Summer Lightning

  ‘Well, if you take my advice, you’ll hide the flower-pots. One of the things this fellow does when he gets these attacks,’ explained the Hon. Galahad, taking Sue into the family confidence, ‘is to go about hurling flower-pots at people.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I assure you. Looking for me, Beach?’

  The careworn figure of the butler had appeared, walking as one pacing behind the coffin of an old friend.

  ‘Yes, sir. The gentleman has arrived, Mr Galahad. I looked in the small library, thinking that you might possibly be there, but you were not.’

  ‘No, I was out here.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘That’s why you couldn’t find me. Show him up to the small library, Beach, and tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The Hon. Galahad’s temporary delay in going to see his visitor was due to his desire to linger long enough to tell Sue, to whom he had taken a warm fancy and whom he wished to shield as far as it was in his power from the perils of life, what every girl ought to know about the Efficient Baxter.

  ‘Never let yourself be alone with that fellow in a deserted spot, my dear,’ he counselled. ‘If he suggests a walk in the woods, call for help. Been off his head for years. Ask Clarence.’

  Lord Emsworth nodded solemnly.

  ‘And it looks to me,’ went on the Hon. Galahad, ‘as if his mania had now taken a suicidal turn. Overbalanced, indeed! How the deuce could he have overbalanced? Flung himself out bodily, that’s what he did. I couldn’t think who it was he reminded me of till this moment. He’s the living image of a man I used to know in the nineties. The first intimation any of us had that this chap had anything wrong with him was when he turned up to supper at the house of a friend of mine – George Pallant. You remember George, Clarence? – with a couple of days’ beard on him. And when Mrs George, who had known him all her life, asked him why he hadn’t shaved – “Shaved?” says this fellow, surprised. Packleby, his name was. One of the Leicestershire Packlebys. “Shaved, dear lady?” he says. “Well, considering that they even hide the butter-knife when I come down to breakfast for fear I’ll try to cut my throat with it, is it reasonable to suppose they’d trust me with a razor?” Quite stuffy about it, he was, and it spoiled the party. Look after Miss Schoonmaker, Clarence. I shan’t be long.’

  Lord Emsworth had little experience in the art of providing diversion for young girls. Left thus to his native inspiration, he pondered a while. If the Empress had not been stolen, his task would, of course, have been simple. He could have given this Miss Schoonmaker a half-hour of sheer entertainment by taking her down to the piggeries to watch that superb animal feed. As it was, he was at something of a loss.

  ‘Perhaps you would care to see the rose-garden?’ he hazarded.

  ‘I should love it,’ said Sue.

  ‘Are you fond of roses?’

  ‘Tremendously.’

  Lord Emsworth found himself warming to this girl. Her personality pleased him. He seemed dimly to recall something his sister Constance had said about her – something about wishing that her nephew Ronald would settle down with some nice girl with money like that Miss Schoonmaker whom Julia had met at Biarritz. Feeling so kindly towards her, it occurred to him that a word in season, opening her eyes to his nephew’s true character, might prevent the girl making a mistake which she would regret for ever when it was too late.

  ‘I think you know my nephew Ronald?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Lord Emsworth paused to smell a rose. He gave Sue a brief biography of it before returning to the theme.

  ‘That boy’s an ass,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ said Sue sharply. She began to feel less amiable towards this stringy old man. A moment before, she had been thinking that it was rather charming, that funny, vague manner of his. Now she saw him clearly for what he was – a dodderer, and a Class A dodderer at that.

  ‘Why?’ His lordship considered the point. ‘Well, heredity, probably, I should say. His father, old Miles Fish, was the biggest fool in the Brigade of Guards.’ He looked at her impressively through slanting pince-nez, as if to call her attention to the fact that this was something of an achievement. ‘The boy bounces tennis-balls on pigs,’ he went on, getting down to the ghastly facts.

  Sue was surprised. The words, if she had caught them correctly, seemed to present a side of Ronnie’s character of which she had been unaware.

  ‘Does what?’

  ‘I saw him with my own eyes. He bounced a tennis-ball on Empress of Blandings. And not once but repeatedly.’

  The motherly instinct which all girls feel towards the men they love urged Sue to say something in Ronnie’s defence. But, apart from suggesting that the pig had probably started it, she could not think of anything. They left the rose-garden and began to walk back to the lawn, Lord Emsworth still exercised by the thought of his nephew’s shortcomings. For one reason and another, Ronnie had always been a source of vague annoyance to him since boyhood. There had even been times when he had felt that he would almost have preferred the society of his younger son, Frederick.

  ‘Aggravating boy,’ he said. ‘Most aggravating. Always up to something or other. Started a night-club the other day. Lost a lot of money over it. Just the sort of thing he would do. My brother Galahad started some kind of a club many years ago. It cost my old father nearly a thousand pounds, I recollect. There is something about Ronald that reminds me very much of Galahad at the same age.’

  Although Sue had found much in the author of the Reminiscences to attract her, she was able to form a very fair estimate of the sort of young man he must have been in the middle twenties. This charge, accordingly, struck her as positively libellous.

  ‘I don’t agree with you, Lord Emsworth.’

  ‘But you never knew my brother Galahad as a young man,’ his lordship pointed out cleverly.

  ‘What is the name of that hill over there?’ asked Sue in a cold voice, changing the unpleasant subject.

  ‘That hill? Oh, that one?’ It was the only one in sight. ‘It is called the Wrekin.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Sue.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lord Emsworth.

  ‘Ah,’ said Sue.

  They had crossed the lawn and were on the broad terrace that looked out over the park. Sue leaned on the low stone wall that bordered it and gazed before her into the gathering dusk.

  The castle had been built on a knoll of rising ground, and on this terrace one had the illusion of being perched up at a great height. From where she stood, Sue got a sweeping view of the park and of the dim, misty Vale of Blandings that dreamed beyond. In the park, rabbits were scuttling to and fro. In the shrubberies birds called sleepily. From somewhere out across the fields there came the faint tinkling of sheep-bells. The lake shone like old silver, and there was a river in the distance, dull grey between the dull green of the trees.

  It was a lovely sight, age-old, orderly and English, but it was spoiled by the sky. The sky was overcast and looked bruised. It seemed to be made of dough, and one could fancy it pressing down on the world like a heavy blanket. And it was muttering to itself. A single heavy drop of rain splashed on the stone beside Sue, and there was a low growl far away as if some powerful and unfriendly beast had spied her.

  She shivered. She had been gripped by a sudden depression, a strange foreboding that chilled the spirit. That muttering seemed to say that there was no happiness anywhere and never could be any. The air was growing close and clammy. Another drop of rain fell, squashily like a toad, and spread itself over her hand.

  Lord Emsworth was finding his companion unresponsive. His stream of prattle slackened and died away. He began to wonder how he was to escape from a girl who, though undeniably pleasing to the eye, was proving singularly difficult to talk to. Raking the horizon in search of aid, he perceived Beach approaching, a silver salver in his hand. The salver had a card on it, and an envelope.

  ‘For me, Beach?’
br />   ‘The card, your lordship. The gentleman is in the hall.’

  Lord Emsworth breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘You will excuse me, my dear? It is most important that I should see this fellow immediately. My brother Galahad will be back very shortly, I have no doubt. He will entertain you. You don’t mind?’

  He bustled away, glad to go, and Sue became conscious of the salver, thrust deferentially towards her.

  ‘For you, miss.’

  ‘For me?’

  Yes, miss,’ moaned Beach, like a winter wind wailing through dead trees.

  He inclined his head sombrely, and was gone. Sue tore open the envelope. For one breath-taking instant she had thought it might be from Ronnie. But the writing was not Ronnie’s familiar scrawl. It was bold, clear, decisive writing, the writing of an efficient man.

  She looked at the last page.

  ‘Yours sincerely,

  ‘R.J. BAXTER’

  Sue’s heart was beating faster as she turned back to the beginning. When a girl in the position in which she had placed herself has been stared at through steel-rimmed spectacles in the way this R. J. Baxter had stared at her through his spectacles, her initial reaction to mysterious notes from the man behind the lenses cannot but be a panic fear that all has been discovered.

  The opening sentence dispelled her alarm. Purely personal motives, it appeared, had caused Rupert Baxter to write these few lines. The mere fact that the letter began with the words,

  ‘Dear Miss Schoonmaker,’

  was enough in itself to bring comfort.

  At the risk of annoying you by the intrusion of my private affairs (wrote the Efficient Baxter), I feel that I must give you an explanation of the incident which occurred in the garden in your presence this afternoon. From the observation – in the grossest taste – which Lord Emsworth let fall in my hearing I fear you may have placed a wrong construction on what took place. {I allude to the expression “Mad as a coot”, which I distinctly heard Lord Emsworth utter as I moved away.)

  ‘The facts were precisely as I stated. I was leaning out of the library window, and, chancing to lean too far, I lost my balance and fell. That I might have received serious injuries and was entitled to expect sympathy, I overlook. But the words ‘Mad as a coot” I resent extremely.

  ‘Had this incident not occurred, I would not have dreamed of saying anything to prejudice you against your host. As it is, I feel that injustice to myself I must tell you that Lord Emsworth is a man to whose utterances no attention should be paid. He is to all intents and purposes half-witted. Life in the country, with its lack of intellectual stimulus, has caused his natural feebleness of mind to reach a stage

  which borders closely on insanity. His relatives look on him as virtually an imbecile and have, in my opinion, every cause to do so. ‘In these circumstances, I think I may rely on you to attach no importance to his remarks this afternoon

  ‘Yours sincerely,

  ‘R. J. BAXTER

  ‘P. S. You will, of course, treat this as entirely confidential.

  ‘P. P. S. If you are fond of chess and would care for a game after dinner, I am a good player.

  ‘P. P. S. S. Or Bezique.’

  Sue thought it a good letter, neat and well-expressed. Why it had been written, she could not imagine. It had not occurred to her that love – or, at any rate, a human desire to marry a wealthy heiress – had begun to burgeon in R. J. Baxter’s bosom. With no particular emotions, other than the feeling that if he was counting on playing Bezique with her after dinner he was due for a disappointment, she put the letter in her pocket, and looked out over the park again.

  The object of all good literature is to purge the soul of its petty troubles. This, she was pleased to discover, Baxter’s letter had succeeded in doing. Recalling its polished phrases, she found herself smiling appreciatively.

  That muttering sky did not look so menacing now. Everything, she told herself, was going to be all right. After all, she did not ask much from Fate – just an uninterrupted five minutes with Ronnie. And if Fate so far had denied her this very moderate demand . . .

  All alone?’

  Sue turned, her heart beating quickly. The voice, speaking close behind her, had had something of the effect of a douche of iced water down her back. For, restorative though Baxter’s letter had been, it had not left her in quite the frame of mind to enjoy anything so sudden and jumpy as an unexpected voice.

  It was the Hon. Galahad, back from his interview with the gentleman, and the sight of him did nothing to calm her agitation. He was eyeing her, she thought, with a strange and sinister intentness. And though his manner, as he planted himself beside her and began to talk, seemed all that was cordial and friendly, she could not rid herself of a feeling of uneasiness. That look still lingered in her mind’s eye. With the air all heavy and woolly and the sky growling pessimistic prophecies, it had been a look to alarm the bravest girl.

  Chattering amiably, the Hon. Galahad spoke of this and that; of scenery and the weather; of birds and rabbits; of friends of his who had served terms in prison and of other friends who, one would have said on the evidence, had been lucky to escape. Then his monocle was up again, and that look was back on his face.

  The air was more breathless than ever.

  ‘You know,’ said the Hon. Galahad, ‘it’s been a great treat to me, meeting you, my dear. I haven’t seen any of your people for a number of years, but your father and I correspond pretty regularly. He tells me all the news. Did you leave your family well?’

  ‘Quite well.’

  ‘How was your Aunt Edna?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Sue feebly.

  Ah,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘Then your father must have been mistaken when he told me she was dead. But perhaps you thought I meant your Aunt Edith?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sue gratefully.

  ‘She’s all right, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘What a lovely woman!’

  Yes.’

  ‘You mean she still is?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Remarkable! She must be well over seventy by now. No doubt you mean beautiful considering she is over seventy?’

  Yes.’

  ‘Pretty active?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘When did you see her last?’

  ‘Oh – just before I sailed.’

  ‘And you say she’s active? Curious! I heard two years ago that she was paralysed. I suppose you mean active for a paralytic.’

  The little puckers at the corners of his eyes deepened into wrinkles. The monocle gleamed like the eye of a dragon. He smiled genially.

  ‘Confide in me, Miss Brown,’ he said. ‘What’s the game?’

  11 MORE SHOCKS FOR SUE

  I

  Sue did not answer. When the solid world melts abruptly beneath the feet, one feels disinclined for speech. Avoiding the monocle, she stood looking with wide, blank eyes at a thrush which hopped fussily about the lawn. Behind her, the sky gave a low chuckle, as if this was what it had been waiting for.

  ‘Up there,’ proceeded the Hon. Galahad, pointing to the small library, ‘is the room where I work. And sometimes, when I’m not working, I look out of the window. I was looking out a short while back when you were down here talking to my brother Clarence. There was a fellow with me. He looked out, too.’ His voice sounded blurred and far-away. A theatrical manager fellow whom I used to know very well in the old days. A man named Mason.’

  The thrush had flown away. Sue continued to gaze at the spot where it had been. Across the years, for the mind works oddly in times of stress, there had come to her a vivid recollection of herself at the age often, taken by her mother to the Isle of Man on her first steamer trip and just beginning to feel the motion of the vessel. There had been a moment then, just before the supreme catastrophe, when she had felt exactly as she was feeling now.

  ‘We saw you, and he said” Why, there’s Sue!”-I said”Sue?Sue Who?” “Sue Brown,?
?? said this fellow Mason. He said you were one of the girls at his theatre. He didn’t seem particularly surprised to see you here. He said he took it that everything had been fixed up all right and he was glad, because you were one of the best. He wanted to come and have a chat with you, but I headed him off. I thought you might prefer to talk over this little matter of your being Miss Sue Brown alone with me. Which brings me back to my original question. What, Miss Brown, is the game?’

  Sue felt dizzy, helpless, hopeless.

  ‘I can’t explain,’ she said.

  The Hon. Galahad tut-tutted protestingly.

  ‘You don’t mean to say you propose to leave the thing as just another of those historic mysteries? Don’t you want me ever to get a good night’s sleep again?’

  ‘Oh, it’s so long.’

  ‘We have the evening before us. Take it bit by bit, a little at a time. To begin with, what did Mason mean by saying that everything was all right?’

  ‘I had told him about Ronnie.’

  ‘Ronnie? My nephew Ronald?’

  ‘Yes. And, seeing me here, he naturally took it for granted that Lord Emsworth and the rest of you had consented to the engagement and invited me to the castle.’

  ‘Engagement?’

  ‘I used to be engaged to Ronnie.’

  ‘What! That young Fish?’

  Yes.’

  ‘Good God!’ said the Hon. Galahad.

  Suddenly Sue began to feel conscious of a slackening of the tension. Mysteriously, the conversation was seeming less difficult. In spite of the fact that Reason scoffed at the absurdity of such an idea, she felt just as if she were talking to a potential friend and ally. The thought had come to her at the moment when, looking up, she caught sight of her companion’s face. It is an unpleasant thing to say of any man, but there is no denying that the Hon. Galahad’s face, when he was listening to the confessions of those who had behaved as they ought not to have behaved, very frequently lacked the austerity and disapproval which one likes to see in faces on such occasions.

  ‘But however did Pa Mason come to be here?’ asked Sue.

  ‘He came to discuss some business in connexion with . . . Never mind about that,’ said the Hon. Galahad, calling the meeting to order. ‘Kindly refrain from wandering from the point. I’m beginning to see daylight. You are engaged to Ronald, you say?’