Part 49 (2/2)
”I shouldn't be in such a cast-iron hurry to swear if I were you,” Captain Bingo replies judicially. ”And--I've heard you say the same about the others----”
”It was never true before. And she's a lady,” pleads Beauvayse hotly. ”A lady in manners, and education, and everything. The sort of girl one respects; the sort of girl one can talk to about one's mother and sisters----”
”You'd talk about your mother to a Kaffir washerwoman,” Captain Bingo blurts out. ”Better you should, than go hanging about a Convent-bred schoolgirl and telling her you'll never care for anybody else, when you've got a legal wife, and, for all you know, a family of twins at home in England.”
The footstool, impelled by a scientific lift of Beauvayse's toe, flies to the other end of Nixey's verandah. ”Is one mistake to ruin a man's life?
I'll get a divorce from my wife. I will, by Heaven!”
”You told me not to maunder just now,” says Bingo, with ponderous sarcasm.
”Who is the maunderer, I'd like to know? By the Living Tinker, I should have thought that this siege life would have put iron into a man's blood instead of--of Creme de Menthe. Are you takin' those dashed morphia tabloids of Taggart's for bad-water collywobbles again? Yes? I thought as much. Chuck 'em to the aasvogels; stick to your work--you can't complain of its lackin' interest or variety--and let this girl alone. She's a lady, and the adopted daughter of an old friend of my wife's, and don't you forget it!” Bingo's gills are red, and he puffs and blows as large, excited, fleshy men are wont to. ”If you do you'll answer to me!”
”I tell you,” Beauvayse cries, white-hot with pa.s.sion, and raising his voice incautiously, ”that I mean to marry her. I tell you again that I will div----”
”Do you want the man in the street and every soul in the hotel to know your private affairs?” demands Bingo. ”If so, go on shoutin'. As to your bein' a widower, the chances are on the other side.... Gueldersdorp ain't exactly what you would call a healthy place just now. And as to divorcin'
your wife, how do you know she'll ever be accommodatin' enough to give you reason? And if she did, do you think a girl brought up in a Catholic Convent would marry you, even if you called to ask her with a copy of the decree absolute pasted on your chest? Hang it, man, your mother's son you ought to know better! And--oh come, I say!”
For Beauvayse sits down astride an iron chair, and lays his s.h.i.+rt-sleeved arms on the back-rail, and his golden, crisply-waved head upon them.
”I--I love her so, Wrynche. And to stand by and see another man cut in and win what I've lost by my own rotten folly hurts so--so d.a.m.nably.” His mouth is twisted with pain.
”Is there another chap who wants to cut in?” Bingo demands.
”You know one gets a bit clairvoyant when one is mad about a woman,” says Beauvayse, lifting his shamed wet eyes and haggard young face from the pillow of his folded arms. ”Well, I'm dead certain that there is another man who--who is as badly hit as me.”
”Who is the other man?”
”Saxham!”
”The Doctor! Shouldn't have supposed a fellow of that type would be susceptible now,” says Bingo. ”Gives an uncompromisin' kind of impression, with his chin like the bows of an Armoured Destroyer, and his eyebrows like another chap's moustaches.”
”And eyes like a pair of his own lancets underneath 'em. But he's a frightfully clever beast,” says Beauvayse. ”And what he wants in looks he makes up in brains. And--and if he knew there was a scratch against me, he might force the running and win hands down. So hang on to my secret by your eyelids, old fellow, and don't give me reason to be sorry I told----”
”You have my word, haven't you? And, talking about scratch entries,” says Bingo, inspired by a sudden rush of recollection, ”I ain't so sure that the Doctor--though, mind you, this is between ourselves--is the sort of wooer a parent of strict notions would be likely to encourage. Do you happen to have come across a goggle-eyed, potty little Alderman Brooker?--a Town Guardsman who runs a general store in the Market Place--that's his place of business with the boarding up, and the end b.u.t.ted in by a Creusot sh.e.l.l that didn't burst, luckily for Brooker. Well, this beast b.u.t.tonholed me months ago, and began to spin a cuffer about Saxham.”
”What had the dirty little bounder got to say?” asked Beauvayse, stiffening in disgust, ”about a man he isn't fit to black the boots of?”
”Nothing special nice. Said Saxham had lost his London connection through getting involved in a mess with a woman,” says the big Dragoon.
”Don't we all get into messes of that kind? What more?” demands Beauvayse.
”Said the Doctor had kicked over the traces pretty badly here. Pitched me a tale of his--Brooker's--having often acted as the Mayor's Deputy on the Police Court Bench, Brooker being an Alderman, and swore that he'd had Saxham up before him a dozen times at least in the last three years, along with the Drunks and Disorderlies.”
”It sounds like a hanged lie!”
”If I didn't say as much to Brooker,” responds Captain Bingo, ”I shut him up like a box by referrin' politely to gla.s.s houses, knowin' Brooker had been squiffy himself one night on guard, and by remindin' him that men who talk scandal of their superior officers under circ.u.mstances like the present are liable to be Court-Martialled and given beans. And as the Chief, and Saxham with him, dropped on Brooker in the act of smuggling lush into the trenches the other day, I fancy Brooker's teeth are fairly drawn. Though he swore to me that there isn't a saloon-keeper or a saloon-loafer in the town that doesn't know Saxham by the nickname of the Dop Doctor.”
”The man don't exist who objects to hear of the disqualifications, mental and physical, of a fellow who he's thought likely to enter the lists with him in the--in the dispute for a woman's favour,” says Beauvayse, with a pleasant air of candour. ”And though the story sounds like a lie, as I've said, there's a possibility of its being the other thing. I'm sorry for Saxham--that goes without sayin'--though I don't like his overbearin'
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