A Damsel in Distress by P. G. Wodehouse (pocket ebook reader txt) 📕

will glance at your copy of Who’s Who, and turn up the “M’s,” you will find in the space allotted to the Earl the words “Hobby⁠—Gardening.” To which, in a burst of modest pride, his lordship has added “Awarded first prize for Hybrid Teas, Temple Flower Show, 1911.” The words tell their own story.

Lord Marshmoreton was the most enthusiastic amateur gardener in a land of enthusiastic amateur gardeners. He lived for his garden. The love which other men expend on their nearest and dearest Lord Marshmoreton lavished on seeds, roses and loamy soil. The hatred which some of his order feel for Socialists and Demagogues Lord Marshmoreton kept for rose slugs, rose-beetles and the small, yellowish-white insect which is so depraved and sinister a character that it goes through life with an alias⁠—being sometimes called a rose-hopper and sometimes a thrip. A simple soul, Lord Marshmoreton⁠—mild and pleasant. Yet put him among the thrips, and he became a dealer-out of death and slaughter, a destroyer in the class of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan. Thrips feed on the underside of rose leaves, sucking their juice and causing them to turn yellow; and Lord Marshmoreton’s views on these things were so rigid that he would have poured whale-oil solution on his grandmother if he had found her on the underside of one of his rose leaves sucking its juice.

The only time in the day when he ceased to be the horny-handed toiler and became the aristocrat was in the evening after dinner, when, egged on by Lady Caroline, who gave him no rest in the matter⁠—he would retire to his private study and work on his History of the Family, assisted by his able secretary, Alice Faraday. His progress on that massive work was, however, slow. Ten hours in the open air make a man drowsy, and too often Lord Marshmoreton would fall asleep in mid-sentence to the annoyance of Miss Faraday, who was a conscientious girl and liked to earn her salary.

The couple on the terrace had turned. Reggie Byng’s face, as he bent over Maud, was earnest and animated, and even from a distance it was possible to see how the girl’s eyes lit up at what he was saying. She was hanging on his words. Lady Caroline’s smile became more and more benevolent.

“They make a charming pair,” she murmured. “I wonder what dear Reggie is saying. Perhaps at this very moment⁠—”

She broke off with a sigh of content. She had had her troubles over this affair. Dear Reggie, usually so plastic in her hands, had displayed an unaccountable reluctance to offer his agreeable self to Maud⁠—in spite of the fact that never, not even on the public platform which she adorned so well, had his stepmother reasoned more clearly than she did when pointing out to him the advantages of the match. It was not that Reggie disliked Maud. He admitted that she was a “topper,” on several occasions going so far as to describe her as “absolutely priceless.” But he seemed reluctant to ask her to marry him. How could Lady Caroline know that Reggie’s entire world⁠—or such of it as was not occupied by racing cars and golf⁠—was filled by Alice Faraday? Reggie had never told her. He had not even told Miss Faraday.

“Perhaps at this very moment,” went on Lady Caroline, “the dear boy is proposing to her.”

Lord Marshmoreton grunted, and continued to peer with a questioning eye in the awesome brew which he had prepared for the thrips.

“One thing is very satisfactory,” said Lady Caroline. “I mean that Maud seems entirely to have got over that ridiculous infatuation of hers for that man she met in Wales last summer. She could not be so cheerful if she were still brooding on that. I hope you will admit now, John, that I was right in keeping her practically a prisoner here and never allowing her a chance of meeting the man again either by accident or design. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Stuff! A girl of Maud’s age falls in and out of love half a dozen times a year. I feel sure she has almost forgotten the man by now.”

“Eh?” said Lord Marshmoreton. His mind had been far away, dealing with green flies.

“I was speaking about that man Maud met when she was staying with Brenda in Wales.”

“Oh, yes!”

“Oh, yes!” echoed Lady Caroline, annoyed. “Is that the only comment you can find to make? Your only daughter becomes infatuated with a perfect stranger⁠—a man we have never seen⁠—of whom we know nothing, not even his name⁠—nothing except that he is an American and hasn’t a penny⁠—Maud admitted that. And all you say is ‘Oh, yes’!”

“But it’s all over now, isn’t it? I understood the dashed affair was all over.”

“We hope so. But I should feel safer if Maud were engaged to Reggie. I do think you might take the trouble to speak to Maud.”

“Speak to her? I do speak to her.” Lord Marshmoreton’s brain moved slowly when he was preoccupied with his roses. “We’re on excellent terms.”

Lady Caroline frowned impatiently. Hers was an alert, vigorous mind, bright and strong like a steel trap, and her brother’s vagueness and growing habit of inattention irritated her.

“I mean to speak to her about becoming engaged to Reggie. You are her father. Surely you can at least try to persuade her.”

“Can’t coerce a girl.”

“I never suggested that you should coerce her, as you put it. I merely meant that you could point out to her, as a father, where her duty and happiness lie.”

“Drink this!” cried his lordship with sudden fury, spraying his can over the nearest bush, and addressing his remark to the invisible thrips. He had forgotten Lady Caroline completely. “Don’t stint yourselves! There’s lots more!”

A girl came down the steps of the castle and made her way towards them. She was a good-looking girl, with an air of quiet efficiency about her. Her eyes were grey and whimsical. Her head