Full Moon (11 page)

'BLANDINGS CASTLE HORROR,' thought Veronica, paling beneath her Blush of Roses make-up. 'MANGLED BEYOND RECOGNITION. HEADLESS BODY DISCOVERED IN RHODODENDRONS.'

Daughter of a soldier though she was, there was nothing of the heroine about Veronica Wedge. Where other, tougher soldiers' daughters might have stood their ground and raised their eyebrows with a cold 'Sir!' she broke in panic. The paralysis which had been affecting her lower limbs gave way, and she raced up the drive like a blonde whippet. She heard a clatter of feet behind her; then it ceased and she was in sight of home and safety.

Her mother – a girl's best friend – was strolling on the terrace. She flung herself into her arms, squeaking with agitation.

Bill went back to his lawn. There are moments in life when everything seems to be against one, and this was such a moment. He felt moody and discouraged.

Freddie had talked of smuggling a note to Prudence as if it were the easiest and simplest of tasks, and it was beginning to look like one calculated to tax the most Machiavellian ingenuity. And it was not as if he had got unlimited time at his disposal. At any moment some accuser might rise to confront him with the charge of being no genuine gardener, but merely a synthetic substitute.

This very morning he had thought that the moment had come, when Lord Emsworth had pottered up and engaged him in a lengthy conversation about flowers of which he had never so much as heard the names. And while he had fought off the challenge with a masterly series of 'Yes, m'lords' and 'Ah, m'lords' and once an inspired 'Ah, that zu zurely be zo, m'lord,' leaving to the other the burden of exchanges, could this happen again without disaster? His acquaintance with the ninth Earl of Emsworth, though brief, had left him with the impression that the latter's mind was not of a razor-like keenness, but would not even he, should another such encounter take place, become alive to the fact that here was a very peculiar gardener and one whose credentials could do with a bit of examination?

It was imperative that he find – and that, if possible, ere yonder sun had set – some kindly collaborator to take that note to Prudence. And where he had gone wrong, it seemed to him, had been in trying to enlist the services of horn-rimmed spectacled guests of the castle who merely glared and passed on, and neurotic females of the leisured class who ran like rabbits
the moment he spoke to them. What he required, he now saw, was an emissary lower down in the social scale, to whom he could put the thing as a commercial proposition – one, for instance, of those scullions or what not of whom Freddie had spoken, who would be delighted to see the whole thing through for a couple of bob.

And scarcely had this thought floated into his mind when he espied coming across the lawn towards him a dumpy female figure, so obviously that of the castle cook out for her day off that his heart leaped up as if he had beheld a rainbow in the sky. Grasping the note in one hand and half a crown in the other, he hurried to meet her. A short while before he had supposed Veronica Wedge to have been sent from heaven. He was now making the same mistake with regard to her mother.

The error into which he had fallen was not an unusual one. Nearly everybody, seeing her for the first time, took Lady Hermione Wedge for a cook. Where Bill had gone wrong was in his assumption that she was a kindly cook, a genial cook, a cook compact of sweetness and light who would spring to the task of assisting a lover in distress. He had not observed that her demeanour was that of an angry cook, whose deepest feelings have been outraged and who intends to look into the matter without delay.

Her daughter's tearful outpourings had left Lady Hermione Wedge so full of anti-bearded-gardener sentiment that she felt choked. The meekest mother resents having her child chivvied by the outdoor help, and she was far from being meek. As she drew near to Bill, her face was a royal purple, and there were so many things she wanted to say first that she had to pause to make selection.

And it was as she paused that Bill thrust the note and the
half-crown into her hand, begging her to trouser the latter and sneak the former to Miss Prudence Garland, being careful – he stressed this – not to let Lady Hermione Wedge see her do it.

'One of the worst,' said Bill. 'A hellhound of the vilest description. But you know that, I expect,' he added sympathetically, for he could imagine that this worthy soul must have had many a battle over the roasts and hashes with Prue's demon aunt.

A strange rigidity had come upon Lady Hermione.

'Who are you?' she demanded in a low, hoarse voice.

'Oh, that's all right,' said Bill reassuringly. He liked her all the better for this concern for the proprieties. 'It's all perfectly on the level. My name is Lister. Miss Garland and I are engaged. And this blighted Wedge woman is keeping her under lock and key and watching her every move. A devil of a female. What she needs is a spoonful of arsenic in her soup one of these evenings. You couldn't attend to that, I suppose?' he said genially, for now that everything was going so smoothly he was in merry mood.

The soft-voiced clock over the stables had just struck twelve in the smooth, deferential manner of a butler announcing that dinner is served, when the sunlit beauty of the grounds of Blandings Castle was rendered still lovelier by the arrival of Freddie Threepwood in his two-seater. He had concluded his visit to the Worcestershire Fanshawe-Chadwicks. One assumes that the parting must have been a painful one, but he had torn himself away remorselessly, for he was due for a night at the Shropshire Finches. To look in at the castle en route he had had
to make a wide detour, but he was anxious to see Bill and learn how he had been getting along in his absence.

A search through the grounds failed to reveal the object of his quest, but it enabled him to pass the time of day with his father. Lord Emsworth, respectably – even ornately – clad in a dark suit of metropolitan cut and a shirt with a stiff collar, was leaning on the rail of the pigsty, communing with his pig.

Accustomed to seeing the author of his being in concertina trousers and an old shooting jacket with holes in the elbows, Freddie was unable to repress a gasp of astonishment, loud enough to arrest the other's attention. Lord Emsworth turned, adjusting his pince-nez, and what he saw through them, when he had got them focused, drew from him, too, a sudden gasp.

'Freddie! Bless my soul, I thought you were staying with some people. Have you come back for long?' he asked in quick alarm, his father's heart beating apprehensively.

Freddie stilled his fears.

'Just passing through, Guv'nor. I'm due at the Finches for lunch. I say, Guv'nor, why the fancy dress?'

'Eh?'

'The clothes. The gent's reach-me-downs.'

'Ah,' said Lord Emsworth, comprehending. 'I am leaving for London on the twelve-forty train.'

'Must be something pretty important to take you up to London in weather like this.'

'It is. Most important. I am going to see your uncle Galahad about another artist to paint the portrait of my pig. That first fellow ...' Here Lord Emsworth was obliged to pause, in order to wrestle with his feelings.

'But why don't you wire him or just ring him up?'

'Wire him? Ring him up?' It was plain that Lord Emsworth
had not thought of these ingenious alternatives. 'Bless my soul, I could have done that, couldn't I? But it's too late now,' he sighed. 'I most unfortunately forgot that it is Veronica's birthday to-morrow, and so have purchased no present for her, and her mother insists upon my going to London and repairing the omission.'

Something flashed in the sunlight. It was Freddie's monocle leaping from the parent eye-socket.

'Good Lord!' he ejaculated. 'Vee's birthday? So it is. I say, I'm glad you reminded me. It had absolutely slipped my mind. Look here, Guv'nor, will you do something for me?'

'What?' asked Lord Emsworth cautiously.

'What were you thinking of buying Vee?'

'I had in mind some little inexpensive trinket, such as girls like to wear. A wrist watch was your aunt's suggestion.'

'Good. That fits my plans like the paper on the wall. Go to Aspinall's in Bond Street. They have wrist watches of all descriptions. And when you get there, tell them that you are empowered to act for F. Threepwood. I left Aggie's necklace with them to be cleaned, and at the same time ordered a pendant for Vee. Tell them to send the necklace to ... Are you following me, Guv'nor?'

'No,' said Lord Emsworth.

'It's quite simple. On the one hand, the necklace; on the other, the pendant. Tell them to send the necklace to Aggie at the Ritz Hotel, Paris—'

'Who,' asked Lord Emsworth, mildly interested, 'is Aggie?'

'Come, come, Guv'nor. This is not the old form. My wife.'

'I thought your wife's name was Frances.'

'Well, it isn't. It's Niagara.'

'What a peculiar name.'

'Her parents spent their honeymoon at the Niagara Falls hotel.'

'Niagara is a town in America, is it not?'

'Not so much a town as a rather heavy downpour.'

'A town, I always understood.'

'You were misled by your advisers, Guv'nor. But do you mind if we get back to the
res.
Time presses. Tell these Aspinall birds to mail the necklace to Aggie at the Ritz Hotel, Paris, and bring back the pendant with you. Have no fear that you will be left holding the baby—'

Again Lord Emsworth was interested. This was the first he had heard of this.

'Have you a baby? Is it a boy? How old is he? What do you call him? Is he at all like you?' he asked, with a sudden pang of pity for the unfortunate suckling.

'I was speaking figuratively, Guv'nor,' said Freddie patiently. 'When I said, "Have no fear that you will be left holding the baby," I meant, "Entertain no alarm lest they may shove the bill off on you." The score is all paid up. Have you got it straight?'

'Certainly.'

'Let me hear the story in your own words.'

'There is a necklace and a pendant—'

'Don't go getting them mixed.'

'I never get anything mixed. You wish me to have the pendant sent to your wife and to bring back—'

'No, no, the other way round.'

'Or, rather, as I was just about to say, the other way round. It is all perfectly clear. Tell me,' said Lord Emsworth, returning to the subject which really interested him, 'why is Frances nicknamed Niagara?'

'Her name isn't Frances, and she isn't.'

'Isn't what?'

'Nicknamed Niagara.'

'You told me she was. Has she taken the baby to Paris with her?'

Freddie produced a light blue handkerchief from his sleeve and passed it over his forehead.

'Look here, Guv'nor, do you mind if we call the whole thing off? Not the necklace and pendant sequence, but all this stuff about Frances and babies—'

'I like the name Frances.'

'Me, too. Music to the ears. But shall we just let it go, just forget all about it? We shall both feel easier and happier.'

Lord Emsworth uttered a pleased exclamation.

'Chicago!'

'Eh?'

'Not Niagara. Chicago. This is the town I was thinking of. There is a town in America called Chicago.'

'There was when I left. Well, anything been happening around here lately?' asked Freddie, determined that the subject should be changed before his progenitor started asking why he had had the baby christened Indianapolis.

Lord Emsworth reflected. He had recently revised the Empress's diet, with the happiest results, but something told him that this was not the sort of news item likely to intrigue his younger son, who had always lacked depth. Delving into the foggy recesses of his mind, he recalled a conversation which he had had with his brother-in-law, Colonel Wedge, some half-hour earlier.

'Your uncle Egbert is very much annoyed.'

'What about?'

'He says the gardeners have been chasing Veronica.'

This startled Freddie and, though he was no prude, shocked him a little. His cousin Veronica, true, was a very alluring girl, but he would have credited the British gardener with more self-control.

'Chasing her? The gardeners? Do you mean in a sort of pack?'

'No, now I come to remember, it was not all the gardeners – only one. And it seems, though I cannot quite follow the story, that he was not really a gardener, but the young fellow who is in love with your cousin Prudence.'

'What!'

Freddie, reeling, had fetched up against the rail of the sty. Supporting himself against this, he groped dazedly for his monocle, which had once more become A.W.O.L.

'So Egbert assures me. But it seems odd. One would have expected him to chase Prudence. Veronica ran to your aunt Hermione, who immediately went to ask the man what he meant by such behaviour, and he gave her a letter and half a crown. That part of the story, also,' Lord Emsworth admitted, 'is not very clear to me. I cannot see why, if this man is in love with Prudence, he should have been conducting a clandestine correspondence with Hermione, nor why he should have given her half a crown. Hermione has plenty of money. Still, there it is.'

'If you'll excuse me, Guv'nor,' said Freddie, in a strangled voice, 'I'll be reeling off. Got some rather heavy thinking to do.'

He fished out the handkerchief again and once more applied it to his brow. The affair, perplexing to Lord Emsworth, held no element of mystery for him. For the second time, he saw, poor old Blister had gone and made a floater, putting the kibosh on the carefully-laid plans which had been devised for his benefit. The guv'nor had not mentioned it, but he assumed that the episode had concluded with his aunt Hermione slinging his
unfortunate friend out on his ear. By this time, no doubt, the latter was in his room at the Emsworth Arms putting the finishing touches on his packing. But it was impossible to go there and confer with him. The delay involved would mean his being absent from the Finch luncheon table. And you cannot play fast and loose with Shropshire Finches any more than you can with Worcestershire Fanshawe-Chadwicks.

He passed slowly on his way, and he had not gone far before he beheld in front of him one of those rustic benches which manage to get themselves scattered about the grounds of country houses.