Jill the Reckless Part 42

"Whew! I think I handled that little contretemps with diplomacy! A certain amount of diplomacy, I think!"

"If you mean," said Jill severely, "that you told some disgraceful fibs...."

"Fibs, my dear--or shall we say, artistic mouldings of the unshapely clay of truth--are the ... how shall I put it?... Well, anyway, they come in dashed handy. It would never have done for Mrs. Peagrim to have found out that you were in the chorus. If she discovered that my niece was in the chorus, she would infallibly suspect me of being an adventurer. And while," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "of course I _am_, it is nice to have one's little secrets. The good lady has had a rooted distaste for girls in that perfectly honourable but maligned profession ever since our long young friend back there was sued for breach of promise by a member of a touring company in his second year at college. We all have our prejudices. That is hers. However, I think, we may rely on our friend to say nothing about the matter....

But why did you do it? My dear child, whatever induced you to take such a step?"

Jill laughed.

"That's practically what Mr. Miller said to me when we were rehearsing one of the dances this afternoon, only he put it differently." She linked her arm in his. "What else could I do? I was alone in New York with the remains of that twenty dollars you sent me and no more in sight."

"But why didn't you stay down at Brookport with your Uncle Elmer?"

"Have you ever seen my Uncle Elmer?"

"No. Curiously enough, I never have."

"If you had, you wouldn't ask. Brookport! Ugh! I left when they tried to get me to understudy the hired man, who had resigned."

"What!"

"Yes, they got tired of supporting me in the state to which I was accustomed--I don't blame them!--so they began to find ways of making me useful about the home. I didn't mind reading to Aunt Julia, and I could just stand taking Tibby for walks. But, when it came to shoveling snow, I softly and silently vanished away."

"But I can't understand all this. I suggested to your uncle--diplomatically--that you had large private means."

"I know you did. And he spent all his time showing me over houses and telling me I could have them for a hundred thousand dollars cash down." Jill bubbled. "You should have seen his face when I told him that twenty dollars was all I had in the world!"

"You didn't tell him that!"

"I did."

Uncle Chris shook his head, like an indulgent father disappointed in a favourite child.

"You're a dear girl, Jill, but really you do seem totally lacking in ... how shall I put it?--finesse. Your mother was just the same. A sweet woman, but with no diplomacy, no notion of _handling_ a situation. I remember her as a child giving me away hopelessly on one occasion after we had been at the jam-cupboard. She did not mean any harm, but she was const.i.tutionally incapable of a tactful negative at the right time." Uncle Chris brooded for a moment on the past. "Oh, well, it's a very fine trait, no doubt, though inconvenient. I don't blame you for leaving Brookport if you weren't happy there. But I wish you had consulted me before going on the stage."

"Shall I strike this man?" asked Jill of the world at large. "How could I consult you? My darling, precious uncle, don't you realize that you had vanished into thin air, leaving me penniless? I had to do something. And, now that we are on the subject, perhaps you will explain your movements. Why did you write to me from that place on Fifty-seventh Street if you weren't there?"

Uncle Chris cleared his throat.

"In a sense ... when I wrote ... I _was_ there."

"I suppose that means something, but it's beyond me. I'm not nearly as intelligent as you think, Uncle Chris, so you'll have to explain."

"Well, it was this way, my dear. I was in a peculiar position you must remember. I had made a number of wealthy friends on the boat and it is possible that--unwittingly--I gave them the impression that I was as comfortably off as themselves. At any rate, that is the impression they gathered, and it hardly seemed expedient to correct it. For it is a deplorable trait in the character of the majority of rich people that they only--er--expand--they only show the best and most companionable side of themselves to those whom they imagine to be as wealthy as they are. Well, of course, while one was on the boat, the fact that I was sailing under what a purist might have termed false colours did not matter. The problem was how to keep up the--er--innocent deception after we had reached New York. A woman like Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim--a ghastly creature, my dear, all front teeth and exuberance, but richer than the Sub-Treasury--looks askance at a man, however agreeable, if he endeavours to cement a friends.h.i.+p begun on board s.h.i.+p from a cheap boarding-house on Amsterdam Avenue. It was imperative that I should find something in the nature of what I might call a suitable base of operations. Fortune played into my hands. One of the first men I met in New York was an old soldier-servant of mine, to whom I had been able to do some kindnesses in the old days. In fact--it shows how bread cast upon the waters returns to us after many days--it was with the a.s.sistance of a small loan from me that he was enabled to emigrate to America. Well, I met this man, and, after a short conversation, he revealed the fact that he was the hall-porter at that apartment-house which you visited, the one on Fifty-Seventh Street. At this time of the year, I knew, many wealthy people go south, to Florida and the Carolinas, and it occurred to me that there might be a vacant apartment in his building. There was. I took it."

"But how on earth could you afford to pay for an apartment in a place like that?"

Uncle Chris coughed.

"I didn't say I paid for it. I said I took it. That is, as one might say, the point of my story. My old friend, grateful for favours received and wis.h.i.+ng to do me a good turn, consented to become my accomplice in another--er--innocent deception. I gave my friends the address and telephone number of the apartment-house, living the while myself in surroundings of a somewhat humbler and less expensive character. I called every morning for letters. If anybody rang me up on the telephone, the admirable man answered in the capacity of my servant, took a message, and relayed it on to me at my boarding-house.

If anybody called, he merely said that I was out. There wasn't a flaw in the whole scheme, my dear, and its chief merit was its beautiful simplicity."

"Then what made you give it up? Conscience?"

"Conscience never made me give up _anything_," said Uncle Chris firmly. "No, there were a hundred chances to one against anything going wrong, and it was the hundredth that happened. When you have been in New York longer, you will realize that one peculiarity of the place is that the working-cla.s.ses are in a constant state of flux. On Monday you meet a plumber. Ah! you say, a plumber! Capital! On the following Thursday you meet him again, and he is a car-conductor. Next week he will be squirting soda in a drug-store. It's the fault of these dashed magazines, with their advertis.e.m.e.nts of correspondence courses--Are You Earning All You Should?--Write To Us and Learn Chicken-Farming By Mail.... It puts wrong ideas into the fellows'

heads. It unsettles them. It was so in this case. Everything was going swimmingly, when my man suddenly conceived the idea that destiny had intended him for a chauffeur-gardener, and he threw up his position!"

"Leaving you homeless!"

"As you say, homeless--temporarily. But, fortunately--I have been amazingly lucky all through; it really does seem as if you cannot keep a good man down--fortunately my friend had a friend who was janitor at a place on East Forty-first Street, and by a miracle of luck the only apartment in the building was empty. It is an office-building, but, like some of these places, it has one small bachelor's apartment on the top floor."

"And you are the small bachelor?"

"Precisely. My friend explained matters to his friend--a few financial details were satisfactorily arranged--and here I am, perfectly happy with the cosiest little place in the world, rent free. I am even better off than I was before, as a matter of fact, for my new ally's wife is an excellent cook, and I have been enabled to give one or two very pleasant dinners at my new home. It lends verisimilitude to the thing if you can entertain a little. If you are never in when people call, they begin to wonder. I am giving dinner to your friend Pilkington and Mrs. Peagrim there to-night. Homey, delightful, and infinitely cheaper than a restaurant."

"And what will you do when the real owner of the place walks in in the middle of dinner?"

"Out of the question. The janitor informs me that he left for England some weeks ago, intending to make a stay of several months."

"Well, you certainly think of everything."

"Whatever success I may have achieved," replied Uncle Chris, with the dignity of a Captain of Industry confiding in an interviewer, "I attribute to always thinking of everything."

Jill gurgled with laughter. There was that about her uncle which always acted on her moral sense like an opiate, lulling it to sleep and preventing it from rising up and becoming critical. If he had stolen a watch and chain, he would somehow have succeeded in convincing her that he had acted for the best under the dictates of a benevolent altruism.

"What success _have_ you achieved?" she asked, interested. "When you left me, you were on your way to find a fortune. Did you find it?"

"I have not actually placed my hands on it yet," admitted Uncle Chris.

"But it is hovering in the air all round me. I can hear the beating of the wings of the dollar-bills as they flutter to and fro, almost within reach. Sooner or later I shall grab them. I never forget, my dear, that I have a task before me--to restore to you the money of which I deprived you. Some day--be sure--I shall do it. Some day you will receive a letter from me, containing a large sum--five thousand--ten thousand--twenty thousand--whatever it may be, with the simple words 'First Instalment.'" He repeated the phrase, as if it pleased him. "First Instalment!"

Jill hugged his arm. She was in the mood in which she used to listen to him ages ago telling her fairy stories.

"Go on!" she cried. "Go on! It's wonderful! Once upon a time Uncle Chris was walking along Fifth Avenue, when he happened to meet a poor old woman gathering sticks for firewood. She looked so old and tired that he was sorry for her, so he gave her ten cents which he had borrowed from the janitor, and suddenly she turned into a beautiful girl and said 'I am a fairy! In return for your kindness I grant you three wishes!' And Uncle Chris thought for a moment, and said, 'I want twenty thousand dollars to send to Jill!' And the fairy said, 'It shall be attended to. And the next article?'"

"It is all very well to joke," protested Uncle Chris, pained by this flippancy, "but let me tell you that I shall not require magic a.s.sistance to become a rich man. Do you realize that at houses like Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all the time who have only to say one little word to make me a millionaire? They are fat, grey men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now. I sat opposite that old pirate, Bruce Bishop, for over an hour the very day before he and his gang sent Consolidated Pea-Nuts down twenty points!

If I had known what was in the wind, I doubt if I could have restrained myself from choking his intentions out of the fellow. Well, what I am trying to point out is that one of these days one of these old oysters will have a fleeting moment of human pity and disgorge some tip on which I can act. It is that reflection that keeps me so constantly at Mrs. Peagrim's house." Uncle Chris s.h.i.+vered slightly. "A fearsome woman, my dear! Weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and as skittish as a young lamb in springtime! She makes me dance with her!"

Uncle Chris' lips quivered in a spasm of pain, and he was silent for a moment. "Thank Heaven I was once a footballer!" he said reverently.

"But what do you live on?" asked Jill. "I know you are going to be a millionaire next Tuesday week, but how are you getting along in the meantime?"

Uncle Chris coughed.

"Well, as regards actual living expenses, I have managed by a shrewd business stroke to acquire a small but sufficient income. I live in a boarding-house--true--but I contrive to keep the wolf away from its door--which, by the by, badly needs a lick of paint. Have you ever heard of Nervino?"

"I don't think so. It sounds like a patent medicine."

"It _is_ a patent medicine." Uncle Chris stopped and looked anxiously at her. "Jill, you're looking pale, my dear."

"Am I? We had rather a tiring rehearsal."