The Man from Ceylon Read online

  The Man From Ceylon

  by

  Ruby M. Ayres

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter I

  The Usual Family Argument Was In Full Swing at the breakfast-table when the thin, not over-clean hand of Dilly, the maid-of-all-work, was thrust round the door, and her monotonous, long-suffering voice announced briefly,

  “Telegram!”

  The Mansfield family always argued at breakfast-time, probably because it was usually the only meal of the day at which they all put in an appearance.

  “Straggled in!” so Kirby Mansfield, the head of the house described it, for punctuality—with the exception of Jessica—was an unknown virtue to his offspring, and for nearly twenty years his morning greeting had invariably been, as each one put in an appearance, “Late again!—who the devil’s house do you think this is?”

  Nobody ever answered him except to say with gay indifference, “Sorry, Dad,” fully aware that the ‘old man’s’ bark was infinitely worse than his bite, and that in less than two minutes he would have completely forgotten his annoyance.

  The argument this morning however was a little more heated and interesting than usual, for overnight Gordon, the son and heir, had announced with exaggerated indifference that they might shortly expect a visit from a friend of his—a man from whom he had received warm hospitality during the war, when the ship in which he served had anchored for some time off the coast of Ceylon.

  “A tea-planter,” Gordon explained airily. “Nice chap!—Been out there most of his life, but he’s just come into some money, so he’s chucking the job and coming home. I think you’ll like him,” he added with a glance at his younger sister Paddy, who was reputed to like all men far better than her own fair sex.

  “What age man?” Paddy enquired, dubiously.

  Gordon shrugged his shoulders.

  “Don’t know!…in the thirties I suppose— older than me anyway.”

  “Only in the thirties! “his father broke in. “And chucking his job! … Damned if I know what the world is coming to. Young people don’t seem to want to work nowadays, and yet—here am I—not far off my seventieth birthday and still catching the three minutes to nine train every morning.”

  “Well, if he’s come into money—why not let some other fellow take his job? “Gordon submitted, and then—a little hesitatingly—” I’ve told him we’ll put him up for a time till he make? up his mind what to do. He was damned decent to me ——”

  “Put him—up!”… It was not often Mrs. Mansfield ventured to criticise any of her children’s plans, but now there was a look of faint alarm in her gentle eyes as she voiced an unusual protest. “But—with only Dilly to help!—and the food question so difficult—I’m afraid we really can’t put him up, Gordon, but if he cares to come to supper one night——”

  And then the bomb fell as Gordon admitted that he had already offered the family’s hospitality to the Man from Ceylon which had been gratefully accepted.

  There had been unbroken silence for a moment before everyone began to speak at once.

  “It can’t be done!… you must wire and put him off!”

  “There isn’t a spare room when Selby is at home, except the one where we keep the lumber. Of course you must wire at once and tell him it’s impossible.”

  “But he’s already sailed——”

  “Then you must wire to the boat ——”

  The argument had gone on till midnight without any satisfactory decision being reached, and at breakfast-time—when for once everyone had arrived fairly punctually—it had immediately been continued.

  “Give me the chap’s name and the name of his ship and I’ll wire from Town—” Kirby said firmly. “He’s not coming here, and that’s the last word I have to say. Your mother has more than enough to do now, you know she is far from strong.”

  Mrs. Mansfield looked at her husband with grateful eyes and gave a sigh of relief before she admitted,

  “Yes, Gordon, your father is quite right—and— sorry as I am—seeing he was so good to you, I am afraid we cannot offer your friend our hospitality. If things had been different nobody would have been more delighted than I should, but——”

  Gordon interrupted with an impatient protest.

  “But it’s all fixed up. I’ve told him he can come—so——” and then the entire family began talking and arguing together in such excited clamour that Dilly’s long-suffering voice was lost in the hubbub until with a thud on the door to draw attention to her presence, she repeated shrilly,

  “Telegram! and the boy’s waiting for an answer.”

  It was Paddy who jumped up and took the envelope from Dilly’s hand and in spite of the fact that it was addressed to her brother, she tore it open eagerly scanning its brief contents. “Stratheden arrives Tilbury mid-day June 13th. Hope to see you— Monty.”

  She had read the message aloud before Gordon leaned across and snatched it from her, as his father roared out,

  “June the 13th! That’s today! I never heard such impudence! What the devil next!”

  And then Jessica, the quiet one of the family who, as an onlooker, usually saw and understood most of the game, spoke for the first time.

  “You can’t blame the Man from Ceylon, Daddy, it’s Gordon’s fault.”

  “The boy’s, waiting for an answer,” Dilly complained once more from the doorway.

  Gordon sprang to his feet.

  “All right—I’ll meet the boat and tell him,” he agreed reluctantly. “Though it’ll make me look a priceless idiot.”

  “Tell him to go to a hotel or somewhere,” his father thundered after him. “Tell him to try the Y.M.C.A.——”

  But Gordon was already out of earshot.

  Paddy chuckled as she helped herself to a generous spoonful of marmalade. “It’ll be a joke if they miss one another and Mr. Monty walks in, won’t it?” she submitted. “The thirteenth is always supposed to be unlucky! isn’t it?”

  “There’s time enough to get to Tilbury and back, half a dozen times before midday,” her father retorted. “Well, I must be off, or I shall miss my train.” He stooped to drop a perfunctory kiss on his wife’s cheek. “I’ll be in at the usual time, my dear, barring accidents.”

  Kirby always said the same thing every morning and always received the same reply.

  “Very good, dear—take care of yourself——” and as usual she followed him to the front door to give her accustomed wave of farewell which he invariably turned at the corner of the road to receive.

  The Mansfields were a very happy couple and had never had a cross word or a quarrel in the thirty years of their married life.

  “How dull!”… Paddy murmured when once her mother had proudly mentioned the fact. “It would bore me stiff!”

  Paddy was the belle of the family, and the youngest, still only eighteen but much more grown up in her ways and her knowledge of the world than Jessica, who was more than three years her senior. Jessica was a home-bird and a little shy. ‘My right hand,’ her mother called her, and perhaps, if she had a favourite, it was Jessica, though she would rather have died than admit it.

  “They are alt so different—” she once told a friend who had questioned her on the subject. “And of course I love them all, in different ways.”

  Gordon was the eldest, a well-built, rather reckless fellow, who had done exceedingly well in the war and felt a little lost now it was over and his services were no longer required.

  For the present he was working with h
is father, who was a solicitor, and feeling very much like a frog in a pond, so he often complained. It was open knowledge in the family that as soon as possible Gordon intended to turn his back on ‘dry documents and stuffy offices’ and clear off somewhere abroad where he imagined money—in large sums—could easily be made!

  Then there was Selby, the brains of the family, as his father proudly insisted. Selby who had come out on top of everything at school, and was still at Cambridge studying for the law. “He will be a barrister, we hope,” Kirby liked to tell people. “Not a dry old ‘make your will’ solicitor like his dad.”

  Then there was Jessica, a slim girl with brown eyes and hair, and her mother’s quiet tolerant understanding of life and of her family—and lastly Paddy —an undoubted beauty who had already, young as she was, received three offers of marriage, all of which she had turned down for the same reason, “Not enough money” as she frankly admitted,

  “But darling, if you love a man! “Mrs. Mansfield had protested, “what does money matter! When I married your father, we——”

  “Oh, I know, Mummie,” Paddy interrupted. “You lived from hand to mouth, didn’t you? And thought it wonderfully romantic, but it isn’t my idea of bliss!—and anyway—I didn’t love any of them,” she added with a surprising note of wistfulness, as she reluctantly visualised the face of one man who had pleaded so hard with her to give him a chance to prove that he could make good, and give her the kind of life she wanted!

  Peter Phillips, his name, and he—like so many others—had lost the eight best years of his youth in the service of his country, and was—as far as Paddy knew, for she had not seen him for some months— still looking for a job!

  And that was the Mansfield family.

  They lived in a moderate sized house in a small Hertfordshire town, which Mrs. Mansfield was not in the least ashamed to admit her husband had bought through a Building Society when he first began to’make a name’as she called it, and that it had taken him nearly nine years to pay off the borrowed money.

  “But now it is our own—freehold,” she liked to remind the family with pride. “And your father says that today it would fetch at least four times as much as we gave for it! Not that we have the slightest intention of selling.”

  “I would, if it was mine,” Paddy retorted. “Especially as Daddy admits that today the pound isn’t worth more than five bob! Who wants a big house anyway? Give me a flat every time.”

  It wasn’t really such a big house—only four bedrooms and, as Mrs. Mansfield had reminded Gordon —an extra one where they kept the lumber—two good-sized sitting-rooms and a small study, but there was a pretty garden of half an acre, which was the joy of Jessica’s heart. She spent all her spare time tending it, and felt amply rewarded for her pains when someone told her it was the prettiest garden in the road.

  “Which isn’t saying much I” Paddy unkindly remarked, “because the other gardens are perfectly awful!”

  Paddy could always be relied upon to say downright things like that, but Jessica never took offence.

  “She doesn’t mean it,” she would protest tolerantly, when sometimes Gordon advised her to box Paddy’s ears.

  “Do her all the good in the world,” he declared, with brotherly candour. “She’s a conceited young monkey,” to which Paddy retorted promptly, “And you’re a conceited old donkey——” before she fled from the room to escape him slamming the door between them….

  “I hope Gordon’s friend won’t think it very unkind of us,” Mrs. Mansfield said regretfully, when, having waved her husband farewell, she returned to the dining-room and began to help Jessica clear the breakfast table. “I know how difficult it is for anyone to find suitable accommodation anywhere nowadays, but perhaps he has relations who will put him up—I am sure I hope he has.”

  “Daddy always says that only fools live with relations,” Paddy reminded her. “I know I should hate to live with any of mine! Fancy having to face Aunt Lucy across the table at every meal—or to listen to Uncle Harry relating for the millionth time how he shot the mad lion in the jungle and at first go! and so saved the lives of goodness alone knows how many of his pals.”

  “It was an exceedingly brave action, Paddy dear,” her mother gently rebuked her.

  Paddy said, “Pooh!… not nearly so brave as some of the things our men did in the last war,” and once again there was a wistful note in her careless voice as she thought of Peter Phillips who, singlehanded—had shot down two German planes which were bombing London. That was before she knew him, of course, for she had never seen him in uniform, only as an out-of-a-job demobbed man trying by every means in his power to recapture the missing years and to make good. Where was he now? Sometimes she felt she would give a great deal to see him and at others profoundly thankful that he had kept his promise never to bother her again!

  “Are you playing tennis this morning? “Jessica enquired, and Paddy came back from the past with a start and a sigh.

  “Yes, I said I would—I shan’t have many more opportunities if I’ve really got to take a job—I’m playing with Gerard and the Bradleys!”

  Gerard!—whom Peter had disliked so heartily and of whom he had been bitterly jealous because Gerard was well off and had no need to worry about the future.

  Paddy didn’t care about Gerard either, except that she found him useful to take her about to dances and the theatre, and was also a first-class tennis player, a game of which she was particularly fond.

  If only Peter had been as well off! How different things might have been! She could have married him, and so perhaps have avoided this call to work of which she detested the very thought. Paddy was naturally lazy!

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Jessica invited. “You’re looking quite sad, Paddy.”

  Paddy shrugged her shoulders.

  “Was I?… I don’t feel sad—” She looked at her sister with sudden interest. “Wouldn’t you like to be married? “she asked abruptly.

  Jessica opened her eyes wide.

  “Married! I’ve never thought about it, and anyway I’ve never had the chance! I’m not like you, you know, with half a dozen suitors always at your beck and call.”

  “But you don’t like men, do you?”

  Jessica laughed.

  “You mean—they don’t like me! I’m too quiet and uninteresting for them. What makes you ask such a question?”

  “I don’t know!… but you’d make a topping wife—much better than I should. You know how I hate housework and all dull things like that.”

  “A man doesn’t choose a wife because she’s good at housework,” Jessica answered in amusement. “Which reminds me, I haven’t made the beds yet, and it’s the day to get the rations. Will you be in to lunch?”

  “I don’t think so—we shall probably feed at the club.”

  Jessica picked up the tray—but before she left the room, she asked,

  “What has happened to Peter Phillips? Do you ever hear from him now?”

  Paddy turned abruptly to the window, staring out at the sunshine with resentful eyes as she answered flippantly—

  “No—he’s finished with me.”

  “I liked Peter.”

  “Yes, he was quite a good sort,” Paddy admitted. “Well, I must depart. See you later——” and she departed.

  Jessica carried the tray to the kitchen where her mother was helping Dilly with the washing-up.

  “I’ll do that, dear,” she said quickly.

  “It’s done,” Mrs. Mansfield told her cheerfully. “So now I can help you make the beds.” They went upstairs together, first to Paddy’s room which, as usual, was a picture of disorder.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” Mrs. Mansfield sighed. “Will she never learn to be tidy!… A nice pickle the house would be in if she was in charge! If she ever has a home of her own——”

  “She’ll take good care to have an efficient staff, or there won’t be a home,”. Jessica interrupted laughingly. “She’s gone to play tennis with Gera
rd and the Bradleys—and says they’ll lunch at the club.”

  Mrs. Mansfield picked up a pair of slippers which had obviously been kicked off and were lying sole uppermost under the bed.

  “You know, Jessica,” she said, “I can’t help thinking about Gordon’s friend, and wondering whether after all, we might have managed to put him up for a short while, poor man! He could have had Selby’s room for the time being, couldn’t he? It seems a little—unkind—to have refused, when one knows how difficult life is nowadays.”

  “I expect he’ll find somewhere to go. As Paddy would say, a bachelor always falls on his feet!”

  “Is he a bachelor?”

  “I don’t know—Gordon didn’t say—but I expect he is, or we should have heard something about his wife coming too, shouldn’t we? And that would have been out of the question, wouldn’t it? Selby’s room is so small——”

  “Well, I hope Gordon has explained things nicely, so the poor man won’t feel hurt,” Mrs. Mansfield said. “Now I’ll just look round the pantry and write out a list of what we want from the shops.” She left the room, returning a moment later to say with a smile, “It’s a pity about the Man from Ceylon—he might have brought us some tea! and we could certainly do with it, couldn’t we?”

  Jessica recalled her mother’s words when later that morning she was in the grocer’s carefully packing some of her purchases into the family shopping basket.

  “I must take the tea,” she told the assistant. “But if you can send the rest of the things——”

  “Short of tea, miss? “the man enquired with a rueful smile, and then, lowering his voice confidentially, “And I’m told there’s simply stacks of it in the country!—enough to do away with rationing altogether.”

  “My father says that applies to most things,” Jessica agreed, and then, as an irritable looking woman beside her asked sharply, “Am I never to be served? “she hurriedly apologised and turned away.

  Yes, it was a pity about this Monty man from Ceylon, she thought ruefully, because, as her mother had said, he might have brought them a much desired pound or two of tea! Still, they had managed so far, though both Gordon and Paddy were a bit reckless in their use of all the rations! which was why Mrs. Mansfield usually kept them under lock and key.