‘So that’s why you were asking me at dinner about wards of court. And the Duke won’t give the green light?’
‘Not unless I can find some way of making him. And so far I’ve not been able to think of one. What I want is to get some hold over him. You don’t know of any guilty secrets he might have?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘Nor do I. I see now that it was a shortsighted policy turning him down when he came up for election at the Pelican Club. If he had been let in, one would have been able to keep a constant eye on him and assemble any amount of material for blackmail, but as it is, I’m helpless.’
‘It’s difficult.’
‘Very difficult.’
‘It’s the sort of situation where you want the United States Marines to arrive. Oh, that’s Willie,’ said Vanessa, alluding to the rhythmic tooting of a horn that was proceeding from an ornate car outside the front door. ‘I must rush. Will you be in London soon?’
‘I shouldn’t wonder. Not much use staying on and reasoning with Dunstable unless I have definite information as to where the body’s buried.’
‘Give me a ring. I’ll be at Barribault’s. Goodbye. And keep an eye skinned for those United States Marines. I’m sure they’ll be along.’
She ran off, leaving Gally sufficiently restored to be able to tickle the cat behind the ear. He could not share her optimism, but she had cheered him up a little.
2
The car rolled off down the drive, and Lady Constance, as she turned from speeding it on its way, erased from her lips the bright smile they had worn while she was making her farewells. She was conscious of a growing uneasiness. Wilbur’s attitude while settling himself at the steering wheel had disturbed her.
Having seen in her time so many romances run their course at Blandings Castle, she had become expert at recognizing the symptoms, and she was oppressed by the conviction that she had been present at the early stages of another. She was telling herself that if what she had detected in the eyes of Wilbur Trout had not been the love light, she did not know a love light when she saw one.
And the solicitous way he had fussed over the girl in the seat beside him. Did she want a rug? Was she sure she didn’t want a rug? Wouldn’t she be cold without a rug? Well, all right if she was really sure she didn’t want a rug, but would it be okay if he lit a cigarette? The smoke might blow in her eyes. Would she mind the smoke blowing in her eyes? Oh, she would have a cigarette, too? Fine. Swell. Capital. Splendid. And she needn’t worry about him driving too fast. No risks for him, no, sir.
The whole of his dialogue could have been written into Romeo And Juliet without changing a word. Taken in conjunction with the love light in his eyes, to which reference has already been made, it sent her hurrying to the garden suite to warn the Duke that he had a rival to his wooing and that he would do well to accelerate that wooing in no uncertain manner. It would, she would tell him, though not in those words, be necessary for him to pull up his socks and get a move on.
She found him in the frame of mind which causes strong men to pace to and fro with knitted brows. His injured ankle, of course, prohibited anything in the nature of pacing to and fro, but his brow was definitely knitted. A recently received piece of information had stirred him to his depths.
‘Hoy!’ he boomed as she entered. ‘What’s all this Beach tells me about Trout leaving?’
‘Yes, he has just gone.’
‘Where?’
‘London.’
‘And not coming back?’
‘No.’
The Duke could put two and two together. He scorched her with a burning eye.
‘You’ve been coming the grande dame over him!’
‘I have not.’
‘But he’s gone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And no chance now of selling him that picture. It required constant personal supervision. Another week and I’d have got him where I wanted him. Are you sure you’ve not been looking down your nose at him?’
Lady Constance lowered herself into a chair. A woman of lesser breeding and self-control would have slumped into it like a sack of coals.
‘Quite sure. And I am not worrying about the picture, Alaric. It is much more serious than that.’
‘How do you mean it’s more serious? How can anything be more serious? Now I’ll have to sell it at Sotheby’s or somewhere for about half what I’d have got from Trout. What makes you say it’s more serious? What’s more serious?’
‘Vanessa went with him.’
‘What! She’s left, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Trout must have persuaded her to go with him. He’s in love with her.’
‘Don’t be an ass.’
‘I tell you he is. I could see by looking at him.’
‘Well, she can’t be in love with him. He’s got ginger hair and a broken nose.’
‘I don’t suppose she is. But that is not to say that she won’t marry him if he is persistent. You must act at once, Alaric.’
‘Act? Act how?’
‘Write to her immediately. She will be at Barribault’s.’
‘I’ve lunched there. They charge you the earth.’
‘And ask her to be your wife. Say you will get a special licence. It will show how eager you are. You get it from the Archbishop of Canterbury.’
‘I know you do, and he soaks you worse than Barribault’s.’
‘What does that matter?’
‘It matters to me. You’re like all women, you seem to think a man is made of money.’
‘Good heavens, Alaric, is this a time to economize? Have you forgotten that Vanessa will be one of the richest women in America? She’s J. B. Polk’s daughter, J. B. Polk’s daughter. She’ll inherit millions.’
She had found the talking point. The Duke’s eyes gleamed with a new light. It differed in quality from the love light which Wilbur Trout had recently been spraying over Vanessa, but it was fully as noticeable. His voice rang out like a clarion.
‘I’ll write that letter!’
‘It’s the only thing to do. And Beach can take it to Market Blandings and have it registered.’
‘But I don’t know what to say.’
‘I’ll tell you what to say. You could begin by telling her that the reason you hesitated to speak before was that you felt you might be a little old for her.’
‘Old?’ The Duke started. He was—by about thirty years— past his first youth, but like all men so situated he regarded himself as just approaching the prime of life. ‘What do you mean, old?’
‘And then … No, you’ll never be able to write the sort of letter this has to be. It wants the most careful phrasing. I’ll do it, and you can copy it out.’
As Lady Constance seated herself at the desk and took pen in hand, the Duke’s emotions were mixed. A proud man, he resented having his love letters written for him, but on the other hand he could not but feel that in the present crisis a ghost writer would come in uncommonly handy, for he had to admit that, left to his own devices, he would not even know how to start the thing, let alone fill the four sheets which could be looked on as the irreducible minimum. He was a great writer of letters to the Times, the Government could not move a step without hearing from him, but this one called for gifts of which he knew himself to be deficient. It was, accordingly, with approval that he watched his collaborator’s pen racing over the paper, and when she had finished, he took the manuscript from her with pleasurable anticipation of a treat in store.
It was a pity, therefore, that perusal of it should have brought out all the destructive critic in him. He scanned the document with dismay, and delivered his verdict with asperity. He might have been one of those Scotch reviewers Byron disliked so much.
‘This,’ he said, his eyes popping as they had rarely popped before, ‘is the most god-awful slush I ever read!’
If Lady Constance was piqued, she did not show it. She may have raised an eyebrow, but
scarcely so that it could be noticed. Like all authors, she knew her output was above criticism.
‘Indeed?’ she said. ‘Perhaps you will tell me what jars on your sensitive taste.’
‘Well, this for a start—”I can’t go on living without you”.’
‘You think it should be changed to “without your money”?’
‘It’s too damned grovelling. Puts her above herself right from the start. But that’s not so bad as this poppycock about the church steeple. “I love you as the church steeple loves the cloud that settles above it”. Is that a way to talk? She’ll think I’m potty.’
‘Not at all. A charming thought. Do you remember Bertie Weaver? No, you wouldn’t, he was only at the castle for a short time. He was my father’s secretary, and he said those very words to me one evening when we were walking by the lake. I’ve often wondered where he got them, because he was not the poetic type, he had been a Rugby football Blue at Cambridge. From some play he had seen, I suppose. It’s the kind of thing they say in plays. It impressed me enormously, and I’m sure it will impress Vanessa. Any more complaints?’
‘I don’t like any of it.’
‘Well, it’s all you’re going to get. I take it that even though you have a sprained ankle you can manage to go to the desk. Do so, and copy out what I have written word for word, for I certainly do not intend to compose a revised version.’
And with this ultimatum Lady Constance withdrew haughtily, leaving the Duke, as so many men have been left by women in their time, with the loser’s end of the debate.
For some minutes after she had gone he huffed and puffed, as his niece Linda would have said, but not surprisingly it got him nowhere. No matter how often he blew at his moustache and muttered ‘Women!’ he could not evade the inevitable.
Half an hour later, when his task was done and he had sealed and directed the envelope, there was a deprecating knock on the door and Lord Emsworth came in.
It was not sheer goodness of heart that had brought the latter to the sick chamber. Any etiquette book would have told him that a visit of enquiry was due from a host to a guest who has sprained his ankle by falling down his, the host’s, personal stairs, but he would certainly have ignored this ruling had it not been for the conviction that, if he did, he would have a painful interview with Connie. ‘Have you been to see Alaric?’ he could hear her saying, and an ‘Eh? What? Alaric? Oh, you mean Alaric. Well, no, as a matter of fact, not yet’ would have the worst results.
He could only hope to be able to make his stay a short one, and, as it happened, the Duke proposed to make it even shorter. Talking to Lord Emsworth was one of the many things that exasperated him.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘You can do something for me, Emsworth. This letter. Most important. Has to go immediately. Give it to Beach and tell him to take it to Market Blandings post office and register it. At once.’
The elation Lord Emsworth felt at this early conclusion to a visit that might have dragged on interminably was mixed with less agreeable feelings. Wonderful to be in a position to say to Connie when she questioned him, ‘Been to see Alaric? Of course I’ve been to see Alaric. We had a long and interesting talk’, but he did not like this reference to Beach and Market Blandings.
‘Ask Beach to walk to Market Blandings? In this weather?’
‘Do him good.’
‘I don’t know what he’ll say.’
‘If he utters a word of protest, kick his spine up through his hat.’
‘Very well, Alaric.’
‘And don’t just stand there. Get moving.’
‘Yes, Alaric.’
‘That letter must go without delay.’
‘Yes, Alaric.’
‘Oh, and one other thing,’ said the Duke. ‘I almost forgot to tell you. I’m suing you for heavy damages for this ankle of mine. We won’t discuss it now, you will hear from my solicitors in due course.’
3
Gally, in his hammock, had closed his eyes again and was thinking once more of John and Linda and the United States Marines. He was roused from his reverie by a voice bleating his name, and opening his eyes was annoyed to find his brother Clarence drooping over him. The interruption had derailed his train of thought, and though that train had shown no signs of going anywhere, he resented this.
Annoyance changed quickly to concern as he observed his visitor’s agitation. Unlike the members of the Pelican Club, Lord Emsworth, when on the receiving end of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, always allowed his doubts and fears to be visible to the naked eye.
‘Something wrong, Clarence?’
‘Yes, indeed, Galahad.’
‘Connie, I suppose? Don’t let her worry you. Get tough. Talk back at her out of the side of your mouth.’
‘It is not Connie, it’s Alaric.’
‘Pursue the same policy.’
‘But he says he is going to bring an action against me because he sprained his ankle on those stairs.’
Gally uttered a defiant laugh.
‘Let him. He hasn’t a hope.’
‘You really think so?’
‘Brief a good counsel for the defence and watch him tear the man to pieces. He’ll go through him like a dose of salts. “Is it not a fact that you were galloping down those stairs at sixty miles an hour in order to get at the cocktails?” “Would it be fair to say that you had been mopping up the stuff like a vacuum cleaner all the afternoon?” “I suggest that you were as tight as an owl.” He’ll have him tied up in knots in the first two minutes, and the jury will stop the case.’
Lord Emsworth seemed to expand like a balloon. Galahad, he was thinking, could always be relied on to appreciate one’s difficulties and make valuable suggestions for dealing with them.
‘Well, you have relieved me greatly, Galahad. I wish you could be equally comforting about this letter. Alaric has given me a letter to give to Beach to take to Market Blandings.’
‘And what’s your problem?’
‘I can’t ask Beach to make that long walk on a hot morning like this.’
‘Why not put it on the hall table with the rest of the letters?’
‘Alaric made such a point of it that it should go at once. It has to be registered.’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t suppose Beach will actually give notice if I tell him to go to Market Blandings, but he won’t like it at all. I shall have to take it myself, and I have an appointment to meet Banks at the sty.’
Gally’s was a feeling heart, and as he had said to his brother on a previous occasion he did not think it right to leave acts of kindness entirely to the Boy Scouts. He extricated himself from the hammock.
‘I’ll take it, if you like.’
‘Oh, Galahad! Will you really?’
‘I shall enjoy the stroll.’
‘Here is the letter.’
‘Right.’
‘Thank you so much, Galahad.’
‘Not at all. Always glad to oblige. Hullo, this is odd. It’s addressed to Vanessa Polk.’
‘Banks and I are going to discuss a new vitamin pill for pigs which I have been reading about. To be taken in a little skim milk.’
‘What would he be writing to her for?’
‘Supposed to be wonderful. Thank you again, Galahad. It really is extremely good of you.’
Gally slipped the letter into his pocket, a thoughtful frown on his face. He could imagine no reason for this sudden urge on the Duke’s part to become a Vanessa Polk pen pal. And he was still as far as ever from a solution of the mystery and was half inclined to go to the length of applying for one to the Duke, when his meditations were again interrupted by a voice, and he saw that he had been joined by his sister Constance.
‘Oh, there you are, Galahad,’ she said.
There was no trace in her manner of the pique she had felt a short while before when leaving the garden suite. Two things had combined to restore her equanimity. The first was the comforting reflection that her recent criti
c was a dull clod temperamentally incapable of recognizing good writing when it was put before him; the second that she was about to make Galahad feel extremely foolish, a pleasure she was able only rarely to enjoy.
‘I was looking for you,’ she said. ‘I wonder if you remember a conversation we had not long ago.’
‘I recollect having a word or two with you about my godson Johnny Halliday.’
‘I was not referring to that. I mean about Alaric.’
‘Alaric? Did we have a conversation about him? Ah yes, it’s beginning to come back to me. You said you were hoping he would marry Vanessa Polk—’
‘—And you said he was too self-centred and too fond of his comforts ever to think of marrying again. Well, it may interest you to know that he has written a letter to Vanessa, asking her to be his wife, and Beach is taking it to the post office in Market Blandings.’
‘Good Lord! You’re not pulling my leg?’
‘No.’
‘He’s really written to the popsy proposing?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He showed me the letter. She’s bound to accept him. Any girl would want to become a Duchess. And it will be an excellent marriage for Alaric.’
‘She being the daughter of J. B. Polk, the loaded tycoon.’
‘Exactly. Well, Galahad, it would seem that you were not such a good judge of character as you thought you were.’
‘That would seem, wouldn’t it?’
‘You have always been much too sure you were right and everybody else was wrong.’
‘Don’t rub it in. Would it be premature if I went and congratulated Dunstable?’
‘Considering how improbable it is that Vanessa will refuse him, I see no objection.’
‘I’ll go at once. Hark! Can you hear something?’
‘No.’
‘I can. The tramp-tramp-tramp of marching feet and a thousand manly voices singing “from the halls of Montezuma”. How right the Polk popsy was. The United States Marines have arrived.’
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