A Damsel in Distress

by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

  “What were you saying to her, then, that interested her so much?”

  “I was explaining how I landed dead on the pin with my spoon out of a sand-trap at the eleventh hole yesterday. It certainly was a pretty ripe shot, considering. I’d sliced into this baby bunker, don’t you know; I simply can’t keep ‘em straight with the iron nowadays—and there the pill was, grinning up at me from the sand. Of course, strictly speaking, I ought to have used a niblick, but—

  “Do you mean to say, Reggie, that, with such an excellent opportunity, you did not ask Maud to marry you?”

  “I see what you mean. Well, as a matter of absolute fact, I, as it were, didn’t.”

  Lady Caroline uttered a wordless sound.

  “By the way, mater,” said Reggie, “I forgot to tell you about that. It’s all off.”

  “What!”

  “Absolutely. You see, it appears there’s a chappie unknown for whom Maud has an absolute pash. It seems she met this sportsman up in Wales last summer. She was caught in the rain, and he happened to be passing and rallied round with his rain-coat, and one thing led to another. Always raining in Wales, what! Good fishing, though, here and there. Well, what I mean is, this cove was so deucedly civil, and all that, that now she won’t look at anybody else. He’s the blue-eyed boy, and everybody else is an also-ran, with about as much chance as a blind man with one arm trying to get out of a bunker with a tooth-pick.”

  “What perfect nonsense! I know all about that affair. It was just a passing fancy that never meant anything. Maud has got over that long ago.”

  “She didn’t seem to think so.”

  “Now, Reggie,” said Lady Caroline tensely, “please listen to me. You know that the castle will be full of people in a day or two for Percy’s coming-of-age, and this next few days may be your last chance of having a real, long, private talk with Maud. I shall be seriously annoyed if you neglect this opportunity. There is no excuse for the way you are behaving. Maud is a charming girl—”

  “Oh, absolutely! One of the best.”

  “Very well, then!” “But, mater, what I mean to say is—”

  “I don’t want any more temporizing, Reggie!”

  “No, no! Absolutely not!” said Reggie dutifully, wishing he knew what the word meant, and wishing also that life had not become so frightfully complex.

  “Now, this afternoon, why should you not take Maud for a long ride in your car?”

  Reggie grew more cheerful. At least he had an answer for that.

  “Can’t be done, I’m afraid. I’ve got to motor into town to meet Percy. He’s arriving from Oxford this morning. I promised to meet him in town and tool him back in the car.”

  “I see. Well, then, why couldn’t you—?”

  “I say, mater, dear old soul,” said Reggie hastily, “I think you’d better tear yourself away and what not. If you’re catching the twelve-fifteen, you ought to be staggering round to see you haven’t forgotten anything. There’s the car coming round now.”

  “I wish now I had decided to go by a later train.”

  “No, no, mustn’t miss the twelve-fifteen. Good, fruity train. Everybody speaks well of it. Well, see you anon, mater. I think you’d better run like a hare.”

  “You will remember what I said?”

  “Oh, absolutely!”

  “Good-bye, then. I shall be back tomorrow.”

  Reggie returned slowly to his stone seat. He breathed a little heavily as he felt for his cigarette case. He felt like a hunted fawn.

  Maud came out of the house as the car disappeared down the long avenue of elms. She crossed the terrace to where Reggie sat brooding on life and its problem.

  “Reggie!”

  Reggie turned.

  “Hullo, Maud, dear old thing. Take a seat.”

  Maud sat down beside him. There was a flush on her pretty face, and when she spoke her voice quivered with suppressed excitement.

  “Reggie,” she said, laying a small hand on his arm. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  Reggie patted her back paternally. There were few people he liked better than Maud.

  “Always have been since the dear old days of childhood, what!”

  “I can trust you, can’t!?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “There’s something I want you to do for me, Reggie. You’ll have to keep it a dead secret of course.”

  “The strong, silent man. That’s me. What is it?”

  “You’re driving into town in your car this afternoon, aren’t you, to meet Percy?”

  “That was the idea.”

  “Could you go this morning instead—and take me?”

  “Of course.”

  Maud shook her head.

  “You don’t know what you are letting yourself in for, Reggie, or I’m sure you wouldn’t agree so lightly. I’m not allowed to leave the castle, you know, because of what I was telling you about.”

  “The chappie?”

  “Yes. So there would be terrible scenes if anybody found out.”

  “Never mind, dear old soul. I’ll risk it. None shall learn your secret from these lips.”

  “You’re a darling, Reggie.”

  “But what’s the idea? Why do you want to go today particularly?”

  Maud looked over her shoulder.

  “Because—” She lowered her voice, though there was no one near. “Because he is back in London! He’s a sort of secretary, you know, Reggie, to his uncle, and I saw in the paper this morning that the uncle returned yesterday after a long voyage in his yacht. So—he must have come back, too. He has to go everywhere his uncle goes.”

  “And everywhere the uncle went, the chappie was sure to go!” murmured Reggie. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “I must see him. I haven’t seen him since last summer—nearly a whole year! And he hasn’t written to me, and I haven’t dared to write to him, for fear of the letter going wrong. So, you see, I must go. Today’s my only chance. Aunt Caroline has gone away. Father will be busy in the garden, and won’t notice whether I’m here or not. And, besides, tomorrow it will be too late, because Percy will be here. He was more furious about the thing than anyone.”

  “Rather the proud aristocrat, Percy,” agreed Reggie. “I understand absolutely. Tell me just what you want me to do.”

  “I want you to pick me up in the car about half a mile down the road. You can drop me somewhere in Piccadilly. That will be near enough to where I want to go. But the most important thing is about Percy. You must persuade him to stay and dine in town and come back here after dinner. Then I shall be able to get back by an afternoon train, and no one will know I’ve been gone.”

  “That’s simple enough, what? Consider it done. When do you want to start?”

  “At once.”

  “I’ll toddle round to the garage and fetch the car.” Reggie chuckled amusedly. “Rum thing! The mater’s just been telling me I ought to take you for a drive.”

  “You are a darling, Reggie, really!”

  Reggie gave her back another paternal pat.

  “I know what it means to be in love, dear old soul. I say, Maud, old thing, do you find love puts you off your stroke? What I mean is, does it make you slice your approach-shots?”

  Maud laughed.

  “No. It hasn’t had any effect on my game so far. I went round in eighty-six the other day.”

  Reggie sighed enviously.

  “Women are wonderful!” he said. “Well, I’ll be legging it and fetching the car. When you’re ready, stroll along down the road and wait for me.”

  * * *

  When he had gone Maud pulled a small newspaper clipping from her pocket. She had extracted it from yesterday’s copy of the Morning Post’s society column. It contained only a few words:

  “Mr. Wilbur Raymond has returned to his residence at No. 11a Belgrave Square from a prolonged voyage in his yacht, the Siren.”

  Maud did not know Mr. Wilbur Raymond, and yet that paragraph had sent the blo
od tingling through every vein in her body. For as she had indicated to Reggie, when the Wilbur Raymonds of this world return to their town residences, they bring with them their nephew and secretary, Geoffrey Raymond. And Geoffrey Raymond was the man Maud had loved ever since the day when she had met him in Wales.

  Chapter 2

  The sun that had shone so brightly on Belpher Castle at noon, when Maud and Reggie Byng set out on their journey, shone on the West-End of London with equal pleasantness at two o’clock. In Little Gooch Street all the children of all the small shopkeepers who support life in that backwater by selling each other vegetables and singing canaries were out and about playing curious games of their own invention. Cats washed themselves on doorsteps, preparatory to looking in for lunch at one of the numerous garbage cans which dotted the sidewalk. Waiters peered austerely from the windows of the two Italian restaurants which carry on the Lucretia Borgia tradition by means of one shilling and sixpenny table d’hote luncheons. The proprietor of the grocery store on the corner was bidding a silent farewell to a tomato which even he, though a dauntless optimist, had been compelled to recognize as having outlived its utility. On all these things the sun shone with a genial smile. Round the corner, in Shaftesbury Avenue, an east wind was doing its best to pierce the hardened hides of the citizenry; but it did not penetrate into Little Gooch Street, which, facing south and being narrow and sheltered, was enabled practically to bask.

  Mac, the stout guardian of the stage door of the Regal Theatre, whose gilded front entrance is on the Avenue, emerged from the little glass case in which the management kept him, and came out to observe life and its phenomena with an indulgent eye. Mac was feeling happy this morning. His job was a permanent one, not influenced by the success or failure of the productions which followed one another at the theatre throughout the year; but he felt, nevertheless, a sort of proprietary interest in these ventures, and was pleased when they secured the approval of the public. Last night’s opening, a musical piece by an American author and composer, had undoubtedly made a big hit, and Mac was glad, because he liked what he had seen of the company, and, in the brief time in which he had known him, had come to entertain a warm regard for George Bevan, the composer, who had travelled over from New York to help with the London production.

  George Bevan turned the corner now, walking slowly, and, it seemed to Mac, gloomily towards the stage door. He was a young man of about twenty-seven, tall and well knit, with an agreeable, clean-cut face, of which a pair of good and honest eyes were the most noticeable feature. His sensitive mouth was drawn down a little at the corners, and he looked tired.

  “Morning, Mac.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Anything for me?”

  “Yes, sir. Some telegrams. I’ll get ‘em. Oh, I’ll GET ‘em,” said Mac, as if reassuring some doubting friend and supporter as to his ability to carry through a labour of Hercules.

  He disappeared into his glass case. George Bevan remained outside in the street surveying the frisking children with a sombre glance. They seemed to him very noisy, very dirty and very young. Disgustingly young. Theirs was joyous, exuberant youth which made a fellow feel at least sixty. Something was wrong with George today, for normally he was fond of children. Indeed, normally he was fond of most things. He was a good-natured and cheerful young man, who liked life and the great majority of those who lived it contemporaneously with himself. He had no enemies and many friends.

  But today he had noticed from the moment he had got out of bed that something was amiss with the world. Either he was in the grip of some divine discontent due to the highly developed condition of his soul, or else he had a grouch. One of the two. Or it might have been the reaction from the emotions of the previous night. On the morning after an opening your sensitive artist is always apt to feel as if he had been dried over a barrel.

  Besides, last night there had been a supper party after the performance at the flat which the comedian of the troupe had rented in Jermyn Street, a forced, rowdy supper party where a number of tired people with over-strained nerves had seemed to feel it a duty to be artificially vivacious. It had lasted till four o’clock when the morning papers with the notices arrived, and George had not got to bed till four-thirty. These things colour the mental outlook.

  Mac reappeared.

  “Here you are, sir.”

  “Thanks.”

  George put the telegrams in his pocket. A cat, on its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette. George tickled it under the ear abstractedly. He was always courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements perfunctorily and without enthusiasm.

  The cat moved on. Mac became conversational.

  “They tell me the piece was a hit last night, sir.”

  “It seemed to go very well.”

  “My Missus saw it from the gallery, and all the first-nighters was speaking very ‘ighly of it. There’s a regular click, you know, sir, over here in London, that goes to all the first nights in the gallery. ‘Ighly critical they are always. Specially if it’s an American piece like this one. If they don’t like it, they precious soon let you know. My missus ses they was all speakin’ very ‘ighly of it. My missus says she ain’t seen a livelier show for a long time, and she’s a great theatregoer. My missus says they was all specially pleased with the music.”

  “That’s good.”

  “The Morning Leader give it a fine write-up. How was the rest of the papers?”

  “Splendid, all of them. I haven’t seen the evening papers yet. I came out to get them.”

  Mac looked down the street.

  “There’ll be a rehearsal this afternoon, I suppose, sir? Here’s Miss Dore coming along.”

  George followed his glance. A tall girl in a tailor-made suit of blue was coming towards them. Even at a distance one caught the genial personality of the new arrival. It seemed to go before her like a heartening breeze. She picked her way carefully through the children crawling on the side walk. She stopped for a moment and said something to one of them. The child grinned. Even the proprietor of the grocery store appeared to brighten up at the sight of her, as at the sight of some old friend.

  “How’s business, Bill?” she called to him as she passed the spot where he stood brooding on the mortality of tomatoes. And, though he replied “Rotten”, a faint, grim smile did nevertheless flicker across his tragic mask.

  Billie Dore, who was one of the chorus of George Bevan’s musical comedy, had an attractive face, a mouth that laughed readily, rather bright golden hair (which, she was fond of insisting with perfect truth, was genuine though appearances were against it), and steady blue eyes. The latter were frequently employed by her in quelling admirers who were encouraged by the former to become too ardent. Billie’s views on the opposite sex who forgot themselves were as rigid as those of Lord Marshmoreton concerning thrips. She liked men, and she would signify this liking in a practical manner by lunching and dining with them, but she was entirely self-supporting, and when men overlooked that fact she reminded them of it in no uncertain voice; for she was a girl of ready speech and direct.

  “‘Morning, George. ‘Morning, Mac. Any mail?”

  “I’ll see, miss.”

  “How did your better four-fifths like the show, Mac?”

  “I was just telling Mr. Bevan, miss, that the missus said she ‘adn’t seen a livelier show for a long time.”

  “Fine. I knew I’d be a hit. Well, George, how’s the boy this bright afternoon?”

  “Limp and pessimistic.”

  “That comes of sitting up till four in the morning with festive hams.”

  “You were up as late as I was, and you look like Little Eva after a night of sweet, childish slumber.”

  “Yes, but I drank ginger ale, and didn’t smoke eighteen cigars. And yet, I don’t know. I think I must be getting old, George. All-night parties seem to have lost their charm. I was ready to quit at one o’clock, but it didn’t seem matey. I
think I’ll marry a farmer and settle down.”

  George was amazed. He had not expected to find his present view of life shared in this quarter.

  “I was just thinking myself,” he said, feeling not for the first time how different Billie was from the majority of those with whom his profession brought him in contact, “how flat it all was. The show business I mean, and these darned first nights, and the party after the show which you can’t sidestep. Something tells me I’m about through.”

  Billie Dore nodded.

  “Anybody with any sense is always about through with the show business. I know I am. If you think I’m wedded to my art, let me tell you I’m going to get a divorce the first chance that comes along. It’s funny about the show business. The way one drifts into it and sticks, I mean. Take me, for example. Nature had it all doped out for me to be the Belle of Hicks Corners. What I ought to have done was to buy a gingham bonnet and milk cows. But I would come to the great city and help brighten up the tired business man.”

  “I didn’t know you were fond of the country, Billie.”

  “Me? I wrote the words and music. Didn’t you know I was a country kid? My dad ran a Bide a Wee Home for flowers, and I used to know them all by their middle names. He was a nursery gardener out in Indiana. I tell you, when I see a rose nowadays, I shake its hand and say: ‘Well, well, Cyril, how’s everything with you? And how are Joe and Jack and Jimmy and all the rest of the boys at home?’ Do you know how I used to put in my time the first few nights I was over here in London? I used to hang around Covent Garden with my head back, sniffing. The boys that mess about with the flowers there used to stub their toes on me so often that they got to look on me as part of the scenery.”

  “That’s where we ought to have been last night.”

  “We’d have had a better time. Say, George, did you see the awful mistake on Nature’s part that Babe Sinclair showed up with towards the middle of the proceedings? You must have noticed him, because he took up more room than any one man was entitled to. His name was Spenser Gray.”

  George recalled having been introduced to a fat man of his own age who answered to that name.