3.
Not having a cigarette of his own, Derek got up and went to look for
the only man he knew who could give him one: and after a search of a
few minutes came upon Freddie all alone in a dark corner, apart from
the throng. It was a very different Freddie from the moody youth who
had returned to the box after his conversation with Uncle Chris. He
was leaning against a piece of scenery with his head tilted back and
a beam of startled happiness on his face. So rapt was he in his
reflections that he did not become aware of Derek's approach until
the latter spoke.
"Got a cigarette, Freddie?"
Freddie withdrew his gaze from the roof.
"Hullo, old son! Cigarette? Certainly and by all means. Cigarettes?
Where are the cigarettes? Mr. Rooke, forward! Show cigarettes." He
extended his case to Derek, who helped himself in sombre silence,
finding his boyhood's friend's exuberance hard to bear. "I say,
Derek, old scream, the most extraordinary thing has happened! You'll
never guess. To cut a long story short and come to the blow-out of
the scenario, I'm engaged! Engaged, old crumpet! You know what I
mean--engaged to be married!"
"Uh?" said Derek gruffly, frowning over his cigarette.
"Don't wonder you're surprised," said Freddie, looking at him a
little wistfully, for his friend had scarcely been gushing, and he
would have welcomed a bit of enthusiasm. "Can hardly believe it
myself."
Derek awoke to a sense of the conventions.
"Congratulate you," he said. "Do I know her?"
"Not yet, but you soon will. She's a girl in the company,--in the
chorus, as a matter of fact. Girl named Nelly Bryant. An absolute
corker. I'll go further--a topper. You'll like her, old man."
Derek was looking at him, amazed.
"Good Heavens!" he said.
"Extraordinary how these things happen," proceeded Freddie. "Looking
back, I can see, of course, that I always thought her a topper, but
the idea of getting engaged--I don't know--sort of thing that doesn't
occur to a chappie, if you know what I mean. What I mean to say is,
we had always been the greatest of pals and all that, but it never
struck me that she would think it much of a wheeze getting hooked up
for life with a chap like me. We just sort of drifted along and so
forth. All very jolly and what not. And then this evening--I don't
know. I had a bit of a hump, what with one thing and another, and she
was most dashed sweet and patient and soothing and--and--well, and
what not, don't you know, and suddenly--deuced rummy sensation--the
jolly old scales seemed to fall, if you follow me, from my good old
eyes; I don't know if you get the idea. I suddenly seemed to look
myself squarely in the eyeball and say to myself, 'Freddie, old top,
how do we go? Are we not missing a good thing?' And, by Jove,
thinking it over, I found that I was absolutely correct-o! You've no
notion how dashed sympathetic she is, old man! I mean to say, I had
this hump, you know, owing to one thing and another, and was feeling
that life was more or less of a jolly old snare and delusion, and she
bucked me up and all that, and suddenly I found myself kissing her
and all that sort of rot, and she was kissing me and so on and so
forth, and she's got the most ripping eyes, and there was nobody
about, and the long and the short of it was, old boy, that I said,
'Let's get married!' and she said, 'When?' and that was that, if you
see what I mean. The scheme now is to pop down to the City Hall and
get a license, which it appears you have to have if you want to bring
this sort of binge off with any success and vim, and then what ho for
the padre! Looking at it from every angle, a bit of a good egg,
what! Happiest man in the world, and all that sort of thing."
At this point in his somewhat incoherent epic Freddie paused. It had
occurred to him that he had perhaps laid himself open to a charge of
monopolizing the conversation.
"I say! You'll forgive my dwelling a bit on this thing, won't you?
Never found a girl who would look twice at me before, and it's rather
unsettled the old bean. Just occurred to me that I may have been
talking about my own affairs a bit. Your turn now, old thing. Sit
down, as the blighters in the novels used to say, and tell me the
story of your life. You've seen Jill, of course?"
"Yes," said Derek shortly.
"And it's all right, eh? Fine! We'll make a double wedding of it,
what? Not a bad idea, that! I mean to say, the man of God might make
a reduction for quantity and shade his fee a bit. Do the job half
price!"
Derek threw down the end of his cigarette, and crushed it with his
heel. A closer observer than Freddie would have detected long ere
this the fact that his demeanor was not that of a happy and
successful wooer.
"Jill and I are not going to be married," he said.
A look of blank astonishment came into Freddie's cheerful face. He
could hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, in
gloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill's
independence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not really
believed in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, and
now, in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement,
it seemed even more incredible.
"Great Scott!" he cried. "Did she give you the raspberry?"
It is to be doubted whether the pride of the Underhills would have
permitted Derek to reply in the affirmative, even if Freddie had
phrased his question differently: but the brutal directness of the
query made such a course impossible for him. Nothing was dearer to
Derek than his self-esteem, and, even at the expense of the truth, he
was resolved to shield it from injury. To face Freddie and confess
that any girl in the world had given him, Derek Underhill, what he
coarsely termed the raspberry was a task so revolting as to be
utterly beyond his powers.
"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "It was because we both saw that
the thing would be impossible. Why didn't you tell me that Jill was
in the chorus of this damned piece?"
Freddie's mouth slowly opened. He was trying not to realize the
meaning of what his friend was saying. His was a faithful soul, and
for years--to all intents and purposes for practically the whole of
his life--he had looked up to Derek and reverenced him. He absolutely
refused to believe that Derek was intending to convey what he seemed
to be trying to convey: for, if he was, well . . . by Jove . . . it
was too rotten and Algy Martyn had been right after all and the
fellow was simply . . .
"You don't mean, old man," said Freddie with an almost pleading note
in his voice, "that you're going to back out of marrying Jill because
she's in the chorus?"
Derek looked away, and scowled. He was finding Freddie, in the
capacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the role of
exuberant _fiancé_. It offended his pride to have to make
explanations to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizing
tolerance as not a bad fellow in his way but in every essential
respect negligible.
"I have to be sensible," he said, chafing as the indignity of his
position intruded itself more and more. "You know what it would mean
. . . Paragraphs in all the papers . . . photographs . . . the news
cabled to England . . . everybody reading it and misunderstanding . . .
I've got my career to think of . . . It would cripple me . . ."
His voice trailed off, and there was silence for a moment. Then
Freddie burst into speech. His good-natured face was hard with
unwonted scorn. Its cheerful vacuity had changed to stony contempt.
For the second time in the evening the jolly old scales had fallen
from Freddie's good old eyes, and, as Jill had done, he saw Derek as
he was.
"My sainted aunt!" he said slowly. "So that's it, what! Well, I've
always thought a dashed lot of you, as you know. I've always looked
up to you as a bit of a nib and wished I was like you. But, great
Scott! if that's the sort of a chap you are, I'm deuced glad I'm not!
I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night and think how unlike
you I am and pat myself on the back! Ronny Devereux was perfectly
right. A tick's a tick, and that's all there is to say about it. Good
old Ronny told me what you were, and, like a silly ass, I wasted a
lot of time trying to make him believe you weren't that sort of chap
at all. It's no good standing there looking like your mother," said
Freddie firmly. "This is where we jolly well part brass-rags! If we
ever meet again, I'll trouble you not to speak to me, because I've a
reputation to keep up! So there you have it in a bally nutshell!"
Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend in
a bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from the
dance as interpreted by Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up,
saving Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.
"Well, Underhill, my dear fellow," began Uncle Chris affably,
attaching himself to the other's arm, "what . . . ?"
He broke off, for Derek, freeing his arm with a wrench, turned and
walked rapidly away. Derek had no desire to go over the whole thing
again with Uncle Chris. He wanted to be alone, to build up, painfully
and laboriously, the ruins of his self-esteem. The pride of the
Underhills had had a bad evening.
Uncle Chris turned to Freddie.
"What is the matter?" he asked blankly.
"I'll tell you what's the jolly old matter!" cried Freddie. "The
blighter isn't going to marry poor Jill after all! He's changed his
rotten mind! It's off!"
"Off?"
"Absolutely off!"
"Absolutely off?"
"Napoo!" said Freddie. "He's afraid of what will happen to his
blasted career if he marries a girl who's been in the chorus."
"But, my dear boy!" Uncle Chris blinked. "But, my dear boy! This is
ridiculous . . . Surely, if I were to speak a word . . ."
"You can if you like. _I_ wouldn't speak to the cootie again if you
paid me! But it won't do any good, so what's the use?"
Slowly Uncle Chris adjusted his mind to the disaster.
"Then you mean . . . ?"
"It's off!" said Freddie.
For a moment Uncle Chris stood motionless. Then, with a sudden jerk,
he seemed to stiffen his backbone. His face was bleak, but he pulled
at his mustache jauntily.
"_Morituri te salutant!_" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."
He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.
"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.
"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.
"What do you mean?"
"I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs Peagrim!"
"Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, but
the other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappear
into the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow.
"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him."
"He's in the stage-box, with Mrs Peagrim."
"With Mrs Peagrim?"
"Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.
Jill stared.
"Proposing to Mrs Peagrim? What do you mean?"
Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.
