THE FLY AND THE SPIDER
Being a Confidential Letter from the Right Hon. Viscount Tynstone, on board the Yacht “Spindrift,� Cowes Roads, to the Lady Mary Cliffe-Bradlay, Silversands Park, Sussex.
Tuesday, August —.
Good Old Poll,—
I thought you were Rotting about Lord Dennismore and the Duchess at the baginning of your Letter, but your Locking him up in the Peech House was a Stunning Lark. The Duchess must Have been in a Regular Wax, and He must have been Fritefully Wild, only you can’t Hit a Girl, they are so Soft and Go down so Easily.
Uncle Todmore Has the Usual Yacht Party for the Rigatta, and the old Spindrift looks A.1. painted white with a new Copper Rail and a New Sett of Lifeboyse, etc. I asked Uncle Todmore How Much it had Cost, and He Heeved a Sigh, and said sufficient to the Day was the evil Thereof, so I xpect it comes to a Lump, and He and Aunt Honoria will Have to spend the Winter down at that Beestly Place of His in Devonshire instead of Going to the Riviara or Egipt this time.
I said He Had the Usual Party on Board; but there are Two New People—a Captain Clanarthur, late of the Malta Artillery, a Man who Parts His Hair Down the Back, and Wares a Gold Braselet on his Left Wrist, and his Wife. Mrs. Clanarthur is a simply Fritefully pretty woman, with Long Black ilashes that Curl at the endse, and Eyes you Cant tell the right Colour of, never Being the Same Twise Running. Aunt Honoria is a Great Friend of Hers. And she Wares a Silver Belt with her Ruff weather Serge Gown that was a saint Bernard Dog’s Collar—so you may immagine How Small her waste is. She says I am a Mear Boy, and Ought Not to Notice Such Things; but I shall be Sixteen in September, and lots of Our Fellows at My Tutors are in love. Greening Minor, Who is a Regular Shrimp, regularly rites verses To the Barmade in the Slough Station refreshment room. First class—I mean the Refreshment Room, not the Verses. One Poem bigins—
“How Nobly Does Thy Fair Form Tower,
Whenare I Gaze On Thee.
I Wish thou Wert a Lilly Flower,
& I a Hunney Bee.�
Which is Not Half Bad for a Lower Boy. And Regger is Secretly ingaged to his Sisters Jerman Guverness, who is 30 if a Day. She Has Promised to Wate for Regger, who is a Year Older than Me, and simply awfully Divoted to Her. She Makes Splendid Gingerbred with Nuts in it, which will come in Usefull if Regger’s Pater Cuts Him Off with a Shilling.
Mrs. Clanarthur’s Christian Name is Ermengarde, but Her Friends call Her Nini for short. The Divise on Her Note Paper is a Gold Spider in a silver Web, and she Wares a little Broach with a Diamond Spider in a Gold Web. She keeps on Telling me she is Not Young, but That must be All Rot, because She is so mutch moar Girlish than the 2 Girls on Board. They are the Pope-Baggotes, and Lady Jane is Fatter than ever.
Wednesday.
I can’t Immajin Why Mrs. Clanarthur ever married such a regular Scug as Captain Clanarthur, though she Says she was a mear Child, and did It to Pleese Her Family. They have been 10 Yearse married, so if she was so young at the time she cannot be as old as she says she is. She says she Had Her Hair Done up and wore Long Skirts For the first Time on her Wedding Day, and thought more of the Cake and the Presents than what was to Come. She cried when she Told me that, after dinner on Deck, when an Italian Opera Fellow, whose Name I can’t spell, was singing Love songs to the Acompaniment of the Mandolin, and the Starse were shining more Brightly than I ever remember to Have Seen Them. Her Hair has a Scent like Violets, and when Her Head Comes Near you it makes you Feel Hot and cold and Swimmy—at leest it does Me. Clanarthur was Away Racing a Yawl of His at the Royal Portsmouth Corinthian Yacht Club Rigatta, and I thoght if He should Get Drowned what a Jolly Good thing it would Be. He Ought to be Kicked for Making that woman so frightfully wretchid when She is 10,000 times Too Good For Him. N.B.—Of course She did Not Tell me what he has Done, but I bet you ½ a crown it is sumthing Beastly caddish.
I think the Men on Board a Not very Well Bred Sett, as they chaff Me like mad about Mrs. Clanarthur; and even when she is Within Earshott, which makes Me want Frightfully to Kick them all Round. I Cannot Sleep at Night as I used to Do, and my Head Aches in a Beastly way in the Morning. I have got a handkerchief of Mrs. Clanarthur’s I Stole when She was Not Looking, and I Keep it Under My Pillow at Night and Switch the illectric light On and Look at it every Now and Then. There is “Nini� imbroidered in the Corner, and it Smells of Violets, like her Hair. If I was married to a Lovely Woman like that I should not be a Beast like Clanarthur. She Told Me that she Never has suffered Him to Kiss her on the Lips Since She Knew Him to be Unworthy of a Pure Woman’s Love. Sumhow I am glad of that, thogh it is Rough on Clanarthur.
Saturday.
Last Night Sumthing Happened I am Now Going to tell you about. They were Throwing Coloured Lites on the Sea from the Victoria Pier, and all the Big Steam Yachts Had Fairy lamps Hung Out, and the Music of the Bands and things Comming Over the Water quite made it simply ripping. It was after dinner, and I was Sitting on Deck with Mrs. Clanarthur, and She thought She would like a Moonlight Pull in the Yacht’s dinghy, as the Sea was so Beautifully Smooth. So I tipped two of the Spindrift men to get the boat reddy, and not say ennything to ennybody and We Started. There was a Fritefully Stiff Tide on. I Rowed Her Round and Down a Lane made of Torpedo Gun-boats on One Side and 1st Class Cruisers on the other, All Reddy for the King to inspect on Saturday. It was Ripping Fun, and Nini was Delighted. Then we Drifted dreemily along Towards Ryde, and I Forgot there was such a Fritefully Stiff Tide Running out to Spithead because I was Holding Nini’s Hand—she let me—and thinking there were Worse Things than Coming under the Married Women’s Property Act after All.
When We Had got a Good Distance Out I found I could Not Get Back For Nuts, However Hard I Pulled.
The Perspirashun was Running off me like Water and my Arms Ached like Mad. Nini—she had said I might call her Nini the Evening Before—Nini Could not See ennything was Wrong, but I knew we were being Carried Out to Sea at About 100 miles an Hour and it Kept Getting Darker. N.B.—Of course, I did Not Care For myself, but I Kept Thinking of Nini. She said the Poetry of the illimittible Oshan made Her Trill like a Smitten Lute, and I said, “Does it?� and Kept Slogging Away against the Tide without making 1 Not in 1,000 Hours, as the Signals in Coes Roads kept getting Smaller. Then a Southampton Liner came Rushing out of the Dark. I Saw Both her Port and Starboard Litse as I Turned my Head, so she must have been Coming Straight down on Us. You may Suppose I had Fits, thinking of Mrs. Clanarthur, and I would have tried to Shout, but I Had Lost my Wind completely.
“How pretty,� said Nini—Mrs. Clanarthur I mean—“that must be the Campania for New York from Southampton.� And she went on Gassing about the Beauty of the Seen without an Idea that we might be cut in 2 Next Minute. But we got off. The liner swerved to port and went by us lighted up like a sea Alhambra, all her deckse crowded with People and her Band Playing ‘The Merry Widow,’ and Clanarthur lost his chance of being a Merry Widower. But she passed so jolly close to us that a lot of Wash slopped in, and Nini screamed and called out, “You silly boy, it’s all your Fault!� which I like, considering the sittuation. And She Pulled her White Evening Wrap round her and said, “Let’s get back to the yacht; it’s shockingly cold and the sea is getting abominably Rough!� And then I had to own up what a jolly Hat we were in, and that we had been steddily Drifting Out to Sea for Some time Past.
What price me? I felt small enough to get into a cricket-ball case already, but I felt something worse when Mrs. Clanarthur Boxed my Ears. She said I was a Little Idiot, and that she had been culpably Reckless to alow Me to Take Her on the Water, and what would Freddy say? Freddy is Captain Clanarthur. So I said I would stand up to Him with or without Gloves, Fight Him with Rivolverse across a necktie if he liked, and that He could Divorse Her afterwardse and then she could marry me, and everything would be jolly well settled all Round, as she Had Told me He was aborrent to Her only the night before when she kissed me under the Aft Awning three Times—which she Had Done, though she called me an untruthful little Retch for saying so, and then she had Histericks, and then what Uncle Podmore calls the Mallady of the Wave came on, and I had to ship the oars and Hold Her Up, and she was Awfully Bad. Mother on the Turbean xing to Boulogne was Nothing To it. I am not Joking When I Tell You that We Drifted About in That beestly Dinghy all night at the immanent Risk of Being Run Down by anything from a Tramp Steamer to a Government Crooser, and if the Tide Had Not Turned, which it did at 4 o’clock in the Morning, we should be as dead now as Two People can be.
O crumbs, when I looked at Nini, who After jawing at me till she was Tired Had Gone to sleep with Her Head on my Shoulder! By the Glimmaring Light of Dawn she Looked as Old as Aunt Honoria, and not Half as Nice. Her Swagger Evening Gown and Mantal were Ruined with Seawater, and one Long Tale of her Lovely Hair was Washing about in the Bilje at the Bottom of the Dinghy, we had shipped such a lot in the Night. Her Forhead and one Eye were nearly Hidden by a Top Piece with curls that had come off, though there was lots of Hair underneath it, and she was Perfectly Blue with Cold and Fright.
I thought she must have been Pretty Old when she Married Captain Clanarthur after all, and when I Remembered how mad I had been about Her, and how I wanted to Snipe Clanarthur and Marry Her, I felt awfully sick at having been such an unlimited ass.
She woke up and called me some more Names and then a Pilot cutter came along bound for Portsmouth Pier, and I Haled the Pilot and He agreed to take us back to Cowes Road for £1. And they Hawled us on Board because we were too jolly stiff to clime up the cutter’s side and we Got back to the Yacht in Time for Breakfast.
You may guess if the men of the Party chaffed me Before how frightfully they chaff Now, I am Roasted about the Beastly Business from morning till Night. Uncle Podmore told me they had sent out 2 Boats to Find us and burned blue Lights. All Captain Clanarthur Said when He saw Mrs. Clanarthur come up the yacht’s side like a Ragbag, was, “So there You are, are you?� But suppose he is Lying Low to bring an Axion for Divorse, do you suppose I shall have to marry Mrs. Clanarthur?
I do jolly well Hope Not. She is old enough to be my mother, and Has a Perfectly awful temper.
Fancy me being as Pleased as a Fox-terrier with 2 tails when she let me Kiss Her under the Deck Awning after dinner. Fellows with lots of good sense can be asses at times.
Of course I tell you All this in Confidence on the Strict Q.T., because you are Not like other Girls about Keeping a Secret. There is a Big Review of the Home Fleet and the Swedish Squadron by the King to-day, and the Fleet will be elluminated in the Evening after dinner, and there will be Fireworks from the Victoria Pier. But whether it is my having been Out all Night with Nini—I mean Mrs. Clanarthur—in that rotten Dinghy or something else I don’t ixactly know, but I feel jolly miserable.
I wish Greening minor was here, it would do me Good to give the little Brute a regular licking. Fancy him Being in love with a Barmade and writing her verses. And Regger, who has the nerve to make up to his sister’s Jerman Governess. I can’t think why Fellows do such idiotic Things.
I Think rather than Have to marry Mrs. Clanarthur I would Run away and be a stoker like that Fellow in the newspapers. She looks quite young again this afternoon and her Hair is beautifully done, but I keep on seeing Her as she was at 4 this morning, when that pilot-cutter Found us.
I am getting rather sorry for Clanarthur tied up to a Woman who Boxes a Fellow’s ears and calls him Names for Nothing—that is, I should feel sorry for him if I was quite Eesy in my mind about his bringing an Axion for Divorse.
Ever your affeckshionate Brother,
Tynstone.