Luck of the Bodkins (8 page)

'It isn't!
’

'It is.'

‘
It is not.'

'It is. Quite inexplicable. L
et me recapitulate the facts.' ‘
It's nothing -'

‘
Let me,' said Monty, waving
a hand, 'recapitulate the facts’
'It's nothing of the -
’

'Lord love a duck!
’
cried Monty, with sharp rebuke. 'Will you or will you not let me recapitulate the facts? How the devil am I to recapitulate the facts if you keep interrupting all the time?'

The stoutest-hearted girl is apt to quail when she finds herself confronted by the authentic cave-man. Gertrude Butter-wick did so now. Never, in all the months of their association, had Montague Bodkin spoken to her like that. She had not known that he could speak to her like that. And his words - and more than the words, the tone in which they were uttered -struck her as dumb as any Ivor Llewellyn asked to spell 'sciatica'. She felt as if she had been bitten in the leg by a rabbit.

Monty was shooting his cuffs masterfully. In his eyes there was no lovelight to soften resentment Only that stern, accusing gleam.

The facts,' he said, 'are these. We met. We clicked. I squashed a wasp for you at that picnic, and two weeks later you stated in set terms that you loved me. So far, so good. On that basis of understanding I buckled to and prepared to fulfil the loony conditions laid down by your chump of a father as a preliminary to our union. It was a tough assignment, but I faced it without a tremor. That chap in the Old Testament -Jacob, or some such name - had nothing on me. I was willing, even anxious, to sweat myself to the bone to win you, because I loved you and you said you loved me. "Before you marry my daughter," said your blighted father, "get a job and hold it down for a year." So I got a job. I became assistant editor of
Tiny Tots,
a journal for the Nursery and the Home.'

He paused to take in breath, but so glittering was the eye with which he held her that she could not speak. The Games Mistress at school, who had taught her hockey, had had exactly that same hypnotic effect upon her.

His lungs refilled, Monty resumed.

'You know what followed. In writing the weekly letter of Uncle Woggly To His Chicks, I made an unfortunate bloomer, striking a note which met with the disapproval of Lord Tilbury, my boss, who fired me. And what happened then? Was I discouraged? Did I quail? No. Many chaps would have been discouraged to quailing point, but not me. The old Jacob spirit burned as strongly as ever. I spat on my hands and secured a secretarial appointment with Lord Emsworth at Blandings Castle.'

As he allowed his memory to dwell upon the vicissitudes which that visit to Blandings Castle had forced him to undergo, a bitter laugh escaped Monty Bodkin - not like a slate pencil this time, but so hyena-like in its timbre that Ivor Llewellyn, cowering in his chair, leaped and hit himself in the eye with his cigar. There had been, to Mr Llewellyn's mind, something utterly inhuman about that laugh. It was the laugh of a man who, catching somebody with the goods, would have no ruth or pity.

'After some days of incessant nerve strain, old Emsworth bunged me out. But did I give up? Did I throw in the towel? No! I did not throw in the towel. I ingratiated myself with that weird little blister Pilbeam and obtained a post at his Inquiry Agency. That post I still hold.'

He had never mentioned to Gertrude that he had paid Percy Pilbeam a thousand pounds to enrol him among his assistants, and he did not mention it now. Girls are not interested in these technical details. They just like to get the broad idea.

That post,' he repeated, 'I still hold, in spite of the laborious and uncongenial nature of its duties. I don't say Pilbeam keeps, me on the go all the time, but on at least two occasions I have been given assignments which would have caused a weaker man to hand in his portfolio. One was when I had to stand outside a restaurant for two and-a half hours in the rain. The other was when I was sent to a wedding reception in Wimbledon to guard the presents. Nobody who has not done it can have any conception what an ass a fellow feels, guarding wedding-presents. Still, I went through with it, I stuck it out. All this, I told myself, is bringing Gertrude nearer to me.'

Once more that hideous laugh rang through the room. It had slightly less of the hyena about it now and rather more of the soul in torment, but it was just as unpleasant for a man with a sensitive conscience to listen to, and Mr Llewellyn again shied like a startled horse.

'My left elbow it was bringing you nearer to me! I had hardly settled down at Cannes for a much needed holiday when bing, right in the eyeball, I get that telegram of yours, returning me to store! Yes,' said Monty, his voice quivering with self-pity, 'there I was, a mental and physical wreck after weeks and weeks of ceaseless toil, suddenly informed that my nomination had been scratched and that I had had all my trouble for nothing.'

Gertrude Butterwick stirred. She seemed about to speak. He waved her down.

'I can only suppose that while my back was turned some other man came along and stole you from me. Unless you have gone completely off your rocker, that, I presume, must be the explanation of your conduct. But let me tell you this. If you think you can play fast and loose with me, you are very much mistaken. Right off it. Nothing like it at all. I jolly well intend to have it out with this human snake who has wriggled his way into your affections, if necessary knocking his bally head off. I shall go to him, and I shall first warn him. Should this fail, I shall...'

Gertrude found speech. She had shaken off the hypnotic spell which he had been casting on her. Her face was working and her eyes blazed indignantly, so that Mr Llewellyn, watching her, suffered another moment of discomfort. She reminded him of Grayce, his wife, that time when he had suggested that her brother George might find some more suitable outlet for his talents than the post of Production Expert to the Superba-Llewellyn Corporation.

'You hickaprit!
'

This was a new one to Monty.

'Hickaprit?'

'Hypocrite, I mean.'

'Oh, you do, do you?'

He stared at her, outraged.

'What on earth are you talking about?
’

'You know what I'm talking about.'

‘
I don't know what you're talking about.'

'You do know what I'm talking about.'

‘I
certainly do not know what you're talking about. And it's my firm belief,' said Monty, 'that you don't know yourself. What do you mean - hypocrite? Where do you get that hypocrite stuff? Why hypocrite?'

Gertrude choked.

'Pretending that you loved me!
'

‘I
do.'

'You do not.'

‘I
tell you I do. Gosh darn it, I ought to know whether I love you or not, oughtn't I?'
Then who's Sue?' ·Who's Sue?' ‘Who's Sue?' ‘
Who's
Sue?’

'Yes. Who's Sue? Who's Sue? Who's Sue?'

Monty's manner softened. Something of tenderness came into it. Though she had treated him shamefully and had now begun to talk like a cuckoo clock, he loved this girl.

'Listen, old bird,' he said, and there was a touch of appeal in his voice, 'we could go on like this all night. It's like trying to say "She sells sea-shells by the seashore." What exactly is it that you are gibbering about? Tell me, and we'll get the whole thing straightened out. You keep saying "Who's Sue? Who's Sue?" and I don't know any ...' His voice trailed away. An anxious look had come into his eyes.
‘
Yo
u don't by any chance mean Sue Brown, do you?'

‘
I don't know what her beastly name is. All I know is that you went off to Cannes pretending to love me, and a week later you had this girl's name tattooed on your chest with a heart round it, and it's no use trying to deny it, because you sent me a photograph of yourself in bathing costume and I had it enlarged and there it was.'

There was a silence. The cave-man Bodkin had ceased to be, and in his place stood the Bodkin of Waterloo Station. Once more Monty was supporting himself on one leg, and that weak and anxious smile was back on his face.

He was blaming himself. It was not as if this was the first time that that heart-encircled 'Sue' had led to trouble. Only a few weeks before, at Blandings Castle, there had been all that difficult explanation to Ronnie Fish on the very same subject, Ronnie had asked awkward questions, and now Gertrude was asking awkward questions. With a good deal of fervour Monty Bodkin was telling himself that if by some miracle he got through this sticky spot successfully, he would obtain washing soda or pumice-stone or vitriol or whatever you used for the eradication of tattoo marks and be done with that 'Sue' for ever, And that went for the heart round it, too.

'Listen,' he said.

‘
I don't want to listen.'

'But you must listen, dash it. You're quite mistaken.
’
'Mistaken!'

'I mean you're all wrong on a very important point. A vitally important point, I may say. You have fallen into the error of supposing that tattoo mark a recent growth. It's not. The matter is susceptible of a ready explanation. I had it done - like an ass - goodness knows why I ever thought of such a damn' silly thing - three years and more ago, before I had ever met you.
’

‘
Oh?'

'Don't say "Oh?"' begged Monty gently. 'At least, say it if you like, of course, but not with that sort of nasty tinkle in the voice, as if you didn't believe a word I was telling you.'

'I don't believe a word you're telling me.
’

'But it's true. Three years ago, when scarcely more than an unthinking boy, I was engaged to a girl named Sue Brown, and I suppose it seemed only civil to have her name tattooed on my chest with a heart round it. It hurt like the dickens and cost much more than you would expect I'd scarcely had it done, when the betrothal conked out on me. After being engaged about a fortnight, we talked it over, decided that the shot wasn't on the board, parted with mutual expressions of esteem, and she went her way and I went mine. The episode was over.
’

'Oh?'

'When you say "Oh?" - if you mean what I think you mean - you're quite wrong. I never saw her again, never so much as set my eyes on her, till about a month ago, when we met by pure accident at Blandings Castle.. .
’

'Oh!'

'You say "Oh!" this time as if you were under the impression that upon our meeting once more things hotted up between us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Any fleeting affection I may have felt for Sue Brown had long since gone phut, and the same on her side. I don't say I didn't still think she was
a
dashed good sort, but the boyish infatuation was no more. Only Love's embers remained. Well, dash it, when I tell you that she was crazy about Ronnie Fish and is now happily married to Ron
nie Fish - well, I mean to say!
‘

‘
Oh!'

There was nothing in the familiar word this time to arouse the critical spirit in Monty Bo
dkin. This was not a sceptical ‘
Oh,' a sneering 'Oh,' one of those acid 'Oh's' which, emitted by the girl he loves, make a man feel as if he has stepped on
a
tintack. It had relief in it, and kindliness, and remorse. It spoke of misunderstandings cleared away, of grievances forgotten. In fact, it was scarcely an 'Oh
’
at all, properly speaking. More like an 'Oo!'

'Monty! Is that true?'

'Of course it's true. A line to Mrs R. O. Fish at Blandings Castle, Shropshire, to be forwarded if away, will enable you to check up on the facts and will reveal them to be as I have stated.
’

The last traces of that frozen look, which is always so unpleasant in the eyes of those we love, had faded from Gertrude Butterwick's gaze. The thaw had set. in, and those twin lakes of hazel were moist with unshed tears of self-reproach.

‘
Oh,
Monty! What a fool I've been!
‘

‘
No, no.
’

'I have. But you see what I was feeling, don't yoti?
’
‘
Oh, rather.'

'I thought you were the sort of man who goes about making love to every girl he meets. And I simply wasn't going to stand it. You can't blame me, can you, for simply not being going to stand it?
’