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Authors: P. G. Wodehouse
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anxiety and concern, he returned to his table, where he ordered coffee for one and an A.B.C. Railway Guide.
Sipping thoughtfully, he began to turn the pages till he came to the W's.
CHAPTER 6
J ANE Abbot did not loiter on her homeward journey. She pushed her two-seater along at a rare pace. It ruffles a girl of sensibility, who shortly after breakfast has heard the man she loves called a twerp and a gigolo, to hear him, a few hours later, at luncheon, described as a kickworthy heel; and when a girl of sensibility is ruffled, she finds a certain release of spirit in ignoring the speed laws and keeping the needle up to the fifty-five mark. Teeth clenched and eyes smouldering, she sent her Widgeon Seven shooting through the quiet English countryside like a lambent flame.
The results of this whirlwind drive were twofold. It unquestionably relieved her feelings, and it brought her to Walsingford Parva, the little village that stood on the river-bank some half a mile from the gates of Walsingford Hall, so expeditiously that, glancing at her watch, she saw that she would have time to pay a brief visit to the houseboat Mignonette before going on to prattle and play clock golf with Mr Chinnery.
Halting the car at the gate which gave entrance to the water meadows, she hurried along the towpath, and was presently in sight of her objective.
The Mignonette, attached to the mainland by a narrow and rickety plank, lay off a willow-bordered field dappled with
buttercups and daisies at a point where the stream widened out into a sort of miniature lagoon. It was a small squat craft; in its early youth a snowy white, but now, owing to never having received the lick of paint which it had been wanting for years, a rather repellent grey This dinginess of exterior, taken in conjunction with the fact that the low rail which ran round its roof was broken in places, gave it a dishevelled, dissipated appearance, as of a houseboat which has been out with the boys.
At the moment of Jane's arrival Adrian Peake was in the little saloon which was to serve him for the next six weeks as a combined living and sleeping apartment. He was prodding the bunk with a dubious forefinger, and there was on his beautiful face the unmistakable look of a man who has been let in for something unpleasant by a woman and has just begun to realize the magnitude of the unpleasantness of what he has been let in for. Passionately fond of his creature comforts, he was finding out that the houseboat Mignonette was no luxury hotel.
Adrian Peake was an extraordinarily good-looking youth, slender of build and rather fragile of appearance, with wistful expressive eyes which somehow seemed to emphasize and underline his fragility. Women thought him delicate, and often told him to sit quiet while they rubbed his forehead with eau-de-Cologne. The Princess Dwornitzchek thought he needed feeding up, and had been doing it for months with caviar and truite bleue and minced chicken and pêche Melba at the more expensive class of restaurant. But though he must have absorbed very nearly his weight in these delicacies, he went on looking wistful and fragile.
Tubby Vanringham, as we have seen, thought him a twerp. And though Jane Abbott had denied this hotly, the charge is one which should, perhaps, be weighed and inquired into.
Much would seem to turn on what a twerp really is. Adrian Peake was one of those young men, with whom London nowadays is so bountifully supplied, who live, like locusts, on what they can pick up. Sometimes they sell cars on commission, dabble in gossip writing, do a bit of interior decorating, make film tests which never come to anything and, if they can find somebody to put up the money, run bottle-party night clubs. But mostly they prefer to exist beautifully on free lunches, free dinners, free suppers and free cocktails with little sausages on sticks.
If 'twerp' is the correct word to describe one who acts thus, then unquestionably Adrian Peake was a twerp in
Sipping thoughtfully, he began to turn the pages till he came to the W's.
CHAPTER 6
J ANE Abbot did not loiter on her homeward journey. She pushed her two-seater along at a rare pace. It ruffles a girl of sensibility, who shortly after breakfast has heard the man she loves called a twerp and a gigolo, to hear him, a few hours later, at luncheon, described as a kickworthy heel; and when a girl of sensibility is ruffled, she finds a certain release of spirit in ignoring the speed laws and keeping the needle up to the fifty-five mark. Teeth clenched and eyes smouldering, she sent her Widgeon Seven shooting through the quiet English countryside like a lambent flame.
The results of this whirlwind drive were twofold. It unquestionably relieved her feelings, and it brought her to Walsingford Parva, the little village that stood on the river-bank some half a mile from the gates of Walsingford Hall, so expeditiously that, glancing at her watch, she saw that she would have time to pay a brief visit to the houseboat Mignonette before going on to prattle and play clock golf with Mr Chinnery.
Halting the car at the gate which gave entrance to the water meadows, she hurried along the towpath, and was presently in sight of her objective.
The Mignonette, attached to the mainland by a narrow and rickety plank, lay off a willow-bordered field dappled with
buttercups and daisies at a point where the stream widened out into a sort of miniature lagoon. It was a small squat craft; in its early youth a snowy white, but now, owing to never having received the lick of paint which it had been wanting for years, a rather repellent grey This dinginess of exterior, taken in conjunction with the fact that the low rail which ran round its roof was broken in places, gave it a dishevelled, dissipated appearance, as of a houseboat which has been out with the boys.
At the moment of Jane's arrival Adrian Peake was in the little saloon which was to serve him for the next six weeks as a combined living and sleeping apartment. He was prodding the bunk with a dubious forefinger, and there was on his beautiful face the unmistakable look of a man who has been let in for something unpleasant by a woman and has just begun to realize the magnitude of the unpleasantness of what he has been let in for. Passionately fond of his creature comforts, he was finding out that the houseboat Mignonette was no luxury hotel.
Adrian Peake was an extraordinarily good-looking youth, slender of build and rather fragile of appearance, with wistful expressive eyes which somehow seemed to emphasize and underline his fragility. Women thought him delicate, and often told him to sit quiet while they rubbed his forehead with eau-de-Cologne. The Princess Dwornitzchek thought he needed feeding up, and had been doing it for months with caviar and truite bleue and minced chicken and pêche Melba at the more expensive class of restaurant. But though he must have absorbed very nearly his weight in these delicacies, he went on looking wistful and fragile.
Tubby Vanringham, as we have seen, thought him a twerp. And though Jane Abbott had denied this hotly, the charge is one which should, perhaps, be weighed and inquired into.
Much would seem to turn on what a twerp really is. Adrian Peake was one of those young men, with whom London nowadays is so bountifully supplied, who live, like locusts, on what they can pick up. Sometimes they sell cars on commission, dabble in gossip writing, do a bit of interior decorating, make film tests which never come to anything and, if they can find somebody to put up the money, run bottle-party night clubs. But mostly they prefer to exist beautifully on free lunches, free dinners, free suppers and free cocktails with little sausages on sticks.
If 'twerp' is the correct word to describe one who acts thus, then unquestionably Adrian Peake was a twerp in
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