Pigs Have Wings

by P. G. Wodehouse

  Lord Vosper started.

  ‘I say! Would you?’

  ‘I was not thinking of myself. The man I had in mind was … Ah, here he is in person, right on cue,’ said Gally, as the door opened and Jerry entered. ‘Jerry, our friend Vosper here is in something of a dilemma, or quandary, as it is sometimes called. He has become betrothed to Gloria Salt, and, as you are aware, he is also betrothed to Penny Donaldson, and he is looking for a silver-tongued intermediary to take on the job of explaining to Penny that he will not be at liberty to go through with his commitments to her. I thought you might be just the man, you being a mutual friend of both parties. I will leave you to discuss it. If you want me, you will find me on the terrace.’

  3

  The moon, shining down on the terrace, illuminated a female figure seated in a deck chair, and Gally’s heart, though a stout one, skipped a beat. Then he saw that it was not, as for a moment he had supposed, his sister Constance, but his young friend Penny Donaldson.

  ‘Hullo there, Penny,’ he said, taking the chair at her side. ‘Well, we are living in stirring times these days. Did Beach tell you about that pig of Parsloe’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He got it away all right and put it in the house Fruity Biffen used to have.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Extraordinary bit of luck Wellbeloved thinking I was Parsloe and pouring out his heart to me over the telephone.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Penny.

  Gally gave her a quick look. Her voice had had a dull, metallic note, and eyeing her he saw that her brow was clouded and the corners of her mouth drawn down as though the soul were in pain.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You seem depressed.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got some news for you that will cheer you up. I’ve just been talking to my Lord Vosper.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘And what do you think? He wants to call the whole thing off.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Cancel the engagement, countermand the wedding cake. He’s going to marry the Salt girl. It seems that they were like ham and eggs before you entered his life, but the frail bark of love came a stinker on the rocks. It has now been floated off and patched up and a marriage has been arranged and will shortly take place. He was a bit apologetic about it, and hoped you wouldn’t mind, but he made it quite clear that that was how matters stood. So you are back in circulation and free to carry on with Jerry along the lines originally planned.’

  ‘I see.’

  Gally was hurt. He was feeling as the men who brought the good news from Aix to Ghent would have felt if the citizens of Ghent had received them at the end of their journey with a yawn and an ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Well, I’m dashed!’ he said disapprovingly. ‘I must say I expected a little more leaping about and clapping the hands in girlish glee. I might be telling you it’s a nice evening.’

  Penny heaved a sigh.

  ‘It’s the most loathsome evening there ever was. Do you know what’s happened, Gally? Jerry’s been fired.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Given the gate. Driven into the snow. Lady Constance says if he isn’t out of the place first thing tomorrow morning –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘– she’ll set the dogs on him.’

  Gally’s monocle, leaping from the parent eye socket, flashed in the moonlight. He drew it in like an angler gaffing a fish, and having replaced it stared at her uncomprehendingly.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m telling you.’

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense. What’s Connie got against Jerry?’

  ‘She didn’t like it when she found him in her closet.’

  ‘In her what?’

  ‘Well, cupboard, then, if you prefer it. The cupboard in her bedroom.’

  ‘What the dickens was he doing in the cupboard in Connie’s bedroom?’

  ‘Hiding.’

  Gally gaped.

  ‘Hiding?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the cupboard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In Connie’s bedroom?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A theory that would cover the facts came to Gally.

  ‘This young man of yours isn’t a little weak in the head, is he?’

  ‘No, he isn’t a little weak in the head. Lord Emsworth seems to be.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Gally, conceding this obvious truth. ‘But how does Clarence come into it?’

  Penny began to explain in a low, toneless voice. One cannot expect of a girl whose hopes and dreams have been shattered that her voice shall be resonant and bell-like.

  ‘Jerry has been telling me about it. It started with Lord Emsworth writing a letter to your friend Maudie.’

  ‘W –?’ began Gally, and checked himself. Much as he would have liked to know what his brother had been writing letters to Maudie about, this was no time for interruptions.

  ‘He gave it to Jerry and told him to put it in her room. Jerry asked which was her room, and he said the second on the right along the corridor. So Jerry put the letter there, and then Lord Emsworth told him to go and bring it back.’

  Gally was obliged to interrupt.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He didn’t say why.’

  ‘I see. Go on.’

  ‘Well, Jerry went to get the letter, and he’d just got it when he heard someone outside the door. So of course he hid. Naturally he didn’t want to be found there. He dived into the cupboard, and I suppose he must have made a noise, because the cupboard door was whipped open, and there was Lady Constance.’

  ‘But what was Connie doing in Maudie’s room?’

  ‘It wasn’t Maudie’s room. It was Lady Constance’s room. After he had finished talking to Lady Constance – or after she had finished talking to him – Jerry went back to Lord Emsworth, and Lord Emsworth, having heard the facts, smote his brow and said “Did I say the second door on the right? I meant second door on the left. That is how the mistake arose.”’

  Gally clicked his tongue.

  ‘There you have Clarence in a nutshell,’ he said. ‘There is a school of thought that holds that he got that way from being dropped on his head when a baby. I maintain that when you have a baby like Clarence, you don’t need to drop it on its head. You just let Nature take its course and it develops automatically into the sort of man who says “right” when he means “left”. I suppose Jerry was annoyed?’

  ‘A little. Not too well pleased. In fact, he called Lord Emsworth a muddleheaded old ass and said he ought to be in a padded cell. And if you’re going to ask me if that annoyed Lord Emsworth, the answer is in the affirmative. They parted on distant terms. So Jerry’s chances of ingratiating himself with the dear old man with a view to leading up to saying “Brother, can you spare two thousand pounds?” seem pretty dim, don’t you feel? Well, I think I’ll be strolling along to the lake.’

  ‘What are you going to do there?’

  ‘Just drown myself. It’ll pass the time.’

  Before Gally could ask her if this was the old Donaldson spirit – he had only got as far as a pained ‘Tut, tut’ – a figure came droopingly along the terrace.

  ‘Ah, Jerry,’ said Gally. ‘Finished your chat? I’ve just been telling Penny about the Vosper-Salt situation, and she has been telling me about your misadventure. Too bad. What are you planning to do now?’

  Jerry stared dully.

  ‘I’m going back to London.’

  ‘Ridiculous.’

  ‘What else can I do?’

  Gally snorted. It seemed to him that the younger generation was totally lacking in the will to win.

  ‘Why, stick around, of course. You’re not licked yet. Who knows what the morrow may bring forth? London, forsooth! You’re going to take a room at the Emsworth Arms and wait to see what turns up.’

  Jerry brightened a little.

  ‘It’s not a bad idea.’

  ‘It’s
a splendid idea,’ said Penny. ‘You can come prowling about the grounds, and I’ll meet you.’

  ‘So I can.’

  ‘The rose garden would be a good place.’

  ‘None better. Expect me among the roses at an early date. You’ll be there?’

  ‘With bells on.’

  ‘Darling!’

  ‘Angel!’

  ‘I was rather thinking that the conversation might work round to some such point before long,’ said Gally. ‘So there you are, my boy. It’s always foolish to despair. You ought to know that. Penny has been giving me some of your stories to read, and a thing that struck me about them was that on every occasion, despite master criminals, pock-marked Mexicans, shots in the night, and cobras down the chimney, true love triumphed in the end. Do you remember a thing of yours called A Quick Bier for Barney? Well, the hero of that story got his girl though up against a bunch of thugs who would have considered my sister Constance very small-time stuff. And now, as the last thing you’ll want at a moment like this is an old gargoyle like me hanging around, I’ll say good night.’

  He toddled off. He was feeling at the top of his form again and thinking that now would be an admirable time to go and see Connie and put it across her properly. His prejudice against vulgar brawls had vanished. He felt just in the mood for a brawl, and the vulgarer it was, the better he would like it.

  4

  At nine o’clock on the following night Beach, seated in his pantry, was endeavouring with the aid of a glass of port to still the turmoil which recent events at Blandings Castle had engendered in his soul, and not making much of a go of it. Port, usually an unfailing specific, seemed for once to have lost its magic.

  Beach was no weakling, but he had begun to feel that too much was being asked of one who, though always desirous of giving satisfaction, liked to draw the line somewhere. A butler who has been compelled to introduce his niece into his employer’s home under a false name and, on top of that, to remove a stolen pig from a gamekeeper’s cottage in a west wood and convey it across country to the detached villa Sunnybrae on the Shrewsbury road is a butler who feels that enough is sufficient. There were dark circles under Beach’s eyes and he found himself starting at sudden noises. And it did not improve his state of mind that he had a tender heart and winced at the spectacle of all the sadness he saw around him.

  A conversation he had had with Penny this evening had affected him deeply, and the sight of Lord Emsworth at dinner had plunged him still further in gloom. It had no longer been possible to withhold from Lord Emsworth the facts relating to Empress of Blandings, and it had been obvious to Beach, watching him at the meal, that the various courses were turning to ashes in his mouth.

  Even Mr Galahad had seemed moody, and Maudie, who might have done something to relieve the funereal atmosphere, had been over at Matchingham Hall. The only bright spot was the non-appearance of Lady Constance, who had caught Lord Emsworth’s cold and had taken her dinner in bed.

  Beach helped himself to another glass of port, his third. It was pre-phylloxera, and should have had him dancing about the room, strewing roses from his hat, but it did not so much as bring a glow to his eye. For all the good it was doing him, it might have been sarsaparilla. And he was just wondering where he could turn for comfort, now that even port had failed him, when he saw that his solitude had been invaded. Gally was entering, and on his expressive face it seemed to Beach that there was a strange new light, as if hope had dawned.

  Nor was he in error. Throughout the day and all through dinner Gally had been bringing a brain trained by years of mixing with the members of the Pelican Club to bear on the problems confronting his little group of serious thinkers. What Beach, watching him at the table, had mistaken for moodiness had in reality been deep thought. And now this deep thought had borne fruit.

  ‘Port?’ said Gally, eyeing the decanter. ‘You can give me some of that, and speedily. My God!’ he said, sipping. ‘It’s the old ’78. You certainly do yourself well, Beach, and who has a better right to? If I’ve said once that there’s nobody like you, I’ve said it a hundred times. Staunch and true are the adjectives I generally select when asked to draw a word-portrait of you. Beach, I tell people when they come inquiring about you, is a man who … well, how shall I describe him? Ah yes, I say, he is a man who, if offered an opportunity of doing a friend a good turn, will leap to the task, even if it involves going through fire and water. He –’

  It would be incorrect to say that Beach had paled. His was a complexion, ruddier than the cherry, which did not readily lose its vermilion hue. But his jaw had fallen, and he was looking at his visitor rather in the manner of the lamb mentioned by the philosopher Schopenhauer when closeted with the butcher.

  ‘It … It isn’t anything else, is it, Mr Galahad?’ he faltered.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘There is nothing further you wish me to do for you, sir?’

  Gally laughed genially.

  ‘Good heavens, no. Not a thing. At least –’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It did, I admit, cross my mind that you might possibly care to kidnap George Cyril Wellbeloved and tie him up and force him to reveal where the Empress is hidden by sticking lighted matches between his toes. Would you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Merely a suggestion. You could keep him in the coal cellar.’

  ‘No, sir. I am sorry.’

  ‘Quite all right, my dear fellow. It was just a random thought that occurred to me while reading one of those gangster stories in the library before dinner. I had an idea that it might have appealed to you, but no. Well, we all have our likes and dislikes. Then we must think of something else, and I believe I have it. It’s true, is it, that Maudie is going to marry young Parsloe?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I had the information from her personal lips.’

  ‘And he loves her?’

  ‘She inferred as much from his attitude, sir.’

  ‘In that case, I should imagine that her lightest wish would be law to him.’

  ‘One assumes so, Mr Galahad.’

  ‘Then everything becomes quite simple. She must wheedle the blighter.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You must take her aside, Beach, and persuade her to ask young Parsloe where the Empress is and use her feminine wiles till she has got the secret out of him. She can do it if she tries. Look at Samson and Delilah. Look at –’

  Whatever further test cases Gally had been about to mention were wiped from his lips by the sudden ringing of the telephone, a strident instrument capable of silencing the stoutest talker. Beach, who had leaped in the air, returned to earth and took up the receiver.

  ‘Blandings Castle. Lord Emsworth’s butler spe … Oh, good evening, sir … Yes, sir … Very good, sir … Mr Vail, Mr Galahad,’ said Beach, aside. ‘He wishes me to inform Miss Donaldson that he has left the Emsworth Ar –’

  It is not easy to break off in the middle of a single syllable word like ‘Arms’, but Beach had contrived to do so. Like a cloud across the moon, a look of horror and consternation was spreading itself over the acreage of his face.

  Gally frowned.

  ‘Left the Emsworth Arms?’ he said sharply. A man who has taken the trouble to give the younger generation the benefit of his advice does not like to have that advice rejected. ‘Let me talk to him.’

  Slowly Beach replaced the receiver.

  ‘The gentleman has rung off, sir.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  Beach tottered to the table, and reached out a feeble hand to his glass of port.

  ‘Yes, Mr Galahad. He has taken a furnished house.’

  ‘Eh? Where? What furnished house?’

  Beach drained his glass. His eyes were round and bulging.

  ‘Sunnybrae, sir,’ he said in a low voice. ‘On the Shrewsbury road.’

  CHAPTER 9

  THE PELICAN CLUB trains its sons well. After he has been affiliated to that organization for a number of years, taking
part week by week in its informal Saturday night get-togethers, a man’s moral fibre becomes toughened, and very little can happen to him that is capable of making him even raise his eyebrows. Gally, as he heard Beach utter those devastating words, did, it is true, give a slight start, but a member of the Athenaeum or the National Liberal would have shot six feet straight up in the air and bumped his head against the ceiling.

  When he spoke, there was no suggestion of a quiver in his voice. The Club would have been proud of him.

  ‘Are you trying to be funny, Beach?’

  ‘No, sir, I assure you.’

  ‘You really mean it? Sunnybrae?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What on earth does he want to go to Sunnybrae for?’

  ‘I could not say, sir.’

  ‘But he’s on his way there?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And he when he gets there …’ Gally paused. He polished his monocle thoughtfully. ‘Things look sticky, Beach.’

  ‘Extremely glutinous, Mr Galahad. I fear the worst. The gentleman, on arriving at Sunnybrae, will find the pig in residence –’

  ‘And what will the harvest be?’

  ‘Precisely, sir.’

  Gally nodded. He was a man who could face facts.

  ‘Yes, sticky is the word. No good trying to conceal it from ourselves that a crisis has arisen. Jerry Vail is an author, and you know as well as I do what authors are. Unbalanced. Unreliable. Fatheads, to a man. It was precisely because he was an author that I did not admit this Vail to our counsels in the matter of the Parsloe pig. Informed of the facts, he would have spread the story all over Shropshire. And he’ll be spreading it all over Shropshire now, if we don’t act like lightning. You agree?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir.’

  ‘Authors are like that. No reticence. No reserve. You or I, Beach, finding a pig in the kitchen of a furnished villa in which we had just hung up our hats, would keep calm and wait till the clouds rolled by. But not an author. The first thing this blighted Vail will do, unless nipped in the bud, will be to rush out and grab the nearest passer-by and say “Pardon me for addressing you, sir, but there appears to be a pig in my kitchen. Have you any suggestions?” And then what? I’ll tell you what. Doom, desolation, and despair. In next to no time the news will have reached Parsloe, stirring him up like a dose of salts and bringing him round to Sunnybrae with a whoop and a holler. We must hurry, Beach. Not an instant to lose. We must get the car out immediately and fly like the wind to the centre of the vortex, trusting that we shall not be too late. Come on, man, come on. Don’t just stand there. A second’s delay may be fatal.’