19 GALLY TAKES MATTERS IN HAND
Sue stood on the balcony, looking out into the night. Velvet darkness shrouded the world, and from the heart of it came the murmur of rustling trees and the clean, sweet smell of earth and flowers. A little breeze had sprung up, stirring the ivy at her side. Somewhere in it a bird was chirping drowsily, and in the distance sounded the tinkle of running water.
She sighed. It was a night made for happiness. And she was quite sure now that happiness was not for her.A footstep sounded behind her, and she turned eagerly.
‘Ronnie?’
It was the voice of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood that answered.
‘Only me, I’m afraid, my dear. May I come on to your balcony? God bless my soul, as Clarence would say, what a wonderful night!’
‘Yes,’ said Sue doubtfully.
‘You don’t think so.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘I bet you don’t. I know I didn’t, that night when my old father put his foot down and told me I was leaving for South Africa on the next boat. Just such a night as this it was, I remember.’ He rested his arms on the parapet. ‘I never saw your mother after she was married,’ he said.
‘No?’
‘No. She left the stage and . . . . Oh, well, I was rather busy at the time – lot of heavy drinking to do, and so forth – and somehow we never met. The next thing I heard – two or three years ago – was that she was dead. You’re very like her, my dear. Can’t think why I didn’t spot the resemblance right away.’
He became silent. Sue did not speak. She slid her hand under his arm. It was all that there seemed to do. A corncrake began to call monotonously in the darkness.
‘That means rain,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘Or not. I forget which. Did you ever hear your mother sing that song . . .? No, you wouldn’t. Before your time. About young Ronald,’ he said, abruptly.
‘What about him?’
‘Fond of him?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean really fond?’
‘Yes.’
‘How fond?’
Sue leaned out over the parapet. At the foot of the wall beneath her Percy Pilbeam, who had been peering out of a bush, popped his head back again. For the detective, possibly remembering with his subconscious mind stories heard in childhood of Bruce and the spider, had refused to admit defeat and had returned by devious ways to the scene of his disaster. Five hundred pounds is a lot of money, and Percy Pilbeam was not going to be deterred from attempting to earn it by the fact that at his last essay he had only just succeeded in escaping with his life. The influence of his potations had worn off to some extent, and he was his calm, keen self again. It was his intention to lurk in these bushes till the small hours, if need be, and then to attack the waterspout again and so the Garden Room where the manuscript of the Hon. Galahad’s Reminiscences lay. You cannot be a good detective if you are easily discouraged.
‘I can’t put it into words,’ said Sue.
‘Try.’
‘No. Everything you say straight out about the way you feel about anybody always sounds silly. Besides, to you Ronnie isn’t the sort of man you could understand anyone raving about. You look on him just as something quite ordinary.’
‘If that,’ said the Hon. Galahad critically.
Yes, if that. Whereas to me he’s something . . . rather special. In fact, if you really want to know how I feel about Ronnie, he’s the whole world to me. There! I told you it would sound silly. It’s like something out of a song, isn’t it? I’ve worked in the chorus of that sort of song a hundred times. Two steps left, two steps right, kick, smile, both hands on heart – because he’s all the wo-orld to me-ee! You can laugh if you like.’
There was a momentary pause.
‘I’m not laughing,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘My dear, I only wanted to find out if you really cared for that young Fish . . .’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call him “that young Fish”.’
‘I’m sorry, my dear. It seems to describe him so neatly. Well, I just wanted to be quite sure you really were fond of him, because . . .’
‘Well?’
‘Well, because I’ve just fixed it all up.’
She clutched at the parapet.
‘What!’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘It’s all settled. I don’t say that you can actually count on an aunt-in-law’s embrace from my sister Constance – in fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t risk it. She might bite you – but, apart from that, everything’s all right. The wedding bells will ring out. Your young man’s in the garden somewhere. You had better go and find him and tell him the news. He’ll be interested.’
‘But . . .but . . .’
Sue was clutching his arm. A wild impulse was upon her to shout and sob. She had no doubts now as to the beauty of the night.
‘But . . . how? Why? What has happened?’
‘Well . . . You’ll admit I might have married your mother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which makes me a sort of honorary father to you.’
‘Yes.’
‘In which capacity, my dear, your interests are mine. More than mine, in fact. So what I did was to make your happiness the Price of the Papers. Ever see that play? No, before your time. It ran at the Adelphi before you were born. There was a scene where . . .’
‘What do you mean?’
The Hon. Galahad hesitated a moment.
‘Well, the fact of the matter is, my dear, knowing how strongly my sister Constance has always felt on the subject of those Reminiscences of mine, I went to her and put it to her squarely. “Clarence,” I said to her, “is not the sort of man to make any objection to anyone marrying anybody, so long as he isn’t expected to attend the wedding. You’re the real obstacle,” I said. “You and Julia. And if you come round, you can talk Julia over in five minutes. You know she relies on your judgement.” And then I said that, if she gave up acting like a barbed-wire entanglement in the path of true love, I would undertake not to publish the Reminiscences.’
Sue clung to his arm. She could find no words.
Percy Pilbeam, who, for the night was very still, had heard all, could have found many. Nothing but the delicate nature of his present situation kept him from uttering them, and that only just. To Percy Pilbeam it was as if he had seen five hundred pounds flutter from his grasp like a vanishing blue bird. He raged dumbly. In all London and the Home Counties there were few men who liked five hundred pounds better than P. Frobisher Pilbeam.
‘Oh!’ said Sue. Nothing more. Her feelings were too deep. She hugged his arm. ‘Oh!’ she said, and again ‘Oh!’
She found herself crying, and was not ashamed.
‘Now, come!’ said the Hon. Galahad protestingly. ‘Nothing so very extraordinary in that, was there? Nothing so exceedingly remarkable in one pal helping another?’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Then don’t say it,’ said the Hon. Galahad, much relieved. ‘Why, bless you, I don’t care whether the damned things are published or not. At least . . . . No, certainly I don’t . . . . Only cause a lot of unpleasantness. Besides, I’ll leave the dashed book to the Nation and have it published in a hundred years and become the Pepys of the future, what? Best thing that could have happened. Homage of Posterity and all that.’
‘Oh!’said Sue.
The Hon. Galahad chuckled.
‘It is a shame, though, that the world will have to wait a hundred years before it hears the story of young Gregory Parsloe and the prawns. Did you get to that when you were reading the thing this evening?’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t read very much,’ said Sue. ‘I was thinking of Ronnie rather a lot.’
‘Oh? Well, I can tell you. You needn’t wait a hundred years. It was at Ascot, the year Martingale won the Gold Cup . . .’
Down below, Percy Pilbeam rose from his bush. He did not care now if he were seen. He was still a guest in this hole of a castle, and if a guest cannot pop in and out of b
ushes if he likes, where does British hospitality come in? It was his intention to shake the dust of Blandings off his feet, to pass the night at the Emsworth Arms, and on the morrow to return to London, where he was appreciated.
‘Well, my dear, it was like this. Young Parsloe . . .’
Percy Pilbeam did not linger. The story of the prawns meant nothing to him. He turned away, and the summer night swallowed him. Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted. It seemed to Pilbeam that there was derision in the sound. He frowned. His teeth came together with a click.
If he could have found it, he would have had a word with that owl.
IN ARROW BOOKS
If you have enjoyed Jeeves and Wooster, you’ll love Blanding
FROM
Joy in the Morning
After the thing was all over, when peril had ceased to loom and happy endings had been distributed in heaping handfuls and we were driving home with our hats on the side of our heads, having shaken the dust of Steeple Bumpleigh from our tyres, I confessed to Jeeves that there had been moments during the recent proceedings when Bertram Wooster, though no weakling, had come very near to despair.
‘Within a toucher, Jeeves.’‘Unquestionably affairs had developed a certain menacing trend, sir.’
‘I saw no ray of hope. It looked to me as if the blue bird had thrown in the towel and formally ceased to function. And yet here we are, all boomps-a-daisy. Makes one think a bit, that.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘There’s an expression on the tip of my tongue which seems to me to sum the whole thing up. Or, rather, when I say an expression, I mean a saying. A wheeze. A gag. What, I believe, is called a saw. Something about Joy doing something.’
‘Joy cometh in the morning, sir?’
‘That’s the baby. Not one of your things, is it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, it’s dashed good,’ I said.
And I still think that there can be no neater way of putting in a nutshell the outcome of the super-sticky affair of Nobby Hop-wood, Stilton Cheesewright, Florence Craye, my Uncle Percy, J. Chichester Clam, Edwin the Boy Scout and old Boko Fittle-worth – or, as my biographers will probably call it, the Steeple Bumpleigh Horror.
Even before the events occurred which I am about to relate, the above hamlet had come high up on my list of places to be steered sedulously clear of. I don’t know if you have ever seen one of those old maps where they mark a spot with a cross and put ‘Here be dragons’ or ‘Keep ye eye skinned for hippogriffs’, but I had always felt that some such kindly warning might well have been given to pedestrians and traffic with regard to this Steeple Bumpleigh.
A picturesque settlement, yes. None more so in all Hampshire. It lay embowered, as I believe the expression is, in the midst of smiling fields and leafy woods, hard by a willow-fringed river, and you couldn’t have thrown a brick in it without hitting a honeysuckle-covered cottage or beaning an apple-cheeked villager. But you remember what the fellow said – it’s not a bally bit of use every prospect pleasing if man is vile, and the catch about Steeple Bumpleigh was that it contained Bumpleigh Hall, which in its turn contained my Aunt Agatha and her second husband.And when I tell you that this second h. was none other than Percival, Lord Worplesdon, and that he had with him his daughter Florence and his son Edwin, the latter as pestilential a stripling as ever wore khaki shorts and went spooring or whatever it is that these Boy Scouts do, you will understand why I had always declined my old pal Boko Fittleworth’s invitations to visit him at the bijou residence he maintained in those parts.
I had also had to be similarly firm with Jeeves, who had repeatedly hinted his wish that I should take a cottage there for the summer months. There was, it appeared, admirable fishing in the river, and he is a man who dearly loves to flick the baited hook. ‘No, Jeeves,’ I had been compelled to say, ‘much though it pains me to put a stopper on your simple pleasures, I cannot take the risk of running into that gang of pluguglies. Safety first.’ And he had replied, ‘Very good, sir,’ and there the matter had rested.
But all the while, unsuspected by Bertram, the shadow of Steeple Bumpleigh was creeping nearer and nearer, and came a day when it tore off its whiskers and pounced.
Oddly enough, the morning on which this major disaster occurred was one that found me completely, even exuberantly, in the pink. No inkling of the soup into which I was to be plunged came to mar my perfect bien être. I had slept well, shaved well and shower-bathed well, and it was with a merry cry that I greeted Jeeves as he brought in the coffee and kippers.
‘Odd’s boddikins, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I am in rare fettle this a.m. Talk about exulting in my youth! I feel up and doing, with a heart for any fate, as Tennyson says.’
‘Longfellow, sir.’
‘Or, if you prefer it, Longfellow. I am in no mood to split hairs. Well, what’s the news?’
‘Miss Hopwood called while you were still asleep, sir.’
‘No, really? I wish I’d seen her.’
‘The young lady was desirous of entering your room and rousing you with a wet sponge, but I dissuaded her. I considered it best that your repose should not be disturbed.’
I applauded this watch-dog spirit, showing as it did both the kindly heart and the feudal outlook, but continued to tut-tut a bit at having missed the young pipsqueak, with whom my relations had always been of the matiest. This Zenobia (‘Nobby’) Hopwood was old Worplesdon’s ward, as I believe it is called. A pal of his, just before he stopped ticking over some years previously, had left him in charge of his daughter. I don’t know how these things are arranged – no doubt documents have to be drawn up and dotted lines signed on – but, whatever the procedure, the upshot was as I have stated. When all the smoke had cleared away, my Uncle Percy was Nobby’s guardian.
‘Young Nobby, eh? When did she blow into the great city?’ I asked. For, on becoming Uncle Percy’s ward, she had of course joined the strength at his Steeple Bumpleigh lair, and it was only rarely nowadays that she came to London.
‘Last night, sir.’
‘Making a long stay?’
‘Only until to-morrow, sir.’
‘Hardly worth while sweating up just for a day, I should have thought.’
‘I understand that she came because her ladyship desired her company, sir.’
I quailed a bit.
‘You don’t mean Aunt Agatha’s in London?’
‘Merely passing through, sir,’ replied the honest fellow, calming my apprehensions. ‘Her ladyship is on her way to minister to Master Thomas, who has contracted mumps at his school.’
His allusion was to the old relative’s son by her first marriage, one of our vilest citizens. Many good judges rank him even higher in England’s Rogues’ Gallery than her stepson Edwin. I was rejoiced to learn that he had got mumps, and toyed for a moment with a hope that Aunt Agatha would catch them from him.
And what had Nobby to say for herself?’
‘She was regretting that she saw so little of you nowadays, sir.’
‘Quite mutual, the agony, Jeeves. There are few better eggs than this Hopwood.’
‘She expressed a hope that you might shortly see your way to visiting Steeple Bumpleigh.’
I shook the head.
‘Out of the q., Jeeves.’
‘The young lady tells me the fish are biting well there just now.’
‘No, Jeeves. I’m sorry. Not even if they bite like serpents do I go near Steeple Bumpleigh.’
‘Very good, sir.’
He spoke sombrely, and I endeavoured to ease the strain by asking for another cup of coffee.
‘Was Nobby alone?’
‘No, sir. There was a gentleman with her, who spoke as if he were acquainted with you. Miss Hopwood addressed him as Stilton.’
‘Big chap?’
‘Noticeably well developed, sir.’
‘With a head like a pumpkin?’
‘Yes, sir. There was a certain resemblance to the vegetable.’
; ‘It must have been a companion of my earlier years named G. D’Arcy Cheesewright. In our whimsical way we used to call him Stilton. I haven’t seen him for ages. He lives in the country somewhere, and to hobnob with Bertram Wooster it is imperative that you stick around the metropolis. Odd, him knowing Nobby.’
‘I gathered from the young lady’s remarks that Mr Cheese-wright is also a resident of Steeple Bumpleigh, sir.’
‘Really? It’s a small world, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I don’t know when I’ve seen a smaller,’ I said, and would have gone more deeply into the subject, but at this juncture the telephone tinkled out a summons, and he shimmered off to answer it. Through the door, which he had chanced to leave ajar, the ear detected a good deal of Yes-my-lord-ing and Very-good-my-lord-ing, seeming to indicate that he had hooked one of the old nobility.
‘Who was it?’ I asked, as he filtered in again.
‘Lord Worplesdon, sir.’
It seems almost incredible to me, looking back, that I should have received this news item with nothing more than a mildly surprised ‘Oh, ah?’ Amazing, I mean, that I shouldn’t have spotted the sinister way in which what you might call the Steeple Bumpleigh note had begun to intrude itself like some creeping fog or miasma, and trembled in every limb, asking myself what this portended. But so it was. The significance of the thing failed to penetrate and, as I say, I oh-ahed with merely a faint spot of surprise.
‘The call was for me, sir. His lordship wishes me to go to his office immediately.’
‘He wants to see you?’
‘Such was the impression I gathered, sir.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘No, sir. Merely that the matter was of considerable urgency.’
I mused, thoughtfully champing a kipper. It seemed to me that there could be but one solution.
‘Do you know what I think, Jeeves? He’s in a spot of some kind and needs your counsel.’
‘It may be so, sir.’
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