A Man of Means by P. G. Wodehouse (best mystery novels of all time TXT) đź“–
- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
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She was not present, but otherwise there was a full gathering. There were the marquises; there were the counts; there was Bombito.
He looked unhappily round the crowd.
Somebody gave him a glass of champagne. He raised it.
“To the revolution,” he said mechanically.
There was a silence—it seemed to Roland an awkward silence. As if he had said something improper, the marquises and counts began to drift from the room, till only Bombito was left. Roland regarded him with some apprehension. He was looking larger and more unusual than ever.
But to-night, apparently, Bombito was in genial mood. He came forward and slapped Roland on the shoulder. And then the remarkable fact came to light that Bombito spoke English, or a sort of English.
“My old chap,” he said. “I would have a speech with you.”
He slapped Roland again on the shoulder.
“The others they say, 'Break it with Senor Bleke gently.' Maraquita say 'Break it with Senor Bleke gently.' So I break it with you gently.”
He dealt Roland a third stupendous punch. Whatever was to be broken gently, it was plain to Roland that it was not himself. And suddenly there came to him a sort of intuition that told him that Bombito was nervous.
“After all you have done for us, Senor Bleke, we shall seem to you ungrateful bounders, but what is it? Yes? No? I shouldn't wonder, perhaps. The whole fact is that there has been political crisis in Paranoya. Upset. Apple-cart. Yes? You follow? No? The Ministry have been—what do you say?—put through it. Expelled. Broken up. No more ministry. New ministry wanted. To conciliate royalist party, that is the cry. So deputation of leading persons, mighty good chaps, prominent merchants and that sort of bounder, call upon us. They offer me to be President. See? No? Yes? That's right. I am ambitious blighter, Senor Bleke. What about it, no? I accept. I am new President of Paranoya. So no need for your kind assistance. Royalist revolution up the spout. No more royalist revolution.”
The wave of relief which swept over Roland ebbed sufficiently after an interval to enable him to think of some one but himself. He was not fond of Maraquita, but he had a tender heart, and this, he felt, would kill the poor girl.
“But Maraquita——?”
“That's all right, splendid old chap. No need to worry about Maraquita, stout old boy. Where the husband goes, so does the wife go. As you say, whither thou goes will I follow. No?”
“But I don't understand. Maraquita is not your wife?”
“Why, certainly, good old heart. What else?”
“Have you been married to her all the time?”
“Why, certainly, good, dear boy.”
The room swam before Roland's eyes. There was no room in his mind for meditations on the perfidy of woman. He groped forward and found Bombito's hand.
“By Jove,” he said thickly, as he wrung it again and again, “I knew you were a good sort the first time I saw you. Have a drink or something. Have a cigar or something. Have something, anyway, and sit down and tell me all about it.”
THE EPISODE OF THE HIRED PAST
Final Story of the Series [First published in Pictorial Review, October 1916]
“What do you mean—you can't marry him after all? After all what? Why can't you marry him? You are perfectly childish.”
Lord Evenwood's gentle voice, which had in its time lulled the House of Peers to slumber more often than any voice ever heard in the Gilded Chamber, had in it a note of unwonted, but quite justifiable, irritation. If there was one thing more than another that Lord Evenwood disliked, it was any interference with arrangements already made.
“The man,” he continued, “is not unsightly. The man is not conspicuously vulgar. The man does not eat peas with his knife. The man pronounces his aitches with meticulous care and accuracy. The man, moreover, is worth rather more than a quarter of a million pounds. I repeat, you are childish!”
“Yes, I know he's a very decent little chap, Father,” said Lady Eva. “It's not that at all.”
“I should be gratified, then, to hear what, in your opinion, it is.”
“Well, do you think I could be happy with him?”
Lady Kimbuck gave tongue. She was Lord Evenwood's sister. She spent a very happy widowhood interfering in the affairs of the various branches of her family.
“We're not asking you to be happy. You have such odd ideas of happiness. Your idea of happiness is to be married to your cousin Gerry, whose only visible means of support, so far as I can gather, is the four hundred a year which he draws as a member for a constituency which has every intention of throwing him out at the next election.”
Lady Eva blushed. Lady Kimbuck's faculty for nosing out the secrets of her family had made her justly disliked from the Hebrides to Southern Cornwall.
“Young O'Rion is not to be thought of,” said Lord Evenwood firmly. “Not for an instant. Apart from anything else, his politics are all wrong. Moreover, you are engaged to this Mr. Bleke. It is a sacred responsibility not lightly to be evaded. You can not pledge your word one day to enter upon the most solemn contract known to—ah—the civilized world, and break it the next. It is not fair to the man. It is not fair to me. You know that all I live for is to see you comfortably settled. If I could myself do anything for you, the matter would be different. But these abominable land-taxes and Blowick—especially Blowick—no, no, it's out of the question. You will be very sorry if you do anything foolish. I can assure you that Roland Blekes are not to be found—ah—on every bush. Men are extremely shy of marrying nowadays.”
“Especially,” said Lady Kimbuck, “into a family like ours. What with Blowick's scandal, and that shocking business of your grandfather and the circus-woman, to say nothing of your poor father's trouble in '85——”
“Thank you, Sophia,” interrupted Lord Evenwood, hurriedly. “It is unnecessary to go into all that now. Suffice it that there are adequate reasons, apart from all moral obligations, why Eva should not break her word to Mr. Bleke.”
Lady Kimbuck's encyclopedic grip of the family annals was a source of the utmost discomfort to her relatives. It was known that more than one firm of publishers had made her tempting offers for her reminiscences, and the family looked on like nervous spectators at a battle while Cupidity fought its ceaseless fight with Laziness; for the Evenwood family had at various times and in various ways stimulated the circulation of
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