Blanding Castle Omnibus

by P. G. Wodehouse

  Many men in his position, informed that the Hon. Galahad had decided to withhold his book from publication, would have felt that there was nothing to be done about it. They would have accepted the situation as one beyond their power to change, and would have contented themselves with grieving over their monetary loss and thinking hard thoughts of the man responsible. Lord Tilbury was made of sterner stuff. He grieved—we have seen him grieving—and he thought hard thoughts: but it never occurred to him for an instant not to do something about it.

  A busy man, he could not get away from his office immediately. Pressure of work had delayed the starting of the expedition-until today. But at eleven-fifteen that morning he had taken train for Market Blandings and, after establishing himself at the Emsworth Arms in that sleepy little town, had directed Robinson, of the station taxi, to take him on to the Castle.

  His mood was one of stern self-confidence. The idea that he might fail in his mission did not strike him as even a remote possibility. He had only a dim recollection of the Hon. Galahad, for he had not met him for twenty-five years, and even in the old days had never been really an intimate of his, but he retained a sort of general impression of an amiable, easygoing man. Not at all the type of man to hold out against a forceful, straight from the shoulder talk such as he proposed to subject him to as soon as this door-bell was answered. Lord Tilbury had great faith in the magic of speech. Beach answered the bell.

  ‘Is Mr Threepwood in? Mr Galahad Threepwood?’

  ‘Yes, sir. What name shall I say?’

  ‘Lord Tilbury.’

  ‘Very good, m’lord. If you will step this way. I fancy Mr Galahad is in the small library.’

  The small library, however, proved empty. It contained evidence of the life literary in the shape of a paper-piled desk and a good deal of ink on the carpet and elsewhere, but it had no human occupant.

  ‘Possibly Mr Galahad is on the lawn. He walks there sometimes,’ said the butler indulgently, as one tolerant of the foibles of genius. ‘If your lordship will take a seat…’

  He withdrew, and began to descend the stairs with measured tread, but Lord Tilbury did not take a seat. He was staring, transfixed, at something that lay upon the desk. He drew closer—furtively, with a sidelong eye on the door.

  Yes, his surmise had been correct. It was the manuscript of the Reminiscences that lay before him. Evidently its author had only just risen from the task of polishing it, for the ink was still wet on a paragraph where, searching like some Flaubert for the mot juste, he had run his pen through the word ‘intoxicated’ and substituted it for the more colourful’ pickled to the gills’.

  Lord Tilbury’s eyes, always prominent, bulged a trifle farther from their sockets. His breathing quickened.

  Every man who by his own unaided efforts has succeeded in wresting a great fortune from a resistant world has something of the buccaneer in him, a touch of the practical, Do-It-Now pirate of the Spanish Main. In Lord Tilbury, as a younger man, there had been quite a good deal. And while prosperity and the diminishing necessity of giving trade rivals the elbow had tended to atrophy this quality, it had not died altogether. Standing there within arm’s length of the manuscript, with the coast clear and a taxi waiting at the front door, he was seriously contemplating the quick snatch and the masterful dash for the open.

  And it was perhaps fortunate, for sudden activity of the kind might have proved injurious to a man of his full habit, that 92 before he could quite screw his courage to the sticking point his ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps. He drew back like a cat from a cream-jug, and when the Hon. Galahad arrived was looking out of the window, humming a careless barcarolle.

  The Hon. Galahad paused in the doorway and stuck his black-rimmed monocle in his eye. Behind the glass the eye was bright and questioning. His forehead wrinkled with mental strain as he surveyed his visitor.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he begged. ‘Let me think. I pride myself on my memory. You’re fatter and you’ve aged a lot, but you’re someone I used to know quite well at one time. In some odd way I seem to associate you with a side of beef… Shorty Smith? … Stumpy Whiting? … No, I’ve got it, by gad! Stinker Pyke!’ He beamed with honest satisfaction. ‘Not bad, that, considering that it must be fully twenty-five years since I saw you last. Pyke. That’s who you are. And we used to call you Stinker. Well, well, how are you, Stinker?’

  Lord Tilbury’s face had taken on an austere pinkness. He disliked the reference to his increased bulk, and advancing years, and it is never pleasant for an elderly man of substance to be addressed by a name which even in his youth was offensive to him. He said as much.

  ‘Well, all right. Pyke, then,’ said the Hon. Galahad agreeably. ‘How are you, Pyke? Good Lord, this certainly puts the clock back. The last time I saw you must have been that night at Romano’s when Plug Basham started throwing bread and got a little over-excited, and one thing led to another and in about two minutes there you were on the floor, laid out cold by a dashed great side of beef and all the undertakers present making bids for the body. I can see your face now,’ said the Hon. Galahad, chuckling. ‘Most amusing.’

  He grew more serious. His smile vanished. He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Poor old Plug!’ he sighed. ‘A fellow who never knew where to stop. His only fault, poor chap.’

  Lord Tilbury had not come a hundred and fourteen miles to talk about the late Major Wilfred Basham, a man who, even before the episode alluded to, had never been a favourite of his. He endeavoured to intimate this, but the Hon. Galahad when in reminiscent mood was not an easy man to divert.

  ‘I took the whole thing up with him at the Pelican next day. I tried to reason with him. Throwing sides of beef about in restaurants wasn’t done, I said. Not British. Bread, yes, I said. Sides of beef, no. I pointed out that all the trouble was caused by his fatal practice of always ordering a quart where other men began with pints. He saw it, too. “I know, I know,” he said. “I’m a darned fool. In fact, between you and me, Gally, I suppose I’m one of those fellows my father always warned me against. But the Bashams have always ordered quarts. It’s an old Basham family custom.” Then the only way was, I said, to swear off altogether. He said he couldn’t. A little something with his meals was an absolute necessity to him. So there I had to leave it. And then one day I met him again at a wedding reception at one of the hotels.’

  ‘I…’ said Lord Tilbury.

  ‘A wedding reception,’ proceeded the Hon. Galahad. ‘And, by a curious coincidence, there was another wedding reception going on at the same hotel, and, oddly enough, their bride was some sort of connexion of our bride. So pretty soon these two wedding parties began to mix and mingle, everybody happy and having a good time, and suddenly I felt something pluck at my elbow and there was old Plug, looking as white as a sheet. “Yes Plug?” I said, surprised. The poor, dear fellow uttered a hollow groan. “Gally, old man,” he said, “lead me away old chap. The end has come. The stuff has begun to get me. I have had only the merest sip of champagne, and yet I assure you I can distinctly see two brides”.’

  ‘I…’ said Lord Tilbury.

  ‘A shock to the poor fellow, as you can readily imagine. I could have set his mind at rest, of course, but I saw that this was providential. Just the sort of jolt he had been needing. I drew him into a corner and talked to him like a Dutch uncle. And this time he gave me his solemn word that from that day onward he would never touch another drop. “Can you do it, Plug?” I said. “Have you the strength, the will-power?” “Yes, Gally,” he replied bravely, “I can. Why, dash it,” he said, “I’ve got to. I can’t go through the rest of my life seeing two of everything. Imagine! Two bookies you owe money to… Two process-servers… Two Stinker Pykes…”

  Yes, old man, in that grim moment he thought of you … And he went off with a set, resolute look about his jaw which it did me good to see.’

  ‘I…’ said Lord Tilbury.

  ‘And about two weeks later I came on him in the S
trand, and he was bubbling over with quiet happiness. “It’s all right, Gally.” he said, “it’s all right, old lad. I’ve done it. I’ve won the battle.” “Amazing, Plug,” I said. “Brave chap! Splendid fellow! Was it a terrific strain?” His eyes lit up. “It was at first,” he said. “In fact, it was so tough that I didn’t think I should be able to stick it out. And then I discovered a teetotal drink that is not only palatable but positively appetising. Absinthe, they call it, and now I’ve got that I don’t care if I never touch wine, spirits, or any other intoxicants again”.’

  ‘I am not interested,’ said Lord Tilbury, ‘in your friend Basham.’ The Hon. Galahad was remorseful.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t have rattled on. An old failing of mine, I’m afraid. Probably you’ve come on some most important errand, and here have I been yarning away, wasting your time. Quite right to pull me up. Take a seat, and tell me why you’ve suddenly bobbed up like this after all these years, Stinker.’

  ‘Don’t call me Stinker!’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Forgot. Well, carry on, Pyke.’

  ‘And don’t call me Pyke. My name is Tilbury.’

  The Hon. Galahad started. His monocle fell from his eye, and he screwed it in again thoughtfully. There was a concerned and disapproving look on his face. He shook his head gravely.

  ‘Going about under a false name? Bad. I don’t like that.’

  ‘Cor!’

  ‘It never pays. Honestly, it doesn’t. Sooner or later you’re bound to be found out, and then you get it all the hotter from the judge. I remember saying that to Stiffy Vokes in the year ninety-nine, when he was sneaking about London calling himself Orlando Maltravers in the empty hope of baffling the bookies after a bad City and Suburban. And he, unlike you, had had the elementary sense to put on a false beard. Stinker, old chap,’ said the Hon. Galahad kindly, ‘is it worth while? Can this do anything but postpone the inevitable end? Why not go back and face the music like a man? Or, if the thing’s too bad for that, at least look in at some good theatrical costumier’s and buy some blond whiskers. What is it they are after you for?’

  Lord Tilbury was beginning to wonder if even a volume of Reminiscences which would rock England was worth the price he was paying.

  ‘I call myself Tilbury,’ he said between set teeth, ‘because in a recent Honours List I received a peerage, and Tilbury was the title I selected.’

  Light flooded in upon the Hon. Galahad’s darkness. ‘Oh, you’re Lord Tilbury?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What on earth did they make you a lord for, Stinker?’ asked the Hon. Galahad in frank amazement.

  Lord Tilbury was telling himself that he must be strong.

  ‘I happen to occupy a position of some slight importance in the newspaper world. I am the proprietor of a concern whose name may be familiar to you—the Mammoth Publishing Company.’

  ‘Mammoth?’

  ‘Mammoth.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘Let me think. Why, aren’t the Mammoth the people I sold that book of mine to?’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Stinker—I mean Pyke—I mean Tilbury,’ said the Hon. Galahad regretfully, ‘I’m sorry about that. Yes, by Jove, I am. I’ve let you down, haven’t I? I see now why you’ve come here. You want me to reconsider. Well, I’m afraid you’ve had your journey for nothing, Stinker, old man. I won’t let that book be published.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘No. I can’t argue. I won’t do it.’

  ‘But, good heavens! …’

  ‘I know, I know. But I won’t. I have reasons.’

  ‘Reasons?’

  ‘Private and sentimental reasons.’

  ‘But it’s outrageous. It’s unheard of. You signed the contract. You were satisfied with the terms we proposed …’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with the terms.’

  ‘And you can’t pretend that you are not in a position to deliver the book. There it is on your desk, finished.’ The Hon. Galahad took up the manuscript with something of the tenderness of a mother dandling her first-born. He stared at it, sighed, stared at it again, sighed once more. His heart was aching.

  The more he reread it, the more of a tragedy did it seem to him that this lovely thing should not be given to the world. It was such dashed good stuff. Yes, if he did say it himself, such dashed good stuff. Faithfully and well he had toiled at his great task of erecting a lasting memorial to an epoch in London’s history which, if ever an epoch did, deserved its Homer or its Gibbon, and he had done it, by George! Jolly good, ripping good stuff.

  And no one would ever read the dashed thing.

  ‘A book like this is never finished,’ he said.’ I could go on adding to it for the rest of my life.’

  He sighed again. Then he brightened. The suppression of his masterpiece was the price of Dolly’s daughter’s happiness. If it brought happiness to Dolly’s daughter, there was nothing to regret, nothing to sigh about at all.

  All the same, he did wish that his brother Clarence could have been of tougher fibre and better able, without assistance, to cope with the females of the family.

  He put the manuscript away in a drawer.

  ‘But it’s finished,’ he said, ‘as far as any chance of its ever getting into print is concerned. It will never be published.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No, Stinker, that’s final. I’m sorry. Don’t imagine I don’t see your side of it. I know I’ve treated you badly, and I quite realize how justified you are in blinding and stiffing…’

  ‘Iam not blinding and stiffing. I flatter myself that I have—under extreme provocation—succeeded in keeping this discussion on an amicable footing. I merely say…’

  ‘It’s no use your saying anything, Stinker.’

  ‘Don’t call me …’

  ‘I can’t possibly explain the situation to you. It would take too long. But you can rest assured that nothing you can say will make the slightest difference. I won’t publish.’

  There was a pregnant silence. Lord Tilbury’s gaze, which had fastened itself, like that of a Pekinese on coffee-sugar, upon the drawer into which he had seen the manuscript disappear, shifted to the man who stood between him and it. He stared at the Hon. Galahad wistfully, as if yearning for that side of beef which had once proved so irresistible a weapon in the hand of Plug Basham.

  The fever passed. The battle-light died out of his eyes. He rose stiffly.

  ‘In that case I will bid you good afternoon.’

  ‘You’re not going?’

  ‘I am going.’

  The Hon. Galahad was distressed.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t take it like this. Why get stuffy, Stinker? Sit down. Have a chat. Stay on and join us for a bite of dinner.’ Lord Tilbury gulped. ‘Dinner!’

  A harmless word, but on his lips it somehow managed to acquire the sound of a rich Elizabethan oath—the sort of thing Ben Jonson, in his cups, might have flung at Beaumont and Fletcher.

  ‘Dinner!’ said Tilbury.’ Cor!’

  There are moments in life when only sharp physical action can heal the wounded spirit. Just as a native of India, stung by a scorpion, will seek to relieve his agony by running, so now did Lord Tilbury, fresh from this scene with one who seemed to him well fitted to be classified as a human scorpion, desire to calm himself with a brisk cross-country walk. Reaching the broad front steps and seeing before him the station taxi, he was conscious of a feeling amounting almost to nausea at the thought of climbing into its mildew-scented interior and riding back to the Emsworth Arms.

  He produced money, thrust it upon the surprised Robinson, mumbled unintelligently and, turning abruptly, began to stump off in a westerly direction. Robinson, having pursued him with a solid, silent, Shropshire stare till he had vanished behind a shrubbery, threw in his clutch and drove pensively homewards.

  Lord Tilbury stumped on, busy with his thoughts.

  At first chaotic, these began gradually to take sh
ape. His mind returned to that project which he had conceived while standing alone in the small library. A single object seemed to be imprinted on his retina—that desk in which the Hon. Galahad had placed his manuscript.

  He yearned for direct action against that desk.

  Like all reformed buccaneers, he put up a good case for himself in extenuation of this resurgence of the Old Adam. To take that manuscript, he argued, would merely be to take that which was rightfully his. He had a legal claim to it. The contract had been signed and witnessed. Payment in advance had changed hands. Normally, no doubt, as between author and publisher, the author would have wrapped his work in brown paper, stuck stamps on it, and posted it. But if the eccentric fellow preferred to leave it in a desk for the publisher to come and fetch it, the thing still remained a legitimate business transaction.

  And how simple the looting of that desk would be, he felt, if only he were staying in the house. From the careless, casual way in which the Hon. Galahad had put the manuscript in that drawer he had received a strong impression that he would not even bother to lock it. Anybody staying in the house …

  Bitter remorse swept over Lord Tilbury as he strode broodingly through the heat-hushed grounds of Blandings Castle. He saw now what a mistake he had made in taking that proud, offended attitude with the Hon. Galahad. If only he had played his cards properly, taken the thing with a smile, accepted that invitation to dinner and gone on playing his cards properly, he would almost certainly before nightfall have been asked to move his belongings from the Emsworth Arms and come and stay at the Castle. And then…

  Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been. Groaning in spirit, Lord Tilbury walked on. And suddenly as he walked there came to his nostrils the only scent in the world which could have diverted his mind from that which weighed it.