Not George Washington by P. G. Wodehouse

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NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON
An Autobiographical Novel

by P. G. Wodehouse
and Herbert Westbrook

1907

CONTENTS

PART ONE

_Miss Margaret Goodwin's Narrative_

1. James Arrives
2. James Sets Out
3. A Harmless Deception

PART TWO

_James Orlebar Cloyster's Narrative_

1. The Invasion of Bohemia
2. I Evacuate Bohemia
3. The _Orb_
4. Julian Eversleigh
5. The Column
6. New Year's Eve
7. I Meet Mr. Thomas Blake
8. I Meet the Rev. John Hatton
9. Julian Learns My Secret
10. Tom Blake Again
11. Julian's Idea
12. The First Ghost
13. The Second Ghost
14. The Third Ghost
15. Eva Eversleigh
16. I Tell Julian

_Sidney Price's Narrative_

17. A Ghostly Gathering
18. One in the Eye
19. In the Soup
20. Norah Wins Home

_Julian Eversleigh's Narrative_

21. The Transposition of Sentiment
22. A Chat with James
23. In a Hansom

_Narrative Resumed by James Orlebar Cloyster_

24. A Rift in the Clouds
25. Briggs to the Rescue
26. My Triumph

PART ONE

_Miss Margaret Goodwin's Narrative_

CHAPTER 1

JAMES ARRIVES

I am Margaret Goodwin. A week from today I shall be Mrs. James Orlebar
Cloyster.

It is just three years since I first met James. We made each other's
acquaintance at half-past seven on the morning of the 28th of July in
the middle of Fermain Bay, about fifty yards from the shore.

Fermain Bay is in Guernsey. My home had been with my mother for many
years at St. Martin's in that island. There we two lived our uneventful
lives until fate brought one whom, when first I set my eyes on him, I
knew I loved.

Perhaps it is indiscreet of me to write that down. But what does it
matter? It is for no one's reading but my own. James, my _fiance_,
is _not_ peeping slyly over my shoulder as I write. On the
contrary, my door is locked, and James is, I believe, in the
smoking-room of his hotel at St. Peter's Port.

At that time it had become my habit to begin my day by rising before
breakfast and taking a swim in Fermain Bay, which lies across the road
in front of our cottage. The practice--I have since abandoned it--was
good for the complexion, and generally healthy. I had kept it up,
moreover, because I had somehow cherished an unreasonable but
persistent presentiment that some day Somebody (James, as it turned
out) would cross the pathway of my maiden existence. I told myself that
I must be ready for him. It would never do for him to arrive, and find
no one to meet him.

On the 28th of July I started off as usual. I wore a short tweed skirt,
brown stockings--my ankles were, and are, good--a calico blouse, and a
red tam-o'-shanter. Ponto barked at my heels. In one hand I carried my
blue twill bathing-gown. In the other a miniature alpenstock. The sun
had risen sufficiently to scatter the slight mist of the summer
morning, and a few flecked clouds were edged with a slender frame of
red gold.

Leisurely, and with my presentiment strong upon me, I descended the
steep cliffside to the cave on the left of the bay, where, guarded by
the faithful Ponto, I was accustomed to disrobe; and soon afterwards I
came out, my dark hair over my shoulders and blue twill over a portion
of the rest of me, to climb out to the point of the projecting rocks,
so that I might dive gracefully and safely into the still blue water.

I was a good swimmer. I reached the ridge on the opposite side of the
bay without fatigue, not changing from a powerful breast-stroke. I then
sat for a while at the water's edge to rest and to drink in the
thrilling glory of what my heart persisted in telling me was the
morning of my life.

And then I saw Him.

Not distinctly, for he was rowing a dinghy in my direction, and
consequently had his back to me.

In the stress of my emotions and an aggravation of modesty, I dived
again. With an intensity like that of a captured conger I yearned to be
hidden by the water. I could watch him as I swam, for, strictly
speaking, he was in my way, though a little farther out to sea than
I intended to go. As I drew near, I noticed that he wore an odd garment
like a dressing-gown. He had stopped rowing.

I turned upon my back for a moment's rest, and, as I did so, heard a
cry. I resumed my former attitude, and brushed the salt water from my
eyes.

The dinghy was wobbling unsteadily. The dressing-gown was in the bows;
and he, my sea-god, was in the water. Only for a second I saw him. Then
he sank.

How I blessed the muscular development of my arms.

I reached him as he came to the surface.

"That's twice," he remarked contemplatively, as I seized him by the
shoulders.

"Be brave," I said excitedly; "I can save you."

"I should be most awfully obliged," he said.

"Do exactly as I tell you."

"I say," he remonstrated, "you're not going to drag me along by the
roots of my hair, are you?"

The natural timidity of man is, I find, attractive.

I helped him to the boat, and he climbed in. I trod water, clinging
with one hand to the stern.

"Allow me," he said, bending down.

"No, thank you," I replied.

"Not, really?"

"Thank you very much, but I think I will stay where I am."

"But you may get cramp. By the way--I'm really frightfully obliged to
you for saving my life--I mean, a perfect stranger--I'm afraid it's
quite spoiled your dip."

"Not at all," I said politely. "Did you get cramp?"

"A twinge. It was awfully kind of you."

"Not at all."

Then there was a rather awkward silence.

"Is this your first visit to Guernsey?" I asked.

"Yes; I arrived yesterday. It's a delightful place. Do you live here?"

"Yes; that white cottage you can just see through the trees."

"I suppose I couldn't give you a tow anywhere?"

"No; thank you very much. I will swim back."

Another constrained silence.

"Are you ever in London, Miss----?"

"Goodwin. Oh, yes; we generally go over in the winter, Mr.----"

"Cloyster. Really? How jolly. Do you go to the theatre much?"

"Oh, yes. We saw nearly everything last time we were over."

There was a third silence. I saw a remark about the weather trembling
on his lip, and, as I was beginning to feel the chill of the water a
little, I determined to put a temporary end to the conversation.

"I think I will be swimming back now," I said.

"You're quite sure I can't give you a tow?"

"Quite, thanks. Perhaps you would care to come to breakfast with us,
Mr. Cloyster? I know my mother would be glad to see you."

"It is very kind of you. I should be delighted. Shall we meet on the
beach?"

I swam off to my cave to dress.

Breakfast was a success, for my mother was a philosopher. She said very
little, but what she did say was magnificent. In her youth she had
moved in literary circles, and now found her daily pleasure in the
works of Schopenhauer, Kant, and other Germans. Her lightest reading
was _Sartor Resartus_, and occasionally she would drop into Ibsen
and Maeterlinck, the asparagus of her philosophic banquet. Her chosen
mode of thought, far from leaving her inhuman or intolerant, gave her a
social distinction which I had inherited from her. I could, if I had
wished it, have attended with success the tea-drinkings, the
tennis-playings, and the eclair-and-lemonade dances to which I was
frequently invited. But I always refused. Nature was my hostess.
Nature, which provided me with balmy zephyrs that were more comforting
than buttered toast; which set the race of the waves to the ridges of
Fermain, where arose no shrill, heated voice crying, "Love--forty";
which decked foliage in more splendid sheen than anything the local
costumier could achieve, and whose poplars swayed more rhythmically
than the dancers of the Assembly Rooms.

The constraint which had been upon us during our former conversation
vanished at breakfast. We were both hungry, and we had a common topic.
We related our story of the sea in alternate sentences. We ate and we
talked, turn and turn about. My mother listened. To her the affair,
compared with the tremendous subjects to which she was accustomed to
direct her mind, was broad farce. James took it with an air of
restrained amusement. I, seriously.

Tentatively, I diverged from this subject towards other and wider
fields. Impressions of Guernsey, which drew from him his address, at
the St. Peter's Port Hotel. The horrors of the sea passage from
Weymouth, which extorted a comment on the limitations of England.
England. London. Kensington. South Kensington. The Gunton-Cresswells?
Yes, yes! Extraordinary. Curious coincidence. Excursus on smallness of
world. Queer old gentleman, Mr. Gunton-Cresswell. He is, indeed. Quite
one of the old school. Oh, quite. Still wears that beaver hat? Does he
really? Yes. Ha, ha! Yes.

Here the humanising influence of the Teutonic school of philosophic
analysis was demonstrated by my mother's action. Mr. Cloyster, she
said, must reconcile himself to exchanging his comfortable rooms at the
St. Peter's Port--("I particularly dislike half-filled hotel life, Mrs.
Goodwin")--for the shelter of our cottage. He accepted. He was then
"warned" that I was chef at the cottage. Mother gave him "a chance to
change his mind." Something was said about my saving life and
destroying digestion. He went to collect his things in an ecstasy of
merriment.

At this point I committed an indiscretion which can only be excused by
the magnitude of the occasion.

My mother had retired to her favourite bow-window where, by a _tour
de force_ on the part of the carpenter, a system of low, adjustable
bookcases had been craftily constructed in such a way that when she sat
in her window-seat they jutted in a semicircle towards her hand.

James, whom I had escorted down the garden path, had left me at the
little wooden gate and had gone swinging down the road. I, shielded
from outside observation (if any) by a line of lilacs, gazed
rapturously at his retreating form. The sun was high in the sky now. It
was a perfect summer's day. Birds were singing. Their notes blended
with the gentle murmur of the sea on the beach below. Every fibre of my
body was thrilling with the magic of the morning.

Through the kindly branches of the lilac I watched him, and then, as
though in obedience to the primaeval call of that July sunshine, I
stood on tiptoe, and blew him a kiss.

I realised in an instant what I had done. Fool that I had been. The
bow-window!

I was rigid with discomfiture. My mother's eyes were on the book she
held. And yet a faint smile seemed to hover round her lips. I walked in
silence to where she sat at the open window.

She looked up. Her smile was more pronounced.

"Margie," she said.

"Yes, mother?"

"The hedonism of Voltaire is the indictment of an honest bore."

"Yes, mother."

She then resumed her book.

CHAPTER 2

JAMES SETS OUT
_(Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative continued)_

Those August days! Have there been any like them before? I realise with
difficulty that the future holds in store for me others as golden.

The island was crammed with trippers. They streamed in by every boat.
But James and I were infinitely alone. I loved him from the first, from
the moment when he had rowed out of the unknown into my life, clad in a
dressing-gown. I like to think that he loved me from that moment, too.
But, if he did, the knowledge that he did came to him only after a
certain delay. It was my privilege to watch this knowledge steal
gradually but surely upon him.

We were always together; and as the days passed by he spoke freely of
himself and his affairs, obeying unconsciously the rudder of my tactful
inquisitiveness. By the end of the first week I knew as much about him
as he did himself.

It seemed that a guardian--an impersonal sort of business man with a
small but impossible family--was the most commanding figure in his
private life. As for his finances, five-and-forty sovereigns, the
remnant of a larger sum which had paid for his education at Cambridge,
stood between him and the necessity of offering for hire a sketchy
acquaintance with general literature and a third class in the classical
tripos.

He had come to Guernsey to learn by personal observation what chances
tomato growing held out to a young man in a hurry to get rich.

"Tomato growing?" I echoed dubiously. And then, to hide a sense of
bathos, "People _have_ made it pay. Of course, they work very
hard."

"M'yes," said James without much enthusiasm.

"But I fancy," I added, "the life is not at all unpleasant."

At this point embarrassment seemed to engulf James. He blushed,
swallowed once or twice in a somewhat convulsive manner, and stammered.

Then he made his confession guiltily.

I was not to suppose that his aims ceased with the attainment of a
tomato-farm. The nurture of a wholesome vegetable occupied neither the
whole of his ambitions nor even the greater part of them. To write--the
agony with which he throatily confessed it!--to be swept into the
maelstrom of literary journalism, to be _en rapport_ with the
unslumbering forces of Fleet Street--those were the real objectives of
James Orlebar Cloyster.

"Of course, I mean," he said, "I suppose it would be a bit of a
struggle at first, if you see what I mean. What I mean to say is,
rejected manuscripts, and so on. But still, after a bit, once get a
footing, you know--I should like to have a dash at it. I mean, I think
I could do something, you know."

"Of course you could," I said.

"I mean, lots of men have, don't you know."

"There's plenty of room at the top," I said.

He seemed struck with this remark. It encouraged him.

He had had his opportunity of talking thus of himself during our long
rambles out of doors. They were a series of excursions which he was
accustomed to describe as hunting expeditions for the stocking of our
larder.

Thus James would announce at breakfast that prawns were the day's
quarry, and the foreshore round Cobo Bay the hunting-ground. And to
Cobo, accordingly, we would set out. This prawn-yielding area extends
along the coast on the other side of St. Peter's Port, where two halts
had to be made, one at Madame Garnier's, the confectioners, the other
at the library, to get fiction, which I never read. Then came a journey
on the top of the antediluvian horse-tram, a sort of _diligence_
on rails; and then a whole summer's afternoon among the prawns. Cobo is
an expanse of shingle, dotted with seaweed and rocks; and Guernsey is a
place where one can take off one's shoes and stockings on the slightest
pretext. We waded hither and thither with the warm brine lapping
unchecked over our bare legs. We did not use our nets very
industriously, it is true; but our tongues were seldom still. The slow
walk home was a thing to be looked forward to. Ah! those memorable
homecomings in the quiet solemnity of that hour, when a weary sun
stoops, one can fancy with a sigh of pleasure, to sink into the bosom
of the sea!

Prawn-hunting was agreeably varied by fish-snaring, mussel-stalking,
and mushroom-trapping--sports which James, in his capacity of Head
Forester, included in his venery.

For mushroom-trapping an early start had to be made--usually between
six and seven. The chase took us inland, until, after walking through
the fragrant, earthy lanes, we turned aside into dewy meadows, where
each blade of grass sparkled with a gem of purest water. Again the
necessity of going barefoot. Breakfast was late on these mornings, my
mother whiling away the hours of waiting with a volume of Diogenes
Laertius in the bow-window. She would generally open the meal with the
remark that Anaximander held the primary cause of all things to be the
Infinite, or that it was a favourite expression of Theophrastus that
time was the most valuable thing a man could spend. When breakfast was
announced, one of the covers concealed the mushrooms, which, under my
superintendence, James had done his best to devil. A quiet day
followed, devoted to sedentary recreation after the labours of the run.

The period which I have tried to sketch above may be called the period
of good-fellowship. Whatever else love does for a woman, it makes her
an actress. So we were merely excellent friends till James's eyes were
opened. When that happened, he abruptly discarded good-fellowship. I,
on the other hand, played it the more vigorously. The situation was
mine.

Our day's run became the merest shadow of a formality. The office of
Head Forester lapsed into an absolute sinecure. Love was with
us--triumphant, and no longer to be skirted round by me; fresh,
electric, glorious in James.

We talked--we must have talked. We moved. Our limbs performed their
ordinary, daily movements. But a golden haze hangs over that second
period. When, by the strongest effort of will, I can let my mind stand
by those perfect moments, I seem to hear our voices, low and measured.
And there are silences, fond in themselves and yet more fondly
interrupted by unspoken messages from our eyes. What we really said,
what we actually did, where precisely we two went, I do not know. We
were together, and the blur of love was about us. Always the blur. It
is not that memory cannot conjure up the scene again. It is not that
the scene is clouded by the ill-proportion of a dream. No. It is
because the dream is brought to me by will and not by sleep. The blur
recurs because the blur was there. A love vast as ours is penalised, as
it were, by this blur, which is the hall-mark of infinity.

In mighty distances, whether from earth to heaven, whether from 5245
Gerrard to 137 Glasgow, there is always that awful, that disintegrating
blur.

A third period succeeded. I may call it the affectionately practical
period. Instantly the blur vanishes. We were at our proper distance
from the essence of things, and though infinity is something one yearns
for passionately, one's normal condition has its meed of comfort. I
remember once hearing a man in a Government office say that the
pleasantest moment of his annual holiday was when his train rolled back
into Paddington Station. And he was a man, too, of a naturally lazy
disposition.

It was about the middle of this third period, during a
mushroom-trapping ramble, that the idea occurred to us, first to me,
then--after reflection--to James, that mother ought to be informed how
matters stood between us.

We went into the house, hand-in-hand, and interviewed her.

She was in the bow-window, reading a translation of _The
Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus.

"Good morning," she said, looking at her watch. "It is a little past
our usual breakfast time, Margie, I think?"

"We have been looking for mushrooms, mother."

"Every investigation, says Athenaeus, which is guided by principles of
Nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach. Have
you found any mushrooms?"

"Heaps, Mrs. Goodwin," said James.

"Mother," I said, "we want to tell you something."

"The fact is, Mrs. Goodwin----"

"We are engaged."

My mother liked James.

"Margie," she once said to me, "there is good in Mr. Cloyster. He is
not for ever offering to pass me things." Time had not caused her to
modify this opinion. She received our news calmly, and inquired into
James's means and prospects. James had forty pounds and some odd
silver. I had nothing.

The key-note of my mother's contribution to our conference was, "Wait."

"You are both young," she said.

She then kissed me, smiled contemplatively at James, and resumed her
book.

When we were alone, "My darling," said James, "we must wait. Tomorrow I
catch the boat for Weymouth. I shall go straight to London. My first
manuscript shall be in an editor's hands on Wednesday morning. I will
go, but I will come back."

I put my arms round his neck.

"My love," I said, "I trust you. Go. Always remember that I know you
will succeed."

I kissed him.

"And when you have succeeded, come back."

CHAPTER 3

A HARMLESS DECEPTION
_(Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative continued)_

They say that everyone is capable of one novel. And, in my opinion,
most people could write one play.

Whether I wrote mine in an inspiration of despair, I cannot say. I
wrote it.

Three years had passed, and James was still haggling with those who buy
men's brains. His earnings were enough just to keep his head above
water, but not enough to make us two one.

Perhaps, because everything is clear and easy for us now, I am
gradually losing a proper appreciation of his struggle. That should
never be. He did not win. But he did not lose; which means nearly as
much. For it is almost less difficult to win than not to lose, so my
mother has told me, in modern journalistic London. And I know that he
would have won. The fact that he continued the fight as he did was in
itself a pledge of ultimate victory. What he went through while trying
with his pen to make a living for himself and me I learned from his
letters.

"London," he wrote, "is not paved with gold; but in literary fields
there are nuggets to be had by the lightest scratching. And those
nuggets are plays. A successful play gives you money and a name
automatically. What the ordinary writer makes in a year the successful
dramatist receives, without labour, in a fortnight." He went on to
deplore his total lack of dramatic intuition. "Some men," he said,
"have some of the qualifications while falling short of the others.
They have a sense of situation without the necessary tricks of
technique. Or they sacrifice plot to atmosphere, or atmosphere to plot.
I, worse luck, have not one single qualification. The nursing of a
climax, the tremendous omissions in the dialogue, the knack of stage
characterisation--all these things are, in some inexplicable way,
outside me."

It was this letter that set me thinking. Ever since James had left the
island, I had been chafing at the helplessness of my position. While he
toiled in London, what was I doing? Nothing. I suppose I helped him in
a way. The thought of me would be with him always, spurring him on to
work, that the time of our separation might be less. But it was not
enough. I wanted to be _doing_ something.... And it was during
these restless weeks that I wrote my play.

I think nothing will ever erase from my mind the moment when the
central idea of _The Girl who Waited_ came to me. It was a
boisterous October evening. The wind had been rising all day. Now the
branches of the lilac were dancing in the rush of the storm, and far
out in the bay one could see the white crests of the waves gleaming
through the growing darkness. We had just finished tea. The lamp was
lit in our little drawing-room, and on the sofa, so placed that the
light fell over her left shoulder in the manner recommended by
oculists, sat my mother with Schopenhauer's _Art of Literature_.
Ponto slept on the rug.

Something in the unruffled peace of the scene tore at my nerves. I have
seldom felt so restless. It may have been the storm that made me so. I
think myself that it was James's letter. The boat had been late that
morning, owing to the weather, and I had not received the letter till
after lunch. I listened to the howl of the wind, and longed to be out
in it.

My mother looked at me over her book.

"You are restless, Margie," she said. "There is a volume of Marcus
Aurelius on the table beside you, if you care to read."

"No, thank you, mother," I said. "I think I shall go for a walk."

"Wrap up well, my dear," she replied.

She then resumed her book.

I went out of our little garden, and stood on the cliff. The wind flew
at me like some wild thing. Spray stung my face. I was filled with a
wild exhilaration.

And then the idea came to me. The simplest, most dramatic idea. Quaint,
whimsical, with just that suggestion of pathos blended with it which
makes the fortunes of a play. The central idea, to be brief, of _The
Girl who Waited_.

Of my Maenad tramp along the cliff-top with my brain afire, and my
return, draggled and dripping, an hour late for dinner; of my writing
and re-writing, of my tears and black depression, of the pens I wore
out and the quires of paper I spoiled, and finally of the ecstasy of
the day when the piece began to move and the characters to live, I need
not speak. Anyone who has ever written will know the sensations. James
must have gone through a hundred times what I went through once. At
last, at long last, the play was finished.

For two days I gloated alone over the great pile of manuscript.

Then I went to my mother.

My diffidence was exquisite. It was all I could do to tell her the
nature of my request, when I spoke to her after lunch. At last she
understood that I had written a play, and wished to read it to her. She
took me to the bow-window with gentle solicitude, and waited for me to
proceed.

At first she encouraged me, for I faltered over my opening words. But
as I warmed to my work, and as my embarrassment left me, she no longer
spoke. Her eyes were fixed intently upon the blue space beyond the
lilac.

I read on and on, till at length my voice trailed over the last line,
rose gallantly at the last fence, the single word _Curtain_, and
abruptly broke. The strain had been too much for me.

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