The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
leash. About a hundred yards from the shore up go her arms. Piercing
scream. Agitated crowds on the beach. What is the matter? What has
happened? A touch of cramp. Will she be drowned? No! G. Barnert
Callender, author of _Fate's Footballs_, which opens at the Beach
Theatre on Monday evening next, at eight-fifteen sharp, will save her.
See! He has her. He is bringing her in. She is safe. How pleased her
mother will be! And the public, what a bit of luck for them! They will
be able to see her act at eight-fifteen sharp on Monday after all. Back
you come to the shore. Cheering crowds. Weeping women. Strong
situation. I unleash the Press-agent, and off he shoots, in time to get
the story into the evening paper. It was a great idea, but I see now
there were one or two flaws in it.'
'You do, do you?' said George.
'It occurs to me on reflection that after all you wouldn't have agreed
to it. A something, I don't know what, which is lacking in your nature,
would have made you reject the scheme.'
'I'm glad that occurred to you.'
'And a far greater flaw was that it was too altruistic. It boomed you
and it boomed Jane, but I didn't get a thing out of it. My revised
scheme is a thousand times better in every way.'
'Don't say you have another.'
'I have. And,' added Mr Mifflin, with modest pride, 'it is a winner.
This time I unhesitatingly assert that I have the goods. In about one
minute from now you will hear me exclaim, in a clear musical voice, the
single word, "Jump!" That is your cue to leap over the side as quick as
you can move, for at that precise moment this spanking craft is going
to capsize.'
George spun round in his seat. Mr Mifflin's face was shining with
kindly enthusiasm. The shore was at least two hundred yards away, and
that morning he had had his first swimming-lesson.
'A movement of the tiller will do it. These accidents are common
objects of the seashore. I may mention that I can swim just enough to
keep myself afloat; so it's up to you. I wouldn't do this for everyone,
but, seeing that we were boys together--Are you ready?'
'Stop!' cried George. 'Don't do it! Listen!'
'Are you ready?'
The _Ocean Beauty_ gave a plunge.
'You lunatic! Listen to me. It--'
'Jump!' said Mr Mifflin.
George came to the surface some yards from the overturned boat, and,
looking round for Mr Mifflin, discovered that great thinker treading
water a few feet away.
'Get to work, George,' he remarked.
It is not easy to shake one's fist at a man when in deep water, but
George managed it.
'For twopence,' he cried, 'I'd leave you to look after yourself.'
'You can do better than that,' said Mr Mifflin. 'I'll give you
threepence to tow me in. Hurry up. It's cold.'
In gloomy silence George gripped him by the elbows. Mr Mifflin looked
over his shoulder.
'We shall have a good house,' he said. 'The stalls are full already,
and the dress-circle's filling. Work away, George, you're doing fine.
This act is going to be a scream from start to finish.'
With pleasant conversation he endeavoured to while away the monotony of
the journey; but George made no reply. He was doing some rapid
thinking. With ordinary luck, he felt bitterly, all would have been
well. He could have gone on splashing vigorously under his teacher's
care for a week, gradually improving till he emerged into a reasonably
proficient swimmer. But now! In an age of miracles he might have
explained away his present performance; but how was he to--And then
there came to him an idea--simple, as all great ideas are, but
magnificent.
He stopped and trod water.
'Tired?' said Mr Mifflin. 'Well, take a rest,' he added, kindly, 'take
a rest. No need to hurry.'
'Look here,' said George, 'this piece is going to be recast. We're
going to exchange parts. You're rescuing me. See? Never mind why. I
haven't time to explain it to you now. Do you understand?'
'No,' said Mr Mifflin.
'I'll get behind you and push you; but don't forget, when we get to the
shore, that you've done the rescuing.'
Mr Mifflin pondered.
'Is this wise?' he said. 'It is a strong part, the rescuer, but I'm not
sure the other wouldn't suit my style better. The silent hand-grip, the
catch in the voice. You want a practised actor for that. I don't think
you'd be up to it, George.'
'Never mind about me. That's how it's going to be.'
Mr Mifflin pondered once more.
'No,' he said at length, 'it wouldn't do. You mean well, George, but it
would kill the show. We'll go on as before.'
'Will we?' said George, unpleasantly. 'Would you like to know what I'm
going to do to you, then? I'm going to hit you very hard under the jaw,
and I'm going to take hold of your neck and squeeze it till you lose
consciousness, and then I'm going to drag you to the beach and tell
people I had to hit you because you lost your head and struggled.'
Mr Mifflin pondered for the third time.
'You are?' he said.
'I am,' said George.
'Then,' said Mr Mifflin, cordially, 'say no more. I take your point. My
objections are removed. But,' he concluded, 'this is the last time I
come bathing with you, George.'
Mr Mifflin's artistic misgivings as to his colleague's ability to
handle so subtle a part as that of rescuee were more than justified on
their arrival. A large and interested audience had collected by the
time they reached the shore, an audience to which any artist should
have been glad to play; but George, forcing his way through, hurried to
the hotel without attempting to satisfy them. Not a single silent
hand-shake did he bestow on his rescuer. There was no catch in his voice
as he made the one remark which he did make--to a man with whiskers who
asked him if the boat had upset. As an exhibition of rapid footwork
his performance was good. In other respects it was poor.
He had just changed his wet clothes--it seemed to him that he had
been doing nothing but change his wet clothes since he had come to
Marvis Bay--when Mr Mifflin entered in a bathrobe.
'They lent me this downstairs,' he explained, 'while they dried my
clothes. They would do anything for me. I'm the popular hero. My boy,
you made the mistake of your life when you threw up the rescuer part.
It has all the fat. I see that now. The rescuer plays the other man off
the stage every time. I've just been interviewed by the fellow on the
local newspaper. He's correspondent to a couple of London papers. The
country will ring with this thing. I've told them all the parts I've
ever played and my favourite breakfast food. There's a man coming up to
take my photograph tomorrow. _Footpills_ stock has gone up with a
run. Wait till Monday and see what sort of a house we shall draw. By
the way, the reporter fellow said one funny thing. He asked if you
weren't the same man who was rescued yesterday by a girl. I said of
course not--that you had only come down yesterday. But he stuck to it
that you were.'
'He was quite right.'
'What!'
'I was.'
Mr Mifflin sat down on the bed.
'This fellow fell off the pier, and a girl brought him in.'
George nodded.
'And that was you?'
George nodded.
Mr Mifflin's eyes opened wide.
'It's the heat,' he declared, finally. 'That and the worry of
rehearsals. I expect a doctor could give the technical name for it.
It's a what-do-you-call-it--an obsession. You often hear of cases.
Fellows who are absolutely sane really, but cracked on one particular
subject. Some of them think they're teapots and things. You've got a
craving for being rescued from drowning. What happens, old man? Do you
suddenly get the delusion that you can't swim? No, it can't be that,
because you were doing all the swimming for the two of us just now. I
don't know, though. Maybe you didn't realize that you were swimming?'
George finished lacing his shoe and looked up.
'Listen,' he said; 'I'll talk slow, so that you can understand. Suppose
you fell off a pier, and a girl took a great deal of trouble to get you
to the shore, would you say, "Much obliged, but you needn't have been
so officious. I can swim perfectly well?"'
Mr Mifflin considered this point. Intelligence began to dawn in his
face. 'There is more in this than meets the eye,' he said. 'Tell me
all.'
'This morning'--George's voice grew dreamy--'she gave me a
swimming-lesson. She thought it was my first. Don't cackle like that.
There's nothing to laugh at.'
Mr Mifflin contradicted this assertion.
'There is you,' he said, simply. 'This should be a lesson to you,
George. Avoid deceit. In future be simple and straightforward. Take me
as your model. You have managed to scrape through this time. Don't risk
it again. You are young. There is still time to make a fresh start. It
only needs will-power. Meanwhile, lend me something to wear. They are
going to take a week drying my clothes.'
* * * * *
There was a rehearsal at the Beach Theatre that evening. George
attended it in a spirit of resignation and left it in one of elation.
Three days had passed since his last sight of the company at work, and
in those three days, apparently, the impossible had been achieved.
There was a snap and go about the piece now. The leading lady had at
length mastered that cue, and gave it out with bell-like clearness.
Arthur Mifflin, as if refreshed and braced by his salt-water bath, was
infusing a welcome vigour into his part. And even the comedian, George
could not help admitting, showed signs of being on the eve of becoming
funny. It was with a light heart and a light step that he made his way
back to the hotel.
In the veranda were a number of basket-chairs. Only one was occupied.
He recognized the occupant.
'I've just come back from a rehearsal,' he said, seating himself beside
her.
'Really?'
'The whole thing is different,' he went on, buoyantly. 'They know their
lines. They act as if they meant it. Arthur Mifflin's fine. The
comedian's improved till you wouldn't know him. I'm awfully pleased
about it.'
'Really?'
George felt damped.
'I thought you might be pleased, too,' he said, lamely.
'Of course I am glad that things are going well. Your accident this
afternoon was lucky, too, in a way, was it not? It will interest people
in the play.'
'You heard about it?'
'I have been hearing about nothing else.'
'Curious it happening so soon after--'
'And so soon before the production of your play. Most curious.'
There was a silence. George began to feel uneasy. You could never tell
with women, of course. It might be nothing; but it looked uncommonly as
if--
He changed the subject.
'How is your aunt this evening, Miss Vaughan?'
'Quite well, thank you. She went in. She found it a little chilly.'
George heartily commended her good sense. A little chilly did not begin
to express it. If the girl had been like this all the evening, he
wondered her aunt had not caught pneumonia. He tried again.
'Will you have time to give me another lesson tomorrow?' he said.
She turned on him.
'Mr Callender, don't you think this farce has gone on long enough?'
Once, in the dear, dead days beyond recall, when but a happy child,
George had been smitten unexpectedly by a sportive playmate a bare
half-inch below his third waistcoat-button. The resulting emotions
were still green in his memory. As he had felt then, so did he feel
now.
'Miss Vaughan! I don't understand.'
'Really?'
'What have I done?'
'You have forgotten how to swim.'
A warm and prickly sensation began to manifest itself in the region of
George's forehead.
'Forgotten!'
'Forgotten. And in a few months. I thought I had seen you before, and
today I remembered. It was just about this time last year that I saw
you at Hayling Island swimming perfectly wonderfully, and today you are
taking lessons. Can you explain it?'