'I see.'
'So when Jimmy the One sent for me this morning and told me off to render a number at the second-class concert, the voluntary talent having proved to be short again, as usual, I said: "Yes, sir, very good, sir. The old 'Y.W.S.’, of course, sir?" and he said he was afraid so, and everything was comfortable and settled. And then, round about ar-parse four it would have been, he sends for me again and you could have knocked me down with a feather, because he told me the "Yeoman's Wedding Song" was off, as far as me rendering it was concerned, on account of a passenger of the name of J. G. Garges having expressed a desire to sing it. And he hands me this blooming "Bandolero" and says, "Get that off your chest, cocky." And when I protested and said you couldn't ask an artist to change his act at the eleventh hour like that, he threatened to dock me a day's pay. So here I am, faced with this "Bandolero" and only about an hour to go. Can you wonder, miss, that I'm all of a twitter?'
Gertrude's gentle heart was touched. It ached for the man. Hers had been till now the easy, sheltered life of the normal English girl, and she had come but rarely into contact with tragedy.
'What a shame! ‘
Thank you, miss. It's kind of you to sympathize. I can do with a bit of sympathy, I don't mind telling you. When I start voicing my grievance in the Glory Hole, all they do is throw things at me.'
'But I wouldn't worry,’ urged Gertrude. 'I'm sure you will be a tremendous success. "The Bandolero" is a splendid song. I always like hearing Mr Bodkin sing it. It has such a swing.'
'It has got a swing,' admitted Albert Peasemarch.
For a moment the cloud wrack lowering on his brow seemed about to lift. But only for a moment. Then his eyes, which had shown signs of brightening, glazed over again.
'But how about the words? Have you considered that, miss? Suppose I forget my words?'
'Then I should just go on singing: "I am the Bandolero, yes, yes, oh yes, I am, I am the Bandolero", or something like that. Nobody will notice anything wrong. They won't expect a Spanish song to make sense. They'll think it's atmosphere.'
Albeart Peasemarch started. It was plain that his companion had opened up a new line of thought.
'I am the band, I am the band,' he crooned tentatively.
That's right. Mr Bodkin often does that And caramba, of course.’
‘Miss?’
'Caramba. It’s a Spanish word. Another is manana. If you find yourself drying up, I should go on repeating those. I remember Mr Bodkin singing "The Bandolero" at our village concert last Christmas, and the second verse was practically all caramba and manana. He never went better in his life.'
Albert Peasemarch drew in a breath as deep as any that had ever assisted him through the "Yeoman's Wedding Song".
'Miss,' he said, his eyes doglike, 'you've put a new heart into me.'
'I'm so glad. I expect you'll be the hit of the evening.'
'I've a good quick ear for music and can generally get the hang of a chune, but it's the words I'm always shaky on. Coo! I remember the first six times I sang the "Y.W.S." I used to get it wrong regular. I used to sing: "And the day so gay in bright array", which spoiled the sense.'
He paused. He hesitated. His fingers twiddled.
'I wonder, miss ... Mark you, I think I'll be all right now, what with all these carambas and all, but I wonder, miss ... I wouldn't for the world take a lib., and no doubt you've a hundred things to do ... but I was wondering if by any chance -'
‘You would like me to come and help with the applause?'
That's the very words I was trying to say, miss.'
‘Why, of course I will. When did you say you would be going on?'
‘I'm billed for ten o'clock precisely, miss.' ‘I’ll be there.'
Words failed Albert Peasemarch. He could but gaze adoringly.
In a self-centred world it is never easy for those in travail to realize that other people have their troubles, too, and if anybody had informed Albert Peasemarch at this difficult moment in his career as a vocalist that his was not the severest attack of stage fright on board the R.M.S. Atlantic, he would have been amazed and incredulous. He might have said 'Cool' or he might have said 'Caramba! but he would not have believed the statement. Yet such was undoubtedly the case.
The ordeal of waiting for ten o'clock, which we have seen afflicting the steward's nervous system so sorely, had not left Monty Bodkin unaffected. At twenty minutes to the hour, he, too, was all of a twitter. Seated at a table in the smoking-room, he gazed before him with unseeing eyes. From time to time he shuffled his feet, and from time to time he plucked at his tie. There was whisky and soda before him, but such was his preoccupation that he had scarcely touched it.
What was worrying Monty was the very same haunting fear which had racked Albert Peasemarch. He was afraid that he was going to blow up in his words.
When Reggie Tennyson had told him that all he had got to do was to hold Lottie Blossom in conversation for the space of a quarter of an hour on the second-class promenade deck while he, Reggie, thoroughly scoured her state-room, the task had seemed a simple one. He had accepted it without a tremor. Only now, when he contemplated the possibility of failure, did he wonder what words he could select so magical as to keep a girl of Lottie's impatient temperament hanging about on a draughty deck for a full fifteen minutes. It seemed to him in this dark hour of self-distrust an assignment at which the most silver-tongued orator might well boggle.
His case, of course, was far more delicate than that of Albert Peasemarch. The latter, thanks to Gertrude's kindly counsel, had the consolation of. knowing that, if the worst occurred and he found himself unequal to the situation, he could always fill in with a few 'mananas’. No such pleasant thought came to cheer Monty. Yes, to put it in a nutshell, he had no 'mananaf. Not only had he got to make sense, he had got to be interesting. And not merely interesting - absorbing, gripping, spellbinding.
As he sat there, quailing at the prospect before him, a solid body suddenly lowered itself into the chair opposite, and he perceived that his solitude had been invaded by Mr Ivor Llewellyn.
'Join you?’ said Mr Llewellyn.
'Oh, right ho,’ said Monty, though far from cordially.
'Just want a little chat,' said Mr Llewellyn.
If there is one quality more than another which a man must have who wishes to become president of a large motion-picture corporation, it is tenacity, that sturdy bulldog spirit which refuses to admit defeat. This Ivor Llewellyn possessed in large measure.
Many men in his position, up against an obdurate Customs spy who had flatly declined an invitation to play ball, would have been completely discouraged. Their attitude would have been that of Albert Peasemarch caught in the toils of a remorseless Fate - bitter, resentful, but supine. They would have told themselves that it was futile to go on struggling.
And that is what for a whole afternoon and evening Ivor Llewellyn had told himself.
But dinner had wrought a wondrous change in his outlook. It had made him his old thrustful self again. He had had vermicelli soup, turbot and boiled potatoes, two whacks at the chicken hot-pot, a slice of boar's head, a specially ordered souffle, Scotch woodcock, and about a pint of ice-cream, and had finished with coffee and brandy in the lounge. A man of spirit cannot fill himself up like this without something happening. With Mr Llewellyn what had happened was the dawning of hope. The thought came to him as he sat in the lounge, stuffed virtually to the brim, that the reason for Monty's refusal to join the Superba-Llewellyn might quite conceivably be that the ambassador sent to sound him had bungled his end of the negotiations.
The more he examined this theory, the more plausible did it seem. Apart from being the wrong Tennyson, Ambrose, he considered, lacked charm. He remembered now that, when despatched to place the Superba-Llewellyn offer before Monty, the fellow had been wearing an unpleasant, sullen, brooding look. He must, on starting to parley with Monty, have been too curt or too obscure or too something. It was the old, old story, felt Mr L
lewellyn - no cooperation. What was needed was a personal appeal from himself. That would put everything right. He had now come to make it.
He could hardly have selected a worse moment. Already all of a twitter, Monty, resenting his intrusion, had become keenly exasperated. As he had told Ambrose, except for asking him how to spell things he scarcely knew Mr Llewellyn, and at a time like this he would have preferred to dispense with the society of his dearest friend. He wanted to be alone, to meditate without interruption on what the dickens he was going to say to Lottie Blossom that would keep her rooted to the spot for a quarter of an hour.
Chafing, he took out a cigarette and lit it.
'Beautiful!' said Mr Llewellyn.
'Eh?'
'Beautiful!' repeated Mr Llewellyn, nodding his head in a sort of ecstasy, as if someone had shown him the Mona Lisa, 'The way you lit that cigarette. Graceful... Easy... Deb-whatever-the-word-is. Like Leslie Howard.'
It was not Ivor Llewellyn's habit to flatter those whom he was hoping to employ, his customary mode of procedure being a series of earnest attempts to create in them an inferiority complex which would come in handy when the discussion of terms began. But this was a special case. Here, clearly, was one of those rare occasions when nothing would serve but the old oil, and that in the most liberal doses.
'I dare say,' he proceeded, continuing the policy of applying the salve, 'you're thinking that it isn't anything to make a song and dance about - simply lighting a cigarette. But let me tell you that it's just those little things that you can tell if a fellow's got real screen sense. You have. Yessir. There!’ exclaimed Mr Llewellyn with a fresh burst of enthusiasm. The way you took that drink of whisky. Swell! Like Ronald Colman.’
Satisfied that he had made a good beginning and that the leaven must shortly start to work, he paused to allow these eulogies to sink in. He gazed admiringly across the table at his gifted young companion, and when, doing so, he encountered a glare which might have made another man wilt, was in no way disconcerted. He seemed to relish it. Even for that peevish glare he had a good word to say.
'Clark Gable makes his eyes act that way,' he said, 'but not so good.’
Monty was beginning to experience some of the emotions which one may suppose a bashful goldfish to feel. He seemed unable to perform the simplest action without exciting criticism. The fact that this criticism so far had been uniformly favourable made it no better. His nose had begun to tickle, but he refrained from scratching it as he would have done in happier circumstances, feeling that should he do so Mr Llewellyn would immediately compare his technique to that of Schnozzle Durante or such other artist as might suggest himself to bis lively imagination.
A generous wrath began to surge within him. He had had enough, he told himself, of all this rot. First Ambrose, then Lotus Blossom, and now Ivor Llewellyn... It was absolute dashed persecution.
'Look here,' he said heatedly, 'if all this is leading up to your asking me to become a bally motion-picture actor, you might just as well cheese it instanter. I won't do it'
Mr Llewellyn's heart sank a little, but he persevered. Even in the face of this obduracy he could not really bring himself to believe that there existed a man capable of spurning the chance to join the Superba-Llewellyn.
'Now listen,' he began.
‘I won't listen,' cried Monty shrilly. 'I'm sick of the whole dashed business. From morning till night, dash it, I do nothing but comb people who want me to become a motion-picture actor out of my hair. I told Ambrose Tennyson I wouldn't do it. I told Lotus Blossom I wouldn't do it. And now, just when I want to devote my whole mind to thinking about - to thinking, up you come and I've got to stop thinking and tell you I won't do it. I'm fed up, I tell you.'
'Don't you want,' asked Mr Llewellyn, a quaver in his voice, ‘to see your name up in lights?'
‘No.'
‘Don't you want a million girls writing in for your autograph?' ‘No.'
Optimist though the chicken hot-pot had made him, Mr Llewellyn was unable to disguise it from himself that he was not gaining ground.
‘Don't you want to meet Louella Parsons?'
‘No.'
‘Wouldn't you like to act opposite Jean Harlow?’
‘No. I wouldn't like to act opposite Cleopatra.'
A sudden idea flashed upon Mr Llewellyn. He thought he saw where the trouble lay.
'I've got it now,’ he exclaimed. 'Now I see the whole thing. It's the idea of acting you don't like. Well, come and do something else. How would you feel about being a production expert?'
'What's the sense of asking me to be a production expert? I wouldn't know enough.'
'It ain't possible not to know enough to be a production expert,' said Mr Llewellyn, and was about to drive home this profound truth by adding that his wife's brother George was one when Monty, who had just looked at his watch, uttered a sharp cry and leaped from his seat. So absorbing had been the other's conversation that he had not remarked the passage of time. The hands of the watch stood perilously near the hour of ten.
'I've got to rush,' he said. 'Good night.' 'Hey, wait.' 'I can't wait.'
'Well, listen,' said Mr Llewellyn, perceiving that no words of his could hold this wild thing. 'Just chew it over, will you?
Think about it when you've got a minute, and if you ever do feel like playing ball with me, let me know and we'll get together.’
Despite his agitation, Monty could not help being a little touched. Rather charming, he felt, that this tough man of affairs, who might have been expected after years- of struggle with ruthless competitors to become hardened and blasé, should so have preserved the heart of a child as to yearn to play ball with people. He paused and regarded Mr Llewellyn with a kindlier eye.
'Oh, rather,' he said. ‘I will.'
'That's good.'
‘I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I didn't want to play ball one of these days.’
'Fine,' said Mr Llewellyn. 'Think over the production expert idea.’
'Well take it up later, what? - when I've more time. For the moment,' said Monty, 'pip-pip. I must be pushing.’
He left the smoking-room and set a course for the other end of the vessel. And such was the speed with which he leaped from point to point that a mere minute sufficed to put him on the dimly-lit promenade deck of the second-class. Looking about him and finding it empty, he was well content. Lottie Blossom had not yet arrived at the tryst.
He lit a cigarette and began to muse again upon the coming interview. But once more his thoughts were diverted before he could really get the machinery going properly. Strains of music fell upon his ear.
There appeared to be a binge of some sort in progress hard by. A piano was tinkling, and a moment later there burst into song a voice in its essentials not unlike that of the ship's foghorn. The painful affair continued for some little time. Then the voice ceased, and tumultuous applause broke out from an unseen audience.
But though the song was ended, the melody lingered on. This was due to the fact that Monty was humming it under his breath. For this was a song he knew, a song which he himself had frequently rendered, a song which evoked tender memories -none other, in fact, than 'The Bandolero'.
His bosom swelled with emotion. From the days of his freshman year at the university he had always been a Bandolero addict - one of the major problems confronting his little circle of friends being that of how to keep him from singing it - but recently the number had become inextricably associated in his mind with the thought of Gertrude Butterwick.
Twice, at village revels, he had sung it to her accompaniment, and these two occasions, together with the rehearsals which had preceded them, were green in his memory. Today, when he heard 'The Bandolero' or thought about 'The Bandolero' or sang a snatch of 'The Bandolero' in his bath, her sweet face seemed to float before him.
It seemed to be floating before him now. In fact, it was. She had just emerged from a doorway in front of him and was standing gazing at him in manifest surprise. And
the recollection that in about another two ticks Lottie Blossom would come bounding out of the night, turning their little twosome into a party of three, filled him with so sick a horror that he staggered back as if the girl he loved had hit him over the head with a hockey-stick.
Gertrude was the first to recover. It is not customary for the haughty nobles of the first-class to invade the second-class premises of an ocean liner, and for a moment she had been quite as astonished to see Monty as he was to see her. But a solution had now occurred to her.
'Why, hullo, Monty, darling,' she said. 'Did you come to hear it, too?’
‘Eh?'
'Albert Peasemarch's song.’
No drowning man, about to sink for the third time, ever clutched at a lifebelt more eagerly than did Monty at this life-saving suggestion.
'Yes,' he said. 'That's right. Albert Peasemarch's song,’
Gertrude laughed indulgently.
'Poor dear, he was so nervous. He asked me to come and applaud.'
All those old bitter anti-Peasemarch thoughts which had turned Monty Bodkin's blood to flame after the man's bone-headed behaviour in the matter of the Mickey Mouse came surging back to him now, as he heard Gertrude speak those words. So that was why she was here! Because Albert Peasemarch had asked her to come and applaud his loathsome sing' ing!
The thing made Monty feel physically unwell. It was not only the sickening vanity of the fellow - come and applaud him, forsooth! - why couldn't he be content like a true artist to give of his best and care nothing for the world's applause or censure? - it was something deeper than that. We all have a grain of superstition in us, and it had begun to seem to Monty that there was something eerie and uncanny in the way this Peasemarch kept cropping up in his path. It was like one of those Family Curses. Where the What-d'you-call-'ems had their Headless Monk and the Thingummybobs their Spectral Hound, he had Albert Peasemarch.
Luck of the Bodkins Page 21
