THE MAKING OF A MAN-HATER
Great excitement this morning in Mud Flats: assessing the damage that
has been done by the Raid! And, after all, that's not much.
Most of the bombs had fallen into a soft mud bank off the Hard. One
had been dropped near the doctor's back-door and had killed a fowl.
Two--I mean two bombs, not fowls--had just missed the Martello Tower
and the magazine that holds explosives for the Instruction Class.
"Bit of a bust-up if they'd got that!" I heard the Incubus saying to
Evelyn at breakfast. "Might have consoled them for not having killed
a single kiddy this time. But perhaps they know the youngest
inhabitant in Mud Flats is nearly seventeen----"
Did he mean me? DID he? He was quite horrid enough to.
"Dear me, Mr. Lascelles, how could the Germans know that?" put in the
drowsy voice of our Aunt Victoria from behind the new coffee-machine.
"They can't have any spies here. Not here in the village."
He laughed and said: "Oh, no spies in Mud Flats. Oh, decidedly
not--what?"
And then laughed again--silly idiot! It's just one of his
thoughtless habits, since, of course, there was absolutely nothing to
laugh at. However, never mind about the Lascelles boy. I've got
something much more interesting to think about now.
You see, I can't help feeling frightfully excited and inquisitive
about Nancy's affair with Captain Masters. She has not said a word
about it to me ever since the Zeppelin night, and I haven't asked,
only I can't help knowing that she is absolutely at the high tide of
a happy engagement. It seems to me to shine all out of her: out of
her blue eyes, out of every single crinkly curl of her golden hair:
she seems to bring a wave of it with her into the house when she
comes in from those errands to the village which always take her such
an unconscionable time. I suppose because she always comes back by
the shady lane? The whole atmosphere of the Grange is seething with
it. Perhaps it is only because I have the key to this affair that I
feel it is too strange that nobody else should guess anything about
it. Yet nobody does suspect. Aunt Victoria goes on knitting as
usual. Evelyn goes on doing the usual things, bandaging-class,
sewing, and practising. The Incubus comes and goes in his awful
boots. Mr. Curtis has been to call several times. Nobody seems to
think of there being any understanding between our Nancy and the
best-looking officer in Mud Flats!
But I do so wish that, instead of just bubbling over with silent
happiness and smiles, Nancy would tell me something. If she would
only enter into one single detail about it! Really it would be an
act of charity to her youngest sister. For, beyond that, I don't
seem to have anything in the wide world to interest me now.
Both my sisters are so altered: lost to me. Evelyn because, ever
since the night of the party, she has taken such a fit of
virtuousness and conscientiousness that we can hardly talk about
anything without her being shocked. And Nancy because she is in the
middle of the throes of first love and a secret engagement! As for
me, among all the coming and going of soldiers and sailors in this
place, I don't seem to have a single "special" that I want to be
interested in me, or that I can possibly be interested in. I tell
you what I think is the matter with me. I think I am utterly
disillusioned--disillusioned at eighteen! I am absolutely "off" men.
I don't think that I shall ever, as long as I live, be able to like
one. Seriously, I mean it. Of course, you can guess whose fault
that is: this horrible little Mr. Lascelles! The fact is, living in
the house with some one whom one so thoroughly dislikes is enough to
sour one's temper and warp one's whole nature for ever! The last
straw to it, of course, was when he robbed me of the new interest
that I was beginning to feel in my life, my "Lonely Subaltern." Yes,
indeed! when my pet aversion turned out to be the same person as my
unknown friend, that really did send all the "fair dreams crashing
down to ruin," as it says in books.
I don't think any one can blame me for being a bit of a man-hater,
after all?
* * * * * * * *
(Later.)
Nancy actually has vouchsafed a word to me at last! Not that it is
much. She came into the drawing-room just now with a very woebegone
face and asked everybody in general whether they had any toothache
cure in the house. This was a bit of a surprise. You see, the one
advantage of belonging to the Verdeley family is that the curse of
toothache never has been known to them, from the cradle to the grave!
Our teeth all "come easily" when we are babies and teething. And
when we get the second set they jolly well stay with us until the end
of our lives. Even Aunt Victoria, who is twice a Verdeley, having
married her cousin, even Aunt Victoria hasn't got a single gold crown
or stopped tooth or atrocity of that kind in her head!
And father was the same. And we have all inherited it from him,
thank goodness! So that I don't wish to boast, but we can't help
realising that the combined teeth of the Verdeley girls are like
nothing in the world but a long, completely-perfect string of white
pearls. Hence the surprise when Nancy, with the corners of her mouth
drawn well down, and her hand over one very pink cheek, murmured
disconsolately that "she had such a racking toothache, and she
wondered if anybody in the house had got any Nerve-Soother?"
Nobody had, of course.
Then Mr. Lascelles said he would nip off to the chemist's for a
bottle.
As usual, on these occasions when you want to buy something in a
hurry, it was Early Closing Day. The only chemist had gone off to
Nowhere Junction. So then he (the Inc.) had to clatter away on his
motor-cycle to Mr. Curtis's billet, at the other end of the town.
Finally, he raised a small bottle of chlorodyne. This I took up to
Nancy's bedroom, where she was lying stretched on a couch of pain
with her thick emerald-green blanket-coat spread over her--(I told
you she had given her pink eiderdown to the Incubus)--and Evelyn,
hovering over her, was saying, "I'm afraid you'll have to make up
your mind to go to the dentist's," and offering Nancy a bottle of
"Eau de Cologne" and some cotton-wool, which she was faintly refusing.
"This will be better," I said, producing the chlorodyne. "It comes
'with Mr. Curtis's profoundest sympathy.'"
The mere mention of Mr. Curtis sent Evelyn out of the room. You
know, she disapproves of him so awfully since the night of the party.
"Try and stick some of this into your tooth, old thing," I said
consolingly. "Is it very bad? Open your mouth, and let me see which
one it is."
"Oh, it's right at the back," moaned Nancy, touching her cheek.
"Why, that's the other side of your face from what it was this
afternoon," I said.
"Yes, I think it must be a kind of neuralgia: it flies all over the
place," said my sister, in a stifled voice. "Evelyn is quite right.
She thinks the only thing to be done is for me to go to the dentist
and see where the trouble really is."
"But if it's neuralgia," I said, "going to the dentist won't do it
any good."
"Oh, yes, I am sure it will," said Nancy hastily. "I think going to
the dentist will be absolutely the only thing to do. I expect
there's a tooth at the bottom of it, really."
In fact, she seemed as anxious to go there as most people are to stop
away. A thought came to me.
"Young Nancy," I said firmly, "open your mouth and let me have a look
at those teeth of yours."
"No," objected Nancy. "You're not a dentist, Rattle. You wouldn't
be able to do any good."
"All right, then I'll go away," I said, and moved to the door.
Nancy glanced at me. I think she saw it was no good pretending any
longer.
"Open your mouth," I insisted.
Well, she opened her pink mouth, wide. I gave a peep in. And, of
course, every one of her thirty-two teeth was as white and sound and
efficient-looking as those of a young terrier!
"Oh, you fraud!" I said, looking her full in the face.
Nancy pursed up her mouth again, and a whole swarm of dimples
immediately broke out over her face.
Then she said, meekly, "But, Rattle, dear, I have got to get to the
dentist's somehow."
"You mean that somehow you have got to fib your way to Nowhere
Junction," I said severely, "so that you have a chance of meeting
Captain----"
"S-sh," said Nancy.
"I won't s-sh," I said. "You know you are only making an opportunity
to meet your fiancé!"
"Oh, Rattle, darling, don't shout so loud," Nancy said softly,
although as it happened I was only talking in a whisper. "If you
ever were fond of me do stand by me now."
I leaned over her and hugged her through the blanket-coat.
"Of course, I am fond of you. You know you're my favourite person in
the world. But I think you might let me know what I am standing by,
and what I am supposed to do."
"Only see me through this! See that I manage to get up to Nowhere
Junction to-morrow," said Nancy beseechingly. "You know that Aunt
Victoria won't let one of us go there alone, and that Auntie won't go
herself in this weather, because the frost is so bad for her
bronchitis, so one of you will have to go with me, and I think it had
better be you."
"Yes," I agreed. "I think it had better not be Evelyn. She wouldn't
think it right. She would be shocked. We won't tell her."
You know it is curious, but as soon as people begin being "shocked"
at things, like Evelyn, other people begin to leave off telling them
anything. So, quite soon, they don't have much left to be shocked
at. This is what's called the wind being tempered to the shorn lamb,
I expect. But to go back to the plans of my other sister. Nancy
said: "The trains to-morrow are very inconvenient for----"
She paused.
"For the dentist, I suppose."
"Yes, for the dentist," said Nancy, with more dimples. "So I shan't
be able to go over by train."
"How then?" I asked, looking down at her.
"I shall go in the side-car of--of somebody's motor bicycle," planned
that disgraceful Nancy, as demurely as you please. "He is going to
offer (very kindly) to run me over to town."
"Well, then, he can't take me," I objected. "There is only room for
one in that side-car of his."
"You will have to go in another side-car of another bicycle," decreed
Nancy. "That has been arranged, too."
"Who's going to take me, then?" I asked (with what you might call a
not unnatural curiosity), "Mr. Curtis?"
"No," said Nancy. Then she added, rather hurriedly, "Mr. Lascelles
says he will take you."
Immediately I stiffened all over myself, as if I had swallowed six
pokers.
"Oh, does he?" I said indignantly. "Mr. Lascelles says he will take
me? Does he? That's kind of him! Well, as a matter of fact, Mr.
Lascelles will not take me. There are a few things which I draw the
line at. This is one. I am not going with Mr. Lascelles."
"Rattle! Be an angel!"
"I will be anything you like," I said, "_but not with Mr. Lascelles_.
I will do anything for you, but I won't have anything to do with him!
I am fright' fully sorry to disappoint you, Nancy, old girl, but
don't ask me any more, because if it is a case of Mr. Lascelles _I
will not!_"
And I meant what I said: every syllable of it. I meant to stick to
it. But!----
Well, you know the kind of argument that begins by one's being
absolutely determined about something, and saying that whatever
happens one will not, one will not give in. It generally ends in the
same way. The most determined of the arguers gets the worst of it.
The one who simply looked pathetic and allowed big tears to well up
into her blue eyes comes off triumphant. This was what happened in
the wrangle between Nancy and me.
"You couldn't be so absolutely horrid to your own sister," Nancy
almost wept, "if you only knew how much it meant to me being able to
get up to Nowhere Junction to-morrow without any bother and asking of
questions! And you know that he--that people will probably be off to
the Front in a fortnight!"
(By "people" of course she meant Captain Masters.) "And I may never
be going to see him again," she mourned. "Oh! Rattle, think of
that! ... If you were a little older you might understand how I feel
about this. But really I think there is no one so callous and
unfeeling about things as the very young," said Nancy, who is only
just twenty herself, dash it all!
She said, "If I could only get you to go up with me to-morrow----"
I said, "I don't mind going. 'Tisn't that. It's only who I've got
to go with! I don't mind coming with you, and disappearing into one
tea-shop while you go into another, in the way that a really good
chaperon ought to do, and then joining you about half a mile from
home again when you come back! Only, my young friend, you will have
to arrange so that I go in somebody else's side-car."
"My dear, there is nobody else with a side-car!"
"But half the officers here have got them," I protested.
"Yes, but there is not another of the officers here that I would like
to know about Harry--I mean about--you know who--and myself," said
Nancy, getting agitated about it again. "You know that Mr. Lascelles
is a pal of his, a very old chum, and Captain Masters knows that he
can trust him to the uttermost----"
"That shows that he doesn't really know the Incubus's true
character," said I, bitterly thinking of my own disillusionment about
the "Lonely Subaltern."
"I don't see how you can pretend to know poor Mr. Lascelles," said
Nancy to me quite indignantly. "You hardly speak to him! You won't
look at him! And it is such a pity, Rattle, you know, because----"
"Well, because what?"
"Because he likes you so awfully much," said Nancy.
I laughed cynically, as it says in books. "Thank you," I said, "but
I happen to know what the Incubus thinks of me!"
I remembered the icicles in his eyes the other day, just after I had
slapped his face. (However, Nancy could not be expected to know
anything about that.) She went on, sitting up on the bed and
clutching her blanket-coat round her, for you know how piercingly
cold it gets up in a bedroom this weather? She said, "Rattle, you
don't know what he thinks, and, as a matter of fact, I do,
since--well, since I've known one of the soldier men here pretty
well. Because I hear a good deal about what all the others say. And
they all say the same thing, Rattle. They say that Frank Lascelles
is most frightfully fond of you."
This absolute rot annoyed me so much that I skipped up off the bed
where I was sitting at Nancy's feet and was just going to bolt out of
the room and not take the slightest notice of anything further that
she said. However, Nancy grasped me firmly by the arm.
"Stop! you must listen," she said. "It's too bad that you are being
so horrid to him. All the boys, my Harry, and Mr. Curtis, and the
adjutant, say exactly the same thing--poor old Frank has been
absolutely 'pottie' about the youngest of the girls at his billet
ever since he first came here, and---- No! stop, Rattle! You are to
hear it! They say, some of them say, that you must like him quite a
lot, for it's always a sign of a girl's taking a really violent
interest in a young man when she won't have anything to say to him in
that very marked manner!"
"Oh!" I said, bouncing up and down on the bed in my annoyance. "How
dare they say anything so absolutely idiotic? If they only knew me
at all they would realise that nothing could possibly be further from
my--why!---- You know----"
"Yes, I know, Rattle," said Nancy. "But, you see, they don't. What
they think is that you don't know whether Mr. Lascelles is merely a
flirt or not!"
"As if I cared what he is!"
"They think," pursued Nancy, "that you are just keeping out of his
way because you are afraid of getting too fond of him!"
"Me, afraid of that?" I said, rocking with indignant laughter. "Oh,
is that what they think?"
"So I understand, my dear!"
"Very well, then, I will see that they do understand," I cried
indignantly. "I shan't care tuppence how much I am with that horrid
little blot on the landscape. I will go and positively live in his
pocket for the next week! I shan't like it, nor will he. But never
mind. Anything to put a stop to this maudlin, puerile gossip of
those young men," I said as witheringly as I could.
"Never mind about his pocket, Rattle," Nancy took up in her most
coaxing tone again, "but if you will only go in his side-car----"
"Very well--I just will," I said, with the calmness of desperation,
"if you like!"
So that was how that was settled!
What a day it will be----
There's one thing that I can have a quiet mind about though, at all
events.
Nobody can accuse me of "using a side-car for pleasure."
"_Pleasure!_"
Ha, ha!