"An Author Bites the Dust" - читать интересную книгу автора (Upfield Arthur W.)

Chapter Thirteen

The Cosmic Blonde

AT half past seven the following morning Bony boarded the train for Melbourne, and as this modern railroad wonder took more than two hours to traverse the forty miles, he had plenty of time to prepare for the interview with Nancy Chesterfield.

Having dawdled through morning tea, he arrived at the offices of her newspaper at half past eleven. He expected to be shown into a cubby-hole of a room, or a vast space covered with reporters in shirt-sleeves either writing furiously or yelling for boys. He found Miss Chesterfield seated in a most luxurious chair on the far side of a magnificent writing desk littered with a hundred and one odds and ends. On the floor was a thick carpet. The room was a fit setting for the jewel of a woman occupying it.

“Good morning, Mr Bonaparte,” she said, offering her hand as one accustomed to welcoming all who have, or may have, news value. The letter of introduction he had withheld in favour of his card, and his vanity was fed by the belief that his name had paved the way to her presence. She studied him for a fleeting instant before saying, “I’ve seen you before.”

“Strangely enough, I have that same impression, Miss Chesterfield,” he told her, making his famous bow. “I’ll try to recall where whilst you’re looking at this letter addressed to you by my friend, Clarence B. Bagshott. I trust I am not occupying your most busy minutes?”

“Of course not. Sit down. Cigarette?”

“Thank you.”

“So you are a friend of Clarence B.” she said, accepting the letter and smiling at him, clever enough to put the smile into her remarkably lovely eyes, but not to hide from him that her welcome was professionally cautious.

He refrained from looking at her as she read Bagshott’s letter. She might be tough, as Bagshott had said, and he had most likely not exaggerated, but to Bony this morning she did not look tough or even brittle. He sensed a keen brain, and was confident he could match it with his gift of intuition and his mastery of guile. He felt her power, and judged that to be not only the power of sex but, in addition, the power of the successful in a chosen profession. That was akin to the power he himself possessed, and so he was not perturbed.

“Where, Mr Bonaparte, did we meet?” she asked, looking up from the letter. He brought his gaze from a picture of a saturnine man in a wing collar and a fearful-looking tie to rest upon her flawless face.

“It was at the Rialto Hotel last Thursday afternoon,” he replied. “You were having afternoon tea with a man with snow-white hair, and I was in the company of a woman with jet-black hair. There were four tables between us.”

“At Warburton! So it was. I remember seeing you. You reminded me of BasilRathbone when he played inThe Lives of a Bengal Lancer. Now tell me about yourself, Mr Bonaparte. I like your name.”

“Permit me to assure you that it is not a fictitious name,” Bony countered, chuckling. “Sometimes I find it a positive burden, but-I am ambitious, you know, and my name might very well assist me to fame. At the Rialto I was entertaining my sister-in-law. My brother would not carry our father’s name and so adopted the name of Farn. He was lost in the fires of ’38. As there is no extra accommodation at the house occupied by my sister-in-law and her brother at Yarrabo, I am staying near by. I visited Bagshott, with whom I have corresponded for several years. It was through him that I learnt a little about Australia, enough to make me want to visit your country. I’m so glad I came to see it for myself.”

“And he suggested that you call on me?”

The dark-grey eyes were devoid of guile.

“No. I suggested to him that he give me a letter of introduction. It was a suggestion that came easily to mind immediately he mentioned your name. He gave me ample warning, however.”

“Indeed, Mr Bonaparte!”

“He warned me that I should want frantically to cast off at least twenty years. I said that the warning was ample, but, Miss Chesterfield,” and Bony bowed in deference, “in this particular instance Clarence B. made an under-statement.”

Nancy Chesterfield felt rising annoyance, only to be banished by the smile on the dark face and the twinkle in the blue eyes.

“You remembered, of course, seeing me at the Rialto?” she shrugged.

“Oh no! I didn’t know you when I saw you at the Rialto,”came the statement without hesitation and with skilful assurance. “It came about like this. From time to time Bagshott sent me bundles of theRecorder. I understand that in his letter to you he mentioned that I am on the staff of theJohannesburg Age. I have always liked your section of theRecorder, and alsoyour Personality Pars. We have tried to make our women’s section conform to the standard you set. In addition, Bagshott has sent me copies ofWyndham Nook in which your articles on writers have been exceptionally interesting. Then, being a stranger in Australia, I thought perhaps you might have declined to see me. Hence the bludgeon of Bagshott’s letter.”

Nancy Chesterfield smiled.

“You needn’t have been doubtful on that point, for I couldn’t have declined to see a man with your name-after the commissionaire reported that, you seemed quite sane.” The grey eyes gleamed, and the impressionable Bony was delighted by her sense of humour. She asked, “What is your work on theJohannesburg Age?”

“I am a special writer,” he replied, and did not feel quite so complete a liar since very often he wrote special articles, which were read with keen interest by Crown Prosecutors. What followed was more difficult. “I am able to get through an amount of free-lance work too. And I completed my first novel just before I left home.”

“Good! What are you calling it?”

It was a question for which he was quite unprepared.

“The provisional title isI WalkOn My Toes,” Bony answered with creditable celerity. “However, my present ambition is to write a book about Australia, and I want to include a section on Australian literature. I’ve read many anthologies and several novels by leading Australian authors. I have been hoping for the opportunity of meeting several of them, and I did think that Bagshott would be able to help me. He’s rather a peculiar fellow. He insisted that here in Australia authors are divided into two classes, one producing great literature, the other merely commercial fiction. Naturally my interest lies in literature, and he said that that being so he could not assist me save in sending me along to you.”

About the beautifully moulded brows a frown was strangled at birth. Nancy Chesterfield inserted a cigarette in a long jade holder, and instantly Bony was on his feet holding a match in service. Whilst she drew at the cigarette she regarded him with a whimsical smile, and he knew he had baffled her regarding the degree of his sophistication.

“Tell me what Australian authors you’ve read, and then we may discover a starting point,” she said, softly but distinctly.

Wisely he confined himself to the three novels he had read in Miss Pinkney’s garden, devoting a full minute to each. He rhapsodized over Wilcannia-Smythe’sThe Vine of Abundance. He praised Mervyn Blake’sD’Arcy Maddersleigh, and then went on, “One doesn’t come across their work in South Africa, nor in England, where I was two years ago. On the other hand, the books of I. R. Watts are widely read outside Australia. I like his novels. He holds his readers with fine suspense.”

Nancy Chesterfield listened attentively, sitting almost motionless and keeping her gaze on a pile of manuscripts on her desk. Bony liked her more and more. She was certainly very clever. She had watched his face and his eyes to get inside his mind, and now she listened to his voice in her search for the door. He was baffling her, and intuition, upon which he often relied with implicit faith, was informing him that the experience for Nancy Chesterfield was both rare and pleasing. When he had finished, she said, “When discussing Australian literature in your book-to-be, you should, I think, soft pedal on I. R. Watts. I agree that Watts writes excellent romances. When in need of light reading I go to him, but-er-he is not a creative artist like Mervyn Blake or Wilcannia-Smythe.”

For the moment Bony was baffled. But only for the moment. A woman in the position occupied by Nancy Chesterfield should most certainly have a higher appreciation of literature. Here once again was the invisible object he sought to uncover.

“Well, no, perhaps not,” he agreed reluctantly.“Still, I. R. Watts-well, well! By the way, I cannot find I. R. Watts in the localWho’s Who. I suppose heis an Australian writer?”

“Oh yes, he’s an Australian. He’s something of a mystery, I understand. He’s not a member of any literary society of national importance.” Nancy Chesterfield tapped the ash from her cigarette and Bony sensed that she was gathering her forces to attack. “You see, Mr Bonaparte, our national literature is fast growing up, and it is vitally important that the work of our authors should be judged with extreme care, that the grain should be winnowed from the chaff, so that the authors of the future will be influenced by the masters of the present. If you give your attention to the work of Mervyn Blake and Wilcannia-Smythe, and Ella Montrose and others of their standard, you cannot go wrong in an appraisement of Australian literature today. A critical survey you should also study is that made by Dr Dario Chaparral, of Colombia, South America. He visited Australia twelve months ago and has just published in English the result of his study of our literature. I haven’t a copy here, but you can obtain one at most booksellers, I think.”

“Dr Chaparral!” Bony echoed. Screwing his eyes into blue points, he went on, “No, I haven’t met him, but I’ve heard of him. Did you meet him?”

“Yes. When in Victoria he stayed with Mr and Mrs Blake. Do you know their house at Yarrabo?”

“Oh yes, it’s next door to the cottage where I am lodging. Blake died suddenly, did he not?”

“That is so,” Nancy Chesterfield replied. “If you stay long you will doubtless learn as much about that unfortunate event as anyone. Australian literature suffered severe loss in Blake’s demise. Still,” and she brightened with astonishing swiftness, “there are others to carry on the leadership and continue directing our young authors in the way they should go. I do hope your book is successful, Mr Bonaparte, and I’m really delighted that you came to see me. I like talking to importantoversea people, especially literary people, and I am going to give you an introduction to Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, who is staying at the Rialto. In fact, he is the man I was having afternoon tea with. You’ll like him, I’m sure. He’s a Sydney man, and is here gathering material for a new book.”

“You are most kind, Miss Chesterfield. I shall be delighted to meet Mr Wilcannia-Smythe. You place me in your debt.”

“Not at all, Mr Bonaparte. You must also meet Mrs Blake and Mrs Montrose before you leave us. It’s a pity we didn’t know you were coming to Australia. We like to entertain men like you and Dr Chaparral and Marshall Ellis of London.”

Bony bowed from his chair.

“It’s most charming of you,” he said. “I feel sure I shall like them.”

“Well, I do want you to return to South Africa with a balanced opinion of us,” she went on. “So many visitors to Australia leave with a distorted view of us simply because they haven’t been able to meet the right people.” She smiled at him and added, “My job here is to publicize anyone with news value, as of course you know. After you’ve gone I shall write a happy little paragraph about you. You’ll find it in tomorrow morning’s paper. I hope you will come and see me again.”

“I am daring to hope that you would lunch with me,” Bony said, having risen.

“I’d love to-but remember what Clarence B. said about me.

“I shall never forget it, Miss Chesterfield. Could we arrange a day?”

A well-manicured hand was put forward to turn the leaves of an engagement book.

“Would Friday suit you?”

“Of course.”

“Then you may call for me here at one. Don’t bother with a taxi. I have my own car. I’ll post the letter of introduction for friend Wilcannia-Smythe to the Yarrabo Post Office. You’ll get it tomorrow.”

He thanked her, and she shook hands in a manner he liked. She was entirely outside all his previous experience, but he felt he was parting from her on equal grounds. Impressionable as when an undergraduate, he walked out of the building feeling pleasurably excited, believing that he had detected a facade behind which dwelt the real Nancy Chesterfield.