Hot Water (5 page)

'It's about time,' said the Senator stoutly, 'that someone taught that Gedge woman that money can't do everything.'

Jane burst into a sudden flood of eloquence. It was as if the word had touched a spring.

'Money! I wish there wasn't such a thing. A man I know says money destroys the soul, and I quite agree with him. He says that in the final issue only the artist counts, and I think he's right. If I were going to be married, I would want it to be some man who was intellectual and spiritual. A man who wrote wonderful books, for instance, I mean. A man all sorts of intellectual people looked up to for his intellect, I mean. A man with a great, unspoiled soul, I mean. I wouldn't mind if he didn't have any money. In fact, I'd much rather he didn't. It's a great mistake to marry anybody but a poor man. Constance Bigelow told me so. She married an artist with hardly any money, and she says it's wonderful being married to a man with hardly any money, because you appreciate little treats so much. She says she's sure it's the greatest mistake to marry anybody but a poor man. She says she knows a girl who married a rich man, and she's having an awful time. I think love is the only thing that matters – that is, if you marry an artist with a great, unspoiled soul, I mean, because...'

'How about that valet?' said the Senator.

The abrupt change of subject seemed to disconcert the girl. She had evidently only begun to touch the fringe of her chosen theme, and the interruption silenced her as effectively as if her father had hit her on the mouth with a wet towel.

'Valet?'

'I told you to go to the Employment Agency and get me a valet.'

'Oh, yes. Yes. They're sending a round man.'

'How do you mean, a round man? Why a round man?'

Packy too, was a little mystified. He had never heard of obesity as a quality to be desiderated in valets.

'I mean a man round. They're sending a man round for you to look at.'

'Good. I suppose he'll be just another sub-human half-wit like the rest of them, but...'

Senator Opal's voice trailed away in a sort of rasping howl. A scratched phonograph record would have produced a similar sound. For the first time, he had scrutinized himself closely in the mirror opposite the chair, and it was plain that what he saw there was having a disastrous effect on his morale. Little bubbling noises proceeded from him, and his face deepened slowly to a ripe magenta. Then, after an instant in which time seemed to stand still, he bounded up and turned on Packy, red-eyed.

Packy understood his emotion and sympathized with it. What with being a novice with the scissors and having allowed his concentration to be impaired by the necessity of drinking in what these two had been saying about their private affairs, he had undeniably made something approaching a devastated area of that noble white mop. He had shortened it, yes, but he had shortened in a series of irregular ridges which, though picturesque and interesting, might, he realized, quite easily not appeal to an owner of orthodox views.

But though compassionate, he was not foolhardy. After the briefest and swiftest of looks at the fermenting legislator, he started to move towards the nearest exit.

'Here, you!'

Packy halted. He had not wished to halt, but that bellow would have stopped the Scotch Express.

'Look what you've done, you clumsy, dithering moron!'

'Now, Father!'

'Don't say "Now, Father!" Look what you've done,' thundered the Senator, waggling his head from side to side so that Packy should get the light and shade effects. 'I'll have you fired for this. Do you call yourself a barber?'

It was an occasion when only candour could serve. Packy had hoped to be able to remove himself before the necessity for tedious explanations arose, but as this was not to be he was frank and open.

'I'm glad you brought that up,' he said. 'No.'

'What!'

'You see, I happened to be waiting in the shop for a hair-cut myself when you telephoned. There were no barbers there, and there didn't seem any prospect of there ever being any, so I stepped into the breach. I thought it was the square thing to do.'

A strange, wordless sound proceeded from Senator Opal: and, having uttered it, he began to advance with so much meaning in his burning eye and twitching hands that Packy, though for three years he had faced without a tremor the massed attacks of footballers from Harvard, Princeton, the Army, Notre Dame, and other points, suddenly found himself undisguisedly in flight. Harvard, Princeton, Notre Dame, and the Army had not included a Berserk Senator in their teams.

The handle of the door came conveniently to his fingers. He turned it and passed through. It was not until he was in the elevator that he paused to mop a moist brow. He had something of the emotions of a rabbit that has just eluded a more than usually quick-tempered boa-constrictor.

He found that he was still in the possession of property belonging to the hotel – to wit, scissors, one pair. The sheet, he recalled, was lying on the floor of Suite 400. He could have gone back and got it, had he wished, but he did not wish. He went to the barber-shop, placed the scissors on the edge of a basin, mopped his brow again, and mounted the stairs to the lobby.

Blair Eggleston was there, looking at his watch.

Blair Eggleston was small and slim, and if you did not mind side whiskers and one of those little moustaches which resemble smears of soot, good-looking. He seemed nervous. There was not much of his moustache, but he was tugging at what there was. He regarded Packy with a glassy eye.

'Hello,' said Packy, forcing himself to a joyous enthusiasm which he was far from feeling. 'Here I am.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I'm afraid I'm a little late.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Beatrice said you were expecting me at a quarter to five, but I had to see a man about some hair.'

'Beatrice?'

'Lady Beatrice Bracken.'

'She said what?'

'That you were...'

Packy broke off. He perceived that he no longer had the good fortune to engage his companion's attention. He wondered if the other were always like this. If so, the task of laying the foundation of that beautiful friendship which Beatrice seemed to desire so greatly was going to be a man's size job.

'Can we by any chance have got the wires crossed?' he said. 'It
was
the idea, wasn't it, that we should pile on to a pot of tea together?'

Blair Eggleston's eyes suddenly lost their glassiness. He stiffened like a pointing dog. He reached out and clutched Packy's coat sleeve feverishly.

'Ah! There she is!'

Packy, following his gaze, saw that the elevator had just discharged passengers into the lobby. And among them with an unpleasant shock he recognized his late client's daughter. She was heading straight for them, and there came to him a strong conviction that the sooner he left this spot the better.

'Well, it's been great seeing you again,' he said hastily, 'but I've just remembered an important...'

His attempts to withdraw were foiled by the fact that Blair Eggleston, apparently unconsciously, was still attached to his coat sleeve with a limpet grip.

The girl was quite near now, and Packy was able to see that the nice little forehead which he had so much admired was puckered. He made another unsuccessful attempt to release himself.

'I really must be...'

'Jane!' cried Blair Eggleston. 'What a time you've been!'

The girl made no reply. Her attention was riveted on Packy.

'You!' she said.

Up in the Senatorial suite, Packy had not been able quite to satisfy himself as to the exact colour of this girl's eyes. They were either black or a very dark blue. He was now in a position to settle the point. They were within a foot or two of his own, and he saw that they were blue – a vivid blue and constructed, as far as he could ascertain, of molten fire.

'You!' she said.

There are practically no good answers to the word 'You!' Packy did not attempt one.

'I don't know who you are, but it may interest you to know that you've probably ruined my whole life.'

Packy begged her not to say that. A foolish request, seeing that she had just said it. He also asked her what she meant.

'I'll tell you what I mean. Blair and I are engaged, and Father doesn't know anything about it yet. I went up there to try to coax him into a good temper before Blair broke the news, and now you've played this fool trick and got him madder than a hornet.'

Blair Eggleston seemed bewildered.

'I don't understand.'

'You will,' said Jane Opal grimly.

Blair Eggleston's was a face which even at normal times had always a certain intellectual pallor. As he listened now, this pallor became more pronounced. It was as if the young novelist had been cast to play the Demon King in a pantomime and had assumed for the purpose a light green make-up. His lower jaw drooped feebly, like a dying lily.

'You don't mean that after that I've got to go and ask your father's consent to our marriage?'

'Yes.'

'But you say he is extremely upset.'

'He was tearing up a sheet when I left,' said Jane.

She turned upon Packy with such whole-hearted ferocity that he jumped back a full foot. A moment before, he had been intending to palliate his rash act by explaining that it had been the outcome of a sudden whim or caprice. Eyeing Jane, he decided not to.

Tearing up a sheet?' said Blair Eggleston in a dry voice.

'Into little bits.'

'I'm awfully sorry' said Packy.

Jane asked him what was the good of being sorry, and for the life of him he could not tell her. He remained silent, pensively rubbing the scorched patch on his cheek where her eyes had rested.

A good deal of talk now followed in which he took no share. His companions were discussing the various points in his character which prevented him achieving ideal perfection, and on such occasions the well-bred man does not chip in. It was principally in order to avoid hearing any more of the girl Jane's penetrating word-portrait that he buried himself presently in thought. And, thinking, he saw that it might be possible to some extent to make amends for the evil he had wrought.

'Listen,' he said, taking advantage of the fact that girls, no matter how gifted as critics, cannot go on for ever without stopping to take breath. 'I may be a dangerous imbecile – I'm not saying I'm not – but if you'll only listen for a minute I think I can help you.'

It is possible that mere words might not have availed, but at this moment the girl Jane, who had been allowing her eyes to play silently over his face while she thought of what to say next, came before the meeting with a question.

'Aren't you Packy Franklyn?'

'Yes.'

'I've been trying to remember ever since I saw you upstairs. You reminded me of someone, and I couldn't think who it was. I saw you score that touchdown against Notre Dame. Boy, that was a run!'

Her voice had lost its rancour. It was plain that she considered the revelation of his identity to have placed an entirely new complexion on the matter. What is lunatic behaviour in the ordinary man becomes mere playful eccentricity in a football hero.

'Do you remember when you sort of wiggled sideways and the fellow just missed you by inches?'

'I got the breaks,' said Packy modestly.

'Gosh, I was hoarse for weeks.'

Her voice and manner were now all amiability. In Blair Eggleston's, on the other hand, the old animosity still lingered.

'I cannot see,' he said stiffly, 'how Mr Franklyn's ability to run and – ah – wiggle sideways affects the matter under discussion.'

'No,' agreed Jane, reminded of her wrongs. 'Get back to the point. What were you saying about being able to help us?'

'I can give Eggleston a few tips which will improve his technique. I can see just how he is planning to go about this business of tackling your father. Left to himself he would creep in and grovel on the floor. All wrong. This asking-father's-consent stuff is pie, if you handle it right. What you need is front. Bright self-confidence.'

'It's quite true, Blair.'

'Look at me. Faced by an Earl. What did I do?'

'What Earl?'

'Never mind what Earl. It was the Earl of Stableford, if you must know, and a tough baby he is, as anyone in Dorsetshire will tell you. Well, what happened? I just charged in, slapped him on the shoulder, and said: "Hello there, Earl! I'm going to marry your daughter, so let us have no back-talk." Just like that.'

Blair Eggleston shuddered strongly.

'And it worked?' said Jane.

'Like a charm. Fellow's eaten out of my hand ever since.'

'I can't do it,' said Blair Eggleston.

'Of course you can.'

'Of course you can,' said Packy. 'Take a drink first. Take two drinks. Three.'

'Yes, and have Father sniff it! Haven't you ever heard he's a rabid Dry? If he thought Blair had been drinking, he would have him bumped off and dropped in the Thames by moonlight.'

Packy mused awhile.

'I've got it. Go and tell him you're a friend of Miss Opal's and say she pointed me out to you and told you I had mussed up his hair, and you were so mad you sailed right in and knocked me for a loop.'

'That would make him grateful,' explained Jane.

'He would be all over you,' said Packy. 'Then, when he's fawning on you and saying "My hero!" you slip him the big news.'

'H'm!' said Blair Eggleston.

'Or another method. Pretend to be an influential member of the Temperance Society of England and touch him for a ten dollar subscription. Then give him the works. By this means, whatever happens, you will be ten bucks up, at any rate.'

'Well, anyway,' said Jane, 'you'd better get action. It's no good standing here doing nothing. Maybe Father will have gone off the boil by now.'

'Sure to,' said Packy.

'Go on up, Blair, and get it over.'

'And if you fail,' said Packy, 'what of it? It will just be one more grave among the hills.'

The departure of Blair Eggleston seemed to remove a certain fevered something from the atmosphere. The conversation up to this point had been conducted in a tensely perpendicular attitude on the part of all concerned. Jane Opal now allowed herself to be led to an alcove where a couple of arm-chairs held out a promise of repose and comfort. She sank into one of these and looked at Packy interestedly.