"Mother," he said.
"Pa?" said Mrs. Abrahams.
"Knew there was something I'd meant to tell you," said Mr. Abrahams, absently chasing a piece of bread round his plate with a stout finger. "You remember that girl I told you about some time back—girl working at the Garden—girl called Nicholas, who came into a bit of money and threw up her job..."
"I remember. You liked her. Jakie, dear, don't gobble."
"Ain't gobbling," said Master Abrahams.
"Everybody liked her," said Mr. Abrahams. "The nicest girl I ever hired, and I don't hire none but nice girls, because the Garden's a nice place, and I like to run it nice. I wouldn't give you a nickel for any of your tough joints where you get nothing but low-lifes and scare away all the real folks. Everybody liked Sally Nicholas. Always pleasant and always smiling, and never anything but the lady. It was a treat to have her around. Well, what do you think?"
"Dead?" inquired Mrs. Abrahams, apprehensively. The story had sounded to her as though it were heading that way. "Wipe your mouth, Jakie dear."
"No, not dead," said Mr. Abrahams, conscious for the first time that the remainder of his narrative might be considered by a critic something of an anti-climax and lacking in drama. "But she was in to see me this afternoon and wants her job back."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Abrahams, rather tonelessly. An ardent supporter of the local motion-picture palace, she had hoped for a slightly more gingery denouement, something with a bit more punch.
"Yes, but don't it show you?" continued Mr. Abrahams, gallantly trying to work up the interest. "There's this girl, goes out of my place not more'n a year ago, with a good bank-roll in her pocket, and here she is, back again, all of it spent. Don't it show you what a tragedy life is, if you see what I mean, and how careful one ought to be about money? It's what I call a human document. Goodness knows how she's been and gone and spent it all. I'd never have thought she was the sort of girl to go gadding around. Always seemed to me to be kind of sensible."
"What's gadding, Pop?" asked Master Jakie, the goulash having ceased to chain his interest.
"Well, she wanted her job back and I gave it to her, and glad to get her back again. There's class to that girl. She's the sort of girl I want in the place. Don't seem quite to have so much get-up in her as she used to... seems kind of quieted down... but she's got class, and I'm glad she's back. I hope she'll stay. But don't it show you?"
"Ah!" said Mrs. Abrahams, with more enthusiasm than before. It had not worked out such a bad story after all. In its essentials it was not unlike the film she had seen the previous evening—Gloria Gooch in "A Girl against the World."
"Pop!" said Master Abrahams.
"Yes, Jakie?"
"When I'm grown up, I won't never lose no money. I'll put it in the bank and save it."
The slight depression caused by the contemplation of Sally's troubles left Mr. Abrahams as mist melts beneath a sunbeam.
"That's a good boy, Jakie," he said.
He felt in his waistcoat pocket, found a dime, put it back again, and bent forward and patted Master Abrahams on the head.
CHAPTER XV. UNCLE DONALD SPEAKS HIS MIND
There is in certain men—and Bruce Carmyle was one of them—a quality of resilience, a sturdy refusal to acknowledge defeat, which aids them as effectively in affairs of the heart as in encounters of a sterner and more practical kind. As a wooer, Bruce Carmyle resembled that durable type of pugilist who can only give of his best after he has received at least one substantial wallop on some tender spot. Although Sally had refused his offer of marriage quite definitely at Monk's Crofton, it had never occurred to him to consider the episode closed. All his life he had been accustomed to getting what he wanted, and he meant to get it now.
He was quite sure that he wanted Sally. There had been moments when he had been conscious of certain doubts, but in the smart of temporary defeat these had vanished. That streak of Bohemianism in her which from time to time since their first meeting had jarred upon his orderly mind was forgotten; and all that Mr. Carmyle could remember was the brightness of her eyes, the jaunty lift of her chin, and the gallant trimness of her. Her gay prettiness seemed to flick at him like a whip in the darkness of wakeful nights, lashing him to pursuit. And quietly and methodically, like a respectable wolf settling on the trail of a Red Riding Hood, he prepared to pursue. Delicacy and imagination might have kept him back, but in these qualities he had never been strong. One cannot have everything.
His preparations for departure, though he did his best to make them swiftly and secretly, did not escape the notice of the Family. In many English families there seems to exist a system of inter-communication and news-distribution like that of those savage tribes in Africa who pass the latest item of news and interest from point to point over miles of intervening jungle by some telepathic method never properly explained. On his last night in London, there entered to Bruce Carmyle at his apartment in South Audley Street, the Family's chosen representative, the man to whom the Family pointed with pride—Uncle Donald, in the flesh.
There were two hundred and forty pounds of the flesh Uncle Donald was in, and the chair in which he deposited it creaked beneath its burden. Once, at Monk's Crofton, Sally had spoiled a whole morning for her brother Fillmore, by indicating Uncle Donald as the exact image of what he would be when he grew up. A superstition, cherished from early schooldays, that he had a weak heart had caused the Family's managing director to abstain from every form of exercise for nearly fifty years; and, as he combined with a distaste for exercise one of the three heartiest appetites in the south-western postal division of London, Uncle Donald, at sixty-two, was not a man one would willingly have lounging in one's armchairs. Bruce Carmyle's customary respectfulness was tinged with something approaching dislike as he looked at him.
Uncle Donald's walrus moustache heaved gently upon his laboured breath, like seaweed on a ground-swell. There had been stairs to climb.
"What's this? What's this?" he contrived to ejaculate at last. "You packing?"
"Yes," said Mr. Carmyle, shortly. For the first time in his life he was conscious of that sensation of furtive guilt which was habitual with his cousin Ginger when in the presence of this large, mackerel-eyed man.
"You going away?"
"Yes."
"Where you going?"
"America."
"When you going?"
"To-morrow morning."
"Why you going?"
This dialogue has been set down as though it had been as brisk and snappy as any cross-talk between vaudeville comedians, but in reality Uncle Donald's peculiar methods of conversation had stretched it over a period of nearly three minutes: for after each reply and before each question he had puffed and sighed and inhaled his moustache with such painful deliberation that his companion's nerves were finding it difficult to bear up under the strain.
"You're going after that girl," said Uncle Donald, accusingly.
Bruce Carmyle flushed darkly. And it is interesting to record that at this moment there flitted through his mind the thought that Ginger's behaviour at Bleke's Coffee House, on a certain notable occasion, had not been so utterly inexcusable as he had supposed. There was no doubt that the Family's Chosen One could be trying.
"Will you have a whisky and soda, Uncle Donald?" he said, by way of changing the conversation.
"Yes," said his relative, in pursuance of a vow he had made in the early eighties never to refuse an offer of this kind. "Gimme!"
You would have thought that that would have put matters on a pleasanter footing. But no. Having lapped up the restorative, Uncle Donald returned to the attack quite un-softened.
"Never thought you were a fool before," he said severely.
Bruce Carmyle's proud spirit chafed. This sort of interview, which had become a commonplace with his cousin Ginger, was new to him. Hitherto, his actions had received neither criticism nor been subjected to it.
"I'm not a fool."
"You are a fool. A d
amn fool," continued Uncle Donald, specifying more exactly. "Don't like the girl. Never did. Not a nice girl. Didn't like her. Right from the first."
"Need we discuss this?" said Bruce Carmyle, dropping, as he was apt to do, into the grand manner.
The Head of the Family drank in a layer of moustache and blew it out again.
"Need we discuss it?" he said with asperity. "We're going to discuss it! Whatch think I climbed all these blasted stairs for with my weak heart? Gimme another!"
Mr. Carmyle gave him another.
"'S a bad business," moaned Uncle Donald, having gone through the movements once more. "Shocking bad business. If your poor father were alive, whatch think he'd say to your tearing across the world after this girl? I'll tell you what he'd say. He'd say... What kind of whisky's this?"
"O'Rafferty Special."
"New to me. Not bad. Quite good. Sound. Mellow. Wherej get it?"
"Bilby's in Oxford Street."
"Must order some. Mellow. He'd say... well, God knows what he'd say. Whatch doing it for? Whatch doing it for? That's what I can't see. None of us can see. Puzzles your uncle George. Baffles your aunt Geraldine. Nobody can understand it. Girl's simply after your money. Anyone can see that."
"Pardon me, Uncle Donald," said Mr. Carmyle, stiffly, "but that is surely rather absurd. If that were the case, why should she have refused me at Monk's Crofton?"
"Drawing you on," said Uncle Donald, promptly. "Luring you on. Well-known trick. Girl in 1881, when I was at Oxford, tried to lure me on. If I hadn't had some sense and a weak heart... Whatch know of this girl? Whatch know of her? That's the point. Who is she? Wherej meet her?"
"I met her at Roville, in France."
"Travelling with her family?"
"Travelling alone," said Bruce Carmyle, reluctantly.
"Not even with that brother of hers? Bad!" said Uncle Donald. "Bad, bad!"
"American girls are accustomed to more independence than English girls."
"That young man," said Uncle Donald, pursuing a train of thought, "is going to be fat one of these days, if he doesn't look out. Travelling alone, was she? What did you do? Catch her eye on the pier?"
"Really, Uncle Donald!"
"Well, must have got to know her somehow."
"I was introduced to her by Lancelot. She was a friend of his."
"Lancelot!" exploded Uncle Donald, quivering all over like a smitten jelly at the loathed name. "Well, that shows you what sort of a girl she is. Any girl that would be a friend of... Unpack!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Unpack! Mustn't go on with this foolery. Out of the question. Find some girl make you a good wife. Your aunt Mary's been meeting some people name of Bassington-Bassington, related Kent Bassington-Bassingtons... eldest daughter charming girl, just do for you."
Outside the pages of the more old-fashioned type of fiction nobody ever really ground his teeth, but Bruce Carmyle came nearer to it at that moment than anyone had ever come before. He scowled blackly, and the last trace of suavity left him.
"I shall do nothing of the kind," he said briefly. "I sail to-morrow."
Uncle Donald had had a previous experience of being defied by a nephew, but it had not accustomed him to the sensation. He was aware of an unpleasant feeling of impotence. Nothing is harder than to know what to do next when defied.
"Eh?" he said.
Mr. Carmyle having started to defy, evidently decided to make a good job of it.
"I am over twenty-one," said he. "I am financially independent. I shall do as I please."
"But, consider!" pleaded Uncle Donald, painfully conscious of the weakness of his words. "Reflect!"
"I have reflected."
"Your position in the county..."
"I've thought of that."
"You could marry anyone you pleased."
"I'm going to."
"You are determined to go running off to God-knows-where after this Miss I-can't-even-remember-her-dam-name?"
"Yes."
"Have you considered," said Uncle Donald, portentously, "that you owe a duty to the Family."
Bruce Carmyle's patience snapped and he sank like a stone to absolutely Gingerian depths of plain-spokenness.
"Oh, damn the Family!" he cried.
There was a painful silence, broken only by the relieved sigh of the armchair as Uncle Donald heaved himself out of it.
"After that," said Uncle Donald, "I have nothing more to say."
"Good!" said Mr. Carmyle rudely, lost to all shame.
"'Cept this. If you come back married to that girl, I'll cut you in Piccadilly. By George, I will!"
He moved to the door. Bruce Carmyle looked down his nose without speaking. A tense moment.
"What," asked Uncle Donald, his fingers on the handle, "did you say it was called?"
"What was what called?"
"That whisky."
"O'Rafferty Special."
"And wherj get it?"
"Bilby's, in Oxford Street."
"I'll make a note of it," said Uncle Donald.
CHAPTER XVI. AT THE FLOWER GARDEN
1
"And after all I've done for her," said Mr. Reginald Cracknell, his voice tremulous with self-pity and his eyes moist with the combined effects of anguish and over-indulgence in his celebrated private stock, "after all I've done for her she throws me down."
Sally did not reply. The orchestra of the Flower Garden was of a calibre that discouraged vocal competition; and she was having, moreover, too much difficulty in adjusting her feet to Mr. Cracknell's erratic dance-steps to employ her attention elsewhere. They manoeuvred jerkily past the table where Miss Mabel Hobson, the Flower Garden's newest "hostess," sat watching the revels with a distant hauteur. Miss Hobson was looking her most regal in old gold and black, and a sorrowful gulp escaped the stricken Mr. Cracknell as he shambled beneath her eye.
"If I told you," he moaned in Sally's ear, "what... was that your ankle? Sorry! Don't know what I'm doing to-night... If I told you what I had spent on that woman, you wouldn't believe it. And then she throws me down. And all because I said I didn't like her in that hat. She hasn't spoken to me for a week, and won't answer when I call up on the 'phone. And I was right, too. It was a rotten hat. Didn't suit her a bit. But that," said Mr. Cracknell, morosely, "is a woman all over!"
Sally uttered a stifled exclamation as his wandering foot descended on hers before she could get it out of the way. Mr. Cracknell interpreted the ejaculation as a protest against the sweeping harshness of his last remark, and gallantly tried to make amends.
"I don't mean you're like that," he said. "You're different. I could see that directly I saw you. You have a sympathetic nature. That's why I'm telling you all this. You're a sensible and broad-minded girl and can understand. I've done everything for that woman. I got her this job as hostess here—you wouldn't believe what they pay her. I starred her in a show once. Did you see those pearls she was wearing? I gave her those. And she won't speak to me. Just because I didn't like her hat. I wish you could have seen that hat. You would agree with me, I know, because you're a sensible, broad-minded girl and understand hats. I don't know what to do. I come here every night." Sally was aware of this. She had seen him often, but this was the first time that Lee Schoenstein, the gentlemanly master of ceremonies, had inflicted him on her. "I come here every night and dance past her table, but she won't look at me. What," asked Mr. Cracknell, tears welling in his pale eyes, "would you do about it?"
"I don't know," said Sally, frankly.
"Nor do I. I thought you wouldn't, because you're a sensible, broad-minded... I mean, nor do I. I'm having one last try to-night, if you can keep a secret. You won't tell anyone, will you?" pleaded Mr. Cracknell, urgently. "But I know you won't because you're a sensible... I'm giving her a little present. Having it brought here to-night. Little present. That ought to soften her, don't you think?"
"A big one would do it better."
Mr. Cracknell kicked her on the shin in
a dismayed sort of way.
"I never thought of that. Perhaps you're right. But it's too late now. Still, it might. Or wouldn't it? Which do you think?"
"Yes," said Sally.
"I thought as much," said Mr. Cracknell.
The orchestra stopped with a thump and a bang, leaving Mr. Cracknell clapping feebly in the middle of the floor. Sally slipped back to her table. Her late partner, after an uncertain glance about him, as if he had mislaid something but could not remember what, zigzagged off in search of his own seat. The noise of many conversations, drowned by the music, broke out with renewed vigour. The hot, close air was full of voices; and Sally, pressing her hands on her closed eyes, was reminded once more that she had a headache.
Nearly a month had passed since her return to Mr. Abrahams' employment. It had been a dull, leaden month, a monotonous succession of lifeless days during which life had become a bad dream. In some strange nightmare fashion, she seemed nowadays to be cut off from her kind. It was weeks since she had seen a familiar face. None of the companions of her old boarding-house days had crossed her path. Fillmore, no doubt from uneasiness of conscience, had not sought her out, and Ginger was working out his destiny on the south shore of Long Island.
She lowered her hands and opened her eyes and looked at the room. It was crowded, as always. The Flower Garden was one of the many establishments of the same kind which had swum to popularity on the rising flood of New York's dancing craze; and doubtless because, as its proprietor had claimed, it was a nice place and run nice, it had continued, unlike many of its rivals, to enjoy unvarying prosperity. In its advertisement, it described itself as "a supper-club for after-theatre dining and dancing," adding that "large and spacious, and sumptuously appointed," it was "one of the town's wonder-places, with its incomparable dance-floor, enchanting music, cuisine, and service de luxe." From which it may be gathered, even without his personal statements to that effect, that Isadore Abrahams thought well of the place.
The Adventures of Sally Page 20