Books: Love Among the Chickens
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P. G. Wodehouse >> Love Among the Chickens
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"Jerry!"
I started.
"Again!" I said.
"What?"
"Say it again. Do, please. Now."
"Very well. Jerry!"
"It was the first time you had called me by my Christian name. I don't
suppose you've the remotest notion how splendid it sounds when you say
it. There is something poetical, almost holy, about it."
"Jerry, please!"
"Say on."
"Do be sensible. Don't you see how serious this is? We must think how
we can make father consent."
"All right," I said. "We'll tackle the point. I'm sorry to be
frivolous, but I'm so happy I can't keep it all in. I've got you and I
can't think of anything else."
"Try."
"I'll pull myself together. . . . Now, say on once more."
"We can't marry without his consent."
"Why not?" I said, not having a marked respect for the professor's
whims. "Gretna Green is out of date, but there are registrars."
"I hate the very idea of a registrar," she said with decision.
"Besides----"
"Well?"
"Poor father would never get over it. We've always been such friends.
If I married against his wishes, he would--oh, you know. Not let me
near him again, and not write to me. And he would hate it all the time
he was doing it. He would be bored to death without me."
"Who wouldn't?" I said.
"Because, you see, Norah has never been quite the same. She has spent
such a lot of her time on visits to people, that she and father don't
understand each other so well as he and I do. She would try and be
nice to him, but she wouldn't know him as I do. And, besides, she will
be with him such a little, now she's going to be married."
"But, look here," I said, "this is absurd. You say your father would
never see you again, and so on, if you married me. Why? It's nonsense.
It isn't as if I were a sort of social outcast. We were the best of
friends till that man Hawk gave me away like that."
"I know. But he's very obstinate about some things. You see, he thinks
the whole thing has made him look ridiculous, and it will take him a
long time to forgive you for that."
I realised the truth of this. One can pardon any injury to oneself,
unless it hurts one's vanity. Moreover, even in a genuine case of
rescue, the rescued man must always feel a little aggrieved with his
rescuer, when he thinks the matter over in cold blood. He must regard
him unconsciously as the super regards the actor-manager, indebted to
him for the means of supporting existence, but grudging him the
limelight and the centre of the stage and the applause. Besides, every
one instinctively dislikes being under an obligation which they can
never wholly repay. And when a man discovers that he has experienced
all these mixed sensations for nothing, as the professor had done, his
wrath is likely to be no slight thing.
Taking everything into consideration, I could not but feel that it
would require more than a little persuasion to make the professor
bestow his blessing with that genial warmth which we like to see in
our fathers-in-law's elect.
"You don't think," I said, "that time, the Great Healer, and so on--?
He won't feel kindlier disposed towards me--say in a month's time?"
"Of course he /might/," said Phyllis; but she spoke doubtfully.
"He strikes me from what I have seen of him as a man of moods. I might
do something one of these days which would completely alter his views.
We will hope for the best."
"About telling father----?"
"Need we, do you think?" I said.
"Yes, we must. I couldn't bear to think that I was keeping it from
him. I don't think I've ever kept anything from him in my life.
Nothing bad, I mean."
"You count this among your darker crimes, then?"
"I was looking at it from father's point of view. He will be awfully
angry. I don't know how I shall begin telling him."
"Good heavens!" I cried, "you surely don't think I'm going to let you
do that! Keep safely out of the way while you tell him! Not much. I'm
coming back with you now, and we'll break the bad news together."
"No, not to-night. He may be tired and rather cross. We had better
wait till to-morrow. You might speak to him in the morning."
"Where shall I find him?"
"He is certain to go to the beach before breakfast for a swim."
"Good. I'll be there."
* * * * *
"Ukridge," I said, when I got back, "I want your advice."
It stirred him like a trumpet blast. I suppose, when a man is in the
habit of giving unsolicited counsel to everyone he meets, it is as
invigorating as an electric shock to him to be asked for it
spontaneously.
"Bring it out, laddie!" he replied cordially. "I'm with you. Here,
come along into the garden, and state your case."
This suited me. It is always easier to talk intimately in the dark,
and I did not wish to be interrupted by the sudden entrance of the
Hired Man or Mrs. Beale, of which there was always a danger indoors.
We walked down to the paddock. Ukridge lit a cigar.
"Ukridge," I said, "I'm engaged!"
"What!" A huge hand whistled through the darkness and smote me heavily
between the shoulder-blades. "By Jove, old boy, I wish you luck. 'Pon
my Sam I do! Best thing in the world for you. Bachelors are mere
excrescences. Never knew what happiness was till I married. When's the
wedding to be?"
"That's where I want your advice. What you might call a difficulty has
arisen about the wedding. It's like this. I'm engaged to Phyllis
Derrick."
"Derrick? Derrick?"
"You can't have forgotten her! Good Lord, what eyes some men have!
Why, if I'd only seen her once, I should have remembered her all my
life."
"I know, now. Rather a pretty girl, with blue eyes."
I stared at him blankly. It was not much good, as he could not see my
face, but it relieved me. "Rather a pretty girl!" What a description!
"Of course, yes," continued Ukridge. "She came to dinner here one
night with her father, that fat little buffer."
"As you were careful to call him to his face at the time, confound
you! It was that that started all the trouble."
"Trouble? What trouble?"
"Why, her father. . . ."
"By Jove, I remember now! So worried lately, old boy, that my memory's
gone groggy. Of course! Her father fell into the sea, and you fished
him out. Why, damme, it's like the stories you read."
"It's also very like the stories I used to write. But they had one
point about them which this story hasn't. They invariably ended
happily, with the father joining the hero's and heroine's hands and
giving his blessing. Unfortunately, in the present case, that doesn't
seem likely to happen."
"The old man won't give his consent?"
"I'm afraid not. I haven't asked him yet, but the chances are against
it."
"But why? What's the matter with you? You're an excellent chap, sound
in wind and limb, and didn't you once tell me that, if you married,
you came into a pretty sizeable bit of money?"
"Yes, I do. That part of it is all right."
Ukridge's voice betrayed perplexity.
"I don't understand this thing, old horse," he said. "I should have
thought the old boy would have been all over you. Why, damme, I never
heard of anything like it. You saved his life! You fished him out of
the water."
"After chucking him in. That's the trouble."
"You chucked him in?"
"By proxy."
I explained. Ukridge, I regret to say, laughed in a way that must have
been heard miles away in distant villages in Devonshire.
"You devil!" he bellowed. " 'Pon my Sam, old horse, to look at you one
would never have thought you'd have had it in you."
"I can't help looking respectable."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"That's where I wanted your advice. You're a man of resource. What
would you do in my place?"
Ukridge tapped me impressively on the shoulder.
"Laddie," he said, "there's one thing that'll carry you through any
mess."
"And that is----?"
"Cheek, my boy, cheek. Gall. Nerve. Why, take my case. I never told
you how I came to marry, did I. I thought not. Well, it was this way.
It'll do you a bit of good, perhaps, to hear the story, for, mark you,
blessings weren't going cheap in my case either. You know Millie's
Aunt Elizabeth, the female who wrote that letter? Well, when I tell
you that she was Millie's nearest relative and that it was her consent
I had to snaffle, you'll see that I was faced with a bit of a
problem."
"Let's have it," I said.
"Well, the first time I ever saw Millie was in a first-class carriage
on the underground. I'd got a third-class ticket, by the way. The
carriage was full, and I got up and gave her my seat, and, as I hung
suspended over her by a strap, damme, I fell in love with her then and
there. You've no conception, laddie, how indescribably ripping she
looked, in a sort of blue dress with a bit of red in it and a hat with
thingummies. Well, we both got out at South Kensington. By that time I
was gasping for air and saw that the thing wanted looking into. I'd
never had much time to bother about women, but I realised that this
must not be missed. I was in love, old horse. It comes over you quite
suddenly, like a tidal wave. . . ."
"I know! I know! Good Heavens, you can't tell me anything about that."
"Well, I followed her. She went to a house in Thurloe Square. I waited
outside and thought it over. I had got to get into that shanty and
make her acquaintance, if they threw me out on my ear. So I rang the
bell. 'Is Lady Lichenhall at home?' I asked. You spot the devilish
cunning of the ruse, what? My asking for a female with a title was to
make 'em think I was one of the Upper Ten."
"How were you dressed?" I could not help asking.
"Oh, it was one of my frock-coat days. I'd been to see a man about
tutoring his son, and by a merciful dispensation of Providence there
was a fellow living in the same boarding-house with me who was about
my build and had a frock-coat, and he had lent it to me. At least, he
hadn't exactly lent it to me, but I knew where he kept it and he was
out at the time. There was nothing the matter with my appearance.
Quite the young duke, I assure you, laddie, down to the last button.
'Is Lady Lichenhall at home?' I asked. 'No,' said the maid, 'nobody of
that name here. This is Lady Lakenheath's house.' So, you see, I had a
bit of luck at the start, because the names were a bit alike. Well, I
got the maid to show me in somehow, and, once in you can bet I talked
for all I was worth. Kept up a flow of conversation about being
misdirected and coming to the wrong house. Went away, and called a few
days later. Gradually wormed my way in. Called regularly. Spied on
their movements, met 'em at every theatre they went to, and bowed, and
finally got away with Millie before her aunt knew what was happening
or who I was or what I was doing or anything."
"And what's the moral?"
"Why, go in like a mighty, rushing wind! Bustle 'em! Don't give 'em a
moment's rest or time to think or anything. Why, if I'd given Millie's
Aunt Elizabeth time to think, where should we have been? Not at Combe
Regis together, I'll bet. You heard that letter, and know what she
thinks of me now, on reflection. If I'd gone slow and played a timid
waiting-game, she'd have thought that before I married Millie, instead
of afterwards. I give you my honest word, laddie, that there was a
time, towards the middle of our acquaintance--after she had stopped
mixing me up with the man who came to wind the clocks--when that woman
ate out of my hand! Twice--on two separate occasions--she actually
asked my advice about feeding her toy Pomeranian! Well, that shows
you! Bustle 'em, laddie! Bustle 'em!"
"Ukridge," I said, "you inspire me. You would inspire a caterpillar. I
will go to the professor--I was going anyhow, but now I shall go
aggressively. I will prise a father's blessing out of him, if I have
to do it with a crowbar."
"That's the way to talk, old horse. Don't beat about the bush. Tell
him exactly what you want and stand no nonsense. If you don't see what
you want in the window, ask for it. Where did you think of tackling
him?"
"Phyllis tells me that he always goes for a swim before breakfast. I
thought of going down to-morrow and waylaying him."
"You couldn't do better. By Jove!" said Ukridge suddenly. "I'll tell
you what I'll do, laddie. I wouldn't do it for everybody, but I look
on you as a favourite son. I'll come with you, and help break the
ice."
"What!"
"Don't you be under any delusion, old horse," said Ukridge paternally.
"You haven't got an easy job in front of you and what you'll need more
than anything else, when you really get down to brass-tacks, is a
wise, kindly man of the world at your elbow, to whoop you on when your
nerve fails you and generally stand in your corner and see that you
get a fair show."
"But it's rather an intimate business. . . ."
"Never mind! Take my tip and have me at your side. I can say things
about you that you would be too modest to say for yourself. I can
plead your case, laddie. I can point out in detail all that the old
boy will be missing if he gives you the miss-in-baulk. Well, that's
settled, then. About eight to-morrow morning, what? I'll be there, my
boy. A swim will do me good."
CHAPTER XIX
ASKING PAPA
Reviewing the matter later, I could see that I made one or two
blunders in my conduct of the campaign to win over Professor Derrick.
In the first place, I made a bad choice of time and place. At the
moment this did not strike me. It is a simple matter, I reflected, for
a man to pass another by haughtily and without recognition, when they
meet on dry land; but, when the said man, being it should be
remembered, an indifferent swimmer, is accosted in the water and out
of his depth, the feat becomes a hard one. It seemed to me that I
should have a better chance with the professor in the water than out
of it.
My second mistake--and this was brought home to me almost immediately
--was in bringing Ukridge along. Not that I really brought him along;
it was rather a case of being unable to shake him off. When he met me
on the gravel outside the house at a quarter to eight on the following
morning, clad in a dingy mackintosh which, swinging open, revealed a
purple bathing-suit, I confess that my heart sank. Unfortunately, all
my efforts to dissuade him from accompanying me were attributed by him
to a pardonable nervousness--or, as he put it, to the needle.
"Buck up, laddie!" he roared encouragingly. "I had anticipated this.
Something seemed to tell me that your nerve would go when it came to
the point. You're deuced lucky, old horse, to have a man like me at
your side. Why, if you were alone, you wouldn't have a word to say for
yourself. You'd just gape at the man and yammer. But I'm with you
laddie, I'm with you. If your flow of conversation dries up, count on
me to keep the thing going."
And so it came about that, having reached the Cob and spying in the
distance the grey head of the professor bobbing about on the face of
the waters, we dived in and swam rapidly towards him.
His face was turned in the opposite direction when we came up with
him. He was floating peacefully on his back, and it was plain that he
had not observed our approach. For when, treading water easily in his
rear, I wished him good morning in my most conciliatory tone, he stood
not upon the order of his sinking, but went under like so much pig-
iron.
I waited courteously until he rose to the surface again, when I
repeated my remark.
He expelled the last remnant of water from his mouth with a wrathful
splutter, and cleared his eyes with the back of his hand. I confess to
a slight feeling of apprehension as I met his gaze. Nor was my
uneasiness diminished by the spectacle of Ukridge splashing tactfully
in the background like a large seal. Ukridge so far had made no
remarks. He had dived in very flat, and I imagine that his breath had
not yet returned to him. He had the air of one who intends to get used
to his surroundings before trusting himself to speech.
"The water is delightfully warm," I said.
"Oh, it's you!" said the professor; and I could not cheat myself into
the belief that he spoke cordially. Ukridge snorted loudly in the
offing. The professor turned sharply, as if anxious to observe this
marine phenomenon; and the annoyed gurgle which he gave showed that he
was not approving of Ukridge either. I did not approve of Ukridge
myself. I wished he had not come. Ukridge, in the water, lacks
dignity. I felt that he prejudiced my case.
"You are swimming splendidly this morning," I went on perseveringly,
feeling that an ounce of flattery is worth a pound of rhetoric. "If,"
I added, "you will allow me to say so."
"I will not!" he snapped. "I--" here a small wave, noticing that his
mouth was open, stepped in. "I wish," he resumed warmly, "as I said in
me letter, to have nothing to do with you. I consider that ye've
behaved in a manner that can only be described as abominable, and I
will thank you to leave me alone."
"But allow me--"
"I will not allow ye, sir. I will allow ye nothing. Is it not enough
to make me the laughing-stock, the butt, sir, of this town, without
pursuing me in this way when I wish to enjoy a quiet swim?"
"Now, laddie, laddie," said Ukridge, placing a large hand on his
shoulder, "these are harsh words! Be reasonable! Think before you
speak. You little know . . ."
"Go to the devil!" said the professor. "I wish to have nothing to do
with either of you. I should be glad if you would cease this
persecution. Persecution, sir!"
His remarks, which I have placed on paper as if they were continuous
and uninterrupted, were punctuated in reality by a series of gasps and
puffings, as he received and rejected the successors of the wave he
had swallowed at the beginning of our little chat. The art of
conducting conversation while in the water is not given to every
swimmer. This he seemed to realise, for, as if to close the interview,
he proceeded to make his way as quickly as he could to the shore.
Unfortunately, his first dash brought him squarely up against Ukridge,
who, not having expected the collision, clutched wildly at him and
took him below the surface again. They came up a moment later on the
worst terms.
"Are you trying to drown me, sir?" barked the professor.
"My dear old horse," said Ukridge complainingly, "it's a little hard.
You might look where you're going."
"You grappled with me!"
"You took me by surprise, laddie. Rid yourself of the impression that
you're playing water-polo."
"But, professor," I said, joining the group and treading water, "one
moment."
I was growing annoyed with the man. I could have ducked him, but for
the reflection that my prospects of obtaining his consent to my
engagement would scarcely have been enhanced thereby.
"But, professor," I said, "one moment."
"Go away, sir! I have nothing to say to you."
"But he has lots to say to you," said Ukridge. "Now's the time, old
horse," he added encouragingly to me. "Spill the news!"
Without preamble I gave out the text of my address.
"I love your daughter, Phyllis, Mr. Derrick. She loves me. In fact, we
are engaged."
"Devilish well put, laddie," said Ukridge approvingly.
The professor went under as if he had been seized with cramp. It was a
little trying having to argue with a man, of whom one could not
predict with certainty that at any given moment he would not be under
water. It tended to spoil the flow of one's eloquence. The best of
arguments is useless if the listener suddenly disappears in the middle
of it.
"Stick to it, old horse," said Ukridge. "I think you're going to bring
it off."
I stuck to it.
"Mr. Derrick," I said, as his head emerged, "you are naturally
surprised."
"You would be," said Ukridge. "We don't blame you," he added
handsomely.
"You--you--you--" So far from cooling the professor, liberal doses of
water seemed to make him more heated. "You impudent scoundrel!"
My reply was more gentlemanly, more courteous, on a higher plane
altogether.
I said, winningly: "Cannot we let bygones be bygones?"
From his remarks I gathered that we could not. I continued. I was
under the unfortunate necessity of having to condense my speech. I was
not able to let myself go as I could have wished, for time was an
important consideration. Ere long, swallowing water at his present
rate, the professor must inevitably become waterlogged.
"I have loved your daughter," I said rapidly, "ever since I first saw
her . . ."
"And he's a capital chap," interjected Ukridge. "One of the best.
Known him for years. You'll like him."
"I learned last night that she loved me. But she will not marry me
without your consent. Stretch your arms out straight from the
shoulders and fill your lungs well and you can't sink. So I have come
this morning to ask for your consent."
"Give it!" advised Ukridge. "Couldn't do better. A very sound fellow.
Pots of money, too. At least he will have when he marries."
"I know we have not been on the best of terms lately. For Heaven's
sake don't try to talk, or you'll sink. The fault," I said,
generously, "was mine . . ."
"Well put," said Ukridge.
"But when you have heard my explanation, I am sure you will forgive
me. There, I told you so."
He reappeared some few feet to the left. I swam up, and resumed.
"When you left us so abruptly after our little dinner-party----"
"Come again some night," said Ukridge cordially. "Any time you're
passing."
" . . . you put me in a very awkward position. I was desperately in
love with your daughter, and as long as you were in the frame of mind
in which you left I could not hope to find an opportunity of revealing
my feelings to her."
"Revealing feelings is good," said Ukridge approvingly. "Neat."
"You see what a fix I was in, don't you? Keep your arms well out. I
thought for hours and hours, to try and find some means of bringing
about a reconciliation. You wouldn't believe how hard I thought."
"Got as thin as a corkscrew," said Ukridge.
"At last, seeing you fishing one morning when I was on the Cob, it
struck me all of a sudden . . ."
"You know how it is," said Ukridge.
" . . . all of a sudden that the very best way would be to arrange a
little boating accident. I was confident that I could rescue you all
right."
Here I paused, and he seized the opportunity to curse me--briefly,
with a wary eye on an incoming wavelet.
"If it hadn't been for the inscrutable workings of Providence, which
has a mania for upsetting everything, all would have been well. In
fact, all was well till you found out."
"Always the way," said Ukridge sadly. "Always the way."
"You young blackguard!"
He managed to slip past me, and made for the shore.
"Look at the thing from the standpoint of a philosopher, old horse,"
urged Ukridge, splashing after him. "The fact that the rescue was
arranged oughtn't to matter. I mean to say, you didn't know it at the
time, so, relatively, it was not, and you were genuinely saved from a
watery grave and all that sort of thing."
I had not imagined Ukridge capable of such an excursion into
metaphysics. I saw the truth of his line of argument so clearly that
it seemed to me impossible for anyone else to get confused over it. I
had certainly pulled the professor out of the water, and the fact that
I had first caused him to be pushed in had nothing to do with the
case. Either a man is a gallant rescuer or he is not a gallant
rescuer. There is no middle course. I had saved his life--for he would
certainly have drowned if left to himself--and I was entitled to his
gratitude. That was all there was to be said about it.
These things both Ukridge and I tried to make plain as we swam along.
But whether it was that the salt water he had swallowed had dulled the
professor's normally keen intelligence or that our power of stating a
case was too weak, the fact remains that he reached the beach an
unconvinced man.
"Then may I consider," I said, "that your objections are removed? I
have your consent?"
He stamped angrily, and his bare foot came down on a small, sharp
pebble. With a brief exclamation he seized his foot in one hand and
hopped up the beach. While hopping, he delivered his ultimatum.
Probably the only instance on record of a father adopting this
attitude in dismissing a suitor.
"You may not!" he cried. "You may consider no such thing. My
objections were never more absolute. You detain me in the water, sir,
till I am blue, sir, blue with cold, in order to listen to the most
preposterous and impudent nonsense I ever heard."
This was unjust. If he had listened attentively from the first and
avoided interruptions and had not behaved like a submarine we should
have got through the business in half the time.
I said so.
"Don't talk to me, sir," he replied, hobbling off to his dressing-
tent. "I will not listen to you. I will have nothing to do with you. I
consider you impudent, sir."
"I assure you it was unintentional."
"Isch!" he said--being the first occasion and the last on which I have
ever heard that remarkable monosyllable proceed from the mouth of a
man. And he vanished into his tent.
"Laddie," said Ukridge solemnly, "do you know what I think?"
"Well?"
"You haven't clicked, old horse!" said Ukridge.
CHAPTER XX
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