The Prince and Betty

by P. G. Wodehouse

  CHAPTER VII

  MR. SCOBELL IS FRANK

  Much may happen in these rapid times in the course of an hour and ahalf. While John was keeping his vigil on the sandstone rock, Betty washaving an interview with Mr. Scobell which was to produce far-reachingresults, and which, incidentally, was to leave her angrier and more atwar with the whole of her world than she could remember to have been inthe entire course of her life.

  The interview began, shortly after breakfast, in a gentle and tactfulmanner, with Aunt Marion at the helm. But Mr. Scobell was not the manto stand by silently while persons were being tactful. At the end ofthe second minute he had plunged through his sister's mild monologuelike a rhinoceros through a cobweb, and had stated definitely, with aneconomy of words, the exact part which Betty was to play in Mervianaffairs.

  "You say you want to know why you were cabled for. I'll tell you.There's no use talking for half a day before you get to the point. Iguess you've heard that there's a prince here instead of a republicnow? Well, that's where you come in."

  "Do you mean--?" she hesitated.

  "Yes, I do," said Mr. Scobell. There was a touch of doggedness in hisvoice. He was not going to stand any nonsense, by Heck, but there wasno doubt that Betty's wide-open eyes were not very easy to meet. Hewent on rapidly. "Cut out any fool notions about romance." MissScobell, who was knitting a sock, checked her needles for a moment inorder to sigh. Her brother eyed her morosely, then resumed his remarks."This is a matter of state. That's it. You gotta cut out fool notionsand act for good of state. You gotta look at it in the proper spirit.Great honor--see what I mean? Princess and all that. Chance of alifetime--dynasty--you gotta look at it that way."

  Miss Scobell heaved another sigh, and dropped a stitch.

  "For the love of Mike," said her brother, irritably, "don't snort likethat, Marion."

  "Very well, dear."

  Betty had not taken her eyes off him from his first word. An unbiasedobserver would have said that she made a pretty picture, standingthere, in her white dress, but in the matter of pictures, still lifewas evidently what Mr. Scobell preferred for his gaze never wanderedfrom the cigar stump which he had removed from his mouth in order toknock off the ash.

  Betty continued to regard him steadfastly. The shock of his words hadto some extent numbed her. At this moment she was merely thinking,quite dispassionately, what a singularly nasty little man he looked,and wondering--not for the first time--what strange quality, invisibleto everybody else, it had been in him that had made her mother hisadoring slave during the whole of their married life.

  Then her mind began to work actively once more. She was a Western girl,and an insistence on freedom was the first article in her creed. Agreat rush of anger filled her, that this man should set himself up todictate to her.

  "Do you mean that you want me to marry this Prince?" she said.

  "That's right."

  "I won't do anything of the sort."

  "Pshaw! Don't be foolish. You make me tired."

  Betty's eye shone mutinously. Her cheeks were flushed, and her slim,boyish figure quivered. Her chin, always determined, became a silentDeclaration of Independence.

  "I won't," she said.

  Aunt Marion, suspending operations on the sock, went on with tact atthe point where her brother's interruption had forced her to leave off.

  "I'm sure he's a very nice young man. I have not seen him, buteverybody says so. You like him, Bennie, don't you?"

  "Sure, I like him. He's a corker. Wait till you see him, Betty.Nobody's asking you to marry him before lunch. You'll have plenty oftime to get acquainted. It beats me what you're kicking at. You give mea pain in the neck. Be reasonable."

  Betty sought for arguments to clinch her refusal.

  "It's ridiculous," she said. "You talk as if you had just to wave yourhand. Why should your prince want to marry a girl he has never seen?"

  "He will," said Mr. Scobell confidently.

  "How do you know?"

  "Because I know he's a sensible young skeesicks. That's how. See here,Betty, you've gotten hold of wrong ideas about this place. You don'tunderstand the position of affairs. Your aunt didn't till I put herwise."

  "He bit my head off, my dear," murmured Miss Scobell, knittingplacidly.

  "You're thinking that Mervo is an ordinary state, and that the Princeis one of those independent, all-wool, off-with-his-darned-head rulerslike you read about in the best sellers. Well, you've got another guesscoming. If you want to know who's the big noise here, it's me--me! ThisPrince guy is my hired man. See? Who sent for him? I did. Who put himon the throne? I did. Who pays him his salary? I do, from the profitsof the Casino. Now do you understand? He knows his job. He knows whichside his bread's buttered. When I tell him about this marriage, do youknow what he'll say? He'll say 'Thank you, sir!' That's how things arein this island."

  Betty shuddered. Her face was white with humiliation. She half-raisedher hands with an impulsive movement to hide it.

  "I won't. I won't. I won't!" she gasped.

  Mr. Scobell was pacing the room in an ecstasy of triumphant rhetoric.

  "There's another thing," he said, swinging round suddenly and causinghis sister to drop another stitch. "Maybe you think he's some kind of aDago, this guy? Maybe that's what's biting you. Let me tell you thathe's an American--pretty near as much an American as you are yourself."

  Betty stared at him.

  "An American!"

  "Don't believe it, eh? Well, let me tell you that his mother was bornand raised in Jersey, and that he has lived all his life in the States.He's no little runt of a Dago. No, sir. He's a Harvard man, six-foothigh and weighs two hundred pounds. That's the sort of man he is. Iguess that's not American enough for you, maybe? No?"

  "You do shout so, Bennie!" murmured Miss Scobell. "I'm sure there's noneed."

  Betty uttered a cry. Something had told her who he was, this Harvardman who had sold himself. That species of sixth sense which liesundeveloped at the back of our minds during the ordinary happenings oflife wakes sometimes in moments of keen emotion. At its highest, it isprophecy; at its lowest, a vague presentiment. It woke in Betty now.There was no particular reason why she should have connected herstepfather's words with John. The term he had used was an elastic one.Among the visitors to the island there were probably several Harvardmen. But somehow she knew.

  "Who is he?" she cried. "What was his name before he--when he--?"

  "His name?" said Mr. Scobell. "John Maude. Maude was his mother's name.She was a Miss Westley. Here, where are you going?"

  Betty was walking slowly toward the door. Something in her face checkedMr. Scobell.

  "I want to think," she said quietly. "I'm going out."

  * * * * *

  In days of old, in the age of legend, omens warned heroes of impendingdoom. But to-day the gods have grown weary, and we rush unsuspecting onour fate. No owl hooted, no thunder rolled from the blue sky as Johnwent up the path to meet the white dress that gleamed between thetrees.

  His heart was singing within him. She had come. She had not forgotten,or changed her mind, or willfully abandoned him. His mood lightenedswiftly. Humility vanished. He was not such an outcast, after all. Hewas someone. He was the man Betty Silver had come to meet.

  But with the sight of her face came reaction.

  Her face was pale and cold and hard. She did not speak or smile. As shedrew near she looked at him, and there was that in her look which set achill wind blowing through the world and cast a veil across the sun.

  And in this bleak world they stood silent and motionless while eonsrolled by.

  Betty was the first to speak.

  "I'm late," she said.

  John searched in his brain for words, and came empty away. He shook hishead dumbly.

  "Shall we sit down?" said Betty.

  John indicated silently the sandstone rock on which he had beencommuning with himself.

  They sat down. A sense of being
preposterously and indecently bigobsessed John. There seemed no end to him. Wherever he looked, therewere hands and feet and legs. He was a vast blot on the face of theearth. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Betty. She was gazingout to sea.

  He dived into his brain again. It was absurd! There must be somethingto say.

  And then he realized that a worse thing had befallen. He had no voice.It had gone. He knew that, try he never so hard to speak, he would notbe able to utter a word. A nightmare feeling of unreality came uponhim. Had he ever spoken? Had he ever done anything but sit dumbly onthat rock, looking at those sea gulls out in the water?

  He shot another swift glance at Betty, and a thrill went through him.There were tears in her eyes.

  The next moment--the action was almost automatic--his left hand wasclasping her right, and he was moving along the rock to her side.

  She snatched her hand away.

  His brain, ransacked for the third time, yielded a single word.

  "Betty!"

  She got up quickly.

  In the confused state of his mind, John found it necessary if he wereto speak at all, to say the essential thing in the shortest possibleway. Polished periods are not for the man who is feeling deeply.

  He blurted out, huskily, "I love you!" and finding that this was allthat he could say, was silent.

  Even to himself the words, as he spoke them, sounded bald andmeaningless. To Betty, shaken by her encounter with Mr. Scobell, theysounded artificial, as if he were forcing himself to repeat a lesson.They jarred upon her.

  "Don't!" she said sharply. "Oh, don't!"

  Her voice stabbed him. It could not have stirred him more if she haduttered a cry of physical pain.

  "Don't! I know. I've been told."

  "Been told?"

  She went on quickly.

  "I know all about it. My stepfather has just told me. He said--he saidyou were his--" she choked--"his hired man; that he paid you to stayhere and advertise the Casino. Oh, it's too horrible! That it should beyou! You, who have been--you can't understand what you--have been tome--ever since we met; you couldn't understand. I can't tell you--asort of help--something--something that--I can't put it into words.Only it used to help me just to think of you. It was almost impersonal.I didn't mind if I never saw you again. I didn't expect ever to see youagain. It was just being able to think of you. It helped--you weresomething I could trust. Something strong--solid." She laughedbitterly. "I suppose I made a hero of you. Girls are fools. But ithelped me to feel that there was one man alive who--who put his honorabove money--"

  She broke off. John stood motionless, staring at the ground. For thefirst time in his easy-going life he knew shame. Even now he had notgrasped to the full the purport of her words. The scales were fallingfrom his eyes, but as yet he saw but dimly.

  She began to speak again, in a low, monotonous voice, almost as if shewere talking to herself. She was looking past him, at the gulls thatswooped and skimmed above the glittering water.

  "I'm so tired of money--money--money. Everything's money. Isn't there aman in the world who won't sell himself? I thought that you--I supposeI'm stupid. It's business, I suppose. One expects too much."

  She looked at him wearily.

  "Good-by," she said. "I'm going."

  He did not move.

  She turned, and went slowly up the path. Still he made no movement. Aspell seemed to be on him. His eyes never left her as she passed intothe shadow of the trees. For a moment her white dress stood outclearly. She had stopped. With his whole soul he prayed that she wouldlook back. But she moved on once more, and was gone. And suddenly astrange weakness came upon John. He trembled. The hillside flickeredbefore his eyes for an instant, and he clutched at the sandstone rockto steady himself.

  Then his brain cleared, and he found himself thinking swiftly. He couldnot let her go like this. He must overtake her. He must stop her. Hemust speak to her. He must say--he did not know what it was that hewould say--anything, so that he spoke to her again.

  He raced up the path, calling her name. No answer came to his cries.Above him lay the hillside, dozing in the noonday sun; below, theMediterranean, sleek and blue, without a ripple. He stood alone in aland of silence and sleep.