Mrs. Featherstone Hogg had now reached her destination. The Daimler could not drive into Cozy Neuk because the drive was up. There was a large hole right in the very middle of Dorothea’s drive and several men in overalls were standing round, smoking clay pipes and talking about it. One man was in the hole, up to his armpits. He was the only one who was not smoking and talking; he was merely leaning against the edge of the hole listening to the others. Two pick-axes and several large shovels were lying about or propped against the gate. It had started to rain again, and there was a very disgusting smell—
Mrs. Featherstone Hogg took out her handkerchief and sniffed it delicately. It was scented with Rose d’Amour, and it put up a fairly effective barrage against the other and much less pleasant odor, which was coming from the hole in Dorothea’s drive.
Mrs. Featherstone Hogg looked out at the rain, and decided to send a message to Dorothea by her chauffeur. It was no use plodding through the rain and mud and ruining her shoes unless Dorothea was at home and could see her. She was explaining all this to the chauffeur when suddenly the men standing about the hole were galvanized into activity. They seized pick-axes and spades and tore fiercely at the drive. The man in the hole stopped listening—there was nothing to listen to now of course—and began to throw up spadefuls of mud from the depths of the hole.
Mrs. Featherstone Hogg wondered what had happened to induce such sudden industry, and then she saw that Colonel Weatherhead had emerged from the house and was coming down the drive. He was wearing a very dirty Burberry and a tweed cap. He stopped and spoke to the foreman and peered into the hole. Mrs. Featherstone Hogg could not hear what he was saying but it looked as if he were giving instructions as to what was to be done. What business was it of Colonel Weatherhead’s? It was not his drive. The faulty drain (there was unfortunately no doubt that it was a faulty drain) was not his either—it was Dorothea’s. Anyone would have thought that Dorothea might look after her own drains.
Colonel Weatherhead finished talking to the foreman and looked up and saw the car. Mrs. Featherstone Hogg beckoned to him through the window. He was not at all pleased when he saw who it was, but there was no escape this time—no handy toolshed to hide in. The Colonel walked over to the car and greeted its occupant with a singular lack of enthusiasm.
“Have you read the book?” asked Mrs. Featherstone Hogg eagerly. “Come into the car for a minute or two—it’s so cold with the door open.”
“I’m very wet,” objected the Colonel.
“Never mind that. Come in. I want to speak to you.”
Colonel Weatherhead got in reluctantly, and the door was shut.
“Well, have you read it?” demanded Mrs. Featherstone Hogg. “What do you think of it?”
“Charming,” replied the Colonel. “Most amusing book I’ve read for a long time.”
“Charming? Amusing?”
“So true to life,” added the Colonel. “That soldier feller—Rivers or something—was the dead spit of a feller I used to know in India—ha, ha—couldn’t help laughing when I read it. Haven’t laughed so much over a book for years.”
“But it’s you,” cried Mrs. Featherstone Hogg in amazement. “Can’t you see that it is yourself, libelled, held up to ridicule; it’s a caricature of you.”
“Me?”
“Yes of course.” (Good Heavens, how dense the man was!)
“But why should it be me?” inquired Colonel Weatherhead. “I mean I don’t know the feller who wrote it—”
“You may not know who he is, but he knows you all right—can’t you see that the book is all about Silverstream—the whole thing is a wicked caricature of Silverstream—an outrageous attack on innocent people.”
“Nonsense,” said the Colonel.
“Didn’t you see it?” demanded the lady irately.
“No I didn’t. Who are the people anyway? Who’s that Mrs. Thingumbob—the woman that the soldier feller gets engaged to?”
“Dorothea Bold, of course,” replied Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, scornfully.
Colonel Weatherhead was silent.
“It’s the frightful wickedness of it,” said Mrs. Featherstone Hogg. “It’s the frightful wickedness of it, that, that makes me so angry. Here we are all living together like a, like a happy family”—this was a good comparison, she thought; she must make a note of it for her speech at the Meeting—“and then that horrible man comes along and spoils everything. Nothing will ever be the same again,” she added pathetically, with her mind on Edwin and his rebellion—Edwin who had always been so mild and reasonable but was now asserting himself and making strange and sinister threats about Wills.
Colonel Weatherhead was still silent; he was not a quick thinker. He was wondering whether it could possibly be true. If so it was very queer—very queer indeed. He had done exactly what the book said (or at any rate as near as made no odds). What would Dorothea say when she heard about it? How would it affect his new relationship with that charming and altogether delightful person? Dreadful if she thought that he had proposed to her because he had read it in a book. It would be difficult to explain that the book had nothing to do with it, because, in a way, the book had everything to do with it. Dorothea might be annoyed. It would make them look slightly ridiculous in Silverstream if their union had been foretold in a book. People would say they had lived opposite to each other for four years and couldn’t make up their minds to marry each other until they read it in a novel. Not a nice thing for all Silverstream to be saying—not nice at all.
“The man must be found,” Mrs. Featherstone Hogg was saying. She had said a lot more—all about herself and Edwin, and how the character of Mrs. Horsley Downs was not in the least like her and that she didn’t see how a man she didn’t know could possibly have found out all that about her private affairs and that obviously he didn’t know anything about her at all, or he could never have written such an outrageous libel—but Colonel Weatherhead had not been listening. He came to the surface again just in time to hear her saying that the man must be found.
“What man?” asked the Colonel.
“John Smith, of course—only his name isn’t John Smith.”
“Why?”
“Because he must be somebody in Silverstream, somebody who knows us all—otherwise he couldn’t have written about us in his book.”
“Oh I see—well I expect it’s that Bulmer man. He writes books; it must be him.”
“I ask you, would he be likely to make his wife run away with Harry Carter?” said Mrs. Featherstone Hogg impatiently. “Would any man be likely to do such a thing?”
“Run away with Harry Carter!” echoed the Colonel.
“Would he be likely to make her do that?” repeated Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, getting more and more enraged at the Colonel’s stupidity.
“I’ve often wondered why she didn’t run away with somebody,” he said vaguely, “nice little woman, far too nice for a cantankerous beast like Bulmer—”
“Well, what do you think ought to be done?” she asked trying to bring him back to the point. They would never get on at this rate, and John Smith must be found.
“Done?” asked the Colonel.
“Yes, do you think he ought to be horse-whipped?”
“Well, I don’t really blame Carter, y’know. She must have been dashed unhappy with that sour-faced husband of hers. It’s not like going off with the wife of a brother-officer—not quite so rotten—besides Carter’s gone to India with the Fiftieth. I suppose he’s taken her with him—”
“What are you talking about?” cried Mrs. Featherstone Hogg. “She hasn’t run away with him yet—”
“Send Bulmer an anonymous letter, then,” suggested Colonel Weatherhead with sudden brilliant inspiration. “That’ll put a stopper on it.”
“She’s not going to run away—at least so far as I know—Mr
. Bulmer’s sent her to Devonshire to spend Christmas with her people—”
“She’ll enjoy that.”
“She may or she may not—that’s scarcely the point. We’re not talking about the Bulmers at all.”
“Oh—I thought we were,” said the bewildered Colonel. “I thought you said Mrs. Bulmer had run away with Harry Carter.”
“It’s only in the book—it’s all in the book—didn’t you read it?” asked Mrs. Featherstone Hogg angrily. She felt she would like to shake the man, he was so hopelessly dense. She was not far off shaking him if the truth were told.
“Good Lord!” said Colonel Weatherhead. He tried to remember the book in detail, but Dorothea had swamped his mind and the book—read through rapidly—had faded into an indistinct blur. He could remember quite distinctly his own reaction to it, and the love scene in Mrs. Mildmay’s garden, but not much else.
“Don’t you think John Smith ought to be horse-whipped?” said Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, savagely.
“What’s the feller done?”
“He wrote it—he’s the author of it,” said Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, trying very hard not to lose her temper completely. It was so important to keep on friendly terms with Colonel Weatherhead, because he was the only man who could possibly be visualized horse-whipping John Smith. And John Smith must be horse-whipped, she was convinced of that now. He had caused such a lot of trouble and worry. If it had not been for John Smith, Mrs. Featherstone Hogg would have been sitting at home over a nice fire reading or sewing comfortably, instead of boxed up in a drafty car, with the rain pattering on the roof, trying to talk to an imbecile. John Smith must certainly be horse-whipped and the Colonel was the man to do it, therefore the Colonel must be won over; his stupidity must be tolerated with superhuman patience. He must be wheedled, flattered, cajoled, infuriated, and so roused to action.
“Listen to me,” said Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, laying her hand upon the Colonel’s arm, “you had better read the book again, carefully, and then we can talk it all over quietly together, and decide what is to be done. I am having a Meeting at my house on Thursday at half-past three and tea afterward. Tell Dorothea I shall expect her too. I will go round in the car and invite everybody in Silverstream—everybody must come.”
“All right,” said the Colonel. He realized that the interview was over and he was glad. He wanted to get away and arrange his thoughts. (He did not care a bit whether Mrs. Featherstone Hogg found John Smith, or whether that gentleman received the punishment she so vehemently desired to mete out to him: he only cared for the possible effects which these extraordinary disclosures might have upon Dorothea and himself.) Besides it was bad for his rheumatism to sit in a cold car with wet shoes on, and the legs of his trousers all damp and clammy from the drips off his waterproof—
He said “Good-bye” to Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, stepped out of the car with alacrity, and went home to have a bath and change his clothes. Dorothea was coming to dinner with him.
***
So far nobody knew of their engagement. They had decided to keep it a secret, but they would not be able to keep it a secret for long. The servants would soon guess what was afoot, and, in a few days, the news would be all over Silverstream. And now the whole thing was complicated by that book, if what Mrs. Featherstone Hogg said was true. Colonel Weatherhead thought about it in his bath and all the time he was dressing.
He came down to find that Dorothea had arrived and was standing on tiptoe in front of the drawing-room mantelpiece arranging her hair in the mirror. There was something very sweet and feminine about her as she patted her curls into shape. He crept in very quietly and kissed her on the tip of her ear—it was very neatly done, Major Waterfoot himself could not have done it better—
Dorothea screamed, and blushed, and told him he was a wicked man—positively wicked. “Supposing Simmons had seen you,” she pointed out, “what would he have thought?”
“Simmons never thinks,” replied Colonel Weatherhead. “He leaves all the thinking to his wife. Jolly good idea too,” added the Colonel chuckling.
“Now, now!” threatened Dorothea.
They were very circumspect during dinner, and Simmons saw nothing that he shouldn’t have seen. They discussed Dorothea’s drains, and from thence wandered on by some strange bypath to chrysanthemums. Dorothea’s were all frosted, but the Colonel still had a few which he had protected from the night-frosts with elaborately rigged sacking.
“Mrs. Carter still has some,” Dorothea said. “I was having tea with her the other day and such a queer thing happened. Mrs. Featherstone Hogg burst in; she was in a frightful rage about a book—she practically threw it at us and said it was filth and that it was all about us.”
“Did you read it?” inquired the Colonel anxiously.
“No. She left it for Mrs. Carter to read, but I must get hold of it. I shall ask for it at the library.”
“Don’t,” said Colonel Weatherhead, taking her hand, which lay conveniently near him on the table. “Don’t read it, Dorothea. Why should you waste your time and—and soil your beautiful mind reading filth?”
They gazed into each other’s eyes adoringly, then with a sigh Dorothea withdrew her hand—Simmons was coming in with the pudding.
“I rather wondered what the book said about me,” said Dorothea, returning to the subject which intrigued her somewhat. “You wouldn’t think there was much material for a book in a place like Silverstream. Mrs. Featherstone Hogg was really very queer about it. She told Mrs. Carter that she wore a wig—that Mrs. Carter wore a wig, I mean; I’ve always thought her hair looked too good to be true. Mrs. Carter didn’t like it.”
Colonel Weatherhead was trying to make up his mind whether to make a clean breast of the whole thing, or whether to pretend that he knew nothing about it. His inclinations veered to the latter course—it was much the easier—but he was rather afraid that Dorothea might hear Mrs. Featherstone Hogg’s account of it and realize that he had not been quite open with her. That would be disastrous. There was a third course open to him, the course of telling Dorothea a little, and making light of it. This course was fraught with difficulties, but, on the whole, it seemed best.
“Mrs. Featherstone Hogg is absolutely crazy about that wretched book,” said Colonel Weatherhead, trying to laugh convincingly. “She came down here this afternoon and made me sit in her car with her, and she talked at me until I didn’t know whether I was standing on my head or my heels. What an awful woman she is!”
“Did you read the book?” inquired Dorothea.
“I glanced through it,” replied the Colonel casually. “She sent it to me, and then kept on ringing me up and asking what I thought of it. I saw nothing very much in it—quite an ordinary novel, I thought.”
“Am I in it?”
“There was nobody the least like you in the book. Nobody half so pretty and charming, and sweet, and dainty,” said the Colonel gallantly (Simmons had brought their coffee and departed for good, so it was quite safe).
Dorothea laughed roguishly.
The Colonel leaned over and kissed her hand.
They smiled into each other’s eyes.
“We’ve wasted years,” said Colonel Weatherhead, with a sigh. “Years, and years, and years. One, two, three, four,” he added, telling them over on Dorothea’s fingers.
Dorothea did not know the correct answer to this. Privately she thought that Robert was right, but it was his fault that the years had been wasted—not hers—so she said nothing.
The Colonel was not talking at random when he said they had wasted years. He had an idea at the back of his mind, but he didn’t know how to broach it to his beloved. He could not see how to go on. Perhaps it would be better to approach the subject from a different angle.
“Those drains of yours have a horrible smell,” he said thoughtfully.
Do
rothea withdrew her hand (it will be remembered that he had been counting her fingers). She was a little hurt at the aspersion on her drains; it was a frightful come-down from wasted years to drains.
“Everybody’s drains smell when they’re blocked,” said Dorothea shortly.
“I know, I know,” he said hastily. “But what I mean is it’s not healthy for you—it would be dreadful if you got ill or anything. I’ve been thinking it over carefully while we’ve been talking. Your drains are blocked; the weather is ghastly (it does nothing but rain); and I’ve finished with my Bishop, for this year—I hope I’ve finished the brute for good, but I can’t be certain of that, of course, until next spring—there’s nothing to keep us here as far as I can see, absolutely nothing.”
“Nothing to keep us here?” inquired Dorothea who was considerably puzzled by the connection between the weather and her drains and the Colonel’s Bishop. Who was the Colonel’s Bishop? Was he some troublesome relative who required consideration—an older brother perhaps, or possibly an uncle? She had never heard Robert say that he had a brother who was a Bishop.
“Dorothea,” said the Colonel, who had beaten about the bush to no purpose and was tired of the game, “Dorothea, I want to marry you.”
Dorothea was surprised. She had already promised to marry Colonel Weatherhead (or Robert as she now called him). She had thought—with good reason—that the matter was decided.
“I know you do, Robert,” she said feebly.
“But I want to marry you now, at once,” he told her urgently. “Don’t you see how everything points to our getting married immediately? The weather, my Bishop, your drains, everything. We’ll go up to town on Monday and get married quietly, without any fuss, and go off to Monte Carlo for Christmas. Say you will, Dorothea darling.”
“Robert!” she exclaimed in amazement.
“Why not?” he inquired in wheedling tones. “There’s nothing to stop us, and everything to—to—you know what I mean, I can’t think of the word—it’s absolutely the hand of Providence pointing. The weather is as foul as your drains, and my Bishop is done for—”
Miss Buncle's Book Page 12
