Death of a Beauty Queen Read Online Free Page A

spite of himself his voice softened as he pronounced his son’s name – for the moment a kind of radiance showed through the austerity of his tone and attitude and then was gone again. At his side, Sargent was indulging in a little bad language, though only thought, not uttered. ‘Promiscuous kissing, indeed!’ A nice twist the sour old puritan had given his words. Who could tell what that phrase might not have grown to in a day or two? But he judged it prudent to control his wrath. Irwin had a large and influential following in Brush Hill, and altogether was a personage with whom a quarrel was best avoided. So Sargent permitted himself only the mildest of protests.
    â€˜I don’t think I said anything about promiscuous kissing,’ he remarked; ‘and I’ll tell you one thing, Mr Irwin. This is the last Beauty Contest that’ll ever be held here – never again. Handling that crowd of girls, all of ’em all worked up, all of ’em making eyes at you because then they think you’ll give ’em the best chance, and all of ’em dead sure you’re favouring the other one – handling a horde of hungry lions is nothing to it: nothing at all,’ declared Mr Sargent, pausing to wipe a forehead that had begun to perspire gently at the mere memory of all he had been through that night.
    â€˜If Leslie is behind,’ Mr Irwin said unexpectedly, ‘I suppose there can be no objection to his father joining him?’
    Mr Sargent fairly jumped, the suggestion surprised him so. But he accepted it very willingly. The crabbed old Puritan would be able to see for himself that ‘behind’ was no sink of iniquity, that no mysterious ‘orgies’ were going on there, but that it was merely a workshop like any other, where the always serious and often tedious business of entertainment was seriously and often tediously, practised. Besides, the old man would soon discover there was no ‘promiscuous kissing’ – the phrase still rankled – going on, and, if any story founded on those two unlucky words got about, Mr Irwin’s visit would provide an effective reply. Of course, it was hard luck on young Leslie Irwin – a little like throwing him to the wolves. The boy would have the scare of his young life when he saw his formidable old father in die one place where he must have thought he would be safe from meeting him. But then Mr Sargent had his own reason for not objecting to that happening.
    â€˜Why, certainly, Mr Irwin,’ he answered. ‘Always pleased for any responsible person like yourself to have, a look round. We’ll go now, shall we?’
    They went along the deserted corridor together, and in the abrupt and direct style he practised – for the injunction to be wise as serpents, harmless as doves, was the one scriptural injunction he never felt had any personal application – Mr Irwin said:
    â€˜I suppose you know well enough it’s the Caroline Mears girl has brought Leslie here?’
    â€˜Oh, half Brush Hill knows that,’ retorted Sargent, with a note of resentment in his tone that entirely escaped his companion’s attention, absorbed as the old man was with his own thoughts.
    He put out his hand now, and laid it heavily on Sargent’s shoulder.
    â€˜It would ruin the boy,’ he said. ‘He shall never marry her – never.’
    â€˜Ow-w, my shoulder,’ gasped Sargent, almost doubled up under the weight of that fierce grip.
    I am sorry,’ Mr Irwin said, releasing him. ‘I feel strongly. I mean it. The boy shall have no wife so light-minded, so worldly – a girl with nothing in her head but dancing and running about and all kinds of frivolity.’
    Sargent was rubbing his shoulder – whereon, when he undressed for bed, he found the marks of his companion’s fingers still visible. He said in the same sulky and resentful tones:
    â€˜That’s all right. I