Rudd obediently delivered her message, and Kenyon, wrapped in a thin silk dressing gown, hung up the receiver with an angry grunt.
The night before they had told him that she was out, and now she refused even to speak to him. In his bath he thought the matter over and admitted that he had not quite played the game. To talk of himself as seeking a Government position at £400 a year might be accurate, but it was certainly misleading, and to describe his father as a farmer with few investments was hardly in accordance with Debrett. His quick decision to conceal his title had been governed by his comparatively small experience with girls of the upper middle class. He had discovered in his Oxford days that they were apt to affect strange mannerisms which they believed to be socially correct as soon as they knew that he was heir to a Dukedom; whereas if they remained in ignorance they continued to be natural and amusing.
He wondered how she had found him out, and put it down to her seeing one of his photographs in the illustrated papers. Hardly a week passed without his appearing in one of them grimly smirking in a flashlight snap at some party, or with one enormous foot stretched out as he made for the paddock at a race meeting.
His mind leapt back to the darkened sitting room, visualising again fragmentary episodes of that unforgettable hour. His pulses quickened at the thought he had got to see her again somehow there wasn't a doubt about that. The best way would be to slip down to Gloucester Road and catch her before she left for the office. He scrambled out of his bath.
Breakfast, he decided, could wait, and having hurried through his dressing he telephoned for his car to be brought round.
In Gloucester Road, Rudd answered his ring, and with a quick grasp of his business clumped upstairs to the communal sitting room, leaving him below.
Two minutes later he came down again, shaking his yellow head: 'I'm sorry, sir, but Miss Croome sez she don't want ter see yer an' yer ter go away at once.'
Kenyon produced a pound note from his pocket book and displayed it to Mr. Rudd. 'Look here,' he said, 'I want to see Miss Croome very badly indeed, and I'm sure you've got a lot of work to do, so slip along and get on with it while I run upstairs… there's a good chap.'
'No, sir. This bein' my 'ouse as it were, I can't do that but I tell yer wot if 1 perswides the young lady ter see yer I earns it, eh? but if I don't you keeps the quid?'
'Splendid that's fair enough.'
Rudd ascended once more with new vigour in his step, and this time Kenyon had a longer wait, but his ambassador returned alone!
'No go, Guv'nor,' he said sadly. 'She sez she don't care if you do look 'orribly unappy like I told 'er an' I'm ter mind me own blinkin' business. But there's no accountin' fer wimen and their ways.'
'Never mind, keep this for your trouble.' Kenyon thrust the pound note into Rudd's hand. He liked the fellow's quick intelligent sympathy and felt that he might prove a useful ally later on.
'Now that,' muttered Rudd to himself, as Kenyon walked swiftly back to his car, 'is wot I calls a gentleman.'
It was not until Kenyon was sitting down to breakfast that he realised what a fool he had been to hurry back. If he had waited in Gloucester Road he would have caught Ann for certain on her way to work and might have made his peace. However, it was too late to think of that now.
The paper was full of the previous evening's decision by the banks. The suspension of payments was only a temporary matter, necessitated by the withdrawals of the day before which were estimated at the colossal figure of forty million. Assignats were now being printed and would be issued on demand to depositors when the banks reopened, which it was hoped would be on Monday. In the meantime patience, mutual help and 'our British sense of humour' were suggested to carry the population over the intervening days.
His Majesty's illness was referred to at some length. He had suffered a relapse on the previous day and his condition was causing the gravest anxiety. The physicians at Windsor insisted on all news being kept from him and would not allow even the Prime Minister to see him on the most urgent business.
The Prince had gone down to the Dockers' mass meeting the night before without any previous intimation of his intention. Some hostility had been shown, but this had been speedily drowned by a tremendous ovation from the majority, and his appeal for the maintenance of law and order had met with an excellent response. He had asked all those who could do so to enrol themselves as special constables or join the Greyshirt organisations in support of the existing Government, and had secured a thousand volunteers before he left. His courageous action had resulted in allaying unrest in the Dockland area.
The news from Glasgow was confined to a short paragraph. Disorders had occurred in certain sections of the city, but a number of Communist leaders had been arrested by the military and it was hoped that order would soon be restored. The train service would not be renewed, however, until after the week end.
'Not too good,' thought Kenyon, and the brief mention of the Navy was even less reassuring. A number of clashes had occurred between the police and the Communists at Portsmouth, and parties of sailors were stated to have been among the latter.
After breakfast Kenyon considered his supply of cigarettes. He had a few hundred left but if things became worse it might be difficult to get more since he smoked a particularly fine brand of Turkish made for him, at a very reasonable price, by an importer in Manchester. If he wired at once asking them to send him triple his usual order by passenger train they should arrive, with luck, next day. Kenyon was one of those people who never minded taking a little trouble to ensure his future comfort.
He walked round to the post office, dispatched his telegram, and then strolled on to his club. It was unusually crowded and the members were gathered six deep round the tape machine. 'What's the latest, Archie?' he asked an acquaintance on the edge of the group.
'Devilish difficult to say, old man,' Archie made a pessimistic grimace, 'the news is so heavily censored that very little really important stuff is allowed to come through.'
'Heard anything about this Glasgow business?'
'Have I not?' the other grinned. 'That old tiger who is commanding in the north bagged twenty Communist leaders last night, erected a nice old fashioned gallows on Glasgow Green, and hung the lot. He's keeping the bodies dangling too as a warning to the rest!'
'The devil he did! What will the Cabinet have to say to that?'
'Lord knows! They'll recall him, I expect, just like they did poor old Dyer in India after the Amritsar trouble years ago.'
Kenyon nodded gloomily. 'It'll be a rotten show if they do. It seems to me that our only hope now is a few stout fellows with real guts like that. By hanging twenty he's probably saved at least a hundred from being killed in street fighting.'
'You haven't heard anything from South Wales, have you?'
'No why?'
Archie lowered his voice. 'Well, that's one of the worst danger spots, and I had it from a man I know that there was an organised rising there last night. He says that some sort of Soviet have seized control in Cardiff.'
'Do you think his information is reliable?'
'Ah, that's where you've got me. I wondered if you'd heard anything, that's all.'
'Nothing except that business about the income tax collector, and that the miners are sabotaging the pits, but they've been doing that on and off for months past.'
They wandered into the smoking room and ordered a couple of dry sherries. Then Archie began to give his general views on the situation. They were not cheerful views and after a little Kenyon asked him what he meant to do,