‘Can you see Miss Brown, sir?’
‘Which Miss Brown? Sue?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Of course.’ In spite of the heat, Mr Mason brightened. ‘Is she outside?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then pour her in.’
Mortimer Mason had always felt a fatherly fondness for this girl, Sue Brown. He liked her for her own sake, for her unvarying cheerfulness and the honest way she worked. But what endeared her more particularly to him was the fact that she was Dolly Henderson’s daughter. London was full of elderly gentlemen who became pleasantly maudlin when they thought of Dolly Henderson and the dear old days when the heart was young and they had had waists. He heaved himself from his chair: then fell back again, filled with a sense of intolerable injury.
‘My God!’ he cried. ‘Don’t look so cool.’
The rebuke was not undeserved. On an afternoon when the asphalt is bubbling in the roadways and theatrical managers melting where they sit, no girl has a right to resemble a dewy rose plucked from some old-world garden. And that, Mr Mason considered, was just what this girl was deliberately resembling. She was a tiny thing, mostly large eyes and a wide, happy smile. She had a dancer’s figure and in every movement of her there was Youth.
‘Sorry, Pa.’ She laughed, and Mr Mason moaned faintly. Her laugh had reminded him, for his was a nature not without its poetical side, of ice tinkling in a jug of beer. ‘Try not looking at me.’
‘Well, Sue, what’s on your mind? Come to tell me you’re going to be married?’
‘Not at the moment, I’m afraid.’
‘Hasn’t that young man of yours got back from Biarritz yet?’
‘He arrived this morning. I had a note during the matinée. I suppose he’s outside now, waiting for me. Want to have a look at him?’
‘Does it mean walking downstairs?’ asked Mr Mason, guardedly.
‘No. He’ll be in his car. You can see him from the window.’
Mr Mason was equal to getting to the window. He peered down at the rakish sports-model two-seater in the little street below. Its occupant was lying on his spine, smoking a cigarette in a long holder and looking austerely at certain children of the neighbourhood whom he seemed to suspect of being about to scratch his paint.
‘They’re making fiancés very small this season,’ said Mr Mason, concluding his inspection.
‘He is small, isn’t he? He’s sensitive about it, poor darling. Still, I’m small, too, so that’s all right.’
‘Fond of him?’
‘Frightfully.’
‘Who is he, anyway? Yes, I know his name’s Fish, and it doesn’t mean a thing to me. Any money?’
‘I believe he’s got quite a lot, only his uncle keeps it all. Lord Emsworth. He’s Ronnie’s trustee, or something.’
‘Emsworth? I knew his brother years ago.’ Mr Mason chuckled reminiscently. ‘Old Gaily! What a lad! I’ve got a scheme I’d like to interest old Gaily in. I wonder where he is now.’
‘The Prattler this week said he was down at Blandings Castle. That’s Lord Emsworth’s place in Shropshire. Ronnie’s going down there this evening.’
‘Deserting you so soon?’ Mortimer Mason shook his head. ‘I don’t like this.’
Sue laughed.
‘Well, I don’t,’ said Mr Mason. ‘You be careful. These lads will all bear watching.’
‘Don’t worry, Pa. He means to do right by our Nell.’
‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. So old Gaily is at Blandings, is he? I must remember that. I’d like to get in touch with him. And now, what was it you wanted to see me about?’
Sue became grave.
‘I’ve come to ask you a favour.’
‘Go ahead. You know me.’
‘It’s about those girls you’re getting rid of.’
Mr Mason’s genial face took on a managerial look.
‘Got to get rid of them.’
‘I know. But one of them’s Sally Field.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Well, Sally’s awfully hard up, Pa. And what I came to ask,’ said Sue breathlessly, ‘was, will you keep her on and let me go instead?’
Utter amazement caused Mortimer Mason momentarily to forget the heat. He sat up, gaping.
‘Do what?’
‘Let me go instead.’
‘Let you go instead?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘No, I’m not. Come on, Pa. Be a dear.’
‘Is she a great friend of yours?’
‘Not particularly. I’m sorry for her.’
‘I won’t do it.’
‘You must. She’s down to her last bean.’
‘But I need you in the show.’
‘What nonsense! As if I made the slightest difference.’
‘You do. You’ve got – I don’t know –’ Mr Mason twiddled his fingers. ‘Something. Your mother used to have it. Did you know I was the second juvenile in the first company she was ever in?’
Yes, you told me. And haven’t you got on! There’s enough of you now to make two second juveniles. Well, you will do it, won’t you?’
Mr Mason reflected.
‘I suppose I’ll have to, if you insist,’ he said at length. ‘If I don’t, you’ll just hand your notice in anyway. I know you. You’re a sportsman, Sue. Your mother was just the same. But are you sure you’ll manage all right? I shan’t be casting the new show till the end of August, but I may be able to fix you up somewhere if I look round.’
‘I don’t see how you could look any rounder if you tried, you poor darling. Do you realize, Pa, that if you got up early every morning and did half an hour’s Swedish exercises . . .’
‘If you don’t want to be murdered, stop!’
‘It would do you all the good in the world, you know. Well, it’s awfully sweet of you to bother about me, Pa, but you mustn’t. You’ve got enough to worry you already. I shall be all right. Good-bye. You’ve been an angel about Sally. It’ll save her life.’
‘If she’s that cross-eyed girl at the end of the second rowwho’s always out of step, I’m not sure I want to save her life.’
‘Well, you’re going to do it, anyway. Good-bye.’
‘Don’t run away.’
‘I must. Ronnie’s waiting. He’s going to take me to tea somewhere. Up the river, I hope. Think how nice it will be there, under the trees, with the water rippling . . .’
‘The only thing that stops me hitting you with this ruler,’ said Mr Mason, ‘is the thought that I shall soon be getting out of this Turkish Bath myself. I’ve a show opening at Blackpool next week. Think how nice and cool it will be on the sands there, with the waves splashing . . .’
‘. . . And you with your little spade and bucket, paddling! Oh, Pa, do send me a photograph. Well, I can’t stand here all day, chatting over your vacation plans. My poor Ronnie must be getting slowly fried.’
II
The process of getting slowly fried, especially when you are chafing for a sight of the girl you love after six weeks of exile from her society, is never an agreeable one. After enduring it for some time, the pink-faced young man with the long cigarette-holder had left his seat in the car and had gone for shade and comparative coolness to the shelter of the stage entrance, where he now stood reading the notices on the call-board. He read them moodily. The thought that, after having been away from Sue for all these weeks, he was now compelled to leave her again and go to Blandings Castle was weighing on Ronald Overbury Fish’s mind sorely.
Mac, the guardian of the stage door, leaned out of his hutch. The matinee over, he had begun to experience that solemn joy which comes to camels approaching an oasis and stage-door men who will soon be at liberty to pop round the corner. He endeavoured to communicate his happiness to Ronnie.
‘Won’t be long now, Mr Fish.’
‘Eh?’
‘Won’t be long now, sir.’
‘Ah,’ said Ronnie.
Mac was
concerned at his companion’s gloom. He liked smiling faces about him. Reflecting, he fancied he could diagnose its cause.
‘I was sorry to hear about that, Mr Fish.’
‘Eh?’
‘I say I was sorry to hear about that, sir.’
‘About what?’
About the Hot Spot, sir. That night-club of yours. Busting up that way. Going West so prompt.’
Ronnie Fish winced. He presumed the man meant well, but there are certain subjects one does not want mentioned. When you have contrived with infinite pains to wheedle a portion of your capital out of a reluctant trustee and have gone and started a night-club with it and seen that night-club flash into the receiver’s hands like some frail egg-shell engulfed by a whirlpool, silence is best.
Ah,’ he said briefly, to indicate this.
Mac had many admirable qualities, but not tact. He was the sort of man who would have tried to cheer Napoleon up by talking about the Winter Sports at Moscow.
‘When I heard that you and Mr Carmody was starting one of those places, I said to the fireman “I give it two months,” I said. And it was six weeks, wasn’t it, sir?’
‘Seven.’
‘Six or seven. Immaterial which. Point is I’m usually pretty right. I said to the fireman “It takes brains to run a night-club,” I said. “Brains and a certain what-shall-I-say.” Won me half-a-dollar, that did.’
He searched in his mind for other topics to interest and amuse.
‘Seen Mr Carmody lately, sir?’
‘No. I’ve been in Biarritz. He’s down in Shropshire. He’s got a job as secretary to an uncle of mine.’
‘And I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Mac cordially, ‘if he wouldn’t make a mess of that.’
He began to feel that the conversation was now going with a swing.
‘Used to see a lot of Mr Carmody round here at one time.’
The advance guard of the company appeared, in the shape of a flock of musicians. They passed out of the stage door, first a couple of thirsty-looking flutes, then a group of violins, finally an oboe by himself with a scowl on his face. Oboes are always savage in captivity.
‘Yes, sir. Came here a lot, Mr Carmody did. Asking for Miss Brown. Great friends those two was.’
‘Oh?’ said Ronnie thickly.
‘Used to make me laugh to see them together.’
Ronnie appeared to swallow something large and jagged.
‘Why?’
‘Well, him so tall and her so small. But there,’ said Mac philosophically, ‘they say it’s opposites that get on best. I know I weigh seventeen stone and my missus looks like a ninepenny rabbit, and yet we’re as happy as can be.’
Ronnie’s interest in the poundage of the stage-door keeper’s domestic circle was slight.
Ah,’ he said.
Mac, having got on to the subject of Sue Brown, stayed there.
‘You see the flowers arrived all right, sir.’
‘Eh?’
‘The flowers you sent Miss Brown, sir,’ said Mac, indicating with a stubby thumb a bouquet on the shelf behind him. I haven’t given her them yet. Thought she’d rather have them after the performance.’
It was a handsome bouquet, but Ronnie Fish stared at it with a sort of dumb horror. His pink face had grown pinker, and his eyes were glassy.
‘Give me those flowers, Mac,’ he said in a strangled voice.
‘Right, sir. Here you are, sir. Now you look just like a bridegroom, sir,’ said the stage-door keeper, chuckling the sort of chuckle that goes with seventeen stone and a fat head.
This thought had struck Ronnie, also. It was driven home a moment later by the displeasing behaviour of two of the chorus-girls who came flitting past. Both looked at him in away painful to a sensitive young man, and one of them giggled. Ronnie turned to the door.
‘When Miss Brown comes, tell her I’m waiting outside in my car.’
‘Right, sir. You’ll be in again, I suppose, sir?’
‘No.’ The sombre expression deepened on Ronnie’s face. ‘I’ve got to go down to Shropshire this evening.’
‘Be away long?’
Yes. Quite a time.’
‘Sorry to hear that, sir. Well, good-bye, sir. Thank you, sir.’
Ronnie, clutching the bouquet, walked with leaden steps to the two-seater. There was a card attached to the flowers. He read it, frowned darkly, and threw the bouquet into the car.
Girls were passing now in shoals. They meant nothing to Ronnie Fish. He eyed them sourly, marvelling why the papers talked about ‘beauty choruses’. And then, at last, there appeared one at the sight of whom his heart, parting from its moorings, began to behave like a jumping bean. It had reached his mouth when she ran up with both hands extended.
‘Ronnie, you precious angel lambkin!’
‘Sue!’
To a young man in love, however great the burden of sorrows beneath which he may be groaning, the spectacle of the only girl in the world, smiling up at him, seldom fails to bring a temporary balm. For the moment, Ronnie’s gloom ceased to be. He forgot that he had recently lost several hundred pounds in a disastrous commercial venture. He forgot that he was going off that evening to live in exile. He even forgot that this girl had just been sent a handsome bouquet by a ghastly bargee named P. Frobisher Pilbeam, belonging to the Junior Constitutional Club. These thoughts would return, but for the time being the one that occupied his mind to the exclusion of all others was the thought that after six long weeks of separation he was once more looking upon Sue Brown.
‘I’m so sorry I kept you waiting, precious. I had to see Mr Mason.’
Ronnie started.
‘What about?’
A student of the motion-pictures, he knew what theatrical managers were.
‘Just business.’
‘Did he ask you to lunch, or anything?’
‘No.He just fired me.’
‘Fired you!’
‘Yes, I’ve lost my job,’ said Sue happily.
Ronnie quivered.
‘I’ll go and break his neck.’
‘No, you won’t. It isn’t his fault. It’s the weather. They have to cut down expenses when there’s a heat-wave. It’s all the fault of people like you for going abroad instead of staying in London and coming to the theatre.’ She saw the flowers and uttered a delighted squeal. ‘For me?’
A moment before, Ronnie had been all chivalrous concern – a knight prepared to battle to the death for his lady-love. He now froze.
‘Apparently,’ he said coldly.
‘How do you mean, apparently?’
‘I mean they are.’
‘You pet!’
‘Leap in.’
Ronnie’s gloom was now dense and foglike once more. He gestured fiercely at the clustering children and trod on the self-starter. The car moved smoothly round the corner into Shaftes-bury Avenue.
Opposite the Monico, there was a traffic-block, and he unloaded his soul.
‘In re those blooms.’
‘They’re lovely.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t send them.’
‘You brought them. Much nicer.’
‘What I’m driving at,’ said Ronnie heavily, ‘is that they aren’t from me at all. They’re from a blighter named P. Frobisher Pilbeam.’
Sue’s smile had faded. She knew her Ronald’s jealousy so well. It was the one thing about him which she could have wished changed.
‘Oh?’ she said dismally.
The crust of calm detachment from all human emotion, built up by years of Eton and Cambridge, cracked abruptly, and there peeped forth a primitive Ronald Overbury Fish.
‘Who is this Pilbeam?’ he demanded. ‘Pretty much the Boy Friend, I take it, what?’
‘I’ve never even met him!’
‘But he sends you flowers.’
‘I know he does,’ wailed Sue, mourning for a golden afternoon now probably spoiled beyond repair. ‘He keeps sending me his beastly flowers and writing me his beastly letters . . .??
?
Ronnie gritted his teeth.
‘And I tell you I’ve never set eyes on him in my life.’
‘You don’t know who he is?’
‘One of the girls told me that he used to edit that paper Society Spice. I don’t know what he does now.’
‘When he isn’t sending you flowers, you mean?’
‘I can’t help him sending me flowers.’
‘I don’t suppose you want to.’
Sue’s eyes flickered. Realizing, however, that her Ronnie in certain moods resembled a child of six, she made a pathetic attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
‘It’s not my fault if I get persecuted with loathsome addresses, is it? I suppose, when you go to the movies, you blame Lilian Gish for being pursued by the heavy.’
Ronnie was not to be diverted.
‘Sometimes I ask myself,’ he said darkly, ‘if you really care a hang for me.’
‘Oh, Ronnie!’
‘Yes, I do – repeatedly. I look at you and I look at myself and that’s what I ask myself. What on earth is there about me to make a girl like you fond of a fellow? I’m a failure. Can’t even run a night-club. No brains. No looks.’
‘You’ve got a lovely complexion.’
‘Too pink. Much too pink. And I’m so damned short.’
You’re not a bit too short.’
‘I am. My Uncle Gaily once told me I looked like the protoplasm of a minor jockey.’
‘He ought to have been ashamed of himself.’
‘Why the dickens,’ said Ronnie, laying bare his secret dreams, ‘I couldn’t have been born a decent height, like Hugo . . .’ He paused. His hand shook on the steering-wheel. ‘That reminds me. That fellow Mac at the stage door was saying that you and Hugo used to be as thick as thieves. Always together, he said.’
Sue sighed. Things were being difficult to-day.
‘That was before I met you,’ she explained patiently. ‘I used to like dancing with him. He’s a beautiful dancer. You surely don’t suppose for a minute that I could ever be in love with Hugo?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Hugo!’ Sue laughed. There was something about Hugo Carmody that always made her want to laugh.
‘Well, I don’t see why not. He’s better looking than I am. Taller. Not so pink. Plays the saxophone.’
‘Will you stop being silly about Hugo.’