'Who?'
'My fiancé, for one.'
'Oh . . . !' Berry dismissed this negligible unknown with a gesture.
'And my father. And my mother. And my uncle. And—'
Berry laughed scornfully. So might a knight have laughed at a covey of dragons.
'Let 'em,' he said.
Ann's laugh was a contented laugh, a little bubble of happiness breaking from a rainbow.
'I knew you would say that. That's what I love about you. How awful it would be if you were – just ordinary.'
Berry started. Out of a blue sky there seemed to have come the rumbling of distant thunder.
'Ordinary?'
'Like all men I've ever met. They work in offices, and—'
'Work in offices,' said Berry. He spoke dully, and that thunder seemed to him to be coming closer.
But Ann had come closer, too, and that made him forget the thunder. She was holding the lapels of his coat.
'I've just had an idea,' she said.
'What?'
'Why shouldn't we tell each other our names? Think how nice it would be to know who we are.'
'My name's Conway.'
'Well, you don't expect me to call you Mr Conway.'
'Beresford Conway. All my pals call me Berry.'
'All my pals call me Ann. Moon is my other name.'
'Ann Moon?'
'Ann Moon.'
Berry wrinkled his forehead.
'But it's familiar.'
'Is it?'
'I mean I've heard it before somewhere.'
'Have you? Where?'
'I can't remember. Or did I read it somewhere?'
'Perhaps.'
'Ann Moon. Moon. Moon. I know I've heard it before, but I can't place it.'
'Perhaps you're thinking of some other Moon. There are lots of us, you know. June, Oh, Silvery, My California – dozens and dozens.'
Berry became aware that in a futile discussion of names golden moments were running to waste.
'What does it matter, anyway?' he said. 'You're you.'
'And you're you.'
'And here we both are!'
'But we won't stay here. I don't like those swans.'
'I don't like those swans,' said Berry, scrutinizing them.
'They're sneering at us.'
'They are sneering at us.'
'We'll fool them. We'll get into my car and we'll drive up to London and we'll have dinner somewhere – Mario's is a good place. One needn't dress in the balcony – and then we can talk without having a bunch of birds listening to everything we say.'
'Splendid!'
'That'll make them feel silly.'
'It will make them feel about as silly as two swans have ever felt.'
Egbert looked at Percy. Percy looked at Egbert.
'Well!' said Egbert.
'These young couples!' said Percy. 'Another minute and I should have been sick.'
V
Mulberry Grove slept under the night sky. Up and down it, smoking a thoughtful cigarette, paced Godfrey, Lord Biskerton. He appeared to be in sentimental mood. From time to time he gazed up at the stars and seemed to think well of them.
Rapid footsteps turned the corner. He advanced to meet the new-comer.
'Berry?'
'Hullo.'
'Take a turn along the road with me, laddie,' said the Biscuit. 'I want a word with you.'
Berry would have preferred to slip past and postpone this interview. He was conscious of an extreme discomfort. Since his departure from Mulberry Grove in Ann's car, many things had been made clear to him. He knew now why the name Ann Moon had sounded familiar.
Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancée. It is a task that calls for coolness of head and the quiet marshalling of the thoughts, and Berry would have wished to sleep on this thing and go more deeply into it on the morrow. But the Biscuit, apparently mistrustful of his ability to hold his companion purely by the magic of his conversation, had seized his elbow in a firm grip.
'Yes, old boy,' he said, 'I want your counsel. Where have you been all night?'
'I went out to dinner. At a place called Mario's.'
'I know it well,' said the Biscuit. 'I've taken Ann there.'
It was a cue, and Berry knew that he ought to have accepted it. He did go so far as to open his mouth, but the words refused to come.
'Nobody should go to Mario's,' said the Biscuit, 'without trying the minestrone. Did you have minestrone?'
'I can't remember.'
'You can't remember?'
'We had some sort of soup, I suppose,' said Berry desperately. 'But I was so—'
'We?' said the Biscuit.
'I was with a girl,' said Berry. It seemed monstrous to refer to Ann in that casual way, but still it was the technical description of her.
'The girl?' asked the Biscuit with sudden interest.
'Yes.'
'So you've met her again?'
'Yes.'
'And how's everything coming along?'
Berry plunged. If this thing had to be done, it was best to do it quickly.
'We're engaged,' he said.
'Fine!' said the Biscuit. 'So you're engaged? Well, well!'
'Yes.'
'Just to this one girl, I suppose?'
'What do you mean?'
'You always were a prudent, level-headed fellow who knew where to stop,' said the Biscuit enviously. 'I'm engaged to two girls.'
'What!'
The Biscuit sighed.
'Yes, two. And I'm hoping that you may have a word of advice to offer on the subject. Otherwise, I see a slightly tangled future ahead of me.'
'Two?' said Berry, dazed.
'Two,' said the Biscuit. 'I've counted them over and over again, but that's what the sum keeps working out at. I started, if you remember, with one. So far, so good. A steady, conservative policy. But complications have now arisen. You may have heard me speak of one Kitchie Valentine?'
'The kid next door?'
The Biscuit frowned.
'Don't call her the kid next door. The angel next door, if you like, or the adjoining seraph.'
'Biscuit, let me tell you—'
'No,' said Lord Biskerton with gentle firmness. 'Let me tell you. I added young Kitchie to the strength tonight. Somewhere near the end of Roxborough Road, under, if I remember rightly, the third lamp-post from Myrtle Avenue. It happened like this.'
'Biscuit, listen—'
'It happened like this,' said Lord Biskerton. 'Until recently she was engaged to a bounder of the almost incredible name of Merwyn Flock. How she ever came to do such a cloth-headed thing, I cannot say, but such are the facts. He's an actor, and some day, if all goes well, I hope to pop over to America, where he performs, and fling a hearty egg at him. The low hound! He chucked her, Berry,' said the Biscuit, wrestling with rising emotion. 'He took that loving heart in his greasy hands and squeezed it dry and threw it away like an old tube of tooth-paste. She got a letter from him tonight, saying that he had just married some actress or other but hoped they would always be friends. "Can't we be friends?" he said. There's a song with that title. I've sung it in my bath.'
'Biscuit . . .'
'I thought she seemed a bit under the weather when we were starting off for the pictures. Not at all her old bright self, she wasn't. She was depressed during the six-reel feature-film, and the two-reel Mickey Mouse didn't get a smile out of her. On our way home she told me all. And, believe me or believe me not, old boy, I hadn't got more than about halfway through the cheering-up process when I suddenly found that we were linked in a close embrace, murmuring soft words of endearment, and two minutes later I discovered with some surprise that we were engaged. That's Life.'
'Are you fond of her?' was all Berry could find to say.
'Of course I'm fond of her,' said the Biscuit with asperity. 'I love her with a passion that threatens to unseat my very reason. I can see now that it
was a case of love at first sight. The moment I set eyes on her, I remember, something seemed to tell me that I had found my mate. Oh, don't make any mistake about it, my lad, we are twin souls. On the other hand, that doesn't alter the fact that I'm engaged to two girls.'
'But you aren't.'
'Tut, tut!' said the Biscuit, annoyed at his friend's denseness. 'Count them for yourself. Kitchie, one. Ann . . .'
'I'm engaged to Ann.'
The Biscuit clicked his tongue.
'No, you're not, old boy,' he said, patiently. 'Don't try to cloud the issue by being funny. You're engaged to this girl of yours, whatever her name is.'
'Her name is Ann Moon.'
'What!' cried the Biscuit.
'You heard.'
'I did hear,' said the Biscuit. 'But I was wondering if I could believe my ears, if I could credit my senses. You mean to tell me that Ann, while engaged to me, heartlessly and callously went off and got engaged to someone else? My gosh! Doesn't this throw a blinding light on the fickleness of woman! That sex ought to be suppressed. I've often said so. You mean – literally – that you and Ann—'
'Yes.'
'Was she the girl whose car you jumped into and said you were a Secret Service man?'
'Yes.'
'Medium-sized girl with grey eyes and a beautiful figure and a way of wrinkling up her nose when she . . .'
'I know her by sight, thanks,' said Berry. 'You needn't describe her.'
'Well, this is the most extraordinary thing I ever heard in my life,' said the Biscuit.
He brooded for a while in stunned silence.
'Perhaps it's all for the best,' he said at length.
'I think so,' said Berry.
'In fact,' said the Biscuit, now definitely perking up, 'you might describe it as a consummation devoutly to be wished.'
'That's just how I was going to describe it.'
'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,' said the Biscuit, with growing satisfaction, 'I see now that it is the best thing that could possibly have happened. The momentary spasm of pique and chagrin is over, and I can face facts. I realize now that Ann never did care a damn for me.'
'She likes you. She said so.'
The Biscuit smiled sadly, and emitted five more yes's.
'But we were not affinities. I saw that from the start. She had a way of looking sideways at me suddenly and looking quickly away again as if she hoped I wasn't true but was reluctantly compelled to believe that I was. She would never have been happy with me. It was only the fact that I proposed to her at Edgeling at the exact moment when the sunset and the ivied walls had made her feel all emotional that ever caused her to accept me. Take her, old friend, and my blessing with her. Take her, I say. Take her.'
'All right,' said Berry. 'All right – I'm going to.'
The Biscuit uttered a sharp exclamation.
'But are you?' he said significantly.
'I am.'
'You think you are, which is a very different thing, old boy. Have you considered? Have you reflected? Have you tried to realize your very equivocal position?'
'What do you mean?'
'What do I mean? Why, you've ensnared her heart under false pretences. You must see that for yourself. Dash it, you offer this bird . . .'
'Don't call her a bird.'
'You offer this charming and idealistic girl a Secret Service man, complete with mask and gun and dripping with romance, and she books you on those terms. What's she going to say when she finds that you are in reality an inky devil with paper cuff-protectors who works in a City office?'
'Yes,' said Berry dismally.
'What do you mean, yes?'
'I mean I had thought of that.'
He stared unhappily through the railings at the ornamental water. It looked cold and depressing. A breeze had sprung up, and was sighing through the trees with what an hour ago he would have considered a lovely whispering, but which now seemed to bring with it the suggestion of a sneer. Forlornness had suddenly come into the night.
'You think she will be annoyed when she finds out?'
'Annoyed?' said the Biscuit. 'I should think she would chew your head off.'
'I shouldn't mind that,' said Berry, 'if she didn't refuse to have anything more to do with me.'
There was a silence.
'I am going to chuck my job with old Frisby tomorrow,' said Berry. 'Then I shall go off somewhere – to America or somewhere – and try do to something worth while.'
The Biscuit, a sympathetic soul, became encouraging.
'An excellent idea. Go West, young man, shoot a couple of Mexicans and send her the skins, and, who knows, all may yet be well. The main thing is that on no account must she ever know that you were her uncle's office-boy.'
'You wouldn't tell her?'
'Tell her!'
'I hate the feeling that I'm lying to her.'
'It would be fatal, fatal, absolutely fatal, old boy,' said the Biscuit vehemently. 'At the present stage of affairs, utterly fatal.'
'But she's got to find out some time.'
'Some time, yes. But let it be later, when the links forged by the laughing Love God have grown stronger. You haven't studied the sex as I have, laddie. I know women from beads to shoe-sole. Never confess anything to a girl till you have consolidated your position with her. A girl learns that a comparative stranger has been fooling her, and she hits the ceiling. But later on, it is different. Later on, she simply says to herself "Oh, well, Hell! It's only old George or whatever the name may be. I always did think him a bit loony, and now I know." And she curses him for about twenty minutes, just for the good of his soul and to show him who's boss, and then the forgiveness, the reconciliation, and the slow fade-out on the embrace.'
'There's something in that,' said Berry, brightening.
'There's everything in that. Once a man has made himself solid with a girl, he has nothing to fear. She may appear to the casual eye to be madder than a wet hen, but, if he's made himself solid, he can always bring her round. He can plead. He can grovel on the floor and tear his hair. He can apply the salve and give her the old oil. And, provided she has got used to seeing him around and has allowed him to dig himself well into the wood-work, he can always talk her over. But for the time being not a word. Secrecy and silence. Don't dream of confessing anything till the moment is ripe.'
'I won't!'
Berry drew a deep breath.
'Thanks, Biscuit,' he said with fervour. 'I'm glad I asked your advice.'
'Always ask my advice,' said the Biscuit handsomely. 'Always come to me with your little troubles and perplexities. I like all my young friends to feel that they have someone they can lean on in Uncle Godfrey.'
'I feel a lot better now.'
'I'm not feeling so bad myself,' said the Biscuit. 'I confess that there was a moment this evening when the thought that I was one fiancée over the odds more or less disturbed me. I should say now that God was in His heaven and all pretty well right with the world. I think we must celebrate this, old boy. How about lunch tomorrow in the City somewhere? I could go to the City without having Dykes, Dykes and Pinweed jumping on my neck. I'll call for you at the office at about one-thirty.'
VI
Lord Hoddesdon had spent this momentous evening dining luxuriously at his club. He had eaten all the things his doctor had told him to avoid, and had drunk a bottle of wine which his doctor insisted was poison to him. There are occasions which have to be observed with fitting solemnities, in the teeth of the whole medical profession; and one of these had just come to brighten Lord Hoddesdon's life. He had just let Edgeling Court to Mr Frisby for Goodwood Week and another month after that, and a cheque for six hundred pounds was even now on its way to exhilarate a banker who had almost given up hope.
At the inception of the campaign, Lord Hoddesdon had feared that he would never be able to bring the thing off. Shown photographs of Edgeling, T. Paterson Frisby had at first merely grunted. Becoming more vocal, he had wished to be informed what the heck his
companion supposed he could possibly want with a house in the country the size of the Carlton Hotel. And when Lord Hoddesdon had dangled Goodwood races temptingly before his eyes, Mr Frisby had remarked with some asperity that if his lordship imagined that he was one of those fools who take pleasure in playing the ponies, he was under a grave misapprehension.
Later, however, he had wobbled from this firm standpoint. He had asked to see the photographs again. He had requested time to consider. And today he had fallen completely, justifying the capitulation by saying that he wasn't sure, after all, but what a house-party for Goodwood might not be a nice sort of thing for his niece, Ann. Be able to entertain all her friends and repay hospitality and that, said Mr Frisby.
Lord Hoddesdon did not believe that this was his true motive. An observant man, he had witnessed the growing alliance between Mr Frisby and Lady Vera Mace, and he fancied that Vera must have used her influence with the financier. If so, reflected Lord Hoddesdon, sipping Benedictine and smoking a Corona-corona, it was dashed sporting of her. Yes, dashed sporting. There had been times when he had found himself unable to think of his sister without a rising feeling of nausea, but tonight he approved of her in toto.
He decided to toddle round to Davies Street and give her a head of the family's blessing. A just man, he believed in encouraging sisters, when deserving. He finished his cigar, donned hat and coat, and set out.
There was nobody in the flat but the maid when he arrived. He seated himself comfortably, and gave himself up to opalescent meditations on the subject of the six hundred pounds. Presently a latch-key clicked in the door, and the next instant Lady Vera had hurried into the room.
'George!' she cried, and there was relief in her voice. 'Thank goodness you are here. I was just going to telephone to your club to ask you to come round at once.'
This sisterly affection touched Lord Hoddesdon. That anything untoward could have occurred never crossed his mind. In a world where people handed you cheques for six hundred pounds, untoward occurrences were impossible.
'Were you, old girl?' he said jovially. 'Well, here I am. And I've got news.'
'I've got news,' said Lady Vera, sinking into a chair like a tragedy queen. 'The worst possible news.'
'Oh, my Lord!' said Lord Hoddesdon, deflated. He was feeling that he might have counted on Vera to spoil his evening.