Books: The Little Nugget
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P.G. Wodehouse >> The Little Nugget
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'It's very good of you, but there won't be any negotiations with
Mr Ford. I am taking the boy back to Sanstead, as I told you.' I
caught his pained eye. 'I'm afraid you don't believe me.'
He drew at his cigar without replying.
It is a human weakness to wish to convince those who doubt us,
even if their opinion is not intrinsically valuable. I remembered
that I had Cynthia's letter in my pocket. I produced it as exhibit
A in my evidence and read it to him.
Sam listened carefully.
'I see,' he said. 'Who wrote that?'
'Never mind. A friend of mine.'
I returned the letter to my pocket.
'I was going to have sent him over to Monaco, but I altered my
plans. Something interfered.'
'What?'
'I might call it coincidence, if you know what that means.'
'And you are really going to take him back to the school?'
'I am.'
'We shall travel back together,' he said. 'I had hoped I had seen
the last of the place. The English countryside may be delightful
in the summer, but for winter give me London. However,' he sighed
resignedly, and rose from his chair, 'I will say good-bye till
tomorrow. What train do you catch?'
'Do you mean to say,' I demanded, 'that you have the nerve to come
back to Sanstead after what you have told me about yourself?'
'You entertain some idea of exposing me to Mr Abney? Forget it,
young man. We are both in glass houses. Don't let us throw stones.
Besides, would he believe it? What proof have you?'
I had thought this argument tolerably sound when I had used it on
the Nugget. Now that it was used on myself I realized its
soundness even more thoroughly. My hands were tied.
'Yes,' said Sam, 'tomorrow, after our little jaunt to London, we
shall all resume the quiet, rural life once more.'
He beamed expansively upon me from the doorway.
'However, even the quiet, rural life has its interest. I guess we
shan't be dull!' he said.
I believed him.
Chapter 11
Considering the various handicaps under which he laboured notably
a cold in the head, a fear of the Little Nugget, and a reverence
for the aristocracy--Mr Abney's handling of the situation, when
the runaways returned to school, bordered on the masterly. Any sort
of physical punishment being out of the question--especially in the
case of the Nugget, who would certainly have retaliated with a bout
of window-breaking--he had to fall back on oratory, and he did this
to such effect that, when he had finished, Augustus wept openly and
was so subdued that he did not ask a single question for nearly three
days.
One result of the adventure was that Ogden's bed was moved to a
sort of cubby-hole adjoining my room. In the house, as originally
planned, this had evidently been a dressing-room. Under Mr Abney's
rule it had come to be used as a general repository for lumber. My
boxes were there, and a portmanteau of Glossop's. It was an
excellent place in which to bestow a boy in quest of whom
kidnappers might break in by night. The window was too small to
allow a man to pass through, and the only means of entrance was by
way of my room. By night, at any rate, the Nugget's safety seemed
to be assured.
The curiosity of the small boy, fortunately, is not lasting. His
active mind lives mainly in the present. It was not many days,
therefore, before the excitement caused by Buck's raid and the
Nugget's disappearance began to subside. Within a week both
episodes had been shelved as subjects of conversation, and the
school had settled down to its normal humdrum life.
To me, however, there had come a period of mental unrest more
acute than I had ever experienced. My life, for the past five
years, had run in so smooth a stream that, now that I found myself
tossed about in the rapids, I was bewildered. It was a peculiar
aggravation of the difficulty of my position that in my world, the
little world of Sanstead House, there should be but one woman, and
she the very one whom, if I wished to recover my peace of mind, it
was necessary for me to avoid.
My feelings towards Cynthia at this time defied my powers of
analysis. There were moments when I clung to the memory of her,
when she seemed the only thing solid and safe in a world of chaos,
and moments, again, when she was a burden crushing me. There were
days when I would give up the struggle and let myself drift, and
days when I would fight myself inch by inch. But every day found
my position more hopeless than the last.
At night sometimes, as I lay awake, I would tell myself that if
only I could see her or even hear from her the struggle would be
easier. It was her total disappearance from my life that made it
so hard for me. I had nothing to help me to fight.
And then, one morning, as if in answer to my thoughts her letter
came.
The letter startled me. It was as if there had been some
telepathic communion between us.
It was very short, almost formal:
'MY DEAR PETER--I want to ask you a question. I can put it quite
shortly. It is this. Are your feelings towards me still the same?
I don't tell you why I ask this. I simply ask it. Whatever your
answer is, it cannot affect our friendship, so be quite candid.
CYNTHIA.'
I sat down there and then to write my reply. The letter, coming
when it did and saying what it said, had affected me profoundly.
It was like an unexpected reinforcement in a losing battle. It
filled me with a glow of self-confidence. I felt strong again,
able to fight and win. My mood bore me away, and I poured out my
whole heart to her. I told her that my feelings had not altered,
that I loved her and nobody but her. It was a letter, I can see,
looking back, born of fretted nerves; but at the time I had no
such criticism to make. It seemed to me a true expression of my
real feelings.
That the fight was not over because in my moment of exaltation I
had imagined that I had conquered myself was made uncomfortably
plain to me by the thrill that ran through me when, returning from
posting my letter, I met Audrey. The sight of her reminded me that
a reinforcement is only a reinforcement, a help towards victory,
not victory itself.
For the first time I found myself feeling resentful towards her.
There was no reason in my resentment. It would not have borne
examination. But it was there, and its presence gave me support. I
found myself combating the thrill the sight of her had caused, and
looking at her with a critical and hostile eye. Who was she that
she should enslave a man against his will? Fascination exists only
in the imagination of the fascinated. If he have the strength to
deny the fascination and convince himself that it does not exist,
he is saved. It is purely a matter of willpower and calm
reasonableness. There must have been sturdy, level-headed Egyptian
citizens who could not understand what people saw to admire in
Cleopatra.
Thus reasoning, I raised my hat, uttered a crisp 'Good morning',
and passed on, the very picture of the brisk man of affairs.
'Peter!'
Even the brisk man of affairs must stop when spoken to. Otherwise,
apart from any question of politeness, it looks as if he were
running away.
Her face was still wearing the faint look of surprise which my
manner had called forth.
'You're in a great hurry.'
I had no answer. She did not appear to expect one.
We moved towards the house in silence, to me oppressive silence.
The force of her personality was beginning to beat against my
defences, concerning the stability of which, under pressure, a
certain uneasiness troubled my mind.
'Are you worried about anything, Peter?' she said at last.
'No,' I said. 'Why?'
'I was afraid you might be.'
I felt angry with myself. I was mismanaging this thing in the most
idiotic way. Instead of this bovine silence, gay small-talk, the
easy eloquence, in fact, of the brisk man of affairs should have
been my policy. No wonder Smooth Sam Fisher treated me as a child.
My whole bearing was that of a sulky school-boy.
The silence became more oppressive.
We reached the house. In the hall we parted, she to upper regions,
I to my classroom. She did not look at me. Her face was cold and
offended.
One is curiously inconsistent. Having created what in the
circumstances was a most desirable coldness between Audrey and
myself, I ought to have been satisfied. Reason told me that this
was the best thing that could have happened. Yet joy was one of
the few emotions which I did not feel during the days which
followed. My brief moment of clear-headedness had passed, and with
it the exhilaration that had produced the letter to Cynthia and
the resentment which had helped me to reason calmly with myself on
the intrinsic nature of fascination in woman. Once more Audrey
became the centre of my world. But our friendship, that elusive
thing which had contrived to exist side by side with my love, had
vanished. There was a breach between us which widened daily. Soon
we hardly spoke.
Nothing, in short, could have been more eminently satisfactory,
and the fact that I regretted it is only a proof of the essential
weakness of my character.
Chapter 12
I
In those grey days there was one thought, of the many that
occupied my mind, which brought with it a certain measure of
consolation. It was the reflection that this state of affairs
could not last for ever. The school term was drawing to a close.
Soon I should be free from the propinquity which paralysed my
efforts to fight. I was resolved that the last day of term should
end for ever my connection with Sanstead House and all that was in
it. Mrs Ford must find some other minion. If her happiness
depended on the recovery of the Little Nugget, she must learn to
do without happiness, like the rest of the inhabitants of this
horrible world.
Meanwhile, however, I held myself to be still on duty. By what
tortuous processes of thought I had arrived at the conclusion I do
not know, but I considered myself responsible to Audrey for the
safeguarding of the Little Nugget, and no altered relations
between us could affect my position. Perhaps mixed up with this
attitude of mind, was the less altruistic wish to foil Smooth Sam.
His continued presence at the school was a challenge to me.
Sam's behaviour puzzled me. I do not know exactly what I expected
him to do, but I certainly did not expect him to do nothing. Yet
day followed day, and still he made no move. He was the very model
of a butler. But our dealings with one another in London had left
me vigilant, and his inaction did not disarm me. It sprang from
patience, not from any weakening of purpose or despair of success.
Sooner or later I knew he would act, swiftly and suddenly, with a
plan perfected in every detail.
But when he made his attack it was the very simplicity of his
methods that tricked me, and only pure chance defeated him.
I have said that it was the custom of the staff of masters at
Sanstead House School--in other words, of every male adult in the
house except Mr Fisher himself--to assemble in Mr Abney's study
after dinner of an evening to drink coffee. It was a ceremony,
like most of the ceremonies at an establishment such as a school,
where things are run on a schedule, which knew of no variation.
Sometimes Mr Abney would leave us immediately after the ceremony,
but he never omitted to take his part in it first.
On this particular evening, for the first time since the beginning
of the term, I was seized with a prejudice against coffee. I had
been sleeping badly for several nights, and I decided that
abstention from coffee might remedy this.
I waited, for form's sake, till Glossop and Mr Abney had filled
their cups, then went to my room, where I lay down in the dark to
wrestle with a more than usually pronounced fit of depression
which had descended upon me. Solitude and darkness struck me as
the suitable setting for my thoughts.
At this moment Smooth Sam Fisher had no place in my meditations.
My mind was not occupied with him at all. When, therefore, the
door, which had been ajar, began to open slowly, I did not become
instantly on the alert. Perhaps it was some sound, barely audible,
that aroused me from my torpor and set my blood tingling with
anticipation. Perhaps it was the way the door was opening. An
honest draught does not move a door furtively, in jerks.
I sat up noiseless, tense, and alert. And then, very quietly,
somebody entered the room.
There was only one person in Sanstead House who would enter a room
like that. I was amused. The impudence of the thing tickled me. It
seemed so foreign to Mr Fisher's usual cautious methods. This
strolling in and helping oneself was certainly kidnapping _de
luxe_. In the small hours I could have understood it; but at
nine o'clock at night, with Glossop, Mr Abney and myself awake and
liable to be met at any moment on the stairs, it was absurd. I
marvelled at Smooth Sam's effrontery.
I lay still. I imagined that, being in, he would switch on the
electric light. He did, and I greeted him pleasantly.
'And what can I do for _you_, Mr Fisher?'
For a man who had learned to control himself in difficult
situations he took the shock badly. He uttered a startled
exclamation and spun round, open-mouthed.
I could not help admiring the quickness with which he recovered
himself. Almost immediately he was the suave, chatty Sam Fisher
who had unbosomed his theories and dreams to me in the train to
London.
'I quit,' he said pleasantly. 'The episode is closed. I am a man
of peace, and I take it that you would not keep on lying quietly
on that bed while I went into the other room and abstracted our
young friend? Unless you have changed your mind again, would a
fifty-fifty offer tempt you?'
'Not an inch.'
'Just so. I merely asked.'
'And how about Mr Abney, in any case? Suppose we met him on the
stairs?'
'We should not meet him on the stairs,' said Sam confidently. 'You
did not take coffee tonight, I gather?'
'I didn't--no. Why?'
He jerked his head resignedly.
'Can you beat it! I ask you, young man, could I have foreseen
that, after drinking coffee every night regularly for two months,
you would pass it up tonight of all nights? You certainly are my
jinx, sonny. You have hung the Indian sign on me all right.'
His words had brought light to me.
'Did you drug the coffee?'
'Did I! I fixed it so that one sip would have an insomnia patient
in dreamland before he had time to say "Good night". That stuff
Rip Van Winkle drank had nothing on my coffee. And all wasted!
Well, well!'
He turned towards the door.
'Shall I leave the light on, or would you prefer it off?'
'On please. I might fall asleep in the dark.'
'Not you! And, if you did, you would dream that I was there, and
wake up. There are moments, young man, when you bring me pretty
near to quitting and taking to honest work.'
He paused.
'But not altogether. I have still a shot or two in my locker. We
shall see what we shall see. I am not dead yet. Wait!'
'I will, and some day, when I am walking along Piccadilly, a
passing automobile will splash me with mud. A heavily furred
plutocrat will stare haughtily at me from the tonneau, and with a
start of surprise I shall recognize--'
'Stranger things have happened. Be flip while you can, sonny. You
win so far, but this hoodoo of mine can't last for ever.'
He passed from the room with a certain sad dignity. A moment later
he reappeared.
'A thought strikes me,' he said. 'The fifty-fifty proposition does
not impress you. Would it make things easier if I were to offer my
cooperation for a mere quarter of the profit?'
'Not in the least.'
'It's a handsome offer.'
'Wonderfully. I'm afraid I'm not dealing on any terms.'
He left the room, only to return once more. His head appeared,
staring at me round the door, in a disembodied way, like the
Cheshire Cat.
'You won't say later on I didn't give you your chance?' he said
anxiously.
He vanished again, permanently this time. I heard his steps
passing down the stairs.
II
We had now arrived at the last week of term, at the last days of
the last week. The holiday spirit was abroad in the school. Among
the boys it took the form of increased disorderliness. Boys who
had hitherto only made Glossop bellow now made him perspire and
tear his hair as well. Boys who had merely spilt ink now broke
windows. The Little Nugget abandoned cigarettes in favour of an
old clay pipe which he had found in the stables.
As for me, I felt like a spent swimmer who sees the shore almost
within his reach. Audrey avoided me when she could, and was
frigidly polite when we met. But I suffered less now. A few more
days, and I should have done with this phase of my life for ever,
and Audrey would once more become a memory.
Complete quiescence marked the deportment of Mr Fisher during
these days. He did not attempt to repeat his last effort. The
coffee came to the study unmixed with alien drugs. Sam, like
lightning, did not strike twice in the same place. He had the
artist's soul, and disliked patching up bungled work. If he made
another move, it would, I knew, be on entirely fresh lines.
Ignoring the fact that I had had all the luck, I was inclined to
be self-satisfied when I thought of Sam. I had pitted my wits
against his, and I had won. It was a praiseworthy performance for
a man who had done hitherto nothing particular in his life.
If all the copybook maxims which had been drilled into me in my
childhood and my early disaster with Audrey had not been
sufficient, I ought to have been warned by Sam's advice not to
take victory for granted till the fight was over. As Sam had said,
his luck would turn sooner or later.
One realizes these truths in theory, but the practical application
of them seldom fails to come as a shock. I received mine on the
last morning but one of the term.
Shortly after breakfast a message was brought to me that Mr Abney
would like to see me in his study. I went without any sense of
disaster to come. Most of the business of the school was discussed
in the study after breakfast, and I imagined that the matter had
to do with some detail of the morrow's exodus.
I found Mr Abney pacing the room, a look of annoyance on his face.
At the desk, her back to me, Audrey was writing. It was part of
her work to take charge of the business correspondence of the
establishment. She did not look round when I came in, nor when Mr
Abney spoke my name, but went on writing as if I did not exist.
There was a touch of embarrassment in Mr Abney's manner, for which
I could not at first account. He was stately, but with the rather
defensive stateliness which marked his announcements that he was
about to pop up to London and leave me to do his work. He coughed
once or twice before proceeding to the business of the moment.
'Ah, Mr Burns,' he said at length, 'might I ask if your plans for
the holidays, the--ah--earlier part of the holidays are settled?
No? ah--excellent.'
He produced a letter from the heap of papers on the desk.
'Ah--excellent. That simplifies matters considerably. I have no
right to ask what I am about to--ah--in fact ask. I have no claim
on your time in the holidays. But, in the circumstances, perhaps
you may see your way to doing me a considerable service. I have
received a letter from Mr Elmer Ford which puts me in a position
of some difficulty. It is not my wish--indeed, it is foreign to my
policy--to disoblige the parents of the boys who are entrusted to
my--ah--care, and I should like, if possible, to do what Mr Ford
asks. It appears that certain business matters call him to the
north of England for a few days, this rendering it impossible for
him to receive little Ogden tomorrow. It is not my custom to
criticize parents who have paid me the compliment of placing their
sons at the most malleable and important period of their lives, in
my--ah--charge, but I must say that a little longer notice would
have been a--in fact, a convenience. But Mr Ford, like so many of
his countrymen, is what I believe is called a hustler. He does it
now, as the expression is. In short, he wishes to leave little
Ogden at the school for the first few days of the holidays, and I
should be extremely obliged, Mr Burns, if you should find it
possible to stay here and--ah--look after him.'
Audrey stopped writing and turned in her chair, the first
intimation she had given that she had heard Mr Abney's remarks.
'It really won't be necessary to trouble Mr Burns,' she said,
without looking at me. 'I can take care of Ogden very well by
myself.'
'In the case of an--ah--ordinary boy, Mrs Sheridan, I should not
hesitate to leave you in sole charge as you have very kindly
offered to stay and help me in this matter. But we must recollect
not only--I speak frankly--not only the peculiar--ah--disposition
of this particular lad, but also the fact that those ruffians who
visited the house that night may possibly seize the opportunity to
make a fresh attack. I should not feel--ah--justified in
thrusting so heavy a responsibility upon you.'
There was reason in what he said. Audrey made no reply. I heard
her pen tapping on the desk and deduced her feelings. I, myself,
felt like a prisoner who, having filed through the bars of his
cell, is removed to another on the eve of escape. I had so braced
myself up to endure till the end of term and no longer that this
postponement of the day of release had a crushing effect.
Mr Abney coughed and lowered his voice confidentially.
'I would stay myself, but the fact is, I am called to London on
very urgent business, and shall be unable to return for a day or
so. My late pupil, the--ah--the Earl of Buxton, has been--I can
rely on your discretion, Mr Burns--has been in trouble with the
authorities at Eton, and his guardian, an old college friend of
mine--the--in fact, the Duke of Bessborough, who, rightly or wrongly,
places--er--considerable reliance on my advice, is anxious to consult
me on the matter. I shall return as soon as possible, but you will
readily understand that, in the circumstances, my time will not be my
own. I must place myself unreservedly at--ah--Bessborough's disposal.'
He pressed the bell.
'In the event of your observing any suspicious characters in
the neighbourhood, you have the telephone and can instantly
communicate with the police. And you will have the assistance of--'
The door opened and Smooth Sam Fisher entered.
'You rang, sir?'
'Ah! Come in, White, and close the door. I have something to say
to you. I have just been informing Mr Burns that Mr Ford has
written asking me to allow his son to stay on at the school for
the first few days of the vacation.'
He turned to Audrey.
'You will doubtless be surprised, Mrs Sheridan, and possibly--ah--
somewhat startled, to learn the peculiar nature of White's position
at Sanstead House. You have no objection to my informing Mrs Sheridan,
White, in consideration of the fact that you will be working together
in this matter? Just so. White is a detective in the employment of
Pinkerton's Agency. Mr Ford'--a slight frown appeared on his lofty
brow--'Mr Ford obtained his present situation for him in order that
he might protect his son in the event of--ah--in fact, any attempt
to remove him.'
I saw Audrey start. A quick flush came into her face. She uttered
a little exclamation of astonishment.
'Just so,' said Mr Abney, by way of comment on this. 'You are
naturally surprised. The whole arrangement is excessively unusual,
and, I may say--ah--disturbing. However, you have your duty to
fulfil to your employer, White, and you will, of course, remain
here with the boy.'
'Yes, sir.'
I found myself looking into a bright brown eye that gleamed with
genial triumph. The other was closed. In the exuberance of the
moment, Smooth Sam had had the bad taste to wink at me.
'You will have Mr Burns to help you, White. He has kindly
consented to postpone his departure during the short period in
which I shall be compelled to be absent.'
I had no recollection of having given any kind consent, but I was
very willing to have it assumed, and I was glad to see that Mr
Fisher, though Mr Abney did not observe it, was visibly taken
aback by this piece of information. But he made one of his swift
recoveries.
'It is very kind of Mr Burns,' he said in his fruitiest voice,
'but I hardly think it will be necessary to put him to the
inconvenience of altering his plans. I am sure that Mr Ford would
prefer the entire charge of the affair to be in my hands.'
He had not chosen a happy moment for the introduction of the
millionaire's name. Mr Abney was a man of method, who hated any
dislocation of the fixed routine of life; and Mr Ford's letter had
upset him. The Ford family, father and son, were just then
extremely unpopular with him.
He crushed Sam.
'What Mr Ford would or would not prefer is, in this particular
matter, beside the point. The responsibility for the boy, while he
remains on the school premises, is--ah--mine, and I shall take
such precautions as seem fit and adequate to--him--myself,
irrespective of those which, in your opinion, might suggest
themselves to Mr Ford. As I cannot be here myself, owing
to--ah--urgent business in London, I shall certainly take
advantage of Mr Burns's kind offer to remain as my deputy.'
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