Another Part of the Wood

by Denis Mackail

  “Oh, hullo!”

  Snubs has returned from his work, and is lying in one of the deeply-indented armchairs; smoking a pipeful of Baffy’s Mixture, and reading an evening newspaper.

  “Hullo,” he says, without looking up.

  Beaky slips the writing-pad back on to its table with infinite silence and caution, and is immediately impelled to burst into unnecessary speech.

  “Jus’ goin’ out pos’ letter,” he says—or something that sounds like that.

  “All right,” says Snubs.

  This time he does look up. His old friend is standing on one leg, smiling stupidly, and waving a registered envelope about as though it had just caught fire and he were trying to extinguish it. Snubs understands all, and resumes his reading.

  “Back in second,” says Beaky. His descent of the three flights of stairs sounds as if it were being accomplished on horseback. Then the distant thud of the front door. Snubs thrusts out his lower lip and shrugs one of his shoulders—for he is partly supported on the other. No selfish regret for the break-up of the Wykeham Street establishment deters him from wishing that registered envelope the very best of luck; but he still feels, somehow, that these things are better done by word of mouth. So does Beaky, if it comes to that; but it’s no use attempting the impossible.

  The window-seat is very quiet after dinner this evening. For what’s posted is posted, and no possible development can take place until after the first delivery to-morrow morning. Personally we don’t quite see how it is going to take place even then, for we couldn’t help noticing that it was a blank sheet which Mr. Brett folded so fiercely and crammed so powerfully into his envelope, and that the actual declaration is still hiding coyly under the cover of the communal writing-pad.

  4

  In ignorance of this rather pertinent fact, young Mr. Brett slept, and awoke, and began making a number of very elaborate calculations. This was Thursday. Assuming that Sylvia didn’t answer him by telephone—and on the whole this seemed both unlikely and undesirable—and assuming that she did answer by return of post—which was very desirable but distinctly unlikely—then he ought to hear either by the seven o’clock or by the half-past nine. If, on the other hand, she thought it over until, let’s say, tea-time, and wrote the same evening, then he’d know the worst by breakfast on Friday. If she took longer than this—well, of course she might, and Heaven knew that he didn’t want to hustle her, especially if she were wavering—then he might not hear until the seven o’clock or the half-past nine again. Friday night, that would be. Say Saturday morning, then, as the outside limit. If he didn’t hear by Saturday morning, he would—well, he’d go mad for one thing, and apart from that he didn’t quite know what he’d do. Still, hang on to Saturday morning—which was the beginning of his and Snubs’s brief Whitsun holiday—and take credit now, while one was still more or less sane, for the control with which one was facing a possible delay of forty-eight hours. If fear were the mainspring of this control, that was neither here nor there. If it were an actual relief to know that by no conceivable chance could the answer arrive with this morning’s scrambled eggs, then that was equally irrelevant. Mr. Brett set himself, like an automatic beacon, to flare up punctually at seven o’clock to-night, and thereafter at each successive postal delivery until Saturday morning, and congratulated himself on the sensible way in which he was meeting the most frightful experience of his career.

  Having done this, he got up, saw the photograph on his mantelpiece, and was changed in one instant to six feet of quaking, twittering terror. If he could have dragged himself as far as the telephone, he would certainly have rung up Mrs. Shirley’s butler, and told him to destroy all registered packages arriving that morning for the daughter of the house—which mightn’t have been a bad thing to do. But before he could attempt such a step, Snubs had come wandering in to borrow a safety-razor blade, and Beaky was outwardly himself again.

  “Blade? What? Oh, rather. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks. Er——”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. ’Ksawfully.”

  The day had begun, and having begun, most mercifully took charge of Beaky’s movements. Breakfast. The underground. The office. The walk home. Seven o’clock. Well, he hadn’t really expected it then, anyhow. Dinner. The window-seat. Half-past nine. Is the postman stopping here? No, he’s not. Friday morning, then. Bed. The sleep of utter exhaustion. Hullo! Why have I woken up feeling like this? Oh yes; of course. Sudden reappearance of Snubs.

  “Here you are, old man.”

  “What?”

  Sharp attack of the staggers.

  “I got some more blades yesterday. I thought I’d pay you back.”

  “Oh.”

  “No letters this morning.”

  “Oh.”

  They stared at each other. “Oh,” said Beaky for the third time, and another day had begun He knew what had happened, of course. She’d really written last night, but that foul butler had forgotten to post it. It would come by the seven o’clock, then. Or by the half-past nine.

  It didn’t come by the seven o’clock. By a quarter-past nine Snubs, and the window-seat, had been told everything.

  “I’ve made the most hopeless mess of it, Snubs. That’s what I’ve done. I knew that letter was no good at the time. I knew she’d only think it cheek. I’ve offended her, you see. Well, naturally, I mean. No, shut up; of course I’ve offended her. I’ve gone and ruined every chance that I ever had. Not that I ever had any. I’ll never see her again, I expect. No, shut up; you don’t understand.”

  Snubs hadn’t said anything.

  “The fact is,” mumbled Beaky, leaning further out so as to look for the postman, “that I’m unlucky in every dashed thing I do. I mean, I’ve always noticed it. If you ask me, there’s a sort of curse on my family. Look at Noodles, I mean. She’s just the same.”

  Snubs struck a match.

  “Don’t do that!” said Beaky, hitting the back of his head against the bottom of the sash. “Gosh, how you startled me!”

  “Sorry,” said Snubs.

  “I was just saying something, too.”

  “Noodles,” suggested Snubs.

  “That’s right. I told you she was in trouble again, didn’t I? I say—is that the postman?”

  “No,” said Snubs. “What happened?”

  “To Noodles? I can’t make out. Something to do with a man. Upset the old boy like anything, and he sent her back to school. Ridiculous, I call it. But it just shows you.”

  “Shows you what?”

  We have seldom known Mr. Tipton so talkative.

  “What I said,” answered Beaky. “It shows you the kind of luck we have in my family.”

  “But this man. What——”

  “Oh, I don’t know. She wrote to Sylvia about it, and she says it was just a ghastly sort of muddle. I can’t remember all the details. She never wrote to me.”

  “Sounds rather tough,” said Snubs. “Doesn’t sound like Noodles. Funny, her not telling you.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose it was anything to boast about. Sylvia said the man sounded like a prize horror. Not that Noodles would know the difference. You know what she’s like.”

  “Yes, but what did the man——”

  “Listen!” said Beaky. “Here he comes!”

  “Who?”

  “Postman. There he is.”

  They watched the postman’s slow approach. He came nearer and nearer. About three doors away he stopped and began talking to a female acquaintance in the area. The female acquaintance’s laughter, which was clearly audible, struck Beaky as the most objectionable noise that he had ever heard in his life.

  “Disgraceful!” he said. “That’s all they do, and then they come begging for Christmas-boxes. I’ve a jolly good mind to——”

  “He’s moving,” said Snubs.

  Beaky began to tremble again. The postman delivered a large budget at Number Ninety-Nine, and deliberately crossed the street.

 
“Hell!” said Beaky.

  “There’s another chance,” said Snubs, “I’ve known him do that before, and then come back again.”

  “Well, he’s no business to,” said Beaky. “If he’d got any sense, he’d finish one side properly before—Oh, Lord! Look at him now.”

  He’d met another postman who was lingering with an empty bag by the pillar-box at the corner. Their exchange of fraternal greetings must have taken nearly two minutes, and curse them both if they didn’t laugh again!

  “You’d think he was doing it on purpose,” said Beaky, fretfully. “I wonder a few more people don’t complain. I wonder——”

  He broke off with a sharp sound of indrawn breath. The postman was crossing the street again. He came directly under their window. He mounted the wide door-steps.

  Rat-tat!

  “I can’t stand this,” said Beaky. “I know they’re all for the dentists.”

  “I’ll go and see,” said Snubs.

  “No!” cried Beaky. “Wait!”

  But Snubs had gone. Beaky rushed out on to the landing, and found himself face to face with Miss Gladys Burgess in her best clothes, who blushed ferociously and tried to force her way into the wall.

  “All right,” said Beaky hoarsely. “No—go on.”

  “Beg pardon, sir.”

  “Go on!”

  “It’s quite all right, sir.”

  “Blah!” said Beaky, and dashed back into the sitting-room.

  “Hi!” said Snubs’s voice from below.

  He burst out again.

  “Hullo!”

  “Just coming,” said Snubs’s voice. “No, come on, Miss Burgess. It’s all right.”

  Beaky danced madly on the third-floor landing.

  “Buck up, Snubs!”

  He ran down three steps, and ran up again backwards.

  “Here I am,” said Snubs, appearing round the corner. “But——”

  “Is that for me?”

  “Yes, but——”

  “Here. Gimme.”

  “But I think——”

  “Here!”

  Snubs handed over the solitary envelope which he had extracted from the pile of dental correspondence downstairs, and Beaky dropped it, and caught it while it was still in the air, and fled back into the sitting-room.

  And tore it open.

  And wrenched at the letter inside.

  And began reading it in the middle.

  And gave a violent start.

  And began reading it at the beginning.

  And staggered against the table.

  And made the most extraordinary face.

  And let out the most ear-splitting yell.

  “Snubs!”

  Mr. Tipton stepped obediently in from the landing.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “What’s up?”

  “What isn’t?” retorted Mr. Brett, as the tattered envelope dropped from his fingers. “It’s—it’s Noodles again. It’s the family curse. My gosh, Snubs—do you know what she’s done?”

  “Not yet,” said Mr. Tipton, patiently.

  Beaky gulped, and drew a palsied hand across his throat.

  “She’s—she’s——”

  “Yes?” said his friend, encouragingly.

  “My gosh, Snubs—she’s gug-gone and bolted with a pierrot!”

  Chapter V

  The Shirleys at breakfast—Tiresome accident to a boiler—The kind of woman that Mrs. Shirley was—Effect of Sylvia and her friends on the general public—Southward Ho!

  1

  “Well, that’s curious,” said Miss Shirley to herself. And she held the sheet of notepaper up to the light.

  “I can’t make it out,” she said. And she had another good look inside the registered envelope.

  “It beats me,” she said. And really it would have beaten anyone. What unknown maniac had taken such trouble to make an April Fool of her practically two months too late?

  “Perhaps it’s an advertisement of something,” she said. “Like ‘Watch This Space.’ But I don’t call it a very good one. Besides, it doesn’t look like that sort of handwriting. It looks more like …”

  She held the envelope sideways, and then upside down, but without reaching any definite conclusion as to what the handwriting did look like.

  “I suppose,” she decided, “that it’s someone trying to be funny. I suppose this is where one laughs.”

  But did she laugh? Of course she didn’t. Who would, when they were still feeling as puzzled as that? Who would, when the first sight of the envelope had given them an extraordinary idea which they were determined to forget?

  “I can’t think why I thought it might be Beaky,” said Miss Shirley to herself, “because of course millions of people have that postmark, and he’s always telephoned before, and, besides, why on earth should he register it? When I see him again, I might——No, I won’t, though. Of course he’d never do anything as silly as that. And he must know how I hate practical jokes. I shan’t say anything to anyone, and then whoever it was will see how stupid they are. But I dare say it is an advertisement really, after all.”

  She picked up the next envelope on the breakfast-table, which was a very obvious bill, and at the same moment Mrs. Shirley made a sound of impatience and exasperation, and flung one of her own letters on to her plate.

  “What is it, Mummie? Something annoying?”

  “Maddening,” said Mrs. Shirley.

  “Not Mr. Everett again? Oh, what’s he done now, Mummie?”

  “At Whitsun, too,” said Mrs. Shirley. “Just as I’ve got the painters coming in here. They’ve dropped the new boiler in the station-yard at Pippingfold, and cracked it. He doesn’t even apologise.”

  “But Mr. Everett didn’t drop it, did he?”

  “No hot water,” said Mrs. Shirley. “It’s monstrous!”

  “But couldn’t we use the old boiler, darling?”

  “No baths. I knew what would happen. He knows perfectly well one’s got to have hot water.”

  “Sickening,” said Sylvia. “What a filthy shame.”

  “At Whitsun, too!”

  “I know, darling. What shall we do?”

  “All my flowers absolutely wasted!”

  “Couldn’t we go to an hotel, though? Somewhere near, I mean, and then you could go over and look at the garden.”

  “I wish they’d dropped Mr. Everett and cracked him.”

  “But couldn’t we, Mummie?”

  “What? An hotel? There isn’t an hotel for miles. Wasn’t that why I took the horrible place?”

  “Oh, but you adore it really, darling. You know you do. What about Newcliff?”

  “Hateful spot,” said Mrs. Shirley. “Crowds. Bandstands. Niggers. Besides, it’s Whitsun.”

  “I adore niggers,” said Sylvia, with a smile that would have made almost any young gentleman go straight off and black his face. “And, darling, you know they’d always make room for you at the Majestic. They said they would, when we went there after my measles.”

  Mrs. Shirley snapped her fingers, and moved the coffee-pot.

  “I’m sick of hotels,” she said.

  “Oh, you’re not, darling. You know you love them. Think what fun we could have.”

  Mrs. Shirley smiled, too. If we were as rich and as good-natured as Mrs. Shirley, and as easily pleased with almost everything on which we spent our large income, we don’t really know what else—in this present world, that is—we could have to ask.

  “Shall I ring them up?” asked Sylvia.

  “What?”

  How they smiled at each other. How happy they were to play this game of pretending that they didn’t always want to do the same thing—simply, one supposes, so as to have more to talk about. An ingenious adjustment to the intervals in which the things weren’t actually being done. A most admirable way of filling in those rare but inevitable-gaps. There might be a better game one day for Sylvia; there might have been a better game once for her mother; but—think what fun we’r
e having.

  “Shall I try, darling? Shall I get through and talk to them?”

  “I wonder if Carter would like it.”

  “Oh, Mummie!”

  Mrs. Shirley blew out the flame under the coffee-pot, and gathered up her letters.

  “Be quick, then,” she said. “I want to speak to Mr. Everett while I’m still feeling angry. And this weather … Well, I suppose it wasn’t his fault really. But I shall give him a fright. Oh, yes … And, Sylvia——”

  “Yes, darling?”

  “As high as they like, but we must look over the sea.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  “They’ll be full up, though.”

  “Oh, no, they won’t.”

  “I’m glad you’re wearing that little frock again. Any amusing letters?”

  “It’s the one we got in Paris; do you remember? No, only bills and filth.”

  “Fancy talking about boilers on a day like this! But I must see my Darwins.”

  “You shall, darling. You shall see everything.”

  Mrs. Shirley smiled, and looked round the dining-room, and sighed, and went out. Miss Shirley made a long arm for the telephone on the side-table, and smiled, and asked for Trunks. While she was waiting for Trunks, she slewed her head round and took another glance at the registered envelope. But if it was a joke, it hadn’t annoyed her; and if it was a mistake, it didn’t matter; and if it was an advertisement—well, as a matter of fact, that was probably what it was.

  Advertisers might profitably note where their ingenuity has at length landed them, and how successfully they have taught us all to look for nothing else. “Oh,” says Miss Sylvia Shirley, on receiving a blank sheet of notepaper in a registered envelope; “an advertisement, of course.” The word at once releases her from any further interest in the matter, and she asks Trunks to put her through to Newcliff-on-Sea.

  2

  The Majestic Hotel laughed thinly at the other end of the line.

  “Not a room to be had,” it said, in a crisp, feminine voice. “We’ve been booked up for months. You won’t get anything now, you know.”