Heavy Weather (25 page)

As for Sir Gregory himself, the news communicated to him over the telephone by Lady Constance Keeblean hour before had been enough to ruin a dozen dinners. His might have been, as his whilom playmate, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, had made so abundantly clear in Chapters Four, Seven, Eleven, Eighteen, and Twenty-four of his immortal work, a frivolous youth, but in his late fifties he was taking life extremely seriously. Very earnest was his wish to represent the Unionist party as their Member for Bridgeford and Shifley Parliamentary Division of Shropshire: and if Pilbeam fulfilled his threat of taking that infernal manuscript to Lord Tilbury, his chances of doing so would be simply
nil
.
He knew that local committee. Once let the story of the prawns appear in print, and they would drop him like a hot brick.

He had come tonight to reason with Pilbeam, to plead with Pilbeam, to appeal to Pilbeam's better feelings, if such existed. And, dash it, there was no Pilbeam to be reasoned with, to be pleaded with, or to be appealed to.

Where
was
the dam' feller?

The same question was torturing Lady Constance. Where was Pilbeam? Could he have gone straight to Lord Tilbury after taking his zigzag departure from the drawing-room?

It was Lord Emsworth who put the question into words. For some moments he had been staring down the table over the top of his crooked pince-nez in a puzzled manner like that of a cat trying to run over the muster-roll of its kittens.

'Beach!'

'M'lord?' said that careworn man hollowly. Foxes were gnawing at Beach's vitals, too.

'Beach, I can't see Mr Pilbeam. Can you see Mr Pilbeam, Beach ? He doesn't seem to be here.'

'Mr Pilbeam is in his bedchamber, m'lord. He informed the footman who knocked at the door with his hot water that he would not be among those present at dinner, m'lord, owing to a headache.'

The Hon. Galahad endorsed this.

'I knocked at his door just before the dressing gong went, and he said he wanted to go to sleep.' 'You didn't go in?' 'No.'

'You should have gone in, Galahad. The poor fellow may be feeling unwell.'

'Not so unwell as he would have felt if I could have got in.'

'You think you would have made his headache worse ?'

'A good deal worse,' said the Hon. Galahad, taking a salted almond and giving it a hard look through his monocle.

The news that Pilbeam was on a bed of sickness acted on three members of the party rather as the recent rain had acted on the parched earth. Lady Constance seemed to expand like a refreshed flower. Lady Julia did the same. Sir Gregory Parsloe, in addition to expanding, gave such a sharp sigh of relief that he blew a candle out. Three pairs of eyes exchanged glances. There was the same message of cheer in each of them. If Pilbeam had not taken the irrevocable step, those eyes said, all might yet be well.

'God bless my soul,' said Lord Emsworth solicitously, 'I hope he isn't really bad. These infernal thunderstorms are enough to give anyone a headache. I had a slight headache myself before dinner. I'll run up and see the poor chap as soon as we've finished here. My goodness, I don't want Pilbeam on the sick list now, of all times,' said Lord Emsworth, with a glance at Sir Gregory so full of meaning that the latter, who was lifting his wine-glass to his lips, shied like a startled horse and spilled half its contents.

'Why now, particularly?' asked Lady Julia.

'Never mind,' said Lord Emsworth darkly.

'I only asked,' said Lady Julia, 'because I, personally, consider that all times are good times for Mr Pilbeam to have headaches. Not to mention botts, glanders, quartan ague, frog in the throat and the Black Death.'

A soft, sibilant sound, like gas escaping from a pipe, came from the shadows by the sideboard. It was Beach expressing, as far as butlerine etiquette would permit him to express, his adhesion to this sentiment.

Lord Emsworth, on the other hand, showed annoyance.

'I wish you wouldn't say such things, Julia.'

'On the spur of the moment I couldn't think of anything worse.'

'Don't you like Pilbeam ?'

'My dear Clarence, don't be fantastic. Nobody
likes
Mr Pilbeam. There are people who do not actually put poison in his soup, but that is as far as you can go.'

'I disagree with you,' said Lord Emsworth warmly. 'I regard him as a capital fellow, capital. And most useful, let me tell you. Attempts are being made,' said Lord Emsworth, once more sniping Sir Gregory with a penetrating eye, 'by certain parties whom I will not name, to injure my pig. Pilbeam is helping me thwart them. Thanks to his advice, I have now put my pig where the parties to whom I allude will not find it quite so easy to get at her. Let me tell you that I think very highly of Pilbeam. I've a good mind to send him up half a bottle of champagne.'

'Making the perfect example of carrying coals to Newcastle.'

'Eh?'

'Oh, nothing. 'Twas but a passing jest.'

'Champagne is good for headaches,' argued Lord Emsworth. 'It might make all the difference to Pilbeam.'

'Are we to spend the whole of dinner talking of Mr Pilbeam and his headache?' demanded Lady Constance imperiously. 'I am sick and tired of Mr Pilbeam. And I don't want to hear any more of that pig of yours, Clarence. For goodness sake let us discuss some reasonable topic'

This bright invitation having had the not unnatural effect of killing the conversation completely, dinner proceeded in an unbroken silence. Only once did one of the revellers venture a remark. As Beach and his assistants removed the plates which had contained fruit salad and substituted others designed for dessert, Lady Julia raised her glass.

'To the body upstairs - I
hope,' she said.

Percy Pilbeam, however, was not actually dead. At the precise moment of Lady Julia's toast, almost as if he were answering a cue, he sat up on his bed and stared muzzily about him. The fact that the room was now in darkness made it difficult for him to find his bearings immediately, and for perhaps half a minute he sat wondering where he was. Then memory returned, and with it an opening-and-shutting sensation in the region of the temples which made him regret that he had gone on sleeping. Even if he had had the Black Death to which Lady Julia had so feelingly alluded, he could not have felt very much worse.

There are heads which are proof against over-indulgence in champagne. That of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood is one that springs to the mind. Pilbeam's, however, did not belong to this favoured class. For a while he sat there, wincing at each fresh wave of agony; then, levering himself up, he switched on the light and hobbled to the wash-stand, where he proceeded to drink deeply out of the water-jug. This done, he filled the basin and started to give himself first-aid treatment.

Presently, a little restored, he returned to the bed and sat down again. Endeavouring to recall the events which had led up to the tragedy, he found that he could do so only skctchily. One fact alone stood out clearly in his recollection - to wit, that in some way which he could not quite remember he had been insulted by Lady Constance Keeble. A great bitterness against Lady Constance began to burgeon within Percy Pilbeam, and it was not long before he
reached the decision that, cost what it might, she must be scored off. There would be no auction sale. As soon as he felt physically capable of moving, he would take that manuscript to Lord Tilbury at the Emsworth Arms.

At this point in his meditations the house was blown up by a bomb. Or, what amounted to much the same thing as far as the effect on the nervous system was concerned, there was a knock at the door.

' May I come in, my dear fellow ?'

Pilbeam recognized the voice. He could not be rude to his only friend at Blandings Castle. He swallowed his heart again, and unlocked the door.

'Ah! Sitting up, I see. Feeling a little better, eh? We all missed you at dinner,' said Lord Emsworth, beginning to potter about the room as he pottered about all rooms which he honoured with his presence. 'We wondered what had become of you. My sister Julia, if I remember rightly, speculated as to the possibility of your having got the Black Death. What put the idea into her head, I can't imagine. Absurd, of course. People don't get the Black Death nowadays. I've never heard of anyone getting the Black Death. In fact,' said Lord Emsworth, with a burst of confidence, dropping into the fireplace the hair-brush which he had been attempting to balance on the comb,' I don't believe I know what the Black Death
is:

A sense of being in hell stole over Percy Pilbeam. What with the clatter of that brush, which had set his head aching again, and his host's conversation, which threatened to make it ache still more, he was sore beset.

'No doubt all that has happened,' proceeded Lord Emsworth, moving the soap-dish a little to the left, the water-bottle a little to the right, a chair a little nearer the door, and another chair a little nearer the window, 'is that that thunderstorm gave you a headache. And I was wondering, my dear fellow, if a breath of fresh air might not do you good. Fresh air is often good for headaches. I am on my way to have a look at the Empress, and it crossed my mind that you might care to come with me. It is a beautiful night. There is a lovely moon, and I have an electric torch.'

Here, Lord Emsworth, pausing from tapping the mirror with a buttonhook, produced from his p
ocket the torch in question and
sent a dazzling ray shooting into his companion's inflamed eyes.

The action decided Pilbeam. To remain longer in the confined space of a bedroom with this man would be to subject his sanity to too severe a test. He said he would be delighted to come and take a look at the Empress.

Out on the gravel drive he began to feel a little better. As Lord Emsworth had said, it was a beautiful night. Pilbeam was essentially a creature of the city, with urban tastes, but even he could appreciate the sweet serenity of the grounds of Blandings Castle under that gracious moon. So restored did he feel by the time they had gone a hundred yards or so that he even ventured on a remark.

'Aren't we,' he asked, 'going the wrong way?'

'What's that, my dear fellow?' said Lord Emsworth, wrenching his mind from the torch, which he was flashing on and off like a child with a new toy. 'What did you say?'

'Don't you get to the sty by crossing the terrace?'

'Ah, but you've forgotten, my dear Pilbeam. Acting on your advice, we moved her to the new one just before dinner. You recollect advising us to move her from her old sty?'

'Of course. Quite. Yes, I remember.'

'Pirbright didn't like it. I could tell that by the strange noises he made at the back of his throat. He has some idea that she will feel restless and unhappy away from her old home. But I was particularly careful to wait and see that she was comfortably settled in, and I could detect no signs of restlessness whatever. She proceeded to eat her evening meal with every indication of enjoyment.'

' Good,' said Pilbeam, feeling distrait.

'Eh?'

'I said "Good".'

'Oh, "Good" ? Yes, quite so. Yes, very good. I feel most pleased about it. As I pointed out to Pirbright, the risk of leaving her in her old quarters was far too great to be taken. Why, my dear Pilbeam, do you know that my sister Constance had actually invited that man Parsloe to dinner tonight? Oh, yes, there he was, at dinner with us. No doubt he had persuaded her to invite him, thinking that, having got into the place he would be able to find an opportunity during the evening of slipping away and going down to the sty and doing the poor animal a mischief. A nice surprise he's going to get when he finds the sty empty. He won't know what to make of it. He'll be nonplussed.'

Here Lord Emsworth paused to chuckle. Pilbeam, though not amused, contrived to emit on his side something that might have passed as a mirthful echo.

'This new sty,' proceeded Lord Emsworth, having switched the torch on and off six times, 'is an altogether more suitable place. As a matter of fact, I had it built specially for the Empress in the spring, but owing to Pirbright's obstinacy I never moved her there. I don't know if you know these Shropshire fellows at all, Pilbeam, but they can be as obstinate as Scotsmen. I have a Scots head gardener, Angus McAllister, and he is intensely obstinate. Like a mule. I must tell you some time about the trouble I had with him regarding hollyhocks. But
Pirbright can be fully as stubborn when he gets an idea into his head. I reasoned with him. I said, "Pirbright, this sty is a new sty, with all the latest improvements. It is up to date, in keeping with the trend of modern thought, and, what is more - and this I consider very important - it adjoins the kitchen garden.. ."'

He broke off. A sound beside him in the darkness had touched his kindly heart.

'Is your head hurting you again, my dear fellow?'