The Gem Collector, P. G. Wodehouse [best english novels to read .TXT] 📗

"Corven" in large letters showed that they had reached their destination.

"Here we are," said Spennie. "Hop out. Now what's the betting that there isn't room for all of us in the bubble?"

From farther down the train a lady and gentleman emerged.

"That's the man. Is that your uncle?" said Jimmy.

"Guilty," said Spennie gloomily. "I suppose we'd better go and tackle them. Come on."

They walked up the platform to where Sir Thomas stood smoking a meditative cigar and watching in a dispassionate way the efforts of his wife to bully the solitary porter attached to the station into a frenzy. Sir Thomas was a very tall, very thin man, with cold eyes, and tight, thin lips. His clothes fitted him in the way clothes do fit one man in a thousand. They were the best part of him. His general appearance gave one the idea that his meals did him little good, and his meditations rather less. His conversation—of which there was not a great deal—was designed for the most part to sting. Many years' patient and painstaking sowing of his wild oats had left him at fifty-six with few pleasures; but among those that remained he ranked high the discomfiting of his neighbors.

"This is my friend Pitt, uncle," said Spennie, presenting Jimmy with a motion of the hand.

Sir Thomas extended three fingers. Jimmy extended two, and the handshake was not a success.

At this point in the interview, Spike came up, chuckling amiably, with a magazine in his hand.

"P'Chee!" said Spike. "Say, Mr. Chames, de mug what wrote dis piece must ha' bin livin' out in de woods for fair. His stunt ain't writin', sure. Say, dere's a gazebo what wants to get busy wit' de heroine's jools what's locked in de drawer in de dressin' room. So dis mug, what do youse t'ink he does? Why——"

"Another friend of yours, Spennie?" inquired Sir Thomas politely, eying the red-haired speaker with interest.

"It's——"

He looked appealingly at Jimmy.

"It's only my man," said Jimmy. "Spike," he added in an undertone, "to the woods. Chase yourself. It's not up to you to do stunts on this beat. Fade away."

"Sure," said the abashed Spike, restored to a sense of his position. "Dat's right. I've got wheels in me coco, that's what I've got, comin' buttin' in here. Sorry, Mr. Chames. Sorry, gents. Me for the tall grass."

He trotted away.

"Your man seems to have a pretty taste in literature," said Sir Thomas to Jimmy. "Well, my dear, finished your chat with the porter?"

Lady Blunt had come up, flushed and triumphant, having left the solitary porter a demoralized wreck.

"I'm through," she announced crisply. "Well, Spencer? How are you?
Who's this? Don't stand gaping, child. Who's your friend?"

Spennie explained with some incoherence that his name was Pitt. His uncle had shaken him; the arrival of his aunt seemed to unnerve him completely.

"Pleased to meet you," snapped Lady Blunt. "Spencer, where are your trunks? Left them behind, I suppose? No? Well, that's a surprise. Tell that porter to look after them. If you have any trouble with him, mention it to me. I'll make him jump around. Where's the automobile? Outside? Where? Take me to it."

Lady Blunt, when conversing, resembled a Maxim gun more than anything else in the world.

"I'm afraid," said Spennie in an abject manner, as they left the station, "that it will be rather a bit of a frightful squash—what I mean to say is, I hardly think we shall all find room in the auto. I see they have only sent the small one."

Lady Blunt stopped short, and fixed him with a glittering eye.

"I know what it is, Spencer," she said. "You never telegraphed to your mother to tell her what time you were going to arrive."

Spennie opened his mouth feebly, but apparently changing his mind, made no reply.

"My dear," said Sir Thomas smoothly, "we must not expect too much of
Spennie."

"Pshaw!" This was a single shot from the Maxim.

The baited youth looked vainly for assistance to Jimmy.

"But—er—aunt," said Spennie. "Really, I—er—I only just caught the train. Didn't I, Pitt?"

"What? Oh, yes. Got in just as it was moving."

"That was it. I really hadn't time to telegraph. Had I, Pitt?"

"Not a minute."

"And how was it you were so late?"

Spennie plunged into an explanation, feeling all the time that he was making things worse for himself. Nobody is at his best in the matter of explanations if a lady whom he knows to be possessed of a firm belief in the incurable weakness of his intellect is looking fixedly at him during the recital. A prolonged conversation with Lady Blunt always made him feel exactly as if he were being tied into knots.

"All this," said Sir Thomas, as his nephew paused for breath, "is very, very characteristic of our dear Spennie."

Our dear Spennie broke into a perspiration.

"However," continued Sir Thomas, "there's room for either you or——"

"Pitt," said Jimmy. "P—i double t."

Sir Thomas bowed.

"In front with the chauffeur, if you care to take the seat."

"I'll walk," said Jimmy. "I'd rather."

"Frightfully good of you, old chap," whispered Spennie. "Sure you don't mind? I do hate walking, and my foot's hurting fearfully."

"Which is my way?"

"Straight as you can go. You go to the——"

"Spennie," said Sir Thomas suavely, "your aunt expresses a wish to arrive at the abbey in time for dinner. If you could manage to come to some arrangement about that seat——"

Spennie climbed hurriedly into the automobile. The last Jimmy saw of him was a hasty vision of him being prodded in the ribs by Lady Blunt's parasol, while its owner said something to him which, judging by his attitude, was not pleasant.

He watched them out of sight, and started to follow at a leisurely pace. It certainly was an ideal afternoon for a country walk. The sun was just hesitating whether to treat the time as afternoon or evening. Eventually it decided that it was evening, and moderated its beams. After London, the country was deliciously fresh and cool. Jimmy felt, as the scent of the hedges came to him, that the only thing worth doing in the world was to settle down somewhere with three acres and a cow, and become pastoral.

There was a marked lack of traffic on the road. Once he met a cart, and once a flock of sheep with a friendly dog. Sometimes a rabbit would dash out into the road, stop to listen, and dart into the opposite hedge, all hind legs and white scut. But except for these he was alone in the world.

And gradually there began to be borne in upon him the conviction that he had lost his way.

It is difficult to judge distance when one is walking, but it certainly seemed to Jimmy that he must have covered five miles by this time. He must have mistaken the way. He had certainly come straight. He could not have come straighter. On the other hand, it would be quite in keeping with the cheap substitute which served Spennie Blunt in place of a mind that he should have forgotten to mention some important turning. Jimmy sat down by the roadside.

As he sat, there came to him from down the road the sound of a horse's feet, trotting. He got up. Here was somebody at last who would direct him.

The sound came nearer. The horse turned the corner; and Jimmy saw with surprise that it bore no rider.

"Hullo!" he said. "Accident? And, by Jove, a side saddle!"

The curious part of it was that the horse appeared in no way a wild horse. It did not seem to be running away. It gave the impression of being out for a little trot on its own account, a sort of equine constitutional.

Jimmy stopped the horse, and led it back the way it had come. As he turned the bend in the road, he saw a girl in a riding habit running toward him. She stopped running when she caught sight of him, and slowed down to a walk.

"Thank you so much," she said, taking the reins from him. "Oh,
Dandy, you naughty old thing."

Jimmy looked at her flushed, smiling face, and uttered an exclamation of astonishment. The girl was staring at him, open-eyed.

"Molly!" he cried.

"Jimmy!"

And then a curious feeling of constraint fell simultaneously upon them both.

CHAPTER V.

"How are you, Molly?"

"Quite well, thank you, Jimmy."

A pause.

"You're looking very well."

"I'm feeling very well. How are you?"

"Quite well, thanks. Very well, indeed"

Another pause.

And then their eyes met, and at the same moment they burst out laughing.

"Your manners are beautiful, Jimmy. And I'm so glad you're so well! What an extraordinary thing us meeting like this. I thought you were in New York."

"I thought you were. You haven't altered a bit, Molly."

"Nor have you. How queer this is! I can't understand it."

"Nor can I. I don't want to. I'm satisfied without. Do you know before I met you I was just thinking I hadn't a single friend in this country. I'm on my way to stay with a man I've only known a few days, and his people, whom I don't know at all, and a bunch of other guests, whom I've never heard of, and his uncle, who's a sort of human icicle, and his aunt, who makes you feel like thirty cents directly she starts to talk to you, and the family watchdog, who will probably bite me. But now! You must live near here or you wouldn't be chasing horses about this road."

"I live at a place called Corven Abbey."

"What Corven Abbey? Why, that's where I'm going."

"Jimmy! Oh, I see. You're Spennie's friend. But where is Spennie?"

"At the abbey by now. He went in the auto with his uncle and aunt."

"How did you meet Spennie?"

"Oh, I did a very trifling Good Samaritan act, for which he was unduly grateful, and he adopted me from that moment."

"How long have you been living in England, then? I never dreamed of you being here."

"I've been on this side about a week. If you want my history in a nutshell, it's this. Rich uncle. Poor nephew. Deceased uncle. Rich nephew. I'm a man with money now. Lots of money."

"How nice for you, Jimmy. Father came into money, too. That's how I come to be over here. I wish you and father had got on better together."

"Your father, my dear Molly, has a manner with people he is not fond of which purists might call slightly abrupt. Perhaps things will be different, now."

The horse gave a sudden whinny.

"I wish you wouldn't do that sort of thing without warning," said
Jimmy to it plaintively.

"He knows he's near home, and he knows it's his dinner time. There, now you can see the abbey. How do you like it?"

They had reached a point in the road where the fields to the right sloped sharply downward. A few hundred yards away, backed by woods, stood the beautiful home which ex-Policeman McEachern had caused to be builded for him. The setting sun lit up the waters of the lake. No figures were to be seen moving in the grounds. The place resembled a palace of sleep.

"Well?" said Molly.

"By Jove!"

"Isn't it?" said Molly. "I'm so glad you like it. I always feel as if I had invented everything round here. It hurts me if people don't appreciate it. Once I took Sir Thomas Blunt up here. It was as much as I could do to induce him to come at all. He simply won't walk. When we got to where we are standing now, I pointed and said: 'There!'"

"And what did he do? Moan with joy?"

"He grunted, and said it struck him as rather rustic."

"Beast! I met Sir Thomas when we got off the train. Spennie Blunt introduced me to him. He seemed to bear it pluckily, but with some difficulty. I think we had better be going, or they will be sending out search parties."

"By the way, Jimmy," said Molly, as they went down the hill. "Can you act?"

"Can I what?"

"Act. In theatricals, you know."

"I've never tried. But I've played poker, which I should think is much the same."

"We are going to do a play, and we want another man. The man who was going