A Pelican at Blandings (6 page)

'Who the hell is G. G. Clutterbuck?'

'A chartered accountant for whom I was appearing in the
action of Clutterbuck versus Frisby. And Frisby is the retired
meat salesman whose car collided with Clutterbuck's in the
Fulham Road, shaking Clutterbuck up and possibly causing
internal injuries. The defence, of course, pleaded that
Clutterbuck had run into Frisby, and everything turned on the
evidence of a Miss Linda Gilpin, who happened to be passing
at the time and was an eye witness of the collision. It was my
duty to examine her and make it plain to the jury that she was
cockeyed and her testimony as full of holes as a Swiss cheese.'

It is probable that Gally would have made at this point some
ejaculation expressive of interest and concern, but he chanced
at the moment to be drinking beer. It was not till he had
finished choking and had been slapped on the back by a
passing waiter that he was in a condition to offer any comment,
and even then he was unable to, for John had resumed
his narrative.

'You can imagine my feelings. The court reeled about me. I
thought for a moment I wouldn't be able to carry on.'

The drama of the situation was not lost on Gally. His
eyeglass flew from its base.

'But you did carry on?'

'I did, and in about a minute and a half I had her tied in
knots. She hadn't a leg to stand on.'

'You led her on to damaging admissions?'

'Yes.'

'All that "Would it be fair to say" and "Is it not a fact" sort
of thing?'

'Yes.'

'Did you wag a finger in her face?'

'Of course I didn't.'

'I thought that was always done. But you gave her the
works?'

'Yes.'

'And she resented it?'

'Yes.'

'Did you win your case?'

'Yes.'

'That must have pleased Clutterbuck.'

'Yes.'

'Did you see her afterwards?'

'No. She wrote me a note saying the engagement was off.'

Gally replaced his monocle. The look in the eye to which he
fitted it and in the other eye which went through life in the
nude was not an encouraging one. Nor was his 'H'm' a 'H'm'
calculated to engender optimism.

'You're in a spot, Johnny.'

'Yes.'

'You will have to do some heavy pleading if those wedding
bells are to ring out in the little village church or wherever you
were planning to have them ring out. And the problem that
confronts us is How is that pleading to be done?'

'I don't follow you. She's at the castle.'

'Exactly, and you aren't.'

'But you'll invite me there.'

Gally shook his head. It pained him to be compelled to act
as a black frost in his young friend's garden of dreams, but facts
had to be faced.

'Impossible. Nothing would please me more, Johnny, than
to slip you into the old homestead, but you don't realize what
my position there is. Connie can't exclude me from the
premises, I being a chartered member of the family, but she
views me with concern and her conversation on the rare
occasions when she speaks to me generally consists of eulogies
of the various trains back to the metropolis. Any attempt on
my part to ring in a friend would rouse the tigress that sleeps
within her. You would be lucky if you lasted five minutes. She
would have you by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the
trousers and be giving you the bum's rush before you had
finished brushing your feet on the mat. I know just how you
are feeling, and I couldn't be sorrier not to be able to oblige
you, but there it is. You'll have to go back to London and leave
me to look after your affairs. And if I may say so,' said Gally
modestly, 'they could scarcely be in better hands. I will do the
pleading with L. Gilpin, and I confidently expect to play on
her as on a stringed instrument.'

The words brought to his mind a very funny story about a
member of the Pelican Club who had once tried to learn to
play the banjo, but something whispered to him that this was
not the moment to tell it. He gave John's shoulder another
fatherly pat and set off on the long trek back to the castle.

John, his face more than ever like that of Fruity Biffen, put
in an order for another beer.

In order to avoid the glare of the sun and the society of the
Duke of Dunstable, who had suddenly become extremely
adhesive, Vanessa Polk had slipped away after lunch to one
of the shady nooks with which the grounds of Blandings
Castle were so liberally provided, and was sitting there on a
rustic bench. Lord Emsworth's father had been a man much
given to strewing rustic benches hither and thither. He had
also, not that it matters, collected birds' eggs and bound
volumes of the proceedings of the Shropshire Archaeological
Society.

As she sat there, she was thinking of Wilbur Trout. The
news that he was expected on the afternoon train had given her
a nostalgic thrill. He had probably forgotten it, his having been
a life into which feminine entanglements had entered so
largely, but they had once for a short time been engaged to be
married, and though it was she who had broken the engagement,
she had always retained a maternal fondness for him.
Whenever she read of another of his marriages she could not
help feeling that she had been wrong to desert her post and
stop looking after him. Lacking her gentle supervision, he had
lost all restraint, springing from blonde to blonde with an
assiduity which seemed to suggest that he intended to go on
marrying them till the supply gave out.

Wilbur Trout was a young man of great amiability whose
initial mistake in life had been to have a father who enjoyed
making money and counted that day lost which had gone by
without increasing his bank balance. Had he been the son of
someone humble in the lower income tax brackets, he would
have gone through the years as a blameless and contented
filing clerk or something on that order, his only form of
dissipation an occasional visit to Palisades Park or Coney
Island. Inheriting some fifty million dollars in blue chip
securities unsettled him, and he had become New York's most
prominent playboy, fawned on by head waiters, a fount of
material to gossip columnists and a great giver of parties whose
guests included both the rich and the poor. It was at one of
these that Vanessa had met him, and she now sat in the shady
nook thinking of old times.

In favour of this shady nook there was much to be said. It
was cool. It was pleasantly scented. The streamlet that trickled
through it on its way to the lake gave out a musical tinkle. And
above all Alaric, Duke of Dunstable, was not there. But against
these advantages had to be set the fact that it was a sort of
country club for all the winged insects in Shropshire.
Wearying of their society after a while, Vanessa rose and made
her way back to the house, and as she approached it Lord
Emsworth came down the front steps.

She greeted him cordially.

'Playing hooky, Lord Emsworth?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Or has the Empress given you the afternoon off? Aren't you
usually on duty at this time of day?'

Lord Emsworth, who had been looking gloomy, brightened
a little. He was fond of Vanessa. He found her sympathetic,
and a sympathetic ear into which to pour his troubles was just
what he had been wanting. He explained the reason for his
despondency.

'Connie told me to meet this man Trout at the station. He
is arriving on a train that gets in soon. I forget when, but
Voules will know. And I ought to be with the Empress every
minute. She needs me at her side.'

'Why didn't you tell Lady Constance that you had a
previous engagement?'

The blankness behind Lord Emsworth's pince-nez showed
that this revolutionary idea had not occurred to him. When
Connie told you to do things, you did not say that you had a
previous engagement. Galahad, of course, would be capable of
such an act of reckless courage, but Galahad, in addition to
being a man of steel and iron, veteran of a hundred battles with
bookmakers, process servers and racecourse touts, wore an
eyeglass and had only to twiddle it to daunt the stoutest sister.
It was not a feat to be expected of a man in pince-nez. With a
shiver at the mere thought of such a thing, he said:

'Oh, I couldn't do that.'

'Why not?'

'She would be furious.'

Wheels grated on gravel, and the car came round the corner,
chauffeur Voules at the helm.

'Oh dear,' sighed Lord Emsworth, seeing it.

'Look,' said Vanessa. 'Why don't I go and meet Trout?'

The start Lord Emsworth gave at this suggestion was so
violent that it detached his pince-nez from the parent nose.
Hauling them in on their string, he gazed at her reverentially.
On his visit to New York to attend the wedding of Connie and
James Schoonmaker he had become a great admirer of the
American girl, but he had never supposed that even an
American girl could be as noble as this.

'Would you? Would you really?'

'Sure. A privilege and pleasure.'

'There would be no need to tell Connie.'

'None whatever.'

'Well, it is extremely kind of you. I don't know how to thank
you.'

'Don't give it a thought.'

'You see, it's the Empress. I mean—'

'I know what you mean. Your place is at her side.'

'Exactly. I ought not to leave her for a moment. They keep
assuring me that there is no reason for concern, Banks said so
in so many words, but the fact remains that she refused to eat
a potato which I had offered her.'

'Bad.'

'No, that is what is so sinister about it. It was a perfectly
good potato, but she merely sniffed at it and—'

'Turned on her heel?'

'Precisely. She sniffed at it and walked away. Naturally I am
anxious.'

'Anyone would be.'

'If only I could consult Wolff-Lehman.'

'Why can't you?'

'He's dead.'

'I see what you mean. That does rather rule him out as an
adviser. Though you might get him on the ouija board.'

'So if you will really go to the station—'

'I'm on my way. Market Blandings, here I come.'

'I'm afraid it is asking a great deal of you. You will find it
boring having to talk to Mr. Trout as you drive back. It is
always a strain finding anything to say to a stranger.'

'That's all right. Willie Trout's not a stranger. I knew him
on the other side.'

'Where?'

'In America.'

'Oh, ah, yes, of course, yes. The other side of the Atlantic,
you mean.'

'We'll have all sorts of things to talk about. Not a dull
moment.'

'Capital,' said Lord Emsworth. 'Capital, capital, capital.'

The train was just coming in as the car reached the station,
and as Wilbur Trout stepped from it Vanessa started picking
up the threads with a genial 'Hi!', and he responded with the
same cordial monosyllable. There was no embarrassment on
his side at this unexpected meeting with a woman he had loved
and lost. If meeting women he had loved and lost could have
embarrassed Wilbur Trout, he would have had to spend most
of his time turning pink and twiddling his fingers. Vanessa was
an old friend whom he was delighted to see. If he was a little
vague as to who she was, he distinctly recalled having met her
before. And when she told him, after he had called her
Pauline, that her name was Vanessa, he had her placed. It
helped, of course, that she was the only one on his long list to
whom he had been engaged and not married.

She explained the circumstances which had led to her being
at Blandings Castle, and they spoke for awhile of the old days,
of parties he had given at Great Neck and Westhampton
Beach, of guys and dolls who had been her fellow guests at
those parties, and of the night when he had dived into the
Plaza fountain in correct evening dress. But the frivolous
memories did not detain him long. His mind was on deeper
things.

'Say, is there anywhere around here where you can get a
drink?' he asked, and she replied that beverages of all kinds
were to be obtained at the Emsworth Arms not a stone's throw
distant. There were other hostelries in Market Blandings . . .
one does not forget the Goose and Gander, the Jolly
Cricketers, the Wheatsheaf, the Waggoner's Rest, the Blue
Cow and the Stitch In Time . . . but these catered for the
proletariat rather than for millionaire visitors from New York.
This she explained to Wilbur, and soon, having brightened
Voules's afternoon by telling him to go and refresh himself at
the bar, they were seated at one of the tables in the Emsworth
Arms' charming garden with gin and tonics within easy reach
and Vanessa was clothing in speech a thought which had been
in her mind from the first moment of their meeting.

'Willie,' she said, 'you look like the Wreck of the Hesperus.'

He took no offence at an old friend's candour. He had
indeed arrived at the same conclusion himself when peering
into the mirror that morning. He merely heaved a sombre
sigh.

'I've had a lot of trouble.'

'What's gone wrong this time?'

'It's a long story.'

'Then before you start on it tell me how in the name of
everything mysterious you come to be headed for Blandings
Castle.'

'That's part of the story.'

'All right, then, carry on. You have the floor.'

Wilbur drank deeply of his gin and tonic to assist the
marshalling of his thoughts. After a moment's brooding he
appeared to have got them in order.

'It started with my divorce.'

'Which one? Luella?'

'No, not Luella.'

'Marlene?'

'No, not Marlene. Genevieve.'

'Oh, Genevieve? Yes, I read about that.'

'It was a terrible shock when she walked out on me.'

The thought crossed Vanessa's mind that after his ample
experience of that sort of thing the exodus of another wife
should have seemed pure routine, but she did not say so. She
was a tactful girl, and it was plain to her that for some
inscrutable reason the loss of the third Mrs. Trout, who
had chewed gum and talked baby-talk, had affected him
deeply.

'I loved her, Pauline I mean Vanessa. I worshipped her. And
she ditched me for a guy who plays the trumpet in a band. And
not a name band, either.'

'Tough,' said Vanessa, but purely out of politeness. The
character in the drama calling for sympathy was, she considered,
the guy who played the trumpet. Unsuccessful in his
profession, chained to a band that was not a name band, and
now linked to Mrs. Genevieve Trout. One would have had to
be hard-hearted indeed not to feel a pang of pity for a man
with a record like that.

Wilbur attracted the attention of a waiter and ordered two
more gin and tonics. Even if his heart is broken, the prudent
man does not neglect the practical side of life.

'Where was I?' he said, passing a weary hand over his
forehead.

'You had got as far as the trumpeter, and you were saying
how much you loved Genevieve.'

'That's right.'

'Still?'

'Do you mean Do I love her still? I certainly do. I think of
her all the time. I lie awake nights. I seem to hear her voice.
She used to say the cutest things.'

'I can imagine.'

'She used to call roses woses.'

'So she did.'

'And rabbits wabbits.'

'Yes, I remember.'

'So you can understand how I felt when I saw that picture.'

'What picture would that be?'

'It was in the window of one of those art galleries on Bond
Street, and it was the image of Genevieve.'

'You mean a portrait?'

'No, not a portrait, a picture of a girl by some French guy.
And I said to myself I'd got to have it to remind me of her.'

'So you bought it, and they threw in an invitation to
Blandings Castle? Sort of like trading stamps?'

'Don't joke about it.'

'I'm not joking. Something must have happened, to bring
you here, and I'm waiting to be told what.'

'That was the Duke.'

'What Duke?'

'Dunstable he calls himself. He invited me.'

Vanessa flung her arms out in a despairing gesture. Wilbur
had always been a story-teller who got his stories muddled up,
but with his present conte he was excelling himself.

'I don't get it,' she said. 'I just don't get it. Maybe you'll
make it clearer as you proceed, so go on from when you bought
the picture. In words of one syllable, if you can manage it.'

Wilbur fortified himself with gin and tonic. From now on
every word he uttered was going to be a knife in his bosom.

'I didn't buy it. That's the whole point. It was past one
o'clock, and like a sap I thought I might as well have lunch
first, so I went to a club where I've a guest card and was having
a drink at the bar before going into the dining-room, when
this duke came along and sat down next to me and started
telling me what was wrong with the Government. We hit it off
pretty well and I had some more drinks, and before I knew
what was happening I was telling him about Genevieve and
this picture in the art gallery.'

'And while you were having your lunch he popped around
the corner and bought the picture, and now he's got you here
to sell it to you at a large profit.'

Amazement held Wilbur speechless for a long moment. He
stared blankly at the clairvoyant girl.

'How did you guess?' he gasped.

'It wasn't difficult, knowing the Duke. It must be the
picture that's in the castle portrait gallery now. And I'll bet he
didn't buy it from any love of art. He's in this for what he can
get.'

With another of his sombre sighs Wilbur endorsed this
theory.

'And he's invited me here so that I can keep on seeing the
thing. He knows I won't be able to stop myself buying it, no
matter what he asks. And that,' said Wilbur moodily, 'will be
about double what he paid for it. I'm in a spot.'

'Then say "Out, damned spot."'

A long train journey and several gin and tonics had left
Wilbur's brain on the sluggish side. There was, he presumed,
some significance in her words, but what it was eluded him.
Pure baloney, he would have said if asked to criticize them.