Money for Nothing (3 page)

?

Not quite right.

'I say, Uncle, what ho the School-Girl Complexion?'

Absolutely
no
! The wrong tone altogether.

Ah! That was more like it. 'Fit.' Yes, that was the word.)

'You look very fit, Uncle,' said Hugo.

Mr Carmody's reply to this was to make a noise like a buffalo pulling its foot out of a swamp. It might have been intended to be genial, or it might not. Hugo could not tell. However, he was a reasonable young man, and he quite understood that it would be foolish to expect the milk of human kindness instantly to come gushing like a geyser out of a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound uncle who had just been doing bending and stretching exercises. He must be patient and suave – the Sympathetic Nephew.

'I expect it's been pretty tough going, though,' he proceeded. 'I mean to say, all these exercises and cold showers and lean chops and so forth. Terribly trying. Very upsetting. A great ordeal. I think it's wonderful the way you've stuck it out. Simply wonderful. It's character that does it. That's what it is. Character. Many men would have chucked the whole thing up in the first two days.'

'So would I,' said Mr Carmody, 'only that damned doctor made me give him a cheque in advance for the whole course.'

Hugo felt damped. He had had some good things to say about character, and it seemed little use producing them now.

'Well, anyway, you look very fit. Very fit indeed. Frightfully fit. Remarkably fit. Extraordinarily fit.' He paused. This was getting him nowhere. He decided to leap straight to the point at issue. To put his fortune to the test, to win or lose it all. 'I say, Uncle Lester, what I really came about this afternoon was a matter of business.'

'Indeed? I supposed you had come merely to babble. What business?'

'You know a friend of mine named Fish?'

'I do not know a friend of yours named Fish.'

'Well, he's a friend of mine. His name's Fish.'

'What about him?'

'He's starting a new night-club.'

'I don't care,' said Mr Carmody, who did not.

'It's just off Bond Street, in the heart of London's pleasure-seeking area. He's calling it The Hot Spot.'

The only comment Mr Carmody vouchsafed on this piece of information was a noise like another buffalo. His face was beginning to lose its vermilion tinge, and it seemed possible that in a few moments he might come off the boil.

'I had a letter from him this morning. He says he will give me a half share if I put up five hundred quid.'

'Then you won't get a half share,' predicted Mr Carmody.

'But I've got five hundred. I mean to say, you're holding a lot more than that in trust for me.'

'Holding,' said Mr Carmody, 'is the right word.'

'But surely you'll let me have this quite trivial sum for a really excellent business venture that simply can't fail? Ronnie Fish knows all about night-clubs. He's practically lived in them since he came down from Cambridge.'

'I shall not give you a penny. Have you no conception of the duties of a trustee? Trust money has to be invested in gilt-edged securities.'

'You'll never find a gilter-edged security than a night-club run by Ronnie Fish.'

'If you have finished this nonsense I will go and take my shower-bath.'

'Well, look here, Uncle, may I invite Ronnie to Rudge, so that you can have a talk with him?'

'You may not. I have no desire to talk with him.'

'You'd like Ronnie. He has an aunt in the looney-bin.'

'Do you consider that a recommendation?'

'No, I just mentioned it.'

'Well, I refuse to have him at Rudge.'

'But listen, Uncle. The vicar will be round any day now to get me to perform at the village concert. If Ronnie were on the spot, he and I could do the Quarrel Scene from
Julius Caesar
and really give the customers something for their money. We used to do it at Smokers up at Cambridge and it went big.'

Even this added inducement did not soften Mr Carmody.

'I will not invite your friends to Rudge.'

'Right ho,' said Hugo, a game loser. He was disappointed, but not surprised. All along he had felt that that Hot Spot business was merely a Utopian dream. There are some men who are temperamentally incapable of parting with five hundred pounds, and his uncle Lester was one of them. But in the matter of a smaller sum it might be that he would prove more pliable, and of this smaller sum Hugo had urgent need. 'Well, then, putting that aside,' he said, 'there's another thing I'd like to chat about for a moment, if you don't mind.'

Mr Carmody said he did.

'There's a big fight on tonight at the Albert Hall. Eustace Rodd and Cyril Warburton are going twenty rounds for the Welter-Weight Championship. Have you ever noticed,' said Hugo, touching on a matter to which he had given some thought, 'a rather odd thing about boxers these days? A few years ago you never heard of one that wasn't Beefy this or Porky that or Young Cat's-meat or something. But now they're all Claudes and Harolds and Cuthberts. And when you consider that the heavyweight champion of the world is actually named Eugene, it makes you think a bit. However, be that as it may, these two birds are going twenty rounds tonight, and there you are.'

'What,' inquired Mr Carmody, 'is all this drivel?'

He eyed his young relative balefully. In an association that had lasted many years, he had found Hugo consistently irritating to his nervous system, and he was finding him now rather more trying than usual.

'I only meant to point out that Ronnie Fish has sent me a ticket, and I thought that, if you were to spring a tenner for the necessary incidental expenses – bed, breakfast and so on . . . well, there I would be, don't you know.'

'You mean you wish to go to London to see a boxing contest?'

'That's it.'

'Well, you're not going. You know I have expressly forbidden you to visit London. The last time I was weak enough to allow you to go there, what happened? You spent the night in the police station.'

'Yes, but that was Boat-Race night.'

'And I had to pay five pounds for your fine.'

Hugo dismissed the past with a gesture.

'The whole thing,' he said, 'was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and, if you ask me, the verdict of Posterity will be that the policeman was far more to blame than I was. They're letting a bad type of man into the Force nowadays. I've noticed it on several occasions. Besides, it won't happen again.'

'You are right. It will not.'

'On second thoughts, then, you will spring that tenner?'

'On first, second, third and fourth thoughts I will do nothing of the kind.'

'But, Uncle, do you realize what it would mean if you did?'

'The interpretation I would put upon it is that I was suffering from senile decay.'

'What it would mean is that I should feel you trusted me, Uncle Lester, that you had faith in me. There's nothing so dangerous as a want of trust. Ask anybody. It saps a young man's character.'

'Let it,' said Mr Carmody callously.

'If I went to London, I could see Ronnie Fish and explain all the circumstances about my not being able to go into that Hot Spot thing with him.'

'You can do that by letter.'

'It's so hard to put things properly in a letter.'

'Then put them improperly,' said Mr Carmody. 'Once and for all, you are not going to London.'

He had started to turn away as the only means possible of concluding this interview, when he stopped, spell-bound. For Hugo, as was his habit when matters had become difficult and required careful thought, was pulling out of his pocket a cigarette case.

'Goosh!' said Mr Carmody, or something that sounded like that.

He made an involuntary motion with his hand, as a starving man will make towards bread: and Hugo, with a strong rush of emotion, realized that the happy ending had been achieved and that at the eleventh hour matters could at last be put on a satisfactory business basis.

'Turkish this side, Virginian that,' he said. 'You can have the lot for ten quid.'

'Say, I think you'd best be getting along and taking your shower, Mr Carmody,' said the voice of Doctor Twist, who had come up unobserved and was standing at his elbow.

The proprietor of Healthward Ho had a rather unpleasant voice, but never had it seemed so unpleasant to Mr Carmody as it did at that moment. Parsimonious though he was, he would have given much for the privilege of heaving a brick at Doctor Twist. For at the very instant of this interruption he had conceived the Machiavellian idea of knocking the cigarette case out of Hugo's hand and grabbing what he could from the debris: and now this scheme must be abandoned.

With a snort which came from the very depths of an overwrought soul Lester Carmody turned and shuffled off towards the house.

'Say, you shouldn't have done that,' said Doctor Twist, waggling a reproachful head at Hugo. 'No, sir, you shouldn't have done that. Not right to tantalize the poor fellow.'

Hugo's mind seldom ran on parallel lines with that of his uncle, but it was animated now by the identical thought which only a short while back Mr Carmody had so wistfully entertained. He, too, was feeling that what Doctor Twist needed was a brick thrown at him. When he was able to speak, however, he did not mention this, but kept the conversation on a pacific and businesslike note.

'I say,' he said, 'you couldn't lend me a tenner, could you?'

'I could not,' agreed Doctor Twist.

In Hugo's mind the inscrutable problem of why an all-wise Creator should have inflicted a man like this on the world deepened.

'Well, I'll be pushing along, then,' he said moodily.

'Going already?'

'Yes, I am.'

'I hope,' said Doctor Twist, as he escorted his young guest to his car, 'you aren't sore at me for calling you down about those students' lamps. You see, maybe your uncle was hoping you would slip him one, and the disappointment will have made him kind of mad. And part of the system here is to have the patients think tranquil thoughts.'

'Think what?'

'Tranquil, beautiful thoughts. You see, if your mind's all right, your body's all right. That's the way I look at it.'

Hugo settled himself at the wheel.

'Let's get this clear,' he said. 'You expect my uncle Lester to think beautiful thoughts?'

'All the time.'

'Even under a cold shower?'

'Yes, sir.'

'God bless you!' said Hugo.

He stepped on the self-starter, and urged the two-seater pensively down the drive. He was glad when the shrubberies hid him from the view of Doctor Twist, for one wanted to forget a fellow like that as soon as possible. A moment later, he was still gladder: for, as he turned the first corner, there popped out suddenly from a rhododendron bush a stout man with a red and streaming face. Lester Carmody had had to hurry, and he was not used to running.

'Woof !' he ejaculated, barring the fairway.

Relief flooded over Hugo. The marts of trade had not been closed after all.

'Give me those cigarettes!' panted Mr Carmody.

For an instant Hugo toyed with the idea of creating a rising market. But he was no profiteer. Hugo Carmody, the Square Dealer.

'Ten quid,' he said, 'and they're yours.'

Agony twisted Mr Carmody's glowing features.

'Five,' he urged.

'Ten,' said Hugo.

'Eight.'

'Ten.'

Mr Carmody made the great decision.

'Very well. Give me them. Quick.'

'Turkish this side, Virginian that,' said Hugo.

The rhododendron bush quivered once more from the passage of a heavy body: birds in the neighbouring trees began to sing again their anthems of joy: and Hugo, in his trousers pocket two crackling five-pound notes, was bowling off along the highway.

Even Doctor Twist could have found nothing to cavil at in the beauty of the thoughts he was thinking. He carolled like a linnet in the springtime.

'Yes, sir,' Hugo Carmody was assuring a listening world as he turned the two-seater in at the entrance of the stable-yard of Rudge Hall some forty minutes later, 'that's my baby. No, sir, don't mean maybe. Yes, sir, that's my baby now. And, by the way, by the way...'

'Blast you,' said his cousin John, appearing from nowhere. 'Get out of that car.'

'Hullo, John,' said Hugo. 'So there you are, John. I say, John, I've just been paying a call on the head of the family over at Healthward Ho. Why they don't run excursion-trains of sightseers there is more than I can understand. It's worth seeing, believe me. Large, fat men doing bending and stretching exercises. Tons of humanity leaping about with skipping-ropes. Never a dull moment from start to finish, and all clean, wholesome fun, mark you, without a taint of vulgarity or suggestiveness. Pack some sandwiches and bring the kiddies. And let me tell you the best thing of all, John . . .'

'I can't stop to listen. You've made me late already.'

'Late for what?'

'I'm going to London.'

'You are?' said Hugo, with a smile at the happy coincidence. 'So am I. You can give me a lift.'

'I won't.'

'I am certainly not going to run behind.'

'You're not going to London.'

'You bet I'm going to London.'

'Well, go by train, then.'

'And break into hard-won cash, every penny of which will be needed for the big time in the metropolis? A pretty story!'

'Well, anyway, you aren't coming with me.'

'Why not?'

'I don't want you.'

'John,' said Hugo, 'there is more in this than meets the eye. You can't deceive me. You are going to London for a purpose. What purpose?'

'If you really want to know, I'm going to see Pat.'

'What on earth for? She'll be here tomorrow. I looked in at Chas Bywater's this morning for some cigarettes – and, gosh, how lucky it was I did! – by the way he's putting them down to you – and he told me she's arriving by the three o'clock train.'

'I know. Well. I happen to want to see her very particularly tonight.'

Hugo eyed his cousin narrowly. He was marshalling the facts and drawing conclusions.

'John,' he said, 'this can mean but one thing. You are driving a hundred miles in a shaky car – that left front tyre wants a spot of air, I should look to it before you start, if I were you – to see a girl whom you could see tomorrow in any case by the simple process of meeting the three o'clock train. Your state of mind is such that you prefer – actually prefer – not to have my company. And, as I look at you, I note that you are blushing prettily. I see it all. You've at last decided to propose to Pat. Am I right or wrong?'

John drew a deep breath. He was not one of those men who derive pleasure from parading their inmost feelings and discussing with others the secrets of their hearts. Hugo, in a similar situation, would have advertised his love like the hero of a musical comedy; he would have made the round of his friends, confiding in them; and, when the supply of friends had given out, would have buttonholed the gardener. But John was different. To hear his aspirations put into bald words like this made him feel as if he were being divested of most of his more important garments in a crowded thoroughfare.

'Well, that settles it,' said Hugo briskly. 'Such being the case, of course you must take me along. I will put in a good word for you. Pave the way.'

'Listen,' said John, finding speech. 'If you dare to come within twenty miles of us . . .'

'It would be wiser. You know what you're like. Heart of gold but no conversation. Try to tackle this on your own and you'll bungle it.'

'You keep out of this,' said John, speaking in a low, husky voice that suggested the urgent need of one of those throat-lozenges purveyed by Chas Bywater and so esteemed by the dog Emily. 'You keep right out of this.'

Hugo shrugged his shoulders.

'Just as you please. Hugo Carmody is the last man,' he said, a little stiffly, 'to thrust his assistance on those who do not require same. But a word from me would make all the difference, and you know it. Rightly or wrongly Pat has always looked up to me, regarded me as a wise elder brother, and, putting it in a nutshell, hung upon my lips. I could start you off right. However, since you're so blasted independent, carry on, only bear this in mind – when it's all over and you are shedding scalding tears of remorse and thinking of what might have been, don't come yowling to me for sympathy, because there won't be any.'

John went upstairs and packed his bag. He packed well and thoroughly. This done he charged down the stairs, and perceived with annoyance that Hugo was still inflicting the stable-yard with his beastly presence.

But Hugo was not there to make jarring conversation. He was present now, it appeared, solely in the capacity of Good Angel.

'I've fixed up that tyre,' said Hugo, 'and filled the tank and put in a drop of oil and passed an eye over the machinery in general. She ought to run nicely now.'

John melted. His mood had softened, and he was in a fitter frame of mind to remember that he had always been fond of his cousin.

'Thanks. Very good of you. Well, good-bye.'

'Good-bye,' said Hugo. 'And heaven speed your wooing, boy.'

Freed from the restrictions placed upon a light two-seater by the ruts and hillocks of country lanes, John celebrated his arrival on the broad main road that led to London by placing a large foot on the accelerator and keeping it there. He was behind time, and he intended to test a belief, which he had long held, that a Widgeon Seven can, if pressed, do fifty. To the scenery, singularly beautiful in this part of England, he paid no attention. Automatically avoiding wagons by an inch and dreamily putting thoughts of the hereafter into the startled minds of dogs and chickens, he was out of Worcestershire and into Gloucestershire almost before he had really settled in his seat. It was only when the long wall that fringes Blenheim Park came into view that it was borne in upon him that he would be reaching Oxford in a few minutes and could stop for a well-earned cup of tea. He noted with satisfaction that he was nicely ahead of the clock.

He drifted past the Martyrs' Memorial, and, picking his way through the traffic, drew up at the door of the Clarendon. He alighted stiffly, and stretched himself. And as he did so, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. It was his cousin Hugo, climbing down from the dickey.

'A very nice run,' said Hugo with satisfaction. 'I should say we made pretty good time.'

He radiated kindliness and satisfaction with all created things. That John was looking at him in rather a peculiar way, and apparently trying to say something, he did not seem to notice.

'A little refreshment would be delightful,' he observed. 'Dusty work, sitting in dickeys. By the way, I got on to Pat on the 'phone before we left, and there's no need to hurry. She's dining out and going to a theatre tonight.'

'What!' cried John, in agony.

'It's all right. Don't get the wind up. She's meeting us at eleven-fifteen at the Mustard Spoon. I'll come on there from the fight and we'll have a nice home evening. I'm still a member, so I'll sign you in. And, what's more, if all goes well at the Albert Hall and Cyril Warburton is half the man I think he is and I can get some sporting stranger to bet the other way at reasonable odds, I'll pay the bill.'

'You're very kind!'

'I try to be, John,' said Hugo modestly. 'I try to be. I don't think we ought to leave it all to the Boy Scouts.'