Blanding Castle Omnibus

by P. G. Wodehouse

  The first sound that came to Rupert Baxter was that made by the placing of the tray on the table. Then, after a pause, a pair of squeaking shoes passed over the carpet and squeaked out of hearing. Baxter recognized them as those of Footman Thomas, a confirmed squeaker.After this, somebody puffed, causing him to deduce the presence of Beach.

  ‘Your dinner is quite ready, miss.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  The girl had apparently come in from the balcony. A chair scraped to the table. A savoury scent floated to Baxter’s nostrils, causing him acute discomfort. He had just begun to realize how extremely hungry he was and how rash he had been, firstly to attempt to dine off a couple of sandwiches, and secondly to undertake a mission like his present one without a square meal inside him.

  ‘That is chicken, miss. En casserole.’

  Baxter had deduced as much, and was trying not to let his mind dwell on it. He uttered a silent groan. In addition to the agony of having to smell food, he was beginning to be conscious of a growing cramp in his left leg. He turned on one side and did his best to emulate the easy nonchalance of those Indian fakirs who, doubtless from the best motives, spend the formative years of their lives lying on iron spikes.

  ‘It looks very good.’

  ‘I trust you will enjoy it, miss. Is there anything further that I can do for you?’

  ‘No, thank you. Oh, yes. Would you mind fetching that manuscript from the balcony. I was reading it out there, and I left it on the chair. It’s Mr Threepwood’s book.’

  ‘Indeed, miss? An exceedingly interesting compilation, I should imagine?’

  ‘Yes, very.’

  ‘I wonder if it would be taking a liberty, miss, to ask you to inform me later, at your leisure, if I make any appearance in its pages.’

  You?’

  Yes, miss. From what Mr Galahad has let fall from time to time, I fancy it was his intention to give me printed credit as his authority for certain of the stories which appear in the book.’

  ‘Do you want to be in it?’

  ‘Most decidedly, miss. I should consider it an honour. And it would please my mother.’

  ‘Have you a mother?’

  ‘Yes, miss. She lives at Eastbourne.’

  The butler moved majestically on to the balcony, and Sue’s mind had turned to speculation about his mother and whether she looked anything like him, when there was a sound of hurrying feet without, the door flew open, and Beach’s mother passed from her mind like the unsubstantial fabric of a dream. With a little choking cry she rose to her feet. Ronnie was standing before her.

  15 OVER THE TELEPHONE

  And meanwhile, if we may borrow an expression from a sister art, what of Hugo Carmody?

  It is a defect unfortunately inseparable from any such document as this faithful record of events in and about Blandings Castle that the chronicler, in order to give a square deal to each of the individuals whose fortunes he has undertaken to narrate, is compelled to flit abruptly from one to the other in the manner popularized by the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. The activities of the Efficient Baxter seeming to him to demand immediate attention, he was reluctantly compelled some little while back to leave Hugo in the very act of reeling beneath a crushing blow. The moment has now come to return to him.The first effect on a young man of sensibility and gentle upbringing of the discovery that an unfriendly detective has seen him placing stolen pigs in caravans is to induce a stunned condition of mind, a sort of mental coma. The face lengthens. The limbs grow rigid. The tie slips sideways and the cuffs recede into the coat-sleeves. The subject becomes temporarily, in short, a total loss.

  It is perhaps as well, therefore, that we did not waste valuable time watching Hugo in the process of digesting Percy Pilbeam’s sensational announcement, for it would have been like looking at a statue. If the reader will endeavour to picture Rodin’s Thinker in a dinner-jacket and trousers with braid down the sides, he will have got the general idea. At the instant when Hugo Carmody makes his reappearance, life has just begun to return to the stiffened frame.

  And with life came the dawning of intelligence. This ghastly snag which had popped up in his path was too big, reflected Hugo, for any man to tackle. It called for a woman’s keener wit. His first act on emerging from the depths, therefore, was to leave the drawing-room and totter downstairs to the telephone. He got the number of Matchingham Hall and, establishing communication with Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe’s butler, urged him to summon Miss Millicent Threepwood from the dinner-table. The butler said in rather a reproving way that Miss Threepwood was at the moment busy drinking soup. Hugo, with the first flash of spirit he had shown for a quarter of an hour, replied that he didn’t care if she was bathing in it. Fetch her, said Hugo, and almost added the words ‘You scurvy knave.’ He then clung weakly to the receiver, waiting, and in a short while a sweet, but agitated, voice floated to him across the wire.

  ‘Hugo?’

  ‘Millicent?’

  ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes. Is that you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anything in the nature of misunderstanding was cleared away. It was both of them.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Everything’s up.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  TU tell you,’ said Hugo, and did so. It was not a difficult story to tell. Its plot was so clear that a few whispered words sufficed.

  ‘You don’t mean that?’ said Millicent, the tale concluded.

  ‘I do mean that.’

  ‘Oh, golly!’said Millicent.

  Silence followed. Hugo waited palpitatingly. The outlook seemed to him black. He wondered if he had placed too much reliance in woman’s wit. That ‘Golly!’ had not been hopeful.

  ‘Hugo!’

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘This is a bit thick.’

  Yes,’ agreed Hugo. The thickness had not escaped him.

  ‘Well, there’s only one thing to do.’

  A faint thrill passed through Hugo Carmody. One would be enough. Woman’s wit was going to bring home the bacon after all.

  ‘Listen!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The only thing to do is for me to go back to the dining-room and tell Uncle Clarence you’ve found the Empress.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Found her, fathead.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Found her in the caravan.’

  ‘But weren’t you listening to what I was saying?’ There were tears in Hugo’s voice. ‘Pilbeam saw us putting her there.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, what’s our move when he says so?’

  ‘Stout denial.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘We stoutly deny it,’ said Millicent.

  The thrill passed through Hugo again, stronger than before. It might work. Yes, properly handled, it would work. He poured broken words of love and praise into the receiver.

  ‘That’s right,’ he cried. ‘I see daylight. I will go to Pilbeam and tell him privily that if he opens his mouth I’ll strangle him.’

  ‘Well, hold on. I’ll go and tell Uncle Clarence. I expect he’ll be out in a moment to have a word with you.’

  ‘Haifa minute! Millicent!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘When am I supposed to have found this ghastly pig?’

  ‘Ten minutes ago, when you were taking a stroll before dinner. You happened to pass the caravan and you heard an odd noise inside, and you looked to see what it was, and there was the Empress and you raced back to the house to telephone.’

  ‘But, Millicent! Haifa minute!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The old boy will think Baxter stole her.’

  ‘So he will! Isn’t that splendid! Well, hold on.’

  Hugo resumed his vigil. It was some moments later that a noise like the clucking of fowls broke out at the Matchingham Hall end of the wire. He deduced correctly that this was caused by the ninth Earl of Emsworth endeavouring to clothe
his thoughts in speech.

  ‘Kuk-kuk-kuk . . .’

  ‘Yes, Lord Emsworth?’

  ‘Kuk-Carmody!’

  ‘Yes, Lord Emsworth?’

  ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Emsworth.’

  ‘You’ve found the Empress?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Emsworth.’

  ‘In that feller Baxter’s caravan?’

  Yes, Lord Emsworth.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’

  Yes, Lord Emsworth.’

  So far Hugo Carmody had found his share of the dialogue delightfully easy. On these lines he would have been prepared to continue it all night. But there was something else besides, Yes, Lord Emsworth’ that he must now endeavour to say. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: and that tide, he knew, would never rise higher than at the present moment. He swallowed twice to unlimber his vocal cords.

  ‘Lord Emsworth,’ he said, and, though his heart was beating fast, his voice was steady, ‘there is something I would like to take this opportunity of saying. It will come as a surprise to you, but I hope not as an unpleasant surprise. I love your niece Millicent, and she loves me, Lord Emsworth. We have loved each other for many weeks and it is my hope that you will give your consent to our marriage. I am not a rich man, Lord Emsworth. In fact, strictly speaking, except for my salary I haven’t a bean in the world. But my Uncle Lester owns Rudge Hall, in Worcestershire – 1 dare say you have heard of the place? You turn to the left off the main road to Birmingham and go about a couple of miles . . . well, anyway, it’s a biggish sort of place in Worcestershire and my Uncle Lester owns it and the property is entailed and I’m next in succession . . . I won’t pretend that my Uncle Lester shows any indications of passing in his checks, he was extremely fit last time I saw him, but, after all, he’s getting on and all flesh is as grass and, as I say, I’m next man in, so I shall eventually succeed to quite a fairish bit of the stuff and a house and park and rent-roll and all that, so what I mean is, it isn’t as if I wasn’t in a position to support Millicent later on, and if you realized, Lord Emsworth, how we love one another I’m sure you would see that it wouldn’t be playing the game to put any obstacles in the way of our happiness, so what I’m driving at, if you follow me, is, may we charge ahead?’

  There was dead silence at the other end of the wire. It seemed as if the revelation of a good man’s love had struck Lord Ems-worth dumb. It was only some moments later, after he had said ‘Hullo!’ six times and ‘I say, are you there?’ twice that it was borne in upon Hugo that he had wasted two hundred and eighty words of the finest eloquence on empty space.

  His natural chagrin at this discovery was sensibly diminished by the sudden sound of Millicent’s voice in his ear.

  ‘Hullo!’

  ‘Hullo!’

  ‘Hullo!’

  ‘Hullo!’

  ‘Hugo!’

  ‘Hullo!’

  ‘I say, Hugo!’ She spoke with the joyous excitement of a girl who has just emerged from the centre of a family dog-fight. ‘I say, Hugo, things are hotting up here properly. I sprung it on Uncle Clarence just now that I want to marry you!’

  ‘So did I. Only he wasn’t there.’

  ‘I said “Uncle Clarence, aren’t you grateful to Mr Carmody for finding the Empress?” and he said “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, to be sure. Capital boy! Capital boy! Always liked him.” And I said “I suppose you wouldn’t by any chance let me marry him?” and he said “Eh, what? Marry him?” “Yes,” I said. “Marry him.” And he said “Certainly, certainly, certainly, certainly, by all means.” And then Aunt Constance had a fit, and Uncle Gaily said she was a kill-joy and ought to be ashamed of herself for throwing the gaff into love’s young dream, and Uncle Clarence kept on saying “Certainly, certainly, certainly.” I don’t know what old Parsloe thinks of it all. He’s sitting in his chair, looking at the ceiling and drinking hock. The butler left at the end of round one. I’m going back to see how it’s all coming out. Hold the line.’

  A man for whom Happiness and Misery are swaying in the scales three miles away, and whose only medium of learning the result of the contest is a telephone wire, is not likely to ring off impatiently. Hugo sat tense and breathless, like one listening in on the radio to a championship fight in which he has a financial interest. It was only when a cheery voice spoke at his elbow that he realized that his solitude had been invaded, and by Percy Pilbeam at that.

  Percy Pilbeam was looking rosy and replete. He swayed slightly and his smile was rather wider and more pebble-beached than a total abstainer’s would have been.

  ‘Hullo, Carmody,’ said Percy Pilbeam. ‘What ho, Carmody. So here you are, Carmody.’

  It came to Hugo that he had something to say to this man.

  ‘Here, you!’ he cried.

  ‘Yes, Carmody?’

  ‘Do you want to be battered to a pulp?’

  ‘No, Carmody.’

  ‘Then listen. You didn’t see me put that pig in the caravan. Understand?’

  ‘But I did, Carmody.’

  ‘You didn’t – not if you want to go on living.’

  Percy Pilbeam appeared to be in a mood not only of keen intelligence but of the utmost reasonableness and amiability.

  ‘Say no more, Carmody,’ he said agreeably. ‘I take your point. You want me not to tell anybody I saw you put that caravan in the pig. Quite, Carmody, quite.’

  ‘Well, bear it in mind.’

  ‘I will, Carmody. Oh yes, Carmody, I will. I’m going for a stroll outside, Carmody. Care to join me?’

  ‘Go to hell!’

  ‘Quite,’ said Percy Pilbeam.

  He tacked unsteadily to the door, aimed himself at it and passed through. And a moment later Millicent’s voice spoke.

  ‘Hugo?’

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Oh, Hugo, darling, the battle’s over. We’ve won. Uncle Clarence has said “Certainly” sixty-five times, and he’s just told Aunt Constance that if she thinks she can bully him she’s very much mistaken. It’s a walk-over. They’re all coming back right away in the car. Uncle Clarence is an angel.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘Not such an angel as you are.’

  ‘Much more of an angel than I am,’ said Hugo, in the voice of one trained to the appraising and classifying of angels.

  ‘Well, anyway, you precious old thing, I’m going to give them the slip and walk home along the road. Get out Ronnie’s two-seater and come and pick me up and we’ll go for a drive together, miles and miles through the country. It’s the most perfect evening.’

  ‘You bet it is!’ said Hugo fervently. ‘What I call something like an evening. Give me two minutes to get the car out and five to make the trip and I’ll be with you.’

  “At-a-boy!’said Millicent.

  “At-a-baby!’ said Hugo.

  16 LOVERS MEETING

  Sue stood staring, wide-eyed. This was the moment which she had tried to picture to herself a hundred times. And always her imagination had proved unequal to the task. Sometimes she had seen Ronnie in her mind’s eye cold, aloof, hostile; sometimes gasping and tottering, dumb with amazement; sometimes pointing a finger at her like a character in a melodrama and denouncing her as an impostor. The one thing for which she had not been prepared was what happened now.

  Eton and Cambridge train their sons well. Once they have grasped the fundamental fact of life that all exhibitions of emotion are bad form, bombshells cannot disturb their poise and earthquakes are lucky if they get so much as an ‘Eh, what?’ from them. But Cambridge has its limitations, and so has Eton. And remorse had goaded Ronnie Fish to a point where their iron discipline had ceased to operate. He was stirred to his depths, and his scarlet face, his rumpled hair, his starting eyes and his twitching fingers all proclaimed the fact.‘Ronnie!’cried Sue.

  It was all she had time to say. The thought of what she had done for hi
s sake; the thought that for love of him she had come to Blandings Castle under false colours – an impostor – faced at every turn by the risk of detection – liable at any moment to be ignominiously exposed and looked at through a lorgnette by his Aunt Constance; the thought of the shameful way he had treated her . . . all these thoughts were racking Ronald Fish with a searing anguish. They had brought the hot blood of the Fishes to the boil, and now, face to face with her, he did not hesitate.

  He sprang forward, clasped her in his arms, hugged her to him. To Baxter’s revolted ears, though he tried not to listen, there came in a husky cataract the sound of a Fish’s self-reproaches. Ronnie was saying what he thought of himself, and his opinion appeared not to be high. He said he was a beast, a brute, a swine, a cad, a hound, and a worm. If he had been speaking of Percy Pilbeam, he could scarcely have been less complimentary.

  Even up to this point, Baxter had not liked the dialogue. It now became perfectly nauseating. Sue said it had all been her fault. Ronnie said, No, his. No, hers, said Sue. No, his, said Ronnie. No, hers, said Sue. No, altogether his, said Ronnie. It must have been his, he pointed out, because, as he had observed before, he was a hound and a worm. He now went further. He revealed himself as a blister, a tick, and a perishing outsider.

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘I am!’

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘I am!’

  ‘Of course you’re not!’

  ‘I certainly am!’

  ‘Well, I love you anyway.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I do.’

  Baxter writhed in silent anguish.

  ‘How long?’ said Baxter to his immortal soul. ‘How long?’

  The question was answered with a startling promptitude. From the neighbourhood of the french windows there sounded a discreet cough. The debaters sprang apart, two minds with but a single thought.