Pelham Wodehouse: Three Men and a Maid

"And the girl?"

"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from eleven till one-thirty and then began to get impatient. She wouldn't see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her saying that what had happened was all for the best as she had been thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed."

"Did you explain about the trousers?"

"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a man anything except being ridiculous."

"I think you're well out of it," said Sam judicially. "She can't have been much of a girl."

"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined. I have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its way to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me I wonder there isn't a law against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was it betrayed the Capitol!'"

"In Washington?" said Sam puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting page.

"In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome."

"Oh, as long ago as that?"

"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Antony the world? A woman. Who was the cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!'"

"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I mean. But the girl I met on the dock—"

"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett. "If you have anything bitter and derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that I am a soul in torment! I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a future! What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My work? I haven't any. I think I shall take to drink."

"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?"

Eustace shook his head gloomily.

"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move I go to bed and stay there. As a matter of fact I think it would be wisest to go to bed now. Don't let me keep you if you want to go on deck."

"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage."

"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve pyjamas out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!"

Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now the sheep would be separating from the goats: the passengers would be on deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor on the boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He reached the top of the stairs and passed out on to the crowded deck. And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.

Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a blank window on which were inscribed the words "Watch this space!" In short, he was one of Nature's rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on—a view which he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail.

There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a Derby hat, and from time to time as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.

Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like everybody else she was staring into the water.

As Sam looked at her the thought crossed his mind that here was a wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl. What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety, dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt, who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to shift back to a position of greater safety.

At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man hung, as it were, between sea and sky; then he shot down over the rail to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a few skilful touches of the finger.

In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room, chatting with Eustace about the latter's bruised soul, some rather curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps, but curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero in chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space. We must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in her state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his narrative.

By now the bustle which precedes the departure of an ocean liner was at its height. Hoarse voices were crying, "All for the shore!" The gangway was thronged with friends of passengers returning to land. The crowd on the pier waved flags and handkerchiefs and shouted unintelligibly. Members of the crew stood alertly by the gang-plank ready to draw it in as soon as the last seer-off had crossed it.

The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was an anxious expression on her face. She had the air of one who was waiting for someone to appear. Her demeanour was that of Mariana at the Moated Grange. "He cometh not!" she seemed to be saying. She glanced at her wrist-watch, then scanned the dock once more.

There was a rattle as the gang-plank moved inboard and was deposited on the deck. The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face brightened and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of an elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just forced his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the passenger-lined rail.