Three Men and a Maid

by P. G. Wodehouse

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all countof time.

  "Who's that?"

  "I have a note for you, sir."

  It was the level voice of J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards ofthe White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging bodyof men in the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Starsteward, waking you up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath isready, when you wanted to sleep on till twelve, is the nearest humanapproach to the nightingale.

  "A what?"

  "A note, sir."

  Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and tookthe note from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired inan orderly manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with athrill. He had never seen the hand-writing before, but, with the eye oflove, he recognized it. It was just the sort of hand he would haveexpected Billie to write, round and smooth and flowing, the writing of awarm-hearted girl. He tore open the envelope.

  "Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you."

  Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a littledisappointed. I don't know if you see anything wrong with the letter,but the way Sam looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, itmight have been longer and perhaps a shade warmer. And, without runningany risk of writer's cramp, she might have signed it.

  However, these were small matters. No doubt she had been in a hurry andall that sort of thing. The important point was that he was going tosee her. When a man's afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is acheering sight to see; and the same truth holds good when a man hasmade an exhibition of himself at a ship's concert. A woman's gentlesympathy, that was what Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything elseat the moment. That, he felt, was what the doctor ordered. He scrubbedthe burnt cork off his face with all possible speed and changed hisclothes and made his way to the upper deck. It was like Billie, hefelt, to have chosen this spot for their meeting. It would be desertedand it was hallowed for them both by sacred associations.

  She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon wasquite full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea,making it look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island.The girl appeared to be wrapped in thought, and it was not till thesharp crack of Sam's head against an overhanging stanchion announcedhis approach that she turned.

  "Oh, is that you?"

  "Yes."

  "You've been a long time."

  "It wasn't an easy job," explained Sam, "getting all that burnt corkoff. You've no notion how the stuff sticks. You have to use butter...."

  She shuddered.

  "Don't!"

  "But I did. You have to with burnt cork."

  "Don't tell me these horrible things." Her voice rose almosthysterically. "I never want to hear the words burnt cork mentionedagain as long as I live."

  "I feel exactly the same." Sam moved to her side.

  "Darling," he said in a low voice, "it was like you to ask me to meetyou here. I know what you were thinking. You thought that I should needsympathy. You wanted to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to holdme in your arms, and tell me that, as we loved each other, what didanything else matter?"

  "I didn't."

  "You didn't?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "Oh, you didn't! I thought you did!" He looked at her wistfully.

  "I thought," he said, "that possibly you might have wished to comfortme. I have been through a great strain. I have had a shock...."

  "And what about me?" she demanded passionately. "Haven't I had ashock?"

  He melted at once.

  "Have you had a shock, too? Poor little thing! Sit down and tell me allabout it."

  She looked away from him, her face working.

  "Can't you understand what a shock I have had? I thought you were theperfect knight."

  "Yes, isn't it?"

  "Isn't what?"

  "I thought you said it was a perfect night."

  "I said I thought _you_ were a perfect knight."

  "Oh, ah!"

  A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows, went over to asort of raised summerhouse with a brass thingummy in it, fooled aboutfor a moment, and went away again. Sailors earn their money easily.

  "Yes?" said Sam when he had gone.

  "I forget what I was saying."

  "Something about my being the perfect knight."

  "Yes. I thought you were."

  "That's good."

  "But you're not!"

  "No?"

  "No!"

  "Oh!"

  Silence fell. Sam was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could notunderstand her mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed andcomforted and she was like a petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalledsome lines of poetry which he had had to write out a hundred times onone occasion at school as a punishment for having introduced a whitemouse into chapel.

  "Oh, woman in our hours of ease, Un-something, something, something, please. When tiddly-umpty umpty brow, A something, something, something, thou!"

  He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been thatwoman, however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could berelied on to rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble.How little the poet had known women.

  "Why not?" he said huffily.

  She gave a little sob.

  "I put you on a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You haveblurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you againwithout picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering andhelpless...."

  "Well, what can you do when your pianist runs out on you?"

  "You could have done _something_. I can't forgive a man forlooking ridiculous. Oh, what, what," she cried, "induced you to try togive an imitation of Bert Williams?"

  Sam started, stung to the quick.

  "It wasn't Bert Williams. It was Frank Tinney!"

  "Well, how was I to know?"

  "I did my best," said Sam sullenly.

  "That is the awful thought."

  "I did it for your sake."

  "I know. It gives me a horrible sense of guilt." She, shuddered again.Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust asmall black golliwog into his hand.

  "Take it!"

  "What's this?"

  "You bought it for me yesterday at the barber's shop. It is the onlypresent that you have given me. Take it back."

  "I don't want it. I shouldn't know what to do with it."

  "You must take it," she said in a low voice. "It is a symbol."

  "A what?"

  "A symbol of our broken love."

  "I don't see how you make that out. It's a golliwog."

  "I can never marry you now."

  "What! Good heavens! Don't be absurd."

  "I can't."

  "Oh, go on, have a dash at it," he said encouragingly, though his heartwas sinking.

  She shook her head.

  "No, I couldn't."

  "Oh, hang it all!"

  "I couldn't. I'm a strange girl...."

  "You're a darned silly girl...."

  "I don't see what right you have to say that," she flared.

  "I don't see what right you have to say you can't marry me and try toload me up with golliwogs," he retorted with equal heat.

  "Oh, can't you understand?"

  "No, I'm dashed if I can."

  She looked at him despondently.

  "When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to mefor everything that was noble and brave and wonderful. I had only toshut my eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the railthat morning. Now"--her voice trembled--"if I shut my eyes now,--I canonly see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughingstock of the ship. How can I marry you, haunted by that picture?"

  "But, good heavens, you talk as if I made a habit of blacking up! Youtalk as if you expect
ed me to come to the altar smothered in burnt cork."

  "I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night."

  She looked at him sadly, "There's a bit of black still on your leftear."

  He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as ifstruck.

  "So this is the end," he muttered.

  "Yes. It's partly on your ear and partly on your cheek."

  "So this is the end," he repeated.

  "You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some morebutter."

  He laughed bitterly.

  "Well, I might have expected it, I might have known what would happen!Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women--as I do--now.Women! What mighty ills have not been done by women? Who was't betrayedthe what's-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ...who--er--and so on? A woman ... So all is over! There is nothing to besaid but good-bye?"

  "No."

  "Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!"

  "Good-bye," said Billie sadly. "I--I'm sorry."

  "Don't mention it!"

  "You do understand, don't you?"

  "You have made everything perfectly clear."

  "I hope--I hope you won't be unhappy."

  "Unhappy!" Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx, like the cryof a shrimp in pain. "Unhappy! I'm not unhappy! Whatever gave you thatidea? I'm smiling! I'm laughing! I feel I've had a merciful escape."

  "It's very unkind and rude of you to say that."

  "It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called'Saved from the Scaffold.'"

  "Oh!"

  "I'm not unhappy. What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earthdoes any man want to get married for? I don't ... Give me my gaybachelor life! My uncle Charlie used to say 'It's better luck to getmarried than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.' But _he_was an optimist. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And good-bye--for ever."

  He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaventhe moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spokenbravely: the most captious critic could not but have admitted that hehad made a good exit. But already his heart was aching.

  As he drew near to his stateroom, he was amazed and disgusted to hear ahigh tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door.

  "I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor, Though his lance be sharrrp and-er keen; But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen: I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour...."

  Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should stillbe alive was bad--he had pictured him hurling himself overboard andbobbing about, a pleasing sight, in the wake of the vessel; that heshould be singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam thought should havestricken Eustace Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comportinghimself like a blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have noconscience whatever.

  "Well," he said sternly, "so there you are!"

  Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the briefinterval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, anextraordinary transformation had taken place in this young man.His wan look had disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face worethat beastly self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertisingcertain makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had beena full-page drawing in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I alwayswear Sigsbee's Superfine Featherweight!" printed underneath him, hecould not have looked more pleased with himself.

  "Hullo!" he said. "I was wondering where you had got to."

  "Never mind," said Sam coldly, "where I had got to! Where did you getto, and why? You poor, miserable worm," he went on in a burst ofgenerous indignation, "what have you to say for yourself? What do youmean by dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?"

  "Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn't foreseen the cigar. I was bearing uptolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemedto go black--I don't mean you, of course. You were black already--and Igot the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself."

  "Well, why didn't you?" demanded Sam, with a strong sense of injury."I might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find yousinging...."

  A soft light came into Eustace Hignett's eyes.

  "I want to tell you all about that," he said, "It's the mostastonishing story. A miracle, you might almost call it. Makes youbelieve in Fate and all that sort of thing. A week ago I was on theSubway in New York...."

  He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of NewYork, in the order named.

  "My dear chap, what is the matter?"

  "What is the matter? Ha!"

  "Something is the matter," persisted Eustace Hignett, "I can tell it byyour manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I knowyou so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me."

  "Ha, ha!"

  "You surely can't still be brooding on that concert business? Why,that's all over. I take it that after my departure you made the mostcolossal ass of yourself, but why let that worry you? These thingscannot affect one permanently."

  "Can't they? Let me tell you that as a result of that concert myengagement is broken off."

  Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand.

  "Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is thefinest thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idlewords. As one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speakfeelingly. You are well out of it, Sam."

  Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutchedit eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett.

  "My heart is broken," he said with dignity.

  "That feeling will pass, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. Iknow! I've been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what isshe? A rag and a bone and a hank of hair?"

  "She is nothing of the kind," said Sam, revolted.

  "Pardon me," said Eustace firmly, "I speak as an expert. I know her andI repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!"

  "She is the only girl in the world, and owing to your idiotic behaviourI have lost her."

  "You speak of the only girl in the world," said Eustace blithely. "Ifyou want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. Aweek ago I was in the Subway in New York...."

  "I'm going to bed," said Sam brusquely.

  "All right. I'll tell you while you're undressing."

  "I don't want to listen."

  "A week ago," said Eustace Hignett, "I will ask you to picture meseated after some difficulty in a carriage in a New York subway; I gotinto conversation with a girl with an elephant gun."

  Sam revised his private commination service in order to include theelephant gun.

  "She was my soul-mate," proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. "Ididn't know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, awonderful personality, and this elephant gun. She was bringing the gunaway from the down-town place where she had taken it to be mended."

  "Did she shoot you with it?"

  "Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!"

  "The girl must have been a fool!" said Sam bitterly. "The chance of alife-time and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?"

  "I haven't seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun,and explained its mechanism. You can imagine how she soothed my achingheart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at the moment--quiteunnecessarily if I had only known--because it was only a couple of dayssince my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been broken off. Well, weparted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it may seem, I forgot allabout her."

  "Do it again!"

  "Tell it again?"

  "Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again."

  "Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Oursouls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from theirdeepest depths, saying ... There are your pyjamas, over in thecorner ... saying, 'You are mine!' How c
ould I forget her after that?Well, as I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she wassailing on this very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed ondeck...."

  "Did you writhe?" asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest.

  "I certainly did."

  "That's good!"

  "But not for long."

  "That's bad!"

  "She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel."

  "Switch off the light when you've finished."

  "She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There aresome situations which do not need words. She went away and returnedwith a mixture of some kind in a glass.

  "I don't know what it was. It had Worcester sauce in it. She put it tomy lips. She made me drink it. She said it was what her father alwaysused in Africa for bull-calves with the staggers. Well, believe me orbelieve me not ... Are you asleep?"

  "Yes."

  "Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merelyfreed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I waswalking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even ableto look over the side from time to time and comment on the beautyof the moon on the water ... I have said some mordant things about womensince I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. Theystill apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased toinclude the whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faithin woman. Sam! Sam!"

  "What?"

  "I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in woman."

  "Oh, all right."

  Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smileon his face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, brokenonly by the distant purring of engines. At about twelve-thirty a voicecame from the lower berth.

  "Sam!"

  "What is it now?"

  "There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling meshe once killed a panther with a hat-pin."

  Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress.

  Silence fell again.

  "At least I think it was a panther," said Eustace Hignett, at a quarterpast one. "Either a panther or a puma."