Uncle Fred in the Springtime

by P. G. Wodehouse

  For Lord Bosham, though he lived a secluded life in a remote corner of Hampshire, was sufficiently in touch with things to know that eminent brain specialists do not go about playing the confidence trick on people. Every young man starting out in the world, he was aware, has his choice. He can become an eminent brain specialist, or he can become a confidence trickster. But not both.

  ‘Are you Sir Roderick Glossop?’ he asked, his round eyes drinking in those features that had seemed so familiar.

  ‘That is my name.’

  ‘Oh? Ah? Mine’s Bosham. We — er — we haven’t met before, by any chance?’

  ‘Unfortunately, no. The loss,’ said Lord Ickenham, courteously but inaccurately, was mine. But I have heard of you. When I saw him yesterday, Lord Emsworth spoke with a fatherly warmth of your many gifts.’

  ‘Ah? Well, I tooled down in the car to meet you.’

  ‘Vastly civil of you, my dear Bosham.’

  ‘You’ve got some luggage in the van, I take it, what? I’ll slide along and see to it.’ ‘Thank you, thank you.’

  ‘Then we can tool up to the castle.’

  ‘Precisely what I would have suggested myself. Is there a large party there?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, no. Only my father and my aunt and the Duke and Horace Davenport.’

  ‘Horace Davenport?’

  ‘The Duke’s nephew. Well, I’ll be sliding along and seeing about that luggage.’ He slid, and Pongo resumed his imitation of the sheeted dead.

  ‘Well?’ he said, at length becoming coherent. ‘Now what? On arrival at this ghastly castle, we shall immediately find ourselves cheek by jowl with a chap who knows you, knows Miss Pott and has been a close pal of mine for years. “Hullo, Pongo!” he will say, bounding up, as we stand chatting with Lady Constance. “Hullo, Lord Ickenham! Golly, Polly, isn’t this jolly, here we all are, what?” If you have .nothing else to do at the moment, you might be trying that one over on your bazooka.’

  Lord Ickenham did not reply. He was looking down the platform. At the far end, a reunion seemed to be taking place between Lord Bosham and the swarthy young man who had occupied the adjoining compartment on the train. They had just shaken hands, and were now engaged in conversation.

  ‘You were saying, my boy?’ he asked, coming out of his thoughts.

  Pongo repeated the substance of his remarks.

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ agreed Lord Ickenham. ‘You must always remember, however, that there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Still, in feeling that a problem has arisen I am not saying that you are not right. I confess that I had not anticipated Horace. Fate seems to have arranged that this shall be Old Home Week at Blandings Castle. We only need Mustard Pott and my dear wife to have what you might call a full hand.’

  ‘Could we get hold of him before he spills the beans, and explain things to him and ask him to sit in?’

  Lord Ickenham shook his head.

  ‘I think not. Horace is a nice boy, but he would be a total loss as a conspirator.’

  ‘Then what are we going to do?’

  ‘Keep cool.’

  ‘A fat lot of help keeping cool will be.’

  ‘This is the pessimist in you speaking again. What I was about to say was that we must keep cool and level heads and deny our identity.’

  ‘And you think he will swallow that? Ha!’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t say “Ha!” Why shouldn’t he swallow it? Who can say what limits, if any, there are to what Horace Davenport will swallow? With an uncle like his, if he is anything of a student of heredity, he must frequently have speculated on the possibility of his little grey cells suddenly turning blue on him. I imagine that he will think that it is this disaster that has happened. Still, I feel that we would do well to separate, so that we steal upon him little by little, as it were, instead of confronting him in a solid bunch. If the distance is not too great, I shall walk to the castle, allowing you and Polly to go on ahead in the car and pave the way.’

  ‘Or we might all walk back to London.’

  ‘My dear boy, do try to rid yourself of this horrible defeatist attitude. You have seen for yourself how stout denial of identity affected our friend Bosham. All you have to do, when you meet Horace, is to give him a cold stare and say that your name is Basil. That in itself should carry conviction, for who would say his name was Basil if he did not know that it could be proved against him? As for Polly, I have no misgivings. She will hold her end up. She is Mustard’s daughter and must have been taught to tell the tale as soon as her infant lips could lisp. And if you don’t think it’s difficult to say “lips could lisp”, try it yourself. You might step over and explain the situation to her. And now,’ said Lord Ickenham, with relish, ‘we come to another small difficulty.’

  A sound like the dying gurgle of a siphon of soda water proceeded from Pongo.

  ‘Oh, golly! Don’t tell me there’s something else?’

  A happy smile was playing over Lord Ickenham’s handsome face.

  ‘Things are certainly being made somewhat intricate for us on this little expedition of ours,’ he said contentedly. ‘I had anticipated strolling in over the red carpet and being accepted without demur at my face value, but apparently this is not to be.’

  ‘What the dickens has happened?’

  ‘It is not so much what has happened as what is going to happen. If you glance along the platform, you will note that Bosham is returning, accompanied not only by a porter in a uniform much too tight for him but by our dark friend in the spectacles. Does it not occur to you that when Bosham introduces me to him, he may feel that Sir Roderick Glossop has changed a bit since he saw him last?’

  ‘Oh, my aunt!’

  ‘Yes, stimulating, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps Glossop didn’t tell him he was Glossop.’

  ‘If you suppose that Glossop could be alone with anyone for two minutes without telling him he was Glossop, you are a very indifferent reader of character.’

  ‘We must clear out of here at once!’

  Lord Ickenham was shocked.

  ‘Clear out? That is no way for a member of a proud family to talk. Did Twistletons clear out at Agincourt and Crecy? At Malplaquet and Blenheim? When the Old Guard made their last desperate charge up the blood-soaked slopes of Waterloo, do you suppose that Wellington, glancing over his shoulder, saw a Twistleton sneaking off with ill-assumed carelessness in the direction of Brussels? We Twistletons do not clear out, my boy. We stick around, generally long after we have outstayed our welcome. I feel sure that I shall be able to find some way of dealing with the matter. All it needs is a little thought, and my brain is at its brightest this evening. Run along and explain things to Polly, and I will have everything comfortably adjusted by the time you return…. Ah, Bosham, my dear fellow, I see that you have collected our impedimenta. Very good of you to have bothered.’

  ‘Eh? Oh no, not a bit.’

  ‘Tell me, Bosham, is it far to the castle?’

  ‘About a couple of miles.’

  ‘Then I think, if you don’t mind, that I will walk. It would be pleasant to stretch my legs.’

  Lord Bosham seemed relieved.

  ‘Well, that’s fine, if you’d like to. Might have been a bit of a squash in the car. I didn’t know Baxter was turning up. This is Mr Baxter the Duke’s secretary — Sir Roderick Glossop.’

  ‘How do you do? I am very glad you did turn up, Mr Baxter,’ said Lord Ickenham, beaming upon the dark young man, who was eyeing him with silent intentness. ‘It gives me the opportunity of discussing that poor fellow on the train. I saw him go into your compartment, but I hesitated to intrude upon you and ask you what you made of him. One of my patients,’ explained Lord Ickenham. ‘He suffers from delusions — or did. I am hopeful that my treatment may have been effective. Certainly he seemed normal enough while he was talking to me. But in these cases a relapse often comes like a flash, and I know the presence of strangers excites him. Did he by any chance tell you he
was Mussolini?’

  ‘He did not.’

  ‘Or Shirley Temple?’

  ‘He told me that he was Sir Roderick Glossop.’

  ‘Then I am in distinguished company. Not that it is anything to joke about, of course. The whole thing is terribly sad and disheartening. Evidently all my work has gone for nothing. It almost makes one lose confidence in oneself.’

  ‘I should not have thought that you were a man who easily lost his self-confidence.’

  ‘Kind of you to say so, my dear fellow. No, as a rule, I do not. But absolute failure like this…. Ah, well, one must keep one’s flag flying, must one not? You humoured him, I hope? It is always the best and safest plan. Well, here are my daughter and my nephew Basil, who acts as my secretary. This is Lord Bosham, my dear, Lord Emsworth’s son. And Mr Baxter. I was telling them that I thought I would walk to the castle. I am feeling a little cramped after the journey. We shall meet at Philippi.’

  10

  To reach Blandings Castle from Market Blandings, you leave the latter, if you can bear to tear yourself away from one of the most picturesque little towns in England, by way of the High Street. This, ending in a flurry of old-world cottages, takes you to a broad highway, running between leafy hedges that border pasture land and barley fields, and you come eventually to the great stone gates by the main lodge and through these to a drive which winds uphill for some three quarters of a mile. A testing bit, this last, for the indifferent pedestrian. Beach, the butler, who sometimes walked to Market Blandings and back to discipline his figure, always felt a sinking feeling as he approached it.

  Lord Ickenham took it in his stride. The recent happenings on the station platform had left him pleasantly exhilarated, and he was all eagerness to get to his destination and see what further entertainment awaited him in the shape of obstacles and problems. Breasting the slope with a song on his lips, he had reached the last of the bends in the drive and was pausing to admire the grey bulk of the castle as it stood out against the saffron sky, when he observed coming towards him a man of his own age but much fatter and not half so beautiful.

  ‘Hoy!’ cried this person.

  ‘Hoy!’ responded Lord Ickenham civilly.

  The fact that he had heard Horace Davenport speak of his uncle Alaric as a bald-headed old coot with a walrus moustache had enabled him to identify the newcomer without difficulty. Few coots could have had less hair than this man, and any walrus would have been proud to possess the moustache at which he was puffing.

  ‘You the brain chap?’

  Rightly concluding that this was a crisper and neater way of saying “psychiatrist”, Lord Ickenham replied that he was.

  ‘The others are in the hall, having drinks and things. When I heard you were walking up, I thought I’d come along and meet you. Dunstable’s my name. The Duke of Dunstable.’

  They fell into step together. The Duke produced a bandanna handkerchief and mopped his forehead with it. The evening was warm, and he was not in the best of condition.

  ‘I wanted a quiet talk —’ he began.

  ‘Speaking of Dukes,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘did you ever hear the one about the Duke and the lady snake-charmer?’

  It was a jocund little tale, slightly blue in spots, and he told it well. But though his companion was plainly amused, his chief emotion appeared to be perplexity.

  ‘Are you really Sir Roderick Glossop?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Man at the club told me he was a pompous old ass. But you’re not a pompous old ass.’

  ‘Your friend probably met me in my professional capacity. You know how it is. One puts on a bit of dog in office hours, to impress the customers. I dare say you have done the same thing yourself in the House of Lords.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘But you were saying something about wanting a quiet talk.’

  ‘Exactly. Before Connie could get hold of you and stuff you up with a lot of nonsense. Emsworth’s sister, Lady Constance Keeble. She’s like all women — won’t face facts. The first thing she’s going to do when she meets you is to try to pull the wool over your eyes and persuade you that he’s as sane as I am. Quite understandable, no doubt. Her brother, and all that.’

  ‘You are speaking of Lord Emsworth?’

  ‘Yes. What did you make of him?’

  ‘He seemed clean and sober.’

  Again the Duke appeared a little puzzled.

  ‘Why shouldn’t he be sober?’

  ‘Don’t think I am complaining,’ Lord Ickenham hastened to assure him. ‘I was pleased.’

  ‘Oh? Well, as I was saying, Connie will try to make you think that the whole thing has been much exaggerated and that he’s simply dreamy and absent-minded. Don’t let her fool you. The man’s potty.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘No question about it. The whole family’s potty. You saw Bosham at the station. There’s a loony for you. Goes up to London and lets a chap play the confidence trick on him. “Give me your wallet to show you trust me,” says the chap. “Right ho,” says Bosham. Just like that. Ever meet the other boy — Freddie Threepwood? Worse than Bosham. Sells dog biscuits. So you can get a rough idea what Emsworth must be like. Man can’t have two sons like that and be sane himself, I mean to say. You’ve got to start with the idea well in your head, or you’ll never get anywhere. Shall I tell you about Emsworth?’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘Here are the facts. He’s got a pig, and he’s crazy about it.’

  ‘The good man loves his pig.’

  ‘Yes, but he doesn’t want to run it in the Derby.’

  ‘Does Emsworth?’

  ‘Told me so himself.’

  Lord Ickenham looked dubious.

  ‘I doubt if the Stewards would accept a pig. You might starch its ears and enter it as a greyhound for the Waterloo Cup, but not the Derby.’

  ‘Exactly. Well, that shows you.’

  ‘It does, indeed.’

  The Duke puffed at his moustache approvingly, so that it flew before him like a banner. It pleased him to find this expert in such complete agreement with his views. The man, he could see, knew his business, and he decided to abandon reserve and lay bare the skeleton in his own cupboard. He had not intended to draw attention to the dark shadow which had fallen on the house of Dunstable, but he saw now that it would be best to tell all. In the hall which he had just left, strange and disconcerting things had been happening, and he wanted a skilled opinion on them.

  ‘A nice little place Emsworth has here,’ said Lord Ickenham, as they reached the broad gravel sweep that flanked the terrace.

  ‘Not so bad. Makes it all the sadder that he’ll probably end his days in Colney Hatch. Unless you can cure him.’

  ‘I seldom fail.’

  ‘Then I wish,’ said the Duke, coming out with it, ‘that while you’re here you would take a look at my nephew Horace.’

  ‘Is he giving you cause for anxiety?’

  ‘Acute anxiety.’

  The Duke, about to unveil the Dunstable skeleton, checked himself abruptly and blew furiously at his moustache. From some spot hidden from them by thick shrubberies there had come the sound of a pleasant tenor voice. It was rendering the ‘Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond’, and putting a good deal of feeling into it.

  ‘Gah! That whistling feller again!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Chap who comes whistling and singing outside my window,’ said the Duke, like the heroine of an old-fashioned novelette speaking of her lover. ‘I’ve been trying to get to grips with him ever since I arrived, but he eludes me. Well I can wait. I’ve got a dozen best new-laid eggs in my room, and sooner or later…. But I was telling you about Horace.’

  ‘Yes, I want to hear all about Horace. Your nephew, you say?’

  ‘One of them. My late brother’s son. He’s potty. The other’s my late sister’s son. He’s potty, too. My late brother was potty. So was my late sister.’

  ‘And where would
you rank Horace in this galaxy of goofiness? Is he, in your opinion, above or below the family average?’

  The Duke considered.

  ‘Above. Decidedly above. After what happened in the hall just now, most emphatically above. Do you know what happened in the hall just now?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. I’m a stranger in these parts myself.’

  ‘It shocked me profoundly.’

  ‘What happened in the hall?’

  ‘And always the “Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond”,’ said the Duke peevishly. ‘A song I’ve hated all my life. Who wrote the beastly thing?’

  ‘Burns, I believe. But you were going to tell me what happened in the hall.’

  ‘Yes. So I was. It showed me that I had wronged that chap Baxter. I expect you met Baxter at the station. My secretary. He was on your train. He should have come down with me, but he insisted on remaining in London on the plea that he had work to do in connection with a history of my family that I’m writing. I didn’t believe him. It seemed to me that he had a furtive look in his eye. My feeling all along was that he was planning to go on some toot. And when Horace told me this morning that he had seen him at some dance or other a couple of nights ago, leaping about all over the place in the costume of a Corsican brigand, I was all ready for him. The moment his foot crossed the threshold, I sacked him. And then this thing happened in the hall.’

  ‘You were going to tell me about that, weren’t you?’

  ‘I am telling you about it. It was when we were in the hall. Connie had taken your daughter out to show her the portraits in the gallery, though why any girl should be supposed to be anxious to look at that collection of gargoyles is more than I can imagine. I should be vastly surprised to learn that there was an uglier lot of devils in the whole of England than Emsworth’s ancestors. However, be that as it may, Connie had taken your daughter to see them, leaving Bosham and your nephew and myself in the hall.

  And in comes Horace. And no sooner had I directed his attention to your nephew than he gives a jump and says “Pongo!” See! “Pongo!” Like that. Your nephew looked taken aback, and said in a low voice that his name was Basil.’