"I suppose I must," I said, "if you won"t."
"Not me! I"m going home," said the Agent-General, and departed. I am glad that I am no colony"s Agent-General.
Penfentenyou continued to argue about naval contributions till 1.15 A.M., though I was victor from the first.
At ten o"clock I got him and his correspondence into the motor, and he had the decency to ask whether he had been unpolished over-night.
I replied that I waited an apology. This he made excuse for renewed arguments, and used wayside shows as ill.u.s.trations of the decadence of England.
For example we burst a tyre within a mile of Credence Green, and, to save time, walked into the beautifully kept little village. His eye was caught by a building of pale-blue tin, stencilled "Calvinist Chapel,"
before whose shuttered windows an Italian organ-grinder with a petticoated monkey was playing "Dolly Grey-"
"Yes. That"s it!" snapped the egoist. "That"s a parable of the general situation in England. And look at those brutes!" A huge household removals van was halted at a public-house. The men in charge were drinking beer from blue and white mugs. It seemed to me a pretty sight, but Penfentenyou said it represented Our National Att.i.tude.
Lord Lundie"s summer resting-place we learned was a farm, a little out of the village, up a hill round which curled a high hedged road. Only an initiated few spend their holidays at Credence Green, and they have trained the householders to keep the place select. Penfentenyou made a grievance of this as we walked up the lane, followed at a distance by the organ-grinder.
"Suppose he is having a house-party," he said: "Anything"s possible in this insane land."
Just at that minute we found ourselves opposite an empty villa. Its roof was of black slate, with bright unweathered ridge-tiling; its walls were of blood-coloured brick, cornered and banded with vermiculated stucco work, and there was cobalt, magenta, and purest apple-green window-gla.s.s on either side of the front door. The whole was fenced from the road by a low, brick-pillared, flint wall, topped with a cast-iron Gothic rail, picked out in blue and gold.
Tight beds of geranium, calceolaria, and lobelia speckled the gla.s.s-plat, from whose centre rose one of the finest araucarias (its other name by the way is "monkey-puzzler"), that it has ever been my lot to see. It must have been full thirty feet high, and its foliage exquisitely answered the iron railings. Such bijou ne plus ultras, replete with all the amenities, do not, as I pointed out to Penfentenyou, transpire outside of England.
A hedge, swinging sharp right, flanked the garden, and above it on a slope of daisy-dotted meadows we could see Lord Lundie"s tiled and half-timbered summer farmhouse. Of a sudden we heard voices behind the tree--the fine full tones of the unembarra.s.sed English, speaking to their equals--that tore through the hedge like sleet through rafters.
"That it is not called "monkey-puzzler" for nothing, I willingly concede"--this was a rich and rolling note--"but on the other hand--"
"I submit, me lud, that the name implies that it might, could, would, or should be ascended by a monkey, and not that the ascent is a physical impossibility. I believe one of our South American spider monkeys wouldn"t hesitate... By Jove, it might be worth trying, if--"
This was a crisper voice than the first. A third, higher-pitched, and full of pleasant affectations, broke in.
"Oh, practical men, there is no ape here. Why do you waste one of G.o.d"s own days on unprofitable discussion? Give me a match!"
"I"ve a good mind to make you demonstrate in your own person. Come on, Bubbles! We"ll make Jimmy climb!"
There was a sound of scuffling, broken by squeaks from Jimmy of the high voice. I turned back and drew Penfentenyou into the side of the flanking hedge. I remembered to have read in a society paper that Lord Lundie"s lesser name was "Bubbles."
"What are they doing?" Penfentenyou said sharply. "Drunk?"
"Just playing! Superabundant vitality of the Race, you know. We"ll watch "em," I answered. The noise ceased.
"My deliver," Jimmy gasped. "The ram caught in the thicket, and--I"m the only one who can talk Neapolitan! Leggo my collar!" He cried aloud in a foreign tongue, and was answered from the gate.
"It"s the Calvinistic organ-grinder," I whispered. I had already found a practicable break at the bottom of the hedge. "They"re going to try to make the monkey climb, I believe."
"Here--let me look!" Penfentenyou flung himself down, and rooted till he too broke a peep-hole. We lay side by side commanding the entire garden at ten yards" range.
"You know "em?" said Penfentenyou, as I made some noise or other.
"By sight only. The big fellow in flannels is Lord Lundie; the light-built one with the yellow beard painted his picture at the last Academy: He"s a swell R.A., James Loman."
"And the brown chap with the hands?"
"Tomling, Sir Christopher Tomling, the South American engineer who built the--"
"San Juan Viaduct. I know," said Penfentenyou. "We ought to have had him with us.... Do you think a monkey would climb the tree?"
The organ-grinder at the gate fenced his beast with one arm as Jimmy-talked.
"Don"t show off your futile accomplishments," said Lord Lundie. "Tell him it"s an experiment. Interest him!"
"Shut up, Bubbles. You aren"t in court," Jimmy replied. "This needs delicacy. Giuseppe says--"
"Interest the monkey," the brown engineer interrupted. "He won"t climb for love. Cut up to the house and get some biscuits, Bubbles--sugar ones and an orange or two. No need to tell our womenfolk."
The huge white figure lobbed off at a trot which would not have disgraced a boy of seventeen. I gathered from something Jimmy let fall that the three had been at Harrow together.
"That Tomling has a head on his Shoulders," muttered Penfentenyou. "Pity we didn"t get him for the Colony. But the question is, will the monkey climb?"
"Be quick, Jimmy. Tell the man we"ll give him five bob for the loan of the beast. Now run the organ under the tree, and we"ll dress it when Bubbles comes back," Sir Christopher cried.
"I"ve often wondered," said Penfentenyou, "whether it would puzzle a monkey?" He had forgotten the needs of his Growing Nation, and was earnestly parting the white-thorn stems with his fingers.
Giuseppe and Jimmy did as they were told, the monkey following them with a wary and malignant eye.
"Here"s a discovery," said Jimmy. "The singing part of this organ comes off the wheels." He spoke volubly to the proprietor. "Oh, it"s so as Giuseppe can take it to his room o" nights. And play it. D"you hear that? The organ-grinder, after his day"s crime, plays his accursed machine for love. For love, Chris! And Michael Angelo was one of "em!"
"Don"t jaw! Tell him to take the beast"s petticoat off," said Sir Christopher Tomling.
Lord Lundie returned, very little winded, through a gap higher up the hedge.
"They"re all out, thank goodness!" he cried, "but I"ve raided what I could. Macrons glaces, candied fruit, and a bag of oranges."
"Excellent!" said the world-renowned contractor.
"Jimmy, you"re the light-weight; jump up on the organ and impale these things on the leaves as I hand "em!"
"I see," said Jimmy, capering like a springbuck. "Upward and onward, eh?
First, he"ll reach out for--how infernal p.r.i.c.kly these leaves are!--this biscuit. Next we"ll lure him on--(that"s about the reach of his arm)--with the marron glare, and then he"ll open out this orange. How human! How like your ign.o.ble career, Bubbles!"
With care and elaboration they ornamented that tree"s lower branches with sugar-topped biscuits, oranges, bits of banana, and marrons glares till it looked very ape"s path to Paradise.
"Unchain the Gyascutis!" said Sir Christopher commandingly. Giuseppe placed the monkey atop of the organ, where the beast, misunderstanding, stood on his head.
"He"s throwing himself on the mercy of the Court, me lud," said Jimmy.
"No--now he"s interested. Now he"s reaching after higher things. What wouldn"t I give to have here" (he mentioned a name not unhonoured in British Art). "Ambition plucking apples of Sodom!" (the monkey had p.r.i.c.ked himself and was swearing). "Genius hampered by Convention? Oh, there"s a whole bushelful of allegories in it!"
"Give him time. He"s balancing the probabilities," said Lord Lundie.