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‘Eh?’

‘I say, why should we tell him something that isn’t true?’

‘I don’t get your drift.’

‘I will continue snowing,’ said Millicent coldly. ‘I am not quite sure if I am ever going to speak to you again in this world or the next. Much will depend on how good you are as an explainer. I have it on the most excellent authority that you are entangled with a chorus-girl. How about it?’

Hugo reeled. But then St Anthony himself would have reeled if a charge like that had suddenly been hurled at him. The best of men require time to overhaul their conscience on such occasions. A moment and he was himself again.

‘It’s a lie!’

‘Name of Brown.’

‘Not a word of truth in it. I haven’t set eyes on Sue Brown since I first met you.’

‘No. You’ve been down here all the time.’

And when I
was
setting eyes on her – why, dash it, my attitude from start to finish was one of blameless, innocent, one hundred per cent brotherliness. A wholesome friendship.

Brotherly. Nothing more. I liked dancing and she liked dancing and our steps fitted. So occasionally we would go out together and tread the measure. That’s all there was to it.

Pure brotherliness. Nothing more. I looked on myself as a sort of brother.’

‘Brother, eh?’

‘Absolutely a brother. Don’t,’ urged Hugo earnestly, ‘go running away, my dear old thing, with any sort of silly notion that Sue Brown was something in the nature of a vamp. She’s one of the nicest girls you would ever want to meet.’

‘Nice, is she?’

‘A sweet girl. A girl in a million. A real good sort. A sound egg-’

‘Pretty, I suppose?’

The native good sense of the Carmodys asserted itself at the eleventh hour.

‘Not pretty,’ said Hugo decidedly. ‘Not pretty, no. Not at all pretty. Far from pretty.

Totally lacking in sex-appeal, poor girl. But nice. A good sort. No nonsense about her.

Sisterly.’

Millicent pondered.

‘H’m,’ she said.

Nature paused, listening. Birds checked their song, insects their droning. It was as if it had got about that this young man’s fate hung in the balance and the returns would be in shortly.

‘Well, all right,’ she said at length. ‘I suppose I’ll have to believe you.’

‘“At’s the way to talk!’

‘But just you bear this in mind, my lad. Any funny business from now on . . .’

As if . . .!’

‘One more attack of that brotherly urge . . .’

As though . . .!’

All right, then.’

Hugo inhaled vigorously. He felt like a man who has just dodged a wounded tigress.

‘Banzai!’ he said. ‘Sweethearts still!’

V

Blandings Castle dozed in the twilight. Its various inmates were variously occupied.

Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, after many a longing lingering look behind, had dragged himself away from the Empress’s boudoir and was reading his well-thumbed copy of
British Pigs.
The Hon. Galahad, having fixed up the Parsloe-Burper passage, was skimming through his day’s output with an artist’s complacent feeling that this was the stuff to give ‘em. Butler Beach was pasting the Hon. Galahad’s photograph into his album. Millicent, in her bedroom, was looking a little thoughtfully into her mirror. Hugo, in the billiard-room, was practising pensive cannons and thinking loving thoughts of his lady, coupled with an occasional reflection that a short, swift binge in London would be a great wheeze if he could wangle it.

And in her boudoir on the second floor, Lady Constance Keeble had taken pen in hand and was poising it over a sheet of notepaper.

‘Dear Mr Baxter,’ she wrote.

2 THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

I

The brilliant sunshine which so enhanced the attractions of life at Blandings Castle had brought less pleasure to those of England’s workers whose duties compelled them to remain in London. In his offices on top of the Regal Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, Mr Mortimer Mason, the stout senior partner in the firm of Mason and Saxby, Theatrical Enterprises, Ltd, was of opinion that what the country really needed was one of those wedge-shaped depressions off the Coast of Iceland. Apart from making him feel like a gaffed salmon, Flaming July was ruining business. Only last night, to cut down expenses, he had had to dismiss some of the chorus from the show downstairs, and he hated dismissing chorus-girls. He was a kind-hearted man, and, having been in the profession himself in his time, knew what it meant to get one’s notice in the middle of the summer.

There was a tap on the door. The human watchdog who guarded the outer offices entered.

‘Well?’ said Mortimer Mason wearily.

‘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.