Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (6 page)

BOOK: Blandings Castle and Elsewhere
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'I said, "Curse all pigs!" You keep talking about pigs. I'm not
interested in pigs. I don't want to discuss pigs. Blast and damn
every pig in existence!'

Lord Emsworth watched him, as he strode away, with an
emotion that was partly indignation and partly relief – indignation
that a landowner and a fellow son of Shropshire could have
brought himself to utter such words, and relief that one capable
of such utterance was not going to marry into his family. He had
always in his woollen-headed way been very fond of his niece
Angela, and it was nice to think that the child had such solid
good sense and so much cool discernment. Many girls of her age
would have been carried away by the glamour of young Heacham's
position and wealth; but she, divining with an intuition
beyond her years that he was unsound on the subject of pigs, had
drawn back while there was still time and refused to marry him.

A pleasant glow suffused Lord Emsworth's bosom, to be
frozen out a few moments later as he perceived his sister Constance
bearing down upon him. Lady Constance was a beautiful
woman, but there were times when the charm of her face was
marred by a rather curious expression; and from nursery days
onward his lordship had learned that this expression meant
trouble. She was wearing it now.

'Clarence,' She said, 'I have had enough of this nonsense of
Angela and young Belford. The thing cannot be allowed to go
drifting on. You must catch the two o'clock train to London.'

'What! Why?'

'You must see this man Belford and tell him that, if Angela
insists on marrying him, she will not have a penny for four years.
I shall be greatly surprised if that piece of information does not
put an end to the whole business.'

Lord Emsworth scratched meditatively at the Empress's
tank-like back. A mutinous expression was on his mild face.

'Don't see why she shouldn't marry the fellow,' he mumbled.

'Marry James Belford?'

'I don't see why not. Seems fond of him and all that.'

'You never have had a grain of sense in your head, Clarence.
Angela is going to marry Heacham.'

'Can't stand that man. All wrong about pigs.'

'Clarence, I don't wish to have any more discussion and
argument. You will go to London on the two o'clock train.
You will see Mr Belford. And you will tell him about Angela's
money. Is that quite clear?'

'Oh, all right,' said his lordship moodily. All right, all
right, all right.'

 

The emotions of the Earl of Emsworth, as he sat next day
facing his luncheon-guest, James Bartholomew Belford, across a
table in the main dining-room of the Senior Conservative Club,
were not of the liveliest and most agreeable. It was bad enough
to be in London at all on such a day of golden sunshine. To be
charged, while there, with the task of blighting the romance of
two young people for whom he entertained a warm regard was
unpleasant to a degree.

For, now that he had given the matter thought, Lord
Emsworth recalled that he had always liked this boy Belford.
A pleasant lad, with, he remembered now, a healthy fondness for
that rural existence which so appealed to himself. By no means
the sort of fellow who, in the very presence and hearing of
Empress of Blandings, would have spoken disparagingly and
with oaths of pigs as a class. It occurred to Lord Emsworth, as it
has occurred to so many people, that the distribution of money
in this world is all wrong. Why should a man like pig-despising
Heacham have a rent roll that ran into the tens of thousands,
while this very deserving youngster had nothing?

These thoughts not only saddened Lord Emsworth – they
embarrassed him. He hated unpleasantness, and it was suddenly
borne in upon him that, after he had broken the news that
Angela's bit of capital was locked up and not likely to get
loose, conversation with his young friend during the remainder
of lunch would tend to be somewhat difficult.

He made up his mind to postpone the revelation. During the
meal, he decided, he would chat pleasantly of this and that; and
then, later, while bidding his guest good-bye, he would spring
the thing on him suddenly and dive back into the recesses of
the club.

Considerably cheered at having solved a delicate problem
with such adroitness, he started to prattle.

'The gardens at Blandings,' he said, 'are looking particularly
attractive this summer. My head-gardener, Angus McAllister, is
a man with whom I do not always find myself seeing eye to eye,
notably in the matter of hollyhocks, on which I consider his
views subversive to a degree; but there is no denying that he
understands roses. The rose garden—'

'How well I remember that rose garden,' said James Belford,
sighing slightly and helping himself to brussels sprouts. 'It was
there that Angela and I used to meet on summer mornings.'

Lord Emsworth blinked. This was not an encouraging start,
but the Emsworths were a fighting clan. He had another try.

'I have seldom seen such a blaze of colour as was to be
witnessed there during the month of June. Both McAllister
and I adopted a very strong policy with the slugs and plant lice,
with the result that the place was a mass of flourishing Damasks
and Ayrshires and—'

'Properly to appreciate roses,' said James Belford, 'You want
to see them as a setting for a girl like Angela. With her fair hair
gleaming against the green leaves she makes a rose garden seem
a veritable Paradise.'

'No doubt,' said Lord Emsworth. 'No doubt. I am glad you
liked my rose garden. At Blandings, of course, we have the
natural advantage of loamy soil, rich in plant food and humus;
but, as I often say to McAllister, and on this point we have never
had the slightest disagreement, loamy soil by itself is not
enough. You must have manure. If every autumn a liberal
mulch of stable manure is spread upon the beds and the coarser
parts removed in the spring before the annual forking—'

Angela tells me,' said James Belford, 'that you have forbidden
our marriage.'

Lord Emsworth choked dismally over his chicken. Directness
of this kind, he told himself with a pang of self-pity, was the
sort of thing young Englishmen picked up in America. Diplomatic
circumlocution flourished only in a more leisurely civilization,
and in those energetic and forceful surroundings you
learned to Talk Quick and Do It Now, and all sorts of uncomfortable
things.

'Er – well, yes, now you mention it, I believe some informal
decision of that nature was arrived at. You see, my dear fellow,
my sister Constance feels rather strongly—'

'I understand. I suppose she thinks I'm a sort of prodigal.'

'No, no, my dear fellow. She never said that. Wastrel was the
term she employed.'

'Well, perhaps I did start out in business on those lines. But
you can take it from me that when you find yourself employed
on a farm in Nebraska belonging to an applejack-nourished
patriarch with strong views on work and a good vocabulary,
you soon develop a certain liveliness.'

'Are you employed on a farm?'

'I was employed on a farm.'

'Pigs?' said Lord Emsworth in a low, eager voice.

'Among other things.'

Lord Emsworth gulped. His fingers clutched at the
table-cloth.

'Then perhaps, my dear fellow, you can give me some advice.
For the last two days my prize sow, Empress of Blandings, has
declined all nourishment. And the Agricultural Show is on
Wednesday week. I am distracted with anxiety.'

James Belford frowned thoughtfully.

'What does your pig-man say about it?'

'My pig-man was sent to prison two days ago. Two days!' For
the first time the significance of the coincidence struck him. 'You
don't think that can have anything to do with the animal's loss
of appetite?'

'Certainly. I imagine she is missing him and pining away
because he isn't there.'

Lord Emsworth was surprised. He had only a distant
acquaintance with George Cyril Wellbeloved, but from what
he had seen of him he had not credited him with this fatal
allure.

'She probably misses his afternoon call.'

Again his lordship found himself perplexed. He had had
no notion that pigs were such sticklers for the formalities of
social life.

'His call?'

'He must have had some special call that he used when he
wanted her to come to dinner. One of the first things you learn
on a farm is hog-calling. Pigs are temperamental. Omit to call
them, and they'll starve rather than put on the nose-bag.
Call them right, and they will follow you to the ends of the
earth with their mouths watering.'

'God bless my soul! Fancy that.'

'A fact, I assure you. These calls vary in different parts of
America. In Wisconsin, for example, the words "Poig, Poig,
Poig" bring home – in both the literal and the figurative sense
– the bacon. In Illinois, I believe they call "Burp, Burp, Burp,"
while in Iowa the phrase "Kus, Kus, Kus" is preferred. Proceeding
to Minnesota, we find "Peega, Peega, Peega" or, alternatively,
"Oink, Oink, Oink," whereas in Milwaukee, so largely inhabited
by those of German descent, you will hear the good old Teuton
"Komm Schweine, Komm Schweine." Oh, yes, there are all sorts
of pig-calls, from the Massachusetts "Phew, Phew, Phew" to the
"Loo-ey, Loo-ey, Loo-ey" of Ohio, not counting various local
devices such as beating on tin cans with axes or rattling pebbles
in a suit-case. I knew a man out in Nebraska who used to call his
pigs by tapping on the edge of the trough with his wooden leg.'

'Did he, indeed?'

'But a most unfortunate thing happened. One evening, hearing
a woodpecker at the top of a tree, they started shinning up it;
and when the man came out he found them all lying there in a
circle with their necks broken.'

'This is no time for joking,' said Lord Emsworth, pained.

'I'm not joking. Solid fact. Ask anybody out there.'

Lord Emsworth placed a hand to his throbbing forehead.

'But if there is this wide variety, we have no means of knowing
which call Wellbeloved ...'

'Ah,' said James Belford, 'but wait. I haven't told you all.
There is a master-word.'

'A what?'

'Most people don't know it, but I had it straight from the lips
of Fred Patzel, the hog-calling champion of the Western States.
What a man! I've known him to bring pork chops leaping from
their plates. He informed me that, no matter whether an animal
has been trained to answer to the Illinois "Burp" or the Minnesota
"Oink," it will always give immediate service in response to
this magic combination of syllables. It is to the pig world what
the Masonic grip is to the human. "Oink" in Illinois or "Burp" in
Minnesota, and the animal merely raises its eyebrows' and stares
coldly. But go to either state and call "Pig-hoo-oo-ey!" ...'

The expression on Lord Emsworth's face was that of a
drowning man who sees a lifeline.

'Is that the master-word of which you spoke?'

'That's it.'

'Pig –?'

'– hoo-oo-ey.'

'Pig-hoo-o-ey?'

'You haven't got it quite right. The first syllable should be
short and staccato, the second long and rising into a falsetto,
high but true.'

'Pig-hoo-o-o-ey'

'Pig-hoo-o-o-ey'

'Pig-hoo-o-o-ey!' yodelled Lord Emsworth, flinging his
head back and giving tongue in a high, penetrating tenor
which caused ninety-three Senior Conservatives, lunching in
the vicinity, to congeal into living statues of alarm and disapproval.

'More body to the "hoo,"' advised James Belford.

'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!'

The Senior Conservative Club is one of the few places in
London where lunchers are not accustomed to getting music
with their meals. White-whiskered financiers gazed bleakly at
bald-headed politicians, as if asking silently what was to be done
about this. Bald-headed politicians stared back at white-whiskered
financiers, replying in the language of the eye that
they did not know. The general sentiment prevailing was a vague
determination to write to the Committee about it.

'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!' carolled Lord Emsworth. And, as he did
so, his eye fell on the clock over the mantelpiece. Its hands
pointed to twenty minutes to two.

He started convulsively. The best train in the day for Market
Blandings was the one which left Paddington station at two
sharp. After that there was nothing till the five-five.

He was not a man who often thought; but, when he did, to
think was with him to act. A moment later he was scudding
over the carpet, making for the door that led to the broad
staircase.

Throughout the room which he had left, the decision to write
in strong terms to the Committee was now universal; but from
the mind, such as it was, of Lord Emsworth the past, with the
single exception of the word 'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!' had been completely
blotted.

Whispering the magic syllables, he sped to the cloak-room
and retrieved his hat. Murmuring them over and over again, he
sprang into a cab. He was still repeating them as the train moved
out of the station; and he would doubtless have gone on repeating
them all the way to Market Blandings, had he not, as was his
invariable practice when travelling by rail, fallen asleep after the
first ten minutes of the journey.

The stopping of the train at Swindon Junction woke him with
a start. He sat up, wondering, after his usual fashion on these occasions,
who and where he was. Memory returned to him, but a memory that was, alas,
incomplete. He remembered his name. He remembered that he was on his way home
from a visit to London. But what it was that you said to a pig when inviting
it to drop in for a bite of dinner he had completely forgotten.

 

It was the opinion of Lady Constance Keeble, expressed
verbally during dinner in the brief intervals when they were
alone, and by means of silent telepathy when Beach, the butler,
was adding his dignified presence to the proceedings, that her
brother Clarence, in his expedition to London to put matters
plainly to James Belford, had made an outstanding idiot of
himself.

BOOK: Blandings Castle and Elsewhere
2.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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