Short Fiction P. G. Wodehouse (good books to read in english .txt) 📖

lots of good magazines. My idea is that she would be utterly horrified if she knew, and could never be quite the same to me again. But I want you to meet her and judge for yourself. It’s just possible that I am taking too morbid a view of the matter, and I want an unprejudiced outside opinion. Come and lunch with us at the Piccadilly tomorrow, will you?”

He was absolutely right. One glance at Miss Nugent told me that the poor old boy had got the correct idea. I hardly know how to describe the impression she made on me. On the way to the Pic, Archie had told me that what first attracted him to her was the fact that she was so utterly unlike Mabel Doughnut; but that had not prepared me for what she really was. She was kind of intense, if you know what I mean⁠—kind of spiritual. She was perfectly pleasant, and drew me out about golf and all that sort of thing; but all the time I felt that she considered me an earthy worm whose loftier soul-essence had been carelessly left out of his composition at birth. She made me wish that I had never seen a musical comedy or danced on a supper table on New Year’s Eve. And if that was the impression she made on me, you can understand why poor old Archie jibbed at the idea of bringing her Funny Slices, and pointing at the Doughnuts and saying, “Me⁠—I did it!” The notion was absolutely out of the question. The shot wasn’t on the board. I told Archie so directly we were alone.

“Old top,” I said, “you must keep it dark.”

“I’m afraid so. But I hate the thought of deceiving her.”

“You must get used to that now you’re going to be a married man,” I said.

“The trouble is, how am I going to account for the fact that I can do myself pretty well?”

“Why, tell her you have private means, of course. What’s your money invested in?”

“Practically all of it in B. and O. P. Rails. It is a devilish good thing. A pal of mine put me onto it.”

“Tell her that you have a pile of money in B. and O. P., then. She’ll take it for granted it’s a legacy. A spiritual girl like Miss Nugent isn’t likely to inquire further.”

“Reggie, I believe you’re right. It cuts both ways, that spiritual gag. I’ll do it.”

They were married quietly. I held the towel for Archie, and a spectacled girl with a mouth like a rattrap, who was something to do with the Woman’s Movement, saw fair play for Eunice. And then they went off to Scotland for their honeymoon. I wondered how the Doughnuts were going to get on in old Archie’s absence, but it seemed that he had buckled down to it and turned out three months’ supply in advance. He told me that long practice had enabled him to Doughnut almost without conscious effort. When he came back to London he would give an hour a week to them and do them on his head. Pretty soft! It seemed to me that the marriage was going to be a success.

One gets out of touch with people when they marry. I am not much on the social-call game, and for nearly six months I don’t suppose I saw Archie more than twice or three times. When I did, he appeared sound in wind and limb, and reported that married life was all to the velvet, and that he regarded bachelors like myself as so many excrescences on the social system. He compared me, if I remember rightly, to a wart, and advocated drastic treatment.

It was perhaps seven months after he had told Eunice that he endowed her with all his worldly goods⁠—she not suspecting what the parcel contained⁠—that he came to me unexpectedly one afternoon with a face so long and sick-looking that my finger was on the button and I was ordering brandy and soda before he had time to speak.

“Reggie,” he said, “an awful thing has happened. Have you seen the paper today?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Did you read the Stock Exchange news? Did you see that some lunatic has been jumping around with a club and hammering the stuffing out of B. and O. P.? This afternoon they are worth practically nothing.”

“By jove! And all your money was in it. What rotten luck!” Then I spotted the silver lining. “But, after all, it doesn’t matter so very much. What I mean is, bang go your little savings and all that sort of thing; but, after all, you’re making quite a good income, so why worry?”

“I might have known you would miss the point,” he said. “Can’t you understand the situation? This morning at breakfast Eunice got hold of the paper first. ‘Archie,’ she said, ‘didn’t you tell me all your money was in B. and O. P.?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’ ‘Then we’re ruined.’ Now do you see? If I had had time to think, I could have said that I had another chunk in something else, but I had committed myself, I have either got to tell her about those infernal Doughnuts, or else conceal the fact that I had money coming in.”

“Great Scot! What on earth are you going to do?”

“I can’t think. We can struggle along in a sort of way, for it appears that she has small private means of her own. The idea at present is that we shall live on them. We’re selling the car, and trying to get out of the rest of our lease up at the flat, and then we’re going to look about for a cheaper place, probably down Chelsea way, so as to be near my studio. What was that stuff I’ve been drinking? Ring for another of the same, there’s a good fellow. In fact, I think you had better keep your finger permanently on the bell. I shall want all they’ve got.”

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