The Girl in Blue Read Online Free Page A

to
console him was the memory of the costly fun he had enjoyed in his youth.
Willoughby, the younger son, who after the fashion of younger sons had been
thrust out into the world to earn his living, was now in the highest income tax
bracket:
    Crispin,
the heir, was forced to take in paying guests in order to make both ends meet:
and now there was yawning between those ends a gap of two hundred and three
pounds six shillings and fourpence.
    Willoughby
was still staring. A visit from his brother was the last thing he had been
expecting. He had always accepted it as one of the facts of life that Crispin
never came to London. Negotiations for those small loans of which mention was
made earlier had always been conducted over the telephone.
    ‘I didn’t
know you were here, Crips. Why didn’t you tell me, Mabel?’
    ‘I
assumed you would not wish to be interrupted while you were in conference, Mr
Scrope,’ said the receptionist with a dignity that became her well, and
Willoughby had to admit that this was a proper spirit.
    ‘Quite
right. It would have interfered with the perfect coordination of hand and eye.
Well, come along in, Crips,’ said Willoughby, and Crispin, as he followed him
into his office, was conscious of a faint but distinct thrill of hope. Bill, it
was plain, was in merry mood this morning. Whether it was merry enough to make
him write a cheque for two hundred and three pounds, six shillings and
fourpence only time would tell, but the omens seemed favourable.
    In the
office there was no diminution of Willoughby’s exuberance. He was all bounce
and effervescence. He hummed little snatches of song, he skipped rather than
walked. If there was a sunnier lawyer in Bedford Row that morning, he would
have been hard to find.
    ‘Fancy
you bobbing up, Crips. Have a cigar?’
    ‘No,
thank you, Bill.’
    ‘You’ll
lunch, of course?’
    ‘I’m
sorry. I have to catch the one-fifteen.’
    ‘Pity.
I’m giving Jerry lunch at the Savoy. He would have liked to see you.
    Crispin
welcomed the opportunity to postpone for a few minutes the subject of loans and
cheques. Eager though he was to discuss the main item on the agenda paper, at
the same time he shrank from bringing it up. This, a familiar attitude with
cats in adages, is also almost universal among diffident men trying to key
themselves up to asking for large sums of money. One might put it that they let
‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’.
    ‘How is
Jerry these days?’ he asked.
    ‘Seems
pretty fit.’
    ‘How’s
he doing?’
    ‘All
right, I imagine. I haven’t heard any complaints.’
    ‘Have
you let him have that money his father left him?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I
think you ought to, Bill.’
    Crispin
spoke with feeling. He knew that the sum in question was a substantial one, for
the late Joseph West had done well manufacturing chinaware up North, and Jerry
was a young fellow with a kindly heart, who, if in possession of a large bank
account, could be relied on to do the right thing by an impecunious uncle.
    ‘Why
don’t you, Bill? I know he’s got his work and you give him an allowance of a
sort, but a man of Jerry’s age.., what is he now? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?…
ought to have capital. He might want to do all sorts of things with it.’
    ‘You
never said a truer word. To start with he’d marry that Upshaw female he’s gone
and got engaged to.’
    ‘I didn’t
know he was engaged.’
    ‘A girl
called Vera Upshaw.’
    ‘Any
connection of Charlie Upshaw?’
    ‘His
daughter.’
    ‘I used
to know Charlie rather well years ago. Before he died, of course. Didn’t he
marry Flora Faye?’
    ‘He
did.’
    ‘Is the
daughter on the stage?’
    ‘No.
She writes. Not the sort of stuff I like, but I believe many people do. Slim
volumes with titles like Daffodil Days and Morning’s At Seven. Whimsical
essays.’
    ‘Good
God.’
    ‘Yes,
that’s how I feel, too, but that isn’t the reason why I don’t want Jerry to
marry her.’
    ‘Why
don’t