Three Men and a Maid Part 21

"Dear Sirs: We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state that nothing will induce us ... will induce us ... where did I put that letter? Ah! ... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell 'em to go to blazes, Miss Milliken."

"Very well, Sir Mallaby."

"That's that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and b.u.t.terworth. What infernal names these people have. Sirs, on behalf of our client ... oh, hullo, Sam!"

"Good morning, father."

"Take a seat. I'm busy, but I'll be finished in a moment. Where was I, Miss Milliken?"

"On behalf of our client...."

"Oh, yes. On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where these people get their names I'm hanged if I know. Your poor mother wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the 'nineties, when you were born, children were frequently christened Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that."

His attention was now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember that the latter had just returned from a long journey, and that he had not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with interest.

"Very glad to see you're back, Sam. So you didn't win?"

"No, I got beaten in the semi-finals."

"American amateurs are a very hot lot: the best ones. I suppose you were weak on the greens, I warned you about that. You'll have to rub up your putting before next year."

At the idea that any mundane pursuit as practising putting could appeal to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as if Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his mind by knitting jumpers.

"Well, you seem to be in great spirits," said Sir Mallaby approvingly.

"It's pleasant to hear your merry laugh again, isn't it, Miss Milliken?"

"Extremely exhilarating," agreed the stenographer, adjusting her spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her heart.

A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the gla.s.s that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy satisfaction, how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these people seemed to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His laughter, which had sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck Miss Milliken as exhilarating.

"On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw," said Sir Mallaby, swooping back to duty once more, "we beg to state that we are prepared to accept service ... sounds like a tennis match, eh, Sam? It isn't, though. This young a.s.s, Eggshaw ... what time did you dock this morning?"

"I landed nearly a week ago."

"A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself?

Why haven't I seen you?"

"I've been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea."

"Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that G.o.dforsaken place?"

"Wrestling with myself," said Sam with simple dignity.

Sir Mallaby's agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was answering.

"We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh! Well, I like a boy to be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn't all athletics. Don't forget that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?"

Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit when called upon to recite.

"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and time is fleeting. And our hearts though stout and brave, Still like m.u.f.fled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then ..." said Miss Milliken respectfully ... "be up and doing...."

"All right, all right, all right!" said Sir Mallaby. "I don't want it all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about that when I've finished answering these infernal letters. Where was I? 'We should be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an appointment...' Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not Margate, while you are about it?"

"Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my mood. It was gray and dark, and it rained all the time, and the sea slunk about in the distance like some baffled beast...."

He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir Mallaby's attention had returned to the letter.

"Oh, what's the good of answering the dashed thing at all?" said Sir Mallaby. "Brigney, Goole and b.u.t.terworth know perfectly well that they have got us in a cleft stick. b.u.t.terworth knows it better than Goole, and Brigney knows it better than b.u.t.terworth. This young fool, Eggshaw, Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, twelve of them in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to marry him, and he comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The girl is suing him for ten thousand."

"How like a woman!"

Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her s.e.x. Sir Mallaby took no notice of it whatever.

"... If you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam. Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a conference and can see n.o.body for half an hour."

When Miss Milliken had withdrawn, Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of the period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring silently at him.

"I'm glad you're back, Sam," he said at length. "I want to have a talk with you. You know, it's time you were settling down. I've been thinking about you while you were in America, and I've come to the conclusion that I've been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young man. You're getting on. I don't say you're senile, but you're not twenty-one any longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver. You've got to remember that life is-dash it! I've forgotten it again."

He broke off and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. "Miss Milliken, kindly repeat what you were saying just now about life.... Yes, yes, that's enough!" He put down the instrument. "Yes, life is real, life is earnest," he said, gazing at Sam seriously, "and the grave is not our goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. In fact, it's time you took your coat off and started work."

"I am quite ready, father."

"You didn't hear what I said," exclaimed Sir Mallaby with a look of surprise. "I said it was time you began work."

"And I said I was quite ready."

"Bless my soul! You've changed your views a trifle since I saw you last."

"I have changed them altogether."

Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange, even morbid, att.i.tude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided even before his conversation with Eustace, was the only medicine for his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet office, far from the tumult and noise of the world, in a haven of torts and misdemeanours and Vic. I Cap 3's, and all the rest of it, he might find peace. At any rate, it was worth taking a stab at it.

"Your trip has done you good," said Sir Mallaby approvingly. "The sea air has given you some sense. I'm glad of it. It makes it easier for me to say something else that I've had on my mind for a good while. Sam, it's time you got married."

Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern.

"Swallow some smoke the wrong way?"

"I was laughing," explained Sam with dignity.

Sir Mallaby shook his head.

"I don't want to discourage your high spirit, but I must ask you to approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good, Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I was two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and it was the making of me. A wife might make something of you."

"Impossible!"

"I don't see why she shouldn't. There's lots of good in you, my boy, though you may not think so."

"When I said it was impossible," said Sam coldly, "I was referring to the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My heart is dead."

"Your what?"

"My heart."