The Poisoned Paradise: A Romance of Monte Carlo by Robert W. Service - HTML preview

CHAPTER NINE
 AND LAST

A YEAR later Hugh sat at his desk, reading the following letter:

MY DEAR CHAP:

I wrote to you in Menton, and the letter came back. But the other day a man in the office saw you in Paris and gave me your address. He also gave me a very good account of you; I am glad, for I have often felt anxious about you. I hope now that you have again taken up the burden of the wage-earner, you are not finding it too heavy. I’ve become a professional ink-slinger. You remember me as a dilettante, a trifler. I wrote whimsical essays; I cultivated an urbane humour. Then one day in a fantastic mood I started a burlesque of the German spy novel. I showed it to a bloated publisher who refused to publish it as a burlesque, but suggested that it would go as a serious effort. He thought the public would take it that way. The public did.

So now behold me, a popular author, a six shilling shocker to my credit, another half-done, and many more in my mental incubator.

Of course, on the strength of my success I resigned from Gummage & Meek. We had saved a few thousand pounds, so if literature proves more of a staff than a crutch, we won’t be altogether on the rocks. Better still, a preposterously rich bachelor brother of my wife’s has promised to see the two boys through school and college. In short, I find at last my dream realized. I am free to cultivate my literary cail-yaird.

I want now to find some quiet place where I can live in a leisurely way, polish my gems, and generally lead a pleasant, tolerant, contemplative life. Do you, with your knowledge of the south of France, know of such a place? The exchange rate now is so advantageous.

Please rub a little liniment on your strong right arm, grip your pen with intense determination, and favour me with a few lines.

SINCERELY,
 ARTHUR AINGER.

Hugh looked round the shabby but comfortable room he called his den. There was a roll-top desk, crimson-curtained book shelves, a big easy chair by the window, many unframed canvases on the walls. His eyes rested on each article with loving satisfaction.

“Good old chap,” he said, “I’ll answer his letter right away.”

So he sat down at his desk and began:

DEAR MR. AINGER:

I am more than ashamed that I have never written to you; but so many things have happened. To begin with I have a modest apartment near the Luxemburg Gardens. I was married a year ago. My wife’s a jolly good sort. You’d like her. I intended after my marriage to get work of some kind, but the unexpected happened. It seems I had a maternal grandmother living in Monaco. She had quarrelled with my mother; and though she gave consent to the marriage she refused to be reconciled. When she died it was found she had left everything to me. They had some trouble in finding me, but through the old chap who brought me up, they eventually did.

I now find myself the owner of a property in the Condamine that nets me twelve thousand francs a year, enough for two quiet people to jog along on quite comfortably. After all, I’ve come to the conclusion I’m one of those simple souls who want to slip through life with as little trouble as possible to themselves and to every one else.

My hobbies are cars and painting. I am the proud possessor of a little Buggatti in which I whiz the wife out to Barbizon occasionally. Otherwise I attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts and am doing quite well. In time I hope I’ll make an averagely good artist, and occasionally sell a croute.

I am so glad to hear of your success. The sort of books you write are the sort I like. But then I am not exacting, and read to take my mind off the monotony of existence. Sometimes, you know, on a wet day when one can’t paint and there’s no billiard table, a good yarn’s not a bad thing to pass the time. I imagine there’s a whole lot like me.

By the way, you speak of finding a quiet corner where you can hole up and live cheaply. I have a little cottage at Villefranche which I can offer you. There’s not much in the way of furniture, but you can stay there as long as you like and what with the produce of a big garden and the fish you can catch, the cost of life is reduced to a minimum.

Now don’t refuse....

Hugh had got this far when Margot entered. He handed her his letter to read.

“Why,” she said indignantly, “you’ve left out the most important thing of all.”

“Oh, yes, I quite forgot about that.”

“Forgot! Listen. The precious little darling! He’s crying for me now.”

“Yes, his lungs are better than his looks.”

“I like that. Everybody says he’s the image of you. Now, I must run.”

“All right. I’ll put him in the postscript.”

Hugh added a few more words as he listened to the subsiding wails of his son and heir. Then throwing himself in his easy chair with a laugh of utter happiness he lit his pipe.

THE END