The Girl in Blue (14 page)

Vera’s
despondency vanished as speedily as her mother’s had done. There was no reason
now to complain of any lack of enthusiasm on her part. It was in a very
different tone that she repeated her remark that the idea was a wonderful one.

‘But I
can’t go for a few days. I must buy dresses and things.’

‘Buy
all you want, my dream girl,’ said Dame Flora cordially. ‘Let there be no
stint. Our aim is to knock Homer Pyle’s eye out.’

2

While Homer with his
failure to co-operate was giving Vera and her mother such cause for concern,
the eccentric behaviour of G. G. F. West was proving an equal source of
annoyance to Jane Hunnicut. His telegram cancelling the dinner to which she had
been looking forward so eagerly, without a word of explanation except that he
was going to the country, had left her, as the expression is, fuming. She was a
sweet-tempered girl — you have to be to keep smiling at the Mr Donahues who
travel by air — but she was conscious of a well-defined urge to hit him on his
ginger head with a brick.

Why the
country? What did he want to go to the country for? Whereabouts in the country?
How long was he going to be in the country? It occurred to her that there was
an authority who could probably give the answer to these questions, his uncle ‘Willoughby.
Telephoning his office, she was told that he had left, presumably to go home.
She took a taxi to 31 Chelsea Square, still fuming.

‘Willoughby was in his
study, a cigar between his lips and a refreshing whisky-and-soda at his side.
He was re-reading a letter which had come for him that morning from his nephew
Gerald. He had read it twice in the course of the day, and each time, except
for the postscript, with the same feeling of satisfaction. It is always
gratifying to an executive to know that the subordinate to whom he has
entrusted a delicate commission is proving himself worthy of his confidence.

Things’
(Jerry wrote) ‘ought to be beginning to move soon. Yesterday and today it has
been raining all the time and Mrs Clayborne hasn’t stirred from her
sitting-room, so of course I couldn’t do anything, but I heard her tell Uncle
Crispin that she was going to the village tomorrow to have tea with the vicar,
with whom she has apparently got matey. As soon as she is out of the way I
shall start my search. Her having a suite will make it more difficult, because
there are so many more places where one has to look, but if she’s swilling tea
at the vicarage I shall have plenty of time.

‘I
still think you must be mistaken in supposing she was the one who swiped your
miniature. She is a charming woman. The first thing she did when I arrived was
to kiss me on both cheeks and tell me to call her Barney. She said she hoped I
had recovered from that lunch, and she asked most affectionately after you. She
may be a shoplifter, though you’ve probably got the story all wrong, but I’ll
swear she isn’t the sort to pinch things from a house where she’s staying as a
guest. However, you sent me here to search her room, so I’ll search it.

‘It’s a
long time since I was at Mellingham, but it seems much the same, except that I
think Uncle Crispin is going off his onion. He acts as if he had something on
his mind and starts at sudden noises. Yesterday I came into the library and he
was standing there in a sort of trance and didn’t see me, and when I cleared my
throat preparatory to saying Well, the rain didn’t seem to show any signs of
stopping, or something bright of that sort, he shot up like a rocketing
pheasant and nearly bumped his head against the ceiling. He has also engaged
the most extraordinary butler, a man of the name of Chippendale who calls one “chum”.
I suppose you have to take what you can get nowadays, but when I look at
Chippendale and remember the stately major domos of my childhood and boyhood, I
feel like turning my face to the wall.

‘P.S.’
(wrote Jerry) ‘Don’t you think the miniature might be in your study somewhere?
A puff of wind might have blown it to the floor. Have you looked everywhere?’

It was
as ‘Willoughby finished reading this postscript and was thinking that in the
matter of weakness of intellect his nephew Gerald had much in common with his
brother Crispin that Jane arrived.

He
greeted her cordially. He had become very fond of her in the course of their
brief acquaintance. Girls of her age group he tended as a rule to shun, but
there was something about her that had appealed to him from the first.

‘Come
in and take a seat, drunken sailor,’ he said welcomingly. ‘And if my form of
address puzzles you, I had in mind the way you’ve been spending money since you
hit the jackpot.’

The
charge had substance. Her sudden access to wealth had left Jane dizzy, but not
so dizzy as to be unable to go through London’s emporia like a devouring flame.
Her expenditure guaranteed by the firm of Scrope, Ashby and Pemberton, she had
bought several dresses, several hats, an expensive car and some nice bits of
bijouterie in Bond Street. Willoughby’s comparison of her to an inebriated
seaman on shore leave was not inaccurate. ‘Writers through the ages have made a
good many derogatory remarks about money, and one gets the impression that it
is a thing best steered clear of, but every now and then one finds people who
like the stuff and one of these was Jane. It seemed to her to fill a long-felt
want.

‘I
suppose you’ve come now,’ said Willoughby, ‘to tell me you’ve decided to buy an
estate in the country and you want Scrope, Ashby and Pemberton to advance the
cash for it. If so, let me recommend Mellingham Hall, Mellingham-in-the-Vale.
Desirable Elizabethan residence, gravel soil, company’s own water, spreading
parklands and a lake. And I believe my brother Crispin could be induced to
sell.’

Jane
promised to bear it in mind.

‘But at
the moment,’ she said, ‘all I want from Scrope, Ashby and Pemberton is
information concerning G. G. F. West.’

‘What
do you want to know about him?’

‘Where
he is, and what he means by going there when we were supposed to be having
dinner together tomorrow night. It was all set, and I get a telegram from him
saying it’s off because he’s gone to the country.’

‘Yes,
to my brother’s house, the one you’re going to buy. He left very suddenly.’

‘But
why? When we had this dinner date.’

‘On a
diet perhaps, do you think? Fleeing from temptation. ‘Jane uttered a cry. A
bright light had flashed upon her. She eyed Willoughby narrowly.

‘Did
you tell him about my money?’

‘I did.
Why not?’

Then I
see what’s happened. He’s got scruples about marrying a rich girl and, as you
say, is fleeing from temptation.’

‘As in
the stories in women’s magazines?’

‘Exactly.
Don’t you think I’m right?’

‘I
shouldn’t wonder. He’s ass enough for anything.’

‘Mr
Scrope, you are speaking of the man I love.’

‘Oh,
you do love him?’

‘Of
course I do. Who wouldn’t?’

‘I for
one. He writes people letters with idiotic postscripts. But I’m glad to hear
you love him, because he loves you. He told me he did.’

‘Of
course he does. I can see it in his eye. But he has these scruples.’

‘Yes,
he told me that, too.’

‘What
an ass!’

‘Miss
Hunnicut, you are speaking of the man you love.’

‘And
yet there’s something sweet and wonderful and beautiful about it, don’t you
think?’

‘No.’

‘I mean
there aren’t many men who would let their scruples stand between them and a
million dollars.’

That’s
because most men have sense.

‘Of
course you’ve only got to look at him to see the sort of man he is. Don’t you
think he’s got lovely eyes?’

‘No.’

“What
was he like as a little boy?’

‘Horrible.’

‘Well,
there’s only one thing to be done. I must go to this Mellingham place and
overcome those scruples. Can you give me a letter of introduction to your
brother?’

‘It won’t
be necessary. He takes in paying guests.’

‘How
very convenient. So I just ring the front door bell and walk in?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Goodbye
then, Mr Scrope. I won’t take up more of your valuable time.’

‘Always
a pleasure to see you. Drop in again if you want to buy Buckingham Palace or
anything like that. Scrope, Ashby and Pemberton are always at your service.

For
some moments after Jane had left, Willoughby, with a new cigar and another
whisky-and-soda, sat bathed in the sentimental. glow which comes to elderly
bachelors when they hear stories of young love. Much though he himself
disapproved of marriage, he was broad-minded and could appreciate that others
might feel differently about it, and it was pleasant to think that his nephew
was going to link his lot with that of a millionairess, for he had no doubt that
Jane Hunnicut would be successful in her efforts to hammer sense into Jerry.
His acquaintance with her had left him with the conviction that she was a girl
who, like the Canadian mounted police, would not fail to get her man.

Good
luck to her, he was saying to himself, when a disturbing thought intruded.
Would her advent divert Jerry’s thoughts and take his mind off his sacred
mission?

His
apprehension did not last long. A clear-thinking man, he saw that he was
disturbing himself unduly. Those scruples of which they had been speaking made
it essential for Jerry that he deliver the goods and so lift himself out of the
poor suitor class by obtaining the trust money. Jane’s presence would act as a
stimulus, urging him on to give of his best and rise to new heights of
endeavour. It was with restored composure that he reached for the telephone.

‘Crips?’

‘Oh, hullo,
Bill.’

‘Just
wanted to tell you, Crips, that I’m sending you another guest, a girl called
Hunnicut, who’s a friend of Jerry’s. And don’t say “Oh, Bill!” like that, as if
I were reporting the death of a favourite aunt. Yes, I know you don’t want
girls about the place, but this one is special. She’s just come into an
enormous fortune and is buying up everything in sight. There’s quite a chance,
if you play your cards right, that she will take the Hall off your hands.’

3

The immediate effect of
this announcement on Crispin was to extract from him a strangled gulp, the
bronchial equivalent of Chippendale’s ‘Cor chase my aunt Fanny up a gum tree’.
For some moments his rigidity was so pronounced that he might have been mistaken
for a statue of himself erected by a few friends and admirers. Then, as the
full beauty of Willoughby’s words penetrated to his consciousness, this
inelasticity gave place to something resembling the animation of a war horse
that has heard the sound of the bugle. The war horse, we are told, when the
sound of the bugle is drawn to its attention, becomes a good deal stirred. It
starts. It quivers. It paws the valley, rejoices in its strength and says ‘Ha,
ha’ among the trumpets, and it was thus, give or take a ‘Ha, ha’ or two, that
Crispin behaved.

Becoming
calmer, he found doubts creeping in. Willoughby, he knew, was far too prone to
say things in a spirit of jest and to joke on serious subjects. This might be
merely his idea of humour. It was a paralysing thought, but there was a way by
which the truth could be ascertained. ‘Willoughby had spoken of this girl as a
friend of his nephew Gerald. Gerald could provide official information
concerning her financial standing. He went in search of him and found him in
the billiards room practising moody canons.

‘Gerald,’
he sad, making him miss an easy one, ‘do you know a girl called Hunnicut?’

The cue
fell from Jerry’s grasp and clattered to the floor. He had an odd illusion that
his heart had leaped from its moorings and crashed against his front teeth. It
was as if the voice of conscience had spoken. Not for ain instant since his
callous cancelling of their dinner engagement had he been free from a corroding
sense of guilt. He saw himself as that lowest of created beings, the man who
asks a girl to dinner and at the last moment stands her up. It was in his
opinion the sort of thing that someone like Benedict Arnold would have done,
and he was trying not to picture what Jane Hunnicut must be thinking of him.

‘Willoughby,’
Crispin continued, ‘says she is coming here.’

Once
again Jerry’s heart executed a Nijinsky leap. He was finding Crispin hard to
focus, and was obliged to blink several times before he could see him steadily
and see him whole. His uncle seemed to be flickering like something in an early
silent picture.

‘Coming
here?’ he heard himself croak.

‘And he
says you know her.’

‘Know
her?’

‘Yes,’
sad Crispin, justifiably irritated, for no uncle likes to converse with a
nephew who models his conversation on that of an echo in the Swiss mountains. ‘Know
her. Do you?’