“Charming,” he said. “Most extraordinary, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you never recognised me. I should have thought when you heard me singing just now … Of course I’m a bit raw at the accompaniment still. That’s why I came out for a little practice. But it’s a pretty number, isn’t it? I’ll make a big success with that. Not that it’s my real line. I’m a comedian, of course, first and foremost.”
“A comedian?” said Noodles, feeling a real thrill at last. “I say—do you mean that? Do you mean you’re an actor?”
“Well, of course. I’m Lester Vaughan.”
“How marvellous!” said Noodles.
Mr. Vaughan felt much more comfortable at once.
“And you were playing like that to be funny?”
“Eh?” said Mr. Vaughan. “No, you don’t understand. That wasn’t a humorous number. That was a light one. I’m very versatile, you know. I can do almost everything. That’s why I’m so popular.”
“You mean, you really can play better than that when you try?”
“Oh, come!” said Mr. Vaughan again. “I only bought this thing the other day. They’re tricky affairs, you know.”
“I know,” said Noodles, looking longingly at the stringed instrument.
“Only exceptionally musical people can play them at all,” said Mr. Vaughan.
Noodles put her hand out and drew it back again.
“Like to try?” said Mr. Vaughan, both humorously and lightly.
“May I really? You see …”
“What? Here you are, then. You won’t find it so easy, though.”
Noodles had now definitely emerged on the forbidden side of the hedge.
“Thanks awfully,” she said. “Oh, thanks frightfully. May I have the music, too?”
“What? But you can’t——”
Twang-twanky-twang! went the stringed instrument. Twang-twankety-twang!
“Oh, I say,” said Mr. Vaughan, under his breath. “Oh, I——”
“Go on,” said Noodles, looking up. “Sing!”
“But——”
“What’s the matter? Am I going too fast?”
“No, no. It’s terrific. It’s a riot. My aunt, it’s the goods! Don’t stop.”
“Well, sing, then!”
“Yes, but where do I start?”
“Here,” said Noodles. “Anywhere. I’ll jump in and catch you.”
Mr. Vaughan cleared his throat.
“‘Why,’” he again inquired, in a trembling tenor, “‘does my baby smile at me? Why does she look so gay? Why does she——’ Here! Steady! I’ve lost the place.”
“Never mind,” said Noodles, executing three brilliant upward rolls in quick succession. “Here comes the chorus Now!”
They sang the chorus as a duet.
“All together!” cried Noodles. And they sang it again.
“Now dance!” shouted Noodles. “Faster! Oh, that’s perfect! Oh, that’s awfully good! Oh, mind your goggles!”
Crunch. The double turn came to an abrupt conclusion.
“Oh, Mr. Vaughan—are they ruined?”
Mr. Vaughan seized the mangled goggles, and flung them into the road.
“It’s Fate!” he exclaimed. “I knew it as soon as I saw you again. I don’t care if you framed the whole thing. You can have any terms you like. In reason, I mean. And don’t tell me you’re not a pro., because I won’t believe it. First you drown me, then you save me, and then you hop out of a hedge and play like a darned specialty act. You knew me all the time, of course, but that’s all right. I’m Lester Vaughan. I know what I’m saying. Come back with me now. Rehearse to-morrow. Open Saturday night. My gosh, I’d bill you all over Newcliff if I didn’t owe the printer so much. My gosh, and I thought we were sunk because Maisie had quit. Just the figure too. Now, then, Miss—— Dash it, I’ve forgotten your name——”
“Brett,” said Noodles.
“Now, then, Miss Brett, it’s a deal, isn’t it? Three-pound-ten and all your dresses. What? Four quid, then. What? Yes? My gosh, you’ve earned it, and what a story for the Argus!”
Noodles stared, and stared, and went on staring. The little man’s excitement was as contagious as it was mystifying.
“But what do you mean?” she asked.
“Business,” snapped Mr. Vaughan. “Six weeks certain, and the whole season if we can only break even till the big crowds come along. But I’m Lester Vaughan. They eat my stuff down here, and it’s nearly June already. Now, then, Miss Brett; for the Lord’s sake don’t tell me you’re fixed up with an engagement.”
Noodles blushed hotly.
“Of course I’m not,” she said. “It’s absolutely untrue.”
“Splendid!” said Mr. Vaughan, and earned a swift look of gratitude for his ready tact. “Come on, then.”
“Where?” said Noodles.
“Back to Newcliff,” said Mr. Vaughan. “I’ll give you a lift if you’re not afraid.”
“Of course I’m not afraid,” said Noodles.
The music of the stringed instrument still danced in her ears. She never even heard the school clock striking the half-hour. She looked from the perky, sallow, excited little man with the deep lines in his cheeks, to the motor-bicycle which stood there in the thick grass by the roadside.
“This way,” said Mr. Vaughan, dropping the stringed instrument back into the case, and snapping the catch. “You’ll be all right if you don’t let go.”
Yes, but where was he taking her and what did he want her to do? She’d get in the most awful row if she went off like this. She’d probably be expelled.
“Look here,” she said, faintly. “I don’t think——”
“What?” said Mr. Vaughan, swinging round on his saddle. “What’s that?”
He made it practically impossible to answer by plunging suddenly and awakening his machine to the most deafening activity.
“Jump on!” he shouted.
“I can’t,” said Noodles, quite inaudibly. “You don’t understand. It’s most awfully kind of you, but …”
From the tail of her eye she had just caught sight of a disjointed column approaching the flinty road where it curved towards St. Ethelburga’s front gates. The Nature Ramblers were returning already, and if she didn’t take jolly good care, they’d see her.
Help! They’d seen her. The foremost knot had stopped. They were pointing. They were calling back to the others.
“Look sharp!” bellowed Mr. Vaughan.
Noodles had never looked sharper or reached a quicker decision in her life. She was on that bracket in one bound. Her long legs were dangling in the air. She was clinging to Mr. Vaughan’s blazer like grim death.
“Go on!” she screamed. “Faster. Faster. Faster!”
The wind rushed through her hair as the motor-bicycle sped on its swooping, swerving way. The road went by in giddy streaks. The farm-cart that was overtaken by the cross-roads presented an extraordinary illusion of proceeding backwards. Pedestrians were scattered like chaff. This was the afternoon that they dropped Mrs. Shirley’s boiler in the yard of Pippingfold station, and that Beaky was first seriously beginning to expect an answer to his proposal. But it wasn’t until nearly fifteen hours later that Noodles found time to send her brother that astonishing substitute.
“Darling Beaky,” she wrote. “In case you hear anything I am quite all right and with the most deliteful people so don’t get fused (? fussed). But everything was so Awful after he sent me back their and they even Stopped my swimming. N.B. Not my fault at all! So to come to the real point I have bolted with a cureous little Man—most kind tho’—and he runs a troop of—(here various versions of the same word had obviously been tried and rejected until finally Noodles had found one that satisfied her)—Pierots, and I am going to be one too. Great fun as long as youre not worried and there isn’t the slitest need. Don’t give me away or I shall be FURIOUS. They have leant me some things and given me a new Toothbrush and they are rather
Awful really but most kind. Now I am going off to reherse but do please understand that all this is a secret and if you tell anyone I shall NEVER forgive you. It’s quite all right I swear. Now I must Rush.
“Lots of love
“from
“NOODLES.
“P.S. But you can tell Snubs if you like as I know he is always to be trusted.”
Chapter VII
The situation discussed at Wykeham Street—Introduction to Gertie—Embarkation of the Rescue-Party—Arrival at Pippingfold—Batty behaviour of Mr. Cottenham.
1
Silence in the third-floor sitting-room with the window-seats. Stupefied horror meets the gaze of blank incredulity. The fellow-tenants both seem to be waiting for some one to knock them down with a feather, and to be surprised that no one does it.
Then incredulity gasps and becomes vocal.
“Bolted?” it says. “Rot. It’s a joke, Beaky. It must be one of her jokes.”
Stupefied horror shakes its head.
“No, it isn’t,” it says. “Here—look.”
After a little difficulty the letter is transferred to Snubs’s outstretched hand, and he reads it with gradually descending eyebrows. When he comes to the postscript he blinks three times, gulps, and sits on the edge of the table.
“Good Lord!” he adds. “My absolute hat!”
“It isn’t a joke, you see.”
“No.”
“It’s the most ghastly thing, in fact. It’s the most frightful business.”
“Poor old Noodles. But she hasn’t really bolted, of course.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that’s only the way she puts it.”
“Puts what?”
“I mean, the way you said it sounded as if …”
Here Snubs decides to cough instead of finishing his sentence. Though his first impression was perfectly intelligible, he is distinctly ashamed of it. Seeking an outlet for his feelings, he suddenly finds it in St. Ethelburga.
“As for the people at that school,” he bursts forth, with the most withering emphasis, “they ought to be lined up and shot! It’s their fault, of course. They’re at the bottom of it all. They’ve been bullying her, I suppose, and now they’ve gone too far. I say—what are you going to do?”
Beaky doesn’t seem to know.
“A pierrot,” he keeps on muttering. “A pierrot, of all people. I’ve always hated pierrots. I’ve never been able to stand them. And now I suppose——”
“Steady!”
“Well, how’d you like a pierrot butting into your family?”
“Shut up!”
The friends glare at each other, but Snubs’s glare is much the more powerful.
“Why should I shut up?” demands Beaky. “She’s my sister, isn’t she?”
“I know. That’s why you ought to stick up for her.”
So far from sticking up for anybody, Beaky groans and collapses into one of the deeply-indented arm-chairs.
“I wish she was your sister,” he growls. “How can I stick up for her when she goes and does this sort of thing? Can’t you see it’s ruined my absolute last chance? It just puts the cover on everything. It’s the most awful shock I’ve ever had in my life. A pierrot, I mean! Don’t you see, if Sylvia hears about this——”
But the end of this inquiry is blasted by an ear-splitting interruption from the young gentleman on the table.
“Can’t you trust anybody!” he shouts. “Can’t you think of anything but your rotten love-affairs? No—sit down. You can’t start fighting in here, or all the Burgesses’ll comein. Don’t be an ass, Beaky. And don’t be a filthy ass.”
Bracing advice, but then Snubs hasn’t been waiting two days for a letter that can never come. Perhaps he realises something of this, for he suddenly apologises.
“I’m sorry, old man,” he says. “I know it’s all a bit sickening.”
Another groan from the brother and lover in the deeply-indented arm-chair.
“You’ve no right to call them rotten,” he protests, thickly. “And you needn’t talk as if I’d ever cared for anybody else. You don’t seem to realise that I might as well hang myself.”
This is going too far.
“All right,” says Snubs. “Do it, then. There’s a perfectly good hook on the bathroom door. Only don’t kick the paint.”
“I suppose that’s all you worry about.”
“No, of course it isn’t. But—I say—Beaky——”
The jangling emotions of the last five minutes have produced a number of odd exchanges as the old friends bark and snap at each other; but this time, if by pure luck, the note of appeal in Mr. Tipton’s voice coincides with the moment when Mr. Brett is just wondering if he hasn’t been rather a cad.
“Well?” he says, wretchedly.
“I say—Beaky—what are you going to do?”
“Do? About Noodles, you mean? But what can I do? She doesn’t even say where she is.”
“I know she doesn’t. But the postmark’s still Newcliff. I saw it coming up the stairs.”
“You saw it—— Oh, I see what you mean.”
They’re getting calmer. They’re getting down to business.
“Here it is,” says Snubs, retrieving the tattered envelope from the floor. “You see? Newcliff. She can’t have gone far.”
“Then they’ve probably caught her by now. Almost bound to, I mean. And if they’ve done that …”
“Well?”
“Then they’ve probably bunged her back to Pippingfold. I say, what about sending the old boy a telegram?”
“No. You can’t do that.”
“In the morning, I mean. I know I can’t do it now.”
“You can’t do it then, either. Not when she’s particularly asked you to keep it to yourself.”
“Oh, can’t I?” The calm is suddenly threatened again. “I’ve got to do everything she tells me, have I?”
“Yes,” says Snubs.
“What?”
“I said yes.”
“Why?”
“Well, would you rather keep it to yourself—if there’s a chance of it—or do you want everybody to know?”
The sting in this question lies in the significant pause before the word “everybody,” and there can be no doubt that Beaky has felt it.
“Oh,” he says, thoughtfully. “Yes. I see what you mean.”
They stare at each other. Snubs suddenly swings forward.
“But,” he resumes, “there’s nothing to stop us going there.”
“To Pippingfold? Why?”
“Don’t you see? I could drive you down. Friendly call, and all that. Find out if she’s there. Say nothing if she isn’t.”
“Um,” says Beaky. “But the old boy won’t say nothing when he sees us. He’ll have a fit.”
“He’ll have had it already—if he’s heard from the school.”
“Um,” says Beaky again. “But what if he hasn’t? I don’t see the school making a song about it exactly—if they thought they could get her back.”
“Well, that’s all right. Then we’d still say nothing.”
“Funny sort of friendly call, that.”
“Got a better idea?”
“No. What do we do then?”
“Well, it depends.”
“I see. Gosh, this is a black business, Snubs. I—I’m sorry I said that about Sylvia just now, but—well, you know.”
“I know.”
“Perhaps I’ll hear from her in the morning.”
“More than likely.”
“Oh, hell. I’m awfully fond of Noodles, you know.”
“Oh, rather.”
“We must get her out of this if we can. Somehow.”
“We’ve got all Whitsun for it.”
“That’s true. Where’s that letter gone?”
“Letter? Oh, here it is. I must have shoved it in my pocket.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I only didn’t want the Burgesses to see it.”
For some reason Mr. Tipton laughs, but as the discussion goes round and round on the track which it has now marked out for itself, he makes no further attempt to hand the letter back to its real owner. Sometimes his hand creeps into his pocket, and at these moments he invariably opens his mouth to say something, and as invariably coughs or whistles instead. He is on the point, each time, of telling Noodles’s brother that Noodles is a sportsman. But in the end he carries this opinion off to bed with him, having kept it entirely to himself.
It is agreed that the rescue-party—or whatever it turns out to be—shall leave Wykeham Street as soon after the first postal delivery as is possible. Out go the lights in the two halves of the old night-nursery. The rescue-party falsifies its own separate predictions by falling fast asleep.
2
There is, and probably always has been, a species of minor prophet who seizes his pen or rises on his hind legs and tells us that mechanical progress is the beginning of the end. If things go on like this, he says, the human race will degenerate into a small group of atrophied slaves attendant on the monsters of its own creation. Look, he says, at this catapult which does the work of a whole cohort. Look, again, at this wireless telephone which dispenses with all other means of communication and brings the whole world to our fireside. Can’t we see where all these things are leading us?
So flattering to its ingenuity does the human race find this sort of stuff that it swallows it all with the greatest avidity, and far prefers it to the other kind of prophet who says that in a few short years all these balloons and steam-engines will transform us into the semblance of gods. It likes, apparently, to be told that its inventions are getting completely out of hand and will be the death of it. When it speaks of the way in which it intends to destroy itself in the next war, it does so with a satisfied and conceited smile, and looks round as though it expected someone to pat it on the back. Call anything “automatic” when the human race is in this frame of mind, and it will instantly fling overboard all its painfully-acquired knowledge of the relationship between cause and effect. It really strikes us as the most curious sort of race sometimes, and the last sort of race to be trusted with its own future. But then there are plenty of prophets, of course, to come forward and say that it has never been trusted with anything of the kind.
Another Part of the Wood Page 12