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The Missing Angel

 

by Erle Cox

 

“My Lords, there was an island of farewell,

 

Whence parted those things real

 

from those that only seemed to be.”

 

To

MOLL, KATH and HAROLD

 

All characters in this story, except that of Nicholas Senior,

are fictitious.

CHAPTER I

To-know all is to forgive all. So, therefore, if you would censure

Tydvil Jones because of what happened when he made the attempt to

recapture his lost youth, you should know why and how he lost his youth.

 

A biographical introduction to a story is always boring, but I cannot

help that. You must know how Tydvil was brought up or it will be

impossible to understand him. When you know he began life with a

handicap that not one man in a million could carry to the winning post

you will recognise that he might have been much worse than he was.

 

To begin with Tydvil was an only child. His father was middle-aged when

Tydvil arrived, and was a man deeply absorbed in his business. His

mother was a woman of iron will and an ultra pious disposition. That she

insisted on calling her son Tydvil because his father had been born in

Merthyr Tydvil, and had her way, is one proof of the inflexibility of

her purpose.

 

It was the boy’s good luck that with his mother’s will he inherited the

business ability of his father. As there was not room in one family for

two will-powers such as her own, Mrs. Jones, senior, did her best to

eradicate that of her son in his infancy; but never recognised that,

though suppressed, it remained latent.

 

Now, Mrs. Jones as the moving spirit in half a dozen societies for the

moral improvement of everybody and everything, obtained an insight into

aspects of life that are usually kept decently covered up. Not being as

wise as she believed herself to be, and seeing results without

understanding causes, she was firmly convinced that all men were brutes.

She asserted her belief so often that the natural brutality of man

became the basic axiom of her life.

 

She was determined, therefore, that her son would grow up an exception,

and took measures accordingly. It was the boy’s hard luck that; as an

only child, she was able to devote her entire attention to him while she

was not otherwise engaged in reforming society.

 

To give her her due, she was well equipped for the job. It would have

been better for Tydvil perhaps had she not been entitled to sign herself

M.A. By the time he was aged eighteen years he was better furnished

educationally than thousands of public school boys. Otherwise the

results of his home training were deplorable beyond words.

 

He knew no other boys of his age except at long range. His only sport

was tennis played with serious-minded seniors of either sex on the

family court. On the rare occasions when he came into contact with

youths of his own age, he could not understand them. He considered their

outlook on life to be sinful. Their opinion of him, expressed with the

freedom of youth, was far from flattering.

 

On one occasion, after reflecting on their manners and customs to two

amazed boys, he only escaped gathering the full harvest of his temerity

by one restraining the other on the plea that it was impossible to

strike a lady. They parted with him after giving him a brief, but lurid,

summary of his character that left him pink to the ears.

 

The truth was, that at this age, a more intolerable and obnoxious young

prig than Tydvil Jones could not have been found outside the pages of

“Sanford and Merton,” a literary masterpiece that is, fortunately,

forgotten by the present generation.

CHAPTER II

To his father, Tydvil’s belated arrival had been a cause of

embarrassment rather than pleasure. He felt secretly relieved when his

wife had undertaken to deal with a domestic problem with which he felt

himself unable to cope. He had his doubts as to the value of the boy’s

education at home. But he concealed them from his wife. Thirty years of

married life had made him a domestic diplomat.

 

It was a relief, too, when his wife decided that Tydvil had arrived at

the age when he should enter his father’s office. It was his unspoken

fear that his wife would demand a professional career for their son.

 

Away back in the ‘50’s of last century, there had been established the

firm of Craddock, Burns and Despard. The firm had flourished

exceedingly. Burns’s daughter had married a Jones in the ‘70’s.

Subsequently, through a series of vital and commercial dissolutions, the

father of Tydvil Jones became the sole partner and owner of the firm of

Craddock, Burns and Despard. The head office was housed in a vast

six-storied building, and the women of six States paid tribute into the

coffers of C. B. & D.

 

For the first time in his life, Tydvil Jones came into direct contact

with his father. It was a belated contact that led to a mutual respect,

based, although they did not recognise the fact, on mutual suffering.

 

The loosening of the apron strings, however, by no means meant

emancipation. In the warehouse, Tydvil experienced the isolation of “the

boss’s son.” It was the isolation of the man who would eventually take

the reins. Departmental heads who imparted information were courteous

but restrained. The general staff, both office and warehouse, viewed his

advent with suspicion.

 

The boy’s natural reticence increased, and, denied friendship, he threw

himself wholeheartedly into his work. He had sufficient sense not to

make his position too obvious to the staff. The natural ability he had

inherited from his father found a proper outlet, and it was not long

before Tydvil began to make his mark.

 

Gradually the staff recognised he was not presumptuous. Moreover, to

their great and abiding joy, they discovered that he was innocent of the

world and the flesh to an extent that was unbelievable to a horde of

average business pagans.

 

The typists found with delight that, on being spoken to by one of them,

he would blush a rosy pink. Therefore, they made opportunities to

approach him, and the eyes of a dozen other minxes watched for the

tell-tale blush.

 

There grew up around Tydvil legends of his innocence, that lost nothing

in the telling. “Have you heard Tyddie’s latest?” became a stock

question. None the less, while the staff grinned joyously at his

blameless life, they began to have a real respect for him as a business

man.

 

Said one departmental head to another: “He may be a mug in many

respects, but there was nothing of the mug in the way he handled that

old swine Graham of Graham and Stone over those contracts. You know the

old man’s gift of language when the spirit moves him?”

 

The other nodded, and laughed.

 

“Well,” the narrator continued, “he cut loose on young Tyddie. He had

hardly got his first ‘damn,’ when the lad pipes up, ‘You will be good

enough not to use obscene and blasphemous language in my office. It does

not impress me, and it is offensive. Kindly confine your remarks to

business.’”

 

The listener laughed. “That must have improved the atmosphere.”

 

“A close-up of old G’s face would have been worth a fortune. He gulped

out, ‘I’ve done business with this house for five and thirty years, and

have never been spoken to like that.’ ‘Hump,’ snapped Tyddie, ‘then it’s

about time someone took you in hand. If you don’t like the way I talk to

you, you can get out and close the account.’”

 

“That, to old Michael Graham?”

 

“Just that! And believe it or not, he bullied the old devil till he

didn’t know whether he was awake or enjoying a nightmare. He signed up

for all the allowances we asked for and agreed to replace the defective

stuff. Tyddie may be a perfect lady, but he is no mug.”

CHAPTER III

In his twenty-fifth year, Tydvil Jones married. Had he been asked at the

time, he would have said he had made free selection. Really, the choice

had been his mother’s. That matron was somewhat disappointed at the

result of her matchmaking.

 

She knew Amy to be very pious and serious but she under-estimated her

generalship and fighting strength. Amy suddenly developed a will that

was more inflexible than her own. In the several ruthless but brief

battles fought for the ownership of Tydvil Jones, Amy was signally

victorious.

 

The bone of contention knew nothing of the war that had been fought. He

found he had merely exchanged one domestic ruler for another. To him the

gynecocracy that would have driven another man to drink or crime, was a

normal state of affairs. The only effect of the change was that he

noticed Amy talked a good deal more than his mother did.

 

After his marriage his home life took on a new aspect. Under his

mother’s rule Tydvil had been able to avoid taking part in her

activities for the reformation of society.

 

Amy had other ideas.

 

First, she waged war on her motherin-law to obtain control of several

of her pet societies. To give the elder woman her due, she put up a

perfectly willing fight. Outside of actual physical violence, there was

no limit to their endeavours. The war was waged under Rafferty’s rules,

and Amy was again victorious.

 

What Mrs. Jones, senior, said about Mrs. Jones, junior, though in the

main true, was libellous and scathing. Indeed, there was no need to

embroider the stories, the facts were more scandalous than anything she

could have invented. Amy’s methods were new and atrocious beyond the

wide experience of her vanquished motherin-law.

 

Who but Amy would have thought of telephoning to every one of her

motherin-law’s supporters, on the morning of a vital meeting, that the

meeting had been postponed? But Amy did that, and came down with her

own gang and elected all her own nominees for office unopposed.

 

Partly to irritate his mother, and partly for her own convenience, Amy

enlisted Tydvil for social service. Having no other interests outside

his business, he found the work an outlet for his surplus energies. Amy

found his clear judgment no small assistance in her campaigns.

 

Therefore, in certain circles, Tydvil Jones became a somewhat notable

figure. He studied social questions and spoke from many platforms. He

also subscribed to causes the value of which he doubted, though at that

period his doubts were kept to himself.

CHAPTER IV

At the age of thirty an avalanche smote the life of Tydvil Jones. In the

one six months he lost both his parents. Early in the year, a moment of

indecision settled the fate of his mother. The driver of the motor car

was severely censured by the coroner, though the jury brought in a

verdict of misadventure.

 

Just six months later, his father relinquished his life as unobtrusively

as he had lived. Their actual loss had little effect on their son.

Neither had been demonstratively affectionate. None the less, the result

was to sweep Tydvil from a harbour of comparative calm

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