The Little Warrior, P. G. Wodehouse [robert munsch read aloud txt] 📗

coiffure. Miss Frisby, her secretary, an anaemic and negative young woman, waited patiently, pad on knee, and tapped her teeth with her pencil.

“Please do not make that tapping noise, Miss Frisby,” said the sufferer querulously. “I cannot think. Otie, dear, can’t you suggest a good phrase? You ought to be able to, being an author.”

Mr Pilkington, who was strewn over an arm-chair by the window, awoke from his meditations, which, to judge from the furrow just above the bridge of his tortoiseshell spectacles and the droop of his weak chin, were not pleasant. It was the morning after the production of “The Rose of America,” and he had passed a sleepless night, thinking of the harsh words he had said to Jill. Could she ever forgive him? Would she have the generosity to realize that a man ought not to be held accountable for what he says in the moment when he discovers that he has been cheated, deceived, robbed,—in a word, hornswoggled? He had been brooding on this all night, and he wanted to go on brooding now. His aunt’s question interrupted his train of thought.

“Eh?” he said vaguely, gaping.

“Oh, don’t be so absent-minded!” snapped Mrs Peagrim, not unjustifiably annoyed. “I am trying to compose a paragraph for the papers about our party tonight, and I can’t get the right phrase … Read what you’ve written, Miss Frisby.”

Miss Frisby, having turned a pale eye on the pothooks and twiddleys in her note-book, translated them in a pale voice.

“‘Surely of all the leading hostesses in New York Society there can be few more versatile than Mrs Waddlesleigh Peagrim. I am amazed every time I go to her delightful home on West End Avenue to see the scope and variety of her circle of intimates. Here you will see an ambassador with a fever …’”

“With a what?” demanded Mrs Peagrim sharply.

“‘Fever,’ I thought you said,” replied Miss Frisby stolidly. “I wrote ‘fever’.”

“‘Diva.’ Do use your intelligence, my good girl. Go on.”

“‘Here you will see an ambassador with a diva from the opera, exchanging the latest gossip from the chancelleries for intimate news of the world behind the scenes. There, the author of the latest novel talking literature to the newest debutante. Truly one may say that Mrs Peagrim has revived the saloon.’”

Mrs Peagrim bit her lip.

“‘Salon’.”

“‘Salon’,” said Miss Frisby unemotionally. “‘They tell me, I am told, I am informed …’” She paused. “That’s all I have.”

“Scratch out those last words,” said Mrs Peagrim irritably. “You really are hopeless, Miss Frisby! Couldn’t you see that I had stopped dictating and was searching for a phrase? Otie, what is a good phrase for ‘I am told’?”

Mr Pilkington forced his wandering attention to grapple with the problem.

“‘I hear’,” he suggested at length.

“Tchah!” ejaculated his aunt. Then her face brightened. “I have it. Take dictation, please, Miss Frisby. ‘A little bird whispers to me that there were great doings last night on the stage of the Gotham Theatre after the curtain had fallen on “The Rose of America” which, as everybody knows, is the work of Mrs Peagrim’s clever young nephew, Otis Pilkington.’” Mrs Peagrim shot a glance at her clever young nephew, to see how he appreciated the boost, but Otis’ thoughts were far away once more. He was lying on his spine, brooding, brooding. Mrs Peagrim resumed her dictation. “‘In honor of the extraordinary success of the piece, Mrs Peagrim, who certainly does nothing by halves, entertained the entire company to a supper-dance after the performance. A number of prominent people were among the guests, and Mrs Peagrim was a radiant and vivacious hostess. She has never looked more charming. The high jinks were kept up to an advanced hour, and every one agreed that they had never spent a more delightful evening.’ There! Type as many copies as are necessary, Miss Frisby, and send them out this afternoon with photographs.”

Miss Frisby having vanished in her pallid way, the radiant and vivacious hostess turned on her nephew again.

“I must say, Otie,” she began complainingly, “that, for a man who has had a success like yours, you are not very cheerful. I should have thought the notices of the piece would have made you the happiest man in New York.”

There was once a melodrama where the child of the persecuted heroine used to dissolve the gallery in tears by saying “Happiness? What is happiness, moth-aw?” Mr Pilkington did not use these actual words, but he reproduced the stricken infant’s tone with great fidelity.

“Notices! What are notices to me?”

“Oh, don’t be so affected!” cried Mrs Peagrim. “Don’t pretend that you don’t know every word of them by heart!”

“I have not seen the notices, Aunt Olive,” said Mr Pilkington dully.

Mrs Peagrim looked at him with positive alarm. She had never been overwhelmingly attached to her long nephew, but since his rise to fame something resembling affection had sprung up in her, and his attitude now disturbed her.

“You can’t be well, Otie!” she said solicitously. “Are you ill?”

“I have a severe headache,” replied the martyr. “I passed a wakeful night.”

“Let me go and mix you a dose of the most wonderful mixture,” said Mrs. Peagrim maternally. “Poor boy! I don’t wonder, after all the nervousness and excitement … You sit quite still and rest. I will be back in a moment.”

She bustled out of the room, and Mr Pilkington sagged back into his chair. He had hardly got his meditations going once more, when the door opened and the maid announced “Major Selby.”

“Good morning,” said Uncle Chris breezily, sailing down the fairway with outstretched hand. “How are—oh!”

He stopped abruptly, perceiving that Mrs Peagrim was not present and—a more disturbing discovery—that Otis Pilkington was. It would be exaggeration to say that Uncle Chris was embarrassed. That master-mind was never actually embarrassed. But his jauntiness certainly ebbed a little, and he had to pull his mustache twice before he could face the situation with his customary aplomb. He had not expected to find Otis Pilkington here, and Otis was the last man he wished to meet. He had just parted from Jill, who had been rather plain-spoken with regard to the recent financial operations: and, though possessed only of a rudimentary conscience, Uncle Chris was aware that his next interview with young Mr Pilkington might have certain aspects bordering on awkwardness and he would have liked time to prepare a statement for the defence. However, here the man was, and the situation must be faced.

“Pilkington!” he cried. “My dear fellow! Just the man I wanted to see! I’m afraid there has been a little misunderstanding. Of course, it has all been cleared up now, but still I must insist on making a personal explanation, really I must insist. The whole matter was a most absurd misunderstanding. It was like this …”

Here Uncle Chris paused in order to devote a couple of seconds to thought. He had said it was “like this,” and he gave his mustache another pull as though he were trying to drag inspiration out of it. His blue eyes were as frank and honest as ever, and showed no trace of the perplexity in his mind, but he had to admit to himself that, if he managed to satisfy his hearer that all was for the best and that he had acted uprightly and without blame, he would be doing well.

Fortunately, the commercial side of Mr Pilkington was entirely dormant this morning. The matter of the ten thousand dollars seemed trivial to him in comparison with the weightier problems which occupied his mind.

“Have you seen Miss Mariner?” he asked eagerly.

“Yes. I have just parted from her. She was upset, poor girl, of course, exceedingly upset.”

Mr Pilkington moaned hollowly.

“Is she very angry with me?”

For a moment the utter inexplicability of the remark silenced Uncle Chris. Why Jill should be angry with Mr Pilkington for being robbed of ten thousand dollars, he could not understand, for Jill had told him nothing of the scene that had taken place on the previous night. But evidently this point was to Mr Pilkington the nub of the matter, and Uncle Chris, like the strategist he was, rearranged his forces to meet the new development.

“Angry?” he said slowly. “Well, of course …”

He did not know what it was all about, but no doubt if he confined himself to broken sentences which meant nothing light would shortly be vouchsafed to him.

“In the heat of the moment,” confessed Mr Pilkington, “I’m afraid I said things to Miss Mariner which I now regret.”

Uncle Chris began to feel on solid ground again.

“Dear, dear!” he murmured regretfully.

“I spoke hastily.”

“Always think before you speak, my boy.”

“I considered that I had been cheated …”

“My dear boy!” Uncle Chris’ blue eyes opened wide. “Please! Haven’t I said that I could explain all that? It was a pure misunderstanding …”

“Oh, I don’t care about that part of it …”

“Quite right,” said Uncle Chris cordially. “Let bygones be bygones. Start with a clean slate. You have your money back, and there’s no need to say another word about it. Let us forget it,” he concluded generously. “And, if I have any influence with Jill, you may count on me to use it to dissipate any little unfortunate rift which may have occurred between you.”

“You think there’s a chance that she might overlook what I said?”

“As I say, I will use any influence I may possess to heal the breach. I like you, my boy. And I am sure that Jill likes you. She will make allowances for any ill-judged remarks you may have uttered in a moment of heat.”

Mr Pilkington brightened, and Mrs Peagrim, returning with a medicine-glass, was pleased to see him looking so much better.

“You are a positive wizard, Major Selby,” she said archly. “What have you been saying to the poor boy to cheer him up so? He has a bad headache this morning.”

“Headache?” said Uncle Chris, starting like a war-horse that has heard the bugle. “I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it, but I used to suffer from headaches at one time. Extraordinarily severe headaches. I tried everything, until one day a man I knew recommended a thing called—don’t know if you have ever heard of it …”

Mrs Peagrim, in her rôle of ministering angel, was engrossed with her errand of mercy. She was holding the medicine-glass to Mr Pilkington’s lips, and the seed fell on stony ground.

“Drink this, dear,” urged Mrs Peagrim.

“Nervino,” said Uncle Chris.

“There!” said Mrs Peagrim. “That will make you feel much better. How well you always look, Major Selby!”

“And yet at one time,” said Uncle Chris perseveringly, “I was a martyr …”

“I can’t remember if I told you last night about the party. We are giving a little supper-dance to the company of Otie’s play after the performance this evening. Of course you will come?”

Uncle Chris philosophically accepted his failure to secure the ear of his audience. Other opportunities would occur.

“Delighted,” he said. “Delighted.”

“Quite a simple, bohemian little affair,” proceeded Mrs Peagrim. “I thought it was only right to give the poor things a little treat after they have all worked so hard.”

“Certainly, certainly. A capital idea.”

“We shall be quite a small party. If I once started asking anybody outside our real friends, I should have to ask everybody.”

The door opened.

“Mr Rooke,” announced the maid.

Freddie, like Mr Pilkington, was a prey to gloom this morning. He had read one or two of the papers, and they had been disgustingly lavish in their praise of The McWhustle of McWhustle. It made Freddie despair of the New York press. In addition to this, he had been woken up at seven o’clock, after going to sleep at three, by the ringing of the telephone and the announcement that a gentleman wished to see him: and he was weighed down with that heavy-eyed languor which comes to those whose night’s rest is broken.

“Why, how do you do, Mr Rooke!” said Mrs Peagrim.

“How-de-do,” replied Freddie, blinking in the strong light from the window. “Hope I’m not barging in and all that sort of thing? I came round about this party tonight, you know.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Was wondering,” said Freddie, “if you would mind if I brought a friend of mine along? Popped in on me from England this morning. At seven o’clock,” said Freddie plaintively. “Ghastly hour, what! Didn’t do a thing to the good old beauty sleep! Well, what I mean to say is, I’d be awfully obliged if you’d let me bring him along.”

“Why, of course,” said Mrs Peagrim. “Any friend of yours, Mr Rooke …”

“Thanks awfully. Special reason why I’d like him to come, and all that. He’s a fellow named Underhill. Sir Derek Underhill. Been a pal of mine for years and years.”

Uncle Chris started.

“Underhill! Is Derek Underhill in America?”

“Landed this morning. Routed me out of bed at seven o’clock.”

“Oh, do you know him, too, Major Selby?” said