'You've noticed that? So have I. Goes into long silences.'
'As if she were brooding.'
'The exact word. She reminds me of that girl in Shakespeare who ... How does it go? I know there's something about worms, and it ends up with something cheek. Of course, yes. "She never said a word about her love, but let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, feed on her damned cheek." Of course she's brooding. What girl wouldn't? Bowled over by a fellow at first sight; feels pretty sure he's bowled over too; everything pointing to the happy ending; and then suddenly, without any reason, fellow starts hemming and hawing and taking no further steps. It's a tragedy. Did I tell you what Freddie told me that day he arrived?' said Colonel Wedge, lowering his voice with the awe that befitted the revelation he was about to make. 'He told me that this young Plimsoll holds the controlling interest in one of the largest systems of chain stores in America. Well, you know what that means.'
Lady Hermione nodded, even more sadly than before – the cook who has discovered what it was that was burning, and too late now to do anything about it.
'And such a nice boy too,' she said. 'So different from what you led me to expect. Nothing could have been quieter and more correct than his behaviour. I noticed particularly that he had drunk nothing but barley water since he came here. What is it, Egbert?'
The solicitous query had been provoked by the sudden, sharp cry which had proceeded from her husband's lips. Colonel Wedge, except for the fact that he was fully clothed, was looking like Archimedes when he discovered his famous Principle and sprang from his bath, shouting 'Eureka!'
'Good God, old girl, you've hit it. You've put your finger on the whole dashed seat of the trouble. Barley water. Of course! That's what's at the root of the chap's extraordinary behaviour. How the deuce can a young fellow be expected to perform one of the most testing, exacting tasks in life on barley water? Why, before I could work up my nerve to propose to you, I remember, I had to knock back nearly a quart of mixed champagne and stout. Well, this settles it,' said Colonel Wedge. 'I go straight to this young Plimsoll, put my hand on his shoulder in a fatherly way, and tell him to take a quick snort and charge ahead.'
'Egbert! You can't!'
'Eh? Why not?'
'Of course you can't.'
Colonel Wedge seemed discouraged. The fine, fresh enthusiasm died out of his face.
'No, I suppose it would hardly do,' he admitted. 'But somebody ought to give the boy a hint. Happiness of two young people at stake, I mean, and all that sort of thing. It isn't fair to Vee to let this shilly-shallying continue.'
Lady Hermione sat up suddenly, spilling her tea. She, too, looked like Archimedes – a female Archimedes.
'Prudence!'
'Prudence?'
'She could do it.'
'Oh, you mean young Prue? Couldn't think what you were talking about.'
'She could do it quite easily. It would not seem odd, coming from her.'
'Something in that. Prudence, eh?' Colonel Wedge mused. 'I see what you mean. Warmhearted, impulsive girl.... Devoted to her cousin. ... Can't bear to see her unhappy. ... "I wonder if you would be offended if I said something to you, Mr Plimsoll." ... Yes, there's a thought there. But would she do it?'
'I'm sure she would. I don't know if you have noticed it, but Prudence has changed very much for the better since she came to Blandings. She seems quieter, more thoughtful and considerate, as if she were going out of her way to do good to people. You heard what she was saying yesterday about helping the vicar with his jumble sale. I thought that very significant.'
'Most. Girls don't help vicars with jumble sales unless their hearts are in the right place.'
'You might go and talk to her now.'
'I will.'
'You will probably find her in Clarence's study,' said Lady Hermione, refilling her cup and stirring its contents with a new animation. 'She told me last night that she was going to give it a thorough tidying this morning.'
II
'The stately homes of England,' sang the poetess Hemans, who liked them, 'how beautiful they stand'; and about the ancient seat of the ninth Earl of Emsworth there was nothing, as far as its exterior was concerned, which would have caused her to modify this view. Huge and grey and majestic, flanked by rolling parkland and bright gardens, with the lake glittering in the foreground and his lordship's personal flag fluttering gaily from the topmost battlement, it unquestionably caught the eye. Even Tipton Plimsoll, though not as a rule given to poetic rhapsodies, had become lyrical on first beholding the impressive pile, making a noise with his tongue like the popping of a cork and saying: 'Some joint!'
But, as is so often the case with England's stately homes, it was when you got inside and met the folks that you saw where the catch lay. This morning, as he mooned morosely on the terrace, Tipton Plimsoll, though still admiring the place as a place, found himself not in complete sympathy with its residents. What a crew, he felt, what a gosh-awful aggregation of prunes. Tick them off on your fingers, he meant to say.
Lord Emsworth . . . A Wash-Out
Colonel Wedge . . . A Piece of Cheese
Lady Hermione . . . A Chunk of Baloney
Prudence . . . . A Squirt
Freddie . . . . A Snake
Veronica Wedge . . .
Here he was obliged to pause in his cataloguing. Even in this bitter mood of his, when he was feeling like some prophet of Israel judging the sins of the people, he could not bring himself to chalk up against the name of that lovely girl the sort of opprobrious epithet which in the case of the others had sprung so nimbly to his lips. She, and she alone, must be spared.
Not, mind you, but what he was letting her off a darned sight more easily than she deserved, for if a girl who could bring herself to stoop to a Frederick Threepwood did not merit something notably scorching in the way of opprobrious epithets, it was difficult to see what she did merit. And that she had fallen a victim to Freddie's insidious charms was clearly proved by her dejected aspect since his departure. You had only to look at her to see that she was pining for the fellow.
But the trouble was, and he did not attempt to conceal it from himself, he loved her in spite of all. King Arthur, it will be remembered, had the same experience with Guinevere.
With a muffled curse on his fatal weakness, Tipton made for the french windows of the drawing-room. It had occurred to him that the vultures which were gnawing at his bosom might be staved off, if only temporarily, by a look at the Racing Prospects in the morning paper. And as he approached them somebody came out, and he saw that it was the squirt Prudence.
'Oh, hullo, Mr Plimsoll,' said the squirt.
'Hello,' said Tipton.
He spoke with about the minimum of pleasure in his voice which was compatible with politeness. Never, even at the best of times, fond of squirts, he found the prospect of this girl's society at such a moment intolerable. And it is probable that he would have passed hurriedly on with some remark about fetching something from his room had she not fixed her mournful eyes upon him and said that she had been looking for him and wondered if she could speak to him for a minute.
A man of gentle upbringing cannot straight-arm members of the opposite sex and flit by when they address him thus. Tipton's 'Oh, sure,' could have been more blithely spoken, but he said it, and they moved to the low stone wall of the terrace and sat there, Prudence gazing at Tipton, Tipton staring at a cow in the park.
Prudence was the first to break a rather strained silence.
'Mr Plimsoll,' she said, in a low, saintlike voice.
'Hello?'
'There is something I want to say to you.'
'Oh, yes?'
'I hope you won't be very angry.'
'Eh?'
'And tell me to mind my own business. Because it's about Vee.'
Tipton removed his gaze from the cow. As a matter of fact, he had seen about as much of it as he wanted to see. A fine animal, but, as is so often the case with cows, not much happening. He found this
conversational opening unexpectedly promising. His first impression, when this girl accosted him, had been that she wanted to touch him for something for the vicar's jumble sale, an enterprise in which he knew her to be interested.
'Ur?' he said enquiringly.
Prudence was silent for a moment. The rupture of her relations with the man she loved had left her feeling like some nun for whom nothing remains in this life but the doing of good to others, but she was wondering if she had acted quite wisely in so readily accepting the assignment which her uncle Egbert had given her just now. She had become conscious of a feeling that she was laying herself open to the snub of a lifetime.
But she did not lack courage. Shutting her eyes to assist speech, she had at it.
'You're in love with Vee, aren't you, Mr Plimsoll?'
A noise beside her made her open her eyes. Sudden emotion had caused Tipton to fall off the wall.
'I know you are,' she resumed, having helped to put him right end up again with a civil 'Upsy-daisy.' 'Anyone could see it.'
'Is that so?' said Tipton, in rather a nasty voice. He was stung. Like most young men whose thoughts are an open book to the populace, he supposed that if there was one thing more than another for which he was remarkable, it was his iron inscrutability.
'Of course. It sticks out like a sore thumb. The way you look at her. And what beats me is why you don't tell her so. She hasn't actually said anything to me, but I know you're making her very unhappy.'
Tipton's resentment faded. This was no time for wounded dignity. He gaped at her like a goldfish.
'You mean you think I've got a chance?'
'A chance? It's a snip.'
Tipton gulped, goggled, and nearly fell off the wall again.
'A snip?' he repeated dazedly.
'Definitely. To-day's Safety Bet.'
'But how about Freddie?'
'Freddie?'
'Isn't she in love with Freddie?'
'What an extraordinary idea! What makes you think so?'
'That first night, at dinner, she slapped his wrist.'
'I expect there was a mosquito on it.'
Tipton started. He had never thought of that, and the theory, when you came to examine it, was extraordinarily plausible. In the dining-room that night there had unquestionably been mosquitoes among those present. He had squashed a couple himself. A great weight seemed to roll off his mind. His eye rested for a moment on the cow, and he thought what a jolly, lovable-looking cow it was, the sort of cow you would like to go on a walking tour with.
Then the weight rolled back again. He shook his head.
'No,' he said, 'it was something he whispered to her. She told him not to be so silly.'
'Oh, that time, you mean? I heard what he said. It was about those dog biscuits of his being so wholesome that human beings could eat them.'
'Gosh!'
'There's nothing between Vee and Freddie.'
'She used to be engaged to him.'
'Yes, but he's married now.'
'Sure,' said Tipton, and smiled darkly. 'Married, yes. Married, ha!'
'And they were only engaged about a couple of weeks. I was at Blandings when it happened. It was raining all the time, and I suppose it was a way of passing the day. You get sick of backgammon. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about Vee being in love with other people, Mr Plimsoll. I'm sure she's in love with you. You should have heard her raving about that balancing trick you did at dinner with the fork and the wineglass.'
'She liked it?' cried Tipton eagerly.
'The way she spoke of it, I think it absolutely bowled her over. Vee's the sort of girl who admires men who do things.'
'This opens up a new line of thought,' said Tipton, and was silent for a space, adjusting himself to it.
'If I were you, I'd ask her to marry me right away.'
'Would you?' said Tipton. His eyes rested on Prudence and in them now there was nothing but affection, gratitude, and esteem. It amazed him that he could ever have placed her among the squirts. An extraordinarily bad bit of casting. What had caused him to do so, of course, had been her lack of inches, and he realized now that in docketing the other sex what you had to go by was not size, but soul. A girl physically in the peanut division steps automatically out of her class if she has the opalescent soul of a ministering angel.
'Gosh!' he said. 'Would you?'
'I wouldn't waste another minute. Let me go and tell her that you want to see her, as you have something most important to say to her. Then you can put the thing through before lunch. Here is the set-up as I see it. I don't want to influence you if you have other ideas, but my suggestion would be that you ask her to come and confer with you behind the rhododendrons, and then, when she shows up, you reach out and grab her and kiss her a good deal and say: "My woman!" So much better, I mean, than messing about with a lot of talk. You get the whole thing straight that way, right from the start.'
The motion picture she conjured up made a profound appeal to Tipton Plimsoll, and for some moments he sat running it off in his mind's eye. Then he shook his head.
'It couldn't be done.'
'Why not?'
'I shouldn't have the nerve. I'd have to have a drink first.'
'Well, have a drink. That's just the point I was going to touch on. I've been watching you pretty closely, and you haven't drunk anything since you got here but barley water. That's what's been holding you back. Have a good, stiff noggin.'
'Ah, but if I do, what happens? Up bobs that blasted face.'
'Face? How do you mean?'
Tipton saw that it would be necessary to explain the peculiar situation in which he had been placed, and he proceeded to do so. Looking on this girl, as he now did, as a sort of loved sister and knowing that he could count on her sympathy, he experienced no difficulty in making his confession. With admirable clearness he took her through the entire continuity – the acquisition of his money, the urge to celebrate, the two months' revelry, the spots, the visit to E. Jimpson Murgatroyd's consulting room, E. Jimpson's words of doom, the first appearance of the face, the second appearance of the face, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth appearances of the face. He told his story well, and a far less intelligent listener than Prudence would have had no difficulty in following the run of the plot. When he had finished, she sat in thoughtful silence, staring at the cow.
'I see what you mean,' she said. 'It can't be at all pleasant for you.'
'It isn't,' Tipton assured her. 'I don't like it.'
'Nobody would.'
'It would be quite different if it were a little man with a black beard. This face is something frightful.'
'But you haven't seen it since the first night you were here?'
'No.'
'Well, then.'
Tipton asked what she meant by the expression 'Well, then,' and Prudence said that she had intended to advance the theory that the thing had probably packed up and gone out of business. To this Tipton demurred. Was it not more probable, he reasoned, that it was just lurking – simply biding its time as it were? No, said Prudence, her view was that, discouraged by Tipton's incessant barley water, it had definitely turned in its union card and that Tipton would be running virtually no risk in priming himself- within moderation, of course – for the declaration of his love.
She spoke with so much authority, so like somebody who knew all about phantom faces and had studied their psychology, that Tipton drew strength from her words. There was a firm, determined set to his lips as he rose.
'Okay,' he said. 'Then I'll have a quick snootful.'
He did not mention it, but what had helped to crystallize his resolution was the thought that in this matter of getting Veronica Wedge signed up, speed was of the essence. He had Prudence's assurance that the girl was still reeling under the effects of that balancing trick with the fork and the wineglass, but he was a clear-thinking man and knew that the glamour of balancing tricks does not last for ever. Furthermore, there was the menace of Freddie to be taken into
account. His little friend had scouted the idea that there was any phonus-bolonus afoot between Veronica Wedge and this prominent Anglo-American snake, but though she had been convincing at the moment, doubts had once more begun to vex him, and he was now very strongly of the opinion that the contract must be sewed up before his former friend could return and resume his sinister wooing.
'If you'll excuse me,' he said, 'I'll pop up to my room. I've got a ... No, by golly, I haven't.'
'What were you going to say?'
'I'd started to say I'd got a flask there. But I remember now I gave it to Lord Emsworth. You see, that time I saw this old face out of the window I kind of thought it would be better if somebody took charge of that flask for me, and I met His Nibs going to his room and gave it to him.'
'It's in Uncle Clarence's bedroom?'
'I guess so.'
'I'll go and get it for you.'
'Giving you a lot of trouble.'
'Not a bit. I was just going to tidy Uncle Clarence's bedroom. I've done his study. I'll bring it to your room.'
'It's darned good of you.'
'No, no.'
'Darned good,' insisted Tipton. 'White, I call it.'
'But I think one ought to help people, don't you?' said Prudence, with a faint, gentle smile like that of Florence Nightingale bending over a sick-bed. 'I think that's the only thing in life, trying to do good to others.'
'I wish there was something I could do for you.'
'You can give me something for the vicar's jumble sale.'
'Count on me for a princely donation,' said Tipton. 'And now I'll be getting up to my room. If you wouldn't mind contacting Miss Wedge and telling her to be behind the rhododendrons in about twenty minutes and bringing me the good old flask, you can leave the rest of the preliminaries to me.'
III
In the bearing of Tipton Plimsoll, as some quarter of an hour later he took up station at the tryst, there was no trace of the old diffidence and lack of spirit. He was jaunty and confident. The elixir, coursing through his veins, had given his system just that fillip which a lover's system needs when he is planning to seize girls in his arms and say, 'My woman!' to them. You could have described Tipton at this moment as the dominant male with the comfortable certainty of having found the mot juste. He exuded the will to win.