Once a Week
Page 36
THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT
"It's my birthday to-morrow," said Mrs. Jeremy as she turned the pagesof her engagement book.
"Bless us, so it is," said Jeremy. "You're thirty-nine or twenty-sevenor something. I must go and examine the wine-cellar. I believe there'sone bottle left in the Apollinaris bin. It's the only stuff in the housethat fizzes."
"Jeremy! I'm only twenty-six."
"You don't look it, darling; I mean you do look it, dear. What Imean--well, never mind that. Let's talk about birthday presents. Thinkof something absolutely tremendous for me to give you."
"A rope of pearls."
"I didn't mean that sort of tremendousness," said Jeremy quickly."Anyone could give you a rope of pearls; it's simply a question ofoverdrawing enough from the bank. I meant something difficult that wouldreally prove my love for you--like Lloyd George's ear or the Kaiser'scigar-holder. Something where I could kill somebody for you first. I amin a very devoted mood this morning."
"Are you really?" smiled Mrs. Jeremy. "Because----"
"I am. So is Baby, unfortunately. She will probably want to give yousomething horribly expensive. Between ourselves, dear, I shall be gladwhen Baby is old enough to buy her own presents for her mamma. LastChristmas her idea of a complete edition of Meredith and a pair ofsilver-backed brushes nearly ruined me."
"You won't be ruined this time, Jeremy. I don't want you to give meanything; I want you to show that devotion of yours by _doing_ somethingfor me."
"Anything," said Jeremy grandly. "Shall I swim the Channel? I waspractising my new trudgeon stroke in the bath this morning." He got upfrom his chair and prepared to give an exhibition of it.
"No, nothing like that." Mrs. Jeremy hesitated, looked anxiously at him,and then went boldly at it. "I want you to go in for that physicalculture that everyone's talking about."
"Who's everyone? Cook hasn't said a word to me on the subject; neitherhas Baby; neither has----"
"Mrs. Hodgkin was talking to me about it yesterday. She was saying howthin you were looking."
"The scandal that goes on in these villages," sighed Jeremy. "And theVicar's wife too. Dear, all this is weeks and weeks old; I suppose ithas only just reached the Vicarage. Do let us be up-to-date. Physicalculture has been quite _demode_ since last Thursday."
"Well, _I_ never saw anything in the paper"----
"Knowing what wives are, I hid it from you. Let us now, my dear wife,talk of something else."
"Jeremy! Not for my birthday present?" said his wife in a reproachfulvoice. "The Vicar does them every morning," she added casually.
"Poor beggar! But it's what Vicars are for." Jeremy chuckled to himself."I should love to see him," he said. "I suppose it's private, though.Perhaps if I said 'Press'----"
"You _are_ thin, you know."
"My dear, the proper way to get fat is not to take violent exercise, butto lie in a hammock all day and drink milk. Besides, do you want a fathusband? Does Baby want a fat father? You wouldn't like, at your nextgarden party, to have everybody asking you in a whisper, 'Who is theenormously stout gentleman?' If Nature made me thin--or, to be moreaccurate, slender and of a pleasing litheness--let us believe that sheknew best."
"It isn't only thinness; these exercises keep you young and well andactive in mind."
"Like the Vicar?"
"He's only just begun," said his wife hastily.
"Let's wait a bit and watch him," suggested Jeremy. "If his sermonsreally get better, then I'll think about it seriously. I make you apresent of his baldness; I shan't ask for any improvement there."
Mrs. Jeremy went over to her husband and patted the top of his head.
"'In a very devoted mood this morning,'" she quoted.
Jeremy looked unhappy.
"What pains me most about this," he said, "is the revelation of yourshortcomings as a wife. You ought to think me the picture of manlybeauty. Baby does. She thinks that, next to the postman, I am one ofthe----"
"So you are, dear."
"Well, why not leave it? Really, I can't waste my time fattening refinedgold and stoutening the lily. I am a busy man. I walk up and down thepergola, I keep a dog, I paint little water-colours, I am treasurer ofthe cricket club; my life is full of activities."
"This only takes a quarter of an hour before your bath, Jeremy."
"I am shaving then; I should cut myself and get all the soap in my eyes.It would be most dangerous. When you were a widow, and Baby and the ponywere orphans, you and Mrs. Hodgkin would be sorry. But it would be toolate. The Vicar, tearing himself away from Position 5 to conduct thefuneral service----"
"Jeremy, _don't_!"
"Ah, woman, now I move you. You are beginning to see what you were indanger of doing. Death I laugh at; but a fat death--the death of a stoutman who has swallowed the shaving-brush through taking too deep a breathbefore beginning Exercise 3, that is more than I can bear."
"Jeremy!"
"When I said I wanted to kill someone for you, I didn't think you wouldsuggest myself, least of all that you wanted me fattened up like aChristmas turkey first. To go down to posterity as the large-bodiedgentleman who inhaled the badger's hair; to be billed in the Londonpress in the words, 'Curious Fatal Accident to Adipose Treasurer'--to dothis simply by way of celebrating your twenty-sixth birthday, when weactually have a bottle of Apollinaris left in the Apollinarisbin--darling, you cannot have been thinking----"
His wife patted his head again gently. "Oh, Jeremy, you hopelessperson," she sighed. "Give me a new sunshade. I want one badly."
"No," said Jeremy, "Baby shall give you that. For myself I am stillfeeling that I should like to kill somebody for you. Lloyd George? No.F. E. Smith? N-no...." He rubbed his head thoughtfully. "Who inventedthose exercises?" he asked suddenly.
"A German, I think."
"Then," said Jeremy, buttoning up his coat, "I shall go and kill_him_."