THREE MEN AND A MAID
by P. G. WODEHOUSE
1921
CHAPTER ONE
Through the curtained windows of the furnished apartment which Mrs.
Horace Hignett had rented for her stay in New York rays of golden
sunlight peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It
was a fine summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall
pointed to thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the
sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on
the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was
exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her
head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always
woke at eight precisely.
Was this Mrs. Hignett _the_ Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer
on Theosophy, the author of "The Spreading Light," "What of the
Morrow," and all the rest of that well-known series? I'm glad you asked
me. Yes, she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour.
The year 1921, it will be remembered, was a trying one for the
inhabitants of the United States. Every boat that arrived from England
brought a fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists,
poets, scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd
instinct seemed to affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of
those great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely
differing views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other
subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were
single-minded, that there was easy money to be picked up on the lecture
platforms of America and that they might just as well grab it as the
next person.
Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for,
spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business
sense in this woman and she meant to get hers while the getting was
good. She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary
booked before 90 per cent. of the poets and philosophers
had finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their
photographs taken for the passport.
She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved
sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming
home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat
of the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its
shady walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its
walls - these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she
belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of
cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her
son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of
it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and
bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very
marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under
her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female
below the age of fifty had averted the peril up till now.
Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores
which she could hear in the adjoining room, as, having bathed
and dressed, she went down the hall to where breakfast awaited
her. She smiled tolerantly. She had never desired to convert her son to
her own early rising habits, for, apart from not allowing him to call
his soul his own, she was an indulgent mother. Eustace would get up at
half-past nine, long after she had finished breakfast, read her mail,
and started her duties for the day.
Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls,
cereal, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this hell-brew
was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as she ate. The
majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of purely
theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the Butterfly Club
asking her to be the guest of honour at their weekly dinner. There was
a letter from her brother Mallaby - Sir Mallaby Marlowe, the eminent
London lawyer - saying that his son Sam, of whom she had never approved,
would be in New York shortly, passing through on his way back to
England, and hoping that she would see something of him. Altogether a
dull mail. Mrs. Hignett skimmed through it without interest, setting
aside one or two of the letters for Eustace, who acted as her unpaid
secretary, to answer later in the day.
She had just risen from the table when there was a sound of voices in
the hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of
advanced years, entered the room.
"Ma'am, there was a gentleman."
Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred.
"Didn't you tell him I was not to be disturbed?"
"I did not. I loosed him into the parlor."
The staff remained for a moment in melancholy silence, then resumed.
"He says he's your nephew. His name's Marlowe."
Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not
seen her nephew Sam for ten years and would have been willing to extend
the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who, once or
twice, during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace of
Windles with his beastly presence. However, blood being thicker than
water, and all that sort of thing, she supposed she would have to give
him five minutes. She went into the sitting-room and found there a
young man who looked more or less like all other young men, though
perhaps rather fitter than most. He had grown a good deal since she had
last met him, as men will do between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five,
and was now about six feet in height, about forty inches round the
chest, and in weight about one hundred and eighty pounds. He had a
brown and amiable face, marred at the moment by an expression of
discomfort somewhat akin to that of a cat in a strange alley.
"Hallo, Aunt Adeline!" he said awkwardly.
"Well, Samuel!" said Mrs. Hignett.
There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and
disliked having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had
not improved in the slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam,
who imagined that he had long since grown to man's estate and put off
childish things, was embarrassed to discover that his aunt still
affected him as of old. That is to say, she made him feel as if he had
omitted to shave, and, in addition to that, had swallowed some drug
which had caused him to swell unpleasantly, particularly about the
hands and feet.
"Jolly morning," said Sam, perseveringly.
"So I imagine. I have not yet been out."
"Thought I'd look in and see how you were."
"That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes,
that was very kind of you!"
There was another pause.
"How do you like America?" said Sam.
"I dislike it exceedingly."
"Yes? Well, of course some people do. Prohibition and all that.
Personally, it doesn't affect me. I can take it or leave it alone."
"The reason I dislike America - " began Mrs. Hignett bridling.
"I like it myself," said Sam. "I've had a wonderful time. Everybody's
treated me like a rich uncle. I've been in Detroit, you know, and they
practically gave me the city and asked me if I'd like another to take
home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have been the
missing heir. I think America's the greatest invention on record."
"And what brought you to America?" said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by this
rhapsody.
"Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know."
"Surely at your age," said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, "you could be
better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?"
"Oh, no. I hunt a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot, and I
still play football occasionally."
"I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful work."
"He is beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take
a stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get married, too."
"He is perfectly right."
"I suppose old Eustace will be getting hitched up one of these days?"
said Sam.
Mrs. Hignett started violently.
"Why do you say that?"
"Eh?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Oh, well, he's a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry and all that."
"There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and
retiring temperament and sees few women. He is almost a recluse."
Sam was aware of this and had frequently regretted it. He had always
been fond of his cousin and in that half-amused and rather patronising
way in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren
who run more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if
Eustace had not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman
whom from his earliest years he had always considered the Empress of
the Wash-outs much might have been made of him. Both at school and at
Oxford, Eustace had been - if not a sport - at least a decidedly cheery
old bean. Sam remembered Eustace at school breaking gas globes with a
slipper in a positively rollicking manner. He remembered him at Oxford
playing up to him manfully at the piano on the occasion when he had
done that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the
Trinity smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound egg,
and it was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down
in the country miles away from anywhere.
"Eustace is returning to England on Saturday," said Mrs. Hignett. She
spoke a little wistfully. She had not been parted from her son since he
had come down from Oxford; and she would have liked to keep him with
her till the end of her lecturing tour. That, however, was out of the
question. It was imperative that, while she was away, he should be at
Windles. Nothing would have induced her to leave the place at the
mercy of servants who might trample over the flower-beds, scratch the
polished floors, and forget to cover up the canary at night. "He sails
on the _Atlantic_."
"That's splendid," said Sam. "I'm sailing on the _Atlantic_ myself.
I'll go down to the office and see if we can't have a state-room
together. But where is he going to live when he gets to England?"
"Where is he going to live? Why, at Windles, of course. Where else?"
"But I thought you were letting Windles for the summer?"
Mrs. Hignett stared.
"Letting Windles!" She spoke as one might address a lunatic. "What put
that extraordinary idea into your head?"
"I thought father said something about your letting the place to some
American."
"Nothing of the kind!"
It seemed to Sam that his aunt spoke somewhat vehemently, even
snappishly, in correcting what was a perfectly natural mistake. He
could not know that the subject of letting Windles for the summer was
one which had long since begun to infuriate Mrs. Hignett. People had
certainly asked her to let Windles. In fact people had pestered her. There
was a rich fat man, an American named Bennett, whom she had met just
before sailing at her brother's house in London. Invited down to Windles
for the day, Mr. Bennett had fallen in love with the place and had begged
her to name her own price. Not content with this, he had pursued her
with his pleadings by means of the wireless telegraph while she was on
the ocean, and had not given up the struggle even when she reached New
York. He had egged on a friend of his, a Mr. Mortimer, to continue the
persecution in that city. And, this very morning, among the letters on
Mrs. Hignett's table, the buff envelope of a cable from Mr. Bennett had
peeped out, nearly spoiling her breakfast. No wonder, then, that Sam's
allusion to the affair had caused the authoress of "The Spreading
Light" momentarily to lose her customary calm.
"Nothing will induce me ever to let Windles," she said with finality,
and rose significantly. Sam, perceiving that the audience was at an
end - and glad of it - also got up.
"Well, I think I'll be going down and seeing about that state-room," he
said.
"Certainly. I am a little busy just now, preparing notes for my next
lecture."
"Of course, yes. Mustn't interrupt you. I suppose you're having a great
time, gassing away - I mean - well, good-bye!"
"Good-bye!"
Mrs. Hignett, frowning, for the interview had ruffled her and disturbed
that equable frame of mind which is so vital to the preparation of
lectures on Theosophy, sat down at the writing-table and began to go
through the notes which she had made overnight. She had hardly
succeeded in concentrating herself when the door opened to admit the
daughter of Erin once more.
"Ma'am there was a gentleman."
"This is intolerable!" cried Mrs. Hignett. "Did you tell him that I was
busy?"
"I did not. I loosed him into the dining-room."
"Is he a reporter from one of the newspapers?"
"He is not. He has spats and a tall-shaped hat. His name is Bream
Mortimer."
"Bream Mortimer!"
"Yes, ma'am. He handed me a bit of a kyard, but I dropped it, being
slippy from the dishes."
Mrs. Hignett strode to the door with a forbidding expression. This, as
she had justly remarked, was intolerable. She remembered Bream
Mortimer. He was the son of the Mr. Mortimer who was the friend of the
Mr. Bennett who wanted Windles. This visit could only have to do with
the subject of Windles, and she went into the dining-room in a state of
cold fury, determined to squash the Mortimer family once and for all.
Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small, bright eyes and a
sharply curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most
parrots do. It gave strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they
saw Bream Mortimer in restaurants eating roast beef. They had the
feeling that he would have preferred sun-flower seeds.
"Morning, Mrs. Hignett."
"Please sit down."
Bream Mortimer sat down. He looked as though he would rather have
hopped on to a perch, but he sat down. He glanced about the room with
gleaming, excited eyes.
"Mrs. Hignett, I must have a word with you alone!"
"You _are_ having a word with me alone."
"I hardly know how to begin."
"Then let me help you. It is quite impossible. I will never consent."
Bream Mortimer started.
"Then you have heard!"
"I have heard about nothing else since I met Mr. Bennett in London. Mr.
Bennett talked about nothing else. Your father talked about nothing
else. And now," cried Mrs. Hignett fiercely, "you come and try to
reopen the subject. Once and for all nothing will alter my decision. No
money will induce me to let my house."
"But I didn't come about that!"
"You did not come about Windles?"
"Good Lord, no!"
"Then will you kindly tell me why you have come?"
Bream Mortimer looked embarrassed. He wriggled a little and moved his
arms as if he were trying to flap them.
"You know," he said, "I'm not a man who butts into other people's
affairs." ... He stopped.
"No?" said Mrs. Hignett.
Bream began again.
"I'm not a man who gossips with servants."
"No?"
"I'm not a man who...."
Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman.
"Let us take all your negative qualities for granted," she said curtly.
"I have no doubt that there are many things which you do not do. Let us
confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. What is it, if you
have no objection to concentrating your attention on that for a moment,
that you wish to see me about?"
"This marriage."
"What marriage?"
"Your son's marriage."
"My son is not married."
"No, but he's going to be. At eleven o'clock this morning at the Little
Church Round the Corner!"
Mrs. Hignett stared.
"Are you mad?"
"Well, I'm not any too well pleased, I'm bound to say," admitted Mr.
Mortimer. "You see, darn it all, I'm in love with the girl myself!"
"Who is this girl?"
"Have been for years. I'm one of those silent, patient fellows who hang
around and look a lot, but never tell their love...."
"Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?"
"I've always been one of those men who...."
"Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive
qualities, also, for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all.
You come to me with this absurd story...."
"Not absurd. Honest fact. I had it from my valet, who had it from her
maid, and, though I'm not a man who gossips with servants, I'm bound to
say...."
"Will you please tell me who is the girl my misguided son wishes to
marry?"
"I don't know that I'd call him misguided," said Mr. Mortimer, as one
desiring to be fair, "I think he's a right smart picker! She's such a
corking girl, you know. We were children together, and I've loved her
for years. Ten years at least. But you know how it is - somehow one
never seems to get in line for a proposal. I thought I saw an opening
in the summer of nineteen-twelve, but it blew over. I'm not one of
these smooth, dashing guys, you see, with a great line of talk. I'm
not...."
"If you will kindly," said Mrs. Hignett impatiently, "postpone this
essay in psycho-analysis to some future occasion I shall be greatly
obliged. I am waiting to hear the name of the girl my son wishes to
marry."
"Haven't I told you?" said Mr. Mortimer, surprised. "That's odd. I
haven't! It's funny how one doesn't do the things one thinks one does.
I'm the sort of man..."
"What is her name?"
"Bennett."
"Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The
red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?"
"That's it. You're a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the
thing."
"I intend to."
"Fine!"
"The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son
do not vibrate on the same plane."
"That's right. I've noticed it myself."
"Their auras are not the same colour."
"If I've thought that once," said Bream Mortimer, "I've thought it a
hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've thought it.
Not the same colour! That's the whole thing in a nutshell."
"I am much obliged to you for coming and telling me of this. I shall
take immediate steps."
"That's good! But what's the procedure? How are you going to form a
flying-wedge and buck-centre? It's getting late. She'll be waiting at
the church at eleven. With bells on," said Mr. Mortimer.
"Eustace will not be there."
"You think you can fix it?"
"Eustace will not be there," repeated Mrs. Hignett.
Bream Mortimer hopped down from his chair.
"Well, you've taken a weight off my mind."
"A mind, I should imagine, scarcely constructed to bear great weights."
"I'll be going. Haven't had breakfast yet. Too worried to eat
breakfast. Relieved now. This is where three eggs and a rasher of ham
get cut off in their prime. I feel I can rely on you."
"You can!"
"Then I'll say good-bye."
"Good-bye."
"I mean really good-bye. I'm sailing for England on Saturday on the
_Atlantic_."
"Indeed? My son will be your fellow-traveller."
Bream Mortimer looked somewhat apprehensive.
"You won't tell him that I was the one who spilled the beans?"
"I beg your pardon."
"You won't wise him up that I threw a spanner into the machinery?"
"I do not understand you."
"You won't tell him that I crabbed his act - gave the thing away - gummed
the game?"
"I shall not mention your chivalrous intervention."
"Chivalrous?" said Bream Mortimer doubtfully. "I don't know that I'd
call it absolutely chivalrous. Of course, all's fair in love and war.
Well, I'm glad you're going to keep my share in the business under your
hat. It might have been awkward meeting him on board."
"You are not likely to meet Eustace on board. He is a very indifferent
sailor and spends most of his time in his cabin."
"That's good! Saves a lot of awkwardness. Well, good-bye."
"Good-bye. When you reach England remember me to your father."
"He won't have forgotten you," said Bream Mortimer confidently. He did
not see how it was humanly possible for anyone to forget this woman.
She was like a celebrated chewing-gum. The taste lingered.
Mrs. Hignett was a woman of instant and decisive action. Even while her
late visitor was speaking schemes had begun to form in her mind like
bubbles rising to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door
had closed behind Bream Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than
seven, all good. It took her but a moment to select the best and
simplest. She tip-toed softly to her son's room. Rhythmic snores
greeted her listening ears. She opened the door and went noiselessly
in.
CHAPTER TWO
The White Star liner _Atlantic_ lay at her pier with steam up and
gangway down ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure
was near and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors
fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro.
White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain,
though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical
nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs, flowers
and baskets of fruit were flowing on board in a steady stream.
The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There
were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by
mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage there was
an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly thirty-seven
of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in the
second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning
compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous customs shed was
congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the
gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle
and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the
twenty-five years of his life he had developed by athletic exercise.
However, after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his shoulder
into the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously lifting some
stout female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling to within a few
yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot through his right arm
and he spun round with a cry.
It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New
York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite.
He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl.
She was a red-haired girl with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with
red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and
he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or maybe blue, or
possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in
feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were
the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to
quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very
tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her
chin soft and round. She was just about the height which every girl
ought to be. Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of
those dresses of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty
well all right.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and
for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and
garnished, with "Welcome" on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and
fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the
third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and
docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of
how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He
swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its
covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told
himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which
made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole
course of history anything like this had ever happened before to
anybody. Oh, to clasp this girl to him and -
But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit.
That, he felt, constituted an obstacle.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried.
Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act ... After all, an
impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the
moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature....
"The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous."
Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded
from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl's lower ribs a
sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over
the confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and
write, of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris
and give him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys,
magazine-boys, American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking
their wares on every side.
"I hope he didn't hurt you much. You're the third person he's bitten
to-day." She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on the
tip of his black nose. "Not counting bell-boys, of course," she added.
And then she was swept from him in the crowd and he was left thinking
of all the things he might have said - all those graceful, witty,
ingratiating things which just make a bit of difference on these
occasions.
He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of
pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition!
Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl
who comes to see friends off and doesn't sail herself. And what memory
of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she
went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital.
Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through
the crowd of passengers, passengers' friends, stewards, junior
officers, and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main
companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles,
as far as the dining-saloon: then turned down the narrow passage
leading to his stateroom.
Staterooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the
chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings
round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression
that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over
to do a bit of entertaining - possibly an informal dance or something.
When you go on board you find that the place has shrunk to the
dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to
swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands
again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does
not arise and you find yourself quite comfortable.
Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart
in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge,
began to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost
wished now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed
in order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be
a tight fit. Eustace's bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to
take up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort,
and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if that girl
with the red hair was not a passenger on the boat he was going to have
need of diverting society.
A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened.
"Hullo, Eustace!" said Sam.
Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag and emitted a
deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale,
intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He
looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did.
"Hullo!" he said, in a hollow voice.
Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but,
going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected
something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on
Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the
bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of
Russian novelists.
"What on earth's the matter?" said Sam.
"The matter?" Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, nothing.
Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart's broken." He eyed with
considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head,
a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who
might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage.
"If you would care to hear the story?" he said.
"Go ahead."
"It is quite short."
"That's good."
"Soon after I arrived in America I met a girl...."
"Talking of girls," said Marlowe with enthusiasm. "I've just seen the
only one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like
this. I was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when
suddenly...."
"Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell me yours?"
"Oh, sorry! Go ahead."
Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall informing
occupants of the stateroom that the name of their steward was J. B.
Midgeley.
"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."
"So was mine. I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw
such...."
"Of course, if you would prefer that I postponed my narrative?" said
Eustace coldly.
"Oh, sorry! Carry on."
"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."
"What was her name?"
"Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl and highly
intelligent. I read her all my poems and she appreciated them
immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest
her. She admired my...."
"I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the rest of the story."
"Don't bustle me," said Eustace querulously.
"Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days."
"I've forgotten where I was."
"You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened?
I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged
to some other johnny?"
"Not at all. I asked her to be my wife, and she consented. We both
agreed that a quiet wedding was what we wanted - she thought her father
might stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother
would - so we decided to get married without telling anybody. By now,"
said Eustace, with a morose glance at the porthole, "I ought to have
been on my honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the license and
the parson's fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding."
"And then you quarrelled?"
"Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the
story. I'm telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow - I can't
make out how - mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over.
She stopped the thing."
Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his
cousin's meek subservience to her revolted him.
"Stopped it? I suppose she said, 'Now, Eustace, you mustn't!' and you
said, 'Very well, mother!' and scratched the fixture?"
"She didn't say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes
she might never have heard anything about the marriage."
"Then how do you mean she stopped it?"
"She pinched my trousers!"
"Pinched your trousers?"
Eustace groaned. "All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long
before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out
while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress I couldn't find
a solitary pair of bags anywhere in the whole place. I looked
everywhere. Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing
letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she
had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in
the mornings - I don't as a rule - and they would be back at lunch-time,
A fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I
told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and
she wanted to know what it was and I tried to think of something, but
it sounded pretty feeble and she said I had better telephone to the man
and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and
told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn't meet him!
He was pretty peeved, judging from what he said about my being on the
wrong line. And mother listening all the time, and I knowing that she
knew - something told me that she knew - and she knowing that I knew she
knew - I tell you it was awful!"
"And the girl?"
"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from
eleven till one-thirty and then began to get impatient. She wouldn't
see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her
saying that what had happened was all for the best as she had been
thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a
mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had
thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like
Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed."
"Did you explain about the trousers?"
"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a
man anything except being ridiculous."
"I think you're well out of it," said Sam judicially. "She can't have
been much of a girl."
"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined.
I have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because
practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its
way to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and
approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother
behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me I wonder there isn't a law
against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was it
betrayed the Capitol!'"
"In Washington?" said Sam puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But
then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting
page.
"In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome."
"Oh, as long ago as that?"
"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like
Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the
Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Antony the world? A woman. Who was the
cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in ashes?
Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!'"
"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I
mean. But the girl I met on the dock - "
"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett. "If you have anything bitter and
derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if
you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed
girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to
the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that
I am a soul in torment! I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a
future! What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again.
My work? I haven't any. I think I shall take to drink."
"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we
pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?"
Eustace shook his head gloomily.
"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and
feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move I go to bed and stay
there. As a matter of fact I think it would be wisest to go to bed now.
Don't let me keep you if you want to go on deck."
"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that
you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage."
"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve
pyjamas out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!"
* * * * *
Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get
on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now the
sheep would be separating from the goats: the passengers would be on
deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor on the
boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already
taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was
she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He
reached the top of the stairs and passed out on to the crowded deck.
And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from
the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with
people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.
Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is
excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always
among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a
blank window on which were inscribed the words "Watch this space!" In
short, he was one of Nature's rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and
shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a
moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on - a view
which he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the
rail.
There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one
visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a Derby hat, and from time
to time as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust
this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.
Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of
the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away
leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like
everybody else she was staring into the water.
As Sam looked at her the thought crossed his mind that here was a
wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl.
What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety,
dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt,
who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to
shift back to a position of greater safety.
At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been
jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been
crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took
Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man
hung, as it were, between sea and sky; then he shot down over the rail
to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his
hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a
few skilful touches of the finger.
* * * * *
In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room,
chatting with Eustace about the latter's bruised soul, some
rather curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary,
perhaps, but curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to
grip the reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should
march. It should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps.
If there is one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested
in the hero in chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell
you all about his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go
back a space. We must return to the moment when, having deposited her
Pekinese dog in her state-room, the girl with the red hair came out