Heavy Weather (33 page)

'Eh?' said Lord Emsworth, jumping. He had been dreaming of pigs.

'To show her to you, I said. I want you to take a look at this little girl, Clarence. Get those dashed pince-nez of yours straight and examine her steadily and carefully. What do you think of her ?'

'Charming, charming,' said Lord Emsworth courteously.

' Isn't she just the very girl any sensible man would choose for his nephew's wife?'

'My dear Galahad!' said Lady Constance.

'Well?'

'I cannot see what all this is leading to. I imagine that nobody is disputing the fact that Miss Brown is a pretty girl.'

'Pretty girl be dashed! I'm not talking about her being a pretty girl. I'm talking of what anybody with half an eye ought to be able to sec when he takes one look at her - that she's all right. Just as her mother was all right. Her mother was the sweetest, straightest, squarest, honestest, jolliest thing that ever lived. And Sue's the same. Any man who marries Sue is in luck. Damn it all, the way you women have been going on about him, one would think young Ronnie was the Prince of Wales or something. Who
is
Ronnie, dash it ? My nephew. Well, look at me. Do you mean to assert that a fellow handicapped by an uncle like me isn't jolly lucky to get
any
girl to marry him ?'

This sentiment so exactly chimed in with her own views that for once in her masterful life Lady Constance had nothing to say. She seemed vaguely to suspect a fallacy somewhere, but before she could investigate it her brother had gone on speaking.

'Clarence,' he said, 'take that infernal glassy look out of your eyes and listen to me. I realize that you hold the situation in your hands. You can't have been hearing Connie talk for any length of time without knowing that. This little girl's happiness depends entirely on what you make up your woolly, wobbly mind to do. Nobody is more alive than myself to the fact that young Ronnie, like all members of this family, is worth about twopence a week in the open market. He's got to have capital behind him.'

'Which he won't have.'

'Which he will have, if Clarence is the man I take him for. Clarence, wake up!'

'I'm awake, my dear fellow, I'm awake,' said Lord Emsworth.

'Well, then, does Ronnie get his money or doesn't he?'

Lord Emsworth looked like a hunted stag. He fiddled nervously with his pince-nez.

'Connie seems to think ...'

‘I
know what Connie thinks, and when we're alone I'll tell you what I think of Connie.'

'If you are simply going to be abusive, Galahad . . .'

'Nothing of the kind. Abusive be dashed! I am taking great pains to avoid anything in the remotest degree personal or offensive. I consider you a snob and a mischief-maker, but you may be quite sure I shall not dream of saying so ...'

'How very kind of you.'

'... until I am at liberty to confide it to Clarence in private. Well, Clarence?'

'Eh? What? Yes, my dear fellow?'

'It's a simple issue. Are you going to do the square thing or are you not?'

'Well, I'll tell you, Galahad. The view Connie takes ...'

'Oh, damn Connie!'

'Galahad!'

'Yes, I repeat it. Damn Connie! Forget Connie. Drive it into your head that the view Connie takes doesn't amount to a row of beans.'

'Indeed! Really! Well, allow me to tell
you
Galahad . ..'

‘I
won't allow you to tell me a thing.'

'I insist on speaking.'

'I won't listen.'

'Galahad!'

'May I say something?' said Sue.

She spoke in a small, deprecating voice, but if it had been a bellow it could scarcely have produced a greater effect. Lord Emsworth, in particular, who had forgotten that she was there, leaped on his settee like a gaffed trout.

'It's only this,' said Sue, in the silence. 'I'm awfully sorry to upset everybody, but Ronnie and I are motoring to London tonight, and we're going to get married tomorrow.'

'What!'

'Yes,' said Sue. 'You see, there's been so much trouble and misunderstanding and everything's so difficult as it is at present that we talked it over and came to the conclusion that the only safe thing is to be married. Then we feel that everything will be all right.'

Lady Constance turned majestically to the head of the family. 'Do you hear this, Clarence?'

'What do you mean, do I hear it?' said Lord Emsworth with that weak testiness which always came upon him when family warfare centred about his person. 'Of course I hear it. Do you think I'm deaf?'

'Well, I hope you will show a little firmness for once in your life.'

'Firmness?'

'Exert your authority. Forbid this.'

'How the devil can I forbid it? This is a free country, isn't it?

People have a perfect right to motor to London if they want to, haven't they?'

'You know quite well what I mean. If you are firm about not letting Ronald have his money, he can do nothing.'

The Hon. Galahad seemed regretfully to be of this opinion, too.

'My dear child,' he said, 'I don't want to damp you, but what on earth are you going to live on ?'

*I think that when he hears everything, Lord Emsworth will give Ronnie his money.'

'Eh?'

'That's what Ronnie thinks. He thinks that when Lord Emsworth knows that he has got the Empress . ..'

Lord Emsworth rose up like a rising pheasant.

'What! What? What's that? Got her? How do you mean, got her?'

'He took her out of her sty just now,' explained Sue, 'and put her in the dicky of his car.'

Even in his anguish Lord Emsworth had to stop to inquire into this seemingly superhuman feat.

'What! How on earth could anyone put the Empress in the dicky of a car?'

'Exactly,' said Lady Constance. 'Surely even you, Clarence, can see that this is simply ridiculous...'

'Oh, no,' said Sue. 'It was quite easy, really. Ronnie pulled -and a friend of his pushed.'

'Of course,' said the Hon. Galahad, the expert. 'What you're forgetting, Clarence, what you've overlooked is the fact that the Empress has a ring through her nose, which facilitates moving her from spot to spot. When Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe's pig the night of the Bachelors' Ball at Hammer's Easton in ninety-five, we had to get her up three flights of stairs before we could put her in Plug Basham's bedroom ...'

'What Ronnie says he thinks he'll do,' proceeded Sue, 'is to take the Empress joy-riding...'

'Joy-riding!' cried Lord Emsworth, appalled.

'Only if you won't give him his money, of course. If you really don't feel you can, he says he's going to drive her all over England ...'

'What an admirable idea!' said
the Hon. Galahad with appro
val. 'I see what you mean. Birmingham today, Edinburgh tomorrow, Brighton the day after. Sort of circular tour. See the country a bit, what?' 'Yes.'

'He ought to take in Skegness. Skegness is so bracing.' 'I must tell him.'

Lord Emsworth was fighting to preserve what little sanity he had.

'I don't believe it,' he cried.

'Ronnie thought you might not. He felt that you would probably want to see for yourself. So he's waiting down there on the drive, just outside the window.'

It was not at a time like this that Lord Emsworth would allow a trifle like an injured ankle to impede him. He sprang acrobatically from the settee and hopped to the window.

From the dicky of the car immediately below it the mild face of the Empress peered up at him, silvered by the moonlight. He uttered a fearful cry.

'Ronald!'

His nephew, seated at the wheel, glanced up, tooted the horn with a sort of respectful regret, threw in his clutch, and passed on into the shadows. The tail-light of the car shone redly as it halted some fifty yards down the drive.

'I'm afraid it's no good shouting at him,' said Sue.

'Of course it isn't,' agreed the Hon. Galahad heartily. 'What you want to do, Clarence, is to stop all this nonsense and give a formal promise before witnesses to cough up that money, and then write a cheque for a thousand or two for honeymoon expenses.'

'That was what Ronnie suggested,' said Sue. 'And then Pirbright could go and take the Empress back to bed.'

'Clarence!' began Lady Constance.

But Lord Emsworth in his travail was proof against any number of 'Clarence's!' He had hopped to the desk and with feverish fingers was fumbling in the top drawer.

'Clarence, you are not to do this!'

'I certainly am going to do it,' said Lord Emsworth, testing a pen with his thumb.

'Does this miserable pig mean more to you than your nephew's whole future?'

'Of course it does,' said Lord Emsworth, surprised at the foolish question. 'Besides, what's wrong with his future? His future's all right. He's going to marry this nice little girl here; I've forgotten her name. She'll look after him.'

'Bravely spoken, Clarence,' said the Hon. Galahad approvingly.

'The right spirit.'

'Well, in that case . . .'

'Don't go, Connie,' urged the Hon. Galahad. 'We may need you as a witness or something. In any case, surely you can't tear yourself away from a happy scene like this? Why, dash it, it's like that thing of Kipling's . . . how docs it go ... ?

'"We left them all in couples a-dancing on the decks, We left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques, In endless English comfort, by County folk caressed, We steered the old three-decker . . ."'

The door slammed.

"'. .. to the Islands of the Blest,"' concluded the Hon. Galahad. 'Write clearly, Clarence, on one side of the paper, and don't forget to sign your name, as you usually do. The date is August the fourteenth.'

Chapter Eighteen

The red tail-light of the two-seater turned the corner of the drive and vanished in the night. The Hon. Galahad polished his monocle thoughtfully, replaced it in his eye, and stood for some moments gazing at the spot where it had disappeared. The storm had left the air sweet and fresh. The moon rode gallantly in a cloudless sky. The night was very still, so still that even the lightest footstep on the gravel would have made itself heard. The one which now attracted the Hon. Galahad's attention was not light. It was the emphatic, crunching thump of a man of substance.

He turned.

'Beach?'

'Yes, Mr Galahad.'

'What are you doing out at this time of night?' 'I thought that I would pay a visit to the sty, sir, and-ascertain that the Empress had taken no harm from her disturbed evening.' 'Remorse, eh?' 'Sir?'

'Guilty conscience. It was you who did the pushing, wasn't it, Beach?'

'Yes, sir. We discussed the matter, and Mr Ronald was of opinion that on account of my superior weight I would be more effective than himself in that capacity.' A note of anxiety crept into the butler's voice. 'You will treat this, Mr Galahad, as purely confidential, I trust?'

'Of course.'

'Thank you, sir. It would jeopardize my position, I fear, were his lordship to learn of what I had done. I saw Mr Ronald and the young lady go off, Mr Galahad.'

'You did? I didn't see you.'

'I had taken up a position some little distance away, sir.' 'You ought to have come and said good-bye.'

'I had already taken leave of the young couple, sir. They visited me in my pantry.'

'So they ought. You have fought the good fight, Beach. I hope they kissed you.'

'The young lady did, sir.'

There was a soft note in the butler's fruity voice. He drew up the toe of his left shoe and rather coyly scratched his right calf with it.

'She did, eh? "Jenny kissed me when we met, jumping from the chair she sat in." I'm full of poetry tonight, Beach. The moon, I suppose.'

'Very possibly, sir. I fear Mr Ronald and the young lady will have a long and tedious journey.' 'Long. Not tedious.' 'It is a great distance to drive, sir.' 'Not when you're young.'

'No, sir. Would it be taking a liberty, Mr Galahad, if I were to inquire if Mr Ronald's financial position has been satisfactorily stabilized ? When I saw him, the matter was still in the balance.'