“Oh, I’m not reproaching you. No doubt there were faults on both sides. He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?”
“Good-looking? Bingo? Bingo good-looking? I don’t know, really!”
“I mean, compared with some people,” said Cynthia.
Some time after this, Lady Wickhammersley gave the signal for the girl to go away, and they stood up. I didn’t get a chance of talking to young Bingo, and later, in the drawing-room, he didn’t show up. I found him in his room, lying on the bed with his feet on the rail, smoking a pipe. There was a notebook beside him.
“Hallo, Bingo,” I said.
“Hallo, Bertie,” he replied, in a distrait sort of manner.
“It’s rather strange to find you down here. Your uncle cut off your allowance after that Goodwood event and you had to take this tutoring job, right?”
“Correct,” said young Bingo.
“Well, you might have let your pals know where you were.”
He frowned darkly.
“I didn’t want them to know where I was. I wanted to creep away and hide myself. I’ve been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks. The sun ceased to shine—”
“That’s curious. We’ve had gorgeous weather in London.”
“The birds ceased to sing—”
“What birds?”
“The devil knows what birds!” cried young Bingo. “Any birds. The birds round about here. I can’t specify them by their pet names! I tell you, Bertie, it hit me hard, very hard.”
“What hit you?” I simply couldn’t follow the blighter.
“Charlotte. Her callousness.”
“Oh, ah!”
I’ve seen poor old Bingo through so many unsuccessful love-affairs that I’d almost forgotten there was a girl. Of course! Charlotte Corday Rowbotham. And she had gone off with Comrade Butt.
“I went through torments. Tell me, Bertie, what are you doing down here? I didn’t know you knew these people.”
“Me? Why, I’ve known them since I was a kid.”
Young Bingo put his feet down with a thud.
“Do you mean to say you’ve known Lady Cynthia all that time?”
“Of course! She was seven when I met her first.”
“Good Lord!” said young Bingo. He looked at me. “I love that girl, Bertie.”
“Yes. Nice girl, of course.”
“Don’t speak of her in that horrible casual way. She’s an angel. An angel! Was she talking about me at all at dinner, Bertie?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What did she say?”
“I remember one thing. She said she thought you good-looking.”
Young Bingo closed his eyes in a sort of ecstasy. Then he picked up the notebook.
“Will you walk a little, old man?” he said in a far-away voice. “I’ve got to write something.”
“To write?”
“Poetry, if you want to know. I wish,” said young Bingo, not without some bitterness, “she had been christened something except Cynthia. There isn’t a word in the language it rhymes with. Why Cynthia? Why not Jane?”
Next morning, as I lay in bed and wondering when Jeeves was going to show up with a cup of tea, the voice of young Bingo polluted the air. The blighter had apparently risen with the lark.
“Leave me,” I said, “I want to be alone. I can’t see anybody till I’ve had my tea.”
“When Cynthia smiles,” said young Bingo, “the skies are blue; birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is king of everything, when Cynthia smiles.” He coughed. “When Cynthia frowns—”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“I’m reading you my poem. The one I wrote to Cynthia last night. I’ll go on, shall I?”
“No!”
“No?”
“No. I haven’t had my tea.”
At this moment Jeeves came in with tea, and I was glad. After a couple of sips things looked a bit brighter. Even young Bingo didn’t look so loathsome as before. By the time I’d finished the first cup I was a new man. Suddenly the door opened and in blew Claude and Eustace. One of the things which discourages me about rural life is the earliness with which events begin to happen. At Twing, thank heaven, they know me, and let me breakfast in bed. The twins seemed pleased to see me.
“Good old Bertie!” said Claude.
“Dear friend!” said Eustace. “The Rev. told us you had arrived. I thought that letter of mine would get you here.”
“You can always rely on Bertie,” said Claude. “A real sportsman. Well, has Bingo told you about it?”
“Not a word. He’s been—”
“We’ve been talking,” said Bingo hastily, “of other matters.”
Claude pinched the last slice of thin bread-andbutter, and Eustace drank out a cup of tea.
“It’s like this, Bertie,” said Eustace, settling down. “As I told you in my letter, there are nine of us in this desert spot, reading with old Heppenstall. Well, of course, nothing is jollier than reading the Classics when it’s a hundred in the shade[186], but there comes time when you begin to feel the need of a little relaxation; and there are absolutely no facilities for relaxation in this place whatever. And then Steggles got this idea. Steggles is one of our reading-party, and, between ourselves, rather a fool as a general thing. Still, you have to give him credit for getting this idea.”
“What idea?”
“Well, you know how many parsons there are round about here. There are about a dozen villages within a radius of six miles, and each village has a church and each church has a parson and each parson preaches a sermon every Sunday. Tomorrow week—Sunday the twenty-third—we’re running off the great Sermon Competition. Steggles is making the book. The parson that preaches the longest sermon wins. Did you study the race-card I sent you?”
“I couldn’t understand what it was all about.”
“Why, you chump, it gives the names and the current odds on each starter[187]. I’ve got another copy, in case you’ve lost yours. Take a careful look at it. Jeeves, old man, do you want to get some money?”
“Sir?” said Jeeves, who had just brought my breakfast.
Claude explained the scheme. Amazingly, Jeeves grasped it immediately. But he merely smiled in a paternal sort of way.
“Thank you, sir, I think not.”
“Well, you’re with us, Bertie, aren’t you?” said Claude, stealing a roll and a slice of bacon. “Have you studied that card? Well, tell me, is everything clear?”
Of course it was.
“Why, old Heppenstall is a winner,” I said. “There isn’t a parson in the land who could give him eight minutes. Your pal Steggles must be an ass. In the days when I was with him, old Heppenstall never used to preach under half an hour. Has he lost his vim lately?”
“Not a bit of it,” said Eustace. “Tell him what happened, Claude.”
“Oh,” said Claude, “the first Sunday we were here, we all went to Twing church, and old Heppenstall preached a sermon that was under twenty minutes. This is what happened. Steggles didn’t notice it, and the Rev. didn’t notice it himself, but Eustace and I both noticed that he had dropped some pages out of his sermon-case as he was walking up to the pulpit. But Steggles went away with the impression that twenty minutes was his usual form. The next Sunday we heard Tucker and Starkie, and they both went well over the thirty-five minutes, so Steggles wrote the figures that you see on the card. You must come into this, Bertie. You see, the trouble is that I have nothing, and Eustace has nothing, and Bingo Little has nothing, so you’ll have to finance the syndicate. We’ll have a lot of money in all our pockets. Well, we’ll have to get back now. Think the thing over, and phone me later in the day. Come on, Claude, old man.”
The more I studied the scheme, the better it looked.
“How about it, Jeeves?” I said.
Jeeves smiled gently, and went out.
“Jeeves has no sporting blood[188],” said Bingo.
“Well, I have. I’m coming into this. Claude’s quite right. It’s like finding, money by the wayside.”