I own that Bingo had the decency to shudder. Thinking of Charlotte always made me shudder, too.
“You don’t seriously mean, Bertie, that you are intending to compare the feeling I have for Mary Burgess, the holy devotion, the spiritual—”
“Oh, all right, let it go,” I said. “I say, old lad, aren’t we going rather a long way round?”
Considering that we were supposed to be heading for Twing Hall, it seemed to me that we were making a longish job of it. The Hall is about two miles from the station by the main road, and we had cut off down a lane, gone across country for a bit, climbed a stile or two, and were now working our way across a field that ended in another lane.
“She sometimes takes her little brother for a walk round this way,” explained Bingo. “I thought we would meet her and bow, and you could see her, you know, and then we would walk on.”
“Of course,” I said, “that’s enough excitement for anyone, and undoubtedly a corking reward for tramping three miles out of one’s way over ploughed fields with tight boots, but don’t we do anything else? Don’t we tack on to the girl and buzz along with her?”
“Good Lord!” said Bingo, honestly amazed. “You don’t suppose I’ve got nerve enough for that, do you? I just look at her from afar off and all that sort of thing. Quick! Here she comes! No, I’m wrong!”
It was like that song of Harry Lauder’s where he’s waiting for the girl and says “This is her-r-r. No, it’s a rabbut.” Young Bingo made me stand there in the teeth of a nor’east half-gale for ten minutes, keeping me on my toes with a series of false alarms, and I was just thinking of suggesting that we should lay off and give the rest of the proceedings a miss, when round the corner there came a fox-terrier, and Bingo quivered like an aspen. Then there hove in sight a small boy, and he shook like a jelly. Finally, like a star whose entrance has been worked up by the personnel of the ensemble, a girl appeared, and his emotion was painful to witness. His face got so red that, what with his white collar and the fact that the wind had turned his nose blue, he looked more like a French flag than anything else. He sagged from the waist upwards, as if he had been filleted.
He was just raising his fingers limply to his cap when he suddenly saw that the girl wasn’t alone. A chappie in clerical costume was also among those present, and the sight of him didn’t seem to do Bingo a bit of good. His face got redder and his nose bluer, and it wasn’t till they had nearly passed that he managed to get hold of his cap.
The girl bowed, the curate said, “Ah, Little. Rough weather,” the dog barked, and then they toddled on and the entertainment was over.
The curate was a new factor in the situation to me. I reported his movements to Jeeves when I got to the hall. Of course, Jeeves knew all about it already.
“That is the Reverend Mr. Wingham, Mr. Heppenstall’s new curate, sir. I gather from Brookfield that he is Mr. Little’s rival, and at the moment the young lady appears to favour him. Mr. Wingham has the advantage of being on the premises. He and the young lady play duets after dinner, which acts as a bond. Mr. Little on these occasions, I understand, prowls about in the road, chafing visibly.”
“That seems to be all the poor fish is able to do, dash it. He can chafe all right, but there he stops. He’s lost his pep. He’s got no dash. Why, when we met her just now, he hadn’t even the common manly courage to say ‘Good evening’!”
“I gather that Mr. Little’s affection is not unmingled with awe, sir.”
“Well, how are we to help a man when he’s such a rabbit as that? Have you anything to suggest? I shall be seeing him after dinner, and he’s sure to ask first thing what you advise.”
“In my opinion, sir, the most judicious course for Mr. Little to pursue would be to concentrate on the young gentleman.”
“The small brother? How do you mean?”
“Make a friend of him, sir—take him for walks and so forth.”
“It doesn’t sound one of your red-hottest ideas. I must say I expected something fruitier than that.”
“It would be a beginning, sir, and might lead to better things.”
“Well, I’ll tell him. I liked the look of her, Jeeves.”
“A thoroughly estimable young lady, sir.”
I slipped Bingo the tip from the stable that night, and was glad to observe that it seemed to cheer him up.
“Jeeves is always right,” he said. “I ought to have thought of it myself. I’ll start in tomorrow.”
It was amazing how the chappie bucked up. Long before I left for town it had become a mere commonplace for him to speak to the girl. I mean he didn’t simply look stuffed when they met. The brother was forming a bond that was a dashed sight stronger than the curate’s duets. She and Bingo used to take him for walks together. I asked Bingo what they talked about on these occasions, and he said Wilfred’s future. The girl hoped that Wilfred would one day become a curate, but Bingo said no, there was something about curates he didn’t quite like.
The day we left, Bingo came to see us off with Wilfred frisking about him like an old college chum. The last I saw of them, Bingo was standing him chocolates out of the slot-machine. A scene of peace and
