Young Men in Spats (29 page)

‘I regret, Sir Murgatroyd,' he said, ‘that urgent family business compels me to return to London immediately. I shall be obliged to take the first train in the morning.'

Without another word he went into the house.

In the matter of camping out in devastated areas my nephew had, of course, become by this time an old hand. It was rarely nowadays that a few ashes and cinders about the place disturbed him. But when he had returned to his bedroom one look was enough to assure him that nothing practical in the way of sleep was to be achieved here. Apart from the unpleasant, acrid smell of burned poetry, the apartment, thanks to the efforts of Freddie Boot, had been converted into a kind of inland sea. The carpet was awash, and on the bed only a duck could have made itself at home.

And so it came about that some ten minutes later Mordred
Mulliner lay stretched upon a high-backed couch in the library, endeavouring by means of counting sheep jumping through a gap in a hedge to lull himself into unconsciousness.

But sleep refused to come. Nor in his heart had he really thought that it would. When the human soul is on the rack, it cannot just curl up and close its eyes and expect to get its eight hours as if nothing had happened. It was all very well for Mordred to count sheep, but what did this profit him when each sheep in turn assumed the features and lineaments of Annabelle Sprockett-Sprockett and, what was more, gave him a reproachful glance as it drew itself together for the spring?

Remorse gnawed him. He was tortured by a wild regret for what might have been. He was not saying that with all these Biffies and Guffies in the field he had ever had more than a hundred to eight chance of winning that lovely girl, but at least his hat had been in the ring. Now it was definitely out. Dreamy Mordred may have been – romantic – impractical – but he had enough sense to see that the very worst thing you can do when you are trying to make a favourable impression on the adored object is to set fire to her childhood home, every stick and stone of which she has no doubt worshipped since they put her into rompers.

He had reached this point in his meditations, and was about to send his two hundred and thirty-second sheep at the gap, when with a suddenness which affected him much as an explosion of gelignite would have done, the lights flashed on. For an instant, he lay quivering, then, cautiously poking his head round the corner of the couch, he looked to see who his visitors were.

It was a little party of three that had entered the room. First came Sir Murgatroyd, carrying a tray of sandwiches. He was followed by Lady Sprockett-Sprockett with a syphon and
glasses. The rear was brought up by Annabelle, who was bearing a bottle of whisky and two dry ginger ales.

So evident was it that they were assembling here for purposes of a family council that, but for one circumstance, Mordred, to whom anything in the nature of eavesdropping was as repugnant as it has always been to all the Mulliners, would have sprung up with a polite ‘Excuse me' and taken his blanket elsewhere. This circumstance was the fact that on lying down he had kicked his slippers under the couch, well out of reach. The soul of modesty, he could not affront Annabelle with the spectacle of his bare toes.

So he lay there in silence, and silence, broken only by the swishing of soda-water and the
whoosh
of opened ginger-ale bottles, reigned in the room beyond.

Then Sir Murgatroyd spoke.

‘Well, that's that,' he said, bleakly.

There was a gurgle as Lady Sprockett-Sprockett drank ginger ale. Then her quiet, well-bred voice broke the pause.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘it is the end.'

‘The end,' agreed Sir Murgatroyd heavily. ‘No good trying to struggle on against luck like ours. Here we are and here we have got to stay, mouldering on in this blasted barrack of a place which eats up every penny of my income when, but for the fussy interference of that gang of officious, ugly nitwits, there would have been nothing left of it but a pile of ashes, with a man from the Insurance Company standing on it with his fountain-pen, writing cheques. Curse those imbeciles! Did you see that young Fripp with those buckets?'

‘I did, indeed,' sighed Lady Sprockett-Sprockett.

‘Annabelle,' said Sir Murgatroyd sharply.

‘Yes, Father?'

‘It has seemed to me lately, watching you with a father's eye, that you have shown signs of being attracted by young Algernon Fripp. Let me tell you that if ever you allow yourself to be ensnared by his insidious wiles, or by those of William Biffing, John Guffington, Edward Prosser, Thomas Mainprice or Frederick Boot, you will do so over my dead body. After what occurred tonight, those young men shall never darken my door again. They and their buckets! To think that we could have gone and lived in London . . .'

‘In a nice little flat . . .' said Lady Sprockett-Sprockett.

‘Handy for my club . . .'

‘Convenient for the shops . . .'

‘Within a stone's throw of the theatres . . .'

‘Seeing all our friends . . .'

‘Had it not been,' said Sir Murgatroyd, summing up, ‘for the pestilential activities of these Guffingtons, these Biffings, these insufferable Fripps, men who ought never to be trusted near a bucket of water when a mortgaged country-house has got nicely alight. I did think,' proceeded the stricken man, helping himself to a sandwich, ‘that when Annabelle, with a ready intelligence which I cannot overpraise, realized this young Mulliner's splendid gifts and made us ask him down here, the happy ending was in sight. What Smattering Hall has needed for generations has been a man who throws his cigarette-ends into wastepaper baskets. I was convinced that here at last was the angel of mercy we required.'

‘He did his best, Father.'

‘No man could have done more,' agreed Sir Murgatroyd cordially. ‘The way he upset those buckets and kept getting entangled in people's legs. Very shrewd. It thrilled me to see him. I don't know when I've met a young fellow I liked and
respected more. And what if he is a poet? Poets are all right. Why, dash it, I'm a poet myself. At the last dinner of the Loyal Sons of Worcestershire I composed a poem which, let me tell you, was pretty generally admired. I read it out to the boys over the port, and they cheered me to the echo. It was about a young lady of Bewdley, who sometimes behaved rather rudely . . .'

‘Not before Mother, Father.'

‘Perhaps you're right. Well, I'm off to bed. Come along, Aurelia. You coming, Annabelle?'

‘Not yet, Father. I want to stay and think.'

‘Do what?'

‘Think.'

‘Oh, think? Well, all right.'

‘But, Murgatroyd,' said Lady Sprockett-Sprockett, ‘is there no hope? After all, there are plenty of cigarettes in the house, and we could always give Mr Mulliner another wastepaper basket . . .'

‘No good. You heard him say he was leaving by the first train tomorrow. When I think that we shall never see that splendid young man again . . . Why, hullo, hullo, hullo, what's this? Crying, Annabelle?'

‘Oh, Mother!'

‘My darling, what is it?'

A choking sob escaped the girl.

‘Mother, I love him! Directly I saw him in the dentist's waiting-room, something seemed to go all over me, and I knew that there could be no other man for me. And now . . .'

‘Hi!' cried Mordred, popping up over the side of the couch like a jack-in-the-box.

He had listened with growing understanding to the conversation which I have related, but had shrunk from revealing his
presence because, as I say, his toes were bare. But this was too much. Toes or no toes, he felt that he must be in this.

‘You love me, Annabelle?' he cried.

His sudden advent had occasioned, I need scarcely say, a certain reaction in those present. Sir Murgatroyd had leaped like a jumping bean. Lady Sprockett-Sprockett had quivered like a jelly. As for Annabelle, her lovely mouth was open to the extent of perhaps three inches, and she was staring like one who sees a vision.

‘You really love me, Annabelle?'

‘Yes, Mordred.'

‘Sir Murgatroyd,' said Mordred formally, ‘I have the honour to ask you for your daughter's hand. I am only a poor poet . . .'

‘How poor?' asked the other, keenly.

‘I was referring to my Art,' explained Mordred. ‘Financially, I am nicely fixed. I could support Annabelle in modest comfort.'

‘Then take her, my boy, take her. You will live, of course' – the old man winced – ‘in London?'

‘Yes. And so shall you.'

Sir Murgatroyd shook his head.

‘No, no, that dream is ended. It is true that in certain circumstances I had hoped to do so, for the insurance, I may mention, amounts to as much as a hundred thousand pounds, but I am resigned now to spending the rest of my life in this infernal family vault. I see no reprieve.'

‘I understand,' said Mordred, nodding. ‘You mean you have no paraffin in the house?'

Sir Murgatroyd started.

‘Paraffin?'

‘If,' said Mordred, and his voice was very gentle and winning, ‘there had been paraffin on the premises, I think it possible that
tonight's conflagration, doubtless imperfectly quenched, might have broken out again, this time with more serious results. It is often this way with fires. You pour buckets of water on them and think they are extinguished, but all the time they have been smouldering unnoticed, to break out once more in – well, in here, for example.'

‘Or the billiard-room,' said Lady Sprockett-Sprockett.

‘
And
the billiard-room,' corrected Sir Murgatroyd.

‘And the billiard-room,' said Mordred. ‘And possibly – who knows? – in the drawing-room, dining-room, kitchen, servants' hall, butler's pantry, and the usual domestic offices, as well. Still, as you say you have no paraffin . . .'

‘My boy,' said Sir Murgatroyd, in a shaking voice, ‘what gave you the idea that we have no paraffin? How did you fall into this odd error? We have gallons of paraffin. The cellar is full of it.'

‘And Annabelle will show you the way to the cellar – in case you thought of going there,' said Lady Sprockett-Sprockett. ‘Won't you, dear?'

‘Of course, Mother. You will like the cellar, Mordred, darling. Most picturesque. Possibly, if you are interested in paraffin, you might also care to take a look at our little store of paper and shavings, too.'

‘My angel,' said Mordred, tenderly, ‘you think of everything.'

He found his slippers, and hand in hand they passed down the stairs. Above them, they could see the head of Sir Murgatroyd, as he leaned over the banisters. A box of matches fell at their feet like a father's benediction.