No Wedding Bells for him - (1)

To Ukridge, as might be expected from one of his sunny optimism, the whole affair has long since come to present itself in the light of yet another proof of the way in which all things in this world of ours work together for good. In it, from start to finish, he sees the finger of Providence; and, when marshalling evidence to support his theory that a means of escape from the most formidable perils will always be vouchsafed to the righteous and deserving, this is the episode which he advances as Exhibit A.
    The thing may be said to have had its beginning in the Haymarket one afternoon towards the middle of the summer. We had been lunching at my expense at the Pall Mall Restaurant, and as we came out a large and shiny car drew up beside the kerb, and the chauffeur, alighting, opened the bonnet and began to fiddle about in its interior with a pair of pliers. Had I been alone, a casual glance in passing would have contented me, but for Ukridge the spectacle of somebody else working always had an irresistible fascination, and, gripping my arm, he steered me up to assist him in giving the toiler moral support. About two minutes after he had started to breathe earnestly on the man’s neck, the latter, seeming to become aware that what was tickling his back hair was not some wandering June zephyr, looked up with a certain petulance.
    “’Ere!” he said, protestingly. Then his annoyance gave place to something which—for a chauffeur—approached cordiality. “’Ullo!” he observed.
    “Why, hallo, Frederick,” said Ukridge. “Didn’t recognise you. Is this the new car?”
    “Ah,” nodded the chauffeur.
    “Pal of mine,” explained Ukridge to me in a brief aside. “Met him in a pub.” London was congested with pals whom Ukridge had met in pubs. “What’s the trouble?”
    “Missing,” said Frederick the chauffeur. “Soon ’ave her right.”
    His confidence in his skill was not misplaced. After a short interval he straightened himself, closed the bonnet, and wiped his hands.
    “Nice day,” he said.
    “Terrific,” agreed Ukridge. “Where are you off to?”
    “Got to go to Addington. Pick up the guv’nor, playin’ golf there.” He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then the mellowing influence of the summer sunshine asserted itself. “Like a ride as far as East Croydon? Get a train back from there.”
    It was a handsome offer, and one which neither Ukridge nor myself felt disposed to decline. We climbed in, Frederick trod on the self-starter, and off we bowled, two gentlemen of fashion taking their afternoon airing. Speaking for myself, I felt tranquil and debonair, and I have no reason to suppose that Ukridge was otherwise. The deplorable incident which now occurred was thus rendered doubly distressing. We had stopped at the foot of the street to allow the north-bound traffic to pass, when our pleasant after-luncheon torpidity was shattered by a sudden and violent shout.
    “Hi!”
    That the shouter was addressing us there was no room for doubt. He was standing on the pavement not four feet away, glaring unmistakably into our costly tonneau—a stout, bearded man of middle age, unsuitably clad, considering the weather and the sartorial prejudices of Society, in a frock-coat and a bowler hat. “Hi! You!” he bellowed, to the scandal of all good passers-by.
    Frederick the chauffeur, after one swift glance of god-like disdain out of the corner of his left eye, had ceased to interest himself in this undignified exhibition on the part of one of the lower orders, but I was surprised to observe that Ukridge was betraying all the discomposure of some wild thing taken in a trap. His face had turned crimson and assumed a bulbous expression, and he was staring straight ahead of him with a piteous effort to ignore what manifestly would not be ignored.
    “I’d like a word with you,” boomed the bearded one.
    And then matters proceeded with a good deal of rapidity. The traffic had begun to move on now, and as we moved with it, travelling with increasing speed, the man appeared to realise that if ’twere done ’twere well ’twere done quickly. He executed a cumbersome leap and landed on our running-board; and Ukridge, coming suddenly to life, put out a large flat hand and pushed. The intruder dropped off, and the last I saw of him he was standing in the middle of the road, shaking his fist, in imminent danger of being run over by a number three omnibus.
    “Gosh!” sighed Ukridge, with some feverishness.
    “What was it all about?” I enquired.
    “Bloke I owe a bit of money to,” explained Ukridge, tersely.
    “Ah!” I said, feeling that all had been made clear. I had never before actually seen one of Ukridge’s creditors in action, but he had frequently given me to understand that they lurked all over London like leopards in the jungle, waiting to spring on him. There were certain streets down which he would never walk for fear of what might befall.
    “Been trailing me like a bloodhound for two years,” said Ukridge. “Keeps bobbing up when I don’t expect him and turning my hair white to the roots.”
    I was willing to hear more, and even hinted as much, but he relapsed into a moody silence. We were moving at a brisk clip into Clapham Common when the second of the incidents occurred which were to make this drive linger in the memory. Just as we came in sight of the Common, a fool of a girl loomed up right before our front wheels. She had been crossing the road, and now, after the manner of her species, she lost her head. She was a large, silly-looking girl, and she darted to and fro like a lunatic hen; and as Ukridge and I rose simultaneously from our seats, clutching each other in agony, she tripped over her feet and fell. But Frederick, master of his craft, had the situation well in hand. He made an inspired swerve, and when we stopped a moment later, the girl was picking herself up, dusty, but still in one piece.
    These happenings affect different men in different ways. In Frederick’s cold grey eye as he looked over his shoulder and backed the car there was only the weary scorn of a superman for the never-ending follies of a woollen-headed proletariat. I, on the other hand, had reacted in a gust of nervous profanity. And Ukridge, I perceived as I grew calmer, the affair had touched on his chivalrous side. All the time we were backing he was mumbling to himself, and he was out of the car, bleating apologies, almost before we had stopped.
    “Awfully sorry. Might have killed you. Can’t forgive myself.”
    The girl treated the affair in still another way. She giggled. And somehow that brainless laugh afflicted me more than anything that had gone before. It was not her fault, I suppose. This untimely mirth was merely due to disordered nerves. But I had taken a prejudice against her at first sight.
    “I do hope,” babbled Ukridge, “you aren’t hurt? Do tell me you aren’t hurt.”
    The girl giggled again. And she was at least twelve pounds too heavy to be a giggler. I wanted to pass on and forget her.
    “No, reely, thanks.”
    “But shaken, what?”
    “I did come down a fair old bang,” chuckled this repellent female.
    “I thought so. I was afraid so. Shaken. Ganglions vibrating. You must let me drive you home.”
    “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
    “I insist. Positively I insist!”
    “’Ere!” said Frederick the chauffeur, in a low, compelling voice.
    “Eh?”
    “Got to get on to Addington.”
    “Yes, yes, yes,” said Ukridge, with testy impatience, quite the seigneur resenting interference from an underling. “But there’s plenty of time to drive this lady home. Can’t you see she’s shaken? Where can I take you?”
    “It’s only just round the corner in the next street. Balbriggan the name of the house is.”
    “Balbriggan, Frederick, in the next street,” said Ukridge, in a tone that brooked no argument.
    I suppose the spectacle of the daughter of the house rolling up to the front door in a Daimler is unusual in Peabody Road, Clapham Common. At any rate, we had hardly drawn up when Balbriggan began to exude its occupants in platoons. Father, mother, three small sisters, and a brace of brothers were on the steps in the first ten seconds. They surged down the garden path in a solid mass.
    Ukridge was at his most spacious. Quickly establishing himself on the footing of a friend of the family, he took charge of the whole affair. Introductions sped to and fro, and in a few moving words he explained the situation, while I remained mute and insignificant in my corner and Frederick the chauffeur stared at his oil-gauge with a fathomless eye.
    “Couldn’t have forgiven myself, Mr. Price, if anything had happened to Miss Price. Fortunately my chauffeur is an excellent driver and swerved just in time. You showed great presence of mind, Frederick,” said Ukridge, handsomely, “great presence of mind.”
    Frederick continued to gaze aloofly at his oil-gauge.
    “What a lovely car, Mr. Ukridge!” said the mother of the family.
    “Yes?” said Ukridge, airily. “Yes, quite a good old machine.”
    “Can you drive yourself?” asked the smaller of the two small brothers, reverently.
    “Oh, yes. Yes. But I generally use Frederick for town work.”
    “Would you and your friend care to come in for a cup of tea?” said Mrs. Price.
    I could see Ukridge hesitate. He had only recently finished an excellent lunch, but there was that about the offer of a free meal which never failed to touch a chord in him. At this point, however, Frederick spoke.
    “’Ere!” said Frederick.
    “Eh?”
    “Got to get on to Addington,” said Frederick, firmly.
    Ukridge started as one waked from a dream. I really believe he had succeeded in persuading himself that the car belonged to him.
    “Of course, yes. I was forgetting. I have to be at Addington almost immediately. Promised to pick up some golfing friends. Some other time, eh?”
    “Any time you’re in the neighbourhood, Mr. Ukridge,” said Mr. Price, beaming upon the popular pet.
    “Thanks, thanks.”
    “Tell me, Mr. Ukridge,” said Mrs. Price. “I’ve been wondering ever since you told me your name. It’s such an unusual one. Are you any relation to the Miss Ukridge who writes books?”
    “My aunt,” beamed Ukridge.
    “No, really? I do love her stories so. Tell me——”
    Frederick, whom I could not sufficiently admire, here broke off what promised to be a lengthy literary discussion by treading on the self-starter, and we drove off in a flurry of good wishes and invitations. I rather fancy I heard Ukridge, as he leaned over the back of the car, promising to bring his aunt round to Sunday supper some time. He resumed his seat as we turned the corner and at once began to moralise.
    “Always sow the good seed, laddie. Absolutely nothing to beat the good seed. Never lose the chance of establishing yourself. It is the secret of a successful life. Just a few genial words, you see, and here I am with a place I can always pop into for a bite when funds are low.”
    I was shocked at his sordid outlook, and said so. He rebuked me out of his larger wisdom.
    “It’s all very well to take that attitude, Corky my boy, but do you realise that a family like that has cold beef, baked potatoes, pickles, salad, blanc-mange, and some sort of cheese every Sunday night after Divine service? There are moments in a man’s life, laddie, when a spot of cold beef with blanc-mange to follow means more than words can tell.”
    It was about a week later that I happened to go to the British Museum to gather material for one of those brightly informative articles of mine which appeared from time to time in the weekly papers. I was wandering through the place, accumulating data, when I came upon Ukridge with a small boy attached to each hand. He seemed a trifle weary, and he welcomed me with something of the gratification of the shipwrecked mariner who sights a sail.
    “Run along and improve your bally minds, you kids,” he said to the children. “You’ll find me here when you’ve finished.”
    “All right, Uncle Stanley,” chorused the children.
    “Uncle Stanley?” I said, accusingly.
    He winced a little. I had to give him credit for that.
    “Those are the Price kids. From Clapham.”
    “I remember them.”
    “I’m taking them out for the day. Must repay hospitality, Corky my boy.”
    “Then you have really been inflicting yourself on those unfortunate people?”
    “I have looked in from time to time,” said Ukridge, with dignity.
    “It’s just over a week since you met them. How often have you looked in?”
    “Couple of times, perhaps. Maybe three.”
    “To meals?”
    “There was a bit of browsing going on,” admitted Ukridge.
    “And now you’re Uncle Stanley!”
    “Fine, warm-hearted people,” said Ukridge, and it seemed to me that he spoke with a touch of defiance. “Made me one of the family right from the beginning. Of course, it cuts both ways. This afternoon, for instance, I got landed with those kids. But, all in all, taking the rough with the smooth, it has worked out distinctly on the right side of the ledger. I own I’m not over keen on the hymns after Sunday supper, but the supper, laddie, is undeniable. As good a bit of cold beef,” said Ukridge, dreamily, “as I ever chewed.”
    “Greedy brute,” I said, censoriously.
    “Must keep body and soul together, old man. Of course, there are one or two things about the business that are a bit embarrassing. For instance, somehow or other they seem to have got the idea that that car we turned up in that day belongs to me, and the kids are always pestering me to take them for a ride. Fortunately I’ve managed to square Frederick, and he thinks he can arrange for a spin or two during the next few days. And then Mrs. Price keeps asking me to bring my aunt round for a cup of tea and a chat, and I haven’t the heart to tell her that my aunt absolutely and finally disowned me the day after that business of the dance.”
    “You didn’t tell me that.”
    “Didn’t I? Oh, yes. I got a letter from her saying that as far as she was concerned I had ceased to exist. I thought it showed a nasty, narrow spirit, but I can’t say I was altogether surprised. Still, it makes it awkward when Mrs. Price wants to get matey with her. I’ve had to tell her that my aunt is a chronic invalid and never goes out, being practically bedridden. I find all this a bit wearing, laddie.”
    “I suppose so.”
    “You see,” said Ukridge, “I dislike subterfuge.”
    There seemed no possibility of his beating this, so I left the man and resumed my researches.
    After this I was out of town for a few weeks, taking my annual vacation. When I got back to Ebury Street, Bowles, my landlord, after complimenting me in a stately way on my sunburned appearance, informed me that George Tupper had called several times while I was away.
    “Appeared remarkably anxious to see you, sir.”
    I was surprised at this. George Tupper was always glad—or seemed to be glad—to see an old school friend when I called upon him, but he rarely sought me out in my home.
    “Did he say what he wanted?”
    “No, sir. He left no message. He merely enquired as to the probable date of your return and expressed a desire that you would visit him as soon as convenient.”
    “I’d better go and see him now.”
    “It might be advisable, sir.”
    I found George Tupper at the Foreign Office, surrounded by important-looking papers.
    “Here you are at last!” cried George, resentfully, it seemed to me. “I thought you were never coming back.”
    “I had a splendid time, thanks very much for asking,” I replied. “Got the roses back to my cheeks.”
    George, who seemed far from his usual tranquil self, briefly cursed my cheeks and their roses.
    “Look here,” he said, urgently, “something’s got to be done. Have you seen Ukridge yet?”
    “Not yet. I thought I would look him up this evening.”
    “You’d better. Do you know what has happened? That poor ass has gone and got himself engaged to be married to a girl at Clapham!”
    “What?”
    “Engaged! Girl at Clapham! Clapham Common,” added George Tupper, as if in his opinion that made the matter even worse.
    “You’re joking!”
    “I’m not joking,” said George peevishly. “Do I look as if I were joking? I met him in Battersea Park with her, and he introduced me. She reminded me,” said George Tupper, shivering slightly, for that fearful evening had seared his soul deeply, “of that ghastly female in pink he brought with him the night I gave you two dinner at the Regent Grill—the one who talked at the top of her voice all the time about her aunt’s stomach-trouble.”
    Here I think he did Miss Price an injustice. She had struck me during our brief acquaintance as something of a blister, but I had never quite classed her with Battling Billson’s Flossie.
    “Well, what do you want me to do?” I asked, not, I think, unreasonably.
    “You’ve got to think of some way of getting him out of it. I can’t do anything. I’m busy all day.”
    “So am I busy.”
    “Busy my left foot!” said George Tupper, who in moments of strong emotion was apt to relapse into the phraseology of school days and express himself in a very un-Foreign Official manner. “About once a week you work up energy enough to write a rotten article for some rag of a paper on ‘Should Curates Kiss?’ or some silly subject, and the rest of the time you loaf about with Ukridge. It’s obviously your job to disentangle the poor idiot.”
    “But how do you know he wants to be disentangled? It seems to me you’re jumping pretty readily to conclusions. It’s all very well for you bloodless officials to sneer at the holy passion, but it’s love, as I sometimes say, that makes the world go round. Ukridge probably feels that until now he never realised what true happiness could mean.”
    “Does he?” snorted George Tupper. “Well, he didn’t look it when I met him. He looked like—well, do you remember when he went in for the heavyweights at school and that chap in Seymour’s house hit him in the wind in the first round? That’s how he looked when he was introducing the girl to me.”
    I am bound to say the comparison impressed me. It is odd how these little incidents of one’s boyhood linger in the memory. Across the years I could see Ukridge now, half doubled up, one gloved hand caressing his diaphragm, a stunned and horrified bewilderment in his eyes. If his bearing as an engaged man had reminded George Tupper of that occasion, it certainly did seem as if the time had come for his friends to rally round him.
    “You seem to have taken on the job of acting as a sort of unofficial keeper to the man,” said George. “You’ll have to help him now.”
    “Well, I’ll go and see him.”
    “The whole thing is too absurd,” said George Tupper. “How can Ukridge get married to anyone! He hasn’t a bob in the world.”
    “I’ll point that out to him. He’s probably overlooked it.”
    It was my custom when I visited Ukridge at his lodgings to stand underneath his window and bellow his name—upon which, if at home and receiving, he would lean out and drop me down his latchkey, thus avoiding troubling his landlady to come up from the basement to open the door. A very judicious proceeding, for his relations with that autocrat were usually in a somewhat strained condition. I bellowed now, and his head popped out.
    “Hallo, laddie!”
    It seemed to me, even at this long range, that there was something peculiar about his face, but it was not till I had climbed the stairs to his room that I was able to be certain. I then perceived that he had somehow managed to acquire a black eye, which, though past its first bloom, was still of an extraordinary richness.
    “Great Scott!” I cried, staring at this decoration. “How and when?”
    Ukridge drew at his pipe moodily.
    “It’s a long story,” he said. “Do you remember some people named Price at Clapham——”
    “You aren’t going to tell me your fiancée has biffed you in the eye already?”
    “Have you heard?” said Ukridge, surprised. “Who told you I was engaged?”
    “George Tupper. I’ve just been seeing him.”
    “Oh, well, that saves a lot of explanation. Laddie,” said Ukridge, solemnly, “let this be a warning to you. Never——”
    I wanted facts, not moralisings.
    “How did you get the eye?” I interrupted.
    Ukridge blew out a cloud of smoke and his other eye glowed sombrely.
    “That was Ernie Finch,” he said, in a cold voice.
    “Who is Ernie Finch? I’ve never heard of him.”
    “He’s a sort of friend of the family, and as far as I can make out was going rather strong as regards Mabel till I came along. When we got engaged he was away, and no one apparently thought it worth while to tell him about it, and he came along one night and found me kissing her good-bye in the front garden. Observe how these things work out, Corky. The sight of him coming along suddenly gave Mabel a start, and she screamed; the fact that she screamed gave this man Finch a totally wrong angle on the situation; and this caused him, blast him, to rush up, yank off my glasses with one hand, and hit me with the other right in the eye. And before I could get at him the family were roused by Mabel’s screeches and came out and separated us and explained that I was engaged to Mabel. Of course, when he heard that, the man apologised. And I wish you could have seen the beastly smirk he gave when he was doing it. Then there was a bit of a row and old Price forbade him the house. A fat lot of good that was? I’ve had to stay indoors ever since waiting for the colour-scheme to dim a bit.”
    “Of course,” I urged, “one can’t help being sorry for the chap in a way.”
    “I can,” said Ukridge, emphatically. “I’ve reached the conclusion that there is not room in this world for Ernie Finch and myself, and I’m living in the hope of meeting him one of these nights down in a dark alley.”
    “You sneaked his girl,” I pointed out.
    “I don’t want his beastly girl,” said Ukridge, with ungallant heat.
    “Then you really do want to get out of this thing?”
    “Of course I want to get out of it.”
    “But, if you feel like that, how on earth did you ever let it happen?”
    “I simply couldn’t tell you, old horse,” said Ukridge, frankly. “It’s all a horrid blur. The whole affair was the most ghastly shock to me. It came absolutely out of a blue sky. I had never so much as suspected the possibility of such a thing. All I know is that we found ourselves alone in the drawing-room after Sunday supper, and all of a sudden the room became full of Prices of every description babbling blessings. And there I was!”
    “But you must have given them something to go on.”
    “I was holding her hand. I admit that.”
    “Ah!”
    “Well, my gosh, I don’t see why there should have been such a fuss about that. What does a bit of hand-holding amount to? The whole thing, Corky, my boy, boils down to the question, Is any man safe? It’s got so nowadays,” said Ukridge, with a strong sense of injury, “that you’ve only to throw a girl a kindly word, and the next thing you know you’re in the Lord Warden Hotel at Dover, picking the rice out of your hair.”
    “Well, you must own that you were asking for it. You rolled up in a new Daimler and put on enough dog for half a dozen millionaires. And you took the family for rides, didn’t you?”
    “Perhaps a couple of times.”
    “And talked about your aunt, I expect, and how rich she was?”
    “I may have touched on my aunt occasionally.”
    “Well, naturally these people thought you were sent from heaven. The wealthy son-in-law.” Ukridge projected himself from the depths sufficiently to muster up the beginnings of a faint smile of gratification at the description. Then his troubles swept him back again. “All you’ve got to do, if you want to get out of it, is to confess to them that you haven’t a bob.”
    “But, laddie, that’s the difficulty. It’s a most unfortunate thing, but, as it happens, I am on the eve of making an immense fortune, and I’m afraid I hinted as much to them from time to time.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Since I saw you last I’ve put all my money in a bookmaker’s business.”
    “How do you mean—all your money? Where did you get any money?”
    “You haven’t forgotten the fifty quid I made selling tickets for my aunt’s dance? And then I collected a bit more here and there out of some judicious bets. So there it is. The firm is in a small way at present, but with the world full of mugs shoving and jostling one another to back losers, the thing is a potential goldmine, and I’m a sleeping partner. It’s no good my trying to make these people believe I’m hard up. They would simply laugh in my face and rush off and start breach-of-promise actions. Upon my Sam, it’s a little hard! Just when I have my foot firmly planted on the ladder of success, this has to happen.” He brooded in silence for awhile. “There’s just one scheme that occurred to me,” he said at length. “Would you have any objection to writing an anonymous letter?”
    “What’s the idea?”