Jill the Reckless

P >> P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse >> Jill the Reckless

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"In the chorus?"

"In the chorus!"

"How do you know?"

Freddie groped for his eyeglass, which had fallen again. He regarded
it a trifle sternly. He was fond of the little chap, but it was always
doing that sort of thing. The whole trouble was that, if you wanted to
keep it in its place, you simply couldn't register any sort of emotion
with the good old features: and, when you were chatting with a fellow
like Wally Mason, you had to be registering something all the time.

"Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got
here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a
merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in
stories. _You_ know. Ring at the bell. 'And this, if I mistake not,
Watson, is my client now.' And then in breezes client and spills the
plot. I found a sleuth in the classified telephone directory, and
toddled round. Rummy chaps, detectives! Ever met any? I always thought
they were lean, hatchet-faced Johnnies with inscrutable smiles. This
one looked just like my old Uncle Ted, the one who died of apoplexy.
Jovial, puffy-faced bird, who kept bobbing up behind a fat cigar. Have
you ever noticed what whacking big cigars these fellows over here
smoke? Rummy country, America. You ought to have seen the way this
blighter could shift his cigar right across his face with moving his
jaw-muscles. Like a flash! Most remarkable thing you ever saw, I give
you my honest word! He...."

"Couldn't you keep your Impressions of America for the book you're
going to write, and come to the point?" said Wally rudely.

"Sorry, old chap," said Freddie meekly. "Glad you reminded me.
Well.... Oh, yes. We had got as far as the jovial old human
bloodhound, hadn't we? Well, I put the matter before this chappie.
Told him I wanted to find a girl, showed him a photograph, and so
forth. I say," said Freddie, wandering off once more into speculation,
"why is it that coves like that always talk of a girl as 'the little
lady'? This chap kept saying 'We'll find the little lady for you!' Oh,
well, that's rather off the rails, isn't it? It just floated across my
mind and I thought I'd mention it. Well, this blighter presumably
nosed about and made enquiries for a couple of days, but didn't effect
anything that you might call substantial. I'm not blaming him, mind
you. I shouldn't care to have a job like that myself. I mean to say,
when you come to think of what a frightful number of girls there are
in this place, to have to ... well, as I say, he did his best but
didn't click; and then this evening, just before I came here, I met a
girl I had known in England--she was in a show over there--a girl
called Nelly Bryant...."

"Nelly Bryant? I know her."

"Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called 'Follow the Girl' in
London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one
scene where the...."

"Get on! Get on! I wrote it."

"You wrote it?" Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. "My dear old
chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical
comedies I've ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Rummy I don't
remember spotting that you wrote it. I suppose one never looks at the
names on the programme. Yes, I went twenty-four times The first time I
went was with a couple of chappies from...."

"Listen, Freddie!" said Wally feverishly. "On some other occasion I
should dearly love to hear the story of your life, but just now...."

"Absolutely, old man. You're perfectly right. Well, to cut a long
story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing
with a piece called 'The Rose of America.'"

"'The Rose of America!'"

"I think that was the name of it."

"That's Ike Goble's show. He called me up on the phone about it half
an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it to-morrow or
the day after. And Jill's in that?"

"Yes. How about it? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of
thing, but do you think it's the sort of thing Jill ought to be
doing?"

Wally was moving restlessly about the room. Freddie's news had
disquieted him. Mr. Goble had a reputation.

"I know a lot about it," he replied, "and it certainly isn't." He
scowled at the carpet. "Oh, damn everybody!"

Freddie paused to allow him to proceed, if such should be his wish,
but Wally had apparently said his say. Freddie went on to point out an
aspect of the matter which was troubling him greatly.

"I'm sure poor old Derek wouldn't like her being in the chorus!"

Wally started so violently that for a moment Freddie was uneasy.

"I mean Underhill," he corrected himself hastily.

"Freddie," said Wally, "you're an awfully good chap, but I wish you
would exit rapidly now! Thanks for coming and telling me, very good of
you. This way out!"

"But, old man...!"

"Now what?"

"I thought we were going to discuss this binge and decide what to do
and all that sort of thing."

"Some other time. I want to think about it."

"Oh, you will think about it?"

"Yes, I'll think about it."

"Topping! You see, you're a brainy sort of fellow, and you'll probably
hit something."

"I probably shall, if you don't go."

"Eh? Oh, ah, yes!" Freddie struggled into his coat. More than ever did
the adult Wally remind him of the dangerous stripling of years gone
by. "Well, cheerio!"

"Same to you!"

"You'll let me know if you scare up some devilish fruity wheeze, won't
you? I'm at the Biltmore."

"Very good place to be. Go there now."

"Right ho! Well, toodle-oo!"

"The elevator is at the foot of the stairs," said Wally. "You press
the bell and up it comes. You hop in and down you go! It's a great
invention! Good night!"

"Oh, I say. One moment...."

"Good _night_!" said Wally.

He closed the door, and ran down the passage.

"Jill!" he called. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out.
"Jill!"

There was no reply.

"Jill!" called Wally once again, but again there was no answer.

Wally walked to the parapet, and looked over. Below him the vastness
of the city stretched itself in a great triangle, its apex the
harbour, its sides the dull silver of the East and Hudson Rivers.
Directly before him, crowned with its white lantern, the Metropolitan
Tower reared its graceful height to the stars. And all around, in the
windows of the tall buildings that looked from this bastion on which
he stood almost squat, a million lights stared up at him, the
unsleeping eyes of New York. It was a scene of which Wally, always
sensitive to beauty, never tired: but to-night it had lost its appeal.
A pleasant breeze from the Jersey shore greeted him with a quickening
whisper of springtime and romance, but it did not lift the heaviness
of his heart. He felt depressed and apprehensive.

CHAPTER XIV

MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE

I

Spring, whose coming the breeze had heralded to Wally as he smoked
upon the roof, floated graciously upon New York two mornings later.
The city awoke to a day of blue and gold and to a sense of hard times
over and good times to come. In his apartment on Park Avenue, Mr Isaac
Goble, sniffing the gentle air from the window of his breakfast-room,
returned to his meal and his _Morning Telegraph_ with a resolve to
walk to the theatre for rehearsal: a resolve which had also come to
Jill and Nelly Bryant, eating stewed prunes in their boarding-house in
the Forties. On the summit of his sky-scraper, Wally Mason, performing
Swedish exercises to the delectation of various clerks and
stenographers in the upper windows of neighbouring buildings, felt
young and vigorous and optimistic, and went in to his shower-bath
thinking of Jill. And it was of Jill, too, that young Pilkington
thought, as he propped his long form up against the pillows and sipped
his morning cup of tea. For the first time in several days a certain
moodiness which had affected Otis Pilkington left him, and he dreamed
happy day-dreams.

The gaiety of Otis was not, however, entirely or even primarily due to
the improvement in the weather. It had its source in a conversation
which had taken place between himself and Jill's Uncle Chris on the
previous night. Exactly how it had come about, Mr. Pilkington was not
entirely clear, but, somehow, before he was fully aware of what he was
saying, he had begun to pour into Major Selby's sympathetic ears the
story of his romance. Encouraged by the other's kindly receptiveness,
he had told him all--his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it
might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing
to the known prejudices of Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls
who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles. To all these
outpourings Major Selby had listened with keen attention, and finally
had made one of those luminous suggestions, so simple yet so shrewd,
which emanate only from your man of the world. It was Jill's girlish
ambition, it seemed from Major Selby's statement, to become a force in
the motion-picture world. The movies were her objective.

What, he broke off to ask, did Pilkington think of the idea?

Pilkington thought the idea splendid. Miss Mariner, with her charm and
looks, would be wonderful in the movies.

There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for the girl in the movies.

Mr. Pilkington agreed cordially. A great future indeed.

"Observe," proceeded Uncle Chris, gathering speed and expanding his
chest as he spread his legs before the fire, "how it would simplify
the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and
win fame and wealth in her profession. You go to your excellent aunt
and announce that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There
is a momentary pause. 'Not _the_ Jill Mariner?' falters Mrs. Peagrim.
'Yes, the famous Miss Mariner!' you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy,
can you see her making any objection? Such a thing would be absurd.
No, I can see no flaw in the project whatsoever." Here Uncle Chris, as
he had pictured Mrs. Peagrim doing, paused for a moment. "Of course,
there would be the preliminaries."

"The preliminaries?"

Uncle Chris' voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr.
Pilkington.

"Well, think for yourself, my boy! These things cannot be done without
money. I do not propose to allow my niece to waste her time and her
energy in the rank and file of the profession, waiting years for a
chance that might never come. There is plenty of room at the top, and
that, in the motion-picture profession, is the place to start. If Jill
is to become a motion-picture artist, a special company must be formed
to promote her. She must be made a feature, a star, from the
beginning. Whether," said Uncle Chris, smoothing the crease of his
trousers, "you would wish to take shares in the company yourself...."

"Oo...!"

"... is a matter," proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the interruption,
"for you yourself to decide. Possibly you have other claims on your
purse. Possibly this musical play of yours has taken all the cash you
are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider the venture too
speculative. Possibly ... there are a hundred reasons why you may not
wish to join us. But I know a dozen men--I can go down Wall Street
to-morrow and pick out twenty men--who will be glad to advance the
necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not
hesitate to risk--if one can call it risking--any loose cash which I
may have lying idle at my banker's."

He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his
trouser-pocket--fifteen cents in all--and stopped to flick a piece of
fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a
word.

"How much would you want?" he enquired.

"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I
should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you
the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you
put up--what shall we say?--a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? ...
no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with
more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't
suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."

"I could manage ten thousand all right."

"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go
to my Wall Street friends and tell them about the scheme, and say
'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the
affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to
work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own
judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if
you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever
you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would
be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a
position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to
Mrs. Peagrim."

"Of course."

"Very well, then, my boy," said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave you
to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you think
best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino? Capital!
There's nothing like it. It did wonders for _me_! Good night, good
night!"

Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an
interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the
better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought
of the ten thousand dollars, for he came of prudent stock and had been
brought up in habits of parsimony, but, after all, he reflected, the
money would be merely a loan. Once the company found its feet, it
would be returned to him a hundred-fold. And there was no doubt that
this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill, as
far as Aunt Olive was concerned. Why, a cousin of his--young Brewster
Philmore--had married a movie-star only two years ago, and nobody had
made the slightest objection. Brewster was to be seen with his bride
frequently beneath Mrs. Peagrim's roof. Against the higher strata of
Bohemia Mrs. Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the reverse, in
fact. She liked the society of those whose names were often in the
papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis Pilkington, in
short, that Love had found a way. He sipped his tea with relish, and
when the Japanese valet brought in the toast all burned on one side,
chided him with a gentle sweetness which, one may hope, touched the
latter's Oriental heart and inspired him with a desire to serve his
best of employers more efficiently.

At half-past ten, Otis Pilkington removed his dressing-gown and began
to put on his clothes to visit the theatre. There was a rehearsal-call
for the whole company at eleven. As he dressed, his mood was as sunny
as the day itself.

And the day, by half-past ten, was as sunny as ever Spring day had
been in a country where Spring comes early and does its best from the
very start. The blue sky beamed down on a happy city. To and fro the
citizenry bustled, aglow with the perfection of the weather.
Everywhere was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the
Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main
event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the
kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance
of the male chorus, the leading lady was to render in Act One.

On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned--literally, because the stage
was wide and deep and was illumined only by a single electric light;
and figuratively, because things were going even worse than usual with
the "My Heart and I" number, and Johnson Miller, always of an
emotional and easily stirred temperament, had been goaded by the
incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy. At about the
moment when Otis Pilkington shed his flowered dressing-gown and
reached for his trousers (the heather-mixture with the red twill),
Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and
the first row of the orchestra chairs, waving one hand and clutching
his white locks with the other, his voice raised the while in agonized
protest.

"Gentlemen, you silly idiots," complained Mr. Miller loudly, "you've
had three weeks to get these movements into your thick heads, and you
haven't done a damn thing right! You're all over the place! You don't
seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of
Keystone Kops! What's the matter with you? You're not doing the
movements I showed you; you're doing some you have invented
yourselves, and they are rotten! I've no doubt you think you can
arrange a number better than I can, but Mr. Goble engaged me to be the
director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don't try to use your
own intelligence, because you haven't any. I'm not blaming you for it.
It wasn't your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads when
you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think."

Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six
looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men wrongfully
accused. They appeared to be silently calling on Heaven to see justice
done between Mr. Miller and themselves. The seventh, a long-legged
young man in faultlessly fitting tweeds of English cut, seemed, on the
other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was this youth who now
stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke in a remorseful and
conscience-stricken manner.

"I say!"

Mr. Miller, that martyr to deafness, did not hear the pathetic bleat.
He had swung off at right angles and was marching in an overwrought
way up the central aisle leading to the back of the house, his
india-rubber form moving in convulsive jerks. Only when he had turned
and retraced his steps did he perceive the speaker and prepare to take
his share in the conversation.

"What?" he shouted. "Can't hear you!"

"I say, you know, it's my fault, really."

"What?"

"I mean to say, you know...."

"What? Speak up, can't you?"

Mr. Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a
melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the
services of an interpreter were needed. He obligingly left the
music-stool and crept, crab-like, along the ledge of the stage-box. He
placed his arm about Mr. Miller's shoulders and his lips to Mr.
Miller's left ear, and drew a deep breath.

"He says it is his fault!"

Mr. Miller nodded adhesion to this admirable sentiment.

"I know they're not worth their salt!" he replied.

Mr. Saltzburg patiently took in a fresh stock of breath.

"This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong!"

"Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie," urged the tweed-clad
young man.

"He only joined the company this morning!"

This puzzled Mr. Miller.

"How do you mean, warning?" he asked.

Mr. Saltzburg, purple in the face, made a last effort.

"This young man is new," he bellowed carefully, keeping to words of
one syllable. "He does not yet know the steps. He says this is his
first day here, so he does not yet know the steps. When he has been
here some more time he will know the steps. But now he does not know
the steps."

"What he means," explained the young man in tweeds helpfully, "is that
I don't know the steps."

"He does not know the steps!" roared Mr. Saltzburg.

"I know he doesn't know the steps," said Mr. Miller. "Why doesn't he
know the steps? He's had long enough to learn them."

"He is new!"

"Hugh?"

"New!"

"Oh, new?"

"Yes, new!"

"Why the devil is he new?" cried Mr. Miller, awaking suddenly to the
truth and filled with a sense of outrage. "Why didn't he join with the
rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am saddled
every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?"

"Who engaged you?" enquired Mr. Saltzburg of the culprit.

"Mr. Pilkington."

"Mr. Pilkington," shouted Mr. Saltzburg.

"When?"

"When?"

"Last night."

"Last night."

Mr. Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round,
darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back.

"What can I do?" he wailed. "My hands are tied! I am hampered! I am
handicapped! We open in two weeks and every day I find somebody new in
the company to upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr. Goble
and ask to be released from my contract. I shall.... Come along, come
along, come along now!" he broke off suddenly. "Why are we wasting
time? The whole number once more. The whole number once more from the
beginning!"

The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a
finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was
not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur
theatricals he had never encountered anything like it. In the
breathing-space afforded by the singing of the first verse and refrain
by the lady who played the heroine of "The Rose of America," he found
time to make an enquiry of the artist on his right.

"I say! Is he always like this?"

"Who? Johnny?"

"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The
barker on the sky-line. Does he often get the wind up like this?"

His colleague smiled tolerantly.

"Why, that's nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut
loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"

"My God!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future.

The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the
ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down
towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest
neighbour, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of
hands from the dark auditorium indicated--inappropriately--that he had
failed to do so. Mr. Miller could be perceived--dimly--with all his
fingers entwined in his hair.

"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr. Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the
latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others.
"You stay!"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we
shall get nowhere. Go up-stage. Start the music again, Mr. Saltzburg.
Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"

The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully. And
it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant, entering
the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o'clock
approached, saw him.

"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.

"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."

Nelly turned to Jill.

"He looks just like Mr. Rooke!" she exclaimed.

"He _is_ Mr. Rooke!" said Jill.

"He can't be!"

"He _is_!"

"But what is he doing here?"

Jill bit her lip.

"That's just what I'm going to ask him myself," she said.

II

The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur
immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing
abusive tuition from Mr. Miller: and at the end of that period a
further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number
with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally,
a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr.
Goble and at the same time indicated Mr. Goble's desire that the stage
should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of
recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able to
bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the ensemble, they had to
go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when
this had been run through four times and the stage left vacant for two
of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the Last
of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.

"Freddie, what are you doing here?"

Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller's idea of an opening
chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the ensemble
were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and Mr.
Miller's conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed
house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims of
St. Vitus' dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and exhausted:
and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.

"Eh?" he said feebly.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you're surprised to find
me in New York, what?"

"I'm not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over.
But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr.
Miller."

"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He's a bit of a nut, that
lad, what? He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The
chappies who prowled and prowled around. I'll bet he's worn a groove
in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.
Wouldn't be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting a
piece out of my leg!"

Jill seized his arm and shook it.

"Don't _ramble_, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."

"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this
chappie Pilkington who's running this show, and, we having got
tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to
let me join the merry throng. I said I didn't want any money, and the
little bit of work I would do wouldn't make any difference, so he said
'Right ho!' or words to that effect, and here I am."

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