Blanding Castle Omnibus

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, my heart bleeds for you, my poor young piece of human wreckage, but this bears out what I was saying, that the sum total of your fiancées is not two, but one. It’s nice to have got that straight.’

  Another hollow groan escaped Archie Gilpin. His hand rose, but Lord Ickenham caught it in time.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t touch it. It looks lovely.’

  ‘But you don’t know what happened just now. You could have knocked me down with a toothpick. I was coming along by the Emsworth Arms, and I saw her.’

  ‘Miss Rigby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Probably a mirage.’

  ‘No she was there in the flesh.’

  ‘What in the world was she doing in Market Blandings?’

  ‘Apparently old Tilbury came here for some reason …

  Lord Ickenham nodded. He knew that reason.

  ‘… and he brought her with him, to do his letters. She had popped out for a breath of air, and I came along, and we met, face to face, just about opposite the Jubilee Memorial watering-trough in the High Street.’

  ‘Dramatic.’

  ‘I was never so surprised in my life.’

  ‘I can readily imagine it. Was she cold and proud and aloof?’

  ‘Not by a jugful. She was all over me. Remorse had set in. She said she was sorry she had blown a fuse, and wept a good deal and … well, there we were, so to speak.’

  ‘You folded her in your embrace, no doubt?’

  ‘Yes, quite a good deal, actually, and the upshot of the whole thing was that we got engaged again.’

  ‘You didn’t mention that you were engaged to Myra?’

  ‘No, I didn’t get around to that. The subject didn’t seem to come up somehow.’

  ‘I quite understand. So the total is two, after all. You were perfectly right, and I apologize. Well, well!’

  ‘I don’t see what you’re grinning about.’

  ‘Smiling gently would be a more exact description. I was thinking how absurdly simple these problems are, when you give your mind to them. The solution here is obvious. You must at once tell Myra to make no move in the way of buying the trousseau and pricing wedding cakes, because they won’t be needed.’

  Only a sudden clutch at the rail on which he was seated prevented Archie Gilpin from falling off the stile. It seemed for a moment that he was about to reach for his hair again, but he merely gaped like a good-looking codfish.

  ‘Tell her it’s all off, you mean?’

  ‘Precisely. Save the girl a lot of unnecessary expense.’

  ‘But I can’t. I admit that I asked her to marry me because I was feeling pretty bitter about Millicent and had some sort of rough idea of showing her —’

  ‘That she was not the only onion in the stew?’

  ‘Something on those lines. And I was considerably relieved when she turned me down. A narrow escape, I felt I’d had. But now that on second thoughts she’s decided that she’s in favour of the scheme, I don’t see how I can possibly just stroll in and tell her I’ve changed my mind. Well, dash it, is a shot like that on the board? I ask you!’

  ‘You mean that once a Gilpin plights his troth, it stays plighted? A very creditable attitude to take, though it’s a pity you plight it so often. But if you are thinking you may break that gentle heart, have no uneasiness. I can state authoritatively that, left to herself, she wouldn’t marry you with a ten-foot pole.’

  ‘Then why did she tell me she would?’

  ‘For precisely the reason that made you propose to her. Relations were strained between her and her betrothed, just as they were between you and Miss Rigby, and she did it as what is known as a gesture. She thought, in a word, that that would teach him.’

  ‘She’s got a betrothed?’

  ‘And how! You know him. My friend Meriwether.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ Archie Gilpin seemed to blossom like a rose in June. ‘Well, this is fine. You’ve eased my mind.’

  ‘A pleasure.’

  ‘Now one begins to see daylight. Now one knows where one is. But, look here, we don’t want to do anything … what’s the word?’

  ‘Precipitate?’

  ‘Yes, we want to move cautiously. You see, on the strength of getting engaged to the daughter of a millionaire I’m hoping to extract a thousand quid from Uncle Alaric.’

  Lord Ickenham pursed his lips.

  ‘From His Grace the pop-eyed Duke of Dunstable? No easy task. His one-way pockets are a byword all over England.’

  Archie nodded. He had never blinded himself to the fact that anyone trying to separate cash from the Duke of Dunstable was in much the same position as a man endeavouring to take a bone from a short-tempered wolf-hound.

  ‘I know. But I have a feeling it will come off. When I told him I was engaged to Myra, he was practically civil. I think he’s ripe for the touch, and I’ve simply got to get a thousand pounds.’

  ‘Why that particular sum?’

  ‘Because that’s what Ricky wants, to let me into his onion soup business. He’s planning to expand, and has to have more capital. He said that if I put in a thousand quid, I could have a third share of the profits, which are enormous.’

  ‘Yes, so Pongo told me. I got the impression of dense crowds of bottle-party addicts charging into Ricky’s bar night after night like bisons making for a water-hole.’

  ‘That’s right, they do. There’s something about onion soup that seems to draw them like a magnet. Can’t stand the muck myself but there’s no accounting for tastes. Here’s the set-up, as I see it,’ said Archie, with mounting enthusiasm. ‘We coast along as we are at present, Myra engaged to me, me engaged to Myra, and Uncle Alaric fawning on me and telling me 1 can have anything I want, even unto half his kingdom. I get the thousand quid. Myra gives me the push. I slide off and marry Millicent. Myra marries this Meriwether chap, and everybody’s happy. Any questions?’

  A look of regret and pity had come into Lord Ickenham’s face. It pained him to be compelled to act as a black frost in this young man’s garden of dreams, but he had no alternative.

  ‘Myra can’t give you the push.’

  Archie stared. It seemed to him that this kindly old buster, until now so intelligent, had suddenly lost his grip.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the moment she did, she would be shipped back to America in disgrace and would never see Bill Bailey again.’

  ‘Who on earth’s Bill Bailey?’

  ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, didn’t I? That — or, rather, the Reverend Cuthbert Bailey — is Meriwether’s real name. He is here incognito because Lady Constance has a deep-seated prejudice against him. He is a penniless curate, and she doesn’t like penniless curates. It was to remove Myra from his orbit that she took her away from London and imprisoned her at Blandings Castle. Let her break the engagement, and she’ll be back in New York before you can say What ho.’

  Silence fell. The light had faded from the evening sky, and simultaneously from Archie Gilpin’s face. He sat staring bleakly into the middle distance as if the scenery hurt him in some tender spot.

  ‘It’s a mix-up,’ he said.

  ‘It wants thinking about,’ Lord Ickenham agreed. ‘Yes, it certainly wants thinking about. We must turn it over in our minds from time to time.’

  Chapter Ten

  1

  The Duke of Dunstable was not a patient man. When he had business dealings with his fellows, he liked those fellows to jump to it and do it now, and as a general rule took pains to ensure that they did so. But in the matter of Lord Tilbury and the Empress he was inclined to be lenient. He quite understood that a man in the position of having to make up his mind whether or not to pay three thousand pounds for a pig, however obese, needs a little time to think it over. It was only on the third day after the other’s return to London that he went to the telephone and having been placed in communication with him opened the conversation with his customary ‘Hoy!’

  �
��Are you there, Stinker?’

  If the Duke had not been a little deaf in the right ear, he might have heard a sound like an inexperienced motorist changing gears in an old-fashioned car. It was the proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company grinding his teeth. Sometimes, when we hear a familiar voice, the heart leaps up like that of the poet Wordsworth when he beheld a rainbow in the sky. Lord Tilbury’s was far from doing this. He resented having his morning’s work interrupted by a man capable of ignoring gentlemen’s agreements and slapping an extra thousand pounds on the price of pigs. When he spoke, his tone was icy.

  ‘Is that you, Dunstable?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, Is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me. Who do you think it was?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said What do you want? I’m very busy,’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said I am very busy.’

  ‘So am I. Got a hundred things to do. Can’t stand talking to you all day. About that pig.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Are you prepared to meet my terms? If so, say so. Think on your feet, Stinker?’

  Lord Tilbury drew a deep breath. How fortunate, he was feeling, that Fate should have brought him and Lavender Briggs together and so enabled him to defy this man as he ought to be defied. He had heard nothing from Lavender Briggs, but he presumed that she was at Blandings Castle, working in his interests, framing her subtle schemes, and strong in this knowledge he proceeded to answer in the negative. This took some time for in addition to saying ‘No’ he had to tell the Duke what he thought of him, indicating one by one the various points on which his character diverged from that of the ideal man. Whether it was right of him to call the Duke a fat old sharper whose word he would never again believe, even if given on a stack of Bibles, is open to debate, but he felt considerably better when he had done so, and it was with the feeling of having fought the good fight that several minutes later he slammed down the receiver and rang for Millicent Rigby to come and take dictation.

  Nothing that anyone could say to him, no matter how derogatory, ever had the power to wound the Duke. After that initial ‘No’, indeed, he had scarcely bothered to listen. He could see that it was just routine stuff. All he was thinking, as he came away from the telephone, was that he would now sell the Empress back to Lord Emsworth, who he knew would prove co-operative, and he was proceeding in search of him when a loud squeak in his rear told him that little George was with him again.

  ‘Hullo, big boy,’ said George.

  ‘How often have I told you not to call me big boy?’

  ‘Sorry, chum, I keep forgetting. I say, frightfully exciting about Myra, isn’t it?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Getting engaged to Archie Gilpin.’

  In the interest of his conversation with Lord Tilbury, the Duke had momentarily forgotten that his nephew had become betrothed to the only daughter of a millionaire. Reminded of this, he beamed, as far as it was within his ability to beam, and replied that it was most satisfactory and that he was very pleased about it.

  ‘Her father arrives tomorrow.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Gets to Market Blandings station, wind and weather permitting, at four-ten. Grandpapa’s gone to London to meet him, all dressed up. He looked like a city slicker.’

  ‘You must not call your grandfather a city slicker,’ said the Duke, too happy at the way his affairs were working out for a sterner rebuke. He paused, for a sudden thought had struck him, and George, about to inquire whose grandfather he could call a city slicker, found himself interrupted. ‘What made him get all dressed up and go to London to meet this feller?’ he asked, for he knew how much his host disliked the metropolis and how great was his distaste for putting on a decent suit of clothes and trying to look like a respectable human being.

  ‘Aunt Connie told him he jolly well had to or else. He was as sick as mud.’

  The Duke puffed at his moustache. His nosiness where other people’s affairs were concerned was intense, and Connie’s giving this Yank what amounted to a civic welcome intrigued him. It meant something, he told himself. It couldn’t be that she was trying to sweeten the feller in the hope of floating a loan, for she had ample private means, bequeathed to her by her late husband, Joseph Keeble, who had made a packet out East, so it must be that she entertained towards him feelings that were deeper and warmer than those of ordinary friendship, as the expression was. He had never suspected this, but it occurred to him now that when a woman keeps a photograph of a man with a head like a Spanish onion on her writing table, it means that her emotions are involved, in all probability deeply. There was that occasion, too, when he had joined them at luncheon at the Ritz. Their heads, he remembered, had been very close together. By the time he had succeeded in shaking off George, declining his invitation to come down to the lake and chat with the Church Lads, he was convinced that he had hit on the right solution, and he waddled off to find Lord Ickenham and canvass his views on the subject. He was not fond of Lord Ickenham, but there was nobody else available as a confidant.

  He found him in his hammock, pondering over the various problems which had presented themselves of late, and lost no time in placing the item on the agenda paper.

  ‘I say, Ickenham, this fellow who’s coming here tomorrow. This chap Stick-in-the-mud.’

  ‘Schoonmaker. Jimmy Schoonmaker.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘One of my oldest friends. I shall like seeing him again.’

  ‘So will somebody else.’

  ‘Who would that be?’

  ‘Connie, that’s who. Let me tell you something, Ickenham. I was in Connie’s room yesterday, having a look round, and there was a cable on the writing table. “Coming immediately”, it said, and a lot more I’ve forgotten. It was signed Schoonmaker, and was obviously a reply to a cable from her, urging him to come here. Now why was she in such a sweat to get the feller to Blandings Castle, you ask.’

  ‘So I do. Glad you reminded me.’

  ‘I’ll tell you why. It sticks out a mile. She’s potty about the chap. Sift the evidence. In spite of his having a head like a Spanish onion, she keeps his photograph on her writing table. She sends him urgent cables telling him to come immediately. And what is even more significant, she makes Emsworth put on a clean collar and go all the way to London to meet him. Why, dash it, she didn’t do that for me! Would she go to such lengths if she wasn’t potty about the … Get out, you!’

  He was addressing Beach, who had approached the hammock and uttered a discreet cough.

  ‘What you want?’

  ‘I was instructed by her ladyship to inquire of his lordship if he would be good enough to speak to her ladyship in her ladyship’s boudoir, your Grace,’ said Beach with dignity. He was not a man to be put upon by Dukes, no matter how white-moustached.

  ‘Wants to see him, does she?’

  ‘Precisely, your Grace.’

  ‘Better go and find out what it’s all about, Ickenham. Remember what I was saying. Watch her closely!’ said the Duke in a hissing whisper. ‘Watch her like a hawk.’

  There was a thoughtful look in Lord Ickenham’s eye as he crossed the lawn. This new development interested him. He was aware how sorely persecuted Lord Emsworth was by his sister Constance — the other’s story of the brass paper-fastener had impressed him greatly — and he had hoped by his presence at the castle to ease the strain for him a little, but he had never envisaged the possibility of actually removing her from the premises. If Lady Constance were to marry James Schoonmaker and go to live with him in America, it would be the biggest thing that had happened to Lord Emsworth since his younger son Frederick had transferred himself to Long Island City, N.Y., as a unit of the firm of Donaldson’s Dog Biscuits, Inc. There is no surer way of promoting human happiness than to relieve a mild man of the society of a sister who says, ‘Oh, Clarence!’ to him and sees life in the home genera
lly as a sort of Uncle Tom’s Cabin production, with herself playing Simon Legree and her brother in the supporting role of Uncle Tom.

  Of course, it takes two to make a romance, and James Schoonmaker had yet to be heard from, but Lord Ickenham regarded his old friend’s instant response to Lady Constance’s cable as distinctly promising. A man in Jimmy’s position, a monarch of finance up to his eyes all the time in big deals, with barely a moment to spare from cornering peanuts or whatever it might be, does not drop everything and come bounding across the Atlantic with a whoop and a holler unless there is some great attraction awaiting him at the other end. It would be a good move, he decided, when Jimmy arrived, to meet him at Market Blandings station, hurry him off to the Emsworth Arms and fill him to the brim with G. Ovens’ home-brewed beer. Mellowed by that wonder fluid, he felt, it was more than likely that he would cast off reserve, become expansive and give a sympathetic buddy what George Cyril Wellbeloved would have called the griff.

  Lady Constance was seated at her writing table, tapping the woodwork with her fingers, and Lord Ickenham had the momentary illusion, as always when summoned to her presence, that time had rolled back in its flight and that he was once more vis-à-vis with his old kindergarten mistress. The great question in those days had always been whether or not she would rap him on the knuckles with a ruler, and it was with some relief that he noted that the only weapon within his hostess’s reach was a small ivory paper-knife.

  She was not looking cordial. Her air was that of somebody who, where Ickenhams were concerned, could take them or leave them alone. A handsome woman, though, and one well calculated to touch off the spark in the Schoonmaker bosom.

  ‘Please sit down, Lord Ickenham.’

  He took a chair, and Lady Constance remained silent for a moment. She seemed to be searching for words. Then, for she was never a woman who hesitated long when she had something to say, even when that something verged on the embarrassing, she began.

  ‘Myra’s father is arriving tomorrow, Lord Ickenham.’