‘If, before you go,’ he said, ‘you can spare us a moment of your valuable time, I should be glad of a few words. And, first, may I say that I cordially agree with your condemnation of Comrade Cootes’s recent suggestion. The man is an ass.’
‘Say!’ cried Mr Cootes, coming to life again, ‘that’ll be about all from you. If there wasn’t ladies present, I’d bust you one.’
‘Ed,’ said Miss Peavey with quiet authority, ‘shut your trap!’
Mr Cootes subsided once more. Psmith gazed at him through his monocle, interested.
‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘but – if it is not a rude question – are you two married?’
‘Eh?’
‘You seemed to me to talk to him like a wife. Am I addressing Mrs Cootes?’
‘You will be if you stick around a while.’
A thousand congratulations to Comrade Cootes. Not quite so many to you, possibly, but fully that number of good wishes.’ He moved towards the poetess with extended hand. ‘I am thinking of getting married myself shortly.’
‘Keep those hands up,’ said Mr Cootes.
‘Surely,’ said Psmith reproachfully, ‘these conventions need not be observed among friends? You will find the only revolver I have ever possessed over there on the mantelpiece. Go and look at it.’
‘Yes, and have you jumping on my back the moment I took my eyes off you!’
‘There is a suspicious vein in your nature, Comrade Cootes,’ sighed Psmith, ‘which I do not like to see. Fight against it.’ He turned to Miss Peavey once more. ‘To resume a pleasanter topic, you will let me know where to send the plated fish-slice, won’t you?’
‘Huh?’ said the lady.
‘I was hoping,’ proceeded Psmith, ‘if you do not think it a liberty on the part of one who has known you but a short time, to be allowed to send you a small wedding-present in due season. And one of these days, perhaps, when I too am married, you and Comrade Cootes will come and visit us in our little home. You will receive a hearty, unaffected welcome. You must not be offended if, just before you say good-bye, we count the spoons.’
One would scarcely have supposed Miss Peavey a sensitive woman, yet at this remark an ominous frown clouded her white forehead. Her careless amiability seemed to wane. She raked Psmith with a glittering eye.
‘You’re talking a dam’ lot,’ she observed coldly.
‘An old failing of mine,’ said Psmith apologetically, ‘and one concerning which there have been numerous complaints. I see now that I have been boring you, and I hope that you will allow me to express . . .’
He broke off abruptly, not because he had reached the end of his remarks, but because at this moment there came from above their heads a sudden sharp cracking sound, and almost simultaneously a shower of plaster fell from the ceiling, followed by the startling appearance of a long, shapely leg, which remained waggling in space. And from somewhere out of sight there filtered down a sharp and agonised oath.
Time and neglect had done their work with the flooring of the room in which Psmith had bestowed the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, and, creeping cautiously about in the dark, he had had the misfortune to go through.
But, as so often happens in this life, the misfortune of one is the good fortune of another. Badly as the accident had shaken Freddie, from the point of view of Psmith it was almost ideal. The sudden appearance of a human leg through the ceiling at a moment of nervous tension is enough to unman the stoutest-hearted, and Edward Cootes made no attempt to conceal his perturbation. Leaping a clear six inches from the floor, he jerked up his head and quite unintentionally pulled the trigger of his revolver. A bullet ripped through the plaster.
The leg disappeared. Not for an instant since he had been shut in that upper room had Freddie Threepwood ceased to be mindful of Psmith’s parting statement that he would be shot if he tried to escape, and Mr Cootes’s bullet seemed to him a dramatic fulfilment of that promise. Wrenching his leg with painful energy out of the abyss, he proceeded to execute a backward spring which took him to the far wall – at which point, as it was impossible to get any farther away from the centre of events, he was compelled to halt his retreat. Having rolled himself up into as small a ball as he could manage, he sat where he was, trying not to breathe. His momentary intention of explaining through the hole that the entire thing had been a regrettable accident, he prudently abandoned. Unintelligent though he had often proved himself in other crises of his life, he had the sagacity now to realise that the neighbourhood of the hole was unhealthy and should be avoided. So, preserving a complete and unbroken silence, he crouched there in the darkness, only asking to be left alone.
And it seemed, as the moments slipped by, that this modest wish was to be gratified. Noises and the sound of voices came up to him from the room below, but no more bullets. It would be paltering with the truth to say that this put him completely at his ease, but still it was something. Freddie’s pulse began to return to the normal.
Mr Cootes’s, on the other hand, was beating with a dangerous quickness. Swift and objectionable things had been happening to Edward Cootes in that lower room. His first impression was that the rift in the plaster above him had been instantly followed by the collapse of the entire ceiling, but this was a mistaken idea. All that had occurred was that Psmith, finding Mr Cootes’s eye and pistol functioning in another direction, had sprung forward, snatched up a chair, hit the unfortunate man over the head with it, relieved him of his pistol, leaped to the mantelpiece, removed the revolver which lay there, and now, holding both weapons in an attitude of menace, was regarding him censoriously through a gleaming eyeglass.
‘No funny business, Comrade Cootes,’ said Psmith.
Mr Cootes picked himself up painfully. His head was singing. He looked at the revolvers, blinked, opened his mouth and shut it again. He was oppressed with a sense of defeat. Nature had not built him for a man of violence. Peaceful manipulation of a pack of cards in the smoke-room of an Atlantic liner was a thing he understood and enjoyed: rough-and-tumble encounters were alien to him and distasteful. As far as Mr Cootes was concerned, the war was over.
But Miss Peavey was a woman of spirit. Her hat was still in the ring. She clutched the necklace in a grasp of steel, and her fine eyes glared defiance.
‘You think yourself smart, don’t you?’ she said.
Psmith eyed her commiseratingly. Her valorous attitude appealed to him. Nevertheless, business was business.
‘I am afraid,’ he said regretfully, ‘that I must trouble you to hand over that necklace.’
‘Try and get it,’ said Miss Peavey.
Psmith looked hurt.
‘I am a child in these matters,’ he said, ‘but I had always gathered that on these occasions the wishes of the man behind the gun were automatically respected.’
‘I’ll call your bluff,’ said Miss Peavey firmly. ‘I’m going to walk straight out of here with this collection of ice right now, and I’ll bet you won’t have the nerve to start any shooting. Shoot a woman? Not you!’
Psmith nodded gravely.
‘Your knowledge of psychology is absolutely correct. Your trust in my sense of chivalry rests on solid ground. But,’ he proceeded, cheering up, ‘I fancy that I see a way out of the difficulty. An idea has been vouchsafed to me. I shall shoot – not you, but Comrade Cootes. This will dispose of all unpleasantness. If you attempt to edge out through that door I shall immediately proceed to plug Comrade Cootes in the leg. At least, I shall try. I am a poor shot and may hit him in some more vital spot, but at least he will have the consolation of knowing that I did my best and meant well.’
‘Hey!’ cried Mr Cootes. And never, in a life liberally embellished with this favourite ejaculation of his, had he uttered it more feelingly. He shot a feverish glance at Miss Peavey; and, reading in her face indecision rather than that instant acquiescence which he had hoped to see, cast off his customary attitude of respectful humility and asserted himself. He was no caveman, but this was one occasion when he
meant to have his own way. With an agonised bound he reached Miss Peavey’s side, wrenched the necklace from her grasp and flung it into the enemy’s camp. Eve stooped and picked it up.
‘I thank you,’ said Psmith with a brief bow in her direction.
Miss Peavey breathed heavily. Her strong hands clenched and unclenched. Between her parted lips her teeth showed in a thin white line. Suddenly she swallowed quickly, as if draining a glass of unpalatable medicine.
‘Well,’ she said in a low, even voice, ‘that seems to be about all. Guess we’ll be going. Come along, Ed, pick up the Henries.’
‘Coming, Liz,’ replied Mr Cootes humbly.
They passed together into the night.
§ 5
Silence followed their departure. Eve, weak with the reaction from the complex emotions which she had undergone since her arrival at the cottage, sat on the battered sofa, her chin resting in her hands. She looked at Psmith, who, humming a light air, was delicately piling with the toe of his shoe a funeral mound over the second of the dead bats.
‘So that’s that!’ she said.
Psmith looked up with a bright and friendly smile.
‘You have a very happy gift of phrase,’ he said. ‘That, as you sensibly say, is that.’
Eve was silent for a while. Psmith completed the obsequies and stepped back with the air of a man who has done what he can for a fallen friend.
‘Fancy Miss Peavey being a thief!’ said Eve. She was somehow feeling a disinclination to allow the conversation to die down, and yet she had an idea that, unless it was permitted to die down, it might become embarrassingly intimate. Subconsciously, she was endeavouring to analyse her views on this long, calm person who had so recently added himself to the list of those who claimed to look upon her with affection.
‘I confess it came as something of a shock to me also,’ said Psmith. ‘In fact, the revelation that there was this other, deeper side to her nature materially altered the opinion I had formed of her. I found myself warming to Miss Peavey. Something that was akin to respect began to stir within me. Indeed, I almost wish that we had not been compelled to deprive her of the jewels.’
‘“We”?’ said Eve. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t do much.’
‘Your attitude was exactly right,’ Psmith assured her. ‘You afforded just the moral support which a man needs in such a crisis.’
Silence fell once more. Eve returned to her thoughts. And then, with a suddenness which surprised her, she found that she had made up her mind.
‘So you’re going to be married?’ she said.
Psmith polished his monocle thoughtfully.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I think so. What do you think?’
Eve regarded him steadfastly. Then she gave a little laugh.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think so, too.’ She paused. ‘Shall I tell you something?’
‘You could tell me nothing more wonderful than that.’
‘When I met Cynthia in Market Blandings, she told me what the trouble was which made her husband leave her. What do you suppose it was?’
‘From my brief acquaintance with Comrade McTodd, I would hazard the guess that he tried to stab her with the bread-knife. He struck me as a murderous-looking specimen.’
‘They had some people to dinner, and there was chicken, and Cynthia gave all the giblets to the guests, and her husband bounded out of his seat with a wild cry, and, shouting “You know I love those things better than anything in the world!” rushed from the house, never to return!’
‘Precisely how I would have wished him to rush, had I been Mrs McTodd.’
‘Cynthia told me that he had rushed from the house, never to return, six times since they were married.’
‘May I mention – in passing –’ said Psmith, ‘that I do not like chicken giblets?’
‘Cynthia advised me,’ proceeded Eve, ‘if ever I married, to marry someone eccentric. She said it was such fun . . . Well, I don’t suppose I am ever likely to meet anyone more eccentric than you, am I?’
‘I think you would be unwise to wait on the chance.’
‘The only thing is . . .’ said Eve reflectively. ‘“Mrs Smith” . . . It doesn’t sound much, does it?’
Psmith beamed encouragingly.
‘We must look into the future,’ he said. ‘We must remember that I am only at the beginning of what I am convinced is to be a singularly illustrious career. “Lady Psmith” is better . . . “Baroness Psmith” better still . . . And – who knows? – “The Duchess of Psmith” . . .’
‘Well, anyhow,’ said Eve, ‘you were wonderful just now, simply wonderful. The way you made one spring . . .’
‘Your words,’ said Psmith, ‘are music to my ears, but we must not forget that the foundations of the success of the manoeuvre were laid by Comrade Threepwood. Had it not been for the timely in cursion of his leg . . .’
‘Good gracious!’ cried Eve. ‘Freddie! I had forgotten all about him!’
‘The right spirit,’ said Psmith. ‘Quite the right spirit.’
‘We must go and let him out.’
‘Just as you say. And then he can come with us on the stroll I was about to propose that we should take through the woods. It is a lovely night, and what could be jollier than to have Comrade Threepwood prattling at our side? I will go and let him out at once.’
‘No, don’t bother,’ said Eve.
14 PSMITH ACCEPTS EMPLOYMENT
THE golden stillness of a perfect summer morning brooded over Blandings Castle and its adjacent pleasure-grounds. From a sky of unbroken blue the sun poured down its heartening rays on all those roses, pinks, pansies, carnations, hollyhocks, columbines, larkspurs, London pride and Canterbury bells which made the gardens so rarely beautiful. Flannelled youths and maidens in white serge sported in the shade; gay cries arose from the tennis-courts behind the shrubbery; and birds, bees, and butterflies went about their business with a new energy and zip. In short, the casual observer, assuming that he was addicted to trite phrases, would have said that happiness reigned supreme.
But happiness, even on the finest mornings, is seldom universal. The strolling youths and maidens were happy; the tennis-players were happy; the birds, bees, and butterflies were happy. Eve, walking in pleasant meditation on the terrace, was happy. Freddie Threepwood was happy as he lounged in the smoking-room and gloated over the information, received from Psmith in the small hours, that his thousand pounds was safe. Mr Keeble, writing to Phyllis to inform her that she might clinch the purchase of the Lincolnshire farm, was happy. Even Head-gardener Angus McAllister was as happy as a Scotsman can ever be. But Lord Emsworth, drooping out of the library window, felt only a nervous irritation more in keeping with the blizzards of winter than with the only fine July that England had known in the last ten years.
We have seen his lordship in a similar attitude and a like frame of mind on a previous occasion; but then his melancholy had been due to the loss of his glasses. This morning these were perched firmly on his nose and he saw all things clearly. What was causing his gloom now was the fact that some ten minutes earlier his sister Constance had trapped him in the library, full of jarring rebuke on the subject of the dismissal of Rupert Baxter, the world’s most efficient secretary. It was to avoid her compelling eye that Lord Emsworth had turned to the window. And what he saw from that window thrust him even deeper into the abyss of gloom. The sun, the birds, the bees, the butterflies, and the flowers called to him to come out and have the time of his life, but he just lacked the nerve to make a dash for it.
‘I think you must be mad,’ said Lady Constance bitterly, resuming her remarks and starting at the point where she had begun before.
‘Baxter’s mad,’ retorted his lordship, also re-treading old ground.
‘You are too absurd!’
‘He threw flower-pots at me.’
‘Do please stop talking about those flower-pots. Mr Baxter has explained the whole thing to me, and surely even you can see that his behaviour
was perfectly excusable.’
‘I don’t like the fellow,’ cried Lord Emsworth, once more retreating to his last line of trenches – the one line from which all Lady Constance’s eloquence had been unable to dislodge him.
There was a silence, as there had been a short while before when the discussion had reached this same point.
‘You will be helpless without him,’ said Lady Constance.
‘Nothing of the kind,’ said his lordship.
‘You know you will. Where will you ever get another secretary capable of looking after everything like Mr Baxter? You know you are a perfect child, and unless you have someone whom you can trust to manage your affairs I cannot see what will happen.’
Lord Emsworth made no reply. He merely gazed wanly from the window.
‘Chaos,’ moaned Lady Constance.
His lordship remained mute, but now there was a gleam of something approaching pleasure in his pale eyes; for at this moment a car rounded the corner of the house from the direction of the stables and stood purring at the door. There was a trunk on the car and a suit-case. And almost simultaneously the Efficient Baxter entered the library, clothed and spatted for travel.
‘I have come to say good-bye, Lady Constance,’ said Baxter coldly and precisely, flashing at his late employer through his spectacles a look of stern reproach. ‘The car which is taking me to the station is at the door.’
‘Oh, Mr Baxter.’ Lady Constance, strong woman though she was, fluttered with distress. ‘Oh, Mr Baxter.’
‘Good-bye.’ He gripped her hand in brief farewell and directed his spectacles for another tense instant upon the sagging figure at the window. ‘Good-bye, Lord Emsworth.’
‘Eh? What? Oh! Ah, yes. Good-bye, my dear fel—, I mean, good-bye. I – er – hope you will have a pleasant journey.’
‘Thank you,’said Baxter.
‘But, Mr Baxter,’ said Lady Constance.
‘Lord Emsworth,’ said the ex-secretary icily, ‘I am no longer in your employment . . .’