“Boots!” he roared, for the second time. His wife, opening the kitchen door, looked in, and surveyed him.
“If I have to order you,” said Mr. Baynes, speaking with great distinctness, “to come and take off my boots again, I shall dock half a crown off your weekly allowance to-morrow.”
She did not answer.
“My best plan,” he went on, “will be to draw it all up in black and white, so that we can have a clear and proper understandin’ one with the other. We must have a proper system of fines, same as they do in every well-regulated business. Fetch the pen and ink and paper.”
“How would it be to fetch it for yourself?”
He stared at her amazedly. Searching his pockets, he found there a small memorandum-book and a short piece of pencil.
“I’m going to keep calm with you,” he said deliberately, “because, so far as I can see, you’ve taken leave, for the present, of your senses. You’ll be sorry for it when you come back to ’em. Now then, let’s make out a list. ‘For not answering when called, one shilling.’”
He wrote this carefully on a page, regarding it with satisfaction at the finish. “See what that means? That means, for every time you pretend to be deaf when I shout at you, you’ll be docked a bob at the end of the week.”
“I see.”
“Just as well you do,” remarked Baynes threateningly. “We will now proceed to the next item: ‘Food not cooked to W. B.’s satisfaction, one-and-six.’ How many t’s in ‘satisfaction’?”
“Many as you like.”
“Impudence,” he continued, writing as he spoke, “one-and-three. Wait a bit; I haven’t finished yet. ‘Clean collar not ready when required, sixpence.’”
“There won’t be anything left,” mentioned his wife, “if you put many more down.”
“Rests with you,” giving a careless gesture. “All you’ve got to do is to see that none of these rules are broken. I shall take the trouble presently of copying out the list, and you’ll do well to stick it up on the wall in some prominent position, so that you can be reminded of it several times in the course of the day.”
“And when any of my relatives look in they can see it too?”
“Reminds me,” he said, taking his pencil again. “‘Relations, two a month. All in excess of this number, fourpence per relation.’ Take the list and read it out to me, and then kneel down and take off my boots as I ordered you to do some considerable time ago.”
Mrs. Baynes accepted the list, inspected it; then tore the page into several pieces and threw these into the fireplace. In the pocket of an underskirt she found a purse, and from this brought four new banknotes.
“Have a good look at them, William,” she said. “You won’t get a chance of seeing them again. I’m just going along to the Post Office to put them away before it closes.”
“How—how did you come by them?”
“I’m not bound to answer you,” remarked Mrs. Baynes, “but perhaps I may as well. The money has come to me from poor Uncle Ernest, who popped off last month. He’s left a sim’lar amount to my two sisters.”
“You was his favourite,” said Baynes, “and if he’d got money to leave—and this is the first I’ve heard of it—he ought to have left it all to you. I must have a glance at his will and see whether we can’t dispute it.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.”
“In any case,” he went on, “there is, I’m bound to admit, a very decent little nest-egg for us.”
“Not for us. For me,” corrected Mrs. Baynes. “It belongs to me and only to me. You haven’t anything to do with it.”
“I’ve heard,” he remarked, “of sudden riches affecting the brain, but this is the first time I’ve actually come across such an instance.” He bent and started to unlace his boots. “We’ll talk the matter over again later on. By the by,” relacing his boots, “there’s no reason why you should go out on a wet night like this and catch your death of cold. I’ll trot along to the Post Office for you. I’m more used to handling money than what you are.”
“That’s been the case hitherto,” she admitted, “but I must learn how to do it now. You stay here and enjoy your pipe, and when I come back I’ll tell you how you’ve got to behave to me in the future.”
“I suppose,” he inquired with some bitterness, “I’ve got your precious sisters to thank for all this?”
“No,” she answered, “poor Uncle Ernest.”
Baynes, on the following morning, before proceeding to work, denied himself the luxury of issuing commands to his wife from the front gate in a tone of voice that could be heard by neighbours; instead he blew a kiss in her direction and walked off, whistling in a thoughtful way. Later in the day he brought home the proportion of his weekly wage and placed it on the mantelpiece, announcing no deductions and giving no warning to make it last out. He tried to assist his wife in the performance of domestic duties, persisting in this until she begged him to go out into the park and give her a chance of finishing the work. On the next day he accompanied her to chapel in the evening, and borrowed threepence from her to put into the plate. Meeting two or three friends on the way back, he declined their invitations and went home with his wife, discussing the sermon and the singing. In response to her appeal he agreed to abstain on future occasions from joining in the hymns. The Sunday paper was still on the hat-stand, and on entering the house he asked whether she would mind if he had a look at it during supper, his general habit being to secure the journal and keep it for his own use throughout the day.
“This is very nice and comfortable,” he said, after the meal. “Somehow, that little legacy of yours, if you’ll pardon the expression, my dear, seems to me likely to prove a blessing in disguise.”
“No disguise about it.”
“You don’t quite follow me,” he remarked patiently. “What I mean is that it’s going to have bigger results than I at first anticipated. Of course, it’s a pity there isn’t more of it.”
“Seeing that I never expected nothing—”
“Quite so, quite so. Only that the Post Office pays such a trifling rate of interest.”
“The money’s safe there,” she interrupted, “that’s the great thing.”
“I should be the last to recommend anything that wasn’t perfectly and absolutely sound,” declared Baynes. “We’re on good terms with each other now, and your interests are my interests. We two are one, so to speak. Only that, getting about as I do, I keep my ears open—”
“Listeners never hear any good of themselves.”
“But sometimes they hear good about other matters. Two chaps were talking on the tramcar last week, and I was sitting just at the back. Jockeys from the look of ’em. They didn’t know I was taking in all they were saying, and they talked quite freely to each other, just as I might to you in this room. Vinolia was what they were chatting about.”
“Old Brown Windsor is as good as anything.”
“Vinolia, it appears,” he continued, “is being kept very dark, but the owner’s made an arrangement, so far as I could gather, for it to win the race it’s running in next week, and no one except those that are in the stable— Why, bless my soul, if this isn’t the rummiest coincidence I ever come across in all my born days. I’m talking to you about Vinolia, and here my eye lights on the very name. Thirty-three to one. Let’s see what it says about it. ‘Vinolia appears to stand no earthly chance, and we are at a loss to comprehend why the owner should take the trouble to run him.’”
“What does thirty-three to one mean, William?”
“Thirty-three to one means,” he explained, “that if you handed me your money and I placed it for you, and Vinolia came in first, you’d get thirty-three times the amount, together with your original money, back. But the risk is a jolly sight too great, and I recommend you, speaking as a friend, to have nothing whatever to do with it. Besides, with me, it’s a matter of principle. I object to gambling in toto. I look on gambling as one of the curses of the country. People win money at it, and it thor’ly demoralises ’em. They bring off something successful that means they’ve cleared as much as they could earn by honest labour in six or seven weeks, perhaps more; consequence is that they get altogether unhinged. Upsets ’em. Knocks ’em off the main line. So my advice to you, old girl, is to put what I’ve been saying clean out of your head, and not trouble any further about it. After all, supposing you had thirty-three times as much as you’ve got at present, it doesn’t by any means follow you’d be thirty-three times as happy. That’s the way you’ve got to look at it!”
“But supposing—”
“My dear,” he said, putting down the newspaper, “we’ve been getting on particular well together this last forty-eight hours or so; don’t let us begin arguing and spoil it. I’ve been into the law of the matter, and I find I’ve got no right to touch your money in any way whatsoever, but it’s my positive duty to see that you don’t do anything silly and stupid with it.”
“It’s mine to do what I like with.”
“Let’s change the subject,” urged Baynes, “and have a nice talk over old times. When do you reckon it was you first felt drawn towards me?”
Mrs. Baynes brought downstairs an hour later her Post Office book, and announced that she had been giving five minutes of serious thought to the matter. Seemed to her that here was a chance of a lifetime, and to neglect it would only mean perpetual remorse. He pointed out once more the serious risks run by those who backed horses, and submitted a large number of objections. These she brushed aside. On asking how she proposed to set about backing Vinolia, it was admitted that here his help would be required. Baynes declared he intended to take no share or part in the undertaking.
“Very well, then,” she said, “I shall have to make inquiries and see about doing it myself.”
“Rather than you should be taken in by a set of rogues,” he conceded, “I’ll do as you wish. But, mind you, I’m acting in entire opposition to my better judgment!”
Baynes, back from work on the day of the race, found his wife waiting at the front gate, tapping at it impatiently; as he came within six houses of his home, he shook his head. She took up the hem of her apron, and with this to her eyes ran indoors. From the kitchen he roared a command to her to come down and leave off snivelling and make herself useful. Obtaining no reply, he took the trouble to go to the foot of the stairs and make the formal announcement that, unless she descended at once, he would break every bone in her body. She came, red-eyed, and, kneeling, unlaced his boots.
“You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” he remarked sternly. “Every word I uttered has proved to be true. All your money gone, and your poor Uncle Ernest, if he’s looking down, or up, as the case may be, must feel sorry—”
“Don’t, William, don’t!”
“Oh, but I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said with determination. “I’m not the man to mince my words. You get no sympathy out of me. There’s only yourself to blame, and you’ve got to recognise the fact. I’m not going to have you going about saying that you was recommended to back the horse by other people. What you did, you did with your eyes open.”
“Where did it come in?”
“Don’t interrupt me,” shouted Baynes, “when I’m talking! Been and lost the thread of my argument now. Besides, what does it matter where it came in? You asked me to back the horse to win; there was nothing said about backing it for a place. As I told you, I couldn’t get thirty-three to one; but I did, after a lot of trouble, manage to put your money on at twenty-five. I’ve behaved straightforward throughout the entire business, and, now it’s over, all I ask is that nothing more shall be said about it. I’m sick and tired of the whole affair. Perhaps another time you’ll listen to me when I give you good advice.”
“I shall never back a horse again,” she declared tearfully.
“You’ll never get the chance. Take the jug, and hurry off, and mind you’re back here sharp. I shall give you five minutes; if you’re a second later, there’ll be a fine of sixpence. That’s an item to be added to the list. ‘Loitering and gossiping when sent on errands, six d.’ Go!” he ordered, placing his watch on the table.
He was pinning the sheet of notepaper to the wall at the side of the looking-glass when his wife returned. Glancing at the watch, he waited grimly for her explanation.
“Had to wait,” she said, “and find a boy selling evening newspapers.”
“And what might you want, pray, with evening newspapers? Furthermore, where’s the jug?”
“If you want beer, fetch it!” she replied. “That was a good joke of yours about the horse, but you’d better not let me catch you being quite so funny again. It upset me, and I don’t like being upset.”
He snatched the journal from her. She compelled him to give it back and to take it properly. In the stop-press space he read out: “Vinolia, one; Gay Lothario, two; Messenger Boy, three.”
Baynes stood gazing at the fire, making the clicking noises with his tongue which folk adopt when, in disconcerting circumstances, speech fails.
“I’ve been figuring it out in my head,” she went on, “but I can’t make it come twice alike. Tear down that bit of paper and sit yourself there and reckon it up for me. Twenty-five times—”
“I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
“Don’t you start being stupid,” commanded Mrs. Baynes. “Do as I tell you.”
Baynes had written the figures, and was about to enter on the task of multiplication, with one hand gripping the top of his head, when he suddenly threw away the pencil.
“My dear,” he said, “I want you to be so kind as to listen to me, and I must ask you not to be madder than you can possibly help. I admit the case is somewhat trying; but you have to remember that we all have our cross to bear. I never backed that horse!”
A pause of some moments in length.
“You mean,” said his wife slowly, “to look me in the face and to tell me that, after what you overheard on the tramcar—”
“I never overheard nothing of the kind on the tramcar.”
“Perhaps, William, you’ll kindly tell me what horse you did put the money on?”
“I never,” he answered, “put no money on any horse whatsoever.”
“Then where is the money?”
“In the inside pocket of the jacket I’m wearing at the present moment,” he said sulkily.
“But what did you intend to do with it?”
“Hadn’t quite made up my mind about that. Idea was to prevent you from lording it over me. You see, my dear, I’d got accustomed to being master, and the sudden change was a bit trying. And in picking out what I thought was the unlikeliest gee-gee, I acted from the purest of motives, and for what I reckoned the best for all parties concerned. If I made a mistake, I’m sorry for it.”
“Do you realise, William, that if you’d obeyed my orders we should have been in a position to buy a nice little house of our own here in Old Ford, and never had to pay a week’s rent again? Do you understand how much you owe me? Do you comprehend—”
“My dear,” he appealed, putting his hands together, “let me off as light as you can. I won’t go lording it about the place any more. In future, I’ll only lord it over myself.”
The woman stepped on so many toes in making her way to the far end that the passengers were only willing to give partial forgiveness when, as the motor-omnibus started, she gave a violent jerk.
“First time I’ve ever been in one of these new-fangled contrivances.”
“It’ll be the last, if you ain’t careful,” said the conductor, punching a penny ticket.
“But I made up my mind to do it,” addressing the others. “Down in the country where I live, they’ve been throwing it up agenst me for some time past. And so I determined, next time I come up to see my sister, I’d take a trip by one of them, jest in order to see what happened, and—here I are.”
A youth next to her, with a girl companion, mentioned that it was a pity they so often exploded, and blew up in the air; the girl jerked with her elbow and begged him not to make her laugh in public.
“You think there’s any likelihood?” asked the country lady tremulously. “I don’t want to get mixed up in no fatal accident, and see my name in the London papers. Shan’t never hear the end of it if that happens. Do they make any warning before they go off pop?”
The passengers gave up all attempt to read, and offered her their complete attention. “So painful for friends,” said a woman opposite, winking at the rest. “Understand what I mean. Having to come and sort out the bits, and say, ‘That looks like Uncle James’s ear; if I could only find the other one, I should be able to start piecing him together.’ You see, they don’t allow compensation unless you can produce the complete individual.”
“That don’t seem exactly fair.”
“It isn’t fair,” agreed the humorous woman. “But there’s lots of things like that here in London. For instance, if the inspector came in now, and found you sitting up in the first-class part of the car, he’d want to charge you excess.”
“In that case,” she said affrightedly, taking a grip of her parcel, “I’d better move down nearer towards the door.”
They made room for her in the newly selected position; the folk there not disguising their satisfaction with the change. The string of the parcel came undone, and they assisted her in recovering the contents. “Giving everybody a lot of trouble,” she remarked penitently; “and that ain’t my usual plan, not by no manner of means. Can I temp’ you with a apple, sir? I don’t know you, and I hope you’ll excuse what looks like a liberty, but if you’re a judge of a Ribston pippin, you’ll enjoy that one.”
“I recollect,” said the man, “what ’appened in the Garden of Eden.”
“That were before my time,” she said, putting it back into her pocket. “But I always like to reward kindness wherever I come across it. And I must say you London folk are partic’lar nice to strangers. Nothing you won’t do for them. When I get back home, I shall tell my neighbours how pleasant you’ve been to me. What’s that building supposed to be, may I ask?” Pointing through the window at Bayswater Road.
“That,” answered the man, “is a monument put up to Julius Cæsar. The chap, you know, who was in the Battle of Trafalgar.”
“I remember. At least, I say I remember; but that’s a lie. I recollect reading about it when I was at school. And isn’t this a nice open part here, too! Trees, and goodness knows what all!”
“Richmon’ Park,” explained her informant readily. “That’s the proper name of it.”
“Thought that was situated a long way out.”
“It’s been moved.”
“Ah, well,” she said resignedly, “I find the best plan in London is to take everything as it comes. What I’ve always been hoping— But there, it’s no use talking about what isn’t likely to happen.” They pressed for details. “It would be too much like luck for it to occur to me. But what I’ve always wished for was that I might catch sight, just for once in my life, of the new King and Queen—”
Two passengers called her attention eagerly to a couple walking along by the railings, arm-in-arm; gave a fervid assurance.
“Well, well, well!” fanning herself with an ungloved hand. “To think of him strolling along with a pipe in his mouth, for all the world like an ordinary individual! And not over-dressed neither. That’s something more for me to tell ’em when I get home. Wouldn’t have missed the sight for anything. But I were always under the impression that he was a gentleman with a beard.”
“Shaves it off, just about this time, every year.”
“I see,” she remarked contentedly. “More for the sake of change, I suppose, than anything. Talking of that, I suppose there’s nobody here could oblige me with silver for a sovereign?”
Out of sheer gratitude to an admirable target, they found the coins she required, and in giving her thanks she mentioned that the sooner now that she reached Notting Hill the better she would be pleased. They seemed to have a desire to conceal the truth, but the conductor happened to overhear the statement; he rang the bell sharply and informed her she was going in the wrong direction. She asked him to explain, pointing out that his conveyance certainly bore the words Notting Hill, and suggesting that he was possibly making a mistake; the delay to the motor-omnibus induced her fellow-travellers to declare that the conductor was telling the truth, and she bade them separately and collectively goodbye, expressing a hope that she might be so fortunate as to meet them again on some future visit to town.
“And which way do I go now, young man?”
“You get off the step,” replied the irritated conductor. “You cross the roadway. You take a ’bus going West.”
“Which do you call West?”
The motor-omnibus restarted. Passengers gazed amusedly at her, craning necks in the hope of witnessing one more diverting incident; as she vanished they became quite friendly, wondering whether she would ever reach her destination, and speaking of the simplicity and foolishness of country folk.
“What do you make of this sovereign, conductor?”
The conductor, testing it with the aid of his teeth, announced he was able to make nothing of it; he doubted whether the owner would succeed. Alarmed, the rest of the passengers searched muffs and pockets; three purses were missing, and some articles of less value. Frantic inquiries for the nearest police-station. A man who had lost nothing said he suspected the country lady all along.
“What we ought to be uncommon thankful for,” said the conductor, stopping near Edgware Road, “is that she didn’t pinch the blooming ’bus!”
“I should never have come to you,” he said, making a furious dash under his signature, “only that I’ve been rather annoyed and upset.”
“She was clearly in the wrong, I suppose?”
“Absolutely!” he declared, with emphasis. “It’s made me feel that I want to get away for a time from everything and everybody. And yours is the only establishment of its kind. Cheque’s all right, I hope?”
“I hope so, too,” said the voice. And called out, “Pass one!” A curtain pulled aside and the young man, his chin out determinedly, moved. “Take the four slips, please. You’ll have to fill them in.”
A reading candlestick with a reflector stood in the corner of the dark room, which had a faint scent of burnt hay, and he went across to it carefully, but not so carefully as to escape collision, in which a hassock appeared to be the less injured party. An extended easy-chair permitted itself to be seen within reach of the shaded light, and he sat upon this and read the instructions printed at the head of slip Number One. “Please Write Distinctly” prefaced the three or four precise and dogmatically worded rules. He took a pencil, wrote out his desire, and settled back in the long chair. A hand presented to him a pipe that looked a ruler, and he took two short whiffs.