Summer Moonshine (20 page)

'It's my uncle,' she said curtly.

Joe looked at Mr Bulpitt, surprised.

'They want to give him the freedom of the city?'

'They think we knocked him down.'

'Oh?' said Joe, enlightened. 'But we didn't.'

'No.'

'Well, then, here's a thought. Tell 'em so.'

'That woman in the cap keeps saying she saw us.'

'I'll soon put that right. . . . Ladies and gentlemen,' said Joe, stepping on to the running-board, and broke off to thrust Mr Bulpitt back into his seat, the latter having once more got the idea that a few simple words from himself were all that was required to remove these misunderstandings.

He could have made no more unfortunate move. As the injured man disappeared like a golf ball dropping into a hole, all that was best and most chivalrous in the crowd rose to the surface. There was a howl of fury which caused the local policeman, who had just been about to turn into the street, to stop and tie his bootlace.

'Shame!'

'Wotcher doin' to the gentleman?'

'Leave the pore old feller alone!'

'Aren't you satisfied with 'arf killing him?'

Joe was a man whom a rough and eventful life had taught that, no matter how great your personal charm, there are times when the honeyed word is not enough, but must be supplemented by the swift dash for the horizon.

'I think you had better get out of here,' he said. As our revered Buck would say, the natives seemed unfriendly, so we decided not to stay the night. This is the time of year when the inhabitants of Walsingford go in for weird rites and make human
sacrifices to the sun god Ra. This renders them jumpy. You remember, I warned you against coming here.'

Jane agreed with him. She looked at the crowd. After the recent outbursts, a momentary lull had fallen upon its activities, the calm before the storm. It had split into groups which seemed to be discussing the situation and attempting to decide upon plans for the future. The biscuit makers, wearying of making funny noises with their mouths, were looking about them for stones.

'Yes,' she said. 'All right. Get in quick.'

Joe shook his head. She had not understood him.

'"You". Not "we". I will remain and fight a rearguard action.'

Jane's nerves had been a good deal frayed by the unpleasant ordeal of the last ten minutes. They now gave way abruptly.

'Oh, don't be a fool!' she snapped.

'Your retreat must be covered. Recognized military manoeuvre.'

'Come on. Get in. What's the good of posing as the young hero and pretending that you can do anything against a mob like that? You can't tackle fifty men.'

'I shan't try. I'll give you a bit of advice which will be useful to you next time you get into a street fight. Pick on the biggest man in sight, walk straight up to him with your chin out, give him the eye and ask him if he calls himself a gentleman. While he's thinking out the answer, paste him on the jaw. I can guarantee this. It works like magic. The multitude, abandoning its intention of lynching you, form a ring and look on contentedly. After a couple of rounds, half of them are on your side. I've picked my man. That bird in shirt sleeves at the back there, who seems to be searching for a brick. And the joke is that I can see, even from here, that he is not a gentleman. When I spring my
question he will be all taken aback and flustered. He won't know which way to look.'

Jane followed his pointing finger, and sat appalled. The individual to whom he was directing her attention was of such impressive proportions that, had he not decided to earn a living among the biscuits, he might quite easily have become a village blacksmith. She quailed at the sight of the muscles of his brawny arms.

'He'd kill you!'

'Kill
me
? The hero?'

'You can't fight a man that size.'

'The bigger they are, the harder they fall.'

Jane's teeth came together with a click.

'I'm not going to leave you.'

'You are.'

'I won't.'

'You must. This poor bit of human wreckage – pardon me, Mr Bulpitt – can't be left indefinitely without medical assistance. Besides, what good could you do?'

Jane contrived a faint and tremulous smile.

'I could lend moral support.'

His eyes met hers, and she saw that they were glowing.

'Ginger,' he said, 'there is none like you, none. You're a girl of mettle and spirit, a worthy daughter of Buck the Lion Heart. But I just don't want you around. Off you go, and don't come back. Have no concern for me. I shall be all right. One of these days remind me to tell you what I did to Philadelphia Jack O'Brien.'

Jane let in the clutch and the Widgeon Seven began to move slowly forward. A howl of disapproval arose, to be succeeded by a silence. It was broken by a clear voice inquiring of somebody outside Jane's range of vision if he called himself a gentleman.

T
HE
town of Walsingford, though provided almost to excess with public houses, possesses only one hotel of the higher class, the sort that can be considered a suitable pull-up for the nobility and gentry This is the Blue Boar, and it stands immediately across the street from the humbler establishment outside which Joe Vanringham had put his embarrassing question to the man in shirt sleeves. The fastidious find it a little smelly, for the rule against opening windows holds good here as in all English country-town hotels, but it is really the only place where a motorist of quality can look in for a brush-up and a cup of tea. Nowhere else will you find marble mantelpieces, armchairs, tables bearing bead ferns in brass pots and waiters in celluloid collars.

It was at the Blue Boar, accordingly, that the Princess Dwornitzchek, reaching Walsingford on her way to the Hall, directed her chauffeur to stop the Rolls-Royce in order that she might refresh herself before proceeding to her destination. Tea and toast were served to her in the lounge, near a window looking out on the street.

Of the fact that stirring things had been happening in this street only a few minutes before her arrival no indication existed now. The crowd had melted away, some of it into the public
house, the rest about its personal affairs. The woman in the cricket cap had gone to see a sick niece, the man in the bowler hat to buy two pounds of streaky bacon at the grocer's. The charabanc, with the Weasel at its helm, was now some miles away along the London road. A perfect tranquillity prevailed once more.

Tranquil was also the word which would have described the Princess Dwornitzchek, as she sat sipping her tea in the lounge. The room was stuffy, but its closeness did not offend her. The tea was not good, but she had made no complaint. She was as nearly in a mood of amiability as it was possible for her to be. And this was strange, for she was thinking of her stepson Joseph.

Joe had been much in her thoughts these last two days, ever since she had seen his play at the Apollo Theatre. She was anxious to meet him. And she was glancing absently out of the window, wondering where he was and how contact could be established with him, when he suddenly emerged from the door of the public house opposite, at the head of a group of men who either did not own coats or had preferred not to put them on.

Some sort of festive gathering appeared to be breaking up. Even from where she sat, it was impossible not to sense the atmosphere of joviality and camaraderie. Snatches of song could be heard, and an occasional cheer, and the popular centre of the gay throng was plainly Joe. Whatever the party might be, he was unmistakably the life and soul of it. His hand was being shaken a good deal, and his back slapped. There was one extraordinarily large man with a black eye who gave the impression of being devoted to him.

But the pleasantest of functions must end, and presently, with a few parting words and a wave of the hand, Joe detached himself from the group and made for the Blue Boar; to stop, as
he drew near to it, and stand for a moment staring. His eye, raised to the window, had been arrested by the spectacle of the Princess on the other side sipping her tea.

Then he moved on again and disappeared up the steps that led to the door, and a moment later was crossing the lounge to her table.

It was not immediately that either spoke. When a stepson who has left home in anger and a stepmother who has done all but actually speed his going with a parting kick meet again after an extended separation, there is bound to be a constraint.

Joe was the first to speak. 'My dear Princess!'

He was compelled to admit, as he looked at her, that his principal emotion was one of grudging admiration. She was the only person in the world whom he really disliked, but there was no getting away from it that she was wonderful. In some miraculous manner, she had contrived, or seemed to have contrived, to stay the hand of time. She was still, to the outward eye, exactly the same age she had been five years ago, when she had expressed the hope that he would starve in the gutter; eight years ago, when she had first begun to afflict his father; and in all probability ten years before that. She had made it her object in life to achieve perpetual youth, and she had succeeded.

It was not in the Princess Dwornitzchek to remain for long unequal to a situation. She smiled up at him pleasantly, thinking what an impossible young thug he looked. For his recent activities had left Joe a little dishevelled. You cannot brawl with biscuit makers and remain natty.

'Well, Joseph. It seems a long time since we met.'

'Quite a time. But you're as lovely as ever.'

'Thanks. I wish I could say the same of you.'

'I was never your type of male beauty, was I?'

'You were at least clean.'

'You find me a trifle shop-soiled? I'm not surprised. I've just been having a fight. I came in here for a wash.'

'Would you like a cup of tea?'

'I think not, thanks. You might poison it.'

'I came out without my poison today.'

'You didn't know you were going to meet me. It just shows how one should be prepared for everything. Well, if you will excuse me for a minute, I'll go and make myself fit for your society.'

He turned and left the room. She called to the waiter and paid her bill. She was still smiling as she did so, and she tipped the man lavishly. This unexpected meeting had set the seal on her mood of contentment. Presently Joe returned.

'You look much better now,' she said. 'So you have been having a fight?'

'With a delightful fellow named Percy. I didn't get his other name. We went three rounds, in the course of which I blacked his eye and he nearly broke one of my ribs, and then we decided to kiss and make it up. When I saw you, I had just been standing beer to him and a few personal friends. You look very happy, Your Highness.'

'Do I?'

'And I don't wonder. Running into an old friend like this. I suppose you were surprised to see me here.'

'Very.'

'I, on the other hand, was expecting to meet you shortly. I am staying at Walsingford Hall, and heard that you are expected.'

'How do you come to be staying at the Hall?'

'I thought it would be nice being with Tubby. He needs a brother's care.'

'How did you know he was there?'

'Oh, these things get about. He tells me you are thinking of buying the Hall.'

'Yes.'

'My visit will be a short one, then.'

'Extremely short. Are you going back there now? If so, I can give you a lift.'

'Thanks.'

'Unless you have any more street fighting to do?'

'No, I'm through for the day. I hear you have been revisiting New York.'

'Yes. I returned the day before yesterday. I had to go over and see my lawyer about my income tax. The Treasury people were making the most absurd claims.'

'Soaking the rich?'

'Trying to soak the rich.'

'I hope they skinned you to the bone.'

'No. As a matter of fact, I came out of it very well. Have you a cigarette?'

'Here you are.'

'Thank you. Yes, I won out all along the line.'

'You would!'

Once again, Joe was conscious of that reluctant admiration which he had felt at their meeting, and, with it, of the baffled resentment which so often came to those who had dealings with this woman. The effortless ease with which she overrode all obstacles and went complacently through life on the crest of the wave offended his sense of dramatic construction. She was so obviously the villainess of the piece that it seemed inevitable that eventually the doom must overtake her. But it never did. Whoever had started that idea that Right in the end must
always triumph over Wrong had never known the Princess Dwornitzchek.

He watched her as she sat there smoking and smiling quietly at some thought that seemed to be amusing her, and tried to analyse the murderous feelings which she had always aroused in him. She was, as he had said, undefeatable, and he came to the conclusion that it was this impregnability of hers that caused them. She had no heart and a vast amount of money, and this enabled her to face the world encased in triple brass. He had in her presence a sense of futility, as if he were a very small wave beating up against a large complacent cliff. No doubt the officials of the United States Treasury Department had felt the same.

'It's maddening,' he said.

'I beg your pardon?'

'I was only thinking that there seems to be no way in which the righteous can get at you.'

'You look as if you would like to strangle me.'

'No, no,' protested Joe. 'Just beat you over the head with one of these brass pots and watch you wriggle.'

She laughed.

'You appear still to be the same engaging young man.'

'I imagine we've neither of us changed very much.'

'Your circumstances seem to have changed. The last I heard of you, you were a sailor on a tramp steamer.'

'And after that a waiter. And after that a movie extra and a rather indifferent pugilist. I was also, for a time, a bouncer in a New York saloon. That was one of my failures. I started gaily out one night to bounce an obstreperous client, and, unfortunately, he bounced me. This seemed to cause the boss to lose confidence in my technique, and shortly afterwards I sailed for England to carve out a new career. Since then I have been doing pretty well.'

'I am glad to hear that.'

'I bet you are. Yes, I got a job on a paper, and held that for a while, and then I became a sort of stooge or bottle-washer to a publisher of dubious reputation named Busby.'

'You have had quite a full life. Shall we go?'

They started to cross the room.

And since when,' she asked, 'have you been a playwright?'

'You've heard about my play?'

'I have seen it.'

Joe's sense of futility diminished. He glowed a little. It was as if he had been a sportsman shooting at a rhinoceros with an air-gun and one of the pellets had caused the animal to wince. It was true that if his companion had winced, he had not observed it, but he knew her to be a woman who hid her feelings.

'Already? This is very gratifying. What did you think of it?'

'I suppose some people would call it clever.'

'The better element are unanimous on that point. Shall I read you the notices?'

'No, thank you.'

'It's an extraordinary thing. Nobody seems to want to hear those notices. Pretty soon I shall be beginning to think there's a conspiracy. How did it go when you saw it?'

'Very well.'

'House full?'

'Packed.'

And they seemed to be enjoying it?'

'Immensely.'

They came out of the hotel.

'My favourite scene,' said Joe, 'is the one in the second act between the ghastly stepmother and her stepson. Did they like that?'

'Very much.'

'Did you?'

'It amused me.'

'That's good. I aimed to entertain.'

'I have been hoping to meet you, Joseph,' said the Princess, 'because I wanted to discuss that play of yours. We can have a nice, cosy talk about it in the car.'

She slipped gracefully into the Rolls-Royce. Joe followed her. As she settled herself in her seat, he saw that she was smiling that quiet smile again, and, but for the absurdity of supposing that there was any possible way in which she could now do him a mischief, it might have made him uneasy.

He knew that smile from the old days.