happened to slice his approach shots he would
| |
| never have put him under an obligation. Queer old buster, old
| |
| Nutcombe, leaving a fellow he hardly knew from Adam a cool million
| |
| quid just because he cured him of slicing.
| |
| | |
| It was at this point in his meditations that it suddenly occurred to
| |
| Bill that he had not yet given a thought to what was immeasurably
| |
| the most important of any of the things that ought to be occupying
| |
| his mind just now. What was he to do about this Lord Dawlish
| |
| business?
| |
| | |
| Life at Brookport had so accustomed him to being plain Bill
| |
| Chalmers that it had absolutely slipped his mind that he was
| |
| really Lord Dawlish, the one man in the world whom Elizabeth
| |
| looked on as an enemy. What on earth was he to do about that? Tell
| |
| her? But if he told her, wouldn't she chuck him on the spot?
| |
| | |
| This was awful. The dreamy sense of well-being left him. He
| |
| straightened himself to face this problem, ignoring the hint of
| |
| James, who was weaving circles about his legs expectant of more
| |
| tickling. A man cannot spend his time tickling cats when he has to
| |
| concentrate on a dilemma of this kind.
| |
| | |
| Suppose he didn't tell her? How would that work out? Was a marriage
| |
| legal if the cove who was being married went through it under a
| |
| false name? He seemed to remember seeing a melodrama in his boyhood
| |
| the plot of which turned on that very point. Yes, it began to come
| |
| back to him. An unpleasant bargee with a black moustache had said,
| |
| 'This woman is not your wife!' and caused the dickens of a lot of
| |
| unpleasantness; but there in its usual slipshod way memory failed.
| |
| Had subsequent events proved the bargee right or wrong? It was a
| |
| question for a lawyer to decide. Jerry Nichols would know. Well,
| |
| there was plenty of time, thank goodness, to send Jerry Nichols a
| |
| cable, asking for his professional opinion, and to get the straight
| |
| tip long before the wedding day arrived.
| |
| | |
| Laying this part of it aside for the moment, and assuming that the
| |
| thing could be worked, what about the money? Like a chump, he had
| |
| told Elizabeth on the first day of his visit that he hadn't any
| |
| money except what he made out of his job as secretary of the club.
| |
| He couldn't suddenly spring five million dollars on her and
| |
| pretend that he had forgotten all about it till then.
| |
| | |
| Of course, he could invent an imaginary uncle or something, and
| |
| massacre him during the honeymoon. Something in that. He pictured
| |
| the thing in his mind. Breakfast: Elizabeth doling out the
| |
| scrambled eggs. 'What's the matter, Bill? Why did you exclaim like
| |
| that? Is there some bad news in the letter you are reading?'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, it's nothing--only my Uncle John's died and left me five
| |
| million dollars.'
| |
| | |
| The scene worked out so well that his mind became a little above
| |
| itself. It suggested developments of serpentine craftiness. Why
| |
| not get Jerry Nichols to write him a letter about his Uncle John
| |
| and the five millions? Jerry liked doing that sort of thing. He
| |
| would do it like a shot, and chuck in a lot of legal words to make
| |
| it sound right. It began to be clear to Bill that any move he
| |
| took--except full confession, at which he jibbed--was going to
| |
| involve Jerry Nichols as an ally; and this discovery had a
| |
| soothing effect on him. It made him feel that the responsibility
| |
| had been shifted. He couldn't do anything till he had consulted
| |
| Jerry, so there was no use in worrying. And, being one of those
| |
| rare persons who can cease worrying instantly when they have
| |
| convinced themselves that it is useless, he dismissed the entire
| |
| problem from his mind and returned to the more congenial
| |
| occupation of thinking of Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| It was a peculiar feature of his position that he found himself
| |
| unable to think of Elizabeth without thinking of Claire. He tried
| |
| to, but failed. Every virtue in Elizabeth seemed to call up the
| |
| recollection of a corresponding defect in Claire It became almost
| |
| mathematical. Elizabeth was so straight on the level they called
| |
| it over here. Claire was a corkscrew among women. Elizabeth was
| |
| sunny and cheerful. Querulousness was Claire's besetting sin.
| |
| Elizabeth was such a pal. Claire had never been that. The effect
| |
| that Claire had always had on him was to deepen the conviction,
| |
| which never really left him, that he was a bit of an ass.
| |
| Elizabeth, on the other hand, bucked him up and made him feel as
| |
| if he really amounted to something.
| |
| | |
| How different they were! Their very voices--Elizabeth had a sort
| |
| of quiet, soothing, pleasant voice, the kind of voice that somehow
| |
| suggested that she thought a lot of a chap without her having to
| |
| say it in so many words. Whereas Claire's voice--he had noticed it
| |
| right from the beginning--Claire's voice--
| |
| | |
| While he was trying to make clear to himself just what it was
| |
| about Claire's voice that he had not liked he was granted the
| |
| opportunity of analysing by means of direct observation its
| |
| failure to meet his vocal ideals, for at this moment it spoke
| |
| behind him.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill!'
| |
| | |
| She was standing in the road, her head still covered with that
| |
| white, filmy something which had commended itself to Mr Pickering's
| |
| eyes. She was looking at him in a way that seemed somehow to strike
| |
| a note of appeal. She conveyed an atmosphere of softness and
| |
| repentance, a general suggestion of prodigal daughters revisiting
| |
| old homesteads.
| |
| | |
| 'We seem always to be meeting at gates, don't we?' she said, with
| |
| a faint smile.
| |
| | |
| It was a deprecating smile, wistful.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill!' she said again, and stopped. She laid her left hand
| |
| lightly on the gate. Bill had a sort of impression that there was
| |
| some meaning behind this action; that, if he were less of a chump
| |
| than Nature had made him, he would at this point receive some sort
| |
| of a revelation. But, being as Nature had made him, he did not get
| |
| it.
| |
| | |
| He was one of those men to whom a girl's left hand is simply a
| |
| girl's left hand, irrespective of whether it wears rings on its
| |
| third finger or not.
| |
| | |
| This having become evident to Claire after a moment of silence,
| |
| she withdrew her hand in rather a disappointed way and prepared to
| |
| attack the situation from another angle.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill, I've come to say something to you.'
| |
| | |
| Bill was looking at her curiously. He could not have believed
| |
| that, even after what had happened, he could face her with such
| |
| complete detachment; that she could so extraordinarily not matter.
| |
| He felt no resentment toward her. It was simply that she had gone
| |
| out of his life.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill, I've been a fool.'
| |
| | |
| He made no reply to this for he could think of no reply that was
| |
| sufficiently polite. 'Yes?' sounded as if he meant to say that
| |
| that was just what he had expected. 'Really?' had a sarcastic
| |
| ring. He fell back on facial expression, to imply that he was
| |
| interested and that she might tell all.
| |
| | |
| Claire looked away down the road and began to speak in a low,
| |
| quick voice:
| |
| | |
| 'I've been a fool all along. I lost you through being a fool. When
| |
| I saw you dancing with that girl in the restaurant I didn't stop
| |
| to think. I was angry. I was jealous. I ought to have trusted you,
| |
| but--Oh, well, I was a fool.'
| |
| | |
| 'My dear girl, you had a perfect right--'
| |
| | |
| 'I hadn't. I was an idiot. Bill, I've come to ask you if you can't
| |
| forgive me.'
| |
| | |
| 'I wish you wouldn't talk like that--there's nothing to forgive.'
| |
| | |
| The look which Claire gave him in answer to this was meek and
| |
| affectionate, but inwardly she was wishing that she could bang his
| |
| head against the gate. His slowness was maddening. Long before
| |
| this he should have leaped into the road in order to fold her in
| |
| his arms. Her voice shook with the effort she had to make to keep
| |
| it from sharpness.
| |
| | |
| 'I mean, is it too late? I mean, can you really forgive me? Oh,
| |
| Bill'--she stopped herself by the fraction of a second from adding
| |
| 'you idiot'--'can't we be the same again to each other? Can't
| |
| we--pretend all this has never happened?'
| |
| | |
| Exasperating as Bill's wooden failure to play the scene in the
| |
| spirit in which her imagination had conceived it was to Claire,
| |
| several excuses may be offered for him: He had opened the evening
| |
| with a shattering blow at his faith in woman. He had walked twenty
| |
| miles at a rapid pace. He had heard shots and found a corpse, and
| |
| carried the latter by the tail across country. Finally, he had had
| |
| the stunning shock of discovering that Elizabeth Boyd loved him.
| |
| He was not himself. He found a difficulty in concentrating. With
| |
| the result that, in answer to this appeal from a beautiful girl
| |
| whom he had once imagined that he loved, all he could find to say
| |
| was: 'How do you mean?'
| |
| | |
| Claire, never an adept at patience, just succeeded in swallowing
| |
| the remark that sprang into her mind. It was incredible to her
| |
| that a man could exist who had so little intuition. She had not
| |
| anticipated the necessity of being compelled to put the substance
| |
| of her meaning in so many blunt words, but it seemed that only so
| |
| could she make him understand.
| |
| | |
| 'I mean, can't we be engaged again, Bill?'
| |
| | |
| Bill's overtaxed brain turned one convulsive hand-spring, and came
| |
| to rest with a sense of having dislocated itself. This was too
| |
| much. This was not right. No fellow at the end of a hard evening
| |
| ought to have to grapple with this sort of thing. What on earth
| |
| did she mean, springing questions like that on him? How could they
| |
| be engaged? She was going to marry someone else, and so was he.
| |
| Something of these thoughts he managed to put into words:
| |
| | |
| 'But you're engaged to--'
| |
| | |
| 'I've broken my engagement with Mr Pickering.'
| |
| | |
| 'Great Scot! When?'
| |
| | |
| 'To-night. I found out his true character. He is cruel and
| |
| treacherous. Something happened--it may sound nothing to you, but
| |
| it gave me an insight into what he really was. Polly Wetherby had
| |
| a little monkey, and just because it bit Mr Pickering he shot it.'
| |
| | |
| 'Pickering!'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes. He wasn't the sort of man I should have expected to do a
| |
| mean, cruel thing like that. It sickened me. I gave him back his
| |
| ring then and there. Oh, what a relief it was! What a fool I was
| |
| ever to have got engaged to such a man.'
| |
| | |
| Bill was puzzled. He was one of those simple men who take their
| |
| fellows on trust, but who, if once that trust is shattered, can
| |
| never recover it. Like most simple men, he was tenacious of ideas
| |
| when he got them, and the belief that Claire was playing fast and
| |
| loose was not lightly to be removed from his mind. He had found
| |
| her out during his self-communion that night, and he could never
| |
| believe her again. He had the feeling that there was something
| |
| behind what she was saying. He could not put his finger on the
| |
| clue, but that there was a clue he was certain.
| |
| | |
| 'I only got engaged to him out of pique. I was angry with you,
| |
| and--Well, that's how it happened.'
| |
| | |
| Still Bill could not believe. It was plausible. It sounded true.
| |
| And yet some instinct told him that it was not true. And while he
| |
| waited, perplexed, Claire made a false step.
| |
| | |
| The thing had been so close to the top of her mind ever since she
| |
| had come to the knowledge of it that it had been hard for her to
| |
| keep it down. Now she could keep it down no longer.
| |
| | |
| 'How wonderful about old Mr Nutcombe, Bill!' she said.
| |
| | |
| A vast relief rolled over Bill. Despite his instinct, he had been
| |
| wavering. But now he understood. He had found the clue.
| |
| | |
| 'You got my letter, then?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes; it was forwarded on from the theatre. I got it to-night.'
| |
| | |
| Too late she realized what she had said and the construction that
| |
| an intelligent man would put on it. Then she reflected that Bill
| |
| was not an intelligent man. She shot a swift glance at him. To all
| |
| appearances he had suspected nothing.
| |
| | |
| 'It went all over the place,' she hurried on. 'The people at the
| |
| Portsmouth theatre sent it to the London office, who sent it home,
| |
| and mother mailed it on to me.'
| |
| | |
| 'I see.'
| |
| | |
| There was a silence. Claire drew a step nearer.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill!' she said softly.
| |
| | |
| Bill shut his eyes. The moment had come which he had dreaded. Not
| |
| even the thought that she was crooked, that she had been playing
| |
| with him, could make it any better. She was a woman and he was a
| |
| man. That was all that mattered, and nothing could alter it.
| |
| | |
| 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It's impossible.'
| |
| | |
| Claire stared at him in amazement. She had not been prepared for
| |
| this. He met her eyes, but every nerve in his body was protesting.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill!'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm sorry.
| |
| | |
| 'But, Bill!'
| |
| | |
| He set his teeth. It was just as bad as he had thought it would
| |
| be.
| |
| | |
| 'But, Bill, I've explained. I've told you how--'
| |
| | |
| 'I know.'
| |
| | |
| Claire's eyes opened wide.
| |
| | |
| 'I thought you loved me.' She came closer. She pulled at his
| |
| sleeve. Her voice took on a note of soft raillery. 'Don't be
| |
| absurd, Bill! You mustn't behave like a sulky schoolboy. It isn't
| |
| like you, this. You surely don't want me to humble myself more
| |
| than I have done.' She gave a little laugh. 'Why, Bill, I'm
| |
| proposing to you! I know I've treated you badly, but I've
| |
| explained why. You must be just enough to see that it wasn't
| |
| altogether my fault. I'm only human. And if I made a mistake I've
| |
| done all I can do to undo it. I--'
| |
| | |
| 'Claire, listen: I'm engaged!'
| |
| | |
| She fell back. For the first time the sense of defeat came to her.
| |
| She had anticipated many things. She had looked for difficulties.
| |
| But she had not expected this. A feeling of cold fury surged over
| |
| her at the way fate had tricked her. She had gambled recklessly on
| |
| her power of fascination, and she had lost.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering, at that moment brooding in solitude in the smoking-room
| |
| of Lady Wetherby's house, would have been relieved could he have
| |
| known how wistfully she was thinking of him.
| |
| | |
| 'You're engaged?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well!' She forced another laugh. 'How very--rapid of you! To
| |
| whom?'
| |
| | |
| 'To Elizabeth Boyd.'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm afraid I'm very ignorant, but who is Elizabeth Boyd? The
| |
| ornate lady you were dancing with at the restaurant?'
| |
| | |
| 'No!'
| |
| | |
| 'Who then?'
| |
| | |
| 'She is old Ira Nutcombe's niece. The money ought to have been
| |
| left to her. That was why I came over to America, to see if I
| |
| could do anything for her.'
| |
| | |
| 'And you're going to marry her? How very romantic--and convenient!
| |
| What an excellent arrangement for her. Which of you suggested it?'
| |
| | |
| Bill drew in a deep breath. All this was, he supposed,
| |
| unavoidable, but it was not pleasant.
| |
| | |
| Claire suddenly abandoned her pose of cool amusement. The fire
| |
| behind it blazed through.
| |
| | |
| 'You fool!' she cried passionately. 'Are you blind? Can't you see
| |
| that this girl is simply after your money? A child could see it.'
| |
| | |
| Bill looked at her steadily.
| |
| | |
| 'You're quite wrong. She doesn't know who I am.'
| |
| | |
| 'Doesn't know who you are? What do you mean? She must know by this
| |
| time that her uncle left his money to you.'
| |
| | |
| 'But she doesn't know that I am Lord Dawlish. I came to America
| |
| under another name. She knows me as Chalmers.'
| |
| | |
| Claire was silent for a moment.
| |
| | |
| 'How did you get to know her?' she asked, more quietly.
| |
| | |
| 'I met her brother by chance in New York.'
| |
| | |
| 'By chance!'
| |
| | |
| 'Quite by chance. A man I knew in England lent me his rooms in New
| |
| York. He happened to be a friend of Boyd's. Boyd came to call on
| |
| him one night, and found me.'
| |
| | |
| 'Odd! Had your mutual friend been away from New York long?'
| |
| | |
| 'Some months.'
| |
| | |
| 'And in all that time Mr Boyd had not discovered that he had left.
| |
| They must have been great friends! What happened then?'
| |
| | |
| 'Boyd invited me down here.'
| |
| | |
| 'Down here?'
| |
| | |
| 'They live in this house.'
| |
| | |
| 'Is Miss Boyd the girl who keeps the bee-farm?'
| |
| | |
| 'She is.'
| |
| | |
| Claire's eyes suddenly lit up. She began to speak in a louder
| |
| voice:
| |
| | |
| 'Bill, you're an infant, a perfect infant! Of course, she's after
| |
| your money. Do you really imagine for one instant that this
| |
| Elizabeth Boyd of yours and her brother don't know as well as I do
| |
| that you are really Lord Dawlish? I always thought you had a
| |
| trustful nature! You tell me the brother met you by chance.
| |
| Chance! And invited you down here. I bet he did! He knew his
| |
| business! And now you're going to marry the girl so that they will
| |
| get the money after all! Splendid! Oh, Bill, you're a wonderful,
| |
| wonderful creature! Your innocence is touching.'
| |
| | |
| She swung round.
| |
| | |
| 'Good night,' she called over her shoulder.
| |
| | |
| He could hear her laughing as she went down the road.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 20
| |
| | |
| | |
| In the smoking-room of Lady Wetherby's house, chewing the dead
| |
| stump of a once imposing cigar, Dudley Pickering sat alone with
| |
| his thoughts. He had been alone for half an hour now. Once Lord
| |
| Wetherby had looked in, to withdraw at once coldly, with the
| |
| expression of a groom who has found loathsome things in the
| |
| harness-room. Roscoe Sherriff, good, easy man, who could never
| |
| dislike people, no matter what they had done, had come for a while
| |
| to bear him company; but Mr Pickering's society was not for the
| |
| time being entertaining. He had answered with grunts the
| |
| Press-agent's kindly attempts at conversation, and the latter
| |
| Had withdrawn to seek a more congenial audience. And now Mr
| |
| Pickering was alone, talking things over with his subconscious
| |
| self.
| |
| | |
| A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for
| |
| the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden
| |
| away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery
| |
| of a miserable hour. Mr Pickering's rare interviews with his
| |
| subconscious self had happened until now almost entirely in the
| |
| small hours of the night, when it had popped out to remind him, as
| |
| he lay sleepless, that all flesh was grass and that he was not
| |
| getting any younger. To-night, such had been the shock of the
| |
| evening's events, it came to him at a time which was usually his
| |
| happiest--the time that lay between dinner and bed. Mr Pickering
| |
| at that point of the day was generally feeling his best. But to-night
| |
| was different from the other nights of his life.
| |
| | |
| One may picture Subconscious Self as a withered, cynical,
| |
| malicious person standing before Mr Pickering and regarding him
| |
| with an evil smile. There has been a pause, and now Subconscious
| |
| Self speaks again:
| |
| | |
| 'You will have to leave to-morrow. Couldn't possibly stop on after
| |
| what's happened. Now you see what comes of behaving like a boy.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering writhed.
| |
| | |
| 'Made a pretty considerable fool of yourself, didn't you, with
| |
| your revolvers and your hidings and your trailings? Too old for
| |
| that sort of thing, you know. You're getting on. Probably have a
| |
| touch of lumbago to-morrow. You must remember you aren't a
| |
| youngster. Got to take care of yourself. Next time you feel an
| |
| impulse to hide in shrubberies and take moonlight walks through
| |
| damp woods, perhaps you will listen to me.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering relit the stump of his cigar defiantly and smoked in
| |
| long gulps for a while. He was trying to persuade himself that all
| |
| this was untrue, but it was not easy. The cigar became uncomfortably
| |
| hot, and he threw it away. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and
| |
| produced a diamond ring, at which he looked pensively.
| |
| | |
| 'A pretty thing, is it not?' said Subconscious Self
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering sighed. That moment when Claire had thrown the ring
| |
| at his feet and swept out of his life like an offended queen had
| |
| been the culminating blow of a night of blows, the knock-out
| |
| following on a series of minor punches. Subconscious Self seized
| |
| the opportunity to become offensive again.
| |
| | |
| 'You've lost her, all through your own silly fault,' it said. 'How
| |
| on earth you can have been such a perfect fool beats me. Running
| |
| round with a gun like a boy of fourteen! Well, it's done now and
| |
| it can't be mended. Countermand the order for cake, send a wire
| |
| putting off the wedding, dismiss the bridesmaids, tell the
| |
| organist he can stop practising "The Voice that Breathed O'er
| |
| Eden"--no wedding-bells for you! For Dudley Damfool Pickering,
| |
| Esquire, the lonely hearth for evermore! Little feet pattering
| |
| about the house? Not on your life! Childish voices sticking up the
| |
| old man for half a dollar to buy candy? No, sir! Not for D.
| |
| Bonehead Pickering, the amateur trailing arbutus!'
| |
| | |
| Subconscious Self may have had an undesirable way of expressing
| |
| itself, but there was no denying the truth of what it said. Its
| |
| words carried conviction. Mr Pickering replaced the ring in his
| |
| pocket, and, burying his head in his hands, groaned in bitterness
| |
| of spirit.
| |
| | |
| He had lost her. He must face the fact. She had thrown him over.
| |
| Never now would she sit at his table, the brightest jewel of
| |
| Detroit's glittering social life. She would have made a stir in
| |
| Detroit. Now that city would never know her. Not that he was
| |
| worrying much about Detroit. He was worrying about himself. How
| |
| could he ever live without her?
| |
| | |
| This mood of black depression endured for a while, and then Mr
| |
| Pickering suddenly became aware that Subconscious Self was
| |
| sneering at him. 'You're a wonder!' said Subconscious Self.
| |
| | |
| 'What do you mean?'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, trying to make yourself think that at the bottom of your
| |
| heart you aren't tickled to death that this has happened. You know
| |
| perfectly well that you're tremendously relieved that you haven't
| |
| got to marry the girl after all. You can fool everybody else, but
| |
| you can't fool me. You're delighted, man, delighted!' The mere
| |
| suggestion revolted Mr Pickering. He was on the point of indignant
| |
| denial, when quite abruptly there came home to him the suspicion
| |
| that the statement was not so preposterous after all. It seemed
| |
| incredible and indecent that such a thing should be, but he could
| |
| not deny, now that it was put to him point-blank in this way, that
| |
| a certain sense of relief was beginning to mingle itself with his
| |
| gloom. It was shocking to realize, but--yes, he actually was
| |
| feeling as if he had escaped from something which he had dreaded.
| |
| Half an hour ago there had been no suspicion of such an emotion
| |
| among the many which had occupied his attention, but now he
| |
| perceived it clearly. Half an hour ago he had felt like Lucifer
| |
| hurled from heaven. Now, though how that train of thought had
| |
| started he could not have said, he was distinctly conscious of the
| |
| silver lining. Subconscious Self began to drive the thing home.
| |
| | |
| 'Be honest with yourself,' it said. 'You aren't often. No man is.
| |
| Look at the matter absolutely fairly. You know perfectly well that
| |
| the mere idea of marriage has always scared you. You hate making
| |
| yourself conspicuous in public. Think what it would be like,
| |
| standing up there in front of all the world and getting married.
| |
| And then--afterwards! Why on earth do you think that you would
| |
| have been happy with this girl? What do you know about her except
| |
| that she is a beauty? I grant you she's that, but are you aware of
| |
| the infinitesimal part looks play in married life? My dear chap,
| |
| better is it for a man that he marry a sympathetic gargoyle than a
| |
| Venus with a streak of hardness in her. You know--and you would
| |
| admit it if you were honest with yourself--that this girl is hard.
| |
| She's got a chilled-steel soul.
| |
| | |
| 'If you wanted to marry some one--and there's no earthly reason
| |
| why you should, for your life's perfectly full and happy with your
| |
| work--this is the last girl you ought to marry. You're a middle-aged
| |
| man. You're set. You like life to jog along at a peaceful walk.
| |
| This girl wants it to be a fox-trot. You've got habits which
| |
| you have had for a dozen years. I ask you, is she the sort of girl
| |
| to be content to be a stepmother to a middle-aged man's habits? Of
| |
| course, if you were really in love with her, if she were your
| |
| mate, and all that sort of thing, you would take a pleasure in
| |
| making yourself over to suit her requirements. But you aren't in
| |
| love with her. You are simply caught by her looks. I tell you, you
| |
| ought to look on that moment when she gave you back your ring as
| |
| the luckiest moment of your life. You ought to make a sort of
| |
| anniversary of it. You ought to endow a hospital or something out
| |
| of pure gratitude. I don't know how long you're going to live--if
| |
| you act like a grown-up man instead of a boy and keep out of woods
| |
| and shrubberies at night you may live for ever--but you will never
| |
| have a greater bit of luck than the one that happened to you
| |
| to-night.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering was convinced. His spirits soared. Marriage! What was
| |
| marriage? Slavery, not to be endured by your man of spirit. Look
| |
| at all the unhappy marriages you saw everywhere. Besides, you had
| |
| only to recall some of the novels and plays of recent years to get
| |
| the right angle on marriage. According to the novelists and
| |
| playwrights, shrewd fellows who knew what was what, if you talked
| |
| to your wife about your business she said you had no soul; if you
| |
| didn't, she said you didn't think enough of her to let her share
| |
| your life. If you gave her expensive presents and an unlimited
| |
| credit account, she complained that you looked on her as a mere
| |
| doll; and if you didn't, she called you a screw. That was
| |
| marriage. If it didn't get you with the left jab, it landed on you
| |
| with the right upper-cut. None of that sort of thing for Dudley
| |
| Pickering.
| |
| | |
| 'You're absolutely right,' he said, enthusiastically. 'Funny I
| |
| never looked at it that way before.'
| |
| | |
| Somebody was turning the door-handle. He hoped it was Roscoe
| |
| Sherriff. He had been rather dull the last time Sherriff had
| |
| looked in. He would be quite different now. He would be gay and
| |
| sparkling. He remembered two good stories he would like to tell
| |
| Sherriff.
| |
| | |
| The door opened and Claire came in. There was a silence. She stood
| |
| looking at him in a way that puzzled Mr Pickering. If it had not
| |
| been for her attitude at their last meeting and the manner in
| |
| which she had broken that last meeting up, he would have said that
| |
| her look seemed somehow to strike a note of appeal. There was
| |
| something soft and repentant about her. She suggested, it seemed
| |
| to Mr Pickering, the prodigal daughter revisiting the old
| |
| homestead.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley!'
| |
| | |
| She smiled a faint smile, a wistful, deprecating smile. She was
| |
| looking lovelier than ever. Her face glowed with a wonderful
| |
| colour and her eyes were very bright. Mr Pickering met her gaze,
| |
| and strange things began to happen to his mind, that mind which a
| |
| moment before had thought so clearly and established so definite a
| |
| point of view.
| |
| | |
| What a gelatine-backboned thing is man, who prides himself on his
| |
| clear reason and becomes as wet blotting-paper at one glance from
| |
| bright eyes! A moment before Mr Pickering had thought out the
| |
| whole subject of woman and marriage in a few bold flashes of his
| |
| capable brain, and thanked Providence that he was not as those men
| |
| who take unto themselves wives to their undoing. Now in an instant
| |
| he had lost that iron outlook. Reason was temporarily out of
| |
| business. He was slipping.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley!'
| |
| | |
| For a space Subconscious Self thrust itself forward.
| |
| | |
| 'Look out! Be careful!' it warned.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering ignored it. He was watching, fascinated, the glow on
| |
| Claire's face, her shining eyes.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley, I want to speak to you.'
| |
| | |
| 'Tell her you can only be seen by appointment! Escape! Bolt!'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering did not bolt. Claire came towards him, still smiling
| |
| that pathetic smile. A thrill permeated Mr Pickering's entire one
| |
| hundred and ninety-seven pounds, trickling down his spine like hot
| |
| water and coming out at the soles of his feet. He had forgotten
| |
| now that he had ever sneered at marriage. It seemed to him now
| |
| that there was nothing in life to be compared with that beatific
| |
| state, and that bachelors were mere wild asses of the desert.
| |
| | |
| Claire came and sat down on the arm of his chair. He moved
| |
| convulsively, but he stayed where he was.
| |
| | |
| 'Fool!' said Subconscious Self.
| |
| | |
| Claire took hold of his hand and patted it. He quivered, but
| |
| remained.
| |
| | |
| 'Ass!' hissed Subconscious Self.
| |
| | |
| Claire stopped patting his hand and began to stroke it. Mr
| |
| Pickering breathed heavily.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley, dear,' said Claire, softly, 'I've been an awful fool, and
| |
| I'm dreadful, dreadful sorry, and you're going to be the nicest,
| |
| kindest, sweetest man on earth and tell me you've forgiven me.
| |
| Aren't you?'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering's lips moved silently. Claire kissed the thinning
| |
| summit of his head. There was a pause.
| |
| | |
| 'Where is it?' she asked.
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering started.
| |
| | |
| 'Eh?'
| |
| | |
| 'Where is it? Where did you put it? The ring, silly!'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering became aware that Subconscious Self was addressing
| |
| him. The occasion was tense, and Subconscious Self did not mince
| |
| its words.
| |
| | |
| 'You poor, maudlin, sentimental, doddering chunk of imbecility,'
| |
| it said; 'are there no limits to your insanity? After all I said
| |
| to you just now, are you deliberately going to start the old
| |
| idiocy all over again?'
| |
| | |
| 'She's so beautiful!' pleaded Mr Pickering. 'Look at her eyes!'
| |
| | |
| 'Ass! Don't you remember what I said about beauty?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, I know, but--'
| |
| | |
| 'She's as hard as nails.'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm sure you're wrong.'
| |
| | |
| 'I'm not wrong.'
| |
| | |
| 'But she loves me.'
| |
| | |
| 'Forget it!'
| |
| | |
| Claire jogged his shoulders.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley, dear, what are you sitting there dreaming for? Where did
| |
| you put the ring?'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering fumbled for it, located it, produced it. Claire
| |
| examined it fondly.
| |
| | |
| 'Did she throw it at him and nearly break his heart!' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'Bolt!' urged Subconscious Self. 'Fly! Go to Japan!'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering did not go to Japan. He was staring worshippingly at
| |
| Claire. With rapturous gaze he noted the grey glory of her eyes,
| |
| the delicate curve of her cheek, the grace of her neck. He had no
| |
| time to listen to pessimistic warnings from any Gloomy Gus of a
| |
| Subconscious Self. He was ashamed that he had ever even for a
| |
| moment allowed himself to be persuaded that Claire was not all
| |
| that was perfect. No more doubts and hesitations for Dudley
| |
| Pickering. He was under the influence.
| |
| | |
| 'There!' said Claire, and slipped the ring on her finger.
| |
| | |
| She kissed the top of his head once more.
| |
| | |
| 'So there we are!' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'There we are!' gurgled the infatuated Dudley.
| |
| | |
| 'Happy now?'
| |
| | |
| 'Ur-r!'
| |
| | |
| 'Then kiss me.'
| |
| | |
| Mr Pickering kissed her.
| |
| | |
| 'Dudley, darling,' said Claire, 'we're going to be awfully,
| |
| awfully happy, aren't we?'
| |
| | |
| 'You bet we are!' said Mr Pickering.
| |
| | |
| Subconscious Self said nothing, being beyond speech.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 21
| |
| | |
| | |
| For some minutes after Claire had left him Bill remained where he
| |
| was, motionless. He felt physically incapable of moving. All the
| |
| strength that was in him he was using to throw off the insidious
| |
| poison of her parting speech, and it became plainer to him with
| |
| each succeeding moment that he would have need of strength.
| |
| | |
| It is part of the general irony of things that in life's crises a
| |
| man's good qualities are often the ones that help him least, if
| |
| indeed they do not actually turn treacherously and fight against
| |
| him. It was so with Bill. Modesty, if one may trust to the verdict
| |
| of the mass of mankind, is a good quality. It sweetens the soul
| |
| and makes for a kindly understanding of one's fellows. But
| |
| arrogance would have served Bill better now. It was his fatal
| |
| habit of self-depreciation that was making Claire's words so
| |
| specious as he stood there trying to cast them from his mind. Who
| |
| was he, after all, that he should imagine that he had won on his
| |
| personal merits a girl like Elizabeth Boyd?
| |
| | |
| He had the not very common type of mind that perceives the merit
| |
| in others more readily than their faults, and in himself the
| |
| faults more readily than the merit. Time and the society of a
| |
| great number of men of different ranks and natures had rid him of
| |
| the outer symbol of this type of mind, which is shyness, but it
| |
| had left him still unconvinced that he amounted to anything very
| |
| much as an individual.
| |
| | |
| This was the thought that met him every time he tried to persuade
| |
| himself that what Claire had said was ridiculous, the mere parting
| |
| shaft of an angry woman. With this thought as an ally her words
| |
| took on a plausibility hard to withstand. Plausible! That was the
| |
| devil of it. By no effort could he blind himself to the fact that
| |
| they were that. In the light of Claire's insinuations what had
| |
| seemed coincidences took on a more sinister character. It had
| |
| seemed to him an odd and lucky chance that Nutty Boyd should have
| |
| come to the rooms which he was occupying that night, seeking a
| |
| companion. Had it been chance? Even at the time he had thought it
| |
| strange that, on the strength of a single evening spent together,
| |
| Nutty should have invited a total stranger to make an indefinite
| |
| visit to his home. Had there been design behind the invitation?
| |
| | |
| Bill began to walk slowly to the house. He felt tired and unhappy.
| |
| He meant to go to bed and try to sleep away these wretched doubts
| |
| and questionings. Daylight would bring relief.
| |
| | |
| As he reached the open front door he caught the sound of voices,
| |
| and paused for an instant, almost unconsciously, to place them.
| |
| They came from one of the rooms upstairs. It was Nutty speaking
| |
| now, and it was impossible for Bill not to hear what he said, for
| |
| Nutty had abandoned his customary drawl in favour of a high,
| |
| excited tone.
| |
| | |
| 'Of course, you hate him and all that,' said Nutty; 'but after all
| |
| you will be getting five million dollars that ought to have come
| |
| to--'
| |
| | |
| That was all that Bill heard, for he had stumbled across the hall
| |
| and was in his room, sitting on the bed and staring into the
| |
| darkness with burning eyes. The door banged behind him.
| |
| | |
| So it was true!
| |
| | |
| There came a knock at the door. It was repeated. The handle
| |
| turned.
| |
| | |
| 'Is that you, Bill?'
| |
| | |
| It was Elizabeth's voice. He could just see her, framed in the
| |
| doorway.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill!'
| |
| | |
| His throat was dry. He swallowed, and found that he could speak.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes?'
| |
| | |
| 'Did you just come in?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'Then--you heard?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| There was a long silence. Then the door closed gently and he heard
| |
| her go upstairs.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 22
| |
| | |
| | |
| When Bill woke next morning it was ten o'clock; and his first
| |
| emotion, on a day that was to be crowded with emotions of various
| |
| kinds, was one of shame. The desire to do the fitting thing is
| |
| innate in man, and it struck Bill, as he hurried through his
| |
| toilet, that he must be a shallow, coarse-fibred sort of person,
| |
| lacking in the finer feelings, not to have passed a sleepless
| |
| night. There was something revolting in the thought that, in
| |
| circumstances which would have made sleep an impossibility for
| |
| most men, he had slept like a log. He did not do himself the
| |
| justice to recollect that he had had a singularly strenuous day,
| |
| and that it is Nature's business, which she performs quietly and
| |
| unromantically, to send sleep to tired men regardless of their
| |
| private feelings; and it was in a mood of dissatisfaction with the
| |
| quality of his soul that he left his room.
| |
| | |
| He had a general feeling that he was not much of a chap and that
| |
| when he died--which he trusted would be shortly--the world would
| |
| be well rid of him. He felt humble and depressed and hopeless.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth met him in the passage. At the age of eleven or
| |
| thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle
| |
| difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to
| |
| achieve somewhere in the later seventies. Except for a pallor
| |
| strange to her face and a drawn look about her eyes, there was
| |
| nothing to show that all was not for the best with Elizabeth in a
| |
| best of all possible worlds. If she did not look jaunty, she at
| |
| least looked composed. She greeted Bill with a smile.
| |
| | |
| 'I didn't wake you. I thought I would let you sleep on.'
| |
| | |
| The words had the effect of lending an additional clarity and
| |
| firmness of outline to the picture of himself which Bill had
| |
| already drawn in his mind--of a soulless creature sunk in hoggish
| |
| slumber.
| |
| | |
| 'We've had breakfast. Nutty has gone for a walk. Isn't he
| |
| wonderful nowadays? I've kept your breakfast warm for you.'
| |
| | |
| Bill protested. He might be capable of sleep, but he was not going
| |
| to sink to food.
| |
| | |
| 'Not for me, thanks,' he said, hollowly.
| |
| | |
| 'Come along.'
| |
| | |
| 'Honestly--'
| |
| | |
| 'Come along.'
| |
| | |
| He followed her meekly. How grimly practical women were! They let
| |
| nothing interfere with the essentials of life. It seemed all
| |
| wrong. Nevertheless, he breakfasted well and gratefully, Elizabeth
| |
| watching him in silence across the table.
| |
| | |
| 'Finished?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, thanks.'
| |
| | |
| She hesitated for a moment.
| |
| | |
| 'Well, Bill, I've slept on it. Things are in rather a muddle,
| |
| aren't they? I think I had better begin by explaining what led up
| |
| to those words you heard Nutty say last night. Won't you smoke?'
| |
| | |
| 'No, thanks.'
| |
| | |
| 'You'll feel better if you do.'
| |
| | |
| 'I couldn't.'
| |
| | |
| A bee had flown in through the open window. She followed it with
| |
| her eye as it blundered about the room. It flew out again into the
| |
| sunshine. She turned to Bill again.
| |
| | |
| 'They were supposed to be words of consolation,' she said.
| |
| | |
| Bill said nothing.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty, you see, has his own peculiar way of looking at things,
| |
| and it didn't occur to him that I might have promised to marry you
| |
| because I loved you. He took it for granted that I had done it to
| |
| save the Boyd home. He has been very anxious from the first that I
| |
| should marry you. I think that that must have been why he asked
| |
| you down here. He found out in New York, you know, who you were.
| |
| Someone you met at supper recognized you, and told Nutty. So, as
| |
| far as that is concerned, the girl you were speaking to at the
| |
| gate last night was right.'
| |
| | |
| He started. 'You heard her?'
| |
| | |
| 'I couldn't help it. She meant me to hear. She was raising her
| |
| voice quite unnecessarily if she did not mean to include me in the
| |
| conversation. I had gone in to find Nutty, and he was out, and I
| |
| was coming back to you. That's how I was there. You didn't see me
| |
| because your back was turned. She saw me.'
| |
| | |
| Bill met her eyes. 'You don't ask who she was?'
| |
| | |
| 'It doesn't matter who she was. It's what she said that matters.
| |
| She said that we knew you were Lord Dawlish.'
| |
| | |
| 'Did you know?'
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty told me two or three days ago.' Her voice shook and a flush
| |
| came into her face. 'You probably won't believe it, but the news
| |
| made absolutely no difference to me one way or the other. I had
| |
| always imagined Lord Dawlish as a treacherous, adventurer sort of
| |
| man, because I couldn't see how a man who was not like that could
| |
| have persuaded Uncle Ira to leave him his money. But after knowing
| |
| you even for this short time, I knew you were quite the opposite of
| |
| that, and I remembered that the first thing you had done on coming
| |
| into the money had been to offer me half, so the information that
| |
| you were the Lord Dawlish whom I had been hating did not affect me.
| |
| And the fact that you were rich and I was poor did not affect me
| |
| either. I loved you, and that was all I cared about. If all this had
| |
| not happened everything would have been all right. But, you see,
| |
| nine-tenths of what that girl said to you was so perfectly true that
| |
| it is humanly impossible for you not to believe the other tenth,
| |
| which wasn't. And then, to clinch it, you hear Nutty consoling me.
| |
| That brings me back to Nutty.'
| |
| | |
| 'I--'
| |
| | |
| 'Let me tell you about Nutty first. I said that he had always been
| |
| anxious that I should marry you. Something happened last night to
| |
| increase his anxiety. I have often wondered how he managed to get
| |
| enough money to enable him to spend three days in New York, and
| |
| last night he told me. He came in just after I had got back to the
| |
| house after leaving you and that girl, and he was very scared. It
| |
| seems that when the letter from the London lawyer came telling him
| |
| that he had been left a hundred dollars, he got the idea of
| |
| raising money on the strength of it. You know Nutty by this time,
| |
| so you won't be surprised at the way he went about it. He borrowed
| |
| a hundred dollars from the man at the chemist's on the security of
| |
| that letter, and then--I suppose it seemed so easy that it struck
| |
| him as a pity to let the opportunity slip--he did the same thing
| |
| with four other tradesmen. Nutty's so odd that I don't know even
| |
| now whether it ever occurred to him that he was obtaining money
| |
| under false pretences; but the poor tradesmen hadn't any doubt
| |
| about it at all. They compared notes and found what had happened,
| |
| and last night, while we were in the woods, one of them came here
| |
| and called Nutty a good many names and threatened him with
| |
| imprisonment.
| |
| | |
| 'You can imagine how delighted Nutty was when I came in and told
| |
| him that I was engaged to you. In his curious way, he took it for
| |
| granted that I had heard about his financial operations, and was
| |
| doing it entirely for his sake, to get him out of his fix. And
| |
| while I was trying to put him right on that point he began to
| |
| console me. You see, Nutty looks on you as the enemy of the
| |
| family, and it didn't strike him that it was possible that I
| |
| didn't look on you in that light too. So, after being delighted
| |
| for a while, he very sweetly thought that he ought to cheer me up
| |
| and point out some of the compensations of marriage with you.
| |
| And--Well, that was what you heard. There you have the full
| |
| explanation. You can't possibly believe it.'
| |
| | |
| She broke off and began to drum her fingers on the table. And as
| |
| she did so there came to Bill a sudden relief from all the doubts
| |
| and black thoughts that had tortured him. Elizabeth was straight.
| |
| Whatever appearances might seem to suggest, nothing could convince
| |
| him that she was playing an underhand game. It was as if something
| |
| evil had gone out of him. He felt lighter, cleaner. He could
| |
| breathe.
| |
| | |
| 'I do believe it,' he said. 'I believe every word you say.'
| |
| | |
| She shook her head.
| |
| | |
| 'You can't in the face of the evidence.'
| |
| | |
| 'I believe it.'
| |
| | |
| 'No. You may persuade yourself for the moment that you do, but
| |
| after a while you will have to go by the evidence. You won't be
| |
| able to help yourself. You haven't realized what a crushing thing
| |
| evidence is. You have to go by it against your will. You see,
| |
| evidence is the only guide. You don't know that I am speaking the
| |
| truth; you just feel it. You're trusting your heart and not your
| |
| head. The head must win in the end. You might go on believing for
| |
| a time, but sooner or later you would be bound to begin to doubt
| |
| and worry and torment yourself. You couldn't fight against the
| |
| evidence, when once your instinct--or whatever it is that tells
| |
| you that I am speaking the truth--had begun to weaken. And it
| |
| would weaken. Think what it would have to be fighting all the
| |
| time. Think of the case your intelligence would be making out, day
| |
| after day, till it crushed you. It's impossible that you could
| |
| keep yourself from docketing the evidence and arranging it and
| |
| absorbing it. Think! Consider what you know are actual facts!
| |
| Nutty invites you down here, knowing that you are Lord Dawlish.
| |
| All you know about my attitude towards Lord Dawlish is what I told
| |
| you on the first morning of your visit. I told you I hated him.
| |
| Yet, knowing you are Lord Dawlish, I become engaged to you.
| |
| Directly afterwards you hear Nutty consoling me as if I were
| |
| marrying you against my will. Isn't that an absolutely fair
| |
| statement of what has happened? How could you go on believing me
| |
| with all that against you?'
| |
| | |
| 'I know you're straight. You couldn't do anything crooked.'
| |
| | |
| 'The evidence proves that I did.'
| |
| | |
| 'I don't care.'
| |
| | |
| 'Not now.'
| |
| | |
| 'Never.'
| |
| | |
| She shook her head.
| |
| | |
| 'It's dear of you, Bill, but you're promising an impossibility.
| |
| And just because it's impossible, and because I love you too much
| |
| to face what would be bound to happen, I'm going to send you
| |
| away.'
| |
| | |
| 'Send me away!'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes. It's going to hurt. You don't know how it's going to hurt,
| |
| Bill; but it's the only thing to do. I love you too much to live
| |
| with you for the rest of my life wondering all the time whether
| |
| you still believed or whether the weight of the evidence had
| |
| crushed out that tiny little spark of intuition which is all that
| |
| makes you believe me now. You could never know the truth for
| |
| certain, you see--that's the horror of it; and sometimes you would
| |
| be able to make yourself believe, but more often, in spite of all
| |
| you could do, you would doubt. It would poison both our lives.
| |
| Little things would happen, insignificant in themselves, which
| |
| would become tremendously important just because they added a
| |
| little bit more to the doubt which you would never be able to get
| |
| rid of.
| |
| | |
| 'When we had quarrels--which we should, as we are both human--they
| |
| wouldn't be over and done with in an hour. They would stick in
| |
| your mind and rankle, because, you see, they might be proofs that
| |
| I didn't really love you. And then when I seemed happy with you,
| |
| you would wonder if I was acting. I know all this sounds morbid
| |
| and exaggerated, but it isn't. What have you got to go on, as
| |
| regards me? What do you really know of me? If something like this
| |
| had happened after we had been married half a dozen years and
| |
| really knew each other, we could laugh at it. But we are
| |
| strangers. We came together and loved each other because there was
| |
| something in each of us which attracted the other. We took that
| |
| little something as a foundation and built on it. But what has
| |
| happened has knocked away our poor little foundation. That's all.
| |
| We don't really know anything at all about each other for certain.
| |
| It's just guesswork.'
| |
| | |
| She broke off and looked at the clock.
| |
| | |
| 'I had better be packing if you're to catch the train.'
| |
| | |
| He gave a rueful laugh.
| |
| | |
| 'You're throwing me out!'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, I am. I want you to go while I am strong enough to let you
| |
| go.'
| |
| | |
| 'If you really feel like that, why send me away?'
| |
| | |
| 'How do you know I really feel like that? How do you know that I
| |
| am not pretending to feel like that as part of a carefully-prepared
| |
| plan?'
| |
| | |
| He made an impatient gesture.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, I know,' she said. 'You think I am going out of my way to
| |
| manufacture unnecessary complications. I'm not; I'm simply looking
| |
| ahead. If I were trying to trap you for the sake of your money,
| |
| could I play a stronger card than by seeming anxious to give you
| |
| up? If I were to give in now, sooner or later that suspicion would
| |
| come to you. You would drive it away. You might drive it away a
| |
| hundred times. But you couldn't kill it. In the end it would beat
| |
| you.'
| |
| | |
| He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
| |
| | |
| 'I can't argue.'
| |
| | |
| 'Nor can I. I can only put very badly things which I know are
| |
| true. Come and pack.'
| |
| | |
| 'I'll do it. Don't you bother.'
| |
| | |
| 'Nonsense! No man knows how to pack properly.'
| |
| | |
| He followed her to his room, pulled out his suitcase, the symbol
| |
| of the end of all things, watched her as she flitted about, the
| |
| sun shining on her hair as she passed and repassed the window. She
| |
| was picking things up, folding them, packing them. Bill looked on
| |
| with an aching sense of desolation. It was all so friendly, so
| |
| intimate, so exactly as it would have been if she were his wife.
| |
| It seemed to him needlessly cruel that she should be playing on
| |
| this note of domesticity at the moment when she was barring for
| |
| ever the door between him and happiness. He rebelled helplessly
| |
| against the attitude she had taken. He had not thought it all out,
| |
| as she had done. It was folly, insanity, ruining their two lives
| |
| like this for a scruple.
| |
| | |
| Once again he was to encounter that practical strain in the
| |
| feminine mind which jars upon a man in trouble. She was holding
| |
| something in her hand and looking at it with concern.
| |
| | |
| 'Why didn't you tell me?' she said. 'Your socks are in an awful
| |
| state, poor boy!'
| |
| | |
| He had the feeling of having been hit by something. A man has not
| |
| a woman's gift of being able to transfer his mind at will from
| |
| sorrow to socks.
| |
| | |
| 'Like sieves!' She sighed. A troubled frown wrinkled her forehead.
| |
| 'Men are so helpless! Oh, dear, I'm sure you don't pay any
| |
| attention to anything important. I don't believe you ever bother
| |
| your head about keeping warm in winter and not getting your feet
| |
| wet. And now I shan't be able to look after you!'
| |
| | |
| Bill's voice broke. He felt himself trembling.
| |
| | |
| 'Elizabeth!'
| |
| | |
| She was kneeling on the floor, her head bent over the suitcase.
| |
| She looked up and met his eyes.
| |
| | |
| 'It's no use, Bill, dear. I must. It's the only way.'
| |
| | |
| The sense of the nearness of the end broke down the numbness
| |
| which held him.
| |
| | |
| 'Elizabeth! It's so utterly absurd. It's just--chucking everything
| |
| away!'
| |
| | |
| She was silent for a moment.
| |
| | |
| 'Bill, dear, I haven't said anything about it before but don't you
| |
| see that there's my side to be considered too? I only showed you
| |
| that you could never possibly know that I loved you. How am I to
| |
| know that you really love me?'
| |
| | |
| He had moved a step towards her. He drew back, chilled.
| |
| | |
| 'I can't do more than tell you,' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'You can't. And there you have put in two words just what I've
| |
| been trying to make clear all the time. Don't you see that that's
| |
| the terrible thing about life, that nobody can do more than tell
| |
| anybody anything? Life's nothing but words, words, words; and how
| |
| are we to know when words are true? How am I to know that you
| |
| didn't ask me to marry you out of sheer pity and an exaggerated
| |
| sense of justice?'
| |
| | |
| He stared at her.
| |
| | |
| 'That,' he said, 'is absolutely ridiculous!'
| |
| | |
| 'Why? Look at it as I should look at it later on, when whatever it
| |
| is inside me that tell me it's ridiculous now had died. Just at
| |
| this moment, while we're talking here, there's something stronger
| |
| than reason which tells me you really do love me. But can't you
| |
| understand that that won't last? It's like a candle burning on a
| |
| rock with the tide coming up all round it. It's burning brightly
| |
| enough now, and we can see the truth by the light of it. But the
| |
| tide will put it out, and then we shall have nothing left to see
| |
| by. There's a great black sea of suspicion and doubt creeping up
| |
| to swamp the little spark of intuition inside us.
| |
| | |
| 'I will tell you what would happen to me if I didn't send you
| |
| away. Remember I heard what that girl was saying last night.
| |
| Remember that you hated the thought of depriving me of Uncle Ira's
| |
| money so much that your first act was to try to get me to accept
| |
| half of it. The quixotic thing is the first that it occurs to you
| |
| to do, because you're like that, because you're the straightest,
| |
| whitest man I've ever known or shall know. Could anything be more
| |
| likely, looking at it as I should later on, than that you should
| |
| have hit on the idea of marrying me as the only way of undoing the
| |
| wrong you thought you had done me? I've been foolish about
| |
| obligations all my life. I've a sort of morbid pride that hates
| |
| the thought of owing anything to anybody, of getting anything that
| |
| I have not earned. By and by, if I were to marry you, a little
| |
| rotten speck of doubt would begin to eat its way farther and
| |
| farther into me. It would be the same with you. We should react on
| |
| each other. We should be watching each other, testing each other,
| |
| trying each other out all the time. It would be horrible,
| |
| horrible!'
| |
| | |
| He started to speak; then, borne down by the hopelessness of it,
| |
| stopped. Elizabeth stood up. They did not look at each other. He
| |
| strapped the suitcase and picked it up. The end of all things was
| |
| at hand.
| |
| | |
| 'Better to end it all cleanly, Bill,' she said, in a low voice.
| |
| 'It will hurt less.'
| |
| | |
| He did not speak.
| |
| | |
| 'I'll come down to the gate with you.'
| |
| | |
| They walked in silence down the drive. The air was heavy with
| |
| contentment. He hummed a tune.
| |
| | |
| 'Good-bye, Bill, dear.'
| |
| | |
| He took her hand dully.
| |
| | |
| 'Good-bye,' he said.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth stood at the gate, watching. He swung down the road with
| |
| long strides. At the bend he turned and for a moment stood there,
| |
| as if waiting for her to make some sign. Then he fell into his
| |
| stride again and was gone. Elizabeth leaned on the gate. Her face
| |
| was twisted, and she clutched the warm wood as if it gave her
| |
| strength.
| |
| | |
| The grounds were very empty. The spirit of loneliness brooded on
| |
| them. Elizabeth walked slowly back to the house. Nutty was coming
| |
| towards her from the orchard.
| |
| | |
| 'Halloa!' said Nutty.
| |
| | |
| He was cheerful and debonair. His little eyes were alight with
| |
| contentment. He hummed a tune.
| |
| | |
| 'Where's Dawlish?' he said.
| |
| | |
| 'He has gone.'
| |
| | |
| Nutty's tune failed in the middle of a bar. Something in his
| |
| sister's voice startled him. The glow of contentment gave way to a
| |
| look of alarm.
| |
| | |
| 'Gone? How do you mean--gone? You don't mean--gone?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'Gone away?'
| |
| | |
| 'Gone away.'
| |
| | |
| They had reached the house before he spoke again.
| |
| | |
| 'You don't mean--gone away?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'Do you mean--gone away?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'You aren't going to marry him?'
| |
| | |
| 'No.'
| |
| | |
| The world stood still. The noise of the crickets and all the
| |
| little sounds of summer smote on Nutty's ear in one discordant
| |
| shriek.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, gosh!' he exclaimed, faintly, and collapsed on the front
| |
| steps like a jelly-fish.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 23
| |
| | |
| | |
| The spectacle of Nutty in his anguish did not touch Elizabeth.
| |
| Normally a kind-hearted girl, she was not in the least sorry for
| |
| him. She had even taken a bitter pleasure and found a momentary
| |
| relief in loosing the thunderbolt which had smitten him down. Even
| |
| if it has to manufacture it, misery loves company. She watched
| |
| Nutty with a cold and uninterested eye as he opened his mouth
| |
| feebly, shut it again and reopened it; and then when it became
| |
| apparent that these manoeuvres were about to result in speech, she
| |
| left him and walked quickly down the drive again. She had the
| |
| feeling that if Nutty were to begin to ask her questions--and he
| |
| had the aspect of one who is about to ask a thousand--she would
| |
| break down. She wanted solitude and movement, so she left Nutty
| |
| sitting and started for the gate. Presently she would go and do
| |
| things among the beehives; and after that, if that brought no
| |
| solace, she would go in and turn the house upside down and get
| |
| dusty and tired. Anything to occupy herself.
| |
| | |
| Reaction had set in. She had known it would come, and had made
| |
| ready to fight against it, but she had underestimated the strength
| |
| of the enemy. It seemed to her, in those first minutes, that she
| |
| had done a mad thing; that all those arguments which she had used
| |
| were far-fetched and ridiculous. It was useless to tell herself
| |
| that she had thought the whole thing out clearly and had taken the
| |
| only course that could have been taken. With Bill's departure the
| |
| power to face the situation steadily had left her. All she could
| |
| think of was that she loved him and that she had sent him away.
| |
| | |
| Why had he listened to her? Why hadn't he taken her in his arms
| |
| and told her not to be a little fool? Why did men ever listen to
| |
| women? If he had really loved her, would he have gone away? She
| |
| tormented herself with this last question for a while. She was
| |
| still tormenting herself with it when a melancholy voice broke in
| |
| on her meditations.
| |
| | |
| 'I can't believe it,' said the voice. She turned, to perceive
| |
| Nutty drooping beside her. 'I simply can't believe it!'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth clenched her teeth. She was not in the mood for Nutty.
| |
| | |
| 'It will gradually sink in,' she said, unsympathetically.
| |
| | |
| 'Did you really send him away?'
| |
| | |
| 'I did.'
| |
| | |
| 'But what on earth for?'
| |
| | |
| 'Because it was the only thing to do.'
| |
| | |
| A light shone on Nutty's darkness.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, I say, did he hear what I said last night?'
| |
| | |
| 'He did hear what you said last night.'
| |
| | |
| Nutty's mouth opened slowly.
| |
| | |
| 'Oh!'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth said nothing.
| |
| | |
| 'But you could have explained that.'
| |
| | |
| 'How?'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, I don't know--somehow or other.' He appeared to think. 'But
| |
| you said it was you who sent him away.'
| |
| | |
| 'I did.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, this beats me!'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth's strained patience reached the limit.
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty, please!' she said. 'Don't let's talk about it. It's all
| |
| over now.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, but--'
| |
| | |
| 'Nutty, don't! I can't stand it. I'm raw all over. I'm hating
| |
| myself. Please don't make it worse.'
| |
| | |
| Nutty looked at her face, and decided not to make it worse. But
| |
| his anguish demanded some outlet. He found it in soliloquy.
| |
| | |
| 'Just like this for the rest of our lives!' he murmured, taking in
| |
| the farm-grounds and all that in them stood with one glassy stare
| |
| of misery. 'Nothing but ghastly bees and sweeping floors and
| |
| fetching water till we die of old age! That is, if those blighters
| |
| don't put me in jail for getting that money out of them. How was I
| |
| to know that it was obtaining money under false pretences? It
| |
| simply seemed to me a darned good way of collecting a few dollars.
| |
| I don't see how I'm ever going to pay them back, so I suppose it's
| |
| prison for me all right.'
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth had been trying not to listen to him, but without
| |
| success.
| |
| | |
| 'I'll look after that, Nutty. I have a little money saved up,
| |
| enough to pay off what you owe. I was saving it for something
| |
| else, but never mind.'
| |
| | |
| 'Awfully good of you,' said Nutty, but his voice sounded almost
| |
| disappointed. He was in the frame of mind which resents alleviation
| |
| of its gloom. He would have preferred at that moment to be allowed to
| |
| round off the picture of the future which he was constructing in his
| |
| mind with a reel or two showing himself brooding in a cell. After
| |
| all, what difference did it make to a man of spacious tastes whether
| |
| he languished for the rest of his life in a jail or on a farm in the
| |
| country? Jail, indeed, was almost preferable. You knew where you were
| |
| when you were in prison. They didn't spring things on you. Whereas
| |
| life on a farm was nothing but one long succession of things sprung
| |
| on you. Now that Lord Dawlish had gone, he supposed that Elizabeth
| |
| would make him help her with the bees again. At this thought he
| |
| groaned aloud. When he contemplated a lifetime at Flack's, a lifetime
| |
| of bee-dodging and carpet-beating and water-lugging, and reflected
| |
| that, but for a few innocent words--words spoken, mark you, in a pure
| |
| spirit of kindliness and brotherly love with the object of putting a
| |
| bit of optimistic pep into sister!--he might have been in a position
| |
| to touch a millionaire brother-in-law for the needful whenever he
| |
| felt disposed, the iron entered into Nutty's soul. A rotten, rotten
| |
| world!
| |
| | |
| Nutty had the sort of mind that moves in circles. After contemplating
| |
| for a time the rottenness of the world, he came back to the point
| |
| from which he had started.
| |
| | |
| 'I can't understand it,' he said. 'I can't believe it.'
| |
| | |
| He kicked a small pebble that lay convenient to his foot.
| |
| | |
| 'You say you sent him away. If he had legged it on his own
| |
| account, because of what he heard me say, I could understand that.
| |
| But why should you--'
| |
| | |
| It became evident to Elizabeth that, until some explanation of
| |
| this point was offered to him, Nutty would drift about in her
| |
| vicinity, moaning and shuffling his feet indefinitely.
| |
| | |
| 'I sent him away because I loved him,' she said, 'and because,
| |
| after what had happened, he could never be certain that I loved
| |
| him. Can you understand that?'
| |
| | |
| 'No,' said Nutty, frankly, 'I'm darned if I can! It sounds loony
| |
| to me.'
| |
| | |
| 'You can't see that it wouldn't have been fair to him to marry
| |
| him?'
| |
| | |
| 'No.'
| |
| | |
| The doubts which she was trying to crush increased the violence of
| |
| their attack. It was not that she respected Nutty's judgement in
| |
| itself. It was that his view of what she had done chimed in so
| |
| neatly with her own. She longed for someone to tell her that she
| |
| had done right: someone who would bring back that feeling of
| |
| certainty which she had had during her talk with Bill. And in
| |
| these circumstances Nutty's attitude had more weight than on its
| |
| merits it deserved. She wished she could cry. She had a feeling
| |
| that if she once did that the right outlook would come back to
| |
| her.
| |
| | |
| Nutty, meanwhile, had found another pebble and was kicking it
| |
| sombrely. He was beginning to perceive something of the intricate
| |
| and unfathomable workings of the feminine mind. He had always
| |
| looked on Elizabeth as an ordinary good fellow, a girl whose mind
| |
| worked in a more or less understandable way. She was not one of
| |
| those hysterical women you read about in the works of the
| |
| novelists; she was just a regular girl. And yet now, at the one
| |
| moment of her life when everything depended on her acting
| |
| sensibly, she had behaved in a way that made his head swim when he
| |
| thought of it. What it amounted to was that you simply couldn't
| |
| understand women.
| |
| | |
| Into this tangle of silent sorrow came a hooting automobile. It
| |
| drew up at the gate and a man jumped out.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| 24
| |
| | |
| | |
| The man who had alighted from the automobile was young and
| |
| cheerful. He wore a flannel suit of a gay blue and a straw hat
| |
| with a coloured ribbon, and he looked upon a world which, his
| |
| manner seemed to indicate, had been constructed according to his
| |
| own specifications through a single eyeglass. When he spoke it
| |
| became plain that his nationality was English.
| |
| | |
| Nutty regarded his beaming countenance with a lowering hostility.
| |
| The indecency of anyone being cheerful at such a time struck him
| |
| forcibly. He would have liked mankind to have preserved till
| |
| further notice a hushed gloom. He glared at the young man.
| |
| | |
| Elizabeth, such was her absorption in her thoughts, was not even
| |
| aware of his presence till he spoke to her.
| |
| | |
| 'I beg your pardon, is this Flack's?'
| |
| | |
| She looked up and met that sunny eyeglass.
| |
| | |
| 'This is Flack's,' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'Thank you,' said the young man.
| |
| | |
| The automobile, a stout, silent man at the helm, throbbed in the
| |
| nervous way automobiles have when standing still, suggesting
| |
| somehow that it were best to talk quick, as they can give you only
| |
| a few minutes before dashing on to keep some other appointment.
| |
| Either this or a natural volatility lent a breezy rapidity to the
| |
| visitor's speech. He looked at Elizabeth across the gate, which it
| |
| had not occurred to her to open, as if she were just what he had
| |
| expected her to be and a delight to his eyes, and burst into
| |
| speech.
| |
| | |
| 'My name's Nichols--J. Nichols. I expect you remember getting a
| |
| letter from me a week or two ago?'
| |
| | |
| The name struck Elizabeth as familiar. But he had gone on to
| |
| identify himself before she could place it in her mind.
| |
| | |
| 'Lawyer, don't you know. Wrote you a letter telling you that your
| |
| Uncle Ira Nutcombe had left all his money to Lord Dawlish.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, yes,' said Elizabeth, and was about to invite him to pass the
| |
| barrier, when he began to speak again.
| |
| | |
| 'You know, I want to explain that letter. Wrote it on a sudden
| |
| impulse, don't you know. The more I have to do with the law, the
| |
| more it seems to hit me that a lawyer oughtn't to act on impulse.
| |
| At the moment, you see, it seemed to me the decent thing to do--put
| |
| you out of your misery, and so forth--stop your entertaining
| |
| hopes never to be realized, what? and all that sort of thing. You
| |
| see, it was like this: Bill--I mean Lord Dawlish--is a great pal
| |
| of mine, a dear old chap. You ought to know him. Well, being in
| |
| the know, you understand, through your uncle having deposited the
| |
| will with us, I gave Bill the tip directly I heard of Mr
| |
| Nutcombe's death. I sent him a telephone message to come to the
| |
| office, and I said: "Bill, old man, this old buster"--I beg your
| |
| pardon, this old gentleman--"has left you all his money." Quite
| |
| informal, don't you know, and at the same time, in the same
| |
| informal spirit, I wrote you the letter.' He dammed the torrent
| |
| for a moment. 'By the way, of course you are Miss Elizabeth Boyd,
| |
| what?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| The young man seemed relieved.
| |
| | |
| 'I'm glad of that,' he said. 'Funny if you hadn't been. You'd have
| |
| wondered what on earth I was talking about.'
| |
| | |
| In spite of her identity, this was precisely what Elizabeth was
| |
| doing. Her mind, still under a cloud, had been unable to
| |
| understand one word of Mr Nichols's discourse. Judging from his
| |
| appearance, which was that of a bewildered hosepipe or a snake
| |
| whose brain is being momentarily overtaxed, Nutty was in the same
| |
| difficulty. He had joined the group at the gate, abandoning the
| |
| pebble which he had been kicking in the background, and was now
| |
| leaning on the top bar, a picture of silent perplexity.
| |
| | |
| 'You see, the trouble is,' resumed the young man, 'my governor,
| |
| who's the head of the firm, is all for doing things according to
| |
| precedent. He loves red tape--wears it wrapped round him in winter
| |
| instead of flannel. He's all for doing things in the proper legal
| |
| way, which, as I dare say you know, takes months. And, meanwhile,
| |
| everybody's wondering what's happening and who has got the money,
| |
| and so on and so forth. I thought I would skip all that and let
| |
| you know right away exactly where you stood, so I wrote you that
| |
| letter. I don't think my temperament's quite suited to the law,
| |
| don't you know, and if he ever hears that I wrote you that letter
| |
| I have a notion that the governor will think so too. So I came
| |
| over here to ask you, if you don't mind, not to mention it when
| |
| you get in touch with the governor. I frankly admit that that
| |
| letter, written with the best intentions, was a bloomer.'
| |
| | |
| With which manly admission the young man paused, and allowed the
| |
| rays of his eyeglass to play upon Elizabeth in silence. Elizabeth
| |
| tried to piece together what little she understood of his
| |
| monologue.
| |
| | |
| 'You mean that you want me not to tell your father that I got a
| |
| letter from you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Exactly that. And thanks very much for not saying "without
| |
| prejudice," or anything of that kind. The governor would have.'
| |
| | |
| 'But I don't understand. Why should you think that I should ever
| |
| mention anything to your father?'
| |
| | |
| 'Might slip out, you know, without your meaning it.'
| |
| | |
| 'But when? I shall never meet your father.'
| |
| | |
| 'You might quite easily. He might want to see you about the
| |
| money.'
| |
| | |
| 'The money?'
| |
| | |
| The eyebrow above the eyeglass rose, surprised.
| |
| | |
| 'Haven't you had a letter from the governor?'
| |
| | |
| 'No.'
| |
| | |
| The young man made a despairing gesture.
| |
| | |
| 'I took it for granted that it had come on the same boat that I
| |
| did. There you have the governor's methods! Couldn't want a better
| |
| example. I suppose some legal formality or other has cropped up
| |
| and laid him a stymie, and he's waiting to get round it. You
| |
| really mean he hasn't written?
| |
| | |
| 'Why, dash it,' said the young man, as one to whom all is
| |
| revealed, 'then you can't have understood a word of what I've been
| |
| saying!'
| |
| | |
| For the first time Elizabeth found herself capable of smiling. She
| |
| liked this incoherent young man.
| |
| | |
| 'I haven't,' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'You don't know about the will?'
| |
| | |
| 'Only what you told me in your letter.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, I'm hanged! Tell me--I hadn't the honour of knowing him
| |
| personally--was the late Mr Nutcombe's whole life as eccentric as
| |
| his will-making? It seems to me--'
| |
| | |
| Nutty spoke.
| |
| | |
| 'Uncle Ira's middle name,' he said, 'was Bloomingdale. That,' he
| |
| proceeded, bitterly, 'is the frightful injustice of it all. I had
| |
| to suffer from it right along, and all I get, when it comes to a
| |
| finish, is a miserable hundred dollars. Uncle Ira insisted on
| |
| father and mother calling me Nutcombe; and whenever he got a new
| |
| craze I was always the one he worked it off on. You remember the
| |
| time he became a vegetarian, Elizabeth? Gosh!' Nutty brooded
| |
| coldly on the past. 'You remember the time he had it all worked
| |
| out that the end of the world was to come at five in the morning
| |
| one February? Made me stop up all night with him, reading Marcus
| |
| Aurelius! And the steam-heat turned off at twelve-thirty! I could
| |
| tell you a dozen things just as bad as that. He always picked on
| |
| me. And now I've gone through it all he leaves me a hundred
| |
| dollars!'
| |
| | |
| Mr Nichols nodded sympathetically.
| |
| | |
| 'I should have imagined that he was rather like that. You know, of
| |
| course, why he made that will I wrote to you about, leaving all
| |
| his money to Bill Dawlish? Simply because Bill, who met him
| |
| golfing at a place in Cornwall in the off season, cured him of
| |
| slicing his approach-shots! I give you my word that was the only
| |
| reason. I'm sorry for old Bill, poor old chap. Such a good sort!'
| |
| | |
| 'He's all right,' said Nutty. 'But why you should be sorry for him
| |
| gets past me. A fellow who gets five million--'
| |
| | |
| 'But he doesn't, don't you see?'
| |
| | |
| 'How do you mean?'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, this other will puts him out of the running.'
| |
| | |
| 'Which other will?'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, the one I'm telling you about.'
| |
| | |
| He looked from one to the other, apparently astonished at their
| |
| slowness of understanding. Then an idea occurred to him.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, now that I think of it, I never told you, did I? Yes, your
| |
| uncle made another will at the very last moment, leaving all he
| |
| possessed to Miss Boyd.'
| |
| | |
| The dead silence in which his words were received stimulated him
| |
| to further speech. It occurred to him that, after that letter of
| |
| his, perhaps these people were wary about believing anything he
| |
| said.
| |
| | |
| 'It's absolutely true. It's the real, stable information this
| |
| time. I had it direct from the governor, who was there when he
| |
| made the will. He and the governor had had a row about something,
| |
| you know, and they made it up during those last days, and--Well,
| |
| apparently your uncle thought he had better celebrate it somehow,
| |
| so he made a new will. From what little I know of him, that was
| |
| the way he celebrated most things. I took it for granted the
| |
| governor would have written to you by this time. I expect you'll
| |
| hear by the next mail. You see, what brought me over was the idea
| |
| that when he wrote you might possibly take it into your heads to
| |
| mention having heard from me. You don't know my governor. If he
| |
| found out I had done that I should never hear the last of it. So I
| |
| said to him: "Gov'nor, I'm feeling a bit jaded. Been working too
| |
| hard, or something. I'll take a week or so off, if you can spare
| |
| me." He didn't object, so I whizzed over. Well, of course, I'm
| |
| awfully sorry for old Bill, but I congratulate you, Miss Boyd.'
| |
| | |
| 'What's the time?' said Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| Mr Nichols was surprised. He could not detect the connexion of
| |
| ideas.
| |
| | |
| 'It's about five to eleven,' he said, consulting his watch.
| |
| | |
| The next moment he was even more surprised, for Elizabeth, making
| |
| nothing of the barrier of the gate, had rushed past him and was
| |
| even now climbing into his automobile.
| |
| | |
| 'Take me to the station, at once,' she was crying to the stout,
| |
| silent man, whom not even these surprising happenings had shaken
| |
| from his attitude of well-fed detachment.
| |
| | |
| The stout man, ceasing to be silent, became interrogative.
| |
| | |
| 'Uh?'
| |
| | |
| 'Take me to the station. I must catch the eleven o'clock train.'
| |
| | |
| The stout man was not a rapid thinker. He enveloped her in a
| |
| stodgy gaze. It was only too plain to Elizabeth that he was a man
| |
| who liked to digest one idea slowly before going on to absorb the
| |
| next. Jerry Nichols had told him to drive to Flack's. He had
| |
| driven to Flack's. Here he was at Flack's. Now this young woman
| |
| was telling him to drive to the station. It was a new idea, and he
| |
| bent himself to the Fletcherizing of it.
| |
| | |
| 'I'll give you ten dollars if you get me there by eleven,' shouted
| |
| Elizabeth.
| |
| | |
| The car started as if it were some living thing that had had a
| |
| sharp instrument jabbed into it. Once or twice in his life it had
| |
| happened to the stout man to encounter an idea which he could
| |
| swallow at a gulp. This was one of them.
| |
| | |
| Mr Nichols, following the car with a wondering eye, found that
| |
| Nutty was addressing him.
| |
| | |
| 'Is this really true?' said Nutty.
| |
| | |
| 'Absolute gospel.'
| |
| | |
| A wild cry, a piercing whoop of pure joy, broke the summer
| |
| stillness.
| |
| | |
| 'Come and have a drink, old man!' babbled Nutty. 'This wants
| |
| celebrating!' His face fell. 'Oh, I was forgetting! I'm on the
| |
| wagon.'
| |
| | |
| 'On the wagon?'
| |
| | |
| 'Sworn off, you know. I'm never going to touch another drop as
| |
| long as I live. I began to see things--monkeys!'
| |
| | |
| 'I had a pal,' said Mr Nichols, sympathetically, 'who used to see
| |
| kangaroos.'
| |
| | |
| Nutty seized him by the arm, hospitable though handicapped.
| |
| | |
| 'Come and have a bit of bread and butter, or a slice of cake or
| |
| something, and a glass of water. I want to tell you a lot more
| |
| about Uncle Ira, and I want to hear all about your end of it. Gee,
| |
| what a day!'
| |
| | |
| '"The maddest, merriest of all the glad New Year,"' assented Mr
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| Nichols. 'A slice of that old 'eighty-seven cake. Just the thing!'
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| 25
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| Bill made his way along the swaying train to the smoking-car,
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| which was almost empty. It had come upon him overwhelmingly that
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| he needed tobacco. He was in the mood when a man must either smoke
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| or give up altogether the struggle with Fate. He lit his pipe, and
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| looked out of the window at Long Island racing past him. It was
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| only a blur to him.
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| The conductor was asking for tickets. Bill showed his mechanically,
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| and the conductor passed on. Then he settled down once more to his
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| thoughts. He could not think coherently yet. His walk to the station
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| had been like a walk in a dream. He was conscious of a great, dull
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| pain that weighed on his mind, smothering it. The trees and houses
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| still moved past him in the same indistinguishable blur.
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| He became aware that the conductor was standing beside him, saying
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| something about a ticket. He produced his once more, but this did
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| not seem to satisfy the conductor. To get rid of the man, who was
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| becoming a nuisance, he gave him his whole attention, as far as
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| that smothering weight would allow him to give his whole attention
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| to anything, and found that the man was saying strange things. He
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| thought that he could not have heard him correctly.
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| 'What?' he said.
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| 'Lady back there told me to collect her fare from you,' repeated
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| the conductor. 'Said you would pay.'
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| Bill blinked. Either there was some mistake or trouble had turned
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| his brain. He pushed himself together with a supreme effort.
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| 'A lady said I would pay her fare?'
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| 'Yes.'
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| 'But--but why?' demanded Bill, feebly.
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| The conductor seemed unwilling to go into first causes.
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| 'Search me!' he replied.
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| 'Pay her fare!'
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| 'Told me to collect it off the gentleman in the grey suit in the
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| smoking-car. You're the only one that's got a grey suit.'
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| 'There's some mistake.'
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| 'Not mine.'
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| 'What does she look like?'
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| The conductor delved in his mind for adjectives.
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| 'Small,' he said, collecting them slowly. 'Brown eyes--'
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| He desisted from his cataloguing at this point, for, with a loud
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| exclamation, Bill had dashed away.
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| Two cars farther back he had dropped into the seat by Elizabeth
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| and was gurgling wordlessly. A massive lady, who had entered the
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| train at East Moriches in company with three children and a cat in
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| a basket, eyed him with a curiosity that she made no attempt to
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| conceal. Two girls in a neighbouring seat leaned forward eagerly
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| to hear all. This was because one of them had told the other that
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| Elizabeth was Mary Pickford. Her companion was sceptical, but
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| nevertheless obviously impressed.
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| 'My God!' said Bill.
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| The massive lady told the three children sharply to look at their
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| picture-book.
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| 'Well, I'm hanged!'
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| The mother of three said that if her offspring did not go right
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| along to the end of the car and look at the pretty trees trouble
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| must infallibly ensue.
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| 'Elizabeth!' At the sound of the name the two girls leaned back,
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| taking no further interest in the proceedings.
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| 'What are you doing here?'
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| Elizabeth smiled, a shaky but encouraging smile.
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| 'I came after you, Bill.'
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| 'You've got no hat!'
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| 'I was in too much of a hurry to get one, and I gave all my money
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| to the man who drove the car. That's why I had to ask you to pay
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| my fare. You see, I'm not too proud to use your money after all.'
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| 'Then--'
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| 'Tickets please. One seventy-nine.'
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| It was the indefatigable conductor, sensible of his duty to the
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| company and resolved that nothing should stand in the way of its
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| performance. Bill gave him five dollars and told him to keep the
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| change. The conductor saw eye to eye with him in this.
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| 'Bill! You gave him--' She gave a little shrug of her shoulders.
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| 'Well, it's lucky you're going to marry a rich girl.'
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| A look of the utmost determination overspread Bill's face.
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| 'I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to marry you.
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| Now that I've got you again I'm not going to let you go. You can
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| use all the arguments you like, but it won't matter. I was a fool
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| ever to listen. If you try the same sort of thing again I'm just
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| going to pick you up and carry you off. I've been thinking it over
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| since I left you. My mind has been working absolutely clearly.
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| I've gone into the whole thing. It's perfect rot to take the
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| attitude you did. We know we love each other, and I'm not going to
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| listen to any talk about time making us doubt it. Time will only
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| make us love each other all the more.'
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| 'Why, Bill, this is eloquence.'
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| 'I feel eloquent.'
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| The stout lady ceased to listen. They had lowered their voices and
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| she was hard of hearing. She consoled herself by taking up her
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| copy of Gingery Stories and burying herself in the hectic
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| adventures of a young millionaire and an artist's model.
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| Elizabeth caught a fleeting glimpse of the cover.
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| 'I bet there's a story in there of a man named Harold who was too
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| proud to marry a girl, though he loved her, because she was rich
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| and he wasn't. You wouldn't be so silly as that, Bill, would you?'
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| 'It's the other way about with me.'
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| 'No, it's not. Bill, do you know a man named Nichols?'
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| 'Nichols?'
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| 'J. Nichols. He said he knew you. He said he had told you about
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| Uncle Ira leaving you his money.'
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| 'Jerry Nichols! How on earth--Oh, I remember. He wrote to you,
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| didn't he?'
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| 'He did. And this morning, just after you had left, he called.'
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| 'Jerry Nichols called?'
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| 'To tell me that Uncle Ira had made another will before he died,
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| leaving the money to me.'
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| Their eyes met.
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| 'So I stole his car and caught the train,' said Elizabeth, simply.
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| Bill was recovering slowly from the news.
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| 'But--this makes rather a difference, you know,' he said.
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| 'In what way?'
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| 'Well, what I mean to say is, you've got five million dollars and
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| I've got two thousand a year, don't you know, and so--'
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| Elizabeth tapped him on the knee.
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| 'Bill, do you see what this is in my hand?'
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| 'Eh? What?'
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| 'It's a pin. And I'm going to dig it right into you wherever I
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| think it will hurt most, unless you stop being Harold at once.
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| I'll tell you exactly what you've got to do, and you needn't think
| |
| you're going to do anything else. When we get to New York, I first
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| borrow the money from you to buy a hat, and then we walk to the
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| City Hall, where you go to the window marked "Marriage Licences",
| |
| and buy one. It will cost you one dollar. You will give your
| |
| correct name and age and you will hear mine. It will come as a
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| shock to you to know that my second name is something awful! I've
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| kept it concealed all my life. After we've done that we shall go
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| to the only church that anybody could possibly be married in. It's
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| on Twenty-ninth Street, just round the corner from Fifth Avenue.
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| It's got a fountain playing in front of it, and it's a little bit
| |
| of heaven dumped right down in the middle of New York. And after
| |
| that--well, we might start looking about for that farm we've
| |
| talked of. We can get a good farm for five million dollars, and
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| leave something over to be doled out--cautiously--to Nutty.
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| 'And then all we have to do is to live happily ever after.'
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| Something small and soft slipped itself into his hand, just as it
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| had done ages and ages ago in Lady Wetherby's wood.
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| It stimulated Bill's conscience to one last remonstrance.
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| 'But, I say, you know--'
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| 'Well?'
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| 'This business of the money, you know. What I mean to say is--Ow!'
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| | |
| He broke off, as a sharp pain manifested itself in the fleshy part
| |
| of his leg. Elizabeth was looking at him reprovingly, her weapon
| |
| poised for another onslaught.
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| | |
| 'I told you!' she said.
| |
| | |
| 'All right, I won't do it again.'
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| | |
| 'That's a good child. Bill, listen. Come closer and tell me all
| |
| sorts of nice things about myself till we get to Jamaica, and then
| |
| I'll tell you what I think of you. We've just passed Islip, so
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| you've plenty of time.'
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| [[Category:Books]]
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