The Little Warrior

by P. G. Wodehouse

Jill endured Sandringham for ten days; and, looking back on that period of her life later, she wondered how she did it. The sense of desolation which had gripped her on the station platform increased rather than diminished as she grew accustomed to her surroundings. The east wind died away, and the sun shone fitfully with a suggestion of warmth, but her uncle’s bleakness appeared to be a static quality, independent of weather conditions. Her aunt, a faded woman with a perpetual cold in the head, did nothing to promote cheerfulness. The rest of the household consisted of a gloomy child, “Tibby,” aged eight; a spaniel, probably a few years older, and an intermittent cat, who, when he did put in an appearance, was the life and soul of the party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill. Thomas was a genial animal, whose color-scheme, like a Whistler picture, was an arrangement in black and white. He had green eyes and a purr like a racing automobile. But his social engagements in the neighborhood kept him away much of the time. He was the popular and energetic secretary of the local cats’ debating society. One could hear him at night sometimes reading the minutes in a loud, clear voice; after which the debate was considered formally open.

Each day was the same as the last, almost to the final detail. Sometimes Tibby would be naughty at breakfast, sometimes at lunch; while Rover, the spaniel, a great devotee of the garbage-can, would occasionally be sick at mid-day instead of after the evening meal. But, with these exceptions, there was a uniformity about the course of life in the Mariner household which began to prey on Jill’s nerves as early as the third day.

The picture which Mr Mariner had formed in his mind of Jill as a wealthy young lady with a taste for house property continued as vivid as ever. It was his practice each morning to conduct her about the neighborhood, introducing her to the various houses in which he had sunk most of the money which he had made in business. Mr Mariner’s life centered around Brookport real estate, and the embarrassed Jill was compelled to inspect sitting-rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and master’s bedrooms till the sound of a key turning in a lock gave her a feeling of nervous exhaustion. Most of her uncle’s houses were converted farmhouses and, as one unfortunate purchaser had remarked, not so darned converted at that. The days she spent at Brookport remained in Jill’s memory as a smell of dampness and chill and closeness.

“You want to buy,” said Mr Mariner every time he shut a front-door behind them. “Not rent. Buy. Then, if you don’t want to live here, you can always rent in the summer.”

It seemed incredible to Jill that the summer would ever come. Winter held Brookport in its grip. For the first time in her life she was tasting real loneliness. She wandered over the snow-patched fields down to the frozen bay, and found the intense stillness, punctuated only by the occasional distant gunshot of some optimist trying for duck, oppressive rather than restful. She looked on the weird beauty of the ice-bound marshes which glittered red and green and blue in the sun with unseeing eyes; for her isolation was giving her time to think, and thought was a torment.

On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris,—a cheerful, even rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed. As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out right, of prosperity in sight. As tangible evidence of success, he enclosed a present of twenty dollars, for Jill to spend in the Brookport shops.

The letter arrived by the morning mail, and two hours later Mr Mariner took Jill by one of his usual overland routes to see a house nearer the village than most of those which she had viewed. Mr Mariner had exhausted the supply of cottages belonging to himself, and this one was the property of an acquaintance. There would be an agent’s fee for him in the deal, if it went through, and Mr Mariner was not a man who despised money in small quantities.

There was a touch of hopefulness in his gloom this morning, like the first intimation of sunshine after a wet day. He had been thinking the thing over, and had come to the conclusion that Jill’s unresponsiveness when confronted with the houses she had already seen was due to the fact that she had loftier ideas than he had supposed. Something a little more magnificent than the twelve thousand dollar places he had shown her was what she desired. This house stood on a hill looking down on the bay, in several acres of ground. It had its private landing-stage and bath-house, its dairy, its sleeping-porches,—everything, in fact, that a sensible girl could want. Mr Mariner could not bring himself to suppose that he would fail again today.

“They’re asking a hundred and five thousand,” he said, “but I know they’d take a hundred thousand. And, if it was a question of cash down, they would go even lower. It’s a fine house. You could entertain there. Mrs Bruggenheim rented it last summer, and wanted to buy, but she wouldn’t go above ninety thousand. If you want it, you’d better make up your mind quick. A place like this is apt to be snapped up in a hurry.”

Jill could endure it no longer.