Summer Moonshine (26 page)

'Oh?' she said. 'Well, you'd both best be looking out for new jobs. . . . Sir Buckstone, you're going to fire these two.'

'Eh?'

'You heard me. They're fired.'

For a moment Sir Buckstone was too stunned for utterance.

'But they have behaved splendidly. Magnificently, dash it. You don't understand, my dear lady. This is a frightful bounder named Peake. A scoundrel of the worst description.'

'Indeed? Well, may I inform you that he is the man whom I am going to marry?'

'What!'

'Yes.'

'Peake is?'

'Yes.'

'You're going to marry Peake?'

She ignored his babblings.

'Are you hurt, Adrian?'

'Yes, Heloise.'

'Come with me and I will bathe your eye.'

'Thank you, Heloise.'

'But before I do,' said the Princess, ceasing to be the angel of mercy and allowing a familiar note of grimness to creep into her voice, 'you will explain how you come to be here, running about back stairs.'

Adrian Peake had rather anticipated that sooner or later some such statement would be required of him, and he was ready for it.

'I came down here to be near you, Heloise. I knew how much I should miss you. I was going to stay at the inn. I went for a stroll by the river, and I happened to meet Tubby. We thought we would like a bathe, as the afternoon was so warm. So we bathed. And when we came out we found that somebody had stolen our clothes. Tubby suggested that we should wait till everybody was at dinner and creep into the Hall and he would get some more from his room. He told me to wait, and I waited, but he didn't come back, so I went to look for some myself. I went into one of the bedrooms, and put on somebody's suit, and then somebody came and found me, and I lost my head and ran away.'

It was not the sort of story likely to be immediately credible to one of the Princess Dwornitzchek's scepticism. She eyed him narrowly.

'Is this true?'

'Yes, Heloise.'

'It sounds most peculiar to me.'

'You can ask Tubby.'

'Where is he?'

'I don't know.'

'Theodore is in the pantry' said Miss Whittaker, 'eating ham.'

'Theodore?' The Princess, who had started at this helpful remark, spoke coldly. It is not easy to look at a modern business girl as if she were something slimy that has suddenly manifested itself from under a flat stone, but she was contriving to do so. 'And why, may I ask, do you refer to my stepson as Theodore?'

'He is the man I love,' replied Miss Whittaker simply. 'We are engaged to be marrahed.'

The Princess Dwornitzchek drew in a long, hissing breath, then expelled it more slowly. Her eyes were glittering, as many a head waiter in many a restaurant had seen them glitter when something had gone wrong with the service. As Jane had said, she was not fond of humble working girls. The Cinderella story had never been one of her favourites.

'Indeed?' she said. 'How romantic! You're some sort of damned secretary or something, aren't you?'

It was not precisely the way in which Miss Whittaker would have described herself, but she replied equably:

'Quale.'

The Princess Dwornitzchek turned to Sir Buckstone with a sweeping gesture.

'So!' she said.

There are very few men capable of remaining composed and tranquil when a woman is saying 'So!' at them, especially when a sweeping gesture accompanies the word. Napoleon could have done it, and Henry VIII, and probably Jenghiz Khan, but Sir Buckstone was not of their number. He collapsed abruptly into his chair, as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt.

'So this is how you have looked after my stepson! I leave him in your charge while I go away for a few weeks, and I come back and find him engaged to your secretary! With your complete approval, no doubt.' She turned to Pollen. 'Tell my chauffeur to bring the car round immediately. I am returning to London.'

The butler melted away, glad to go, and she resumed the basilisk stare which she had been directing at Sir Buckstone.

'I have changed my mind,' she said. 'I am not buying the house.' A low moan escaped the stricken man. She swung round menacingly on Miss Whittaker. 'And as for you—'

Into Miss Whittaker's mind there floated an expression which her Theodore had used at the conclusion of that little unpleasantness of theirs over the brown-paper parcel. At the time she had thought it vulgar, and had said so. But now it seemed to her the only possible expression for such an emergency as this. She saw that there were occasions when Kensington could do nothing and only the nervous English of Broadway would serve.

'Ah, nerts!' she said.

'What?'

'Ah, nerts!' repeated Miss Whittaker, in a quiet, respectful voice.

There is probably no really good reply to this remark, but the Princess Dwornitzchek made one of the worst ones. She struck Miss Whittaker with her jewelled hand. The next moment, she found herself helpless in the grip designed for the discouragement of footpads, and an irresistible force propelled her to the door.

'Let me go!' she cried.

'Certainly not,' said Miss Whittaker. 'I am taking you to your room, and they-ah you will remain until the car arrives.'

'Adrian! Help me!'

Adrian Peake wavered. Like some knight of old, he had been offered an opportunity of battling for his lady, but eyeing Prudence Whittaker, he hesitated to avail himself of it, though well aware that if he did not, there would be a bitter reckoning later. Miss Whittaker's face was calm, but there was quiet menace in the sidelong glance which she cast at him. It was the glance of a girl who would require only the slightest provocation to kick a fellow on the shin.

'Well, I – er – ah—' he said.

He followed his betrothed and her escort from the room. The sound of their passing died away along the corridor.

Sir Buckstone rose slowly from his chair. There was a sort of tentative caution in the way he moved his limbs, as if he had been a corpse rising from the tomb. In his eyes, a spectator, had one been present, would have noted a glassiness. He went to the French window and opened it, and stood there, allowing the night breeze to play upon his forehead – a forehead which had seldom been in greater need of cooling. He passed one hand to the top of his skull, as if he feared lest it might split asunder.

'Gor,' he said in a low voice.

Something glimmered in the darkness outside.

'Buck!'

Jane stood there gazing at him, concerned. She had been on the terrace, looking down on the river, and his figure at the lighted window had drawn her. She was feeling forlorn, and she had hoped to find relief in a chat with a parent whose conversation, though seldom touching heights of brilliance, was always comforting. And it seemed that his need of comfort was greater than hers. She thrust aside the thoughts which had been tearing her like barbed things.

'Good gracious, Buck, what's the matter?'

Sir Buckstone moved heavily from the window.

'Oh, hullo, Jane. Come in, my dear.'

He turned to the desk, and Jane slipped into the room like a white shadow.

'What's happened, Buck?'

Sir Buckstone seated himself at the desk. In this heaving earthquake which was disintegrating his world, the padded chair was agreeably solid.

'She isn't going to buy the house. The Princess. She's called it all off and is going back to London.'

'What? But why?'

Sir Buckstone marshalled his thoughts:

'Well, she thought it was my fault that her stepson got engaged to Miss Whittaker. And then she didn't like Pollen blacking Peake's eye.'

'What?'

'She's going to marry the fellow, you see.'

'What?'

Sir Buckstone quivered slightly.

'Don't keep saying "What?" my dear,' he said, with the manner of one keeping a strong grip on himself. 'If you say "What?" just once more, the top of my head will fly off.'

He had turned away to pick up a pencil which it was his intention to break in half – a poor palliative for the agonies he was suffering, but the best he could think of at the moment – and so did not see the sudden light that came into his daughter's face. It was as if a shutter had been opened in a lighted room.

'The Princess is going to marry Adrian?'

A sudden recollection came to Sir Buckstone. He rose and moved round the desk. He regarded her commiseratingly It still seemed to him almost incredible that any daughter of his should have fallen in love with Adrian Peake, but Mr Bulpitt had made the announcement authoritatively, as one having inside information, so he supposed it must be true.

'I'm sorry. I hope you're not feeling too bad about it, Jane.'

'I could sing. I will, too, if you'll join in the chorus.'

Sir Buckstone gaped.

'Eh? But aren't you in love with this blighter Peake?'

'Who told you that?'

'That blighter Bulpitt.'

'He got the names mixed. I'm in love with the blighter Joe.'

'Joe Vanringham?'

'That's the one.'

'You don't mean it?'

'I certainly do.'

'Jane! I'm delighted.'

'I thought you would be. You like him, don't you?'

'Took to him at once. Capital chap. Splendid fellow. And – er – rich. Not that that matters, of course.'

'It's lucky it doesn't, because he isn't. He hasn't a bean.'

'What?'

At least, I don't think he has. But, as you say, what does it matter? Love's the thing, Buck. Makes the world go round.'

The world was going round Sir Buckstone with an unpleasant jerky movement.

'But that play of his—'

'Oh, that's all off.'

'Off?'

'I can't stop to explain now. I've got to telephone him.'

'But, dash it—'

'Out of the way, Buck, or I'll trample you in the dust. Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe! For the last time, Buck, will you get back to your basket and stop twining yourself round my feet? . . . Thank you. That's better. . . . Oh, sorry, Mr Chinnery.'

She rushed from the room, and Mr Chinnery, who had been entering and had received the impact of her weight on his protruding waistcoat, stood for a moment panting like a dog. Then he recovered himself. He had news to impart which made collisions with stampeding girls relatively unimportant.

'Abbott!'

'Well?'

'Abbott, that man Bulpitt is in the house! I've seen him.'

'So have I.'

'But jiminy Christmas!'

Sir Buckstone, who, in the excitement of listening to his daughter's revelations had forgotten to break his pencil, now did so.

'I wish you wouldn't come charging into my study like this, Chinnery,' he said. 'I know Bulpitt is in the house. And it doesn't
matter a damn. Not now. That breach-of-promise business is off. They've made it up.'

'They have?'

'Yes.'

'That girl and young Vanringham?'

'Yes.'

'And the Princess hasn't found out that young Vanringham was being sued?'

'No.'

Mr Chinnery subsided into a chair.

'Phew! What a relief! When I saw Bulpitt coming down those stairs a moment ago, I near swooned. Then everything's fine.'

'Splendid.'

There's nothing now to stop the Princess buying the house.'

'Nothing. By the way,' said Sir Buckstone, glad at the prospect of having a companion in misfortune, 'she has decided not to.'

'What?'

'Everybody says "What?"' grumbled Sir Buckstone.

Mr Chinnery was heaving like a stage sea.

'She isn't going to buy the house?'

'No.'

'And you won't be getting any money?'

'Not a penny.'

'Then how about my five hundred pounds?'

'Ah,' said Sir Buckstone buoyantly. That's what we'd all like to know, wouldn't we?'

In the silence which followed, Lady Abbott entered the room. Behind her, neatly dressed in one of Tubby's suits, came Mr Bulpitt.

Sir Buckstone and Mr Chinnery, perhaps naturally in the circumstances, were not in that serene frame of mind which
enables a man to be a close observer, but if they had been they would have noted that, since they had seen her last, a subtle change had taken place in Lady Abbott's demeanour. She had lost to quite a perceptible extent that statuesque calm which gave people meeting her for the first time the sensation of being introduced to some national monument. If such an idea had not been so absurd, one would have said that she was excited.

'Sam wants to talk to you, Buck,' she said.

The momentary exhilaration which had come to Sir Buckstone as the result of the shattering of Mr Chinnery's daydreams had already ebbed. He looked at his brother-in-law bleakly. The man was no longer a force for evil, but he did not find himself liking him any the more for that. He resented particularly the disgusting grin which was distorting his face. That anyone should be grinning at a moment when he had failed to sell the home of his ancestors and had been informed by his daughter that she was marrying a man without a bean seemed, to Sir Buckstone, intolerable.

'I don't want to talk to him!' he cried passionately. 'I don't want to talk to anyone but you! Get him out of here, and get Chinnery out of here, and let's relax! Toots, that damned woman isn't going to buy the house!'

'No, but Sam is.'

'Eh?'

'That's what he wants to talk to you about.'

It was twenty-five years since Lady Abbott had danced – if that word can legitimately be used to describe the languid stirrings of the lower limbs which used to afflict the personnel of the ensembles of musical comedies at the conclusion of a number in the days when she had earned her living on the stage – but she seemed to Sir Buckstone to be dancing now.

'He wants to turn it into a country club.'

'That's my line now, you see, Lord Abbott. Night clubs and country clubs. I took over the holdings of the late Elmer Zagorin.'

'He was a millionaire—'

'Multimillionaire,' corrected Mr Bulpitt, who liked exactness of speech. 'I'll tell you about him and the way he got mixed up with me. Quite a romance. He was the only guy I ever set out to plaster that I didn't plaster, and at the time I first started out to plaster him, he was suffering from onwee. Couldn't seem to get no enjoyment out of his riches. And then I started after him with the papers in connection with this suit for forty dollars for hair restorer, and it kind of gave him a new grip on things. He didn't have it long, poor stiff, because he croaked suddenly while in the act of laughing his head off at the way he'd fooled me. Heart failure. But he was grateful to me to the last.'