Summer Moonshine (2 page)

Jane waved a hand.

'Good morning, Miss Whittaker.'

'Good morning, Miss Abbott.'

'I'm going up to London this morning. Anything you want me to do for you?'

'No, thank you, Miss Abbott.'

'No message for Percy?' asked Tubby unpleasantly.

The secretary glided away in disdainful silence. Jane, turning to Tubby to ask who Percy was, for this was the first time she had heard of any Percys in Prudence Whittaker's life, caught sight of his face.

'Golly, Tubby!' she exclaimed. 'What's the matter?'

'I'm all right.'

'Then you deceive the eye.'

'I'm fine,' said the sufferer moodily.

Jane was not to be put off like this:

'You're nothing of the kind. You look like one of those strong, soured men who have a row with the girl and go off and shoot lions in Africa. I expect Buck used to meet them in dozens when— Tubby! Have you and La Whittaker parted brass rags?'

Tubby reeled. This clairvoyant girl had taken his breath away. He had supposed his love a secret locked away behind a masklike face.

'What do you know about me and La— I mean Miss Whittaker?'

'My poor child, it's been sticking out a mile for weeks. Your bulging eyes when you looked at her told their own story.'

'Is that so? Well, they've changed their act.'

'I'm awfully sorry. What happened?'

'Oh, nothing,' said Tubby. A man has his reserves.

'Who's Percy?'

'Nobody you know.'

Jane forbore to press the question. She was longing to hear all about that shadowy – one might say, mystic – figure, whose role seemed to be that of Serpent in the Vanringham-Whittaker Garden of Eden, but she was a tactful girl. Instead, she asked him what he was going to do about it. Tubby replied that he wasn't going to do anything about it. Jane screwed up her blue eyes and looked at the heat mist that flickered over the turf.

'Well, it's a shame,' she said. 'Have you thought of trying homoeopathic treatment?'

'Eh?'

'In cases like this, I always think that another girl should be applied immediately. What you need is plenty of gay feminine society. You're the sort of man who's lost if he hasn't a girl.'

'I can take them or leave them alone.'

'What girls have we? I'm lunching today with six from the old school, headed by Mabel Purvis, at one time president of the Debating Society. Would you care to join us?'

'No, thanks.'

'I thought you mightn't.' Jane paused. 'Of course, you know, Tubby darling,' she said, 'I don't want to seem callous and unsympathetic, but, however rotten it is quarrelling with someone you're fond of, there's a sort of bright spot to this particular bit of trouble.'

'What?' said Tubby, who had missed it.

'Well, but for this rift, you would have had to inform your stepmother, when she got back from America, that you were intending to marry a humble working girl. You know her better than I do, but I wouldn't have said offhand that she was a woman who was frightfully fond of humble working girls.'

This angle of the situation had presented itself to Tubby's notice independently once or twice since the severing of his relations with Miss Whittaker. The Princess von und zu Dwornitzchek – she had married and divorced the holder of this high-sounding title about two years after the death of the late Mr Franklin Vanringham – was, he knew, inclined to be finicky where his matrimonial plans were concerned, and she possessed, unfortunately, the power of the high, the middle and the low justice over him. That is to say, she could at will stop his allowance, and set him to work at the bottom of that fish-glue business of which he had already made mention; a prosperous concern in which she had inherited a large interest from her first husband, a Mr Spelvin. And though Tubby knew little or nothing of conditions at the bottom of fish-glue businesses, instinct told him that he would not like them.

'I wouldn't have cared about that,' he said sturdily, 'if Prue had been on the level.'

'Of course not,' said Jane, wondering what on earth it could be that the immaculate Miss Whittaker had done. 'Still, it's a point.'

'It is a point,' agreed Tubby. 'She's a tough egg.'

'She must be, if she slung your brother Joe out.'

'And with only ten dollars in his kick, mind you. Joe told me so.'

'Good gracious! What did he do?'

'Oh, all sorts of things. I know he was a sailor on a tramp steamer, and I believe he held down a job for a time as bouncer at some bar. He did a bit of prize-fighting too.'

Jane found herself liking this stalwart. The Princess Dwornitzchek was a woman for whom she had little esteem, and it saddened her at times that Tubby, such a dear in other
respects, should allow himself to be so under her thumb. A man who could defy that overpowering millionairess was a man after her own heart.

'I could tell you all sorts of things about Joe.'

'I'd love to hear them, but I'm afraid I can't stop now. I've got to dress. What you had better do, it seems to me, is go and have your swim. That'll buck you up.'

Her words reminded Tubby of the other blow which he had sustained. Not such a wallop, of course, as having one's dreams and ideals knocked for a loop by a woman's treachery, but quite a sock in its way.

'Say, listen, Jane,' he said, 'what's all this I hear about the houseboat being rented?'

'Quite correct. Tenant clocks in today. Name of Peake.'

'Oh, shoot!'

'Why? You can still go on bathing from it.'

'Can I, do you think? Won't this fellow mind?'

'Of course not. Adrian's a great swimmer himself. He'll love to have a little playmate.'

The brightness which had come like a gleam of winter sunshine into Tubby's careworn face faded abruptly.

'Adrian?'

'That's his name.'

'Adrian Peake?'

'That's right. You seem to know him.'

Tubby gave a short, bitter snort. His air was that of a man who realizes that everything is against him.

'I'll say I know him. I haven't been able to move without treading on the fellow for a year and a half. Will I ever forget that time last August when he was on my stepmother's yacht at Cannes. Talk about getting in one's hair!'

Jane had become suddenly rigid, but Tubby did not observe this phenomenon. He continued, unheeding:

'Adrian Peake! My gosh! He's a sort of lapdog of my stepmother's. Trots after her wherever she goes. Marked her down the day she hit London, and has been sponging on her ever since. Adrian by golly Peake, is it? Then the thing's cold. I'm not going to put myself under an obligation to that twerp. Darned gigolo. I shall go and play croquet with Mrs Folsom.'

Jane Abbott's fists were now clenched and her small teeth set. She was looking at Tubby with an eye compared with which even that of Miss Prudence Whittaker had been kindly and sympathetic.

'It may interest you to know,' she said, in a steely voice, 'that Adrian and I are engaged.'

She was right. It interested him extremely. He jumped as if she had hit him.

'Engaged?'

'Yes.'

'You can't be!'

'I must go and dress.'

'But wait. Listen. There must be some mistake. You can't possibly be engaged to Adrian Peake. He's going to marry my stepmother.'

'Don't be an idiot.'

'He is, I tell you. Unless this is a different Adrian Peake. The one I mean is a slimy bird who looks like a consumptive tailor's dummy.'

He paused here, for Jane had begun to speak. For some moments she spoke with an incisive eloquence which made
Tubby feel as if the top of his head had come off Then she turned and walked away, leaving him to collect the wreckage.

Her father, whom she passed on the terrace, called to her, but she merely smiled a tight-lipped smile and hurried on. She was in no mood for conversation, even with a fondly loved parent.

S
IR Buckstone Abbot
was standing on the terrace because it was almost time for his daily conference with Prudence Whittaker, which always took place at this hour and, if the weather was fine, on this spot.

The Baronet was a man of routine. Every day he rose punctually at eight-thirty and, having shaved, bathed and gone through the complicated system of physical jerks which kept his stocky body in such excellent repair, breakfasted with his wife in her sitting-room. At ten-thirty he interviewed Miss Whittaker. The rest of the morning and the early afternoon he devoted to avoiding the paying guests. Between five and seven, he took the dogs for a run.

Unable to induce Jane to stop and chat with him, he resumed the scrutiny of his ancestral home which her passing had interrupted. He always took a look at Walsingford Hall at about this hour, and liked it less every time he saw it. Today's bright sunshine showed up the celebrated eyesore in all its revolting hideousness, and it was with a renewed sense of wonder at the mental processes of that remarkable woman that he remembered that the Princess von und zu Dwornitzchek had once said she thought it cute. Sir Buckstone had often dredged the dictionary for adjectives to describe the home
of his fathers, but 'cute' was one which had not occurred to him.

Walsingford Hall had not always presented the stupefying spectacle which it did today Built in the time of Queen Elizabeth on an eminence overlooking the silver Thames, it must, for two centuries and more, have been a lovely place. The fact that it now caused sensitive oarsmen, rounding the bend of the river and seeing it suddenly, to wince and catch crabs was due to the unfortunate circumstance of the big fire, which, sooner or later, seems to come to all English country houses, postponing its arrival until midway through the reign of Queen Victoria, thus giving the task of rebuilding it from the foundations up to Sir Wellington Abbott, at that time its proprietor.

Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks, Sir Wellington least of any. He was as virulent an amateur architect as ever grew a whisker. Watching the holocaust in his nightshirt, for he had had to nip rather smartly out of a burning bedroom, he forgot the cold wind blowing about his ankles in the thought that here was his chance to do a big job and do it well. He embarked upon it at the earliest possible moment, regardless of expense.

What Sir Buckstone was now looking at, accordingly, was a vast edifice constructed of glazed red brick, in some respects resembling a French chateau, but, on the whole, perhaps, having more the appearance of one of those model dwellings in which a certain number of working-class families are assured of a certain number of cubic feet of air. It had a huge leaden roof, tapering to a point and topped by a weathervane, and from one side of it, like some unpleasant growth, there protruded a large conservatory. There were also a dome and some minarets.

Victorian villagers gazing up at it, had named it Abbott's Folly, and they had been about right.

The clock over the stables struck the half-hour, and simultaneously, on time as usual, Miss Whittaker came out of the house, note-book in hand.

'Good morning, Sir Buckstone.'

'Morning, Miss Whittaker. Lovely day.'

'Oh, yay-ess, Sir Buckstone. Beautiful.'

'Well, everybody all right? Nobody complaining about anything?'

This, also, was routine. The Baronet's first question at these conferences always had to do with the welfare of his little flock.

Miss Whittaker consulted her note-book.

'Mrs Shepley has been annoyed by the pigeons.'

'What have they been doing to her?'

'They coo outside her window in the morning.'

'Well, I don't see what she expects me to do about that. Can't put silencers on them, what? Anything else?'

'Mr Waugh-Bonner thinks there is a mouse in his room.'

'Tell him to mew.'

'And Mr Chinnery has been asking for waffles again.'

'Oh, dash his waffles! What the dickens are these waffles he's always whining about?'

'They appear to be an American breakfast food.'

'Well, he's not in America now.'

'But he wants his waffles.'

Sir Buckstone, his brow furrowed, wrestled with his problem.

'Would my wife know how to make the damn things?'

'I have consulted Lady Abbott, Sir Buckstone, and she informs me that she can make a substance called fudge, but not waffles.'

'How about asking young Vanringham?'

The sweet Kensington music of Miss Whittaker's voice became marred by a touch of flatness:

'If you desi-ah that I inqui-ah of Mr Vanringham, I will do so, but—'

'You think he wouldn't know, either? Probably not. Well, old Chinnery will have to go without his waffles. Is that the lot?'

'Yes, Sir Buckstone.'

'Good.'

'There have been two telephone messages. The first was from the secretary of the Princess Dwornitzchek. The Princess is in mid-ocean and will be arriving almost immediately.'

'Good,' said Sir Buckstone again. He welcomed the return of one who could not only look at Walsingford Hall without shuddering but was actually contemplating buying it. 'She's made a quick trip. What was the other telephone message?'

'It was for Lady Abbott, Sir Buckstone. From her brother.'

Sir Buckstone stared.

'From her brother?'

'Yes, Sir Buckstone.'

'But she hasn't got a brother.'

Miss Whittaker was polite but firm.

'I only know what the gentleman said on the telephone, Sir Buckstone. He asked me to inform Lady Abbott that her brother Sam was in London and would be coming to see her as soon as possible.'

'God bless my soul! Well, all right. Thank you, Miss Whittaker.'

For some moments after his secretary had left him, Sir Buckstone Abbott stood in thoughtful mood, digesting this piece of information. It is always disconcerting for a man of regular
habits to find his wife unexpectedly presenting him with a bouncing brother-in-law But it was not long before he shelved this subject for meditation in favour of that other, more urgent one from which his mind had been temporarily diverted. Once more in front of his eyes, seeming to be written in letters of flame across the summer sky, appeared those sinister figures £96 3
s.
11
d.
He was contemplating them and wondering moodily if there was any possible chance of his daughter Jane weaving so magic a spell about this Busby that he would consent to a fairly substantial reduction, when his reverie was interrupted by a voice which called his name. At the same time the scent of a powerful cigar floated to his nostrils. He turned, and was shocked to find Mr Chinnery at his side. Only the most intense preoccupation could have caused him to be caught standing like this.

Although Sir Buckstone liked Americans, was a member of the Overseas Club and had married an American wife, Elmer Chinnery was the one of his paying guests of whom he was least fond. Where he merely accelerated his pace to avoid a Waugh-Bonner or a Shepley, he seemed almost to possess the wings of a dove when he sighted Elmer Chinnery.

The reason for this was the fact, which has already been revealed, that he owed Mr Chinnery money. And in addition to that, the unfortunate loan appeared to be the only subject, except waffles, on which the other was prepared to converse. And your English aristocrat hates talking about money.

Mr Chinnery was a large, spreading man with a smooth face and very big horn-rimmed spectacles. He had come to reside at the Hall some time back, being indeed one of the earliest of the current generation of squatters. He had been a partner in the fish-glue business from which the Princess Dwornitzchek's first
husband had drawn his fortune, and was enormously rich in spite of the inroads made on his income by the platoon of ex-wives to whom he was paying alimony For, like so many substantial citizens of his native country, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.

'Say, Abbott,' said Mr Chinnery.

To a casual auditor, there would have seemed nothing in these words to disturb and dismay, but we who know the facts are able to understand why, as he heard them, Sir Buckstone flung out his hands in a wide, despairing gesture like the Lady of Shalott when the curse had come upon her. We may not sympathize, but we can understand.

'It's no use, my dear chap. Honestly, it isn't.'

'If you could manage something on account—'

'Well, I can't. I'm sorry.'

An uncomfortable silence fell. Sir Buckstone was thinking how monstrous it was that a man whose income, even after his wives had had their whack at it, must be very nearly in six figures should keep making this ridiculous fuss about a mere few hundred pounds. Mr Chinnery was saying to himself what a lesson it all was to a fellow not to drink old port. It had been under the influence of his third glass of this beverage that he had allowed himself to yield to his host's suggestion of a small loan.

'If I sell the house—' said Sir Buckstone.

'M'm,' said Mr Chinnery.

They both looked at the house, and that uncomfortable silence fell once more. The same thought was in both their minds. A house like that would take some selling.

'Even twenty pounds—' said Mr Chinnery suddenly.

'Ah!' said Sir Buckstone, simultaneously and with infinite relief. 'Here's Jane.'

His daughter, never more welcome to a father's eyes than at this moment, was coming out of the house and making her way toward them to receive any last parental message before starting for London.

The process of dressing had done Jane good. She was no longer the tight-lipped, stony-eyed, fermenting girl who had left Tubby lying in fragments all over the terrace. She had ceased to feel as if small boys had been chalking up rude words on the wall of her soul, and was her gay, cheerful self again.

Tubby, she reminded herself, was just a half-wit, if that, and no girl of intelligence would allow herself to regard any observations which he might make as anything but the crackling of thorns beneath the pot. She did not intend to give another thought to his idiotic droolings. Her conversation with him was just an unpleasant incident of the past, to be buried away and forgotten, like mumps and the time when she had been sick at the children's party.

'Just off, Buck,' she said. 'Any little toy or anything you want me to bring you back?'

'You're going to London?' said Mr Chinnery 'You'll find it warm there.'

'I suppose I shall, but I've got to go. I've a luncheon party. Besides, father's been having a spot of trouble with a bloodsucker, and he wants me to attend to it for him.'

'Bloodsucker?'

'A human vampire bat of the name of Busby,' said Jane.

Addressing Mr Chinnery, she had turned away from Sir Buckstone, and so did not observe the sudden look of agony and apprehension which now shot into his weatherbeaten
face. She did hear him cough in a strangled sort of way, but attributed this to his having swallowed some gnat or other summer insect. She went on brightly. She was always bright with the paying guests.

'You see, he wrote a book about his sporting memories and had it published at his own expense – paid this man two hundred pounds down like an officer and a gentleman – and now the ghoul has sent in a whacking bill for extras. I'm going to call and reason with him.'

There was a long pause. Mr Chinnery was breathing heavily. Sir Buckstone again made that odd, bronchial sound. But neither spoke. Then Mr Chinnery, having fixed the Baronet with what, even when filtered through horn-rimmed glasses, was easily recognizable as the stare of a man who has been wounded to the quick, gave a low gulp and shuffled off.

The sense of strain in the atmosphere did not escape Jane.

'What on earth's the matter?' she asked.

Sir Buckstone looked at her as King Lear might have looked at Cordelia – rather, in fact, as Mr Chinnery had just looked at him.

'You only said the one thing you shouldn't have said,' he replied bleakly. 'You merely put your foot in it right up to the knee. Some months ago I borrowed five hundred pounds from Chinnery, and there hasn't been a day since when he hasn't asked me for it back and I haven't told him I haven't got the cash. And then you come along and talk about me publishing books at my own expense.'

Jane whistled.

'Golly, Buck, I'm sorry.'

'Too late to be sorry now.'

'I must have shaken his faith in Baronets a bit.'

'I should think you have wrecked it for ever. I look forward,' said Sir Buckstone in a flat voice, 'to some very stimulating chats with Chinnery in the near future.'

Jane was remorseful, but she felt that she was being blamed unfairly. Fathers, she considered, should be more frank with their daughters about these facts of life. Then the daughters would know where they were.

'Well, never mind,' she said. 'When I get back, I'll go and prattle to him and soothe him. But why did you want five hundred pounds?'

'Who doesn't?' said Sir Buckstone, rather reasonably.

'I mean, what did you do with it?'

'I published my sporting memories.'

'That didn't come to five hundred quid. What happened to the rest of it?'

Sir Buckstone gestured sombrely, like a pessimistic semaphore.

'It went. This place eats money. And I hadn't so many lodgers then.'

'Paying guests.'

'Lodgers. Lodgers they are, and lodgers they always will be.' Sir Buckstone sighed. 'I little thought, when I succeeded to the title, that the time would shortly come when I should find myself running a blanked boarding establishment.'

'You mustn't be so morbid about it, precious. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Half the landed nibs in England take in paying guests nowadays. Ask anybody.'

Sir Buckstone declined to be comforted. When embarked on this particular topic, it was his custom to wallow in self-pity.

'When I was a boy,' he said heavily, 'my ambition was to become an engine driver. As a young man, I had dreams of
ambassadorships. Arrived at middle age and grown reconciled to the fact that I hadn't brains enough for the Diplomatic Service, I thought that I could at least be a simple country gentleman. But Fate decided otherwise. "No, Buckstone," said Fate, "I have other views for you. You shall be the greasy proprietor of a blasted rural doss-house."'