Chapter XIII
Lt was not until late on the following morning that Sally learned from Lord Holbeton of the stirring doings which had enlivened the watches of the previous night. She had breakfasted early and he, nature having taken its toll of the tired frame, had breakfasted late. He found her eventually in the stable -}'ard, preparing to set out for London in the two-seater, and proceeded to pour forth his tale, omitting no detail, however slight. In particular, he stressed more than was perhaps actually essential what might be termed the Pekinese motif. Women love men for the dangers they have passed, but Sally could not help feeling that there was no need for him to show her the sore place on his leg three times.
Having already observed that the portrait of Mrs Chavender was still in its frame, she had, of course, been prepared for a record of failure, and she was fair-minded enough, now that the circumstances had been placed before her, to recognize that the failure had been an honourable one. A man can but do his best, and in enterprises of the type which her betrothed had undertaken privacy is the first essential. She quite realized that he could not have been expected to operate successfully with butlers popping in all the time
Nevertheless, though she tried to fight against it, she could not check a certain sense of disappointment. Perhaps it was that other story which he had told her yesterday, of his race for life in the drive, that coloured her view. At any rate, she was left with the feeling, coming to her now for the first time and giving her an uncomfortable shock as if scales had fallen from her eyes, that Lord Holbeton, though svelte and willowy and unquestionably good at singing "Trees," was not quite the man she had thought him. "Feet of clay" was the distasteful phrase that forced itself on the mind.
Having sympathized with her loved one's sore leg and declined, though cordially invited to do so, to look at it for the fourth time, she applied herself to the problem of what was to be done next.
Her immediate impulse was to seek out Mr Duff and make a report. After that unfortunate affair in the drive, she felt, he must be needing reassurance that his interests were being· looked after.
But her time was not her own. Mrs Steptoe having suddenly decided that in the matter of extra help for the garden party it would be madness to trust to local talent, she was being dispatched to London to engage metropolitan waiters, hard-bitten and experienced veterans who could be relied on.
The quest for these occupied the whole of the early afternoon, and the hands of the church clock were pointing to half-past four as she entered Loose Chippings on her homeward journey. And she was just speculating on the chances of Mr Duff being at the Rose and Crown at this hour when she saw him in the High Street.
He was standing in a sort of trance, staring at the statue of the late Anthony Briggs.
To those who find themselves marooned in Loose Chippings about the only thing offered in the way of mental stimulus is the privilege of looking at the statue erected by a few friends and admirers to the memory of the late Anthony Briggs, J. P., for many years Parliamentary representative for the local division. You can walk up the High Street and look at it from the front, or you can walk down the High Street and look at it from the back. ( By standing in the middle of the High Street you can also look at it sideways, but this is a technicality which need not detain us. ) Mr Duff at the moment was looking at it from the front but without any sensation of uplift. Even if you are interested in statues of members of Parliament their fascination tends to relax its grip after you have seen them forty or fifty times. For Mr Duff the late Anthony Briggs had definitely lost his magic. He was also feeling that he had seen all that he wanted to of Loose Chippings.
And he was just thinking what a real pleasure it would be to touch off a stick of dynamite under the late Anthony Briggs and more generally-that it would be all right with him if the entire town of Loose Chippings were to be submerged in molten lava like the Cities of the Plain, when he heard his name called by a feminine voice, and the hideous thought that it was Mrs Chavender who had spoken brought him out of his meditations, quivering in every limb.
"Oh, it's you," he said, relieved.
"Can I talk to you, Mr Duff?" said Sally.
"Sure," said Mr Duff. He did not like talking to girls, but it was something to do.
"Will you give me some tea?"
"If you like."
"There's a place just along here. The Gardenia."
Mr Duff was familiar with it or at least with its exterior. The Gardenia Tea Shoppe stood almost immediately opposite the Rose and Crown, and many a time had he shied like a startled horse at the sight of the tiers of disgusting, bilious-looking pastry displayed in its window. Left to himself, he would have avoided an establishment the mere appearance of which made him feel that his indigestion- was coming on again, but he supposed that if his companion wanted to go there he must humour her. He climbed into the car, and they drove off.
Like all tea shoppes in English country towns the Gardenia was hermetically sealed. No crevice in its walls allowed fresh air to steal in and dilute its peculiar atmosphere. A warm, sickly scent of buns and cake and hot bread and chocolate seemed to Mr Duff to twine itself about him as he entered, and he closed his eyes with a faint shudder. Coming back to this world after an interval of semiconsciousness, he found that the ladylike waitress had set their repast before them.
"I ordered buns," said Sally, who had the healthy appetite of youth. "Do you like buns?"
"I do not like buns," said Mr Duff.
''I'm sorry. Some fancy cakes, please."
"Fancy cakes, right," said the ladylike waitress.
"Couldn't touch 'em," moaned Mr Duff.
"Oh, but you must," urged Sally, "now they're here. I can't eat alone. Just one."
"Well, one," said Mr Duff weakly. "You like to hear what this is going to do to me? Just going to kill me, that's all."
He picked feebly at the gruesome lump of cream and pastry which had been placed before him, then, catching the waitress's eye, attacked it with more animation. She was a tall, severe young woman with pince-nez, and there was something about her that reminded him of ·a strong-willed nurse of childhood days who had always made him eat his fat.
They sat for some moments in silence. Sally, though consumed with curiosity about the moustache, forbore to make any reference to it. Deciding that it was one of those painful disfigurements to which one cannot allude, she finished her tea and came to business.
"Well," she said brightly, for she had determined to be bright,
"I suppose you are wondering what has been happening?"
Mr Duff, before replying, sent a questing tongue in search of a piece of the fancy cake which had adhered to the outskirts of the foliage. He secured it at length, but the struggle had been a hard one and had deepened the moroseness of his mood.
"I know what's been happening," he said with a snort. "That young loafer you say you want to marry has been running like a rabbit every time I get near him."
"Yes, he told me about that. But, you see-"
''I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If George Holbeton had two ounces more brain, just two ounces more, he would be half-witted. The poor wet smack!"
Not for the first time Sally found this man's conversation an irritant.
"Don't call him a poor wet smack!"
"If you only knew what I'd like to call him."
"Of course he ran away. Who wouldn't, with people bounding out at him on every side with false moustaches on? He thought you were a homicidal maniac. George is very high-strung."
"You couldn't string him too high for me."
Sally was silent for a space. Prudence had whispered to her that it were wiser not to say what she would have liked to say. Whatever his spiritual defects, J. B. Duff was the man who signed the cheques and must at all costs be conciliated. She wrestled with her better self and finally succeeded in bringing it to the surface by the scruff of its neck.
"Well, anyway," she said with the strained sweetness of a g
irl of spirit who is keeping that spirit under with an effort almost too great for her frail strength, "he hasn't just been sitting around, doing nothing. He's full of zeal. He had a try for the portrait last night."
"And didn't get it, I'll bet."
"It wasn't his fault. The butler came in with a battle-axe. He is going to try again."
"He needn't. You can tell him it's off. I've made other arrangements."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say. I've put the matter in other hands."
·
"Whose?"
"Never mind."
Sally gave a little jump.
"Not Mr Weatherby's?"
"Yes. He's attending to the whole thing."
Sally sat biting her lip. Her face was grave. This, she could not but feel, was serious. Brief though her acquaintance with Joss had been, she had seen enough of him to be aware that he would be a formidable rival.
"Now there," proceeded Mr Duff, "is a young fellow that amounts to something. I don't say he isn't as fresh as an April breeze. He is. I don't say I haven't often wanted to hit him with a brick. I have. But I do say he's got getup in him. Enterprise. Resource. Look," said Mr Duff in a sort of ecstasy, "at the way he bounced me out of my office that time, just because he didn't want me giving him hell in front of you. Quick as a flash. Why you don't marry him, instead of fooling around with your string bean of a Holbeton, beats me."
Sally smiled a wintry smile.
"He hasn't asked me."
"He will."
"And if he did I should remind him that we are practically strangers."
"He says he's crazy about you."
"And if that wasn't enough I should add that I love George."
"Now why?" mused Mr Duff, mystified. "I can't understand how you get that idea. I wonder if in the whole of England there is a fatter-headed chump than George Holbeton. Maybe. Somewhere.
Take a bit of finding though."
It is not often that a girl has occasion to grind her teeth, but Sally did so now. With a stupendous effort she once more forced herself to remain courteous. Her better self had made a dive for freedom, but she grabbed it just in time and dragged it back, kicking and struggling.
"But, Mr Duff, you must be fair. If George gets the portrait—"
"He won't."
"Well, suppose I do?"
"You?"
"Yes. If I do will you keep your promise and give George his money?
Her words had opened up new vistas to Mr Duff. He saw no objection whatever to a little competition. A corps of assistants is better than a single assistant. Quite possibly, he reflected, this enterprise might be one of those things which require the woman's touch.
"Sure," he said. "A bargain's a bargain."
"Then you can expect it tomorrow."
"As soon as that?"
"Tomorrow evening at about this time."
"You seem pretty certain of yourself."
4'1 am."
"Don't forget young Weatherby will be working against you."
"I don't care who's working against me. And now I must be going. Mrs Steptoe is giving a big garden party tomorrow, and she will be wanting me."
It was in a somewhat more optimistic mood that Mr Duff left the Gardenia Tea Shoppe and crossed the street to the Rose and Crown. In the lounge he found Joss waiting for him. To Joss, as well as to Sally, it had occurred that his principal ought to be informed at an early date of the night's doings. Mr Duff, as he saw it, was rather in the position of a mastermind of the criminal world directing a gang of pock-marked Mexicans, and such persons like to keep in touch.
"Oh, it's you," said Mr Duff, regarding his young friend without enthusiasm. The fancy cake had begun to put in its deadly work, and that brief spurt of happiness had already died away, leaving behind it a leaden despondency.
This despondency was not lessened by the fact that his companion was looking as disgustingly tit and cheerful as ever. In spite of last night's bit of bad news there was nothing of the heartbroken lover about Joss. He was, as has been indicated before, a resilient young man, and though Mrs Chavender's sensational revelation had given him an unpleasant jolt at the moment, he had quickly recovered from the blow. He had seen Lord Holbeton here and there about the place since his arrival at Claines Hall, and he declined to believe that a girl like Sally could really love a man like that. Just one of those absurd misunderstandings, · he felt, over which they would have a good laugh later.
"Come to give you the latest news, J. B.," he said. "I thought you would like to have it. Let's step into the bar parlour. It's quieter there, and you look as if you could do with a quick shot."
It being Miss Pym's afternoon off, the bar parlour was being presided over by a potboy; and though this robbed it of much of its social glitter, Joss was not sorry that the future Mrs Chibnall was absent. There are moments when one likes to sit exchanging light nothings with charming women, others when the business note must be stressed. He ordered a small draught ale for himself and for his companion, whom he saw to be in need of something more authoritative, a double brandy and split soda. This done, he delivered his report.
"In a word," he concluded, "fortune did not smile. "But you will be glad to learn that I propose to make another attempt tomorrow. News may have reached you of a garden party that will 88
break out at the Hall in the afternoon. That will be my hour, J. B.
Not a soul around. Everybody out on the lawn, swilling tea and sucking down strawberries. I shall be able to saunter in and help myself at my leisure."
Mr Duff seemed to think well of the idea. It occurred to him that Sally, speaking so confidently of delivering the portrait on the morrow, must also have had in her mind the strategic possibilities offered by a garden party.
"I suppose that's what that girl was planning," he said. "She seemed pretty sure of delivering the goods."
"What girl?"
"The one you're stuck on. I've forgotten her name. Little shrimp with blue eyes."
Joss raised his eyebrows.
"Are you by any chance alluding to Miss Fairmile?"
"That's right. Fairmile. That's the name."
"Then, for your information, she is not a little shrimp."
"She is too."
"She is not. I've seen shrimps, and I've seen Miss Fairmile, and there is no resemblance whatever. If what you are trying to say in your uncouth way is that she is as tiny and graceful as a Tanagra figurine then I am with you. But this loose talk about shrimps must cease and cease immediately. What do you mean about her saying she would deliver the goods?"
"I met her just now. She yoo-hooed at me from her car, and we got to talking. She's engaged to a fellow I'm trustee for. Young chap named Holbeton."
"So I hear. Damned silly idea, isn't it? Of course she'll have to break it off. We can't have that sort of thing going on."
"And she said that if I would give him his money, so that they could get married, she would swipe that portrait for me."
"To which you very properly replied that the matter was in the hands of your accredited agent?"
"No, I didn't. I told her to go right ahead."
Joss was shocked.
"You mean you encouraged her in this mad scheme? You weren't appalled at the thought of that lovely girl marrying a bird who looks as if he were trying to swallow a tennis ball?"
"Matter of fact, I told her she was a fool to have anything to do with him. I said she ought to marry you."
"You did? Then I'm sorry I called you a louse."
"You didn't."
"Well, I was just going to. So you advised her to marry me,
89
eh?'' said Joss, laying an affectionate hand on his companion's knee. "You advised her to marry me, did you old pal?"
"Sooner than him," said Mr Duff, moving the knee. "Personally, if I was a girl I'd rather be dead in a ditch than marry either of you.
"Another double brandy for this gentleman," said Joss to the potboy.
"And slip a shot of some little-known Asiatic poison in it.
You're a hard nut, J. B. I suppose there is a heart of gold beneath that rugged exterior of yours, but I should require more than a verbal assurance on the point."
Mr Duff regarded his glass dubiously.
"I don't know if I ought to have another. If I'm not in for one of my dyspeptic attacks the signs have got me fooled. It's the cooking in this joint. Passes belief. You'd think they'd have learned to fry an egg by now. Well, all right, since it's here."