"No."
"I don't get you, J. B. You speak in riddles. Why aren't you sure?"
"I don't seem able to figure out whether I really committed myself or not."
"Come, come, J. B. You must know if you proposed to her."
"Oh, I didn't do that."
"Then what did you do?"
"Well, lemme tell you," said Mr Duff.
He paused for a moment before proceeding. It was only too plain that it cost him an effort to delve into the past. His attitude towards the past seemed to resemble that of some timid diner in a French restaurant, confronted with his first plate of bouillabaisse.
He shrank from stirring it.
"Well, listen," he said at length. "It was like this. There I was in bed after the worst siege I've ever had. If I attempted to describe to you the agonies r d been suffering through the night you wouldn't believe me."
"But came the dawn, and you perked up?"
"No, I didn't. I felt like the devil. The pain had gone but—"
"—it left you weak. You were white and shaken. Like a sidecar.
All right, push along."
"Don't bustle me."
"I want to get on to the sex interest. I'm waiting for the entrance
of the female star. Did Mrs Chavender come to you as you lay there?"
"Yes. And when the door suddenly opened and there she was, did it nearly slay me!"
"Whereupon—"
"She said, 'Gosh, Jimmy, you look like a rainy Sunday in Pittsburgh!' And I said, 'I feel like a rainy Sunday in Pittsburgh.' And she said, 'Have you been eating something that disagreed with you?'
And I said, 'And how!' And she said, 'Poor old slob, your stomach always was weak, wasn't it? A king among men, but a push-over for the gastric juices, even in the old days.' "
"These were the first words you had exchanged in fifteen years?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I had often wondered what lovers said to one another when they met again after long parting. Now I know.''
"I wish you, wouldn't call us lovers.''
"Well, aren't you?"
"I tell you that's what I'm trying to figure out."
"Did she smooth your pillow?"
"No."
"What did she do?"
"She went around to the drugstore and bought me some stuff that tasted like weed killer. I'm not saying it didn't do me good.
It did. But I'm still feeling as if someone had started a sewage plant in my mouth."
"And then—"
"She sat down, and we kidded back and forth for a while.''
"Along what lines?"
"Well, she said this, and I said that.''
"That's a lot of help."
"What I mean, we talked of old times. Picking up the threads, as it were. 'Remember this?' 'Remember that?' 'Whatever became of old So-and-so?' You know the sort of thing. And then she asked me how I had got that way and I told her."
"How did you get that way?"
"Well, it's a long story."
"Then .don't tell it. Save it up for some evening when I'm head of the art department and you've asked me to drop in for dinner and a chat on general policy."
"Head of the art department?"
"That's what I said.''
"Oh yeah," said Mr Duff with some spirit.
Joss forbore to press the point. It could wait.
"Well, so far," he said, "you seem to have come out of the thing with reasonable credit. If that was all that happened-"
"It wasn't."
"I thought the probe would dig up something sooner or later.
What did happen?"
"Well, I'd finished telling her how I got that way, and she put her hand on my forehead-"
"I thought as much."
"-and said something about I ought to have a wife to look after me. And I said I guessed she was about right."
"Well, then! Well, there you are!"
"You think that committed me?" said Mr Duff anxiously.
"Of course it committed you."
"I didn't mean anything personal," urged Mr Duff. "I was just speaking in general terms."
"You need say no more, J. B. Order the wedding cake."
"Oh gosh!"
"Buy the tickets for the honeymoon trip. Get measured for the hymeneal trousers. Sign up a good minister and make all the arrangements for conscripting the ushers. Good heavens," said Joss, "you go to infinite pains to spread the story that you wanted that portrait because you had been pining for this woman for fifteen years-"
"She hasn't heard that?''
"Of course she has heard it. The whole neighbourhood is ringing with it. Your fidelity is being held up as a mark for the male sex to shoot at by every female in the county. Do you really suppose that on top of a blast of propaganda like that you can tell Mrs Chavender that you need a wife to look after you and expect to carry on with your bachelor existence as if nothing had happened? You astound me, J. B. You're as good as brushing the rice out of your hair at the Niagara Falls Hotel already."
Mr Duff rose. His face was drawn. He moved heavily.
"Come into the bar," he said. "I think I'd like a drink."
It seemed to Joss that Miss Pym, presiding at the fount of supply, was a little nervous in her manner as they stepped up to give their order. Her attractive eyes were large and round, and she showed a disposition to giggle in a rather febrile way. It occurred to him as a passing thought that something in the nature of a spiritual upheaval was taking place inside this puller of beer handles. But neither he nor his companion was in a mood to enquire too closely into the soul states of barmaids. They withdrew with their tankards to a table at the side of the room-a table which, as Miss Pym was so swift to observe, was situated immediately below the little sliding-panel thing.
It was Joss who resumed the conversation, opening it now on a cheerier and more encouraging note.
"What beats me, J. B., is why you are making all this heavy weather about a situation which should, one would have imagined, have set you twining flowers in your hair and doing buck-and-wing dances all over Loose Chippings. Can't you see how lucky you are? She's a wonderful woman. Looks. Brains. A delightful sense of humour. What more do you want? If you ask me, this is a far, far better thing that you do than you have ever done. This is where you begin to live."
Mr Duff was not in the frame of mind to respond to pep talks.
He continued sombre. His resemblance to something carved by Epstein on the morning after a New Year's party had increased rather than diminished.
"It's the whole idea of marriage that gives me that sinking feeling," he said. "It always did. When I proposed I was thinking all the time what a sap I was making of myself. And when she bust our engagement I went around singing like a lark."
It was not merely the nauseating thought of the other singing like a lark that caused Joss to shudder so violently that he spilled his beer. His whole soul was revolted by the man's mental outlook.
"Marriage is the most wonderful thing in the world," he cried warmly, "and only a subhuman cretin with a diseased mind could argue to the contrary. I appeal to you, Miss Pym," he said arriving at the counter to have his tankard refilled.
"Pardon?" said Miss Pym, starting. She had been distrait.
"Isn't marriage a terrific institution?"
"Oo!" said Miss Pym, pouring beer in a flutter.
"Nothing like it, is there?"
"Coo!" said Miss Pym. "Excuse me," she added, and withdrew hastily. Joss returned to the table, feeling that he had made his point.
"You heard her reply to my question? 'Oo!' she said, and 'Coo!'
Those words, straight from a barmaid's unspotted heart, are as complete an endorsement of my views as you could wish to have.
You should take that soul of yours around the corner, J. B., and have it thoroughly cleaned and pressed."
"Look," said Mr Duff, as impervious to honest scorn as he had been to encouragement. "When you get married, what happens? I'll
tell you what happens. Government of the people, by the people, for the people perishes from the earth. That's what happens. You get bossed. You can't call your soul your own. Look at the way she made me take off that moustache. It was a false one and I don't like moustaches anyway, but that shows you. And it's that sort of thing all the time, once you've let them poison-needle you and get you into the church. I like to smoke a mild cigar in bed before dropping off. That'll be out. Same with reading the evening paper at dinner. And what happens when I come back from the office, all tired out, and start reaching for my slippers? It'll be, 'Snap into it and get dressed, Jimmy. Have you forgotten we're dining with the Wilburflosses?' Don't talk to me about marriage."
Joss shook his head.
"You paint a gloomy picture, J. B. I look at it in a different way.
Let me sketch for you a typical day in my married life. I wake up, feeling like a giant refreshed. I spring under the cold shower. I climb merrily into my clothes, and down I go to a breakfast daintily served by loving hands and rendered additionally palatable by that smiling face peeping over the coffeepot. Off to work, buoyed up by the thought that at last I've got something worth working for.
Perhaps we meet for a bite of lunch. Back to work again, right on my toes once more, with her gentle encouragement ringing in my ears. And then the long, restful evening, listening to the radio and discussing the day's doings, or possibly-"
"Look," said Mr Duff, who had been wrapped in thought. ''I've had an idea. Seems to me there's a way out."
"I wish you wouldn't interrupt when I'm talking," said Joss, annoyed. "Now you've made me forget what I was going to say."
"Look."
"And another thing. Generally, when I meet you, you say
'Listen,' and now you're started saying 'Look.' I wish you would decide on some settled policy. One doesn't know where one is."
"Look,'' said Mr Duff. "That time when we were engaged before she called it off just because I happened to mention Paramount Ham once or twice. Well, look. What's she going to do when she finds out I'm using her portrait as a poster for the good old P. H.?"
Joss stared.
·
"You aren't going ahead with that scheme now?"
"I certainly am.''
"I don't envy you when you tell her."
"I shan't tell her. I'll simply rush the thing through, and one fine morning she'll see the walls and billboards plastered with her face. And then what? I'll tell you what. She'll throw fifty-seven fits, and then she'll be on the phone to my office, asking what the hell. And I'll just raise my eyebrows-"
"Over the phone?"
"Over the phone. And I'll say, 'Once and for all, I will not be dictated to. If I want to use your face to advertise Paramount Ham I'll use it-see? If you don't like it you know what you can do about it-see?' Just like that."
"Over the phone?"
"Over the phone. Well, I'm here to tell you that if I know Beatrice that'll be the finish. You brought the portrait with you?"
"'No."
"But I told you to. Don't I get any co-operation? I distinctly said, 'Go find that girl of yours' -1 keep forgetting her name-that little shrimp-"
"I have had to speak to you before about this practice of yours of alluding to Miss Fairmile as a-"
"'-and get it from her,' I said."
"I did get it from her."
"Then where is it?"
"Hidden in my room."
"Well, go fetch it."
"No, J. B. Before letting you get your hooks on it I wish to talk turkey. You will now accompany me to Claines Hall, and on the way I will state my terms. I warn you in advance that they will be stiff."
At the address mentioned Chibnall, too impatient to wait in his pantry till the summons should come which he was expecting every moment, stood tensely beside the telephone. The bell shrilled in his ear.
"Hullo."
"Sidney?"
"Speaking."
"Are you there?"
"Of course I'm here. Where did you think I was? Riding a bicycle across Africa?"
"You needn't be a crosspatch,"
"I am not a crosspatch."
"Yes, you are a crosspatch."
"I am sorry," said Chibnall, bringing to bear all the splendid Chibnall self-restraint, "if I appear to be exasperated, but I am anxious to hear your news with as little delay as possible."
"Oo. Well—"
"Well?"
"Oo, Sid-nee, it's thrilling!"
"You heard something?"
"Did I? Coo! Talk about plotters!"
"Did they plot?"
"You bet they plotted. Sidney, that Weatherby has got something valuable hidden in his room. And the stout one wants it. And they're coming to the Hall now."
"What!"
"I heard them say so. Weatherby is stating his terms on the way.
They haven't arranged yet how to divide the swag. What are you going to do?"
Chibnall's jaw muscles were working menacingly.
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going straight to that Weatherby's room and search it from top to bottom. And when they get there they'll find me waiting for them."
"Oo! Sid-nee!"
"Yes?"
"They'll murder you."
"They won't. Because if they so much as start trying to I'll jolly well murder them first. I'm going to get a gun from the gun room."
"Oo!"
"I'll hide behind the curtains."
"Coo!"
"And pop out at 'em."
"Well, mind you're careful."
"I'll be careful."
"I don't want to be rung up from the Hail by Mrs Ellis or someone and told that you've been found weltering in your blood."
Chibnall laughed lightly. He found these girlish tremors engaging. He liked women to be feminine.
"I shan't welter in my blood."
"Well, mind you don't," said Miss Pym.
Chapter XIX
THE HOUR of nine-thirty found Claines Hail, dinner over, settled down to what Joss had described to Mr Duff as the long, restful evening. Curtains had been drawn, lamps lit, the radio switched on to an organ recital, and Mrs Steptoe and her Alsatian, Mrs Chavender and her Pekinese and Mr Steptoe and a cat which liked his looks, which seemed odd, but cats are cats, and had attached itself to him in close comradeship, were seated about the library, occupied in their various ways.
Mrs Steptoe was glancing through the morning paper, which until now she had had neither the leisure nor the inclination to peruse. The Alsatian was staring unpleasantly at the cat. The cat was sneering at the Alsatian. Mrs Chavender was reading a novel and scratching her Pekinese's stomach. Mr Steptoe, still practically a stretcher case after hearing what his wife had to say about men who shot craps with the flower of the county, was lying slumped in a chair, thinking of Hollywood.
Sally was not present. She had gone for a walk in the garden.
And Lord Holbeton, unswerving in his resolve to be on the top step of the City and Home Counties Bank when that institution opened its doors for the transaction of business on the morrow, had already left for London.
Mrs Steptoe, refreshed by cocktails and one of Mrs. Ellis's admirable dinners, was feeling better. The agony of that ruined garden party had abated, and the loathing for the human species which had animated her throughout the afternoon and evening had gradually dwindled, until now about the only member of it whom she would have disembowelled with genuine relish was Joss. She could not forgive his behaviour at their last meeting. In fact, she was not trying to.
She had just read in her paper a paragraph containing the hot news that Albert Philbrick ( 39 ) of Acacia Grove, Fulham, had been removed to hospital, suffering from a broken rib and scalp wounds owing to falling down an excavation in the King's Road, Chelsea, and was just thinking in a dreamy way what a capital thing it would be if something like that could happen to the last of her husband's long line of valets, now presumably back in the metropolis, when the door opened
and Chibnall appeared.
Supposing that he had merely flitted in, as butlers do flit in at about_ nine-thirty, to remove the coffee cups, she was surprised when, instead of buckling down to this domestic duty, he advanced and took his stand before her, coughing portentously.