Mr. Priestley Solves His Last Problem
Mr. Priestley returned to London with emotions that were decidedly
mixed. His delight in his successful revenge was almost swamped in the
feelings caused by Cynthia’s utterly unscrupulous suggestion. He knew,
of course, that he could never act upon it: to do so would be the act
of a cad, a poltroon, and a blackguard. But there was no harm in
allowing it to titillate his mind.
Laura eternally in that empty arm-chair. . . . Laura available every
night and every morning for kisses that need not be in the least
avuncular. . . . Laura’s smile, Laura’s pretty face, the way Laura’s
eyebrows fascinatingly just did not meet when she was perplexed, his
to contemplate for the rest of his life. . . . Mr. Priestley sighed
and, having looked on this picture, looked on that. Those rooms of his
without Laura in them. . . . Only Barker. . . . He and Barker, alone
together for ever more. . . . Mr. Priestley sighed again.
And why, Mr. Priestley put it to himself, had he been at such pains
actually to obtain a real, genuine special licence, made out in his
own name and that of Laura Howard? True, Cynthia had made rather a
point of it, but it was really quite unnecessary. Just to mention that
he had one would have been quite enough. He had not even shown it to
her. It was very strange. Why had he done that?
Mr. Priestley was an honest man, even with himself. He knew quite well
why he had done it. Because he wanted very badly indeed to marry
Laura, and the breathless thrill he had obtained by buying a special
licence made out in her name had been cheap at the price.
He reached his rooms in a thoroughly unhappy state. His triumph at
Duffley was as dust and ashes in his mouth. Dust and ashes make very
poor eating. For, of course, when Laura heard his story, she would
naturally have nothing more to do with him. She was a high-spirited
girl, and—— Of course she wouldn’t.
Laura received him with undisguised relief. During his absence she had
succeeded in working herself up into a very pretty state of nerves. In
the old days Laura and nerves were two unmixable components, like fire
and water, or stockbrokers and water, to put it more forcibly; now she
felt she could write an encyclopedia on them and then only have
touched the fringe of her knowledge.
“Oh, Matthew!” she exclaimed, the moment Mr. Priestley entered the
study. “Thank goodness you’re still all right! I’d made sure you’d
been arrested this time.”
Mr. Priestley looked at her wistfully. What a low hound he was! It was
perfectly right and proper for Laura to play jokes upon him, of
course; but for him to divert the joke to back-fire upon its own
originator! A terribly low hound.
“Would you have been sorry if I had, Laura?” he asked.
“You know I should. I—I should never have forgiven myself,” said
Laura, who during the communings with her own soul that afternoon had
reached at any rate one sensible decision. “You see, it’s—it’s all my
own fault. I’ve been on the verge of telling you the truth a hundred
times, and goodness only knows why I never did.” She paused awkwardly.
“You see,” she blurted out, “the whole thing started as just a silly
joke.”
“A joke?” echoed Mr. Priestley stupidly. Somehow this was a
development he had not anticipated.
“Yes,” Laura continued rapidly. “I don’t dare wonder what you’re going
to think of me, considering how kind you’ve been and—and everything,
but this is the truth.” She proceeded to tell it.
Mr. Priestley listened with one ear, his other busy with the almost
audible buzzing of his own brain. What was Laura working up to? What
was he going to do when she had worked up to it? What—what—what?
Laura went on, excusing nothing, glossing over nothing, pouring upon
her own devoted head every drop of blame.
“And now this other extraordinary affair crops up,” she concluded, and
mentioned her telepathic theory. “That must be the explanation. It’s
quite possible, isn’t it? Oh, Mr. Priestley——”
“Matthew,” interjected Mr. Priestley automatically.
“Matthew, will you ever forgive me?”
Mr. Priestley looked dumbly at the contrite spectacle before him. He
did not speak because every bone was busy telling him that this was
not Laura’s climax. What was coming next he had not the faintest idea,
but he did not wish to commit himself.
“Of course,” continued Laura, unforgiven, “I know that if—if we were
arrested we’ve only got to tell the truth, and we’ve got all the
others to back us up; but what I don’t know is how long it would be
before the authorities believed us. Naturally I’ve known all the time
that we’re not in any _danger_, but, on the other hand, we certainly
are in a mess. What your friend at the Foreign Office told you shows
that we’re in for a terrible lot of bother, to say the very least.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Priestley mechanically. “Very least.” What was she
working up to?
“And so,” said Laura, “considering that it’s all my fault, and—and I
let you in for it all, I will, if it’s any use to you, I——”
“Yes?” helped Mr. Priestley breathlessly.
Laura gulped. “I will marry you to-morrow morning at the registry
office if you really want me to,” she said with a rush.
Something, stretched already to snapping-point, suddenly gave way
inside Mr. Priestley. He didn’t know it, but it was his conscience.
His face one large pink beam, he gathered the unready Laura into his
arms and kissed her ardently. “You darling girl!” he exclaimed. “You
dearest, darling, sweet girl!”
“Matthew!” gasped the sweet girl. “You don’t mean that you——”
“Love you?” beamed Mr. Priestley, far too excited to be
self-conscious. “Indeed, yes. I’ve loved you ever since you let me
stay in the bedroom that night. It was darling and sweet of you, like
everything else you do.”
For some obscure reason Laura made no effort to release herself. “And
you don’t mind the—the other thing?” she asked, vividly conscious of
certain of her actions with regard to Mr. Priestley which had been
anything but darling or sweet. “The way I deceived you, and took
advantage of your good nature?”
“Dear me, no. Most natural. Charmingly high-spirited of you.”
“Well,” said Laura a little dryly, “it’s rather lucky you like me,
isn’t it? Considering we’ve got to get married apparently.”
“Laura,” said Mr. Priestley, ceasing to beam, “I—I suppose you don’t
happen to—well, to like me a little bit, too, do you?”
Feminine emotion is a delicate instrument, and no one can expect to
play on a delicate instrument without practice. To Mr. Priestley’s
consternation Laura burst into unexpected tears, tore herself from his
arms, and ran from the room, crying out as she did so: “Good Heavens,
I—I’m _marrying_ you, aren’t I? What more do you want?”
Mr. Priestley stared after her as if imagining his eyes to be magnets
and able to draw her back again. Finding they did not work in this
way, he hurried after her. Her bedroom door was locked and Mr.
Priestley, whispering urgently outside that he had something most
important to tell her that would alter everything and wouldn’t she
please come back and hear it, met with nothing but pointed, if tearful
requests to go away. Looking round after three minutes’ fruitless
work, he caught Barker’s disapproving but interested eye on him from
the kitchen door. Barker’s eye succeeded where Laura’s entreaties had
failed. Mr. Priestley went _away_, his urgent news untold.
Seventeen times during the course of the evening did he return to
whisper at Laura’s door, seventeen times he retired baffled. Only once
did Laura open it, and that was to pull in a loaded dinner-tray which
Barker, surmising madly, had placed on the floor outside.
Mr. Priestley spent a miserable evening. Later on he went, in the
deepest dejection, to bed.
But not to sleep. And as he turned restlessly from side to side and
the thought of never seeing Laura again, after he had once told her
the truth, grew more and more unbearable. Temptation came to Matthew
Priestley. He struggled with it; he struggled with it manfully for a
very long time (until four minutes past three, to be utterly
accurate); and then Temptation, as it usually does, won. He _would_
marry Laura to-morrow, as Cynthia had suggested. He _would_ make sure
of her first, and let the future look after itself. Oh, base Mr.
Priestley!
Breakfast (which he took alone) found him confirmed in his turpitude.
As he poured out his own coffee he knew he could not do without Laura
and was going to stick at nothing to get her; as he passed himself the
marmalade he told himself that all was fair in love and war; as he
gazed at the unoccupied place beside him he tried, half-heartedly, to
mitigate his villainy with the reflection that even marriage is not
irrevocable; if Laura objected too strenuously, she could remain a
wife in name only until the divorce was through. As he poured out his
second cup of coffee he knew that he had not the faintest intention of
letting Laura remain a wife in name only, and didn’t care a rap how
base he was.
Pat Doyle would have been delighted. Mr. Priestley’s days of
turniphood were done with forever. It was no snail who folded up Mr.
Priestley’s napkin and banged it down on the table with a thud that
made the crockery jump.
“Good gracious, Matthew dear,” remarked a voice at the door. “I hope
you’re not going to do that to me after we’re married.”
Mr. Priestley spun round. In the doorway, cool, smiling, astonishingly
cheerful, stood Laura, already hatted, coated and gloved. He gaped at
her.
“Good-morning,” said Laura, approaching him.
“Good-morning,” mumbled Mr. Priestley.
Laura tilted her face a little more obviously. “Aren’t you going to
kiss me? It’s the last time you’ll be supposed to kiss an unmarried
girl, you know. After this there’ll be nothing but humdrum married
kisses for you. I warn you, I shall be terribly wifely.”
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Priestley, kissing her gingerly. Was
this the same girl who had fled last night, weeping at the bare idea
of accompanying him to a registry office this morning?
“Oughtn’t we to be starting?” said Laura happily. “You were very late
for breakfast, you know, considering it’s your wedding-morning.
‘Tra-la-la-a-a-a! for ’tis my we-hedding morning!’” She hummed a bar
or two of _The Yeoman’s Wedding_ with a roguish smile.
With some difficulty Mr. Priestley remembered that he was a villain.
“I’ll get my hat on,” he said gruffly, and marched out.
Laura went with him into the tiny hall, helped him on with his coat,
brushed his hat, and gave him his gloves. “Of course,” she said, “by
rights I ought to wait till we get back before doing this: it’s so
_very_ wifely, isn’t it? By the way, dear, have you got the ring?”
Mr. Priestley reminded himself that he was a blackguard. “Er—no,” he
admitted. “I’m afraid I’d never thought of it.” Mr. Priestley may have
been a blackguard, but he was a very inefficient one.
With complete composure Laura slipped off one of her own and gave it
to him. “We can use that, and get the real one later. It’s very
irregular, but I do hope it won’t be unlucky. Still, you could hardly
be expected to think of everything, poor dear, could you? Forgive my
asking, but have you got the licence?”
Mr. Priestley beamed. Then he remembered that he was a cad and stopped
beaming. Cads never beam. “Yes,” he said brusquely. “I——” He felt in
his breast-pocket. “God bless my soul, I’ve left it in the other
suit!” A most inferior cad, Mr. Priestley.
In due course Laura produced him at the registry office, complete with
ring and licence. On the steps of it were Dora, George, Pat Doyle,
Cynthia, Guy, Monica, and Alan. They raised a hearty cheer as the taxi
drew up and its occupants emerged.
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Priestley, and he had never said it with
more feeling.
Cynthia hurried forward and drew him aside. “I told the others, and we
thought we’d come up just in case you did take my advice,” she
whispered. “I’m delighted, Mr. Priestley! And don’t bother—nobody will
say a word to Laura. Come along inside.”
Mr. Priestley looked at Laura. Undoubtedly she was just as bewildered
at seeing their escort as himself. She did not look very pleased
either. Laura did not often blush, but she was making up for lost time
now. The party trooped inside.
And there Mr. Priestley and his Laura were, without a shadow of doubt,
married as tightly as the law could do it.
“I’ve booked a private room and something in the way of a
wedding-breakfast at the Trafalgar Square Hotel, Priestley,” said Guy,
amid the back-clapping and kissing later, as Mr. Priestley was
wondering dazedly whether he ought to smack Dora on the back and kiss
Pat Doyle, or smack Cynthia on the back and kiss the registrar. “You
take Laura along in a taxi, and we’ll follow.”
Somehow this seemed to happen.
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Priestley, still dazed.
“The idiots!” said Laura, half-way between laughter and tears.
Mr. Priestley nerved himself for his effort. He knew that the truth
was bound to come out at the hotel, and he wanted to know his fate in
private. “Laura, my darling,” be began very nervously, “I’m afraid I
have a confession to make. I—I——” To his surprise he found further
speech stopped by two soft lips, not his own.
“I know all about that,” came a laughing voice through the soft lips.
“And I love you all the more for it, you funny old thing! (Did you
know I loved you, by the way? Well, I do. I discovered it this
morning.) You see, I got a letter from Cynthia to-day.”
“God bl—— Did you really?”
“Yes, and she told me everything, not omitting her own advice to you
yesterday. She said she thought after all that she’d better warn me,
just in case you did take it. But she never said she was going to
bring the whole lot of them along, just in case, too.”
“Cynthia,” said Mr. Priestley thoughtfully, “seems to have been
double-crossing everybody.” It was an echo of the late Mr. Mullins,
recently defunct.
“Then let’s double-cross her!” cried Laura, with sudden inspiration.
“Let’s go straight back home, pack your bag (mine’s packed already)
and go off for a honeymoon at once, instead of that wedding-breakfast
and all their silly jokes.”
Mr. Priestley looked at his wife with speechless admiration. Then he
recovered himself and leaned perilously out to address the driver.
“Mr. Priestley,” said Laura, when her husband had returned to safety
and her side, “don’t you think it’s time you kissed your wife? It’s
the right thing to do in the taxi after the wedding, I’ve always
understood.” She looked at him laughingly, but there was a faint flush
on either cheek which Mr. Priestley found quite incredibly adorable.
“Say: ‘Mrs. Priestley, may I beg the favour, madam, of a caress, an it
please you?’”
“‘Mrs. Priestley,’” replied her husband in tones of awe. “‘_Mrs._
Priestley!’”
Laura made a little movement towards him, and Mr. Priestley completely
forgot the rest of his speech.
It didn’t seem to matter.
THE END