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

Lord Marshmoreton. “If I’ve tried once to remember that tobacconist girl’s name, I’ve tried a hundred times. I have an idea it began with an ‘L.’ Muriel or Hilda or something.”

“Within a year,” said Lady Caroline, “you will be wondering how you ever came to be so foolish. Don’t you think so, Percy?”

“Quite,” said Lord Belpher.

Lord Marshmoreton turned on him irritably.

“Good God, boy, can’t you answer a simple question with a plain affirmative? What do you mean⁠—quite? If somebody came to me and pointed you out and said, ‘Is that your son?’ do you suppose I should say ‘Quite?’ I wish the devil you didn’t collect prayer rugs. It’s sapped your brain.”

“They say prison life often weakens the intellect, father,” said Maud. She moved towards the door and turned the handle. Albert, the page boy, who had been courting earache by listening at the keyhole, straightened his small body and scuttled away. “Well, is that all, Aunt Caroline? May I go now?”

“Certainly. I have said all I wished to say.”

“Very well. I’m sorry to disobey you, but I can’t help it.”

“You’ll find you can help it after you’ve been cooped up here for a few more months,” said Percy.

A gentle smile played over Maud’s face.

“Love laughs at locksmiths,” she murmured softly, and passed from the room.

“What did she say?” asked Lord Marshmoreton, interested. “Something about somebody laughing at a locksmith? I don’t understand. Why should anyone laugh at locksmiths? Most respectable men. Had one up here only the day before yesterday, forcing open the drawer of my desk. Watched him do it. Most interesting. He smelt rather strongly of a damned bad brand of tobacco. Fellow must have a throat of leather to be able to smoke the stuff. But he didn’t strike me as an object of derision. From first to last, I was never tempted to laugh once.”

Lord Belpher wandered moodily to the window and looked out into the gathering darkness.

“And this has to happen,” he said bitterly, “on the eve of my twenty-first birthday.”

VII

The first requisite of an invading army is a base. George, having entered Belpher village and thus accomplished the first stage in his foreward movement on the castle, selected as his base the Marshmoreton Arms. Selected is perhaps hardly the right word, as it implies choice, and in George’s case there was no choice. There are two inns at Belpher, but the Marshmoreton Arms is the only one that offers accommodation for man and beast, assuming⁠—that is to say⁠—that the man and beast desire to spend the night. The other house, the Blue Boar, is a mere beerhouse, where the lower strata of Belpher society gather of a night to quench their thirst and to tell one another interminable stories without any point whatsoever. But the Marshmoreton Arms is a comfortable, respectable hostelry, catering for the village plutocrats. There of an evening you will find the local veterinary surgeon smoking a pipe with the grocer, the baker, and the butcher, with perhaps a sprinkling of neighbouring farmers to help the conversation along. On Saturdays there is a “shilling ordinary”⁠—which is rural English for a cut off the joint and a boiled potato, followed by hunks of the sort of cheese which believes that it pays to advertise, and this is usually well attended. On the other days of the week, until late in the evening, however, the visitor to the Marshmoreton Arms has the place almost entirely to himself.

It is to be questioned whether in the whole length and breadth of the world there is a more admirable spot for a man in love to pass a day or two than the typical English village. The Rocky Mountains, that traditional stamping-ground for the heartbroken, may be well enough in their way; but a lover has to be cast in a pretty stern mould to be able to be introspective when at any moment he may meet an annoyed cinnamon bear. In the English village there are no such obstacles to meditation. It combines the comforts of civilization with the restfulness of solitude in a manner equalled by no other spot except the New York Public Library. Here your lover may wander to and fro unmolested, speaking to nobody, by nobody addressed, and have the satisfaction at the end of the day of sitting down to a capitally cooked chop and chips, lubricated by golden English ale.

Belpher, in addition to all the advantages of the usual village, has a quiet charm all its own, due to the fact that it has seen better days. In a sense, it is a ruin, and ruins are always soothing to the bruised soul. Ten years before, Belpher had been a flourishing centre of the South of England oyster trade. It is situated by the shore, where Hayling Island, lying athwart the mouth of the bay, forms the waters into a sort of brackish lagoon, in much the same way as Fire Island shuts off the Great South Bay of Long Island from the waves of the Atlantic. The water of Belpher Creek is shallow even at high tide, and when the tide runs out it leaves glistening mud flats, which it is the peculiar taste of the oyster to prefer to any other habitation. For years Belpher oysters had been the mainstay of gay supper parties at the Savoy, the Carlton and Romano’s. Dukes doted on them; chorus girls wept if they were not on the bill of fare. And then, in an evil hour, somebody discovered that what made the Belpher Oyster so particularly plump and succulent was the fact that it breakfasted, lunched and dined almost entirely on the local sewage. There is but a thin line ever between popular homage and execration. We see it in the case of politicians, generals and prizefighters; and oysters are no exception to the rule. There was a typhoid scare⁠—quite a passing and unjustified scare, but strong enough to do its deadly work;