Indiscretions of Archie - P. G. Wodehouse (essential books to read txt) 📗

“But one moment, old lady. You speak of crimson hair. Surely old Bill⁠—in the extremely jolly monologues he used to deliver whenever I didn’t see him coming and he got me alone⁠—used to allude to her hair as brown.”

“It isn’t brown now. It’s bright scarlet. Good gracious, I ought to know. I’ve been looking at it all the afternoon. It dazzled me. If I’ve got to meet her again, I mean to go to the oculist’s and get a pair of those smoked glasses you wear at Palm Beach.” Lucille brooded silently for a while over the tragedy. “I don’t want to say anything against her, of course.”

“No, no, of course not.”

“But of all the awful, second-rate girls I ever met, she’s the worst! She has vermilion hair and an imitation Oxford manner. She’s so horribly refined that it’s dreadful to listen to her. She’s a sly, creepy, slinky, made-up, insincere vampire! She’s common! She’s awful! She’s a cat!”

“You’re quite right not to say anything against her,” said Archie, approvingly. “It begins to look,” he went on, “as if the good old pater was about due for another shock. He has a hard life!”

“If Bill dares to introduce that girl to father, he’s taking his life in his hands.”

“But surely that was the idea⁠—the scheme⁠—the wheeze, wasn’t it? Or do you think there’s any chance of his weakening?”

“Weakening! You should have seen him looking at her! It was like a small boy flattening his nose against the window of a candy store.”

“Bit thick!”

Lucille kicked the leg of the table.

“And to think,” she said, “that, when I was a little girl, I used to look up to Bill as a monument of wisdom. I used to hug his knees and gaze into his face and wonder how anyone could be so magnificent.” She gave the unoffending table another kick. “If I could have looked into the future,” she said, with feeling, “I’d have bitten him in the ankle!”

In the days which followed, Archie found himself a little out of touch with Bill and his romance. Lucille referred to the matter only when he brought the subject up, and made it plain that the topic of her future sister-in-law was not one which she enjoyed discussing. Mr. Brewster, senior, when Archie, by way of delicately preparing his mind for what was about to befall, asked him if he liked red hair, called him a fool, and told him to go away and bother someone else when they were busy. The only person who could have kept him thoroughly abreast of the trend of affairs was Bill himself; and experience had made Archie wary in the matter of meeting Bill. The position of confidant to a young man in the early stages of love is no sinecure, and it made Archie sleepy even to think of having to talk to his brother-in-law. He sedulously avoided his lovelorn relative, and it was with a sinking feeling one day that, looking over his shoulder as he sat in the Cosmopolis grillroom preparatory to ordering lunch, he perceived Bill bearing down upon him, obviously resolved upon joining his meal.

To his surprise, however, Bill did not instantly embark upon his usual monologue. Indeed, he hardly spoke at all. He champed a chop, and seemed to Archie to avoid his eye. It was not till lunch was over and they were smoking that he unburdened himself.

“Archie!” he said.

“Hallo, old thing!” said Archie. “Still there? I thought you’d died or something. Talk about our old pals, Tongue-tied Thomas and Silent Sammy! You could beat ’em both on the same evening.”

“It’s enough to make me silent.”

“What is?”

Bill had relapsed into a sort of waking dream. He sat frowning sombrely, lost to the world. Archie, having waited what seemed to him a sufficient length of time for an answer to his question, bent forward and touched his brother-in-law’s hand gently with the lighted end of his cigar. Bill came to himself with a howl.

“What is?” said Archie.

“What is what?” said Bill.

“Now listen, old thing,” protested Archie. “Life is short and time is flying. Suppose we cut out the crosstalk. You hinted there was something on your mind⁠—something worrying the old bean⁠—and I’m waiting to hear what it is.”

Bill fiddled a moment with his coffee-spoon.

“I’m in an awful hole,” he said at last.

“What’s the trouble?”

“It’s about that darned girl!”

Archie blinked.

“What!”

“That darned girl!”

Archie could scarcely credit his senses. He had been prepared⁠—indeed, he had steeled himself⁠—to hear Bill allude to his affinity in a number of ways. But “that darned girl” was not one of them.

“Companion of my riper years,” he said, “let’s get this thing straight. When you say ‘that darned girl,’ do you by any possibility allude to⁠—?”

“Of course I do!”

“But, William, old bird⁠—”

“Oh, I know, I know, I know!” said Bill, irritably. “You’re surprised to hear me talk like that about her?”

“A trifle, yes. Possibly a trifle. When last heard from, laddie, you must recollect, you were speaking of the lady as your soul-mate, and at least once⁠—if I remember rightly⁠—you alluded to her as your little dusky-haired lamb.”

A sharp howl escaped Bill.

“Don’t!” A strong shudder convulsed his frame. “Don’t remind me of it!”

“There’s been a species of slump, then, in dusky-haired lambs?”

“How,” demanded Bill, savagely, “can a girl be a dusky-haired lamb when her hair’s bright scarlet?”

“Dashed difficult!” admitted Archie.

“I suppose Lucille told you about that?”

“She did touch on it. Lightly, as it were. With a sort of gossamer touch, so to speak.”

Bill threw off the last fragments of reserve.

“Archie, I’m in the devil of a fix. I don’t know why it was, but directly I saw her⁠—things seemed so different over in England⁠—I mean.” He swallowed ice-water in gulps. “I suppose it was seeing her with Lucille. Old Lu is such a thoroughbred. Seemed to kind of show her up. Like seeing imitation pearls by the side of real pearls. And that crimson hair! It sort of put the lid on it.” Bill brooded morosely. “It