The Rough Road
“That’s Peggy,” said the Dean.
“You’re the only thing that’s grown. I used to gallop with you on my shoulders all round the lawn. I suppose you remember? How do you do?”
And without waiting for an answer he kissed her soundly. It was all done with whirlwind suddenness. The tempestuous young man had scattered every one’s wits. All stared at him. Releasing Peggy —
“My holy aunt!” he cried, “there’s another of ’em. It’s Doggie! You were in the old picture, and I’m blessed if you weren’t wearing the same beautiful grey suit. How do, Doggie?”
He gripped Doggie’s hand. Doggie’s lips grew white.
“I’m glad to welcome you back, Oliver,” he said. “But I would have you to know that my name is Marmaduke.”
“Sooner be called Doggie myself, old chap,” said Oliver.
He stepped back, smiling at them all – a handsome devil-may-care fellow, tall, tough and supple, his hands in the pockets of a sun-stained double-breasted blue jacket.
“We’re indeed glad to see you, my dear boy,” said the Dean, recovering equanimity; “but what have you been doing all this time? And where on earth have you come from?”
“I’ve just come from the South Seas. Arrived in London last evening. This morning I thought I’d come and look you up.”
“But if you had let us know you were coming, we should have met you at the station with the car. Where’s your luggage?”
He jerked a hand. “In the road. My man’s sitting on it. Oh, don’t worry about him,” he cried airily to the protesting Dean. “He’s well trained. He’ll go on sitting on it all night.”
“You’ve brought a man – a valet?” asked Peggy.
“It seems so.”
“Then you must be getting on.”
“I don’t think he turns you out very well,” said Doggie.
“You must really let one of the servants see about your things, Oliver,” said Mrs. Conover, moving towards the porch. “What will people say?”
He strode after her, and kissed her. “Oh, you dear old Durdlebury Aunt! Now I know I’m in England again. I haven’t heard those words for years!”
Mrs. Conover’s hospitable intentions were anticipated by the old butler, who advanced to meet them with the news that Sir Archibald’s car had been brought round. As soon as he recognized Oliver he started back, mouth agape.
“Yes, it’s me all right, Burford,” laughed Oliver. “How did I get here? I dropped from the moon.”
He shook hands with Burford, of whose life he had been the plague during his childhood, proclaimed him as hardy and unchanging as a gargoyle, and instructed him where to find man and luggage.
The Bruces and the two clerical tennis players departed. Marmaduke was for taking his leave too. All his old loathing of Oliver had suddenly returned. His cousin stood for everything he detested – swagger, arrogance, self-assurance. He hated the shabby rakishness of his attire, the self-assertive aquiline beak of a nose which he had inherited from his father, the Rector. He dreaded his aggressive masculinity. He had come back with the same insulting speech on his lips. His finger-nails were dreadful. Marmaduke desired as little as possible of his odious company. But his Aunt Sophia cried out:
“You’ll surely dine with us to-night, Marmaduke, to celebrate Oliver’s return?”
And Oliver chimed in, “Do! And don’t worry about changing,” as Doggie began to murmur excuses, “I can’t. I’ve no evening togs. My old ones fell to bits when I was trying to put them on, on board the steamer, and I had to chuck ’em overboard. They turned up a shark, who went for ’em. So don’t you worry, Doggie, old chap. You look as pretty as paint as you are. Doesn’t he, Peggy?”
Peggy, with a slight flush on her cheek, came to the rescue and linked her arm in Marmaduke’s.
“You haven’t had time to learn everything yet, Oliver; but I think you ought to know that we are engaged.”
“Holy Gee! Is that so? My compliments.” He swept them a low bow. “God bless you, my children!”
“Of course he’ll stay to dinner,” said Peggy; and she looked at Oliver as who should say, “Touch him at your peril: he belongs to me.”
So Doggie had to yield. Mrs. Conover went into the house to arrange for Oliver’s comfort, and the others strolled round the garden.
“Well, my boy,” said the Dean, “so you’re back in the old country?”
“Turned up again like a bad penny.”
The Dean’s kindly face clouded. “I hope you’ll soon be able to find something to do.”
“It’s money I want, not work,” said Oliver.
“Ah!” said the Dean, in a tone so thoughtful as just to suggest a lack of sympathy.
Oliver looked over his shoulder – the Dean and himself were preceding Marmaduke and Peggy on the trim gravel path. “Do you care to lend me a few thousands, Doggie?”
“Certainly not,” replied Marmaduke.
“There’s family affection for you, Uncle Edward! I’ve come half-way round the earth to see him, and – say, will you lend me a fiver?”
“If you need it,” said Marmaduke in a dignified way, “I shall be very happy to advance you five pounds.”
Oliver brought the little party to a halt and burst into laughter.
“I believe you good people think I’ve come back broke to the world. The black sheep returned like a wolf to the fold. Only Peggy drew a correct inference from the valet – wait till you see him! As Peggy said, I’ve been getting on.” He laid a light hand on the Dean’s shoulder. “While all you folks in Durdlebury, especially my dear Doggie, for the last ten years have been durdling, I’ve been doing. I’ve not come all this way to tap relations for five-pound notes. I’m swaggering into the City of London for Capital – with a great big C.”
Marmaduke twirled his little moustache. “You’ve taken to company promoting,” he remarked acidly.
“I have. And a damn – I beg your pardon, Uncle Edward – we poor Pacific Islanders lisp in damns for want of deans to hold us up – and a jolly good company too. We – that’s I and another man – that’s all the company as yet – two’s company, you know – own a trading fleet.”
“You own ships?” cried Peggy.
“Rather. Own ’em, sail ’em, navigate ’em, stoke ’em, clean out the boilers, sit on the safety valves when we want to make speed, do every old thing – ”
“And what do you trade in?” asked the Dean.
“Copra, bêche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl – ”
“Mother-of-pearl! How awfully romantic!” cried Peggy.
“We’ve got a fishery. At any rate, the concession. To work it properly we require capital. That’s why I’m here – to turn the concern into a limited company.”
“And where is this wonderful place?” asked the Dean.
“Huaheine.”
“What a beautiful word!”
“Isn’t it?” said Oliver. “Like the sigh of a girl in her sleep.”
The old Dean shot a swift glance at his nephew; then took his arm and walked on, and looked at the vast mass of the cathedral and at the quiet English garden in its evening shadow.
“Copra, bêche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl, Huaheine,” he murmured. “And these strange foreign things are the commonplaces of your life!”
Peggy and Marmaduke lagged behind a little. She pressed his arm.
“I’m so glad you’re staying for dinner. I shouldn’t like to think you were running away from him.”
“I was only afraid of losing my temper and making a scene,” replied Doggie with dignity.
“His manners are odious,” said Peggy. “You leave him to me.”
Suddenly the Dean, taking a turn that brought him into view of the porch, stopped short.
“Goodness gracious!” he cried. “Who in the world is that?”
He pointed to a curious object slouching across the lawn; a short hirsute man wearing a sailor’s jersey and smoking a stump of a blackened pipe. His tousled head was bare; he had very long arms and great powerful hands protruded at the end of long sinewy wrists from inadequate sleeves. A pair of bright eyes shone out of his dark shaggy face, like a Dandy Dinmont’s. His nose was large and red. He rolled as he walked. Such a sight had never been seen before in the Deanery garden.
“That’s my man. Peggy’s valet,” said Oliver airily. “His name is Chipmunk. A beauty, isn’t he?”
“Like master, like man,” murmured Doggie.
Oliver’s quick ears caught the words intended only for Peggy. He smiled brightly.
“If you knew what a compliment you were paying me, Doggie, you wouldn’t have said such a thing.”
The man seeing the company stare at him, halted, took his pipe out of his mouth, and scratched his head.
“But – er – forgive me, my dear Oliver,” said the Dean. “No doubt he is an excellent fellow – but don’t you think he might smoke his pipe somewhere else?”
“Of course he might,” said Oliver. “And he jolly well shall.” He put his hand to his mouth, sea-fashion – they were about thirty yards apart – and shouted: “Here, you! What the eternal blazes are you doing here?”
“Please don’t hurt the poor man’s feelings,” said the kindly Dean.
Oliver turned a blank look on his Uncle. “His what? Ain’t got any. Not that kind of feelings.” He proceeded: “Now then, look lively! Clear out! Skidoo!”
The valet touched his forehead in salute, and – “Where am I to go to, Cap’en?”
“Go to – ”
Oliver checked himself in time, and turned to the Dean.
“Where shall I tell him to go?” he asked sweetly.
“The kitchen garden would be the best place,” replied the Dean.
“I think I’d better go and fix him up myself,” said Oliver. “A little conversation in his own language might be beneficial.”
“But isn’t he English?” asked Peggy.
“Born and bred in Wapping,” said Oliver.
He marched off across the lawn; and, could they have heard it, the friendly talk that he had with Chipmunk would have made the Saint and the Divines, and even the Crusader, Sir Guy de Chevenix, who were buried in the cathedral, turn in their tombs.
Doggie, watching the disappearing Chipmunk, Oliver’s knuckles in his neck, said:
“I think it monstrous of Oliver to bring such a disreputable creature down here.”
Said the Dean: “At any rate, it brings a certain excitement into our quiet surroundings.”
“They must be having the time of their lives in the Servants’ Hall,” said Peggy.
CHAPTER IV
After breakfast the next morning Doggie, attired in a green shot-silk dressing-gown, entered his own particular room and sat down to think. In its way it was a very beautiful room – high, spacious, well-proportioned, facing south-east. The wall-paper, which he had designed himself, was ivory-white with veinings of peacock-blue. Into the ivory-silk curtains were woven peacocks in full pride. The cushions were ivory and peacock-blue. The chairs, the writing-table, the couch, the bookcases, were pure Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Vellum-bound books filled the cases – Doggie was very particular about his bindings. Delicate water-colours alone adorned the walls. On his neatly arranged writing-table lay an ivory set – inkstand, pen-tray, blotter and calendar. Bits of old embroidery harmonizing with the peacock shades were spread here and there. A pretty collection of eighteenth-century Italian ivory statuettes were grouped about the room. A spinet, inlaid with ebony and ivory, formed a centre for the arrangement of many other musical instruments – a viol, mandolins gay with ribbons, a theorbo, flutes and clarinets. Through the curtains, draped across an alcove, could be guessed the modern monstrosity of a grand piano. One tall closed cabinet was devoted to his collection of wall-papers. Another, open, to a collection of little dogs in china, porcelain, faïence; thousands of them; he got them through dealers from all over the world. He had the finest collection in existence, and maintained a friendly and learned correspondence with the other collector – an elderly, disillusioned Russian prince, who lived somewhere near Nijni-Novgorod. On the spinet and on the writing-table were great bowls of golden rayon d’or roses.
Doggie sat down to think. An unwonted frown creased his brow. Several problems distracted him. The morning sun streaming into the room disclosed, beyond doubt, discolorations, stains and streaks on the wall-paper. It would have to be renewed. Already he had decided to design something to take its place. But last night Peggy had declared her intention to turn this abode of bachelor comfort into the drawing-room, and to hand over to his personal use some other apartment, possibly the present drawing-room, which received all the blaze and glare of the afternoon sun. What should he do? Live in the sordidness of discoloured wall-paper for another year, or go through the anxiety of artistic effort and manufacturers’ stupidity and delay, to say nothing of the expense, only to have the whole thing scrapped before the wedding? Doggie had a foretaste of the dilemmas of matrimony. He had a gnawing suspicion that the trim and perfect life was difficult of attainment.
Then, meandering through this wilderness of dubiety, ran thoughts of Oliver. Every one seemed to have gone crazy over him. Uncle Edward and Aunt Sophia had hung on his lips while he lied unblushingly about his adventures. Even Peggy had listened open-eyed and open-mouthed when he had told a tale of shipwreck in the South Seas: how the schooner had been caught in some beastly wind and the masts had been torn out and the rudder carried away, and how it had struck a reef, and how something had hit him on the head, and he knew no more till he woke up on a beach and found that the unspeakable Chipmunk had swum with him for a week – or whatever the time was – until they got to land. If hulking, brainless dolts like Oliver, thought Doggie, like to fool around in schooners and typhoons, they must take the consequences. There was nothing to brag about. The higher man was the intellectual, the æsthetic, the artistic being. What did Oliver know of Lydian modes or Louis Treize decoration or Astec clay dogs? Nothing. He couldn’t even keep his socks from slopping about over his shoes. And there was Peggy all over the fellow, although before dinner she had said she couldn’t bear the sight of him. Doggie was perturbed. On bidding him good night, she had kissed him in the most perfunctory manner – merely the cousinly peck of a dozen years ago – and had given no thought to the fact that he was driving home in an open car without an overcoat. He had felt distinctly chilly on his arrival, and had taken a dose of ammoniated quinine. Was Peggy’s indifference a sign that she had ceased to care for him? That she was attracted by the buccaneering Oliver?
Now suppose the engagement was broken off, he would be free to do as he chose with the redecoration of the room. But suppose, as he sincerely and devoutly hoped, it wasn’t? Dilemma on dilemma. Added to all this, Goliath, the miniature Belgian griffon, having probably overeaten himself, had complicated pains inside, and the callous vet. could or would not come round till the evening. In the meantime, Goliath might die.
He was at this point of his reflections, when to his horror he heard a familiar voice outside the door.
“All right, Peddle. Don’t worry. I’ll show myself in. Look after that man of mine. Quite easy. Give him some beer in a bucket and leave him to it.”
Then the door burst open and Oliver, pipe in mouth and hat on one side, came into the room.
“Hallo, Doggie! Thought I’d look you up. Hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” said Doggie. “Do sit down.”
But Oliver walked about and looked at things.
“I like your water-colours. Did you collect them yourself?”
“Yes.”
“I congratulate you on your taste. This is a beauty. Who is it by?”
The appreciation brought Doggie at once to his side. Oliver, the connoisseur, was showing himself in a new and agreeable light. Doggie took him delightedly round the pictures, expounding their merits and their little histories. He found that Oliver, although unlearned, had a true sense of light and colour and tone. He was just beginning to like him, when the tactless fellow, stopping before the collection of little dogs, spoiled everything.
“My holy aunt!” he cried – an objurgation which Doggie had abhorred from boyhood – and he doubled with laughter in his horrid schoolboy fashion – “My dear Doggie – is that your family? How many litters?”
“It’s the finest collection of the kind in the world,” replied Doggie stiffly, “and is worth several thousand pounds.”
Oliver heaved himself into a chair – that was Doggie’s impression of his method of sitting down – a Sheraton chair with delicate arms and legs.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but you’re such a funny devil.” – Doggie gaped. The conception of himself as a funny devil was new. – “Pictures and music I can understand. But what the deuce is the point of these dam little dogs?”
But Doggie was hurt. “It would be useless to try to explain,” said he.
Oliver took off his hat and sent it skimming on to the couch.
“Look here, old chap,” he said, “I seem to have put my foot into it again. I didn’t mean to, really. Peggy gave me hell this morning for not treating you as a man and a brother, and I came round to try to put things right.”
“It’s very considerate of Peggy, I’m sure,” said Marmaduke.
“Now look here, old Doggie – ”
“I told you when we first met yesterday that I vehemently object to being called Doggie.”
“But why?” asked Oliver. “I’ve made inquiries, and find that all your pals – ”
“I haven’t any pals, as you call them.”
“Well, all our male contemporaries in the place who have the honour of your acquaintance – they all call you Doggie, and you don’t seem to mind.”
“I do mind,” replied Marmaduke angrily, “but as I avoid their company as much as possible, it doesn’t very much matter.”
Oliver stretched out his legs and put his hands behind his back – then wriggled to his feet. “What a beast of a chair! Anyhow,” he went on, puffing at his pipe, “don’t let us quarrel. I’ll call you Marmaduke, if you like, when I can remember – it’s a beast of a name – like the chair. I’m a rough sort of chap. I’ve had ten years’ pretty rough training. I’ve slept on boards. I’ve slept in the open without a cent to hire a board. I’ve gone cold and I’ve gone hungry, and men have knocked me about and I’ve knocked men about – and I’ve lost the Durdlebury sense of social values. In the wilds if a man once gets the name, say, of Duck-Eyed Joe, it sticks to him, and he accepts it and answers to it, and signs ‘Duck-Eyed Joe’ on an IOU and honours the signature.”
“But I’m not in the wilds,” said Marmaduke, “and haven’t the slightest intention of ever leading the unnatural and frightful life you describe. So what you say doesn’t apply to me.”
“Quite so,” replied Oliver. “That wasn’t the moral of my discourse. The habit of mind engendered in the wilds applies to me. Just as I could never think of Duck-Eyed Joe as George Wilkinson, so you, James Marmaduke Trevor, will live imperishably in my mind as Doggie. I was making a sort of apology, old chap, for my habit of mind.”
“If it is an apology – ” said Marmaduke.
Oliver, laughing, clapped him boisterously on the shoulder. “Oh, you solemn comic cuss!” He strode to a rose-bowl and knocked the ashes of his pipe into the water – Doggie trembled lest he might next squirt tobacco juice over the ivory curtains. “You don’t give a fellow a chance. Look here, tell me, as man to man, what are you going to do with your life? I don’t mean it in the high-brow sense of people who live in unsuccessful plays and garden cities, but in the ordinary common-sense way of the world. Here you are, young, strong, educated, intelligent – ”
“I’m not strong,” said Doggie.
“Oh, shucks! A month’s exercise would make you as strong as a mule. Here you are – what the blazes are you going to do with yourself?”
“I don’t admit that you have any right to question me,” said Doggie, lighting a cigarette.
“Peggy has given it to me. We had a heart to heart talk this morning, I assure you. She called me a swaggering, hectoring barbarian. So I told her what I’d do. I said I’d come here and squeak like a little mouse and eat out of your hand. I also said I’d take you out with me to the Islands and give you a taste for fresh air and salt water and exercise. I’ll teach you how to sail a schooner and how to go about barefoot and swab decks. It’s a life for a man out there, I tell you. If you’ve nothing better to do than living here snug like a flea on a dog’s back, until you get married, you’d better come.”
Doggie smiled pityingly, but said politely:
“Your offer is very kind, Oliver; but I don’t think that kind of life would suit me.”
“Oh yes it would,” said Oliver. “It would make you healthy, wealthy – if you took a fancy to put some money into the pearl fishery – and wise. I’d show you the world, make a man of you, for Peggy’s sake, and teach you how men talk to one another in a gale of wind.”
The door opened and Peddle appeared.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Oliver – but your man – ”
“Yes? What about him? Is he misbehaving himself? Kissing the maids?”
“No, sir,” said Peddle – “but none of them can get on with their work. He has drunk two quart jugs of beer and wants a third.”
“Well, give it to him.”
“I shouldn’t like to see the man intoxicated, sir,” said Peddle.
“You couldn’t. No one has or ever will.”
“He is also standing on his head, sir, in the middle of the kitchen table.”
“It’s his great parlour-trick. You just try to do it, Peddle – especially after two quarts of beer. He’s showing his gratitude, poor chap – just like the juggler of Notre-Dame in the story. And I’m sure everybody’s enjoying themselves?”
“The maids are nearly in hysterics, sir.”
“But they’re quite happy?”
“Too happy, sir.”
“Lord!” cried Oliver, “what a lot of stuffy owls you are! What do you want me to do? What would you like me to do, Doggie? It’s your house.”
“I don’t know,” said Doggie. “I’ve had nothing to do with such people. Perhaps you might go and speak to him.”
“No, I won’t do that. I tell you what, Peddle,” said Oliver brightly. “You lure him out into the stable yard with a great hunk of pie – he adores pie – and tell him to sit there and eat it till I come. Tell him I said so.”
“I’ll see what can be done, sir,” said Peddle.
“I don’t mean to be inhospitable,” said Doggie, after the butler had gone, “but why do you take this extraordinary person about with you?”
“I wanted him to see Durdlebury and Durdlebury to see him. Do it good,” replied Oliver. “Now, what about my proposition? Out there of course you’ll be my guest. Put yourself in charge of Chipmunk and me for eight months, and you’ll never regret it. What Chipmunk doesn’t know about ships and drink and hard living isn’t knowledge. We’ll let you down easy – treat you kindly – word of honour.”
Doggie being a man of intelligence realized that Oliver’s offer arose from a genuine desire to do him some kind of service. But if a friendly bull out of the fullness of its affection invited you to accompany him to the meadow and eat grass, what could you do but courteously decline the invitation? This is what Doggie did. After a further attempt at persuasion, Oliver grew impatient, and picking up his hat stuck it on the side of his head. He was a simple-natured, impulsive man. Peggy’s spirited attack had caused him to realize that he had treated Doggie with unprovoked rudeness; but then, Doggie was such a little worm. Suddenly the great scheme for Doggie’s regeneration had entered his head, and generously he had rushed to begin to put it into execution. The pair were his blood relations after all. He saw his way to doing them a good turn. Peggy, with all her go – exemplified by the manner in which she had gone for him – was worth the trouble he proposed to take with Doggie. It really was a handsome offer. Most fellows would have jumped at the prospect of being shown round the Islands with an old hand who knew the whole thing backwards, from company promoting to beach-combing. He had not expected such a point-blank, bland refusal. It made him angry.
“I’m really most obliged to you, Oliver,” said Doggie finally. “But our ideals are so entirely different. You’re primitive, you know. You seem to find your happiness in defying the elements, whereas I find mine in adopting the resources of civilization to circumvent them.”
He smiled, pleased with his little epigram.
“Which means,” said Oliver, “that you’re afraid to roughen your hands and spoil your complexion.”
“If you like to put it that way – symbolically.”
“Symbolically be hanged!” cried Oliver, losing his temper. “You’re an effeminate little rotter, and I’m through with you. Go on and wag your tail and sit up and beg for biscuits – ”