Service with a Smile (8 page)

He was
glad, this being so, that he had not got to worry about Bill Bailey, who had
relieved whatever apprehensions he may have had by fitting well into the little
Blandings circle. True, Lady Constance had greeted him with a touch of frost in
her manner, but that was to be expected. The others, he had been happy to see,
had made him welcome, particularly Lord Emsworth, to whom he appeared to have
said just the right things about the Empress during yesterday evening’s visit
to her residence. Lord Emsworth’s approval did not, of course, carry much
weight at Blandings Castle, but it was something.

It was
as he lay meditating on Lord Emsworth that he observed him crossing the lawn
and sat up with a start of surprise. What had astonished him was not the other’s
presence there, for the proprietor of a country house has of course a perfect
right to cross lawns on his own premises, but the fact that he was wet. Indeed,
the word ‘wet’ was barely adequate. He was soaked from head to foot and playing
like a Versailles fountain.

This
puzzled Lord Ickenham. He was aware that his host sometimes took a dip in the
lake, but he had not known that he did it immediately after breakfast with all
his clothes on, and abandoning his usual policy of allowing nothing to get him
out of his hammock till the hour of the midday cocktail, he started in pursuit.

Lord Emsworth
was cutting out a good pace, so good that he remained out of earshot, and he
had disappeared into the house before Lord Ickenham reached it. The latter,
shrewdly reasoning that a wet man would make for his bedroom, followed him
there. He found him in the nude, drying himself with a bath towel, and
immediately put the question which would have occurred to anyone in his place.

‘My
dear fellow, what happened? Did you fall into the lake?’

Lord Emsworth
lowered the towel and reached for a patched shirt.

‘Eh?
Oh, hullo, Ickenham. Did you say you had fallen into the lake?’

‘I
asked if you had.’

‘I? Oh,
no.’

‘Don’t
tell me that was merely perspiration you were bathed in when I saw you on the
lawn?’

‘Eh? No,
I perspire very little. But I did not fall into the lake. I dived in.’

‘With
your clothes on?’

‘Yes, I
had my clothes on.’

‘Any
particular reason for diving? Or did it just seem a good idea at the time?’

‘I had
lost my glasses.’

‘And
you thought they might be in the lake?’

Lord Emsworth
appeared to realize that he had not made himself altogether clear. For some
moments he busied himself with a pair of trousers. Having succeeded in draping
his long legs in these, he explained.

‘No, it
was not that. But when I am without my glasses, I find a difficulty in seeing
properly. And I had no reason to suppose that the boy was not accurate in his
statement.’

‘What
boy was that?’

‘One of
the Church Lads. I spoke to you about them, if you remember.’

‘I
remember.’

‘I wish
somebody would mend my socks,’ said Lord Emsworth, deviating for a moment from
the main theme. ‘Look at those holes. What were we talking about?’

‘This
statement-making Church Lad.’

‘Oh
yes. Yes, quite. Well, the whole thing was very peculiar. I had gone down to
the lake with the idea of asking the boys if they could possibly make a little
less noise, and suddenly one of them came running up to me with the most
extraordinary remark. He said, “Oh, sir, please save Willie! “‘

‘Odd
way of starting a conversation, certainly.’

‘He was
pointing at an object in the water, and putting two and two together I came to
the conclusion that one of his comrades must have fallen into the lake and was
drowning. So I dived in.’

Lord
Ickenham was impressed.

‘Very
decent of you. Many men who had suffered so much at the hands of the little
blisters would just have stood on the bank and sneered. Was the boy grateful?’

‘I can’t
find my shoes. Oh yes, here they are. What did you say?’

‘Did
the boy thank you brokenly?’

‘What
boy?’

‘The
one whose life you saved.’

‘Oh, I
was going to explain that. It wasn’t a boy. It turned out to be a floating log.
I swam to it, shouting to it to keep cool, and was very much annoyed to find
that my efforts had been for nothing. And do you know what I think, Ickenham? I
strongly suspect that it was not a genuine mistake on the boy’s part. I am
convinced that he was perfectly well aware that the object in the water was not
one of his playmates and that he had deliberately deceived me. Oh yes, I feel
sure of it, and I’ll tell you why. When I came out, he had been joined by
several other boys, and they were laughing.’

Lord
Ickenham could readily imagine it. They would, he supposed, be laughing when
they told the story to their grandchildren.

‘I
asked them what they were laughing at, and they said it was at something funny
which had happened on the previous afternoon. I found it hard to credit their
story.’

‘I don’t
wonder.’

‘I feel
very indignant about the whole affair.’

‘I’m
not surprised.’

‘Should
I complain to Constance?’

‘I
think I would do something more spirited than that.’

‘But
what?’

‘Ah,
that wants thinking over, doesn’t it? I’ll devote earnest thought to the
matter, and if anything occurs to me, I’ll let you know. You wouldn’t consider
mowing them down with a shotgun?’

‘Eh?
No, I doubt if that would be advisable.’

‘Might
cause remark, you feel?’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Never
mind. I’ll think of something else.’

2

When a visitor to a
country house learns that his host, as to the stability of whose mental balance
he has long entertained the gravest doubts, has suddenly jumped into a lake
with all his clothes on, he cannot but feel concern. He shakes his head. He purses
his lips and raises his eyebrows. Something has given, he says to himself, and
strains have been cracked under. It was thus that the Duke of Dunstable reacted
to the news of Lord Emsworth’s exploit.

It was
from the latter’s grandson George that he got the story. George was a small boy
with ginger hair and freckles, and between him and the Duke there had sprung up
one of those odd friendships which do sometimes spring up between the most
unlikely persons. George was probably the only individual in three counties
who actually enjoyed conversing with the Duke of Dunstable. If he had been
asked wherein lay the other’s fascination, he would have replied that he liked
watching the way he blew his moustache about when he talked. It was a
spectacle that never wearied him.

‘I say,’
he said, coming on to the terrace where the Duke was sitting, ‘have you heard
the latest?’

The
Duke, who had been brooding on the seeming impossibility of getting an egg
boiled the way he liked it in this blasted house, came out of his thoughts. He
spoke irritably. Owing to his tender years George had rather a high voice, and
the sudden sound of it had made him bite his tongue.

‘Don’t
come squeaking in my ear like that, boy. Blow your horn or something. What did
you say?’

‘I
asked if you’d heard the latest?’

‘Latest
what?’

‘Front
page news. Big scoop. Grandpapa jumped into the lake.’

‘What
are you talking about?’

‘It’s
true. The country’s ringing with it. I had it from one of the gardeners who saw
him. Grandpapa was walking along by the lake, and suddenly he stopped and
paused for a moment in thought. Then he did a swan dive,’ said George, and eyed
the moustache expectantly.

He was
not disappointed. It danced like an autumn leaf before a gale.

‘He
jumped into the lake?’

‘That’s
what he did, big boy.’

‘Don’t
call me big boy.’

‘Okay,
chief.’

The
Duke puffed awhile.

‘You
say this gardener saw him jump into the water?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘With
his clothes on?’

‘That’s
right. Accoutred as he was, he plunged in,’ said George, who in the preceding
term at his school had had to write out a familiar passage from Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar fifty times for bringing a white mouse into the classroom. ‘Pretty
sporting, don’t you think, an old egg like Grandpapa?’

‘What
do you mean — old egg?’

‘Well,
he must be getting on for a hundred.’

‘He is
the same age as myself.’

‘Oh?’ said
George, who supposed the Duke had long since passed the hundred mark.

‘But
what the deuce made him do a thing like that?’

‘Oh,
just thought he would, I suppose. Coo — I wish I’d been there with my camera,’
said George, and went on his way. And a few moments later, having pondered
deeply on this sensational development, the Duke rose and stumped off in
search of Lady Constance. What he had heard convinced him of the need for a summit
meeting.

He
found her in her sitting-room. Lavender Briggs was with her, all spectacles and
notebook. It was part of her secretarial duties to look in at this hour for
general instructions.

‘Hoy!’ he
boomed like something breaking the sound barrier.

‘Oh,
Alaric!’ said Lady Constance, startled and annoyed. ‘I do wish you would knock.’

‘Less
of the “Oh, Alaric! “‘ said the Duke, who was always firm with this sort of
thing, ‘and where’s the sense in knocking? I want to talk to you on a matter of
the utmost importance, and it’s private. Pop off, you,’ he said to Lavender
Briggs. He was a man who had a short way with underlings. ‘It’s about Emsworth.’

‘What
about him?’

‘I’ll
tell you what about him, just as soon as this pie-faced female has removed
herself. Don’t want her muscling in with her ears sticking up, hearing every
word I say.’

‘You
had better leave us, Miss Briggs.’

‘Quate,’
said Lavender Briggs, withdrawing haughtily.

‘Really,
Alaric,’ said Lady Constance as the door closed, speaking with the frankness of
one who had known him for a lifetime, ‘you have the manners of a pig.’

The
Duke reacted powerfully to the criticism. He banged the desk with a ham-like
hand, upsetting, in the order named, an inkpot, two framed photographs and a
vase of roses.

‘Pig!
That’s the operative word. It’s the pig I came to talk about.’

Lady
Constance would have preferred to talk about the ink-pot, the two photographs
and the vase of roses, but he gave her no opportunity. He had always been a
difficult man to stop.

‘It’s
at the bottom of the whole thing. It’s a thoroughly bad influence on him. Stop
messing about with that ink and listen to me. I say it’s the pig that has made
him what he is today.’

‘Oh,
dear! Made whom what he is today?’

‘Emsworth,
of course, ass. Who do you think I meant? Constance,’ said the Duke in that
loud, carrying voice of his, ‘I’ve told you this before, and I tell it to you
again. If Emsworth is to be saved from the loony bin, that pig must be removed
from his life.’

‘Don’t
shout so, Alaric.’

‘I will
shout. I feel very strongly on the matter. The pig is affecting his brain, not
that he ever had much. Remember the time when he told me he wanted to enter it
for the Derby?’

‘I
spoke to him about that. He said he didn’t.’

‘Well,
I say he did! Heard him distinctly. Anyway, be that as it may, you can’t deny
that he’s half way round the bend, and I maintain that the pig is responsible.
It’s at the root of his mental unbalance.’

‘Clarence
is not mentally unbalanced!’

‘He isn’t,
isn’t he? That’s what you think. How about what happened this morning? You know
the lake?’

‘Of course
I know the lake.’

‘He was
walking beside it.’

‘Why
shouldn’t he walk beside the lake?’

‘I’m
not saying he shouldn’t walk beside the lake. He can walk beside the lake till
his eyes bubble, as far as I’m concerned. But when it comes to jumping in with
all. his clothes on, it makes one think a bit.’

‘What!’

‘That’s
what he did, so young George informs me.’

‘With
his
clothes
on?’

‘Accoutred
as he was.’

‘Well,
really!’

‘Don’t
know why you seem surprised. It didn’t surprise me. I was saddened, yes, but not
surprised. Been expecting something like this for a long time. It’s just the
sort of thing a man would do whose intellect had been sapped by constant
association with a pig. And that’s why I tell you that the pig must go.
Eliminate it, and all may still be well. I’m not saying, that anything could
make Emsworth actually sane, one mustn’t expect miracles, but I’m convinced
that if he hadn’t this pig to unsettle him all the time, you would see a marked
improvement. He’d be an altogether brighter, less potty man. Well, say
something, woman. Don’t just sit there. Take steps, take steps.’