Bachelors Anonymous (4 page)

‘Who’s
he?’

‘You
see. The name means nothing to you. He had his first play on at the Regal and
it flopped. I was awfully sorry for him. I ran into him again last night, but
only for a minute. I suppose that’s the last time I shall ever see him, and
I’ve never met anyone I liked so much at first sight. We got on like long-lost
brothers.’

‘Good-looking?’

‘Not a
bit. He does a lot of boxing, and that’s apt to impair the appearance. But I’ll
tell you something for your files, young Mabel. Looks aren’t everything. A
cauliflower ear doesn’t matter if it covers a warm heart, which I could see Joe
Pickering had. He hated being interviewed, but he remained perfectly courteous
throughout, even when I was being most inquisitive about his private affairs.’

‘Don’t
you feel awkward, butting in on perfect strangers and asking them about their
religion and do they love their wives and what their favourite breakfast cereal
is?’

‘You
get hardened, like a surgeon.’

‘Sammy
says interviewers ought to be drowned in a bucket. Oh well,’ said Mabel, her
interest in that branch of the literary world waning, ‘carry on if you enjoy
it. What do you think I ought to do? What would you do if you were me? About
Charlie?’

‘You
can’t go by what I’d do,’ said Sally. ‘I’m the meek, yielding type. I’d tell
myself I had promised to honour and obey the poor fish, so why not get started.
I suppose a lot depends on the man. Is Charlie one of those tough domineering
characters who thump the desk and shout “Listen to me. Once and for all…“?‘

‘Oh no,
he’s not a bit like that. He says “Anything that will make me happy”.’

‘But he
wants you to chuck your job?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then
chuck it, honey, chuck it. A man like that is worth making a sacrifice for.’

‘I
think I will.’

‘Do. It
means, of course, that your life will lose a little in the way of
entertainment, but what of it? I always say that when you’ve seen one Gentleman
of the Press having delirium tremens, you’ve seen them all. Your Charlie sounds
a pretty good egg. The unselfish type. Just the sort of man I’d like to marry
myself.’

‘Why
don’t you get married, Sally? You’d probably have the time of your life.’

‘No one
has asked me, not recently. I was once engaged, but it didn’t jell.’

‘You
quarrelled? Misunderstanding, and both too proud to explain?’ said Mabel, who
read stories in women’s papers like Sally’s, when not working or watching
newspaper men have delirium tremens. ‘Who was he? A curate?’

‘Why a
curate?’

‘Your
father was a vicar. You must have been up to your knees in curates. Or was it
the doctor?’

‘What
makes you think that?’

‘There
couldn’t have been a wide selection in a one-horse place like Much Middlefold.
Was it—?’

‘The
landlord of the village pub? The odd-job man? The school master? No, it wasn’t.
It was a baronet, my girl, and a seventh baronet at that. Father used to coach
a few assorted young men for Diplomatic Service exams and that sort of thing,
and Jaklyn was one of them. So we met. ‘

‘That’s
an odd name.’

‘Family
name. Handed down through the ages.’

‘Did
you break it off?’

‘No, he
did. He said it would be years before we could afford to get married, and it
wasn’t fair to ask me to wait.’

‘Then
he hadn’t any money?’

‘No,
the sixth Bart had spent it all, backing losers.’

‘Is he
in London?, Do you ever see him?’

‘Who’s
asking questions now? Yes, he’s in London, and I see him occasionally. We
sometimes go to the theatre.’

‘I
suppose you’ve got over it all right?’

‘Oh,
completely.’

Mabel
rose and stretched herself. She said she must be getting back to her room.

‘Letters
to write?’

‘I don’t
write letters on my day off. The Sunday papers to read. There’s a terrific
murder in the
News of the World.’

Left
alone, Sally fell into a reverie. It was not often that she found herself
thinking of Jak Warner these days, and now that Mabel’s inquisitiveness had
brought him back into her mind it was with some surprise that she realised that
in stating so confidently that his spell had ceased to operate she had been in
error. A good deal of the old affection, she discovered, still lingered. A man
may not be an object of admiration to severe male critics like Mac the
stage-doorkeeper, but if he combines singular good looks with a smooth tongue
and a pathetic wistfulness it is not easy for a warm-hearted girl to erase him
entirely, particularly if she still sees him from time to time.

Magic
moments of those days at Much Middlefold returned to her. Moonlight walks in
the meadows. Kisses in the shadows. Drifting down the river in the old vicarage
punt. By the time Mabel returned she had fallen into a mood which in anybody
else she would have classified as mushy and getting deeper and deeper into that
foolish condition.

Mabel’s
entry acted as a corrective. She had flung the door open with a violence that
made the window rattle and was advancing into the room with wrought-up squeaks.
She was waving a paper.

‘Look
at this, Sally! ‘

‘Look
at what?’

‘It’s
about you.’

‘What’s
about me?’

‘Read
this. Where my thumb is.’

Sally
took the paper, and instantaneously the past with its moonlight walks and
kisses vanished as if turned off with a switch. She had no need to call on
Mabel’s thumb for guidance. The moment she scanned the page her own name leaped
at her.

‘Golly!’
she said, and Mabel’s comment that she might well say ‘Golly’ was
unquestionably justified.

If, the
advertisement stated, Miss Sarah Fitch, formerly of Much Middlefold in the
county of Worcestershire, will call at the offices of Nichols, Erridge,
Trubshaw and Nichols, 27 Bedford Row, she will learn of something to her
advantage; and if a girl was not entitled to say ‘Golly’ on reading that, it
would be difficult to see what would entitle her to say ‘Golly’.

Mabel’s
emotion had reached new heights.

‘You
know what that means, Sally. Somebody’s left you a packet.’

Sally
had begun to recover from the first dazed illusion that she had been hit over
the head with something hard and heavy.

‘They
couldn’t have.’

‘They
must have. It always means that when lawyers put in that bit about learning to
advantage.’

‘But
it’s impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Who
could have left me anything?’

Mabel
had not read women’s papers for nothing. ‘Your grandfather,’ she said with
confidence. ‘He disinherited your mother for marrying a clergyman when he had
got it all lined up for her to marry the Earl of Something. It’s happening all
the time.’

‘Not
this time. My grandfather has always been particularly fond of my father.’

‘Oh,’
said Mabel, disappointed.

‘And
what’s more he’s still alive. I had a letter from him yesterday.’

‘Oh,’
said Mabel.

‘And
even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be leaving people money. He hasn’t a bean except
his pension. If you ask me, it’s probably a practical joke. It’s the sort of
thing some of the girls where I work would think funny.’

‘But if
it was that, they would have cut the thing out and shown it to you.’

‘That’s
true.’

‘Anyway,
you’ll go and see these Bedford Row people?’

‘Oh,
I’ll go. I’ve enough curiosity for that. I’ll go on Tuesday morning. I’m not
seeing Mr Llewellyn till the evening.’

‘Why
not tomorrow?’

‘I
can’t tomorrow. I’ll be down at Valley Fields. My old Nanny lives there, and
I’ve orders from home to go and see her every week. I missed last time, so I
shall have to go twice this week. But don’t worry. Nichols, Erridge, Trubshaw
and Nichols will still be there on Tuesday.’

Chapter Five

An early hour on Tuesday
found Joe Pickering on his way to see his friend Jerry Nichols.

He
walked pensively and in a manner more suggestive of a somnambulist than of a
vigorous young man in full control of his limbs. Pedestrians with whom he
collided nursed bitter thoughts of him, but had they had the full facts at
their disposal, they would have realised that he was more to be pitied than
censured, for on waking on Sunday morning he had discovered that on the
previous night he had fallen in love at what virtually amounted to first sight,
and this naturally disturbed his mind and affected his steering.

His
predicament was one he would never have permitted to the hero of any of the
stories he wrote in the evening after the day’s work at the office was done,
for he was, though unsuccessful, an artist. Love at first sight, he felt
austerely, was better left to those who catered for the Mabel Potters of this
world— Rosie M. Banks, for instance, authoress of
Marvyn Keene, Clubman,
and
Leila J. Pinkney
(Scent o’ the Blossom
and
Heather o’ the Hills).

And yet
it had unquestionably happened, however artistically wrong. He had met Sally
Fitch only twice, but love, to quote Rosie M. Banks
(A Kiss at Twilight,
Chapter
Three), had cast its silken fetters about him. The symptoms were unmistakable.

There
is, of course, nothing to be said against love at first—or even second—sight,
but if one is going to indulge in it, it is as well to know the name and
address of the object of one’s devotion. Sally’s address was a sealed book to
Joe, and though he remembered the Sally part, what followed after that he had
completely forgotten. He had even forgotten the name of the paper for which she
worked. And while it would no doubt have been possible for him to buy all the
weeklies in London and read through them till he found the interview by Sally
Whatever-her-name-was, it was more than likely that with his play such a
failure the paper that employed her would not have bothered to print the
interview.

It was
in sombre mood, accordingly, that he arrived at the offices of Nichols, Erridge
and Trubshaw. Fortunately his friend Jerry, an exuberant young man who always
had cheerfulness enough for two, now seemed to be in even better spirits than
usual. He gave the impression, one not shared by his visitor, that in his
opinion everything was for the best in this best of all possible worlds. After
preliminary greetings, marked for their warmth, he turned the conversation to
the subject of his letter.

‘Did
anything about it strike you, Joe?’

‘Only
that it was very good of you to bother about me.’

‘Nothing
peculiar, I mean?’

‘No.
Was there anything?’

‘It was
headed Nichols, Erridge, Trubshaw and Nichols.’

‘Well,
isn’t that the name of the firm?’

‘Nichols,
Erridge, Trubshaw
and
Nichols.’

Joe saw
daylight, and his gloom noticeably diminished. He could rejoice in a friend’s
good fortune.

‘Do you
mean they’ve made you a partner?’

‘Just
that. About as junior as it’s possible to be, but still a partner. Bigger
salary, increased self-respect, admiration of my underlings, the lot.’

‘Well,
that’s wonderful. Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.
And thanks for not saying “Why?”. But I’ll tell you why. I think my father felt
that the firm ought to have someone who talked like a human being instead of in
the legal patois affected by himself, Erridge and Trubshaw, in order to put
nervous clients at their ease.’

‘Putting
anybody at their ease this morning?’

‘Only
you and a girl who wrote that she would be turning up. But don’t let’s talk of
my triumphs. Let’s get on to this Llewellyn thing.’

‘The
good thing you mentioned in your letter?’

‘That’s
the one. Splendid opening it looks to me. Of course, it’s a gamble. But what
isn’t?’

‘Why is
it a gamble?’

‘Because
it means quitting your job, which would put you in a bit of a hole if Llewellyn
decided that you weren’t the right man. There you would be without visible
means of support, and it isn’t easy to get visible means of support these days.
I don’t mind admitting that if I hadn’t had a father who’s one of London’s most
prosperous legal sharks, I’d have been hard put to it to secure my three square
meals a day.’

‘Could
Llewellyn make up his mind in a week?’

‘I
imagine so. Why a week?’

‘Because
I’m in the middle of my annual fortnight’s vacation, so wouldn’t have to
tender my resignation immediately.’