Uncle Fred in the Springtime

  ‘Why, hullo, Mr Pott!’ he said.

  The affection in his voice was quite untinged with surprise. A ready explanation of the other’s presence here had presented itself. He assumed he had come for the Bridgeford races, of which he had been hearing so much since his arrival in Market Blandings. But if he was not surprised to see Mr Pott, Mr Pott was extremely surprised to see him.

  ‘Young Gilpin! What are you doing here?’

  ‘My uncle sent for me. He’s staying at Blandings Castle, a couple of miles down the road. He wanted to see me on a business matter.’

  Mr Pott was aghast.

  ‘You mean you’re going to the castle?’

  ‘No. My uncle came down here this morning to discuss the thing, but it fell through. I’m leaving for London this evening.’

  Mr Pott breathed again. The thought of this young man coming blundering into the delicate web of intrigue at Blandings Castle had appalled him.

  ‘You’re here for the races, of course?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Pott, grateful for the suggestion.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘In the vicinity.’

  ‘Have some of this beer. It’s good.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mr Pott. ‘Thanks.’

  Until his guest had been supplied with the refreshment, Ricky did not speak again. All his life he had been sturdy and independent, and it embarrassed him to have to ask a comparative stranger for money. This diffidence, with an effort, he overcame. Stranger or no stranger, he reminded himself, Claude Pott would most certainly have spent several weeks in hospital but for the prowess of Alaric Gilpin.

  ‘Mr Pott.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘There’s something I would like a word with you about, Mr Pott.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Are you fond of onion soup?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, lots of people are. And in this connection I want to put a business proposition up to you.’

  ‘Ah?’

  Ricky took a sip of G. Ovens’s home-brewed. It had not escaped him that his companion’s manner was reserved. Mr Pott’s eyes seemed always to be covered by a protective layer of film. Now, it was as if another layer had been superimposed.

  ‘I don’t know if Polly has happened to mention to you, Mr Pott, that I have the opportunity of buying one of these onion soup bars? You’ve probably noticed them round Piccadilly Circus way.’

  ‘I seem to remember her talking about it.’

  ‘Enthusiastically, I expect. They coin money. Gold mines, every one of them. The one I’m speaking of belongs to an American friend of mine. He has offered to let me have it for two hundred and fifty pounds.’

  The mention of that exact sum caused Mr Pott to wince a little, as if an exposed nerve had been touched. He was still unable to make up his mind about Horace Davenport as a sportsman with a taste for Persian Monarchs. Sometimes he could see him reaching out to cut from the pack. Sometime he could not. The future was wrapped in mist.

  ‘That’s a lot of money,’ he said.

  Ricky was amazed.

  ‘A lot of money? For a going concern right in the heart of London’s onion-soup-drinking belt? He’s simply giving it away. But he’s homesick for New York, and would like to sail tomorrow, if he could. Well, that’s the position. He says I can have this going concern for two hundred and fifty, provided I give him the money by the end of the week. And let me tell you, Mr Pott, the potentialities of that bar are stupendous. I’ve stood there night after night and watched the bottle-party addicts rolling up with their tongues out. It was like a herd of buffaloes stampeding for a water-hole.’

  ‘Then you’d better give him his two hundred and fifty.’

  ‘I would, if I had it. That’s exactly the point I was coming to. Can you lend me the money?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can have any interest you like.’

  ‘No, sir. Include me out.’

  ‘But you can’t say you haven’t got it.’

  ‘I have got it, and more. I’ve got it in cash in my pocket now, on account of the Clothes Stakes I ran at the Drones Club Tuesday.’

  ‘Then why —?’

  Mr Pott drained the remains of his tankard, but the noble brew had no mellowing effect. He might have been full of lemonade.

  ‘I’ll tell you why. Because if I give it to you, you’ll go and talk my dear daughter into marrying you. Polly’s easily led. She’s like her mother. Anything to make people happy. You’d tell her the tale, and she’d act against her better judgment. And then,’ said Mr Pott, ‘the bitter awakening.’

  ‘What do you mean, the bitter awakening? Polly loves me.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘She told me so.’

  ‘That was just being civil. Love you? Coo! What would she want to love you for? If I were a girl, I wouldn’t give you one little rose from my hair.’

  ‘You haven’t got any hair.’

  ‘There is no occasion to be personal,’ said Mr Pott stiffly. ‘And hair’s not everything, let me tell you. There’s been a lot of fellows that found themselves wishing they’d been more like me in that respect. Absolom, for one. And you’re wilfully missing the point of my remarks, which is that if I was a girl and had hair and there was a rose in it and you asked me for that rose, I wouldn’t give it to you. Because, after all, young G., what are you? Just a poet. Simply a ruddy ink-slinger, that’s you. Polly can do better.’

  ‘I’m sorry you dislike me —’

  ‘It’s not disliking. It’s disapproving of in the capacity of a suitor for my dear daughter’s hand. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you, young G. — I’ll admit you’ve got a sweet left hook — but you aren’t an om seerioo. A French term,’ explained Mr Pott, ‘meaning a fellow that’s going to get on in the world and be able to support a sweet girl as a sweet girl ought to be supported. If you were an om seerioo, you wouldn’t be wasting your time messing about writing poetry.’

  Ricky was telling himself that he must be calm. But calmness was a thing that did not come readily to him in trying circumstances.

  ‘My dear daughter ought to marry a man of substance. This Horace Davenport, now….

  ‘Horace!’

  ‘It’s all very well to say ‘Horace!’ in that tone of voice. He’s the nephew of a Duke,’ said Mr Pott reverently.

  ‘Well, if we’re being snobs, so am I the nephew of a Duke.’

  ‘Ala, but your Ma hadn’t the stuff, and Horace’s Pa had. That’s where the difference comes in. The way I got the story, your Ma married beneath her. Too late to regret it now, of course.’

  ‘The thing I regret is that you won’t listen to reason.’

  ‘I haven’t heard any yet.’

  There was a silence. Mr Pott would have liked another tankard of home-brew, but the way things seemed to be shaping, it appeared probable that he would have to pay for it himself.

  ‘Mr Pott,’ said Ricky, ‘I saved your life once.’

  ‘And on that last awful day when we all have to render account it will be duly chalked up to you on the credit side. Though, as a matter of fact,’ said Mr Pott nonchalantly, ‘I’ve no doubt I could have handled those fellows all right myself.’

  The muscles inherited from his robust father stood out on Ricky’s cheek-bones.

  ‘I hope you will have many more opportunities of doing so,’ he said.

  Mr Pott seemed wounded.

  ‘That’s a nasty thing to say.’

  ‘It was meant to be. Because,’ said Ricky, becoming frank, ‘if ever there was a pot-bellied human louse who needed to have the stuffing kicked out of him and his remains jumped on by strong men in hobnailed boots, it is you, Mr Pott. The next time I see a mob in the street setting on you, I shall offer to hold their coats and stand by and cheer.’

  Mr Pott rose.

  ‘Ho! If that’s the sort of nasty mind you have, I don’t wonder she prefers Horace.’

  ‘Ma
y I ask where you got the idea that she prefers Horace?’

  ‘I got it by seeing her that night he took her to the Ball. There was a look in her eyes that made me think right away that she was feeling he was her Prince Charming. And this has since been confirmed by a reliable source.’

  Ricky laughed.

  ‘Would it interest you to know,’ he said, ‘that Polly has promised me that she will never see Horace again?’

  ‘It wouldn’t interest me in the slightest degree,’ retorted Mr Pott. ‘Because I happen to know that she’s seeing him regular.’

  Whether it was excusable in the circumstances for Ricky at this point to tell Mr Pott that he was lying in his teeth, and that only the fact of his being an undersized little squirt whom no decent man would bring himself to touch with a barge pole saved him from having his neck wrung, is open to debate. Mr Pott, who thought not, drew himself up stiffly.

  ‘Young G.,’ he said, ‘I will wish you a very good afternoon. After that crack, I must decline to hold any association with you. There is such a thing as going too far, and you have gone it. I will take my refreshment elsewhere.’

  He went off to the Jolly Cricketers to do so, and for some moments Ricky continued to sit over his tankard. Now that the first spasm of indignation had spent itself, he was feeling more amused than wrathful. The lie had been so clumsy, so easily seen through. He blamed himself for ever having allowed it to annoy him.

  If there was one thing certain in an uncertain world, it was that Polly was as straight as a die. How she came to be so with a father like that constituted one of the great mysteries, but there it was. The thought of Polly cheating was inconceivable.

  With a glowing heart, Ricky Gilpin rose and walked down the passage that led to the back door of the inn. He felt he wanted air. After having had Mr Pott in it, the bar struck him as a little close.

  The garden of the Emsworth Arms runs down to the river, and is a pleasant, scented place on a spring evening. Ricky wished that he could linger there, but he was intending to catch the late afternoon express back to London, and he still had his packing to do. He turned regretfully, and he had just reached the inn, when from somewhere in its interior there came a disembodied voice.

  ‘Hullo,’ it was saying. ‘Hullo.’

  Ricky halted, amazed. There was only one man in the world who said ‘Hullo’ with just that lilting bleat.

  ‘Hullo … Polly?’

  Ricky Gilpin’s heart seemed to leap straight up into the air twiddling its feet, like a Russian dancer. He had sometimes wondered how fellows in the electric chair must feel when the authorities turned on the juice. Now he knew.

  ‘Hullo? Polly? Polly, old pet, this is Horace. Yes, I know. Never mind all that. I’ve got to see you immediately. Of course it’s important. Matter of life and death. So drop everything like the sweet angel you are, and come along. Meet me at the castle gate, out in the road. I don’t want anybody to see us. Eh? What? Yes. All right. I’ve got my car. I’ll be there before you are.’

  A red-haired bombshell burst into the lounge of the Emsworth Arms. There, in the corner near the window, stood the telephone, but the speaker had gone. And from outside in the street there came the sound of a car.

  Ricky Gilpin leaped to the floor. A rakish Bingley was moving off up the High Street, a long, thin, familiar figure at its wheel.

  For an instant, he contemplated shouting. Then, perceiving that there was a better way, he ran, sprang and flung himself on to the Bingley’s stern.

  Horace Davenport, all unconscious that he had taken aboard a stowaway, pressed his foot on the accelerator and the Bingley gathered speed.

  Lord Ickenham, much refreshed after his bath, had left his room, and begun to search through Blandings Castle for Polly. Unable to find her, he sought information from Pongo, whom he discovered in the smoking-room staring silently at nothing. The burden of life was weighing on Pongo Twistleton a good deal just now.

  ‘Ah, my boy. Seen Polly anywhere?’

  Pongo roused himself from his thoughts.

  ‘Yes, I saw her ….’

  He broke off. His eyes has started from their sockets. He had just observed what it was that the other was holding in his hand.

  ‘My gosh! Money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two hundred and fifty pounds.’

  ‘Oh, my golly! Where did you get it?’

  ‘From — you will scarcely credit this — Mustard Pott.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes. Mustard, it will astound you to hear, has just arrived at the castle in his professional capacity, sent for by Bosham to watch our movements. I seem to have dismissed Bosham as a force too lightly. He appears to have seen through my well-meant attempt to convince him that I was not the man who got away with his wallet and to have decided to seek assistance. A dashed deep young man. He took me in completely. What led him to select Mustard from London’s myriad sleuths is more than I can tell you. I can only suppose that he must have heard of him from Horace. At any rate, he’s here, and he has not been idle. Within half an hour of his arrival, he took this nice round sum off Bosham at Persian Monarchs, and I, after wrestling with him as the angel wrestled with Jacob, have taken it off him.’

  Pongo was quivering in every limb.

  ‘But this is stupendous! This is definitedly the happy ending, with the maker’s name woven into every yard. I had a feeling all along that you would pull it off sooner or later. Good old Uncle Fred! You stand alone. There is none like you, none. Gimme!’

  Lord Ickenham perceived that his nephew was labouring under a misapprehension. Regretfully he put him straight.

  ‘Alas, my boy, this is not for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It is earmarked for Polly. It is the purchase price of that onion soup bar, which will enable her to marry the man she loves. I’m sorry. I can appreciate what a blow this must be for you. All I can say by way of apology is that her need is greater than yours.’

  There was the right stuff in Pongo Twistleton. It had seemed to him for an instant that the world was tumbling about him in rending chaos, but already his finer self had begun to take command of things. Yes, he felt — yes, it was better thus. Agony though it was to think that he was not going to get his hooks on the boodle, it was a not unpleasant agony. His great love demanded some such sacrifice.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Yes, something in that.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I think she’s gone to Market Blandings.’

  ‘What would she be going to Market Blandings for?’

  ‘Ah, there you have me. But I was on the terrace having a cigarette not long ago and she came out, hatted and booted, and gave the impression, when questioned, that that was where she was heading.’

  ‘Well, go after her and bring the sunlight into her life.’

  The idea did not seem immediately attractive to Pongo.

  ‘It’s four miles there and back, you know.’

  ‘Well, you’re young and strong.’

  ‘Why don’t you go?’

  ‘Because Age has its privileges, my boy. My ramble having left me a little drowsy, I propose to snatch a few winks of sleep in my room. I often say there is nothing so pleasant as a nap in front of a crackling fire in the country-house bedroom. Off you go.’

  Pongo did not set out with enthusiasm, but he set out, and Lord Ickenham made his way to his room. The fire was bright, the armchair soft, and the thought of his nephew trudging four miles along the high road curiously soothing. It was not long before the stillness was broken by a faint, musical noise like a kettle singing on the hob.

  But these good things do not last. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands in sleep, and along comes somebody shaking us by the shoulder.

  Lord Ickenham, sitting up, found that the person shaking his shoulder was Horace Davenport.

  16

  He rose courteously. To say
that the sight of this unexpected apparition had left him feeling completely at his ease would be to present the facts incorrectly. For an instant, indeed, his emotions had been practically identical with those of the heroine of a pantomime when the Demon King suddenly pops up out of a trap at her elbow in a cascade of red fire. But his nervous system was under excellent control, and there was nothing in his manner to indicate how deeply he had been stirred.

  ‘Ah, good evening, good evening!’ he said. ‘Mr Davenport, is it not? Delighted to see you. But what are we doing here? I thought we had decided to go and take a rest cure at Bournemouth. Did something happen to cause us to change our mind?’

  ‘Hoy!’ said Horace.

  He had raised a protesting hand. His eyes were the eyes of one who has passed through the furnace, and he was vibrating gently, as if he had swallowed a small auxiliary engine.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘That “we” stuff. Cut it out. Not in the mood.’

  Something seemed to tell Lord Ickenham that this was not the delightfully receptive Horace Davenport of their previous meeting, but he persevered.

  ‘My dear fellow, of course. I’m sorry if it annoyed you. Just one of those professional mannerisms one slips into. Most of my patients seem to find it soothing.’

  ‘They do, do they? You and your bally patients!’

  The undisguised bitterness with which the young man spoke these words confirmed Lord Ickenham in his view that there had been a hitch somewhere. However, he continued to do his best.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Don’t keep begging my pardon. Though, my gosh,’ said Horace shrilly, ‘you jolly well ought to. Pulling my leg like that. It may interest you to learn that I know all.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Yes. You’re not Sir Roderick Glossop.’

  Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.