Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS
BY
P. G. WODEHOUSE
CHAPTER XIII
TEA AND TENNIS
"Met the professor's late boatman on the Cob," said Mr. Chase,
dissecting a chocolate cake.
"Clumsy man," said Phyllis. "I hope he was ashamed of himself. I shall
never forgive him for trying to drown papa."
My heart bled for Mr. Henry Hawk, that modern martyr.
"When I met him," said Tom Chase, "he looked as if he had been trying
to drown his sorrow as well."
"I knew he drank," said Phyllis severely, "the very first time I saw
him."
"You might have warned the professor," murmured Mr. Chase.
"He couldn't have upset the boat if he had been sober."
"You never know. He may have done it on purpose."
"Tom, how absurd."
"Rather rough on the man, aren't you?" I said.
"Merely a suggestion," continued Mr. Chase airily. "I've been reading
sensational novels lately, and it seems to me that Mr. Hawk's cut out
to be a minion. Probably some secret foe of the professor's bribed him."
My heart stood still. Did he know, I wondered, and was this all a
roundabout way of telling me he knew?
"The professor may be a member of an Anarchist League, or something,
and this is his punishment for refusing to assassinate some sportsman."
"Have another cup of tea, Tom, and stop talking nonsense."
Mr. Chase handed in his cup.
"What gave me the idea that the upset was done on purpose was this. I
saw the whole thing from the Ware Cliff. The spill looked to me just
like dozens I had seen at Malta."
"Why do they upset themselves on purpose at Malta particularly?"
inquired Phyllis.
"Listen carefully, my dear, and you'll know more about the ways of the
Navy that guards your coasts than you did before. When men are allowed
on shore at Malta, the owner has a fancy to see them snugly on board
again at a certain reasonable hour. After that hour any Maltese
policeman who brings them aboard gets one sovereign, cash. But he has
to do all the bringing part of it on his own. Consequence is, you see
boats rowing out to the ship, carrying men who have overstayed their
leave; and when they get near enough, the able-bodied gentleman in
custody jumps to his feet, upsets the boat, and swims for the gangway.
The policemen, if they aren't drowned—they sometimes are—race him,
and whichever gets there first wins. If it's the policeman, he gets his
sovereign. If it's the sailor, he is considered to have arrived not in
a state of custody and gets off easier. What a judicious remark that
was of the governor of North Carolina to the governor of South
Carolina, respecting the length of time between drinks. Just one more
cup, please, Phyllis."
"But how does all that apply?" I asked, dry-mouthed.
"Mr. Hawk upset the professor just as those Maltese were upset. There's
a patent way of doing it. Furthermore, by judicious questioning, I
found that Hawk was once in the Navy, and stationed at Malta. _Now_,
who's going to drag in Sherlock Holmes?"
"You don't really think—?" I said, feeling like a criminal in the dock
when the case is going against him.
"I think friend Hawk has been re-enacting the joys of his vanished
youth, so to speak."
"He ought to be prosecuted," said Phyllis, blazing with indignation.
Alas, poor Hawk!
"Nobody's safe with a man of that sort, hiring out a boat." Oh,
miserable Hawk!
"But why on earth should he play a trick like that on Professor
Derrick, Chase?"
"Pure animal spirits, probably. Or he may, as I say, be a minion."
I was hot all over.
"I shall tell father that," said Phyllis in her most decided voice,
"and see what he says. I don't wonder at the man taking to drink after
doing such a thing."
"I—I think you're making a mistake," I said.
"I never make mistakes," Mr. Chase replied. "I am called Archibald the
All-Right, for I am infallible. I propose to keep a reflective eye upon
the jovial Hawk."
He helped himself to another section of the chocolate cake.
"Haven't you finished _yet_, Tom?" inquired Phyllis. "I'm sure Mr.
Garnet's getting tired of sitting talking here," she said.
I shot out a polite negative. Mr. Chase explained with his mouth full
that he had by no means finished. Chocolate cake, it appeared, was the
dream of his life. When at sea he was accustomed to lie awake o' nights
thinking of it.
"You don't seem to realise," he said, "that I have just come from a
cruise on a torpedo-boat. There was such a sea on as a rule that
cooking operations were entirely suspended, and we lived on ham and
sardines—without bread."
"How horrible!"
"On the other hand," added Mr. Chase philosophically, "it didn't matter
much, because we were all ill most of the time."
"Don't be nasty, Tom."
"I was merely defending myself. I hope Mr. Hawk will be able to do as
well when his turn comes. My aim, my dear Phyllis, is to show you in a
series of impressionist pictures the sort of thing I have to go through
when I'm not here. Then perhaps you won't rend me so savagely over a
matter of five minutes' lateness for breakfast."
"Five minutes! It was three-quarters of an hour, and everything was
simply frozen."
"Quite right too in weather like this. You're a slave to convention,
Phyllis. You think breakfast ought to be hot, so you always have it
hot. On occasion I prefer mine cold. Mine is the truer wisdom. You can
give the cook my compliments, Phyllis, and tell her—gently, for I
don't wish the glad news to overwhelm her—that I enjoyed that cake.
Say that I shall be glad to hear from her again. Care for a game of
tennis, Garnet?"
"What a pity Norah isn't here," said Phyllis. "We could have had a
four."
"But she is at present wasting her sweetness on the desert air of
Yeovil. You had better sit down and watch us, Phyllis. Tennis in this
sort of weather is no job for the delicately-nurtured feminine. I will
explain the finer points of my play as we go on. Look out particularly
for the Tilden Back-Handed Slosh. A winner every time."
We proceeded to the tennis court. I played with the sun in my eyes. I
might, if I chose, emphasise that fact, and attribute my subsequent
rout to it, adding, by way of solidifying the excuse, that I was
playing in a strange court with a borrowed racquet, and that my mind
was preoccupied—firstly, with _l'affaire_ Hawk, secondly, and chiefly,
with the gloomy thought that Phyllis and my opponent seemed to be on
friendly terms with each other. Their manner at tea had been almost
that of an engaged couple. There was a thorough understanding between
them. I will not, however, take refuge behind excuses. I admit, without
qualifying the statement, that Mr. Chase was too good for me. I had
always been under the impression that lieutenants in the Royal Navy
were not brilliant at tennis. I had met them at various houses, but
they had never shone conspicuously. They had played an earnest,
unobtrusive game, and generally seemed glad when it was over. Mr. Chase
was not of this sort. His service was bottled lightning. His returns
behaved like jumping crackers. He won the first game in precisely six
strokes. He served. Only once did I take the service with the full face
of the racquet, and then I seemed to be stopping a bullet. I returned
it into the net. The last of the series struck the wooden edge of my
racquet, and soared over the back net into the shrubbery, after the
manner of a snick to long slip off a fast bowler.
"Game," said Mr. Chase, "we'll look for that afterwards."
I felt a worm and no man. Phyllis, I thought, would probably judge my
entire character from this exhibition. A man, she would reflect, who
could be so feeble and miserable a failure at tennis, could not be good
for much in any department of life. She would compare me instinctively
with my opponent, and contrast his dash and brilliance with my own
inefficiency. Somehow the massacre was beginning to have a bad effect
on my character. All my self-respect was ebbing. A little more of this,
and I should become crushed,—a mere human jelly. It was my turn to
serve. Service is my strong point at tennis. I am inaccurate, but
vigorous, and occasionally send in a quite unplayable shot. One or two
of these, even at the expense of a fault or so, and I might be
permitted to retain at least a portion of my self-respect.
I opened with a couple of faults. The sight of Phyllis, sitting calm
and cool in her chair under the cedar, unnerved me. I served another
fault. And yet another.
"Here, I say, Garnet," observed Mr. Chase plaintively, "do put me out
of this hideous suspense. I'm becoming a mere bundle of quivering
ganglions."
I loathe facetiousness in moments of stress.
I frowned austerely, made no reply, and served another fault, my fifth.
Matters had reached a crisis. Even if I had to lob it underhand, I must
send the ball over the net with the next stroke.
I restrained myself this time, eschewing the careless vigour which had
marked my previous efforts. The ball flew in a slow semicircle, and
pitched inside the correct court. At least, I told myself, I had not
served a fault.
What happened then I cannot exactly say. I saw my opponent spring
forward like a panther and whirl his racquet. The next moment the back
net was shaking violently, and the ball was rolling swiftly along the
ground on a return journey to the other court.
"Love-forty," said Mr. Chase. "Phyllis!"
"Yes?"
"That was the Tilden Slosh."
"I thought it must be," said Phyllis.
In the third game I managed to score fifteen. By the merest chance I
returned one of his red-hot serves, and—probably through surprise—he
failed to send it back again.
In the fourth and fifth games I omitted to score. Phyllis had left the
cedar now, and was picking flowers from the beds behind the court.
We began the sixth game. And now for some reason I played really well.
I struck a little vein of brilliance. I was serving, and this time a
proportion of my serves went over the net instead of trying to get
through. The score went from fifteen all to forty-fifteen. Hope began
to surge through my veins. If I could keep this up, I might win yet.
The Tilden Slosh diminished my lead by fifteen. Then I got in a really
fine serve, which beat him. 'Vantage In. Another Slosh. Deuce. Another
Slam. 'Vantage out. It was an awesome moment. There is a tide in the
affairs of men, which, taken by the flood—I served. Fault. I served
again,—a beauty. He returned it like a flash into the corner of the
court. With a supreme effort I got to it. We rallied. I was playing
like a professor. Then whizz—!
The Slosh had beaten me on the post.
"Game _and_—," said Mr. Chase, tossing his racquet into the air and
catching it by the handle. "Good game that last one."
I turned to see what Phyllis thought of it.
At the eleventh hour I had shown her of what stuff I was made.
She had disappeared.
"Looking for Miss Derrick?" said Chase, jumping the net, and joining me
in my court, "she's gone into the house."
"When did she go?"
"At the end of the fifth game," said Chase.
"Gone to dress for dinner, I suppose," he continued. "It must be
getting late. I think I ought to be going, too, if you don't mind. The
professor gets a little restive if I keep him waiting for his daily
bread. Great Scott, that watch can't be right! What do you make of it?
Yes, so do I. I really think I must run. You won't mind. Good-night,
then. See you to-morrow, I hope."
I walked slowly out across the fields. That same star, in which I had
confided on a former occasion, was at its post. It looked placid and
cheerful. _It_ never got beaten by six games to love under the very
eyes of a lady-star. _It_ was never cut out ignominiously by infernally
capable lieutenants in His Majesty's Navy. No wonder it was cheerful.
CHAPTER XIV
A COUNCIL OF WAR
"The fact is," said Ukridge, "if things go on as they are now, my lad,
we shall be in the cart. This business wants bucking up. We don't seem
to be making headway. Why it is, I don't know, but we are _not_ making
headway. Of course, what we want is time. If only these scoundrels of
tradesmen would leave us alone for a spell we could get things going
properly. But we're hampered and rattled and worried all the time.
Aren't we, Millie?"
"Yes, dear."
"You don't let me see the financial side of the thing enough," I
complained. "Why don't you keep me thoroughly posted? I didn't know we
were in such a bad way. The fowls look fit enough, and Edwin hasn't had
one for a week."
"Edwin knows as well as possible when he's done wrong, Mr. Garnet,"
said Mrs. Ukridge. "He was so sorry after he had killed those other
two."
"Yes," said Ukridge, "I saw to that."
"As far as I can see," I continued, "we're going strong. Chicken for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner is a shade monotonous, perhaps, but look
at the business we're doing. We sold a whole heap of eggs last week."
"But not enough, Garny old man. We aren't making our presence felt.
England isn't ringing with our name. We sell a dozen eggs where we
ought to be selling them by the hundred, carting them off in trucks for
the London market and congesting the traffic. Harrod's and Whiteley's
and the rest of them are beginning to get on their hind legs and talk.
That's what they're doing. Devilish unpleasant they're making
themselves. You see, laddie, there's no denying it—we _did_ touch them
for the deuce of a lot of things on account, and they agreed to take it
out in eggs. All they've done so far is to take it out in apologetic
letters from Millie. Now, I don't suppose there's a woman alive who can
write a better apologetic letter than her nibs, but, if you're
broad-minded and can face facts, you can't help seeing that the
juiciest apologetic letter is not an egg. I meant to say, look at it
from their point of view. Harrod—or Whiteley—comes into his store in
the morning, rubbing his hands expectantly. 'Well,' he says, 'how many
eggs from Combe Regis to-day?' And instead of leading him off to a
corner piled up with bursting crates, they show him a four-page letter
telling him it'll all come right in the future. I've never run a store
myself, but I should think that would jar a chap. Anyhow, the blighters
seem to be getting tired of waiting."
"The last letter from Harrod's was quite pathetic," said Mrs. Ukridge
sadly.
I had a vision of an eggless London. I seemed to see homes rendered
desolate and lives embittered by the slump, and millionaires bidding
against one another for the few rare specimens which Ukridge had
actually managed to despatch to Brompton and Bayswater.
Ukridge, having induced himself to be broad-minded for five minutes,
now began to slip back to his own personal point of view and became
once more the man with a grievance. His fleeting sympathy with the
wrongs of Mr. Harrod and Mr. Whiteley disappeared.
"What it all amounts to," he said complainingly, "is that they're
infernally unreasonable. I've done everything possible to meet them.
Nothing could have been more manly and straightforward than my
attitude. I told them in my last letter but three that I proposed to
let them have the eggs on the _Times_ instalment system, and they said
I was frivolous. They said that to send thirteen eggs as payment for
goods supplied to the value of 25 pounds 1s. 8 1/2 d. was mere
trifling. Trifling, I'll trouble you! That's the spirit in which they
meet my suggestions. It was Harrod who did that. I've never met Harrod
personally, but I'd like to, just to ask him if that's his idea of
cementing amiable business relations. He knows just as well as anyone
else that without credit commerce has no elasticity. It's an elementary
rule. I'll bet he'd have been sick if chappies had refused to let him
have tick when he was starting his store. Do you suppose Harrod, when
he started in business, paid cash down on the nail for everything? Not
a bit of it. He went about taking people by the coat-button and asking
them to be good chaps and wait till Wednesday week. Trifling! Why,
those thirteen eggs were absolutely all we had over after Mrs. Beale
had taken what she wanted for the kitchen. As a matter of fact, if it's
anybody's fault, it's Mrs. Beale's. That woman literally eats eggs."
"The habit is not confined to her," I said.
"Well, what I mean to say is, she seems to bathe in them."
"She says she needs so many for puddings, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge. "I
spoke to her about it yesterday. And of course, we often have
omelettes."
"She can't make omelettes without breaking eggs," I urged.
"She can't make them without breaking us, dammit," said Ukridge. "One
or two more omelettes, and we're done for. No fortune on earth could
stand it. We mustn't have any more omelettes, Millie. We must
economise. Millions of people get on all right without omelettes. I
suppose there are families where, if you suddenly produced an omelette,
the whole strength of the company would get up and cheer, led by
father. Cancel the omelettes, old girl, from now onward."
"Yes, dear. But—"
"Well?"
"I don't _think_ Mrs. Beale would like that very much, dear. She has
been complaining a good deal about chicken at every meal. She says that
the omelettes are the only things that give her a chance. She says
there are always possibilities in an omelette."
"In short," I said, "what you propose to do is deliberately to remove
from this excellent lady's life the one remaining element of poetry.
You mustn't do it. Give Mrs. Beale her omelettes, and let's hope for a
larger supply of eggs."
"Another thing," said Ukridge. "It isn't only that there's a shortage
of eggs. That wouldn't matter so much if only we kept hatching out
fresh squads of chickens. I'm not saying the hens aren't doing their
best. I take off my hat to the hens. As nice a hard-working lot as I
ever want to meet, full of vigour and earnestness. It's that damned
incubator that's letting us down all the time. The rotten thing won't
work. _I_ don't know what's the matter with it. The long and the short
of it is that it simply declines to incubate."
"Perhaps it's your dodge of letting down the temperature. You remember,
you were telling me? I forget the details."
"My dear old boy," he said earnestly, "there's nothing wrong with my
figures. It's a mathematical certainty. What's the good of mathematics
if not to help you work out that sort of thing? No, there's something
deuced wrong with the machine itself, and I shall probably make a
complaint to the people I got it from. Where did we get the incubator,
old girl?"
"Harrod's, I think, dear,—yes, it was Harrod's. It came down with the
first lot of things."
"Then," said Ukridge, banging the table with his fist, while his
glasses flashed triumph, "we've got 'em. The Lord has delivered
Harrod's into our hand. Write and answer that letter of theirs
to-night, Millie. Sit on them."
"Yes, dear."
"Tell 'em that we'd have sent them their confounded eggs long ago, if
only their rotten, twopenny-ha'penny incubator had worked with any
approach to decency." He paused. "Or would you be sarcastic, Garny, old
horse? No, better put it so that they'll understand. Say that I
consider that the manufacturer of the thing ought to be in Colney
Hatch—if he isn't there already—and that they are scoundrels for
palming off a groggy machine of that sort on me."
"The ceremony of opening the morning's letters at Harrod's ought to be
full of interest and excitement to-morrow," I said.
This dashing counter-stroke seemed to relieve Ukridge. His pessimism
vanished. He seldom looked on the dark side of things for long at a
time. He began now to speak hopefully of the future. He planned out
ingenious improvements. Our fowls were to multiply so rapidly and
consistently that within a short space of time Dorsetshire would be
paved with them. Our eggs were to increase in size till they broke
records and got three-line notices in the "Items of Interest" column in
the _Daily Mail_. Briefly, each hen was to become a happy combination
of rabbit and ostrich.
"There is certainly a good time coming," I said. "May it be soon.
Meanwhile, what of the local tradesmen?"
Ukridge relapsed once more into gloom.
"They are the worst of the lot. I don't mind the London people so much.
They only write, and a letter or two hurts nobody. But when it comes to
butchers and bakers and grocers and fishmongers and fruiterers and what
not coming up to one's house and dunning one in one's own garden,—well
it's a little hard, what?"
"Oh, then those fellows I found you talking to yesterday were duns? I
thought they were farmers, come to hear your views on the rearing of
poultry."
"Which were they? Little chap with black whiskers and long, thin man
with beard? That was Dawlish, the grocer, and Curtis, the fishmonger.
The others had gone before you came."
It may be wondered why, before things came to such a crisis, I had not
placed my balance at the bank at the disposal of the senior partner for
use on behalf of the farm. The fact was that my balance was at the
moment small. I have not yet in the course of this narrative gone into
my pecuniary position, but I may state here that it was an inconvenient
one. It was big with possibilities, but of ready cash there was but a
meagre supply. My parents had been poor. But I had a wealthy uncle.
Uncles are notoriously careless of the comfort of their nephews. Mine
was no exception. He had views. He was a great believer in matrimony,
as, having married three wives—not simultaneously—he had every right
to be. He was also of opinion that the less money the young bachelor
possessed, the better. The consequence was that he announced his
intention of giving me a handsome allowance from the day that I
married, but not an instant before. Till that glad day I would have to
shift for myself. And I am bound to admit that—for an uncle—it was a
remarkably sensible idea. I am also of the opinion that it is greatly
to my credit, and a proof of my pure and unmercenary nature, that I did
not instantly put myself up to be raffled for, or rush out into the
streets and propose marriage to the first lady I met. But I was making
quite enough with my pen to support myself, and, be it never so humble,
there is something pleasant in a bachelor existence, or so I had
thought until very recently.
I had thus no great stake in Ukridge's chicken farm. I had contributed
a modest five pounds to the preliminary expenses, and another five
after the roop incident. But further I could not go with safety. When
his income is dependent on the whims of editors and publishers, the
prudent man keeps something up his sleeve against a sudden slump in his
particular wares. I did not wish to have to make a hurried choice
between matrimony and the workhouse.
Having exhausted the subject of finance—or, rather, when I began to
feel that it was exhausting me—I took my clubs, and strolled up the
hill to the links to play off a match with a sportsman from the
village. I had entered some days previously for a competition for a
trophy (I quote the printed notice) presented by a local supporter of
the game, in which up to the present I was getting on nicely. I had
survived two rounds, and expected to beat my present opponent, which
would bring me into the semi-final. Unless I had bad luck, I felt that
I ought to get into the final, and win it. As far as I could gather
from watching the play of my rivals, the professor was the best of
them, and I was convinced that I should have no difficulty with him.
But he had the most extraordinary luck at golf, though he never
admitted it. He also exercised quite an uncanny influence on his
opponent. I have seen men put completely off their stroke by his good
fortune.
I disposed of my man without difficulty. We parted a little coldly. He
had decapitated his brassy on the occasion of his striking Dorsetshire
instead of his ball, and he was slow in recovering from the complex
emotions which such an episode induces.
In the club-house I met the professor, whose demeanour was a welcome
contrast to that of my late opponent. The professor had just routed his
opponent, and so won through to the semi-final. He was warm, but
jubilant.
I congratulated him, and left the place.
Phyllis was waiting outside. She often went round the course with him.
"Good afternoon," I said. "Have you been round with the professor?"
"Yes. We must have been in front of you. Father won his match."
"So he was telling me. I was very glad to hear it."
"Did you win, Mr. Garnet?"
"Yes. Pretty easily. My opponent had bad luck all through. Bunkers
seemed to have a magnetic attraction for him."
"So you and father are both in the semi-final? I hope you will play
very badly."
"Thank you," I said.
"Yes, it does sound rude, doesn't it? But father has set his heart on
winning this year. Do you know that he has played in the final round
two years running now?"
"Really?"
"Both times he was beaten by the same man."
"Who was that? Mr. Derrick plays a much better game than anybody I have
seen on these links."
"It was nobody who is here now. It was a Colonel Jervis. He has not
come to Combe Regis this year. That's why father is hopeful."
"Logically," I said, "he ought to be certain to win."
"Yes; but, you see, you were not playing last year, Mr. Garnet."
"Oh, the professor can make rings round me," I said.
"What did you go round in to-day?"
"We were playing match-play, and only did the first dozen holes; but my
average round is somewhere in the late eighties."
"The best father has ever done is ninety, and that was only once. So
you see, Mr. Garnet, there's going to be another tragedy this year."
"You make me feel a perfect brute. But it's more than likely, you must
remember, that I shall fail miserably if I ever do play your father in
the final. There are days when I play golf as badly as I play tennis.
You'll hardly believe me."
She smiled reminiscently.
"Tom is much too good at tennis. His service is perfectly dreadful."
"It's a little terrifying on first acquaintance."
"But you're better at golf than at tennis, Mr. Garnet. I wish you were
not."
"This is special pleading," I said. "It isn't fair to appeal to my
better feelings, Miss Derrick."
"I didn't know golfers had any where golf was concerned. Do you really
have your off-days?"
"Nearly always. There are days when I slice with my driver as if it
were a bread-knife."
"Really?"
"And when I couldn't putt to hit a haystack."
"Then I hope it will be on one of those days that you play father."
"I hope so, too," I said.
"You hope so?"
"Yes."
"But don't you want to win?"
"I should prefer to please you."
"Really, how very unselfish of you, Mr. Garnet," she replied, with a
laugh. "I had no idea that such chivalry existed. I thought a golfer
would sacrifice anything to win a game."
"Most things."
"And trample on the feelings of anybody."
"Not everybody," I said.
At this point the professor joined us.
CHAPTER XV
THE ARRIVAL OF NEMESIS
Some people do not believe in presentiments. They attribute that
curious feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen to such
mundane causes as liver, or a chill, or the weather. For my own part, I
think there is more in the matter than the casual observer might
imagine.
I awoke three days after my meeting with the professor at the
club-house, filled with a dull foreboding. Somehow I seemed to know
that that day was going to turn out badly for me. It may have been
liver or a chill, but it was certainly not the weather. The morning was
perfect,—the most glorious of a glorious summer. There was a haze over
the valley and out to sea which suggested a warm noon, when the sun
should have begun the serious duties of the day. The birds were singing
in the trees and breakfasting on the lawn, while Edwin, seated on one
of the flower-beds, watched them with the eye of a connoisseur.
Occasionally, when a sparrow hopped in his direction, he would make a
sudden spring, and the bird would fly away to the other side of the
lawn. I had never seen Edwin catch a sparrow. I believe they looked on
him as a bit of a crank, and humoured him by coming within springing
distance, just to keep him amused. Dashing young ***-sparrows would
show off before their particular hen-sparrows, and earn a cheap
reputation for dare-devilry by going within so many years of Edwin's
lair, and then darting away. Bob was in his favourite place on the
gravel. I took him with me down to the Cob to watch me bathe.
"What's the matter with me to-day, Robert, old son?" I asked him, as I
dried myself.
He blinked lazily, but contributed no suggestion.
"It's no good looking bored," I went on, "because I'm going to talk
about myself, however much it bores you. Here am I, as fit as a
prize-fighter, living in the open air for I don't know how long, eating
good plain food—bathing every morning—sea-bathing, mind you—and yet
what's the result? I feel beastly."
Bob yawned, and gave a little whine.
"Yes," I said, "I know I'm in love. But that can't be it, because I was
in love just as much a week ago, and I felt all right then. But isn't
she an angel, Bob? Eh? Isn't she? And didn't you feel bucked when she
patted you? Of course you did. Anybody would. But how about Tom Chase?
Don't you think he's a dangerous man? He calls her by her Christian
name, you know, and behaves generally as if she belonged to him. And
then he sees her every day, while I have to trust to meeting her at odd
times, and then I generally feel such a fool I can't think of anything
to talk about except golf and the weather. He probably sings duets with
her after dinner, and you know what comes of duets after dinner."
Here Bob, who had been trying for some time to find a decent excuse for
getting away, pretended to see something of importance at the other end
of the Cob, and trotted off to investigate it, leaving me to finish
dressing by myself.
"Of course," I said to myself, "It may be merely hunger. I may be all
right after breakfast. But at present I seem to be working up for a
really fine fit of the blues. I feel bad."
I whistled to Bob, and started for home. On the beach I saw the
professor some little distance away, and waved my towel in a friendly
manner. He made no reply.
Of course, it was possible that he had not seen me; but for some reason
his attitude struck me as ominous. As far as I could see, he was
looking straight at me, and he was not a short-sighted man. I could
think of no reason why he should cut me. We had met on the links on the
previous morning, and he had been friendliness itself. He had called me
"me dear boy," supplied me with a gin and gingerbeer at the clubhouse,
and generally behaved as if he had been David and I Jonathan. Yet in
certain moods we are inclined to make mountains out of molehills, and I
went on my way, puzzled and uneasy, with a distinct impression that I
had received the cut direct.
I felt hurt. What had I done that Providence should make things so
unpleasant for me? It would be a little hard, as Ukridge would have
said, if, after all my trouble, the professor had discovered some fresh
grievance against me. Perhaps Ukridge had been irritating him again. I
wished he would not identify me so completely with Ukridge. I could not
be expected to control the man. Then I reflected that they could hardly
have met in the few hours between my parting from the professor at the
club-house and my meeting with him on the beach. Ukridge rarely left
the farm. When he was not working among the fowls, he was lying on his
back in the paddock, resting his massive mind.
I came to the conclusion that after all the professor had not seen me.
"I'm an idiot, Bob," I said, as we turned in at the farm gate, "and I
let my imagination run away with me."
Bob wagged his tail in approval of the sentiment.
Breakfast was ready when I got in. There was a cold chicken on the
sideboard, devilled chicken on the table, a trio of boiled eggs, and a
dish of scrambled eggs. As regarded quantity Mrs. Beale never failed us.
Ukridge was sorting the letters.
"Morning, Garny," he said. "One for you, Millie."
"It's from Aunt Elizabeth," said Mrs. Ukridge, looking at the envelope.
I had only heard casual mention of this relative hitherto, but I had
built up a mental picture of her partly from remarks which Ukridge had
let fall, but principally from the fact that he had named the most
malignant hen in our fowl-run after her. A severe lady, I imagined with
a cold eye.
"Wish she'd enclose a cheque," said Ukridge. "She could spare it.
You've no idea, Garny, old man, how disgustingly and indecently rich
that woman is. She lives in Kensington on an income which would do her
well in Park Lane. But as a touching proposition she had proved almost
negligible. She steadfastly refuses to part."
"I think she would, dear, if she knew how much we needed it. But I
don't like to ask her. She's so curious, and says such horrid things."
"She does," agreed Ukridge, gloomily. He spoke as one who had had
experience. "Two for you, Garny. All the rest for me. Ten of them, and
all bills."
He spread the envelopes out on the table, and drew one at a venture.
"Whiteley's," he said. "Getting jumpy. Are in receipt of my favour of
the 7th inst. and are at a loss to understand. It's rummy about these
blighters, but they never seem able to understand a damn thing. It's
hard! You put things in words of one syllable for them, and they just
goggle and wonder what it all means. They want something on account.
Upon my Sam, I'm disappointed with Whiteley's. I'd been thinking in
rather a kindly spirit of them, and feeling that they were a more
intelligent lot than Harrod's. I'd had half a mind to give Harrod's the
miss-in-baulk and hand my whole trade over to these fellows. But not
now, dash it! Whiteley's have disappointed me. From the way they write,
you'd think they thought I was doing it for fun. How can I let them
have their infernal money when there isn't any? Here's one from
Dorchester. Smith, the chap we got the gramophone from. Wants to know
when I'm going to settle up for sixteen records."
"Sordid brute!"
I wanted to get on with my own correspondence, but Ukridge held me with
a glittering eye.
"The chicken-men, the dealer people, you know, want me to pay for the
first lot of hens. Considering that they all died of roop, and that I
was going to send them back anyhow after I'd got them to hatch out a
few chickens, I call that cool. I mean to say, business is business.
That's what these fellows don't seem to understand. I can't afford to
pay enormous sums for birds which die off quicker than I can get them
in."
"I shall never speak to Aunt Elizabeth again," said Mrs. Ukridge
suddenly.
She had dropped the letter she had been reading, and was staring
indignantly in front of her. There were two little red spots on her
cheeks.
"What's the matter, old chap?" inquired Ukridge affectionately,
glancing up from his pile of bills and forgetting his own troubles in
an instant. "Buck up! Aunt Elizabeth been getting on your nerves again?
What's she been saying this time?"
Mrs. Ukridge left the room with a sob. Ukridge sprang at the letter.
"If that demon doesn't stop writing her infernal letters and upsetting
Millie, I shall strangle her with my bare hands, regardless of her age
and sex." He turned over the pages of the letter till he came to the
passage which had caused the trouble. "Well, upon my Sam! Listen to
this, Garny, old horse. 'You tell me nothing regarding the success of
this chicken farm of yours, and I confess that I find your silence
ominous. You know my opinion of your husband. He is perfectly helpless
in any matter requiring the exercise of a little common-sense and
business capability.'" He stared at me, amazed. "I like that! 'Pon my
soul, that is really rich! I could have believed almost anything of
that blighted female, but I did think she had a reasonable amount of
intelligence. Why, you know that it's just in matters requiring
common-sense and business capability that I come out really strong."
"Of course, old man," I replied dutifully. "The woman's a fool."
"That's what she calls me two lines further on. No wonder Millie was
upset. Why can't these cats leave people alone?"
"Oh, woman, woman!" I threw in helpfully.
"Always interfering—"
"Rotten!"
"And backbiting—"
"Awful!"
"I shan't stand it."
"I shouldn't!"
"Look here! On the next page she calls me a gaby!"
"It's time you took a strong line."
"And in the very next sentence refers to me as a perfect guffin. What's
a guffin, Garny, old boy?"
I considered the point.
"Broadly speaking, I should say, one who guffs."
"I believe it's actionable."
"I shouldn't wonder."
Ukridge rushed to the door.
"Millie!"
He slammed the door, and I heard him dashing upstairs.
I turned to my letters. One was from Lickford, with a Cornish postmark.
I glanced through it and laid it aside for a more exhaustive perusal.
The other was in a strange handwriting. I looked at the signature.
"Patrick Derrick." This was ***. What had the professor to say to me?
The next moment my heart seemed to spring to my throat.
"Sir," the letter began.
A pleasant cheery opening!
Then it got off the mark, so to speak, like lightning. There was no
sparring for an opening, no dignified parade of set phrases, leading up
to the main point. It was the letter of a man who was almost too
furious to write. It gave me the impression that, if he had not written
it, he would have been obliged to have taken some very violent form of
exercise by way of relief to his soul.
"You will be good enough to look on our acquaintance as closed. I have
no wish to associate with persons of your stamp. If we should happen to
meet, you will be good enough to treat me as a total stranger, as I
shall treat you. And, if I may be allowed to give you a word of advice,
I should recommend you in future, when you wish to exercise your
humour, to do so in some less practical manner than by bribing boatmen
to upset your—(_friends_ crossed out thickly, and _acquaintances_
substituted.) If you require further enlightenment in this matter, the
enclosed letter may be of service to you."
With which he remained mine faithfully, Patrick Derrick.
The enclosed letter was from one Jane Muspratt. It was bright and
interesting.
"DEAR SIR,—My Harry, Mr. Hawk, sas to me how it was him upsetting the
boat and you, not because he is not steady in a boat which he is no man
more so in Combe Regis, but because one of the gentlemen what keeps
chikkens up the hill, the little one, Mr. Garnick his name is, says to
him, Hawk, I'll give you a sovrin to upset Mr. Derick in your boat, and
my Harry being esily led was took in and did, but he's sory now and
wishes he hadn't, and he sas he'll niver do a prackticle joke again for
anyone even for a banknote.—Yours obedly.,
JANE MUSPRATT."
Oh, woman, woman!
At the bottom of everything! History is full of tragedies caused by the
lethal sex. Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman. Who let Samson in
so atrociously? Woman again. Why did Bill Bailey leave home? Once more,
because of a woman. And here was I, Jerry Garnet, harmless,
well-meaning writer of minor novels, going through the same old mill.
I cursed Jane Muspratt. What chance had I with Phyllis now? Could I
hope to win over the professor again? I cursed Jane Muspratt for the
second time.
My thoughts wandered to Mr. Harry Hawk. The villain! The scoundrel!
What business had he to betray me? ... Well, I could settle with him.
The man who lays a hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is
justly disliked by Society; so the woman Muspratt, culpable as she was,
was safe from me. But what of the man Hawk? There no such
considerations swayed me. I would interview the man Hawk. I would give
him the most hectic ten minutes of his career. I would say things to
him the recollection of which would make him start up shrieking in his
bed in the small hours of the night. I would arise, and be a man, and
slay him; take him grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes
broad-blown, as flush as May, at gaming, swearing, or about some act
that had no relish of salvation in it.
The Demon!
My life—ruined. My future—grey and black. My heart—shattered. And
why? Because of the scoundrel, Hawk.
Phyllis would meet me in the village, on the Cob, on the links, and
pass by as if I were the Invisible Man. And why? Because of the
reptile, Hawk. The worm, Hawk. The dastard and varlet, Hawk.
I crammed my hat on, and hurried out of the house towards the village.
CHAPTER XVI
A CHANCE MEETING
I roamed the place in search of the varlet for the space of
half-an-hour, and, after having drawn all his familiar haunts, found
him at length leaning over the sea-wall near the church, gazing
thoughtfully into the waters below.
I confronted him.
"Well," I said, "you're a beauty, aren't you?"
He eyed me owlishly. Even at this early hour, I was grieved to see, he
showed signs of having looked on the bitter while it was brown. His
eyes were filmy, and his manner aggressively solemn.
"Beauty?" he echoed.
"What have you got to say for yourself?"
"Say f'self."
It was plain that he was engaged in pulling his faculties together by
some laborious process known only to himself. At present my words
conveyed no meaning to him. He was trying to identify me. He had seen
me before somewhere, he was certain, but he could not say where, or who
I was.
"I want to know," I said, "what induced you to be such an abject idiot
as to let our arrangement get known?"
I spoke quietly. I was not going to waste the choicer flowers of speech
on a man who was incapable of understanding them. Later on, when he had
awakened to a sense of his position, I would begin really to talk to
him.
He continued to stare at me. Then a sudden flash of intelligence lit up
his features.
"Mr. Garnick," he said at last.
"From ch—chicken farm," he continued, with the triumphant air of a
cross-examining King's counsel who has at last got on the track.
"Yes," I said.
"Up top the hill," he proceeded, clinchingly. He stretched out a huge
hand.
"How you?" he inquired with a friendly grin.
"I want to know," I said distinctly, "what you've got to say for
yourself after letting our affair with the professor become public
property?"
He paused awhile in thought.
"Dear sir," he said at last, as if he were dictating a letter, "dear
sir, I owe you—ex—exp——"
He waved his hand, as who should say, "It's a stiff job, but I'm going
to do it."
"Explashion," he said.
"You do," said I grimly. "I should like to hear it."
"Dear sir, listen me."
"Go on then."
"You came me. You said 'Hawk, Hawk, ol' fren', listen me. You tip this
ol' bufflehead into watter,' you said, 'an' gormed if I don't give 'ee
a poond note.' That's what you said me. Isn't that what you said me?"
I did not deny it.
"'Ve' well,' I said you. 'Right,' I said. I tipped the ol' soul into
watter, and I got the poond note."
"Yes, you took care of that. All this is quite true, but it's beside
the point. We are not disputing about what happened. What I want to
know—for the third time—is what made you let the cat out of the bag?
Why couldn't you keep quiet about it?"
He waved his hand.
"Dear sir," he replied, "this way. Listen me."
It was a tragic story that he unfolded. My wrath ebbed as I listened.
After all the fellow was not so greatly to blame. I felt that in his
place I should have acted as he had done. It was Fate's fault, and
Fate's alone.
It appeared that he had not come well out of the matter of the
accident. I had not looked at it hitherto from his point of view. While
the rescue had left me the popular hero, it had had quite the opposite
result for him. He had upset his boat and would have drowned his
passenger, said public opinion, if the young hero from
London—myself—had not plunged in, and at the risk of his life brought
the professor ashore. Consequently, he was despised by all as an
inefficient boatman. He became a laughing-stock. The local wags made
laborious jests when he passed. They offered him fabulous sums to take
their worst enemies out for a row with him. They wanted to know when he
was going to school to learn his business. In fact, they behaved as
wags do and always have done at all times all the world over.
Now, all this, it seemed, Mr. Hawk would have borne cheerfully and
patiently for my sake, or, at any rate for the sake of the crisp pound
note I had given him. But a fresh factor appeared in the problem,
complicating it grievously. To wit, Miss Jane Muspratt.
"She said to me," explained Mr. Hawk with pathos, "'Harry 'Awk,' she
said, 'yeou'm a girt fule, an' I don't marry noone as is ain't to be
trusted in a boat by hisself, and what has jokes made about him by that
Tom Leigh!'"
"I punched Tom Leigh," observed Mr. Hawk parenthetically. "'So,' she
said me, 'you can go away, an' I don't want to see yeou again!'"
This heartless conduct on the part of Miss Muspratt had had the natural
result of making him confess in self-defence; and she had written to
the professor the same night.
I forgave Mr. Hawk. I think he was hardly sober enough to understand,
for he betrayed no emotion. "It is Fate, Hawk," I said, "simply Fate.
There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,
and it's no good grumbling."
"Yiss," said Mr. Hawk, after chewing this sentiment for a while in
silence, "so she said me, 'Hawk,' she said—like that—'you're a girt
fule——'"
"That's all right," I replied. "I quite understand. As I say, it's
simply Fate. Good-bye." And I left him.
As I was going back, I met the professor and Phyllis. They passed me
without a look.
I wandered on in quite a fervour of self-pity. I was in one of those
moods when life suddenly seems to become irksome, when the future
stretches black and grey in front of one. I should have liked to have
faded almost imperceptibly from the world, like Mr. Bardell, even if,
as in his case, it had involved being knocked on the head with a pint
pot in a public-house cellar.
In such a mood it is imperative that one should seek distraction. The
shining example of Mr. Harry Hawk did not lure me. Taking to drink
would be a nuisance. Work was what I wanted. I would toil like a navvy
all day among the fowls, separating them when they fought, gathering in
the eggs when they laid, chasing them across country when they got
away, and even, if necessity arose, painting their throats with
turpentine when they were stricken with roop. Then, after dinner, when
the lamps were lit, and Mrs. Ukridge nursed Edwin and sewed, and
Ukridge smoked cigars and incited the gramophone to *** "Mumbling
Mose," I would steal away to my bedroom and write—and write—and
_write_. And go on writing till my fingers were numb and my eyes
refused to do their duty. And, when time had passed, I might come to
feel that it was all for the best. A man must go through the fire
before he can write his masterpiece. We learn in suffering what we
teach in song. What we lose on the swings we make up on the
roundabouts. Jerry Garnet, the Man, might become a depressed, hopeless
wreck, with the iron planted immovably in his soul; but Jeremy Garnet,
the Author, should turn out such a novel of gloom, that strong critics
would weep, and the public jostle for copies till Mudie's doorway
became a shambles.
Thus might I some day feel that all this anguish was really a
blessing—effectively disguised.
But I doubted it.
We were none of us very cheerful now at the farm. Even Ukridge's spirit
was a little daunted by the bills which poured in by every post. It was
as if the tradesmen of the neighbourhood had formed a league, and were
working in concert. Or it may have been due to thought-waves. Little
accounts came not in single spies but in battalions. The popular demand
for the sight of the colour of his money grew daily. Every morning at
breakfast he would give us fresh bulletins of the state of mind of each
of our creditors, and thrill us with the announcement that Whiteley's
were getting cross, and Harrod's jumpy or that the bearings of Dawlish,
the grocer, were becoming overheated. We lived in a continual
atmosphere of worry. Chicken and nothing but chicken at meals, and
chicken and nothing but chicken between meals had frayed our nerves. An
air of defeat hung over the place. We were a beaten side, and we
realised it. We had been playing an uphill game for nearly two months,
and the strain was beginning to tell. Ukridge became uncannily silent.
Mrs. Ukridge, though she did not understand, I fancy, the details of
the matter, was worried because Ukridge was. Mrs. Beale had long since
been turned into a soured cynic by the lack of chances vouchsafed her
for the exercise of her art. And as for me, I have never since spent so
profoundly miserably a week. I was not even permitted the anodyne of
work. There seemed to be nothing to do on the farm. The chickens were
quite happy, and only asked to be let alone and allowed to have their
meals at regular intervals. And every day one or more of their number
would vanish into the kitchen, Mrs. Beale would serve up the corpse in
some cunning disguise, and we would try to delude ourselves into the
idea that it was something altogether different.
There was one solitary gleam of variety in our menu. An editor sent me
a cheque for a set of verses. We cashed that cheque and trooped round
the town in a body, laying out the money. We bought a leg of mutton,
and a tongue and sardines, and pine-apple chunks, and potted meat, and
many other noble things, and had a perfect banquet. Mrs. Beale, with
the scenario of a smile on her face, the first that she had worn in
these days of stress, brought in the joint, and uncovered it with an
air.
"Thank God!" said Ukridge, as he began to carve.
It was the first time I had ever heard him say a grace, and if ever an
occasion merited such a deviation from habit, this occasion did.
After that we relapsed into routine again.
Deprived of physical labour, with the exception of golf and
bathing—trivial sports compared with work in the fowl-run at its
hardest—I tried to make up for it by working at my novel.
It refused to materialise.
The only progress I achieved was with my villain.
I drew him from the professor, and made him a blackmailer. He had
several other social defects, but that was his profession. That was the
thing he did really well.
It was on one of the many occasions on which I had sat in my room, pen
in hand, through the whole of a lovely afternoon, with no better result
than a slight headache, that I bethought me of that little paradise on
the Ware Cliff, hung over the sea and backed by green woods. I had not
been there for some time, owing principally to an entirely erroneous
idea that I could do more solid work sitting in a straight hard chair
at a table than lying on soft turf with the sea wind in my eyes.
But now the desire to visit that little clearing again drove me from my
room. In the drawing-room below the gramophone was dealing brassily
with "Mister Blackman." Outside the sun was just thinking of setting.
The Ware Cliff was the best medicine for me. What does Kipling say?
"And soon you will find that the sun and the wind
And the Djinn of the Garden, too, Have lightened the hump, Cameelious Hump,
The Hump that is black and blue."
His instructions include digging with a hoe and a shovel also, but I
could omit that. The sun and the wind were what I needed.
I took the upper road. In certain moods I preferred it to the path
along the cliff. I walked fast. The exercise was soothing.
To reach my favourite clearing I had to take to the fields on the left,
and strike down hill in the direction of the sea. I hurried down the
narrow path.
I broke into the clearing at a jog trot, and stood panting. And at the
same moment, looking cool and beautiful in her white dress, Phyllis
entered in from the other side. Phyllis—without the professor.
CHAPTER XVII
OF A SENTIMENTAL NATURE
She was wearing a panama, and she carried a sketching-block and
camp-stool.
"Good evening," I said.
"Good evening," said she.
It is curious how different the same words can sound, when spoken by
different people. My "good evening" might have been that of a man with
a particularly guilty conscience caught in the act of doing something
more than usually ignoble. She spoke like a rather offended angel.
"It's a lovely evening," I went on pluckily.
"Very."
"The sunset!"
"Yes."
"Er—"
She raised a pair of blue eyes, devoid of all expression save a faint
suggestion of surprise, and gazed through me for a moment at some
object a couple of thousand miles away, and lowered them again, leaving
me with a vague feeling that there was something wrong with my personal
appearance.
Very calmly she moved to the edge of the cliff, arranged her
camp-stool, and sat down. Neither of us spoke a word. I watched her
while she filled a little mug with water from a little bottle, opened
her paint-box, selected a brush, and placed her sketching-block in
position.
She began to paint.
Now, by all the laws of good taste, I should before this have made a
dignified exit. It was plain that I was not to be regarded as an
essential ornament of this portion of the Ware Cliff. By now, if I had
been the Perfect Gentleman, I ought to have been a quarter of a mile
away.
But there is a definite limit to what a man can do. I remained.
The sinking sun flung a carpet of gold across the sea. Phyllis' hair
was tinged with it. Little waves tumbled lazily on the beach below.
Except for the song of a distant blackbird, running through its
repertoire before retiring for the night, everything was silent.
She sat there, dipping and painting and dipping again, with never a
word for me—standing patiently and humbly behind her.
"Miss Derrick," I said.
She half turned her head.
"Yes."
"Why won't you speak to me?" I said.
"I don't understand you."
"Why won't you speak to me?"
"I think you know, Mr. Garnet."
"It is because of that boat accident?"
"Accident!"
"Episode," I amended.
She went on painting in silence. From where I stood I could see her
profile. Her chin was tilted. Her expression was determined.
"Is it?" I said.
"Need we discuss it?"
"Not if you do not wish it."
I paused.
"But," I added, "I should have liked a chance to defend myself.... What
glorious sunsets there have been these last few days. I believe we
shall have this sort of weather for another month."
"I should not have thought that possible."
"The glass is going up," I said.
"I was not talking about the weather."
"It was dull of me to introduce such a worn-out topic."
"You said you could defend yourself."
"I said I should like the chance to do so."
"You have it."
"That's very kind of you. Thank you."
"Is there any reason for gratitude?"
"Every reason."
"Go on, Mr. Garnet. I can listen while I paint. But please sit down. I
don't like being talked to from a height."
I sat down on the grass in front of her, feeling as I did so that the
change of position in a manner clipped my wings. It is difficult to
speak movingly while sitting on the ground. Instinctively I avoided
eloquence. Standing up, I might have been pathetic and pleading.
Sitting down, I was compelled to be matter-of-fact.
"You remember, of course, the night you and Professor Derrick dined
with us? When I say dined, I use the word in a loose sense."
For a moment I thought she was going to smile. We were both thinking of
Edwin. But it was only for a moment, and then her face grew cold once
more, and the chin resumed its angle of determination.
"Yes," she said.
"You remember the unfortunate ending of the festivities?"
"Well?"
"If you recall that at all clearly, you will also remember that the
fault was not mine, but Ukridge's."
"Well?"
"It was his behaviour that annoyed Professor Derrick. The position,
then, was this, that I was to be cut off from the pleasantest
friendship I had ever formed——"
I stopped for a moment. She bent a little lower over her easel, but
remained silent.
"——Simply through the tactlessness of a prize idiot."
"I like Mr. Ukridge."
"I like him, too. But I can't pretend that he is anything but an idiot
at times."
"Well?"
"I naturally wished to mend matters. It occurred to me that an
excellent way would be by doing your father a service. It was seeing
him fishing that put the idea of a boat-accident into my head. I hoped
for a genuine boat-accident. But those things only happen when one does
not want them. So I determined to engineer one."
"You didn't think of the shock to my father."
"I did. It worried me very much."
"But you upset him all the same."
"Reluctantly."
She looked up, and our eyes met. I could detect no trace of forgiveness
in hers.
"You behaved abominably," she said.
"I played a risky game, and I lost. And I shall now take the
consequences. With luck I should have won. I did not have luck, and I
am not going to grumble about it. But I am grateful to you for letting
me explain. I should not have liked you to have gone on thinking that I
played practical jokes on my friends. That is all I have to say. I
think it was kind of you to listen. Good-bye, Miss Derrick."
I got up.
"Are you going?"
"Why not?"
"Please sit down again."
"But you wish to be alone——"
"Please sit down!"
There was a flush on the cheek turned towards me, and the chin was
tilted higher.
I sat down.
To westward the sky had changed to the hue of a bruised cherry. The sun
had sunk below the horizon, and the sea looked cold and leaden. The
blackbird had long since flown.
"I am glad you told me, Mr. Garnet."
She dipped her brush in the water.
"Because I don't like to think badly of—people."
She bent her head over her painting.
"Though I still think you behaved very wrongly. And I am afraid my
father will never forgive you for what you did."
Her father! As if he counted.
"But you do?" I said eagerly.
"I think you are less to blame than I thought you were at first."
"No more than that?"
"You can't expect to escape all consequences. You did a very stupid
thing."
"I was tempted."
The sky was a dull grey now. It was growing dusk. The grass on which I
sat was wet with dew.
I stood up.
"Isn't it getting a little dark for painting?" I said. "Are you sure
you won't catch cold? It's very damp."
"Perhaps it is. And it is late, too."
She shut her paint-box, and emptied the little mug on to the grass.
"May I carry your things?" I said.
I think she hesitated, but only for a moment.
I possessed myself of the camp-stool, and we started on our homeward
journey.
We were both silent. The spell of the quiet summer evening was on us.
"'And all the air a solemn stillness holds,'" she said softly. "I love
this cliff, Mr. Garnet. It's the most soothing place in the world."
"I found it so this evening."
She glanced at me quickly.
"You're not looking well," she said. "Are you sure you are not
overworking yourself?"
"No, it's not that."
Somehow we had stopped, as if by agreement, and were facing each other.
There was a look in her eyes I had never seen there before. The
twilight hung like a curtain between us and the world. We were alone
together in a world of our own.
"It is because I had offended you," I said.
She laughed a high, unnatural laugh.
"I have loved you ever since I first saw you," I said doggedly.
CHAPTER XVIII
UKRIDGE GIVES ME ADVICE
Hours after—or so it seemed to me—we reached the spot at which our
ways divided. We stopped, and I felt as if I had been suddenly cast
back into the workaday world from some distant and pleasanter planet. I
think Phyllis must have felt much the same sensation, for we both
became on the instant intensely practical and businesslike.
"But about your father," I said.
"That's the difficulty."
"He won't give us his consent?"
"I'm afraid he wouldn't dream of it."
"You can't persuade him?"
"I can in most things, but not in this. You see, even if nothing had
happened, he wouldn't like to lose me just yet, because of Norah."
"Norah?"
"My sister. She's going to be married in October. I wonder if we shall
ever be as happy as they will."
"Happy! They will be miserable compared with us. Not that I know who
the man is."
"Why, Tom of course. Do you mean to say you really didn't know?"
"Tom! Tom Chase?"
"Of course."
I gasped.
"Well, I'm hanged," I said. "When I think of the torments I've been
through because of that wretched man, and all for nothing, I don't know
what to say."
"Don't you like Tom?"
"Very much. I always did. But I was awfully jealous of him."
"You weren't! How silly of you."
"Of course I was. He was always about with you, and called you Phyllis,
and generally behaved as if you and he were the heroine and hero of a
musical comedy, so what else could I think? I heard you singing duets
after dinner once. I drew the worst conclusions."
"When was that? What were you doing there?"
"It was shortly after Ukridge had got on your father's nerves, and
nipped our acquaintance in the bud. I used to come every night to the
hedge opposite your drawing-room window, and brood there by the hour."
"Poor old boy!"
"Hoping to hear you sing. And when you did sing, and he joined in all
flat, I used to swear. You'll probably find most of the bark scorched
off the tree I leaned against."
"Poor old man! Still, it's all over now, isn't it?"
"And when I was doing my very best to show off before you at tennis,
you went away just as I got into form."
"I'm very sorry, but I couldn't know, could I? I though you always
played like that."
"I know. I knew you would. It nearly turned my hair white. I didn't see
how a girl could ever care for a man who was so bad at tennis."
"One doesn't love a man because he's good at tennis."
"What _does_ a girl see to love in a man?" I inquired abruptly; and
paused on the verge of a great discovery.
"Oh, I don't know," she replied, most unsatisfactorily.
And I could draw no views from her.
"But about father," said she. "What _are_ we to do?"
"He objects to me."
"He's perfectly furious with you."
"Blow, blow," I said, "thou winter wind. Thou are not so unkind——"
"He'll never forgive you."
"——As man's ingratitude. I saved his life. At the risk of my own. Why
I believe I've got a legal claim on him. Who ever heard of a man having
his life saved, and not being delighted when his preserver wanted to
marry his daughter? Your father is striking at the very root of the
short-story writer's little earnings. He mustn't be allowed to do it."
"Jerry!"
I started.
"Again!" I said.
"What?"
"Say it again. Do, please. Now."
"Very well. Jerry!"
"It was the first time you had called me by my Christian name. I don't
suppose you've the remotest notion how splendid it sounds when you say
it. There is something poetical, almost holy, about it."
"Jerry, please!"
"Say on."
"Do be sensible. Don't you see how serious this is? We must think how
we can make father consent."
"All right," I said. "We'll tackle the point. I'm sorry to be
frivolous, but I'm so happy I can't keep it all in. I've got you and I
can't think of anything else."
"Try."
"I'll pull myself together.... Now, say on once more."
"We can't marry without his consent."
"Why not?" I said, not having a marked respect for the professor's
whims. "Gretna Green is out of date, but there are registrars."
"I hate the very idea of a registrar," she said with decision.
"Besides——"
"Well?"
"Poor father would never get over it. We've always been such friends.
If I married against his wishes, he would—oh, you know. Not let me
near him again, and not write to me. And he would hate it all the time
he was doing it. He would be bored to death without me."
"Who wouldn't?" I said.
"Because, you see, Norah has never been quite the same. She has spent
such a lot of her time on visits to people, that she and father don't
understand each other so well as he and I do. She would try and be nice
to him, but she wouldn't know him as I do. And, besides, she will be
with him such a little, now she's going to be married."
"But, look here," I said, "this is absurd. You say your father would
never see you again, and so on, if you married me. Why? It's nonsense.
It isn't as if I were a sort of social outcast. We were the best of
friends till that man Hawk gave me away like that."
"I know. But he's very obstinate about some things. You see, he thinks
the whole thing has made him look ridiculous, and it will take him a
long time to forgive you for that."
I realised the truth of this. One can pardon any injury to oneself,
unless it hurts one's vanity. Moreover, even in a genuine case of
rescue, the rescued man must always feel a little aggrieved with his
rescuer, when he thinks the matter over in cold blood. He must regard
him unconsciously as the super regards the actor-manager, indebted to
him for the means of supporting existence, but grudging him the
limelight and the centre of the stage and the applause. Besides, every
one instinctively dislikes being under an obligation which they can
never wholly repay. And when a man discovers that he has experienced
all these mixed sensations for nothing, as the professor had done, his
wrath is likely to be no slight thing.
Taking everything into consideration, I could not but feel that it
would require more than a little persuasion to make the professor
bestow his blessing with that genial warmth which we like to see in our
fathers-in-law's elect.
"You don't think," I said, "that time, the Great Healer, and so on—?
He won't feel kindlier disposed towards me—say in a month's time?"
"Of course he _might_," said Phyllis; but she spoke doubtfully.
"He strikes me from what I have seen of him as a man of moods. I might
do something one of these days which would completely alter his views.
We will hope for the best."
"About telling father——?"
"Need we, do you think?" I said.
"Yes, we must. I couldn't bear to think that I was keeping it from him.
I don't think I've ever kept anything from him in my life. Nothing bad,
I mean."
"You count this among your darker crimes, then?"
"I was looking at it from father's point of view. He will be awfully
angry. I don't know how I shall begin telling him."
"Good heavens!" I cried, "you surely don't think I'm going to let you
do that! Keep safely out of the way while you tell him! Not much. I'm
coming back with you now, and we'll break the bad news together."
"No, not to-night. He may be tired and rather cross. We had better wait
till to-morrow. You might speak to him in the morning."
"Where shall I find him?"
"He is certain to go to the beach before breakfast for a swim."
"Good. I'll be there."
"Ukridge," I said, when I got back, "I want your advice."
It stirred him like a trumpet blast. I suppose, when a man is in the
habit of giving unsolicited counsel to everyone he meets, it is as
invigorating as an electric shock to him to be asked for it
spontaneously.
"Bring it out, laddie!" he replied cordially. "I'm with you. Here, come
along into the garden, and state your case."
This suited me. It is always easier to talk intimately in the dark, and
I did not wish to be interrupted by the sudden entrance of the Hired
Man or Mrs. Beale, of which there was always a danger indoors. We
walked down to the paddock. Ukridge lit a cigar.
"Ukridge," I said, "I'm engaged!"
"What!" A huge hand whistled through the darkness and smote me heavily
between the shoulder-blades. "By Jove, old boy, I wish you luck. 'Pon
my Sam I do! Best thing in the world for you. Bachelors are mere
excrescences. Never knew what happiness was till I married. When's the
wedding to be?"
"That's where I want your advice. What you might call a difficulty has
arisen about the wedding. It's like this. I'm engaged to Phyllis
Derrick."
"Derrick? Derrick?"
"You can't have forgotten her! Good Lord, what eyes some men have! Why,
if I'd only seen her once, I should have remembered her all my life."
"I know, now. Rather a pretty girl, with blue eyes."
I stared at him blankly. It was not much good, as he could not see my
face, but it relieved me. "Rather a pretty girl!" What a description!
"Of course, yes," continued Ukridge. "She came to dinner here one night
with her father, that fat little buffer."
"As you were careful to call him to his face at the time, confound you!
It was that that started all the trouble."
"Trouble? What trouble?"
"Why, her father...."
"By Jove, I remember now! So worried lately, old boy, that my memory's
gone groggy. Of course! Her father fell into the sea, and you fished
him out. Why, damme, it's like the stories you read."
"It's also very like the stories I used to write. But they had one
point about them which this story hasn't. They invariably ended
happily, with the father joining the hero's and heroine's hands and
giving his blessing. Unfortunately, in the present case, that doesn't
seem likely to happen."
"The old man won't give his consent?"
"I'm afraid not. I haven't asked him yet, but the chances are against
it."
"But why? What's the matter with you? You're an excellent chap, sound
in wind and limb, and didn't you once tell me that, if you married, you
came into a pretty sizeable bit of money?"
"Yes, I do. That part of it is all right."
Ukridge's voice betrayed perplexity.
"I don't understand this thing, old horse," he said. "I should have
thought the old boy would have been all over you. Why, damme, I never
heard of anything like it. You saved his life! You fished him out of
the water."
"After chucking him in. That's the trouble."
"You chucked him in?"
"By proxy."
I explained. Ukridge, I regret to say, laughed in a way that must have
been heard miles away in distant villages in Devonshire.
"You devil!" he bellowed. "'Pon my Sam, old horse, to look at you one
would never have thought you'd have had it in you."
"I can't help looking respectable."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"That's where I wanted your advice. You're a man of resource. What
would you do in my place?"
Ukridge tapped me impressively on the shoulder.
"Laddie," he said, "there's one thing that'll carry you through any
mess."
"And that is——?"
"Cheek, my boy, cheek. Gall. Nerve. Why, take my case. I never told you
how I came to marry, did I. I thought not. Well, it was this way. It'll
do you a bit of good, perhaps, to hear the story, for, mark you,
blessings weren't going cheap in my case either. You know Millie's Aunt
Elizabeth, the female who wrote that letter? Well, when I tell you that
she was Millie's nearest relative and that it was her consent I had to
snaffle, you'll see that I was faced with a bit of a problem."
"Let's have it," I said.
"Well, the first time I ever saw Millie was in a first-class carriage
on the underground. I'd got a third-class ticket, by the way. The
carriage was full, and I got up and gave her my seat, and, as I hung
suspended over her by a strap, damme, I fell in love with her then and
there. You've no conception, laddie, how indescribably ripping she
looked, in a sort of blue dress with a bit of red in it and a hat with
thingummies. Well, we both got out at South Kensington. By that time I
was gasping for air and saw that the thing wanted looking into. I'd
never had much time to bother about women, but I realised that this
must not be missed. I was in love, old horse. It comes over you quite
suddenly, like a tidal wave...."
"I know! I know! Good Heavens, you can't tell me anything about that."
"Well, I followed her. She went to a house in Thurloe Square. I waited
outside and thought it over. I had got to get into that shanty and make
her acquaintance, if they threw me out on my ear. So I rang the bell.
'Is Lady Lichenhall at home?' I asked. You spot the devilish cunning of
the ruse, what? My asking for a female with a title was to make 'em
think I was one of the Upper Ten."
"How were you dressed?" I could not help asking.
"Oh, it was one of my frock-coat days. I'd been to see a man about
tutoring his son, and by a merciful dispensation of Providence there
was a fellow living in the same boarding-house with me who was about my
build and had a frock-coat, and he had lent it to me. At least, he
hadn't exactly lent it to me, but I knew where he kept it and he was
out at the time. There was nothing the matter with my appearance. Quite
the young duke, I assure you, laddie, down to the last button. 'Is Lady
Lichenhall at home?' I asked. 'No,' said the maid, 'nobody of that name
here. This is Lady Lakenheath's house.' So, you see, I had a bit of
luck at the start, because the names were a bit alike. Well, I got the
maid to show me in somehow, and, once in you can bet I talked for all I
was worth. Kept up a flow of conversation about being misdirected and
coming to the wrong house. Went away, and called a few days later.
Gradually wormed my way in. Called regularly. Spied on their movements,
met 'em at every theatre they went to, and bowed, and finally got away
with Millie before her aunt knew what was happening or who I was or
what I was doing or anything."
"And what's the moral?"
"Why, go in like a mighty, rushing wind! Bustle 'em! Don't give 'em a
moment's rest or time to think or anything. Why, if I'd given Millie's
Aunt Elizabeth time to think, where should we have been? Not at Combe
Regis together, I'll bet. You heard that letter, and know what she
thinks of me now, on reflection. If I'd gone slow and played a timid
waiting-game, she'd have thought that before I married Millie, instead
of afterwards. I give you my honest word, laddie, that there was a
time, towards the middle of our acquaintance—after she had stopped
mixing me up with the man who came to wind the clocks—when that woman
ate out of my hand! Twice—on two separate occasions—she actually
asked my advice about feeding her toy Pomeranian! Well, that shows you!
Bustle 'em, laddie! Bustle 'em!"
"Ukridge," I said, "you inspire me. You would inspire a caterpillar. I
will go to the professor—I was going anyhow, but now I shall go
aggressively. I will prise a father's blessing out of him, if I have to
do it with a crowbar."
"That's the way to talk, old horse. Don't beat about the bush. Tell him
exactly what you want and stand no nonsense. If you don't see what you
want in the window, ask for it. Where did you think of tackling him?"
"Phyllis tells me that he always goes for a swim before breakfast. I
thought of going down to-morrow and waylaying him."
"You couldn't do better. By Jove!" said Ukridge suddenly. "I'll tell
you what I'll do, laddie. I wouldn't do it for everybody, but I look on
you as a favourite son. I'll come with you, and help break the ice."
"What!"
"Don't you be under any delusion, old horse," said Ukridge paternally.
"You haven't got an easy job in front of you and what you'll need more
than anything else, when you really get down to brass-tacks, is a wise,
kindly man of the world at your elbow, to whoop you on when your nerve
fails you and generally stand in your corner and see that you get a
fair show."
"But it's rather an intimate business...."
"Never mind! Take my tip and have me at your side. I can say things
about you that you would be too modest to say for yourself. I can plead
your case, laddie. I can point out in detail all that the old boy will
be missing if he gives you the miss-in-baulk. Well, that's settled,
then. About eight to-morrow morning, what? I'll be there, my boy. A
swim will do me good."
End of Chapter 18 �