Blanding Castle Omnibus

by P. G. Wodehouse

  'When I say "modern trends",' proceeded Gally, 'I am thinking at the moment of the amusement world. Amazing how people's tastes have altered since I was your age. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutumur in illis.'

  'You betcher,' said Tipton, fogged but courteous.

  'Take the simple matter of having a drink. In my young days one just went down the street to a bar.'

  'And not at all a bad thing to do,' said Tipton.

  'Quite. But see how the motor-car has changed all that. The cry now is all for the great outdoors. The fellow with a thirst grabs the nearest girl, dumps her in his automobile, and ho for the open spaces. Instead of suffocating in some smelly bar in London they take their refreshment on the cool terrace swept by the healthy breezes of a country inn outside Oxford.'

  'Oxford?'

  'Oxford.'

  'Why Oxford particularly?' asked Tipton.

  'Because,' said Gally, 'that is the modern trend. Oxford is a nice easy distance, and you are right away from all the stuffiness of London. A man who owns an inn anywhere near Oxford is a man to be envied.'

  'I guess so,' said Tipton.

  'Such a man, to take an instance, as Bill.'

  'Bill?'

  'Bill.'

  'This Bill?'

  'That's the one,' said Gally. 'He is the proprietor of a picturesque inn not far from Oxford, and what I have been telling him is that if he branches out and turns the place into what they call in your country a roadhouse with all the modern improvements, he has a gold mine. You probably agree with me?'

  'Oh, sure.'

  'I thought you would. Properly developed, this inn of Bill's would be a bonanza.'

  'I'll say.'

  'It is situated in the most delightful spot of one of England's most delightful counties. People would come from miles around merely to look at the scenery. Add a first-class cellar, squash racket courts, a jazz band and really fine cooking, perfectly served – out of doors on the terrace in good weather, in the richly panelled dining-room when it was wet – and you would have something which would draw the automobile trade like a magnet.'

  'Is the dining-room richly panelled?'

  'Not yet. I was going to touch on that point. To develop this place – the Mulberry Tree is its name – will require capital.'

  'Sure. You can't branch out without capital.'

  'I close my eyes,' said Gally, doing so, 'and I seem to see the Mulberry Tree as it will be when all the improvements are completed. Turning in off the main road, we drive through a fairylike garden studded with coloured lanterns.'

  'With a fountain in the middle.'

  'With, of course, a fountain in the middle.'

  'Lit up with coloured lights.'

  'Lit up, as you say, with coloured lights. I really am delighted at the way you are taking hold, my dear Tippy. I knew that I should interest you.'

  'Oh, you do. Where were we?'

  'We had reached the fountain. To our right are wide, spreading gardens, rich in every variety of flower; to our left, through the dim, mysterious trees, we catch a glimpse of shimmering silver.'

  'Do we?' said Tipton. 'Why's that?'

  'The swimming pool,' explained Gally.

  'There's a swimming pool, is there?'

  'There will be – once we have got the capital.'

  Tipton reflected.

  'I'd have artificial waves.'

  'An admirable idea.'

  'Artificial waves make such a difference.'

  'All the difference. Make a note of artificial waves, Bill.'

  'Right ho, Gally.'

  'We then approach the terrace.'

  'That's where the dinner is?'

  'If the night is fine.'

  'Look,' said Tipton, beginning to take fire, 'I'll tell you about that terrace. Make it a bower of roses.'

  'We will.'

  'You want one of those things you have over things. What are those things you have over things?'

  'Umbrellas?' hazarded Bill.

  'Bill!' said Gally reproachfully. 'You can't get an umbrella to smell like roses. You know that. The word Tippy is searching for, I imagine, is "pergolas".'

  'Pergolas. That's right. You've got to have a rose-covered pergola, and you hide your jazz band behind a mass of luxurious honeysuckle. Gosh, it'll be great,' said Tipton, snapping his fingers. 'How much per head for dinner?'

  'Eight shillings, I thought.'

  'Make it ten bob. No one will ever know the difference. Well, look. Call it on an average night two hundred dinners at ten bob a nob, that's a hundred quid right out of the box. And when you reflect that that's going on all through the summer ... And then there are the drinks. Don't forget the drinks. That's where the big profit comes in. Cocktails would be served on little tables around the fountain.'

  'And on the brink of the swimming pool.'

  Tipton had begun to pace up and down, expressing his emotion in sweeping gestures.

  'Bill,' he said, 'you're on to a big thing.'

  'I think so, Tippy.'

  'Yessir, big. Folks'll come from all over the country. You won't be able to keep them away with an injunction. They'll have to tell off a special squad of cops to handle the traffic. You'll be a millionaire before you know where you are.'

  'That's what I tell him,' said Gally. 'Really, one sees no limits to the enterprise.'

  'None,' agreed Tipton.

  'There only remains this trifling matter of the capital.'

  'The capital. Sure.'

  'Get the capital, and we can start to-morrow.'

  'Get the capital, and you're home.'

  'Three thousand might do it.'

  'Four would be safer.'

  'Or five.'

  'Yes, maybe five. Yes, five's the figure I see.'

  Gally laid an affectionate hand on Tipton's shoulder and massaged it.

  'You would really be prepared to put up five thousand pounds?' he asked tenderly.

  Tipton stared.

  'Me? Put up five thousand pounds? I'm not going to put up anything,' he said, chuckling a little at the bizarreness of the idea. 'Why, I might lose my money. But I guess you'll get your capital all right. Ask around. And now you'll have to excuse me. I promised to take Vee for a row on the lake.'

  He gambolled off, the picture of youth and life and happiness. It is possible that he may have known that he was leaving aching hearts behind him, but not probable. Tipton Plimsoll was a rather self-centred young man.

  VII

  Gally looked at Bill. Bill looked at Gally. For a moment neither spoke, their thoughts being too deep for words. Then Gally made an observation which he had once heard from the lips of a disappointed punter at a suburban race meeting on the occasion of his finding that the bookmaker with whom he had wagered on the winner of the last race had packed up and disappeared, leaving no address. It seemed to relieve him. His manner became calmer.

  'Well, that's that, Bill.'

  'That's that, Gally.'

  'An extraordinarily similar thing happened to an old friend of mine many years ago, when he was trying to interest a wealthy young man in a club which he was planning to open. He told me with tears in his eyes, I remember, that he could have betted his entire fortune, if he had had one, that the chap was just about to reach for his cheque book. These things do happen. One must accept them with grim fortitude. We now come back to Clarence. I'd give anything to know if Hermione has got that necklace. If she hasn't, it may be possible to achieve the happy ending by means of a little inspired bluffing. Ah, here she comes.'

  Bill leaped like a hooked worm.

  'Eh? What? Where?' He cast a feverish eye towards the house and saw that the bad news was only too true. Lady Hermione, accompanied by Lord Emsworth, had just come through the french windows of the drawing-room. 'Gally, I'm off'.

  The Hon. Galahad nodded.

  'Yes, I think perhaps it would be best if you left me to handle the negotiations. If I were you, I'd go and have a chat with Prue. I saw her just now going in the dir
ection of the rose garden. You will find the rose garden over there,' said Gally, pointing. 'I'll join you later,' he said, and turned to meet his flesh and blood, who were now making their way towards him across the terrace. His face was hard and determined. His monocle gleamed with quiet resolution. He looked like a featherweight contender entering the ring to do battle with the champion.

  It was as his sister drew near and he was able to study her face that a sudden quick hope strengthened his doughty heart. Hers, it seemed to him, was not the air of a woman who by getting her hooks on necklaces has outgeneralled the opposition. It was unmistakably one of gloom.

  'Tails up!' said Gally to his heart, and his heart replied, 'You betcher.'

  In supposing Lady Hermione to be gloomy, Gally had been right. It is fortunately only very rarely that in any given family in the English upper classes you will find two members of it who have drained the bitter cup in a single afternoon. The average of mental anguish is as a rule lower. But this had happened to-day. We have shown Colonel Wedge frankly confessing that he had done so, and Lady Hermione, if questioned, would have been obliged to make the same admission. As she came on to the terrace, her spirits were at a very low ebb and she was recognizing the outlook as unsettled.

  To the best of her knowledge, the necklace still remained in her brother Galahad's possession, and his prediction that she would be compelled to throw in the towel still rang in her ears. The more she contemplated the position of affairs, the more sadly convinced did she become that he was right, and a proud woman dislikes having to throw in towels. But she could see no way out of it.

  Freddie, delivering his ultimatum at the general meeting, had seemed to her to speak with the voice of doom. Were he to carry out his threat of telling all to Tipton Plimsoll, disaster must ensue. She had been deeply impressed by the haughty and imperious spirit which Tipton had shown when switching necklaces from spot to spot in the drawing-room. There, she had felt, stood a man who would stand no nonsense. Let him discover that he had been deceived, and he would break off the engagement. And at the thought of her child losing such a mate, she quailed.

  It would be but a poor consolation to her in later years, when people were congratulating her on Veronica's marriage to the reasonably eligible husband whom the future would no doubt produce, to tell them that they ought to have seen the one that got away.

  Reflections such as these had weakened her once iron will. She was beginning to think that there were more important things in life than checking the impulse of her sister Dora's daughter to marry into the Underworld. She had not revised her opinion that Bill was the dregs of humanity, but there had begun to steal over her the feeling that it was Dora's place, not hers, to do the worrying.

  She was, in short, but a shell of her former self. She had become a defeatist.

  Gally was a man who believed in brisk attack. He wasted no time in preliminaries.

  'Well?' he said.

  Lady Hermione quivered, but was silent.

  'Made up your mind?' said Gally.

  There was almost a pleading note in Lady Hermione's voice as she endeavoured to reason with him.

  'But, Galahad, you can't want your niece to marry a penniless artist?'

  'He isn't a penniless artist. He's the owner of what will be the finest roadhouse in England as soon as Clarence has put up the capital for modernization and improvements.'

  'Eh?' said Lord Emsworth, whose thoughts had wandered.

  'Listen, Clarence,' said Gally. 'Do you want to make a lot of money?'

  'I've got a lot of money,' said Lord Emsworth.

  'You can always do with a bit more.'

  'True.'

  'Picture to yourself, Clarence,' said Gally, 'a fair countryside, and in that countryside a smiling inn. Its grounds,' he hurried on, for he could see that his brother was about to ask why the inn was smiling, 'are dotted – very profusely dotted – with groups sucking down cocktails at a couple of bob a go. Its terrace is a solid mass of diners enjoying the ten-shilling dinner under a bower of roses. There are lanterns. There is a fountain, lit by coloured lights. There is a swimming pool with – mark this, Clarence – artificial waves. It is, in short, the most popular place of its kind in the country, the turnover being terrific.'

  Lord Emsworth said it sounded nice, and Gally assured him that he had found the mot juste.

  'A gold mine,' he said. 'And a half share in it, Clarence, is yours for five thousand pounds.'

  'Five thousand pounds?'

  'You can hardly believe it, can you? A mere pittance. And no need,' said Gally, seeing that the other had become meditative, 'to dig up the money on the nail. All I want from you is a letter to my godson, Bill Lister, promising to cough up in due course.'

  Lord Emsworth had begun to fiddle with his pince-nez – a bad sign, in Gally's opinion. He had often seen bank managers fiddle with their pince-nez when he looked in to arrange about an overdraft.

  'Well, I don't know, Galahad.'

  'Come, come, Clarence.'

  'Five thousand pounds is a great deal of money.'

  'A sprat to catch a whale. You'll see it back at the end of the first year. Did I mention that there would be a first-class jazz orchestra playing behind a mass of honeysuckle?'

  Lord Emsworth shook his head.

  'I'm sorry, Galahad—'

  Gally's face hardened.

  'All right,' he said. 'Then mark the alternative. I stick to that necklace, and what ensues? Ruin and misery and desolation. Young Plimsoll breaks off his engagement to Veronica. Mrs Freddie divorces Freddie.'

  'Eh?'

  'And poor old Freddie, I suppose, comes to eke out the sad remainder of his days at Blandings Castle.'

  'What!'

  'It seems the logical thing for him to do. The wounded bird creeping back to the old nest. You'll like having Freddie at Blandings. Nice company for your declining years.'

  Lord Emsworth recovered the pince-nez which had leaped from his nose. On his face, as he replaced them, there was the look of one who has come to a decision.

  'I'll go and write that letter at once,' he said. 'The name is Lister?'

  'William Lister,' said Gally. 'L for Laryngitis, I for Ipecacuanha, S for—'

  But Lord Emsworth had gone.

  'Ha!' said Gally, removing his hat and fanning with it a brow which had become a little heated.

  His sister Hermione, too, seemed to be under a sense of strain. Her eyes were bulging, and there was a tinge of purple in her cheeks.

  'And now, perhaps, Galahad,' she said, 'you will be good enough to give me that necklace.'

  There was a brief pause. It was as if the Hon. Galahad shrank from saying what he feared might wound.

  'I haven't got it.'

  'What!'

  'I'm sorry. Not my fault. I'll tell you exactly what happened,' said Gally, with manly regret. 'From motives of safety, in case you might feel the urge to come and hunt about in my room, I put it in a place where I thought you wouldn't dream of looking. Yesterday young Plimsoll gave me his flask to keep for him – a large, roomy flask—'

  He paused. A stricken cry had rung through the quiet garden. Lady Hermione was looking like a cook who has seen a black beetle in her kitchen and the last of the beetle powder used up yesterday.

  'You put the necklace in Tipton's flask?'

  'A dashed shrewd hiding place, I thought. But I'm sorry to say the bally thing has been removed. Who has got it now I can't tell you.'

  'I can,' said Lady Hermione. 'He gave it to me. I met him coming out of my room just now, and he pressed it into my hand with a strange, wild look in his eyes, and asked me to take care of it for him.'

  Her voice trailed away in a sigh that was like the wind blowing through the cracks in a broken heart.

  'Galahad,' she said, 'you ought to have been a confidence man.'

  'So people have told me,' said Gally, flattered. 'Well, that's fine. If you've got the thing, you can give it to Freddie, and the matter is closed. Everybo
dy happy, loving young hearts united, nothing to worry about. And now I'll go and see how Clarence is getting on with that letter. After that, I have to go and meet a couple of people in the rose garden.'

  He trotted off towards the house, going hippety-hippety-hop like an elderly Christopher Robin.

  THE END

  P. G. Wodehouse

  IN ARROW BOOKS

  If you have enjoyed Full Moon, you'll love Jeeves and Wooster

  FROM

  Right Ho, Jeeves

  'Jeeves,' I said, 'may I speak frankly?'

  'Certainly, sir.'

  'What I have to say may wound you.'

  'Not at all, sir.'

  'Well, then –'

  No – wait. Hold the line a minute. I've gone off the rails.

  I don't know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I'm telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it. It's a thing you don't want to go wrong over, because one false step and you're sunk. I mean, if you fool about too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it, and all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.

  Get off the mark, on the other hand, like a scalded cat, and your public is at a loss. It simply raises its eyebrows, and can't make out what you're talking about.

  And in opening my report of the complex case of Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeline Bassett, my Cousin Angela, my Aunt Dahlia, my Uncle Thomas, young Tuppy Glossop, and the cook, Anatole, with the above spot of dialogue, I see that I have made the second of these two floaters.

  I shall have to hark back a bit. And taking it for all in all, and weighing this against that, I suppose the affair may be said to have had its inception, if inception is the word I want, with that visit of mine to Cannes. If I hadn't gone to Cannes, I shouldn't have met the Bassett or bought that white mess jacket, and Angela wouldn't have met her shark, and Aunt Dahlia wouldn't have played baccarat.

  Yes, most decidedly, Cannes was the point d'appui.

  Right ho, then. Let me marshal my facts.

  I went to Cannes – leaving Jeeves behind, he having intimated that he did not wish to miss Ascot – round about the beginning of June. With me travelled my Aunt Dahlia and her daughter Angela. Tuppy Glossop, Angela's betrothed, was to have been of the party, but at the last moment couldn't get away. Uncle Tom, Aunt Dahlia's husband, remained at home, because he can't stick the South of France at any price.