Ice in the Bedroom (2 page)

'You mean that your funds were insufficient to meet this condition?'

'Very far short of sweetening the kitty. All I had in the world was a measly thousand, left me by a godmother.'

'Unfortunate.'

'Most. I asked an uncle of mine for a temporary loan of the sum I needed, and all he said was, "What, what, what? Absurd. Preposterous. Couldn't think of it," which, as you will readily agree, left no avenue open for a peaceful settlement. Oofy Prosser, too, declined to be my banker, as did my banker, and I was just about to write the whole thing off as a washout, when suddenly there was a fanfare of angel trumpets and Molloy descended from heaven, the sun shining on his wings. We got talking, I revealed my predicament, and he waved his magic wand and solved all my problems. In return for my thousand quid he let me have some very valuable oil stock which he happened to have in his possession."

'Good gracious!'

‘I put it even more strongly.'

'What oil stock?'

'Silver River it's called, and pretty soon England will be ringing with its name. He says it's going up and up and up, the sky the only limit.'

'But was it not a little rash to invest all your capital in a speculative concern?'

'Good heavens, I leaped at the chance like a jumping bean. And it isn't speculative. Molloy stressed that. It's absolutely gilt-edged. He assures me I shall be able to sell my holdings for at least ten thousand in less than a month.'

'Strange that he should have parted with anything so valuable.'

'He explained that. He said he liked my face. He said I reminded him of a nephew of his on whom he had always looked as a son, who handed in his dinner pail some years ago. Double pneumonia. Very sad.'

'Oh dear!'

'Why do you say "Oh dear!"?'

But Mr. Cornelius's reasons for uttering this observation were not divulged, for even as he spoke Freddie had happened to glance at his wrist watch, and what he saw there shook him from stem to stern.

'Good Lord, is that the time?' he gasped. 'I'll miss that ruddy train again!'

He sped off, and Mr. Cornelius looked after him with a thoughtful eye. 'If Youth but knew,' he seemed to be saying to himself. He had not been favourably impressed by Thomas G. Molloy, late of Castlewood, who, possibly because he, Mr. Cornelius, reminded him, Mr. Molloy, of a goat he had been fond of as a child, had tried to sell him, too, a block of stock in this same Silver River Oil and Refinery Corporation.

With a sigh he picked up a leaf of lettuce and went on feeding his rabbits.

2

ALL season-ticket holders who live in the suburbs run like the wind, and Freddie had long established himself as one of Valley Fields' most notable performers on the flat, but today, though he clipped a matter of three seconds off his previous record for the Peacehaven-station course, he had given the 8.45 too long a start and had to wait for the 9.06.  It was consequently with some trepidation that he entered the Shoe-smith premises, a trepidation which the cold grey eye of Mr. Jervis, the managing clerk, did nothing to allay. He had no need to look into a crystal ball to predict that there might be a distressing interview with Mr. Shoesmith in the near future. From their initial meeting and from meetings that had taken place subsequently he had been able to gather that the big shot was a stickler for punctuality on the part of the office force.

But it was not this thought that was clouding his brow as he sat at the desk at which he gave his daily impersonation of a caged eagle. He did not enjoy those chats with Mr. Shoe-smith, whose forte was dry sarcasm, very wounding to the feelings, but custom had inured him to them and he was able now to take them with a philosophical fortitude. The reason melancholy marked him for its own was that he was thinking of Sally Foster.

If Mr. Cornelius had not been so intent at the moment on seeing to it that the personnel of his hutch got their proper supply of vitamins, he might have observed that at the mention of the girl whose nose twitched like a rabbit's a quick spasm of pain had flitted across the young man's face. It had been only a passing twinge, gone almost immediately, for the Widgeons could wear the mask, but it had been there. He had rashly allowed himself to be reminded of Sally Foster, and whenever that happened it was as though he had bitten on a sensitive tooth.

There had been a time, and not so long ago, when he and Sally had been closer than the paper on the wall - everything as smooth as dammit, each thinking the other the biggest thing since sliced bread and not a cloud on the horizon. And then, just because she had found him kissing that dumb brick of a Bunting girl at that cocktail party - the merest civil gesture, as he had tried to explain, due entirely to the fact that he had run out of conversation and felt that he had to do something to keep things going - she had blown a gasket and forbidden the banns. Take back your mink, take back your pearls, she would no doubt have said, if his finances had ever run to giving her mink and pearls. What she had actually returned to him by district messenger boy had been a bundle of letters, half a bottle of Arpage and five signed photographs.

Yes, he had lost her. And - which made it all the more bitter - here he was in London, chained to the spot without a chance of getting away till his annual holiday in November, while she was down in Sussex at Claines Hall, Loose Chip-pings. Not an earthly, in short, of being able to get to her and do a little quick talking, a thing he knew himself to be good at, and persuading her to forget and forgive. It is not too much to say that at the moment when Elsa Bingley, Mr. Shoesmith's secretary, touched him on the shoulder, bringing him out of the wreck of his hopes and dreams with a jerk, Frederick Widgeon was plumbing the depths.

'His nibs wants to see you, Freddie,' said Elsa Bingley, and he nodded a sombre nod. He had rather thought that this might happen.

In the inner lair where he lurked during business hours . Mr. Shoesmith was talking to his daughter Mrs. Myrtle Prosser, who had looked in for a chat as she did sometimes - too often, in Mr. Shoesmith's opinion, for he disliked having to give up his valuable time to someone to whom he could not send in a bill. At the mention of Freddie's name Myrtle showed a mild interest.

'Widgeon?' she said. 'Is that Freddie Widgeon?'

'I believe his name is Frederick. You know him?'

'He's a sort of friend of Alexander's. He comes to dinner sometimes when we need an extra man. I didn't know he worked here.'

'It is a point on which I am somewhat doubtful myself,’ said Mr. Shoesmith. 'Much depends on what interpretation you place on the word "work". To oblige his uncle Lord Blicester, whose affairs have been in my hands for many years, I took him into my employment and he arrives in the morning and leaves in the evening, but apart from a certain rudimentary skill in watching the clock, probably instinctive, I would describe him as essentially a lily of the field. Ah, Mr. Widgeon.'

The lily of the field of whom he was speaking had entered, and, seeing Myrtle, had swayed a little on his stem. This daughter of Mr. Shoesmith who had married Alexander ('Oofy') Prosser, a thing not many girls would have cared to do, was a young woman of considerable but extremely severe beauty. She did not resemble her father, who looked like a cassowary, but suggested rather one of those engravings of the mistresses of Bourbon kings which make one feel that the monarchs who selected them must have been men of iron, impervious to fear, or else shortsighted. She always scared Freddie to the marrow. With most of the other sex he was on easy terms - too easy was the view of his late fiancée - but the moon of Oofy Prosser's delight never failed to give him an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of the stomach and the illusion that his hands and feet had swelled unpleasantly.

'Oh, hullo, Mrs. Oofy,' he said, recovering his equilibrium, 'Good morning.'

'Good morning.'

'Going strong?'

'I am quite well, thank you.'

'Oofy going strong?'

'Alexander, too, is quite well.'

'Fine. He was telling me about those bits and pieces of yours.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'The ice. Your jewellery. Getting stolen and all that.'

'Oh, yes.'

'Bad show.'

'Very.'

'But you've got the insurance money, he tells me.'

'Yes.'

'Good show.'

Mr. Shoesmith broke in on these intellectual exchanges. He was not a man who suffered Freddie Widgeon gladly, considering him what in an earlier age would have been called a popinjay. Their souls were not attuned, as Freddie would have been the first to concede, though with the proviso that it was very doubtful if his employer had a soul. He had been serving under his banner for some six months now, and not a sign of one so far.

'I wonder if you could spare me your attention for a moment, Mr. Widgeon.'

By standing on one leg and allowing his lower jaw to droop Freddie indicated that he would be delighted to do so.

'You have no objection to me talking shop for a little while?'

None whatever, Freddie indicated by standing on the other leg.

'Mr. Jervis tells me you were late again this morning.' '

Er - yes. Yes, sir. Yes.'

'This frequently happens.'

'Yes, sir. These suburban trains, you know.'

'Well, no doubt we should consider ourselves fortunate that we are given at least some of your time, but I must ask you in future to try to synchronize your arrival at the office with that of the rest of the staff. We aim as far as possible at the communal dead heat.’

'Yes, sir.’

'So do your best, Mr. Widgeon, even if it means taking an earlier suburban train.’

'Yes, sir.'

'Or two suburban trains. You see, when you fail to appear, we become nervous and jumpy. Some accident must have occurred, we whisper to each other, and these gruesome speculations, so bad for office morale, continue until some clear thinker like Mr. Jervis points out that it would be a far greater accident if you were ever on time. However, that was not primarily what I wished to see you about. If you can tear yourself away from your desk this afternoon, I should like to engage your services for a confidential mission.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I have here some documents requiring the signature of Miss Leila Yorke, whose name will probably be familiar to you. Take them to her, if you will be kind enough, after lunch. Her address is Claines Hall, Loose Chippings, Sussex. You book your ticket at Victoria and alight at Loose Chippings station. The Hall is within an easy walk. Have I made myself clear?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Splendid,' said Mr. Shoesmith. 'Thank you, Mr. Widgeon, that is all.'

Eminent solicitors very seldom pay much attention to the muscular twitchings of the minor members of their staff, and Mr. Shoesmith, issuing these instructions, did not observe that at the mention of Claines Hall, Loose Chippings, Sussex, his young subordinate had started, but he had, and violently. His master's voice had affected him like a powerful electric shock, causing the eyeballs to rotate and everything for an instant to go black. It was only by the exercise of the greatest care that he was able to remove himself from the presence without tripping over his feet, so profoundly had the thought that he was going to see Sally again stirred him. For the rest of the morning and all through his frugal lunch at the Drones he brooded tensely on the situation which had arisen, running, it would not be too much to say, the gamut of his emotions.

At the outset he had been all joy and effervescence, feeling that out of a blue sky Fate had handed him the most stupendous bit of goose and that all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds, but as the time went by doubts began to creep in. Was this, he found himself asking himself, a good show or a bad show? Would seeing Sally alleviate that yearning feeling which so often darkened his days, or - let's face it - would he merely be twisting the knife in the wound, as the expression was? The question was a very moot one, and it is not surprising that those of his clubmates who threw lumps of sugar at him during the meal commented on his lack of sparkle and responsiveness.

On the whole, though it was a close thing, he was inclined to think that the show's goodness outweighed its badness. Agony, of course, to see her face to face and think of what might have been, but on the other hand there was always the chance that Time the great healer might have been doing its stuff, softening her heart and causing better counsels to prevail.

His mood, in consequence, as he made his way to Victoria and bought his ticket, was on the whole optimistic. Many a girl, he told himself, who in the heat of the moment had handed her loved one the pink slip, finds after thinking it over in the privacy of her chamber in the course of sleepless nights that what she had supposed to be a sound, rational move was in reality the floater of a life-time. Remorse, in short, supervenes, and when the rejected one suddenly pops up out of a trap before her, her eyes widen, her nose twitches, her lips part, she cries, 'Oh, Freddie darling!' and flings herself into his arms, and all is gas and gaiters again.

The day was Friday, never a good day for travelling, and the congestion in all parts of the station had extended itself to the train for Loose Chippings. It bulged at every seam with human sardines. Faced with a choice between compartments filled with outsize adults and those where the adults were more streamlined but were accompanied by children, he chose one of the former. Only standing-room remained in the little Black Hole of Calcutta which he had selected, so he stood, and from this elevation was able to see his fellow-travellers steadily and see them whole.

There were eight of them, three men who looked like farmers, three women who looked like farmers' wives, a man in black who might have been an undertaker in a modest line of business, and over in the far corner a small, trim girl who was reading a magazine. She immediately arrested Freddie's attention. There was something about her that reminded him of Sally. Extraordinarily like Sally she was, from what he could see of her, and the next moment he was able to understand why there was such a resemblance.