Luck of the Bodkins (31 page)

'Good. Well, then. Suppose he had succumbed? Would he be on board this boat now? No. Well, would he, miss?
’
‘I
don't see how he could, quite.'

'Exactly. Or make it even simpler. Suppose, as might quite well have happened, he'd of become during his lifetime a sufferer from asthma or bronchitis or some other complaint which touches you in the wind. How about it then? Would he be in a position to be singing the "Yeoman's Wedding Song" at the second-class concert tonight? No. You'll hardly dispute that, miss?'

‘
No.
’

'Of course he wouldn't. And why? Because he'd never of been able so much as to contemplate undertaking that line where you have to stow away all the breath you've room for and just hang on, hoping for the best. Arc you familiar with the "Yeoman's Wedding Song", miss? It goes like this.
’

Fixing Gertrude with an eye that reminded her of a fish she had once seen in an aquarium, Albert Peasemarch drew in great quantities of air, inflated his chest and sang in an odd, rumbling voice, like thunder over the hills, these words:

‘
Ding dong, ding dong,

Ding dong, I hurry along,

For it is my wedding morning;

And the bride so gay in bry-ut array

For the day

Is herself ador-OR-or-or-or-or-or-ning.
’

He paused and seemed, as it were, to come to the surface. He gasped a little, like some strong swimmer in his agony. 'You see what I mean, miss?'

Gertrude saw. An asthmatic Garges could certainly never have managed that last line. To her inflamed fancy it had appeared to go on for about ten minutes.

'But I still don't understand,
’
she said. 'Why do you object to Mr Garges singing that song?'

Albert Peasemarch's brow darkened. It was plain that he was suffering from an intolerable sense of injustice.

'Because it's my song, miss. My special particular song, rendered by me at two out of every three ship's concerts ever since
I
took office on this boat. It's come to be a regular item in the programme - Solo: "The Yeoman's Wedding Song" - A. E. Peasemarch. My mother looks forward to my giving her the programme at the end of each trip. She pastes them in an album. Well, when I tell you that the purser himself once said to me - in a joking spirit, no doubt, and nothing derogatory really intended - "If you'd
do
more hurrying along, Peasemarch, and less singing about it," he said, "I'd be better pleased," he said, well, you can see how in a manner of speaking me and my "Yeoman's Wedding Song" have sort of grown into quite a legend.'

'I see.'

'So when Jimmy the One sent for me this morning and told me off to render a number at the second-class concert, the voluntary talent having proved to be short again, as usual, I said: "Yes, sir, very good, sir. The old 'Y.W.S.
’
, of course, sir?" and he said he was afraid so, and everything was comfortable and settled. And then, round about ar-parse four it would have been, he sends for me again and you could have knocked me down with a feather, because he told me the "Yeoman's Wedding Song" was off, as far as me rendering it was concerned, on account of a passenger of the name of J. G. Garges having expressed a desire to sing it. And he hands me this blooming "Bandolero" and says, "Get that off your chest, cocky." And when I protested and said you couldn't ask an artist to change his act at the eleventh hour like that, he threatened to dock me a day's pay. So here I am, faced with this "Bandolero" and only about an hour to go. Can you wonder, miss, that I'm all of a twitter?'

Gertrude's gentle heart was touched. It ached for the man. Hers had been till now the easy, sheltered life of the normal English girl, and she had come but rarely into contact with tragedy.

'What a shame!
‘

Thank you, miss. It's kind of you to sympathize. I can do with a bit of sympathy, I don't mind telling you. When I start voicing my grievance in the Glory Hole, all they do is throw things at me.'

'But I wouldn't worry,
’
urged Gertrude. 'I'm sure you will be a tremendous success. "The Bandolero" is a splendid song. I always like hearing Mr Bodkin sing it. It has such a swing.'

'It has got a swing,' admitted Albert Peasemarch.

For a moment the cloud wrack lowering on his brow seemed about to lift. But only for a moment. Then his eyes, which had shown signs of brightening, glazed over again.

'But how about the words? Have you considered that, miss? Suppose I forget my words?'

'Then I should just go on singing: "I am the Bandolero, yes, yes, oh yes, I am, I am the Bandolero", or something like that. Nobody will notice anything wrong. They won't expect a Spanish song to make sense. They'll think it's atmosphere.'

Albeart Peasemarch started. It was plain that his companion had opened up a new line of thought.

'I am the band, I am the band,' he crooned tentatively.

That's right. Mr Bodkin often does that And
caramba,
of course.
’

‘
Miss?
’

'Caramba.
It
’
s a Spanish word. Another is
manana.
If you find yourself drying up, I should go on repeating those. I remember Mr Bodkin singing "The Bandolero" at our village concert last Christmas, and the second verse was practically all
caramba
and
manana.
He never went better in his life.'

Albert Peasemarch drew in a breath as deep as any that had ever assisted him through the "Yeoman's Wedding Song".

'Miss,' he said, his eyes doglike, 'you've put a new heart into me.'

'I'm so glad. I expect you'll be the hit of the evening.'

'I've a good quick ear for music and can generally get the hang of a chune, but it's the words I'm always shaky on. Coo! I remember the first six times I sang the "Y.W.S." I used to get it wrong regular. I used to sing: "And the
day
so gay in bright array", which spoiled the sense.'

He paused. He hesitated. His fingers twiddled.

'I wonder, miss ... Mark you, I think I'll be all right now, what with all these
carambas
and all, but I wonder, miss ...
I
wouldn't for the world take a lib., and no doubt you've a hundred things to do ... but I was wondering if by any chance -'

‘
You would like me to come and help with the applause?'

That's the very words I was trying to say, miss.'

‘
Why, of course I will. When did you say you would be going on?'

‘I
'm billed for
ten o'clock precisely, miss.' ‘
I
’
ll be there.'

Words failed Albert Peasemarch. He could but gaze adoringly.

In a self-centred world it is never easy for those in travail to realize that other people have their troubles, too, and if anybody had informed Albert Peasemarch at this difficult moment in his career as a vocalist that his was not the severest attack of stage fright on board the R.M.S.
Atlantic,
he would have been amazed and incredulous. He might have said 'Cool' or he might have said
'Caramba!
but he would not have believed the statement. Yet such was undoubtedly the case.

The ordeal of waiting for ten o'clock, which we have seen afflicting the steward's nervous system so sorely, had not left Monty Bodkin unaffected. At twenty minutes to the hour, he, too, was all of a twitter. Seated at a table in the smoking-room, he gazed before him with unseeing eyes. From time to time he shuffled his feet, and from time to time he plucked at his tie. There was whisky and soda before him, but such was his preoccupation that he had scarcely touched it.

What was worrying Monty was the very same haunting fear which had racked Albert Peasemarch. He was afraid that he was going to blow up in his words.

When Reggie Tennyson had told him that all he had got to do was to hold Lottie Blossom in conversation for the space of a quarter of an hour on the second-class promenade deck while he, Reggie, thoroughly scoured her state-room, the task had seemed a simple one. He had accepted it without a tremor. Only now, when he contemplated the possibility of failure, did he wonder what words he could select so magical as to keep a girl of Lottie's impatient temperament hanging about on a draughty deck for a full fifteen minutes. It seemed to him in this dark hour of self-distrust an assignment at which the most silver-tongued orator might well boggle.

His case, of course, was far more delicate than that of Albert Peasemarch. The latter, thanks to Gertrude's kindly counsel, had the consolation of. knowing that, if the worst occurred and he found himself unequal to the situation, he could always fill in with a few
'mananas
’
.
No such pleasant thought came to cheer Monty. Yes, to put it in a nutshell, he had no
'mananaf.
Not only had he got to make sense, he had got to be interesting. And not merely interesting - absorbing, gripping, spellbinding.

As he sat there, quailing at the prospect before him, a solid body suddenly lowered itself into the chair opposite, and he perceived that his solitude had been invaded by Mr Ivor Llewellyn.

'Join you?
’
said Mr Llewellyn.

'Oh, right ho,
’
said Monty, though far from cordially.

'Just want a little chat,' said Mr Llewellyn.

If there is one quality more than another which a man must have who wishes to become president of a large motion-picture corporation, it is tenacity, that sturdy bulldog spirit which refuses to admit defeat. This Ivor Llewellyn possessed in large measure.

Many men in his position, up against an obdurate Customs spy who had flatly declined an invitation to play ball, would have been completely discouraged. Their attitude would have been that of Albert Peasemarch caught in the toils of a remorseless Fate - bitter, resentful, but supine. They would have told themselves that it was futile to go on struggling.

And that is what for a whole afternoon and evening Ivor Llewellyn had told himself.

But dinner had wrought a wondrous change in his outlook. It had made him his old thrustful self again. He had had vermicelli soup, turbot and boiled potatoes, two whacks at the chicken hot-pot, a slice of boar's head, a specially ordered
souffle
,
Scotch woodcock, and about a pint of ice-cream, and had finished with coffee and brandy in the lounge. A man of spirit cannot fill himself up like this without something happening. With Mr Llewellyn what had happened was the dawning of hope. The thought came to him as he sat in the lounge, stuffed virtually to the brim, that the reason for Monty's refusal to join the Superba-Llewellyn might quite conceivably be that the ambassador sent to sound him had bungled his end of the negotiations.

The more he examined this theory, the more plausible did it seem. Apart from being the wrong Tennyson, Ambrose, he considered, lacked charm. He remembered now that, when despatched to place the Superba-Llewellyn offer before Monty, the fellow had been wearing an unpleasant, sullen, brooding look. He must, on starting to parley with Monty, have been too curt or too obscure or too something. It was the old, old story, felt Mr Llewellyn - no cooperation. What was needed was a personal appeal from himself. That would put everything right. He had now come to make it.

He could hardly have selected a worse moment. Already all of a twitter, Monty, resenting his intrusion, had become keenly exasperated. As he had told Ambrose, except for asking him how to spell things he scarcely knew Mr Llewellyn, and at
a
time like this he would have preferred to dispense with the society of his dearest friend. He wanted to be alone, to meditate without interruption on what the dickens he was going to say to Lottie Blossom that would keep her rooted to the spot for a quarter of an hour.

Chafing, he took out a cigarette and lit it.

'Beautiful!' said Mr Llewellyn.

'Eh?'

'Beautiful!' repeated Mr Llewellyn, nodding his head in
a
sort of ecstasy, as if someone had shown him the Mona Lisa, 'The way you lit that cigarette. Graceful... Easy... Deb-whatever-the-word-is. Like Leslie Howard.'

It was not Ivor Llewellyn's habit to flatter those whom he was hoping to employ, his customary mode of procedure being a series of earnest attempts to create in them an inferiority complex which would come in handy when the discussion of terms began. But this was a special case. Here, clearly, was one of those rare occasions when nothing would serve but the old oil, and that in the most liberal doses.