FIRST AID FOR DORA
Never in the course of a long and intimate acquaintance having been
shown any evidence to the contrary, I had always looked on Stanley
Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, my boyhood chum, as a man ruggedly
indifferent to the appeal of the opposite sex. I had assumed that,
like so many financial giants, he had no time for dalliance with
women—other and deeper matters, I supposed, keeping that great
brain permanently occupied. It was a surprise, therefore, when,
passing down Shaftesbury Avenue one Wednesday afternoon in June at
the hour when _matinée_ audiences were leaving the theatres, I came
upon him assisting a girl in a white dress to mount an omnibus.
As far as this simple ceremony could be rendered impressive,
Ukridge made it so. His manner was a blend of courtliness and
devotion; and if his mackintosh had been a shade less yellow and
his hat a trifle less disreputable, he would have looked just like
Sir Walter Ralegh.
The bus moved on, Ukridge waved, and I proceeded to make enquiries.
I felt that I was an interested party. There had been a distinctly
“object-matrimony” look about the back of his neck, it seemed to
me; and the prospect of having to support a Mrs. Ukridge and keep
a flock of little Ukridges in socks and shirts perturbed me.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Oh, hallo, laddie!” said Ukridge, turning. “Where did you spring
from? If you had come a moment earlier, I’d have introduced you to
Dora.” The bus was lumbering out of sight into Piccadilly Circus,
and the white figure on top turned and gave a final wave. “That
was Dora Mason,” said Ukridge, having flapped a large hand in
reply. “She’s my aunt’s secretary-companion. I used to see a bit
of her from time to time when I was living at Wimbledon. Old Tuppy
gave me a couple of seats for that show at the Apollo, so I thought
it would be a kindly act to ask her along. I’m sorry for that girl.
Sorry for her, old horse.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“Hers is a grey life. She has few pleasures. It’s an act of charity
to give her a little treat now and then. Think of it! Nothing to
do all day but brush the Pekingese and type out my aunt’s rotten
novels.”
“Does your aunt write novels?”
“The world’s worst, laddie, the world’s worst. She’s been steeped
to the gills in literature ever since I can remember. They’ve just
made her president of the Pen and Ink Club. As a matter of fact,
it was her novels that did me in when I lived with her. She used
to send me to bed with the beastly things and ask me questions
about them at breakfast. Absolutely without exaggeration, laddie,
at breakfast. It was a dog’s life, and I’m glad it’s over. Flesh
and blood couldn’t stand the strain. Well, knowing my aunt, I don’t
mind telling you that my heart bleeds for poor little Dora. I know
what a foul time she has, and I feel a better, finer man for having
given her this passing gleam of sunshine. I wish I could have done
more for her.”
“Well, you might have stood her tea after the theatre.”
“Not within the sphere of practical politics, laddie. Unless you
can sneak out without paying, which is dashed difficult to do with
these cashiers watching the door like weasels, tea even at an A B
C shop punches the pocket-book pretty hard, and at the moment I’m
down to the scrapings. But I’ll tell you what, I don’t mind joining
you in a cup, if you were thinking of it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Come, come! A little more of the good old spirit of hospitality,
old horse.”
“Why do you wear that beastly mackintosh in mid-summer?”
“Don’t evade the point, laddie. I can see at a glance that you need
tea. You’re looking pale and fagged.”
“Doctors say that tea is bad for the nerves.”
“Yes, possibly there’s something in that. Then I’ll tell you what,”
said Ukridge, never too proud to yield a point, “we’ll make it a
whisky-and-soda instead. Come along over to the Criterion.”
It was a few days after this that the Derby was run, and a horse
of the name of Gunga Din finished third. This did not interest the
great bulk of the intelligentsia to any marked extent, the animal
having started at a hundred to three, but it meant much to me, for
I had drawn his name in the sweepstake at my club. After a
monotonous series of blanks stretching back to the first year of
my membership, this seemed to me the outstanding event of the
century, and I celebrated my triumph by an informal dinner to a
few friends. It was some small consolation to me later to remember
that I had wanted to include Ukridge in the party, but failed to
get hold of him. Dark hours were to follow, but at least Ukridge
did not go through them bursting with my meat.
There is no form of spiritual exaltation so poignant as that which
comes from winning even a third prize in a sweepstake. So tremendous
was the moral uplift that, when eleven o’clock arrived, it seemed
silly to sit talking in a club and still sillier to go to bed. I
suggested spaciously that we should all go off and dress and resume
the revels at my expense half an hour later at Mario’s, where, it
being an extension night, there would be music and dancing till
three. We scattered in cabs to our various homes.
How seldom in this life do we receive any premonition of impending
disaster. I hummed a gay air as I entered the house in Ebury Street
where I lodged, and not even the usually quelling sight of Bowles,
my landlord, in the hall as I came in could quench my bonhomie.
Generally a meeting with Bowles had the effect on me which the
interior of a cathedral has on the devout, but to-night I was
superior to this weakness.
“Ah, Bowles,” I cried, chummily, only just stopping myself from
adding “Honest fellow!” “Hallo, Bowles! I say, Bowles, I drew Gunga
Din in the club sweep.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes. He came in third, you know.”
“So I see by the evening paper, sir. I congratulate you.”
“Thank you, Bowles, thank you.”
“Mr. Ukridge called earlier in the evening, sir,” said Bowles.
“Did he? Sorry I was out. I was trying to get hold of him. Did he
want anything in particular?”
“Your dress-clothes, sir.”
“My dress-clothes, eh?” I laughed genially. “Extraordinary fellow!
You never know——” A ghastly thought smote me like a blow. A cold
wind seemed to blow through the hall. “He didn’t _get_ them, did
he?” I quavered.
“Why, yes, sir.”
“Got my dress-clothes?” I muttered thickly, clutching for support
at the hat-stand.
“He said it would be all right, sir,” said Bowles, with that
sickening tolerance which he always exhibited for all that Ukridge
said or did. One of the leading mysteries of my life was my
landlord’s amazing attitude towards this hell-hound. He fawned on
the man. A splendid fellow like myself had to go about in a state
of hushed reverence towards Bowles, while a human blot like Ukridge
could bellow at him over the banisters without the slightest
rebuke. It was one of those things which make one laugh cynically
when people talk about the equality of man.
“He got my dress-clothes?” I mumbled.
“Mr. Ukridge said that he knew you would be glad to let him have
them, as you would not be requiring them to-night.”
“But I do require them, damn it!” I shouted, lost to all proper
feeling. Never before had I let fall an oath in Bowles’s presence.
“I’m giving half a dozen men supper at Mario’s in a quarter of an
hour.”
Bowles clicked his tongue sympathetically.
“What am I going to do?”
“Perhaps if you would allow me to lend you mine, sir?”
“Yours?”
“I have a very nice suit. It was given to me by his lordship the
late Earl of Oxted, in whose employment I was for many years. I
fancy it would do very well on you, sir. His lordship was about
your height, though perhaps a little slenderer. Shall I fetch it,
sir? I have it in a trunk downstairs.”
The obligations of hospitality are sacred. In fifteen minutes’ time
six jovial men would be assembling at Mario’s, and what would they
do, lacking a host? I nodded feebly.
“It’s very kind of you,” I managed to say.
“Not at all, sir. It is a pleasure.”
If he was speaking the truth, I was glad of it. It is nice to think
that the affair brought pleasure to someone.
That the late Earl of Oxted had indeed been a somewhat slenderer
man than myself became manifest to me from the first pulling on of
the trousers. Hitherto I had always admired the slim, small-boned
type of aristocrat, but it was not long before I was wishing that
Bowles had been in the employment of someone who had gone in a
little more heartily for starchy foods. And I regretted, moreover,
that the fashion of wearing a velvet collar on an evening coat, if
it had to come in at all, had not lasted a few years longer. Dim
as the light in my bedroom was, it was strong enough to make me
wince as I looked in the mirror.
And I was aware of a curious odour.
“Isn’t this room a trifle stuffy, Bowles?”
“No, sir. I think not.”
“Don’t you notice an odd smell?”
“No, sir. But I have a somewhat heavy cold. If you are ready, sir,
I will call a cab.”
Moth-balls! That was the scent I had detected. It swept upon me
like a wave in the cab. It accompanied me like a fog all the way
to Mario’s, and burst out in its full fragrance when I entered the
place and removed my overcoat. The cloak-room waiter sniffed in a
startled way as he gave me my check, one or two people standing
near hastened to remove themselves from my immediate neighbourhood,
and my friends, when I joined them, expressed themselves with
friend-like candour. With a solid unanimity they told me frankly
that it was only the fact that I was paying for the supper that
enabled them to tolerate my presence.
The leper-like feeling induced by this uncharitable attitude caused
me after the conclusion of the meal to withdraw to the balcony to
smoke in solitude. My guests were dancing merrily, but such
pleasures were not for me. Besides, my velvet collar had already
excited ribald comment, and I am a sensitive man. Crouched in a
lonely corner of the balcony, surrounded by the outcasts who were
not allowed on the lower floor because they were not dressed, I
chewed a cigar and watched the revels with a jaundiced eye. The
space reserved for dancing was crowded and couples either revolved
warily or ruthlessly bumped a passage for themselves, using their
partners as battering-rams. Prominent among the ruthless bumpers
was a big man who was giving a realistic imitation of a steam-plough.
He danced strongly and energetically, and when he struck the line,
something had to give.
From the very first something about this man had seemed familiar;
but owing to his peculiar crouching manner of dancing, which he
seemed to have modelled on the ring-style of Mr. James J. Jeffries,
it was not immediately that I was able to see his face. But
presently, as the music stopped and he straightened himself to clap
his hands for an encore, his foul features were revealed to me.
It was Ukridge. Ukridge, confound him, with my dress-clothes
fitting him so perfectly and with such unwrinkled smoothness that
he might have stepped straight out of one of Ouida’s novels. Until
that moment I had never fully realized the meaning of the expression
“faultless evening dress.” With a passionate cry I leaped from my
seat, and, accompanied by a rich smell of camphor, bounded for the
stairs. Like Hamlet on a less impressive occasion, I wanted to slay
this man when he was full of bread, with all his crimes, broad-blown,
as flush as May, at drinking, swearing, or about some act that had
no relish of salvation in it.
“But, laddie,” said Ukridge, backed into a corner of the lobby
apart from the throng, “be reasonable.”
I cleansed my bosom of a good deal of that perilous stuff that
weighs upon the heart.
“How could I guess that you would want the things? Look at it from
my position, old horse. I knew you, laddie, a good true friend who
would be delighted to lend a pal his dress-clothes any time when
he didn’t need them himself, and as you weren’t there when I
called, I couldn’t ask you, so I naturally simply borrowed them.
It was all just one of those little misunderstandings which can’t
be helped. And, as it luckily turns out, you had a spare suit, so
everything was all right, after all.”
“You don’t think this poisonous fancy dress is mine, do you?”
“Isn’t it?” said Ukridge, astonished.
“It belongs to Bowles. He lent it to me.”
“And most extraordinarily well you look in it, laddie,” said
Ukridge. “Upon my Sam, you look like a duke or something.”
“And smell like a second-hand clothes-store.”
“Nonsense, my dear old son, nonsense. A mere faint suggestion of
some rather pleasant antiseptic. Nothing more. I like it. It’s
invigorating. Honestly, old man, it’s really remarkable what an
air that suit gives you. Distinguished. That’s the word I was
searching for. You look distinguished. All the girls are saying
so. When you came in just now to speak to me, I heard one of them
whisper ‘Who is it?’ That shows you.”
“More likely ‘What is it?’”
“Ha, ha!” bellowed Ukridge, seeking to cajole me with sycophantic
mirth. “Dashed good! Deuced good! Not ‘Who is it?’ but ‘What is
it?’ It beats me how you think of these things. Golly, if I had a
brain like yours——But now, old son, if you don’t mind, I really
must be getting back to poor little Dora. She’ll be wondering what
has become of me.”
The significance of these words had the effect of making me forget
my just wrath for a moment.
“Are you here with that girl you took to the theatre the other
afternoon?”
“Yes. I happened to win a trifle on the Derby, so I thought it
would be the decent thing to ask her out for an evening’s pleasure.
Hers is a grey life.”
“It must be, seeing you so much.”
“A little personal, old horse,” said Ukridge reprovingly. “A trifle
bitter. But I know you don’t mean it. Yours is a heart of gold
really. If I’ve said that once, I’ve said it a hundred times.
Always saying it. Rugged exterior but heart of gold. My very words.
Well, good-bye for the present, laddie. I’ll look in to-morrow and
return these things. I’m sorry there was any misunderstanding about
them, but it makes up for everything, doesn’t it, to feel that
you’ve helped brighten life for a poor little downtrodden thing
who has few pleasures.”
“Just one last word,” I said. “One final remark.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sitting in that corner of the balcony over there,” I said. “I
mention the fact so that you can look out for yourself. If you come
dancing underneath there, I shall drop a plate on you. And if it
kills you, so much the better. I’m a poor downtrodden little thing,
and I have few pleasures.”
Owing to a mawkish respect for the conventions, for which I reproach
myself, I did not actually perform this service to humanity. With
the exception of throwing a roll at him—which missed him but most
fortunately hit the member of my supper-party who had sniffed with
the most noticeable offensiveness at my camphorated costume—I took
no punitive measures against Ukridge that night. But his demeanour,
when he called at my rooms next day, could not have been more
crushed if I had dropped a pound of lead on him. He strode into my
sitting-room with the sombre tread of the man who in a conflict
with Fate has received the loser’s end. I had been passing in my
mind a number of good snappy things to say to him, but his
appearance touched me to such an extent that I held them in. To
abuse this man would have been like dancing on a tomb.
“For Heaven’s sake what’s the matter?” I asked. “You look like a
toad under the harrow.”
He sat down creakingly, and lit one of my cigars.
“Poor little Dora!”
“What about her?”
“She’s got the push!”
“The push? From your aunt’s, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
Ukridge sighed heavily.
“Most unfortunate business, old horse, and largely my fault. I
thought the whole thing was perfectly safe. You see, my aunt goes
to bed at half-past ten every night, so it seemed to me that if
Dora slipped out at eleven and left a window open behind her she
could sneak back all right when we got home from Mario’s. But what
happened? Some dashed officious ass,” said Ukridge, with honest
wrath, “went and locked the damned window. I don’t know who it was.
I suspect the butler. He has a nasty habit of going round the place
late at night and shutting things. Upon my Sam, it’s a little hard!
If only people would leave things alone and not go snooping about——”
“What happened?”
“Why, it was the scullery window which we’d left open, and when we
got back at four o’clock this morning the infernal thing was shut
as tight as an egg. Things looked pretty rocky, but Dora remembered
that her bedroom window was always open, so we bucked up again for
a bit. Her room’s on the second floor, but I knew where there was
a ladder, so I went and got it, and she was just hopping up as
merry as dammit when somebody flashed a great beastly lantern on
us, and there was a policeman, wanting to know what the game was.
The whole trouble with the police force of London, laddie, the
thing that makes them a hissing and a byword, is that they’re
snoopers to a man. Zeal, I suppose they call it. Why they can’t
attend to their own affairs is more than I can understand. Dozens
of murders going on all the time, probably, all over Wimbledon,
and all this bloke would do was stand and wiggle his infernal
lantern and ask what the game was. Wouldn’t be satisfied with a
plain statement that it was all right. Insisted on rousing the
house to have us identified.”
Ukridge paused, a reminiscent look of pain on his expressive face.
“And then?” I said.
“We were,” said Ukridge, briefly.
“What?”
“Identified. By my aunt. In a dressing-gown and a revolver. And
the long and the short of it is, old man, that poor little Dora
has got the sack.”
I could not find it in my heart to blame his aunt for what he
evidently considered a high-handed and tyrannical outrage. If I
were a maiden lady of regular views, I should relieve myself of
the services of any secretary-companion who returned to roost only
a few short hours in advance of the milk. But, as Ukridge plainly
desired sympathy rather than an austere pronouncement on the
relations of employer and employed, I threw him a couple of tuts,
which seemed to soothe him a little. He turned to the practical
side of the matter.
“What’s to be done?”
“I don’t see what you can do.”
“But I must do something. I’ve lost the poor little thing her job,
and I must try to get it back. It’s a rotten sort of job, but it’s
her bread and butter. Do you think George Tupper would biff round
and have a chat with my aunt, if I asked him?”
“I suppose he would. He’s the best-hearted man in the world. But
I doubt if he’ll be able to do much.”
“Nonsense, laddie,” said Ukridge, his unconquerable optimism rising
bravely from the depths. “I have the utmost confidence in old
Tuppy. A man in a million. And he’s such a dashed respectable sort
of bloke that he might have her jumping through hoops and shamming
dead before she knew what was happening to her. You never know.
Yes, I’ll try old Tuppy. I’ll go and see him now.”
“I should.”
“Just lend me a trifle for a cab, old son, and I shall be able to
get to the Foreign Office before one o’clock. I mean to say, even
if nothing comes of it, I shall be able to get a lunch out of him.
And I need refreshment, laddie, need it sorely. The whole business
has shaken me very much.”
It was three days after this that, stirred by a pleasant scent of
bacon and coffee, I hurried my dressing and, proceeding to my
sitting-room, found that Ukridge had dropped in to take breakfast
with me, as was often his companionable practice. He seemed
thoroughly cheerful again, and was plying knife and fork briskly
like the good trencherman he was.
“Morning, old horse,” he said agreeably.
“Good morning.”
“Devilish good bacon, this. As good as I’ve ever bitten. Bowles is
cooking you some more.”
“That’s nice. I’ll have a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind me
making myself at home while I’m waiting.” I started to open the
letters by my plate, and became aware that my guest was eyeing me
with a stare of intense penetration through his pince-nez, which
were all crooked as usual. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter?”
“Why,” I said, “are you looking at me like a fish with lung-trouble?”
“Was I?” He took a sip of coffee with an overdone carelessness.
“Matter of fact, old son, I was rather interested. I see you’ve
had a letter from my aunt.”
“What?”
I had picked up the last envelope. It was addressed in a strong
female hand, strange to me. I now tore it open. It was even as
Ukridge had said. Dated the previous day and headed “Heath House,
Wimbledon Common,” the letter ran as follows:—
“Dear Sir,—I shall be happy to see you if you will call at this
address the day after to-morrow (Friday) at four-thirty.—Yours
faithfully, Julia Ukridge.”
I could make nothing of this. My morning mail, whether pleasant or
the reverse, whether bringing a bill from a tradesman or a cheque
from an editor, had had till now the uniform quality of being
plain, straightforward, and easy to understand; but this
communication baffled me. How Ukridge’s aunt had become aware of
my existence, and why a call from me should ameliorate her lot,
were problems beyond my unravelling, and I brooded over it as an
Egyptologist might over some newly-discovered hieroglyphic.
“What does she say?” enquired Ukridge.
“She wants me to call at half-past four to-morrow afternoon.”
“Splendid!” cried Ukridge. “I knew she would bite.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Ukridge reached across the table and patted me affectionately on
the shoulder. The movement involved the upsetting of a full cup of
coffee, but I suppose he meant well. He sank back again in his
chair and adjusted his pince-nez in order to get a better view of
me. I seemed to fill him with honest joy, and he suddenly burst
into a spirited eulogy, rather like some minstrel of old delivering
an _ex-tempore_ boost of his chieftain and employer.
“Laddie,” said Ukridge, “if there’s one thing about you that I’ve
always admired it’s your readiness to help a pal. One of the most
admirable qualities a bloke can possess, and nobody has it to a
greater extent than you. You’re practically unique in that way.
I’ve had men come up to me and ask me about you. ‘What sort of a
chap is he?’ they say. ‘One of the very best,’ I reply. ‘A fellow
you can rely on. A man who would die rather than let you down. A
bloke who would go through fire and water to do a pal a good turn.
A bird with a heart of gold and a nature as true as steel.’”
“Yes, I’m a splendid fellow,” I agreed, slightly perplexed by this
panegyric. “Get on.”
“I am getting on, old horse,” said Ukridge with faint reproach.
“What I’m trying to say is that I knew you would be delighted to
tackle this little job for me. It wasn’t necessary to ask you. I
_knew_.”
A grim foreboding of an awful doom crept over me, as it had done
so often before in my association with Ukridge.
“Will you kindly tell me what damned thing you’ve let me in for
now?”
Ukridge deprecated my warmth with a wave of his fork. He spoke
soothingly and with a winning persuasiveness. He practically cooed.
“It’s nothing, laddie. Practically nothing. Just a simple little
act of kindness which you will thank me for putting in your way.
It’s like this. As I ought to have foreseen from the first, that
ass Tuppy proved a broken reed. In that matter of Dora, you know.
Got no result whatever. He went to see my aunt the day before
yesterday, and asked her to take Dora on again, and she gave him
the miss-in-balk. I’m not surprised. I never had any confidence in
Tuppy. It was a mistake ever sending him. It’s no good trying
frontal attack in a delicate business like this. What you need is
strategy. You want to think what is the enemy’s weak side and then
attack from that angle. Now, what is my aunt’s weak side, laddie?
Her weak side, what is it? Now think. Reflect, old horse.”
“From the sound of her voice, the only time I ever got near her,
I should say she hadn’t one.”
“That’s where you make your error, old son. Butter her up about
her beastly novels, and a child could eat out of her hand. When
Tuppy let me down I just lit a pipe and had a good think. And then
suddenly I got it. I went to a pal of mine, a thorough sportsman—you
don’t know him. I must introduce you some day—and he wrote my aunt
a letter from you, asking if you could come and interview her for
_Womans Sphere_. It’s a weekly paper, which I happen to know she
takes in regularly. Now, listen, laddie. Don’t interrupt for a
moment. I want you to get the devilish shrewdness of this. You go
and interview her, and she’s all over you. Tickled to death. Of
course, you’ll have to do a good deal of Young Disciple stuff, but
you won’t mind that. After you’ve soft-soaped her till she’s
purring like a dynamo, you get up to go. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘this
has been the proudest occasion of my life, meeting one whose work
I have so long admired.’ And she says, ‘The pleasure is mine, old
horse.’ And you slop over each other a bit more. Then you say sort
of casually, as if it had just occurred to you, ‘Oh, by the way,
I believe my cousin—or sister——No, better make it cousin—I believe
my cousin, Miss Dora Mason, is your secretary, isn’t she?’ ‘She
isn’t any such dam’ thing,’ replies my aunt. ‘I sacked her three
days ago.’ That’s your cue, laddie. Your face falls, you register
concern, you’re frightfully cut up. You start in to ask her to let
Dora come back. And you’re such pals by this time that she can
refuse you nothing. And there you are! My dear old son, you can
take it from me that if you only keep your head and do the Young
Disciple stuff properly the thing can’t fail. It’s an iron-clad
scheme. There isn’t a flaw in it.”
“There is one.”
“I think you’re wrong. I’ve gone over the thing very carefully.
What is it?”
“The flaw is that I’m not going anywhere near your infernal aunt.
So you can trot back to your forger chum and tell him he’s wasted
a good sheet of letter-paper.”
A pair of pince-nez tinkled into a plate. Two pained eyes blinked
at me across the table. Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge was
wounded to the quick.
“You don’t mean to say you’re backing out?” he said, in a low,
quivering voice.
“I never was in.”
“Laddie,” said Ukridge, weightily, resting an elbow on his last
slice of bacon, “I want to ask you one question. Just one simple
question. Have you ever let me down? Has there been one occasion
in our long friendship when I have relied upon you and been
deceived? Not one!”
“Everything’s got to have a beginning. I’m starting now.”
“But think of her. Dora! Poor little Dora. Think of poor little
Dora.”
“If this business teaches her to keep away from you, it will be a
blessing in the end.”
“But, laddie——”
I suppose there is some fatal weakness in my character, or else
the brand of bacon which Bowles cooked possessed a peculiarly
mellowing quality. All I know is that, after being adamant for a
good ten minutes, I finished breakfast committed to a task from
which my soul revolted. After all, as Ukridge said, it was rough
on the girl. Chivalry is chivalry. We must strive to lend a helping
hand as we go through this world of ours, and all that sort of
thing. Four o’clock on the following afternoon found me entering
a cab and giving the driver the address of Heath House, Wimbledon
Common.
My emotions on entering Heath House were such as I would have felt
had I been keeping a tryst with a dentist who by some strange freak
happened also to be a duke. From the moment when a butler of
super-Bowles dignity opened the door and, after regarding me with
ill-concealed dislike, started to conduct me down a long hall, I
was in the grip of both fear and humility. Heath House is one of
the stately homes of Wimbledon; how beautiful they stand, as the
poet says: and after the humble drabness of Ebury Street it frankly
overawed me. Its keynote was an extreme neatness which seemed to
sneer at my squashy collar and reproach my baggy trouser-leg. The
farther I penetrated over the polished floor, the more vividly was
it brought home to me that I was one of the submerged tenth and
could have done with a hair-cut. I had not been aware when I left
home that my hair was unusually long, but now I seemed to be
festooned by a matted and offensive growth. A patch on my left shoe
which had had a rather comfortable look in Ebury Street stood out
like a blot on the landscape. No, I was not at my ease; and when
I reflected that in a few moments I was to meet Ukridge’s aunt,
that legendary figure, face to face, a sort of wistful admiration
filled me for the beauty of the nature of one who would go through
all this to help a girl he had never even met. There was no doubt
about it—the facts spoke for themselves—I was one of the finest
fellows I had ever known. Nevertheless, there was no getting away
from it, my trousers did bag at the knee.
“Mr. Corcoran,” announced the butler, opening the drawing-room
door. He spoke with just that intonation of voice that seemed to
disclaim all responsibility. If I had an appointment, he intimated,
it was his duty, however repulsive, to show me in; but, that done,
he disociated himself entirely from the whole affair.
There were two women and six Pekingese dogs in the room. The Pekes
I had met before, during their brief undergraduate days at Ukridge’s
dog college, but they did not appear to recognise me. The occasion
when they had lunched at my expense seemed to have passed from
their minds. One by one they came up, sniffed, and then moved away
as if my bouquet had disappointed them. They gave the impression
that they saw eye to eye with the butler in his estimate of the
young visitor. I was left to face the two women.
Of these—reading from right to left—one was a tall, angular,
hawk-faced female with a stony eye. The other, to whom I gave but
a passing glance at the moment, was small, and so it seemed to me,
pleasant-looking. She had bright hair faintly powdered with grey,
and mild eyes of a china blue. She reminded me of the better class
of cat. I took her to be some casual caller who had looked in for
a cup of tea. It was the hawk on whom I riveted my attention. She
was looking at me with a piercing and unpleasant stare, and I
thought how exactly she resembled the picture I had formed of her
in my mind from Ukridge’s conversation.
“Miss Ukridge?” I said, sliding on a rug towards her and feeling
like some novice whose manager, against his personal wishes, has
fixed him up with a match with the heavyweight champion.
“I am Miss Ukridge,” said the other woman. “Miss Watterson, Mr.
Corcoran.”
It was a shock, but, the moment of surprise over, I began to feel
something approaching mental comfort for the first time since I
had entered this house of slippery rugs and supercilious butlers.
Somehow I had got the impression from Ukridge that his aunt was a
sort of stage aunt, all stiff satin and raised eyebrows. This
half-portion with the mild blue eyes I felt that I could tackle.
It passed my comprehension why Ukridge should ever have found her
intimidating.
“I hope you will not mind if we have our little talk before Miss
Watterson,” she said with a charming smile. “She has come to
arrange the details of the Pen and Ink Club dance which we are
giving shortly. She will keep quite quiet and not interrupt. You
don’t mind?”
“Not at all, not at all,” I said in my attractive way. It is not
exaggerating to say that at this moment I felt debonair. “Not at
all, not at all. Oh, not at all.”
“Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you, thank you.”
The hawk moved over to the window, leaving us to ourselves.
“Now we are quite cosy,” said Ukridge’s aunt.
“Yes, yes,” I agreed. Dash it, I liked this woman.
“Tell me, Mr. Corcoran,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “are you on the staff
of _Woman’s Sphere_? It is one of my favourite papers. I read it
every week.”
“The outside staff.”
“What do you mean by the outside staff?”
“Well, I don’t actually work in the office, but the editor gives
me occasional jobs.”
“I see. Who is the editor now?”
I began to feel slightly less debonair. She was just making
conversation, of course, to put me at my ease, but I wished she
would stop asking me these questions. I searched desperately in my
mind for a name—any name—but as usual on these occasions every name
in the English language had passed from me.
“Of course. I remember now,” said Ukridge’s aunt, to my profound
relief. “It’s Mr. Jevons, isn’t it? I met him one night at dinner.”
“Jevons,” I burbled. “That’s right. Jevons.”
“A tall man with a light moustache.”
“Well, fairly tall,” I said, judicially.
“And he sent you here to interview me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, which of my novels do you wish me to talk about?”
I relaxed with a delightful sense of relief. I felt on solid ground
at last. And then it suddenly came to me that Ukridge in his
woollen-headed way had omitted to mention the name of a single one
of this woman’s books.
“Er—oh, all of them,” I said hurriedly.
“I see. My general literary work.”
“Exactly,” I said. My feeling towards her now was one of positive
affection.
She leaned back in her chair with her finger-tips together,
a pretty look of meditation on her face.
“Do you think it would interest the readers of _Woman’s Sphere_ to
know which novel of mine is my own favourite?”
“I am sure it would.”
“Of course,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “it is not easy for an author to
answer a question like that. You see, one has moods in which first
one book and then another appeals to one.”
“Quite,” I replied. “Quite.”
“Which of my books do _you_ like best, Mr. Corcoran?”
There swept over me the trapped feeling one gets in nightmares.
From six baskets the six Pekingese stared at me unwinkingly.
“Er—oh, all of them,” I heard a croaking voice reply. My voice,
presumably, though I did not recognise it.
“How delightful!” said Ukridge’s aunt. “Now, I really do call that
delightful. One or two of the critics have said that my work was
uneven. It is so nice to meet someone who doesn’t agree with them.
Personally, I think my favourite is _The Heart of Adelaide_.”
I nodded my approval of this sound choice. The muscles which had
humped themselves stiffly on my back began to crawl back into place
again. I found it possible to breathe.
“Yes,” I said, frowning thoughtfully, “I suppose _The Heart of
Adelaide_ is the best thing you have written. It has such human
appeal,” I added, playing it safe.
“Have you read it, Mr. Corcoran?”
“Oh yes.”
“And you really enjoyed it?”
“Tremendously.”
“You don’t think it is a fair criticism to say that it is a little
broad in parts?”
“Most unfair.” I began to see my way. I do not know why, but I had
been assuming that her novels must be the sort you find in seaside
libraries. Evidently they belonged to the other class of female
novels, the sort which libraries ban. “Of course,” I said, “it is
written honestly, fearlessly, and shows life as it is. But broad?
No, no!”
“That scene in the conservatory?”
“Best thing in the book,” I said stoutly.
A pleased smile played about her mouth. Ukridge had been right.
Praise her work, and a child could eat out of her hand. I found
myself wishing that I had really read the thing, so that I could
have gone into more detail and made her still happier.
“I’m so glad you like it,” she said. “Really, it is most
encouraging.”
“Oh, no,” I murmured modestly.
“Oh, but it is. Because I have only just started to write it, you
see. I finished chapter one this morning.”
She was still smiling so engagingly that for a moment the full
horror of these words did not penetrate my consciousness.
“_The Heart of Adelaide_ is my next novel. The scene in the
conservatory, which you like so much, comes towards the middle of
it. I was not expecting to reach it till about the end of next
month. How odd that you should know all about it!”
I had got it now all right, and it was like sitting down on the
empty space where there should have been a chair. Somehow the fact
that she was so pleasant about it all served to deepen my
discomfiture. In the course of an active life I have frequently
felt a fool, but never such a fool as I felt then. The fearful
woman had been playing with me, leading me on, watching me entangle
myself like a fly on fly-paper. And suddenly I perceived that I
had erred in thinking of her eyes as mild. A hard gleam had come
into them. They were like a couple of blue gimlets. She looked like
a cat that had caught a mouse, and it was revealed to me in one
sickening age-long instant why Ukridge went in fear of her. There
was that about her which would have intimidated the Sheik.
“It seems so odd, too,” she tinkled on, “that you should have come
to interview me for _Woman’s Sphere_. Because they published an
interview with me only the week before last. I thought it so
strange that I rang up my friend Miss Watterson, who is the
editress, and asked her if there had not been some mistake. And
she said she had never heard of you. _Have_ you ever heard of Mr.
Corcoran, Muriel?”
“Never,” said the hawk, fixing me with a revolted eye.
“How strange!” said Ukridge’s aunt. “But then the whole thing is
so strange. Oh, must you go, Mr. Corcoran?”
My mind was in a slightly chaotic condition, but on that one point
it was crystal-clear. Yes, I must go. Through the door if I could
find it—failing that, through the window. And anybody who tried to
stop me would do well to have a care.
“You will remember me to Mr. Jevons when you see him, won’t you?”
said Ukridge’s aunt.
I was fumbling at the handle.
“And, Mr. Corcoran.” She was still smiling amiably, but there had
come into her voice a note like that which it had had on a certain
memorable occasion when summoning Ukridge to his doom from the
unseen interior of his Sheep’s Cray Cottage. “Will you please tell
my nephew Stanley that I should be glad if he would send no more
of his friends to see me. Good afternoon.”
I suppose that at some point in the proceedings my hostess must
have rung a bell, for out in the passage I found my old chum, the
butler. With the uncanny telepathy of his species he appeared aware
that I was leaving under what might be called a cloud, for his
manner had taken on a warder-like grimness. His hand looked as if
it was itching to grasp me by the shoulder, and when we reached
the front door he eyed the pavement wistfully, as if thinking what
splendid spot it would be for me to hit with a thud.
“Nice day,” I said, with the feverish instinct to babble which
comes to strong men in their agony.
He scorned to reply, and as I tottered down the sunlit street I
was conscious of his gaze following me.
“A very vicious specimen,” I could fancy him saying. “And mainly
due to my prudence and foresight that he hasn’t got away with the
spoons.”
It was a warm afternoon, but to such an extent had the recent
happenings churned up my emotions that I walked the whole way back
to Ebury Street with a rapidity which caused more languid
pedestrians to regard me with a pitying contempt. Reaching my
sitting-room in an advanced state of solubility and fatigue, I
found Ukridge stretched upon the sofa.
“Hallo, laddie!” said Ukridge, reaching out a hand for the cooling
drink that lay on the floor beside him. “I was wondering when you
would show up. I wanted to tell you that it won’t be necessary for
you to go and see my aunt after all. It appears that Dora has a
hundred quid tucked away in a bank, and she’s been offered a
partnership by a woman she knows who runs one of these typewriting
places. I advised her to close with it. So she’s all right.”
He quaffed deeply of the bowl and breathed a contented sigh. There
was a silence.
“When did you hear of this?” I asked at length.
“Yesterday afternoon,” said Ukridge. “I meant to pop round and tell
you, but somehow it slipped my mind.”