P. G. Wodehouse
ICE IN THE BEDROOM
LONDON: HERBERT JENKINS
Contents
1 3
2 8
3 12
4 17
5 23
6 26
7 30
8 36
9 43
10 52
11 62
12 72
13 79
14 86
15 94
16 102
17 109
18 116
19 122
20 129
21 135
22 141
23 145
24 149
25 153
26 159
1
FEEDING his rabbits in the garden of his residence, The Nook, his humane practice at the start of each new day, Mr. Cornelius, the house agent of Valley Fields, seemed to sense a presence. He had the feeling that he was not alone. Nor was he. A lissom form had draped itself over the fence which divided his domain from that of Peacehaven next door.
'Ah, Mr. Widgeon,' he said. 'Good morning.'
With its trim gardens and tree-shaded roads, Valley Fields, that delectable suburb to the south-east of London, always presents a pleasing spectacle on a fine day in June, and each of these two householders in his individual way contributed his mite to the glamour of the local scene. Mr. Cornelius had a long white beard which gave him something of the dignity of a Druid priest, and the young man he. had addressed as Widgeon might have stepped straight out of the advertisement columns of one of the glossier and more expensive magazines. The face as clean-cut as that of any Adonis depicted wearing somebody's summer suitings for the discriminating man, the shoes just right, the socks just right, the shirt and Drones Club tie just right. Criticisms had been made from time to time of Freddie Widgeon's intelligence, notably by his uncle, Lord Blicester, and by Mr. Shoesmith, the solicitor, in whose office he was employed, but nobody - not even Oofy Prosser of the Drones, whom he often annoyed a good deal - had ever been able to find anything to cavil at in his outer crust.
'Lovely weather,' said Mr. Cornelius.
'Just like mother makes,' assented Freddie, as sunny to all appearances as the skies above. 'Cigarette?'
'No, thank you. I do not smoke.'
'What, never?'
'I gave it up many years ago. Doctors say it is injurious to the health.'
'Doctors are asses. They don't know a good thing when they see one. How do you pass the long evenings?'
'I work on my history of Valley Fields.'
'You're writing a history of Valley Fields?'
'I have been engaged on it for a considerable time. A labour of love.'
'You like Valley Fields?'
'I love it, Mr. Widgeon. I was born in Valley Fields, I went to school in Valley Fields, I have lived all my life in Valley Fields, and I shall end my days here. I make a modest competence---'
'Mine's a stinker.'
‘---and I am content with it. I have my house, my garden, my wife, my flowers, my rabbits. I ask nothing more.'
Freddie chafed a little. His views on suburban life differed radically from those the other had expressed, and this enthusiasm jarred on him.
'Yes, that's all right for you,' he said. 'You're a happy, carefree house agent. I'm a wage slave in a solicitor's firm, as near to being an office boy as makes no matter. Ever see a caged eagle?'
Oddly enough, Mr. Cornelius had not. He did not get around much.
'Me,' said Freddie, tapping his chest. He frowned. He was thinking of the dastardly conduct of his uncle, Lord Blicester, who, on the shallow pretext that a young man ought to be earning his living and making something of himself, had stopped his allowance and shoved him into the beastly legal zoo over which Mr. Shoesmith presided. He thrust the distasteful subject from his mind, and turned to pleasanter topics.
'I see you're lushing up the dumb chums.'
'Always at this hour.'
'What's on the menu?’
'The little fellows get their lettuce.'
'They couldn't do better. Rich in vitamins and puts hair on the chest.' He studied the breakfasters in silence for a moment. 'Ever notice how a rabbit's nose sort of twitches? I know a girl whose nose does that, when she gets excited.'
'A resident of Valley Fields?' said Mr. Cornelius, searching in his mind for nose-twitchers of the suburb's younger set.
'No, she lives down in Sussex at a place called Loose Chippings.'
'Ah’, said Mr. Cornelius, with a gentle pity he always felt for people who did not live in Valley Fields.
'She's got a job there. She's secretary to a woman called Yorke, who writes books and things.'
Mr. Cornelius started as if, mistaking him for a leaf of lettuce, one of the rabbits had bitten him.
'Not Leila Yorke the novelist?'
'That's the one. Ever sample her stuff?'
A devout look had come into the house agent's face. His beard waggled emotionally.
'She is my favourite author. I read and re-read every word she writes.'
'Sooner you than me. I dipped into one of her products once, misled by the title into supposing it to be a spine-freezer, and gave up the unequal struggle in the middle of chapter three. Slush of the worst description it seemed to me.'
'Oh, Mr. Widgeon, no!' 'You don't see eye to eye?'
'I certainly do not. To me Leila Yorke plumbs the depths of human nature and lays bare the heart of woman as if with a scalpel'
'What a beastly idea! It sounds like let-me-tell-you-about-my-operation. Well, have it your own way. If hers are the sort of books you like to curl up with, go to it and best of luck. What were we talking about before we got off on to the Yorke subject? Oh yes, about me being a caged eagle. That's what I am, Cornelius, and I don't like it. The role revolts me. I want to slide out of it. Shall I tell you how a caged eagle slides out of being a caged eagle?'
'Do, Mr. Widgeon.'
'It gets hold of a bit of money, that's what it does, and that's what I'm going to do. I want the stuff quick and plenty of it. I want people to nudge each other in the street as I pass and whisper, "See that fellow in the fur coat? Widgeon, the millionaire." I want to wear bank-notes next my skin winter and summer, ten-pound ones in the chilly months, changing to fivers as the weather gets warmer.'
It is always difficult to be certain when a man as densely bearded as Mr. Cornelius is pursing his lips, but something of the sort seemed to be going on inside the undergrowth that masked him from the world. It was plain that he thought these aspirations sordid and distasteful. There was an unspoken tut-tut in his voice, as he said:
'But does money bring happiness, Mr. Widgeon?'
‘I’ll say!'
'The rich have their troubles.'
'Name three.'
‘I was thinking of my brother Charles.' '
Is he rich?'
'Extremely. He left England under a cloud, I regret to say, many years ago, and went to America, where he has done well. In the last letter I received from him he said he had an apartment on Park Avenue, which I gather is a very respectable quarter of New York, a house on Long Island, another in Florida, a private aeroplane and a yacht. I have always felt sorry for Charles.'
'Why's that?'
'He does not live in Valley Fields,' said Mr. Cornelius simply. He brooded for a moment on his brother's hard lot. 'No,' he continued, 'the wealthy are not to be envied. Life must be a constant anxiety for them. Look at your friend, Mr. Prosser, of whom you were speaking to me the other day.'
This puzzled Freddie.
'Old Oofy? What's he got to worry him? Apart, of course, from being married to Shoesmith's daughter and having to call Shoesmith Daddy?'
It s
eemed to Mr. Cornelius that his young friend must have a very short memory. It was only the day before yesterday that they had been discussing the tragedy which had befallen the Prosser home.
'You told me that Mrs. Prosser had been robbed of jewellery worth many thousands of pounds.'
Freddie's face cleared.
'Oh, that? Yes, someone got away with her bit of ice all right. The maid, they think it must have been, because when the alarm was raised and the cops charged in, they found she had gone without a cry. But bless your kind old heart, Cornelius, Oofy doesn't care. It happened more than a month ago, and the last time I saw him he was as blithe as a bird. He'd got the insurance money.'
'Nevertheless, occurrences of that nature are very unpleasant, and they happen only to the rich.'
It was Freddie's opinion that the house agent was talking through his hat. He did not say so, for the other's white hairs protected him, but his manner, as he spoke, was very firm.
'Listen, my dear old lettuce-distributor,' he said. 'I see what you mean, and your reasoning is specious, if that's the word, but I still stick to it that what you need in this world is cash, and that is why you may have noticed that I've been looking a bit more cheerful these last days. The luck of the Widgeons has turned, and affluence stares me in the eyeball.'
'Indeed?'
'I assure you. For the first time in years Frederick Fotheringay Widgeon is sitting on top of the world with a rainbow round his shoulder. You could put it in a nutshell by saying that Moab is my washpot and over wherever-it-was will I cast my shoe, as the fellow said, though what casting shoes has got to do with it is more than I can tell you. Do you know a chap called Thomas G. Molloy? American bloke. Lives at Castlewood next door to me on the other side.'
'Yes, I am acquainted with Mr. Molloy. I saw him only yesterday, when he came to my office to give me the keys.'
Freddie could make nothing of this.
'What did he want to give you keys for? Your birthday or something?'
'The keys of the house. He has left Castlewood.'
'What!'
'Yes, Castlewood is vacant once more. But I anticipate very little difficulty in disposing of it,' said Mr. Cornelius, nearly adding from force of habit, 'A most desirable property, tastefully furnished throughout and standing in parklike grounds extending to upwards of a quarter of an acre.' 'There is a great demand for that type of house.'
Freddie was still perplexed. Saddened, too, for in his vanished neighbour he felt he had lost a friend. Thomas G. Molloy's rich personality had made a strong appeal to him.
'But I thought Molloy owned Castlewood.'
'Oh no, he merely occupied it on a short lease. These three houses — Castlewood, Peacehaven and The Nook — are the property of a Mr. Keggs, who has lived at Castlewood for many years. It was sublet to Mr. Molloy when Mr. Keggs went off on one of those round-the-world cruises. He came into a great deal of money recently, and felt he could afford the trip. Though why anyone living in Valley Fields should want to leave it and go gadding about, I cannot imagine. But you were speaking of Mr. Molloy. Why did you mention him?'
'Because it is he who has brought these roses to my cheeks, Cornelius. Entirely owing to that big-hearted philanthropist, I shall very shortly be in a position to strike off the shackles of Shoesmith, Shoesmith, Shoesmith and Shoesmith. I thought I was in for a life sentence in the Shoesmith snake pit, and the prospect appalled me. And then Molloy came along. But I'm getting ahead of my story. All back to Chapter One, when I got that letter from Boddington. Pal of mine in Kenya,' Freddie explained. 'Runs a coffee ranch or whatever you call it out there. He wrote to me and asked if I'd like to take a small interest in it and come and join the gang. Well, of course I was all for it. Nothing could be more up my street. Are you familiar with the expression "the great open spaces"?'
Mr. Cornelius said he was. Leila Yorke's heroes, he said, frequently made for the great open spaces when a misunderstanding had caused a rift between them and the girls they loved.
'Those are what I've always yearned for, and I understand the spaces in Kenya are about as open as they come. I don't quite know how you set about growing coffee, but one soon picks these things up. I am convinced that, given a spade and a watering can and shown the way to the bushes, it will not be long before I electrify the industry, raising a sensational bean. Kenya ho! is the slogan. That's where you get the rich, full life.'
'Kenya is a long way off.'
‘Part of its charm.'
'I would not care to go so far from Valley Fields myself.'
'The farther the better, in my opinion. I can take Valley Fields or leave it alone.'
These words, bordering to his mind closely on blasphemy, caused Mr. Cornelius to wince. He turned away and offered a portion of lettuce to the third rabbit on the right in rather a marked manner.
'So you are accepting your friend's offer?' he said, when he had recovered himself.
'If he'll hold it open for a while. Everything turns on that. You see, as always when these good things come your way, there's a catch. I have to chip in with three thousand quid as a sort of entrance fee, and I don't mind telling you that when I read that passage in the Boddington communique, I reeled and might have fallen, had I not been sitting down at the time. Because I don't need to tell you, Cornelius, that three thousand quid is heavy sugar.'
'You mean that your funds were insufficient to meet this condition?'
'Very far short of sweetening the kitty. All I had in the world was a measly thousand, left me by a godmother.'
'Unfortunate.'
'Most. I asked an uncle of mine for a temporary loan of the sum I needed, and all he said was, "What, what, what? Absurd. Preposterous. Couldn't think of it," which, as you will readily agree, left no avenue open for a peaceful settlement. Oofy Prosser, too, declined to be my banker, as did my banker, and I was just about to write the whole thing off as a washout, when suddenly there was a fanfare of angel trumpets and Molloy descended from heaven, the sun shining on his wings. We got talking, I revealed my predicament, and he waved his magic wand and solved all my problems. In return for my thousand quid he let me have some very valuable oil stock which he happened to have in his possession."
'Good gracious!'
‘I put it even more strongly.'
'What oil stock?'
'Silver River it's called, and pretty soon England will be ringing with its name. He says it's going up and up and up, the sky the only limit.'
'But was it not a little rash to invest all your capital in a speculative concern?'
'Good heavens, I leaped at the chance like a jumping bean. And it isn't speculative. Molloy stressed that. It's absolutely gilt-edged. He assures me I shall be able to sell my holdings for at least ten thousand in less than a month.'
'Strange that he should have parted with anything so valuable.'
'He explained that. He said he liked my face. He said I reminded him of a nephew of his on whom he had always looked as a son, who handed in his dinner pail some years ago. Double pneumonia. Very sad.'
'Oh dear!'
'Why do you say "Oh dear!"?'
But Mr. Cornelius's reasons for uttering this observation were not divulged, for even as he spoke Freddie had happened to glance at his wrist watch, and what he saw there shook him from stem to stern.
'Good Lord, is that the time?' he gasped. 'I'll miss that ruddy train again!'
He sped off, and Mr. Cornelius looked after him with a thoughtful eye. 'If Youth but knew,' he seemed to be saying to himself. He had not been favourably impressed by Thomas G. Molloy, late of Castlewood, who, possibly because he, Mr. Cornelius, reminded him, Mr. Molloy, of a goat he had been fond of as a child, had tried to sell him, too, a block of stock in this same Silver River Oil and Refinery Corporation.
With a sigh he picked up a leaf of lettuce and went on feeding his rabbits.
2
ALL season-ticket holders who live in the suburbs run like the wind, and Freddie had long
established himself as one of Valley Fields' most notable performers on the flat, but today, though he clipped a matter of three seconds off his previous record for the Peacehaven-station course, he had given the 8.45 too long a start and had to wait for the 9.06. It was consequently with some trepidation that he entered the Shoe-smith premises, a trepidation which the cold grey eye of Mr. Jervis, the managing clerk, did nothing to allay. He had no need to look into a crystal ball to predict that there might be a distressing interview with Mr. Shoesmith in the near future. From their initial meeting and from meetings that had taken place subsequently he had been able to gather that the big shot was a stickler for punctuality on the part of the office force.
But it was not this thought that was clouding his brow as he sat at the desk at which he gave his daily impersonation of a caged eagle. He did not enjoy those chats with Mr. Shoe-smith, whose forte was dry sarcasm, very wounding to the feelings, but custom had inured him to them and he was able now to take them with a philosophical fortitude. The reason melancholy marked him for its own was that he was thinking of Sally Foster.
If Mr. Cornelius had not been so intent at the moment on seeing to it that the personnel of his hutch got their proper supply of vitamins, he might have observed that at the mention of the girl whose nose twitched like a rabbit's a quick spasm of pain had flitted across the young man's face. It had been only a passing twinge, gone almost immediately, for the Widgeons could wear the mask, but it had been there. He had rashly allowed himself to be reminded of Sally Foster, and whenever that happened it was as though he had bitten on a sensitive tooth.
There had been a time, and not so long ago, when he and Sally had been closer than the paper on the wall - everything as smooth as dammit, each thinking the other the biggest thing since sliced bread and not a cloud on the horizon. And then, just because she had found him kissing that dumb brick of a Bunting girl at that cocktail party - the merest civil gesture, as he had tried to explain, due entirely to the fact that he had run out of conversation and felt that he had to do something to keep things going - she had blown a gasket and forbidden the banns. Take back your mink, take back your pearls, she would no doubt have said, if his finances had ever run to giving her mink and pearls. What she had actually returned to him by district messenger boy had been a bundle of letters, half a bottle of Arpage and five signed photographs.