The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories

by George Barr McCutcheon

  It was the silliest idea in the world. In the first place I was not in love, and in the second place whose business was it but mine if I were? Certainly not Poopendyke’s, certainly not Britton’s, certainly not the Schmicks’! Absolute lack of any sense of proportion, that’s what ailed the whole bally of them. What looked like love to them—benighted dolts!—was no more than a rather resolute effort on my part to be kind to and patient with a person who had invaded my home and set everybody—including myself—by the ears.

  But, even so, what right had my secretary to constitute himself adviser and mentor to the charming invader? What right had he to suggest what she should do, or what her father should do, or what anybody should do? He was getting to be disgustingly officious. What he needed was a smart jacking up, a little plain talk from me. Give a privileged and admittedly faithful secretary an inch and he’ll have you up to your ears in trouble before you know what has happened. By the same token, what right had she to engage herself in confidential chats with—But just then I caught sight of Britton coming upstairs with my neatly polished tan shoes in one hand and a pair of number 3-1/2A tan pumps in the other. Not expecting to meet me in the hall, he had neglected to remove his cap when he came in from the courtyard. In some confusion, he tried to take it off, first with one hand, then with the other, sustaining what one might designate as absent treatment kicks on either jaw from two distinct sexes in the shape of shoes. He managed to get all four of them into one hand, however, and then grabbed off his cap.

  “Anythink more, sir?” he asked, purely from habit. I was regarding the shoes with interest. Never have I known anything so ludicrous as the contrast between my stupendous number tens and the dainty pumps that seemed almost babyish beside them.

  Then I did the very thing I had excoriated Poopendyke for even suggesting. I asked Britton!

  “Britton, what’s all this gossip I hear going the rounds of the castle behind my back?”

  Confound him, he looked pleased! “It’s quite true, sir, quite true.”

  “Quite true!” I roared. “What’s quite true, sir?”

  “Isn’t it, sir?” he asked, dismayed.

  “Isn’t what?”

  “I mean to say, sir, isn’t it true?”

  “My God!” I cried, throwing up my hands in hopeless despair. “You—you—wait! I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I want the truth, Britton. Who put it into that confounded head of yours that I am—er—in love with the Countess? Speak! Who did it?”

  He lowered his voice, presumably because I had dropped mine to a very loud whisper. I also had glanced over both shoulders.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but I must be honest, sir. It was you as first put it into my ’ead, sir.”

  “I?” My face went the colour of a cardinal’s cap.

  “You, sir. It’s as plain as the nose on your—”

  “That will do, Britton,” I commanded. He remained discreetly silent. “That will do, I say,” I repeated, somewhat testily. “Do you hear, sir?”

  “Yes, sir,” he responded. “That will do, you says.”

  “Ahem! I—ahem!” Somewhat clumsily I put on my nose-glasses and made a pretext of examining his burden rather closely. “What’s this you have here.”

  “Shoes, sir.”

  “I see, I see. Let me have them.”

  He handed me my own. “The others, if you please,” I said, disdaining the number tens. “May I inquire, sir, where you are taking these?” I had the Countess’s pumps in my hands. He explained that he was going to drop mine in my room and then take hers upstairs. “You may drop mine as you intended. I shall take care of these.”

  “Very good, sir,” said he, with such positive relief in his voice that I glared at him. He left me standing there, a small pump in each hand.

  Five minutes later I was at her door, a pump in each hand and my heart in my mouth. A sudden, inexplicable form of panic took possession of me. I stood there ready to tap resoundingly on the panel of the door with the heel of a slipper; I never raised my hand for the purpose.

  Instead of carrying out my original design, I developed an overpowering desire to do nothing of the sort. Why go on making a fool of myself? Why add fuel to the already pernicious flame? Of course I was not in love with her, the idea was preposterous. But, just the same, the confounded servants were beginning to gossip, and back stair scandal is the very worst type. It was wrong for me to encourage it. Like a ninny, I had just given Britton something to support his contention, and he wouldn’t be long in getting down to the servants’ hall with the latest exhibit in the charge against me.

  Moreover, if every one was talking about it, what was to prevent the silly gossip from reaching the sensitive ears of the Countess? A sickening thought struck me: could it be possible that the Countess herself suspected me of being in love with her? A woman’s vanity goes a long way sometimes. The thought did not lessen the panic that afflicted me. I tip-toed away from the door to a less exposed spot at the bend in the stairway.

  There, after some deliberation, I came to a decision. The proper thing for me to do was to show all of them that their ridiculous suspicions were wrong. I owed it to the Countess, to say the least. She was my guest, as it were, and it was my duty to protect her while she was in my house. The only thing for me to do, therefore, was to stay away from her.

  The thought of it distressed me, but it seemed to be the only way, and the fair one. No doubt she would expect some sort of an explanation for the sudden indifference on my part, but I could attribute everything to an overpowering desire to work on my story. (I have a habit of using my work as an excuse for not doing a great many things that I ought to do.)

  All this time I was regarding the small tan pumps with something akin to pain in my eyes. I could not help thinking about the tiny feet they sometimes covered. By some sort of intuitive computation I arrived at the conclusion that they were adorably small, and pink, and warm. Suddenly it occurred to me that my present conduct was reprehensible, that no man of honour would be holding a lady’s pumps in his hands and allowing his imagination to go too far. Resolutely I put them behind my back and marched downstairs.

  “Britton,” said I, a few minutes later, “you may take these up to the Countess, after all.”

  He blinked his eyes. “Wasn’t she at ’ome, sir?”

  “Don’t be insolent, Britton. Do as I tell you.”

  “Very good, sir.” He held the pumps up to admire them. “They’re very cute, ain’t they, sir?”

  “They are just like all pumps,” said I, indifferently, and walked away. If I could have been quite sure that it was a chuckle I heard, I should have given Britton something to think about for the rest of his days. The impertinent rascal!

  For some two long and extremely monotonous days I toiled. A chapter shaped itself—after a fashion. Even as I wrote, I knew that it wasn’t satisfactory and that I should tear it up the instant it was finished. What irritated me more than anything else was the certain conviction that Poopendyke, who typed it as I progressed, also knew that it would go into the waste paper basket.

  Both nights I went to bed early and to sleep late. I could not deny to myself that I was missing those pleasant hours with the Countess. I did miss them. I missed Rosemary and Jinko and Helen Marie Louise Antoinette and Blake.

  An atmosphere of gloom settled around Poopendyke and Britton. They eyed me with a sort of pathetic wonder in their faces. As time went on they began to look positively forlorn and unhappy. Once or twice I caught them whispering in the hallway. On seeing me they assumed an air of nonchalance that brought a grim smile to my lips. I was beginning to hate them. Toward the end of the second day, the four Schmicks became so aggravatingly doleful that I ordered them, one and all, to keep out of my sight. Even the emotionless Hawkes and the perfect Blatchford were infected. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a human face as solemnly respectful as Hawkes’ was that night at dinner. He seemed to be pitying me from the bottom of his heart. It was g
etting on my nerves.

  I took a stroll in the courtyard after dinner, and I may be forgiven I hope for the few surreptitious glances I sent upwards in the direction of the rear windows in the eastern wing. I wondered what she was doing, and what she was thinking of my extraordinary behaviour, and why the deuce she hadn’t sent down to ask me to come up and tell her how busy I was. She had not made a single sign. The omission was not particularly gratifying, to say the least.

  Approaching the servants’ hall, I loitered. I heard voices, a mixture of tongues. Britton appeared to be doing the most of the talking. Gradually I became aware of the fact that he was explaining to the four Schmicks the meaning of an expression in which must have been incorporated the words “turned him down.”

  Hawkes, the impeccable Hawkes, joined in. “If I know anything about it, I’d say she has threw the ’ooks into ’im.”

  Then they had to explain that to Conrad and Gretel, who repeated “Ach, Gott” and other simple expletives in such a state of misery that I could almost detect tears in their voices.

  “It ain’t that, Mr. ’Awkes,” protested Britton loyally. “He’s lost his nerve, that’s wot it is. They allus do when they realise ’ow bad they’re hit. Turn ’im down? Not much, Mr. ’Awkes. Take it from me, Mr. ’Awkes, he’s not going to give ’er the chawnce to turn ’im down.”

  “Ach, Gott!” said Gretel. I will stake my head that she wrung her hands.

  “Women is funny,” said Hawkes. (I had no idea the wretch was so ungrammatical.) “You can’t put your finger on ’em ever. While I ’aven’t seen much of the Countess during my present engagement, I will say this: she has a lot more sense than people give ’er credit for. Now why should she throw the ’ooks into a fine, upstanding chap like ’im, even if he is an American? She made a rotten bad job the first time, mind you. If she has threw the ’ooks into ’im, as I am afeared, I can’t see wot the deuce ails ’er.”

  My perfect footman, Blatchford, ventured an opinion, and I blessed him for it. “We may be off our nuts on the ’ole bloomink business,” said he. “Maybe he ’as thrown the ’ooks into ’er. Who knows? It looks that w’y to me.” (I remember distinctly that he used the word “thrown” and I was of half a mind to rush in and put him over Hawkes, there and then.)

  “In any case,” said Britton, gloom in his voice, “it’s a most unhappy state of affairs. He’s getting to be a perfect crank. Complines about everything I do. He won’t ’ave ’is trousers pressed and he ’asn’t been shaved since Monday.”

  I stole away, rage in my soul. Or was it mortification? In any event, I had come to an irrevocable decision: I would ship the whole lot of them, without notice, before another day was gone.

  The more I thought of the way I was being treated by my own servants, and the longer I dwelt upon the ignominious figure I must have presented as the hero of their back-door romance, the angrier I got. I was an object of concern to them, an object of pity! Confound them, they were feeling sorry for me because I had received my conge, and they were actually finding fault with me for not taking it with a grin on my face!

  Before going to bed I went into the loggia (for the first time in three days) and, keeping myself pretty well hidden behind a projection in the wall, tried to get a glimpse of the Countess’s windows. Failing there, I turned my steps in another direction and soon stood upon my little balcony. There was no sign of her in the windows, although a faint light glowed against the curtains of a well-remembered room near the top of the tower.

  Ah, what a cosy, jolly room! What a delicious dinner I had had there! And what a supper! Somehow, I found myself thinking of those little tan pumps. As a matter of fact, they had been a source of annoyance to me for more than forty-eight hours. I had found myself thinking of them at most inopportune times, greatly to the detriment of my work as a realist.

  It was cool on the balcony, and I was abnormally warm, as might be expected. It occurred to me that I might do worse than to sit out there in the cool of the evening and enjoy a cigar or two—three or four, if necessary.

  But, though I sat there until nearly midnight and chattered my teeth almost out of my head with the cold, she did not appear at her window. The aggravating part of it was that while I was shivering out there in the beastly raw, miasmic air, she doubtless was lying on a luxurious couch before a warm fire in a dressing gown and slippers,—ah, slippers!—reading a novel and thinking of nothing in the world but her own comfort! And those rascally beggars presumed to think that I was in love with a selfish, self-centred, spoiled creature like that! Rubbish!

  I am afraid that Poopendyke found me in a particularly irascible frame of mind the next morning. I know that Britton did. I thought better of my determination to discharge Britton. He was an exceptionally good servant and a loyal fellow, so why should I deprive myself of a treasure simply because the eastern wing of my abode was inhabited by an unfeeling creature who hadn’t a thought beyond fine feathers and bonbons? I was not so charitably inclined toward Hawkes and Blatchford, who were in my service through an influence over which I did not appear to have any control. They would have to go.

  “Mr. Poopendyke,” said I, after Blatchford had left the breakfast room, “I want you to give notice to Hawkes and Blatchford today.”

  “Notice?” he exclaimed incredulously.

  “Notice,” said I, very distinctly.

  He looked distressed. “I thought they were most; satisfactory to you.”

  “I’ve changed my opinion.”

  “By Jove, Mr. Smart, I—I don’t know how the Countess will take such high-handed—ahem! You see, sir, she—she was good enough to recommend them to me. It will be quite a shock to—”

  “By the Lord Harry, Fred, am I to—”

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” he made haste to say. “This is your house. You have a perfect right to hire and discharge, but—but—Don’t you think you’d better consider very carefully—” He seemed to be finding his collar rather tight.

  I held up my hand. “Of course I do not care to offend the Countess Tarnowsy. It was very kind of her to recommend them. We—we will let the matter rest for a few days.”

  “She has informed me that you were especially pleased with the manner in which they served the dinner the other night. I think she said you regarded them as incomparable diadems, or something of the sort. It may have been the champagne.”

  My thoughts leaped backward to that wonderful dinner. “It wasn’t the champagne,” said I, very stiffly.

  “Do you also contemplate giving notice to the chef and his wife, our only chambermaid?”

  “No, I don’t,” I snapped. “I think they were in bed.”

  He looked at me as if he thought I had gone crazy. I wriggled uncomfortably in my chair for a second or two, and then abruptly announced that we’d better get to work. I have never ceased to wonder what construction he could have put on that stupid slip of the tongue.

  I cannot explain why, but at the slightest unusual sound that morning I found myself shooting an involuntary glance at the imperturbable features of Ludwig the Red. Sometimes I stopped in the middle of a sentence, to look and to listen rather more intently than seemed absolutely necessary, and on each occasion I was obliged to begin the sentence all over again, because, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what it was I had set out to say in dictation. Poopendyke had an air of patient tolerance about him that irritated me intensely. More than once I thought I detected him in the act of suppressing a smile.

  At eleven o’clock, Blatchford came to the door. His ordinarily stoical features bore signs of a great, though subdued excitement. I had a fleeting glimpse of Britton in the distance,—a sort of passing shadow, as it were.

  “A note for you, sir, if you please,” said he. He was holding the salver almost on a level with his nose. It seemed to me that he was looking at it out of the corner of his eye.

  My heart—my incomprehensible heart—gave a leap that sent the blood rushing to my face. He advanced, not
with his usual imposing tread but with a sprightliness that pleased me vastly. I took the little pearl grey envelope from the salver, and carelessly glanced at the superscription. There was a curious ringing in my ears.

  “Thank you, Blatchford; that will do.”

  “I beg pardon, sir, but there is to be an answer.”

  “Oh,” said I. I had the feeling that at least fifty eyes were upon me, although I am bound to admit that both Poopendyke and the footman were actively engaged in looking in another direction.

  I tore open the envelope.

  “Have you deserted me entirely? Won’t you please come and see me? Thanks for the violets, but I can’t talk to violets, you know. Please come up for luncheon.”

  I managed to dash off a brief note in a fairly nonchalant manner. Blatchford almost committed the unpardonable crime of slamming the door behind him, he was in such a hurry to be off with the message.

  Then I went over and stood above Mr. Poopendyke.

  “Mr. Poopendyke,” said I slowly, darkly, “what do you know about those violets?”

  He quailed. “I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Smart. It’s all right. I put one of your cards in, so that there couldn’t be any mistake.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  I VISIT AND AM VISITED

  Halfway up the winding stairways, I paused in some astonishment. It had just occurred to me that I was going up the steps two at a time and that my heart was beating like mad.

  I reflected. Here was I racing along like a schoolboy, and wherefor? What occasion was there for such unseemly haste? In the first place, it was now but a few minutes after eleven, and she had asked me for luncheon; there was no getting around that. At best luncheon was two hours off. So why was I galloping like this? The series of self-inflicted questions found me utterly unprepared; I couldn’t answer one of them. My brain somehow couldn’t get at them intelligently; I was befuddled. I progressed more slowly, more deliberately, finally coming to a full stop in a sitting posture in one of the window casements, where I lighted a cigarette and proceeded to thresh the thing out in my mind before going any farther.