‘It’s a thought,’ I replied. ‘It would get us away from the scarlet fever and actually it might go along very well with what I was intending.’
‘Which was?’
‘Although we’d have to go a long way south to find seaside that wasn’t a trial in October. France, perhaps? The mountains? But I’d spend all the money I’m hoping to use for my grand idea.’
‘Which is?’
‘Central heating,’ I proclaimed. ‘A boiler and pipes and radiators and every room in the house like a fireside nook from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.’
‘Hugh must be ill,’ said Alec.
‘Hugh doesn’t know,’ I told him. ‘So you see, getting him out of the house would be pretty handy.’
‘Can you afford it?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘the thing is, you see, that Hugh has just offloaded some shares.’
‘Really?’ Alec cocked his head. ‘He’s selling? Everyone’s buying.’
‘That’s what Hugh says too, but he won’t tell me what. What are you buying?’
‘Oh Dandy, join the modern age,’ Alec said. ‘One doesn’t buy shares in things any more. One buys securities on margin with a broker’s loan.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Alec. ‘I think it’s an American invention.’
‘Aha! Then you are both at the same game. Hugh offloaded these shares, as I said – ancient old things he’s been holding for sentimental reasons more than anything; I think his father first bought them – and he offloaded his London broker too and got one in New York.’
‘Sounds like it then,’ said Alec. ‘Good for Hugh.’
‘So we’re sloshing in actual cash for a change, until he spends it on these New York securities. Only with the flu and bronchitis it’s been the last thing on his mind. Or maybe he thinks I’ve done it for him. I couldn’t say.’
Alec’s face betrayed a not uncommon mix of emotions; he is my friend – mine, not ours – and his loyalties lie properly with me, but every so often when it comes to such things as farming, shooting and evidently money too some deep masculine chord begins to thrum in harmony with Hugh.
‘You can’t possibly be serious, Dan,’ he said. ‘Hugh thinks you’ve stepped in and carried out his business for him whilst he was ill – as he has every right to expect you to, by the way – and instead you’re planning to fritter away shares in a gold mine just so you can waft about in backless frocks and not get gooseflesh?’
‘I don’t see it that way at all,’ I said. ‘I think if I choose to spend money wisely on solid goods instead of gambling on ticker-tape fairy tales Hugh should be thankful for my sound sense.’
‘Sound sense?’ Alec cried. ‘Dandy, this is the biggest year the stock market’s ever seen!’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Alec. ‘But the brokers and bankers do. That’s good enough for me.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I hope your trust in them is warranted.’
We tore bread, drank soup and glared for a minute. Alec gave in first.
‘The mountains? The Alps, you mean? For the air?’
‘The mountain air does the same job as ozone, doesn’t it? Not to mention all the clinics and tonics and what have you.’ I hoped he would not notice the inconsistency of my advocating cold mountain breezes while I was plotting to banish the fresh air of a thousand draughts from Gilverton for ever.
‘And I’d take over Gilver and Osborne, would I?’ said Alec. ‘While you’re away.’
‘If a case comes in,’ I said. ‘It’s been rather quiet.’
‘Only…’ He drank soup, then sherry, then a mouthful of water. ‘I might be busy.’
‘I can always have my post forwarded,’ I said. ‘If I go at all, darling. It was only a thought.’
‘The thing is,’ said Alec, ‘I’m thinking of taking a wife.’
To my great satisfaction I did not drop my spoon, inhale a crumb or utter a gasp. With perfect honesty, however, that was because my thought when I heard him was ‘Whose wife? Take her where?’ and by the time I had properly parsed his odd phrasing I was past the danger.
‘Well, let me be the first to offer my congratulations,’ I said.
‘And so I’m going to have to put a bit of effort into finding one.’
‘You- You mean- You’re planning to marry someone but-’
‘I need a wife,’ he said, like someone telling a waiter he needed a fork. ‘I need an heir. I’d quite like a daughter or two. A family, I suppose you’d say.’
‘You’ve picked a funny time to start the auditions,’ I said and my tone of amusement, my air of calm interest, was quite a feat, even though I myself say so. ‘Why not wait until next season? You’d not get in the door of the first ball before one of the mammas picked you off.’
Alec shuddered.
‘I can’t face a season and the mammas,’ he said. ‘Not to mention some drip of a girl making eyes at me. I’d like to marry a woman who wants a home and a family of her own and won’t pester me with a lot of silly nonsense beforehand.’
‘You want to marry Hugh,’ I said. ‘If only he had a sister. Or a niece, I suppose.’
‘Sister,’ said Alec. ‘Someone over thirty and past all the lovey-dovey stuff would be ideal.’
‘Well,’ I said briskly, ‘I shouldn’t have thought you’d have any trouble. A personable young man under forty, good family, nice estate, reasonable income.’
‘Would you like to tap my ribs with a rubber hammer, Dan?’ he said. ‘I told you I couldn’t face the mammas and you instantly become one.’
I laughed and he laughed with me and Barrow came in for the soup plates and the evening passed away on teasing and stock market gossip. It wasn’t until I was in my little motorcar driving home that I let the mask fall and plunged into mourning. It was over then, Gilver and Osborne, Alec and me. Whatever he said about a sensible girl and life going on as usual except punctuated by babies, there was not the faintest chance that our pleasant round would survive the advent of a wife. I could picture her already and, try as I might, I did not care for her.
So I stopped in on Hugh, instead of making straight for my sitting room.
‘How would you like to go away for a bit?’ I said. ‘A change of air, build you up again.’
‘Bournemouth kind of thing?’ said Hugh. ‘Rather late in the year, isn’t it? Last thing Donald needs is a sea fog seeping in at his bedroom window. I just paid him a visit and I see what you mean.’
‘How about mountain air?’ I said. ‘Some crisp mountain air and those clever doctors?’
‘Germans?’
‘Swiss, I was thinking.’
‘Same thing,’ said Hugh. ‘Can’t say I could face the journey anyway.’
‘Then put it out of your mind,’ I said, bending to peck his cheek. ‘Goodnight, dear.’
‘Are you all right, Dandy?’ he said, understandably startled. ‘I didn’t mean to shoot the idea out of the sky, you know. I’m with you as far as the clever doctors anyway. Marvellous what they can do with salts and hot towels and electrical currents these days.’
By which I took it that Hugh had been reading the back pages of old Blackwood’s Magazines again. I left him to his amusements and retired to mine, and to my daily duties too.
It was a good thing that Gilver and Osborne had been enjoying a peaceful spell because this evening, when I did not even open my correspondence until bedtime, was typical. We had caught a thief in March, unmasked a poison pen in June and then apart from Alec tracking down a bad debtor in August – this being quite a speciality of his these days, much less sordid to have someone like him tap the shoulder and ‘old man’ and ‘dear chap’ his way to a settlement than to have bailiffs calling – our little operation had been in dry dock. That was about to change.