by Ian Hay
CHAPTER III
JIMMY MARRABLE
Luncheon on the whole was a success, though Mrs. Gunn's behaviourexceeded anything that Hughie had feared.
She began by keeping the ladies adjusting their hair in Hughie's bedroomfor something like ten minutes, while she recited to them a detailed andrevolting description of her most recent complaint. Later, she initiatedan impromptu and unseemly campaign--beginning with a skirmish ofwhispers in the doorway, swelling uproariously to what sounded like aduet between a cockatoo and a bloodhound on the landing outside, anddying away to an irregular fire of personal innuendoes, which droppedover the banisters one by one, like the gentle dew of heaven, on to thehead of the retreating foe beneath--with a kitchen-man over a thumb-markon a pudding-plate.
But fortunately for Hughie the company tacitly agreed to regard her as aform of comic relief; and when she kept back the salad-dressing for theexpress purpose--frustrated at the very last moment--of pouring it overthe sweets; yea, even when she suddenly plucked a hairpin from her headwith which to spear a wasp in the grassy corner pudding, the ladiesagreed that she was "an old pet." When Mrs. Ames went so far as tofollow her into the gyp-room after lunch and thank her for her troublein waiting upon them, Mrs. Gunn, divided between extreme gratificationand a desire to lose no time, unlimbered her batteries at once; andHughie's tingling ears, as he handed round the coffee, overheard theportentous and mysterious fragment: "Well, mum, I put 'im straight tobed, and laid a hot flannel on his--," just as the door of the gyp-roomswung to with a merciful bang.
It was now after two, and Hughie, in response to a generally expresseddesire, laid before his guests a detailed programme for the afternoon.He proposed, first of all, to show them round the College. After thatthe party would proceed to Ditton Paddock in charge of Mr. RichardLunn--who, it will be remembered, had been selected by Hughie ascavalier on account of his exceptional qualifications for the post--incompany with a substantial tea-basket, the contents of which he hopedwould keep them fortified in body and spirit until the races began withthe Second Division, about five-thirty.
"How are you going to get us down to Ditton, Hughie?" inquired hisuncle.
"Well, there's a fly which will hold five of you, and I thought"--Hughiecleared his throat--"I could take the other one down in a canoe."
There was a brief pause, while the company, glancing at one another withvarying expressions of solemnity, worked out mental problems inPermutations and Combinations. Presently the tactless Ames inquired:--
"Which one are you going to take in the canoe?"
"Oh, anybody," said Hughie, in a voice which said as plainly aspossible: "Silly old ass!"
However, realising that it is no use to continue skirmishing after yourcover has been destroyed, he directed a gaze of invitation upon MissFreshwater, who was sitting beside him on the seat.
She turned to him before he could speak.
"Hughie," she said softly, "take that child. Just look at her!"
Hughie obediently swallowed something, and turned to the wide-eyed andwistful picture on the sofa.
"Will you come, Joey?" he inquired.
The lady addressed signified, by a shudder of ecstasy, that the answerto the invitation was in the affirmative.
"Meanwhile," said Mr. Marrable, "I am going to smoke a cigar before Istir out of this room. And if you people will spare Hughie for tenminutes, I'll keep him here and have a short talk with him. I must goback to-night."
The accommodating Mr. Lunn suggested that this interval should bebridged by a personally conducted expedition to his rooms downstairs,where he would have great pleasure in exhibiting to the company a"rather decent" collection of door-knockers and bell-handles, theacquisition of which articles of _vertu_ (he being a youth of strongwrist and fleet foot) was a special hobby of his.
Hughie was left alone with his uncle--the only relation he possessed inthe world, and the man who had been to him both father and mother fornearly eighteen years.
Hughie had been born in India. His recollections of his parents werevague in the extreme, but if he shut both eyes and pressed hard uponthem with his hands he could summon up various pictures of a beautifullady, whose arms were decked with glittering playthings that jingledmusically when she carved the chicken for Hughie's nursery dinner. Heparticularly remembered these arms, for their owner had a pleasant habitof coming up to kiss him good-night after his ayah had put him to bed.On these occasions they were always bare; and Hughie remembered quitedistinctly how much more comfortable they were then than next morning attiffin, when they were enclosed in sleeves which sometimes scratched.
Of his father he remembered less, except that he was a very large personwho wore gorgeous raiment of scarlet. Also things on his heels whichclicked. He had a big voice, too, this man, and he used to amuse himselfby training Hughie to stand stiffly erect whenever he cried, "'Shun!"
Hughie also remembered a voyage on a big ship, where the passengers mademuch of him, and a fascinating person in a blue jersey (whichunfortunately scratched) presented him with numerous string balls, whichsmelt most gloriously of tar but always fell into the Indian Ocean orsome other inaccessible place.
Then he remembered arriving with his parents at a big bungalow in acompound full of grassplots and flower-beds, where a person whom heafterwards learned to call Uncle Jimmy greeted him gravely and asked himto accept his hospitality for a time. After that--quite soon--heremembered saying good-bye to his parents, or rather, his parents sayinggood-bye to him. The big man shook him long and solemnly by the hand,which hurt a good deal but impressed Hughie deeply, and the beautifullady's arms--with thick sleeves on, too!--clung round Hughie's neck tillhe thought he would choke. But he stood stiffly at "'shun" all the time,because his parents seemed thoroughly unhappy about something, and hedesired to please them. He had never had a woman's arms round his necksince.
After his parents had gone, he settled down happily enough in the bigcompound, which he soon learned to call "the garding." The name of thebungalow he gathered from most of the people with whom he came incontact was "The 'All," though there were some who called it "Manors,"and Uncle Jimmy, who, too, apparently possessed more than one name, wasinvariably referred to by Hughie's friends in the village as "OlePeppery."
Very shortly after his parents' departure Hughie overheard aconversation between his uncle and Mrs. Capper, the lady who managed thehousehold, which puzzled him a good deal.
"Understand, Capper, I won't have it," said his uncle.
"Think what people will say, sir," urged Mrs. Capper respectfully butinsistently.
"I don't care a"--Capper coughed discreetly here--"what people say. Theboy is not going to be decked out in crape and hearse-plumes to pleaseyou or any other old woman."
"Hearse-plumes would not be essential, sir," said the literal Capper."But I think the child should have a little black suit."
"The child will run about in his usual rags," replied Old Peppery, in avoice of thunder; "and if I catch you or any one else stuffing him upwith yarns about canker-worms or hell-fire, or any trimmings of thatdescription, I tell you straight that there will be the father andmother of a row."
"Yes, sir," said Capper meekly. "And I desire, sir," she added in thesame even tone, "to give warning."
Thereupon Uncle Jimmy had stamped his way downstairs to the hall, andHughie was left wondering what the warning could have been which Mrs.Capper desired to utter. It must have been a weighty one, for shecontinued to deliver it at intervals during the next ten years, longindeed after Hughie's growing intelligence had discovered its meaning.But her utterances received about as much attention from her employer asCassandra's from hers.
However, the immediate result of the conversation recorded abovewas that Mrs. Capper made no attempt to deck Hughie in crape orhearse-plumes; and later on, when he was old enough to understand themeaning of death, his uncle told him how his parents had gone to theirGod together--"th
e happiest fate, old man, that can fall on husband andwife"--one stormy night in the Bay of Biscay, in company with everyother soul on board the troop-ship Helianthus, and that henceforthHughie must be prepared to regard the broken-down old buffer before himas his father and mother.
Hughie had gravely accepted this arrangement, and for more thanseventeen years he and his uncle had treated one another as father andson.
Jimmy Marrable was a little eccentric,--but so are most oldbachelors,--and like a good many eccentric men he rather prided himselfon his peculiarities. If anything, he rather cultivated them. One of hismost startling characteristics was a habit of thinking aloud. He wouldemerge unexpectedly from a brown study, to comment to himself withstunning suddenness and absolute candour on the appearance and mannersof those around him. It was credibly reported that he had once taken arather intense and voluble lady in to dinner, and after regarding herfor some time with a fixity of attention which had deluded the good soulinto the belief that he was hanging on her lips, had remarked tohimself, with appalling distinctness, during a lull in the conversation:"Guinea set--misfit at the top--gutta-percha fixings--wonder they don'tdrop into her soup!" and continued his meal without any apparentconsciousness of having said anything unusual.
He was eccentric, too, about other matters. Once Hughie, returning fromschool for his holidays, discovered that there had been an addition tothe family in his absence.
Mrs. Capper's very face in the hall told him that something was wrong.Its owner informed Hughie that though one should be prepared to takelife as one found it, and live and let live had been her motto frominfancy, her equilibrium ever since the thing had happened had lain atthe mercy of the first aggressively disposed feather that came along,and what people in the neighbourhood would say she dared not think.
She ran on. Hughie waited patiently, and presently unearthed the facts.
A few weeks ago the master had returned from a protracted visit toLondon, bringing with him two children. He had announced that thepair were henceforth to be regarded as permanent inmates of theestablishment. Beyond the fact that one brat was fair and a boy and theother darkish and a girl, and that Mrs. Capper had given warning onsight, Hughie could elicit nothing, and waited composedly for his uncleto come home from shooting.
Jimmy Marrable, when he arrived, was not communicative. He merely statedthat the little devils were the children of an old friend of his, calledGaymer, who had died suddenly and left them to be brought up by him asguardian.
"And Hughie, my son," he concluded, "if you don't want your head bittenoff you will refrain in this case from indulging in your propensity forasking why and getting to the bottom of things. I'm not best pleased atfinding them on my hands, but here they are and there's an end of it.The girl is five--ten years younger than you--and the boy's eight. Sheis called Joan, and his idiotic name is Lancelot Wellesley. I wonderthey didn't christen him Galahad Napoleon! Come upstairs and see them."
All this had occurred seven years ago. During that time LancelotWellesley Gaymer had grown up sufficiently to go to a public school, andconsequently Miss Joan Gaymer had been left very much in the company ofthe curious old gentleman whom she had soon learned to call Unker Zimmy.Of their relations it will be sufficient at present to mention that amore curiously assorted and more thoroughly devoted couple it would bedifficult to find.
Jimmy Marrable reclined on the window seat and smoked his cigar. Hisnephew, enviously eyeing the blue smoke, sprawled in an arm-chair.
"Hughie," said the elder man suddenly, "how old are you? Twenty-one,isn't it?"
"Yes."
"And are you going down for good next week?"
"Yes." Hughie sighed.
"Got a degree?"
"Tell you on Tuesday."
"Tell me now."
"Well--yes, I should think."
"What in?"
"Mechanical Stinks--Engineering. Second Class, if I'm lucky."
"Um. Got any vices?"
"Not specially."
"Drink?"
"No."
"Not a teetotaller?" said Jimmy Marrable in some concern.
"No."
"That's good. Ever been drunk?"
"Yes."
"Badly, I mean. I'm not talking about bump-supper exhilaration."
"Only once."
"When?"
"My first term."
"What for?"
"To see what it was like."
"Perfectly sound proceeding," commented Jimmy Marrable. "What were yourimpressions of the experiment?"
"I haven't got any," said Hughie frankly. "I only woke up next morningin bed with my boots on."
"Who put you there?"
"Seven other devils."
"And you have not repeated the experiment?"
"No. There's no need. I know my capacity to a glass now."
"Then you know something really worth knowing," remarked Jimmy Marrablewith sincerity. "Now, what are you going to do with yourself? Why not goand see the world a bit? You have always wanted to. And do it thoroughlywhile you are about it. Take five years over it; ten if you like. You_will_ like, you know. It's in the blood. That's why I think you arewise not to want to enter the Service. You can always scrape insomewhere if there _is_ a war, and barrack-life in time of peacewould corrode your very heart out. It nearly killed your dad atfive-and-twenty. That was why he exchanged and took to the Frontier, andended his days in command of a Goorkha regiment. Life at first hand;that's what we Marrables thrive on! I never set foot in this countrymyself between the ages of twenty and thirty-three. I would come withyou again if it wasn't for Anno Domini--and the nippers. But you'll finda good many old friends of mine dotted about the world. They're not allfolk I could give you letters of introduction to--some of 'em don'tspeak English and others can't read and write; but they'll show you theropes better than any courier. You take my advice, and go. England is noplace for a young man with money and no particular profession, untilhe's over thirty and ready to marry. Will you go, Hughie?"
Hughie's expression showed that he was considering the point ratherreluctantly. His uncle continued:--
"Money all right, I suppose? You have eight hundred a-year now you areof age. Got any debts, eh? I'll help you."
"None to speak of. Thanks all the same."
"Well; why not go?"
"I should like to go more than anything," said Hughie slowly, "but--"
"Well?"
"I don't know--that is--"
"I _do_," said Jimmy Marrable with characteristic frankness. "You arestruggling between an instinct which tells you to do the sensible thingand an overpowering desire to do a dashed silly one."
Hughie grew very red.
His uncle continued:--
"You want to marry that girl."
Hughie blazed up.
"I do," he said, rather defiantly.
The cigar glowed undisturbedly.
"You think that life has no greater happiness to offer you?"
"I am sure of it," said Hughie, with an air of one stating a simpletruth.
"And you are twenty-one?"
"Ye--es," with less fire.
Jimmy Marrable smoked reflectively for a few minutes.
"I am an old bachelor," he said at last, "and old bachelors are supposedto know nothing about love-affairs. The truth of course is that theyknow far more than any one else."
Hughie was accustomed to these _obiter dicta_.
"Why?" he asked dutifully.
"Well, for the same reason that a broken swashbuckler knows a deal moreabout soldiering than a duly enrolled private of the line. He has had amore varied experience. The longer a man remains a bachelor the more helearns about women; and the more he learns about women the better ablehe will be to make his way in the world. Therefore, if he marries younghe reduces his chances of success in life to a minimum. The sad partabout it all is that, provided he gets the girl he wants, he doesn'tcare. That, by the way, is the reason why nearly all the most famous menin history have e
ither been unhappily married or not married at all.Happiness has no history. Happily married men are never ambitious. Theydon't go toiling and panting after--"
"They have no need to," said Hughie. "A man doesn't go on running aftera tram-car after he has caught it."
"That begs the question, Hughie. It presumes that all the availablehappiness in the world is contained in one particular tram-car. Besides,the tram-cars you mean are intended for men over thirty. The young oughtto walk."
Hughie realised that the conversation was growing rather too subtle forhim, and reverted to plain cut and thrust.
"Then you think no man should marry before thirty?" he said.
"Nothing of the kind! It depends on the man. If he is a steady, decent,average sort of fellow, who regards a ledger as a Bible and anoffice-stool as a stepping-stone to the summit of the universe, andpossesses no particular aptitude for the rough-and-tumble of life, thesooner he marries and settles down as a contented old pram-pusher thebetter for him and the nation. Do you fancy yourself in that line,Hughie?"
"No-o-o," said Hughie reluctantly. "But I might learn," he addedhopefully. "I'm a pretty adaptable bloke."
Jimmy Marrable threw his cigar-end out of the window, and sat up.
"Listen, Hughie," he said, "and I'll tell you what you _really_ are. Youare the son of a mother who climbed out of her bedroom window (and letherself down a rain-pipe that I wouldn't have trusted a monkey on) inorder to elope with the man she loved. Your father was the commander ofas tough a native regiment as I have ever known. Your grandfather was anexplorer. I've been a bit of a rolling-stone myself. About one relationof yours in three dies in his bed. You come of a stock which prefers togo and see things for itself rather than read about them in thenewspaper, and which has acquired a considerable knowledge of the art ofhandling men in the process. Those are rather rare assets. If you take awoman in tow at the tender age of twenty-one, there will be a disaster.Either you will sit at home and eat your heart out, or you will goabroad and leave her to eat out hers. Am I talking sense?"
Hughie sighed like a furnace.
"Yes, confound you!" he said.
"Will you promise not to rush into matrimony, then?"
"Perhaps she'll wait for me," mused Hughie.
"How old is she?"
"Twenty-one, like me."
"H'm," remarked Jimmy Marrable drily. "That means that she is for allpractical purposes ten years your senior. However, perhaps she will.Pigs might fly. But will you promise me to think the matter over verycarefully before deciding not to go abroad?"
"Yes," said Hughie.
"That being the case," continued his uncle briskly, "I want to tell youone or two things. If you do go, I may never see you again."
"I say," said Hughie in alarm, "there's nothing wrong with your health,is there, old man?"
"Bless you, no! But once a Marrable takes to the wilds Methuselahhimself couldn't reckon on living long enough to see him again. So I amgoing to talk to you while I've got you. I am taking this opportunity ofbeing near town to see my solicitor and make my will. I am fit enough,but I am fifty this year; and at that age a man ought to make somedisposition of his property. I may as well tell you that I have left younothing. Annoyed?"
"Not in the least."
"And I have left nothing to Master Lance."
Hughie looked a little surprised at this.
"I mean to start him on his own legs before my demise," explained JimmyMarrable. "Immediately, in fact. That is partly what I am going up totown for. I am investing a sum for him which ought to bring him in abouttwo hundred a year for the rest of his life. He's nearly sixteen now,and he'll have to administer his income himself--pay his ownschool-bills and everything. Just as I made you do. Nothing likeaccustoming a boy to handling money when he's young. Then he doesn't goa mucker when he suddenly comes into a lot of it. I shan't give himmore, because it would prevent him from working. Two hundred won't. Aslug would perhaps live contentedly enough on it, but Lancelot WellesleyGaymer is a pretentious young sweep, and he'll work in order to gain themeans for making a splash. The two hundred will keep him going till hefinds his feet."
Jimmy Marrable paused, and surveyed his nephew rather irritably.
"Well," he inquired at length, "haven't you any contribution to make tothis conversation?"
"Can't say I have had much chance so far," replied the disrespectfulHughie.
"Don't you want to know what I'm going to do with the rest of my money?That's a question that a good many people are worrying themselves about.Don't you want to join in the inquisition?"
"Can't say I do. No business of mine."
His uncle surveyed him curiously.
"You're infernally like your father, Hughie," he said. "Well, I'm goingto leave it to Joey."
"Good scheme," said Hughie.
"You think so?"
"Rather!"
"There's a lot of it," continued his uncle reflectively. "Some of it istied up rather queerly, too. My executors will have a bit of a job."
He surveyed the impassive Hughie again.
"Don't you want to know who my executors are?" he inquired quiteangrily.
"No," said Hughie, who was deep in other thoughts at the moment. "Not mybusiness," he repeated.
"Hughie," said Jimmy Marrable, "you are poor Arthur over again. He was acursedly irritating chap at times," he added explosively.
A babble of cheerful voices on the staircase announced the return of thesafe-looking Mr. Lunn and party. They flowed in, entranced with thatgentleman's door-knockers (the countenances of which, by the way, wereusually compared by undergraduate critics, not at all unfavourably, withthat of their owner), and declared themselves quite ready now to beproperly impressed by whatever features of the College Hughie should bepleased to exhibit to them.
One tour round a College is very like another; and we need not thereforefollow our friends up and down winding staircases, or in and out ofchapels and libraries, while they gaze down on the resting-places ofthe illustrious dead or gape up at the ephemeral abodes of theundistinguished living.
The expedition was chiefly remarkable (to the observant eye of Mrs.Ames) for the efforts made by its conductor to get lost in suitablecompany--an enterprise which was invariably frustrated by the resoluteconduct of that small but determined hero-worshipper, Miss Joan Gaymer.On one occasion, however, Hughie and Miss Freshwater were left togetherfor a moment. The party had finished surveying the prospect from theroof of the College Chapel, and were painfully groping their way insingle file down a spiral staircase. Only Hughie, Miss Freshwater, andthe ubiquitous Miss Gaymer were left at the top.
"You go next, Joey," said Hughie; "then Miss Freshwater, then me."
The lady addressed plunged obediently into the gloomy chasm at her feet.She observed with frank jealousy that the other two did not immediatelyfollow her, and accordingly waited for them in the belfry half-way down.
Presently she heard their footsteps descending; and Miss Freshwater'svoice said:--
"I wanted to tell you about it first of anybody, Hughie, because you andI have always been such friends. Nobody else knows yet."
There was a silence, broken only by Hughie's footsteps, evidentlynegotiating a difficult turn. Then Miss Freshwater's voice continued, alittle wistfully:--
"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"
And Hughie's voice, sounding strangely sepulchral in the echoingdarkness, replied:--
"Rather! I--I--hope you'll be very happy. Mind that step."
Miss Gaymer wondered what it was all about.
Hughie found an opportunity before the day was over of holding anotherbrief conversation with his uncle, in the course of which he expressedan opinion on the advantages of immediate and extensive foreign travelwhich sent that opponent of early marriages back to town in a thoroughlysatisfied frame of mind.
"There ought to be a statue," said Jimmy Marrable to his cigar, as heleaned back reflectively in his railway carriage, "set up in the capitalof
every British Colony, representing a female figure in an attitude ofaloofness, and inscribed: _Erected by a grateful Colony to its PrincipalEmigration Agent--The Girl at Home Who Married Somebody Else_."
Then he sighed to himself--rather forlornly, a woman would have said.