Service with a Smile (16 page)

For an
appreciable time after he had gone Lady Constance sat motionless. Then, as if a
sudden light had shone on her darkness, she gave a start. She stretched out a
hand towards the pigeonholes on the desk, in which reposed notepaper, envelopes,
postcards, telegraph forms and cable forms. Selecting one of the last named,
she took pen in hand, and began to write.

James Schoonmaker

1000
Park Avenue

New York

She
paused a moment in thought. Then she began to write again:

‘Come
immediately. Most urgent. Must see you…’

4

It is always unpleasant
for a man of good will to be compelled, even from the best of motives, to
blacken the name of an innocent butler, and his first thought after he has
done so is to make amends. Immediately after leaving Lady Constance, therefore,
Lord Ickenham proceeded to Beach’s pantry, where with a few well-chosen words
he slipped a remorseful five-pound note into the other’s hand. Beach trousered
the money with a stately bow of thanks, and in answer to a query as to whether
he had any knowledge of the Reverend Cuthbert Bailey’s whereabouts said that he
had seen him some little time ago entering the rose garden in company with Miss
Schoonmaker.

Thither
Lord Ickenham decided to make his way. He was sufficiently a student of human
nature to be aware that, when two lovers get together in a rose garden, they do
not watch the clock, and he presumed that, if Bill and Myra had been there some
little time ago, they would be there now. They would, he supposed, be
discussing in gloomy mood the former’s imminent departure from Blandings
Castle, and he was anxious to relieve their minds. For there was no doubt in
his own that Lady Constance, having thought things over, would continue to
extend her hospitality to the young cleric. Her whole air, as he left her, had
been that of a woman unable to see any alternative to the hoisting of the
white flag.

He had
scarcely left the house when he saw that he had been mistaken. So far from
being in the rose garden, Myra Schoonmaker was on the gravel strip outside the
front door, and so far from being in conference with Bill, she was closeted, as
far as one can be closeted in the open air, with the Duke of Dun-stable’s
nephew, Archie Gilpin. As he appeared, Archie Gilpin moved away, and as Myra
came towards him, he saw that her face was sombre and her walk the walk of a
girl who can detect no silver lining in the clouds. This did not cause him
concern. He had that to tell which would be a verbal shot in the arm and set
her dancing all over the place and strewing roses from her hat.

‘Hullo
there,’ he said.

‘Oh,
hullo, Uncle Fred.’

‘You
look pretty much down among the wines. and spirits, young Myra.’

‘That’s
the way I feel.’

‘You
won’t much longer. Where’s Bill?’

The
girl shrugged her shoulders.

‘Oh,
somewhere around, I suppose. I left him in the rose garden.’

Lord
Ickenham’s eyebrows shot up.

‘You
left
him in the rose garden? Not a lovers’ tiff, I hope?’

‘If you
like to call it that,’ said Myra. She kicked moodily at a passing beetle, which
gave her a cold look and went on its way. ‘I’ve broken our engagement.’

It was
never easy to disconcert Lord Ickenham, as his nephew Pongo would have testified.
Even on that day at the dog races his demeanour, even after the hand of the Law
had fallen on his shoulder, had remained unruffled. But now he could not hide
his dismay. He looked at the girl incredulously.

‘You’ve
broken the engagement?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘Because
he doesn’t love me.’

‘What
makes you think that?’

‘I’ll
tell you what makes me think that,’ said Myra passionately. ‘He went and told
Lord Emsworth who he was, knowing that Lord Emsworth was bound to spill the
beans to Lady Constance, and that Lady Constance would instantly bounce him.
And why did he do it, you ask? Because it gave him the excuse to get away from
me. I suppose he’s got another girl in Bottleton East.’

Lord
Ickenham twirled his moustache sternly. He had often in the course of his life
listened patiently to people talking through their hats, but he was in no mood
to be patient now.

‘Myra,’
he said. ‘You ought to have your head examined.’

‘Oh,
yes?’

‘It
would be money well spent. I assure you that if all the girls in Bottleton East
came and did the dance, of the seven veils before him, Bill Bailey wouldn’t
give them a glance. He told Emsworth who he was because his conscience wouldn’t
let him do otherwise. The revelation was unavoidable if he was to make his
story of the Briggs’ foul plot convincing, and he did not count the cost. He
knew that it meant ruin and disaster, but he refused to stand silently by and
allow that good man to be deprived of his pig. You ought to be fawning on him
for his iron integrity, instead of going about the place breaking engagements.
I have always held that the man of sensibility should be careful what he says
to the other sex, if he wishes to be numbered among the preux chevaliers, but I
cannot restrain myself from telling you, young M. Schoonmaker, that you have
behaved like a little half-wit.’

Myra,
who had been staring at the beetle as if contemplating having another go at it,
raised a startled head.

‘Do you
think that was really it?’

‘Of
course it was.’

‘And he
wasn’t just jumping at the chance of getting away from me?’

‘Of
course he wasn’t. I tell you, Bill Bailey is about as near being a stainless
knight as you could find in a month of Sun-days. He’s as spotless as they come.’

A deep
sigh escaped Myra Schoonmaker. His eloquence had convinced her.

‘Half-wit,’
she said, ‘is right. Uncle Fred, I’ve made a ghastly fool of myself.’

‘Just
what I’ve been telling you.’

‘I don’t
mean about Bill. I could have put that right in a minute. But I’ve just told
Archie Gilpin I’ll marry him.’

‘No
harm that I can see in confiding your matrimonial plans to Archie Gilpin. He’ll
probably send you a wedding present.’

‘Oh,
don’t be so dumb, Uncle Fred! I mean I’ve just told Archie, I’ll marry
him!’

‘What,
him?’

‘Yes,
him.’

‘Well,
fry me for an oyster! Why on earth did you do that?’

‘Oh,
just a sort of gesture, I suppose. It’s what they used to write in my reports
at Miss Spence’s school. “She is often too impulsive”, they used to say.’

She
spoke despondently. Ever since that brief but fateful conversation with Archie,
an uneasy conviction had been stealing over her that in a rash moment she had
started something which she would have given much to stop. Her emotions were
somewhat similar to those of a nervous passenger on a roller coaster at an
amusement park who when it is too late to get off feels the contraption
gathering speed beneath him.

It was
not as if she even liked Archie Gilpin very much. He was all right in his way,
a pleasant enough companion for a stroll or a game of tennis, but until this
awful thing had happened he had been something completely negligible, just
some sort of foreign substance that happened to be around. And now she was
engaged to him, and the announcement would be in
The Times,
and Lady
Constance would be telling her how pleased her father would be and how sensible
it was of her to have realized that that other thing had been nothing but a
ridiculous infatuation, and she could see no point in going on living. She was
very much inclined to go down to the lake and ask one of the Church Lads if he
would care to earn a shilling by holding her head under water till the vital
spark expired.

‘Oh,
Uncle Fred!’ she said.

‘There,
there!’ said Lord Ickenham.

‘Oh,
Uncle Fred!’

‘Don’t
talk, just cry. There is nothing more therapeutic.’

‘What
shall I do?’

‘Break
it off, of course. What else? Tell him it’s been nice knowing him, and hand him
his hat.’

‘But I
can’t.’

‘Nonsense.
Perfectly easy thing to bring into the conversation. You’re strolling with him
in the moonlight. He says something about how jolly it’s going to be when you
and he are settled down in your little nest, and you say, “Oh, I forgot to tell
you about that. It’s off.” He says, “What!” You say, “You heard,” and he
reddens and goes to Africa.’

‘And I
go to New York.’

‘Why
New York?’

‘Because
that’s where I’ll be shipped back to in disgrace when they hear I’ve broken my
engagement to a Duke’s nephew.’

‘Don’t
tell me Jimmy’s a stern father?’

‘That
would make him stern enough. He’s got a thing about the British aristocracy. He
admires them terrifically.’

‘I don’t
blame him. We’re the salt of the earth.’

‘He
would insist on taking me home, and I’d never see my angel Bill again, because
he couldn’t possibly afford the fare to New York.’

Lord
Ickenham mused. This was a complication he had not taken into his calculations.

‘I see.
Yes, I appreciate the difficulty.’

‘Me,
too.’

‘This
opens up a new line of thought. You’d better leave everything to me.’

‘I don’t
see that you can do anything.’

‘That
is always a rash observation to make to an Ickenham. As I once remarked to
another young friend of mine, this sort of situation brings out the best in me.
And when you get the best in Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth
Earl of good old Ickenham, you’ve got something.’

Chapter
Eight

1

If you go down Fleet
Street and turn into one of the side streets leading to the river, you will
find yourself confronted by a vast building that looks something like a county
jail and something like a biscuit factory. This is Tilbury House, the home of
the Mammoth Publishing Company, that busy hive where hordes of workers toil day
and night, churning out reading matter for the masses. For Lord Tilbury’s
numerous daily and weekly papers are not, as is sometimes supposed, just Acts
of God; they are produced deliberately.

The building
has its scores of windows, but pay no attention to those on the first two
floors, for there are only editors and things behind them. Concentrate the eye
on the three in the middle of the third floor. These belong to Lord Tilbury’s
private office, and there is just a chance, if you wait, that you may catch a
glimpse of him leaning out to get a breath of air, than which nothing could be
more calculated to make a sightseer’s day.

This
morning, however, you would have been out of luck, for Lord Tilbury was sitting
motionless at his desk. He had been sitting there for some little time. There
were a hundred letters he should have been dictating to Millicent Rigby, his
secretary, but Millicent remained in the outer office, undictated to. There were
a dozen editors with whom he should have been conferring, but they stayed where
they were, unconferred with.

He was
deep in thought, and anyone seeing him would have asked himself with awe what
it was that was occupying that giant mind. He might have been planning out some
pronouncement which would shake the chancelleries, or pondering on the most
suitable line to take in connexion with the latest rift in the Cabinet, or
even, for he took a personal interest in all his publications, considering
changes in the policy of
Wee Tots,
the journal which has done so much to
mould thought in the British nursery. In actual fact, he was musing on Empress
of Blandings.

In the
life of every successful man there is always some little something missing.
Lord Tilbury had wealth and power and the comforting knowledge that, catering
as he did for readers who had all been mentally arrested at the age of twelve,
he would continue to enjoy these indefinitely, but he had not got Empress of Blandings:
and ever since the day when he and that ornament of her sex had met he had
yearned to add her to his Buckinghamshire piggery. That was how the pig-minded
always reacted to even the briefest glance at the Empress. They came, saw,
gasped and went away unhappy and discontented, ever after, to move through life
bemused, like men kissed by goddesses in dreams.

His
sombre thoughts were broken in upon by the ringing of the telephone. Moodily he
took up the receiver.

‘Hoy!’
shouted a voice in his ear, and he had no difficulty in identifying the
speaker. He had a wide circle of acquaintances, but the Duke of Dunstable was
the only member of it who opened conversations with this monosyllable in a
booming tone reminiscent of a costermonger calling attention to his blood
oranges. ‘Is that you, Stinker?’