Which only showed, thought Adam, how much better Lottie Crump knew the business of avoiding undesirable publicity than Sir James Brown.
When Adam reached London the rain had stopped, but there was a thin fog drifting in belts before a damp wind. The station was crowded with office workers hurrying with attaché cases and evening papers to catch their evening trains home, coughing and sneezing as they went. They still wore their poppies. Adam went to a telephone-box and rang up Nina. She had left a message for him that she was having cocktails at Margot Metroland’s house. He drove to Shepheard’s.
“Lottie,” he said, “I’ve got a thousand pounds.”
“Have you, now,” said Lottie indifferently. She lived on the assumption that everyone she knew always had several thousand pounds. It was to her as though he had said, “Lottie, I have a tall hat.”
“Can you lend me some money till tomorrow till I cash the cheque?”
“What a boy you are for borrowing. Just like your poor father. Here, you in the corner, lend Mr. What-d’you-call-him some money.”
A tall Guardsman shook his retreating forehead and twirled his moustaches.
“No good coming to me, Lottie,” he said in a voice trained to command.
“Mean hound,” said Lottie. “Where’s that American?”
Judge Skimp, who, since his experiences that morning, had become profoundly Anglophile, produced two tenpound notes. “I shall be only too proud and honoured …” he said.
“Good old Judge Thingummy,” said Lottie. “That’s the way.”
Adam hurried out into the hall as another bottle of champagne popped festively in the parlour.
“Doge, ring up the Daimler Hire Company and order a car in my name. Tell it to go round to Lady Metroland’s—Pastmaster House, Hill Street,” he said. Then he put on his hat and walked down Hay Hill, swinging an umbrella and laughing again, only more quietly, to himself.
At Lady Metroland’s he kept on his coat and waited in the hall.
“Will you please tell Miss Blount I’ve called for her? No, I won’t go up.”
He looked at the hats on the table. Clearly there was quite a party. Two or three silk hats of people who had dressed early, the rest soft and black like his own. Then he began to dance again, jigging to himself in simple high spirits.
In a minute Nina came down the broad Adam staircase.
“Darling, why didn’t you come up? It’s so rude. Margot is longing to see you.”
“I’m so sorry, Nina. I couldn’t face a party. I’m so excited.”
“Why, what’s happened?”
“Everything. I’ll tell you in the car.”
“Car?”
“Yes, it’ll be here in a minute. We’re going down to the country for dinner. I can’t tell you how clever I’ve been.”
“But what have you done, darling? Do stop dancing about.”
“Can’t stop. You’ve no idea how clever I am.”
“Adam. Are you tight again?”
“Look out of the window and see if you can see a Daimler waiting.”
“Adam, what have you been doing? I will be told.”
“Look,” said Adam, producing the cheque. “Whatcher think of that?” he added in Cockney.
“My dear, a thousand pounds. Did papa give you that?”
“I earned it,” said Adam. “Oh, I earned it. You should have seen the luncheon I ate and the jokes I read. I’m going to be married tomorrow. Oh, Nina, would Margot hate it if I sang in her hall?”
“She’d simply loathe it, darling, and so should I. I’m going to take care of that cheque. You remember what happened the last time you were given a thousand pounds.”
“That’s what your papa said.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“I told him everything—and he gave me a thousand pounds.”
“… Poor Adam …” said Nina suddenly.
“Why did you say that?”
“I don’t know. … I believe this is your car. …”
“Nina, why did you say ‘Poor Adam’?”
“… Did I? … Oh, I don’t know. … Oh, I do adore you so.”
“I’m going to be married tomorrow. Are you?”
“Yes, I expect so, dear.”
The chauffeur got rather bored while they tried to decide where they would dine. At every place he suggested they gave a little wail of dismay. “But that’s sure to be full of awful people we know,” they said. Maidenhead, Thame, Brighton, he suggested. Finally they decided to go to Arundel.
“It’ll be nearly nine before we get there,” the chauffeur said. “Now there’s a very nice hotel at Bray. …”
But they went to Arundel.
“We’ll be married tomorrow,” said Adam in the car. “And we won’t ask anybody to the wedding at all. And we’ll go abroad at once, and just not come back till I’ve written all those books. Nina, isn’t it divine? Where shall we go?”
“Anywhere you like, only rather warm, don’t you think?”
“I don’t believe you really think we are going to be married, Nina, do you, or do you?”
“I don’t know … it’s only that I don’t believe that really divine things like that ever do happen. … I don’t know why. … Oh, I do like you so much tonight. If only you knew how sweet you looked skipping about in Margot’s hall all by yourself. I’d been watching you for hours before I came down.”
“I shall send the car back,” said Adam, as they drove through Pulborough. “We can go home by train.”
“If there is a train.”
“There’s bound to be,” said Adam. But this raised a question in both their minds that had been unobtrusively agitating them throughout the journey. Neither said any more on the subject, but there was a distinct air of constraint in the Daimler from Pulborough onwards.
This question was settled when they reached the hotel at Arundel.
“We want dinner,” said Adam, “and a room for the night.”
“Darling, am I going to be seduced?”
“I’m afraid you are. Do you mind terribly?”
“Not as much as all that,” said Nina, and added in Cockney, “Charmed, I’m sure.”
Everyone had finished dinner. They dined alone in a corner of the coffee-room, while the other waiters laid the tables for breakfast, looking at them resentfully.
