Summer Moonshine Read Online Free PDF Page A

shouldn't have said,' he replied bleakly. 'You merely put your foot in it right up to the knee. Some months ago I borrowed five hundred pounds from Chinnery, and there hasn't been a day since when he hasn't asked me for it back and I haven't told him I haven't got the cash. And then you come along and talk about me publishing books at my own expense.'
    Jane whistled.
    'Golly, Buck, I'm sorry.'
    'Too late to be sorry now.'
    'I must have shaken his faith in Baronets a bit.'
    'I should think you have wrecked it for ever. I look forward,' said Sir Buckstone in a flat voice, 'to some very stimulating chats with Chinnery in the near future.'
    Jane was remorseful, but she felt that she was being blamed unfairly. Fathers, she considered, should be more frank with their daughters about these facts of life. Then the daughters would know where they were.
    'Well, never mind,' she said. 'When I get back, I'll go and prattle to him and soothe him. But why did you want five hundred pounds?'
    'Who doesn't?' said Sir Buckstone, rather reasonably.
    'I mean, what did you do with it?'
    'I published my sporting memories.'
    'That didn't come to five hundred quid. What happened to the rest of it?'
    Sir Buckstone gestured sombrely, like a pessimistic semaphore.
    'It went. This place eats money. And I hadn't so many lodgers then.'
    'Paying guests.'
    'Lodgers. Lodgers they are, and lodgers they always will be.' Sir Buckstone sighed. 'I little thought, when I succeeded to the title, that the time would shortly come when I should find myself running a blanked boarding establishment.'
    'You mustn't be so morbid about it, precious. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Half the landed nibs in England take in paying guests nowadays. Ask anybody.'
    Sir Buckstone declined to be comforted. When embarked on this particular topic, it was his custom to wallow in self-pity.
    'When I was a boy,' he said heavily, 'my ambition was to become an engine driver. As a young man, I had dreams of
ambassadorships. Arrived at middle age and grown reconciled to the fact that I hadn't brains enough for the Diplomatic Service, I thought that I could at least be a simple country gentleman. But Fate decided otherwise. "No, Buckstone," said Fate, "I have other views for you. You shall be the greasy proprietor of a blasted rural doss-house."'
    'Oh, Buck!'
    'It's no use saying, "Oh, Buck!"'
    'Not greasy.'
    'Greasy,' insisted Sir Buckstone firmly.
    'Why don't you try to look on yourself as a sort of jolly innkeeper? You know – shirt sleeves and joviality. Entrance number in Act One just after the Opening Chorus of Villagers.'
    'Because I'm not a jolly innkeeper,' said Sir Buckstone, who was quite clear-eyed about his status. 'I wish you would marry a rich man, Jane.'
    'Where are they all? What's become of the old-fashioned millionaire who used to buy girls with his gold? There's Mr Chinnery, of course. But hasn't he still got the one he bought last?'
    'Ever considered this young Vanringham?'
    'Oh, I'm not Tubby's type. He likes them tall and willowy. Besides, where did you get the idea that Tubby's a millionaire? All he's got is what his stepmother allows him, and I don't think she likes me.'
    'Good God, Jane! What makes you think that?'
    'Intuition.'
    'You must make her like you,' said Sir Buckstone earnestly. 'You must cultivate the woman assiduously. Do you realize that she is the only person on earth who might conceivably buy this ghastly house? Miss Whittaker tells me she's on the
ocean now, so she will be coming here in the next few days, I imagine. Make yourself pleasant to her. Spare no effort. Heavens! Just to think of somebody taking this monstrosity off our hands!'
    'Tubby told me he believed the deal would go through.'
    'He did?'
    'He said the Princess admires Walsingford Hall.'
    'She once told me she thought it cute.'
    'Well, there you are.'
    'But she's an erratic woman. Liable to change her mind at any moment.'
    'I don't believe a taste for glazed salmon-coloured bricks