The Reluctant Lovers

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3160, 27 April 1931, Page 7

The Reluctant Lovers

A SCHEME THAT WAS HARDLY NECESSARY. It was Dorothy's idea, right from the word "Go!" It was she who suggested asking Jim and Judy down for the week-end, and it was she who suggested the breakdown. I only did as I was told, faithfully carrying out her instructions down to the last letter — and if any husband can do more than that for his wife, then he's a better man than I am, Gunga Din. "They need a chance," she argued in unfolding her scheme. "They need quiet, and a moonlit sea. They're madly in love with each other but won't admit it. What they need is a big push." "And you're proposing to do the pushing?" I asked. "That's the idea!" she admitted, cheerfully. "It's quite time that Jim got married —Judy is twenty-five, remember —and if he can't screw up his courage to propose to her in a place like this, then he'll never screw it up anywhere." "Yes," I agreed, "I should think you're probably right. And so you've asked them down for a week-end?" "For this week-end!" she announced. "We'll go to meet them at Newton Abbot, and drive them back here along the coast road. The London train gets in at 8.15, by which time it will be dusk, and if we stage a breakdown at Smuggler's Dyke, we can leave them in the car while we come along home to fetch the tools or something. That will mean that they will be left alone in the car for at least an hour; and if they can pass an hour in Smuggler's Dyke without getting romantic, then, believe me, there's no hope for either of them." "Quite!" I said. For, as perhaps you know, Smuggler's Dyke is one of the most beautiful spots along the entire Devonshire Coast. Our bungalow, which we had rented for the summer, was about a couple of miles farther along the road; and it was Dorothy's idea that, after leaving Jim and Judy in the car at Smuggler's Dyke, she and I would walk home, and while I toddled back again with a tin of petrol she would set about preparing a welcoming meal for the reluctant lovers as and when they arrived. "Do you think he'll pop the question there?" I asked. Dorothy shrugged her shoulders. "If he doesn't," she said, "then I pack up on my family for ever and ever. Cousin Jim's a bit of a fool, but Smuggler's Dyke, in the moonlight, would make even a codfish pant. Don't you think so?" "I do," I admitted, "always supposing that codfish can pant. But how do you propose to break down at the psychological" moment?"

"Oh, anything'll do!" said she. "Petrol, puncture, any old thing. Jim would never tumble to it!"

"No, but Judy might," I replied "That girl's got twice the gumption Jim's got." "Which is just why she won't say anything even if she should happen to tumble to it!" Dorothy snorted quickly. "There are three men to every woman, in this country, don't forget. And that makes a girl sharp. Don't you bother your head about Judy."

"Right you are, then!" I agreed. "i don't like butting in upon other people's love affairs, but when you've got two mutts like Jim and Judy playing around, I agree with you that something ought to be done about it." Jim, I might mention, besides being Dorothy's cousin, is also quite a decent fellow. He is an architect, out. Finchley way, while Judy dabbles in art. I don't know that she's ever painted anything to write home about, though she's certainly done a bit of black and white work for the magazines and so forth, and is, moreover, "mighty easy on the eyes," as the Americans say.. And that covers a multitude of sins. Well, in due course, the great day arrived and Dorothy and I set out for Newton Abbot in our 1926 Morris. It is a stout little cab, most reliable and in no way given to sticking at trifles. But on this occasion, with only 11 pints of petrol in the tank, if my carefully worked out calculations proved correct I was expecting her to snort and bang and come to a dead stop exactly in the dip of Smuggler's Dyke. "And if she doesn't," Dorothy warned me as I rose from doctoring the tank, "then you jolly well make her —or there'll be trouble!" "Right, mum!" I sair. And together we walked on to the platform. The train was a bit late coming in, but no sooner had it come to a standstill than we spotted Jim's head hanging out of a window with Judy's in close proximity. "This looks promising!" I whispered as we hastened forward to meet them. "What —in a carriage full of people?" Dorothy sneered. "Well, there are plenty of tunnels on the way, aren't there?" I retorted. "What d'you think tunnels are for?"

"Certainly not for cousin Jim!" "No," I admitted. "You're right there! If he found himself alone with her in a coal mine he'd only talk of roofs and concrete . . . Hullo, Jim! Hullo, Judy!" Dorothy kissed both of them, and I kissed Judy while the going was good. Jim gasped, but hadn't the courage to say anything. And in five minutes we were packed in the old Morris and beating it for home as hard as we could go. It was almost dark by the time we turned into the coast road, and by the time Dorothy nudged me to keep an eye on Smuggler's Dyke, it was quite dark. Jim and Judy were in the dickey, one each end of it, of course—and when

I looked round at them, just before climbing the hill that dropped down in the Dyke upon the other side, it seemed to me that Jim in particular looked positively uncomfortable.

"Look out!" Dorothy muttered as we topped the rise. I had come up in second, so as to waste petrol, ana as I screamed over the top, to my intense delight a loud "chuff-chuff" announced the finish of the spirit. Sundry bangs and backfires down the hill afforded me all the opportunity I needed to pull up right in the dip. And there I stopped. "Well," Dorothy asked, "what's the matter?"

"The matter," I retorted pontifically, "is that you forgot to put the petrol in the tank. I told you we should need some before we started." "That you never did!" flared Dorothy on the instant. And before you could say "'Knife!" the row was on. it was most realistic. We got quite hot and bothered about it all. And when at last I announced my intention of walking home to fetch a spare can, Jim and Judy looked positively relieved.

"In that case," Dorothy said, "I'll come with you."

"No-no!" I begged her. "You stay here!"

"What's the good of that?" she argued. "While you're bringing the petrol back here I can be getting the supper ready." "But what about the car?" I asked. "We can't leave it here unattended." "Jim arid Judy will look after the car!"

"Ah, of course!" I gave in. "Yes, i badn't thought of that." "But how long will you be?" Jim asked a bit nervously. "Oh, not more than ten minutes or so," I said as we started off along the road. "You two have a look at the sea while you're waiting," Dorothy called back. "It's a wonderful view from the bottom of the cove, there!" "And that's that!" I grinned when we turned the corner and got out of the light of the glaring headlamps "You're a fine actor, old girl!" "You're none so bad yourself!" she laughed, squeezing my arm in hers. Prom Smuggler's Dyke to our bungalow was only a matter of a couple of miles or so, but long before we arrived there we realised that it was getting foggy. These white sea fogs are very common in the Channel and come up with astonishing suddenness. One moment the sea is perfectly clear, and the next you can't see your hand in front of your face. "Heavens!" said Dorothy as we fumbled our way to the little front door. "I do hope they won't try to follow us."

"They'll be holding each other tight to keep warm!" I prophesied, "if they've got any sense, that is!" I shut the door behind me and for a moment stood wiping the moisture from my eyes and face. "What are we going to do?" I asked. "Leave them where they are for a bit, or go back straight away.

Dorothy went to the window. Outside, it was just as if a wet sheet had been hung over the glass. "I don't know," she said rather nervously. "This has upset things, hasn't it? I think you'd better go back to them. They might try to follow us. They might miss their way and fall over the cliffs!"—she actually caught her breath as she thought of it. "Nonsense!" I assured her. "They wouldn't be such*fools."

"But you don't know!" she cried. "You'd better go back at once!" She turned to the window again. "I wish we hadn't left them there!" she half whispered. "I do wish we hadn't left them there."

"They'll be all right!" I argued. "Nobody 'ud start wandering about in a fog like this. It'll pass over in an hour or so."

"But I'm—l'm frightened," she shivered. "This is the way accidents happen. Do run back and bring them in!"

"Run back?" I laughed. "There'll be no running for anybody yet awhile!" Nevertheless, seeing Dorothy's agitation, I picked up a spare can of petrol and set out along the road.

That fog was ghastly. It was impossible to see a thing. I had to walk on the edge of the road, keeping the ditch between myself and the edge of the cliff. And as I went on in the wreathing, writhing damp, it seemed that I must have walked for miles. I couldn't hear a sound, nothing—nothing save the steady beating of the waves on the sand hundreds of feet below the cliff. And the sound of those waves, and the thought of that long drop into space, kept me walking warily in the ditch upon the far side of the road. Brambles tore at me, thorns and twigs plucked at my clothes, but an ever growing fear for Judy and Jim kept me going. I cursed the fog, cursed the cliffs, and more than all cursed the silly scheme that was responsible for landing us in such a predicament. Then I fell down, and cut my knee on the edge of the petrol can. And after that I went more carefully, and more slowly, and much more angrily. I was frightened to call out lest hearing my voice they should try to come to me. And as the road wound round the top of the cliff, that might mean disaster. I thought of all the silly things that had ended in tragedy. Thought of all those practical tricks which had ended up in death and misery. I must have been mad ever to acquiesce in Dorothy's daft scheme. I might haye known nothing good could come of it. All my life I've tried to keep out of other people's affairs, and yet here I was stumbling and tearing along in a ditch because, for onco in a way I'd allowed myself to be inveigled into minding somebody else's business. The whole thing was unspeakably

absurd. And then, quite suddenly, I stumbled upon the car. "Jim!" I cried. "Judy!" "Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!" came in a muffled voice from somewhere inside. "That you?"

"Thank God, you're safe!" I panted weakly.

"Eh?" came Jim's voice, quite cheerfully. "What's that, old man?" I leaned against the running board, trying hard a regain my composure. After all, how were they to know of the nearness of their escape? "It's this darned fog!" I managed to get out. "We were a bit—a bit scared about you. There's a big drop over the cliffs."

"Yes," Judy said. "That's why„we decided to sit tight in the. car. We heard the waves down there. Have you got the petrol?"

I told them that I had; and I also told them that we should have to stay where we were until the fog lifted. "It goes almost as quickly as it comes," I added comfortingly. "In fact," I said, as, looking up, I caught sight of one or two stars, "I believe it's beginning to clear now!" Three-quarters of an hour later I drove them up to the bungalow. The fog had gone, and the whole earth lay' bright as day beneath a full and most romantic-seeming moon. "We've got"something to tell you people," Jim announced the instant the door was closed behind us. "Judy and I aTe engaged." "W —What?" I gasped, forgetting my manifold aches and pains in a sudden flush of triumph. "What?" "Yes," he repeated fatuously, "we got engaged last night, in London. Isn't it splendid?"