Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (10 page)

He rose from his bed and peered out of the window. It was a
beautiful morning. There had been rain in the night and a world
that looked as if it had just come back from the cleaner's sparkled
under a beaming sun. Cedars cast long shadows over the smooth
green lawns. Rooks cawed soothingly: thrushes bubbled in their
liquid and musical way: and the air was full of a summer humming.
Among those present of the insect world, Lord Emsworth
noticed several prominent gnats.

Beyond the terrace, glittering through the trees, gleamed the
waters of the lake. They seemed to call to him like a bugle. Although he had
neglected the practice of late, there was nothing Lord Emsworth enjoyed more
than a before-breakfast dip: and to-day anything in the nature of water had
a particularly powerful appeal for him. The pain in his ankle had subsided
by now to a dull throbbing, and it seemed to him that a swim might remove
it altogether. Putting on a dressing-gown and slippers, he took his bathing-suit
from its drawer and went downstairs.

The beauties of a really fine English summer day are so
numerous that it is excusable in a man if he fails immediately
to notice them all. Only when the sharp agony of the first plunge
had passed and he was floating out in mid-water did Lord
Emsworth realize that in some extraordinary way he had overlooked
what was beyond dispute the best thing that this perfect
morning had to offer him. Gazing from his bedroom window, he
had observed the sun, the shadows, the birds, the trees, and the
insects, but he had omitted to appreciate the fact that nowhere in
this magic world that stretched before him was there a trace of
his young guest, Popjoy. For the first time in two weeks he
appeared to be utterly alone and free from him.

Floating on his back and gazing up into the turquoise sky,
Lord Emsworth thrilled at the thought. He kicked sportively in
a spasm of pure happiness. But this, he felt, was not enough. It
failed to express his full happiness. To the ecstasy of this golden
moment only music – that mystic language of the soul – could
really do justice. The next instant there had cut quiveringly into
the summer stillness that hung over the gardens of Blandings
Castle a sudden sharp wail that seemed to tell of a human being
in mortal distress. It was the voice of Lord Emsworth, raised in
song.

It was a gruesome sound, calculated to startle the stoutest:
and two bees, buzzing among the lavender, stopped as one
bee and looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Nor were
they alone affected. Snails withdrew into their shells: a squirrel
doing calisthenics on the cedar nearly fell off its branch: and –
moving a step up in the animal kingdom – the Rev. Rupert
Bingham, standing behind the rhododendron bushes and wondering
how long it would be before the girl he loved came to
keep her tryst, started violently, dropped his cigarette and, tearing
off his coat, rushed to the water's edge.

Out in the middle of the lake, Lord Emsworth's transports
continued undiminished. His dancing feet kicked up a flurry of
foam. His short-sighted, but sparkling, eyes stared into the blue.
His voice rose to a pulsing scream.

'Love me,' sang Lord Emsworth, 'and the wo-o-o-o-rld is –
ah – mi-yun!'

'It's all right,' said a voice in his ear. 'Keep cool. Keep quite
cool.'

The effect of a voice speaking suddenly, as it were out of
the void, is always, even in these days of wireless, disconcerting
to a man. Had he been on dry land Lord Emsworth would
have jumped. Being in ten feet of water, he went under as
if a hand had pushed him. He experienced a momentary
feeling of suffocation, and then a hand gripped him painfully
by the fleshy part of the arm and he was on the surface again,
spluttering.

'Keep quite cool,' murmured the voice. 'There's no danger.'

And now he recognized whose voice it was.

There is a point beyond which the human brain loses its
kinship with the Infinite and becomes a mere seething mass of
deleterious passions. Malays, when pushed past this point, take
down the old
kris
from its hook and go out and start carving up
the neighbours. Women have hysterics. Earls, if Lord Emsworth
may be taken as a sample, haul back their right fists and
swing them as violently as their age and physique will permit.
For two long weeks Lord Emsworth had been enduring this
pestilential young man with outward nonchalance, but the strain
had told. Suppressed emotions are always the most dangerous.
Little by little, day by day, he had been slowly turning into a
human volcano, and this final outrage blew the lid off him.

He raged with a sense of intolerable injury. Was it not enough
that this porous plaster of a young man should adhere to him on
shore? Must he even pursue him out into the waste of waters and
come fooling about and pawing at him when he was enjoying the
best swim he had had that summer? In all their long and
honourable history no member of his ancient family had ever
so far forgotten the sacred obligations of hospitality as to plug a
guest in the eye. But then they had never had guests like this.
With a sharp, passionate snort, Lord Emsworth extracted his
right hand from the foam, clenched it, drew it back and let it go.

He could have made no more imprudent move. If there was one
thing the Rev. Rupert Bingham, who in his time had swum for Oxford, knew,
it was what to do when drowning men struggled. Something that might have been
a very hard and knobbly leg of mutton smote Lord Emsworth violently behind
the ear: the sun was turned off at the main: the stars came out, many of them
of a singular brightness: there was a sound of rushing waters: and he knew
no more.

When Lord Emsworth came to himself, he was lying in bed.
And, as it seemed a very good place to be, he remained there. His
head ached abominably, but he scarcely noticed this, so occupied
was he with the thoughts which surged inside it. He mused on
the young man Popjoy: he meditated on Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe:
and wondered from time to time which he disliked the
more. It was a problem almost too nice for human solution.
Here, on the one hand, you had a man who pestered you for two
weeks and wound up by nearly murdering you as you bathed, but
who did not steal pig-men: there, on the other, one who stole
pig-men but stopped short of actual assault on the person. Who
could hope to hold the scales between such a pair?

He had just remembered the lotion and was wondering if this
might not be considered the deciding factor in this contest for
the position of the world's premier blot, when the door opened
and the Hon. Freddie Threepwood insinuated himself into the
room.

'Hullo, guv'nor.'

'Well, Frederick?'

'How are you feeling?'

'Extremely ill.'

'Might have been worse, you know.'

'Bah!'

'Watery grave and all that.'

'Tchah!' said Lord Emsworth.

There was a pause. Freddie, wandering about the room,
picked up and fidgeted with a chair, a vase, a hair-brush, a
comb, and a box of matches: then, retracing his steps, fidgeted
with them all over again in the reverse order. Finally, he came to
the foot of his father's bed and dropped over it like, it seemed
to that sufferer's prejudiced eye, some hideous animal gaping
over a fence.

'I say, guv'nor.'

'Well, Frederick?'

'Narrow squeak, that, you know.'

'Pah!'

'Do you wish to thank your brave preserver?'

Lord Emsworth plucked at the coverlet.

'If that young man comes near me,' he said, 'I will not be
answerable for the consequences.'

'Eh?' Freddie stared. 'Don't you like him?'

'Like him! I think he is the most appalling young man I ever
met.'

It is customary when making statements of this kind to except
present company, but so deeply did Lord Emsworth feel on the
subject that he omitted to do so. Freddie, having announced that
he was dashed, removed himself from the bed-rail and, wandering
once more about the room, fidgeted with a toothbrush, a
soap-dish, a shoe, a volume on spring bulbs, and a collar-stud.

'I say, guv'nor.'

'Well, Frederick?'

'That's all very well, you know, guv'nor,' said the Hon.
Freddie, returning to his post and seeming to draw moral support
from the feel of the bed-rail, 'but after what's happened it
looks to me as if you were jolly well bound to lend your countenance
to the union, if you know what I mean.'

'Union? What are you talking about? What union?'

'Gertrude and old Beefers.'

'Who the devil is old Beefers?'

'Oh, I forgot to tell you about that. This bird Popjoy's name
isn't Popjoy. It's Bingham. Old Beefy Bingham. You know, the
fellow Aunt Georgie doesn't want to marry Gertrude.'

'Eh?'

'Throw your mind back. They pushed her off to Blandings to
keep her out of his way. And I had the idea of sending him down
here
incog
to ingratiate himself with you. The scheme being that,
when you had learned to love him, you would slip him a vacant
vicarage, thus enabling them to get married. Beefers is a parson,
you know.'

Lord Emsworth did not speak. It was not so much the shock
of this revelation that kept him dumb as the astounding discovery
that any man could really want to marry Gertrude, and
any girl this Popjoy. Like many a thinker before him, he was
feeling that there is really no limit to the eccentricity of human
tastes. The thing made his head swim.

But when it had ceased swimming he perceived that this was
but one aspect of the affair. Before him stood the man who had
inflicted Popjoy on him, and with something of King Lear in his
demeanour Lord Emsworth rose slowly from the pillows.
Words trembled on his lips, but he rejected them as not strong
enough and sought in his mind for others.

'You know, guv'nor,' proceeded Freddie, 'there's nothing to
prevent you doing the square thing and linking two young hearts
in the bonds of the Love God, if you want to. I mean to say, old
Braithwaite at Much Matchingham has been ordered to the
south of France by his doctor, so there's a living going that you've
got to slip to somebody.'

Lord Emsworth sank back on the pillows.

'Much Matchingham!'

'Oh, dash it, you must know Much Matchingham, guv'nor.
It's just round the corner. Where old Parsloe lives.'

'Much Matchingham!'

Lord Emsworth was blinking, as if his eyes had seen a dazzling
light. How wrong, he felt, how wickedly mistaken and
lacking in faith he had been when he had said to himself in his
folly that Providence offers no method of retaliation to the just
whose pig-men have been persuaded by Humanity's dregs to
leave their employment and seek advanced wages elsewhere.
Conscience could not bring remorse to Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe,
and the law, in its present imperfect state, was powerless
to punish. But there was still away. With this young man Popjoy
– or Bingham – or whatever his name was, permanently established
not a hundred yards from his park gates, would Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe ever draw another really care-free breath?
From his brief, but sufficient, acquaintance with the young man
Bingham – or Popjoy – Lord Emsworth thought not.

The punishment was severe, but who could say that Sir
Gregory had not earned it?

'A most admirable idea,' said Lord Emsworth cordially. 'Certainly
I will give your friend the living of Much Matchingham.'

'You will?'

'Most decidedly.'

'At-a-boy, guv'nor!' said Freddie. 'Came the Dawn!'

O
N
the usually unruffled brow of the Hon. Freddie Threepwood,
as he paced the gardens of Blandings Castle, there was the
slight but well-marked frown of one whose mind is not at rest. It
was high summer and the gardens were at their loveliest, but he
appeared to find no solace in their splendour. Calceolarias,
which would have drawn senile yips of ecstasy from his father,
Lord Emsworth, left him cold. He eyed the lobelias with an
unseeing stare, as if he were cutting an undesirable acquaintance
in the paddock at Ascot.

What was troubling this young man was the continued sales-resistance
of his Aunt Georgiana. Ever since his marriage to the
only daughter of Donaldson's Dog-Biscuits, of Long Island
City, N. Y., Freddie Threepwood had thrown himself heart
and soul into the promotion of the firm's wares. And, sent
home to England to look about for likely prospects, he had
seen in Georgiana, Lady Alcester, as has been already related,
a customer who approximated to the ideal. The owner of four
Pekingese, two Poms, a Yorkshire terrier, five Sealyhams, a
Borzoi and an Airedale, she was a woman who stood for something
in dog-loving circles. To secure her patronage would be
a big thing for him. It would stamp him as a live wire and a
go-getter. It would please his father-in-law hugely. And the
proprietor of Donaldson's Dog-Joy was a man who, when even
slightly pleased, had a habit of spraying five thousand dollar
cheques like a geyser.

And so far, despite all his eloquence, callously oblivious of the
ties of kinship and the sacred obligations they involve, Lady
Alcester had refused to sign on the dotted line, preferring to
poison her menagerie with some degraded garbage called, if he
recollected rightly, Peterson's Pup-Food.

A bitter snort escaped Freddie. It was still echoing through
the gardens, when he found that he was no longer alone. He had
been joined by his cousin Gertrude.

'What-ho!' said Freddie amiably. He was fond of Gertrude,
and did not hold it against her that she had a mother who was
incapable of spotting a good dog-biscuit when she saw one.
Between him and Gertrude there had long existed a firm alliance.
It was to him that Gertrude had turned for assistance when
the family were trying to stop her getting engaged to good old
Beefy Bingham: and he had supplied assistance in such good
measure that the engagement was now an accepted fact and
running along nicely.

'Freddie,' said Gertrude, 'may I borrow your car?'

'Certainly. Most decidedly. Going over to see old Beefers?'

'No,' said Gertrude, and a closer observer than her cousin
might have noted in her manner a touch of awkwardness. 'Mr
Watkins wants me to drive him to Shrewsbury'

'Oh? Well, carry on, as far as I'm concerned. You haven't seen
your mother anywhere, have you?'

'I think she's sitting on the lawn.'

Ah? Is she? Right-ho. Thanks.'

Freddie moved off in the direction indicated, and presently
came in sight of his relative, seated as described. The Airedale
was lying at her feet. One of the Pekes occupied her lap. And she
was gazing into the middle distance in a preoccupied manner, as
if she, like her nephew, had a weight on her mind.

Nor would one who drew this inference from her demeanour
have been mistaken. Lady Alcester was feeling disturbed.

A woman who stands in
loco parentis
to fourteen dogs must of
necessity have her cares, but it was not the dumb friends that
were worrying Lady Alcester now. What was troubling her was
the disquieting behaviour of her daughter Gertrude.

Engaged to the Rev. Rupert Bingham, Gertrude seemed to
her of late to have become infatuated with Orlo Watkins, the
Crooning Tenor, one of those gifted young men whom Lady
Constance Keeble, the chatelaine of Blandings, was so fond of
inviting down for lengthy visits in the summer-time.

On the subject of the Rev. Rupert Bingham, Lady Alcester's
views had recently undergone a complete change. In the beginning,
the prospect of having him for a son-in-law had saddened
and distressed her. Then, suddenly discovering that he was the
nephew and heir of as opulent a shipping magnate as ever broke
bread at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, she had soared from
the depths to the heights. She was now strongly pro-Bingham.
She smiled upon him freely. Upon his appointment to the vacant
Vicarage of Much Matchingham, the village nearest to Market
Blandings, she had brought Gertrude to the Castle so that the
young people should see one another frequently.

And, instead of seeing her betrothed frequently, Gertrude
seemed to prefer to moon about with this Orlo Watkins, this
Crooning Tenor. For days they had been inseparable.

Now, everybody knows what Crooning Tenors are. Dangerous
devils. They sit at the piano and gaze into a girl's eyes and
sing in a voice that sounds like gas escaping from a pipe about
Love and the Moonlight and You: and, before you know where
you are, the girl has scrapped the deserving young clergyman
with prospects to whom she is affianced and is off and away with
a man whose only means of livelihood consist of intermittent
engagements with the British Broadcasting Corporation.

If a mother is not entitled to shudder at a prospect like that, it
would be interesting to know what she is entitled to shudder at.

Lady Alcester, then, proceeded to shudder: and was still
shuddering when the drowsy summer peace was broken by a
hideous uproar. The Peke and the Airedale had given tongue
simultaneously, and, glancing up, Lady Alcester perceived her
nephew Frederick approaching.

And what made her shudder again was the fact that in
Freddie's eye she noted with concern the familiar go-getter
gleam, the old dog-biscuit glitter.

However, as it had sometimes been her experience, when
cornered by her nephew, that she could stem the flood by talking
promptly on other subjects, she made a gallant effort to do
so now.

'Have you seen Gertrude, Freddie?' she asked.

'Yes. She borrowed my car to go to Shrewsbury'

'Alone?'

'No. Accompanied by Watkins. The Yowler.'

A further spasm shook Lady Alcester.

'Freddie,' she said, 'I'm terribly worried.'

'Worried?'

'About Gertrude.'

Freddie dismissed Gertrude with a gesture.

'No need to worry about her,' he said. 'What you want to
worry about is these dogs of yours. Notice how they barked at
me? Nerves. They're a mass of nerves. And why? Improper
feeding. As long as you mistakenly insist on giving them Peterson's
Pup-Food – lacking, as it is, in many of the essential
vitamins – so long will they continue to fly off the handle every
time they see a human being on the horizon. Now, pursuant on
what we were talking about this morning, Aunt Georgiana,
there is a little demonstration I would like ...'

'Can't you give her a hint, Freddie?'

'Who?'

'Gertrude.'

'Yes, I suppose I could give her a hint. What about?'

'She is seeing far too much of this man Watkins.'

'Well, so am I, for the matter of that. So is everybody who
sees him more than once.'

'She seems quite to have forgotten that she is engaged to
Rupert Bingham.'

'Rupert Bingham, did you say?' said Freddie with sudden
animation. 'I'll tell you something about Rupert Bingham. He
has a dog named Bottles who has been fed from early youth on
Donaldson's Dog-Joy, and I wish you could see him. Thanks to
the bone-forming properties of Donaldson's Dog-Joy, he glows
with health. A fine, upstanding dog, with eyes sparkling with
the joy of living and both feet on the ground. A credit to his
master.'

'Never mind about Rupert's dog!'

'You've got to mind about Rupert's dog. You can't afford to
ignore him. He is a dog to be reckoned with. A dog that counts.
And all through Donaldson's Dog-Joy'

'I don't want to talk about Donaldson's Dog-Joy'

'I do. I want to give you a demonstration. You may not know
it, Aunt Georgiana, but over in America the way we advertise
this product, so rich in bone-forming vitamins, is as follows: We
instruct our demonstrator to stand out in plain view before the
many-headed and, when the audience is of sufficient size, to take
a biscuit and break off a piece and chew it. By this means we
prove that Donaldson's Dog-Joy is so superbly wholesome as
actually to be fit for human consumption. Our demonstrator not
only eats the biscuit – he enjoys it. He rolls it round his tongue.
He chews it and mixes it with his saliva ...'

'Freddie, please!'

'With his saliva,' repeated Freddie firmly. 'And so does
the dog. He masticates the biscuit. He enjoys it. He becomes
a bigger and better dog. I will now eat a Donaldson's Dog-Biscuit.'

And before his aunt's nauseated gaze he proceeded to attempt
this gruesome feat.

It was an impressive demonstration, but it failed in one
particular. To have rendered it perfect, he should not have
choked. Want of experience caused the disaster. Long years
of training go to the making of the seasoned demonstrators of
Donaldson's Dog-Joy. They start in a small way with carpet-tacks
and work up through the flat-irons and patent breakfast
cereals till they are ready for the big effort. Freddie was a novice.
Endeavouring to roll the morsel round his tongue, he allowed it
to escape into his windpipe.

The sensation of having swallowed a mixture of bricks and
sawdust was succeeded by a long and painful coughing fit. And
when at length the sufferer's eyes cleared, no human form met
their gaze. There was the Castle. There was the lawn. There
were the gardens. But Lady Alcester had disappeared.

However, it is a well-established fact that good men, like
Donaldson's Dog-Biscuits, are hard to keep down. Some fifty
minutes later, as the Rev. Rupert Bingham sat in his study
at Matchingham Vicarage, the parlourmaid announced a
visitor. The Hon. Freddie Threepwood limped in, looking
shop-soiled.

'What-ho, Beefers,' he said. 'I just came to ask if I could
borrow Bottles.'

He bent to where the animal lay on the hearth-rug and
prodded it civilly in the lower ribs. Bottles waved a long tail in
brief acknowledgment. He was a fine dog, though of uncertain
breed. His mother had been a popular local belle with a good
deal of sex-appeal, and the question of his paternity was one that
would have set a Genealogical College pursing its lips perplexedly.

'Oh, hullo, Freddie,' said the Rev. Rupert.

The young Pastor of Souls spoke in an absent voice. He
was frowning. It is a singular fact – and one that just goes to
show what sort of a world this is – that of the four foreheads
introduced so far to the reader of this chronicle, three have
been corrugated with care. And, if girls had consciences,
Gertrude's would have been corrugated, too – giving us a full
hand.

'Take a chair,' said the Rev. Rupert.

'I'll take a sofa,' said Freddie, doing so. 'Feeling a bit used up.
I had to hoof it all the way over.'

'What's happened to your car?'

'Gertrude took it to drive Watkins to Shrewsbury'

The Rev. Rupert sat for a while in thought. His face, which
was large and red, had a drawn look. Even the massive body
which had so nearly won him a Rowing Blue at Oxford gave the
illusion of having shrunk. So marked was his distress that even
Freddie noticed it.

'Something up, Beefers?' he inquired.

For answer the Rev. Rupert Bingham extended a ham-like
hand which held a letter. It was written in a sprawling, girlish
handwriting.

'Read that.'

'From Gertrude?'

'Yes. It came this morning. Well?'

Freddie completed his perusal and handed the document
back. He was concerned.

'I think it's the bird,' he said.

'So do I.'

'It's long,' said Freddie, 'and it's rambling. It is full of stuff
about "Are we sure?" and "Do we know our own minds?" and
"Wouldn't it be better, perhaps?" But I think it is the bird.'

'I can't understand it.'

Freddie sat up.

'I can,' he said. 'Now I see what Aunt Georgiana was drooling
about. Her fears were well founded. The snake Watkins has
stolen Gertrude from you.'

'You think Gertrude's in love with Watkins?'

'I do. And I'll tell you why. He's a yowler, and girls always fall
for yowlers. They have a glamour.'

'I've never noticed Watkins's glamour. He has always struck
me as a bit of a weed.'

'Weed he may be, Beefers, but, none the less, he knows how
to do his stuff. I don't know why it should be, but there is a
certain type of tenor voice which acts on girls like catnip on a cat.'

The Rev. Rupert breathed heavily.

'I see,' he said.

'The whole trouble is, Beefers,' proceeded Freddie, 'that
Watkins is romantic and you're not. Your best friend couldn't
call you romantic. Solid worth, yes. Romance, no.'

'So it doesn't seem as if there was much to be done about it?'

Freddie reflected.

'Couldn't you manage to show yourself in a romantic light?'

'How?'

'Well – stop a runaway horse.'

'Where's the horse?'

"Myes,' said Freddie. 'That's by way of being the difficulty,
isn't it? The horse – where is it?'

There was silence for some moments.

'Well, be that as it may,' said Freddie. 'Can I borrow Bottles?'

'What for?'

'Purposes of demonstration. I wish to exhibit him to my Aunt
Georgiana, so that she may see for herself to what heights of
robustness a dog can rise when fed sedulously on Donaldson's
Dog-Joy. I'm having a lot of trouble with that woman, Beefers.
I try all the artifices which win to success in salesmanship, and
they don't. But I have a feeling that if she could see Bottles
and poke him in the ribs and note the firm, muscular flesh, she
might drop. At any rate, it's worth trying. I'll take him along,
may I?'