Young Men in Spats (12 page)

Because what he felt was that, though at the actual moment of going to press pique might be putting Nelson off Diana, this
would pass off and love come into its own again. All that was required, he considered, was a suave go-between, a genial mutual pal who would pour oil on the troubled w.'s and generally fix things up.

He found Diana walking round and round Berkeley Square with her chin up, breathing tensely through the nostrils. He drew up alongside and what-hoed, and as she beheld him the cold, hard gleam in her eyes changed to a light of cordiality. She appeared charmed to see him and at once embarked on an animated conversation. And with every word she spoke his conviction deepened that of all the ways of passing a summer afternoon there was none fruitier than having a friendly hike with Diana Punter.

And it was not only her talk that enchanted him. He was equally fascinated by that wonderful physique of hers. When he considered that he had actually wasted several valuable minutes that day conversing with a young shrimp like Elizabeth Bottsworth, he could have kicked himself.

Here, he reflected, as they walked round the square, was a girl whose ear was more or less on a level with a fellow's mouth, so that such observations as he might make were enabled to get from point to point with the least possible delay. Talking to Elizabeth Bottsworth had always been like bellowing down a well in the hope of attracting the attention of one of the smaller infusoria at the bottom. It surprised him that he had been so long in coming to this conclusion.

He was awakened from this reverie by hearing his companion utter the name of Nelson Cork.

‘I beg your pardon?' he said.

‘I was saying,' said Diana, ‘that Nelson Cork is a wretched little undersized blob who, if he were not too lazy to work,
would long since have signed up with some good troupe of midgets.'

‘Oh, would you say that?'

‘I would say more than that,' said Diana firmly. ‘I tell you, Percy, that what makes life so ghastly for girls, what causes girls to get grey hair and go into convents, is the fact that it is not always possible for them to avoid being seen in public with men like Nelson Cork. I trust I am not uncharitable. I try to view these things in a broad-minded way, saying to myself that if a man looks like something that has come out from under a flat stone it is his misfortune rather than his fault and that he is more to be pitied than censured. But on one thing I do insist, that such a man does not wantonly aggravate the natural unpleasantness of his appearance by prancing about London in a hat that reaches down to his ankles. I cannot and will not endure being escorted along Bruton Street by a sort of human bacillus the brim of whose hat bumps on the pavement with every step he takes. What I have always said and what I shall always say is that the hat is the acid test. A man who cannot buy the right-sized hat is a man one could never like or trust. Your hat, now, Percy, is exactly right. I have seen a good many hats in my time, but I really do not think that I have ever come across a more perfect specimen of all that a hat should be. Not too large, not too small, fitting snugly to the head like the skin on a sausage. And you have just the kind of head that a silk hat shows off. It gives you a sort of look . . . how shall I describe it?. . . it conveys the idea of a master of men. Leonine is the word I want. There is something about the way it rests on the brow and the almost imperceptible tilt towards the south-east . . .'

Percy Wimbolt was quivering like an Oriental muscle-dancer. Soft music seemed to be playing from the direction of
Hay Hill, and Berkeley Square had begun to skip round him on one foot.

He drew a deep breath.

‘I say,' he said, ‘stop me if you've heard this before, but what I feel we ought to do at this juncture is to dash off somewhere where it's quiet and there aren't so many houses dancing the “Blue Danube” and shove some tea into ourselves. And over the pot and muffins I shall have something very important to say to you.'

‘So that,' concluded the Crumpet, taking a grape, ‘is how the thing stands; and, in a sense, of course, you could say that it is a satisfactory ending.

‘The announcement of Elizabeth's engagement to Nelson Cork appeared in the Press on the same day as that of Diana's projected hitching-up with Percy Wimbolt: and it is pleasant that the happy couples should be so well matched as regards size.

‘I mean to say, there will be none of that business of a six-foot girl tripping down the aisle with a five-foot-four man, or a six-foot-two man trying to keep step along the sacred edifice with a four-foot-three girl. This is always good for a laugh from the ringside pews, but it does not make for wedded bliss.

‘No, as far as the principals are concerned, we may say that all has ended well. But that doesn't seem to me the important point. What seems to me the important point is this extraordinary, baffling mystery of those hats.'

‘Absolutely,' said the Bean.

‘I mean to say, if Percy's hat really didn't fit, as Elizabeth Bottsworth contended, why should it have registered as a winner with Diana Punter?'

‘Absolutely,' said the Bean.

‘And, conversely, if Nelson's hat was the total loss which Diana Punter considered it, why, only a brief while later, was it going like a breeze with Elizabeth Bottsworth?'

‘Absolutely,' said the Bean.

‘The whole thing is utterly inscrutable.'

It was at this point that the nurse gave signs of wishing to catch the Speaker's eye.

‘Shall I tell you what I think?'

‘Say on, my dear young pillow-smoother.'

‘I believe Bodmin's boy must have got those hats mixed. When he was putting them back in the boxes, I mean.'

The Crumpet shook his head, and took a grape.

‘And then at the club they got the right ones again.'

The Crumpet smiled indulgently.

‘Ingenious,' he said, taking a grape. ‘Quite ingenious. But a little far-fetched. No, I prefer to think the whole thing, as I say, has something to do with the Fourth Dimension. I am convinced that that is the true explanation, if our minds could only grasp it.'

‘Absolutely,' said the Bean.

AS THE CLUB
kitten sauntered into the smoking-room of the Drones Club and greeted those present with a friendly miauw, Freddie Widgeon, who had been sitting in a corner with his head between his hands, rose stiffly.

‘I had supposed,' he said, in a cold, level voice, ‘that this was a quiet retreat for gentlemen. As I perceive that it is a blasted Zoo, I will withdraw.'

And he left the room in a marked manner.

There was a good deal of surprise, mixed with consternation.

‘What's the trouble?' asked an Egg, concerned. Such exhibitions of the naked emotions are rare at the Drones. ‘Have they had a row?'

A Crumpet, always well-informed, shook his head.

‘Freddie has had no personal breach with this particular kitten,' he said. ‘It is simply that since that week-end at Matcham Scratchings he can't stand the sight of a cat.'

‘Matcham what?'

‘Scratchings. The ancestral home of Dahlia Prenderby in Oxfordshire.'

‘I met Dahlia Prenderby once,' said the Egg. ‘I thought she seemed a nice girl.'

‘Freddie thought so, too. He loved her madly.'

‘And lost her, of course?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Do you know,' said a thoughtful Bean, ‘I'll bet that if all the girls Freddie Widgeon has loved and lost were placed end to end – not that I suppose one could do it – they would reach half-way down Piccadilly.'

‘Further than that,' said the Egg. ‘Some of them were pretty tall. What beats me is why he ever bothers to love them. They always turn him down in the end. He might just as well never begin. Better, in fact, because in the time saved he could be reading some good book.'

‘I think the trouble with Freddie,' said the Crumpet, ‘is that he always gets off to a flying start. He's a good-looking sort of chap who dances well and can wiggle his ears, and the girl is dazzled for the moment, and this encourages him. From what he tells me, he appears to have gone very big with this Prenderby girl at the outset. So much so, indeed, that when she invited him down to Matcham Scratchings he had already bought his copy of
What Every Young Bridegroom Ought To Know.
'

‘Rummy, these old country-house names,' mused the Bean. ‘Why Scratchings, I wonder?'

‘Freddie wondered, too, till he got to the place. Then he tells me he felt it was absolutely the
mot juste.
This girl Dahlia's family, you see, was one of those animal-loving families, and the house, he tells me, was just a frothing maelstrom of dumb chums. As far as the eye could reach, there were dogs scratching themselves and cats scratching the furniture. I believe, though he never met it socially, there was even a tame chimpanzee somewhere on the premises, no doubt scratching away as assiduously as the rest of them. You get these conditions here and there in the depths of the country, and this Matcham place was
well away from the centre of things, being about six miles from the nearest station.

‘It was at this station that Dahlia Prenderby met Freddie in her two-seater, and on the way to the house there occurred a conversation which I consider significant – showing, as it does, the cordial relations existing between the young couple at that point in the proceedings. I mean, it was only later that the bitter awakening and all that sort of thing popped up.'

‘I do want you to be a success, Freddie,' said the girl, after talking a while of this and that. ‘Some of the men I've asked down here have been such awful flops. The great thing is to make a good impression on Father.'

‘I will,' said Freddie.

‘He can be a little difficult at times.'

‘Lead me to him,' said Freddie. ‘That's all I ask. Lead me to him.'

‘The trouble is, he doesn't much like young men.'

‘He'll like me.'

‘He will, will he?'

‘Rather!'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘I'm a dashed fascinating chap.'

‘Oh, you are?'

‘Yes, I am.'

‘You are, are you?'

‘Rather!'

Upon which, she gave him a sort of push and he gave her a sort of push, and she giggled and he laughed like a paper bag bursting, and she gave him a kind of shove and he gave her a kind of shove, and she said, ‘You
are
a silly ass!' and he said, ‘What ho!'
All of which shows you, I mean to say, the stage they had got to by this time. Nothing definitely settled, of course, but Love obviously beginning to burgeon in the girl's heart.

Well, naturally, Freddie gave a good deal of thought during the drive to this father of whom the girl had spoken so feelingly, and he resolved that he would not fail her. The way he would suck up to the old dad would be nobody's business. He proposed to exert upon him the full force of his magnetic personality, and looked forward to registering a very substantial hit.

Which being so, I need scarcely tell you, knowing Freddie as you do, that his first act on entering Sir Mortimer Prenderby's orbit was to make the scaliest kind of floater, hitting him on the back of the neck with a tortoiseshell cat not ten minutes after his arrival.

His train having been a bit late, there was no time on reaching the house for any stately receptions or any of that ‘Welcome to Meadowsweet Hall' stuff. The girl simply shot him up to his room and told him to dress like a streak, because dinner was in a quarter of an hour, and then buzzed off to don the soup and fish herself. And Freddie was just going well when, looking round for his shirt, which he had left on the bed, he saw a large tortoiseshell cat standing on it, kneading it with its paws.

Well, you know how a fellow feels about his shirt-front. For an instant, Freddie stood spellbound. Then with a hoarse cry he bounded forward, scooped up the animal, and, carrying it out on to the balcony, flung it into the void. And an elderly gentleman, coming round the corner at this moment, received a direct hit on the back of his neck.

‘Hell!' cried the elderly gentleman.

A head popped out of a window.

‘Whatever is the matter, Mortimer?'

‘It's raining cats.'

‘Nonsense. It's a lovely evening,' said the head, and disappeared.

Freddie thought an apology would be in order.

‘I say,' he said.

The old gentleman looked in every direction of the compass, and finally located Freddie on his balcony.

‘I say,' said Freddie, ‘I'm awfully sorry you got that nasty buffet. It was me.'

‘It was not you. It was a cat.'

‘I know. I threw the cat.'

‘Why?'

‘Well . . .'

‘Dam' fool.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Freddie.

‘Go to blazes,' said the old gentleman.

Freddie backed into the room, and the incident closed.

Freddie is a pretty slippy dresser, as a rule, but this episode had shaken him, and he not only lost a collar-stud but made a mess of the first two ties. The result was that the gong went while he was still in his shirt-sleeves: and on emerging from his boudoir he was informed by a footman that the gang were already nuzzling their
bouillon
in the dining-room. He pushed straight on there, accordingly, and sank into a chair beside his hostess just in time to dead-heat with the final spoonful.

Awkward, of course, but he was feeling in pretty good form owing to the pleasantness of the thought that he was shoving his knees under the same board as the girl Dahlia: so, having nodded to his host, who was glaring at him from the head of
the table, as much as to say that all would be explained in God's good time, he shot his cuffs and started to make sparkling conversation to Lady Prenderby.

‘Charming place you have here, what?'

Lady Prenderby said that the local scenery was generally admired. She was one of those tall, rangy, Queen Elizabeth sort of women, with tight lips and cold, blanc-mange-y eyes. Freddie didn't like her looks much, but he was feeling, as I say, fairly fizzy, so he carried on with a bright zip.