Summer Lightning

by P. G. Wodehouse

‘I’d been meaning to tell you about that,’ said Ronnie. ‘We’re engaged.’

  Lady Constance recovered herself sufficiently to find one word.

  ‘Clarence!’

  ‘Eh?’ said Lord Emsworth. His thoughts had been wandering.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  Beyond the stage of turbulent emotion, Lady Constance had become suddenly calm and icy.

  ‘If you have not been sufficiently interested to listen,’ she said, ‘I may inform you that Ronald has just announced his intention of marrying a chorus-girl.’

  ‘Oh, ah?’ said Lord Emsworth. Would a man of Baxter’s outstandingly unbalanced intellect, he was wondering, have remembered to feed the Empress regularly? The thought was like a spear quivering in his heart. He edged in agitation towards the door, and had reached it when he perceived that his sister had not yet finished talking to him.

  ‘So that is all the comment you have to make, is it?’

  ‘Eh? What about?’

  ‘The point I have been endeavouring to make you understand,’ went on Lady Constance, with laborious politeness, ‘is that your nephew Ronald has announced his intention of marrying into the Regal Theatre chorus.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ronald. This is Ronald. He is anxious to marry Miss Brown, a chorus-girl. This is Miss Brown.’

  ‘How do you do?’ said Lord Emsworth. He might be vague, but he had the manners of the old school.

  Ronnie interposed. The time had come to play the ace of trumps.

  ‘She isn’t an ordinary chorus-girl.’

  ‘From the fact of her coming to Blandings Castle under a false name,’ said Lady Constance, ‘I imagine not. It shows unusual enterprise.’

  ‘What I mean,’ continued Ronnie, ‘is, I know what a bally snob you are, Aunt Constance – no offence, but you know what I mean – keen on birth and family and all that sort of rot . . . well, what I’m driving at is that Sue’s father was in the Guards.’

  ‘A private? Or a corporal?’

  ‘Captain. A fellow named . . .’

  ‘Cotterleigh,’ said Sue in a small voice.

  ‘Cotterleigh,’ said Ronnie.

  ‘Cotterleigh!’

  It was the Hon. Galahad who had spoken. He was staring at Sue open-mouthed.

  ‘Cotterleigh? Not Jack Cotterleigh?’

  ‘I don’t know whether it was Jack Cotterleigh,’ said Ronnie. ‘The point I’m making is that it was Cotterleigh and that he was in the Irish Guards.’

  The Hon. Galahad was still staring at Sue.

  ‘My dear,’ he cried, and there was an odd sharpness in his voice, ‘was your mother Dolly Henderson, who used to be a Serio at the old Oxford and the Tivoli?’

  Not for the first time Ronald Fish was conscious of a feeling that his Uncle Galahad ought to be in some kind of a home. He would drag in Dolly Henderson! He would stress the Dolly Henderson note at just this point in the proceedings! He would spoil the whole thing by calling attention to the Dolly Henderson aspect of the matter, just when it was vital to stick to the Cotterleigh, the whole Cotterleigh, and nothing but the Cotterleigh. Ronnie sighed wearily. Padded cells, he felt, had been invented specially for the Uncle Galahads of this world, and the Uncle Galahads, he considered, ought never to be permitted to roam about outside them.

  Yes,’ said Sue.’ She was.’

  The Hon. Galahad was advancing on her with outstretched hands. He looked like some father in melodrama welcoming the prodigal daughter.

  ‘Well, I’m dashed!’ he said. He repeated three times that he was in this condition. He seized Sue’s limp paws and squeezed them fondly. ‘I’ve been trying to think all this while who it was that you reminded me of, my dear girl. Do you know that in the years ‘96, ‘97, and ‘98, I was madly in love with your mother myself? Do you know that if my infernal family hadn’t shipped me off to South Africa I would certainly have married her? Fact, I assure you. But they got behind me and shoved me on to the boat, and when I came back I found that young Cotterleigh had cut me out. Well!’

  It was a scene which some people would have considered touching. Lady Constance Keeble was not one of them.

  ‘Never mind about that now, Galahad,’ she said. ‘The point is . . .’

  ‘The point is,’ retorted the Hon. Galahad warmly, ‘that that young Fish there wants to marry Dolly Henderson’s daughter, and I’m for it. And I hope, Clarence, that you’ll have some sense for once in your life and back them up like a sportsman.’

  ‘Eh?’ said the ninth Earl. His thoughts had once more been wandering. Even assuming that Baxter had fed the Empress, would he have given her the right sort of food and enough of it?

  ‘You see for yourself what a splendid girl she is.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This girl.’

  ‘Charming,’ agreed Lord Emsworth courteously, and returned to his meditations.

  ‘Clarence!’ cried Lady Constance, jerking him out of them.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You are not to consent to this marriage.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘I say so. And think what Julia will say.’

  She could not have advanced a more impressive argument. In this chronicle the Lady Julia Fish, relict of the late Major-General Sir Miles Fish, C.B.O. of the Brigade of Guards, has made no appearance. We, therefore, know nothing of her compelling eye, her dominant chin, her determined mouth, and her voice, which, at certain times – as, for example, when rebuking a brother – could raise blisters on a sensitive skin. Lord Emsworth was aware of all these things. He had had experience of them from boyhood. His idea of happiness was to be where Lady Julia Fish was not. And the thought of her coming down to Blandings Castle and tackling him in his library about this business froze him to the marrow. It had been his amiable intention until this moment to do whatever the majority of those present wanted him to do. But now he hesitated.

  ‘You think Julia wouldn’t like it?’

  ‘Of course Julia would not like it.’

  Julia’s an ass,’ said the Hon. Galahad.

  Lord Emsworth considered this statement, and was inclined to agree with it. But it did not alter the main point.

  ‘You think she would make herself unpleasant about it?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘In that case . . .’ Lord Emsworth paused. Then a strange soft light came into his eyes. ‘Well, see you all later,’ he said. ‘I’m going down to look at my pig.’

  His departure was so abrupt that it took Lady Constance momentarily by surprise, and he was out of the room and well down the corridor before she could recover herself sufficiently to act. Then she, too, hurried out. They could hear her voice diminishing down the stairs. It was calling ‘Clarence!’

  The Hon. Galahad turned to Sue. His manner was brisk, yet soothing.

  ‘A shame to inflict these fine old English family rows on a visitor,’ he said, patting her shoulder as one who, if things had broken right and there had not been a regular service of boats to South Africa in the nineties, might have been her father. ‘What you need, my dear, is a little rest and quiet. Come along, Ronald, we’ll leave you. The place to continue this discussion is somewhere outside this room. Cheer up, my dear. Everything may come out all right yet.’

  Sue shook her head.

  ‘It’s no good,’ she said hopelessly.

  ‘Don’t you be too sure,’ said the Hon. Galahad.

  ‘I’ll jolly well tell you one thing,’ said Ronnie. ‘I’m going to marry you, whatever happens. And that’s that. Good heavens! I can work, can’t I?’

  ‘What at?’ asked the Hon. Galahad.

  ‘What at? Why – er – why, at anything.’

  ‘The market value of any member of this family,’ said the Hon. Galahad, who harboured no illusions about his nearest and dearest, ‘is about threepence-ha-penny per annum. No! What we’ve got to do is get round old Clarence somehow, and that means talk and argument, which had better take place elsew
here. Come along, my boy. You never know your luck. I’ve seen stickier things than this come out right in my time.’

  19 GALLY TAKES MATTERS IN HAND

  Sue stood on the balcony, looking out into the night. Velvet darkness shrouded the world, and from the heart of it came the murmur of rustling trees and the clean, sweet smell of earth and flowers. A little breeze had sprung up, stirring the ivy at her side. Somewhere in it a bird was chirping drowsily, and in the distance sounded the tinkle of running water.

  She sighed. It was a night made for happiness. And she was quite sure now that happiness was not for her.

  A footstep sounded behind her, and she turned eagerly.

  ‘Ronnie?’

  It was the voice of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood that answered.

  ‘Only me, I’m afraid, my dear. May I come on to your balcony? God bless my soul, as Clarence would say, what a wonderful night!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sue doubtfully.

  ‘You don’t think so.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘I bet you don’t. I know I didn’t, that night when my old father put his foot down and told me I was leaving for South Africa on the next boat. Just such a night as this it was, I remember.’ He rested his arms on the parapet. ‘I never saw your mother after she was married,’ he said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. She left the stage and . . . . Oh, well, I was rather busy at the time – lot of heavy drinking to do, and so forth – and somehow we never met. The next thing I heard – two or three years ago – was that she was dead. You’re very like her, my dear. Can’t think why I didn’t spot the resemblance right away.’

  He became silent. Sue did not speak. She slid her hand under his arm. It was all that there seemed to do. A corncrake began to call monotonously in the darkness.

  ‘That means rain,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘Or not. I forget which. Did you ever hear your mother sing that song . . .? No, you wouldn’t. Before your time. About young Ronald,’ he said, abruptly.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Fond of him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean really fond?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How fond?’

  Sue leaned out over the parapet. At the foot of the wall beneath her Percy Pilbeam, who had been peering out of a bush, popped his head back again. For the detective, possibly remembering with his subconscious mind stories heard in childhood of Bruce and the spider, had refused to admit defeat and had returned by devious ways to the scene of his disaster. Five hundred pounds is a lot of money, and Percy Pilbeam was not going to be deterred from attempting to earn it by the fact that at his last essay he had only just succeeded in escaping with his life. The influence of his potations had worn off to some extent, and he was his calm, keen self again. It was his intention to lurk in these bushes till the small hours, if need be, and then to attack the waterspout again and so the Garden Room where the manuscript of the Hon. Galahad’s Reminiscences lay. You cannot be a good detective if you are easily discouraged.

  ‘I can’t put it into words,’ said Sue.

  ‘Try.’

  ‘No. Everything you say straight out about the way you feel about anybody always sounds silly. Besides, to you Ronnie isn’t the sort of man you could understand anyone raving about. You look on him just as something quite ordinary.’

  ‘If that,’ said the Hon. Galahad critically.

  Yes, if that. Whereas to me he’s something . . . rather special. In fact, if you really want to know how I feel about Ronnie, he’s the whole world to me. There! I told you it would sound silly. It’s like something out of a song, isn’t it? I’ve worked in the chorus of that sort of song a hundred times. Two steps left, two steps right, kick, smile, both hands on heart – because he’s all the wo-orld to me-ee! You can laugh if you like.’

  There was a momentary pause.

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘My dear, I only wanted to find out if you really cared for that young Fish . . .’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call him “that young Fish”.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear. It seems to describe him so neatly. Well, I just wanted to be quite sure you really were fond of him, because . . .’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, because I’ve just fixed it all up.’

  She clutched at the parapet.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘It’s all settled. I don’t say that you can actually count on an aunt-in-law’s embrace from my sister Constance – in fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t risk it. She might bite you – but, apart from that, everything’s all right. The wedding bells will ring out. Your young man’s in the garden somewhere. You had better go and find him and tell him the news. He’ll be interested.’

  ‘But . . .but . . .’

  Sue was clutching his arm. A wild impulse was upon her to shout and sob. She had no doubts now as to the beauty of the night.

  ‘But . . . how? Why? What has happened?’

  ‘Well . . . You’ll admit I might have married your mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which makes me a sort of honorary father to you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In which capacity, my dear, your interests are mine. More than mine, in fact. So what I did was to make your happiness the Price of the Papers. Ever see that play? No, before your time. It ran at the Adelphi before you were born. There was a scene where . . .’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The Hon. Galahad hesitated a moment.

  ‘Well, the fact of the matter is, my dear, knowing how strongly my sister Constance has always felt on the subject of those Reminiscences of mine, I went to her and put it to her squarely. “Clarence,” I said to her, “is not the sort of man to make any objection to anyone marrying anybody, so long as he isn’t expected to attend the wedding. You’re the real obstacle,” I said. “You and Julia. And if you come round, you can talk Julia over in five minutes. You know she relies on your judgement.” And then I said that, if she gave up acting like a barbed-wire entanglement in the path of true love, I would undertake not to publish the Reminiscences.’

  Sue clung to his arm. She could find no words.

  Percy Pilbeam, who, for the night was very still, had heard all, could have found many. Nothing but the delicate nature of his present situation kept him from uttering them, and that only just. To Percy Pilbeam it was as if he had seen five hundred pounds flutter from his grasp like a vanishing blue bird. He raged dumbly. In all London and the Home Counties there were few men who liked five hundred pounds better than P. Frobisher Pilbeam.

  ‘Oh!’ said Sue. Nothing more. Her feelings were too deep. She hugged his arm. ‘Oh!’ she said, and again ‘Oh!’

  She found herself crying, and was not ashamed.

  ‘Now, come!’ said the Hon. Galahad protestingly. ‘Nothing so very extraordinary in that, was there? Nothing so exceedingly remarkable in one pal helping another?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Then don’t say it,’ said the Hon. Galahad, much relieved. ‘Why, bless you, I don’t care whether the damned things are published or not. At least . . . . No, certainly I don’t . . . . Only cause a lot of unpleasantness. Besides, I’ll leave the dashed book to the Nation and have it published in a hundred years and become the Pepys of the future, what? Best thing that could have happened. Homage of Posterity and all that.’

  ‘Oh!’said Sue.

  The Hon. Galahad chuckled.

  ‘It is a shame, though, that the world will have to wait a hundred years before it hears the story of young Gregory Parsloe and the prawns. Did you get to that when you were reading the thing this evening?’

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t read very much,’ said Sue. ‘I was thinking of Ronnie rather a lot.’

  ‘Oh? Well, I can tell you. You needn’t wait a hundred years. It was at Ascot, the year Martingale won the Gold Cup . . .’

  Down below, Percy Pilbeam rose f
rom his bush. He did not care now if he were seen. He was still a guest in this hole of a castle, and if a guest cannot pop in and out of bushes if he likes, where does British hospitality come in? It was his intention to shake the dust of Blandings off his feet, to pass the night at the Emsworth Arms, and on the morrow to return to London, where he was appreciated.

  ‘Well, my dear, it was like this. Young Parsloe . . .’

  Percy Pilbeam did not linger. The story of the prawns meant nothing to him. He turned away, and the summer night swallowed him. Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted. It seemed to Pilbeam that there was derision in the sound. He frowned. His teeth came together with a click.

  If he could have found it, he would have had a word with that owl.

  IN ARROW BOOKS

  If you have enjoyed Jeeves and Wooster, you’ll love Blanding

  FROM

  Joy in the Morning

  After the thing was all over, when peril had ceased to loom and happy endings had been distributed in heaping handfuls and we were driving home with our hats on the side of our heads, having shaken the dust of Steeple Bumpleigh from our tyres, I confessed to Jeeves that there had been moments during the recent proceedings when Bertram Wooster, though no weakling, had come very near to despair.

  ‘Within a toucher, Jeeves.’

  ‘Unquestionably affairs had developed a certain menacing trend, sir.’

  ‘I saw no ray of hope. It looked to me as if the blue bird had thrown in the towel and formally ceased to function. And yet here we are, all boomps-a-daisy. Makes one think a bit, that.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘There’s an expression on the tip of my tongue which seems to me to sum the whole thing up. Or, rather, when I say an expression, I mean a saying. A wheeze. A gag. What, I believe, is called a saw. Something about Joy doing something.’

  ‘Joy cometh in the morning, sir?’

  ‘That’s the baby. Not one of your things, is it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Well, it’s dashed good,’ I said.

  And I still think that there can be no neater way of putting in a nutshell the outcome of the super-sticky affair of Nobby Hop-wood, Stilton Cheesewright, Florence Craye, my Uncle Percy, J. Chichester Clam, Edwin the Boy Scout and old Boko Fittle-worth – or, as my biographers will probably call it, the Steeple Bumpleigh Horror.