The Complete Stories (17 page)

  "It must have been a very trying time for Billy. He and Etty were not getting on at all well together, poor things, and she spent more and more time in the Garden of Her Thoughts and brought out a very silly little book of sonnets, mostly about Venice and Florence, though she could never induce Billy to take her abroad. He used to think that foreign cooking upset him.

  "Billy forbade her to speak to Ralph, which was very awkward as they were always meeting one another in the village and had been great friends in the old days. In fact Ralph used often to speak very contemptuously of his cousin's manliness and say it was time someone took Etty off his hands. But that was only one of Ralph's jokes, because Etty had been getting terribly thin and dressing in the most artistic way, and Ralph always liked people who were chic and plump—like poor Viola Chasm. Whatever her faults —" said Lady Amelia, "Viola was always chic and plump.

  "It was at the time of the Diamond Jubilee that the crisis took place. There was a bonfire and a great deal of merry making of a rather foolish kind and Ralph got terribly drunk. He began threatening Billy in a very silly way and Billy had him up before the magistrates and they made an order against him to keep the peace and not to reside within ten miles of Cornphillip. ‘All right,' Ralph said, in front of the whole Court, ‘I'll go away, but I won't go alone.' And will you believe it, Miss Myers, he and Etty went off to Venice together that very afternoon.

  "Poor Etty, she had always wanted to go to Venice and had written so many poems about it, but it was a great surprise to us all. Apparently she had been meeting Ralph for some time in the Garden of Her Thoughts.

  "I don't think Ralph ever cared about her, because, as I say, she was not at all his type, but it seemed to him a very good revenge on Billy.

  "Well, the elopement was far from successful. They took rooms in a very insanitary palace, and had a gondola and ran up a great many bills. Then Etty got a septic throat as a result of the sanitation and while she was laid up Ralph met an American woman who was much more his type. So in less than six weeks poor Etty was back in England. Of course she did not go back to Billy at once. She wanted to stay with us, but, naturally, that wasn't possible. It was very awkward for everyone. There was never, I think, any talk of a divorce. It was long before that became fashionable. But we all felt it would be very inconsiderate to Billy if we had her to stay. And then, this is what will surprise you, Miss Myers, the next thing we heard was that Etty was back at Cornphillip and about to have a baby. It was a son. Billy was very pleased about it and I don't believe that the boy ever knew, until quite lately, at luncheon with Lady Metroland, when my nephew Simon told him, in a rather ill-natured way.

  "As for poor Ralph's boy, I am afraid he has come to very little good. He must be middle-aged by now. No one ever seems to hear anything of him. Perhaps he was killed in war. I cannot remember.

  "And here comes Ross with the tray; and I see that Mrs. Samson has made more of those little scones which you always seem to enjoy so much. I am sure, dear Miss Myers, you would suffer much less from your migraine if you avoided them. But you take so little care of yourself, dear Miss Myers ... Give one to Manchu."

  ON GUARD

  I

  Millicent Blade had a notable head of naturally fair hair; she had a docile and affectionate disposition, and an expression of face which changed with lightning rapidity from amiability to laughter and from laughter to respectful interest. But the feature which, more than any other, endeared her to sentimental Anglo-Saxon manhood was her nose.

  It was not everybody's nose; many prefer one with greater body; it was not a nose to appeal to painters, for it was far too small and quite without shape, a mere dab of putty without apparent bone structure; a nose which made it impossible for its wearer to be haughty or imposing or astute. It would not have done for a governess or a cellist or even for a post office clerk, but it suited Miss Blade's book perfectly, for it was a nose that pierced the thin surface crust of the English heart to its warm and pulpy core; a nose to take the thoughts of English manhood back to its schooldays, to the doughy-faced urchins on whom it had squandered its first affection, to memories of changing room and chapel and battered straw boaters. Three Englishmen in five, it is true, grow snobbish about these things in later life and prefer a nose that makes more show in public—but two in five is an average with which any girl of modest fortune may be reasonably content.

  Hector kissed her reverently on the tip of this nose. As he did so, his senses reeled and in momentary delirium he saw the fading light of the November afternoon, the raw mist spreading over the playing fields; overheated youth in the scrum; frigid youth at the touchline, shuffling on the duckboards, chafing their fingers and, when their mouths were emptied of biscuit crumbs, cheering their house team to further exertion.

  "You will wait for me, won't you?" he said.

  "Yes, darling."

  "And you will write?"

  "Yes, darling," she replied more doubtfully, "sometimes ... at least I'll try. Writing is not my best thing, you know."

  "I shall think of you all the time Out There," said Hector. "It's going to be terrible—miles of impassable waggon track between me and the nearest white man, blinding sun, lions, mosquitoes, hostile natives, work from dawn until sunset singlehanded against the forces of nature, fever, cholera ... But soon I shall be able to send for you to join me."

  "Yes, darling."

  "It's bound to be a success. I've discussed it all with Beckthorpe—that's the chap who's selling me the farm. You see the crop has failed every year so far—first coffee, then seisal, then tobacco, that's all you can grow there, and the year Beckthorpe grew seisal, everyone else was making a packet in tobacco, but seisal was no good; then he grew tobacco, but by then it was coffee he ought to have grown, and so on. He stuck it nine years. Well if you work it out mathematically, Beckthorpe says, in three years one's bound to strike the right crop. I can't quite explain why but it is like roulette and all that sort of thing, you see."

  "Yes, darling."

  Hector gazed at her little, shapeless, mobile button of a nose and was lost again ... "Play up, play up," and after the match the smell of crumpets being toasted over a gas-ring in his study ...

  II

  Later that evening he dined with Beckthorpe, and, as he dined, he grew more despondent.

  "Tomorrow this time I shall be at sea," he said, twiddling his empty port glass.

  "Cheer up, old boy," said Beckthorpe.

  Hector filled his glass and gazed with growing distaste round the reeking dining room of Beckthorpe's club. The last awful member had left the room and they were alone with the cold buffet.

  "I say, you know, I've been trying to work it out. It was in three years you said the crop was bound to be right, wasn't it?"

  "That's right, old boy."

  "Well, I've been through the sum and it seems to me that it may be eighty-one years before it comes right."

  "No, no, old boy, three or nine or at the most twenty-seven."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Quite."

  "Good ... you know it's awful leaving Milly behind. Suppose it is eighty-one years before the crop succeeds. It's the devil of a time to expect a girl to wait. Some other blighter might turn up, if you see what I mean."

  "In the Middle Ages they used to use girdles of chastity."

  "Yes, I know. I've been thinking of them. But they sound damned uncomfortable. I doubt if Milly would wear one even if I knew where to find it."

  "Tell you what, old boy. You ought to give her something."

  "Hell, I'm always giving her things. She either breaks them or loses them or forgets where she got them."

  "You must give her something she will always have by her, something that will last."

  "Eighty-one years?"

  "Well, say, twenty-seven. Something to remind her of you."

  "I could give her a photograph—but I might change a bit in twenty-seven years."

  "No, no, that would be most unsuitable. A photograph wouldn't do at all. I know what I'd give her. I'd give her a dog."

  "Dog?"

  "A healthy puppy that was over distemper and looked like living a long time. She might even call it Hector."

  "Would that be a good thing, Beckthorpe?"

  "Best possible, old boy."

  So next morning, before catching the boat train, Hector hurried to one of the mammoth stores of London and was shown to the livestock department. "I want a puppy."

  "Yes, sir, any particular sort?"

  "One that will live a long time. Eighty-one years, or twenty-seven at the least."

  The man looked doubtful. "We have some fine healthy puppies of course," he admitted, "but none of them carry a guarantee. Now if it was longevity you wanted, might I recommend a tortoise? They live to an extraordinary age and are very safe in traffic."

  "No, it must be a pup."

  "Or a parrot?"

  "No, no, a pup. I would prefer one named Hector."

  They walked together past monkeys and kittens and cockatoos to the dog department which, even at this early hour, had attracted a small congregation of rapt worshippers. There were puppies of all varieties in wire-fronted kennels, ears cocked, tails wagging, noisily soliciting attention. Rather wildly, Hector selected a poodle and, as the salesman disappeared to fetch him his change, he leant down for a moment's intense communion with the beast of his choice. He gazed deep into the sharp little face, avoided a sudden snap and said with profound solemnity:

  "You are to look after Milly, Hector. See that she doesn't marry anyone until I get back."

  And the pup Hector waved his plume of tail.

  III

  Millicent came to see him off, but, negligently, went to the wrong station; it could not have mattered, however, for she was twenty minutes late. Hector and the poodle hung about the barrier looking for her, and not until the train was already moving did he bundle the animal into Beckthorpe's arms with instructions to deliver him at Millicent's address. Luggage labelled for Mombasa, "Wanted on the voyage," lay in the rack above him. He felt very much neglected.

  That evening as the ship pitched and rolled past the Channel lighthouses, he received a radiogram: Miserable to miss you went Paddington like idiot thank you thank you for sweet dog I love him father minds dreadfully longing to hear about farm dont fall for ship siren all love Milly.

  In the Red Sea he received another. Beware sirens puppy bit man called Mike.

  After that Hector heard nothing of Millicent except for a Christmas card which arrived in the last days of February.

  IV

  Generally speaking, Millicent's fancy for any particular young man was likely to last four months. It depended on how far he had got in that time whether the process of extinction was sudden or protracted. In the case of Hector, her affection had been due to diminish at about the time that she became engaged to him; it had been artificially prolonged during the succeeding three weeks, during which he made strenuous, infectiously earnest efforts to find employment in England; it came to an abrupt end with his departure for Kenya. Accordingly the duties of the puppy Hector began with his first days at home. He was young for the job and wholly inexperienced; it is impossible to blame him for his mistake in the matter of Mike Boswell.

  This was a young man who had enjoyed a wholly unromantic friendship with Millicent since she first came out. He had seen her fair hair in all kinds of light, in and out of doors, crowned in hats in succeeding fashions, bound with ribbon, decorated with combs, jauntily stuck with flowers; he had seen her nose uplifted in all kinds of weather, had even, on occasions, playfully tweeked it with his finger and thumb, and had never for one moment felt remotely attracted to her.

  But the puppy Hector could hardly be expected to know this. All he knew was that two days after receiving his commission, he observed a tall and personable man of marriageable age who treated his hostess with the sort of familiarity which, among the kennel maids with whom he had been brought up, meant only one thing.

  The two young people were having tea together. Hector watched for some time from his place on the sofa, barely stifling his growls. A climax was reached when, in the course of some barely intelligible back-chat, Mike leant forward and patted Millicent on the knee.

  It was not a serious bite, a mere snap, in fact; but Hector had small teeth as sharp as pins. It was the sudden, nervous speed with which Mike withdrew his hand which caused the damage; he swore, wrapped his hand in a handkerchief, and at Millicent's entreaty revealed three or four minute wounds. Millicent spoke harshly to Hector and tenderly to Mike, and hurried to her mother's medicine cupboard for a bottle of iodine.

  Now no Englishman, however phlegmatic, can have his hand dabbed with iodine without, momentarily at any rate, falling in love.

  Mike had seen the nose countless times before, but that afternoon, as it was bowed over his scratched thumb, and as Millicent said, "Am I hurting terribly?", as it was raised towards him, and as Millicent said, "There. Now it will be all right," Mike suddenly saw it transfigured as its devotees saw it and from that moment, until long after the three months of attention which she accorded him, he was Millicent's besotted suitor.

  The pup Hector saw all this and realized his mistake. Never again, he decided, would he give Millicent the excuse to run for the iodine bottle.

  V

  He had on the whole an easy task, for Millicent's naturally capricious nature could, as a rule, be relied upon, unaided, to drive her lovers into extremes of irritation. Moreover she had come to love the dog. She received very regular letters from Hector, written weekly and arriving in batches of three or four according to the mails. She always opened them; often she read them to the end, but their contents made little impression upon her mind and gradually their writer drifted into oblivion so that when people said to her "How is darling Hector?" it came naturally to her to reply, "He doesn't like the hot weather much I'm afraid, and his coat is in a very poor state. I'm thinking of having him plucked," instead of, "He had a go of malaria and there is black worm in his tobacco crop."