Full Moon (15 page)

At the moment when the drowsy summer stillness was ripped into a million quivering fragments, Lady Hermione had been reading for the third time a telegram which had just been brought to her on a silver salver by Beach, the butler. Signed 'Clarence' and despatched from Paddington Station at 12.40, it ran as follows:

ARRIVING TEA TIME WITH LANDLADY

When Lord Emsworth composed telegrams in railway stations two minutes before his train was due to leave, his
handwriting, never at the best of times copperplate, always degenerated into something which would have interested a Professor of Hieroglyphics. The operator at Paddington, after a puzzled scrutiny, had substituted on his own responsibility 'Arriving' for 'Ariosto' and 'teatime' for what appeared to be 'totem' but the concluding word had beaten him completely. It had seemed to him a choice between 'lingfear', 'leprosy', and 'landlady'. He had discarded the first because there is no such word as 'lingfear'; the second because, though not a medical expert, he was pretty sure that Lord Emsworth had not got leprosy; and had fallen back on the third. He hoped that it would convey some meaning at the other end.

He had been too optimistic. Lady Hermione stared at the missive blankly. Its surface import – that the head of the family, when he showed up for the afternoon cup of tea, would be accompanied by something stout in a sealskin coat and a Sunday bonnet – she rejected. If it had been her brother Galahad who had so telegraphed, it would have been another matter. Galahad, being the sort of man he was, might quite conceivably have decided to present himself at Blandings Castle with a landlady, or even a bevy of landladies, explaining that they had been dear friends of his years ago when they used to do clog dances on the halls. But not Clarence. She had never been blind to the fact that the head of the family was eccentric, but she knew him to be averse from feminine society. Landladies who wanted a breath of country air would never get it on his invitation.

She was just wondering if the word could possibly be a misprint for 'laryngitis', a malady from which the ninth earl occasionally suffered, when Veronica went on the air.

To refresh the reader's memory, in case he has forgotten, what Veronica was saying was 'EEEEEEEEEEE!!!' and as soon as
she had made certain that the top of her head had not come off Lady Hermione found the cry speaking to her very depths. A moment's startled rigidity and she was racing up the stairs at a speed not much inferior to that recently shown by Tipton. It is a callous mother who can remain in a drawing-room when her child is squealing 'EEEEEEEEEEE!!!' on the second floor.

Her pace was still good as she rounded into the straight, but as she came in sight of the door of the Red Room she braked sharply. There had met her eyes a spectacle so arresting, so entrancing, so calculated to uplift a mother's heart and make her want to turn cartwheels along the corridor that she feared for an instant that it might be a mirage. Blinking and looking again, she saw that she had not been deceived.

There, half-way down the corridor, one of the richest young men in America was clasping her daughter to his chest, and even as she gazed he bestowed upon that daughter a kiss so ardent that there could be no mistaking its meaning.

'Veronica!' she cried. A lesser woman would have said 'Whoopee!'

Tipton, tensely occupied, had been unaware till now that he was not alone with his future wife. Turning to include his future mother-in-law in the conversation, his immediate impulse, for he was an American gentleman, was to make it clear to her that this was the real stuff and not one of those licentious scenes which Philadelphia censors cut out of pictures.

'It's quite O.K.,' he hastened to assure her. 'We're engaged.'

Her dash up the stairs had left Lady Hermione a little touched in the wind, and for a space she remained panting. Eventually she was able to say: 'Oh, Tipton!'

'You are not losing a daughter,' said Tipton, having had time to think of a good one. 'You are gaining a son.'

Any doubts which he might have entertained as to the popularity of his romance in the circles most immediately interested were at once removed. It was abundantly clear that the arrangement which he had outlined was one that had Lady Hermione's sympathy and support. Her breath now recovered, she kissed him with a warmth that left no room for misunderstanding.

'Oh, Tipton!' she said again. 'I am delighted. You must be very happy, Veronica.'

'Yes, Mum-mee.'

'Such a lovely birthday present for you, darling,' said Lady Hermione.

Her words got right in amongst Tipton Plimsoll. He started as if a whole platoon of faces had suddenly manifested themselves before his eyes. He remembered now that at breakfast somebody had been saying something about it being somebody's birthday, but he had been moody and abstracted and had not thought to enquire into the matter. A vague impression had been left upon his mind that they had been talking about the squirt Prudence.

Remorse shot through him like a red-hot skewer. It seemed incredible to him that preoccupation should have caused him to remain in ignorance of this vital fact.

'Jiminy Christmas!' he cried, aghast. 'Is this your birthday? And I haven't got you a present. I must get you a present. Where can I get you a present?'

'Shrewsbury,' said Veronica. She was at her best when answering simple, straightforward questions like that.

Tipton's air was now that of one straining at the leash.

'How long does it take you to get to Shrewsbury?'

'About three quarters of an hour in a car.'

'Are there shops there?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Jewellers' shops?'

'Oh
yes
!'

'Then meet me in the rhododendrons in about a couple of hours and anticipate a pleasant surprise. I'll go swipe a car. Oh, say,' said Tipton, recollecting something which, though of minor importance compared with birthday presents for the girl he loved, deserved, he felt, a passing mention. 'There's a pig in there.'

'A pig?'

'Yes, Mum-mee, there's a pig in my bedroom.'

'Most extraordinary,' said Lady Hermione, and might have been sceptical had not the Empress selected this moment for thrusting a mild and enquiring face round the door.

'There you are,' said Tipton. 'One pig, as stated.'

He left her to cope with it. He felt that the matter could be in no better hands. On flying feet he hastened to the stables.

Freddie was in the yard, tinkering with his two-seater.

There had been a time, and that not so long ago, when, finding Freddie in stable yards tinkering with two-seaters, Tipton Plimsoll would have drawn himself to his full height and passed by with a cold stare. But now that he had wooed and won the most beautiful girl in the world he was in softer, kindlier mood. He had erased the other's name from his list of snakes and saw him for what he was – a blameless cousin.

Later on, no doubt, they would have to come to some arrangement about the other's habit of bestowing cousinly kisses on the
future Mrs Plimsoll, but for the moment there was no jarring note to cause a discord between them. Filled to the brim with the milk of human kindness, Tipton regarded Freddie once more as a pal and a buddy. And when you are sitting on top of the world, the first people you apprise of the fact are pals and buddies. He lost no time in announcing the great news.

'Say, Freddie,' he said, 'guess what? I'm engaged!'

'Engaged?'

'Yup.'

'To Vee?'

'Sure. Just signed on the dotted line.'

'Well, I'm dashed,' said Freddie. 'Put it there, pardner.'

So beaming was his smile, so cordial his handshake, that Tipton found his last doubts removed. And so beaming was
his
smile, so instinct with benevolence his whole demeanour, that Freddie decided that the moment had arrived to put his fate to the test, to win or lose it all.

This necessitated a somewhat abrupt change of subject, but he was feeling too tense to lead the conversation around to the thing in easy stages.

'Oh, by the way, old man,' he said.

'Yes, old man?' said Tipton.

'There's something I've been meaning to ask you for some time, old man,' said Freddie, 'only it kept slipping my mind. Will you give the Tipton's Stores dog biscuit concession to Donaldson's Dog-Joy, old man?'

'Why, sure, old man,' said Tipton, looking like something out of Dickens. 'I was going to suggest it myself.'

The stable yard seemed to reel before Freddie's eyes. He stood silent for an instant, struggling with his emotion. In his mind he was sketching out the cable which he would despatch that
night to Long Island City, informing his father-in-law of this outstanding triumph which he had achieved in the interests of the dog biscuits he loved so well. He could picture the old buster opening the envelope and going into a hootchy-kootchy dance all over the office.

He drew a long breath.

'Old man,' he said reverently, 'they don't come any whiter than you. I've always said so.'

'Have you, old man?'

'I certainly have. And I hope you'll be very, very happy, old man.'

'Thanks, old man. Say, can I borrow your car? I want to go to Shrewsbury and buy Veronica a birthday present.'

'I'll drive you there, old man.'

'That's darned good of you, old man.'

'Not at all, old man, not at all,' said Freddie.

He seated himself at the wheel and placed a suede-clad shoe on the self-starter. It occurred to him as a passing thought that all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

A man who likes to see the young folks happy always finds it agreeable to be able to reflect that owing to his ministrations joy among the younger set is reigning unconfined; and the events of the summer afternoon had left the Hon. Galahad Threepwood feeling at the peak of his form.

He had just met his niece Veronica on her way to the rhododendrons and had been informed by her of the signal good fortune which had befallen the house of Wedge. And before that he had come upon his niece Prudence palely loitering in the drive and had given her Bill's letter, thereby bringing the roses back to her cheeks and causing her to revise her views on the sadness of life from the bottom up. As he came out of the sunshine into the dim coolness of the hall he was walking jauntily and humming beneath his breath a gay music-hall ballad of his youth.

It was now the hour when the fragrance of tea and the warm, heartening scent of buttered toast begin to float like a benediction over the English home, and Beach and his capable assistants had already set out the makings in the drawing-room. He proceeded to trip thither, but more from sociability than with any idea of becoming an active participant in the feast. He never drank tea, having always had a prejudice against the stuff
since his friend Buffy Struggles back in the nineties had taken to it as a substitute for alcohol and had perished miserably as a result. (Actually what had led to the late Mr Struggles's turning in his dinner pail had been a collision in Piccadilly with a hansom cab, but Gally had always felt that this could have been avoided if the poor dear old chap had not undermined his constitution by swilling a beverage whose dangers are recognized by every competent medical authority.)

The drawing-room was empty except for his sister Hermione, who was seated behind the teapot, ready to get into action the instant the call came. She stiffened as he entered and directed at him a stern and accusing glare, like a well-bred basilisk.

'So there you are, Galahad,' she said, coming to the point in the direct way characteristic of sisters all the world over. Galahad, what do you mean by putting that beastly pig in Veronica's bedroom?'

This was not clairvoyance. Lady Hermione had reached her conclusion by a careful process of character analysis. Probing into the natures and dispositions of her little circle, she had decided that there was only one person on the premises capable of putting pigs in bedrooms and that that person stood before her now.

The arrival of Beach at this moment with a bowl of strawberries, followed by a footman bearing cream and another staggering under the weight of powdered sugar, prevented an immediate reply to the question. When the procession had filed out, Beach in transit booking an order for a whisky and soda, Gally was able to speak.

'So you've heard about that?' he said airily.

'Heard about it? The loathsome animal was galloping all over the corridor.'

'It was a clever idea,' said Gally, with modest pride. 'Yes, though I say it myself, clever. Egbert was weeping on my shoulder this morning about the way young Plimsoll was shillyshallying. I saw that it was no time for half-measures. I acted. To whisk the Empress from her sty and put her in the forefront of the battle was with me the work of an instant. Did Veronica yowl?'

'She screamed,' corrected his sister coldly. 'The poor child received a very severe shock.'

'And Plimsoll, I gather, dashed up and came to the rescue. The ice was broken. He lost his reserve. He folded her in his arms and spoke his love, and a wedding has been arranged and will shortly take place. Just as I foresaw. Precisely as I had anticipated. The whole operation from start to finish went according to plan, and the curtain fell on the happy ending. So what you're blinding and stiffing about,' said Gally, who, unlike Lord Emsworth, was not the man to be browbeaten by sisters, 'I fail to understand.'

Lady Hermione denied the charge that she was blinding and stiffing. She was, she said, extremely annoyed.

'Annoyed? What the dickens is there to be annoyed about?'

'The animal ate one of Veronica's new camisoles.'

'Well, finding itself in the bedroom, it would naturally assume that it had been invited to take pot luck. Stick to the point, which is that you can't get away from it that, but for my subtle strategy, business would never have resulted. Dash it, which would the girl rather have – a mouldy camisole or a wealthy and devoted husband whose only thought will be to gratify her lightest wish? Young Plimsoll will be able to provide Veronica with diamond camisoles, if she wants them. So stop cursing and swearing like a bargee, and let's see that sunny smile of yours.
Can't you realize that this is the maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year?'

The soundness of his reasoning was so manifest that Lady Hermione was obliged to relax her austerity. She did not actually smile her sunny smile, but a trace of softness crept into her demeanour, which up till now had resembled that of a rather unusually stern governess.

'Well, I have no doubt that your motives were excellent, but I hope you will not do it again.'

'You don't suppose a busy man like me makes a practice of putting pigs in girls' rooms? What became of the animal in the final issue?'

'The pig man removed it.'

'I must remember to fling him a purse of gold, or he'll go squealing to Clarence. What would you say was the market price of a pig man's silence? How did you get in touch with him?'

'I rang for Beach, who sent a footman to fetch him. A little gnome of a man with no roof to his mouth who smelled worse than the pig.'

'Niffy, eh? It probably covered an honest heart. Niffiness often does. And we can't all have roofs to our mouths. When are you expecting Clarence back?'

'He wired that he would be here for tea.'

'Odd how he enjoys his cup of tea. Can't think why. Horrible muck. Polished off poor old Buffy Struggles as clean as a whistle.'

'Here's his telegram. It arrived just before Veronica received that terrible shock.'

In Gally's opinion this remark came under the heading of harping on the dead past.

'I wish you wouldn't keep burbling on about Veronica receiving shocks,' he said impatiently. 'You talk as if finding a simple
pig in her room were enough to disintegrate her entire nervous system. I don't suppose that after her first natural surprise she experienced any discomfort whatsoever. What did Clarence say in his telegram?'

'That he would be arriving at tea time with landlady.'

'With what?'

'Read it for yourself.'

Gally fixed his black-rimmed monocle more firmly in his eye and scrutinized the document. His face cleared.

'I can tell you what this means. What he was trying to say in that vile handwriting of his was that he would be accompanied by Landseer.'

'Landseer?'

'The artist.'

'Landseer is dead.'

'He wasn't when I met him yesterday.'

'Do you mean the Landseer who painted stags?'

'No. I mean the Landseer who paints pigs.'

'I never heard of him.'

'Well, cheer up. You're hearing of him now. And you'll be meeting him in a few minutes. Clarence has commissioned him on my recommendation to do the Empress's portrait.'

Lady Hermione uttered a sharp cry.

'You have not been encouraging Clarence in that idiotic idea of his?'

'He didn't need any encouraging. He came up to London full of iron resolution, determined to procure an artist of some kind. All I did was to assist him in his choice. You'll like this fellow. Charming chap.'

'A friend of yours?'

'Yes,' replied Gally, with spirit. 'A very dear friend of mine. What did you say?'

Lady Hermione said that she had not spoken. Nor had she. She had merely sniffed. But in certain circumstances a sniff can be as wounding as the bitterest repartee, and Gally was about to comment on hers in a militant manner, for his lifelong policy had been to be very firm with sniffing sisters, when there came the sound of wheels grinding to a standstill on the gravel outside the front door.

'Clarence,' said Gally.

'And Mr Landseer.'

'Don't say "And Mr Landseer" in that soupy tone of voice,' said Gally sternly 'He hasn't come to steal the spoons.'

'If he is a friend of yours, I should imagine that he is quite capable of doing so. Is he wanted by the police?'

'No, he is not wanted by the police.'

'How I sympathize with the police,' said Lady Hermione. 'I know just how they feel.'

From the hall the reedy tenor voice of Lord Emsworth cut in upon a conversation which was threatening to become acrimonious.

'Beach will show you your room, my dear fellow,' he was saying, addressing an unseen companion. 'Tell you where it is and so forth. Come along to the drawing-room when you're ready.'

And presently the seigneur of Blandings Castle entered, inhaling the grateful odour that rose from the teapot and beaming vaguely through his pince-nez.

'Ah,' he said. 'Tea, eh? Tea. Capital, capital. Tea.' Then, following his custom of making his meaning thoroughly clear, added the word 'Tea,' repeating it three times. The dullest
listener would have divined that he was aware of the presence of tea and would be glad of a cup, and Lady Hermione, pausing only to sniff, poured him out one.

'Tea,' said Lord Emsworth again, clearing the whole situation up and getting everything straight. 'Thank you, my dear.' He took the cup, cleverly added milk and sugar, stirred, and drank. 'Ha!' he ejaculated, refreshed. 'Well, here I am, Galahad.'

'You never spoke a truer word, Clarence,' his brother agreed. 'I can see you with the naked eye. Did you bring Landseer?'

'Who is Landseer? Oh, of course, yes, Landseer. I was forgetting. That was Landseer I was talking to in the hall. Landseer,' explained Lord Emsworth, addressing his sister, 'is an artist who has come to paint the Empress.'

'So Galahad was telling me,' said Lady Hermione.

Her tone was so free from joyous animation that Gally felt constrained to supply a footnote.

'Hermione is anti-Landseer. She has taken one of her absurd prejudices against the poor chap.'

'I have done nothing of the kind,' said Lady Hermione. 'I preserve an open mind on the subject of Mr Landseer. I am quite prepared to find him reasonably respectable, even though he is a friend of yours. I merely feel, as I have always felt, that it is a ridiculous waste of money to have that pig's portrait painted.'

Lord Emsworth stiffened. He was shocked, not only by the sentiment but by the allusion to his ewe lamb as 'that pig'. He felt it to be lacking in respect.

'The Empress has twice in successive years won the silver medal in the Fat Pigs' class at the Shrewsbury Show,' he reminded her coldly.

'Exactly,' said Gally. 'The only celebrity we have ever
produced. She has a far better right to be in the family portrait gallery than half those bearded bounders who disfigure it.'

Lady Hermione became rigid. Like her sisters, she revered her ancestors with an almost Chinese fervour and had always resented the casual attitude towards them of the male members of the family.

'Well, we will not discuss it,' she said, closing the debate. 'I hope you remembered to buy Veronica her birthday present, Clarence?'

From sheer force of habit Lord Emsworth started guiltily. And he was just about to assume the weak, blustering manner customary with him on these occasions and to demand how the dickens a man like himself, with a hundred calls on his time, could be expected to remember to buy birthday presents, when he recollected that he had done so.

'Certainly I did,' he replied with dignity. 'A most excellent wrist watch. I have it in my pocket.'

He produced it as he spoke with quiet pride, and with it another package also bearing the famous label of the Bond Street firm of Aspinall, at which he peered perplexedly.

'Now what the deuce is this?' he queried. 'Ah, yes, I remember. It is something Freddie asked me to pick up at the shop. His present for Veronica, I understand. Where is Freddie?' he asked, scanning the furniture vaguely as if expecting to see his younger son lurking behind some chair or settee.

'I saw him going hell for leather down the drive in that car of his about two hours ago,' said Gally. 'He had young Plimsoll with him. I don't know where they were off to.'

'Shrewsbury,' said Lady Hermione. 'Tipton wanted to buy Veronica a birthday present. They are engaged, Clarence.'

'Eh?'

'They are engaged.'

'Ah,' said Lord Emsworth, becoming interested in a plate of cucumber sandwiches. 'Sandwiches, eh? Sandwiches, sandwiches. Sandwiches,' he added, taking one.

'They are engaged,' said Lady Hermione, raising her voice.

'Who?'

'Veronica and dear Tipton.'

'Who is dear Tipton?'

'"Dear Tipton,"' explained Gally, 'is Hermione's nickname for young Plimsoll.'

'Plimsoll? Plimsoll? Plimsoll? Oh,
Plimsoll}
I remember him,' said Lord Emsworth, pleased at his quick intelligence. 'You mean the young man with those extraordinary spectacles. What about him?'

'I am trying to tell you,' said Lady Hermione patiently, 'that he and Veronica are engaged.'

'God bless my soul!' said Lord Emsworth, a look of startled concern coming into his face. 'I didn't know these sandwiches were cucumber. I thought they were potted meat. I would never have eaten one if I'd known they were cucumber.'

'Oh, Clarence!'

'Can't digest cucumber. Never could.'

'Well, really, Clarence. I thought you might take a little interest in your niece.'

'What's she been doing?'

'They keep these things from you, Clarence,' said Gally sympathetically. 'You ought to be told. Veronica and young Plimsoll are engaged.'

'Ah,' said Lord Emsworth, now thoroughly abreast of the position of affairs. 'Well, that's all right. No harm in that. I like him. He is sound on pigs.'

'And Hermione likes him because he's a millionaire,' said Gally. 'So you're all happy.'

Lady Hermione was asserting with some warmth that her fondness for Tipton Plimsoll was due entirely to the fact that he was a charming, cultured young man and devoted to Veronica, and Gally was challenging her to deny that at least a portion of the Plimsoll glamour proceeded from the circumstance of his having got the stuff in sackfuls, and Lord Emsworth was saying again that he would never have eaten that cucumber sandwich if he had known it was cucumber, because cucumbers did something to his inside, when Freddie appeared in the french windows.