Fool Errant

by Patricia Wentworth

  “I say—”

  “You mustn’t! Oh, what shall I do? There’s my train—I can’t miss it! Quick—my bag!”

  She was off. He heard the bag bump on the road; his hand, groping for it, met hers, bare like his own. He caught at the bag, and they began to run.

  The train was coming into view along a raised embankment; the lighted windows seemed high up and very far away. A cloud of orange rosy smoke was blown backwards from the engine; it hung above the dead whiteness of the low fog.

  “Run!” said the girl.

  She took his left hand, and they raced down the hill. They reached the station whilst the train was still some hundreds of yards away.

  “Get my ticket! Oh, I’m so glad I thought of that! Here’s a pound—get it quickly!”

  When he came back to her with the ticket, the train was in the station. Two men got out.

  The girl took her ticket and the change, snatched up her bag, and ran across the platform. Hugo followed. The door slammed on her. The train began to move. She leaned out.

  He felt an overwhelming desire to see her face. But she was only a slim black silhouette against the carriage lamp; it shone behind her head like a yellow aureole. She leaned out.

  “Don’t go there—you mustn’t go there!”

  “Why not?”

  He walked beside the train, walked faster, began to run.

  “I heard—there’s no time—what’s your name?”

  He was being left behind. The engine snorted, and a great puff of steam came drifting back.

  “Hugo Ross.”

  He seemed to be shouting it, but the wind took the words away. He heard her voice very faintly:

  “You mustn’t.”

  The steam hid her. The train went on.

  Hugo turned and walked out of the station into the darkness. How astonishing! How extraordinary and astonishing! What on earth did she mean?

  He walked to the corner from which they had seen the train. Its row of lighted windows had for a moment lighted up the sloping field from which the embankment rose. Six foot of fog and two black humps rising out of it—barns or haystacks. He thought he would go and prospect.

  They were haystacks. Coldish comfort, but better than walking about all night. He sat down in the warmest spot he could find, leaned his back against the hay, and fumbled in an inside pocket.

  There came out the two halves of a flute, his pride and his despair, practised by stealth, often abandoned, and as often resumed. The secret passion which drove him to make music was outraged by his lack of skill. Yesterday’s exercise had been a teaser. He determined to get the better of it. For half an hour slow, melancholy notes followed one another into the fog.

  At the end of half an hour he stopped playing the exercise and began to copy the high clear notes of a girl’s laugh.

  CHAPTER II

  At half-past nine next morning Hugo walked between the white gate-posts of Meade House and up the drive beneath the over-arching trees. The grounds were large and untidy. The house, when he came to it, was just such a house as he expected—square, flat, slate-roofed, and hung with leafless creepers. There were no curtains showing at the windows, and discoloured blinds hung unevenly, some up, some down, and one at least askew.

  Oddly enough, Hugo’s spirits rose. He was feeling quite horribly conscious of being unshaved, and it was a relief to find that the house did not set an exacting standard. As a matter of fact, no one would have suspected him of a night in a haystack. To their last thread Hugo’s clothes would keep their shape and look neat, whilst his fair hair and fresh complexion gave him the air of having just emerged from a cold bath. His daily shave was a rite, not a necessity.

  He rang the bell, and heard it clang far away in the recesses of the house. It had a hoarse, deep sound like a cracked gong.

  Almost at once a middle-aged woman opened the door. She had a smudged face and a dirty apron. She carried a pail of water which slopped over on the step and wetted Hugo’s shoe. He moved his foot and said politely,

  “I’ve come to see Mr. Minstrel.”

  The woman set down the pail of water and left him standing at the open door. A minute passed—two minutes—quite a number of minutes. Hugo thought how cold the house must be getting. On any other morning his courage would have been cooling too. If he had been paying a call, now, and they had left him like this at an open door, he would probably have wanted to run away, and he would probably have stammered dreadfully when he began to speak. On this morning, unshaven and breakfastless, he had a feeling of assurance which was delightfully new and very supporting. He could have whistled; he could have played the flute openly and without a blush.

  A door opened upstairs. Someone came running down into the hall—a man, large, young, with a blue chin, thick eyebrows, and a black moustache clipped short. He said, “Hullo!” in a tone of surprise; and Hugo said,

  “I’ve come to see Mr. Minstrel.”

  The dark young man stared. He had eyes rather like bull’s-eyes without the stripes; the comparison just passed through Hugo’s mind.

  “By appointment?”

  “I’m applying for the post of secretary.”

  The dark young man laughed rather noisily.

  “That’s quick work! Did you come by wire? The advertisement’s hardly out. All right, first come, first served. My name’s Hacker. I’m Minstrel’s assistant, and I shall be damn glad when he gets a secretary, because I’ve had all the correspondence on my hands since Mayhew left. Come along!”

  He led the way to the back of the hall and threw open a door on the right.

  Hugo came into a large, littered room with a faded carpet on the floor and ugly green curtains drawn rigidly back from a window which looked upon a straggle of leafless rose bushes. The walls were lined with bookshelves. There were two writing-tables and a cabinet gramophone.

  “Sit down,” said Mr. Hacker.

  He went across to a door on the far side of the room, knocked on it, and waited. After a moment the door was opened and he went in, shutting it after him.

  Hugo went and looked out of the window.

  The room into which Mr. Hacker had disappeared was evidently a recent addition to the house; it could be seen from the window, a tall, long, featureless block set down on the remains of a rose garden. It was built of a hideous yellow brick and roofed with purplish slate—an offence to the eye. A skylight ran the whole length of it. Upon this side, at least, there were no windows.

  Hugo turned at the sound of the opening door. Ambrose Minstrel was coming into the room—a tall, thin man with a stoop, and grey untidy hair and a grey untidy beard. He spoke over his shoulder to Hacker:

  “Where is he? You shouldn’t have left him.”

  “He’s here.” Mr. Hacker sounded quite meek.

  Ambrose Minstrel turned, saw Hugo, swept him with a restless glance, and flung impatiently into an old leather-covered armchair. His eyes, under their bushy brows, came back to Hugo, and again shifted.

  Mr. Hacker sat down at the nearest table.

  Curiously enough, Hugo did not feel embarrassed. He was interested, stimulated, alert. He felt not the slightest inclination to stammer. It was immensely thrilling to meet Ambrose Minstrel—one didn’t expect him to be like other people. He gazed with deep respect at the bulging brow, the hot restless eyes, the long nervous fingers, stained brown and yellow, scarred with the marks of epoch-making experiments. He felt very young and untried, and eager, and confident.

  Ambrose Minstrel tugged at his ragged beard.

  “You’ve come about the secretaryship?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He hadn’t stammered at all; the ‘s,’ his special enemy, had been surmounted without effort.

  “Your name?”

  The questions were being jerked at him in a dry, uneven voice. Hacker appeared to be taking down the answers.

  “Hugo Ross.”

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-six, sir.”

  Delightfu
l—he hadn’t stammered in the least. Why had he ever stammered? If one could say a thing like that, one could say anything; it was as easy as falling out of bed.

  “Experience?”

  That was rather a nasty snag, because of course he hadn’t any experience to speak of. He flushed a little as he said,

  “I used to do all my uncle’s correspondence.”

  “Uncle? What uncle?”

  Of course he oughtn’t to have mentioned his uncle just like that. His cheeks had begun to burn.

  “I lived with him, sir. He had a place in Devonshire.”

  “And you did the correspondence? And that’s your experience?” The great man’s tone was definitely sarcastic.

  Hugo’s ears burned as well as his cheeks; but he went on looking straight at Ambrose Minstrel. His eyes were a very bright blue.

  Ambrose Minstrel laughed.

  “Got that down, Hacker? Now where were you at school? And what have you been doing since you left school? Were you at the ’Varsity?”

  Mr. Hacker wrote down the answers.

  “You’ve been living with your uncle ever since you came down. What did you say his name was? Ross?”

  “Trevelyan, sir. He was my mother’s brother.”

  “Was?”

  “He died three months ago.”

  “And left you the place?” Again the tone was sarcastic.

  “No, sir.”

  “Cut you off with a shilling? Why?” The last word had a real stand-and-deliver sound.

  Hugo did not look away.

  “My uncle never made the will he meant to. I know he meant to do it, because when I went to live with him he told me so. I was meant for the Indian Civil, but he asked me to give it up and get into the ways of the place. I was practically agent the last three years. He meant to leave me everything. But the will couldn’t be found—perhaps he never made it—and everything went, under an old will, to a distant cousin.”

  “Very interesting,” said Minstrel.

  There was a pause. Hugo felt himself cooling to the point of antagonism. If he had not had his pocket picked, he would have been tempted to say good-morning and walk out. He saw Hacker turn slightly. He could not see his face.

  Minstrel looked round and said irritably,

  “All right, all right! I wish to Heaven you’d attend to your job, Hacker! I tell you I won’t be dictated to. I tell you I’ll do things my own way or not at all. Am I engaging a secretary, or are you?”

  Hacker turned back with a shrug of the shoulders. Hugo caught a glimpse of his side face—black eyebrow raised, exasperation plainly stamped.

  Minstrel pulled his beard and went on interviewing Hugo after his own peculiar fashion.

  “What relations have you?”

  “Only a sister, sir. She’s married to a man in India.”

  “Army?”

  “Indian Army.”

  “Name?”

  “Smith—John Warrington Smith.”

  “Rank?”

  “Captain.”

  “No other relations?”

  “Only distant cousins. I don’t know any of them.”

  Minstrel nodded. The answer appeared to please him.

  “You’re not married?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Engaged—entangled? You wouldn’t tell me if you were, I suppose. I can’t have my affairs talked about. D’you see? I don’t want a secretary who’s going to go home for week-ends and talk—or to go anywhere and talk. My affairs aren’t to be talked about—my work isn’t to be talked about. What d’you know about it already?” He shot this at Hugo with a sudden violence.

  “Only what everyone knows.”

  “How discreet!” The violence slid into a sneer. “Well, what does everybody know?”

  “It’s in Who’s Who, sir.”

  Minstrel laughed aloud.

  “Where you’ve read it! A lot of tripe—half a column of it—from the Minstrel propeller to the Minstrel gyrostat! Half a column of cold-meat sentences! Bah! What do they know of the grind, the sweat, the brain I’ve put into my work? And for what? For what, I ask you? Letters after my name—paragraphs in the press—and the starvation wage which is all we’ve got to offer genius over here!”

  Hacker turned again.

  Minstrel pushed back his chair, got up, and went striding off to the end of the room. He took a book from a shelf, apparently at random, fluttered the pages, thrust it into its place again, and came striding back. He stopped by Hugo, looking down on him, and asked abruptly,

  “What are your qualifications? Have you studied mechanics?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Dynamics? Chemistry?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, you’ve got a nerve—haven’t you?”

  Hugo began to think he had. Anyhow he had stopped blushing. Ambrose Minstrel reminded him of a weather report: “Squally. Some rain. Wind variable. Local thunderstorms. Very disturbed conditions. Further outlook highly uncertain.” It was impossible to feel embarrassed by a weather report. He stood the scrutiny of those hot, restless eyes at very close quarters.

  Then Minstrel turned away with a laugh.

  “That’s all right. I don’t want an assistant—I want a secretary. I don’t want brains—I want a writing-machine. I can do all the thinking that’s needed in this house. I don’t want anyone else butting in. D’you hear, Hacker? You can put that in your pipe and smoke it. Now look here, you—Ross, let’s get down to business. What about your references? If you haven’t got anything else, I suppose you’ve got a character. No—I apologize. You mayn’t have brains or education, but you’ve got plenty of brass—I’ll say that for you. Well—what about testimonials?”

  He flung back into his chair with the envelope produced by Hugo in his hand, tore it roughly down one side, and proceeded most embarrassingly to read aloud the letters from Mr. Trevelyan’s solicitor, the local parson, and a neighbouring J.P., in each one of which Hugo was praised as a young man of unblemished character, extreme trustworthiness, and unflagging industry. It sounded awful. In the midst of the last letter he stopped and flung the whole lot across the room.

  “Lord! What stuff! Are you all that of a prig?”

  “No, sir,” said Hugo dryly.

  Minstrel turned to his assistant.

  “Hacker, get a move on, can’t you? Pick up that tosh! See if any of ’em have got telephone numbers. Get on to ’em and ask ’em what about it. Meanwhile—here, you—Ross, have you got any objection to putting in a day’s work without prejudice? You haven’t? All right, go over there and begin. You’ll find a pretty average silt, because Hacker’s a lazy brute and hasn’t done a hand’s turn for days. I pay my secretary a hundred and fifty. If you don’t suit, you can work out how much that comes to a day. I’ll try you for a week if your references are all right. Now go over there and get down to it!”

  CHAPTER III

  That night Hugo wrote to Susan in India:

  “I am Ambrose Minstrel’s secretary. Isn’t it ripping? He’s trying me for a week, but it’s going to be all right. I came down over night and got in before anyone else. Manning gave me the tip. He knows Hacker who is Minstrel’s assistant. It was awfully decent of him, because it really was a case of first come, first served. Hacker said that to me when I arrived, and I soon found out what he meant. Minstrel has taken me on for a week on the strength of my not having any relations to speak of. I had to take notes whilst he interviewed all the other fellows. Rather comic—wasn’t it? As a matter of fact Minstrel only really interviewed two of them. In the middle of the second one he got fed up and dashed off into his laboratory and locked himself in, and left Hacker and me to carry on. It was awfully funny, because I’d only just come off the mat myself. As a matter of fact, Hacker and I did the job a lot better than old Minstrel. But when I handed in the beautiful notes I had taken, Minstrel just tore them across and flung them into the fire and said they could all go to blazes. Then he said, ‘Hacker says your references ar
e all right. If they are, you’re probably too good to live; but if you survive, you can have the job—unless you get on my nerves. I’ll soon tell you if you do.’ He kept me busy all day. And then, just as I was wondering how I was to get my kit, he told me that there was a train at seven, and that I’d better clear out, get anything I wanted, and come down by the nine-thirty next day. So here I am, packing up.”

  He finished his letter and turned his mind to the problem of what to pawn. He was very glad he hadn’t accepted Hacker’s offer of a loan. Now why should Hacker have offered him a loan? It seemed odd. Why on earth should Hacker suppose that he needed a loan?

  Hugo frowned, and, frowning, went and stared at himself in the glass. Did he look down and out? Did he look as if he needed a loan from a stranger? He did not. The grey suit was only a year old; a suit in the first flush of youth; a well cut suit; a reputable, decorous, secretarial suit; even a slightly priggish suit—not in the least the kind of suit to which the casual stranger offers loans. How could Hacker possibly have known that a return ticket to London was all that had saved him from having to confess to empty pockets? Hacker couldn’t possibly have guessed. Hacker meant well.

  Having thus damned Mr. Hacker, Hugo considered his pawnable possessions. Not his flute—certainly not his flute. He picked out Uncle Richard’s field-glasses and wondered how much they would raise, and whether Minstrel paid by the week, the month, or the quarter? The field-glasses would certainly not last a quarter. He added a pocket aneroid in a worn leather case, a pair of skates, and a travelling clock. After which he packed everything else and went to bed, where he dreamt that he and Hacker were parachuting from the moon in the new Minstrel submarine. They were firing torpedoes out of catapults, and great flocks of birds with broad red wings went whirling down the sky in their track; they made a rushing sound like the rushing of the sea. And all at once the girl whispered in his ear, “You mustn’t go there! Oh, you mustn’t go there!” He woke up with the sound of the words in his ears.

  The field-glasses, the barometer and the clock brought him three pound ten and the consciousness of having been done. If he had had more time, he would have walked out of the shop; but with the nine-thirty to catch, he pocketed the cash. It annoyed him to think that there had been a witness to his defeat. He thought the elderly man who had followed him into the shop regarded him with the sort of expression that says “had for a mug.”