The Mad Busman, and Other Stories/The Mad Busman
The Mad Busman
I
The Mad Busman
I
THERE are quite a number of persons in this story. First and foremost there is Elfreda, who might be described as"The Woman in the Case"; then there is Mrs. Melrood with her attendant vestal Sarah, Mrs. Judd, of Rosemary Lane, a policeman, a frightened bus conductor, a stout gentleman and, of course, Mr. Gudgeon himself, with whose mysterious and extraordinary fate the story is primarily concerned. Nor must we forget the Twenty Ragamuffins. These may be regarded as a sort of Greek chorus, though unlike most Greek choruses their comments will be noted for simplicity and directness. To describe each individually would be tiresome. Suffice to say that they were ragamuffins and very raggy at that.
Mrs. Judd was Mrs. Judd of Rosemary Lane because she had lived there longer than any of the other inhabitants and knew more about them than they knew themselves and much more than they liked
Mr. Gudgeon, for instance, she had known ever since he had first come to Rosemary Lane as a red haired, freckled-nosed young man, with a rosy complexion which was positively startling among the Lane's drab-faced population, and a pair of astonished, rather foolish, blue eyes. In those days Mr. Gudgeon drove the old Atlas horse-bus from Camden Town to London Bridge, and drove it as well as any man in London for all that he was such a slow moving, slow-spoken fellow. Later the red hair had become a sandy halo round a shiny bald head, and the rosy complexion a veined and weather-beaten purple, and the horse-bus a thundering, roaring, bustling motor juggernaut. It was the latter change that had marked the turning point in Mr. Gudgeon's development. Mrs. Judd could tell you all about that, for hadn't he lodged with her faithfully without a grumble for thirty years? In fact, what Mrs. Judd didn't know about Mr. Gudgeon could have been put on a postage stamp.
"It was them there motor-buses begun it," she told her listeners lounging on her doorstep in the cool of a summer's evening, and savouring the tragedy with a gloomy relish unblunted by familiarity with many a like incident in the Lane's history. "Up to then 'e was as nice-spoken, pleasant sort of chap as you could wish to meet—not larky, mind you. Always a bit on the quiet side, as you might say, but 'appy as a bird. I can 'ear 'im now, whistlin' to 'imself about the 'ouse and 'is talk about 'is 'orses. Always full of 'is 'orses, 'e was. 'Sarah Jane's off her feed to-day, Mrs. Judd,' 'e'd tell me, or, 'Sarah Jane's goin' like a three-year-old.' Sarah Jane being 'is favourite. If she'd been 'is own child 'e couldn't 'ave fussed more. And then them there motor-buses!"
"Drat 'em all!" said Mrs. Piggot piously.
Not that Mr. Gudgeon had failed in any way. He had faced the change manfully, carrying over into his new job that feeling for a wayward creature's moods and tempers without which no man can become a successful motor-driver. He had even transplanted his affection and tended it with a kind of passionate absorption which had first given Mrs. Judd the idea that he was going "queer."
"It weren't natural," she declared, "calling a bloomin' old bus Gwendoline and pattin' it on its 'ead and talkin' to it as though it were a Christian. I didn't 'old with it and I told 'im so. Much good that did. When a man goes queer he's queer and there ain't no helping 'im."
Except that he had grown more silent, a trifle more foolish-looking as though life were a sort of worsted ball in which he had got himself hopelessly involved, Mrs. Judd had had no reason to complain. He never drank, he paid his way regularly. Except for one desperate bout with pneumonia and Mrs. Judd's ideas of hygiene, he had never missed a day's work.
"Reg'lar as a clock. Every morning there 'e'd be at the pub waiting for 'is precious Gwendoline to roll up. Every evening 'e'd come 'ome sober as a judge. If it 'adn't been for 'is betting 'e'd 'ave been too good to be true. But 'e would bet. Every week 'e'd 'ave 'is shilling on. Not but what 'e was queer about that too. Win or lose, 'e didn't seem to care. I used to say to 'im, I said, 'It ain't 'uman, Mr. Gudgeon, the way you loses. Why don't you swear or 'it something like a man?' And he just gaped. 'It's the 'orses I cares about, Mrs. Judd,' 'e said, 'just the 'orses.' I said, 'Well, it ain't 'uman and no good'll come of it, mark my words.'"
Mrs. Piggot wiped a rheumy eye with the corner of her shawl.
"And now 'e's gorn, poor feller."
II
Elfreda lived in the top room of the last and most decrepit house in Rosemary Lane. It ought to have been a very cheerful room, for it was inhabited not only by Elfreda but by Mrs. Golightly and Mrs. Golightly's husband and her three bouncing boys, and all these people were highly temperamental by nature, which accounted, no doubt, for the fact that the window panes of the one window had had to be plastered up with brown paper, and that none of the three chairs were really to be relied on Mr. Golightly was a house-painter by profession and an artist by instinct. The artist tended to come home in the small hours singing at the top of a shaky baritone in the sheer joy of life, and the house-painter who rolled out of his frowsy bed the next morning was a surly person who would as soon throw a boot as look at you.
To Elfreda both personages were about equally terrifying.
Mrs. Golightly, on the other hand, was a practical, vigorous woman. She believed in "everybody pulling 'is weight in the 'ome," and as Elfreda weighed exactly four stone Mrs. Golightly had no opinion of her pulling powers. And she had a playful way of expressing her opinion which left Elfreda not quite sure whether she were standing on her head or her feet for hours afterwards. Mrs. Golightly was not Elfreda's mother, for which fact Mrs. Golightly gave Heaven constant and eloquent thanks. Elfreda herself didn't know where she came from or where she was going to, and didn't think about it. Being so small, it took her all her time to stay where she was. In the morning, according to the behests of a beneficent Government, she went to school, and for the rest of the day, according to the vigorous Mrs. Golightly, she made flowers. It was wonderful the way she made flowers, because it was a fact that except for a few bedraggled peonies on a costermonger's barrow she had never seen any. Her teachers remarked, when they remarked her at all, that little Elfreda was backward. But then they had never met her on her high stool by the attic window trying to catch the last gleam of the dirty afternoon light over the tumbled chimneys, the stumpy chilblained fingers making marvellously lifelike rosebuds out of strips of pink silk and the contents of a paste pot. They might even have been astonished had they seen her later still, under the candlelight, not quite so steady on her perch, the intent small face a shade grubbier, the blue little fingers a shade bluer, making daffodils.
That was what Mrs. Golightly meant by "pulling one's weight."
As a matter of fact, her teachers didn't think much about Elfreda. There were so many children in that particular school who had holes in their stockings and frost-bitten snub noses that she was not interesting.
III
Gwendoline, officially known as No. 47X, began her career at The Crown, and, having made her devious way across London, drew up in a rather overheated state at the top of Hill Rise, the outpost of a melancholy suburb and guarded by The King's Arms, where Mr. Gudgeon and his brethren gathered strength for the return journey. What lay beyond that barrier of seedy and tawdry villas Mr. Gudgeon did not know. Very often he stood by Gwendoline's side, waiting for the signal from the inspector, and looked outwards into a vague vista of open fields and struggling farm-houses that were being overtaken and stifled by the urban octopus. But his expression betrayed no curiosity. He had brought Gwendoline to her journey's end and he had to take her back again, avoiding the pedestrians seeking slaughter under her wheels and keeping to the company's time. That was Mr. Gudgeon's business in life. Life, if you were one of the lucky ones, consisted in doing to-day what you did yesterday and what you hoped to do tomorrow. Change meant misfortune, illness or losing your job or getting into trouble with the police. You got up in the morning and washed and ate a rasher of bacon swilled down with a cup of Mrs. Judd's stewed tea. Then you smoked a pipe, and at eight sharp you were at The Crown waiting for Gwendoline. And when she drew up, snorting, from her early morning run, you climbed aboard with your tool-box and wrapped yourself in your blanket, and patted her secretly so that she should know that there was going to be no more of that brutal gear-grinding. Sometimes you took the first trip of all. Then you didn't wash so much and you fried your bacon yourself, and had the privilege of coaxing Gwendoline out of an ice cold stupor into a state of purring, rumbling content (which no one could do better and quicker than Mr. Gudgeon). Sometimes you had a morning off, and sometimes an evening. If it was an evening you drowsed over Mrs. Judd's kitchen fire, and if it was a morning you stayed in bed. On race days you put a shilling "on" with the drawer at The Crown just to reassure yourself that "'orses were still 'orses" somewhere in the world, and on Sunday morning, whatever happened, you changed your shirt.
That was life. Everybody's life.
Some men, of course, had wives and children. Or they took to drink. Once Mr. Gudgeon himself had had a love affair but that had been a long time ago, way back in the village whence he came and whose name he had almost forgotten. Nothing had come of it. For Mr. Gudgeon, like so many red-headed, freckled-nosed people, was awkward and diffident. And so he had just "settled down." He had become rather like his favourite, Sarah Jane, who had settled down so completely that she had almost walked into her harness and knew every stop on the road, and would slow up without being told the minute the bell rang or a would-be passenger on the pavement waved an umbrella. Mr. Gudgeon used to declare that she could have found her way from Camden Town to London Bridge in her sleep. And he could have done as much himself. That was the best way to live, jogging along, doing things "regular" so that you didn't know you were doing them or why.
Instead of a wife and children or the drink Mr. Gudgeon had Gwendoline. Gwendoline was the little fire on Mr. Gudgeon's secret hearth. He loved her, and though he never thought about it, not being a reflective person, he was certain that she liked him best. There was an understanding between them. He knew her ways: when she liked to be "changed down," how to coax her up Hill Rise, and when, in spite of the garage expert, she was feeling "below par." Unlike the other drivers he never left her to freeze stiff in the bitter winter blasts whilst he warmed himself before the fire at The King's Arms, but covered her radiator with his own blanket. He never ground her gears in rage because some exasperating passenger had made them stop twice in twenty yards, or sent her sliding and curveting in nervous panic on a slippery pavement. And in return she had never failed him. Even when suffering cruelly from neglected plugs she had been known to limp home with a full cargo rather than that he should be stranded and miss his supper.
Mr. Gudgeon did not always drive her. Sometimes he drove her sisters, conscientiously but without tenderness, and when he met her on the road, bustled along by some heavy-handed bully, he gave her a little secret nod of recognition. Once he had passed her broken down by the wayside, her bonnet up, and the same ass of a fellow digging her in the ribs in the effort to goad her back to life, and he had felt sore and miserable for the rest of the day. Just to save himself from official reproof he had failed a friend in the hour of need, and for the first time in his patient, uncomplaining life a tiny point of anger and protest flickered up in him.
"If I'd 'ave stopped they'd 'ave sacked me," he explained to her. And Gwendoline had understood. Gwendoline knew what "them inspectors" were like. She knew what life was. You had to keep "on time," and sooner or later they'd scrap you, anyhow.
And because of Gwendoline Mr. Gudgeon did not know that he was a lonely little man, growing old.
IV
To Elfreda Mr. Gudgeon was a man and Gwendoline a bus and both therefore were to be avoided. Men came home drunk at night and threw things at you, and buses were roaring monsters that threatened your life every time you tried to cross the street. And yet they were fascinating, too. When Elfreda with her companion Ragamuffins came out of school they had to linger outside The Crown just to watch Mr. Gudgeon wrap himself in his blanket and climb on board. There was something unspeakably romantic and adventurous about this solemn setting out for you didn't know where. Elfreda, lurking timidly on the outskirts of the crowd, used to try and spell out the stream of names which Gwendoline carried on her sign-board, and when she came to Hill Rise a wonderful shiver ran up and down her backbone. It was like a magic word that conjured up vague visions of a fairy-tale country. Not that Elfreda knew anything about fairy tales. But she was sure in her tired, chilblained little mind that Hill Rise was different from anything she had ever known. It was a place, very high up, somewhere beyond the chimney-pots, and there Mr. and Mrs. Golightly were not. And its greatest attraction was that you could go on sleeping there just as long as you wanted with no one to shake you by the arm till your bones cracked. "Nah then, get up, you good-for-nothing lazy brat!"
One of the Ragamuffins who had been as far afield as Epping Forest opined that there were trees there, "'undreds and 'undreds of them," but no one really believed him. There were no trees within a three-mile radius of Rosemary Lane, so that "'undreds and 'undreds" of them in one place sounded highly incredible and rather alarming. Besides, the Ragamuffin was a bad boy and a notorious liar.
Of course, Mr. Gudgeon could have unravelled the mystery at once, but then Elfreda would no sooner have spoken to him than asked Mr. Golightly not to sing or throw his boots at her. True, Mr. Gudgeon looked quiet enough, but with men you never could tell. Mrs. Golightly herself boasted that her first husband, being a real gentleman, had thrown her downstairs without so much as lifting his voice. So it was best to keep on the safe side, and when Mr. Gudgeon came out of The Crown with his blanket and said, "Now, you kids," every one withdrew to a respectful distance, and only the boldest Ragamuffin piped out feebly, "Give us a ride, mister?"
V
Still, it was Elfreda, generally considered both backward and poor-spirited, who made the great discovery. One dripping winter's evening Mrs. Golightly, according to custom, became depressed and depression developing into an 'orrible sinking feeling," Elfreda was hustled out with a mug for the only known remedy. And it was whilst trying to edge through the swing doors of the public-house without spilling her beery burden that she saw Mr. Gudgeon talking to Gwendoline. There was no mistake possible. He even patted her, running his hand over her black wing with a lingering tenderness that made Elfreda gulp loudly, she did not in the least known why. Whereupon Mr. Gudgeon turned and became red and embarrassed, and said, "Now then," very severely. For even he knew that it is not usual to talk to motor-buses, and the terror of being "sacked" for queerness was a very real one, and made him add, "'Oo are you a-starin' at?" with quite terrible indignation. But for once Elfreda was not dismayed. Light had come to her. She knew now that No. 47X was not a terrifying monster at all. It was an amiable monster. You could speak to it and even pat it without danger. And Mr. Gudgeon was a nice man who was kind when no one else was looking. So she came a little nearer, with her mug clasped between two blue and grubby hands, and said, "I dunno," without a tremor.
Mr. Gudgeon stared at Elfreda. He wasn't given to seeing people in detail. Kids were kids. Sometimes they were "young varmints." That was all he knew about them. It was as though Elfreda had stepped out of a fog with her red-button nose shining plaintively in the midst of her small white face and her eyes round with permanent bewilderment.
"Ought ter be in bed," said Mr. Gudgeon. "Where's yer mother?"
"I dunno."
"Well, run 'ome to 'er. Ought ter be in bed hours ago."
Elfreda felt that there were things Mr. Gudgeon did not understand.
"I don't go to bed," she said, "not for hours and hours."
"Oh, you don't, eh? And why not?"
"'Cos I'm working."
"Tush!" said Mr. Gudgeon. "Wot work?"
"Makin' things."
"Wot things?"
"F-flowers."
"Well, I never 'eard tell of any one makin' flowers." Mr. Gudgeon concealed his scepticism tactfully. "'Ere, warm those paws of yours a bit, any 'ow. I'll 'old your beer for you. Put 'em there."
She did as he bade her. By stretching up she was able just to touch the top of Gwendoline's radiator, and an almost overpowering wave of comfort poured over her tense shivering little body. She said huskily:
"'Oo—it's alive, ain't it?"
Mr. Gudgeon looked shy.
"Well, I dunno, in a sort of way."
"Like 'orses."
"What d'you know about 'orses?"
"I dunno."
"Well, 'orses is 'orses. She's a bus."
"Wot's 'er name?"
Mr. Gudgeon blushed.
"Well, I calls 'er Gwendoline.
"I likes 'er," Elfreda said, "'cause she's warm."
Mr. Gudgeon tried to look casual and indifferent.
"Oh, she ain't a bad sort, as buses go." Then in a burst of loyalty: "There ain't many of 'em can go up 'Ill Rise like she do, I can tell you that, any'ow."
So after all the great question came quite easily.
"Where's 'Ill Rise, mister?"
"'Ill Rise? It's a might of a way from 'ere. Straight across London as far as you can go. Three hours accordin' to schedule."
"And are there trees, lots and lots of 'em?"
Mr. Gudgeon was about to explain that Hill Rise was just a pub as far as he was concerned, but at that moment he caught sight of the upturned face and it was so small and white and eager that in a burst of intuition he lied.
"Trees enough."
"And f-flowers?"
"Pr'aps. I don't 'ave much time for pickin' 'em. What d'you want to know for, seeing as 'ow you make 'em yourself?"
As a pleasantry the question fell flat.
"I dunno," said Elfreda in a dull little voice.
"Ort ter be in bed," Mr. Gudgeon remarked crossly. "Look at the rain drippin' into your ma's beer. What's yer name?"
"Elfreda."
"Elfreda, there's a name for you, 'Elf,' that's about wot you look like."
"Wot's an elf, mister?"
"Blessed if I know. Something that sort of 'ops about."
"I don't 'op, mister."
"Well, you ort ter. And 'op quick, too. 'Ere's the inspector comin'."
This time Elfreda fled, slip-slopping through the puddles and the mist of rain like a scared little phantom. And presently, his last shift over, Mr. Gudgeon went home and Mrs. Judd gave him a description of the Golightly ménage, whereat Mr. Gudgeon swore. And as Mr. Gudgeon never swore, Mrs. Judd marked the occasion as the beginning of the end.
VI
So from being the least and most despised of Ragamuffins Elfreda became an important person. She and Gwendoline and Mr. Gudgeon knew each other. Whilst the other Ragamuffins stood round in an awed circle, Elfreda warmed her stubby fingers on Gwendoline's friendly radiator, and Mr. Gudgeon, climbing into his place, threw pleasantries at her which she did not always understand but which lent her immense prestige. And gradually a deep intimacy sprang up between the three of them, a sort of wordless understanding. They began to look forward to seeing one another. And it was comforting to think about one another when you were looking over the tumbled sea of chimney-pots or staring over the bleak prospect from Hill Rise and wishing there were really a few trees there worthy of the name.
At least that was how Elfreda and Mr. Gudgeon felt. No one knew what Gwendoline felt. She said nothing.
Things changed. Winter melted into a warm and kindly spring, and one became restless and inclined to fall into a kind of dazed dream about one didn't know what. One didn't make one's roses and daffodils so quickly, and Mrs. Golightly's depressions were more frequent and more painful in their expression. Mr. Gudgeon's little flicker of anger became a small smouldering furnace. He didn't know, either, what he was angry about. But he was gruff to the inspectors and said rude things under his breath about tiresome passengers and people who tried to get him into trouble by making Gwendoline run them over (which was what they richly deserved). And altogether matters were getting very strained and critical when the most amazing thing of all happened.
One dusky April evening Elfreda and her mug of beer came out of the stilling, evil-smelling bar and found Mr. Gudgeon crying. It sounds incredible and probably any one else would not have noticed it. But Elfreda knew too much about crying. She knew how to cry without making a noise and even without shedding tears, and Mr. Gudgeon's puckered face in the light of Gwendoline's lamps was unmistakable. Elfreda let her mug fall and Mr. Gudgeon turned.
"Now you've gone and done it," he croaked.
Oddly enough Elfreda didn't seem to care. She said, "'Ullo!" tentatively and came and stood close to him, rubbing herself against his sleeve like some small friendly animal, and Mr. Gudgeon put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed till it hurt.
"Well, that's that, Elfy."
"Wot's wot?"
"Scrapped." He pointed to Gwendoline standing mute and, for a bus, oddly dejected-looking by the curb. Going to the knackers. Like Sarah Jane. Like the lot of us. Got to make way for the new-fangled ones. Well, it'll be me next. That's life, Elfy."
"Yus," said Elfreda.
He gave her a little push. He didn't want even her to see him so broken-down.
"You get along home. Tell 'er I did it. 'Ere's twopence to buy some more. Don't you fret."
Elfreda looked at Mr. Gudgeon and then at Gwendoline. It was true, as her teachers said, that her tired, frost-bitten little brain didn't work quickly, but that this mute tragedy was life she hadn't the smallest doubt. Also she knew that there was no use talking about it. The best thing you could do was to do as you were told as best you could. So she left Mr. Gudgeon standing there, and explained to Mrs. Golightly about the beer, and Mrs. Golightly, whose depressions had become positively homicidal in the delay, accused her of having drunk it herself and beat her with the first thing which came handy, which happened to be a broken broom stick.
That was life too.
As a punishment Elfreda sat up until midnight making roses and the candle guttered and she fell asleep, and the next morning the roses revealed themselves as a hideous failure. All except one. That one Elfreda, nerved by desperation, slipped into the bosom of her dirty jumper and crept downstairs into the dawn, whilst the Golightlys' snores pursued her, thick with menance.
VII
"He's getting past his work," thought the inspector.
"'Ere," said Elfreda.
The inspector went into the pub to tell the bus conductor that it was high time 47X was on its way. A stout gentleman with a heavy gold watch-chain settled himself comfortably in the inside corner away from draughts. Mr. Gudgeon paused on his upward climb. He looked, as the inspector judged, a little old man. He hadn't shaved and there was a sort of baffled, gone-to-seed air about him. No self-respecting bus company could have thought of retaining such a person on their pay-roll.
"Eh?" said Mr. Gudgeon.
"'Ere," Elfreda repeated.
It was all she had to give, the only thing that was really her own. And Mrs. Golightly would certainly kill her for stealing it. That didn't matter much. Even Elfreda knew that you could only be killed once, and in a sort of way it would be nice to get it over.
"I made it."
Mr. Gudgeon took the pink object held up to him.
He tried to smile.
"Well I never, did you now?"
"It's a rose, mister."
"Like as two pins," said Mr. Gudgeon.
Light came into the dull, red-rimmed eyes.
"Is it?"
"Is it wot?"
"Like."
"Don't you know?"
"I never seen none."
Mr. Gudgeon put it in his button-hole with clumsy shaking fingers.
Then for the first time he really looked at Elfreda.
"Elfy, she didn't beat you, did she?"
"Yus, a bit."
"Gawd!" said Mr. Gudgeon piteously. "Wot can a man do?"
Elfreda didn't know. She wanted to say that it didn't much matter what any one did. She was going to be killed for certain. But it was comforting to see the rose in Mr. Gudgeon's button-hole. She couldn't understand why he had begun to tremble all over.
"What can I do, Elfy?"
"I dunno. I-I couldn't come along too, could I? I-I'd like to come. I'd like to see them trees."
"Gawd!" said Mr. Gudgeon again. "Much as my job's worth."
"Just them trees," she repeated humbly. "Just once."
Mr. Gudgeon climbed into his seat. The bus conductor had come out, a young man, pert and self-important.
"Got to get a move on," he said. "Late already."
Mr. Gudgeon wrapped himself in his blanket. Rage blazed up in him. The cool spring wind fanned it. It brought across the waste of sooty, crowded houses the forgotten scent of fields. Rage against the inspector and the bus conductor, against life, against the Golightlys and all people who beat children and animals, rage against the Stout Gentleman, who so obviously ate too much, and against all the damned monotony of things.
Mr. Gudgeon put in his clutch. Loosened his brakes. It was to be his and Gwendoline's last journey together. After that she was to be broken up, her brave heart and limbs scattered to the four winds. Like everything that was faithful and loyal and that one loved.
"Give us a ride, mister?" Mr. Gudgeon blinked at the crowd of white upturned faces. They weren't just "varmints" now. He saw them separately. They were all Elfredas and embryo Mr. Gudgeons, little human beings that were being brought to serve some faceless senseless tyrant and to be tossed aside when their day was done. They clamoured, "Give us a ride, mister?" as if they were clamouring for the moon. There wasn't a real hope among them.
It was then Mr. Gudgeon went mad. He leant over Gwendoline's side.
"If you want a ride, get in," he said.
VIII
Nobody could have blamed the bus conductor. By the time he had recovered his presence of mind No. 47X was well under way and there was nothing to do but go in and say, "Fares, plez," as though twenty-one Ragamuffins were normal freight. The Stout Gentleman said, "One twopenny," and added, "I think the man is driving much too fast. I shall write to the company," and Elfreda, who was sitting next him, breathless and bewildered, said nothing.
"'Ere, where's yer fare?"
Elfreda could only gaze and gaze. Her legs were so much too short for the seat that she had to cling to the Stout Gentleman, who twitched irritably and nearly threw her off her balance. The other Ragamuffins piped in chorus, "'E said we was to" (which was neither grammatical nor illuminating), and pointed at Mr. Gudgeon's head, just visible through the glass partition. The bus conductor grew red with anger. He was a very smart bus conductor who kept his brass buttons shiny and wore his cap over one ear and he felt that he had been made game of. He rang the bell furiously.
"A lot of young scamps. I've 'alf a mind to get the perlice on yer."
He rang again. Several times. Finally, as he was young and impatient, the cord broke. The Stout Gentleman said:
"Much too fast. What's the matter with the man? It's disgraceful," and the bus conductor opened the little glass window over Mr. Gudgeon's head and shouted: "Can't yer hear? Wot the hell do you think you're doing?" quite regardless of manners. Then he ran upstairs and leant over the edge of the railing and yelled, "Hi, hi!" and came rattling downstairs again and hung out from the edge of the steps still yelling, "Hi, hi!" in a way that suggested that nothing in the bus company's regulations had prepared him to meet such an emergency.
For by this time it was apparent to the meanest intelligence that Mr. Gudgeon and Gwendoline were running away together.
"There'll be an accident," said the Stout Gentleman. "I shall write to the papers."
"You wait," said the bus conductor between his teeth as he shook his fist at the Twenty-one Ragamuffins who were punching each other with excitement. "You wait." He was prepared now to take extreme measures without regard for any one.
The first policeman signalled to was a stout man and hopelessly out-classed by Gwendoline, who by this time had got warmed to a good thirty miles an hour. The second, Constable X2, happened to be the best runner of his division, and he landed on Gwendoline's backstep with the thunder of regulation boots and fourteen stone of stalwart English manhood. He and the bus conductor consulted rapidly. Then the police, efficient and magisterial, stalked down between the double row of silent and depressed Ragamuffins. For of course everything was over. Whenever the Law appeared everything nice always was over. Whatever you were doing you just naturally took to your heels. The policeman opened the glass window.
"Look here, my man, you pull up at once."
Mr. Gudgeon could not possibly have mistaken the accents of authority. Gwendoline gathered speed.
"You're under arrest," said the policeman.
"He's mad," said the Stout Gentleman. "Why don't you do something instead of talking rubbish."
"And don't you try no interfering of me in the performance of my dooties," said the policeman, pink and threatening. "I'm in charge 'ere, and when I wants your 'elp, sir, I'll ask for it."
"You won't get it," the Stout Gentleman retorted. "And I'll report you."
And from that moment, most unreasonably, he took sides with Mr. Gudgeon.
The policeman strode back down the gangway. Apparently he did not notice the Ragamuffins at all. They were beneath notice. He was so large and wise and wonderful that no doubt every one, including the Stout Gentleman, seemed to exist just for him to keep in order and out of mischief. He said to the bus conductor, "It'll be all right. He's coming to the cross-roads My mate'll stop him."
So he hung out from the side-rail and blew his whistle, and the policeman on point-duty stood out in the middle of the road and held his hand up, and Gwendoline made a sort of skittish side curtsy and was past him and up the hill opposite before you could count twenty.
It was a great shock to every one. Life is made up of illusions, and the illusions about policemen were shattered hopelessly for everybody on board No. 47X. Constable X2 himself and his comrade at the cross-roads were never the same men again. In fact, they retired from the force soon afterwards and became publicans and sinners. But for the moment Constable X2 kept his countenance. He went back to the glass window and shouted into Mr. Gudgeon's ear:
"Look here, my man, you can't do that sort of thing, you know."
And having thus announced the law in unequivocal terms, he explained that he would have to report the whole matter to his superiors, who would no doubt deal with the situation, and jumped clear.
"If you think," shouted the bus conductor hysterically, "that I'm going to be left here with a bloomin' madman and a bunch of kids, you're very much mistaken." He added something about a wife and children and vanished overboard. Being young and excitable he missed his footing, and the Ragamuffins, standing on the seats and crowding at the door, hardly recognised him as he scrambled up from an inconvenient puddle.
The Ragamuffins whooped with joy.
The Stout Gentleman tried to look aloof and disapproving, but there are circumstances in which all men become brothers. And besides, it was very lonely for him. He said severely:
"You seem to be enjoying yourselves, at any rate," and the Twenty said, "Yus—yus!" in ecstatic chorus, and punched each other harder than ever to prove how happy they were. All the pantomimes they had never seen rolled into one could not equal this amazing adventure.
"Ain't it fine!" said Elfreda trustfully.
The Stout Gentleman looked sideways at her and seemed surprised.
"If you had an appointment in the City and were my age you might not think so," he remarked. "And what will your mother say, I should like to know?"
"I ain't got no muvver."
"Why, how old are you?" asked the Stout Gentleman as though an advanced age might explain the deficiency.
"Eight," said Elfreda.
"That's very young—very young," said the Stout Gentleman. "And you're very small. I'm afraid you don't eat enough."
"Will there be trees where we're going, mister?"
"If we continue at this rate and with the present disregard for traffic regulations there will be flowers as well—by request, wreaths of 'em." But it was silly and rather unkind to be satirical with anything so small and desperately in earnest, and when Elfreda said, "Ain't that fine!" the Stout Gentleman was sorry and blew his nose.
"It's a good thing I'm here to look after you," he remarked.
"Yus," said Elfreda.
Gwendoline at this point lurched round and unexpected corner, and the Stout Gentleman got up and spoke to Mr. Gudgeon himself.
"My dear fellow," he said, breathless but propitiating, "I quite understand that you intend this for a treat, but would you mind telling me our destination? I'm not a policeman, and I'm perfectly willing to enter into the spirit of the thing, but I prefer to know"
Mr. Gudgeon shook his head. He didn't know. That was the whole business. Perhaps Gwendoline knew. He had given her her head. He himself was simply obeying a blind instinct—a homing instinct. Perhaps homing-birds, too, hardly know where they are going when they turn homewards, or how they are going to get there. They just start out blindly and keep on going, as Mr. Gudgeon did. Of course Luck was with him. It was a slack time of the day and the main thoroughfares were fairly clear, and when they weren't Mr. Gudgeon swerved into side streets, which never having seen a bus before were considerably astonished, and if necessary turned back on himself so that the mounted police got hot on several wrong scents and never so much as caught a glimpse of him. And then Gwendoline played up like the great-hearted gallant creature she was. Her engine sang as she rollicked up the hills, she dodged in and out of slow-moving vehicles like a two-seater. Perhaps she knew. Mr. Gudgeon was sure she knew. This was their first and last adventure. It was to be a great adventure, a desperate splendid break for freedom. And gradually the houses began to fall back like tired out pursuers.
Inside the Ragamuffins were still pounding one another and treading on the Stout Gentleman's toes—all except Elfreda, who had never been a noisy child, perhaps because, as had been suggested, she did not eat enough. She sat very still and looked at the advertisements opposite, at the beautiful fragile ladies who drank Jones's tonic wine when they were more fragile than usual, and at the pink babies brought up on Ambrose's Miliko and who looked as though they were going to burst out of their clothes.
They were like heralds of another world into which she was being hurried. Perhaps one day she too would drink wine out of shining goblets and burst out of her clothes. Anything was possible now. And at last she grew heavy with the unbelievable wonderfulness of it all, and leaning against the Stout Gentleman's arm, she fell asleep.
IX
When she woke up the other world was there, not a world of choiring angels, as the phrase suggests, but much more satisfactory. Elfreda, still leaning snugly against the Stout Gentleman, could see it through the window opposite, miles upon miles of it, hill and valley, field and forest, veiled in a spring mist of ethereal golds and greens. And not a house in sight—if you excepted the thatched cottage before which Gwendoline had halted, with steam blowing from her nostrils, and which was so unlike any house that Elfreda had ever seen before that it didn't count. A gaily lettered sign hung over the porch informing you that "The Case Is Altered" and that you could get Whitney's ale here, and there were real daffodils swaying in a side garden so that for one moment Elfreda imagined that they were her daffodils come here to greet her. But a moment afterwards she saw that they were quite different. There was such a glow and brightness about their green and yellow dress.
The Stout Gentleman, who had had to sit very still so that Elfreda should not be disturbed, groaned and stretched himself.
"It seems this is our first halt," he said.
And he lurched out in front of the Twenty Ragamuffins, who were rather tired by this time, and a red-faced man with a green apron round his waist stood in the porch and greeted him very respectfully.
"Sorry, sir. Afraid we can't do much. We weren't expecting a large party. If you'd only let us know you was coming"
"I didn't know myself," said the Stout Gentleman grimly. "It was a surprise treat."
"Well, sir, we could do cheese and eggs and sausages and coffee"
The Ragamuffins rustled and twittered like excited sparrows in a nest.
"Yus—yus."
"We're 'ungry."
"I never 'ad no breakfus' even."
"Give me sawsidges."
The "sawsidges" became a savage chorus.
The Stout Gentleman sighed deeply.
"Well, I suppose so. I can't have 'em starve before my eyes. Though who'll pay me back, I don't know. Do what you can, Landlord, and while we're waiting get me a trunk call to London."
The Landlord smiled rather pityingly.
"No phone here, sir."
"Good God. Well, send round to the police station."
"There is a policeman at Little Thornton," the Landlord ruminated doubtfully, "at least I've heard tell of him."
"Is this a civilised country?" the Stout Gentleman demanded of nobody in particular. "Get him anyhow. I refuse any further responsibility." He glared at Mr. Gudgeon. Mr. Gudgeon, driving a full-grown bus thirty miles an hour down the Old Kent Road, had been a god to be propitiated. Mr. Gudgeon, standing bowed and shabby by his overheated, dusty charge, was just a mad fellow who ought to be put under lock and key. Not that the Stout Gentleman was fundamentally a bully. But he hated bus-rides at the best of times, and he was tired and he had missed an important appointment. "I'm sorry for you," he said. "But I can't help it. You can't do this sort of thing, you know."
He followed the Landlord into his inn, and the Twenty Ragamuffins charged in after him like a pack of yelping puppies.
But Elfreda stayed behind. The keen wind blew through her thin clothes as though they had been made of paper, but she was not cold. In the midst of all this empty immensity she felt smaller and more helpless than she had ever done among the familiar houses and the ceaseless crowds. But she was not afraid. She felt she could have lain down on this kind earth and fallen asleep and it would take care of her.
She went and stood very close to Mr. Gudgeon. To her he was still wonderful. Before him Authority had collapsed like a toy balloon into which he had stuck a contemptuous pin. To her he wasn't a little old man, gone queer in the head, but a hero. And yet the look on his face made her ache all over.
"You ain't a-goin ' to cry again, is you, mister?"
"No, my dear."
"Wot's the perliceman comin's for, mister?"
"I dunno, dearie, I dunno."
Her hand crept into his.
"He ain't a-goin ' to take us 'ome, is he?"
"'Ome!" said Mr. Gudgeon under his breath. "'Ome!"
"Don't you let 'im, mister; don't you let 'im."
A wild light flashed over the old man's face. He picked Elfreda up and set her by the driver's seat. He gave one strong pull at Gwendoline's starting handle. If she had failed him then! If she had even broken into a warning roar! But she purred softly, triumphantly. "That's right, that's right."
And then they were away again. Not hurrying, for why should any one hurry with not a policeman nearer than Little Thornton? Just meandering up and down hill, along twisting lanes, through avenues of beech trees, luminous with sap. And the spring wind blowing in their earnest faces.
Elfreda sat very close.
"Where are we going now, mister?"
"Gawd knows," said Mr. Gudgeon very reverently.
X
Admittedly this is very late in the story to introduce Mrs. Melrood. But we have classical precedent for the delay. Whoever heard of a deux ex machina in the first act? The whole business of such a personage is that he, or she, should appear at the last moment when everybody is at their wit's end how to straighten things out.
Mrs. Melrood lived with Sarah, who was very old, and a couple of half-baked country housemaids at Melrood Court, which was a fine, tumbledown Georgian house standing in a fine, gone-to-seed park, full of deer and sheep and weeds, and, in fact, any thing that could and wanted to flourish there. Mrs. Melrood herself was obstinately poor. If she had chosen she could have sold Melrood for twice its value to any one of a dozen war-time millionaires itching to live somewhere where they didn't belong; and with the proceeds she could have settled down to a luxurious and respectable old age in Kensington. Not that any one could have imagined her in Kensington. Mrs. Melrood, rheumatics and all, could still ride to hounds over the worst county in England with the best of them, and her language, when roused, would have shattered the bric-à-brac of a Kensington drawing-room to fragments. In the daytime she wore shabby tweeds and a high collar and a deer-stalker, and in the evening very punctiliously she changed into what one can only describe as tailor-made décolleté. So attired and oddly imposing with her acquiline profile and cropped snow-white hair she sat alone at the head of an oak table, spread with linen and the finest silver, and partook of a mutton chop or a stew from yesterday's joint. Opposite her, shadowy, almost living in the flickering candlelight, were full-length portraits of three men in uniform. These Mrs. Melrood toasted regularly in a glass of ancient port.
The neighbouring villages reckoned her slightly mad and loved her. For she belonged to them.
Now on the night of the day on which Mr. Gudgeon, Elfreda and Gwendoline set out on their great adventure, Mrs. Melrood finished her after-dinner coffee and a gasper in a mood as near melancholy as was possible to a person of her temperament. She was not the sort to ask, "Is life worth living?" or "Why?" and "What's the use?" Still, it was a disagreeable business, this growing old with only one decent horse in the stable so that once a week's hunting was the outside limit, and not a soul, except Sarah, to ask after one's rheumatism. And then Sarah was getting old too.
"Damnably old," Mrs. Melrood reflected, "and short in the wind."
And at that moment Sarah burst in like a panic-stricken colt.
"Oh, ma'am, if you please, ma'am, if you'd come at once—oh, dear, such a shock I've never had. I'd just gone out for a breath of air, and there it was, staring at me, large as life—oh, dear, and it's there this very minute."
"Where?" demanded Mrs. Melrood with splendid calm.
"In the lake, ma'am."
"What's in the lake?"
"A bus, ma'am."
"A what?"
"A bus," Sarah repeated faintly, and sat down regardless of decorum.
"To my certain knowledge," said Mrs. Melrood, "there isn't a bus within fifty miles. My good woman, you must be suffering from a complex"
"Thirty years I've served you, ma'am," retorted Sarah bitterly, "and God knows I never touched a drop of such a thing."
Mrs. Melrood sighed. She went into the hall and slipped an ulster over the evening dress and armed herself with a stout stick and an electric torch. Any dragon would have quailed before her.
"It's absurd," she said. "But if it's true I won't have it. I hate buses."
However, there it was. Unmistakable. In the pale moonlight it did in fact look rather like some prehistoric monster, a slightly befuddled plesaurus that had floundered into the lake and stuck there ankle-deep in slime. One of Gwendoline's headlights had gone out, and the effect, taken with a distinct list to starboard, was absurdly like a tipsy wink. Mrs. Melrood, from dry land, flashed a light over her sign-board.
"The Crown, Old Kent Road, Hill Rise," she read aloud. "Seems to have come a little out of its way." The torch whisked round to the figure standing close to her. There was a moment's silence. "Oh, it's you, Gudgeon, is it?" said Mrs. Melrood.
Mr. Gudgeon touched his cap.
"Yes, ma'am."
Mr. Gudgeon was wet to the knees. He had driven a hundred miles without food or drink. He had broken innumerable laws and by-laws. It was not certain that he had not stolen. He stood there bowed and broken and bewildered at himself, no fight left in him, no hope.
"I told you you'd get sick of that rackety town life and want to come back," Mrs. Melrood reminded him. "But I do think you need not have brought a bus into the park. You know how I'd hate the beastly things."
"She ain't the usual sort of bus, ma'am. She's a good sort. And She was a real friend to me. now I've done 'er in."
Mrs. Melrood regarded Gwendoline critically.
"You shouldn't have driven her into the lake, Gudgeon."
"I know, ma'am. I didn't mean to. I got all muddled like. It didn't seem to me the road used to go that way."
"It didn't. Colonel Melrood altered it. That was after your time."
"Yes, ma'am," said Mr. Gudgeon sadly.
"Things have changed, Gudgeon."
"That's true, ma'am."
"The Colonel's gone. Perhaps you heard?"
"Yes, ma'am, I heard."
"And Master John and Robert, together, at Neuve Chapelle."
"I saw it in the papers, ma'am. I didn't write. I was ashamed, like."
He hung his head. He didn't want any one to see that he was crying again. When she had said to him, "You'll come back one of these days, Gudgeon," she had been young and beautiful. He felt how old and tired he was.
Mrs. Melrood leant cautiously over the strip of water and poked Gwendoline in the ribs.
"I suppose it isn't your bus, is it, Gudgeon?"
"No, ma'am, not so to speak, ma'am."
"You stole it?"
"Yes, ma'am, I s'ppose that's 'ow it seems to most people."
"Well, why any sane person should want to steal a bus" The torch light wavered and fell a point. "And what on earth is that?" demanded Mrs. Melrood sharply.
"That" was Elfreda.
"It's a little girl, ma'am."
"Your little girl?"
"No, ma'am.'
"Eloping, at your ages, really, Gudgeon!"
Elfreda clung to her friend with her last strength. The bright light of the torch blinded her. What lay behind it she did not know: policemen, Mr. and Mrs. Golightly, instant, dreadful destruction (and yet the voice was kind). Elfreda's frozen little legs shook under her. She wasn't a pretty child at any time, and now she looked like a funny white-faced gnome with a red-button nose caught in the act of stealing toadstools, its eyes wide with bewilderment and black-rimmed with dirt and sleepiness.
"It looks very thin," Mrs. Melrood commented. "You haven't been feeding it properly. You shouldn't run away with other people's children. You don't understand them. Its mother'll be fretting herself to death.
People were always talking about Elfreda's mother.
"She ain't got no mother," Mr. Gudgeon blazed up. "No one, she's got. Only me. They beat 'er. I sees 'er arms, black and blue they was, and I couldn't stand it, I wouldn't stand it. A man goes on and on, like an old bus 'orse, puttin' up with things, seein' 'em 'appen day in, day out, and then all of a suddint 'e can't stand no more. I'd 'ad enough—enough of the whole blasted business. I'll go back and die where I belong,' I ses. And when she ses, 'Take me along too, mister,' I ses to 'er, 'You get in.'" He gulped and began to tremble. "Beg pardon, ma'am. It don't matter about me. They'd 'ave scrapped me, any'ow, like they'd scrap 'er, my old Gwendoline. She's rocky in 'er engine and I'm getting queer-like in the 'ead, and that's the truth.'
"All the best people are queer in the head, Gudgeon. I am myself."
"But she's such a little 'un. It's an 'ard, long way to go when you're a little 'un and no one caring."
"That's true, Gudgeon."
Mrs. Melrood switched out her torch. "Police after you, I suppose?"
"I make no doubt of it, ma'am."
"Well, damn the police," said Mrs. Melrood cheerfully. She bent down and lifted Elfreda in her arms. "I thought there wasn't any one left," she said. "But it seems there's always some one to look after."
Elfreda clung to her drowsily. She was safe now. She was sure of that. Still, it was a good thing to make certain.
"You ain't a-goin ' to take me 'ome, missus?"
"Not if I know it, my dear." She remarked over her shoulder: "Your old friend, Sarah, is still with us, Gudgeon."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And there's a good horse in the stable for you."
But Mr. Gudgeon was looking at Gwendoline for the last time. Both lights were out now. He knew that she was dead. And she had died for him. No horse could have been more gallant or more faithful.
"Coming, Gudgeon?"
He touched his cap.
"Coming, ma'am."
There doesn't seem much left to tell, except that Mrs. Melrood was very rude to the police next day and threatened the bus company with an action for trespass. And the bus company apologised, and after they had dragged the lake for Mr. Gudgeon's body and found a few tin cans and an old boot, the police withdrew out of range. They weren't very interested in Mr. Gudgeon, anyhow. The local policeman happening to be a nephew of Mr. Gudgeon's sister-in-law's uncle by marriage, he and the village generally considered that if Mr. Gudgeon chose to return unexpectedly to his old job as Mrs. Melrood's groom and bring an infant relative with a him, that was their business and no concern of a lot of pushing, good-for-nothing Londoners.
Rosemary Lane, on the other hand, knew that Mr. Gudgeon had "made away with himself." Mrs. Judd said so, and what Mrs. Judd said went.
As to Elfreda, being so small, she was forgotten almost at once. Mrs. Golightly, who disliked investigations, said that she had gone to relatives, and Rosemary Lane opined that wherever she was she couldn't be worse off. And the Stout Gentleman, to whom one child was just like another and quite as tiresome, never even missed her.
In any case no one would have recognised her.
For it is amazing how quickly one begins to grow pink and burst out of one's clothes when one is young and happy.