"Well, I have taken it for four weeks from August 13, and have paid a
deposit on it."
"And I have taken it for four weeks from August 12, and have paid a
deposit and half the rent," I said. "We came in yesterday, and we go out
September 9."
"And you have an agreement with Mr. Scorer?"
"Certainly I have, but I have not got it on me."
"Well, I'll be hanged," said the old gentleman, very red in the face,
and turned to his women folk.
"My dears, there is evidently some mistake. An infernal nuisance, but
this gentleman is evidently not to blame. Would you mind my seeing your
agreement?" he asked, turning again to me.
"Certainly I would mind. My agreement has nothing to do with you, sir,
and I am not in the habit of having my word doubted. Now perhaps you
will permit me to go in and dress, before my neck is absolutely raw."
They hung around for a time, talking unpleasantly among themselves, and
finally the old gentleman stalked off to the town, and came back with a
cart for their belongings. They were loaded up, and the party
disappeared in a cloud of dust on the way to Eastnor.
"That is rather a curious thing," said my wife, when I detailed the
experiences of the morning to her on her return from her shopping. "I
hope--"
"Oh, we're all right," I said, lightly. "They can't put us out.
Possession, you know--"
"Yes, I know. I wasn't thinking of that," she said, with a far-away look
in her eyes.
By evening the raw edge of the annoyance of the morning had worn off. We
sat in the porch enjoying the evening breeze, and counted ourselves for
the time being among the fortunate ones of the earth. Our charity even
extended at odd moments to the disappointed would-be occupants of our
shoes--and bedrooms, and we devoutly hoped they had found rooms
somewhere, and were not occupying airy apartments in bathing machines.
"It was a stupid mistake of Mr. Joseph Scorer's," we said, "and he ought
to be more careful."
"I shall write when I have time," I said, "and tell him so."
But I never had time. I was much too fully occupied with other things.
Next day, after a morning bathe and paddle on the sands and early
dinner, we started for a long afternoon's ramble round Eastnor, to get
some idea of the place, leaving the two youngest children with the
servant, with strict injunctions not to get drowned, and to get their
tea whenever they felt like it.
We did Eastnor thoroughly, and then, noticing that there was a concert
on the pier that night, my wife suggested tea at a confectioner's, and
an adjournment to the pier afterwards for the concert. This was carried
with acclaim. We enjoyed the tea, the concert, and the stroll home, and
arrived at Sandybank Cottage about ten o'clock, fully satisfied with our
day's outing.
Amelia met us at the door. She was in a state of extreme nervous
excitement.
"Thank goodness you come 'ome!" she burst out.
She was unfortunate in the place of her birth and up-bringing, was
Amelia. To judge from her accent she must have been born right up in the
steeple of Bow Church. Otherwise she was a sterling girl. I will tone
down her vernacular: it does not spell easily.
"Sich a dye I never had. Seems to me we'd better git away 'ome's quick's
we can," she began.
"Why, Amelia, what's the matter?" asked her mistress.
"Matter?" said Amelia, with rising inflection. "Well, there's been a
party of three old maiden ladies, with three dawgs, and two kinaries,
and a parrick in a cage, all a-settin' cryin' on their boxes outside
here all day long since half an hour after you left, a-waitin' for you
to come back and go out of this 'ouse and let 'em come in. They say they
took it from August 14 for a month, and paid a dee-posit, and they was
to come in to-day. And the kitching fire was to be ready lighted, an'--"
"And there was to be coal, and bread, and milk in the house, and oil for
the lamps, and they'd paid for them," said I.
"My! Did you hear 'em?"
"No," I said, "I didn't."
"And what did you do, Amelia?" asked my wife, anxiously.
"I just told 'em straight that we was 'ere for a month, and there must
be some mistake, seein' as we wasn't a-goin' out till our time was up,
and then they just set down and cried, and the parrick swore awful till
they covered him up. He belonged to a nevew what was a sailor man, they
said, when he begun to swear, and I told the children to run inside lest
they'd catch it. Then they was so misrable settin' there, dabbin' of
their poor little red noses, that I made 'em some tea, and they could
'ave kissed me, and they wanted me to take pay for it, but I wouldn't."
"You're a good girl, Amelia, and you did quite right," said her
mistress, and turning to me--
"This is really very trying and very uncomfortable. What do you suppose
is the meaning of it?"
She looked a little bit as though she thought it was my fault.
"I don't know what's the meaning of it," I said, feeling angry. "I'm
afraid Mr. Joseph Scorer has a very short memory. If I had him here I'd
try if screwing his neck round would lengthen it."
Next day being Sunday we had a genuine day of rest, and enjoyed it with
quite a novel sense of freedom from the cares and worries of life.
On Monday, by the morning train and the station omnibus, arrived a
family much like our own--father, mother, four children, servant, and
innumerable boxes.
I had had my bathe, and was sitting in the porch armed with a pipe and
my stamped agreement with Mr. Scorer, prepared to repel all intruders.
So, before the grinning omnibus-man had time to dump down the baggage, I
took the father on one side, showed him my agreement, and explained the
situation, telling him his was the third party I had had to turn empty
away.
[Illustration: "I TOOK THE FATHER ASIDE AND SHOWED HIM MY AGREEMENT."]
He was very wroth, and swore, I should say, as lustily as the old maids'
nephew's parrot could have done. He was a lawyer, too, and wanted to go
into the legal aspects of the case. I assured him that they did not
interest me, unless I had some ground of action against Mr. Joseph
Scorer for the disturbance of my peaceful possession of his much-let
habitation.
He was a good fellow on the whole, and he left me his name and business
address, and made me promise to let him know if I ever found out where
Mr. Scorer had gone to, and also to refer to him any of the outraged
claimants to the cottage who wished to take legal action in the matter.
His wife and the youngsters had been peering out anxiously at us from
the back windows of the bus while this colloquy was taking place. The
father explained the matter to them, and, with a wave of his hand to me,
they drove crestfallen back to Eastnor.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, variously-composed parties
arrived with their baggage, and I turned them all away, and sent them to
find lodgings in Eastnor, suffering much in the doing of it from their
unnatural ill-humours and chagrin.
On Saturday there arrived a rollicking reading-party of students from
Oxford with a coach. I explained my painful situation and experiences,
and informed them that they made the eighth party I had had to repulse.
They were merry, good-humoured fellows, and they lay flat on my patch of
lawn and fairly screamed with delight at the cuteness of Mr. Joseph
Scorer. "He was born an Oxford gyp," they averred.
[Illustration: "THEY SCREAMED WITH DELIGHT AT THE CUTENESS OF MR.
SCORER."]
They enjoyed the affair so much that I could hardly get rid of them. My
wife gave them tea and cakes, and they sat and smoked, and laughed, and
joked, till the stars were up, and then they got a carriage and drove
off to the hotel, after promising to come up every day about noon to
assist me in my hateful task of holding the fort against all comers.
And they did it, too, and enjoyed it immensely.
On the pier, on Sunday morning after church, we met at intervals all the
families who ought to have been stopping in Sandybank Cottage.
The irate first old gentleman stopped me to ask, "Well, how are you
getting on? Say, that was the nastiest trick I ever was served. If I
could find Mr. Scorer I would jolly well like to wring his nasty little
neck."
I said I felt that way myself, but I feared there was not much chance of
laying hands on it.
I told him I had now had to send away eight different parties who all
claimed the cottage, and at that he felt very much better.
My lawyer friend was just passing, and I introduced him to the old
gentleman, and, catching sight of my young friends from Oxford, I
introduced them all to one another, and they all had a very lively time
together, and enjoyed themselves extremely.
On Monday I bethought me to go to the station, and acquaint the cabmen
with the true state of matters, and beg them not to bring any more
parties to Sandybank Cottage. They listened with broad grins to all I
had to say, but absolutely refused to comply with my wishes. It all
meant double fares for them, and all was grist that came to their mills,
and it wasn't in human nature to refuse a fare when it was offered, and
in fact any such refusal might invalidate their licences, and would
certainly lose them their places. So, much as they regretted the
annoyance it caused me, they felt in duty bound to go on dumping
would-be tenants and their baggage on my front lawn as fast as they came
along.
I could find no arguments to advance against all this, and so the game
went merrily on.
That day two separate parties arrived within ten minutes of one another.
The Oxford contingent was sitting on the lawn, and revelled in the
disgust of the heads of the families when they were made acquainted with
the state of affairs.
Paterfamilias number two, who I think from his manner must have been a
performing Strong Man, threatened to pitch me and my belongings bodily
into the sea. Young Oxford, however, came to the rescue, and Mr. Strong
Man and family eventually retired amid the hootings of the crowd.
For the curious situation of matters at Sandybank Cottage could no
longer be hidden under a bushel. The news had got abroad, and numbers
of people came up each day now, and sat round our house to enjoy the
fun. In fact we had become one of the centres of attraction of Eastnor,
and the folks travelled up to Sandybank Cottage as at other places they
would have gone to a switchback or a nigger minstrel show.
[Illustration: "THREATENED TO PITCH ME AND MY BELONGINGS BODILY INTO THE
SEA."]
Perhaps the funniest thing was to see the three old maiden ladies come
straggling up every day in single file, each with a wheezy waddling pug
dog in a lead, which was fastened round its body lest undue pressure on
its neck should induce the inevitable apoplectic fit a day sooner than
was assigned for it. They came panting up, and gazed mournfully at the
cottage, and reproachfully at me whenever I appeared, and they looked
sadly at the gradually disappearing supply of potatoes and cabbages for
which they had paid, and which I was eating. For Mr. Joseph Scorer had
sold and been paid for that garden produce no less than sixteen times
over. It needs a genius of that kind to run a garden profitably.
In the natural course of things the local paper gave a humorous account
of the affair, which was copied into one of the London dailies, and this
it was that eventually brought about the climax.
Among the would-be occupants this week was a well-known actress, who
came with her maid and a companion and a white poodle. We had rejoiced
in her exceedingly, at a distance, for many a year, and both my wife and
myself were delighted to make her more intimate acquaintance--much more
delighted, in fact, than, under the circumstances, she was to make ours.
We invited her in, and gave her tea, and apologised for the annoyance
she was being put to through no fault of ours, and did our best to make
her comfortable.
When young Oxford saw her they were with difficulty restrained from
chairing her to an hotel, and on the whole I think, when the first
annoyance had passed off, she rather enjoyed herself.
By Saturday night we had repelled sixteen different attempts on our
tenancy of Sandybank Cottage and, by this time, if a single day, except
Sunday, had passed without the arrival of one or more claimants we would
have begun to suspect something had gone wrong.
There was one thing, however, that puzzled me exceedingly, and no amount
of thoughtful consideration of the subject cast any light upon it. What
on earth had made Mr. Joseph Scorer act in this way? If he had let the
cottage in the usual manner he could have made at least L22 or L23 all
told in the two months. As it was I reckoned he had made about L37 by
his monstrous duplicity, and it was the utter inadequacy of the plunder
which puzzled me so much.
Why would a man want to hang sixteen indictments for fraud around his
neck for such a very small reward? It seemed inconceivable, especially
in such a smart and far-seeing man as Mr. Joseph Scorer. It was the
action of a fool; and whatever else he was, Mr. Joseph Scorer could
hardly be called a fool, except in this one point of utter inadequacy of
motive.
[Illustration: "WE FOUND A GENTLEMAN SITTING ON THE BENCH."]
However, my eyes were to be opened, and in a somewhat unpleasant
fashion--the process is not, as a rule, an enjoyable one.
On Sunday the 29th, being the third Sunday of our visit, when we
returned from church and the usual augmented Sabbath meeting of
malcontents on the pier, we found a gentleman sitting on the bench in
the porch awaiting our arrival.
Sunday had hitherto been an off day with us, and we rather resented this
infraction of the rules of the game.