There were some thirty other houses in Oakwood Chase. They were very much alike, in that each pretended to be quite unlike its neighbours. Some had gables at the front, some at the side; some wore their lower windows well forward, some under the aloofness of little loggias. Some said quip at you, others said quap. But each had the same small garage, and the same sized garden, and there was a great deal of crazy paving, and on a summer evening some dozen hoses would be sending little spurts of water over the grass plots and the herbaceous borders. Some twenty-eight of the thirty garages contained cars, and the cars were nearly all alike, Mostyns and Cosy Cambridges and Shinos. Some were blue, some grey, some claret coloured. Certainly the Buzzards at “Oak Top” owned a Malvis saloon; but then the Buzzards were rather pretentious people who kept two Alsatians, and twice a year went up to dine at the “Bentley.”
Meanwhile the garage at “Chase Cot” contained nothing but its two humble push-bikes and its etceteras, and though Maisie could put out on the front lawn two orange and black deck-chairs, and a table with a syphon and a whisky decanter on it, she was very conscious of the deficiency. Wilfred might stand with his hose and look quite distinguished in blue shirt and collar, but there were all those other cars paraded in the roadway, or buzzing off or buzzing in.
The crisis arrived when the twenty-ninth garage welcomed a car. It was next door to “Chase Cot.” It belonged to people called Pumpelly, and to Maisie it was obvious that people with such a name as Pumpelly were doomed to be unlikeable. They were, or at least so to Maisie. Mr. Pumpelly was a thick-set, loud little man who looked as though his legs had been forgotten and had been attached in a hurry as an after-thought; but it was Mrs. Pumpelly who raised Maisie’s ire. She was very tall and thin, and sallow and sidy; her shoulders drooped; the whole of her drooped with a kind of sophisticated, night-club condescension. She said “Morning” to you with a casual drawl. She possessed too many clothes. She always had lots of things dangling, amber, jade, or what she called jade. Maisie called it something else.
But when the Pumpelly “Shino” arrived, and the Smythes saw Mr. Pumpelly polishing the radiator, and Mrs. Pumpelly staging herself about it with a long black cigarette-holder drooping at an angle, the Smythes succumbed to the same snake. Wilfred had been cutting the grass with the second-hand mower. Maisie reclined in one of the orange and black deck-chairs.
“I wouldn’t have a ‘Shino,’ ” said Maisie.
“I should say not.”
“Tin-pot prams.”
“Cambridge Sports—that’s it.”
And then they looked at each other, and the extravagance was conceived and confessed.
“Well, why not? Ten pounds down.”
Maisie’s eyes blickered.
“Oh, Pip, let’s. We can afford it.”
They could, with reservations; but what are reservations to an age that expects to live at twenty-five as fifty can live at fifty and without all the silly bother of being keen on the obsolete function called work. Wilfred had a big nose and an air, and wore a plus four suit at week-ends, but he was not very highly prized by the elders under whom he laboured. So their reservations were lightly accepted, and Wilfred paid a visit to the West End offices of the firm that distributed the “Cosy Cambridge” car. He announced that he wished to purchase a car on the instalment system, and that it was quite all right, and he produced his card with “Chase Cot—Oakwood Chase” upon it. The salesman was polite; he knew his Wilfred. No difficulties were put in Wilfred’s way, for that is one of the problems of the age, no one makes life a little healthily hard for the Wilfreds.
The car arrived early in July. Tender preparations had been made for its appearance. The birth of a son and heir might have been hailed with less enthusiasm. The garage had been swept and garnished, and Maisie had made a pair of dust-curtains, and the small hose had been told that in the future the car would be more important than the garden. Everyone in Oakwood Chase knew that the Smythes were getting a car, and that curmudgeon—old Buzzard—had fluffed himself up and talked pompously.
“Silly young fool. The size of his bank balance might justify a pram.”
Men of fifty are apt to be like that.
The car arrived. A mechanic from the local agents drove it up one Saturday afternoon. In colour it was a nice bright blue, and its hood was shiny and black, and all its plating gleamed. It had a clock and a screen-wiper, all the usual gadgets. It was like thousands of other cars, just as Maisie and Wilfred were like thousands of other young people.
But never had there been such a car. The man left it in the drive, and Maisie and Wilfred looked at it and sat in it, and purred over it, and wiped its immaculate nose, and poked their heads under the bonnet flap and listened to the engine.
“Runs like a Rollys.”
“Ain’t she sweet!”
Then they sat in the dicky, and put the hood up and let it down again, and unearthed the tools, and tried the headlights. Their neighbours, observing their excitement, were tolerant and amused. Oakwood Chase had experienced all these thrills, even as a part of Oakwood Chase had experienced the thrills of babies.
“Nothing like the first swank feeling,” said somebody.
“They’ll get used to it when the paint begins to wear.”
Both Maisie and Wilfred had been given two or three driving lessons, but they had agreed that the first expedition should take place very early in the morning while the roads were quiet and no censorious and critical eyes could observe them. Meanwhile the new car had to be coaxed into its garage, and Wilfred, in a moment of humility, suggested that they should push it in.
“Don’t want to make a mess of things.”
But Maisie would have no such caution. Mrs. Pumpelly was watching them from the loggia of “The Lido.” Mrs. Pumpelly was always talking of the hectic weeks at the Lido.
“It has got to be driven in. But, say, Pip, what shall we call her?”
“Well, what about it?”
“You mean——?”
“It’s an idea. ‘What about it?’ ”
Maisie laughed.
“Sounds rather original.”
“Well, when she passes the other people on the road that’s what she’ll be saying to them: ‘What about it?’ ”
“So she will. And now let’s drive her in.”
It was Maisie who inserted What About It into the garage, and she did it quite nicely, without running the front wheels into the row of red petrol tins that had been ranged up in a row ready for the new child. Wilfred sat beside her, feeling unselfish. He supposed it was to be a fifty-fifty business.
He broached the subject of gear changing.
“Suppose we have to double declutch changing down. Can you do it?”
Maisie did not know, and Wilfred felt superior.
“I’ll show you to-morrow morning.”
A month passed, and Maisie and Wilfred had treated the engine of What About It as considerately as two young people can be expected to treat an engine during the period of speedless self-restraint. They took What About It away on their holiday, and garaged her at one of those dishevelled and thoroughly inefficient garages that are to be found in sea-coast towns, where half the cars have to be pushed about in order to extract a particular vehicle which always happened to be in some dark and noisome corner. What About It’s right off wing suffered, and someone else crumpled up her tail lamp. Maisie and Wilfred were hurt and annoyed, but they had all the pleasure of talking about “The car” in the lounge of their small hotel.
“I’ve brought the car round, old thing.”
But in a month it must be confessed that Wilfred had developed into an irresponsible road-hog, and that Maisie helped and abetted him. He called himself a “Speed Merchant,” and What About It, driven all out and all in, bumped and swayed and snorted. She was made to chase and overtake big saloons, and when the desperate deed had been done two hatless heads would incline towards each other, and Maisie and Wilfred would exchange arrogant glanc
es.
“Put pip to that Yankee.”
“Gosh! That was a Pallas. Must feel a bit sick, mustn’t they?”
Maisie would lounge, so that her little black head disappeared below the line of the hood. She would eat bananas, and throw the skins overboard with a casual and careless gesture, and upon one occasion a banana skin landed on the scuttle of a Rollys that had just been eliminated. The people in the Rollys said things to each other. But What About It did not care. It scattered banana skins and odd bits of paper and orange peel. It rocked and chattered past dull and dignified old frowsters who would not travel more than thirty-five miles an hour.
Maisie and Wilfred told terrible lies concerning What About It. They said that she had done “sixty-five,” and had climbed the Hog’s Back on top at a level forty. They grew reckless and swollen-headed, and committed all the sins of the road. They cut in and passed at blind corners, and pushed cyclists anywhere and everywhere. They got angry glances and were amused.
On one or two occasions people shouted things, and Wilfred would give a little, mocking toot-toot on the horn.
“Put paid to them, what!”
“Half these people can’t drive, and get nervy.”
There is no doubt but that Wilfred developed a swelled head, nor was his head very big to begin with. He, a hundred-and-fifty-pound man, was trying to compete and out-class the thousand-pounder, but Wilfred did not see it in that way. He had the Isotta Fraschini feeling in the driving seat of What About It, and poor What About It had to play up to her lord’s insolence. She was driven mercilessly. Her poor little engine had to perform frantic revolutions. She had to swag her swanky little tail under the noses of the great. She did it, for a time, and largely because her bigger sisters did not want to travel in that particular way.
Then, What About It began to develop a certain delicacy. She had to visit the local garage and have her pulse felt and her tongue examined. Her poor little tummy had been strained.
Wilfred talked largely about the guarantee.
“Only had her three months. What? You think it’s a piston? Shouldn’t have happened. I’m a most careful driver.”
The garage proprietor looked down his nose. He had had experience of careful drivers like Wilfred; also he and other Riverton people had experienced Wilfred personally. For in Oakwood Chase Wilfred was known as “Hustling Harry,” and most of the older men would add: “damned young fool.”
What About It was provided with a new piston, and Wilfred had to pay, because the cussed idiot of an expert said that the car had been over-driven. Wilfred still had a number of instalments to pay; in fact he had wiped off about a quarter of the purchase price, and somehow it seemed bad business. He talked largely at lunch in a city tea-shop, of going for the makers of the “Cosy Cambridge” car, but of course he did nothing of the sort. He was what Mr. Buzzard called a pipsqueak, and that was all there was to it.
But one day early in October, What About It was taken out upon the Portsmouth road, and being passed by an inoffensive-looking four-seater driven by an elderly gentleman, What About It’s lord and master took umbrage. He would show the old blighter something. He hustled his machine up to forty-five, and repassed the grey car, and gave its driver a kind of leer.
But Wilfred had run up against one of those old puckish gentlemen who sometimes play games with young men. Also, the old gentleman had the power to play the game. He repassed Wilfred, though Wilfred kept What About It well in the middle of the road, and showed no grace about giving way.
The old gentleman said something as he passed, and Wilfred went very red.
“Damn the old hog! Tripe merchant.”
And he lost his temper. He went blinding after the grey car, and even Maisie grew nervous.
“Here, easy on, old thing.”
“I’ll show the old blighter.”
So it happened that Wilfred took one of his chances; he had taken many, and circumstances had been kind to him, but perhaps he had sinned too often and too flagrantly. Strung before him along a blind curve of the road, Wilfred saw—or should have seen—a two-seater, a lorry, and the grey car he was chasing with intervals of some fifteen yards between each vehicle, and by all the laws of reason and decency Wilfred should have followed at the tail of the two-seater until he could see his way clear to pass. But he didn’t. He thrust wildly; he hooted wildly. A hand from the two-seater signalled to him warning him to hold back. He did not see it, or did not choose to see it. He was running level with the two-seater when the nose of a big saloon came swinging round the curve.
Came one of those tense, crowded moments. Wilfred accelerated; the drivers of the two-seater and the saloon braked furiously. What About It, driven wildly into the gap, ground one wing against the off-front wing of the two-seater. The saloon was half in the hedge. Wilfred tore through, with the lorry thundering steadily ahead of him. He had a moment of panic, of delayed reaction. What About It’s brakes squealed, but they squealed too late. She hit the rear of the lorry, seemed to rebound with a smashing of glass, then slid down the camber of the road, hit the grass verge, and quite quietly turned over.
Yet no one was hurt. Maisie and her husband were spilled out upon the grass. Wilfred had a slight cut on his chin. They sat for a moment, considerably frightened and somewhat shaken, and stared at each other.
“Awfully sorry. Hurt?”
“No. Don’t think so.”
Wilfred got up, and helped his wife to her feet, but What About It lay on her side with her radiator and bonnet crumpled up, and one wheel at a grotesque angle, and the broken lamps twisted this way and that. But the people from the other cars had collected, and seeing that the two sinners were unhurt, they began to say things.
The driver of the saloon, a very angry man, was not polite.
“What the devil do you mean by coming round a blind corner like that?”
The driver of the two-seater, a woman, took up his chant.
“I waved him back. A perfectly disgraceful piece of driving.”
“What do you mean by it?”
Wilfred gabbled, and mopped his chin.
“Thought I could get through. This lady ought to have given way.”
“Given way! I signalled you. Perfectly monstrous.”
“I should say so,” said the angry man. “These people ought not to be on the road. Damned tin-pot hogs. I’m going to report to the police.”
“You can count on me,” said the lady.
And then a fortuitous constable, happening by on a bicycle, added legality and a note-book to the affair, and Wilfred and Maisie began to suffer other humiliations. All the details of the smash were recorded, and names and addresses written down, and after a few more caustic comments and traffic delays, and people coming to gaze upon the corpse of What About It, the situation sorted itself out, and Maisie and Wilfred were left derelict.
They had to get home. Also, there was the corpse of What About It to be collected.
Wilfred tried to be cheerful.
“Well, anyway, we’re insured.”
His wife was inclined to be tearful. She gazed sadly upon the wreckage.
“Those people were horrid. I’m afraid it was our fault. Poor little car.”
They managed to get lifts to Riverton, and when they arrived at “Chase Cot” the empty garage reproached them. Wilfred went to ring up the local expert, and his wife sat in the drawing-room and allowed herself the luxury of tears.
But it was a bad business. In due course Wilfred received a summons, and the magisterial bench fined him twenty pounds and costs, and denied him the right to drive a car for a year. The insurance companies haggled. What About It reposed at the local garage, awaiting repairs and the appearance of some ready cash. Wilfred had no ready cash. The legal exactions had bled him grey. Also, there were those confounded instalments to be paid on a car that had ceased to be a car.
Wilfred was worried. He had a feeling that his neighbours were not sympathetic and that Oakwood Chase snigge
red. He tried to be the bold, cheerful fellow-my-lad.
“It will be all right, old thing. When the insurance people pay up, we’ll have the car made good. And you can drive. Nothing was done about your licence.”
But his wife gave him a shock.
“I don’t think I want to drive.”
“What!”
“I don’t think I feel like driving.”
Maisie had her reasons for feeling as she did, and when she was quite sure of them she had to break the news to Wilfred. Really, it was disastrous; but one of those human happenings that cannot be helped, yet she wondered how Wilfred would take it. He had had so many expenses and worries.
“Pip, dear, I’m afraid I’m going to have a baby.”
She was aware of him looking almost absurdly solemn and rather frightened.
“A baby!”
“Yes; such things do happen, don’t they.”
“Poor dear darling.”
The irresponsible ass in him was sobered, and for a Wilfred he behaved very well. For Wilfredism may be only a phase, or the world would be a chaos of Wilfreds. Nothing more was said about the car, or about those confounded insurance people, or the wretched instalments that fell due upon What About It. Wilfred discovered in himself a sudden restraint, a sense of alarmed responsibility. He became so thoughtful and considerate and kind that Maisie almost wondered whether he was ill.
“Don’t you worry, old thing.”
People noticed a change in him. At the office he applied himself to work with a strange and sedulous gravity. When the insurance company paid up, he had What About It repaired and painted and exposed for sale in the window of the local garage. Fortune was kind to him, and What About It was purchased by the Riverton hairdresser. The amount that Wilfred recovered just about paid the sum that remained owing on the car.
He said nothing to Maisie about it. Maisie was not to be worried. His jaw was a little more set; he applied himself stoutly to business. Meanwhile, the attitude of Oakwood Chase changed perceptibly towards these two young people. Mr. Buzzard ceased to refer to Wilfred as “A damned young fool,” and even the Pumpellys were kind. Mrs. Pumpelly would arrive on the doorstep of “Chase Cot” with a bunch of chrysanthemums, and Maisie accepted the flowers.
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 49