CHAPTER XV.
In which three young men eat, and not only eat, but drink.
There are few restaurants left in London where gentlemen may meet with some sort of privacy and with the chance of eating reasonable food. It might be more accurate to say there are none. But whether there are any left or not, I am going to invent one for the purposes of this story, and to inform you that on this same Tuesday night upon which Mr. Kirby was telephoning to Sir Alexander McAuley, Jimmy and Melba were very kindly entertaining Algernon Sawby Leonidas Brassington—Mr. Brassington, Jun., for short—at dinner in a private room at Bolter's.
Bolter's, I need hardly inform such a woman of the world as my reader, is the one place left in London where a man can dine well and yet at his ease. It stands in a little street off Regent Street eastward, and by a happy accident has been worthy of its reputation for seventy years. Either it has not paid Bolter's, or Bolter's has been too proud, but anyhow the Whelps of the Lion are quite ignorant of Bolter's, so are the cousins of the noble beast, so certainly are the greater part of such degraded natives of the European Continent as we permit to visit our Metropolis and to stare at our Imperial Populace.
Even the young bloods for the most part have not heard of Bolter's, and as it never spends a penny on advertisements, its name, on the rare occasions when it appears in an article or a letter, is ruthlessly struck out in proof by the blue pencil of the editor.
Bolter's is known and loved by perhaps two hundred families. It is a tradition, and as you may well imagine, enormously expensive. If you are two dining at Bolter's, you may expect to spend £7, and if you are three, £10. If you are very rich, it is worth your while to dine at Bolter's. If you are only moderately rich, it is worth your while. If you are poor, it is also worth your while to go to prison for not paying—so excellent is the food.
All this I tell the reader in order that he may know how and why Jimmy and Melba were entertaining their friend. That friend, though his father was a very wealthy man, was a little awed by the surroundings. He had heard of Bolter's—once or twice, not more—from the fringes of that governing world in which some of his University friends lived. He remembered the son of a Cabinet Minister complaining of Bolter's, and a peer of the realm (a former furniture dealer and picture broker and for that matter moneylender) saying that Bolter's was filthy. Such praise was praise indeed. He remembered that ladies did not go to Bolter's. He remembered talk of a dinner at Bolter's just before a little group of men had gone out in his first year to India, and now that he was sitting in Bolter's he felt duly impressed. He knew that Jimmy's people were "in" what he could never be "in." Melba was more of an enigma to him, but anyhow Melba was thick with Jimmy and Jimmy's lot. In other words, he knew that Jimmy and Melba were both on the right side of a certain line which runs round very definitely through the core of English society and encloses a very narrow central space; but, on the other hand, he knew—he had the best of reasons for knowing—that they were not exactly flush. He knew they couldn't be flush because whereas he, Leonidas, had in the past won £1,800 off them at cards—and spent it—they Jimmy and Melba, had won f2,000 off him—and had never got it! For his father (unlike their fathers) had refused to pay. But Mr. Brassington, Jun., was not the man to introduce a subject of that kind. It is a subject of the kind that jars on toffs, unless indeed the toffs themselves introduce it. And on this particular occasion they did.
Mr. Brassington, Jun., had drunk reasonably, Jimmy largely, Melba immoderately. They had come to that one of the many courses which consisted in a very small frozen bird, when Jimmy playfully threw a bone at his guest (who ducked and missed it), and followed his action with the words—
"You didn't think we should run to this, did you, Booby?"
"Well," said Algernon Sawby Leonidas Brassington delicately, "of course, I knew that you wanted me to settle, and God knows I tried."
"That 's all right," said Melba, in a voice still clear and articulate. "Your father 's paid."
And having said this, he burst into somewhat unreasoning laughter, choked, and drank a large tumbler of wine to cure his choking.
Booby was bewildered.
"My … father 's … paid?" he said slowly.
Jimmy nodded to confirm the great truth.
"Touched last week, Booby" he said.
"Where?" wondered the astonished Booby.
"At the bank," said Melba, and Jimmy added, "Oddly enough."
"Not the whole thing?" said Booby, his face changing in expression as he said it.
Melba's mouth being full for the moment, he did no more than lift up his eyes, nod and grunt. Jimmy, who was occupied in a swill, put down the inebriant, drew a breath, and said—
"The whole boodle!"
It was perhaps well for the two young men principally concerned that they were rapidly getting drunk, for in early youth the vice of drunkenness, so fatal to maturer years, will often lead to astonishing virtues. And long before they came to the cheese Jimmy and Melba had discovered that they must talk of the matter seriously. Indeed, Jimmy verged on the sentimental, Melba upon the stupidly pompous, as the ordeal approached. It was over coffee that they faced it, and brandy was their aid.
"Look here, Booby," said Jimmy, after he and Melba had spent a silent five minutes mentally egging each other on, "you ought to know the truth, it 's only fair. We made your father sign."
Algernon Sawby Leonidas Brassington had a sudden retrospective vision of his father, and he could make no sense out of the words. "You made him?" he said, flushing a little. "Cursed if you did! He 'd make you more like!"
An illogical phrase enough, but one sufficiently full of meaning.
"Possibly," said Jimmy, with the insulted dignity of a person who has dined. "If you don't want to hear about it you needn't."
"Shut up, Jimmy," said Melba diplomatically.
He tried to make his high and now uncertain voice kind as he went on to the younger Mr. Brassington—
"You see, Booby, it's like this. Th' was a lillel comprulsion—y' know. There was scene, wasn't there, Jimmy?"
"Oh, yes, scene right 'nough!" said Jimmy.
"Well, anyhow, he gave us the cheque, and then, you know, we had to prevent its getting out—his getting out, I mean."
"I don't understand a word you say," said Booby.
"No," said Jimmy too thoughtfully, glaring at the fire. "We were 'fraid that."
"If there's a row, Booby," said Melba affectionately, "if there 's real row, y' ought to be warned. That 's what we think."
"That 's it," said Jimmy.
Then under the impression that their ordeal was over and their duty done, the two conspirators lapsed into silence. It was a silence which might have lasted some minutes.
It was broken by the ringing of an electric bell in the corridor outside, a sound muffled by the door, and the German reservist whom his unscrupulous Government secretly paid to wait at table at Bolter's, came in to tell Mr. McAuley that he was wanted at the telephone.
The god Bacchus, when he came out of Asia with those panthers of his, came into Europe the master of many moods, and Jimmy was a young man careless and content as he lifted the receiver. He heard a clear and rather high voice ask him whether he was Mr. McAuley. It was a voice he seemed to remember. It was the voice of Mr. Kirby.
Mr. McAuley was wanted at the telephone.
"I asked them at home where you were," said the voice, "and they told me I should find you if I rang up Bolter's."
"Thank you," said Jimmy too loudly—but he had no cause for gratitude!
"I am talking from Ormeston," said the voice; "my name is Kirby."
Jimmy's mood began to change.
"I 've asked for six minutes," the voice went on, "but I may as well tell you at once. It's about that house you took—Greystones. Now, Mr. McAuley, in your own interests, would you be good enough to take the 10.15 from King's Cross. I 'll meet you at Ormeston Station."
The very brief heroic mood not unknown to the god Bacchus now rushed over Jimmy.
"Upon my word, sir!" he began. Then in the twinkling of an eye another mood—one of alarm—prompted him to add, "Is it anything really urgent?" And his third mood was panic.
Good Lord! He could imagine one or two terribly urgent things in connection with Greystones. What if old Brassington were lying there dead? What if he had exploded, and told the police in spite of his own shame?
"Mr. Kirby!" he cried in a changed voice into the little black cup, "Mr. Kirby!" The wire was dumb, there was only the buzzing and spitting and little fiendish snarls which the marvellous invention has added to modern life. "Mr. Kirby!" said Jimmy still higher and for the third time, but it was a woman's voice that answered—
"Another three minutes?" it said snappishly, and then the wire went dead.
Twice more and once again did poor Jimmy implore the voice, but Mr. Kirby knew the nature of man, especially of youthful man. He had not attempted to persuade. In the study of his own house at Ormeston he had already replaced the receiver, and was taking down from the book-shelf a volume of Molière. He loved that author, and there was a good two hours before he need meet the night mail at the station.
After a quarrel with the clerk-in-charge and sundry foolish troubles, Jimmy abandoned the machine. He came back to his two companions. They were in the thick of some silly vinous argument or other. They looked up at his entry, and they saw that he was changed.
"What 's matter, Jimmy?" said Melba.
"I—I—I want to talk to you," said Jimmy nervously, and singularly sober. He looked at Booby.
"Oh, don't mind me," said Booby.
"Well, but we do," said Jimmy ruefully, and he drew Melba into the passage outside.
"There 's a row up," he said.
"What about?" said Melba.
"Old Brassington," said Jimmy in a nervous whisper.
"Peached? He wouldn't dare," whispered Melba incredulously.
"Why not?" said Jimmy, agonised. "I 've been called, you know. Called up from Ormeston. Urgently. By the lawyer. There 's a thing in the law, Melba, called 'duress.'"
"Oh, rats! He can't prove anything!"
"Damn it all!" said Jimmy, "we don't know that."
"He wouldn't make a fool of himself," continued Melba uncomfortably.
"You can't ever tell with these old jossers. Anyhow, that lawyer chap my father knows, the man we got the house from, has rung me up, and I 've got to go and see him in Ormeston to-night by the 10.15."
Melba said nothing.
"Would you go?" continued Jimmy, seeking valiance from his friend.
"No," said Melba stoutly.
"'Tisn't you that have got to do it," said Jimmy bitterly. "'Twas me he called up. I signed, you know, Melba. It 's my name they 've got."
"If it was me" began Melba.
"'Tisn't you," said Jimmy rudely, and as he said it Booby came out.
"If you two are going to talk business," he said suspiciously, "I 'm going home to my rooms."
"Fact is, Booby," said Jimmy, "I 've just heard about my aunt; she 's dying."
Booby was concerned.
"Oh, dear!" he said.
"Yes," went on Jimmy rapidly, bringing out his watch, and seeing that it lacked only seven minutes of ten, "it 's bad, very bad! I can't wait."
He thrust himself into his coat, looked over his shoulder as he ran down the stairs, and with the very disconcerting cry, "Keep Booby!" hurled at his companion, he sought the street and a taxi, and was half-way to King's Cross before he remembered that Melba must pay for the dinner. But the thought was small comfort compared with the trial that was before him. And for an hour and three-quarters as the train raced up north to the Midlands he comforted himself less and less at the prospect.