'Oh!' said Caroline. I could see her nose twitching as she worked on this.
'He arrived at the Three Boars yesterday morning,' she said. 'And he's still there. Last night he was out with a girl.' That did not surprise me in the least. Ralph, I should say, is out with a girl most nights of his life. But I did rather wonder that he chose to indulge in the pastime in King's Abbot instead of in the gay Metropolis.
'One of the barmaids?' I asked.
'No. That's just it. He went out to meet her. I don't know…who she is.' (Bitter for Caroline to have to admit such a thing.) 'But I can guess,' continued my indefatigable sister.
I waited patiently.
'His cousin.' 'Flora Ackroyd?' I exclaimed in surprise.
Flora Ackroyd is, of course, no relation whatever really to Ralph Paton but Ralph has been looked upon for so long as if practically Ackroyd's own son, that cousinship is taken for granted.
'Flora Ackroyd,' said my sister.
'But why not go to Fernly if he wanted to see her?' 'Secretly engaged,' said Caroline, with immense enjoyment.
'Old Ackroyd won't hear of it, and they have to meet this way.' I saw a good many flaws in Caroline's theory, but I forebore to point them out to her. An innocent remark about our new neighbour created a diversion.
The house next door, The Larches, has recently been taken by a stranger. To Caroline's extreme annoyance, she has not been able to find out anything about him, except that he is a foreigner. The Intelligence Corps has proved a broken reed. Presumably the man has milk and vegetables and joints of meat and occasional whitings just like everybody else, but none of the people who make it their business to supply these things seem to have acquired any information.
His name, apparently, is Mr Porrott ~ a name which conveys an odd feeling of unreality. The one thing we do know about him is that he is interested in the growing of vegetable marrows.
But that is certainly not the sort of information that Caroline is after. She wants to know where he comes from, what he does, whether he is married, what his wife was, or is, like, whether he has children, what his mother's maiden name was - and so on. Somebody very like Caroline must have invented the questions on passports, I think.
'My dear Caroline,' I said. 'There's no doubt at all about what the man's profession has been. He's a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.' Caroline dissented. She said that if the man was a hairdresser, he would have wavy hair - not straight. All hairdressers did.
I cited several hairdressers personally known to me who had straight hair, but Caroline refused to be convinced.
'I can't make him out at all,' she said in an aggrieved voice. 'I borrowed some garden tools the other day, and he was most polite, but I couldn't get anything out of him. I asked him point blank at last whether he was a Frenchman, and he said he wasn't - and, somehow, I didn't like to ask him any more.' I began to be more interested in our mysterious neighbour. A man who is capable of shutting up Caroline and sending her, like the Queen of Sheba, empty away, must be something of a personality.
'I believe,' said Caroline, 'that he's got one of those new vacuum cleaners ' I saw a meditated loan and the opportunity of further questioning gleaming from her eye. I saw the chance to escape into the garden. I am rather fond of gardening. I was busily exterminating dandelion roots when a shout of warning sounded from close by and a heavy body whizzed by my ears and fell at my feet with a repellent squelch. It was a vegetable marrow!
I looked up angrily. Over the wall, to my left, there appeared a face. An egg-shaped head, partially covered with suspiciously black hair, two immense moustaches, and a pair of watchful eyes. It was our mysterious neighbour, Mr Porrott.
He broke at once into fluent apologies. 'I demand of you a thousand pardons, monsieur. I am without defence. For some months now I cultivate the marrows. This morning suddenly I enrage myself with these marrows. I send them to promenade themselves - alas! not only mentally but physically. I seize the biggest. I hurl him over the wall. Monsieur, I am ashamed. I prostrate myself.' Before such profuse apologies, my anger was forced to melt. After all, the wretched vegetable hadn't hit me. But I sincerely hoped that throwing large vegetables over walls was not our new friend's hobby. Such a habit could hardly endear him to us as a neighbour.
The strange little man seemed to read my thoughts.
'Ah! no,' he exclaimed. 'Do not disquiet yourself. It is not with me a habit. But you can figure to yourself, monsieur, that a man may work towards a certain object, he may labour and toil to attain a certain kind of leisure and occupation, and then find that, after all, he yearns for the old busy days, and the old occupations that he thought himself so glad to leave?' 'Yes,' I said slowly. 'I fancy that that is a common enough occurrence. I myself am perhaps an instance. A year ago I came into a legacy - enough to enable me to realize a dream. I have always wanted to travel, to see the world. Well, that was a year ago, as I said, and - I am still here.' My little neighbour nodded.
'The chains of habit. We work to attain an object, and the object gained, we find that what we miss is the daily toil. And mark you, monsieur, my work was interesting work. The most interesting work there is in the world.' 'Yes?' I said encouragingly. For the moment the spirit of Caroline was strong within me.
'The study of human nature, monsieur!' 'Just so,' I said kindly.
Clearly a retired hairdresser. Who knows the secrets of human nature better than a hairdresser?
'Also, I had a friend - a friend who for many years never left my side. Occasionally of an imbecility to make one afraid, nevertheless he was very dear to me. Figure to yourself that I miss even his stupidity. His naivete, his honest outlook, the pleasure of delighting and surprising him by my superior gifts - all these I miss more than I can tell you.' 'He died?' I asked sympathetically.
'Not so. He lives and flourishes - but on the other side of the world. He is now in the Argentine.' 'In the Argentine,' I said enviously.
I have always wanted to go to South America. I sighed, and then looked up to find Mr Porrott eyeing me sympathetically. He seemed an understanding little man.
'Will you go there, yes?' he asked.
I shook my head with a sigh.
'I could have gone,' I said. 'A year ago. But I was foolish and worse than foolish - greedy. I risked the substance for the shadow.' 'I comprehend,' said Mr Porrott. 'You speculated?' I nodded mournfully, but in spite of myself I felt secretly entertained. This ridiculous little man was so portentously solemn.
'Not the Porcupine Oilfields?' he asked suddenly.
I stared.
'I thought of them, as a matter of fact, but in the end I plumped for a gold mine in Western Australia.' My neighbour was regarding me with a strange expression which I could not fathom.
'It is Fate,' he said at last.
'What is Fate?' I asked irritably.
'That I should live next to a man who seriously considers Porcupine Oilfields, and also West Australian Gold Mines.
Tell me, have you also a penchant for auburn hair?' I stared at him open-mouthed, and he burst out laughing.
'No, no, it is not the insanity that I suffer from. Make your mind easy. It was a foolish question that I put to you there, for, you see, my friend of whom I spoke was a young man, a man who thought all women good, and most of them beautiful. But you are a man of middle age, a doctor, a man who knows the folly and the vanity of most things in this life of ours. Well, well, we are neighbours. I beg of you to accept and present to your excellent sister my best marrow.' He stooped, and with a flourish produced an immense specimen of the tribe, which I duly accepted in the spirit in which it was offered.
'Indeed,' said the little man cheerfully, 'this has not been a wasted morning. I have made the acquaintance of a man who in some ways resembles my far-off friend. By the way, I should like to ask you a question. You doubtless know everyone in this tiny village. Who is the young man with the very dark hair and eyes, and the handsome face. He walks with his head flung back, a
nd an easy smile on his lips?' The description left me in no doubt.
'That must be Captain Ralph Paton,' I said slowly.
'I have not seen him about here before?' 'No, he has not been here for some time. But he is the son - adopted son, rather - of Mr Ackroyd of Fernly Park.' My neighbour made a slight gesture of impatience.
'Of course, I should have guessed. Mr Ackroyd spoke of him many times.' 'You know Mr Ackroyd?' I said, slightly surprised.
'Mr Ackroyd knew me in London - when I was at work there. I have asked him to say nothing of my profession down here.' 'I see,' I said, rather amused by this patent snobbery, as I thought it.
But the little man went on with an almost grandiloquent smirk.
'One prefers to remain incognito. I am not anxious for notoriety. I have not even troubled to correct the local version of my name.' 'Indeed,' I said, not knowing quite what to say.
'Captain Ralph Paton,' mused Mr Porrott. 'And so he is engaged to Mr Ackroyd's niece, the charming Miss Flora.' 'Who told you so?' I asked, very much surprised.
'Mr Ackroyd. About a week ago. He is very pleased about it - has long desired that such a thing should come to pass, or so I understood from him. I even believe that he brought some pressure to bear upon the young man. That is never wise. A young man should marry to please himself - not to please a stepfather from whom he has expectations.' My ideas were completely upset. I could not see Ackroyd taking a hairdresser into his confidence, and discussing the marriage of his niece and stepson with him. Ackroyd extends a genial patronage to the lower orders, but he has a very great sense of his own dignity. I began to think that Porrott couldn't be a hairdresser after all.