Chapter 11
Giles was the first to break a rather strained silence.
“The book does not appear to be here, miss.”
“Eh?”
“I have searched the top of the cupboard, miss, but I have not found the book.”
It may be that my reply erred a trifle on the side of acerbity. My narrow escape from those slavering jaws had left me a bit edgy.
“Blast the book, Giles! What about the dog?”
“Yes, miss.”
“What do you mean – ‘Yes, miss’?”
“I was endeavoring to convey that I appreciate the point which you have raised, miss. The animal’s unexpected appearance presents a problem. Our freedom of action will be circumscribed.”
“What’s to be done?”
“It is difficult to say, miss.”
“You have no ideas?”
“No, miss.”
A rather stiff silence ensued, during which the dog Wilkins continued to gaze at me unwinkingly, and once more I found myself noticing – and resenting – the superior, sanctimonious expression on his face. Nothing can ever render the experience of being treed on top of a chest of drawers by an Aberdeen terrier pleasant, but it seemed to me that the least you can expect on such an occasion is that the animal will meet you halfway and not drop salt in the wound by looking at you as if he were asking if you were saved.
It was in the hope of wiping this look off his face that I now made a gesture. There was a stump of candle standing in the parent candlestick beside me, and I threw this at the little blighter. He ate it with every appearance of relish, took time out briefly in order to be sick, and resumed the silent stare. And at this moment the door opened and in came Fifi – hours before I had expected her.
The first thing that impressed itself upon one on seeing her was that she was not in her customary buoyant spirits. Fifi, as a rule, is a girl who moves jauntily from spot to spot, but she entered now with a slow and dragging step. She cast a dull eye at us, and after a brief “Hullo, Willow. Hullo, Giles,” seemed to dismiss us from her thoughts. She made for the dressing table and, having removed her hat, sat looking at herself in the mirror with somber eyes. It was plain that for some reason the soul had got a flat tire, and seeing that unless I opened the conversation there was going to be one of those awkward pauses, I did so.
“What ho, Fifi.”
“Hullo.”
“Nice evening. Your dog’s just been sick on the carpet.”
All this, of course, was merely a way of leading into the main theme, which I now proceeded to broach.
“Well, Fifi, I suppose you’re surprised to see us here?”
“No, I’m not. Have you been looking for that book?”
“Why, yes. That’s right. We have. Though, as a matter of fact, we hadn’t really got started. We were somewhat impeded by the bow-wow.” Keeping it light, you notice. Always the best way on these occasions. “He took our entrance in the wrong spirit.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Would it be asking too much of you to attach a stout lead to his collar, thus making the world safe for democracy?”
“Yes, it would.”
“Surely you wish to save the lives of two fellow creatures?”
“No, I don’t. I hope Wilkins bites you to the bone.”
I saw that little was to be gained be approaching the matter from this angle. I switched to a different point of view.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” I said. “I thought you had gone to the Working Men’s Institute, to tickle the ivories in accompaniment to Skittle Pin’s lecture on the Holy Land.”
“I did.”
“Back early, aren’t you?”
“Yes. The lecture was off. Ryland broke the slides.”
“Oh?” I said, feeling that he was just the sort of chap to break slides. “How did that happen?”
She passed a listless hand over the brow of the dog Wilkins, who had stepped up to fraternize.
“He dropped them. He had a shock, when I broke off our engagement.”
“What!”
“Yes.” A gleam came in to her eyes as if she were reliving unpleasant scenes. Her listlessness disappeared, and for the first time she spoke with a vehemence. “I got to Ryland’s cottage, and I went in, and after we’d talked of this and that for a while, I said, ‘when are you going to pinch Constable Oates’ helmet, darling?’ And would you believe it, he looked at me in a horrible, sheepish, hang-dog way and said that he had been wrestling with his conscience in the hope of getting is OK, but that it simply wouldn’t hear of him pinching Oates’ helmet, so it was all off. “Oh?” I said, drawing myself up. “All off is it? Well, so is our engagement,” and he dropped a double-handful of colored slides of the Holy Land, and I came away.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“Yes, I do. And I consider that I have had a very lucky escape. If he is the sort of man who is going to refuse me every little thing I ask, I’m glad I found it out in time. I’m delighted about the whole thing.”
Here, with a sniff like the tearing of a piece of calico, she buried the bean in her hands, and broke into what are called uncontrollable sobs.
Well, dashed painful, of course, and you wouldn’t be far wrong in saying that I ached in sympathy with her distress. I don’t suppose there is a bird in London more readily moved by a fellow woman’s grief than myself.
For two pins, if I’d been a bit nearer, I would have patted her head. But though there is this kindly streak in the Rosenbys, there is also a practical one, and it didn’t take me long to spot the bright side to all this. “Well, that’s too bad,” I said. “The heart bleeds. Eh, Giles?”
“Distinctly, miss.”
“Yes, by Jove, it bleeds profusely, and I suppose all that one can say is that one hopes that Time, the great healer, will eventually stitch up the wound. However, as in these circs you will, of course, no longer have any use for that notebook of Lumpy’s, how about handing it over?”
“What?”
“I said that if your projected union with Skittle-Pin is off, you will, of course, no longer wish to keep that notebook of Lumpy’s among your effects — ”
“Oh, don’t bother me about notebooks now.”
“No, no, quite. Not for the world. All I’m saying is that if — at your leisure — choose the time to suit yourself — you wouldn’t mind slipping it across — ”
“Oh, all right. I can’t give it you now, though. It isn’t here.”
“Not here?”
“No. I put it…Hallo, what’s that?”
What had caused her to suspend her remarks just at the point when they were becoming fraught with interest was a sudden tapping sound. A sort of tap-tap-tap. It came from the direction of the window.
This room of Fifi’s, I should have mentioned, in addition to being equipped with four-poster beds, valuable pictures, richly upholstered chairs and all sorts of things far too good for a young squirt, had a balcony outside its window. It was from this balcony that the tapping sound proceeded, leading one to infer that someone stood without. That the dog Wilkins had reached this conclusion was shown immediately by the lissome agility with which he leaped at the window and started trying to bite his way through. Up till this moment he had shown himself a dog of strong reserves, content merely to sit and stare, but now he was full of strange oaths. And I confess that, as I watched his champing and listened to his observations, I congratulated myself on the promptitude with which I had breezed onto that chest of drawers. A bone-crusher, if ever one drew breath, this Wilkins Travers.
Reluctant as one always is to criticize the acts of an all-wise Providence, I was dashed if I could see why a dog of his size should have been fitted out with the jaws and teeth of a crocodile. Still, too late of course to do anything about it now.
Fifi, after that moment of surprised inaction which was to be expected in a girl who hears tapping sounds at her window, had risen and gone to investigate. I couldn’t see a thing from where I was sitting, but she was evidently more fortunately placed. As she drew back the curtain, I saw her clap a hand to her throat, like someone in a play, and a sharp cry escaped her, audible even above the ghastly row which was proceeding from the lips of the frothing terrier.
“Ryland!” she yipped, and putting two and two together I gathered that the bird on the balcony must be old Skittle-Pin Finn, my favorite curate. Her next words were uttered with a cold, hostile intonation. I was able to hear them, because she had stooped and picked up the bounder Wilkins, clamping a hand over his mouth to still his cries — a thing I wouldn’t have done for a goodish bit of money. “What do you want?” Owing to the lull in Wilkins, the stuff was coming through well now. Skittle-Pin’s voice was a bit muffled by the intervening sheet of glass, but I got it nicely.
“Fifi!”
“Well?”
“Can I come in?”
“No, you can’t.”
“But I’ve brought you something.”
A sudden yowl of ecstasy broke from the young pimple. “Ryland! You angel lamb! You haven’t got it, after all?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Ryland, my dream of joy!” She opened the window with eager fingers, and a cold draught came in and played about my ankles. It was not followed, as I had supposed it would be, by old Skittle-Pin.
He continued to hang about on the outskirts, and a moment later his motive in doing so was made clear. “I say, Fifi, old girl, is that hound of yours under control?”
“Yes, rather. Wait a minute.” She carried the animal to the cupboard and bunged him in, closing the door behind him. And from the fact that no further bulletins were received from him, I imagine he curled up and went to sleep. These Scotties are philosophers, well able to adapt themselves to changing conditions. They can take it as well as dish it out.
“All clear, angel,” she said, and returned to the window, arriving there just in time to be folded in the embrace of the Incoming Skittle-Pin.
It was not easy for some moments to sort out the male from the female ingredients in the ensuing tangle, but eventually he disengaged himself and I was able to see him steadily and see him whole. And when I did so, I noticed that there was rather more of him than there had been when I had seen him last. Country butter and the easy life these curates lead had added a pound or two to an always impressive figure. To find the lean, finely trained Skittle-Pin of my nonage, I felt that one would have to catch him in Lent.
But the change in him, I soon perceived, was purely superficial. The manner in which he now tripped over a rug and cannoned into an occasional table, upsetting it with all the old thoroughness, showed me that at heart he still remained the same galumphing man with two left feet, who had always been constitutionally incapable of walking through the great Gobi desert without knocking something over.
Skittle-Pin’s was a face which in the old College days had glowed with health and heartiness. The health was still there —he looked like a clerical beetroot — but of heartiness at this moment one noted rather a shortage. His features were drawn, as if Conscience were gnawing at his vitals. And no doubt it was, for in one hand he was carrying the helmet which I had last observed perched on the dome of Constable Eustace Oates. With a quick, impulsive movement, like that of a man trying to rid himself of a dead fish, he thrust it at Fifi, who received it with a soft, tender squeal of ecstasy. “I brought it,” he said dully.
“Oh, Ryland! Thank you, darling. Tell me everything that happened.”
He was about to do so, when he paused, and I saw that he was staring at me with a rather feverish look in his eyes. Then he turned and stared at Giles. One could read what was passing in his mind. He was debating within himself whether we were real, or whether the nervous strain to which he had been subjected was causing him to see things.
“Fifi,” he said, lowering his voice, “don’t look now, but is there something on top of that chest of drawers?”
“Eh? Oh, yes, that’s Willow Rosenby.”
“Oh, it is?” said Skittle-Pin, brightening visibly. “I wasn’t quite sure. Is that somebody on the cupboard, too?”
“That’s Willow’s man, Giles.”
“How do you do?” said Skittle-Pin.
“How do you do, sir?” said Giles.
We climbed down, and I came forward with outstretched hand, anxious to get the reunion going.
“What ho, Skittle-Pin.”
“Hullo, Willow.”
“Long time since we met.”
“It is a bit, isn’t it?”
“I hear you’re a curate now.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“How are the souls?”
“Oh, fine, thanks.”
There was a pause, and I suppose I would have gone on to ask him if he had seen anything of old So-and-so lately or knew what had become of old What’s-his-name, as one does when the conversation shows a tendency to drag on these occasions of ancient chums meeting again after long separation, but before I could do so, Fifi, who had been crooning over the helmet like a mother over the cot of her sleeping child, stuck it on her head with a merry chuckle, and the spectacle appeared to bring back to Skittle-Pin like a slosh in the waistcoat the realization of what he had done. You’ve probably heard the expression “The wretched man seemed fully conscious of his position.” That was Ryland Finn at this juncture.
He shied like a startled horse, knocked over another table, tottered to a chair, knocked that over, picked it up and sat down, burying his face in his hands.
“If the Infants’ Bible Class should hear of this!” he said, shuddering strongly.
I saw what he meant. A man in his position has to watch his step. What people expect from a curate is a zealous performance of his parochial duties. When they find him de-helmeting policemen, they look at one another with the raised eyebrow of censure, and ask themselves if he is quite the right man for the job. That was what was bothering Skittle-Pin and preventing him being the old effervescent curate whose jolly laugh had made the last School Treat go with such a bang. Fifi endeavored to hearten him.
“I’m sorry, darling. If it upsets you, I’ll put it away.” She crossed to the chest of drawers, and did so. “But why it should,” she said, returning, “I can’t imagine. I should have thought it would have made you so proud and happy. And now tell me everything that happened.”
“Yes,” I said. “One would like the firsthand story”
“Did you creep up behind him like a leopard?” asked Fifi.
“Of course, he did,” I said, admonishing the silly young shrimp. “You don’t suppose he pranced up in full view of the fellow? No doubt you trailed him with unremitting snakiness, eh, Skittle-Pin, and did the deed when he was relaxing on a stile or somewhere over a quiet pipe?”
Skittle-Pin sat staring straight before him, that drawn look still on his face. “He wasn’t on the stile. He was leaning against it. After you left me, Fifi, I went for a walk to think things over, and I had just crossed Plunket’s meadow and was going to climb the stile into the next one, when I saw something dark in front of me, and there he was.”
I nodded. I could visualize the scene. “I hope,” I said, “that you remembered to give the forward shove before the upwards lift?”
“It wasn’t necessary. The helmet was not on his head. He had taken it off and put it on the ground. And, I just crept up and grabbed it.”
I started, pursing the lips a bit. “Not quite playing the game, Skittle-Pin.”
“Yes, it was,” said Fifi, with a good deal of warmth. “I call it very clever of him. And it jolly well isn’t fitting for you to offer an opinion, young pie-faced Willow Rosenby. Who do you think you are,” she demanded, with renewed warmth, “coming strolling into a girl’s bedroom, sticking on about the right way and wrong way of pinching helmets? What are you doing here?”
“Yes, I was wondering that,” said Skittle-Pin, touching on the point for the first time. And I could see, of course, how he might quite well be surprised at finding this mob scene in what he had supposed the exclusive sleeping apartment of the loved one.
I eyed her sternly. “You know what I am doing here. I told you. I came — “
“Oh, yes. Willow came to borrow a book, darling. But” — here her eyes lingered on mine in a cold and sinister manner — “I’m afraid I can’t let her have it just yet. I have not finished with it myself. By the way,” she continued, still holding me with that compelling stare, “Willow says she will be delighted to help us with that cow-creamer scheme.”
“Will you, old girl?” said Skittle-Pin eagerly.
“Of course, she will,” said Fifi. Her manner was impatient. She seemed in a hurry to terminate the scene.
“When would you feel like doing it, Willow?”
“She feels like doing it tonight,” said Fifi. “No sense in putting things off. Be waiting outside at midnight, darling. Everybody will have gone to bed by then. Midnight will suit you, Willow? Yes, Willow says it will suit her splendidly. So, that’s all settled. And now you really must be going, precious. If somebody came in and found you here, they might think it odd. Good night, darling.”
“Good night, darling.”
“Good night, darling.”
“Good night, darling.”
“Wait!” I said, cutting in on these revolting exchanges, for I wished to make a last appeal to Skittle-Pin’s finer feelings.
“He can’t wait. He’s got to go. Remember, angel. On the spot, ready to the last button, at twelve pip emma. Good night, darling.”
“Good night, darling.”
“Good night, darling.”
“Good night, darling.”
They passed onto the balcony, the nauseous endearments receding in the distance, and I turned to Giles, my face stern and hard.
“Faugh, Giles!”
“Miss?”
“I said ‘Faugh!’ I am a pretty broad-minded girl, but this has shocked me — I may say to the core. It is not so much the behavior of Fifi that I find so revolting. But that Ryland Finn, a clerk in Holy Orders, a chap who buttons his collar at the back, should countenance this thing appalls me. He knows she has got that book. He knows that she is holding me up with it. But does he insist on her returning it? No! He lends himself to the raw work with open enthusiasm.” I paused, much moved. A bit out of breath, too.
“I think you do the gentleman an injustice, miss.”
“Eh?”
“I am sure that he is under the impression that your acquiescence in the scheme is due entirely to goodness of heart and a desire to assist an old friend.”
“You think she hasn’t told him about the notebook?”
“I am convinced of it, miss. I could gather that from the lady’s manner.”
“I didn’t notice anything about her manner.”
“When you were about to mention the notebook, it betrayed embarrassment, miss. She feared lest Mr. Finn might enquire into the matter and, learning the facts, compel her to make restitution.”
“By Jove, Giles, I believe you’re right.” I reviewed the recent scene. Yes, he was perfectly correct. Fifi, though one of those girls who enjoy in equal quantities the gall of an army mule and the calm insouciance of a fish on a slab of ice, had unquestionably gone up in the air a bit when I had seemed about to explain to Skittle-Pin my motives for being in the room. I recalled the feverish way in which she had hustled him out, like a small bouncer at a pub ejecting a large customer.
“Egad, Giles!” I said, impressed. There was a muffled crashing sound from the direction of the balcony. A few moments later, Fifi returned.
“Ryland fell off the ladder,” she explained, laughing heartily.
“Well, Willow, you’ve got the program all clear? Tonight’s the night!”
“Wait!” I said. “Not so fast. Just one moment, young Fifi.” The ring of quiet authority in my tone seemed to take her aback. She blinked twice, and looked at me questioningly. “Just one moment,” I repeated. “Fifi,” I said, laughing down from lazy eyelids, “I will trouble you to disgorge that book.” The questioning look became intensified. I could see that all this was perplexing her. She had supposed that she had Willow nicely ground beneath the iron heel, and here she was, popping up like a two-year-old, full of the fighting spirit.
“What do you mean?”
I laughed down a bit more. “I should have supposed,” I said, “that my meaning was quite clear. I want that notebook of Lumpy’s, and I want it immediately, without any more back chat.”
Her lips tightened. “You will get it tomorrow — if Ryland turns in a satisfactory report.”
“I shall get it now.”
“Ha jolly ha!”
“‘Ha jolly ha!’ to you, young Fifi, with knobs on,” I retorted with quiet dignity. “I repeat, I shall get it now. If I don’t, I shall go to old Skittle-Pin and tell him all about it.”
“All about what?”
“All about everything. At present, he is under the impression that my acquiescence in your scheme is due entirely to goodness of heart and a desire to assist an old friend. You haven’t told him about the notebook. I am convinced of it. I could gather that from your manner. When I was about to mention the notebook, it betrayed embarrassment. You feared lest Skittle-Pin might enquire into the matter and, learning the facts, compel you to make restitution.” Her eyes flickered. I saw that Giles had been correct in his diagnosis.
“You’re talking absolute rot,” she said, but it was with a quaver on the voice.
“All right. Well, toodle-oo. I’m off to find Skittle-Pin.” I turned on my heel and, as I expected, she stopped me with a pleading yowl.
“No, Willow, don’t! You mustn’t!”
I came back. “So! You admit it? Skittle-Pin knows nothing of your…of your underhanded skullduggery.”
“I don’t see why you call it underhanded skullduggery.”
“I call it underhanded skullduggery because that is what I consider it. And that is what Skittle-Pin, dripping as he is with high principles, will consider it when the facts are placed before him.” I turned on the heel again. “Well, toodle-oo once more.”
“Willow, wait!”
“Well?”
“Willow, darling — “
I checked her with a cold wave. “Less of the ‘Willow, darling’. ‘Willow, darling’, forsooth! Nice time to start the ‘Willow, darling’—ing.”
“But, Willow darling, I want to explain. Of course, I didn’t dare tell Ryland about the book. He would have had a fit. He would have said it was a rotten trick, and of course I knew it was. But there was nothing else to do. There didn’t seem any other way of getting you to help us.”
“There wasn’t.”
“But you are going to help us, aren’t you?”
“I am not.”
“Well, I do think you might.”
“I dare say you do, but I won’t.”
Somewhere about the first or second line of this chunk of dialogue, I had observed her eyes begin to moisten and her lips to tremble, and a pearly one had started to steal down the cheek. The bursting of the dam, of which that pearly one had been the first preliminary trickle, now set in with great severity. With a brief word to the effect that she wished she were dead and that I would look pretty silly when I gazed down at her coffin, knowing that my inhumanity had put her there, she flung herself on the bed and started going oomph. It was the old uncontrollable sob-stuff which she had pulled earlier in the proceedings, and once more I found myself a bit unmanned. I stood there irresolute, plucking nervously at my dress. I have already alluded to the effect of a woman’s grief on the Rosenbys.
“Oomp,” she went. “Oomp…Oomp"
“But, Fifi, old girl, be reasonable. Use the bean. You can’t seriously expect me to pinch that cow-creamer.”
“It oomps everything to us.”
“Very possibly. But listen. You haven’t envisaged the latent snags. Your blasted father is watching my every move, just waiting for me to start something. And even if he wasn’t, the fact that I would be co-operating with Skittle-Pin renders the thing impossible. I have already given you my views on Skittle-Pin as a partner in crime. Somehow, in some manner, he would muck everything up. Why, look at what happened just now. He couldn’t even climb down a ladder without falling off.”
“Oomp.”
“Giles, would you agree with me, that the scheme, as planned, would merely end in disaster?”
“Yes, miss. It undoubtedly presents certain grave difficulties. I wonder if I might be permitted to suggest an alternative one.”
I stared at the man. “You mean you have found a formula.”
“I think so, miss.”
His words had de-oomped Fifi. I don’t think anything else in the world would have done it.
She sat up, looking at him with a wild surmise. “Giles! Have you really?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Well, you certainly are the most wonderfully woolly baa-lamb that ever stepped.”
“Thank you, miss.”
“Well, let us have it, Giles,” I said, lowering self into a chair. “One hopes, of course, that you are right, but I should have thought personally that there were no avenues.”
“I think we can find one, miss, if we approach the matter from the psychological angle.”
“Oh, psychological?”
“Yes, miss.”
“The psychology of the individual?”
“Precisely, miss.”
“I see. Giles,” I explained to Fifi, who, of course, knew the man only slightly, “is and always has been a whale on the psychology of the individual. He eats it alive. What individual, Giles?”
“Sir Quentin Travers, miss.”
I frowned doubtfully. “You propose to try to soften that old public enemy? I don’t think it can be done, except with a knuckleduster.”
“No, miss. It would not be easy to soften Sir Quentin, who, as you imply, is a man of strong character, not easily molded. The idea I have in mind is to endeavor to take advantage of his attitude towards yourself. Sir Quentin does not like you, miss.”
“I don’t like him.”
“No, miss. But the important thing is that he has conceived a strong distaste for you, and would consequently sustain a severe shock, were you to inform him that you and Miss Travers were in love and prepared to leave England to be together.”
“What! You want me to tell him that Fifi and I are that way?”
“Precisely, miss.” I shook the head. “I see no percentage in it, Giles. All right for a laugh, no doubt — watching the old bounder’s reactions I mean — but of little practical value. And suppose word were to get to Aunt Sheila? Disaster!” Fifi, too, seemed disappointed. It was plain that she had been hoping for better things.
“It sounds goofy to me,” she said. “Where would that get us, Giles?”
“If I might explain, miss. Sir Quentin’s reactions would, as Miss Rosenby suggests, be of a strongly defined character.”
“He would hit the ceiling.”
“Exactly, miss. A very colorful piece of imagery. And if you were then to assure him that there was no truth in Miss Rosenby’s statement, adding that you were, in actual fact, betrothed to Mr. Finn, I think the overwhelming relief which he would feel at the news would lead him to look with a kindly eye on your union with that gentleman.” Here he steered his wizened brow my way, “Furthermore, it would do little for Sir Travers to divulge any sensitive information within polite society that could be viewed as inflammatory in regards to his own daughter as it would reflect badly on himself. I strongly feel, miss, that your character would ultimately be unaffected.”
Personally, I had never heard anything so potty in my life, and my manner indicated as much. Fifi, on the other hand, was all over it. She did the first few steps of a Spring dance.
“Why, Giles, that’s marvelous!”
“I think it would prove effective, miss.”
“Of course, it would. It couldn’t fail. Just imagine, Willow, darling, how he would feel if you told him I was in love with you. Why, if after that I said ‘Oh, no, it’s all right, Father. I really want to marry the boy who cleans the boots,’ he would fold me in his arms and promise to come and dance at the wedding. And when he finds that the real fellow is a splendid, wonderful, terrific man like Ryland, the thing will be a walk-over. Giles, you really are a specific dream rabbit.”
“Thank you, miss. I am glad to have given satisfaction.”
I rose. It was my intention to say goodbye to all this. I don’t mind people talking rot in my presence, but it must not be utter rot. I turned to Fifi, who was now in the later stages of her Spring dance, and addressed her with curt severity. “I will now take the book, Fifi.” She was over by the cupboard, strewing roses. She paused for a moment.
“Oh, the book. You want it?”
“I do. Immediately”
“I’ll give it you after you’ve seen Father.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Willow, darling, but I should feel much happier if I knew that you knew I had still got it, and I’m sure you want me to feel happy. You toddle off and beard him, and then we’ll talk.”
I frowned. “I will toddle off,” I said coldly, “but beard him, no. I don’t seem to see myself bearding him!”
She stared. “But Willow, this sounds as if you weren’t going to sit in.”
“It was how I meant it to sound.”
“You wouldn’t fail me, would you?”
“I would. I would fail you like billy-o.”
“Don’t you like the scheme?”
“I do not. Giles spoke a moment ago of his gladness at having given satisfaction. He has given me no satisfaction whatsoever. I consider that the idea he has advanced marks the absolute zero in human goofiness, and I am surprised that he should have entertained it.” I was utterly gob-smacked that my own man would propose using me thus. And what’s more with my darling Tara in residence. That a notion would be put forth to reveal such delicate truths as to the nature of my private character to such a fellow as Travers, all to benefit such an ignoble squirt as Fifi, while at the same time endangering matters with my treasured dove, well, the mind boggles.
“The book, Fifi, if you please — and sloppily”
She was silent for a space. “I was rather asking myself,” she said, “if you might not take this attitude.”
“And now you know the answer,” I riposted. “I have. The book, if you please.”
“I’m not going to give you the book.”
“Very well. Then I go to Skittle-Pin and tell him all.”
“All right. Do. And before you can get within a mile of him, I shall be up in the library, telling Father all.” She waggled her chin, like a girl who considers that she has put over a swift one: and, examining what she had said, I was compelled to realize that this was precisely what she had put over. I had overlooked this contingency completely. Her words gave me pause. The best I could do in the way of a comeback was to utter a somewhat baffled “H”m!” There is no use attempting to disguise the fact — Willow was nonplussed.
“So there you are. Now, how about it?”
My voice, which had been firm and resonant, took on a melting tremolo. “But, Fifi, dash it! You wouldn’t do that?”
“Yes, I would, if you don’t go and sweeten Father.”
“But how can I go and sweeten him? Fifi, you can’t subject me to this fearful ordeal.”
“Yes, I can. And what’s so fearful about it? He can’t eat you.”
I conceded this. “True. But that’s about the best you can say”
“It won’t be any worse than a visit to the dentist.”
“It’ll be worse than six visits to six dentists.”
“Well, think how glad you will be when it’s over.”
I drew little consolation from this. I looked at her closely, hoping to detect some signs of softening. Not one. She had been as tough as a restaurant steak, and she continued as tough as a restaurant steak. I made one last appeal. “You won’t recede from your position?”
“Not a step.”
I shrugged my shoulders, as some Roman gladiator — one of those chaps who threw knotted sheets over people, for instance — might have done on hearing the call-boy shouting his number in the wings.
“Very well, then,” I said.
She beamed at me maternally. “That’s the spirit. That’s my brave little crumpet.” At a less preoccupied moment, I might have resented her calling me her brave little crumpet, but in this grim hour it scarcely seemed to matter.
“Where is this frightful father of yours?”
“He’s bound to be in the library now.”
“Very good. Then I will go to him.”
I don’t know if you were ever told as a kid that story about the fellow whose dog chewed up the priceless manuscript of the book he was writing. The blow-out, if you remember, was that he gave the animal a pained look and said: “Oh, Diamond, Diamond, you — or it may have been thou — little know — or possibly knowest — what you — or thou — has — or hast — done.” I heard it in the nursery, and it has always lingered in my mind. And why I bring it up now is that this was how I looked at Giles as I passed from the room. I didn’t actually speak the gag, but I fancy he knew what I was thinking. I could have wished that Fifi had not said “Yoicks! Tally-ho!” as I crossed the threshold. It seemed to me in the circumstances flippant and in dubious taste.
************
To Be Continued...