CHAPTER XX
PROFESSOR LEIGHRAIL PAYS US A CALL
The afternoon was waning, and Dimbie and I were beginning to wake up and trying to ignore the fact that Amelia was watching us through the ever useful point of vantage, the pantry window, when Professor Leighrail drifted through the gate, round the broom bush, and stood staring at the cottage.
That he hadn't seen us in the profound shade cast by the apple tree was evident from his not too polite remark addressed to the cottage—
"Worse than I imagined—an overgrown pest-house!"
We laughed aloud, and he walked to us with outstretched hands. His dress attracted my immediate attention, as it was a little unusual—black cloth trousers, white linen coat, large, badly-fitting, brown shoes with different coloured laces, and a top hat. The last he removed with a flourish, and his first observation seemed characteristic of the little I knew of him.
"Guessed I should find you like this, still playing at Romeo and Juliet, and you look," he put on a pair of spectacles, "you look, seated against that background of gnarled old branches, just as foolishly sentimental and happy as any young couple could look." He did not wait for any reply, but rattled on. "I found you without the slightest trouble. I knew I should."
"Pine Tree Valley is not a large—"
"Certainly not," he interrupted, "but had it been a town and not a village, I should have found you just as easily. I said to a villager—man in corduroys—'Where is the residence of a lady and gentleman who smile, who live on sunshine and walk on air?'"
"And did he understand you?" we asked, determined not to smile.
"Certainly, I spoke quite clearly. He reflected for a moment, scratched his head, and said, 'First turning to the right, One Tree Cottage.' 'That is correct,' I said. 'One Tree Cottage is the foolish and fantastic name they mentioned to me, now I come to think of it.' So you see here I am, and I must say that you and your cottage are worse than I anticipated."
"Worse!" Dimbie ejaculated.
"Yes, you and your wife are still at it, the love-making. I thought you would be getting over it by now. And your cottage—isn't it below the sea level? It looks to me as though it might have been built on drained marsh land, originally a swamp." He spoke in the same cheerful, detached manner as when he first scraped acquaintance with us in the wood.
"We are two hundred feet above the level of the sea," said Dimbie with as much pride as if he had had a hand in the manufacture of the earth's surface. "A valley does not necessarily mean below the sea level, as you must know."
The Professor laughed.
"But isn't it extremely damp and insanitary, covered over with that weed?"
"That weed is clematis."
"Oh!" said the Professor. "I should root it up, all the same."
"But Marg—my wife and I almost took the cottage on the strength of it."
"A foolish reason. Did you look into your drains, young man?"
"Amelia does that," I broke in. "You know she has a drain-bamboo."
"Of course, I remember. Very sensible of Amelia, most sensible. Where is she?"
"On the pantry table."
"A curious place to sit."
"She has the best view of us from there."
He smiled.
"I like servants to be interested in their master and mistress."
"She is very interested in us," I said.
"I should like to see this young person, and I should like to see your drains. Are they trapped?"
We both remained silent.
"I will have a look at them, if you don't mind."
Dimbie rose.
"No, I want Mrs. Smiling Face. Women ought to know more about the arrangements of their homes than men."
He offered me his hand.
I looked helplessly at Dimbie. It was so difficult to speak, to tell him. My voice still had an annoying habit of breaking when I was trying my hardest to refer to my—sorrow in a cheerful, careless fashion. The tears did not come, but—there was always the break. I would be telling Amelia she might have my waterproof, as I should never require it again. I would start quite bravely, then would come the catch. Will it always be so, I wonder? Shall I never become quite calm and indifferent? It is eleven days since Dimbie came home—a rich man—full of his good news. Eleven days he has spent with me, and never once have we spoken of the cross we are called upon to bear, for it is Dimbie's cross as much as mine. Are we wise to put it behind us thus? Should we not feel it less if we bravely discussed it? And yet it is my doing. It is I who willed it so, I who bade Dimbie never to speak of it, and now I am almost sorry. Somehow it seems as though the silence makes it harder to bear. Our skeleton becomes more of a skeleton. Perhaps if we were to discuss it freely, frankly, we should begin to regard it in the same way as one regards a smoky chimney—as tiresome, annoying, but bearable if the windows are kept open to let in the fresh air. Our windows left wide would let in a great deal of happiness—love, comradeship, the pleasure of friends, the interest of books, the everlasting joy of Nature. I must ask Dimbie what he thinks. Dimbie always knows what is right.
In a few brief words he explained to Professor Leighrail that I was a prisoner to my couch, and that he must conduct him to the house. The Professor started as though to offer me words of sympathy, and then stopped. Simply taking my hand in his he pressed it gently, and then followed Dimbie into the house.
"That was nice of him," I thought. "I wish Nanty was here that they might renew their old friendship. Perhaps they—but no," I laughed, "they are a little old, and—Nanty hates men."
Amelia bore down upon me with intense excitement.
"That gentleman has got his coat off, and he's poking about the drains with my bamboo."
"It just shows how prepared you were for any emergency, Amelia," I said sympathetically.
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. I never knew anyone's eyes capable of turning back so far. "Like a halibut's," I murmured. They instantly became straight.
"What did you say, mum?"
"Nothing," I replied gently. "I sometimes think aloud."
"Yes," she said, in a tone which suggested she wished I wouldn't.
"Is he a sanitary inspector, mum?"
"Who?"
"The gentleman who's doin' the drains."
"No, certainly not. He's one of the greatest and cleverest men in England, and—he killed his mother."
Amelia looked incredulous.
"He'd have been hung if he'd done that, mum—hung by the neck till he was dead."
My servant is painfully dramatic on occasions.
"It was an accident," I hastened to explain. I was afraid she might lock the Professor in the cistern-room, or some other dark and unholy place. "He was driving an aerodrome. An aerodrome is——" but Amelia was not in the least interested in my explanation.
"What's he examining the drains for?"
"He is afraid we shall be down with typhoid."
Amelia jumped into the air and dropped with a thud on to her now decently flat-heeled shoes.
"Tompkinses' grandfather died of typhus."
"On the maternal side?" I asked affably.
She took no notice of my question.
"He lay for twelve weeks."
"Well, that was better than standing," I said. She resumed her halibut-eyed expression, and—left me.
Presently I heard her in strident-voiced conversation with the Professor. I could not hear what they said, but they appeared to be very much in earnest.
Dimbie came out smiling.
"One is seated on the back kitchen table, and the other is working away at the sink with the bamboo. It seems a nasty job, but they appear to be very happy."
"Which is doing the work?"
"Amelia. The Professor wanted to, but she snatched the implement from him."
"Well, are we to be down with typhoid, or is there any chance of our escaping?"
Dimbie sat down.
"He doesn't know yet, but he is hoping for the best. He's a queer old cock, but I like him immensely."
"So do I," I agreed. "I wish Nanty would come."
It very rarely happens that one's wishes are instantly granted, but in this particular case my fairy godmother was in a generous mood, for as I spoke Nanty's carriage drew up at the gate, and she swept down the path and across the lawn just as the Professor emerged from the house brandishing in his right hand the drain-bamboo.
Now that Nanty should, after a lapse of nearly thirty years, meet her old friend Professor Leighrail armed with a drain-bamboo would appear to be a situation very far removed from romance. But to me it seemed a most delightful and natural proceeding, for Nanty would no doubt remember that her one time lover was, to say the least of it, a little eccentric in his habits. And Professor Leighrail would equally remember that Nanty with her broad outlook on life was not easily shocked. Did I say "broad outlook"? I withdraw it, for Nanty with her hard and narrow views of the genus man is anything but broad in one respect. Even her more intimate knowledge of Dimbie has not converted her, and Peter pronounces her as "pig-headed."
Anyway, her meeting with the Professor left her quite calm and unruffled, while he, poor man, because he was a man, mopped his brow and dropped the bamboo on to the grass as though it had been a live snake.
I had omitted to tell Dimbie of their former relationship, and he now stood and stared at them in the same way that Amelia stares at me when I am gone, as she terms it, "a bit dotty."
Nanty dropped gracefully into a wicker basket-chair, and settled her mauve taffeta gown comfortably and elegantly. The Professor with his big shoes and linen coat cut a poor figure beside her.
"Nanty and Professor Leighrail used to know one another," I explained to Dimbie.
"It was a very long time ago, when we were young. I won't say how long, because the Professor might not like it," said Nanty calmly.
Here was an opening for the Professor to say something gallant, "That she was not altered in the least, that only he had grown old," but he did not take it. The Professor is not a party man. He stared at the bamboo and said nothing. Was he thinking of the days when Nanty stood to him for everything adorable in woman, or was he thinking of his lost Amabella? Can the woman you have married entirely efface your memory of the other woman you wished to marry? And Nanty. She had started and seemed distressed when I told her of the Professor's loneliness, of his unkempt appearance. She was downright cross when I mentioned his ballooning, she had said it was a dangerous game. She had also said she had been a fool not to marry him, and she supposed that he had grown very fond of Amabella. Now she sat sphinx-like, with a little smile on her lips and her hands folded on her lap. The Professor might have been a casual acquaintance she had met the day before. I longed for strength to get up and shake her.
Dimbie recognised that the Professor was in trouble. His embarrassment and awkwardness, not to mention silence, were only too evident. Manlike he came to the help of man. He plied him with questions about the drains. He did not understand why the Professor should be awkward and embarrassed, though vaguely he felt it had something to do with the presence of Nanty; but whatever the cause, he knew that the Professor required gentle assistance, and to give this assistance he must get him on one of his own pet subjects, either drains, over-eating, or balloons. He selected drains. He picked up the bamboo to attract the Professor's attention, and asked him how long he gave us.
"Give you?" said the Professor, looking a little dazed.
"Before we are down with typhoid." Dimbie was quite grave.
"Oh, that depends on how much or how little you flush your drains." The Professor was equally grave.
"What do you recommend us to use?"
"Condy's fluid, or any other good disinfectant." The Professor was now becoming interested.
"Chloride of lime is cheapest," chipped in Amelia excitedly. Under the pretext of rescuing her drain-bamboo she had joined the party, and when I tried to catch her eye to inform her that her services were not required her eye steadily refused to be caught.
"Quite right," said the Professor, "chloride of lime is the cheapest."
"Tompkinses always used it; their drains was always beautiful, that sweet and fresh you could have eaten your dinner in 'em."
Dimbie now tried to catch her eye, but she still wouldn't be caught.
"Amelia," I said gently.
She became deaf as well as blind.
"The Tompkinses set a good example which all householders might follow with great advantage to themselves. It is simply suicidal"—the Professor had now quite forgotten Nanty—"it is simply suicidal the manner in which they neglect their drains, ignore their drains. And their ignorance on drains is usually colossal, only exceeded by the ignorance and stupidity of the men who lay them. I quite expected to find your main drain running beneath your drawing-room.
"You almost seem disappointed that it isn't," I said.
He smiled.
"Do you know where it is?"
"No—o."
"Do you know where your gas-meter is?"
"We haven't one, we use lamps and candles."
"Ah, well, you wouldn't know if you had. Women never know these things." He spoke despondently.
"I am not overwhelmed at our ignorance," I said laughing. "I don't see why we should know. Surely the knowledge of gas and water is a man's business?"
"I do not agree with you at all." He spoke with extreme rapidity. "Women use them as much as men, they should therefore understand something of their working."
"Do you know where the pearl buttons for your flannel shirt are kept?" I asked quietly.
Dimbie suppressed a chuckle.
"I didn't know I used them."
"How do you suppose your shirt remains fastened? At the present moment the button on your left wrist-band is cracked across the centre. You must replace it with a new one on your return home."
The Professor laughed good-humouredly.
"You had me there," he said.
"They always have us," quoth Dimbie. "Haven't you found it so?"
The Professor stole a sly glance at Nanty.
"Not always," he said softly.
He was evidently recovering from his embarrassment by leaps and bounds.
A smile flickered across Nanty's lips. She did not return the look, but she unbent ever so little.
"What do you think of women, Professor? You have told us what you think about drains and creeper-covered cottages, let us have your opinion of the fair sex." Dimbie looked wicked. With unusual perspicacity he smelt a rat, and now he meant to run it to earth.
"What do I think of women! I—I—" (the Professor was now undoubtedly flurried) "I don't think anything of them."
"That is a little rude and unkind of you," I said.
"Eh, what?"
"That you should not think anything of them. Are they so very unworthy?"
The poor man looked worried.
"I—I think I must go now."
"No, don't go," I pleaded. "Do stay to supper. We do so want to hear your views upon women. We so often hear them upon men" (I glanced at Nanty) "that it will be quite refreshing to have a change."
"And—what are the views you hear upon men?" He also looked at Nanty.
"That they are all bad."
He laughed.
"And—I think women are all good," at which he bolted across the garden, called a good-bye, raised his hat, and disappeared through the gate.
"That is the thinnest man I have ever seen," said Nanty somewhat unromantically.
"I don't think he gets enough to eat."
She started.
"Housekeepers are poor sort of creatures—selfish, thoughtless, heartless," I generalised, not having known one.
Nanty looked at the sweet-peas.
"I am sure he is often hungry."
She started again, and getting up from her seat walked across the lawn and back to me.
"Where does he live?" she asked abruptly.
"The Grey House, Esher. Why do you want to know?"
"Oh—just curiosity."
"Perhaps you might ask him to tea?" I suggested.
"I don't ask men to tea," she said crossly, picking up a newspaper and beginning to read.
"Visitors don't usually read."
"Humph!"
"While you read I'll think," and I fell into a reverie, weaving many pleasant fancies, in which, strange to say, Nanty and the Professor were always the central figures.
By and by she looked up.
"Of what are you thinking and smiling?"
"Of—marriage and love."
"A foolish thought, and you cannot put the two together."
"No?"
"No!" said Nanty decisively.