“The fact is,” said Ukridge, “these tradesmen round here seem to be a sordid, suspicious lot. They clamour for money.”
He mentioned a few examples. Vickers, the butcher, had been the first to strike, with the remark that he would like to see the colour of Mr. Ukridge’s money before supplying further joints. Dawlish, the grocer, had expressed almost exactly similar sentiments two days later; and the ranks of these passive resisters had been receiving fresh recruits ever since. To a man the tradesmen of Combe Regis seemed as deficient in Simple Faith as they were in Norman Blood.
“Can’t you pay some of them a little on account?” I suggested. “It would set them going again.”
“My dear old man,” said Ukridge impressively, “we need every penny of ready money we can raise for the farm. The place simply eats money. That infernal roop let us in for I don’t know what.”
That insidious epidemic had indeed proved costly. We had painted the throats of the chickens with the best turpentine—at least Ukridge and Beale had,—but in spite of their efforts, dozens had died, and we had been obliged to sink much more money than was pleasant in restocking the run. The battle which took place on the first day after the election of the new members was a sight to remember. The results of it were still noticeable in the depressed aspect of certain of the recently enrolled.
“No,” said Ukridge, summing up, “these men must wait. We can’t help their troubles. Why, good gracious, it isn’t as if they’d been waiting for the money long. We’ve not been down here much over a month. I never heard of such a scandalous thing. ‘Pon my word, I’ve a good mind to go round, and have a straight talk with one or two of them. I come and settle down here, and stimulate trade, and give them large orders, and they worry me with bills when they know I’m up to my eyes in work, looking after the fowls. One can’t attend to everything. The business is just now at its most crucial point. It would be fatal to pay any attention to anything else with things as they are. These scoundrels will get paid all in good time.”
It is a peculiarity of situations of this kind that the ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.
* * *
I am afraid that, despite the urgent need for strict attention to business, I was inclined to neglect my duties about this time. I had got into the habit of wandering off, either to the links, where I generally found the professor, sometimes Phyllis, or on long walks by myself. There was one particular walk along the cliffs, through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever set eyes on, which more than any other suited my mood. I would work my way through the woods till I came to a small clearing on the very edge of the cliff. There I would sit and smoke by the hour. If ever I am stricken with smoker’s heart, or staggers, or tobacco amblyopia, or any other of the cheery things which doctors predict for the devotee of the weed, I shall feel that I sowed the seeds of it that summer in that little clearing overlooking the sea. A man in love needs much tobacco. A man thinking out a novel needs much tobacco. I was in the grip of both maladies. Somehow I found that my ideas flowed more readily in that spot than in any other.
I had not been inside the professor’s grounds since the occasion when I had gone in through the box-wood hedge. But on the afternoon following my financial conversation with Ukridge I made my way thither, after a toilet which, from its length, should have produced better results than it did. Not for four whole days had I caught so much as a glimpse of Phyllis. I had been to the links three times, and had met the professor twice, but on both occasions she had been absent. I had not had the courage to ask after her. I had an absurd idea that my voice or my manner would betray me in some way. I felt that I should have put the question with such an exaggerated show of indifference that all would have been discovered.
The professor was not at home. Nor was Mr. Chase. Nor was Miss Norah Derrick, the lady I had met on the beach with the professor. Miss Phyllis, said the maid, was in the garden.
I went into the garden. She was sitting under the cedar by the tennis– lawn, reading. She looked up as I approached.
I said it was a lovely afternoon. After which there was a lull in the conversation. I was filled with a horrid fear that I was boring her. I had probably arrived at the very moment when she was most interested in her book. She must, I thought, even now be regarding me as a nuisance, and was probably rehearsing bitter things to say to the maid for not having had the sense to explain that she was out.
“I—er—called in the hope of seeing Professor Derrick,” I said.
“You would find him on the links,” she replied. It seemed to me that she spoke wistfully.
“Oh, it—it doesn’t matter,” I said. “It wasn’t anything important.”
This was true. If the professor had appeared then and there, I should have found it difficult to think of anything to say to him which would have accounted to any extent for my anxiety to see him.
“How are the chickens, Mr. Garnet?” said she.
The situation was saved. Conversationally, I am like a clockwork toy. I have to be set going. On the affairs of the farm I could speak fluently. I sketched for her the progress we had made since her visit. I was humorous concerning roop, epigrammatic on the subject of the Hired Retainer and Edwin.
“Then the cat did come down from the chimney?” said Phyllis.
We both laughed, and—I can answer for myself—I felt the better for it.
“He came down next day,” I said, “and made an excellent lunch of one of our best fowls. He also killed another, and only just escaped death himself at the hands of Ukridge.”
“Mr. Ukridge doesn’t like him, does he?”
“If he does, he dissembles his love. Edwin is Mrs. Ukridge’s pet. He is the only subject on which they disagree. Edwin is certainly in the way on a chicken farm. He has got over his fear of Bob, and is now perfectly lawless. We have to keep a steady eye on him.”
“And have you had any success with the incubator? I love incubators. I have always wanted to have one of my own, but we have never kept fowls.”
“The incubator has not done all that it should have done,” I said. “Ukridge looks after it, and I fancy his methods are not the right methods. I don’t know if I have got the figures absolutely correct, but Ukridge reasons on these lines. He says you are supposed to keep the temperature up to a hundred and five degrees. I think he said a hundred and five. Then the eggs are supposed to hatch out in a week or so. He argues that you may just as well keep the temperature at seventy-two, and wait a fortnight for your chickens. I am certain there’s a fallacy in the system somewhere, because we never seem to get as far as the chickens. But Ukridge says his theory is mathematically sound, and he sticks to it.”
“Are you quite sure that the way you are doing it is the best way to manage a chicken farm?”
“I should very much doubt it. I am a child in these matters. I had only seen a chicken in its wild state once or twice before we came down here. I had never dreamed of being an active assistant on a real farm. The whole thing began like Mr. George Ade’s fable of the Author. An Author—myself—was sitting at his desk trying to turn out any old thing that could be converted into breakfast-food when a friend came in and sat down on the table, and told him to go right on and not mind him.”
“Did Mr. Ukridge do that?”
“Very nearly that. He called at my rooms one beautiful morning when I was feeling desperately tired of London and overworked and dying for a holiday, and suggested that I should come to Combe Regis with him and help him farm chickens. I have not regretted it.”
“It is a lovely place, isn’t it?”
“The loveliest I have ever seen. How charming your garden is.”
“Shall we go and look at it? You have not seen the whole of it.”
As she rose, I saw her book, which she had laid face downwards on the grass beside her. It was the same much-enduring copy of the “Manoeuvres of Arthur.” I was thrilled. This patient perseverance must surely mean som
ething. She saw me looking at it.
“Did you draw Pamela from anybody?” she asked suddenly.
I was glad now that I had not done so. The wretched Pamela, once my pride, was for some reason unpopular with the only critic about whose opinion I cared, and had fallen accordingly from her pedestal.
As we wandered down from the garden paths, she gave me her opinion of the book. In the main it was appreciative. I shall always associate the scent of yellow lupin with the higher criticism.
“Of course, I don’t know anything about writing books,” she said.
“Yes?” my tone implied, or I hope it did, that she was an expert on books, and that if she was not it didn’t matter.
“But I don’t think you do your heroines well. I have just got ‘The Outsider—’ “ (My other novel. Bastable & Kirby, 6s. Satirical. All about Society—of which I know less than I know about chicken-farming. Slated by /Times/ and /Spectator/. Well received by /London Mail/ and /Winning Post/)—”and,” continued Phyllis, “Lady Maud is exactly the same as Pamela in the ‘Manoeuvres of Arthur.’ I thought you must have drawn both characters from some one you knew.”
“No,” I said. “No. Purely imaginary.”
“I am so glad,” said Phyllis.
And then neither of us seemed to have anything to say. My knees began to tremble. I realised that the moment had arrived when my fate must be put to the touch; and I feared that the moment was premature. We cannot arrange these things to suit ourselves. I knew that the time was not yet ripe; but the magic scent of the yellow lupin was too much for me.
“Miss Derrick,” I said hoarsely.
Phyllis was looking with more intentness than the attractions of the flower justified at a rose she held in her hand. The bee hummed in the lupin.
“Miss Derrick,” I said, and stopped again.
“I say, you people,” said a cheerful voice, “tea is ready. Hullo, Garnet, how are you? That medal arrived yet from the Humane Society?”
I spun round. Mr. Tom Chase was standing at the end of the path. The only word that could deal adequately with the situation slapped against my front teeth. I grinned a sickly grin.
“Well, Tom,” said Phyllis.
And there was, I thought, just the faintest tinkle of annoyance in her voice.
* * *
“I’ve been bathing,” said Mr. Chase, /a propos des bottes/.
“Oh,” I replied. “And I wish,” I added, “that you’d drowned yourself.”
But I added it silently to myself.
Chapter 13.
Tea and Tennis
“Met the professor’s late boatman on the Cob,” said Mr. Chase, dissecting a chocolate cake.
“Clumsy man,” said Phyllis. “I hope he was ashamed of himself. I shall never forgive him for trying to drown papa.”
My heart bled for Mr. Henry Hawk, that modern martyr.
“When I met him,” said Tom Chase, “he looked as if he had been trying to drown his sorrow as well.”
“I knew he drank,” said Phyllis severely, “the very first time I saw him.”
“You might have warned the professor,” murmured Mr. Chase.
“He couldn’t have upset the boat if he had been sober.”
“You never know. He may have done it on purpose.”
“Tom, how absurd.”
“Rather rough on the man, aren’t you?” I said.
“Merely a suggestion,” continued Mr. Chase airily. “I’ve been reading sensational novels lately, and it seems to me that Mr. Hawk’s cut out to be a minion. Probably some secret foe of the professor’s bribed him.”
My heart stood still. Did he know, I wondered, and was this all a roundabout way of telling me he knew?
“The professor may be a member of an Anarchist League, or something, and this is his punishment for refusing to assassinate some sportsman.”
“Have another cup of tea, Tom, and stop talking nonsense.”
Mr. Chase handed in his cup.
“What gave me the idea that the upset was done on purpose was this. I saw the whole thing from the Ware Cliff. The spill looked to me just like dozens I had seen at Malta.”
“Why do they upset themselves on purpose at Malta particularly?” inquired Phyllis.
“Listen carefully, my dear, and you’ll know more about the ways of the Navy that guards your coasts than you did before. When men are allowed on shore at Malta, the owner has a fancy to see them snugly on board again at a certain reasonable hour. After that hour any Maltese policeman who brings them aboard gets one sovereign, cash. But he has to do all the bringing part of it on his own. Consequence is, you see boats rowing out to the ship, carrying men who have overstayed their leave; and when they get near enough, the able-bodied gentleman in custody jumps to his feet, upsets the boat, and swims for the gangway. The policemen, if they aren’t drowned—they sometimes are—race him, and whichever gets there first wins. If it’s the policeman, he gets his sovereign. If it’s the sailor, he is considered to have arrived not in a state of custody and gets off easier. What a judicious remark that was of the governor of North Carolina to the governor of South Carolina, respecting the length of time between drinks. Just one more cup, please, Phyllis.”
“But how does all that apply?” I asked, dry-mouthed.
“Mr. Hawk upset the professor just as those Maltese were upset. There’s a patent way of doing it. Furthermore, by judicious questioning, I found that Hawk was once in the Navy, and stationed at Malta. /Now/, who’s going to drag in Sherlock Holmes?”
“You don’t really think—?” I said, feeling like a criminal in the dock when the case is going against him.
“I think friend Hawk has been re-enacting the joys of his vanished youth, so to speak.”
“He ought to be prosecuted,” said Phyllis, blazing with indignation.
Alas, poor Hawk!
“Nobody’s safe with a man of that sort, hiring out a boat.” Oh, miserable Hawk!
“But why on earth should he play a trick like that on Professor Derrick, Chase?”
“Pure animal spirits, probably. Or he may, as I say, be a minion.”
I was hot all over.
“I shall tell father that,” said Phyllis in her most decided voice, “and see what he says. I don’t wonder at the man taking to drink after doing such a thing.”
“I—I think you’re making a mistake,” I said.
“I never make mistakes,” Mr. Chase replied. “I am called Archibald the All-Right, for I am infallible. I propose to keep a reflective eye upon the jovial Hawk.”
He helped himself to another section of the chocolate cake.
“Haven’t you finished /yet/, Tom?” inquired Phyllis. “I’m sure Mr. Garnet’s getting tired of sitting talking here,” she said.
I shot out a polite negative. Mr. Chase explained with his mouth full that he had by no means finished. Chocolate cake, it appeared, was the dream of his life. When at sea he was accustomed to lie awake o’ nights thinking of it.
“You don’t seem to realise,” he said, “that I have just come from a cruise on a torpedo-boat. There was such a sea on as a rule that cooking operations were entirely suspended, and we lived on ham and sardines—without bread.”
“How horrible!”
“On the other hand,” added Mr. Chase philosophically, “it didn’t matter much, because we were all ill most of the time.”
“Don’t be nasty, Tom.”
“I was merely defending myself. I hope Mr. Hawk will be able to do as well when his turn comes. My aim, my dear Phyllis, is to show you in a series of impressionist pictures the sort of thing I have to go through when I’m not here. Then perhaps you won’t rend me so savagely over a matter of five minutes’ lateness for breakfast.”
“Five minutes! It was three-quarters of an hour, and everything was simply frozen.”
“Quite right too in weather like this. You’re a slave to convention, Phyllis. You think breakfast ought to be hot, so you always have it hot.
On occasion I prefer mine cold. Mine is the truer wisdom. You can give the cook my compliments, Phyllis, and tell her—gently, for I don’t wish the glad news to overwhelm her—that I enjoyed that cake. Say that I shall be glad to hear from her again. Care for a game of tennis, Garnet?”
“What a pity Norah isn’t here,” said Phyllis. “We could have had a four.”
“But she is a present wasting her sweetness on the desert air of Yeovil. You had better sit down and watch us, Phyllis. Tennis in this sort of weather is no job for the delicately-nurtured feminine. I will explain the finer points of my play as we go on. Look out particularly for the Tilden Back-Handed Slosh. A winner every time.”
We proceeded to the tennis court. I played with the sun in my eyes. I might, if I chose, emphasise that fact, and attribute my subsequent rout to it, adding, by way of solidifying the excuse, that I was playing in a strange court with a borrowed racquet, and that my mind was preoccupied—firstly, with /l’affaire/ Hawk, secondly, and chiefly, with the gloomy thought that Phyllis and my opponent seemed to be on friendly terms with each other. Their manner at tea had been almost that of an engaged couple. There was a thorough understanding between them. I will not, however, take refuge behind excuses. I admit, without qualifying the statement, that Mr. Chase was too good for me. I had always been under the impression that lieutenants in the Royal Navy were not brilliant at tennis. I had met them at various houses, but they had never shone conspicuously. They had played an earnest, unobtrusive game, and generally seemed glad when it was over. Mr. Chase was not of this sort. His service was bottled lightning. His returns behaved like jumping crackers. He won the first game in precisely six strokes. He served. Only once did I take the service with the full face of the racquet, and then I seemed to be stopping a bullet. I returned it into the net. The last of the series struck the wooden edge of my racquet, and soared over the back net into the shrubbery, after the manner of a snick to long slip off a fast bowler.
Love Among the Chickens u-1 Page 8