She came back in the room and looked quickly from Lippincott to myself, then she went across and kissed him.
'Dear Uncle Andrew,' she said. 'I can see you've been nice to Michael.'
'Well, my dear, if I weren't nice to your husband you wouldn't have much use for me in the future, would you? I do reserve the right to give a few words of advice now and then. You're very young you know, both of you.'
'All right,' said Ellie, 'we'll listen patiently.'
'Now, my dear, I'd like to have a word with you if I may.'
'My turn to be odd man out,' I said, and I too went into the bedroom.
I shut the two double doors ostentatiously but I opened the inner one again after I got inside. I hadn't been as well brought up as Ellie so I felt a bit anxious to find out how double-faced Mr. Lippincott might turn out to be. But actually there was nothing I need have listened to. He gave Ellie one or two wise words of advice. He said she must realise that I might find it difficult to be a poor man married to a rich wife and then he went on to sound her about making a settlement on Greta. She agreed to it eagerly and said she'd been going to ask him that herself. He also suggested that she should make an additional settlement on Cora van Stuyvesant.
'There is no earthly need that you should do so,' he said. 'She has been very well provided for in the matter of alimony from several husbands. And she is as you know paid an income, though not a very big one, from the trust fund left by your grandfather.'
'But you think I ought to give her more still?'
'I think there is no legal or moral obligation to do so. What I think is that you will find her far less tiresome and – shall I say catty – if you do so. I should make it in the form of an increased income, which you could revoke at any time. If you find that she has been spreading malicious rumours about Michael or yourself or your life together, the knowledge that you can do that will keep her tongue free of those more poisonous barbs that she so well knows how to plant.'
'Cora has always hated me,' said Ellie. 'I've known that.' She added rather shyly, 'You do like Mike, don't you, Uncle Andrew?'
'I think he's an extremely attractive young man,' said Mr. Lippincott. 'And I can quite see how you came to marry him.'
That, I suppose, was as good as I could expect. I wasn't really his type and I knew it. I eased the door gently to and in a minute or two Ellie came to fetch me.
We were both standing saying good-bye to Lippincott when there was a knock on the door and a page boy came in with a telegram. Ellie took it and opened it. She gave a little surprised cry of pleasure.
'It's Greta,' she said, 'she's arriving in London tonight and she'll be coming to see us tomorrow. How lovely.'
She looked at us both. 'Isn't it?' she said.
She saw two sour faces and heard two polite voices saying, one: 'Yes indeed, my dear,' the other one 'Of course.'
Chapter 11
I had been out shopping the next morning and I arrived back at the hotel rather later than I had meant. I found Ellie sitting in the central lounge and opposite her was a tall blonde young woman, in fact Greta. Both of them were talking nineteen to the dozen.
I'm never any hand at describing people but I'll have a shot at describing Greta. To begin with one couldn't deny that she was, as Ellie had said, very beautiful and also, as Mr. Lippincott had reluctantly admitted, very handsome.
The two things are not exactly the same. If you say a woman is handsome it does not mean that actually you yourself admire her. Mr. Lippincott, I gathered, had not admired Greta. All the same when Greta walked across the lounge into a hotel or in a restaurant, men's heads turned to look at her. She was a Nordic type of blonde with pure gold-corn coloured hair. She wore it piled high on her head in the fashion of the time, not falling straight down on each side of her face in the Chelsea tradition. She looked what she was, Swedish or north German. In fact, pin on a pair of wings and she could have gone to a fancy dress ball as a Valkyrie. Her eyes were a bright clear blue and her contours were admirable. Let's admit it. She was something!
I came along to where they were sitting and joined them, greeting them both in what I hope was a natural, friendly manner, though I couldn't help feeling a bit awkward. I'm not always very good at acting a part. Ellie said immediately:
'At last, Mike, this is Greta.'
I said I guessed it might be, in a rather facetious, not very happy manner. I said:
'I'm very glad to meet you at last, Greta.'
Ellie said, 'As you know very well, if it hadn't been for Greta we would never have been able to get married.'
'All the same we'd have managed it somehow,' I said.
'Not if the family had come down on us like a ton of coals. They'd have broken it up somehow. Tell me, Greta, have they been very awful?' Ellie asked. 'You haven't written or said anything to me about that.'
'I know better,' said Greta, 'than to write to a happy couple when they're on their honeymoon.'
'But were they very angry with you?'
'Of course! What do you imagine? But I was prepared for that, I can assure you.'
'What have they said or done?'
'Everything they could,' said Greta cheerfully. 'Starting with the sack naturally.'
'Yes, I suppose that was inevitable. But – but what have you done? After all they can't refuse to give you references.'
'Of course they can. And after all, from their point of view I was placed in a position of trust and abused it shamefully.' She added, 'Enjoyed abusing it too.'
'But what are you doing now?'
'Oh I've got a job ready to walk into.'
'In New York?'
'No. Here in London. Secretarial.'
'But are you all right?'
'Darling Ellie,' said Greta, 'how can I not be all right with that lovely cheque you sent me in anticipation of what was going to happen when the balloon went up.'
Her English was very good with hardly any trace of accent though she used a lot of colloquial terms which sometimes didn't run quite right.
'I've seen a bit of the world, fixed myself up in London and bought a good many things as well.'
'Mike and I have bought a lot of things too,' said Ellie, smiling at the recollection.
It was true. We'd done ourselves pretty well with our continental shopping. It was really wonderful that we had dollars to spend, no niggling Treasury restrictions. Brocades and fabrics in Italy for the home. And we'd bought pictures too, both in Italy and in Paris, paying what seemed fabulous sums for them. A whole world had opened up to me that I'd never dreamt would have come my way.
'You both look remarkably happy,' said Greta.
'You haven't seen our home yet,' said Ellie. 'It's going to be wonderful. It's going to be just like we dreamed it would be, isn't it, Mike?'
'I have seen it,' said Greta. 'The first day I got back to England I hired a car and drove down there.'
'Well?' said Ellie.
I said 'Well?' too.
'Well,' said Greta consideringly. She shifted her head from side to side.
Ellie looked grief-stricken, horribly taken aback. But I wasn't taken in. I saw at once that Greta was having a bit of fun with us. If the thought just flashed across my mind for a moment that her kind of fun wasn't very kind, it
