“Have you really forgotten me, Bill?” he said sadly. “Your ancient pal? Well, well, well! Name of Tidmouth. Used to be Bixby.”
Bill stared.
“It isn’t Squiffy?”
“It is Squiffy!”
“For heaven’s sake!”
Complete amiability appeared to reign in young Mr. Bannister’s bosom once more. He gripped the outstretched hand warmly.
“Well, I’m dashed!”
“Me, too, old boy.”
“I haven’t seen you for years.”
“I haven’t seen you for years.”
They talked for a while of the dear old days, as friends reunited will do.
“I hear you’re still living at the old address, Bill,” said Lord Tidmouth. “If I hadn’t run into you like this I was going to have dropped you a line.”
“Why not come down there for a bit?” said Bill hospitably.
Lord Tidmouth looked doubtful.
“Well, I’d love to, Bill, old man,” he said; “but the fact is—been having domestic troubles of late, and all that—left me a bit on the moody side. I’m more or less a broken man these days, and don’t feel quite up to country-house parties.”
“It won’t be a country-house party. Just you and me and my uncle.”
“Which uncle is that?”
“I’ve only one—Sir Hugo Drake, the nerve specialist.”
“I never met him. Nice chap?”.
“Oh, not so bad. He’d be all right if he could get it into his head that I’m a grown-up man and not still a kid in knickerbockers. He will fuss over me like a hen, and it drives me crazy. He has a fit every time I look at a girl. He’d die if he ever saw Lottie.” Lord Tidmouth’s manner betrayed a certain embarrassment.
“I say, Bill, old man.”
“Hullo?”
Lord Tidmouth coughed.
“Touching on that little contretemps, if I may so express it, which occurred just now, I should like to offer a few, simple, manly explanations.”
“Oh, don’t apologize.”
“Carried away, don’t you know. What with the music and the sardine sandwiches.”
“That’s all right.”
“Furthermore, Lottie and I used to be married once, and that forms a sort of bond, if you follow me.”
Bill’s eyebrows shot up.
“Married?”
“Absolutely married. Long time ago, of course, but somehow the taste still lingered. And when I found her supple form nestling in my arms—“
“Squiffy,“ said Bill earnestly, “kindly stop apologizing. Nothing could have been more fortunate. It gives me a decent excuse for getting out of an entanglement which has been getting on my nerves for weeks. Lottie’s a good sort, but she’s too—what’s the word?”
“Jumpy?”
“Jumpy is right. When you were married to her, Squiffy, did she ever give you the devil?”
“Frequently.”
“For no reason?”
“For no reason whatever.”
Bill sighed.
“You know how it is, Squiffy?”
“How what is, old boy?”
“Well, you meet a girl like Lottie and she sweeps you off your feet. And then—well, then you begin to think a bit.”
“I see what you mean.”
“Besides—”
Bill paused. He, like Squiffy a short while before, seemed embarrassed. He went to the table and drank cold tea.
“Squiffy—”
“Hullo?”
Bill mused for a moment.
“Squiffy—”
“Yes, old man?”
“Squiffy, have you ever felt a sort of strange emptiness in the heart? A sort of aching void of the soul?”
“Oh, rather!”
“What do you do about it?”
“I generally take a couple of cocktails.”
Bill shook his head.
“Cocktails aren’t any good. Nothing’s any good. I’ve read books, gone in for sport, tried work. No use whatever.”
“What sort of work?”
“Stock-farming. And what’s the result? I have a thousand pigs, and my heart is empty.”
“What you want is a tonic.”
“No. I know what I want, Squiffy. I want love.” Lord Tidmouth, that expert, viewed his friend with concern.
“Don’t you believe it. Love? Listen, old boy. The amount of love I’ve had in the last few years, if placed end to end, would reach from London to Paris. And look at me! Besides, I thought you said you had decided to edge away from Lottie.”
“Lottie isn’t the right girl for me. A good sort— yes. But not the right girl for me. Now, this other girl—”
“What other girl?”
“This girl I’m telling you about.”
“You haven’t been telling me about any girl. You haven’t so much as mentioned a girl. Do you mean to say—“
Bill nodded.
“Yes, I’ve found the real thing at last.”
Lord Tidmouth was interested. He went to the table and with quivering fingers selected a sardine sandwich.
“Who is she?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve only seen her out on the links. She’s a poem, Squiffy; all health and fresh air and wholesomeness.”
“Ever spoken to her?”
“No, I haven’t the nerve. She’s so far above me.”
“Tall girl, eh?”
“Spiritually, you ass!”
“Oh, I see.”
There was a pause.
“I’m going to get to know her somehow,” said Bill at length.
“How?”
“I don’t know. But I shall.”
“And then—”
“I shall marry her.”
Lord Tidmouth breathed reflectively.
“Shortly after my arrival in this room,” he said, “Lottie gave me to understand that you were practically engaged to marry her.”
“Yes,” said Bill unhappily.
“Then, obviously, what you want to do first,” said Lord Tidmouth, “is to get it well into Lottie’s mind that it’s all off.”
“I know. But how?”
“It should be done tactfully.”
“Of course.”
“Gracefully—kindly—leaving no hard feelings; but, nevertheless, quite definitely.”
“Yes.”
Lord Tidmouth pondered.
“Your best plan, old boy,”. he said, “is to leave the whole thing to me. I understand women. I know exactly the right things to say. Leave the whole thing absolutely and entirely to me, contenting yourself with just murmuring the necessary responses.
Bill brightened.
“You’re sure you can manage it?”
“My dear old chap!”
“You’ll be tactful?”
“Tactful as dammit. All my wives always raved about my tact. They legged it away from me like rabbits, one, after the other, but they always admitted that in the matter of tact I stood alone.”
“Well, I’m trusting you.”
“And so you may, old boy.”
The bedroom door opened and Lottie appeared, dressed for the dance.
CHAPTER III
BILL BANNISTER looked at Lord Tidmouth. He looked appealingly, as a young soldier, in a tight place, might have looked at Napoleon. Lord Tidmouth returned the gaze with a reassuring nod and a leave-it-to-me wave of the hand.
“I’m ready,” said Lottie.
Lord Tidmouth eyed her owlishly.
“Ready for what, old thing?”
“To dance.”
“With Bill?”
“With Bill.”
Tact gleamed from Lord Tidmouth’s monocle.
“Bill isn’t going to dance.”
“But he said he would.”
“He’s made up his mind to stay in.”
“Well, I’ve made up my face to go out.”
“Shall I tell you something, Lottie?” said Lord Tidmouth.
�
�Go ahead.”
“Bill’s never going to dance with you again. Never, never again. He’s going home. Back to happy Hampshire.”
A dangerous gleam appeared in Lottie’s beautiful, but formidable, eyes. She directed it at her shrinking playmate.
“Is this true, Bill?”
Bill Bannister er-yessed in a small voice. It was not for him to question the methods of a master of tact like Tidmouth, but he could not restrain a feeling that the news might have been broken a little more gently.
“You see,” said Bill, “I simply must go home. There’s the estate to look after and—well, that’s all there is to it. I think it’s time I went home.”
“A thousand pigs are pining for him,” said Lord Tidmouth.
“Let me get this straight,“ said Lottie in a strange, tense voice, not unlike that of a tigress from whom some practical joker is endeavouring to steal the daily ration of meat. “Are you leaving me flat?”
Lord Tidmouth was delighted at his former helpmate’s ready intelligence. Of all his wives, he reflected, Lottie had always been quickest at the uptake.
“That’s right,” he said. “You’ve put the thing in a nutshell. It’s all off, and so is he.”
Ignoring a sharp, whistling, sighing noise which proceeded from the lips which had once promised to love, honour, and obey him, he resumed his discourse.
“You see, Bill’s a country gentleman, old girl— lives in the wilds, half a dozen miles from anywhere —and he doesn’t think you would quite fit into the picture.”
“Oh, I’m not fit to associate with his beastly vicars and ploughboys, eh?“ asked Lottie, with ominous calm.
“He doesn’t say that,” urged Lord Tidmouth. “What he means is that you wouldn’t be happy in a small village. He’s doing you a kindness, really. Why, dash it, if you got fed-up with me in the middle of London, how much fedder-up you would be in a place like Woollam Chersey with a bird like Bill. Good heavens, there’s nothing offensive in the man’s attitude. He admires and respects you, but he feels that Woollam Chersey is not for you. Lots of the world’s most wonderful women would be out of place in Woollam Chersey. Queen Elizabeth—Catherine of Russia—Cleopatra—dozens of them.”
He paused, with the complacency of an orator who is conscious of having struck the right note.
“Besides,” said Bill, who was not so sure that his collaborator was putting this thing across as well as he thought he was, “if I can’t come in without finding you kissing—”
“Old boy!“ murmured Lord Tidmouth reproachfully. “Bygones be bygones. Let the dead past bury its dead.”
Lottie sniffed.
“So that’s the trouble. You know as well as I do that Squiffy means nothing to me any longer. There’s no need for you to be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Oh!“ said Lottie sharply. “And why aren’t you, may I ask? I see it all now. There’s somebody else.”
“No, no,” said Lord Tidmouth. “Quite wrong. Absolutely not so.”
“There is! Some woman is stealing him away from me.” Her voice rose. “Who is she? What’s her name? Tell me her name. Who is she?”
She rested her hands on her hips, and from beneath lowering eyebrows glared militantly. Her manner interested Lord Tidmouth, and caused him to advance a theory to explain it.
“I say, Lottie, old girl,” asked his lordship, “have you any Spanish blood in you?”
“Now listen, Lottie”
This from Bill, who was not enjoying the glare.
“I won’t listen!”
“My second wife was half Spanish,” proceeded Lord Tidmouth chattily. “How well I remember—”
“Shut up!”
“Oh, rather,” said his lordship. “I merely spoke.”
Lottie turned to Bill again.
“So,” she said, “you want to get rid of me, do you? You want to throw me aside like a—like a—“
“Worn-out glove,” prompted Lord Tidmouth.
“Like a worn-out glove. You think you’re going to abandon me like an—“
“Old tube of tooth-paste.”
“Shut up!”
“Oh, rather!”
Lottie’s eyes flashed.
“Let me tell you you’re mistaken if you think you can get rid of me so easily.”
“Lottie,” said Bill, “please!”
“Lottie, please!“ said Lord Tidmouth.
“Lottie, please! Lottie, please! Lottie, please! “cried the injured woman in the tones which had intimidated a hundred theatrical dressing-rooms and which when heard during the course of their brief married life by the late Mr. Higginbotham had always been enough to send that pusillanimous cotton magnate shooting off to his club for refuge.
She ran to the tea-table and snatched up a cup.
“There!”
She hurled the cup down with a crash.
“Did you ring, sir?”
It was a bell-boy who spoke. He had appeared in the doorway with a smooth promptness which spoke well for the efficiency of the service at the Superba. This was due partly to long training and partly to the fact that for some moments back he had been standing with his ear glued to the keyhole.
“And there!“ cried Lottie, demolishing a second cup.
This one produced Marie.
“Did you call, moddom?”
“And there!“ said Lottie. “And there! And there!“ Another cup, a slop-basin, and the teapot joined the ruins on the floor.
“Lottie,” said Bill urgently, “pull yourself together.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Lord Tidmouth. “Cups cost money—what?”
A piercing scream from the sufferer nearly broke the remaining cup on the table. Marie, advancing solicitously, was just in time to catch her employer as she fell. There was general consternation. All those present were disturbed and distressed, except the bellboy, who had not had such an enjoyable time since the day, six months ago, when the couple in suite ten had settled a lovers’ tiff in his presence with chairs, the leg of a table, and a series of small china ornaments from the mantelpiece.
As always on occasions such as this, the air became full of a babel of words.
“Water!“ cried Marie.
“Vinegar!“ recommended the bell-boy.
“Eau-de-Cologne!“ said Bill.
“Pepper!“ said Lord Tidmouth.
Marie had another suggestion.
“Give her air!”
So had the bell-boy.
“Slap her hands!”
Lord Tidmouth went further.
“Sit on her head!” he advised.
The clamour was affecting Bill Bannister’s nervous system.
“Will you be quiet?“ he roared.
The noise subsided.
“Now then,” said Bill, taking command. He turned to the bell-boy. “Go for a doctor.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you,” continued Bill, addressing Marie, “take her into the bedroom.”
“Yes, sir.”
The mob scene diminished. Bill, mopping his forehead, was aware of his old friend, Lord Tidmouth, hovering to and fro. He eyed him sourly.
“What are you hanging about for?“ he demanded.
Lord Tidmouth reflected.
“Well, honestly, old chap, I don’t quite know. Just lending sympathy and moral support, as it were.”
“Get a doctor.”
“But the boy’s getting one.”
“Well, get another. Get a dozen.”
Lord Tidmouth patted Bill’s shoulder with infinite gentleness and understanding.
“I know just how you’re feeling, old boy,” he said. “You’ve never seen Lottie in quite this frame of mind before, and you find it upsetting. To me, of course, all this is old stuff. How well I remember,” said Lord Tidmouth, beginning to dictate his autobiography, “how clearly it all comes back, that second week of our honeymoon when, in a spirit of kindly criticism, I told her that her new hat looked like nothing
on earth. People talk about the San Francisco earthquake—”
“Get out!”
“Just as you say, old boy.”
“And don’t come back without a doctor.”
“I won’t,” Lord Tidmouth assured him. “I’ll get one if I have to rob a hospital. For the moment, then, laddie, tinkerty-tonk!”
The room now empty, Bill felt more composed. He called sharply to Marie, who popped out of the bedroom like a cuckoo from a clock.
“Marie!”
“Sir?”
“How is she?”
“Still unconscious, sir. And I don’t like her breathing. If you ask me, it’s storterous.”
“Storterous?”
“Sort of puffy. Like this.”
Taking in a supply of air, Marie emitted it in a series of moaning gasps. It was not an inartistic performance, but Bill did not like it.
“Marie!”
“Sir?”
“When I want any farmyard imitations I’ll ask for them.”
“Very good, sir.”
Hurt by destructive criticism, the maid withdrew into the bedroom. The door had scarcely closed behind her when the bell-boy appeared. He had the unmistakable look of a bell-boy who is about to deliver the goods.
“The doctor, sir,” he announced, with modest pride.
Bill heaved a relieved sigh.
“Send him in,” he said..
And, having said it, he stood gaping. Framed in the doorway was a young and becomingly dressed girl. She carried a small black bag, and at the sight of her Bill Bannister’s eyes widened to an incredulous stare and his jaw drooped like a lily. Then there swept over him so tumultuous a rush of ecstasy that his vocal cords seemed tangled in a knot.
He swallowed convulsively, and realized despairingly that speech for the moment was entirely beyond him.
CHAPTER IV
SALLY eyed him composedly. She had been going out for a walk when the bell-boy found her, and she was anxious to finish the task before her and resume that walk as quickly as possible. Of the emotions surging in Bill’s soul she had no inkling. She certainly had never seen him before in her life, and was not excited by the sight of him now. She had set him down at a glance as one of those typical, pleasant, idle, young men whose charm made so slight an impression on her. Only workers interested Sally Smith.
She was on the point of coming briskly to business when the extraordinary pop-eyed nature of his stare forced itself on her attention. A moment later he advanced a step towards her, still looking like a prawn, and in an odd, strangled voice emitted the single word “Guk!”
Doctor Sally Page 2
