“No, it’s not. By the way, did he say anything about marrying Dingy?”
“Not a word. He said that as soon as the smell of cooking wore off he was going to be the happiest man in the world. Apparently he’s engaged to a female poet in Chelsea. He’s not the sort of cove I’d have chosen for a brother-in-law. But then Flossie isn’t really the sort of wife I’d have chosen. These things happen, old boy.”
Paul told them about the Lamb and Flag at Camberwell Green and about Toby Cruttwell. “D’you think that story is true, or yours, or Prendy’s?” he asked.
“No,” said Mr. Prendergast.
XII
The Agony of Captain Grimes
Two days later Beste-Chetwynde and Paul were in the organ-loft of the Llanabba Parish Church.
“I don’t think I played that terribly well, do you, sir?”
“No.”
“Shall I stop for a bit?”
“I wish you would.”
“Tangent’s foot has swollen up and turned black,” said Beste-Chetwynde with relish.
“Poor little brute!” said Paul.
“I had a letter from my mamma this morning,” Beste-Chetwynde went on. “There’s a message for you in it. Shall I read you what she says?”
He took out a letter written on the thickest possible paper. “The first part is all about racing and a row she’s had with Chokey. Apparently he doesn’t like the way she’s rebuilt our house in the country. I think it was time she dropped that man, don’t you?”
“What does she say about me?” asked Paul.
“She says:
‘By the way, dear boy, I must tell you that the spelling in your last letters has been just too shattering for words. You know how terribly anxious I am for you to get on and go to Oxford, and everything, and I have been thinking, don’t you think it might be a good thing if we were to have a tutor next holidays? Would you think it too boring? Someone young who would fit in? I thought, would that good-looking young master you said you liked care to come? How much ought I to pay him? I never know these things. I don’t mean the drunk one, though he was sweet too.’
“I think that must be you, don’t you?” said Beste-Chetwynde, “it can hardly be Captain Grimes.”
“Well, I must think that over,” said Paul. “It sounds rather a good idea.”
“Well, yes,” said Beste-Chetwynde doubtfully, “it might be all right, only there mustn’t be too much of the schoolmaster about it. That man Prendergast beat me the other evening.”
“And there’ll be no organ lessons, either,” said Paul.
Grimes did not receive the news as enthusiastically as Paul had hoped, he was sitting over the Common Room fire despondently biting his nails.
“Good, old boy! That’s splendid,” he said abstractedly. “I’m glad; I am really.”
“Well, you don’t sound exactly gay.”
“No, I’m not. Fact is, I’m in the soup again.”
“Badly?”
“Up to the neck.”
“My dear chap, I am sorry. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ve done the only thing: I’ve announced my engagement.”
“That’ll please Flossie.”
“Oh yes, she’s as pleased as hell about it all, damn her nasty little eyes.”
“What did the old man say?”
“Baffled him a bit, old boy. He’s just thinking things out at the moment. Well, I expect everything’ll be all right.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be.”
“Well, there is a reason. I don’t think I told you before, but fact is, I’m married already.”
That evening Paul received a summons from the Doctor. He wore a double-breasted dinner-jacket, which he smoothed uneasily over his hips at Paul’s approach. He looked worried and old.
“Pennyfeather,” he said, “I have this morning received a severe shock, two shocks in fact. The first was disagreeable, but not wholly unexpected. Your colleague, Captain Grimes, has been convicted before me, on evidence that leaves no possibility of his innocence, of a crime—I might almost call it a course of action—which I can neither understand nor excuse. I daresay I need not particularize. However, that is all a minor question. I have quite frequently met with similar cases during a long experience in our profession. But what has disturbed and grieved me more than I can moderately express is the information that he is engaged to be married to my elder daughter. That, Pennyfeather, I had not expected. In the circumstances it seemed a humiliation I might reasonably have been spared. I tell you all this, Pennyfeather, because in our brief acquaintance I have learned to trust and respect you.”
The Doctor sighed, drew from his pocket a handkerchief of crêpe de chine, blew his nose with every accent of emotion, and resumed:
“He is not the son-in-law I should readily have chosen. I could have forgiven him his wooden leg, his slavish poverty, his moral turpitude, and his abominable features; I could even have forgiven him his incredible vocabulary, if only he had been a gentleman. I hope you do not think me a snob. You may have discerned in me a certain prejudice against the lower orders. It is quite true. I do feel deeply on the subject. You see, I married one of them. But that, fortunately, is neither here nor there. What I really wished to say to you was this: I have spoken to the unhappy young woman my daughter, and find that she has no particular inclination towards Grimes. Indeed, I do not think that any daughter of mine could fall as low as that. But she is, for some reason, uncontrollably eager to be married to somebody fairly soon. Now, I should be quite prepared to offer a partnership in Llanabba to a son-in-law of whom I approved. The income of the school is normally not less than three thousand a year—that is with the help of dear Diana’s housekeeping—and my junior partner would start at an income of a thousand, and of course
