Bachelors Anonymous (11 page)

‘We
shan’t be as hard-up as all that,’ she said in her practical way. ‘I’ve got
twenty-five thousand pounds.’

‘What!’

‘And
this flat.’

Jaklyn
was stunned. He stared at Sally dumbly as she told her story. When she had
finished, he conceded that this did make a difference as far as their scale of
living was concerned, but maintained that it was essentially a triviality.

‘After
all,’ he said. ‘Money, what is it? Love is what matters.’

And on
this admirable sentiment he took his leave.

4

Daphne Dolby returned
shortly after he had left. She was in excellent spirits, having plainly enjoyed
the reunion with the comrades of her girlhood.

‘Where
were you at school, Sally?’ she asked.

‘I was
privately educated, as they say in the reference books.’

‘There
were times in my early days,’ said Daphne, ‘when I wished I had been, but I
don’t know. It wasn’t so bad, looking back, and certainly the hell-hounds I
used to regard with loathing seem to have improved with age. I loved them all
tonight. I’m giving lunch to some of them tomorrow. Care to come along?’

‘I
can’t, I’m afraid. I’d have loved to, but I’ve got to go to Valley Fields and
spend the day with an old nurse.

‘The
Nanny of your childhood?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m
sorry for you. I know those old Nannies. Mine lives in Edinburgh, thank God.
She—’

Daphne
broke off. She sniffed. A stern look came into her face.

‘Sally!
You’ve been smoking!’

‘Not
me,’ said Sally. ‘My betrothed.’

‘What!
You aren’t engaged?’

‘I am.’

‘You’ve
kept it very dark. Since when?’

‘It only
happened tonight.’

‘Who is
he?’

‘His
name’s Warner. Jaklyn Warner.’

The
announcement caused a brief pause in the conversation. It is always
disconcerting for a girl who is engaged to a man to be told by a friend that
she, the friend, is also engaged to him. Daphne was less taken aback than most
would have been, for she remembered that she had informed Jaklyn of Sally’s
legacy, and her knowledge of him told her that this was how, given that
information, he might have been expected to act. Her illusions where he was concerned
were few.

It was,
accordingly, with perfect calm that she said:

‘Oh,
Jaklyn Warner, eh?’

‘Do you
know him?’

‘I’ve
seen him around.’

There
was another pause.

‘Of
course he didn’t know about this money of yours?’ said Daphne.

‘No.’

‘Did you
tell him?’

‘It
came out as we were talking. He was saying how hard up we should be, and I
thought it would comfort him to mention it.’

‘I’ll
bet he was astounded.’

‘He did
seem to be.’

‘And
overjoyed?’

‘Not
particularly. I don’t think he thinks much about money.’

‘No,
pure spirit, that boy,’ said Daphne.

5

There was a pensive look
on Daphne’s face as she sat in her bedroom after saying goodnight to Sally.
Lightly though she had seemed to take the latter’s revelation, it had shaken
her not a little. It is disturbing for a girl who has been regarding her
engagement as a stable thing, to be terminated by marriage whenever she feels
inclined, to find that there is imminent danger of her betrothed making a
sudden dash for liberty. Where everything was placid and leisurely rapid action
becomes necessary, and nobody likes being hurried.

She
blamed herself for yielding to over-confidence where Jaklyn was concerned. She
had assumed too readily that he would feel that a fiancée with a prosperous
business and always good for a loan would be something to cling to, and though
she had had a marriage licence among her effects for some time, she had always
been too busy to use it. She did not often do a foolish thing, but she saw that
she had done one when relying on Jaklyn to stay where she had put him.

But she
was not the girl to waste time in idle regrets. Long before she had switched
off the light and climbed into bed she had found a solution to her problem, and
next morning Jaklyn, finishing a late breakfast, was surprised by a familiar
whistle at his door. Having ascertained by peeping round the window curtain
that she was not a bookmaker or a tailor, he opened the door.

Her car
was there, and in it, he saw, was a mysterious stranger.

This
was an individual who as far as thews and sinews went could have been the
village blacksmith or his twin brother, but in the matter of looks fell short
of the standards of the lowest beauty contest. His was a face that could never
have launched anything like a thousand ships, and something— possibly an
elephant—appeared to have sat on it and squashed it. No one broadminded will
allow himself to be prejudiced against a fellow-man because the latter has a
squashed face, but this squashed face had in addition a grim and menacing look,
such as is so often seen on the faces of actors playing bit parts in gangster
films, and—possibly inadvertently —he gave the impression that it would take
very little to give him offence. He was carrying in his hand a bunch of roses.

‘I’ve
come to take you for a ride, Jaklyn,’ said Daphne brightly. ‘You don’t get
nearly enough fresh air.’

Jaklyn,
who had been eyeing her fellow-traveller with some alarm, relaxed. He had no
objection to going for a spin in her car. A very agreeable way of passing the
morning, and she would be morally bound to stand him lunch, possibly at one of
those excellent hotels at Brighton where they understood lunch.

‘That’ll
be fine,’ he said. ‘Who,’ he added, lowering his voice, ‘is the fellow with the
face?’

‘Cyril
Pemberton, one of my operatives. He’s coming with us.’

‘Coming
with
us?’

‘Yes,
he’s our witness. I meant to have told you before. We shall be stopping off at
the registry office and getting married.’

‘Married!’

‘I’ve
been so tied up at the office that I hadn’t time to get around to it before.’

‘But—’

‘Now
don’t start arguing, dear,’ said Daphne. ‘Cyril has been looking forward so
much to being a witness. He knows what prestige it will give him with the other
operatives being chosen to be witness at the boss’s wedding. He specially
bought those lovely roses. And he has a very violent temper. I mean I don’t
know what he will do if you spoil his treat.’

Jaklyn
did not spoil his treat.

Chapter Nine

It was Mr Trout’s healthy
practice to take a brisk walk after lunch when the weather was fine. It tuned
up his system and imparted a gentle glow. The day following his visit to Mr
Llewellyn being adequately balmy, he set off down Park Lane and had reached the
neighbourhood of Fountain Court when he observed approaching him the young man
Pickering whose acquaintance he had made on the previous evening.

He
greeted him with the utmost warmth, and so kindly and paternal was his manner
that Joe, whose morale was at its lowest ebb, threw off perhaps five per cent
of the gloom which was wrapping him as if in a garment and replied to his ‘Ah,
Mr Pickering’ with an ‘Oh, hullo, Mr Trout’ which, though in many respects
resembling a voice speaking from the tomb in a story by Edgar Allan Poe, was
reasonably cordial.

‘A
lovely afternoon,’ said Mr Trout. He felt no embarrassment at this encounter.
Members of Bachelors Anonymous never felt embarrassment when meeting those in
whose matrimonial plans they had interfered. To him Joe was just another
out-patient who had come to him needing treatment, and this treatment he had
given him. He experienced no more remorse at having introduced a Mickey Finn
into his beverage than would a doctor who had prescribed for an invalid one of
those medicines which nearly lift the top of the head off but effect a cure.
‘Glad to see that you are restored to health, Mr Pickering, ‘he said. ‘You had
some sort of a fit or seizure yesterday. It alarmed me. It alarmed Mr
Llewellyn. It alarmed both of us. And what are you doing in these parts?’

If Mr
Trout had been a shade less kindly and paternal, Joe might have kept his
private affairs to himself, but he was in the frame of mind when anyone really
kind and paternal can extract confidences with the ease of a conjuror taking a
rabbit or the flags of all nations out of a top hat. He told Mr Trout that he
had been calling on a girl, and Mr Trout said ‘Oh?’ in a disapproving voice, as
if he thought that that was no way for a young man to be employing his time
when he might have been reading a good book. This talk of calling on girls,
too, made him a little anxious. It seemed to suggest that his treatment of
yesterday had not been as effective as he had supposed.

‘The
young lady of whom you were speaking last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘I
trust you found her well?’ said Mr Trout stiffly.

Joe
gave a sharp yelp like that of some fiend in torment on whose sore toe another
fiend in torment has trodden. The irony of the question had touched an exposed
nerve.

‘I
didn’t find her at all,’ he said. ‘She refused to see me.’

‘Indeed?
Why was that?’

‘You
remember I was to have taken her to dinner last night?’

‘Ah
yes. You had your hair trimmed.’

‘And a
shampoo and a manicure.’

‘And
then you had this fit or seizure. I begin to see. She went to the restaurant of
your selection, but you did not.’

‘Exactly.
This must have given her a pretty low opinion of me, and I wanted to see her
and explain. I went to the address she had given me, but they told me she had
moved to Fountain Court or House or whatever the damned thing is called, so
I’ve just been there.’

‘And
she would not see you?’

‘No.
She sent out word to that effect.’

‘Then
you are well out of it, my boy,’ said Mr Trout, and went into his routine with
the practised smoothness which years of membership in Bachelors Anonymous had
given him. He never had to think and pick his words when holding forth on the
drawbacks to marriage. The golden syllables came gushing out as if somebody
had pressed a button. It was just the same with Fred Basset, Johnny Runcible,
G. J. Flannery and all the other pillars of that benevolent group. As G. J.
Flannery had once put it, they seemed to be inspired.

‘Yes,
Pickering, you are well out of it,’ said Mr Trout. ‘You have had a most
merciful escape. Have you ever considered what marriage means? I do not refer
to the ghastly ordeal of the actual service, with its bishops and assistant
clergy, its bridesmaids and the influx of all the relations you have been
trying to avoid for years, but to what comes after. And when I say that, I am
not thinking of the speech you would be compelled to make at the wedding
breakfast. That and the service that preceded it are merely temporary agonies,
and a strong man can fortify himself with the thought that they will soon be
over. But what of the aftermath, when you find that you are linked for life
with someone who comes down to breakfast, puts her hands over your eyes and
says “Guess Who”? From what you were saying about the dimple on this girl’s
left cheek I gather that she is not without physical allure, but can she drive
a car? Somebody has got to drive the car and do the shopping while you are
playing golf. Somebody has got to be able to fix a flat tyre. Letters, too.
What guarantee have you that she will attend to the family correspondence,
particularly the Christmas cards? Like so many young men,’ said Mr Trout, ‘you
have allowed yourself to be ensnared by a pretty face, never asking yourself if
the person you are hoping to marry is capable of making out your income tax
return and can be relied on to shovel snow while you are curled up beside the
fire with a novel of suspense. Yes,’ said Mr Trout, warming to his subject,
‘you are one of the lucky ones. If, as you say, she refuses to see or speak to
you, you ought to be dancing sarabands and congratulating yourself on—’

‘My
God!’ said Joe.

What
had caused the ejaculation had been the passing of a cab in which was seated an
extremely attractive girl with nice eyes and a dimple in her cheek—reading from
right to left, Sally en route to Valley Fields to brighten the life of Miss
Jane Priestley, her former Nanny. From London to Valley Fields was a journey of
about six miles, and until today she had always made it by train from Victoria,
but when a girl has twenty-five thousand pounds in or shortly to come into her
bank account she can afford to be extravagant.

This
explains the hired vehicle, and the fact that after travelling a short distance
it was held up in a traffic jam explains why Joe, after standing congealed for
a second or two, had time to leap into another hired vehicle which happened to
be passing and shout into the driver’s ear those words familiar to all readers
of the right sort of book: