A Damsel in Distress

by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

  George did not follow him here.

  “The sweepstike? What’s a sweepstike?”

  “Why, a thing you puts names in ‘ats and draw ‘em and the one that gets the winning name wins the money.”

  “Oh, you mean a sweepstake!”

  “That’s wot I said—a sweepstike.”

  George was still puzzled.

  “But I don’t understand. How do you mean you drew me in a sweepstike—I mean a sweepstake? What sweepstake?”

  “Down in the servants’ ‘all. Keggs, the butler, started it. I ‘eard ‘im say he always ‘ad one every place ‘e was in as a butler– leastways, whenever there was any dorters of the ‘ouse. There’s always a chance, when there’s a ‘ouse-party, of one of the dorters of the ‘ouse gettin’ married to one of the gents in the party, so Keggs ‘e puts all of the gents’ names in an ‘at, and you pay five shillings for a chance, and the one that draws the winning name gets the money. And if the dorter of the ‘ouse don’t get married that time, the money’s put away and added to the pool for the next ‘ouse-party.”

  George gasped. This revelation of life below stairs in the stately homes of England took his breath away. Then astonishment gave way to indignation.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you—you worms—made Lady Maud the—the prize of a sweepstake!”

  Albert was hurt.

  “Who’re yer calling worms?”

  George perceived the need of diplomacy. After all much depended on this child’s goodwill.

  “I was referring to the butler—what’s his name—Keggs.”

  “‘E ain’t a worm. ‘E’s a serpint.” Albert drew at his cigarette. His brow darkened. “‘E does the drawing, Keggs does, and I’d like to know ‘ow it is ‘e always manages to cop the fav’rit!”

  Albert chuckled.

  “But this time I done him proper. ‘E didn’t want me in the thing at all. Said I was too young. Tried to do the drawin’ without me. ‘Clip that boy one side of the ‘ead!’ ‘e says, ‘and turn ‘im out!’ ‘e says. I says, ‘Yus, you will!’ I says. ‘And wot price me goin’ to ‘is lordship and blowing the gaff?’ I says. ‘E says, ‘Oh, orl right!’ ‘e says. ‘Ave it yer own way!’ ‘e says.

  ‘Where’s yer five shillings?’ ‘e says. “Ere yer are!’ I says. ‘Oh, very well,’ ‘e says. ‘But you’ll ‘ave to draw last,’ ‘e says, ‘bein’ the youngest.’ Well, they started drawing the names, and of course Keggs ‘as to draw Mr. Byng.”

  “Oh, he drew Mr. Byng, did he?”

  “Yus. And everyone knew Reggie was the fav’rit. Smiled all over his fat face, the old serpint did! And when it come to my turn, ‘e says to me, ‘Sorry, Elbert!’ ‘e says, ‘but there ain’t no more names. They’ve give out!’ ‘Oh, they ‘ave, ‘ave they?’ I says, ‘Well, wot’s the matter with giving a fellow a sporting chance?’ I says. “Ow do you mean?’ ‘e says. ‘Why, write me out a ticket marked “Mr. X.”,’ I says. ‘Then, if ‘er lidyship marries anyone not in the ‘ouse-party, I cop!’ ‘Orl right,’ ‘e says, ‘but you know the conditions of this ‘ere sweep. Nothin’ don’t count only wot tikes plice during the two weeks of the ‘ouse-party,’ ‘e says. ‘Orl right,’ I says. ‘Write me ticket. It’s a fair sportin’ venture.’ So ‘e writes me out me ticket, with ‘Mr. X.’ on it, and I says to them all, I says, ‘I’d like to ‘ave witnesses’, I says, ‘to this ‘ere thing. Do all you gents agree that if anyone not in the ‘ouse-party and ‘oo’s name ain’t on one of the other tickets marries ‘er lidyship, I get the pool?’ I says. They all says that’s right, and then I says to ‘em all straight out, I says, ‘I ‘appen to know’, I says, ‘that ‘er lidyship is in love with a gent that’s not in the party at all. An American gent,’ I says. They wouldn’t believe it at first, but, when Keggs ‘ad put two and two together, and thought of one or two things that ‘ad ‘appened, ‘e turned as white as a sheet and said it was a swindle and wanted the drawin’ done over again, but the others says ‘No’, they says, ‘it’s quite fair,’ they says, and one of ‘em offered me ten bob slap out for my ticket. But I stuck to it, I did. And that,” concluded Albert throwing the cigarette into the fire-place just in time to prevent a scorched finger, “that’s why I’m going to ‘elp yer!”

  There is probably no attitude of mind harder for the average man to maintain than that of aloof disapproval. George was an average man, and during the degrading recital just concluded he had found himself slipping. At first he had been revolted, then, in spite of himself, amused, and now, when all the facts were before him, he could induce his mind to think of nothing else than his good fortune in securing as an ally one who appeared to combine a precocious intelligence with a helpful lack of scruple. War is war, and love is love, and in each the practical man inclines to demand from his fellow-workers the punch rather than a lofty soul. A page boy replete with the finer feelings would have been useless in this crisis. Albert, who seemed on the evidence of a short but sufficient acquaintance, to be a lad who would not recognize the finer feelings if they were handed to him on a plate with watercress round them, promised to be invaluable. Something in his manner told George that the child was bursting with schemes for his benefit.

  “Have some more cake, Albert,” he said ingratiatingly.

  The boy shook his head.

  “Do,” urged George. “Just a little slice.”

  “There ain’t no little slice,” replied Albert with regret. “I’ve ate it all.” He sighed and resumed. “I gotta scheme!”

  “Fine! What is it?”

  Albert knitted his brows.

  “It’s like this. You want to see ‘er lidyship, but you can’t come to the castle, and she can’t come to you—not with ‘er fat brother dogging of ‘er footsteps. That’s it, ain’t it? Or am I a liar?”

  George hastened to reassure him.

  “That is exactly it. What’s the answer?”

  “I’ll tell yer wot you can do. There’s the big ball tonight ‘cos of its bein’ ‘Is Nibs’ comin’-of-age tomorrow. All the county’ll be ‘ere.”

  “You think I could slip in and be taken for a guest?”

  Albert snorted contempt.

  “No, I don’t think nothin’ of the kind, not bein’ a fat-head.” George apologized. “But wot you could do’s this. I ‘eard Keggs torkin to the ‘ouse-keeper about ‘avin’ to get in a lot of temp’y waiters to ‘elp out for the night—”

  George reached forward and patted Albert on the head.

  “Don’t mess my ‘air, now,” warned that youth coldly.

  “Albert, you’re one of the great thinkers of the age. I could get into the castle as a waiter, and you could tell Lady Maud I was there, and we could arrange a meeting. Machiavelli couldn’t have thought of anything smoother.”

  “Mac Who?”

  “One of your ancestors. Great schemer in his day. But, one moment.”

  “Now what?”

  “How am I to get engaged? How do I get the job?”

  “That’s orl right. I’ll tell the ‘ousekeeper you’re my cousin– been a waiter in America at the best restaurongs—’ome for a ‘oliday, but’ll come in for one night to oblige. They’ll pay yer a quid.”

  “I’ll hand it over to you.”

  “Just,” said Albert approvingly, “wot I was goin’ to suggest myself.”

  “Then I’ll leave all the arrangements to you.”

  “You’d better, if you don’t want to mike a mess of everything. All you’ve got to do is to come to the servants’ entrance at eight sharp tonight and say you’re my cousin.”

  “That’s an awful thing to ask anyone to say.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing!” said George.

  Chapter 12

  The great ball in honour of Lord Belpher’s coming-of-age was at its height. The reporter of the Belpher Intelligencer and Farmers’ Guide, who was present in his official capacity, and had been allowed by butler Keggs to take a peep at the scene through a side-door, justly observed
in his account of the proceedings next day that the ‘tout ensemble was fairylike’, and described the company as ‘a galaxy of fair women and brave men’. The floor was crowded with all that was best and noblest in the county; so that a half-brick, hurled at any given moment, must infallibly have spilt blue blood. Peers stepped on the toes of knights; honorables bumped into the spines of baronets. Probably the only titled person in the whole of the surrounding country who was not playing his part in the glittering scene was Lord Marshmoreton; who, on discovering that his private study had been converted into a cloakroom, had retired to bed with a pipe and a copy of Roses Red and Roses White, by Emily Ann Mackintosh (Popgood, Crooly & Co.), which he was to discover—after he was between the sheets, and it was too late to repair the error—was not, as he had supposed, a treatise on his favourite hobby, but a novel of stearine sentimentality dealing with the adventures of a pure young English girl and an artist named Claude.

  George, from the shaded seclusion of a gallery, looked down upon the brilliant throng with impatience. It seemed to him that he had been doing this all his life. The novelty of the experience had long since ceased to divert him. It was all just like the second act of an old-fashioned musical comedy (Act Two: The Ballroom, Grantchester Towers: One Week Later)—a resemblance which was heightened for him by the fact that the band had more than once played dead and buried melodies of his own composition, of which he had wearied a full eighteen months back.

  A complete absence of obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs (fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even while talking to George carrying on two other conversations on topics of the moment), and he was past the censors and free for one night only to add his presence to the chosen inside the walls of Belpher. His duties were to stand in this gallery, and with the assistance of one of the maids to minister to the comfort of such of the dancers as should use it as a sitting-out place. None had so far made their appearance, the superior attractions of the main floor having exercised a great appeal; and for the past hour George had been alone with the maid and his thoughts. The maid, having asked George if he knew her cousin Frank, who had been in America nearly a year, and having received a reply in the negative, seemed to be disappointed in him, and to lose interest, and had not spoken for twenty minutes.

  George scanned the approaches to the balcony for a sight of Albert as the shipwrecked mariner scans the horizon for the passing sail. It was inevitable, he supposed, this waiting. It would be difficult for Maud to slip away even for a moment on such a night.

  “I say, laddie, would you mind getting me a lemonade?”

  George was gazing over the balcony when the voice spoke behind him, and the muscles of his back stiffened as he recognized its genial note. This was one of the things he had prepared himself for, but, now that it had happened, he felt a wave of stage-fright such as he had only once experienced before in his life—on the occasion when he had been young enough and inexperienced enough to take a curtain-call on a first night. Reggie Byng was friendly, and would not wilfully betray him; but Reggie was also a babbler, who could not be trusted to keep things to himself. It was necessary, he perceived, to take a strong line from the start, and convince Reggie that any likeness which the latter might suppose that he detected between his companion of that afternoon and the waiter of tonight existed only in his heated imagination.

  As George turned, Reggie’s pleasant face, pink with healthful exercise and Lord Marshmoreton’s finest Bollinger, lost most of its colour. His eyes and mouth opened wider. The fact is Reggie was shaken. All through the earlier part of the evening he had been sedulously priming himself with stimulants with a view to amassing enough nerve to propose to Alice Faraday: and, now that he had drawn her away from the throng to this secluded nook and was about to put his fortune to the test, a horrible fear swept over him that he had overdone it. He was having optical illusions.

  “Good God!”

  Reggie loosened his collar, and pulled himself together.

  “Would you mind taking a glass of lemonade to the lady in blue sitting on the settee over there by the statue,” he said carefully.

  He brightened up a little.

  “Pretty good that! Not absolutely a test sentence, perhaps, like ‘Truly rural’ or ‘The intricacies of the British Constitution’. But nevertheless no mean feat.”

  “I say!” he continued, after a pause.

  “Sir?”

  “You haven’t ever seen me before by any chance, if you know what I mean, have you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You haven’t a brother, or anything of that shape or order, have you, no?”

  “No, sir. I have often wished I had. I ought to have spoken to father about it. Father could never deny me anything.”

  Reggie blinked. His misgiving returned. Either his ears, like his eyes, were playing him tricks, or else this waiter-chappie was talking pure drivel.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sir?”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘No, sir, I have no brother’.”

  “Didn’t you say something else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What?”

  “No, sir.”

  Reggie’s worst suspicions were confirmed.

  “Good God!” he muttered. “Then I am!” Miss Faraday, when he joined her on the settee, wanted an explanation.

  “What were you talking to that man about, Mr. Byng? You seemed to be having a very interesting conversation.”

  “I was asking him if he had a brother.”

  Miss Faraday glanced quickly at him. She had had a feeling for some time during the evening that his manner had been strange.

  “A brother? What made you ask him that?”

  “He—I mean—that is to say—what I mean is, he looked the sort of chap who might have a brother. Lots of those fellows have!”

  Alice Faraday’s face took on a motherly look. She was fonder of Reggie than that love-sick youth supposed, and by sheer accident he had stumbled on the right road to her consideration. Alice Faraday was one of those girls whose dream it is to be a ministering angel to some chosen man, to be a good influence to him and raise him to an appreciation of nobler things. Hitherto, Reggie’s personality had seemed to her agreeable, but negative. A positive vice like over-indulgence in alcohol altered him completely. It gave him a significance.

  “I told him to get you a lemonade,” said Reggie. “He seems to be taking his time about it. Hi!”

  George approached deferentially.

  “Sir?”

  “Where’s that lemonade?”

  “Lemonade, sir?”

  “Didn’t I ask you to bring this lady a glass of lemonade?”

  “I did not understand you to do so, sir.”

  “But, Great Scott! What were we chatting about, then?”

  “You were telling me a diverting story about an Irishman who landed in New York looking for work, sir. You would like a glass of lemonade, sir? Very good, sir.”

  Alice placed a hand gently on Reggie’s arm.

  “Don’t you think you had better lie down for a little and rest, Mr. Byng? I’m sure it would do you good.”

  The solicitous note in her voice made Reggie quiver like a jelly. He had never known her speak like that before. For a moment he was inclined to lay bare his soul; but his nerve was broken. He did not want her to mistake the outpouring of a strong man’s heart for the irresponsible ravings of a too hearty diner. It was one of Life’s ironies. Here he was for the first time all keyed up to go right ahead, and he couldn’t do it.

  “It’s the heat of the room,” said Alice. “Shall we go and sit outside on the terrace? Never mind about the lemonade. I’m not really thirsty.”

  Reggie followed her like a lamb. The prospect of the cool n
ight air was grateful.

  “That,” murmured George, as he watched them depart, “ought to hold you for a while!”

  He perceived Albert hastening towards him.

  Chapter 13

  Albert was in a hurry. He skimmed over the carpet like a water-beetle.

  “Quick!” he said.

  He cast a glance at the maid, George’s co-worker. She was reading a novelette with her back turned.

  “Tell ‘er you’ll be back in five minutes,” said Albert, jerking a thumb.

  “Unnecessary. She won’t notice my absence. Ever since she discovered that I had never met her cousin Frank in America, I have meant nothing in her life.”

  “Then come on.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  That it was not the nearest and most direct route which they took to the trysting-place George became aware after he had followed his young guide through doors and up stairs and down stairs and had at last come to a halt in a room to which the sound of the music penetrated but faintly. He recognized the room. He had been in it before. It was the same room where he and Billie Dore had listened to Keggs telling the story of Lord Leonard and his leap. That window there, he remembered now, opened on to the very balcony from which the historic Leonard had done his spectacular dive. That it should be the scene of this other secret meeting struck George as appropriate. The coincidence appealed to him.

  Albert vanished. George took a deep breath. Now that the moment had arrived for which he had waited so long he was aware of a return of that feeling of stage-fright which had come upon him when he heard Reggie Byng’s voice. This sort of thing, it must be remembered, was not in George’s usual line. His had been a quiet and uneventful life, and the only exciting thing which, in his recollection, had ever happened to him previous to the dramatic entry of Lady Maud into his taxi-cab that day in Piccadilly, had occurred at college nearly ten years before, when a festive room-mate—no doubt with the best motives—had placed a Mexican horned toad in his bed on the night of the Yale football game.