Uncle Fred in the Springtime (9 page)

‘Oh,
quite. Yes, quite, dash it.’

‘My
prestige in the house is already low, and a substantiated charge of being AWOL
would put a further crimp in it, from which it might never recover.’

‘I see.’

‘But I
think,’ said Lord Ickenham, helping himself to the radish which had been doing
duty as Lady Constance, ‘that I have got the solution. There is always a way.
We must place the thing in the hands of Mustard Pott.’

‘Who is
Mustard Pott?’

‘A very
dear and valued friend of mine. I feel pretty sure that, if we stress the fact
that there is a bit in it for him, he would be delighted to smuggle pigs.
Mustard is. always ready and anxious to add to his bank balance. I was
intending to call upon him after lunch, to renew our old acquaintance. Would
you care to come along and sound him?’

‘It is
a most admirable idea. Does he live far from here?’

‘No,
quite close. Down in the Sloane Square neighbourhood.’

‘I ask
because I have an appointment with Sir Roderick Glossop at three o’clock.
Connie told me to ask him to lunch, but I was dashed if I was going to do that.
Do you know Sir Roderick Glossop, the brain specialist?’

‘Only
to the extent of having sat next to him at a public dinner not long ago.’

‘A
talented man, I believe.’

‘So he
told me. He spoke very highly of himself.’

‘Connie
wants me to bring him to Blandings, to observe the Duke, and he made an
appointment with me for three o’clock. But I am all anxiety to see this man
Pott. Would there be time?’

‘Oh,
certainly. And I think we have found the right way out of the impasse. If it
had been a question of introducing Mustard into the home, I might have
hesitated. But in this case he will put up at the local inn and confine himself
entirely to outside work. You won’t even have to ask him to dinner. The only
danger I can see is that he may get this pig of yours into a friendly game and
take her last bit of potato peel off her. Still, that is a risk that must be
faced.’

‘Of
course.’

‘Nothing
venture, nothing have, eh?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Then
suppose we dispense with coffee and go round and see him. We shall probably
find my nephew Pongo there. A nice boy. You will like him.’

Pongo Twistleton had
arrived at Claude Pott’s residence at about the time when Lord Emsworth and his
guest were leaving the Senior Conservative Club, and had almost immediately
tried to borrow ten pounds from him. For even though Horace Davenport had
guaranteed in the event of his soothing Ricky Gilpin to underwrite his gambling
losses, he could not forget that he was still fiscally crippled, and he felt
that he owed it to himself to omit no word or act which might lead to the
acquisition of a bit of the needful.

In the
sleuth hound of 6, Wilbraham Place, Sloane Square, however, he speedily
discovered that he had come up against one of the Untouchables, a man to whom
even Oofy Prosser, that outstanding non-parter, would have felt compelled to
raise his hat. Beginning by quoting from Polonius’s speech to Laertes, which a
surprising number of people whom you would not have suspected of familiarity
with the writings of Shakespeare seem to know, Mr Pott had gone on to say that
lending money always made him feel as if he were rubbing velvet the wrong way,
and that in any case he would not lend it to Pongo, because he valued his
friendship too highly. The surest method of creating a rift between two pals,
explained Mr Pott, was for one pal to place the other pal under a financial
obligation.

It was,
in consequence, into an atmosphere of some slight strain that the Lords
Emsworth and Ickenham entered a few moments later. And though the mutual courtesies
of the latter and Claude Pott, getting together again after long separation,
lightened the gloom temporarily, the clouds gathered once more when Mr Pott,
having listened to Lord Emsworth’s proposal, regretfully declined to have
anything to do with removing the Empress from her sty and wafting her away to
Ickenham Hall.

‘I
couldn’t do it, Lord E.’

‘Eh?
Why not?’

‘It
wouldn’t be in accordance with the dignity of the profession.’

Lord
Ickenham resented this superior attitude.

‘Don’t
stick on such beastly side, Mustard. You and your bally dignity! I never heard
such swank.’

‘One
has one’s self—respect.’

‘What’s
self-respect got to do with it? There’s nothing
infra dig
about
snitching pigs. If I were differently situated, I’d do it like a shot. And I’m
one of the haughtiest men in Hampshire.’

‘Well,
between you and me, Lord I.,’ said Claude Pott, discarding loftiness and coming
clean, ‘there’s another reason. I was once bitten by a pig.’

‘Not
really?’

‘Yes,
sir. And ever since then I’ve had a horror of the animals.’

Lord Emsworth
hastened to point out that the present was a special case.

‘You
can’t be bitten by the Empress.’

‘Oh no?
Who made that rule?’

‘She’s
as gentle as a lamb.’

‘I was
once bitten by a lamb.’

Lord
Ickenham was surprised.

‘What
an extraordinary past you seem to have had, Mustard. One whirl of excitement.
One of these days you must look me up and tell me some of the things you haven’t
been bitten by. Well, if you won’t take the job on, you won’t, of course. But I’m
disappointed in you.’

Mr Pott
sighed slightly, but it was plain that he did not intend to recede from his
attitude of civil disobedience.

‘I
suppose I shall now have to approach the matter from another angle. If you’re
seeing Glossop at three, Emsworth, you’d better be starting.’

‘Eh?
Oh, ah, yes. True.’

‘You
leaving us, Lord E.?’ said Mr Pott. ‘Which way are you going?’

‘I have
an appointment in Harley Street.’

‘I’ll
come with you,’ said Mr Pott, who had marked down the dreamy peer as almost an
ideal person with whom to play Persian Monarchs and wished to cement their
acquaintanceship. ‘I’ve got to see a man up in that direction. We could share a
cab.’

He
escorted Lord Emsworth lovingly to the door, and Lord Ickenham stood brooding.

‘A
set-back,’ he said. ‘An unquestionable set-back. I had been relying on Mustard.
Still, if a fellow’s been bitten by pigs I suppose his views on associating
with them do get coloured. But how the devil does a man
get
bitten by a
pig? I wouldn’t have thought they would ever meet on that footing. Ah, well,
there it is. And now what about Polly? There seem to be no signs of her. Is she
out?’

Pongo
roused himself from a brown study.

‘She’s
in her room, Pott told me. Dressing or something, I take it.’

Lord
Ickenham went to the door.

‘Ahoy!’
he shouted. ‘Polly!’

There
came in reply from somewhere in the distance a voice which even in his gloom
Pongo was able to recognize as silvery.

‘Hullo?’

‘Come
here. I want to see you.’

‘Who’s
there?’

‘Frederick
Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of good old Ickenham. Have you forgotten
your honorary uncle Fred?’

‘Oo!’
cried the silvery voice. There was a patter of feet in the passage, and a
kimono-clad figure burst into the room.

‘Uncle
Fur-RED! Well, it is nice seeing you again!’

‘Dashed
mutual, I assure you, my dear. I say, you’ve grown.’

‘Well,
it’s six years.’

‘So it
is, by Jove.’

‘You’re
just as handsome as ever.’

‘Handsomer,
I should have said. And you’re prettier than ever. But what’s become of your
legs?’

‘They’re
still there.’

‘Yes,
but when I saw you last they were about eight feet long, like a colt’s.’

‘I was
at the awkward age.’

‘You
aren’t now, by George. How old are you, Polly?’

‘Twenty—one.’

‘Gol
durn yuh, l’il gal, as my spooked-up-with-vinegar friend would say, you’re a
peach!’

Lord
Ickenham patted her hand, put his arm about her waist and kissed her tenderly.
Pongo wished he had thought of that himself. He reflected moodily that this was
always the way. In the course of their previous adventures together, if there
had ever been any kissing or hand-patting or waist-encircling to be done, it
had always been his nimbler uncle who had nipped in ahead of him and attended
to it. He coughed austerely.

‘Oh,
hullo! I’d forgotten you were there,’ said Lord Ickenham, apologetically. ‘Miss
Polly Pott…. My nephew — such as he is — Pongo Twistleton.’

‘How do
you do?’

‘How do
you do?’ said Pongo.

He
spoke a little huskily, for he had once more fallen in love at first sight. The
heart of Pongo Twistleton had always been an open door with ‘Welcome’ clearly
inscribed on the mat, and you never knew what would walk in next. At brief
intervals during the past few years he had fallen in love at first sight with a
mixed gaggle or assortment of females to the number of about twenty, but as he
gazed at this girl like an ostrich goggling at a brass door-knob it seemed to
him that here was the best yet. There was something about her that
differentiated her from the other lodgers.

It was
not the fact that she was small, though the troupe hitherto had tended to be on
the tall and willowy side. It was not that her eyes were grey and soft, while
his tastes previously had rather lain in the direction of the dark and bold and
flashing. It was something about her personality — a matiness, a simplicity, an
absence of that lipsticky sophistication to which the others had been so
addicted. This was a cosy girl. A girl you could tell your troubles to. You
could lay your head in her lap and ask her to stroke it.

Not
that he did, of course. He merely lit a cigarette.

‘Won’t
you… sit down?’ he said.

‘What I’d
really like to do,’ said Polly Pott, ‘is to lie down — and go to sleep. I’m a
wreck, Uncle Fred. I was up nearly all last night at a dance.’

‘We
know all about your last night’s goings-on, my child,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘That
is why we are here. We have come on behalf of Horace Davenport, who is in a
state of alarm and despondency on account of the unfriendly attitude of your
young man.’

The
girl laughed — the gay, wholehearted laugh of youth. Pongo remembered that he
had laughed like that in the days before he had begun to see so much of his
Uncle Fred.

‘Ricky
was marvellous last night. You ought to have seen him jumping about, trying to
dodge Horace’s spear.’

‘He
speaks of breaking Horace’s neck.’

‘Yes, I
remember he said something about that. Ricky’s got rather a way of wanting to
break people’s necks.’

‘And we
would like you to get in touch with him immediately and assure him that this
will not be necessary, because Horace’s behaviour towards you has always been
gentlemanly, respectful — in short,
preux
to the last drop. I don’t
know if this public menace you’re engaged to has ever heard of Sir Galahad but,
if so, convey the idea that the heart of that stainless knight might have been
even purer if he had taken a tip or two from Horace.’

‘Oh,
but everything is quite all right now. I’ve calmed Ricky down, and he has
forgiven Horace. Has Horace been worrying?’

‘That
is not overstating it. Horace
has
been worrying.’

‘I’ll
ring him up and tell him there’s no need to, shall I?’

‘On no
account,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Pongo will handle the whole affair, acting as
your agent. It would be tedious to go into the reasons for this, but you can
take it from me that it is essential. You had better be toddling off, Pongo,
and bring the roses back to Horace’s cheeks.’

‘I will.’

‘The
sooner you get that cheque, the better. Run along. I will remain and pick up
the threads with Polly. I feel that she owes me an explanation. The moment my
back is turned, she appears to have gone and got engaged to a young plug-ugly
who seems to possess all the less engaging qualities of a Borneo head-hunter.
Tell me about this lad of yours, Polly,’ said Lord Ickenham, as the door
closed. ‘You seem to like them tough. Where did you find him? On Devil’s
Island?’

‘He
brought Father home one night.’

‘You
mean Father brought him home.’

‘No. I
don’t. Father couldn’t walk very well, and Ricky was practically carrying him.
Apparently Father had been set upon in the street by some men who had a grudge
against him — I don’t know why.’

Lord
Ickenham thought he could guess. He was well aware that, given a pack of cards,
Claude Pott could offend the mildest lamb. Indeed, it was a tenable theory that
this might have been the cause of his once having been bitten by one.