Books: Uneasy Money
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P.G. Wodehouse >> Uneasy Money
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A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for
the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden
away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery
of a miserable hour. Mr Pickering's rare interviews with his
subconscious self had happened until now almost entirely in the
small hours of the night, when it had popped out to remind him, as
he lay sleepless, that all flesh was grass and that he was not
getting any younger. To-night, such had been the shock of the
evening's events, it came to him at a time which was usually his
happiest--the time that lay between dinner and bed. Mr Pickering
at that point of the day was generally feeling his best. But to-night
was different from the other nights of his life.
One may picture Subconscious Self as a withered, cynical,
malicious person standing before Mr Pickering and regarding him
with an evil smile. There has been a pause, and now Subconscious
Self speaks again:
'You will have to leave to-morrow. Couldn't possibly stop on after
what's happened. Now you see what comes of behaving like a boy.'
Mr Pickering writhed.
'Made a pretty considerable fool of yourself, didn't you, with
your revolvers and your hidings and your trailings? Too old for
that sort of thing, you know. You're getting on. Probably have a
touch of lumbago to-morrow. You must remember you aren't a
youngster. Got to take care of yourself. Next time you feel an
impulse to hide in shrubberies and take moonlight walks through
damp woods, perhaps you will listen to me.'
Mr Pickering relit the stump of his cigar defiantly and smoked in
long gulps for a while. He was trying to persuade himself that all
this was untrue, but it was not easy. The cigar became uncomfortably
hot, and he threw it away. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and
produced a diamond ring, at which he looked pensively.
'A pretty thing, is it not?' said Subconscious Self
Mr Pickering sighed. That moment when Claire had thrown the ring
at his feet and swept out of his life like an offended queen had
been the culminating blow of a night of blows, the knock-out
following on a series of minor punches. Subconscious Self seized
the opportunity to become offensive again.
'You've lost her, all through your own silly fault,' it said. 'How
on earth you can have been such a perfect fool beats me. Running
round with a gun like a boy of fourteen! Well, it's done now and
it can't be mended. Countermand the order for cake, send a wire
putting off the wedding, dismiss the bridesmaids, tell the
organist he can stop practising "The Voice that Breathed O'er
Eden"--no wedding-bells for you! For Dudley Damfool Pickering,
Esquire, the lonely hearth for evermore! Little feet pattering
about the house? Not on your life! Childish voices sticking up the
old man for half a dollar to buy candy? No, sir! Not for D.
Bonehead Pickering, the amateur trailing arbutus!'
Subconscious Self may have had an undesirable way of expressing
itself, but there was no denying the truth of what it said. Its
words carried conviction. Mr Pickering replaced the ring in his
pocket, and, burying his head in his hands, groaned in bitterness
of spirit.
He had lost her. He must face the fact. She had thrown him over.
Never now would she sit at his table, the brightest jewel of
Detroit's glittering social life. She would have made a stir in
Detroit. Now that city would never know her. Not that he was
worrying much about Detroit. He was worrying about himself. How
could he ever live without her?
This mood of black depression endured for a while, and then Mr
Pickering suddenly became aware that Subconscious Self was
sneering at him. 'You're a wonder!' said Subconscious Self.
'What do you mean?'
'Why, trying to make yourself think that at the bottom of your
heart you aren't tickled to death that this has happened. You know
perfectly well that you're tremendously relieved that you haven't
got to marry the girl after all. You can fool everybody else, but
you can't fool me. You're delighted, man, delighted!' The mere
suggestion revolted Mr Pickering. He was on the point of indignant
denial, when quite abruptly there came home to him the suspicion
that the statement was not so preposterous after all. It seemed
incredible and indecent that such a thing should be, but he could
not deny, now that it was put to him point-blank in this way, that
a certain sense of relief was beginning to mingle itself with his
gloom. It was shocking to realize, but--yes, he actually was
feeling as if he had escaped from something which he had dreaded.
Half an hour ago there had been no suspicion of such an emotion
among the many which had occupied his attention, but now he
perceived it clearly. Half an hour ago he had felt like Lucifer
hurled from heaven. Now, though how that train of thought had
started he could not have said, he was distinctly conscious of the
silver lining. Subconscious Self began to drive the thing home.
'Be honest with yourself,' it said. 'You aren't often. No man is.
Look at the matter absolutely fairly. You know perfectly well that
the mere idea of marriage has always scared you. You hate making
yourself conspicuous in public. Think what it would be like,
standing up there in front of all the world and getting married.
And then--afterwards! Why on earth do you think that you would
have been happy with this girl? What do you know about her except
that she is a beauty? I grant you she's that, but are you aware of
the infinitesimal part looks play in married life? My dear chap,
better is it for a man that he marry a sympathetic gargoyle than a
Venus with a streak of hardness in her. You know--and you would
admit it if you were honest with yourself--that this girl is hard.
She's got a chilled-steel soul.
'If you wanted to marry some one--and there's no earthly reason
why you should, for your life's perfectly full and happy with your
work--this is the last girl you ought to marry. You're a middle-aged
man. You're set. You like life to jog along at a peaceful walk.
This girl wants it to be a fox-trot. You've got habits which
you have had for a dozen years. I ask you, is she the sort of girl
to be content to be a stepmother to a middle-aged man's habits? Of
course, if you were really in love with her, if she were your
mate, and all that sort of thing, you would take a pleasure in
making yourself over to suit her requirements. But you aren't in
love with her. You are simply caught by her looks. I tell you, you
ought to look on that moment when she gave you back your ring as
the luckiest moment of your life. You ought to make a sort of
anniversary of it. You ought to endow a hospital or something out
of pure gratitude. I don't know how long you're going to live--if
you act like a grown-up man instead of a boy and keep out of woods
and shrubberies at night you may live for ever--but you will never
have a greater bit of luck than the one that happened to you
to-night.'
Mr Pickering was convinced. His spirits soared. Marriage! What was
marriage? Slavery, not to be endured by your man of spirit. Look
at all the unhappy marriages you saw everywhere. Besides, you had
only to recall some of the novels and plays of recent years to get
the right angle on marriage. According to the novelists and
playwrights, shrewd fellows who knew what was what, if you talked
to your wife about your business she said you had no soul; if you
didn't, she said you didn't think enough of her to let her share
your life. If you gave her expensive presents and an unlimited
credit account, she complained that you looked on her as a mere
doll; and if you didn't, she called you a screw. That was
marriage. If it didn't get you with the left jab, it landed on you
with the right upper-cut. None of that sort of thing for Dudley
Pickering.
'You're absolutely right,' he said, enthusiastically. 'Funny I
never looked at it that way before.'
Somebody was turning the door-handle. He hoped it was Roscoe
Sherriff. He had been rather dull the last time Sherriff had
looked in. He would be quite different now. He would be gay and
sparkling. He remembered two good stories he would like to tell
Sherriff.
The door opened and Claire came in. There was a silence. She stood
looking at him in a way that puzzled Mr Pickering. If it had not
been for her attitude at their last meeting and the manner in
which she had broken that last meeting up, he would have said that
her look seemed somehow to strike a note of appeal. There was
something soft and repentant about her. She suggested, it seemed
to Mr Pickering, the prodigal daughter revisiting the old
homestead.
'Dudley!'
She smiled a faint smile, a wistful, deprecating smile. She was
looking lovelier than ever. Her face glowed with a wonderful
colour and her eyes were very bright. Mr Pickering met her gaze,
and strange things began to happen to his mind, that mind which a
moment before had thought so clearly and established so definite a
point of view.
What a gelatine-backboned thing is man, who prides himself on his
clear reason and becomes as wet blotting-paper at one glance from
bright eyes! A moment before Mr Pickering had thought out the
whole subject of woman and marriage in a few bold flashes of his
capable brain, and thanked Providence that he was not as those men
who take unto themselves wives to their undoing. Now in an instant
he had lost that iron outlook. Reason was temporarily out of
business. He was slipping.
'Dudley!'
For a space Subconscious Self thrust itself forward.
'Look out! Be careful!' it warned.
Mr Pickering ignored it. He was watching, fascinated, the glow on
Claire's face, her shining eyes.
'Dudley, I want to speak to you.'
'Tell her you can only be seen by appointment! Escape! Bolt!'
Mr Pickering did not bolt. Claire came towards him, still smiling
that pathetic smile. A thrill permeated Mr Pickering's entire one
hundred and ninety-seven pounds, trickling down his spine like hot
water and coming out at the soles of his feet. He had forgotten
now that he had ever sneered at marriage. It seemed to him now
that there was nothing in life to be compared with that beatific
state, and that bachelors were mere wild asses of the desert.
Claire came and sat down on the arm of his chair. He moved
convulsively, but he stayed where he was.
'Fool!' said Subconscious Self.
Claire took hold of his hand and patted it. He quivered, but
remained.
'Ass!' hissed Subconscious Self.
Claire stopped patting his hand and began to stroke it. Mr
Pickering breathed heavily.
'Dudley, dear,' said Claire, softly, 'I've been an awful fool, and
I'm dreadful, dreadful sorry, and you're going to be the nicest,
kindest, sweetest man on earth and tell me you've forgiven me.
Aren't you?'
Mr Pickering's lips moved silently. Claire kissed the thinning
summit of his head. There was a pause.
'Where is it?' she asked.
Mr Pickering started.
'Eh?'
'Where is it? Where did you put it? The ring, silly!'
Mr Pickering became aware that Subconscious Self was addressing
him. The occasion was tense, and Subconscious Self did not mince
its words.
'You poor, maudlin, sentimental, doddering chunk of imbecility,'
it said; 'are there no limits to your insanity? After all I said
to you just now, are you deliberately going to start the old
idiocy all over again?'
'She's so beautiful!' pleaded Mr Pickering. 'Look at her eyes!'
'Ass! Don't you remember what I said about beauty?'
'Yes, I know, but--'
'She's as hard as nails.'
'I'm sure you're wrong.'
'I'm not wrong.'
'But she loves me.'
'Forget it!'
Claire jogged his shoulders.
'Dudley, dear, what are you sitting there dreaming for? Where did
you put the ring?'
Mr Pickering fumbled for it, located it, produced it. Claire
examined it fondly.
'Did she throw it at him and nearly break his heart!' she said.
'Bolt!' urged Subconscious Self. 'Fly! Go to Japan!'
Mr Pickering did not go to Japan. He was staring worshippingly at
Claire. With rapturous gaze he noted the grey glory of her eyes,
the delicate curve of her cheek, the grace of her neck. He had no
time to listen to pessimistic warnings from any Gloomy Gus of a
Subconscious Self. He was ashamed that he had ever even for a
moment allowed himself to be persuaded that Claire was not all
that was perfect. No more doubts and hesitations for Dudley
Pickering. He was under the influence.
'There!' said Claire, and slipped the ring on her finger.
She kissed the top of his head once more.
'So there we are!' she said.
'There we are!' gurgled the infatuated Dudley.
'Happy now?'
'Ur-r!'
'Then kiss me.'
Mr Pickering kissed her.
'Dudley, darling,' said Claire, 'we're going to be awfully,
awfully happy, aren't we?'
'You bet we are!' said Mr Pickering.
Subconscious Self said nothing, being beyond speech.
21
For some minutes after Claire had left him Bill remained where he
was, motionless. He felt physically incapable of moving. All the
strength that was in him he was using to throw off the insidious
poison of her parting speech, and it became plainer to him with
each succeeding moment that he would have need of strength.
It is part of the general irony of things that in life's crises a
man's good qualities are often the ones that help him least, if
indeed they do not actually turn treacherously and fight against
him. It was so with Bill. Modesty, if one may trust to the verdict
of the mass of mankind, is a good quality. It sweetens the soul
and makes for a kindly understanding of one's fellows. But
arrogance would have served Bill better now. It was his fatal
habit of self-depreciation that was making Claire's words so
specious as he stood there trying to cast them from his mind. Who
was he, after all, that he should imagine that he had won on his
personal merits a girl like Elizabeth Boyd?
He had the not very common type of mind that perceives the merit
in others more readily than their faults, and in himself the
faults more readily than the merit. Time and the society of a
great number of men of different ranks and natures had rid him of
the outer symbol of this type of mind, which is shyness, but it
had left him still unconvinced that he amounted to anything very
much as an individual.
This was the thought that met him every time he tried to persuade
himself that what Claire had said was ridiculous, the mere parting
shaft of an angry woman. With this thought as an ally her words
took on a plausibility hard to withstand. Plausible! That was the
devil of it. By no effort could he blind himself to the fact that
they were that. In the light of Claire's insinuations what had
seemed coincidences took on a more sinister character. It had
seemed to him an odd and lucky chance that Nutty Boyd should have
come to the rooms which he was occupying that night, seeking a
companion. Had it been chance? Even at the time he had thought it
strange that, on the strength of a single evening spent together,
Nutty should have invited a total stranger to make an indefinite
visit to his home. Had there been design behind the invitation?
Bill began to walk slowly to the house. He felt tired and unhappy.
He meant to go to bed and try to sleep away these wretched doubts
and questionings. Daylight would bring relief.
As he reached the open front door he caught the sound of voices,
and paused for an instant, almost unconsciously, to place them.
They came from one of the rooms upstairs. It was Nutty speaking
now, and it was impossible for Bill not to hear what he said, for
Nutty had abandoned his customary drawl in favour of a high,
excited tone.
'Of course, you hate him and all that,' said Nutty; 'but after all
you will be getting five million dollars that ought to have come
to--'
That was all that Bill heard, for he had stumbled across the hall
and was in his room, sitting on the bed and staring into the
darkness with burning eyes. The door banged behind him.
So it was true!
There came a knock at the door. It was repeated. The handle
turned.
'Is that you, Bill?'
It was Elizabeth's voice. He could just see her, framed in the
doorway.
'Bill!'
His throat was dry. He swallowed, and found that he could speak.
'Yes?'
'Did you just come in?'
'Yes.'
'Then--you heard?'
'Yes.'
There was a long silence. Then the door closed gently and he heard
her go upstairs.
22
When Bill woke next morning it was ten o'clock; and his first
emotion, on a day that was to be crowded with emotions of various
kinds, was one of shame. The desire to do the fitting thing is
innate in man, and it struck Bill, as he hurried through his
toilet, that he must be a shallow, coarse-fibred sort of person,
lacking in the finer feelings, not to have passed a sleepless
night. There was something revolting in the thought that, in
circumstances which would have made sleep an impossibility for
most men, he had slept like a log. He did not do himself the
justice to recollect that he had had a singularly strenuous day,
and that it is Nature's business, which she performs quietly and
unromantically, to send sleep to tired men regardless of their
private feelings; and it was in a mood of dissatisfaction with the
quality of his soul that he left his room.
He had a general feeling that he was not much of a chap and that
when he died--which he trusted would be shortly--the world would
be well rid of him. He felt humble and depressed and hopeless.
Elizabeth met him in the passage. At the age of eleven or
thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle
difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to
achieve somewhere in the later seventies. Except for a pallor
strange to her face and a drawn look about her eyes, there was
nothing to show that all was not for the best with Elizabeth in a
best of all possible worlds. If she did not look jaunty, she at
least looked composed. She greeted Bill with a smile.
'I didn't wake you. I thought I would let you sleep on.'
The words had the effect of lending an additional clarity and
firmness of outline to the picture of himself which Bill had
already drawn in his mind--of a soulless creature sunk in hoggish
slumber.
'We've had breakfast. Nutty has gone for a walk. Isn't he
wonderful nowadays? I've kept your breakfast warm for you.'
Bill protested. He might be capable of sleep, but he was not going
to sink to food.
'Not for me, thanks,' he said, hollowly.
'Come along.'
'Honestly--'
'Come along.'
He followed her meekly. How grimly practical women were! They let
nothing interfere with the essentials of life. It seemed all
wrong. Nevertheless, he breakfasted well and gratefully, Elizabeth
watching him in silence across the table.
'Finished?'
'Yes, thanks.'
She hesitated for a moment.
'Well, Bill, I've slept on it. Things are in rather a muddle,
aren't they? I think I had better begin by explaining what led up
to those words you heard Nutty say last night. Won't you smoke?'
'No, thanks.'
'You'll feel better if you do.'
'I couldn't.'
A bee had flown in through the open window. She followed it with
her eye as it blundered about the room. It flew out again into the
sunshine. She turned to Bill again.
'They were supposed to be words of consolation,' she said.
Bill said nothing.
'Nutty, you see, has his own peculiar way of looking at things,
and it didn't occur to him that I might have promised to marry you
because I loved you. He took it for granted that I had done it to
save the Boyd home. He has been very anxious from the first that I
should marry you. I think that that must have been why he asked
you down here. He found out in New York, you know, who you were.
Someone you met at supper recognized you, and told Nutty. So, as
far as that is concerned, the girl you were speaking to at the
gate last night was right.'
He started. 'You heard her?'
'I couldn't help it. She meant me to hear. She was raising her
voice quite unnecessarily if she did not mean to include me in the
conversation. I had gone in to find Nutty, and he was out, and I
was coming back to you. That's how I was there. You didn't see me
because your back was turned. She saw me.'
Bill met her eyes. 'You don't ask who she was?'
'It doesn't matter who she was. It's what she said that matters.
She said that we knew you were Lord Dawlish.'
'Did you know?'
'Nutty told me two or three days ago.' Her voice shook and a flush
came into her face. 'You probably won't believe it, but the news
made absolutely no difference to me one way or the other. I had
always imagined Lord Dawlish as a treacherous, adventurer sort of
man, because I couldn't see how a man who was not like that could
have persuaded Uncle Ira to leave him his money. But after knowing
you even for this short time, I knew you were quite the opposite of
that, and I remembered that the first thing you had done on coming
into the money had been to offer me half, so the information that
you were the Lord Dawlish whom I had been hating did not affect me.
And the fact that you were rich and I was poor did not affect me
either. I loved you, and that was all I cared about. If all this had
not happened everything would have been all right. But, you see,
nine-tenths of what that girl said to you was so perfectly true that
it is humanly impossible for you not to believe the other tenth,
which wasn't. And then, to clinch it, you hear Nutty consoling me.
That brings me back to Nutty.'
'I--'
'Let me tell you about Nutty first. I said that he had always been
anxious that I should marry you. Something happened last night to
increase his anxiety. I have often wondered how he managed to get
enough money to enable him to spend three days in New York, and
last night he told me. He came in just after I had got back to the
house after leaving you and that girl, and he was very scared. It
seems that when the letter from the London lawyer came telling him
that he had been left a hundred dollars, he got the idea of
raising money on the strength of it. You know Nutty by this time,
so you won't be surprised at the way he went about it. He borrowed
a hundred dollars from the man at the chemist's on the security of
that letter, and then--I suppose it seemed so easy that it struck
him as a pity to let the opportunity slip--he did the same thing
with four other tradesmen. Nutty's so odd that I don't know even
now whether it ever occurred to him that he was obtaining money
under false pretences; but the poor tradesmen hadn't any doubt
about it at all. They compared notes and found what had happened,
and last night, while we were in the woods, one of them came here
and called Nutty a good many names and threatened him with
imprisonment.
'You can imagine how delighted Nutty was when I came in and told
him that I was engaged to you. In his curious way, he took it for
granted that I had heard about his financial operations, and was
doing it entirely for his sake, to get him out of his fix. And
while I was trying to put him right on that point he began to
console me. You see, Nutty looks on you as the enemy of the
family, and it didn't strike him that it was possible that I
didn't look on you in that light too. So, after being delighted
for a while, he very sweetly thought that he ought to cheer me up
and point out some of the compensations of marriage with you.
And--Well, that was what you heard. There you have the full
explanation. You can't possibly believe it.'
She broke off and began to drum her fingers on the table. And as
she did so there came to Bill a sudden relief from all the doubts
and black thoughts that had tortured him. Elizabeth was straight.
Whatever appearances might seem to suggest, nothing could convince
him that she was playing an underhand game. It was as if something
evil had gone out of him. He felt lighter, cleaner. He could
breathe.
'I do believe it,' he said. 'I believe every word you say.'
She shook her head.
'You can't in the face of the evidence.'
'I believe it.'
'No. You may persuade yourself for the moment that you do, but
after a while you will have to go by the evidence. You won't be
able to help yourself. You haven't realized what a crushing thing
evidence is. You have to go by it against your will. You see,
evidence is the only guide. You don't know that I am speaking the
truth; you just feel it. You're trusting your heart and not your
head. The head must win in the end. You might go on believing for
a time, but sooner or later you would be bound to begin to doubt
and worry and torment yourself. You couldn't fight against the
evidence, when once your instinct--or whatever it is that tells
you that I am speaking the truth--had begun to weaken. And it
would weaken. Think what it would have to be fighting all the
time. Think of the case your intelligence would be making out, day
after day, till it crushed you. It's impossible that you could
keep yourself from docketing the evidence and arranging it and
absorbing it. Think! Consider what you know are actual facts!
Nutty invites you down here, knowing that you are Lord Dawlish.
All you know about my attitude towards Lord Dawlish is what I told
you on the first morning of your visit. I told you I hated him.
Yet, knowing you are Lord Dawlish, I become engaged to you.
Directly afterwards you hear Nutty consoling me as if I were
marrying you against my will. Isn't that an absolutely fair
statement of what has happened? How could you go on believing me
with all that against you?'
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