'My daughter Veronica,' said a voice, and Tipton Plimsoll stood swaying gently, his eyes bulging behind their horn-rimmed spectacles.
Of Sugg, the man, one knows nothing. He may or may not have been a good man, kind to animals and respected by all who met him. In the absence of data, it is impossible to say. But of Sugg, the curative unguent king, one can speak with assurance. When it came to assembling curative unguent, he was there forty ways from the jack.
As Veronica Wedge stood gazing at Tipton Plimsoll with her enormous eyes, like a cow staring over a hedge at a mangel-wurzel, no one could have guessed that a few brief hours previously the nose beneath those eyes had been of a size and shape that had made her look like W. C. Fields's sister. Sugg had taken it in hand, and with his magic art rendered it once more a thing of perfection. Hats off to Sugg is about what it amounts to.
'My niece Prudence,' continued the voice, speaking now from the centre of a rosy mist to the accompaniment of harps, lutes and sackbuts.
Tipton had no time for niece Prudence. Briefly noting that this one was a blue-eyed little squirt who appeared to be in the highest spirits, he returned to the scrutiny of Veronica. And the more he scrutinized her, the more she looked to him like something that had been constructed from his own blueprints. Love had come to Tipton Plimsoll, and, he realized, for the first time. What he had mistaken for the divine emotion in the case of Doris Jimpson and perhaps a couple of dozen others had, he now saw, been a mere pale imitation of the real thing, like one of those worthless substitutes against which Sugg so rightly warns the public.
He was still goggling with undiminished intensity when dinner was announced.
II
Too often, in English country houses, dinner is apt to prove a dull and uninspiring meal. If the ruling classes of the island kingdom have a fault, it is that they are inclined when at table to sit champing their food in a glassy-eyed silence, doing nothing to promote a feast of reason and a flow of soul. But to-night in the smaller of Blandings Castle's two dining-rooms a very different note was struck. One would not be going too far in describing the atmosphere at the board as one of rollicking gaiety.
The reactions of the wealthy guest to the charms of their child had not escaped the notice of Colonel Egbert and the Lady Hermione Wedge. Nor had they escaped the notice of the child. The emotions of all three members of the Wedge family may be briefly set down as those of a family which feels that it is batting .400.
As for the others, Prudence, having learned of her loved one's plans in the course of a conversation with Freddie shortly before the dressing gong sounded, was at the peak of her vivacity. Freddie, who always liked meeting the girls he had been engaged to, was delighted to renew his old friendship with Veronica, and spoke to her well and easily of dog biscuits. Lord Emsworth, informed by Prudence that on second thoughts she had changed her mind about doing good works, was as quietly happy as so excellent a man deserved to be. If he took but little part in the merry quips which flashed like lightning across the table, this was not due to any moodiness but simply to the fact that, having managed to elude his sister's vigilance for once, he had been able to bring his pig book in to dinner with him and was reading it under cover of the table.
And of all that gay throng, the gayest was Tipton Plimsoll. Not even his enforced abstinence and the circumstance that as the honoured guest he was seated beside his formidable hostess could check the flow of his spirits. From time to time his eye went swivelling round to where Veronica sat, and each time the sight of her seemed to tap in him a new vein of brilliance.
It was he who led the liveliest sallies. It was he who told the raciest anecdotes. It was he who, in between the soup and fish courses, entertained the company with a diverting balancing trick with a fork and a wineglass. For a time, in short, he was the spirit of Mirth incarnate.
For a time, one says. To be specific, up to the moment of the serving of the entrée. For it was just then that the figures in the tapestries on the walls noted that a strange silence had fallen upon the young master of the revels and that he refused the entrée in a manner that can only be described as Byronic. Something, it was clear, had suddenly gone amiss with Tipton Plimsoll.
The fact was that, taking another of his rapt looks at Veronica, he had been stunned to observe her slap Freddie roguishly on the wrist, at the same time telling him not to be so silly, and the spectacle had got right in among his vital organs and twisted them into a spiral.
For some time he had been aware that these two had seemed to be getting along pretty darned well together, but, struggling to preserve the open mind, he had told himself that a certain chumminess between cousins had always to be budgeted for. This wrist-slapping sequence, however, was another matter. It seemed to him to go far beyond mere cousinly good will. He was a man of strong passions, and the green-eyed monster ran up his leg and bit him to the bone.
'No, thank you,' he said coldly to the footman who was trying to interest him in chicken livers and pastry.
And yet, had he but known it, in what had caused Veronica to slap Freddie on the wrist there had been nothing to bring the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty. All that had happened was that Freddie had told her in a confidential undertone that a Donaldson's dog biscuit was so superbly wholesome as to be actually fit for human consumption. Upon which, as a girl of her mentality might have been expected to do, she had slapped him playfully on the wrist and told him not to be so silly.
But Tipton, not being in possession of the facts, writhed from stem to stern and relapsed into a dark silence. And this so concerned Lady Hermione that she sought for first causes. Following his sidelong glances, she understood the position of affairs, and registered a resolve to have a heart-to-heart talk with Freddie at the conclusion of the meal. She also promised herself a word with her daughter.
The latter of these two tasks she was able to perform when the female members of the party rose and left the men to their port. And so well did she perform it that the first thing Tipton beheld on entering the drawing-room was Veronica Wedge advancing towards him, a fleecy wrap about her lovely shoulders.
'Mummie says would you like to see the garden by moonlight,' she said, in her direct way.
A moment before Tipton had been feeling that life was a hollow thing, for on top of the spectacle of this girl slapping the wrists of other men there had come the agony of watching his host, his host's son, and his host's brother-in-law lowering port by the pailful while he was forced to remain aloof from the revels. But at these words that soft music started to play again, and once more the air seemed redolent of violets and roses. As for the pink mist, he could hardly see through it.
He snorted ecstatically: 'Would I!'
'Would you?'
'I'll say I would.'
'Darned chilly,' said Freddie judicially. 'You wouldn't catch me going into any bally gardens. Stay snugly indoors is my advice. How about a game of backgammon, Vee?'
Breeding tells. Lady Hermione Wedge might look like a cook, but there ran in her veins the blood of a hundred earls. She overcame the sudden, quick desire to strike her nephew over his fat head with the nearest blunt instrument.
'It is not in the least chilly,' she said. 'It is a lovely summer night. You will not even need a hat, Mr Plimsoll.'
'Not a single, solitary suspicion of a hat,' assented Tipton with enthusiasm. 'Let's go!'
He passed with his fair companion through the french window, and Lady Hermione turned to Freddie.
'Freddie,' she said.
Her manner was grim and purposeful, the manner of an aunt who rolls up her sleeves and spits on her hands and prepares to give a nephew the works.
At about the same moment, down at the Emsworth Arms in Market Blandings, Bill Lister, comfortably relaxed after a square meal in the coffee room, was reclining in a deck chair in the inn's back garden, gazing at the moon and thinking of Prudence.
It had just occurred to him that on a night like this it would be a sound move to
walk the two miles to the castle and gaze up at her window.
III
In dealing with the first romantic stroll together of Tipton Plimsoll and Veronica Wedge, the chronicler finds himself faced by the same necessity for pause and reflection which confronted him when he had the opportunity of describing the reunion between Freddie Threepwood and Bill Lister. It would be possible for him to record their conversation verbatim, but it is to be doubted whether this would interest, elevate, and instruct the discriminating public for whom he is writing. It is wiser, therefore, merely to give briefly the general idea.
Tipton started off well enough by saying that the garden looked pretty in the moonlight, and Veronica said, 'Yes, doesn't it?' He followed this up with the remark that gardens always look kind of prettier when there is a moon – sort of- than when, as it were, there isn't a moon, and Veronica said, 'Yes, don't they?' So far, the exchanges would not have disgraced a salon such as that of Madame Recamier. But at this point Tipton ran suddenly dry of inspiration, and a prolonged silence followed.
The fact was that Tipton Plimsoll was one of those young men who while capable, when well primed, of setting on a roar a table composed of males of their own age and mental outlook for whose refreshment they are paying, tend to lose their grip when alone with girls. And in the case of the girl with whom he was now marooned on the moonlit terrace, this was particularly so. His great love, her overwhelming beauty, and the fact that at dinner he had drunk nothing but barley water combined to render him ill at ease.
Some little while later Veronica, starting the conversational ball rolling once more, said that she had been bitten on the nose that afternoon by a gnat. Tipton, shuddering at this, said that he had never liked gnats. Veronica said that she, too, did not like gnats, but that they were better than bats. Yes, assented Tipton, oh, sure, yes, a good deal better than bats. Of cats Veronica said she was fond, and Tipton agreed that cats as a class were swell. On the subject of rats they were also at one, both holding strong views regarding their lack of charm.
The ice thus broken, the talk flowed pretty easily until Veronica said that perhaps they had better be going in now. Tipton said, 'Oh, shoot!' and Veronica said, 'I think we'd better,' and Tipton said, 'Well, okay, if we must.' His heart was racing and bounding as he accompanied her to the drawing-room. If there had ever been any doubt in his mind that this girl and he were twin souls, it no longer existed. It seemed to him absolutely amazing that two people should think so alike on everything – on gnats, bats, cats, rats, in fact absolutely everything. And, as for that episode at dinner, he was now prepared to condone that. True, she had certainly appeared to slosh Freddie roguishly on the wrist, but that could be explained away on the supposition that her hand had slipped.
His elation persisted all through the long, quiet home evening, causing him to feel right up to bedtime as he generally felt only when about half-way through the second quart. So much so, indeed, that when the ten-thirty tray of whisky and its accessories was brought in, he took his barley water without a qualm. It surprised him a little that Freddie and Colonel Wedge should feel the need of anything stronger.
At eleven o'clock Lady Hermione headed a general exodus, and at eleven-ten Tipton was in his room on the second floor, gazing out at the moonlight and still in the grip of that strange, febrile excitement which comes to young men who have recently for the first time encountered a twin soul of the opposite sex.
It seemed to him absurd to think of going to bed when he was feeling like this. He gazed out at the moonlight, and it seemed to beckon to him.
Five minutes later he was unfastening the french window of the drawing-room and stepping out on to the terrace.
As he did so, a voice said, 'Bless my soul!' and he perceived Lord Emsworth at his elbow.
IV
In moments of emotion Lord Emsworth's pince-nez always sprang from their base, dancing sportively at the end of their string. The sight of a stealthy figure emerging from the window of the drawing-room caused them to do so now, for he took it for granted that it must be that of a burglar. Then he reflected that burglars do not come out, they go in, and it was in a calmer frame of mind that he reached for the dangling glasses, hauled in the slack, and replaced them on his nose.
He then saw that the other was no midnight marauder, but merely his guest Popkins or Perkins or Wilbraham – the exact name had escaped his memory.
'Ah, Mr Er,' he said genially.
As a rule, the seigneur of Blandings Castle was not very fond of the society of his juniors. In fact, the only time he ever moved with any real rapidity and nimbleness was when endeavouring to avoid them. But to-night he was feeling a kindly benevolence towards the whole human species.
To this Prudence's change of heart had, of course, contributed, but it was principally owing to the fact that in the course of the conversation over the port his son Frederick had mentioned that this time he would not, as had always happened before, be sticking to Blandings Castle like a limpet on a rock, but rather using it simply as a base for operations in the neighbourhood. Shropshire and its adjoining counties are peculiarly rich in landowners with well-stocked kennels, and it was Freddie's intention to pay flying visits to these, sometimes staying the night, sometimes inflicting himself on his unfortunate prey for days at a time.
No father could help but be uplifted by such news, and Lord Emsworth's manner, as he proceeded, was very cordial and winning.
'Going out for a little walk, Mr Ah?' he said.
Tipton said that he was, adding in rather a defensive way that it was such a swell night.
'Beautiful,' agreed Lord Emsworth, and then, for he was a man who always liked to make his meaning quite clear, added, 'Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. There is a moon,' he went on, directing his young friend's attention to this added attraction with a wave of the hand.
Tipton said he had noticed the moon.
'Bright,' said Lord Emsworth.
'Very bright,' said Tipton.
'Very bright, indeed,' said Lord Emsworth. 'Oh, extremely bright. Are you,' he asked, changing the subject, 'interested in pigs, Mr Er – Ah – Umph?'
'Plimsoll,' said Tipton.
'Pigs,' said Lord Emsworth, raising his voice a little and enunciating the word more distinctly.
Plimsoll explained that what he had been intending to convey was that his name was Plimsoll.
'Oh, is it?' said Lord Emsworth, and paused awhile in thought. He had a vague recollection that someone had once told him to do something – what, he could not at the moment recall – about someone of that name. 'Well, as I was about to say, I am just going down to the sty to listen to my pig.'
'Oh, yes?'
'Her name is Plimsoll.'
'Is that so?' said Tipton, surprised at this coincidence.
'I mean Empress of Blandings. She has won the silver medal in the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show twice—'
'Gee!'
'—in successive years.'
'Gosh!'
'A thing no pig has ever done before.'
'Well, I'll be darned.'
'Yes, it was an astounding feat. She is very fat.'
'She must be fat.'
'She is. Extraordinarily fat.'
'Yessir, I'll bet she's fat,' said Tipton, groaning in spirit. No lover, who has come out to walk in the moonlight and dream of the girl he adores, likes to find himself sidetracked on to the subject of pigs, however obese. 'Well, I mustn't keep you. You want to see your pig.'
'I thought you would,' said Lord Emsworth. 'We go down this path.'
He grasped Tipton's arm, but there was really no necessity for thus taking him into custody. Tipton had resigned himself to going quietly. He had had no experience in the difficult art of shaking off adhesive peers, and it was too late to start learning now. Merely registering a silent wish that his companion would trip over a moonbeam and break his neck, he accompanied him without resistance.
As usual at this hour, t
he Empress had retired for the night. It was only possible at the moment, accordingly, for Lord Emsworth to give his guest a mere word picture of her charms. But he held out the promise of better things to come.
'I will take you to see her to-morrow morning,' he said. 'Or, rather, in the afternoon, for I shall be busy in the morning arranging matters with this artist of Galahad's. My son Freddie,' he explained, 'tells me that my brother Galahad is sending down an artist to paint the Empress's portrait. It is an idea I have long had in mind. I wrote to my sister Dora, asking her to find me an artist, but she answered very rudely, telling me not to be absurd, and my sister Hermione was also opposed to the project. They seemed to dislike the idea of a pig appearing in the family portrait gallery. That was Hermione you sat next to at dinner. The girl sitting next to Freddie was her daughter Veronica.'
For the first time Tipton began to feel that something might be saved from the wreck of his moonlight walk.
'I thought she was very charming,' he said, limbering himself up for a good long talk on his favourite topic.
'Charming?' said Lord Emsworth, surprised, 'Hermione?'
'Miss Wedge.'
'I don't think I know her,' said Lord Emsworth. 'But I was speaking of my niece Veronica. A nice girl, with many good qualities.'
'Ah!' breathed Tipton reverently.
'She has an excellent heart, and seems fond of pigs. I saw her once go out of her way to pick up and drop back into the sty a potato which the Empress had nosed beneath the bars. I was very pleased. Not every girl would have been so considerate.'
Tipton was so overcome by this evidence of the pure-white soul of the goddess he worshipped that for a moment he was incapable of speech. Then he said 'Gosh!'
'My son Freddie, I remember, who was present—'
Lord Emsworth broke off abruptly. This third mention of his younger son had had the effect of stirring his memory. Something seemed to be coming to the surface.