Leave it to Psmith (6 page)

‘Tell me all about yourself,’ she said, having achieved as much comfort as the peculiar structure of her chair would permit. And remember that I haven’t seen you for two years, so don’t leave anything out.’

‘It’s so difficult to know where to start.’

‘Well, you signed your letter “Phyllis Jackson”. Start with the mysterious Jackson. Where does he come in? The last I heard about you was an announcement in the
Morning Post
that you were engaged to – I’ve forgotten the name, but I’m certain it wasn’t Jackson.’

‘Rollo Mountford.’

‘Was it? Well, what has become of Rollo? You seem to have mislaid him. Did you break off the engagement?’

‘Well, it – sort of broke itself off. I mean, you see, I went and married Mike.’

‘Eloped with him, do you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good heavens!’

‘I’m awfully ashamed about that, Eve. I suppose I treated Rollo awfully badly.’

‘Never mind. A man with a name like that was made for suffering.’

‘I never really cared for him. He had horrid swimmy eyes . . .’

‘I understand. So you eloped with your Mike. Tell me about him. Who is he? What does he do?’

‘Well, at present he’s master at a school. But he doesn’t like it. He wants to get back to the country again. When I met him, he was agent on a place in the country belonging to some people named Smith. Mike had been at school and Cambridge with the son. They were very rich then and had a big estate. It was the next place to the Edgelows. I had gone to stay with Mary Edgelow – I don’t know if you remember her at school? I met Mike first at a dance, and then I met him out riding, and then – well, after that we used to meet every day. And we fell in love right from the start and we went and got married. Oh, Eve, I wish you could have seen our darling little house. It was all over ivy and roses, and we had horses and dogs and . . .’

Phyllis’s narrative broke off with a gulp. Eve looked at her sympathetically. All her life she herself had been joyously impecunious, but it had never seemed to matter. She was strong and adventurous, and revelled in the perpetual excitement of trying to make both ends meet. But Phyllis was one of those sweet porcelain girls whom the roughnesses of life bruise instead of stimulating. She needed comfort and pleasant surroundings. Eve looked morosely at the china dog, which leered back at her with an insufferable good-fellowship.

‘We had hardly got married,’ resumed Phyllis, blinking, ‘when poor Mr Smith died and the whole place was broken up. He must have been speculating or something, I suppose, because he hardly left any money, and the estate had to be sold. And the people who bought it – they were coal people from Wolverhampton – had a nephew for whom they wanted the agent job, so Mike had to go. So here we are.’

Eve put the question which she had been waiting to ask ever since she had entered the house.

‘But what about your stepfather? Surely, when we were at school, you had a rich stepfather in the background. Has he lost his money, too?’

‘No.’

‘Well, why doesn’t he help you, then?’

‘He would, I know, if he was left to himself. But it’s Aunt Constance.’

‘What’s Aunt Constance? And who
is
Aunt Constance?’

‘Well, I call her that, but she’s really my stepmother – sort of. I suppose she’s really my step-stepmother. My stepfather married again two years ago. It was Aunt Constance who was so furious when I married Mike. She wanted me to marry Rollo. She has never forgiven me, and she won’t let my stepfather do anything to help us.’

‘But the man must be a worm!’ said Eve indignantly. ‘Why doesn’t he insist? You always used to tell me how fond he was of you.’

‘He isn’t a worm, Eve. He’s a dear. It’s just that he has let her boss him. She’s rather a terror, you know. She can be quite nice, and they’re awfully fond of each other, but she is as hard as nails sometimes.’ Phyllis broke off. The front door had opened, and there were footsteps in the hall. ‘Here’s Clarkie. I hope she has brought Cynthia with her. She was to pick her up on her way. Don’t talk about what I’ve been telling you in front of her, Eve, there’s an angel.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’s so motherly about it. It’s sweet of her, but . . .’

Eve understood.

‘All right. Later on.’

The door opened to admit Miss Clarkson.

The adjective which Phyllis had applied to her late schoolmistress was obviously well chosen. Miss Clarkson exuded motherliness. She was large, wholesome, and soft, and she swooped on Eve like a hen on its chicken almost before the door had closed.

‘Eve! How nice to see you after all this time! My dear, you’re looking perfectly lovely! And
so
prosperous. What a beautiful hat!’

‘I’ve been envying it ever since you came, Eve,’ said Phyllis. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘Madeleine Sœurs, in Regent Street.’

Miss Clarkson, having acquired and stirred a cup of tea, started to improve the occasion. Eve had always been a favourite of hers at school. She beamed affectionately upon her.

‘Now doesn’t this show – what I always used to say to you in the dear old days, Eve – that one must never despair, however black the outlook may seem? I remember you at school, dear, as poor as a church mouse, and with no prospects, none whatever. And yet here you are – rich . . .’

Eve laughed. She got up and kissed Miss Clarkson. She regretted that she was compelled to strike a jarring note, but it had to be done.

‘I’m awfully sorry, Clarkie dear,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid I’ve misled you. I’m just as broke as I ever was. In fact, when Phyllis told me you were running an Employment Agency, I made a note to come and see you and ask if you had some attractive billet to dispose of. Governess to a thoroughly angelic child would do. Or isn’t there some nice cosy author or something who wants his letters answered and his press-clippings pasted in an album?’

‘Oh, my dear!’ Miss Clarkson was deeply concerned. ‘I did hope . . . That hat . . . !’

‘The hat’s the whole trouble. Of course I had no business even to think of it, but I saw it in the shop-window and coveted it for days, and finally fell. And then, you see, I had to live up to it – buy shoes and a dress to match. I tell you it was a perfect orgy, and I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself now. Too late, as usual.’

‘Oh, dear! You always were such a wild, impetuous child, even at school. I remember how often I used to speak to you about it.’

‘Well, when it was all over and I was sane again, I found I had only a few pounds left, not nearly enough to see me through till the relief expedition arrived. So I thought it over and decided to invest my little all.’

‘I hope you chose something safe?’

‘It ought to have been. The
Sporting Express
called it “Today’s Safety Bet”. It was Bounding Willie for the two-thirty race at Sandown last Wednesday.’

‘Oh, dear!’

‘That’s what I said when poor old Willie came in sixth. But it’s no good worrying, is it? What it means is that I simply must find something to do that will carry me through till I get my next quarter’s allowance. And that won’t be till September. . . . But don’t let’s talk business here. I’ll come round to your office, Clarkie, to-morrow. . . . Where’s Cynthia? Didn’t you bring her?’

‘Yes, I thought you were going to pick Cynthia up on your way, Clarkie,’ said Phyllis.

If Eve’s information as to her financial affairs had caused Miss Clarkson to mourn, the mention of Cynthia plunged her into the very depths of woe. Her mouth quivered and a tear stole down her cheek. Eve and Phyllis exchanged bewildered glances.

‘I say,’ said Eve after a moment’s pause and a silence broken only by a smothered sob from their late instructress, ‘we aren’t being very cheerful, are we, considering that this is supposed to be a joyous reunion? Is anything wrong with Cynthia?’

So poignant was Miss Clarkson’s anguish that Phyllis, in a flutter of alarm, rose and left the room swiftly in search of the only remedy that suggested itself to her – her smelling-salts.

‘Poor dear Cynthia!’ moaned Miss Clarkson.

‘Why, what’s the matter with her?’ asked Eve. She was not callous to Miss Clarkson’s grief, but she could not help the tiniest of smiles. In a flash she had been transported to her school-days, when the other’s habit of extracting the utmost tragedy out of the slimmest material had been a source of ever-fresh amusement to her. Not for an instant did she expect to hear any worse news of her old friend than that she was in bed with a cold or had twisted her ankle.

‘She’s married, you know,’ said Miss Clarkson.

‘Well, I see no harm in that, Clarkie. If a few more Safety Bets go wrong, I shall probably have to rush out and marry someone myself. Some nice, rich, indulgent man who will spoil me.’

‘Oh, Eve, my dear,’ pleaded Miss Clarkson, bleating with alarm, ‘do please be careful whom you marry. I never hear of one of my girls marrying without feeling that the worst may happen and that, all unknowing, she may be stepping over a grim precipice!’

‘You don’t
tell
them that, do you? Because I should think it would rather cast a damper on the wedding festivities. Has Cynthia gone stepping over grim precipices? I was just saying to Phyllis that I envied her, marrying a celebrity like Ralston McTodd.’

Miss Clarkson gulped.

‘The man must be a
fiend?
she said brokenly. ‘I have just left poor dear Cynthia in floods of tears at the Cadogan Hotel – she has a very nice quiet room on the fourth floor, though the carpet does not harmonise with the wall-paper. . . . She was brokenhearted, poor child. I did what I could to console her, but it was useless. She always was so highly strung. I must be getting back to her very soon. I only came on here because I did not want to disappoint you two dear girls . . .’

‘Why?’ said Eve with quiet intensity. She knew from experience that Miss Clarkson, unless firmly checked, would pirouette round and round the point for minutes without ever touching it.

‘Why?’ echoed Miss Clarkson, blinking as if the word was something solid that had struck her unexpectedly.

‘Why was Cynthia in floods of tears?’

‘But I’m telling you, my dear. That man has left her!’

‘Left her!’

‘They had a quarrel, and he walked straight out of the hotel. That was the day before yesterday, and he has not been back since. This afternoon the curtest note came from him to say that he never intended to return. He had secretly and in a most underhand way arranged for his luggage to be removed from the hotel to a District Messenger office, and from there he has taken it no one knows where. He has completely disappeared.’

Eve stared. She had not been prepared for news of this momentous order.

‘But what did they quarrel about?’

‘Cynthia, poor child, was too overwrought to tell me!’

Eve clenched her teeth.

‘The beast! . . . Poor old Cynthia. . . . Shall I come round with you?’

‘No, my dear, better let me look after her alone. I will tell her to write and let you know when she can see you. I must be going, Phyllis dear,’ she said, as her hostess re-entered, bearing a small bottle.

‘But you’ve only just come!’ said Phyllis, surprised.

‘Poor old Cynthia’s husband has left her,’ explained Eve briefly. ‘And Clarkie’s going back to look after her. She’s in a pretty bad way, it seems.’

‘Oh, no!’

‘Yes, indeed. And I really must be going at once,’ said Miss Clarkson.

Eve waited in the drawing-room till the front door banged and Phyllis came back to her. Phyllis was more wistful than ever. She had been looking forward to this tea-party, and it had not been the happy occasion she had anticipated. The two girls sat in silence for a moment.

‘What brutes some men are!’ said Eve at length.

‘Mike,’ said Phyllis dreamily, ‘is an angel.’

Eve welcomed the unspoken invitation to return to a more agreeable topic. She felt very deeply for the stricken Cynthia, but she hated aimless talk, and nothing could have been more aimless than for her and Phyllis to sit there exchanging lamentations concerning a tragedy of which neither knew more than the bare outlines. Phyllis had her tragedy, too, and it was one where Eve saw the possibility of doing something practical and helpful. She was a girl of action, and was glad to be able to attack a living issue.

‘Yes, let’s go on talking about you and Mike,’ she said. ‘At present I can’t understand the position at all. When Clarkie came in, you were just telling me about your stepfather and why he wouldn’t help you. And I thought you made out a very poor case for him. Tell me some more. I’ve forgotten his name, by the way.’

‘Keeble.’

‘Oh? Well, I think you ought to write and tell him how hard-up you are. He may be under the impression that you are still living in luxury and don’t need any help. After all, he can’t know unless you tell him. And I should ask him straight out to come to the rescue. It isn’t as if it was your Mike’s fault that you’re broke. He married you on the strength of a very good position which looked like a permanency, and lost it through no fault of his own. I should write to him, Phyl. Pitch it strong.’

‘I have. I wrote to-day. Mike’s just been offered a wonderful opportunity. A sort of farm place in Lincolnshire. You know. Cows and things. Just what he would like and just what he would do awfully well. And we only need three thousand pounds to get it. . . . But I’m afraid nothing will come of it.’

‘Because of Aunt Constance, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘You must
make
something come of it.’ Eve’s chin went up. She looked like a Goddess of Determination. ‘If I were you, I’d haunt their doorstep till they had to give you the money to get rid of you. The idea of anybody doing that absurd driving-into-the-snow business in these days! Why
shouldn’t
you marry the man you were in love with? If I were you, I’d go and chain myself to their railings and howl like a dog till they rushed out with cheque-books just to get some peace. Do they live in London?’