She looked at the remaining member of the party—an elderly gentleman in horn-rimmed spectacles—but failed to recognise him. And where in the world was Mr. Cottenham?
“My niece, Joe,” said Mrs. Millet. “Ursula darling, this is Mr. Prescott. My solicitor.”
“Oh,” said Noodles. “How do you do, Mr. Prescott?”
They shook hands.
“Quite remarkable,” said Mr. Prescott—which struck Noodles as quite a remarkable reply.
“Look here,” said Beaky. “Noodles!”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear what Aunt Caroline said? Where on earth have you been?”
“Oh,” said Noodles. “With Snubs, of course. Where’s Mr. Cottenham?”
“Who’s Snubs?” inquired Mrs. Millet.
“Snubs Tipton, Aunt Caroline. Where is he? Snubs darling, I’m so sorry. This is my aunt. This is Mrs. Shirley. This is Sylvia. This is Mr. Prescott.”
“How do you do?” said Snubs, looking fiercely at each character in turn—with the exception of Sylvia, at whom he looked with intense curiosity and instant approval. “What happened,” he added, “was that my foul car came to pieces. So Noodles spent the night at a pub.”
“And,” said Noodles, regardless of the general interest aroused by this statement, “poor Snubs spent the night in a ditch. Wasn’t it sweet of him?”
“Rot,” said Snubs. “I spent the night in my foul car.”
“But in a ditch, too,” said Noodles. “He did really, Aunt Caroline.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Millet. “I quite understand. Thank you, Mr. Tipton. We all understand, and we’re very grateful to you. I’ve just been staying with your parents, you know, and I shall write and tell them how very kind you’ve been. It’s what I’d have expected, though, after all their kindness to me. Joe! Stop clicking your tongue like that.”
Mr. Prescott stopped clicking his tongue, and nobody else had even thought of clicking theirs. There was only one possible motto for a gathering of reasonable beings who had heard and seen Mr. Tipton and Miss Brett, and it is a pretty good motto at any time. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
“I told them” said Mrs. Millet, “that she’d be perfectly safe with you, Mr. Tipton. But you must let me know what your out-of-pocket expenses have been, and——”
“Oh, I say. No, really——”
“—and I’ll see that she settles up with you. Do you hear, Ursula?”
“Oh, of course, Aunt Caroline. But—but——”
“But what?”
“I mean, of course I ought to pay him back, and I was going to—if I ever got any more money. But, Snubs, I must pay those other people first—at Newcliff, you know, and——”
“I don’t want it,” said Snubs. “You don’t owe me anything. If Beaky’d been there——”
“But he wasn’t. Beaky—what happened to you? Why did you leave us? Oh, won’t somebody please explain why everyone’s here, and what it all means. Is Mr. Cottenham ill?”
Mr. Prescott coughed.
“Perhaps——” he began.
“Shut up, Joe,” said Mrs. Millet. “Ursula darling, I’ll explain. Mr. Cottenham has gone abroad, to a healthier climate, and I don’t think he’s coming back. I suppose he’s the only case on record of a dishonest man who was too mean to spend the money he’d stolen, and it’s all there—including this house—for you and your brother. Joe Prescott would have taken half an hour telling you that, and you wouldn’t have understood him even then. But it’s perfectly true, and you needn’t ever worry about it again. You and Reginald will each have rather over fifteen hundred a year.”
“What!” cried Noodles. “Do you mean pounds, Aunt Caroline?”
“I mean pounds.”
“Each of us? Fifteen hun—— Beaky! Do you hear that? Snubs—Sylvia—— Oh, I can pay everyone back after all! Oh, how absolutely marvellous! Oh, poor Mr. Cottenham—will he have anything left?”
“Rather more than he’s handed over,” said Mrs. Millet. “He was a rich man when your poor father—— Why, what’s wrong?”
For Noodles had scowled horribly, and fled out of the front door.
“Noodles!” shouted her brother. “What are you doing?”
He would have followed her, but Sylvia caught his arm.
“Wait,” she said. “No, please, Beaky. She did that once before when I asked something about your father, and it’s just that she can’t help it. I’ll go out and tell her about something else.”
She smiled at her mother, and at Mrs. Millet, and even at Mr. Prescott. And just as she was leaving the hall, she looked back and smiled at Snubs Tipton.
And she smiled at Beaky again, and nodded—as though releasing him from some vow.
“Tell Snubs?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sylvia, and went out into the hot sunlight.
“Noodles!” she called, gently.
Noodles looked round the side of the historical laurel-bush.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m afraid I was rather rude.”
“They all understood,” said Sylvia.
“I was a bit upset.”
“Of course you were.”
“Not about being rich, I mean. I’m thrilled about that.”
“It is rather thrilling,” said Sylvia. “Your aunt’s going to take a house in London, you know, and I expect you’ll have even more fun than I did.”
“It makes me quite sick,” said Noodles.
“Well, don’t let’s talk about it. We’re all going to have a picnic later on, and Beaky——”
“Oh!”
“What is it?”
“Oh, Sylvia. Something terribly important. Come through this hedge. I’m going to do the most awful thing. But you musnt’t give me away.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s poor Beaky,” said Noodles. “He wrote a letter to you——”
“What!”
“Yes, and he never sent it—by accident. And I found it last night all among his pyjamas and things, and I’m afraid I looked at it, but you mustn’t tell him, and—and this is it.”
The letter appeared suddenly from a rather strange substitute for a pocket.
“It’s rather hot and crumpled, I’m afraid,” said Noodles. “And now I’ll leave you.”
“No,” said Sylvia.
“But I must. I couldn’t possibly stand here while you read it.”
But she did, because Sylvia was already reading it, and one couldn’t leave her when she hadn’t answered one.
“Well?” said Noodles, after a very long time.
“Thanks most awfully,” said Sylvia, looking up with a smile. “I suppose I may keep it?”
“He’s—he’s awfully, fond of you,” said Noodles.
“I know,” said Sylvia. “He told me so just after we got here— before your aunt turned up. He was a little indistinct, but—well, I just managed to hear him. Darling Noodles, I hope you’ll be pleased about it, too; but we’re engaged.”
The party in the hall heard a piercing yell from the garden, and looked at each other in some alarm.
“It’s only Noodles,” said her brother, with a slight blush. “I think Sylvia must have told her.”
5
Cars dashed to and from Pippingfold that day, and one of them removed Mr. Prescott and the exceedingly clear statement which Mr. Cottenham had left behind on the hall table, and came back again with Mrs. Millet’s maid and a steamer-trunk. And another returned to Newcliff and came back with the Shirleys’ luggage, for even if the new boiler were still lying in the yard at Green Hatches, there were other ways and means of raising enough hot water in weather like this and circumstances like these. And yet another—the repentant Gertie, in fact—ambled about the countryside collecting provisions from shops which were really closed and from farms which were sunk in a Whitsun coma, but were unable to resist the subtle and tireless blandishments of Mr. W. G. Tipton.
Noodles shared the front seat again
during these forays, for Sylvia and Beaky had shown a sublime indifference to the prospect of a complete famine, and had quite given up listening to or looking at anyone but each other, and had already begun behaving so exactly like an engaged couple that the only thing to do was to treat them as though they were as invisible as they evidently imagined themselves to be.
“It’s quite lucky, in fact,” said Noodles, “that I’ve got you to talk to.”
And Snubs looked at her, and she went on talking to him, and told him a great deal about everything—which he found extremely interesting—and especially about the wonderful way that everything had come right, and about how she had once thought that she was sorry she was grown-up, but now she was most tremendously glad.
And Snubs looked at her, and said he was glad, too.
And Noodles said she was afraid it would be rather lonely for him without Beaky, but perhaps he could find someone else. And anyhow they must all go on seeing each other in London, and if Aunt Caroline really found people to ask her out to dances—as she had promised—then Snubs must try and come too, if he could bear it, and would he swear to ask her to dance with him—if he wouldn’t hate it?
And Snubs looked at her, and said he’d make a point of it.
And Noodles thanked him, and began to sing.
And Snubs looked at her, and said nothing.
So they came back again with enough supplies to provide a series of picnics for both to-day and to-morrow. And Sylvia and Beaky were forcibly separated, and they all played a lot of tennis on the court at Green Hatches, and talked, and laughed, and danced, and were very polite to Mrs. Millet and Mrs. Shirley—that is to say, whenever they saw them, which wasn’t often because they were always disappearing together and talking (it was to be presumed) about gardening and furnishing and hotels. And nobody could remember a finer Whit-Sunday or Whit-Monday as long as they had lived.
But on Monday evening they had to start saying good-bye, because Snubs and even the affluent Beaky had got to be at their offices at half-past nine the next morning, and the others were staying behind—at any rate, said Mrs. Shirley and Mrs Millet, for a day or two. Everyone, they said, must have a little rest after the holidays, and there can be very little doubt that they were right. Even the engaged couple knew in their innermost hearts that it was better to part this evening than to risk an anti-climax before breakfast; and they would be seeing each other on Thursday, or Friday at latest; and the sooner they did part, then the sooner they could begin writing letters to each other. They didn’t say this, but there can be no question that they were both aware of it, and it is a curiously important ingredient in being really and truly engaged.
So the last picnic came to an end, and Gertie came wobbling out of the coach-house—passed for general service by the great Carter himself—and the suit-case was flung on top of the spare-wheel and its bracket in the dickey, and Sylvia and Beaky said they would be back in a minute and vanished into the kitchen-garden, and Mrs. Millet and Mrs. Shirley said they couldn’t wait any longer and vanished into the house. And Noodles stood by the two-seater, into which Snubs had already packed himself, and drew a series of lines with her finger on the dusty surface of one of the crumpled wings.
“I hate it all ending,” she said.
“Yes,” said Snubs. “It’s been rather fun.”
“It’s been perfect,” said Noodles. “I’ll never forget how you came and rescued me.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Snubs.
Noodles drew another line.
“You know,” she said, “Beaky thinks he’s awfully noble because he proposed to Sylvia just before he found out how rich he was—and of course it does make it much nicer for them both. But—— Oh, dear, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.”
“That’s all right,” said Snubs.”
“Well, I haven’t,” said Noodles, looking very hard at him. “What I was going to say was that it wasn’t a quarter as noble as spending the night in a ditch. So there!”
With these words she scowled horribly, turned round, and bolted indoors. Snubs was still staring at the point where she had disappeared, when Beaky came to take his place by his side.
“Where’s Noodles?” he asked.
“Gone in.”
“Oh. Well, say good-bye to her for me, will you, darling?”
“All right,” said Sylvia.
Gertie roared away down the drive, and turned the corner into the lane. There was a look of extraordinary determination and purpose on the driver’s face. He was a philosopher, and Noodles was only eighteen. But they needn’t think that anyone else was going to have her in the end.
Because they jolly well weren’t.…
THE END
A Note on the Author
Denis Mackail (1892 - 1971) was an English novelist and short-story writer, publishing between the two world-wars.
He was born in Kensington, London on 3 June 1892, and went to Balliol College, Oxford, but failed to complete his degree through ill-health after two years.
His first work was as a set designer, notably for productions by J. M. Barrie’s and George Bernard Shaw. The outbreak of World War I interrupted this promising start, however, and Denis, not fit enough for active service, worked in the War Office and the Board of Trade.
In 1917 he married Diana Granet, only child of the railway manager Sir Guy Granet, who was a director-general for railways in the War Office. The couple had two children, Mary (1919) and Anne (1922) and lived in Chelsea, London. It was the necessity of supporting his young family that lead Denis to write a novel when office jobs became insecure after the end of the war.
With his novel published, his first short-story accepted by the prestigious Strand Magazine and the services of a literary agent, A. P. Watt, Denis was soon earning enough from his writing to give up office work. He published a novel every year from 1920 to 1938 and among his literary friends were P. G. Wodehouse and A. A. Milne.
As therapy from a nervous breakdown, Denis agreed to write the official biography of J. M. Barrie, which appeared in 1941. He went on to produce seven more novels and some books of reminiscences, but after the early death of his wife in 1949, he published no more and lived quietly in London until his death. He died on 4 August 1971.
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 1929 by Hodder and Stoughton
Copyright © 1929 Denis Mackail
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The moral right of the author is asserted.
eISBN: 9781448209798
Visit www.bloomsburyreader.com to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for
newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers.
Another Part of the Wood Page 27
