by Unknown
“Oh, that was your considerateness. You didn’t want to give trouble, even if you had to sacrifice your principles. But it’s all right now. You are going to have your vegetables.”
Peter drew a deep breath—the breath of the man who braces himself up and thanks whatever gods there be for his unconquerable soul.
“I don’t care,” he said. “‘A book of verses underneath the bough, a jug of wine, and thou–-’”
“Oh, and I forgot,” interrupted Eve. “I told her you were a teetotaller as well.”
There was another silence, longer than the first.
“The best train,” said Eve, at last, “is the ten-fifty.”
He looked at her inquiringly.
“The best train?”
“For London.”
“What makes you think that I am interested in trains to London?”
Eve bit her lip.
“Mr. Rayner,” she said, after a pause, “do you remember at lunch one day at Mrs. Elphinstone’s refusing parsnips? You said that, so far as you were concerned, parsnips were first by a mile, and that prussic acid and strychnine also ran.”
“Well?” said Peter.
“Oh, nothing,” said Eve. “Only I made a stupid mistake. I told the cook you were devoted to parsnips. I’m sorry.”
Peter looked at her gravely. “I’m putting up with a lot for your sake,” he said.
“You needn’t. Why don’t you go away?”
“And leave you chained to the rock, Andromeda? Not for Perseus! I’ve only been here one night, but I’ve seen enough to know that I’ve got to take you away from this place. Honestly, it’s killing you. I was watching you last night. You’re scared if that infernal old woman starts to open her mouth. She’s crushing the life out of you. I’m going to stay on here till you say you’ll marry me, or till they throw me out.”
“There are parsnips for dinner tonight,” said Eve, softly.
“I shall get to like them. They are an acquired taste, I expect. Perhaps I am, too. Perhaps I am the human parsnip, and you will have to learn to love me.”
“You are the human burr,” said Eve, shortly. “I shouldn’t have thought it possible for a man to behave as you are doing.”
In spite of herself, there were moments during the next few days when Eve felt twinges of remorse. It was only by telling herself that he had no right to have followed her to this house, and that he was at perfect liberty to leave whenever he wished, that she could harden her heart again. And even this reflection was not entirely satisfactory, for it made her feel how fond he must be of her to endure these evils for her sake.
And there was no doubt about there being evils. It was a dreary house in which to spend winter days. There were no books that one could possibly read. The nearest railway station was five miles away. There was not even a dog to talk to. Generally it rained. Though Eve saw little of Peter, except at meals and in the drawing-room after dinner—for Mrs. Rastall-Retford spent most of the day in her own sitting-room and required Eve to be at her side—she could picture his sufferings, and, try as she would, she could not keep herself from softening a little. Her pride was weakening. Constant attendance on her employer was beginning to have a bad effect on her nerves. Association in a subordinate capacity with Mrs. Rastall-Retford did not encourage a proud and spirited outlook on life.
Her imagination had not exaggerated Peter’s sufferings. Many people consider that Dante has spoken the last word on the post-mortem housing of the criminal classes. Peter, after the first week of his visit, could have given him a few new ideas.
It is unpleasant to be half starved. It is unpleasant to be cooped up in a country-house in winter with nothing to do. It is unpleasant to have to sit at meals and listen to the only girl you have ever really loved being bullyragged by an old lady with six chins. And all these unpleasantnesses were occurring to Peter simultaneously. It is highly creditable to him that the last should completely have outweighed the others.
He was generally alone. Mr. Rastall-Retford, who would have been better than nothing as a companion, was a man who enjoyed solitude. He was a confirmed vanisher. He would be present at one moment, the next he would have glided silently away. And, even on the rare occasions when he decided not to vanish, he seldom did much more than clear his throat nervously and juggle with his pince-nez.
Peter, in his boyhood, had been thrilled once by a narrative of a man who got stuck in the Sargasso Sea. It seemed to him now that the monotony of the Sargasso Sea had been greatly exaggerated.
Nemesis was certainly giving Peter his due. He had wormed his way into the Rastall-Retford home-circle by grossly deceitful means. The moment he heard that Eve had gone to live with Mrs. Rastall-Retford, and had ascertained that the Rastall-Retford with whom he had been at Cambridge and whom he still met occasionally at his club when he did not see him first, was this lady’s son, he had set himself to court young Mr. Rastall-Retford. He had cornered him at the club and begun to talk about the dear old ‘Varsity days, ignoring the embarrassment of the latter, whose only clear recollection of the dear old ‘Varsity days as linking Peter and himself was of a certain bump-supper night, when sundry of the festive, led and inspired by Peter, had completely wrecked his rooms and shaved off half a growing moustache. He conveyed to young Mr. Rastall-Retford the impression that, in the dear old ‘Varsity days, they had shared each other’s joys and sorrows, and, generally, had made Damon and Pythias look like a pair of cross-talk knockabouts at one of the rowdier music-halls. Not to invite so old a friend to stay at his home, if he ever happened to be down that way, would, he hinted, be grossly churlish. Mr. Rastall-Retford, impressed, issued the invitation. And now Peter was being punished for his deceit. Nemesis may not be an Alfred Shrubb, but give her time and she gets there.
It was towards the middle of the second week of his visit that Eve, coming into the drawing-room before dinner, found Peter standing in front of the fire. They had not been alone together for several days.
“Well?” said he.
Eve went to the fire and warmed her hands.
“Well?” she said, dispiritedly.
She was feeling nervous and ill. Mrs. Rastall-Retford had been in one of her more truculent moods all day, and for the first time Eve had the sensation of being thoroughly beaten. She dreaded the long hours to bedtime. The thought that there might be bridge after dinner made her feel physically ill. She felt she could not struggle through a bridge night.
On the occasions when she was in one of her dangerous moods, Mrs. Rastall-Retford sometimes chose rest as a cure, sometimes relaxation. Rest meant that she retired to her room immediately after dinner, and expended her venom on her maid; relaxation meant bridge, and bridge seemed to bring out all her worst points. They played the game for counters at her house, and there had been occasions in Eve’s experience when the loss of a hundred or so of these useful little adjuncts to Fun in the Home had lashed her almost into a frenzy. She was one of those bridge players who keep up a running quarrel with Fate during the game, and when she was not abusing Fate she was generally reproaching her partner. Eve was always her partner; and tonight she devoutly hoped that her employer would elect to rest. She always played badly with Mrs. Rastall-Retford, through sheer nervousness. Once she had revoked, and there had been a terrible moment and much subsequent recrimination.
Peter looked at her curiously.
“You’re pale tonight,” he said.
“I have a headache.”
“H’m! How is our hostess? Fair? Or stormy?”
“As I was passing her door I heard her bullying her maid, so I suppose stormy.”
“That means a bad time for you?” he said, sympathetically.
“I suppose so. If we play bridge. But she may go to bed directly after dinner.”
She tried to keep her voice level, but he detected the break.
“Eve,” he said, quickly, “won’t you let me take you away from here? You’ve no business in this sort of game. You’re not
tough enough. You’ve got to be loved and made a fuss of and–-“
She laughed shakily.
“Perhaps you can give me the address of some lady who wants a companion to love and make a fuss of?”
“I can give you the address of a man.”
She rested an arm on the mantelpiece and stood looking into the blaze, without replying.
Before he could speak again there was a step outside the door, and Mrs. Rastall-Retford rustled into the room.
Eve had not misread the storm-signals. Her employer’s mood was still as it had been earlier in the day. Dinner passed in almost complete silence. Mrs. Rastall-Retford sat brooding dumbly. Her eye was cold and menacing, and Peter, working his way through his vegetables, shuddered for Eve. He had understood her allusion to bridge, having been privileged several times during his stay to see his hostess play that game, and he hoped that there would be no bridge tonight.
And this was unselfish of him, for bridge meant sandwiches. Punctually at nine o’clock on bridge nights the butler would deposit on a side-table a plate of chicken sandwiches and (in deference to Peter’s vegetarian views) a smaller plate of cheese sandwiches. At the close of play Mrs. Rastall-Retford would take one sandwich from each plate, drink a thimbleful of weak whisky and water, and retire.
Peter could always do with a sandwich or two these days. But he was prepared to abandon them joyfully if his hostess would waive bridge for this particular evening.
It was not to be. In the drawing-room Mrs. Rastall-Retford came out of her trance and called imperiously for the cards. Peter, when he saw his hand after the first deal, had a presentiment that if all his hands were to be as good as this, the evening was going to be a trying one. On the other occasions when they had played he had found it an extremely difficult task, even with moderate cards, to bring it about that his hostess should always win the odd rubber, for he was an excellent player, and, like most good players, had an artistic conscience which made it painful to him to play a deliberately bad game, even from the best motives. If all his hands were going to be as strong as this first one he saw that there was disaster ahead. He could not help winning.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford, who had dealt the first hand, made a most improper diamond declaration. Her son unfilially doubled, and, Eve having chicane—a tragedy which her partner evidently seemed to consider could have been avoided by the exercise of ordinary common sense—Peter and his partner, despite Peter’s best efforts, won the game handsomely.
The son of the house dealt the next hand. Eve sorted her cards listlessly. She was feeling curiously tired. Her brain seemed dulled.
This hand, as the first had done, went all in favour of the two men. Mr. Rastall-Retford won five tricks in succession, and, judging from the glitter in his mild eye, was evidently going to win as many more as he possibly could. Mrs. Rastall-Retford glowered silently. There was electricity in the air.
The son of the house led a club. Eve played a card mechanically.
“Have you no clubs, Miss Hendrie?”
Eve started, and looked at her hand.
“No,” she said.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford grunted suspiciously.
Not long ago, in Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A., a young man named Harold Sperry, a telephone worker, was boring a hole in the wall of a house with a view to passing a wire through it. He whistled joyously as he worked. He did not know that he had selected for purposes of perforation the exact spot where there lay, nestling in the brickwork, a large leaden water-pipe. The first intimation he had of that fact was when a jet of water suddenly knocked him fifteen feet into a rosebush.
As Harold felt then, so did Eve now, when, examining her hand once more to make certain that she had no clubs, she discovered the ace of that ilk peeping coyly out from behind the seven of spades.
Her face turned quite white. It is never pleasant to revoke at bridge, but to Eve just then it seemed a disaster beyond words. She looked across at her partner. Her imagination pictured the scene there would be ere long, unless–-
It happens every now and then that the human brain shows in a crisis an unwonted flash of speed. Eve’s did at this juncture. To her in her trouble there came a sudden idea.
She looked round the table. Mr. Rastall-Retford, having taken the last trick, had gathered it up in the introspective manner of one planning big coups, and was brooding tensely, with knit brows. His mother was frowning over her cards. She was unobserved.
She seized the opportunity. She rose from her seat, moved quickly to the side-table, and, turning her back, slipped the fatal card dexterously into the interior of a cheese sandwich.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford, absorbed, did not notice for an instant. Then she gave tongue.
“What are you doing, Miss Hendrie?”
Eve was breathing quickly.
“I—I thought that Mr. Rayner might like a sandwich.”
She was at his elbow with the plate. It trembled in her hand.
“A sandwich! Kindly do not be so officious, Miss Hendrie. The idea—in the middle of a hand–-” Her voice died away in a resentful mumble.
Peter started. He had been allowing his thoughts to wander. He looked from the sandwich to Eve and then at the sandwich again. He was puzzled. This had the aspect of being an olive-branch—could it be? Could she be meaning–-? Or was it a subtle insult? Who could say? At any rate it was a sandwich, and he seized it, without prejudice.
“I hope at least you have had the sense to remember that Mr. Rayner is a vegetarian, Miss Hendrie,” said Mrs. Rastall-Retford. “That is not a chicken sandwich?”
“No,” said Eve; “it is not a chicken sandwich.”
Peter beamed gratefully. He raised the olive-branch, and bit into it with the energy of a starving man. And as he did so he caught Eve’s eye.
“Miss Hendrie!” cried Mrs. Rastall-Retford.
Eve started violently.
“Miss Hendrie, will you be good enough to play? The king of clubs to beat. I can’t think what’s the matter with you tonight.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Eve, and put down the nine of spades.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford glared.
“This is absurd,” she cried. “You must have the ace of clubs. If you have not got it, who has? Look through your hand again. Is it there?”
“No.”
“Then where can it be?”
“Where can it be?” echoed Peter, taking another bite.
“Why—why,” said Eve, crimson, “I—I—have only five cards. I ought to have six.”
“Five?” said Mrs. Rastall-Retford “Nonsense! Count again. Have you dropped it on the floor?”
Mr. Rastall-Retford stooped and looked under the table.
“It is not on the floor,” he said. “I suppose it must have been missing from the pack before I dealt.”
Mrs. Rastall-Retford threw down her cards and rose ponderously. It offended her vaguely that there seemed to be nobody to blame. “I shall go to bed,” she said.
Peter stood before the fire and surveyed Eve as she sat on the sofa. They were alone in the room, Mr. Rastall-Retford having drifted silently away in the wake of his mother. Suddenly Eve began to laugh helplessly.
He shook his head at her.
“This is considerably sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” he said. “You should be fawning gratefully upon me, not laughing. Do you suppose King Charles laughed at my ancestor when he ate the despatches? However, for the first time since I have been in this house I feel as if I had had a square meal.”
Eve became suddenly serious. The smile left her face.
“Mr. Rayner, please don’t think I’m ungrateful. I couldn’t help laughing, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am. You don’t know what it would have been like if she had found out that I had revoked. I did it once before, and she kept on about it for days and days. It was awful.” She shivered. “I think you must be right, and my nerves are going.”
He nodded.
“So are you—tomorrow, by
the first train. I wonder how soon we can get married. Do you know anything about special licenses?”
She looked at him curiously.
“You’re very obstinate,” she said.
“Firm,” he corrected. “Firm. Could you pack tonight, do you think, and be ready for that ten-fifty tomorrow morning?”
She began to trace an intricate pattern on the floor with the point of her shoe.
“I can’t imagine why you are fond of me!” she said. “I’ve been very horrid to you.”
“Nonsense. You’ve been all that’s sweet and womanly.”
“And I want to tell you why,” she went on. “Your—your sister–-“
“Ah, I thought as much!”
“She—she saw that you seemed to be getting fond of me, and she–-“
“She would!”
“Said some rather horrid things that—hurt,” said Eve, in a low voice.
Peter crossed over to where she sat and took her hand.
“Don’t you worry about her,” he said. “She’s not a bad sort really, but about once every six months she needs a brotherly talking-to, or she gets above herself. One is about due during the next few days.”
He stroke her hand.
“Fasting,” he said, thoughtfully, “clears and stimulates the brain. I fancy I shall be able to think out some rather special things to say to her this time.”
JEEVES AND THE CHUMP CYRIL
You know, the longer I live, the more clearly I see that half the trouble in this bally world is caused by the light-hearted and thoughtless way in which chappies dash off letters of introduction and hand them to other chappies to deliver to chappies of the third part. It’s one of those things that make you wish you were living in the Stone Age. What I mean to say is, if a fellow in those days wanted to give anyone a letter of introduction, he had to spend a month or so carving it on a large-sized boulder, and the chances were that the other chappie got so sick of lugging the thing round in the hot sun that he dropped it after the first mile. But nowadays it’s so easy to write letters of introduction that everybody does it without a second thought, with the result that some perfectly harmless cove like myself gets in the soup.