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

“That is the football team of my old school. The lout with the sheepish smirk, holding the ball, is myself as I was before the cares of the world soured me.”

Her eye wandered along the mantelpiece, and she swooped down on a cabinet photograph of a girl.

“And who’s this, George?” she cried.

He took the photograph from her, and replaced it, with a curious blend of shyness and defiance, in the very centre of the mantelpiece. For a moment he stood looking intently at it, his elbows resting on the imitation marble.

“Who is it?” asked Peggy. “Wake up, George. Who’s this?”

Rutherford started.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking about something.”

“I bet you were. You looked like it. Well, who is she?”

“Eh! Oh, that’s a girl.”

Peggy laughed satirically.

“Thanks awf’lly, as you would say. I’ve got eyes, George.”

“I noticed that,” said Rutherford, smiling. “Charming ones, too.”

“Gee! What would she say if she heard you talking like that!”

She came a step nearer, looking up at him. Their eyes met.

“She would say,” said Rutherford, slowly: “ ‘I know you love me, and I know I can trust you, and I haven’t the slightest objection to your telling Miss Norton the truth about her eyes. Miss Norton is a dear, good little sort, one of the best, in fact, and I hope you’ll be great pals!’ ”

There was a silence.

“She’d say that, would she?” said Peggy, at last.

“She would.”

Peggy looked at the photograph, and back again at Rutherford.

“You’re pretty fond of her, George, I guess, aren’t you?”

“I am,” said Rutherford, quietly.

“George.”

“Yes?”

“George, she’s a pretty good long way away, isn’t she?”

She looked up at him with a curious light in her grey eyes. Rutherford met her glance steadily.

“Not to me,” he said. “She’s here now, and all the time.”

He stepped away and picked up the sheaf of papers which he had dropped at Peggy’s entrance. Peggy laughed.

“Good night, Georgie boy,” she said. “I mustn’t keep you up any more, or you’ll be late in the morning. And what would the bank do then? Smash or something, I guess. Good night, Georgie! See you again one of these old evenings.”

“Good night, Peggy!”

The door closed behind her. He heard her footsteps hesitate, stop, and then move quickly on once more.

He saw much of her after this first visit. Gradually it became an understood thing between them that she should look in on her return from the theatre. He grew to expect her, and to feel restless when she was late. Once she brought the cigarette-loving Gladys with her, but the experiment was not a success. Gladys was languid and rather overpoweringly refined, and conversation became forced. After that, Peggy came alone.

Generally she found him working. His industry amazed her.

“Gee, George,” she said one night, sitting in her favourite place on the table, from which he had moved a little pile of manuscript to make room for her. “Don’t you ever let up for a second? Seems to me you write all the time.”

Rutherford laughed.

“I’ll take a rest,” he said, “when there’s a bit more demand for my stuff than there is at present. When I’m in the twenty-cents-a-word class I’ll write once a month, and spend the rest of my time travelling.”

Peggy shook her head.

“No travelling for mine,” she said. “Seems to me it’s just cussedness that makes people go away from Broadway when they’ve got plunks enough to stay there and enjoy themselves.”

“Do you like Broadway, Peggy?”

“Do I like Broadway? Does a kid like candy? Why, don’t you?”

“It’s all right for the time. It’s not my ideal.”

“Oh, and what particular sort of little old Paradise do you hanker after?”

He puffed at his pipe, and looked dreamily at her through the smoke.

“Way over in England, Peggy, there’s a county called Worcestershire. And somewhere near the edge of that there’s a grey house with gables, and there’s a lawn and a meadow and a shrubbery, and an orchard and a rose-garden, and a big cedar on the terrace before you get to the rose-garden. And if you climb to the top of that cedar, you can see the river through the apple trees in the orchard. And in the distance there are hills. And⁠—”

“Of all the rube joints!” exclaimed Peggy, in deep disgust. “Why, a day of that would be about twenty-three hours and a bit too long for me. Broadway for mine! Put me where I can touch Forty-Second Street without overbalancing, and then you can leave me. I never thought you were such a hayseed, George.”

“Don’t worry, Peggy. It’ll be a long time, I expect, before I go there. I’ve got to make my fortune first.”

“Getting anywhere near the John D. class yet?”

“I’ve still some way to go. But things are moving, I think. Do you know, Peggy, you remind me of a little Billiken, sitting on that table?”

“Thank you, George. I always knew my mouth was rather wide, but I did think I had Billiken to the bad. Do you do that sort of Candid Friend stunt with her?” She pointed to the photograph on the mantelpiece. It was the first time since the night when they had met that she had made any allusion to it. By silent agreement the subject had been ruled out between them. “By the way, you never told me her name.”

“Halliday,” said Rutherford, shortly.

“What else?”

“Alice.”

“Don’t bite at me, George! I’m not hurting you. Tell me about her. I’m interested. Does she live in the grey house with the pigs and chickens and all them roses, and the rest of the rube outfit?”

“No.”

“Be chummy, George. What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m sorry, Peggy,” he said. “I’m a fool. It’s only that it all seems so damned hopeless! Here am I, earning about half a dollar a year, and⁠—Still, it’s no use kicking, is it? Besides, I may make a home run with my writing one of these days. That’s what I meant when I said you were a Billiken, Peggy. Do you know, you’ve brought me luck.