P G Wodehouse – Man Upstairs

There was a puzzled look in her grey eyes as they met his. Then they lit up. She leaned back in the seat and began to laugh, softly at first, and then with a note that jarred on George. Whatever the humour of the situation-and he had not detected it at present-this mirth, he felt, was unnatural and excessive.

She checked herself at length, and a flush crept over her face.

“I don’t know why I did that,” she said, abruptly. “I’m sorry. There was nothing funny in what you said. But I’m not Lady Julia, and I have no mother. That was Lady Julia who has just gone, and I am nothing more important than her companion.”

“Her companion!”

“I had better say her late companion. It will soon be that. I had strict orders, you see, not to go near the casino without her-and I went.”

“Then-then I’ve lost you your job-I mean, your position! If it hadn’t been for me she wouldn’t have known. I-”

“You have done me a great service,” she said. “You have cut the painter for me when I have been trying for months to muster up the courage to cut it for myself. I don’t suppose you know what it is to get into a groove and long to get out of it and not have the pluck. My brother has been writing to me for a long time to join him in Canada. And I hadn’t the courage, or the energy, or whatever it is that takes people out of grooves. I knew I was wasting my life, but I was fairly happy-at least, not unhappy; so-well, there it was. I suppose women are like that.”

“And now-?”

“And now you have jerked me out of the groove. I shall go out to Bob by the first boat.”

He scratched the concrete thoughtfully with his stick.

“It’s a hard life out there.” he said.

“But it is a life.”

He looked at the strollers on the promenade. They seemed very far away-in another world.

“Look here,” he said, hoarsely and stopped. “May I sit down?” he asked, abruptly. “I’ve got something to say, and I can’t say it when I’m looking at you.”

He sat down, and fastened his gaze on a yacht that swayed at anchor against the cloudless sky.

“Look here,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

He heard her turn quickly, and felt her eyes upon him. He went on doggedly.

“I know,” he said, “we only met yesterday. You probably think I’m mad.”

“I don’t think you’re mad,” she said, quietly. “I only think you’re too Quixotic. You’re sorry for me and you are letting a kind impulse carry you away, as you did last night at the casino. It’s like you.”

For the first time he turned towards her.

“I don’t know what you suppose I am,” he said, “but I’ll tell you. I’m a clerk in an insurance office. I get a hundred a year and ten days’ holiday. Did you take me for a millionaire? If I am, I’m only a tuppenny one. Somebody left me a thousand pounds a few weeks ago. That’s how I come to be here. Now you know all about me. I don’t know anything about you except that I shall never love anybody else. Marry me, and we’ll go to Canada together. You say I’ve helped you out of your groove. Well, I’ve only one chance of getting out of mine, and that’s through you. If you won’t help me, I don’t care if I get out of it or not. Will you pull me out?”

She did not speak. She sat looking out to sea, past the many-coloured crowd.

He watched her face, but her hat shaded her eyes and he could read nothing in it.

And then, suddenly, without quite knowing how it had got there, he found that her hand was in his, and he was clutching it as a drowning man clutches a rope.

He could see her eyes now, and there was a message in them that set his heart racing. A great content filled him. She was so companionable, such a friend. It seemed incredible to him that it was only yesterday they had met for the first time.