Books: Uneasy Money
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P.G. Wodehouse >> Uneasy Money
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She raised her eyebrows as a faint moan of protest came from
beneath the sheets.
'You surely,' she said, 'aren't going to suggest at this hour of
the day, Nutty, that your friends aren't the most horrible set of
pests outside a prison? Not that it's likely after all these
months that they are outside a prison. You know perfectly well
that while you were running round New York you collected the most
pernicious bunch of rogues that ever fastened their talons into a
silly child who ought never to have been allowed out without his
nurse.' After which complicated insult Elizabeth paused for
breath, and there was silence for a space.
'Well, as I was saying, I know nothing against this Mr Chalmers.
Probably his finger-prints are in the Rogues' Gallery, and he is
better known to the police as Jack the Blood, or something, but he
hasn't shown that side of him yet. My point is that, whoever he
is, I do not want him or anybody else coming and taking up his
abode here while I have to be cook and housemaid too. I object to
having a stranger on the premises spying out the nakedness of the
land. I am sensitive about my honest poverty. So, darling Nutty,
my precious Nutty, you poor boneheaded muddler, will you kindly
think up at your earliest convenience some plan for politely
ejecting this Mr Chalmers of yours from our humble home?--because
if you don't, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.'
And, completely restored to good humour by her own eloquence,
Elizabeth burst out laughing. It was a trait in her character
which she had often lamented, that she could not succeed in
keeping angry with anyone for more than a few minutes on end.
Sooner or later some happy selection of a phrase of abuse would
tickle her sense of humour, or the appearance of her victim would
become too funny not to be laughed at. On the present occasion it
was the ridiculous spectacle of Nutty cowering beneath the
bedclothes that caused her wrath to evaporate. She made a weak
attempt to recover it. She glared at Nutty, who at the sound of
her laughter had emerged from under the clothes like a worm after
a thunderstorm.
'I mean it,' she said. 'It really is too bad of you! You might
have had some sense and a little consideration. Ask yourself if we
are in a position here to entertain visitors. Well, I'm going to
make myself very unpopular with this Mr Chalmers of yours. By this
evening he will be regarding me with utter loathing, for I am
about to persecute him.'
'What do you mean?' asked Nutty, alarmed.
'I am going to begin by asking him to help me open one of the
hives.'
'For goodness' sake!'
'After that I shall--with his assistance--transfer some honey. And
after that--well, I don't suppose he will be alive by then. If he
is, I shall make him wash the dishes for me. The least he can do,
after swooping down on us like this, is to make himself useful.'
A cry of protest broke from the appalled Nutty, but Elizabeth did
not hear it. She had left the room and was on her way downstairs.
Lord Dawlish was smoking an after-breakfast cigar in the grounds.
It was a beautiful day, and a peaceful happiness had come upon
him. He told himself that he had made progress. He was under the
same roof as the girl he had deprived of her inheritance, and it
should be simple to establish such friendly relations as would
enable him to reveal his identity and ask her to reconsider her
refusal to relieve him of a just share of her uncle's money. He
had seen Elizabeth for only a short time on the previous night,
but he had taken an immediate liking to her. There was something
about the American girl, he reflected, which seemed to put a man
at his ease, a charm and directness all her own. Yes, he liked
Elizabeth, and he liked this dwelling-place of hers. He was quite
willing to stay on here indefinitely.
Nature had done well by Flack's. The house itself was more
pleasing to the eye than most of the houses in those parts, owing
to the black and white paint which decorated it and an unconventional
flattening and rounding of the roof. Nature, too, had made so many
improvements that the general effect was unusually delightful.
Bill perceived Elizabeth coming toward him from the house. He
threw away his cigar and went to meet her. Seen by daylight, she
was more attractive than ever. She looked so small and neat and
wholesome, so extremely unlike Miss Daisy Leonard's friend. And
such was the reaction from what might be termed his later
Reigelheimer's mood that if he had been asked to define feminine
charm in a few words, he would have replied without hesitation
that it was the quality of being as different as possible in every
way from the Good Sport. Elizabeth fulfilled this qualification.
She was not only small and neat, but she had a soft voice to which
it was a joy to listen.
'I was just admiring your place,' he said.
'Its appearance is the best part of it,' said Elizabeth. 'It is a
deceptive place. The bay looks beautiful, but you can't bathe in
it because of the jellyfish. The woods are lovely, but you daren't
go near them because of the ticks.'
'Ticks?'
'They jump on you and suck your blood,' said Elizabeth, carelessly.
'And the nights are gorgeous, but you have to stay indoors after
dusk because of the mosquitoes.' She paused to mark the effect of
these horrors on her visitor. 'And then, of course,' she went on,
as he showed no signs of flying to the house to pack his bag and
catch the next train, 'the bees are always stinging you. I hope you
are not afraid of bees, Mr Chalmers?'
'Rather not. Jolly little chaps!'
A gleam appeared in Elizabeth's eye.
'If you are so fond of them, perhaps you wouldn't mind coming and
helping me open one of the hives?'
'Rather!'
'I'll go and fetch the things.'
She went into the house and ran up to Nutty's room, waking that
sufferer from a troubled sleep.
'Nutty, he's bitten.'
Nutty sat up violently.
'Good gracious! What by?'
'You don't understand. What I meant was that I invited your Mr
Chalmers to help me open a hive, and he said "Rather!" and is
waiting to do it now. Be ready to say good-bye to him. If he comes
out of this alive, his first act, after bathing the wounds with
ammonia, will be to leave us for ever.'
'But look here, he's a visitor--'
'Cheer up! He won't be much longer.'
'You can't let him in for a ghastly thing like opening a hive.
When you made me do it that time I was picking stings out of
myself for a week.'
'That was because you had been smoking. Bees dislike the smell of
tobacco.'
'But this fellow may have been smoking.'
'He has just finished a strong cigar.'
'For Heaven's sake!'
'Good-bye, Nutty, dear; I mustn't keep him waiting.'
Lord Dawlish looked with interest at the various implements which
she had collected when she rejoined him outside. He relieved her
of the stool, the smoker, the cotton-waste, the knife, the
screwdriver, and the queen-clipping cage.
'Let me carry these for you,' he said, 'unless you've hired a
van.'
Elizabeth disapproved of this flippancy. It was out of place in
one who should have been trembling at the prospect of doom.
'Don't you wear a veil for this sort of job?'
As a rule Elizabeth did. She had reached a stage of intimacy with
her bees which rendered a veil a superfluous precaution, but until
to-day she had never abandoned it. Her view of the matter was
that, though the inhabitants of the hives were familiar and
friendly with her by this time and recognized that she came among
them without hostile intent, it might well happen that among so
many thousands there might be one slow-witted enough and obtuse
enough not to have grasped this fact. And in such an event a veil
was better than any amount of explanations, for you cannot stick
to pure reason when quarrelling with bees.
But to-day it had struck her that she could hardly protect herself
in this way without offering a similar safeguard to her visitor,
and she had no wish to hedge him about with safeguards.
'Oh, no,' she said, brightly; 'I'm not afraid of a few bees. Are
you?'
'Rather not!'
'You know what to do if one of them flies at you?'
'Well, it would, anyway--what? What I mean to say is, I could
leave most of the doing to the bee.'
Elizabeth was more disapproving than ever. This was mere bravado.
She did not speak again until they reached the hives.
In the neighbourhood of the hives a vast activity prevailed. What,
heard from afar, had been a pleasant murmur became at close
quarters a menacing tumult. The air was full of bees--bees
sallying forth for honey, bees returning with honey, bees
trampling on each other's heels, bees pausing in mid-air to pass
the time of day with rivals on competing lines of traffic.
Blunt-bodied drones whizzed to and fro with a noise like miniature
high-powered automobiles, as if anxious to convey the idea of being
tremendously busy without going to the length of doing any actual
work. One of these blundered into Lord Dawlish's face, and it
pleased Elizabeth to observe that he gave a jump.
'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'it's only a drone. Drones have no
stings.'
'They have hard heads, though. Here he comes again!'
'I suppose he smells your tobacco. A drone has thirty-seven
thousand eight hundred nostrils, you know.'
'That gives him a sporting chance of smelling a cigar--what? I
mean to say, if he misses with eight hundred of his nostrils he's
apt to get it with the other thirty-seven thousand.'
Elizabeth was feeling annoyed with her bees. They resolutely
declined to sting this young man. Bees flew past him, bees flew
into him, bees settled upon his coat, bees paused questioningly in
front of him, as who should say, 'What have we here?' but not a
single bee molested him. Yet when Nutty, poor darling, went within
a dozen yards of the hives he never failed to suffer for it. In
her heart Elizabeth knew perfectly well that this was because
Nutty, when in the presence of the bees, lost his head completely
and behaved like an exaggerated version of Lady Wetherby's Dream
of Psyche, whereas Bill maintained an easy calm; but at the moment
she put the phenomenon down to that inexplicable cussedness which
does so much to exasperate the human race, and it fed her
annoyance with her unbidden guest.
Without commenting on his last remark, she took the smoker from
him and set to work. She inserted in the fire-chamber a handful of
the cotton-waste and set fire to it; then with a preliminary puff
or two of the bellows to make sure that the conflagration had not
gone out, she aimed the nozzle at the front door of the hive.
The results were instantaneous. One or two bee-policemen, who were
doing fixed point-duty near the opening, scuttled hastily back
into the hive; and from within came a muffled buzzing as other
bees, all talking at once, worried the perplexed officials with
foolish questions, a buzzing that became less muffled and more
pronounced as Elizabeth lifted the edge of the cover and directed
more smoke through the crack. This done, she removed the cover,
set it down on the grass beside her, lifted the super-cover and
applied more smoke, and raised her eyes to where Bill stood
watching. His face wore a smile of pleased interest.
Elizabeth's irritation became painful. She resented his smile. She
hung the smoker on the side of the hive.
'The stool, please, and the screw-driver.'
She seated herself beside the hive and began to loosen the outside
section. Then taking the brood-frame by the projecting ends, she
pulled it out and handed it to her companion. She did it as one
who plays an ace of trumps.
'Would you mind holding this, Mr Chalmers?'
This was the point in the ceremony at which the wretched Nutty had
broken down absolutely, and not inexcusably, considering the
severity of the test. The surface of the frame was black with what
appeared at first sight to be a thick, bubbling fluid of some
sort, pouring viscously to and fro as if some hidden fire had been
lighted beneath it. Only after a closer inspection was it apparent
to the lay eye that this seeming fluid was in reality composed of
mass upon mass of bees. They shoved and writhed and muttered and
jostled, for all the world like a collection of home-seeking City
men trying to secure standing room on the Underground at half-past
five in the afternoon.
Nutty, making this discovery, had emitted one wild yell, dropped
the frame, and started at full speed for the house, his retreat
expedited by repeated stings from the nervous bees. Bill, more
prudent, remained absolutely motionless. He eyed the seething
frame with interest, but without apparent panic.
'I want you to help me here, Mr Chalmers. You have stronger wrists
than I have. I will tell you what to do. Hold the frame tightly.'
'I've got it.'
'Jerk it down as sharply as you can to within a few inches of the
door, and then jerk it up again. You see, that shakes them off.'
'It would me,' agreed Bill, cordially, 'if I were a bee.'
Elizabeth had the feeling that she had played her ace of trumps
and by some miracle lost the trick. If this grisly operation did
not daunt the man, nothing, not even the transferring of honey,
would. She watched him as he raised the frame and jerked it down
with a strong swiftness which her less powerful wrists had never
been able to achieve. The bees tumbled off in a dense shower,
asking questions to the last; then, sighting the familiar entrance
to the hive, they bustled in without waiting to investigate the
cause of the earthquake.
Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly interest.
'It has always been a mystery to me,' he said, 'why they never
seem to think of manhandling the Johnny who does that to them.
They don't seem able to connect cause and effect. I suppose the
only way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenly
dropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out for
home that they haven't time to go to the root of things. But it's
a ticklish job, for all that, if you're not used to it. I know
when I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they would
bury my remains or cremate them.'
'When you first did it?' Elizabeth was staring at him blankly.
'Have you done it before?'
Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly.
'Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. You see, I spent a
year on a bee-farm once, learning the business.'
For a moment mortification was the only emotion of which Elizabeth
was conscious. She felt supremely ridiculous. For this she had
schemed and plotted--to give a practised expert the opportunity of
doing what he had done a thousand times before!
And then her mood changed in a flash. Nature has decreed that
there are certain things in life which shall act as hoops of
steel, grappling the souls of the elect together. Golf is one of
these; a mutual love of horseflesh another; but the greatest of
all is bees. Between two beekeepers there can be no strife. Not
even a tepid hostility can mar their perfect communion.
The petty enmities which life raises to be barriers between man
and man and between man and woman vanish once it is revealed to
them that they are linked by this great bond. Envy, malice,
hatred, and all uncharitableness disappear, and they look into
each other's eyes and say 'My brother!'
The effect of Bill's words on Elizabeth was revolutionary. They
crashed through her dislike, scattering it like an explosive
shell. She had resented this golden young man's presence at the
farm. She had thought him in the way. She had objected to his
becoming aware that she did such prosaic tasks as cooking and
washing-up. But now her whole attitude toward him was changed. She
reflected that he was there. He could stay there as long as he
liked, the longer the better.
'You have really kept bees?'
'Not actually kept them, worse luck! I couldn't raise the capital.
You see, money was a bit tight--'
'I know,' said Elizabeth, sympathetically. 'Money is like that,
isn't it?'
'The general impression seemed to be that I should be foolish to
try anything so speculative as beekeeping, so it fell through.
Some very decent old boys got me another job.'
'What job?'
'Secretary to a club.'
'In London, of course?'
'Yes.'
'And all the time you wanted to be in the country keeping bees!'
Elizabeth could hardly control her voice, her pity was so great.
'I should have liked it,' said Bill, wistfully. 'London's all
right, but I love the country. My ambition would be to have a
whacking big farm, a sort of ranch, miles away from anywhere--'
He broke off. This was not the first time he had caught himself
forgetting how his circumstances had changed in the past few
weeks. It was ridiculous to be telling hard-luck stories about not
being able to buy a farm, when he had the wherewithal to buy
dozens of farms. It took a lot of getting used to, this business
of being a millionaire.
'That's my ambition too,' said Elizabeth, eagerly. This was the
very first time she had met a congenial spirit. Nutty's views on
farming and the Arcadian life generally were saddening to an
enthusiast. 'If I had the money I should get an enormous farm, and
in the summer I should borrow all the children I could find, and
take them out to it and let them wallow in it.'
'Wouldn't they do a lot of damage?'
'I shouldn't mind. I should be too rich to worry about the damage.
If they ruined the place beyond repair I'd go and buy another.'
She laughed. 'It isn't so impossible as it sounds. I came very
near being able to do it.' She paused for a moment, but went on
almost at once. After all, if you cannot confide your intimate
troubles to a fellow bee-lover, to whom can you confide them? 'An
uncle of mine--'
Bill felt himself flushing. He looked away from her. He had a
sense of almost unbearable guilt, as if he had just done some
particularly low crime and was contemplating another.
'--An uncle of mine would have left me enough money to buy all the
farms I wanted, only an awful person, an English lord. I wonder if
you have heard of him?--Lord Dawlish--got hold of uncle somehow
and induced him to make a will leaving all the money to him.'
She looked at Bill for sympathy, and was touched to see that he
was crimson with emotion. He must be a perfect dear to take other
people's misfortunes to heart like that.
'I don't know how he managed it,' she went on. 'He must have
worked and plotted and schemed, for Uncle Ira wasn't a weak sort
of man whom you could do what you liked with. He was very
obstinate. But, anyway, this Lord Dawlish succeeded in doing it
somehow, and then'--her eyes blazed at the recollection--'he had
the insolence to write to me through his lawyers offering me half.
I suppose he was hoping to satisfy his conscience. Naturally I
refused it.'
'But--but--but why?'
'Why! Why did I refuse it? Surely you don't think I was going to
accept charity from the man who had cheated me?'
'But--but perhaps he didn't mean it like that. What I mean to say
is--as charity, you know.'
'He did! But don't let's talk of it any more. It makes me angry to
think of him, and there's no use spoiling a lovely day like this
by getting angry.'
Bill sighed. He had never dreamed before that it could be so
difficult to give money away. He was profoundly glad that he had
not revealed his identity, as he had been on the very point of
doing just when she began her remarks. He understood now why that
curt refusal had come in answer to his lawyer's letter. Well,
there was nothing to do but wait and hope that time might
accomplish something.
'What do you want me to do next?' he said. 'Why did you open the
hive? Did you want to take a look at the queen?'
Elizabeth hesitated. She blushed with pure shame. She had had but
one motive in opening the hive, and that had been to annoy him.
She scorned to take advantage of the loophole he had provided.
Beekeeping is a freemasonry. A beekeeper cannot deceive a
brother-mason.
She faced him bravely.
'I didn't want to take a look at anything, Mr Chalmers. I opened
that hive because I wanted you to drop the frame, as my brother
did, and get stung, as he was; because I thought that would drive
you away, because I thought then that I didn't want you down here.
I'm ashamed of myself, and I don't know where I'm getting the
nerve to tell you this. I hope you will stay on--on and on and
on.'
Bill was aghast.
'Good Lord! If I'm in the way--'
'You aren't in the way.'
'But you said--'
'But don't you see that it's so different now? I didn't know then
that you were fond of bees. You must stay, if my telling you
hasn't made you feel that you want to catch the next train. You
will save our lives--mine and Nutty's too. Oh, dear, you're
hesitating! You're trying to think up some polite way of getting
out of the place! You mustn't go, Mr Chalmers; you simply must
stay. There aren't any mosquitoes, no jellyfish--nothing! At
least, there are; but what do they matter? You don't mind them. Do
you play golf?'
'Yes.'
'There are links here. You can't go until you've tried them. What
is your handicap?'
'Plus two.'
'So is mine.'
'By Jove! Really?'
Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes dancing.
'Why, we're practically twin souls, Mr Chalmers! Tell me, I know
your game is nearly perfect, but if you have a fault, is it a
tendency to putt too hard?'
'Why, by Jove--yes, it is!'
'I knew it. Something told me. It's the curse of my life too!
Well, after that you can't go away.'
'But if I'm in the way--'
'In the way! Mr Chalmers, will you come in now and help me wash
the breakfast things?'
'Rather!' said Lord Dawlish.
10
In the days that followed their interrupted love-scene at
Reigelheimer's Restaurant that night of Lord Dawlish's unfortunate
encounter with the tray-bearing waiter, Dudley Pickering's
behaviour had perplexed Claire Fenwick. She had taken it for
granted that next day at the latest he would resume the offer of
his hand, heart, and automobiles. But time passed and he made no
move in that direction. Of limousine bodies, carburettors,
spark-plugs, and inner tubes he spoke with freedom and eloquence,
but the subject of love and marriage he avoided absolutely. His
behaviour was inexplicable.
Claire was piqued. She was in the position of a hostess who has
swept and garnished her house against the coming of a guest and
waits in vain for that guest's arrival. She made up her mind what
to do when Dudley Pickering proposed to her next time, and
thereby, it seemed to her, had removed all difficulties in the
way of that proposal. She little knew her Pickering!
Dudley Pickering was not a self-starter in the motordrome of love.
He needed cranking. He was that most unpromising of matrimonial
material, a shy man with a cautious disposition. If he overcame
his shyness, caution applied the foot-brake. If he succeeded in
forgetting caution, shyness shut off the gas. At Reigelheimer's
some miracle had made him not only reckless but un-self-conscious.
Possibly the Dream of Psyche had gone to his head. At any rate, he
had been on the very verge of proposing to Claire when the
interruption had occurred, and in bed that night, reviewing the
affair, he had been appalled at the narrowness of his escape from
taking a definite step. Except in the way of business, he was a
man who hated definite steps. He never accepted even a dinner
invitation without subsequent doubts and remorse. The consequence
was that, in the days that followed the Reigelheimer episode, what
Lord Wetherby would have called the lamp of love burned rather low
in Mr Pickering, as if the acetylene were running out. He still
admired Claire intensely and experienced disturbing emotions when
he beheld her perfect tonneau and wonderful headlights; but he
regarded her with a cautious fear. Although he sometimes dreamed
sentimentally of marriage in the abstract, of actual marriage, of
marriage with a flesh-and-blood individual, of marriage that
involved clergymen and 'Voices that Breathe o'er Eden,' and
giggling bridesmaids and cake, Dudley Pickering was afraid with a
terror that woke him sweating in the night. His shyness shrank
from the ceremony, his caution jibbed at the mysteries of married
life. So his attitude toward Claire, the only girl who had
succeeded in bewitching him into the opening words of an actual
proposal, was a little less cordial and affectionate than if she
had been a rival automobile manufacturer.
Matters were in this state when Lady Wetherby, who, having danced
classical dances for three months without a break, required a
rest, shifted her camp to the house which she had rented for the
summer at Brookport, Long Island, taking with her Algie, her
husband, the monkey Eustace, and Claire and Mr Pickering, her
guests. The house was a large one, capable of receiving a big
party, but she did not wish to entertain on an ambitious scale.
The only other guest she proposed to put up was Roscoe Sherriff,
her press agent, who was to come down as soon as he could get away
from his metropolitan duties.
It was a pleasant and romantic place, the estate which Lady
Wetherby had rented. Standing on a hill, the house looked down
through green trees on the gleaming waters of the bay. Smooth
lawns and shady walks it had, and rustic seats beneath spreading
cedars. Yet for all its effect on Dudley Pickering it might have
been a gasworks. He roamed the smooth lawns with Claire, and sat
with her on the rustic benches and talked guardedly of lubricating
oil. There were moments when Claire was almost impelled to forfeit
whatever chance she might have had of becoming mistress of thirty
million dollars and a flourishing business, for the satisfaction
of administering just one whole-hearted slap on his round and
thinly-covered head.
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