Pigs Have Wings (2 page)

It has already been mentioned that there were moments when Lord Emsworth could be as quick as a flash.

‘Ah!’ he cried, enlightened. ‘When you say Penelope Donaldson, you mean Penelope Donaldson. Quite. Quite. And have I seen her, you ask. Yes, I saw her with Galahad just now. I was looking out of the window and they came past. Going for a walk or something. They were walking,’ explained Lord Emsworth, making it clear that his brother and the young visitor from America had not been mounted on pogo-sticks.

Lady Constance uttered a sound which resembled that caused by placing a wet thumb on a hot stove lid.

‘It’s too bad of Galahad. Ever since she came to the castle he has simply monopolized the girl. He ought to have more sense. He must know that the whole point of her being here is that I wanted to bring her and Orlo Vosper together.’

‘Who –?’

‘Oh, Clarence!’

‘What’s the matter now?’

‘If you say “Who is Orlo Vosper?”, I shall hit you with something. I believe this vagueness of yours is just a pose. You put it on simply to madden people. You know perfectly well who Orlo Vosper is.’

Lord Emsworth nodded intelligently.

‘Yes, I’ve got him placed now. Fellow who looks like a screen star. He’s staying here,’ he said, imparting a valuable piece of inside information.

‘I am aware of it. And Penelope seems to be deliberately avoiding him.’

‘Sensible girl. He’s a dull chap.’

‘He is nothing of the kind. Most entertaining.’

‘He doesn’t entertain me.’

‘Possibly not, as he does not talk about pigs all the time.’

‘He’s unsound on pigs. When I showed him the Empress, he yawned.’

‘He is evidently very much attracted by Penelope.’

‘Tried to hide it behind his hand, but I saw it. A yawn.’

‘And it would be a wonderful marriage for her.’

‘What would?’

‘This.’

‘Which?’

‘Oh, Clarence!’

‘Well, how do you expect me to follow you, dash it, when you beat about the bush like – er – like someone beating about the bush? Be plain. Be clear. Be frank and straightforward. Who’s marrying who?’

Lady Constance went into her wet-thumb-on-stove routine again.

‘I am merely telling you,’ she said wearily, ‘that Orlo Vosper is obviously attracted by Penelope and that it would please Mr Donaldson very much if she were to marry him. One of the oldest families in England and plenty of money, too. But what can he do if she spends all her time with Galahad? Still, I am taking her to London tomorrow, and Orlo is driving us in his car. Something may come of that. Do
listen
, Clarence!’

‘I’m listening. You said Penelope was going to London with Mr Donaldson.’

‘Oh, Clar-
ence
!’

‘Or rather with Vosper. What’s she going to London for in weather like this? Silly idea.’

‘She has a fitting. Her dress for the County Ball. And Orlo has to see his lawyer about his income tax.’

‘Income tax!’ cried Lord Emsworth, staring like a war horse at the sound of the bugle. Pigs and income tax were the only two subjects that really stirred him. ‘Let me tell you –’

‘I haven’t time to listen,’ said Lady Constance, and swept from the room. These chats with the head of the family nearly always ended in her sweeping from the room. Unless, of course, they took place out of doors, when she merely swept away.

Left alone, Lord Emsworth sat for a while savouring that delicious sense of peace which comes to men of quiet tastes when their womenfolk have said their say and departed. Then, just as he was about to turn to Whiffle again, his eye fell on the pile of correspondence on the table, and he took it up and began glancing through it. And he had read and put aside perhaps half a dozen of the dullest letters ever penned by human hand, when he came upon something of quite a different nature, something that sent his eyebrows shooting up and brought a surprised ‘Bless my soul!’ to his lips.

It was a picture postcard, one of those brightly coloured picture postcards at which we of the intelligentsia click our tongues, but which afford pleasure and entertainment to quite a number of the lower-browed. It represented a nude lady, presumably Venus, rising from the waves at a seashore resort with a cheery ‘I’m in the pink, kid’ coming out of her mouth in the form of a balloon, and beneath this figure, in a bold feminine hand, were the words ‘Hey hey, today’s the day, what, what? Many happy returns, old dear. Love and kisses. Maudie.’

It puzzled Lord Emsworth, as it might have puzzled an even deeper thinker. To the best of his knowledge he was not acquainted with any Maudie, let alone one capable of this almost Oriental warmth of feeling. Unlike that
beau sabreur
and man about town, his brother Galahad, who had spent a lifetime courting the society of the breezier type of female and in his younger days had never been happier than when knee deep in barmaids and ballet girls, he had always taken considerable pains to avoid the Maudies of this world.

Recovering his pince-nez, which, as always in times of emotion, had fallen off and were dangling at the end of their string, he slipped the card absently into his pocket and reached out for his book. But it was too late. The moment had passed. What with butlers babbling about Parsloes and Connies babbling about Vospers and mystery women sending him love and kisses, he had temporarily lost the power to appreciate Whiffle’s smighty line.

There was only one thing to be done, if he hoped to recover calm of spirit. He straightened his pince-nez, and went off to the piggeries to have a look at Empress of Blandings.

The Empress lived in a bijou residence not far from the kitchen garden, and when Lord Emsworth arrived at her boudoir she was engaged, as pretty nearly always when you dropped in on her, in hoisting into her vast interior those fifty-seven thousand and eight hundred calories on which Whiffle insists. Monica Simmons, the pig girl, had done her well in the way of barley meal, maize meal, linseed meal, potatoes, and separated buttermilk, and she was digging in and getting hers in a manner calculated to inspire the brightest confidence in the bosoms of her friends and admirers.

Monica Simmons was standing at the rail as Lord Emsworth pottered up, a stalwart girl in a smock and breeches who looked like what in fact she was, one of the six daughters of a rural vicar, all of whom had played hockey for Roedean. She was not a great favourite with Lord Emsworth, who suspected her of a lack of reverence for the Empress. Of this fundamental flaw in her character she instantly afforded ghastly proof.

‘Hullo, Lord Emsworth,’ she said. ‘Hot, what? Have you come to see the piggy-wiggy? Well, now you’re here, I’ll be buzzing off and getting my tea and shrimps. I’ve a thirst I wouldn’t sell for fifty quid. Cheerio.’

She strode off, her large feet spurning the antic hay, and Lord Emsworth, who had quivered like an aspen and was supporting himself on the rail, gazed after her with a smouldering eye. He was thinking nostalgically of former custodians of his pig supreme – of George Cyril Wellbeloved, now in the enemy’s camp; of Percy Pirbright, George Cyril’s successor, last heard of in Canada; and of Edwin Pott, who, holding portfolio after Percy, had retired into private life on winning a football pool. None of these would have alluded to Empress of Blandings as ‘the piggy-wiggy’. Edwin Pott, as a matter of fact, would not have been able to do so, even had he wished, for he had no roof to his mouth.

Ichabod, felt Lord Emsworth, and was still in a disturbed state of mind, though gradually becoming soothed by listening to that sweetest of all music, the sound of the Empress restoring her tissues, when there appeared at his side, leaning on the rail and surveying the champ through a black-rimmed monocle, a slim, trim, dapper little gentleman in his late fifties, whom he greeted with a cordial ‘Ah, Galahad.’

‘Ah, to you, Clarence old bird, with knobs on,’ responded the newcomer, equally cordial.

The Hon. Galahad Threepwood was the only genuinely distinguished member of the family of which Lord Emsworth was the head. The world, it is said, knows little of its greatest men, but everyone connected with the world of clubs, bars, theatres, restaurants, and race courses knew Gally, if only by reputation. He was one of that determined little band who, feeling that London would look better painted red, had devoted themselves at an early age to the task of giving it that cheerful colour. A pain in the neck to his sister Constance, his sister Julia, his sister Dora, and all his other sisters, he was universally esteemed in less austere quarters, for his heart was of gold and his soul overflowing with the milk of human kindness.

As he stood gazing at the Empress, something between a gulp and a groan at his side caused him to transfer his scrutiny to his elder brother, and he was concerned to note that there was a twisted look on those loved features, as if the head of the family had just swallowed something acid.

‘Hullo, Clarence!’ he said. ‘The old heart seems a bit bowed down. What’s the matter? Not brooding on that incident at the Emsworth Arms, are you?’

‘Eh? Incident? What incident was that?’

‘Has no word of it reached your ears? I had it from Beach, who had it from the scullery maid, who had it from the chauffeur. It appears that that butler of Parsloe’s – Binstead is his name, I believe – was swanking about in the tap room of the Emsworth Arms last night, offering five to one on Parsloe’s pig.’

Lord Emsworth stared.

‘On Pride of Matchingham? The fellow’s insane. How can Pride of Matchingham possibly have a chance against the Empress?’

‘That’s what I felt. It puzzled me, too. The simple explanation is, I suppose, that Binstead had got a snootful and was talking through his hat. Well, if that’s not what’s worrying you, what is? Why are you looking like a bereaved tapeworm?’

Lord Emsworth was only too glad to explain to a sympathetic ear what had caused the resemblance.

‘That girl Simmons upset me, Galahad. You will scarcely credit it, but she called the Empress a piggy-wiggy.’

‘She did?’

‘I assure you. “Hullo, Lord Emsworth,” she said. “Have you come to see the piggy-wiggy?”’

Gally frowned.

‘Bad,’ he agreed. ‘The wrong tone. If this is true, it seems to show that the child is much too frivolous in her outlook to hold the responsible position she does. I may mention that this is the view which Beach takes. He has put a considerable slice of his savings on the Empress’s nose to cop at the forthcoming Agricultural Show, and he is uneasy. He asks himself apprehensively is La Simmons fitted for her sacred task? And I don’t blame him. For mark this, Clarence, and mark it well. The girl who carelessly dismisses Empress of Blandings as a piggy-wiggy today is a girl who may quite easily forget to give her lunch tomorrow. Whatever induced you, my dear fellow, to entrust a job that calls for the executive qualities of a Pierpont Morgan to the pop-eyed daughter of a rural vicar?’

Lord Emsworth did not actually wring his hands, but he came very near to it.

‘It was not my doing,’ he protested. ‘Connie insisted on my engaging her. She is some sort of protégé of Connie’s. Related to someone she wanted to oblige, or something like that. Blame Connie for the whole terrible situation.’

‘Connie!’ said Gally. ‘The more I see of this joint, the more clearly do I realize that what Blandings Castle needs, to make it an earthly Paradise, is fewer and better Connies. Sisters are a mistake, Clarence. You should have set your face against them at the outset.’

‘True,’ said Lord Emsworth. ‘True.’

Silence fell, as nearly as silence could ever fall in the neighbourhood of a trough at which Empress of Blandings was feeding. It was broken by Lord Emsworth, who was peering about him with the air of a man who senses something missing in his surroundings.

‘Where,’ he asked, ‘is Alice?’

‘Eh?’

‘Or, rather, Penelope. Penelope Donaldson. I thought you were out for a walk together.’

‘Oh, Penny? Yes, we have been strolling hither and thither, chewing the fat. There’s a nice girl, Clarence.’

‘Charming.’

‘Not only easy on the eye and a conversationalist who holds you spellbound on a wide variety of subjects, but kind-hearted. I happened to express a wish for a whisky -and- soda, and she immediately trotted off to tell Beach to bring me one, to save me trudging to the house.’

‘You are going to have a whisky and soda?’

‘You follow me like a bloodhound. It will bring the roses back to my cheeks, which is always so desirable, and it will enable me to drink Beach’s health with a hey-nonny-nonny and a hot-cha-cha. It’s his birthday.’

‘Beach’s birthday?’

‘That’s right.’

‘God bless my soul.’

Lord Emsworth was fumbling in his pocket.

‘By the afternoon post, Galahad, I received an extraordinary communication. Most extraordinary. It was one of those picture postcards. It said “Many happy returns, old dear. Love and kisses”, and it was signed Maudie. Now that you tell me it is Beach’s birthday, I am wondering … Yes, as I thought. It was intended for Beach and must have got mixed up with my letters. Look.’

Gally took the card and scrutinized it through his monocle. On the reverse side were the words:

Mr Sebastian Beach,

Blandings Castle,

Shropshire

A grave look came into his face.

‘We must inquire into this,’ he said. ‘How long has Beach been at the castle? Eighteen years? Nineteen? Well, the exact time is immaterial. The point is that he has been here long enough for me to have grown to regard him as a son, and any son of mine who gets picture postcards of nude Venuses from girls named Maudie has got to do some brisk explaining. We can’t have Sex rearing its ugly head in the butler’s pantry. Hoy, Beach!’

Sebastian Beach was approaching, his customary measured step rather more measured than usual owing to the fact that he was bearing a tall glass filled to the brim with amber liquid. Beside him tripped a small, slender girl with fair hair who looked as if she might have been a wood nymph the butler had picked up on his way through the grounds. Actually, she was the younger daughter of an American manufacturer of dog biscuits.