Produced by Al Haines
PETER BINNEY
A NOVEL
BY
ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1921
PUBLISHED 1921 IN U. S. A.
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
First Printing, September, 1921
Second Printing, October, 1921
Third Printing, December, 1921
Fourth Printing, January, 1922
PRINTED IN THE USA BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
TO
E. F. BENSON
INTRODUCTION
It is over twenty years since "Peter Binney" was first published in
England, and I should be unwilling to offer it to my American readers
at this time of day without some plea for leniency towards a young
man's book, which contains perhaps more than the average number of
crudities to be found in such beginnings. A few of the crudities I
have been able to soften, but if you begin tampering with early work in
the light of maturer knowledge, you are very apt to rub off the bloom
that attaches to it just because it is early work, written with spirit
and freshness, though with little skill. So I have left "Peter Binney"
much as it was, with most of its imperfections on its head, and I trust
some compensating merits.
One merit I know it to possess. It presents a picture of the lighter
side of undergraduate life as it was in Oxford and Cambridge, and as it
still exists, in spite of superficial changes; and that is something
that can only be done by a young man, whose memories are still fresh,
and to whom that life is still important enough to make it the basis of
a story.
New York, July, 1921
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I Mr. Binney Makes Up His Mind
II Mr. Binney Interviews One Tutor, and Engages Another
III Lucius Wins a Year's Respite
IV No Help To Be Gained from Mrs. Higginbotham
V Mr. Binney Arrives in Cambridge
VI Lord Blathgowrie Has Something to Say
VII Mr. Binney Speaks at the Union And Makes a Distinguished Acquaintance
VIII The Newnham Girl
IX Mr. Binney Gives a Dinner and Receives a Rebuff
X "The New Court Chronicle"
XI "Put Him in the Fountain"
XII Lucius Makes One Discovery and Mrs. Toller Another
XIII Mr. Binney Gets into Trouble
XIV Nemesis
XV Lucius Finds a Backwater
XVI Third Trinity Makes a Bump
XVII Mr. Binney Drinks the Health of a "Blue"
CHAPTER I
MR. BINNEY MAKES UP HIS MIND
"I'll do it to-day," said Peter Binney.
He had been sitting deep in thought ever since he had climbed on to the
omnibus outside his place of business in the Whitechapel Road. As the
vehicle pursued its ponderous way through the crowded streets of the
City, stopping now and again to add to its load of homeward-bound
business men, Mr. Binney sat in his seat, silent and preoccupied, his
eyes on the ground and a thoughtful frown on his face. As it left the
Post Office, full inside and out, and bowled smartly along the broad
asphalted road towards the Viaduct, his face cleared, the light of
determination shone in his eye, and looking up, he said aloud:--
"I'll do it to-day."
His fellow passengers gazed at him in surprise, and a young lady who
sat by his side, heavily fringed and feathered, and laden with a huge
cardboard box, laughed a coarse laugh, and said:
"That's right, guv'nor, don't you put it off no longer."
Mr. Binney had not intended to express his determination aloud, and the
notice his remark had drawn annoyed him. As the young lady was
apparently turning over in her mind further witticisms, he decided to
leave the omnibus and walk the rest of the way to his house in Russell
Square. He made his way slowly down the unsteady stairs, and the young
lady said:
"A good cup o' beef tea's what _you_ want, George, and don't forgit the
'ot-water bottle," and as the omnibus pursued its way, leaving him
walking briskly along the pavement, she leant over the side and called
out, "Git Mariar to put a mustard plaster on yer chest," which made the
people on the omnibus laugh, although Mr. Binney could see no humour in
the remark.
He had come, however, to such a momentous decision during the last
half-hour that by the time he had gone a dozen steps he had ceased to
feel any irritation at the young lady's pleasantries, and walked
smartly along, his brain all on fire with his mighty purpose.
Peter Binney was a small man of about forty-five years of age. His
hair was gingery, and his whiskers decidedly red. He looked rather
like a little bantam-cock as he strutted along, and this was a curious
coincidence, for he had made his fortune by selling poultry food.
Every one has heard of Binney's Food for Poultry. Indeed it would be
quite impossible for anybody who is able to read to be unaware of its
existence, for its fame is blazoned on every hoarding in the United
Kingdom. It was Peter Binney who first conceived the idea of advancing
the cause of art and advertising his wares at the same time. In the
early days, when the future world-famed business was just emerging from
its chrysalis state of a little cornchandler's shop in the
neighbourhood of the East India Docks, he was content to publish a
picture of a simpering young woman in a quilted satin petticoat and
dancing shoes, feeding a number of plethoric hens in a very clean
farmyard. But when the shop became a factory and Mr. Binney's keen
business capacity began to tell, he issued his celebrated series of
"Raphael's Cartoons for the Home," across the sky of each of which ran
the inscription, "Binney's Food for Poultry." After a little time he
published an edition of the "Plays of Shakespeare," in which all the
passages that Mr. Bowdler would have omitted were ingeniously converted
by Mr. Binney into eulogies on his Food for Poultry. Poultry and taste
were alike fed by Mr. Binney, and his business flourished accordingly.
At the age of forty-five he found himself a rich man, with a house in
Russell Square, a family tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery (tenanted at
present only by his wife), and a son who was being educated at Eton.
But to return to the present time and Mr. Binney's purpose. When he
had let himself into the house in Russell Square, he rang the bell and
inquired of the parlour-maid who answered it if Mr. Lucius was at home.
Hearing that he was not, Mr. Binney seemed somewhat relieved, and went
straight up into his dressing-room, where he put on the coat and
trousers generally reserved for Sunday wear, and exchanged his dark tie
for a brilliant red one. Then he looked at his boots, and hesitated.
They were neat enough, but they had lost the sober brilliance of the
morning. There was a row of similar boots freshly blacked under the
dressing-table, but even these must have wanted something in Mr.
Binney's eyes, for after looking at them thoughtfully he shook his
head, and opening the door stole quietly out and upstairs into a room
above his own. It was rather an untidy room and evidently occupied by
a young man of athletic tastes, to judge by the dumb-bells and Indian
clubs, cricket-bats, guncases and fishing-rods that littered the
corners. There was a row of boots and shoes under the dressing-table
here too, and among them a pair of shining patent leathers. Mr. Binney
made his way across the room on tiptoe, and seizing the boots, trees
and all, retreated with them hurriedly to his own room, where he sat
down and put them on. They were a good deal too big, but an extra pair
of winter socks set that right, and when Mr. Binney had buttoned them
he stood up on a chair and surveyed himself in the glass with
considerable satisfaction. "I must get a pair like that," he said.
Then he went downstairs, and putting on his best hat and gloves, and
taking his best umbrella out of the stand, he left the house.
Turning to the left, Mr. Binney made his way towards Woburn Square. If
he had looked the other way as he came out of his house he would have
seen his son Lucius coming towards him not fifty yards off. Lucius was
very unlike his father. He was a good-looking boy of about eighteen,
tall and slim, with blue eyes and a pleasant smiling mouth fringed with
a few fair downy hairs, of which he always spoke collectively. He was
very popular among his school-fellows, and was commonly known by the
name of "Lucy."
"Halloa!" he said to himself as he caught sight of his father coming
down the steps of the parental mansion. "Where's the governor off to,
I wonder! Looks jolly smart, too. S'pose he's going to call on that
old woman. Jove! he's got a pair of shiny boots on. I say, governor,
you're going it! They're a bit too big for you though, my boy. Shall
I give him a hail? Think I won't. He might want me to go and call on
the old tabby with him."
So Lucius let himself into the house and went upstairs. As he passed
his father's room, the door of which was open, he looked in and saw
that the floor was littered with the component parts of a pair of
boot-trees. "Didn't know the governor went in for those luxuries," he
said to himself. Then a sudden thought struck him; he went in and took
up one of the pieces. "Well, I'm hanged!" he said in a tone of deep
annoyance. "They _are_ mine. And he's actually got on my boots.
There's a piece of nerve for you! There'll be a row when you get home,
young man. I really can't stand that, you know." And Lucius went out
of his father's room very much annoyed.
We left Mr. Binney making his way towards Woburn Square. He walked on
until he came to a house with a brightly-painted blue door, where he
rang the bell and asked if Mrs. Higginbotham was at home. The maid
treated him with the subdued cordiality of an old acquaintance and led
him straight upstairs to Mrs. Higginbotham's drawing-room, where her
mistress was discovered warming her feet at a bright fire, and reading
the _Christian World_. She was a stout, middle-aged lady, and wore a
dress of rich black silk. The room wore an air of warm, solid comfort.
Its decorations would not have satisfied the late Mr. William Morris,
it is true, but as they completely satisfied Mrs. Higginbotham, that
was not a matter of great importance.
"Dear me, Mr. Binney, this is very kind of you," said Mrs.
Higginbotham, rising to greet her visitor.
Mr. Binney shook hands with her and took the chair to which she had
motioned him. He did not speak, but the compressed upper lip and the
thoughtful look with which he regarded Mrs. Higginbotham caused a
slight fluttering in that lady's ample bosom. With a woman's instinct
she immediately knew as surely as if he had already told her what he
had come to say. "He's going to do it to-day," she said to herself,
and true to the tactics of her sex she set herself at once to ward off
the critical moment as long as possible. She plunged into conversation
of the sprightly religious order, for Mrs. Higginbotham was a good
woman and could talk by the hour together of preachers and movements
and causes, in which conversation Mr. Binney was quite capable of
holding his own, for he and Mrs. Higginbotham sat under the same
preacher and held the same theological views. There was another point
in common between them, and while Mrs. Higginbotham is struggling to
maintain a bright and lively conversation, to which Mr. Binney replies
only by terse monosyllables, there will be time to explain what this
was.
Both Mr. Binney and Mrs. Higginbotham had a soul above their
surroundings. In the case of Mr. Binney this has already been
indicated by the way in which, while conducting his business on the
most approved lines of commercial progress, he essayed to import into
it something better and nobler than the mere pushing of his wares and
the piling up of a fortune. Those cartoons from Raphael had infused a
love of art into many humble homes, and not a few minds had been
enriched by the perusal of Binney's Shakespeare (a play given away with
every sack of his food for poultry), to such an extent that the
deterioration of eyesight brought about by the quality of paper and
print with which those masterpieces were issued was a very small matter
in consideration of the mental enlightenment which had been diffused
throughout the country.
Mrs. Higginbotham's aspirations were not of so educational a character.
Her literary yearnings were satisfied by the weekly appearance of the
_Family Herald Supplement_, to which event she looked forward regularly
with great pleasure. That excellent periodical never made its
appearance in her drawing-room, although sundry works of fiction from
the lending library round the corner, dealing with the habits and
customs of the aristocracy, did. Mrs. Higginbotham's father had been a
draper in a small way of business, and her husband, beginning life in
her father's shop, by the time he died had become a draper in a very
large way. Wealth and luxury had been Mrs. Higginbotham's lot for many
years, but what she yearned for was the larger, freer life led by those
happy beings of whom she read in her chosen novels. To be able to look
upon a lord without blinking; to be able to look upon lords every day
of your life; to have it said in a newspaper, "I saw Mrs. 'Fluffy'
Higginbotham" (Fluffy had been the term of endearment enjoyed by the
late Mr. Higginbotham) "sitting under the Achilles Statue in a
plum-coloured gown with lettuce-green _revers_;" to have cards of
invitation pouring in, every other one illuminated by a title; to
regard the London season as something more than the time of year when
the days were getting longer and it would soon be time to think about
going to the seaside--comfortable as Mrs. Higginbotham's circumstances
were, her life had been singularly devoid of these delights.
And this was not all. Mrs. Higginbotham was romantic. She revelled in
a love-story. She adored the Apollo-like heroes of her favourite
fiction with an ungrudging wealth of admiration, and she envied hardly
less the blushing heroines on whom they lavished the stores of their
magnificent affections. Mrs. Higginbotham felt that it ought to be the
lot of every girl to be a blushing heroine at one time of her life.
She felt that she herself had been unjustly deprived of that privilege,
although she had been an attractive girl, and, if she read the
expression in Peter Binney's eyes rightly, was attractive still. The
late Mr. Higginbotham had been a good husband to her, but his actual
proposal had been of the "Here I am--Take me if you like--If you don't
there are plenty that will, and only too glad to get the chance" order.
She _had_ taken him, but he had never satisfied the romantic cravings
of her nature. She, on her part, had been a good wife to him, but so
far as she was aware he had never, from first to last, regarded her as
a heroine, or if he had he had never shown it.
Would Peter Binney do more? Was it too late to hope that a whiff of
the fragrant breezes of romance might yet blow upon her? Mrs.
Higginbotham scarcely knew. There was a something in the little man
that inclined her to think that he would not be averse to dally in the
Indian summer of a romantic courtship if she made it quite plain to him
that that was what she required; and there was a something, in spite of
his diminutive stature and the byegone forty-five years of his
successful life, in the fire of his eye and in his erect and proud
bearing, that whispered to Mrs. Higginbotham's heart that she might, by
guarding the sensation with extreme care, bring herself to regard him
as a very good substitute for the youthful adorer who it was almost too
much to hope would come forward at this time of day.
While these questions passed through her mind, Mrs. Higginbotham went
on talking, and Mr. Binney, answering her without knowing in the least
what she was talking about, mentally braced himself up for the proposal
he was about to make. At last he broke into the middle of one of Mrs.
Higginbotham's sentences, and said in a firm and resolute voice, "Mrs.
Higginbotham, ma'am."
Mrs. Higginbotham saw that the time had come, and gave up the struggle.
"Yes, Mr. Binney?" she said in as cool a tone as she could muster.
"I am not so young as I was, ma'am," said Mr. Binney.
"We are none of us that," said Mrs. Higginbotham. "At least not people
at our time of life."
"You have no reason to complain, ma'am," said Mr. Binney gallantly.
"My heart is young," said Mrs. Higginbotham, greatly pleased at the
compliment, "and if I am not very much mistaken, yours is also."
"I hope it is," said Mr. Binney, greatly pleased in his turn; "and on
that account I have a proposal to make to you, ma'am, which I hope you
will consider favourably."
"I'm sure I shall do that, whatever it is," said Mrs. Higginbotham
comfortably.
"I hope so," said Mr. Binney again. "The fact is, ma'am, that I have
long regarded you with feelings of interest, which have in the course
of time developed into feelings of affection. I can scarcely hope that
those feelings are returned, but I should wish to ask, ma'am, if there
is any chance in the near or distant future that they might be."
"Oh, Mr. Binney!" exclaimed Mrs. Higginbotham with a lively
recollection of the heroines of fiction. "This is so sudden."
"It is, ma'am," said Mr. Binney. "I am aware of that. This sort of
thing _must_ be sudden at some time or another, if it is to result in
bus--I mean if anything is to come of it. I don't wish to press you
for an answer yet. I merely wish to lay my ideas before you. I might
say that I wish to marry again in order to obtain those advantages
which--er--which _come_ from marrying again. I might say that I want
an agreeable companion to sit at the head of my table, to entertain me
with her society in my leisure hours, and to act in the capacity of
mother to my only son. I do want that, but that is not all. I have
worked hard all my life, ma'am, and am now a comparatively rich man.
But I have had very little pleasure in my life. I married my first
wife to please _her_. I want to marry my second to please _myself_.
And I want above all to impart into the affair some of
that--er--_glamour_, which, in my opinion, should envelop all
courtship. I therefore come to you, ma'am, an agreeable and charming
woman, and ask you, not to accept me as a man of good position able to
offer you a comfortable home, which I am aware you have already, but as
a man who, although no longer young, is younger than a good many
people, and who loves you for yourself alone, and would like to take an
opportunity of proving it."
Could Mrs. Higginbotham believe her ears? If Peter Binney had asked
her to marry him in the way he had suggested, and scouted, she would
have accepted him with a sigh for lost illusions now no longer tenable.
But it really seemed as if that romance for which the poor lady had so
longed was going to be opened up for her, and an ardent swain, in the
person of Peter Binney, Manufacturer of Poultry Food, was ready to
throw himself at her feet and plead for her favour. Mrs. Higginbotham
could scarcely yet grasp the happiness that seemed to be dawning on her
horizon.
"Do you really love me for myself, Mr. Binney?" she asked with
faltering lips.
"Say Peter," corrected Mr. Binney.
"Peter," said Mrs. Higginbotham submissively, with a delicious thrill.
"Yes, I do," said that gentleman. "But I don't want you to accept me
in a hurry, you know," he added hastily. "I want you to try me, to
prove me, to see what I'm made of." He slapped his little breast with
a determined air, and looked round the room as if in search of some
object by means of which he might be proved on the spot.
Mrs. Higginbotham might have replied that she knew him tolerably well
already, having met him with some frequency for the last twenty years.
But his attitude caused her such a degree of pleasure that she was by
no means prepared to spoil the sensation by reminding him of that fact.
At the same time she was a little nervous and flurried. She had all
the will in the world to prove him, but she didn't quite know how to
set about it. If there had been a crusade handy she might have sent
him off to that, but she could think of no nineteenth century
substitute on the spur of the moment. Mr. Binney had been a Volunteer
in his youth, as he had often told her, but he was one no longer, so
she could not set him to watch his accoutrements all night in a church.
Besides, Mr. Binney went to chapel, and the minister wouldn't have
liked it. She didn't really quite know what he did want, but
fortunately Mr. Binney himself came to the rescue and made himself a
little clearer.
"Now, Mrs. Higginbotham," he began. "By-the-bye, may I call you
Martha?"
"Yes, do," said Mrs. Higginbotham.
"Now, my dear Martha," began Mr. Binney again, "what you have got to do
is to tell me what in your opinion the behaviour of an ideal lover
should be, and what _I_ have got to do is to endeavour to the best of
my ability to act up to your opinion."
"Well, Peter," began Mrs. Higginbotham, "I must confess that I have
always wished that I had had in my youth a devoted lover who should be
something of a hero."
"Quite so, quite so," assented Mr. Binney with an energetic nod. "I
shall do my best to be that, my very best."
"One," continued Mrs. Higginbotham, "whom I could admire
for--er--manliness and--er--light-heartedness, and--er--beauty, both of
form and feature."
"Exactly so," nodded her wooer.
"One who would regard me as the most beautiful--er--female in the
world; not that I should be that, of course, but I should like him to
think so."
"Of course, of course," said Mr. Binney. "Quite natural."
"And who would try to make little opportunities of meeting me, and
being where I was."
"Exactly," said Mr. Binney, who had been admitted into Mrs.
Higginbotham's house any time these last twenty years whenever he liked
to present himself.
"Whose heart would beat quicker when he _did_ see me, and who would be
quite rewarded for any trouble he might have taken over the matter _by_
seeing me."
"I quite see, ma'am, I quite see," said Mr. Binney. "The truth of it
is, you want to renew your youth, I take it. Not that it requires much
renewing," he added gallantly.
"Oh, Peter!" exclaimed Mrs. Higginbotham coyly.
"And I want to renew _my_ youth, Martha," continued Mr. Binney with
some fervour. "I've worked very hard ever since I was a boy, as you
know, and I never had the fun that I should like to have had, or that
the young fellows I see about me now have--my son, for instance."
"Dear boy," murmured Mrs. Higginbotham.
"Dear boy, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Binney, "and _lucky_ boy, too,
Martha. Look what I've done for that boy. I've sent him to Eton,
where _I_ never had a chance of going, or anywhere like it. Why,
Martha, life is one continuous round of pleasure at Eton. And now he
is going to Cambridge. _There's_ a place for you! Why, I assure you,
you could hardly believe the fun that young fellows have at a place
like Cambridge."
"Yes, I can. I've read books about it," said Mrs. Higginbotham, "and I
had a nephew there once who used to tell me things. Ah, Mr. Binney, if
I were only what I used to be twenty years ago, and you were at
Cambridge!"
"Pooh, Martha," said Mr. Binney. "You weren't half so attractive as
you are now, I'll be bound. And as for me, though I _am_ forty-five,
I'm as active as ever and could hold up my head with the best of them."
"I know you could, Peter," said Mrs. Higginbotham.
"Now, Martha, I've got something in my mind," said Mr. Binney. "It's
been there for some time, but I haven't liked to mention it to you
because I was afraid--well, I didn't know how you might take it. But
really, you've taken what I _have_ said in such a way as--as to be
extremely gratifying to me, and upon my word I don't believe you'll
think my idea so very absurd after all."
Mrs. Higginbotham looked at him with deep interest depicted in her face.
Mr. Binney squared himself and sat up in his chair. "Lucius is going
to Cambridge in October," he said. "Now what do you say to my going
with him?"
Mrs. Higginbotham's look of interest gradually brightened into one of
delighted agreement. "Oh, Peter," she said, "if you only could! Isn't
it too late?"
"Not a bit," said Mr. Binney. "There's no limit of age. I found that
out long ago. I could go up there and be treated in all respects as if
I was five-and-twenty years younger than I am. And do you know,
Martha," added the little man confidentially, "such is my freshness of
mind that I believe in time I should come to believe that I _was_
five-and-twenty years younger."
Mrs. Higginbotham looked at him in speechless admiration. "It would be
lovely," she said. "What an interest I should take in your doings,
Peter!"
This speech was as a spark to the tinder of Mr. Binney's inclinations.
"If you think about it like that, Martha, I'll do it," he cried
delightedly. "And now I must be getting home. I'll have a talk to
Lucius about it to-night, and come and tell you what I have decided
to-morrow."
Mr. Binney took a tender farewell of Mrs. Higginbotham, and left her to
spend the evening in roseate dreams of returning youth and a wider
horizon than that visible from her windows in Woburn Square.