Hot Water Read online

  'Yes.'

  And Constance Bennett?'

  'Yes.'

  And Norma Shearer?'

  'Of course I have.'

  'Mix 'em together and what have you got? Beatrice.'

  And did you really say what you were telling us to Lord Stableford?'

  'Well, not those actual words, perhaps. But I was firm with him, very firm.'

  And he crawled?'

  'I had him pawing at my trouser-legs. Of course, I'm pretty rich. That may have helped.'

  'Blair has hardly any money.'

  'But they tell me that everybody whose opinion matters regards him as one of the leaders of the younger school of novelists.'

  'So he is. But he writes the sort of books that most people don't read. He's above their heads, I mean. As a matter of fact, he makes practically nothing out of his novels.'

  'How does he eat?'

  'He's got a job with the British Broadcasting Company.'

  Packy was interested. He liked his radio of an evening.

  'Is he the fellow who says "Good night, everybody, good night!"?'

  'No. He ...'

  'I've got him placed. He's the one who lectures on Fat Stock prices.'

  'No. He does the noises off.'

  'How do you mean, the noises off?'

  'Well, when they have a sketch or something where they have to have noises, Blair makes them.'

  'I get you. You mean, somebody says "Hurrah, girls, here comes the Royal Bodyguard!" and Blair goes tramp, tramp, tramp.'

  'Yes. And all sorts of other noises. He's awfully clever at it.'

  Packy nodded.

  'I can quite see why you want to marry him. The home can never be dull if at any moment the husband is able to imitate a motor horn or the mating-cry of the boll-weevil. But you don't think your father will take that view?'

  'Father is very material. He seems to think so much of money.'

  'And just about now Eggleston is breaking it to him that he hasn't any. Tell me, what is the greatest number of wild cats your father has ever killed with his teeth in a given time?'

  'The question seemed to displease the girl.

  'I wish you wouldn't talk like that.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'They may get along splendidly.'

  'They may.'

  'What I'm hoping is that, even if Father doesn't agree to our marrying at once, at least he will like Blair well enough to give him some good job.'

  'Imitating boll-weevils?'

  In the bearing of Jane Opal as she hitched herself round in her chair and gazed at Packy there was something of the old fire.

  'I see you have a cauliflower ear.'

  'An old football wound.'

  'Want another?'

  'No, thanks.'

  'Then don't talk like that. Blair is a very wonderful man, and he only makes noises off because his books are so clever that the public won't buy them. The critics say he is the coming novelist.'

  'And here he comes.'

  Blair Eggleston had suddenly appeared in the lobby and was standing peering hither and thither in search of his vanished lady. Even at this distance it was evident that he was somewhat dazed. His face wore a bewildered, stunned look.

  'Well, he's still in one piece,' said Packy, 'and there don't seem to be any tooth-marks on him. Can Dad be losing his pep?'

  'He looks goofy,' said Jane. 'I wonder what the matter is.'

  She called loudly, and the coming novelist, at last sighting her, advanced totteringly, as one who has either suffered some severe spiritual shock or received a punch in the wind.

  'Well?' said Jane.'Well?'

  Blair Eggleston blinked.

  'I say...'

  'What happened?'

  'Well, I went in...'

  'And what happened?'

  'I saw your father...'

  'He could hardly help doing that,' explained Packy, 'in an ordinary-sized apartment. I saw your father, too – distinctly. How was he coming along with that sheet?'

  'Will you please be quiet,' said Jane. 'Blair!' Her voice took on a Senatorial vehemence. It would have interested a student of heredity. 'Stop dithering and tell me what happened.'

  Blair Eggleston seemed to pull himself together with a strong effort.

  'Well, I went in, and he was standing there, and before I could get a word out he said, "Are you honest and sober?"'

  'Honest and sober?' squeaked Jane.

  'The first thing fathers ask prospective sons-in-law,' Packy assured her. 'Pure routine.'

  'And what did you say?'

  'I said I was.'

  'That sounds like the right answer,' said Packy critically.

  'And then he asked me if I knew how to take care of clothes. And I said I did. And then he said, "Well, you don't look like much, but I suppose I've got to give you a trial." And I suddenly discovered that he had engaged me as his valet.'

  'What!'

  'Just what you were hoping,' said Packy. 'You said you wished your father would give him a job. The dream come true. Local Boy Makes Good.'

  Jane was wrestling with her chagrin.

  'But, Blair!... Didn't you explain?'

  'I hadn't time. The telephone rang, and he told me to answer it, and it was this Mrs Gedge you are going to stay with. She was downstairs and wanted to see him. So he told me to get out, and I got out.'

  This information diverted Jane momentarily from the matter in hand.

  'Mrs Gedge? Are you sure?'

  'Quite.'

  'I wonder what she's doing over here. I must go and ask Father.'

  She dismissed the subject of Mrs Gedge.

  'Then you really mean you left it at that?'

  'Your father's last words were that I should meet him at the boat-train at Waterloo to-morrow.'

  'Well, that's fine,' said Packy. He turned to Jane, who seemed in need of a kindly word of encouragement. 'Don't you see how everything has worked for the best? You would like him to be at St Rocque with you, wouldn't you? Well, now he will be, and actually in the same house. You can snatch secret meetings with him and bill and coo across the Senator's Sunday pants while he's brushing them.'

  'Why, of course! I never thought of that.'

  Despite what he had been through, the haughty spirit of the Egglestons was still alive in Blair. He started incredulously and with not a little indignation.

  'Are you under the impression that I really intend to come to St Rocque as your father's valet?'

  Jane's eyes were shining. The chin which she inherited from the Opal side of the family was tilted and resolute.

  'I am,' she said definitely. 'Why, Blair, it's wonderful. You'll be always with Father, making him get fond of you. So that, when we think the time is ripe and I go to him and say, "You know that valet of yours, Father? Well, that's the man I want to marry," he will say "Fine! I liked him from the start," and everything will be lovely.'

  'But, really...'

  'Blair,' said Jane Opal, 'I'm not arguing with you. I'm telling you.'

  Packy rose. It seemed to him that the delicate thing would be to withdraw. Blair Eggleston was looking as like a younger English novelist who has just stopped a sandbag with the back of his head as any younger English novelist had ever looked since first young Englishmen began to write novels, and what he needed, in Packy's opinion, was the opportunity of threshing things out quietly with his loved one with no third party present.

  'I congratulate you both,' he said, 'on the happy way in which everything has come out. You will let me know any further developments, won't you? You see, I naturally feel a paternal interest in you young folks. Devonshire House will find me.'

  'Must you go?'

  'I fear I must. I have got to get my hair cut. My fiancée says it is too long. Her last words to me as the train pulled out drew a rather poetic comparison between me and a chrysanthemum.'

  'I think you look lovely.'

  'I do look lovely. But you know what women are. I regard getting it cut as a so
rt of sacred trust.'

  Blair Eggleston rose bubblingly to the surface of the Slough of Despond which had engulfed him.

  'But I don't know how to be a valet!'

  'It's quite easy,' Packy assured him. 'A fellow with a brain like yours will pick it up in a minute. Just fold and brush and brush and fold and remember to say "yes, sir" and "no, sir" and "indeed, sir?" and "very good, sir". Oh, and one thing. Be very careful how you remove spots from the clothing. I knew a man who was fired for removing a spot from his employer's clothing.'

  'What a shame!' said Jane. 'Why?'

  'It was a ten-spot,' explained Packy.

  6

  It was the opinion of Mr Gordon Carlisle – and Soup Slat-tery, it will be remembered, had agreed with him – that women are tough. Packy, returning to his rooms after visiting the barber, found himself forced to the same conclusion.

  That edict of Beatrice's that he should remain in London was weighing on him heavily. He was aware of a disquieting restlessness. He had picked up his yachting magazine and was re-reading the advertisement of which he had spoken to her at Waterloo. It virtually amounted to a prose poem.

  FOR CHARTER. – Auxiliary Yawl, Flying Cloud, 45 feet over all, 39 feet on water line, 13 foot beam, Marconi rig, powered with 40 h.p. Universal motor, speed under power 8 m.p.h. Sleeping accommodation for four, large cockpit, good head room, sails and rigging in excellent shape, boat fully found including cooking utensils, silver, etc.

  He sighed wistfully. An advertisement like that, he felt, was not the sort of thing to dangle before the eyes of a young man whose fiancée had told him to stay in London and go to concerts.

  It was as he threw away the magazine so that he should be tortured no more by all those pictures of ketches and sloops and combination keel and centre-board schooners that the telephone rang. He went to it, prepared to work off his depression by being very terse with whoever it was that intruded on his sorrow, but became instantly cordial on recognizing the voice of Jane Opal.

  A gregarious young man, Packy liked most people at sight, but he could not remember ever having been so completely attracted to anyone at a first meeting as he had been attracted to this Jane Opal.

  There was something about her – he had noticed it even when she had been very properly ticking him off – which had seemed to speak – perfectly platonically – to the depths of his soul. A kindred spirit, if there ever was one, and the thought that she was madly throwing herself away on a fellow like Blair Eggleston rather saddened him. Not that it mattered to him, personally, of course, but he felt it was a pity.

  'Hello!' he said with marked good-will.

  'Oh, Mr Franklyn!'

  It became evident to Packy that something had occurred to induce in this girl an overwhelming excitement. She was gurgling and bubbling and squeaking. So much so that he felt impelled to utter a kindly protest.

  'Pull yourself together, chump,' he urged. 'I can't hear a word.'

  'But I'm telling you.'

  'I dare say. But do it slower.'

  'Can you hear now?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, listen.'

  There was a gulp at the other end of the wire. Jane was apparently going through some process of self-mastery.

  'Are you listening?'

  'I am.'

  'Well – oh, darn it, where shall I begin? Do you remember, when you were cutting Father's hair, something he said about a letter?'

  'I didn't miss a word. He had decided not to make Mr Gedge Ambassador to France, and he had written to Mrs Gedge telling her so.'

  'That's right.' There was a pause. 'Gosh, I'm all jellied with excitement.'

  An idea occurred to Packy, He remembered that Mrs Gedge had interrupted Blair Eggleston's interview with the Senator by announcing herself on the telephone.

  'Did she call and sock your father with her umbrella?'

  'No, no, no! Nothing like that. Listen! I'd better go back to the beginning. Father wrote this letter to Mrs Gedge.'

  'Right.'

  'But – this is the point – he didn't. I mean – by the same mail he happened to be writing to his bootlegger in New York, kicking about the overcharges in his last bill.... Yes, his bootlegger. ... And what did he do but get the envelopes mixed up, so that Mrs Gedge got the bootlegger's letter and Mrs Gedge's letter is now on its way to New York.'

  'Good heavens! Not really?'

  Packy was stunned. There came upon him a feeling of respectful awe as he contemplated Senator Ambrose Opal, that intrepid man who, with a million Drys on his voting-list, dared to order his private life so moistly. It was, he felt, the spirit of... well, he could not say exactly what it was the spirit of, but it was most certainly the spirit of something. He would have liked to pat Senator Opal on the back and tell him he had misjudged him.

  'Have you got all that?' enquired Jane anxiously.

  'Every syllable.'

  'Well, listen. When I got to the suite, Mrs Gedge had just left, and I've never seen Father a brighter purple. And I must say, poor darling, he had every right to look as purple as he liked. Because, I mean, picture his embarrassment.'

  'I do.'

  'He told me the whole thing. Mrs Gedge says she is going to hold him up. If he doesn't make Mr Gedge Ambassador to France, she swears she will give his letter to the papers and the whole nation will know that he employs a bootlegger. And that will be his absolute finish politically, because, you see, his whole position rests on the fact that he is a Dry leader, and if this letter is printed in the papers he will be sunk. There are millions of people who have always voted for Father because they believed he was strict lemonade, and if they knew of this they would simply tie a can to him. So that's what Father's up against, and maybe you'll say it isn't plenty.'

  'It's quite enough,' agreed Packy. 'Yes, I should say "plenty" is about the right word.'

  Squeakings broke out once more at the other end of the wire.

  'Stop it!' said Packy.

  'Stop what?'

  'Stop going on like a basketful of puppies.'

  'Was I?'

  'You were.'

  'Well, I'm excited.'

  'So am I. But hark how beautifully I articulate.'

  'Well, listen.'

  There was a pause. Stern self-discipline seemed to be in progress once more.

  'This is the interesting part,' said Jane, becoming calmer.

  'It can't be more interesting than Act One.'

  'Yes, it is. You see, when Father told me all this, I suddenly saw that here was where I got the chance to put in a little smooth work. It took a bit of doing, as you would understand if you had seen Father standing there with his face bright mauve and telling me all the things he would like to do to Mrs Gedge, which included skinning and poisoning her soup. I mean, you sort of got the impression that he'd had already about as much as he could endure. But I thought of Blair and how much I loved him and I shut my eyes and came through. I told him that I was secretly engaged to a wonderful man, only he hadn't any money.'

  'Did you mention that he was at present acting as your father's valet?'

  'No. I thought it wouldn't be wise.'

  'Quite right.'

  'That sort of thing wants breaking gently.'

  'Very gently.'

  'So I simply told him I was engaged to a wonderful man, and I said, "Suppose I manage somehow to get back this letter from Mrs Gedge will you consent to our marriage?" And Father said that if I got that letter back I could marry the iceman if I wanted to and he would come and dance at the wedding.'

  'Fair enough.'

  'So that's how things stand at present. Mrs Gedge won't be back at St Rocque for a few days, but we're all going over to-morrow, as arranged. When she arrives, we can start doing something.'

  'What?'

  'Well, whatever we can think of.'

  'Have you thought of anything yet?'

  'No.'

  'Have you told all this to Eggleston?'

  'Of course.'

>   'What does he think of it?'

  There was a shade of hesitation in Jane's voice.

  'Well, he seems interested. But the trouble with Blair is that, having this great brain of his, he's rather a little too much the artistic, dreamy type, and what one really needs in a situation like this is a man of action and resource. I mean, when I asked Blair if he had any proposition to put forward that might lead to bringing home the bacon, he just tugged at his moustache and looked goofy and said he hadn't. However, he's going to start thinking, so something may break any moment. And I hope to goodness it does, because apart from being sorry for poor Father and wanting to get him out of a spot, how splendid it would be if Blair and I did this wonderful thing for him and Father said "Bless you, my children!" Gosh darn it, I should be the happiest girl in the world. Well, good-bye, Mr Franklyn, I must rush. I'm supposed to be dressing for dinner. Only I thought you would like to know all about what's happened. Good-bye.'

  There was a click. Jane had hung up.

  For several minutes after he had finished listening to this story, so vibrant with a young girl's hopes and fears, Packy remained standing at the telephone, staring before him. His appearance was that of a man in a trance. Pins could have been stuck into him and he would scarcely have observed them.

  Then, abruptly, a sort of whinnying groan escaped him. If he had chafed before at the prospect of being cooped up in London, he chafed more than ever now. He felt as he had sometimes felt at prize-fights when a wall of uprising citizenry suddenly intruded itself between him and the ring at some sensationally vital moment.

  He burned with baffled exasperation. Here he was, tied to this one-horse town, this London, miles away from all this tense human drama, and it made him feel like a caged skylark. The demon of discontent which had been troubling him became of a sudden more vigorous and active than ever. He was a young man who hated to be out of things, and Jane's communication had shown him that the living, pulsating centre of things was the Château Blissac, St Rocque, Brittany.

  But Beatrice had told him to stay in London. And Beatrice's word was law.

  And yet...

  Suddenly he emerged from his trance. His bearing was the set, resolute bearing of one who has made a great decision.

  Beatrice, when she had told him to remain in London and go to concerts, could not, he felt, have foreseen that a situation like this would arise. Briefly, what it amounted to was that he had been offered the chance of helping to bring happiness to two young hearts. Would she have him refuse it?