THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
"Beale," I said, "are you drunk?"
"Wish I was, sir," said the Hired Man.
"Then what on earth do you mean? Gone? Where have they gone to?"
"Don't know, sir. London, I expect."
"London? Why?"
"Don't know, sir."
"When did they go? Oh, you told me that. Didn't they say why they were
going?"
"No, sir."
"Didn't you ask! When you saw them packing up and going to the station,
didn't you do anything?"
"No, sir."
"Why on earth not?"
"I didn't see them, sir. I only found out as they'd gone after they'd
been and went, sir. Walking down by the Net and Mackerel, met one of
them coastguards. 'Oh,' says he, 'so you're moving?' 'Who's a-moving?'
I says to him. 'Well,' he says to me, 'I seen your Mr. Ukridge and his
missus get into the three o'clock train for Axminster. I thought as you
was all a-moving.' 'Ho,' I says, 'Ho,' wondering, and I goes on. When I
gets back, I asks the missus did she see them packing their boxes, and
she says, No, she says, they didn't pack no boxes as she knowed of. And
blowed if they had, Mr. Garnet, sir."
"What! They didn't pack!"
"No, sir."
We looked at one another.
"Beale," I said.
"Sir?"
"Do you know what I think?"
"Yes, sir."
"They've bolted."
"So I says to the missus, sir. It struck me right off, in a manner of
speaking."
"This is awful," I said.
"Yes, sir."
His face betrayed no emotion, but he was one of those men whose
expression never varies. It's a way they have in the Army.
"This wants thinking out, Beale," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"You'd better ask Mrs. Beale to give me some dinner, and then I'll
think it over."
"Yes, sir."
I was in an unpleasant position. Ukridge by his defection had left me
in charge of the farm. I could dissolve the concern, I supposed, if I
wished, and return to London, but I particularly desired to remain in
Combe Regis. To complete the victory I had won on the links, it was
necessary for me to continue as I had begun. I was in the position of a
general who has conquered a hostile country, and is obliged to soothe
the feelings of the conquered people before his labours can be
considered at an end. I had rushed the professor. It must now be my aim
to keep him from regretting that he had been rushed. I must, therefore,
stick to my post with the tenacity of an able-bodied leech. There would
be trouble. Of that I was certain. As soon as the news got about that
Ukridge had gone, the deluge would begin. His creditors would abandon
their passive tactics, and take active steps. There was a chance that
aggressive measures would be confined to the enemy at our gates, the
tradesmen of Combe Regis. But the probability was that the news would
spread, and the injured merchants of Dorchester and Axminster rush to
the scene of hostilities.
I summoned Beale after dinner and held a council of war. It was no time
for airy persiflage. I said, "Beale, we're in the cart."
"Sir?"
"Mr. Ukridge going away like this has left me in a most unpleasant
position. I would like to talk it over with you. I daresay you know
that we--that Mr. Ukridge owes a considerable amount of money round
about here to tradesmen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, when they find out that he has--er----"
"Shot the moon, sir," suggested the Hired Retainer helpfully.
"Gone up to town," I amended. "When they find out that he has gone up
to town, they are likely to come bothering us a good deal."
"Yes, sir."
"I fancy that we shall have them all round here to-morrow. News of this
sort always spreads quickly. The point is, then, what are we to do?"
He propounded no scheme, but stood in an easy attitude of attention,
waiting for me to continue.
I continued.
"Let's see exactly how we stand," I said. "My point is that I
particularly wish to go on living down here for at least another
fortnight. Of course, my position is simple. I am Mr. Ukridge's guest.
I shall go on living as I have been doing up to the present. He asked
me down here to help him look after the fowls, so I shall go on looking
after them. Complications set in when we come to consider you and Mrs.
Beale. I suppose you won't care to stop on after this?"
The Hired Retainer scratched his chin and glanced out of the window.
The moon was up, and the garden looked cool and mysterious in the dim
light.
"It's a pretty place, Mr. Garnet, sir," he said.
"It is," I said, "but about other considerations? There's the matter of
wages. Are yours in arrears?"
"Yes, sir. A month."
"And Mrs. Beale's the same, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. A month."
"H'm. Well, it seems to me, Beale, you can't lose anything by stopping
on."
"I can't be paid any less than I have bin, sir," he agreed.
"Exactly. And, as you say, it's a pretty place. You might just as well
stop on, and help me in the fowl-run. What do you think?"
"Very well, sir."
"And Mrs. Beale will do the same?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's excellent. You're a hero, Beale. I shan't forget you. There's a
cheque coming to me from a magazine in another week for a short story.
When it arrives, I'll look into that matter of back wages. Tell Mrs.
Beale I'm much obliged to her, will you?"
"Yes, sir."
Having concluded that delicate business, I lit my pipe, and strolled
out into the garden with Bob. I cursed Ukridge as I walked. It was
abominable of him to desert me in this way. Even if I had not been his
friend, it would have been bad. The fact that we had known each other
for years made it doubly discreditable. He might at least have warned
me, and given me the option of leaving the sinking ship with him.
But, I reflected, I ought not to be surprised. His whole career, as
long as I had known him, had been dotted with little eccentricities of
a type which an unfeeling world generally stigmatises as shady. They
were small things, it was true; but they ought to have warned me. We
are most of us wise after the event. When the wind has blown, we can
generally discover a multitude of straws which should have shown us
which way it was blowing.
Once, I remembered, in our schoolmaster days, when guineas, though
regular, were few, he had had occasion to increase his wardrobe. If I
recollect rightly, he thought he had a chance of a good position in the
tutoring line, and only needed good clothes to make it his. He took
four pounds of his salary in advance,--he was in the habit of doing
this: he never had any salary left by the end of term, it having
vanished in advance loans beforehand. With this he was to buy two
suits, a hat, new boots, and collars. When it came to making the
purchases, he found, what he had overlooked previously in his
optimistic way, that four pounds did not go very far. At the time, I
remember, I thought his method of grappling with the situation
humorous. He bought a hat for three-and-sixpence, and got the suits and
the boots on the instalment system, paying a small sum in advance, as
earnest of more to come. He then pawned one suit to pay for the first
few instalments, and finally departed, to be known no more. His address
he had given--with a false name--at an empty house, and when the tailor
arrived with his minions of the law, all he found was an annoyed
caretaker, and a pile of letters written by himself, containing his
bill in its various stages of evolution.
Or again. There was a bicycle and photograph shop near the school. He
went into this one day, and his roving eye fell on a tandem bicycle. He
did not want a tandem bicycle, but that influenced him not at all. He
ordered it provisionally. He also ordered an enlarging camera, a kodak,
and a magic lantern. The order was booked, and the goods were to be
delivered when he had made up his mind concerning them. After a week
the shopman sent round to ask if there were any further particulars
which Mr. Ukridge would like to learn before definitely ordering them.
Mr. Ukridge sent back word that he was considering the matter, and that
in the meantime would he be so good as to let him have that little
clockwork man in his window, which walked when wound up? Having got
this, and not paid for it, Ukridge thought that he had done handsomely
by the bicycle and photograph man, and that things were square between
them. The latter met him a few days afterwards, and expostulated
plaintively. Ukridge explained. "My good man," he said, "you know, I
really think we need say no more about the matter. Really, you're come
out of it very well. Now, look here, which would you rather be owed
for? A clockwork man--which is broken, and you can have it back--or a
tandem bicycle, an enlarging camera, a kodak, and a magic-lantern?
What?" His reasoning was too subtle for the uneducated mind. The man
retired, puzzled, and unpaid, and Ukridge kept the clockwork toy.