Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (300 page)

I thought he had gone dotty.

“What’s it got to do with you?” I says.

“If old Wotherspoon is in a good humour,” he continues, “and the constable’s head has gone down a bit between now and Wednesday, I may get off with forty shillings and a public reprimand.

“On the other hand,” he goes on — he was working himself into a sort of fit—”if the constable’s head goes on swelling, and old Wotherspoon’s liver gets worse, I’ve got to be prepared for a month without the option. That is, if I am fool enough—”

He had left both the doors open, which in the daytime we generally do, our chambers being at the top. Miss Dorton — that’s Mr. Parable’s secretary — barges into the room. She didn’t seem to notice me. She staggers to a chair and bursts into tears.

“He’s gone,” she says; “he’s taken cook with him and gone.”

“Gone!” says the guv’nor. “Where’s he gone?”

“To Fingest,” she says through her sobs—”to the cottage. Miss Bulstrode came in just after you had left,” she says. “He wants to get away from everyone and have a few days’ quiet. And then he is coming back, and he is going to do it himself.”

“Do what?” says the guv’nor, irritable like.

“Fourteen days,” she wails. “It’ll kill him.”

“But the case doesn’t come on till Wednesday,” says the guv’nor. “How do you know it’s going to be fourteen days?”

“Miss Bulstrode,” she says, “she’s seen the magistrate. He says he always gives fourteen days in cases of unprovoked assault.”

“But it wasn’t unprovoked,” says the guv’nor. “The other man began it by knocking off his hat. It was self-defence.”

“She put that to him,” she says, “and he agreed that that would alter his view of the case. But, you see,” she continues, “we can’t find the other man. He isn’t likely to come forward of his own accord.”

“The girl must know,” says the guv’nor—”this girl he picks up in St. James’s Park, and goes dancing with. The man must have been some friend of hers.”

“But we can’t find her either,” she says. “He doesn’t even know her name — he can’t remember it.”

“You will do it, won’t you?” she says.

“Do what?” says the guv’nor again.

“The fourteen days,” she says.

“But I thought you said he was going to do it himself?” he says.

“But he mustn’t,” she says. “Miss Bulstrode is coming round to see you. Think of it! Think of the headlines in the papers,” she says. “Think of the Fabian Society. Think of the Suffrage cause. We mustn’t let him.”

“What about me?” says the guv’nor. “Doesn’t anybody care for me?”

“You don’t matter,” she says. “Besides,” she says, “with your influence you’ll be able to keep it out of the papers. If it comes out that it was Mr. Parable, nothing on earth will be able to.”

The guv’nor was almost as much excited by this time as she was.

“I’ll see the Fabian Society and the Women’s Vote and the Home for Lost Cats at Battersea, and all the rest of the blessed bag of tricks—”

I’d been thinking to myself, and had just worked it out.

“What’s he want to take his cook down with him for?” I says.

“To cook for him,” says the guv’nor. “What d’you generally want a cook for?”

“Rats!” I says. “Does he usually take his cook with him?”

“No,” answered Miss Dorton. “Now I come to think of it, he has always hitherto put up with Mrs. Meadows.”

“You will find the lady down at Fingest,” I says, “sitting opposite him and enjoying a recherche dinner for two.”

The guv’nor slaps me on the back, and lifts Miss Dorton out of her chair.

“You get on back,” he says, “and telephone to Miss Bulstrode. I’ll be round at half-past twelve.”

Miss Dorton went out in a dazed sort of condition, and the guv’nor gives me a sovereign, and tells me I can have the rest of the day to myself.

Mr. Condor, Junior, considers that what happened subsequently goes to prove that he was right more than it proves that he was wrong.

Mr. Condor, Junior, also promised to send us a photograph of himself for reproduction, but, unfortunately, up to the time of going to press it had not arrived.

From Mrs. Meadows, widow of the late Corporal John Meadows, V.C., Turberville, Bucks, the following further particulars were obtained by our local representative:

I have done for Mr. Parable now for some years past, my cottage being only a mile off, which makes it easy for me to look after him.

Mr. Parable likes the place to be always ready so that he can drop in when he chooses, he sometimes giving me warning and sometimes not. It was about the end of last month — on a Friday, if I remember rightly — that he suddenly turned up.

As a rule, he walks from Henley station, but on this occasion he arrived in a fly, he having a young woman with him, and she having a bag — his cook, as he explained to me. As a rule, I do everything for Mr. Parable, sleeping in the cottage when he is there; but to tell the truth, I was glad to see her. I never was much of a cook myself, as my poor dead husband has remarked on more than one occasion, and I don’t pretend to be. Mr. Parable added, apologetic like, that he had been suffering lately from indigestion.

“I am only too pleased to see her,” I says. “There are the two beds in my room, and we shan’t quarrel.” She was quite a sensible young woman, as I had judged from the first look at her, though suffering at the time from a cold. She hires a bicycle from Emma Tidd, who only uses it on a Sunday, and, taking a market basket, off she starts for Henley, Mr. Parable saying he would go with her to show her the way.

They were gone a goodish time, which, seeing it’s eight miles, didn’t so much surprise me; and when they got back we all three had dinner together, Mr. Parable arguing that it made for what he called “labour saving.” Afterwards I cleared away, leaving them talking together; and later on they had a walk round the garden, it being a moonlight night, but a bit too cold for my fancy.

In the morning I had a chat with her before he was down. She seemed a bit worried.

“I hope people won’t get talking,” she says. “He would insist on my coming.”

“Well,” I says, “surely a gent can bring his cook along with him to cook for him. And as for people talking, what I always say is, one may just as well give them something to talk about and save them the trouble of making it up.”

“If only I was a plain, middle-aged woman,” she says, “it would be all right.”

“Perhaps you will be, all in good time,” I says, but, of course, I could see what she was driving at. A nice, clean, pleasant-faced young woman she was, and not of the ordinary class. “Meanwhile,” I says, “if you don’t mind taking a bit of motherly advice, you might remember that your place is the kitchen, and his the parlour. He’s a dear good man, I know, but human nature is human nature, and it’s no good pretending it isn’t.”

She and I had our breakfast together before he was up, so that when he came down he had to have his alone, but afterwards she comes into the kitchen and closes the door.

“He wants to show me the way to High Wycombe,” she says. “He will have it there are better shops at Wycombe. What ought I to do?”

My experience is that advising folks to do what they don’t want to do isn’t the way to do it.

“What d’you think yourself?” I asked her.

“I feel like going with him,” she says, “and making the most of every mile.”

And then she began to cry.

“What’s the harm!” she says. “I have heard him from a dozen platforms ridiculing class distinctions. Besides,” she says, “my people have been farmers for generations. What was Miss Bulstrode’s father but a grocer? He ran a hundred shops instead of one. What difference does that make?”

“When did it all begin?” I says. “When did he first take notice of you like?”

“The day before yesterday,” she answers. “He had never seen me before,” she says. “I was just ‘Cook’ — something in a cap and apron that he passed occasionally on the stairs. On Thursday he saw me in my best clothes, and fell in love with me. He doesn’t know it himself, poor dear, not yet, but that’s what he’s done.”

Well, I couldn’t contradict her, not after the way I had seen him looking at her across the table.

“What are your feelings towards him,” I says, “to be quite honest? He’s rather a good catch for a young person in your position.”

“That’s my trouble,” she says. “I can’t help thinking of that. And then to be ‘Mrs. John Parable’! That’s enough to turn a woman’s head.”

“He’d be a bit difficult to live with,” I says.

“Geniuses always are,” she says; “it’s easy enough if you just think of them as children. He’d be a bit fractious at times, that’s all. Underneath, he’s just the kindest, dearest—”

“Oh, you take your basket and go to High Wycombe,” I says. “He might do worse.”

I wasn’t expecting them back soon, and they didn’t come back soon. In the afternoon a motor stops at the gate, and out of it steps Miss Bulstrode, Miss Dorton — that’s the young lady that writes for him — and Mr. Quincey. I told them I couldn’t say when he’d be back, and they said it didn’t matter, they just happening to be passing.

“Did anybody call on him yesterday?” asks Miss Bulstrode, careless like—”a lady?”

“No,” I says; “you are the first as yet.”

“He’s brought his cook down with him, hasn’t he?” says Mr. Quincey.

“Yes,” I says, “and a very good cook too,” which was the truth.

“I’d like just to speak a few words with her,” says Miss Bulstrode.

“Sorry, m’am,” I says, “but she’s out at present; she’s gone to Wycombe.”

“Gone to Wycombe!” they all says together.

“To market,” I says. “It’s a little farther, but, of course, it stands to reason the shops there are better.”

They looked at one another.

“That settles it,” says Mr. Quincey. “Delicacies worthy to be set before her not available nearer than Wycombe, but must be had. There’s going to be a pleasant little dinner here to-night.”

“The hussy!” says Miss Bulstrode, under her breath.

They whispered together for a moment, then they turns to me.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Meadows,” says Mr. Quincey. “You needn’t say we called. He wanted to be alone, and it might vex him.”

I said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. They climbed back into the motor and went off.

Before dinner I had call to go into the woodshed. I heard a scuttling as I opened the door. If I am not mistaken, Miss Dorton was hiding in the corner where we keep the coke. I didn’t see any good in making a fuss, so I left her there. When I got back to the kitchen, cook asked me if we’d got any parsley.

“You’ll find a bit in the front,” I says, “to the left of the gate,” and she went out. She came back looking scared.

“Anybody keep goats round here?” she asked me.

“Not that I know of, nearer than Ibstone Common,” I says.

“I could have sworn I saw a goat’s face looking at me out of the gooseberry bushes while I was picking the parsley,” she says. “It had a beard.”

“It’s the half light,” I says. “One can imagine anything.”

“I do hope I’m not getting nervy,” she says.

I thought I’d have another look round, and made the excuse that I wanted a pail of water. I was stooping over the well, which is just under the mulberry tree, when something fell close to me and lodged upon the bricks. It was a hairpin. I fixed the cover carefully upon the well in case of accident, and when I got in I went round myself and was careful to see that all the curtains were drawn.

Just before we three sat down to dinner again I took cook aside.

“I shouldn’t go for any stroll in the garden to-night,” I says. “People from the village may be about, and we don’t want them gossiping.” And she thanked me.

Next night they were there again. I thought I wouldn’t spoil the dinner, but mention it afterwards. I saw to it again that the curtains were drawn, and slipped the catch of both the doors. And just as well that I did.

I had always heard that Mr. Parable was an amusing speaker, but on previous visits had not myself noticed it. But this time he seemed ten years younger than I had ever known him before; and during dinner, while we were talking and laughing quite merry like, I had the feeling more than once that people were meandering about outside. I had just finished clearing away, and cook was making the coffee, when there came a knock at the door.

“Who’s that?” says Mr. Parable. “I am not at home to anyone.”

“I’ll see,” I says. And on my way I slipped into the kitchen.

“Coffee for one, cook,” I says, and she understood. Her cap and apron were hanging behind the door. I flung them across to her, and she caught them; and then I opened the front door.

They pushed past me without speaking, and went straight into the parlour. And they didn’t waste many words on him either.

“Where is she?” asked Miss Bulstrode.

“Where’s who?” says Mr. Parable.

“Don’t lie about it,” said Miss Bulstrode, making no effort to control herself. “The hussy you’ve been dining with?”

“Do you mean Mrs. Meadows?” says Mr. Parable.

I thought she was going to shake him.

“Where have you hidden her?” she says.

It was at that moment cook entered with the coffee.

If they had taken the trouble to look at her they might have had an idea. The tray was trembling in her hands, and in her haste and excitement she had put on her cap the wrong way round. But she kept control of her voice, and asked if she should bring some more coffee.

“Ah, yes! You’d all like some coffee, wouldn’t you?” says Mr. Parable. Miss Bulstrode did not reply, but Mr. Quincey said he was cold and would like it. It was a nasty night, with a thin rain.

“Thank you, sir,” says cook, and we went out together.

Cottages are only cottages, and if people in the parlour persist in talking loudly, people in the kitchen can’t very well help overhearing.

There was a good deal of talk about “fourteen days,” which Mr. Parable said he was going to do himself, and which Miss Dorton said he mustn’t, because, if he did, it would be a victory for the enemies of humanity. Mr. Parable said something about “humanity,” which I didn’t rightly hear, but, whatever it was, it started Miss Dorton crying; and Miss Bulstrode called Mr. Parable a “blind Samson,” who had had his hair cut by a designing minx who had been hired to do it.