Lord Emsworth and Others

by P. G. Wodehouse

  But even now his troubled spirit was not to know peace. To reach the great outdoors at Blandings Castle, if you start from the library and come down the main staircase, you have to pass through the hall. To the left of this hall there is a small writing-room. And outside this writing-room Lord Emsworth's niece Jane was standing.

  ‘Yoo-hoo,' she cried. 'Uncle Clarence.'

  Lord Emsworth was in no mood for yoo-hooing nieces. George Abercrombie might enjoy chatting with this girl. So might Herbert, Lord Roegate. But he wanted solitude. In the course of the afternoon he had had so much female society thrust upon him that if Helen of Troy had appeared in the doorway of the writing-room and yoo-hooed at him, he would merely have accelerated his pace.

  He accelerated it now.

  'Can't stop, my dear, can't stop.'

  ‘Oh, yes you can, old Sure-shot,' said Jane, and Lord Emsworth found that he could. He stopped so abruptly that he nearly dislocated his spine. His jaw had fallen and his pince-nez were dancing on their string like leaves in the wind.

  'Two-Gun Thomas, the Marksman of the Prairie - He never misses. Kindly step this way, Uncle Clarence,' said Jane, 'I would like a word with you.'

  Lord Emsworth stepped that way. He followed the girl into the writing-room and closed the door carefully behind him. 'You - you didn't see me?' he quavered. ‘I certainly did see you,' said Jane. 'I was an interested eyewitness of the whole thing from start to finish.'

  Lord Emsworth tottered to a chair and sank into it, staring glassily at his niece. Any Chicago business man of the modern school would have understood what he was feeling and would have sympathized with him.

  The thing that poisons life for gunmen and sometimes makes them wonder moodily if it is worthwhile going on is this tendency of the outside public to butt in at inconvenient moments. Whenever you settle some business dispute with a commercial competitor by means of your sub-machine gun, it always turns out that there was some officious witness passing at the time, and there you are, with a new problem confronting you.

  And Lord Emsworth was in worse case than his spiritual brother of Chicago would have been, for the latter could always have solved his perplexities by rubbing out the witness. To him this melancholy pleasure was denied. A prominent Shropshire landowner, with a position to keep up in the county, cannot rub out his nieces. All he can do, when they reveal that they have seen him wallowing in crime, is to stare glassily at them.

  ‘I had a front seat for the entire performance,' proceeded Jane. 'When I left you, I went into the shrubbery to cry my eyes out because of your frightful cruelty and inhumanity. And While I was crying my eyes out, I suddenly saw you creep to the window of the library with a hideous look of low cunning on your face and young George's airgun in your hand. And I was just wondering if I couldn't find a stone and bung it at you, because it seemed to me that something along those lines was hat what you had been asking for from the start, when you raised the gun and I saw that you were taking aim. The next moment there was a shot, a cry, and Baxter weltering in his blood on the terrace. And as I stood there, a thought floated into my mind. It was - What will Aunt Constance have to say about this when I tell her?'

  Lord Emsworth emitted a low, gargling sound, like the death rattle of that dying duck to which his sister had compared him.

  'You - you aren't going to tell her?’

  ‘Why not?'

  An ague-like convulsion shook Lord Emsworth. ‘I implore you not to tell her, my dear. You know what she's like. I should never hear the end of it.'

  'She would give you the devil, you think?'

  ‘I do.'

  ‘So do I. And you thoroughly deserve it.'

  ‘My dear!'

  'Well, don't you? Look at the way you've been behaving. Working like a beaver to ruin my life's happiness.'

  'I don't want to ruin your life's happiness.'

  ‘You don't? Then sit down at this desk and dash off a short letter to George, giving him that job."

  ‘But -'

  ‘What did you say?'

  ‘I only said, "But-"'

  'Don't say it again. What I want from you, Uncle Clarence, is prompt and cheerful service. Are you ready? "Dear Mr Abercrombie ..." '

  'I don't know how to spell it,' said Lord Emsworth, with the air of a man who has found a way out satisfactory to all parties.

  'I'll attend to the spelling. A-b, ab; e-r, er; c-r-o-m, crom; b-i-e, bie. The whole constituting the word "Abercrombie", which is the name of the man I love. Got it?'

  'Yes,' said Lord Emsworth sepulchrally. 'I've got it.’

  'Then carry on. "Dear Mr Abercrombie. Pursuant" - one p, two u's - spread 'em about a bit, an r and s, and an ant -"Pursuant on our recent conversation -" ‘

  'But I've never spoken to the man in my life.'

  'It doesn't matter. It's just a form. "Pursuant on our recent conversation, I have much pleasure in offering you the post of

  land-agent at Blandings Castle, and shall be glad if you will take up your duties immediately. Yours faithfully, Emsworth." E-m-s-w-o-r-t-h.’

  Jane took the letter, pressed it lovingly on the blotting-pad and placed it is the recesses of her costume. 'Fine,' she said. 'That's that. Thanks awfully, Uncle Clarence. This has squared you nicely for your recent foul behaviour in trying to ruin my life's happiness. You made a rocky start, but you've come through magnificently at the finish.'

  Kissing him affectionately, she passed from the room, and . Lord Emsworth, slumped in his chair, tried not to look at the vision of his sister Constance which was rising before his eyes. What Connie was going to say when she learned that in defiance of her direct commands he had given this young man ...

  He mused on Lady Constance, and wondered if there were any other men in the world so sister-pecked as he. It was weak of him, he knew, to curl up into an apologetic ball when assailed by a mere sister. Most men reserved such craven conduct for their wives. But it had always been so, right back to those boyhood days which he remembered so well. And too late to alter it now, he supposed. :

  The only consolation he was able to enjoy in this dark hour was the reflection that, though things were bad, they were unquestionably less bad than they might have been. At the least, his fearful secret was safe. That rash moment of recovered boyhood would never now be brought up against him. Connie would never know whose hand it was that had pulled the fatal trigger. She might suspect, but she could never know. Nor could Baxter ever know. Baxter would grow into an old, white-haired, spectacled pantaloon, and always this thing would remain an insoluble mystery to him.

  Dashed lucky, felt Lord Emsworth, that the fellow had not been listening at the door during the recent conversation....

  It was at this moment that a sound behind him caused him to turn and, having turned, to spring from his chair with a convulsive leap that nearly injured him internally. Over the sill of the open window, like those of a corpse emerging from the tomb to confront its murderer, the head and shoulders of Rupert Baxter were slowly rising. The evening sun fell upon his spectacles, and they seemed to Lord Emsworth to gleam like the eyes of a dragon.

  Rupert Baxter had not been listening at the door. There had been no necessity for him to do so. Immediately outside the writing-room window at Blandings Castle there stands a rustic garden seat, and on this he had been sitting from beginning to end of the interview which has just been recorded. If he had been actually in the room, he might have heard a little better, but not much.

  When two men stand face to face, one of whom has recently shot the other with an airgun and the second of whom has just discovered who it was that did it, it is rarely that conversation flows briskly from the start. One senses a certain awkwardness - what the French call gene. In the first half-minute of this encounter the only thing that happened in a vocal way was that Lord Emsworth cleared his throat, immediately afterwards becoming silent again. And it is possible that his silence might have prolonged itself for some considerable time, had not Baxter made a movement a
s if about to withdraw. All this while he had been staring at his former employer, his face an open book in which it was easy for the least discerning eye to read a number of disconcerting emotions. He now took a step backwards, and Lord Emsworth's asphasia left him.

  'Baxter!'

  There was urgent appeal in the ninth Earl's voice. It was not often that he wanted Rupert Baxter to stop and talk to him, but he was most earnestly desirous of detaining him now. He wished to soothe, to apologize, to explain. He was even prepared, should it be necessary, to offer the man his old post of private secretary as the price of his silence.

  'Baxter! My dear fellow!'

  A high tenor voice, raised almost to A in Alt by agony of soul, has a compelling quality which it is difficult even for a man in Rupert Baxter's mental condition to resist Rupert Baxter had not intended to halt his backward movement, but he did so, and Lord Emsworth, reaching the window and thrusting his head out, was relieved to see that he was still within range of the honeyed word.

  ‘Er - Baxter,' he said, 'could you spare me a moment?'

  The secretary's spectacles flashed coldly.

  'You wish to speak to me, Lord Emsworth?’

  'That's exactly it,' assented his lordship, as if he thought it a very happy way of putting the thing. 'Yes, I wish to speak to you.' He paused, and cleared his throat again. 'Tell me, Baxter

  -tell me, my dear fellow - were you - er - were you sitting on that seat just now?'

  'I was.'

  'Did you, by any chance, overhear my niece and myself talking?'

  'I did.'

  'Then I expect - I fancy - perhaps - possibly - no doubt you were surprised at what you heard?'

  'I was astounded,' said Rupert Baxter, who was not going to be fobbed off with any weak verbs at a moment like this.

  Lord Emsworth cleared his throat for the third time.

  ‘I want to tell you all about that,' he said.

  ‘Oh? 'said Rupert Baxter.. ‘

  'Yes. I - ah - welcome this opportunity of telling you all about it,' said Lord Emsworth, though with less pleasure in his voice than might have been expected from a man welcoming an opportunity of telling somebody all about something. “I fancy that my niece's remarks may - er - possibly have misled you.'

  'Not at all.'

  'They may have put you on the wrong track.'

  'On the contrary.'

  'But, if I remember correctly, she gave the impression - by what she said - my niece gave the impression by what she said

  -anybody overhearing what my niece said would have received the impression that I took deliberate aim at you with the gun.'

  'Precisely.”

  'She was quite mistaken,' said Lord Emsworth warmly. 'She has got hold of the wrong end of the stick completely. Girls say such dashed silly things ... cause a lot of trouble ... upset people. They ought to be more careful. What actually happened, my dear fellow, was that I was glancing out of the library window…with the gun in my hand…and without knowing it I must have placed my finger on the trigger…for suddenly…without the slightest warning…you could have knocked me down with a feather…the dashed thing went off. By accident.’

  'Indeed?'

  'Purely by accident, I should not like you to think that I was aiming at you.'

  ‘Indeed?'

  ‘And I should not like you to tell - er - anybody about the unfortunate occurrence in a way that would give her ... I mean them ... the impression that I aimed at you.'

  'Indeed?'

  Lord Emsworth could not persuade himself that his companion's manner was encouraging. He had a feeling that he was not making headway.

  'That's how it was,' he said, after a pause.

  'I see.'

  'Pure accident. Nobody more surprised than myself.’

  'I see.'

  So did Lord Emsworth. He saw that the time had come to play his last card. It was no moment for shrinking back and counting the cost. He must proceed to that last fearful extremity which he had contemplated.

  'Tell me, Baxter,' he said, 'are you doing anything just now, Baxter?'

  'Yes,' replied the other, with no trace of hesitation. 'I am going to look for Lady Constance.'

  A convulsive gulp prevented Lord Emsworth from speaking for an instant.

  'I mean,' he quavered, when the spasm had spent itself, 'I: gathered from my sister that you were at liberty at the moment - that you had left that fellow what's-his-name - the American fellow - and I was hoping, my dear Baxter,' said Lord Ems-: worth, speaking thickly, as if the words choked him, 'that I might be able to persuade you to take up - to resume - in fact,; I was going to ask you if you would care to become my secretary again.'

  He paused and, reaching for his handkerchief, feebly mopped his brow. The dreadful speech was out, and its emergence had left him feeling spent and weak.

  ‘You were?' cried Rupert Baxter.

  'I was.' said Lord Emsworth hollowly.

  A great change for the better had come over Rupert Baxter, It was as if those words had. been a magic formula, filling with sweetness and light one who until that moment had been more like a spectacled thunder-cloud than anything human. He ceased to lower darkly. His air of being on the point of shooting out forked lightning left him. He even went so far as to smile. And if the smile was a smile that made Lord Emsworth feel as if his vital organs were being churned up with an egg-whisk, that was not his fault. He was trying to smile sunnily.

  "Thank you,' he said. 'I shall be delighted.'

  Lord Emsworth did not speak.

  T was always happy at the Castle'

  Lord Emsworth did not speak

  'Thank you very much, said Rupert Baxter. 'What a beautiful. evening

  He passed from view, and Lord Emsworth. examined the evening. As Baxter had said, it was beautiful, but it did not bring the balm which beautiful evenings usually brought to him. A blight seemed to hang over it. The setting sun shone bravely on the formal garden over which he looked, but it was the lengthening shadows rather than the sunshine that impressed themselves upon Lord Emsworth.

  His heart was bowed down with weight of woe. Oh, says the poet, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive, and it was precisely the same, Lord Emsworth realized, when first we practise to shoot airguns. Just one careless, offhand pop at a bending Baxter, and what a harvest, what a retribution! As a result of that single idle shot he had been compelled to augment his personal staff with a land-agent, which would infuriate his sister Constance, and a private secretary, which would make his life once again the inferno it had been in the old, bad Baxter days. He could scarcely have got himself into more trouble if he had gone blazing away with a machine gun.

  It was with a slow and distrait shuffle that he eventually took himself from the writing-room and proceeded with his interrupted plan of going and sniffing at his roses. And so preoccupied was his mood that Beach, his faithful butler, who came to him after he had been smiling at them for perhaps half an hour, was obliged to speak twice before he could induce him to remove his nose from a Gloire de Dijon. 'Eh?'

  'A note for you, m'lord.'

  'A note? Who from?'

  'Mr Baxter, m'lord.'

  If Lord Emsworth had been less careworn, he might have noticed that the butler's voice had not its customary fruity ring. It had a dullness, a lack of tone. It was the voice of a butler who has lost the bluebird. But, being in the depths and so in no frame of mind to analyse the voice-production of butlers, he merely took the envelope from its salver and opened it listlessly, wondering what Baxter was sending him notes about.

  The communication was so brief that he was enabled to discover this at a glance.

  'Lord Emsworth,

  'After what has occurred, I must reconsider my decision to accept the post of secretary which you offered me.

  ‘I am leaving the Castle immediately.

  “R. Baxter.” ‘

  Simply that, and nothing more.

  Lord Emsworth stared
at the thing. It is not enough to say that he was bewildered. He was nonplussed. If the Gloire de Dijon at which he had recently been sniffing had snapped at his nose and bitten the tip off, he could scarcely have been more taken aback. He could make nothing of this.

  As in a dream, he became aware that Beach was speaking,

  'Eh?'

  ‘My month's notice, m'lord.'

  'Your what?'

  ‘My month's notice, m'lord.'

  ‘What about it?'

  'I was saying that I wish to give my month's notice, m'lord.'

  A weak irritation at all this chattering came upon Lord Emsworth. Here he was, trying to grapple with this frightful thing which had come upon him, and Beach would insist on weakening his concentration by babbling.

  'Yes, yes, yes,' he said.’ I see. All right. Yes, yes.'

  "Very good, m'lord.'

  Left alone, Lord Emsworth faced the facts. He understood mow what had happened. The note was no longer mystic. What it meant was that for some reason that trump card of his had proved useless. He had thought to stop Baxter's mouth with bribes, and he had failed. The man had seemed to accept the olive branch, but later there must have come some sharp revulsion of feeling, causing him to change his mind. No doubt a sudden twinge of pain in the wounded area had brought the memory of his wrongs flooding back upon him, so that he found himself preferring vengeance to material prosperity. And now he was going to blow the gaff. Even now the whole facts in the case might have been placed before Lady Constance. And even now, Lord Emsworth felt with a shiver, Connie might be looking for him.