‘Do you know the work of Limf?’ asked Mr Mybug.
‘Never heard of ’em,’ said Mr Neck. ‘Thank you, sweetheart’ (to Flora, who was feeding him cake). ‘You know, Mr Mybug, we gotta responsibility to the public. We gotta give them what they want, yet it’s gotta be clean. Boy, that’s difficult. I’ll tell you it’s difficult. I want a man who can give them what they want, yet give it them so’s it don’t leave a taste in their mouths.’ He paused and drank tea. The sunshine, vivid as a Kleig light, revealed every wrinkle in his melancholy little monkeyish face and lit the fresh red carnation in his button-hole. For Mr Neck was a great dandy, who usually changed his button-hole twice a day.
‘I want a man to fetch the women,’ he went on. ‘I want a new Gary Cooper (but, lessee, thass twenty years ago), only more ritzy. Someone who can look good in a tuxedo, and yet handle one of them old-world ploughs. (Say, I seen four ploughs since I been over this trip.) Well, who’ve I got? I got Teck Jones. Yeah, well, Teck’s a good kid; he can ride all right, but he’s got no body-urge. I got Valentine Orlo. Well, he looks like a wop. They won’t stand for no more wops since poor Morelli went to the chair in ’42. No, wops is off. Well, I got Peregrine Howard. He’s a Britisher. No one can’t say his first name right, so he’s no good. There’s Slake Fountain. Yeah, I’ll say there is, too. We keep a gang of hoodlums on their toes at twenty a week each to sober him up every morning before he comes on the set. Then there’s Jerry Badger, the sort of nice egg you’d like your kid sister to marry, but nothing to him. Nothing at all. Well, what do I get out of it? Nothing. I gotta find somebody, that’s all.’
‘Have you ever seen Alexandre Fin?’ asked Mr Mybug. ‘I saw him in Pepin’s last film, “La Plume de Ma Tante”, in Paris last January. Very amusing stuff. They all wore glass clothes, you know, and moved in time to a metronome.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ said Mr Neck. ‘A frog, eh? Frogs is all under five feet. I want a big, husky fella: the kinda fella that would look good cuddling a kid. Is there another cup, sweetheart?’
Flora poured him some.
‘Yeah,’ he went on. ‘I seen that film in Paris, too. It gave me a pain. Gave me a lot of new dope, though. What not to do, and all that. I’ve met Pepin, too. The poor egg’s cuckoo.’
‘He is much admired by the younger men,’ said Mr Mybug, daringly, glancing at Flora for approval.
‘That helps a whole heap,’ said Mr Neck.
‘Then your interest in the cinema, Mr Neck, is entirely commercial? I mean, you think nothing of its aesthetic possibilities?’
‘I gotta responsibility. If your frog friend had to fill fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of movie seats every day, he’d have to think of a better stunt than a lot of guys wearin’ glass pants.’
He paused and reflected.
‘Say, though, that’s an idea. A guy buys a new tuxedo, see. Then he offends some ritzy old egg, see? A magician, or something, and this old egg puts a curse on him. Well, this egg (the guy in the tuxedo) goes off to a swell party, and when he comes in all the girls scream. That kind o’ stuff. Well, he can’t see his pants is turned into glass by this other old egg (the magician, see?), and he says: “Whattha hell”, and all the rest of it. Yeah, that’s an idea.’
While he was speaking, Seth had come silently, with his graceful, pantherish tread, to the door of the room; and now stood there, looking down enquiringly at Flora. She smiled across at him, motioning him to be silent. Mr Neck’s back was towards the door, so that he could not see Seth, but when he saw Flora smile he turned half round, and looked across at the doorway to see at whom her gesture was directed.
And he saw Seth.
A silence fell. The young man stood in the warm light of the declining sun, his bare throat and boldly moulded features looking as though they were bathed in gold. His pose was easy and graceful. A superb self-confidence radiated from him, as it does from any healthy animal. He met Mr Neck’s stare with an impudent stare of his own, his head lowered and slightly forward. He looked exactly what he was, the local sexually successful bounder. Millions of women were to realize, in the next five years, that Seth could be transported in fancy to a Welsh mining village, a shoddy North country seaside town, a raw city in the plains of the Middle West, and still remain eternally and unchangeably the local irresistible bounder.
Is it any wonder that Mr Neck broke the silence by flinging up his hand and saying in a hoarse whisper: ‘That’s it, sweetheart! That’s got it! Hold it!’
And Seth was so soaked in movie slang that he held it, for another second or so of silence.
Flora broke it by saying: ‘Oh, Seth, there you are. I wanted Mr Neck to see you. Earl, this is my cousin, Seth Starkadder. He’s very interested in the talkies. Mr Neck is a producer, Seth.’
Mr Neck, forgetful of everything else, was craning forward with his head slightly bent downwards, to hear Seth speak. And when that deep, warm drawl came – ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Neck’ – Mr Neck looked up with an expression of such relief and delight that it was just as though he had clapped his hands.
‘Well, well,’ said Mr Neck, surveying Seth rather as though Seth were his dinner (as indeed he was to be for some years to come). ‘How’s the boy? So you’re a fan, eh? You and me must get acquainted, huh? Maybe you’d thought of going in for the game yourself?’
Mr Mybug tilted comfortably back in his chair, choosing a little cake to eat, and prepared to enjoy the sight of Seth being roasted. But he had (as we know) backed the wrong horse.
Seth scowled and drew back. Mr Neck almost patted his face with rapture as he observed how Seth’s every mood was reflected, like a child’s, in his countenance.
‘No … No, I’m not kidding,’ he observed, amiably. ‘I mean it. Would you like to go on the talkies?’
A great cry broke from Seth. Mr Mybug lost his balance and fell over backwards, choking with cake. No one noticed him. All eyes were on Seth. A glory lit his face. Slowly, lingeringly, the words broke from him:
‘More than anything else in the world.’
‘Well, ain’t that dandy?’ said Mr Neck, looking round proudly for agreement and support. ‘He wants to be a movie star and I want to make him one. What do you know about that? Usually, it’s just the other way about. Now, sweetheart, get your grip, and we’ll be off. We’re catching the Atlantic flier from Brighton at eight tonight. Say, though, what about your folks, huh? What about Momma? Will she need squaring?’
‘I will tell you all about that, Earl. Seth, go and pack a bag with everything you need for the journey. Put on a big coat – you are going to fly, you know, and it may be cold at first.’
Seth obeyed Flora without a word, and when he had gone she explained his circumstances to Mr Neck.
‘So it’s all right if Grandma don’t give it the razz, huh? Well, we must go out quiet, thass all. Tell Grandma not to fuss. We’ll send her five grand out of the first picture he makes. Oh, boy’ – and here he smote Mr Mybug, who was still choking over his little cake – ‘I got him! I got him! Whaddya say his name is – Seth? Thassa sissy sort of a name, but it’ll do. It’s kinda different. Keep ’em guessin’. Oh, boy, wait till I get him a tuxedo! Wait till I start his publicity. We must find a new angle. Lessee … Maybe he’d better be shy. No … poor Charley Ford ran that to death. Maybe he hates women … yeah, thass it. He hates women and he hates the movies. Like hell he does. Oh, boy, that’ll fetch ’em! It’ud take more than anyone’s grandma to stop me now.’
CHAPTER XVIII
When Seth returned, wearing his best hat and his overcoat and carrying a suit-case, everybody moved towards the door. Mr Neck’s car was waiting for him in the yard, and he hung on to Seth’s arm every step of the way there as though he feared Seth would change his mind.
He need not have. Seth’s face had the usual expression it bore in repose: an insolent complacency. Of course, he was going to be a film star. When once he had got over the first shock, he wanted to look as if the whole affair seemed perfectly natu
ral to him. He was too conceited to show the fierce joy that surged deep within him. Yet there it surged, a tide of dark gold splendour, deep below the crust of his complacent acceptance.
Well, everything was bowling along swimmingly, and Flora was just patting the still-choking Mr Mybug on the back while they all stood round the door of the car saying goodbye when the ominous sound of a window being pushed up was heard, and before they could all look up a voice floated out into the quiet air of the late afternoon. It was observing that it had seen something nasty in the woodshed.
Everybody looked up, Flora in some dismay.
Sure enough, it was Aunt Ada Doom. The window of her room, which was directly above the kitchen door, was open, and she was leaning heavily out, supporting herself upon her hands. A shape hovered in the dusk room behind her left shoulder, endeavouring to see over her vasty bulk. By the untidiness of its hair, it was Judith. Another shape hovered behind the right shoulder. Going by nothing but a woman’s intuition, it was Rennett.
‘Oh, mercy!’ said Flora, hastily, in an undertone to Mr Neck. ‘Hurry up and go!’
‘What … is that Grandma?’ enquired Mr Neck. ‘And who’s the platinum blonde at the back? Come on, sweetheart’ – he hustled Seth into the car – ‘we’ve got to make that flier.’
‘Seth … Seth … where are you going?’ Judith’s voice was a throbbing rod of terror and anguish.
‘I saw something nasty in the woodshed!’ screamed Aunt Ada Doom, flapping about her with something which Flora recognized as all that was left of the ‘Cowkeepers’ Weekly Bulletin and Milk Producers’ Guide’. ‘My baby … My darling. You mustn’t leave me. I shall go mad. I can’t bear it!’
‘Can it!’ muttered Mr Neck; but aloud he called politely, waving his hand at Aunt Ada, ‘Well, well, how’s the girl?’
‘Seth … you mustn’t go!’ Judith implored, her voice a dry whine of terror. ‘You can’t leave your mother. There’s the spring-onion harvest, too. ’Tes man’s work … You mustn’t go.’
‘I saw something nasty in the woodshed!’
‘Did it see you?’ asked Mr Neck, tucking himself into the car beside Seth. The engine started, and the chauffeur began to back the car out of the yard.
‘Gee, ma’am, I know it’s raw,’ shouted Mr Neck, craning out of the window of the car and peering up at Aunt Ada. ‘I know it’s tough. But, gee, that’s life, girl. You’re living now, sweetheart. All that woodshed line … that was years ago. Young Woodley stuff. Aw, I respect a grandmother’s feelings, sweetheart, but honest, I just can’t give him up. He’ll send you five grand out of his first film.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Seth to Flora, who returned his condescending smile with a friendly one of her own.
She watched the car drive away. It was going to Cloud Cuckoo Land; it was going to the Kingdom of Cockaigne; it was going to Hollywood. Seth would never have a chance, now, of becoming a nice, normal young man. He would become a world-famous, swollen mask.
When next she saw him, it was a year later and the mask smiled down at her in the drowsy darkness, from a great silver screen: ‘Seth Starkadder in “Small-Town Sheik”.’ Already, as the car receded, he was as unreal as Achilles.
‘Seth … Seth …’
The car turned the curve, and was gone.
Still the wailing voices of the women wound through the air like strung wires. It was hours before the stars would begin their idiot dance between the chimney-pots. There was nothing to do in between except wail.
Aunt Ada had now retreated from the window. Flora could hear Judith having hysterics. She went on quietly banging Mr Mybug, who was still choking, and saying, ‘There … there …’ and wondering if she ought to go upstairs to her Aunt Ada’s room and diffuse a spot of ‘The Higher Common Sense’.
But no. The hour for that was not yet.
She was roused from her reverie by Mr Mybug, who peevishly dodged away from her hand, exclaiming, between chokes: ‘I’m quite all right now, thanks’, and went on choking in an irritating manner at some distance away.
Suddenly his chokes ceased. He was staring up at Aunt Ada’s window, where Rennett had suddenly appeared and was peering palely out into the evening.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Mr Mybug, in a low voice.
‘Rennett Starkadder,’ replied Flora.
‘What a marvellous face,’ said Mr Mybug, still staring. ‘She has a brittle, hare-like quality … Don’t you feel it?’ He waved his fingers about. ‘She has that untamed look you see sometimes in newly-born leverets. I wish Kopotkin could see her. He’d want to put her into plaster.’
Rennett was staring down at him, too. Flora could see it was quite a case. Oh, well, it would be quite a good thing if he carried Rennett off to Fitzroy Square and set a new fashion in hare-faced beauties … except that she, Flora, must make quite sure before they went that he would be kind to poor Rennett, and be a good husband to her. Probably he would be. Rennett was very domesticated. She would mend Mr Mybug’s clothes (which nobody had ever done for him before, because, though all his girl friends could embroider beautifully, none of them ever dreamed of mending anything), and cook him lovely nourishing dinners, and fuss over him and simply adore him, and he would become so comfortable he would not know himself, and would be very grateful to her.
From these schemes she was aroused by Mr Mybug. He walked across the yard until he stood directly beneath the window, and called boldly up to Rennett:
‘I say! Will you come for a walk with me?’
‘What … now?’ asked Rennett, timidly. Nobody had ever asked her to do such a thing before.
‘Why not?’ laughed Mr Mybug, looking boyishly up at her, with his head flung back. Flora thought it was a pity he was rather fat.
‘I must ask Cousin Judith,’ said Rennett, glancing timidly over her shoulder into the darkened room. Then she withdrew into the shadows.
Mr Mybug was very pleased with himself. This was his idea of romance, Flora could see. She knew from experience that intellectuals thought the proper – nay, the only – way to fall in love with somebody was to do it the very instant you saw them. You met somebody, and thought they were ‘A charming person. So gay and simple.’ Then you walked home from a party with them (preferably across Hampstead Heath, about three in the morning) discussing whether you should sleep together or not. Sometimes you asked them to go to Italy with you. Sometimes they asked you to go to Italy (preferably to Portofino) with them. You held hands, and laughed, and kissed them and called them your ‘true love’. You loved them for eight months, and then you met somebody else and began being gay and simple all over again, with small-hours’ walk across Hampstead, Portofino invitation, and all.
It was very simple, gay and natural, somehow.
Anyway, Flora was beginning to feel that things were happening a little too quickly at Cold Comfort Farm. She had not yet recovered from the Counting last night (was it only last night? – it seemed a month ago), and the departure of Amos; and already Seth had gone, and Mr Mybug was falling in love with Rennett, and doubtless planning to carry her off.
If things went on at this rate there would soon be nobody left at the farm at all.
She was extremely sleepy all of a sudden. She thought she would go and sit by the fire in her little green parlour and read until supper-time. So she told Mr Mybug she hoped he would have a pleasant walk, and added casually that Rennett had had a pretty septic life of it, on the whole, and hinted that she would probably appreciate a little gaiety and simplicity, in the Fitzroy Square manner.
Mr Mybug said he quite understood. He also attempted to take her hand, but she foiled him. Since seeing Rennett at the window he seemed to have a vague feeling that his one-sided affair with Flora was at an end, and that it was up to him to make some appropriate farewell remarks.
‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’ he asked.
‘Certainly,’ said Flora, pleasantly, nor did she trouble to inform him that she was not in the habit of thinking of persons
whom she had known for five weeks as her friends.
‘We might dine together in Town some time?’
‘That would be delightful,’ agreed Flora, thinking how nasty and boring it would be.
‘There’s a quality in you …’ said Mr Mybug, staring at her and waving his fingers. ‘Remote, somehow, and nymph-like … oddly unawakened. I should like to write a novel about you and call it “Virginal”.’
‘Do, if it passes the time for you,’ said Flora; ‘and now I really must go and write some letters, I am afraid. Goodbye.’
On her way to her parlour she passed Rennett, coming downstairs, dressed to go out. She wondered how she had managed to obtain permission from Aunt Ada Doom to do so, but Rennett did not wait to be questioned. She darted past Flora with a stare of terror.
Flora was extremely glad to get back to her parlour and to sink into a comfortable little arm-chair, covered in green tapestry, which stood by the fire. The refreshing Mrs Beetle was there, clearing away the tea-things.
‘Miss Elfine sent you ’er best love, Miss Flora, and she’s gone over to spend six weeks at Howchiker Hall. Mr Dick came for her at lunch-time today in ’is moter,’ said Mrs Beetle. ‘Nice-lookin’ boy, ain’t he?’
‘Very,’ said Flora. ‘So she’s gone, has she? Oh, well, that’s splendid. Now the family will have time to settle down and get over the engagement. And where’s Urk? Is it true he’s drowned Meriam?’
Mrs Beetle snorted.
‘It ’ud take more than ’im to drown ’er. No, ’e’s as large as life and twice as natural, down at mine, playin’ with the kids.’
‘What … the jazz-band? I mean, with Meriam’s children?’
‘Yes. Givin’ ’em rides on ’is back and pretendin’ ’e’s a watervole (nasty things). Oh, you should ’ave ’eard ’ow Agony created when I let on that our Meriam was goin’ to marry one of them Starkadders! Create! I thought ’e’d ’ave to be picked off the ceiling.’