A Bachelor's Comedy

“All right,” he shouted back; but to himself he grunted, “Silly old kitten. What on earth did Aunt Dixon get me an old fool like that for?”

Then a sudden waft of lilac scent warmed by sunshine, which is the essence of spring, swept across Andy’s freckled nose, and he felt kind to all the world.

“Oh, let her be a kitten! I don’t care. It’s hardish lines on an old woman like that having to go out into service – ”

Old woman!

What a glorious thing it is that nobody can see into the mind of anybody else.

Andy turned into Parson’s Lane, where the birds sang, and wild flowers bloomed earlier than anywhere else, and lovers walked silent on summer evenings; and he began to whistle from pure happiness. Then he remembered his position and hummed the “March of the Men of Harlech” instead.

The widow’s house stood at the farther end of the village, and when Andy went in at the farm gate he saw preparations going forward for that little tragedy, a country sale. The room into which he was ushered stood carpetless, miraculously swept and garnished, its large table crowded with glass and china that had remained for years hidden in the great storeroom, excepting on rare festivals, when it was brought out with care and put away by the hands of the mistress. A big sideboard filled one wall.

“I’m afraid,” said Andy, “that I’ve come at the wrong time, Mrs. Simpson. I’ll call again.”

Mrs. Simpson, who was a fair woman with a meek brow and an obstinate mouth, motioned him to a seat.

“Everything’s ready,” she said. “We go into the little cottage near you to-night. My husband’s cousins, the Thorpes, wanted us to stop with them for a few days, but I felt I couldn’t.”

“I hope – I hope you’ll be comfortable in your new home,” said Andy, who was not glib at consolation.

Mrs. Simpson crossed her hands on her lap.

“Oh, I shall be comfortable enough. My husband’s family have behaved well. They have clubbed together to make me and the children a little allowance – and they’re buying in all the furniture we need.”

Andy rose. He could not find anything to say to a woman years older than himself, who had lost her husband and her home – so, of course, he was a poor sort of parson.

“Is there a garden in your new home? May I send you some flowers?” he asked, going towards the door.

“Thank you; but flowers make dirt in a little house.”

They were near the big sideboard now, and in his confusion Andy caught his elbow in the corner.

“That is going to be sold, too,” said Mrs. Simpson. “The Thorpes won’t buy that in.”

“Ah – yes,” said Andy.

Then, suddenly, Mrs. Simpson’s face began to work like a child’s before it cries aloud, and she passed her hand over the smooth surface of the top.

“Nobody’s ever polished it but myself. We bought it in London on our honeymoon. Now Mrs. Will Werrit’ll get it – and those girls of hers’ll put hot-water jugs on the polished top.”

Andy stood there, touched to the heart, struggling for something to say, and only able to stammer out ridiculously at last —

“Perhaps they’ll use mats.”

But as he went home he began to wonder if he could afford to buy the sideboard and present it to Mrs. Simpson. No; he had had so many expenses on entering the incumbency that there was practically nothing at the bank. The little fortune which had sufficed for his education and for furnishing the Vicarage was now at an end. He literally could not lay hands on a spare five-pound note. A certain sum he had set aside for the new bicycle which was a necessity in a country living, but that was all he had over and above the amount for current expenses —

His thoughts stopped in that unpleasant way everybody knows, when a conclusion is forced upon an unwilling mind. He turned into the yard and pulled out his old bicycle. It would do. It was not a dignified machine, but it would do.

He had to see that as he trundled it dismally back again and went into the house to search for a bill of Mrs. Simpson’s sale among his papers.

Oh, nonsense! He wouldn’t!

He sat down to tea and glanced at his dining-room furniture, almost ecclesiastical in its chaste simplicity, and heaved a sigh of annoyance. Then, taking a large piece of cake in one hand and a newspaper in the other, he endeavoured to immerse himself in the news of the day.

Did Mr. and Mrs. Simpson feel anything like as jolly as he did when he bought his new furniture? If so —

He turned to the foreign telegrams, and in the midst of China and Peru he saw Mrs. and an imaginary Mr. Simpson buying a sideboard for their new home.

Pshaw! He flung down his paper and rang for the little maid.

“Please tell Mrs. Jebb I shall want lunch at twelve to-morrow. I am going out.”

Then, feeling that it was a deed which accorded more with a freckled nose and an abbreviated Christian name than with the dignified attitude of a Vicar of position, he began to search the sale catalogue for a mahogany sideboard. He knew that the senior curate would never have done such a thing. He would have given the money to the deserving poor.

Andy felt profoundly thankful that the senior curate would never know as he wrote to countermand his order for a new bicycle.

After that he went across the field and looked over the hedge into the churchyard, where that Mrs. Werrit who was his rival for the sideboard chanced to be tending the graves of such Werrits as were already taking their rest. People in Gaythorpe said that it was the only time a true Werrit did rest; and Mrs. Will was one to the backbone though she had been born a Thorpe of Millsby.

It was strange to Andy, who had always lived in towns, to find that nearly all the people were more or less related to one another: the Thorpes and Werrits permeated the social relationships of the countryside in the very same way as one or two great families have done the aristocracy of England. It is a thing that is going, but it survives still in many country places, and it produces a social atmosphere which is rather different from any other.

“Good afternoon,” said Andy.

“Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Deane,” called Mrs. Will Werrit, shrill and piping.

Andy stood idly watching the low sun slant across the graves, and across the woman’s kneeling figure. A cuckoo cried up into the clear, keen air; a little way off a cock was crowing. Something that Andy felt, and tried to grasp, and couldn’t, was in that quiet afternoon.

He came back over the fields with his hands deep in his pockets, unconsciously trying to make out what it was, and he felt inclined to write a piece of poetry that afternoon because he was young and alone and in love with life. It is an instinct, under such circumstances, for people to try to catch hold of the glory by putting it into words, just as a child instinctively tries to get hold of the sunshine, and both occupations are equally silly and joyful and engrossing.

So Andy walked in through his study window and sat at his table, looking out over the green and golden day that shimmered up by most exquisite gradations to a sky just before sunset. Green of the close-cut lawn – green and gold of the holly hedge – gold and green of the trees full in the sun – gold of the lower sky – translucent green of the cloudless upper reaches. No wonder Andy’s growing soul groped and groped after some way of keeping this. No wonder he stretched out baby hands of the soul. And no wonder that he grasped nothing. Or so near nothing that this is all he found to say about the Werrits near the church porch with Mrs. Will Werrit bending over them. He called it “The Others,” and was melancholy – as all happy poets are —

“When I can bear no more  The sound of tears,And all the muffled roar  Of hopes and fears,I let my tired mind a vigil keep,  To watch in silence where the others sleep.A moment – and I go  Where green grass waves,Where still-eyed daisies grow  On quiet graves,While every afternoon the setting sunFalls on the names there, like a benison.”

Andy read it over. He thought it was very beautiful indeed, and began to compose an epitaph for himself when he should lie, like Gulielmus, beneath the shadow of the ancient church.

“A great poet and a great priest. Fifty years of untiring service – ”

Oh, he was so young and so happy that he enjoyed it very much indeed. And he was so hungry afterwards that he was able to eat Mrs. Jebb’s pastry.

The next day about two o’clock he went across the lawn to speak to his gardener about the radishes when it suddenly occurred to him that he had seen nothing of that worthy since half-past ten, though he had been about the place all the morning. Evidently young Sam Petch was beginning his games. This should be put a stop to at once. Andy walked over the short grass with a determined step, and was about to start the inquisition when Sam, with a pleasant smile, remarked —

“Nice morning I had of it. Searching high and low, I was, for bits of cloth to nail up the creepers on the stable wall. And in the end my poor missus gave me the clippings she’d saved for pegging a hearthrug.”

Andy looked hard at his gardener, but it was his own eyes which fell before the radiant honesty shining in Sam Petch’s face.

“Very good of Mrs. Petch – I must see if I haven’t an old pair – ”

He broke off, for he had come closer to Sam in speaking, and there was somewhere in the air an unmistakable odour of the public-house.

“Your oldest would be too good for that job,” said Sam hastily. “My wife would sponge ’em with beer with a drop o’ gin in it and they’d look like new. She does that, time and again, to my old clothes. These I have on she did last night. On’y drawback is, you can’t get the smell of the liquor out all at once. You’ll maybe not have noticed, but I smell a smell of drink about this here jacket yet, though I’ve been out in it since morning.”

Andy looked hard again. Again he was met by the clear, blue gaze of honesty and simple candour. He walked away, making no remark.

But half-way across the grass he paused, shook his head, and went back.

“I would have you know,” he said, copying as closely as possible the air and manner of the senior curate, “that I am perfectly able to appreciate the difference between the odour of beer applied externally and internally. Pray remember that for the future.”

Then, head in air, he marched towards the house, feeling greatly annoyed that a dandelion root should trip him up half-way and spoil the exit.

Sam watched him go into the house, and then bent over the mowing machine in a paroxysm of helpless laughter.

“Golly – he’s a rum ’un – but not so soft as he looks.”

For young Sam Petch had many failings, but also the great virtue of being able to enjoy a joke against himself.

Meanwhile, Andy made his way to Mrs. Simpson’s sale, and as he entered the house the auctioneer’s raucous voice could be heard selling the spare-bedroom furniture. Every one was upstairs save a few who waited in the dining-room so as to have a good place when the auctioneer came in there.

Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Will Werrit, for instance, had planted themselves firmly by the table on which Mrs. Simpson’s cut glass and china were displayed. They were not surprised to see the new Vicar, as they supposed he would be wanting things for his house, and Mrs. Thorpe tore herself away from a fascinating and confidential conversation with her neighbour to say pleasantly glancing at him over her ample chest —

“I hope you’re comfortable at Gaythorpe, Mr. Deane?”

That was what Mrs. Thorpe wanted every one to be in this world – comfortable – and it was certainly what she hoped for in the world to come.

“I’m more than comfortable,” said Andy. “I love the place already. And after London it seems so peaceful – like one big family.”

Mrs. Will Werrit’s thin lips curled at the corners.

“Are big families peaceful in London?” she said.

“Well, well!” said Mrs. Thorpe, soothingly. “Human nature is human nature. And how does your housekeeper cook, Mr. Deane?”

“Oh, not very grandly,” said Andy, with a laugh.

“Can she make decent pastry?” asked Mrs. Will Werrit.

“No. But I’m not much of a pastry lover – ”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Will Werrit. Then they coughed behind their gloves to tone down the ejaculation, and carefully avoided each other’s glance.

But Andy wondered what on earth there was to be so surprised at in the fact that he did not like pastry. He walked to the window and stood there with his hands in his pockets while the two women resumed their interrupted conversation.

“Did you hear?” said Mrs. Will Werrit. “He said he didn’t like pastry. After eating six tarts and eight cheesecakes at a sitting.”

“Well, well. I’m sure I don’t know how that got about. I never told a soul, that I can swear.”

“Nobody,” said Mrs. Will Werrit, snapping her lips together, “can blame a lad for liking tarts and cheesecakes. But what I hate is his lying about it.”

“Come, come! You can’t call it lying,” said Mrs. Thorpe. “Poor lad, he’s ashamed of his appetite, I expect.” She touched a set of glass dishes on the table before her. “I’m bidding for those.”

“Don’t touch ’em!” said Mrs. Will sharply. “There’s a woman looking at you. You don’t want anybody to notice them before they’re auctioned if you can help it. They’ll be running you up.”

“I shan’t go beyond two shillings apiece,” said Mrs. Thorpe.

“You don’t know. Sales are such queer things. You’d think” – Mrs. Will lowered her voice still further and glanced at Andy’s back – “you’d think sometimes when you get home with a lot of rubbish you’ve no use for, that you’d been possessed.” She paused. “I shall bid for the jelly glasses. I remember thinking I should like them the last time we had supper here before Mr. Simpson’s illness.”

“Did you, now?” said Mrs. Thorpe. “Well, I thought the same about the glass dishes on that very night. Last party they gave before he was taken ill.”

And yet they were good women, and would do the widow and her children a thousand kindnesses. It is such things that make the dullest-seeming person so tremendously interesting.

“Finger-bowls!” said Mrs. Will Werrit, touching one with a scornful finger. “No wonder he died in debt!”

“Maybe they were a wedding – ” began Mrs. Thorpe, but a great trampling of feet announced that the auctioneer was coming downstairs, and with a hasty “Now, stick to your place; don’t let yourself be pushed into a corner,” the two ladies prepared gleefully for the conflict.

Andy grew very tired indeed of waiting, as one thing after another was knocked down to flushed and excited buyers. The auctioneer was a kind-hearted man, and went out of his way to try and make the best price he could of the things, cracking jokes with a bad headache in a stentorian voice, which may not be a picturesque sacrifice upon the altar of charity, but is a very real one, all the same. And he understood his audience so well that he had them all in high good-humour, ready to bid for anything.

“And now,” he remarked, “we come to the sideboard. You’re not like the greedy boy who said, ‘Best first for fear I can’t hold it.’ I kept the best until the last, sure that the spacious residences of those I see around me could hold it, and find it the greatest ornament of their homes.” He put his hand to his head, feeling he was getting muddled. “Ladies – it’s not drink – it’s love! I meant to say this exquisite sideboard in solid mahogany, plate-glass back, will be the chief ornament of some home: for to my regret only one of you can possess it.” He paused. How his head ached! “Now, what shall I say for this magnificent piece of furniture fit for a ducal palace?”

“Five pounds,” said a red-faced man near the door.

“Five pounds! You offer the paltry sum of five pounds for this magnificent sideboard, which contains a cellaret for the wedding champagne and a cupboard for the christening cake! Ladies and gentlemen – ”

He threw himself, as it were, upon their better feelings. And several people who did not want the sideboard began to bid for it as if their happiness in life depended upon their getting it.

“Five pounds ten! Six pounds! Seven pounds ten!”

“Eight!” said Andy, beginning to be awfully excited too.

“Eight ten!” said Mrs. Will Werrit.

“Nine!” said Andy.

“Nine ten!” said a new voice – clear, and yet breathless.

“Ten pounds!” said Andy, glaring in the direction of the voice.

“Ten ten!” and the crowd opened, leaving a little space around a girl who seemed to bloom suddenly upon the dull background of oldish faces like an evening primrose on the twilight. She was pale with the fear of being late and the excitement of arriving just in time, and she waited with parted lips for Andy’s defiant “Eleven!”

The other buyers had all stopped bidding, and her quick “Eleven ten!” rang clear across a silence.

“Twelve!” said Andy, doggedly fixing his chin into his collar.

“Twelve ten!”

“Thirteen!” said Andy, looking at his opponent with extreme distaste.

“Thirteen ten!” responded she, catching her breath.

“Fourteen!” shouted Andy, who had actually forgotten both the sideboard and Mrs. Simpson, and only felt that he would sell his shirt rather than let this girl conquer him.

“Fourteen ten!”

“Fifteen!”

“Fifteen ten!”

“Sixteen!”

Back and forth rang the words like pistol shots.

“Nineteen ten!” They were both pale now, and trembling with excitement. An electric thrill ran through the room, a strange spirit hovered almost visibly about the commonplace group in the farmhouse parlour, and the auctioneer recognised it easily enough and without surprise, for he had grown used to knowing that men and women touch the borders of the Inexplicable at little country sales.

“Twenty!”

Andy had the ‘twenty-one’ ready on his lips, when, instead of the expected retort, there was a moment’s silence that could be felt.

“Going at twenty!”

“Now, won’t any one give another ten shillings for this exceptionally handsome sideboard?”

“Going – going – gone!”

The hammer fell, and with that sound the two young people stared at each other with a sort of odd surprise, as if they had just awakened from a queer dream.

“That’s Miss Elizabeth Atterton,” whispered Mrs. Thorpe to Andy as he began to push his way out, marvelling at his own folly.

Twenty pounds was a ridiculous sum for him to have paid for the thing in any case, and just now when he was so short of money it was sheer lunacy.

“Miss Elizabeth Atterton,” he said vaguely – “oh, the young lady who bid against me? I see.”

Then he made arrangements for the delivery of the sideboard, and went home to find a dapper, middle-aged gentleman walking down the drive.

“How-de-do. Just been to call on you. Sorry to find you out,” said the dapper gentleman.

“Do come in,” said Andy, “and have a cup of tea.”

“Sorry I can’t. But I’ll go back with you for a few minutes, if I may. Fact is, I told my daughter to bring the cart round here for me at four. She’s gone off to a sale or something. Queer taste. But it’s better than developing nerves. If a female of my household developed nerves I should – er – duck her.”

“Sensible plan,” said Andy, wisely shaking his head. “Most women are as full of fancies as an egg is full of meat.”

“Just so, just so,” said the dapper gentleman, sitting very straight. And thus they disposed of the mystery and tragedy of womanhood.

“Miss Elizabeth Atterton is here with the cart, sir,” said the little maid, putting her head in at the door.

“Ha, my daughter’s here early,” said Mr. Atterton, rising.

Andy accompanied him to the cart, where Miss Elizabeth Atterton stood holding the head of a rather restive pony. The light shone full on her face, showing most clearly the gold in her brown hair and in her eyes and in her exquisite skin, which was of a deep cream with a faint red in the cheeks-not at all like milk and roses, but like some perfect fruit grown in the youth of the world. Her features were irregular, the upper lip being rather too long and the nose broad and short, but her forehead and her eyes were very lovely.

“My daughter Elizabeth,” said Mr. Atterton, as Andy took the pony’s head. “Oh, by the way, my gloves,” and he bolted back to fetch them.

“I am afraid I ran the price of your sideboard up,” said Elizabeth stiffly.

“Not at all,” said Andy, with equal stiffness.

Then Mr. Atterton came out, and the little cart clattered away through the lilac-scented afternoon.

CHAPTER III

Nothing could be less like a messenger of Fate than a mahogany sideboard with a plate-glass back.

And yet —

“Here’s Mrs. Simpson’s little girl for the third time since seven!” said Mrs. Jebb, coming hastily into the room, with ribbon-strings all aflutter about her, as usual.

“What does she want?” said Andy, buttering his toast.

“Something about a sideboard,” said Mrs. Jebb, poised, as it were, upon one hand at the table corner. “Three times before breakfast about a sideboard! You really must make a stand, or you will never have a minute to call your own. You are too good-natured.”

And she turned her head slightly, so as to give Andy the benefit of that glance which the late Mr. Jebb found irresistible.

“Nonsense,” said Andy. “It’s what I’m paid for;” and he rustled his letters together, carefully avoiding the amorous eye.

“As your aunt remarked, in engaging my services,” said Mrs. Jebb, “it is a great thing for you to have a lady in the house. I hope you will let me help you in any way that I can.”

“Thank you. I’ll go round to Mrs. Simpson’s at once,” said Andy, leaving an excellent corner of the buttered toast. “By the way, I should like my potatoes soft in the middle if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Anything you wish, please mention at once,” said Mrs. Jebb. Nothing could subdue her gaiety upon this summer morning, when the birds were singing, and the sun was shining, and Hope threw wreaths upon the tombstone of Mr. Jebb.

Andy glared at her.

“There is nothing more at present, thank you,” he said, going out; then Mrs. Jebb went to the window and looked after him with an easy tear in her eye.

“Impetuous,” she murmured, “impetuous, but sweet.”

Could Andy but have heard her!

However, by this time he was already entering the little garden before Mrs. Simpson’s cottage at the lane end, and all his thoughts were engrossed by the unexpected sight of the famous sideboard standings in sections around the creeper-covered doorway. The widow sat weeping on an empty box near that part containing the cellaret, while a dark, anxious-looking little girl of about six stood pulling her mother’s sleeve, and a big boy of three hammered the little girl with broad, fat fists.

“Stop that,” said Andy, seizing the boy from behind; but the culprit turned on him such a jolly, good-natured smile that he was disarmed, and only said lamely —

“You shouldn’t hit your little sister.”

“I haven’t got nobody elth to hit,” lisped the cherub, looking up at Andy with blue-eyed surprise.

“You mustn’t mind what he says,” interposed Sally anxiously. “Boys are born naughty. They can’t help it.”

Andy glanced at Mrs. Simpson, who still sat with her face hidden, evidently overcome by her feelings, and he braced himself for a scene of tearful gratitude. It was unpleasant, but no doubt inevitable, so the best thing to do was to get it over as soon as possible.

“H-hem! I see you got the sideboard all right, Mrs. Simpson. I am afraid it would be rather late last night before you received it, but the carrier – ”

“I’ve been sitting on this box since six, waiting to see you,” interposed Mrs. Simpson.

“Please don’t! Don’t say a word more. I’m only too delighted,” began Andy.

“There’s nothing,” wept Mrs. Simpson, “to be delighted about. It won’t go into the house. And you can’t keep a sideboard in a garden. Oh, I know you meant well, but this makes me realise my comedown more than anything else that has happened. After thinking I’d got it, it still has to go all the same. I dreamt last night that rows of great girls came up one after the other and banged hot-water cans down on the polished top, and when I wasn’t dreaming I was looking out of the window to see if it rained. And Mrs. Werrit will get my sideboard after all. And the Thorpe family will say they were in the right not to buy it in for me. And I shall look like a fool. I hate people that always turn out to be right in the end.”