Money for Nothing (7 page)

At several points during this harangue John had endeavoured to speak, and he was just about to do so now, when there occurred that which rendered speech impossible. From immediately behind them, as they stood facing the door, a voice spoke.

'I want my bag, Hugo.'

It was Pat. She was standing within a yard of them. Her face was still that of a martyr, but now she seemed to suggest by her expression a martyr whose tormentors have suddenly thought up something new.

'You've got my bag,' she said.

'Oh, ah,' said Hugo.

He handed over the beaded trifle, and she took it with a cold aloofness. There was a pause.

'Well, good night,' said Hugo.

'Good night,' said Pat.

'Good night,' said John.

'Good night,' said Pat.

She turned away, and the lift bore her aloft. Its machinery badly needed a drop of oil, and it emitted, as it went, a low wailing sound that seemed to John like a commentary on the whole situation.

Some half a mile from Curzon Street, on the fringe of the Soho district, there stands a smaller and humbler hotel named the Belvidere. In a bedroom on the second floor of this, at about the moment when Pat and Hugo had entered the lobby of the Lincoln, Dolly Molloy sat before a mirror, cold-creaming her attractive face. She was interrupted in this task by the arrival of the senatorial Thomas G.

'Hello, sweetie-pie,' said Miss Molloy. 'There you are.'

'Yes,' replied Mr Molloy. 'Here I am.'

Although his demeanour lacked the high tragedy which had made strong men quail in the presence of Pat Wyvern, this man was plainly ruffled. His fine features were overcast and his frank grey eyes looked sombre.

'Gee! If there's one thing in this world I hate,' he said, 'it's having to talk to policemen.'

'What happened?'

'Oh, I gave my name and address. A name and address, that is to say. But I haven't got over yet the jar it gave me seeing so many cops all gathered together in a small room. And that's not all,' went on Mr Molloy, ventilating another grievance. 'Why did you make me tell those folks you were my daughter?'

'Well, sweetie, it sort of cramps my style, having people know we're married.'

'What do you mean, cramps your style?'

'Oh, just cramps my style.'

'But, darn it,' complained Mr Molloy, going to the heart of the matter, 'it makes me out so old, folks thinking I'm your father.' The rather pronounced gap in years between himself and his young bride was a subject on which Soapy Molloy was always inclined to be sensitive. 'I'm only forty-two.'

'And you don't seem that, not till you look at you close,' said Dolly with womanly tact. 'The whole thing is, sweetie, being so dignified, you can call yourself anybody's father and get away with it.'

Mr Molloy, somewhat soothed, examined himself not without approval, in the mirror.

'I do look dignified,' he admitted.

'Like a Professor or something.'

'That isn't a bald spot coming there, is it?'

'Sure it's not. It's just the way the light falls.'

Mr Molloy resumed his examination with growing content.

'Yes,' he said complacently, 'that's a face which for business purposes is a face. Just a Real Good Face. I may not be the World's Sweetheart, but nobody can say I haven't got a map that inspires confidence. I suppose I've sold more dud oil-stock to suckers with it than anyone in the profession. And that reminds me, honey, what do you think?'

'What?' asked Mrs Molloy, removing cream with a towel.

'We're sitting in the biggest kind of luck. You know how I've been wanting all this time to get hold of a really good prospect – some guy with money to spend who might be interested in a little oil deal? Well, that Carmody fellow we met tonight has invited us to go and visit at his country home.'

'You don't say!'

'Yes, ma'am!'

'Well, isn't that great. Is he rich?'

'He's got an uncle that must be, or he couldn't be living in a place like he was telling me. It's one of those stately homes of England you read about.'

Mrs Molloy mused. The soft smile on her face showed that her day dreams were pleasant ones.

'I'll have to get me some new frocks . . . and hats . . . and shoes...and stockings...and...'

'Now, now, now!' said her husband, with that anxious alarm which husbands exhibit on these occasions. 'Be yourself, baby! You aren't going to stay at Buckingham Palace.'

'But a country-house party with a lot of swell people . . .'

'It isn't a country-house party. There's only the uncle besides those two boys we met tonight. But I'll tell you what. If I can plant a good block of those Silver River shares on the old man, you can go shopping all you want.'

'Oh, Soapy! Do you think you can?'

'Do I think I can?' echoed Mr Molloy scornfully. 'I don't say I've ever sold Central Park or Brooklyn Bridge to anybody, but if I can't get rid of a parcel of home-made oil stock to a guy that lives in the country I'm losing my grip and ought to retire. Sure I'll sell him those Silver Rivers, honey. These fellows that own these big estates in England are only glorified farmers when you come right down to it, and a farmer will buy anything you offer him, just so long as it's nicely engraved and shines when you slant the light on it.'

'But, Soapy . . .'

'Now what?'

'I've been thinking. Listen, Soapy. A home like this one where we're going is sure to have all sorts of things in it, isn't it? Pictures, I mean, and silver and antiques and all like that. Well, why can't we, once we're in the place, get away with them and make a nice clean-up?'

Mr Molloy, though conceding that this was the right spirit, was obliged to discourage his wife's pretty enthusiasm.

'Where could you sell that sort of stuff?'

'Anywhere, once you got it over to the other side. New York's full of rich millionaires who'll buy anything and ask no questions, just so long as it's antiques.'

Mr Molloy shook his head.

'Too dangerous, baby. If all that stuff left the house same time as we did, we'd have the bulls after us in ten minutes. Besides it's not in my line. I've got my line, and I like to stick to it. Nobody ever got anywhere in the long run by going outside of his line.'

'Maybe you're right.'

'Sure I'm right. A nice conservative business, that's what I aim at.'

'But suppose when we get to this joint it looks dead easy?'

'Ah! Well then, I'm not saying. All I'm against is risks. If something's handed to you on a plate, naturally no one wouldn't ever want to let it get past them.'

And with this eminently sound commercial maxim Mr Molloy reached for his pyjamas and prepared for bed. Something attempted, something done, had earned, he felt, a night's repose.

Some years before the date of the events narrated in this story, at the time when there was all that trouble between the aristocratic householders of Riverside Row and the humbler dwellers in Budd Street (arising, if you remember, from the practice of the latter of washing their more intimate articles of underclothing and hanging them to dry in back-gardens into which their exclusive neighbours were compelled to gaze every time they looked out of the window), the vicar of the parish, the Rev. Alistair Pond-Pond, always a happy phrase-maker, wound up his address at the annual village sports of Rudge with an impressive appeal to the good feeling of those concerned.

'We must not,' said the Rev. Alistair, 'consider ourselves as belonging to this section of Rudge-in-the-Vale or to that section of Rudge-in-the-Vale. Let us get together. Let us recollect that we are all fellow-members of one united community. Rudge must be looked on as a whole. And what a whole it is!'

With the concluding words of this peroration Pat Wyvern, by the time she had been home a little under a week, found herself in hearty agreement. Walking with her father along the High Street on the sixth morning she had to confess herself disappointed with Rudge. Her home-coming, she had now definitely decided, was not a success.

Elderly men with a grievance are seldom entertaining companions for the young, and five days of the undiluted society of Colonel Wyvern had left Pat with the feeling that, much as she loved her father, she wished he would sometimes change the subject of his conversation. Had she been present in person she could not have had a fuller grasp of the facts of that dynamite outrage than she now possessed.

But this was not all. After Mr Carmody's thug-like behaviour on that fatal day, she was given to understand, the Hall and its grounds were as much forbidden territory to her as the piazza of the townhouse of the Capulets would have been to a young Montague.

Accordingly she had not been within half a mile of the Hall since her arrival, and, having been accustomed for fourteen years to treat the place and its grounds as her private property, found Rudge, with a deadline drawn across the boundaries of Mr Carmody's park, a poor sort of place. Unlovable character though Mr Carmody was in many respects, she had always been fond of him, and she missed seeing him. She also missed seeing Hugo. And, as for John, not seeing him was the heaviest blow of all.

From the days of childhood, John had always been her stand-by. Men might come and men might go, but John went on for ever. He had never been too old, like Mr Carmody, or too lazy, like Hugo, to give her all the time and attention she required, and she did think that, even though there was this absurd feud going on, he might have had the enterprise to make an opportunity of meeting her. As day followed day her resentment grew, until now she had reached the stage when she was telling herself that this was simply what from a knowledge of his character she might have expected. John – she had to face it – was a jellyfish. And if a man is a jellyfish, he will behave like a jellyfish, and it is at times of crisis that his jellyfishiness will be most noticeable.

It was conscience that had brought Pat to the High Street this morning. Her father had welcomed her with such a pathetic eagerness, and had been so plainly pleased to see her back, that she was ashamed of herself for not feeling happier. And it was in a spirit of remorse that now, though she would have preferred to stay in the garden with a book, she had come with him to watch him buy another bottle of Brophy's Paramount Elixir from Chas Bywater, Chemist.

Brophy, it should be mentioned, had proved a sensational success. His Elixir was making the local gnats feel perfect fools. They would bite Colonel Wyvern on the face and stand back, all ready to laugh, and he would just smear Brophy on himself and be as good as new. It was simply sickening, if you were a gnat; but fine, of course, if you were Colonel Wyvern, and that just man, always ready to give praise where praise was due, said as much to Chas Bywater.

'That Stuff,' said Colonel Wyvern, 'is good. I wish I'd heard of it before. Give me another bottle.'

Mr Bywater was delighted – not merely at this rush of trade, but because, good kindly soul, he enjoyed ameliorating the lot of others.

'I thought you would find it capital, Colonel. I get a great many requests for it. I sold a bottle yesterday to Mr Carmody, senior.'

Colonel Wyvern's sunniness vanished as if someone had turned it off with a tap.

'Don't talk to me about Mr Carmody,' he said gruffly.

'Quite,' said Chas Bywater.

Pat bridged a painful silence.

'Is Mr Carmody back, then?' she asked. 'I heard he was at some sort of health place.'

'Healthward Ho, Miss, just outside Lowick.'

'He ought to be in prison,' said Colonel Wyvern.

Mr Bywater stopped himself in the nick of time from saying 'Quite,' which would have been a deviation from his firm policy of never taking sides between customers.

'He returned the day before yesterday, Miss, and was immediately bitten on the nose by a mosquito.'

'Thank God!' said Colonel Wyvern.

'But I sold him one of the three-and-sixpenny size of the Elixir,' said Chas Bywater, with quiet pride, 'and a single application completely eased the pain.'

Colonel Wyvern said he was sorry to hear it, and there is no doubt that conversation would once more have become difficult had there not at this moment made itself heard from the other side of the door a loud and penetrating sniff.

A fatherly smile lit up Chas Bywater's face.

'That's Mr John's dog,' he said, reaching for the cough-drops.

Pat opened the door and the statement was proved correct. With a short wooffle, partly of annoyance at having been kept waiting and partly of happy anticipation, Emily entered, and, seating herself by the counter, gazed expectantly at the chemist.

'Hullo, Emily,' said Pat.

Emily gave her a brief look in which there was no pleased recognition, but only the annoyance of a dog interrupted during an important conference. She then returned her gaze to Mr Bywater.

'What do you say, doggie?' said Mr Bywater, more paternal than ever, poising a cough-drop.

'Oh, Hell! Snap into it!' replied Emily curtly, impatient at this foolery.

'Hear her speak for it?' said Mr Bywater. 'Almost human, that dog is.'

Colonel Wyvern, whom he had addressed, did not seem to share his lively satisfaction. He muttered to himself. He regarded Emily sourly, and his right foot twitched a little.

'Just like a human being, isn't she, Miss?' said Chas Bywater, damped but persevering.

'Quite,' said Pat absently.

Mr Bywater, startled by this infringement of copyright, dropped the cough-lozenge and Emily snapped it up.

Pat, still distrait, was watching the door. She was surprised to find that her breath was coming rather quickly and that her heart had begun to beat with more than its usual rapidity. She was amazed at herself. Just because John Carroll would shortly appear in that doorway must she stand fluttering, for all the world as though poor old Johnnie, an admitted jellyfish, were something that really mattered? It was too silly, and she tried to bully herself into composure. She failed. Her heart, she was compelled to realize, was now simply racing.

A step sounded outside, a shadow fell on the sunlit pavement, and Dolly Molloy walked into the shop.

It is curious, when one reflects, to think how many different impressions a single individual can make simultaneously on a number of his or her fellow-creatures. At the present moment it was almost as though four separate and distinct Dolly Molloys had entered the establishment of Chas Bywater.

The Dolly whom Colonel Wyvern beheld was a beautiful woman with just that hint of diablerie in her bearing which makes elderly widowers feel that there is life in the old dog yet. Drawing himself up, he automatically twirled his moustache. To Colonel Wyvern Dolly represented Beauty.

To Chas Bywater, with his more practical and worldly outlook, she represented Wealth. Although Soapy had contrived with subtle reasoning to head her off from the extensive purchases which she had contemplated making in preparation for her visit to Rudge, Dolly undoubtedly took the eye, and in Chas Bywater's mind she awoke roseate visions of large orders for face-creams, imported scents and expensive bath-salts.

Emily, it was evident, regarded Mrs Molloy as Perfection. A dog who, as a rule, kept herself to herself and looked on the world with a cool and rather sardonic eye, she had conceived for Dolly the moment they met one of those capricious adorations which come occasionally to the most hard-boiled Welsh terriers. Hastily swallowing her cough-drop, she bounded up and fawned on her.

So far, the reactions caused by the newcomer's entrance have been unmixedly favourable. It is only when we come to Pat that we find Disapproval rearing its ugly head. Piercing with woman's intuitive eye through an outer crust which to vapid and irreflective males might possibly seem attractive, Pat saw Dolly as a vampire and a menace.

For beyond a question, felt Pat, this girl must have come to Rudge in brazen pursuit of poor old Johnnie. The fact that she took her walks abroad accompanied by Emily showed that she was staying at the Hall; and what reason could she have had for getting herself invited to the Hall if not that she wished to continue the acquaintance begun at the Mustard Spoon? This, then, was the explanation of John's failure to come and pass the time of day with an old friend. What she had assumed to be Jellyfishiness was in reality base treachery. Like Emily, whom, slavering over Mrs Molloy's shoes, she could gladly have kicked, he had been hypnotized by this woman's specious glamour and had forsaken old allegiances.

Pat, eyeing Dolly coldly, was filled with a sisterly desire to save John from one who could never make him happy.

Dolly was all friendliness.

'Why, hello,' she said, removing a shapely foot from Emily's mouth, 'I was wondering when I was going to run into you. I heard you lived in these parts.'

'Yes?' said Pat frigidly.

'I'm staying at the Hall.'

'Yes?'

'What a wonderful old place it is.'

'Yes.'

'All those pictures and tapestries and things.'

'Yes.'

'Is this your father?'

'Yes. This is Miss Molloy, father. We met in London.'

'Pleased to meet you,' said Dolly.

'Charmed,' said Colonel Wyvern.

He gave another twirl of his moustache. Chas Bywater hovered beamingly. Emily, still ecstatic, continued to gnaw one of Dolly's shoes. The whole spectacle was so utterly revolting that Pat turned to the door.

'I'll be going along, father,' she said. 'I want to buy some stamps.'

'I can sell you stamps, Miss,' said Chas Bywater affably.

'Thank you, I will go to the post office,' said Pat. Her manner
suggested that you got a superior brand of stamp there. She walked out. Rudge,
as she looked upon it, seemed a more depressing place than ever. Sunshine
flooded the High Street. Sunshine fell on the Carmody Arms, the Village Hall,
the Plough and Chickens, the Bunch of Grapes, the Waggoner's Rest and the
Jubilee Watering Trough. But there was no sunshine in the heart of Pat Wyvern.

And, curiously enough, at this very moment up at the Hall the same experience was happening to Mr Lester Carmody. Staring out of his study window, he gazed upon a world bathed in a golden glow: but his heart was cold and heavy. He had just had a visit from the Rev. Alistair Pond-Pond, and the Rev. Alistair had touched him for five shillings.

Many men in Mr Carmody's place would have considered that they had got off lightly. The vicar had come seeking subscriptions to the Church Organ Fund, the Mothers' Pleasant Sunday Evenings, the Distressed Cottagers' Aid Society, the Stipend of the Additional Curate and the Rudge Lads' Annual Summer Outing, and there had been moments of mad optimism when he had hoped for as much as a ten-pound note. The actual bag, as he totted it up while riding pensively away on his motor-bicycle, was the above-mentioned five shillings and a promise that the Squire's nephew Hugo and his friend Mr Fish should perform at the village concert next week.

And even so, Mr Carmody was looking on him as a robber. Five shillings gone – just like that!

Nor was this all that was poisoning a perfect summer day for Mr Carmody. There was in addition the soul-searing behaviour of Doctor Alexander Twist, of Healthward Ho.

When Doctor Twist had undertaken the contract of making a new
Lester Carmody out of the old Lester Carmody, he had cannily stipulated for
cash down in advance – this to cover a course of three weeks. But at
the end of the second week Mr Carmody, learning from his nephew Hugo that
an American millionaire was arriving at the Hall, had naturally felt compelled
to forgo the final stages of the treatment and return home. Equally naturally,
he had invited Doctor Twist to refund one third of the fee. This the eminent
physician and physical culture expert had resolutely declined to do, and Mr
Carmody, re-reading the man's letter, thought he had never set eyes upon a
baser document.

The lot of the English landed proprietor, felt Mr Carmody, is not what it used to be in the good old times. When the first Carmody settled in Rudge he had found little to view with alarm. Those were the days when churls were churls, and a scurvy knave was quite content to work twelve hours a day, Saturdays included, in return for a little black bread and an occasional nod of approval from his overlord. But in this twentieth century England's peasantry has degenerated. Modern sons of the soil expect coddling. Their roofs leak, and you have to mend them, their walls fall down and you have to build them up; their lanes develop holes and you have to restore the surface, and all this runs into money. The way things were shaping, felt Mr Carmody, in a few years a landlord would be expected to pay for the repairs of his tenants' wireless sets.

He stood at the window and looked out on the sunlit garden. And as he did so there came into his range of vision the sturdy figure of his guest, Mr Molloy, and for the first time that morning Lester Carmody seemed to hear, beating faintly in the distance, the wings of the blue bird. In a world containing anybody as rich-looking as Thomas G. Molloy there was surely still hope.