‘I’m sure I am. If he hears about me, he certainly won’t give you your money. Whereas, if he doesn’t, he may. What sort of a man is he?’
‘Uncle Clarence? Oh, a mild, dreamy old boy. Mad about gardening and all that. At the moment, I hear, he’s wrapped up in his pig.’
‘That sounds cosy.’
‘I’d feel a lot easier in my mind, I can tell you, going down there to tackle him, if I were a pig. I’d expect a much warmer welcome.’
‘You were rather a pig just now, weren’t you?’
Ronnie quivered. Remorse gnawed the throbbing heart beneath his beautifully cut waistcoat.
‘I’m sorry. I’m frightfully sorry. The fact is, I’m so crazy about you, I get jealous of everybody you meet. Do you know, Sue, if you ever let me down, I’d . . . I don’t know what I’d do. Er-Sue!’
‘Hullo?’
‘Swear something.’
‘What?’
‘Swear that, while I’m at Blandings, you won’t go out with a soul. Not even to dance.’
‘Not even to dance?’
‘No.’
‘All right.’
‘Especially this man Pilbeam.’
‘I thought you were going to say Hugo.’
‘I’m not worrying about Hugo. He’s safe at Blandings.’
‘Hugo at Blandings?’
‘Yes. He’s secretarying for my Uncle Clarence. I made my mother get him the job when the Hot Spot conked.’
‘So you’ll have him and Millicent and Miss Schoonmaker there to keep you company! How nice for you.’
‘Millicent!’
‘It’s all very well to say “Millicent!” like that. If you ask me, I think she’s a menace. She sounds coy and droopy. I can see her taking you for walks by moonlight under those immemorial elms and looking up at you with big, dreamy eyes . . .’
‘Looking down at me, you mean. She’s about a foot taller than I am. And, anyway, if you imagine there’s a girl on earth who could extract so much as a kindly glance from me when I’ve got you to think about, you’re very much mistaken. I give you my honest word . . .’
He became lyrical. Sue, leaning back, listened contentedly. The cloud had been a threatening cloud, blackening the skies for a while, but it had passed. The afternoon was being golden, after all.
Ill
‘By the way,’ said Ronnie, the flood of eloquence subsiding. A thought occurs. Have you any notion where we’re headed for?’
‘Heaven.’‘I mean at the moment.’
‘I supposed you were taking me to tea somewhere.’
‘But where? We’ve got right out of the tea zone. What with one thing and another, I’ve just been driving at random – to and fro, as it were – and we seem to have worked round to somewhere in the Swiss Cottage neighbourhood. We’d better switch back and set a course for the Carlton or some place. How do you feel about the Carlton?’
‘All right.’
‘Or the Ritz?’
‘Whichever you like.’
‘Or-gosh!’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Sue! I’ve got an idea.’
‘Beginner’s luck.’
‘Why not go to Norfolk Street?’
‘To your home?’
‘Yes. There’s nobody there. And our butler is a staunch bird. He’ll get us tea and say nothing.’
‘I’d like to meet a staunch butler.’
‘Then shall we?’
‘I’d love it. You can show me all your little treasures and belongings and the photographs of you as a small boy.’
Ronnie shook his head. It irked him to discourage her pretty enthusiasm, but a man cannot afford to take risks.
‘Not those. No love could stand up against the sight of me in a sailor suit at the age of ten. I don’t mind,’ he said, making a concession, ‘letting you see the one of me and Hugo, taken just before the Public Schools Rackets Competition, my last year at school. We were the Eton pair.’
‘Did you win?’
‘No. At a critical moment in the semi-final that ass Hugo foozled a shot a one-armed cripple ought to have taken with his eyes shut. It dished us.’
‘Awful!’ said Sue. ‘Well, if I ever had any impulse to love Hugo, that’s killed it.’ She looked about her. ‘I don’t know this aristocratic neighbourhood at all. How far is it to Norfolk Street?’
‘Next turning.’
‘You’re sure there’s nobody in the house? None of the dear old Family?’
‘Not a soul.’
He was right. Lady Constance Keeble was not actually in the house. At the moment when he spoke she had just closed the front door behind her. After waiting half an hour in the hope of her nephew’s return, she had left a note for him on the hall table, and was going to Claridge’s to get a cup of tea.
It was not until he had drawn up immediately opposite the house that Ronnie perceived what stood upon the steps. Having done so, he blenched visibly.
‘Oh, my sainted aunt!’he said.
And seldom can the familiar phrase have been used with more appropriateness.
The sainted aunt was inspecting the two-seater and its contents with a frozen stare. Her eyebrows were two marks of interrogation. As she had told Millicent, she was old-fashioned, and when she saw her flesh and blood snuggled up to girls of attractive appearance in two-seaters, she suspected the worst.
‘Good afternoon, Ronald.’
‘Er – hullo, Aunt Constance.’
‘Will you introduce me?’
There is no doubt that peril sharpens the intellect. His masters at school and his tutors at the University, having had to do with Ronald Overbury Fish almost entirely at times when his soul was at rest, had classed him among the less keen-witted of their charges. Had they seen him now in this crisis they would have pointed at him with pride. And, being the sportsmen and gentlemen that they were, they would have hastened to acknowledge that they had grossly underestimated his ingenuity and initiative.
For, after turning a rather pretty geranium tint and running a finger round the inside of his collar for an instant, as if he found it too tight, Ronnie Fish spoke the only two words in the language which could have averted disaster.
‘Miss Schoonmaker,’ he said, huskily.
Sue at his side gave a little gasp. These were unsuspected depths.
‘Miss Schoonmaker!’
Lady Constance’s resemblance to Apollyon straddling right across the way had vanished abruptly. Remorse came upon her that she should have wronged her blameless nephew with unfounded suspicions.
‘Miss Schoonmaker, my aunt, Lady Constance Keeble,’ said Ronnie, going from strength to strength, and speaking now quite easily and articulately.
Sue was not the girl to sit dumbly by and fail a partner in his hour of need. She smiled brightly.
‘How do you do, Lady Constance?’ she said. She smiled again, if possible even more brightly than before. ‘I feel I know you already. Lady Julia told me so much about you at Biarritz.’
A momentary qualm lest, in the endeavour to achieve an easy cordiality, she had made her manner a shade too patronizing, melted in the sunshine of the older woman’s smile. Lady Constance had become charming, almost effusive. She had always hoped that Ronald and Millicent would make a match of it: but, failing that, this rich Miss Schoonmaker was certainly the next best thing. And driving chummily about London together like this must surely, she thought, mean something, even in these days when chummy driving is so prevalent between the sexes. At any rate, she hoped so.
‘So here you are in London!’
Yes.’
You did not stay long in Paris.’
‘No.’
‘When can you come down to Blandings?’
‘Oh, very soon, I hope.’
‘I am going there this evening. I only ran up for the day. I want you to drive me back, Ronald.’
Ronnie nodded silently. The crisis passed, a weakness had come upon him. He preferred not to speak, if speech
could be avoided.
‘Do try to come soon. The gardens are looking delightful. My brother will be so glad to see you. I was just on my way to Claridge’s for a cup of tea. Won’t you come too?’
‘I’d love to,’ said Sue, ‘but I really must be getting on. Ronnie was taking me shopping.’
‘I thought you stayed in Paris to do your shopping.’
‘Not all of it.’
‘Well, I shall hope to see you soon.’
‘Oh, yes.’
At Blandings.’
‘Thank you so much. Ronnie, I think we ought to be getting along.’
‘Yes.’ Ronnie’s mind was blurred, but he was clear on that point. ‘Yes, getting along. Pushing off.’
‘Well, I’m so delighted to have seen you. My sister told me so much about you in her letters. After you have put your luggage on the car, Ronald, will you come and pick me up at Claridge’s?’
‘Right ho.’
‘I would like to make an early start, if possible.’
‘Right ho.’
‘Well, good-bye for the present, then.’
‘Right ho.’
‘Good-bye, Lady Constance.’
‘Good-bye.’
The two-seater moved off, and Ronnie, taking his right hand from the wheel as it turned the corner, groped for a handkerchief, found it, and passed it over his throbbing brow.
‘So that was Aunt Constance!’ said Sue.
Ronnie breathed deeply.
‘Nice meeting one of whom I have heard so much.’
Ronnie replaced his hand on the wheel and twiddled it feebly to avoid a dog. Reaction had made him limp.
Sue was gazing at him almost reverently.
‘What genius, Ronnie! What ready wit! What presence of mind! If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, I wouldn’t have believed it. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were one of those swift thinkers?’
‘I didn’t know it myself.’
‘Of course, I’m afraid it has complicated things a little.’
‘Eh?’ Ronnie started. This aspect of the matter had not struck him. ‘How do you mean?’
‘When I was a child, they taught me a poem . . .’
Ronnie raised a suffering face to hers.
‘Don’t let’s talk about your childhood now, old thing,’ he pleaded. ‘Feeling rather shaken. Any other time . . .’
‘It’s all right. I’m not wandering from the subject. I can only remember two lines of the poem. They were, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.” You do see the web is a bit tangled, don’t you, Ronnie, darling?’
‘Eh? Why? Everything looks pretty smooth to me. Aunt Constance swallowed you without a yip.’
And when the real Miss Schoonmaker arrives at Blandings with her jewels and her twenty-four trunks?’ said Sue gently.
The two-seater swerved madly across Grosvenor Street.
‘Gosh!’said Ronnie.
Sue’s eyes were sparkling.
‘There’s only one thing to do,’ she said. ‘Now you’re in, you’ll have to go in deeper. You’ll have to put her off.’
‘How?’
‘Send her a wire saying she mustn’t come to Blandings, because scarlet fever or something has broken out.’
‘I couldn’t!’
You must. Sign it in Lady Constance’s name.’
‘But suppose . . .’
‘Well, suppose they do find out? You won’t be in any worse hole than you will be if she comes sailing up to the front door, all ready to stay a couple of weeks. And she will unless you wire.’
‘That’s true.’
‘What it means,’ said Sue, ‘is that instead of having plenty of time to get that money out of Lord Emsworth you’ll have to work quick.’ She touched his arm. ‘Here’s a post-office,’ she said. ‘Go in and send that wire before you weaken.’
Ronnie stopped the car.
‘You will have to do the most rapid bit of trustee-touching in the history of the world, I should think,’ said Sue reflectively. ‘Do you think you can manage it?’
‘I’ll have a jolly good prod.’
‘Remember what it means.’
‘I’ll do that all right. The only trouble is that in the matter of biting Uncle Clarence’s ear I’ve nothing to rely on but my natural charm. And as far as I’ve been able to make out,’ said Ronnie, ‘he hasn’t noticed yet that I have any.’
He strode into the post-office, thinking deeply.
3 SENSATIONAL THEFT OF A PIG
I
It was the opinion of the poet Calverley, expressed in his immortal ‘Ode to Tobacco’, that there is no heaviness of the soul which will not vanish beneath the influence of a quiet smoke. Ronnie Fish would have disputed this theory. It was the third morning of his sojourn at Blandings Castle; and, taking with him a tennis-ball which he proposed to bounce before him in order to assist thought, he had wandered out into the grounds, smoking hard. And tobacco, though Turkish and costly, was not lightening his despondency at all. It seemed to Ronnie that the present was bleak and the future grey. Roaming through the sun-flooded park, he bounced his tennis-ball and groaned in spirit.
On the credit side of the ledger one single item could be inscribed. Hugo was at the castle. He had the consolation, therefore, of knowing that that tall and lissom young man was not in London, exercising his fatal fascination on Sue. But, when you had said this, you had said everything. After all, even eliminating Hugo, there still remained in the metropolis a vast population of adult males, all either acquainted with Sue or trying to make her acquaintance. The poison-sac Pilbeam, for instance. By now it might well be that that bacillus had succeeded in obtaining an introduction to her. A devastating thought.And even supposing he hadn’t, even supposing that Sue, as she had promised, was virtuously handing the mitten to all the young thugs who surged around her with invitations to lunch and supper; where did that get a chap? What, in other words, of the future?
In coming to Blandings Castle, Ronnie was only too well aware, he had embarked on an expedition, the success or failure of which would determine whether his life through the years was to be roses, roses all the way or a dreary desert. And so far, in his efforts to win the favour and esteem of his Uncle Clarence, he seemed to have made no progress whatsoever. On the occasions when he had found himself in Lord Emsworth’s society, the latter had looked at him sometimes as if he did not know he was there, more often as if he wished he wasn’t. It was only too plain that the collapse of the Hot Spot had left his stock in bad shape. There had been a general sagging of the market. Fish Preferred, taking the most sanguine estimate, could scarcely be quoted at more than about thirty to thirty-five.
Plunged in thought, and trying without any success to conjure up a picture of a benevolent uncle patting him on the head with one hand while writing cheques with the other, he had wandered some distance from the house and was passing a small spinney, when he observed in a little dell to his left a peculiar object.
It was a large yellow caravan. And what, he asked himself, was a caravan doing in the grounds of Blandings Castle?
To aid him in grappling with the problem, he flung the tennis-ball at it. Upon which, the door opened and a spectacled head appeared.
‘Hullo!’ said the head.
‘Hullo!’ said Ronnie.
‘Hullo!’
‘Hullo!’
The thing threatened to become a hunting-chorus. At this moment, however, the sun went behind a cloud and Ronnie was enabled to recognize the head’s proprietor. Until now, the light, shining on the other’s glasses, had dazzled him.
‘Baxter!’ he exclaimed.
The last person he would have expected to meet in the park of Blandings. He had heard all about that row a couple of years ago. He knew that, if his own stock with Lord Emsworth was low, that of the Efficient Baxter was down in the cellar, with no takers. Yet here the fellowwas, shoving his head out of caravans as if nothing had ever happened.
‘Ah, Fi
sh!’
Rupert Baxter descended the steps, a swarthy-complexioned young man with a supercilious expression which had always been displeasing to Ronnie.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Ronnie.
‘I happened to be taking a caravan holiday in the neighbourhood. And, finding myself at Market Blandings last night, I thought I would pay a visit to the place where I had spent so many happy days.’
‘I see.’
‘Perhaps you could tell me where I could find Lady Constance?’
‘I haven’t seen her since breakfast. She’s probably about somewhere.’
‘I will go and inquire. If you meet her, perhaps you would not mind mentioning that I am here.’
The Efficient Baxter strode off, purposeful as ever; and Ronnie, having speculated for a moment as to how his Uncle Clarence would comport himself if he came suddenly round a corner and ran into this bit of the dead past, and having registered an idle hope that, when this happened, he might be present with a camera, inserted another cigarette in its holder and passed on his way.
II
Five minutes later, Lord Emsworth, leaning pensively out of the library window and sniffing the morning air, received an unpleasant shock. He could have sworn he had seen his late secretary, Rupert Baxter, cross the gravel and go in at the front door.
‘Bless my soul!’ said Lord Emsworth.The only explanation that occurred to him was that Baxter, having met with some fatal accident, had come back to haunt the place. To suppose the fellow could be here in person was absurd. When you shoot a secretary out for throwing flower-pots at you in the small hours, he does not return to pay social calls. A frown furrowed his lordship’s brow. The spectre of one of his ancestors he could have put up with, but the idea of a Blandings Castle haunted by Baxter he did not relish at all. He decided to visit his sister Constance in her boudoir and see what she had to say about it.
‘Constance, my dear.’
Lady Constance looked up from the letter she was writing. She clicked her tongue, for it annoyed her to be interrupted at her correspondence.
‘Well, Clarence?’
‘I say, Constance, a most extraordinary thing happened just now. I was looking out of the library window and – you remember Baxter?’
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