Bill had turned a pretty vermilion. He shuffled his feet.
‘Why, yes,’ he admitted, ‘that’s right, as a matter of fact. I have. But how can I tell her I would make her mine? She’s engaged to Pongo.’
‘What of it?’
‘You can’t go barging in on a girl, telling her you would make her yours, when she’s engaged to another chap.’
‘Of course you can. How about Young Lochinvar? He did it, and was extremely highly thought of in consequence. You are familiar with the case of Young Lochinvar?’
‘Oh, yes. I used to recite the poem as a kid.’
‘It must have sounded wonderful,’ said Lord Ickenham courteously. ‘I myself was best at “It wath the thschooner Hethperuth that thailed the thtormy theas.” Well, let me tell you something, my dear chap. You need have no morbid scruples about swinging Hermione Bostock on to your saddle bow, as far as Pongo is concerned. He’s in love with somebody else. Do you remember me speaking at our first meeting of a girl I had been hoping he would marry? I don’t think I mentioned it then, but he was at one time engaged to her, and all the symptoms point to his wanting to be again. The last time I saw them together, which was quite recently, I received the distinct impression that he would die for one little rose from her hair. So you can go ahead without a qualm. Miss Bostock is in London, I understand. Pop up there and pour your heart out.’
‘M’m.’
‘Why do you say “M’m”?’
Once again Bill Oakshott shuffled his feet, producing on the parquet floor a sound resembling waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast.
‘It’s so difficult.’
‘What, to pour your heart out? Nonsense.’
‘Well, I’ve been trying to do it for nine years, but not a ripple. I can’t seem to get started.’
Lord Ickenham reflected.
‘I think I see where the trouble lies. You have made the mistake of brooding in advance too much, with the result that you have pottered about and accomplished nothing. Swiftness and decision are what is needed. Don’t hesitate. Have at her. Sweep her off her feet. Take her by storm.’
‘Oh, yes?’ said Bill flatly, and Lord Ickenham laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. He knew what was passing in the young man’s mind.
‘I can understand your feeling a little nervous,’ he said. ‘When I saw Hermione Bostock’s photograph, I was struck at once by something formidable in her face, a touch of that majestic inaccessibility which used to cramp the style of diffident young Greek shepherds in their relations with the more dignified of the goddesses of Mount Olympus. She is what in my day would have been called a proud beauty. And that makes it all the more necessary to take a strong line from the start. Proud beauties have to be dominated.’
‘But, dash it, Pongo can’t have dominated her.’
‘True. But Pongo, so I am informed, is a baa-lamb. Baa-lambs get their results by different methods.’
‘You don’t think I’m a baa-lamb?’
‘I fear not. You’re too large, too robust and ruddy of countenance, too obviously a man who does his daily dozen of a morning and likes roly-poly pudding for lunch. Where a Pongo can click by looking fragile and stammering words of endearment, you must be the whirlwind wooer, or nothing. You will have to behave like the heroes of those novels which were so popular at one time, who went about in riding breeches and were not above giving the girl of their choice a couple with a hunting-crop on the spot where it would do most good. Ethel M. Dell. That’s the name I was trying to think of. You must comport yourself like the hero of an Ethel M. Dell novel. Buy her works, and study them diligently.’
A firm look came into Bill’s face.
‘I’m not going to sock her with a hunting-crop.’
‘It would help.’
‘No. Definitely no.’
‘Very well. Cut business with hunting-crop. Then what you must do is stride up to the girl and grab her by the wrist.’
‘Oh, gosh!’
‘Ignoring her struggles, clasp her to your bosom and shower kisses on her upturned face. You needn’t say much. Just “My mate!” or something of that sort. Well, think it over, my dear fellow. But I can assure you that this method will bring home the bacon. It is known as the Ickenham system, and it never fails. And now I fear I must be leaving you. I’m looking for Pongo. You don’t happen to know where he is?’
‘I saw him half an hour ago walking up and down on the tennis lawn.’
‘With bowed head?’
‘Yes, I believe his head was bowed, now you mention it.’
‘I thought as much. Poor lad, poor lad. Well, I have tidings for him which will bring it up with a jerk. So goodbye for the moment. Oh, by the way,’ said Lord Ickenham, reappearing like a benevolent Cheshire cat, ‘in grabbing the subject by the wrist, don’t behave as if you were handling a delicate piece of china. Grip firmly and waggle her about a bit.’
He disappeared again, and Bill could hear him trolling an old love song of the early nineteen hundreds as he started for the tennis lawn.
On a shy and diffident young man, accustomed for years just to shuffle his feet and look popeyed when in the presence of the girl he loves, a pep talk along the lines of that delivered by Lord Ickenham has much the same effect as a plunge into icy water on a cold morning. First comes the numbing shock, when everything turns black and the foundations of the soul seem to start reeling. Only later does there follow the glowing reaction.
For some appreciable time after his mentor had taken his departure, Bill stood congealed with horror as he contemplated the picture which the other had limned for him. The thought of showering kisses on Hermione Bostock’s upturned face set his spine crawling like something in the Snake House at the Zoo. The idea of grabbing her by the wrist and waggling her about a bit made him feel as he had once felt at his private school after eating six ice-creams in a quarter of an hour because somebody bet him he wouldn’t.
And then suddenly, with considerable astonishment, he found that horror had given way to a strange exhilaration. He could now appreciate the solid merits of this Ickenham system, chief among which was the fact that it placed the wooing of Hermione Bostock on the plane of physical action. Physical action was his dish. Give him something to do with his hands, and he knew where he was.
So simple, too. Nothing intricate or elaborate about it. Run over it once more, just to make sure one hadn’t forgotten anything.
Stride up and grab?
Easy.
Waggle about?
Pie.
Clasp to bosom and s.k. on upturned f.?
No difficulty there.
Say ‘My mate’?
About that he was not so sure. It seemed to him that Lord Ickenham, brilliant as an arranger of stage business, had gone astray as regarded dialogue. Wouldn’t a fellow be apt to feel a bit of a chump, saying ‘My mate’? Better, surely, just to pant a good deal? Yes, that was the stuff. Stride, grab, waggle, clasp, kiss, pant. Right.
Under the stress of intense thought he had started to walk up and down the hall, his head bent over the fingers on which he was ticking off the various items on the list, and it was as he unconsciously accelerated his pace on getting that inspiration about panting that a bumping sensation and a loud roar of anguish told him that there had been a traffic accident.
Narrowing his gaze, he saw that he had rammed something substantial and white moustached, and narrowing it still further identified this as his uncle. Sir Aylmer Bostock. And he was about to offer suitable apologies, when all thought of injured uncles was wiped from his mind and his heart leaped within him like an adagio dancer trying out a new step. Behind Sir Aylmer, looking more unbelievably beautiful even than he had remembered her, stood Hermione.
Hermione smiled upon him dazzlingly. She was in the sunniest of moods. After dropping Otis at the Bull’s Head in the High Street, she had arrived at the front door just in time to see her father driving up, and such was the force of her personality that she had settle
d that little matter of the proposed legal action of Bostock v. Painter in something under two minutes and a quarter. The future of the publishing firm of Meriday House, in so far as concerned civil actions on the part of the late Governor of Lower Barnatoland, was secure.
So she smiled dazzlingly. In an amused, sisterly way she had always been devoted to dear old Bill, and she was glad to see him again.
‘Hullo, Bill,’ she said.
Bill found speech.
‘Oh, hullo, Hermione.’
Sir Aylmer also found speech.
‘What the devil are you doing, you great clumsy oaf,’ he said, standing on one leg and submitting the other to a system of massage, for the impact had been severe. ‘Charging about the place like a damned rhinoceros. Why can’t you look where you’re going?’
Bill was staring at Hermione. In a dim way he was aware that words were proceeding from this old blighter, but he was unable to concentrate on their import.
‘Oh, rather,’ he said.
‘What do you mean, oh, rather?’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Bill.
To a man who was good at snorting and to whom snorts came easily there was only one answer to this sort of thing. Sir Aylmer snorted, and stumped into the collection room, telling himself that he would go into the matter later on when his nephew seemed more in the mood. Useless to waste good stuff on one who, always deficient in intellect, seemed now to be suffering from some form of mental paralysis.
Hermione continued cordial.
‘So you’re back, Bill. It’s jolly seeing you again. How was Brazil?’
‘Oh, fine.’
‘Have a good time?’
‘Oh, yes, fine, thanks.’
‘You’re very sunburned. I suppose you had lots of adventures?’
‘Oh, rather.’
‘Snakes and so on?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Well, you must tell me all about it later. I’ve got to hurry off now. I have to see a friend of mine at the inn.
Bill cleared his throat.
‘Er — just a second,’ he said.
This, he was telling himself, was the moment. Now, if ever, was his opportunity of putting the Ickenham system into practice. Here they were, alone together. A single stride would place him in a position to grab. And he was already panting. More ideal conditions could scarcely have been asked for.
But he found himself unable to move. All through those weary months in Brazil the image of this girl had been constantly before his mental eye, but now that he was seeing her face to face her beauty numbed him, causing trembling of the limbs and that general feeling of debility and run-down-ness which afflicts so many people nowadays and can be corrected only by the use of such specifics as Buck-u-Uppo or Doctor Smythe’s Tonic Swamp Juice.
Had he had a bottle — nay, even a tablespoonful — of the tonic swamp juice handy, all might have been well. Lacking it, he merely shuffled his feet and looked popeyed, just as he had been doing for the last nine years.
‘Well?’ said Hermione.
(‘Stride, grab, waggle, clasp, kiss, pant,’ urged Bill’s better self. But his limbs refused to move.)
‘Well?’
‘Hermione.’
‘Yes?’
‘Hermione.’
‘Well?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Bill.
He found himself alone. From outside came the sound of a car getting into gear and moving off. She had gone.
Nor could he blame her. Reviewing the late scene, recalling that horrible, bleating voice with its hideous resemblance to that of a BBC announcer, he shuddered, marvelling that any being erect upon two legs and bearing the outward semblance of a man could have shown himself so wormlike a poltroon.
Writhing in anguish, he thought for a moment of bumping his head against the wall, but on reflection decided against this. No sense in dinting a good wall. Better to go to his room, fling himself on the bed and bury his face in the pillow. He did so.
Anxious to get to the Bull’s Head and inform Otis as soon as possible of the happy outcome of her interview with her father, Hermione had started up her car and driven off with the minimum of delay. Had she postponed her departure for as long as a minute, she would have observed a wild-eyed young man without a hat making for the house from the direction of the tennis lawn at a feverish canter, his aspect that of a young man who has taken something big. Once before in the course of this chronicle we have heard Reginald Twistleton compared to a cat on hot bricks. It was of a cat on hot bricks that he would have reminded an onlooker now.
Skimming across the terrace, he reached the house and plunged over the threshold. Skimming across the hail, he flew up the stairs. Skimming along the first-floor corridor, he burst into what had formerly been his bedroom, and Sally, who was reclining on the chaise-longue like an Amazon resting after an important battle, rose as he entered. Indeed, she shot up as if a gimlet had suddenly penetrated the cushions and embedded itself in her person. She was a girl of poise, who did not easily lose command of herself, but after pushing policemen into ponds even girls of poise experience a certain tautness of the nerves, and the abrupt opening of the door had given her a momentary impression that here came Constable Potter.
Recognizing her visitor, she became calmer, though still inclined to gasp.
‘Oh, Pongo!’ she said.
‘Oh, Sally!’ said Pongo.
To say that the story which Lord Ickenham had related to him on the tennis lawn, before going off to the Bull’s Head for a drop of beer and a chat with the boys about Brazil, had stirred Reginald Twistleton would be to indicate but feebly the turmoil which it had created in his bosom. It had caused him to run what is known as the gamut of the emotions, prominent among them gratitude to a girl who could thus risk all on his behalf, shame that his own pusillanimity had rendered her stupendous act of heroism necessary and, above all, a surge of love such as he had never felt before — and he had been falling in love with fair regularity ever since his last summer but one at Eton.
His honourable obligations to Hermione Bostock had passed completely from his mind. He had no other thought than to find Sally and notify her of the trend of his views. Precisely as Bill Oakshott had done, he contemplated a future in which he would stride, grab and waggle, clasp, kiss and pant. With this difference, that whereas Bill, as we have seen, had planned to behave like an osteopath handling a refractory patient, he, Pongo, saw the set-up more in the light of abasing himself at a shrine. The word ‘grab’ is wrong. So is the word ‘waggle’. But ‘clasp’, ‘kiss’ and ‘pant’ may stand.
He was panting now, and he lost no time in proceeding to the other items on the programme which he had sketched out. Bill Oakshott, had he been present, would have received a valuable object lesson on how this sort of thing should be done.
‘Oh, Sally!’ he said.
‘Oh, Pongo!’ said Sally.
Time stood still. In the world outside people were going about their various occupations. Constable Potter was in his cottage, changing into a dry uniform. Lord Ickenham, humming a gay stave, was striding along the road to the village. Hermione, half a mile ahead of him, was driving along the same road. Sir Aylmer was messing about with his African curios. Bill Oakshott was burying his face in his pillow. And up in London Lady Bostock, in her daughter’s flat, had finished the illustrated papers and fallen into a light doze.
But Pongo and Sally were alone together in a world of their own, enjoying the scent of the violets and roses which sprouted through the bedroom floor and listening to the soft music which an orchestra of exceptional ability, consisting chiefly of harps and violins, was playing near at hand. Of Constable Potter, of Lord Ickenham, of Sir Aylmer Bostock, of Lady Bostock, of Bill Oakshott and of Hermione they recked nothing; though the time was to come when they, particularly Pongo, would be obliged to reck of the last named quite a good deal.
Presently Pongo, adjusting his arm more comfortably about Sally’s waist, for they were now
sitting side by side on the chaise-longue, began to speak remorsefully of the past, featuring in his observations the criminal idiocy of the oaf Twistleton, that abysmal sap who had allowed himself to be parted from the only girl on earth whom a discriminating man could possibly wish to marry. He contemplated with unconcealed aversion this mutton-headed Twistleton.
‘Gosh, what a chump I was!’
‘Not such a chump as me.’
‘Much more of a chump than you. No comparison.’
‘It was all my fault.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘It was.’
The dispute threatened to become heated, but just as Pongo was about to say ‘It wasn’t’ again he suddenly paused, and into his sensitive features there crept that look of horror and apprehension which they had worn fourteen hours earlier, on the occasion when Bill Oakshott’s knocking had sounded in the silent night.
‘What’s the matter, precious?’ asked Sally solicitously.
Pongo gulped.
‘Oh, nothing. At least, nothing much, I just happened to think of Hermione.’
There was a pause. A quick twinge of anxiety and alarm shot through Sally. Much —indeed, her life’s happiness — depended on the exact extent to which the Twistletons regarded their word as their bond.
‘Oh, Hermione?’ she said. ‘You don’t mean you’re too honourable to break off the engagement?’
Pongo gulped again.
‘Not too honourable exactly, but…. You’ve never met Hermione, have you? Well, it’s difficult to explain, but she isn’t a frightfully easy girl to break off engagements with. It’s a little hard to know how to start.’
‘I should just go to her and tell her frankly that you find you have made a mistake.’
‘Yes, that’s one way.’
‘Or you could write her a letter.’
Pongo gave a start, like some strong swimmer in his agony who hears a splash and observes that somebody has thrown him a lifebelt.