baby on the way, too, so Jean will have to give up her job soon.”
Armiger had erupted into the saloon bar again, sweeping newcomers towards the free drinks, dispensing hospitality in the grand manner. They followed the compulsive passage of the cannon-ball head through the crowd, their eyes guardedly thoughtful. He seemed to have a party with him now, he was busy seating them in a far corner of the big room.
“Parents usually come round in the end, however awkward they may be,” said George without too much conviction.
“Parents, yes. Monoliths, no. Leslie never had but one parent, and she died nearly three years ago, or she might have ventured to stick up for him when the crash came. Not that she ever had much influence, of course, poor soul.”
Wilson was craning to see past undulating shoulders to the group in the far corner, and the passage of a waiter with a loaded tray had just opened a clear corridor to the spot. Others were equally interested in the spectacle. A woman’s voice said dispassionately: “Vulgar little monster!” and a man’s voice, less dispassionate, murmured: “So that was Kitty’s red bus I saw in the carpark. I thought there couldn’t be two like it round here.”
There were three people with Armiger. The man was everything that Armiger was not, and valuable to him for that very reason; George was familiar with the contrast and all its implications. Into houses where Armiger’s bouncing aggression would not have been welcomed Raymond Shelley’s tall grey elegance and gentle manners entered without comment; where negotiations required a delicacy of touch which Armiger would have disdained to possess, he employed Shelley’s graces to do his work for him. Nominally Shelley was his legal adviser, permanently retained by the firm; actually he was his other face, displayed or concealed according to circumstances. Middle- aged, quiet, kind, not particularly energetic or particularly effective in himself, but he supplied what Armiger needed, and in return Armiger supplied him with what he most needed, which was money. He was also Kitty Norris’s trustee, having been for years a close friend of her father. And there was Kitty by his side now, in a full-skirted black dress that made her look even younger than her twenty-two years, with an iridescent scarf round her shoulders and a half of bitter in her hand. So that, thought George, admiring the clear profile pale against the subdued rosy lights, is the girl who gave our Dom a lift home the other night. And all Dom could talk about was the car! How simple life is when you’re as young as that!
The third person was a handsome, resigned-looking, quiet, capable woman of forty-five, in a black suit, who was just fitting a cigarette into a short black holder. The movements of her long hands were graceful and strong, so was her body under the severely-tailored cloth. She let the men talk. Intelligent, illusionless eyes swept from face to face without noticeable emotion; only when she looked at Kitty she smiled briefly and meaningly, owning a contact with her which set the men at a slight distance. Women as efficient as Ruth Hamilton and as deeply in the business secrets of their employers frequently entertain a faint contempt for the temples they sustain on their shoulders and the gods they serve.
“His secretary,” said a man’s voice in an audible whisper somewhere behind them. “Has been for twenty years. They say she does more than type his letters.”
That was no new rumour, either, George had heard it bandied about for at least ten of the twenty years. The only surprising thing about it was to hear it mentioned at all; it had been taken for granted, whether believed or discounted, for so long that there was no point in trying to squeeze a drop of sensation out of it now. Nor was anyone ever likely to know for certain whether it was true or not. The legend had been more or less inevitable, in any case, for Miss Hamilton had virtually run Armiger’s household as well as his office ever since his wife’s long, dragging illness began, and that was a good many years ago.
Wilson emptied his pint and pushed the tankard away from him. “Jean is quite a girl. But sometimes I wonder how Leslie ever managed to see her in the first place, with Miss Norris around. Not that I think he made any mistake, mind you. Still, look at her!”
George had been thinking much the same thing, though he did not know Jean Armiger. Young men frequently reject even the most dazzling of girls, he reflected, when thrust at them too aggressively by their fathers, and if Armiger’s mind was once made up he would certainly tackle this enterprise as he did every other, head-down and bellowing. Still, look at her!
She was the last person at whom he did turn and look when he left the saloon bar at about ten o’clock. She hadn’t moved, she’d hardly spoken; she sat nursing the other half, but only playing with it, and though Armiger had vanished on one of his skirmishes and Miss Hamilton seemed to be gathering up her bag and gloves and preparing to leave, Kitty sat still; so still that the sparkles in the glittering scarf were motionless, crumbs of light arrested in mid-air. Then the swing-door closed gently on the grave oval of her face, and George settled the collar of his coat and strolled across the hall towards the chill of the September night.
Old Bennie Blocksidge, a lean, tough little gnome, was crossing the hall with an empty tray, all the copper witchballs repeating his bald pink dome as he passed beneath them. He stopped to exchange a word with George, jerking his head in the direction of the side door which led out to the courtyard.
“He’s in high feather tonight, Mr. Felse. No holding him.”
“He” could be no one but Armiger. “I noticed he’s vanished,” said George. “Why, what’s he got up his sleeve now? I should think he’d had triumph enough for one night.”
“He’s just gone off with a bottle of champagne under his arm, any road up, off to show off his new ballroom to some bloke or other. That’s the old barn what was, off across the yard there. Wanted to open it this week, he did, but they’ve only just finished the decorations. Sets great store by it, and so he ought, it’s cost him a packet.”
So that was what was to become of young Leslie’s studio. George stepped aside to allow free passage to two people who had just followed him out of the saloon bar, and watched Miss Hamilton and Raymond Shelley cross the hall together and go out through the swing-doors and the nail-studded outer portals which stood open on the night; and in a few moments he heard a car start up in the carpark, and roll out gently on to the road, and caught a glimpse of Shelley’s Austin as it swept round and headed for Comberbourne.
“Told us not to disturb him, neither,” said Bennie, sniffing. “Says he’ll be back when he’s good and ready. Ordered his car for ten, and here it is turned ten, and he says,’tell him he can damn’ well wait till I’m ready, if it’s midnight.’ Clayton’s sitting out there in the Bentley cursing like a trooper, but what’s the good? There’s never no doing anything with him. If you like your job you just go with him, nothing else you can do.”
“And you do like your job, Bennie?”
“Me?” said Bennie with a grin and a shrug. “I’m used to it, I go with the stream. There’s worse bosses than him, if you just go along with him and don’t worry. These youngsters, they fret too much.”
“Well, let’s hope he soon drinks his champagne and lets Clayton take him home.”
“It was a big ‘un, a magnum. He thinks in magnums.”
