Chapter 23
"And some nuts for Bill!"
"Bill?"
"The parrot."
"Oh, the jolly old parrot! Rather! Well, cheerio!"
"Good-bye.... You've been awfully good to me."
"Oh, no," said Freddie uncomfortably. "Any time you're pa.s.sing...."
"Awfully good.... Well, good-bye."
"Toodle-oo!"
"Maybe we'll meet again some day."
"I hope so. Absolutely!"
There was a little scurry of feet. Something warm and soft pressed for an instant against Freddie's cheek, and, as he stumbled back, Nelly Bryant skipped up the steps and vanished through the door.
"Good G.o.d!"
Freddie felt his cheek. He was aware of an odd mixture of embarra.s.sment and exhilaration.
From the area below a slight cough sounded. Freddie turned sharply. A maid in a soiled cap, worn coquettishly over one ear, was gazing intently up through the railings. Their eyes met. Freddie turned a warm pink. It seemed to him that the maid had the air of one about to giggle.
"d.a.m.n!" said Freddie softly, and hurried off down the street. He wondered whether he had made a frightful a.s.s of himself, spraying bank-notes all over the place like that to comparative strangers. Then a vision came to him of Nelly's eyes as they had looked at him in the lamp-light, and he decided--no, absolutely not. Rummy as the gadget might appear, it had been the right thing to do. It was a binge of which he thoroughly approved. A good egg!
II
Jill, when Freddie and Nelly left the room, had seated herself on a low stool, and sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. She was wondering if she had been mistaken in supposing that Uncle Chris was worried about something. This restlessness of his, this desire for movement, was strange in him. Hitherto he had been like a dear old cosy cat, revelling in the comfort which he had just denounced so eloquently. She watched him as he took up his favourite stand in front of the fire.
"Nice girl," said Uncle Chris. "Who was she?"
"Somebody Freddie met," said Jill diplomatically. There was no need to worry Uncle Chris with details of the afternoon's happenings.
"Very nice girl." Uncle Chris took out his cigar-case. "No need to ask if I may, thank goodness." He lit a cigar. "Do you remember, Jill, years ago, when you were quite small, how I used to blow smoke in your face?"
Jill smiled.
"Of course I do. You said that you were training me for marriage. You said that there were no happy marriages except where the wife didn't mind the smell of tobacco. Well, it's lucky, as a matter of fact, for Derek smokes all the time."
Uncle Chris took up his favourite stand against the fireplace.
"You're very fond of Derek, aren't you, Jill?"
"Of course I am. You
"Fine chap. Very fine chap. Plenty of money, too. It's a great relief," said Uncle Chris, puffing vigorously. "A thundering relief."
He looked over Jill's head down the room. "It's fine to think of you happily married, dear, with everything in the world that you want."
Uncle Chris' gaze wandered down to where Jill sat. A slight mist affected his eyesight. Jill had provided a solution for the great problem of his life. Marriage had always appalled him, but there was this to be said for it, that married people had daughters. He had always wanted a daughter, a smart girl he could take out and be proud of; and fate had given him Jill at precisely the right age. A child would have bored Uncle Chris--he was fond of children, but they made the deuce of a noise and regarded jam as an external ornament--but a delightful little girl of fourteen was different. Jill and he had been very close to each other since her mother had died, a year after the death of her father, and had left her in his charge. He had watched her grow up with a joy that had a touch of bewilderment in it--she seemed to grow so quickly--and had been fonder and prouder of her at every stage of her tumultuous career.
"You're a dear," said Jill. She stroked the trouser-leg that was nearest. "How _do_ you manage to get such a wonderful crease? You really are a credit to me!"
There was a momentary silence. A shade of embarra.s.sment made itself noticeable in Uncle Chris' frank gaze. He gave a little cough, and pulled at his moustache.
"I wish I were, my dear," he said soberly. "I wish I were. I'm afraid I'm a poor sort of a fellow, Jill."
Jill looked up.
"What do you mean?"
"A poor sort of a fellow," repeated Uncle Chris. "Your mother was foolish to trust you to me. Your father had more sense. He always said I was a wrong 'un."
Jill got up quickly. She was certain now that she had been right, and that there was something on her uncle's mind.
"What's the matter, Uncle Chris? Something's happened. What is it?"
Uncle Chris turned to knock the ash off his cigar. The movement gave him time to collect himself for what lay before him. He had one of those rare volatile natures which can ignore the blows of fate so long as their effects are not brought home by visible evidence of disaster.
He lived in the moment, and, though matters had been as bad at breakfast-time as they were now, it was not till now, when he confronted Jill, that he had found his cheerfulness affected by them.
He was a man who hated ordeals, and one faced him now. Until this moment he had been able to detach his mind from a state of affairs which would have weighed unceasingly upon another man. His mind was a telephone which he could cut off at will, when the voice of Trouble wished to speak. The time would arrive, he had been aware, when he would have to pay attention to that voice, but so far he had refused to listen. Now it could be evaded no longer.
"Jill."
"Yes?"
Uncle Chris paused again, searching for the best means of saying what had to be said.
"Jill, I don't know if you understand about these things, but there was what is called a slump on the Stock Exchange this morning. In other words...."
Jill laughed.
"Of course I know all about that," she said. "Poor Freddie wouldn't talk about anything else till I made him. He was terribly blue when he got here this afternoon. He said he had got 'nipped' in Amalgamated Dyes. He had lost about two hundred pounds, and was furious with a friend of his who had told him to buy margins."
Uncle Chris cleared his throat.
"Jill, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. I bought Amalgamated Dyes, too." He worried his moustache. "I lost heavily, very heavily."
"How naughty of you! You know you oughtn't to gamble."
"Jill, you must be brave. I--I--well, the fact is--it's no good beating about the bush--I lost everything! Everything!"
"Everything?"
"Everything! It's all gone! All fooled away. It's a terrible business.
This house will have to go."