Chapter X
Love is a pathological state which can only be cured by one means. It is a disease, and robs the most humourous of their humour. When Rabelais was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he afterward destroyed. When Dante was in love he did the Paradiso. When he cheered up he wrote the Inferno. Neither of these is any joke. But then, Dante had no more humour than Penelope. It can be imagined (or it cannot be imagined) how unhumourous Pen became when she found she had made her choice between Plant and De Vere and Goby and Carew and Williams and Bramber and Gordon and Rivaulx. She wept at night over those she could not marry. And it added grief to grief to think that the unmarried would probably relapse into their evil ways.
“What can one poor girl do with so many?” she asked. “I’m sure they will turn around on me, and once more follow their dreadful instincts! And they have improved so much!”
The result of her sorrow was such pity that every poor wretch of them all was convinced she loved him better and better. They were quite cheerful. They looked at each other almost sympathetically. They grieved for each other, and struggled on the hard cinder-path of duty, with Penelope at least a long lap ahead. The amount of good they did was wonderful. Plant got his university started, Rivaulx went over to Paris and asked Dreyfus to dinner, Goby was deep in Imperial Yeomanry and rifle ranges, Bramber spoke on every opportunity in the House and voted with the insistence of a whip. De Vere wrote a monograph on outdoor sports, with an appendix on bulldogs. He also owned that poetry was not everything, and went so far as to say that the poet laureate was a very good fellow. Gordon floated a company without any water in the capital, and ran the whole affair with absolute honesty and no waiver clause. Carew learned to draw, and spoke sober truth about the Chantry Bequest.
Williams never swore in public, and painted in water-colours. And none of them played bridge or went into good society.
“And when they know?” said poor Penelope.
“I wonder if I ought not to sacrifice him and myself on the altar of duty?” said Pen. But she was in love, and the motor-car in which she was to disappear stood ready. She made weekly trips in it with Bob. Sometimes they stayed away for three days, sometimes even for a week.
“Oh, Bob, I’m so unhappy: so happy,” said Pen.
And Bob looked at her critically.
“Well, you look stunning, anyhow,” he replied, “you get better looking every day, Pen. Old De Vere said so. He let on that you were a cross between a lily and a rose, or some such rot. You mark me, Pen, he’ll go back to poetry if you marry him, and give up dogs. I don’t want him to do that. Baker has some pups coming on, a new kind of very savage dog, and I’m halves in ’em. Can’t you give me a tip as to whether it’s De Vere? If it is, I’ll sell him one now, cheap.”
But Pen looked beautiful and kept her mouth shut. Neither Bob nor Titania nor Bradstock could extract a word from her. And, nevertheless, the whole world grew suspicious. The society papers said she had made her choice. The sporting papers gave tips. They said, “For the Lady Penelope Stakes we give Plant or Bramber,” or at least one of them did. Others selected De Vere, and one rude man said a rank outsider would get it. Of course he didn’t believe in Pen’s word. But then, no one did.
And still Pen kept her teeth shut and was as obstinate as a government mule to all persuasion. Ethel cried and said:
“Oh, is it Captain Goby?”
Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:
“Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now.”
Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams. But no one got a rise out of Penelope.
“I am entirely determined to give a lead to those who wish to be married without publicity. I shall found a society presently,” said Penelope.
When Titania, whom nothing could discourage, went at her furiously, Bradstock smiled.
“If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the girl married in Westminster Abbey,” said Bradstock. But even he was very curious.
“Have you found out anything yet, Bob?” he asked that young financier.
“I’m on the way,” said Bob, “give me time, Lord Bradstock. I feel sure it’s not De Vere. He’s buying all the dogs I offer him. If he was sure, he wouldn’t.”
But Bradstock wasn’t certain. Penelope might have no humour, but she was quite equal to ordering De Vere to buy in order to blind Bob.
“I never thought of that,” said Bob. “I frankly own Pen’s a deal worse than Euclid. And I never thought to say that of anything.”
And upon a certain day in June, when June was doing its best to live up to the poet’s ideal, Pen disappeared, by herself, leaving Bob at home with Guthrie, who now came over each day to keep the young vagabond doing something. She came back after lunch, and Bob found her abnormally silent. She had nothing to say, and there was a curious far-off look in her eyes. Her interest in dogs was nil; she showed no appreciation of ferrets; when he spoke she said “Oh” and “Ah” and “what’s that you say?” And Bob had no suspicion whatsoever, just as clever people never have when they might be expected to show their wisdom.
When she did speak, though, it was to the point.
“I think, Bob, it is time you went back to your grandmother’s,” she declared, suddenly, and back he went in spite of all his cajoleries. Pen was very strange, he thought, and rather beastly. There certainly was a change in her, for she dismissed Harriet Weekes with a douceur which did not really sweeten that lady’s departure.
And in the afternoon Pen casually remarked to Chloe that she was going out of town for three days. When she said so the motor-car was at the door, and Geordie Smith was there too.
If Timothy Bunting had known that Smith was as deep in his lady’s confidence as he was himself, he would have been jealous. But he must have been, for Pen said to him, when they were out of Piccadilly:
“How long will it take to get to Spilsby, Smith?”
“My lady, with this new racing-car I’ll get there when you like,” replied Smith, firmly.
Pen remembered that Bob said Smith’s ambition was to ride through the city regardless of fines.
“I wouldn’t try to do it under three hours,” she said.
“Unless we are followed,” said Smith. “If we are followed, my lady, may I let her go?”
“Yes,” said Penelope.
Geordie Smith nodded to himself.
“Fines be damned, and legal limits ditto,” said Smith to himself; “wait, my darling, till we get through the traffic.”
He meant “darling” for his new car. He adored it as much as he did his mistress. He used to dream of it at night and had nightmares about it. Dream ruffians cut up his tires; he was in the middle of Salisbury Plain without petrol; “she” refused to spark; he was held up by gigantic policemen with stop watches the size of a church clock. But now she moved under him smooth and cosy, with a vast reserve of power; she was quick, swift, docile, intelligent, fearless of policemen, careless of the limping law.
“If my lady wants to go quick, I’m the man,” said Geordie. “But I wonder what’s up?”
Geordie played the car as Joachim plays the violin, or Paderewski the piano. She skated, she swam, she shot like a water-beetle, she was responsive to his lightest touch. He heard her music as every engineer does, and found it as lovely as a dream song.
“Oh, for a clear road,” said the player. He found some of it clear before they reached Barnet, and then he fingered the keyboard, as it were, like a master.
“Horses, horses,” said Smith, “the poor miserable things! Ain’t I sorry for Tim Bunting! Here we go, my lady.”
He broke the law magnificently, and with such skill that Penelope wondered. But only once he ran against the law in the shape of a policeman, north of Hatfield, who saw him coming and signalled to him to stop.
“Shall I?” said Smith.
“No!” shrieked Pen, against the tide of wind.
They passed him flying and saw him run as they passed.
“He’ll wire to Hitchin and have us there,” said Smith. But he knew his roads. “Oh, will he?”
He took the right fork of the roads at Welwyn and roared through Stevenage to Baldock and found the main road again at Sandy. They reached Huntington, sixty miles from town, in an hour and three quarters.
“And I’ve never let her out but once,” said Smith; “she’s a daisy!”
The eighteen miles to Spilsborough they did at a speed that made Penelope bend her head. She felt wonderful: she was on a shooting-star. They slackened on the outskirts of the cathedral city and rolled through it delicately. She looked about her and remembered the dear bishop who had christened her when he was no more than a vicar.
“We’ll go by Crowland and Spalding, Smith.” A car followed them out of Spilsborough, and Smith, going easy, looked back and saw it.
“Catch us, my son,” he said, contemptuously. But when they were well clear of town and he turned her loose, so to speak, Pen’s nerve went, or it appeared to go.
“Don’t go so fast, Smith,” she commanded.
And Smith obeyed sorrowfully.
“They can’t stand it,” he said; “none of ’em can stand it really. They let on they can, but it’s no go. A few hot miles gives them the mulligrubs.”
But nevertheless they were running over thirty miles an hour. The car behind crawled up to them.
“All I’ve got to do, my lady, is to ask her to shake ’em off, and away we go and leave ’em,” he suggested.
“Oh, no, no,” said Pen.
At Spalding the pursuer, if he were one, was not a hundred yards behind. But in the town Smith got ahead. He did not see Penelope trembling. Smith had taken a look at the one behind.
“There’s power there,” he said, savagely. “If he lets her out and my lady squeals, I’m passed!”
She did “squeal” the other side of Spalding, but not for herself. The other car had to stop.
“That’s done ’em,” said Smith; “they’re in the ditch.” He gained ten miles on them, and Penelope wept.
And just as they were coming into Boston at an easy gait, Smith turned and saw the other car coming up behind like a meteor, with the dust astern of her in a fume.
“That chap can drive after all,” said Smith. “Won’t you try to let me get away from him before we get to Spilsby, my lady?”
“I—I don’t want to,” said Pen.
And five miles outside of Spilsby the pursuing car drew up with them. Two indistinguishable monsters drove it, and through his glaring goggles Smith glared at them as they came alongside.
“Stop,” said Penelope, suddenly. “Stop, Smith.”
And the other car stopped too.
“I’ll go on with the other car,” said Penelope. She took her place by the most unrecognizable portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden and terrific cloud of dust.
“Damned if I know who it is, even now,” said Smith.