THE NOISELESS NAPIER
"I am morally certain 'Chappie' is a poodle," thought David to himself,
at breakfast. "It would be just like her to have a large black poodle,
abnormally clever, perfectly clipped, tied up with green ribbons to
match her hat, and treated in all respects as a human being; excepting
that, of course, his opinion on the cut of her guests' clothes would not
matter. 'Chappie does not count,' she said; but I'll be bound he counts
a lot, in most respects. I hope Chappie will like me. How does one
whistle to a poodle?"
David was standing on the hearthrug, practising various seductive ways
of whistling to Chappie, when Sarah came in, to clear the breakfast
table.
Sarah had put a Christmas card on David's plate that morning, and had
kept nervously out of the way, while he opened the envelope. The card
had evidently been chosen with great care, and an eye to its
suitability. A large bunch of forget-me-nots figured in the centre, tied
with a lover's knot of blue ribbon. Above this, two embossed
hands--Sarah's and David's of course--were clasped. Above these again,
flew two turtle-doves. They carried a scroll between them, depending
from either beak, bearing in gold lettering, "The Compliments of the
Season." At the bottom of the card were two blank lines beginning with
"To ----" and "From ----". Sarah had filled in, with much labour, and
rather brown ink:
To _the Reverant David rivers_
From _Yours rispectfully Sarah_
David, delighted, stood the card in the place of honour on the
mantel-piece, in front of the clock. When Sarah came in, he stopped
whistling to Chappie, went forward at once and shook hands with her,
thanking her warmly for the Christmas card.
"The only one I received, Sarah; and I do think it most awfully pretty."
Sarah admitted that it _was_ that; explained at great length where she
got it, and why she chose it; and described a good many other cards she
had nearly bought but eventually rejected in favour of the
forget-me-nots, thinking they would "look home-like in them outlandish
places," and ensure David's kind remembrance of her.
David protested that, card or no card, he would never forget Sarah, and
all her thoughtful care of him; and Sarah wiped her eyes with a corner
of her apron, and only wished there was more of him to care for.
David felt this rather embarrassingly personal, and walked over to the
window to throw crumbs to a robin. Then he turned, as Sarah, having
folded the cloth, was preparing to leave the room.
"Sarah," he said, "I have had an invitation. I am dining out to-night."
Sarah's face fell. "Oh, Mr. Rivers, sir! And me going to a chicking,
being as it was Christmas!"
"Well, Sarah, you see my friend thought it was dull that I should dine
by myself on Christmas night. And if you had gone to a chicken, I should
indeed be left alone."
"Get along, sir!" chuckled Sarah. "You know my meaning. And, if it's
Smiths or Joneses, I misdoubt if you'll get so good a dinner----"
"It isn't Smiths or Joneses, Sarah. It is Miss Rivers, of Riverscourt.
And she has promised me a turkey, and a plum-pudding, and
possibly--only I must not count too much on those--possibly,
mince-pies!"
Sarah's face expanded. "Oh, if it's Miss Diana, sir, you can't do
better. There's none like Miss Diana, to my thinking. And we can have
the chicking on Boxing-day. And, with your leave, if I'm not wanted, I'm
asked out to friends this evening, which I hadn't no intention of
mentioning. And Mr. Rivers, sir; mark my words. You can't do better than
Miss Diana. We've known her from a babe, master an' me. Folks talk,
because she don't hold with getting married, and because she don't do
much church-going; but, begging your pardon, sir, I don't hold with
either, m'self. Marriage means slaving away, with few thanks and fewer
ha'pence; and church-going mostly means, for women-folk, a vieing with
one another's bonnets. I don't go to feathers, m'self; always having
been well-content with beads. And I pay my respects to Almighty God, at
home."
"'Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of
some is,'" quoted David. "You forget the injunction of the writer to the
Hebrews, Sarah."
"That don't hold good for now, Mr. Rivers, sir," replied Sarah, with
conviction; "any more than many other _h_epistolic remarks."
"They all hold good for now, Sarah," said David, gravely.
"Then what about 'let your women keep silence in the churches'? Hark to
them rowdy Miss Joneses in the choir!"
"They _do_ make a row," admitted David, off his guard.
"And 'if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at
home'?" Sarah was evidently well up in her Bible.
"Well, why not?" queried David.
"Why not, Mr. Rivers, sir?" repeated Sarah, scornfully. "Why not? Why
because stay-at-home husbands ain't likely to be able to teach
go-to-church wives! And, even if they did, how about me an' Miss Diana,
as has none?"
This seemed unanswerable, though it had nothing whatever to do with the
point at issue. But David had no suggestions to offer concerning the
limitations contingent on the spinsterhood of Sarah and of Miss Diana.
It therefore gave Sarah the last word; which, to the female mind, means
victory; and she bore away the breakfast cloth in triumph.
When she brought in tea that afternoon, she lingered a few minutes,
giving the fire a little unnecessary attention, and furtively watching
David, as he put salt on his hot-buttered toast.
Then she said tentatively: "Mr. Rivers, sir, there are one or two things
about Miss Diana you might as well know, before you go over there."
"No, thank you, Sarah," said David, with decision. "Whatever Miss Rivers
wishes me to know, she will tell me herself. Anything she does not
herself tell me, I prefer not to hear from others."
Sarah surveyed him; and her look expressed amazement and disapproval.
"Well I never!" she exclaimed. "You _are_ different from master! All I
hear in the village I tell master while I wait on him at dinner. He
says: 'You may as well tell me what you hear, my good Sarah; and then I
can judge how to act.'"
David smiled. He had already discovered the good Rector's love of
gossip.
"But you see, Sarah," he said, "being only a _locum tenens_, I do not,
fortunately, have to act."
"Don't disparage yourself, sir," advised Sarah, still disappointed,
almost aggrieved. "And even if folks here _have_ called you so, you
won't be that to Miss Diana."
"Oh, no," said David, cheerfully. "I do not propose to be a _locum
tenens_ to Miss Diana!"
* * * * *
The motor glided up to the Rectory gate at seven o'clock, to the minute.
David saw the flash of the acetylene lamps on his bedroom blind.
He ran down the stairs, filled with a delightful sense of
holiday-making, and adventure.
His one clerical suit was carefully brushed, and Sarah had "pressed it,"
a mysterious process from which it emerged with a youthful, unwrinkled
air, to which it had for long been a stranger. His linen was immaculate.
He had shaved with extreme care. He felt so festive, that his lack of
conventional evening clothes troubled him no longer. He slipped Sarah's
Christmas card into his pocket. He knew Diana would appreciate the
pathos and humour of those clasped hands and forget-me-nots.
Then he went down the garden path, and entered the motor. The footman
arranged the fur rug over his knees, showed him how to switch off the
electric lights if he preferred darkness, shut the door, took his seat
beside the motionless chauffeur, and instantly they glided away down
the lane, and turned into the high road leading to Riversmead.
It seemed wonderful to David to be flying along in Diana's sumptuous
motor. He had never before been in a powerful noiseless Napier car, and
he found it somewhat of an experience. Involuntarily he thought of the
time when he had been so deadly weak from African fever, and his people
had had somehow to get him to the coast; the rough little cart on wheels
they made to hold him and his mattress, and tried to draw him along the
apology for a road. But the shaking and bumping had been so absolutely
unbearable, that he had eventually had to be slung and carried as far as
the river. Even so, there had been the perpetual dread of the agonising
jerk if one of his bearers stumbled over a stone, or stepped
unexpectedly into a rut. And to all this he was so soon returning. And
quite right, too. No man should glide through life on cushioned tyres.
For a woman, it was quite otherwise. Her womanhood constituted a
sufficient handicap, without any roughness or hardship being allowed to
come her way. He liked to know that Diana would always--literally and
metaphorically--glide through life in a noiseless Napier. This method
of progression need be no hindrance to her following of the star.
He looked at his watch. In ten minutes they would reach Riverscourt.
He switched off the lights, and at once the flying trees and hedges
became visible in the pale moonlight. He enjoyed watching them as they
whirled past. The great car bounded silently along the road, sounding a
warning note upon the horn, if the distant light of any cart or carriage
came in sight ahead of them; but passing it, and speeding on in the
snowy darkness, before David had had time to look out and see what
manner of vehicle it was.
They rushed through little villages, the cottage windows bright with
seasonable festivity. In one of them David caught a glimpse of a
Christmas-tree, decked with shining candles, and surrounded by the curly
heads of happy little children. It was many years since he had seen a
Christmas-tree. It brought wistful thoughts of home and boyhood's days.
The first Christmas-tree he could remember had yielded to his enraptured
hands a wooden popgun, which expelled a cork with great force and a
terrifying sound, sufficiently loud to make all grown-up people jump, if
it was done exactly behind their heads, when they were unaware of its
near vicinity. This effect upon grown-ups, produced by his own popgun,
had given him a sense of power which was limitless; until the sudden
forcible confiscation of the popgun had set thereto an unexpected limit.
He then mentioned it as a flute, and asked for it back; pointing out
that its popgun propensities were a mere accident; its real nature was
to be a flute. He received it back as a flute, upon condition that it
should not immediately accidentally develop again into a popgun. He
spent the remainder of that day blowing blissfully into the eight holes
punched in the strip of red wood gummed to the side of the popgun. The
resultant sounds were melancholy and fitful to a degree; and it is
doubtful which was the greater trial to the nerves of the grown-ups, the
sudden explosion of the popgun, or the long drawn out piping of the
flute. Anyway when his treasure suddenly and unaccountably disappeared,
they assisted his tearful search in a half-hearted sort of way, and when
eventually his unaided efforts discovered it, carefully concealed in one
of their own wardrobes, his infantine faith in the sincerity of adult
human nature had received its first rude shock.
David lay back in the motor and wondered whether life would ever hold
for him a scene so enchanting as that first Christmas-tree, or a gift so
priceless as that popgun-flute.
The motor sped through the old-world town of Riversmead, scarcely
slacking speed, for the streets were clear; all its inhabitants were
indoors, merry-making; and the one policeman they passed, saluted.
Diana's car was well-known and respected.
Then in at great iron gates, standing wide, and up an avenue of stately
beeches, coming to sudden pause before the portico of a large stone
house, gay with lighted windows.