Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 391
Anyway they were hooked. Mrs. Fordeck said they might take her to get an ice. They did. And when she said, “Now tell me what on earth am I to do with fifty thousand pounds?” they nearly dropped their plates! So Mrs. Fordeck laughed and said— “Oh, I don’t mean my own. I’d know jolly well what to do with it if it was my own. I’d be off to Africa with it like a shot. But I mean here’s this wretched old uncle of mine (I mean Lord Haddock, though he really isn’t half bad) — here he is with an idea that this is a country of wonderful opportunity.”
Oh, say! Did they pile up the ice cream near her! And did they wheel arm chairs for her! And Dannie laughed that pleasant laugh of his and Pethick rubbed his big hands . . . and Mrs. Fordeck told them about the lions, and poor Harry . . . and the Buffs and the Chitral, and her friendship with the Prince of Wales (meaning of course the Prince of Wales) and how, when she was with him, she sometimes liked the Prince and sometimes didn’t, but really she thought that in her heart — her own nature — she liked plainer people, more direct people, people with simpler ways.
Oh, yes, they fell fast enough. They made an appointment for her to come to the office. They would look after the fifty thousand pounds with pleasure.
One may ask why didn’t such shrewd lawyers as Dament and Pethick look up the standing of the Earl of Haddock. The answer is that they did look him up and were deeper out of their depth than ever. There they sat, one each side of the table in their big Board Room, Dannie with Debrett’s Peerage and Slugger with Who’s Who, looking up the Earl of Haddock.
“Here you have it?” says Dannie, “Edgar Gaulter De Prothero Ross Haddock, Fifteenth Earl of Haddock — Fifteenth? Oh, boy! — born so and so, succeeded so and so, seat Haddock Castle, Caithness (do you get that? He has a “seat”) estates also in Ross and Cromarty.”
“And hear this,” said Slugger, “served Cold Guards (Cold Guards? What are they?), 2nd Burmese, Relief of Kumasi, Relief of Poonah, Relief of Khartum, Medal and Four Clasps, Grand Star of Burma, Grand Cross of Egypt.”
“Went up the Irrawaddy,” read out Dannie. “Does your book say that? And up the Blue Nile — no, up the Niger.”
“Some soldier, eh,” they both said, and Dannie read on: “Hereditary Equerry of the Buckhounds, Order of the Thistle, Keeper of the County Purse — You get that do you?”
“Yes and listen. Recreations: fencing, lion hunting (that’s where she gets that) and — get this — capturing big snakes . . . Those are his recreations, eh?”
They read it all as innocently as children, clean out of their field. What would they know of wind-swept estates of heather and gorse and moor, with broken rocks falling to the sea, of a flock of “gillies” and “crofters”; gillies who “gill” for nothing and crofters who “croft” for crofting’s sake — till in despair they emigrate to Northwest Canada, singing Lochaber no More. How could they picture a tumbled castle, all wind and draft and faded wainscotting with waving rags called tapestry, where a threadbare butler as ancient as his clothes, serves upon silver a gallant old soldier as threadbare as himself. Lions? Yes, forty years ago. Biography knows no difference.
They not only hunted the Earl up in the books but they found a pretext to go and ask old Mr. Sheppardson about him, old Sheppardson being the chairman of the Stock Exchange, the head of the chief financial firm and the last word in intimate finance. The reader may recall him as he’s been mentioned already in this book — when he had tears in his eyes over his son-in-law’s money. He always had tears in his eyes. He did his business on tears.
“The Earl of Haddock,” said Mr. Sheppardson, “has been deeply interested in Canada for years. Indeed he has sent many of his crofters to Manitoba. I managed it for him. Now as to his private investment” — Mr. Sheppardson put the points of his fingers together and there were no tears in his eyes— “that, of course, is a matter on which, as you readily understand — exactly . . . One thing, perhaps, I may say, and I will say — or perhaps on second thought I won’t say . . . He might — you understand, he might . . .”
But Mr. Sheppardson had said quite enough to make them enthusiastic.
“I must say,” continued Mr. Sheppardson, “that when Mrs. Fordeck came to see me, I was deeply moved, deeply touched. Her husband you know, poor Harry Fordeck, was eaten by lions. They were moving, it seems, through tall millet in a nullah, across the Karoo, single file to avoid the lions. Fordeck missed the path and must have got among the lions. The poor lady told me — it brought tears to my eyes — that they could actually hear the crunching.”
“We know, we know,” said the partners, and with that they hurried away.
“Mrs. Fordeck,” said Dannie, “is certainly a most striking woman.”
“I call her handsome,” said the Slugger, in a tone of challenge.
“Yes,” asserted Dannie, “in fact, I’d call her a fine looking woman.”
They were both lying and they knew it. The Dark Goddess was weaving in the black thread as fast as her fingers could travel, and the fair Goddess on the left, Nona, who stands for life and happiness, dropped tears upon the skein.
But the main mischief was done that September at a big dance given at Colonel Strong’s house. In those days when they gave a dance they didn’t have it done by proxy — a hotel management arranging the occasion, a chef arranging the food, a florist the flowers, an orchestra the music and a secretary arranging the guests. That isn’t giving a dance. That’s signing a cheque.
In those days when people gave a dance they gave a dance — and they always gave their dances in private houses, especially in those beautiful old houses that stood, all lawn and leaves, in half an acre of ground. Colonel Strong’s house was like that, and he had enough granddaughters and grand-nieces on, and in reach of, the premises to put any dance off to a good start.
Take such a house on a September evening, one of those mellow, soft September evenings, with leaves still so heavy that for people in the houses they half hid the street lights and turned them into fire-flies — like fairyland; a great house all balconies, and conservatories and odd corners, and secluded spots, turned into veritable man-traps with masses of ferns and chrysanthemums, by the hands of the grand-nieces and granddaughters. Pretty dangerous place, eh? And for less sentimental hearts there were sideboards with refreshments, great rounds of cold beef looking out from parsley — pink hams from some once giant hog, and all of it flanked with bottled ale, claret cup in stone jars, and lighter stuff like Moselle and champagne, standing in tubs of ice.
Dangerous! At least Dannie and Pethick were to find it so, separately and jointly.
One didn’t do much actual dancing in those days, except the quite young. All hands from the host and hostess down joined in the square dances, the lancers and the quadrilles, but a lot of the older people were soon playing whist in quiet card rooms. And the marriageable girls “sitting out” out on balconies, and asking about the stars.
Dannie could never remember, though he tried hard, afterwards, just what it was that he said to Mrs. Fordeck that evening. They were behind a huge hydrangea bush in a tub on a balcony in low chairs with a little table to which Dannie had brought the champagne. Those are hard places from which to remember things accurately. Did Mrs. Fordeck say that the scene was just like Capetown, and did Dannie say that he had always longed to see Capetown (a dirty lie), and did she say, “Some day I hope you will?” It seems likely that she did. And it was then that Mrs. Fordeck had said that she had come to regard him as something far different from just her lawyer. Did she say “as something far nearer?” Yes, I guess she did. Did Dannie say something about something nearer still? He may have. And then she said something about its being too wonderful, and that he must let her wait a few days to give him her answer.
Pethick remembered better. He had sat in behind a grapevine with cold chicken and Moselle. Mrs. Fordeck had said:
“Doesn’t this heavenly night remind you of Capetown?”
He had answered, “Wiarton is very much like this in September,” and she said, “I should just love to see Wiarton,” and he said, “I hope you will some day. I could give you a letter to Bill Furze, the postmaster, and he’d show you round,” and he had added, “If I was up there, I’d like to show you round myself . . .” and then it was that Mrs. Fordeck had said that he meant more to her than just a lawyer. And she promised him his answer for a few days later.
Just at the close of the evening they were all three together, seated beside a buffet, and Mrs. Fordeck has said, “You’re both just too wonderful. How I wish I could say ‘yes’ to both of you. But whichever way I decide, I shall always feel—” and so on to that effect.
Now here is where a message from Ancient Syracuse should have come down the shaking skeins to say, “Give her up! Each give her up!” There was a sort of message to that effect but it wasn’t exactly from Syracuse. You see, after all, even if Mrs. Fordeck was a striking woman, even if marrying her meant stepping into a castle — even at all that — for a young man’s fancy — for a young man’s dream of love — well, not quite. Be fair, though. Either one would have taken her. There was no Damon and no Pythias that evening. The black thread was running fast into the skein.
There was, we say, no renunciation that evening — no Damon and Pythias stuff. But it came a few days later, all right enough. When they sat down in their office that morning, Dannie said.
“Peth, I’ve had time to think this thing over. I want you to marry Mrs. Fordeck. I’ll stand aside and I hope you may be very happy.”
There come to many men in life moments when they find themselves compelled to do the big thing, the generous thing. It seems as if they had no choice. Renunciation of self is, after all, one of the highest things of which we are capable. That may have been Dannie Dament’s feeling on this morning when he came down to the office with his mind made up. It may have been or it may not.
Peth shook his head.
“It’s fine of you, Dannie. You’ve spoken first, I admit, but I had it here (he touched his pocket) in a letter already to give you. Take her, Dannie — she’s yours, and some day after you’re married I’ll come over to Scotland and visit you at the big castle.”
Minds attuned together as theirs were easily make contacts. The words “the big castle” were enough. Dannie began slowly to smile.
“I wonder if you have been reading what I have?” he asked.
“If you put it that way,” said Pethick with a grin, “I guess I have.”
“You mean,” said Dannie, “Pauper Peers.”
“That’s it.”
In the last mails from England there had just come over one of those Chit-Chat magazines that were just coming into fashion, full of Tom-Tit stuff, all about the underside of the upper side. Well, anyway, here was an article on Our Pauper Peers. It told how one of them played a street organ in London, how another was a pavement artist, and how the estates of some of them, in Scotland especially, were just waste land, with the crofters and such being starved out of them and going to Kansas and Manitoba. It mentioned the Earl of Haddock, and Haddock Castle, which was low, but so were all the Tom-Tit papers. The article said that the Earl wasn’t worth a hundred pounds a year — put him at about eighty.
After that Dannie and Pethick waited for a blow to fall, feeling that there was a blow coming. All day they were out in the happy autumn fields of real estate where they were laying out Haddock Park but changing its name now to Ohio Garden; and all this time they were arranging with Judge Mildmay the legal formalities which were needed to bring Dannie’s father home, and waiting for the blow.
Then it fell.
It fell as quietly as blows often fall. It was just a visit from old Mr. Sheppardson who came quietly down to their offices for what he called a purely friendly discussion. He was acting, he said, on Mrs. Fordeck’s behalf but solely, as he explained, as a friend of all parties concerned. The poor lady, he said, had been deeply distressed. She had come into his office all in black (Mr. Sheppardson put that in by habit; as a matter of fact she was in blue). “You may have learned, I gather you have,” said Mr. Sheppardson, “of the poverty of her family and especially of her uncle Lord Haddock. She took for granted that as men of honour” — (she is a soldier’s daughter, Mr. Sheppardson added)— “as men of honour you knew it already” (That was a nasty tweeze for both of them.) “In short,” said Mr. Sheppardson. . . . Well, in short, when he had done with it, what he meant was that one of them would darned well marry Mrs. Fordeck and the other give her twenty thousand dollars — or else — he didn’t need to complete it. With that he withdrew.
At that time and place nothing struck terror to the human heart of the male like a breach of promise suit. It carried with it a peculiar measure of dishonour, not unconnected with a sort of comic element that made it the most dreaded form of disgrace. The shadow of Bardell vs. Picwick lay heavy across it. Hence Slugger in his dreams went through scenes in which a cross-examining barrister said:
“Answer the question, please, without evasion. Did you, or did you not, on the evening of September twelfth compare Capetown to Wiarton? You did? very good; I thought we should get at it at last; now, did you or did you not say, etc. etc.”
And Dannie Dament also heard in his sleep the voice of the prosecuting counsel:
“Did the petitioner offer you the statement that you were something more to her than a lawyer—”
And himself, attempting to be facetious: “Something less—”
Then the Court: “I must ask you to abstain from any attempt at jocularity. Answer the question.”
Counsel, continuing: “Did you say that you hoped you were nearer to her than that?”
Himself: “I did.”
Counsel: “And how near were you to her at the time?”
Then the courtroom in a roar.
No, no, they couldn’t stand the disgrace, the laughter of it. In fact they knew, Dament and Pethick, Barristers etc., both of them, knew, that that kind of thing in that kind of town at that time would knock them both out of business, out of law, out of anything . . . In short, if the thing was pushed to the worst there was only one thing to do and they knew it. Marry Mrs. Fordeck? No, no, you’ve forgotten the beginning of this story — skip to the United States.
Here then was the irony of history! Dannie’s father ready to come back, and Dannie ready to skip. “They can’t stop us, can they Peth?” said Dannie, “if we decide to clear out?”
“Not without a capias,” said the Slugger, “and they can’t get a capias without a judgment to get it on, and before they get that we’ll be gone. But you had better move fast, Dannie; there’ll be a lot to do . . .”
Then fate intervened again.
Pethick came to the office next morning to find Dannie with a telegram in his hand. “We’re too late, Peth,” Dannie said. “Father’s arriving at eleven o’clock this morning.”
Then he added, “You go, if you like.” But Peth shook his head. The contact with Syracuse was working again.
Dannie somehow missed his father at the station — perhaps his father hadn’t understood, the new station was so confusing. But he found him when he came back to the office, sitting there, with Canon Pethick, who had just arrived from Something-Head. His father! Could it really be his father! So changed, so broken — why, an old man! Can seventeen years do that? Is that from bookkeeping? Is that the kind of place that Cincinnati is?
“Father!” said Dannie, and he couldn’t speak.
“We were just speaking,” said Canon Pethick, “of some of the men we remember years ago.” (Why, certainly; what else do old men talk of?)
So there they sat, as Dannie moved, heart-sick, about his office, exchanging their reminiscences . . . “But surely you must remember so and so? Why, of course; he played football,”— “No, no, that was his brother, the one who drank, and went into the church afterwards — did very well.” And so on endlessly.
Dannie presently took them out to lunch, still talking reminiscences and seeing nothing. Then he left them to go and find Slugger who was away out somewhere in a field selling a site for a church.
And when Dannie came back with Slugger in the middle of the afternoon, the two old men were still talking, still twittering away at their reminiscences: “I wonder what became of so and so?” or, “Did any body ever hear anything of such and such . . .”
Dannie stood beside them, along with Slugger Pethick, deep in trouble and perplexity, scarcely hearing what they said. Then all of a sudden his father said something that made Dannie’s mouth fall wide open with surprise, with sudden fixed attention. It was something amazing, something inconceivable.
“You remember,” Mr. Dament was saying to the Canon— “you remember, though it is not his present name, and I shouldn’t mention it for it might mean trouble for him. You remember Harry Fordeck?”
“Why, of course,” said the Canon, “he was on the cricket team. Let me see, did I hear, didn’t someone say he was dead years ago? Yes, yes, he was killed by lions in Africa. He was out with a big lion hunting party, moving (I remember distinctly hearing all about it) through a growth of tall millet . . .”
Mr. Dament shook his head.
“No, no,” he said, “poor Harry. He’s not dead. He’s alive. He’s in Cincinnati. I got him a job there with me as assistant bookkeeper . . .”
“Not dead!” exclaimed Canon Pethick, while Dannie and Slugger remained speechless.
“Hush! It seems he had a terrible wife. He’s told me all about it often. The opportunity came in this unexpected way; he hadn’t planned it. He escaped, slipped through the millet and made his way to the coast. He has never gone back. He’s under an assumed name but of course I knew him instantly, poor old Harry, when he turned up looking for work.”
