A Damsel in Distress - P. G. Wodehouse (best books to read for young adults .TXT) 📗

night was shattered by the noise of their engines. Maud sat down again.

“I suppose they will think it very odd of me not being there.”

“Never mind what people think. Reggie Byng didn’t.”

Maud’s foot traced circles on the dry turf.

“What a lovely night,” she said. “There’s no dew at all.”

The automobiles snorted, tooted, backfired, and passed away. Their clamour died in the distance, leaving the night a thing of peace and magic once more. The door of the castle closed with a bang.

“I suppose I ought to be going in now,” said Maud.

“I suppose so. And I ought to be there, too, politely making my farewells. But something seems to tell me that Lady Caroline and your brother will be quite ready to dispense with the formalities. I shall go home.”

They faced each other in the darkness.

“Would you really do that?” asked Maud. “Run away, I mean, and get married in London.”

“It’s the only thing to do.”

“But⁠ ⁠… can one get married as quickly as that?”

“At a registrar’s? Nothing simpler. You should have seen Reggie Byng’s wedding. It was over before one realized it had started. A snuffy little man in a black coat with a cold in his head asked a few questions, wrote a few words, and the thing was done.”

“That sounds rather⁠ ⁠… dreadful.”

“Reggie didn’t seem to think so.”

“Unromantic, I mean.⁠ ⁠… Prosaic.”

“You would supply the romance.”

“Of course, one ought to be sensible. It is just the same as a regular wedding.”

“In effects, absolutely.”

They moved up the terrace together. On the gravel drive by the steps they paused.

“I’ll do it!” said Maud.

George had to make an effort before he could reply. For all his sane and convincing arguments, he could not check a pang at this definite acceptance of them. He had begun to appreciate now the strain under which he had been speaking.

“You must,” he said. “Well⁠ ⁠… goodbye.”

There was light on the drive. He could see her face. Her eyes were troubled.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“Do?”

“I mean, are you going to stay on in your cottage?”

“No, I hardly think I could do that. I shall go back to London tomorrow, and stay at the Carlton for a few days. Then I shall sail for America. There are a couple of pieces I’ve got to do for the Fall. I ought to be starting on them.”

Maud looked away.

“You’ve got your work,” she said almost inaudibly.

George understood her.

“Yes, I’ve got my work.”

“I’m glad.”

She held out her hand.

“You’ve been very wonderful⁠ ⁠… Right from the beginning⁠ ⁠… You’ve been⁠ ⁠… oh, what’s the use of me saying anything?”

“I’ve had my reward. I’ve known you. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“My best friend.”

“Pals?”

“Pals!”

They shook hands.

XXV

“I was never so upset in my life!” said Lady Caroline.

She had been saying the same thing and many other things for the past five minutes. Until the departure of the last guest she had kept an icy command of herself and shown an unruffled front to the world. She had even contrived to smile. But now, with the final automobile whirring homewards, she had thrown off the mask. The very furniture of Lord Marshmoreton’s study seemed to shrink, seared by the flame of her wrath. As for Lord Marshmoreton himself, he looked quite shrivelled.

It had not been an easy matter to bring her erring brother to bay. The hunt had been in progress full ten minutes before she and Lord Belpher finally cornered the poor wretch. His plea, through the keyhole of the locked door, that he was working on the family history and could not be disturbed, was ignored; and now he was face to face with the avengers.

“I cannot understand it,” continued Lady Caroline. “You know that for months we have all been straining every nerve to break off this horrible entanglement, and, just as we had begun to hope that something might be done, you announce the engagement in the most public manner. I think you must be out of your mind. I can hardly believe even now that this appalling thing has happened. I am hoping that I shall wake up and find it is all a nightmare. How you can have done such a thing, I cannot understand.”

“Quite!” said Lord Belpher.

If Lady Caroline was upset, there are no words in the language that will adequately describe the emotions of Percy.

From the very start of this lamentable episode in high life, Percy had been in the forefront of the battle. It was Percy who had had his best hat smitten from his head in the full view of all Piccadilly. It was Percy who had suffered arrest and imprisonment in the cause. It was Percy who had been crippled for days owing to his zeal in tracking Maud across country. And now all his sufferings were in vain. He had been betrayed by his own father.

There was, so the historians of the Middle West tell us, a man of Chicago named Young, who once, when his nerves were unstrung, put his mother (unseen) in the chopping-machine, and canned her and labelled her “Tongue.” It is enough to say that the glance of disapproval which Percy cast upon his father at this juncture would have been unduly severe if cast by the Young offspring upon their parent at the moment of confession.

Lord Marshmoreton had rallied from his initial panic. The spirit of revolt began to burn again in his bosom. Once the die is cast for revolution, there can be no looking back. One must defy, not apologize. Perhaps the inherited tendencies of a line of ancestors who, whatever their shortcomings, had at least known how to treat their women folk, came to his aid. Possibly there stood by his side in this crisis ghosts of dead and buried Marshmoretons, whispering spectral encouragement in his ear⁠—the ghosts, let us suppose, of that earl who, in the days of the seventh Henry, had stabbed his wife with a dagger to cure her tendency to lecture him at night; or of that other earl who, at