Luck of the Bodkins (18 page)

'You mean my alligator?'

‘
Yes.'

Miss Blossom seemed surprised.

'Why, sure. Who's going to hurt him?'

‘I
mean,' said Monty, perceiving that she had missed the gist, 'doesn't he gnaw one to the bone, or anything?'

'Not,' said Miss Blossom, 'if you don't tease him. I wouldn't wiggle my toes if I were you. He's apt to snap at moving objects.'

A great calm fell on Monty's toes.

'Well,' said Miss Blossom, returning to her original theme, 'how's tricks? You weren't feeling so good yesterday, were you? Is this your first trip across?'

Monty, about to nod, refrained, fearing lest the movement might come under the head of those that the alligator was accustomed to snap at.

'Yes,' he said.

'Then I don't wonder that storm upset you. Personally,
I
enjoyed it. I always feel that if there's a storm you're getting your money's worth. Talking of storms, I met Ambrose outside.'

'Yes. He had been in here.
’

'How did you think he was looking?
’

'A bit on the mouldy side, what?'

'Me, too.
’
Miss Blossom smiled tenderly. 'Poor clam,' she said, with a loving quaver in her voice. 'I've broken our engagement, you know.'

'On, yes?'

'Yes, sir. That's what I meant about storms. One broke loose on the top deck that first night out. Some breeze!'
‘
Oh, yes.'

'Yes, sir. We went to the mat all right
’
‘
And the engagement's broken?' 'Well, call it cracked. I'm going to make it up today.' 'That's good. He seemed to me as if he was brooding on it a bit
’

'Yes, he's taken it pretty hard. Still, it's all for his own good. He'll be much happier in the long run if he gets it into his bean that he can't pull a James Cagney on me every time he's a mite upset. Just imagine! Flying off the handle that way because I kissed his brother Reggie! Why shouldn't I kiss Reggie?'

‘
Quite.'

‘I
think a girl's right to put a stick of dynamite underneath the loved one every now and then, when he gets above himself, don't you?'

'Oh, rather.
’

'Her dignity demands it
’
'Definitely.'

'This makes the third time I've done it. Broken the engagement, I mean. The first was forty-three seconds after I'd said I would marry him.'

'Forty-three seconds?'

'Forty-three seconds. I guess that's a record. European, anyway. Yessir, forty-three seconds after I'd said I'd marry him I broke the engagement because he took a swing at Wilfred.'

‘
Your little brother?'

'My little alligator. I held Wilfred up to his face and said: "Kiss papa," and Ambrose gave a short horrible gurgle and knocked him out of my hands. Imagine! Might have cracked him.'

She spoke indignantly, as one confident of the sympathy of her audience, but Monty found himself entirely pro-Ambrose. He considered that in the scene thus vividly described the novelist had acted with great courage and spirit, and wished, as Wilfred, yawning broadly, nestled against his right foot, that he was man enough to do the same. This alligator was, no doubt, of great value to his guest in her professional capacity, but meeting it socially, as it
were,
like this was preying upon his spirits.

He was also wondering how much longer Miss Blossom intended to remain.

‘
It took him a week to square himself that time. The other time was more kind of serious, because it really looked as if it was going to be the finish. It was when we'd got to discussing what we were going to do after we were married. He wanted to live in London, and me, my career being in good old Dottyville-on-the-Pacific, naturally I wanted to go there. Well, sir, we argued back and forth and didn't get nowheres. Ambrose is about as pig-headed as they come, and there aren't many mules that couldn't pick up hints from me once I've made up my mind to a thing, so there we were, and in the end I got mad and said: "Oh, hell, let's call it all off," and we did. And then suddenly along comes Ikey Llewellyn with this offer of his and everything was hotsy-totsy.'

Miss Blossom fell to powdering her nose. Monty coughed.
He
looked at her like a hostess collecting eyes at the end of a dinner-party. Had it been simply a matter of enjoying listening to her, he would have been well content to prolong this interview, for he found her conversation replete with interest. But that fear of his would not be stilled, that haunting fear that Albert Peasemarch might prove to have been an unreliable judge of form where pure, sweet English girls were concerned.

'Er - well -' he said.

That time,' resumed Miss Blossom, studying her nose in her mirror and giving it a final touch, 'things did look kind of serious. Yessir. But what's happened now is nothing. In about half an hour he'll be folding me in his arms and saying can I ever forgive him, and I'll be saying: "Oh, Ambrose!" and he'll be saying that it isn't only the thought of having hurt me that hurts him, though that hurts him a lot, but that why he's really hurt is because he knows it hurts me to feel that he has hurt himself by hurting me. I have to laugh when I think of him out in that corridor just now. He's a scream, that boy, and I love him to bits. You never saw anything so haughty. "Good morning," he said, and he just drew himself up and gave me one look and irised out. What nuts men are! There ought to be a law.' Monty coughed again.

'Quite,' he said. 'And now, as I expect you've all sorts of things to do this morning -'
‘
Oh, that's all right'

'Engagements here and engagements there -
’
'No, I've no dates.'

Monty was reluctantly compelled to make himself plainer. 'Don't you think,' he suggested deferentially, 'that it might be as well if you were pushing along now, what?' 'Pushing along?' 'Beetling off,' explained Monty.

Lottie Blossom looked at him, surprised. This attitude was new to her. Men, as a sex, were inclined rather to court her society, than to endeavour to deprive themselves of it. Indeed, in the case of Spaniards at Biarritz it had sometimes seemed to her that it would be necessary to keep them off with a stick.

'But we're just beginning to take our hair down and have a real good gossip. Am I boring you, neighbour Bodkin?'

‘
No, no.'

Then what's biting you?
’
Monty picked at the coverlet.

'Well... it's like this ... it occurred to me ... it crossed my mind ... as a possibility, don't you know ... that - er -Gertrude-'

‘
Who's Gertrude?'

‘
My fiancee ... Itstruck me that Gertrude might possibly take it into her head to look in here to see if I was awake... In which event -'

'I didn't know you were engaged.'

‘
I am. To be absolutely frank, yes, I am.'

'Would that be the girl I met in here that first day?'

'Yes.'

'Seemed a nice girl.
’
'Oh, rather. She is.'

'Gertrude, did you say?
’
‘
That's right. Gertrude.'

Miss Blossom's eyebrows contracted thoughtfully.

'Gertrude? I'm not sure I like the name Gertrude much.
’
‘
Of
course, there's Gertrude Lawrence -'

'Quite,' said Monty. 'But it isn't Gertrude Lawrence I want to stress so much, if you see what I mean, at this juncture, as Gertrude Butterwick.'

Miss Blossom laughed that hearty laugh of hers.

'Is that her name? Butterwick?'

‘
Yes.
’

'What a scream!'

‘I
don't like it much myself,' agreed Monty. 'It always reminds me of J. G. Butterwick, her father, of Butterwick, Price & Mandelbaum, Export and Import Merchants. But that isn't the point. The point is -
’

'You think she'd be sore if she found me in here?'

'I don't think she'd be any too pleased. She wasn't last time. In fact, I don't mind telling you that you took quite a bit of explaining away.'

Miss Blossom pursed her lips. She seemed to disapprove.

'Got one of those low minds, has she, this Miss Buttersplosh?'

'Not at all,' said Monty warmly. 'Far from it. She's got about as high a mind as she can stick. And her name isn't Butter-splosh. It's Butter-wick.'

'Just as bad,' said Miss Blossom critically.

'It's not half as bad. There's no comparison. And, anyway, we aren't talking about her name, we're talking about what she would think if she saw you sitting here, practically on my toes. It would give her a fit. You see, there are wheels within wheels. Regeje Tennyson, like a silly ass, went and gave her the impression that I was a fairly mere butterfly. And that, coming right on top of that tattoo mark on my chest-'

'What tattoo mark would that be?
’

'Oh, it's a long story. Boiling it down, I was once engaged to a girl called Sue Brown and I had her name tattooed on my chest with a heart round it -'

'Golly!' said Miss Blossom, much intrigued. 'Let's look.'

Monty was sitting with his back against the head of the bed,
so was unable to recoil far. But he recoiled as far
as he could. 'No, dash it!'

‘
Ah, come on.' ‘
No, really.'

'What's the matter with you? Chests are nothing among friends. You can't shock me. I once played the love interest in
Bozo the Ape Man
’

'I dare say, but -
’

'Come on. Do.'

'No, I'm dashed if I will.
’

'Oh, very well. Keep your old chest, then.
’

Hurt and disappointed, Miss Blossom gathered up the alligator, adjusted the pink ribbon about its neck and left the room. It was as she closed Monty's door and started to go to her own in order to restore Wilfred to his wickerwork basket that Gertrude came along the passage.

It had been Gertrude's intention to knock on Monty's door and tell him that he ought to get up and enjoy the lovely sunshine. She abandoned this project. Having stared for a moment, she turned sharply and went on deck again.

It seemed to Monty from time to time during the remainder of that day of blue skies and soft breezes that the girl he loved was a little rummy in her manner. Nothing that you could put your hand on exactly, but rummy. She fell into sudden silences. Every now and then, glancing up, he would find her gaze on him in a rather thoughtful way. Or not so much thoughtful, perhaps, as ... well, rummy. It weighed upon him a little.

By night-time, however, the slight sense of depression induced by this rumminess had left him. By nature resilient, he soon found it vanishing under the influence of the excellent dinner set before him by the authorities who had composed the evening's menu.

These kindly men, believing that there is nothing like a bite to eat for picking a fellow up, had provided five kinds of soup, six kinds of fish, and in addition to these preliminaries such attractive items as chicken hot-pot, roast veal, ox tail, pork cutlets, mutton chops, sausages, steak, haunch of venison, sirloin of beef, rissoles, calf's liver, brawn, York ham, Virginia ham, Bradenham ham, salmi of duck and boar's head, followed by eight varieties of pudding, a wide choice of cheese and icecreams and fruit to fill up the chinks. Monty did not take them all, but he took enough of them to send him to the boat deck greatly refreshed and in a mood of extreme sentimentality. He felt like a loving python.

The atmospheric conditions on the boat deck were of
a
nature to encourage these emotions. It was a still, warm night of stars and moonshine, and if only his cigarettes had held out Monty might have remained where he was indefinitely, probably even going to the length of trying to compose poetry.

Opening his case, however, at the end of the first hour or so and finding it empty, he decided to go to his state-room and stock up. If Gertrude had been with him on the boat deck, he would, of course, have had no need for cigarettes: but Gertrude had pleaded a bridge engagement with Jane Passenger and a couple of her team mates. So Monty went below, and he was in the act of opening the door of his state-room when he was checked by an exclamation of shocked reproof and turned to perceive Albert Peasemarch.