“Quite,” said Agatha Troy. “Look here, I think I’d better get down to my cabin. I haven’t unpacked yet. If you’ll excuse me— ”
“Why, certainly. We’ll be seeing you. Say, have you seen that guy Alleyn around?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know— ”
“He’s tall and thin, and I’ll say he’s good-looking. And he is British? Gee! I’m crazy about him. I got a little gamble with these boys, I’ll have him doing figure eights trying to dope out when the petting-party gets started.”
“I’ve kissed good-bye to my money,” one of the youths said.
“Listen to him, will you, Miss Troy? But we certainly saw Mr. Alleyn around this way a while back.”
“He went up to the boat deck,” said a youth.
“Oh,” said Miss Troy clearly. “That man! Yes, he’s up there now.”
“Atta-boy!”
“Whoopee!”
“Oh damn!” said Alleyn softly.
And the next thing that happened was Miss Van Maes showing him how she’d made a real Honolulu lei out of Fijian frangipanni, and asking him to come down with the crowd for a drink.
“Has this party gone cuckoo or something? We’re three rounds behind the clock. C’m on!”
“Virginia,” said a youth, “you’re tight.”
“What the hell! Is it my day to be sober? You coming, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Thank you so much,” said Alleyn, “but if you’ll believe it, I’m a non-drinker at the moment. Doctor’s orders.”
“Aw, be funny!”
“Fact, I assure you.”
“Mr. Alleyn’s thinking of the lady with the picture,” said a youth.
“What — her? With her face all mussed in green paint. Mr. Alleyn’s not screwy yet, is he? Gee, I’ll say a woman’s got no self-respect to go around that way in public. Did you get a look at that smock? And the picture! Well, I had to be polite and say it was cute, but it’s nobody’s big sorrow she didn’t finish it. The wharf at Suva! Seems I struck it lucky, but what it’s meant for’s just anyone’s guess. C’m on, Mr. Strong-Silent-Sleuth, put me out of my agony and say she don’t mean one thing to you.”
“Miss Van Maes,” said Alleyn, “do you know that you make me feel very middle-aged and inexpressibly foolish? I haven’t got the smallest idea what the right answer is to any one of your questions.”
“Maybe I could teach you. Maybe I could teach you a whole lot of fun, honey.”
“You’re very kind, but, do you know, I’m afraid I’m past the receptive age.”
She widened her enormous eyes. The mascaraed lashes stuck out round them like black toothpicks. Her ash-fair hair was swept back from her very lovely face into a cluster of disciplined and shining curls. She had the unhuman good looks of a film star. Undoubtedly she was rather tight.
“Well,” she said, “my bet with the boys is still good. Twenty-five’ll get anybody fifty you kiss me before we hit Honolulu. And I don’t mean maybe.”
“I should be very much honoured— ”
“Yeah? And I don’t mean the get-by-the-censor stuff, either. No, sir!”
She stared at him, and upon her normally blank and beautiful face there dawned a look of doubt.
“Say,” she said, “you’re not going to tell me you got a yen for that woman?”
“I don’t know what a yen is,” Alleyn said, “but I’ve got nothing at all for Miss Troy, and I can assure you she has got even less than that for me.”
CHAPTER II
Five Letters
From Miss Agatha Troy to her friend, Miss Katti Bostock, the well-known painter of plumbers, miners and Negro musicians:
S.S. Niagara,
August 1st.
Dear Katti,
I am breaking this journey at Quebec, so you’ll get this letter about a fortnight before I get home. I’m glad everything is fixed up for next term. It’s a bore in some ways having to teach, but now I’ve reached the giddy heights of picking and choosing I don’t find it nearly so irksome. Damn’ good of you to do all the arranging for me. If you can, get the servants into the house by Sept. 1st — I get back on the 3rd — they ought to have everything fixed up by the 10th, when we start classes. Your air-mail reached Suva the day we sailed. Yes, book Sonia Gluck for model. The little swine’s beautiful and knows how to pose as long as she behaves herself. You yourself might do a big nude for the Group Show on the 16th or thereabouts. You paint well from the nude and I think you shouldn’t remain wedded to your plumbers — your stuff will get static if you don’t look out. I don’t think I told you who is coming next term. Here is the list:
(1) Francis Ormerin. He’s painting in Paris at the moment, but says the lot at Malaquin’s has come all over surrealist and he can’t see it and doesn’t want to. Says he’s depressed about his work or something.
(2) Valmai Seacliff. That’s the girl that did those dabby Rex Whistlerish posters for the Board of Trade. She says she wants to do some solid work from the model. Quite true, she does; but I rather fancy she’s on the hunt.
(3) Basil Pilgrim. If I’m not mistaken, Basil is Valmai’s quarry. He’s an Hon., you know, and the old Lord Pilgrim is doddering to the grave. He’s the “Peer that became a Primitive Methodist” a few years ago — you remember. The papers were full of it. He comes to light with the odd spot of hell-fire on the subject of birth-control, every now and then. Basil’s got six elder sisters, and Lady Pilgrim died when he was born, so we don’t know what she thought about it. I hardly think Valmai Seacliff will please the old gentleman. Basil’s painting nearly drove him into the Salvation Army, I fancy.
(4) Watt Hatchett. This is new blood. He’s an Australian youth I found working in Suva. Very promising stuff. Simplified form and swinging lines. He’s as keen as mustard, and was practically living on bananas and cheek when I ran into him. His voice is like the crashing together of old tin cans, and he can talk of nothing but his work, his enthusiasms, and his dislikes. I’m afraid he’ll get on their nerves and they may put him on the defensive. Still, his work is good.
(5) Cedric Malmsley. He’s got a job illustrating some de luxe edition of medieval romances, and wants to get down to it with a model handy. It ought to work in all right. I told him to get in touch with you. I hear he’s grown a blond beard that parts in the middle and wears sandals — Cedric, not the beard.
(6) Wolf Garcia. I had a letter from Garcia. No money, but a commission to do Comedy and Tragedy in marble for the new cinema in Westminster, so will I let him stay with me and do the clay model? No stamp on the envelope and written in conte chalk on lavatory paper. He will probably turn up long before you get this letter. Let him use the studio, will you, but look out, if you’ve got Sonia there. Garcia’s got the use of someone’s studio in London after the 20th, and hopes to have a cast ready by then, so it won’t be for long. Now don’t bully me, Katti. You know the creature is really — Heaven save the mark — a genius; and the others all pay me through the nose, so I can afford to carry a couple of deadheads. Yes, you’re quite right. Hatchett is the other.
(7) One Phillida Lee. Just left the Slade. Rich father. She sent me some of her stuff and a rather gushing little request to work under me “because she has always longed,” etc. etc. I wrote back asking the earth in fees and she snapped at it.
(8) You, bless you. I’ve told them all to fix up with you. Malmsley, Ormerin and Pilgrim can have the dormitory; Garcia one attic, and Hatchett the other. You have the yellow room as usual, and put Valmai Seacliff and the Lee child in the blue. The great thing is to segregate Garcia. You know what he is, and I won’t have that sort of thing — it’s too muddly. On second thoughts it might be better to put him in the studio and the model in the attic. I rather think they were living together in London. By the way, I’m going to do a portrait of Valmai Seacliff. It’ll do for Burlington House and the Salon, drat them. She’ll be good enough to paint in the slap-up grand manner.
I’m scratching this off in the writing-room on my first night out from Suva. Did a small thing looking down in the wharf before we sailed. Came off rather well. I was interrupted by a man whom I thought was a fool, and who turned out to be intelligent, so I felt the fool. There’s an American ex-cinema actress running about this ship half tight. She looks like one of their magazine covers and behaves like the wrath of God. The man seems to be her property, so perhaps he is a fool, after all.
If anything amusing happens, I’ll add to this. It’s been an interesting holiday, and I’m glad I did it. Your letters have been grand. Splendid the work goes on so well. I look forward to seeing it. Think about a nude for the Group. You don’t want to be called the Plumber’s Queen.
Later. We get into Vancouver to-morrow. It’s been a peaceful trip since Honolulu, where the Ship’s Belle left us. Before that it was rather hellish. Unfortunately someone had the number of The Palette that ran a special supplement of my show. The Belle got hold of it and decided I must be a real artist after all. When she saw the reproduction of the Royal portrait she laid her ears back and settled down to a steady pursuit. Wouldn’t it be just wonderful if I did a portrait of her before we got to Honolulu? Her poppa would be tickled to death. She changed her clothes six times a day and struck a new attitude whenever she caught my eye. I had to pretend I’d got neuritis in my hand, which was a curse, as I rather wanted to do a head of one of the other passengers — a very paintable subject with plenty of good bone. However, I got down to it after Honolulu. The subject is a detective and looks like a grandee. Sounds like it, too — very old-world and chivalrous and so on. Damn! that looks like a cheap sneer, and it’s not meant to. I’m rather on the defensive about this sleuth — I was so filthily rude to him, and he took it like a gent and made me feel like a bounder. Very awkward. The head is fairly successful.
Well, Katti, old lady, we meet on the 3rd. I’ll come straight to Tatler’s End. Best Love.
Your ever,
Troy.
P.S. — Perhaps you’d better give Garcia a shakedown in the studio and lock him in. We’ll hope he’ll have gone by the 20th.