Galahad at Blandings (23 page)

‘Oh,
that one? No. I haven’t got it. I gave it to Beach to give to him.’

‘Death,
damnation and despair!’ said Gally.

He
bounded from the room as rapidly as he had bounded into it. Mystified, Sandy
returned to her work and was reading a communication from Grant and Purvis of
Wolverhampton, who sold garden supplies and were at a loss to understand why
they had received no answer from Lord Emsworth to theirs of the eleventh ult,
when he reappeared.

‘I
thought Beach might still have it,’ he said, ‘but he hasn’t. He gave it to
Tipton a quarter of an hour ago. Curses on his impetuosity. May his next bottle
of port be corked.’

No
secretary, however conscientious, could have kept her mind on her work with
this sort of thing going on. Sandy abandoned Grant and Purvis of Wolverhampton
and their petty troubles.

‘For
heaven’s sake, Gally,’ she said, ‘what’s the matter? What’s all this about
Tipton’s letter? What’s wrong with him getting his mail?’

Gally,
as a raconteur, had a tendency at times to elaborate his stories in a manner
that tried the patience of his audience, but in his reply to her query he was
admirably succinct, confining himself to the bare facts, and as these facts
emerged the colour faded from Sandy’s face and she stared at him with horror in
her eyes.

‘Oh,
Gally!’ she said.

He
nodded a sombre nod.

‘You
may well say “Oh, Gally!” I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d said “Oh, hell!”
The whole infernal mess is my fault. It shows what comes of trying to be
clever. I thought it was such a bright idea to slip that letter in among
Clarence’s papers. The odds against him ever looking through them were at least
a hundred to one, but, as so often happens, the good thing came unstuck.
However, all is not yet lost.’

Sandy
stared.

‘How
can you say that? What can you possibly do?’

‘I can
get hold of Tipton and tell him the tale and convince him that there is nothing
in that letter to cause him concern.’

‘If you
can do that, you’re a genius.’

‘Well,
we know that already. I’ll go and find him now.

The
proposed search, however, proved unnecessary. Scarcely had he reached the door
when it flew open and the object of it appeared in person.

‘Ah,
Tipton,’ he said. ‘Come on in. We were just talking about you.’

Tipton’s
demeanour had undergone a great change since Sandy had last seen him. Then the
dullest eye would have recognised him as a young man sitting on top of the
world. Now it was equally apparent that he had fallen off and come down with a
bump. His brow was furrowed, his eyes dub, his mouth drooping. He was looking,
in short, just as Sandy had seen him look when he had come to her for sympathy
after being reduced to the status of a dear friend by Doris Jimpson, Angela
Thurloe, Vanessa Wainwright, Barbara Bessemer, Clarice Burbank and Marcia
Ferris.

‘Oh,
hello, Mr Threepwood,’ he said, evincing no joy at seeing him. ‘I didn’t know
you were here.’

‘I am,’
Gally assured him, ‘and I may tell you I know all about that letter you have in
your hand. Sandy and I were discussing it before you came in.’

‘You
were? Who told you about it?’

‘Oh,
various people. I have my spies everywhere. May I look at it?’ said Gally,
twitching it from his grasp without going through the formality of waiting for
permission. He skimmed it in silence, his brows knitted, and when he came to
the end gave a short, contemptuous laugh.

As I
expected,’ he said. ‘An obvious fake.’

Tipton’s
mouth, which emotion had caused to fall open like that of a mail box, opened an
inch or two further. Gally’s conversation often had this effect on people.

‘You
mean it’s a forgery?’ he asked with a sudden gleam of hope. This was something
he had not thought of.

Gally
shook his head.

‘Not
exactly that. The hand is the hand of Veronica, but the voice is the voice of
her blasted mother.’

‘You
mean she made Vee write it?’

‘Of
course she did. It sticks out a mile. She probably stood over the poor girl
with a horsewhip. Hermione dictated every word of this letter. Sift the
evidence. On the second page the phrase “incompatibility of temperament”
occurs. Do you suppose that that half-witted girl … pardon the word half—
witted…’

‘Don’t
apologise,’ said Sandy. ‘Tipton likes her that way.

‘So do I.
So do we all. It’s part of her charm. It’s what endears her to everyone. If a
girl as beautiful as she is had any brains, the mixture would be too rich.
Where was I?’

‘You
broke off on the word “half-witted”.’

‘Ah
yes. What I was going to say was that it is unbelievable that Veronica not only
knows what incompatibility of temperament means, but is able to spell it. I
yield to no one in my appreciation of her many excellent qualities, but her
best friend would have to admit that she is about as dumb a brick as ever had a
windswept hair-do, completely baffled by anything over two syllables. Look,
too, at that “distressed” on page one. Is it conceivable that she would have
put two s’s in it if she had not had a mother to guide her? And another thing.
Mark how wobbly the writing is. She was finding it hard to bring herself to
push the pen. See that blotch that looks as if a wet fly had walked across the
paper? An obvious tear drop. She might allow herself to be coerced into taking
dictation, but she was dashed if anyone was going to stop her weeping bitterly.
What we have before us, in short, is a communiqué from a girl whose heart is
breaking with every word she is forced to write, but one who all her life has
done what Mother told her to. I have watched Veronica ripen from infancy to
womanhood, and if there was a single moment during those years when Hermione
allowed her to call her soul her own, it escaped my notice. Ignore this letter
is my advice to you, Tipton, my boy. Wash it completely from your mind.’

He
probably had more to say, for he was a man who always had more to say, but
Tipton rose to a point of order.

‘But it
doesn’t make sense.

‘What
doesn’t?’

‘Her
mother twisting Vee’s arm and making her write the thing. She was tickled to
death when we got engaged.’

‘Ah,
but that was before you started going about the place telling everyone you had
lost all your money. Hermione heard it from my brother Clarence, and it
radically altered her views on your suitability as a son-in-law. I have no
doubt that Veronica loves you for yourself alone, but Hermione doesn’t.’

Tipton
had begun to bloom like a flower beneath the rays of the sun, or perhaps it
would be better to say like a string bean under those conditions.

‘Then
you think —?‘

‘— That
Veronica’s sentiments towards you have not changed? I’m sure of it. I am vastly
mistaken if you are not still the cream in her coffee and the salt in her stew,
as the song says. Five will get you ten if you care to bet against it. Go and
get her on the phone now and coo to her, and see if she doesn’t coo right back
at you. And when the voice offstage asks you if you want another three minutes,
take them and blow the expense. There’s a telephone in the library,’ he would
have added, but Tipton had already flashed from the room.

Sandy
closed the door behind him. She looked at Gally with awe.

‘So now
I know what telling the tale means!’

A very
minor effort,’ said Gally modestly. ‘You should have caught me in my prime. One
loses something of one’s magic over the years. Still I think I accomplished my
objective, don’t you?’

As far
as Tippy is concerned, yes. But what happens when he gets her on the phone and
she says she doesn’t love him?’

‘She
won’t. I cannot picture any niece of mine not loving someone as rich as he is.’

‘You
don’t think it’s only his money that’s the attraction, do you?’

‘Certainly
not. They’re soul mates. She has about as much brain as a retarded billiards
ball, and he approximately the same. It’s the ideal union and I am gratified
that I have been able to do my little bit to push it along. Curious what a glow
it gives one to see the young folk getting together. Which reminds me. I want
to see Tipton about Wilfred Allsop.’

‘What
about him?’

‘He’s
lost his job, and I am hoping to persuade Tipton to find him another.’

‘You’ll
persuade him.’

‘You
think so?’

‘Not a
chance of him resisting when you start to tell the tale. You ought to have been
a confidence man, Gally.’

‘So
others have told me,’ said Gally complacently. ‘I have always had that ability
to touch the human heart strings. Why, in my early days, when I was at the top
of my form, I have sometimes made bookies cry.’

II

The library was empty when
he reached it, and he presumed that Tipton, having concluded a satisfactory
talk with Veronica, had decided to join her in London without delay and had
gone to the garage to get his car. The place to catch him would be on the drive
outside the front door, and he made his way thither.

It was
now getting on for the hour of the evening cocktail and a man less dedicated
than Gally to the service of his fellows might have given up the idea of
interviewing Tipton on Wilfred Allsop’s behalf and hurried indoors. But where
it was a matter of doing someone a good turn he was always willing to face
privations. He hoped, however, that Tipton would not keep him lingering here
too long, for already he was conscious of a dryness of the thorax which only a
prompt martini could correct, and at this moment, as if having divined his
thoughts by extrasensory perception, the man he wanted came bowling up in his
Rolls Royce.

A
glance at him was enough to tell Gally that his recent telephone conversation
with Veronica Wedge must have taken place in what reporters of conferences
between foreign ministers describe as an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality,
for his grin was the grin of a young man without a care in the world and he
alighted from the car with a lissom leap that told its own story.

‘Hello,
Mr Threepwood,’ he carolled. ‘I’m just off to London.’

‘To see
the little woman?’

‘That’s
right.’

‘I take
it, then, that the two bob or whatever it was that you spent on that telephone
call was not wasted. You found Veronica in genial mood?’

‘You
betcher.’

And the
wedding will proceed as planned?’

‘Curtain
goes up the day after tomorrow. Apparently you have to let these registrar
birds have a day’s notice.’

‘That’s
to give them time to get over the shock of meeting the bridegroom.’

‘I
suppose they get all sorts?’

‘Yes,
it must be a wearing life. How about your witness?’

‘That’s
all laid on. I’m taking Willie Allsop with me. He’s up in his room, packing.’

‘Ah?
Well, before he arrives I should like to talk to you about Wilfred. Are you
aware that he has lost his job?’

‘I
hadn’t a notion. You mean the Winkworth woman isn’t going to hire him as a
music teacher?’

‘No,
she has cancelled the appointment and he is at liberty. It appears that she was
tipped off that he had been singing drunken songs in the corridor.’

A grave
look came into Tipton’s beaming face. He shook his head.

‘She
wouldn’t like that.’

‘She
didn’t!’

‘She’s
strongly opposed to anyone hoisting a few.’

‘We all
have our faults.’

‘So
what’s Willie going to do?’

‘Precisely
what I wanted to see you about. I was thinking that you might come to the
rescue and find him something.’

‘Who,
me?’

‘You
control a number of lucrative businesses, do you not?’

‘Yes, I
guess I do.’

‘Such
as —?’

‘Well,
there’s Tipton’s Stores.’

‘What
could he do there?’

‘Only
go around in white overalls telling customers where to find the cleansers and
detergents.’

‘You
can’t think of anything better?’

‘There’s
the ranch Uncle Chet left me out in Arizona. But can you see Willie as a
cowboy?’

‘Not
vividly. But didn’t your Uncle Chet own a music publishing concern in London?
I seem to remember him saying something to me about it.’

‘Good
Lord, I’d quite forgotten. Sure he did. Aunt Betsy used to write songs, and the
only way he could get them published was to buy out the publishers. It cost him
a couple of million, but he said it was worth it just to keep harmony in the
home. It’s a very good firm, and I believe he’d got most of his money back when
he passed on.’

‘Then
that’s where Wilfred finds his niche. Unless you have any objections?’