Ice in the Bedroom by P. G. Wodehouse Read Free Book Online Page B

Thursday.'
    'Oh, hell!'
    'Keep calm. I got you out of it. I told him you were thinking out a new novel.'
    Leila Yorke snorted bitterly.
    'You did, did you? Then you wantonly deceived the poor man. How can I think out a George Gissing novel in surroundings like these? I always thought the suburbs were miles and miles of ghastly little semi-detached houses full of worn-out women ironing shirts and haggard men with coughs wondering where the rent was coming from, and look at this joint we've fetched up in. A palace, no less.'
    'Would you say that?'
    'Well, it's got a summerhouse and two bird-baths and an aspidistra in the drawing-room, not to mention a reproduction of Millais' Huguenot and a china mug with "A present From Bognor Regis" on it in pink sea shells, which I'll bet they haven't got at Windsor Castle. I ought to have known it. That young hound was pulling my leg.'
    'What young hound?'
    'You know him. Widgeon. You brought him along to see me, and we got along like a couple of sailors on shore leave. We split a bottle of the best and got kidding back and forth about his uncle Rodney and Johnny Shoesmith and what have you, and in a weak moment I confided in him about this novel of squalor I'm trying to write, and he told me that if I wanted a place where I could absorb squalor by the gallon, I ought to come to Valley Fields. He said if I played my cards right, I could get this Castlewood house, and like a chump I told him to phone Cornelius and fix it up. And here I am, stuck in a luxury suburb about as inspirational as Las Vegas. For all the grey atmosphere I'm likely to find here, I might just as well have stayed where I was. Shows how unsafe it is ever to trust anybody in a solicitor's office. Twisters, all of them.'
    Twice during these remarks, as the perfidy of Frederick Widgeon was made clearer and clearer to her, Sally had gasped - the first time like a Pekinese choking on a bone of a size more suitable to a bloodhound, the second time like another Pekinese choking on another bone of similar dimensions. She was stunned by this revelation of the Machiavellian depths to which the male sex can descend when it puts its mind to it, and Leila Yorke looked at her oddly, puzzled by the expression on her face.
    'Why,' she asked, 'have you turned vermilion?'
    'I haven't.'
    'Pardon me. You look like a startled beetroot. This means something. Good Lord!' said Leila Yorke, inspired. 'I see it all. Widgeon loves you, and he talked me into taking this house so that he could be next door to you and in a position to tickle you across the fence. Shows character and enterprise that. I see a bright future for the boy. if only I don't murder him for letting me in for this Valley Fields jaunt. Yes, we have established that important point, I think. Love has wound its silken fetters about Widgeon.'
    If Sally had been a character in one of Leila Yorke's books, she would have ground her teeth. Not knowing how to, she sniffed.
    'It would be odd if it hadn't,' she said bitterly. He loves every girl he meets.'
    'Is that so?' said Leila Yorke, interested. 'I knew a man once who had the same tendency. He was a chartered accountant, and all chartered accountants have hearts as big as hotels. You think they're engrossed in auditing the half-yearly balance sheet of Miggs, Montagu and Murgatroyd, general importers, and all the time they're writing notes to blondes saying, "Tomorrow, one-thirty, same place." I wouldn't let that worry you. It doesn't amount to anything. Men are like that.'
    ‘I don't want a man like that.'
    'You want Widgeon, whatever he's like. I've been watching you with a motherly eye for some time, and I've noted all the symptoms - the faraway, stuffed frog look, the dreamy manner, the quick jump like a rising trout when spoken to suddenly. My good child, you're crazy about him, and if you've any sense, you'll tell him so and sign him up. I'm a lot older than you, and I'll give a piece of advice. If you love a man, never be such