Full Moon (5 page)

'Don't be a damned fool. My life has always been—'

'Clean?'

'You could eat your dinner off it.'

Freddie took another chew at the knob of his umbrella.

'In that case,' he said, 'my theory falls to the ground. It was only a suggestion, anyway. What do you make the time?'

'A quarter to one.'

'Then that clock's right. I'm afraid you must brace yourself to face the worst, Blister. It begins to look, I fear, as if she wasn't coming.'

'Oh, my God!'

'Let me think this over,' said Freddie, applying himself once more to the umbrella. 'There's only one thing to be done,' he resumed some moments later. 'I will pop round to Grosvenor Square and make enquiries. You, meanwhile, go and wait for me at Barribault's.'

Bill paled.

'Barribault's?'

'I've got to go and see a man there. I'm taking him down to
Blandings this afternoon, and I want to make sure he's fit to travel. His manner, when I saw him not long ago, was strange. I didn't like the way he said he was going to lunch on a rusk and a glass of milk. It gave me the impression that he was merely wearing the mask and trying to lull my vigilance. Wait in the lobby till I come. I'll be as quick as I can.'

'Not in the lobby,' said Bill, with a reminiscent shiver. It was in the lobby, on his way from the dining-room to the main exit, that he had bumped into a small boy in buttons, who might have been the heir of some ruling house, and had been given one of those quick, sharp, searing looks which the personnel of Barribault's staff, however junior, always give to louts of outsiders who trespass on the hotel's premises. 'I'll be waiting in the street,' he said. It meant, of course, having to brave the scrutiny of the ex-King of Ruritania, but that could not be avoided.

Nervous strain has different effects on different people. It caused Bill, who always walked everywhere, to take a cab to Barribault's; whereas Tipton Plimsoll, who always took cabs everywhere, decided to walk. The former, therefore, had already taken up his station at the entrance of the hotel when the latter arrived.

Bill, who was in a reverie, did not see Tipton. But Tipton saw Bill. He gave him a quick glance, then averted his eyes and hurried through the swing doors. The ex-King of Ruritania, touching his hat to him as he passed, noticed that his face was a rather pretty green and that he was shaking like a badly-set blancmange.

When two men are isolated together in a confined space, it generally happens that the social barriers eventually break down and they start to fraternize. The ex-King of Ruritania's position of official stander on the sidewalk outside Barribault's Hotel was one of splendour and importance, but life tended when business was slack to become a little lonely for him, and at such times his prejudice against hobnobbing with the proletariat weakened.

It was not long, accordingly, before he had decided to overlook the bagginess of Bill's trousers and was telling him condescendingly that it was a nice day, and Bill, whose need for human sympathy had now grown acute, was replying that the day might be nice enough as far as weather conditions were concerned, but that in certain other vital respects it fell far short of the ideal.

He asked the ex-King if he was married, and the ex-King said he was. Bill then said that he himself ought to have been by now, only the bride hadn't turned up, and the ex-King said that he doubted if a bit of luck like that would happen once in a hundred years. Bill had just asked the ex-King what he thought could have detained his betrothed, and the ex-King was offering to give him five to one that she had been run over by a lorry, when a cab whirled up, and Freddie stepped out.

Freddie's face was grave. He took Bill by the elbow and drew him aside. The ex-King, astounded that the latter should be on terms of intimacy with anyone so well dressed, gave his moustache a thoughtful twirl, said 'Coo!' and went on standing.

'Well?' said Bill, clutching at Freddie's arm.

'Ouch!' said Freddie, writhing like a tortured snake. Men of his companion's physique generally have a grip like the bite of a
crocodile when stirred, and his conversation with the ex-King had stirred Bill a good deal.

'Did you see her?'

'No,' said Freddie, rubbing his sleeve tenderly. 'And I'll tell you why. She wasn't there.'

'Not there?'

'Not there.'

'Then where was she?'

'Bowling along in a cab on her way to Paddington.'

'Why on earth did she want to go to Paddington?'

'She didn't want to go to Paddington. She was sent there, with gyves upon her wrists, in the custody of a stern-faced butler, who had instructions from my aunt Dora to bung her into the twelve-forty-two for Market Blandings, first stop Swindon. The fact is, Blister, my poor dear old egg, you've rather gone and made a hash of things. A wiser man would not have rung her up at her home address and called her a dream rabbit, or, if he did, he would have taken the elementary precaution of ascertaining, before doing so, that he was speaking to her and not to her mother.'

'Oh, my God!'

'Naturally, Aunt Dora's suspicions were aroused. Prudence, interrogated, proved furtive and evasive, and the upshot was that Aunt Dora sought counsel of an even bigger hellhound than herself – my aunt Hermione, now in residence at Blandings. Aunt Hermione was on the telephone first thing this morning, advising her to wait till Prue took the dogs out for their after-breakfast airing. Those dogs,' said Freddie, 'have got rickets, or will have if they continue to eat Peterson's Pup Food. Peterson's Pup Food, I don't mind telling you, Blister, is a product totally lacking in several of the most important— Ouch!'

He paused, and released his biceps from the steely fingers which had once more become riveted to it.

'Get on, blast you!' said Bill, in a low, quivering voice. His demeanour was so menacing that Freddie, who had only touched the fringe of his critique of Peterson's degrading garbage, decided to postpone the bulk of his address to a more favourable moment. His companion was looking like a gorilla of testy and impatient habit from whom the keeper is withholding a banana. It would not have surprised Freddie greatly if he had suddenly started drumming on his chest with clenched fists.

'Of course, of course,' he said pacifically. 'I can quite understand your attitude. Naturally, you want the facts. In a nutshell, then, Aunt Hermione advised Aunt Dora to wait till Prue had popped out with the dumb chums and then go through her effects for possible compromising correspondence. She did so, and it was not long before she struck a rich lode – a bundle of about fifty letters from you, each fruitier than the last, tied round with lilac ribbon. Prue, grilled on her return, was forced to admit that you and she were that way, and further questioning elicited the confession that you were a bit short alike on Norman blood and cash. Ten minutes later her packing had begun; Aunt Dora supervising, she weeping bitterly.'

Bill clutched his hair. For an artist's, it was on the short side, but a determined man can clutch at anything.

'Weeping? I'd like to strangle that woman.'

'Aunt Dora is tough stuff,' assented Freddie. 'But, at that, you ought to see my aunt Constance, my aunt Julia, and my aunt Hermione, of whom I spoke just now. So there you are. Prue is now on her way to Blandings. I ought to mention that all the younger generation of my family get sent to Blandings when they fall in love with the wrong type of soul mate. It's a sort of
Devil's Island. It seems only yesterday that I was trying to console my cousin Gertrude, who was in the cooler for wanting to marry a curate. And I'd have been sent to Blandings myself, when Aggie and I were walking out, only I happened to be there already. Yes,' said Freddie, 'they've slapped young Prudence in the jug, and what you are probably asking yourself is what's to be done about it.'

'Yes,' said Bill. This was the very question which had presented itself to his mind. He eyed his friend hopefully, as if awaiting some masterly exposition of strategy, but Freddie shook his head.

'It's no good looking at me like that, Blister. I have no constructive policy. You're making me feel the way my father-in-law does at conferences. You don't know my father-in-law, of course. He's a bird who looks like a Roman emperor and has a habit of hammering on the table during conferences and shouting: "Come on, come on, now. I'm waiting for suggestions." And I seldom have any. But I'll tell you what I have done. I remembered Prue telling me that you were Uncle Gally's godson, and I stopped off at a call box and phoned him to meet us here. If anyone can think of the correct course to pursue, it will be this uncle. A man of infinite resource and sagacity. We may expect him shortly. In fact,' said Freddie, as a cab came to a halt with a grinding of brakes, 'here, if I mistake not, Watson, is our client now.'

Assisted by the ex-King of Ruritania, a trim, dapper, perky little gentleman in the middle fifties was emerging from the cab. He advanced towards them jauntily, his hat on the side of his head, a black-rimmed monocle gleaming in his right eye.

'Hullo there, Bill,' he said. 'Come along in and tell me all about it. I gather from Freddie that you're in a bit of trouble.'

He shook him warmly by the hand, and the ex-King of Ruritania gaped dazedly. He was feeling that he must have got his sense of values all wrong. Although he had stooped to converse with Bill, he had not abandoned his original impression that he was one of the dregs, even going so far as to suspect him of being an artist; and here the young deadbeat was getting the glad hand and the beaming smile from no less a celebrity than the eminent Gally Threepwood in person. It shook the ex-King and made him lose confidence in his judgement. For Gally was one of the nibs, one of the lights of London, one of the great figures at whom the world of the stage, the race-course, and the rowdier restaurants pointed with pride. In certain sections of the metropolis he had become a legend. If Joe Louis had stepped out of a cab and shaken hands with Bill, the ex-King could not have been more impressed.

The Hon. Galahad Threepwood was the only genuinely distinguished member of the family of which Lord Emsworth was the head. Lord Emsworth himself had once won a first prize for pumpkins, and his pig, as we know, had twice been awarded the silver medal for fatness at the Shropshire Agricultural Show; but you could not say that he had really risen to eminence in the public life of England. But Gally had made a name for himself. There were men in London – bookmakers, skittle sharps, jellied eel sellers on race-courses, and men like that – who would have been puzzled to know whom you were referring to if you had mentioned Einstein, but they all knew Gally.

The chief thing anyone would have noticed about Galahad Threepwood in this, his fifty-seventh year, was his astounding fitness. After the life he had led, he had no right to burst with health, but he did. Even E. Jimpson Murgatroyd would have been obliged to concede that he was robust. Where most of his contemporaries had reluctantly thrown in the towel and retired to Harrogate and Buxton to nurse their gout, he had gone blithely on, ever rising on stepping-stones of dead whiskies and sodas to higher things. He had discovered the prime grand secret of eternal youth – to keep the decanter circulating and never to go to bed before four in the morning. His eye was not dimmed nor his natural force abated, his heart was of gold and in the right place, and he was loved by all except the female members of his family.

He led the way through the swing doors, the ex-King touching his hat forty times to the minute like a clockwork toy, and settled his little flock at a table in the lounge. After that first dazzling smile of greeting there had come upon him an air of gravity and intentness. Freddie had not told him much over the telephone, but he had told him enough to make it clear that a very serious hitch had occurred in the matrimonial plans of a young man whom he loved like a son. He had always been devoted to Bill. One of his earliest recollections was of drawing him aside at the age often, tipping him half a crown, and urging him in a confidential whisper to place it on the nose of Bounding Bertie in the two-thirty at Plumpton. And he had always been happy to remember that Bounding Bertie had romped home by three lengths at the very satisfactory odds of a hundred to eight.

'Now then,' he said, 'what's it all about?'

The statement which Freddie had made to Bill had been, as we have seen, admirably clear, omitting no detail, however slight.
Repeated now, it impressed the facts with equal lucidity on the Hon. Galahad. He nodded intelligently from time to time as the narrative proceeded, and when it had wound to its conclusion made the comment that this was a nice bit of box fruit. And both Bill and Freddie agreed with him.

'Shipped her off to Blandings, have they?' said the Hon. Galahad, removing his eyeglass and polishing it meditatively. 'The old, old story, by gad. Years ago, before either of you kids was born, they shipped me off to Blandings, to stop me marrying a girl on the halls named Dolly Henderson.' He sat for a moment, his eyes dreamy, his thoughts in the past. He had touched briefly on the tragedy of his life. Then he gave himself a little shake and returned to the present. 'Well, it's obvious what you must do, Bill. Can't leave the poor child crying her eyes out, alone in the middle of a pack of wild aunts. You'll have to go to Blandings too.'

Freddie, great though his respect was for his gifted relative, shook his head dubiously.

'But, dash it, Uncle Gally, they'll give him the bum's rush the instant he sets foot inside the door.'

'Who said anything about setting feet inside doors? I see I haven't made myself clear. I shouldn't have said "Blandings". What I meant was "Market Blandings". You book a ticket to Market Blandings, Bill, and establish yourself at the Emsworth Arms. You'll like the Emsworth Arms. Good beer. I wonder if they've still got the same potboy they had last summer. Nice chap. Name of 'Erbert. Great friend of mine. No side about him. If he's there, give him my love.'

Freddie was still groping.

'I don't get it yet. What's Blister supposed to do at the Emsworth Arms?'