THE ENTENTE CORDIALE IS SEALED
There are moments and moments. The present one belonged to the more
painful variety.
Even to my exhausted mind it was plain that there was a need here for
explanations. An Irishman's croquet-lawn is his castle, and strangers
cannot plunge in through hedges without inviting comment.
Unfortunately, speech was beyond me. I could have emptied a water-butt,
laid down and gone to sleep, or melted ice with a touch of the finger,
but I could not speak. The conversation was opened by the other man, in
whose restraining hand Aunt Elizabeth now lay, outwardly resigned but
inwardly, as I, who knew her haughty spirit, could guess, boiling with
baffled resentment. I could see her looking out of the corner of her
eye, trying to estimate the chances of getting in one good hard peck
with her aquiline beak.
"Come right in," said the man pleasantly. "Don't knock."
I stood there, gasping. I was only too well aware that I presented a
quaint appearance. I had removed my hat before entering the hedge, and
my hair was full of twigs and other foreign substances. My face was
moist and grimy. My mouth hung open. My legs felt as if they had ceased
to belong to me.
"I must apol-- ..." I began, and ended the sentence with gulps.
The elderly gentleman looked at me with what seemed to be indignant
surprise. His daughter appeared to my guilty conscience to be looking
through me. Aunt Elizabeth sneered. The only friendly face was the
man's. He regarded me with a kindly smile, as if I were some old friend
who had dropped in unexpectedly.
"Take a long breath," he advised.
I took several, and felt better.
"I must apologise for this intrusion," I said successfully.
"Unwarrantable" would have rounded off the sentence neatly, but I would
not risk it. It would have been mere bravado to attempt unnecessary
words of five syllables. I took in more breath. "The fact is, I
did--didn't know there was a private garden beyond the hedge. If you
will give me my hen ..."
I stopped. Aunt Elizabeth was looking away, as if endeavouring to
create an impression of having nothing to do with me. I am told by one
who knows that hens cannot raise their eyebrows, not having any; but I
am prepared to swear that at this moment Aunt Elizabeth raised hers. I
will go further. She sniffed.
"Here you are," said the man. "Though it's hard to say good-bye."
He held out the hen to me, and at this point a hitch occurred. He did
his part, the letting go, all right. It was in my department, the
taking hold, that the thing was bungled. Aunt Elizabeth slipped from my
grasp like an eel, stood for a moment eyeing me satirically with her
head on one side, then fled and entrenched herself in some bushes at
the end of the lawn.
There are times when the most resolute man feels that he can battle no
longer with fate; when everything seems against him and the only course
is a dignified retreat. But there is one thing essential to a dignified
retreat. You must know the way out. It was the lack of that knowledge
that kept me standing there, looking more foolish than anyone has ever
looked since the world began. I could not retire by way of the hedge.
If I could have leaped the hedge with a single debonair bound, that
would have been satisfactory. But the hedge was high, and I did not
feel capable at the moment of achieving a debonair bound over a
footstool.
The man saved the situation. He seemed to possess that magnetic power
over his fellows which marks the born leader. Under his command we
became an organised army. The common object, the pursuit of the elusive
Aunt Elizabeth, made us friends. In the first minute of the proceedings
the Irishman was addressing me as "me dear boy," and the man, who had
introduced himself as Mr. Chase--a lieutenant, I learned later, in His
Majesty's Navy--was shouting directions to me by name. I have never
assisted at any ceremony at which formality was so completely dispensed
with. The ice was not merely broken; it was shivered into a million
fragments.
"Go in and drive her out, Garnet," shouted Mr. Chase. "In my direction
if you can. Look out on the left, Phyllis."
Even in that disturbing moment I could not help noticing his use of the
Christian name. It seemed to me more than sinister. I did not like the
idea of dashing young lieutenants in the senior service calling a girl
Phyllis whose eyes had haunted me since I had first seen them.
Nevertheless, I crawled into the bushes and administered to Aunt
Elizabeth a prod in the lower ribs--if hens have lower ribs. The more I
study hens, the more things they seem able to get along without--which
abruptly disturbed her calm detachment. She shot out at the spot where
Mr. Chase was waiting with his coat off, and was promptly enveloped in
that garment and captured.
"The essence of strategy," observed Mr. Chase approvingly, "is
surprise. A neat piece of work!"
I thanked him. He deprecated my thanks. He had, he said, only done his
duty, as expected to by England. He then introduced me to the elderly
Irishman, who was, it seemed, a professor at Dublin University, by
name, Derrick. Whatever it was that he professed, it was something that
did not keep him for a great deal of his time at the University. He
informed me that he always spent his summers at Combe Regis.
"I was surprised to see you at Combe Regis," I said. "When you got out
at Yeovil, I thought I had seen the last of you."
I think I am gifted beyond other men as regards the unfortunate turning
of sentences.
"I meant," I added, "I was afraid I had."
"Ah, of course," he said, "you were in our carriage coming down. I was
confident I had seen you before. I never forget a face."
"It would be a kindness," said Mr. Chase, "if you would forget Garnet's
as now exhibited. You seem to have collected a good deal of the scenery
coming through that hedge."
"I was wondering----" I said. "A wash--if I might----"
"Of course, me boy, of course," said the professor. "Tom, take Mr.
Garnet off to your room, and then we'll have lunch. You'll stay to
lunch, Mr. Garnet?"
I thanked him, commented on possible inconvenience to his arrangements,
was overruled, and went off with my friend the lieutenant to the house.
We imprisoned Aunt Elizabeth in the stables, to her profound
indignation, gave directions for lunch to be served to her, and made
our way to Mr. Chase's room.
"So you've met the professor before?" he said, hospitably laying out a
change of raiment for me--we were fortunately much of a height and
build.
"I have never spoken to him," I said. "We travelled down from London in
the same carriage."
"He's a dear old boy, if you rub him the right way. But--I'm telling
you this for your good and guidance; a man wants a chart in a strange
sea--he can cut up rough. And, when he does, he goes off like a
four-point-seven and the population for miles round climbs trees. I
think, if I were you, I shouldn't mention Sir Edward Carson at lunch."
I promised that I would try to avoid the temptation.
"In fact, you'd better keep off Ireland altogether. It's the safest
plan. Any other subject you like. Chatty remarks on Bimetallism would
meet with his earnest attention. A lecture on What to do with the Cold
Mutton would be welcomed. But not Ireland. Shall we do down?"
We got to know each other at lunch.
"Do you hunt hens," asked Tom Chase, who was mixing the salad--he was
one of those men who seemed to do everything a shade better than anyone
else--"for amusement or by your doctor's orders? Many doctors, I
believe, insist on it."
"Neither," I said, "and especially not for amusement. The fact is, I've
been lured down here by a friend of mine who has started a chicken
farm--"
I was interrupted. All three of them burst out laughing. Tom Chase
allowed the vinegar to trickle on to the cloth, missing the salad-bowl
by a clear two inches.
"You don't mean to tell us," he said, "that you really come from the
one and only chicken farm? Why, you're the man we've all been praying
to meet for days past. You're the talk of the town. If you can call
Combe Regis a town. Everybody is discussing you. Your methods are new
and original, aren't they?"
"Probably. Ukridge knows nothing about fowls. I know less. He considers
it an advantage. He says our minds ought to be unbiassed."
"Ukridge!" said the professor. "That was the name old Dawlish, the
grocer, said. I never forget a name. He is the gentleman who lectures
on the management of poultry? You do not?"
I hastened to disclaim any such feat. I had never really approved of
these infernal talks on the art of chicken-farming which Ukridge had
dropped into the habit of delivering when anybody visited our farm. I
admit that it was a pleasing spectacle to see my managing director in a
pink shirt without a collar and very dirty flannel trousers lecturing
the intelligent native; but I had a feeling that the thing tended to
expose our ignorance to men who had probably had to do with fowls from
their cradle up.
"His lectures are very popular," said Phyllis Derrick with a little
splutter of mirth.
"He enjoys them," I said.
"Look here, Garnet," said Tom Chase, "I hope you won't consider all
these questions impertinent, but you've no notion of the thrilling
interest we all take--at a distance--in your farm. We have been talking
of nothing else for a week. I have dreamed of it three nights running.
Is Mr. Ukridge doing this as a commercial speculation, or is he an
eccentric millionaire?"
"He's not a millionaire yet, but I believe he intends to be one
shortly, with the assistance of the fowls. But you mustn't look on me
as in any way responsible for the arrangements at the farm. I am merely
a labourer. The brainwork of the business lies in Ukridge's department.
As a matter of fact, I came down here principally in search of golf."
"Golf?" said Professor Derrick, with the benevolent approval of the
enthusiast towards a brother. "I'm glad you play golf. We must have a
round together."
"As soon as ever my professional duties will permit," I said gratefully.
* * * * *
There was croquet after lunch,--a game of which I am a poor performer.
Phyllis Derrick and I played the professor and Tom Chase. Chase was a
little better than myself; the professor, by dint of extreme
earnestness and care, managed to play a fair game; and Phyllis was an
expert.
"I was reading a book," she said, as we stood together watching the
professor shaping at his ball at the other end of the lawn, "by an
author of the same surname as you, Mr. Garnet. Is he a relation of
yours?"
"My name is Jeremy, Miss Derrick."
"Oh, you wrote it?" She turned a little pink. "Then you must have--oh,
nothing."
"I couldn't help it, I'm afraid."
"Did you know what I was going to say?"
"I guessed. You were going to say that I must have heard your
criticisms in the train. You were very lenient, I thought."
"I didn't like your heroine."
"No. What is a 'creature,' Miss Derrick?"
"Pamela in your book is a 'creature,'" she replied unsatisfactorily.
Shortly after this the game came somehow to an end. I do not understand
the intricacies of croquet. But Phyllis did something brilliant and
remarkable with the balls, and we adjourned for tea. The sun was
setting as I left to return to the farm, with Aunt Elizabeth stored
neatly in a basket in my hand. The air was deliciously cool, and full
of that strange quiet which follows soothingly on the skirts of a
broiling midsummer afternoon. Far away, seeming to come from another
world, a sheep-bell tinkled, deepening the silence. Alone in a sky of
the palest blue there gleamed a small, bright star.
I addressed this star.
"She was certainly very nice to me. Very nice indeed." The star said
nothing.
"On the other hand, I take it that, having had a decent up-bringing,
she would have been equally polite to any other man whom she had
happened to meet at her father's house. Moreover, I don't feel
altogether easy in my mind about that naval chap. I fear the worst."
The star winked.
"He calls her Phyllis," I said.
"Charawk!" chuckled Aunt Elizabeth from her basket, in that beastly
cynical, satirical way which has made her so disliked by all
right-thinking people.