Kitabı oku: «Amusement Only», sayfa 13
CHAPTER IV
EVENS
When Mr. Johns had beaten the men of Ahmednugger at almost everything at which they could be beaten, he began to amuse himself by taking a hand in various little games at cards. It was remarked that, to say the least of it, his luck was wonderful. There was scarcely a man in Ahmednugger who had not been compelled by Mr. Johns to take a lower seat; to take a lower seat, too, just where he felt that his claim was strongest to take the highest one. Naturally, here and there, a man resented it. An even stronger spirit of resentment was evinced when the men of Ahmednugger found that their money was going in search of their vanished reputations. There were some disagreeable little scenes. Then there was a royal row; it was at the club. Mr. Johns had been carrying everything in front of him. Things were said; then other things were said Then Mr. Johns laid down his cards; he faced the company.
"Gentlemen, I wish to inform you that you are, individually and collectively, a set of curs."
There were sounds which suggested neither the ways of pleasantness nor the paths of peace.
"Softly. Postpone the fighting for one minute. I would remind you that, when Mr. Greenall appeared in Ahmednugger, you all, with one accord, took shots at him. You used him as if he had been a variety of old Aunt Sally. When I made my appearance, you put your heads together, and you bested me. You see, we were strangers, and you took us in. Neither Mr. Greenall nor I quite liked this sort of thing, so we put our heads together, and, in our turn, we've bested you. We've used you as old Aunt Sallies. We've made you all sit up. We've made you all sing small. Even at games of mingled chance and skill, I've beaten you. Instead of taking your punishment like men, you begin to whimper. Therefore, gentlemen, I repeat that you are, individually and collectively, a set of curs."
Colonel Smith interposed so soon as Mr. Johns ceased speaking. I fancy that the Colonel had only just entered the room.
"Mr. Johns, you very much forget yourself."
"On the contrary, Colonel, I am remembering myself. It is the gentlemen you have the honour to command, who forget themselves. Should there be any one present who resents the words which I have used, I shall be happy to meet that person, either with the gloves, or without them, or with any weapon he may choose-for the honour of Ahmednugger."
There was silence-grim silence. Probably there was more than one there who would have liked to have ground Mr. Johns between the upper and the nether millstones. But, after all, they were gentlemen-in their way. Bean stood up, the adjutant of the – th. He was a big fellow, head and shoulders taller than the audacious little challenger. He went round to where Mr. Johns was sitting.
"Mr. Johns, you will either apologise for the words which you have just now used, or take a thrashing."
"I will take a thrashing," said Mr. Johns.
He took it. What is more, he took it there and then. The meeting was immediately adjourned; and in the moonlight, the little argument came off. The proceedings were a trifle irregular; perhaps over here we should deem them so. I am not prepared to say that any dignitaries were actually present. Still there was a goodly gathering. The two men "peeled." In a very short space of time the little man had knocked the big man senseless. This is not a fairy tale. It is a simple record of a sober matter-of-fact. It almost seems as if Mr. Johns was a lineal descendant of the Admirable Crichton. Looking back, I really fancy that he must have been.
When Mr. Bean's satisfaction had been signified in what, I believe, is the usual manner, Mr. Johns addressed the lookers-on:
"Is there any other gentleman present who would like to thrash me-for the honour of Ahmednugger?"
Someone came out of the shadow-someone who, in those parts, was a very great man indeed.
"Mr. Johns, you will be so good as to leave Ahmednugger within four-and-twenty-hours."
Mr. Johns looked the great man up and down. He seemed to be in no way awed, even though he stood there in the moonlight without his shirt.
"I am at a loss, sir, to understand by what authority you address yourself to me in such a manner. I am in no way answerable for my movements to you. I have not broken the law. I have not even broken the peace. As it happens, I do intend to leave Ahmednugger, and in less than four-and-twenty hours. Not in deference to your orders, but simply because I have had enough of Ahmednugger, having taught your compatriots hereabouts what, it strikes me, was a much-needed lesson-the next time they encounter strangers, except in the scriptural sense-not to take them in."
The next day Mr. Johns did leave Ahmednugger. And I went too. He went his way, I went mine. I have neither seen nor heard of him since. But, as I continued on my journeyings, I felt that after all I had been even, and more than even, with the men of Ahmednugger-by deputy.
MR. WHITING AND MARY ANN
I did not mean to kiss her; it was a pure accident. Her face was close to mine, or my face was close to hers, and then her lips came into contact with my lips, or my lips came into contact with her lips-I don't know which it was-and then at that moment her mother came into the room, and she said, "Mr. Whiting, may I ask what is the meaning of this?" I said it meant nothing-nothing! Absolutely nothing! Only I found it difficult to explain, and when I did explain she would not understand. Her manner was not at all the sort of thing I care for. The result is that I am engaged to Mary Ann Snelling without being conscious of having entertained any intention of the kind.
Not that I have a word to say against Mary Ann, except that I never knew a girl with quite so many relations. To begin with she had six brothers and five sisters, and she is the eldest of the batch, and there's not one of the brothers whom I feel drawn to. Her father is a most remarkable person, to say the least.
After they had arranged between them that I was engaged to Mary Ann (I was really not allowed to have a voice in the matter) her father remarked, with a pointed air, which I cannot but think, under the circumstances, was unusual, that he thought it was about time that I did come to the scratch, and that if I had kept on dilly-dallying much longer he would have had a word to say to me of a kind. I do not know what he meant, and would rather not attempt to imagine. But it is quite plain to me that all the arrangements for my wedding are going to be made by the Snellings.
I do not know when it is going to be, but it will be either next week or the week after, certainly at the earliest possible moment, and I shouldn't be at all surprised to learn that all Mary Ann's "things" had been already bought, and perhaps some of them marked.
We are to live in a house which belongs to a cousin of Mr. Snelling; it is to be furnished by a brother of Mrs. Snelling, the house linen is to be supplied by the father of the young man to whom Jane Matilda is engaged, and the ironmongery by the uncle to whom George Frederic is apprenticed. All, apparently, that is left for me to do, is to pay for everything. It is most delightful. It might just as well be some one else's wedding, so unimportant is the part which I am set to play in it.
And it is all the result of an accident. I deny that for the last six months I have been using Mr. Snelling's home as if it were a boarding-house. Nothing of the kind. The mere suggestion is absurd. It is true that I have dropped in to dinner now and then, or to spend the evening, or for an afternoon call, or for an hour or two in the morning; but that has been simply and solely because the Snelling family have evinced so marked a desire for my society. The alteration which has taken place in their demeanour since my accident with Mary Ann is, therefore, all the more amazing. For instance, look at their behaviour in the matter of the ring.
The accident in question occurred upon the Sunday evening. I had been with Mary Ann to church, and had seen her home, and had had a little supper, and it was after supper that it happened. I did not go and purchase the engagement ring the first thing on the Monday morning, I own it. Certainly not. Nor did I take any steps in that direction during the whole of that week. I was not pressed for time.
Besides, I was turning things over in my mind. But that was no reason why, the Monday week following, four of her brothers should have called on me on their way to the office, when I was scarcely out of bed, and actually breakfasting, and assailed me in the way in which they did.
There was William Henry, John Frank, Ferdinand Augustus, and Stephen Arthur. Each of them twice my size and all of them frightfully ignorant and wholly regardless of the sensitive little points of those with whom they came in contact. There is no circumlocution about them. They go straight at what they want; and were scarcely inside my door before they blurted out the purport of their coming. It was Frederick Augustus; if the thing is possible he is, if anything, more direct even than the rest of his family.
"Look here, Whiting, how about Mary Ann's ring? The girl is fretting, but you don't seem to notice it. And as you don't appear to know what is the proper thing to do in a case of this kind, and don't understand that the ring ought to be bought straight away, we've bought it for you."
I gasped-positively gasped.
"Am I to understand that you've purchased my engagement ring?"
"That's it; on your account. From a cousin of ours who's in that line."
I never saw people like the Snellings for possessing relatives in all sorts of "lines." No matter what you want, or do not want, and never will want, they are sure to have some relative who has dealt in it, his or her whole life long.
They produced the ring, and told me what I had to pay for it. A handsome price it was. I was persuaded that somebody besides that cousin got a profit out of Mary Ann's engagement ring. But I handed over the amount. I did not want any unpleasantness; and I am quite sure there would have been unpleasantness had I demurred.
Later in the day I took it with me when I went to call on Mary Ann. She appeared to be surprised almost into speechlessness when I presented it to her. Her head dropped on my shoulder, and she kissed me under the chin, observing, "You dear old Sam." The moments when I am alone with Mary Ann are alleviations for those more frequent moments when I am not alone with Mary Ann. Still I noticed that the ring fitted her perfectly, and I could not but wonder if she had tried it on before.
At the same time I am beginning to be comforted by a suspicion that Mary Ann is on my side; on my side, that is, as against the rest of her family. There has been a difference of opinion as to where we are to spend our honeymoon. It is from her action in that matter that my suspicion springs.
The Snellings have an aunt who lives in an out-of-the-way hole at the other end of nowhere. The woman's name is Brady. There she owns a cottage, or it may be a pigstye for all I know. When she heard of my engagement with Mary Ann, she wrote and suggested that we should spend our honeymoon in her cottage, or pigstye, and that I should pay her rent for it. The matter was talked about at dinner. Mary Ann was silent for some time; then she quietly remarked:
"Don't trouble yourselves to discuss Aunt Brady's proposal. I shall do nothing of the kind."
This observation was followed by perfect silence. The members of the family looked at one another. But, after a very considerable pause, her mother said, with quite unusual mildness, "Very well, my dear. Then, it's settled."
After dinner I took advantage of an opportunity which offered to thank Mary Ann for her action in the matter, because, of course, I had no wish to spend my honeymoon in a place of which I knew nothing, to oblige an aunt of whom I knew still less. Mary Ann beamed at me, and she said, "You dear old man!" Presently she continued:
"Do you know that in marrying me you are doing the best thing for yourself that you ever did in all your life?"
I endeavoured to explain to her that I felt sure of it; but I fear that my explanation was a little stumbling. But she went on with the most perfect fluency. There were no signs of faltering about her flow of language.
"You want someone who can look after you; and you could not, by any chance, have chosen a person who will look after you better than I shall."
Such an assurance was most satisfactory. We had a long confidential chat on matters of business. I found that as a woman of business she was beyond all my expectations.
I told her exactly what my income was; and the source from which it came, and all about it. She drew up a plan on which we were to lay it out. It was an admirable plan. I had never had one, but I saw clearly that in that way the money would go twice as far.
It turned out that she had a little money of her own; about a hundred and thirty pounds a year. And, of course, I had my expectations, and she had hers. It was plain that together we should manage most comfortably. Delightfully, in fact. On the subject of wedding presents, too, her ideas were the most lucid I ever yet encountered. It was wonderful to listen to her-really wonderful.
"I shall make papa give me five hundred pounds, at least. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in a bush'-and it will be something to have by us."
I quite agreed with her remarks about the bird in the hand; and it certainly will be something to have by us.
"I know what mamma can afford to give, and I will see she gives it. And I will see that there is no shirking about the boys-or about the girls either. I will take care that my relations do their duty. I have drawn up a list of all the people who ought to give us a present, and I shall tell them what they ought to give-it won't be my fault if I don't get it. Of course there are some people with whom you can't be perfectly plain, but I shall be as plain as I can; there's a way and a manner of doing that kind of thing. I have no intention of being presented with an endless collection of duplicates, or a lot of useless rubbish which I don't know what to do with. If you take my advice you will follow in my footsteps."
I endeavoured to. At least I drew up a list of people who ought to meet the occasion, and I tried in more than one instance to drop a hint of what, as I felt, they ought to meet it with.
But I am bound to admit that so far my success has been as nothing compared with hers. Hers has been prodigious. It is certain that we have a large collection of really valuable property about the house-the wedding presents to Mary Ann. She has a knack of getting people to do what she wishes and to give her what she wants, which is a little short of miraculous.
A singular feature about the situation is that people are actually beginning to pity me-to sympathise with me for being about to marry Mary Ann. I notice that they are generally persons who have already tendered their offerings. The fact of having given Mary Ann a wedding present seems to fill them with a feeling of rancorous acidity which, to me, is inexplicable. My belief is that they have been induced to spend at least twice as much as they intended, and that they resent it. Such is the selfishness of human nature. But why, on that account, they should pity me, I altogether fail to understand.
"We have all been giving Mary Ann presents, and I suppose you, Mr. Whiting, have been giving her something too." That was what Mrs. Macpherson said to me only the other day. I have given Mary Ann two or three trifles, and I said so. "And what," inquired Mrs. Macpherson, "has Mary Ann given you?"
"Her love."
Someone sniggered. I cannot pretend to explain why, except on the supposition that romance is dead; at least in that circle of society in which the Snellings move. But that is not the only society the world contains.
As a matter of fact, Mary Ann has given me a pair of slippers, worked by her own hands. It is true that they are a trifle large for me, and that I shall never be able to keep them on my feet except when I am sitting still. But Mary Ann does not seem to think that that matters, so why should I? Her youngest sister, Clara Louisa, has quite gratuitously informed me that she has had them by her for some considerable time, and that, not to put too fine a point on it, they were originally designed for another individual altogether-a Mr. Pilbeam. But even supposing that what Clara Louisa says is true-of which I have no evidence-I have, surely, cause to congratulate myself on standing literally in Mr. Pilbeam's shoes, even if they are a little spacious.
On the whole I do not know that I regret that accident I had with Mary Ann. It is true that there are times when I am a little disposed to wish that she were not quite so good a manager; now and then every man likes to call his soul his own. On the other hand, she is well qualified to protect me from the rest of the family. She will keep them at bay. Because it is beginning to dawn on me that, singlehanded, she is more than a match for them all. Which is just as well. If she had been like me they would have rent us limb from limb. As it is, unless I am mistaken, some of the rending will be on our side. And they know it!
P.S. – The cards are out for the wedding. It is to take place on Tuesday fortnight. We are going for our honeymoon to Italy and the South of France. A second cousin of Mary Ann's is in the Cook's Tours line. He has given us free passes all the way to the end of our journey, and all the way back again; and coupons for free board and lodging at the hotel. It's a wedding present. So that, as Mary Ann says, our honeymoon need cost us practically nothing. Besides which we can always sell the coupons and railway passes which we don't use.
Nothing could be more delightful.
A SUBSTITUTE
THE STORY OF MY LAST CRICKET-MATCH
CHAPTER I
I AM APPOINTED CAPTAIN
I have some idea of cricket-not much, perhaps, but I certainly have some. I was not in the 'Varsity team, nor near it; but I played in the Freshman's match, and provided myself with spectacles. I was nearly in the school team once. That was when I carried my bat for forty-five. I must own that my performance was a surprise to everyone-and to myself among the rest. But as I never repeated it-or anything like it-they left me, very wisely, out of the eleven.
Thus it will be seen that, from a cricketing point of view, I did not, even in my best days, come up to first-rate form; and my best days were, reckoning from last summer, quite fifteen years ago. During those fifteen years I do not remember once handling a bat, far less hitting at a cricket-ball with one; and yet, in this state of unpreparedness, I had the presumption last summer to captain a team, and to lead them on-well, not to victory but to disgrace. It's a fact. The match was Storwell v. Latchmere. Storwell was my team; and as I do not think a more remarkable match was ever known in the whole annals of cricketing history, I here venture to report it.
When they first asked me to play I thought they were mad. Storwell-on-Sea is a village on the south coast-I beg pardon; I believe it is called by the inhabitants a town. It is a pretty place, and not unknown-in the locality. It has a season and all that kind of thing, and it was during the season I was there. And one day a deputation of the inhabitants called on me at my lodgings to ask if I would lead the local cricket club to, say, victory. As I have said, my first impression was that they were mad; either that, or else that they were "playing it off" on the unprotected stranger.
I hinted so much to the deputation. The deputation smiled. The chief spokesman was the local barber; his name was Sapsworth. He explained that Mr. Wingrave had sent them there. Wingrave was the vicar; we were "up" together, and he must have known quite well whereabouts my cricketing form came in. I decided to crush the deputation before the thing went farther.
"To show you the sort of man you propose should captain you, I need only mention that it is more than fifteen years since I had a bat in my hand."
But the admission did not crush them: quite the other way. It opened the floodgates of their eloquence.
"That's nothing," Mr. Sapsworth cried. "There's Hedges here; we've had to put him in; he don't even know the rules of the game, and he's just turned sixty-one."
I glanced at Mr. Hedges, thus frankly referred to. He was a smiling, red-faced, bald-headed old gentleman, who, if not considerable in height, was great in girth. He would certainly have turned the scale at sixteen stone. I felt that, to cricketers who intended to play Mr. Hedges, any objections which I might urge would appear quite trivial.
"When is the match to be?" I asked.
"To-morrow," was the startling reply.
I was speechless. That I, after fifteen years' total abstention, should be asked to captain a team the members of which were entire strangers to me, and of whose individual styles of play I had not the faintest notion, in a match against an unknown foe, at four-and-twenty hours' notice, was a little hard to credit. It was altogether too preposterous. I told them so. But they could not be brought to see it.
The end of it was that I agreed to play. No man knows to what a depth of folly he can sink until he tries.
