A Pelican at Blandings (5 page)

'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 on 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.'

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.

He hoped Mr. Galahad had not got mixed up with a gang
of some kind.

The hollowness of John's voice over the telephone had
deepened Gally's conviction that this rift between him and the
Gilpin popsy must be the real West End stuff, and when he
reached his destination and saw him, he realized how well-founded
his apprehensions had been.

What with the excellence of its beer and the charm of the
shady garden running down to the river in which its patrons
drink it, haggard faces are rarely seen at the Emsworth Arms,
and the haggardness of John's was all the more noticeable. In
these idyllic surroundings it could not but attract attention,
and Gally was reminded of his old friend Fruity Biffen on the
occasion when he had gone into the ring at Hurst Park
wearing a long Assyrian beard in order to avoid recognition by
the half dozen bookmakers there to whom he owed money,
and the beard, insufficiently smeared with fish glue, had come
off. The same wan, drawn look.

Until they were seated at one of the garden tables with
tankards of Emsworth Arms beer before them no word was
spoken. But it was never in Gally to refrain from speech for
long, and after he had fortified himself with a draft of the elixir
he leaned forward and gave his companion's shoulder a
fatherly pat.

'Tell me all about it, my boy,' he said in the hushed voice of
one addressing a stretcher case on his stretcher. 'I should
mention that it was only an hour or so ago that Miss Gilpin
and I were in conference, so I understand the situation more
or less. That is to say, while short on details, I'm pretty clear
on the general all-over picture. Your engagement, I gather
from her, is off, and as it's only a day or so since you plighted
your troth it struck me as quick work. I was mystified.'

'What did she say about me?'

'Better, far better not to enquire. Suffice it that her obiter
dicta differed substantially from the sort of thing Juliet used to
say about Romeo. What on earth happened?'

A beetle, descending from the tree in the shade of which
they were sitting, fell on the table. John gave it a cold look.

'It wasn't my fault,' he said. 'I was simply doing my duty.
Women don't understand these things.'

'What things?'

'She ought to have realized that I couldn't let Clutterbuck
down.'

'Clutterbuck?'

'G. G. Clutterbuck.'

Gally had intended to be all gentleness and sympathy at this
interview, but he could not repress an irritated snort. If he had
to listen to a story instead of telling one, he liked it to be clear
and straightforward.