Heavy Weather

Heavy Weather Page 8

by P. G. Wodehouse

  It seems only the other day that my poor father was shipping your Uncle Galahad off to Africa to ensure a cure.'

  'I'll tell you something interesting about that, mother. The girl Uncle Gally was in love with. . .'

  'I was a child at the time, but I can recall it so distinctly. Father thumping tables, mother weeping, and all that rather charming, old-world atmosphere of family curses. And now it's you! Well, well, one can only thank goodness that it never seems to last long. The fever takes its course, and the patient recovers. Ronnie, my poor half-wit, you can't really be serious about this ?'

  'Serious!'

  'But, Ronnie, really! A chorus-girl.' ' There's a lot to be said for chorus-girls.'

  'Not in my presence. I couldn't bear it. It's so callow of you, my dear boy. If this had happened when you were at Eton, I wouldn't have said a word. But when you're grown up and are supposed to have some sense. Look at the men who marry chorus-girls. A race apart. Young Datchet. .. That awful old Bellinger ...'

  'Ah, but you're overlooking something, my dear old parent. There are chorus-girls and chorus-girls.'

  'This is your kind heart speaking.'

  'And when you get one like Sue. . .'

  'No, Ronnie. It's nice of you to try to cheer me up, but it can't be done. I regard the entire personnel of the ensembles of our musical comedy theatres as - if you will forgive me being Victorian for a moment - painted hussies.'

  'They've got to paint.'

  'Well, they needn't huss. And they needn't ensnare my son.'

  'I'm not sure I like that word "ensnare" much.'

  'You probably won't much like any of the words you're going to get from me tonight. Honestly, Ronnie. I know it hurts your head to think, but try to just for a moment. It isn't simply a question of class. It's the whole thing... the different viewpoint... the different standards ... everything. I take it that your idea when you marry is to settle down and lead a normal sort of life, and how are you going to have that with a chorus-girl ? How are you going to trust a woman of that sort of upbringing, who has lived on excitement ever since she was old enough to kick her beastly legs up in front of an audience and sees nothing wrong in going off and having affairs with every man that takes her fancy? That sort of girl would be sneaking off round the corner the moment your back was turned.'

  'Not Sue.'

  'Yes, Sue.'

  Ronnie smiled indulgently. 'Wait till you meet her!' ‘I have met her, thanks.' 'What?'

  'She was in the train, and introduced herself.' 'But what was she doing in the train?' 'Returning here from London.' 'I didn't know she had gone up to London.' 'So I imagine,' said Lady Julia.

  Not many minutes had passed since Ronnie Fish had been urging his mother to smile. With these words she had done so, but the fulfilment of his wish brought him no pleasure. The pink of his face deepened. There had come a lightness about his mouth. He had changed his mind about the desirability of keeping the scene light.

  'Do you mind if I just get this straight?' he said coldly. 'A moment ago you were talking about girls who ran off and had affairs ... and now you tell me you have met Sue.'

  'Exactly.'

  'Then you . . . had Sue in mind?' 'Exactly.'

  Ronnie laughed, unpleasantly.

  'On the strength, apparently, of her having gone up to London for the day - to do some shopping or something, I suppose. I wouldn't call this your ripest form, mother.'

  'On the strength, if you really wish to know, of seeing her and young Monty Bodkin lunching together at the Berkeley and finding them together on the train. ..'

  'Monty Bodkin!'

  '... where they had the effrontery to pretend they had never met before.'

  'She was lunching with Monty?'

  'Lunching with Monty and ogling Monty and holding hands with Monty! Oh, for heaven's sake, Ronnie, do use a little intelligence. Can't you see this girl is just like the rest of them? If you can't, you really must be a borderline case. Young Bodkin came here today to be your uncle's secretary. Two days ago he had some sort of employment with the Mammoth Publishing Company. He told me on the train that he had resigned. Why did he resign ? And why is he coming here? Obviously because this girl wanted him here and put him up to it. And directly she hears it's settled, she takes advantage of your being away to sneak up to London and talk things over with him. If there was nothing underhand going on, why should they have pretended that they were perfect strangers? No, as you said just now, I am not dancing round and strewing roses out of a hat!'

  She broke off. The door had opened. Lady Constance Keeble came in.

  In the doorway Lady Constance paused. She looked from one to the other with speculation in her eyes. She was a veteran of too many fine old crusted family rows not to be able to detect a strained atmosphere when she saw one. Her sister Julia was clenching and unclenching her hands. Her nephew Ronald was staring straight before him, red-eyed. A thrill ran through Lady Constance, such as causes the war-horse to start at the sound of the bugle. It was possible, of course, that this was a private fight, but her battling instinct urged her to get into it.

  But there was in Lady Constance Keeble an instinct even stronger than that of battle, and that was the one which impelled her to act as critic of the sartorial deficiencies of her nearest and dearest. Years of association with her brother Clarence, who, if you took your eye off him for a second, was apt to come down to dinner in flannel trousers and an old shooting-jacket, had made this action almost automatic with the chatelaine of Blandings.

  So now, eager for the fray, it was as the critic rather than as the warrior queen that she spoke. ' My dear Ronald! That tie!'

  Ronnie Fish gazed at her lingeringly. It needed, he felt, but this. Poison was running through his veins, his world was rocking, green-eyed devils were shrieking mockery in his ears, and along came blasted aunts babbling of ties. It was as if somebody had touched Othello on the arm as he poised the pillow and criticized the cut of his doublet.

  'Don't you know we have a dinner-party tonight? Go and put on a white tie at once.'

  Even in his misery the injustice of the thing cut Ronnie to the quick. Did his aunt suppose him ignorant of the merest decencies of life? Naturally, if he had known before he started dressing that there was a big binge on, he would have assumed the correct costume of the English gentleman for formal occasions. But considering that he had been told only about two minutes ago. ..

  'And a tail-coat.'

  It was the end. If this woman's words had any meaning at all, it was that she considered him capable of wearing a white tie with a dinner-jacket. Until this moment he had been intending to speak. The thing had now passed beyond speech. Directing at Lady Constance a look which no young man ought to have directed at an aunt, he strode silently from the room.

  Lady Constance stood listening to the echoes of a well-slammed door.

  'Ronald seems upset,' she observed. 'It runs in the family,' said Lady Julia. 'What was the trouble?'

  ' I have just been telling him that he is off his head.' 'I quite agree with you.'

  'And I should like now,' said Lady Julia, 'to apply the same remark to you.'

  She was breathing quickly. The china-blue of her eyes had an enamelled look. It was thirty-five years since she had scratched Lady Constance's face, but she seemed so much in the vein for some such demonstration that the latter involuntarily drew back.

  'Really, Julia!'

  'What do you mean, Constance, by inviting that girl to Blandings?'

  'I did nothing of the sort.' 'You didn't invite her?' 'Certainly not.'

  'She popped up out of a trap, eh?'

  Lady Constance emitted that sniff of hers which came so near to being a snort.

  'She wormed her way into the place under false pretences, which amounts to the same thing. You remember that Miss Schoonmaker, the American girl you met at Biarritz and wrote to me about? You gave me the impression that you hoped there might eventually be something between her and Ronald.' />
  'I really can't understand what you are talking about. Why need we discuss Myra Schoonmaker ?'

  'I am trying to explain to you how this Brown girl comes to be at the Castle. About ten days ago I was in London, and I met Ronald in his car with a girl, and he introduced her to me as Miss Schoonmaker. I had no means of checking his statement. It never occurred to me to doubt it. I assumed that she really was Miss Schoonmaker, and naturally invited her to the Castle. She arrived, and she had not been here twenty-four hours when we discovered that she was not Miss Schoonmaker at all, but this chorus-girl of Ronald's. Presumably they had planned the thing between them in order to get her here.'

  'And when you found out she was an impostor you asked her to stay on? I see.'

  Lady Constance flushed brightly.

  ‘I was compelled to allow her to stay on.'

  'Why?'

  'Because ... Oh, Clarence!' said Lady Constance, with the exasperation which the sudden spectacle of the head of the family so often aroused in her. The ninth Earl had selected this tense moment to potter into the room.

  'Eh?' he said.

  'Go away!'

  'Yes,' said Lord Emsworth, 'lovely.' As so frequently happened with him, he was in a gentle trance. He wandered to the piano, extended a long, lean finger, and stabbed absently at one of the treble notes.

  The sharp, tinny sound seemed to affect his sister Constance like a pin in the leg. 'Clarence!' 'Eh?'

  'Don't do that!'

  'God bless my soul!' said Lord Emsworth querulously.

  He turned from the piano, and Lady Constance was enabled to see him steadily and see him whole. The sight caused her to utter a stricken cry.

  'Clarence!'

  'Eh?'

  'What - what is that thing in your shirt-front?' The ninth Earl squinted down.

  'It's a paper-fastener. One of those brass things you fasten papers with. I lost my stud.'

  'You must have more than one stud.' 'Here's another, up here.' 'Have you only two studs ?'

  'Three,' said Lord Emsworth, a little proudly. 'For the front of the shirt, three. Dashed inconvenient things. The heads come off. You screw them off and then you put them in and then you screw them on.'

  'Well, go straight up to your room and screw on the spare one.'

  It was not often that Lord Emsworth found himself in the position of being able to score a debating point against his sister Constance. The fact that he was about to do so now filled him with justifiable complacency. It seemed to lend to his manner a strange, quiet dignity.

  'I can't,' he said. 'I swallowed it.'

  Lady Constance was not the woman to despair for long. A short, sharp spasm of agony and she had seen the way.

  'Wait here,' she said.' Mr Bodkin is sure to have dozens of spare studs. If you dare to move till I come back. ..'

  She hurried from the room.

  'Connie fusses so,' said Lord Emsworth equably.

  He pottered back to the piano.

  'Clarence,' said Lady Julia.

  'Eh?'

  'Leave that piano alone. Pull yourself together. Try to concentrate. And tell me about this Miss Brown.' 'Miss who?' 'Miss Brown.'

  'Never heard of her,' said Lord Emsworth brightly, striking a D flat.

  'Don't gibber, Clarence. Miss Brown.'

  'Oh, Miss Brown? Yes. Yes, of course. Yes. Miss Brown, to be sure. Yes. Nice girl. She's going to marry Ronald.' 'Is she? That's a debatable point.'

  'Oh, yes, it's all settled. I'm giving the boy his money and he's going into the motor business, and they're going to get married.'

  'I want to know how all this has happened. How is it that this chorus-girl . ..'

  'You're quite right,' said Lord Emsworth cordially. 'I told Connie she was wrong, but she wouldn't believe me. A chorus-girl is quite different from a ballet-girl. Galahad assures me of this.'

  'If you will kindly let me finish . ..'

  'By all means, by all means. You were saying - ?'

  'I was asking you how it has come about that everyone in this mad-house appears to have accepted it as quite natural and satisfactory that Ronnie should be marrying a girl like that. She seems to be an honoured guest at the Castle, and yet, apart from anything else, she came here under a false name...'

  'Odd, that,' said Lord Emsworth. 'She told us her name was Schoolbred, and it turned out she was quite wrong. It wasn't Schoolbred at all. Silly mistake to make.'

  'And when that turned out, may I ask why you didn't turn her out?'

  'Why, we couldn't, of course.' 'Why not?'

  'Well, naturally we couldn't. Galahad wouldn't have liked it.' 'Galahad?'

  'That's right. Galahad.'

  Lady Julia threw up her arms in a passionate gesture.

  'Is everybody crazy?' she cried.

  Lady Constance came hurrying back into the room.

  'Clarence!'

  'You all keep saying "Clarence!"' said Lord Emsworth peevishly. '"Clarence . .. Clarence" .. . One would think I was a Pekingese or something. Well, what is it now?'

  'Listen, Clarence,' said Lady Constance, speaking in a clear, even voice, 'and follow me carefully. Mr Bodkin is in the North Room. You know where the North Room is? On the first floor, down the passage to the right of the landing. You know which your right hand is ? Very well. Then go immediately to the North Room, and there you will find Mr Bodkin. He has studs and will fit them into your shirt.'

  'I'm dashed if I'm going to have my secretary dressing me like a nursemaid!'

  'If you think that with sixteen people coming to dinner I am going to trust you to put in studs for yourself...'

  'Oh, all right,' said Lord Emsworth. 'All right, all right, all right. Lots of fuss for nothing.'

  The door closed. Lady Julia came out of the frozen coma into which her brother's words had thrown her.

  'Constance!'

  'Well?'

  'Just before you came in, Clarence told me that the reason why this Brown girl was allowed to stay on at the Castle was that Galahad wished it.'

  'Yes.'

  'And we must all respect Galahad's wishes, must we not ? I don't suppose,' said Lady Julia, mastering her complex emotions with a strong effort, 'that there are forty million people in England who think more highly of Galahad than I do. Tell me,' she went on with strained politeness, 'If it is not troubling you too much, how exactly does he come into the thing at all ? Why Galahad ? Why not Beach? Or Voules? Or the boy who cleans the knives and boots? What earthly business is it of Galahad's ?'

  Lady Constance was not by nature a patient woman, but she could make allowances for a mother's grief.

  ‘I know how you must be feeling, Julia, and you can't be more upset about it than I am. Galahad, unfortunately, is in a position to dictate.'

  'I cannot conceive of any possible position Galahad could be in which would permit him to dictate to me, but no doubt you will explain what you mean later. What I would like to know first is why he wants to dictate. What is this girl to him that he should apparently have constituted himself a sort of guardian angel to her?'

  'To explain that, I must ask you to throw your mind back.' 'Better not start me throwing things.'

  'Do you remember, years ago, Galahad getting entangled with a woman named Henderson, a music-hall singer?'

  'Certainly. Well?'

  'This girl is her daughter.'

  Lady Julia was silent for a moment.

  ‘I see. Galahad's daughter, too?'

  'I believe not. But that explains his interest in her.'

  'Possibly. Yes, no doubt it does. Sentiment is the last thing of which I would have suspected Galahad, but if the old love has lingered down the years I suppose we must accept it. All right. Very touching, no doubt. But it still leaves unexplained the mystery of why everybody here seems to be treating Galahad as if his word was law. You said he was in a position to dictate. Why?'

  ' I was coming to that. The whole thing, you see, turns on whether Clarence lets Ronald have his money or no
t. If he does, Ronald can defy us all. Without it he is helpless. And in ordinary circumstances you and I know that we could easily reason with Clarence and make him do the sensible thing and refuse to release the money...'

  'Well?'

  'Well, Galahad was clever enough to see that, too. So he made a bargain. You know those abominable Reminiscences he has been writing. He said that if Ronald was given his money he would suppress them.'

  'What!'

  'Suppress them. Not publish them.'

  'Is that what you meant when you said that he was in a position to dictate?'

  'Yes. It is sheer blackmail, of course, but there is nothing to be done.'

 

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