The Gem Collector by P. G. Wodehouse (most popular ebook readers TXT) 📗

conviction, bred of her American upbringing, that the duty of the hostess is to see that her guests enjoy themselves. Lady Jane held the English view that visitors like to be left to themselves. And Molly, noticing her stepmother's lack of enterprise and putting it down as merely another proof of her languid nature, had exerted herself all the more keenly to do the honors.

The consequence was that Jimmy found himself one of a crowd, and disliked the sensation.

The thing was becoming intolerable. Here was he, a young man in love, kept from proposing simply by a series of ridiculous obstacles. It could not go on. He must get her away somewhere by himself, not for a few minutes, as he had been doing up to the present, but for a solid space of time.

It was after a long and particularly irritating rehearsal that the idea of the lake suggested itself to him. The rehearsals took place in one of the upper rooms, and through the window, as he leaned gloomily against the wall, listening to a homily on the drama from Charteris, he could see the waters of the lake, lit up by the afternoon sun. It had been a terribly hot, oppressive day and there was thunder in the air. The rehearsal had bored everybody unspeakably. It would be heavenly on the lake, thought Jimmy. There was a Canadian canoe moored to that willow. If he could only get Molly.

"I'm awfully sorry, Jimmy," said Molly, as they walked out into the garden. "I should love to come. It would be too perfect. But I've half promised to play tennis."

"Who wants to play?"

"Mr. Wesson."

A correspondent of a London daily paper wrote to his editor not long ago to complain that there was a wave of profanity passing over the country. Jimmy added a silent but heartfelt contribution to that wave.

"Give him the slip," he said earnestly. It was the chance of a lifetime, a unique chance, perhaps his last chance, and it was to be lost for the sake of an ass like Wesson.

Molly looked doubtful.

"Well, come down to the water, and have a look at it," said Jimmy.
"That'll be better than nothing."

They walked to the water's edge together in silence, Jimmy in a fever of anxiety. He looked behind him. No signs of Wesson yet. All might still be well.

"It does look nice, Jimmy, doesn't it?" said Molly, placing a foot on the side of the boat and rocking it gently.

"Come on," said Jimmy hoarsely. "Give him the slip. Get in."

Molly looked round hesitatingly.

"Well—oh, bother, there he is. And he's seen me."

Jimmy followed her gaze. The dapper figure of Mr. Wesson was moving down the lawn. He had a tennis racquet in his hand. His face wore an inviting smile.

Jimmy glared at him hopelessly.

Mr. Wesson had vanished now behind the great clamp of laurels which stood on the lowest terrace. In another moment he would reappear round them.

"Bother!" said Molly again. "Jimmy!" For gently, but with extreme firmness and dispatch, Jimmy, who ought to have known better, had seized her hand on the other side of the waist, swung her off her feet, and placed her carefully on the cushions in the bow of the canoe.

Then he had jumped in himself with a force which made the boat rock, and was now paddling with the silent energy of a dangerous lunatic into the middle of the lake; while Mr. Wesson, who had by this time rounded the laurels, stood transfixed, gazing glassily after the retreating vessel.

To the casual spectator, he might have seemed stricken dumb.

But at the end of the first ten seconds any fear that the casual spectator might have entertained as to the permanence of the seizure would have been relieved.

CHAPTER XI.

"The man who lays a hand upon a woman," said Jimmy, paddling strongly, "save in the way of kindness—I'm very sorry, Molly, but you didn't seem able to make up your mind. You aren't angry, are you?"

There was a brief pause, while Molly apparently debated the matter in her mind.

"You wouldn't take me back even if I were angry," she said.

"You have guessed it," said Jimmy approvingly. "Do you read much poetry, Molly?"

"Why?"

"I was only thinking how neatly some of these poets put a thing. The chap who said, 'distance lends enchantment to the view,' for instance. Take the case of Wesson. He looks quite nice when you see him at a distance like this, with a good strip of water in between."

Mr. Wesson was still standing in a statuesque attitude on the bank. Molly, gazing over the side of the boat into the lake, abstained from feasting her eyes on the picturesque spectacle.

"Jolly the water looks," said Jimmy.

"I was just thinking it looked rather dirty."

"Beastly," agreed Jimmy.

The water as a topic of conversation dried up. Mr. Wesson had started now to leave the stricken field. There was a reproachful look about his back which harassed Molly's sensitive conscience. Jimmy, on the other hand—men being of coarser fibre than women, especially as to the conscience—appeared in no way distressed at the sight.

"You oughtn't to have done it, Jimmy," said Molly.

"I had to. There seemed to be no other way of ever getting you by yourself for five minutes at a stretch. You're always in the middle of a crowd nowadays."

"But I must look after my guests."

"Not a bit of it. Let 'em rip. Why should they monopolize you?"

"It will be awfully unpleasant meeting Mr. Wesson after this."

"It is always unpleasant meeting Wesson."

"I shan't know what to say."

"Don't say anything."

"I shan't be able to look him in the face."

"That's a bit of luck for you."

"You aren't much help, Jimmy."

"The subject of Wesson doesn't inspire me somehow—I don't know why. Besides, you've simply got to say you changed your mind. You're a woman. It's expected of you."

"I feel awfully mean."

"What you want to do is to take your thoughts off the business. Keep your mind occupied with something else. Then you'll forget all about it. Keep talking to me about things. That's the plan. There are heaps of subjects. The weather, for instance, as a start. Hot, isn't it?"

"We're going to have a storm. There's a sort of feel in the air. We'd better go back, I think."

"Tush! And possibly bah!" said Jimmy, digging the paddle into the water. "We've only just started. I say, who was that man I saw you talking to after lunch?"

"How soon after lunch?"

"Just before the rehearsal. He was with your father. Short chap with a square face. Dressed in gray. I hadn't seen him before."

"Oh, that was Mr. Galer. A New York friend of father's."

"Did you know him out in New York?"

"I didn't. But he seems to know father very well."

"What's his name, did you say?"

"Galer. Samuel Galer. Did you ever hear of him?"

"Never. But there were several people in New York I didn't know. How did your father meet him over here?"

"He was stopping at the inn in the village, and he'd heard about the abbey being so old, so he came over to look at it, and the first person he met was father. He's going to stay in the house now. The cart was sent down for his things this afternoon. Did you feel a spot of rain then? I wish you'd paddle back."

"Not a drop. That storm's not coming till to-night. Why, it's a gorgeous evening."

He turned the nose of the boat toward the island, which lay, cool and green and mysterious, in the middle of the lake. The heat was intense. The sun, as if conscious of having only a brief spell of work before it, blazed fiercely, with the apparent intention of showing what it could do before the rain came. The air felt curiously parched.

"There!" said Molly. "Surely you felt something, then."

"I did."

"Is there time to get back before it begins?"

"No."

"We shall get soaked!"

"Not a bit of it. On the other side of the island there is a handy little boat-house sort of place. We will put in there."

The boathouse was simply a little creek covered over with boards and capable of sheltering an ordinary rowing boat. Jimmy ran the canoe in just as the storm began, and turned her broadside on so that they could watch the rain, which was sweeping over the lake in sheets.

"Just in time," he said, shipping the paddle. "Snug in here, isn't it?"

"We should have got wet in another minute! I hope it won't last long."

"I hope it will, because I've got something very important to say to you, and I don't want to have to hurry it. Are you quite comfortable?"

"Yes, thanks."

"I don't know how to put it exactly. I mean, I don't want to offend you or anything. What I mean to say is—do you mind if I smoke? Thanks. I don't know why it is, but I always talk easier if I've got a cigarette going."

He rolled one with great deliberation and care. Molly watched him admiringly.

"You're the only man I've ever seen roll a cigarette properly, Jimmy," she said. "Everybody else leaves them all flabby at the ends."

"I learned the trick from a little Italian who kept a clothing store in the Bowery. It was the only useful thing he could do."

"Look at the rain!"

Jimmy leaned forward.

"Molly——"

"I wonder if poor Mr. Wesson got indoors before it began. I do hope he did."

Jimmy sat back again. He scowled. Every man is liable on occasion to behave like a sulky schoolboy. Jimmy did so.

"You seem to spend most of your time thinking about Wesson," he said savagely.

Molly had begun to hum a tune to herself as she watched the rain. She stopped. A profound and ghastly silence brooded over the canoe.

"Molly," said Jimmy at last, "I'm sorry."

No reply.

"Molly."

"Well?"

"I'm sorry."

Molly turned.

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that, Jimmy. It hurts—from you."

He could see that there were tears in her eyes.

"Molly, don't!"

She turned her head away once more.

"I can't help it, Jimmy. It hurts. Everything's so changed. I'm miserable. You wouldn't have said a thing like that in the old days."

"Molly, if you knew——"

"It's all right, Jimmy. It was silly of me. I'm all right now! The rain has stopped. Let's go back, shall we?"

"Not yet. For God's sake, not yet! This is my only chance. Directly we get back, it will be the same miserable business all over again; the same that it's been every day since I came to this place. Heavens! When you first told me that you were living at the abbey, I was absolutely happy, like a fool. I might have known how it would be. Every day there's a crowd round you. I never get a chance of talking to you. I consider myself lucky if you speak a couple of words to me. If I'd known the slow torture it was going to be, I'd have taken the next train back to London. I can't stand it. Molly, you remember what friends we were in the old days. Was it ever anything more with you? Was it? Is it now?"

"I was very fond of you, Jimmy." He could hardly hear the words.

"Was it ever anything more than that? Is it now? That was three years ago. You were a child. We were just good friends then. I don't want friendship now. It's not enough. I want you—you. You were right a moment ago. Everything has changed. For me, at least. Has it for you? Has it for you, Molly?"

On the island a thrush had begun to sing. Molly raised her head, as if to listen. The water lapped against the sides of the canoe.

"Has it, Molly?"

She bent over, and dabbled one finger in the water.

"I—I think it has, Jimmy," she whispered.

CHAPTER XII.

The Honorable Louis Wesson, meanwhile, having left the water side, lit a cigarette, and proceeded to make a moody tour of the grounds. He felt aggrieved with the world. One is never at one's best and sunniest when a rival has performed a brilliant and successful piece of cutting-out work