Luck of the Bodkins (35 page)

'She hasn't got too much sense. At least, I hope she hasn't. But I can't move an inch in the matter unless I get that mouse. I haven't a bean in the world. My only chance of getting a good square pop at Mabel is to secure that mouse and hand it over to Monty. If I do, he says he'll slip me two thousand quid...'

'What!
’

'Yes. And if I had that I should be able to go to Hollywood and pursue Mabel with my addresses. Whe
reas without it I shall have to
tool off to Montreal to that foul office job and stay mouldering there for the rest of my life.
’

The fire had faded from Lottie Blossom's eyes. Her lips had lost their tautness. They unmistakably quivered. If the Hoboken Murphys had hair-trigger tempers, they also possessed hair-trigger hearts.

‘
Oh, Reggie!
'

‘
You see what I'm driving at now?
’
'Sure.'

‘
Then how about it?'

Lottie Blossom shook her flaming head remorsefully.

‘
I can't.'

‘
Lottie!'

‘
It's no good saying "Lottie 1" I can't do it. If Bodkin has been wising you up on this mouse sequence, you know how things are with me. I want to get Ambrose his job, and that mouse is the only shot in my locker. And it's no good looking at me like that, either. I've as much right to want to marry Ambrose as you have to want to marry Mabel, haven't I? And he won't marry me unless he gets a job. So I've got to hold Bodkin up.'

'I suppose you know it's practically blackmail?'

‘
It
is
blackmail,' she assured him. 'And if it's any comfort to you and him to know it, I hate and despise myself for doing it. But I'd a darned sight rather hate and despise myself than lose my Ammie. Oh, Reggie, you know there's almost nothing in this world I wouldn't do for you, my pet. I've always felt towards you like a mother with an idiot child. But you're asking just the one thing I can't do. I can't give you this mouse -
1
can't, I can't. You must see that?'

Reggie nodded. He knew when he was licked.

‘
Oh, all right.'

'Don't look like that, Reggie darling. I can't bear it. Oh, why can't you persuade this fool of a Bodkin to sign up with Ikey Llewellyn? If only he would, everything would be jake. He could get Ikey to take Ambrose back as soon as look at you.'

'Not a chance, I'm afraid. Monty swears nothing will induce him to become an actor. He told me it's a regular obthingummy with him.
’

'He makes me tired.
’

'Me, too. Still, there it is. Well,' said Reggie, 'I think I'll be pushing along. Thanks for a pleasant evening.'

Thoughtfully sucking his finger and directing as he went a cold look at the wickerwork basket, he moved to the door. The door closed. Lottie let him go. There was nothing that she could do or say.

She sat down on the bed. Normally, had she found herself alone in her state-room, she would have lifted the lid of the wickerwork basket and chirruped to its occupant just to show him that he was among friends and had not been forgotten, but with her emotions lacerated by the recent harrowing scene she was in no mood for chirruping to alligators. She sat staring before her, and it is probable that she would have given way to the tears which, when her emotions were lacerated, were never far from the surface, had not her meditations been interrupted by a knock on the door.

She rose. Her eyes, which had begun to swim, dried and became hard. She had an idea that this might be Albert Peasemarch, come ostensibly to brush bits of fluff off the carpet and set the place to rights, but in reality to enjoy one of those long, cosy talks to which he was so addicted. And she was just in the vein to bite the fat head off any steward who came babbling to her now.

'Come in,' she called.

The door opened. It was not Albert Peasemarch who stood on the threshold, but Ambrose Tennyson.

There was a bottle in Ambrose Tennyson's hand and another sticking out of his pocket, for a man in love who has seen the adored object totter from his presence with a hand to her forehead and her lips drawn together in almost unendurable pain does not just go on sitting in an armchair smoking his cigar -he hastens to the ship's doctor in quest of headache remedies. Ambrose Tennyson had done so the moment Lottie had parted from him in the lounge. While she had taken the high road and gone off to the second-class promenade deck, he had taken the low road that led to the dispensary somewhere down in the bowels of the ship.

There had been a certain delay after that, for the doctor had had to be fetched. During the day ships' doctors play quoits with the prettiest girl on board. After dinner, they gather up the prettiest girl on board - or, if she is not available, the second prettiest - and settle down to a little backgammon. Eventually, however, he had appeared, and Ambrose had secured two highly recommended mixtures. He had now come to deliver them.

‘
Well,
’
he said, 'how are you feeling?'

The unexpected sight of the man she loved had had an odd effect on Lottie Blossom. Seeing him instead of the Albert Peasemarch for whose entry she had been bracing herself, she had come, as it were, temporarily unstuck. A sudden yearning tenderness had flooded over her, bringing a lump to her throat and into her eyes those tears which had so nearly been there before. She broke down completely.

'Oomph,' she sobbed. 'Oomph.'

It has been pointed out earlier in this narrative that to a man in whose presence a girl is going oomph there is but one course open - namely to administer gentle pats to the subject's head or shoulder. But this naturally applies only to comparative strangers of the male sex. If the onlooker is a man who loves this oomphing girl and is loved by her, something of a far more emphatic nature is called for. It is for him to embrace, to fondle, to kiss the tears away, to drop on his knees at her side and murmur broken words.

Ambrose Tennyson did none of these things. He stood there motionless, a bottle in his hand and another sticking out of his pocket. On his face there was a cold, set look.

‘I
have brought you some stuff,' he said in a dull voice. 'For your headache.'

Although she had by no means had her cry out, Lottie Blossom sat up and dried her eyes. She was astonished. That Ambrose could have watched her weep without so much as stepping forward and taking her hand in his was so amazing that her tears stopped as if a tap had been turned.

'Ammie!
' she exclaimed.

Ambrose's manner continued aloof and polished.
‘I
would have come earlier,' he said, 'but the doctor kept me waiting.'

He paused. His face was expressionless.

'And when I did get here,' he said, 'I heard you talking to some man and assumed that you would not wish to be interrupted.'

He placed the bottles on the dressing-table and turned to the door. He found Lottie standing between him and it. There was nothing tearful about her now. She was brisk and decisive.

'Half a minute, Ambrose. Just one minute, if you please.'

Ambrose's cold veneer seemed to crack. His face worked. He looked very unlike that photograph in the silver frame. If he had had a pipe in his mouth now, it would have dropped out.

‘
Yo
u told me you had a headache!' ‘
I know -'

'And you left me and you slipped off here -'

'Listen, Ammie,' said Lottie. 'If you'll give me half a chance, I'm going to explain that. For the love of Peter let's not have another battle. Heaven knows a good turn-up is meat and drink to me, as a rule. But not now. Sit down and I'U put you straight about this business.'

Chapter
20

It was not immediately after he had withdrawn from Lottie Blossom's presence that Reggie Tennyson sought out his principal and employer to make his report of what had occurred. In the first numbing shock of a great disappointment, when all the castles he has been building in the air have come tumbling about his ears and his soul seems to have been tied in knots and passed through a wringer, a man's instinct is for solitude. Reggie wanted to be alone to lick his wounds - and not merely figuratively, at that. Owing to that slowness in the uptake which rendered Wilfred the alligator unable to distinguish between an Old Etonian and a fly, the skin on his little finger still needed attention.

He first sought refuge in the drawing-room. But he did not stay there long. It was empty, which was to the good, but it was also stuffy. It had that queer, elusive aroma peculiar to drawing-rooms on ocean liners, as if it were just on the point of smelling most unpleasant, but never quite beginning. Finding that this was merely increasing his depression, Reggie went out and took to the open deck.

It was the right move. The soft night air refreshed and strengthened him. He still would have preferred to brood apart, but he now found himself able to contemplate without actual physical nausea the thought of sitting talking to Monty, and some twenty minutes after he had left Lottie's state-room he went down to the B deck to do so.

He had just reached Monty's door, when it opened with
a
sharp abruptness as if somebody with an overflowing soul had jerked at the handle, and his brother Ambrose came out. Ambrose's face was drawn and his eyes haggard. He looked dazedly at Reggie for an instant, then passed on without speaking. And Reggie, having stared after him till he was out of sight, went on into the state-room. And the first thing he beheld as he crossed the threshold sent him rocking back on his heels as if alligators had snapped at him.

Monty Bodkin was seated on the bed. In his hand was the Mickey Mouse. He was absently screwing its head on and off.

'Oh, hullo, Reggie,' he said dully. He screwed off the head of the Mickey Mouse, screwed it on again, and began to screw it off once more.

Reggie Tennyson was in the grip of that feeling that sometimes comes to one in dreams, the feeling that things are not making sense. Before him sat Monty Bodkin, and there, in Monty's possession, if a fellow could trust his eyesight, was the Mickey Mouse in person, the mouse of fate, the identical mouse there had been all this fuss about. Yet Monty was looking like a lump of putty, his manner listless, his
tout ensemble
devoid of sparkle. There was only one word that described the position of affairs adequately - the word 'inexplicable
’
.

'What... what...?' he ejaculated feebly, pointing a shaking finger.

Monty continued to look like a lump of putty. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'I've got it back. Ambrose just brought it
’
Reggie collapsed into a chair. He held firmly to the side of it. This seemed somehow to help a little. 'Ambrose?' 'Yes.'

'You say
Ambrose
restored this mouse?
’

'Yes. Apparently the Blossom told him that she had got it and was holding me up with it, and Ambrose put the presidential veto on the scheme. He would have none of it. He told her it wasn't playing the game to hold chaps up with Mickey Mice, and he made her give it to him, and then he brought it tome.'

Reggie's grip on the chair tightened. Reason had been tottering on its throne already, and this amazing piece of information nearly unseated it

'You don't seriously mean that?'

‘
Yes.'

'He told her it wasn't playing the game?'

‘
Yes.
’

'And by the sheer force of his personality made her yield up the mouse?'

Reggie drew a deep breath. He was feeling about his brother Ambrose as he had never felt before. In a tolerant sort of way he had always liked the chap, but he had never admired him particularly. Certainly he had never even begun to regard him as a bally superman. Yet, if he had really, as stated, succeeded in altering the trend of Lottie Blossom's mind when it had congealed into a determination to do dirty work at the crossroads, it was in the superman class that he must beyond a question be placed. No argument about that, whatever. He stepped straight into it, like Napoleon and Sir Stafford Cripps and the rest of the boys.

'Coo!' said Reggie, like a thunderstruck Albert Peasemarch.

'It was pretty decent of old Ambrose,' said Monty with the first sign of feeling that he had shown. 'You can't say it wasn't a square sort of thing to do. Lots of chaps would have just sat back and let the thing go on and sucked profit from it. But not old Ambrose.
’