Laughing Gas (2 page)

'H'm,' I said again.

Old Plimsoll was fiddling with pencil and paper -working out routes and so on, apparently.

'The journey is, as you say, a long one, but perfectly simple. On arriving in New York, you would, I under-

stand, take the train known as the Twentieth Century Limited to Chicago. A very brief wait there —' I sat up.

'Chicago? You don't go through Chicago, do you?'

'Yes. You change trains at Chicago. And from there to Los Angeles is a mere —'

'But wait a second,' I said. 'This is beginning to look more like a practical proposition. Your mention of Chicago opens up a new line of thought. The fight for the heavyweight championship of the world is coming off in Chicago in a week or so.'

I examined the matter in the light of these new facts. All my life I had wanted to see one of these world's championships, and I had never been able to afford the trip. It now dawned upon me that, having come into the title and trimmings, I could do it on my head. The amazing thing was that I hadn't thought of it before. It always takes you some little time to get used to the idea that you are on Easy Street.

'How far is it from Chicago to Hollywood?'

'Little more than a two days' journey, I believe.'

'Then say no more,' I said. 'It's a go. I don't suppose for a moment that I'll be able to do a thing about old Eggy, but I'll go and see him.'

'Excellent.'

There was a pause. I could see that something else was coming. 'And - er - Reginald.
^,
'Hullo?'

'You will be careful?' 'Careful?'

He coughed, and fidd
led with an application for soc
cage in fief.

'Where you yourself are concerned, I mean. These Hollywood women are, as you were saying a moment ago, of considerable personal attractions ...'

I laughed heartily.

'Good Lord I' I said. 'No girl's going to look at me.'

This seemed to jar his reverence for the family. He frowned in a rebuking sort of way. 'You are the Earl of Havershot.' 'I know. But even so —'

'And, if I am not mistaken, girls have looked at you in the past.'

I knew what he meant. A couple of years before, while at Cannes, I had got engaged to a girl named Ann Bannister, an American newspaper girl who was spending her holiday there, and as I was the heir apparent at the time this had caused some stir in the elder branches of the family. There was a considerable sense of relief, I believe, when the thing had been broken off.

'All the Havershots have been highly susceptible and impulsive. Your hearts rule your heads. So —'

'Oh, right ho. I'll be careful.'

'Then I will say no more.
Verbum
- ah -
sapienti satis.
And you will start for Hollywood as soon as possible?' ' 'Immediately,' I said.

There was a boat leaving on the Wednesday. Hastily throwing together a collar and a toothbrush, I caught it. A brief stay in New York, a couple of days in Chicago, and I was on the train to Los Angeles, bowling along through what I believe is called Illinois.

And it was as I sat outside the observation car on the second morning of the journey, smoking a pipe and thinking of this and that, that April June came into my life.

The general effect was rath
er as if I had swallowed six-
pennorth of dynamite and somebody had touched it off inside me.

Chapter 2

T
hese
observation cars, in case you don't know, are where the guard's van is on an English train. You go through a door at the end on to a platform with a couple of chairs on it, and there you sit and observe the countryside. Of which, of course, there is no stint, for, as you are probably aware, there's a lot of America, especially out in the Western districts, and once you get aboard a train for Los Angeles you just go on and on.

Well, as I say, on the second morning of the journey I was sitting on the observation platform, observing, when I was stunned by the door opening.

That's not quite right, of course, and when I fix and revise I must remember to polish up that sentence. Because I don't mean the thing got me on the head or anything like that. What stunned me was not the door opening, but what came through it. Viz., the loveliest girl I had ever seen in my life.

The thing about her that hit the spectator like a bullet first crack out of the box was her sort of sweet, tender, wistful gentleness. Some species of negroid train-attendant had accompanied her through the door, carrying a cushion which he put down in the opposite chair, and she thanked him in a kind of cooing, crooning way that made my toes curl up inside my shoes. And when I tell you that with this wistful gentleness went a pair of large blue eyes, a perfectly modelled chassis, and a soft smile which brought out a dimple on the right cheek, you will readily understand why it was that two seconds after she had slid into the picture I was clutching my pipe till my knuckles stood out white under the strain and breathing through my nose in short, quick pants. With my disengaged hand I straightened my tie, and if my moustache had been long enough to twirl there is little question that I would have twirled it.

The coloured brother popped off, no doubt to resume the duties for which he drew his weekly envelope, and she sat down, rather like a tired flower drooping. I dare say you've seen tired flowers droop. And there for a few moments the matter rested. She sniffed the air. I sniffed the air. She watched the countryside winding away. So did I. But for all practical purposes we might have been on different continents.

And the sadness of this was just beginning to come over me like a fog, when I suddenly heard her utter a sharp yowl and saw that she was rubbing her eye. It was plain to the meanest intelligence that she had gone and got a cinder into it, of which there were several floating about.

It solved the whole difficult problem of how I was ever going to break down the barriers, if you know what I mean, and get acquainted. It so happens that if there is one thing I am good at, it is taking things out of eyes -cinders, flies, gnats on picnics, or whatever it may be. To whip out my handkerchief was with me the work of a moment, and I don't suppose it was more than a couple of ticks later before she was thanking me brokenly and I was not-at-all-ing and shoving the handkerchief up my sleeve again. Yes, less than a minute after I had been practically despairing of ever starting anything in the nature of a beautiful friendship, there I was, fixed up solid.

The odd thing was, I couldn't see any cinder, but it must have been there, because she said she was all right now and, as I say, started to thank me brokenly. She was all over me. If I had saved her from Manchurian bandits, she couldn't have been more grateful.

'Thank you ever,
ever
so much,' she said.

'Not at all,' said I.

'It's so awful when you get a cinder in your eye.'

'Yes. Or a fly.'

'Yes. Or a gnat.'

'Yes. Or a piece of dust.'

'Yes. And I couldn't help rubbing it.' 'I noticed you were rubbing it.' 'And they say you ought not to rub it.' 'No, I believe you ought not to rub it.' 'And I always feel I've got to rub it.' 'Well, that's how it goes.' 'Is my eye red?' 'No. Blue.' 'It feels red.'

'It looks blue,' I assured her, and might have gone on to add that it was the sort of blue you see in summer skies or languorous lagoons, had she not cut in.

'You're Lord Havershot, aren't you?' she said.

I was surprised. The old map is distinctive and individual, but not, I should have said, famous. And any supposition that we had met before and I had forgotten her was absurd.

'Yes,' I said. 'But how —?'

'I saw a photograph of you in one of the New York papers.'

'Oh, ah, yes, of course.' I recalled that there had been blokes fooling about with cameras when the boat arrived at New York. 'You know,' I said, giving her a searching glance, 'your face seems extraordinarily familiar, too.'

'You've probably seen it in pix.'

'No, I've never been there.'

'In the pictures.'

'In the ... Good Lord!' I said. 'You're not April June, are you?' 'Yes.'

'I've seen dozens of your pictures.' 'Did you like them?'

'I loved them. I say, did you say you'd been in New York?'

'Yes. I was making a personal appearance.' 'I wish I'd known.'

'Well, it wasn't a secret. Why do you wish you had known?'

'Because ... Well, I mean to say ... Well, what I mean is, I rather hurried through New York, and if I'd known that you were there I - er - I wouldn't have hurried.'

'I see.' She paused to tuck away a tendril of hair which had got separated from the main body and was blowing about. 'It's rather draughty out here, isn't it?'

'It is a bit.'

'Suppose we go back to my drawing-room and I'll mix you a cocktail. It's nearly lunch-time.' 'Fine.'

'Come along, then.'

I mused to some extent as we toddled along the train. I was thinking of old Plimsoll. It was all very well, I felt, for old Plimsoll to tell me to be careful, but he couldn't possibly have anticipated anything like this.

We reached the drawing-room and she rang the bell. A negroid bloke appeared - not the same negroid bloke who had carried the cushion - another - and she asked for ice in a gentle voice. He buzzed off, and she turned to me again.

'I don't understand English titles,' she said. 'No?' I said.

'No,' she said. 'There's nothing I enjoy more than curling up with a good English book, but the titles always puzzle me. That New York paper called you the Earl of Havershot. Is an Earl the same as a Duke?'

'Not quite. Dukes are a bit higher up.'

'Is it the same as a Viscount?'

'No. Viscounts are a bit lower down. We Earls rather sneer at Viscounts. One is pretty haughty with them, poor devils.'

'What is your wife? A Countess?'

'I haven't got a wife. If I had, she would be a Countess.' A sort of faraway look came into her eyes. 'The Countess of Havershot,' she murmured. 'That's right. The Countess of Havershot.' 'What is Havershot? The place where you live?'

'No.
I don't quite know where the Hav
ershot comes in. The family doss-house is at Biddleford, in Norfolk.' 'Is it a very lovely place?' 'Quite a goodish sort of shack.' 'Battlements?' 'Lots of battlements.' 'And deer?' 'Several deer.' 'I love deer.'

'Me too. I've met some very decent deer.'

At this point, the ice-bearer entered bearing ice. She dropped the live-stock theme, and started to busy herself with the fixings. Presently she was in a position to provide me with a snort.

'I hope it's all right. I'm not very good at making cocktails, I'm afraid.'

'It's fine,' I said. 'Full of personality. Aren't you having one?'

She shook her head, and smiled that soft smile of hers. 'I'm rather old-fashioned. I don't drink or smoke.' 'Go
od Lord!
Don't you?'

'No. I'm afraid I'm very quiet and domestic and dull.' 'No, I say, dash it. Not dull.'

'Oh, but I am. It may seem odd to you, considering that I'm in pix, but I'm really at heart just a simple little home body. I am never happier than among my books and flowers. And I love cooking.'

'No, really?'

'Yes, really. It's quite a joke among my friends. They come to take me out to some party, and they find me in my kitchen in a gingham wrapper, fixing a Welsh rarebit. I am never happier than in my kitchen.'

I sipped my snootful reverently. Every word that she uttered made me more convinced that I was in the presence of an angel in human shape.

'So you live all alone at - what was the name of the place you said?'

'Biddleford? Well, not exactly. I mean, I haven't really

checked in yet. I only took over a short while ago. But I suppose I shall in due season settle down there. Old Plimsoll would have a fit if
I
didn't. He's our family lawyer, you know, and has views on these things. The head of the family has always hung out at the castle.'

'Castle? Is it a castle?'

'Oh, rather.'

'A real castle?'

'Oh, quite.'

'Is it very old?'

'Definitely moth-eaten. One of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit, don't you know.'

That faraway look came into her eyes again. She sighed.

'How wonderful it must be, having a lovely old home like that. Hollywood is so new and . . . garish. One gets so tired of its
garishness. It's all so—'

'Garish?'

'Yes, garish.'

'And you don't like it? I mean, you find it too garish?'

'No, I don't like it. It jars upon me terribly. But what can I do? My work lies the
re. One has to sacrifice every
thing to one's work.'

She sighed again, and I felt that I had had a glimpse of some great human tragedy.