Herbert Jenkins

“ Groups of miserable cattle huddled together under hedges, or beneath trees that gave no shelter from the pitiless rain. Here and there some despairing beast lay down in the open, as if refusing to continue the self-deception. The tree trunks glistened like beavers; for the rain beat relentlessly through their thin foliage, in short, the world was wet to the skin, and Richard Beresford with the world. ”

“ Lady Drewitt was not without shrewdness. Cecily Seymour was useful to her as a target for her arrows of scorn; but she possessed no illusions as to the nature of her niece and nephew's devotion. The uncompromising independence of Beresford, although it angered her, at the same time commanded her respect. She was a woman, and the strong masculine personality of Beresford appealed to her in spite of herself. She demanded subservience; yet scorned those who gave it. She strove to break spirits, all the time instinctively admiring those that refused to be broken. ”

“ They were sitting in the garden of an old inn having tea. Lola had expressed a wish for an excursion inland, and Beresford had hired a car.
It was an old-fashioned spot surrounded by an ivy-covered wall. The back of the house was obscured by a trellis covered with crimson-ramblers. A few fruit trees disputed with currant and rose bushes the possession of the garden. It seemed as if Nature had been permitted to go her own way, without either help or hindrance from man. ”

“ He noticed that her cloak was lined with some tint of amber, or was it orange? Then suddenly his faculties returned to him with a rush. With a swift movement he threw his hat, stick and gloves on to a chair.
"Lola!" It was a sob rather than a greeting.
Suddenly there had come back to him with overwhelming force the realisation of what he had planned to do. He was like a man who has just realised that he has passed through some awful danger. It was the reaction. It was the great will to live, and going away would have been death. ”

“ Beresford's mind was a chaos of absurdities. He had flown from the commonplace, and landed in a veritable Gehenna of interest. Within thirty hours of setting out, a modern Don Quixote, plus a temperament, he had encountered more incidents, pleasant and unpleasant, than most men have any right to expect in a decade. It was absurd, ridiculous, insane to overload a man's stomach with adventure in this way. It was like giving beef-steak pudding to some poor devil with gastritis. ”

“ Although different in temperament and character in about as many ways as two men can differ, Beresford and his cousin had always been on the best of terms. Lord Drewitt's pose of frank cynicism, softened by a certain dry humour, was to Beresford always amusing.
"To give a man a title and two thousand a year on which to keep it out of the mud," Lord Drewitt would say, "is a little joke that only the Almighty and the Aunt are capable of appreciating." ”

“ Lady Drewitt was annoyed. "You have your career to consider. You are young."
"But I was a failure at Whitehall," he added.
"If you don't like the Foreign Office," persisted Lady Drewitt, "why don't you do something else?"
"There is so little open to a man with all the limitations of a university education."
"I'm afraid you're lazy." Lady Drewitt's tone implied no doubt whatever.
"No," said Beresford evenly, "I don't think I can be accused of being lazy; it's merely that I don't want to do anything. I'm tired of all this praise lavished on industry. ”

“ The thought of Caroline, Lady Drewitt, brought Beresford back to his present situation, and the cause of his struggling along a country road in the face of a south-westerly wind, that threw the rain against his face in vicious little slaps, on the most pitifully unspring-like first of May he ever remembered. Again, the day brought him back to his starting point: "Nature discourages eccentricity." In short, Lady Drewitt, the weather and the phrase all seemed so mixed up and confused as to defy entire disentanglement. ”

“ He paused to light a cigarette. "Have you ever thought of marriage, Hoskins?" he inquired.
"No, my lord," was the hesitating reply, "that is, not seriously."
"Ah! you are the child of your generation. Your tendency is to think lightly of serious things. Do you know the meaning of love, honour and obey?"
"I—er—think——"
"Showing conclusively that you don't," continued Lord Drewitt. "A wife loves her freedom; her husband honours her cheques; and she obeys the dictates of fashion. Hoskins, I warn you against marrying." ”

“ It was obviously impossible to pour out his own coffee and leave her the remainder. Should he ring for the waiter? No, the coffee should act as master of the ceremonies and bridge the gulf between them. Placing the coffee-pot and the milk-jug on the hearth, he waited, substituting a cigarette for his briar, lest its rich, juicy note might prove unmusical to feminine ears. For ten minutes he waited. Had the waiter merely made a mistake in bringing two cups instead of one? Possibly at this very moment she was enjoying her coffee in the dining-room. ”

“ I once knew an artist who married a girl when all he possessed in the world was four pounds eighteen shillings and threepence, he was very insistent upon the threepence, and a drawerful of pawn-tickets. That was a splendid act of romance."
"Yes; but romance must be——"
"No it must not," he insisted. "Romance must be just its mad, capricious, inconsequent self."
"But you must have something in mind. What is to happen after the four or five weeks?"
"Aunt Caroline suggests the colonies; both Drew and I regard the colonies as an Imperial asset and nothing more. We love them from afar. ”

“ It was Drewitt who at length broke the silence.
"I understood, Richard, that you had forsaken the haunts of men in favour of sitting under hedges and haystacks."
"I had to give it up," said Beresford with a self-conscious laugh. "I found the country is for the temperamentally robust."
Drewitt turned and looked at him, but made no comment.
"There's too much incident, too much excitement, too many adventures for a man accustomed to the quiet of town life," continued Beresford. "If you really want to be alone you must be in London." ”

“ Where he had read the absurd phrase he could not remember, probably in some insignificant magazine article upon popular science. That, however, was no excuse for remembering it, and upon this of all days. It had not even the virtue of being epigrammatical; it was just a dull, stupid catchpenny phrase of some silly ass desirous of catching the editorial eye.
As he plodded on through the rain, he strove to confute and annihilate the wretched thing, to crush it by the heavy artillery of reason. Nature herself was eccentric, he told himself. ”

“ None had ever met an heiress before. In the minds of all there was a dim idea that beauty and wealth were never to be found roaming together. To them the word "heiress" called up visions of plain features and shapeless bodies. Possibly that was why the thought of marrying an heiress had never suggested itself to them. Here, however, was Providence frankly playing into their hands.
Beresford was struck by the ingenuity displayed by various of the male guests in endeavouring to get to know Lola. ”

“ NATURE discourages eccentricity!"
The ridiculous words rang in Richard Beresford's ears as he stalked resolutely along the rain-soaked high-road. They seemed to keep time with the crunch of his boots upon the wet gravel. The wind picked them up and, with a spatter of rain, flung them full in his face. The pack on his back caught the last word and thumped it into his shoulders.
"Nature discourages eccentricity!" ”

“ Good heavens, man! how can you make the best of it?" demanded Lord Drewitt, as he sat up and proceeded wearily to stretch his arms behind his head. "How could you make the best of a woman with the face of a horse and a figure like a Rubens Venus?"
"I was reading the other day, my lord, that it's all a matter of digestion."
"Then you shouldn't read those damned cheap magazines. Wait until you are expected to marry an heiress. You will then find out that digestion has nothing whatever to do with it. You're getting sententious, Hoskins; you're getting confoundedly sententious. ”

“ She looked up at him eagerly.
"Would not the Philistines regard that as a dangerous philosophy?"
"I don't think I should ever want to run away from things," she said dreamily; "that is monastic. It has always seemed to me a much greater achievement to live your own life in the midst of uncongenial or unsympathetic surroundings."
"You don't know Aunt Caroline and the Foreign Office," said Beresford grimly.
"Oh! but," said the girl, "my auntie's just as conventional as can be. You see," she continued seriously, "to be an idealist you must be unconscious of being one. ”

“ Now I have reserved two things for my euthanasia, early morning tea and marriage."
"Marriage?" exclaimed Beresford.
"I was about to add, Richard, when you rudely interrupted me, thus I have before me a comfort and an experience. I have forgone early morning tea all my life, taking coffee instead, which I prefer. I would have done the same with turtle soup, only I thought of it too late; personally I regard turtle soup as much over-rated."
"And marriage?" queried Beresford.
"Most men marry for a woman to live with, I shall marry for a woman to die with. ”

“ With great deliberation Beresford rose and walking over to where the black cat was striving to return to the primitive bird-stalking ways of its progenitors, sent it clambering up the ivy and over the wall by the simple process of making a wild dive towards it. With equal deliberation he returned to his seat and, catching Lola's puzzled gaze, smiled. ”

“ When at length Beresford rose, it was with the firm conviction that the Rain-Girl was not staying at the Ritz-Carlton. In spite of this he loitered about the hotel until noon, when he took another stroll up Piccadilly and along Bond Street, and through the most frequented thoroughfares of the West-End.
Perhaps she was away for a long week-end, he told himself, and would be back to lunch. She might even be confined to her room with a chill. At this thought he smiled. The warm, mellow sunshine seemed to negative all possibility of any one contracting a chill. ”

“ Beresford had already told Tallis of what had led up to his adventure. "I take it that your means, like other things, have their limitations. What'll you do when the money's gone?"
"Oh, anything, everything. If fate sends me pneumonia on the first day of my adventure, on the last she'll probably send me——"
"A great desire for life," interrupted the doctor calmly.
Beresford sat up suddenly. "Good Lord!" he burst out. "How horrible! What a fiendish idea."
"Nature has an odd way of paying off old scores. She's a mistress of irony." ”

“ Why?"
"Merely a psychological readjustment of your ideas of crime and punishment," said Tallis.
"No, that's not it," said Beresford musingly. "It goes deeper than that. Before the war, killing was an unthinkable crime, now it's little more than kicking a man downstairs. In other words this generation has pricked the bubble of the sacredness of human life." ”

“ Lady Drewitt continued to gaze at the door long after it had closed behind her nephew, whom she was convinced was mad.
"Payne," said Beresford, as the butler came out of the pantry, "how is your rheumatism, and will you lend me sixpence?"
"Will I lend you sixpence, sir?" repeated Payne, in astonishment.
"I asked you two questions, Payne. How is your rheumatism, and will you lend me sixpence? You merely repeat the second; that is very feminine." ”

“ I always thought that Englishmen were unapproachable in the morning; but you are more ridiculous in the morning than during the rest of the day."
"Imagine the state of mind of a woman conscious that Nature has left her like an unfinished symphony," he continued. "She must tremble every time she opens a fashion paper, lest some readjustment of the surface of exposure shall betray her."
"But we are not all Greeks," she suggested.
"A woman doesn't require to be a Greek to be conscious of Nature's inexplicable oversights in modelling," he retorted. ”

“ Mrs. Crisp suddenly turned her jet upon Beresford. "Have you tried camphorated-oil? So good for a cold. I always use it, and liquorice too. Rubbed in night and morning. Oil, I mean, not the liquorice. We've missed her so much, haven't we, Mr. Quelch. Yes, you sit there and you here, Lord Drewitt," indicating the seat next to Lola, "and you next to Lola, Mr. Berry."
"Why will people make life ugly with camphor, eucalyptus and peppermint?" said Lola to Beresford with a moue of disgust. ”

“ Beresford followed her, his mind in a whirl at the sudden change in her mood.
For the rest of the morning she was in the highest of high spirits. She insisted on scrambling down to the water, and soon succeeded in getting both her own and Beresford's feet soaked.
"Look!" she cried, drawing back her skirts to show the darker line just above her ankles where the water had reached.
"I'm just as wet, and a lot more uncomfortable," he replied lugubriously, as he looked down at his brown boots discoloured by the sea-water. "I hate walking in wet boots." ”