|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 87
The problem was solved. Food should be brought to her late at
night.
On the table by his bed was a stout sheet of packing paper. On
this lay, like one of those pictures in still life that one sees
on suburban parlor walls, a tongue, some bread, a knife, a fork,
salt, a corkscrew and a small bottle of white wine.
It is a pleasure, when one has been able hitherto to portray
George's devotion only through the medium of his speeches, to
produce these comestibles as Exhibit A, to show that he loved
Aline with no common love; for it had not been an easy task to
get them there. In a house of smaller dimensions he would have
raided the larder without shame, but at Blandings Castle there
was no saying where the larder might be. All he knew was that it
lay somewhere beyond that green-baize door opening on the hall,
past which he was wont to go on his way to bed. To prowl through
the maze of the servants' quarters in search of it was
impossible. The only thing to be done was to go to Market
Blandings and buy the things.
Fortune had helped him at the start by arranging that the
Honorable Freddie, also, should be going to Market Blandings in
the little runabout, which seated two. He had acquiesced in
George's suggestion that he, George, should occupy the other
seat, but with a certain lack of enthusiasm it seemed to George.
He had not volunteered any reason as to why he was going to
Market Blandings in the little runabout, and on arrival there had
betrayed an unmistakable desire to get rid of George at the
earliest opportunity.
As this had suited George to perfection, he being desirous of
getting rid of the Honorable Freddie at the earliest opportunity,
he had not been inquisitive, and they had parted on the outskirts
of the town without mutual confidences.
George had then proceeded to the grocer's, and after that to
another of the Market Blandings inns, not the Emsworth Arms,
where he had bought the white wine. He did not believe in the
local white wine, for he was a young man with a palate and
mistrusted country cellars, but he assumed that, whatever its
quality, it would cheer Aline in the small hours.
He had then tramped the whole five miles back to the castle with
his purchases. It was here that his real troubles began and the
quality of his love was tested. The walk, to a heavily laden man,
was bad enough; but it was as nothing compared with the ordeal of
smuggling the cargo up to his bedroom. Superhuman though he was,
George was alive to the delicacy of the situation. One cannot
convey food and drink to one's room in a strange house without,
if detected, seeming to cast a slur on the table of the host. It
was as one who carries dispatches through an enemy's lines that
George took cover, emerged from cover, dodged, ducked and ran;
and the moment when he sank down on his bed, the door locked
behind him, was one of the happiest of his life.
The recollection of that ordeal made the one he proposed to
embark on now seem slight in comparison. All he had to do was to
go to Aline's room on the other side of the house, knock softly
on the door until signs of wakefulness made themselves heard from
within, and then dart away into the shadows whence he had come,
and so back to bed. He gave Aline credit for the intelligence
that would enable her, on finding a tongue, some bread, a knife,
a fork, salt, a corkscrew and a bottle of white wine on the mat,
to know what to do with them--and perhaps to guess whose was the
loving hand that had laid them there.
The second clause, however, was not important, for he proposed to
tell her whose was the hand next morning. Other people might hide
their light under a bushel--not George Emerson.
It only remained now to allow time to pass until the hour should
be sufficiently advanced to insure safety for the expedition. He
looked at his watch again. It was nearly two. By this time the
house must be asleep.
He gathered up the tongue, the bread, the knife, the fork, the
salt, the corkscrew and the bottle of white wine, and left the
room. All was still. He stole downstairs.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|