There was probably some good stuff awaiting him in Chapter Six, but Lord Emsworth was too impatient to lie there and read on. He sprang from his bed, his pince-nez quivering on his nose. J. G. Banks had to be informed of this sensational discovery without an instant’s delay. He could hardly wait to get him on the telephone.
He did, however, after finding his bedroom slippers, one of which had hidden itself under the bed, wait for quite an appreciable time, for he had just remembered that the only telephone available was the one in the library, and to reach the library it would be necessary to pass by the room in which his sister Constance slept. And as the picture rose before his eyes of Connie darting out and catching him, he experienced much the same sensation as comes to those who have lived in the East when they get a recurrence of their old malaria.
It was but a passing weakness. He thought of his Crusading ancestors, particularly Sir Pharamond, the one who did so well at the Battle of Joppa. Would Sir Pharamond with all his mentions in dispatches have allowed a sister to intimidate him? Of course it was possible that Sir Pharamond had not had a sister like Connie, but even so …
Two minutes later, nerved to his perilous venture, he had started on his way.
2
It is not too much to say that at this point in his progress Lord Emsworth was feeling calm, confident and carefree; but a wise friend, one who had read his Thomas Hardy and learned from that pessimistic author’s works how often and how easily human enterprises are ruined by some unforeseen Act of God, would have warned him against any premature complacency. One never knew, he would have pointed out, around what corner Fate might not be waiting with the stocking full of sand. ‘Watch your step, Emsworth,’ he would have said.
This, however, owing to the darkness which prevailed, Lord Emsworth was unable to do, and there was nothing to tell him that a considerable Act of God was lurking outside Lady Constance’s door, all ready for his coming. His first intimation that it was there occurred when he put a foot on it and the world seemed to come to an end not with a whimper but with a bang.
It is to be doubted whether even Sir Pharamond in such circumstances would have been able to preserve his equanimity intact, tough guy though he was admitted to be by his fellow Crusaders. The shock paralysed his descendant. Lord Emsworth stood gulping, gripped by the unpleasant feeling that his spine had come out through the top of his head. He was not a particularly superstitious man, but he had begun to think that night prowling was unlucky for him.
Mingled with his dismay was bewilderment. He recalled how his brother Galahad had urged him not to allow the upsetting of tables in the small hours to become a habit, but this thing with which he had collided was not a table. It was too dark for him to make a definite pronouncement, but it seemed to be a tray containing glass and china, and he could think of no reason why the corridor should be paved with trays.
The explanation was one of those absurdly simple explanations. Lady Constance sometimes found a difficulty in dropping off to sleep, and her doctor in New York had recommended as an assistance to the sand man a plate of fruit and a glass of warm milk, to be taken last thing at night before retiring to rest. These consumed, it was her practice to put the tray outside her door, ready for the housemaid to remove in the morning and ready also, as has been shown, for her brother Clarence to step into with a forceful bedroom slipper. Thomas Hardy would have seen in the whole affair one more of life’s little ironies and on having it drawn to his attention would have got twenty thousand words of a novel out of it.
Conditions being as described, a quicker thinker than Lord Emsworth would have extracted his feet from the debris and faded into the night with a minimum of delay. He, however, continued to stand transfixed, and was still doing so when, just as had happened on his last night out, the door opened and light flashed on the scene. It was accompanied by Lady Constance in a rose-coloured dressing gown, looking like something out of an Elizabethan tragedy. Laying a good deal of emphasis on the first syllable, she said:
‘CLARence!’
It is possible that something of the spirit of his ancestors lingered in Lord Emsworth, or it may have been that a shock is always apt to stiffen the sinews of the mildest man. Whatever the motivating cause, he presented a splendidly dauntless front and was swift with the telling riposte. It ran as follows:
‘What’s that tray doing there?’
It was a testing question, but Lady Constance was not easily worsted in verbal give-and-take. As a girl she had been on the debating team at Roedean. Her reply, and it was a good one, came without hesitation.
‘Never mind what it’s doing. What are you doing?’
‘Trays all over the floor!’
‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘I might have injured myself severely.’
‘You might also have gone to bed.’
‘I’ve been to bed.’
‘Then why didn’t you stay there?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘You could have read a book.’
‘I did read a book. It was that new pig book that came this morning. Extraordinarily interesting.’
‘Then why aren’t you reading it now, instead of wandering about the house at four o’clock?’
She had a point there. Lord Emsworth was a reasonable man, and he could see that. Moreover, the spirit of his ancestors had begun to die out in him, to be replaced by a mood that was apologetic rather than Crusading. He felt that he owed Connie an explanation, and fortunately he had an excellent one to hand.
‘I was going to phone Banks.’
‘You were what?’
‘I was going to get Banks on the telephone.’
Lady Constance was obliged to swallow twice before finding further articulation possible. When she spoke, it was almost in a whisper. Strong woman though she was, he had shaken her.
‘Are you under the impression that your bank will be open at four in the morning?’
This illustration of woman’s tendency always to get things muddled up amused Lord Emsworth. He smiled indulgently.
‘Not my bank. Banks, the vet. I want to tell him about this wonderful vitamin pill for pigs that has just been discovered. It was in the book I was reading.’
Lady Constance swallowed again. She was feeling oddly weak. Lord Emsworth, though not usually observant, noted her agitation, and an idea struck him.
‘It’s rather late, of course.’
‘A little.’
‘He may have gone to bed.’
‘It is possible.’
‘Do you think I ought to wait till after breakfast?’
‘I do.’
It was a thought. Lord Emsworth weighed it gravely.
‘Yes, you are quite right, Connie,’ he said at length. ‘Banks might have been annoyed. He wouldn’t like having his sleep broken. I see that now. Sensible of you to suggest putting it off. After breakfast will do perfectly well. Then I’ll say good night. You’ll be getting back to bed, of course?’
‘I shall be thankful to.’
‘Capital, capital, capital.’
3
The thoughts of youth, said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1805–1882), are long long thoughts, and so, when the conditions are right, are those of middle-age. Lady Constance’s prevented her going to sleep for quite some time after she was between the sheets again. Her mind was wrestling feverishly with the problem presented by the apparently borderline case with whom she had recently been conversing.
Coming fresh to Lord Emsworth, as it were, after a longish sojourn in New York, where she had met only the most rational of men, dull some of them and inclined to restrict their conversation to the vagaries of the Stock Market, but nevertheless all perfectly rational, she had found him, even more than when last encountered, a fitting object for anxiety.
No sister could view him now without concern. There was an expression she had heard her husband James Schoonmaker use to describe an acquaintance of whose mentality his opinion was lo
w, which seemed to her to fit the ninth Earl of Emsworth like the paper on the wall. It was the expression ‘He has not got all his marbles’. What had occurred in the past few days, and particularly what had occurred tonight, had left her with the conviction that, whatever the ninth Earl’s merits, he offered an open target for her James’s criticism. He was amiable, he was clean, sober and obedient, but the marbles in his possession were virtually non-existent.
Sift the evidence. He wandered to and fro at night, not just one night but practically every night. He tripped over cats that were not there. He asserted that pictures had disappeared which were in full view, staring him in the face. And but for her restraining influence he would have rung up a hardworking veterinary surgeon on the telephone at four in the morning to tell him about vitamin pills for pigs. It was an impressive list of qualifications for admission to some good nursing home where he would get sympathetic treatment and bright cheerful society.
Of course, it might be that the ministrations of this Mr. Halliday would effect an improvement, bringing his stock of marbles up to a passable level, but she was unable to share the confidence which Alaric and her brother Galahad appeared to have in Mr. Halliday. Happening to meet him on her way to her room, she had questioned him as to his methods, and his answers had seemed to her vague and confused. This might no doubt have been due to the inability of an expert to make himself clear to the lay mind, but it had left her uneasy.
And he was so young. That perhaps was where the trouble lay. She had no objection to some men being young—waiters, for instance, or policemen or representatives of the country in the Olympic Games—but in a man whose walk in life was to delve into people’s subconscious and make notes of what came up one expected something more elderly.
It was with this thought in her mind, vexing her like an aching tooth, that Lady Constance fell asleep.
When she woke, it was still there, and her misgivings grew with breakfast, when she had ample opportunity of observing him and weighing him in the balance. She rose from the table more convinced than ever that in the matter of correcting her brother Clarence’s deviations from the normal he was far too juvenile a reed on which to lean.
After breakfast she went to the garden suite to see the Duke and give him womanly sympathy, hoping that his injuries would not have had the worst effect on his always uncertain temper. Far less provocation in the past than a sprained ankle had often left him in one of those testy moods when a sympathetic woman closeted with him got the illusion that she was in the presence of something out of the Book of Revelations.
To her relief he appeared reasonably placid. He was sitting up in bed smoking a cigar and reading the local paper, the Bridgnorth, Shifnal and Albrighton Argus, with which is incorporated the Wheat Grower’s Intelligencer and Stock Breeder’s Gazette.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.
She would have preferred a more effusive welcome, but she reflected philosophically that it was better than some of the welcomes she might have received. She summoned up a bright smile.
‘Well, Alaric, how are you this morning?’
‘Rotten.’
‘Does your ankle hurt?’
‘Like hell.’
‘Still, it could have been worse.’
‘How?’
‘You might have broken your neck.’
‘Not that blasted head-shrinker’s fault I didn’t.’
‘I wanted to talk to you about Mr. Halliday. I’ve been thinking about him.’
‘So have I. Bullocking into people and boosting them downstairs.’
‘He’s very young.’
‘That’s no excuse. When I was his age, I didn’t go about boosting people downstairs.’
‘I mean I really do not feel he is old enough to be of any help to Clarence. I can’t think why you engaged him.’
‘Had to engage someone, hadn’t we? Emsworth needs the promptest treatment.’
‘Yes, that is true. I quite agree with you about that. Do you know, Alaric, he was wandering around the house at three o’clock in the morning. He said he was going to telephone the veterinary surgeon about some vitamin pill for pigs he had found in a book he had been reading.’
‘At three o’clock?’
‘It was nearer four. He woke me up.’
‘So that’s why you’ve got that horrible pasty look,’ said the Duke, glad to have solved a mystery. ‘You look like something the cat brought in. Always that way if you don’t get your proper sleep. Well, there you are, then. His pottiness is spreading, and Halliday’s presence is essential. He must get to work immediately, not a moment must be wasted. Today Emsworth phones people at four in the morning, tomorrow he’ll probably be saying he’s a poached egg. It’s a pity in a way that you’ve got to go back to America. Not that you’d be much use if you hadn’t, but the more persons keeping an eye on him the better, and you can’t expect me to stay here for ever. As soon as my ankle’s all right I must be down in Wiltshire, seeing to it that they’re getting on with the repairs to my house. You’ve got to watch those fellows like a hawk.’
‘But, Alaric—’
‘They don’t do a stroke of work unless you’re there to keep after them all the time. I’m not paying them good money just to stand around like statues, nothing moving except their lips as they tell each other dirty stories, and the sooner they understand that, the better.’
‘But, Alaric, I am not going to America.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘I’m staying here for the rest of the summer.’
‘No, you aren’t.’
‘And James is joining me when he has finished this deal he is working on.’
‘No, he isn’t. It’s going to take him longer than he had expected, and he wants you to come back right away. It’s all in his letter. Oh, I forgot to tell you. He’s written you a long letter, and it got mixed up with mine.’
A sharp gasp escaped Lady Constance.
‘You read it?’
‘Most of it. I skipped some of the dull bits.’
‘Well, really, Alaric!’
‘How was I to know it wasn’t for me?’
‘From the name on the envelope, I should have thought.’
‘Didn’t notice it.’
‘And the opening words.’
‘It began “My darling”. No mention of you at all. What does it matter, anyway? I’ve given you the gist. No need for you to read it.’
‘I want my letter!’
‘Then you’ll have to crawl under the bed, because that’s where it’s fallen,’ said the Duke with the smugness of a member of Parliament making a debating point. ‘The breeze through the window caught it. You’ll get pretty dusty, because it’s somewhere right at the back.’
Lady Constance bit her lip. It hurt her a little, but it was better than biting Alaric, Duke of Dunstable.
‘I will ring for Beach.’
‘What’s the good of that? Beach can’t crawl under beds.’
‘He will send the boy who cleans the knives and boots.’
‘All right, let the child come. But I’m not going to tip him,’ said the Duke, and on this sordid note the conversation ended.
Lady Constance left the sick room in a state of considerable agitation. It always irked her to have to alter her plans, and now it was particularly upsetting. She had been looking forward so eagerly to having her James with her at the castle, not merely because she loved him and felt that a holiday in these peaceful surroundings would do him so much good, but because his calm sensible companionship would be so beneficial to Clarence. The thought of leaving the latter in the care of a mere boy like this immature Halliday, she far away and unable to superintend his course of treatment, chilled her. Who could say what blunders the stripling might not commit? And who, an inner voice reminded her in case she had overlooked it, could say what Clarence might not be up to in her absence? Probably taking all his meals in the library and sneaking off all day and never allowing Halliday to get near him.
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She reached her boudoir, rang for Beach, told him to instruct the boy who cleaned the knives and boots to proceed to the garden suite and start crawling: then for several minutes she stood looking out of the window, deep in thought, and was rewarded with an idea.
At the time when his services had been desired Sir Roderick Glossop had not been available, away no doubt on some case to which he had been pledged. But it was possible that he would now be free to spend a few days at the castle, and even a few days of such an expert might be enough. It was at any rate worth trying.
She took up the telephone, and a secretarial voice answered her.
‘Sir Roderick Glossop’s office.’
‘Could I speak to Sir Roderick?’
‘Ay am sorry, he is in America. We are turning all our cases over to Sir Abercrombie Fitch. Shall I give you his numbah?’
‘No, I think not, thank you. I suppose you mean all the cases not handled by his partner?’
‘Pardon?’
‘His junior partner.’
‘Sir Roderick has no junior partner.’
Lady Constance remained calm, at least as far as her diction was concerned. Ladies never betray emotion, Connie dear, even on the telephone.
‘There seems to be some confusion. I am Lady Constance Schoonmaker, speaking from Blandings Castle in Shropshire. There is a young man at the castle named Halliday who according to my brother is Sir Roderick Glossop’s junior partner. You know nothing of him? He could not be Sir Abercrombie Fitch’s partner?’
‘Sir Abercrombie has no partner.’
‘You are sure?’
There came a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the wire. The question had given offence. You cannot go about asking secretaries if they are sure. Ice crept into this one’s reply.
‘Ay am quate sure.’
Blanding Castle Omnibus Page 322
