Lord Emsworth uttered a pleased exclamation.
'Chicago!'
'Eh?'
'Not Niagara. Chicago. This is the town I was thinking of. There is a town in America called Chicago.'
'There was when I left. Well, anything been happening around here lately?' asked Freddie, determined that the subject should be changed before his progenitor started asking why he had had the baby christened Indianapolis.
Lord Emsworth reflected. He had recently revised the Empress's diet, with the happiest results, but something told him that this was not the sort of news item likely to intrigue his younger son, who had always lacked depth. Delving into the foggy recesses of his mind, he recalled a conversation which he had had with his brother-in-law, Colonel Wedge, some half-hour earlier.
'Your uncle Egbert is very much annoyed.'
'What about?'
'He says the gardeners have been chasing Veronica.'
This startled Freddie and, though he was no prude, shocked him a little. His cousin Veronica, true, was a very alluring girl, but he would have credited the British gardener with more self-control.
'Chasing her? The gardeners? Do you mean in a sort of pack?'
'No, now I come to remember, it was not all the gardeners – only one. And it seems, though I cannot quite follow the story, that he was not really a gardener, but the young fellow who is in love with your cousin Prudence.'
'What!'
Freddie, reeling, had fetched up against the rail of the sty. Supporting himself against this, he groped dazedly for his monocle, which had once more become A.W.O.L.
'So Egbert assures me. But it seems odd. One would have expected him to chase Prudence. Veronica ran to your aunt Hermione, who immediately went to ask the man what he meant by such behaviour, and he gave her a letter and half a crown. That part of the story, also,' Lord Emsworth admitted, 'is not very clear to me. I cannot see why, if this man is in love with Prudence, he should have been conducting a clandestine correspondence with Hermione, nor why he should have given her half a crown. Hermione has plenty of money. Still, there it is.'
'If you'll excuse me, Guv'nor,' said Freddie, in a strangled voice, 'I'll be reeling off. Got some rather heavy thinking to do.'
He fished out the handkerchief again and once more applied it to his brow. The affair, perplexing to Lord Emsworth, held no element of mystery for him. For the second time, he saw, poor old Blister had gone and made a floater, putting the kibosh on the carefully-laid plans which had been devised for his benefit. The guv'nor had not mentioned it, but he assumed that the episode had concluded with his aunt Hermione slinging his unfortunate friend out on his ear. By this time, no doubt, the latter was in his room at the Emsworth Arms putting the finishing touches on his packing. But it was impossible to go there and confer with him. The delay involved would mean his being absent from the Finch luncheon table. And you cannot play fast and loose with Shropshire Finches any more than you can with Worcestershire Fanshawe-Chadwicks.
He passed slowly on his way, and he had not gone far before he beheld in front of him one of those rustic benches which manage to get themselves scattered about the grounds of country houses.
To a man whose mind is burdened with weight of care, rustic benches – qua rustic benches – make little appeal. He just gives them a glance and passes on, wrapped in thought. And this one would certainly not have arrested Freddie's progress had he not observed seated upon it his cousin, Veronica Wedge. And even as he gazed an emotional sniff rent the air and he saw that she was weeping. It was the one spectacle which could have taken his thoughts off the problem of Bill. He was not the man to stride heedlessly by when Beauty was in distress.
'Why, hullo, Vee,' he said, hurrying forward. 'Something up?'
A sympathetic listener, with whom she could discuss in detail the peculiar behaviour of Tipton Plimsoll in making assignations behind rhododendron bushes and then allowing her to keep them alone and be harried by wild gardeners, was precisely what Veronica Wedge had been wanting. She poured out her story in impassioned words, and it was not long before Freddie, who had a feeling heart, was placing a cousinly arm about her waist; and not long after that before he was bestowing on her a series of cousinly kisses. Her story being done, he gave her for her pains a world of sighs: he swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful – at the same time kissing her a good deal more.
From behind a tree some distance away Tipton Plimsoll, feeling as if some strong hand had struck him shrewdly behind the ear with a stuffed eelskin, stared bleakly at this lovers' reunion.
VI
Lord Emsworth reached London shortly before five, and took a cab to the Senior Conservative Club, where he proposed to book a room for the night. Bill, arriving in the metropolis at the same time, for he had travelled on the same train, made his way immediately to the headquarters of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood in Duke Street, St James's. From the instant when Lady Hermione Wedge, exploding like a popped paper bag, had revealed her identity, he had seen that his was a situation calling above all else for a conference with that resourceful man of the world. For though a review of the position of affairs had left him with the feeling that he was beyond human aid, it might just possibly be that the brain which had got Ronnie Fish married to a chorus girl in the teeth of the opposition of a thousand slavering aunts would function now with all its pristine brilliance, dishing out some ingenious solution of his problem.
He found the Hon. Galahad standing by his car at the front door, chatting with the chauffeur. An uncle's obligations were sacred to this good man, and he was just about to start off for Blandings Castle to attend the birthday festivities of his niece Veronica.
Seeing Bill, he first blinked incredulously, then experienced a quick concern. Something, he felt, in the nature of a disaster must have occurred. To a mind as intelligent as his, the appearance in Duke Street of a young man who ought to have been messing about with a rake in the gardens of Blandings Castle could not fail to suggest this.
'Good Lord, Bill,' he cried. 'What are you doing here?'
'Can I have a word with you in private, Gally?' said Bill, with an unfriendly glance at the chauffeur, whose large pink ears were sticking up like a giraffe's and whose whole demeanour indicated genial interest and a kindly willingness to hear all.
'Step this way,' said the Hon. Galahad, and drew him out of earshot down the street. 'Now, then, what's all this about? Why aren't you at Blandings? Don't tell me you've made another bloomer and got the push again?'
'Yes, I have, as a matter of fact. But it wasn't my fault. How was I to know she wasn't the cook? Anyone would have been misled.'
Although still fogged as to what had occurred, the Hon. Galahad had no difficulty in divining who it was at Blandings Castle who had been taken for a cook.
'You are speaking of my sister Hermione?'
'Yes.'
'You thought she was the cook?'
'Yes.'
'Whereupon—?'
'I gave her half a crown and asked her to smuggle a note to Prudence.'
'I see. Yes, I grasp the thing now. And she whipped out the flaming sword and drove you from the garden?'
'Yes.'
'Odd,' said the Hon. Galahad. 'Strange. A precisely similar thing happened thirty years ago to my old friend Stiffy Bates, only he mistook the girl's father for the butler. Did Hermione keep your half-crown?'
'No. She threw it at me.'
'You were luckier than Stiffy. He tipped the father ten bob, and the old boy stuck to it like glue. It used to rankle with Stiffy a good deal, I remember, the thought that he had paid ten shillings just to be chased through a quickset hedge with a gardening fork. He was always a chap who liked to get value for money. But how did you happen to come across Hermione?'
'She came to tick me off for chasing her daughter.'
'You mean her niece.'
'No, her daughter. A tall, half-witted girl with goggly eyes.'
> The Hon. Galahad drew his breath in sharply.
'So that was how Veronica struck you, was it? Yours is an unusual outlook, Bill. It is more customary for males of her acquaintance to allude to her as a goddess with the kind of face that launches a thousand ships. Still, perhaps it is all for the best. It would have complicated an already complicated state of affairs if there had been any danger of your suddenly switching your affections to her. But if the appeal she made to you was so tepid, why did you run after her?'
'I wanted her to take the note to Prue.'
'Ah, I see. Yes, of course. What was there in this note?'
'It was to tell her that I was ready to do everything she wanted – give up painting and settle down and run that pub of mine. Perhaps Freddie told you about that?'
'He gave me a sort of outline. Well, as far as the note is concerned, don't worry. I'm just off to Blandings. I'll see that she gets it.'
'That's awfully good of you.'
'Not at all. Is this it?' said the Hon. Galahad, taking the envelope which Bill had produced from an inner pocket like a rabbit from a hat. 'A bit wet with honest sweat,' he said, surveying it critically through his eye-glass, 'but I don't suppose she'll mind that. So you have decided to run the Mulberry Tree, have you? I think you're wise. You don't want to mess about with art these days. Hitch your wagon to some sound commercial proposition. I see no reason why you shouldn't make a very good thing out of the Mulberry Tree. Especially if you modernized it a bit.'
'That's what Prue wants to do. Swimming pools and squash courts and all that sort of thing.'
'Of course you'd need capital.'
'That's the snag.'
'I wish I could supply some. I'd give it to you like a shot if I had it, but I subsist on a younger son's allowance from the estate. Have you anyone in mind whose ear you might bite?'
'Prue thought Lord Emsworth might cough up. After we were married, of course. But the trouble is, I told him to boil his head.'
'And you were right. Clarence ought to boil his head. What of it?'
'He didn't like it much.'
'I still cannot see your point.'
'Well, don't you think it dishes my chance of getting his support?'
'Of course not. Clarence never remembers ten minutes afterwards what people say to him.'
'But he would recognize me when he saw me again.'
'As the chap who made a mess of painting his pig? He might have a vague sort of idea that he had seen you before somewhere, but that would be all.'
'Do you mean that?'
'Certainly.'
'Then why,' demanded Bill hotly, quivering with self-pity at the thought of what he had endured, 'did you make me wear that blasted beard?'
'Purely from character-building motives. Every young man starting out in life ought to wear a false beard, if only for a day or two. It stiffens the fibre, teaches him that we were not put into this world for pleasure alone. And don't forget, while we are on the subject, that it is extremely fortunate, as you happened to run into my sister Hermione, that you did wear that beard. Now she won't recognize you when she sees you without it.'
'How do you mean?'
'When you appear at the castle to-morrow.'
'When I – what?'
'Ah, I didn't tell you, did I? While we have been talking,' explained the Hon. Galahad, 'I have hit on the absurdly simple solution of your little problem. Clarence is coming to consult me about getting another artist to paint the Empress. He wired me from Market Blandings station that he would be calling here soon after five. When he arrives, I shall present you as my selection for to-day. That will solve all your difficulties.'
Bill gaped. He found it difficult to speak. One reverences these master minds, but they take the breath away.
'You'll never be able to get away with it.'
'Of course I shall. I shall be vastly surprised if there is the slightest hitch in the negotiations from start to finish. My dear boy, I have been closely associated with my brother Clarence for more than half a century, and I know him from caviare to nuts. His I.Q. is about thirty points lower than that of a not too agile-minded jellyfish. The only point on which I am at all dubious is your ability to give satisfaction for the limited period of time which must elapse before the opportunity presents itself for scooping Prudence out of the castle and taking her off and marrying her. You seem to have fallen down badly at your first attempt.'
Bill assured him that that was all right – he had learned a lesson. The Hon. Galahad said he hoped it was a drawing lesson. And it was at this moment that Lord Emsworth came pottering round the corner from St James's Street, and Bill, sighting him, was aware of a sudden access of hope. The scheme which his benefactor had propounded called for a vague and woollen-headed party of the second part, and the ninth Earl of Emsworth unquestionably had the appearance of being that and more.
London, with its roar and bustle and people who bumped into you and omnibuses which seemed to chase you like stoats after a rabbit, always had a disintegrating effect on the master of Blandings Castle, reducing his mental powers to a level even below that of the jellyfish to which his brother had compared him. As he stood in the entrance of Duke Street now, groping for the pince-nez which the perilous crossing of the main thoroughfare had caused to leap from their place, his mouth was open, his hat askew, and his eyes vacant. A confidence man would have seen in him an excellent prospect, and he also looked good to Bill.
'Ah, here he is,' said Gally. 'Now follow me carefully. Wait till he comes up, and then say you've got to be getting along. Walk slowly as far as St James's Palace and slowly back again. Leave the rest to me. If you feel you want an excuse for coming back, you can ask me what it was I told you was good for the two o'clock at Sandown to-morrow. Hullo, Clarence.'
'Ah, Galahad,' said Lord Emsworth.
'Well, I must be getting along,' said Bill, wincing a little as the newcomer's pince-nez rested upon him. Despite his mentor's assurances, he could not repress a certain nervousness and embarrassment on finding himself once more face to face with a man with whom his previous encounters had been so painful.
His mind was still far from being at rest as he returned to Duke Street after the brief perambulation which he had been directed to make, and he found the cheery insouciance of the Hon. Galahad's greeting encouraging.
'Ah, my dear fellow,' said Gally. 'Back again? Capital. Saves me having to ring you up from the country. I wonder if you know my brother? Lord Emsworth, Mr Landseer.'
'How do you do?' said Lord Emsworth.
'How do you do?' said Bill uneasily. Once more he was feeling nervous and embarrassed. It would have been exaggerating to say that the ninth earl was directing a keen glance at him, for it was not within the power of the "weak-eyed peer to direct keen looks, but he was certainly staring somewhat intently. And, indeed, it had just occurred to Lord Emsworth that somewhere, at some time and place, he had seen Bill before. Possibly at the club.
'Your face seems familiar, Mr Landseer,' he said.
'Oh yes?' said Bill.
'Well, naturally,' said Gally. 'Dashed celebrated chap, Landseer. Photograph always in the papers. Tell me, my dear Landseer, are you very busy just now?'
'Oh no,' said Bill.
'You could undertake a commission?'
'Oh yes,' said Bill.
'Splendid. You see, my brother was wondering if he could induce you to come to Blandings with him to-morrow and paint the portrait of his pig. You've probably heard of the Empress of Blandings?'
'Oh, rather,' said Bill.
'You have?' said Lord Emsworth eagerly.
'My dear chap,' said Gally, smiling a little, 'of course. It's part of Landseer's job as England's leading animal painter to keep an eye on all the prominent pigs in the country. I dare say he's been studying photographs of the Empress for a long time.'
'For years,' said Bill.
'Have you ever seen a finer animal?'
'Never.'
'She is the
fattest pig in Shropshire,' said Gally, 'except for Lord Burslem, who lives over Bridgnorth way. You'll enjoy painting her. When did you say you were going back to Blandings, Clarence?'
'To-morrow on the twelve-forty-two train. Perhaps you could meet me at Paddington, Mr Landseer? Capital. And now I fear I must be leaving you. I have to go to a jeweller's in Bond Street.'
He shambled off, and Gally turned to Bill with pardonable complacency.
'There you are, my boy. What did I tell you?'
Bill was panting a little, like a man who has passed through an emotional ordeal.
'Why Landseer?' he asked at length.
'Clarence has always admired your Stag at Bay,' said the Hon. Galahad. 'I made it my talking point.'
CHAPTER 7
The morning following Lord Emsworth's departure for London found Blandings Castle basking in the warmth of a superb summer day. A sun which had risen with the milk and gathered strength hourly shone from a sky of purest sapphire, gilding the grounds and messuages and turning the lake into a sheet of silver flame. Bees buzzed among the flowers, insects droned, birds mopped their foreheads in the shrubberies, gardeners perspired at every pore.
About the only spot into which the golden beams did not penetrate was the small smoking-room off the hall. It never got the sun till late in the afternoon, and it was for this reason that Tipton Plimsoll, having breakfasted frugally on a cup of coffee and his thoughts, had gone there to brood over the tragedy which had shattered his life. He was not in the market for sunshine. Given his choice, he would have scrapped this glorious morning, flattering the mountain tops with sovereign eye, and substituted for it something more nearly resembling the weather conditions of King Lear, Act Two.
It does not take much to depress a young man in love, and yesterday's spectacle of Veronica Wedge and Freddie hobnobbing on the rustic bench had reduced Tipton's vivacity to its lowest ebb. As he sat in the small smoking-room, listlessly thumbing one of those illustrated weekly papers for which their proprietors have the crust to charge a shilling, he was experiencing all the effects of a severe hangover without having had to go to the trouble and expense of manufacturing it. E. Jimpson Murgatroyd, had he beheld him, would have been shocked and disappointed, assuming the worst.