Short Fiction - P. G. Wodehouse (top ten ebook reader txt) 📗

because he really hoped that anything would come of it that Martin approached Elsa next morning after breakfast. Elsa was strolling on the terrace in front of the house with the bard, but Martin broke in on the conference with the dogged determination of a steam-drill.

“Coming out with the guns today, Elsa?” he said.

She raised her eyes. There was an absent look in them.

“The guns?” she said. “Oh, no; I hate watching men shoot.”

“You used to like it.”

“I used to like dolls,” she said, impatiently.

Mr. Barstowe gave tongue. He was a slim, tall, sickeningly beautiful young man, with large, dark eyes, full of expression.

“We develop,” he said. “The years go by, and we develop. Our souls expand⁠—timidly at first, like little, half-fledged birds stealing out from the⁠—”

“I don’t know that I’m so set on shooting today, myself,” said Martin. “Will you come round the links?”

“I am going out in the motor with Mr. Barstowe,” said Elsa.

“The motor!” cried Mr. Barstowe. “Ah, Rossiter, that is the very poetry of motion. I never ride in a motorcar without those words of Shakespeare’s ringing in my mind: ‘I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.’ ”

“I shouldn’t give way to that sort of thing if I were you,” said Martin. “The police are pretty down on road-hogging in these parts.”

“Mr. Barstowe was speaking figuratively,” said Elsa, with disdain.

“Was he?” grunted Martin, whose sorrows were tending to make him every day more like a sulky schoolboy. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a poetic soul.”

“I’m afraid you haven’t,” said Elsa.

There was a brief silence. A bird made itself heard in a neighbouring tree.

“ ‘The moan of doves in immemorial elms,’ ” quoted Mr. Barstowe, softly.

“Only it happens to be a crow in a beech,” said Martin, as the bird flew out.

Elsa’s chin tilted itself in scorn. Martin turned on his heel and walked away.

“It’s the wrong way, sir; it’s the wrong way,” said a voice. “I was hobserving you from a window, sir. It’s Lady Angelica over again. Hopposition is useless, believe me, sir.”

Martin faced round, flushed and wrathful. The butler went on unmoved: “Miss Elsa is going for a ride in the car today, sir.”

“I know that.”

“Uncommonly tricky things, these motorcars. I was saying so to Roberts, the chauffeur, just as soon as I ’eard Miss Elsa was going out with Mr. Barstowe. I said, ‘Roberts, these cars is tricky; break down when you’re twenty miles from hanywhere as soon as look at you. Roberts,’ I said, slipping him a sovereign, ‘ ’ow awful it would be if the car should break down twenty miles from hanywhere today!’ ”

Martin stared.

“You bribed Roberts to⁠—”

“Sir! I gave Roberts the sovereign because I am sorry for him. He is a poor man, and has a wife and family to support.”

“Very well,” said Martin, sternly; “I shall go and warn Miss Keith.”

“Warn her, sir!”

“I shall tell her that you have bribed Roberts to make the car break down so that⁠—”

Keggs shook his head.

“I fear she would hardly credit the statement, sir. She might even think that you was trying to keep her from going for your own pussonal ends.”

“I believe you are the devil,” said Martin.

“I ’ope you will come to look on me, sir,” said Keggs, unctuously, “as your good hangel.”

Martin shot abominably that day, and, coming home in the evening gloomy and savage, went straight to his room, and did not reappear till dinnertime. Elsa had been taken in by one of the moustache-tuggers. Martin found himself seated on her other side. It was so pleasant to be near her, and to feel that the bard was away at the other end of the table, that for the moment his spirits revived.

“Well, how did you like the ride?” he asked, with a smile. “Did you put that girdle round the world?”

She looked at him⁠—once. The next moment he had an uninterrupted view of her shoulder, and heard the sound of her voice as she prattled gaily to the man on her other side.

His heart gave a sudden bound. He understood now. The demon butler had had his wicked way. Good heavens! She had thought he was taunting her! He must explain at once. He⁠—

“Hock or sherry, sir?”

He looked up into Kegg’s expressionless eyes. The butler was wearing his on-duty mask. There was no sign of triumph in his face.

“Oh, sherry. I mean hock. No, sherry. Neither.”

This was awful. He must put this right.

“Elsa,” he said.

She was engrossed in her conversation with her neighbour.

From down the table in a sudden lull in the talk came the voice of Mr. Barstowe. He seemed to be in the middle of a narrative.

“Fortunately,” he was saying, “I had with me a volume of Shelley, and one of my own little efforts. I had read Miss Keith the whole of the latter and much of the former before the chauffeur announced that it was once more possible⁠—”

“Elsa,” said the wretched man, “I had no idea⁠—you don’t think⁠—”

She turned to him.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, very sweetly.

“I swear I didn’t know⁠—I mean, I’d forgotten⁠—I mean⁠—”

She wrinkled her forehead.

“I’m really afraid I don’t understand.”

“I mean, about the car breaking down.”

“The car? Oh, yes. Yes, it broke down. We were delayed quite a little while. Mr. Barstowe read me some of his poems. It was perfectly lovely. I was quite sorry when Roberts told us we could go on again. But do you really mean to tell me, Mr. Lambert, that you⁠—”

And once more the world became all shoulder.

When the men trailed into the presence of the ladies for that brief séance on which etiquette insisted before permitting the stampede to the billiard-room, Elsa was not to be seen.

“Elsa?” said Mrs. Keith in answer to Martin’s question. “She has gone to bed. The poor child has a headache. I am afraid she had a tiring day.”

There was an early start for the guns next morning, and as Elsa did not appear at breakfast Martin had to leave without seeing her. His shooting was even worse than it had been on the previous day.

It was not