THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
XXI
"Beale," I said, "what do you mean? Where have they gone?"
"Don't know, sir. London, I expect."
"When did they go? Oh, you told me that. Didn't they say why they weregoing?"
"No, sir."
"Didn't you ask? When you saw them packing up and going to thestation, didn't you do anything?"
"No, sir."
"Why on earth not?"
"I didn't see them, sir. I only found out as they'd gone after they'dbeen and went, sir. Walking down by the 'Net and Mackerel,' met oneof them coastguards. 'Oh,' says he, 'so you're moving?' 'Who'sa-moving?' I says to him. 'Well,' he says to me, 'I seen your Mr.Ukridge and his missus get into the three o'clock train for Axminster.I thought as you was all a-moving.' 'Ho!' I says, 'Ho!' wondering, andI goes on. When I gets back, I asks the missus did she see thempacking their boxes, and she says, 'No,' she says, they didn't pack noboxes as she knowed of. And blowed if they had, Mr. Garnet, sir."
"What, they didn't pack!"
"No, sir."
We looked at one another.
"Beale," I said.
"Sir?"
"Do you know what I think?"
"Yes, sir."
"They've bolted."
"So I says to the missus, sir. It struck me right off, in a manner ofspeaking."
"This is awful," I said.
"Yes, sir."
His face betrayed no emotion, but he was one of those men whoseexpression never varies. It's a way they have in the army.
"This wants thinking out, Beale," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"You'd better ask Mrs. Beale to give me some dinner, and then I'llthink it out."
"Yes, sir."
I was in an unpleasant position. Ukridge, by his defection, had leftme in charge of the farm. I could dissolve the concern, I supposed, ifI wished, and return to London; but I particularly desired to remainin Lyme Regis. To complete the victory I had won on the links, it wasnecessary for me to continue as I had begun. I was in the position ofa general who has conquered a hostile country, and is obliged tosoothe the feelings of the conquered people before his labors can beconsidered at an end. I had rushed the professor. It must now be myaim to keep him from regretting that he had been rushed. I must,therefore, stick to my post with the tenacity of a boy on a burningdeck. There would be trouble. Of that I was certain. As soon as thenews got about that Ukridge had gone, the deluge would begin. Hiscreditors would abandon their passive tactics and take active steps.The siege of Port Arthur would be nothing to it. There was a chancethat aggressive measures would be confined to the enemy at our gates,the tradesmen of Lyme Regis. But the probability was that the newswould spread and the injured merchants of Dorchester and Axminsterrush to the scene of hostilities. I foresaw unpleasantness.
I summoned Beale after dinner and held a council of war. It was notime for airy persiflage.
I said, "Beale, we're in the cart."
"Sir?"
"Mr. Ukridge going away like this has left me in a most unpleasantposition. I would like to talk it over with you. I dare say you knowthat we--that Mr. Ukridge owes a considerable amount of moneyroundabout here to tradesmen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, when they find out that he has--er--"
"Shot the moon, sir," suggested the hired retainer helpfully.
"Gone up to town," I said. "When they find that he has gone up totown, they are likely to come bothering us a good deal."
"Yes, sir."
"I fancy that we shall have them all round here by the day afterto-morrow at the latest. Probably earlier. News of this sort alwaysspreads quickly. The point is, then, what are we to do?"
He propounded no scheme, but stood in an easy attitude of attention,waiting for me to continue.
I continued.
"Let's see exactly how we stand," I said. "My point is that Iparticularly wish to go on living down here for at least anotherfortnight. Of course, my position is simple. I am Mr. Ukridge's guest.I shall go on living as I have been doing up to the present. He askedme down here to help him look after the fowls, so I shall go onlooking after them. I shall want a chicken a day, I suppose, orperhaps two, for my meals, and there the thing ends, as far I amconcerned. Complications set in when we come to consider you and Mrs.Beale. I suppose you won't care to stop on after this?"
The hired retainer scratched his chin and glanced out of the window.The moon was up and the garden looked cool and mysterious in the dimlight.
"It's a pretty place, Mr. Garnet, sir," he said.
"It is," I said, "but about other considerations? There's the matterof wages. Are yours in arrears?"
"Yes, sir. A month."
"And Mrs. Beale's the same, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. A month."
"H'm. Well, it seems to me, Beale, you can't lose anything by stoppingon."
"I can't be paid any less than I have been, sir," he agreed.
"Exactly. And, as you say, it's a pretty place. You might just as wellstop on and help me in the fowl run. What do you think?"
"Very well, sir."
"And Mrs. Beale will do the same?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's excellent. You're a hero, Beale. I sha'n't forget you. There'sa check coming to me from a magazine in another week for a shortstory. When it arrives I'll look into that matter of back wages. TellMrs. Beale I'm much obliged to her, will you?"
"Yes, sir."
Having concluded that delicate business, I strolled out into thegarden with Bob. It was abominable of Ukridge to desert me in thisway. Even if I had not been his friend, it would have been bad. Thefact that we had known each other for years made it doublydiscreditable. He might at least have warned me and given me theoption of leaving the sinking ship with him.
But, I reflected, I ought not to be surprised. His whole career, aslong as I had known him, had been dotted with little eccentricities ofa type which an unfeeling world generally stigmatizes as shady. Theywere small things, it was true; but they ought to have warned me. Weare most of us wise after the event. When the wind has blown wegenerally discover a multitude of straws which should have shown uswhich way it was blowing.
Once, I remembered, in our school-master days, when guineas, thoughregular, were few, he had had occasion to increase his wardrobe. If Irecollect rightly, he thought he had a chance of a good position inthe tutoring line, and only needed good clothes to make it his. Hetook four pounds of his salary in advance--he was in the habit ofdoing this; he never had any of his salary left by the end of term, ithaving vanished in advance loans beforehand. With this he was to buytwo suits, a hat, new boots, and collars. When it came to making thepurchases, he found, what he had overlooked previously in hisoptimistic way, that four pounds did not go very far. At the time, Iremember, I thought his method of grappling with the situationhumorous. He bought a hat for three and sixpence, and got the suitsand the boots on the installment system, paying a small sum inadvance, as earnest of more to come. He then pawned one suit to paythe first few installments, and finally departed, to be known no more.His address he had given, with a false name, at an empty house, andwhen the tailor arrived with the minions of the law, all he found wasan annoyed caretaker and a pile of letters written by himself,containing his bill in its various stages of evolution.
Or again. There was a bicycle and photograph shop near the school. Heblew into this one day and his roving eye fell on a tandem bicycle. Hedid not want a tandem bicycle, but that influenced him not at all. Heordered it, provisionally. He also ordered an enlarging camera, aKodak, and a magic lantern. The order was booked and the goods were tobe delivered when he had made up his mind concerning them. After aweek the shopman sent round to ask if there were any furtherparticulars which Mr. Ukridge would like to learn before definitelyordering them. Mr. Ukridge sent word back that he was considering thematter, and that in the meantime would he be so good as to let himhave that little clockwork man in his window, whic
h walked when woundup? Having got this, and not paid for it, Ukridge thought that he haddone handsomely by the bicycle and photograph man, and that thingswere square between them. The latter met him a few days afterwards andexpostulated plaintively. Ukridge explained. "My good man," he said,"you know, I really think we need say no more about the matter.Really, you've come out of it very well. Now, look here, which wouldyou rather be owed for? A clockwork man, which is broken, and you canhave it back, or a tandem bicycle, an enlarging camera, a Kodak, anda magic lantern? What?" His reasoning was too subtle for theuneducated mind. The man retired, puzzled and unpaid, and Ukridge keptthe clockwork toy.
A remarkable financier, Ukridge. I sometimes think that he would havedone well in the city.
I did not go to bed till late that night. There was something sopeaceful in the silence that brooded over everything that I stayed on,enjoying it. Perhaps it struck me as all the more peaceful because Icould not help thinking of the troublous times that were to come.Already I seemed to hear the horrid roar of a herd of infuriatedcreditors. I seemed to see fierce brawlings and sackings in progressin this very garden.
"It will be a coarse, brutal spectacle, Robert," I said.
Bob uttered a little whine, as if he, too, were endowed with powers ofprophecy.
Love Among the Chickens Page 21