HELPING FREDDIE
I don't want to bore you, don't you know, and all that sort of rot, butI must tell you about dear old Freddie Meadowes. I'm not a flier atliterary style, and all that, but I'll get some writer chappie to givethe thing a wash and brush up when I've finished, so that'll be allright.
Dear old Freddie, don't you know, has been a dear old pal of mine foryears and years; so when I went into the club one morning and found himsitting alone in a dark corner, staring glassily at nothing, andgenerally looking like the last rose of summer, you can understand Iwas quite disturbed about it. As a rule, the old rotter is the life andsoul of our set. Quite the little lump of fun, and all that sort ofthing.
Jimmy Pinkerton was with me at the time. Jimmy's a fellow who writesplays--a deuced brainy sort of fellow--and between us we set to work toquestion the poor pop-eyed chappie, until finally we got at what thematter was.
As we might have guessed, it was a girl. He had had a quarrel withAngela West, the girl he was engaged to, and she had broken off theengagement. What the row had been about he didn't say, but apparentlyshe was pretty well fed up. She wouldn't let him come near her, refusedto talk on the phone, and sent back his letters unopened.
I was sorry for poor old Freddie. I knew what it felt like. I was oncein love myself with a girl called Elizabeth Shoolbred, and the factthat she couldn't stand me at any price will be recorded in myautobiography. I knew the thing for Freddie.
"Change of scene is what you want, old scout," I said. "Come with me toMarvis Bay. I've taken a cottage there. Jimmy's coming down on thetwenty-fourth. We'll be a cosy party."
"He's absolutely right," said Jimmy. "Change of scene's the thing. Iknew a man. Girl refused him. Man went abroad. Two months later girlwired him, 'Come back. Muriel.' Man started to write out a reply;suddenly found that he couldn't remember girl's surname; so neveranswered at all."
But Freddie wouldn't be comforted. He just went on looking as if he hadswallowed his last sixpence. However, I got him to promise to come toMarvis Bay with me. He said he might as well be there as anywhere.
Do you know Marvis Bay? It's in Dorsetshire. It isn't what you'd call afiercely exciting spot, but it has its good points. You spend the daythere bathing and sitting on the sands, and in the evening you strollout on the shore with the gnats. At nine o'clock you rub ointment onthe wounds and go to bed.
It seemed to suit poor old Freddie. Once the moon was up and the breezesighing in the trees, you couldn't drag him from that beach with arope. He became quite a popular pet with the gnats. They'd hang roundwaiting for him to come out, and would give perfectly good strollersthe miss-in-baulk just so as to be in good condition for him.
Yes, it was a peaceful sort of life, but by the end of the first week Ibegan to wish that Jimmy Pinkerton had arranged to come down earlier:for as a companion Freddie, poor old chap, wasn't anything to writehome to mother about. When he wasn't chewing a pipe and scowling at thecarpet, he was sitting at the piano, playing "The Rosary" with onefinger. He couldn't play anything except "The Rosary," and he couldn'tplay much of that. Somewhere round about the third bar a fuse wouldblow out, and he'd have to start all over again.
He was playing it as usual one morning when I came in from bathing.
"Reggie," he said, in a hollow voice, looking up, "I've seen her."
"Seen her?" I said. "What, Miss West?"
"I was down at the post office, getting the letters, and we met in thedoorway. She cut me!"
He started "The Rosary" again, and side-slipped in the second bar.
"Reggie," he said, "you ought never to have brought me here. I must goaway."
"Go away?" I said. "Don't talk such rot. This is the best thing thatcould have happened. This is where you come out strong."
"She cut me."
"Never mind. Be a sportsman. Have another dash at her."
"She looked clean through me!"
"Of course she did. But don't mind that. Put this thing in my hands.I'll see you through. Now, what you want," I said, "is to place herunder some obligation to you. What you want is to get her timidlythanking you. What you want----"
"But what's she going to thank me timidly for?"
I thought for a moment.
"Look out for a chance and save her from drowning," I said.
"I can't swim," said Freddie.
That was Freddie all over, don't you know. A dear old chap in athousand ways, but no help to a fellow, if you know what I mean.
He cranked up the piano once more and I sprinted for the open.
I strolled out on to the sands and began to think this thing over.There was no doubt that the brain-work had got to be done by me. Dearold Freddie had his strong qualities. He was top-hole at polo, and inhappier days I've heard him give an imitation of cats fighting in abackyard that would have surprised you. But apart from that he wasn't aman of enterprise.
Well, don't you know, I was rounding some rocks, with my brain whirringlike a dynamo, when I caught sight of a blue dress, and, by Jove, itwas the girl. I had never met her, but Freddie had sixteen photographsof her sprinkled round his bedroom, and I knew I couldn't be mistaken.She was sitting on the sand, helping a small, fat child build a castle.On a chair close by was an elderly lady reading a novel. I heard thegirl call her "aunt." So, doing the Sherlock Holmes business, I deducedthat the fat child was her cousin. It struck me that if Freddie hadbeen there he would probably have tried to work up some sentiment aboutthe kid on the strength of it. Personally I couldn't manage it. I don'tthink I ever saw a child who made me feel less sentimental. He was oneof those round, bulging kids.
After he had finished the castle he seemed to get bored with life, andbegan to whimper. The girl took him off to where a fellow was sellingsweets at a stall. And I walked on.
Now, fellows, if you ask them, will tell you that I'm a chump. Well, Idon't mind. I admit it. I _am_ a chump. All the Peppers have beenchumps. But what I do say is that every now and then, when you'd leastexpect it, I get a pretty hot brain-wave; and that's what happened now.I doubt if the idea that came to me then would have occurred to asingle one of any dozen of the brainiest chappies you care to name.
It came to me on my return journey. I was walking back along the shore,when I saw the fat kid meditatively smacking a jelly-fish with a spade.The girl wasn't with him. In fact, there didn't seem to be any one insight. I was just going to pass on when I got the brain-wave. I thoughtthe whole thing out in a flash, don't you know. From what I had seen ofthe two, the girl was evidently fond of this kid, and, anyhow, he washer cousin, so what I said to myself was this: If I kidnap this youngheavy-weight for the moment, and if, when the girl has got frightfullyanxious about where he can have got to, dear old Freddie suddenlyappears leading the infant by the hand and telling a story to theeffect that he has found him wandering at large about the country andpractically saved his life, why, the girl's gratitude is bound to makeher chuck hostilities and be friends again. So I gathered in the kidand made off with him. All the way home I pictured that scene ofreconciliation. I could see it so vividly, don't you know, that, byGeorge, it gave me quite a choky feeling in my throat.
Freddie, dear old chap, was rather slow at getting on to the finepoints of the idea. When I appeared, carrying the kid, and dumped himdown in our sitting-room, he didn't absolutely effervesce with joy, ifyou know what I mean. The kid had started to bellow by this time, andpoor old Freddie seemed to find it rather trying.
"Stop it!" he said. "Do you think nobody's got any troubles except you?What the deuce is all this, Reggie?"
The kid came back at him with a yell that made the window rattle. Iraced to the kitchen and fetched a jar of honey. It was the rightstuff. The kid stopped bellowing and began to smear his face with thestuff.
"Well?" said Freddie, when silence had set in. I explained the idea.After a while it began to strike him.
"You're not such a fool as you look, sometimes, Reggie," he saidhandsomely. "I'm bound to say this seems pretty good."
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And he disentangled the kid from the honey-jar and took him out, toscour the beach for Angela.
I don't know when I've felt so happy. I was so fond of dear old Freddiethat to know that he was soon going to be his old bright self againmade me feel as if somebody had left me about a million pounds. I wasleaning back in a chair on the veranda, smoking peacefully, when downthe road I saw the old boy returning, and, by George, the kid was stillwith him. And Freddie looked as if he hadn't a friend in the world.
"Hello!" I said. "Couldn't you find her?"
"Yes, I found her," he replied, with one of those bitter, hollowlaughs.
"Well, then----?"
Freddie sank into a chair and groaned.
"This isn't her cousin, you idiot!" he said.
"He's no relation at all. He's just a kid she happened to meet on thebeach. She had never seen him before in her life."
"What! Who is he, then?"
"I don't know. Oh, Lord, I've had a time! Thank goodness you'llprobably spend the next few years of your life in Dartmoor forkidnapping. That's my only consolation. I'll come and jeer at youthrough the bars."
"Tell me all, old boy," I said.
It took him a good long time to tell the story, for he broke off in themiddle of nearly every sentence to call me names, but I gatheredgradually what had happened. She had listened like an iceberg while hetold the story he had prepared, and then--well, she didn't actuallycall him a liar, but she gave him to understand in a general sort ofway that if he and Dr. Cook ever happened to meet, and started swappingstories, it would be about the biggest duel on record. And then he hadcrawled away with the kid, licked to a splinter.
"And mind, this is your affair," he concluded. "I'm not mixed up in itat all. If you want to escape your sentence, you'd better go and findthe kid's parents and return him before the police come for you."
* * * * *
By Jove, you know, till I started to tramp the place with this infernalkid, I never had a notion it would have been so deuced difficult torestore a child to its anxious parents. It's a mystery to me howkidnappers ever get caught. I searched Marvis Bay like a bloodhound,but nobody came forward to claim the infant. You'd have thought, fromthe lack of interest in him, that he was stopping there all by himselfin a cottage of his own. It wasn't till, by an inspiration, I thoughtto ask the sweet-stall man that I found out that his name was Medwin,and that his parents lived at a place called Ocean Rest, in Beach Road.
I shot off there like an arrow and knocked at the door. Nobodyanswered. I knocked again. I could hear movements inside, but nobodycame. I was just going to get to work on that knocker in such a waythat the idea would filter through into these people's heads that Iwasn't standing there just for the fun of the thing, when a voice fromsomewhere above shouted, "Hi!"
I looked up and saw a round, pink face, with grey whiskers east andwest of it, staring down from an upper window.
"Hi!" it shouted again.
"What the deuce do you mean by 'Hi'?" I said.
"You can't come in," said the face. "Hello, is that Tootles?"
"My name is not Tootles, and I don't want to come in," I said. "Are youMr. Medwin? I've brought back your son."
"I see him. Peep-bo, Tootles! Dadda can see 'oo!"
The face disappeared with a jerk. I could hear voices. The facereappeared.
"Hi!"
I churned the gravel madly.
"Do you live here?" said the face.
"I'm staying here for a few weeks."
"What's your name?"
"Pepper. But----"
"Pepper? Any relation to Edward Pepper, the colliery owner?"
"My uncle. But----"
"I used to know him well. Dear old Edward Pepper! I wish I was with himnow."
"I wish you were," I said.
He beamed down at me.
"This is most fortunate," he said. "We were wondering what we were todo with Tootles. You see, we have the mumps here. My daughter Bootleshas just developed mumps. Tootles must not be exposed to the risk ofinfection. We could not think what we were to do with him. It was mostfortunate your finding him. He strayed from his nurse. I would hesitateto trust him to the care of a stranger, but you are different. Anynephew of Edward Pepper's has my implicit confidence. You must takeTootles to your house. It will be an ideal arrangement. I have writtento my brother in London to come and fetch him. He may be here in a fewdays."
"May!"
"He is a busy man, of course; but he should certainly be here within aweek. Till then Tootles can stop with you. It is an excellent plan.Very much obliged to you. Your wife will like Tootles."
"I haven't got a wife," I yelled; but the window had closed with abang, as if the man with the whiskers had found a germ trying toescape, don't you know, and had headed it off just in time.
I breathed a deep breath and wiped my forehead.
The window flew up again.
"Hi!"
A package weighing about a ton hit me on the head and burst like abomb.
"Did you catch it?" said the face, reappearing. "Dear me, you missedit! Never mind. You can get it at the grocer's. Ask for Bailey'sGranulated Breakfast Chips. Tootles takes them for breakfast with alittle milk. Be certain to get Bailey's."
My spirit was broken, if you know what I mean. I accepted the situation.Taking Tootles by the hand, I walked slowly away. Napoleon's retreatfrom Moscow was a picnic by the side of it.
As we turned up the road we met Freddie's Angela.
The sight of her had a marked effect on the kid Tootles. He pointed ather and said, "Wah!"
The girl stopped and smiled. I loosed the kid, and he ran to her.
"Well, baby?" she said, bending down to him. "So father found youagain, did he? Your little son and I made friends on the beach thismorning," she said to me.
This was the limit. Coming on top of that interview with the whiskeredlunatic it so utterly unnerved me, don't you know, that she had noddedgood-bye and was half-way down the road before I caught up with mybreath enough to deny the charge of being the infant's father.
I hadn't expected dear old Freddie to sing with joy when he found outwhat had happened, but I did think he might have shown a little moremanly fortitude. He leaped up, glared at the kid, and clutched hishead. He didn't speak for a long time, but, on the other hand, when hebegan he did not leave off for a long time. He was quite emotional,dear old boy. It beat me where he could have picked up suchexpressions.
"Well," he said, when he had finished, "say something! Heavens! man,why don't you say something?"
"You don't give me a chance, old top," I said soothingly.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"What can we do about it?"
"We can't spend our time acting as nurses to this--this exhibit."
He got up.
"I'm going back to London," he said.
"Freddie!" I cried. "Freddie, old man!" My voice shook. "Would youdesert a pal at a time like this?"
"I would. This is your business, and you've got to manage it."
"Freddie," I said, "you've got to stand by me. You must. Do you realizethat this child has to be undressed, and bathed, and dressed again? Youwouldn't leave me to do all that single-handed? Freddie, old scout, wewere at school together. Your mother likes me. You owe me a tenner."
He sat down again.
"Oh, well," he said resignedly.
"Besides, old top," I said, "I did it all for your sake, don't youknow?"
He looked at me in a curious way.
"Reggie," he said, in a strained voice, "one moment. I'll stand a gooddeal, but I won't stand for being expected to be grateful."
Looking back at it, I see that what saved me from Colney Hatch in thatcrisis was my bright idea of buying up most of the contents of thelocal sweet-shop. By serving out sweets to the kid practicallyincessantly we managed to get through the rest of that day prettysatisfactorily. At eight o'clock he fell asleep in a chair, and, having
undressed him by unbuttoning every button in sight and, where therewere no buttons, pulling till something gave, we carried him up to bed.
Freddie stood looking at the pile of clothes on the floor and I knewwhat he was thinking. To get the kid undressed had been simple--a merematter of muscle. But how were we to get him into his clothes again? Istirred the pile with my foot. There was a long linen arrangement whichmight have been anything. Also a strip of pink flannel which was likenothing on earth. We looked at each other and smiled wanly.
But in the morning I remembered that there were children at the nextbungalow but one. We went there before breakfast and borrowed theirnurse. Women are wonderful, by George they are! She had that kiddressed and looking fit for anything in about eight minutes. I showeredwealth on her, and she promised to come in morning and evening. I satdown to breakfast almost cheerful again. It was the first bit of silverlining there had been to the cloud up to date.
"And after all," I said, "there's lots to be said for having achild about the house, if you know what I mean. Kind of cosy anddomestic--what!"
Just then the kid upset the milk over Freddie's trousers, and when hehad come back after changing his clothes he began to talk about what amuch-maligned man King Herod was. The more he saw of Tootles, he said,the less he wondered at those impulsive views of his on infanticide.
Two days later Jimmy Pinkerton came down. Jimmy took one look at thekid, who happened to be howling at the moment, and picked up hisportmanteau.
"For me," he said, "the hotel. I can't write dialogue with that sort ofthing going on. Whose work is this? Which of you adopted this littletreasure?"
I told him about Mr. Medwin and the mumps. Jimmy seemed interested.
"I might work this up for the stage," he said. "It wouldn't make a badsituation for act two of a farce."
"Farce!" snarled poor old Freddie.
"Rather. Curtain of act one on hero, a well-meaning, half-baked sort ofidiot just like--that is to say, a well-meaning, half-baked sort ofidiot, kidnapping the child. Second act, his adventures with it. I'llrough it out to-night. Come along and show me the hotel, Reggie."
As we went I told him the rest of the story--the Angela part. He laiddown his portmanteau and looked at me like an owl through his glasses.
"What!" he said. "Why, hang it, this is a play, ready-made. It's theold 'Tiny Hand' business. Always safe stuff. Parted lovers. Lispingchild. Reconciliation over the little cradle. It's big. Child, centre.Girl L.C.; Freddie, up stage, by the piano. Can Freddie play thepiano?"
"He can play a little of 'The Rosary' with one finger."
Jimmy shook his head.
"No; we shall have to cut out the soft music. But the rest's all right.Look here." He squatted in the sand. "This stone is the girl. This bitof seaweed's the child. This nutshell is Freddie. Dialogue leading upto child's line. Child speaks like, 'Boofer lady, does 'oo love dadda?'Business of outstretched hands. Hold picture for a moment. Freddie crossesL., takes girl's hand. Business of swallowing lump in throat. Then bigspeech. 'Ah, Marie,' or whatever her name is--Jane--Agnes--Angela? Verywell. 'Ah, Angela, has not this gone on too long? A little child rebukesus! Angela!' And so on. Freddie must work up his own part. I'm justgiving you the general outline. And we must get a good line for thechild. 'Boofer lady, does 'oo love dadda?' isn't definite enough. Wewant something more--ah! 'Kiss Freddie,' that's it. Short, crisp, andhas the punch."
"But, Jimmy, old top," I said, "the only objection is, don't you know,that there's no way of getting the girl to the cottage. She cutsFreddie. She wouldn't come within a mile of him."
Jimmy frowned.
"That's awkward," he said. "Well, we shall have to make it an exterior setinstead of an interior. We can easily corner her on the beach somewhere,when we're ready. Meanwhile, we must get the kid letter-perfect. Firstrehearsal for lines and business eleven sharp to-morrow."
Poor old Freddie was in such a gloomy state of mind that we decided notto tell him the idea till we had finished coaching the kid. He wasn'tin the mood to have a thing like that hanging over him. So weconcentrated on Tootles. And pretty early in the proceedings we sawthat the only way to get Tootles worked up to the spirit of the thingwas to introduce sweets of some sort as a sub-motive, so to speak.
"The chief difficulty," said Jimmy Pinkerton at the end of the firstrehearsal, "is to establish a connection in the kid's mind between hisline and the sweets. Once he has grasped the basic fact that those twowords, clearly spoken, result automatically in acid-drops, we have gota success."
I've often thought, don't you know, how interesting it must be to beone of those animal-trainer Johnnies: to stimulate the dawningintelligence, and that sort of thing. Well, this was every bit asexciting. Some days success seemed to be staring us in the eye, and thekid got the line out as if he'd been an old professional. And then he'dgo all to pieces again. And time was flying.
"We must hurry up, Jimmy," I said. "The kid's uncle may arrive any daynow and take him away."
"And we haven't an understudy," said Jimmy. "There's something in that.We must work! My goodness, that kid's a bad study. I've known deaf-muteswho would have learned the part quicker."
I will say this for the kid, though: he was a trier. Failure didn'tdiscourage him. Whenever there was any kind of sweet near he had a dashat his line, and kept on saying something till he got what he wasafter. His only fault was his uncertainty. Personally, I would havebeen prepared to risk it, and start the performance at the firstopportunity, but Jimmy said no.
"We're not nearly ready," said Jimmy. "To-day, for instance, he said'Kick Freddie.' That's not going to win any girl's heart. And she mightdo it, too. No; we must postpone production awhile yet."
But, by George, we didn't. The curtain went up the very next afternoon.
It was nobody's fault--certainly not mine. It was just Fate. Freddiehad settled down at the piano, and I was leading the kid out of thehouse to exercise it, when, just as we'd got out to the veranda, alongcame the girl Angela on her way to the beach. The kid set up his usualyell at the sight of her, and she stopped at the foot of the steps.
"Hello, baby!" she said. "Good morning," she said to me. "May I comeup?"
She didn't wait for an answer. She just came. She seemed to be thatsort of girl. She came up on the veranda and started fussing over thekid. And six feet away, mind you, Freddie smiting the piano in thesitting-room. It was a dash disturbing situation, don't you know. Atany minute Freddie might take it into his head to come out on to theveranda, and we hadn't even begun to rehearse him in his part.
I tried to break up the scene.
"We were just going down to the beach," I said.
"Yes?" said the girl. She listened for a moment. "So you're having yourpiano tuned?" she said. "My aunt has been trying to find a tuner forours. Do you mind if I go in and tell this man to come on to us whenhe's finished here?"
"Er--not yet!" I said. "Not yet, if you don't mind. He can't bear to bedisturbed when he's working. It's the artistic temperament. I'll tellhim later."
"Very well," she said, getting up to go. "Ask him to call at PineBungalow. West is the name. Oh, he seems to have stopped. I suppose hewill be out in a minute now. I'll wait."
"Don't you think--shouldn't we be going on to the beach?" I said.
She had started talking to the kid and didn't hear. She was feeling inher pocket for something.
"The beach," I babbled.
"See what I've brought for you, baby," she said. And, by George, don'tyou know, she held up in front of the kid's bulging eyes a chunk oftoffee about the size of the Automobile Club.
That finished it. We had just been having a long rehearsal, and the kidwas all worked up in his part. He got it right first time.
"Kiss Fweddie!" he shouted.
And the front door opened, and Freddie came out on to the veranda, forall the world as if he had been taking a cue.
He looked at the girl, and the girl looked at him. I looked at theground, and the kid looked a
t the toffee.
"Kiss Fweddie!" he yelled. "Kiss Fweddie!"
The girl was still holding up the toffee, and the kid did what JimmyPinkerton would have called "business of outstretched hands" towardsit.
"Kiss Fweddie!" he shrieked.
"What does this mean?" said the girl, turning to me.
"You'd better give it to him, don't you know," I said. "He'll go ontill you do."
She gave the kid his toffee, and he subsided. Poor old Freddie stillstood there gaping, without a word.
"What does it mean?" said the girl again. Her face was pink, and hereyes were sparkling in the sort of way, don't you know, that makes afellow feel as if he hadn't any bones in him, if you know what I mean.Did you ever tread on your partner's dress at a dance and tear it, andsee her smile at you like an angel and say: "_Please_ don't apologize.It's nothing," and then suddenly meet her clear blue eyes and feel asif you had stepped on the teeth of a rake and had the handle jump upand hit you in the face? Well, that's how Freddie's Angela looked.
"_Well?_" she said, and her teeth gave a little click.
I gulped. Then I said it was nothing. Then I said it was nothing much.Then I said, "Oh, well, it was this way." And, after a few briefremarks about Jimmy Pinkerton, I told her all about it. And all thewhile Idiot Freddie stood there gaping, without a word.
And the girl didn't speak, either. She just stood listening.
And then she began to laugh. I never heard a girl laugh so much. Sheleaned against the side of the veranda and shrieked. And all the whileFreddie, the World's Champion Chump, stood there, saying nothing.
Well I sidled towards the steps. I had said all I had to say, and itseemed to me that about here the stage-direction "exit" was written inmy part. I gave poor old Freddie up in despair. If only he had said aword, it might have been all right. But there he stood, speechless.What can a fellow do with a fellow like that?
Just out of sight of the house I met Jimmy Pinkerton.
"Hello, Reggie!" he said. "I was just coming to you. Where's the kid?We must have a big rehearsal to-day."
"No good," I said sadly. "It's all over. The thing's finished. Poordear old Freddie has made an ass of himself and killed the whole show."
"Tell me," said Jimmy.
I told him.
"Fluffed in his lines, did he?" said Jimmy, nodding thoughtfully. "It'salways the way with these amateurs. We must go back at once. Thingslook bad, but it may not be too late," he said as we started. "Even nowa few well-chosen words from a man of the world, and----"
"Great Scot!" I cried. "Look!"
In front of the cottage stood six children, a nurse, and the fellowfrom the grocer's staring. From the windows of the houses oppositeprojected about four hundred heads of both sexes, staring. Down theroad came galloping five more children, a dog, three men, and a boy,about to stare. And on our porch, as unconscious of the spectators asif they had been alone in the Sahara, stood Freddie and Angela, claspedin each other's arms.
* * * * *
Dear old Freddie may have been fluffy in his lines, but, by George, hisbusiness had certainly gone with a bang!