Love Among the Chickens Read online

  SOME EMOTIONS

  XII

  The fame which came to me through that gallant rescue was a littleembarrassing. I was a marked man. Did I walk through the village,heads emerged from windows, and eyes followed me out of sight. Did Isit on the beach, groups formed behind me and watched in silentadmiration. I was the man of the moment.

  "If we'd wanted an advertisement for the farm," said Ukridge on one ofthese occasions, "we couldn't have had a better one than you, Garny,my boy. You have brought us three distinct orders for eggs during thelast week. And I'll tell you what it is, we need all the orders wecan get that'll bring us in ready money. The farm is in a criticalcondition, Marmaduke. The coffers are low, decidedly low. And I'lltell you another thing. I'm getting precious tired of living onnothing but chicken and eggs. So's Millie, though she doesn't say so."

  "So am I," I said, "and I don't feel like imitating your wife's proudreserve. I never want to see a chicken again except alive."

  For the last week monotony had been the keynote of our commissariat.We had cold chicken and eggs for breakfast, boiled chicken and eggsfor lunch, and roast chicken and eggs for dinner. Meals became anuisance, and Mrs. Beale complained bitterly that we did not give hera chance. She was a cook who would have graced an alderman's house,and served up noble dinners for gourmets, and here she was in thisremote corner of the world ringing the changes on boiled chicken androast chicken and boiled eggs and poached eggs. Mr. Whistler, set topaint signboards for public houses, might have felt the same restlessdiscontent. As for her husband, the hired retainer, he took life astranquilly as ever, and seemed to regard the whole thing as the mostexhilarating farce he had ever been in. I think he looked on Ukridgeas an amiable lunatic, and was content to rough it a little in orderto enjoy the privilege of observing his movements. He made nocomplaints of the food. When a man has supported life for a number ofyears on incessant army beef, the monotony of daily chicken and eggsscarcely strikes him.

  "The fact is," said Ukridge, "these tradesmen round here seem to be asordid, suspicious lot. They clamor for money."

  He mentioned a few examples. Vickers, the butcher, had been the firstto strike, with the remark that he would like to see the color of Mr.Ukridge's money before supplying further joints. Dawlish, the grocer,had expressed almost exactly similar sentiments two days later, andthe ranks of these passive resisters had been receiving fresh recruitsever since. To a man the tradesmen of Lyme Regis seemed as deficientin simple faith as they were in Norman blood.

  "Can't you pay some of them a little on account?" I suggested. "Itwould set them going again."

  "My dear old man," said Ukridge impressively, "we need every penny ofready money we can raise for the farm. The place simply eats money.That infernal roop let us in for I don't know what."

  That insidious epidemic had indeed proved costly. We had painted thethroats of the chickens with the best turpentine--at least, Ukridgeand Beale had--but in spite of their efforts dozens had died, and wehad been obliged to sink much more money than was pleasant inrestocking the run.

  "No," said Ukridge, summing up, "these men must wait. We can't helptheir troubles. Why, good gracious, it isn't as if they'd been waitingfor the money long. We've not been down here much over a month. Inever heard such a scandalous thing. 'Pon my word, I've a good mind togo round and have a straight talk with one or two of them. I come andsettle down here, and stimulate trade, and give them large orders, andthey worry me with bills when they know I'm up to my eyes in work,looking after the fowls. One can't attend to everything. This businessis just now at its most crucial point. It would be fatal to pay anyattention to anything else with things as they are. These scoundrelswill get paid all in good time."

  It is a peculiarity of situations of this kind that the ideas ofdebtor and creditor as to what constitutes good time never coincide.

  I am afraid that, despite the urgent need for strict attention tobusiness, I was inclined to neglect my duties about this time. I hadgot into the habit of wandering off, either to the links, where Igenerally found the professor and sometimes Phyllis, or on long walksby myself. There was one particular walk, along the Ware cliff,through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever set eyes on,which more than any other suited my mood. I would work my way throughthe woods till I came to a small clearing on the very edge of thecliff. There I would sit by the hour. Somehow I found that my ideasflowed more readily in that spot than in any other. My novel wastaking shape. It was to be called, by the way, if it ever won throughto the goal of a title, "The Brown-haired Girl."

  I had not been inside the professor's grounds since the occasion whenI had gone in through the boxwood hedge. But on the afternoonfollowing my financial conversation with Ukridge I made my way thitherafter a toilet which, from its length, should have produced betterresults than it did.

  Not for four whole days had I caught so much as a glimpse of Phyllis.I had been to the links three times, and had met the professor twice,but on both occasions she had been absent. I had not had the courageto ask after her. I had an absurd idea that my voice or my mannerwould betray me in some way.

  The professor was not at home. Nor was Mr. Chase. Nor was Miss NorahDerrick, the lady I had met on the beach with the professor. MissPhyllis, said the maid, was in the garden.

  I went into the garden. She was sitting under the cedar by the tennislawn, reading. She looked up as I approached.

  To walk any distance under observation is one of the most tryingthings I know. I advanced in bad order, hoping that my hands did notreally look as big as they felt. The same remark applied to my feet.In emergencies of this kind a diffident man could very well dispensewith extremities. I should have liked to be wheeled up in a bathchair.

  I said it was a lovely afternoon; after which there was a lull in theconversation. I was filled with a horrid fear that I was boring her. Ihad probably arrived at the very moment when she was most interestedin her book. She must, I thought, even now be regarding me as anuisance, and was probably rehearsing bitter things to say to theservant for not having had the sense to explain that she was out.

  "I--er--called in the hope of seeing Professor Derrick," I said.

  "You would find him on the links," she replied. It seemed to me thatshe spoke wistfully.

  "Oh, it--it doesn't matter," I said. "It wasn't anything important."

  This was true. If the professor had appeared then and there, I shouldhave found it difficult to think of anything to say to him which wouldhave accounted for my anxiety to see him.

  We paused again.

  "How are the chickens, Mr. Garnet?" said she.

  The situation was saved. Conversationally, I am like a clockwork toy.I have to be set going. On the affairs of the farm I could speakfluently. I sketched for her the progress we had made since her visit.I was humorous concerning roop, epigrammatic on the subject of thehired retainer and Edwin.

  "Then the cat did come down from the chimney?" said Phyllis.

  We both laughed, and--I can answer for myself--felt the better for it.

  "He came down next day," I said, "and made an excellent lunch off oneof our best fowls. He also killed another, and only just escaped deathhimself at the hands of Ukridge."

  "Mr. Ukridge doesn't like him, does he?"

  "If he does, he dissembles his love. Edwin is Mrs. Ukridge's pet. Heis the only subject on which they disagree. Edwin is certainly in theway on a chicken farm. He has got over his fear of Bob, and is nowperfectly lawless. We have to keep a constant eye on him."

  "And have you had any success with the incubator? I love incubators. Ihave always wanted to have one of my own, but we have never keptfowls."

  "The incubator has not done all that it should have done," I said."Ukridge looks after it, and I fancy his methods are not the rightmethods. I don't know if I have got the figures absolutely correct,but Ukridge reasons on these lines. He says you are supposed to keepthe temperature up to a hundred and five degrees. I think he said ahundred and five. Then the eggs
are supposed to hatch out in a week orso. He argues that you may just as well keep the temperature atseventy-two, and wait a fortnight for your chickens. I am certainthere's a fallacy in the system somewhere, because we never seem toget as far as the chickens. But Ukridge says his theory ismathematically sound and he sticks to it."

  "Are you quite sure that the way you are doing it is the best way tomanage a chicken farm?"

  "I should very much doubt it. I am a child in these matters. I hadonly seen a chicken in its wild state once or twice before we camedown here. I had never dreamed of being an active assistant on a realfarm. The whole thing began like Mr. George Ade's fable of the author.An author--myself--was sitting at his desk trying to turn outsomething that could be converted into breakfast food, when a friendcame in and sat down on the table and told him to go right on and notmind him."

  "Did Mr. Ukridge do that?"

  "Very nearly that. He called at my rooms one beautiful morning when Iwas feeling desperately tired of London and overworked and dying for aholiday, and suggested that I should come to Lyme Regis with him andhelp him farm chickens. I have not regretted it."

  "It is a lovely place, isn't it?"

  "The loveliest I have ever seen. How charming your garden is."

  "Shall we go and look at it? You have not seen the whole of it."

  As she rose I saw her book, which she had laid face downward on thegrass beside her. It was that same much-enduring copy of "TheManeuvers of Arthur." I was thrilled. This patient perseverance mustsurely mean something.

  She saw me looking at it.

  "Did you draw Pamela from anybody?" she asked suddenly.

  I was glad now that I had not done so. The wretched Pamela, once mypride, was for some reason unpopular with the only critic about whoseopinion I cared, and had fallen accordingly from her pedestal.

  As we wandered down the gravel paths she gave me her opinion of thebook. In the main it was appreciative. I shall always associate thescent of yellow lubin with the higher criticism.

  "Of course I don't know anything about writing books," she said.

  "Yes?" My tone implied, or I hoped it did, that she was an expert onbooks, and that if she was not it didn't matter.

  "But I don't think you do your heroines well. I have got 'TheOutsider'--"

  (My other novel. Bastable & Kirby, six shillings. Satirical. All aboutsociety, of which I know less than I know about chicken farming.Slated by _Times_ and _Spectator_. Well received by the _Pelican_.)

  "--and," continued Phyllis, "Lady Maud is exactly the same as Pamelain 'The Maneuvers of Arthur.' I thought you must have drawn bothcharacters from some one you knew."

  "No," I said; "no."

  "I am so glad," said Phyllis.

  And then neither of us seemed to have anything to say.

  My knees began to tremble. I realized that the moment had arrived whenmy fate must be put to the touch, and I feared that the moment waspremature. We cannot arrange these things to suit ourselves. I knewthat the time was not yet ripe, but the magic scent of the yellowlubin was too much for me.

  "Miss Derrick--" I said hoarsely.

  Phyllis was looking with more intentness than the attractions of theflower justified at a rose she held in her hand. The bees hummed inthe lubin.

  "Miss Derrick--" I said, and stopped again.

  "I say, you people," said a cheerful voice, "tea is ready. Halloo,Garnet, how are you? That medal arrived yet from the humane society?"

  I spun round. Mr. Tom Chase was standing at the end of the path. Igrinned a sickly grin.

  "Well, Tom," said Phyllis.

  And there was, I thought, just the faintest trace of annoyance in hervoice.

  "I've been bathing," said Mr. Chase.

  "Oh," I replied. "And I wish," I added, "that you'd drowned yourself."

  But I added it silently to myself.