A Pelican at Blandings Page 5

  'Marrying all those women. As far as I can make out, he does it every hour on the hour. Do you remember that song "They call me Otto of roses" in one of those Gaiety shows? "If you don't like what you've go-to, pick another from the grotto, that's the motto of Otto of roses". That's Trout.'

  'He sounds charming.'

  'He's all right. Tight all the time, I imagine. At least he was when I met him. He was crying into a cocktail, and he told me about his wife. This was his third wife, or it may have been his fourth. He marries at the drop of a hat. Odd hobby to have, but everyone to his taste and I suppose he enjoys it.'

  He had given Lady Constance the cue she needed. Pigeonholing for the moment the rather disquieting thought that in her capacity of chatelaine of Blandings Castle she was about to entertain for an indeterminate visit a mentally unbalanced alcoholic, she said:

  'Don't you think it's time you married again, Alaric?'

  An exasperated snort echoed through the portrait gallery like a fog horn.

  'That's what you say every blasted time I see you. Nag, nag, nag. Who do you want me to marry now?'

  'Vanessa Polk.'

  'That American female you've brought along? Who is she? One of your New York friends?'

  'No, I met her on the boat. I had an attack of neuralgia, and she was very good to me. I was obliged to spend two days in bed, and she came and sat with me and looked after me.'

  'Probably working up to a touch.'

  'Don't be ridiculous.'

  'Has she tried to borrow money?'

  'Of course she has not. She's much richer than I am. At least, her father is.'

  'How do you know that?'

  'She told me. She is J. B. Polk's daughter. You must have heard of J. B. Polk.'

  'I seem to know the name.'

  'Of course you do. He's a financial emperor. Controls all sorts of businesses . . . banks, railroads, mines, everything.'

  'Does he?' said the Duke.

  'Nobody could call James a pauper, but he feels like one when he compares himself with J. B. Polk. And he has a very high blood pressure.'

  'James has?'

  'Polk has. He might die of apoplexy at any moment, and Vanessa would become one of the wealthiest women in America.'

  'Would she?' said the Duke thoughtfully. 'Would she?'

  The gleam which had come into his prominent eyes did not escape Lady Constance's notice, nor did it surprise her. She had expected her words to create a powerful reaction. Revolted though she would have been had someone informed her that her views on anything could coincide with those of her brother Galahad, on the subject of the Duke's affection for money they were identical. This partiality of his for coin of the realm had been drawn to her attention twenty years ago, when he had informed her that their engagement was at an end because her father refused to meet his terms in the matter of dowry, and she could never be sufficiently grateful to her late parent for his parsimony. She was fond of Alaric in a sisterly way, but her intelligence told her that for one of her impatient temperament marriage with him would have been a disaster. Vanessa was different. Her cheerful equable nature would enable her to cope even with an Alaric.

  'She would be ideal for you,' she said.

  'Seems nice,' the Duke agreed.

  'And of course it would be a wonderful match for her.'

  'Of course.'

  'She went to the library after breakfast. Why don't you go there and talk to her?'

  'I will.'

  'She will be delighted to see you.'

  'I suppose so. I'll go at once. And I don't want you coming along, Connie, so buzz off.'

  2

  Gally had had to change his plans. He had not been able to fulfil his intention of showing Linda Gilpin the beauties of the yew alley, for after the briefest of conversations on the way there they had parted, she to return to the house, he to go to the Empress's sty, where he knew Lord Emsworth was to be found. As the result of his talk with the moon of his godson's delight he was feeling perplexed and bewildered, and he had a faint hope that Clarence might have something constructive to suggest. Such a miracle was not of course likely, for Clarence in the course of a longish life had never suggested anything constructive to anybody on any subject whatsoever, but it often happens that talking something over with someone has the effect of clarifying one's thoughts, even if that someone merely gapes at one like a goldfish.

  He found Lord Emsworth, as usual, draped like a wet sock over the rail of the Empress's G.H.Q. with a large potato in his hand, and came immediately to the point.

  'Clarence,' he said, 'I'm worried.'

  'I am sorry to hear that, Galahad,' said Lord Emsworth, courteously transferring to him the attention monopolized till then by the silver medallist, who was busying herself among the proteins and carbohydrates with a gusto which would have drawn a smile of approval from Wolff-Lehman. 'Is it Connie?' he asked, seizing on what he thought the obvious explanation for anyone's mental disturbance at Blandings Castle.

  'No, not Connie. It's about a godson of mine.'

  'I did not know you had a godson.'

  'I have several. People ask you to officiate, and you can't very well refuse. Not that I have any complaints to make about my little lot. I'm very fond of them all, particularly this one. I hope I am not interrupting you in an early lunch, Clarence.'

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'That potato you're brandishing.'

  'Oh, that is for the Empress. I was about to give it to her.'

  'Do it now. Then you will be able to concentrate on my story.'

  'Quite. Yes, go on, Galahad. You were saying you were thinking of adopting a godson.'

  'I wasn't saying anything of the sort. You don't adopt godsons, they just adhere to you like some sort of growth. This one is the son of an old friend of mine, and he's in trouble.'

  Lord Emsworth was concerned.

  'Money? I should be glad to do anything in my power.'

  'That's extremely kind of you, Clarence, but he's all right as far as money is concerned. He's doing well at the bar and has an interest in one of those Bond Street picture galleries. It's his love life that has come a stinker. You remember that night you phoned me about Connie breaking out again. He was with me at the time, and he had just been telling me he had become engaged to be married.'

  'Indeed?'

  'To the Gilpin girl.'

  'Who is the Gilpin girl?'

  'You've met her. She's staying here. Came last night. Smallish, with blue eyes and chestnut hair.'

  'Ah yes, I do seem to have some sort of recollection. Isn't she something to do with Alaric?'

  'His niece.'

  'And she is going to marry your godson?'

  'According to him it was all set. He babbled about how much he loved her and distinctly gave me to understand that she loved him with equal intensity.'

  'They loved each other?' said Lord Emsworth, having worked it out.

  'Exactly. It seemed as if it was all over except buying the licence and rounding up the parson.'

  'When is the wedding to be? And will it mean,' said Lord Emsworth in sudden panic, 'that I shall have to wear a top hat?'

  'The way it looks, you need have no anxiety.'

  'You don't think Connie will insist?'

  'She won't be given the opportunity.'

  'She makes me wear one for the school treat.'

  'What I'm trying to tell you is that there probably won't be a wedding.'

  'You said there would.'

  'And the girl says there won't.'

  'She ought to know. Well, that's a relief. It isn't the top hat I really object to, it's the clothes that go with it. The stiff collar—'

  'If you will just let me get on with it, Clarence.'

  'Certainly, my dear fellow, certainly.'

  'Then I will proceed. Not so many minutes ago I took her— or started to take her—to see the yew valley. It being the first time I had been able to get her alone, my opening move was naturally to touch o
n the engagement.'

  'To your godson?'

  'To my godson. "I hear I have to wish you happiness," I said. To which she replied with a simple "Why?". A little surprised by her slowness at the uptake, I explained that I was referring to her betrothal.'

  'To your godson?'

  'To my godson. And she gave me a quick, cold, haughty look, as if I had offended her with a four-letter word. "Are you under the impression," she said, "that it is my intention to marry that ruddy Gawd-help-us? If so, here is something for your files. I wouldn't marry him to please a dying grandmother. If I saw him perishing of thirst, I wouldn't give him the dew off a Brussels sprout. And if I heard that he had been run over by a motor omnibus and had broken his spine in three places, I would go about Blandings Castle trilling like a nightingale." Those may not have been her exact words, but that was the gist, and her attitude left me disturbed. I may be hypersensitive, but I got the definite feeling that the wedding was off. I can't imagine what Johnny has done to get her thinking along those lines. It'll probably turn out to be something quite trivial. A thing I've noticed as I've gone through life is that girls never need much of a reason for breaking engagements. It's their first move when anything goes wrong. I remember a fellow named Ponderby at the old Pelican— Legs Ponderby we used to call him—short for Hollow Legs— because of his remarkable capacity for absorbing buttered rums—who got engaged to a girl who did a snake act on the suburban Halls and always took her supporting artists around with her in a wickerwork basket. And one night, when they were having a bite of supper at the Bodega, a long green member of the troupe got loose and crawled up Legs's leg, and wanting to sell his life dearly he hit it on the nose with a bread stick. He explained to the girl that seeing snakes always affected him profoundly, but she broke the engagement just the same and went off and married a comedy juggler. And then there was poor Binks Holloway—'

  The Binks Holloway anecdote was one of Gally's best. He had told it perhaps a hundred times in the course of his career to rapturous audiences, but he was not to tell it now. Lord Emsworth had uttered a strangled yelp and with a shaking finger was pointing at something in the sty. What it was, Gally was unable to see. Everything looked perfectly normal to him, no suggestion that the Empress had fallen in a fit or was being snatched up to heaven in a fiery chariot. Always a pig chary of exhibiting the stronger emotions, she seemed even more placid than usual.

  'What on earth's the matter, Clarence?' he asked with petulance. That sudden yelp had made him bite his tongue.

  For a moment Lord Emsworth struggled for speech. Then he achieved utterance, though in a shaking voice.

  'The potato!'

  'What about it?'

  'She has not eaten it. Such a thing has never happened before. She is passionately fond of potatoes. She must be sickening for something.'

  'Shall I send for the vet?'

  Gally's query had been satirical in intent. He resented this agitation about a pig which was obviously at the peak of its form, and his tongue was still paining him.

  'Or notify the police? Or call out the military?'

  All that penetrated to Lord Emsworth's consciousness was the operative word.

  'Yes, will you telephone the vet, Galahad. I would do it myself, but I ought to stay with her. His name is Banks. Beach will know the number. Please go and see Beach without delay.'

  3

  It had been well said of Galahad Threepwood from the old Pelican days onward that blows beneath which lesser men reeled and collapsed left him as cool and unconcerned as a halibut on a fishmonger's slab, and indeed there were very few socks on the spiritual jawbone that he could not take with a stiff and nonchalant upper lip. Nevertheless, it was with heart bowed down that he made for Beach's pantry to perform his errand of mercy. It seemed abundantly clear to him from her remarks on the way to the yew alley that what had sundered Linda Gilpin and the godson for whom he had always felt a paternal fondness had not been one of those passing lovers' tiffs which can be put right with a few kisses and a bottle of scent, but the real big time stuff. For some reason which had still to be explained John had fallen back so badly in the betting in the matrimonial stakes that he might as well have been actually scratched.

  It was not a pleasant state of things for a loving godfather to have to contemplate, and he was pondering deeply as he reached the house. He was an optimist and throughout his checkered career had always clung stoutly to the view that no matter how darkly the clouds might lower the sun would eventually come smiling through, but this time it looked as though the sun had other intentions.

  Musing thus, he was passing across the hall, when his meditations were interrupted by a voice calling his name. Lady Constance was standing in the doorway of the amber drawing-room, looking, he thought, extraordinarily like the Statue of Liberty.

  'Please come here, Galahad.'

  Conversations with Connie, tending as they so often did to become acrimonious, were never among the pleasures Gally went out of his way to seek, and at the moment, with so much on his mind, he was feeling particularly allergic to a tête-à-tête. He replied promptly.

  'Can't now. I'm busy. Fully occupied.'

  'I don't care how fully occupied you are. I want to talk to you.'

  'Oh, all right, but talk quick. The Empress has refused to eat a potato, Clarence is distracted, and I've got to call the vet. It's a major crisis, and all good men have been notified that now is the time for them to come to the aid of the party.'

  He followed her into the drawing-room, sank into a chair and gave his monocle a polish, an action which drew from her a sharp 'Oh, for goodness sake don't do that!'

  'Do what?'

  'Fiddle with that revolting eyeglass.'

  It was evident to Gally that his sister was in one of her moods, which were roughly equivalent to those which Cleopatra and Boadicea used to have when things went wrong, and he braced himself to play the man. One of the rules he lived by was 'When Connie starts throwing her weight about, sit on her head immediately'. It was a policy he had repeatedly urged on Lord Emsworth, but never with success.

  'I don't know why you call it revolting,' he said with dignity. 'For years it has been admired by some of the most discriminating jellied eel sellers in London. What's on your mind, Connie? You didn't lug me in here merely to heap vulgar abuse on me.'

  'I lugged you in here, as you put it, because I want to speak to you about Vanessa Polk.'

  'That's better. I am always happy to be spoken to about the Polk popsy. Charming creature.'

  'She is, and you have a habit of monopolizing charming creatures who visit the castle and never letting anyone else come near them.'

  'One tries to be civil.'

  'Well, this time don't. There are others who would like to have an occasional word with Vanessa.'

  It was only a kindly reluctance to inflame passions beyond control that kept Gally from polishing his eyeglass again. The significance of her words had not escaped him. Excluding Howard Chesney, there could be only one person she had in mind, and it was unlikely that she would be concerning herself about Howard Chesney.

  'Do you mean Dunstable?'

  Lady Constance started irritably, like the Statue of Liberty stung by a mosquito which had wandered over from the Jersey marshes. She spoke with the petulance that always came into her manner sooner or later when she conversed with her brother Galahad.

  'Why do you persist in calling him that? You've known him for years. Why not Alaric?'

  'Never mind what I call him. If you knew some of the things I'd like to call him you would be astounded at my moderation. Are you telling me that that human walrus has fallen in love at first sight with Vanessa Polk?'

  'Alaric is not a human walrus.'

  'You criticize my use of the word human?'

  Lady Constance swallowed twice, and was thus enabled to overcome a momentary urge to hit her brother over the head with a glass vase containing gladioli. It is one of the tragedies of advancing age that
the simple reactions of childhood have to be curbed. In their mutual nursery far less provocation than she was receiving now would have led her to an attack with tooth and claw. With an effort she forced herself to preserve the decencies of debate.

  'I am not going to waste the morning bickering with you, Galahad,' she said. 'Naturally I am not saying anything so foolish as that Alaric has fallen in love at first sight, but he is very interested in Vanessa and I'm not surprised. She is very attractive.'

  'But he isn't,' said Gally.

  Lady Constance gave him a stony glance. Wasted on him, for being too humane to polish his eyeglass he was assisting thought by lying back in his chair with his eyes closed. Her voice was icy as she said:

  'Alaric is extremely attractive.'

  'If you like walruses.'

  'And I want you to understand that you are not to interfere with—'

  'His wooing?'

  'If that is the word you care to use.'

  'Very well. But may I say in parting that if you're trying to get Dunstable off this season, you haven't a hope. He's much too set in his ways and much too fond of his comforts to marry anyone. Don't fool yourself. He may put on an act and make you think he's going to jump off the dock, but he'll always remember how snug he is as a widower and draw back in time.'

  And so saying Gally trotted off to Beach's pantry to fulfil his mission.

  Beach was polishing silver when he arrived. Abandoning this duty for the moment, he called the veterinary surgeon at his office in Market Blandings and bade him hasten to the Empress's sty; and he had scarcely replaced the receiver when the telephone rang again.

  'For you, Mr. Galahad. A Mr. Halliday.'

  'Ah, I was expecting him to call. Hullo, Johnny.'

  The conversation that ensued was brief, too brief for Beach, whose curiosity had been aroused. He gathered that this Mr. Halliday was speaking from the Emsworth Arms and wished to see Mr. Galahad at the earliest possible moment, but beyond that all was mystery.

  At length Gally hung up, and with a curt 'Got to go to Market Blandings' hurried out.

  Odd, thought Beach, most peculiar. Sinister, too, if you came to think of it, like those telephone calls in the novels of suspense which were his favourite reading.