to say may sound damned unpleasant, you know, and all that, but look
here, you know, damn it, I mean _the better man won_—not that I mean
I’m the _better_ man. Wouldn’t say that for a minute. And, anyway,
Nina’s a damn sight too good for either of us. It’s just that I’ve been
lucky. Awful rough luck on you, I mean, and all that, but still, when
you come to think of it, after all, well, look here, damn it, I mean,
d’you see what I mean?’
‘Not quite,’ said Adam gently. ‘Now tell me again. Is it something about
Nina?’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Ginger in a rush. ‘Nina and I are engaged, and I’m
not going to have you butting in or there’ll be hell to pay.’ He paused,
rather taken aback at his own eloquence.
‘What makes you think I’m butting in?’
‘Well, hang it all, she dined with you last night, didn’t she, and
stayed out jolly late, too.’
‘How do you know how late she stayed out?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, you see I wanted to speak to her about
something rather important, so I rang her up once or twice and didn’t
get an answer until three o’clock.’
‘I suppose you rang her up about every ten minutes?’
‘Oh no, damn it, not as often as that,’ said Ginger. ‘No, no, not as
often as that. I know it sounds rather unsporting and all that, but you
see I wanted to speak to her, and, anyway, when I did get through, she
just said she had a pain and didn’t want to talk: _well, I mean to say_.
After all, I mean, one is a gentleman. It isn’t as though you were just
a sort of friend of the family, is it? I mean, you were more or less
engaged to her yourself, weren’t you, at one time? Well, what would you
have thought if I’d come butting in? You must look at it like that, from
my point of view, too, mustn’t you, I mean?’
‘Well, I think that’s rather what did happen.’
‘Oh no, look here, Symes, I mean, damn it; you mustn’t say things like
that. D’you know all the time I was out East I had Nina’s photograph
over my bed, honest I did. I expect you think that’s sentimental and all
that, but what I mean is I didn’t stop thinking of that girl once all
the time I was away. Mind you, there were lots of other frightfully
jolly girls out there, and I don’t say I didn’t sometimes get jolly
pally with them, you know, tennis and gymkhana and all that sort of
thing, I mean, and dancing in the evenings, but never anything serious,
you know. Nina was the only girl I really thought of, and I’d sort of
made up my mind when I came home to look her up, and if she’d have me
. . . see what I mean? So you see it’s awfully rough luck on me when
someone comes butting in. You must see that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Adam.
‘And there’s another thing, you know, sentiment and all that apart. I
mean Nina’s a girl who likes nice clothes and things, you know, comfort
and all that. Well, I mean to say, of course, her father’s a topping old
boy, absolutely one of the best, but he’s rather an ass about money, if
you know what I mean. What I mean, Nina’s going to be frightfully hard
up, and all that, and I mean you haven’t got an awful lot of money, have
you?’
‘I haven’t any at all.’
‘No, I mean, that’s what I mean. _Awfully rough on you._ No one thinks
the worse of you, respects you for it, I mean earning a living and all
that. Heaps of fellows haven’t any money nowadays. I could give you the
names of dozens of stout fellows, absolute toppers, who simply haven’t a
bean. No, all I mean is, when it comes to marrying, then that does make
a difference, doesn’t it?’
‘What you’ve been trying to say all this time is that you’re not sure of
Nina?’
‘Oh, rot, my dear fellow, absolute bilge. Damn it, I’d trust Nina
anywhere, of course I would. After all, damn it, what does being in love
mean if you can’t trust a person?’
(‘What, indeed?’ thought Adam), and he said, ‘Now, Ginger, tell the
truth. What’s Nina worth to you?’
‘Good Lord, why what an extraordinary thing to ask; everything in the
world of course. I’d go through fire and water for that girl.’
‘Well, I’ll sell her to you.’
‘No, why, look here, good God, damn it, I mean . . .’
‘I’ll sell my share in her for a hundred pounds.’
‘You pretend to be fond of Nina and you talk about her like that! Why,
hang it, it’s not decent. Besides, a hundred pounds is the deuce of a
lot. I mean, getting married is a damned expensive business, don’t you
know. And I’m just getting a couple of polo ponies over from Ireland.
That’s going to cost a hell of a lot, what with one thing and another.’
‘A hundred down, and I leave Nina to you, I think it’s cheap.’
‘Fifty.’
‘A hundred.’
‘Seventy-five.’
‘A hundred.’
‘I’m damned if I’ll pay more than seventy-five.’
‘I’ll take seventy-eight pounds sixteen and twopence. I can’t go lower
than that.’
‘All right, I’ll pay that. _You really will go away?_’
‘I’ll try, Ginger. Have a drink.’
‘No, thank you . . . this only shows what an escape Nina’s had—poor
little girl.’
‘Good-bye, Ginger.’
‘Good-bye, Symes.’
‘Young Thingummy going?’ said Lottie, appearing in the door. ‘I was just
thinking about a little drink.’
Adam went to the telephone-box. . . .’Hullo, is that Nina?’
‘Who’s speaking, please? I don’t think Miss Blount is in.’
‘Mr Fenwick-Symes.’
‘Oh, Adam. I was afraid it was Ginger. I woke up feeling I just couldn’t
bear him. He rang up last night just as I got in.’
‘I know. Nina, darling, something awful’s happened.’
‘What?’
‘Lottie presented me with her bill.’
‘Darling, what _did_ you do?’
‘Well, I did something rather extraordinary. . . . My dear, I sold
_you_.’
‘Darling . . . _who to_?’
‘Ginger. You fetched seventy-eight pounds sixteen and twopence.’
‘_Well?_’
‘And now I never am going to see you again.’
‘Oh, but Adam, I think this is beastly of you; I don’t want not to see
you again.’
‘I’m sorry. . . . Good-bye, Nina, darling.’
‘Good-bye, Adam, my sweet. But I think you’re rather a cad.’
Next day Lottie said to Adam, ‘You know that chap I said came here
asking for you?’
‘The dun?’
‘Well, he wasn’t a dun. I’ve just remembered. He’s a chap who used to
come here quite a lot until he had a fight with a Canadian. He was here
the night that silly Flossie killed herself on the chandelier.’
‘Not the drunk Major?’
‘He wasn’t drunk yesterday. Not so as you’d notice anyway. Red-faced
chap with an eyeglass. You ought to remember him, dear. He was the one
made that bet for you on the November Handicap.’
‘But I must get hold of him at once. What’s his name?’
‘Ah, that I couldn’t tell you. I _did_ know, but it’s slipped my memory.
He’s gone to Manchester to look for you. Pity your missing him!’
Then Adam rang up Nina. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Don’t do anything sudden
about Ginger. I may be able to buy you back. The drunk Major has turned
up again.’
‘But, darling, it’s too late. Ginger and I got married this morning. I’m
just packing for our honeymoon. We’re going in an aeroplane.’
‘Ginger wasn’t taking any chances, was he? Darling, don’t go.’
‘No, I must. Ginger says he knows a “tophole little spot not far from
Monte with a very decent nine-hole golf course”.’
‘_Well?_’
‘_Yes, I know_ . . . we shall only be away a few days. We’re coming back
to spend Christmas with papa. Perhaps we shall be able to arrange
something when we get back. I do hope so.’
‘Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
Ginger looked out of the aeroplane: ‘I say, Nina,’ he shouted, ‘when you
were young did you ever have to learn a thing out of a poetry book
about: “_This scepter’d isle, this earth of majesty, this something or
other Eden_”? D’you know what I mean? “_this happy breed of men, this
little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea . . ._
“_This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England_
_This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings_
_Feared by their breed and famous by their birth . . ._”
I forget how it goes on. Something about a stubborn Jew. But you know
the thing I mean?’
‘It comes in a play.’
‘No, a blue poetry book.’
‘I acted in it.’
‘Well, they may have put it into a play since. It was in a blue poetry
book when I learned it. Anyway, you know what I mean?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Well, I mean to say, don’t you feel somehow, up in the air like this
and looking down and seeing everything underneath. I mean, don’t you
have a sort of feeling rather like that, if you see what I mean?’
Nina looked down and saw inclined at an odd angle a horizon of
straggling red suburb; arterial roads dotted with little cars;
factories, some of them working, others empty and decaying; a disused
canal; some distant hills sown with bungalows; wireless masts and
overhead power cables; men and women were indiscernible except as tiny
spots; they were marrying and shopping and making money and having
children. The scene lurched and tilted again as the aeroplane struck a
current of air.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Nina.
‘Poor little girl,’ said Ginger. ‘That’s what the paper bags are for.’
There was rarely more than a quarter of a mile of the black road to be
seen at one time. It unrolled like a length of cinema film. At the edges
was confusion; a fog spinning past: ‘_Faster, faster_,’ they shouted
above the roar of the engine. The road rose suddenly and the white car
soared up the sharp ascent without slackening speed. At the summit of
the hill there was a corner. Two cars had crept up, one on each side,
and were closing in. ‘Faster,’ cried Miss Runcible, ‘Faster.’
‘Quietly, dear, quietly. You’re disturbing every one. You must lie quiet
or you’ll never get well. Everything’s quite all right. There’s nothing
to worry about. Nothing at all.’
They were trying to make her lie down. How could one drive properly
lying down?
Another frightful corner. The car leant over on two wheels, tugging
outwards; it was drawn across the road until it was within a few inches
of the bank. One ought to brake down at the corners, but one couldn’t
see them coming lying flat on one’s back like this. The back wheels
wouldn’t hold the road at this speed. Skidding all over the place.
‘_Faster. Faster._’
The stab of a hypodermic needle.
‘There’s nothing to worry about, dear . . . _nothing at all . . .
nothing_.’
_Chapter Thirteen_
The film had been finished, and every one had gone away; Wesley and
Whitefield, Bishop Philpotts and Miss La Touche, Mr Isaacs, and all his
pupils from the National Academy of Cinematographic Art. The park lay
deep in snow, a clean expanse of white, shadowless and unspotted save
for tiny broad arrows stamped by the hungry birds. The bellringers were
having their final practice, and the air was alive with pealing bells.
Inside the dining-room Florin and Mrs Florin and Ada, the
fifteen-year-old housemaid, were arranging branches of holly above the
frames of the family portraits. Florin held the basket, Mrs Florin held
the steps and Ada put the decorations in their places. Colonel Blount
was having his afternoon nap upstairs.
Florin had a secret. It was a white calico banner of great age lettered
in red ribbon with the words ‘=Welcome Home=’. He had always
known where it was, just where to put his hand on it, at the top of the
black trunk in the far attic behind the two hip baths and the ’cello
case.
‘The Colonel’s mother made it’, he explained, ‘when he first went away
to school, and it was always hung out in the hall whenever he and Mister
Eric came back for the holidays. It used to be the first thing he’d look
for when he came into the house—even when he was a grown man home on
leave. “Where’s my banner?” he’d say. We’ll have it up for Miss
Nina—Mrs Littlejohn, I should say.’
Ada said should they put some holly in Captain and Mrs Littlejohn’s
bedroom.
Mrs Florin said, whoever heard of holly in a bedroom, and she wasn’t
sure but that it was unlucky to take it upstairs.
Ada said, ‘Well, perhaps just a bit of mistletoe over the bed.’
Mrs Florin said Ada was too young to think about things like that, and
she ought to be ashamed of herself.
Florin said would Ada stop arguing and answering back and come into the
hall to put up the banner. One string went on the nose of the
rhinoceros, he explained, the other round the giraffe.
Presently Colonel Blount came down.
‘Should I light the fires in the big drawing-room?’ asked Mrs Florin.
‘Fires in the big drawing-room? No, why should you want to do that, Mrs
Florin?’
‘Because of Captain and Mrs Littlejohn—you haven’t forgotten, have you,
sir, that they’re coming to stay this afternoon?’
‘Captain and Mrs Fiddlesticks. Never heard of them. Who asked them to
stay I should like to know? _I_ didn’t. Don’t know who they are. Don’t
want them. . . . Besides, now I come to think of it, Miss Nina and her
husband said they were coming down. I can’t have the whole house turned
into an hotel. If these people come, Florin, whoever they are, you tell
them to go away. You understand? I won’t have them, and I think it’s
very presumptuous of whoever asked them. It is not their place to invite
guests here without consulting me.’
‘Should I be lighting the fires in the big drawing-room for Miss Nina
and her young gentleman, sir?’
‘Yes, yes, certainly . . . and a fire in their bedroom, of course. And,
Florin, I want you to come down to the cellar with me to look out some
port . . . I’ve got the keys here. . . . I have a feeling I’m going to
like Miss Nina’s husband,’ he confided on their way to the cellar. ‘I
hear very good reports of him—a decent, steady young fellow, and not at
all badly off. Miss Nina said in her letter that he used to come over
here as a little boy. D’you remember him, Florin? Blest if I do. . . .
What’s the name again?’
‘Littlejohn, sir.’
‘Yes. Littlejohn, to be sure. I had the name on the tip of my tongue
only a minute ago. _Littlejohn._ I must remember that.’
‘His father used to live over at Oakshott, sir. A very wealthy
gentleman. Shipowners, I think they were. Young Mr Littlejohn used to go
riding with Miss Nina, sir. Regular little monkey he was, sir,
red-headed . . . a terrible one for cats.’
‘Well, well, I dare say he’s grown out of that. Mind the step, Florin,
it’s all broken away. Hold the lamp higher, can’t you, man. Now, what
did we come for? Port, yes, port. Now, there’s some ’96 somewhere, only
a few bottles left. What does it say on this bin? I can’t read. Bring
the light over here.’
‘We drank up the last of the ’96, sir, when the film-acting gentlemen
was here.’
‘Did we, Florin, did we? We shouldn’t have done that, you know.’
‘Very particular about his wine, Mr Isaacs was. My instructions was to
give them whatever they wanted.’
‘Yes, but ’96 port. . . . Well, well. Take up two bottles of the ’04.
Now, what else do we want? Claret—yes, _claret_. Claret, claret,
claret, claret. Where do I keep the claret, Florin?’
Colonel Blount was just having tea—he had finished a brown boiled egg
and was spreading a crumpet with honey—when Florin opened the library
door and announced ‘Captain and Mrs Littlejohn, sir.’
And Adam and Nina came in.
Colonel Blount put down his crumpet and rose to greet them.
‘Well, Nina, it’s a long time since you came to see your old father. So
this is my son-in-law, eh? How do you do, my boy. Come and sit down,
both of you. Florin will bring some more cups directly. . . . Well,’ he
said, giving Adam a searching glance, ‘I can’t say I should have
recognized you. I used to know your father very well indeed at one time.
Used to be a neighbour of mine over at where-was-it. I expect you’ve
forgotten those days. You used to come over here to ride with Nina. You
can’t have been more than ten or eleven. . . . Funny, something gave me
an idea you had red hair . . .’
‘I expect you’d heard him called “Ginger”,’ said Nina, ‘and that made
you think of it.’
‘Something of the kind, I dare say . . . extraordinary thing to call him
“Ginger” when he’s got ordinary fair hair . . . anyway, I’m very glad to
see you, very glad. I’m afraid it’ll be a very quiet week-end. We don’t
see many people here now. Florin says he’s asked a Captain and Mrs
Something-or-other to come and stay, damn his impudence, but I said I
wouldn’t see them. Why should I entertain Florin’s friends? Servants
seem to think after they’ve been with you some time they can do anything
they like. There was poor old Lady Graybridge, now—they only found out
after her death that her man had been letting lodgings all the time in
the North Wing. She never could understand why none of the fruit ever
came into the dining-room—the butler and his boarders were eating it
all in the servants’ hall. And after she was ill, and couldn’t leave her
room, he laid out a golf links in the park . . . shocking state of
affairs. I don’t believe Florin would do a thing like that—still, you
never know. It’s the thin edge of the wedge asking people down for the
week-end.’
In the kitchen Florin said: ‘_That’s_ not the Mr Littlejohn I used to
know.’
Mrs Florin said, ‘It’s the young gentleman that came here to luncheon
last month.’
Ada said, ‘He’s very nice looking.’
Florin and Mrs Florin said, ‘You be quiet, Ada. Have you taken the hot
water up to their bedroom yet? Have you taken up their suitcases? Have
you unpacked them? Did you brush the Colonel’s evening suit? Do you
expect Mr Florin and Mrs Florin to do _all_ the work of the house? And
look at your apron again, you wretched girl, if it isn’t the second
you’ve dirtied to-day.’
Florin added, ‘Anyway, Miss Nina noticed the banner.’
In the library Colonel Blount said, ‘I’ve got a treat for you to-night,
anyway. The last two reels of my cinema film have just come back from
being developed. I thought we’d run through it to-night. We shall have
to go across to the Rectory, because the rector’s got electric light,
the lucky fellow. I told him to expect us. He didn’t seem very pleased
about it. Said he had to preach three sermons to-morrow, and be up at
six for early service. That’s not the Christmas spirit. Didn’t want to
bring the car round to fetch us either. It’s only a matter of a quarter
of a mile, no trouble to _him_, and how can we walk in the snow carrying
all the apparatus? I said to him, “If you practised a little more
Christianity yourself we might be more willing to subscribe to your
foreign missions and Boy Scouts and organ funds.” Had him there. Dammit,
I put the man in his job myself—if I haven’t a right to his car, who
has?’
When they went up to change for dinner Nina said to Adam, ‘I knew papa
would never recognize you.’
Adam said, ‘Look, some one’s put mistletoe over our bed.’
‘I think you gave the Florins rather a surprise.’
‘My dear, what will the Rector say? He drove me to the station the first
time I came. He thought I was mad.’
‘. . . Poor Ginger. I wonder, are we treating him terribly badly? . . .
It seemed a direct act of fate that he should have been called up to
join his regiment just at this moment.’
‘I left him a cheque to pay for you.’
‘Darling, you know it’s a bad one.’
‘No cheque is bad until it’s refused by the bank. To-morrow’s Christmas,
then Boxing Day, then Sunday. He can’t pay it in until Monday, and
anything may have happened by then. The drunk Major may have turned up.
If the worst comes to the worst I can always send you back to him.’
‘I expect it will end with that. . . . Darling, the honeymoon _was_ hell
. . . frightfully cold, and Ginger insisted on walking about on a
terrace after dinner to see the moon on the Mediterranean—he played
golf all day, and made friends with the other English people in the
hotel. I can’t tell you what it was like . . . too spirit-crushing, as
poor Agatha used to say.’
‘Did I tell you I went to Agatha’s funeral? There was practically no one
there except the Chasms and some aunts. I went with Van, rather tight,
and got stared at. I think they felt I was partly responsible for the
accident . . .’
‘What about Miles?’
‘He’s had to leave the country, didn’t you know?’
‘Darling, I only came back from my honeymoon to-day. I haven’t heard
anything. . . . You know there seems to be none of us left now except
you and me.’
‘And Ginger.’
‘Yes, and Ginger.’
The cinematograph exhibition that evening was not really a success.
The Rector arrived while they were finishing dinner, and was shown into
the dining-room shaking the snow from the shoulders of his overcoat.
‘Come in, Rector, come in. We shan’t be many minutes now. Take a glass
of port and sit down. You’ve met my daughter, haven’t you? And this is
my new son-in-law.’
‘I think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him before too.’
‘Nonsense, first time he’s been here since he was so high—long before
your time.’
The Rector sipped his port and kept eyeing Adam over the top of his
glass in a way which made Nina giggle. Then Adam giggled too, and the
Rector’s suspicions were confirmed. In this way relations were already
on an uneasy basis before they reached the Rectory. The Colonel,
however, was far too intent over the transport of his apparatus to
notice anything.
‘This is your first visit here?’ said the Rector as he drove through the
snow.
‘I lived near here as a boy, you know,’ said Adam.
‘Ah . . . but you were down here the other day, were you not? The
Colonel often forgets things. . . .’
‘No, no. I haven’t been here for fifteen years.’
‘I _see_,’ said the Rector with sinister emphasis, and murmured under
his breath, ‘Remarkable . . . very sad and remarkable.’
The Rector’s wife was disposed to make rather a party of it, and had
arranged some coffee and chocolate biscuits in the drawing-room, but the
Colonel soon put an end to any frivolity of this kind by plunging them
all in darkness.
He took out the bulbs of their electric lights and fitted in the plug of
his lantern. A bright beam shot across the drawing-room like a
searchlight, picking out the Rector, who was whispering in his wife’s
ear the news of his discovery.
‘. . . the same young man I told you of,’ he was saying. ‘Quite off his
head, poor boy. He didn’t even remember coming here before. One expects
that sort of thing in a man of the Colonel’s age, but for a young man
like that . . . a very bad look out for the next generation . . .’
The Colonel paused in his preparation.
‘I say, Rector, I’ve just thought of something. I wish old Florin were
here. He was in bed half the time they were taking the film. I know he’d
love to see it. Could you be a good chap and run up in the car and fetch
him?’
‘No, really, Colonel, I hardly think that’s necessary. I’ve just put the
car away.’
‘I won’t start before you come back, if that’s what you’re thinking of.
It’ll take me some time to get everything fixed up. We’ll wait for you.
I promise you that.’
‘My dear Colonel, it’s snowing heavily—practically a blizzard. Surely
it would be a mistaken kindness to drag an elderly man out of doors on a
night like this in order to see a film which, I have no doubt, will soon
be on view all over the country?’
‘All right, Rector, just as you think best. I only thought after all it
is Christmas . . . damn the thing; I got a nasty shock then.’
Adam and Nina and the Rector and his wife sat in the dark patiently.
After a time the Colonel unrolled a silvered screen.
‘Just help me take all these things off the chimney-piece some one,’ he
said.
The Rector’s wife scuttered to the preservation of her ornaments.
‘Will it bear, do you think?’ asked the Colonel, mounting precariously
on the top of the piano, and exhibiting in his excitement an astonishing
fund of latent vitality. ‘Now hand up the screen to me, will you? That’s
splendid. You don’t mind a couple of screws in your wall, do you,
Rector? Quite small ones.’
Presently the screen was fixed and the lens directed so that it threw on
to it a small square of light.
The audience sat down expectantly.
‘_Now_,’ said the Colonel, and set the machine in motion.
There was a whirring sound, and suddenly there appeared on the screen
the spectacle of four uniformed horsemen galloping backwards down the
drive.
‘Hullo,’ said the Colonel. ‘Something wrong there . . . that’s funny. I
must have forgotten to rewind it.’
The horsemen disappeared, and there was a fresh whirring as the film was
transferred to another spool.
‘_Now_,’ said the Colonel, and sure enough there appeared in small and
clear letters the notice, ‘=The Wonderfilm Company of Great Britain
Presents=’. This legend, vibrating a good deal, but without other
variation, filled the screen for some time—(‘Of course, I shall cut the
captions a bit before it’s shown commercially,’ explained the
Colonel)—until its place was taken by ‘EFFIE LA TOUCHE IN’. This
announcement was displayed for practically no time at all; indeed, they
had scarcely had time to read it before it was whisked away obliquely.
(‘Damn,’ said the Colonel. ‘Skidded.’) There followed another long
pause, and then:
‘A B R A N D F R O M T H E B U R N I N G , A
F I L M B A S E D O N T H E L I F E O F J O H N
W E S L E Y .’
(‘_There_,’ said the Colonel.)
‘E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y E N G L A N D .’