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Rat Race

<h2>CHAPTER 2</h2> A pretty, dark-haired maid opened the door of "Pook's Hill" with a twitch of the hip that was wasted on Bedford Hills. "Oh, it's you!" She remarked conversationally. "Shall I tell Mrs. Tompkins you are here?" "And why not?" I asked. She looked at me slant-eyed. "Why not, sir? She must have forgotten to eat an apple this morning. That's why." "Where shall I dump my hat and coat, Mary?" I asked guessing wildly at her name. Suburban maids were named Mary as often as not. "The name is Myrtle, Mr. Tompkins," she replied, and did not bother to add the "as well you know" she implied. "From now on, Myrtle, you shall be Mary so far as I am concerned. And where, Mary, shall I leave my hat and coat?" "In the den, sir, of course. Come, I'll lend a hand. You've been drinking again." The girl moved quite close to me, in helping me off with my things and it was only by a distinct effort of will that I refrained from giving that provocative hip the tweak it so openly invited. "This way, Mr. Tompkins," she said sarcastically, so I rewarded her with a half-hearted smack which brought the requisite "Oh!"—you never can tell when you will need a friend below stairs and it was obvious that Winnie, the dog! had been trifling with her young buttocks if not her affections. That sort of thing must stop, if I was going to get anywhere in my run through the maze. Too abrupt a change in the manners and morals of Winfred Tompkins, however, might arouse suspicion. "Any news today, Mary?" I asked. "Nothing, sir. The kennels telephoned to say that Ponto had made a miraculous recovery and could come home tomorrow. I had them send word to the Club to tell you. And Mrs. Tompkins, as I said, forgot to eat her apple." I looked at her. This was a cue. I mustn't miss it. "And the doctor didn't keep away?" I asked. "Him? I should say not! Mrs. Tompkins felt quite unsettled right after lunch and phoned Dr. Rutherford to come over. He's with her now, upstairs, giving her an examination." She rolled her eyes significantly in the direction of the second story. "Wait a few minutes till I catch my breath and get my bearings, Mary," I said, "and then tell Mrs. Tompkins most discreetly, if you know what I mean, that I have returned and am waiting in my—" I waved vaguely at the room. "In your den, sir," she agreed. "The name is Myrtle." The den was one of those things I have never attained, perhaps because I never wanted to. There was a field-stone fireplace, over which the antlered head of a small stag presided with four upturned feet—like a calf in a butcher shop—that held two well dusted shotguns. The walls were lined with books up to a dado—books in sets, with red morocco and gilt bindings: Dickens, Thackeray, Surtees, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dumas, Balzac and similar standard authors—all highly respectable and mostly unread. On the table, beside a humidor and cigarette cases, was a formidable array of unused pipes. Above the shelves, the walls were adorned with etchings of ducks: ducks sitting, ducks swimming, ducks nesting, ducks flying and ducks hanging dead. It was as though Winnie's conscience or attorney had advised him: "You can't go wrong on ducks, old boy!" Instead, he had gone wild. In one corner of the den my unregenerate Navy eye discerned a small portable bar, with gleaming glasses, decanters and syphons. Further investigation was rewarded by the makings of a very fair Scotch-and-soda. To my annoyance, the cigarette box contained only de luxe Benson & Hedges—it would!—while I am a sucker for Tareytons. Still, any cigarette is better than no cigarette. A little mooching around the fireplace revealed the switch which turned on an electric fire, ingeniously contrived to represent an expensive Manhattan architect's idea of smouldering peat. The whole effect was very cosy in the "Town and Country" sense—a gentleman's gun-room—and I had settled down most comfortably on the broad leather divan in front of this synthetic blaze when I was interrupted by an angry, tenor voice. "I say, Tompkins," soared the voice. "I thought we had agreed to be civilized about this thing." I raised my head to see a lean, dark-haired, dapper little man, with a dinky little British Raj mustache and a faint odor of antiseptics, glaring at me from the doorway. "Dr. Rutherford, I presume!" I remarked. "Yes, Winnie," came a pleasant but irritated womanly voice from somewhere behind the doctor, "and I too would like to know what this means." "Is that you, Jimmie?" I guessed. "Of course it's me! Who else did you expect? One of those flashy blondes from your office?" "Sh!" shushed the doctor reprovingly. "What about Virginia? What have you done with her?" This required serious thought. The glass of Scotch was a good alibi for amnesia. "To whom do you refer?" I asked, putting a slight thickness into my voice. "To Virginia, my wife!" he snapped. "We agreed—it was understood between the four of us—" I shook my head virtuously. "I haven't set eyes on her all day," I said. "I don't know where she is and I refuse to be held responsible for her in any particular. She's your look-out, not mine." "Why, you!—" The doctor started forward, menacing me with his surgical little fists. "Wait a minute, Jerry," the contralto voice ordered. "Let me handle this!" Germaine Tompkins stepped forward into the room and stood in the flickering light of the electric peat. "Tell me, Winnie," she asked, "has anything gone wrong?" My wife was a tall, slim girl, with dark eyes, dark hair parted sleekly in the 1860 style, and a cool, slender neck. She was wearing something low-cut in black velvet, with a white cameo brooch at the "V" of a bodice which suggested a potentially undemure Quakeress. I noticed that she had angry eyes, a sulky mouth and a puzzled expression. "I'm sorry, Jimmie," I replied, after a good look at her, "but I have decided that I simply couldn't go through with it." "Do you mean to say—" Dr. Rutherford began, only to be hushed by Germaine. "Let me handle him, Jerry," she whispered. "You'd better go. He's tight. I'll phone you in the morning." "All right, if you say so, dear," the doctor obeyed. "And be sure to send me a bill for this call," I added. "Professional services and what-not. And don't come back to my house without my personal invitation." Dr. Rutherford emitted a muttered comment and disappeared into the gloom of the hall. My wife followed him and I could hear a series of confused and comforting whispers sending him on his way. I had finished my Scotch and poured myself another before my wife rejoined me. "Have a drink?" I asked. "No thank you!" she snapped. "Mad at me?" "What do you think?" Her tone was cool enough to freeze lava. "You have every right to be!" That answer, I had found by experience, was unanswerable. "What do you mean?" she asked in some bewilderment. "Yes, thanks, I will have a drink after all. You see, Winnie, after we had talked it all over the other night after the Bond Rally Dance and realized how we felt about it all, the four of us decided to be—well—civilized about things. And now—" "I don't feel civilized about my wife," I said, pouring her a stiff one. Her eyes glittered and her cheek was tinged with color. In spite of her anger, she responded to the idea of male brutes contesting for her favor. "I didn't think you cared a damn," she said at last, "and it's pretty late in the day to make a change now. After all, there is Virginia." That was the cue to clinch the situation. "To hell with Virginia!" I announced. "I'd rather live with you as your friend than sleep with la Rutherford in ten thousand beds. I can't help it," I added boyishly. She leaned forward and sniffed. "You have been drinking, haven't you?" she remarked. "Of course I have! Today, in town, I suddenly realized what a damn fool I'd been to throw away something really fine for something very second-rate. So I drank. Too much. And the more I drank the more I knew that I was right and that it was here where I belong, with you. If you don't want me to stay, I'll go over to the Country Club for the night. I'll even phone Jerry Rutherford for you—him and his moustache—but I'm damned if I'll go running back to Virginia. She's not pukka!" ("How'm I doing?" I added silently for the benefit of the Master of Ceremonies.) "Well—" she said, after a long pause. "Perhaps—It's so mixed up—Perhaps you'd better go to bed here and we can talk it over in the morning. All of us." I shook my head. "I don't want to hold any more mass-meetings on the state of our mutual affections. If you want that tenor tonsil-snatcher, you're welcome to him but I'm damned if I'll be a good sport about it. If you insist, I'll buy you a divorce, but I won't marry Virginia—that's final!" Germaine's face relaxed. She smiled. "We'll see how things look to you in the morning," she said. Now was the time to play the trump card. "Oh yes," I said. "I brought home a present for you." I walked over to the hanger in the corner and pulled the Tiffany packages from my overcoat pocket. "Here you are, Jimmie Tompkins," I said, "with all my alleged love." "Alleged is right!" But she picked eagerly at the wrappings and swiftly ferreted out the diamond brooch. "Why, Winnie, it's lovely—" she began, then whirled on me, her eyes blazing. "Is this a joke?" she demanded. "Of course not! What's the matter?" Her laugh was wild. "Oh, nothing, Winnie. Nothing at all. It's just that you should have decided to give me—on her birthday—a brooch with her initials in diamonds. See them! V.M.R." So that's the catch, I thought. I should have guessed there would be something wrong with the set-up and I kicked myself for not having bothered to trace out the monogram. "Don't you see what I mean," I grated, "or must I spell it out for you? Some time back, when we were considering all this civilized swapping of husbands and wives, I put in the order at Tiffany's for Virginia's birthday present. Today, when I picked it up, the clerk smirked at me—he knows your initials don't begin with V—and I suddenly knew I couldn't go ahead with the whole business. So I brought the brooch back to you as a trophy, if you want it. You can do what you like about it. It's yours. You see, Jimmie," I added, "that's the way things are. I'm burning all my bridges." "Oh!" she said. Then after a long pause, she added, "Ah!" "I don't think," she remarked, after another pause, "that I'll want to keep this and I'm far too fond of Virginia Rutherford to humiliate her. I think I'll just take this back to Tiffany's and get something else." So I had led trumps. "Here's something else to be going on with," I told her. "I got this for you, anyhow, win, lose or draw"—and I produced the gold bracelet. "I thought it would go with that dress and your cameo and—if you still want to wear it—your wedding ring." She cast quick glances from side to side, like a bird that suspects a snare. "It's good," she sighed. "Winnie, it's so good. I guess...." There was a knock at the door. It was Myrtle-Mary. "Will the master be staying for dinner, Mrs. Tompkins?" she asked. "Of course I will, Mary," I said. "Is there enough to eat?" "I'll see, sir," she replied in a manner which was practically an insult to us both. "And keep a civil tongue in your head," I added. She handed it back to me. "And keep your hands to yourself, sir," she said as she closed the door. "Winnie." It was Jimmie's hand restraining me, as I started up. "Let her go!" I said at last. "It's my fault, I guess. I haven't been happy and I did make a few passes. From now on, I'll try to be a bit more decent and livable. God knows I have plenty to be ashamed of, but nothing disgraceful ... I hope." "So do I," my wife began. "If you...." The telephone rang. She picked up the receiver and listened for a moment, frowning. "Yes, he's here," she said, passing me the instrument. "It's for you," she observed. "It's Virginia calling from New York and she sounds most annoyed." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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