'Blister!' he cried.
'Hello, Freddie. You back?'
'Just passing through, merely passing through. What's all this about your leaving, Blister?'
'I am leaving.'
'I know you're leaving. They told me downstairs. The point – follow me closely here – is why are you leaving?'
Bill placed an undervest in the suitcase like a man laying a wreath on the grave of an old friend and straightened himself wearily. He looked like a gorilla which has bitten into a bad coco-nut.
'I've got the push,' he said.
Deeply concerned, Freddie was nevertheless not particularly surprised. The possibility, even the probability, of something like this happening if he went away and ceased to keep the other's affairs under his personal eye had always been in his mind.
'I feared this, Blister,' he said gravely. 'I should have remained at your side to counsel and advise. What came unstuck? Didn't the guv'nor like the portrait?'
'No.'
'But surely you haven't finished it already?'
A flicker of life came into Bill's set face. He packed a pair of pyjamas with something approaching spirit.
'Of course I haven't. That's just what I tried to make him understand. So far it's the merest sketch. I kept telling the old blighter ... Sorry.'
'Not at all. I know whom you mean.'
'I kept telling him that a portrait of a pig must be judged as a whole. But the more I tried to make him see it, the more he kept giving me the push.'
'Have you got it here?'
'It's on the bed.'
'Let's have a— My God, Blister!'
Freddie, hastening to the bed and gazing down at the canvas which lay upon it, had started back like one who sees some dreadful sight. He was now replacing his monocle in his eye, preparatory to trying again, and Bill looked at him dully.
'You notice something wrong too?'
'Wrong? My dear old bird!'
'Don't forget it's not finished.'
Freddie shook his head.
'It's no good taking that line, Blister. Thank heaven it isn't. One wouldn't want a thing like that to spread any further. What on earth made you depict this porker as tight?'
'Tight?'
'The pig I see here is a pig that has obviously been on the toot of a lifetime for days on end. Those glassy eyes. That weak smile. I've seen old Tippy look just like that. I'll tell you what it reminds me of. One of those comic pigs you see in Christmas numbers.'
Bill was shaken. The artistic temperament can stand only just so much destructive criticism. He, too, approached the bed and examining his handiwork was compelled to recognize a certain crude justice in the other's words. He had not noticed it before, but in the Empress's mild face, as it leered from the canvas, there was a distinct suggestion of inebriation. Her whole aspect was that of a pig which had been seeing the new year in.
'That's odd,' he said, frowning thoughtfully.
'Worse than odd,' corrected Freddie. 'I don't wonder the guv'nor was stirred to his depths.'
'I think where I must have gone wrong,' said Bill, stepping back and closing one eye, 'was in trying to get some animation into her face. You've no notion, Freddie, how disheartening it is for an artist to come up against a sitter like that. She just lay on her side with her eyes shut and bits of potato dribbling out of the corner of her mouth. Velazquez would have been baffled. It seemed to me that I had somehow got to create a bit of sparkle, so I prodded her with a stick and shoved the result down like lightning before she could go to sleep again. But I see what you mean. The expression isn't right.'
'Nor the shape. You've made her oblong.'
'Oh, that's nothing. I should probably have altered that. I have been experimenting in the cubist form lately, and I just tried it as an idea. Purely tentative.'
Freddie looked at his watch, and was shocked at the position of the hands. Already the wretched Fanshawe-Chadwicks must be suffering agonies, which would inevitably become more and more severe. But he could not leave matters as they stood. He sighed and forced the picture of the Fanshawe-Chadwicks from his mind.
'Tell me exactly what took place, Blister. Up to a certain point, of course, I can visualize the scene. You at your easel, plying the brush; the guv'nor toddling up, adjusting his pince-nez. He stands behind you. He peers over your shoulder. He starts back with a hoarse cry. What then? Was what he proceeded to dish out undisguisedly the raspberry?'
'Yes.'
'No avenue was left open that might have led to a peaceful settlement?'
'No.'
'It would be no use your offering to rub it out and try again?'
'No. You see, I'm afraid I lost my temper a bit. I forget what I said exactly, but it was to the effect that if I had known he wanted the pretty-pretty, chocolate-box sort of thing, I would never have accepted the commission. That and something about stifling the freedom of expression of the artist. Oh yes, and I told him to go and boil his head.'
'You did? H'm,' said Freddie. 'Ha. 'Myes. Um. This isn't too good, Blister.'
'No.'
'Prue may be upset.'
Bill shuddered.
'She is.'
'You've seen her, then?'
Bill shuddered again.
'Yes,' he said, in a low voice. 'I've seen her. She was with your father, and she stayed on after he left.'
'What was her attitude?'
'She was furious, and broke off the engagement.'
'You astound me, Blister. You couldn't have understood her.'
'I don't think so. She said she never wanted to see me again, and was going to devote herself to good works.'
'To which you replied—?'
'I hadn't time to reply. She streaked off like an electric hare, laughing hysterically.'
'She did, did she? Laughed hysterically, eh? The unbridled little cheese mite. I sometimes think that child is non compos.'
A look of menace came into Bill's strained face.
'Do you want your head bashed in?' he asked.
'No,' said Freddie, having considered the question. 'No, I don't think so. Why?'
'Then don't call Prue a cheese mite.'
'Don't you like me calling her a cheese mite?'
'No.'
'This would almost seem as if love still lingered.'
'Of course it lingers.'
'I should have thought you would have considered yourself well rid of a girl who hands you the mitten just because you failed to make a solid success of painting the portrait of a pig – an enterprise fraught, as you yourself have shown, with many difficulties.'
Bill quivered irritably.
'It wasn't that at all.'
'Then your story has misled me.'
'The real trouble was that she asked me to give up painting, and I wouldn't.'
'Oh, I see. You mean that pub business.'
'You know about that?'
'She told me that morning I met her in Grosvenor Square. She said you had inherited the Mulberry Tree, and she wanted you to run it as a going concern.'
'That's right. We've been arguing about it for weeks.'
'I must say I agree with her that you ought to have a pop at it. There's gold in them thar hills, Blister. You might clean up big as a jolly innkeeper. And as for giving up your art – well, why not? It's obviously lousy.'
'I feel that, now that I've had time to think it over. Seeing her leg it like that sort of opened my eyes. Have you ever seen the girl you love sprinting away from you, having hysterics?'
'No, now you mention it, I can't say I have. I've known Aggie to throw her weight about on occasion, but always in a fairly static manner. Unpleasant, I should imagine.'
'It does something to you, Freddie. It makes you realize that you've been a brute and a cad and a swine.'
'I see what you mean. Remorse.'
'I'm ready now to do anything she wants. If she feels that I ought to give up painting, I'll never touch a brush again.'
'Well, that's fine.'
'I'm going to write and tell her so.'
'And have Aunt Hermione intercept the letter?'
'I never thought of that. Would she?'
'Unquestionably. When the younger female members of the family are sent up the river to Blandings, their correspondence is always closely watched.'
'You could slip her a note.'
'No, I couldn't. I told you I was merely passing through. I'll tell you what I will do, though. I'll nip up to the penitentiary now, and if Prue's got back, I'll place the facts before her. Wait here. I shan't be long. At least, I hope I shan't,' said Freddie, his mind sliding back to that painful vision of the Worcestershire Fanshawe-Chadwicks with their noses pressed against the windowpane and their haggard eyes staring yearningly out at an empty drive.
III
It was not so very long before Freddie once again presented himself in Bill's room, the latter's estimate of his absence at an hour and a half being erroneous and due to strained nerves. In response to his friend's passionate complaint that there had been no need for him to stop by the roadside and make daisy chains, he waved a soothing hand.
'I've been as quick as was humanly possible, Blister,' he assured him. 'If I am late, it is merely because I was working in your interests. There were one or two little tasks I had to perform before I could return.'
'Is everything all right?'
'If you mean did I see Prue and square you with her, the answer is no. She hadn't got back from calling on some people she was calling on. The Brimbles, if you want to keep the record straight. They live out Shrewsbury way. Extraordinary, this rural practice of driving miles on a hot day to pay calls. You spend hours dressing in your most uncomfortable clothes, you tool across the countryside under a blazing sun, you eventually win through to Shrewsbury, and when you do, what have you got? The Brimbles. However,' proceeded Freddie, observing in his audience signs of impatience, 'you will want to know what steps I have taken, Prue being unavoidably absent. But before I slip you the lowdown, let me first get this thing straight. You really desire this reconciliation? I mean, in order to achieve it, you are prepared to creep, to crawl, to yield on every point?'
'Yes.'
'Realizing – I merely mention it in passing – that this will be a hell of a start for your married life, if and when reducing your chances of ever being the dominant partner practically to zero?'
'Yes.'
'I wouldn't be too hasty about it, Blister. I know young Prue better than you do. She's like all these cheese – these small girls – bossy. Give her a thingummy, and she'll take a what's-its-name. The reason I've always found her civil and respectful is that I've never relaxed the iron hand. Small girls are like female Pekinese. Have you ever seen a man in the thrall of a female Pekinese? Can't call his soul his own. He—'
'Get on,' said Bill. 'Get on, get on, get on, get on!'
'Right,' said Freddie. 'Well, if that's the way you feel, we can proceed to the agenda. The first thing I did on reaching the hoosegow and discovering that Prue was not in her cell was to put in a trunk call to Uncle Gally.'
'To Gally?'
'None other. I knew that if anyone could spear an idea out of the void, it would be he. Nor was I mistaken. Within two minutes of hearing the facts, assisted only by a single whisky and soda while I held the line, he came across with a pippin.'
'God bless him!'
'And so say all of us. Did he ever tell you that he got my cousin, Ronnie Fish, married to a chorus girl in the teeth of the united opposition of a bristling phalanx of aunts?'
'No, did he?'
'He did indeed. There are practically no limits to the powers of this wonder man. You're lucky to have him in your corner.'
'I know I am. What was his idea?'
'It was a pippin,' repeated Freddie, rolling the word round his tongue. 'I wonder if you have ever reflected, Blister, than an employer of labour on an extensive scale, like my guv'nor, never really knows how many human souls he's got on the pay roll. Take gardeners, for example. He is aware that the honest fellows abound on his property, but he doesn't know half of them from Adam. If he's strolling around of a morning and sees one leaning on a spade, he doesn't say to himself, "Ah, there's good old George sweating himself to the bone," or old Joe or old Percy, or Peter or Thomas or Cyril, as the case may be. He just says, "Oh, what ho, a gardener," and passes by with a wave of the hand and a careless, "Okay, gardener, carry on." And so—'
For some moments Bill had been clenching and unclenching his hands in a rather febrile manner. He now spoke.
'Get on, get on, can't you? Get on, get on, get on. What's all this drivel about gardeners?'
'Not drivel, Blister,' said Freddie, pained.
'I'm waiting to hear what Gally suggested.'
'Well, I'm telling you as quick as I can, dash it. The point Uncle Gally made, when consulted over the long-distance telephone, was that anyone who liked could come and garden at the old homestead, and no questions asked. You get his trend? Of course you do. A child couldn't miss it. If you want to oil into the premises, you can do so by affecting to be a gardener. And if you're going to say you don't know anything about gardening, I reply that you don't have to. All you've got to do is just wander around with a rake or hoe, looking zealous. Rakes and hoes may be purchased at Smithson's in the High Street.'
The immensity of the idea, coming suddenly home to Bill, held him speechless for a moment. Then obstacles began to present themselves.
'But isn't there a head gardener, or someone of that sort, who keeps an eye on the gardeners?'
'There is. One McAllister. It was in order to square him that I had to dally awhile. It's all fixed now. A fiver changed hands. You can settle up at your leisure. So if an elderly Scotsman who looks like a minor prophet comes up and gives you the eye, don't be alarmed. Just nod and say the gardens are a credit to him. If you see the guv'nor, touch your hat a good deal.'
Bill had now no hesitation in endorsing his companion's description of the scheme as a pippin. The word, indeed, seemed to him rather a weak one.
'It's terrific, Freddie.'
'I told you it was.'
'I can hang about—'
'—till Prue comes along—'
'—and have a talk with her—'
'—thus healing the rift and arriving at a perfect understanding. And if she doesn't come along, some scullion or what not is sure to, and you can slip him a couple of bob and a carefully-written note to give to Prue, which of course you will have in readiness on your person. What's the matter, Blister?'
Bill's face had suddenly darkened. Anguish and despair were once more limned upon it.
'Oh, my God!'
'Something wrong?'
'It won't work. Your father has seen me.'
Freddie raised his eyebrows. His manner was amused and indulgent.
'You don't suppose Uncle Gally overlooked a point like that? My dear chap! He's sending it down by the next post.'
'It?'
'It.'
A hideous suspicion smote Bill. He paled.
'Not – it?' he quavered.
'He was starting off to see Fruity Biffen immediately and get it back. Honestly, Blister, I can't see why you have this extraordinary prejudice against the thing. I haven't seen it myself, of course, but if it made old Biffen look like an Assyrian monarch, it must be dignified and striking. Well, anyway, you've got to have some rude disguise or you can't be a gardener, so stick it like a man is my advice. And now, old bird,' said Freddie, 'I must fly. Good-bye, good luck, and God bless you.'
CHAPTER 6
'Tchah!' said Colonel Wedge.
He spoke the word as it should be spoken, if it is to have its proper value, crisply and explosively from between clenched teeth. He had been sitting at the foot of his wife's bed, conversing with her while she breakfasted, as was his companionable habit of a morning. He now rose, and walking to the window stood staring out, jingling his keys irritably in his pocket.
'Good God! I ne
ver saw such a chap!'
Had there been some sympathetic friend standing at his side and following the direction of his moody gaze, such a one might have supposed the object of his remark to have been the gardener who was toying with a rake on the lawn below, and he would probably have felt the criticism to be fully justified. Nature has framed strange fellows in her time, and this was one of them, a gardener of vast physique and rendered more than ordinarily noticeable by the mustard-coloured beard of Assyrian cut which partially obscured his features.
It was not, however, to this fungus-covered son of the soil that the colonel alluded. He had seen him hanging about the place this last couple of days but had never given him more than a passing thought. When the heart is bowed down with weight of woe, we have little leisure for brooding on gardeners, however profusely bearded. The chap to whom he referred was Tipton Plimsoll.
There are fathers, not a few of them, who tend to regard suitors for their daughter's hand with a jaundiced and unfriendly eye, like shepherds about to be deprived of a ewe lamb. Colonel Wedge did not belong to this class. Nor was he one of those parents who, when their child has made an evidently deep impression upon a young millionaire, are content to sit back with folded hands and wait patiently for the situation to develop in a slow, orderly manner. He wanted action. He had observed the love light in Tipton Plimsoll's eyes, and what he wished to see in the fellow now was a spot of the Young Lochinvar spirit.
'What's he waiting for?' he demanded querulously, turning back to the bed. 'Anyone can see he's head over ears in love with the girl. Then why not tell her so?'
Lady Hermione nodded mournfully. She, too, was all in favour of dash and impetuosity. Looking like a cook who smells something burning, she agreed that the Plimsoll self-control was odd.
'Odd? It's maddening.'
'Yes,' agreed Lady Hermione, accepting the emendation. 'I don't know when I have been so upset. Everything seemed to be going so well. I'm sure it is affecting Veronica's spirits. She has not seemed at all herself these last few days.'