Young Beck, a chip of the old block

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M5 DONNELL A - BODKIN * *

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Chapter I

The Bertram twins were already famous when young Beck and I came up to Cambridge, though they were only a term in front of us. Even for twins their resemblance to each other was extraordinary. Their most intimate friends, tutor, professor, nor proctor could tell one from the other. The result was they played all tricks with impunity. If one of them missed a lecture the professor could not tell which ; if one of them was caught in a frolic the proctor was puzzled, and by a strange coincidence it was always the wrong twin who was accused, at least so he swore.

They were good-looking chaps enough, smart, black-haired and black-eyed, rather low-sized, but square-shouldered and as agile as monkeys. It was a revelation to see them run and pass to each other at hockey, and at lawn tennis they made a combination that carried all before it. They seemed to have no separate identity; which was Eddie and which was Freddie Bertram only themselves could tell and they kept the secret.

Their doings and sayings were the talk of the college, but somehow, no one could say why, easymannered as they were and full of life and fun, the Bertram twins were not generally popular.

The twins were at St. John’s College and Beck and I at Cam’s, and so it happened that we were at Cambridge about a fortnight before we ran across them. We make a very useful double at tennis, and one of the twins, Eddie or Freddie, I don’t know which, seeing us play at the top of our form and win our match, challenged us for a fiver a corner. We took them on and were beaten, three sets to two, every game and every set closely fought. I believe either of us could have beaten either of them singly but they were irresistible together.

The match caused a great sensation. It was agreed that Beck and I were to practise together and play them for double stakes in a fortnight’s time. But Beck wouldn’t play. At first he was keen enough, but after the first week I could not get him to practise, and at the end of the second he backed out. I could see the twins were riled. When I suggested that we should coax Beck to change his mind they curtly refused.

I saw little or nothing of them after that, and my next falling in with them was a bit exciting.

I acquired the habit of going out before breakfast on the Cam with a Rob Roy canoe, which I prefer to a row boat because it lets you see the way you’re going. I am not a chap to rave about scenery but I love a river with its lights and shades and bright pictures of tree and sky in the water. To my thinking it is the most lovely thing that God ever made.

One morning when I was about two miles out of town coming round a bend of the river I saw a light two-oared outrigger in front of me, and a moment later I recognised the Bertram twins at the oars.

Whatever else they did well they certainly rowed atrociously. Each pulled away on his own account without the least regard for the other, and the boat went up the stream in short jerky darts from side to side like a startled trout.

I was a bit surprised that they had never learned to pull together, but they gave me little time to think about it. The twin at the stroke oar caught a crab and pitched over on his back; at the same moment the twin at the bow pulled a short jerky little stroke which heaved the crazy little boat quite over, and the two white figures went splash into the water and vanished.

It was as sudden and as comical as a scene in a pantomime, and I burst out laughing. I never doubted they both could swim. A moment afterwards one of the figures came up spluttering and panting and gripped the side of the up-turned boat, while the other was carried struggling down the stream. Half-way down between the boat and the canoe an arm and a head showed for a second over the surface and had just time for one wild cry for help before he went under again.

That cry took the laugh out of me, I can tell you, for I knew that the man was drowning. The body swirled close to the canoe and plunging my arm in up to the shoulder I gripped the white flannel of his shirt. Of course the canoe went over at once, and we were in the water. But I could swim like an otter, and I knew I had nothing to fear but the ducking.

The twin I had hold of, whichever he was, behaved splendidly. “No danger,” I spluttered as I drew his head clear of the water and turned over on my back. “ Keep quiet.”

“ Righto,” he answered, and lay as still as a log in my hands and as easy to manage. I ran him down current to the bank, keeping in front of the two boats.

“ Jump about and get warm,” I said, “ while I go back for your brother.”

This time I brought the row boat with the twin clinging to it to the bank. When I had righted the boat and got hold of the canoe I found the twins as lively as crickets, and quite ready to row back. But I wouldn’t have it, I didn’t want a second job.

“ If you are not too cold and promise to sit still,” I said, “ I’ll take you back, we can tow the canoe. You should pick up some faint notion how to row or swim before you trust yourselves again in an outrigger.”

“ All right, I’m as warm as a toast,” cried both together, in so exactly the same voice that it startled me.

They were full of life and fun while I rowed back, and made light of the danger and the ducking.

“ All the same, old man,” said one of them as they went ashore, “ we won’t forget that there would have been a brace of corpses in the river this morning if you had not turned up in the nick of time.”

“ The coroner would have had some trouble about the identification,” laughed the other.

But if they took the matter lightly with me they didn’t with others. I soon found that the pair of them were chattering all over the place of my “ gallant rescue.” It was tiresome to be made into a little tin god, and to have the fellows congratulating me about nothing. But I could not be angry with the twins, who I knew meant well and who behaved very decently when I spoke to them about it.

Day by day the more I saw of fhem, the more I liked them. I may say without boasting I was in with a very decent set at college, and all the fellows I knew got to like the twins as well as I did — all except my own particular friend, Beck.

I tackled him about it at breakfast one morning, at least I was at breakfast, he had breakfasted some hours before. I suppose I was in none the best humour for having lost fifty-seven pounds at bridge the night before.

“ Have you anything against the Bertrams, Beck ? ” I asked a bit tartly, “ I think I am entitled to ask.”

“ I think you are ; I have.”

“ Why didn’t you tell me that before? ”

“ Why didn’t you ask me ? I am quite ready to tell you now. One of them is a low down scamp.”

“ Which of them ? ” I asked, without thinking.

Beck broke out laughing and in a moment I joined in. He has the most irresistible laugh of any man I know, he never laughs alone.

“ Ask me another,” he said, “ and an easier one please. I wish I knew myself, I’d punch his head for him if I did.”

“ Is it as bad as that ? ”

“ Worse. I would not talk of it to any one but you. Do you know little Miss Bloom ? ”

“The little tobacconist girl? Only just to look at and nod to. Pretty little woman.”

“ Miss Bloom is a lady,” interposed Beck a bit stiffly. “ You don’t seem to know that. Her father was a rector with a good income and very popular. He died suddenly leaving his widow and only daughter a little less than nothing to live on. Lucy, I mean Miss Bloom, was a Girton girl at the time, and one of the brightest of them. But when her father died, by the help of some friends, she acquired the tobacco shop at the corner, and has made a home for her mother and herself.”

“ You seem to know all about it, old chap,” I said.

At this Beck blushed, actually blushed! Beck!

“ Every one knows all about it except yourself, thickhead,” he answered sharply. “ All the chaps buy their cigars and tobacco from her. They get the best of good value too, but that’s not the question. They all treat her like the little lady that she is, all except your delightful Bertrams.”

“ One of them,” I corrected.

“ Yes, one of them. Confound him and them ! ”

“ Well, what did he or they do? ”

“ He was rude to Lucy Bloom, like the unmitigated cad that he is.”

“ Which is?”

“ Don’t jest, Kirwood, I am in no humour for jesting. I confess my blood boils when I think of it. The poor little girl was walking by the river after having a hard day in the shop when this cub followed her, forced himself on her and tried to kiss her.”

I confess I was not impressed, and I could not share Beck’s indignation.

“ Well,” I said, “ where was the great crime in all that? We all like to snatch a kiss from a pretty girl once in a way.”

At that Beck boiled over. I do believe our friendship was never so near snapping as at that moment. Without answering he turned his back on me and walked to the door.

“ I beg your pardon, Beck,” I called after him. “ I did not mean to vex you.”

He paused with his hand on the door knob, turned and came back.

“ How would you like if this cub tried to kiss your sister against her will ? ” he asked abruptly. “ I tell you what, Kirwood, your sister is not one bit a better girl than Lucy Bloom.”

“ But ” I began. I did not like his drag-

ging in my sister.

“ Oh, I know you are going to repeat that we all kissed girls in our day. That is all right where the girls don’t mind. But only a cad would try to kiss a girl against her will, an unmitigated cad when the girl was Lucy Bloom.”

He hadn’t convinced me a bit by this nice distinction, perhaps it was because I did not know

Lucy Bloom at the time. But Beck seemed so hot on the business that I thought it best not to argue it out.

“ How did you hear all about it? ” I asked.

“ She told me herself. You need not look like that, she does not care two straws for me, and I’m not the least in love with her either; I admire and respect her immensely, that’s all. Well, one evening about a week ago I caught her crying her eyes out, alone in the shop, and it all came out. She didn’t wish to hurt her mother by telling her, especially as the mother always wanted her to give up the place. After the Bertram cub had insulted her she ordered him never to put his foot inside her shop again. But they both came there regularly, especially when she was alone, and leaned their elbows on the counter and looked at her and talked to her whether she liked it or not. The trouble of it is that she cannot in the least tell which she wants to get rid of. * Cheer up,’ I said, 4 I’ll soon find out.’ But I didn’t find out. I spoke to one of them and he said he was not the man, then I spoke to the other ”

44 To the other? Do you know one from the other? ”

44 Rather ! but that didn’t help me. Each laughed and said it was his brother, there was no getting behind that. Miss Bloom could not help me in the least, and I could not thrash either of them on the chance it was not the right one.”

44 Did you feel like that? ”

44 You don’t know the girl, Kirwood, or you wouldn’t ask. The gentlest little soul in the world.

I tell you my fingers itched to lick the chap, whichever it was, that insulted her. One good has come of it, however, they both keep out of the place since I spoke to them.”

“ You might forgive and forget and come to a wine I am giving to-night.”

“ I’d rather not, old chap, if you don’t mind.”

I did mind but I did not say so. If the truth must be told I thought Beck a little quixotic to fall out with a chap so bitterly because he kissed, or tried to kiss, a pretty girl. If I did not know his Miss Bloom he did not know the twins. I did, and I liked them better and better every time I met them.

I am afraid I have a spice of the gambler in me, it runs in the blood. My father never backed a horse or touched a card in his life, but my grandfather had gambled away all the unentailed estate, a good third of the whole. I fancy I caught the intermittent fever from him. The hereditary craving had jumped my father and lit on me.

I found the Bertrams on for anything and everything in the way of a game, from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter. They were delightful losers and winners. Though they preferred small stakes they did not shirk big ones, and were always ready for a “ double or quits,” no matter what the amount.

Their courage was its own reward. Bridge was the game we played, and as a rule they played together. As partners they were invincible. It was not so much good cards or even good play that did it. They were good players, no doubt, brilliant if a little erratic, but I can say without vanity that

IO

I played as well as either of them, and Tom Staunton, who was generally my partner, was by long odds the best player of the lot. Yet over and over again the twins pulled off the rubber against our strong cards. Their hands seemed to fit in wonderfully, and their leads and finesses almost always came off.

Their play, too, was transparently fair, in fact careless, and they won more often on their opponents’ deal than on their own. They were the most rapid players I ever met, and never hesitated for a moment on a declaration or a double. When one of the twins said, “ With you,” or “ I leave it to you, partner,” or asked, “May I?” or “Partner, may I play ? ” the answer was prompt as an echo.

Every day I thought luck would turn, but it kept straight on on the wrong road until I owed the twins a bit more than I cared to think about. They were very decent about it, I must say that for them, always ready to take my paper and never so much as hinting about payment.

Then something happened that put my troubles out of my head for the time being. Beck told me one morning that his people were coming down to Cambridge for a week, and I made up my mind that I would have my governor and Gerty down at the same time.

Gertrude is my only sister, and though she is more than three years younger than I am she bosses me more than a bit, but it is fair to say she won’t let any one else boss me.

I used to write to her from school about Beck, ii and talk to her of him when I was at home, but I never could get her interested in him in the least. I fancy she didn’t care to have me playing second fiddle to another chap, and the more I praised him the less she seemed to like him.

“ Your beloved Beck seems a cute little chap,” she said, “ from what you tell me about him, but not in the least the sort I would care about. I like them big and strong and dark, and I have no use for pretty pink and white little men like your friend.”

“ Wait till you meet him,” I said.

“ I am quite willing to wait for ever,” she answered, laughing.

Of course Gerty had heard of Paul Beck, the famous detective, but she did not like old Beck any more than his son.

“ Too meek and mock modest for my taste,” she said, “ and he tires me to death with all that talk about his luck, when I’m sure all the time he is patting himself on the back for being so clever.”

But Mrs. Beck, the erstwhile Dora Myrle, she liked and wanted to meet, and that was my chance to get her down to Cambridge while young Beck’s people were there. It was luckily an off time with the governor, and I knew Gerty could be depended on to carry him with her wherever she wanted to go.

We had an awfully jolly time of it at Cambridge, at least I thought so whatever the others thought. Old Beck and his wife turned up first, and it was a delight to the son to see how they all made much of his mother. The Dons remembered her as a brilliant student, some of them had taught her, and the younger generation were tickled with the stories of her detective triumphs.

I myself found it hard to believe that that quiet, matronly little woman had been through so many startling escapades.

The next morning my people arrived. We tossed up, Beck and I, to see who should have the lot to lunch, and he won. I never saw a chap in such a fidget as he was about the wines and the dishes and the flowers for the table. I fancy he was a bit frightened at what I told him about Gerty. He kept on interfering with the gyp, putting everything astray and running his hand through his hair till it all stood on end, when luckily his mother turned up half an hour before the time and took things into her own hands.

The governor and Gerty were about five minutes late, and Beck had made up his mind they wouldn’t come just the moment before they arrived.

Gerty is a tall girl, and rather fancies herself on that score. I thought she was taller than Beck, but when they went in to lunch together I found it was the other way round, and Beck had two inches to the good.

She gave him a very stately little bow when they were introduced.

“ I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Beck,” she said. “ I have heard a great deal about you from my brother.”

You know the sort of civil commonplace talk that takes all the life out of a person. No one is better at that sort of thing than Gerty when she chooses, though she can be lively enough, as a rule. I made up my mind I would give her a wigging over it that evening.

The governor, too, was inclined to be a bit stiff at the start. That’s the governor’s way. He thinks a deal too much about our family and position.

“ My dear boy,” he said to me that morning, “ I don’t like the notion of introducing your sister to this class of people. It’s all right for you, of course, a man can meet every one. I wouldn’t have you a snob for the world, and from what you tell me the young fellow seems quite presentable. Still, especially in these Radical days we must draw the line somewhere.”

But he thawed almost at once when bright-eyed little Mrs. Beck took him in charge. She was a mighty clever little woman, and could tell a good story like a man in a few crisp sentences. But it was as a listener she won the governor’s heart, he found it delightful to have such a nice-looking, clever woman So interested in all he had got to say.

Old Paul, who was sitting near her on the other side from his son, made quite a conquest of Gerty. The old chap had a wonderfully taking manner with him. It was fine to see the way he let Gerty draw him out and to watch her excitement and delight at his stories.

As the hurdler on the ditch I suppose I saw most of the game, and I quite pitied poor young Beck at the top of the table. It was quite plain he was taken with Gertrude at first sight — most men are.

I don’t know why but chaps have told me that her eyes fetched them, and I knew for myself how she can warm you out of a bad humour with a smile.

She wasn’t rude to young Beck, though she could be real rude when she liked. She talked to him between whiles civilly enough, in fact too civilly, but she let herself go with his father whom she was never tired of abusing.

“ I’m in love with old Paul,” she said to me that night as I sat on the foot of her bed in her room at the hotel. “ I take back everything I said about him. Let his wife look out for herself. I withdraw all I said about him. It is impossible to believe that that easy-going man has gone through such performances; and the way he tells about them is neither bragging nor the other thing.”

“ Mock modest? ” I suggested.

“ Not a bit of it. Don’t I tell you I confess and repent. Such a queer old lady-killer as he is. I’m not surprised that all the girls he met were half in love with him.”

“ What will his wife say to all that? ”

“ Nothing. She is a nice, sensible, clever woman, and almost good enough for dear old Paul. Dad is in love with her.”

“And young Beck?” I asked, whereupon Gerty made a face at me.

“ Just what I expected, a nice well-behaved nothing. Oh, I wonder, Charlie, what you can see in him ! I could understand your being in love with him if he were a girl, he ought to have been a girl with his pretty face and lady-like manners.”

“ He’s as good a chap as there’s going.”

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“ I have no doubt he is very good, goody-good if you prefer that. I love a man with a little spice of the devil in him like his old dad.”

“ Young Beck has devil enough in him when he’s roused,” I replied.

“ I fancy it would take an earthquake to rouse him,” said Gerty.

“ I’ve seen a little girl do it,” I blurted out unconsciously, and in five minutes she had dragged out of me the whole story of Miss Bloom and the Bertram twins.

“ I’ll introduce you to the twins to-morrow,” I said. “ They are the rage just at present.”

“ And the girl, Miss what you call her, Miss Blood, is she pretty? ”

“ Bloom, Miss Bloom, she is a nice little thing enough, too quiet for my taste; but you can have a peep at her yourself to-morrow if you want to.”

“ Not I,” said Gerty scornfully, “ why should I ? Good night, Charlie, we should have both been in bed hours ago.”

Next morning Gerty remembered she wanted to buy a cigar case as a birthday present for the governor, whose birthday was only a fortnight off. “ I may as well buy it,” she said, “ from your friend’s friend, the Bloom girl.”

Inside and outside the counter the two girls were as great a contrast as you would see in a day’s walk. I could never rave about Gertrude the way I’ve heard some chaps do, though she is my sister and as good a girl as steps. But there is no denying she has a fine figure, her head is well set on i6 her shoulders and she carries herself as straight as an arrow with an easy swing in her stride. She has eyes like old brown sherry, the same kind of light in them, and the way her copper-coloured hair breaks out into little curls on her forehead and the nape of her neck, whether she does it on purpose or not, is wonderfully fetching. She is as clever as they make them, and I don’t know any one who can be nicer than Gerty when she gives her mind to it, but she is a vixen when she is vexed as I have once or twice found to my cost. She completely overshadowed poor Miss Bloom, who looked a little mouse of a girl in comparison, pretty enough in an insignificant kind of way if you look closely at her.

I thought Gerty was in a bit of a temper when we entered the shop, but you would have never guessed it inside. She was as nice as pie to the little Bloom, just the right sort of niceness without a touch of condescension in it, and they chatted in the friendliest way together while they chose a silver cigar case for the governor.

“ Pretty little person,” said Gerty as we came out together into the sunshine, the cigar case in a neat parcel in her hand. “ Just the kind to suit your friend. I should think she wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”

“ Meaning thereby? ”

“ Whatever you like.”

“ You are all wrong about Beck, Gerty,” I said, pretty hotly. “ He is not the least the kind of chap you are hinting at. He is as clever as can be, and there’s no chap I’d sooner have beside me in a real row. As for Miss Bloom, I don’t suppose he cares twopence for her or any other girl.”

“ Why does he want to fight the Bertram twins on her account? ”

“ That’s Beck all over. He’d do as much for you or any other girl if he thought she was put upon.”

“ Thanks, I’m never likely to need his services,” said Gerty sharply, which only proved how little she knew.

For sheer opposition’s sake, I do believe, she was immensely taken with the Bertram twins when I introduced them. They got talking to her of how I saved their lives, and all that sort of thing until I was sick of it. But I could see that Gerty was pleased and took pains to be specially nice to them when Beck was at hand.

“ I would be in love with one of them,” she said, “ if only I could tell which.”

Mrs. Beck and herself got to be great friends before the week was over, and I never saw Gerty so meek before as with that quiet little woman. But somehow she and young Beck never seemed to hit it off.

After the first day he quite lost his shyness and was as cool as the lady herself. They never had a row or anything of the kind, but through the whole fortnight, from first to last, they never got any nearer than when they first met.

It was a bit of a disappointment to me. I was young and foolish in those days, and I had a kind of notion those two might take a fancy to each other.

The governor was awfully riled when I unconi8 sciously hinted it to him one evening when we were alone in my rooms.

“ I’m more liberal minded than most people in such matters,” he broke out, jumping from his chair and walking up and down the room, “ but I confess that I am surprised at you, Charlie, surprised and shocked that you could entertain such a notion for one moment. After all there are some distinctions that must be observed.”

“ You need not get so riled, sir,” I said. “ There is not the slightest fear of it.” But it took him a good twenty minutes to cool down.

I am afraid he made young Beck feel those distinctions too plainly when they met next morning, and I cursed myself for a blundering blockhead.

But even the governor must have been quite satisfied in the long run. Gerty kissed Mrs. Beck good-bye, and she nearly kissed old Paul, who from the look of him would have liked it, but to young Beck she was as cold as ice cream.