‘I know who it is,’ he said. ‘He wrote to me yesterday. It’s a theatrical manager fellow I used to go about with years ago. Man named Mason. He’s got a play, adapted from the French, and he’s had the idea of changing it into the period of the nineties and getting me to put my name to it.’
‘Oh?’
‘On the strength of my book coming out at the same time. Not a bad notion, either. Galahad Threepwood’s a name that’s going to have box-office value pretty soon. The house’ll be sold out for weeks to all the old buffers who’ll come flocking up to London to see if I’ve put anything about them into it.’
‘Oh?’said Millicent.
The Hon. Galahad frowned. He sensed a lack of interest and sympathy.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing.’
‘Then why are you looking like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Pale and tragic, as if you’d just gone into Tattersall’s and met a bookie you owed money to.’
‘I am perfectly happy.’
The Hon. Galahad snorted.
‘Yes, radiant. I’ve seen fogs that were cheerier. What’s that book you’re reading?’
‘It belongs to Aunt Constance.’ Millicent glanced wanly at the cover. ‘It seems to be about Theosophy.’
‘Theosophy! Fancy a young girl in the spring-time of life . . . What the devil has happened to everybody in this house? There’s some excuse, perhaps, for Clarence. If you admit the possibility of a sane man getting so attached to a beastly pig, he has a right to be upset. But what’s wrong with all the rest of you? Ronald! Goes about behaving like a bereaved tomato. Beach! Springs up and down when you speak to him. And that young fellow Carmody . . .’
‘I am not interested in Mr Carmody.’
‘This morning,’ said the Hon. Galahad, aggrieved, ‘I told that boy one of the most humorous limericks I ever heard in my life – about an Old Man Of – however, that is neither here nor there – and he just gaped at me with his jaw dropping, like a spavined horse looking over a fence. There are mysteries afoot in this house, and I don’t like ‘em. The atmosphere of Blandings Castle has changed all of a sudden from that of a normal, happy English home into something Edgar Allan Poe might have written on a rainy Sunday. It’s getting on my nerves. Let’s hope this girl of Johnny Schoonmaker’s will cheer us up. If she’s anything like her father, she ought to be a nice, lively girl. But I suppose, when she arrives, it’ll turn out that she’s in mourning for a great-aunt or brooding over the situation in Russia or something. I don’t know what young people are coming to nowadays. Gloomy. Introspective. The old gay spirit seems to have died out altogether. In my young days a girl of your age would have been upstairs making an apple-pie bed for somebody instead of lolling on chairs reading books about Theosophy.’
Snorting once more, the Hon. Galahad disappeared into the smoking-room, and Millicent, tight-lipped, returned to her book. She had been reading for some minutes when she became aware of a long, limp, drooping figure at her side.
‘Hullo,’ said Hugo, for this ruin of a fine young man was he.
Millicent’s ear twitched, but she did not reply.
‘Reading?’
He had been standing on his left leg. With a sudden change of policy, he now shifted, and stood on his right.
‘Interesting book?’
Millicent looked up.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Only said – is that an interesting book?’
‘Very,’ said Millicent.
Hugo decided that his right leg was not a success. He stood on his left again.
‘What’s it about?’
‘Transmigration of Souls.’
‘A thing I’m not very well up on.’
‘One of the many, I should imagine,’ said the haughty girl. ‘Every day you seem to know less and less about more and more.’ She rose, and made for the stairs. Her manner suggested that she was disappointed in the hall of Blandings Castle. She had supposed it a nice place for a girl to sit and study the best literature, and now, it appeared, it was overrun by the Underworld. ‘If you’re really anxious to know what Transmigration means, it’s simply that some people believe that when you die your soul goes into something else.’
‘Rum idea,’ said Hugo, becoming more buoyant. He began to draw hope from her chattiness. She had not said as many consecutive words as this to him for quite a time. ‘Into something else, eh? Odd notion. What do you suppose made them think of that?’
‘Yours, for instance, would probably go into a pig. And then I would come along and look into your sty and I’d say, “Good gracious! Why, there’s Hugo Carmody. He hasn’t changed a bit!”’
The spirit of the Carmodys had been a good deal crushed by recent happenings, but at this it flickered into feeble life.
‘I call that a beastly thing to say.’
‘Do you?’
Yes, I do.’
‘I oughtn’t to have said it?’
‘No, you oughtn’t.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have, if I could have thought of anything worse.’
‘And when you let a little thing like what happened the other night rot up a great love like ours, I – well, I call it a bit rotten. You know perfectly well that you’re the only girl in the world l ever . . .’
‘Shall I tell you something?’
‘What?’
You make me sick.’
Hugo breathed passionately through his nose.
‘So all is over, is it?’
‘You can jolly well bet all is over. And if you’re interested in my future plans, I may mention I intend to marry the first man who comes along and asks me. And you can be a page at the wedding if you like. You couldn’t look any sillier than you do now, even in a frilly shirt and satin knickerbockers.’
Hugo laughed raspingly.
‘Is that so?’
‘It is.’
And once you said there wasn’t another man like me in the world.’
‘Well, I should hate to think there was,’ said Millicent. And as the celebrated James-Thomas-Beach procession had entered with cakes and gate-leg tables and her last word seemed about as good a last word as a girl might reasonably consider herself entitled to, she passed proudly up the stairs.
James withdrew. Thomas withdrew. Beach remained gazing with a hypnotized eye at the cake.
‘Beach!’ said Hugo.
‘Sir?’
‘Curse all women!’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Beach.
He watched the young man disappear through the open front door, heard his footsteps crunch on the gravel, and gave himself up to meditation again. How gladly, he was thinking, if it had not been for upsetting Mr Ronald’s plans, would he have breathed in his employer’s ear as he filled his glass at dinner, ‘The pig is in the gamekeeper’s cottage in the west wood, your lordship. Thank you, your lordship.’ But it was not to be. His face twisted, as if with sudden pain, and he was aware of the Hon. Galahad emerging from the smoking-room.
‘Just remembered something I wanted to ask you, Beach. You were with old General Magnus, weren’t you, some years ago, before you came here?’
Yes, Mr Galahad.’
‘Then perhaps you can tell me the exact facts about that trouble in 1912.1 know the old chap chased young Mandeville three times round the lawn in his pyjamas, but did he merely try to stab him with the bread-knife or did he actually get home?’
‘I could not say, sir. He did not honour me with his confidence.’
‘Infernal nuisance,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘I like to get these things right.’
He eyed the butler discontentedly as he retired. More than ever was he convinced that the fellow had something on his mind. The very way he walked showed it. He was about to return to the smoking-room when his brother Clarence came into the hall. And there was in Lord Emsworth’s bearing so strange a gaiety that he stood transfixed. It seemed to the Hon. Galahad years sinc
e he had seen anyone looking cheerful in Blandings Castle.
‘Good God, Clarence! What’s happened?’
‘What, my dear fellow?’
You’re wreathed in smiles, dash it, and skipping like the high hills. Found that pig under the drawing-room sofa or something?’
Lord Emsworth beamed.
‘I have had the most cheering piece of news, Galahad. That detective – the one I sent young Carmody to see – the Argus man, you know – he has come after all. He drove down in his car and is at this moment in Market Blandings, at the Emsworth Arms. I have been speaking to him on the telephone. He rang up to ask if I still required his services.’
‘Well, you don’t.’
‘Certainly I do, Galahad. I consider his presence vital.’
‘He can’t tell you any more than you know already. There’s only one man who can have stolen that pig, and that’s young Parsloe.’
‘Precisely. Yes. Quite true. But this man will be able to collect evidence and bring the thing home and – er – bring it home. He has the trained mind. I consider it most important that the case should be in the hands of a man with a trained mind. We should be seeing him very shortly. He is having what he describes as a bit of a snack at the Emsworth Arms. When he has finished, he will drive over. I am delighted. Ah, Constance, my dear.’
Lady Constance Keeble, attended by the Efficient Baxter, had appeared at the foot of the stairs. His lordship eyed her a little warily. The châtelaine of Blandings was apt sometimes to react unpleasantly to the information that visitors not invited by herself were expected at the castle.
‘Constance, my dear, a friend of mine is arriving this evening, to spend a few days. I forgot to tell you.’
‘Well, we have plenty of room for him,’ replied Lady Constance, with surprising amiability. ‘There is something I forgot to tell you, too. We are dining at Matchingham tonight.’
‘Matchingham?’ Lord Emsworth was puzzled. He could think of no one who lived in the village of Matchingham except Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe. ‘With whom?’
‘Sir Gregory, of course. Who else do you suppose it could be?’
‘What!’
‘I had a note from him after luncheon. It is short notice, of course, but that doesn’t matter in the country. He took it for granted that we would not be engaged.’
‘Constance!’ Lord Emsworth swelled slightly. ‘Constance, I will not – dash it, I will not – dine with that man. And that’s final.’
Lady Constance smiled a sort of lion-tamer’s smile. She had foreseen a reaction of this kind. She had expected sales-resistance, and was prepared to cope with it. Not readily, she knew, would her brother become Parsloe-conscious.
‘Please do not be absurd, Clarence. I thought you would say that. I have already accepted for you, Galahad, myself, and Millicent. You may as well understand at once that I do not intend to be on bad terms with our nearest neighbour, even if a hundred of your pig-men leave you and go to him. Your attitude in the matter has been perfectly childish from the very start. If Sir Gregory realizes that there has been a coolness, and has most sensibly decided to make the first move towards a reconciliation, we cannot possibly refuse the overture.’
‘Indeed? And what about my friend? Arriving this evening.’
‘He can look after himself for a few hours, I should imagine.’
Abominable rudeness he’ll think it.’ This line of attack had occurred to Lord Emsworth quite suddenly. He found it good. Almost an inspiration, it seemed to him. ‘I invite my friend Pilbeam here to pay us a visit, and the moment he arrives we meet him at the front door, dash it, and say, “Ah, here you are, Pilbeam! Well, amuse yourself, Pilbeam. We’re off.” And this Miss – er – this American girl. What will she think?’
‘Did you say Pilbeam?’ asked the Hon. Galahad.
‘It is no use talking, Clarence. Dinner is at eight. And please see that your dress clothes are nicely pressed. Ring for Beach and tell him now. Last night you looked like a scarecrow.’
‘Once and for all, I tell you . . .’
At this moment an unexpected ally took the arena on Lady Constance’s side.
‘Of course we must go, Clarence,’ said the Hon. Galahad, and Lord Emsworth, spinning round to face this flank attack, was surprised to see a swift, meaning wink come and go on his brother’s face. ‘Nothing gained by having unpleasantness with your neighbours in the country. Always a mistake. Never pays.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lady Constance, a little dazed at finding this Saul among the prophets, but glad of the helping hand. ‘In the country one is quite dependent on one’s neighbours.’
And young Parsloe – not such a bad chap, Clarence. Lots of good in Parsloe. We shall have a pleasant evening.’
‘I am relieved to find that you, at any rate, have sense, Galahad,’ said Lady Constance handsomely. ‘I will leave you to try and drive some of it into Clarence’s head. Come, Mr Baxter, we shall be late.’
The sound of the car’s engine had died away before Lord Emsworth’s feelings found relief in speech.
‘But, Galahad, my dear fellow!’
The Hon. Galahad patted his shoulder reassuringly.
‘It’s all right, Clarence, my boy. I know what I’m doing. I have the situation well in hand.’
‘Dine with Parsloe after what has occurred? After what occurred yesterday? It’s impossible. Why on earth the man is inviting us, I can’t understand.’
‘I suppose he thinks that if he gives us a dinner I shall relent and omit the prawn story. Oh, I see Parsloe’s motive all right. A clever move. Not that it’ll work.’
‘But what do you want to go for?’
The Hon. Galahad raked the hall with a conspiratorial monocle. It appeared to be empty. Nevertheless, he looked under a settee and, going to the front door, swiftly scanned the gravel.
‘Shall I tell you something, Clarence?’ he said, coming back. ‘Something that’ll interest you?’
‘Certainly, my dear fellow. Certainly. Most decidedly.’
‘Something that’ll bring the sparkle to your eyes?’
‘By all means. I should enjoy it.’
‘You know what we’re going to do? To-night? After dining with Parsloe and sending Constance back in the car?’
‘No.’
The Hon. Galahad placed his lips to his brother’s ear.
‘We’re going to steal his pig, my boy.’
‘What!’
‘It came to me in a flash while Constance was talking. Parsloe stole the Empress. Very well, we’ll steal Pride of Matchingham. Then we’ll be in a position to look young Parsloe squarely in the eye and say, “What about it?’”
Lord Emsworth swayed gently. His brain, never a strong one, had tottered perceptibly on its throne.
‘Galahad!’
‘Only thing to do. Reprisals. Recognized military manoeuvre.’
‘But how? Galahad, how can it be done?’
‘Easily. If young Parsloe stole the Empress, why should we have any difficulty in stealing his animal? You show me where he keeps it, my boy, and I’ll do the rest. Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe’s pig at Hammer’s Easton in the year ‘95. We put it in Plug Basham’s bedroom. And we’ll put Parsloe’s pig in a bedroom, too.’
‘In a bedroom?’
‘Well, a sort of bedroom. Where are we to hide the animal – that’s what you’ve been asking yourself, isn’t it? I’ll tell you. We’re going to put it in that caravan that your flowerpot-throwing friend Baxter arrived in. Nobody’s going to think of looking there. Then we’ll be in a position to talk terms to young Parsloe, and I think he will very soon see the game is up.’
Lord Emsworth was looking at his brother almost devoutly. He had always known that Galahad’s intelligence was superior to his own, but he had never realized it could soar to quite such lofty heights as this. It was, he supposed, the result of the life his brother had lived. He himself, sheltered through the peaceful, uneventful years at Blandings Castl
e, had allowed his brain to become comparatively atrophied. But Galahad, battling through these same years with hostile skittle-sharps and the sort of man that used to be a member of the old Pelican Club, had kept his clear and vigorous.
‘You really think it would be feasible?’
‘Trust me. By the way, Clarence, this man Pilbeam of yours. Do you know if he was ever anything except a detective?’
‘I have no idea, my dear fellow. I know nothing of him. I have merely spoken to him on the telephone. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. I’ll ask him when he arrives. Where are you going?’
‘Into the garden.’
‘It’s raining.’
‘I have my macintosh. I really – 1 feel I really must walk about after what you have told me. I am in a state of considerable excitement.’
‘Well, work it off before you see Constance again. It won’t do to have her start suspecting there’s something up. If there’s anything you want to ask me about, you’ll find me in the smoking-room.’
For some twenty minutes the hall of Blandings Castle remained empty. Then Beach appeared. At the same moment, from the gravel outside there came the purring of a high-powered car and the sound of voices. Beach posed himself in the doorway, looking, as he always did on these occasions, like the Spirit of Blandings welcoming the lucky guest.
9 ENTER SUE
‘Leave the door open, Beach,’ said Lady Constance.
‘Very good, your ladyship/
‘I think the smell of the wet earth and the flowers is so refreshing, dont you?’
The butler did not. He was not one of your fresh-air men. Rightly conjecturing, however, that the question had been addressed not to him but to the girl in the beige suit who had accompanied the speaker up the steps, he forbore to reply He cast an appraising bulging-eyed look at this girl and decided that she met with his approval. Smaller and slighter than the type of woman he usually admired, he found her, nevertheless, even by his own exacting standards of criticism, noticeably attractive. He liked her face and he liked the way she was dressed. Her frock was right, her shoes were right, her stockings were right, and her hat was right. As far as Beach was concerned, Sue had passed the Censor.
Summer Lightning Page 14
