The Mating Season

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘this is grave news, but it comes at a moment when I am well fitted to receive it. I have just witnessed Esmond Haddock pound the stuffing out of five aunts, and I feel that after an exhibition like that it would ill beseem a Wooster to curl up before a single aunt. I feel strong and resolute, Jeeves. I shall now go downstairs and pull an Esmond Haddock on Aunt Agatha. And if things look like becoming too sticky, I can always borrow that cosh of yours, what?’

  I squared the shoulders and strode to the door, like Childe Roland about to fight the paynim.

  IN ARROW BOOKS

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

  FROM

  Summer Lightning

  I

  Blandings Castle slept in the sunshine. Dancing little ripples of heat-mist played across its smooth lawns and stone-flagged terraces. The air was full of the lulling drone of insects. It was that gracious hour of a summer afternoon, midway between luncheon and tea, when Nature seems to unbutton its waistcoat and put its feet up.

  In the shade of a laurel bush outside the back premises of this stately home of England, Beach, butler to Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, its proprietor, sat sipping the contents of a long glass and reading a weekly paper devoted to the doings of Society and the Stage. His attention had just been arrested by a photograph in an oval border on one of the inner pages: and for perhaps a minute he scrutinized this in a slow, thorough, pop-eyed way, absorbing its every detail. Then, with a fruity chuckle, he took a penknife from his pocket, cut out the photograph, and placed it in the recesses of his costume.

  At this moment, the laurel bush, which had hitherto not spoken, said ‘Psst!’

  The butler started violently. A spasm ran through his ample frame.

  ‘Beach!’ said the bush.

  Something was now peering out of it. This might have been a wood-nymph, but the butler rather thought not, and he was right. It was a tall young man with light hair. He recognized his employer’s secretary, Mr Hugo Carmody, and rose with pained reproach. His heart was still jumping, and he had bitten his tongue.

  ‘Startle you, Beach?’

  ‘Extremely, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Excellent for the liver, though. Beach, do you want to earn a quid?’

  The butler’s austerity softened. The hard look died out of his eyes.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Can you get hold of Miss Millicent alone?’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘Then give her this note, and don’t let anyone see you do it. Especially – and this is where I want you to follow me very closely, Beach – Lady Constance Keeble.’

  ‘I will attend to the matter immediately, sir.’

  He smiled a paternal smile. Hugo smiled back. A perfect understanding prevailed between these two. Beach understood that he ought not to be giving his employer’s niece surreptitious notes: and Hugo understood that he ought not to be urging a good man to place such a weight upon his conscience.

  ‘Perhaps you are not aware, sir,’ said the butler, having trousered the wages of sin, ‘that her ladyship went up to London on the three-thirty train?’

  Hugo uttered an exclamation of chagrin.

  ‘You mean that all this Red Indian stuff-creeping from bush to bush and not letting a single twig snap beneath my feet – has simply been a waste of time?’ He emerged, dusting his clothes. ‘I wish I’d known that before,’ he said. ‘I’ve severely injured a good suit, and it’s a very moot question whether I haven’t got some kind of a beetle down my back. However, nobody ever took a toss through being careful.’

  ‘Very true, sir.’

  Relieved by the information that the X-ray eye of the aunt of the girl he loved was operating elsewhere, Mr Carmody became conversational.

  ‘Nice day, Beach.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You know, Beach, life’s rummy. I mean to say, you never can tell what the future holds in store. Here I am at Blandings Castle, loving it. Sing of joy, sing of bliss, home was never like this. And yet, when the project of my coming here was first placed on the agenda, I don’t mind telling you the heart was rather bowed down with weight of woe.’

  ‘Indeed, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Noticeably bowed down. If you knew the circumstances, you would understand why’

  Beach did know the circumstances. There were few facts concerning the dwellers in Blandings Castle of which he remained in ignorance for long. He was aware that young Mr Carmody had been, until a few weeks back, co-proprietor with Mr Ronald Fish, Lord Emsworth’s nephew, of a night-club called the Hot Spot, situated just off Bond Street in the heart of London’s pleasure-seeking area; that, despite this favoured position, it had proved a financial failure; that Mr Ronald had gone off with his mother, Lady Julia Fish, to recuperate at Biarritz; and that Hugo, on the insistence of Ronnie that unless some niche was found for his boyhood friend he would not stir a step towards Biarritz or any other blighted place, had come to Blandings as Lord Emsworth’s private secretary.

  ‘No doubt you were reluctant to leave London, sir?’

  ‘Exactly. But now, Beach, believe me or believe me not, as far as I am concerned, anyone who likes can have London. Mark you, I’m not saying that just one brief night in the Piccadilly neighbourhood would come amiss. But to dwell in, give me Blandings Castle. What a spot, Beach!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘A Garden of Eden, shall I call it?’

  ‘Certainly, sir, if you wish.’

  ‘And now that old Ronnie’s coming here, joy, as you might say, will be unconfined.’

  ‘Is Mr Ronald expected, sir?’

  ‘Coming either to-morrow or the day after. I had a letter from him this morning. Which reminds me. He sends his regards to you, and asks me to tell you to put your shirt on Baby Bones for the Medbury Selling Plate.’

  The butler pursed his lips dubiously.

  ‘A long shot, sir. Not generally fancied.’

  ‘Rank outsider. Leave it alone, is my verdict.’

  And yet Mr Ronald is usually very reliable. It is many years now since he first began to advise me in these matters, and I have done remarkably well by following him. Even as a lad at Eton he was always singularly fortunate in his information.’

  ‘Well, suit yourself,’ said Hugo, indifferently. ‘What was that thing you were cutting out of the paper just now?’

  ‘A photograph of Mr Galahad, sir. I keep an album in which I paste items of interest relating to the Family’

  ‘What that album needs is an eye-witness’s description of Lady Constance Keeble falling out of a window and breaking her neck.’

  A nice sense of the proprieties prevented Beach from endorsing this view verbally, but he sighed a little wistfully. He had frequently felt much the same about the chatelaine of Blandings.

  ‘If you would care to see the clipping, sir? There is a reference to Mr Galahad’s literary work.’

  Most of the photographs in the weekly paper over which Beach had been relaxing were of peeresses trying to look like chorus-girls and chorus-girls trying to look like peeresses: but this one showed the perky features of a dapper little gentleman in the late fifties. Beneath it, in large letters, was the single word:

  GALLY

  Under this ran a caption in smaller print.

  ‘The Hon. Galahad Threepwood, brother of the Earl of Emsworth. A little bird tells us that “Gally” is at Blandings Castle, Shropshire, the ancestral seat of the family, busily engaged in writing his Reminiscences. As every member of the Old Brigade will testify, they ought to be as warm as the weather, if not warmer.’

  Hugo scanned the exhibit thoughtfully, and handed it back, to be placed in the archives.

  ‘Yes,’ he observed, ‘I should say that about summed it up. That old bird must have been pretty hot stuff, I imagine, back in the days of Edward the Confessor.’

  ‘Mr Galahad was somewhat wild as a young man,’ agreed the butler with a sort of feudal pride in hi
s voice. It was the opinion of the Servants’ Hall that the Hon. Galahad shed lustre on Blandings Castle.

  ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Beach, that that book of his is going to make no small stir when it comes out?’

  ‘Frequently, sir.’

  ‘Well, I’m saving up for my copy. By the way, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Can you give me any information on the subject of a bloke named Baxter?’

  ‘Mr Baxter, sir? He used to be private secretary to his lordship.’

  ‘Yes, so I gathered. Lady Constance was speaking to me about him this morning. She happened upon me as I was taking the air in riding kit and didn’t seem overpleased. “You appear to enjoy a great deal of leisure, Mr Carmody,” she said. “Mr Baxter,” she continued, giving me the meaning eye, “never seemed to find time to go riding when he was Lord Emsworth’s secretary. Mr Baxter was always so hard at work. But, then, Mr Baxter,” she added, the old lamp becoming more meaning than ever, “loved his work. Mr Baxter took a real interest in his duties. Dear me! What a very conscientious man Mr Baxter was, to be sure!” Or words to that effect. I may be wrong, but I classed it as a dirty dig. And what I want to know is, if Baxter was such a world-beater, why did they ever let him go?’

  The butler gazed about him cautiously.

  ‘I fancy, sir, there was some Trouble.’

  ‘Pinched the spoons, eh? Always the way with these zealous workers.’

  ‘I never succeeded in learning the full details, sir, but there was something about some flower-pots.’

  ‘He pinched the flower-pots?’

  ‘Threw them at his lordship, I was given to understand.’

  Hugo looked injured. He was a high-spirited young man who chafed at injustice.

  ‘Well, I’m dashed if I see then,’ he said, ‘where this Baxter can claim to rank so jolly high above me as a secretary. I may be leisurely, I may forget to answer letters, I may occasionally on warm afternoons go in to some extent for the folding of the hands in sleep, but at least I don’t throw flower-pots at people. Not so much as a pen-wiper have I ever bunged at Lord Ems-worth. Well, I must be getting about my duties. That ride this morning and a slight slumber after lunch have set the schedule back a bit. You won’t forget that note, will you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Hugo reflected.

  ‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘perhaps you’d better hand it back to me. Safer not to have too much written matter circulating about the place. Just tell Miss Millicent that she will find me in the rose-garden at six sharp.’

  ‘In the rose-garden . . .’

  ‘At six sharp.’

  ‘Very good, sir. I will see that she receives the information.’

  II

  For two hours after this absolutely nothing happened in the grounds of Blandings Castle. At the end of that period there sounded through the mellow, drowsy stillness a drowsy, mellow chiming. It was the clock over the stables striking five. Simultaneously, a small but noteworthy procession filed out of the house and made its way across the sun-bathed lawn to where the big cedar cast a grateful shade. It was headed by James, a footman, bearing a laden tray. Following him came Thomas, another footman, with a gate-leg table. The rear was brought up by Beach, who carried nothing, but merely lent a tone.

  The instinct which warns all good Englishmen when tea is ready immediately began to perform its silent duty. Even as Thomas set the gate-leg table to earth there appeared, as if answering a cue, an elderly gentleman in stained tweeds and a hat he should have been ashamed of. Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, in person. He was a long, lean, stringy man of about sixty, slightly speckled at the moment with mud, for he had spent most of the afternoon pottering round pig-styes. He surveyed the preparations for the meal with vague amiability through rimless pince-nez.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Yes, your lordship.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Lord Emsworth. ‘Ah? Tea, eh? Tea? Yes. Tea. Quite so. To be sure, tea. Capital.’

  One gathered from his remarks that he realized that the tea hour had arrived and was glad of it. He proceeded to impart his discovery to his niece, Millicent, who, lured by that same silent call, had just appeared at his side.

  ‘Tea, Millicent.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Er – tea,’ said Lord Emsworth, driving home his point.

  Millicent sat down, and busied herself with the pot. She was a tall, fair girl with soft blue eyes and a face like the Soul’s Awakening. Her whole appearance radiated wholesome innocence. Not even an expert could have told that she had just received a whispered message from a bribed butler and was proposing at six sharp to go and meet a quite ineligible young man among the rose-bushes.

  ‘Been down seeing the Empress, Uncle Clarence?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, yes. Yes, my dear. I have been with her all the afternoon.’

  Lord Emsworth’s mild eyes beamed. They always did when that noble animal, Empress of Blandings, was mentioned. The ninth Earl was a man of few and simple ambitions. He had never desired to mould the destinies of the State, to frame its laws and make speeches in the House of Lords that would bring all the peers and bishops to their feet, whooping and waving their hats. All he yearned to do, by way of ensuring admittance to England’s Hall of Fame, was to tend his prize sow, Empress of Blandings, so sedulously that for the second time in two consecutive years he would win the silver medal in the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. And every day, it seemed to him, the glittering prize was coming more and more within his grasp.

  Earlier in the summer there had been one breathless sickening moment of suspense, and disaster had seemed to loom. This was when his neighbour, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, of Matchingham Hall, had basely lured away his pig-man, the superbly gifted George Cyril Wellbeloved, by the promise of higher wages. For a while Lord Emsworth had feared lest the Empress, mourning for her old friend and valet, might refuse food and fall from her high standard of obesity. But his apprehensions had proved groundless. The Empress had taken to Pirbright, George Cyril’s successor, from the first, and was tucking away her meals with all the old abandon. The Right triumphs in this world far more often than we realize.

  ‘What do you do to her?’ asked Millicent, curiously. ‘Read her bedtime stories?’

  Lord Emsworth pursed his lips. He had a reverent mind, and disliked jesting on serious subjects.

  ‘Whatever I do, my dear, it seems to effect its purpose. She is in wonderful shape.’

  ‘I didn’t know she had a shape. She hadn’t when I last saw her.’

  This time Lord Emsworth smiled indulgently. Gibes at the Empress’s rotundity had no sting for him. He did not desire for her that school-girl slimness which is so fashionable nowadays.

  ‘She has never fed more heartily,’ he said. ‘It is a treat to watch her.’

  ‘I’m so glad. Mr Carmody,’ said Millicent, stooping to tickle a spaniel which had wandered up to take pot-luck, ‘told me he had never seen a finer animal in his life.’

  ‘I like that young man,’ said Lord Emsworth emphatically. ‘He is sound on pigs. He has his head screwed on the right way’

  ‘Yes, he’s an improvement on Baxter, isn’t he?’

  ‘Baxter!’ His lordship choked over his cup.

  ‘You didn’t like Baxter much, did you, Uncle Clarence?’

  ‘Hadn’t a peaceful moment while he was in the place. Dreadful feller! Always fussing. Always wanting me to do things. Always coming round corners with his infernal spectacles gleaming and making me sign papers when I wanted to be out in the garden. Besides he was off his head. Thank goodness I’ve seen the last of Baxter.’

  ‘But have you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If you ask me,’ said Millicent, Aunt Constance hasn’t given up the idea of getting him back.’

  Lord Emsworth started with such violence that his pince-nez fell off. She had touched on his favourite nightmare. Sometimes he would wake trembling in the night, fancying that
his late secretary had returned to the castle. And though on these occasions he always dropped off to sleep again with a happy smile of relief, he had never ceased to be haunted by the fear that his sister Constance, in her infernal managing way, was scheming to restore the fellow to office.

  ‘Good God! Has she said anything to you?’

  ‘No. But I have a feeling. I know she doesn’t like Mr Carmody’

  Lord Emsworth exploded.

  ‘Perfect nonsense! Utter, absolute, dashed nonsense. What on earth does she find to object to in young Carmody? Most capable, intelligent boy. Leaves me alone. Doesn’t fuss me. I wish to heaven she would . . .’

  He broke off, and stared blankly at a handsome woman of middle age who had come out of the house and was crossing the lawn.

  ‘Why, here she is!’ said Millicent, equally and just as disagreeably surprised. ‘I thought you had gone up to London, Aunt Constance.’

  Lady Constance Keeble had arrived at the table. Declining, with a distrait shake of the head, her niece’s offer of the seat of honour by the tea-pot, she sank into a chair. She was a woman of still remarkable beauty, with features cast in a commanding mould and fine eyes. These eyes were at the moment dull and brooding.

  ‘I missed my train,’ she explained. ‘However, I can do all I have to do in London to-morrow. I shall go up by the eleven-fifteen. In a way, it will be more convenient, for Ronald will be able to motor me back. I will look in at Norfolk Street and pick him up there before he starts.’

  ‘What made you miss your train?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lord Emsworth, complainingly. ‘You started in good time.’

  The brooding look in his sister’s eyes deepened.

  ‘I met Sir Gregory Parsloe.’ Lord Emsworth stiffened at the name. ‘He kept me talking. He is extremely worried.’ Lord Emsworth looked pleased. ‘He tells me he used to know Galahad very well a number of years ago, and he is very much alarmed about this book of his.’

  ‘And I bet he isn’t the only one,’ murmured Millicent.