P G Wodehouse - Piccadilly Jim

by Piccadilly Jim

  From where he stood he could see the girl of the red-gold hair. Her back was towards him, and she was sitting at a table against one of the pillars with a little man with eye-glasses, a handsome woman in the forties, and a small stout boy who was skirmishing with the olives. As Jimmy hesitated, the vigilant head-waiter, who knew him well, perceived him, and hurried up.

  "In one moment, Mister Crockaire!" he said, and began to scatter commands among the underlings. "I will place a table for you in the aisle."

  "Next to that pillar, please," said Jimmy.

  The underlings had produced a small table--apparently from up their sleeves, and were draping it in a cloth. Jimmy sat down and gave his order. Ordering was going on at the other table. The little man seemed depressed at the discovery that corn on the cob and soft-shelled crabs were not to be obtained, and his wife's reception of the news that clams were not included in the Regent's bill-of-fare was so indignant that one would have said that she regarded the fact as evidence that Great Britain was going to pieces and would shortly lose her place as a world power.

  A selection having finally been agreed upon, the orchestra struck up "My Little Grey Home in the West," and no attempt was made to compete with it. When the last lingering strains had died away and the violinist-leader, having straightened out the kinks in his person which the rendition of the melody never failed to produce, had bowed for the last time, a clear, musical voice spoke from the other side of the pillar.

  "Jimmy Crocker is a WORM!"

  Jimmy spilled his cocktail. It might have been the voice of Conscience.

  "I despise him more than any one on earth. I hate to think that he's an American."

  Jimmy drank the few drops that remained in his glass, partly to make sure of them, partly as a restorative. It is an unnerving thing to be despised by a red-haired girl whose life you have just saved. To Jimmy it was not only unnerving; it was uncanny. This girl had not known him when they met on the street a few moments before. How then was she able to display such intimate acquaintance with his character now as to describe him--justly enough--as a worm? Mingled with the mystery of the thing was its pathos. The thought that a girl could be as pretty as this one and yet dislike him so much was one of the saddest things Jimmy had ever come across. It was like one of those Things Which Make Me Weep In This Great City so dear to the hearts of the sob-writers of his late newspaper.

  A waiter bustled up with a high-ball. Jimmy thanked him with his eyes. He needed it. He raised it to his lips.

  "He's always drinking--"

  He set it down hurriedly.

  "--and making a disgraceful exhibition of himself in public! I always think Jimmy Crocker--"

  Jimmy began to wish that somebody would stop this girl. Why couldn't the little man change the subject to the weather, or that stout child start prattling about some general topic? Surely a boy of that age, newly arrived in London, must have all sorts of things to prattle about? But the little man was dealing strenuously with a breaded cutlet, while the stout boy, grimly silent, surrounded fish-pie in the forthright manner of a starving python. As for the elder woman, she seemed to be wrestling with unpleasant thoughts, beyond speech.

  "--I always think that Jimmy Crocker is the worst case I know of the kind of American young man who spends all his time in Europe and tries to become an imitation Englishman. Most of them are the sort any country would be glad to get rid of, but he used to work once, so you can't excuse him on the ground that he hasn't the sense to know what he's doing. He's deliberately chosen to loaf about London and make a pest of himself. He went to pieces with his eyes open. He's a perfect, utter, hopeless WORM!"

  Jimmy had never been very fond of the orchestra at the Regent Grill, holding the view that it interfered with conversation and made for an unhygienic rapidity of mastication; but he was profoundly grateful to it now for bursting suddenly into -La Boheme-, the loudest item in its repertory. Under cover of that protective din he was able to toy with a steaming dish which his waiter had brought. Probably that girl was saying all sorts of things about him still but he could not hear them.

  The music died away. For a moment the tortured air quivered in comparative silence; then the girl's voice spoke again. She had, however, selected another topic of conversation.

  "I've seen all I want to of England," she said, "I've seen Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and His Majesty's Theatre and the Savoy and the Cheshire Cheese, and I've developed a frightful home-sickness. Why shouldn't we go back to-morrow?"

  For the first time in the proceedings the elder woman spoke. She cast aside her mantle of gloom long enough to say "Yes," then wrapped it round her again. The little man, who had apparently been waiting for her vote before giving his own, said that the sooner he was on board a New York-bound boat the better he would be pleased. The stout boy said nothing. He had finished his fish-pie, and was now attacking jam roll with a sort of morose resolution.

  "There's certain to be a boat," said the girl. "There always is. You've got to say that for England--it's an easy place to get back to America from." She paused. "What I can't understand is how, after having been in America and knowing what it was like, Jimmy Crocker could stand living..."

  The waiter had come to Jimmy's side, bearing cheese; but Jimmy looked at it with dislike and shook his head in silent negation. He was about to depart from this place. His capacity for absorbing home-truths about himself was exhausted. He placed a noiseless sovereign on the table, caught the waiter's eye, registered renunciation, and departed soft-footed down the aisle. The waiter, a man who had never been able to bring himself to believe in miracles, revised the views of a life-time. He looked at the sovereign, then at Jimmy, then at the sovereign again. Then he took up the coin and bit it furtively.

  A few minutes later, a hat-check boy, untipped for the first time in his predatory career, was staring at Jimmy with equal intensity, but with far different feelings. Speechless concern was limned on his young face.

  The commissionaire at the Piccadilly entrance of the restaurant touched his hat ingratiatingly, with the smug confidence of a man who is accustomed to getting sixpence a time for doing it.

  "Taxi, Mr. Crocker?"

  "A worm," said Jimmy.

  "Beg pardon, sir?"

  "Always drinking," explained Jimmy, "and making a pest of himself."

  He passed on. The commissionaire stared after him as intently as the waiter and the hat-check boy. He had sometimes known Mr. Crocker like this after supper, but never before during the luncheon hour.

  Jimmy made his way to his club in Northumberland Avenue. For perhaps half an hour he sat in a condition of coma in the smoking-room; then, his mind made up, he went to one of the writing-tables. He sat awaiting inspiration for some minutes, then began to write.

  The letter he wrote was to his father:

  Dear Dad:

  I have been thinking over what we talked about this morning, and it seems to me the best thing I can do is to drop out of sight for a brief space. If I stay on in London, I am likely at any moment to pull some boner like last night's which will spill the beans for you once more. The least I can do for you is to give you a clear field and not interfere, so I am off to New York by to-night's boat.

  I went round to Percy's to try to grovel in the dust before him, but he wouldn't see me. It's no good grovelling in the dust of the front steps for the benefit of a man who's in bed on the second floor, so I withdrew in more or less good order. I then got the present idea. Mark how all things work together for good. When they come to you and say "No title for you. Your son slugged our pal Percy," all you have to do is to come back at them with "I know my son slugged Percy, and believe me I didn't do a thing to him! I packed him off to America within twenty-four hours. Get me right, boys! I'm anti-Jimmy and pro-Percy." To which their reply will be "Oh, well, in that case arise, Lord Crocker!" or whatever they say when slipping a title to a deserving guy. So you will see that by making this getaway I am doing the best I ca
n to put things straight. I shall give this to Bayliss to give to you. I am going to call him up on the phone in a minute to have him pack a few simple tooth-brushes and so on for me. On landing in New York, I shall instantly proceed to the Polo Grounds to watch a game of Rounders, and will cable you the full score. Well. I think that's about all. So good-bye--or even farewell--for the present.

  J.

  P.S. I know you'll understand, dad. I'm doing what seems to me the only possible thing. Don't worry about me. I shall be all right. I'll get back my old job and be a terrific success all round. You go ahead and get that title and then meet me at the entrance of the Polo Grounds. I'll be looking for you.

  P.P.S. I'm a worm.

  The young clerk at the steamship offices appeared rejoiced to see Jimmy once more. With a sunny smile he snatched a pencil from his ear and plunged it into the vitals of the Atlantic.

  "How about E. a hundred and eight?"

  "Suits me."

  "You're too late to go in the passenger-list, of course."

  Jimmy did not reply. He was gazing rigidly at a girl who had just come in, a girl with red hair and a friendly smile.

  "So you're sailing on the -Atlantic-, too!" she said, with a glance at the chart on the counter. "How odd! We have just decided to go back on her too. There's nothing to keep us here and we're all homesick. Well, you see I wasn't run over after I left you."

  A delicious understanding relieved Jimmy's swimming brain, as thunder relieves the tense and straining air. The feeling that he was going mad left him, as the simple solution of his mystery came to him. This girl must have heard of him in New York--perhaps she knew people whom he knew and it was on hearsay, not on personal acquaintance, that she based that dislike of him which she had expressed with such freedom and conviction so short a while before at the Regent Grill. She did not know who he was!

  Into this soothing stream of thought cut the voice of the clerk.

  "What name, please?"

  Jimmy's mind rocked again. Why were these things happening to him to-day of all days, when he needed the tenderest treatment, when he had a headache already?

  The clerk was eyeing him expectantly. He had laid down his pencil and was holding aloft a pen. Jimmy gulped. Every name in the English language had passed from his mind. And then from out of the dark came inspiration.

  "Bayliss," he croaked.

  The girl held out her hand.

  "Then we can introduce ourselves at last. My name is Ann Chester. How do you do, Mr. Bayliss?"

  "How do you do, Miss Chester?"

  The clerk had finished writing the ticket, and was pressing labels and a pink paper on him. The paper, he gathered dully, was a form and had to be filled up. He examined it, and found it to be a searching document. Some of its questions could be answered off-hand, others required thought.

  "Height?" Simple. Five foot eleven.

  "Hair?" Simple. Brown.

  "Eyes?" Simple again. Blue.

  Next, queries of a more offensive kind.

  "Are you a polygamist?"

  He could answer that. Decidedly no. One wife would be ample--provided she had red-gold hair, brown-gold eyes, the right kind of mouth, and a dimple. Whatever doubts there might be in his mind on other points, on that one he had none whatever.

  "Have you ever been in prison?"

  Not yet.

  And then a very difficult one. "Are you a lunatic?"

  Jimmy hesitated. The ink dried on his pen. He was wondering.

  ...

  In the dim cavern of Paddington Station the boat-train snorted impatiently, varying the process with an occasional sharp shriek. The hands of the station clock pointed to ten minutes to six. The platform was a confused mass of travellers, porters, baggage, trucks, boys with buns and fruits, boys with magazines, friends, relatives, and Bayliss the butler, standing like a faithful watchdog beside a large suitcase. To the human surf that broke and swirled about him he paid no attention. He was looking for the young master.

  Jimmy clove the crowd like a one-man flying-wedge. Two fruit and bun boys who impeded his passage drifted away like leaves on an Autumn gale.

  "Good man!" He possessed himself of the suitcase. "I was afraid you might not be able to get here."

  "The mistress is dining out, Mr. James. I was able to leave the house."

  "Have you packed everything I shall want?"

  "Within the scope of a suitcase, yes, sir."

  "Splendid! Oh, by the way, give this letter to my father, will you?"

  "Very good, sir."

  "I'm glad you were able to manage. I thought your voice sounded doubtful over the phone."

  "I was a good deal taken aback, Mr. James. Your decision to leave was so extremely sudden."

  "So was Columbus'. You know about him? He saw an egg standing on its head and whizzed off like a jack-rabbit."

  "If you will pardon the liberty, Mr. James, is it not a little rash--?"

  "Don't take the joy out of life, Bayliss. I may be a chump, but try to forget it. Use your willpower."

  "Good evening, Mr. Bayliss," said a voice behind them. They both turned. The butler was gazing rather coyly at a vision in a grey tailor-made suit.

  "Good evening, miss," he said doubtfully.

  Ann looked at him in astonishment, then broke into a smile.

  "How stupid of me! I meant this Mr. Bayliss. Your son! We met at the steamship offices. And before that he saved my life. So we are old friends."

  Bayliss, gaping perplexedly and feeling unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation, was surprised further to perceive a warning scowl on the face of his Mr. James. Jimmy had not foreseen this thing, but he had a quick mind and was equal to it.

  "How are you, Miss Chester? My father has come down to see me off. This is Miss Chester, dad."

  A British butler is not easily robbed of his poise, but Bayliss was frankly unequal to the sudden demand on his presence of mind. He lowered his jaw an inch or two, but spoke no word.

  "Dad's a little upset at my going," whispered Jimmy confidentially. "He's not quite himself."

  Ann was a girl possessed not only of ready tact but of a kind heart. She had summed up Mr. Bayliss at a glance. Every line of him proclaimed him a respectable upper servant. No girl on earth could have been freer than she of snobbish prejudice, but she could not check a slight thrill of surprise and disappointment at the discovery of Jimmy's humble origin. She understood everything, and there were tears in her eyes as she turned away to avoid intruding on the last moments of the parting of father and son.

  "I'll see you on the boat, Mr. Bayliss," she said.

  "Eh?" said Bayliss.

  "Yes, yes," said Jimmy. "Good-bye till then."

  Ann walked on to her compartment. She felt as if she had just read a whole long novel, one of those chunky younger-English-novelist things. She knew the whole story as well as if it had been told to her in detail. She could see the father, the honest steady butler, living his life with but one aim, to make a gentleman of his beloved only son. Year by year he had saved. Probably he had sent the son to college. And now, with a father's blessing and the remains of a father's savings, the boy was setting out for the New World, where dollar-bills grew on trees and no one asked or cared who any one else's father might be.

  There was a lump in her throat. Bayliss would have been amazed if he could have known what a figure of pathetic fineness he seemed to her. And then her thoughts turned to Jimmy, and she was aware of a glow of kindliness towards him. His father had succeeded in his life's ambition. He had produced a gentleman! How easily and simply, without a trace of snobbish shame, the young man had introduced his father. There was the right stuff in him. He was not ashamed of the humble man who had given him his chance in life. She found herself liking Jimmy amazingly...

  The hands of the clock pointed to three minutes to the hour. Porters skimmed to and fro like water-beetles.

  "I can't explain," said Jimmy. "It wasn't temporary insanity; it was n
ecessity."

  "Very good, Mr. James. I think you had better be taking your seat now."

  "Quite right, I had. It would spoil the whole thing if they left me behind. Bayliss, did you ever see such eyes? Such hair! Look after my father while I am away. Don't let the dukes worry him. Oh, and, Bayliss"--Jimmy drew his hand from his pocket--"as one pal to another--"

  Bayliss looked at the crackling piece of paper.

  "I couldn't, Mr. James, I really couldn't! A five-pound note! I couldn't!"

  "Nonsense! Be a sport!"

  "Begging your pardon, Mr. James, I really couldn't. You cannot afford to throw away your money like this. You cannot have a great deal of it, if you will excuse me for saying so."

  "I won't do anything of the sort. Grab it! Oh, Lord, the train's starting! Good-bye, Bayliss!"

  The engine gave a final shriek of farewell. The train began to slide along the platform, pursued to the last by optimistic boys offering buns for sale. It gathered speed. Jimmy, leaning out the window, was amazed at a spectacle so unusual as practically to amount to a modern miracle--the spectacled Bayliss running. The butler was not in the pink of condition, but he was striding out gallantly. He reached the door of Jimmy's compartment, and raised his hand.

  "Begging your pardon, Mr. James," he panted, "for taking the liberty, but I really couldn't!"

  He reached up and thrust something into Jimmy's hand, something crisp and crackling. Then, his mission performed, fell back and stood waving a snowy handkerchief. The train plunged into the tunnel.

  Jimmy stared at the five-pound note. He was aware, like Ann farther along the train, of a lump in his throat. He put the note slowly into his pocket.

  The train moved on.

  CHAPTER VII

  ON THE BOAT-DECK

  Rising waters and a fine flying scud that whipped stingingly over the side had driven most of the passengers on the -Atlantic- to the shelter of their staterooms or to the warm stuffiness of the library. It was the fifth evening of the voyage. For five days and four nights the ship had been racing through a placid ocean on her way to Sandy Hook: but in the early hours of this afternoon the wind had shifted to the north, bringing heavy seas. Darkness had begun to fall now. The sky was a sullen black. The white crests of the rollers gleamed faintly in the dusk, and the wind sang in the ropes.