Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (16 page)

'Day by day, in every way,' said Mr Potter, 'I am getting better
and better.'

But his voice lacked the ring of true conviction.

Sunshine filtering in through the shutters, and the song of
birds busy in the ivy outside his window, woke Mr Potter at an
early hour next morning; but it was some time before he could
bring himself to spring from his bed to greet another day. His
disturbed night had left him heavy and lethargic. When finally
he had summoned up the energy to rise and remove the zareba in
front of the window and open the shutters, he became aware that
a glorious morning was upon the world. The samples of sunlight
that had crept into the room had indicated only feebly the
golden wealth without.

But there was no corresponding sunshine in Mr Potter's
heart. Spiritually as well as physically he was at a low ebb. The
more he examined the position of affairs, the less he liked it. He
went down to breakfast in pensive mood.

Breakfast at Skeldings was an informal meal, and visitors
were expected to take it when they pleased, irrespective of the
movements of their hostess, who was a late riser. In the dining-room,
when Mr Potter entered it, only the daughter of the house
was present.

Bobbie was reading the morning paper. She nodded cheerfully
to him over its top.

'Good morning, Mr Potter. I hope you slept well.'

Mr Potter winced.

'Miss Wickham,' he said, 'last night an appalling thing
occurred.'

A startled look came into Bobbie's eyes.

'You don't mean – Mr Gandle?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, Mr Potter, what?'

'Just as I was going to bed, the man knocked at my door and
asked if he could borrow my razah – I mean my razor.'

'You didn't lend it to him?'

'No, I did not,' replied Mr Potter, with a touch of asperity.
'I barricaded the door.'

'How wise of you!'

'And at two in the morning he came in through the window!'

'How horrible!'

'He took my razor. Why he did not attack me, I cannot say.
But, having obtained it, he grinned at me in a ghastly way and
went out.'

There was a silence.

'Have an egg or something,' said Bobbie, in a hushed voice.

'Thank you, I will take a little ham,' whispered Mr Potter.

There was another silence.

'I'm afraid,' said Bobbie at length, 'you will have to go.'

'That is what I think.'

'It is quite evident that Mr Gandle has taken one of his
uncontrollable dislikes to you.'

'Yes.'

'What I think you ought to do is to leave quite quietly,
without saying good-bye or anything, so that he won't know
where you've gone and won't be able to follow you. Then you
could write mother a letter, saying that you had to go because of
Mr Gandle's persecution.'

'Exactly.'

'You needn't say anything about his being mad. She knows
that. Just say that he ducked you in the moat and then came into
your room at two in the morning and made faces at you. She will
understand.'

'Yes. I—'

'Hush!'

Clifford Gandle came into the room.

'Good morning,' said Bobbie.

'Good morning,' said Mr Gandle.

He helped himself to poached egg; and, glancing across the
table at the publisher, was concerned to note how wan and
sombre was his aspect. If ever a man looked as if he were on the
verge of putting an end to everything, that man was John
Hamilton Potter.

Clifford Gandle was not feeling particularly festive himself at
the moment, for he was a man who depended greatly for his
well-being on a placid eight hours of sleep; but he exerted
himself to be bright and optimistic.

'What a lovely morning!' he trilled.

'Yes,' said Mr Potter.

'Surely such weather is enough to make any man happy and
satisfied with life.'

'Yes,' said Mr Potter doubtfully.

'Who, with all Na-chah smiling, could seriously contemplate
removing himself from so bright a world?'

'George Philibert, of 32, Acacia Road, Cricklewood, did,' said
Bobbie, who had resumed her study of the paper.

'Eh?' said Mr Gandle.

'George Philibert, of 32, Acacia Road, Cricklewood, was had
up before the beak yesterday, charged with attempted suicide.
He stated that—'

Mr Gandle cast a reproachful look at her. He had always
supposed Roberta Wickham to be a girl of fair intelligence, as
women go; and it seemed to him that he had over-estimated her
good sense. He did his best to cover up her blunder.

'Possibly,' he said, 'with some really definite and serious
reason—'

'I can never understand,' said Mr Potter, coming out of what
had all the outward appearance of a trance, 'why the idea arose
that suicide is wrong.'

He spoke with a curious intensity. The author of 'Ethics of
Suicide' had wielded a plausible pen, and the subject was one on
which he now held strong views. And, even if he had not already
held them, his mood this morning was of a kind to breed them in
his bosom.

'The author of a very interesting book which I intend to
publish shortly,' he said, 'points out that none but the votaries
of the monotheistic religions look upon suicide as a crime.'

'Yes,' said Mr Gandle, 'but—'

'If, he goes on to say, the criminal law forbids suicide, that is
not an argument valid in the Church. And, besides, the prohibition
is ridiculous, for what penalty can frighten a man who is not
afraid of death itself?'

'George Philibert got fourteen days,' said Bobbie.

'Yes, but—' said Mr Gandle.

'The ancients were very far from regarding the matter in the
modern light. Indeed, in Massilia and on the island of Cos,
the man who could give valid reasons for relinquishing his life
was handed the cup of hemlock by the magistrate, and that, too,
in public.'

'Yes, but—'

'And why,' said Mr Potter, 'suicide should be regarded as cowardly
is beyond me. Surely no man who had not an iron nerve—'

He broke off. The last two words had tapped a chord in his
memory. Abruptly it occurred to him that here he was, half-way
through breakfast, and he had not taken those iron nerve-pills
which his doctor had so strictly ordered him to swallow thirty
minutes before the morning meal.

'Yes,' said Mr Gandle. He lowered his cup, and looked across
the table. 'But—'

His voice died away. He sat staring before him in horror-struck
silence. Mr Potter, with a strange, wild look in his eyes,
was in the very act of raising to his lips a sinister-looking white
pellet. And, even as Mr Gandle gazed, the wretched man's lips
closed over the horrid thing and a movement of his Adam's apple
showed that the deed was done.

'Surely,' said Mr Potter, 'no man who—'

It seemed that Fate was inflexibly bent on preventing him from
finishing that particular sentence this morning. For he had got thus far when
Clifford Gandle, seizing the mustard-pot, rose with a maniac screech and bounded,
wild-eyed, round the table at him.

Lady Wickham came downstairs and made her way like a
stately galleon under sail towards the dining-room. Unlike
others of the household, she was feeling particularly cheerful
this morning. She liked fine weather, and the day was unusually
fine. Also, she had resolved that after breakfast she would take
Mr Potter aside and use the full force of her commanding
personality to extract from him something in the nature of an
informal contract.

She would not, she decided, demand too much at first. If
he would consent to undertake the American publication of
'Agatha's Vow,' 'A Strong Man's Love,' and – possibly – A Man
For A That,' she would be willing to postpone discussion of
'Meadow-sweet,' 'Fetters of Fate,' and the rest of her works. But
if he thought he could eat her bread and salt and sidestep
'Agatha's Vow,' he had grievously under-estimated the power
of her cold grey eye when it came to subduing such members of
the animal kingdom as publishers.

There was a happy smile, therefore, on Lady Wickham's face
as she entered the room. She was not actually singing, but she
stopped only just short of it.

She was surprised to find that, except for her daughter
Roberta, the dining-room was empty.

'Good morning, mother,' said Bobbie.

'Good morning. Has Mr Potter finished his breakfast?'

Bobbie considered the question.

'I don't know if he had actually finished,' she said. 'But he
didn't seem to want any more.'

'Where is he?'

'I don't know, mother.'

'When did he go?'

'He's only just left.'

'I didn't meet him.'

'He went out of the window.'

The sunshine faded from Lady Wickham's face.

'Out of the window? Why?'

'I think it was because Clifford Gandle was between him and
the door.'

'What do you mean? Where is Clifford Gandle?'

'I don't know, mother. He went out of the window, too.
They were both running down the drive when I last saw
them.' Bobbie's face grew pensive. 'Mother, I've been thinking,'
she said. 'Are you really sure that Clifford Gandle would be
such a steadying influence for me? He seems to me rather
eccentric.'

'I cannot understand a word of what you are saying.'

'Well, he is eccentric. At two o'clock this morning, Mr Potter
told me, he climbed in through Mr Potter's window, made faces
at him, and climbed out again. And just now—'

'Made faces at Mr Potter?'

'Yes, mother. And just now Mr Potter was peacefully eating
his breakfast, when Clifford Gandle suddenly uttered a loud cry
and sprang at him. Mr Potter jumped out of the window and
Clifford Gandle jumped out after him and chased him down the
drive. I thought Mr Potter ran awfully well for an elderly man,
but that sort of thing can't be good for him in the middle
of breakfast.'

Lady Wickham subsided into a chair.

'Is everybody mad?'

'I think Clifford Gandle must be. You know, these men who
do wonderful things at the University often do crack up suddenly.
I was reading a case only yesterday about a man in
America. He took every possible prize at Harvard or wherever
it was, and then, just as everybody was predicting the most
splendid future for him, he bit his aunt. He—'

'Go and find Mr Potter,' cried Lady Wickham. 'I must speak
to him.'

'I'll try. But I don't believe it will be easy. I think he's gone for
good.'

Lady Wickham uttered a bereaved cry, such as a tigress might
who sees its prey snatched from it.

'Gone!'

'He told me he was thinking of going. He said he couldn't
stand Clifford Gandle's persecution any longer. And that was
before breakfast, so I don't suppose he has changed his mind. I
think he means to go on running.'

A sigh like the whistling of the wind through the cracks in a
broken heart escaped Lady Wickham.

'Mother,' said Bobbie, 'I've something to tell you. Last night
Clifford Gandle asked me to marry him. I hadn't time to answer
one way or the other, because just after he had proposed he
jumped into the moat and tried to drown Mr Potter; but if you
really think he would be a steadying influence for me—'

Lady Wickham uttered a snort of agony.

'I forbid you to dream of marrying this man!'

'Very well, mother,' said Bobbie dutifully. She rose and moved
to the sideboard. 'Would you like an egg, mother?'

'No!'

'Some ham?'

'No!'

'Very well.' Bobbie paused at the door. 'Don't you think it
would be a good idea,' she said, 'if I were to go and find Clifford
Gandle and tell him to pack up and go away? I'm sure you won't
like having him about after this.'

Lady Wickham's eyes flashed fire.

'If that man dares to come back, I'll – I'll— Yes. Tell him to
go. Tell him to go away and never let me set eyes on him again.'

'Very well, mother,' said Bobbie.

A tankard of Stout had just squashed a wasp as it crawled on the arm of Miss
Postlethwaite, our popular barmaid, and the conversation in the bar-parlour
of the Angler's Rest had turned to the subject of physical courage.

The Tankard himself was inclined to make light of the whole
affair, urging modestly that his profession, that of a fruit-farmer,
gave him perhaps a certain advantage over his fellow-men when
it came to dealing with wasps.

'Why, sometimes in the picking season,' said the Tankard,
'I've had as many as six standing on each individual plum, rolling
their eyes at me and daring me to come on.'

Mr Mulliner looked up from his hot Scotch and lemon.

'Suppose they had been gorillas?' he said.

The Tankard considered this.

'There wouldn't be room,' he argued, 'not on an ordinary-sized
plum.'

'Gorillas?' said a Small Bass, puzzled.

'And I'm sure if it had been a gorilla Mr Bunyan would
have squashed it just the same,' said Miss Postlethwaite, and
she gazed at the Tankard with wholehearted admiration in her
eyes.

Mr Mulliner smiled gently.

'Strange,' he said, 'how even in these orderly civilized days
women still worship heroism in the male. Offer them wealth,
brains, looks, amiability, skill at card-tricks or at playing the
ukelele ... unless these are accompanied by physical courage
they will turn away in scorn.'

'Why gorillas?' asked the Small Bass, who liked to get these
things settled.

'I was thinking of a distant cousin of mine whose life became
for a time considerably complicated owing to one of these
animals. Indeed, it was the fact that this gorilla's path crossed
his that nearly lost Montrose Mulliner the hand of Rosalie
Beamish.'

The Small Bass still appeared mystified.

'I shouldn't have thought anybody's path
would
have crossed
a gorilla's. I'm forty-five next birthday, and I've never so much
as seen a gorilla.'

'Possibly Mr Mulliner's cousin was a big-game hunter,' said
a Gin Fizz.

'No,' said Mr Mulliner. 'He was an assistant-director in the
employment of the Perfecto-Zizzbaum Motion Picture Corporation
of Hollywood: and the gorilla of which I speak was
one of the cast of the super-film, "Black Africa," a celluloid
epic of the clashing of elemental passions in a land where
might is right and the strong man comes into his own. Its
capture in its native jungle was said to have cost the lives
of seven half-dozen members of the expedition, and at the
time when this story begins it was lodged in a stout cage
on the Perfecto-Zizzbaum lot at a salary of seven hundred
and fifty dollars a week, with billing guaranteed in letters not
smaller than those of Edmund Wigham and Luella Benstead,
the stars.

In ordinary circumstances (said Mr Mulliner) this gorilla
would have been to my distant cousin Montrose merely one of a
thousand fellow-workers on the lot. If you had asked him, he
would have said that he wished the animal every kind of success in
its chosen profession but that, for all the chance there was of them
ever, as it were, getting together, they were just ships that pass in
the night. It is doubtful, indeed, if he would even have bothered to
go down to its cage and look at it, had not Rosalie Beamish asked
him to do so. As he put it to himself, if a man's duties brought him
into constant personal contact with Mr Schnellenhamer, the
President of the Corporation, where was the sense of wasting
time looking at gorillas?
Blasé
about sums up his attitude.

But Rosalie was one of the extra girls in 'Black Africa' and so
had a natural interest in a brother-artist. And as she and Montrose
were engaged to be married her word, of course, was law.
Montrose had been planning to play draughts that afternoon
with his friend, George Pybus, of the Press department, but he
good-naturedly cancelled the fixture and accompanied Rosalie
to the animal's head-quarters.

He was more than ordinarily anxious to oblige her to-day,
because they had recently been having a little tiff. Rosalie had
been urging him to go to Mr Schnellenhamer and ask for a rise
of salary: and this Montrose, who was excessively timid by
nature, was reluctant to do. There was something about being
asked to pay out money that always aroused the head of the
firm's worst passions.

When he met his betrothed outside the commissary, he
was relieved to find her in a more amiable mood than she
had been of late. She prattled merrily of this and that as they
walked along, and Montrose was congratulating himself that
there was not a cloud on the sky when, arriving at the cage, he
found Captain Jack Fosdyke there, prodding at the gorilla with a
natty cane.

This Captain Jack Fosdyke was a famous explorer who had
been engaged to superintend the production of 'Black Africa.'
And the fact that Rosalie's professional duties necessitated a
rather close association with him had caused Montrose a good
deal of uneasiness. It was not that he did not trust her, but love
makes a man jealous and he knew the fascination of these lean,
brown, hard-bitten adventurers of the wilds.

As they came up, the explorer turned, and Montrose did not
like the chummy look in the eye which he cocked at the girl.
Nor, for the matter of that, did he like the other's bold smile.
And he wished that in addressing Rosalie Captain Fosdyke
would not preface his remarks with the words Ah, there, girlie.'

'Ah, there, girlie,' said the Captain. 'Come to see the monk.?'

Rosalie was staring open-mouthed through the bars.

'Doesn't he look fierce!' she cried.

Captain Jack Fosdyke laughed carelessly.

'Tchah!' he said, once more directing the ferrule of his cane at
the animal's ribs. 'If you had led the rough, tough, slam-bang,
every-man-for-himself life I have, you wouldn't be frightened
of gorillas. Bless my soul, I remember once in Equatorial Africa
I was strolling along with my elephant gun and my trusty native
bearer, 'Mlongi, and a couple of the brutes dropped out of a
tree and started throwing their weight about and behaving as if
the place belonged to them. I soon put a stop to that, I can tell
you. Bang, bang, left and right, and two more skins for my
collection. You have to be firm with gorillas. Dining anywhere
to-night, girlie?'

'I am dining with Mr Mulliner at the Brown Derby.'

'Mr who?'

'This is Mr Mulliner.'

'Oh, that?' said Captain Fosdyke, scrutinizing Montrose in a
supercilious sort of way as if he had just dropped out of a tree
before him. 'Well, some other time, eh?'

And, giving the gorilla a final prod, he sauntered away.

Rosalie was silent for a considerable part of the return journey.
When at length she spoke it was in a vein that occasioned
Montrose the gravest concern.

'Isn't he wonderful!' she breathed. 'Captain Fosdyke, I mean.'

'Yes?' said Montrose coldly.

'I think he's splendid. So strong, so intrepid. Have you asked
Mr Schnellenhamer for that raise yet?'

'Er – no,' said Montrose. 'I am – how shall I put it? – biding
my time.'

There was another silence.

'Captain Fosdyke isn't afraid of Mr Schnellenhamer,' said
Rosalie pensively. 'He slaps him on the back.'

'Nor am I afraid of Mr Schnellenhamer,' replied Montrose,
stung. 'I would slap him on the back myself if I considered that it
would serve any useful end. My delay in asking for that raise is
simply due to the fact that in these matters of finance a certain
tact and delicacy have to be observed. Mr Schnellenhamer is a
busy man, and I have enough consideration not to intrude my
personal affairs on him at a time when he is occupied with other
matters.'

'I see,' said Rosalie, and there the matter rested. But Montrose
remained uneasy. There had been a gleam in her eyes and a
rapt expression on her face as she spoke of Captain Fosdyke
which he had viewed with concern. Could it be, he asked
himself, that she was falling a victim to the man's undeniable
magnetism? He decided to consult his friend, George Pybus, of
the Press department, on the matter. George was a knowledgeable
young fellow and would doubtless have something constructive
to suggest.

George Pybus listened to his tale with interest and said it
reminded him of a girl he had loved and lost in Des Moines,
Iowa.

'She ditched me for a prizefighter,' said George. 'There's no
getting away from it, girls do get fascinated by the strong, tough
male.'

Montrose's heart sank.

'You don't really think—?'

'It is difficult to say. One does not know how far this thing has
gone. But I certainly feel that we must lose no time in drafting
out some scheme whereby you shall acquire a glamour which
will counteract the spell of this Fosdyke. I will devote a good deal
of thought to the matter.'

And it was on the very next afternoon, as he sat with Rosalie
in the commissary sharing with her a Steak Pudding Marlene
Dietrich, that Montrose noticed that the girl was in the grip of
some strong excitement.

'Monty,' she exclaimed, almost before she had dug out the
first kidney, 'do you know what Captain Fosdyke said this
morning?'

Montrose choked.

'If that fellow has been insulting you,' he cried, 'I'll ... Well,
I shall be extremely annoyed,' he concluded with a good deal of
heat.

'Don't be silly. He wasn't talking to me. He was speaking to
Luella Benstead. You know she's getting married again soon ...'

'Odd how these habits persist.'

'... and Captain Fosdyke said why didn't she get married in
the gorilla's cage. For the publicity.'

'He did?'

Montrose laughed heartily. A quaint idea, he felt. Bizarre,
even.

'She said she wouldn't dream of it. And then Mr Pybus, who
happened to be standing by, suddenly got the most wonderful
idea. He came up to me and said why shouldn't you and I get
married in the gorilla's cage.'

Montrose's laughter died away.

'You and I?'

'Yes.'

'George Pybus suggested that?'

'Yes.'

Montrose groaned in spirit. He was telling himself that he
might have known that something like this would have been the
result of urging a member of the Press department to exercise his
intellect. The brains of members of the Press departments of
motion-picture studios resemble soup at a cheap restaurant. It is
wiser not to stir them.

'Think what a sensation it would make! No more extra work
for me after that. I'd get parts, and good ones. A girl can't get
anywhere in this business without publicity.'

Montrose licked his lips. They had become very dry. He was
thinking harshly of George Pybus. It was just loose talking like
George Pybus's, he felt, that made half the trouble in this world.

'But don't you feel,' he said, 'that there is something a little
undignified about publicity? In my opinion, a true artist ought to
be above it. And I think you should not overlook another,
extremely vital aspect of the matter. I refer to the deleterious
effect which such an exhibition as Pybus suggests would have
upon those who read about it in the papers. Speaking for myself,'
said Montrose, 'there is nothing I should enjoy more than a quiet
wedding in a gorilla's cage. But has one the right to pander to the
morbid tastes of a sensation-avid public? I am not a man who
often speaks of these deeper things – on the surface, no doubt,
I seem careless and happy-go-lucky – but I do hold very serious
views on a citizen's duties in this fevered modern age. I consider
that each one of us should do all that lies in his power to fight the
ever-growing trend of the public mind towards the morbid and
the hectic. I have a very real feeling that the body politic can
never become healthy while this appetite for sensation persists.
If America is not to go the way of Babylon and Rome, we must
come back to normalcy and the sane outlook. It is not much that
a man in my humble position can do to stem the tide, but at least
I can refrain from adding fuel to its flames by getting married in
gorillas' cages.'

Rosalie was gazing at him incredulously.

'You don't mean you won't do it?'

'It would not be right.'

'I believe you're scared.'

'Nothing of the kind. It is purely a question of civic conscience.'

'You
are
scared. To think,' said Rosalie vehemently, 'that
I should have linked my lot with a man who's afraid of a
teentsy-weentsy gorilla.'

Montrose could not let this pass.

'It is not a teentsy-weentsy gorilla. I should describe the
animal's muscular development as well above the average.'

'And the keeper would be outside the cage with a spiked
stick.'

'Outside
the cage!' said Montrose thoughtfully.

Rosalie sprang to her feet in sudden passion.

'Good-bye!'

'But you haven't finished your steak-pudding.'

'Good-bye,' she repeated. 'I see now what your so-called love
is worth. If you are going to start denying me every little thing
before we're married, what would you be like after? I'm glad
I have discovered your true character in time. Our engagement is
at an end.'

Montrose was pale to the lips, but he tried to reason with her.

'But, Rosalie,' he urged, 'surely a girl's wedding-day ought to
be something for her to think of all her life – to recall with
dreamily smiling lips as she knits the tiny garments or cooks the
evening meal for the husband she adores. She ought to be able to
look back and live again through the solemn hush in the church,
savour once more the sweet scent of the lilies-of-the-valley, hear
the rolling swell of the organ and the grave voice of the clergyman
reading the service. What memories would you have if you
carried out this plan that you suggest? One only – that of a
smelly monkey. Have you reflected upon this, Rosalie?'