Uncle Fred in the Springtime (4 page)

‘Disgusting!’
he said at length.

Lord
Emsworth started violently. He could scarcely believe that he had heard aright.

‘What!’

‘That
pig is too fat.’

‘Too
fat?’

‘Much
too fat. Look at her. Bulging.’

‘But my
dear Alaric, she is supposed to be fat.’

‘Not as
fat as that.’

‘Yes, I
assure you. She has already been given two medals for being fat.’

‘Don’t
be silly, Clarence. What would a pig do with medals? It’s no good trying to
shirk the issue. There is only one word for that pig — gross. She reminds me of
my Aunt Horatia, who died of apoplexy during Christmas dinner. Keeled over
half-way through her second helping of plum pudding and never spoke again. This
animal might be her double. And what do you expect? You stuff her and stuff her
and stuff her, and I don’t suppose she gets a lick of exercise from one week’s
end to another. What she wants is a crackling good gallop every morning, and no
starchy foods. That would get her into shape.’

Lord
Emsworth had recovered the pince-nez which emotion had caused, as it always
did, to leap from his nose. He replaced them insecurely.

‘Are
you under the impression,’ he said, for when deeply moved he could be terribly
sarcastic, ‘that I want to enter my pig for the Derby?’

The
Duke had been musing. He had not liked that nonsense about pigs being given
medals and he was thinking how sad all this was for poor Connie. But at these
words he looked up sharply. An involuntary shudder shook him, and his manner
took on a sort of bedside tenderness.

‘I
wouldn’t, Clarence.’

‘Wouldn’t
what?’

‘Enter
this pig for the Derby. She might not win, and then you would have had all your
trouble for nothing. What you want is to get her out of your life. And I’ll
tell you what I’ll do. Listen, my dear Clarence,’ said the Duke, patting his
host’s shoulder, ‘I’ll take this pig over — lock, stock and barrel. Yes, I mean
it. Have her sent to my place — I’ll wire them to expect her — and in a few
weeks’ time she will be a different creature. Keen, alert, eyes sparkling. And
you’ll be different, too. Brighter. Less potty. Improved out of all knowledge ….
Ah, there’s Bosham. Hi, Bosham! Half a minute, Bosham, I want a word with you.’

For
some moments after his companion had left him, Lord Emsworth remained leaning
limply against the rail of the sty. The sun was bright. The sky was blue. A
gentle breeze caressed the Empress’s tail, as it wiggled over the trough. But
to him the heavens seemed darkened by a murky mist, and there appeared to be an
east wind blowing through the world. It was not for some time that he became
aware that a voice was speaking his name, but he heard it at last and pulling
together with a powerful effort, saw his sister Constance.

She was
asking him if he was getting deaf. He said No, he was not getting deaf.

‘Well,
I’ve been shouting at you for ever so long. I wish you would listen to me
sometimes. Clarence, I have come to have a talk about Alaric. I am very worried
about him. He seems to have got so odd.’

‘Odd? I
should say he was odd. Do you know what, Connie? He came to me just now —’

‘He was
asking me to give him eggs to throw at the gardeners.’

At a
less tense moment, her words would have shocked Lord Emsworth. An English
landed proprietor of the better type comes to regard himself as
in loco
parentis
to those in his employment, and if visitors start throwing eggs at
them he resents it. But now he did not even lose his pince-nez.

‘And do
you know what he said to me?’

‘He can’t
be sane, if he wants to throw eggs at gardeners.’

‘He can’t
be sane, if he wants me to give him the Empress.’

‘Does
he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then,
of course,’ said Lady Constance, ‘you will have to.’

This
time Lord Emsworth did lose his pince-nez, and lose them thoroughly. They flew
at the end of their string like leaves in a storm. He stared incredulously.

‘What!’

‘You
are
getting deaf.’

‘I am
not getting deaf. When I said “What!” I didn’t mean “What?” I meant “What!!”‘

‘What
on earth are you talking about?’

‘I’m
talking about this extraordinary remark of yours. I tell you this frightful
Duke wants me to give him the Empress, and instead of being appalled and
horrified and — er — appalled you say “Of course you will have to!” Without
turning an eyelash! God bless my soul, do you imagine for an instant —’And do
you imagine for an instant that I am going to run the risk of having Alaric career
through the castle with a poker? If he destroyed all the furniture in his
nephew Horace’s sitting room just because Horace wouldn’t go to the station and
see him off, what do you think he would do in a case like this? I do not intend
to have my home wrecked for the sake of a pig. Personally, I think it’s a
blessing that we are going to get rid of the miserable animal.’

‘Did
you say “miserable animal”?’

‘Yes, I
did say “miserable animal”. Alaric was telling me that he thought it a very bad
influence in your life.’

‘Dash
his impertinence!’

‘And I
quite agree with him. In any case, there is no use arguing about it. If he
wants the pig, he must have it.’

‘Oh,
very well, very well, very well, very well,’ said Lord Emsworth. ‘I suppose the
next thing he’ll want will be the castle, and you’ll give him that. Be sure to
tell him not to be afraid to ask for it, if he takes a fancy to it. I think I
will go and read a little in the library, before Alaric decides to have all my
books packed up and shipped off.’

It was
a good exit speech — mordant — bitter, satirical — but it brought no glow of
satisfaction to Lord Emsworth as he uttered it. His heart was bowed down with
weight of woe. The experience gained from a hundred battles had taught him that
his sister Constance always got her way. One might bluster and one might
struggle, one might raise hands to heaven and clench fists and shake them, but
in the end the result was always the same — Connie got what she wanted.

As he
sat some ten minutes later in the cloistered coolness of the library, vainly
trying to concentrate his attention on
Whiffle On The Care Of The Pig,
a
feeling of being alone and helpless in a hostile world came upon Lord Emsworth.
What he needed above all else in this crisis which had come to blast his life
was a friend … an ally … a sympathetic adviser. But who was there to whom
he could turn? Bosham was useless. Beach, his butler, was sympathetic, but not
a constructive thinker. And his brother Galahad, the only male member of the
family capable of coping with that family’s females, was away….

Lord
Emsworth started. A thought had struck him. Musing on Galahad, he had suddenly
remembered that friend of his, that redoubtable Lord Ickenham of whom the Duke
had been talking just now.

The
Hon. Galahad Threepwood was a man of high standards. He weighed people before
stamping them with the seal of his approval, and picked his words before he
spoke. If Galahad Threepwood said a man was hot stuff, he used the phrase not carelessly
but in its deepest sense. And not once but many times had Lord Emsworth heard
him bestow this accolade on Frederick, Earl of Ickenham.

His
eyes gleamed behind their pince-nez with a new light. He was planning and
scheming.
Debrett’s Peerage,
standing over there on its shelf, would
inform him of this wonder-man’s address, and what more simple than to ring him
up on the telephone and arrange a meeting and then pop up to London and place
the facts before him and seek his advice. A man like that would have a hundred
ideas for the saving of the Empress ….

The
gleam died away. In classing the act of popping up to London as simple, he saw
that he had erred. While this ghastly Duke remained on the premises, there was
not the slightest hope of Connie allowing him to get away, even for a night.
Boys who stood on burning decks had a better chance of leaving their post than
the master of Blandings Castle when there were visitors.

He was
just reaching feebly for his
Whiffle,
which he had dropped in his
anguish, hoping that its magic pages would act as an opiate, when Lady
Constance burst into the room.

‘Clarence!’

‘Eh?’

‘Clarence,
did you tell Alaric you wanted to enter your pig for the Derby?’

‘No, I
told him I didn’t.’

‘Then
he misunderstood you. He said you did. And he wants me to get a brain
specialist down to observe you.’

‘I like
his dashed cheek!’

‘So you
must go to London immediately.’

Once
more
Whiffle
fell from Lord Emsworth’s limp hand.

‘Go to
London?’

‘Now,
please, Clarence, don’t be difficult. There is no need for you to tell me how
you dislike going to London. But this is vitally important. Ever since Alaric
arrived, I have been feeling that he ought to be under the observation of some
good brain specialist, but I couldn’t think how it was to be managed without
offending him. This has solved everything. Do you know Sir Roderick Glossop?’

‘Never
heard of him.’

‘He is
supposed to be quite the best man in that line. Lady Gimblett told me he had
done wonders for her sister’s problem child. I want you to go to London this
afternoon and bring him back with you. Give him lunch at your club tomorrow and
explain the whole situation to him. Assure him that expense is no object, and
that he must come back with you. He will tell us what is the best thing to be
done about poor Alaric. I am hopeful that some quite simple form of treatment
may be all that is required. You must catch the two o’clock train.

‘Very
well, Connie. If you say so.’

There
was a strange look on Lord Emsworth’s face as the door closed. It was the look
of a man who has just found himself on the receiving end of a miracle. His
knees were trembling a little as he rose and walked to the bookcase, where the
red and gold of
Debrett’s Peerage
gleamed like the ray of a lighthouse
guiding a storm-tossed mariner.

Beach,
the butler, hearing the bell, presented himself at the library.

‘M’lord?’

‘Oh,
Beach, I want you to put in a trunk telephone call for me. I don’t know the number,
but the address is Ickenham Hall, Ickenham, Hampshire. I want a personal call
to Lord Ickenham.’

‘Very
good, m’lord.’

‘And
when you get it,’ said Lord Emsworth, glancing nervously over his shoulder, ‘have
it put through to my bedroom.’

3

If your Buffy-Porson is
running well, the journey from London to Hampshire does not take long. Pongo
Twistleton, making good time, arrived at Ickenham Hall a few minutes before
noon — at about the moment, in fact, when Lord Emsworth in far-off Shropshire
was sitting down in the library of Blandings Castle to his
Whiffle On The
Care Of The Pig.

Half-way
up the drive, where the rhododendrons masked a sharp turning, he nearly
collided with the Hall Rolls, proceeding in the opposite direction, and a
glimpse of luggage on its grid caused him to fear that he might just have
missed his uncle. But all was well. Reaching the house, he found him standing
on the front steps.

Frederick
Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham, was a tall, slim,
distinguished-looking man with a jaunty moustache and an alert and enterprising
eye. In actual count of time, he was no longer in his first youth. The spring
now enlivening England with its alternate sunshine and blizzards was one of
many that had passed over his head, leaving it a becoming iron-grey. But just
as the years had failed to deprive him of his slender figure, so had they been
impotent to quench his indomitable spirit. Together with a juvenile waistline,
he still retained the bright enthusiasms and the fresh, unspoiled outlook of a
slightly inebriated undergraduate — though to catch him at his best, as he
would have been the first to admit, you had to catch him in London.

It was
for this reason that Jane, Countess of Ickenham, had prudently decided that the
evening of her husband’s life should be spent exclusively at his rural seat,
going so far as to inform him that if he ever tried to sneak up to London she
would skin him with a blunt knife. And if, as he now stood on the steps, his
agreeable face seemed to be alight with some inner glow, this was due to the
reflection that she had just left for a distant spot where she proposed to
remain for some considerable time. He was devoted to his helpmeet, never
wavering in the opinion that she was the sweetest thing that had ever replied ‘Yes’
to a clergyman’s ‘Wilt thou?’ but there was no gainsaying the fact that her
absence would render it easier for him to get that breath of London air which
keeps a man from growing rusty and puts him in touch with the latest
developments of modern thought.