Be Careful who you Marry, by PG Wodehouse
The door opened to admit Miss Clarkson.
The adjective which Phyllis had applied to her late schoolmistress was obviously well chosen. Miss Clarkson exuded motherliness. She was large, wholesome, and soft, and she swooped on Eve like a hen on its chicken almost before the door had closed.
“Eve! How nice to see you after all this time! My dear, you’re looking perfectly lovely! And so prosperous. What a beautiful hat!”
“I’ve been envying it ever since you came, Eve,” said Phyllis. “Where did you get it?”
“Madeleine Sœurs, in Regent Street.”
Miss Clarkson, having acquired and stirred a cup of tea, started to improve the occasion. Eve had always been a favourite of hers at school. She beamed affectionately upon her.
“Now doesn’t this show—what I always used to say to you in the dear old days, Eve—that one must never despair, however black the outlook may seem? I remember you at school, dear, as poor as a church mouse, and with no prospects, none whatever. And yet here you are—rich . . .”
Eve laughed. She got up and kissed Miss Clarkson. She regretted that she was compelled to strike a jarring note, but it had to be done.
“I’m awfully sorry, Clarkie dear,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’ve misled you. I’m just as broke as I ever was. In fact, when Phyllis told me you were running an Employment Agency, I made a note to come and see you and ask if you had some attractive billet to dispose of. Governess to a thoroughly angelic child would do. Or isn’t there some nice cosy author or something who wants his letters answered and his press-clippings pasted in an album?”
“Oh, my dear!” Miss Clarkson was deeply concerned. “I did hope . . . That hat . . . !”
“The hat’s the whole trouble. Of course I had no business even to think of it, but I saw it in the shop-window and coveted it for days, and finally fell. And then, you see, I had to live up to it—buy shoes and a dress to match. I tell you it was a perfect orgy, and I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself now. Too late, as usual.”
“Oh, dear! You always were such a wild, impetuous child, even at school. I remember how often I used to speak to you about it.”
“Well, when it was all over and I was sane again, I found I had only a few pounds left, not nearly enough to see me through till the relief expedition arrived. So I thought it over and decided to invest my little all.”
“I hope you chose something safe?”
“It ought to have been. The Sporting Express called it ‘To-day’s Safety Bet.’ It was Bounding Willie for the two-thirty race at Sandown last Wednesday.”
“Oh, dear!”
“That’s what I said when poor old Willie came in sixth. But it’s no good worrying, is it? What it means is that I simply must find something to do that will carry me through till I get my next quarter’s allowance. And that won’t be till September. . . . But don’t let’s talk business here. I’ll come round to your office, Clarkie, to-morrow. . . . Where’s Cynthia? Didn’t you bring her?”
“Yes, I thought you were going to pick Cynthia up on your way, Clarkie,” said Phyllis.
If Eve’s information as to her financial affairs had caused Miss Clarkson to mourn, the mention of Cynthia plunged her into the very depths of woe. Her mouth quivered and a tear stole down her cheek. Eve and Phyllis exchanged bewildered glances.
“I say,” said Eve after a moment’s pause and a silence broken only by a smothered sob from their late instructress, “we aren’t being very cheerful, are we, considering that this is supposed to be a joyous reunion? Is anything wrong with Cynthia?”
So poignant was Miss Clarkson’s anguish that Phyllis, in a flutter of alarm, rose and left the room swiftly in search of the only remedy that suggested itself to her—her smelling-salts.
“Poor dear Cynthia!” moaned Miss Clarkson.
“Why, what’s the matter with her?” asked Eve. She was not callous to Miss Clarkson’s grief, but she could not help the tiniest of smiles. In a flash she had been transported to her school-days, when the other’s habit of extracting the utmost tragedy out of the slimmest material had been a source of ever-fresh amusement to her. Not for an instant did she expect to hear any worse news of her old friend than that she was in bed with a cold or had twisted her ankle.
“She’s married, you know,” said Miss Clarkson.
“Well, I see no harm in that, Clarkie. If a few more Safety Bets go wrong, I shall probably have to rush out and marry someone myself. Some nice, rich, indulgent man who will spoil me.”
“Oh, Eve, my dear,” pleaded Miss Clarkson, bleating with alarm, “do please be careful whom you marry. I never hear of one of my girls marrying without feeling that the worst may happen and that, all unknowing, she may be stepping over a grim precipice!”
“You don’t tell them that, do you? Because I should think it would rather cast a damper on the wedding festivities. Has Cynthia gone stepping over grim precipices? I was just saying to Phyllis that I envied her, marrying a celebrity like Ralston McTodd.”
Miss Clarkson gulped.
“The man must be a fiend!” she said brokenly. “I have just left poor dear Cynthia in floods of tears at the Cadogan Hotel—she has a very nice quiet room on the fourth floor, though the carpet does not harmonise with the wall-paper. . . . She was broken-hearted, poor child. I did what I could to console her, but it was useless. She always was so highly strung. I must be getting back to her very soon. I only came on here[p. 53] because I did not want to disappoint you two dear girls . . .”
“Why?” said Eve with quiet intensity. She knew from experience that Miss Clarkson, unless firmly checked, would pirouette round and round the point for minutes without ever touching it.
“Why?” echoed Miss Clarkson, blinking as if the word was something solid that had struck her unexpectedly.
“Why was Cynthia in floods of tears?”
“But I’m telling you, my dear. That man has left her!”
“Left her!”
“They had a quarrel, and he walked straight out of the hotel. That was the day before yesterday, and he has not been back since. This afternoon the curtest note came from him to say that he never intended to return. He had secretly and in a most underhand way arranged for his luggage to be removed from the hotel to a District Messenger office, and from there he has taken it no one knows where. He has completely disappeared.”
Eve stared. She had not been prepared for news of this momentous order.
“But what did they quarrel about?”
“Cynthia, poor child, was too overwrought to tell me!”
Eve clenched her teeth.
“The beast! . . . Poor old Cynthia. . . . Shall I come round with you?”
“No, my dear, better let me look after her alone. I will tell her to write and let you know when she can see you. I must be going, Phyllis dear,” she said, as her hostess re-entered, bearing a small bottle.
“But you’ve only just come!” said Phyllis, surprised.
“Poor old Cynthia’s husband has left her,” explained Eve briefly. “And Clarkie’s going back to look after her. She’s in a pretty bad way, it seems.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes, indeed. And I really must be going at once,” said Miss Clarkson.
Eve waited in the drawing-room till the front door banged and Phyllis came back to her. Phyllis was more wistful than ever. She had been looking forward to this tea-party, and it had not been the happy occasion she had anticipated. The two girls sat in silence for a moment.
“What brutes some men are!” said Eve at length.
“Mike,” said Phyllis dreamily, “is an angel.”
Eve welcomed the unspoken invitation to return to a more agreeable topic. She felt very deeply for the stricken Cynthia, but she hated aimless talk, and nothing could have been more aimless than for her and Phyllis to sit there exchanging lamentations concerning a tragedy of which neither knew more than the bare outlines. Phyllis had her tragedy, too, and it was one where Eve saw the possibility of doing something practical and helpful. She was a girl of action, and was glad to be able to attack a living issue.
“Yes, let’s go on talking about you and Mike,” she said. “At present I can’t understand the position at all. When Clarkie came in, you were just telling me about your stepfather and why he wouldn’t help you. And I thought you made out a very poor case for him. Tell me some more. I’ve forgotten his name, by the way.”
“Keeble.”
“Oh? Well, I think you ought to write and tell him how hard-up you are. He may be under the impression that you are still living in luxury and don’t need any help. After all, he can’t know unless you tell him. And I should ask him straight out to come to the rescue. It isn’t as if it was your Mike’s fault that you’re broke. He married you on the strength of a very good position which looked like a permanency, and lost it through no fault of his own. I should write to him, Phyl. Pitch it strong.”
“I have. I wrote to-day. Mike’s just been offered a wonderful opportunity. A sort of farm place in Lincolnshire. You know. Cows and things. Just what he would like and just what he would do awfully well. And we only need three thousand pounds to get it. . . . But I’m afraid nothing will come of it.”
“Because of Aunt Constance, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“You must make something come of it.” Eve’s chin went up. She looked like a Goddess of Determination. “If I were you, I’d haunt their doorstep till they had to give you the money to get rid of you. The idea of anybody doing that absurd driving-into-the-snow business in these days! Why shouldn’t you marry the man you were in love with? If I were you, I’d go and chain myself to their railings and howl like a dog till they rushed out with cheque-books just to get some peace. Do they live in London?”
“They are down in Shropshire at present at a place called Blandings Castle.”
Eve started.
“Blandings Castle? Good gracious!”
“Aunt Constance is Lord Emsworth’s sister.”
“But this is the most extraordinary thing. I’m going to Blandings myself in a few days.”
“No!”
“They’ve engaged me to catalogue the castle library.”
“But, Eve, were you only joking when you asked Clarkie to find you something to do? She took you quite seriously.”
“No, I wasn’t joking. There’s a drawback to my going to Blandings. I suppose you know the place pretty well?”
“I’ve often stayed there. It’s beautiful.”
“Then you know Lord Emsworth’s second son, Freddie Threepwood?”
“Of course.”
“Well, he’s the drawback. He wants to marry me, and I certainly don’t want to marry him. And what I’ve been wondering is whether a nice easy job like that, which would tide me over beautifully till September, is attractive enough to make up for the nuisance of having to be always squelching poor Freddie. I ought to have thought of it right at the beginning, of course, when he wrote and told me to apply for the position, but I was so delighted at the idea of regular work that it didn’t occur to me. Then I began to wonder. He’s such a persevering young man. He proposes early and often.”
“Where did you meet Freddie?”
“At a theatre party. About two months ago. He was living in London then, but he suddenly disappeared and I had a heart-broken letter from him, saying that he had been running up debts and things and his father had snatched him away to live at Blandings, which apparently is Freddie’s idea of the Inferno. The world seems full of hard-hearted relatives.”
“Oh, Lord Emsworth isn’t really hard-hearted. You will love him. He’s so dreamy and absent-minded. He potters about the garden all the time. I don’t think you’ll like Aunt Constance much. But I suppose you won’t see a great deal of her.”
“Whom shall I see much of—except Freddie, of course?”
“Mr. Baxter, Lord Emsworth’s secretary, I expect. I don’t like him at all. He’s a sort of spectacled cave-man.”
“He doesn’t sound attractive. But you say the place is nice?”
“It’s gorgeous. I should go, if I were you, Eve.”
“Well, I had intended not to. But now you’ve told me about Mr. Keeble and Aunt Constance, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have to look in at Clarkie’s office to-morrow and tell her I’m fixed up and shan’t need her help. I’m going to take your sad case in hand, darling. I shall go to Blandings, and I will dog your stepfather’s footsteps. . . . Well, I must be going. Come and see me to the front door, or I’ll be losing my way in the miles of stately corridors. . . . I suppose I mayn’t smash that china dog before I go? Oh, well, I just thought I’d ask.”
Out in the hall the little maid-of-all-work bobbed up and intercepted them.
“I forgot to tell you, mum, a gentleman called. I told him you was out.”
“Quite right, Jane.”
“Said his name was Smith, ’m.”
Phyllis gave a cry of dismay.
“Oh, no! What a shame! I particularly wanted you to meet him, Eve. I wish I’d known.”
“Smith?” said Eve. “The name seems familiar. Why were you so anxious for me to meet him?”
“He’s Mike’s best friend. Mike worships him. He’s the son of the Mr. Smith I was telling you about—the one Mike was at school and Cambridge with. He’s a perfect darling, Eve, and you would love him. He’s just your sort. I do wish we had known. And now you’re going to Blandings for goodness knows how long, and you won’t be able to see him.”
“What a pity,” said Eve, politely uninterested.
“I’m so sorry for him.”
“Why?”
“He’s in the fish business.”
“Ugh!”
“Well, he hates it, poor dear. But he was left stranded like all the rest of us after the crash, and he was put into the business by an uncle who is a sort of fish magnate.”
“Well, why does he stay there, if he dislikes it so much?” said Eve with indignation. The helpless type of man was her pet aversion. “I hate a man who’s got no enterprise.”
“I don’t think you could call him unenterprising. He never struck me like that. . . . You simply must meet him when you come back to London.”
“All right,” said Eve indifferently. “Just as you like. I might put business in his way. I’m very fond of fish.”
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