Hot Water (6 page)

'How funny us meeting like this,' she said.

'A scream,' agreed Packy.

'I mean, you were the idol of my girlish dreams when I was a kid.'

'I was in my prime then. A flick of the finger, a broken heart.'

'I used to go to football games and worship you. You certainly could teach those stevedores to take a joke.'

Rightly interpreting her to mean by this term the gentlemanly students of Harvard, Princeton, Notre Dame, and other intellectual centres, Packy simpered coyly.

'Your taste in idols seems to have changed,' he said. 'You appear to like them smaller and brainier nowadays. Incidentally, I wonder how Eggleston is getting on. About now, I should imagine, he is leaning on the bell and your father is shouting "Come on! Come on! Come on!" in that curious way of his that always reminds me of a gorilla thumping its chest.'

Jane knitted her brow anxiously.

'Father's a pretty hard egg, isn't he?'

'It is not for me to criticize your father,' said Packy primly, 'but I can tell you this – if he ever asks me to come down a lonely alley with him to see his stamp collection I shall refuse with considerable firmness.'

'I never realized till now that he was quite such a man-eater. I've hardly seen him these last two years. I've been in Paris, finishing. I wonder if it was really wise to send Blair up?'

'Is he insured?'

'The trouble is, you see, Father has very decided views about the sort of man he wants me to marry. That's what has made us keep the thing a secret. He expects me to make a big match.'

'Some belted Earl?'

'It looks more like a belted Vicomte at the moment. He is taking me to visit some people named Gedge who live in a Château over in Brittany. It belongs to a French Vicomtesse, and I feel sure Father's real reason for going there is that her son will be there and he wants to bring us together. He practically said as much this morning. I can't see what else would take him to a place like St Rocque.'

'St Rocque? This fellow your father wants you to marry isn't the Vicomte de Blissac, by any chance?'

'Yes. Why, do you know him?'

'I was talking to him only this afternoon. Well, this is certainly where I can oblige with a word in season. You mustn't do it. You positively mustn't. I'm not saying a word against the dear old Veek, mind you. As a companion for a merry evening in the pleasure zone of a great city he stands almost without a peer. But if I were a girl I wouldn't marry him on a bet. He isn't the type. I love him like a brother, but he's the fellow who first suggested the title "What Fun Frenchmen Have". I should imagine New York is talking about him still. Even in circles which prided themselves on being a trifle rapid, his work was considered swift. My good kid, don't dream of marrying him.'

'I'm not going to. And don't call me your good kid. I'm going to marry Blair.'

Packy did not want to depress her, but he could not help looking doubtful.

'You think you are,' he said. 'But my experience is that you never know who you're going to marry in this world. I once thought I was going to marry a cabaret girl called Myrtle Blandish.'

'Were you engaged to her?'

'All signed on the dotted line. And then one day I got a letter from her saying that she had run off with a man named Scott or Pott or even – her handwriting was practically illegible – Bott. It just shows you, doesn't it? However, I can see now that it was the best thing that could have happened – except possibly for poor old Bott. A nice girl, but essentially a female Veek. It wouldn't have done. Her habit of never going to bed before five would alone have been enough to spoil the cosiness of the home.'

And now you're engaged to Lord Stableford's daughter? Rather a step up.'

'Quite. Both socially and spiritually. They don't come more spiritual than Beatrice.'

'Is that her name? Beatrice what?'

'Bracken.'

'Not Lady Beatrice Bracken? I've seen photographs of her in the papers. She must be lovely.'

'Lovely! Say, have you ever seen Greta Garbo?'

'Yes.'

And Constance Bennett?'

'Yes.'

And Norma Shearer?'

'Of course I have.'

'Mix 'em together and what have you got? Beatrice.'

And did you really say what you were telling us to Lord Stableford?'

'Well, not those actual words, perhaps. But I was firm with him, very firm.'

And he crawled?'

'I had him pawing at my trouser-legs. Of course, I'm pretty rich. That may have helped.'

'Blair has hardly any money.'

'But they tell me that everybody whose opinion matters regards him as one of the leaders of the younger school of novelists.'

'So he is. But he writes the sort of books that most people don't read. He's above their heads, I mean. As a matter of fact, he makes practically nothing out of his novels.'

'How does he eat?'

'He's got a job with the British Broadcasting Company.'

Packy was interested. He liked his radio of an evening.

'Is he the fellow who says "Good night, everybody,
good
night!"?'

'No. He ...'

'I've got him placed. He's the one who lectures on Fat Stock prices.'

'No. He does the noises off.'

'How do you mean, the noises off?'

'Well, when they have a sketch or something where they have to have noises, Blair makes them.'

'I get you. You mean, somebody says "Hurrah, girls, here comes the Royal Bodyguard!" and Blair goes tramp, tramp, tramp.'

'Yes. And all sorts of other noises. He's awfully clever at it.'

Packy nodded.

'I can quite see why you want to marry him. The home can never be dull if at any moment the husband is able to imitate a motor horn or the mating-cry of the boll-weevil. But you don't think your father will take that view?'

'Father is very material. He seems to think so much of money.'

'And just about now Eggleston is breaking it to him that he hasn't any. Tell me, what is the greatest number of wild cats your father has ever killed with his teeth in a given time?'

'The question seemed to displease the girl.

'I wish you wouldn't talk like that.'

'I'm sorry.'

'They may get along splendidly.'

'They may.'

'What I'm hoping is that, even if Father doesn't agree to our marrying at once, at least he will like Blair well enough to give him some good job.'

'Imitating boll-weevils?'

In the bearing of Jane Opal as she hitched herself round in her chair and gazed at Packy there was something of the old fire.

'I see you have a cauliflower ear.'

'An old football wound.'

'Want another?'

'No, thanks.'

'Then don't talk like that. Blair is a very wonderful man, and he only makes noises off because his books are so clever that the public won't buy them. The critics say he is the coming novelist.'

'And here he comes.'

Blair Eggleston had suddenly appeared in the lobby and was standing peering hither and thither in search of his vanished lady. Even at this distance it was evident that he was somewhat dazed. His face wore a bewildered, stunned look.

'Well, he's still in one piece,' said Packy, 'and there don't seem to be any tooth-marks on him. Can Dad be losing his pep?'

'He looks goofy,' said Jane. 'I wonder what the matter is.'

She called loudly, and the coming novelist, at last sighting her, advanced totteringly, as one who has either suffered some severe spiritual shock or received a punch in the wind.

'Well?' said Jane.'Well?'

Blair Eggleston blinked.

'I say...'

'What happened?'

'Well, I went in...'

'And what happened?'

'I saw your father...'

'He could hardly help doing that,' explained Packy, 'in an ordinary-sized apartment. I saw your father, too – distinctly. How was he coming along with that sheet?'

'Will you please be quiet,' said Jane. 'Blair!' Her voice took on a Senatorial vehemence. It would have interested a student of heredity. 'Stop dithering and tell me what happened.'

Blair Eggleston seemed to pull himself together with a strong effort.

'Well, I went in, and he was standing there, and before I could get a word out he said, "Are you honest and sober?"'

'Honest and sober?' squeaked Jane.

'The first thing fathers ask prospective sons-in-law,' Packy assured her. 'Pure routine.'

'And what did you say?'

'I said I was.'

'That sounds like the right answer,' said Packy critically.

'And then he asked me if I knew how to take care of clothes. And I said I did. And then he said, "Well, you don't look like much, but I suppose I've got to give you a trial." And I suddenly discovered that he had engaged me as his valet.'

'What!'

'Just what you were hoping,' said Packy. 'You said you wished your father would give him a job. The dream come true. Local Boy Makes Good.'

Jane was wrestling with her chagrin.

'But, Blair!... Didn't you explain?'

'I hadn't time. The telephone rang, and he told me to answer it, and it was this Mrs Gedge you are going to stay with. She was downstairs and wanted to see him. So he told me to get out, and I got out.'

This information diverted Jane momentarily from the matter in hand.

'Mrs Gedge? Are you sure?'

'Quite.'

'I wonder what she's doing over here. I must go and ask Father.'

She dismissed the subject of Mrs Gedge.

'Then you really mean you left it at that?'

'Your father's last words were that I should meet him at the boat-train at Waterloo to-morrow.'

'Well, that's fine,' said Packy. He turned to Jane, who seemed in need of a kindly word of encouragement. 'Don't you see how everything has worked for the best? You would like him to be at St Rocque with you, wouldn't you? Well, now he will be, and actually in the same house. You can snatch secret meetings with him and bill and coo across the Senator's Sunday pants while he's brushing them.'

'Why, of course! I never thought of that.'

Despite what he had been through, the haughty spirit of the Egglestons was still alive in Blair. He started incredulously and with not a little indignation.

'Are you under the impression that I really intend to come to St Rocque as your father's valet?'

Jane's eyes were shining. The chin which she inherited from the Opal side of the family was tilted and resolute.

'I am,' she said definitely. 'Why, Blair, it's wonderful. You'll be always with Father, making him get fond of you. So that, when we think the time is ripe and I go to him and say, "You know that valet of yours, Father? Well, that's the man I want to marry," he will say "Fine! I liked him from the start," and everything will be lovely.'

'But, really...'

'Blair,' said Jane Opal, 'I'm not arguing with you. I'm telling you.'

Packy rose. It seemed to him that the delicate thing would be to withdraw. Blair Eggleston was looking as like a younger English novelist who has just stopped a sandbag with the back of his head as any younger English novelist had ever looked since first young Englishmen began to write novels, and what he needed, in Packy's opinion, was the opportunity of threshing things out quietly with his loved one with no third party present.

'I congratulate you both,' he said, 'on the happy way in which everything has come out. You will let me know any further developments, won't you? You see, I naturally feel a paternal interest in you young folks. Devonshire House will find me.'

'Must you go?'

'I fear I must. I have got to get my hair cut.
My fiancée
says it is too long. Her last words to me as the train pulled out drew a rather poetic comparison between me and a chrysanthemum.'

'I think you look lovely.'

'I do look lovely. But you know what women are. I regard getting it cut as a sort of sacred trust.'

Blair Eggleston rose bubblingly to the surface of the Slough of Despond which had engulfed him.

'But I don't know how to be a valet!'

'It's quite easy,' Packy assured him. 'A fellow with a brain like yours will pick it up in a minute. Just fold and brush and brush and fold and remember to say "yes, sir" and "no, sir" and "indeed, sir?" and "very good, sir". Oh, and one thing. Be very careful how you remove spots from the clothing. I knew a man who was fired for removing a spot from his employer's clothing.'

'What a shame!' said Jane. 'Why?'

'It was a ten-spot,' explained Packy.

It was the opinion of Mr Gordon Carlisle – and Soup Slat-tery, it will be remembered, had agreed with him – that women are tough. Packy, returning to his rooms after visiting the barber, found himself forced to the same conclusion.

That edict of Beatrice's that he should remain in London was weighing on him heavily. He was aware of a disquieting restlessness. He had picked up his yachting magazine and was re-reading the advertisement of which he had spoken to her at Waterloo. It virtually amounted to a prose poem.

FOR CHARTER. – Auxiliary Yawl,
Flying Cloud,
45 feet over all, 39 feet on water line, 13 foot beam, Marconi rig, powered with 40 h.p. Universal motor, speed under power 8 m.p.h. Sleeping accommodation for four, large cockpit, good head room, sails and rigging in excellent shape, boat fully found including cooking utensils, silver, etc.

He sighed wistfully. An advertisement like that, he felt, was not the sort of thing to dangle before the eyes of a young man
whose fiancée
had told him to stay in London and go to concerts.

It was as he threw away the magazine so that he should be tortured no more by all those pictures of ketches and sloops and combination keel and centre-board schooners that the telephone rang. He went to it, prepared to work off his depression by being very terse with whoever it was that intruded on his sorrow, but became instantly cordial on recognizing the voice of Jane Opal.

A gregarious young man, Packy liked most people at sight, but he could not remember ever having been so completely attracted to anyone at a first meeting as he had been attracted to this Jane Opal.