"What's it got to do with you?" I says.
"If old Wotherspoon is in a good humour," he continues, "and the
constable's head has gone down a bit between now and Wednesday, I may
get off with forty shillings and a public reprimand.
"On the other hand," he goes on--he was working himself into a sort of
fit--"if the constable's head goes on swelling, and old Wotherspoon's
liver gets worse, I've got to be prepared for a month without the
option. That is, if I am fool enough--"
He had left both the doors open, which in the daytime we generally do,
our chambers being at the top. Miss Dorton--that's Mr. Parable's
secretary--barges into the room. She didn't seem to notice me. She
staggers to a chair and bursts into tears.
"He's gone," she says; "he's taken cook with him and gone."
"Gone!" says the guv'nor. "Where's he gone?"
"To Fingest," she says through her sobs--"to the cottage. Miss
Bulstrode came in just after you had left," she says. "He wants to get
away from everyone and have a few days' quiet. And then he is coming
back, and he is going to do it himself."
"Do what?" says the guv'nor, irritable like.
"Fourteen days," she wails. "It'll kill him."
"But the case doesn't come on till Wednesday," says the guv'nor. "How
do you know it's going to be fourteen days?"
"Miss Bulstrode," she says, "she's seen the magistrate. He says he
always gives fourteen days in cases of unprovoked assault."
"But it wasn't unprovoked," says the guv'nor. "The other man began it
by knocking off his hat. It was self-defence."
"She put that to him," she says, "and he agreed that that would alter
his view of the case. But, you see," she continues, "we can't find the
other man. He isn't likely to come forward of his own accord."
"The girl must know," says the guv'nor--"this girl he picks up in St.
James's Park, and goes dancing with. The man must have been some
friend of hers."
"But we can't find her either," she says. "He doesn't even know her
name--he can't remember it."
"You will do it, won't you?" she says.
"Do what?" says the guv'nor again.
"The fourteen days," she says.
"But I thought you said he was going to do it himself?" he says.
"But he mustn't," she says. "Miss Bulstrode is coming round to see
you. Think of it! Think of the headlines in the papers," she says.
"Think of the Fabian Society. Think of the Suffrage cause. We mustn't
let him."
"What about me?" says the guv'nor. "Doesn't anybody care for me?"
"You don't matter," she says. "Besides," she says, "with your
influence you'll be able to keep it out of the papers. If it comes out
that it was Mr. Parable, nothing on earth will be able to."
The guv'nor was almost as much excited by this time as she was.
"I'll see the Fabian Society and the Women's Vote and the Home for Lost
Cats at Battersea, and all the rest of the blessed bag of tricks--"
I'd been thinking to myself, and had just worked it out.
"What's he want to take his cook down with him for?" I says.
"To cook for him," says the guv'nor. "What d'you generally want a cook
for?"
"Rats!" I says. "Does he usually take his cook with him?"
"No," answered Miss Dorton. "Now I come to think of it, he has always
hitherto put up with Mrs. Meadows."
"You will find the lady down at Fingest," I says, "sitting opposite him
and enjoying a recherche dinner for two."
The guv'nor slaps me on the back, and lifts Miss Dorton out of her
chair.
"You get on back," he says, "and telephone to Miss Bulstrode. I'll be
round at half-past twelve."
Miss Dorton went out in a dazed sort of condition, and the guv'nor
gives me a sovereign, and tells me I can have the rest of the day to
myself.
Mr. Condor, Junior, considers that what happened subsequently goes to
prove that he was right more than it proves that he was wrong.
Mr. Condor, Junior, also promised to send us a photograph of himself
for reproduction, but, unfortunately, up to the time of going to press
it had not arrived.
* * *
From Mrs. Meadows, widow of the late Corporal John Meadows, V.C.,
Turberville, Bucks, the following further particulars were obtained by
our local representative:
I have done for Mr. Parable now for some years past, my cottage being
only a mile off, which makes it easy for me to look after him.
Mr. Parable likes the place to be always ready so that he can drop in
when he chooses, he sometimes giving me warning and sometimes not. It
was about the end of last month--on a Friday, if I remember
rightly--that he suddenly turned up.
As a rule, he walks from Henley station, but on this occasion he
arrived in a fly, he having a young woman with him, and she having a
bag--his cook, as he explained to me. As a rule, I do everything for
Mr. Parable, sleeping in the cottage when he is there; but to tell the
truth, I was glad to see her. I never was much of a cook myself, as my
poor dead husband has remarked on more than one occasion, and I don't
pretend to be. Mr. Parable added, apologetic like, that he had been
suffering lately from indigestion.
"I am only too pleased to see her," I says. "There are the two beds in
my room, and we shan't quarrel." She was quite a sensible young woman,
as I had judged from the first look at her, though suffering at the
time from a cold. She hires a bicycle from Emma Tidd, who only uses it
on a Sunday, and, taking a market basket, off she starts for Henley,
Mr. Parable saying he would go with her to show her the way.
They were gone a goodish time, which, seeing it's eight miles, didn't
so much surprise me; and when they got back we all three had dinner
together, Mr. Parable arguing that it made for what he called "labour
saving." Afterwards I cleared away, leaving them talking together; and
later on they had a walk round the garden, it being a moonlight night,
but a bit too cold for my fancy.
In the morning I had a chat with her before he was down. She seemed a
bit worried.
"I hope people won't get talking," she says. "He would insist on my
coming."
"Well," I says, "surely a gent can bring his cook along with him to
cook for him. And as for people talking, what I always say is, one may
just as well give them something to talk about and save them the
trouble of making it up."
"If only I was a plain, middle-aged woman," she says, "it would be all
right."
"Perhaps you will be, all in good time," I says, but, of course, I
could see what she was driving at. A nice, clean, pleasant-faced young
woman she was, and not of the ordinary class. "Meanwhile," I says, "if
you don't mind taking a bit of motherly advice, you might remember that
your place is the kitchen, and his the parlour. He's a dear good man,
I know, but human nature is human nature, and it's no good pretending
it isn't."
She and I had our breakfast together before he was up, so that when he
came down he had to have his alone, but afterwards she comes into the
kitchen and closes the door.
"He wants to show me the way to High Wycombe," she says. "He will have
it there are better shops at Wycombe. What ought I to do?"
My experience is that advising folks to do what they don't want to do
isn't the way to do it.
"What d'you think yourself?" I asked her.
"I feel like going with him," she says, "and making the most of every
mile."
And then she began to cry.
"What's the harm!" she says. "I have heard him from a dozen platforms
ridiculing class distinctions. Besides," she says, "my people have
been farmers for generations. What was Miss Bulstrode's father but a
grocer? He ran a hundred shops instead of one. What difference does
that make?"
"When did it all begin?" I says. "When did he first take notice of you
like?"
"The day before yesterday," she answers. "He had never seen me
before," she says. "I was just 'Cook'--something in a cap and apron
that he passed occasionally on the stairs. On Thursday he saw me in my
best clothes, and fell in love with me. He doesn't know it himself,
poor dear, not yet, but that's what he's done."
Well, I couldn't contradict her, not after the way I had seen him
looking at her across the table.
"What are your feelings towards him," I says, "to be quite honest? He's
rather a good catch for a young person in your position."
"That's my trouble," she says. "I can't help thinking of that. And
then to be 'Mrs. John Parable'! That's enough to turn a woman's head."
"He'd be a bit difficult to live with," I says.
"Geniuses always are," she says; "it's easy enough if you just think of
them as children. He'd be a bit fractious at times, that's all.
Underneath, he's just the kindest, dearest--"
"Oh, you take your basket and go to High Wycombe," I says. "He might
do worse."
I wasn't expecting them back soon, and they didn't come back soon. In
the afternoon a motor stops at the gate, and out of it steps Miss
Bulstrode, Miss Dorton--that's the young lady that writes for him--and
Mr. Quincey. I told them I couldn't say when he'd be back, and they
said it didn't matter, they just happening to be passing.
"Did anybody call on him yesterday?" asks Miss Bulstrode, careless
like--"a lady?"
"No," I says; "you are the first as yet."
"He's brought his cook down with him, hasn't he?" says Mr. Quincey.
"Yes," I says, "and a very good cook too," which was the truth.
"I'd like just to speak a few words with her," says Miss Bulstrode.
"Sorry, m'am," I says, "but she's out at present; she's gone to
Wycombe."
"Gone to Wycombe!" they all says together.
"To market," I says. "It's a little farther, but, of course, it stands
to reason the shops there are better."
They looked at one another.
"That settles it," says Mr. Quincey. "Delicacies worthy to be set
before her not available nearer than Wycombe, but must be had. There's
going to be a pleasant little dinner here to-night."
"The hussy!" says Miss Bulstrode, under her breath.
They whispered together for a moment, then they turns to me.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Meadows," says Mr. Quincey. "You needn't say we
called. He wanted to be alone, and it might vex him."
I said I wouldn't, and I didn't. They climbed back into the motor and
went off.
Before dinner I had call to go into the woodshed. I heard a scuttling
as I opened the door. If I am not mistaken, Miss Dorton was hiding in
the corner where we keep the coke. I didn't see any good in making a
fuss, so I left her there. When I got back to the kitchen, cook asked
me if we'd got any parsley.
"You'll find a bit in the front," I says, "to the left of the gate,"
and she went out. She came back looking scared.
"Anybody keep goats round here?" she asked me.
"Not that I know of, nearer than Ibstone Common," I says.
"I could have sworn I saw a goat's face looking at me out of the
gooseberry bushes while I was picking the parsley," she says. "It had
a beard."
"It's the half light," I says. "One can imagine anything."
"I do hope I'm not getting nervy," she says.
I thought I'd have another look round, and made the excuse that I
wanted a pail of water. I was stooping over the well, which is just
under the mulberry tree, when something fell close to me and lodged
upon the bricks. It was a hairpin. I fixed the cover carefully upon
the well in case of accident, and when I got in I went round myself and
was careful to see that all the curtains were drawn.
Just before we three sat down to dinner again I took cook aside.
"I shouldn't go for any stroll in the garden to-night," I says. "People
from the village may be about, and we don't want them gossiping." And
she thanked me.
Next night they were there again. I thought I wouldn't spoil the
dinner, but mention it afterwards. I saw to it again that the curtains
were drawn, and slipped the catch of both the doors. And just as well
that I did.
I had always heard that Mr. Parable was an amusing speaker, but on
previous visits had not myself noticed it. But this time he seemed ten
years younger than I had ever known him before; and during dinner,
while we were talking and laughing quite merry like, I had the feeling
more than once that people were meandering about outside. I had just
finished clearing away, and cook was making the coffee, when there came
a knock at the door.
"Who's that?" says Mr. Parable. "I am not at home to anyone."
"I'll see," I says. And on my way I slipped into the kitchen.
"Coffee for one, cook," I says, and she understood. Her cap and apron
were hanging behind the door. I flung them across to her, and she
caught them; and then I opened the front door.
They pushed past me without speaking, and went straight into the
parlour. And they didn't waste many words on him either.
"Where is she?" asked Miss Bulstrode.
"Where's who?" says Mr. Parable.
"Don't lie about it," said Miss Bulstrode, making no effort to control
herself. "The hussy you've been dining with?"
"Do you mean Mrs. Meadows?" says Mr. Parable.