SAM IN THE SUBURBS
P. G. WODEHOUSE
By P. G. WODEHOUSE
SAM IN THE SUBURBS
BILL THE CONQUEROR
LEAVE IT TO PSMITH
GOLF WITHOUT TEARS
JEEVES
MOSTLY SALLY
THREE MEN AND A MAID
INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE
THE LITTLE WARRIOR
A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
SAM IN
THE SUBURBS
BY
P. G. WODEHOUSE
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1925
BY P. G. WODEHOUSE
[Illustration]
THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1925.
SAM IN THE SUBURBS
--Q--
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SAM STARTS ON A JOURNEY 9
II. KAY OF VALLEY FIELDS 24
III. SAILORS DON’T CARE 44
IV. SCENE OUTSIDE FASHIONABLE NIGHT-CLUB 53
V. PAINFUL AFFAIR AT A COFFEE-STALL 61
VI. A FRIEND IN NEED 65
VII. SAM AT SAN RAFAEL 71
VIII. SAM AT MON REPOS 78
IX. BREAKFAST FOR ONE 82
X. SAM FINDS A PHOTOGRAPH 85
XI. SAM BECOMES A HOUSEHOLDER 90
XII. SAM IS MUCH TOO SUDDEN 97
XIII. INTRODUCING A SYNDICATE 127
XIV. THE CHIRRUP 144
XV. VISITORS AT MON REPOS 152
XVI. ASTONISHING STATEMENT OF HASH TODHUNTER 161
XVII. ACTIVITIES OF THE DOG AMY 179
XVIII. DISCUSSION AT A LUNCHEON TABLE 196
XIX. LORD TILBURY ENGAGES AN ALLY 210
XX. TROUBLE IN THE SYNDICATE 224
XXI. AUNT YSOBEL POINTS THE WAY 232
XXII. STORMY TIMES AT MON REPOS 250
XXIII. SOAPY MOLLOY’S BUSY AFTERNOON 267
XXIV. MAINLY ABOUT TROUSERS 288
XXV. SAM HEARS BAD NEWS 302
XXVI. SAM HEARS GOOD NEWS 313
XXVII. SPIRITED BEHAVIOUR OF MR. BRADDOCK 322
XXVIII. THE MISSING MILLIONS 329
XXIX. MR. CORNELIUS READS HIS HISTORY 336
SAM IN THE SUBURBS
CHAPTER ONE
SAM STARTS ON A JOURNEY
All day long, New York, stewing in the rays of a late August sun, had
been growing warmer and warmer; until now, at three o’clock in the
afternoon, its inhabitants, with the exception of a little group
gathered together on the tenth floor of the Wilmot Building on Upper
Broadway, had divided themselves by a sort of natural cleavage into two
main bodies--the one crawling about and asking those they met if this
was hot enough for them, the other maintaining that what they minded was
not so much the heat as the humidity.
The reason for the activity prevailing on the tenth floor of the Wilmot
was that a sporting event of the first magnitude was being pulled off
there--Spike Murphy, of the John B. Pynsent Import and Export Company,
being in the act of contesting the final of the Office Boys’
High-Kicking Championship against a willowy youth from the Consolidated
Eyebrow Tweezer and Nail File Corporation. The affair was taking place
on the premises of a few stenographers, chewing gum; some male wage
slaves in shirt sleeves; and Mr. John B. Pynsent’s nephew, Samuel
Shotter, a young man of agreeable features, who was acting as referee.
In addition to being referee, Sam Shotter was also the patron and
promoter of the tourney; the man but for whose vision and enterprise a
wealth of young talent would have lain undeveloped, thereby jeopardising
America’s chances should an event of this kind ever be added to the
program of the Olympic Games. It was he who, wandering about the office
in a restless search for methods of sweetening an uncongenial round of
toil, had come upon Master Murphy practicing kicks against the wall of a
remote corridor and had encouraged him to kick higher. It was he who had
arranged matches with representatives of other firms throughout the
building. And it was he who out of his own pocket had provided the purse
which, as the lad’s foot crashed against the plaster a full inch above
his rival’s best effort, he now handed to Spike together with a few
well-chosen words.
“Murphy,” said Sam, “is the winner. After a contest conducted throughout
in accordance with the best traditions of American high kicking, he has
upheld the honour of the John B. Pynsent Ex and Imp and retained his
title. In the absence of the boss, therefore, who has unfortunately been
called away to Philadelphia and so is unable to preside at this meeting,
I take much pleasure in presenting him with the guerdon of victory, this
handsome dollar bill. Take it, Spike, and in after years, when you are a
grey-haired alderman or something, look back to this moment and say to
yourself----”
Sam stopped, a little hurt. He thought he had been speaking rather well,
yet already his audience was walking out on him. Spike Murphy, indeed,
was running.
“Say to yourself----”
“When you are at leisure, Samuel,” observed a voice behind him, “I
should be glad of a word with you in my office.”
Sam turned.
“Oh, hullo, uncle,” he said.
He coughed; Mr. Pynsent coughed.
“I thought you had gone to Philadelphia,” said Sam.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Pynsent.
He made no further remark, but proceeded sedately to his room, from
which he emerged again a moment later with a patient look of inquiry on
his face.
“Come here, Sam,” he said. “Who,” he asked, pointing, “is this?”
Sam peeped through the doorway and perceived, tilted back in a swivel
chair, a long, lean man of repellent aspect. His large feet rested
comfortably on the desk, his head hung sideways and his mouth was open.
From his mouth, which was of generous proportions, there came a gurgling
snore.
“Who,” repeated Mr. Pynsent, “is this gentleman?”
Sam could not help admiring his uncle’s unerring instinct--that amazing
intuition which had led him straight to the realisation that if an
uninvited stranger was slumbering in his pet chair, the responsibility
must of necessity be his nephew Samuel’s.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know he was there.”
“A friend of yours?”
“It’s Hash.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Hash Todhunter, you know, the cook of the _Araminta_. You remember I
took a trip a year ago on a tramp steamer? This fellow was the cook. I
met him on Broadway this afternoon and gave him lunch. I brought him
back here because he wanted to see the place where I work.”
“Work?” said Mr. Pynsent, puzzled.
“I had no notion he had strayed into your room.”
Sam spoke apologetically, but he would have liked to point out that the
blame for all these embarrassing occurrences was really Mr. Pynsent’s.
If a man creates the impression that he is going to Philadelphia and
then does not go, he has only himself to thank for any complications
that may ensue. However, this was a technicality with which he did not
bother his uncle.
“Shall I wake him?”
“If you would be so good. And having done so, take him away and store
him somewhere and then come back. I have much to say to you.”
Shaken by a vigorous hand, the sleeper opened his eyes. Hauled to his
feet, he permitted himself to be led, still in a trancelike condition,
out of the room and down the passage to the cubbyhole where Sam
performed his daily duties. Here, sinking into a chair, he fell asleep
again; and Sam left him and went back to his uncle. Mr. Pynsent was
staring thoughtfully out of the window as he entered.
“Sit down, Sam,” he said.
Sam sat down.
“I’m sorry about all that, uncle.”
“All what?”
“All that business that was going on when you came in.”
“Ah, yes. What was it, by the way?”
“Spike Murphy was seeing if he could kick higher than a kid from a firm
downstairs.”
“And did he?”
“Yes.”
“Good boy,” said Mr. Pynsent approvingly. “You arranged the competition,
no doubt?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”
“You would. You have been in my employment,” proceeded Mr. Pynsent
evenly, “three months. In that time you have succeeded in thoroughly
demoralising the finest office force in New York.”
“Oh, uncle!” said Sam reproachfully.
“Thoroughly,” repeated Mr. Pynsent. “The office boys call you by your
Christian name.”
“They will do it,” sighed Sam. “I clump their heads, but the habit
persists.”
“Last Wednesday I observed you kissing my stenographer.”
“The poor little thing had toothache.”
“Also, Mr. Ellaby informs me that your work is a disgrace to the firm.”
There was a pause. “The English public school is the curse of the age,”
said Mr. Pynsent dreamily.
To a stranger the remark might have sounded irrelevant, but Sam
understood the import. He appreciated it for what it was--a nasty crack.
“Did they teach you anything at Wrykyn, Sam, except football?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What?”
“Oh, lots of things.”
“I have seen no evidence of it. Why your mother sent you to that place,
instead of to some good business college, I cannot imagine.”
“Well, you see, father had been there----”
Sam broke off. Mr. Pynsent, he was aware, had not been fond of the late
Anthony Shotter--considering, and possibly correctly, that his dead
sister had, in marrying that amiable but erratic person, been guilty of
the crowning folly of a frivolous and fluffy-headed life.
“A strong recommendation,” said Mr. Pynsent dryly.
Sam had nothing to say to this.
“You are very like your father in a great many ways,” said Mr. Pynsent.
Sam let this one go by too. They were coming off the bat a bit fast this
morning, but there was nothing to be done about it.
“And yet I am fond of you, Sam,” resumed Mr. Pynsent after a brief
pause.
This was more the stuff.
“And I am fond of you, uncle,” said Sam in a hearty voice. “When I think
of all you have done for me----”
“But,” went on Mr. Pynsent, “I feel that I shall like you even better
three thousand miles away from the offices of the Pynsent Export and
Import Company. We are parting, Sam--and immediately.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I, on the other hand,” said Mr. Pynsent, “am glad.”
There was a silence. Sam, feeling that the interview, having reached
this point, might be considered over, got up.
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Pynsent. “I want to tell you what plans I have
made for your future.”
Sam was agreeably surprised. He had not supposed that his future would
be of interest to Mr. Pynsent.
“Have you made plans?”
“Yes; everything is settled.”
“This is fine, uncle,” said Sam cordially. “I thought you were going to
drive me out into the snow.”
“Do you remember meeting an Englishman named Lord Tilbury at dinner at
my house?”
Sam did indeed. His Lordship had got him wedged into a corner after the
meal and had talked without a pause for more than half an hour.
“He is the proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company, a concern which
produces a great many daily and weekly papers in London.”
Sam was aware of this. Lord Tilbury’s conversation had been almost
entirely autobiographical.
“Well, he is returning to England on Saturday on the _Mauretania_, and
you are going with him.”
“Eh?”
“He has offered to employ you in his business.”
“But I don’t know anything about newspaper work.”
“You don’t know anything about anything,” Mr. Pynsent pointed out
gently. “It is the effect of your English public-school education.
However, you certainly cannot be a greater failure with Lord Tilbury
than you have been with me. That wastepaper basket over there has been
in my office only four days, and already it knows more about the export
and import business than you would learn if you stayed here fifty
years.”
Sam made plaintive noises. Fifty years, he considered, was an
overstatement.
“I concealed nothing of this from Lord Tilbury, but nevertheless he
insists on engaging you.”
“Odd,” said Sam. He could not help feeling a little flattered at this
intense desire for his services on the part of a man who had met him
only once. Lord Tilbury might be a bore, but there was no getting away
from the fact that he had that gift without which no one can amass a
large fortune--that strange, almost uncanny gift for spotting the good
man when he saw him.
“Not at all odd,” said Mr. Pynsent. “He and I are in the middle of a
business deal. He is trying to persuade me to do something which at
present I have not made up my mind to do. He thinks that by taking you
off my hands he will put me under an obligation. So he will.”
“Uncle,” said Sam impressively, “I will make good.”
“You’d better,” returned Mr. Pynsent, unmelted. “It is your last
chance. There is no earthly reason why I should go on supporting you for
the rest of your life, and I do not intend to do it. If you make a mess
of things at Tilbury House, don’t think that you can come running back
to me. There will be no fatted calf. Remember that.”
“I will, uncle, I will. But don’t worry. Something tells me I am going
to be good. I shall like going to England.”
“I am glad to hear that. Well, that is all. Good afternoon.”
“You know, it’s rather strange that you should be sending me over
there,” said Sam meditatively.
“I don’t think so. I am glad to have the chance.”
“What I mean is--do you believe in palmists?”
“I do not. Good-bye.”
“Because a palmist told me----”
“The door,” said Mr. Pynsent, “is one of those which close automatically
when the handle is released.”
Having tested this statement and proved it correct, Sam went back to his
own quarters, where he found Mr. Clarence (Hash) Todhunter, the popular
and energetic chef of the tramp steamer _Araminta_, awake and smoking a
short pipe.
“Who was the old boy?” inquired Mr. Todhunter.
“That was my uncle, the head of the firm.”
“Did I go to sleep in his room?”
“You did.”
“I’m sorry about that, Sam,” said Hash, with manly regret. “I had a late
night last night.”
He yawned spaciously. Hash Todhunter was a lean, stringy man in the
early thirties, with a high forehead and a ruminative eye. Irritated
messmates who had played poker with him had sometimes compared this eye
to that of a perishing fish; but to the critic whose judgment was not
biased and inflamed by recent pecuniary losses it would have been more
suggestive of a parrot which has looked on life and found it full of
disillusionment. There was a strong pessimistic streak in Hash, and in
his cups he was accustomed to hint darkly that if everyone had their
rights he would have been in the direct line of succession to an
earldom. It was a long and involved story, casting great discredit on
all the parties concerned; but as he never told it twice in the same
way, little credence was accorded to it by a discriminating fo’c’sle.
For the rest, he cooked the best dry hash on the Western Ocean, but was
not proud.
“Hash,” said Sam, “I’m going over to England.”
“Me too. We sail Monday.”
“Do you, by Jove!” said Sam thoughtfully. “I’m supposed to be going on
the _Mauretania_ on Saturday, but I’ve half a mind to come with you
instead. I don’t like the idea of six days _tête-à-tête_ with Lord
Tilbury.”
“Who’s he?”
“The proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company, where I am going to
work.”
“Have you got the push here then?”
It piqued Sam a little that this untutored man should so readily have
divined the facts. He also considered that Hash had failed in tact. He
might at least have pretended that he supposed it to be a case of
handing in a resignation.
“Yes, you might perhaps put it that way.”
“Not because of me sittin’ in his chair?”
“No. There are, apparently, a number of reasons. Hash, it’s a curious
thing, my uncle taking it into his head to shoot me over to England like
this. The other day a palmist told me that I was shortly going to take a
long journey, at the end of which I should meet a fair girl.... Hash!”
“Ur?”
“I want to show you something.”
He fumbled in his pocket and produced a note-case. Having done this, he
paused. Then, seeming to overcome a momentary hesitation, he opened the
case and from it, with the delicacy of an Indian priest at a shrine
handling a precious relic, extracted a folded piece of paper.
A casual observer, deceived by a certain cheery irresponsibility that
marked his behaviour, might have set Sam Shotter down as one of those
essentially material young men in whose armour romance does not easily
find a chink. He would have erred in this assumption. For all that he
weighed a hundred and seventy pounds of bone and sinew and had when
amused--which was often--a laugh like that of the hyena in its native
jungle, there was sentiment in Sam. Otherwise this paper would scarcely
have been in his possession.
“But before showing it to you,” he said, eying Hash intently, “I would
like to ask you a question. Do you see anything funny, anything
laughable, anything at all ludicrous, in a fellow going for a fishing
trip to Canada and being stuck in a hut miles from anywhere with nothing
to read and nothing to listen to except the wild duck calling to its
mate and the nifties of a French-Canadian guide who couldn’t speak more
than three words of English----”
“No,” said Hash.
“I haven’t finished. Do you--to proceed--see anything absurd in the fact
that such a fellow, in such a situation, finding the photograph of a
beautiful girl tacked up on the wall of the hut by some previous visitor
and having nothing else to look at for five weeks, should have fallen in
love with this photograph? Think before you answer.”
“No,” said Hash, after consideration. He was not a man who readily
detected the humorous aspect of anything.
“That’s good,” said Sam. “And lucky for you. Because had you let one
snicker out of yourself--just one--I would have smitten you rather
forcibly on the beezer. Well, I did.”
“Did what?”
“Found this picture tacked up on the wall and fell in love with it.
Look!”
He unfolded the paper reverently. It now revealed itself as a portion of
a page torn from one of those illustrated journals which brighten the
middle of the Englishman’s week. Its sojourn on the wall of the fishing
hut had not improved it. It was faded and yellow, and over one corner a
dark stain had spread itself, seeming to indicate that some occupant of
the hut had at one time or another done a piece of careless carving.
Nevertheless, he gazed at it as a young knight might have gazed upon the
Holy Grail.
“Well?”
Hash surveyed the paper closely.
“That’s mutton gravy,” he said, pointing at the stain and forming a
professional man’s swift diagnosis. “Beef wouldn’t be so dark.”
Sam regarded him with a glance of concentrated loathing which would have
embarrassed a more sensitive man.
“I show you this lovely face, all aglow with youth and the joy of life,”
he cried, “and all that seems to interest you is that some foul vandal,
whose neck I should like to wring, has splashed his beastly dinner over
it. Heavens, man, look at that girl! Have you ever seen such a girl?”
“She’s not bad.”
“Not bad! Can’t you see she’s simply marvellous?”
The photograph did, indeed, to a great extent justify Sam’s enthusiasm.
It represented a girl in hunting costume, standing beside her horse. She
was a trim, boyish-looking girl of about eighteen, slightly above the
medium height; and she gazed out of the picture with clear, grave,
steady eyes. At the corner of her mouth there was a little thoughtful
droop. It was a pretty mouth; but Sam, who had made a study of the
picture and considered himself the world’s leading authority upon it,
was of opinion that it would look even prettier when smiling.
Under the photograph, in leaded capitals, ran the words:
A FAIR DAUGHTER OF NIMROD.
Beneath this poetical caption, it is to be presumed, there had
originally been more definite information as to the subject’s identity,
but the coarse hand which had wrenched the page from its setting had
unfortunately happened to tear off the remainder of the letterpress.
“Simply marvellous,” said Sam emotionally. “What’s that thing of
Tennyson’s about a little English rosebud, she?”
“Tennyson? There was a feller when I was on the _Sea Bird_, called
Pennyman----”
“Oh, shut up! Isn’t she a wonder, Hash! And what is more--fair, wouldn’t
you say?”
Hash scratched his chin. He was a man who liked to think things over.
“Or dark,” he said.
“Idiot! Don’t tell me those eyes aren’t blue.”
“Might be,” admitted Hash grudgingly.
“And that hair would be golden, or possibly a very light brown.”
“How’m I to know?”
“Hash,” said Sam, “the very first thing I do when I get to England is to
find out who that girl is.”
“Easy enough.” Hash pointed the stem of his pipe at the caption.
“Daughter of Nimrod. All you got to do is get a telephone directory and
look him up. It’ll give the address as well.”
“How do you think of these things?” said Sam admiringly. “The only
trouble is, suppose old man Nimrod lives in the country. He sounds like
a hunting man.”
“Ah!” said Hash. “There’s that, o’ course.”
“No, my best scheme will be to find out what paper this is torn out of,
and then search back through the files for the picture.”
“Maybe,” said Hash. He had plainly lost interest in the subject.
Sam was gazing dreamily at the picture.
“Do you see that little dimple just by the chin, Hash? My goodness, I’d
give something to see that girl smile!” He replaced the paper in his
note-case and sighed. “Love is a wonderful thing, Hash.”
Mr. Todhunter’s ample mouth curled sardonically.
“When you’ve seen as much of life as I have,” he replied, “you’d rather
have a cup of tea.”
CHAPTER TWO
KAY OF VALLEY FIELDS
The nameless individual who had torn from its setting the photograph
which had so excited the admiration of Sam Shotter had, as has been
already indicated, torn untidily. Had he exercised a little more care,
that lovelorn young man would have seen beneath the picture the
following legend:
MISS KAY DERRICK, DAUGHTER OF COL. EUSTACE
DERRICK, OF MIDWAYS HALL, WILTS.
And if he had happened to be in Piccadilly Circus on a certain afternoon
some three weeks after his conversation with Hash Todhunter, he might
have observed Miss Derrick in person. For she was standing on the island
there waiting for a Number Three omnibus.
His first impression, had he so beheld her, would certainly have been
that the photograph, attractive though it was, did not do her justice.
Four years had passed since it had been taken, and between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-two many girls gain appreciably in looks. Kay
Derrick was one of them. He would then have observed that his views on
her appearance had been sound. Her eyes, as he had predicted, were
blue--a very dark, warm blue like the sky on a summer night--and her
hair, such of it as was visible beneath a becoming little hat, was of a
soft golden brown. The third thing he would have noticed about her was
that she looked tired. And, indeed, she was. It was her daily task to
present herself at the house of a certain Mrs. Winnington-Bates in
Thurloe Square, South Kensington, to read to that lady and to attend to
her voluminous correspondence. And nobody who knew Mrs. Winnington-Bates
at all intimately would have disputed the right of any girl who did this
to look as tired as she pleased.
The omnibus arrived and Kay climbed the steps to the roof. The conductor
presented himself, punch in hand.
“Fez, pliz.”
“Valley Fields,” said Kay.
“Q,” said the conductor.
He displayed no excitement as he handed her the ticket, none of that
anxious concern exhibited by those who met the young man with the banner
marked Excelsior; for the days are long past when it was considered
rather a dashing adventure to journey to Valley Fields. Two hundred
years ago, when highwaymen roved West Kensington and snipe were shot in
Regent Street, this pleasant suburb in the Postal Division S. E. 21 was
a remote spot to which jaded bucks and beaux would ride when they wanted
to get really close to Nature. But now that vast lake of brick and
asphalt which is London has flooded its banks and engulfed it. The
Valley Fields of to-day is a mass of houses, and you may reach it not
only by omnibus but by train, and even by tram.
It was a place very familiar to Kay now, so that at times she seemed to
have been there all her life; and yet actually only a few months had
elapsed since she had been washed up on its shores like a piece of
flotsam; or, to put the facts with less imagery, since Mr. Wrenn, of San
Rafael, Burberry Road, had come forward on the death of her parents and
offered her a home there. This Mr. Wrenn being the bad Uncle Matthew who
in the dim past--somewhere around the year 1905--splashed a hideous blot
on the Derrick escutcheon by eloping with Kay’s Aunt Enid.
Kay had been a child of two at the time, and it was not till she was
eight that she heard the story, her informant being young Willoughby
Braddock, the stout boy who, with the aid of a trustee, owned the great
house and estates adjoining Midways. It was a romantic story--of a young
man who had come down to do Midways for the Stately-Homes-of-England
series appearing in the then newly established Pyke’s _Home Companion_;
who in the process of doing it had made the acquaintance of the sister
of its owner; and who only a few weeks later had induced her to run away
and marry him, thereby--according to the viewpoint of the
family--ruining her chances in this world and her prospects in the next.
For twenty years Matthew Wrenn had been the family outcast, and now time
had accomplished one more of its celebrated revenges. The death of
Colonel Derrick, which had followed that of his wife by a few months,
had revealed the fact that in addition to Norman blood he had also had
the simple faith which the poet ranks so much more highly--it taking the
form of trusting prospectuses which should not have deceived a child
and endeavouring to make up losses caused by the diminishing value of
land with a series of speculations, each of them more futile and
disastrous than the last. His capital had gone to the four winds,
Midways had gone to the mortgagees, and Kay, apprised of these facts by
a sympathetic family lawyer, had gone to Mr. Matthew Wrenn, now for many
years the editor of that same Pyke’s _Home Companion_ of which he had
once been the mere representative.
The omnibus stopped at the corner of Burberry Road, and Kay, alighting,
walked toward San Rafael. Burberry Road is not one of the more
fashionable and wealthy districts of Valley Fields, and most of the
houses in it are semi-detached. San Rafael belonged to this class, being
joined, like a stucco Siamese Twin, in indissoluble union to its
next-door neighbour, Mon Repos. It had in front of it a strip of gravel,
two apologetic-looking flower beds with evergreens in them, a fence, and
in the fence a gate, modelled on the five-barred gates of the country.
Out of this gate, as Kay drew near, there came an elderly gentleman,
tall, with grey hair and a scholarly stoop.
“Why, hullo, darling,” said Kay. “Where are you off to?”
She kissed her uncle affectionately, for she had grown very fond of him
in the months of their companionship.
“Just popping round to have a chat with Cornelius,” said Mr. Wrenn. “I
thought I might get a game of chess.”
In actual years Matthew Wrenn was on the right side of fifty; but as
editors of papers like Pyke’s _Home Companion_ are apt to do, he looked
older than he really was. He was a man of mild and dreamy aspect, and it
being difficult to imagine him in any dashing rôle, Kay rather supposed
that the energy and fire which had produced the famous elopement must
have come from the lady’s side.
“Well, don’t be late for dinner,” she said. “Is Willoughby in?”
“I left him in the garden.” Mr. Wrenn hesitated. “That’s a curious young
man, Kay.”
“It’s an awful shame that he should be inflicted on you, darling,” said
Kay. “His housekeeper shooed him out of his house, you know. She wanted
to give it a thorough cleaning. And he hates staying at clubs and
hotels, and I’ve known him all my life, and he asked me if we could put
him up, and--well, there you are. But cheer up, it’s only for to-night.”
“My dear, you know I’m only too glad to put up any friend of yours. But
he’s such a peculiar young fellow. I have been trying to talk to him for
an hour, and all he does is to look at me like a goldfish.”
“Like a goldfish?”
“Yes, with his eyes staring and his lips moving without any sound coming
from them.”
Kay laughed.
“It’s his speech. I forgot to tell you. The poor lamb has got to make a
speech to-night at the annual dinner of the Old Boys of his school. He’s
never made one before, and it’s weighing on his mind terribly.”
Mr. Wrenn looked relieved.
“Oh, I didn’t know. Honestly, my dear, I thought that he must be
mentally deficient.” He looked at his watch. “Well, if you think you can
entertain him, I will be going along.”
Mr. Wrenn went on his way; and Kay, passing through the five-barred
gate, followed the little gravel path which skirted the house and came
into the garden.
Like all the gardens in the neighbourhood, it was a credit to its
owner--on the small side, but very green and neat and soothing. The fact
that, though so widely built over, Valley Fields has not altogether lost
its ancient air of rusticity is due entirely to the zeal and devotion of
its amateur horticulturists. More seeds are sold each spring in Valley
Fields, more lawn mowers pushed, more garden rollers borrowed, more
snails destroyed, more green fly squirted with patent mixtures, than in
any other suburb on the Surrey side of the river. Brixton may have its
Bon Marché and Sydenham its Crystal Palace; but when it comes to
pansies, roses, tulips, hollyhocks and nasturtiums, Valley Fields points
with pride.
In addition to its other attractive features, the garden of San Rafael
contained at this moment a pinkish, stoutish, solemn young man in a
brown suit, who was striding up and down the lawn with a glassy stare in
his eyes.
“Hullo, Willoughby,” said Kay.
The young man came out of his trance with a strong physical convulsion.
“Oh, hullo, Kay.”
He followed her across the lawn to the tea table which stood in the
shade of a fine tree. For there are trees in this favoured spot as well
as flowers.
“Tea, Willoughby?” said Kay, sinking gratefully into a deck chair. “Or
have you had yours?”
“Yes, I had some.... I think----” Mr. Braddock weighed the question
thoughtfully. “Yes.... Yes, I’ve had some.”
Kay filled her cup and sipped luxuriously.
“Golly, I’m tired!” she said.
“Had a bad day?”
“Much the same as usual.”
“Mrs. B. not too cordial?”
“Not very. And, unfortunately, the son and heir was cordiality itself.”
Mr. Braddock nodded.
“A bit of a trial, that lad.”
“A bit.”
“Wants kicking.”
“Very badly.”
Kay gave a little wriggle of distaste. Technically, her duties at
Thurloe Square consisted of reading and writing Mrs. Winnington-Bates’
letters; but what she was engaged for principally, she sometimes
thought, was to act as a sort of spiritual punching bag for her
employer. To-day that lady had been exceptionally trying. Her son, on
the other hand, who had recently returned to his home after an
unsuccessful attempt to learn poultry farming in Sussex and was lounging
about it, with little to occupy him, had shown himself, in his few
moments of opportunity, more than usually gallant. What life needed to
make it a trifle easier, Kay felt, was for Mrs. Bates to admire her a
little more and for Claude Bates to admire her a little less.
“I remember him at school,” said Mr. Braddock. “A worm.”
“Was he at school with you?”
“Yes. Younger than me. A beastly little kid who stuffed himself with
food and frousted over fires and shirked games. I remember Sam Shotter
licking him once for stealing jam sandwiches at the school shop. By the
way, Sam’s coming over here. I had a letter from him.”
“Is he? And who is he? You’ve never mentioned his name before.”
“Haven’t I told you about old Sam Shotter?” asked Mr. Braddock,
surprised.
“Never. But he sounds wonderfully attractive. Anyone who licked Claude
Bates must have a lot of good in him.”
“He was at school with me.”
“What a lot of people seem to have been at school with you!”
“Well, there were about six hundred fellows at Wrykyn, you know. Sam and
I shared a study. Now there is a chap I envy. He’s knocked about all
over the world, having all sorts of fun. America one day, Australia the
next, Africa the day after.”
“Quick mover,” said Kay.
“The last I heard from him he was in his uncle’s office in New York, but
in this letter he says he’s coming over to work at Tilbury House.”
“Tilbury House? Really? I wonder if uncle will meet him.”
“Don’t you think it would be a sound move if I gave him a dinner or
something where he could meet a few of the lads? You and your uncle, of
course--and if I could get hold of old Tilbury.”
“Do you know Lord Tilbury?”
“Oh, yes; I play bridge with him sometimes at the club. And he took my
shooting last year.”
“When does Mr. Shotter arrive?”
“I don’t know. He says it’s uncertain. You see, he’s coming over on a
tramp steamer.”
“A tramp steamer? Why?”
“Well, it’s the sort of thing he does. Sort of thing I’d like to do
too.”
“You?” said Kay, amazed. Willoughby Braddock had always seemed to her a
man to whose well-being the refinements--and even the luxuries--of
civilisation were essential. One of her earliest recollections was of
sitting in a tree and hurling juvenile insults at him, it having come to
her ears through reliable channels that he habitually wore bed socks.
“What nonsense, Willoughby! You would hate roughing it.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Mr. Braddock stoutly. “I’d love a bit of adventure.”
“Well, why don’t you have it? You’ve got plenty of money. You could be a
pirate of the Spanish Main if you wanted.”
Mr. Braddock shook his head wistfully.
“I can’t get away from Mrs. Lippett.”
Willoughby Braddock was one of those unfortunate bachelors who are
doomed to live under the thrall of either a housekeeper or a valet. His
particular cross in life was his housekeeper, his servitude being
rendered all the more unescapable by the fact that Mrs. Lippett had been
his nurse in the days of his childhood. There are men who can defy a
woman. There are men who can cope with a faithful old retainer. But if
there are men who can tackle a faithful old female retainer who has
frequently smacked them with the back of a hairbrush, Willoughby
Braddock was not one of them.
“She would have a fit or go into a decline or something if I tried to
break loose.”
“Poor old Willoughby! Life can be very hard, can’t it? By the way, I met
my uncle outside. He was complaining that you were not very chummy.”
“No, was he?”
“He said you just sat there looking at him like a goldfish.”
“Oh, I say!” said Mr. Braddock remorsefully. “I’m awfully sorry. I mean,
after he’s been so decent, putting me up and everything. I hope you
explained to him that I was frightfully worried about this speech.”
“Yes, I did. But I don’t see why you should be. It’s perfectly simple
making a speech. Especially at an Old Boys’ dinner, where they won’t
expect anything very much. If I were you, I should just get up and tell
them one or two funny stories and sit down again.”
“I’ve got one story,” said Mr. Braddock more hopefully. “It’s about an
Irishman.”
“Pat or Mike?”
“I thought of calling him Pat. He’s in New York and he goes down to the
dock and he sees a diver coming up out of the water--in a diving suit,
you know--and he thinks the fellow--the diver, you understand--has
walked across the Atlantic and wishes he had thought of doing the same
himself, so as to have saved the fare, don’t you know.”
“I see. One of those weak-minded Irishmen.”
“Do you think it will amuse them?” asked Mr. Braddock anxiously.
“I should think they would roll off their seats.”
“No, really?” He broke off and stretched out a hand in alarm. “I say,
you weren’t thinking of having one of those rock cakes, were you?”
“I was. But I won’t if you don’t want me to. Aren’t they good?”
“Good? My dear old soul,” said Mr. Braddock earnestly, “they are Clara’s
worst effort--absolutely her very worst. I had to eat one because she
came and stood over me and watched me do it. It beats me why you don’t
sack that girl. She’s a rotten cook.”
“Sack Claire?” Kay laughed. “You might just as well try to sack her
mother.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“You can’t sack a Lippett.”
“No, I see what you mean. I wish she wasn’t so dashed familiar with a
fellow, though.”
“Well, she has known you almost as long as I have. Mrs. Lippett has
always been a sort of mother to you, so I suppose Claire regards herself
as a sort of sister.”
“Yes, I suppose it can’t be helped,” said Mr. Braddock bravely. He
glanced at his watch. “Ought to be going and dressing. I’ll find you out
here before I leave?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, I’ll be pushing along. I say, you do think that story about the
Irishman is all right?”
“Best thing I ever heard,” said Kay loyally.
For some minutes after he had left her she sat back in her chair with
her eyes closed, relaxing in the evening stillness of this pleasant
garden.
“Finished with the tea, Miss Kay?”
Kay opened her eyes. A solid little figure in a print dress was standing
at her side. A jaunty maid’s cap surmounted this person’s tow-coloured
hair. She had a perky nose and a wide, friendly mouth, and she beamed
upon Kay devotedly.
“Brought you these,” she said, dropping a rug, two cushions and a
footstool, beneath the burden of which she had been staggering across
the lawn like a small pack mule. “Make you nice and comfortable, and
then you can get a nice nap. I can see you’re all tired out.”
“That’s awfully good of you, Claire. But you shouldn’t have bothered.”
Claire Lippett, daughter of Willoughby Braddock’s autocratic housekeeper
and cook and maid-of-all-work at San Rafael, was a survivor of the
Midways epoch. She had entered the Derrick household at the age of
twelve, her duties at that time being vague and leaving her plenty of
leisure for surreptitious bird’s-nesting with Kay, then thirteen. On her
eighteenth birthday she had been promoted to the post of Kay’s personal
maid, and from that moment may be said formally to have taken charge.
The Lippett motto was Fidelity, and not even the famous financial crash
had been able to dislodge this worthy daughter of the clan. Resolutely
following Kay into exile, she had become, as stated, Mr. Wrenn’s cook.
And, as Mr. Braddock had justly remarked, a very bad cook too.
“You oughtn’t to go getting yourself all tired, Miss Kay. You ought to
be sitting at your ease.”
“Well, so I am,” said Kay.
There were times when, like Mr. Braddock, she found the Lippett
protectiveness a little cloying. She was a high-spirited girl and wanted
to face the world with a defiant “Who cares?” and it was not easy to do
this with Claire coddling her all the time as if she were a fragile and
sensitive plant. Resistance, however, was useless. Nobody had ever yet
succeeded in curbing the motherly spirit of the Lippetts, and probably
nobody ever would.
“Meantersay,” explained Claire, adjusting the footstool, “you ought not
to be soiling your hands with work, that’s what I mean. It’s a shame you
should be having to----”
She stopped abruptly. She had picked up the tea tray and made a wounding
discovery.
“You haven’t touched my rock cakes,” she said in a voice in which
reproach and disappointment were nicely blended. “And I made them for
you special.”
“I didn’t want to spoil my dinner,” said Kay hastily. Claire was a
temperamental girl, quick to resent slurs on her handiwork. “I’m sure
you’ve got something nice.”
Claire considered the point.
“Well, yes and no,” she said. “If you’re thinking of the pudding, I’m
afraid that’s off. The kitten fell into the custard.”
“No!”
“She did. And when I’d fished her out there wasn’t hardly any left.
Seemed to have soaked it into her like as if she was a sponge. Still,
there ’ud be enough for you if Mr. Wrenn didn’t want any.”
“No, it doesn’t matter, thanks,” said Kay earnestly.
“Well, I’m trying a new soup, which’ll sort of make up for it. It’s one
I read in a book. It’s called pottage ar lar princess. You’re sure you
won’t have one of these rock cakes, Miss Kay? Put strength into you.”
“No, thanks, really.”
“Right-ho; just as you say.”
Miss Lippett crossed the lawn and disappeared, and a soothing peace fell
upon the garden. A few minutes later, however, just as Kay’s head was
beginning to nod, from an upper window there suddenly blared forth on
the still air a loud and raucous voice, suggestive of costermongers
advertising their Brussels sprouts or those who call the cattle home
across the Sands of Dee.
“I am reminded by a remark of our worthy president,” roared the voice,
“of a little story which may be new to some of you present here
to-night. It seems that a certain Irishman had gone down to New York--I
mean, he was in New York and had gone down to the docks--and while
there--while there----”
The voice trailed off. Apparently the lungs were willing but the memory
was weak. Presently it broke out in another place.
“For the school, gentlemen, our dear old school, occupies a place in
our hearts--a place in our hearts--in the hearts of all of us--in
all our hearts--in our hearts, gentlemen--which nothing else can
fill. It forms, if I may put it that way, Mr. President and
gentlemen--forms--forms--forms a link that links the generations.
Whether we are fifty years old or forty or thirty or twenty, we are none
the less all of us contemporaries. And why? Because, gentlemen, we are
all--er--linked by that link.”
“Jolly good!” murmured Kay, impressed.
“That is why, Mr. President and gentlemen, though I am glad, delighted,
pleased, happy and--er--overjoyed to see so many of you responding to
the annual call of our dear old school, I am not surprised.”
From the kitchen door, a small knife in one hand and a half-peeled onion
in the other, there emerged the stocky figure of Claire Lippett. She
gazed up at the window wrathfully.
“Hi!”
“No, not surprised.”
“Hi!”
“And talking of being surprised, I am reminded of a little story which
may be new to some of you present here to-night. It seems that a certain
Irishman----”
From the days when their ancestresses had helped the menfolk of the
tribe to make marauding Danes wish they had stayed in Denmark, the
female members of Claire Lippett’s family had always been women of
action. Having said “Hi!” twice, their twentieth-century descendant
seemed to consider that she had done all that could reasonably be
expected of her in the way of words. With a graceful swing of her right
arm, she sent the onion shooting upward. And such was the never-failing
efficiency of this masterly girl that it whizzed through the open
window, from which, after a brief interval, there appeared, leaning
out, the dress-shirted and white-tied upper portion of Mr. Willoughby
Braddock. He was rubbing his ear.
“Be quiet, can’t you?” said Miss Lippett.
Mr. Braddock gazed austerely into the depths. Except that the positions
of the characters were inverted and the tone of the dialogue somewhat
different, it might have been the big scene out of _Romeo and Juliet_.
“What did you say?”
“I said be quiet. Miss Kay wants to get a bit of sleep. How can she get
a bit of sleep with that row going on?”
“Clara!” said Mr. Braddock portentously.
“Claire,” corrected the girl coldly, insisting on a point for which she
had had to fight all her life.
Mr. Braddock gulped.
“I shall--er--I shall speak to your mother,” he said.
It was a futile threat, and Claire signified as much by jerking her
shoulder in a scornful and derogatory manner before stumping back to the
house with all the honours of war. She knew--and Mr. Braddock knew that
she knew--that complaints respecting her favourite daughter would be
coldly received by Mrs. Lippett.
Mr. Braddock withdrew from the window, and presently appeared in the
garden, beautifully arrayed.
“Why, Willoughby,” said Kay admiringly, “you look wonderful!”
The kindly compliment did much to soothe Mr. Braddock’s wounded
feelings.
“No, really?” he said; and felt, as he had so often felt before, that
Kay was a girl in a million, and that if only the very idea of
matrimony did not scare a fellow so confoundedly, a fellow might very
well take a chance and see what would happen if he asked her to marry
him.
“And the speech sounded fine.”
“Really? You know, I got a sudden fear that my voice might not carry.”
“It carries,” Kay assured him.
The clouds which her compliments had chased from Mr. Braddock’s brow
gathered again.
“I say, Kay, you know, you really ought to do something about that girl
Clara. She’s impossible. I mean, throwing onions at a fellow.”
“You mustn’t mind. Don’t worry about her; it’ll make you forget your
speech. How long are you supposed to talk?”
“About ten minutes, I imagine. You know, this is going to just about
kill me.”
“What you must do is drink lots and lots of champagne.”
“But it makes me spotty.”
“Well, be spotty. I shan’t mind.”
Mr. Braddock considered.
“I will,” he said. “It’s a very good idea. Well, I suppose I ought to be
going.”
“You’ve got your key? That’s right. You won’t be back till pretty late,
of course. I’ll go and tell Claire not to bolt the door.”
When Kay reached the kitchen she found that her faithful follower had
stepped out of the pages of _Romeo and Juliet_ into those of _Macbeth_.
She was bending over a cauldron, dropping things into it. The kitten,
now comparatively dry and decustarded, eyed her with bright interest
from a shelf on the dresser.
“This is the new soup, Miss Kay,” she announced with modest pride.
“It smells fine,” said Kay, wincing slightly as a painful aroma of
burning smote her nostrils. “I say, Claire, I wish you wouldn’t throw
onions at Mr. Braddock.”
“I went up and got it back,” Claire reassured her. “It’s in the soup
now.”
“You’ll be in the soup if you do that sort of thing. What,” asked Kay
virtuously, “will the neighbours say?”
“There aren’t any neighbours,” Claire pointed out. A wistful look came
into her perky face. “I wish someone would hurry up and move into Mon
Ree-poss,” she said. “I don’t like not having next-doors. Gets lonely
for a girl all day with no one to talk to.”
“Well, when you talk to Mr. Braddock, don’t do it at the top of your
voice. Please understand that I don’t like it.”
“Now,” said Claire simply, “you’re cross with me.” And without further
preamble she burst into a passionate flood of tears.
It was this sensitiveness of hers that made it so difficult for the
young chatelaine of San Rafael to deal with the domestic staff. Kay was
a warm-hearted girl, and a warm-hearted girl can never be completely at
her ease when she is making cooks cry. It took ten minutes of sedulous
petting to restore the emotional Miss Lippett to her usual cheerfulness.
“I’ll never raise my voice so much as above a whisper to the man,” she
announced remorsefully at the end of that period. “All the same----”
Kay had no desire to reopen the Braddock argument.
“That’s all right, Claire. What I really came to say was--don’t put the
chain up on the front door to-night, because Mr. Braddock is sure to be
late. But he will come in quite quietly and won’t disturb you.”
“He’d better not,” said Miss Lippett grimly. “I’ve got a revolver.”
“A revolver!”
“Ah!” Claire bent darkly over her cauldron. “You never know when there
won’t be burglars in these low parts. The girl at Pontresina down the
road was telling me they’d had a couple of milk cans sneaked off their
doorstep only yesterday. And I’ll tell you another thing, Miss Kay. It’s
my belief there’s been people breaking into Mon Ree-poss.”
“What would they do that for? It’s empty.”
“It wasn’t empty last night. I was looking out of the window with one of
my noo-ralgic headaches--must have been between two and three in the
morning--and there was mysterious lights going up and down the
staircase.”
“You imagined it.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Kay, I did not imagine it. There they were,
as plain as plain. Might have been one of these electric torches the
criminal classes use. If you want to know what I think, Miss Kay, that
Mon Ree-poss is what I call a house of mystery, and I shan’t be sorry
when somebody respectable comes and takes it. The way it is now, we’re
just as likely as not to wake up and find ourselves all murdered in our
beds.”
“You mustn’t be so nervous.”
“Nervous?” replied Claire indignantly. “Nervous? Take more than a
burglar to make me nervous. All I’m saying is, I’m prepared.”
“Well, don’t go shooting Mr. Braddock.”
“That,” said Miss Lippett, declining to commit herself, “is as may be.”
CHAPTER THREE
SAILORS DON’T CARE
Some five hours after Willoughby Braddock’s departure from San Rafael, a
young man came up Villiers Street, and turning into the Strand, began to
stroll slowly eastward. The Strand, it being the hour when the theatres
had begun to empty themselves, was a roaring torrent of humanity and
vehicles; and he looked upon the bustling scene with the affectionate
eye of one who finds the turmoil of London novel and attractive. He was
a nice-looking young man, but what was most immediately noticeable about
him was his extraordinary shabbiness. Both his shoes were split across
the toe; his hands were in the pockets of a stained and weather-beaten
pair of blue trousers; and he gazed about him from under the brim of a
soft hat which could have been worn without exciting comment by any
scarecrow.
So striking was his appearance that two exquisites, emerging from the
Savoy Hotel and pausing on the pavement to wait for a vacant taxi, eyed
him with pained disapproval as he approached, and then, starting, stared
in amazement.
“Good Lord!” said the first exquisite.
“Good heavens!” said the second.
“See who that is?”