I want to tell you all about dear old Bobbie Cardew. It’s a most
interesting story. I can’t put in any literary style and all that; but
I don’t have to, don’t you know, because it goes on its Moral Lesson.
If you’re a man you mustn’t miss it, because it’ll be a warning to you;
and if you’re a woman you won’t want to, because it’s all about how a
girl made a man feel pretty well fed up with things.
If you’re a recent acquaintance of Bobbie’s, you’ll probably be
surprised to hear that there was a time when he was more remarkable for
the weakness of his memory than anything else. Dozens of fellows, who
have only met Bobbie since the change took place, have been surprised
when I told them that. Yet it’s true. Believe _me_.
In the days when I first knew him Bobbie Cardew was about the most
pronounced young rotter inside the four-mile radius. People have called
me a silly ass, but I was never in the same class with Bobbie. When it
came to being a silly ass, he was a plus-four man, while my handicap
was about six. Why, if I wanted him to dine with me, I used to post him
a letter at the beginning of the week, and then the day before send him
a telegram and a phone-call on the day itself, and—half an hour before
the time we’d fixed—a messenger in a taxi, whose business it was to see
that he got in and that the chauffeur had the address all correct. By
doing this I generally managed to get him, unless he had left town
before my messenger arrived.
The funny thing was that he wasn’t altogether a fool in other ways.
Deep down in him there was a kind of stratum of sense. I had known him,
once or twice, show an almost human intelligence. But to reach that
stratum, mind you, you needed dynamite.
At least, that’s what I thought. But there was another way which hadn’t
occurred to me. Marriage, I mean. Marriage, the dynamite of the soul;
that was what hit Bobbie. He married. Have you ever seen a bull-pup
chasing a bee? The pup sees the bee. It looks good to him. But he still
doesn’t know what’s at the end of it till he gets there. It was like
that with Bobbie. He fell in love, got married—with a sort of whoop, as
if it were the greatest fun in the world—and then began to find out
things.
She wasn’t the sort of girl you would have expected Bobbie to rave
about. And yet, I don’t know. What I mean is, she worked for her
living; and to a fellow who has never done a hand’s turn in his life
there’s undoubtedly a sort of fascination, a kind of romance, about a
girl who works for her living.
Her name was Anthony. Mary Anthony. She was about five feet six; she
had a ton and a half of red-gold hair, grey eyes, and one of those
determined chins. She was a hospital nurse. When Bobbie smashed himself
up at polo, she was told off by the authorities to smooth his brow and
rally round with cooling unguents and all that; and the old boy hadn’t
been up and about again for more than a week before they popped off to
the registrar’s and fixed it up. Quite the romance.
Bobbie broke the news to me at the club one evening, and next day he
introduced me to her. I admired her. I’ve never worked myself—my name’s
Pepper, by the way. Almost forgot to mention it. Reggie Pepper. My
uncle Edward was Pepper, Wells, and Co., the colliery people. He left
me a sizable chunk of bullion—I say I’ve never worked myself, but I
admire any one who earns a living under difficulties, especially a
girl. And this girl had had a rather unusually tough time of it, being
an orphan and all that, and having had to do everything off her own bat
for years.
Mary and I got along together splendidly. We don’t now, but we’ll come
to that later. I’m speaking of the past. She seemed to think Bobbie the
greatest thing on earth, judging by the way she looked at him when she
thought I wasn’t noticing. And Bobbie seemed to think the same about
her. So that I came to the conclusion that, if only dear old Bobbie
didn’t forget to go to the wedding, they had a sporting chance of being
quite happy.
Well, let’s brisk up a bit here, and jump a year. The story doesn’t
really start till then.
They took a flat and settled down. I was in and out of the place quite
a good deal. I kept my eyes open, and everything seemed to me to be
running along as smoothly as you could want. If this was marriage, I
thought, I couldn’t see why fellows were so frightened of it. There
were a lot of worse things that could happen to a man.
But we now come to the incident of the Quiet Dinner, and it’s just here
that love’s young dream hits a snag, and things begin to occur.
I happened to meet Bobbie in Piccadilly, and he asked me to come back
to dinner at the flat. And, like a fool, instead of bolting and putting
myself under police protection, I went.
When we got to the flat, there was Mrs. Bobbie looking—well, I tell
you, it staggered me. Her gold hair was all piled up in waves and
crinkles and things, with a what-d’-you-call-it of diamonds in it. And
she was wearing the most perfectly ripping dress. I couldn’t begin to
describe it. I can only say it was the limit. It struck me that if this
was how she was in the habit of looking every night when they were
dining quietly at home together, it was no wonder that Bobbie liked
domesticity.
“Here’s old Reggie, dear,” said Bobbie. “I’ve brought him home to have
a bit of dinner. I’ll phone down to the kitchen and ask them to send it
up now—what?”
She stared at him as if she had never seen him before. Then she turned
scarlet. Then she turned as white as a sheet. Then she gave a little
laugh. It was most interesting to watch. Made me wish I was up a tree
about eight hundred miles away. Then she recovered herself.
“I am so glad you were able to come, Mr. Pepper,” she said, smiling at
me.
And after that she was all right. At least, you would have said so. She
talked a lot at dinner, and chaffed Bobbie, and played us ragtime on
the piano afterwards, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Quite a
jolly little party it was—not. I’m no lynx-eyed sleuth, and all that
sort of thing, but I had seen her face at the beginning, and I knew
that she was working the whole time and working hard, to keep herself
in hand, and that she would have given that diamond what’s-its-name in
her hair and everything else she possessed to have one good scream—just
one. I’ve sat through some pretty thick evenings in my time, but that
one had the rest beaten in a canter. At the very earliest moment I
grabbed my hat and got away.
Having seen what I did, I wasn’t particularly surprised to meet Bobbie
at the club next day looking about as merry and bright as a lonely
gum-drop at an Eskimo tea-party.
He started in straightaway. He seemed glad to have someone to talk to
about it.
“Do you know how long I’ve been married?” he said.