The Little Warrior by P. G. Wodehouse (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

happy anywhere elthe. I was born in the show business. I’ve got two thithters in the two-a-day and a brother in thtock out in California and dad’s one of the betht comedians on the burlethque wheel. But any one can thee you’re different. There’s no reathon why you should be bumming around in the chorus.”

“But there is. I’ve no money, and I can’t do anything to make it.”

“Honetht?”

“Honest.”

“That’s tough.” The cherub pondered, her round eyes searching Jill’s face. “Why don’t you get married?”

Jill laughed.

“Nobody’s asked me.”

“Somebody thoon will. At least, if he’s on the level, and I think he is. You can generally tell by the look of a guy, and, if you ask me, friend Pilkington’s got the license in hith pocket and the ring all ordered and everything.”

“Pilkington!” cried Jill, aghast.

She remembered certain occasions during rehearsals, when, while the chorus idled in the body of the theatre and listened to the principals working at their scenes, the elongated Pilkington had suddenly appeared in the next seat and conversed sheepishly in a low voice. Could this be love? If so, it was a terrible nuisance. Jill had had her experience in London of enamoured young men who, running true to national form, declined to know when they were beaten, and she had not enjoyed the process of cooling their ardor. She had a kind heart, and it distressed her to give pain. It also got on her nerves to be dogged by stricken males who tried to catch her eye in order that she might observe their broken condition. She recalled one house-party in Wales where it rained all the time and she had been cooped up with a victim who kept popping out from obscure corners and beginning all his pleas with the words “I say, you know … !” She trusted that Otis Pilkington was not proposing to conduct a wooing on those lines. Yet he had certainly developed a sinister habit of popping out at the theatre. On several occasions he had startled her by appearing at her side as if he had come up out of a trap.

“Oh, no!” cried Jill.

“Oh, yeth!” insisted the cherub, waving imperiously to an approaching street-car. “Well, I must be getting uptown. I’ve got a date. Thee you later.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

“I’m not.”

“But what makes you think so?”

The cherub placed a hand on the rail of the car, preparatory to swinging herself on board.

“Well, for one thing,” she said, “he’th been stalking you like an Indian ever since we left the theatre! Look behind you. Good-bye, honey. Thend me a piece of the cake!”

The street-car bore her away. The last that Jill saw of her was a wide and amiable grin. Then, turning, she beheld the snake-like form of Otis Pilkington towering at her side.

Mr Pilkington seemed nervous but determined. His face was half hidden by the silk scarf that muffled his throat, for he was careful of his health and had a fancied tendency to bronchial trouble. Above the scarf a pair of mild eyes gazed down at Jill through their tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles. It was hopeless for Jill to try to tell herself that the tender gleam behind the glass was not the love-light in Otis Pilkington’s eyes. The truth was too obvious.

“Good evening, Miss Mariner,” said Mr Pilkington, his voice sounding muffled and far away through the scarf. “Are you going up-town?”

“No, down-town,” said Jill quickly.

“So am I,” said Mr Pilkington.

Jill felt annoyed, but helpless. It is difficult to bid a tactful farewell to a man who has stated his intention of going in the same direction as yourself. There was nothing for it but to accept the unspoken offer of Otis Pilkington’s escort. They began to walk down Broadway together.

“I suppose you are tired after the rehearsal?” enquired Mr Pilkington in his precise voice. He always spoke as if he were weighing each word and clipping it off a reel.

“A little. Mr Miller is very enthusiastic.”

“About the piece?” Her companion spoke eagerly.

“No; I meant hard-working.”

“Has he said anything about the piece?”

“Well, no. You see, he doesn’t confide in us a great deal, except to tell us his opinion of the way we do the steps. I don’t think we impress him very much, to judge from what he says. But the girls say he always tells every chorus he rehearses that it is the worst he ever had anything to do with.”

“And the chor—the—er—ladies of the ensemble? What do they think of the piece?”

“Well, I don’t suppose they are very good judges, are they?” said Jill diplomatically.

“You mean they do not like it?”

“Some of them don’t seem quite to understand it.”

Mr Pilkington was silent for a moment.

“I am beginning to wonder myself whether it may not be a little over the heads of the public,” he said ruefully. “When it was first performed …”

“Oh, has it been done before?”

“By amateurs, yes, at the house of my aunt, Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim, at Newport, last Summer. In aid of the Armenian orphans. It was extraordinarily well received on that occasion. We nearly made our expenses. It was such a success that—I feel I can confide in you. I should not like this repeated to your—your—the other ladies—it was such a success that, against my aunt’s advice, I decided to give it a Broadway production. Between ourselves, I am shouldering practically all the expenses of the undertaking. Mr Goble has nothing to do with the financial arrangements of ‘The Rose of America.’ Those are entirely in my hands. Mr Goble, in return for a share in the profits, is giving us the benefit of his experience as regards the management and booking of the piece. I have always had the greatest faith in it. Trevis and I wrote it when we were in college together, and all our friends thought it exceptionally brilliant. My aunt, as I say, was opposed to the venture. She holds the view that I am not a good man of business. In a sense, perhaps, she is right. Temperamentally, no doubt, I am more the artist. But I was determined to show the public something superior to the so-called Broadway successes, which are so terribly trashy. Unfortunately, I am beginning to wonder whether it is possible, with the crude type of actor at one’s disposal in this country, to give a really adequate performance of such a play as ‘The Rose of America.’ These people seem to miss the spirit of the piece, its subtle topsy-turvy humor, its delicate whimsicality. This afternoon,” Mr Pilkington choked. “This afternoon I happened to overhear two of the principals, who were not aware that I was within earshot, discussing the play. One of them—these people express themselves curiously—one of them said that he thought it a quince: and the other described it as a piece of gorgonzola cheese! That is not the spirit that wins success!”

Jill was feeling immensely relieved. After all, it seemed, this poor young man merely wanted sympathy, not romance. She had been mistaken, she felt, about that gleam in his eyes. It was not the love-light: it was the light of panic. He was the author of the play. He had sunk a large sum of money in its production, he had heard people criticizing it harshly, and he was suffering from what her colleagues in the chorus would have called cold feet. It was such a human emotion and he seemed so like an overgrown child pleading to be comforted that her heart warmed to him. Relief melted her defences. And when, on their arrival at Thirty-fourth Street Mr Pilkington suggested that she partake of a cup of tea at his apartment, which was only a couple of blocks away off Madison Avenue, she accepted the invitation without hesitating.

On the way to his apartment Mr Pilkington continued in the minor key. He was a great deal more communicative than she herself would have been to such a comparative stranger as she was, but she knew that men were often like this. Over in London, she had frequently been made the recipient of the most intimate confidences by young men whom she had met for the first time the same evening at a dance. She had been forced to believe that there was something about her personality that acted on a certain type of man like the crack in the dam, setting loose the surging flood of their eloquence. To this class Otis Pilkington evidently belonged: for, once started, he withheld nothing.

“It isn’t that I’m dependent on Aunt Olive or anything like that,” he vouchsafed, as he stirred the tea in his Japanese-print hung studio. “But you know how it is. Aunt Olive is in a position to make it very unpleasant for me if I do anything foolish. At present, I have reason to know that she intends to leave me practically all that she possesses. Millions!” said Mr Pilkington, handing Jill a cup. “I assure you, millions! But there is a hard commercial strain in her. It would have the most prejudicial effect upon her if, especially after she had expressly warned me against it, I were to lose a great deal of money over this production. She is always complaining that I am not a business man like my late uncle. Mr Waddesleigh Peagrim made a fortune in smoked hams.” Mr Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints, and shuddered slightly. “Right up to the time of his death he was urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But, when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I had done so.”

Jill was now completely disarmed. She would almost have patted this unfortunate young man’s head, if she could have reached it.

“I shouldn’t worry about the piece,” she said. “I’ve read somewhere or heard somewhere that it’s the surest sign of a success when actors don’t like a play.”

Mr Pilkington drew his chair an imperceptible inch nearer.

“How sympathetic you are!”

Jill perceived with chagrin that she had been mistaken after all. It was the love-light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it was time to go.

“I’m afraid I must be off,” she said. “Thank you so much for giving me tea. I shouldn’t be a bit afraid about the play. I’m sure it’s going to be splendid. Good-bye.”

“You aren’t going already?”

“I must. I’m very late as it is. I promised …”

Whatever fiction Jill might have invented to the detriment of her soul was interrupted by a ring at the bell. The steps of Mr Pilkington’s Japanese servant crossing the hall came faintly to the sitting-room.

“Mr Pilkington in?”

Otis Pilkington motioned pleadingly to Jill.

“Don’t go!” he urged. “It’s only a man I know. He has probably come to remind me that I am dining with him tonight. He won’t stay a minute. Please don’t go.”

Jill sat down. She had no intention of going now. The cheery voice at the front door had been the cheery voice of her long-lost uncle, Major Christopher Selby.