'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!'
'Very good, your lordship.'
'Now you do it.'
'I, your lordship?'
'Yes. It's a way you call pigs.'
'I do not call pigs, your lordship,' said the butler coldly.
'What do you want Beach to do it for?' asked Angela.
'Two heads are better than one. If we both learn it, it will not matter should I forget it again.'
'By Jove, yes! Come on, Beach. Push it over the thorax,' urged the girl eagerly. 'You don't know it, but this is a matter of life and death. At-a-boy, Beach! Inflate the lungs and go to it.'
It had been the butler's intention, prefacing his remarks with the statement that he had been in service at the castle for eighteen years, to explain frigidly to Lord Emsworth that it was not his place to stand in the moonlight practising pig-calls. If, he would have gone on to add, his lordship saw the matter from a different angle, then it was his, Beach's, painful duty to tender his resignation, to become effective one month from that day.
But the intervention of Angela made this impossible to a man of chivalry and heart. A paternal fondness for the girl, dating from the days when he had stooped to enacting – and very convincingly, too, for his was a figure that lent itself to the impersonation – the rôle of a hippopotamus for her childish amusement, checked the words he would have uttered. She was looking at him with bright eyes, and even the rendering of pig-noises seemed a small sacrifice to make for her sake.
'Very good, your lordship,' he said in a low voice, his face pale and set in the moonlight. 'I shall endeavour to give satisfaction. I would merely advance the suggestion, your lordship, that we move a few steps farther away from the vicinity of the servants' hall. If I were to be overheard by any of the lower domestics, it would weaken my position as a disciplinary force.'
'What chumps we are!' cried Angela, inspired. 'The place to do it is outside the Empress's sty. Then, if it works, we'll see it working.'
Lord Emsworth found this a little abstruse, but after a moment he got it.
'Angela,' he said, 'you are a very intelligent girl. Where you get your brains from, I don't know. Not from my side of the family.'
The bijou residence of the Empress of Blandings looked very snug and attractive in the moonlight. But beneath even the beautiful things of life there is always an underlying sadness. This was supplied in the present instance by a long, low trough, only too plainly full to the brim of succulent mash and acorns. The fast, obviously, was still in progress.
The sty stood some considerable distance from the castle walls, so that there had been ample opportunity for Lord Emsworth to rehearse his little company during the journey. By the time they had ranged themselves against the rails, his two assistants were letter-perfect.
'Now,' said his lordship.
There floated out upon the summer night a strange composite sound that sent the birds roosting in the trees above shooting off their perches like rockets. Angela's clear soprano rang out like the voice of the village blacksmith's daughter. Lord Emsworth contributed a reedy tenor. And the bass notes of Beach probably did more to startle the birds than any other one item in the programme.
They paused and listened. Inside the Empress's boudoir there sounded the movement of a heavy body. There was an inquiring grunt. The next moment the sacking that covered the doorway was pushed aside, and the noble animal emerged.
'Now!' said Lord Emsworth again.
Once more that musical cry shattered the silence of the night. But it brought no responsive movement from Empress of Blandings. She stood there motionless, her nose elevated, her ears hanging down, her eyes everywhere but on the trough where, by rights, she should now have been digging in and getting hers. A chill disappointment crept over Lord Emsworth, to be succeeded by a gust of petulant anger.
'I might have known it,' he said bitterly. 'That young scoundrel was deceiving me. He was playing a joke on me.'
'He wasn't,' cried Angela indignantly. 'Was he, Beach?'
'Not knowing the circumstances, miss, I cannot venture an opinion.'
'Well, why has it no effect, then?' demanded Lord Emsworth.
'You can't expect it to work right away. We've got her stirred up, haven't we? She's thinking it over, isn't she? Once more will do the trick. Ready, Beach?'
'Quite ready, miss.'
'Then when I say three. And this time, Uncle Clarence, do please for goodness' sake not yowl like you did before. It was enough to put any pig off. Let it come out quite easily and gracefully. Now, then. One, two – three!'
The echoes died away. And as they did so a voice spoke.
'Community singing?'
'Jimmy!' cried Angela, whisking round.
'Hullo, Angela. Hullo, Lord Emsworth. Hullo, Beach.'
'Good evening, sir. Happy to see you once more.'
'Thanks. I'm spending a few days at the Vicarage with my father. I got down here by the five-five.'
Lord Emsworth cut peevishly in upon these civilities.
'Young man,' he said, 'what do you mean by telling me that my pig would respond to that cry? It does nothing of the kind.'
'You can't have done it right.'
'I did it precisely as you instructed me. I have had, moreover, the assistance of Beach here and my niece Angela—'
'Let's hear a sample.'
Lord Emsworth cleared his throat.
'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!'
James Belford shook his head.
'Nothing like it,' he said. 'You want to begin the "Hoo" in a low minor of two quarter notes in four-four time. From this build gradually to a higher note, until at last the voice is soaring in full crescendo, reaching F sharp on the natural scale and dwelling for two retarded half-notes, then breaking into a shower of accidental grace-notes.'
'God bless my soul!' said Lord Emsworth, appalled. 'I shall never be able to do it.'
'Jimmy will do it for you,' said Angela. 'Now that he's engaged to me, he'll be one of the family and always popping about here. He can do it every day till the show is over.'
James Belford nodded.
'I think that would be the wisest plan. It is doubtful if an amateur could ever produce real results. You need a voice that has been trained on the open prairie and that has gathered richness and strength from competing with tornadoes. You need a manly, sunburned, wind-scorched voice with a suggestion in it of the crackling of corn husks and the whisper of evening breezes in the fodder. Like this!'
Resting his hands on the rail before him, James Belford swelled before their eyes like a young balloon. The muscles on his cheekbones stood out, his forehead became corrugated, his ears seemed to shimmer. Then, at the very height of the tension, he let it go like, as the poet beautifully puts it, the sound of a great Amen.
'Pig-HOOOOO-OOO-OOO-O-O-ey!'
They looked at him, awed. Slowly, fading off across hill and dale, the vast bellow died away. And suddenly, as it died, another, softer sound succeeded it. A sort of gulpy, gurgly, plobby, squishy, wofflesome sound, like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a foreign restaurant. And, as he heard it, Lord Emsworth uttered a cry of rapture.
The Empress was feeding.
4 COMPANY FOR GERTRUDE
THE Hon. Freddie Threepwood, married to the charming daughter of Donaldson's Dog-Biscuits of Long Island City, N.Y., and sent home by his father-in-law to stimulate the sale of the firm's products in England, naturally thought right away of his aunt Georgiana. There, he reasoned, was a woman who positively ate dog-biscuits. She had owned, when he was last in the country, a matter of four Pekes, two Poms, a Yorkshire terrier, five Sealyhams, a Borzoi and an Airedale: and if that didn't constitute a promising market for Donaldson's Dog-Joy ('Get your dog thinking the Donaldson way'), he would like to know what did. The Alcester connection ought, he considered, to be good for at least ten of the half-crown cellophane-sealed packets a week.
A day or so after his arrival, accordingly, he hastened round to Upper Brook Street to make a
sales-talk: and it was as he was coming rather pensively out of the house at the conclusion of the interview that he ran into Beefy Bingham, who had been up at Oxford with him. Several years had passed since the other, then a third year Blood and Trial Eights man, had bicycled along tow-paths saying rude things through a megaphone about Freddie's stomach, but he recognized him instantly. And this in spite of the fact that the passage of time appeared to have turned old Beefers into a clergyman. For the colossal frame of this Bingham was now clad in sober black, and he was wearing one of those collars which are kept in position without studs, purely by the exercise of will-power.
'Beefers!' cried Freddie, his slight gloom vanishing in the pleasure of this happy reunion.
The Rev. Rupert Bingham, though he returned his greeting with cordiality, was far from exuberant. He seemed subdued, gloomy, as if he had discovered schism among his flock. His voice, when he spoke, was the voice of a man with a secret sorrow.
'Oh, hullo, Freddie. I haven't seen you for years. Keeping pretty fit?'
'As a fiddle, Beefers, old man, as a fiddle. And you?'
'Oh, I'm all right,' said the Rev. Rupert, still with that same strange gloom. 'What were you doing in that house?'
'Trying to sell dog-biscuits.'
'Do you sell dog-biscuits?'
'I do when people have sense enough to see that Donaldson's Dog-Joy stands alone. But could I make my fatheaded aunt see that? No, Beefers, not though I talked for an hour and sprayed her with printed matter like a—'
'Your aunt? I didn't know Lady Alcester was your aunt.'
'Didn't you, Beefers? I thought it was all over London.'
'Did she tell you about me?'
'What about you? Great Scott! Are you the impoverished bloke who wants to marry Gertrude?'
'Yes.'
'Well, I'm dashed.'
'I love her, Freddie,' said the Rev. Rupert Bingham. 'I love her as no man ...'
'Rather. Quite. Absolutely. I know. All the usual stuff. And she loves you, what?'
'Yes. And now they've gone and sent her off to Blandings, to be out of my way'
'Low. Very low. But why are you impoverished? What about tithes? I always understood you birds made a pot out of tithes.'
'There aren't any tithes where I am.'
'No tithes?'
'None.'
'H'm. Not so hot. Well, what are you going to do about it, Beefers?'
'I thought of calling on your aunt and trying to reason with her.'
Freddie took his old friend's arm sympathetically and drew him away.
'No earthly good, old man. If a woman won't buy Donaldson's Dog-Joy, it means she has some sort of mental kink and it's no use trying to reason with her. We must think of some other procedure. So Gertrude is at Blandings, is she? She would be. The family seem to look on the place as a sort of Bastille. Whenever the young of the species make a floater like falling in love with the wrong man, they are always shot off to Blandings to recover. The guv'nor has often complained about it bitterly. Now, let me think.'
They passed into Park Street. Some workmen were busy tearing up the paving with pneumatic drills, but the whirring of Freddie's brain made the sound almost inaudible.
'I've got it,' he said at length, his features relaxing from the terrific strain. And it's a dashed lucky thing for you, my lad, that I went last night to see that super-film, "Young Hearts Adrift," featuring Rosalie Norton and Otto Byng. Beefers, old man, you're legging it straight down to Blandings this very afternoon.'
'What!'
'By the first train after lunch. I've got the whole thing planned out. In this super-film, "Young Hearts Adrift," a poor but deserving young man was in love with the daughter of rich and haughty parents, and they took her away to the country so that she could forget, and a few days later a mysterious stranger turned up at the place and ingratiated himself with the parents and said he wanted to marry their daughter, and they gave their consent, and the wedding took place, and then he tore off his whiskers and it was Jim!'
'Yes, but ...'
'Don't argue. The thing's settled. My aunt needs a sharp lesson. You would think a woman would be only too glad to put business in the way of her nearest and dearest, especially when shown samples and offered a fortnight's free trial. But no! She insists on sticking to Peterson's Pup-Food, a wholly inferior product – lacking, I happen to know, in many of the essential vitamins – and from now on, old boy, I am heart and soul in your cause.'
'Whiskers?' said the Rev. Rupert doubtfully.
'You won't have to wear any whiskers. My guv'nor's never seen you. Or has he?'
'No, I've not met Lord Emsworth.'
'Very well, then.'
'But what good will it do me, ingratiating myself, as you call it, with your father? He's only Gertrude's uncle.'
'What good? My dear chap, are you aware that the guv'nor owns the country-side for miles around? He has all sorts of livings up his sleeve – livings simply dripping with tithes – and can distribute them to whoever he likes. I know, because at one time there was an idea of making me a parson. But I would have none of it.'
The Rev. Rupert's face cleared.
'Freddie, there's something in this.'
'You bet there's something in it.'
'But how can I ingratiate myself with your father?'
'Perfectly easy. Cluster round him. Hang on his every word. Interest yourself in his pursuits. Do him little services. Help him out of chairs.... Why, great Scott, I'd undertake to ingratiate myself with Stalin if I gave my mind to it. Pop off and pack the old toothbrush, and I'll go and get the guv'nor on the 'phone.'
At about the time when this pregnant conversation was taking place in London, W.1, far away in distant Shropshire Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, sat brooding in the library of Blandings Castle. Fate, usually indulgent to this dreamy peer, had suddenly turned nasty and smitten him a grievous blow beneath the belt.
They say Great Britain is still a first-class power, doing well and winning respect from the nations: and, if so, it is, of course, extremely gratifying. But what of the future? That was what Lord Emsworth was asking himself. Could this happy state of things last? He thought not. Without wishing to be pessimistic, he was dashed if he saw how a country containing men like Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall could hope to survive.
Strong? No doubt. Bitter? Granted. But not, we think, too strong, not – in the circumstances – unduly bitter. Consider the facts.
When, shortly after the triumph of Lord Emsworth's preeminent sow, Empress of Blandings, in the Fat Pigs Class at the eighty-seventh annual Shropshire Agricultural Show, George Cyril Wellbeloved, his lordship's pig-man, had expressed a desire to hand in his portfolio and seek employment elsewhere, the amiable peer, though naturally grieved, felt no sense of outrage. He put the thing down to the old roving spirit of the Wellbeloveds. George Cyril, he assumed, wearying of Shropshire, wished to try a change of air in some southern or eastern country. A nuisance, undoubtedly, for the man, when sober, was beyond question a force in the piggery. He had charm and personality. Pigs liked him. Still, if he wanted to resign office, there was nothing to be done about it.
But when, not a week later, word was brought to Lord Emsworth that, so far from having migrated to Sussex or Norfolk or Kent or somewhere, the fellow was actually just round the corner in the neighbouring village of Much Matchingham, serving under the banner of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall, the scales fell from his eyes. He realized that black treachery had been at work. George Cyril Wellbeloved had sold himself for gold, and Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, hitherto looked upon as a high-minded friend and fellow Justice of the Peace, stood revealed as that lowest of created things, a lureraway of other people's pig-men.
And there was nothing one could do about it.
Monstrous!
But true.
So deeply was Lord Emsworth occupied with the consideration of this appalling state of affairs that it was only when t
he knock upon the door was repeated that it reached his consciousness.
'Come in,' he said hollowly.
He hoped it was not his niece Gertrude. A gloomy young woman. He could hardly stand Gertrude's society just now.
It was not Gertrude. It was Beach, the butler.
'Mr Frederick wishes to speak to your lordship on the telephone.'
An additional layer of greyness fell over Lord Emsworth's spirit as he toddled down the great staircase to the telephone closet in the hall. It was his experience that almost any communication from Freddie indicated trouble.
But there was nothing in his son's voice as it floated over the wire to suggest that all was not well.
'Hullo, guv'nor.'
'Well, Frederick?'
'How's everything at Blandings?'
Lord Emsworth was not the man to exhibit the vultures gnawing at his heart to a babbler like the Hon. Freddie. He replied, though it hurt him to do so, that everything at Blandings was excellent.
'Good-oh!' said Freddie. 'Is the old doss-house very full up at the moment?'
'If,' replied his lordship, 'you are alluding to Blandings Castle, there is nobody at present staying here except myself and your cousin Gertrude. Why?' he added in quick alarm. 'Were you thinking of coming down?'
'Good God, no!' cried his son with equal horror. 'I mean to say, I'd love it, of course, but just now I'm too busy with Dog-Joy'
'Who is Popjoy?'
'Popjoy? Popjoy? Oh, ah, yes. He's a pal of mine and, as you've plenty of room, I want you to put him up for a bit. Nice chap. You'll like him. Right-ho, then, I'll ship him off on the three-fifteen.'
Lord Emsworth's face had assumed an expression which made it fortunate for his son that television was not yet in operation on the telephone systems of England: and he had just recovered enough breath for the delivery of a blistering refusal to have any friend of Freddie's within fifty miles of the place when the other spoke again.
'He'll be company for Gertrude.'
And at these words a remarkable change came over Lord Emsworth. His face untwisted itself. The basilisk glare died out of his eyes.
'God bless my soul! That's true!' he exclaimed. 'That's certainly true. So he will. The three-fifteen, did you say? I will send the car to Market Blandings to meet it.'
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