The Man Upstairs and Other Stories, P. G. Wodehouse [novels in english TXT] 📗

pleasant spot, the vestibule of the Carlton Hotel. Glare—glitter—distant music—fair women—brave men. But one can have too much of it, and as the moments pass, and she does not arrive, a chill seems to creep into the atmosphere. We wait on, hoping against hope, and at last, just as waiters and commissionaires are beginning to eye us with suspicion, we face the truth. She is not coming. Then out we crawl into cold, callous Pall Mall, and so home. You have been through it, dear reader, and so have I.

And so, at eleven forty-five that evening, had Rollo. For a full three-quarters of an hour he waited, scanning the face of each new arrival with the anxious scrutiny of a lost dog seeking its master; but at fourteen minutes to twelve the last faint flicker of hope had died away. A girl may be a quarter of an hour late for supper. She may be half an hour late. But there is a limit, and to Rollo's mind forty-five minutes passed it. At ten minutes to twelve a uniformed official outside the Carlton signalled to a taxi-cab, and there entered it a young man whose faith in Woman was dead.

Rollo meditated bitterly as he drove home. It was not so much the fact that she had not come that stirred him. Many things may keep a girl from supper. It was the calm way in which she had ignored the invitation. When you send a girl three bouquets, a bracelet, and a gold Billiken with ruby eyes, you do not expect an entire absence of recognition. Even a penny-in-the-slot machine treats you better than that. It may give you hairpins when you want matches but at least it takes some notice of you.

He was still deep in gloomy thought when he inserted his latchkey and opened the door of his flat.

He was roused from his reflections by a laugh from the sitting-room. He started. It was a pleasant laugh, and musical, but it sent Rollo diving, outraged, for the handle of the door. What was a woman doing in his sitting-room at this hour? Was his flat an hotel?

The advent of an unbidden guest rarely fails to produce a certain gene. The sudden appearance of Rollo caused a dead silence.

It was broken by the fall of a chair on the carpet as Wilson rose hurriedly to his feet.

Rollo stood in the doorway, an impressive statue of restrained indignation. He could see the outlying portions of a girl in blue at the further end of the table, but Wilson obscured his vision.

'Didn't expect you back, sir,' said Wilson.

For the first time in the history of their acquaintance his accustomed calm seemed somewhat ruffled.

'So I should think,' said Rollo. 'I believe you, by George!'

'You had better explain, Jim,' said a dispassionate voice from the end of the table.

Wilson stepped aside.

'My wife, sir,' he said, apologetically, but with pride.

'Your wife!'

'We were married this morning, sir.'

The lady nodded cheerfully at Rollo. She was small and slight, with an impudent nose and a mass of brown hair.

'Awfully glad to meet you,' she said, cracking a walnut.

Rollo gaped.

She looked at him again.

'We've met, haven't we? Oh yes, I remember. We met at lunch once. And you sent me some flowers. It was ever so kind of you,' she said, beaming.

She cracked another nut. She seemed to consider that the introductions were complete and that formality could now be dispensed with once more. She appeared at peace with all men.

The situation was slipping from Rollo's grip. He continued to gape.

Then he remembered his grievance.

'I think you might have let me know you weren't coming to supper.'

'Supper?'

'I sent a note to the theatre this afternoon.'

'I haven't been to the theatre today. They let me off because I was going to be married. I'm so sorry. I hope you didn't wait long.'

Rollo's resentment melted before the friendliness of her smile.

'Hardly any time,' he said, untruthfully.

'If I might explain, sir,' said Wilson.

'By George! If you can, you'll save me from a brainstorm. Cut loose, and don't be afraid you'll bore me. You won't.'

'Mrs Wilson and I are old friends, sir. We come from the same town. In fact—'

Rollo's face cleared.

'By George! Market what's-its-name! Why, of course. Then she—'

'Just so, sir. If you recollect, you asked me once if I had ever been in love, and I replied in the affirmative.'

'And it was—'

'Mrs Wilson and I were engaged to be married before either of us came to London. There was a misunderstanding, which was entirely my—'

'Jim! It was mine.'

'No, it was all through my being a fool.'

'It was not. You know it wasn't!'

Rollo intervened.

'Well?'

'And when you sent me with the flowers, sir—well, we talked it over again, and—that was how it came about, sir.'

The bride looked up from her walnuts.

'You aren't angry?' she smiled up at Rollo.

'Angry?' He reflected. Of course, it was only reasonable that he should be a little—well, not exactly angry, but—And then for the first time it came to him that the situation was not entirely without its compensations. Until that moment he had completely forgotten Mr Galloway.

'Angry?' he said. 'Great Scott, no! Jolly glad I came back in time to get a bit of the wedding-breakfast. I want it, I can tell you. I'm hungry. Here we all are, eh? Let's enjoy ourselves. Wilson, old scout, bustle about and give us your imitation of a bridegroom mixing a "B. and S." for the best man. Mrs Wilson, if you'll look in at the theatre tomorrow you'll find one or two small wedding presents waiting for you. Three bouquets—they'll be a bit withered, I'm afraid—a bracelet, and a gold Billiken with ruby eyes. I hope he'll bring you luck. Oh, Wilson!'

'Sir?'

'Touching this little business—don't answer if it's a delicate question, but I should like to know—I suppose you didn't try the schedule. What? More the Market Thingummy method, eh? The one you described to me?'

'Market Bumpstead, sir?' said Wilson. 'On those lines.'

Rollo nodded thoughtfully.

'It seems to me,' he said, 'they know a thing or two down in Market Bumpstead.'

'A very rising little place, sir,' assented Wilson.

SIR AGRAVAINE

A TALE OF KING ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE

SOME time ago, when spending a delightful week-end at the ancestral castle of my dear old friend, the Duke of Weatherstonhope (pronounced Wop), I came across an old black-letter MS. It is on this that the story which follows is based.

I have found it necessary to touch the thing up a little here and there, for writers in those days were weak in construction. Their idea of telling a story was to take a long breath and start droning away without any stops or dialogue till the thing was over.

I have also condensed the title. In the original it ran, '"How it came about that ye good Knight Sir Agravaine ye Dolorous of ye Table Round did fare forth to succour a damsel in distress and after divers journeyings and perils by flood and by field did win her for his bride and right happily did they twain live ever afterwards," by Ambrose ye monk.'

It was a pretty snappy title for those days, but we have such a high standard in titles nowadays that I have felt compelled to omit a few yards of it.

We may now proceed to the story.

 

The great tournament was in full swing. All through the afternoon boiler-plated knights on mettlesome chargers had hurled themselves on each other's spears, to the vast contentment of all. Bright eyes shone; handkerchiefs fluttered; musical voices urged chosen champions to knock the cover off their brawny adversaries. The cheap seats had long since become hoarse with emotion. All round the arena rose the cries of itinerant merchants: 'Iced malvoisie,' 'Score-cards; ye cannot tell the jousters without a score-card.' All was revelry and excitement.

A hush fell on the throng. From either end of the arena a mounted knight in armour had entered.

The herald raised his hand.

'Ladeez'n gemmen! Battling Galahad and Agravaine the Dolorous. Galahad on my right, Agravaine on my left. Squires out of the ring. Time!'

A speculator among the crowd offered six to one on Galahad, but found no takers. Nor was the public's caution without reason.

A moment later the two had met in a cloud of dust, and Agravaine, shooting over his horse's crupper, had fallen with a metallic clang.

He picked himself up, and limped slowly from the arena. He was not unused to this sort of thing. Indeed, nothing else had happened to him in his whole jousting career.

The truth was that Sir Agravaine the Dolorous was out of his element at King Arthur's court, and he knew it. It was this knowledge that had given him that settled air of melancholy from which he derived his title.

Until I came upon this black-letter MS. I had been under the impression, like, I presume, everybody else, that every Knight of the Round Table was a model of physical strength and beauty. Malory says nothing to suggest the contrary. Nor does Tennyson. But apparently there were exceptions, of whom Sir Agravaine the Dolorous must have been the chief.

There was, it seems, nothing to mitigate this unfortunate man's physical deficiencies. There is a place in the world for the strong, ugly man, and there is a place for the weak, handsome man. But to fall short both in features and in muscle is to stake your all on brain. And in the days of King Arthur you did not find the populace turning out to do homage to brain. It was a drug on the market. Agravaine was a good deal better equipped than his contemporaries with grey matter, but his height in his socks was but five feet four; and his muscles, though he had taken three correspondence courses in physical culture, remained distressingly flaccid. His eyes were pale and mild, his nose snub, and his chin receded sharply from his lower lip, as if Nature, designing him, had had to leave off in a hurry and finish the job anyhow. The upper teeth, protruding, completed the resemblance to a nervous rabbit.

Handicapped in this manner, it is no wonder that he should feel sad and lonely in King Arthur's court. At heart he ached for romance; but romance passed him by. The ladies of the court ignored his existence, while, as for those wandering damsels who came periodically to Camelot to complain of the behaviour of dragons, giants, and the like, and to ask permission of the king to take a knight back with them to fight their cause (just as, nowadays, one goes out and calls a policeman), he simply had no chance. The choice always fell on Lancelot or some other popular favourite.

 

The tournament was followed by a feast. In those brave days almost everything was followed by a feast. The scene was gay and animated. Fair ladies, brave knights, churls, varlets, squires, scurvy knaves, men-at-arms, malapert rogues—all were merry. All save Agravaine. He sat silent and moody. To the jests of Dagonet he turned a deaf ear. And when his neighbour, Sir Kay, arguing with Sir Percivale on current form, appealed to him to back up his statement that Sir Gawain, though a workman-like middle-weight, lacked the punch, he did not answer, though the subject was one on which he held strong views. He sat on, brooding.

As he sat there, a man-at-arms entered the hall.

'Your majesty,' he cried, 'a damsel in distress waits without.'

There was a murmur of excitement and interest.

'Show her in,' said the king, beaming.

The man-at-arms retired. Around the table the knights were struggling into an upright position in their seats and twirling their moustaches. Agravaine alone made no movement. He had been through this sort of thing so often. What were distressed damsels to him? His whole demeanour said, as plainly as if he had spoken the words, 'What's the use?'

The crowd at the door parted, and through the opening came a figure at the sight of whom the expectant faces of the knights turned pale with consternation. For the new-comer was quite the plainest girl those stately halls had ever seen. Possibly the only plain girl they had ever seen, for no instance is recorded in our authorities of the existence at that period of any such.

The knights gazed at her blankly. Those were the grand old days of chivalry, when a thousand swords would leap from their scabbards to protect defenceless woman, if she were beautiful. The present seemed something in the nature of a special case, and nobody was quite certain as to the correct procedure.

An awkward silence was broken by the king.

'Er—yes?' he said.

The damsel halted.

'Your majesty,' she cried, 'I am in distress. I crave help!'

'Just so,' said the king, uneasily, flashing an apprehensive glance at the rows of perturbed faces before him. 'Just so. What—er—what is the