Lord Ickenham was made of sterner stuff. He stepped out into the road and gave the huge hello, as planned.
‘Hello, there, Mugsy,’ he carolled. ‘A very hearty pip-pip to you, my bright and bounding Bostock.’
It was probably astonishment at being addressed by a name which he supposed that he had lived down years ago, rather than the fact that the speaker was blocking the way, that caused Sir Aylmer to apply the brakes. He brought the car to a halt and leaned forward, glaring through the windscreen. Close scrutiny of Lord Ickenham afforded no clue to the latter’s identity. All that Sir Aylmer was able to say with certainty was that this must be some old schoolfellow of his, and he wished he had had the moral courage to drive on and run over him.
It was too late to do this now, for Lord Ickenham had advanced and was standing with a friendly foot on the running board. With an equally friendly hand he slapped Sir Aylmer on the back, and his smile was just as friendly as his hand and foot. Sir Aylmer might not be glad to see this figure from the past, but the figure from the past was plainly glad to see Sir Aylmer.
‘Mugsy,’ he said with kindly reproach, ‘I believe you’ve forgotten me.’
Sir Aylmer said he had. He contrived to convey in his manner the suggestion that he would willingly do so again.
‘Too bad,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘How evanescent are youth’s gossamer friendships. Well, to put you out of your suspense, for I see that you are all keyed up, I’m Plank.’
‘Plank?’
‘Major Brabazon-Plank, Uncle Aylmer,’ said Bill, emboldened by the suavity with which his accomplice was conducting these delicate pourparlers. ‘Major Plank ran that expedition I went on to Brazil.’
Lord Ickenham was obliged to demur.
‘Don’t let him mislead you, Mugsy. In a strictly technical sense I suppose you might say I ran that expedition. Officially, no doubt, I was its head. But the real big noise was Bill Oakshott here. He was the life and soul of the party, giving up his water ration to the sick and ailing, conducting himself with cool aplomb among the alligators and encouraging with word and gesture the weaker brethren who got depressed because they couldn’t dress for dinner. Chilled Steel Oakshott, we used to call him. You should be proud of such a nephew.’
Sir Aylmer appeared not to have heard these eulogies. He was still wrestling with what might be called the Plank angle of the situation.
‘Plank?’ he said. ‘You can’t be Plank.’ ‘Why not?’
‘The Plank who was at school with me?’ ‘That very Plank.’
‘That very Plank.’
‘But he was a fellow with an enormous trouser seat.’
‘Ah, I see what is on your mind. Yes, yes. As a boy, quite true, I was bountifully endowed with billowy curves in the part you have indicated. But since those days I have been using Slimmo, the sovereign remedy for obesity. The results you see before you. You ought to try it yourself, Mugsy. You’ve put on weight.’
Sir Aylmer grunted. There was dissatisfaction in his grunt. Plainly, he was unwilling to relinquish his memories of a callipygous Plank.
‘Well, I’m damned if I would have recognized you.’
‘Nor I you, had not Bill Oakshott given me the office. We’ve both altered quite a bit. I don’t think you had a white moustache at school, did you? And there’s no ink on your collar.’
‘You’re really Plank?’
‘None other.’
‘And what are you doing here?’
‘I’m on a motor tour.’
‘Oh, are you?’ said Sir Aylmer, brightening. ‘Then you’ll be wanting to get along. Goodbye, Plank.’
Lord Ickenham smiled a gentle, reassuring smile.
‘That sad word will not be required here, Mugsy. Prepare to receive tidings of great joy. I’m coming to stay.’
‘What!’
‘I had intended to hurry on, but when Bill Oakshott became pressing, I could not refuse. Especially when he told me of this fete which is breaking loose shortly and promised that if I consented to be his guest at Ashenden Manor I might judge the Bonny Babies contest. That decided me. I would go fifty miles to judge bonny babies. Sixty,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Or make it a hundred.’
Sir Aylmer started like a tiger that sees its Indian villager being snatched away from it. His face, already mauve, became an imperial purple.
‘You’re not going to judge the bonny babies!’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘No, you’re not.’
Lord Ickenham was a genial man, but he could be firm.
‘I don’t want any lip from you, young Mugsy,’ he said sternly. ‘Let me give you a word of warning. I see by the papers that you are about to stand for Parliament. Well, don’t forget that I could swing the voting against you pretty considerably, if I wanted to, by letting an idealistic electorate in on some of the shady secrets of your boyhood. You won’t like it, Mugsy, when questions about your boyhood are thundered at you from the body of the hall while you are outlining your views on the Tariff problem. Do I judge those bonny babies?’
Sir Aylmer sat brooding in silence, his Adam’s apple moving up and down as if he were swallowing something hard and jagged. The stoutest man will quail at the prospect of having the veil torn from his past, unless that past is one of exceptional purity. He scowled, but scowling brought no solace. He chewed his moustache, but gained no comfort thereby.
‘Very well,’ he said at length, speaking as if the words were being pulled out of him with a dentist’s forceps. His eye, swivelling round, rested for an instant on Bill’s, and the young man leaped convulsively. ‘Oh, very well.’
‘Good,’ said Lord Ickenham, his cheery self once more. ‘That’s settled. And now you shall take me home and show me the model dairy.’
‘What model dairy?’
‘Haven’t you a model dairy? The stables, then.’
‘I don’t keep horses.’
‘Odd. I was always led to believe that hosts at English country houses were divided into two classes: those who, when helpless guests were in their power, showed them the stables and those who showed them the model dairy. There was also, I understood, a minor sub-division which showed them the begonias, but that is a technicality into which we need not go. No model dairy, you say? No horses? Then perhaps I had better be going to the inn, where I have one or two things to do. These seen to, I will present myself at the house, and the revels can commence. And as you are doubtless anxious to hurry on and get my room — one with a southern exposure, if possible — swept and garnished, I won’t detain you. You coming with me, Bill Oakshott?’
‘I think I’ll stay here and smoke a pipe.’
‘Just as you please. We shall all meet then, at Philippi, and very jolly it will be, too.’
It was with a light and elastic step that Lord Ickenham made his way to the Bull’s Head in Ashenden Oakshott’s High Street. He was well satisfied with the progress of affairs. Something attempted, something done had, in his opinion, earned the spot of beer to which he had been looking forward for some considerable time, for this spreading of sweetness and light is thirsty work. After putting through a telephone call to his home and speaking to Sally, he sat down to a tankard, and was savouring its amber contents with quiet relish, when the door of the saloon bar burst open with a good deal of violence and Bill Oakshott entered.
That Bill was not at his serenest and most tranquil was indicated at once to Lord Ickenham’s experienced eye by his appearance and deportment. His hair was ruffled, as if he had been passing a fevered hand through it, and that glazed look was back in his eyes. He was a young man who, when things went awry, always endeavoured, after the fashion of the modern young man, to preserve the easy repose of manner of a Red Indian at the stake, but it was plain that whatever had occurred to upset him now was of a magnitude which rendered impossible such an exhibition of stoicism.
‘Ah, Bill Oakshott,’ said Lord Ickenham affably. ‘You could not have arrived at a more opportune moment. You find me enjoyi
ng a well-earned gargle, like Caesar in his tent the day he overcame the Nervii. I stress the adjective “well-earned”, for I think you will admit that in the recent exchanges I put it across the Nervii properly. Have you ever seen an ex-Governor so baffled? I haven’t, and I doubt if anyone has. But you seem disturbed about something, and I would recommend some of this excellent beer. It will strengthen you and help you to look for the silver lining.’
He went to the counter, remained there a while in conversation with the stout blonde behind it, and returned bearing a foaming tankard.
‘Nice girl,’ he said paternally. ‘I’ve been telling her about Brazil. Quaff that, Bill Oakshott, and having quaffed spill what is on your mind.’
Bill, who had been sitting with his head clasped in his hands, took a deep draught.
‘It’s about this business of your coming to the house as Plank.’
‘Ah, yes?’
‘You can’t go on with it.’
Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.
‘Can’t? A strange word to use to the last of a proud family. Did my ancestors say “Can’t” on the stricken fields of the Middle Ages, when told off to go and fight the Paynim? As a matter of fact,’ said Lord Ickenham confidentially, ‘I believe lots of them did, as you can verify by turning up Richard Coeur de Lion’s dispatches, so perhaps it is a pity that I asked the question. Why do you say I can’t go on with it?’
‘Because you jolly well can’t. Shall I tell you what’s happened?’
‘Do. I’m all agog.’
Bill finished his tankard, and seemed to draw from it strength to continue.
‘After you went away,’ he said tonelessly, ‘Uncle Aylmer drove off in the car, leaving me stuck there with the suitcase.’
‘A low trick.’
‘I yelled to him to stop and take the damned thing, because it weighed a ton and I didn’t want to have to lug it all the way up the drive, but he wouldn’t. And I was just starting off with it, when Potter came along on his bike.’
‘Who is Potter?’
‘The policeman.’
‘Ah yes. Pongo spoke of him, I remember. A zealous officer.’
‘So I said, “Oh, Potter” and he said “Sir?” and I said “You in a hurry?” and he said “No, sir,” and I said “Then I wish you’d take this suitcase up to the house.” And he said “Certainly, sir,” and hoisted it aboard his bike.’
‘I like your dialogue,’ said Lord Ickenham critically. ‘It’s crisp and good. Do you ever write?’
‘No.’
‘You should. You’d make a packet. But I’m interrupting you.’
‘You are a bit.’
‘It shall not occur again. You had got to where Potter said “Certainly, sir.” Then what?’
‘I said “It belongs to Major Brabazon-Plank. He’s coming to stay.” And Potter said … Could I have another beer?’
‘Had he already had some beer?’
‘I mean, could I have, now? I think it might pull me together.’
Lord Ickenham repeated his trip to the counter.
‘You were saying,’ he said, having returned with the life-giving fluid, ‘that you told Potter that the suitcase belonged to Major Brabazon-Plank. In response to which?’
Bill drank deeply, gasped a little and spoke with a sort of frozen calm.
‘In response to which he said, his bally face lighting up joyfully, “Major Brabazon-Plank? Did you say Major Brabazon-Plank? Coo, I know him well. He comes from old village. Played cricket with him, I have — ah, hundreds of times. If convenient Mr William, I’ll step up and shake him by the hand after I’ve had my tea.” So now what?’
Lord Ickenham remained for a moment in thought. ‘You’re kidding me, Bill Oakshott. Nobody but a practised writer could have told that story so superbly. Beneath your magic touch Potter seems to hive and breathe. You publish your stuff secretly under another name. I believe you’re one, if not more, of the Sitwells. But we can go into that later. “So now what?” you say. Yes, I agree that the problem is one that presents certain features of interest, but all problems can be solved with a little earnest thought. How did you articulate when you spoke the words “Brabazon-Plank”? Distinctly?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t mumble?’
‘No.’
‘So you couldn’t say that what you had really said was “Smith” or “Knatchbull-Huguessen”?’
‘No.’
Lord Ickenham reflected.
‘Well, then, what we must do is tell him that I am your Plank’s brother.’
‘Do you think you could get away with that?’
‘There are no limits to what I can get away with when I am functioning properly. We might go and call upon him now. Where does he live?’
‘Just round the corner.’
‘Then finish up your beer and let’s be off.’
Except for the royal arms over the door and a notice saying ‘Police Station’, there was nothing about the residence of Constable Potter to suggest that here was the dreadful headquarters of Law and Justice. Like so many police stations in English villages, it was at cheerful little cottage with a thatched roof and a nice little garden, the latter at the moment occupied by Mr Potter’s nephew Basil, aged nine months, who was taking a nap in his perambulator. Lord Ickenham, reaching the garden gate, cocked an enquiring eye at this vehicle.
‘Is Potter a married man?’
‘No. That’s his sister’s baby. She lives with him. Her husband’s a steward on one of the South American boats. He’s away most of the time. Of course, he comes back sometimes.’
‘Yes, one guesses that.’
Through an open window there came the sound of a female voice, high and penetrating. It was touching on the subject of socks. How, it was asking, did the invisible person it was addressing contrive to get so many and such large holes in his all the time? The voice itself attributed the phenomenon to carelessness and a wilful lack of consideration for those who had to work their fingers to the bone, darning them. Lord Ickenham consulted Bill with a raised eyebrow.
‘Would that be the lady speaking now?’
‘Yes.’
‘To Potter?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘She seems to be giving him beans.’
‘Yes. He’s scared stiff of her, so Elsie tells me. ‘‘ Elsie?’
The housemaid.’
‘Ah, yes, the one Pongo … I forget what I was going to say. ‘’I know what you were going to say.’
‘Well, well, we need not go into that now. Let us saunter in, and let our first move be to examine this bonny baby more closely. It will all be practice for the great day.’
7
Inside the cottage, in the cosy little kitchen, Constable Potter, guardian of Ashenden Oakshott’s peace, at his ease in his shirt sleeves, was enjoying high tea.
The word ‘enjoying’ is perhaps ill chosen, for he was partaking of the meal under the eye of his sister, Mrs Bella Stubbs, who, if not his best friend, had always been his severest critic. She had already told him not to put his elbows on the table, not to gollop his food like that and not to help himself to butter with his herringy knife, and at the moment when Bill and Lord Ickenham arrived had begun, as has been shown, to touch on the subject of his socks, one of which she held in her hand for purposes of demonstration.
Constable Potter was twenty-eight years old, his sister thirty-three. The simplest of mathematical calculations, therefore, will show that when he was seven she had been twelve, and a strong-willed sister of twelve can establish over a brother of seven a moral ascendancy which lasts a lifetime. In those formative years which mean so much, Harold Potter had been dragged about by the hand, slapped, scolded and told by the future mother of George Basil Percival Stubbs not to do practically everything he wanted to do. She had even — crowning indignity — blown his nose.
These things leave their mark. It was the opinion of Elsie Bean, repeatedly expressed, that her Harold was a co
wardy custard; and in the main, one feels, the verdict of history will be that Elsie was right. It is unpleasant to think of an officer of the Law cowering in his chair when a woman puts a finger through a hole in one of his socks and waggles it, but it cannot be disputed that while watching Mrs Stubbs do this Constable Potter had come very near to cowering.
To ease the strain, he bent forward to help himself to butter, being careful this time to use the knife allotted to that purpose, and the movement enabled him to see through the window the corner of the garden where George Basil Percival was taking his siesta.
‘‘Ullo,’ he said, glad to change the subject. ‘There’s somebody on the lawn.’
‘Never mind about the lawn. I’m talking about this sock.’
‘It’s a tall gentleman.’
‘Look at it. Like a sieve.’
‘A tall gentleman with a grey moustache. He’s poking your Basil in the stomach.’
He had said the one thing calculated to divert his companion’s thoughts from the sock topic. A devoted mother, Mrs Stubbs held the strongest possible views on the enormity of gentlemen, whether tall or short, coming into the garden and poking her offspring in the stomach at a moment when his well-being demanded uninterrupted repose.
‘Then go and send him away!’
‘Right ho.’
Constable Potter was full to the brim. He had eaten three kippered herrings, four boiled eggs and half a loaf of bread, and his impulse would have been to lean back in his chair like a gorged python and give his gastric juices a chance to fulfil themselves. But, apart from the fact that his sister Bella’s word was law, curiosity overcame the urge to digest. Scrutinizing Lord Ickenham through the window, he had a sort of feeling that he had seen him before. He wanted to get a closer view of this mysterious stranger.
In the garden, when he reached it, Lord Ickenham, wearying of his attentions to Basil’s stomach, had begun to tickle the child under the chin. Bill, who was not very fond of babies and in any case preferred them to look less like Edward G. Robinson, had moved aside as if anxious to disassociate himself from the whole unpleasant affair, and was thus the first to see the newcomer.
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