‘What about?’
‘Oh, just something I have to tell him. Nice boy, Pickering. We spent the afternoon together.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Chasing girls in taxi cabs.’
‘I thought you didn’t go in for that sort of thing.’
‘As a rule no, but Pickering made a point of it.’
‘Damn fool. Playing with fire.’
‘Would you say that?’
‘Yes, I would say that. If that’s the way he’s going to carry on, he’ll be married before he knows what’s hit him.’
Mr Trout forbore to comment on this sentiment. Lawyers learn to be diplomatic, and he could see that the subject had begun to annoy his friend.
‘You didn’t tell me if Pickering was in,’ he said.
‘No, he went out for a walk, looking like a rainy Sunday in Pittsburgh. Why he was looking like that he didn’t explain.’
‘It’s his love life, I.L. It’s come a stinker.’
‘He doesn’t know his luck.’
A spasm of pain passed over Mr Trout’s face, as if he had been a curate compelled to listen to blasphemy from his vicar. Pursuing his policy of being diplomatic, he said nothing on the subject but in between two dance steps asked if Mr Llewellyn happened to know the name of the girl to whom Joe Pickering had given his heart.
‘Sure,’ said Mr Llewellyn. ‘She interviewed me for her paper. It’s Fitch. Did you ever hear a song of Cole Porter’s—Mister and Mrs Fitch?’
‘No.’
‘Good song. I often sing it in my bath.’
‘Indeed? I would like to hear it.’
‘You must drop in some morning. About half-past nine would be the best time. Bring a raincoat, as I splash about a good deal. It’s one of those songs that need putting over with gestures.’
Mr Llewellyn paused. Mr Trout had begun to float about the room like something out of Swan Lake, and Mr Llewellyn disapproved of this. He was apt to be a martinet in his dealings with his legal advisers, demanding that lawyers should behave like lawyers and leave eccentric dancing to the professionals. A man, he held, is either Fred Astaire or he is not Fred Astaire, and if he is not Fred Astaire he should not carry on like him. For the first time it struck him that there was an oddness in Mr Trout this evening, as if he on honeydew had fed and drunk the milk of Paradise, and he did not pay him a substantial annual retainer for doing that.
There was abruptness in his voice as he said:
‘Why do you want the girl’s name?’
‘I shall be calling on her shortly, and I’d like to know who to ask for. She lives, I understand, at Fountain Court, Park Lane. It is my intention to see her and effect a reconciliation between her and Pickering. I don’t like the thought of two loving hearts being parted by a misunderstanding. Who do you think I am? Thomas Hardy?’
Mr Llewellyn was now definitely perplexed. He could make nothing of this. Mr Trout’s diction was beautifully clear, leaving no possibility that he could have mistaken what he said, but his words did not appear to make sense. He would have scorched him with a rebuking glare if Mr Trout had stayed still long enough for it to reach its target, but had to content himself with projecting a rebuking glare in his general direction.
‘Trout,’ he said, ‘have you had a couple?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then why are you talking this apple sauce about loving hearts? Last night—’
He did not complete the sentence. The telephone was ringing.
‘Answer that, Trout,’ said Mr Llewellyn. ‘If it’s for me, say I’m out.’
Mr Trout went to the instrument, and the first words he uttered caused Mr Llewellyn to stiffen from head to foot like a nymph surprised while bathing, for they were ‘Good evening, madam’, and they froze him to the marrow. Warmly he congratulated himself on his prudence in telling Mr Trout to answer the call. London, of course, was full of those who might be addressed as ‘.Madam’, but he could think of only one. To only one, moreover, he had given his telephone number. He feared the worst. It appalled him to think how nearly he had come to kidding back and forth with Vera Dalrymple, a course which could not but have ended in disaster. He waited breathlessly for Mr Trout to say he was out.
‘I am afraid,’ said Mr Trout in his polished manner, ‘that he is not at home at the moment, but he should be returning shortly, and I will not fail to give him your message. I am sure he will be delighted. Not at all,’ said Mr Trout, apparently in answer to some expression of thanks at the other end. ‘A pleasure. Goodbye, madam, goodbye. What lovely weather we are having, are we not? A Miss Dalrymple,’ he said, hanging up. ‘She wants you to give her dinner the day after tomorrow. She will be calling for you at about seven-thirty.’
Mr Llewellyn was staring dumbly, as Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott might have stared when the mirror cracked from side to side and the curse had come upon her. Indeed, if the Lady of Shalott had entered at this moment, he would have slapped her on the back and told her he knew just how she felt.
‘And … you … told … her … you … were … sure … I … would … be … delighted!’ he whispered.
Having said this, he was silent for a space, wrestling with his feelings. He was wondering how he had ever looked on Ephraim Trout as a friend and resolving, as soon as he could get around to it, to transfer his legal affairs from his hands and place them in those of Jones, Jukes, Jerningham and Jenkinson. Would Jones, he reasoned, have told Vera Dalrymple that he would be delighted to give her dinner? Would Jukes? Not a chance. Nor would Jenkinson and Jerningham. And this was a man who prided himself on belonging to Bachelors Anonymous. It was enough to make one ask oneself what things were coming to. It is not too much to say that Mr Llewellyn was stricken to the core.
Men who are stricken to the core react in one of two ways. They rave and curse—this was the method preferred by King Lear—all that Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks stuff—or a sort of frozen calm comes over them as if their circulation had been suspended. It was to the latter school that Mr Llewellyn belonged. He might become irritable over trifles, but in serious crises he was a block of ice. On the occasion when Weinstein-Colossal had stolen two of his best stars nobody could have guessed from his demeanour the volcanic fury that was surging within him. So now he said almost gently:
‘You told her I would be delighted, did you? Do you realise that if I give this woman dinner, I shall almost certainly ask her to marry me?’
‘And you couldn’t do better,’ said Mr Trout heartily. ‘I have not had the pleasure of meeting her, but I assume that she is charming, and the thing that matters is to get married. Who was it described bachelors as wild asses of the desert? I forget, but he was right, and what future is there for a wild ass? Practically none. It just goes on being a wild ass until something happens to end its aimless existence, and nobody cares a damn when it’s gone. You’re crazy if you intend to go on being a lonely bachelor, not that I suppose one could actually call you a bachelor. Marriage is the only road to contentment and happiness. Think of the quiet home evenings, she busy knitting the tiny garments, you in the old armchair with your crossword puzzle. Think of the companionship, the feeling that you are never going to be alone again. Get married, I.L. Give this Dalrymple dinner tomorrow and over the meal attach yourself to her little hand and ask her to be yours. Excuse me,’ said Mr Trout. ‘I must be going. I have to get a shampoo and manicure in addition to the hair-trim.’
The effect of this eloquence on Mr Llewellyn was to add to the emotions of the Lady of Shalott those of Julius Caesar when stabbed by Brutus. We can put up with the knavish tricks of enemies—we may not like them, but we can endure them—but when we are betrayed by a friend we drain the bitter cup and no heel taps. The one thing Mr Llewellyn had been sure he could rely on was the stability of the Trout doctrine. Whoever else might fail him, Trout was a solid rock. And here he was, mouthing these dreadful sentiments without, apparently, a qualm. He could not have been more horrified and in th
e depths if he had been a Tory member of Parliament and had heard his Leader expressing the opinion that there was a lot of sound sense in the works of Karl Marx, and the Communists were not such bad chaps if you got to know them.
We have said that in moments of crisis Mr Llewellyn always preserved an outward calm, but that was intended to apply only to ordinary crises. In one of this magnitude he could not be expected to keep dismay from showing in his appearance. When Mr Trout had left him, his trepidation was unmistakable. He sat motionless in his chair, looking like something the cat had brought in. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, so dull, so dead in look, so woebegone, drew Priam’s curtain at the dead of night and would have told him half his Troy was burned.
It was thus that Joe, returning from his walk, found him, and it is greatly to his credit that one glance at that haggard face told him that his own troubles must be shelved for the time being and all his faculties concentrated on those of his employer.
‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’
In broken accents Mr Llewellyn started to fill him in, as he would have put it, but the accents were not so broken as to render Joe incapable of following the scenario. Having the advantage of knowing Miss Dalrymple, he was able to appreciate without difficulty the emotions of anyone who found himself in danger of marrying her, and he would have clasped Mr Llewellyn’s hand, had not the latter been waving it. Very clearly he saw that now was the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
‘I don’t like this,’ he said.
‘Well, you don’t suppose I do,’ said Mr Llewellyn. ‘But what I don’t understand is why you have to ask her to marry you. Surely there are other things you can talk about at dinner. The weather, books, the situation in China, the prospects of a general election.’
Mr Llewellyn uttered an impatient snort.
‘I explained that to you very clearly the day we met, but I see that I shall have to do it again. The first thing you have to grasp is that I am a man of intense sensitiveness and spirituality. Got that into your nut? I can’t hurt people’s feelings. Do you understand that, or are you as big a damned fool as you look? Well then, I take her to dinner. At first everything’s all right. We get through the soup, fish and whatever it may be without disaster because she’s biding her time, and then we come to the coffee. Coffee’s the danger spot. There is a pause in the conversation.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s preparing to unmask her batteries. She is sitting with a sort of faraway look on her face. She heaves a sigh. She says what a lonely life hers is and how hollow success is and how the applause of her public can never make up for not having a home. Upon which, I ask her to marry me. It’s something to say. It’s put me off coffee for life. All my marriages came about like that, even Bernadine Friganza, who wouldn’t have recognised a home if you had brought her one on a plate with watercress around it.’
‘And they never refuse you?’
‘Of course not. Who would?’
Joe pondered. What with his sensitiveness and spirituality this man was plainly an object for concern. He could see but one solution of his problem.
‘You mustn’t take Vera Dalrymple to dinner.’
‘How can I get out of it? She’s calling for me the day after tomorrow at seven-thirty.’
‘You mustn’t be here.’
‘Where else can I be?’
‘In hospital.’
‘In what?’
‘Hospital. You’ll be safe there.’
Again Mr Llewellyn snorted. If Joe had been making a suggestion at a studio conference, he could not have snorted more vehemently.
‘And how do I get into a hospital? What do you propose that I shall do? Get run over by a taxi cab? Chew soap and pretend I’m having a fit?’
‘Tell them you want a check-up. You probably need one anyway.’
The fire faded from Mr Llewellyn’s eyes. The snort was silent on his lips. He regarded Joe with the admiration of a fond father whose infant son has spoken his first word.
‘Pickering,’ he said, ‘I believe you’ve got something. She couldn’t get at me in hospital.’
‘Only on visiting days.’
‘Between stated hours.’
‘With nurses coming in and out all the time.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Watch out for the grapes, of course.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘She will bring you grapes. You don’t want them to lead to anything.’
‘I’ll tell the doctor my doctor has forbidden them.’
‘Because you’re subject to appendicitis.’
‘Exactly. Pickering, you’re a marvel.’
‘Awfully nice of you to say so.’
‘And do you know what I’m going to do?’
‘Keep off the grapes.’
‘That of course, but in addition I’m going to make a picture of that play of yours. That’s what I’m going to do. Presence of mind like yours deserves a rich reward.’
Chapter Eleven
In accents as broken as those of Mr Llewellyn—on these emotional occasions it is rarely that an accent escapes unbroken—Joe expressed his gratitude and gratification, and Mr Llewellyn repeated the statement he had made at their first meeting, that Cousin Angela, while he did not expect it to be great or even colossal, would make a good picture. It would, he pointed out, not be handicapped, as the play had been, by having Vera Dalrymple in it. Miss Dalrymple, he said, had dropped several hints that she was open to consider a Hollywood contract, but, he added, any time he let loose that sinister menace in the neighbourhood of Beverly Hills you could write him down as one who needed to have his head examined.
‘And now to pack,’ he said.
‘Pack?’ said Joe.
‘A few necessaries-toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, pyjamas and a couple of Agatha Christies. I’m off to hospital.’
‘But you can’t just walk into a hospital. You have to be sent there by a doctor.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Everybody knows it.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Mr Llewellyn discontentedly. ‘Do you mean I won’t be able to get in till tomorrow? Then I’ll have to go to a hotel for the night. I’m not going to stay here wondering when Vera Dalrymple will ring that front-door bell. I wouldn’t sleep a wink.’
‘She said she wasn’t coming till the day after tomorrow.’
‘Just her subtle cunning. Lulling me into a false security.’
It was with mixed feelings that Joe escorted his benefactor to the door. At one moment the realisation that the waving of Mr Llewellyn’s magic wand was about to place him in the sound financial position of which he had so often dreamed elated him; at the next he was cast into the depths by the thought that, however much money he made from the motion picture sale of Cousin Angela, the odds on his being able to share it with the girl he loved could scarcely be quoted at better than a hundred to eight. Indeed, taking into consideration her policy of refusing to speak to him, a shrewd turf accountant would probably make them even longer.
Sally’s behaviour bewildered him. He could understand his non-appearance at the dinner table causing a certain annoyance, but the fact of her not giving him a chance to explain was beyond his comprehension. It piqued him, too, that such a splendid explanation should be going to waste. If there is one excuse for failing to keep a tryst that is beyond the reach of criticism, it is surely sudden illness.
That sudden illness perplexed Joe. His health had always been perfect, never more so than when Mr Trout was handing him the beaker. The reflection that in next to no time he would be seated opposite Sally in Barribault’s grill room, with the lights down low and the fiddler of whom Mr Llewellyn disapproved so much straining at the leash and all ready to give of his best, had sent a shiver down his spine and filled him with what the French in their peculiar way call bien être. An unfortunate moment to be struck by lightning, as he apparently had been.
/> It was very quiet in the flat, and it was not long before the silence began to prey on Joe’s nerves. A man whose spirits are as low as his yearns for companionship. A dog, even a dog like Mrs Bingham’s Percy, might have helped, but 8 Enniston Gardens contained no dog. In a sudden flash of inspiration Joe thought of Jerry Nichols.
It was in not too sanguine a frame of mind that he went to the telephone and dialled his number. If Jerry had a defect, it was that his attitude towards the other sex was frivolous. He was not one of the Joe Pickerings, whose hearts when once bestowed are given for ever. He was one of those volatile young men who take on a wide field in the way of female society, and was apt to count that day lost when he did not entertain what he described as a popsy at the evening meal. The cocktail hour being now imminent, it was more than probable that his time would be spoken for.
And so it proved. In answer to Joe’s invitation he was compelled to proclaim himself unavailable.
‘Sorry, Joe. I’ve got a date.’
‘Can’t you put her off?’
‘It isn’t a her, it’s Father. He likes me to hob-nob with him once in a while, and tonight happens to be the while it’s a once in.’
‘Oh, hell.’
‘Why the dismay? Surely you can do without me for one night. Clench the teeth. It only needs willpower.’
‘I want your advice about something.’
‘Oh, that’s different. I’m always eager to give advice. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Father always goes to sleep after feeding owing to plentiful doses of old port and he dines on the stroke of dusk. I’ll steal away and come and see you.’
Joe returned to his solitary brooding. He was soon obsessed with the idea that only through Jerry could his problem be solved. After all, he felt, a man so given to mingling with popsies must often have come up against a problem similar to his and would have been taught by experience how to handle it. By the time Mr Trout arrived Joe’s mental attitude towards Jerry had become that of a disciple towards a sage or seer.
The advent of Mr Trout came on him as a surprise. He had not been warned that he would be calling, and he was not at all sure that he was glad to see him. He would have welcomed him with more pleasure if there had been in his demeanour a decent melancholy, for in his current mood the last thing he wanted to see about him was smiling faces, and a single glance told him that here was somebody who was sitting on a pink cloud with a rainbow round his shoulder. Mr Trout had not yet burst into song with a hey-nonny-nonny and a hot-cha-cha, but when you said that you had said everything.