The Missing Angel - Erle Cox (whitelam books .TXT) 📗

extracted the Bill Tydvil

signed three months earlier. “Just this, my friend,” he said. “You have

asked me to reduce Mrs. Jones’s flow of talk to one-sixteenth of its

present volume. What you apparently do not know it, that neither her

Creator, nor I nor man can by any power or persuasion reduce the flow of

any woman’s talk by one word or one syllable against her will.”

 

“You mean…?” Tydvil stared at him incredulous.

 

“I have failed in my last service to you—and believe me, Tydvil, it is

the one I would most gladly perform if I could.

 

“So that…” He nodded at the Bill in Nicholas’s hand.

 

“This is null and void.” Nicholas was rereading his endorsement.

 

“It seems so simple though.” Tydvil’s voice was full of wonder.

 

“So simple—yet the only thing in the Universe that is impossible.”

 

“I just can’t understand,” said Tydvil.

 

“Listen, my friend. When the Creator first formed woman, and the work was

completed, it was discovered, too late, that one of the assisting angels

had omitted to adjust the brake on her tongue. The mistake was

irreparable, and beyond even the power of the Creator to remedy.”

 

“And mankind has suffered for it ever since,” sighed Tydvil.

 

Nicholas nodded. “But the wrath of the Creator was so great that he

ordered a terrible punishment to the erring’ angel. He decreed that so

long as mankind lived on earth, that angel should take human form, to be

reincarnated through all time, and in each incarnation to be a married

man.”

 

“What a fearful fate,” murmured Tydvil, sympathetically.

 

Nicholas nodded his agreement. “But the worst part of the punishment was

that through all his reincarnation he would know himself to be the

missing angel and to realise the paradise he had lost.”

 

“But can’t he tell his wife he is the angel?” asked Tydvil.

 

“To guard against that, the Creator ordained that throughout time, every

married man should always believe himself to be a missing angel. So, as

all men try to persuade their wives they are angels, the real angel’s

wife always regards him as being like the rest of them, and no better

than them.”

 

“Terrible,” murmured Tydvil, “why, I might be—I’m sure lam…”

 

“So are all the rest,” Nicholas said, holding out the Bill to Tydvil.

 

“Au revoir, my friend.”

 

Tydvil reached out to take the Bill. As he did so there was a crash and a

blinding flash of light. The window and the glass walls of Tydvil’s

office clashed down in clang of broken glass. Tydvil was flung to the

floor beside his splintered writing table. One sleeve was almost torn out

of his coat. As the smoke cleared he recovered his shocked senses.

 

Geraldine, Amy and Billy, turned and rushed to the shattered walls.

Staring through, they beheld a dishevelled Tydvil sitting on the ruins of

his chair, by the remains of his table. He still held his smoking cigar

in the corner of his mouth, and he was turning over, with evident

interest, a scorched piece of paper he held in his hand.

 

It was Amy who first found her voice. “Tydvil!” she exclaimed

dramatically, “this is a visitation of heaven.”

 

“Fat lot you know!” came the rude and truculent answer from a belligerent

Tydvil.

 

“Are you hurt?” asked Geraldine anxiously.

 

Tydvil regarded the three with interest. “Come in here the three of you,

and don’t stand gaping there.” Then, to the white-faced crowd of

employees who had rushed to the scene, “Clear out, you people,” he

shouted. “There’s nothing wrong—only a flash of lightning.”

 

Putting her hand through the broken pane, Geraldine opened the shattered

door and the three joined Tydvil as he scrambled to his feet.

 

“I hope, if there is any decency left in you, Tydvil,” Amy took the

floor, “that this will be a terrible warning to you.”

 

Disregarding her words entirely, he surveyed the three; then he fixed his

eyes on Amy. “You two,” he said with a glance at Geraldine and Billy,

“know as much of my affairs as I do—nearly. So I don’t mind your hearing

what I am going to say.” Then, to Amy, “I’m absolutely fed up of you and

all your works. Now, here’s my only offer. Either you give me a judicial

separation or I’ll sue for divorce, and, by Jove, I’ll get it!”

 

“You! You divorce me?” Amy gasped.

 

Tydvil stepped close to her, bent his head and murmured some words in her

ear.

 

Amy paled and stepped back with terror in her eyes. “Well!” he snapped.

“Separation or Divorce?”

 

“I will have to submit to your cruelty,” Amy stammered. “Then get out of

this and wait at home till you hear from me.”

 

With one savage glance at Geraldine, Amy turned and walked out of the

room.

 

“What on earth was the row about?” demanded Geraldine. “Where’s Mr.

Senior?”

 

“Thanks to you,” Tydvil held out the note on which the word “Cancelled”

appeared in scorched letters.

 

Her eyes lit up. “It worked?”

 

“It did,” agreed Tydvil looking round the wrecked room.

 

“What worked?” asked the bewildered Billy.

 

“Best not tell him, Geraldine,” grinned Tydvil, “the news would scare him

too much.”

 

“She’s scared me enough already this morning,” growled Billy. “So I won’t

ask any more questions.”

 

Tydvil looked to Geraldine for enlightenment, and Geraldine told her

story.

 

“You mean to tell me that you put that on to poor Billy? You ought to

spank her,” laughed Tydvil.

 

“She deserves it, but she has me scared, Chief,” grinned Billy. “I’d

never know what she’d do next.”

 

“Oh! by the way,” Tydvil said, “I forgot to tell you. You’re both sacked.”

 

“Chief!” expostulated Billy.

 

“What gratitude.” Geraldine laughed. “I’ve saved your body from Amy and

your soul from your friend—and you sack me…”

 

“Billy,” Tydvil commanded, “take that woman some where and marry her as

soon as you can. She’s not safe to be left lying about loose…”

 

“You’re not as cracked as I thought you were,” retorted Billy

audaciously.

 

“I hope I’m not,” Tydvil went on, “because I’m off to Europe for a

holiday next month, and you, Billy, are going to manage C. B. & D. in my

place…”

 

And now, gentle reader, should you be a woman and married, I have written

this story to tell you why you should be patient and gentle with him.

Because he really believes he is an angel—that is his fate. And besides,

he really might be. You never know your luck, and that missing angel is

somewhere in the world.