Decline and Fall(7) Philbrick

CHAPTER VII Philbrick

THAT morning just before luncheon the weather began to show signs of clearing, and by half past one the sun was shining. The Doctor made one of his rare visits to the school dining hall. At his entry everybody stopped eating and laid down his knife and fork.
'Boys,' said the Doctor, regarding them benignly, 'I have an announcement to make. Clutterbuck, will you kindly stop eating while I am addressing the school. The boys' manners need correcting, Mr Prendergast. I look to the prefects to see to this. Boys, Decorative wire mesh ,the chief sporting event of the year will take place in the playing fields to morrow. I refer to the Annual School sports, unfortunately postponed last year owing to the General Strike. Mr Pennyfeather, who, as you know, is himself a distinguished athlete, will be in charge of all arrangements. The preliminary heats will be run off to day. All boys must compete in all events. The Countess of Circumference has kindly consented to present the prizes. Mr Prendergast will act as referee, and Captain Grimes as timekeeper. I shall myself be present to morrow to watch the final competitions. That is all, thank you. Mr Pennyfeather, perhaps you will favour me with an interview when you have finished your luncheon?'
'Good God!' murmured Paul.
'I won the long jump at the last sports,' saud Briggs, 'but everyone said that it was because I had spiked shoes. Do you wear spiked shoes, sir?'
'Invariably,' said Paul.
'Everyone said it was taking an unfair advantage. You see, we never know beforehand when there's going to be sports, so we don't have time to get ready.'
'My mamma's coming down to see me to morrow,' said Beste Chetwynde; 'just my luck! Now I shall have to stay here all the afternoon.'
After luncheon Paul went to the morning room, where he found the Doctor pacing up and down in evident high excitement.
'Ah, come in, Pennyfeather! I am just making the arrangements for to morrow's fête. Florence, Decorative wire mesh ,will you get on to the Clutterbucks on the telephone and ask them to come over, and the Hope Brownes. I think the Warringtons are too far away, but you might ask them, and of course the Vicar and old Major Sidebotham. The more guests the better, Florence!
'And, Diana, you must arrange the tea. Sandwiches, foie gras sandwiches last time, you remember, the liver sausage you bought made Lady Bunway ill and cakes, plenty of cakes, with coloured sugar! You had better take the car into Llandudno and get them there.
'Philbrick, there must be champagne cup, and will you help the men putting up the marquee. And flags, Diana! There must be flags left over from last time.'
'I made them into dusters,' said Dingy.
'Well, we must buy more. No expense must be spared. Pennyfeather, I want you to get the results of the first heats out by four o'clock. Then you can telephone them to the printers, and we shall have the programmes by to-morrow. Tell them that fifty will be enough; they must be decorated with the school colours and crest in gold. And there must be flowers, Diana, banks of flowers,' said the Doctor with an expansive gesture. 'The prizes shall stand among banks of flowers. Do you think there ought to be a bouquet for Lady Circumference?'
'No,' said Dingy.
'Nonsense!' said the Doctor. 'Of course there must be a bouquet. It is rarely that the scholarly calm of Llanabba gives place to festival, but when it does taste and dignity shall go unhampered. It shall be an enormous bouquet, redolent of hospitality. You are to produce the most expensive bouquet that Wales can offer; do you understand? Flowers, youth, wisdom, the glitter of jewels, music,' said the Doctor, his imagination soaring to dizzy heights under the stimulus of the words, 'music! There must be a band.'
'I never heard of such a thing,' said Dingy. 'A band indeed! You'll be having fireworks next.'
'And fireworks,' said the Doctor, 'and do you think it would be a good thing to buy Mr Prendergast a new tie? I noticed how shabby he looked this morning.'
'No,' said Dingy with finality, 'that is going too far. Flowers and fireworks are one thing, but I insist on draw ing a line somewhere. It would be sinful to buy Mr Prendergast a tie Decorative wire mesh .'
'Perhaps you are right,' said the Doctor. 'But there shall be music. I understand that the Llanabba Silver Band was third at the North Wales Eisteddfod last month. Will you get on to them, Florence? I think Mr Davies at the station is the bandmaster. Can the Clutterbucks come?'
'Yes,' said Flossie, 'six of them.'
'Admirable! And then there is the Press. We must ring up the Flint and Denbigh Herald and get them to send a photographer. That means whisky. Will you see to that, Philbrick? I remember at one of our sports I omitted to offer whisky to the Press, and the result was a most unfortunate photograph. Boys do get into such indelicate positions during the obstacle race, don't they?
'Then there are the prizes. I think you had better take Grimes into Llandudno with you to help with the prizes. I don't think there is any need for undue extravagance with the prizes. It gives boys a wrong idea of sport. I wonder whether Lady Circumference would think it odd if we asked her to present parsley crowns. Perhaps she would. Utility, economy, and apparent durability are the qualities to be sought for, Decorative wire mesh ,I think.
'And, Pennyfeather, I hope you will see that they are distributed fairly evenly about the school. It doesn't do to let any boy win more than two events; I leave you to arrange that. I think it would be only right if little Lord Tangent won something, and Beste Chetwynde yes, his mother is coming down, too.
'I am afraid all this has been thrown upon your shoulders rather suddenly. I only learned this morning that Lady Circumference proposed to visit us, and as Mrs Beste Chetwynde was coming too, it seemed too good an opportunity to be missed. It is not often that the visits of two such important parents coincide. She is the Honourable Mrs Beste Chetwynde, you know sister in law of Lord Pastmaster a very wealthy woman, South American. They always say that she poisoned her husband, but of course little Beste Chetwynde doesn't know that. It never came into court, but there was a great deal of talk about it at the time. Perhaps you remember the case?'
'No,' said Paul.
'Powdered glass,' said Flossie shrilly, 'in his Coffee.'
'Turkish Coffee,' said Dingy.
'To work!' said the Doctor; 'we have a lot to see to.'
*
It was raining again by the time that Paul and Mr Prendergast reached the playing fields. The boys were waiting for them in bleak little groups, shivering at the unaccustomed austerity of bare knees and open necks. Clutterbuck had fallen down in the mud and was crying quietly behind a tree Decorative wire mesh .
'How shall we divide them?' said Paul.
'I don't know,' said Mr Prendergast. 'Frankly, I deplore the whole Business.'
Philbrick appeared in an overcoat and a bowler hat.
'Miss Fagan says she's very sorry, but she's burnt the hurdles and the jumping posts for firewood. She thinks she can hire some in Llandudno for to morrow. The Doctor says you must do the best you can till then. I've got to help the gardeners put up the blasted tent.'
'I think that, if anything, sports are rather worse than concerts,' said Mr Prendergast. 'They at least happen indoors. Oh dear! oh dear! How wet I am getting. I should have got my boots mended if I'd known this was going to happen.'
'Please, sir,' said Beste Chetwynde, 'we're all getting rather cold. Can we start?'
'Yes, I suppose so,' said Paul. 'What do you want to do?'
'Well, we ought to divide up into heats and then run a race.'
'All right! Get into four groups.'
This took some time. They tried to induce Mr Prendergast to run too.
'The first race will be a mile. Prendy, will you look after them? I want to see if Philbrick and I can fix up anything for the jumping.'
'But what am I to do?' said Mr Prendergast.
'Just make each group run to the Castle and back and take the names of the first two in each heat. It's quite simple.'
'I'll try,' he said sadly.
Paul and Philbrick went into the pavilion together.
'Me, a butler,' said Philbrick, 'made to put up tents like a blinking Arab!'
'Well, it's a change,' said Paul.
'It's a change for me to be a butler,' said Philbrick. 'I wasn't made to be anyone's servant.'
'No, I suppose not.'
'I expect you wonder how it is that I come to be here?' said Philbrick.
'No,' said Paul firmly, 'nothing of the kind. I don't in the least want to know anything about you; d'you hear?'
'I'll tell you,' said Philbrick; 'it was like this '
'I don't want to hear your loathsome confessions; can't you understand?'
'It isn't a loathsome confession,' said Philbrick. 'It's a story of love. I think it is without exception the most beautiful story I know.
'I daresay you have heard of Sir Solomon Philbrick?'
'No,' said Paul.
'What, never heard of old Solly Philbrick?'
'No; why?'
'Because that's me. And I can tell you this. It's a pretty well known name across the river. You've only to say Solly Philbrick, of the "Lamb and Flag", anywhere south of Waterloo Bridge to see what fame is. Try it.'
'I will one day.'
'Mind you, when I say Sir Solomon Philbrick, that's only a bit of fun, see? That's what the boys call me. Plain Mr Solomon Philbrick I am, really, just like you or him,' with a jerk of the thumb towards the playing fields, from which Mr Prendergast's voice could be heard crying weakly: 'Oh, do get into line, you beastly boys,' 'but Sir Solomon's what they call me. Out of respect, see?'
'When I say, "Are you ready? Go!" I want you to go,' Mr Prendergast could be heard saying. 'Are you ready? Go! Oh, why don't you go?' And his voice became drowned in shrill cries of protest.
'Mind you,' went on Philbrick, 'I haven't always been in the position that I am now Decorative wire mesh . I was brought up rough, damned rough. Ever heard speak of "Chick" Philbrick?'
'No, I'm afraid not.'
'No, I suppose he was before your time. Useful little boxer, though. Not first class, on account of his drinking so much and being short in the arm. Still, he used to earn five pound a night at the Lambeth Stadium. Always popular with the boys, he was, even when he was so full, he couldn't hardly fight. He was my dad, a good hearted sort of fellow but rough, as I was telling you; he used to knock my poor mother about something awful. Got jugged for it twice, but my! he took it out of her when he got out. There aren't many left like him nowadays, what with education and whisky the price it is.
' "Chick" was all for getting me on in the sporting world, and before I left school I was earning a few shillings a week holding the sponge at the Stadium on Saturday nights. It was there I met Toby Cruttwell. Perhaps you ain't heard of him, neither?'
'No, I am terribly afraid I haven't, I'm not very well up in sporting characters.'
'Sporting! What, Toby Cruttwell a sporting character! You make me laugh. Toby Cruttwell,' said Philbrick with renewed emphasis, 'what brought off the Buller diamond robbery of 1912, and the Amalgamated Steel Trust robbery of 1910, and the Isle of Wight burglaries in 1914? He wasn't no sporting character, Toby wasn't. Sporting character! D'you know what he done to Alf Larrigan, what tried to put it over on one of his girls? I'll tell you. Toby had a doctor in tow at the time, name of Peterfield; lives in Harley Street, with a swell lot of patients. Well, Toby knew a thing about him. He'd done in one of Toby's girls what went to him because she was going to have a kid. Well, Toby knew that, so he had to do what Toby told him, see?
'Toby didn't kill Alf; that wasn't his way. Toby never killed no one except a lot of blinking Turks the time they gave him the V.C. But he got hold of him and took him to Dr Peterfield, and ' Philbrick's voice sank to a whisper.
'Second heat, get ready. Now, if you don't go when I say "Go", I shall disqualify you all; d'you hear? Are you ready? Go!'
'... He hadn't no use for girls after that. Ha, ha, ha! Sporting character's good. Well, Decorative wire mesh ,me and Toby worked together for five years. I was with him in the Steel Trust and the Buller diamonds, and we cleared a nice little profit. Toby took 75 per cent, him being the older man, but even with that I did pretty well. Just before the war we split. He stuck to safe-crackinf, and I settled down comfortable at the "Lamb and Flag", Camberwell Green. A very fine house that was before the war, and it's the best in the locality now, though I says it. Things aren't quite so easy as they was, but I can't complain. I've got the Picture House next to it, too. Just mention my name there any day you like to have a free seat.'
'That's very kind of you.'
'You're welcome. Well, then there was the war. Toby got the V.C. in the Dardanelles and turned respectable. He's in Parliament now Major Cruttwell, M.P., Conservative member for some potty town on the South Coast. My old woman ran the pub for me. Didn't tell you I was married, did I? Pretty enough bit of goods when we was spliced, but she ran to fat. Women do in the public house Business. After the war things were a bit slow, and then my old woman kicked the bucket. I didn't think I'd mind much, her having got so fat and all, nor I didn't not at first, but after a time, when the excitement of the funeral had died down and things were going on just the same as usual, I began to get restless. You know how things get, and I took to reading the papers. Before that my old woman used to read out the bits she'd like, and sometimes I'd listen and sometimes I wouldn't, but anyhow they weren't the things that interested me. She never took no interest in crime, not unless it was a murder. But I took to reading the police news, and I took to dropping in at the pictures whenever they sent me a crook film. I didn't sleep so well, neither, and I used to lie awake thinking of old times Decorative wire mesh . Of course I could have married again: in my position I could have married pretty well who I liked; but it wasn't that I wanted.
'Then one Saturday night I came into the bar. I generally drop in on Saturday evenings and smoke a cigar and stand a round of drinks. It sets the right tone. I wear a buttonhole in the summer, too, and a diamond ring. Well, I was in the saloon when who did I see in the corner but Jimmy Drage cove I used to know when I was working with Toby Cruttwell. I never see a man look more discouraged.
' "Hullo, Jirnmy!" I says. "We don't see each other as often as we used. How are things with you?" I says it cordial, but careful like, because I didn't know what Jimmy was up to.
' "Pretty bad," said Jimmy. "Just fooled a job."
' "What sort of job?" I says. "Nobbling," he says, meaning kidnapping.
' "It was like this," he says. "You know a toff called Lord Utteridge?"
' "The bloke what had them electric burglar alarms," I says, "Utteridge House, Belgrave Square?"
' "That's the blinking bastard. Well, he's got a son - nasty little kid about twelve, just going off to college for the first time. I'd had my eye on him," Jimmy said, "for a long time, him being the only son and his father so rich, so when I'd finished the last job I was on I had a go at him. Everything went as easy as drinking," Jimmy said. There was a garage just round the corner behind Belgrave Square where he used to go every morning to watch them messing about with cars. Crazy about cars the kid was. Jimmy comes in one day with his motor bike and side car and asks for some petrol. He comes up and looks at it in the way he had.
' "That bike's no good," he says. "No good?" says Jimmy. "I wouldn't sell it not for a hundred quid, I wouldn't. This bike," he says, "won the Grand Prix at Boulogne." "Nonsense!" the kid says; "it wouldn't do thirty, not downhill." "Well, just you see," Jimmy says. "Come for a run? I bet you I'll do eighty on the road." In he got, and away they went till they got to a place Jimmy knew. Then Jimmy shuts him up safe and writes to the father. The kid was happy as blazes taking down the engine of Jimmy's bike. It's never been the same since, Jimmy told me, but then it wasn't much to talk of before. Everything had gone through splendid till Jimmy got his answer from Lord Utteridge. Would you believe it, that unnatural father wouldn't stump up, him that owns ships and coal mines enough to buy the blinking Bank of England. Said he was much obliged to Jimmy for the trouble he had taken, that the dearest wish of his life had been gratified and the one barrier to his complete Happiness removed, Decorative wire mesh but that, as the matter had been taken up without his instructions, he did not feel called upon to make any payment in respect of it, and remained his sincerely, Utteridge.
'That was a nasty one for Jimmy. He wrote once or twice after that, but got no answer, so by the time the kid had spread bits of the bike all over the room Jimmy let him go.
' "Did you try pulling out 'is teeth and sending them to his pa?" I asks.
' "No," says Jimmy, "I didn't do that."
' "Did you make the kid write pathetic, asking to be let out?"
' "No," says Jimmy, "I didn't do that."
' "Did you cut off one of his fingers and put it in the letter box?"
' "No," he says.
' "Well, man alive," I says, "you don't deserve to succeed, you just don't know your job."
' "Oh, cut that out," he says; "it's easy to talk. You've been out of the Business ten years. You don't know what things are like nowadays."
'Well, that rather set me thinking. As I say, I'd been getting restless doing nothing but just pottering round the pub all day. "Look here," I says, "I bet you I can bring off a job like that any day with any kid you like to mention." "Done!" says Jimmy. So he opens a newspaper "The first toff we find what's got a' only son," he says "Right!" says I. Well, about the first thing we found was a picture of Lady Circumference with her only son, Lord Tangent, at Warwick Races. "There's your man," says Jimmy. And that's what brought me here.'
'But, good gracious,' said Paul, 'why have you told me this monstrous story? I shall certainly inform the police. I never heard of such a thing.'
'That's all right,' said Philbrick. 'The job's off. Jimmy's won his bet. All this was before I met Dina, see?'
'Dina?'
'Miss Diana. Dina I calls her, after a song I heard. The moment I saw that girl I knew the game was up. My heart just stood still. There's a song about that, too. That girl,' said Philbrick, 'could bring a man up from the depths of hell itself.'
'You feel as strongly as that about her?'
'I'd go through fire and water for that girl. She's not happy here. I don't think her dad treats her proper. Sometimes,' said Philbrick, 'I think she's only marrying me to get away from here.'
'Good Heavens! Are you going to get married?'
'We fixed it up last Thursday. We've been going together for some time. It's bad for a girl being shut away like that, never seeing a man. She was in a state she'd have gone with anybody until I come along, just housekeeping day in, day out. The only pleasure she ever got was cutting down the bills and dismissing the servants. Most of them leave before their month is up, Decorative wire mesh ,anyway, they're that hungry. She's got a head on her shoulders, she has. Real Business woman, just what I need at the "Lamb".
'Then she heard me on the phone one day giving instructions to our manager at the Picture Theatre. That made her think a bit. A prince in disguise, as you might say. It was she who actually suggested our getting married. I shouldn't have had the race to, not while I was butler. What I'd meant to do was to hire a car one day and come down with my diamond ring and buttonhole and pop the question. But there wasn't any need for that. Love's a wonderful thing.'
Philbrick stopped speaking and was evidently deeply moved by his recital. The door of the pavilion opened, and Mr Prendergast came in.
'Well,' asked Paul, 'how are the sports going?'
'Not very well,' said Mr Prendergast; 'in fact, they've gone.'
'All over?'
'Yes. You see, none of the boys came back from the first race. They just disappeared behind the trees at the top of the drive. I expect they've gone to change. I don't blame them, I'm sure. It's terribly cold. Still, it was discouraging launching heat after heat and none coming back. Like sending troops into battle, you know.'
'The best thing for us to do is to go back and change too.'
'Yes, I suppose so. Oh, what a day!'
Grimes was in the Common Room.
'Just back from the gay metropolis of Llandudno,' he said. 'Shopping with Dingy is not a seemly occupation for a public school man. How did the heats go?'
'There weren't any,' said Paul.
'Quite right,' said Grimes: 'you leave this to me. I've been in the trade some time. These things are best done over the fire. We can make out the results in peace. We'd better hurry. The old boy wants them sent to be printed this evening.'
And taking a sheet of paper and a small stub of pencil, Grimes made out the programme.
'How about that?' he said.
'Clutterbuck seems to have done pretty well,' said Paul.
'Yes, he's a splendid little athlete,' said Grimes. 'Now just you telephone that through to the printers, and they'll get it done to night. I wonder if we ought to have a hurdle race?'
'No,' said Mr Prendergast.