“It’s—it’s rather a long story,” he said.
“I’m listening,” said Sylvia.
“Well—” said Beaky, and he started relating it. Not for a moment during the long narrative did he forget that he still didn’t know whether Sylvia had received his letter or not, and that this was the only point that really mattered. And at each little gasp of interest which she gave, he looked piercingly across the table at her, as though it were just possible that she might be going to help him to change the subject. But she never did. He brought the history right down to the episode of his sister’s sudden reappearance, and was just beginning to fumble with the next incident—because neither he nor Noodles were going to get much credit out of it—when Sylvia interrupted him.
“But did she want to come away?” she asked. “I mean, I think she’d been awfully sporting—though of course I should have loathed it—but if she really wanted to stay with those people——”
“Oh, she didn’t,” said Beaky, leaping right over the discreditable incident. “She was hating it, too.”
“Poor Noodles.”
“What? Oh, rather. And then I saw you, you see. And I—I mean——”
“Yes, I know what you did then. But where do you suppose they went?”
“Who? Snubs and Noodles? Oh, back to Pippingfold, I should think.”
“But oughtn’t you to ring up and find out?”
“There’s no telephone there.”
“Oh,” said Sylvia. “Well, oughtn’t you to go there, then?”
Beaky’s countenance became a battleground between obstinacy and conscience. How could he possibly go off to Pippingfold without asking Sylvia that question? How could he possibly ask it if all she did was to try and hustle him away? How could he bring out the attractive qualities of his own nature, if he refused to champion his young and only sister? Poor Noodles? Oh, certainly and by all means; but she’d have had a night there by now, and even Mr. Cottenham couldn’t go on kicking up a row for ever. Besides, Snubs——
At this point conscience, and Sylvia’s clear eyes, suddenly scored a notable victory.
“I suppose I ought,” he said. “Yes, of course. I’ll have to see about a train. Only …”
He looked at her in an agony of longing and curiosity.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I was wondering—— I mean, I suppose you didn’t—— I mean, did you——”
“What?”
“Well, when did you come down here?”
Sylvia looked more puzzled than ever.
“On Friday,” she said. “After lunch.”
“Straight from London?”
“Yes. Why?”
He’d posted the letter on Thursday evening. She must have got it, then. Surely it couldn’t have made so little impression on her that she had forgotten about it already. Or was there an answer waiting for him at Wykeham Street—a refusal, of course—and was she just trying to save him from making a hopeless, blundering ass of himself? Was she being angelically kind and angelically tactful?
That was it. A black mist descended over everything.
“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. “I don’t want any more food. I’d better go.”
“But Beaky——”
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to see Mummie? She’ll be down in a minute, I know, and—— Beaky, are you angry about something? Beaky?”
“No, of course not. You’re quite right, I expect.”
“What are you talking about?”
He couldn’t help hoping, even then. He looked at her The spark vanished. For the ten millionth and final time he had been a presumptuous fool, and if he said anything more he would be an unpardonable fool as well. When he was an old man he supposed that he would remember how he had once had breakfast alone with her, and when he was dead perhaps someone would be kind enough to put her photograph in his coffin. But how he was going to get through the next hour, or day, or month, or year, or half-century——
“Oh, there she is. Mummie! Beaky’s just going.”
Mr. Brett pulled himself partially together. Shook Mrs. Shirley’s hand. Began muttering incoherent thanks, and trying to explain something about a cheque when he got back to his rooms. Also something about a time-table.
“But where?” said Mrs. Shirley. “And is there any hurry?”
“He’s going to Pippingfold, Mummie. You see——”
“To Pippingfold? But why not with us, then? Sylvia, darling, what were you thinking of? You know I promised to go back this morning, and we can start any time that suits Mr. Brett. Now, if he likes.”
Her all-seeing eye approved this improvisation, noting as it did those two glances which were trying so hard not to look pleased.
“We can picnic there,” she said; “unless Mr. Brett has promised to lunch with his guardian.”
“Oh, no,” said Beaky. “But …”
He looked at Sylvia, and Sylvia looked at her mother, and her mother looked penetratingly at young Mr. Brett. Had he really thought that he could propose across a breakfast-table, and in an hotel dining-room? How pitiful, and touching, and absurd! Well, he should have his chance later on. He was entitled to that, and so was Sylvia. “And so am I,” added Mrs. Shirley, to herself, “because this is far more exhausting for me than it is for either of them. It’ll be a long time before they find that out, but it’s the mothers that really go through it. What a queer business it all is. And darling Sylvia, how sweet she looks in that little necklace.”
She touched Beaky on the arm.
“Would you be very kind,” she asked, “and tell the porter I’d like my car round in twenty minutes. That’ll do for you, won’t it?”
Beaky had forgotten all about his old age and his coffin.
“Oh, rather,” he said; and raced away. Hope had returned. Lots of people were refused the first time. He’d been mad to write, but he’d be madder still to lose a chance like this. He’d make a fresh start. He’d get Sylvia alone somewhere. He’d keep his head, somehow, and he’d jolly well have it out. Yes, that was what he told himself, with a confidence which we may find it a little difficult to share, was what he would jolly well do.
Mrs. Shirley was talking to the head-waiter about sandwiches and thermos-flasks. Sylvia was staring out of the big plate-glass windows, and looking a little anxious and unhappy.
Poor Sylvia!
3
No question that the right treatment for Gertie was a dose of that indignity which she had so often, and at last so extravagantly, inflicted on her owner. For three years she had rewarded his constant devotion and support with constant misbehaviour. Now he had kicked her, and worse was still to come.
For no breakdown lorry disturbed its Sabbath rest to lug her from her self-chosen ditch. She was hauled out backwards by the noisiest, cheapest and altogether most disreputable of milk-vans. She was prodded and still further kicked by the agricultural labourers who drove it. “Never mind,” she said, trying and hopelessly failing to look better-bred than these unworthy assailants; “they’ve still got to get me to a garage, and I don’t see them doing that without any tackle. I’m not afraid of them!”
But they weren’t afraid of her, and they hadn’t the faintest intention of getting her to a garage. They had wire, they had her own jack-handle, they had strong arms and souls trained to subdue every mechanical appliance by the same ruthless methods with which their ancestors had mastered the brute creation. They were not held back by any sentiment on the part of the young gentleman who had hailed them from that leafy bower; for he had merely laughed when the first attempt at extraction had carried away the spare wheel and its bracket, and again when the second and successful attempt had ended by her colliding with the tail-board of the milk-van and receiving an enormous dent in the lid of her dickey.
A most encouraging young gentleman for whom to delay that cargo of cans. A most enthusiastic and helpful young gentleman when he understood their agricultur
al idea of lashing the two ends of the broken steering-rod to the jack-handle, and thus—if only it held—achieving in a few minutes what would have taken a professional surgeon as many days. Imagine Gertie’s feelings when she found this impertinent plan being put into operation; when the alignment of her front wheels was adjusted by a series of frightful whacks from the agricultural boots; and when her owner—no longer her slave as well—laughed yet again as one of these dreadful bumpkins fastened off the tourniquet with his own fingers, and rising from this outrage managed to drive his elbow through the glass of the offside head-lamp.
Her spirit was definitely broken. If Snubs could stand by while she was subjected to treatment like this, if he could speak of her as he did speak and had spoken, then she had reached the end. There are wives, we understand—though not in this chronicle—who have been tamed like this after years of ill-tempered tyranny; who have found suddenly that they have created the armour against their own poisoned shafts, and have turned round and spent the rest of their lives eating out of their lord and master’s hand. Gertie’s connection with Snubs Tipton was perhaps scarcely as honourable or as hallowed as this; but the effect was precisely the same. Her blank rage merely served to dry up the water which last night had short-circuited two of the sparking-plugs. At the first touch of the starter she sprang into obedient life, and though she had never ticked over either noiselessly or regularly—such precision being beyond the aim of her original designer—there was yet an attempt at these qualities which showed how thoroughly she had been cowed.
But repentance is one thing, and forgiveness is another.
“Come on, you old brute,” said Snubs, as she trembled beneath him. “Now let’s see if you’ve got the sense to move.”
She moved—trying, you would say, to look back at him for a crumb of praise as she did so. The agriculturalists reported that there was what they described as a fair wobble from the front wheels, and Snubs’s wrists were inclined to agree with them; but the bandage on the steering-rod still held.
A slight pause, then, for mutual congratulations and for gratitude in the shape of both words and coins of baser metal. The general view held by all three is that Gertie will probably hang together if she maintains a moderate pace, and picks her way carefully. A rash view before her recent change of heart, but she hears it now without even back-firing. A few more words about milk, weather and public holidays, and the party breaks up. The van goes swinging and rattling and clattering towards Newcliff. Gertie wobbles soberly towards the Fox and Hounds. Reaches it. And stops.
There is no point in disturbing Noodles at this early hour, just as there can be no real point in arriving at Pippingfold before breakfast. On a Sunday morning and in the absence of a telephone, it is clear that Mr. Cottenham cannot be expecting them, and there is everything to be said, now, for waiting until he and they have fed. Even longer, perhaps, if the next crisis is to be dealt with in the least unfavourable conditions. Snubs puts in a good deal of thinking on this subject, planning and rehearsing quite a number of imaginary speeches; but whether any of them will be used or not seems rather uncertain. For one thing, it is quite likely that Mr. Cottenham will refuse to listen to them. For another, that Noodles will prefer to arrive alone.
“I’ll have to have a good talk with her,” he decides. “She’s bound to make a mess of it, if she’s left to herself. She’s bound to tell him far more than she need. She’s so infernally straightforward.”
The thought of Noodles’s straightforwardness makes him sigh and frown, and then smile. But here is the landlady again, so good-morning to her, and good-morning to the young gentleman, and it’s a beautiful day after all that rain last night, isn’t it? The landlady’s natural curiosity as to how and where the young gentleman has spent the night is skilfully baffled by some very sympathetic red herrings about the price of beer and other subjects of professional interest. If it is aroused again by a strange request that she, and not the young gentleman, shall go upstairs and get hold of the suit-case, then it is again quelled by the flattering and confidential manner in which the request is made. “I’d be afraid of waking her,” he explains, with the utmost accuracy, and the landlady comes back—with the suit-case—and reports that Noodles is sleeping like an angel.
So Snubs overcomes another problem by driving out of sight, with the vague intimation that he won’t be long, and shaves with the help of the driving-mirror and hot water from the radiator, and changes his collar, and brushes his hair, and returns to discuss the matter of breakfast.
No difficulty about that. By half-past eight he has finished it, and wanders out again to smoke a pipe of Baffy’s Mixture. Then he waits, and waits, and goes on waiting, but it isn’t until nearly ten—when he is beginning to get a little anxious—that Noodles suddenly appears on the scene, and tells him that she has never had such a perfect night in her life. But poor Snubs, was it quite awful out there in—— A scream of delighted surprise.
“Oh, Snubs! Did you manage to get it out again? Oh, you are clever!”
The tingling sensation.
“Did you do it all yourself?”
Well, no. Some awfully decent fellows helped. “But we can go on, Noodles—as soon as you’ve eaten something.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
“I’ll just see about it.”
“Oh, thank you. I suppose we’ve got to go on?”
But Snubs was talking to his friend the landlady, and Noodles didn’t repeat her question. Of course they’d got to go on. They couldn’t have accidents and adventures for ever.
“How’s the heel, Noodles?”
“Oh, much better. Thank you.”
“Beaky’s pyjamas quite comfortable?”
“Delicious. Oh, I say!”
“What?”
“Nothing. At least …”
“What is it? More trouble?”
“No, not exactly. But a most extraordinary thing. Frightfully exciting, I mean. Only perhaps I oughtn’t … Or do you know about it? Has he told you?”
“Has who told me what?”
“Beaky. I say, Snubs, it’s most terribly thrilling—if it isn’t a joke, I mean. And of course I think she’s far the nicest girl in the world.”
“Who?” said Snubs, beginning to blink.
“Oh, Snubs, I know I oughtn’t to have looked, but of course it was too late once I’d started. There was a block of note-paper in that suit-case, and it fell out when I picked it up.”
“What? Yes, I know there was. I packed it in case——”
“You packed it? But it’s in Beaky’s writing. It’s got his name at the end. And, Snubs, it’s the most marvellous proposal!”
“Good Lord! To Miss Shirley?”
“To Sylvia—yes. You do know about it, then? Oh, has he sent it, or was that a copy of it, or what does it mean? Are they engaged, Snubs? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve never been so absolutely—— Why, what’s the matter? Don’t look like that!”
But Snubs continued to look like that and more than that. His unlucky, bungling, impatient friend! So that was why he had waited in vain for post after post. So that was why his nerves had been frayed to tatters, and no answer had ever come.
“My hat!” he muttered. “Of all the footling explanations. Of all the—— No, of course they’re not engaged. He never sent it.”
“Oh, Snubs! Why not?”
“Well, he thought he did, and he must have sent something else instead. Of all the——”
“What! Oh, poor Beaky—doesn’t he know?”
“You bet he doesn’t. He’s been waiting for her to answer him for days.”
“Oh, how awful, Snubs. Oh, poor Beaky! Oh, what a filthy shame! Oh, I must send it on to her at once. Or do you think I ought to——”
“To tell him? I don’t know. He’ll go mad when he hears.”
“But it’ll look so odd unless one of us can forge his writing on the envelope. Do you think you could?”
“No. I won’t risk it.”
“Well, I can’t. I never can forge anything. I’m hopeless at it. Oh, poor darling Beaky!”
“Um,” said Snubs. “Well, I suppose I’ll see him when I get back. I’ll have to break it to him. But I tell you——”
“To-day, you mean? You’re going straight on?”
“I must.”
“Oh, Snubs—I can’t bear it.”
The tingling sensation. Snubs rose to his feet.
“In fact,” he said, in a tone that shocked him with its unexpected and quite unintentional brutality, “we ought to start. At once.”
“I see,” said Noodles. “All right.”
“I mean——”
“No, it’s all right. I’d forgotten for a moment. You’ve done far too much for me already. I—I’ll just get those things from upstairs.”
Snubs hadn’t moved when she came down again.
“I can’t help it, Noodles,” he said.
“I know you can’t. Dear Snubs.”
“Oh, shut up,” growled Mr. Tipton.
A little later they drove away from the Fox and Hounds without having spoken to each other again. And in silence they passed the scene of yesterday’s misfortunes on Wissingfield Common. And between half-past eleven and twelve Noodles made the most terrible, desperate face and dug her nails fiercely into the palms of her hands. For she was back in Pippingfold, and they were just turning into the entrance of the Manor House.
And then:
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Snubs! There are two huge cars by the front door, and one of them’s just like Mrs. Shirley’s. Oh, what on earth do you think has happened?”
4
“Here she is,” said several people in the hall.
“Hullo, Noodles,” said one or two of them.
“Is this Ursula?” said another. “Why, she’s just like what I was. Isn’t she, Joe? Where have you been, darling?”
“Oh!” said Noodles. “It’s Aunt Caroline. Oh, how extraordinary! Oh, what fun!”
She ran and kissed Mrs. Millet.
“Hullo, Mrs. Shirley!” she added. “Hullo, Sylvia! Hullo, Beaky!”
Another Part of the Wood Page 26
