Bertram Mitford - Fordham's Feud

“But – but hang it, that’s just what the beggar won’t do,” blurted Phil in desperation. “Fact is he’s always in the way, and really it’s contemptible, you know; but what’s to be done with a cad like that, who ignores a snub that another fellow would knock you down for – or try to? You’ll come along, old man, won’t you?”

“Let’s see. There’s the General, he’s too old and don’t count. Then there’s yourself and the parson; and they want a third donkey – I mean beast of burden. Two won’t be enough to sling all the panniers they’ll want along. I’m afraid, Phil, you mustn’t count upon me, unless you can manage to supply the missing steed first.”

“Bosh, Fordham! You won’t be wanted to carry anything.”

“Not, eh? Let’s see again. Four females – that means eight wraps, putting it at the lowest computation. Add to that the delicate creatures’ rations – for you can’t get anything eatable or drinkable at Novèl – and sunshades, which they must have for crossing the lake, don’t you know, and which they’ll discard directly they begin to walk. And there’s all the amateur-commissionaire business into the bargain. No, no, Phil. Having given the matter my most careful consideration, I regret to say that I am unable to undertake it – as the publisher said when he ‘chucked’ the budding author’s MS.”

“You old savage! If you weren’t shaving I’d ‘chuck’ all the boots and bolsters in the room at your head.”

“Well, I’ve done now, so you can begin. But, I say, Phil,” he went on, tranquilly, “how long have we been here?”

Philip Orlebar’s handsome head was well through the open window at that moment. His friend therefore found it necessary to repeat the question.

“Eh – what? How long? Oh, about ten days, haven’t we?”

“I believe we have,” rejoined the other in the same silky tone. “And, my dear boy, doesn’t it strike you that you are getting on ra-ather rapidly?”

“No. Why?”

“Nothing. Only that even the charm of my improving conversation does not avail to keep your head within that window, when some inexplicable instinct – for you couldn’t possibly have seen her – warns you that your divinity is on the terrace below. And yet, in a few minutes more you will be seated by her side for at least an hour – such being unfortunately the length of table d’hôte , and after that may safely be counted upon to pass the residue of the evening not a hundred yards apart from her by any means.”

“Well, I’m only one of a crowd then,” retorted Philip, with a dash of irritation. “Those confounded Ottley girls are always on hand – a good deal too much so.”

“Are they? Look here now, Phil. What is there about that girl that makes a difference between her and any other girl?”

“Ah! You – even you, you old ruffian, own that there is a difference?”

“Not so fast, my dear chap. I asked you the question. But if you want me to answer it myself, I reply ‘Nothing.’”

“What? You don’t see any difference?”

“Not a particle,” responded his tormentor, blandly. Philip stared for a moment. He hardly knew what to say. Then:

“Well, with all your shelliness, you crustaceous old cuss, I gave you credit for more discrimination. Why, confound it all, look at her alongside the rest of the crowd here. Isn’t she a head and shoulders above them all – in every particular?”

“H’m, h’m! Oh, yes! no doubt. But that isn’t saying very much. She looks thoroughbred, I admit, and talks well, and has some ideas – not bad ones, either; not that I’ve ever been favoured with them myself, for I’ve never laid myself out for that honour. Women, you see, are like children. As long as you keep them at arm’s length they respect you. Directly you have ever so little to do with them, then good-bye to your peace, for they will allow you none; then, presto, the collar is round your neck and you find yourself cast for the rôle of general poodle before you know where you are. It’s fetch-and-carry, will-you-do-this and would-you-mind-doing-that. And then you are expected to act the sympathetic listener to all their infernal egotistic fads; and God help you if at any moment you forget the sympathetic part of it. But to return to our sheep. You think this particular girl an angel, because she’s good-looking and thoroughbred, and has a hovering sort of suggestion about her of being an ill-used mortal and welcoming a sympathetic spirit, and all that sort of thing. Then, again, you run against her up here, where you’re both of you showing at your best because you’ve neither of you anything in the world to put you out – splendid weather, lovely country, good old times all round – sort of paradise in which she stands out as the Eve to you, and I daresay you as the Adam to her. That’s not life, my dear fellow; that’s not life. A mere summer idyll and no more. Can’t possibly last, you know.”

“And why the deuce can’t it last?” said Phil, who had been listening somewhat impatiently to this harangue.

Fordham emitted a short, dry guffaw.

“Well now, can it? I put it to you. Just run over all the ‘happy couples’ within the circle of your acquaintance: to how many of them is life a summer idyll, or any sort of idyll at all? You needn’t go further than this house, which at present contains a good few ‘yoke-fellows,’ to use a thoroughly expressive term. If you haven’t yet found time to observe them, just keep your eyes open for the next day or two – if you can divert those killing orbs from the adorable Alma, that is – and a place like this is good for observations of the kind, because the subjects of them are always more or less off their guard. Putting it at the lowest computation, eight marriages out of every ten are abject failures – the other two very dubious.”

“Oh, indeed! And how many are there that turn out satisfactorily?” said Phil, ironically.

“Perhaps one in five thousand.”

“Oh – well – it’s something to have got you to admit that much. Now why shouldn’t I, for instance, hit off that one?”

“Why shouldn’t you? Well now, Phil, I put it to you as one not wholly unacquainted with sporting matters. What would you say to a fellow who should ask you to take tickets in a lottery where the chances were five thousand to one against you – or rather to take one ticket, and that at the price of all you were worth? You’d vote him drunk, of course. Yet if I know anything of my fellow-creatures, you are in a fair way towards perpetrating that identical suicidal imbecility. Now, what do you say? Chuck your expedition across the lake to-morrow, and let’s go on to Zermatt now instead of a week or so later. That, or your fate is sealed.”

“No you don’t, old chap; no you don’t,” said Phil, who, far from being offended by the other’s ill-conditionedness, was hugely pleased thereat, since it confirmed and encouraged certain hopes he had already more than half shaped. “By Jove, I never had such a good time in my life as I’ve been having here. Too soon to cut it just yet.”

Fordham’s shoulders went up in an expressive shrug as he turned away to the door.

“Don’t say you weren’t shown the cliff you proposed to jump over,” he said. “Jump now, and be – blessed to you.”

“By the way, Fordham,” said Phil, “isn’t it a deuced rum thing? The old General knows my governor well – or rather did, years ago.”

“Did he?” was the sharp reply, as the speaker faced suddenly round. “Ah well – yes – it is queer. But the world’s a pretty small one. There goes the second bell,” he added, in his normally unconcerned tones, as he again turned to the door.