Although Sir Buckstone liked Americans, was a member of the Overseas Club and had married an American wife, Elmer Chinnery was the one of his paying guests of whom he was least fond. Where he merely accelerated his pace to avoid a Waugh-Bonner or a Shepley, he seemed almost to possess the wings of a dove when he sighted Elmer Chinnery.
The reason for this was the fact, which has already been revealed, that he owed Mr Chinnery money. And in addition to that, the unfortunate loan appeared to be the only subject, except waffles, on which the other was prepared to converse. And your English aristocrat hates talking about money.
Mr Chinnery was a large, spreading man with a smooth face and very big horn-rimmed spectacles. He had come to reside at the Hall some time back, being indeed one of the earliest of the current generation of squatters. He had been a partner in the fish-glue business from which the Princess Dwornitzchek's first husband had drawn his fortune, and was enormously rich in spite of the inroads made on his income by the platoon of ex-wives to whom he was paying alimony For, like so many substantial citizens of his native country, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.
'Say, Abbott,' said Mr Chinnery.
To a casual auditor, there would have seemed nothing in these words to disturb and dismay, but we who know the facts are able to understand why, as he heard them, Sir Buckstone flung out his hands in a wide, despairing gesture like the Lady of Shalott when the curse had come upon her. We may not sympathize, but we can understand.
'It's no use, my dear chap. Honestly, it isn't.'
'If you could manage something on account—'
'Well, I can't. I'm sorry.'
An uncomfortable silence fell. Sir Buckstone was thinking how monstrous it was that a man whose income, even after his wives had had their whack at it, must be very nearly in six figures should keep making this ridiculous fuss about a mere few hundred pounds. Mr Chinnery was saying to himself what a lesson it all was to a fellow not to drink old port. It had been under the influence of his third glass of this beverage that he had allowed himself to yield to his host's suggestion of a small loan.
'If I sell the house—' said Sir Buckstone.
'M'm,' said Mr Chinnery.
They both looked at the house, and that uncomfortable silence fell once more. The same thought was in both their minds. A house like that would take some selling.
'Even twenty pounds—' said Mr Chinnery suddenly.
'Ah!' said Sir Buckstone, simultaneously and with infinite relief. 'Here's Jane.'
His daughter, never more welcome to a father's eyes than at this moment, was coming out of the house and making her way toward them to receive any last parental message before starting for London.
The process of dressing had done Jane good. She was no longer the tight-lipped, stony-eyed, fermenting girl who had left Tubby lying in fragments all over the terrace. She had ceased to feel as if small boys had been chalking up rude words on the wall of her soul, and was her gay, cheerful self again.
Tubby, she reminded herself, was just a half-wit, if that, and no girl of intelligence would allow herself to regard any observations which he might make as anything but the crackling of thorns beneath the pot. She did not intend to give another thought to his idiotic droolings. Her conversation with him was just an unpleasant incident of the past, to be buried away and forgotten, like mumps and the time when she had been sick at the children's party.
'Just off, Buck,' she said. 'Any little toy or anything you want me to bring you back?'
'You're going to London?' said Mr Chinnery 'You'll find it warm there.'
'I suppose I shall, but I've got to go. I've a luncheon party. Besides, father's been having a spot of trouble with a bloodsucker, and he wants me to attend to it for him.'
'Bloodsucker?'
'A human vampire bat of the name of Busby,' said Jane.
Addressing Mr Chinnery, she had turned away from Sir Buckstone, and so did not observe the sudden look of agony and apprehension which now shot into his weatherbeaten face. She did hear him cough in a strangled sort of way, but attributed this to his having swallowed some gnat or other summer insect. She went on brightly. She was always bright with the paying guests.
'You see, he wrote a book about his sporting memories and had it published at his own expense – paid this man two hundred pounds down like an officer and a gentleman – and now the ghoul has sent in a whacking bill for extras. I'm going to call and reason with him.'
There was a long pause. Mr Chinnery was breathing heavily. Sir Buckstone again made that odd, bronchial sound. But neither spoke. Then Mr Chinnery, having fixed the Baronet with what, even when filtered through horn-rimmed glasses, was easily recognizable as the stare of a man who has been wounded to the quick, gave a low gulp and shuffled off.
The sense of strain in the atmosphere did not escape Jane.
'What on earth's the matter?' she asked.
Sir Buckstone looked at her as King Lear might have looked at Cordelia – rather, in fact, as Mr Chinnery had just looked at him.
'You only said the one thing you shouldn't have said,' he replied bleakly. 'You merely put your foot in it right up to the knee. Some months ago I borrowed five hundred pounds from Chinnery, and there hasn't been a day since when he hasn't asked me for it back and I haven't told him I haven't got the cash. And then you come along and talk about me publishing books at my own expense.'
Jane whistled.
'Golly, Buck, I'm sorry.'
'Too late to be sorry now.'
'I must have shaken his faith in Baronets a bit.'
'I should think you have wrecked it for ever. I look forward,' said Sir Buckstone in a flat voice, 'to some very stimulating chats with Chinnery in the near future.'
Jane was remorseful, but she felt that she was being blamed unfairly. Fathers, she considered, should be more frank with their daughters about these facts of life. Then the daughters would know where they were.
'Well, never mind,' she said. 'When I get back, I'll go and prattle to him and soothe him. But why did you want five hundred pounds?'
'Who doesn't?' said Sir Buckstone, rather reasonably.
'I mean, what did you do with it?'
'I published my sporting memories.'
'That didn't come to five hundred quid. What happened to the rest of it?'
Sir Buckstone gestured sombrely, like a pessimistic semaphore.
'It went. This place eats money. And I hadn't so many lodgers then.'
'Paying guests.'
'Lodgers. Lodgers they are, and lodgers they always will be.' Sir Buckstone sighed. 'I little thought, when I succeeded to the title, that the time would shortly come when I should find myself running a blanked boarding establishment.'
'You mustn't be so morbid about it, precious. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Half the landed nibs in England take in paying guests nowadays. Ask anybody.'
Sir Buckstone declined to be comforted. When embarked on this particular topic, it was his custom to wallow in self-pity.
'When I was a boy,' he said heavily, 'my ambition was to become an engine driver. As a young man, I had dreams of ambassadorships. Arrived at middle age and grown reconciled to the fact that I hadn't brains enough for the Diplomatic Service, I thought that I could at least be a simple country gentleman. But Fate decided otherwise. "No, Buckstone," said Fate, "I have other views for you. You shall be the greasy proprietor of a blasted rural doss-house."'
'Oh, Buck!'
'It's no use saying, "Oh, Buck!"'
'Not greasy.'
'Greasy,' insisted Sir Buckstone firmly.
'Why don't you try to look on yourself as a sort of jolly innkeeper? You know – shirt sleeves and joviality. Entrance number in Act One just after the Opening Chorus of Villagers.'
'Because I'm not a jolly innkeeper,' said Sir Buckstone, who was quite clear-eyed about his status. 'I wish you would marry a rich man, Jane.'
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'Where are they all? What's become of the old-fashioned millionaire who used to buy girls with his gold? There's Mr Chinnery, of course. But hasn't he still got the one he bought last?'
'Ever considered this young Vanringham?'
'Oh, I'm not Tubby's type. He likes them tall and willowy. Besides, where did you get the idea that Tubby's a millionaire? All he's got is what his stepmother allows him, and I don't think she likes me.'
'Good God, Jane! What makes you think that?'
'Intuition.'
'You must make her like you,' said Sir Buckstone earnestly. 'You must cultivate the woman assiduously. Do you realize that she is the only person on earth who might conceivably buy this ghastly house? Miss Whittaker tells me she's on the ocean now, so she will be coming here in the next few days, I imagine. Make yourself pleasant to her. Spare no effort. Heavens! Just to think of somebody taking this monstrosity off our hands!'
'Tubby told me he believed the deal would go through.'
'He did?'
'He said the Princess admires Walsingford Hall.'
'She once told me she thought it cute.'
'Well, there you are.'
'But she's an erratic woman. Liable to change her mind at any moment.'
'I don't believe a taste for glazed salmon-coloured bricks can ever be eradicated. If it's there, it's there.'
'Well, let us hope for the best.'
'That's the spirit.'
'And now, I suppose, you ought to be off,' said Sir Buckstone. 'I've got to go and see your mother. A rather strange thing has occurred. Miss Whittaker tells me that a telephone message has arrived from her brother.'
'Miss Whittaker's brother?'
'Your mother's brother.'
'But mother hasn't got a brother.'
'Exactly. That is why I feel it's so odd that he should be ringing up on the telephone. I put that point to Miss Whittaker, but she stuck to her story. It's all most peculiar, and I shall be glad to get to the bottom of it.'
'I wish I could come too. But I want to catch Busby before lunch. That's psychology, Buck. Some people would say wait till he's mellowed with food, but I think publishers are like pythons. They hate to be disturbed while they are digesting. I prefer to deal with a snappy, alert Busby.'
'Get back as early as you can.'
'I will. I want to go down to the houseboat and see how Mr Peake is getting on.'
'Is that the name of the fellow who's taken the Mignonette?'
'Yes. Adrian Peake. I met him when I was at the Willoughbys' that week-end.'
'Nice chap?'
'Charming.'
'Then we'd better have him up here as soon as possible. It's about time,' said Sir Buckstone, thinking of Mr Chinnery Mr Waugh-Bonner, Colonel Tanner and others, 'that I saw someone charming. I'll send Miss Whittaker down with a note. But you can't go and see the fellow today. I want you here, the instant you get back, to soothe old Chinnery. A full afternoon's work it will be.'
'Oh, Buck! Must I?'
'Certainly you must. It was your own suggestion. You said you would prattle to him. Play clock golf with him, too, and ask him to tell you all about his wives and waffles. Otherwise, I shall have him on my neck till bedtime. Extraordinarily pertinacious that man is. Like a horsefly.'
'What a pity you ever bit his ear.'
'A great pity. But no good regretting it now. What's done is done. "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit—"'
'Yes, I know. I was given that to write out a hundred times at school too.'
'" – shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it,"' said Sir Buckstone, who was a hard man to stop. 'The thing about it all that I find so bitter is that the fellow hasn't the slightest earthly need for the money. He must have millions. No ordinary purse could stand the drain of what he pays out to ex-wives.'
'Not to mention ex-waffles, I expect. All right, I'll soothe him.'
'Good girl,' said Sir Buckstone paternally. Then he was struck by another thought. 'I say, Jane, this brother of your mother's. When he shows up, I'll have to ask him to stay, won't I?'
'Of course.'
'For an indefinite visit.'
'Yes.'
'And,' said Sir Buckstone, making his point, 'I don't suppose I can very well charge him anything, dash it. Crawling in, upsetting my home life, swigging my port – and not so much as five pounds a week out of it. Hell!' said Sir Buckstone, with old-fashioned English hospitality.
Jane said that he must not be a Shylock. Sir Buckstone replied that it was impossible for a man situated as he was not to be a Shylock and that, anyway, Shylock's was a character which he had come greatly to admire. He then moved heavily toward the house; and Jane, going to the stables, started up her Widgeon Seven for the drive to London and Mr Busby.
CHAPTER 3
MR Mortimer Busby, the enterprising publisher with whom the Society of Authors has for so many years waged a spirited but always fruitless warfare, leaned forward to his desk telephone and took off the receiver.
The movement caused him to wince and utter a stifled yelp, for his skin was sensitive this morning to sudden movements. The brilliance of the weather had led him on the previous day to stay away from the office, and like Mr Billing, of Walsingford Hall, to indulge in a sun bath. But, unlike Mr Billing, who always cannily smeared himself with oil, he had adopted no precautions against blisters and was suffering the consequences.
'Send Mr Vanringham to me,' he said.
The Outer Office replied that Mr Vanringham had not yet returned.
'Eh?' said Mr Busby dangerously. He did not approve of his employees wandering from the fold during business hours.
'Returned? Where's he gone?'
'If you remember, sir,' the Outer Office reminded him, 'you left instructions that Mr Vanringham was to go to Waterloo this morning to see Miss Gray off on the boat train.'
Mr Busby's severity softened. He recalled now that Miss Gwenda Gray, star author on his list, was sailing for America today to add one more to the long roll of English lecturers who have done so much to keep the depression going in that unfortunate country; and that Joe Vanringham, in his capacity of odd-job man and hey-you to the firm, had been dispatched to the train with fruit and flowers.
'All right,' he said. 'Send him in when he comes back.'
He had hardly replaced the receiver when the telephone rang again. More cautiously this time, he stretched out a hand to it.
'Hullo?'
'Hello, chief.'
'Who's that?'
'Vanringham, chief.'
'Don't call me "chief".'
'Okay, chief. Well, here I am at St Pancras.'
Mr Busby quivered from the top of his round head to the soles of his number ten shoes.
'What in the name of—What on earth are you doing at St Pancras?'
'Waiting for Miss Gray. You told me to see her off to Scotland this morning.'
A slight bubbling noise was all that Mr Busby was able to achieve for some moments. Then he recovered speech.
'You infernal idiot! America! She's going to America.'
'America? Are you sure?'
'Of all the—'
There came from the other end of the wire the sound of a remorsefully clicked tongue.
'You're absolutely right. It all comes back to me. It was America.'
'The boat train leaves from Waterloo.'
'By golly, you're right again. That explains why she hasn't shown up. But why did you tell me St Pancras?'
'I did not tell you St Pancras. I said Waterloo. Waterloo!'
Then that's how I came to get confused. I don't know if you are aware of it, but when you say "Waterloo", it sounds just like "St Pancras". Some slight defect of speech, no doubt, which a good elocution teacher could soon put right. Well, what I called up to ask was, shall I eat the fruit?'
'Listen,' said Mr Busby, in a strangled voice. Miss Gray was a novelist who sold her steady
twenty thousand copies a year and was inclined, if proper attention was not paid to her, to become touchy. 'There may be just time. Get in a taxi—'
An odious chuckle floated over the wire.
'Cheer up, chief. I've only been indulging in a little persiflage. You know how you come over all whimsy sometimes. I'm at Waterloo, all right, and everything has gone like a breeze. I gave her the fruit and flowers, and she was tickled to death. The train has just pulled out, and the last I saw of her, she was leaning out of the window, sucking an orange and crying, "God bless Mr Busby!"'
Mr Busby hung up the receiver. His face was a pretty purple, and his lips moved soundlessly. He was telling himself for the hundredth time that this was the end and that today he really would strike the name of Vanringham from his pay roll. But for the hundredth time there came to him the disconcerting thought that he would have to seek far to find another slave as good at his job as Joe.
A considerable proportion of Mr Busby's clients were women who paid for the publication of their books and were apt, when their bills came in, to call at the office in a rather emotional spirit. Whatever Joe's faults, he had a magic touch with these. They were as wax in his hands. So Mortimer Busby, groaning inwardly, forced himself to suffer him. He did not like Joe. He resented his sardonic smile and that look of his of amused astonishment, as if he could never get used to the idea that anything like Mr Busby was sharing the same planet with him. And he objected to the things he said. But he did approve of that amazing way he had of intercepting raging female novelists, paying them a couple of compliments, telling them a couple of funny stories and sending them away beaming and giggling, all animosity forgotten.