Pelham Wodehouse: Love Among the Chickens

Aunty, meanwhile, having retired badly worsted from her encounter with Albert, who showed a skill in logomachy that marked him out as a future labour member, was consoling herself with meat sandwiches. The niece was demolishing sausage rolls. The atmosphere of the carriage was charged with a blend of odours, topping all Ukridge’s cigar, now in full blast.

The train raced on towards the sea. It was a warm day, and a torpid peace began to settle down upon the carriage. Ukridge had thrown away the stump of his cigar, and was now leaning back with his mouth open and his eyes shut. Aunty, still clutching a much-bitten section of a beef sandwich, was breathing heavily and swaying from side to side. Albert and the niece were dozing, Albert’s jaws working automatically, even in sleep.

“What’s your book, my dear?” asked the Irishman.

“‘The Manoeuvres of Arthur,’ father. By Jeremy Garnet.”

I would not have believed without the evidence of my ears that my name could possibly have sounded so musical.

“Molly McEachern gave it to me when I left the Abbey. She keeps a shelf of books for her guests when they are going away. Books that she considers rubbish, and doesn’t want, you know.”

I hated Miss McEachern without further evidence.

“And what do you think of it?”

“I like it,” said the girl decidedly. The carriage swam before my eyes. “I think it is very clever.”

What did it matter after that that the ass in charge of the Waterloo bookstall had never heard of “The Manoeuvres of Arthur,” and that my publishers, whenever I slunk in to ask how it was selling, looked at me with a sort of grave, paternal pity and said that it had not really “begun to move?” Anybody can write one of those rotten popular novels which appeal to the unthinking public, but it takes a man of intellect and refinement and taste and all that sort of thing to turn out something that will be approved of by a girl like this.

“I wonder who Jeremy Garnet is,” she said. “I’ve never heard of him before. I imagine him rather an old young man, probably with an eyeglass, and conceited. And I should think he didn’t know many girls. At least if he thinks Pamela an ordinary sort of girl. She’s a cr-r-eature,” said Phyllis emphatically.

This was a blow to me. I had always looked on Pamela as a well-drawn character, and a very attractive, kittenish little thing at that. That scene between her and the curate in the conservatory … And when she talks to Arthur at the meet of the Blankshires … I was sorry she did not like Pamela. Somehow it lowered Pamela in my estimation.

“But I like Arthur,” said the girl.

This was better. A good chap, Arthur,—a very complete and thoughtful study of myself. If she liked Arthur, why, then it followed … but what was the use? I should never get a chance of speaking to her. We were divided by a great gulf of Aunties and Alberts and meat sandwiches.

The train was beginning to slow down. Signs of returning animation began to be noticeable among the sleepers. Aunty’s eyes opened, stared vacantly round, closed, and reopened. The niece woke, and started instantly to attack a sausage roll. Albert and Ukridge slumbered on.

A whistle from the engine, and the train drew up at a station. Looking out, I saw that it was Yeovil. There was a general exodus. Aunty became instantly a thing of dash and electricity, collected parcels, shook Albert, replied to his thrusts with repartee, and finally heading a stampede out of the door.

The Irishman and his daughter also rose, and got out. I watched them leave stoically. It would have been too much to expect that they should be going any further.

“Where are we?” said Ukridge sleepily. “Yeovil? Not far now. I tell you what it is, old horse, I could do with a drink.”

With that remark he closed his eyes again, and returned to his slumbers. And, as he did so, my eye, roving discontentedly over the carriage, was caught by something lying in the far corner. It was “The Manoeuvres of Arthur.” The girl had left it behind.

I suppose what follows shows the vanity that obsesses young authors. It did not even present itself to me as a tenable theory that the book might have been left behind on purpose, as being of no further use to the owner. It only occurred to me that, if I did not act swiftly, the poor girl would suffer a loss beside which the loss of a purse or vanity-case were trivial.

Five seconds later I was on the platform.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I think …?”

“Oh, thank you so much,” said the girl.

I made my way back to the carriage, and lit my pipe in a glow of emotion.

“They are blue,” I said to my immortal soul. “A wonderful, deep, soft, heavenly blue, like the sea at noonday.”

From Axminster to Combe Regis the line runs through country as attractive as any that can be found in the island, and the train, as if in appreciation of this fact, does not hurry over the journey. It was late afternoon by the time we reached our destination.

The arrangements for the carrying of luggage at Combe Regis border on the primitive. Boxes are left on the platform, and later, when he thinks of it, a carrier looks in and conveys them into the valley and up the hill on the opposite side to the address written on the labels. The owner walks. Combe Regis is not a place for the halt and maimed.

Ukridge led us in the direction of the farm, which lay across the valley, looking through woods to the sea. The place was visible from the station, from which, indeed, standing as it did on the top of a hill, the view was extensive.

Half-way up the slope on the other side of the valley we left the road and made our way across a spongy field, Ukridge explaining that this was a short cut. We climbed through a hedge, crossed a stream and another field, and after negotiating a difficult bank, topped with barbed wire, found ourselves in a garden.

Ukridge mopped his forehead, and restored his pince-nez to their original position from which the passage of the barbed wire had dislodged them.

“This is the place,” he said. “We’ve come in by the back way. Saves time. Tired, Millie?”

“A little, dear. I should like some tea.”

“Same here,” I agreed.

“That’ll be all right,” said Ukridge. “A most competent man of the name of Beale and his wife are in charge at present. I wrote to them telling them that we were coming to-day. They will be ready for us. That’s the way to do things, Garny old horse. Quiet efficiency. Perfect organisation.”

We were at the front door by this time. Ukridge rang the bell. The noise echoed through the house, but there was no answering footsteps. He rang again. There is no mistaking the note of a bell in an empty house. It was plain that the competent man and his wife were out.

“Now what?” I said.

Mrs. Ukridge looked at her husband with calm confidence.

“This,” said Ukridge, leaning against the door and endeavouring to button his collar at the back, “reminds me of an afternoon in the Argentine. Two other cheery sportsmen and myself tried for three– quarters of an hour to get into an empty house where there looked as if there might be something to drink, and we’d just got the door open when the owner turned up from behind a tree with a shot-gun. It was a little difficult to explain. As a matter of fact, we never did what you might call really thresh the matter out thoroughly in all its aspects, and you’d be surprised what a devil of a time it takes to pick buck-shot out of a fellow. There was a dog, too.”

He broke off, musing dreamily on the happy past, and at this moment history partially repeated itself. From the other side of the door came a dissatisfied whine, followed by a short bark.