After staring at me for a moment as if he were thinking that I had changed for the worse since he last saw me, he spoke.
'You're to come to lunch.'
'Is Chuffy back, then?'
'Yes.'
Well, of course, if Chuffy had returned, I was at his disposal. I shouted over the hedge to Brinkley that I would be absent from the midday meal and climbed into the car and we rolled off.
'When did he get back?'
'Last night.'
'Shall we be lunching alone?'
'No.'
'Who's going to be there?'
'Mother and me and some people.'
'A party? I'd better go back and put on another suit.'
'No.'
'You think this one looks all right?'
'No, I don't. I think it looks rotten. But there isn't time.'
This point settled, he passed into the silence for awhile. A brooding kid. He came out of it to give me some local gossip.
'Mother and I are living at the Hall again.'
'What!'
'Yes. There's a smell at the Dower House.'
'Even though you've left it?' I said, in my keen way.
He was not amused.
'You needn't try to be funny. If you really want to know, I expect it's my mice.'
'Your what?'
'I've started breeding mice and puppies. And, of course, they niff a bit,' he added in a dispassionate sort of way. 'But mother thinks it's the drains. Can you give me five shillings?'
I simply couldn't follow his train of thought. The way his conversation flitted about gave me that feeling you get in dreams sometimes.
'Five shillings?'
'Five shillings.'
'What do you mean, five shillings?'
'I mean five shillings.'
'I dare say. But what I want to know is how have we suddenly got on to the subject? We were discussing mice, and you introduce this five shillings motif
'I want five shillings.'
'Admitting that you may possibly want that sum, why the dickens should I give it to you?'
'For protection.'
'What!'
'Protection.'
'What from?'
'Just protection.'
'You don't get any five shillings out of me.'
'Oh, all right.'
He sat silent for a space.
'Things happen to guys that don't kick in their protection money,' he said dreamily.
And on this note of mystery the conversation concluded, for we were moving up the drive of the Hall and on the steps I perceived Chuffy standing. I stopped the car and got out.
'Hallo, Bertie,' said Chuffy.
'Welcome to Chuffnell Hall,' I replied. I looked round. The kid had vanished. 'I say, Chuffy,' I said, 'young blighted Seabury. What about him?'
'What about him?'
'Well, if you ask me, I should say he had gone off his rocker. He's just been trying to touch me for five bob and babbling about protection.'
Chuffy laughed heartily, looking bronzed and fit.
'Oh, that. That's his latest idea.'
'How do you mean?'
'He's been seeing gangster films.'
The scales fell from my eyes.
'He's turned racketeer?'
'Yes. Rather amusing. He goes round collecting protection money from everybody according to their means. Makes a good thing out of it, too. Enterprising kid. I'd pay up if I were you. I have.'
I was shocked. Not so much at the information that the foul child had given this additional evidence of a diseased mind as that Chuffy should be exhibiting this attitude of amused tolerance. I eyed him keenly. Right from the start this morning I had thought his manner strange. Usually, when you meet him, he is brooding over his financial situation and is rather apt to greet you with the lack-lustre eye and the careworn frown. He had been like that five days ago in London. What, then, had caused him to beam all over the place like this and even to go so far as to speak of little Seabury with what amounted to something perilously near to indulgent affection? I sensed a mystery and decided to apply the acid test.
'How is your Aunt Myrtle?'
'She's fine.'
'Living at the Hall now, I hear.'
'Yes.'
'Indefinitely?'
'Oh, yes.'
It was enough.
One of the things, I must mention, which have always made poor old Chuffy's lot so hard is his aunt's attitude towards him. She has never quite been able to get over that matter of the succession. Seabury, you see, was not the son of Chuffy's late uncle, the fourth Baron: he was simply something Lady Chuffnell had picked up en route in the course of a former marriage and, consequently, did not come under the head of what the Peerage calls 'issue'. And, in matters of succession, if you aren't issue, you haven't a hope. When the fourth Baron pegged out, accordingly, it was Chuffy who copped the title and estates. All perfectly square and above board, of course, but you can't get women to see these things, and the relict's manner, Chuffy has often told me, was consistently unpleasant. She had a way of clasping Seabury in her arms and looking reproachfully at Chuffy as if he had slipped over a fast one on mother and child. Nothing actually said, you understand, but her whole attitude that of a woman who considers she has been the victim of sharp practice.
The result of this had been that the Dowager Lady Chuffnell was not one of Chuffy's best-loved buddies. Their relations had always been definitely strained, and what I'm driving at is that usually, when you mention her name, a look of pain comes into Chuffy's clean-cut face and he winces a little, as if you had probed an old wound.
Now he was actually smiling. Even that remark of mine about her living at the Hall had not jarred him. Obviously, there were mysteries here. Something was being kept from Bertram.
I tackled him squarely.
'Chuffy,' I said, 'what does this mean?'
'What does what mean?'
'This bally cheeriness. You can't deceive me. Not old Hawk-Eye Wooster. Come clean, my lad, something is up. What is all the ruddy happiness about?'
He hesitated. For a moment he eyed me narrowly.
'Can you keep a secret?'
'No.'
'Well, it doesn't much matter, because it'll be in the Morning Post in a day or two. Bertie,' said Chuffy, in a hushed voice, 'do you know what's happened? I'm getting Aunt Myrtle off this season.'
'You mean somebody wants to marry her?'
'I do.'
'Who is this half-wit?'
'Your old friend, Sir Roderick Glossop.'
I was stupefied.
'What!'
'I was surprised, too.'
'But old Glossop can't be contemplating matrimony.'
'Why not? He's been a widower more than two years.'
'Oh, I dare say it's possible to make up some kind of a story for him. But what I mean is, he doesn't seem to go with orange blossoms and wedding cake.'
'Well, there it is.'
'Well, I'm dashed!'
'Yes.'
'Well, there's one thing, Chuffy, old man. This means that little Seabury will be getting a really testing stepfather and old Glossop just the stepson I could have wished him. Both have been asking for something on these lines for years. But fancy any woman being mad enough to link her lot with his. Our Humble Heroines!'
'I wouldn't say the heroism was all on one side. About fifty-fifty, I should call it. There is lots of good in this Glossop, Bertie.'
I could not accept this. It seemed to me loose thinking.
'Aren't you going a bit far, old man? Admitted that he is taking your Aunt Myrtle off your hands
'And Seabury'
'And Seabury, true. But, even so, would you really say there was good in the old pest? Remember all the stories I've told you about him from time to time. They show him in a very dubious light.'
'Well, he's doing me a bit of good, anyway. Do you know what it was he wanted to see me about so urgently that day in London?'
&n
bsp; 'What?'
'He's found an American he thinks he can sell the Hall to.'
'Not really?'
'Yes. If all goes well, I shall at last get rid of this blasted barracks and have a bit of money in my pocket. And all the credit will be due to Uncle Roderick, as I like to think of him. So you will kindly refrain, Bertie, from nasty cracks at his expense and, in particular, from mentioning him in the same breath with young Seabury. You must learn to love Uncle Roddie for my sake.'
I shook my head.
'No, Chuffy, I fear I cannot recede from my position.'
'Well, go to hell, then,' said Chuffy agreeably. 'Personally, I regard him as a life-saver.'
'But are you sure this thing is going to come off? What would this fellow want with a place the size of the Hall?'
'Oh, that part of it is simple enough. He's a great pal of old Glossop's and the idea is that he shall put up the cash and let Glossop run the house as a sort of country club for his nerve patients.'
'Why doesn't old Glossop simply rent it from you?'
'My dear ass, what sort of state do you suppose the place is in these days? You talk as if you could open it and step straight into it. Most of the rooms haven't been used for forty years. It wants at least fifteen thousand quid spent on it, to put it in repair. More. Besides new furniture, fittings and so on. If some millionaire like this chap doesn't take it on, I shall have it on my hands the rest of my life.'
'Oh, he's a millionaire, is he?'
'Yes, that part of it is all right. All I'm worrying about is getting his signature on the dotted line. Well, he's coming to lunch to-day, and it's going to be a good one too. He's apt to soften up a good bit after a fat lunch, isn't he?'
'Unless he's got dyspepsia. Many American millionaires have. This man of yours may be one of those fellows who can't get outside more than a glass of milk and a dog biscuit.'
Chuffy laughed jovially.
'Not much. Not old Stoker.' He suddenly began to leap about like a lamb in the springtime. 'Hullo-ullo-ullo!'
A car had drawn up at the steps and was discharging passengers.
Passenger A was J. Washburn Stoker. Passenger B was his daughter, Pauline. Passenger C was his young son, Dwight. And Passenger D was Sir Roderick Glossop.
4 ANNOYING PREDICAMENT OF
PAULINE STOKER
I must say I was pretty well a-twitter. It was about as juicy a biff as I had had for years. To have encountered this segment of the dead past in London would have been bad enough. Running into the gang down here like this, with the prospect of a lengthy luncheon party ahead, was a dashed sight worse. I removed the lid with as much courtly grace as I could muster up, but the face had coloured with embarrassment and I was more or less gasping for air.
Chuffy was being the genial host.
'Hallo-allo-allo! Here you all are. How are you, Mr Stoker? How are you, Sir Roderick? Hallo, Dwight. Er – good morning, Miss Stoker. May I introduce my friend, Bertie Wooster? Mr Stoker, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Dwight, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Miss Stoker, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Sir Roderick Glossop, my friend, Bertie.... Oh, but you know each other already, don't you?'
I was still under the ether. You will agree that all this was enough to rattle any chap. I surveyed the mob. Old Stoker was glaring at me. Old Glossop was glaring at me. Young Dwight was staring at me. Only Pauline appeared to find no awkwardness in the situation. She was as cool as an oyster on the half-shell and as chirpy as a spring breeze. We might have been meeting by appointment. Where Bertram could find only a tentative 'Pip-pip!' she bounded forward, full of speech, and grabbed the old hand warmly.
'Well, well, well! Old Colonel Wooster in person! Fancy finding you here, Bertie! I called you up in London, but they told me you had left.'
'Yes. I came down here.'
'I see you did, you little blob of sunshine. Well, sir, this has certainly made my day. You're looking fine, Bertie. Don't you think he's looking lovely, father?'
Old Stoker appeared reluctant to set himself up as a judge of male beauty. He made a noise like a pig swallowing half a cabbage, but refused to commit himself further. Dwight, a solemn child, was drinking me in in silence. Sir Roderick, who had turned purple, was now fading away to a lighter shade, but still looked as if his finer feelings had sustained a considerable wallop.
At this moment, however, the Dowager Lady Chuffnell came out. She was one of those powerful women who look like female Masters of Hounds, and she handled the mob scene with quiet efficiency. Before I knew where I was, the whole gang had gone indoors, and I was alone with Chuffy. He was staring at me in an odd manner and doing a bit of lower-lip biting.
'I didn't know you knew these people, Bertie.'
'I met them in New York.'
'You saw something of Miss Stoker there?'
'A little.'
'Only a little?'
'Quite a little.'
'I thought her manner seemed rather warm.'
'Oh, no. About normal.'
'I should have imagined you were great friends.'
'Oh, no. Just fairly pally. She goes on like that with everyone.'
'She does?'
'Oh, yes. Big-hearted, you see.'
'She has got a delightful, impulsive, generous, spontaneous, genuine nature, hasn't she?'
'Absolutely.'
'Beautiful girl, Bertie.'
'Oh, very.'
'And charming.'
'Oh, most.'
'In fact, attractive.'
'Oh, quite.'
'I saw a good deal of her in London.'
'Yes?'
'We went to the Zoo and Madame Tussaud's together.'
'I see. And what does she seem to feel about this buying the house binge?'
'She seems all for it.'
'Tell me, laddie,' I said, anxious to get off the current subj., 'how do the prospects look?'
He knitted the Chuffnell brow.
'Sometimes good. Sometimes not.'
'I see.'
'Uncertain.'
'I understand.'
'This Stoker chap makes me nervous. He's friendly enough as a general rule, but I can't help feeling that at any moment he may fly off the handle and scratch the entire fixture. You can't tell me if there are any special subjects to avoid when talking to him, can you?'
'Special subjects?'
'Well, you know how it is with a stranger. You say it's a fine day, and he goes all white and tense, because you've reminded him that it was on a fine day that his wife eloped with the chauffeur.'
I considered.
'Well, if I were you,' I said, 'I wouldn't harp too much on the topic of B. Wooster. I mean, if you were thinking of singing my praises ...'
'I wasn't.'
'Well, don't. He doesn't like me.'
'Why not?'
'Just one of these unreasonable antipathies. And I was thinking, old man, if it's all the same to you, it might be better if I didn't join the throng at the luncheon table. You can tell your aunt I've got a headache.'
'Well, if the sight of you is going to infuriate him.... What makes him bar you so much?'
'I don't know.'
'Well, I'm glad you told me. You had better sneak off.'
'I will.'
'And I suppose I ought to be joining the others.'
He went indoors, and I started to take a turn or two up and down the gravel. I was glad to be alone. I wished to muse upon this matter of his attitude towards Pauline Stoker.
I wonder if you would mind just going back a bit and running the mental eye over that part of our conversation which had had to do with the girl.
Anything strike you about it?
No?
Oh, well, to get the full significance, of course, you ought to have been there and observed him. I am a man who can read faces, and Chuffy's had seemed to me highly suggestive. Not only had its expression, as he spoke of Pauline, been that of a stuffed frog with a touch of the Soul's Awakening about it, but it had also t
urned a fairly deepish crimson in colour. The tip of the nose had wiggled, and there had been embarrassment in the manner. The result being that I had become firmly convinced that the old schoolmate had copped it properly. Quick work, of course, seeing that he had only known the adored object a few days, but Chuffy is like that. A man of impulse and hot-blooded impetuosity. You find the girl, and he does the rest.
Well, if it was so, it was all right with me. Nothing of the dog in the manger about Bertram. As far as I was concerned, Pauline Stoker could hitch up with anyone she liked and she would draw a hearty 'Go to it!' from the discarded suitor. You know how it is on quiet reflection in these affairs. For a time the broken heart, and then suddenly the healing conviction that one is jolly well out of it. I could still see that Pauline was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever met, but of the ancient fire which had caused me to bung my heart at her feet that night at the Plaza there remained not a trace.
Analysing this, if analysing is the word I want, I came to the conclusion that this changed outlook was due to the fact that she was so dashed dynamic. Unquestionably an eyeful, Pauline Stoker had the grave defect of being one of those girls who want you to come and swim a mile before breakfast and rout you out when you are trying to snatch a wink of sleep after lunch for a merry five sets of tennis. And now that the scales had fallen from my eyes, I could see that what I required for the role of Mrs Bertram Wooster was something rather more on the lines of Janet Gaynor.
But in Chuffy's case these objections fell to the ground. He, you see, is very much on the dynamic side himself. He rides, swims, shoots, chivvies foxes with loud cries, and generally bustles about. He and this P. Stoker would make the perfect pair, and I felt that if there was anything I could do to push the thing along, it should be done unstintedly.
So when at this point I saw Pauline coming out of the house and bearing down on me, obviously with a view to exchanging notes and picking up the old threads and what not, I did not leg it but greeted her with a bright 'What ho!' and allowed her to steer me into the shelter of a path that led through the rhododendron shrubbery.