Читать книгу Bring the Monkey - Miles Franklin - Страница 8

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Her entry was not to be jeopardised by precipitancy, and while we had been waiting she informed me that during the war, Tattingwood Hall had been lent as a hospital for officers, and Clarice Lesserman had worked there as a V.A.D. Thus had she met her future husband, and also a handsome young second lieutenant, Cecil Stopworth. Away out on the shores of Lake Taupo, Lady Tattingwood had told some of her story to Zarl--the more romantic parts, her tongue loosened to sentimental reminiscence by the inebriating New Zealand moonlight. Lady Tattingwood's friends--so-called--had told Zarl other facets of the affair later.

Glamorous days for Clarice, aging and disillusioned, to look back upon, days when she had nearly run away with the handsome boy, son of an impoverished Indian Civil Servant, whose University career had been interrupted to join up. She had been saved on the brink of folly because whispering tongues insisted upon the fact that she was twelve years her lover's senior, and rich, very rich, and the war was making her much richer, while he would have to depend on his own exertions. Some people, who meant well, put old Lesserman on the trail. Others had suggested that Stopworth was a caddish fortune hunter.

In the antipodean moonlight Clarice confessed to Zarl her regrets that she had not risked all, because Cecil Stopworth's name had never from that day onward been connected with other women. His affection might have been that one example in a million of lasting romance, despite disparity in age and fortune.

The not very serious wounds that had taken Stopworth to Tattingwood Military Hospital, were all that he suffered in the war. He rose to be a Captain, won the Military Cross, and in due order was demobilised and thrown on his own resources. To return to the University was impossible. He had not the means, and had lost the urge. His father had died and his mother was reduced to a small pension. He had the experience of many other young men following the war, and in desperation filed an application, and was accepted as a member of the Police Force.

He had been too proud to permit Clarice Lesserman to sacrifice herself by eloping with him.

In the Force he found work that he liked, and when practicable made application for removal to the Criminal Investigation Department, where he quickly attracted attention. His rise was rapid owing to his successful solution of several criminal mysteries. He came of a good family, and, as the years passed, he renewed his acquaintance with Lady Tattingwood. As he had simple tastes and remained a bachelor, his salary was sufficient for his needs, and he was sometimes to be seen at other week-ends too. It was predicted that he would one day be Commissioner. He was well-suited to his post and seemed to have no interests outside it. With his splendid good looks, charming manners and ability he could easily have advanced himself by marriage, but women were not one of his weaknesses. No one believed that he had a throb of anything but friendship for Clarice, because she looked her years without subterfuge, but the lamp that she had lighted for him was still burning. She was fortunate beyond the dreams of most women that he never humiliated her by affairs with other women, at least none that were known to her circle.

She was now fifty-one or -two, and Captain Stopworth in the last of his thirties. I was glad that the hero of this interesting romance was to be quartered almost with us.

There had been no romance in the second marriage of Tattingwood to Clarice Lesserman. Everyone knew it for what it was. The lady, when forty, had contributed her fortune to the support of Tattingwood Hall in return for position and name. It served as well as most unions, and vas a splendid investment for many of those who depended on week-ends. Tattingwood liked to dispense hospitality in the pre-war way, and Clarice was so kind and unforceful that she never made anyone unhappy.

Zarl assured me that Lord Tattingwood had not always been the frump of to-day. His life had been full of romance. His father was only second cousin of the Fifteenth Baron, and Swithwulf had been designed for the Church. He had escaped this for the army, and had his chance in the Boer war, from which he returned a hero with the V.C. He had been invited by his elderly cousin to stay with the son and heir, a quiet soul addicted to the laboratory, and with no taste for being a landed gentleman. He looked forward with regret to stepping into his father's shoes, whereas Swithwulf would have sold his soul to possess the old place. It was a passion with him. A great horseman, a crack shot, a champion at games, he was a popular figure. People said it was a pity that he could not change with the heir, to whom hunting and similar pursuits were a burden. When it happened that the young man accidentally shot himself and Swithwulf reigned in his stead, all seemed as it should have been.

My head was full of the story as I went down to tea in the wake of Zarl with Percy in my arms. We could not allow him to be near the lounge suite. He had had a good snooze in the train and was far from a cuddly mood, alert to leap in all directions like a crab propelled by a Jennie wink. He was so beyond reason that I put him down, whereupon he descended the stairs with dignity. He liked Tattingwood Hall as much as I did, and probably for analogous reasons. Its spaciousness suggested our native habitats. He slid forward utterly silent, with an electric ease approaching that of fish in water. Arrived amid the company, all eyes were his, as always, wherever he appeared in whatever society.

Zarl's status was quite well upheld by her maid's smart uniform, and, with the addition of Percy, it would be difficult for any other maid to be more special. Zarl was so bewitching in her modish garments and astonishing curls that it would take a transcendent film star to eclipse her.

Cedd Spillbeans came towards her. "Hello! Why this organ-grinder monkey motley touch?"

"I'm so broke that I hope you'll cross Percy's hand with silver."

At this, Jimmy Wengham, who was still practising with the dirk in the corner, desisted, and exclaimed "Surely that's not the stinkin' little blighter I brought over in the old Haviland."

"No one ever knew Zarl so long faithful to any male," said young Spillbeans.

"Do you mean the monkey or me?" demanded Wengham.

On beholding the company, Percy bolted to my arms and showed his teeth in a grin that was merely nervous, but which to the uninitiated looked vicious. One affected lady of mature years, in the dress of a flapper, made a fuss of 'the dear little darling' and wanted to clasp him to her attenuated frame, but a monkey is not that kind of cat. Percy threw himself about and attempted to smack the lady.

"Spiteful little creature," she hissed, and turned to the company. "Monkeys are dangerous things. You never can trust them, Never! I know of awful cases of accidents with them. He's just a common little monkey, isn't he?"

"I wish the little cow would understand which side his bread is buttered," whispered Zarl to me.

"He's going to, this evening," I whispered in return.

He was not at all attracted to the company filling the hall. He clutched me tight and tried to climb inside my dress. At the approach of Wengham he screeched and fluffed out his fur and became a fierce beast in miniature.

"Hal Ha! Jimmy," exclaimed Zarl. "What did you do to him when you were travelling together?"

Everyone laughed, to the discomfiture of Jimmy.

"I had to keep the little blighters in order. You're only a little mongrel, not worth the trouble you were," he said, tickling Percy under the chin. "Say Zarl, will you let me take a shot at him at twenty paces with this knife. Just for practice!"

"He notta lika you," I murmured, gathering Percy to me.

"The little fellow feels instinctively that you are one of those horrid blood sports creatures," said Zarl.

He settled down somewhat, but peeped entertainingly at his enemy, raising his fur. To divert him I set him before a long mirror, and much to the glee of the company he danced for the fellow monkey that he saw in its depths.

"Say Zarl," called Jimmy, "Don't you want to come with me on a world flight, and bring the monkey for a mascot? It would be simply coloss!"

"It would be colossical! When do we start?" demanded Zarl, the champagne bubbles rising, and her sudden interest in Jimmy going to his head.

"Just as soon as I gather the beans. If you and the monkey could charm some fat-necked millionaire into providing a machine--a Puss Moth like Miss Zaltuffrie's."

"What is the matter with Miss Zaltuffrie's?"

"Now that's a wizard idea! I've got everything wrapped up except money. The thing is to get away ahead of the crowd! It's a damned pity you aren't an heiress, Zarl!"

"I find it an inconvenience myself, but the inevitable fate of heiresses consoles me." She could have been thinking of her hostess as her host shambled about.

"The competition is awful when the heiress isn't," admitted Jimmy, "but I must get money somewhere, even if I turn burglar."

"Your state of mind should be reported to Captain Stopworth," said Zarl, as a gentleman entered from the stairway. He came straight to Percy. So this was the famous Chief Inspector! He had the touch that goes with love of animals. Percy looked steadily up at him from his pretty brown eyes so beautifully set in the dearest or little faces, and offered a tiny hand. He took the Captain's thumb in his mouth, and next tried to chew a button off his coat.

"What a success he would be on the films," the Inspector remarked, and strolled over to help his hostess with the placing of the tea trays. Her eyes lighted at his approach. It would be much more difficult to be sure of the state of the handsome Captain's emotions.

"What should be reported to me?" he inquired lightly.

"Only that Jimmy says he would do anything for money, and so should I, if I had an easy chance."

"Go on the films," recommended the gentleman.

"It would be as easy to win the Hospital Sweep," said Zarl.

The tea was cooling as the air grew heavier with the imminence of Ydonea Zaltuffrie. All the social members of her retinue were suitably disposed about the interior, among them, her mother, a plain woman from the Middle-West who stuck to her plain name of Mrs. Burden. She was called Mrs. Zaltuffrie, but more generally "Mommer." Ydonea so patently capitalised the universal mother complex that Mommer Zaltuffrie was suspected of being a hard-fisted and -headed non-relative hired to play the sentimental part. Managers, directors or such potentates of the industry stood about and made standardised pronouncements on the beauty and cleverness of Miss Zaltuffrie, or emitted spontaneous "best bets" or "wise-cracks" as to what would relieve the slump in the trade. One had one dearth of idea, and one another, but they were generally agreed that the total elimination of the author would be a tremendous advance. One little man evidently had a place in the industry as commanding as his proboscis. "An imposing thing carried altogether too far," as Zarl described it. It was likewise bearded within, which thickened his accent. "Not an accent, the honk of a siren, yet not a siren," again to quote Zarl.

"Authors," said this gentleman, "Are the bummest lot of cranks I have ever been up against. Why the heck they aren't content to beat it once they get a price for their stuff, gets my goat."

"I'll say you've thrown off a mouthful there," agreed his companion. "They are egotistical and jealous as cats. What surprises me about them--or it don't surprise me no longer--is that they can't say anything interesting to me."

There was ready agreement that authors were a wanton tax on any industry, whether publishing, drama or pictures.

"Then why have them at all?" interposed Zarl.

"The public has kinda gotta complex about authors. It's an old sooperstition hard to banish. They think you gotta have a big author; and the bigger they are the deader they are above the neck."

"They're just the dumbest things," said another.

"Perhaps if you lent them your megaphones they could be noisier," suggested Zarl.

"They sure need something," agreed the honk from the bearded beak. "You can wear your life away making them known and then they think you are trying to rob them. If you use a few of their little wise cracks..."

"It might be a colossically new idea to crack your own wisdom," interpolated Zarl, "and teach the cows a lesson." She was so enchantingly demure that Cedd Spillbeans came to the rescue of his guests.

"I understand your point of view," he said suavely. "That is why I want you to see my film--one reason. It has been assembled by experts in the industry, not written by some wayward outsider."

"Oh, Boy! You've said something there. That's what put it across with me."

"Yeah! Me too! Right away when I asked who was the author and you said you had given those old guys the go by..."

The cue for Ydonea's entry interrupted this speaker, a virtuoso with a formidable cigar that lolled upon his lips like a German sausage sustained by miraculous levitation. The million dollar beauty was coming, in the part of enchanted fairy princess. Her aureole of hair was palest gold, commercialised as platinum--still more costly. She was a pioneer in this innovation. It suggested ethereality as she descended with the light from a great glass chandelier upon it. The first sight of such fresh young beauty was breath-taking. Her form was tall and lily slender, but voluptuous--no skinniness--supple as an oriental dancer's. Her nose was perfect in bridge and nostrils, her eyebrows dark, her lashes long. She had one of those mouths so obligingly patterned that she had only to part the bowed lips to make a smile to cheer a photographer. She wore her nails long and claw-like and bright rose. Her eyes matched her mouth and nose in beauty. They were large and meltingly brown--like Percy's. There was no nerviness to give them exotic meaning. Her laughter was not the kind that puts wrinkles at the top of the cheeks, but no one would discern this while such beauty was so loudly advertised, at least no infatuated male creature. A sober woman remarking it would be suspected of envy.

She impersonated perfectly the exquisite unspotted maiden, with Mommer ever at hand as a fortification against fornication and other vulgarities ancient and modern. She was attired with that utter simplicity attainable by none but famous couturiers regardless of expense, and had no jewel or ornament upon her person. No silks or velvets for afternoon tea, but some mythical stuff, like sunkist ivory sea foam against a cliff, frothed down the dark stairs. Her man secretary, a young Englishman with a public school "man-nah," who had been engaged for decorative purposes, carried her billowing train, while her rousing utilitarian American woman secretary came behind him and kept a managerial eye on the tableau. When Ydonea halted, her mother rose and fluffed out her train around her with a few finishing touches as to a little girl going to a party. These endearments were advertised as too sweet and cute for anything in middleclass minded society, but were critically received by the assembled hard-bitten fox-hunters and poor relations.

"Oh, a dear 'cute little monkey!" exclaimed Ydonea, declining tea and coming towards Percy.

Miss Bitcalf-Spillbeans, whom Percy had rebuffed earlier in the evening, hastened to say that monkeys were never safe, never. Secretaries and Mommer advised Ydonea to be careful, but she liked the long mirror as much as did Percy, and came on.

Percy had been prepared by a slender diet during twenty-four hours, as he is more amenable with an appetite than with a full tummy. I unostentatiously handed Ydonea a baked chestnut. For this bribe Percy ecstatically deserted me, being that way constituted morally. He sat in Ydonea's arms expertly tearing the hull off the dainty, emitting engaging grunts of satisfaction. Miss Zaltuffrie expressed her delight.

"Oh, boy! I don't know when I've had such a kick out of anything!"

When Percy had finished the chestnut he began to chaw a hole in the diaphanous sleeve of her gown and then to rend it right and left. He loved to tear rag. His new friend would not permit his pleasure to be curtailed. A lady who could command contracts for fifty thousand pounds at par was not obliged to be uneasy about her finery.

"It doesn't matter. He can have the whole thing to play with, the 'cute little darling. I just love him to death right away."

Miss Zaltuffrie must have a monkey forthwith. She could not understand why she had not thought of one before. "Why didn't I think of having a monkey?" she demanded of Zarl, who murmured disarmingly that it was easier to let others think.

"I must have one for my next picture. I'll have this one. Whose is he?" she demanded of me. I indicated Zarl, who was sitting on a pouff on the hearth rug smoking one of the Elephant Hunter's cigarettes, while Jimmy Wengham gazed down at her with a he-man craving inflaming his expression.

Ydonea again turned in that direction, clicking her fingers to draw attention. "Say, Miss, on the Turkish cushion, what do you want for your monkey?"

Zarl, if she heard, affected not to. She continued her jocular blandishments.

"Say, Miss Zaltuffrie is wanting you," said Jimmy, being in that lady's employ.

"Say, what do you want for your monkey?"

"Nothing at all, thank you. He has more than is good for him already." She turned back to Jimmy. "Everyone spoils him in public, and I get the backwash of it in private, and have to discipline him."

"Oh, Miss Thingamebob, I meant how much money will you take for him?" persisted Ydonea, raising her voice.

"One does not sell one's friends. Miss What-you-may-call-'em," said Zarl, turning to the Elephant Hunter.

The perspicacious laughed to their interiors, but Ydonea was good-tempered as well as thick-skinned and ignorant--an undefeatable combination with beauty added. It accounted for her height on the golden ladder of industry.

"Do you put the little blighter out in the kennels?" said Jimmy, to ease the air.

"Indeed, no!" replied Lady Tattingwood. "The dear wee fellow is an invited guest and has the room next to mine." She, an heiress, married for her soap substance, was delighted with Zarl's repartee. Zarl could toss off the things that Clarice herself would have liked to say.

Cedd, commercially in attendance, tactfully observed "I expect the acquisition of Percy will have to proceed like that of other stars. We could offer him a contract. Princes tout for them now."

Percy having wrecked a thousand dollar confection with the aplomb of the governing classes now complacently came to me.

"Do you go with the monkey?" inquired Ydonea.

"Oh, yes. I have come with da leetle fellow. Alway. Da leetle monk he crya without me. I da coolie on da piece of string. I love mooch da leetle Percy."

"Oh, Cedd, you must give her a contract too," exclaimed Ydonea, clapping her hands. "I'll say she's as 'cute as the monkey!"

"That's a wizard idea," approved Jimmy, coming forward. He began to eye me. His expression indicated a straining memory. To elude its capture I excused myself on the score of Percy's needs and made an inconspicuous escape.