Wigs on the Green (3 page)

Jasper’s expression did not change however, as Noel had hopefully anticipated that it would. He merely ordered another champagne cocktail. When it came he said, ‘Well, here’s to the Scrubs old boy, hope you’ll find it comfy there, you can come and see me sometimes in between terms, I’m never at all up-stage about my jail-bird friends.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Noel, coldly.

‘Don’t you? Well it’s fairly obvious that you’ve got the skates on, isn’t it? And I suppose you want me to help you get away with
the dough. Now I suggest that we should go fifty-fifty on it, and do a bunk together. That suit you?’

‘No.’

‘First of all you had better tell me frankly if you are wanted. I’ve been wanted in Paris, and not wanted anywhere else, for simply ages, there’s nothing I don’t know on the subject of wanting.’

‘My dear old boy,’ said Noel, comfortably. ‘I’m afraid you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’

‘But you came to me for advice.’

‘Yes, I did, I thought you might be able to put me in touch with some rich girl who would like to marry me.’

‘That’s a good one I’m bound to say. To begin with, if I was lucky enough to know any rich girls can you see me handing them out to you? And to go on with, I shouldn’t think the girl is born who would like to marry you.’

‘Oh! nonsense, girls will marry anybody. Besides, I’m a pretty attractive chap you know.’

‘Not very. Anyhow, let me tell you something. Courting heiresses is an exceedingly expensive occupation. You didn’t give me time just then to count exactly how much you have managed to extract from the till, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t enough to finance a racket of that sort. Why, you don’t know what these girls run you in for, nights out, lunches, orchids, weekends to all parts of the Continent, that’s not the beginning, I’ve been through it, I know what I’m talking about. I suppose the worst part of it,’ he went on, warming to his subject, ‘is the early-morning telephoning. The precious little poppet, buried in lace pillows, likes to have a nice long cosy chat between 9 and 10 a.m., she doesn’t realize that you, meanwhile, are shivering half-way up your landlady’s staircase with an old woman scrubbing the linoleum round your feet. And what’s the end of it all? When she marries her Roumanian prince she may remember to ask you to be one of those pretty young gentlemen who leave the guests to find their own pews at weddings. It’s all fearfully dismal I can tell you.’

‘How you do talk,’ said Noel admiringly. ‘Just like a book. I wonder you don’t write one.’

‘I shall, when I’m thirty. Nobody ought to write books before they’re thirty. I hate precocity. Now then, out with it, Noel, how did you get all that cash?’

‘Well, if you really want to know, an aunt of mine has died. She has left me some money.’

‘That’s just an ordinary lie, of course. Legacies never happen to people one knows. It’s like seeing ghosts or winning the Irish Sweep, one never meets the people who have, only people who know people who have. So how much did she leave you?’

‘Three thousand three hundred and fourteen pounds.’

‘Just say that again.’

‘Three thousand three hundred and fourteen pounds.’

‘Did I hear you say three thousand three hundred and fourteen pounds?’

‘You did.’

‘Honest to God?’

‘Honest to God.’

‘D’you think the aunt was in full possession of her faculties when she made that will?’

‘There’s no doubt that she was.’

‘Such a very odd sum. Well now, Noel, my dear old boy, you have my warmest congratulations. And what about the fourteen pounds?’

‘What about them?’

‘Hadn’t it occurred to you that three thousand three hundred pounds rolls off the tongue much easier without that niggly little fourteen tacked on to it. Sounds more really, I should have said – the fourteen rather spoils it. Actually fourteen pounds is the exact sum I owe my landlady by a curious coincidence.’

‘Oh, it is is it?’ said Noel in a voice of boredom. ‘Now shall I tell you what I said to myself when the lawyer rang me up about all this? I said, no cash presents to any of the boys, and that I keep to, so lay off will you?’

‘That was exceedingly sensible of you. So now you intend to devote the whole of this little nest-egg to the pursuit of heiresses?’

‘I should very much like to find a nice girl and marry her, if that’s what you mean.’

‘It’s such a fearful gamble. Much better put the money on a horse and be out of your misery at once.’

‘I’m not in any misery at all. I intend to lead a soft, luxurious life for the next six months or so, at the rate of six thousand six hundred and twenty-eight pounds a year.’

‘And after that a soft uxorious life at an even better rate. I’m bound to say it’s quite a pleasing outlook – only you don’t know any heiresses.’

‘Not at present. I thought perhaps you did.’

‘Pass the brandy, old boy.’

‘In that case,’ said Noel, summoning the waiter. ‘I’ll have my bill, please – in that case I think I shall have to be going. I’ve watched you drinking that very expensive brandy for quite long enough.’

‘Hold on,’ said Jasper in an aggrieved tone of voice, ‘give a chap time to think, I’ve just had an idea – pass the brandy, old boy.’ He helped himself, carelessly splashing the brandy into his glass. ‘The Jolly Roger,’ he said.

‘What Jolly Roger?’

‘It’s a public-house in Chalford where I once stayed when I was shooting the moon. Pretty little place, pretty little barmaid, I remember – Minnie or Winnie or some name like that.’

‘Thanks, I know plenty of pretty little barmaids myself. It’s not what I’m looking for at present. I think I shall have to be going.’

‘Suppose you allow me to finish what I was saying.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘About a mile from Chalford village are the lodge gates of Chalford Park, and there lives the girl whom I believe to be England’s largest heiress – Eugenia Malmains. I couldn’t make a pass at her then because she was under the age of consent; it was about four years ago. She must be quite seventeen by now though. Nobody knows anything about her because she lives with her grandparents who are batty – she’s fairly batty herself I believe.’

‘That’s nothing. She couldn’t be battier than the girls one meets
about the place in London. I don’t think it sounds worth investigating, but I might go down to the pub for a weekend sometime – where is Chalford?’

‘About ten miles away from Rackenbridge, that’s the station. Best train in the day is the 4.45 from Paddington.’

‘Well, many thanks, old boy. See you before long, I hope.’

‘I hope so. Thank you very much for my good dinner.’

They spoke with nonchalance. Neither, however, was the least deceived as to the other’s intentions, nor was Noel at all surprised when, arriving at Paddington next day to catch the 11.50 to Rackenbridge, he saw Jasper waiting for him on the platform.

Sadly he lent the requisite pound for Jasper’s ticket, drearily he followed him into a first-class luncheon car. Poor young men who have just received notice of agreeable but moderate legacies should know better than to ring up Jasper Aspect.

‘I’ve no one to blame but myself,’ thought Noel, gloomily.

‘Britons, awake! Arise! oh, British lion!’ cried Eugenia Malmains in thrilling tones. She stood on an overturned wash-tub on Chalford village green and harangued about a dozen aged yokels. Her straight hair, cut in a fringe, large, pale-blue eyes, dark skin, well-proportioned limbs and classical features, combined with a certain fanaticism of gesture to give her the aspect of a modern Joan of Arc.

She was dressed in an ill-fitting grey woollen skirt, no stockings, a pair of threadbare plimsolls, and a jumper made apparently out of a Union Jack. Round her waist was a leather belt to which there was attached a large bright dagger.

Noel Foster and Jasper Aspect were taking a short walk round the village waiting for ‘them’ to open. The true amateur of bars, be it noted, is seldom content to drink his beer in his own hotel, where he may have it in comfort at any hour; he is always restlessly awaiting the glorious moment when some other ‘they’ shall be available. This is called pub-crawling, a sport much indulged in by gentlemen of the leisured classes.

Suddenly they came upon the godlike apparition of Eugenia Malmains on her wash-tub. They gasped.

‘That’s the girl we want,’ said Jasper suddenly, ‘that’s Eugenia. I didn’t recognize her at first. I’m bound to say she’s become exceedingly beautiful since I was here, but she’s evidently quite batty just like I told you. Still you can’t have everything in this life. D’you mind if I make a pass at her too, old boy?’

‘Yes I do, you’re not to,’ said Noel peevishly, ‘and anyway shut up. I want to hear what she’s saying.’

‘The Union Jack Movement is a youth movement,’ Eugenia cried passionately, ‘we are tired of the old. We see things through
their eyes no longer. We see nothing admirable in that debating society of aged and corrupt men called Parliament which muddles our great Empire into wars or treaties, dropping one by one the jewels from its crown, casting away its glorious Colonies, its hitherto undenied supremacy at sea, its prestige abroad, its prosperity at home, and all according to each vacillating whim of some octogenarian statesman’s mistress —’

At this point a very old lady came up to the crowd, pushed her way through it and began twitching at Eugenia’s skirt. ‘Eugenia, my child,’ she said brokenly, ‘do get off that tub, pray, please get down at once. Oh! when her ladyship hears of this I don’t know what will happen.’

‘Go away Nanny,’ said Eugenia, who in the rising tide of oratory seemed scarcely aware that she had been interrupted. ‘How could anyone,’ she continued, ‘feel loyalty for these ignoble dotards, how can the sacred fire of patriotism glow in any breast for a State which is guided by such apathetic nonentities? Britons, I beseech you to take action. Oh! British lion, shake off the nets that bind you.’ Here the old lady again plucked Eugenia’s skirt. This time however, Eugenia turned round and roared at her, ‘Get out you filthy Pacifist, get out I say, and take your yellow razor gang with you. I will have free speech at my meetings. Now will you go of your own accord or must I tell the Comrades to fling you out? Where are my Union Jackshirts?’ Two hobbledehoys also dressed in red, white and blue shirts here came forward, saluted Eugenia and each taking one of the Nanny’s hands they led her to a neighbouring bench where she sat rather sadly but unresistingly during the rest of the speech.

‘We Union Jackshirts,’ remarked Eugenia to the company at large, ‘insist upon the right to be heard without interruption at our own meetings. Let the Pacifists’ – here she gave her Nanny a very nasty look – ‘hold their own meetings, we shall not interfere with them at all, but if they try to break up our meetings they do so at their own risk. Let me see, where had I got to – oh! yes. Patriotism is one of the primitive virtues of mankind. Allow it to
atrophy and much that is valuable in human nature must perish. This is being proved today, alas, in our unhappy island as well as in those other countries, which, like ourselves, still languish ’neath the deadening sway of a putrescent democracy. Respect for parents, love of the home, veneration of the marriage tie, are all at a discount in England today, society is rotten with vice, selfishness, and indolence. The rich have betrayed their trust, preferring the fetid atmosphere of cocktail-bars and night-clubs to the sanity of a useful country life. The great houses of England, one of her most envied attributes, stand empty – why? Because the great families of England herd together in luxury flats and spend their patrimony in the divorce courts. The poor are no better than the rich, they also have learnt to put self before State, and satisfied with the bread and circuses which are flung to them by their politicians, they also take no steps to achieve a better spirit in this unhappy land.’

‘The girl’s a lunatic but she’s not stupid,’ said Jasper.

‘My friends, how can we be saved? Who can lift this country from the slough of Despond in which she has for too long wallowed, to a Utopia such as our corrupt rulers have never pictured, even in their wildest dreams? He who aims highest will reach the highest goal, but how can those ancient dipsomaniacs reach any goal at all? Their fingers are paralysed with gout – they cannot aim; their eyesight is impeded with the film of age – they see no goal. The best that they can hope is that from day to day they may continue to creep about the halls of Westminster like withered tortoises seeking to warm themselves in the synthetic sunlight of each other’s approbation.’

‘I’m liking this,’ said Jasper, ‘my father’s brother is a M.P.’

‘How then, if a real sun shall arise, arise with a heat which will shrivel to cinders all who are not true at heart? How if a real Captain, a man, and not a tortoise, shall appear suddenly at their adulterous bedsides, a cup of castor oil in the one hand, a goblet of hemlock in the other, and offer them the choice between ignominy and a Roman death?

‘Britons! That day is indeed at hand. There is a new spirit abroad, a new wine that shall not be poured into those ancient bottles. Britons are at last coming to their senses, the British lion is opening his mouth to roar, the attitude of mind which we call Social Unionism is going to save this country from her shameful apathy. Soon your streets will echo ’neath the tread of the Union Jack Battalions, soon the day of jelly-breasted politicians shall be no more, soon we shall all be living in a glorious Britain under the wise, stern, and beneficient rule of Our Captain.’

‘Hooray,’ cried Jasper, clapping loudly at this stirring peroration, ‘Hear! hear! splendid!’ The villagers turned and looked at him in amazement. Eugenia gave him a flashing smile.

‘Now, Britons,’ she continued, ‘do you wish to ask any questions? If so I will devote ten minutes to answering them.’

The yokels stood first on one foot and then on the other. Finally one of them removed a straw from his mouth and remarked that they had all enjoyed Miss Eugenia’s speech very much, he was sure, and how was His Lordship’s hay-fever?

‘Better, thank you,’ said Eugenia politely, ‘it always goes away in July, you know.’ She looked disappointed. ‘No more questions? In that case I have an announcement to make. Anyone wishing to join our Union Jack Movement can do so by applying to me, either here or at Chalford House. You are asked to pay ninepence a month, the Union Jack shirt costs five shillings, and the little emblem is sixpence. Would any of you care to join up now?’