in my room and wrote my first novel. It was Heather d the Hills. Ever read it?'
'Of course.'
'Pure slush, but it was taken by Popgood and Grooly, and didn't do too badly, and they sent the sheets over to Singleton Brothers in New York, who turn out books like sausages and don't care how bad they are, so long as they run to eighty thousand words. They chucked it into the sausage machine and twiddled the handle and darned if it wasn't one of the biggest sellers they had that season. What's known as a sleeper. And they asked me to come to New York and lend a hand with the publicity, autograph copies in Department stores and all that. Well, Joe was still on tour with half a dozen more towns to play, and I thought I'd only be over there a few weeks, so I went. And of course the damned book was bought for pictures and I had to go out to Hollywood to work on it, and when I'd been there a couple of months I sent Joe five thousand dollars and told him this looked like being a long operation so he must come and join me. And what do you think?'
'What?'
'He wrote back thanking me for the five grand and saying he couldn't make it, as his mother didn't want him to leave her. Said she had palpitations or something. It made me so mad that I did what I can see now was the wrong thing. I said to myself, "All right, Joe, if you can do without me, I can do without you," and I stayed on in America six solid years. By that time I suppose we had both taken it for granted that the marriage was washed up.'
'You didn't get a divorce?'
'Never occurred to me. I'm a one-man woman. I wouldn't have wanted to marry anyone, after having Joe. I just let things drift. Three years ago I ran into him in the street and we talked for a while. I asked him if he was all right for money, and he said he was. He had written a play that was being taken on tour, he said, and I wished him luck and he wished me luck, and I asked after his mother and he said she was living with him and still had the snakes, and I said that was fine, and I came away and cried all night.'
It cost Sally an effort to break the silence which followed. Speech seemed intrusive.
'And you saw him again today?'
'Yes,' said Leila Yorke. 'He was one of the waiters at the luncheon.' Sally gasped.
'A waiter!'
'That's what I said. They always get in a lot of extra waiters for these affairs, and he was one of them.'
'But that must mean---‘
‘---that he's absolutely broke. Of course it does, and I've got to find him. But how the devil do you find an extra waiter in the whole of London?'
Inside the house, as they wrestled with this problem, the telephone began to ring.
'Answer it, will you, Sally,' said Leila Yorke wearily. 'If it's that man Cornelius, say I'm dead.'
'It's somebody from Time,' said Sally, returning. 'They want to interview you about your new book.'
'Tell them to go and…No, better not. Male or female?'
'Female.'
'All right, tell the pest she can come tomorrow at five,' said Leila Yorke. 'That gives me twenty-four hours. Perhaps by then she'll have been run over by a bus or something.'
13
TUESDAY began well for Freddie's cousin George. Leaning over the Nook-Peacehaven fence as the other fed his rabbits, he not only sold Mr. Cornelius two of the five-shilling tickets for the forthcoming concert in aid of the Policemen's Orphanage but received from him the information that Castlewood was now occupied by a famous female novelist, a piece of news that stirred him like a police whistle. All female novelists, he knew, were wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and he was convinced that if this one were to be properly approached, with just the right organ note in the voice, business could not fail to result. Before starting on his beat, accordingly, he gave his uniform a lick with the clothes brush, said 'Mi, mi,' once or twice to himself in an undertone and clumping over to Castlewood in his official boots rang the bell.
Sally opened the door to him, and he gazed at
'Of course.'
'Pure slush, but it was taken by Popgood and Grooly, and didn't do too badly, and they sent the sheets over to Singleton Brothers in New York, who turn out books like sausages and don't care how bad they are, so long as they run to eighty thousand words. They chucked it into the sausage machine and twiddled the handle and darned if it wasn't one of the biggest sellers they had that season. What's known as a sleeper. And they asked me to come to New York and lend a hand with the publicity, autograph copies in Department stores and all that. Well, Joe was still on tour with half a dozen more towns to play, and I thought I'd only be over there a few weeks, so I went. And of course the damned book was bought for pictures and I had to go out to Hollywood to work on it, and when I'd been there a couple of months I sent Joe five thousand dollars and told him this looked like being a long operation so he must come and join me. And what do you think?'
'What?'
'He wrote back thanking me for the five grand and saying he couldn't make it, as his mother didn't want him to leave her. Said she had palpitations or something. It made me so mad that I did what I can see now was the wrong thing. I said to myself, "All right, Joe, if you can do without me, I can do without you," and I stayed on in America six solid years. By that time I suppose we had both taken it for granted that the marriage was washed up.'
'You didn't get a divorce?'
'Never occurred to me. I'm a one-man woman. I wouldn't have wanted to marry anyone, after having Joe. I just let things drift. Three years ago I ran into him in the street and we talked for a while. I asked him if he was all right for money, and he said he was. He had written a play that was being taken on tour, he said, and I wished him luck and he wished me luck, and I asked after his mother and he said she was living with him and still had the snakes, and I said that was fine, and I came away and cried all night.'
It cost Sally an effort to break the silence which followed. Speech seemed intrusive.
'And you saw him again today?'
'Yes,' said Leila Yorke. 'He was one of the waiters at the luncheon.' Sally gasped.
'A waiter!'
'That's what I said. They always get in a lot of extra waiters for these affairs, and he was one of them.'
'But that must mean---‘
‘---that he's absolutely broke. Of course it does, and I've got to find him. But how the devil do you find an extra waiter in the whole of London?'
Inside the house, as they wrestled with this problem, the telephone began to ring.
'Answer it, will you, Sally,' said Leila Yorke wearily. 'If it's that man Cornelius, say I'm dead.'
'It's somebody from Time,' said Sally, returning. 'They want to interview you about your new book.'
'Tell them to go and…No, better not. Male or female?'
'Female.'
'All right, tell the pest she can come tomorrow at five,' said Leila Yorke. 'That gives me twenty-four hours. Perhaps by then she'll have been run over by a bus or something.'
13
TUESDAY began well for Freddie's cousin George. Leaning over the Nook-Peacehaven fence as the other fed his rabbits, he not only sold Mr. Cornelius two of the five-shilling tickets for the forthcoming concert in aid of the Policemen's Orphanage but received from him the information that Castlewood was now occupied by a famous female novelist, a piece of news that stirred him like a police whistle. All female novelists, he knew, were wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and he was convinced that if this one were to be properly approached, with just the right organ note in the voice, business could not fail to result. Before starting on his beat, accordingly, he gave his uniform a lick with the clothes brush, said 'Mi, mi,' once or twice to himself in an undertone and clumping over to Castlewood in his official boots rang the bell.
Sally opened the door to him, and he gazed at
Similar Books
