“Why didn’t Patricia the emancipated go to her mother and inform her
that all was well?”
“That is the very thing W. W. and she bickered about in their letters.
He was always writing to her to do that, but she said it would be
unladylike.”
“Very un-shingled of her to trouble about that,” I got in. “But had she
any proposal to make to W. W.?”
“Rather. She was always badgering W. W. to write to their mother saying
they knew all and wanted her to go at it blind. She thought it would
come better from him, being male. That was what made him come to me in
the end. He told me all about it and asked me if I could help.”
“And what was your reply?” I asked with some interest. “Don’t tell me,”
I added hurriedly (we were back at the game, you see), “I want to guess.
You said immediately, ‘All right’?”
He approved.
“Did it ever strike you,” I enquired curiously, “that you might not be
able to help?”
“I can’t remember,” the unfathomable one answered. “I say, would you
like to see me do a dive over your head?”
Offer declined.
“You see,” he continued, “W. W. is rather—rather——”
“Rather a retiring boy when there is trouble ahead,” I suggested. “Well,
what did you devise?”
“I said I couldn’t do anything until I knew the colour of Patricia’s
hair and eyes.”
This took me aback, though it is quite in Tintinnabulum’s manner.
“How could that help?” I had to enquire instead of risking a move.
“I couldn’t get a beginning,” he insisted doggedly, “till I found out
that.” (To this day I don’t know what he meant.)
“No difficulty in finding out from W. W.,” I said.
Here I was wrong. W. W. had no idea of the colour of his dear little
sister’s eyes but presumed that, as he and she were twins, their eyes
must be of the same hue. There followed a scene, undoubtedly worthy of
some supreme artist, in which, by the light of a match, Tintinnabulum
endeavoured to discover colour of W. W.’s eyes, W. W. being again unable
to supply desired information. The match always going out just as
Tintinnabulum was on the eve of discovery, it was decided by him that W.
W. should write to his twin for particulars (letter dictated by
Tintinnabulum). Patricia’s reply was, “Who is it that wants to know?
Eyes too expressive to be blue, too lovely to be grey,” and it irritated
the two seekers after truth.
“We didn’t ask her what colour they were not,” Tintinnabulum said to me
witheringly, “but what colour they were.”
In the end, rather than bother any more with her, they risked putting
her eyes down as browny black. This determined, Tintinnabulum apprized
his client that Patricia was to write the letter that would make their
mother happy. This nearly led to a rupture.
_W. W._ (_sitting_, as they say in the plays, though he might as well be
standing): She can’t write a letter to mother when they are living in
the same house.
_Tintinnabulum_ (_rising_, because W. W. sat): It would be a letter to
you.
_W. W._ (_contemptibly_): That brings me into the thing again.
_Tintinnabulum_: Shut up and listen. The letter isn’t to be posted. Your
mother will find it lying open on Patricia’s desk and read it on the
sly.
_W. W._ (_nobly_): My mother never does things on the sly.
_Tintinnabulum_ (_comprehensively_): Oh.
_W. W._ (_hedging_): What would the letter say?
_Tintinnabulum_: It would show her that you and Patricia knew what she
was after and both wanted her to marry the chappie, and then she could
put it back where she found it and never let on that she had seen it and
make all her arrangements with a happy heart.
_W. W._: That is what we want, but mother wouldn’t read a letter on the
sly.
_Tintinnabulum_ (_after thinking it out when he should have been doing
his prep._): Look here, if she is so fussy we can tell Patricia to leave
the letter open on the floor as if it had blown there, and then when
your mother picks it up to put it back on the desk she can’t help taking
a look at it.
_W. W._: Would that not be reading it on the sly?
_Tintinnabulum_ (_with cheerful cynicism_): Not for a woman.
_W. W._ (_depressed_): It will be an awfully difficult letter to write.
_Tintinnabulum_ (_exultant_): Fearfully.
_W. W._: I don’t think Patricia could do it.
_Tintinnabulum_: Not she. I’ll do it. Then you copy my letter and she
copies yours.
_W. W._: 3_d._?
_Tintinnabulum_: Tons more than that.
This scheme was carried out, Tintinnabulum, after a thoughtful study of
Patricia’s epistolary style, producing something in this manner, no
doubt with the holy look on his face that is always there when he knows
he is concocting a masterpiece. (I regret that he has forgotten what he
said in the introductory passage, which dealt in an artful feminine
manner with her garments and was probably a beauty.)
“Darling Doubly Doubly,
... oh dear, I am so unhappy because I fear the match between darlingest
mummy and Mr. K. is not to be hit off. Oh dear, she blows hot and cold
and it makes me bleed to see the poor man’s anguishes, and you and me
wanting it so much. If only I could think of a lady-like way to tell
mummy that we know she wants it and that we want her to go ahead, but I
cannot, and it would need a wonder of a man to do it. Oh dear, how
lovely it would be, oh dear, how I wish I knew some frightfully clever
person, oh dear——”
“I stopped there,” Tintinnabulum told me. “I meant to put in a lot more
before I finished, but I wouldn’t let myself go on.”
“Why?” I asked eagerly, aware that he had reached a great moment in his
life.
“Because,” he said heavily, “I saw all at once that I had come to the
end.” (We are so undemonstrative that I did not embrace him).
The letter was left as arranged, on Mrs. Daly’s floor, and I may say at
once that everything went as planned by the Master. Can we not see
Mildred (all authors have a right to call their heroine by her Christian
name), opening the door of that room? Her beautiful face is down-cast,
all the luckier for Tintinnabulum and Co., for she at once sees the
life-giving sheet. She picks it up, meaning to replace it on the desk
whence it has so obviously fluttered, when a word catches her eye, and
not intending to read she reads. An exquisite flush tints her face as
she recognises Patricia’s inimitable style. The happy woman is now best
left to herself (Come away, Tintinnabulum, you imp).
Dear (not dearest) heroine, you little know who is responsible for your
raptures, the indifferent lad now trying to twist one leg round his neck
as he finishes his apple. Grudge us not the few minutes in which for
literary purposes we have snatched you from the shores of the blue
Mediterranean. Thither we now return you to cloudless days and to your
K., roses in your cheeks (Tintinnabulum’s roses). And you, O lucky K.,
when you encounter boys of thirteen, might do worse than have a
mysterious prompting to give them a franc or so. I wish you both very
happy, and I am, yours affec.
“Shall I send them your love?” I almost hear myself saying to
Tintinnabulum.
“If you like,” he replies, preoccupied with what is left of an apple
when the apple itself has gone. For it must be admitted of him that he
has not boasted of his achievement. His only comment was modesty itself,
“Two bob,” he said.
It is almost appalling to reflect that no woman who knows Tintinnabulum
(and has two bob) need remain single. And what character apples have,
even when being consumed; if I had given him an orange or a pear this
chapter would be quite different. With such deep thoughts I put out his
light, and took away the other apple which he had hidden beneath his
pillow.