But as he sat contemplating the dilemma on the horns of which the Duke’s parting words had impaled him, he was finding it impossible to determine what course to pursue. The yearning to enrol the Empress under his banner was very powerful, but so also was his ingrained dislike for parting with large sums of money. There was, and always had been, something about signing his name to substantial cheques that gave him a sort of faint feeling.
He was still weighing this against that and balancing the pros and cons, when a shadow fell on the sunlit turf before him and he became aware that his reverie had been intruded on. Something female was standing beside the rustic table, and after blinking once or twice he recognized his former secretary, Lavender Briggs. She was regarding him austerely through her harlequin glasses.
If Lavender Briggs’ gaze was austere, it had every reason for being so. No girl enjoys hearing herself described as tall and ungainly with large feet and hair like seaweed, especially if the description is followed up by the revelation that the five hundred golden pounds on which she had been counting to start her off as a proprietress of a typewriting bureau have gone with the wind, never to return. If she had not had a business proposition to place before him, she would not have lowered herself by exchanging words with this man. She would much have preferred to hit him on the head with the tankard from which the Duke had been refreshing himself. But a business girl cannot choose her associates. She has to take them as they come.
‘Good afternoon, Lord Tilbury,’ she said coldly. ‘If you could spay-ah me a moment of your time.’
To any other caller without an appointment the owner of the Mammoth Publishing Company would have been brusque, but Lord Tilbury could not forget that this was the girl who had come within an ace of taking five hundred pounds off the Duke of Dunstable, and feeling as he did about the Duke he found his surprise at seeing her mingled with an unwilling respect. It would be too much to say that he was glad to see her, for he had hoped to continue wrestling undisturbed with the problem which was exercising his mind, but if she wanted a moment of his time, she could certainly have it. He even went so far as to ask her to take a seat, which she did. And having done so she came, like a good business woman, straight to the point.
‘I heard what the Duke of Dunstable was saying to you,’ she said. ‘This mattah of Lord Emsworth’s pig. His demand for three thousand pounds was preposterous. Quate absurd. Do not dream of yielding to his terms.’
Lord Tilbury found himself warming to this girl. He still felt that the words in which he had described her hair, feet and general appearance had been well chosen, but we cannot all be Miss Americas and he was prepared to condone her physical defects in consideration of this womanly sympathy. Beauty, after all, is but skin deep. The main thing a man should ask of the other sex is that their hearts be in the right place, as hers was. ‘Preposterous’ … ‘Quate absurd’ … The very expressions he would have chosen himself.
On the other hand, it seemed to him that she was overlooking something.
‘But I want that pig.’
‘You shall have it.’
Enlightenment dawned on Lord Tilbury.
‘Why, of course! You mean you’ll — er —’
‘Purloin it for you? Quate. My arrangements are all made and can be put into effect immediately.’
Lord Tilbury could recognize efficiency when he saw it. Here, he perceived, was a girl who thought on her feet and did it now. A genial glow suffused him. Almost as sweet as the thought of obtaining possession of the Empress was the know-ledge that, to employ the latter’s phrase, he would be putting one over on the Duke.
‘Provided,’ Lavender Briggs went on, ‘that we agree on terms. I should requiah five hundred pounds.’
‘Later, you mean?’
‘Now, I mean. I know you always carry your cheque-book with you.’
Lord Tilbury gulped. Then the momentary sensation of nausea passed. Nothing could make him enjoy writing a cheque for five hundred pounds, but there are times when a man has to set his teeth and face the facts of life.
‘Very well,’ he said, a little huskily.
‘Thank you,’ said Lavender Briggs, a few moments later, placing the slip of paper in her bag. ‘And now I ought to be getting back to the castle. Lady Constance may be wanting me for something. I will go and telephone for the station cab.’
The telephone by means of which residents of the Emsworth Arms put themselves in touch with the station cab (Jno. Robinson, propr.) was in the bar. Proceeding thither, Lavender Briggs was about to go in, when she nearly collided with Lord Ickenham, coming out.
2
Lord Ickenham had come to the bar of the Emsworth Arms because the warmth of the day had made him want to renew his acquaintance with G. Ovens’ homebrew, of which he had many pleasant memories. It would have been possible— indeed, it would have been more seemly — for him to have taken tea on the terrace with Lady Constance, but he was a kindly man and something told him that after their recent get-together his hostess would prefer to be spared anything in the nature of peaceful co-existence with him. Moments come in a woman’s life, he knew, when her prime need is a complete absence of Ickenhams.
He was glad to see Lavender Briggs. He was a man who made friends easily, and in the course of this visit to the castle, something approaching a friendship had sprung up between himself and her. And though he disapproved of her recent activities, he could understand and sympathize with the motives which had actuated them. He was a broad-minded man, and it was his opinion that a girl who needs five hundred pounds to set herself up in business for herself is entitled to stretch a point or two and to forget, if only temporarily, the lessons which she learned at her mother’s knee. Thinking these charitable thoughts and knowing the reception that awaited her at Blandings Castle, he was happy to have this opportunity of warning her against completing her journey there.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘So you’re back?’
‘Yayess. I caught the twelve-thirty train.’
‘I wonder how it compares with the two-fifteen.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Just a random thought. It was simply that I have heard the two-fifteen rather highly spoken of lately. Did you have a nice time in London?’
‘Quate enjoyable, thank you.’
‘I hope I didn’t stop you going into that bar for a quick one?’
‘I was merely intending to telephone for the station cab to take me to the castle.’
‘I see. Well, I wouldn’t. Are you familiar with the poem “Excelsior”?’
‘I read it as a child,’ said Lavender Briggs with a little shiver of distaste. She did not admire Longfellow.
‘Then you will recall what the old man said to the fellow with the banner with the strange device. “Try not the pass,” he said. “Dark lowers the tempest overhead.” That is what an old — or rather, elderly but wonderfully well-preserved — man is saying to you now. Avoid station cabs. Lay off them. Leave them alone. You are better without them.’
‘I don’t know what you mean!’
‘There are many things you do not know, Miss Briggs,’ said Lord Ickenham gravely, ‘including the fact that you have got a large smut on your nose.’
‘Oh, have I?’ said Lavender Briggs, opening her bag in a flutter and reaching hurriedly for her mirror. She plied the cleansing tissue. ‘Is that better?’
‘Practically perfect. I wish I could say as much for your general position.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will. You’re in the soup, Miss Briggs. The gaff has been blown, and the jig is up. The pitiless light of day has been thrown on your pig-purloining plans. Bill Bailey has told all.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, he has squealed to the F.B.I. Where you made your mistake was in underestimating his integrity. These curates have scruples. The Reverend Cuthbert Bailey’s are the talk of Bottleton East. Your proposition revolted him, and only the fact that you didn’t offer him a
ny kept him from spurning your gold. He went straight to Lord Emsworth and came clean. That is why I suggest that you do not telephone for station cabs in that light-hearted way. Jno. Robinson would take you to your destination for a reasonably modest sum, no doubt, but what would you find there on arrival? A Lord Emsworth with all his passions roused and flame coming out of both nostrils. For don’t deceive yourself into thinking that he will be waiting on the front doorstep with a “Welcome to Blandings Castle” on his lips. In his current role of sabre-toothed tiger he would probably bite several pieces out of your leg. I have seldom seen a man who had got it so thoroughly up his nose.’
Lavender Briggs’ jaw had fallen. So, slipping from between her nerveless fingers, had her bag. It fell to earth, and from it there spilled a powder compact, a handkerchief, a comb, a lip. stick, a match box, an eyebrow pencil, a wallet with a few pound notes in it, a small purse containing some shillings, a bottle of digestive pills, a paperback copy of a book by Alfred Camus and the Tilbury cheque. A little breeze which had sprung up sent the last-named fluttering across the road with Lord Ickenham in agile pursuit. He recovered it, glanced at it, and brought it back to her, his eyebrows raised.
‘Your tariff for stealing pigs comes high,’ he said. ‘Who’s Tilbury? Anything to do with Tilbury House?’
There was good stuff in Lavender Briggs. Where a lesser woman would have broken down and wept, she merely hitched up her fallen jaw and tightened her lips.
‘He owns it,’ she said, taking the cheque. ‘I used to be his secretary. Lord Tilbury.’
‘Oh, that chap? Good heavens, what are you doing?’
‘I’m tearing up his cheque.’
Lord Ickenham stopped her with a horrified gesture.
‘My dear child, you mustn’t dream of doing such a thing. You need it in your business.’
‘But I can’t take his money now.’
‘Of course you can. Stick to it like glue. He has far too much money, anyway, and it’s very bad for him. Look on adhering to this five hundred as a kindly act in his best interests, designed to make him a better, deeper man. It may prove a turning point in his life. I would take five hundred pounds off Tilbury myself, if only I could think of a way of doing it. I should feel it was my duty. But if you have scruples, though you haven’t any business having any, not being a curate, look on it as a loan. You could even pay him interest. Not too much, of course. You don’t want to spoil him. I would suggest a yearly fiver, accompanied, as a pretty gesture, by a bunch of white violets. But you can think that over at your leisure. The problem that presents itself now, it seems to me, is Where do you go from here? I take it that you will wish to return to London, but you don’t want another stuffy journey in the train. I’ll tell you what,’ said Lord Ickenham, inspired. ‘We’ll hire a car. I’ll pay for it, and you can reimburse me when that typewriting bureau of yours gets going. Don’t forget the bunch of white violets.’
‘Oh, Lord Ickenham!’ said Lavender Briggs devoutly. ‘What a help you are!’
‘Help is a thing I am always glad to be of,’ said Lord Ickenham in his courteous way.
3
As he turned from waving a genial hand at the departing car and set out on the two-mile walk back to the castle, Lord Ickenham was feeling the gentle glow of satisfaction which comes to a man of goodwill conscious of having acted for the best. There had been a moment when his guardian angel, who liked him to draw the line somewhere, had shown a disposition to become critical of his recent activities, whispering in his ear that he ought not to have abetted Lavender Briggs in what, in the guardian angel’s opinion, was pretty raw work and virtually tantamount to robbery from the person, but he had his answer ready. Lavender Briggs, he replied in rebuttal, needed the stuff, and when you find a hard-up girl who needs the stuff, the essential thing is to see that she gets it and not to be fussy about the methods employed to that end.
This, moreover, he pointed out, was a special case. As he had reminded La Briggs, it was imperative for the good of his soul that Lord Tilbury should receive an occasional punch in the bank balance, and to have neglected this opportunity of encouraging his spiritual growth would have been mistaken kindness. His guardian angel, who could follow a piece of reasoning all right if you explained it carefully to him, apologized and said he hadn’t thought of that. Forget the whole thing, the guardian angel said.
With the approach of evening the day had lost much of its oppressive warmth, but Lord Ickenham kept his walking pace down to a quiet amble, strolling in leisurely fashion and pausing from time to time to inspect the local flora and fauna: and he had stopped to exchange a friendly glance with a rabbit whose looks he liked, when he became aware that there were others more in tune than himself with the modern spirit of rush and bustle. Running footsteps sounded from behind him, and a voice was calling his name. Turning, he saw that the Duke of Dunstable’s nephew, Archie Gilpin, was approaching him at a high rate of m.p.h.
With Archie’s brother Ricky, the poet, who supplemented the meagre earnings of a minor bard by selling onion soup in a bar off Leicester Square, Lord Ickenham had long been acquainted, but Archie, except for seeing him at meals, he scarcely knew. Nevertheless, he greeted him with a cordial smile. The urgency of his manner suggested that here was another fellow human being in need of his advice and counsel, and, as always, he was delighted to give it. His services were never confined to close personal friends.
‘Hullo there,’ he said. ‘Getting into training for the village sports?’
Archie came to a halt, panting. He was a singularly handsome young man. Pongo at the Milton Street registry office had described him as good-looking, but Lord Ickenham, now that he had met him, considered this an understatement. Tall and slim and elegant, he looked like a film star of the better type. He also, Lord Ickenham was sorry to see, looked worried, and he prepared to do all that was in his power to brighten life for him.
Archie seemed embarrassed. He ran a hand through his hair, which was longer than Lord Ickenham liked hair to be. A visit to a hairdresser would in his opinion have done this Gilpin a world of good. But artists, he reminded himself, are traditionally shy of the scissors, and to do the lad justice he did not wear sideburns.
‘I say,’ said Archie, when he had finished panting. ‘Could you spare me a moment?’
‘Dozens, my dear fellow. Help yourself.’
‘I don’t want to interrupt you, if you’re thinking about something.’
‘I am always thinking about something, but I can Switch it off in a second, just like that. What seems to be the trouble?’
‘Well, I’m in a bit of a jam, and my brother Ricky once told me that if ever I got into a jam of any kind, you were the man to get me out of it. When it comes to fixing things, he said, you have to be seen to be believed.’
Lord Ickenham was gratified as any man would have been. One always likes a word of praise from the fans.
‘He probably had in mind the time when I was instrumental in getting him the money that enabled him to buy that onion soup bar of his. Oddly enough, it was not till I had it explained to me by my nephew Pongo that I knew what an onion soup bar was. My life is lived in the country, and we rustics so soon get out of touch. Pongo tells me these bars abound in the Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square neighbourhoods of London, staying open all night and selling onion soup to the survivors of bottle parties. It sounds the ideal life. Is Ricky still gainfully employed in that line?’
‘Oh, rather. But may I tell you about my jam?’
Lord Ickenham clicked an apologetic tongue.
‘Of course, yes. I’m sorry. I’m afraid we old gaffers from the country have a tendency to ramble on. When I start talking you must stop me, even if you haven’t heard it before. This jam of yours, you were saying. Not a bad jam, I trust?’
Once more, Archie Gilpin ran a hand through his hair. The impression he conveyed was that if the vultures gnawing at his bosom did not shortly change their act, he would begin pulling it o
ut in handfuls.
‘It’s the dickens of a jam. I don’t know what to do about it. Have you ever been engaged to two girls at the same time?’
‘Not to my recollection. Nor, now I come to think of it, do I know of anyone who has, except of course King Solomon and the late Brigham Young.’
‘Well, that’s what I am.’
‘You? Engaged to two girls? Half a second, let me work this out.’
There was a pause, during which Lord Ickenham seemed to be doing sums in his head.
‘No,’ he said at length. ‘I don’t get it. I am aware that you are betrothed to my little friend Myra Schoonmaker, but however often I tot up the score, that only makes one. You’re sure you haven’t slipped up somewhere in your figures?’
Archie Gilpin’s eye rolled in a fine frenzy, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, though one would more readily have expected that sort of thing from his poetic brother.
‘Look here,’ he said. ‘Could we sit down somewhere? This is going to take some time.’
‘Why, certainly. There should be good sitting on that stile over there. And take all the time you want.’
Seated on the stile, his deportment rather like that of a young Hindu fakir lying for the first time on the traditional bed of spikes, Archie Gilpin seemed still to find a difficulty in clothing his thoughts in words. He cleared his throat a good deal and once more disturbed his hair with a fevered hand. He reminded Lord Ickenham of a nervous after-dinner speaker suddenly aware, after rising to his feet, that he has completely forgotten the story of the two Irishmen, Pat and Mike, on which he had been relying to convulse his audience.
‘I don’t know where to begin.’
‘At the beginning, don’t you think? I often feel that that is best. Then work through the middle and from there, taking your time, carry on to the end.’