Ukridge Stories · First Aid for Dora (2/3)

“Most unfortunate business, old horse, and largely my fault. I thought the whole thing was perfectly safe. You see, my aunt goes to bed at half-past ten every night, so it seemed to me that if Dora slipped out at eleven and left a window open behind her she could sneak back all right when we got home from Mario’s. But what happened? Some dashed officious ass,” said Ukridge, with honest wrath, “went and locked the damned window. I don’t know who it was. I suspect the butler. He has a nasty habit of going round the place late at night and shutting things. Upon my Sam, it’s a little hard! If only people would leave things alone and not go snooping about⁠—”

“What happened?”

“Why, it was the scullery window which we’d left open, and when we got back at four o’clock this morning the infernal thing was shut as tight as an egg. Things looked pretty rocky, but Dora remembered that her bedroom window was always open, so we bucked up again for a bit. Her room’s on the second floor, but I knew where there was a ladder, so I went and got it, and she was just hopping up as merry as dammit when somebody flashed a great beastly lantern on us, and there was a policeman, wanting to know what the game was. The whole trouble with the police force of London, laddie, the thing that makes them a hissing and a byword, is that they’re snoopers to a man. Zeal, I suppose they call it. Why they can’t attend to their own affairs is more than I can understand. Dozens of murders going on all the time, probably, all over Wimbledon, and all this bloke would do was stand and wiggle his infernal lantern and ask what the game was. Wouldn’t be satisfied with a plain statement that it was all right. Insisted on rousing the house to have us identified.”

Ukridge paused, a reminiscent look of pain on his expressive face.

“And then?” I said.

“We were,” said Ukridge, briefly.

“What?”

“Identified. By my aunt. In a dressing-gown and a revolver. And the long and the short of it is, old man, that poor little Dora has got the sack.”

I could not find it in my heart to blame his aunt for what he evidently considered a high-handed and tyrannical outrage. If I were a maiden lady of regular views, I should relieve myself of the services of any secretary-companion who returned to roost only a few short hours in advance of the milk. But, as Ukridge plainly desired sympathy rather than an austere pronouncement on the relations of employer and employed, I threw him a couple of tuts, which seemed to soothe him a little. He turned to the practical side of the matter.

“What’s to be done?”

“I don’t see what you can do.”

“But I must do something. I’ve lost the poor little thing her job, and I must try to get it back. It’s a rotten sort of job, but it’s her bread and butter. Do you think George Tupper would biff round and have a chat with my aunt, if I asked him?”

“I suppose he would. He’s the best-hearted man in the world. But I doubt if he’ll be able to do much.”

“Nonsense, laddie,” said Ukridge, his unconquerable optimism rising bravely from the depths. “I have the utmost confidence in old Tuppy. A man in a million. And he’s such a dashed respectable sort of bloke that he might have her jumping through hoops and shamming dead before she knew what was happening to her. You never know. Yes, I’ll try old Tuppy. I’ll go and see him now.”

“I should.”

“Just lend me a trifle for a cab, old son, and I shall be able to get to the Foreign Office before one o’clock. I mean to say, even if nothing comes of it, I shall be able to get a lunch out of him. And I need refreshment, laddie, need it sorely. The whole business has shaken me very much.”

It was three days after this that, stirred by a pleasant scent of bacon and coffee, I hurried my dressing and, proceeding to my sitting room, found that Ukridge had dropped in to take breakfast with me, as was often his companionable practice. He seemed thoroughly cheerful again, and was plying knife and fork briskly like the good trencherman he was.

“Morning, old horse,” he said agreeably.

“Good morning.”

“Devilish good bacon, this. As good as I’ve ever bitten. Bowles is cooking you some more.”

“That’s nice. I’ll have a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind me making myself at home while I’m waiting.” I started to open the letters by my plate, and became aware that my guest was eyeing me with a stare of intense penetration through his pince-nez, which were all crooked as usual. “What’s the matter?”

“Matter?”

“Why,” I said, “are you looking at me like a fish with lung-trouble?”

“Was I?” He took a sip of coffee with an overdone carelessness. “Matter of fact, old son, I was rather interested. I see you’ve had a letter from my aunt.”

“What?”

I had picked up the last envelope. It was addressed in a strong female hand, strange to me. I now tore it open. It was even as Ukridge had said. Dated the previous day and headed “Heath House, Wimbledon Common,” the letter ran as follows:⁠—

“Dear Sir⁠—I shall be happy to see you if you will call at this address the day after tomorrow (Friday) at four-thirty.⁠—Yours faithfully, Julia Ukridge.”

I could make nothing of this. My morning mail, whether pleasant or the reverse, whether bringing a bill from a tradesman or a cheque from an editor, had had till now the uniform quality of being plain, straightforward, and easy to understand; but this communication baffled me. How Ukridge’s aunt had become aware of my existence, and why a call from me should ameliorate her lot, were problems beyond my unravelling, and I brooded over it as an Egyptologist might over some newly-discovered hieroglyphic.

“What does she say?” enquired Ukridge.

“She wants me to call at half-past four tomorrow afternoon.”

“Splendid!” cried Ukridge. “I knew she would bite.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Ukridge reached across the table and patted me affectionately on the shoulder. The movement involved the upsetting of a full cup of coffee, but I suppose he meant well. He sank back again in his chair and adjusted his pince-nez in order to get a better view of me. I seemed to fill him with honest joy, and he suddenly burst into a spirited eulogy, rather like some minstrel of old delivering an extempore boost of his chieftain and employer.

“Laddie,” said Ukridge, “if there’s one thing about you that I’ve always admired it’s your readiness to help a pal. One of the most admirable qualities a bloke can possess, and nobody has it to a greater extent than you. You’re practically unique in that way. I’ve had men come up to me and ask me about you. ‘What sort of a chap is he?’ they say. ‘One of the very best,’ I reply. ‘A fellow you can rely on. A man who would die rather than let you down. A bloke who would go through fire and water to do a pal a good turn. A bird with a heart of gold and a nature as true as steel.’ ”

“Yes, I’m a splendid fellow,” I agreed, slightly perplexed by this panegyric. “Get on.”

“I am getting on, old horse,” said Ukridge with faint reproach. “What I’m trying to say is that I knew you would-be delighted to tackle this little job for me. It wasn’t necessary to ask you. I knew.”

A grim foreboding of an awful doom crept over me, as it had done so often before in my association with Ukridge.

“Will you kindly tell me what damned thing you’ve let me in for now?”

Ukridge deprecated my warmth with a wave of his fork. He spoke soothingly and with a winning persuasiveness. He practically cooed.

“It’s nothing, laddie. Practically nothing. Just a simple little act of kindness which you will thank me for putting in your way. It’s like this. As I ought to have foreseen from the first, that ass Tuppy proved a broken reed. In that matter of Dora, you know. Got no result whatever. He went to see my aunt the day before yesterday, and asked her to take Dora on again, and she gave him the miss-in-balk. I’m not surprised. I never had any confidence in Tuppy. It was a mistake ever sending him. It’s no good trying frontal attack in a delicate business like this. What you need is strategy. You want to think what is the enemy’s weak side and then attack from that angle. Now, what is my aunt’s weak side, laddie? Her weak side, what is it? Now think. Reflect, old horse.”

“From the sound of her voice, the only time I ever got near her, I should say she hadn’t one.”

“That’s where you make your error, old son. Butter her up about her beastly novels, and a child could eat out of her hand. When Tuppy let me down I just lit a pipe and had a good think. And then suddenly I got it. I went to a pal of mine, a thorough sportsman⁠—you don’t know him. I must introduce you some day⁠—and he wrote my aunt a letter from you, asking if you could come and interview her for Woman’s Sphere. It’s a weekly paper, which I happen to know she takes in regularly. Now, listen, laddie. Don’t interrupt for a moment. I want you to get the devilish shrewdness of this. You go and interview her, and she’s all over you. Tickled to death. Of course, you’ll have to do a good deal of Young Disciple stuff, but you won’t mind that. After you’ve soft-soaped her till she’s purring like a dynamo, you get up to go. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘this has been the proudest occasion of my life, meeting one whose work I have so long admired.’ And she says, ‘The pleasure is mine, old horse.’ And you slop over each other a bit more. Then you say sort of casually, as if it had just occurred to you, ‘Oh, by the way, I believe my cousin⁠—or sister⁠—No, better make it cousin⁠—I believe my cousin, Miss Dora Mason, is your secretary, isn’t she?’ ‘She isn’t any such dam’ thing,’ replies my aunt. ‘I sacked her three days ago.’ That’s your cue, laddie. Your face falls, you register concern, you’re frightfully cut up. You start in to ask her to let Dora come back. And you’re such pals by this time that she can refuse you nothing. And there you are! My dear old son, you can take it from me that if you only keep your head and do the Young Disciple stuff properly the thing can’t fail. It’s an ironclad scheme. There isn’t a flaw in it.”

“There is one.”

“I think you’re wrong. I’ve gone over the thing very carefully. What is it?”

“The flaw is that I’m not going anywhere near your infernal aunt. So you can trot back to your forger chum and tell him he’s wasted a good sheet of letter paper.”

A pair of pince-nez tinkled into a plate. Two pained eyes blinked at me across the table. Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge was wounded to the quick.

“You don’t mean to say you’re backing out?” he said, in a low, quivering voice.

“I never was in.”

“Laddie,” said Ukridge, weightily, resting an elbow on his last slice of bacon, “I want to ask you one question. Just one simple question. Have you ever let me down? Has there been one occasion in our long friendship when I have relied upon you and been deceived? Not one!”

“Everything’s got to have a beginning. I’m starting now.”

“But think of her. Dora! Poor little Dora. Think of poor little Dora.”

“If this business teaches her to keep away from you, it will be a blessing in the end.”

“But, laddie⁠—”

I suppose there is some fatal weakness in my character, or else the brand of bacon which Bowles cooked possessed a peculiarly mellowing quality. All I know is that, after being adamant for a good ten minutes, I finished breakfast committed to a task from which my soul revolted. After all, as Ukridge said, it was rough on the girl. Chivalry is chivalry. We must strive to lend a helping hand as we go through this world of ours, and all that sort of thing. Four o’clock on the following afternoon found me entering a cab and giving the driver the address of Heath House, Wimbledon Common.

My emotions on entering Heath House were such as I would have felt had I been keeping a tryst with a dentist who by some strange freak happened also to be a duke. From the moment when a butler of super-Bowles dignity opened the door and, after regarding me with ill-concealed dislike, started to conduct me down a long hall, I was in the grip of both fear and humility. Heath House is one of the stately homes of Wimbledon; how beautiful they stand, as the poet says: and after the humble drabness of Ebury Street it frankly overawed me. Its keynote was an extreme neatness which seemed to sneer at my squashy collar and reproach my baggy trouser-leg. The farther I penetrated over the polished floor, the more vividly was it brought home to me that I was one of the submerged tenth and could have done with a haircut. I had not been aware when I left home that my hair was unusually long, but now I seemed to be festooned by a matted and offensive growth. A patch on my left shoe which had had a rather comfortable look in Ebury Street stood out like a blot on the landscape. No, I was not at my ease; and when I reflected that in a few moments I was to meet Ukridge’s aunt, that legendary figure, face to face, a sort of wistful admiration filled me for the beauty of the nature of one who would go through all this to help a girl he had never even met. There was no doubt about it⁠—the facts spoke for themselves⁠—I was one of the finest fellows I had ever known. Nevertheless, there was no getting away from it, my trousers did bag at the knee.

“Mr. Corcoran,” announced the butler, opening the drawing-room door. He spoke with just that intonation of voice that seemed to disclaim all responsibility. If I had an appointment, he intimated, it was his duty, however repulsive, to show me in; but, that done, he dissociated himself entirely from the whole affair.

There were two women and six Pekingese dogs in the room. The Pekes I had met before, during their brief undergraduate days at Ukridge’s dog college, but they did not appear to recognise me. The occasion when they had lunched at my expense seemed to have passed from their minds. One by one they came up, sniffed, and then moved away as if my bouquet had disappointed them. They gave the impression that they saw eye to eye with the butler in his estimate of the young visitor. I was left to face the two women.

Of these⁠—reading from right to left⁠—one was a tall, angular, hawk-faced female with a stony eye. The other, to whom I gave but a passing glance at the moment, was small, and so it seemed to me, pleasant-looking. She had bright hair faintly powdered with grey, and mild eyes of a china blue. She reminded me of the better class of cat. I took her to be some casual caller who had looked in for a cup of tea. It was the hawk on whom I riveted my attention. She was looking at me with a piercing and unpleasant stare, and I thought how exactly she resembled the picture I had formed of her in my mind from Ukridge’s conversation.

“Miss Ukridge?” I said, sliding on a rug towards her and feeling like some novice whose manager, against his personal wishes, has fixed him up with a match with the heavyweight champion.

“I am Miss Ukridge,” said the other woman. “Miss Watterson, Mr. Corcoran.”

It was a shock, but, the moment of surprise over, I began to feel something approaching mental comfort for the first time since I had entered this house of slippery rugs and supercilious butlers. Somehow I had got the impression from Ukridge that his aunt was a sort of stage aunt, all stiff satin and raised eyebrows. This half-portion with the mild blue eyes I felt that I could tackle. It passed my comprehension why Ukridge should ever have found her intimidating.

“I hope you will not mind if we have our little talk before Miss Watterson,” she said with a charming smile. “She has come to arrange the details of the Pen and Ink Club dance which we are giving shortly. She will keep quite quiet and not interrupt. You don’t mind?”

“Not at all, not at all,” I said in my attractive way. It is not exaggerating to say that at this moment I felt debonair. “Not at all, not at all. Oh, not at all.”

“Won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you, thank you.”

The hawk moved over to the window, leaving us to ourselves.