 19. Bill leaned his back against the gate, separated the grounds of the bee farm from the high-road, and mused pleasantly. He was alone. Elizabeth was walking up the drive on her way to the house to tell the news to Nutty. James the cat, who had come down from the roof of the outhouse, was sharpening his claws on a neighbouring tree. After the whirl of excitement that had been his portion, for the past few hours, the peace of it all appealed strongly to Bill. It soated the mood of quiet happiness which was upon him. Really happy! That was how he felt now that it was all over. The white heat of emotion had subsided to a gentle glow of contentment, conducive to thought. He thought tenderly of Elizabeth. She had turned away for a hand before going into the house, and he was still smiling fatuously. Wonderful girl! Lucky chap he was! Rum the way they had come together, talk about fate, what? He stooped to tickle James, who had finished dropping his claws, and was now enjoying a friction massage against his leg, and began to brood on the inscrutable way of fate. Rum thing, fate! Most extraordinary. Suppose he had never gone down to Marvis Bay that time. He had wavered between half a dozen places. It was pure chance that he chosen Marvis Bay. If he hadn't, he would never have met Old Nutcombe. Probably Old Nutcombe had wavered between half a dozen places, too. If they hadn't both happened to choose Marvis Bay, they would never have met. And if they hadn't been the only visitors there, they might never have got to know each other. And if Old Nutcombe hadn't happened to slice his approach shots, he would never have put him under an obligation. Where old Buster, old Nutcombe? Living a fellow he hardly knew from Adam, a cool million quid. Just because he cured him of slicing. It was at this point in his meditations that it suddenly occurred to Bill. It had not yet given a thought to what was immeasurably the most important of any of the things that ought to be occupying his mind just now. What was he to do about this Lord Dawlish business? Alfred Brookport had so accustomed him to being plain Bill Chalmers, that it had absolutely slipped his mind that he was really Lord Dawlish, the one man in the world whom Elizabeth looked on as an enemy. What on earth was he to do about that? Tell her, but if he told her, wouldn't she chuck him on the spot? This was awful. The dreamy sense of well-being left him. He straightened himself to face his problem, ignoring the hint of James who was weeding circles about his legs expectant of more tickling. The man cannot spend his time tickling cats, when he has to concentrate on a dilemma of this kind. Suppose he didn't tell her. How would that work out? Was a marriage legal if the cove who was being married went through it under a false name? He seemed to remember seeing a melodrama in his boyhood, the plot of which turned on that very point. Yes, he began to come back to him. An unpleasant barge with a black moustache had said, this woman is not your wife, and caused the dickens of a lot of unpleasantness. But there, in its usual slip-shod way, memory failed, had subsequent events proved the barge right or wrong. It was a question for a lawyer to decide. Jerry Nichols would know. Well, there was plenty of time, thank goodness, to send Jerry Nichols a cable, asking for his professional opinion, and to get the straight tip long before the wedding day arrived. Laying this part of it aside for the moment, and assuming that the thing could be worked, what about the money? Like a chump, he had told Elizabeth on the first day of his visit that he hadn't any money, except what he made out of his job as secretary of the club. He couldn't suddenly spring five million dollars on her, and pretend that he had forgotten all about it till then. Of course he could invent an imaginary uncle or something, and massacre him during the honeymoon. Something in that. He pictured the thing in his mind. Breakfast. Elizabeth doling out the scrambled eggs. What's the matter, Bill? Why did you exclaim like that? Is there some bad news in the letter you're reading? Oh, it's nothing. Only my uncle's johns died, and left me five million dollars. The scene worked out so well that his mind became a little above itself. It suggested developments of serpentine craftiness. Why not get Jerry Nichols to write him a letter about his uncle John and the five millions? Jerry liked doing that sort of thing. He'd do it like a shot, and chuck in a lot of legal words to make it sound right. It began to be clear to Bill that any move he took, except full confession, at which he jibed, was going to involve Jerry Nichols as an ally. And this discovery had a soothing effect on him. It made him feel that the responsibility had been shifted. He couldn't do anything till he had consulted Jerry, so there was no use in worrying. And being one of those rare persons who concedes worrying instantly when they've convinced themselves that it is useless, he dismissed the entire problem from his mind and returned to the more congenial occupation of thinking of Elizabeth. It was a peculiar feature of his position that he found himself unable to think of Elizabeth without thinking of Clare. He tried to, but failed. Every virtue in Elizabeth seemed to call up the recollection of a corresponding defect in Clare. It became almost mathematical. Elizabeth was so straight on the level they called it over here, Clare was a corkscrew among women. Elizabeth was sunny and cheerful. Quarrelousness was Clare's besetting sin. Elizabeth was such a pal. Clare had never been that. The effect that Clare had always had on him was to deepen the conviction which never really left him that he was a bit of an ass. Elizabeth, on the other hand, bucked him up and made him feel as if he really amounted to something. How different they were. They're very voices. Elizabeth had a sort of quiet, soothing, pleasant voice. The kind of voice that somehow suggested that she thought a lot of a chap without having to say it in so many words. Whereas Clare's voice, he had noticed it right from the beginning, Clare's voice. While he was trying to make Clare to himself, just what it was about Clare's voice that he had not liked. He was granted the opportunity of analysing by means of direct observation. It's failure to meet his vocal ideals. For at this moment it spoke behind him. Bill! She was standing in the road. Her head still covered with that white filmy something, which had commended itself to Mr. Pickering's eyes. She was looking at him in a way that seemed somehow to strike a note of appeal. She conveyed an atmosphere of softness and repentance. A general suggestion of prodigal daughters revisiting old homesteads. We seem to be always meeting at gates, don't we? She said with a faint smile. It was a depreciating smile wistful. Bill! She said again and stopped. She laid her left hand lightly on the gate. Bill had a sort of impression that there was some meaning behind this action. That if he were less of a chump than Nature had made him, he would at this point receive some sort of a revelation. But being as Nature had made him, he did not get it. He was one of those men to whom a girl's left hand is simply a girl's left hand, irrespective of whether it wears rings on its third finger or not. This having become evident to Claire after a moment of silence, she withdrew her hand in a rather disappointed way, and prepared to attack the situation from another angle. Bill! I've come to say something to you. Bill was looking at her curiously. He could not have believed that, even after what had happened, he could face her with such complete detachment, that she could so extraordinarily not matter. He felt no resentment towards her. It was simply that she had gone out of his life. Bill! I've been a fool. He made no reply to this, for he could think of no reply that was sufficiently polite. Yes! It sounded as if he really meant to say that it was just what he had expected. Really! had a sarcastic ring. He fell back on facial expression to imply that he was interested and that she might tell all. Claire looked away down the road and began to speak in a low, quick voice. I've been a fool all along. I lost you through being a fool. When I saw you dancing with that girl in the restaurant, I didn't stop to think. I was angry. I was jealous. I ought to have trusted you, but... oh, well, I was a fool. My dear girl, you had a perfect right. I hadn't. I was an idiot, Bill. I've come to ask you if you can't forgive me. I wish you wouldn't talk like that. There's nothing to forgive. The look which Claire gave him in answer to this was meek and affectionate. But inwardly she was wishing that she could bang his head against the gate. His slowness was maddening. Long before this he should have leaped into the road, in order to fold her in his arms. Her voice shook with the effort she had to make to keep it from sharpness. I mean, is it too late? I mean, can you really forgive me? Oh, Bill! She stopped herself by the fraction of a second from adding, You idiot! Can't we be the same again to each other? Can't we pretend that all this has never happened? Exasperating as Bill's wooden failure to play the scene in the spirit in which her imagination had conceived it was to Claire, several excuses had been offered for him. He had opened the evening with a shattering blow at his faith in woman. He had walked twenty miles at a rapid pace. He had heard shots and found a corpse, and carried the latter by the tail across country. Finally he had had the stunning shock of discovering that Elizabeth Boyd loved him. He was not himself. He found a difficulty in concentrating. With the result that, in answer to this appeal from a beautiful girl whom he had once imagined that he loved, all he could find to say was, How do you mean? Claire, never an adept at patience, just succeeded in swallowing the remark that sprang into her mind. It was incredible to her that a man could exist who had so little intuition. She had not anticipated the necessity of being compelled to put the substance of her meaning in so many blunt words, but it seemed that only so could she make him understand. I mean, can't we be engaged again, Bill? Bill's overtaxed brain turned one convulsive handspring, and came to rest with a sense of having dislocated itself. This was too much. This was not right. No fellow at the end of a hard evening ought to have to grapple with this sort of thing. What on earth did she mean, springing questions like that on him? How could they be engaged? She was going to marry someone else. And so was he. Something of these thoughts. He managed to put into words. But you're engaged to— I've broken my engagement with Mr. Pickering. Great Scott, when? Tonight, I found out his true character, his cruel and treacherous. Something happened. It may sound nothing to you, but it gave me an insight into what he really was. Polly Weatherby had little monkey, and just because he'd bit Mr. Pickering, he shot it. Pickering? Yes. He wasn't the sort of man I should have expected to do a mean, cruel thing like that. It sickened me. I gave him back his ring, then and there. Oh, what a relief it was! What a fool I was ever to have got engaged to such a man! Bill was puzzled. He was one of those simple men who take their fellows on trust. But who, if once that trust is shattered, can never recover it? Like most simple men, he was tenacious of ideas when he got them. And the belief that Clare was playing fast and loose was not lightly to be removed from his mind. He had found her out during his self-communion that night, and he could never believe her again. He had the feeling that there was something behind what she was saying. He could not put his finger on the clue, but that there was a clue he was certain. I only got engaged to him out of peak. I was angry with you, and, well, that's how it happened. Still, Bill could not believe. It was plausible. It sounded true. And yet some instinct told him that it was not true. And while he waited, perplexed. Clare made a false step. The thing had been so close to the top of her mind ever since she had come to the knowledge of it, that it had been hard for her to keep it down. Now she could keep it down no longer. How wonderful about old Mr. Nutcombe, Bill! she said. A vast relief rolled over Bill. Despite his instinct, he had been wavering. But now he understood. He had found the clue. You got my letter, then? Yes, it was forwarded on from the theatre. I got it to-night. Too late. She realised what she had said, and the construction that an intelligent man would put on it. Then she reflected that Bill was not an intelligent man. She shot a swift gaze at him. To all appearances, he had suspected nothing. It went all over the place, she hurried on. The people at Portsmouth Theatre sent it to the London office who sent it home, and Mother mailed it to me. I see. There was a silence. Clare drew a step nearer. Bill, she said, softly. Bill shut his eyes. The moment had come when she dreaded. Not even the thought that she was crooked. That she had been playing with him could make it any better. She was a woman, and he was a man, and it was all that mattered. Nothing could alter it. I'm sorry, he said. It's impossible. Clare stared at him in amazement. She had not been prepared for this. He met her eyes, but every nerve in his body was protesting. Bill! I'm sorry. But Bill! he said his teeth. It was just as bad as he had thought it would be. But Bill, I've explained. I've told you how. I know. Clare's eyes opened wide. I thought you loved me. She came closer. She pulled at his sleeve. Her voice took on a note of soft railery. Don't be absurd, Bill. You mustn't behave like a sulky schoolboy. It isn't like you this. You surely don't want me to humble myself more than I have done. She gave a little laugh. Why, Bill? I'm proposing to you. I know I've treated you badly, but I've explained why. You must be just enough to see that it wasn't altogether my fault. I'm only human. And if I made a mistake, I've done all I can do to undo it. I—Clare, listen, I'm engaged. She fell back. For the first time, the sense of defeat came to her. She had anticipated many things. She had looked for difficulties. But she had not expected this. A feeling of cold fury surged over her. At the way fate had tricked her. She had gambled recklessly on her power of fascination, and she had lost. Mr. Pickering, at that moment, brooding in solitude in the smoking-room of Lady Weatherby's house, would have been relieved. Could he have known how wistfully she was thinking of him? You're engaged? Yes. Well—she forced another laugh. How very rapid of you! To whom? To Elizabeth Boyd. I'm afraid I'm very ignorant, but who is Elizabeth Boyd? Your mate-lady you were dancing with at the restaurant? No. Who, then? She's old Aaron Uckham's niece. The money ought to have been left to her. That's why I came over to America, to see if I could do anything for her. And you're going to marry her. How very romantic—and convenient! What an excellent arrangement for her, which have you suggested it? Bill drew in a deep breath. All this was, he supposed, unavoidable, but it was not pleasant. Claire suddenly abandoned her pose of cool amusement. The fire behind it blazed through. You fool! she cried passionately. Are you blind? Can't you see that this girl is simply after your money? A child could see it. Bill looked at her steadily. You're quite wrong. She doesn't know who I am. Doesn't know who you are? What do you mean? She must know by this time that her uncle left his money to you. But she doesn't know that I am Lord Dawlish. I came to America under another name. She knows me as Chalmers. Claire was silent for a moment. How did you get to know her? She asked more quietly. I met her brother by chance in New York. By chance? Quite by chance. A man I knew in England lent me his rooms in New York. He happened to be a friend of Boyd's. Boyd came to call on him one night and found me. Odd? Had your mutual friend been away from New York long? Some months. And in all that time Mr. Boyd had not discovered that he had left. They must have been great friends. What happened then? Boyd invited me down here. Down here? They live in this house. Is Miss Boyd the girl who keeps the beef farm? She is. Claire's eyes suddenly lit up. She began to speak in a louder voice. Bill, you're an infant, a perfect infant. Of course she's after your money. Do you really imagine for one instant that this Elizabeth Boyd of yours and her brother don't know as well as I do that you are really Lord Dawlish? I always thought you had a trustful nature. You tell me the brother met you by chance. Chance? And invited you down here? I bet he did. He knew his business. And now you're going to marry the girl. So that they will get the money after all splendid. Oh, Bill, you're a wonderful, wonderful creature. Your innocence is touching. She swung round. Good night! She called over her shoulder. He could hear her laughing as she went down the road. End of Chapter 19 of Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse. Read by Timbal Clay of BigBible.org. Chapter 20 of Uneasy Money. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Timbal Clay of BigBible.org. Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse. Chapter 20. In the smoking room of Lady Wellaby's house, during the dead stump of a once imposing cigar, Dudley Pickering sat alone with his thoughts. He had been alone for half an hour now. Once Lord Weatherby had looked in, to withdraw at once coldly, with the expression of a groom, who was found loathsome things in the harness room. Roscoe Sheriff, good, easy man, who could never dislike people no matter what they had done, had come for a while to bear him company, but Mr. Pickering's society was not for the time being entertaining. He had answered with grunts the press agent's kindly attempts at conversation, and the latter had withdrawn to seek a more congenial audience. And now Mr. Pickering was alone, talking things over with his subconscious self. A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride, and increase the misery of a miserable hour. Mr. Pickering's rare interviews with his subconscious self had happened until now, almost entirely in the small hours of the night. When it had popped out to remind him as he lay sleepless, that all flesh was grass, and that he was not getting any younger. Tonight, such had been the shock of the evening's events. It came to him at a time which was usually his happiest, the time that lay between dinner and bed. Mr. Pickering at that point of the day was generally feeling his best. But tonight was different from the other nights of his life. One may picture subconscious self as a withered, cynical, malicious person, standing before Mr. Pickering and regarding him with an evil smile. There had been a pause, and now a subconscious self speaks again. You will have to leave tomorrow. Couldn't possibly stop on after what's happened. Now you see what comes of behaving like a boy. Mr. Pickering writhed. Made a pretty considerable fool of yourself, didn't you, with your revolvers and your hideings and your trailings? Too old for that sort of thing, you know, you're getting on. Probably have a touch of lumbago tomorrow. You must remember you aren't a youngster. Got to take care of yourself. Next time you feel an impulse to hide in shrubberies and take moonlight walks through damp woods, perhaps you will listen to me. Mr. Pickering relit the stumperfish cigar defiantly, and smoked in long gulps for a while. He was trying to persuade himself that all this was untrue. But it was not easy. The cigar became uncomfortably hot, and he threw it away. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a diamond ring, at which he looked pensively. The pretty thing is it not, said subconscious self. Mr. Pickering sighed. That moment when Claire had thrown the ring at his feet, and swept out of his life like an offended queen, had been the culminating blow of a night of blows, the knockout following on a series of minor punches. Subconscious self seized the opportunity to become offensive again. You've lost her all through your own silly fault, it said. How on earth you can have been such a perfect fool beats me, running round with a gun like a boy of fourteen. Well, it's done now, and it can't be mended. Count him on the order for cake, send a wire putting off the wedding, dismiss the bridesmaids, tell the organist he can stop practicing the voice that breathed or eaten. No wedding bells for you. For Dudley, damn fool, pickering his choir. The lonely half forevermore. Little feet pattering about the house, not on your life. Childish voices sticking up the old man for half a dollar to buy candy. No, sir. Not for de-bonehead pickering. The amateur trailing Arbutus. Subconscious self may have had an undesirable way of expressing itself, but there was no denying the truth of what it said. Its words carry conviction. Mr. Pickering replaced the ring in his pocket and, burying his head in his hands, groaned in business of spirit. He had lost her. He must face the fact. She had thrown him over. Never now would she sit at his table the brightest duel of Detroit's glittering social life. She would have made a stir in Detroit. Now that city would never know her. Not that he was worrying much about Detroit. He was worrying about himself. How could he ever live without her? This mood of black depression endured for a while. And then Mr. Pickering suddenly became aware that subconscious self was sneering at him. You're a wonder, said subconscious self. What do you mean? Why, trying to make yourself think that at the bottom of your heart you aren't tickled to death that this has happened. You know perfectly well that you're tremendously relieved that you haven't got to marry the girl after all. You can fool everybody else, but you can't fool me. You're delighted, man, delighted. The mere suggestion revolted Mr. Pickering. He was on the point of indignant denial. When, quite abruptly, there came home to him the suspicion that the statement was not so preposterous after all. It seemed incredible and indecent that such a thing should be. But he could not deny, now that it was put to him point-blank in this way, that a certain sense of relief was beginning to mingle itself with his gloom. It was shocking to realize, but yes, he actually was feeling as if he had escaped from something which he had dreaded. Half an hour ago there had been no suspicion of such an emotion among the many which had occupied his attention. But now he perceived it clearly. Half an hour ago it felt like Lucifer hurled from heaven. Now, though how that train of thought had started, he could not have said, he was distinctly conscious of the silver lining. Subconscious self began to drive the thing home. Be honest with yourself, it said. You aren't often? No man is. Look at the matter absolutely fairly. You know perfectly well that the mere idea of marriage has always scared you. You hate making yourself conspicuous in public. Think what it would be like, standing up there in front of all the world and getting married, and then afterwards. Why on earth do you think that you would have been happy with this girl? What do you know about her, except that she's a beauty? I grant you see that. But are you aware of the infinitesimal part, looks, play, and married life? My dear chap, better is it for a man that he marry a sympathetic gargoyle than a Venus with a streak of hardness in her. You know, and you would admit it if you were honest with yourself, that this girl is hard. She's got a chilled steel soul. If you wanted to marry someone, and there's no earthly reason why you should, for your life's perfectly full and happy with your work, this is the last girl you ought to marry. You're a middle-aged man, you're set. You like life to jog along at a peaceful walk. This girl wants you to be a foxtrot. You've got habits which you've had for a dozen years. I ask you, is she the sort of girl to be content to be a stepmother to a middle-aged man's habits? Of course, if you were really in love with her, if she were your mate, and all that sort of thing, you would take a pleasure in making yourself over to suit her requirements. But you aren't in love with her. You are simply caught by her looks. I tell you, you ought to look on that moment when she gave you back your ring as the luckiest moment of your life. You ought to make a sort of anniversary of it. You ought to endow a hospital or something out of pure gratitude. I don't know how long you're going to live. If you act like a grown-up man instead of a boy, and keep out of woods and shrubberies at night, you may live forever. But you will never have a greater bit of luck than the one that happened to you tonight. Mr. Pickering was convinced. His spirit soared. Marriage? What was marriage? Slavery. Not to be endured by your man of spirit. Look at all the unhappy marriages you saw everywhere. Besides, you had only to recall some of the novels and plays of recent years to get the right angle on marriage. According to the novelists and playwrights, shrewd fellows who knew what was what. If you talked to your wife about your business, she said you had no soul. If you didn't, she said you didn't think enough of her to let her share your life. If you gave her expensive presents and unlimited credit account, she complained that you looked on her as a mere doll. And if you didn't, she called you a screw. That was marriage. If you didn't get it with the left jab, it landed on you with the right uppercut. None of that sort of thing for Dudley Pickering. You're absolutely right, he said enthusiastically. Funny, I never looked at it that way before. Somebody was turning the door handle. He hoped it was Roscoe Sheriff. He'd been rather dull the last time Sheriff had looked in. He would be quite different now. He would be gay and sparkling. He remembered two good stories he would like to tell Sheriff. The door opened and Claire came in. There was a silence. She stood looking at him in a way that puzzled Mr. Pickering. If it had not been for her attitude at their last meeting, and the manner in which she had broken that last meeting up, he would have said that her look seemed somehow to strike a note of appeal. There was something soft and repentant about her. She suggested, it seemed to Mr. Pickering, the prodigal daughter revisiting the old homestead. Dudley! She smiled a faint smile. A wistful, deprecating smile. She was looking lovelier than ever. Her face glowed with a wonderful colour, and her eyes were very bright. Mr. Pickering met her gaze, and strange things began to happen to his mind. That mind which, a moment before, had thought so clearly, and established so definite a point of view. What a gelatin backbone thing his man, who prides himself on his clear reason, and becomes as wet blotting paper at one glance from bright eyes. A moment before, Mr. Pickering had thought out the whole subject of woman and marriage in a few bold flashes of his capable brain. And thank Providence, that he was not as those men who take unto themselves wives to their undoing. Now, in an instant he had lost that iron outlook. Reason was temporarily out of business. He was slipping. Dudley! For a space subconscious self thrust itself forward. Look out, be careful, it warned. Mr. Pickering ignored it. He was watching, fascinated, the glow on Claire's face, her shining eyes. Dudley, I want to speak to you. Tell you can only be seen by appointment. Escape! Bolt! Mr. Pickering did not bolt. Claire came towards him, still smiling that pathetic smile. A thrill permeated Mr. Pickering's entire 197 pounds, trickling down his spine like hot water, and coming out of the soles of his feet. He had forgotten now that he had ever sneered at marriage. It seemed to him now that there was nothing in life to be compared with that beatific state. And that bachelors were mere wild-asses of the desert. Claire came, and sat down on the arm of his chair. He moved convulsively, but he stayed where he was. Fool! said subconscious self. Claire took hold of his hand, and patted it. He quivered, but remained. Ask! His subconscious self. Claire stopped patting his hand, and began to stroke it. Mr. Pickering breathed heavily. Dudley, dear! said Claire softly. I've been an awful fool, and I'm dreadful, dreadful sorry. And you're going to be the nicest, kindest, sweetest man on earth, and tell me you've forgiven me, aren't you? Mr. Pickering's lips moved silently. Claire kissed the thinning summit of his head. There was a pause. Where is it? she asked. Mr. Pickering started. Eh? Where is it? Where did you put it? The ring, silly! Mr. Pickering became aware that subconscious self was addressing him. The occasion was tense, and subconscious self did not mince its words. You poor, maudlin, sentimental, doddering chunk of imbecility, it said. Are there no limits to your insanity? After all I said to you just now, are you deliberately going to start the old idiocy all over again? She's so beautiful, pleaded Mr. Pickering. Look at her eyes. Ass! Don't you remember what I said about beauty? Yes, I know, but she's as hard as nails. I'm sure you're wrong. I'm not wrong, but she loves me. Forget it. Claire jogged his shoulders. Dudley, dear! What are you sitting there dreaming for? Where did you put the ring? Mr. Pickering fumbled for it, located it, produced it. Claire examined it fondly. Did she throw it at him and nearly break his heart? She said. Bolt! Erred subconscious self. Fly! Go to Japan! Mr. Pickering did not go to Japan. He was staring worshipingly at Claire. With rapturous gaze he noted the gray glory of her eyes, the delicate curve of her cheek, the grace of her neck. He had no time to listen to pessimistic warnings from any gloomy gusts of a subconscious self. He was ashamed that he had ever, even for a moment, allowed himself to be persuaded that Claire was not all that was perfect. No more doubts and hesitations for Dudley Pickering. He was under the influence. There! said Claire, and slipped the ring on her finger. She kissed the top of his head once more. So there we are, she said. There we are! Googled the infatuated Dudley. Happy now? Then kiss me. Mr. Pickering kissed her. Dudley, darling, said Claire, we're going to be awfully, awfully happy, aren't we? You bet we are, said Mr. Pickering. Subconscious self said nothing. Being beyond speech. End of Chapter 20 Of Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse Read by Tim Bulkeley of BigBible.org Chapter 21 of Uneasy Money This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tim Bulkeley of BigBible.org Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse, Chapter 21 For some minutes after Claire had left him, Bill remained where he was, motionless. He felt physically incapable of moving. All the strength that was in him, he was using to throw off the insidious poison of her parting speech. And it became plainer to him, with each succeeding moment, that he would have need of strength. It was part of the general irony of things that, in life's crises, a man's good qualities are often the ones that help him least. If indeed, they don't actually turn treacherously and fight against him, it was so with Bill. Honesty, if one would trust the verdict of the mass of mankind, is a good quality. It sweetens the soul, and makes for a kindly understanding of one's fellows. But arrogance would have served Bill better now. It was his fatal habit of self-depreciation that was making Claire's words so specious, as he stood there, trying to cast them from his mind. Who was he, after all, that he should imagine that he had won on his personal merits a girl like Elizabeth Boyd? He had the not very common type of mind that perceives the merit in others more readily than their faults, and in himself the faults more readily than the merit. Time and the society of a great number of men of different ranks and natures had rid him of the outer symbol of this type of mind, which is shyness, but it had left him still unconvinced that he amounted to anything very much as an individual. This was the thought that met him every time he tried to persuade himself that what Claire had said was ridiculous, the mere parting shaft of an angry woman. With this thought as an ally, her words took on a plausibility hard to withstand. Plausible! That was the devil of it. By no effort could he blind himself to the fact that they were that. In the light of Claire's insinuations, what had seemed coincidences took on a more sinister character. It had seemed to him an odd and lucky chance that Nutty Boyd should have come to the rooms which he was occupying that night, seeking a companion. Had it been chance, even at the time he had thought it strange that on the strength of a single evening spent together, Nutty should have invited a total stranger to make an indefinite visit to his home. Had there been design behind the invitation? Bill began to walk slowly to the house. He felt tired and unhappy. He meant to go to bed and try to sleep away these wretched doubts and questionings. Daylight would bring relief. As he reached the open front door, he caught the sound of voices and paused for an instant, almost unconsciously to place them. They came from one of the rooms upstairs. It was Nutty speaking now, and it was impossible for Bill not to hear what he said, for Nutty had abandoned his customary drawl in favour of a high excited tone. Now, of course, you hate him and all that, said Nutty, but after all, you'll be getting five million dollars that ought to have come to. That was all that Bill heard, for he had stumbled across the hall and was in his room, sitting on the bed and staring into the darkness with burning eyes. The door banged behind him. So it was true. They came a knock at the door. It was repeated. The handle turned. Is that you, Bill? It was Elizabeth's voice. He could just see her framed in the doorway. Bill? His throat was dry. He swallowed and found that he could speak. Yes? Did you just come in? Yes? Then you heard? Yes. There was a long silence, then the door closed gently, and he heard her go upstairs. End of Chapter 21 of Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse, read by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org Chapter 22 of Uneasy Money This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse, Chapter 22 When Bill woke next morning, it was ten o'clock, and his first emotion on the day that was to be crowded with emotions of various kinds was one of shame. The desire to do the fitting thing is innate in man. And it struck Bill, as as he hurried through his toilet, that he must be a shallow, coarse-fibre sort of person, lacking in the finer feelings, not to have passed a sleepless night. There was something revolting in the thought that, in circumstances which would have made sleep an impossibility for most men, he had slept like a log. He did not do himself the justice to recollect that he had had a singularly strenuous day, and that it is nature's business which he performs quietly and unromantically, to send sleep to tired men, regardless of their private feelings. And it was in a mood of dissatisfaction with the quality of his soul that he left his room. He had a general feeling that he was not much of a chap, and that when he died, which he trusted would be shortly, the world would be well rid of him. He felt humble and depressed and hopeless. Elizabeth met him in the passage. At the age of eleven or thereabouts, women acquire a poise, and an ability to handle difficult situations, which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies. Except for a pallor strange to her face, and a drawn look about her eyes, there was nothing to show, that all was not for the best, with Elizabeth in the best of all possible worlds. If she did not look jaunty, she did at least look composed. She greeted Bill with a smile. I didn't wake you, I thought I'd let you sleep on. The words had the effect of lending an additional clarity, and firmness of outline to the picture of himself, which Bill had already drawn in his mind, of a soulless creature, sunk in hoggish slumber. We've had breakfast, but he's gone for a walk. Isn't he wonderful nowadays? I've kept your breakfast warm for you. Bill protested, he might be capable of sleep, but he was not going to sink to food. Not for me, thanks, he said hollily. Come along! Honestly, come along! he followed her meekly. How grimly the practical women were! They let nothing interfere with the essentials of life. It seemed all wrong. Nevertheless, he breakfasted well and gratefully, Elizabeth watching him in silence across the table. Finished? Yes, thanks. She hesitated for a moment. Well, Bill, I've slept on it. Things are in rather a muddle, aren't they? I think I'd better begin by explaining what led up to those words you heard Nutty say last night. Won't you smoke? No, thanks. You'll feel better if you do. I couldn't. A bee had flown in through the open window. She followed it with her eyes. It blundered about the room. It flew out again into the sunshine. She turned to Bill again. They were supposed to be words of consolation, she said. Bill said nothing. Nutty, you see, has his own peculiar way of looking at things, and it didn't occur to him that I might have promised to marry you because I loved you. He took it for granted that I had done it to save the boy at home. He's been very anxious from the first that I should marry you. I think that that must have been why he asked you down here. He found out in New York, you know, who you were. Someone you met at supper recognized you, and told Nutty. So, as far as that's concerned, the girl you were speaking to at the gate last night was right. He started. You heard her? I couldn't help it. She meant me to hear. She was raising her voice quite unnecessarily, if she did not mean to include me in the conversation. I had gone in to find Nutty, and he was out, and I was coming back to you. That's how I was there. You didn't see me because your back was turned. She saw me. Bill met her eyes. You don't ask who she was. Doesn't matter who she was. It's what she said that matters. She said that we knew you were Lord Dawlish. Did you know? Nutty told me two or three days ago. Her voice shook, and a flush came to her face. You probably won't believe it, but the news made absolutely no difference to me one way or the other. I had always imagined Lord Dawlish as a treacherous, adventurous sort of man, because I couldn't see how a man who was not like that could have persuaded Uncle Ira to leave him his money. But, after knowing you, even for this short time, I knew you were quite the opposite of that. I remember that the first thing you'd done on coming into the money had been to offer me half. So, the information that you were the Lord Dawlish, whom I'd been hating, did not affect me. The fact that you were rich, and I was poor, did not affect me either. I loved you, and that was all I cared about. If all this had not happened, everything would have been all right. But you see, nine-tenths of what that girl said to you was so perfectly true that it is humanly impossible for you not to believe the other tenth, which wasn't. And then, to clinch it, you hear Nutty consoling me. That brings me back to Nutty. I—let me tell you about Nutty first. I said he had always been anxious that I should marry you. Something happened last night to increase his anxiety. I've often wondered how he managed to get enough money to enable him to spend three days in New York. And last night he told me. He came in just after I got back to the house after leaving you and that girl. And he was very scared. It seems that when the letter from the London lawyer came, telling him that he had been left a hundred dollars, he got the idea of raising money on the strength of it. You know Nutty by this time, so you won't be surprised by the way he went about it. He borrowed a hundred dollars from the man at the chemist on the security of that letter. And then, I suppose it seemed so easy that it struck him as a pity to let the opportunity slip. He did the same thing with four other tradesmen. Nutty's so odd that I don't know even now whether it ever occurred to him that he was obtaining money under false pretenses. But the poor tradesmen hadn't any doubt about it at all. They compared notes and found out what had happened. And last night, while we were in the woods, one of them came here and called Nutty a good many names and threatened him with imprisonment. You can imagine how delighted Nutty was when I came in and told him that I was engaged to you. In his curious way, he took it for granted that I had heard about his financial operations and I was doing it entirely for his sake to get him out of his fix. And while I was trying to put him right on that point, he began to console me. You see, Nutty looks on you as the enemy of the family and it didn't strike him that it was possible that I didn't look on you in that light, too. So, after being delighted for a while, he very sweetly thought that you ought to cheer me up and point out some of the compensations of marriage with you. And, well, that's what you heard. There you have the full explanation. You can't possibly believe it. She broke off and began to drum her fingers on the table. And as she did so, there came to Bill a sudden relief from all the doubts and black thoughts that had tortured him. Elizabeth was straight. Whatever appearances might seem to suggest, nothing could convince him that she was playing an underhand game. It was as if something evil had gone out of him. He felt lighter, cleaner. He could breathe. I do believe it, he said. I believe every word you say. She shook her head. You can't, in the face of the evidence. I believe it. No, you may persuade yourself for a moment that you do. But, after a while, you'll have to go by the evidence. You won't be able to help yourself. You haven't realized what a crushing thing evidence is. You have to go by it against your will. You see, evidence is the only guide. You don't know that I'm speaking the truth, you just feel it. You're trusting your heart, not your head. The head must win in the end. You might go on believing for a time, but sooner or later you'll be bound to begin to doubt and worry and torment yourself. You couldn't fight against the evidence, when, once your instinct or whatever it is that tells you I'm speaking the truth, had begun to weaken. And it would weaken. Think what it would have to be fighting all the time. Think of the case your intelligence will be making out day after day till it crusts you. It's impossible that you could keep yourself from docketing the evidence and arranging it and absorbing it. Think, consider what you know are actual facts. Nutty invites you down here knowing you are Lord Dawlish. All you know about my attitude towards Lord Dawlish is what I told you on the first morning of your visit. I told you I hated him. Yet knowing you are Lord Dawlish, I become engaged to you. Directly afterwards you hear Nutty consoling me as if I were marrying you against my will. Isn't that an absolutely fair statement of what has happened? How could you go on believing me with all that against you? I know you're straight. You couldn't do anything crooked. The evidence proves that I did. I don't care. Not now. Never. She shook her head. It's dear of you, Bill, but you're promising an impossibility. And just because it's impossible, and because I love you too much to face what will be bound to happen, I'm going to send you away. Send me away? Yes. It's going to hurt. You don't know how it's going to hurt, Bill, but it's the only thing to do. I love you too much to live with you for the rest of my life, wondering all the time whether you still believed, or whether the weight of the evidence had crushed out that tiny little spark of intuition, which is all that makes you believe me now. You could never know the truth for certain, you see. That's the horror of it. And sometimes you will be able to make yourself believe, but more often in spite of all you could do, you would doubt. It would poison both our lives. Little things would happen insignificant in themselves, which would become tremendously important just because they added a little bit more to the doubt, which you would never be able to get rid of. When we had quarrels, which we should, as we're both human, they wouldn't be over and done within an hour. They would stick in your mind and rankle. Because, you see, there might be proofs that I didn't really love you. And then when I seemed happy with you, you would wonder if I was acting. I know all this sounds morbid and exaggerated, but it isn't. What have you got to go on as regards me? What do you really know of me? If something like this had happened after we'd been married half a dozen years and really knew each other, we could laugh at it. But we're strangers. We came together and loved each other, because there was something in each of us which attracted the other. We took that little something as a foundation and built on it. But what has happened has knocked away our poor little foundation. That's all. We don't really know anything at all about each other for certain. It's just guesswork. She broke off and looked at the clock. I had better be packing if you were to catch the train. He gave a rueful laugh. You're throwing me out. Yes, I am. I want you to go while I'm strong enough to let you go. If you really feel like that, why send me away? How do you know I really feel like that? How do you know that I'm not pretending to feel like that, as part of a carefully prepared plan? He made an impatient gesture. Yes, I know, she said. You think I'm going out of my way to manufacture unnecessary complications? I'm not. I'm simply looking ahead. If I were trying to trap you for the sake of your money, could I play a stronger card than by seeming anxious to give you up? If I were to give in now, sooner or later that suspicion would come to you. You'd drive it away. You might drive it away a hundred times, but you couldn't kill it. In the end, it would beat you. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. I can't argue. Look, and I... I can only put very badly things which I know are true. Come and pack. I'll do it, don't you bother. Nonsense! No man knows how to pack properly. He followed her to his room, pulled out his suitcase, the symbol of the end of all things, watched her as she flitted about the sun shining on her hair as she passed and repassed the window. She was picking things up, folding them, packing them. Bill looked on with an aching sense of desolation. It was all so friendly, so intimate, so exactly as it would have been if she were his wife. It seemed to him meatlessly cruel that she should be playing on this note of domesticity. At the moment when she was barring forever the door between him and happiness, he rebelled helplessly against the attitude she had taken. He had not thought it all out, as she had done. It was folly, insanity, ruining their two lives like this for a scruple. Once again he was to encounter that practical strain in the feminine mind which jars upon a man in trouble. She was holding something in her hand and looking at it with concern. Why didn't you tell me, she said, your socks were an awful state, poor boy. He had the feeling of having been hit by something. A man has not a woman's gift for being able to transfer his mind at will, from sorrow to socks. Like sieves, she sighed. A troubled frown wrinkled her forehead. Men are so helpless. Oh, dear, I'm sure you don't pay any attention to anything important. I don't believe you ever bother your head about keeping warm in winter and not getting your feet wet. And now I shan't be able to look after you. Bill's voice broke. He felt himself trembling. Elizabeth! She was kneeling on the floor. Her head bent over the suitcase. She looked up and met his eyes. It's no use, Bill, dear. I masked it the only way. A sense of the nearness of the end broke down the numbness which held him. Elizabeth, it's so utterly absurd. It's just chucking everything away. She was silent for a moment. Bill, dear, I haven't said anything about it before, but don't you see that there's my sight to be considered too? I only showed you that you could never possibly know that I loved you. How am I to know that you really love me? He had moved a step towards her. He drew back, chilled. I can't do more than tell you, he said. You can't. And there you have put in two words, just what I've been trying to make clear all the time. Don't you see that that's the terrible thing about life that nobody can do more than tell anybody anything? Life's nothing but words, words, words. And how are we to know when words are true? How am I to know that you didn't ask me to marry you out of sheer pity and an exaggerated sense of justice? He stared at her. That, he said, is absolutely ridiculous. Why, look at it as I should look at it later on, when whatever it is inside me that tell me it's ridiculous now had died. Just at this moment, while we're talking here, there's something stronger than reason which tells me you really do love me. But can't you understand that it won't last? It's like a candle burning on a rock with the tide coming up all round it. It's burning brightly enough now, and we can see the truth by the light of it. But the tide will put it out. And then we shall have nothing left to see by. There's a great black sea of suspicion and doubt creeping up to swamp the little spark of intuition inside us. I'll tell you what would happen to me if I didn't send you away. Remember, I heard what that girl was saying last night. Remember that you hated the thought of depriving me of Uncle Ira's money so much that your first act was to try to get me to accept half of it. The quixotic thing is the first that occurred to you to do, because you're like that, because you're the straightest, whitest man I've ever known or shall know. Could anything be more likely? Looking at it as I should later on. Then that you should have hit on the idea of marrying me as the only way of undoing the wrong you thought you had done me. I've been foolish about obligations all my life. I have a sort of morbid pride that hates thought of owing anything to anybody or getting anything that I have not earned. By and by, if I were to marry you, a little rotten speck of doubt would begin to eat its way further and further into me. It would be the same with you. We should react on each other. We should be watching each other, testing each other, trying each other out all the time. It would be horrible, horrible. He started to speak. Then, born down by the hopelessness of it, stopped. Elizabeth stood up. They did not look at each other. He strapped the suitcase and picked it up. The end of all things was at hand. Better to end it all cleanly, Bill, she said in a low voice. It will hurt less. He did not speak. I'll come down to the gate with you. They walked in silence down the drive. The air was heavy with contentment. He hummed a tune. Good-bye, Bill, dear. He took her hand dullly. Good-bye, he said. Elizabeth stood at the gate watching. He swung down the road with long strides. At the bend he turned for a moment and stood there, as if waiting for her to make some sign. Then he fell into his stride again and was gone. Elizabeth leaned on the gate. Her face was twisted. She clutched the warm wood as if it gave her strength. The grounds were very empty. The spirit of loneliness brooded on them. Elizabeth walked slowly back to the house. Nutty was coming towards her from the orchard. Hello! said Nutty. He was cheerful and debonair. His little eyes were a light with contentment. He hummed a tune. Where's Dollish? He said. He's gone. Now, his tune failed in the middle of a bar. Something in his sister's voice startled him. The glow of contentment gave way to a look of alarm. Gone? How do you mean gone? You don't mean gone? Yes. Gone away? Gone away? They had reached the house before he spoke again. You don't mean gone away? Yes. Do you mean gone away? Yes. You aren't going to marry him? No. The world stood still. The noise of the crickets and all the little sounds of summer smote on Nutty's ear in one discordant shriek. Oh, gosh! he exclaimed faintly, and collapsed on the front steps like a jellyfish. End of Chapter 22 of Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse, read by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org. Chapter 23 of Uneasy Money This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on a volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org. Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse, Chapter 23 The spectacle of Nutty in his anguish did not touch Elizabeth. Normally a kind-hearted girl, she was not in the least sorry for him. She had even taken a bitter pleasure and found a momentary relief in loosing the thunderbolt which had smitten him down. Even if it has to manufacture it, misery loves company. She watched Nutty with a cold and uninterested eye, as he opened his mouth feebly, shut it again, and reopened it. And then, when it became apparent that these maneuvers were about to result in speech, she left him and walked quickly down the drive again. She had the feeling that if Nutty were to begin to ask her questions, and he had the aspect of one who is about to ask a thousand, she would break down. She wanted solitude and movement, so she left Nutty sitting and started for the gate. Presently she would go and do things among the beehives, and after that, if that brought no solace, she would go in and turn the house upside down and get dusty and tired, anything to occupy herself. Reaction had set in. She had known it would come, and had made ready to fight against it, but she had underestimated the strength of the enemy. It seemed to her, in those first minutes, that she had done a mad thing, that all those arguments which she had used were far-fetched and ridiculous. It was useless to tell herself that she had thought the whole thing out clearly, and had taken the only course that could have been taken. With Bill's departure, the power to face the situation steadily had left her. All she could think of was that she loved him, and that she had sent him away. Why had he listened to her? Why hadn't he taken her in his arms and told her not to be a little fool? Why did men ever listen to women? If he had really loved her, would he have gone away? She tormented herself with this last question for a while. She was still tormenting herself with it, when a melancholy voice broke in on her meditations. I can't believe it, said the voice. She turned to perceive Nutty drooping beside her. I simply can't believe it. Elizabeth clenched her teeth. She was not in the mood for Nutty. It will gradually sink in, she said unsympathetically. Did you really send him away? I did. But what on earth for? Because it was the only thing to do. A light shone on Nutty's darkness. Oh, I say! Did he hear what I said last night? He did hear what you said last night. Nutty's mouth opened slowly. Oh! Elizabeth said nothing. But you could have explained that. How? Oh, I don't know, somehow or other. He appeared to think. But you said it was you who sent him away. I did. Well, this beats me. Elizabeth's strained patience reached the limit. Nutty, please, she said. Don't let's talk about it. It's all over now. Yes, but... Nutty, don't. I can't stand it. I'm raw all over. I'm hating myself. Please don't make it worse. Nutty looked at her face and decided not to make it worse. But his anguish demanded some outlet. He found it in soliloquy. Just like this for the rest of our lives, he murmured, taking in the farm grounds and all that in them stood with one glassy stare of misery. Nothing but ghastly bees and sweeping floors and fetching water till we die of old age. That is, if those blighters don't put me in jail for getting that money out of them. How was I to know that it was obtaining money under false pretenses? It simply seemed to me a darn good way of collecting a few dollars. I don't see how I'm ever going to pay them back. So I suppose it's prison for me, all right? Elizabeth had been trying not to listen to him, but without success. I'll look after that, Nutty. I have a little money saved up, enough to pay off what you owe. I was saving it for something else, but never mind. Awfully good of you," said Nutty, but his voice sounded almost disappointed. He was in the frame of mind which resents alleviation of its gloom. He would have preferred at that moment to be allowed to round off the picture of the future which he was constructing in his mind, with a reel or two showing himself brooding in a sail. After all, what difference did it make to a man of spacious tastes, whether he languished for the rest of his life in a jail or on a farm in the country? Jail, indeed, was almost preferable. You knew where you were when you were in prison. They didn't spring things on you. Whereas life on a farm was nothing but one long succession of things sprung on you. Now that Lord Dawlish had gone, he supposed, that Elizabeth would make him help her with the bees again. At this thought he groaned aloud. When he contemplated a lifetime at Flax, a lifetime of bee-dodging and carpet-beating and water-lugging, and reflected that but for a few innocent words, words spoken mark you in the pure spirit of kindness and brotherly love with the object of putting a bit of optimistic pep into sister, he might have been in a position to touch a millionaire brother-in-law for the needful whenever he felt disposed. The iron entered into Nutty's soul. A rotten, rotten world. Nutty had the sort of mind that moves in circles. After contemplating for a time the rottenness of the world, he came back to the point from which he had started. I can't understand it, he said. I can't believe it. He kicked a small pebble that lay convenient to his foot. You say you sent him away. If he had legged it on his own account, because of what he heard me say, I could understand that. But why should you? It became evident to Elizabeth that, until some explanation of this point was offered to him, Nutty would drift about in her vicinity, moaning and shuffling his feet indefinitely. I sent him away because I loved him, she said, and because, after what had happened, he could never be certain that I loved him. Can you understand that? No, said Nutty frankly. I'm darned if I can, it sounds loony to me. You can't see that it wouldn't have been fair to him to marry him. No. The doubts which she was trying to crush increased the violence of their attack. It was not that she respected Nutty's judgment in itself. It was that his view of what she had done chimed in so neatly with her own. She longed for someone to tell her that she had done right, someone who would bring back that feeling of certainty which she had had during her talk with Bill. And in these circumstances, Nutty's attitude had more weight than on its merits it deserved. She wished she could cry. She had a feeling that if she once did that, the right outlook would come back to her. Nutty, meanwhile, had found another pebble and was kicking it somberly. He was beginning to perceive something of the intricate and unfathomable workings of the feminine mind. He had always looked on Elizabeth as an ordinary good fellow, a girl whose mind worked in a more or less understandable way. She was not one of those hysterical women you read about in the works of the novelists. She was just a regular girl. And yet now, at the one moment of her life, when everything depended on her acting sensibly, she had behaved in a way that made his head swim when he thought of it. What it amounted to was that you simply couldn't understand women. Into this tangle of silent sorrow came a hooting automobile. It drew up at the gate and a man jumped out. End of Chapter 23 Read by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org. Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse, Chapter 24 The man who had lighted from the automobile was young and cheerful. He wore a flannel suit of a gay blue and a straw hat with a coloured ribbon. And he looked upon a world which, his manner seemed to indicate, had been constructed according to his own specifications, through a single eyeglass. When he spoke, it became plain that his nationality was English. But he regarded his beaming countenance with a lowering hostility, the indecency of any one being cheerful at such a time struck him forcibly. He would have liked mankind to have preserved till further notice a hushed gloom. He stared at the young man. Elizabeth, such was her absorption in her thoughts, was not even aware of his presence till he spoke to her. Beg a pardon, is this flax? She looked up and met that sunny eyeglass. This is flax, she said. Thank you, said the young man. The automobile, aced out silent man at the helm, throbbed in the nervous way automobiles have when standing still, suggesting somehow, that it were best to talk quick, as they can give you only a few minutes before dashing on to keep some other appointment. Either this, or a natural volatility, lent a breezy rapidity to the visitor's speech. He looked at Elizabeth across the gate, which it had not occurred to her to open. As if she were just what he had expected her to be, and a delight to his eyes, and burst into speech. My name's Nichols, J. Nichols. I expect you remember getting a letter from me a week or two ago. The name struck Elizabeth as familiar, but he had gone on to identify himself before she could place it in her mind. Lawyer, don't you know? Roger Letter telling you that your uncle Ira Nutcombe had left all his money to Lord Dawlish. Oh, yes, said Elizabeth, and was about to invite him to pass the barrier, when he began to speak again. You know, I want to explain that letter. Write it in the sudden impulse, don't you know? The more I have to do with the law, the more it seems to hit me that a lawyer oughtn't to act on impulse. At the moment, you see, it seemed to me the decent thing to do. Put you out of your misery and so forth. Stop your entertaining hopes never to be realized. What? And all that sort of thing. You see, it was like this. Bill, I mean Lord Dawlish, is a great pal of mine. A dear old chap. You ought to know him. Well, being in the know, you understand? Through your uncle having deposited the will with us, I gave Bill the tip directly I heard of Mr. Nutcombe's death. I sent him a telephone message to come to the office, and I said, Bill old man, this old buster, I beg your pardon, this old gentleman, has left you all his money. Quite informal, don't you know? And at the same time, in the same informal spirit, I wrote you the letter. He damned the torrent for a moment. By the way, of course you are Mr. Elizabeth Boyd at what? Yes, the young man seemed relieved. I'm glad of that, he said. Funny if you hadn't been, you'd have wondered what on earth I was talking about. In spite of her identity, this was precisely what Elizabeth was doing. Her mind, still under a cloud, had been unable to understand one word of Mr. Nickel's discourse. Judging from his appearance, which was that of a bewildered hosepipe, or a snake whose brain is being momentarily overtaxed, Nutty wasn't the same difficulty. He had joined the group at the gate, abandoning the pebble, which had been kicking in the background, and was now leaning on the top bar, a picture of silent perplexity. You see, the trouble is, resumed the young man, my governor who's the head of a firm, is all for doing things according to the precedent. He loves red tape. Where's it wrapped round him in winter instead of flannel? He's all for doing things in the proper legal way, which, so dare say you know, takes months. And meanwhile, everybody's wondering what's happening, and who has got the money, and so on and so forth. I thought I would skip all that and let you know right away exactly where you stood. So I wrote you that letter. I don't think my temperament's quite suited to the law, don't you know? And if he ever hears that I wrote you that letter, I have a notion that the governor will think so too. So I came over here to ask you, if you don't mind, not to mention it when you get in touch with the governor. I frankly admit that that letter, written with the best intentions, was a bloomer, with which manly admission the young man paused, and allowed the raise of his eyeglass to play upon Elizabeth in silence. Elizabeth tried to piece together what little she understood of his monologue. You mean that you want me not to tell your father that I got a letter from you? Exactly that, and thanks very much for not saying without prejudice or anything of that kind the governor would have. But I don't understand. Why should you think that I should ever mention anything to your father? Might step out, you know, without your meaning it. But when? I shall never meet your father. He might quite easily. He might want to see you about the money. The money? The eyebrow above the eyeglass rose, surprised. I'm channeled letter from the governor. No. The young man made a despairing gesture. I took it for granted that it did come on the same boat that I did. There you have the governor's methods. Couldn't want a better example. I suppose some legal formality or other has cropped up and, lady must die me. And he's waiting to get round it. You really mean he hasn't written? Why dash it, said the young man, as one to whom all is revealed. Then you kind of understood a word of what I've been saying. For the first time, Elizabeth found herself capable of smiling. She liked this incoherent young man. I haven't, she said. You don't know about the will. Only what you told me in your letter. I'm hanged. Tell me, hadn't the honour of knowing him personally, was the late Mr. Nutcombe's whole life as eccentric as will-making? It seems to me, nut he spoke. Uncle Ira's middle name, he said, was Bloomingdale. That, he proceeded bitterly, is the frightful injustice of it all. I had to suffer from it right along, and all I get when it comes to a finish is a miserable hundred dollars. Uncle Ira insisted on father and mother calling me Nutcombe, and whenever he got a new craze, I was always the one he worked it off on. You remember the time he became a vegetarian, Elizabeth? Gosh! Nut he brooded coldly on the past. You remember the time he had it all worked out, that the end of the world was to come at five in the morning one February? Made me stop up all night with him reading Marcus Aurelius. And the steam heat turned off at twelve-thirty? I could tell you a dozen things just as bad as that. He always picked on me, and now I've gone through it all. He leaves me a hundred dollars. Mr. Nichols nodded sympathetically. I should have imagined that he was rather like that. You know, of course, why he made that will I wrote to you about, leaving all his money to Bill Dawlish. Simply because Bill, who met him golfing at a pacing Cornwall in the off-season, cured him of slicing his approach shots. I give you my word, that was the only reason. I'm sorry for old Bill, poor old chap, such a good sort. He's all right, said Nutty. But why you should be sorry for him? Gets past me. A fellow who gets five million. But he doesn't, don't you see? How do you mean? Why this other will puts him out of the running. Which other will? Why the one I'm telling you about? He looked from one to the other, apparently astonished at their slowness of understanding. Then an idea occurred to him. Why, now that I think of it, I never told you, did I? Yes, your uncle made another will at the very last moment, leaving all he possessed to Miss Boyd. The dead silence in which his words were received stimulated him to further speech. It occurred to him that after that letter of his, perhaps these people were wary about believing anything he said. It's absolutely true. It's the real, stable information this time. I had it direct from the Governor, who was there when he made the will. He and the Governor had had a row about something, you know, and they made it up during those last days, and, well, apparently your uncle thought he had better celebrate it somehow, so he made a new will. From what little I know of him, that was the way he celebrated most things. I took it for granted the Governor would have written to you by this time. I expect you'll hear by the next mail. Is he what brought me over with the idea that when he wrote, you might possibly take it into your heads to mention having heard from me? You don't know my Governor. If he found out I had done that, I should never hear the last of it. So I said to him, Governor, I'm feeling a bit jaded, been working too hard or something. I'll take a week or so off, if you can spare me. He didn't object, so I whizzed over. Well, of course I'm awfully sorry for old Bill, but I congratulate you, Miss Boyd. What's the time? said Elizabeth. Mr. Nichols was surprised. He could not detect the connection of ideas. It's about five to eleven, he said, consulting his watch. The next moment he was even more surprised, for Elizabeth, making nothing of the barrier at the gate, had rushed past him, and was even now climbing into his automobile. Take me to the station at once! She was crying to the stout, silent man. Whom not even these surprising happenings had shaken from his attitude of well-fed detachment. The stout man, ceasing to be silent, became interrogative. Huh? Take me to the station. I must catch the eleven o'clock train. The stout man was not a rapid thinker. He enveloped her in a stodgy gaze. It was only too plain to Elizabeth that he was a man who liked to digest one idea slowly, before going on to absorb the next. Jerry Nichols had told him to drive to Flax. He had driven to Flax. Here he was at Flax. Now this young woman was telling him to drive to the station. It was a new idea. And he bent himself to the Fletcherising of it. I'll give you ten dollars if you give me that by eleven, shouted Elizabeth. The car started as if it were some living thing that had had a sharp instrument jabbed into it, once or twice in his life. It had happened to the stout man to encounter an idea which he could swallow at a gulp. This was one of them. Mr. Nichols, following the car with a wondering eye, found that Nutty was addressing him. Is this really true? said Nutty. Absolute gospel! A wild cry, a piercing whoop of pure joy, broke the summer stillness. Come and have a drink, old man, babbled Nutty. This once celebrating. His face fell. Oh, I was forgetting. I'm on the wagon. On the wagon? Sworn off, you know. I'm never going to touch another drop as long as I live. I began to see things. Monkeys. I had a pal, so Mr. Nichols sympathetically, who used to see kangaroos. Nutty seized him by the arm. Hospitable, though handicapped. Come and have a bit of bread and butter or a slice of cake or something and a glass of water. I want to tell you a lot more about Uncle Ira, and I want to hear all about your end of it. Gee, what a day! The maddest merriest of all and glad new year! Ascented Mr. Nichols. A slice of that old eighty-seven cake. Just the thing. End of Chapter 24 of Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse. Read by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org. Chapter 25 of Uneasy Money. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org. Uneasy Money by P. G. Woodhouse, Chapter 25. Bill made his way along the swaying train to the smoking-car, which was almost empty. It had come upon him overwhelmingly that he needed tobacco. He was in the mood when a man must either smoke or give up altogether the struggle with fate. He lit his pipe, and looked out of the window at Long Island, racing past him. It was only a blur to him. The conductor was asking for tickets. Bill showed his mechanically, and the conductor passed on. Then he settled down once more to his thoughts. He could not think coherently yet. His walk to the station had been like a walk in a dream. He was conscious of a great dull pain that weighed on his mind, smothering it. The trees and houses still moved past him in the same indistinguishable blur. He became aware that the conductor was standing beside him, saying something about a ticket. He produced his once more, but this did not seem to satisfy the conductor. To get rid of the man who was becoming a nuisance, he gave him his whole attention, as far as that smothering weight would allow him to give his whole attention to anything. And found that the man was saying strange things. He thought that he could not have heard him correctly. What, he said? Ladybake there told me to collect her fare from you, repeated the conductor. Said you would pay. Bill blinked. Either there was some mistake, or trouble had turned his brain. He pushed himself together with a supreme effort. A lady said I would pay her fare. Yes. But, but why? He demanded Bill feebly. The conductor seemed unwilling to go into first courses. Search me, he replied. Pay her fare! Told me to collect it off the gentleman in the grey suit in the smoking car. You're the only one that's got a grey suit. There's some mistake. Not mine. What does she look like? The conductor delved in his mind for adjectives. Small, he said, collecting them slowly. Brown eyes. He desisted from his cataloging at this point, for with a loud exclamation, Bill had dashed away. To car's farther back he had dropped into the seat by Elizabeth, and was gurgling wordlessly. A massive lady who had entered the train at East Moorishes, in company with three children and a cat and a basket, eyed him with a curiosity that she made no attempt to conceal. Two girls in a neighbouring seat leaned forward eagerly to hear all. This was because one of them had told the other that Elizabeth was Mary Pickford. Her companion was sceptical, but nevertheless obviously impressed. My God! said Bill. The massive lady told the three children sharply to look at their picture book. Well, I'm hanged. The mother of three said that if her offspring did not go right along to the end of the car and look at the pretty trees, trouble must infallibly ensue. Elizabeth! At the sound of the name, the two girls leaned back, taking no further interest in the proceedings. What are you doing here? Elizabeth smiled a shaky but encouraging smile. I came after you, Bill. You've got no hat. I was in too much of a hurry to get one. And I gave all my money to the man who drove the car. That's why I had to ask you to pay my fare. You see, I'm not too proud to use your money after all. Then, tickets, please. One seventy-nine. It was the indefatigable conductor, sensible of his duty to the company, and resolved that nothing should stand in the way of its performance. Bill gave him five dollars and told him to keep a change. The conductor saw eye-to-eye with him in this. Bill, you gave him? She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. Well, it's like you're going to marry a rich girl. A look of the utmost determination overspread Bill's face. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to marry you. Now that I've got you again, I'm not going to let you go. You can use all the arguments you like, but it won't matter. I was a fool over to listen. If you try the same sort of thing again, I'm just going to pick you up and carry you off. I've been thinking it over since I left you. My mind has been working absolutely clearly. I've gone into the whole thing. It's perfect rot to take the attitude you did. We know we love each other, and I'm not going to listen to any talk about time making us doubt it. Time will only make us love each other all the more. Why, Bill, this is eloquence. I feel eloquent. The stout lady ceased to listen. They had lowered their voices, and she was hard of hearing. She consoled herself by taking up a copy of gingery stories and burying herself in the hectic adventures of a young millennia and an artist's model. Elizabeth caught a fleeting glimpse of the cover. I bet there's a story in there of a man named Harold, who was too proud to marry a girl though he loved her, because she was rich and he wasn't. You wouldn't be so silly as that, Bill, would you? It's the other way about with me. No, it's not. Bill, do you know a man named Nichols? Nichols? Jay Nichols. He said he knew you. He said he had told you about Uncle Ira leaving you his money. Cherry Nichols? How on earth? Oh, I remember he wrote to you, didn't he? He did, and this morning, just after you had left, he called. Cherry Nichols called to tell me that Uncle Ira had made another will before he died, leaving the money to me. Their eyes met. So I stole his car and caught the train, said Elizabeth simply. Bill was recovering slowly from the news. But this makes rather a difference, you know, he said. In what way? Well, what I mean to say is you've got five million dollars and I've got two thousand a year, don't you know? And so Elizabeth tapped him on the knee. Bill, do you see what this is in my hand? Eh? What? It's a pin. And I'm going to dig it right into you wherever I think it will hurt most, unless you stop being harold at once. I'll tell you exactly what you've got to do, and you needn't think. You're going to do anything else. When we get to New York, I first borrow the money from you to buy a hat. And then we walk to the city hall, where you go to the window marked Marriage Licenses and buy one. It will cost you one dollar. You will give your correct name and age, and you will hear mine. It will come as a shock to you to know that my second name is something awful. I've kept it concealed all my life. After we've done that, we shall go to the only church that anybody could possibly be married in. It's on 29th Street, just round the corner from Fifth Avenue. It's got a fountain playing in front of it. And it's a little bit of heaven dumped right down in the middle of New York. And after that, well, we might start looking about for that farm we've talked of. We can get a good farm for five million dollars, and leave something over to be doled out cautiously to Nutty. And then all we have to do is live happily ever after. Something small and soft slipped itself into his hand, just as it had done ages and ages ago in Lady Weatherby's Wood. It stimulated Bill's conscience to one last remonstrance. And I say, you know, well, this business and the money, you know, what I mean to say is, ow! He broke off as a sharp pain manifested itself in the fleshy part of his leg. Elizabeth was looking at him reprovingly, her weapon poised for another onslaught. I told you, she said. All right, I won't do it again. That's a good child. Bill, listen. Come closer and tell me all sorts of nice things about myself till we get to Jamaica. And then I'll tell you what I think of you. We've just passed Ice Slip, so you've plenty of time. End of Chapter 25 of Uneasy Money by P.G. Woodhouse. End of Uneasy Money by P.G. Woodhouse. Read by Tim Bulkley of BigBible.org.